Comment by ChicoSuave@lemmy.world on Results of the PCMR Name Change Survey

Hello PCMR community!

On July 13th, we asked the community for your opinion if you would like to change the name of this community.

Results of the Survey :

Yes - 28.1%
No - 71.9% (winner)

Of the 1,201 responses received, we as a community have democratically decided that we should not change the name from PC Master Race. I am grateful to our community for your input, as this was a difficult topic to navigate together.

If you would like to review the history of this, please check out this post here: https://lemmy.world/post/1430610

We’ll pin this post for some time and then consider adding a bullet into the sidebar for this Community to help stave off further discussions around this topic as the community has already decided collectively.

Kind regards,

The Moderator Team

@Hurts@lemmy.world @_MoveSwiftly@lemmy.world @Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world @IowaMan@lemmy.world @BobaFett26@lemmy.world @The_Vampire@lemmy.world @Fudgeknuckles98@lemmy.world @CatZoomies@lemmy.world @Xeon@lemmy.ml @geosoco@kbin.social

EDIT 30-Aug-2023:

Due to some of the recent targeted attacks against Lemmy.world, I noticed that the image I shared with this post was purged from their servers.

Here’s a new screenshot of the results for posterity: https://i.postimg.cc/jqNg5gWx/pcmrsurvey.png

Folks seem to be missing why PCMR is even a thing. It is a tongue in cheek representation of PC users during the console brand fights of PS2/Xbox though PS4/Xbox One. The idea is that PC users sneer down on console users and don’t see the precarious position we are in with our bloated upfront costs to entertainment.

It was never meant for a direct “PC is superior” idea - in fact it’s making the statement that PC users are silly and take themselves too seriously.

And even if it weren’t, jokes are allowed to be edgy.

You can say fuck on the internet, as they say.

And I for one lived through enough of the 90s (all of 'em) that I don’t care for this “must sanitize everything, think of the children” attitude just because it’s suddenly coming from the left.

So yeah, fuck’em, communities are accountable to their members, not random mouthbreathers barging in demanding to be accommodated.

You wouldn’t do it at your clubhouse and you shouldn’t do it here, either.

Something I have really learned about the “sanitize everything, think of the children” types are that the huge majority dose not mean “protect the children” they mean “ban it for everyone, because I don’t like it” and a lot of them don’t even know what they want removed, they just looked at the cover and said “this is bad”

Or worse yet, they do it to establish that they have the authority to decide what you get to read/watch/partake in/enjoy.

It’s a pretty fucking naked powergrab when people like Jack Thompson campaign to get games banned for being obscene or “localizers” censor content because they claim the culture they are localising for finds it objectionable, when really it’s just them, and the target demographic wouldn’t care or worse would actively prefer the original interpretation.

I still remember the utter shitfit some outlets pitched for Dragon’s Crown.

And over the last few years that upfront cost has gone up insanely between everything costing more during COVID and GPU pricing miking gamers first during the crypto craze and now with the AI one.

Though, the insane scalping also shot PS5 prices stupid high too.

You’re right. PS5s were mostly unobtanium for a while. A Youtuber managed to trigger a small riot in NYC offering free PS5s recently.

It was coined by Yahtzee as a way of making fun of PC elitists, we just took the joke and ran with it

Seriously. It was a constant shitting on. Games would skip PC. Console gamers would brag about their Master Chiefs and Kratos. Hell, I remember we were even lower than Mobile Gaming during that era! Fucking Angry Birds and Candy Crush was more important than any PC game!

Then thanks to Steam and mods and indie games, we reign supreme. Companies came over in droves. I, a PC gamer, can finally play Halo and God of War and Sonic. Nintendo still holds out but that’s okay.

So the master race was a joke, but also a rally cry for representation.

Rock paper shotgun used to have a tagline like “PC Gaming since 1873”. I always love that tongue in cheek.

I mean that’s fine but master race is a direct allusion to nazi germany . . . We could stop comparing ourselves to victims of genocide. But im not on reddit anymore so doesn’t affect me at all.

When making an allusion there are two possible outcomes: a straight 1 for 1 comparison with the names changed, or a mocking approach that uses the term ironically to show the shortcomings of the idea. PCMR has always meant, since it’s inception, the latter.

It is literally making fun of the idea of a master race because it is showing (not telling, so it isn’t obvious) how ridiculous the notion of a superior method of gaming is when we all play the same buggy releases on launch and use more processing power than NASA had for moonlandings but we use it on pixel games.

Master Race has never been anything but mocking the ideas of superiority when used by the community and if anyone uses it with seriousness then its probably more true that they are a Nazi than a communal joke name.

mocking

ironically

Stop, you’re confusing the Zoomers

or a mocking approach that uses the term ironically to show the shortcomings of the idea. PCMR has always meant, since it’s inception, the latter.

The problem with this approach is that new people or people out of the loop don’t really understand this idea. I am not saying you’re wrong about the inception of the name, but as the term gets older, that context will get more and more lost. You already see people legitimately using PCMR as a term to indicate superiority.

The origin of a term is one thing, but its meaning often changes over the years, and I think the same thing is happening with PCMR.

It is literally making fun of the idea of a master race

Right but it’s not funny i guess, like haha lots of people thought they were the superior race and killed millions and millions of people.

Idk, it’s like mocking a school shooter, like those kids, their victims, are dead, it’s not funny. It’s actually about the most serious thing anyone could imagine.

I get it, i frequent pcmr a lot, and i never took it seriously, but once the question is posed, i do feel like I don’t want to continue coming here with the name as is.

Like you are mad that we are making fun of Nazis and you don’t get it so you want us to stop making fun of Nazis? Why are you defending the Nazis?

Not mad and not defending anybody

You know that gaming devices aren’t actually ethnic races, right?

We are the master race. Bow before the PC.

I was really tempted to reply to this:

Is that the famous goatse image I see everyone talking about? If not could someone link it so I can finally find out what the big deal is?

I’m glad I stopped myself from impulsively commenting that.

Hi! Greetings from Florida!

We just want people to enjoy what they have, the best way they can.

Im fine with console gamers too. (I collect consoles, they are great!)

As a PC enthusiast my main gripe has always been the lack of choice over performance options. I want the choice between higher fidelity or higher framerates. The new generations of consoles have included this option, and it is awesome. I also like how newer generation hardware has been able to run the older games it is compatible with at higher fidelity AND higher framerates, bringing the hardware improvements to those older games and increasing their lifespan/playability.

How do PC games not have this choice? The settings are usually way more granular.

What are you on about? I never said or even alluded to PC games not having settings… its pretty clear and obvious that I am talking about consoles when I mention consoles gaining a particular feature.

As a PC enthusiast my main gripe has always been the lack of choice over performance options.

This sentence can pretty easily be read as if you’re saying PC games don’t offer a choice between fidelity and framerates. I get what you’re saying, and it makes sense in context, but I don’t blame someone for thinking you were talking about PC games there.

I absolutely DO blame someone for thinking I am talking about PC games there lol… you would have to 1. Only read that one sentence out my single comment, none of the previous comments or the rest of my comment, 2. Misunderstand the premise of the sentence, and 3. Apply a preconception that I would be talking about PC games.

I dont care that someone misinterpreted what I said, and I dont think it’s a big deal, but if you are going to make a call-out comment on someone you should probably apply reading comprehension well enough to actually understand the comment you are replying to, or else the confusion in the situation is just going to compound. If someone doesnt understand then they should ask for clarification first, like I did when I asked what they were on about, and then I clarified my original comment to clear the confusion.

the problem isn’t that it’s offensive to console gamers it’s that it’s offensive to people in groups (jewish, queer, communist, Russian) who the Nazis killed over 12 million of, jesus why is this so hard to understand

Because it feels like those groups would have to go out of their way to find the offense when they, themselves, should see that it is mocking the Nazis. It seems baffling that making fun of the Nazis would be offensive to their victims.

you’re asking for a lot of mental gymnastics from those of us in marginalised groups, to ignore the more obvious interpretation that it’s a joke at the expense of the people the Nazis tortured and killed. If you find yourself needing to explain how a joke isn’t actually promoting Nazism maybe it’s time to retire it… Zero Punctuation had some good lines, this wasn’t one of them.

I find myself having war crimes explained to me and how they are tangentially related to what is at hand. The holocaust is genuinely a tragedy but the only thing connecting it and a joke about PC inferiority/superiority complex are only connected in your perspective. Using your own metric, your point is very subjective and not clear.

I’m sad you don’t get the joke or appreciate it like the rest of us. Why this alone gives you the right to take our fun is beyond me.

The holocaust is genuinely a tragedy but the only thing connecting it and a joke about PC inferiority/superiority complex are only connected in your perspective

No, what’s connecting the two is the use of term “master race”, a literal piece of Nazi ideology… which also makes war crimes more than tangentially related.

If your “fun” is causing marginalised people to feel bad then you’re punching down, and you need a better sense of humour.

Are marginalized? Or are you white knighting this and defending others? Because it sounds a lot like you absolutely do not understand the humor at hand and you can’t get past a surface level similarity.

I’m not 100% confident on this topic, even with a majority poll saying it’s okay. Main issue for me is, imagine it was a (white) comedian making a casual joke about the N word. Many have tried, certainly. But those jokes, besides not being tremendously funny, normalize some of the minority-degrading terms they refer to.

A community for PC Master Race.

Rules:

No bigotry: Including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No NSFW content.
No Ads / Spamming.
Be thoughtful and helpful: even with ‘stupid’ questions. The world won’t be made better or worse by snarky comments schooling naive newcomers on Lemmy.

Notes:

PCMR Community Name - Our Response and the Survey

Results of the PCMR Name Change Survey(lemmy.world)

PC Master Race

!pcmasterrace@lemmy.world

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