Complaints About Language In Reviews

I agree with Dave, a lot of reviews (not just of board games) tend to overuse the whole "edgy" thing.

I have never been much of a swearer for a lot of reasons, mostly because I still operate in a fairly churchy milieu. While I do think that strategic use of language can drive a point home, it tends to be a distraction in a lot of the settings I run in, so better to just avoid it altogether.

It's all a matter of setting and when it's appropriate. Most people are socially savvy enough to know when profanity isn't really called for. The only time I would maybe tell people to cool it is if they were at my house and my kids were still up. Seems like common sense, but I think that would be my dividing line.

There's a lot more at work with language besides words just being inherently bad, it becomes just a little bit of a class issue as well. None of that blue-collar stuff at game night! I've wondered if some of that attitude is something keeping gaming as a primarily white middle-class pursuit, but that's probably just a drop in the bucket on THAT topic.

ThirstyMan wrote: Ask him for a fight. That always decides stuff in a fair and equitable way.

I (we) are always getting told off at WBC for inappropriate language which surprises me because I always think the language is totally appropriate for the situation. We are usually getting told off by a guy in a ridiculous gnomish purple hat so I rarely take any notice.

If its who I think it is, he's pretty active in the Juniors events so it may be that he's "thinking of the children" . He's a bit of a tool, so I tend to ignore him.

I think Sag nails it in that you have to just take stock of the situation around you and act accordingly. If there no kids within earshot, I'll let the F bombs fly, regardless of time of day .

At WBC, there is also a question of how drunk I am. When sober in the morning, I can be pleasant to all around. After I've been drinking for 8+ hours, I make no promises that I will be coherent, much less, not profane.

charlest wrote: Has anyone else encountered a similar situation? Any suggestions? How would you handle it?

You've never met me, have you? LMAO


Tell him to eat a perfectly prepared bag of dicks.

I agree with Dave, a lot of reviews (not just of board games) tend to overuse the whole "edgy" thing.

See, this is bullshit. Utter, total, unmitigated bullshit. Cursing isn't being "edgy". There's nothing edgy about profanity. Dave is wrong, and you are wrong. Now, this, of course is incumbent upon the writer - if he's faking it, that's just being a fake. That's lame. You can always tell. (Dave, ask Jim McM about me...LMAO). And going over-the-top as his post indicated can sometimes be utterly tiring..I get that..but if the article is otherwise informative and well written, providing insights into the product WHILE making funny analogies or using funny metaphors, it's probably an above-average article.

I once said about a game that the look of the board was such that it appeared that Rainbow Brite ate a bad batch of skittles and shit on a platter:

IS THIS NOT THE CASE?

But, the article also spoke about the game, what it was, why it was the way it was, the mechanics..et C. It was a good, informative article. I used humor in it because that's what I do. That's how I am. If people can't handle it, there's 100 other articles to choose from, and people should seek them out. Complaining about content is twice as annoying to me than a boring article because people have the choice to simply read something else. It's like bitching because someone is reading Burroughs when you believe that Heinlein is a better writer. It's insipid.

People constantly criticized my use of rape jokes, profanity, et C and, just with Dave, he wrote an article decrying this as "edgy" and "bro-dude" facade. Allow me to publicly go on the record: Bullshit. It's not a writing style for some people. It's them writing what they think. If you ask ANY PERSON WHO KNOWS ME, sisters, mother, priest, employers, customers....they will immediately respond, "oh, that's how he is". I'm REAL. I don't play a part. I'm me, always, unabashedly, and people I interact with generally appreciate that there's a few people left that don't put on an act. I was a wildly successful salesperson and people actively sought me out BECAUSE I am how I am. I am memorable (not always in a good way) and if I were to weigh the business I gained versus the business I lost by not being full of shit, I'd have to put it at about 50 million to 100,000, AND I didn't have to lower myself to being a conformist, or not be true to who I am. That's worth losing 100,000 in business.

On any given day, I spew out an unrelenting string of vulgarities, "inappropriate" jokes, and what-have-you. To that point, no joke is ever inappropriate. They're JOKES. I've made jokes about my best friend's inability to maintain erections at his wedding, in front of his parents and in-laws. Why? Because it was fucking hilarious watching their eyes widen, and even moreso to hear them all gasp. The truth is that he takes viagra because he can't fuck for more than 20 seconds without it. His bride-to-be knows it. All of his close friends know it. All of the "inner circle" that was there were rolling...it was hilarious. Do I give two fucks that it offended some people? Not remotely. I can't control others' emotions, nor do I try to. I can't help that some people can't accept that they're not like me, with the inability to be offended by speech.

After the wedding, at the reception, all my friends, including the bride and groom, told me how much they loved my toast. The in-laws still talk about Tim's crazy fucking friend and that toast. It became MORE memorable. It became something more special because of it. That's the point - if it's not memorable, it's not worth writing, in my opinion.

So, to the OP's point, write what you want, let the people who don't like what you write change the channel. I see no difference between some cunt who harps about not being able to watch CNN or Fox News because of "bias" and someone not being able to read my reviews because they can't tolerate the language.

Fuck the world. You get 100 years on this planet, if you're very, very lucky. Don't spend a single minute of it not doing EXACTLY what makes you happy, makes you laugh, makes you smile. Life is too precious to waste worrying about how others view you.

/Finis

Edit: One more thing...

I was just in Mexico, and prior to that, Toronto. People are pretty plain-spoken in Toronto and I hear "fuck" up there far more than even here. In Mexico, it's profoundly ingrained in the culture. ..Chinga, Chingaron is endemic in speech, even at government minister level. This is lily-white "we're better than you" problem in America, in my honest opinion. I've been all over the world, and when you talk to people on the street, professionals, et C, people curse. People make fucked up comments. Of all of the places I've been, the United States is the most thought policing, fucked up, backwards-ass country of all. Everything is offensive. Everyone is wrong because they did something if they don't line the fuck up.

You're a "nigger-lover" if you wear saggy pants, and then they criminalize attire. You're a whore if you're a woman who likes sex and the media lambastes you. You're an idiot if you have a faith and the culture calls you a radical. We talk of tolerance and equality while denying rights to gays and institutionalize racism. We talk of freedom while we spy on everyone, and ourselves, and stifle dissent. We talk of innovation and creativity while medicating our kids more than any other country. We talk of the sanctity of marriage while having a 50% divorce rate. And that's the small stuff.

We talk of rule of law while the rich robber barons get bonuses for decimating the global economy and while income disparity is higher than it's been in 70 years. We talk of human rights while incarcerating more people than anywhere and executing more people than anywhere but China. We talk of justice while the rich avoid prisons while the poor populate them; then we privatize prisons making them a for-profit venture that endeavor to put more people in prisons for higher stock prices. We talk about morality while invading countries, killing by remote control, and supporting despots. We talk about opportunity while demonizing and criminalizing immigrants. And THESE are the guys who are telling me how we're supposed to act in public?? These are the values I'm supposed to adopt? Fuck that, fuck them, and fuck this place.

I'll stick to being a free-thinking, libertarian, foul-mouthed, deviant dickhead, thank you very much.

The fact that we as a society don't care about what goes on in the world is probably very much linked to the idea that everything we do should foremost be satisfactory to ourselves. So we challenge everyone daring to tell us how to speak, as if the "how" related to freedom of speech in the same way as the "what".

How pressing can human rights issues be in our culture, when using filthy language is elevated to an act of deviance? Excuse my obedience, but if communicating in a clear and clean way saves me some hassle, then I'll be doing that.

Before someone trots out George Orwell now; the use of clear, meaningful, non-loaded language is exactly what he advocated.

Sorry, but this is wrong.

Filthy language is a relative concept and not an absolute one. Calling someone a donkey, in Arabic, is far worse than anything Pete writes, but you choose to ignore that because it doesn't offend you personally or is not seen as deviance.

Deviance from what? Social norms? There lies madness...

Each of us presents ourselves as we choose. If you want to associate your persona with dog fucking that's your business. I'm not going to read your stuff.

S.

Pete - there's nothing shocking about your language. While your reviews have some interesting content, the sheer tedium of your 'humor' really keep me from even bothering to venture to your site. If you're fine with alienating a potential audience, so be it. Just be aware that your persona is limiting, and don't complain when anyone calls you on it. As Sag says, we each choose how to present ourselves, especially online.

That's really the question though, isn't it? Does the writer write for a greater audience, or as a creative outlet, or a bit of both? Which holds the higher priority? How much should the writer temper his style for the audience? When I write about hobbies the answers are: Outlet, Outlet, Very Little. But I'm not being paid to do it. The language that I use can vary wildly depending on my mood, and I'm happy with that. I'm not often trying to write a technical overview, I'm trying to put into words a bit of emotion, and I write a lot like I talk.

I agree with Pete: If you don't like the way a person writes, then why are you reading it? And since when did the language used become more important than the content provided?

Sometimes I think that the whole concept of profanity is bizarre.

Let's say that we need to talk about pooping in a professional context, like say doctors discussing a patient or attorneys discussing a criminal case. They might say " the patient was defecating", and that sounds very proper and professional. But if one of the doctors were to instead say "the patient was shitting", suddenly it's considered crude and offensive, even though defecating and shitting mean the exact same thing. And how does using other words like "making a dooky" or "doing number two" help anything? So what makes "shitting" profanity? Is it the spelling? The pronunciation? Or is it in fact some stupid, arbitrary social construct?

And why would it be wrong to use the word "shitting" around children? By the time they are sentient enough to understand words, children have probably caught on to the fact that they sometimes produce stinky brown matter, and that it's a normal activity. Why make some words about it forbidden, but not others?