Warning: Do NOT let Political Nonces Influence Your Work!

Gatekeeping is a survival instinct

The LAST thing you need to influence your creative projects is a political nonce to tell you how to make your piece “appropriate.”

A little while ago I made this note on Substack:

When you are creating a piece of art or writing a novel, or if you are working on something massive, it is important to keep your work and your creativity free of influences by “the devil.” Here are some key ways to prevent these nonces from transmuting your gold into crap.

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What is a Political Nonce?

A “political nonce” is someone who has established such a passionate and emotional view on politics, it influences nearly every aspect of leisure. They absolve all reason and logic just so they can feel self-righteous about their political views. Because they are so deep in their own biases, they are unwilling and incapable of questioning their established views.
Most sad of all is they cannot escape it. Their minds are so corrupt by political motives they cannot enjoy even a moment of escape. They are emotionally shattered where even a few syllables can trigger an aggressive reaction.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, they may be well intentional. They genuinely believe the world is in a bad spot and they feel an obligation to be the righteous warriors of social justice they think they are. However, they sadly are misguided, and dangerous to communities.

Why you should worry about Political Nonces and how to Stop Them

Through emotional manipulation, they exploit the good will of others to sneak their misguided views and passions into various communities and organizations. Subsequently, they will try to make you bend the knee at their demands through this form of emotional blackmail, even to the point where they threaten to “cancel” you, meaning removing you from every community and hobby as much as they can (and in some extreme examples, even remove your ability to earn an income.)

In this recent example, you can see an Instagram post by a cosplaying nonce targeting supporters of Donald Trump. The nature of these nonces are to infiltrate your organization or community through guilt, and then try to kick you out because of your opinions. This is how they influence our culture sadly.

Before the rise of these political nonces, we enjoyed our hobbies as a form of escape from the world. Orcs in D&D, once evil creatures, became humanized, and then (ironically) compared to the black community by these nonces. Dragon Age: Veilguard forsake simple story telling principles just to inject their LGBTQ jargon. Let’s not forget all the other examples in comics and video games where diversity and inclusion overshadowed the demands of the consumer wanting…a decent product!

If that’s not enough to worry you, then consider the fact that nearly every major gaming studio who took advice from Sweet Baby Inc, a diversity and equity consulting firm, caused them to financially collapse so hard, Joe Exotic would be thankful for his financial plights! They are infamously known especially for the spectacular disaster of Concord, leading many to speculate the half a billion dollar game to be the reason why PS5 prices have been inflating.

When you can identify the nonces before they infest your community, you can quickly snuff out any attempts to corrupt your community before they get a foot in the door. Here is how we can do just that!

Be Mindful of your Target Audience

Naturally, your target audience should be people who will consume your content and pay you money. Simple capitalism, right? Unfortunately this obvious truth has been muddled by political nonces, who care more about engineering a cultural shift as opposed to succeeding with (what would be your) creation.

There was an argument to be made that the cultural landscape changed and there’s a much more ‘diverse’ audience of ideologues that will be interested in your work. Do not be fooled! The biggest mistake you can make is to convert your passion project to adhere to a group of people who ultimately will not buy your work. This has happened so many times in gaming, comics, anime, and all other industries, and caused great fortunes to be wasted.

It is important to discern your true fans from perceived haters. These nonces don’t care about your hobbies or your fiction. They care about spreading their own messages. If they can coerce you to be a mouthpiece for their ramblings, that’s all they need, and they still won’t be inclined to support you.

Return to the Good Ol’ Days

There was a time long ago when we had permission to truly enjoy our favorite hobbies. Sure, many times we were bullied in school for it, but we had our own niche of friends who shared our interests. Remember the golden age of 1990s and 2000’s gaming and what made those games special. Recall some of your favorite movies and what made them so special. After 2016, those bullies have instead began to partake in the hobbies they mocked us for.

Political nonces won’t have an appreciation for classics. They were too “racist” or “misogynistic,” even if the underlying theme of the content they despise is a direct criticism of it. In the case of the opposite-leaning nonces, which aren’t nearly as common nowadays, they would complain something is too “pagan” or “satanic,” in the same regard of lunacy.
Regardless of their motives, they have an urge to change history to the point where we forget what many of our favorites so special.

For the love of God, Accept and Respect the Feedback you get!

Helldivers 2 is a peak example of how a development team took honest and sincere feedback to revive a failing game. After making their game frustrating through an attempt to balance their game, through a design philosophy that their core audience disagreed with, fans of the game took charge to provide their feedback and complaints via Steam’s review system.

Instead of pointing fingers, blaming the gamers, doubling down unlike other misguided studios and crashing into an iceberg through stubborn denial, they listened and quickly changed course. This resulted in a much more fun and enjoyable experience for all the players.

Another example is the infamous Sonic movie trailer, where they used an ugly puppet as the main character. The studio quickly resolved the uncanny design choices and the fans blessed them with a billion dollar opening! You could still see the political nonces try to stop the change through their flimsy journalism.

Respect the Content, Respect the Fans

Speaking of fans, political nonces hate them! Hence why in my previous example, they tried to stop the changes made to Sonic’s character design.

At some point, one of your works is going to hit big. You will gather a large fanbase over a piece of work you completed. You will be tempted to change things around and add elements. Afterall, innovation is what keeps things fresh. The problem lies when it comes to the loyalty of the world you established. Before adding or changing any important lore or character aspects, consider deeply how the fans would feel, and especially consider the implications on your world.

Netflix is notorious for bastardizing known franchises. Thankfully, with the successful One Piece live action remake, Eiichiro Oda took a lead role in ensuring the integrity of his passion project. Sure, some liberties were made, and there are DEI elements that certainly influenced casting choices. However, none of those choices negatively impacted the show. See? We can still cast black people without making it a big deal, just like how we used to before 2010.

Do Not Work With Lunatics

Needless to say, if you hire someone into your business, you should do a background check to make sure they are safe and you will be free of liability. As much as it is tempting to hire like-minded people who share the same political thoughts you do, perhaps you should reconsider those options.

Especially if they are passionate and incredibly vocal about certain worldly events, it can really harm the workplace. See this example of failing gaming company Activision Blizzard. This screenshot exposes a disturbing conversation on a professional chatting platform between employees following the results of the 2024 US Presidential election.

Emotions play a role in fueling the passions of your project. However, it is required to maintain a level mind in order to maintain a safe and productive work environment. After reading the messages above, would you see yourself ever desiring to work for Activision Blizzard?

These were just my 2 cents. If you found it helpful in your creative endeavors, go ahead and leave a like and a comment, and be sure to share to those who you fear might be subjected to a similar plight!

Political Nonces aren’t just Left-Wing

While the left wing is prominent and loud when it comes to expressing their “woke” agenda, they are not the only ones who can be political nonces. Back in the 70s and 80s, right wing nonces manufactured a “satanic panic” targeting hobbyists who simply wanted to enjoy Dungeons and Dragons. They’ve also been known to meddle in music, carrying that same level of panic into heavy metal, and egregious claims of violence being caused by video games.

A common example are Christian animated movies. Instead of investing time and energy into producing a decent product, the Christian messaging becomes the sole focus. Even though the media landscape is inundated with left-leaning garbage, it’s important to not pivot to the opposite extreme, as both sides of the political eagle could cause harm to the quality of your works.

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