This week I wanted to write a unpopular opinion about something I’ve been thinking about for a couple of weeks. As you can probably estimate from the title, it’s about “woke” video games, and I came to the conclusion that… all video games are woke.
You’re gonna need to hear me out when it comes to my opinion because you may be wondering, “How can all games possibly be woke?” I’ll break it down for you the best way I can. And disclaimer, this is my unpopular opinion and if you don’t agree, feel free to challenge my argument in the comments or in-person; I would love to hear what you agree or disagree with when it comes to this.
Firstly, to understand what I’m talking about, you need to know what “woke” means and what a “woke video game” is. For starters, the word woke is an adjective deriving from AAVE (African American Vernacular English) originally meaning to be alert of racial prejudice and discrimination. Since the 2010s, it has been used as a broader term for being aware of social issues and inequalities like sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia. Knowing this, a woke video game would be a video game that promotes inclusivity, progressive politics, and in general what would be considered “left-leaning views”.
When it comes to people describing games as “woke,” it’s usually thrown around by bigoted people, most of the time being far-right gamers or grifters to write off any game that doesn’t agree with their views entirely as “appealing to liberal consumers,” but I think what a lot of them fail to realize is that a lot of video games can be classified as “woke,” especially the ones they like.
You may be confused how I can classify most video games as being woke, especially since not everyone who makes video games has liberal or progressive views. Well, it’s kind of simple to me; since everyone has their own definition of what a word or slang means, that can be applied to the word woke as well. Still, you have to look at what its original definition says. If you look the word up on Wikipedia, it starts with two ideas, social issues and inequalities. Those two things don’t have to just encompass issues minorities face; unions could be considered woke, same for mental health awareness and environmental protection. These are all social issues that are told through video games, whether it’s blatantly told to you or subtly said through the gameplay.
That’s why Minecraft for example, a game known for being apolitical, is woke, because that game reflect values such as environmental awareness and care for natural resources. By that definition, we could easily say that Minecraft is pushing some form of a woke agenda as people say for other games.
At the end of the day, the word woke is not an objective idea, it’s subjective. It’s a label that people assign based on their own perspective and what they interpret from that piece of media. As well, each piece of media has its own messaging, but how? Because video games are made by people and this naturally influences their design and storyline, even if they’re not trying to intentionally display a certain political viewpoint. That’s what makes Minecraft and all other games woke.
Still, even with that broad definition of the word, what is inherently wrong with wokeness? Even when it falls under anti-woke gamers idea of woke: inclusivity and diversity in video games? The answer is, there’s nothing wrong with those things at all. Incusivity and diversity are good things, but it does call something else into question, why do “anti-woke” people see it as “pushing an agenda”?
Well, I’m not going to sugar coat it: the reason anti-woke see diversity as pushing some form of “agenda” is because many of them knowingly or unknowingly uphold white supremacy. This is a bold statement, but again, let me explain. If you don’t know what white supremacy is, it’s the belief that white people are naturally a superior race and should therefore be the leaders of society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups. In order for them to see diversity as an “agenda” that means they have to see it as abnormal, something being pushed on to them and that shouldn’t be included in games. They want to exclude marginalized people from video games because they don’t want them to be apart of the norm. They sees whiteness as inherently superior or the norm that should always be displayed in the video games, and I believe it represents what they want out of the world. White people in the forefront while minorities and marginalized people stay in the background (or not even there), which can be highly damaging toward minorities. A lack of diversity in media like video games can lead to misinformation and harmful stereotypes about marginalized groups.
When it comes to representation in video games, straight white men have always been in the forefront ever since video games were created. Now, as society moves forward and the diversity of people that play video games continues to grow, so does the diversity in video games; not just for representation of marginalized people, but to display reality accurately. The world is a naturally diverse place and video games reflect the world, people, and politics we live with; and to be honest, it’s tiring to watch a video game review or critic and hear grifters or the anti-woke complain about something stupid like a muscular woman or a bisexual black person in the game. Video games should be critiqued based on the content of the game itself, its design, graphics, storyline, characters, even creators. Saying a video game is bad or a failure because it’s “woke propaganda” is like me hating the color orange and saying a painting is horrible just because it has orange in it. It is such an annoying and shallow way to criticize art form such as video games, and it shouldn’t still be used.
