Mailbag: Giant Bomb Mailbag: Mikes, Malts, and the... Mintendo 64

The difference is one of these is bigotry and one is not. And it's my belief that gay Americans are far more oppressed than white Christians. In fact they've pretty much run the country for many decades. You seem to be buying in to a false persecution narrative.

One last interesting find from my Mike Rowe climate research that this mailbag kicked off:

@doctorodds: I'd say malt-ier beers have a richer, sweeter flavor. Disclaimer: I am just a guy who goes to breweries, not an expert.

Ben... Ben we have to talk - your camera work really makes me miss Drew ha-ha (love you Ben!), but you have to work on focus, thumb in picture, and your "bobble-head like" smoothness of keeping a steady shot (pardon the pun).

Whoosh it was hard to watch at times. But Im going to chalk it up to the camera must be like a tiny toy to your giant hands? (PS - everyone acting "insulted" by Brad and Ben's off hand comment about a celebrity and his lame toy on a video game website, grow up y'all).

@opusofthemagnum: I didn't say that was the entire group of people who are climate change deniers. In fact most people who disbelieve it are simply misinformed. This includes some celebrities like Mike Rowe. Why are they misinformed? Because fossil fuel companies stand to gain from misinforming the electorate. Hence my point that this is the root of the problem.

The money they stand to gain by putting off costly business regulation is far greater than a scientist hoping to get some notoriety by publishing a bad-faith study (which would get ripped to shreds by peer review, as many of the climate change denial studies have been).

Aw gawsh. Seeing Jeff and Brad in frame together made me feel all gooey inside. I love 'em. Never gonna meet them, and they're an ocean and a continent away, but I've been watching those two for ten years now, and they feel like my cool gaming uncles.

Urgh... Internet tribalism strikes again. Who cares if some minor celebrity agrees with you or not. I'm only gonna need the planet for another 30 years tops so I couldn't give a shit either way. Little warmer? Little colder? Fuck it, I'll live.

@someoneproud: You could have some compassion about the people who are going to be left on this planet after everybody has forgotten you existed?

@danfess: Malt is definitely a sweeter syrupy taste to me. Malty beers are hard to drink for me.

There is something truly precious about people coming to the defense of Mike Rowe, a man worth roughly 35 million, because one of the GB staff doesn't agree with everything he says. I think Rowe will be fine.

@opusofthemagnum: Here to comment how dissapointed I am. Very disappointed in the Giant Bomb guys, thought they would have a little more respect for someone who contributes to society. Guess they're so stuck in their fantasy world of video games to understand real-world impact.

This Mike Rowe incident is fascinating. It illustrates the fine line the GB staff has to walk when it comes to expressing anything slightly political. I don't doubt a significant part of the GB audience has more conservative ideas, even though they're probably well aware how far on the left the staff itself is. Given the dominance of the left in mainstream media, relatively insignificant comments like the one Brad made can be seen by some as another confirmation of how the leftist media can just get away with lazy and ignorant statements based on some vague notion of moral/intellectual superiority, while seemingly nuanced conservatives are dismissed as wrong and bad by default.

We live in a society where both the left and the right can be very selective and very confident in expressing that selectiveness. The way I see it, the left gets lazy, because they often feel morally/intellectually superior and own the status quo in mainstream media. The right gets lazy, because it's easy to create social bubbles and complain about how the media is twisting the facts. The left is right, because that's obvious. The right is right, because they know what's really going on.

The need to comment is much stronger than the need to back up your claims, because the burden of proof is always on the other and the facts that prove your point are always out there, so you don't actually have to explain them. Discussions in the media (including comment sections) are extremely superficial as a result, because everyone wants to participate, but noone has the patience to put the effort in. That's not something I see changing very soon.

Maybe I should care about this more, but since it has so little effect on my personal life, it's mostly just fascinating to watch.