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Pokémon gives tone deaf response to BLM protests as Nintendo stays silent
- Thread starter RastaMentality
- Start date
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Nintendo is as conservative as it gets, and only makes a public position when it's dragged kicking and screaming.
"If you haven't made up your mind to choose Squirtle, you aint black."
Nintendo's silence is definitely frustrating, especially in the wake of practically every other company saying something.
This Pokémon tweet is just kinda... eh. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean kids shouldn't get a bit more than "fist bump all your friends regardless of their skin tone!" Considering how prevalent bullying is, I'd argue it's more necessary than ever to teach them actual lessons, not vague niceties. Hell, I'd argue it makes more sense for them to do it than friggin' Amazon using it to score brownie points while ignoring their own systemic issues.
All it takes is "we at The Pokémon Company believe in equality for all" and if you really gotta brand it include the likes of Nessa.
This Pokémon tweet is just kinda... eh. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean kids shouldn't get a bit more than "fist bump all your friends regardless of their skin tone!" Considering how prevalent bullying is, I'd argue it's more necessary than ever to teach them actual lessons, not vague niceties. Hell, I'd argue it makes more sense for them to do it than friggin' Amazon using it to score brownie points while ignoring their own systemic issues.
All it takes is "we at The Pokémon Company believe in equality for all" and if you really gotta brand it include the likes of Nessa.
I just find it odd they chose to use grey tones for POC characters.
We also need to talk about how black people continue to be represented in Pokemon in general.
This isn't a real skin color, for instance.
It's like they purposely make people so ethnically ambiguous because they are more afraid of another Jynx scenario than they care about doing representation right.
I think you should play the games more.
[/QUOTE]
This sounds much better than the pure hate people are putting out. Would I encourage them do post something? Yes. Does it need to be a lot of text? No.
A picture/photo says more than a thousand words
This sounds much better than the pure hate people are putting out. Would I encourage them do post something? Yes. Does it need to be a lot of text? No.
A picture/photo says more than a thousand words
We're not in a goddamn race war, the problem is police killing black people on camera and getting away with it.
Saying black and white unity in gif form says nothing to that. That's why the tweet is weak.
To be honest I'm less bothered by this than Activision Blizzard and the like all doing this:
I mean, this is still a totally meaningless gesture from Pokemon but it feels less shitty than the above.
I mean, this is still a totally meaningless gesture from Pokemon but it feels less shitty than the above.
This. WHY people in here are so weirdly defensive of TPC is baffling. It's OK that some of us expect more.
But they don't. You're just pointing at those specifically when in those same games there are other black characters with different shades.
I think you might be color blind. They're very clearly shades of brown
We also need to talk about how black people continue to be represented in Pokemon in general.
This isn't a real skin color, for instance.
It's like they purposely make people so ethnically ambiguous because they are more afraid of another Jynx scenario than they care about doing representation right.
Huh?
Iris, Marshal, Grant, Lenora, Nessa, the Veteran Male in XY...
What are you talking about?!
While I understand that we expect companies to make statements, that's not enough. As we have seen, most brands who make a statement are riding this PR wave and even Quantic Dreams' non-subtle statement shows it's just a marketing ploy for them.
They need to take action, action like Sony's that speak that they're willing to listen and help with regards to the delaying of potentially their biggest event this year especially after the NFL ads and showing that they're listening to feedback ( which I presume is why they delayed the event )
All these companies making statements and not doing anything to support the movement means squat.
They need to take action, action like Sony's that speak that they're willing to listen and help with regards to the delaying of potentially their biggest event this year especially after the NFL ads and showing that they're listening to feedback ( which I presume is why they delayed the event )
All these companies making statements and not doing anything to support the movement means squat.
I would probably still like a text saying something. I'll applaud and give more respect to Sony and Microsoft for what they're doing and bringing more awareness too it.
Lol. Maybe they'll save posting that for their Canadian solidarity tweet.This you?
It's exactly this that I'm worried about given Blizzard's history with regards to Hong Kong.
All of these statements are nice to show their stance but we need to stop treating companies as people who are supportive for the cause unless they're actively taking a role.
I honestly prefer if corporations dont pretend to care about social issues or even worse take advantange of it to sell their shit. Is okay if they want to silently donate money to charities tho.
Exactly.
Singling this out for not using specific words while being okay with other billion dollar companies using the right phrase yet not actually doing anything is a joke. Neither of them are doing anything. If these companies aren't donating money or performing similar actions, then these words are simply platitudes and it's sad to see those are enough to assuage so many people despite this
I don't think they've actually played a Pokemon game before, at least not in some time. For all the shit you can give Gamefreak, lack of diversity ain't one of them. The games have diverse casts in all manner of roles, minor and important for a long time now
I guess I am. And I guess I should've played the new game before talking, I just avoided it because the dex / online / graphic / lack of dungeons, story / problems. Sorry if I offended anyone
Yikes, it would be better if they didn't say anything. But then again, I wouldn't blame them... their more progressive fans will once again give Nintendo/TPC a pass an they'll still be considered wholesome and nice guys while not risking losing the conservative/nazi clients. This is mostly due to fans never calling them out for anything lbr, they feel they can do whatever/nothing and it'll be all right
User Banned (1 Week) - Ignoring Staff Post
Why? I'm just pointing out this is absolutely in Nintendo's playbook at this point and that them being silent shouldn't be surprising. Shouldn't be surprising =/= condoning their decision to stay silent, it's just knowledge from years of experience and studying Nintendo's own policies in the video game market as a company that specifically made its brand around apolitical games that were directly altered to fit a very sanitized public image. Something Nintendo has never once shed completely in 40 years on the market even if they've opened up and modernized in a few small areas.
As for the corporations. They're not our friends and the overwhelming majority are not our allies either. I don't think that should be a particularly controversial stance to point out. Corporations are self serving first and foremost. Again, their impact in so far as being a major company supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and calling for reform that attracts public attention is a positive and continues to make it mainstream, but corporations also know full well that these are calculated responses they've designed. It's a selfish act that has some positive benefit beyond the selfishness of the corporation working for its own interest. Major corporations have major hands in perpetrating and supporting many of the same institutions and power structures that cause harm to individuals in the US and globally as well. I'm only willing to give them so much credit for these types of statements. When they start matching donations and doing more, that speaks louder volumes to actually doing something at least.
As a former employee for Nintendo Germany I might can share some details about how at least Nintendo of Europe handles situation like these. As people already pointed out Nintendo simply does not publish public statements about any kind of political topics. But they definitely are aware of what's happening.
Whenever some kind of a nationwide tragedy occurred NOE stopped any kind of social media messaging for at least a day. That affected every single European country. I can recall a terror attack which happened in Belgium and even if other countries barely took notice of the incident the company decided to put everything on hold despite other publishers doing their everyday social media postings. I just want to share this with you as some people here act like Nintendo and its employees don't care. They definitely do. And I'm certain the people at NOA won't be different.
Neither is this an excuse nor a justification for their reaction. I simply want to give some context and give room for a general discussion on how companies should act when facing situations like these respectively what we as their customers expect them to do. Because it looks like for some it's simply enough to post a statement whereas other folks want to see some actions to actually contribute to a better society.
But I can definitely understand when people get upset about the Pokémon social media post. When you do decide to take a stand you should make sure that the messaging is on point and not a lackluster video clip which undermines the relevance of what just happened.
Whenever some kind of a nationwide tragedy occurred NOE stopped any kind of social media messaging for at least a day. That affected every single European country. I can recall a terror attack which happened in Belgium and even if other countries barely took notice of the incident the company decided to put everything on hold despite other publishers doing their everyday social media postings. I just want to share this with you as some people here act like Nintendo and its employees don't care. They definitely do. And I'm certain the people at NOA won't be different.
Neither is this an excuse nor a justification for their reaction. I simply want to give some context and give room for a general discussion on how companies should act when facing situations like these respectively what we as their customers expect them to do. Because it looks like for some it's simply enough to post a statement whereas other folks want to see some actions to actually contribute to a better society.
But I can definitely understand when people get upset about the Pokémon social media post. When you do decide to take a stand you should make sure that the messaging is on point and not a lackluster video clip which undermines the relevance of what just happened.
Nintendo can help a lot more by being proactive on having more diversity in their games. I see that they are working on it, but there are still ways to go.
Thank you for sharing this information.
You can care behind closed doors all you want, but it's meaningless if you aren't doing something about it.
Stopping social media posts during a tragedy is not the answer. Using your platform for change, for good, is.
Yep.
Hell, when those online idiots were bullying their own employee they took a long time to acknowledge it.
A lot more than they are doing now. And a lot more than all these companies who are just making statements while not actually pointing out specific problems or illustrating what they are going to do to help change anything.
At the very least, I would have the company donate a large sum of money to BLM causes, encourage employees to do the same and match them. I know if I ran Nintendo I would be extremely well off financially, so I would slash my salary to make this happen. I'd still be a multi millionaire, so I know i'd be ok. I would reach out to all black staff and do what I could for them. I would encourage my developers to have more PoC in Nintendo games.
These are just some things I can think of at the moment. I dunno, I think there is a lot of things Nintendo, and other companies could be doing right now, but they are doing the bare minimum.
Exactly this. Making yourself heard is important in situations like these and it is nice to see that many have responded, but this does not mean that we must expect (and I underline this word) that everyone does it.
And in this specific case, and that's why I started commenting in this discussion before everyone fooled me or attacked me for being idiotic fanboy, expressing myself as best I can with my English: in a context in which not even Nintendo nor other software houses, such as Square Enix or Capcom, to see Pokémon (which is part of Nintendo anyway, so maybe they can't talk until Nintendo say something) dedicate a small post to the matter, however small it is, remains a positive message. Especially knowing that they have always been "hesitant" on certain issues.
So yes guys, attack Nintendo, Square, Capcom and even Pokémon for not joining the choir as well as the others, but in general it will not be posts on socials to change the world, but our actions in daily life.
Breh, this thread is a hard shrug. Sure Nintendo or any other corporation could do more but fuck them. I honestly don't get why ppl keep looking for these companies or these celebs to say anything, like it will instantly fix the problem.
I rather look at the ppl of the company, cause Sony or Nintendo ain't gonna be protesting with my black ass. Maybe the workers, yeah. That'll be nice.
Hopefully they donate, cause they gonna do shit for us.
I rather look at the ppl of the company, cause Sony or Nintendo ain't gonna be protesting with my black ass. Maybe the workers, yeah. That'll be nice.
Hopefully they donate, cause they gonna do shit for us.
I don't expect much from companies or brands but if they wanted to contribute all they had to do was acknowledge that many of their players are Black and they support the positivity or cause.
OP
OP
Thanks mods for the warning. A lot of you people whining clearly wanna keep politics out of your video games and should just come out and say it.
Thanks for the reply.
I was curious.
From my perspective for specially the BLM movement I am not really holding Nintendo, MS or Sony's feet too close to the fire as I don't think they really did anything to contribute to the death and inequality that we are all so angry about. I would certainly applaud them if they took a strong stance for BLM, Palestinians or really anyone that was oppressed but I am not going to kill them for not doing it either. And I am not saying I am right thats just how I see it.
I am far more angry at the companies, people and governments that actively work to support the oppression. The NFL is the most obvious example. They took a stand AGAINST BLM and for that I don't think I can ever forgive them. That was just incredibly racist and evil. I feel the same way about all of the politicians and citizens who were actively trying to shut down BLM when they engaged in nonviolent protest for almost 2 years.
I don't know. For me I don't want the anger to be diluted against those that are the active oppressors. I want them to sweat or feel everyone's pain. For me at least Nintendo is not on that list. But if someone showed to me that they were just as evil as the NFL I would have to stop playing their games.
Might as well post a stock image of black and white people working together in an office environment. The tweet means nothing—I get that—but I don't get why people are in an uproar.
Seems about as much as you can get from Pokemon: the video game series that hardly evolved in 20+ years.
I honestly don't expect anything from them. Nintendo is like almost any other brand: get the money, avoid the bigger picture stuff. They should be contributing, both financially and ideologically, to the efforts for justice and equality.
I honestly don't expect anything from them. Nintendo is like almost any other brand: get the money, avoid the bigger picture stuff. They should be contributing, both financially and ideologically, to the efforts for justice and equality.
I'm all for calling out companies trying to virtue sign their brands.
But as a poster has said before, large corporations acknowledging a social issue is a great way to measure public perception of a movement.
A few weeks back, every BLM concern posted on social media would immediately get flooded with wHaT aBoUt tEh CoPs bullshit rhetoric, and while in a variety of circles that is indeed the case, Disney posting about it shows that the predominant discourse is changing.
No need to pat them on the head, it is perfectly possible to acknowledge they're soulless and just doing it for money while also realizing that it must mean there's a significant amount of people supporting BLM to make it a profitable strategy to take a stance in favour of it.
With regards to this tweet specifically, it happened due to either:
1. PR team is just trying to get easy progressiveness points without putting much effort in it.
2. PR team wants to show support but higher ups don't want to get "too political".
Knowing the author of the tweets is herself a black woman leans me to believe the latter, which reflects very poorly on the situation.
If there was both sincere effort in supporting the movement AND management approval, I'd reckong the right thing to do would be to make a donation and encourage others to do so, or even better, retweet pages actively engaged in the movement, giving them access to your platform.
As it is it would probably be better to just stay silent than that dumb gif.
But as a poster has said before, large corporations acknowledging a social issue is a great way to measure public perception of a movement.
A few weeks back, every BLM concern posted on social media would immediately get flooded with wHaT aBoUt tEh CoPs bullshit rhetoric, and while in a variety of circles that is indeed the case, Disney posting about it shows that the predominant discourse is changing.
No need to pat them on the head, it is perfectly possible to acknowledge they're soulless and just doing it for money while also realizing that it must mean there's a significant amount of people supporting BLM to make it a profitable strategy to take a stance in favour of it.
With regards to this tweet specifically, it happened due to either:
1. PR team is just trying to get easy progressiveness points without putting much effort in it.
2. PR team wants to show support but higher ups don't want to get "too political".
Knowing the author of the tweets is herself a black woman leans me to believe the latter, which reflects very poorly on the situation.
If there was both sincere effort in supporting the movement AND management approval, I'd reckong the right thing to do would be to make a donation and encourage others to do so, or even better, retweet pages actively engaged in the movement, giving them access to your platform.
As it is it would probably be better to just stay silent than that dumb gif.
It'd be nice to be able to criticize this tweet without being accused of being mad or outraged or stirring drama like some now banned people have done.
Criticizing something doesn't mean you're mad about it.
I saw this, I laughed and was about to post and just immediately ran into defensiveness for this of all things. Heart might've been in the right place, but this just comes off as the MLK Day tweet they didn't choose. That's all.
But learning who the poster is, I probably didn't need to be as condescending about it.
Criticizing something doesn't mean you're mad about it.
I saw this, I laughed and was about to post and just immediately ran into defensiveness for this of all things. Heart might've been in the right place, but this just comes off as the MLK Day tweet they didn't choose. That's all.
But learning who the poster is, I probably didn't need to be as condescending about it.
Knowing first hand how a very conservative Japanese company such has Nintendo operates, it's unfortunately not surprising to see them remaining silent. Which doesn't make it any less disappointing.
The silence of Nintendo of America on the other hand is downright infuriating.
The silence of Nintendo of America on the other hand is downright infuriating.
We also need to talk about how black people continue to be represented in Pokemon in general.
This isn't a real skin color, for instance.
It's like they purposely make people so ethnically ambiguous because they are more afraid of another Jynx scenario than they care about doing representation right.
Honestly, I'll say Pokémon does a pretty good job of having black people for a JRPG. There are black gym leaders and Elite Four members and I feel like the trainer image you chose is pretty cherry picked. There are a number of unambiguously black Pokémon characters.
I am a black gaming anime nerd and been eyeing big companies for their responses during this. And I personally didn't have a problem with this and dare i say...thought it was nice. Could they have said and done more? 100% but im not about to throw stones pkmn company about their response, when other bigger companies that i should be saving these stones for. Also i find it better then alot of the copy and paste statements other companies have.
Edit: also if i was a betting man i woulda lost money cause i would bet alot thinking pkmn, or nintendo wouldn't said anything. Like do they even mention stuff going on in their own country on their twitter?
Edit: also if i was a betting man i woulda lost money cause i would bet alot thinking pkmn, or nintendo wouldn't said anything. Like do they even mention stuff going on in their own country on their twitter?
This and Nintendo (not the random employee Twitter accounts) being silent are just more reasons why the alt-right/gamergaters look to them as the last bastion of apoliticism in games. They can always count on Nintendo to stay out of the conversation, which is disappointing given how large a platform they have.
Nobody's in an uproar, why the hyperbole? People are rightfully disappointed.
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