Gauntlet Removed

@nals: It's responses like this that give me hope. Thanks, fellow duder. :)

@development: Most, if not all, of them are regular site users and commenters, unfortunately.

Threads like these remind me how many people passively give the benefit of the doubt towards hate. Thank you to those in this thread, including the mods, that challenged that viewpoint.

@bladeofcreation said:

This art style has nothing to do with the American flag. People are just seeing things.

So upfront I just want to say that I think it`s very unlikely that the gauntlet design was a coincidence (very unlikely, but not impossible). There are just too many similar elements and many of them are very specific and unique. I also think it was the right decision for Bungie to remove it (though I think it might have been better to do it quietly rather than loudly, but that`s a different conversation).

That said this image and your comment I think could be a good example of someone seeing a clear inspiration in something where there is another inspiration or no inspiration at all. To make it more similar to the case this thread is about let`s say the American flag was not as well known as it is. Let`s say it`s as well known as the Kekistan (or whatever it`s called) flag instead.

People who were familiar with the American flag would say that this shield is obviously a direct reference to the American flag. It would not have to be though.It could also be a more subtle/less direct reference to the Australian flag which also features white and red stripes and white stars on a blue background. The icons are a bit different, but if someone wanted to make the connection a bit less obvious or it could just have been a change made because it made for a better design.

It could also have been made by someone who had no knowledge about either flag and still not be too much of a stretch. Red, white and blue is a very popular color combination and not just because of the American flag (I think it`s the most used combination of colors for flags). The star is also a very generic star design and white is a fairly normal color to use when representing stars. The circular stripes are also fairly generic, so all in all every element of the design is fairly generic and it`s far from impossible that a designer who wanted to create a cool shield could have created the design without any other influence.

Yeah, removing it is the only response, regardless of intent.

I want to give whatever artist did this the benefit of the doubt because I'm always worried I'll ruin my life by drawing the wrong thing, but I get why that Waypoint article is the way it is. It'd be nice if they did some investigating before making life-destroying accusations, but also you're never gonna get a straight answer out of a situation like this. Besides, you can't point to many (any?) AAA games, let alone businesses in general, with logos that look like white supremacy flags by accident for a reason.

The guy who hit the gal with the car was driving a Dodge, same model as mine. Do I need to sell my car now? Guilt by association? Is that where we're at?

When your association is with white supremacist rallies, probably!

@gundamguru: I mean, it's not like it's that fucking hard to not hang out in the middle of a white supremacist rally for a few hours if you don't want to be associated with them. There's probably a Starbucks or somewhere where their trite-ass memes will be more appreciated anyway.

@thatpinguino: Simmer down, I'm not promoting or justifying anything. Swearing at me isn't going to change my mind.

Just making a generic case. There's a difference between hate and hate speech and things used by or associated with people who are hateful or say hate speech. At what point can we not just say the acronym "KEK" isn't hate speech everywhere, all the time? At what point can I not just say Dodge Challenger's are not the official cars of neo nazis? In a vacuum, by itself? The acronym was divorced from the Nazi flag here. It's something muttered as a "lol" substitute in Twitch chat every day. It's the principle of the thing I have a problem with, not the particulars of this instance.

@gundamguru: Yeah, I'm pretty cool with getting rid of a piece of armor that shares the font, color scheme, and central logo of a white supremacist flag. I have a pretty good feeling that this slope isn't actually all that slippery.

Also in my experience the people who show up to only raise objections about the principle of censoring hate speech, rather than the hate speech itself, tend to not be all that worried about being the target of hate speech.

Maybe if they had Dodge flags? He wasn't making the make or model his car an icon of hatred. But people who bring these flags to white supremacy rallies ARE trying to make a hate icon of those designs.

I feel conflicted that I grew up with kek simply being what Orcs say when they type lol in WoW, and somewhere under my nose -and a lot of other people's-, some assholes turned it into a hate icon. It feels unfair that they can basically just take something that was innocent(as far as I knew) and make it a hate icon, but they did. I think @nals 's post on the previous page is a good summary of why it's still important to not advocate something simply because it used to be something else.

@odinsmana: You're right on all points. And I'm not here to accuse an artist of malice or anything like that, and coincidence is absolutely possible.

Yeah, my post was snarky, and I admit that it was largely done in frustration in light of people seemingly being dismissive of how people use symbols to dog whistle racists and white supremacists.

I can't wait to see what will happen when these groups realize they have the power to claim anything they want. They can go around licking stuff, saying "haha, it's mine now" and people will go "aw shucks, I guess it's yours now." All it takes for them is to get associated with something and said thing will be tainted, forever, apparently.

It's these types of comments that just ignite the fire under this whole argument. There are people claiming this is 100% intentionally white supremacy racist, while it is quite obvious this could have been a mistake (there is a restaurant near me with a backwards K and the 'E' as three stripes, called Kek. It has been there for almost 15 years apparently, long, long before the definition of Kek was changed from LOL to white supremacy). I am pointing this out and failure to immediately side with you that this is 100% intentional, you are implying I and others are white supremacy apologists.

I'm against racism and I'm not even white. Jumping to conclusions like this won't solve anything. It will only fuel the fire even more.

@fatalbanana said:

I think that a good point (not sure if I read this in the article or heard it on a recent Waypoint podcast) is that regardless of good or bad intent of the original artist, the eventual effect is alienating or disappointing some of Destiny 2's players. That's a problem that Bungie already employs many people to prevent, and it's a good thing that they're taking corrective action to fix it. But it's also not asking much for Bungie to pledge to help identify these problems at an earlier stage in the future.

It's totally fine (read: I certainly don't want to legislate against it) to insert edgy or offensive content into a videogame or any other media if that's your intent. It's totally fine to boycott or criticize that material if you're offended by it as well. But the case here is a developer that didn't intend to offend or push boundaries published some material that offended, and took steps to correct that after-the-fact.

Here's a good video for people who never heard of dumb symbolism internet culture and the "whole" pepe kekistan thing

@soulcake: I disagree with several of the theses of the video you posted, but rather than go point by point with that video, I'll ask a question that gets to the root of that video's thesis: at what point is a symbol co-opted?

Because that video's main thesis seems to be that symbols cannot be co-opted as long as they had a benign origin and have some continuing benign uses. I'd argue that once a symbol is primarily used alongside hate speech or other racist iconography in the public consciousness, it is a co-opted symbol. It's benign origins become an interesting footnote, but lose relevance when discussing the symbol's current meaning. Much like how the Confederate flag that most people are currently familiar with was actually not the flag of the Confederacy, but instead was a battle flag for a subdivision of the Confederate army. The flag's more specific origins are not all that relevant to how the flag is deployed or what it means, at this point it is just a symbol of the Confederacy and all that's tied up with it.

So, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if some internet people came up with these memes and some jerks co-opted it. Once something has a meaning in the public consciousness, arguing that the people deploying that image in a racist way and the people interpreting the image as holding racist meaning just don't understand really isn't a compelling argument. And that's removing the inherent symbolism of a flag that deliberately mimics the Nazi flag.

@whatshisface said:

A white supremacist can put a picture of anything onto a flag. Someone else can put the same picture on their own flag, if enough people do it lines of association aren't hard to draw. You are assuming that we are giving them the power to co-opt anything they want when we react to video games advertising for them. Justified or not you're saying just by talking about it gives it legitimacy for them.

So we ignore it we don't talk about KEK and we don't talk about Pepe. It's still pinned to their shirts and flown on their flags. I get what you're saying: are we giving them more power by "legitimizing" these symbols? right

So should we not tell other people the signs of white supremacy so they can point them out, not be associated with them or give them free advertising?

Should I still wear my dank ass Pepe shirt and hope no one tries to draw a correlation?

Whats the solution here? I don't want to be associated with white supremacy and I want to be able to tell who is and isn't a part of their group. What visuals will be sufficient enough for us to point to?

If everyone starts wearing the shirt who knows who is a white supremacist and who isn't? That's a tactic but getting everyone on the same page is going to be tough. That's the main problem: we aren't organized and they are. We argue on internet forums about Destiny armor reflecting a Nazi symbol (that was created to be a Nazi symbol). If you're fighting on the side of we should get organized I am with you. Saying we shouldn't point out Nazi symbolism Isn't a solution but I give you half credit.

I agree with Bungie taking the gauntlets out of the game. Honestly, this is a no-brainer to me. Let's totally remove whether the artist intentionally did this or whether it was just some kind of nutty coincidence. That doesn't matter. What matters is that Bungie was made aware of a piece of art, in their high profile, super expensive, AAA game, that could be construed as a racist symbol by some people. Knowing that, they said "Gee, we don't want to be associated with a racist symbol, even if good ol' Codswell Smithington, the artist who designed the gauntlets, said it was just a meme and he didn't mean anything by it. Let's patch it out to protect our brand and maintain a squeaky clean image."

Looking at it a bit deeper, there are a lot of memes and symbols that have been hijacked by certain unsavory elements online. I have no issue with people deciding to remove those elements from their sites, their games or whatever. If something is now tainted and toxic, even if the origin was benign some years ago, then the best thing to do is remove the toxicity. Also, if someone comes to you and says that something you did, whether intentional or not, is hurting them in a some way, then I think that you owe it to them to try to empathize, then apologize and then try to do better and correct your behavior next time. A lot of people online don't seem to want to do this. They want to rationalize their behavior. "Yes, I called someone a slur but I didn't mean it in that way! I was just being edgy! It slipped! I am a good person and I was just in a tense moment!" etc etc etc.

Most good people that I personally know don't say or do horrible things to others for laughs and kicks. They have something in their guts that makes them recognize that their behavior could harm someone and so they won't overstep those boundaries. I have never, in a moment of frustration in an online game, said a vile slur. I have never posted memes that were co-opted or even created by racists or people who associate with racists online. If I worked on a team making a game and discovered that one of my coworkers had inserted an internet meme into the game that was now being used by alt-right bullies and racists, I would vote to patch it out asap. I would not want that toxic sludge anywhere near me tainting my name and my work.

Look, I know the internet is what it is. I try every day to not be crappy online. It's not always easy to be diplomatic and good when faced with trolls, bots, and all other manner of jerks, racists and bullies. But we also can't turn a blind eye to the insidiousness of these memes and how they are being used now, just because they may have started out as a joke in some twitch stream that was totally not bad at the time. There are many articles online about this. You don't have to read these, and you may not even agree with what they are saying, but I think it is important to think and consider why these things are springing up, how they're being used, and most importantly why.

Explaining the Alt-Right ‘Deity’ of Their ‘Meme Magic’

Make no mistake about it: the alt-right is a cult, and this is how its members lure people in

Get to Know the Memes of the Alt-Right and Never Miss a Dog-Whistle Again

Hiding in plain sight: how the 'alt-right' is weaponizing irony to spread fascism

So, even if these jokes and ironic memes and images are totally not that bad and their use could totally be a coincidence or an honest mistake, what benefit does Bungie have to not change the art if they are so inherently toxic at this moment in time, intent or not? They don't. They need to power wash that slime out of their game asap.

@fatalbanana:

Before I reply to you: It's needless to say I'm very against the Alt-Right and their ideologies, just like any sane person should be. But I get the feeling that some people consider me one of those 'White Supremacist apologists' in this thread, so I have to. (And for the record, I'm mixed race, half white half gypsy and I have brown skin. So this whole white power thing couldn't work out for me even if I wanted it to.)

Yes, that is my point. It's frustrating to see asshats like these Kek people just stroll in get what they want. Changing the armor was one of the right things to do but I don't think it was the best solution. The way I see it, this could be considered a win for the group. They got acknowledgement as a real threat.

In one of my previous comments here I said Bungie should have made the change in a low key manner, not even mentioning anything about the armor's connection to the group. You're right and I was wrong. That's not a good solution.

What's the solution then? We should go HAM on these people and turn their own symbols on them. Make them give up on something. How to do all this in a way that we can easily spot them? I honestly don't know.

My views and logic are probably flawed but that's how I feel about all this.

@thatpinguino: The problem is that trolls even tried to make milk racist at some point, Because of people of colour tend to be lactose intolerant. If we keep at it, there gonna make the most inoffensable thing offensive. Just ignore them don't give them a inch and they will die off because off the lack off exposure. By acknowledging the KeK thing in Destiny, Waypoint gave fuel to fire people on stuff like 4chan who love to get exposure off these dumb things. Instead off pointing these things out there way better manners to fight neo nazism here's a article from the guardian how people organized a anti nazi fund walk with nazis.

Article

Creative work is always burrowed from the ideas of others. So, the poor artist might have thrown out whatever he came up with without realizing where he borrowed it from.

Or it could be their intention to use an obscure offensive symbol to gain free publicity. If you look back you will remember that Activision have used the illuminati pyramid on Call of Duty.

@soulcake: Yeah they've tried a ton of stupid ops, but the only things they've actually managed to make offensive are shitty memes that easily single out only them. If they were actually successfully radicalizing normal shit, that's a different discussion. This isn't actually as slippery a slope as I think you're making it out to be. Stuff like the flag and pepe aren't actually that huge online outside of 4chan and 4chan adjacent places where people from 4chan operate.

I really reject the idea that exposing racist imagery strengthens them. I think you can't fight a problem with out exposing it and diagnosing it. Something like that march idea doesn't work if you can't identify the group in question and pick out a great charity to donate to. And it's not like 4chan folks stop doing shitty stuff when one op doesn't get exposure. They just dream up a new op and try again.

Also, while I applaud the creativity of that march, you can't really do that in an online space. Though I would be up for something like that if it was possible.

@giant_gamer said:

I am more springboarding off of your comment, so don't take this as an exact reply to you, although your comment about the artist and their intent did bring this to my mind.

Everyone is so wrapped up in whether someone intended to do something when, in the grand scheme of things, intent does not matter.

When I am in a busy store and I turn around and bump into someone, I automatically apologize, even if I didn't intend to hit them. I made an error, through no malice or pre-planning of my own, and perhaps hurt someone. The right thing to do is to say "I'm sorry" and go on with your day. I have seen people, and I consider these people to be not great people if I am being diplomatic, try to blame the other person. They were too close, in their personal space, maybe they were not paying attention to what they were doing and they felt like it was more their fault. Guess what? You bumped them, you should apologize. You can't argue "Well I didn't mean to bump you!" You did. Get over it, apologize, move on.

If we are attributing absolutely no foresight or malice to the artist, then this is a bumping another person situation. Intent wasn't there but the person did something that wasn't good for the company and the community. Again, you attempt to empathize, then apologize, you take note of what happened and try to internalize those lessons for later and then you move on. Hopefully, you come out the other end as a more empathic and more wise person than when you "bumped" the other party, imo.

I feel like you miss my point entirely with your attempt to dismiss it by insinuating that I'm not a minority and therefore any thoughts I have (whatever they are) on racism are worthless. Alienating people is a great way to bring about equality in the word. @crazybagman gets it:

@thatpinguino: The slippery slope I'm worried about is not being able to take things back from these assholes, to stop harmless things from being tossed in the cultural incinerator as hate speech. Sure nobody cares about KEK, but eventually it will be something worth giving a crap about.

Never should have posted in here in the first place. I'm out.

When it comes to interpreting art however, I don't think your analogy holds up to support intent not mattering. The example that comes to mind so far as games is concerned is Luftrausers being interpreted as a game where you play as a Nazi. Rami came out and said from their perspective you're not playing a Nazi, or any other existing WWII power. He then went on to say no interpretation is "wrong" and apologized for any discomfort caused.

Yes, no interpretation is "wrong" in an absolute sense, but there are interpretations that are more supported and less supported, and the intent of the creator can play a significant role in supporting or not supporting an interpretation.

In the case of bumping into someone, intent does not matter when it comes to the act itself, but the moment the conversation changes to one very much concerned with intent (i.e. "you meant to bump into me; you're a secret bump-apologist") you absolutely can argue against it with "well I didn't mean to bump you." Apologize for the act, by all means, be decent. But in a case where the act leads to insinuations of Nazi-sympathy, I don't think you should just roll over and accept that as an interpretation that's equally valid to any other.

When you empathize with someone else it is possible for their perspective to be wanting.

@gundamguru: You started this dialog by saying this to me:

The guy who hit the gal with the car was driving a Dodge, same model as mine. Do I need to sell my car now? Guilt by association? Is that where we're at?

That's a straw man argument that I wasn't making and it was hyperbolic. That's where this conversation started. Four sentences putting words in my mouth. I responded by tying my comment to the actual context of this gauntlet getting changed, aka the point of the whole thread.

Your next comment was:

Simmer down, I'm not promoting or justifying anything. Swearing at me isn't going to change my mind.

Just making a generic case. There's a difference between hate and hate speech and things used by or associated with people who are hateful or say hate speech. At what point can we not just say the acronym "KEK" isn't hate speech everywhere, all the time? At what point can I not just say Dodge Challenger's are not the official cars of neo nazis? In a vacuum, by itself? The acronym was divorced from the Nazi flag here. It's something muttered as a "lol" substitute in Twitch chat every day. It's the principle of the thing I have a problem with, not the particulars of this instance.

You again dodged talking about the specifics of this situation. This piece of armor isn't divorced from the flag because, as people have posted earlier in the thread, the armor shares a font, color scheme, and logo with the flag. It is not just a random "kek", it's pattern is so close to the flag that it's really hard for me to believe they're completely unrelated. You keep talking about this slippery slope as though there is a super tenuous connection to the flag or as though I'm advocating for some next step. The connection isn't tenuous and I'm not advocating for a next step. I'm saying Bungie is justified in changing this piece of armor, issuing a small apology, and then going on with their business.

The term "kek" isn't the issue here. The flag in question isn't a culturally neutral thing. It's a flag that is designed off of the Nazi flag that happens to include "kek". The thing at issue is an image that was always loaded with white supremacist meaning, so I don't think your slippery slope argument holds water in this case.

And the reason I said "Also in my experience the people who show up to only raise objections about the principle of censoring hate speech, rather than the hate speech itself, tend to not be all that worried about being the target of hate speech." is because the examples you've given of a slippery slope are things like your car. Things that are personally tied to you. I can't make sense of going to that as your point of argumentation unless you're more worried about being accused of being racist than you are of being the target of people invoking this particular racist imagery. If your takeaway from me talking about white supremacists marching under a shitty green flag is "what about my car? Is that bad too?" (and that's how you started this discussion). I don't really know how else to make sense about where your head is at.

I thought they removed them? I just got a pair on PS4 same design...

@cjduke: They probably need to push a patch to each platform individually.

The nature of this thread is exactly why I wish the West coast GB crew would stop pussyfooting around society and politics. Their reticence to speak about social and political issues as they relate to games (which they do) fosters a community of fans who, for example, largely see something like this as a non-issue. The crew did not make these fans feel this way, but they inadvertently make them feel safe from the social and political climate 'outside' of GB's wheelhouse, which, quite frankly, they shouldn't.

In the last Bombcast, Jeff lamented that games culture is at a place where advertisers are almost immediately presented with the option to keep their ads off of Youtube videos about games. Games culture is so shitty that Youtube knows advertisers will likely want to stay away from someone who might casually exclaim the n-word, or who might wear armor in praise of kek. @jeff, I love your website, and I love your content, but actively avoiding talking about politics indirectly shelters and fosters this culture's ignorance. Solving this problem is not the crew's responsibility, but I implore you guys to wade into these issues more confidently.

People who follow games culture should not feel 'safe' from political and social opinions. This thread is the kind of shit that comes from that perceived safety.

@whatshisface: I think that's a totally fair solution but again one hard to get to. Until we can reasonably organize around common goals like these I think condemning and denouncing their iconography is one of the only ways we have to fight right now. Besides the may be short-term effects it actually has on the group, the possible comradery we can gain from moments like these I think is worth seeking out.

By the way, the people on this forum calling everyone they don't agree with sympathizers or closeted racists are hurting their own argument and I don't agree with them. For whatever that's worth.

I just want to say that my only issue with all this was the waypoint article and how clickbait-y it was.

Bungie totally did the right thing.

@theht: My main concern is how Blizzard handled the situation, and I think they made the choice that makes the most sense for their situation. It doesn't matter, in a macro sense, what the intent of their artist was. The final art is not appropriate in their view, based on their own research.

We can't have an argument about intent of the artist themselves because we don't know it and I don't think it matters here. These are the possible situations and then I'll give the solution Bungie would/should come to -

Scenario 1

• Artist intended to make the piece a reference to the kek meme and the more radicalized flag version and also knew that it was a white supremacy meme/dog whistle
• Bungie patches it out of the game (employee is reprimanded, maybe even let go depending on work history)

Scenario 2

• Artist intended to make the piece a reference to the kek meme but was unaware that it was a white supremacy meme/dog whistle
• Bungie patches it out of the game (employee is counseled on what image could be construed as/group associations)

Scenario 3

• Artist did not intend to make the piece a reference to the kek meme, it happened by osmosis and they were also totally unaware that it was a white supremacy meme/dog whistle (I see this as practically an Infinite monkey theorem situation)
• Bungie patches it out of the game (employee is counseled on what image could be construed as/group associations)

In all the scenarios that I can think of, intended or not, Bungie's reaction remains the same. In only one version is the employee, in my opinion, let go or even reprimanded, and that is in the situation where it can be proven that they knew what they were doing and what it means to alt-right groups. That intent would be hard to prove without significant research or an actual admission, and so I don't think anyone should jump to the conclusion that the artist should have a severe punishment. However, if they are that in the dark about this stuff, then they should be notified of the artworks meaning to certain groups and that the company doesn't want to be associated with those groups. Again, this isn't punishment, just a "hey dude, those gauntlets need to be reworked a bit and here's why" type of situation.

We can talk about authorial intent all day. But Bungie needed to act in some way to attempt to nip this in the bud and make sure that their product was not tarnished.

I understand your comment about Luftrausers but at the same time, you also said that Rami and Vlambeer apologized after it was brought to their attention. I know you may not feel that he needed to, heck I don't think it was needed either based on my revisiting the event and reading about it after your comment, but I think that he made the better choice for his game and studio by listening to concerns and discussing Vlambeer's design decisions and where the team was coming from with the gaming community. Of course, that was concerning an entire game and it's overall design, music, graphics and gameplay, which I think is much more serious for the creators than the situation we're talking about here. This is just a tiny piece of art in a huge game, and it seems to be more likely than not that the art itself was based on a meme that is troublesome. Even if we give the benefit of the doubt to the artist, Bungie is entirely in the right to rework the art in their game to make sure that it doesn't even hint at referencing memes used by alt-right groups. To not do so may hurt their brand.

Not sure if they has been mentioned (i'm not going to read all these posts) but kek is an old WoW thing. Players on opposing factions couldn't communicate to each other by just typing. The words would get messed up (role playing that they were speaking a foreign language). However, if a horde played "yelled" LOL, it came across as KEK to alliance players.

And yes, I've played WoW too long.

@thatpinguino: The Swastika is honestly worth noting here as a good example of exactly what you're getting at; the symbol itself, including slight variations, has tons of different original meanings and uses throughout history all over the world, but obviously the predominant use of it as a symbol of Nazism has completely eclipsed any of the symbolism it may have originally had. I completely agree with you - it doesn't matter if there's still some holdout somewhere using it in the "original" way, whatever that means, because it's been so thoroughly co-opted.

I can't quite puzzle out how many people in this "Kek" debate are genuinely ignorant of its present common usage or just being disingenuous or pedantic to mask their true inclinations, but either way this reads to me as a complete failure of some people to understand how language and symbols evolve. Not much has some sort of "objective" meaning in language - things mean what most people perceive them to mean. I guess there's probably some innocent or oblivious way to be using "KEK" these days, but its so heavily associated with a certain crowd and meaning it's pretty hard for me to believe. There are plenty of other memey jokes to throw on Destiny gear if that's what people want, so any fierce attachment and defense of this particular item just instantly hits me as suspicious.

Can I ask a stupid question? Is that the default shader colour for the gloves?

@linkster7: Yes. In the PC Gamer article, they show a full screen shot of the inventory screen that you would see when reviewing that type of armor. There is no shader equipped in the shader slot (the third box with a slash through it is where the shader would be equipped). If you look at the icon in the upper left side, it also looks like the same color green in the full picture.

Also, in case people don't know anything about Destiny 2, the first box is where you would infuse a higher level item into the piece to make it stronger and the second box is where an armor mod would be visable.

@marokai: That's another great example. If you really want to get jaded and suspicious of ulterior motives, moderate a video game website for a few years.

Feeling like Giant Bomb is indirectly feeding this side of the community and then having threads closed because they "get too heated" feels awful. Confrontation is too often seen as worse than hateful and offensive dialogue and without the support of the GB crew it's left to fester and grow.

Eh, I think you're misjudging some of your fellow audience members. Every time I go to read the news, it's freelancers scraping together stories from tidbits of data drip-fed from reporters, writing some fluff-pieces designed to cater to their site's particular niche. Extreme left, extreme right... both usually wrong, but easier to clickbait the polar opposites than to get site traffic to a centrist, fact-finding news report (you know, the kind we used to have before the freelancer horde and their cost saving benefits descended upon us). Too many game sites (Polygon, Waypoint, Vox - in the sense that they run amazingly slanted gaming news) are realizing that this works and are joining in as well, at least in spirit. I think Polygon and Waypoint seldom use freelancers, but they've adopted the modern freelancer style of "cater to your audience niche by re-affirming their opinions and never presenting them with anything that might make them think outside their current box" well enough. Bleh!

I'm sick of it. I'm a centrist/ moderate, and I think a lot of people here are too. Speaking for myself, it's not that I don't think these are issues (they are, though not always in the way either extreme position thinks). It's that I talk about these issues at college and deal with them in the media and at work all the time. I come here to have fun. I come here for the snark. I come here for the goofiness. I don't come here to be preached at by gaming pundits who can't resist getting up on the proverbial soapbox and telling me "the biz."

I'm glad that Giantbomb tries to keep a level head. They have political views, but they don't force them on the audience or try to convince you to share them. They state their stances, articulately, and they move on to showing you Windjammers or performing the next comedic bit. Well, usually. I love the guy to death, but I think Alex's tweets sometimes cross into extremism village (... but so do those of many of my personal friends, sadly. Us or them, and them are evil, heartless, inhuman orcs. Rah rah. *shrug*) It's why I also like Gameinformer, which recently noted that PewDiePie should apologize for uttering the n-word by accident during a heated moment of gaming, but also cheekily posted this:

I can tell you that if Giantbomb decided to go the route of Waypoint or Vox (or Fox and Breitbart, which would be quite a surprise), I'd go elsewhere until they mellowed the heck back out. I've been reading Jeff's output since 1997 and I'd hate to meander off, but I'm not an extreme leftist or extreme rightist and I'm not going to have any more of their rubbish heaped on me than I have to. It's too much.

As to this arm bracer thing, eh. Removing the whole item instead of just editing the E or taking the words off seems like silly knee-jerking, but I can't fault them in the least considering how incredibly sensitive and easily offended the world is nowadays. Probably a prudent move, and really... it doesn't change anything. I think it was just a skin for an item, so there's one less skin. Eh, "subscribe to Game Informer on Youtube" it.

@lv4monk: I think we agree, but I just want to be clear: confrontation is necessary. However, there are other communities in which the ratio of people who think this is gross is much, much greater than the people who think it's a non-issue - such that confrontation is almost unnecessary there, as everyone generally agrees, or is open-minded about learning. This thread is a near 50-50 split on "gross" vs. "fine".

This isn't the first time the GB community has tended towards feeling that social and political issues in games are, actually, non-issues. It happens all the time. I'm increasingly frustrated by people who think games should have literally zero to do with social issues feeling like GB is for them, because the fact of the matter is that the social issues those people want to avoid discussing have direct negative impacts on other people, just not them. And now here we are again, with a whole boatload of people saying the discussion around this subject is "clickbaity" and that they unbelievably either don't see the problem, or want to play devil's advocate ("if I drive a Dodge, am I also a racist?") in order to minimize the concerns of those who don't want to see some fucking white supremacist bullshit in a video game. Those people should feel challenged taking those kinds of stands here. Whatever makes them think that GB is a good place to come to avoid that, I want that to end.

I believe that if the GB crew were to address social and political issues when relevant (specifically the west coast - the East coast, especially Vinny and Alex, are happy to discuss this stuff when it comes up, and I applaud them for it), the community would be better off. They don't need to monologize, and I don't expect them to be experts, but just say how they feel more often, because they DO feel something about this shit. This thread should not be so fuckin divisive.

@lazyimperial:You're exactly the kind of person I'm talking about.

@jadegl: On the Destiny 2 issue I think we're in full agreement on the possible causes and Bungie's response.

I believe it was good for Rami to apologize for what amounts to "the act." I'm sure at the time I'd have disagreed with any apology at all for someone else's reading of his work, and I certainly still feel that bending over backwards to placate someone's particular interpretation--disavowed by the creator or not--would be unjust, but I don't think he did anything extreme there in apologizing and I don't think Bungie's doing anything extreme here in apologizing and changing the item.

What I'm talking about, and maybe this was more me also using your post and analogy as a springboard for something bigger than this Destiny business, is I suppose a sort of self-certainty that comes when you, as a principle, don't consider the matter of intent as important enough to rate, or think it doesn't matter at all.

The question of intent here has the three reasonable suggestions that you've mentioned (possibly a fourth where the author was aware of its associations and, despite not being affiliated themselves, wanted to stir up trouble (i.e. trolling)). Where you were able to reasonably imagine those three scenarios and hold them as possiblities of varying degrees however, others either can't or won't. That failing can seed behaviour in which someone feels justified in arbitrarily deeming one of those three scenarios fact, or worse still completely disregarding them and parlaying an initial response (emotional or otherwise spurred) into a self-certain judgment that fuels arrogance and radicalizes temperament. Judgments that can seep into anyone who also doesn't 100% agree with them.

Basically there are two problems I have with intent not mattering. It can equalize the merit of any and all interpretations, and it can also embolden the isolation of an individual's own perspective, potentially diminishing temperance. I don't believe you're making the claim that intent doesn't matter period, only that in the grand scheme of this case it doesn't make a difference (i.e. Bungie's response is the same). Even in a case like this however (Destiny), where the possibilites are either unbelievable (it was an accident) or some degree of insidious, I think it's still worth laying it out, even if only as an exercise in rationality, or as a counter to that sort of braggadocious judgmentalism.

@kcin: It just feels like GB is leaving us to fend for ourselves in these forums and then tying our hands behind our backs with forum closures and "let's all just get along" pleasantries. If they want a kinder, less angry social space it starts at the top.

@kcin: And you're exactly the kind of person who ignores what I have to say because it doesn't agree with your stance. Doesn't mean we can't be friends, even though apparently my words didn't register in the slightest. :-)

You can preach on every mountain, in every valley, and anywhere between... but you know what? Sometimes, it gets old. Sometimes, that high horse needs a break. Someone got sloppy on double-checking the texture work on armor, the community caught it, and it got fixed. There was a time not long ago where a texture for certain walls in a game was literally just male genitals scaled down and looped to look like oddly lewd plaster. Someone got sloppy and didn't check what files the company was getting from the texture mill, the community caught it, and it got fixed after enough offended people went "hey, ew." There ya go.

There'd probably be less people calling it a non-issue if there weren't as many people beating their chests about it in a hyperbolic, "you should rub your face in this, community! SHAME ON YOU for not rubbing your face in this every day in every location in every way!" manner. One extreme begets another.

But since apparently I'm the kind of person you ad-hominem, I should probably stop wasting my time trying to communicate with you. Have fun.

I know I said I was done, and I've not been reading the thread, but I did want to respond to you. I agree with you that removing this gauntlet is probably the safe thing to do for Bungie at this instance, as a business decision. But since you're so determined to delve into the specifics here...

I disagree that this item is a for-sure, 100%, no doubt, convictable evidence of a reference to that Kekistan flag. First of all, the color, while a shade of green, is different. There are a different number of lines representing the "E," four instead of three (which could call into question whether those are an E at all, and not just lines, since it is too many). The outsides of the K's are framed by additional vertical lines not found in the Kekistan logo. The font is actually different, though it is a high-impact sans font, the same type.

What I'm getting at here is this. I think there is some possibility that this was accident, and the vicious overreaction on the internet, that is, treating this as 100% verified convictable proof of racism is wrong. Anyone who thinks that has never been wrongly accused of racism by a petty, mean spirited person, fired from a job, ostracised from a community, over an honest misunderstanding. This online mob is so ready to lynch this guy; it's disgusting. He has not beaten anyone. He hasn't killed anyone. He's not standing in the street holding a tiki torch chanting racist slogans at people. I know what hate speech looks like, and it's not subtle.

This design and the alleged reference were sufficiently obscure as to pass through whatever peer review and oversight Bungie had. Do we even know if this was made after Charlottesville? This could have been in the pipe for who knows how long. Only this artist knows his intentions. If they were bad, then screw him, and he deserves consequences. I'm certain Bungie is conducting an investigation.

But giving someone a reasonable benefit of the doubt is not evil. It is not aiding and abetting hate. It's compassion, dammit, and we need more of it these days.

@lv4monk: yes, I agree.

@lazyimperial: The difference between you and I is that I have a stance, and your stance is to not have one.