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343 Studios Accused of Racism by Over 343 Twitter Users For Poorly Executed Juneteenth Inclusion

June 16th, 2022 - 9:13 PM EDT by Brandon Wink

6 comments

(Twitter / @FionaNova)

With Juneteenth around the corner, corporations have started to jump headfirst into the new federal holiday, sometimes with reckless abandon. Even when it comes to pre-established, long running things, like Black History Month, there are corporate blunders year after year, so it was expected that someone would make a big Juneteenth miscue.

Apparently, the honor goes to Halo developer 343 Studios, who tried to join in on the fun with a cosmetic update pushed to Halo Infinite. Unfortunately, the cosmetic that was pushed to the game was named "Bonobo," which is the name of a great ape, inciting tensions on social media as people claimed the name choice was racist.

Though the issue was quickly patched out by the company, there were still some online who went to bat for them, defending the accident and trying to make sense of it for others.

The reason given, which others declared was flimsy at best, was that an older program used by Bungie, which was then handed over to 343 along with Halo, was called "Bonobo" and that the name was chosen out of convenience, not malice. Evidence was then found via old Bungie dev footage that shows the Bonobo program in action, at least adding a layer of legitimacy to the claim of innocence.

As usual whenever something has to do with gaming, there's often another, unseen side to it. In this case, with Halo being a Microsoft product, it wasn't long before Sony fans came out of the woodwork to use this as a sort of "gotcha moment" against the Xbox community, which many felt was an odd take.

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Comments 6 total

MCC1701

Jun 17, 2022 at 10:15AM EDT

I feel like "comparing black people to monkeys is racist" just exists now to scream at people for being accidentally racist. It's quite common and normal to compare people you dislike to monkeys/apes, there was a spike in that with Putin earlier this year for example, but even the vaguest reference involving black people and everyone loses their minds.

And I get the historical context, but if it wasn't for instances like this every year or so I'd have forgotten it's even a thing. Ignoring that it's usually white terminally online people who make a stink, this just makes it seem like either a certain racial demographic is incredibly thin skinned which is dumb.

Same deal with black face, again I get the historical context but some Asian girl wanting to cosplay as her favorite character who happens to have a darker skin tone isn't racist.

0

Sir Trollsalot

Jun 17, 2022 at 05:59AM EDT

Bonobos are peaceful creatures, capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience, and sensitivity. Same can't be said about woke Twitter crowd.

5

kraas

Jun 17, 2022 at 11:40AM EDT Sir Trollsalot

then it makes even less sense, why name a player cosmetic in a game where the main objective is to blow aliens the fuck up (i guess, i havent played a halo since the original) after a peaceful ape? and if you want to name it after something harmless for irony purposes then why specifically pick an ape this time?

0

greenhowie

Jun 17, 2022 at 03:57AM EDT

They know exactly what they're doing. Children eat up edgy jokes like its fucking GFuel.

2

A Concerned Rifleman

Jun 16, 2022 at 09:59PM EDT

Every time a moment of performative wokeness falls flat on its face, the world seems a bit brighter.

5

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