That’s nice to know, thanks! My completist syndrome will make me use it in any case in the second playthrough, though. 
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I run a personal blog. I know bloggers can just close comments. It’s something I can do! I might even do it because nobody reads my blog and an open comments section is a honeypot for spambots.
I know Ron did close all comments!
This was also an act of moderation, which must have caused some backlash in some spheres. If the wrong person closed comments, it could be fuel for an anti-fan base. Just because comments are closed doesn’t mean the mob is done flaming you.
Fortunately, it appears to have worked for Ron’s blog.
And the things I’m talking about are part of a discussion of broader online culture, so its a bit beyond the scope of this thread. too political.
Ron quit Twitter at one stage to only post on his blog, so the role reversal is noteworthy.
But sigh already I feel like I’m speculating too much about the inner world of some dude I don’t know. So I’m just leaving it at this observation. You’re right, that other developers would have used Twitter either way. And that Ron didn’t come back to Twitter just for RTMI.
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He used the blog in the same way, the posts were similar and marketing related. Partly he posted the same things (for example the trailer) on both sites. The only difference was that the blog posts were longer.
So (at least) I can’t understand why he closed his blog where he had control over the comments but not his Twitter account where he hasn’t control over the comments. In addition Twitter is well-known for his shitstorms.
I’ll be doing exactly the same. On my second playthrough of Thimbleweed Park, I used the hint system a single time, purely to see what it was like. Like said game, my first playthrough of Return to Monkey Island will be entirely hint free though.
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I may be wrong, but I remember Ron coming back to Twitter well before the blog incidents. The two events don’t seem correlated, to me.
Because:
- he has to sell a game and his Twitter account is way more visible (and a better tool for reaching new people) than his personal blog.
- Twitter does automatically moderate tweets a little. Rude comments receive less visibility. Ron doesn’t have control, but he can’t afford rejecting a main marketing channel just because rude people exist.
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Really? There are the Terrible Toybox, Disney and Devolver accounts. There are far more visible than Ron’s (especially when to attract new player/people who don’t know who Ron is).
Really? Source?
Then why he keeps posting personal things like the board games he played?
Yes, I know.
Why be depressed?! I am only opposing a narrative that I hear frequently: the narrative that modern social media has made society more toxic than it was in earlier decades. And usually Twitter is the scapegoat for that modern media.
Yet if new social media like Twitter is to blame, that narrative is threatened by the reality that it was a less caustic environment than a blog that has existed since the 2000s. (And I bet if we look through early comment history, we’ll likely find plenty of examples of hate against thd non-Ron MI sequels, and loud hopes that some day Ron would get to make the pixelated MI3A that he always wanted.)
EDIT: Specifically: If Ron had made this same game as MI4 in the late 2000s using a similar art style, I speculate his blog comments would have looked shockingly similar.
Indeed. The argument that people are more toxic in today’s society than they used to be has always been a ludicrous one to make. People are people. People have always been people. There have always been rude, stupid, ignorant and disrespectful people throughout history. That never changes, neither at a fundamental level, nor in terms of percentiles.
What has changed is that there are now more forums (note that I use that word in the classical sense, as opposed to specifically in terms of online terminology) for people to express their views to the world at large than there ever have been throughout the history of mankind. Naturally, this facilitation of communication has resulted in the rude and insulting people being much more noticeable than they were in the past.
It’s just daft to think that there’s some kind of genetic or social political change in human psychology which has resulted in a dramatic increase in stupidity and/or rudeness, as though disrespect is a toxic pandemic spreading throughout people’s minds. Every generation throughout history has claimed that the new generation is the worst yet. Literally every single generation says the same thing. It’s so incredibly shortsighted. Of course it seems as though the generation you’re experiencing within your lifetime is the worst yet, because you weren’t alive for the previous generations (and if you were and you think the new generation is the worst yet, then you are suffering from rose tinted memories of the past).
If anything, the truth of the matter is that, as a generalised society, we’ve never been more enlightened and tolerant towards others than we are in today’s world. You think today’s world is toxic? Go and read a history book about the bigotry and violence in centuries past. That should clarify just how good we have it today.
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I agree with this. But …
… these people reinforce/increase the rude behavior(*). And this influences “normal” people to be ruder too. In addition they feel anonymous which lowers the barrier to be rude. This makes the (corresponding) discussions toxic.
(*) In German we have the term “sich gegenseitig aufschaukeln”. According to my dictionary the English translation would be “to goad each other”.
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Oh yes, the kind of visibility that you get when you interact with people in a social network is profoundly different from what happen when you write a post in your own blog. The farther you are from where the social discussion happens, the more difficult is for your content to be noticed by others.
Sure, but I’m just comparing Ron’s blog with Ron’s Twitter profile. The latter (130k followers) is difficult to ignore when you have to promote a product.
Sure, many social networks have solutions like this one: Source.
Also, the moderation of tweets is somehow crowdsourced: problematic tweets can be reported by users. Twitter employees also evaluate manually the most problematic situations.
Why shouldn’t he? A personal profile can be both personal and a marketing channel used to advertise a product.
This is very true, some places definitely behave like an echo chamber. Some people’s action can be a stimulus for others. Personal behavior and group behavior are two very different things and the latter is not just the sum of individual behavior.
But let’s not forget that it can work in both ways: people can use that same echo feature to contribute with more positive thoughts and to comfort those who have been insulted or harassed.
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Well, I certainly agree that the anonymity of the Internet encourages and allows people to be rude to others, consequence free but my larger point remains; that being that there have always been this number of rude individuals within society and the Internet has merely facilitated them an outlet to express their rage and hatred to the world.
People still have a moralistic choice to make when posting online. If somebody chooses to harass or unfairly insult another human being online, purely because they know that they are safe from repercussions, then that still falls on them and it shows what kind of person they are at heart and what kind of person they always would have been, regardless of whether or not the Internet existed. These are the sort of people who would have been bullying vulnerable children in school, or beating their spouse behind closed doors, pre-Internet.
I guess one can view the Internet as some sort of revealing mirror for somebody’s true character. If you can interact with others in a respectful and dignified manner, even when completely anonymous, then that reflects well upon your character. If you are incapable of doing so, then it merely reveals what a vile person you are beneath the social mask you wear when engaging in face-to-face interactions out in the real-world. Again; these people always existed. The Internet has merely shown us how many morons there are in the world. The number hasn’t increased, merely the channels for those people to communicate through has.
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I know toxicity has always existed in broader society, including online. I’ve read the entire Net Legends FAQ, and this makes me an expert on old flame wars lol (this is a joke of course it doesn’t).
But I disagree that it hasn’t changed. The internet changed the world. Why wouldn’t it also change the means by which we can be cruel?
Corporate-owned websites use algorithms to drive engagement, and are willing to exploit people’s worst impulses in order to keep them engaged. I don’t like our emotions being manipulated. Websites aren’t the first to do this, I know about gossip mags and other sensational and/or manipulative traditional media. And they were successful in that goal. But these couldn’t be as reader tailored and laser focused.
I don’t prefer older style forums and spaces because they are old. I think Discourse is an new style forum, to its benefit. I like the fediverse too, I like shiny new things. I like how Neocities is different and than Geocities. I don’t hate new things on impulse.
I just like being on forums, where theres no algorithm and no promises of going viral, we’re all here because we want to talk to each other, yanno. it’s nice
of course i still could go viral with my bad posts just you wait
I don’t think anonymity has anything to do with cruelty, or is at best netural. Anonymity can also facilitate people being kind in ways they couldn’t if their identity was open.
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I specifically stated that the Internet has changed the means and methodology by which people can be cruel. What I’m saying is that it hasn’t changed humanity’s nature to be cruel. You think that a technological invention can fundamentally alter the genetic state and psychology of the human race as a whole? I’m calling bunkum on that.
On the other hand? I remember criticised fictions like TMNT 3, Rocky V, Batman and Robin, The Phantom Menace… and I wonder, if these multiple forums/media had existed back then, then maybe the people who actually liked these films would have been together and defended them. Then the other side would have been remembered as toxic haters, instead of the films themselves simply being remembered as sub-par.
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I don’t know about that. I think that plenty of people hated those movies with an overly stated passion upon release, just as plenty of sycophantic fanboys defended them and labeled all critique as nothing but the words of “haters”. Again; the Internet has merely provided a virtual megaphone for those people to shout their opinions through to the world at large.
I’m a left leaning centrist and in this world of extremist political viewpoints, it’s all insane to me. The far left; insane. The far right; equally insane. Those who said that the art for Return to Monkey Island sucks and that Ron Gilbert is a hackfraud who has ruined his own creation, without so much as playing the game; insane. People who unfairly branded any and all critical opinions of the art style as evil trolls out to destroy their godlike developer figure; equally insane.
People tend not to do nuance and emotionless appraisal very well. People tend to be too wrapped up in their own damn ego. It is what it is, but again, that’s how it’s always been. People gonna people.
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Or maybe they were the vulnerable children being bullied.
Psychology can be a bitch.
True, but personal responsibility is a thing. I was bullied horrendously as a child (and even as an adult). It’s left me as an agoraphobic who suffers from PTSD, but I still possess a moral compass. I would never use my trauma as an excuse to harass or bully other people and I try extremely hard to treat people online, just as I would treat them face-to-face. ‘Treat others as you yourself would care to be treated’ is one of the main life philosophies by which I abide. Past trauma does not excuse the morally inexcusable.
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Further to that, I will say that it’s interesting to note that the vast majority of serial killers (to use an extreme example of anti-social behaviour) had an abusive upbringing. However, it’s that whole nature vs nurture aspect and in my experience, I have yet to encounter a single serial killer (via my interest in true crime) who wasn’t the produced result of both nature and nurture. An abusive childhood will only take you so far. It takes a psychotic or sociopathic personality to push things over the edge and into the realm of bullying, violence and general hatred towards others.
I would dare to hazard a guess that the sort of people who harass, bully and troll innocent people online are people who not only have suffered an abusive upbringing but are also people with a predisposition towards a psychotic mindset. They fundamentally lack the ability to engage in empathetic thinking. This theory only furthers my core argument that it’s not the technology which is to blame, it’s the individuals using said technology. Blaming hatred on the Internet is no different to blaming the ills of society on rock and roll music or Dungeons and Dragons (as was the case in the 60s and 80s, respectively).
People have an inclination to look towards scapegoats in order to explain away human nature. That’s because the reality would scare them. That reality being that there are an awful number of people within our society with cruel intent. Sadly, more people among us are cruel by nature than the vast majority of us would care to admit. Don’t blame the technology. Blame the individual.
“It was the Internet that made me act like a total bellend.”
No it wasn’t. Get lost with that rhetoric.
Oh yes, I agree wholeheartedly that past trauma doesn’t excuse bad behavior and that we are responsible for our actions.
I wanted only to introduce a different topic to the discussion, because there are people very dear to me, now adults, who are the clear result of what they experienced when they were young. Maybe not the result of only that, but for sure their past experiences played a big role.
I have been the target of their bad behavior and there is no doubt that it was inexcusable, but when you love someone you also tend to search for a cause of their behavior, without treating that cause as an attempt to justify their actions.
The only difference between these people and anonymous strangers on the Internet is that… they are strangers. I don’t care for them as much as I care for people who a near to me. Of these strangers I observe only their negative side and I’m oblivious to what their story is or which life experiences led them to evolve those traits.
Now, I firmly believe that these people are accountable for their behavior and that if their behavior was cruel and harmful, they should also face consequences, but I also want my reaction to their behavior to take in account that they aren’t much different from the people that I care for.
For this reason, when I observe hate, I remind myself of how similar that behavior is to what I have witnessed in the people that I love and that motivates me not to respond with more hate. To me, bad behavior is mainly a result of weakness.
I can’t say about how much these behaviors are “intrinsic” (genetic?) to people and how much they are a result of past experiences, because I’m not a doctor, but I know that in many cases it’s a mix of both.
On a more lighthearted note, I wanted to praise Discourse for streamlining our chat here, during that live event held a few days ago. This forum is able to recreate a simil-chat experience and I enjoyed it a lot. 
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