“Why do conservatives like George Carlin when he clearly hates them?” probably because a schtick he has is “most people are fucking stupid” and that more likely occurs from internet rightwingers than leftwingers.
Think, 4chan is the home of guys going “fuck normies” and honest assholes.
Even when rightwingers obsess with religion and are anti-abortion, they still think you deserve to die or see you as a “degenerate”.
Internet leftists have the irony people who love phrases like “having a normal one?” and then there’s how they’ll tell you “woke means being nice” and I guess corporations appropriating woke culture.
In general, a good portion of “the internet left” is a result of SomethingAwful goons with troll’s remorse.
Deep down, they want approval.
You’ll barely hear someone leftwing ever say “sheeple” as a term but internet rightwingers may use “NPC” and post that one NPC wojak meme.
Then again, Carlin also used to shit on political correctness, so who knows if he’d have a place in modern political discourse.
2
If you say “Modern things don’t suck, you just got older” you’re admitting to not analyze differences in time eras and trends, and rely only on vague proverbs about “the more things change, the more stay the same etc”.
Because different time periods have different trends, events, changes in technology, culture, economics etc that do impact how people feel and think, which also affects art and entertainment.
It also reaches to realizations that some modern things can be good and some older things can be bad, so it’s not a clear “OLD GOOD NEW BAD” logic that you think others rely on.
The 2000’s are an interesting decade because of this: A lot of good stuff came out so the point people view it as “the last great era” but there’s also the seeds of what got worse in the 2010’s, that already came before.
Some even pin point a specific year like 2007 as “when it all went downhill”.
And now you have stuff like AI art where people go “suddenly, art died” as if humans weren’t already making “slop” beforehand.
It also goes back to a point I made before which was “why be anti-AI but pro remake, when the 2 paths will merge at some point?” and why it’s important to discover and preserve older works.
Games with online only methods, bigger price tags, bigger filesizes, the same bloated AAA graphics that aren’t impressive anymore, game design not being well thought out, MTX, annoying quirkly “Millenial” writing, movies with the same writing style, overused of uncanny CGI etc.
I honestly think people refuse to acknowledge certain things (Or sometimes do) based entirely on shortcut associations (If you like X, you’re of that political party etc).
(Also, “if you complain about modern games, you’re a whiny 4chan /v/ guy” etc even if you don’t make racist remarks towards characters in a Ubisoft game).
You also don’t need to be born or present in a specific time period to be able to see changes in how people act and behave.
It’s worth having these observations and aware of stuff like this, since you may also discover things to like you wouldn’t otherwise.
Otherwise, you’ll find yourself with a generic vague position until time changes to prove your point wrong: When in theory, there’s points that are less likely to have this effect.
And going back to AI: A lot of anti-AI people to a terrible job at fighting AI because it’s as if, deep down, they’re the wrong people doing it.
Like if things were differently, they’d be in favor for it since their tastes and attitudes kinda correlate with it in the first place.
Because one thing is “let people enjoy things” but I do think “good taste” as a concept is more relevant than ever, now that people want to be “SAVE THE ARTS” because if AI.
3
When it comes to diversity in media, it’s important to have a genuine point of view and interest in different cultures, specially because you don’t need “assistences” or whatever to help you with it.
But I also think that sometimes, diversity in media can depend on personal life experiences.
Meaning if a group isn’t represented, it’s not because the author hates said group.
Because depending on how someone reacts, it’d be like a tech guy getting upset if a website still doesn’t use webp files or something.
I think another issue is if people tie all of this with a specific era.
In the same way putting pop culture references and internet memes can age your game, the way you portray certain groups can also age your game.
Basically, if the culture wars do end and people treat politics like an actual proper subject again: There could be a point where people look at certain characters in a game in the same way they look at whenever a game has a “Cake is a lie” joke.
Speaking of memes, a lot of people in general seem more “meme bound” than usual.