D&D General Millennial D&D (+)

[Paul Farquhar]

As usual, generations are artificial.

This. And it's not young people who are different, they are always the same. The change is something that happens as people age, and transition from young, to middle aged, to elderly.

In taste, I agree with you, I prefer fiction that is essentially optimistic, to the constant stream of grimdark we are getting at the moment. But I think that is just a) my taste, and b) unimaginative media people chasing whatever they think is currently popular so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. I don't think it has anything to do with the year I was born (1968).

 

[Charlaquin]

I've heard this obliquely but I was wondering if you could elaborate.

It’s probably not really appropriate to get into here, but in brief, online fandom sites in the 2010s (particularly Tumblr and 4chan) were kind of the birthplace of the current culture war. You had college students and recent graduates discussing serious media analysis in the same place middle and high school students were going to talk about their favorite cartoons, which lead to a lot of children absorbing the language of progressive politics without really understanding the nuance. Meanwhile, reactionaries were actively poisoning the well by using sock puppets to present absurd caricatures of progressive talking points as if they were genuine to an audience who couldn’t easily tell the difference, and disguising reactionary ideas in progressive-sounding language. Then in 2018, new laws in the US restricting sexual content online drove most of the sex-positive folks off of those fandom sites, leaving the reactionary Trojan Horse talking points to go mostly unchallenged in those spaces.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It’s probably not really appropriate to get into here, but in brief, online fandom sites in the 2010s (particularly Tumblr and 4chan) were kind of the birthplace of the current culture war. You had college students and recent graduates discussing serious media analysis in the same place middle and high school students were going to talk about their favorite cartoons, which lead to a lot of children absorbing the language of progressive politics without really understanding the nuance. Meanwhile, reactionaries were actively poisoning the well by using sock puppets to present absurd caricatures of progressive talking points as if they were genuine to an audience who couldn’t easily tell the difference, and disguising reactionary ideas in progressive-sounding language. Then in 2018, new laws in the US restricting sexual content online drove most of the sex-positive folks off of those fandom sites, leaving the reactionary Trojan Horse talking points to go mostly unchallenged in those spaces.

As a former Homestuck fan...I can definitely say I saw parts of this myself. Uncritical acceptance of a warped, simplistic, context-divorced version of important concepts (like privilege) plus active...I guess "hostile astroturfing", led to some of the worst purity-culture toxicity I've ever seen. I made several friends in the HS community, and still keep contact with them today. But good Lord, the amount of faux-intellectualism from literal twelve-to-fourteen-year-olds was staggering--not to mention the idolization of, and adoration for, characters who were outright abusive, harmful, or coercive, while vilifying or even (sometimes literally) demonizing characters who had done far, far lesser things.

There's a strangely absolutist character to some of this. Like cultural relativism has wrapped all the way around and come back into black-and-white thinking from the other direction.

But, as you say, this is probably not the thread for such talk. Just wanted to note that I've had experiences in that direction with a specific, identifiable fandom and its...more extreme elements.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

As is somewhat fitting for a Millennial DnD, a huge part of this thread seems to be confusing millennials with GenZ.

 

[Blue Orange]

It’s probably not really appropriate to get into here, but in brief, online fandom sites in the 2010s (particularly Tumblr and 4chan) were kind of the birthplace of the current culture war. You had college students and recent graduates discussing serious media analysis in the same place middle and high school students were going to talk about their favorite cartoons, which lead to a lot of children absorbing the language of progressive politics without really understanding the nuance. Meanwhile, reactionaries were actively poisoning the well by using sock puppets to present absurd caricatures of progressive talking points as if they were genuine to an audience who couldn’t easily tell the difference, and disguising reactionary ideas in progressive-sounding language. Then in 2018, new laws in the US restricting sexual content online drove most of the sex-positive folks off of those fandom sites, leaving the reactionary Trojan Horse talking points to go mostly unchallenged in those spaces.

You can send a link privately if you like, but do you have a further source for this?

It was a substantial factor in my centerward drift toward the end of that decade, and if it was based on a false impression of the left, I would be very interested in learning that.

 

[Charlaquin]

You can send a link privately if you like, but do you have a further source for this?

It was a substantial factor in my centerward drift toward the end of that decade, and if it was based on a false impression of the left, I would be very interested in learning that.

It’s kind of a difficult thing to source due to a lack of scholarly research on the matter, made even harder by the abysmal lack of archival on social media sites. But, some amateur internet sleuths have succeeded in tracing some of the more famous absurd Tumblr posts to deliberate “hostile astroturfing” (thanks @EzekielRaiden for the term, I’m stealing it) from the chan-sphere. Sarah Z is an YouTuber with a pretty large and well-researched body of work breaking down 2010s fandom culture, though fair warning, her videos are long and if you’re disinclined to give much credence to leftist video essayists, you may not find them persuasive. Her most directly relevant videos to this question would be “Tumblr’s fakest story: the tale of Oppa Homeless Style” and “Fandom Wars: the story of proshippers vs antis.” Her videos about Homestuck and My Immortal are also relevant, though less directly so. There was also a semi-recent article about the phenomenon on Vox, titled “Puritanism took over online fandom, and then came for the rest of the internet” that gives a brief overview - again, far from a scholarly source, but a place to get started if you want to do more independent research on the matter.

 

[Blue Orange]

It’s kind of a difficult thing to source due to a lack of scholarly research on the matter, made even harder by the abysmal lack of archival on social media sites. But, some amateur internet sleuths have succeeded in tracing some of the more famous absurd Tumblr posts to deliberate “hostile astroturfing” (thanks @EzekielRaiden for the term, I’m stealing it) from the chan-sphere. Sarah Z is an YouTuber with a pretty large and well-researched body of work breaking down 2010s fandom culture, though fair warning, her videos are long and if you’re disinclined to give much credence to leftist video essayists, you may not find them persuasive. Her most directly relevant videos to this question would be “Tumblr’s fakest story: the tale of Oppa Homeless Style” and “Fandom Wars: the story of proshippers vs antis.” Her videos about Homestuck and My Immortal are also relevant, though less directly so. There was also a semi-recent article about the phenomenon on Vox, titled “Puritanism took over online fandom, and then came for the rest of the internet” that gives a brief overview - again, far from a scholarly source, but a place to get started if you want to do more independent research on the matter.

I'll check them out (at the very least the Vox article and the two Sarah Z videos you mentioned). Thank you!

 

[Charlaquin]

I'll check them out (at the very least the Vox article and the two Sarah Z videos you mentioned). Thank you!

You’re welcome!

 

[Minigiant]

Millennial D&D has hidden references to 80s and 90s action cartoons.

Actual paraphrased quotes.

"Minigiant! I swear to God if you attack us with Devastator!"
"But he is the most powerful robot! He should rule! Soundwave it is. Roll Initiative."
"Why are you rolling so much? Soundwave is one robot. He can't summon the cassettes under his turn. This is Bull!"
"Soundwave Superior. D&D inferior"

 

[Steampunkette]

Everyone gets a trophy because the older adventurers get pissed if their kid doesn't at least bring home a participation trophy in dungeon delving. Then the party gets blamed for having useless trophies that don't mean anything by those same older adventurers. Or "Expecting" participation trophies they neither need nor desire.

Entire parties living in a 2-bedroom farmhouse because even adventuring 60 hours a week they can't afford a castle. "If you just stopped buying fancy rations and hunted for your food you'd have enough money to build your own castle by now!"

Rather than kicking down dungeon doors we spend our time fighting, and slaying, entire industries. Mostly really banal ones like "Paper Towels" or "Disposable Cups".

All the magic use by a handful of very powerful and wealthy mages is ruining the world and we've been begging them to stop for decades while they try to convince us to use less magic around the house and simultaneously unleash ancient evils from the depths of the world.

We watch in disbelief as conspiracy theories erupt around the Cure Disease spell during a massive plague.

We get told to cheer for the first (insert heritage/race here) (insert gender here) (insert political position here) to be granted titles within the kingdom every year or two rather than recognizing it as a scathing indictment of the bigotry of the kingdom that made it so all these barriers are being broken within a single generation because earlier generations were dominated by hatred and distrust of elves/orcs/dwarves/gnomes/halflings/women/whatever.

We try the "Kick in the Door" method of adventuring our parents and mentors advocate, then get yelled at for being too loud/violent/dangerous and the town guard is summoned to the dungeon.

Adventuring companies constantly complaining no one wants to Quest, anymore, but when you try to sign up they spend weeks dodging you and if they -do- accept your application they can't offer you industry standard rates because they need to "Stay Lean" to be competitive. But they promise a monthly turkey-roast that you only have to pay 2 silver toward since everyone's pitching in.

Adventuring equipment used to last multiple generations. Now the standard of build quality means you're lucky to get 2 years of use out of a Longsword or Battleaxe if you're polishing, sharpening, and cleaning it carefully every night. Even the armor is getting lighter and thinner so the smiths can save materials while we're out here struggling to get by with low-quality gear they charge mid-quality rates for.

Seriously. You cannot buy ANYTHING for a copper, any more. MAYBE a single Caltrop, but come the heck on...

"You're using -last- year's Orb of Scrying? The Applemancers put out a new one three weeks ago. What do you mean you use Warforged Scrying Orbs?"