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Twitch removes 'Blind Playthrough' tag after disability criticism
- Thread starter Homura
- Start date
The word has a very specific definition though. This isn't a case of misusing a word as a way to be insulting toward a group of people.
So continue to use it? I'm not sure what you want from me to be honest, I'm just giving my opinion on people using certain terms. As far as the Twitch thing is, I don't see it as a big deal to change it.
Sadly a lot of these words have had their definitions changed over time to mean actual insults. You can look up many of these terms like 'dumb' and because of how people use them, dictionaries have adopted these definitions as well.
As with all of these things it comes down to intent, there's no intent to insult people with blind playthrough so I wouldn't be a person that would woke scold them or something. But other people have said they want to move the Overton Window a certain way towards not using these words so I'd be like okay cool fine. As with most of these things I just don't see it as a big deal to change.
No, but they allow streamers to call things "autistic" without reprecussion.
Some raised it, but could have just been a handful, no way to know.
Not really the same thing i think. I dont know how it was on twitch but my understanding is that a blind playthrough is not only your first but it also means that you won't look up any guides. Again i don't know how the tag was used on twitch but for instance under blind playthrough i would assume that they aren't using the help from chat.
I feel this is an especially good change if only for helping surface true blind play throughs like this, which are beyond AMAZING to me.
I love this series
I love this series
EDIT: To add more to this than just a shitposting gif: Maybe they should consider improving their site for easier usage by people who are blind instead of some performative nonsense like this.
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This. I see where they are coming from but this doesn't really strike me as abelist language.
What exactly are you referring to? This is a very specific callout. Are there a bunch of examples of this that you have in mind?
Personally, this strikes me as a piece of wholly performative PR to try to distract from the many, many problems the platform is experiencing.
I regularly work with students with disabilities, and we are taught to use person-centered language. Person first, then disability (boy with autism vs. autistic boy, for example).
With that being said, this is ridiculous.
Good. I'll be honest, the first time I heard the tern my first assumption was that someone was playing the game without seeing the screen.
Yeah, this doesn't come off as an honest attempt to be inclusive, especially given the numerous other issues on Twitch that they aren't addressing well.
I agree. This is quite ridiculous. It would make more sense if blind was used in a derogatory way, but it's not—it's a completely generic descriptor. I looked it up, and blind originated as a more general word meaning imperception/lack of direction, and the association with not being able to see came later, and then medical blindness came even later.
It's a totally normal word. There's nothing to reclaim. It's not used in a derogatory way. This argument makes no sense.
This is my gut reaction too. I get the issues with using things like "lame" or "gay" as insults and long ago worked to excise those from my vocabulary. (Gay never really was for me, I've been sensitive to that from a very young age since my mom had a lot of gay friends. It was used that way all the time by others when I was a kid though) The issue there though isn't that these words can't be used, its that you're taking a group who exists, and using the name of their group to just mean negative in a blanket sense. It has a clear motivation.
There's none of that with this though. A blind playthrough isn't a negative thing. Its just being used as a descriptive word, without any sort of moral connotation. The same is mostly true of other ways we use blind. If blind people have a problem with it on some sort of scale I don't mind changing it, there's plenty of other ways to say these things so it seems absurd to fight hard to hang onto them if they're hurting people, but I'm not quite sure I get the issue.
Oh I agree that the ableism is poor. Twitch chat spamming Pepega every time someone says something they find silly is another thing.
Well this is Twitch in a nutshell. If they cared about albeism they wouldn't allow streamers to use terms like the r word and autism prolifically. I doubt they really care it was probably just easier to change it to gain some good PR.
Agreed. On this basis, using "mute" in reference to a microphone would be an issue too.
Ehh you can also make the argument that in English, words often have more than one meaning. Which is obviously the case with the word blind here.
I don't know that the origin of the word particularly matters. Language evolves and certainly a lack of sight is the most commonly used sense of the word today. I agree though that the fact that there's no derogatory meaning behind the usage here makes this all somewhat confusing
Oof. Blind means more than the disability associated with it. I've been using that phrase for a very long time and I don't plan on stopping. I mean I see it on this very forum all the time leading up to a highly anticipated game like "Can't wait to get in, I'm going in completely blind" etc. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I added a little more between your quote.
I'm just drawing upon sensitivity training I had. Maybe it's not the best in every situation. It's just supposed to avoid defining someone by their characteristic, as opposed to someone with a characteristic.
My apologies.
I'm not sure how this helps with what you're saying in any way. It's just removing the tag. It's not preventing people from still using the term blind playthrough, or reserving the tag for people who are blind posting playthroughs
I would also like to know more of this, cause so far I've only seen a negative response against this from a blind person saying this was hurting their self-esteem. The term "blind" has always had several definitions and is commonly used in many neutral words in our day-to-day language. To me it just doesn't share a negative connotation, but I am willing to learn more if I am wrong.
this is like installing extra shelf storage and being pleased with yourself while your garage is on fire
I was wondering if the two people in the OP even have a blind disability to be able to speak up about this. This seems very performative from Twitch.
I've heard that the preferred way is "people with autism" not "autistic" but I'm not sure why this is the case tbh. Learned that from Atypical on Netflix so maybe it's wrong?
I mean, first playthrough seems fine, but yeah, this seems more performative on Twitch's end more than anything.
The reactions to this thread are expected of a forum absolutely notorious for reading a title and nothing else on the topic.
All this does is remove the official 'blind playthrough' tag for active streamers. It does not dictate what they may or may not use as a stream title or in their overlays while streaming. It doesn't force anybody here to stop using the term, or other terms that seem congruent to it.
That's it. This shouldn't be cause to clutch pearls over how language police are coming for your mouth or thoughts or internet posts.
All this does is remove the official 'blind playthrough' tag for active streamers. It does not dictate what they may or may not use as a stream title or in their overlays while streaming. It doesn't force anybody here to stop using the term, or other terms that seem congruent to it.
That's it. This shouldn't be cause to clutch pearls over how language police are coming for your mouth or thoughts or internet posts.
This reminds me of github changing the name of the "master" branch to "main" which left me wondering who even asked for this or complained? And how does that do anything to address issues of racial discrimination in tech? It's purely performative
Cant wait for speedrun to be removed because there are people not able to run.
Or twitch changing their name etc...
Or twitch changing their name etc...
Blind in and of itself is not a derogatory term but a description. How would you rephrase these without just making it a longer way of saying it? Its just as derogatory then just with different words... would it not?
This is the kind of shit that makes people complain about PC culture, social justice, et al. "Blind" means more than "visually impaired, and the term "blind playthrough" is an apt description. What's worse is the recommendation to replace a succinct descriptor with a more verbose yet more ambiguous phrase like "first playthrough, no spoilers."
Next will be length challenged games instead of short games.
Next will be length challenged games instead of short games.