FaceDeer

Oh, I think I may have figured out where the misunderstanding lies. You think that when I said "poor performances" I was talking about acting performances. I was talking about performance at the box office.

Studios don't really care about the quality of the performance, they just care about the profit.

It doesn't have anything to do with that. You've brought things into the discussion that I have not said anything about.

This is the statement that I was responding to:

DEI generates more revenue because it broadens customer bases.

And I pointed out that it doesn't always broaden the customer base, it sometimes narrows it. There are customers who will avoid a product that is associated with DEI initiatives.

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't. I'm not even saying why they would avoid it, or why they would claim to avoid it. Just that in some situations DEI initiatives don't broaden the customer base.

It wasn't. I'm talking about the backlash that these movies have been receiving from fans over overt DEI-related positions.

The original comment I responded to was FlyingSquid saying:

DEI generates more revenue because it broadens customer bases.

And I was pointing out a situation where that's not necessarily true, where DEI narrows the customer base.

Yes.

It's a true fact that a hospital could cut its costs tremendously if they were to secretly euthanize people with terminal illnesses. Stating this fact does not mean that I am in favor of secretly euthanizing people with terminal illnesses. It happens to be quite the opposite.

In one of my other comments in this thread I said what I'd like to see:

Personally, I wish that companies would just go ahead and do their best to not be biased in who they employ and who they cater to, and that that would be enough.

Yes, and? Measuring an energy storage facility in terms of power is not a good idea.

If you asked someone how big a water tank was and they said "five liters per second", would that be useful?

But your objection to people who are not white and heteronormative in the media is noted.

And here's why this is such a dangerous topic to touch on, it instantly becomes "us vs them" and you see a fight to be fought even when it's not actually there.

I made no such objection.

Regardless of why there are contesting sides, the contesting sides are still there.

I'm not arguing for or against any of this, I should note. I'm just pointing out that this division exists. If a company advertises "we're DEI!" Then that may attract some new customers but it may also repel some existing ones, so it's something that needs to be done with care.

Personally, I wish that companies would just go ahead and do their best to not be biased in who they employ and who they cater to, and that that would be enough.

Budweiser also experienced a backlash-based boycott over issues like this, it's not just the entertainment industry.

My point is just that "DEI generates more revenue because it broadens customer bases" is not necessarily true. It's an overly broad statement, there are cases where that's not the case and so companies should take that into account and perhaps be cautious about advertising their DEI initiatives. It's become political, which means taking one side necessarily puts you at odds with the other side. That's potential customers.

Not necessarily. A lot of recent TV shows, movies, and video games have had their creators publicly blaming "anti-woke backlash" for poor performances. The creators themselves are saying this so I would assume they've got some basis for it, and if that's the case then in those instances implementing visible DEI efforts is narrowing the customer base.

This has become a front on a "culture war" and it wouldn't be a "culture war" if there weren't contesting sides. So if you align yourself clearly with one side or the other you're cutting off a part of the customer base. I can see it as plausible that companies would decide "let's just continue to not be racist but not make a big deal out of it and hopefully not offend anyone in the process."

I'd be surprised too if some racist just reached over and ripped my face off without warning. What an asshole.

An EMP destroys electronics, you probably don't want to go there over a board game.

If this becomes a tit-for-tat arms race then there's ways around IR blasters or jammers - an IR filter for the camera, optical networking for the jammer.

I think partially this depends on the circumstances. Is this some kind of million-dollar tournament game, or is it just people playing in the park? For big tournaments with serious money on the line, a lot of effort might be reasonable. For recreation, not so much.

Of course not. People want to be angry at AI, nuance would interfere with the dopamine hit.