In typical social justice warrior fashion, IGN editor, Mitch Dyer, took to his soapbox and decry Activision’s recent Call of Duty viral social media ad campaign. Not sure if Mitch is a social justice warrior himself but his piece on IGN oozes social justice warrior fanaticism. For those that don’t know, Activision’s Call of Duty Twitter feed changed for a short time to a new account named “Current Events Aggregate.” Current Events Aggregate is the news source in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. The Twitter account tweeted about an explosion at a port in Singapore. Some people mistook it for an actual news story. At least that’s what we’re lead to believe by his piece.
In Mitch Dyer’s piece he called the marketing campaign “dirty” because it “deliberately confusing, and to mislead someone into thinking people have been harmed.” Give me a break. How anybody could mistake a news source that nobody has ever heard of, was the same address as the Call of Duty Twitter account, and no other news source was running the story, as the real thing, is absurd. This outrage that Dyer showed in his piece is nothing but pandering to the every growing population of the over-sensitive social justice warrior community.
There’s a screenshot in the piece of one tweet and some responses. People were confused but nobody in that screenshot believed it to be legitimate. Dyer even says, “While it's simple enough to figure out this whole thing is fake by clicking through and seeing the username…” Ok, so, it’s easy to figure out it was fake, the account was the same as Call of Duty’s official Twitter account, just a different name and look, and no other news outlet was carrying the story. How again are we supposed to be so outraged at Activision and Call of Duty deceiving the public and playing on fears again? Again, give me a break.
Of course, when social justice warriors surround with wagons, companies need to issue an apology. Treyarch's Jason Blundell had to respond to an IGN inquiry as to what was going on since the wagons were circling, “I personally am very sorry for anyone who looked at it and got the wrong idea because it genuinely wasn’t meant that way.” That was so unnecessary. At no point should anybody have been forced to apologize for that, let alone Jason Blundell. I’m sure the people at IGN will claim nobody was forced, but, when you write an over-dramatic, social justice warrior appeasing piece, and then ask for a comment... IGN knew exactly what they were doing.
In what’s becoming all too normal in today’s video game opinion pieces, fabricating shock and creating drama when there is none in order to garner clicks is... well... the norm. Unfortunately, the Dyer piece got a click from me. I’m glad I read it though. It gave me another reason on the list of why I shy away from reading an opinion piece from most writers on other sites. Many pieces are filled with rubbish in order to create a story out of nothing to make sure there’s content to add every half hour no matter the legitimacy. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to write that way.
In Mitch Dyer’s piece he called the marketing campaign “dirty” because it “deliberately confusing, and to mislead someone into thinking people have been harmed.” Give me a break. How anybody could mistake a news source that nobody has ever heard of, was the same address as the Call of Duty Twitter account, and no other news source was running the story, as the real thing, is absurd. This outrage that Dyer showed in his piece is nothing but pandering to the every growing population of the over-sensitive social justice warrior community.
There’s a screenshot in the piece of one tweet and some responses. People were confused but nobody in that screenshot believed it to be legitimate. Dyer even says, “While it's simple enough to figure out this whole thing is fake by clicking through and seeing the username…” Ok, so, it’s easy to figure out it was fake, the account was the same as Call of Duty’s official Twitter account, just a different name and look, and no other news outlet was carrying the story. How again are we supposed to be so outraged at Activision and Call of Duty deceiving the public and playing on fears again? Again, give me a break.
Of course, when social justice warriors surround with wagons, companies need to issue an apology. Treyarch's Jason Blundell had to respond to an IGN inquiry as to what was going on since the wagons were circling, “I personally am very sorry for anyone who looked at it and got the wrong idea because it genuinely wasn’t meant that way.” That was so unnecessary. At no point should anybody have been forced to apologize for that, let alone Jason Blundell. I’m sure the people at IGN will claim nobody was forced, but, when you write an over-dramatic, social justice warrior appeasing piece, and then ask for a comment... IGN knew exactly what they were doing.
In what’s becoming all too normal in today’s video game opinion pieces, fabricating shock and creating drama when there is none in order to garner clicks is... well... the norm. Unfortunately, the Dyer piece got a click from me. I’m glad I read it though. It gave me another reason on the list of why I shy away from reading an opinion piece from most writers on other sites. Many pieces are filled with rubbish in order to create a story out of nothing to make sure there’s content to add every half hour no matter the legitimacy. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to write that way.
