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"Fortnite Dances" is Cultural Erasure. Straight Up.
- Thread starter DigitalOp
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Imagine if Dance Central or Rock Band or GTA just took all of their content and never acknowledged the artists.
At the very least, these dances should have the original name since the game exists simultaneously with their popularity.
At the very least, these dances should have the original name since the game exists simultaneously with their popularity.
I wanna tackle the first line, but one of the arguments to justify Twintelle not being a rep is because she doesnt use her arms to attack, because how can you represent ARMS with someone who doesnt use them. As if that is somehow a good argument. But this iuisnt the thread for that
Please read the last few pages in that thread and post in that one:
Sorry to tell you that Japanese people see the fire emblem characters as Japanese.
OP
OP
Seriously thank you for this
You're right, it wasn't worth it. I read your post already.
Please point to me where Cultural Erasure has been touted and ran into the ground?
It's easy to dimiss things when they don't affect you directly
I need a good read on who "owns" culture, if anyone knows any good books on the subject. Like, would these dances exist both as part of a racial (black) culture and a national (U.S.) culture, giving performative "ownership" to a pretty wide swath?
Dance Central and Rock Band's who gimmick is playing the whole song. If they didn't credit people (and pay them) they would be sued into oblivion. Way different than the quick meme dances in Fortnite. It would be different if Fortnite decided to implement the characters singing the full song with music while dancing. What Fortnite is doing right now is sampling and parodying, which US copyright law is very lenient with.
Of course it isn't worth it. Your original post was nonsense. Like, a 10 second google search has a blog post about cultural erasure from 2013 as the first result. The concept itself has been discussed for years and years, although it hasn't always used that explicit title. Especially because OP is very particularly NOT complaining about the "spread of ideas". I hope other people saw it before you edited it. Lol.
Culture is meant to be shared and the US is the only place I've ever been where people do not embrace this and see it as a negative thing.
EDIT: Including a later post here because people keep bringing up me not mentioning events that made people in the US this way.
EDIT: Including a later post here because people keep bringing up me not mentioning events that made people in the US this way.
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However, naming/crediting their dance source will open Epic up to potential litigation.
Take 'The Shoot' as an example. Right now, you could argue that it was taken from the public zeitgeist - they made a dance based on a move that the entire public is doing. As soon as they give credit to the originator, he could turn around and sue. While they could've sued before, it was pretty nebulous - now they have a direct legal link between the artist and the company.
Even if Epic wins the lawsuit, they could still be paying court fees, bad PR, as well as a waste of their resources.
While ethically I totally agree that a blog post giving credit would be nice, I understand why the lawyers would try to prevent it, and it sucks.
Man, I'm glad you saw that. Shit was kinda nasty and hostile as well. Brody came with the quick edit tho. hahahahahahaha.
Let me say that if I created something that became super popular but never got the credit.... I would be super pissed.
one of the main points to being an artist, is to create something new and exciting and have it viewed or enjoyed by the masses, but how sad is it to have your creation's origin lost to mainstream. Even sadder when you factor in black culture being whitewashed over.
one of the main points to being an artist, is to create something new and exciting and have it viewed or enjoyed by the masses, but how sad is it to have your creation's origin lost to mainstream. Even sadder when you factor in black culture being whitewashed over.
At this point wouldnt it just be better for epic to hire a dance choreography to develop the dances in their game? Then they dont have to worry about backlash from taking from other cultures?
That doesn't bring in the dollars. It is a lot easier just to throw in something recognizable The Carlton or the Napoleon Dynamite dance.
No one would use/buy them because they aren't popular dances, so no it wouldn't. Most cultures would like to see their dances in a game to spread their cultural awareness. Black culture in the US (because of how slavery and all of the other atrocities went) doesn't see this as embracing and spreading their culture though, they see it as whitey making money off of their creation.
This is such a ridiculous request. Dance moves and steps of innumerable styles have been part of media and culture for decades, if not centuries. And it takes Fortnite to spark the "oh, btw, gimme money lol" reaction?
Hilarious.
It's just as bad credit-begging as CliffyB saying "I worked on Fortnite you know?"
Hilarious.
It's just as bad credit-begging as CliffyB saying "I worked on Fortnite you know?"
Black Americans have had their culture repackaged and sold to white Americans without credit for forever. They have every right to raise concerns without being handwaved with some "dances are culture-less" and "lol they are just children" bullshit. The guy from the video in the OP doesn't even want money, just credit.
Coming into a thread to tell someone that their feelings on something that affects them aren't real because of the use of a term that existed for years is certainly not a worthwhile thing to do. Imagine all the productive things you could have done instead of typing that weak shit out.
Coming into a thread to tell someone that their feelings on something that affects them aren't real because of the use of a term that existed for years is certainly not a worthwhile thing to do. Imagine all the productive things you could have done instead of typing that weak shit out.
There not being blacks in Smash has nothing to do with 'the industry is mostly white' when most of the big name publishers are from Japan, which is definition 'non-white'.
And they're only called 'white' here. In Japan, not stated otherwise, the Japanese view all characters as 'Japanese'. There was actually a paper on this.
How many Irish are on the forum?
OP
OP
He was on some "Big Brain" shit
I think thats the main problem with the US. You see my skin and REFUSE to empathize. The other part is that the average American has no idea what this country has done to Black People
The sharing of culture is absolutely embraced in the US. Pretty much all of US culture came from somewhere else.
What you're missing here is the unique relationship the US shares with Black Americans. Its an abusive one.
Big Facts
This is a fantastic solution
I definitely mentioned that in my other post:
A soundtrack made with popular songs and an emote made with a popular dance serve the same purpose - to either immerse the player, or give them more enjoyment of the interactive product. My point was that no one thinks twice about paying artists for transporting their creative work into a bonus feature of interactive entertainment, but with dance (which is also creative work) suddenly it's "I'm just going to trace this youtube video and animate it, boom, $5 dance emote pack".
Financial penalty should not be the only thing keeping you from giving credit where it's due for your billion dollar software.
Jet Li recently revealed that he was uncomfortable joining the original Matrix film, because he didn't want Warner Bros to own his motion captured martial arts moves forever, to resurrect like a zombie's corpse whenever they saw fit. Gaming companies have to have the official license of FIFA, NBA, NFL, etc, to motion capture players that are in the official players association, which is why Lebron's jumper actually looks like Lebron and not some generic hand animated jump shooting motion. The choreographers in Dance Central get credited for their routines on top of the artists getting their due.
In this case, the artists aren't even asking for money or other compensation. Just "don't change the name of my shit".
There's absolutely nothing preventing black people from making their own video game with these dances.
Black people have founded music studios, movie studios, TV channels (the founder of BET is black and one of the richest people in the country at one point). Lebron James founded his own sports agency company with black agents.
So they can create a video game studio too if they want. Go out and make it happen.
man op, i'm sorry. there's so much bad faith footsies in this thread. you're right, this thread is about anti-blackness and doesn't need to be about anything else, but any cultural misappropriation and exploitation is worth discussing. sad to see that being used as some kind of 'GOT'CHA!'.
for example, just to use something closer to home, there's been a lot of criticism of madonna appropriating ballroom culture and voguing to bring it to the mainstream and make billions — while the vogue artists who taught her how to do it suffered on the streets. no one 'owns' voguing, there's no copyright on it, but the effects were still tangible to the community.
(and, imo, no surprise, a lot of those artists were QPOC, too)
this book, 'soul thieves', is one i've recently read, about the very subject of this op re: black culture and art and popular culture's parasitic relationship with it. it's really good stuff, really well-researched, super thoughtful.
tbh, i think, as white people, we owe it to black people to go out of our way to listen and understand their perspectives — because it doesn't occur it to us. of course it doesn't. but if we don't try, we never will, because the mainstream tells us that our way of seeing the world is the default, the 'norm', and anything else is 'abnormal'. just how i feel, imo.
for example, just to use something closer to home, there's been a lot of criticism of madonna appropriating ballroom culture and voguing to bring it to the mainstream and make billions — while the vogue artists who taught her how to do it suffered on the streets. no one 'owns' voguing, there's no copyright on it, but the effects were still tangible to the community.
(and, imo, no surprise, a lot of those artists were QPOC, too)
this book, 'soul thieves', is one i've recently read, about the very subject of this op re: black culture and art and popular culture's parasitic relationship with it. it's really good stuff, really well-researched, super thoughtful.
tbh, i think, as white people, we owe it to black people to go out of our way to listen and understand their perspectives — because it doesn't occur it to us. of course it doesn't. but if we don't try, we never will, because the mainstream tells us that our way of seeing the world is the default, the 'norm', and anything else is 'abnormal'. just how i feel, imo.
The fact that so many of you are not seeing the argument about THE LACK OF CREDIT is frustrating. Collective dismissal of Black America's cultural plight of being used & dismissed is so commonplace now. SMH. I thought Era was supposed to be better than this. Guess it's just another forum for anonymous voices to spread lack of understanding.
Rightfully so but thats yet another extent of how "white" everything is in games. If yall understand that.
It does. It fucking does man..
Any reasoning you give me will be discrediting the popularity of black nintendo characters in order to justify the roster choices. Like seriously, I understand that but I cannot agree with it. There are 70 plus characters and not a single one is. You probably dont understand my point of view on this and I really dont expect you too but let me just say its disappointing regardless how much I love it. Thank god for black inklings and villagers but alternate colors do not stand in place for single characters.
I dont really buy this, how many 15 year olds have appreciation for dances from scrubs or the fresh prince of bell-air? I`m fairly confident you go to a group a dance choreographs and say hey make me a dance in the flavor of Brittany spears "hit me one more time" or Boys to men "pass you by" and it would be close enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Xd2xLAjDM this video isn't, like, scientific research or anything, but i found it interesting nonetheless.
("white people are slender" lmao)
Just think about it a lil more deeply. White America shits on Black people at every turn and unnecessarily make our lives more difficult. They have been plundering our minds, work product, and bodies from 1619 to 1965 for FREE. It's a little off putting for people to continually use and borrow from us without basic acknowledgment, while still shitting on us in nearly every meaningful avenue in life. Black people's only worth are sports, entertainment, and to get cool things from for most of White America. If you demand more than that as a human being, you are met with animus.
I'm sure giving credit is a first step to getting sued by everyone named there.
It's not about culture erasure it's about money. EPIC won't open the door to that scenario
You are conflating two things here though. People claiming anime characters are all white are wrong. People saying that Smash lacking black characters isn't due to the 'whiteness' of the industry are also right, because the problem there isn't whiteness, it is Japanese-ness. Japanese people are just as capable of racism against black people as white people are, hell you are more likely to see blackface in a mainstream Japanese television program than you are an American one.
Like I totally understand that you are upset that Smash lacks black characters, but that isn't a product of western white culture, it's a product of Japanese culture, which is non-white. It's equally bad, but the source is different.
There isn't a single western third party character in Smash, they are all from Japanese companies.
We live in a capitalist society. The vast majority of companies are profit driven. Until enough people rise up and the backlash starts to hurt profits, companies are unlikely to change.
The comparison to Lebron's jumper shot is great and does show how companies can profit off of things while remaining "authentic". However, someone playing a simulation of the NBA probably cares more about exact details of a basketball shot than someone who is buying meme dances on Fortnite which doesn't really have much to do with the core focus of Fortnite.
I made mention of this in a later post. I need to edit that one to reflect it because it seems everyone stops there.
They have a whole website dedicated to black culture in and outside of sports. They can't just take the positive accolades and then say "eh we just cover sports" when they slip up.
There is no backlash, it's not something you're going to get a lot of people to agree with at all.
How would you go about crediting people for dances when many entertainers get them from lesser known, or even unknown people in the community? Even if you did, no one is going to stop referring to the as the Fortnite dances. It just seems like a huge legal clusterfuck to me.
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