there was a tabby

TLDR; Zoomer released yesterday, and her characterization sparked some mild controversy almost immediately in the discord™.

for reference, most of this happened because Clean Crew did That Thing again where a bunch of her records entries were just. Available for everyone Immediately post-update, so people got a very easy look at her personality + dynamics with the rest of the Crew in like two seconds. ANYWAYS..... here's what i think...... a lot of the discussion has focused on individual traits, but i think the bigger issue is the context she exists in.. on her own, Zoomer honestly would not be a problematic character. i think “girly girls” are fine!!! the issue is that she’s currently the first and only major female Crew member in a cast otherwise dominated by male characters with varied personalities (debatable), so when the only prominent woman in the game is characterized through a very concentrated set of stereotypically feminine traits, they get magnified a lot (and thus comes off in a weird way) the biggest things i've seen people comment on: - the whole "girl robot=boobs" thing - the delivery of her lines not quite matching up with the personality we see in her entries - liking CUTE THINGS like fashion, plushies, art, etc. - disliking GROSS THINGS ewwwwwwww - more emotionally/socially elaborated relationships with the cast what especially threw me off was the explanation that this was partially a response to criticism of the female characters in Super Scuffle.

"I see, i just thought having a girly character would be good? Cause like in our previous game Scuffle it was brought to us that all the girl characters were lowkey rude or dumb, they couldnt ever just be girls" TBHHHHH I don’t think the situations are comparable!!!! if Super Scuffle’s issue was that the female characters felt like they leaned toward the more generally “anti-girly” personalities, then using the solution there makes sense (diversify the kinds of women in the cast) Clean Crew does not that diversity (and honestly probably won't considering we have One class left that's actually planned to release). so. there’s One major female character!

instead of Zoomer being one type of woman among many, she ends up representing femininity in the cast entirely by herself, and i think THAT is why people are reacting so strongly to traits that would otherwise be harmless. the issue isn’t that "she's too feminine,” or that any one of her traits are somehow offensive on their own, it’s that the cast composition &presentation just so happen to make her femininity feel disproportionately emphasized. im not saying the fix should be Adding More Girls btw... im just pointing out that applying the Super Scuffle philosophy to Clean Crew is a little bit of a misplay WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY.... here is My biggest concern regarding this situation..... something else that bothered me was how the criticism itself started getting treated like the issue, even when most (99.9%) of the people talking were being perfectly civil yes!!! there was one person that got heated!!! but outside of that, most of the conversation (in both instances of it) was just people explaining why Zoomer’s characterization felt off to them.