Rightists have such glass jaws. Can’t take a punch. As you doubtless know by now they’re in a hissy fit over a zombie game about the Tea Party.
The news hit a fit days ago. You may be asking why write about it now? When the news hit, one senior Republican of our acquaintance asked us privately if we did it. Nope. But we can say anything that gets that thin skinned crowd up in arms must be doing something right.
We’ll be back to regular blogging this week.
Sam Lowry says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Agreed, it is good to see a pol do the right thing and recognize an over reaction when it happens. A surprising (to me) but welcome event, no doubt. Also, it looks like Twitter is becoming a more influential form of communication/meme generator. For better or for worse (in this case I think for the better).
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Sam Lowry SB did the smart thing in defusing it, eating some crow and walking away. It was a lose, lose facing a photogenic teenager and supportive mother.
The upside? Anyone going to a SB event knows if they talk about it and hashtag it, there’s a chance someone in his office will actually read it.
Sam Lowry says
Dr Strauss, Seems like the standard play from the modern rightist PR manual would have been to have the governor, his staffers, or his media surrogates attack the student with some ridiculous charge (she is a foot soldier in the Soros/ACORN/SEIU leftist plot to implement gay atheist Sharia law and that her Tweet constituted some kind of anti-colonialist terrorism. Or something like that.).
Curious to see Brownback call an audible and actually apologize. And give a shout out in support of the First Amendment. All of this is definitely in the file marked “One of the most unlikely things I would have expected to see”. A file getting more full by the day (not just with wingnut stuff, though)
Sam Lowry says
But a story with so many fascinating twists. Perusing the comments sections at Fox “News” and BigGovernment (A-list wingnut sites), commenters have actually ridiculed the governor and realized his over-reaction makes him look ridiculous. There are more than a few who actually support the student’s First Amendment right to speak her mind. Crazy world!
DrLeoStrauss says
@Sam Lowry Have been following this young woman closely, too, Sam. Share your mirth at the outcome.
Have had some dealings with the over reacting people around the man from Opus Dei; not surprised at the clumsy, assumed inviolability of Authority and delighted with the blowblack. Just batshit stupid politics in this new media world.
Comment says
@Sam Lowry
That peevish little pussy – So much wrong with that whole story.
Sam Lowry says
More than a zombie video game, a Tweet gets under the skin of some rightist governor in Kansas. Poor baby. Nice to see that a high school girl has enough backbone to refuse to apologize for a “he sucks in person” Tweet with the #heblowsalot hashtag. She even got an apology from the governor no less. There is a lesson in there for “liberals” and “the left”. This Emma Sullivan could be a future leader of the non-rightist resistance. Just hope she’s living off the grid now, John Connor style.
via Talking Points Memo: Brownback Apologizes to Teen Tweeter
DrLeoStrauss says
@Zombie games
Agree, in the end of the day, it must first and foremost be a game and offer rewarding game play experience. Any messaging or other stuff are definitely secondary to creating a game people will actually play and enjoy.
Zombie games says
Cooperative games emphasize participation, challenge and fun rather than defeating someone. Cooperative focus on fun and interaction rather than competition and alienation. Cooperative games are not new. Some of the classic we participated in as children are classic because of the play emphasis.
Christian RPG says
Our society is changing and with the huge popularity of the Harry Potter series, mythical worlds and magic like that of D&D have become much more mainstream; however there is still a lot more to role playing games than just one series, and, as a teaching tool, they are invaluable.Role-playing is at the very heart of the commonly heard phrase “Fake it ’till you make it” – that is if you can pretend and act more confident and self-assured, you will become more confident and self-assured.
DrLeoStrauss says
@jwb Can’t say, didn’t play through even the first level. Will take another look. Suspect your take is right.
jwb says
@jwb Darn iPad. That should read: “that is actually conservative messaging, however much it might also accord with reality.”
jwb says
Can you win the game or do the zombies always overwhelm you in the end? I played through two levels and was thoroughly bored, but it seems to me the point of the game is that the zombies will always win, that the weapons destroy individuals but never affect the horde. That is actually conservative messaging, however much it also accord with reality. What the game actually taught me was that if I play the game I probably wouldn’t win unless I first hacked it and changed the rules. But perhaps I didn’t go deep enough for a more subtle lesson to emerge.
DrLeoStrauss says
Could be an internal job, JWB, but the feel is off? One imagines an internal job would be clumsier and just cue up money shots.
Agree it’s faux outrage. Having sat in 2009 through a 35 slide PPT deck for Fox on how to destroy the Huffington Post (interestingly, not one bullet point said buy and f*ck up TechCrunch) and liberal media, the imagery was all about destruction, physical elimination — stuff that even the Concierge in the Situation Room would have to say ‘Oh my.”
Later decks really didn’t change in violent focus. There’s a new video game about Alice returning to Wonderland. That would be a fun one to tweak and have Alice fall into Roger Ailes’d id.
jwb says
Since almost every comment about the game, almost from the moment it appeared, has come from a right wing source–when I googled it a couple of days ago it was pretty much right wing sites all the way through– I’d presumed it was a false flag game: a game for conservatives to get outraged at. But if that’s the case then it’s not even getting them up in arms; they are just pretending to get themselves up in arms: fauxrage du jour. Which brings us to Breitbart’s latest performance that the tweetmachine has been chirping about alongside the Wall Street Political Theater Troupe: surely, Bartbeit’s little call to arms was the perfect complement to Tea Party Zombies.