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Today in 'who asked': The subreddit for the Sam & Max series is currently in revolt after the head mod bans gay shipping art for 'sexual deviancy'

doops.

doops.

Member
Jun 3, 2020
3,011
This is a purely selfish post since Sam & Max is one of, if not my absolute favorite, series in any media so it might only be me who cares about this but I figured some here would get a kick out of this bizarre saga.

For a tiny bit of backstory, it seems the queer community has fully embraced Sam & Max after fan videos started popping up with the release of Save the World Remastered (the first Telltale season, fyi) like this compilation showing all the times they've acted like an old married couple, despite the fact that they are not explicitly confirmed as being gay (besides the creator Steve Purcell replying to a fan asking for confirmation of their relationship on Twitter with "[they are in love] like Butch & Sundance". This has led to something of a renaissance for the series that has been really wonderful to see play out, with fanart of the two cropping up more and more.

Anyhow, cut to now and the head mod of r/SamandMax has clearly had enough of queer people showing their adoration for this series and its two leads and spoke out in defiance (Trigger warning ahead for homophobia):

H07UjIV.png


To be clear, as far as I'm aware, there have been zero posts of a sexual nature in the history of the subreddit, so this guy is just going off about something that's not happening.

Anyhow, that's now led to an ongoing flood of gay fanart and posts calling out this dickhead moderator and it's been great to watch the community come together against this clown:


View: https://imgur.com/a/zGk4pgv
 
DrForester

DrForester

Mod of the Year 2006
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,187
Telling a fandom two characters aren't gay is a 100% effective way to get a fandom to stop shipping them.
 
MinerArcaniner

MinerArcaniner

Member
Oct 29, 2017
6,472
The "glad to see some activity" line has "I'm not mad, don't tell anyone I was mad" energy if I've ever seen it.
 
Geode

Geode

Keeper of the White Materia
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,714
doops. said:
To be clear, as far as I'm aware, there have been zero posts of a sexual nature in the history of the subreddit, so this guy is just going off about something that's not happening.
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Yeah, if this isn't happen then I don't understand why this mod is losing their shit? I do have a problem with them calling people that like this stuff sexual deviants. Anyway, if the subreddit was originally flooded with this stuff then I don't see anything wrong with moderating it. I mean ResetEra moderates sexual stuff with certain games and topics.
 
MidasTouch

MidasTouch

Member
Dec 29, 2023
622
Not the first time that any mention of two characters being gay is automatically "sexual deviance" even if no actual sex is involved.
 
Plague-Doctor

Plague-Doctor

Member
Oct 23, 2023
187
Every game specific subreddit eventually evolves into fan art and fan fiction because there is nothing left to discuss. There's been 1 game in the last 11 years. The Mod shouldn't be all that surprised tbh. Honestly think them saying to "take fanart somewhere else" is fine but calling people sexual deviants is crossing the line
 
Berordn

Berordn

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,857
NoVA
i can't imagine modding a community where you explicitly disregard textual information about the characters in question

sam and max are in a long term aromantic partership and anyone dismissing it can't be taken seriously as a fan

i will fight someone on this
 

SpiralEngine

Member
Jul 6, 2023
664
Maybe this is a symptom of how I tend to keep myself at arms length from identifying with any kind of fandom or fan community, but I don't understand why the mod's first reaction was to make a scene out of this, rather than just giving up the "head mod" title to someone else. Like, if the "community" is engaging in a kind of discussion that I have zero interest in, because the franchise has been "dead" for a long time, and there's no new official stuff coming out, then I'll just quietly leave the community, rather than lecture other people over the kind of fan art that they're posting.

Nothing lasts forever, man. Maybe it's time to move on.

Gentlemen said:
What's left to discuss about Sam & Max in 2024 if not slash fiction?
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Convincing Steve Purcell to reprint the complete run of the comics so I don't have to pay hundreds of dollars on ebay/track him down at San Diego Comic-Con to get the old Telltale-era reprint.
 
Bookman

Bookman

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,262
I love Sam and Max and after Return to Monkey Island I was hopping for some sort of revival.
 
Kangi

Kangi

Profile Styler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,981
Sam & Max are the gayest creatures in video games. Time and time again, people will grow up with and grow attached to media that will end up (rightfully) seen as inherently queer, veer off into queerphobia without the introspection/media literacy skills to accurately reevaluate such media, and then, essentially at random, stage an insignificant revolt over the fact that they're clearly (and in their limited view, suddenly) outnumbered
 

isopeltheblue

Member
Feb 16, 2024
122
If the mod didn't have a homophobic tilt they could have just said "no NSFW fanart" or "no duplicate topic threads" but they didn't. I don't really get a lot of the character shipping in media I like but it doesn't bother me either.
 
DesVoeux

DesVoeux

Member
Dec 16, 2023
270
That mod is insane; I see he was recently ranting in r/politics about how the lefties lost a swing voter because the New York Times has a paywall.
 
SinnyIndonesian

SinnyIndonesian

Member
Feb 16, 2022
15,321
I'm not familiar with the name but for some reason I assumed(until I saw the image at the bottom of the OP) Sam and Max were these two:

MV5BNTY4YmYwNzYtOTdmYS00NTMxLTgwODktMGM2ODBmYmVlMWQ3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTgyNTA4MjM@._V1_.jpg


...and I thought "Yeah, of course people would ship them, duh".
 
Bambi Is My Dad

Bambi Is My Dad

Member
Nov 13, 2017
471
I've read that Reddit post and I kinda found it bizarre. I was kinda seeing his point on potentially the pornographic stuff but when he went for outright banning the shipping and stating that "Sam and Max aren't a gay couple" is just bizzare and felt hste-fueld.
 
Speedstersonic

Speedstersonic

Member
Mar 11, 2020
5,898
Lol you def Streisand effecting this shit now mod. I fucking knew it over the years, i had to get my gay married quips from somewhere lmao.
 
Lukar

Lukar

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 27, 2017
24,201
Leo said:
Not all homophobes are repressed gays, most are just pricks, believe it or not.

That narrative only serves to paint gay people as the source of homophobia, which is ridiculous.
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The person never said all or even most homophobes are repressing their sexuality, only a "good chunk," and I also don't think their post painted gay people as the source of homophobia. If someone is repressing their sexuality and acting out in homophobic fashion, that stems from a mix of their own insecurity and a lack of acceptance from the people around them, usually due to where they were raised and who raised them.

Not saying the Reddit mod that this thread is about is repressing themselves, mind you. Just... the ban seems weird and excessive to me, and I say that as a man who's mostly only dated other men for coming up on fifteen years now. "Homophobe discovered to be interested in men" is not exactly an uncommon thing, and I've seen other people here talk about it / joke about it as well in the past.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I do agree that most homophobes are homophobic simply because they're assholes. I'm not disagreeing with that.
 
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wamoss

wamoss

Member
Aug 11, 2022
1,217
"Sexual Deviants" fuckin lol

His doubling down edit about furries is even more funny. Dude deserves to get roasted.
 
Rated-G

Rated-G

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,420
latest

I think Steve would be on the side of the revolt 100%


As a huge, long time Sam & Max fan, I've been seeing ship art of the two from wholesome to "I hope this doesn't awaken something in me" since Hit the Road came out. How weird to take umbrage with such a staple of the fandom at this point. It's like trying to admonish fans for shipping Kirk and Spock, Iceman and Maverick, or Sherlock and Watson.
 
evilromero

evilromero

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,669
Plague-Doctor said:
Every game specific subreddit eventually evolves into fan art and fan fiction because there is nothing left to discuss. There's been 1 game in the last 11 years. The Mod shouldn't be all that surprised tbh. Honestly think them saying to "take fanart somewhere else" is fine but calling people sexual deviants is crossing the line
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You say evolves but it's a devolution. "Shipping" is like the low-hanging fruit of subreddit content.
 
LumberPanda

LumberPanda

Member
Feb 3, 2019
6,809
Lukar said:
The person never said all or even most homophobes are repressing their sexuality, only a "good chunk," and I also don't think their post painted gay people as the source of homophobia. If someone is repressing their sexuality and acting out in homophobic fashion, that stems from a mix of their own insecurity and a lack of acceptance from the people around them, usually due to where they were raised and who raised them.

Not saying the Reddit mod that this thread is about is repressing themselves, mind you. Just... the ban seems weird and excessive to me, and I say that as a man who's mostly only dated other men for coming up on fifteen years now. "Homophobe discovered to be interested in men" is not exactly an uncommon thing, and I've seen other people here talk about it / joke about it as well in the past.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I do agree that most homophobes are homophobic simply because they're assholes. I'm not disagreeing with that.
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It's like seeing someone post something misogynist and going "must be a woman, a decent chunk of women are misogynists". No amount of "I didn't say all women or even most women!" makes that a cool post to write.

Or if it somehow turned out that x% of trans women were misogynists before transitioning, it wouldn't be cool to go "ah, this man who is spewing misogyny is probably a trans woman who is not out yet". It's just a shitty thing to say.
 
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Swiggins

Swiggins

was promised a tag
Member
Apr 10, 2018
11,644
Trying to stop gay shipping is a surefire way to get even more gay shipping.
 
MayorSquirtle

MayorSquirtle

Member
May 17, 2018
8,608
doops. said:
To be clear, as far as I'm aware, there have been zero posts of a sexual nature in the history of the subreddit, so this guy is just going off about something that's not happening.
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Not to defend this guy, but presumably he'd have been deleting all of it so very few people, if any, would be aware. A lot of subs get porn posted to them which is promptly deleted before it becomes a major issue. I'd be more surprised if Sam & Max smut hadn't shown up at some point.
 
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