More Woke stuff: Scrabble being dumbed down

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122034456#Comment_122034456

No, we need people to stop getting hooked on social media outrage and to think about the words that they use.

dxhound2005

The best response is to follow the advice of the AH owners. Treat it as a lighthearted discussion.

silliussoddius

Maybe change the thread title - More "Woke" 🙄 threads: After Hours being dumbed down

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122035513#Comment_122035513

See post #36.

Stark

I just saw "The Economist" refer to the game as "Woke Scrabble", christ. So glad I cancelled my subscription.

dxhound2005

I can't read the whole piece in the Economist online. But the start of it seems reasonable, and not a reason to go on a rant.

“Thick”, scoffed the headline on the Daily Mail website on April 9th, in response to the news that Scrabble has had an overhaul. In some parts of the world the word-play game has been relaunched with a double-sided board; one side now shows a new, simpler design that is meant to be less intimidating and more inclusive than the original.

The idea that Scrabble needs to be made less competitive in order to be attractive to Gen Z was always going to make some people rather vexed (16 points). “Next, they’ll turn to chess, but with only one piece each and only two squares on the board,” ran one typically balanced reader comment. Rants about snowflakes and wokeness aside, the new version of the game, which Mattel is introducing outside North America, looks like a perfectly good solution to a common strategic problem: how to make changes to much-loved products."

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122038316#Comment_122038316

Really? I ought to consider cancelling mine.

Flaneur OBrien

I heard that if you're vaccinated, you get bonus letters at the start on the new "woke" Scrabbles.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122038405#Comment_122038405

I heard if you use the word "woke" to describe the new Scrabble you're banned from playing the full version until you grow up…

dxhound2005

Is that bit about chess actually true?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122038515#Comment_122038515

No. It's a reference to a Daily Mail comment by someone who, ironically, would need Scrabble to be simplified in order to be able to play it.

ancapailldorcha

So far so reasonable:

The idea that Scrabble needs to be made less competitive in order to be attractive to Gen Z was always going to make some people rather vexed (16 points). “Next, they’ll turn to chess, but with only one piece each and only two squares on the board,” ran one typically balanced reader comment. Rants about snowflakes and wokeness aside, the new version of the game, which Mattel is introducing outside North America, looks like a perfectly good solution to a common strategic problem: how to make changes to much-loved products.

…

Given all these pitfalls, Mattel’s innovation works well. It allows traditionalists to play the game they grew up with while also permitting an experiment that might bring in new players. Despite the sound and fury, it is all rather elegant (which gives you a bingo, 58 points and total, annihilating victory). 

I see nothing worth getting upset about here.

Quantum Erasure

Whats so hard about normal Scrabble though? You can always change your letters if you have bad ones or you can't make a word.... What are the new rules anyway?

Yeah Right

Hmmm

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039295#Comment_122039295

From what little I have read it is not new rules. The same game is there with the same rules. But on the other side of the board there is a completely new different word game that is played as a co-op team rather than against each other. More than that I do not know.

But unless what little I have read has not been clear - my understanding is no new rules but a completely new game.

Which would mean the whole "Scrabble is being dumbed down" is just clickbait and false. Scrabble remains entirely unchanged.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039295#Comment_122039295

I think irs played as a team.game rather than competition

EmmetSpiceland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039446#Comment_122039446

Does that make it more inclusive? If so, that’s going to make it woke.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039423#Comment_122039423

Sadly that could be a real book.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jordan-peterson-whines-over-woke-report-on-drop-in-new-jersey-traffic-deaths

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039497#Comment_122039497

That crackpot used to fantasise about stabbing students in the neck with a pen when he was teaching. Not a sound mind.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039454#Comment_122039454

Could say the same about 5-a-side football.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039454#Comment_122039454

Scrabble is anything but inclusive, they enforce the patriarchal colonist world view by limiting the game to 26 letters.

super_furry

Can't play Scrabble no more because of woke.

Meanwhile in the real world, Scrabble Junior came out in the woke 1950s.

Woke.

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122039536#Comment_122039536

18 letters should be enough for anyone. Nach ea?