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Nerding Day: Woke Content Detector

God, life is wonderful. Armored Core 6 fulfills my mech fetish, Baldur’s Gate 3 replaces sunlight, and Eric Adams is crying right now. Though all that beauty makes staying current tough. I’ve been playing too many games to follow gaming. Let’s see what people not playing games are up to. Maybe they’ve cured the plague.

Awesome! What’s this called?

Looks like they’re inspired. Good for them.

No, really. I just watched Mayor Ponzi melt live, and get to repeat that footage forever. The Woke Content Detector washes right past me. I’m writing today’s insults from my place of joy. Woke Content Detector curators are swollen ticks on culture’s anus, and I love them. I wish them life’s best. I hope they all experience love once before death.

They’ll have to delete this first. The Woke Content Detector’s an infinite list of games, rated by woke. Woke’s come a long way from a Klan wink. It’s closer to ennui, a vague haze discoloring life. The weight in your chest in the morning? Woke. That silence where your mother’s voice once rang? Woke. Three texts, no response? DEI.

But I’m a spin surgeon. Here’s their pitch:

Pretty welcoming! The Woke Content Detector wants you. Life is finite, and you can spend it checking Sonic remakes for migrants. Not my first choice, but I blew this week crotch-thrusting at City Hall. So I get the time-to-hate ratio.

You can browse the Woke Content Detector a few ways. Like the endless Steam Curator page:

Not today. Steam thrives in spite of the layout. Lock your DRM monopoly in early, and you can lay out your empire like a dead forum. And be thanked for it! While nostalgia addicts aren’t the most fun audience, they are the easiest.

As for the flavor of the month, I get the anger. Imagine hearing you haven’t finished off the spades after forty thousand years. And wives still roam freely. That’s frustrating. At that point, you either hand in your red snapback or review a thousand games with one template. The Woke Content Detector persevered. At least tower defense remains soy-free.

There’s also a bottomless spreadsheet. While even uglier, it provides a sense of scale.

Like I said, they put in work. With some grit, anything is possible. Even when it shouldn’t be. I take back that bit about love: romance would only dilute their craft. The three-color system captures the entire political spectrum: “recommended,” “not recommended,” and half-breed.

Personally, I prefer using the Patriot Deck. I just got mine in the mail! Check it out:

I’ll cherish it forever, or until a new bauble comes out. Have you preordered the Patriot Deck 2? I haven’t. It explodes near pigment, so I’m holding out for the 3. That one lets you join Real America, as long as you keep your porn history quiet. Remember that? That just happened! We’re all insane now!

Time for a test drive. I called this list infinite, but my urban senses lack precision. How many games have been inspected for empathy?

1474, in human numbers. If a fair review reflects, say, ten hours, then this list holds enough tears to fill the ocean. It’s a living shrine to accidental celibacy. I’d use that love of spreadsheets to play Civilization. Unless…

It’s woke! For outside-goers: Civilization is a series where you simulate civilization. I mostly zerg rush slavery into fascism, but I guess that acknowledges those exist. Fair enough. Everyone’s feelings matter, even if they can’t spell feelings. Though bundling climate denial with white resentment’s odd. Do they think they’ll float better than nevermind, gotcha.

How’s its thematically identical ancestor?

Alright, old equals good. They have some principles. My strategy-dork bias clouded my based eye. Though note that V is, in fact, the first entry where you can’t rush slavery into fascism. You can’t say anything anymore.

Let’s try a fighter. In fact, let’s hit the closest game to “race war simulator.”

They have a point, today there’s a lot you can’t say without people saying stuff back. That sucks. Calling history’s angriest cavemen woke begs for “Shut the fuck up, pussy.” But that would fill my inbox with frogs for weeks. Ah well. Shut the fuck up, pussy.

I assume the reviewer sucks. If you’ve beaten one toddler or retiree at Tekken, you know “woke messaging” attempts to balance embarrassing scales. Failure turns players into slur linguists. I didn’t even know what “branch manager” meant until I picked Marth.

Subtle? Odd term for Super Robot Wars, a franchise called Super Robot Wars. Are there, perhaps, different rules for your favorites? Do anime haircuts divide Not Recommended and Informational?

Nah, I’m off base. Weeaboo Souls is guiltless, despite more women swinging bigger swords at more men. I think I get it now. Girls are fine in cat ears, thongs, or rave masks. Maybe the Woke Content Detector crew parties hard, and wants MDMA well-represented.

Does the katana modifier extend to environmentalism? We just put Civilization on notice for mentioning mass extinction.

Be nice. Not everyone with double standards is a hypocrite. Most are just illiterate. You can easily miss Monster Hunter World’s hippie streak if you’re fresh from Little Bo-Peep. For those of you in the trenches: can you believe her sheep’s gone? Forever? I hope Bo-Peep doesn’t starve this winter.

It’s always Anime Week at the Woke Content Detector. But is the curve for cartoon antics in general, or just upskirts?

This seems like a hard way to live.

I must’ve missed a second watchable libertarian cartoon. Or libertarian anything. That’s not even a shot–the whole series is a miracle. And too good for its audience. Sure, settling stings. But if you’re right of a Times column, thank Asmodeus for every joke you get without Dennis Miller’s stench.

I’ll open my mind. How should games be written?

The longer I live, the more I read and write and see and endure, the less I understand. That’s fine! We’ll flail through this prison together. As long as Eric’s in a cell too, I’m good.

Some accuse the movie of dropping the ball. Nah. It faithfully adapts a freeway brownout. The franchise spirit lives in every frame. Borderlands is written the way a car accident is choreographed. Kevin Hart’s perfectly cast to kiss the barricade.

But we’re making progress! We know the detector likes violence and stale franchises. We can feed it pop shooters for a break. That’s great news, my zen mood was starting to crack. Let’s shoot some terrorists for Uncle Sa–

Nice, I’m cool. I’m cool today. Digital name tags matter. They take junior designers four minutes to draw, and three to redo for kicks. Emblems are a fair hill to die on. You can find FPS emblems of a squirrel, moving countless children to become squirrels. It is, technically, hard to count no one.

Yeah.

For fuck’s sake, how much do you have to fear gay to boycott Enlist: the Game? Activision’s funneled more kids into the army than Sallie Mae. That’s the problem with post-hate: it treats limpdick rage as its own end, instead of an imperial tool. We’ve forgotten four chords and a colony.

Hey, that Nazi hunting game! They’re not fond of it. Autocomplete could finish this joke, so I’ll talk about shoulder injuries for a bit. Does this ever end? Google’s corpse says every cell replaces itself within ten years. Can I jump a decade ahead? Maybe one of those Weyland-Yutani pods, without the facehuggers? By then, this wave of inbred brownshirts should simmer down and/or botch world domination.

Back to business.

Alright, shooters about square-jawed, blonde American soldiers defending the empire from outsiders are…w-woke? What the fuck am I even looking at? What are they trying to say? It’s like I’m reading me. What shooters do national onanists like?

The most brutal Bioshock 2 review I’ve ever seen. The both-sides eyeroll anchoring the plot, crushed in seconds. This is a four word sequel to Ether. The best diss track of 2024. Wherever he is, the director just clutched his chest and collapsed. A+.

But the whole hell energy thing is…corporate greed causes…any surface level kindergarten reading says…fuck it. Nevermind. Score one for the boys. Finally, a Woke-free capitalist apocalypse.

This can’t get dumber.

A game called I Got Blackmailed by a Futanari has non-reproductive hugging? Wild. That’s like your hovel having bottled piss and dead dreams. It comes with the territory. People still exist after you leave the room. Just like the piss.

Granted, one porn VN review doesn’t make a trend. But since I said something, reality will liver-punch me with the opposite. Go for it.

Thanks for the info! Not the reviews, they’re worthless. Now I know someone can fear deviants enough to become Earth’s leading dick critic. Forget repression: everyone in this club hates time and smiling, and they don’t even have columns. I think a dick-horrified NEET reviewed sixty hours of porn he hates. For gaming.

Of course this got dumber. Anything can, with enough passion and no dates. I’m not sure how so many Wall Street hotshots juggle second careers in digital transvestigation, but I’m sure management appreciates fresh voices and clean floors.

Anyone can dig through the indie trashcan until something offends them. Surprise me.

 

Asked and answered. Mascots can’t buy hookers because of Woke. Don’t seek therapy, that battle’s lost. But you can still save Crash Bandicoot from DLC rainbow shorts. Thank you for your service.

Though I’m still a little disappointed. I came loaded with spectacle fighter jokes for six of you. But the hardcore crowd seems to prefer yelling at Activision and porn to playing games made for them. Odd approach to gaming. Or life. I’d be agitated, but I just drew Eric’s future.

You can’t ruin Christmas for me.

Sure, but later. Let’s see what they think about Rainbow Six. The image template is pretty funny this time, we could riff on that forever.

Once more, unto the breach.

For context: Armored Core’s about mashing robots together like action figures. Mostly. There’s also staring at two left elbow axle nuts for five hours, giving up, and replacing the whole arm with a rocket launcher. Good times. Here’s someone scanning that experience for gay:

Ah, so that’s how Woke Detection works. A brain trustee smells a witch, names them before the village, and Valuable Discussion unfolds. If you’ve ever seen a Salem museum or Texas courtroom, you know the problem. This process will, over time, make every game ever made Woke.

The evidence:

Insightful! Fans of nose-breathing might know fighting a powerful, established force as “conflict.” The DEI’s in your bone marrow. You only have months of based life left. Give them to the Woke Content Detector, and keep unseen mech pilots straight.

And they don’t just take LoneWolfInane at his word. Every game is based until proven woke. The opposition makes a stirring defense:

Many based thinkers want trisomy jokes back. That’s not in their best interest.

I’ve been thinking: our Tuesday ritual is fun, but we could streamline it. What if I just read Vaudeville jokes while pounding nails into my skull? It’s the same thing, really.

If you’re curious, their other threads are equally vital. Kind of like an appendix, or dick tumor. If you ever wondered why Woke keeps angels from dancing on pins, welcome to your playground.

Every game is tribunal bound. Eventually, a member will play Code Vein with both hands. What lives? What survives that scrutiny?

Oh.

Hard. Core.

Masculinity’s back, boys. The future is a segregated Candy Crush convention, forever. I’m off to find some bourbon. And nails.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Mickey Lowman.

You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM

Comments

Another thing it has in common with Dune.

Swift Justice

I've seen everything now. There's apparently people out there who played the War Crimes Simulator For DudeBros ongoing series and decided first, they needed to check it for gay. And second, they determined it was too gay.

Mister Sinistar

I have never understood anyone who complains about W40k’s woke content or lack thereof. It is clearly dystopian, and, as such, it need never apologize for anything. Human civilization is in decline and individual lives are worth nothing in a future that is endless, hopeless war. Hating its misogyny/racism/wokeness completely misunderstands the purpose of a dystopian setting. Feminists should appreciate the complete lack of representation among the all white cis-male space marines? That’s just makes it a perfect feminist dystopia! It’s The Handmaid’s Tale plus 39,000 years of MAGA leadership. Did they think things would be different? Red-hatted incels should likewise appreciate the introduction of female Adeptus Custodes. It’s just the next step in Slaanesh’s plan to corrupt humanity just like the gay Eldar. Also, there probably hasn’t been an unstolen election in millennia. How is this not appropriate for a universe where humanity is doomed to decadence and decline? Fox keeps telling me to eventually expect this if Kamala wins. This is pure red-state dystopia and appropriate in that context. So what’s the problem? As the tagline says… “There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. And woke. And non-skippable Ork butt stuff cut-scenes.”

sarcophski

I have it and it is awesome. I’m eagerly awaiting the paperback edition. I hope you are feeling better

Thomas m Gallipoli

Oh, WOW! I didn't even know about that. I felt that the writing on the game was pretty stellar, for the record. Did a good job of remaining accessible while also hinting at the deeper lore. The gamer right is so whack and they have a tendency to eat their own tail like Ouroborous sometimes. As other people have mentioned in the thread, it's pretty clear that even the Woke Detector folks are willing to move the needle if they find a game fun. Just super whack to spend so much time agonizing over something that's meant to be fun.

Tyler McBride

Before the game came out there were calls from reactionaries to boycott it based solely on the fact that one of the lead writers is a trans woman. Now that the game has come out and they like the it (our curator friend being in the minority) a lot of the gamer right have definitely memory holed the calls for boycott and the trans writer.

PoisonedGhost

He wrote a book, you should read it. (Warning: it can be pretty heavy, and I read it after having a tooth extraction and later needed two courses of antibiotics because my extraction site became infected.) So you should read it, but make sure you don't have any surgeries planned.

Matthew Harris

“It explodes near pigment” floored us

Thomas m Gallipoli

The only problem with Dennard’s articles is that they must end

Thomas m Gallipoli

Oh, I have accidentally melted the planet in Civ II. And also on purpose a few times.

Matthew Harris

Yeah, you really hit the nail on the head. I've met people who absolutely feel that everything about 40K is meant to be taken 100% seriously, and it sort of comes off like as a much nerdier version of being one of those guys who completely missed the point of American Psycho. I would have assumed the Woke Detector writer(s?) would have fallen in that camp too.

Tyler McBride

Odyssey: the Legend of Nemesis let you sleep anywhere for as long as you wanted. Monsters would absolutely murder you while you did it though.

Skink

It’s called “PEGgle”! Pegging has to at least be considered “anti-patriarchy.” Question though: how is the unicorn promoting non-monogamy? Are unicorns also polyamorous? I’m a bisexual female in a monogamous relationship so I need to know if I can ride my unicorn through town or if that would be sending the wrong message.

toasty god

I’ve failed to reach the youth. It’s my second biggest regret. The biggest is the post-Nim punishment chamber.

Dennard Dayle

I'd also forgotten what the last two letters of "TERF" meant. Wasn't expecting any sort ideological consistency there.

Nicholas Faubert

Granted, the entire 40K universe (originally) is supposed to be a madcap punk-rock takedown of 80's British society with a kitchen sink of scifi book, movie, and TV show references thrown together, but I really don't expect the maintainers of this Woke Detection list to be capable of the nuanced thinking and media literacy required to grasp that. On the surface this is Square Jawed Supermen Shooting Aliens, it should have been their bag, baby.

Robert K.

Haw haw these fools missed the real obvious pansexuality allagory of peglin, let them as have eyes I guess

sissyneck

Calling Bioshock 2 not woke (from their really low standards) means that they have probably never played Bioshock 2. Given that they talk a lot about class and racism in it.

PoisonedGhost

You can choose to just sleep in the middle of the street for 24 straight hours in Morrowind, that must be low on the scale

Robert K.

I've played Armored Core 6 to completion multiple times, can assure everyone that it contains what any real weeb would consider the Ur-Waifu, the Jungian Archetype or Platonic Ideal of the concept even, and whoever made those threads must be actually asleep.

Robert K.

The more you're exposed to these sort of people, the more blatantly and terrifyingly obvious it becomes that they aren't.

Robert K.

"Subtle". They keep using that word. I don't think it means what they think it means.

Robert K.

So according to their list Hogwarts Legacy is apparently Woke. I can't escape the feeling that they're trolling.

Nicholas Faubert

The wavering in what is woke and what isn’t is a hallmark of far-right thinking: what I decide is right is based entirely on what I want and screw all of you who disagree. It’s always hilarious because is the epitome of failure by design.

Devon the Rogue Supreme

I still take pride in accidentally rendering the world uninhabitable in Civ II. Most people probably have to intentionally do it.

Skink

I'm sure you can find an inexplicable futanari game that includes a historically accurate Hitler. Japan is weird.

Skink

Good news, Arcanum, of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura has a quest that concludes with a whole town falling asleep.

Skink

Oh, they seem to bitch about most of the games. Also, n00b, she needs 2 Lightbringers too; 8*(9999 physical + 9999 holy)

Skink

This is how they keep gutting their joy, so they only have Rob Schneider for a comedian and Kid Rock for a musician left...

3 Trench Coats in a Boy

Is it bad that them being reactionaries bothers me less than them being ignorant of Final Fantasy? Pretty much every Final Fantasy is about a group of scrappy multiethnic rebels led by a lady with magical powers fighting against the dehumanizing forces of the rich and powerful. So these guys ideology is insane, but also they have obviously never equipped Celes with the Offering and the Genji Glove and did a 8*9999 attack. :(

Matthew Harris

Also they don't particularly pay attention and just repeat things they've seen on social media or whatever chud gaming sites they frequent.

Flippant Sausage

I love that the need to review futanari porn games for wokeness indicates theres a category of this that is non-woke.

Flippant Sausage

"Futadom World": Contains hermaphrodite characters, not recommended. "Mortal Bareback 2: Revenge of the Cum-Lords": Depicts scenes of homosexual affection, not recommended. #savingsouls, #subtlewoketraps

Sysiphus_101

Okay, but what about games like Super Mario Bros. 2 or Little Nemo in Dreamland, where you are asleep all the time?

Matthew Harris

It's simple, really. A quick perusal of the spreadsheet reveals that, though they sometimes pay lip service to other issues, the only ones they actually care about are lgbt topics and dei.

Richard Orr

This shit fucked me up all day. However, subtly pointing out how hot anime girls in lingerie doing battle with Gotsu swords isn’t woke while stating that realistically depicted female authority figures is, is telling.

Ethan Rangel

For me, it was "This seems like a hard way to live."

Richard Orr

I want to create a competing Woke Content Detector just to mess with these guys. The purpose of mine will be solely to tell how many opportunities there are to sleep in-game, and how important using these opportunities are to progress in the game. A game with an essential quest that only triggers while sleeping would therefore always get a higher mark than a game where sleep recharges health, although if it is only one quest as opposed to multiple restoration beds, that will raise the mark of the latter and lower the former. Unlike the above, MY woke content detector would have objective metrics to make it actually useful. To someone. Maybe. If they have a specific issue or fetish.

The Parallel Viewmaster

At first I thought the complaint about "multipole characters" was a condemnation of communist anti-Americanism but no, they just can't spell.

g.sys

To be clear, the "hermaphrodite" description is likely inaccurate. It's a very specific subgenre of futa and it's different from standard futa for multiple reasons. Though I have a feeling that they're just playing dumb since they've pounded it to enough of these games to be experts on that topic.

g.sys

Patreon please implement a Dislike button

g.sys

Just looked at the spreadsheet and it's super obvious when the reviewer disregards their 'standards' when they like a game. FF13 is marked as no woke content despite a female lead, the physically strongest PC being a woman, and Fang and Vanille being pretty obviously gay (Fang was originally written as a male character, then gender-swapped so Lightning wouldn't be the required sexy one).

Skink

Like in every Dennard article, every sentence is chock-full of quotables, but "time-to-hate ratio" really got me. Like an alternate-universe Old Man Murray.

Andrew

Also Civilization has climate change as a game mechanic since the first game. Like seriously how did they miss that?

Matthew Harris

That was the first game I was going to ask about. And they thought it was subtle???

Matthew Harris

New York not being especially relevant to my life (at least not since Detective Munch retired and I stopped watching SVU) I only knew who Eric Adams is because of you. When I saw what was happening to him in the news, literally my first thought was Dennard must be so happy! Glad there's some good in your world to help make up for the existence of all this other shit.

Bonnybedlam

Yeah, when I saw CoD and WH40K listed as "woke," I was thinking that whoever wrote this makes up the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe. *shudder*

Andrew

The mental gymnastics on display could make for an Olympic sport.

Andrew

Yes...for "research!"

Andrew

"Bigots talking themselves out of enjoying things" is probably the best possible way to summarize this.

Andrew

1474 games? They are *so* close...just 14 more!

Andrew

yeah its real subtle about the climate

SoylentRobot

This joke deserves more attention. I almost didn't catch it but when I did? Nicely done.

Skebotron

I wonder if he still uses "Chachi" as a punctuation now that they're both on the same unhinged side?

Skebotron

Well, I learned a new word today. Good thing that brave reviewer investigated whether or not the games with "Anime Hermaphrodite" in the title had anime hermaphrodites in them. Who knows how many unwitting fellow culture warriors would've mistakenly fallen into that trap! Better check all of those games just to make sure!

Skebotron

Possibly easily my favourite 'political compass meme' was a venn diagram between leftists, liberals and conservatives with snappy common grounds like 'likes guns', 'likes capitalism' and the final punchline being 'hates leftists' as the uniting factor among the three.

Jasper Phua

i think my fave review is them not knowing if disco elysium is for or against communism

SoylentRobot

They like their fantasy kept within strict boundaries.

Bill Culbertson

Thunderbolt Fantasy 4 is only a few days away, eh?

Scott David Hamilton

My favorite is still FF7 "contains subtly pro-climate action messaging. Contains subtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Forced cross-dressing. You start the game working for an ecoterrorist group." And they label it Informational.

FancyShark

The discussion for Subnautica is extremely telling. The curator of the page writes multiple essays justifying the game as not-woke, because he likes that game.

Richard Orr

Calling Space Marine II woke is wild, lol.

Tyler McBride

The stench of stale gas station pizza and sticky old fountain drinks permeates this entire cursed website. And these chuds, no doubt, are convinced they are doing good.

CHAUGGLE

*head waggle*

CHAUGGLE

god i love this whole stupid thing. you dont get to just watch something this idiotic in real time. bigots talking themselves out of enjoying things is the real bonus.

SoylentRobot

Peggle prominently features a unicorn, commonly seen as a symbol for bisexual females, thus promoting both bisexuality and non monogamy, so at least it's woke-adjacent. *Snort* And Bejeweled? Jew is in the name!

Scribbler Johnny

My pronouns are Oingo/Boingo. (Babe)

Pee-Wee's Uncle


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