Woke Scrabble
Scrabble, the board game, has undergone a makeover to make it more palatable to Generation Z. According to the BBC's Anna Lamche, the new Scrabble Together has in the words of some critics,
gone woke
.
But at no point does she indicate who those critics are, or how they arrived at their conclusion. Claiming that the game has gone woke
implies that it somehow favours protected minority groups or the disenfranchised.
The reality, however, is far more prosaic. The game has simply been dumbed down for the fragile no-one-loses, everyone-is-special, participation trophy mindset. Or a generation whose digital lifestyle, with its reliance on technology and social media, has left them with limited vocabularies and an inability to spell. Either way, it sets a pretty low bar for claiming something to have gone woke
.
Besides, genuine woke scrabble doesn't require a special board or playing pieces, simply a minor modification of the traditional rules. As in the traditional version of the game, everyone starts with zero points; but, before play commences…
- Caucasian players deduct ten white privilege points.
- Male players—real ones, that is, not those trapped inside a woman's body—deduct ten PaTriArchY points.
- Black players add ten BLM points. Black players sitting together also add five R4C¡5T C0P profiling points. They score an extra fifty George Floyd points if they lay FENTANYL, and twenty for ANTIFA.
- Fully paid-up members of the rainbow mafia add fifty points. They score ten for every time they lay an
E
tile. LGB and its derivatives are real words—they are not listed here because the rules cannot be updated every time a new paraphilia is added—although the sequence of the tiles may be altered to suit the player's proclivities and improve letter scores. - The blank tile counts as two points for all protected minorities, or four points when used to denote
+
. Note that this does not apply to women, unless they're trapped inside a man's body. - The progressive liberal ally furthest to the left—because they're all on the far left, am I right or am I right?—of the protected minority who has drawn the
J
tile shall swap all tiles with them. - Players who use pronouns in their bio or signature add three points. Double this amount if they are not he/him for biologically-relevant males, or she/her for biologically-relevant females.
- Latinx players add five points for accepting the woke bastardisation of their language.
- Players who believe Pride month isn't an excuse for desperate corporate pandering in the cause of ESG handouts add four points.
- Parents who have identified any of their preschool children as non-binary or pansexual add three points for each child. Double this if any member of the family can define
pansexual
. - Disability is only considered alongside other forms of protected status, above. Then it doubles the number of points already calculated for that player.
- Muslim players claim seventy-two raisins if they lay ALLAHUAKBAR.
- At the end of the game, each player counts the total of their remaining tiles. White heterosexual males subtract this from their score, all other players add it to theirs.
- The black player with the lowest score is awarded twenty-five additional slavery reparations points.
And may god have mercy on your sanity.
I'm pretty sure the recent accusation of Scrabble going woke only applied to the dumbing down of Scrabble Together as being less intimidating and made for Gen-Z
who prefer a less cutthroat game with more opportunity for collaboration
.* But there was a bit of a spat a couple of years ago, when 419
.offensive
Scrabble words [were banned] on the orders of game owners Hasbro and Mattel
While some banned words have overtly offensive connotations and can only be used to that effect, others such as dyke
have older meanings and are still valid in that sense. At the time, 2014 World Scrabble Champion, Craig Beevers, opined: The woke brigade are ruining our game
.
Of course, none of this nonsense has any effect on board players at home, they can use whatever words and rules they see fit. But it does affect online play. And tournaments, if you must.
It's not as if it's unprecedented though…
* I don't know where this nonsense comes from. My limited experience of Gen Z, having two daughters with their associated partners and friends, is that they have no qualms over competitive games.