Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[Uncle]

I agree and I hope they do this. I wonder how gamer gate 2.0 will reconcile their favourite 'anti woke' developer doing something like this lol

there isn't a single thing about the witcher 3 or cyberpunk that are "anti-woke," especially in the latter's case which is probably on the more diverse side of AAA gaming. like what the fuck?

here is what happened

• GAYMER GAYTE
  
• journalists are being harassed which moves them higher on the marginalized stack
  
• their persecution legitimizes anything they say, we must agree with them to own the chuds
  
• journalists declare mix it up ad transphobic and cdpr a chud company
  
• era forced to agree
  
• "well if they're anti-woke but still popular, I bet all the chuds like cdpr because they're so anti-woke"
  
• culminating in an entire alternate reality constructed in the mind of an era user
  

https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-projekt-red-transphobia

It sucks that Cyberpunk 2077’s edgelord marketing worked so well

My skepticism started when the game revealed its controversial “Mix It Up” promotional poster back in June 2019. This poster featured a feminine model with what can only be described as a huge, bulging penis. Her skin-tight leotard left nothing to the imagination; even the veins were visible. At the time, some fans called out the imagery as exploitative, mocking, and transphobic, though CDPR defended the poster. “I like how this person looks,” said Kasia Redesiuk, the artist who designed the poster, at the time. “However, this model is used — their beautiful body is used — for corporate reasons. They are displayed there just as a thing, and that’s the terrible part of it.”

I don’t buy it. While a cutting critique of queer commodification might have been part of the idea’s nucleus, the outcome is a commodification itself, objectifying trans people as creatures of deviance, defined by their genitals and suitable only for sexualization or rejection.

The Mix It Up poster is so brazenly exploitative of trans people, conjuring up very transphobic images and ideas that indelibly link trans people to the contents of their underwear, images that are responsible for real-world harm to trans people. Yet, there’s a deep irony in that it offers trans people one of the few opportunities to see ourselves and play as ourselves in gaming.

Because of all of that, Mix It Up has arguably become the single most divisive, most controversial moment in the entirety of Cyberpunk 2077’s marketing, yet it’s the one they’ve decided to build around. Since then, the game’s official Twitter account has joked about canceling their FIFA 78 pre-order due to the lack of vagina options, a joke which pokes fun at their own potentially progressive non-gendered character creator, again tying any positive representation of trans people to mockery, exploitation, and humiliation. CDPR also included a cisgender cosplayer as the Mix It Up girl among their cosplay contest finalists. Even if you buy the company line that the poster represents how queer bodies have been appropriated for marketing, their entire argument is negated when they have a cis person dress up in that queer body as part of their own video game marketing.