Category Archives: First World Problems

The candy crusaders need to take it easy.

Leave a reply

It seems like some people were upset that a popular candy had its name changed from “Easter Eggs” to “Gesture Eggs”. This is the impression that one would get from this headline from Not The Bee:

Stores pull Cadbury “Gesture Eggs” promo after some genius removed the word “Easter” and caused public outcry

I think we can appreciate how ridiculous “Gesture Eggs” sounds, since that conjures up the image of a person innocently cracking open one of those Kinder Eggs or whatever, and finding a plastic hand giving the middle finger.

Let’s see what Not The Bee has to say about it in their opening paragraph:

Back in 2022, chocolate giant Cadbury was embroiled in a scandal involving reports of shocking child labor abuses in their supply chain.

The last time a well has been so thoroughly poisoned, a village died.

If one were to go just on the tone of Not The Bee’s article, one would think that a candy company is making a deliberate attempt to distance itself from Christianity by removing references to a pagan holiday that’s been thinly coated with Biblical-sounding names and concepts. And people are peeved, because they like that holiday that was the reason they got candy as kids.

The reality of the matter is far more mundane.

The signage was limited to just a few locations in a chain, which was independent of the will of corporate headquarters, which quickly reversed the decision. It’s true that Not The Bee stated as much in their article, but by placing such important modifying information late in their article, they’re more likely to farm rage-clicks from angry Christians who are more upset about signage used to refer to some candy than a bunch of African Christians who are being killed by a bunch of Muslims who hate that any religion besides their own exists.

Here’s the marketing, as shared by The Daily Mail, tell me whether you notice anything about it:

No, not that the candy has become ridiculously expensive. To help you out, here’s a pic of another product from the same line:

Still don’t see it? Neither do I. That’s because the product isn’t called an “Easter Egg”, that’s a Cadbury Creme Egg. The word “Easter” doesn’t even appear on the packaging. The closest that the candy comes to having anything to do with Easter is that Easter is used to market it. Which pretty much any candy can be.

Saying that Cadbury Creme Eggs have anything to do with Easter because Easter is used to market it is like saying that PlayStation has something to do with Christmas because Christmas is used to market PlayStation.

People threw a hissy fit because “Easter” didn’t appear in marketing for a product that doesn’t even acknowledge the observance by name, like the hypothetical box of Matzah that doesn’t mention Passover.

Did you know that in the religious world, there are problems that actually matter? For example, that Muslims are clashing with Christians. Or that sexual abuse is still a scandal in religious denominations. Or that Muslims are clashing with Jews. Or that Scientology is a predatory cult. Or that Muslims are clashing with Hindus. Or that the current Pope is compromising Catholicism with his left-wing stances. Or that Muslims… let’s just say that they don’t play well with others.

But throwing a hissy-fit over signage displayed with candy? Is this how one inspires confidence in their religion?

Firing Off On Palworld

Leave a reply

Earlier this month, Palworld dropped on Steam, and since then, it’s raised some eyebrows with its resemblance to Pokémon.

I haven’t yet played Palworld, and maybe I’ll give it a try later on. It does look intriguing. This article is little more than my own opinion about the drama surrounding it, not my impression on the game.

In the Pokémon community, this game has stirred up some strong feelings, with many taking a side between supporting the game or not.

As I see it, Pokémon could use a bit of competition to stir them to improve. There have been issues surrounding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, largely concerning performance issues, with some complaints being petty, and some being well-founded.

One of the matters concerning Palworld that has caught player’s attentions is that some of the pal characters bear a strong resemblance to Pokémon. As I see it, games like Digimon and Monster Rancher have done a lot more to ape Pokemon’s style, yet those games aren’t something that The Pokémon Company has had any issue with.

But there’s evidently something about Palworld that got their attention, as indicated by the following statement:

While one may interpret this as meaning that Pokémon is going to go after Palworld, what it comes down to is that it’s caught their attention, and they’re looking into it. Their statement that they didn’t grant the use of Pokémon assets is not a definitive statement that that Pokémon assets were used. It’s something that they intend to look into, and as the last sentence indicates, they intend to defend their copyright, if necessary.

And it might not come to that, because even though comparisons can be made between certain Pokémon and Palworld’s pals, they may be sufficiently different that no action would be needed to protect GameFreak’s copyright.

Remember that if a company doesn’t defend its copyright, they risk losing that copyright, hence Nintendo’s interest in defending Pokémon, which is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history.

Based on what I’ve seen, Palworld doesn’t infringe on GameFreak’s copyright, it merely imitates it, which wasn’t an issue when it came to similar games like Yokai Watch.

There have been comparisons made between the Pokémon characters and Pal World pals, and you may have seen some. Some of those comparisons may have been misleading, as one source of some more popular comparisons has admitted to scaling some Pal World models to make them more closely resemble Pokémon.

Having said that, I’m aware that there is something about Palworld that stirs up strong feelings among Pokémon fans, one way or another, particularly among those employed at Nintendo. There’s something about arming little critters with guns and sometimes eating them that goes against the established tone of the Pokémon franchise, and most games that plainly took inspiration from Pokémon. But that difference in tone can possibly be used to make the case that Palworld is sufficiently transformative to avoid legal trouble.

Another point of contention that has come up is that the developer of Palworld, Pocket Pair, has developed assets using AI. As I see it, this isn’t a big deal, as this is the direction that game development has been going in. In fact, as I see it, people in the future will be able to make their own games at home for personal use, by simple use of prompts. Imagine arriving home from work after a hard day, and asking your computer, “I’d like a dungeon-crawler JRPG.” Or, instead: “I liked yesterday’s game. I’d like to pick up where I left off.”

AI is already changing the way games are made, and the way things are looking, there’s more change to come. At some point, game design will become so trivial that you could just do it yourself.

While there has been many amusing takes on Palworld, you haven’t read the worst one unless you’ve seen PETA’s take:

However the situation develops, it’s already clear who the biggest losers are.

I could hardly focus.

Leave a reply

Forgoing a decent attempt at an intro, here’s the madness:

Honestly, I struggled to keep focus. When someone starts spouting metaphysical pseudo-spiritual psycho-babble in the same way that Chris Chan has been lately, I have a hard time staying engaged. At that point, I just assume that they don’t have anything of value to say, and my mind drifts to something I’d rather be doing. Such as playing a video game, or modifying a recipe, or even something as normally dull as watching some soap opera that my mom liked, which goes to show how long the list of things I’d rather be doing can get when I’m stretching what politeness that I have to wait for them to just finish talking so I can say, “Hey, that was something. Thanks for sharing that. Bye.”

At some point, I caught that she didn’t quite understand how to explain the gender she felt like, which sounds like she’s under-qualified to do as much as exercise simple metacognition. Because of this, I wonder whether she was really successfully stringing her sentences together, or my mind was somehow filling in the blanks in a hallucinatory manner, similar to how holes in a wall can disappear when they are covered by a blind spot.

Now, here I am pondering whether this wonder of a person can so much as operate a microwave unsupervised, or whether this task is delegated to a handler in an institution. In either case, it’s clear that she’s not wanting for something to eat.

What I did get out of the video is that some woman out there doesn’t know how to explain a gender that’s a product of her own imagination, but she’s so cocksure that she’ll assert that she still knows it better than you.

Whatever drugs she’s taking to make her happy, they seem to be working a treat.

Goofball Finds Support For Israel In Fast Food Wrapper

Leave a reply

You’re not ready for this. You’re about to laugh the hardest you have laughed in a long time.

You sitting down? Here we go:

As much as I’d like to believe that this was all some act, I know that people like this actually exist. When you’ve had a job in which you have to interact with the public, you see many different kinds.

But this is truly special. Here’s the kind of person who listens to a televangelist, and thinks that the sermon had some kind of special, hidden message that was intended specifically for them. The kind of person who makes financial decisions based on horoscopes, and names their kids after the first name they hear after turning on the radio, because fuck any chance they could have at living normal.

“Wow. What does that resemble?” Could it be the McDonald’s logo? A helpful reminder of where you just spent your money? The icon to blame for making you fat?

The moment you heard the woman say, “This is in support of Israel.”, you couldn’t see the guy’s face, but you could hear it drop. I know that wage slaves are under enormous pressure to maintain a veneer of professionalism, but I can’t imagine any manager out there would fault him for saying, “Are you serious?”

But you heard her tone, she was as totes cereal as a sack of processed grains at the supermarket.

What are the odds that two basic colors used on fast food packaging could coincidentally resemble the colors of Israel’s flag? So low that, according to the people who put watermelons in their X posts because the colors are similar to the colors of the Palestinian flag, it couldn’t be a coincidence, and must necessarily indicate support for the state of Israel.

I get the fact that stupid people believe in synchronicities to help them cope with the fact that they’re going to die someday, and that there is nothing special about them, but it’s time to keep it real: belief in synchronicities can destroy your mind. And the above video has shown us a great example.

Dude No Longer Has Free Wi-Fi, Complains To Neighbor

Leave a reply

Sometimes, a guy with a screw loose will come right up to you, and surprise you with what they say. This is one of those times.

A man visited his neighbor complaining that he put a password on his wi-fi, so he can no longer use it for free. And the exchange was caught on video:

I can say first of all that, depending on where you live, it may be illegal to access your neighbors wi-fi without their permission, even if it’s not password-protected.

Second, while it’s great that the man learned well enough to put a password on his wi-fi, he’s probably got some double-digit IQ datasec practices if it took him two years to figure out that that it’s a good idea, and only arrived at that determination after hearing advice. Wi-fi has been widespread for about two decades, and its best practices have been pretty well-established. I can imagine that he’s still yet to use a VPN or ad-blocking software.

Now, let’s get to the heart of the issue at hand. A man has been using another man’s wi-fi for free, without permission. And he’s been doing it for so long and justifying it with his own flawed reasoning that when he suddenly had to do without, he feels slighted.

So, what does he do? He goes up to his neighbor and complains about it, and two worlds collide.

I can only imagine what the guy has been doing with his neighbor’s wi-fi that caused it to slow down to the point that it’s become noticeable. Perhaps he’s been downloading the latest Final Fantasy games in a handful of European languages, not because he has any intention of actually playing them, but because if he’s going to do something so illegal, he may as well go for the gusto.

Of course, we can appreciate just how goofy a guy is that he doesn’t seem to understand how wi-fi works. He knows well enough how to hook up to an unsecured network, but seems to think it’s location based, as though one device on a network can’t tax bandwidth if it’s used outside of one’s personal property. I get the idea that the guy may have had some help connecting.

While the guy suggests a couple solutions to his new lack of access to wi-fi, I have a better one: stop being so cheap and get your own ISP.

There’s something screwy going on in the K-pop community.

Leave a reply

The Hindustan Times reported a story which alleged that a few K-pop idols are receiving backlash for enjoying a “dark anime” with “pedophilic content”. The anime in question is Made In Abyss, an adventure anime wherein a girl and a robotic boy explore a gigantic chasm, navigating its dangerous ecosystems in a quest to reach its bottom.

The Hindustan Times can be blamed for burying the lede, as the real story that led to the controversy would be the cancel culture of the K-pop community, and it turns out that much of its community is pretty toxic.

One might imagine that a collective appreciation for K-pop would bring the K-pop community together, but what we instead see is a toxicity among fans who divide themselves into factions based on their preferences for K-pop artists.

Personally, I’m glad that it’s the K-pop brand of tribalist bullshit that’s keeping these clowns occupied, because if they got into either sports or religion, they’d probably cause some riots.

The K-pop tribalism is so toxic that some fans will actually dig into the social media activity of the other tribe’s K-pop artist of choice to find anything that can be held against them. Pretty much cancel culture per se.

It so happens that this time, the K-pop artists under scrutiny are Soobin, Woozi, and Taeyong for liking Made In Abyss, an exquisite anime with developed characters, excellent worldbuilding, a heavily-favored soundtrack, and a tone that indicates that it takes its viewers seriously. The problem is, the anime is sometimes accused of promoting pedophilia by people who aren’t mature enough for the anime.

It’s disturbing enough that the toxicity of the K-pop community has reached the point that fans are willing to drag K-pop idols enjoyed by another K-pop faction down by making them out to be pariahs, it’s even worse when they are willing to drag down anime communities that weren’t even involved to begin with, and don’t deserve the negative attention that they might end up getting.

Being one who enjoys Pokémon, I can point out that, while there has been some amount of toxicity in the community, much of it came from bad actors who were quickly recognized, and the Pokémon community has mostly resisted dividing up into factions. If you can avoid certain bad influencers, you’ll generally have no problem avoiding drama in the Pokémon community.

That being my point of reference, from my perspective, the state of the K-pop community is surprising and horrifying. I didn’t have much interest in K-pop to begin with, but with the pervasiveness of toxicity and cancel culture within its community, I have no problem keeping my distance.

I suppose some might expect that I’d defend Made In Abyss from accusations that it somehow promotes pedophilia. The fact is, I really don’t have to. For one thing, I’ll refer to this flowchart that I like sharing:

One of the things I like about the Made In Abyss community is that when someone attempts to describe it to someone who hasn’t seen it, they might bring up some of its more extreme elements in an effort to warn someone that they’re there. But in doing so, they might make it sound like some hyper-edgelord anime that it’s actually not. While it’s true that there are some disturbing scenes, they don’t make up the majority of the anime’s runtime, but instead serves to make the point that there is a connotation of danger for the protagonists.

While it’s true that there are brief instances of nudity, no sex acts were committed, and the scenes played out naturally. Anyone who holds these brief scenes against the whole of the anime are failing to evaluate it from a position of honest criticism. One may even get the idea that they haven’t actually watched it.

But in any case, Made In Abyss was made for grownups, and it’s obvious that much of the K-pop community is way too young to watch anime like Made In Abyss.

And what’s more, when someone can be rightly described as smug and closed-minded, I don’t really mind that they don’t enjoy the same things that I do. As I’d have it, I’d prefer that such people were not in my own community.

Finally, it can be pointed out that we live in a world where trafficking of actual, living human children is a real problem. When someone throws themselves into a tizzy because a fictional character, a literal piece of merchandise, may be doing something sexual, they are expressing some misplaced priorities.

This McDonald’s Commercial From Japan Just Made Everyone Cry

Leave a reply

I’ll say first that I don’t recommend eating McDonald’s, seeing as it’s one of the worst things that you can put in you which is still legally classified as food.

That aside, what’s the cruelest thing that you can show a people who are suffering from a declining birth rate? Feast your eyes:

That’s right, you show them just what they’re being fucked out of. And to make it even worse, you show one of the most idyllic moments, in warm colors.

Now you’ve got something to think about as you go to pick up some McDonald’s on the way home. Take your time, because there’s probably nobody waiting for you there, anyway.

Is Starbucks Ditching Pride Decor?

Leave a reply

Pride month isn’t halfway over yet, and we’re getting news of yet another corporation that’s ending the rainbow-colored festivities early, if Starbucks Workers United is to be believed.

Yes, Starbucks. As in, the company that’s in a race with Dunkin to make the most overpriced sugary coffee that adds something like 300 calories to your to your daily tally.

Apparently, Starbucks locations, particularly unionized stores, are taking down pride decorations in an apparent effort to avoid controversy. As you could probably imagine, the professional victims are not taking it well.

Now, if this turns out to be the case, one might imagine that I’d be up for rewarding them with a few purchases for making the decision to ditch cynical activism and pivoting to profit. But Starbucks still comes off as hella shady.

The fact is, coffee is one of the least expensive beverages that one can make from home. So, why spend a few bucks on a cup from Starbucks?

What’s more, Starbucks is typically in a Target store. And even putting aside Target’s current controversy, shitty public image, and that they overcharge for low-quality merchandise, the fact is, a caffeine high makes a person prone to spending more money. When you know that, you see putting a Starbucks in the front of a Target as shady AF.

For a long while, it seemed like corporate entities were powerless to resist the power brokers of the banking cartels which have been pushing ESG and DEI in an effort to force behaviors. But as the Bud Light effect and the Target effect have proven, the consumers actually do have power. And if the people decide that they’re sick of the bullshit, they’ll just take their money elsewhere, and a higher ESG score won’t be enough to keep mega-corporations afloat.

Before we get too carried away, Starbucks corporate have denied banning pride decorations:

In a statement, a spokesperson for Starbucks told Newsweek that “We unwaveringly support the LGBTQIA2+ community. There has been no change to any policy on this matter and we continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities including for U.S. Pride month in June.

“We’re deeply concerned by false information that is being spread especially as it relates to our inclusive store environments, our company culture, and the benefits we offer our partners. Starbucks has a history that includes more than four decades of recognizing and celebrating our diverse partners and customers – including year-round support for the LGBTQIA2+ community,” the statement said.

Wow, that alphabet slop acronym gets longer and more jumbled as a function of time. It’s almost looking like a password that would make the NSA proud!

I suppose we’ll find out with time just how much sway the union has over the Starbucks brand, or whether we’ve been fed misinformation (that falsehoods come from the professionally offended must be taken into account). If true, then we might instead find out just how much sway Starbucks corporate has over unionized stores. The nature of the relationship between Starbucks corporate and unions I profess I don’t understand.

One bit of advice that I can give to Starbucks (as though they’ll listen) is to not pick any unnecessary fights, and play it safe by getting out of culture war battles, and staying out. Especially if joining would mean siding with fringe groups at the expense of the majority.

After all, straight people drink coffee, too.

Target Hiding LGBT+ Outfits Out Of Fear Of Backlash

1 Reply

Legacy media doesn’t want you to know that the boycott of Bud Light is having a drastic impact on the brand. This is because they don’t want you to know that you have the power to make a difference, and that you can influence culture.

It would seem the ripple effect of the boycott is extending well outside of Anheuser Busch, as Target is now taking measures to hide pride-themed merchandise in fear of backlash. This news comes after conservative commentator Matt Walsh called for a boycott of Target in consideration of their “tuck friendly” swimwear, and other merchandise targeting cross-dressers.

It would appear as though Anheuser Busch has proven to be quite the head-on-a-stick.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t think the threat of a boycott against Target would get much of anywhere. Personally, I seldom set foot inside of Target. There isn’t much to Target besides a pseudo-vaporwave vibe, and the opportunity to pay way too much for low-quality merchandise. Pride-themed merchandise isn’t really much of anything new for Target, but it’s still strange how in-your-face they are with their endorsement of the various flavors of sexual deviancy, considering that such merchandise would only appeal to less than 2% of the population.

I don’t claim to understand the logistics behind appealing to just a few on the fringe for the sake of an ESG score while running the risk of alienating nearly everyone else. But then again, I’m in a business that actually produces value, rather than grifts by manipulating the value produced by other people.

It’s mainly stores in the southern states where Target is hiding its pride-themed merchandise, so if you live in the north and still see pride-merch, that goes to show how little Target thinks of your values. Think that assessment is too harsh? You probably didn’t know that Target hired a Satanist clothing designer to design their pro-LGBT clothing line.

What Anheuser Busch should have known is what Target may end up learning the hard way: Most people don’t like when their sexuality is questioned. Therefore, if your brand can cause someone’s sexuality to be questioned, then people will be more likely to avoid your brand. Currently, men don’t want to be seen drinking or even purchasing Bud Light. It’s gotten to the point that the mere thought of drinking Bud Light disgusts them. In the same way, if people were to start viewing Target as a “gay store”, that would be a disaster for Target.

Sure, the cheap seats might view such thinking as “bigoted” and “close-minded”. But the fact of the matter is, sexuality plays a significant factor in people’s thinking. And that thinking is going to continue to play a role in the backlash phase of the woke ideology, before the woke ideology takes its rightful place in the dumpster of bad ideologies that have been tested and failed.

Wokeness May Be Destroying the Global Economy, But Economic Hardship May Destroy Wokeness

Leave a reply

The insolvency of Silicon Valley Bank has resulted in a run on the banks, which has resulted in more insolvent banks. The Red Pill community has pointed to SVB’s prioritization of DEI initiatives as being a significant factor in the bank’s collapse, and note with a sense of irony that wokeness may have knocked over the first dominoes that may result in a collapse of the global economy.

Of course, it’s also pointed out that SVB may have been targeted by Uncle Sam for having been friendlier to the crypto market. That sounds kinda conspiracy-theoryish, but if that’s the case, I’d say that that effort backfired, considering that Bitcoin shot way, way up in response to the SVB collapse.

More banks have since collapsed due to bank runs, and I’m seeing the more Red Pill types celebrating the accelerated collapse of the woke movement. While I can get behind that, it’s a little disturbing that there are people who seem to be cheering on the destruction of the global economy. It’s enough for me for the institutions to come to the realization that the woke movement is of no benefit for them to get behind. But considering how much harder it would be for everyone if the global economy were to collapse, I wonder what benefit it would be to anyone if things came to that.

Perhaps there would be some benefit, if only to slap more people awake to the true nature of the woke movement, and if people as a whole were to ditch the crutch of the victim mentality in favor of living on one’s merits. Which they may end up doing out of necessity, if things get difficult.

My foresight is not great. If I had better foresight, I would have understood the true nature of the global economy before majoring in Electronics. Live and learn, and all that.

But still, I can see what would come about if economic difficulty were to necessitate meritocratic living. It would mean that ideas such as wokeness would be viewed in terms of its virtues, which wouldn’t be much outside of its ability to manipulate algorithms. Even now, entertainment companies are slowly coming to the realization that woke messaging negatively impacts the quality of their products, which is part of the reason why viewers are starting to turn against subscription-based streaming services. And now, we’re seeing banks collapse after investing in numerous DEI startups.

While the pendulum is already shifting against wokeness, economic uncertainty would further push the general public into meritocracy as they seek out a way of life that actually, you know, pays the bills. Projecting victimhood seldom does as much, and is becoming increasingly evident as being the sport of the interpersonally manipulative.

When matters are difficult, people turn to merit to get by. It’s when motivated by survival that people look at themselves and other people in terms of what they have to offer. That’s the most practical course in challenging times. Because men tend to have greater upper-body strength than women, and the physiology that lends them more towards physically-involved labor, men tend more towards more dangerous jobs that usually pay better than clerical jobs. This means women would tend towards management of resources and maintaining relationships, in part because their relative lack of physical endurance would mean that this would be the safer option for them, but also because women tend to have minds that are better suited to such things. While feminists wouldn’t like it, more women would return to the trad wife life, even if only out of necessity and in consideration of what they’d have to offer in consideration of their innate attributes.

Considering this, what the woke movement shouldn’t want is challenging times, as woke pet causes tend to thrive more in the prosperous conditions that allow for the luxury of societal experimentation, erroneous philosophies, and the inflexibility of thinking that would result from the rigidness that is characteristic of the woke cult.

Yet, challenging times is just what one can expect, considering that it is the natural consequence of experimenting with ideologies such as wokeness.