5 ms·

Elon Musk: 'the woke mind virus' is making Netflix unwatchable

47 points by donsupreme 5y ago

supergirl 5y ago
heh, easy to say for a rich white male. I’m sure he would have a totally different idea if his demographic was the butt of all jokes and memes since the beginning of time…
- ternifomene 5y ago
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japie
  - martin8412 5y ago
- Pooge 5y ago
  I don't remember hearing "jokes about white people", but literally every country in Europe has some very stereotypical jokes (those that get old very quickly, especially if you immigrated) about it or its citizens. It's fair to say it's the same about USA and Canada. Disagreeing with the woke movement doesn't mean one is a supporter of discrimination. And I especially don't think having a disabled black gay protagonist in a new series is going to help minorities find jobs or education. They are all about making it look like they care.
  - atoav 5y ago
    Yeah but european jokes are of a different nature (except maybe ones about Roma and Sinti) — e.g. everybody has jokes about Italians, but that rarely translates into actual issues for Italians working in other EU nations, especially if they speak the language. Same is true for most other national stereotypes that I can think of. > And I especially don't think having a disabled black gay protagonist in a new series is going to help minorities find jobs or education. They are all about making it look like they care. I am not sure it is your decision whether somebody else cares. I don't think having a show for teenage girls with ponies changes anything in the world for better, but for some girl in some dire situation it might just be the fantasy she needs. You know, like the million male power fantasies of saving the world while getting all the women to love you — which also doesn't help us. If you criticize a media product for not helping which is targeted at one group of people, why stop there and not get rid of all media products that are not helping any kind of people? Or is it (understandably) something else when it is about media representation oneself can identify with?
    - gattilorenz 5y ago
      > everybody has jokes about Italians, but that rarely translates into actual issues for Italians working in other EU nations Nitpicking, and you say "rarely" so you might know this, but indeed that's not completely true. Italians were marginalized in Switzerland in the 50s and 60s, up to the early 70s. Even recently a right-wing party was depicting Italians as rats that eat/steal Swiss cheese: https://www.repstatic.it/content/localirep/img/rep-milano/2016/09/26/160639424-56a001d4-fb5e-4847-8f7e-0c68f44534f3.jpg https://www.repstatic.it/content/localirep/img/rep-milano/20...
      - atoav 5y ago
        Good that you mention this. I had a sentence in the post about the guest workers invited to Germany during these times in there, but decided to remove it for brevity and for a focus onto today. I grew up in a massive right wing area in Austria, so I based my judgment on the xenophobic sentiment I was hearing during that time.
- arrakis2021 5y ago
  Woke corporations parade minorities around like trophies. The virtue signaling has been turned up to an 11 and people on both left and right can see right through it.
  - atoav 5y ago
    You think media companies have to go beyond virtue signalling and actually do something this time, just like the did in their century long history before? /s We as a humanity don't tell ourselves stories because the stories solve problems — we tell ourselves stories for a heap of other reasons. One such reason would be escapism: The creation of worlds in which people can fantasize themselves, because there is some character who is the way they secretly see themselves. This is why we have films with cool guys who fare well in critical situations while getting all the women. This is why we have horse themed films for teenage girls. I don't like horse themed films for teenage girls, but as a grown man I don't see why such things shouldn't exist. Same for films where the stories are based on the fantasies of other people who are not like me. Who am I to decide what other people should like?
- lithos 5y ago
  You mean blond jokes?
_zzaw 5y ago
This kind of lapse in composure is why people think he’s unhinged. Netflix’s problem isn’t that they’re unwatchably woke, it’s that their competitors are getting better and their streaming offerings—which, beyond the originals, have always been poor—are getting worse. I’m not a fan of the authoritarian, performative wokeness that he’s describing—similar to hard-right Christianity, I think that is indeed more about bullying than decency. But claiming that Netflix is “unwatchable” because of more black/gay people in shows—or, for that matter, pushing back on gratuitous nastiness—is ridiculous. This is why a lot of us were very uneasy about someone like Musk being in charge of a communication medium as influential as Twitter. It wasn’t his stance on moderation; it’s that the guy is unstable and immature, and we didn’t trust him to act responsibly.
- hemreldop 5y ago
- atoav 5y ago
  Netflix is mostly doing bad because the market Netflix has grew big in changed. The cake is now split in more ways and the chance that someone will have one subscription for two years without hopping on and off other steaming services has gotten smaller.
- aaron695 5y ago
- randyrand 5y ago
  > because of more black/gay people in shows That's a pretty disingenuous summary. Being woke is about much more than that.
  - sli 5y ago
    You'd have a leg to stand on if shows didn't get called "woke" for sharing a single pre-production screencap featuring a single black person, but that's exactly what happens.
sli 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
8jef 5y ago
Any bias based on racial or sexual differences is false premises. It doesn't tell about representation, it only shows limits of imagination. And when it comes to TV or movies, one has to accept that everything on screen, including cast, dialogues and characters, is irrelevant metric compared to storytelling. Netflix dropping quality is only the result of poor and unfortunate business choices, like dropping great shows mid-air and alienating gifted storytellers. Great storytellers can make anything fly, including the imagination of South African-American middle aged white men.
McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago

47 points by donsupreme 5y ago

heh, easy to say for a rich white male. I’m sure he would have a totally different idea if his demographic was the butt of all jokes and memes since the beginning of time…

ternifomene 5y ago
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japie
- martin8412 5y ago
Pooge 5y ago
I don't remember hearing "jokes about white people", but literally every country in Europe has some very stereotypical jokes (those that get old very quickly, especially if you immigrated) about it or its citizens. It's fair to say it's the same about USA and Canada. Disagreeing with the woke movement doesn't mean one is a supporter of discrimination. And I especially don't think having a disabled black gay protagonist in a new series is going to help minorities find jobs or education. They are all about making it look like they care.
- atoav 5y ago
  Yeah but european jokes are of a different nature (except maybe ones about Roma and Sinti) — e.g. everybody has jokes about Italians, but that rarely translates into actual issues for Italians working in other EU nations, especially if they speak the language. Same is true for most other national stereotypes that I can think of. > And I especially don't think having a disabled black gay protagonist in a new series is going to help minorities find jobs or education. They are all about making it look like they care. I am not sure it is your decision whether somebody else cares. I don't think having a show for teenage girls with ponies changes anything in the world for better, but for some girl in some dire situation it might just be the fantasy she needs. You know, like the million male power fantasies of saving the world while getting all the women to love you — which also doesn't help us. If you criticize a media product for not helping which is targeted at one group of people, why stop there and not get rid of all media products that are not helping any kind of people? Or is it (understandably) something else when it is about media representation oneself can identify with?
  - gattilorenz 5y ago
    > everybody has jokes about Italians, but that rarely translates into actual issues for Italians working in other EU nations Nitpicking, and you say "rarely" so you might know this, but indeed that's not completely true. Italians were marginalized in Switzerland in the 50s and 60s, up to the early 70s. Even recently a right-wing party was depicting Italians as rats that eat/steal Swiss cheese: https://www.repstatic.it/content/localirep/img/rep-milano/2016/09/26/160639424-56a001d4-fb5e-4847-8f7e-0c68f44534f3.jpg https://www.repstatic.it/content/localirep/img/rep-milano/20...
    - atoav 5y ago
      Good that you mention this. I had a sentence in the post about the guest workers invited to Germany during these times in there, but decided to remove it for brevity and for a focus onto today. I grew up in a massive right wing area in Austria, so I based my judgment on the xenophobic sentiment I was hearing during that time.
arrakis2021 5y ago
Woke corporations parade minorities around like trophies. The virtue signaling has been turned up to an 11 and people on both left and right can see right through it.
- atoav 5y ago
  You think media companies have to go beyond virtue signalling and actually do something this time, just like the did in their century long history before? /s We as a humanity don't tell ourselves stories because the stories solve problems — we tell ourselves stories for a heap of other reasons. One such reason would be escapism: The creation of worlds in which people can fantasize themselves, because there is some character who is the way they secretly see themselves. This is why we have films with cool guys who fare well in critical situations while getting all the women. This is why we have horse themed films for teenage girls. I don't like horse themed films for teenage girls, but as a grown man I don't see why such things shouldn't exist. Same for films where the stories are based on the fantasies of other people who are not like me. Who am I to decide what other people should like?
lithos 5y ago
You mean blond jokes?

_zzaw 5y ago

This kind of lapse in composure is why people think he’s unhinged. Netflix’s problem isn’t that they’re unwatchably woke, it’s that their competitors are getting better and their streaming offerings—which, beyond the originals, have always been poor—are getting worse. I’m not a fan of the authoritarian, performative wokeness that he’s describing—similar to hard-right Christianity, I think that is indeed more about bullying than decency. But claiming that Netflix is “unwatchable” because of more black/gay people in shows—or, for that matter, pushing back on gratuitous nastiness—is ridiculous. This is why a lot of us were very uneasy about someone like Musk being in charge of a communication medium as influential as Twitter. It wasn’t his stance on moderation; it’s that the guy is unstable and immature, and we didn’t trust him to act responsibly.

hemreldop 5y ago
atoav 5y ago
Netflix is mostly doing bad because the market Netflix has grew big in changed. The cake is now split in more ways and the chance that someone will have one subscription for two years without hopping on and off other steaming services has gotten smaller.
aaron695 5y ago
randyrand 5y ago
> because of more black/gay people in shows That's a pretty disingenuous summary. Being woke is about much more than that.
- sli 5y ago
  You'd have a leg to stand on if shows didn't get called "woke" for sharing a single pre-production screencap featuring a single black person, but that's exactly what happens.

sli 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

8jef 5y ago

Any bias based on racial or sexual differences is false premises. It doesn't tell about representation, it only shows limits of imagination. And when it comes to TV or movies, one has to accept that everything on screen, including cast, dialogues and characters, is irrelevant metric compared to storytelling. Netflix dropping quality is only the result of poor and unfortunate business choices, like dropping great shows mid-air and alienating gifted storytellers. Great storytellers can make anything fly, including the imagination of South African-American middle aged white men.

McLaren_Ferrari 5y ago