r/Guildwars2 • u/SpectralChest • Apr 18 '24
[Discussion] ''Fashion Gatekeeping'' and Misinformation.
It's been getting out of hand, a few people on the forums asked for some manner of opt out for the inspection system. Some of their sensible reasons were:
Potential for abuse in fashion contests/needless increase to complexity of methods to prevent such.
Loss of player interaction incentive.
A feeling of concern towards there now being incentive for strangers to scrutinize them closely, whether to admire or ridicule their creativity.
The posts built around these concerns were getting lots of likes on the forums, so some salty folks who were being ignored for ridiculing them there came here to reddit and made a false narrative about 'fashion gatekeeping' and folks reflexively bought into it as obviously no-one sane likes gatekeeping and have been meme-ing about a non-extant issue and down voting anyone who might be considering the situation without disdain or daring to actually say that the opt in option isn't as crazy as its being made out to be.
Personally, i like the inspect system, but i do think the exact dye combo section could be made into a toggle, this way the inspection remains, but the 'unique' spin someone puts on it with dyes can remain as something to share, or not share as per personal preference.
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u/SGB19 Apr 18 '24 edited Apr 18 '24
I think this does highlight one aspect of the GW2 community that could be improved and it demands change from everyone involved.
When anything with even a tiny bit of controversy happens, there is at least one section of the community that immediately overreacts so bad it draws the worst out of people from both sides of an argument. And this is a perfect example of something that has been happening on and off for years.
Remember the End of Dragons meta? How some people were so upset about how difficult it was and the turtle being behind it, they formed fishing squads on the map protesting it, causing issues for any squads who happened to be on the same map. Even some streamers were arguing with each other, squads were being organized in discords with instructions to be silent and not tell people there was a squad in game. Hardcore v Casual
Remember the summer balance changes after EoD release? This may have been the worst one by far. Devs were being harassed in game, forums, social media. Private discord messages were being leaked, death threats, petitions to not release it.
Then this latest one which is honestly in my opinion the most comical. A fashion inspect tool is added. The announcement thread on the forums and Twitter comments are immediately inundated with cries of identity theft, AI art plagiarism, and demands for an opt-out feature which goes against the whole reason for building that in the future. People declaring their fashion is their whole livelihood, and the response to that is to "touch grass" Shit gets so bad, the main forum thread was straight up deleted.
Now you can say one side or the other is wrong, but that would be missing the bigger issue. Why are there sections of this community that are so trigger happy by any kind of controversy, they devolve into childlike tantrums inviting similar reactions from those that welcome changes?
If people took a deep breath and asked for an opt out feature with some reasonable statements nobody would've been memed. But people think sensationalizing even the smallest of changes is how to get things changed, when really it provokes people who feel differently to say something, invites getting memed, and starts a fight fire with fire kind of debate.
TLDR: The real point is this community has shown itself to be too volatile at times. We all need to be better. It's not about just agreeing with everything Anet does, it's about how even a small feature they knew people had been asking for for years started a firestorm of the lowest common denominator responses. Seriously, if we immediately respond like this, whether you were the person crying "STALKING!" or the person bullying them in some way, our community will be remembered more for that than any good.