#boycottHYV

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Mihoyo is ignoring Boycotters and aiming for Return Players instead!

Mihoyo's marketing strategy is extremely obvious after that livestream and it's really demoralizing to see so many fall for it. Every X.0 update they add a bunch of QoL features fans have been asking for for years. (Pick your own 5 star, artifact recycling, picking artifact sub stats) Their aim is to get fans that have dropped off during previous patches to come back.

They have been ignoring those "boycotting" because they anticipate the return players to out number the boycotting ones. Also if you are still logging and playing daily you aren't boycotting in their eyes. Playtime and daily login numbers are what they care about when it comes to f2p players. Unless you are a whale going from 1,000s of dollars a patch to zero dollars you "going f2p" isn't going to hurt their bottom line. They want a large number of active users along with a few whales.

If you still care about showing Mihoyo you care about their colorism you can NOT download and play 5.0 day one. You need to actually boycott by giving mihoyo low player numbers for a X.0 patch.

We still haven't seen 3 of Natlan's tribes yet! They changed an NPC's skin tone already. We can still push them to correct with the other tribes! BUT YOU HAVE TO BOYCOTT!

If 5.0 has higher login numbers than Sumeru Mihoyo will feel like they have no reason to listen to the boycotters because they regained fans from other areas or pulled in new players. I'm not saying you have to Quit genshin forever. Just hold off on playing the Natlan update for a few weeks. Watch a youtuber's play through of the Archon quest if you can't wait for the story.

And please convince your friends who have seen the 5.0 news but haven't been keeping up with Genshin to wait before coming back. Plenty of players stopped playing after 4.3 because that's when the Fontaine Archon Quest ended. Those players need to be informed of the white washing and convinced to not come back for 5.0. Those are the players Mihoyo is "listening to feed back" from with it comes to the QoL updates. Why do you think people who haven't logged in in over 45 days are getting another 10 free pulls? Because those are the players they are aiming for. If those players say no we aren't coming back to pull for white washed characters Mihoyo is more likely to listen to the criticism.

Candace wasn't in the Sumeru trailers and Sethos was added after we left Sumeru. There is still time for them to add POC playable characters to Natlan. We still haven't seen Vanessa's tribe. PLEASE KEEP PUSHING! IT IS WORKING SO DON'T STOP NOW!

[homicidelobster]

have been slacking on artfight attacks recently, so heres a mavuika ^^ (design by squishsquashpop on twitter)

friendly reminder to boycott hoyoverse/stay f2p and absolutely raid this racist ass company's comments and app store/google play store ratings lol

[hyvboycott]

Due to visible growing dissatisfaction among the playerbase, we have branched out to Tumblr as well! This account will provide information on the HoYoverse boycott

[g0ldgauntlet]

Hilichurls and "Tribal" Portrayals.

While we're talking about Natlan, I also want to mention how awful it is that a section of the fandom tried to make us all out to be crazy years ago for pointing out how racist the portrayal of the Hilichurls are.

Quick content warning for mentions of slavery, colonization, genocide, and anti-Indigenous racism. (Image description is in alt text)

Hoyo used Indigenous people as references for these in-game enemies, which we literally have video proof of, provided by the company itself (Timestamp: 1:30).

The Hilichurls were constantly belittled by Teyvat's people, with an Inazuma npc likening them to demons. I remember Paimon acting like the items they collected were meaningless or pieces of junk during the earlier parts of the game.

They become a lot more sympathetic later due to their actual origins in-game (which I'm sure @phoenix-creates can confirm for me because I know you're farther ahead in Genshin than I am right now), sure, but I always found it strange that Hoyo used Indigenous cultures to portray these "monsters" who have lost their sense of selves (meanwhile their human forms are white), as if to imply that Indigenous cultures are more "wild" or "savage."

Genshin fans of color, since 2020, have pointed out the racist undertones that Teyvat's people were perpetuating against the Hilichurls due to them acting the same way that racists irl act towards non-White cultures, but they were told that they were overreacting and this was swept under the rug as a result. The very next year, it's brought up again with more people finding out about it, and we were still being told that we're overreacting.

So now that we're at Natlan, is it seriously that hard to believe that Hoyo straight up just doesn't respect Indigenous cultures? Black (and many brown) cultures too, because it's very telling that Iansan, the Natlan character with the darkest skin so far, is given a more stereotypically "tribal" look on her design with a bunch of bones used as her accessories despite that not being what her actual inspiration looks like.

(Artist for picture on the right: vieirapx on Instagram)

Sucrose has confirmed in her "Something to Share" voiceline that she collects Hilichurl bones, which is similar to colonizers taking the bones of dead Indigenous people with this added context.

Also, please read or reread the Teyvat Travel Guide Vol. 1. Alice basically confirms that she wants to enslave the Hilichurls for labor and also feed the weaker ones to the stronger ones.

That latter point is cannibalism. I know that many people are fans of Alice, but a lot of what she talks about in the first guide is why I don't like her.

Yes, it can be argued that Indigenous cultures are not the only inspiration for the Hilichurls, as it's been said that they may take inspiration from goblins, Bokoblins from the Zelda franchise, and the Amanojuku from Japanese mythology. Answer me this question, though.

Why is Hoyo capable of referencing a creature and not a human being when it comes to the Japanese inspiration for the Hilichurls, but this does not apply to the Indigenous references? It's dehumanizing, and it feels like another double-standard that needs to be addressed.

Hoyo has casually made black and brown cultures in Genshin appear to be less civilized and more "tribal" compared to our White and East Asian peers, both with the human characters and the non-human ones. Sumeru's quests and enemy npcs had multiple examples of this, with the Traveler and Jeht even destroying almost the entire Tanit tribe with the narrative justification being that, conveniently, most or all of them were selfish, bloodthirsty, and manipulative (Jeht's profile on the wiki page goes into what happened with more depth). They had to die because the tribe was dangerous - even though the main problem seems to be Babel - and Jeht's white, blonde companion needed to help save everyone from these evil, power-hungry savages.

(Sidenote: I think this is the second time overall that Hoyo has come up with an excuse to justify Traveler committing genocide on an entire group of people, with the first being the Iwakura Clan.)

I'm sure that the same thing is going to happen with Natlan's quests and npcs because Hoyo has always been weird about the portrayal of black and brown-inspired characters. The question is not whether any of the creatures or humans from specific groups are bad, suspicious, or designed to fit a specific image. We know the answer to that. The real question is why they are portrayed like this, and why it keeps happening more commonly to the black and brown cast members compared to our lighter peers.

[macaron-tea-party]

Go check out the petition below which has now been covered by multiple gaming sites like screenrant and kotaku.

The petition is in multiple languages so if you see your languages share to your social networks!

Thread of Hoyoverse actors and content creators who’ve spoken out against Genshin Impact’s colorism.

[c6scaramouche]

If anyone is interested in seeing someone else's message to HYV customer service in order to use or inspire your own, here is mine:

I used parts of Anilyan's template and personalized it to me!

Upon further advice, it would be best to make messages more succinct and to the point!

Dear Genshin Impact Team,

Regarding the skin color discussion started by the reveal of Natlan characters:

We fans understand that the world of Teyvat is fictional, and that the Nations and characters are informed by different real cultures that end up being mixed to create a fictional setting. But it’s also undeniable that some Nations in the world of Genshin are primarily inspired by some cultures more than others, and that character traits tend to reflect the main countries the Nation they inhabit is based on. Nothing in this world is truly without reference and disconnected from some culture, even if it is conglomerated into a fictional setting. 

We see and appreciate all the hard work that has gone into creating and bringing to life such a robust and beautiful game. Thus, it’s a shame that all that effort is being drowned by the obvious racism and colorism reflected in the Sumeru and Natlan designs. It would make sense to have characters with significantly darker skin tones in Natlan and Sumeru, and many fans hoped for that with the new upcoming region.

It is blatant disrespect to ignore the African, SWANA, Rroma, and Indigenous cultures by stealing many aspects of these cultures, such as landscapes, names, music, clothing and fashion styles, without properly representing the skin color and ethnicities of these peoples. 

Please, significantly darken their skin tones. And please properly correct and respect the words and names of these cultures’ deities.

I have played Genshin Impact every single day since I started in version 1.1, and spent roughly thousands of dollars on characters I love and cherish, all in support of your game which brings many people happiness. Unfortunately, me and countless others are no longer willing to monetarily support and play Genshin Impact and other Hoyoverse games because of the clear lack of respect for proper representation of skin color diversity. 

Hoyoverse has proven capable of changing and adjusting their values over time - we still believe you can recognize your mistake and fix it. You are a company that heavily supports fan and fan works, and who constantly invests in things that have a positive impact in society, which is why many people like to support you, and why this is so disappointing to see.

I know myself and many others are eager to see positive changes, because the Natlan characters designs have so much potential. 

Do not let this taint your legacy. Tech otakus were supposed to change the world, remember? And perpetuating colorism is not how you should do it.

I would be immensely grateful if my feedback were forwarded to the appropriate departments- I appreciate all of the customer service workers' hard and dedicated work. 

Thank you for your time and consideration,

[blazingblorbos]

It’s.. fascinating in a brand new way (a terribly disappointing way) to see HoYo fumble the bag this fast.

I was contemplating making a post about this a day or 2 ago, mostly about the Natlan explosion, but then Moze’s drip marketing happened… and suffice to say I think there’s a bit more substance for me to comment on 🫠

I’ll start with Natlan and try to articulate the thoughts properly, since both my own thoughts and my intake of others’ views has had a couple days to settle in my mind:

I wanna preface with the fact that I love Hoyoverse. I really, really do (I desperately wanna work for them, actually, lol. It’s a dream of mine). And I think that’s obvious to people who have seen a couple of my posts.

But it’s precisely because I love them so much, hold them in such a high regard, and respect mostly everything about them, that their recent performance has just left me deeply…. Disappointed.

Sheer, RAW disappoinment makes up the bulk of my feelings and attitude towards what they’ve been doing recently: which is not listening to their community where it REALLY matters. I was present when the uproar over Sumeru happened. I was disappointed then too, but at that time I more-so existed as a confused outsider observing what was going on (I am a poc but not SWANA). Everything about it — from the large-scale disrespectful mix of many cultures, to the 💀 TERRIBLE idea to not pronounce Tighnari’s name correctly AT ALL, to the abhorent lack of melanin in characters (that are DIRECTLY inspired by figures hailing from African countries) — was… bad. REALLLYYY bad. But I’ll be honest when I say: the way I rationalized it in my brain was “Well, they did add more dark-skinned characters to the roster! I guess this is just their version of ‘darker skin’ ” (which, by itself is already a terrible thing BECAUSE they take care to try and represent real world cultures faithfully).

So the fact that it’s happened again. And worse (SOMEHOW⁉️⁉️) is something that’s making me realize how lackluster it was before. And I am desperately rooting for a change. Fool me once, shame on me type shit genuinely.

Now.. in regards to Moze (Star Rail)’s EN VA 🫠. Everything I know about that man I learned in the past 24 hours. So all I will say is that EVEN if he’s worked to better himself, having been BLACKLISTED from the industry (BECAUSE THE CRIMES WENT ON FOR A DECADE!! MIND YOU) means it is way too fuckin soon to hire someone like that again 💀. They took action against Tighnari’s original VA, so that they’ve done this now is… weird…??? I’m just really confused, yo.

Edit, as of July 25, 2024: Chris made a post on his twitter claiming he has chosen to step down as the VA. 🫡 Step 1 is a W, congratulations everyone 🎉

[yonckis]

Please sign and share the BoycottHYV Petition!!

So close to 100k signatures!!

[hirilyss]

This needs to stop.

Taking inspiration from different beautiful cultures for Natlan as a region and then not representing the people of those cultures correctly?! This is not how a company should work for their players.

Sign the petition!

[danonishere]

I'm just want to say, I deleted Genshin impact (my phone space is finally breathing after 3 years). I also deleted the other Hoyoverse apps I had on my devices and removed their music from my Spotify lists.

I just wanted to cut all ties I had with the company and their products, and it was hard seeing how I had 3 years to build such an attachment to their games, stories and characters.

But I would rather support a company that listens to their players.

I'm not going to stop boycotting, I want to see this through, to see if they will actually listen to us this time.

This is not a sighn for everyone to delete their games if they don't want to. It was the right decision for me.

I also want to go back to my normal brain rot, Fandom, fangirl content I post. Just know that I'm still boycotting Hoyo and waiting for a response.

[the-fandom-crossroads]

I Uninstalled Genshin Impact | #Boycotthyv #videogamestrike

This video is a cut down stream I did on our twitch channel. In it I share how many play hours I have in Genshin before uninstalling the game for good. This is for accountability as I can't go back and play more of the game without that time going up. If that happens it means I went back on my word and failed at the Boycott. I explain in the video why i feel it's important for content creators to fully boycott the game and not just go free to play.

The rest of the video is me going through comments from multiple PoC genshin players sharing their own experiences and frustrations with the Natlan news. As many of them say it is not just "White US SJWs" upset with this but real people from these cultures. I felt it important to compile a large chunk of their voices in one place. If you are struggling to understand why people are upset please consider pausing at these comments and reading a few of the full comments themselves.

If you decide not to fully boycott Genshin that's up to you. But please consider signing these petitions supporting the two strikes at the very least.

Change.org petition about the whitewashing directed at Mihoyo

Petition about video game voice actors directed at voice acting agencies

[durasposts]

happy birthday tartar sauce

[browngenshin]

I haven't seen anyone mention this specifically yet, but the hilichurls need a massive overhaul as well.

[marionedde]

was watching the capitano vs mauvika cutscene and this was the only thing i could think of the whole time

btw i am still boycotting genshin. even if i wanted to play it i don't have enough storage. I recommend if you still want to play, go f2p. don't fund them.

these are three kinda ocs i made (in order from right to left) kiseswa, abeni, and imani

[macaron-tea-party]

Almost 95k signatures!

[erbis-artist]

Genshin Impact Redesigns Pt. 6/?

Full video on my YouTube: