PopCulture

Question from a newer player here. I'm always thrown off when I see people speaking ICly about references to current pop culture (Skyrim comments, SNL skits, movies, bands, etc). Am I being nitpicky here? Should we be talking about this kind of stuff ICly? Are we all really experts on pop culture that happened 100 years ago (in some cases, things that didn't even exist when the sindome world was created?)

I'm not intending this to be a complaint, just looking for some guidance on what best practices are here and if I should just get used to this kind of thing and stop letting it throw me off.

Thanks!

By BigArg at Jan 30, 2020 8:27 PM

In my experience, it's fine to kind of crack jokes about pop culture, make parody 2105 spoofs of current events and the like, within reason.

It becomes an issue if it's really jarring (I.E. political commentary about current specific personas or parties, states, countries, etc.) or if it's a dead-beaten horse, which Game of Thrones parodies wound up becoming.

But your mileage may vary! SIC is always an ongoing and evolving environment. It'll go from comedy hour, instantly into drama then to death threats and screaming right back to comedy!

By TalonCzar at Jan 30, 2020 8:37 PM

Thanks for the reply! Considering the IC OOC boundaries set in this game, we shouldn't be concerned with why someones character knows about skyrim, game of thrones, or a SNL skit? I realize this stuff is harmless and funny, i'm just trying to rationalize how we justify this (Unless we're just saying that SIC kind of transcends IC/OOC and you can say whatever you want for the sake of comedy)?

By BigArg at Jan 30, 2020 8:45 PM

No, to be clear, a character should not be telling you specifics of how to best go about playing Skyrim. Skyrim never existed in SD. SD forks off from our culture sometime in the late 21st century, and we shouldn't be directly referencing those things.

Now if you want to ICly talk about how you in your pre-Withmore life played dragon slaying games on the matrix, and maybe make some tangential references to D&D or Skyrim or something like that, that's fine. It's totally plausible in the alternate timeline that there would be some form of analogue to some of the things we take for granted right now. Just understand, that while Withmore tech is super advanced in some areas, it's totally backwards in others. IF I have my lore straight, computing tech is pretty backwards in Withmore compared with the larger world of SD, as matrix tech was banned here. So while we might have things like VR games and such, we don't have massively networked connection-style VR MMO's here in the dome. We have simpler stuff like multiplayer gameboy games and the like.

Make any sense?

By TalonCzar at Jan 30, 2020 8:56 PM

Anyone dropping memes on pubSIC is dead to me. There was a plague of that for a while.

Parse everything through a cyberpunk futurist lens. Talking about plastic 2080s synthpop is a bit of kabuki that stays in theme, for example.. Word-for-word 2020s pop culture? Hard pass.

By 0x1mm at Jan 30, 2020 9:46 PM

Also!

As Talon says (and does often!) inventing your own references is way better world-building. Why reference actual contemporary games or bands when you can riff on those and make up your own cyberpunk dystopian versions?

By 0x1mm at Jan 30, 2020 9:49 PM

Yeah this is a fuzzy one...there's a fine line IMO between trying to kinda 'SD-ify' some pop culture things just to create some random idle banter and flavor and straight up meme'ing and pop-culturing all day long on SIC in a way that breaks immersion in a really silly way, because it sort of makes a mockery of theme -- so yes, it's a very valid issue to raise. It's probably something we need a staff reminder on occasionally, especially as we get groups of newer players in who may not understand it's bad form (and some of us who should know better do it because it's just funny sometimes and we slip).

By Jameson at Jan 30, 2020 9:56 PM

Not much to add to what others said, but I agree with a lot of it.

I've done this is the past, sometimes I want to crack a joke too but try for it not to be detrimental to the game.

Sindomefy your jokes please and try not to linger on these subjects too much.

Like, if you want to say "This bunny splicer decker chica is selling her clone-tank's goo to rich degenerate corpies for 10k a pop."

That would be 'okay', but lets not deep dive into the subject because when the thin layers of veneer come off under scrutiny the reference becomes too obvious and do more damage than good.

TLDR; Keep the pop-culture reference light.

By ErgoProxy at Jan 31, 2020 4:54 AM

Hit-and-run tactics, like ErgoProxy said.

It's very easy to jump on the reference making bandwagon, and I am unabashedly guilty of SD-izing memes and references. But the real trick is knowing when to let it die and not let it snowball.

By HolyChrome at Jan 31, 2020 5:00 AM

Along the same vein of this, I just wanted to comment that I don't think it is necessary to make an IC dig at someone because they know the works of William Shakespeare or the music of Beethoven in 2104.

Any time someone mentions something classic, I see people jump on them with comments that attempt to shame them. Its 2020 and I read books that are 500 years old, (or more) and listen to music that is 300 years old (or more) and pretending like in 85 years people won't is just silly to me.

By Manywaters at Jan 31, 2020 5:04 AM

Books and music which are classics today can be expected to still be classics in 85 years.

References to pop-culture works which are not classic today because they're not old enough (and probably not good enough) - different matter.

By beandip at Jan 31, 2020 2:43 PM

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a	Mench	2m	Doing a bit of everything.
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PopCulture Should we be talking about this?

PopCulture
Should we be talking about this?