Above (if still active) is the trailer for free DLC edutainment for “Good Trouble”, a game using Minecraft to teach kids about various civil rights movements. It sound innocent enough since Minecraft is a game for kids despite all the channels of adults playing the game. Unfortunately we live in a time when any kind of message that carries a whiff of social pandering and far-left prophelitising is receiving serious pushback, which is not what we discuss around here. It is one of the issues I hear people have with this DLC, which is free but not mandatory. I also saw a 6 minute speedrun playthrough and it looked so boring I didn’t even finish the video. I’ll leave examining that to the culture warriors. I already had one nap today and I don’t need a second or nothing’s getting done today.
The other complaint I saw in X-Twitter responses collected in one article and in video titles while looking for this trailer and the map walkthrough (which was more like a runthrough) was that Minecraft is supposed to be escapism. Edutainment, which is a topic on its own to go over why most of it fails whether you’re teaching actual math, science, history, politics, religion, or anything else (even Christian media makes the same mistakes), isn’t a bad thing on its own. I’m not against educational games or even the idea of a DLC where you take part in the various civil rights marches (whether you want to or not as your player character–and I don’t know if the player created the crazy activist LGBT+stereotype design or not–is forced to move down the bridge as much as he/she/whatever is forced away from a school to give your report and can only go to a library to read up on civil rights movements around the world). However, players and watchers are fighting for escapist entertainment to be just that: an escape. So something like this just activates a sort of “fight or flight” response: push back or go do something else.
This is most of the problem with how current media is treated. The activists who want their message pounded into every waking hour of your life, and the elitists who think they’re being more “serious” directors and performers (this predates the current social culture, by the way) won’t hear of it. You can escape. You must be as radicalized as they are. Again, right wing media does this as well, but right now the big money and pop culture outlets are in the hands of one-sided politics. I’m including everyone in this because it’s all the same problem: we just want a break from your “real world” and enjoy ourselves, which apparently isn’t allowed anymore in entertainment…despite what the name actually means!
Google search gives two definitions of “entertain” from the Oxford Dictionary: “provide (someone) with amusement or enjoyment.” and “give attention or consideration to (an idea, suggestion, or feeling)”. Entertainment is supposed to lean towards the first definition. Stories have used to make a statement as far back as Grimm’s fairy tales, or even the Bible, but even the Bible knows to entertain. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan (showing that someone the people considered lesser people for reasons I’m not historical enough to know could do good deeds and showing the Pharisees weren’t actually living by God’s desire with a legalize teaching of God’s laws), the story itself was interesting. Jesus was a storyteller. The tales collected by the brothers Grimm, like Little Red Riding Hood warning about what strangers to talk to, were stories with messages but they were stories first. Science fiction is filled with stories meant to entertain but also warn people against making the atomic bomb or a computer that controls the military…only for people to actually be inspired to make those things, even calling said computer Skynet and showing they learned the complete opposite lesson. We call these people morons, and morons will easily destroy the world.
The Critical Drinker this same week posted a video about how fantasy is losing its escapism and modernity is causing questionable decisions to hit a diversity quota. I’m writing this too soon after writing one about magic systems or that was already going to be a topic for a filler article. The idea is that writers want to make a fantasy world that looks more like the modern world but with a fantasy dye job. That’s not fantasy. A fantasy world is not our world and it shouldn’t. I’ll dive more into that when I get to it. It’s not just fantasy, though. Any fictional world not our own–and even a story about average people set in our world isn’t technically our world because it’s fiction–isn’t supposed to be us. It’s not supposed to represent us. It doesn’t even need to have a message about us.
Star Wars and the two sequels everyone who likes Star Wars liked and the Extended Universe that used to follow it weren’t about any kind of social message or warning about our future. Jules Verne didn’t send a message. He looked at something cool like a boat that goes underwater and created 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Nemo isn’t some warning about the dangers of anything. He’s just someone that a story could be built around. Any warnings you got about the dangers of extreme actions were a byproduct, not a goal. Not that you can’t tell that kind of story. Good Star Trek did it often, but they didn’t make a specific villain a direct analog to a direct person. This wasn’t (insert person the writer doesn’t like here)’s stand-in. The inspiration wasn’t so blatant. The end result were threats inspired by the Russians or some specific person but not supposed to be that person. In 2026 the villain is so obviously Donald Trump or Jordan Peterson if not in name, rather than taking what you don’t like about them and making an original villain. I guess when you hate the atoms that make them up you can’t help yourself. Star Trek villains used to be people you could say are the villain even when you knew it was rejecting many of your points of view. Nobody complained about Kirk fighting literally Apollo, but going up against what looked like a Judeo-Christian God in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier while serving as good PR for what looked like Satan in “The Magicks Of Megas-Tu”–from the Saturday morning kids show, no less–did annoy people.
Artist interpretation of what modern “entertainment” feels like these days.
Maybe people who have never gone to work and breezed through school/college don’t think about it, but for people who have a busy day, stress relief is essential to not losing years of your life. Stress can cause real medical harm. So if someone wants to put on a sci-fi show, or play a game like Minecraft or something in the Resident Evil franchise, it’s about reducing stress. The fact that I don’t understand how one does that in a horror game with zombies and monsters that is supposed to give you nightmares for a week shows how little interest I have in horror stories. My point is whether it’s the Mario Brothers or Jason Statham’s latest character, people are looking to escape how messed up their day was and just relax. I’m of course viewing this as a male. Women typically would do something else, or maybe they like playing as a plumber in a fantasy world or drooling over Statham’s abs. I don’t care. The point is they want to relax, and the perpetually stressed and angry will not allow that even in fiction.
I’m not even against a well-written story with a message. My problem is that stories and characters you used to be able to trust would give you an escape from the hell day you’ve had are being taken over by people who want you angry and fearful like they are. You need to hear their message and ONLY their message until you’re brainwashed into following their point of view. Anything else needs to be buried while the “good” people make you one of them. They don’t believe in escape. Everything must be our world, or their cynical coffee shop and gated community view of the world, filled with stereotypes where they alone are here to save you…but don’t call it being a white savior because that’s bad no matter how white they really are. This is how orcs, a manmade corruption of men characterised as dumb, ugly and violent, are somehow supposed to represent black people and thus become something other than orcs. No fantasy lover has ever made that connection, but people who don’t believe in the fantastic and insist everything has to represent their view of our world won’t allow you to have a definitive “evil” race to see fought, free of the same cultural concerns that cause the same types to complain when a FPS set in the Middle East where you hunt terrorists uses locals as terrorists, as if you’re supposed to run into an Arabian barber and not shoot him. That means the only Arabs you would deal with would be the terrorists. No barbers here.
The staff and management of BW Media Spotlight or whoever posted this article elsewhere without permission would like to inform you no Arabian barbers were harmed in the making of this article. He was like that when we found him.
Fake worlds are just that: fake. They can speak to our world intentionally or unintentionally, and everyone can get something (hopefully) positive out of a story whose themes are generic but speak to multiple people about their situation. We need our escapism for our mental and even physical health. That’s all we want. It’s in the name: escap(e)ism. Entertainment. It’s a break from the world to relax ourselves, reset, and prepare for the next thing life is going to throw at us. That’s ignoring people going through longer problems. Spirited Away got me through my first hospital stay because it took me out of the real world and the inflammation that had me alone in a hospital room, hoping I wouldn’t need the surgery I ended up needing eight years later. The comics I read and shows I watched (video games weren’t a deep storytelling tool yet) gave me relief from the bullies that now seem to rule Hollywood production, only their bullying is about pushing a social agenda or showing how much better they are than you. Bullies don’t want you to get away. They want you to suffer, to be miserable, to always remember they’re better than you. They took superheroes and spaceships away from the geeks like they took their toys in kindergarten or made them miserable in high school. Even advertisements aren’t safe anymore.
I’m against edutainment. I’m not against a well given message. It’s about allowing escapism to be an escape, a refresh, a stress relief. It isn’t lesser and it isn’t brainless. Escapism is important to the survival of the species.
The Clutter Reports (my other site)
BW Media Spotlight 
Above (if still active) is the trailer for free DLC edutainment for “Good Trouble”, a game using Minecraft to teach kids about various civil rights movements. It sound innocent enough since Minecraft is a game for kids despite all the channels of adults playing the game. Unfortunately we live in a time when any kind of message that carries a whiff of social pandering and far-left prophelitising is receiving serious pushback, which is not what we discuss around here. It is one of the issues I hear people have with this DLC, which is free but not mandatory. I also saw a 6 minute speedrun playthrough and it looked so boring I didn’t even finish the video. I’ll leave examining that to the culture warriors. I already had one nap today and I don’t need a second or nothing’s getting done today.
The other complaint I saw in X-Twitter responses collected in one article and in video titles while looking for this trailer and the map walkthrough (which was more like a runthrough) was that Minecraft is supposed to be escapism. Edutainment, which is a topic on its own to go over why most of it fails whether you’re teaching actual math, science, history, politics, religion, or anything else (even Christian media makes the same mistakes), isn’t a bad thing on its own. I’m not against educational games or even the idea of a DLC where you take part in the various civil rights marches (whether you want to or not as your player character–and I don’t know if the player created the crazy activist LGBT+stereotype design or not–is forced to move down the bridge as much as he/she/whatever is forced away from a school to give your report and can only go to a library to read up on civil rights movements around the world). However, players and watchers are fighting for escapist entertainment to be just that: an escape. So something like this just activates a sort of “fight or flight” response: push back or go do something else.
This is most of the problem with how current media is treated. The activists who want their message pounded into every waking hour of your life, and the elitists who think they’re being more “serious” directors and performers (this predates the current social culture, by the way) won’t hear of it. You can escape. You must be as radicalized as they are. Again, right wing media does this as well, but right now the big money and pop culture outlets are in the hands of one-sided politics. I’m including everyone in this because it’s all the same problem: we just want a break from your “real world” and enjoy ourselves, which apparently isn’t allowed anymore in entertainment…despite what the name actually means!
Google search gives two definitions of “entertain” from the Oxford Dictionary: “provide (someone) with amusement or enjoyment.” and “give attention or consideration to (an idea, suggestion, or feeling)”. Entertainment is supposed to lean towards the first definition. Stories have used to make a statement as far back as Grimm’s fairy tales, or even the Bible, but even the Bible knows to entertain. When Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan (showing that someone the people considered lesser people for reasons I’m not historical enough to know could do good deeds and showing the Pharisees weren’t actually living by God’s desire with a legalize teaching of God’s laws), the story itself was interesting. Jesus was a storyteller. The tales collected by the brothers Grimm, like Little Red Riding Hood warning about what strangers to talk to, were stories with messages but they were stories first. Science fiction is filled with stories meant to entertain but also warn people against making the atomic bomb or a computer that controls the military…only for people to actually be inspired to make those things, even calling said computer Skynet and showing they learned the complete opposite lesson. We call these people morons, and morons will easily destroy the world.
The Critical Drinker this same week posted a video about how fantasy is losing its escapism and modernity is causing questionable decisions to hit a diversity quota. I’m writing this too soon after writing one about magic systems or that was already going to be a topic for a filler article. The idea is that writers want to make a fantasy world that looks more like the modern world but with a fantasy dye job. That’s not fantasy. A fantasy world is not our world and it shouldn’t. I’ll dive more into that when I get to it. It’s not just fantasy, though. Any fictional world not our own–and even a story about average people set in our world isn’t technically our world because it’s fiction–isn’t supposed to be us. It’s not supposed to represent us. It doesn’t even need to have a message about us.
Star Wars and the two sequels everyone who likes Star Wars liked and the Extended Universe that used to follow it weren’t about any kind of social message or warning about our future. Jules Verne didn’t send a message. He looked at something cool like a boat that goes underwater and created 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Nemo isn’t some warning about the dangers of anything. He’s just someone that a story could be built around. Any warnings you got about the dangers of extreme actions were a byproduct, not a goal. Not that you can’t tell that kind of story. Good Star Trek did it often, but they didn’t make a specific villain a direct analog to a direct person. This wasn’t (insert person the writer doesn’t like here)’s stand-in. The inspiration wasn’t so blatant. The end result were threats inspired by the Russians or some specific person but not supposed to be that person. In 2026 the villain is so obviously Donald Trump or Jordan Peterson if not in name, rather than taking what you don’t like about them and making an original villain. I guess when you hate the atoms that make them up you can’t help yourself. Star Trek villains used to be people you could say are the villain even when you knew it was rejecting many of your points of view. Nobody complained about Kirk fighting literally Apollo, but going up against what looked like a Judeo-Christian God in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier while serving as good PR for what looked like Satan in “The Magicks Of Megas-Tu”–from the Saturday morning kids show, no less–did annoy people.
Artist interpretation of what modern “entertainment” feels like these days.
Maybe people who have never gone to work and breezed through school/college don’t think about it, but for people who have a busy day, stress relief is essential to not losing years of your life. Stress can cause real medical harm. So if someone wants to put on a sci-fi show, or play a game like Minecraft or something in the Resident Evil franchise, it’s about reducing stress. The fact that I don’t understand how one does that in a horror game with zombies and monsters that is supposed to give you nightmares for a week shows how little interest I have in horror stories. My point is whether it’s the Mario Brothers or Jason Statham’s latest character, people are looking to escape how messed up their day was and just relax. I’m of course viewing this as a male. Women typically would do something else, or maybe they like playing as a plumber in a fantasy world or drooling over Statham’s abs. I don’t care. The point is they want to relax, and the perpetually stressed and angry will not allow that even in fiction.
I’m not even against a well-written story with a message. My problem is that stories and characters you used to be able to trust would give you an escape from the hell day you’ve had are being taken over by people who want you angry and fearful like they are. You need to hear their message and ONLY their message until you’re brainwashed into following their point of view. Anything else needs to be buried while the “good” people make you one of them. They don’t believe in escape. Everything must be our world, or their cynical coffee shop and gated community view of the world, filled with stereotypes where they alone are here to save you…but don’t call it being a white savior because that’s bad no matter how white they really are. This is how orcs, a manmade corruption of men characterised as dumb, ugly and violent, are somehow supposed to represent black people and thus become something other than orcs. No fantasy lover has ever made that connection, but people who don’t believe in the fantastic and insist everything has to represent their view of our world won’t allow you to have a definitive “evil” race to see fought, free of the same cultural concerns that cause the same types to complain when a FPS set in the Middle East where you hunt terrorists uses locals as terrorists, as if you’re supposed to run into an Arabian barber and not shoot him. That means the only Arabs you would deal with would be the terrorists. No barbers here.
The staff and management of BW Media Spotlight or whoever posted this article elsewhere without permission would like to inform you no Arabian barbers were harmed in the making of this article. He was like that when we found him.
Fake worlds are just that: fake. They can speak to our world intentionally or unintentionally, and everyone can get something (hopefully) positive out of a story whose themes are generic but speak to multiple people about their situation. We need our escapism for our mental and even physical health. That’s all we want. It’s in the name: escap(e)ism. Entertainment. It’s a break from the world to relax ourselves, reset, and prepare for the next thing life is going to throw at us. That’s ignoring people going through longer problems. Spirited Away got me through my first hospital stay because it took me out of the real world and the inflammation that had me alone in a hospital room, hoping I wouldn’t need the surgery I ended up needing eight years later. The comics I read and shows I watched (video games weren’t a deep storytelling tool yet) gave me relief from the bullies that now seem to rule Hollywood production, only their bullying is about pushing a social agenda or showing how much better they are than you. Bullies don’t want you to get away. They want you to suffer, to be miserable, to always remember they’re better than you. They took superheroes and spaceships away from the geeks like they took their toys in kindergarten or made them miserable in high school. Even advertisements aren’t safe anymore.
I’m against edutainment. I’m not against a well given message. It’s about allowing escapism to be an escape, a refresh, a stress relief. It isn’t lesser and it isn’t brainless. Escapism is important to the survival of the species.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on February 3, 2026 in Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged commentary, escapism, stream of consciousness.
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About ShadowWing Tronix
A would be comic writer looking to organize his living space as well as his thoughts. So I have a blog for each goal. :)