Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

So this is interesting — Jawbreakers: Lost Souls has two Overshadowed by Controversy writeups, a Wall of Text on the trivia page and one in the YMMV page that's phrased like an example of Unfortunate Implications, complete with a citation. Are either of them valid?

• Overshadowed by Controversy: This work was possibly the most fought about yet-to-be published comic book in the history of the medium. Jawbreakers: Lost Souls writer Richard Meyer is a youtuber specializing in comic book critique and comments about the comic book industry and alleged gendered personal attacks directed towards creators and editors at Marvel. In response to his criticism they challenged him to try to make his own comic book. Meyer then began to write and produce Jawbreakers: Lost Souls. Meyer then vowed to have the comic printed and mail delivered via crowdfunding. After securing a deal with Antarctic Press to print and distribute the comic book through traditional means, several outlets elected to not sell his comics, resulting in Meyer retaliating by publicly listing names and phone numbers of stores that joined the boycott, allegedly to inform his followers where not to look for his book. But then publisher Antarctic Press canceled the print edition, due in September 2018. Meyer was forced to found his own comic book publishing house. Instead of this (and the comic's subsequent phenomenal success through crowdfunding) being the end of it, Meyer afterwards sued comic book writer Mark Waid for tortious interference with Meyer's contract with Antarctic Press after considering that Waid unduly pressured the publisher to break its agreements with Meyer to publish the book.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The comic has been caught in the middle of several debates due to its writer's comments towards comic professionals and fans on Twitter and Youtube.

The first one might be a little slanted against Meyer, but it's accurate and at least an example of OBC. (No one actually talks about the quality of the book, but I can assure you it's just another badly written cash grab just like every other Kickstarter comic.) The second one can be cut.

Planning to add an OBC for Stonetoss. Look good?

• Overshadowed by Controversy: The webcomic is less known for its political humor is and is more known for the fact that the author himself is a alt-right facist who hides his hate speech under the excuse of satire. Because of this, his critics have taken to edit his content to appeal less to the alt-right and more left-leaning while adding more humor to it.

Eh, Stonetoss is more like a case of the work overshadowing itself since it's a political cartoon where the politics aim to spark controversy. Also, given we're still discussing this page heavily in the ROCEJ thread, I'm nervous to give it a YMMV page just yet.

YMMV.The Ren And Stimpy Show

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Multiple instances in the show's history. The outrage from Moral Guardians' for the show's Vulgar Humor, and Nick firing John K. during its peak popularity. John K. himself eventually became better known as a relentless bully and a pedophile instead of a talented animator, with his criminal charges becoming more common knowledge 2018 onward than any of the cartoons themselves.

I'm kind of doubting that John K. overshadowed Ren and Stimpy. The cartoons are still talked about fondly despite his charges, but that's just me. What are your guys thoughts on this?

Edited by PlasmaPower on Aug 12th 2020 at 9:47:47 AM

His cartoons are still remembered fondly, though rather than the cartoons being overshadowed aside from Cans Without Labels, his career has basically taken a nosedive to say the least.

I only found out about the allegations against John K as part of an organized campaign reminding folks that many other people put a lot of hard work into R&S and the fact that one of the prominent creators turned out to be kind of a shitbag does not make a piece of art that he worked on bad by association.

Since then, John K seems to have become persona non grata, and any discussion of the show pointedly avoids him; but the discussion and appreciation of the show itself has gone on just fine.

I would not consider Ren & Stimpy to be OBC.

As someone who never watched the show, I cannot think about it without thinking of his pedophilia. I think it's presently overshadowed by the controversy even if it wasn't before the 2018 allegations, given how a lot of the backlash to the reboot considered the show too tied to him as a person to be brought back and separated from his behavior. At the very least, John K. himself is very much OBC.

Edited by mightymewtron on Aug 12th 2020 at 9:10:07 AM

I don't think it's OBC. It's just another case of a work's creator being an (alleged) shithead. The work is well known by millions of people for other things.

John K’s reputation is a dumpster fire at this point, but that alone probably isn’t enough to overshadow a show that was so influential on 90’s animation and kids.

YMMV.Black Christmas 2006:

• Overshadowed by Controversy: The film came under fire by Christian groups, who called for a boycott because it was a horror film themed around Christmas, and also set to be released on Christmas Day, following in the footsteps of Silent Night, Deadly Night, which met with similar controversy over 20 years earlier. Dimension Films pointed out that horror films had a long tradition of being released around Christmastime as counter-programming to the usual family and art-house fare (notable examples include The Exorcist and Scream).

I haven't actually heard of this film before, but it seems unlikely to qualify.

Did we ever come to a conclusion about Fallout 76? Seems like almost everyone thought something should go up except one person who filibustered it. Was there any kind of end to that or did it just peter off?

It does have an entry on the Video Games page.

I still consider that entry very suspect, FWIW. Other than the bit about the canvas bag— which is something that I'm sure was disappointing to people who pre-ordered the deluxe edition, but ceased to be part of the greater conversation very quickly— it's just "bad game is bad." That's not a controversy, it's the quality (or lack thereof) of the game. The game can't be overshadowed by how bad it is.

I'll have to disagree on that point. If a work is famous for being bad (e.g. the CD-i Zelda games or Superman 64,) that can actually overshadow everything else about the work. It's just that FO76 still doesn't qualify by that standard.

What exactly is the "everything else" that's being overshadowed? How is a work's quality being overshadowed by... the work's quality?

Edited by HighCrate on Aug 14th 2020 at 6:20:26 AM

The work is not overshadowed by itself, it's overshadowed by its own reputation for being bad. There's a difference.

(I'd never add such an example myself, but I wouldn't remove one if I saw it.)

That's... pretty circular. It relies on the assumption that someone, somewhere, disagrees with its reputation for being bad, in which case that's just people having differing opinions on its quality, which is covered by any number of Audience Reactions.

It’s one of the reason’s why Someoneman was suggesting ET for the Atari 2600 as such. As one of the games responsible for the Gaming crash of 1983, most everyone considers it a legendarily awful game. And while its quality and rushed development didn’t help, its failure had more to do with Atari’s unreasonably high expectations for success expecting half the 2600’s base to buy it, and there are many defenders of it out there, enough to keep it from being listed as So Bad, It's Horrible around here. And Pacman 2600 was equally responsible as ET if not more so for similar reasons.

Theoretically, 2600 ET was overshadowed by the crash, not by itself.

In response to the YMMV.You Can Play This entry I proposed last page, I added the part about the tributes to him being deleted:

• Overshadowed by Controversy: This show's legacy has been forever tainted by Justin's rape and grooming scandal, and all the evidence against him, which was all revealed by the "Not So Awesome" document that came to light in April of 2018. This resulted in the tributes that other Channel Awesome members posted in his honor after his suicide to be removed, due to not wanting to be associated with him.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Aug 27th 2020 at 9:55:13 AM

For Fallout 76, most of the controversy I've seen is less about the game's quality or lack thereof, and more about the ethics of Bethesda selling a barely-functional product, trying to get players to spend even more money on the game through microtransactions and the Fallout Plus subscription, and maybe fixing the bugs later (I've seen multiple contradictory claims as to whether the game has been patched up to an acceptable state or not).

Some people think that the game is now playable and fun, some people think that Bethesda should not be rewarded for releasing a broken product and then fixing it later after people already paid for it. The disagreement between those two camps is the controversy.

Speaking as an outsider who has never played a Bethesda game, the only things I know about Fallout 76 is that the game was an Obvious Beta and that absolute disaster with the promotional canvas bag.

Same