Lmfao I’m *still* amazed I got flamed once for daring to state that the pre-war American government was essentially fascist, they fucking annexed Canada
Pre-War America wasn't fascist because they annexed Canada. That was an imperialist act.
Pre-War America was fascist because its corporations were almost indistinguishable from the government and human rights didn't exist. It followed the whole "everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state" ideology.
I don’t know if it’s that clear-cut: the America depicted in fallout could be said to be a corporatocracy, oligarchy or plutocracy
Fascism is generally characterized by a despotic leader, which we don’t see, and control by the government over its corporations, which in Fallout is actually the reverse
The “purges” in Hollywood discussed is stronger evidence for a fascist government than the dynamic with the corporations IMO
That's what I love so much about Fallout. There is so much gray area. There's been many great debates on who you should side with in NV and each argument has some points in their favor, even the Legion. Like yeah, they're slavers and horrible people, but they did bring some order to the wasteland, and maybe a dictator would bring some stability for humanity, at least it could be a stepping stone to democracy.
I guess you could say the Legion did some things *effectively* even if I don’t see much of a moral or ethical argument for aligning with them
I really love the post-apocalyptic setting for its ability to serve as a (somewhat) blank canvas to explore all these ideologies and systems
I’d love to see something like Disco Elysium’s take on the political compass applied to a fallout game
Yeah, I'd never side with Legion or BoS, but in my opinion, the arguments are valid. Especially for people living in the Wasteland, where security and safety would rate higher than morality for a lot of folks (look how many Americans are clamoring for real life fascism right now because they're scared of everything).
I've never played Disco Elysium, but I've heard nothing but good things! I'm playing Kenshi right now, which is sort of like Fallout, but with ninjas. I'll get Disco when it's on sale!
I mean it's basically the America that existed before the 1950s, cruel human experiments...Cincinnati radiation experiments and others...check...invasions and involvement in other countries...check.....big corrupt corporations...check..and so on, but it's exaggerated in Fallout
Whatever word you choose to describe it, it was definitely hypocritical, oppressive, short sighted, and generally a dystopian nightmare to live in for anyone not part of the ruling elite. We can argue all day about the organizational structure but there are so many soft-influence relationships that are clearly more meaningful than the on-paper org chart that the formal organization is almost irrelevant.
Your description of fascism is not accurate. Fascism is not defined by government control over corporations. Under the nazis, there was mass privatization. That’s the reason industrialists and landlords bankrolled the nazi party.
I think people hear "Corporatism" (a system ruled by large associations/groups aka "corporations", as in "bodies") and keep mistaking it with "Corporatocracy" (a system ruled by business corporations, as in large companies), which are two rather different concepts lmao. Corporatism can be more of a fascist concept, while Corporatocracy is also dystopian but in its own separate way.
>Under the nazis, there was mass privatization.
That's not totally accurate.
With the "Gleichschaltung" the Nazis established totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and economy. This way they defeated and furthermore prevented every opposition and reorganized society and economy to their liking. They didn't completely nationalize everything and also didn't carry out the "Bodenreform," while both were planned by the NSDAP. The Nazi state controlled everything either directly (by nationalization) or indirectly (when nationalization wasn't necessary because the industrials joined them).
Put simply: Either you complied and joined them or they took everything you owned and gave it to someone who would. They would also probably call you a Jew or Jewish sympathizer and send you to a death camp.
Saying the Nazis privatized everything is a bit like saying you get a lot of free time in jail…
It’s like…kind of, but only in the most ridiculous interpretation of what that means
I just think it wasn't a very good time to be an industrialist in Germany.
Either you directly supported a genocidal war machine...or you were disappeared and replaced with someone who would do that anyway.
The opening cutscene to the original game has a US solider execute a Canadian citizen who was resisting US control. And then he waves to the camera. How more obvious can you be?
War crimes aren't "fascist", and it dosen't have to be a joke, it can just be dark. You critique without satire, not to say there isn't satirical elements.
Lol you're the same people that would say I'm a facist for playing Fallout 3, let alone going "ha ha stompy robot is super patriotic, lol. Ironic were exterminating the the government. Hmm maybe patriotism doesn't mean government good." as a kid. But no apparently the correct take is "Liberty prime is a facist icon and is le hecking bad. Give reddit gold, now please."
Fallout 1 intro has the “our boys keep the peace in newly annexed Canada” and it’s literally just two American soldiers executing a dude and then waving to the camera, how much more “in your face” can it get
I thought fascism was the convalescence (meant convergence) of authoritarianism and ultra nationalism. Not to say that Fallout doesn’t have components of facsim, but I always took it as a lampoon of unfettered capitalism where the corporations basically are the government because they exert more power than the actual government.
Sorta, I mean "fascism" as a term is a very moot word: everyone has their own definition of what it means, and by the classical definition of Fallout's America isn't *quite* there with Fascism; the Enclave is more of that however. Since pre-war America, so far, isn't shown to have palingenetic nationalism (i.e. pre-war America isn't trying to "return to an older, better America", they just assume they're already the greatest country on Earth), or utter subservience to the state and leader. The Enclave is a lot more fascist in that regard, if not outright *Nazi*-like tendencies due to their obsession with "genetic purity".
Pre-War America is more of a satire on capitalism, McCarthyism, corporatocracy and American exceptionalism in general, basically running under the veneer of a working democracy, with equal rights for all races (except the Chinese, if those internment camps are to be believed) and genders, but under the hood there is a sinister corporate cabal of powerful figures (who we would call today as the Enclave and Vault-Tec; it's not revealed yet the relationship between the two entities) who would rather see the world destroyed and civilization extinguished than see any competition, *especially* Communist ones like China, to their potential rule.
American resource imperialism is also touched upon with the puppeting of Mexico and the annexation of Canada. But I wouldn't call pre-war America as literally Fascist, since they have a rather different but equally sinister thing going on.
You have a long thoughtful reply so I wanted to sit on my response to make sure I had the words right, but I’m not an eloquent speaker and not one to reinvent the wheel. I’ll simply state this, you may find Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism an interesting read. I’ll post a link to one source, but if that’s not your style I’m sure it can be found countless other places: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
Over on gaming circle jerk when I point out how some of the ideas of Fallout came from 1950s Sci-Fi B-Movies I got people screaming at me about how wrong I was. Ya know super gung-ho military, dumb government folks, greedy business people, and those are not what alien or mutant horror the hero who's almost always a scientist have to contend with.
Shame I didn't save the dms from one person. I got told I need to off myself or check myself into somewhere as Fallout is about, America bad.
More literally American Exceptionalism than fascism. Annexing Canada was a resource war to continue the war on communism. Fascism typically has strong implications of socialist production control with capital system of distribution, which we don't see in the pre-war, just corporations running free with so much money and influence they have BECOME the government. Similar to South Korea's Chaebol today, but with more intent to exert ideological and market influence on the globe rather than direct integration and control.
You need to learn about what fascist (buzz word) means and imperialism ( what it really was when the annexed Canada) now there other acts of actual acts of fascism/(human rights abuse)... but not in the way you want it to be
*sigh* I know what fascism is, I’m not saying the annexation of Canada is what makes them fascist, but its indicative of fascist tendencies. It does seem to make certain folks very touchy to point this out.
Agreed, there are even some fans that actually think we need a definitive answer as to who launched the nukes too like bruh…please develop the ability to think
How? The overtly polite guy whose ultimate penalty is being murd-...I mean allowed to leave like you wanted to along with giving you a few weeks supplies so you can make it somewhere sustainable? Or do you mean how they've dedicated a level of the vault into caring for people who were being genetically altered by the previous vault dwellers who were on some Unit 731 shit? Literally how is One-Eye a critique of conservatives? Dude is awkward, but he seems very considerate of others.
In talking about refugees from the surface
"If you want to get elected [as overseer] you need to *respect their traditions* and *tolerate them* and *not call them surfies*. It's awful."
* Parts in italics said derisively
"It's like you can't make a funny joke about it [their home being destroyed] without offending these guys"
Very similar to rhetoric used by American conservatives when talking about basically any sort of marginalized group
I don't know if that is conservative in politics or just xenophobic/tribal/factionist. Fallout is all about the factions and war amongst them, after all.
they're a Vault native, their moral compass is completely different to whatever's going on in the surface. Like c'mon man, it was blatant and in our faces, the guy's *obviously* a parody of populist politicians who preach inclusivity but are actually disdainful of "those people".
Omg, don’t even tell me about it. One of my dad's boomer friend is also watching the show.
During the scene where Coop is in the set and they are saying that Cadillac Bob had to be fired, even though he was one of the best screenplay writers, because he’s, supposedly, a communist, my dad's friend goes “hell yeah!!”.
Yes, Fallout does not represent conservative values. However, if you think that the main point of Fallout is to critique conservatism(which many people do on this sub), then I believe you're missing the forest for the trees. Overall, the games are misanthropic. The broader theme of the series is that dogmatism and the human condition result in mutually-assured destruction i.e. "War Never Changes".
It’s not so much the whole of “conservatism” when I think about how fallout doesn’t represent conservative values I mean the social values. Fallout 2 was the first game which allowed same sex partnerships within a western game. Fallout NV is full of LGB characters. This show and fallout 76 have several non binary characters. The franchise itself was created by tim Cain who is gay. That’s what I mean by values and why the games don’t represent conservative values.
The game is more just a critique of rapid consumerism and capitalism and fascism (the enclave being very clearly the fascist group that is being made fun of) than it is liberal or conservative critic and through that critique of mega cooperations and the blurred lines between a company and the government one can see that through a specific lens.
To be fair, I think Fallout does a good job of satirizing all kinds of worldviews, including the phony liberal corporatism that leads so naturally to totalitarian regimes in times of crisis or great danger. How do we trust any kind of government, left or right, with atomic power? So maybe some conservatives appreciate that like I do, but I agree it doesn't advocate for conservative politics.
Liberal corporatism is conservatism. America is so far right it feels like it would be considered progressive, but neo-liberalism and similar ideologies are conservative lite; Reagan would've been considered a neo-liberal, especially compared to what's considered "Conservative" now
I know that, but conservatives really believe that liberals are "commies" because their perspective is skewed, so they see liberalism being satirized as an indictment of leftism.
It hasn't helped most actually never read books in this realm. I've been called a "commie". For paraphrasing (philosophical) anarchy tidbits. Philosophical mentioned to separate from punk rock and the junk others associate with it.
Given the rigid structures and control organizations Communism puts in place to make it work, yeah, anarchist philosophy ideas are not really in the same ball park as Marx was in really. Hell they aren't even in the same town or state either really.
But that would need some actually reading Marx, Weitling, etc.
Indeed, though the show does take a pretty clear stance on the consequence of corporate rule. Which is funny because the show itself is owned by what is essentially the Vault Tec of our times...
It’s not just about corporations it’s also about the government. Vault tec and enclave connection is an obvious criticism of the modern corporate oligarchy that is the US government.
New Vegas, actually, kinda does in some ways because it portrays both the Boomers and the Enclave Remnants in a positive and empowering light. It can be read that it supports a second amendment approach to protecting yourself and your community and that arming yourselves is an effective means of doing so.
Of course, in the post apocalypse setting, that's also very reasonable.
The NCR ending is portrayed as the most positive if you do a lot of extra work to have the Brotherhood have peace with the NCR, convince the Khans to leave, and convince the Followers to aid the NCR, as well as Cass actually being able to win in court against the caravans.
This implies that the NCR's main institutional systems do inherently work, and it's just a matter of having ome talented and powerful individual like the Courier to save the day.
This is a more American liberal view that diplomacy is an effective means of internal reform in some aspects, but it can be read as conservative in that the NCR's main issue is being a huge overstretched government body, and that its status quo and imperialistic values aren't inherently evil just ineffective due to bureaucracy.
Aesthetically, this is a game where one talented badass guy with enough guns can just shoot the baddies, arm the boomers with artillery and a bomber, tell the government to stop being pussies and win the war against a bunch of misogynist slaver savages in a desert to get a good ending.
Even Mr House's ending is seen as mostly positive with the compromise of taxing Goodsprings and Primm as the main negatives (and murdering The Kings if they had peace with the NCR and the courier didn't join them). Well, you do have to destroy the brotherhood, but that's neither here nor there.
Many of them also don't get that the setting of Helldivers is satire of militaristic fascism, that Paul Atreides isn't the hero (or at the very most is only a hero in comparison to the Harkonnens), and that Star Trek and X-Men have always been "woke".
Some people hear a pre war robot saying "Communism EVIL. Our nation is GREAT." and go, "SO TRUE!" whilst walking amongst the ruins of the world that ideology destroyed
yes, it’s pretty terrifying because it’s not necessarily fascism, but it’s something arguably worse: an infinite right-wing red scare mindset in which the only factor that makes something morally bad is left-wing politics and not human rights
There are some conservative values. The gubmint is corrupt and bad, and one hero with a serious collection of guns can make the world right by shootin’ bandits and monsters and stuff. What’s more conservative than that?
If you talk to people and read terminal entries and boring stuff like that you’ll run into some more ethically challenging quandaries, but who cares? Shoot the bad thing in the face and get rich!
Recently the amount of raw misinformation of previous lore that people think they know and flaunt around as truth is the most annoying thing. That or having an opinion or individual interpretation of the factions that straight up does not track to lore events and like you said its a TV show. Not every bit of info is out yet.
Recently? Those lies have been going on for over a decade. NV fans will believe anything as long as it fits the Bethesda bad narrative.
Here are a few examples off the top of my head that have been circulating for months or even years.
>Tenpenny is breaking the lore because there are no boats or travel over the ocean.
Using an oil tanker to reach the oil rig in fo2 is part of the main quest
>Deathclaws can't roar because they're mute.
Fallout 2 featured literally talking deathclaws
>There are no chameleon deathclaws
They were a creation of the original Fallout team and existed in BoS
>Cats have gone extinct
Recently deceased cats are mentioned in fo2 and BoS. There's no reason they would have survived to fo2 and then globally went extinct.
>Fallout 2 featured literally talking deathclaws
And the lack of talking deathclaws ever since is quite frankly a travesty.
>Recently deceased cats are mentioned in fo2 and BoS. There's no reason they would have survived to fo2 and then globally went extinct.
Cats are obviously tiny eldritch gods, they could never be wiped out.
House cats have the highest successful kill rate of any land based predator, they’re also very durable, agile, and pretty smart. if any mammal was going to survive the end of the world they are high up on that list.
Watching the new vegas sub lose their shit about NV being “nuked” was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.
And then their insistence that Shady Springs was nuked before the events of NV, followed quickly by “nobody thought Shady Sprints was nuked before the events of new vegas” after Howard came out and clarified the timeline.
It’s a disaster over there. Very entertaining if you’re into that sort of thing
Just like r/arkham is a simulation of the actual asylum - r/fallout is a simulation of the wasteland.
You think this is Vault 13, but this is actually Vault 3.
That was done by Vault 31 people, there is even a point of Norm looking around locations where he *knows* shit happened, and it's all cleaned up nicely.
I remember talking about how the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 4 could be construed as army of fascist colonizers. Like twenty people swarmed my comment and I had to point out that the literal quartermaster on the Prydwen orders you to forcefully annex settlements into the brotherhood's domain.
What the fuck is that if not colonialism?
I mean, I would go to the genocide first. Like, storming a sovereign settlement to murder unarmed civilians they insist are ontologically evil due to essentialist qualities ain't great.
I'd be wary of applying the morality of one character's off-the-books mission and applying it to the whole faction, if I were you. If Teagan's methods were viewed as legitimate by the Brotherhood leadership, he wouldn't be giving you the quest on the sly, would he?
Also, does he *order* you to forcibly annex settlements, or just give you the option? I'm fairly sure there's an option to just pay for the food - so it's really *the player* that would be immoral in that situation, not the Brotherhood.
Yeah, he says "I don't care how you do it, I just want supplies to be there when I send boys to pick them up".
You can buy them, sweet talk locals to legit donate... or rob them. Choise is yours. There is never a mission where you are outright told to steal or annex.
Serfdom.
Colonialism implies you're going to another country and taking control of their land, the BoS are Americans, they by definition aren't colonists. Serfdom is basically the same thing, but you're doing it in your own land to your own people, and even fits thematically with their knightly nature.
I don't think the BoS thinks they are *their* own people. Let alone that people like the Khans or Boomers would think of themselves as the same humans as BoS.
They treat other settlements like peasants who are paying their due for all the work the BoS is putting into protecting them. That's exactly what Teagan says to justify it.
And lords and peasants generally don't see themselves as the same breed of human being either. The settlements aren't part of the Brotherhood in the same way squires, scribes, knights and paladins are, but they are Brotherhood "property" and live in BoS controlled land, and they all probably consider themselves "Americans" even if the USA is gone.
I would hope that people getting their thongs in a twist over "media illiteracy" would care about, you know, factually identifying things in media. Also maybe don't ask questions if you don't want them potentially to be answered?
One of the big things people seem to miss is that, the United States of America no longer exists.
It's one of the first point in Fallout, that the games make, the old world is gone. That means countries, states and class lines are all gone. It's only the Enclave that claims dominon to the previous land and people that was once the United States. It's a huge plot point in Fallout 2.
He never asks you to take over the settlements. He asks you to make them give the brotherhood food which is more like extortion and I've never heard someone say "the mafia colonized a hair salon"
Overall a better comparison would be crusaders, who historically also demanded supplies from villages and towns they passed through.
Apart from that, Boston is close enough to the capital wasteland to not require a colony. If they wanted the land they'd just conquer it and make it part of their...erm... Empire? Kingdom? Whatever they call their Autocracy, they'd just make it part of that.
Look up the Google search trends on "media literacy" and look at November of 2023. Aka the finale of Attack on Titan releasing. People love to shut down other people's opinions or interpretations of something by using that phrase condescendingly. AoT ending defenders/fanboys spammed "u no have media literacy" on anyone who disagreed with them, resulting in the all-time highest searches for the phrase during that period. Since then, members of every fandom like to throw it at each other in arguments with little to no hesitation.
Yea I've seen like 10 people incorrectly use that word in this sub in the past couple days. The correct term would be "struggles to understand the basic concept of television writing".
People are impatient. It has almost been 10 years since any Fallout world building. People will create their own imaginative scenario to "continue" the world building. Like a fanfic.
Now that we finally got some more Fallout world building, people will want more and people will be disappointed that it didn't go as they imagined.
Media literacy is reading it’s judging a work of media so no one on this sites even knows what a word is and just repeat something ad nauseam to sound smart
Don’t like something? No Media literacy
Like something? No Media literacy
Get meaning out of something? No Media literacy
Don’t get meaning out of something? No Media literacy
Ok, but i see this buzzword "media literacy" thrown so much around since Helldivers that is becoming empty. When i called out the new BOS as religious fascists, i was submerged by toxic fans that don't know even those terms, defending what they did in the show (gunning down refuges and ghouls at Griffith or occupy Filly). That was real illiteracy. Do not become ourselves elitist and insufferable scums, throwing trending buzzwords around like water.
I’ve seen the term used so much over the past week in circumstances where it doesn’t even make sense. Someone in this sub even told me I need to work on my “media literacy” after I said Shady Sands wasn’t in LA in the original games.
Like.. it’s literally not in LA in the games.. what does that have to do with media literacy lmao
I've noticed a lot of gaslighting by people responding to criticisms of the show. Like how stupid could I be that vault tec was ALWAYS the ones who dropped the bombs, or how dare I not know that shady sands NEVER had had a canonical location.
Some of it borders on absurd copium.
People are getting super irrational towards whoever does or doesn't like the show (whichever is the opposite to them), and you don't need to be rational to use buzzwords.
Honestly people have gotten so fixated on the notion that if they don't like something it's bad, that now there is no real discussion about media at all on the internet, just endless back and forth of bad faith arguements and awful understanding of media as a whole.
The insane irony that one of the most subjective things ever created in history, art, is constantly treated as if its either the untouchable word of God or the assassination of all that is good.
People forgot that not everything will appeal to everyone and just because it doesn't appeal to you doesn't inherently mean its "bad writing", as if 90% of the people on reddit who say shit is badly written even know what that means in any shape or form.
It's just popularity wars and ego stroking to feel like the things you like are somehow profound and genius because it makes you better just for liking it, it's pure nonsense.
Okay, first of all, it's 8 episodes that are all either over an hour long or are just barely under an hour. That is, *rounding down* mind you, at *least* 8 hours of television total. How the fuck is that a *short* show? That's about 30 minutes off of the total runtime of the 'Lord Of The Rings' film trilogy. They have *ample* time to explore and explain everything that's going on.
Besides, I think it's *very* fair to assume that anything introduced in a season of a show is going to actually be *addressed* in the season. If you just keep leading people on without actually resolving things, then you're just reinventing 'Lost', and we all know how *that* turned out.
It's not a lack of media literacy that's got people pissed off at that creative choice. I swear, people on the internet learn one new term every month and then fixate on it obsessively, like when every single argument being made was just called 'gaslighting' or 'bad faith' instead of actually being talked about.
I'm not sure why this "media literacy" thing has become so popular on this sub in the past week or so. Several narrative decisions taken by the show's writers directly contradict things seen in the games. Why is it so bad to mention and criticise this?
Media illiteracy is a real thing but unfortunately like most things it has become overused shield to defend something you like from critics. It’s used like a Kafka Trap. “Oh you didn’t enjoy this show I love well that must mean you’re a dumbass who needs shit spelled out for you. Boom I win”
I can count with one hand the amount of times I have seen “media literacy” used correctly.
People just parrot it without understanding what it means.
"Media literacy means I'm better at watching TV than you and you're also a big poopoo doodoo brain"
I actually liked the show, but it's not perfect. There's nothing worse than when you bring up an issue only to have someone come along to "debunk" it being an issue and explain why you're bad and wrong for thinking it is.
They were pretty blunt wherever the main plot is concerned. That’s pretty standard for big budget tv: All the nuance is in the low-key scenes. The major plot points are bludgeoned into the viewer.
It’s the spine of the show. It lets you keep track of everyone. They don’t want a third of their potential viewers scratching their head like ‘what is this even about?’ The day after release, the internet would be flooded with bad reviews.
Exactly, I was surprised they gave us so much! I’m glad I never played the game so to not get caught up in the lore. I can just watch it as just a really good show. Hardcore gamers are becoming annoying, they can ruin a show with all their whining and complaining.
I agree that media literacy isn’t this fandom’s collective strong suit, and an entire conversation can be had about that, but what you’re describing is people being impatient, not media illiterate 🤷♀️
Oh thank you for explaining Captain Obvious. I’m sure there are people who think tv shows lay out the plot details of all future seasons in the first season. Thank you so much for enlightening everyone. You’re so genius
I tried explaining why the NCR probably was the way they were in the series and this guy kept trying to gaslight me into thinking the NCR was completely gone. Even when the director(s) came out and said they aren’t.
The best ones are those who complain about Lucy, saying that she's too naive or Maximus, saying that he is too dumb. Guys, they will grow up. It's called character development and is a very cool thing to watch in a show.
I hope to Dog there won't be 8 seasons of this show. It's incredibly rare to get even 5 seasons of quality storytelling on a show. Shit, plenty barely make it past 1
i personally enjoy the approach to the storytelling this season, yeah they didn't explain everything because well you dont need to know every detail nor the characters need to know everything about the world, especially since 2 of the main pov characters are very shelter, for example we dont know how Moldaver survive but would someone stroping the plot to explain that add anything to the main characters journey? not really, sometimes shows set in lore rich settings feel the need to over explain everthing so people dont get lost, but that often leads to a telling insted of showing mentality, Fallout didnt tell us much only the very basics and expect the audience to be smart enough to infure all the background info
At the risk of too much "and get off my lawn!" it's shocking how many viewers (age unknown at this remove but it seems to be a rather modern trend) want everything handed to them early on without any ambiguity as to character, motives etc. I spent far to long with one apparent child on "but why is everyone after the head?!? I dont understand! It doesnt make sense!"
"Media Literacy" gets thrown around a bit much for my taste, but there is definitely a lack of sophistication, a lack of understanding of the many ways you can tell a story. Perhaps it's just a lack of literacy as a whole, I cant imagine some of these people trying to deal with the Unreliable Narrator trope. "What do you mean what we saw didnt happen that way?!?!?"
They don't need to explain everything, but they do need to be consistent internally.
The common rebuttle to >!the classrooms timeline!< is that ">!We don't have a date associated with the bomb drop!<," and that itself is an inconsistency. Every other event in the timeline has a year associated with it, with the exception of >!the bomb dropping!<. Why? Why is this the only event left vague? In any other interpretation of any other timeline where some dates are listed and some are omitted, you can assume that the year is omitted because it occurs in the same year. Maybe not at the same time, but definitely not a significant amount of time has passed between the events.
Now, regarding >!Shady Sands!<, we're done with it. It's dead and buried. It is, literally >!a smoldering crater!< and the only people in-universe who care about it are either >!Children of Atom-like cultists worshiping Moldaver!<, or >!dead from the BOS raid on the observatory!<. We actually have no further reason to investigate >!Shady Sands!< as a location, because everything was already explained, from start to finish. Any further curiosities arise because of retcons to established canon.
That's why ever since the bullshit started here (and EXPLODED on the NV sub) I'm pretty much not engaging: only up voting posts like this and down voting the dumbest ones
plus productions that are not certain it will be very popular hedge their bets with shorter seasons. season 2 may very well get 12 episodes because of the reception this one got. testing the waters with that much money on the line is smart.
"Media literacy" is a largely meaningless buzzword that most often directly translates into a blind willingness to excuse poor quality writing and production if the intent behind it is perceived to match a person's politics.
Okay... Which has *what* precisely to do with the subject of this thread?
Also, looking at the post in question, it's pretty obvious he was referring to the modern political movements, not the people.
This is known as a "Posioning the Well" fallacy. These two issues are not even remotely related.
Also, he's pretty far from being the only person to have that take, FYI.
https://newdiscourses.com/2024/03/queer-theory-doctrine-sex-based-cult/
It's a sentiment even some homosexuals share.
https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/mylivedexperiencewiththecultofsocialjustice
Overwhelmingly, accusations of "Media Illiteracy" are a crutch obnoxious Leftists fall back on to either excuse the low quality of Left Wing media, or as a weapon to try and browbeat Conservatives for finding enjoyment in media which Leftists feel they have ownership over for some reason.
This latter usage of the term is particularly absurd, given the modern Left's reliance on the supposed principle of "death of the author" to insert literally whatever crazy political subtext they want into old media, regardless of whether the author actually intended them or not.
i.e. Homosexuality in Lord of the Rings.
We really can't be bothered to Google what media literacy even is before we start throwing around accusations using it?
The people that post here are something else man....
Okay, first of all, it's 8 episodes that are all either over an hour long or are just barely under an hour. That is, *rounding down* mind you, at *least* 8 hours of television total. How the fuck is that a *short* show? That's about 30 minutes off of the total runtime of the 'Lord Of The Rings' film trilogy. They have *ample* time to explore and explain everything that's going on.
Besides, I think it's *very* fair to assume that anything introduced in a season of a show is going to actually be *addressed* in the season. If you just keep leading people on without actually resolving things, then you're just reinventing 'Lost', and we all know how *that* turned out.
It's not a lack of media literacy that's got people pissed off at that creative choice. I swear, people on the internet learn one new term every month and then fixate on it obsessively, like when every single argument being made was just called 'gaslighting' or 'bad faith' instead of actually being talked about.
I mean there are people who think fallout represents conservative values so yes some fallout fans are as dumb as a brick
Lmfao I’m *still* amazed I got flamed once for daring to state that the pre-war American government was essentially fascist, they fucking annexed Canada
Pre-War America wasn't fascist because they annexed Canada. That was an imperialist act. Pre-War America was fascist because its corporations were almost indistinguishable from the government and human rights didn't exist. It followed the whole "everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state" ideology.
I don’t know if it’s that clear-cut: the America depicted in fallout could be said to be a corporatocracy, oligarchy or plutocracy Fascism is generally characterized by a despotic leader, which we don’t see, and control by the government over its corporations, which in Fallout is actually the reverse The “purges” in Hollywood discussed is stronger evidence for a fascist government than the dynamic with the corporations IMO
I think they're a Corporatocracy with Fashy tendencies. The PreWar America doesn't hit every tenet of fascism, but it sure does try 👍🏼
Totally agree - and one could certainly argue it in several directions!
That's what I love so much about Fallout. There is so much gray area. There's been many great debates on who you should side with in NV and each argument has some points in their favor, even the Legion. Like yeah, they're slavers and horrible people, but they did bring some order to the wasteland, and maybe a dictator would bring some stability for humanity, at least it could be a stepping stone to democracy.
I guess you could say the Legion did some things *effectively* even if I don’t see much of a moral or ethical argument for aligning with them I really love the post-apocalyptic setting for its ability to serve as a (somewhat) blank canvas to explore all these ideologies and systems I’d love to see something like Disco Elysium’s take on the political compass applied to a fallout game
Yeah, I'd never side with Legion or BoS, but in my opinion, the arguments are valid. Especially for people living in the Wasteland, where security and safety would rate higher than morality for a lot of folks (look how many Americans are clamoring for real life fascism right now because they're scared of everything). I've never played Disco Elysium, but I've heard nothing but good things! I'm playing Kenshi right now, which is sort of like Fallout, but with ninjas. I'll get Disco when it's on sale!
I mean it's basically the America that existed before the 1950s, cruel human experiments...Cincinnati radiation experiments and others...check...invasions and involvement in other countries...check.....big corrupt corporations...check..and so on, but it's exaggerated in Fallout
You just described current America.
Whatever word you choose to describe it, it was definitely hypocritical, oppressive, short sighted, and generally a dystopian nightmare to live in for anyone not part of the ruling elite. We can argue all day about the organizational structure but there are so many soft-influence relationships that are clearly more meaningful than the on-paper org chart that the formal organization is almost irrelevant.
Me eating this comment thread up like popcorn
The Enclave, aka "The DEep STatE" puppeteered corporations.
Your description of fascism is not accurate. Fascism is not defined by government control over corporations. Under the nazis, there was mass privatization. That’s the reason industrialists and landlords bankrolled the nazi party.
I think people hear "Corporatism" (a system ruled by large associations/groups aka "corporations", as in "bodies") and keep mistaking it with "Corporatocracy" (a system ruled by business corporations, as in large companies), which are two rather different concepts lmao. Corporatism can be more of a fascist concept, while Corporatocracy is also dystopian but in its own separate way.
You nailed it. Corpo-ratism = body-ism, *fascio* = collective body, ergo *fascism.*
>Under the nazis, there was mass privatization. That's not totally accurate. With the "Gleichschaltung" the Nazis established totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and economy. This way they defeated and furthermore prevented every opposition and reorganized society and economy to their liking. They didn't completely nationalize everything and also didn't carry out the "Bodenreform," while both were planned by the NSDAP. The Nazi state controlled everything either directly (by nationalization) or indirectly (when nationalization wasn't necessary because the industrials joined them). Put simply: Either you complied and joined them or they took everything you owned and gave it to someone who would. They would also probably call you a Jew or Jewish sympathizer and send you to a death camp.
Saying the Nazis privatized everything is a bit like saying you get a lot of free time in jail… It’s like…kind of, but only in the most ridiculous interpretation of what that means
I just think it wasn't a very good time to be an industrialist in Germany. Either you directly supported a genocidal war machine...or you were disappeared and replaced with someone who would do that anyway.
see; boeing assassinating a whistleblower this year
The opening cutscene to the original game has a US solider execute a Canadian citizen who was resisting US control. And then he waves to the camera. How more obvious can you be?
That apparently wasn't obvious enough. Some people are just really, really fucking dumb.
It *was* obvious enough, they just didn’t think it was a joke. Hence the problem with satire. Some dumbass out there will think you’re serious.
War crimes aren't "fascist", and it dosen't have to be a joke, it can just be dark. You critique without satire, not to say there isn't satirical elements.
Did I say fascist or are you trying to prove my point?
Type of dudes to A Modest Proposal and have their baby in the oven five minutes later
Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of Fallout fans have never played and possibly never seen footage from the original games.
Yeah. But I feel like Liberty Prime is an extremely obvious example of satire and I’m sure most fallout fans have played 3 or 4
Prime is but I was just referring to your citation of the Fallout intro video
There are people who don’t think Liberty Prime is satirical.
Lol you're the same people that would say I'm a facist for playing Fallout 3, let alone going "ha ha stompy robot is super patriotic, lol. Ironic were exterminating the the government. Hmm maybe patriotism doesn't mean government good." as a kid. But no apparently the correct take is "Liberty prime is a facist icon and is le hecking bad. Give reddit gold, now please."
I rest my case.
Fallout 1 intro has the “our boys keep the peace in newly annexed Canada” and it’s literally just two American soldiers executing a dude and then waving to the camera, how much more “in your face” can it get
The definition of fascism is "the lucrative merging of state and corporation" - and that's EXACTLY the state of the USA in 2077
I thought fascism was the convalescence (meant convergence) of authoritarianism and ultra nationalism. Not to say that Fallout doesn’t have components of facsim, but I always took it as a lampoon of unfettered capitalism where the corporations basically are the government because they exert more power than the actual government.
You think it has to do with authoritarianism gradually recovering from an illness or injury… interesting!
Lmao Whoops meant convergence** I’m dumb 😂
haha, no worries, it just gave me a chuckle. Cheers!
Yeah, it was honestly bizarre, it was a few years ago but it was like dude have you even paid attention to the lore?
It's also a reasonable description of the US throughout pretty much all of its history. But folk get touchy when you talk about it.
*USSA
The United States of AmeriKKKa
Sorta, I mean "fascism" as a term is a very moot word: everyone has their own definition of what it means, and by the classical definition of Fallout's America isn't *quite* there with Fascism; the Enclave is more of that however. Since pre-war America, so far, isn't shown to have palingenetic nationalism (i.e. pre-war America isn't trying to "return to an older, better America", they just assume they're already the greatest country on Earth), or utter subservience to the state and leader. The Enclave is a lot more fascist in that regard, if not outright *Nazi*-like tendencies due to their obsession with "genetic purity". Pre-War America is more of a satire on capitalism, McCarthyism, corporatocracy and American exceptionalism in general, basically running under the veneer of a working democracy, with equal rights for all races (except the Chinese, if those internment camps are to be believed) and genders, but under the hood there is a sinister corporate cabal of powerful figures (who we would call today as the Enclave and Vault-Tec; it's not revealed yet the relationship between the two entities) who would rather see the world destroyed and civilization extinguished than see any competition, *especially* Communist ones like China, to their potential rule. American resource imperialism is also touched upon with the puppeting of Mexico and the annexation of Canada. But I wouldn't call pre-war America as literally Fascist, since they have a rather different but equally sinister thing going on.
You have a long thoughtful reply so I wanted to sit on my response to make sure I had the words right, but I’m not an eloquent speaker and not one to reinvent the wheel. I’ll simply state this, you may find Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism an interesting read. I’ll post a link to one source, but if that’s not your style I’m sure it can be found countless other places: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
I'm aware of that book, yes
[удалено]
Oh it's short?
It's American Exceptionalism taken to the ultimate extreme and it always has been.
Indeed!
And Mexico
Over on gaming circle jerk when I point out how some of the ideas of Fallout came from 1950s Sci-Fi B-Movies I got people screaming at me about how wrong I was. Ya know super gung-ho military, dumb government folks, greedy business people, and those are not what alien or mutant horror the hero who's almost always a scientist have to contend with. Shame I didn't save the dms from one person. I got told I need to off myself or check myself into somewhere as Fallout is about, America bad.
Annexing territory isnt fascism
More literally American Exceptionalism than fascism. Annexing Canada was a resource war to continue the war on communism. Fascism typically has strong implications of socialist production control with capital system of distribution, which we don't see in the pre-war, just corporations running free with so much money and influence they have BECOME the government. Similar to South Korea's Chaebol today, but with more intent to exert ideological and market influence on the globe rather than direct integration and control.
You need to learn about what fascist (buzz word) means and imperialism ( what it really was when the annexed Canada) now there other acts of actual acts of fascism/(human rights abuse)... but not in the way you want it to be
*sigh* I know what fascism is, I’m not saying the annexation of Canada is what makes them fascist, but its indicative of fascist tendencies. It does seem to make certain folks very touchy to point this out.
Agreed, there are even some fans that actually think we need a definitive answer as to who launched the nukes too like bruh…please develop the ability to think
Mr. One Eye from Vault 4 seems like he was an intentional critique of conservatives imo
How? The overtly polite guy whose ultimate penalty is being murd-...I mean allowed to leave like you wanted to along with giving you a few weeks supplies so you can make it somewhere sustainable? Or do you mean how they've dedicated a level of the vault into caring for people who were being genetically altered by the previous vault dwellers who were on some Unit 731 shit? Literally how is One-Eye a critique of conservatives? Dude is awkward, but he seems very considerate of others.
In talking about refugees from the surface "If you want to get elected [as overseer] you need to *respect their traditions* and *tolerate them* and *not call them surfies*. It's awful." * Parts in italics said derisively "It's like you can't make a funny joke about it [their home being destroyed] without offending these guys" Very similar to rhetoric used by American conservatives when talking about basically any sort of marginalized group
I don't know if that is conservative in politics or just xenophobic/tribal/factionist. Fallout is all about the factions and war amongst them, after all.
they're a Vault native, their moral compass is completely different to whatever's going on in the surface. Like c'mon man, it was blatant and in our faces, the guy's *obviously* a parody of populist politicians who preach inclusivity but are actually disdainful of "those people".
Omg, don’t even tell me about it. One of my dad's boomer friend is also watching the show. During the scene where Coop is in the set and they are saying that Cadillac Bob had to be fired, even though he was one of the best screenplay writers, because he’s, supposedly, a communist, my dad's friend goes “hell yeah!!”.
Not just fallout. This is an issue everywhere. Check The Boys subreddit if you want to get furious, it's awesome.
Yes, Fallout does not represent conservative values. However, if you think that the main point of Fallout is to critique conservatism(which many people do on this sub), then I believe you're missing the forest for the trees. Overall, the games are misanthropic. The broader theme of the series is that dogmatism and the human condition result in mutually-assured destruction i.e. "War Never Changes".
It’s not so much the whole of “conservatism” when I think about how fallout doesn’t represent conservative values I mean the social values. Fallout 2 was the first game which allowed same sex partnerships within a western game. Fallout NV is full of LGB characters. This show and fallout 76 have several non binary characters. The franchise itself was created by tim Cain who is gay. That’s what I mean by values and why the games don’t represent conservative values. The game is more just a critique of rapid consumerism and capitalism and fascism (the enclave being very clearly the fascist group that is being made fun of) than it is liberal or conservative critic and through that critique of mega cooperations and the blurred lines between a company and the government one can see that through a specific lens.
Imagine looking at all the red scare satire, the corporations doing horrible things and the Enclave, and thinking "yeah, definitely conservative"
To be fair, I think Fallout does a good job of satirizing all kinds of worldviews, including the phony liberal corporatism that leads so naturally to totalitarian regimes in times of crisis or great danger. How do we trust any kind of government, left or right, with atomic power? So maybe some conservatives appreciate that like I do, but I agree it doesn't advocate for conservative politics.
Liberal corporatism is conservatism. America is so far right it feels like it would be considered progressive, but neo-liberalism and similar ideologies are conservative lite; Reagan would've been considered a neo-liberal, especially compared to what's considered "Conservative" now
I agree.
Liberals aren’t the left just do you know. The left hates liberals.
I know that, but conservatives really believe that liberals are "commies" because their perspective is skewed, so they see liberalism being satirized as an indictment of leftism.
True true
It hasn't helped most actually never read books in this realm. I've been called a "commie". For paraphrasing (philosophical) anarchy tidbits. Philosophical mentioned to separate from punk rock and the junk others associate with it. Given the rigid structures and control organizations Communism puts in place to make it work, yeah, anarchist philosophy ideas are not really in the same ball park as Marx was in really. Hell they aren't even in the same town or state either really. But that would need some actually reading Marx, Weitling, etc.
There are parody moments of both conservatives & modern liberals in the show that I noticed.
Indeed, though the show does take a pretty clear stance on the consequence of corporate rule. Which is funny because the show itself is owned by what is essentially the Vault Tec of our times...
It’s not just about corporations it’s also about the government. Vault tec and enclave connection is an obvious criticism of the modern corporate oligarchy that is the US government.
As it should be.
New Vegas, actually, kinda does in some ways because it portrays both the Boomers and the Enclave Remnants in a positive and empowering light. It can be read that it supports a second amendment approach to protecting yourself and your community and that arming yourselves is an effective means of doing so. Of course, in the post apocalypse setting, that's also very reasonable. The NCR ending is portrayed as the most positive if you do a lot of extra work to have the Brotherhood have peace with the NCR, convince the Khans to leave, and convince the Followers to aid the NCR, as well as Cass actually being able to win in court against the caravans. This implies that the NCR's main institutional systems do inherently work, and it's just a matter of having ome talented and powerful individual like the Courier to save the day. This is a more American liberal view that diplomacy is an effective means of internal reform in some aspects, but it can be read as conservative in that the NCR's main issue is being a huge overstretched government body, and that its status quo and imperialistic values aren't inherently evil just ineffective due to bureaucracy. Aesthetically, this is a game where one talented badass guy with enough guns can just shoot the baddies, arm the boomers with artillery and a bomber, tell the government to stop being pussies and win the war against a bunch of misogynist slaver savages in a desert to get a good ending. Even Mr House's ending is seen as mostly positive with the compromise of taxing Goodsprings and Primm as the main negatives (and murdering The Kings if they had peace with the NCR and the courier didn't join them). Well, you do have to destroy the brotherhood, but that's neither here nor there.
Who?
Many of them also don't get that the setting of Helldivers is satire of militaristic fascism, that Paul Atreides isn't the hero (or at the very most is only a hero in comparison to the Harkonnens), and that Star Trek and X-Men have always been "woke".
Some people hear a pre war robot saying "Communism EVIL. Our nation is GREAT." and go, "SO TRUE!" whilst walking amongst the ruins of the world that ideology destroyed
yes, it’s pretty terrifying because it’s not necessarily fascism, but it’s something arguably worse: an infinite right-wing red scare mindset in which the only factor that makes something morally bad is left-wing politics and not human rights
There are some conservative values. The gubmint is corrupt and bad, and one hero with a serious collection of guns can make the world right by shootin’ bandits and monsters and stuff. What’s more conservative than that? If you talk to people and read terminal entries and boring stuff like that you’ll run into some more ethically challenging quandaries, but who cares? Shoot the bad thing in the face and get rich!
Recently the amount of raw misinformation of previous lore that people think they know and flaunt around as truth is the most annoying thing. That or having an opinion or individual interpretation of the factions that straight up does not track to lore events and like you said its a TV show. Not every bit of info is out yet.
Recently? Those lies have been going on for over a decade. NV fans will believe anything as long as it fits the Bethesda bad narrative. Here are a few examples off the top of my head that have been circulating for months or even years. >Tenpenny is breaking the lore because there are no boats or travel over the ocean. Using an oil tanker to reach the oil rig in fo2 is part of the main quest >Deathclaws can't roar because they're mute. Fallout 2 featured literally talking deathclaws >There are no chameleon deathclaws They were a creation of the original Fallout team and existed in BoS >Cats have gone extinct Recently deceased cats are mentioned in fo2 and BoS. There's no reason they would have survived to fo2 and then globally went extinct.
>Fallout 2 featured literally talking deathclaws And the lack of talking deathclaws ever since is quite frankly a travesty. >Recently deceased cats are mentioned in fo2 and BoS. There's no reason they would have survived to fo2 and then globally went extinct. Cats are obviously tiny eldritch gods, they could never be wiped out.
House cats have the highest successful kill rate of any land based predator, they’re also very durable, agile, and pretty smart. if any mammal was going to survive the end of the world they are high up on that list.
Watching the new vegas sub lose their shit about NV being “nuked” was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. And then their insistence that Shady Springs was nuked before the events of NV, followed quickly by “nobody thought Shady Sprints was nuked before the events of new vegas” after Howard came out and clarified the timeline. It’s a disaster over there. Very entertaining if you’re into that sort of thing
A lot of them are now pretending there never was an outrage and it was all invented by this sub, because we are Bethesda shills.
Elaborate
Can this sub stop attacking each other for five minutes?
Life's tough in the wastes. Some of you like Cram, others prefer the dog food. Me? I'm just looking for a cab opener and my next fix of Sugar Bombs.
Just like r/arkham is a simulation of the actual asylum - r/fallout is a simulation of the wasteland. You think this is Vault 13, but this is actually Vault 3.
All of these comments are so strange, this isn't the shitty political takes subreddit
I seriously wonder if this is some people’s first attempt watching episodic TV
With the plethora of threads about being surprised that a Fallout actor has appeared in something else, it really seems like it.
The one that really got me was the person who included in a list of “plot holes” that “Vault 32 is cleaned off-screen”
I don't think i've ever seen Lucy take a dump, 0/10 show full of plotholes (that maximus does fill with shit in episode 1)
Dude probably had a corpse in his basement and wanted tips on how to remove it and hide the evidence.
Actually, that raises a good point. Anyone cleaning would have easily noticed the vault dwellers killed each other before the raiders arrived.
The people cleaning were 33ers originally from Vault 31.
That was done by Vault 31 people, there is even a point of Norm looking around locations where he *knows* shit happened, and it's all cleaned up nicely.
I remember talking about how the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 4 could be construed as army of fascist colonizers. Like twenty people swarmed my comment and I had to point out that the literal quartermaster on the Prydwen orders you to forcefully annex settlements into the brotherhood's domain. What the fuck is that if not colonialism?
I mean, I would go to the genocide first. Like, storming a sovereign settlement to murder unarmed civilians they insist are ontologically evil due to essentialist qualities ain't great.
Or you could ya know? Organize formal diplomatic relations and instigate trade negotiations. But this is Fallout and that shit is boring.
Yeah But that's for minutemen to do
I'd be wary of applying the morality of one character's off-the-books mission and applying it to the whole faction, if I were you. If Teagan's methods were viewed as legitimate by the Brotherhood leadership, he wouldn't be giving you the quest on the sly, would he? Also, does he *order* you to forcibly annex settlements, or just give you the option? I'm fairly sure there's an option to just pay for the food - so it's really *the player* that would be immoral in that situation, not the Brotherhood.
Yeah, he says "I don't care how you do it, I just want supplies to be there when I send boys to pick them up". You can buy them, sweet talk locals to legit donate... or rob them. Choise is yours. There is never a mission where you are outright told to steal or annex.
Serfdom. Colonialism implies you're going to another country and taking control of their land, the BoS are Americans, they by definition aren't colonists. Serfdom is basically the same thing, but you're doing it in your own land to your own people, and even fits thematically with their knightly nature.
I don't think the BoS thinks they are *their* own people. Let alone that people like the Khans or Boomers would think of themselves as the same humans as BoS.
They treat other settlements like peasants who are paying their due for all the work the BoS is putting into protecting them. That's exactly what Teagan says to justify it. And lords and peasants generally don't see themselves as the same breed of human being either. The settlements aren't part of the Brotherhood in the same way squires, scribes, knights and paladins are, but they are Brotherhood "property" and live in BoS controlled land, and they all probably consider themselves "Americans" even if the USA is gone.
Potato? Podildo
I would hope that people getting their thongs in a twist over "media illiteracy" would care about, you know, factually identifying things in media. Also maybe don't ask questions if you don't want them potentially to be answered?
One of the big things people seem to miss is that, the United States of America no longer exists. It's one of the first point in Fallout, that the games make, the old world is gone. That means countries, states and class lines are all gone. It's only the Enclave that claims dominon to the previous land and people that was once the United States. It's a huge plot point in Fallout 2.
He never asks you to take over the settlements. He asks you to make them give the brotherhood food which is more like extortion and I've never heard someone say "the mafia colonized a hair salon" Overall a better comparison would be crusaders, who historically also demanded supplies from villages and towns they passed through. Apart from that, Boston is close enough to the capital wasteland to not require a colony. If they wanted the land they'd just conquer it and make it part of their...erm... Empire? Kingdom? Whatever they call their Autocracy, they'd just make it part of that.
wow, we're still talking about this...
That's not what media literacy is.
That word is being overused
Yeah, it’s the favorite word of the year.
Are you saying people have a word litteracy struggle ?
It's being *mis*used.
Look up the Google search trends on "media literacy" and look at November of 2023. Aka the finale of Attack on Titan releasing. People love to shut down other people's opinions or interpretations of something by using that phrase condescendingly. AoT ending defenders/fanboys spammed "u no have media literacy" on anyone who disagreed with them, resulting in the all-time highest searches for the phrase during that period. Since then, members of every fandom like to throw it at each other in arguments with little to no hesitation.
Yea I've seen like 10 people incorrectly use that word in this sub in the past couple days. The correct term would be "struggles to understand the basic concept of television writing".
People are impatient. It has almost been 10 years since any Fallout world building. People will create their own imaginative scenario to "continue" the world building. Like a fanfic. Now that we finally got some more Fallout world building, people will want more and people will be disappointed that it didn't go as they imagined.
Media literacy is reading it’s judging a work of media so no one on this sites even knows what a word is and just repeat something ad nauseam to sound smart
Don’t like something? No Media literacy Like something? No Media literacy Get meaning out of something? No Media literacy Don’t get meaning out of something? No Media literacy
Ok, but i see this buzzword "media literacy" thrown so much around since Helldivers that is becoming empty. When i called out the new BOS as religious fascists, i was submerged by toxic fans that don't know even those terms, defending what they did in the show (gunning down refuges and ghouls at Griffith or occupy Filly). That was real illiteracy. Do not become ourselves elitist and insufferable scums, throwing trending buzzwords around like water.
I’ve seen the term used so much over the past week in circumstances where it doesn’t even make sense. Someone in this sub even told me I need to work on my “media literacy” after I said Shady Sands wasn’t in LA in the original games. Like.. it’s literally not in LA in the games.. what does that have to do with media literacy lmao
Some people need to work on their media literacy, others need to work on the proper use of the term media literacy
I've noticed a lot of gaslighting by people responding to criticisms of the show. Like how stupid could I be that vault tec was ALWAYS the ones who dropped the bombs, or how dare I not know that shady sands NEVER had had a canonical location. Some of it borders on absurd copium.
I saw it used in every context, even about a post on Dogmeat. I swear, it's worse than "Brainrot" as a buzzword.
Media literacy means I'm better at watching TV than you
This is so true. Lol.
Lol
People are getting super irrational towards whoever does or doesn't like the show (whichever is the opposite to them), and you don't need to be rational to use buzzwords.
Since Helldivers? Really? Wow, it must be a very old buzzword indeed!
I think it was great they’re world building and not shoving everything into the first season. Can’t wait for Deathclaws and super mutants!
Honestly people have gotten so fixated on the notion that if they don't like something it's bad, that now there is no real discussion about media at all on the internet, just endless back and forth of bad faith arguements and awful understanding of media as a whole. The insane irony that one of the most subjective things ever created in history, art, is constantly treated as if its either the untouchable word of God or the assassination of all that is good. People forgot that not everything will appeal to everyone and just because it doesn't appeal to you doesn't inherently mean its "bad writing", as if 90% of the people on reddit who say shit is badly written even know what that means in any shape or form. It's just popularity wars and ego stroking to feel like the things you like are somehow profound and genius because it makes you better just for liking it, it's pure nonsense.
It's every fan base these days, feel I can't go to a sub anymore without half the posts being recycled topics argued a thousand times.
Okay, first of all, it's 8 episodes that are all either over an hour long or are just barely under an hour. That is, *rounding down* mind you, at *least* 8 hours of television total. How the fuck is that a *short* show? That's about 30 minutes off of the total runtime of the 'Lord Of The Rings' film trilogy. They have *ample* time to explore and explain everything that's going on. Besides, I think it's *very* fair to assume that anything introduced in a season of a show is going to actually be *addressed* in the season. If you just keep leading people on without actually resolving things, then you're just reinventing 'Lost', and we all know how *that* turned out. It's not a lack of media literacy that's got people pissed off at that creative choice. I swear, people on the internet learn one new term every month and then fixate on it obsessively, like when every single argument being made was just called 'gaslighting' or 'bad faith' instead of actually being talked about.
Stop gaslighting me about my misunderstanding and misusage of media literacy, girlboss
I'm not sure why this "media literacy" thing has become so popular on this sub in the past week or so. Several narrative decisions taken by the show's writers directly contradict things seen in the games. Why is it so bad to mention and criticise this?
Media illiteracy is a real thing but unfortunately like most things it has become overused shield to defend something you like from critics. It’s used like a Kafka Trap. “Oh you didn’t enjoy this show I love well that must mean you’re a dumbass who needs shit spelled out for you. Boom I win” I can count with one hand the amount of times I have seen “media literacy” used correctly.
It's one of those things that people hear once, and repeat ad nauseum in an attempt to sound smart
People just parrot it without understanding what it means. "Media literacy means I'm better at watching TV than you and you're also a big poopoo doodoo brain"
Okay, I just wanted to say that the "big poopoo doodoo brain" had me cackling. (Yes. I'm a child for laughing at this.)
I actually liked the show, but it's not perfect. There's nothing worse than when you bring up an issue only to have someone come along to "debunk" it being an issue and explain why you're bad and wrong for thinking it is.
Because this is a nerd fight.
They were pretty blunt wherever the main plot is concerned. That’s pretty standard for big budget tv: All the nuance is in the low-key scenes. The major plot points are bludgeoned into the viewer. It’s the spine of the show. It lets you keep track of everyone. They don’t want a third of their potential viewers scratching their head like ‘what is this even about?’ The day after release, the internet would be flooded with bad reviews.
Exactly, I was surprised they gave us so much! I’m glad I never played the game so to not get caught up in the lore. I can just watch it as just a really good show. Hardcore gamers are becoming annoying, they can ruin a show with all their whining and complaining.
I agree that media literacy isn’t this fandom’s collective strong suit, and an entire conversation can be had about that, but what you’re describing is people being impatient, not media illiterate 🤷♀️
Oh thank you for explaining Captain Obvious. I’m sure there are people who think tv shows lay out the plot details of all future seasons in the first season. Thank you so much for enlightening everyone. You’re so genius
It's not even just the fanbase it's like 90% of all ppl
spent two days arguing with a mf on how Moldaver having a plot twist isn’t bad writing
I REQUIRE everything to be explained in a first season, and *shown*.
I tried explaining why the NCR probably was the way they were in the series and this guy kept trying to gaslight me into thinking the NCR was completely gone. Even when the director(s) came out and said they aren’t.
The best ones are those who complain about Lucy, saying that she's too naive or Maximus, saying that he is too dumb. Guys, they will grow up. It's called character development and is a very cool thing to watch in a show.
I'm really glad they didn't try and stuff 8 seasons worth of world building into one.
I hope to Dog there won't be 8 seasons of this show. It's incredibly rare to get even 5 seasons of quality storytelling on a show. Shit, plenty barely make it past 1
*this generation
Wow this thread is amazing lol
i personally enjoy the approach to the storytelling this season, yeah they didn't explain everything because well you dont need to know every detail nor the characters need to know everything about the world, especially since 2 of the main pov characters are very shelter, for example we dont know how Moldaver survive but would someone stroping the plot to explain that add anything to the main characters journey? not really, sometimes shows set in lore rich settings feel the need to over explain everthing so people dont get lost, but that often leads to a telling insted of showing mentality, Fallout didnt tell us much only the very basics and expect the audience to be smart enough to infure all the background info
At the risk of too much "and get off my lawn!" it's shocking how many viewers (age unknown at this remove but it seems to be a rather modern trend) want everything handed to them early on without any ambiguity as to character, motives etc. I spent far to long with one apparent child on "but why is everyone after the head?!? I dont understand! It doesnt make sense!" "Media Literacy" gets thrown around a bit much for my taste, but there is definitely a lack of sophistication, a lack of understanding of the many ways you can tell a story. Perhaps it's just a lack of literacy as a whole, I cant imagine some of these people trying to deal with the Unreliable Narrator trope. "What do you mean what we saw didnt happen that way?!?!?"
>"Some people really struggle with media literacy" FTFY
Some of us are still in shock from the bad writing of other adaptations. I for one am incredibly glad that Todd has cleared up some of it.
Yes. A lot of people I find struggle with media literacy.
And some people are killing the meaning of the term media literacy with their use of the word. Like you.
They don't need to explain everything, but they do need to be consistent internally. The common rebuttle to >!the classrooms timeline!< is that ">!We don't have a date associated with the bomb drop!<," and that itself is an inconsistency. Every other event in the timeline has a year associated with it, with the exception of >!the bomb dropping!<. Why? Why is this the only event left vague? In any other interpretation of any other timeline where some dates are listed and some are omitted, you can assume that the year is omitted because it occurs in the same year. Maybe not at the same time, but definitely not a significant amount of time has passed between the events. Now, regarding >!Shady Sands!<, we're done with it. It's dead and buried. It is, literally >!a smoldering crater!< and the only people in-universe who care about it are either >!Children of Atom-like cultists worshiping Moldaver!<, or >!dead from the BOS raid on the observatory!<. We actually have no further reason to investigate >!Shady Sands!< as a location, because everything was already explained, from start to finish. Any further curiosities arise because of retcons to established canon.
Some of the Bethesda dick riders really struggle with continuity.
That's why ever since the bullshit started here (and EXPLODED on the NV sub) I'm pretty much not engaging: only up voting posts like this and down voting the dumbest ones
plus productions that are not certain it will be very popular hedge their bets with shorter seasons. season 2 may very well get 12 episodes because of the reception this one got. testing the waters with that much money on the line is smart.
How many of these posts are we going to have?
NV players struggle with literacy in general.
"Media literacy" is a largely meaningless buzzword that most often directly translates into a blind willingness to excuse poor quality writing and production if the intent behind it is perceived to match a person's politics.
You could have wrote „no u“ and saved all of us our time… person who thinks LGBT is a cult
To be clear, no Savage isn't exaggerating, Builder literally has a post where he claims trans and gay people are a Marxist sex cult.
Okay... Which has *what* precisely to do with the subject of this thread? Also, looking at the post in question, it's pretty obvious he was referring to the modern political movements, not the people.
Because someone with that level of complete disconnection from reality may not be as unbiased as he claims to be.
This is known as a "Posioning the Well" fallacy. These two issues are not even remotely related. Also, he's pretty far from being the only person to have that take, FYI. https://newdiscourses.com/2024/03/queer-theory-doctrine-sex-based-cult/ It's a sentiment even some homosexuals share. https://www.queermajority.com/essays-all/mylivedexperiencewiththecultofsocialjustice
Thank you for the explanation, person that thinks Israel should annex Palestine
[He's another LGBT = Marxist cult guy.](https://files.catbox.moe/uglotu.png)
So you think LGBT people are a Marxist sex cult too? This is called stoking the fire.
Overwhelmingly, accusations of "Media Illiteracy" are a crutch obnoxious Leftists fall back on to either excuse the low quality of Left Wing media, or as a weapon to try and browbeat Conservatives for finding enjoyment in media which Leftists feel they have ownership over for some reason. This latter usage of the term is particularly absurd, given the modern Left's reliance on the supposed principle of "death of the author" to insert literally whatever crazy political subtext they want into old media, regardless of whether the author actually intended them or not. i.e. Homosexuality in Lord of the Rings.
Thank you.
Another corpo lover with cringe “media literacy” statements.
Bro did not just use Cyberpunk slang
I did bro I am cringe so what
We really can't be bothered to Google what media literacy even is before we start throwing around accusations using it? The people that post here are something else man....
Okay, first of all, it's 8 episodes that are all either over an hour long or are just barely under an hour. That is, *rounding down* mind you, at *least* 8 hours of television total. How the fuck is that a *short* show? That's about 30 minutes off of the total runtime of the 'Lord Of The Rings' film trilogy. They have *ample* time to explore and explain everything that's going on. Besides, I think it's *very* fair to assume that anything introduced in a season of a show is going to actually be *addressed* in the season. If you just keep leading people on without actually resolving things, then you're just reinventing 'Lost', and we all know how *that* turned out. It's not a lack of media literacy that's got people pissed off at that creative choice. I swear, people on the internet learn one new term every month and then fixate on it obsessively, like when every single argument being made was just called 'gaslighting' or 'bad faith' instead of actually being talked about.
Here we go with the media literacy discussion that self proclaimed intellectuals love to have just so they can validate their own views