Sena Bryer is right: the hatred that Smile gets is highly problematic

[Losado]

As Sena Bryer has said:

Smile is straight up Black Gospel music, and the fact that it's getting a lot of hate from "certain sections" of gamers? Probably not a coincidence.

You can see her tweet here: https://twitter.com/senabryer/status...50775403815132

I think this is a timely reminder to us in the FF14 community right now. With the hatred that Dawntrail is getting - including towards all its elements like the music Smile or the character Wuk Lamat - we must learn to separate criticism from bigotry.

Sena Bryer is completely right here. She is pointing out how the hatred towards Smile can often be a result of bigotry and intolerance than actual substance. I believe Sena Bryer will also agree with me that FF14 has up to now often used White Classical music (like orchestral music or opera-style music). So the use of Black Gospel music is a welcome change and a breath of fresh air. But apparently this musical diversity has provoked certain elements of the playerbase into outrage mode for bigoted reasons. As a community we need to stand against this bigotry and look at ourselves and ask ourselves: are we living up to FF14's ideals of tolerance, acceptance, and hope?

Of course, this does not apply to everyone. As Sena Bryer has said: "Weird how so many people are getting defensive to this instead of going 'ah, she's not talking about me though.'"

[Willemdarke]

What even is "Black Gospel music"?? It's just "Gospel music". Why do we go out of our way to segregate and divide ourselves??

And how on Earth is Smile supposed to be Gospel music? Just because it includes a choir? It doesn't have the typical deep soulful vocals.

It's a song for a Japanese game, composed by a Japanese man and sang by a Japanese American woman. It's included in a Latin America-themed expansion and is performed during a coronation and a bomb-making montage.

It literally has nothing to do with Black people, Christianity, churches or anything of the sort.

Sena Bryer was getting a lot of backlash for her #1 below par performance and #2 her very toxic stream of consciousness on Twitter, so she decided to drag the Black community into her own drama as a distraction, and decided to paint us, the FF community in general as racist.

I like Smile, I genuinely do, but the hate It's getting is also entirely justified as it's uses are very out of place, especially in that bomb-making scene.

No, people who dislike it are absolutely not racist and Sena should be ashamed for using Black people as a meatshield like that.

[ZephyrMenodora]

*reviews OP's history*
*returns to the 2.0 thread*

Edit: Nevermind, the 2.0 thread was deleted. Maybe this one will be too.

[SophiaDL]

bait used to be believable

0/10

[NegativeS]

If I tell you that I'm black and I also hate Smile and Wuk, would you feel better?

[Akonyl]

Honestly, it just reads as intentionally incendiary to me. Making generalizations about a group, prefacing it with "certain types of X people", and then going "well gee, I didn't say YOU were one of the bad ones!" is a timeless classic of bad arguing. Heck, the "certain types" she's talking about there love to do it too.

Are there bigots playing XIV who hate the song because they're bigots? I mean, yeah obviously, the game's got like a million players, it's gonna happen. But this argument being used to address the feedback to the song aint a great look.

But also, congrats on your 10 page topic (if it doesn't eat a lock before then), I guess.

[VoidsentStatus]

If I tell you that I'm black and I also hate Smile and Wuk, would you feel better?

^ Seconded. Nothing about Smile brought back memories of when I used to go to church as a kid , and definitely was not bringing back nostalgia like The Fighting Temptations. Way more Disney vibes as people already said.

[Midare]

I'll just leave this over here.

[Vensaval]

Smile is less a gospel song and more a Direct-to-DVD Disney Sequel song.

It's used in a very jarring way and doesn't suit the game.

[Nebelheim]

People are allowed to dislike a song. And no smile is in no way a "black gospel" song sena has no clue about music or genre's of music and has no right to mislabel and slap any genre label she wants to a song then call people racist for not liking it