Why Woke People Are Making Everything Ugly
Entertainment
Introduction
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There are thousands of skins available to choose from, but finally, one that looks like mine. Oh, I look so badass.
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This is completely lazy. Are we ever going to get a new woke meta, or are they just going to keep using the same old hashtag? "First ever" insert perceived oppressed group in insert type of media. This is the first time a woman who looks like me has ever been put in a video game. Yeah, and Jennifer Lawrence was the first female lead in an action movie ever. I swear these people used to be more creative, but these days everything is so formulaic, and the fact that the people who made this ad clearly don't play video games because there are plenty of them out there with extreme levels of character customization. And it's been that way for a while. I remember that in Fantasy Star Online from over 20 years ago, you could customize your character to be a short person of size. I don't look like that. Not everyone looks like that. A character that looks like me in a video game would be like, "Yo, this baby is fire." Yes, you can do that if you want to create an albino character with red hair in a game. That's possible. Please Dove, tell me more about how things that already exist in video games don't exist. Or maybe I can watch another video from Vice about people who don't know how to use the mute button on a multiplayer game. Oh look, the ad comes with an article: "Bringing real Beauty to the virtual world." Does the term Beauty even mean anything anymore, or is everybody just the same, regardless of effort? You're all 10 out of 10s in mommy's eyes. Thanks for the participation trophy, Dove.
Anyway, about a month ago, Dove came out with her latest body positivity campaign by partnering with Epic Games and using the Unreal Engine to create 3D models of realistic women. Wait, this was done with Unreal Engine? Really? Why do all these models look like crappy World of Warcraft avatars from 2006? Dove has hundreds of millions of dollars, and this is the best they can come up with for their banner? I mean, there are YouTubers working by themselves on no budget making full AAA quality playable renders with Unreal Engine, while these renders from Dove barely break the PS2 era.
I understand that they showed like three seconds of content that looked decent, but then they showed this woman saying that she looks badass to this lower quality Avatar, which kind of sets the tone for all these major companies constantly setting the bar lower and lower as time goes on because they're too lazy to create quality products that are new and original. All while acting like a sleazy salesman who's trying to convince you that this unfinished piece of crap here is just as good as this incredible high definition remaster of Ocarina of Time. Real Beauty takes effort, and everything about this project from Dove says we put no effort into this.
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"You were not there. You don't exist. These things are not made for you." Okay, I don't believe that statistic at all. Where did you get that number? Did you simply ask three of your British friends? Because there is no way that most British women are eternally offended snowflakes who care about that kind of stuff. But more importantly, you might have noticed that there are subtitles in this video. Those aren't for deaf people. The reason they included subtitles is that the audio is so bad that you can't hear what they're saying. Where's the acoustic treatment? Did they record this in a square concrete building?
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"You were not there. You don't exist. Things are not made for you." It's also hard to hear the people who are speaking because the mixing is bad and the music is often too loud. And the gain is turned up so high on their microphones that the audio is almost clipping. Was everyone on this project a diversity hire? This audio is about as pleasant to listen to as a bunch of feminists screaming into the microphone for their college play.
Since 2004, the Dove Self-Esteem Project has become the largest self-esteem education provider in the world. Well, I think I found your problem here. You see, attractive people have horrible self-esteem. That's why they spend insane amounts of time on the skill-building and self-care that it requires to be attractive. I'll give you an example. This picture of Zendaya has been trending recently. This is no self-care Zendaya. This is self-care Zendaya. Do you see the difference in appearance? One took effort; the other took no effort.
Because of stuff like this, I really think this whole woke campaign, as well as the woke stuff in general, is an assault on effort. Their main message is "you're fine the way you are,” which is a decent message if you have a really unreasonable insecurity. But if you tell people in general that they're already perfect, then the ones who are foolish enough to believe that will never strive to improve. And coincidentally, I think those are often the people who would benefit the most from a little bit of low self-esteem.
It's not only about self-esteem, but it's about what you can or cannot do with your life. Okay, but how does a PS2 quality avatar for a failed ad campaign enable you to do things in your life that you previously could not do? Not to mention that video games are primarily about escapism. And if I'm playing a character, I want to play someone who is more attractive than me so I can self-insert and escape from my less glamorous life. Why would I want to fantasize about being ugly? The whole point of playing a video game is to be able to do things that you can't do in real life, like fly or shoot laser beams out of your eyes or be a dolphin. Games are designed to be unrealistic, and that's what makes them fun. I just want to be able to play my Japanese bug-collecting self-improvement game where I can completely ignore all the themes of animal abuse and slavery because it's not real life.
That being said, there's a second part to this Dove campaign where they decided to feature one of the models in her own commercial. Now, looking at this cast, if we're trying to promote body positivity, we have several people here who look a certain way because of how they were born or they're in a situation that's no fault of their own. We have Sam, who is in a wheelchair, Lily, a woman with Down syndrome, and Coco, a woman with a skin disease that caused her to lose her pigmentation. Surely these women are all great choices to promote self-acceptance in the face of a situation that you can't change. Nope! Dove picked the obese woman.
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Are we still going to gaslight people into thinking that body positivity has anything to do with being compassionate and understanding towards people who are victims of unfortunate circumstances? I hope not because obviously it's all just a fat acceptance narrative and a way to enable food addicts who are too in denial to fix their health issues and their appearance. And it's not the first time this has been done either. Here's an article from 2015 talking about body positivity edits in video games where all they do is make every character fat and disparage girls who naturally have curves.
As for why this movement is so important to Dove, well, there's a reason for that. But first, I have to make a correction. In a previous video, I said that the owners of Dove, Unilever, had a vested interest in fat acceptance because they own Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I have to apologize for that statement because it was extremely inaccurate. Unilever actually owns five different ice cream brands. They own a popular mayonnaise brand. They own popsicle, and they sometimes partner with Nabisco to make good humor versions of Oreos. These make up most of their food brands, and the remaining ones are still pretty much processed junk food. So is it a surprise that they would use their sub-company to promote an ideology that causes people to buy more junk food like ice cream? No.
It can't be about that. It's about oversexualizing women.
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Sorry, for some reason, they had her speak Spanish even though she can speak English. But she said two female characters from a game that they never identified were oversexualized. Whatever that means because they'll call Laura Croft hypersexualized for just standing there and doing nothing sexual. But I get it, video games sexualize women way too much. Let's see how Dove intends to remedy this problem.
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Well, that's one way to start. We have a woman here who was fully covered up, who then changed into something that was more revealing. She basically is in the same outfit that Laura Croft was in. Let's see what's next.
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So now we have a bent-over ass shot that is center of the frame and adds nothing to the story. They went full-on anime camera angles. And somehow they're going to claim that it's not an attempt that's sexualizing the character.
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Where exactly did you get that stat? This time, it says 74%. So, on this occasion, they would have had to survey at least 50 people. But what did they do? Survey the office? How exactly do they ask the questions in the survey? Because there's no way that much of the general population agrees with this woke narrative. Considering that in places like America, half the population is conservatives who don't care about this, and tons of liberals are anti-feminist too. So there's no way they got a vast majority on this one, as proof of that, they had to censor the comments on the video. But considering that all the anti-capitalist YouTubers are now calling stuff like this performative wokeness, I doubt they even have them on their side.
Performative wokeness, similar to greenwashing and pinkwashing, is a type of performative capitalism. Companies these days often brand themselves as being woke, either by posting a Black Lives Matter post on Instagram or by showing a diverse range of models in their ad campaigns. Because they know being more progressive is monetizable these days. Here's what I mean when I say it's performative. Let's remove the fact that they focused on the one person who could actually change her appearance, probably because she's more relatable to the majority of the Dove audience and will sell more soap. Which kind of goes against their whole message of giving representation to people who don't normally get it. Obese women already have a ton of representation. But let's forget about all that and bring attention to the idea that this campaign was supposed to be about accepting real beauty. At the end of the ad, they showed this image here that says, "Learn more about Cynthia's real story at Dove.com." Real virtual beauty. Now, take a look at this picture. If this is supposed to be about real beauty, then why did you edit her appearance to be more conventionally attractive?
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The most obvious thing they did is that they removed her double chin. Also, if you zoom in, you can see they removed her smile lines as well. And they straightened her hair. Don't tell me that it's harder to render curly hair. This was done by a AAA company. And you can see the individual strands of her hair on her avatar. They can figure out curly hair.
The ridiculousness of this situation reminds me of that guy who fixed the Anita Sarkeesian feminist frequency logo. That was a classic. Now let's go back to the original image because this is even more egregious. They made Cynthia taller than she actually is. You can see here that she's shorter than the black girl, but her avatar is taller than her. That or they took all these pictures separately, and Dove did a bad editing job. They used better makeup on Cynthia to give her more contrast in her face. And yet again, straightened her hair. Don't tell me that they can't do curly hair here because there is a curly hair avatar standing right next to her.
On the subject of things being ironically racist, the black girl is the only one who looks worse than she does in real life. You have a decent-looking woman here, and they did her dirty. They made her shorter and fatter. Her real hairstyle looks way better than the avatar. They made her less fashionable by closing her jacket, which removes the layering on her torso. And don't say they can't add in layering because both the white girls have more layered clothing than their 3D avatars do in person. Coco is also the only one that didn't get makeup, and the render of her avatar is so poor that the face looks glued on like a character from GoldenEye for Nintendo 64.
"Oh, I look so better." How did they trick her into saying that?
Now, to be fair, there was a higher-quality render of her. But this image still makes her look bad. And my question is, if they had those renders, then why did they use these garbage ones from the main page of the campaign? It sends a confusing message because the campaign is about empowering less attractive people by altering their appearance to be more attractive. While also choosing to promote the less attractive renders of the avatars they made. It lacks what the film industry calls continuity, which is just another form of showing how low effort this entire campaign was. And that really fits the philosophical narrative of woke ideology. Their whole message is, "Don't put effort into anything. Don't fix yourself. Meritocracy doesn't exist. And don't make things beautiful." It's literally in every facet of their ideology. Look at the art they produce. This is not the only example. In fact, recently, I was in New York with Brittany Venti to go to someone's wedding. On that trip, we hung out with a friend of hers and went to a modern art museum called the Whitney. Here's a picture I took of the building.
While you're enjoying my vacation slideshow, I want you to imagine what kind of art you would see in a modern art museum. Then take that picture in your head and lower the quality by a factor of 10. Here's what Brittany and I saw at the art museum. I am 95% sure that I, with no art experience, can draw better than this. Keep in mind that we paid money to get in. It was $ 25 a person, and I bought all the tickets, so I paid $ 75 to see a museum full of art made by adults that looks like a fourth-grader did it. Though we were just there to laugh, so I think it was worth it. But imagine thinking that this image looks good. There's so much crap in the frame that I have no idea what to focus on. But apparently, a lot of anti-capitalist YouTube channels think that this style of art, which has all the grace of a messy room, looks good because several of them use this ugly style of elementary school collage art to create their thumbnails.
If you think that these three examples are the only ones that I have, then you'd be wrong. But let me guess, this is a commentary on capitalism, right? That's always the case with modern art. The ironic part of this trip is that right across the street from the Whitney, there is this beautiful piece of architectural art called Little Island on the Hudson River that you can just walk into for free. And it was built by a rich capitalist named Barry Diller. Why would I pay to see kindergarten art when I can see art that is actually good for free? If woke people are really focused on the betterment of mankind, then why do they keep making things ugly? Why did they use a game like Fable to take an actress with attractive facial features and make her ugly in the game?
However, personally, I think we are nearing the end of this nonsense. And here's why. If you pay attention, then you'll realize that people or companies will pretty much strive to get away with whatever you let them get away with. When you assert boundaries, that's when they stop. The craziest adults are the ones who didn't have boundaries asserted on them when they were younger. Setting boundaries is important. For example, look at how many major battles that woke companies have lost. Bud Light is essentially dead as a brand. And it turns out that companies like Starbucks aren't that attached to the message when they found out that sticking to their morals was going to cost them a ton of money. They will continue to throw this crap in your face until you say no. And if you really pay attention, then you'll notice that over the past couple of decades, a lot of the messaging and cultural events have been geared towards removing your ability to stand up for yourself.
Why do you think that feminists and woke people have been praising feminine soy boys who can't stand up for themselves? And constantly describe normal, healthy, non-abusive male behavior as toxic? The purpose of that is to raise weak men who are too afraid to assert boundaries so that when they grow up, they'll just let the elites walk all over them in many different ways. They're trying to reduce the number of people who will resist their messed-up policies and ideologies. So the way this gets fixed is by individuals working on themselves on the micro-level so that we can group together and fix things on the macro-level.
First off, realize that things like building wealth or getting rich are not about the ability to buy expensive cars and live in luxury. The reason you get rich is so that you have the ability to say no and remove yourself from or opt out of abusive situations. Poor people can't do that, which is why you should be doing everything you can to make money, not overspend, and prevent the elites from stealing it from you through inflation or insanely high taxes.
Second, we all need to get better at setting boundaries and asserting ourselves properly. Don't just let people walk all over you. Say no to or renegotiate situations that you feel are unfair, or do what you can to speak out when there's a problem. The more we increase the number of people who will stand up for themselves, the more things will get fixed.
Personally, I have no idea how to do things like get airports to stop treating people like prisoners. But what I do know is that if we have more people out there who aren't willing to get stepped on, then one of those brave people will figure out the answer. And then we can all band together and support that person. Just like what happened with Bud Light. Then we move on to support the next person who figures it out somewhere else. This problem gets resolved at the individual level. We need a strong populace of regular people who stand up for themselves in order to give birth to the kind of person who is brave enough to figure out answers to the big problems. So help that along by fixing your personal weaknesses. Stop backing down in the face of conflict. You're making your life worse and making society worse by doing that. Start thinking of ways that you can put up resistance. And just to be clear, I'm not saying scream at people or be violent. I'm just saying make your voice heard. You can do that without being aggressive. But I'm sure there have been times in your life where you could have said something, but you didn't. Next time, do whatever you can to not let that happen again. Even if your actions are small, it gets easier with practice.
Anyway, thanks for watching. Follow me on Twitter, and I'll see you in the next video.
Keywords: Woke, ugliness, body positivity, video games, representation, avatar, Unreal Engine, effort, self-esteem, performative wokeness, art, boundaries
FAQ:
Q1: What is the main argument of the article? The main argument of the article is that the woke ideology is making everything ugly, including video games, art, and campaigns promoting body positivity. The author criticizes the lack of effort, low-quality avatars, and performative nature of these initiatives, arguing that they do not empower individuals but rather promote a fat acceptance narrative and discourage personal improvement.
Q2: How does the author suggest addressing the issue of woke ideology? The author suggests addressing the issue of woke ideology by asserting boundaries, not letting companies get away with low effort and performative actions, and promoting personal self-improvement. They encourage individuals to stand up for themselves, reject abusive situations, and strive to make a positive impact on both the micro and macro levels.
Q3: What examples does the author provide to support their argument? The author provides several examples to support their argument. They critique Dove's body positivity campaign and its use of low-quality avatars, highlight the performative nature of woke initiatives in modern art museums, and discuss the lack of effort in portraying diversity in video games. They argue that these examples reflect a broader trend of prioritizing a flawed ideology over genuine excellence and beauty.