I’ve been playing GTA Online again after a couple of years away and the game chat is absolutely brimming with casual Russophobia. GTA Online has always been a giant trash fire due to the toxic nature of the game and the fact that the vast majority of its players are children and maladjusted adults, but it’s interesting to notice how hostile Europeans have become to Russian players, randomly calling them orcs or animals and asking them why they haven’t been sent to die in Ukraine yet.
Of course, because everyone playing the game is an asshole, most of the Russian comebacks are snide remarks about Europe having a lot of African immigrants, but it’s almost always NATO-brained Westerners picking fights with players with Russian names and not the other way around.
I’m sure the situation is very similar in most other multiplayer games, but to me it’s interesting how Russians have taken the place Chinese players used to hold in GTA some years back before they were region-locked into their own servers as otherised enemies whom you vomit random talking points you picked up on the news at
It’s interesting you don’t really see much “Sauron/Saruman did nothing wrong” type of ironic shitposting compared to other properties like Star Wars
Shoulda seen the ridiculous thread I unfortunately participated in yesterday on a federated instance. Achtually Frodo was the bad guy for destroying the ring or something I dunno fash arguments are lost on me most of the time
There is The Last Ringbearer but it’s a different sort of thing entirely
That was some amazing concern trolling shit where the scratched liberal tried to pick up leftist terminology like salad bar selections and fling it while smirking.
I’ve seen some for Saruman, often from the same bunch that say “Humanity Fuck Yeah” about burning down Pandora and murdering the Na’vi for… being furries or whatever nazi shit is wriggling in their head.
pretty immediate realisation why that never happens when you remember the skin tone of the uruk-hai in the movies (well, the descriptions in the books too, but yeah)
I mean, Temuera isn’t exactly the whitest Maori of all time, but kkkrackoids can oddly sympathise with the Maori clone wehrmacht over the eugenically-bred orc warriors with literal black skin and it rlly makes u think
I also think it’s just that the orcs are just too clearly monstrous and inhuman to be aspirational compared to, for example, Stormtroopers and Imperial Officers who are just white soldier dudes wearing Cool Uniforms and Badass Armour. Even the Uruk-Hai who have the latter are still lumpy cannibal monsters with comedy British accents
Edit: I looked up the “Meat’s back on the menu, boys!” scene from The Two Towers on Youtube. Can you guess what the recent comments reference?