Yeah people don't want politics in their escapism. Makes sense to me
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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Refusing to acknowledge that queer people exist is "political" and queer people engaging in escapism deserve to feel seem and included.
Pride month celebrations were my go-to events in secret. My family doesn't really understand the niche appeal of the game, and state religious agents can't really "disguise themselves" ingame. But if Jagex is veering right, they might (like twitter) sell my information to security agencies the same way the Sauds/Turks did to Twitter a few years ago.
At least I get to wear my pride cape 24/7 until my membership runs out. In hindsight, It was a bad idea to assume that shooting stars/maple forestry/w301 hate chats were "isolated incidents". They're clearly part of an ongoing trend that has the CEO's approval. Oh well, there's always a countdown to good things. I should enjoy it while it lasts.
Cancelling a pre-loaded pride event because you're scared of right wing nutcases being mean to your playerbase is the very definition of letting the terrorists win.
If I ran a business, I wouldn’t engage in any political events whatsoever. I don’t think businesses should, quite frankly. Be politically neutral. I don’t believe doing so “supports the status quo,” and thereby oppresses people “de facto,” that’s just pressure from activists to support them. You support gay people on your service by letting them play and putting down any instances of anti-gay rhetoric on your platform. Simple as that.
Pride is political now?
🤡
Yes
Always has been
Calling pride month a political event is one of the most wildly bigoted takes I've ever heard.
No, it's definitely political. So was the Civil Rights movement in the US. So was Womens' suffrage.
Pushing for change is political, even if it's nearly universally agreed that the particular change is necessary and good. I agree with LGBT rights and as far as I care, they can have a month long pride if they want, it doesn't in any way chafe my willy. However, I agree with the person you replied to. As a business, ANY stance on ANY political cause risks alienation of some part of your customer base. Doing a 180 on your stance like Jagex did is of course the worst thing you can do, because then you alienate the people who agreed with you, but the others will still remember when you disagreed with them. Once they decided to do pride, they should've fucking stuck to it, at least for the year where they already had events scheduled!
If I ran a public-facing business at all, it would have literally no political allegiance or opinions. No stance on LGBT rights, no political donations (not really a huge thing in my country anyway), etc. Just do my thing, provide a great service, make sure my employees and customers are happy, and... The LGBT folks can do whatever they want, I'm just not voicing support for them as a business. Even if I as a person root for equal rights, I just don't want to take a stance as a business owner. Donations to charities, including LGBT charities, are fine - I just don't want it to be particularly public. But then I just prefer privacy in these kinds of matters.
Doing something political for years and then NOT doing something political is not "politically neutral," you're actively decided to make a politically motivated decision instead of simply continue with existing behavior.
I didn't say cancelling it was neutral. I was commenting on the people's opinions that companies should take stances.
Jagex here, clearly already took a stance (they had pride for several years) and then canceled it last minute after already announcing event dates for this year. That's straight up cowardice on their part. Like I've said before - if you're going to do pride as a company, fucking stick to your guns or you'll reveal you were never really an ally.
Pride movement is as political as Christmas is political. There will be people that make it a political issue, but that doesn't mean it is actually political. A company that celebrates a holiday that big part of the population celebrate is not siding with a political party or even with a religion. The rights for any minorities in a government or a state is political, but pride is a celebration and as such it is not political. A state making a religion official and forced/encouraged is political. Celebrating Christmas is not political. And celebrating Christmas as a company doesn't mean they alienate customers or employees that don't actually follow the religious side of the holiday.
Don't get sucked into the idea that a company cannot show support for minorities or make events depending on the celebrations socially occurring because you need to be neutral. That's not neutrality, that's self censorship.
To take it to the extremes, are we expecting companies to say they are not against slavery but also not in favor, because it is political? Child labour is bad, but I don't want to support any side because it is too political. Terrorism attacks? Well we don't have a stance against or for them, it's just too political.
There's a big difference between siding with one party or another and not showing a stance into what should be universal human rights. Are universal human rights political? Well kinda, but we shouldn't support, or allow any company that is afraid of supporting human rights because it might alienate some customers... Pride and lgbtq rights might not be on the same level as slavery, terrorism and child labor but hell who someone spends their life with is a human right and has nothing to do with politics.
You must live in a pretty privileged country if you can compare the LGBT rights movement to the anti-slavery movement, a nice "it's done, let's go have some beers now" state of things, eh?
It's certainly not so clear cut in a lot of the world. People are still fighting for their rights and pride is part of it.
If you were in 1850s or 1860s in the US, hell, even some time after that, and your company said "We support black people's rights", that would be very political. Morally the right message to put out, but you suddenly lose half your customers and a bunch of idiots want to kill you. Not a smart business move tbh. Now if you said that for years in a row and then decided "We'll stop our black people's rights campaign", now you're making a whole new political statement, in the exact opposite direction to the original one, and significantly worse. Now you're also alienating the people who DO agree with what you originally said, and hoping that the people you originally alienated, are coming back. They are not.
You have different definitions of "political"
In my country at least, there are differences of opinion about whether queer people can exist in public, use the bathroom, etc., and the people in power are endangering everyone. So pride is very much political.
Pride is a political movement - or did they not fight for the rights of LGBT people? Flags are inherently political. Flying a flag signals allegiance and identity, which are political at their core.
This makes pride month political.
Being Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Transgender isn't political in and of itself, but movements are.
Please please please email support.
The mod team is not happy about this either, and was responsive to me. Enough voices can change things.
If you haven’t play RuneScape - this has been a popular event for years. It’s always high quality fun. There have been stupid Fally protests and chuds but the events have always been really delightful.
Nice use of "gormless" 👏
This is extra funny because the first time a pride event was added people were protesting and spamming "we pay no gay" seems the culture has shifted.
I think it's that the world has changed into having fractured multiple cultures.
In the 80s/90s being gay was considered by general society to be an insult. If you're under 25, the concept of something being negative being called "gay" as the standard insult just sounds made up.
But people who are 40 years old may remember being in school, and you got a D on a quiz. Your buddy might say "You got a D? That's gay."
Had nothing to do with actual homosexuality. It's just that's what society was. Being gay wasn't accepted, and it was cool and trendy to hate on gays to the point that it wasn't questioned if you called anything bad "gay".
It's impossible to place an exact date on when the culture changed, because it likely changed at different times for different regions. I assume California was the first to change.
I first noticed the shift in pop culture around 2003. There was a russian pop singer duo/band called tatu. Terrible music, but they kissed in their one hit wonder music video.
The reactions I saw on MTV were people saying they were brave for being openly gay. Whereas if it would have happened in the 80s, I'm sure they'd have gotten death threats.
And I STILL see people who don't accept gay people.
So society is now fractured on what popular belief is. Now it's more like several circles, who all have different views. As opposed to one giant unified viewpoint, with those not conforming left on the outside in the underground.
Because that's just one topic. There's other people who are ok with gay people, but not ok with trans. So thats another circle. Now imagine every single viewpoint which has a counter viewpoint.
Whereas in the 80s, something like 92% of the vote went towards reagan, and everybody conformed to the preapproved normal viewpoints. We don't do that anymore. We each find our own meaning of normal.
Now me personally, I don't find giving a nazi salute to be normal. But you'll still find herds of people defending musk. You'll also find people like me who say fuck musk, and fuck any self identifying nazi. So, another example of how different people are now in different circles.
I first noticed the shift in pop culture around 2003. There was a russian pop singer duo/band called tatu. Terrible music, but they kissed in their one hit wonder music video.
Unrelated rant following:
Back in around 2002-2003 as I started becoming cognitive enough to appreciate different artists and styles, I didn't have Internet at home (Eastern Europe yay), but we had a couple of non-local TV channels somehow. One being VIVA (the German channel, not the UK one), which at some time of day just played the week's top 100 hits for Germany, many of which were one hit wonders. Tatu was one of them, though they were more of a 1.5 hit wonder (they're not gonna get us was half a hit compared to the big one).
This was wonderful, because it got me hearing all kinds of music as a 7 year old that I normally wouldn't have. Where the hell else was I going to hear The Rasmus - In The Shadows, a bunch of songs by Eminem, and then suddenly Las Ketchup Song? Or for something way less commonly known: Travel Time by Starsplash
I assume California was the first to change
Nope, that designation goes to Massachusetts. First gay marriages occurred in 2004 and never had a prop 8 pass as late as 2008. California was a red state, redder than Florida is now, until very recently. California is a relatively recent leftward shift.
tatu was a masterclass in queerbaiting
I will not accept All the Things She Said slander
Canceled Pride? Well, I canceled my sub!
Almost everyone cancelled the pride month events. Turns out they don't sell
Wow, the way he phrased his reasoning is so undoubtedly cowardly too. He didn't even try to hide the fact that it's performative as fuck lol.
There is a player run unofficial pride house party happening on the 21st
In my opinion companies shouldn't do anything about any month of anything. They often use it as a marketing tactic
I used to believe that too, because it was pointless. But it seems that i was wrong. The fact that it was pointless, means that the corporations felt comfortable with using and abusing that to maximize profit. The fact that they are afraid to do that, indicates how fucked things are now.
So i am ok with corporations using movements for marketing reasons, because ultimately this is the canary in the mine. If the corporations consider it a brand risk, then society is moving towards the wrong direction.
I'm not comfortable with companies using any kind of marketing tactics. Because 99 times out of a 100 it's speedy and underhanded.
But since they're going to be doing it anyways, doing it with pride, or disenfranchised demographics, at least normalizes their humanity. Which, at the end of the day, is the point of pride month et al.
If you mean this about any Christmas, seasonal, 4th of July, Halloween, Easter, etc events… sure. But taking out just the Pride event is targeted.
Probably why the comment you replied to didn't say that at all.
Anti-woke go broke.
Go woke or go broke.
Not woke? Go broke.
Throw rocks at fascists. Okay the rhyme needs some work
Smite the Reich?
Strike the Reich.
Taste the rich, om nom nom.
Go fasch, lose cash