Prologue: This rant will get into the topic of storytelling…eventually. 😅

I have opinions on pretty much everything, but I try to keep them to myself when they’re about divisive topics of a grand scale. This is largely because I was raised under a social interaction rule that I have always thought was really solid… 

Two topics are off limits with anyone but your close friends and relations: religion and politics.

Growing up, I thought this was just a common sense rule for avoiding arguments. As I got older, I started to realize that it goes deeper than that. Religion and politics involve beliefs so deeply held, so subjective, that it’s difficult to have a reasonable conversation about them with strangers.

I’m sure you don’t need proof of this — just look…anywhere these days. 

And it’s not necessarily a bad thing that people have made their choices and are more likely to defend those choices rather than discuss them. That’s the nature of having an opinion.

But the pervasiveness of “having an open mind” has sort of broken this rule at a grand scale. Now, these discussions (usually fights) are expected to happen anywhere and everywhere because everyone thinks they’re on standby to argue and defend their point of view at the drop of a hat. People have mistaken an open mind with a willingness to fight.

We’ve forgotten that these things are opinions. They’re not meant to be argued among strangers, and no one is asking anyone else to change their minds. 

Would we go to a public place, ask strangers to name their favorite movie, and then try to argue against their choice, point out how foolish they are, and break down into violence?

That would be absurd — and it would be an immense waste of time.

So, in essence, the rule about avoiding religion and politics is about avoiding arguments. But it’s also about wasting time and energy. It’s about saving the public space from heated, circular discourse that goes nowhere because the vast majority of people participating have no intention of analyzing their point of view on the spot and changing their mind.

At best, these fights become boring to everyone forced to watch. At worst, they frustrate the participants to the point that disagreement becomes outright hatred.

Personally, I would love to go back to a time when it was socially unacceptable to randomly bring up these subjects with strangers. Wouldn’t it be great to go through a checkout line at the grocery store without hearing someone loudly voice their opinion about a political party, or openly deride the people who don’t agree with them?

But everyone is so damn casual about their deeply-held beliefs now. They’re so eager to pick fights over them. 

And I’m not concerned because I just want to avoid confrontation. Discourse is good. Disagreement is necessary for progress. But shouldn’t there be a time and a place for it? Does it really need to spill out into every single aspect of our lives? Does every cat video on YouTube need to be turned into a discussion about foreign policy or the price of eggs in the comments section?

I vote no. And it largely goes back to wasted time and energy. These fights do nothing to advance the conversation. They just piss people off, force innocent randoms to pick sides, and then turn people who have no real reason to fight into enemies.

It’s exhausting.

People are Getting Tired of It

I try to be objective, and I believe that ‘echo chambers’ are just adding to all the social problems that are boiling up around us. 

When I started digging into the state of the entertainment industry a few months ago, I made sure to listen to the full spectrum of opinions. Right wing, left wing; east coast, west coast; pro-this, anti-that. (Talk about exhausting.) 

Once I filtered through the opinions — and ample manufactured controversy — the common thread was that most people are tired of this non-stop arguing and signaling. 

(Not counting the grifter types who make a living from dumping gasoline on these arguments. They love it, and it’s sad how much they’ll stretch the truth inside their echo chambers to keep their audiences paying.)

Entertainment channels want engagement. They don’t just want to sell their products (movies, games, etc.) they crave attention. This is understandable because attention generally means sales. So the modern standard for ‘earned media’ has become rage. Fighting over a movie, book, or game’s agenda. 

They want to stoke the fire. They’ve made the divisiveness 100% intentional. They’ve monetized the controversy to the point where the product is irrelevant because the controversy is what moves units.

This leads to really awful products. Bad movies, terrible games, books that are so front-loaded with ‘argument fuel’ that no one really wants to engage with them.

But the manufacturers want controversy because it sells — entertainment be damned — and this is manipulation of the consumer at its absolute worst. 

There’s not much hiding that Hollywood, AAA studios, and big publishing houses are intentionally fueling hatred and anger to stay relevant. From what I’ve researched, all sides accept that. 

The ‘message’ varies depending on who you ask, but everyone acknowledges that a message is there.

And this, too, is getting exhausting.

It’s Getting Old, and Something Needs to Change

What I don’t think the studios and publishers counted on was that no fire can burn forever. Even with their endless infusions of fresh media properties to argue about, people are starting to ask questions.

We’re stopping to take a breath and ask: “Wait…didn’t this stuff used to be entertaining? Wasn’t there a time when watching a movie was something you did for enjoyment, rather than to make a political statement? Hm. I distinctly remember a time when I was allowed to buy a game based on how fun it looked, not based on its opinions about me.”

Ah, and that’s rub. That’s why it’s all so exhausting. Because all of this argument fuel, all of this divisive media, has an opinion of you. Is a video game supposed to have an opinion? Does a character in a movie really have the agency to give me validation or tell me I’m wrong?

Well, hell. They all do now!

Our entertainment is judging us. All the time. That’s what it does now. And that’s not very entertaining. Call it ‘thought provoking’ or ‘introspective’ if you want, but what it’s really doing is pointing at certain people and telling them they’re wrong.

Sure, again, that’s necessary. It’s part of moving forward. Introspection changed my own life. But there’s a time and a place for it. Entertainment media is really a conversation with a stranger, and inciting an argument about politics or religion in something that’s meant to be entertaining just ruins the experience. 

It pisses people off. It draws a line in the sand. It goes nowhere.

And these days, we’re being hit with it all the time. Every show chooses someone to point at and call ‘wrong’. Every movie calls out an opinion and dumps on it. Every book carries a message that, at its heart, is judging someone.

I didn’t ask for that, really. Did you?

As far as I know, we ask to be entertained so that we, upon our choosing, can pursue broader perspectives and enlightenment in our own way. Or maybe not at all. That’s one of those ‘cuts both ways’ things about freedom — a person needs to be free to stick with their opinions without being constantly harassed, or they’re not really free.

Part of the rhetoric is that it’s terrible to allow people their opinions when they’re opinions we don’t agree with. The louder voice is confused with universality, and it becomes “known” that some opinions or beliefs are wrong.

In those cases, the louder voice decides that the wrong opinions should be forced to change. Expose those who are wrong to more enlightened ways of thinking, and they’ll get it. If only we can blast through their opinions with dynamite and open their minds, they’ll come around!

The argument that pushing messages and agendas in entertainment because it’s good for the world is losing steam. We’re seeing what it’s doing, and it’s not successful. It’s dividing people and forcing them to dig in harder. 

It’s also putting studios out of business. It’s literally making entire swaths of the population choose to not read because they’re tired of being judged by fictional characters in a story — and the people who put them out into the world.

That’s not victory.

It’s Hard to See Beyond the Status Quo

We’re at an interesting point where the current way of doing things is so ingrained that putting an end to it feels impossible.

But we can’t fix the way it’s being done. We have to escape it. We have to break the cycle, and run from this illusion that there’s a better way to do this divisive, argument-fueling nonsense. 

There isn’t a better way because being lectured generally sucks. The closest thing to a better way is nuance. Ya know…art. Allow the people who are truly skilled at carrying messages continue doing so, as they’ve done throughout history. Allow the important messages to thrive on their own power, and let them spread under their own validity.

Forcing it isn’t working. 

Let the people who have something to say do so, and stop ramming ‘meaningful messages’ into every single thing that is created. (I’m looking at you, Cause Marketing, because I think you helped start this nonsense by showing soulless businesses that they can make more money by supporting ‘movements’.)

I have a theory on how and why this happened organically, by the way. I don’t think there’s an ominous secret society behind ‘the messages’. There doesn’t have to be. 

You see, there’s been a trend in storytelling, growing like a tumor for decades now, that I think landed us here:

1. Human stories are the only good stories.
2. Human stories are about struggle.
3. The struggles that matter are inner struggles. They’re so profoundly human!

I was fully on board with this. It sounds great. This theory is why I never wanted to write an epic fantasy, because epic stories aren’t about individual people as much as they’re about broad ideas.

Epic battles? Boring! I wanted to write about the lone adventurer with a checkered past who is fighting his own demons and…you know…maybe just happens to be saving the world. But the world doesn’t matter because what the reader really cares about is how this adventurer is coping with memories of his abusive father or addiction to a fictional drug or whatever.

And that sounded great. That’s so deep. So meaningful and human when you compare it to, say, a battle between good and evil.

All of this buy-in came on the heels of some legitimate takes. For example, I never liked Superman. I later learned that it’s because Superman is flat, character wise. The character (as I knew him in the past) isn’t known for inner struggles or depth. He was just a superhero that bashed stuff and saved the day.

To me, Superman was living proof that simple is bad.

Hence, I fell into the trap. I believed that, in storytelling, nothing can be worse than simplicity. Characters need complexity. They need to be constantly tormented by something that happened to them in the past. They have to be torn between moral opposites. They have to question and doubt everything. 

Because if they don’t, they’re boring.

Thanks, Superman.

Well, I don’t need to tell you that I’m not the only writer who was subject to that realization. In fact, it became a rule that characters must be complex. The kind of rule that you don’t question because it’s so obviously correct.

This is why all the reboots of old properties are the way they are. Were you wondering? Okay, well this is the answer. It doesn’t have to be about a message. It’s not necessarily an agenda. It’s because so many writers are convinced that this is how it has to be done.

“All the Disney princesses were so two-dimensional! Superheroes are flat, one-note characters! They need complexity, because that’s the key to better storytelling now! We figured it out, and now we have the tools to fix all those boring old stories!”

Uh huh.

I’m not wholly against this thought. Not at all. But I am against the execution.

You see, the mandate for character complexity has some pitfalls. I would say they include:

1. A writer can only create characters who are as complex as they are. 
2. Many writers are not complex. They can lack experience, insight, or real understanding of different viewpoints. As can anyone.
3. The uninformed (or lazy) confuse ‘humanizing’ with ‘polarizing’. 
4. Feeling the need to force complexity or humanity into their works, the sub-par writers have no choice but to turn to obvious polarizing sources.
5. ‘Obvious’ means stereotypes and stories that the writer has already heard, therefore they can feel safe reusing them without doing any actual work.
6. Because they’re producing a copy of a copy of a copy, their work is flat and lifeless, completely devoid of nuance.
7. The final product sucks, and is usually offensive to at least half of the population. (If it really sucks, it’s offensive to everyone.)

Bear with me here, because this is where I see ineptitude being mistaken for agenda. 

Creators are causing all of these problems by being simple in their quest for complexity.

They use formulas to force a level of complexity that they don’t understand. They say “I need a complex female character, so I’ll…hmmm…make her a lesbian! Then I can go into such humanized, meaningful depth about how hard it is to be a lesbian. Powerful stuff!”

Then this woeful lack of creativity is relabeled as something else. Call it ‘inclusivity’ or ‘representation’ — which are things I have no problem with at all. Except this poor execution creates problems. (One of which is the problem of not representing anything but the creator’s own lack of effort.)

The other obvious problem is repetition. We’ve seen most of these stories already. Dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

Most consumers of entertainment have seen or heard a story about the challenges of simply being a certain type of person. Insert whatever type of person you’d like — be it something to do with race, sexual orientation, or what have you. 

Now, when thousands of writers believe that this is the only story you can tell that makes a character complex, the problem starts. Because it’s not complex. It’s simple. It’s easy. But it’s also bad.

Why is it bad? Because it defines the characters (and thus the people it’s supposed to represent) by their label. It makes what they are their entire story.

And it seems like everyone is tired of it. This is why you see so many marginalized people speaking out against representation now. Because most of the representation is recycled, low-effort crap.

People rightfully want to see others like them in entertainment, but they don’t want to see people like them as stereotyped labels with only one story.

That’s what we’re getting, though. Lazy, uncreative, insensitive writing that believes that complexity and humanity is based on a simple formula:

If you’re X, then your entire story is about how hard it is to be X. 

Think about how shallow, simple, and dehumanizing that actually is. It’s the opposite of complex and poignant. It’s really just Superman’s lousy, empty backstory on repeat. 

This analysis is not limited to DEI-type stuff or cultural/racial inclusivity. I’m seeing holes in this direction of storytelling altogether, and the ‘diverse voices’ part of it is only a symptom. 

Again, it goes back to writers who believe that they must have these pained, flawed, misunderstood characters with inner demons, or people won’t think they’re good writers. Grabbing for a ‘diverse voice’ has just become a lazy shorthand for checking that box.

It’s so weirdly nefarious, it’s hard to even explain it. Because so many people think it’s about some cabal of hooded Liberals with an agenda, but I honestly think it’s just about the entertainment sector being flooded with sucky writers.

Because representation can be done well. It should be done well. But because there are thousands of people screwing it up, it comes across like a global conspiracy.

Trust and Respect Your Audience

One thing I found really weird in all this digging was the almost universal belief that AAA creators hate their audiences.

At first, I took the accusation as hyperbole. Then I saw more and more evidence that made it seem like this theory has legs.

Most of it comes from social media, because social media is the cesspool where opinions are conflated with facts and everyone hates each other. Makes sense. 

Anyway, there are so many examples of game devs, artists, actors, movie producers, etc. lashing out at their audience for their opinions. Accusations fly. Hatred spews. Somebody gets cancelled. Whatever.

It blows my mind. When did the creator and the audience become enemies? I just can’t wrap my head around it.

I think this is also symptomatic. It’s a sign that we share too damn much, and we fight too hard to justify our own opinions. 

Again, this would be a different argument if all of the opinionated oversharing and bickering actually led to something. But all it does is make things worse. It’s fighting for the sake of fighting. 

All we’re seeing is that this attitude has leaked into everything like a toxic sludge. Doesn’t matter if you’re an A-List actor, you have to shout your opinions from on high and fling poop at everyone who doesn’t agree with you.

Same if you’re a game developer, or a character designer, or the intern who cleaned the toilets at the studio. It’s like everyone just realized they have a voice, and now they’re determined to shout as loudly as they can in every direction, even if they have nothing to say.

Yes, the individual voice matters. I think it matters more than the collective voice. But when every single individual’s voice is running at once, blasting from every direction, tripping over itself, and making zero sense…who cares?

People are now trained to blast their deepest held beliefs randomly into the world for all to see…and we’re all learning why I was raised with the whole embargo on religion and politics.

Because this oversharing just pisses everyone off. It’s too much. And now audiences and creators are literally becoming enemies because of it. They should be working together! And they could, easily, if they shared the goal of “entertainment”.

I’d Rather Be Happy Than Right

Ever hear of a motivational speaker named Marshall Sylver? 

I read one of his books a million years ago, and one part has stuck with me. He had a mantra: “I’d rather be happy than right.”

It wasn’t about willfully being wrong and choosing to be happy about it. It was actually in a chapter about arguing with people. 

The takeaway was simple, but something 2025 could stand to learn: Arguments suck, and if you just shut up and stop trying to prove that you’re right, it’s much easier to be happy.

I know. It’s hard to embrace such a philosophy when the world is so full of points that need defending and opinions that need to be changed…right? No.

That’s the illusion we’re drowning in right now. Every point doesn’t need to be made a billion times. And we shouldn’t fight so hard to change other people’s opinions. 

It’s fruitless. It’s frustrating. It prevents happiness.