The woke ideology is advancing more and more every day, not only in politics, education, business, but now also in the universe of online games.
I don’t usually talk about personal issues in my articles, but I decided to make an exception on this occasion.
Throughout my life I have gotten along well with all kinds of people, regardless of whether or not they share my views on politics, religion or morals. I have traveled and lived in several countries. I have always had a polite and high attitude even with very radical people. According to the education I received, this is called respect. Many of my friends are openly leftist, including the vast majority of my family of origin, and that does not prevent us from exchanging opinions. We agree to “disagree” and get along like civilized people. I have never liked to surround myself with like-minded people. Rather, this attitude has always seemed sectarian to me.
Among other things, I am a big fan of the “Star Trek” franchise, which everyone knows at least by name. I discovered this series as a child with my grandfather. I have followed it all these years, even the latest ones, despite the post-modern ideological colorations that are unfortunately not lacking in Hollywood film productions nowadays.
But I did not expect that which happened to me recently.
I joined an online role-playing community for Star Trek fans called Starbase 118, with the intention of sharing pleasant moments of playful leisure based on this science fiction universe that we are so passionate about. Obviously, I did not sign up to talk politics or engage in ideological polemics. On the contrary, in the internal rules of this game group, it is mentioned that neither politics nor real life religion should be discussed in its forums in order to avoid conflicts, as this is not the objective of the game. And this seems to me a healthy rule for a game intended for teenagers and adults.
It has been a few years since I had played this type of game and I was very excited to find such a large, established and active community. I prepared my character for this game, wrote his backstory, passed the academic evaluation period (in-game) and then was introduced to a group of players that I found to be very cool. I was asked among other things to make a brief personal biography (real life) in order to get to know each other a little bit, since we are real people behind the game, which I did with pleasure. And that’s where the problem began.
Some of the players found the articles I wrote on IFamNews. In fact, they are public. The person responsible for my new group immediately wrote to me in alarm to confirm if I was the author of these articles or if it was a homonym. Their concern was that they have several LGTBI+ players and were afraid this would create problems. I replied that I was indeed the author of these articles, but that my objective on this occasion was playful, that I was not going to address controversial issues or provoke debate based on mutual respect. He asked me if I was able to write and share without prejudice with people whose thoughts were different from mine. And obviously I told him that I had no problem exchanging writings with people from all walks of life in this context.
Despite this, they decided to exclude me from the group. It did not matter to them that I had not violated any internal or external regulations. The reason given by them is that my writings on IFamNews make certain people uncomfortable because it is basically hate speech, which “sends a message to many gamers that I do not accept their humanity because I disagree with their basic human rights to marry as they want in a free society.” If I were to summarize his point of view in one sentence it would be: “If you don’t accept LGTBI+ views as legitimate human rights, you can’t play with us.”
I wonder: How much do they recognize and respect my right to free opinion, if they finally decide to exclude me because my mere presence could make some of their players feel insecure knowing that a person who does not share their opinions is present in their forums?
The answer I was given had a polite and lofty manner, I must admit, but deep down it was hurtful and truly discriminating.
As a conservative, I believe that opinions in a debate should preferably be based on facts, not personal feelings. Feelings should never prevail over facts. On this occasion I will exceptionally use what I felt at the time as an argument, because I know that some of them will read me and I want to voluntarily, just this once, use this kind of language in the hope that they understand my position, if that is possible.
I felt excluded from this group for no valid reason, just because I did not share the opinion of the majority. I felt a bit like 30 years ago, when I was rejected at a new school and bullied for a year simply for having a different diet than the rest of the group. It had nothing to do with my character, my person or my academic performance. It was only because I had a different diet. I had to change schools and keep quiet about this fact for a long time in order to be accepted and then become a class delegate. It took me a whole year, in which I failed in everything because, due to my young age, I did not know how to handle this issue. I was rejected for something completely unrelated to school. I was overcome with the same feeling when I was rejected from this playgroup for reasons totally unrelated to its purpose.
Now I am 43 years old, I am a professional and the truth is that my life will not change at all if I participate or not in a simple game. In fact, I’ve already turned the page. What I seek in writing this article is not to victimize myself. I’m not into whining. I leave those strategies for the leftists who handle them all too well. I only wanted to use this type of arguments for once, with the intention that those with an open mind may understand that although their way of acting has correct forms, they are totally mistaken in the background when they pretend to be politically neutral. And their mistake definitely has consequences on people.
I replied that by acting in this way, they classified me as a second-rate player, but instead of feeling bad, I was flattered by this fact. It is like a “yellow star” for being special and not acceptable to frequent the majority of the community.
However, I have advised them that, if they persist on this path, they should publicly announce their support for the LGTBI+ thesis and that they will not accept players who in real life do not share their views for fear of “offending” their LGBTI+ members. This way everything will be clear from the beginning, and you will not waste the time of people like me who are looking for a playful space with people of high standing regardless of their ideological opinions. Feeling offended, or even potentially offended, does not make you guilty or right about anything. I finally asked them to please assume their ideological positions, as they are not politically neutral.
I think that many people do not realize the extent to which post-modern ideologies invade all spaces and gradually exclude from them those who think differently. Even when we accept as a requirement not to talk about controversial topics, we can be excluded simply for thinking differently.
True Star Trek fans would understand this immediately. With this attitude, those responsible for Starbase118 are very far from the IDIC philosophy of the Vulcans that praises the diversity of opinions, and very close to the political police of the Romulan Tal Shiar that represses or eliminates any current of thought contrary to the official thought.
For them, diversity has become “agreeing with my own concept of diversity, because any other offends me and must be cancelled.”
Let us be firm in the good fight and let us not be afraid to label those who pretend to be neutral and who in practice are not neutral at all. For families who have children playing online games, be aware of this ideological colonization because it sometimes disguises itself as neutrality. For those who support a political thesis in unrelated environments, have the courage to assume it publicly. Here at IFamNews we are pro-life and pro-family, and we declare this publicly.