From around 2014 through 2023 nearly every aspect of western pop culture from movies to television to comic books to video games to marketing was invaded by what seemed like a highly coordinated horde of far-left activists.  This subversive coup in entertainment launched what many now refer to as the "woke era" in western politics, giving birth to the infamous concepts of "cancel culture" and "DEI".  

The movement was incredibly well supported with billions in funding through ESG lending and government subsidies.  Politicians protected them from legal consequences and helped to censor their opponents.  Mainstream journalists lavished them with praise and ran propaganda to tear down critics. 

NGOs funneled easy cash into any organization that declared its fealty to the progressive multicultural agenda.  True beleivers were planted into every level of every media industry.  Those companies that did not immediately comply were extorted into conformity with threats of mob harassment, accusations of "bigotry" and potential boycotts. 

Numerous corporations fully embraced and enabled the spread of the woke mind virus.  Even though the political left often claims they are "fighting against the elitist class", their entire movement owes its existence to corporate and government support.

The battle against the woke takeover had been bubbling under the surface for many years as a rebellion was waged by a small but scrappy alternative media.  However, at that time, the public was largely unaware of the psy-op that was targeting them.  There was nowhere near enough popular momentum to stop the coup.  All the political left had to do was deny that any such an agenda existed.  It was "all in people's heads" and a product of "conspiracy theory." 

Then, leftist activists hijacked video games and video game journalism, injected the industry with woke messaging and pissing off millions of gamers.  After that, everything changed. 

"Gamergate" was born and the anti-feminist, anti-DEI movement exploded like wildfire.  What Gamergate accomplished, mainly, was forcing the issue into the mainstream and forcing the establishment media to acknowledge that a coordinated invasion was taking place.  Journalists went from denying the existence of the agenda to openly defending the agenda as a good thing. 

One game development studio that stood at the forefront of the woke mob and aggressively engaged in the culture war against traditional western storytelling was Bethesda Softworks, a subsidiary of Microsoft.  Once a legendary studio famous for the "Fallout" franchise, the company ultimately reveled in the subversion of their largely straight, male audience and sought to "teach the Chuds a lesson" by destroying everything they held dear. 

Simultaneously, Bethesda was engaging in political support for activist projects like Black Lives Matter and LGBT pride.  The virtue signaling was off the charts.  The fight with the studio hit a crescendo with the release of "Starfield", an open world sci-fi game that seemed to focus more on DEI and pronouns than creative storytelling.  The game was meant to be Bethesda's crowing achievement, but it failed due to gamer boycotts.

Starfield, which cost around $400 million to produce, was met with a mediocre reception and within a few months player numbers crashed by 90%.  Evidence suggests the game never actually made a profit.  The ongoing failures of Bethesda contributed to the wider cuts by Microsoft/X Box and studio was hit particularly hard. 

In 2026, the Chuds are rejoicing over the collapse of studios like Bethesda, and rightly so.  Gamers tried to warn them but they refused to listen.   

Last month, Microsoft announced a financial "reset" which led to structural layoffs.  As a result, Bethesda has now fired an estimated 30%-40% of employees with a large number of developers being kicked to the curb.  It should come as no surprise that most of these employees look exactly as you might expect: A gaggle of socialist circus freaks.    

Seeing these former employees all together in one place makes it perfectly clear what caused Bethesda to implode.

Some analysts theorize that the Microsoft culling is actually meant to rectify mistakes from the woke era and purge activist troublemakers from their payroll.  A large number of corporations have been doing the same thing in recent years after realizing there is no market for DEI in media.  Having the faintest smell of social justice propaganda in their products leads to collapsing sales. 

By extension, woke activist employees are notorious for creating problems from thin air and litigating against their employers.  There's really no downside to firing them.    

The delusion these former developers suffer from is embarrassing.  They seem convinced that their projects were financially successful, but if that was the case they would not be losing their jobs en masse.  The event is yet another example of the entitlement mentality that has infected corporate employees today; they treat any firing as if it is a violation of someone's civil rights.  If a worker believes that a company is supposed to value their livelihood above making a profit, that person is not mentally equipped to function in the real world.

Remaining workers at the company staged a mock memorial for their fired comrades, as if they had died in the line of duty.  It's more evidence for why their hands should never come near media content ever again. They should be serving overpriced coffee at Starbucks, not influencing $400 million media projects.

For the conservatives who still don't understand the importance of pop media and video games when it comes to the greater political conflict in the west, just know that it doesn't matter if you don't get it; just know that the political left does get it.  They almost successfully pirated the entire western world by taking control of entertainment media and saturating it with woke indoctrination. 

If it's important to them, it should damn well be important to you.  

Politics is downstream from culture.  Win the culture war, win the west.  It's that simple.  Video games represent the biggest slice of the media industry by far and this is where younger generations are going to congregate and form their collective views.  Luckily, they saw the takeover coming and moved to intercept before it was too late. 

At least greater populist movements are more aligned with the importance of the culture war and what it represents in recent years.  There are still numerous problems with getting everyone on the same page, but compared to a decade ago, the improvement has been dramatic.  The fact that "Get Woke, Go Broke" has become a rule rather than a mantra is a bit of a miracle.