I mean, I know Fallout’s social commentary and heavy-handed attempts at poignancy is pretty on the nose in terms of the desolate mid-century american wasteland practically screaming at you “THIS IDEOLOGY AND LIFESTYLE LEADS TO DEATH AND ANNIHILATION”, but I’d say that Fallout is as much as celebration of 50s/60s americana as it is a critique of it. Like, yes, it’s literally post-apocalyptic, but its making constant adoring allusions to sci-fi drive-in B movies, midcentury pop culture, and pulp fiction. There’s a real unironic love and appreciation for that era of America on display in Fallout, much to my chagrin, even as someone who can deeply share that cultural reverence. Sometimes I feel like it goes down the “wow wasn’t the 60s cool and wacky?!” route a little bit too much at times, especially these days. Its like, yeah, but if you’re not further deconstructing it in some way or using it to make an interesting point, it feels a little hollow. Fallout is at its best (in my view) when it’s able to perform as a simultaneous celebration and deconstruction of Americana. I think it disarms people who might not be willing to accept a critique of America otherwise.
I’ll never be able to think about Blizzard or any of their games again without thinking of that hilarious horrifying story of one of their employees stealing a coworker’s breast milk from the fridge. Like, it’s so disgusting and perverse and invasive, it actually loops back around to being a little funny. It sounds like a dumb Nick Mullen bit, like how is that real? How pathetic and weird do you have to be to do something like that? Actual freak shit, actual freak behavior. Imagine being that poor fucking woman, just knowing for the rest of your life that the milk your body worked so hard to produce to feed your beloved child, an ancient primal mammalian biological tradition between mother and child going back millions of years, some fucking anonymous bozo compsci grad who wears pre-faded superhero tees from target stole it and… did who knows god what with it. Drank it? Jacked off with it? Who fucking knows?! And she just has to live with that now?!
as much as I enjoyed Overwatch at its height, I can’t see it or WoW or anything else Blizzard related without remembering
“oh yeah, the fucking tiddy milk guys. the mommy’s milker thieves. the grown toddlers who stole some lady’s milk.”
like its so absurd that its hilarious. what an absolute embarrassment and disgrace that they didn’t use any company resources to find out who this loser was and name and shame him - they’re a massive company, you can’t tell me those fuckers didn’t have security cameras in their office. And if they didn’t, well they pretty fucking clearly need cameras to supervise their gamer staff from stealing each other’s precious bodily fluids.