I don’t like the old games’ dark humor

[whimsycreator]

I feel like this opinion is somewhat unpopular myself. Well, at least on Reddit. A lot of people on Reddit are pretty edgy anyway. But yeah. I really didn’t like how the older games just felt... edgy at times. Animal Crossing is known almost universally as a game that’s supposed to give you cozy feelings, so what exactly is dark humor doing in such a game anyway?

Examples of the dark humor in older games-

The thanksgiving holiday where everyone in town wants to eat the turkey character. If that’s not bad enough, the poor turkey is absolutely anxiety-ridden and is hiding out in hopes of not being caught by anyone. The mental state of the turkey, and the grave situation he’s in can drive too close to home for people with PTSD and who experience panic attacks because that’s how life generally feels like for them.

The rude things the villagers said to you in older installments. Yes, call me sensitive, but I do consider that dark humor. The dialogue at times isn’t just mean, it’s very condescending and snide, which are tactics bullies use to manipulate people into feeling inferior—it’s very hurtful. The snooty villagers would even call you the word “mental,” which is a slur used against people who have mental disabilities and disorders. Personally, the way the villagers used to talk reminded me of what bullies used to say to me in school, and normalized that kind of reinforcement for me.

The town called the Boondox in Wild World that you can donate money to. Boondox is apparently so poor that the people in the town have to eat dirt. I feel that’s just... insensitive and out of place. Even worse when you find that Boondox isn’t even real, it’s a scam made up by Tortimer to manipulate you into donating your bells, and the money you donate goes to him. And you’re supposed to trust and look up to this man?

This is just my opinion, and maybe I am a little too sensitive. But I just wanted to express an opinion close to me that I’ve never really seen expressed before. It’s fine if you disagree, but I wanted to speak out about how the dark humor could potentially be insensitive.

 

[lyradelphie04]

I agree with everything you're saying except the general villager rudeness. I think it gives them more personality and reactions that actually poeple have, making them seem less like talking decorations. But I do agree with the whole use of the term 'mental', as well as when they would use the word 'fatty'. It's more the rudeness of calling you out on not changing your characters chlothes or not playing in a while or being rude to them first that I think was great.

About the thanksgiving thing... I had no idea thats what happened in the oridinal! Thats like actually terrible and is very insensitive to people with anxiety, or as you said, PTSD.

The Boondox thing was a terrible Tortimer scam that used the serious issue of poverty as a joke-like scam that twisted the act of caring for the poor.

I'm glad you made this post to point out some of the insensitivity in the past Animal Crossing games, it really doesn't get enough attention.

 

[Llunavale]

Even worse when you find that Boondox isn’t even real, it’s a scam made up by Tortimer to manipulate you into donating your bells, and the money you donate goes to him.

Haha, to be fair that has never been confirmed! If I recall correctly, it was a skepticism shared by the cranky villagers who were convinced it was too much of a coincidence that Tortimer would be doing stuff like eating fancy food after we (the player) make donations! I think this is just a bit tongue-in-cheek to be honest, it was a staple of the cranky personality to be skeptical of stuff.

I always kind of found it funny, but I was never super young playing Animal Crossing, the games in EU didn't start coming out until 2004 by which point I was already 10 or 11, so the insults the characters would throw at me were often just met with me throwing insults back at the TV (as if they could hear me, right?) - I wouldn't have taken it personally. I definitely didn't give too much thought to Franklin during the Harvest Festival tbh, but I think you have to be in a more mature state of mind than 10 years old to kind of connect those dots together.

 

[DarthGohan1]

It's a valid take. One thing to keep in mind is that Animal Crossing was created almost 20 years ago, and the general public awareness and sentiment towards a lot of these things has changed a lot in that time. I feel like there was a much different stigma/thoughts around things like PTSD in the 90s/early 2000s, and the creators of games probably weren't thinking much about how the game could affect people who experienced similar things in real life. Nowadays any major published game is going to have a team making sure the writing and overall game are more sensitive, but things were quite different a decade or two ago. I guess reflecting on this, it's good that as a society we've made a lot of progress in this sense, hopefully we continue in the right direction of being more sensitive towards people of all different backgrounds and circumstances.

 

[Blueskyy]

I actually miss the rudeness, but I loaded up my towns 2 days ago and the game is actually pretty boring and underwhelming overall. The dialogue repeats way more than NH does currently and the town just seems to lack things to do. I was 12 when I played though so maybe that’s why I was easily entertained by it all.

 

[Hats002]

I don't miss the rudeness but as a kid i remember getting quite upset over it. I was really young when I played Wild World, once one of the villagers (I remember it was a hippo) was so mean and I got really upset but now it's just really funny to me. Most of the stuff I remember now just makes me laugh but I don't remember the stuff about boondox or the turkey villager. That's actually crazy how insensitive some of that stuff was, imagine the outrage if that was released now!

 

[jumpluff]

I think they've veered too far in the other direction too, but I wholeheartedly think it's better that they did that than stay the way they were. You are totally right about the Thanksgiving event and Boondox (which was a joke that made fun of scam charities but in the process made fun of the issue of poverty and child hunger), for example. I love AC:GC and AC:WW with my whole heart (and they're still replayable and to me for the most part funny), but there were a lot of things wrong with how they talked. And I think it's totally fair to not want your villagers to talk to you that way! I was bullied very severely when I was a kid, so between losing my sense of normality and it being a video game, I didn't see anything wrong with how the villagers talked, but now I'm older, I think people deserve a bit better, and I don't really want the meanness back.

In this way, AC has moved with the times (and striven to be a really, truly kid-friendly game - which I really respect, because it was a sanctuary in my childhood). Like others said, video games aimed at children frequently used to include tasteless and rude stuff that wasn't super appropriate for them, and people would have laughed at the idea a video game could hurt your feelings. Yet we empathise with our villagers and we feel good when they're nice to us, so it's not so surprising we'd feel something when they say mean stuff to us or end up in distress, never mind things that could remind us of sore spots.

I think the only thing I would change is to give the villagers more emotional range (like, it's great when they converse because they can get a little worked up or they say more outrageous things, and that's what I miss, I guess). I don't miss them being mean, and I think it's good they took out the kind of stuff that was hurting a lot of people (insults, and Resetti's abuse - even though I miss Resetti so much). But emotional range can exist healthily, without berating others.

Some people talk about how the villagers would stop insulting you as much once you befriended them in the original games and there was a real reward to winning them over in their dialogue, but that's still there. The villagers talk to you about more stuff in NH as they get to know you. They still soften up, get more affectionate, talk more familiarly to you, nickname you, give you their photo. It's just more subtle (partly an emotional range thing, partly just them toning down the game in general).