this week i saw a video by a creator i respect a lot on DMC2, it was great and showcased well the strengths of what i think is a great game, but not everyone seemed to take it this way, a little after i was browsing a popular games forum i use to get news and i saw that there was a thread about the video and i was excited to see if it made anyone reconsider what they'd heard and maybe try the game but that wasn't what i got. what i saw was a whole lot of whining, some mockery, downright insults and an overall very entitled "gamery" vibe to the thread from many people who didn't even watch the video before responding and some even going so far as to make things up just to be mad about. it's the same story with the video comments but with a lot more overt toxicity and le funny memes mocking people enjoying it from some streamer i don't know and don't care about, the worst kind of toxicity and it's something i want to talk to, about why it's a problem and about why it's silly to go along with the idea of games being "objectively bad" by osmosis, especially when you haven't even played the game in question.

i'll start out by saying that it's perfectly fine to dislike DMC2, this isn't about people just disliking the game, but rather it's the attudes around it and around people who do like it from many of the people who dislike these things, a sense of dismissiveness and a strange sense of real anger that comes from these people for anyone who considers *enjoying a thing they don't*. it mirrors men on twitter getting mad a game being "woke" and where one is rightly mocked, the other is considered perfectly acceptable and is considered a valid way to treat people, these two reactions are no different, and all of this is happening on a forum that's supposed to be one of the "safe places" with heavy moderation and a left leaning stance although this is hardly the first time i've seen capital G gamery behavior there with how frequently people bring up a very mocking, misogynistic bosman (who is also touted by these same people as being one of the "good" ones but i rly dislike this guys vibe and the way he gets all shamey about womens sexuality and touts that he's giving people permission to be dismissive and ignorant about the game is just rancid honestly, the last thing we need in the world is more dismissiveness towards the interests of women, in general i think youtubers like this promoting super negative content is a big issue and it's a vibe and style i really dislike) video on the otome game bustafellows almost any time the genre came up as some sort of meme gotcha, but hey we're totally the good ones right, we're not like the worse gamers making misogynistic jokes on other sites, we make cooler jokes mocking people with "bad" taste an those awful women and their bad anime boy games haha, it's the same behavior under a vaneer of progressivism and if we want to make a meaningful difference and make *real* safe spaces then both of these things need to be called out, not just the more obviously toxic. the throwing around of "contrarian" as catch all dismissive for any opinion people don't like also always bugged me, the sense of "no this believe cannot be a real belief you have, you do not like this really and you are just lying to get a rise out of me" like you only do things for their sake and that you can't have any genuine thoughts of your own, only an attempt to get a rise out of them by enjoying what they dislike or an attempt to seem cool for liking something less beloved and even beyond that it's just a cheap cop-out, sure a few people who like unpopular things may be contrarians but many others just like these things and have different tastes to the mainstream, there is not just one way people can like things and not one way people have to view these things, it's the inherent thing that makes anything being "objectively good" just a wrong idea.

and i think this does stem from that idea, this "no it's bad this is a fact you cannot enjoy it because it is objectively bad for x or y whatever just shut up you contrarian" mindset, this idea that something is just bad as an immutable fact (some guy even going so far as to demand people stop trying to argue its merits) and any attempt to shine a different light on this is clearly coming from a bad faith attempt at making you personally angry, is a joke or is simply irrational, this is dumb, anyone with sense can see that this is a silly way to look at things because anyone can enjoy anything because we're all different people that like different things, this idea of something being an objectively bad thing never made sense to me because we all enjoy different things, objectivity does not exist and getting this mad about it with regards to *video games* is even sillier, you look like fools at best and at worst children angry that other people think their toy is better than your toy. there's also an attiude with regards to difficulty tying into a lot of this, mockery of the game itself for being easy and i always found this to be just as weird, it comes across as such an elitist attitude and is something that is rightly mocked by even these same people when it's brought up with regards to difficult games to dark souls but many of these same people will act the very same the moment a game is seen as being "too easy and badly designed because it's easy" which is just a rancid attitude to have, not everyone is of the same skill level and so maybe a game like this would suit them or maybe people just enjoy that lack of challange, the world does not revolve around you and people like you, a lack of difficulty is not an "objective" flaw, no matter how many times you complain online that you can air juggle bosses too easily, some people enjoy it and that's okay. a lot of it just reeks of insecurity, a need to be right and a need to overcome some percieved challange, real bad vibes. to an extent i always do wonder how much of this stems from the "angry reviewer" trend of the 2000's that people never quite moved past (you could for sure see that people covering DMC2 never fully moved past that), there at least those people played characters that, as an outsider looking in that has never enjoyed that style of video, were characters, they werent meant to be taken seriously and i do wonder to what extent a lot of the people acting toxic never quite realized that these were performances, instead taking on that anger and that vitriol as an okay thing to harbour to the extent of those characters, maybe i'm just overthinking it, i don't know, but i do think how we grow up influences us a lots so it is something that crossed my mind.

i don't really even know what conclusion i want out of this, it's just a very obvious vent post really, it's tiring when you have tastes outside of the norm and people will just want to dismiss and give you flak for it, it makes engaging with a wider games sphere basically impossible for all the dismissiveness and anger you get from people over *video games*, i hope these people learn to treat people better and try and get over the weirdo aversion to genuine-ness that's so prevelant in these spaces, irony poisoning really ruined interactions on the net, replacing so much of conversation with snark and comebacks, it's all so tiring to be around and it's something i'm choosing to not subject myself to anymore.