Before I start, note this is coming from a bi person. I’m “one of your own”. I only bring this up to deflect the “you don’t know what its like!” arguments people tend to throw at me.
Most people here aren’t against ‘diversity’ itself as many seem to think. Ask anyone here, chances are the overwhelming majority of them will likely tell you they don’t hate gay people or what have you.
They’re just people who have seen their beloved forms of entertainment nosediving face first into the pandering rabbit hole and coming out as a shell of its former self that’s now more focused on pandering than anything else.
We’re worried about that happening to Overwatch especially.
Now, can you have ‘diversity’ in something? Yes. That’s fine. No one is saying you cannot have it. Time has proven many, many times now you can indeed have “diversity” in something like a game or movie without people feeling its an issue.
When you handle it very poorly in hamfisted, cringey, poorly executed, poorly thought out, blatant over the top pandering ways you’re going to see people memeing the creation into the floor.
But when you handle it well with nuance and care you see virtually no one, if anyone at all ever complaining.
World of Warcraft does it well. Take note my dudes
WoW has TONS of female characters. You can’t walk 2 feet without running into 40 of them. This game easily has some of the most female “representation” I’ve ever seen in gaming and yet you see virtually no one on the WoW forums complaining about it. Why is that?
It’s because the females don’t feel like they’re being used as shameless pandering devices. The WoW team isn’t trying to emphasize the fact that the characters are female or that their game has females. The fact the characters are female aren’t weirdly hyper focused on, it isn’t made into some big point.
They’re focusing exclusively on the character’s actions, their story, and who the character is. Never at any point do they ever feel like they’re pointing to the fact that they’re female and saying “Look! Female representation! Woo females! They exist! Females are indeed a thing! Give us your money!”
Take a gander at this Jaina video the WoW team made. Even if you don’t play WoW its still a good watch
At any point do you get a diversity pandering vibe? I personally don’t.
I just see a awesome character who happens to be female instead of some character who is a “forced” diversity pander. At no point do I feel like they’re trying to sledgehammer some ulterior motive such as diversity pandering down my throat with this character.
Jaina is a insanely powerful female character that doesn’t in any way feel like diversity pander bait because they handled the whole “diversity” thing very well with her and all the other female characters in WoW.
The point being, when you handle this stuff with nuance and care to make sure your character doesn’t feel like a sloppily handled diversity pandering tool you end up with something like World of Warcraft; a game overflowing to the brim with “representation” while doing it in a way that doesn’t make people feel like a pandering agenda is being furiously jammed down their screaming throat.
And that is all we want. We just want this stuff to be handled better. That’s all we ask, its all we ever wanted.
We’re not asking for representation to never be put into Overwatch. We’re not saying “don’t put in gay or bi characters!”. We’re not saying “don’t do diversity!”
We’re simply asking “please, handle this stuff with care and nuance so it doesn’t feel like lazy pandering”.
Focus on the character’s actions, how they deal with their struggles, how they overcome said struggles, the game, the gameplay, the story and the universe this is all set in. Those things should always be the main focus with some diversity on the side if people want it. But never at any point should those things be overshadowed or neglected because of pandering.
That’s all we want. You can have diversity, that’s fine. Go for it. Just please, handle it well.
But the problem is so many companies now days have been taking that simple concept of “doing it well” and tossing it straight out the window which worries a lot of us.
So when ever you see people in LGBT threads saying “why does this stuff even matter? Stop making a big deal about gay heroes” or “can we stop trying to pander” they’re not complaining about diversity or gay characters specifically.
They’re complaining because they’re worried Blizzard is going to turn their beloved game into another poorly handled pandering tool as other TV shows, movies, comic books (RIP Marvel Comics) and other forms of entertainment have fallen victim to.
Next time you see someone in a thread complaining about LGBT this or LGBT that I just ask you take a moment to consider that this very well could be all that they’re worried about.
And if you’re asking for more representation just please make sure to ask Blizzard to do it in a tasteful, well handled way. So far I think they’ve been doing an okay job but we don’t want that to stop being the case.
/rant
TL;DR:
I don’t think I could possibly cram this into a TL;DR. So you don’t feel like you wasted your time scrolling have this adorable cat video
like wow what a blow to blizzard am I right