I really do not know what has gone on with the moderators there. I remember there was a shift in tone years ago, and then that shift really went into overdrive.
I remember when RPG.net made sane objections to RPG contents. For example, when I read 3.5E "Races of the Wild" I didn't like how halflings were presented as a stereotype of Roma people. It was disgusting and even reductive. Shortly later I stumbled into a review of the book on RPG.net, and it was the only one that made the same point.
Then things exploded - everywhere. There are actual studies on why this happened, with the majority of them pointing out a perfect storm of events happening in a short time: the #metoo movement, gamersgate... the big one possibly was the election of a certain US President. Even if wokeism was already on the rise, that was like throwing a molotov cocktail in a room already saturated by gas, Boom.
And, for some reason, the "guardians" of popular culture (critics, actors, content creators and the like) decided that it was their job to become... dunno, PALADINS of what was moral and just - sane reasoning be damned.
I saw this degradation happening in real time on "The Guardian". Sure, they are (well, were) a bastion of liberal thought. However, they had no problems in hammering something with leftist contents if they felt that the quality of the work was shoddy. Today, I guess that they wrote their five stars review of MOTU even before the show was out.
And this created a widening disconnection between these PALADINS and the sane, normal people. I.e. "The Guardians of Culture" are guarding, via their screamed sentences, an increasingly empty keep.
"Variety"!! Your job is to publish a fair assessment of events inherent to the entertainment sector, not to write sad articles like this one:
https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/he-man-masters-of-the-universe-revelation-kevin-smith-netflix-1235026831/"Kevin Smith Made Netflix’s ‘Masters of the Universe: Revelation’ Specifically to Please ‘He-Man’ Fans. Some Got Mad Anyway." ...Because
you are lying. He-Man
is not in the show. This is why He-Man fans got mad. Also, you support a liar who claimed for months that the rumors of a "female-centric" show were false - only to put out a female-centric show.
No "Variety": your job is to call out Kevin Smith and question him frankly for his jokes - not to arbitrarily support something because it is woke.
Even worse, this already happened. "Star Wars" is a shining example. When "The Last Jedi" destroyed the franchise and had the fans up in arms, the answer was not an analysis of what went wrong, but this:
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a25560063/how-fans-ruined-star-wars-the-last-jedi-2018/"The Year Star Wars Fans Finally Ruined Star Wars
In 2018, a loud movement of racist, misogynist trolls derailed the beloved family sci-fi franchise."Maybe you will notice a pattern.
But we also have the result. No more toy sales, empty "Star Wars" attractions in Disney parks, a widely panned third movie that made half of the first, and finally this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/gross-altman-star-wars-mandalorian/619016/"How Disney Mismanaged the Star Wars Universe
And how The Mandalorian can restore the true power of George Lucas’s galaxy"Boy, was it so hard to understand? I guess that there is nothing like haemorrhaging money to get someone's attention...
Be assured that it is the "Star Wars" pattern what we already saw (like, for example, with "Ghostbusters", but also the 2021 edition of the Oscars) and that we will see. It will always go this way.
What is worrying is that once upon a time the entertainment industry had a "herd mentality". "Star Wars" is a hit? Let's do our Star Wars! "Mars Needs Moms" was a flop? Let's drop "Mars" from "John Carter of Mars" (believe it or not, this is what happened). "Magic: the Gathering" exploded as the new way of playing? Let's rush out our card game!
Today? "Star Wars" loses a s*it-ton of money and no one learns the lesson. No one even
copies the right way to handle things even if he doesn't understand why, just out of prudence. No. "He-Man" gets woke and "Variety" repeats the same mistakes that doomed Star Wars.
I'll follow from my window the sales of He-Man toys. It will be an interesting view.