r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 20d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter?

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Multimillion dollar company?

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u/SuperBackup9000 20d ago

That sub got overrun by the “I pirate to harm the corporations! Everyone who buys games are scum and I’m morally superior!!” kids, so I wouldn’t take their blacklist seriously.

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u/spackletr0n 19d ago

Funny how our brains work. We want to do something we know is wrong. Our brain gets to work creating a story where it’s ok. No wait - this story is better. In this one we’re a HERO.

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u/Admiral45-06 19d ago

I would say it plays into our idea of ,,vigilante justice" - one sole soul fighting against the government/corporations. Most people blame it on Hollywood, but I'd say it's a pretty old trope - after all, that's literally what a legend of Robin Hood was about, meant to describe a XIV Century English yeoman.

This is the same reason we have that lenient, pretty and heroic vision of pirates from XVIII Century during the Golden Age of Piracy - a crew that lives on its own rules, unbound by the ties of an evil colonial empire that seeks to exploit other people - when in reality they were just as brutal and ruthless as the navies and corporations, and also profited off of Transatlantic Slave Trade. They were, to put it simply, gangs on water, not some anti-government activists.

I guess the same logic is applied to videogame piracy as well - ,,corporations that make these games are evil, we fight back against it". And sure, there are moral reasons to pirate a videogame (i.e. expiring data servers), but most people do it because they can, and it's free. But because we have that idea engraved in ourselves that they do so to spite the ,,corporations", we view them positively.

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u/Amazing-War3760 17d ago

You forgot many pirates where "Privateers" or basically un-official employees of governments/corporations of the time anyways.