5 ms·

Maybe this just hasnt happened yet, but I'm waiting for some pushback against Nintendo and Disney for brainwashing/indoctrinating children with corporate mascot

Maybe this just hasnt happened yet, but I'm waiting for some pushback against Nintendo and Disney for brainwashing/indoctrinating children with corporate mascots masquerading as classic characters. It seemed harmless, but now that I see 30 year olds that have an obsession/mental illness with these company's IP/corporate mascots that I think there might be something wrong with marketing to children. Even the ones aware they are being dragged on nostalgia trips have no defense. (Me included, I haven't found a Zelda game since TP above a 7/10, yet I feel compelled to play every single one. This is even more apparent with BOTW/TotK where despite these being different from Zelda, an open world with zelda skinned on it, I still need to play it.) EDIT: Yes I agree about religion, sports, potentially colleges, and that adults can be brainwashed too.

simonh 3y ago
The Flappy Bird programmer got harassed by people complaining he was a vile predator because a relative of theirs got addicted to it. People need to take some responsibility for their lives, and those of their own children. Yes there can be predatory practices, but that's what laws are for. Bad behaviour should be curtailed, and I'm sure there are cases where Disney may have crossed the line, but simply becoming or being popular isn't a crime, or certainly shouldn't be.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  As a person who has taken marketing classes, yes, I make sure my toddlers have close to 0 Disney and Nintendo exposure. How about the uneducated people? Or those still brainwashed? Those children are sacrificed to Nintendo and Disney? Lets not pretend we all have perfectly free will and that humans aren't animals. EDIT: Flappy bird isnt a great example, because it wasnt marketed to children. Nintendo and Disney go to great lengths to find ways to insert them into children's lives at the youngest possible ages.
  - _Algernon_ 3y ago
    >How about the uneducated people? Or those still brainwashed? Those children are sacrificed to Nintendo and Disney? Who are you to decide who is "brainwashed" and who is merely enjoying something? Who are you to feel entitled to "protect" other adults against themselves?
    - hospitalJail 3y ago
      I'm specifically talking about children, before they are at the age to comprehend marketing. The prime example is a toddler. I can't think of any exceptions, but any sort of marketing to children seems to be brainwashing. They don't have the ability to resist bright colors, music, and in-group bias. I've done this on my own kids to teach them phonics and numbers. Lucky that there isnt any corporation with the exclusive ability to sell the number 7 or the letter F. At age 2, they all know the phonics.
      - mym1990 3y ago
        This practice is particularly horrendous in the food industry(fast food, cereals, etc...). Kids are the prime target for companies that have no morals, because if you can get the kid to nag their parents, its a great strategy. Companies are also banking that those same kids grow up to be lifelong consumers, and then pass that loyalty down to their own children. Its pretty messed up.
      - toast0 3y ago
        > Lucky that there isnt any corporation with the exclusive ability to sell the number 7 or the letter F. I'm pretty sure there are. Those letters and numbers were sponsoring shows, and they had to get the money for that somewhere, presumably their corporate overlords.
      - simonh 3y ago
        That's why I mentioned parental responsibility. It's the parent's house and they choose where they take their children outside it.
        3y ago
  - euos 3y ago
    Uneducated people are not idiots. Coming from peasant family, this infuriates me. My peasant grandma never read anything except Bible but was among the wisest and most respected people in her village. Us, her grandkids, are now working high-knowledge jobs in top companies in the world.
    - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
      I've seen plenty of people from a low education background, and I also come partly from a family of peasants 2 generations ago. Education gives some ability for critical thinking. Absence of education leaves people extremely manipulable. People with education can't understand how very, very simplistic people can be when they don't have it, until they get dropped right into the middle of it and see it first hand. This is not a criticism of them, it's an endorsement of the value of education.
  - kcplate 3y ago
    > As a person who has taken marketing classes…. > How about the uneducated people? Or those still brainwashed? Did you also stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night?
  - simonh 3y ago
    >As a person who has taken marketing classes, yes, I make sure my toddlers have close to 0 Disney and Nintendo exposure. Good for you. I didn't take that level of a position, we had a Wii in the house and watched some Disney movies. We've never been a big TV watching family though, we'd only watch stuff we chose to watch, like specific TV shows and movies but never just had the TV on. Of course I ensured my girls were educated in the classics. Sailor Moon, Buffy, Xena, MLP:FIM and such.
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  I don’t know. There is weapons grade persuasion and behavioral psychology in some of these games.
vlunkr 3y ago
You know, there are tons of people out there who loved Zelda as a kid who have no idea what BOTW/TOKT is. This sounds like you being caught in modern marketing/hype cycles, not brainwashing.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Do you think Nintendo stopped marketing at some point? It likely is more refined and worse than ever.
  - vlunkr 3y ago
    No, but don’t act like you have to keep playing. Star Wars has been marketed to me my whole life, and I ate it up for a long time, but I’ve stopped paying attention to the new stuff because I just don’t think it’s good anymore.
georgeburdell 3y ago
I don’t know if it’s so novel; when I see millennials wearing the trappings of their youth, I think of how my parents generation watches their old college’s football games, have the college’s mascot on their desks and on their clothes, and occasionally break out into the school’s fight song when among friends.
pavlov 3y ago
Before that happens, I would expect some pushback against religions brainwashing/indoctrinating children into believing fairytale characters and scenarios are actually true and actively present in the world. Some religions take 10% of your adult income. Buying a Zelda game or Marvel movie ticket is peanuts in comparison.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mechanical_bear 3y ago
  Religions “take” 10% of your income??
  - caw 3y ago
    Yes it’s called a tithe. Typically voluntary these days but people do it out of feelings of obligation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe
garciansmith 3y ago
People have many reasons for liking what they do. Just because marketing exists does not mean you can judge someone as being somehow brainwashed. Some of it can just be nostalgia, and some people might be well aware of that and not, you know, have a "mental illness" because something from their youth evokes nice feeling in them as an adult. There are plenty of Zelda fans who never played the original or any 2D ones at all, and just love BotW and TotK, even people who are older. BotW was my favorite Zelda since the original, partially since it shared its exploratory spirit much more than any other game in the series (TotK is unfortunately much too similar to BotW, not different enough to present a new experience).
fipar 3y ago
At least, unlike religion or football teams, I’m yet to learn about people killing each other over Mario being better than Sonic (are those made by different companies? I don’t know … just replace with another character if they are not). I say let people obsess over whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt other people, because you know what I find way scarier than a 30yo obsessed with Princess Peach? A government that gets to decide when I’m obsessed with something to the point that I need to be cured or re-educated.
hypertele-Xii 3y ago
If you know that a company consistently produces 7/10 games, why wouldn't you play them? That's above average value.
- mlyle 3y ago
  In fairness, "above average" doesn't say much... and beyond that the average game review is not too far from 7/10 because of longstanding distortions. But a whole lot of Nintendo's first party games, including BoTW/ToTK-- deserve far better than 7/10 (metacritic 97 / 96, "universal acclaim"). Even if they are not too much like the first things I loved in the Zelda franchise.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jl6 3y ago
I’m not sure Nintendo or Disney are doing anything particularly special. People land on the “fanboy / brand loyalty” spectrum about all kinds of products.
spaceman_2020 3y ago
Do you think something changed either in the marketing or society that caused this? Because Mickey Mouse has been around for nearly a century. Multiple generations of kids grew up with it, but the obsession millennials have with this stuff is nearing, what you called, “mental illness” tier.
Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
To be honest, in today's world of mobile Skinner boxes and predatory microtransactions, I see liking Nintendo IP as one of the best things that could happen to my kid. They have a rather honest business model: they sell you a console, fun games (IMO most Zelda and Mario games are actually very good) and that's it. There are some microtransaction games as well (the mobile Mario Kart, which they actually seem to have made that way only reluctantly because hordes of uses complained that the mobile Mario platformer had a one-time fee for the whole game) but they're not the worst offenders in this respect and they're far from being a core part of the franchises, at least for now. (*) I have myself been a fan of Marios and Zeldas since I was a kid and I don't see them as having had a negative influence on my life. Which cannot be said about much of the microtransaction-ridden spreadsheets that pass as games these days, especially on mobile. Or even more legitimate games like MMORPGS (WoW, etc.) which have more reasonable business models but still seem to be designed to cause insane levels of addiction. (*) I cannot say the same of Disney. At least a few years ago, the only Star Wars game available on mobile was an insanely predatory gacha that extracted literally thousands of dollars from people to buy a single character that would be obsolete in a few months. I spent a few years addicted to it (not buying anything, but still wasting precious time in a repetitive and unfun grindfest), as at that point I didn't know how that kind of designer drug worked, I just downloaded it because it was Star Wars and got sucked in. It's been my first and last game of that genre, and I do hope that my kid keeps well away from those.
Andrex 3y ago
> This is even more apparent with BOTW/TotK where despite these being different from Zelda, an open world with zelda skinned on it, I still need to play it. A more charitable read of the situation is that you've grown attached to the lore, characters and aesthetics (both visual and musical cues/themes) such that you're looking forward to the next installment of this work of fiction. That's just Nintendo being good stewards of a franchise. There's millions of alternate pathways Nintendo could start making gobs of money (look at what The Pokemon Company turned that franchise into these days, yeesh!) But by taking their time it signals to me they really do think hard and long about every aspect of the design (naturally, nobody and no game dev team is perfect though). > Zelda, an open world with zelda skinned on it That's being deliberately reductive. And whatever the point, according to the creators BotW/TotK is the future direction of the franchise (similar to Link to the Past setting up OoT, WW, TP and SS). I'm not a fan of this "not MY Zelda!" attitude. Zelda II was shit on but it had a lot of cool ideas, and now thanks to the Zelda Cycle it's back on people's radar. Same for Major's Mask and Wind Waker to an extent. BotW is a triumph and it'd be hard to convince me otherwise. (I did lose interest in TotK after leaving the starting area, but I blame that on the reuse of Hyrule. I don't want to hunt hundreds of Koroks again, I already did that!) I didn't get the Link's Awakening remake because I'm extremely sensitive to frame stutter and Nintendo never fixed it, but it's an easy recommendation for 99% of Zelda fans who don't like the new direction. I'm hoping they tackle the Oracle games next and include the cut content from the cancelled third game.

simonh 3y ago

The Flappy Bird programmer got harassed by people complaining he was a vile predator because a relative of theirs got addicted to it. People need to take some responsibility for their lives, and those of their own children. Yes there can be predatory practices, but that's what laws are for. Bad behaviour should be curtailed, and I'm sure there are cases where Disney may have crossed the line, but simply becoming or being popular isn't a crime, or certainly shouldn't be.

hospitalJail 3y ago
As a person who has taken marketing classes, yes, I make sure my toddlers have close to 0 Disney and Nintendo exposure. How about the uneducated people? Or those still brainwashed? Those children are sacrificed to Nintendo and Disney? Lets not pretend we all have perfectly free will and that humans aren't animals. EDIT: Flappy bird isnt a great example, because it wasnt marketed to children. Nintendo and Disney go to great lengths to find ways to insert them into children's lives at the youngest possible ages.
- _Algernon_ 3y ago
  >How about the uneducated people? Or those still brainwashed? Those children are sacrificed to Nintendo and Disney? Who are you to decide who is "brainwashed" and who is merely enjoying something? Who are you to feel entitled to "protect" other adults against themselves?
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    I'm specifically talking about children, before they are at the age to comprehend marketing. The prime example is a toddler. I can't think of any exceptions, but any sort of marketing to children seems to be brainwashing. They don't have the ability to resist bright colors, music, and in-group bias. I've done this on my own kids to teach them phonics and numbers. Lucky that there isnt any corporation with the exclusive ability to sell the number 7 or the letter F. At age 2, they all know the phonics.
    - mym1990 3y ago
      This practice is particularly horrendous in the food industry(fast food, cereals, etc...). Kids are the prime target for companies that have no morals, because if you can get the kid to nag their parents, its a great strategy. Companies are also banking that those same kids grow up to be lifelong consumers, and then pass that loyalty down to their own children. Its pretty messed up.
    - toast0 3y ago
      > Lucky that there isnt any corporation with the exclusive ability to sell the number 7 or the letter F. I'm pretty sure there are. Those letters and numbers were sponsoring shows, and they had to get the money for that somewhere, presumably their corporate overlords.
    - simonh 3y ago
      That's why I mentioned parental responsibility. It's the parent's house and they choose where they take their children outside it.
      - 3y ago
- euos 3y ago
  Uneducated people are not idiots. Coming from peasant family, this infuriates me. My peasant grandma never read anything except Bible but was among the wisest and most respected people in her village. Us, her grandkids, are now working high-knowledge jobs in top companies in the world.
  - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
    I've seen plenty of people from a low education background, and I also come partly from a family of peasants 2 generations ago. Education gives some ability for critical thinking. Absence of education leaves people extremely manipulable. People with education can't understand how very, very simplistic people can be when they don't have it, until they get dropped right into the middle of it and see it first hand. This is not a criticism of them, it's an endorsement of the value of education.
- kcplate 3y ago
  > As a person who has taken marketing classes…. > How about the uneducated people? Or those still brainwashed? Did you also stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night?
- simonh 3y ago
  >As a person who has taken marketing classes, yes, I make sure my toddlers have close to 0 Disney and Nintendo exposure. Good for you. I didn't take that level of a position, we had a Wii in the house and watched some Disney movies. We've never been a big TV watching family though, we'd only watch stuff we chose to watch, like specific TV shows and movies but never just had the TV on. Of course I ensured my girls were educated in the classics. Sailor Moon, Buffy, Xena, MLP:FIM and such.
spaceman_2020 3y ago
I don’t know. There is weapons grade persuasion and behavioral psychology in some of these games.

vlunkr 3y ago

You know, there are tons of people out there who loved Zelda as a kid who have no idea what BOTW/TOKT is. This sounds like you being caught in modern marketing/hype cycles, not brainwashing.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Do you think Nintendo stopped marketing at some point? It likely is more refined and worse than ever.
- vlunkr 3y ago
  No, but don’t act like you have to keep playing. Star Wars has been marketed to me my whole life, and I ate it up for a long time, but I’ve stopped paying attention to the new stuff because I just don’t think it’s good anymore.

georgeburdell 3y ago

I don’t know if it’s so novel; when I see millennials wearing the trappings of their youth, I think of how my parents generation watches their old college’s football games, have the college’s mascot on their desks and on their clothes, and occasionally break out into the school’s fight song when among friends.

pavlov 3y ago

Before that happens, I would expect some pushback against religions brainwashing/indoctrinating children into believing fairytale characters and scenarios are actually true and actively present in the world. Some religions take 10% of your adult income. Buying a Zelda game or Marvel movie ticket is peanuts in comparison.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mechanical_bear 3y ago
Religions “take” 10% of your income??
- caw 3y ago
  Yes it’s called a tithe. Typically voluntary these days but people do it out of feelings of obligation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe

garciansmith 3y ago

People have many reasons for liking what they do. Just because marketing exists does not mean you can judge someone as being somehow brainwashed. Some of it can just be nostalgia, and some people might be well aware of that and not, you know, have a "mental illness" because something from their youth evokes nice feeling in them as an adult. There are plenty of Zelda fans who never played the original or any 2D ones at all, and just love BotW and TotK, even people who are older. BotW was my favorite Zelda since the original, partially since it shared its exploratory spirit much more than any other game in the series (TotK is unfortunately much too similar to BotW, not different enough to present a new experience).

fipar 3y ago

At least, unlike religion or football teams, I’m yet to learn about people killing each other over Mario being better than Sonic (are those made by different companies? I don’t know … just replace with another character if they are not). I say let people obsess over whatever they want as long as they don’t hurt other people, because you know what I find way scarier than a 30yo obsessed with Princess Peach? A government that gets to decide when I’m obsessed with something to the point that I need to be cured or re-educated.

hypertele-Xii 3y ago

If you know that a company consistently produces 7/10 games, why wouldn't you play them? That's above average value.

mlyle 3y ago
In fairness, "above average" doesn't say much... and beyond that the average game review is not too far from 7/10 because of longstanding distortions. But a whole lot of Nintendo's first party games, including BoTW/ToTK-- deserve far better than 7/10 (metacritic 97 / 96, "universal acclaim"). Even if they are not too much like the first things I loved in the Zelda franchise.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jl6 3y ago

I’m not sure Nintendo or Disney are doing anything particularly special. People land on the “fanboy / brand loyalty” spectrum about all kinds of products.

spaceman_2020 3y ago

Do you think something changed either in the marketing or society that caused this? Because Mickey Mouse has been around for nearly a century. Multiple generations of kids grew up with it, but the obsession millennials have with this stuff is nearing, what you called, “mental illness” tier.

Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago

To be honest, in today's world of mobile Skinner boxes and predatory microtransactions, I see liking Nintendo IP as one of the best things that could happen to my kid. They have a rather honest business model: they sell you a console, fun games (IMO most Zelda and Mario games are actually very good) and that's it. There are some microtransaction games as well (the mobile Mario Kart, which they actually seem to have made that way only reluctantly because hordes of uses complained that the mobile Mario platformer had a one-time fee for the whole game) but they're not the worst offenders in this respect and they're far from being a core part of the franchises, at least for now. (*) I have myself been a fan of Marios and Zeldas since I was a kid and I don't see them as having had a negative influence on my life. Which cannot be said about much of the microtransaction-ridden spreadsheets that pass as games these days, especially on mobile. Or even more legitimate games like MMORPGS (WoW, etc.) which have more reasonable business models but still seem to be designed to cause insane levels of addiction. (*) I cannot say the same of Disney. At least a few years ago, the only Star Wars game available on mobile was an insanely predatory gacha that extracted literally thousands of dollars from people to buy a single character that would be obsolete in a few months. I spent a few years addicted to it (not buying anything, but still wasting precious time in a repetitive and unfun grindfest), as at that point I didn't know how that kind of designer drug worked, I just downloaded it because it was Star Wars and got sucked in. It's been my first and last game of that genre, and I do hope that my kid keeps well away from those.

Andrex 3y ago

> This is even more apparent with BOTW/TotK where despite these being different from Zelda, an open world with zelda skinned on it, I still need to play it. A more charitable read of the situation is that you've grown attached to the lore, characters and aesthetics (both visual and musical cues/themes) such that you're looking forward to the next installment of this work of fiction. That's just Nintendo being good stewards of a franchise. There's millions of alternate pathways Nintendo could start making gobs of money (look at what The Pokemon Company turned that franchise into these days, yeesh!) But by taking their time it signals to me they really do think hard and long about every aspect of the design (naturally, nobody and no game dev team is perfect though). > Zelda, an open world with zelda skinned on it That's being deliberately reductive. And whatever the point, according to the creators BotW/TotK is the future direction of the franchise (similar to Link to the Past setting up OoT, WW, TP and SS). I'm not a fan of this "not MY Zelda!" attitude. Zelda II was shit on but it had a lot of cool ideas, and now thanks to the Zelda Cycle it's back on people's radar. Same for Major's Mask and Wind Waker to an extent. BotW is a triumph and it'd be hard to convince me otherwise. (I did lose interest in TotK after leaving the starting area, but I blame that on the reuse of Hyrule. I don't want to hunt hundreds of Koroks again, I already did that!) I didn't get the Link's Awakening remake because I'm extremely sensitive to frame stutter and Nintendo never fixed it, but it's an easy recommendation for 99% of Zelda fans who don't like the new direction. I'm hoping they tackle the Oracle games next and include the cut content from the cancelled third game.