It definitely is. So why draw the line at buying the game vs. playing it? Buying it supports the company financially, yes, but playing it allows Justin Roiland to communicate directly with you through his art. Which is worse?
Justin Roiland has a Trover Saves the Universe commercial made starring... JonTron
- Thread starter Kyle Cross
- Start date
Sounds like a very convenient moral stand for you. Why should the people who worked on this and had nothing to do with the ad be compensated for their work?
I don't understand how JonTron responding with a sarcastic tweet is supposed to be evidence that Justin knows about his actual white supremecist views.
Like, even if Justin's tweet is about JonTron getting fired and/or getting bad press, it doesn't mean that he's aware of the specific statements he made that got him fired. If he has a friendly working relationship with JonTron, he could simply be taking his word that he was unfairly maligned.
Is there more evidence that Justin is sympathetic to JonTron's white supremecist views, specifically? I'm not going to buy the game if there is evidence of this.
I had to look it up but man looks like I got another person to unsubscribe from.
I'd say it's a pretty clear distinction. Direct financial support vs experiencing a game that may (I don't know) feature questionable themes/messages, which as intelligent people we're capable of parsing effectively as the nonsense they are?
The game might be great. This doesn't really feel like it has anything to do with the actual content thereof. I do see where you're coming from, however, and it is an interesting question.
Someone else mentioned tweets, but that's all I saw. Are there others?
After Justin collabed with PewDiePie who had a very widely reported Nazi joke scandal, to the point that it's the main thing most people know about PDP now, him collaborating with someone who has explicit white nationalist views is a second strike. That's two strikes. Even if he did somehow magically have this selective ignorance (despite his show being based on an acute awareness of internet culture) he surely knows by now with the reaction to this. So has he responded yet?
I think it's interesting too and I appreciate you not just jumping to "why u defend white supremacy??" or whatever.
I don't know. The mention by someone else/others was why I went looking, but that was all I could find so, like I said, I edited my post because frankly feel like enough to use as any sort of evidence against. Jafari has posted lots of very stupid tweets but they weren't provably in conversation with Roiland, from what I can find. Hence my edit.
Based on your other posts, it sounds like you're trying to point out a moral hypocrisy where there is none but I'll bite.
The ad, which is hosted on squanch games youtube page, was obviously approved by them. As Justin is a co-creator and contributor to the game I am taking the moral stance that while I may enjoy your creative work unrelated to your political stances, I will not help fund you to continue it. I.E. - Thank you for the media, you can be on your way now.
But it's pretty obvious to me you don't care about the nuance of the situation and you just want a 'gotcha' on people who morally oppose Jontron but still want the game so after this I'm pretty sure I'll be ignoring you. Thanks.
If any squanch games employees ever see this - I'm sorry that this stance comes at the price of your product.
Heh
I don't think I was ever the target audience for this game but I'll add it to the ignore list.
This thread's been really eye opening about Justin Roiland, though.
Knowing what you listen to, why do you still trust people named justin?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it's not like the JonTron Show went away after the whole "gene pools - founding stock - rich blacks commit more crimes" showing of ass, and enough time has passed for someone to give him a platform and have plausible deniability on their side when they're criticized.
Guess I'll be skipping the new seasons of Rick and Morty.
Guess I'll be skipping the new seasons of Rick and Morty.
My point is that I'm interested in evidence that Justin is aware of specifically JonTron's white supremecist views. I'm not familiar with him at all, but my understanding is that these views are not a part of his work and public persona, and the only reason we know about them is because of our community here. I didn't read about JonTron's ideology from Time magazine and I also find it unlikely Justin reads Time. I also think that JonTron is not apt to share his views on this after the response he got the first time and probably wants these things buried, especially from his much more successful friends.
Totally valid, though from what I've heard, the vast majority of the R&M writing and art staff are super liberal, anti-trump, anti-racism, pro-gay rights, pro-trans rights, etc. Since season 1, they've also made a conscious decision to diversity their staff. Roiland was never the draw for me anyway, so I'll continue watching.
Kinda feel like Roiland is more like Boogie, the "it's both side!!" kinda guy.
Yeah, the values of R&M as a show do not reflect any hard-right talking points. Rick was kinda held up as a hero by them because they are fucking stupid. This is a character who has directly stated, paraphrasing, "I am a piece of shit, I am evil, do not be like me".
Jon essentially made the right PR moves after that interview where he went full racist. He shut up and went away for several months and then never brought up those views in public again after he reemerged. The general public unfortunately have a short memory.
I wonder if Roiland will contaminate Rick and Morty with shitty views. I doubt it considering the extremely nihilistic nature of the whole show.
But i think i'd drop the show instantly at the mention of "SJW" non ironically.
But i think i'd drop the show instantly at the mention of "SJW" non ironically.
Even if we ignore how it's impossible to verify that those commenters are genuine employees, let alone the internet fallacy of only those who feel strongly against something feel the need to comment on it, the fact is that even if Cartoon Brew's reporting on the union dispute is shoddy, factually Roiland included a scene in the show analogous to a union dispute around the time one would be happening to him in real life, factually his animators unionized, and factually he went on Reddit and had his "FUCK THE UNION" meltdown. The only thing that isn't entirely verifiable if we discount Cartoon Brew's reporting is the conditions of the workplace before they unionized.
None of this does anything to absolve Roiland of being a union buster.
Ignorance is especially not an excuse when, as a caster in a video production, it is literally your job to get on Google and look up "[person name] controversy" to see if you're about to start a PR nightmare.
I have never seen Rick and Morty so I'm very unfamiliar with Roiland, but I remember watching a gaming panel thing with Sony maybe last year where he was on talking about Trover and he seemed like a bit of a twat to me.
I can't say I'm surprised.
I can't say I'm surprised.
I'm not defending Roiland. Just wanna be clear on that.
But to draw parallels between the content of the show and the realities of labour relations at the studio.... I'm not buying it. This isn't South Park; the lag-time between script writing and the show actually airing is very long.
p.s. How do you know it was Roiland who wrote that scene? Not doubting you just curious how you know.
Totally going devil's advocate here based on pretty much every thread where some dev says/does something shitty. But why would you punish those innocent workers who have nothing to do with it?
I don't want to sound like I am stepping up to defend JonTron, because I will say it right now - I'm not fully versed in the remarks he made that going him labeled as a white supremacist outside of one or two key phrases, but I do want to chime in regarding this comment specifically.
At what point do we hang people out to dry forever over something they said or did? You say he "made the right PR moves" but don't offer up the possibility that maybe, just maybe he educated himself after the fallout and came back with a changed viewpoint. We cut these people down all the time and then try to banish them from existence in our media, under the pretense that they are toxic at their very core and nothing will ever change that. This doesn't just apply to the Racism argument - we've seen plenty of witch hunting after things posted by CD Project Red's social media team this past year too.
People are inherently ignorant, and most of the time won't go out of their way to fully educate themselves on a topic until they fuck up in some way and get shown the way. Once that happens though, why do we all just simply say things like "oh now they're backpedaling" or "whatever dude, you can release all the statements you want, but you're still a racist piece of shit." We never seem to even offer up the chance for redemption - we just want to watch them burn at that point.
It just seems kind fucked up, is all.
So liberal, anti-trump, anti-racism, etc that they decided to work for someone who associates with 2 known racists publicly.
From what I'm hearing they're not as anti nazi as you heard or else I can't imagine they would work with a series so closely attached to Justin.
I'll be skipping out everything Roiland delated from now on.
Don't kid yourself into thinking more people care than actually do. If they did, bigots wouldn't keep rising to positions of prominence and power.
People only care so long as they have nothing to lose in doing so.
A sincere apology would be the very minimum. Just look at James Gunn who has apologized for being an edgelord and has acted consistently since. JonTron has not apologized for advocating for ethnic cleansing.
Allowing bigotry and persecution because others might be inconvenienced by protesting it is a pretty poor way of looking at things.
You ain't lying.
This whole thing is depressing.
Won't step up against bigotry because it might get in the way of my late night yuks. :🤷:
I always hope Jon Jafari is a decent guy that has shitty opinions due to his apparent affluence, but I'm still waiting for confirmation of that.
Do you like all of the people you work for? All the way up the chain?
If I were a writer and I had the chance to work on a new show from the guy who made Community, there would be zero question. It's insane to judge people for doing so.
Also maybe they don't live their lives in YouTube culture? I certainly didn't know who JonTron was until this thread was made.
Yeah it's becoming clearer and clearer how much of R&M is really Harmon
Personally I'm always willing to forgive if there is an actual apology (I'm sorry you were offended or other non-apologies don't count) and if it seems they have made some personal growth regarding whatever issue started said controversy. I think that there must always be a potential path to forgiveness and redemption. To do otherwise is self defeating for moral ideals.
There is something to be said about allowing people to redeem themselves and accept that they've changed.
But that would, y'know, require him putting in any actual effort to redeem himself for his white supremacist beliefs, and to directly address/counter the audience he will have cultivated due to that. Don't think that's happened at all, has it?
I always find this to be a dumb gotcha.
"Let's go to a different restaurant. The manager was rude to me last time I went."
"Why are you punishing the innocent waiting staff???"
Of course, I know that. But people change and I'm hopeful that someday he recognizes he fucked up.
Yet this board is full of people who look away because it is a game/movie/TV show they like.
But also, if we all step up by boycotting, no one can really have or participate in anything because somewhere along the line someone is making money to promote their bigoted/shitty work place environment ways. None of us would pass the smell test on this.
Sort of a fly in the ointment situation. It's not so much a boycott as much as I just don't want to watch it anymore.
I find it dumb as well, but anytime something dumb is done and attention is brought, people talk about boycotts and this ultimately comes up. I mean the RDR2 thread was full of IDC about the crunch, we need to buy it so they can get their bonuses.
So do nothing, stay silent, and let chaos reign, because on some level, everyone's terrible because Avenue Q did well?
Please. Forgive me for not subscribing to that sort of nihilist drivel.
The answer is a resounding no. Nothing is worth supporting white nationalists.
I'm sure you knew who pewdiepie was and knew Roiland decided to collab with him.
Yea it's true, I just happen to be working with someone who associates with Nazis but I'm super anti-nazi I swear /s
Idk maybe I just have too much integrity but if working on " new show from the guy who made Community " is enough to jeopardize your ethical stance on equality maybe you should reconsider your morals.
Wait really? No please no.
EDIT: Sorry I was only familiar with the other Rick and Morty creator. Didn't know this guy was the co-creator.
You should really question why, of all the things to hope for, you hold your breath for the redemption of an unapologetic white suprematist. These people and their ideology ruin lives FFS.