The term woke has been thrown around a lot over the past few years, however now it’s gotten quite difficult to figure out, what is actually woke, or what is just genuine bad writing. Nevertheless, it’s all but clear now that what is considered woke, is the addition of diversity, regardless if the story and characters are written well.

The definition of ‘Woke’ is the awareness of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice). That’s what wokeness really meant at the time. It was coined by the African American community to highlight issues that they faced. Now, every person and their mother uses that word to highlight anything that strayed away from the so-called typical norm and anything that they disliked.

Anything that they didn’t like in pop culture was immediately called woke, and therefore was trash and not worth their attention. And can you blame them at this point? The stubbornness of the progressive left in shoving virtue signaling down people’s throats has resulted in more people being apprehensive to change than ever before. The progressive left refuses to actually put out quality, honest work in their art, and assumes people wouldn’t see right through them, basically insulting the public’s intelligence. I am not saying that all works from someone of the progressive left are bad, but they certainly outweigh the good.

Now, it has absolutely backfired on them and only gotten worse with time. If a movie has a Black/Asian person or any other race as the lead, it’s woke by default. Oh, there’s an LGBT member in this movie? Woke trash! Wait, this woman is the main lead and is smart? Get this woke garbage outta my face. You see it in everything! Movies, games & books.

I myself have used the word in many instances, however, when I used it, it’s often when something comes off as lazy writing, e.g Blackwashing. I’m very careful to use that word now.

Nevertheless, the word is now a favorite for a certain group of people who just don’t like the idea of anything that strays from their norm to be seen. These people (call them what you want, racist, bigots, etc) hide behind that word as a means to justify their dislike for change, and with the incompetence of the progressive to not take criticism for their work when it’s warranted, it has given this groups a veil to hide behind, as more and more people who are in the middle begin to voice their distaste for “woke” contents. The more people in Hollywood or other institutions change, reboot, and race-wash characters without a strong enough reason, and use their movies to lecture instead of telling a genuine story, the more people get fed up with it, thus giving these hate groups more of a platform to spew their hate.

And in the end, it just hurts the people the progressive claim to be helping. I mean, when an indie creator creates a brand new IP and shares it with the world, and the first few comments all end up calling it woke trash, you know the damage is severe.

The word woke, although born out of the necessity to highlight issues in the African American community, has evolved to now be a dog whistle. Yeah, it’s wild that I have to say this, but when you start to pay attention to who uses that word and the context in which they use that word, you slowly start to realize that it is never used in a way to highlight lazy writings or bad stories, but to attack anything that has other races and orientations in them. Seriously, it’s one thing to call Lord of the Rings woke, I can give you that, but when a new IP is being called woke, that’s when shit has gone south.

Even worse now, when a story is well-written and has a genuine message, it’s still considered woke, as I said these hate groups view it as an attack on them and lie by claiming it to be another form of the “crazy left agenda”! A great example is Netflix’s film “The Sea Beast”! Without even seeing the film, many have actually labeled it woke content, simply for having a small black girl as the main lead. When in fact, the Sea Beast is a prime example of a great film with a great narrative and a good message. It’s truly a mess.

Some things are woke, but not everything!