It's a Christmas tradition in geek culture as ingrained as Magic: the Gathering booster pack stocking stuffers: making fun of the Star Wars Holiday Special. And well we should: It has definitely not aged well, to damn it the faintest. Reviewing it is a guaranteed hit on YouTube, so every major reviewer has a shot at it. Let's get a few out of the way: The Nostalgia Critic has the funniest review, hands-down: The Cinema Snob has a great runner-up: Dark Corners has a shorter, sweeter review: Even geek-culture webcomic classic XKCD just had to take a swipe at it. The Star Wars Holiday Special is the very definition of "low-hanging fruit." Yeah, and you know what? YOU'VE ALL GOT IT WRONG! You young Millennial whipper-snapper Star Wars fans, I'm sorry, but you can take the next Star Tours shuttle express to planet Get Off My Lawn! There are a whole four decades of cultural and historical context you're all ignoring. What else do you do, break into Egyptian pyramids and graffiti critiques next…
Let me fill in some personal background as quickly as possible: When it comes to faith, you could define me pretty close to agnostic. My wife of 25+ years is a lapsed Catholic. There's no real conflict here, but our respective cultural backgrounds give us a different attitude towards religion in general. Christmas is a secular affair for us; when the kids lived with us, it was all Santa and presents. Since we joined the empty nest club, Christmas is an excuse to goof off and relax for me, actually I smirkingly pretend to celebrate Christmas while inwardly considering it "Yule," since Western society has seen fit to rip off the Pagan holiday and rebrand it as Jesus's birthday with the serial numbers filed off. For Mrs. Penguin, it's pretty much the same, but she adds in the ritual of staying up til midnight to watch the Vatican's Midnight Mass. I watch along with her, but for me, it's something to marvel and gawk at. Occasionally I'll look up from my eggnog and laptop gaming session to…
It has been almost five years since Gamergate created a reactionary movement that has made far-reaching effects throughout media. But as the culture changes, so do the war that comes with it. Where does all the vitriol we see and read now show us where it will be in the future? In 2017, the angry, mostly straight and white men that harassed women who were fans of video games fell into a lull after years of harassment that included death threats, publishing of private information, and end of people’s careers. Instead of making drastic changes that would create the ideal landscapes for games and gaming journalism, it instead splintered off into pieces from its own toxicity. Make Mine Misogyny But around that same time, there was something growing off in the distance, waiting for its moment to jump out in social media and beyond. It blew up when Heather Antos, then-editor at Marvel Comics, posted a selfie of herself and other female staff members drinking milkshakes on Twitter. Thousands…
Score: 1.31
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