The Ghost of Persona 5′s terrible criticism past and current
Honestly, I think this something that I need to get off my chest since I’m known as the guy who responded to that almost 5 hour video from Cvit - Persona 5: Style over Substance. I want to talk about why I decided to respond to the guy, some of the background details, and even talk about stuff that’s happening today with this (yeah, it is). Get ready for a long post. And as a Side note, this isn’t a post for me to paint a target on people or call to arms - I’m just getting this off my chest after about 2 years
Now, if for whatever reason you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me get a couple links - I understand that you’re looking at about 9 hours worth of content, but I’m not expecting you to watch it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGzS4KtItEo
Now, what I wanna talk about is how petty some people are. Like, to give context, Cvit’s video came out in August 2019 - My video series started on June 2020 - almost a year later. One thing I want to point out before I was developing this video series I had avoided Cvit’s video - Not because I can’t stand criticism of things I like, but rather because... It’s almost 5 hours long.
Like, I know that this was the beginning of the youtube meme of overly long criticism videos with a snarky narrator who acts like their opinion is the be all end all - Ironic I know considering where my Youtube’s content has been going as of late, but hey, It’s been 3 years.
No, what really caught my attention was that I was seeing a ton of weird criticisms being spread across twitter, tumblr and reddit.
So, I started to look, and found that some people had cited Cvit’s video - Now, I’m not one to instantly believe that someone is outright making arguments in bad faith, and not to mention, the game of Telephone is a thing so maybe there was context that I was missing.
So, I decided to live tweet my reactions to it.
It started off with me simply disagreeing with his takes with the subjectivity of how music can affect a person’s enjoyment if used too much - That’s nothing big and depends on the person, as well as how much you play in a single sitting of a game.
BUT THEN... He talked about the english dub of the game, and used the Persona Problems site:
For those who don’t know, this is a website that was created to catalogue the issues with the English Translation of Persona 5 - All well and good, right?
Well...
While there are some examples that do indeed highlight issues (He’s a scum being a prime example) they have just as many terrible examples.
Here’s one such excerpt
Now with that, you might be thinking two things 1) God that’s a bad screenshot, and 2) Seems like a legit criticism to me.
Well, let me tell ya, there’s more than meets the eye here - most notably the context and characters.
For those who have played the game, know that this scene involve Futaba, she’s the character saying the lines. Futaba is a recovering shut-in and is flustered about being with the protag on Valentine’s day - She’s stumbling over her words and is not sure what to do in this situation - Also, she’s a teenager.
I’m not saying that Persona 5′s translation is perfect, but this site will often remove context from scenes and just look at the lines in a vacuum, which is dishonest if you ask me. And naturally, this extended to Cvit - Who just took the webiste at face value and slapped it in his video as if it were a completely reliable source. Hell, I doubt he even read the source other than one example;
But it was then that I decided to make an actual video on the matter - But I didn’t want to talk about all near 5 hours of Cvit’s video, so I made a general complaints video - and it ws to be the ONLY video I had planned at the time to talk about Cvit’s.
THAT WAS UNTIL I GOT A FLOOD OF COMMENTS SAYING THAT I TOOK HIM OUT OF CONTEXT.
There were a ton more, but this was one of the many.
It was because I had gotten a mob of comments, e-mails and tweets @’d at me telling me how flawed my video was because “I Nitpicked’ or “I took Cvit out of context”.
So, that’s why you have 6 videos - each going after a specific portion of Cvit’s video - And one large combination video. Because people just wouldn’t shut up and wouldn’t stop harassing me about it.
Should I have ignored them? Maybe, but if I did, then people wouldn’t actually listen to the parts where Cvit removes context, interjects fake context, ignores Japanese culture (funny since he praises Yakuza which is Japanese) and outright lying about the game. (But hey, I guess Pyramids aren’t tombs now?)
I think what got me more was that you had prominent youtubers, like Foxcade, defending his video.
Ironically dismissing the complaints that Cvit almost practically started this whole “hating persona 5″ and how so many people referenced his video or used his points against the game in debates that I saw online.
I do not regret making my videos, the only regret was that I wish I had better audio balancing at the time, and if I ever decide to go back to remaking that long ass video - I’d gladly re-record every single line I made.
But now we get to today. And for some bloody, gat-damn reason, the fact that I responded to Cvit is used against me, and painting me as a Persona 5 fanboy who thinks the series can do no wrong.
Then again, this is also a problem with LIS fanbase because I dared to criticize the game franchise they love. In addition, I’ve been critical of the Persona franchise in the past:
Especially Persona 5.
But hey, why bother actually looking to see if this is true if some random reddit user claims this, then it must be true?
And for some reason, these same people leave out the fact that I only responded to Cvit’s persona video (his almost 5 hour long video). Ignoring the fact that in my videos on Cvit that I proved that he actively removed context and used faulty sources. Ignore that I criticized the Persona games in the past.
I must be a terrible person.
This is the latest in times where this has been used to dismiss my points, and it ignores SO much context of the videos in question and doesn’t actually provide any legit examples or evidence. Part of the reason why I did this on Tumblr (and will link on Twitter later) was because I can provide screenshots in a single post to prove that what I’m saying has some level of evidence backing it up.
This is part of the reason why I distance myself from fandoms - There’s so much toxicity and slander that It’s no wonder people hate fans of popular things. Even when you’re trying to defend the thing you like, if you’re unliked by these people, they will outright lie and mischaracterize you as a terrible person - Evidence backing them up be damned.
And ironically enough, it’s the same damn problem that Cvit had in his video on persona 5 - “ I don’t think I have to tell you this, but if you’re actively removing context from the scenes in order to make your point, then your point is dishonest and casts doubt on your other points too. And frankly, that’s a terrible thing to do: “
But unfortunately, this is the internet - And people don’t actually care about context or trying to be nice - They only care about instant gratification and being ‘right’, whether or not they have evidence. “Just trust me bro”.
And it utterly disgusts me that I’m being attacked for simply pointing out flaws in a highly regarded - And yes, people still see Cvit’s video as a good source of Persona 5 criticism - video and proving it. Sorry that it has to take a lot of time for me to respond to a near 5 hour video where I give proper context and explain in detail why Cvit’s points are wrong and why I think it’s in poor taste to insult the developers of the game based upon that terrible inaccuracies.
Hell, I’ve even been harassed by these kinds of people.
I thank you for your time reading this, and hope you have a good day.
