Gamerbois Gone Wild(ly Racist)

[Mongrel]

Apparently that has exploded into a massive issue with the Smash community in particular, as the frequent contact between minors and adults has been a breeding ground for creepiness.

[Mongrel]

[Thad]

Well this seems like as good a place as any to talk about the unfortunately-frequent phenomenon of looking at video game shit on the Internet and then finding out the guy who made it is a nazi.

So, a few examples!

Karl Jobst -- I saw a few folks in the Ars comments reference a video he made about a bubble in the classic game speculation market, and how it's not only similar to past bubbles in the coin and comic collectible markets but appears to be driven by some of the same people.

It was an informative video! But then I saw some other folks in the Ars comments say Jobst is a nazi so maybe let's not use that guy as a source. Somebody named Oliv says:

Regarding Jobst, I've been watching his content for years, until I was made aware (by himself, strangely) of his connections to other disgraced neo nazi channels (that I was also a subscriber to, before being made aware of the hateful hidden agenda).

Over the years, that's the 3rd prominent speedrunning channel that came out as extremists. Made me really paranoid for a moment about the speedrunning scene as a whole... Let me be clear, I'm not talking about "I vote for right leaning candidate" regular person, that is fine... I'm talking full on ethnic state organized nut jobs.

Here's me hoping other great speedrunning channels such as EZScape and Summoning Salt don't show up on a discord server somewhere discussing the "Jewish Question"...

And also here's me hoping that Tom Hanks doesn't get caught on video kicking a pidgeon or someone unearths a video of Jimmy Hendrix hunting endangered animals. In other words, I am tired of screening and vetting my media consumption! People, don't be nazi, don't do nasty illegal shit, it's not a high bar to clear...

And for people who take Jobst on his word that he is not a bigot, but just so happens to have been friends with neo nazis and hang out innocently on discord servers that openly discussed neo nazi stuff... Well, good on you, the world needs more optimism. Maybe you also believe Kotick never knew a thing. Just looking back, some choice words here and there, could be easily taken as discreet dog whistling...

But what do I know, I am certainly no expert. I can choose to not support Activision or Jobst based on assumptions, I'm no court of law. Eveyone else is free to do or do not do the same, there is, after all, a chance that he's innocent. To me it's just unlikely that a person would join the club, hang out with the friends, come out publicly in defense of said friends when they get caught doing nazi shenanigans, all the while being completely unaware of the whole context of the situation.

Somebody named Uragan adds (CW the imgur links are, as you might expect, racism and antisemitism):

I found some other evidence that I don't think was directly highlighted in that discussion, but is just as equally relevant:

https://i.imgur.com/ZjNqyN2l.png
For some context now: RWhiteGoose is/was a very well known Goldeneye 64 speedrunner who happens to be a white supremacist.

That screenshot comes from his discord, which Karl was a member of.

For bigger context of how RWhiteGoose is such a problem person, here's a link to a very large imgur album that has tons of screenshots that are very, very bad and show how completely garbage RWhiteGoose and the people he associates with are:

https://imgur.io/a/X7qLRXa
Additionally, Karl has come out after the revelations about RWhiteGoose being a white supremacist/neo-Nazi came to light, and said that he still considers RWhiteGoose a friend. As the adage goes, if one sits down at a table with 10 Nazis for dinner, you have 11 Nazis having dinner.

So yeah fuck that guy.

Anyway! I've also been looking up videos on WonderSwan games, since I've been playing a few on my Pocket. I found a decent "WonderSwan Games for English Speakers" series by something called Hard4Games; I didn't entirely agree with their conclusions since they said Rockman and Forte is worth buying, but they at least had some good and informative videos.

Then I fired up one of their videos and one of the guys was wearing a MAGA hat. He was also wearing a Bernie 2016 shirt, and there was a caption that said "everybody mad lol" or something, and...nah, fuck that shit. I don't care if he was wearing the MAGA hat "ironically" or not, any more than if it had been a swastika armband. I'm way past the point in my life where I'm going to give "ironic" fascism the benefit of the doubt.

So then I'm watching a review of Makai Toshi SaGa for WonderSwan Color by a guy named Aboveup and there's a random picture of Alex Jones in there (as a character portrait for one of his party members, who is named Alex), and my first thought was "Oh god dammit, another nazi," but I think it's possible I may have been too hasty on that one. First of all, I noticed the "Alex" character who he put Alex Jones's face on was a Monster, so it's not like he used his face for something flattering. Then I did a search for Aboveup and it's possible he's got shitty politics but I didn't find anything to indicate that offhand; I did find a Reddit post where he decried Moviebob for being a eugenicist (and I don't know who Moviebob is either but apparently he is), which, y'know, being anti-eugenics is a low damn bar but I'll take it. I think Aboveup is probably okay. Though I am open to evidence to the contrary.