Fox News now accusing Scrabble of being too “woke”

jeffw@lemmy.worldmod to News@lemmy.world – 380 points –
Fox News now accusing Scrabble of being too “woke”
lgbtqnation.com
87

I doubt that their viewers play Scrabble....

Or if they do, they try to play proper nouns like the troglodytes they are

You just used a word they couldn't spell even if they had the Scrabble tiles.

And I'm sure you guessed the word I mean: play.

Which makes it harder, as the only names they know are Braycxten, Jaiylenth, and Micaylath, which are all impossible to get in a single hand

They need to continually stoke hatred, even when there’s nothing to hate in the news. Can’t have viewers cooling off and developing a mind of their own…

I don't see this at all, they very much seem like people who play Scrabble. You don't need to be smart, and just playing it doesn't mean they're good at it.

Five angry Fox News hosts think the popular board game Scrabble is too “woke” because — in addition to banning racist and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs — a new version focuses more on having fun with friends than on competitive scoring.

Damn right! What the fuck is even the point of a board game if you can be racist while you gloat after destroying all other players?

That's also the point of Monopoly, which is why it is the best board game ever and everyone loves it.

Edit: Also-

Co-host Greg Gutfeld replied, “So is life!” before admitting that he has never played Scrabble.

Of course not. Why would he play that particular game when he knows he's too stupid to ever destroy all other players and then gloat about it?

That’s also the point of Monopoly, which is why it is the best board game ever and everyone loves it.

The Landlord's Game was like that on purpose, to demonstrate why monopolies are terrible. Then you're supposed to play it again using the "prosperity" ruleset and actually have fun.

Parker Brothers completely lost the plot by removing that second ruleset.

Monopoly and Mario Kart are explicitly designed to ruin friendships.

I think you meant Mario Party, Mario Kart forges unbreakable bonds through the vicious crucible of virtual motorsport, Mario Party on the other hand naturally develops a deep, seething, and justifiably hatred between all the players.

What, you don’t like the rage-inducing RNG events that steal your stars for some random reason?

Remember when republicans wouldn’t shut the fuck up about liberals being snowflakes 🙄

The left might eat itself, but it’s better than leaving rotting limbs attached that no longer serve a purpose to the rest of the body lmfao.

Edit: removed unnecessary and “argument muddying” name calling/frustrated venting

I honestly think that the Left in-fighting is a good thing to a good extent. I just wish we'd focus that energy on squashing the people who don't help the cause and promote those with initiative.

It is, if we’re not constantly reassessing our priorities and discussing differing views, how are we to adapt to changing times.

Republicans would rather live in fear and in the past than have the balls to face the future and it’s people for what they are.

One to rule them all instead of learning to coexist.

It’s as simple as that.

I saw a comment a while ago that I love and it's that the left has a diversity problem when it comes to focusing their energy. It's so hard to get everyone to commit to one thing because there's such a wide diversity of cultures, ideas, and solutions. And it's great to be that way! But it can muddy the messaging a bit.

Whereas there's far less diversity of ideas in the right side of politics. It's mostly outrage at the new. "The liberals are going to take everything from you and here's why you should be scared." Everything boils down to that.

I don’t really see a need to create this field goal of one problem to focus on. I think some people probably would perform best focusing on some things while others focus on those. I don’t see why we can’t do both tbh.

I think focusing on problems local to your area and that have the most impact locally (maybe that’s a tristate area) with express intents to help others after this problem has been moved along will reap the most benefits. If everyone’s workin on their local area, we’d reach across the nation with change.

As above so below and all that

A reasonable amount of infighting is needed to weed out bad ideas. Unfortunately, some take the mentality "some good, more better!".

I like the circle analogy. The right tend to circle the wagons. The left forms a circular firing squad.

It also doesn't help that the left is FAR less monolithic than the right. It's 100 lemmings in a shared trenchcoat. Without the 2 party systems, it would shatter into a dozen smaller parties, and work as a collective a lot more.

I'm confused. Isn't the base rule of the game "if it's in the dictionary then it's allowed, and if it's not in the dictionary then it isn't"?

How is the game woke?

dickti... discu... disjona... wordbook woke.

I know I should be getting the joke on this one but sadly I'm missing it.

They're mimicking someone who's trying to say the word dictionary but ironically lacks the diction to articulate it and instead says 'wordbook'

It is humorous because of the implication that extreme right wingers ala Fox news and it's viewers are illiterate hillbillies. They're not. They're just insane.

Yup that should have been obvious to me. Thank you

Basically the old Porky Pig cartoon character

Some, I assume, are good people.

Those ones are among the worst category. Needlessly deluded by bad actors acting badly, to the extent there's nothing we can do to change it.

They have to choose to notice they're being lied to.

You can still be an illiterate hillbilly AND be insane.

I posted this elsewhere in the thread. Apparently the N-word was only banned from tournament play four years ago. I shit you not. So I guess that's what they're mad about.

Not that I like that word but the only rules we run by is literally if it's in the dictionary "Websters" then it's allowed. But it's interesting that the tournament has banned it, but not surprising.

There is an official Scrabble dictionary that tournaments go with. They can put in and take out whatever they want. They could have taken it out a long time ago.

Jessica Tarlov, one of the panel’s more liberal co-hosts, said she was in favor of the game removing slurs, adding, “I think we can all agree on that.”

Two panelists replied, “Not so fast!” and “Be careful, Jessica.”

“Careful, Jessica! Can’t have our viewers thinking rationally!”

Do they have a fucking code or something? Did somebody actually read the Trump bible?

It’s true! Did you know they include all the letters of the gay agenda? Literally LGBTQ are IN THE BOX!

So done with right wingers hating on anything slightly different than the norm.

What’s the “norm” they’re comparing against? Conservatives even hated other white people in earlier parts of US history.

Solidly genX, always fucking hated scrabble powergamers boiling the fun out of everything.

The way you make classic scrabble awesome is by adding just one rule: you must play the funniest word you can make, regardless of score. If players do not agree which word is funnier, they must argue about it.

This actually leads to some interesting strategy, for instance if you're left with two Os in your hand, you're very likely going to have to play POO next turn, and that's only 3 points. And you can set traps, too.

This is actually genius and sounds way more fun than base game

Swear word scrabble is a very fun version of the game.

Especially in public.

The P alone is worth 3 points, and if you aren’t completely braindead you can multiply that by playing it on a bonus square next to another word.

You could play POO and get 30 points easily without being funny (playing POO or POOP is always funny). You just have to be not stupid and try.

Man, when I play Scrabble the rules are basically just "no names." You can even play made up words as long as nobody challenges you before they take their turn. If you are challenged, you have to provide the source and we don't care if it's Webster, Miriam or Urban. I can't even think of a single board game where my family ever followed the rules 100% as written in what came in the box.

My father got a PhD in English. We literally had an unabridged OED in the house. He did not play Scrabble, but the OED got used on a regular basis by the rest of us. Although we did eventually moved to the unabridged Webster's because of debates over American vs. British spellings went on too long.

Also, my mother is an evil Scrabble player and no one will play with her anymore. One of those "if I can't have a triple word score, no one can. Oh wait, I figured out how I can get one if I completely fuck you over, so I'm going to do that" sort of evil Scrabble players.

I used to like the game, but after getting my ass kicked repeatedly by a lawyer friend years ago, and then later my spouse, I decided I was done with it. It's a neat boardgame, but I suck at it.

After I learned I could smoke her in Boggle, it became far more fun.

That lady with the deep voice just wanted to say “woke” as much as possible for this segment.

They ditched offensive words from the NASPA lexicon years ago that isn’t new.

letters are literally whatever you want to spell.

covfefe

It probably should be a real word now.

Hell if I know what it actually means though. There's only so much meaning you can glean from a Trump tweet.

IIRC it’s supposed to be coffee

Nope, it was coverage. The tweet was complaining about the msm's reporting on his bs.

I'm not so sure he didn't decide he wanted coffee in the middle of the Tweet and, since he can't stop saying anything that comes into his head, he typed it, but since he's also an idiot, he didn't spell it properly.

Well what I want is an Urban Dictionary Scrabble. If you can’t pull up the article, the word doesn’t count.

I think they are mad because scrabble removed some slurs from the allowed words.

I've played Scrabble for decades and I didn't even know there were any slurs allowed. Never in any game I have ever played do I remember a slur. Not even when playing against a computer. That's how "woke" they've made this new version!

Edit: After some searching, I found out that they only banned the N-word in tournament play in 2020. What the fuck, Hasbro? https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/scrabble/news/scrabble-community-bans-offensive-words

I can guarantee they didn't know it was allowed either.

Right. lol

They never needed that rule before.

I aspire to be the reason a new rule is made.

In fairness, I doubt it came up much... Most people don't like to use slurs in public

The game doesn't allow racist and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs?!?

It sounds like they're talking about the original, board game form, not a video game. You can play with house rules.

Good, because they never let me play PECKERWOOD in tournaments

I tried PENCILDICK. "Not a word", they said. 😒

Sounds like something a pencildick would say.

That's what I said. Then I got kicked out of the house. Can't have opinions these days, smh

Well, now, tournaments are another matter.

Hmm.

http://scrabbleplayers.org/w/Official_Tournament_Rules

NASPA sanctioned play in Canada and the United States must obey the Official Tournament Rules, edited by the Rules Committee.

http://www.scrabbleplayers.org/rules/rules-20161201.pdf

When playing using the international lexicon, the word reference is the third edition of Collins Official Scrabble Words, commonly referred to as CSW2015.

https://scrabble.collinsdictionary.com/check/

Hmm, yeah, they don't allow PECKERWOOD.

It sounds like Hasbro used to sponsor the tournaments. Then they stopped funding it, but officially-endorsed a player-organized league, NASPA, the people whose rules are given above. Then in 2021, they stopped any official endorsement.

So with that exclusivity gone, I imagine that someone with sufficient savvy that could sell enough players on the need for PECKERWOOD could form a rival league.

Correct. In fact...

The popular word-spelling game recently released a new European version called Scrabble Together. The new version allows players to play in teams, challenges players to spell certain kinds of “goal” words (like a word containing two of the same letter), and provides hints for improving players’ skills. The new version also has the classic Scrabble game board, with its color-coded scoring, on its underside.

A big part of what Fox was complaining about was that "scoring is in our DNA" and "what's the point in playing a game if you don't take score?" (apparently none of them have ever played a cooperative game before, and I cant say I'm surprised, I sure wouldn't want to play a game with any of them lol). Even if that was the most true and reasonable argument in the world, you can just flip the damn thing over and play the old version...

I’m offended that

  • the new version is released in Europe, only, and Amazon doesn’t have it in the US store
  • Hasbro web site won’t let me shop unless I tell them my birthday

the new version is released in Europe

Europeans will appreciate it far more. Americans, in general, don't understand why cooperative board games are so much better than competitive. It was such a revelation when I tried my first (and still favorite) cooperative game- Scotland Yard. Admittedly, competition is still a small part of the game, but the idea that you could play a board game and the point wasn't to destroy everyone else? I didn't even realize it was a concept.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/438/scotland-yard

Interestingly while Hasbro owns the rights to sell scrabble in the US, Mattel owns the rights for the rest of the world. Which is why this version is not available here.

Words are too woke. Because if you know too many of them and put them in specific orders you can learn anything.

The right wight is outraged about something the left wing does. Then the left is outraged about the right's outrage and next Fox News is going to report on the left's outrage about their outrage and that pretty much sums up today's politics reporting. Recreational outrage all the way down. At this point we're just knowingly killing braincells by paying attention to any of this.

"Both sides!!!!!"

You got downvoted, but you're right. That's essentially what he's saying.

"The left is so dumb for being outraged at Fox News for saying most black people are criminals."

but something something 13/50, No, I swear I am not racist, that confederate flag is due to Heritage!

Then the left is outraged about the right’s outrage

Can you point out who on the left is outraged over Fox throwing a fit about 'woke Scrabble?'

3 more...

There is that idea that it is just selfish memes utilizing us as a resource. It isn't prey and predators it is more like lichen.

I say X and no one says ~X. It's gone, no more X. If X and ~X are constantly at each other it thrives.

3 more...

@jeffw

The alphabet will be too woke for those retarded fucks. God I thought that I cannot hate them anymore than I do, yet it continues.

Not sure if they're just wanting to cheat at Scrabble or just being Q...