This could've been a tweet. Sad to see economy is so bad The Guardian has to post engagement bait.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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Who cares what an obnoxious, self absorbed party girl has to say? Have another glass of wine and keep your mouth shut.
“Emily Watkins is a freelance writer based in London”
Naturally, as a Guardian journalist I expected her wikipedia page to be full of blue links to relatives, but there doesn’t seem to be one. Have they actually started AI generating metropolitan elite scions with absolutely no life experience to generate ragebait?
Everyone over the age of 12 should stop doing things they enjoy and get drunk instead? Okay, fuck off Emily.
Just in case you thought that this is an outlier rather than a part of a series of scorching hot takes, here's some examples:
Ragebait, pure and simple.
Most of us interpret "a hill I will die on" as holding an opinion that we know some people disagree with, but that we believe so strongly that we'll fight for it.
Many of the articles in this series seem to interpret it as knowingly taking the stupidest, pettiest opinion that has ever occurred to them and deliberately overstating it so that others want to kill them.
Also, even as an Aussie who prefers Vegemite to Marmite, that last article in the list can burn in a dumpster fire for multiple reasons. So job well done, I suppose.
Could be a good recruit for The Onion, maybe?
Let me guess, TheGuardian has been declining and panicked by hitting the "publish a stupid article that is so outrageous it will definitely ruin the authors career but the outrage clicks might get enough ad revenue to line the CEOs pockets by one more dollar" button.
Absolute rage bait article. Guaranteed none of these stories of her happened, and this is just to lure readers. The more readers and ad revenue, the more options she gets.
And this is why some people should be denied power. Not liking/wanting something for oneself is fine. You do you, etc.
Wishing to forbid it to others is unconscionable.
She is not even speaking about videogames, but all sort of games and sport, even quizzes. I don't know what brain rot this woman has, but she seems to just want to cuddle and talk. I absolutely respect a lifestyle and opinion, even if I disagree. But I do not respect trying to ban that for other people. That crosses the line into evil. Actually she sounds like an evil Marvel character who hates Joker. Maybe Joker played with her a game to destroy her mind or something like that. Clearly this is not normal.
The whole time I was worried she lived in my country and then I got to the bottom and found out she loved in London. Great, it can keep her!
I just played a solo game of Nemesis: Lockdown at my table today. Somehow I made it through without even seeing an alien.
I hope what I’m doing in the privacy of my own home doesn’t outrage her too much.
I’m also fifteen years sober, but I’m sure she’s drinking my share too.
Oh, I'm SOOOOO sorry that our fun is interrupting your alcoholism. Feel free to down another bottle of wine alone in the corner while muttering about how you're so much more sophisticated than the rest of us.
That was the first thing I took away from it, too. I like alcohol. It's also objectively a worse activity for a healthy adult than playing ping pong.
Alcohol is the opposite of fun, and I'd ban them for anyone over 25
Hey now. Let's not fight. The existence of drinking games proves we can all coexist!
I don't think we need to amplify one of the worst opinion columns written in a hot minute. This reminds me of that guy who wanted to shame every adult who uses a backpack, as some kind of fashion faux pas. Both of these people can get bent. Games are fun. Backpacks are practical.
There used to be a convention of having authors who would, at least occasionally, write deliberately-enraging opinion articles in magazines. In my experience, they were typically at the end of magazines. Maybe not outright wrong articles, but they'd make statements that many readers of the magazine would object to.
The idea, as I understand it, was to
and this was before social media, in the Internet-based sense of the word, developed a focus on this
drive engagement. People would write letters to the editor complaining and arguing against it, and then the magazine could print some of these in the next issue in the letters section.
John C. Dvorak was the most-prominent example of this that I recall
he put articles in a few computer magazines
and was notable in that I recall him publicly-admitting on one occasion that he did this, that it wasn't just that he happened to have controversial opinions.
Huh. Looking at his WP article, it looks like he just died last week.
Anyway, my point is that I could believe that publications might still have authors who do this sort of thing.
My newspaper does this. It's rather left wing, but once in a blue moon a neoliberal gets to write the editorial. The letters to the editor write themselves.
Yeah, exactly why it feels gross to signal boost it.
Engagement bait slop.
Agreed. Disappointed with how many people just fell for it.
Shed paid to make this shit up folks. We'll read it, which means she succeeded.
She's entitled to her opinion, even if it is stupid and wrong.
We are also entitled to ridicule her for her shitty opinion.
Arguing against her strawman is not a productive use of anybody's time or attention, and it even further wastes the time of readers. It's not solving any problem because it's not a genuinely held opinion. It is just meaningless slop, seeking profit, filling space, devoid of any intellectual value and no different than AI slop, whether a human wrote it or not.
You must never read UnpopularOpinion 😀
A few of her examples are objectively unfun, she just extrapolates those out to everything because she apparently can't understand the nuance between playing a game for fun and being competitive.
This Watkins person sounds like the kind of person who's just so bad at every game she now wants to ruin everyone else's fun. It's a known fact games of all kinds can be good for you in different ways, and having a playful side is often seen as a green flag in most adults too.
"I'm bad at games, so they should be illegal. Instead, let's drink wine!"
Wild take, but it takes all sorts. Incidentally, I do totally agree with her about Two Truths and a Lie, although I wouldn't really call these forced ice breakers 'games'
I find it interesting that she finds games to be so isolating and distracting from socializing, when the board game industry relies almost entirely on people getting together to play games and... socialize.
I wonder if she knows co-operative games exist
This person sounds like she'd be fun at parties...
(I mean I guess she is no longer invited to any and has fuck all clue why that might be >.>)
There are three mentions to alcohol, one for each potential social interaction in that article. So I guess I know how the author parties typically.
I'd rather have the games, thank you.
Bait used to be believable.
I semi-agree only in that those are some of the worst party games.
Usually when someone says they don't like boardgames, its because they've only ever played Monopoly , Scrabble, or Sorry which are kind of terrible to play. It seems like she falls into this category.
She's starting this complaining about a casual game of table tennis so it's not exclusively board games, it's like... the concept of playing a game? And apparently, not only as a party activity, but in general.
Very weird take.
The hill I will die on: Emily Watkins shouldn't be allowed to write. Not even a fucking post it note, let alone for a self-proclaimed news portal.
Tens, hundreds of thousands of people would have their lives immediately improved if she never held a pen, or graced a keyboard with her presence ever again.
Emily Watkins shouldn’t be allowed to write.
By all respect to disagree, I disagree with banning to express opinions.
What an eminently unfun-sounding person. People that carve out such a broad category to gatekeep always confuse me. You don't like competitive games? There's cooperative ones. Annoyed by people who take it too seriously? Try a more casual one. Etc...
There's nothing wrong with being stuck in your ways or preferring more simple social activities. But refusing to try whatever the consensus of a group is, or judging others for participating is some peak boomer shit. And condescending things others enjoy as only being for children is the chef's kiss. Again, she's allowed her opinions and preferences, but I certainly don't want her joyless ass playing a game with me either...
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lol what is it with educated white British women and their obsession with wine? Are people in the UK so boring that you need to stay inebriated to have a conversation?
Wine is a grown-up thing for grown-ups, don't you know.
I mean, my partner is an educated white woman Brit, and while we enjoy wine and beer, we partake in games a lot more often.
git gud
...ok?
Anyways...
I just hate the rules lawyer cheaters. It is usually the person who brings the game up in the first place. They scrutinize every move you make then when you catch them doing something slick, they say something like "thats how we played growing up". My mom is one of these people.
lol. 100% death on that hill.
It's a weird hill to die on, but at least she's dead 🤷♂️
I get it, people should come together and socialise rather than play games... I mean, I can kinda see the logic. But, sometimes I just wanna murder aliens. Currently playing Saints Row 4, one of the stupidest games of all time. You can murder people in the streets, but they're all holograms or aliens. You can't canonically hurt anyone in this game, as far as I can tell. Well, my character just got punched by another human character for uttering the words "poodle skirt" (IYKYK) (also, Kinzie is awesome).
Watkins is specifically complaining about people playing games socially.
She also isn't talking about video games. She's talking about physical sports, card games, parlour games, and pub quizzes.
It's also absurd ragebait.
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