Maybe Chill A Bit On Comparing Political Strife To Nerdy Pop Culture
It's going to sound like some wild-ass 2020 Mad Libs, but this is true: a Sonic The Hedgehog fan site that's been around since 1999 suddenly shut down because its twitter account sent out an extremely bad tweet protest-related tweet that -- twist! -- was actually in support of Black Lives Matter. It's perfectly understandable if you need to lie down after reading that. Take your time. It's a lot to process. This is the offending tweet:
A comparison of the 400-year struggle of black Americans to the absolutely in every way comparable struggle the blue speed mouse has had to endure at the hands of Dr. Robotnik. The site's owner could have just deleted the tweet and apologized for their truly earth-shattering moment of tone-deafness, but instead, they deleted the tweet, along with all their other tweets, and then every single bit of content the site has ever published over 21 years. That's some topnotch scorched earth-style self-flagellation. It's refreshing, really. If more people felt that bad about saying some dumb racial shit, we'd sentient balls of energy living a utopic existence of peace and harmony in the Andromeda galaxy by now.
The entirely bonkers tweet is another in a long line of similar comparisons between our modern American sociopolitical struggles and pop culture portrayals of grand evil. Remember when Trump was skyrocketing his way into fascist stardom and the only frame of reference for way too many people for the rise of such villainy was Harry Potter and Star Wars?
There's always going to be parallels between movie bad guys and whoever you think the real-life bad guys are. That's the point of big sci-fi/fantasy franchises, to be parables that can apply to anyone of any time. Pointing that out, however, works only as a shortcut for telling everyone you're boring as fuck because the only oppression you seem to grasp or are even aware of is fantasy oppression.
Trying to recontextualize real-world problems through Sonic The Hedgehog doesn't work any better than saying Trump is literally Voldemort. So maybe chill out on that shit a little bit.
Luis can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Catch him on the "In Broad Daylight" podcast with Cracked alums Adam Tod Brown and Ian Fortey! Check out his regular contributions to Macaulay Culkin's BunnyEars.com and his "Meditation Minute" segments on the Bunny Ears podcast. Listen to the first episode on Youtube!
Top Image: Paramount Pictures
