[AC] StepManiaX produced by Kyle Ward

Why are you rewording my point back to me about how minorities in America may have a different view on these things? That's what I said, yes! Anyway, to show you where you gave your opinion you just have to go back one page...

You're literally stating right here in this here post that your opinion is correct and the people sharing concerns are just "some 'anti racist' American group" saying that other groups are offended. You didn't even wait two pages to completely try to rewrite history on your post? lol

Like I said, I said all that before you ever posted on this site, much less in this thread. I didn't repeat your words back to you, I repeated my words to you. So at this point, you're just admitting you agree with me but for some reason phrasing everything as if I said something I didn't so you can say you disagree. Cool, thanks. I'm glad we could settle that.

Oh, and that picture had nothing to do with my opinion of the songs. That was my opinion of that other users post.

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I'm not sure what your point is, I don't really care what your personal thoughts are on where the songs land on the scale of racism. I'm just pointing out that you're dismissing valid concerns about the inclusion of the songs by portraying it as some kind of woke mob thing.

Right, because people who use the word "woke" would ever differentiate between a Latino born and lived in Mexico their entire life and a Latino born and lived in the US their entire life.

You tried claiming I compared these songs to Mario Odyssey directly when I didn't, when I corrected you I then had you claiming that I'm "dismissing concerns" and "loudly" voicing my opinion of the songs which were also both not true. Notice I didn't try having the conversation (yes conversation, if I wanted to be argumentative I had my chance when my comment was referred to as "dumbassery" and I didn't take escalate it) about if these songs belong in SMX and the reach that comes with it, which was brought up, but rather how these songs might be perceived by the different groups.

You got what I said wrong and now you're digging your heels in. Like I said, we agree about the different people in the different groups not all sharing one opinion. Once I corrected you about why I brought up the Mario Odyssey situation that really should have just been the end of it.

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Hi, another Latino here! I come to y'all after a 3 year hiatus to remind you that if you are not a Latin-American* person, you do not actively surround yourself with Latin-American* people, and/or you do not seek out Latin-American* perspectives in media, take a moment to consider what understanding of Latin-American* experiences you contribute to this conversation. If you are confident in your understanding, then by all means continue sharing your opinions. If you do not meet the aforementioned qualifiers, I can only encourage you to take this as a moment to listen instead of speaking over others with a more nuanced understanding of the implications of engaging with media which equates caricatures to proper "representation" of minority people.

In the meantime, I think we can *all* agree that having to justify the inclusion of an arguably problematic song that is not even that good, we can all share some recommendations of actual Spanish-speaking and/or Latin-American* songs/artists for future updates! Probably preferable if the licensing has a chance of being affordable to the SMX team. I shall start us off with a select few.

Latina / Isabella Lovestory 🇭🇳


Mechero / Samuraï & RENEE 🇪🇸🇲🇽


k-pop star / Princesa Alba 🇨🇱


TOKYO / CHAMALEO 🇧🇷


Thelma & Louise / Belén Aguilera & Julieta 🇪🇸🇪🇸


EDIT: As I am not here to argue semantics, I've replaced all instances of the use "Latinx" with "Latin-American" per Gpop's concern with the term. Though I do not share the same concerns, I do not want that term to distract from the core issues we are discussing here.

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At no point does the Carlito shtick ever devolve into making fun of a culture. Always has seemed like a silly embrace, one that shouldn't be taken seriously, and one that nobody who actually gives a shit ever takes seriously. If a Swede wants to make a banger about his salsa recipe, I'm not gonna bother listening to what a buncha white folk wanna soapbox about it.

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The posters complaining about 'white anti-racists' in this thread:

I did not see stepper's post when I made mine, in full transparency

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I feel like black/brownface lacks the nuance this discussion claims there is. Jonny Jakobsen is Swedish. The Indian government considered suing him because of how offensive the character was. Discussion ends there.

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The mental gymnastics lame white dudes go through to defend their shitty taste is wild lmao

posting for the first time in 3 years to make a chad statement, slay

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Since when is it your decision whether or not something hurts others' feelings? People have said in this very thread that this song's inclusion in SMX makes them feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. I'm not even part of the stereotyped group and it makes ME feel uncomfortable. But somehow it's on them to "be less sensitive" rather than on you to uphold your part of the social contract? Your musical preferences are irrelevant and can be whatever you want. But would you ever make random strangers listen to this in public? This is what the creators of SMX are doing by including this song! People are not going to want to play an arcade game that does that!

-guy has had multiple aliases/acts where he takes on a heavily stereotyped version of the subjected culture (including heavy accents and racist imagery)
-multiple people in this thread now in those communities speak out about how it makes them uncomfortable and they wish SMX would instead license real examples of these cultures
-"uhhh guys i dont think carlito is meant to make fun of anybody shut up white people!"

are you stupid or do you just pretend to be

As a latino, I feel the need to post my two cents on this matter.

The latin community is not monolithic whatsoever, and it is a horrible assumption to think all latin communities think the same. In fact, different countries/backgrounds of each Latin American country have pretty different ideas and views on a lot of things.

Because of that, even as a latino I cannot fully speak on Carlito since it seems to be more of a play on Mexican culture than my own (Peruvian). However, since everyone here is speaking on behalf of us "latinos", I personally don't find it offensive and find it pretty funny as well, because none of the songs don't seem to try to actively hate on the group they are parodying, rather they are just playing on certain stereotypes of the group, and if he did the same as a Peruvian, then I think it'd still be pretty funny while allowing to bring a bit more awareness of our culture. In fact, a lot of Peruvians do appreciate other cultures embracing our own!

I do have Mexican friends I know personally, and I recall them liking Carlito back then and even played his songs at their own parties sometimes. I also recall them saying that they find him really funny and that's it. I don't think they particularly care about him stereotyping their culture.

That being said, would I have preferred if they chosen songs from actual latino/latina groups or singers? Of course, I think that would be a more accurate representation of our music. But I'm not bothered by it personally and think it's fairly tame, all things considered. In fact, I think this song choice is probably one of the more positive songs of the group. But yes I agree I would like to see more actual Latin American music in the game.

I do want to point out that there has always been very generalized misconceptions of how the latin american communities think. (ie. the use of the term Latinx, which majority of Latinos/Latinas find that term either offensive or just plain wrong, as it basically appropriates English rules/language to the Spanish language which doesn't work, so please stop doing that) I do get frustrated when a lot of people try to argue for our sake when it's clear they are not involved with us much. And I'm not blaming specific people here, it's just something I see happen all the time no matter what the argument is. We are not a monolithic entity, and many of us (not all) do not share the same ideals as Americans do when it comes to content like this.

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I remember a while back Step Revolution made a point to claim that most of their music selection for Stepmaniax was fan-requested. So I don't know, maybe some fan requested those Carlito songs? And Step Revolution was like, "We can't see a reason not to do this." Still wrong but not entirely on them I'm guessing.

Just deciding to make that point before one of their cultists comes in here saying "You can submit not-racist Latino music to us through the appropriate channels blah blah blah"

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I am temporarily locking this thread so it doesn't escalate further.

I understand the points people are trying to make, but it's become a shouting contest that needs to stop.

EDIT: Thread is unlocked, but any continuation of the prior discussion will be deleted. Take it elsewhere. I fucked up. I'm sorry.

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"Please don't make me actually moderate and do any work 🥺" but what else did anybody expect?

Yeah, I'm kind of confused about that message, since the discussion started due to a song choice in SMX, so either a new thread is created for this topic (which would be volatile, to say the least); the discussion continues here contained (but maybe it risks overshadowing the content drops? But it's not like there's much traffic here tbh); or we just forget this all happened and pretend that everything is fine and dandy? (which is clearly not)

I just don't understand why this was the decision made. You could waited a month, unlocked the thread once Lightning XCE was ready to post a content update, and said nothing. Instead, you went, "no just discuss racism in ur own discord servers, all further discussion is banned ", and thought that was going to go over well?

Can we please nuke this site and get a new one with actual moderation?

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lmao

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