While traveling today, I turned my car radio to the Patriot channel on SiriusXM to listen to Glenn Beck, and I couldn’t believe the striking similarities between he and our Dear Leader, Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street.
In this Age of Empires, both men are world class trolls who rule their subscription based services with an iron fist from high atop thrones constructed from the broken hopes and discarded dreams of their subscribers; Glenn Beck at The Blaze News, and Greg Street at Activision Blizzard.
Beck, not being satisfied with the standard model of earning income through advertising on his news channels, chose to bend over his viewers and listeners for a monthly fee like a prison shower scene.
Ghostcrawler wasn’t satisfied with a monthly fee, so he has decided to gouge his customers with a cash shop where World of Warcraft players can spend real life money on goods and services which give them an advantage over other players who either too poor, too stupid, or too stubborn to min/max their characters.
Each of these men work tirelessly to leverage the fame of their platform to pedal their own brand of conservative justice with their belief that the only avenue to success should be through hard work, dedication and excruciatingly long hours, and not by giving everyone an equal opportunity.
In Ghostcrawler’s case, this is evidenced by him forcing his PVE Encounter Design team to focus on creating increasingly, and often times exceedingly difficult encounters in order to meet the rigorous demands of WoW’s most hardcore players.
He does this all while unabashedly dismissing and neglecting the wants and needs of the casual players who often times find themselves out in the cold despite the fact they pay the same subscription fee as those to whom are consistently and systematically catered.
Both men also appear to be staunch pro-life supporters. When Ghostcrawler penned Thrall’s back story, he was a little heavy handed with the standard pro-life talking points which were expertly woven into the rags-to-riches story.
For those of you who aren’t a lore junkie like myself, you might be interested to know that as a baby, Thrall was found lying amongst the bodies of his dead parents by Aedelas Blackmoore, and instead of aborting the unwanted child on the spot, Blackmoore took him prisoner, named him “Thrall” (meaning “slave” – racist, much?), and raised him in a broken, abusive household.
As Thrall’s story progresses, the young Orc rises to power as the Warchief of the Horde.
What this story attempts to teach us is that for every million unwanted children whom are born into abusive homes or orphanages or are raised in internment camps, and/or are forced to compete in gladitorial combat every day, one of them might actually grow up to make something of themselves, so we had better not kill any of them no matter how much sense it makes.
When it comes to the environment, both Beck and Street seem to value capitalism and corporations over clean air, clean water and a sustainable future on the planet of Azeroth.
This is evidenced in WoW by Ghostcrawler’s glamorization of the industrial and anarcho-capitalist Goblin faction who have endlessly polluted the Lost Isles, Orgimmar, and The Barrens.
Street has also failed to address the effects that global warming has played on the flooding of Darkshore, the drought in Durotar, the giant, sweaty asscrack that separates the Northern and Southern Barrens, or the massive maelstrom puckerhole separating Northern and Southern Stranglethorn Vale.
To make matters worse, I believe that the Burning Crusade storyline of Thrall traveling to Nagrand to commune with the elements is nothing short of clever satire and the tongue-in-cheek lampooning of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign claims to “heal the Earth”.
Good one, GC – but you’re busted.
Both Beck and Street also have a history of sensationalizing tragedies. How could anyone forget his smug “TO THE GROUND!” quote which he made when previewing pre-Wrath Ret Pallies nerfs? Or the way he cherishes reporting unwanted, unneeded and unnecessary nerfs like the ones which Mages, Hunters and Feral Druids will be receiving in Patch 5.4?
Street also seems to remain in lockstep with conservative values in his apparent support for the death penalty. Every expansion pack, the quest and encounter teams do nothing but task us with hunting down and executing thousands of villains and evil-doers, often times in the comfort of the their own homes, with no due process of law.
The only perp we ever successfully brought to justice was Hogger, but that was only a brief reprieve, as only a few levels later we were ordered to break into the Stockades and murder him in cold blood.
At the end of the day, Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street has us all by the short and curlies and he knows it.
It only takes a few seconds of browsing his Twitter feed to see him skewering wide-eyed, hopeful and passionate players who have done nothing but ask legitimate questions, with his short, curt and snarky replies.