It's Over by optimus
I had to do it... I had to make a demo about it....
Not sure if I will regret it but I had to do it to get some things out of my mind and announce my partial departure from the scene
I almost forgot what I had to say because 'make a demo about it' is not a good platform for discussion. By the time you are furious about something to the time you setup the compiler and find some old
effect with the same crappy scroll font, your motivation has stopped. So this will be lame, but because it might help me escape for a while, I'll do it!
I am going through some interesting changes, where I think what is useful and what's not good for me, for example I totally quit twitter and facebook recently out of a whim. It was one sudden day when I did it
where if I let it for later, I would come back the next day and decide not to. And the reason is not addiction (rarely ever use facebook, more frequently twitter but not in an extreme way), neither politics, but I felt the rotten nature of the medium
It kinda works the same here. You go to Pouet, you read something, you get triggered. 9 out of 10 times I hold myself because I know. It will be both useless
and most sceners will not like it, as it becomes a battle where we trigger it's others sensibilities. So, really 9 out of 10 times I grab my finger away from submit. If it wasn't the case I would be banned..
It didn't used to be the case. I don't think back in the 90s if one or two sceners were conservative or religious there would be such animosity. Nobody cared, at best we'd laugh about it. And just to clear out, I am not a conservative, I am apolitical with a live and let live attitude.
What I am trying to say is, I don't think that in the 90s if you found out that some old guy in Fairlight has conservative views, people would care about. But today this is everywhere and it's not coming from me
It's not even a demoscene issue but a much bigger issue that is happening to a lot of other communities and the culture. And you may say, follow the zeitgeist and shut up, but I can't and I won't!
So, the only solution is to move away from Pouet (probably edit my hostfile to point at Zombo.com), and even do less of demoscene coding. This one for other reasons. I was planning to work on various compos or work on bigger demos
but it will put me in a loop where I chase the next deadline, lose motivation, make something half baked which wasn't what I imagined. Sometimes I find myself hyperfocused with optimizing a piece of code on a retro machine, but when later
the norm says you have to connect it to a demo with music, I lose interest. I might take things in different direction, make effects for myself, publish the effects and not even in Pouet, or make videos talking about the effects, I don't know
I might follow naturally what I'd like to do and if it's not demo, ok... I will see. Maybe nothing. Maybe writting such silly scrollers...
I don't know if I should reply to the political comments. Not sure. There are lot's of things that are bothering me but the scrolltext will turn too big. Maybe I'll do another scroller
Ok, here are few things. Gamergate. I know that people when it started said \"It's all about journalistic integrity\" but there wouldn't be so much animosity for some trendy game websites that I never visited
Also, everyone has their own reason. But I don't think it's misogyny. And when I said pushback, I meant pushback of this culture that invades our spaces and starts this whole mess, fills the space with ideas like 'the place is toxic and we have to do something!'
They use the 'Think about the women' narrative, because this is what will stick emotionally. Men love women and women love women. And between a woman crying for help and a virgin neckbeard (as you always say) they'll go for the pro woman approach
So, it's very easy for outsiders to come in the spaces and play the same game. It's universal, you can use the damsel in distress trope and you'd have half of the men fighting the other men in the community, it comes naturally. It's inevitable
And your answer? Oh, it's those horrible incels, the virgin neckbeards misogynists. You know why you throw these words there? Because if man has to choses between a woman and a loser, he will go for the woman. It's easy! Just connect every subject to incels and everyone will be like 'Ohhhh I am not touching that!'
This is what you have, this whole narrative, just throw there 'incels', 'toxic masculinity', 'gatekeeping' and all these terms without much proof and you catch a lot of people's attentions. Men want to help women, they don't want to be that 'misogynist' person who everyone will hate. They don't want to touch that thing!!!
I have a theory about the scene. Few prominent people go on with these theories that our community is toxic, we must be inclusive, etc. It's easy to go with these terms, because everybody will respond with 'yeah, I also am a supporter of the good things(TM). I will support whatever you say as I am not the biggot here! '
Anyway, few famous sceners (I don't know if they are 10% or 30% or 60%) are dominating the conversation with these ideas, most sceners I believe just don't talk (and that's understandable, they just want to make demos and they might also have carreers which could be disrupted, or also most friends in the scene which will not like them)
And maybe there are few outliers who just want to speak their mind, because they feel something is not right here.
Unfortunatelly the composition of the scene is in such a way that I don't feel welcome. Or, I don't want to visit Pouet and have to hold me away from responding to another 'white male privilege' comment. Because I'll be triggered and compelled to post something but not feel very good after
I sometimes think you are just playing games. Do you know how racist and sexist it is to dismiss someone by saying 'white angry male' (and how insulting by saying 'incel'?)
You do know of course. But then the game goes 'but you are higher on the ladder of privilege, so racism is justified or is not even racism at all'. It's a game for you. And if someone reacts, then
you throw the 'Oh,. if you reacted you must be an entitled white male' or 'That's how we weed the Nazi's out'.
I can't believe it. I can't beleive that creative and intelligent people are playing this game. I can't believe that they went so far in their anti-racism goal that they overflew all the way to the other side!
I can't understand a lot of things I observe. I can't understand how activism today is to viciously attack other people and create whole petitions to fire them from their job. I was recently watching the controversy with Richard Stallman.
Whole prominent developers and developer teams, big names, they were all in a petition TO DESTROY A PERSON. Meanwhile, there was a counter petition to NOT DO THAT! Guess which one petition I did sign?
How can a progressive person waste their energy to advocate for DESTROYING A PERSON'S LIFE instead of other causes? And why all the biggest organizations and most clever and successfull programmers are following the same pattern? I don't understand it at all.. it's like I am taking crazy pills, it's 'the emperor has no clothes' to me.
That's not the only example. The whole left has turned into an angry authoritarian machine. Those who were supposed to be the most tolerant and understanding.
I can't understand. And I watch some of the demos some of you have made, and I think a lot of the stuff are brilliant, then I remember of what the creators aspire for and I can't connect that. They do say though, intelligence and political bias do not correlate..
Unless you are playing this game and you are cynical and you think the end justifies the means. Unless deep inside you you know that a lot of the things you support are dishonest but it's all for the good cause. Or maybe some of you have so many friends in the scene with the same minds that you rather say what they want to hear.
It's true that while I've met some people in the scene, I have less true connections, I have gone to less demoparties, while others might have the majority of their friends in the scene. If I was so tightly connected with the sceners and visited 20 parties per year, I would not want to rub them the wrong way.
So, I take it and even think 'You know what? If the revolution happens, at least I will be spared? But If I spoke my mind, I would be ostracized. Since the world is that bad, why should I care about the truth? I will just perpetuate what is convenient for me
I really think I should stop here. I haven't used a music because first I didn't have time to find one and use a player, secondly since there is guilt by association and the things I've typed obviously would connect me with something nobody wants to touch in the scene, I don't want to spill any musician's name so I'll leave it here.
I will copy this text also in a TXT file, as it would be very hard to read through a scroller (Really, the make a demo about it, besides a joke of course, is not a practical way to transfer ideas. Maybe a diskmag would, but I haven't coded such a thing)
Goodbye scene
[ back to the prod ]