Environmental, Social, and Governance, otherwise known as the cancer that plagues modern media including movies, tv shows and especially video games.
If you value games that are actually made for the players instead of mundane bullshit produced to push political agendas in return for fictious hedge fund backing, you’re probably well aware of the term ESG and everything that it has done to the media we once hold dear.
Environmental, social, and governance is more or less a massive cabal, perpetrated by the likes of BlackRock and the Vanguard Group, two of the largest entities in the entire world in terms of market capital at $119 Trillion and $8 Trillion respectively, these two fucking weasels essentially own a large stake in just about every single company that you can imagine.
What exactly is their purpose in buying up large stakes in every single company amongst the Earth? To essentially force the hand of many such companies into compliancy with their ESG agenda, environmental, social, and governance essentially being a malicious ploy to introduce “woke” and or political correct ideology from the company within, such as employing personnel simply for their skin color, sexual orientation or gender over their actual skills, ability and job capacity.
And you’d bet that this ESG ploy seeps through into the products that these companies make, because many of your favorite big time video game publishers and developers all adhere to the tyrant that is ESG.
Such as:
Just to name a few, ESG is an ever growing cancer, where these companies are essentially coerced by the likes of Vanguard and BlackRock to support ESG policies and protocols not just within their corporate structure but the products that they produce as a whole, for their compliance they will receive large financial kickbacks depending on the amount of ESG scoring that they have.
To uphold their positive ESG score and secure funding, there is a requirement for the removal of “problematic themes”, resulting in cases of self-censorship of female characters or anything that may be appealing to the so called “male gaze”.
This also seeps into games and media to include more racially diverse characters that end up being written by morons and feel as if they’re desperate and shallow placeholders to secure more funding rather than actually trying to make such characters appealing and cared for by players.
Character racial swaps, the defeminization and demand for “realistic” depictions of female characters, of whom end up looking unattractive and masculine, majority of these ESG friendly characters are almost always homosexual, transgender or non-binary to boot, they cannot write convincing stories or design interesting characters, they’re really just pushing an agenda that’s so outlandish and brash that more and more players are starting to take notice.
They do this because they essentially have no other choice, the financial repercussions from BlackRock and Vanguard dropping your shares is immense, which is why they continue to produce benign woke slop that condones “the message” despite being commercial failures, because they’re getting paid by the illusionary hedge fund that is ESG.
Hell, to drive the point further, the modern game developer is simply so damn lazy that they would rather offload and outsource their product for inclusivity edit and review to the likes of Sweet Baby Inc consultancy firm.
Thankfully for gamers, actual gamers and not prissy tourists whose entire livelihood revolves around getting upset over fictional boobs on Twitter, the importance of ESG has been taking severe blows this year alone with Bloomberg recently reporting that a great number of these ESG investment hedge funds have been closed down or went under.
And now, the state of Tennessee in the United States is initiating legal action against BlackRock. The lawsuit alleges that the New York-based asset manager, with assets totaling $9.4 trillion, violated consumer protection laws by improperly utilizing environmental, social, and governance factors in its investment strategy.
In the legal action brought forth in state court by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, the claim asserted that BlackRock exhibited inconsistency in its statements regarding whether it prioritized investment returns exclusively or gave preference to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations.
For years . . . BlackRock has misled consumers about the scope and effects of its widespread ESG activity,” the complaint said. The lawsuit goes on to claim that “BlackRock has downplayed the extent to which ESG considerations drive its investment strategies across all holdings, even in non-ESG funds” and “overstated the extent to which ESG considerations can affect companies’ financial performance and outlook”.
This marks the most recent move in an ongoing campaign by Republican state financial officials against ESG investing as a whole and specifically targeting BlackRock.
The legal action comes in the wake of BlackRock’s reduced support for ESG-focused shareholder proposals and CEO Larry Fink’s choice to discontinue the use of the term “ESG,” citing its weaponization by politicians.
Because that’s exactly what ESG is, a weapon used against all companies into enforced compliance of certain agendas, ESG is extortion plain and simple. If Vanguard and BlackRock dump their shares what do you think will happen to the stock value of any such particular company? Why would they risk such a move when they can uphold ESG’s core values and get paid to do so by these so called “investment funds”.
Because who needs customer money when you’ve got corporate money.
“Ultimately, I want to make certain that corporations, no matter their size, treat Tennessee consumers fairly and honestly,” Skrmetti, a Republican, said in a statement. Fox Business first reported on the civil lawsuit.
“We reject the attorney-general’s claims and will vigorously contest any accusations that BlackRock violated Tennessee’s consumer protection laws,” BlackRock said in a statement. “Contrary to the attorney-general’s claims, BlackRock fully and accurately discloses our investment practices and our approach to proxy voting.”
Officials in Republican-led states like Texas, Florida, and South Carolina have previously withdrawn assets from BlackRock, citing concerns that the firm’s use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations amounts to a de facto boycott of fossil fuels.
Despite being part of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative alongside over 300 asset managers, BlackRock has consistently refuted these allegations. In response to being listed as one of the financial firms boycotting fossil fuel companies in Texas in late 2022, BlackRock emphasized its substantial investments, exceeding $100 billion, in Texas energy companies, particularly highlighting its support for ExxonMobil.
However, BlackRock has also faced criticism from the left. Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, accused the firm of succumbing to an anti-ESG pressure campaign that he deemed “misinformed and shortsighted.”
The lawsuit filed by Tennessee underscores the observation that BlackRock seems to have adopted a strategy of appeasing both sides, telling each what they want to hear in an attempt to retain everyone’s business.
I for one cannot wait until ESG as a whole collapses as the market hopefully then attempts to correct itself, favoring the consumer instead of woke nonsensical bullshit.
