I have arguably been an internet addict since my childhood. Growing up on platforms like Neopets, and the early days of YouTube, to the doom scrolling on X and the dramatic clout chasing on TikTok. It is fair to say that there are multiple things that have changed over the years. One thing that half of the internet seems to be obsessed with is the idea of “woke-ism” and how the world is no longer “normal” and catering to the “crazies“. To me the claims feel nonsensical and is just people feeling more and more comfortable with their ignorance. The beliefs that there is no other perspective is correct unless it aligns with your own is deeply troubling in a world that is becoming more connected day-by-day.
What is “woke”
Being woke or woke-ism is currently a blindly thrown around term but more often than naught it often feels like what people use as an excuse for something they don’t like or understand. But to understand why this term is being thrown around, you need to understand the general idea behind the term of “being woke“. The term refers to being “politically and socially aware”, which isn’t inherently a negative thing. After all, who wouldn’t want to be politically and socially aware? It originated from the African-American community where they would highlight the injustices and discrimination they experienced and started gaining traction in the 1930’s. While it still carries the same underlying meaning in present day, it now has expanded to highlighting the discrimination of not just the African-American Community, but discrimination against people of colour, women, disabilities, and those of the LGBTQ+. So if it is about identifying and discussing the issues why are some people so offended with that ideology? There could be several theories as to why people feel as though “woke-ism” is no longer needed and has gone too far, but I believe that it is because people are complacent in their ignorance and don’t want to be made to feel like a bad guy for it. It isn’t about attacking you for not being a person of colour, queer, disabled or a women, but rather understanding that there is a systematic issue and demand for more awareness to these issues. Do you personally need to feel guilty for being who you are? Of course not. However you shouldn’t be upset when the story isn’t about you or demonize people that want to make an effort to include those groups into their stories because it creates depth and complexity to their worlds.
The obsession to fight against woke-ism
To me, if you’re angry that there is more inclusion or characters and stories are more complex than how they were told in years past, I think you honestly have an extremely boring and unfulfilled life. There is a strange obsession that people believe that something like DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusivity) is being shoved into media by some evil woke agenda to exclude straight, white, cis-gendered, and/or men as much as possible. People are complex, they’re more than just one ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and culture, and if you deny that complexity you continue to share the same boring story, but in just a slightly different shade of grey. Does character need to be a person of colour, be part of the LGBTQ+, have a disability, or the worst crime of all, dare to use a pronoun? The simple answer is no, but not everyone wants the same flavor of vanilla over and over again. God forbid that someone wants to write or create works that reflect real life and don’t want to continue to perpetuate stereotypes. Or if a designer wants to share their culture, the struggles, and give the audience a different perspective than what society originally believed it to be.
Anti-woke people do not understand what woke-ism is
Not everything is overtly “woke” just because the people and characters have qualities outside of being white, straight, able-bodied, and a man. The amount of cherry picking and outrage that people in the anti-woke camp is often odd and confusing. For example there was outrage over the Green M&M character for having sneakers on instead of her classic high heeled boots. Such a minor change in the grand scheme of things, especially since the general vibe of the character still remains the same and wasn’t even that drastic all things considered. But the outrage was so real that M&M’s decided to pull their original spokescandies’ ad and replaced it with one with Maya Rudolph before the Super Bowl. Over the change of her shoes.
One of the latest form of overreaction is an infamous list of games that someone arbitrarily started listing and citing which games are woke and which games are “woke free”. Their reasoning for some of the games being “woke” and which ones they deem “woke free” is at times laughable. A character implies that they are pro-LGBTQ+ in the game? Woke. Strong independent female characters? Woke. Has “DEI” characters in a game that may be a historical war strategy game that has various different cultures and ethnicities? Woke. But then they will have “woke free” games like Half-Life 2, which has a disabled black scientist and his highly intelligent daughter as important characters to the lore.
Trying to understand the other perspective
I won’t lie, I am the type that tries to give the opposition some leeway when it comes to their thought process. What are the underlying issues, how came we best understand why some have come to believe that the “woke” agenda is a bad thing. And the conclusion that I keep coming back to is they’re just mad that other people outside their sphere of understanding exist. The idea that “woke-ism” is being shoved down people’s throats because a queer couple is showing a bit of PDA or maybe a character gets redesigned to be “less sexy”, why is this the hill that people choose to die on? If you take issue with all PDA that is one thing, if you take issue with ANY type of censorship, regardless if you agree with the topic or not, that is another. However it is specifically the toxic selective nature that individuals have that makes it problematic. The childish mindset of, “I don’t like it, therefore it is bad” is very telling to the maturity of the person. It is ok if you don’t understand something. It is ok to not agree with someone’s perspective as well. What is not ok is to get mad at people for existing, for wanting to write more complex characters, or for changes that may actually be beneficial for the overall story.
Change and representation is a beautiful thing. Society should be able to grow and develop into being more accepting of qualities that we may not understand today, but look forward to learning about tomorrow. To be clear, I don’t agree with the idea of mobbing or getting mad at someone for not be politically or socially aware. I disagree with people that refuse to research outside of personal biases, continue to perpetuate the cycle of hate and misinformation. I just believe in being on the side of history that looks towards acceptance and understanding, rather than hate and ignorance.