The Tiffany Problem or Tiffany Effect refers to the issue where a historical or realistic fact seems anachronistic or unrealistic to modern audiences of historical fiction, despite being accurate. This often occurs with names, terms, or practices that, although historically accurate, feel out of place due to modern associations.
Nicola Cornick first discussed the Tiffany Effect in 2018 after recently learning about the phenomenon and encountering the term. She explained that the name Tiffany derives from Theophania, a name for girls in medieval England and France. However, if a historical fiction writer were to name a character Tiffany in a medieval European setting, the audience would likely perceive it as inaccurate. Jo Walton coined the term Tiffany Problem in 2019 to refer to this phenomenon. – Wikipedia
From: “Goslinoska, Hetter11” (hetter.goslinoska.11 @ cribipisque/comms)
To: “Tiffany, Rob” (rob.tiffany @ cribipisque/c)
Sent: 11/19/2252 @ 21:12:19:70:06 UTC
Subj: Re: Stonewall statement (draft)
Hi Rob,
Great chatting with you earlier! Just wanted to pass along our notes. This is all the feedback we have so if this is all OK then we’ll get it out the door and we’ll look to release it later tonight. Starting with this:
Hi, I’m Rob Tiffany, C6 of Cribipisque Entertainment. Over the past few days we’ve received some feedback regarding an early build of our upcoming action game Revolution Rising: Stonewall.
So we talked about it and we all agreed we’d really like you to stress the “early build” thing, maybe say it a few times, not just once. Maybe not exactly that, but like that, you know? But just emphasise it, that this is an early build. Legal would also like you to point out that it was an unauthorised leak. Maybe say some of the assets were placeholders – don’t specify which ones please.
First, I want to emphasise that, just like every other game in the Revolution Rising franchise, Stonewall is the product of a diverse team, with many different cultures and belief systems. And I’m proud of that team, and everyone on it. Each of our games is carefully crafted with an eye toward history and our own privileged place in that history.
This is good, keep this.
And of course it should go without saying that the Rev Rising games have all been developed by teams with LGBTIQ+ members from all walks of live. That’s been true since day one and it will always continue to be.
We’d prefer to lose “it should go without saying.” It makes people feel like you’re wasting their time. Legal said to maybe rephrase “will always continue to be” – in this context it could be seen as a claim. Maybe like “the makeup of our teams will always reflect our core values” or something. You misspelled “life.”
But even though our developers work closely with some of the best consultants in the business, the unfortunate fact is that sometimes we get it wrong. We want you to know we hear you, and we’re ready to have difficult conversations.
We like this – are you going to video this? You’re going to video this right? Can you do a little regretful head shake or maybe a sigh somewhere in this part?
The Rev Rising series immerses players in exciting recreations inspired by real historical events. In an early mission which has since been removed from the game, we erred on the side of player agency by giving players the option to throw a brick and begin the Stonewall riot. Following recommendations given to us after sensitivity readings, we acknowledge it’s a matter of historical significance that trans women of color threw that brick. In our current build, this event happens in a cut scene. Player choices up to that point will decide whether the brick is thrown by Marsha P. Johnson…or Sylvia Rivera. (Here I would maybe have pics of them both I can gesture to while I say their names)
We had our sensitivity analysts run this through Hiero and it came back with a lot. They tried to pronoun Marsha – Hiero is 49% confident her canonical gender was “Pay it no mind” and it’s only like 23% confident we should call her a woman instead of trans femme or gender fluid. It gave us a couple more options but the period accurate ones got wordfiltered so we’re not going to kick that nest. Apparently Sylvia wasn’t even there that night so maybe to keep it simple we cut the names entirely and just say “player choices can affect the course of history” or something like that.
And we want you to know that we hear you when you tell us we got some of the history wrong. We know this is a tough topic because so much of our idea of history comes from movies, and we’ve had a lot of opportunities to confront our own ignorance when it comes to the historicity of the events players will get to experience when Stonewall comes to homeplay next year. And we want to explain how we’re going to make it right. (examples to come from you)
This is a little run-on but I don’t think anything really needs to be changed. Maybe use a different word besides “history” once or twice so it doesn’t get repetitive.
Here are those examples, you can just sprinkle in a few. People like it when you acknowledge some specific stuff.
We’re taking out the flip phones. I know everyone expects them in the late 1960s because of star trek, but they weren’t actually invented until later. We’re changing them to walkie talkies.
We’ve received some feedback about the NYPD in multiplayer – some consultants pointed out the uniforms are anachronistic. We already paid for a whole rep of fabrics for those so we’re going to steer into this one and have all the eras of NYPD uniform be unlockable through the multiplayer. I think the messaging we want to go with here is that this was always the intention. I mean don’t literally say that, but it’s okay to not deny it.
We found players were 8% less likely to help Magnii and Brynn in builds where they talked about being sex workers so we’re taking those lines of dialogue out.
We’re removing the Antarc flag from the UN floor and removed two Antarc characters from the single-player story. No one lived there in the 1960s. The models will still be in the multiplayer.
It wasn’t called Dunkin’ Donuts Central Park until later so we can just call it central park.
I think we can still call the rifles historically accurate – they weren’t necessarily used at stonewall but they did exist at the time. And I mean, obviously every other game in the franchise has period-accurate rifles, this one’s going to have them too.
RuPaul was alive during the riots but it turns out she was only nine and lived in California at the time. We think it will be okay to age her model down and still use her for that cameo in the parkour missions anyway. It’ll be a fun little oesteregg. Maybe not use her last name. Not sure about rights or who owns them. I’m assuming it’s DisneyTwinWarnaCo but we can look it up if it comes down to it.
We learned Magnii wasn’t a common name at the time but we all agreed it just sounds like such an old timey name so we’ll probably be leaving it in.
We’re localising the Norcanala version just to be safe. A lot of markets there still won’t sell media with violence that involves trans people if helicopters are involved so we’re swapping some models in those cut scenes. We’re already releasing pretty close to St. Isabel’s Day down there – we don’t want to risk it.
The flashbangs are ahistorical, evidently.
We also found out the Hey Vern It’s Ernest guy wasn’t at Stonewall at all. I guess that’s just an urban-legend, which, like…boom! My head exploding. There’s a whole Reader about how it’s this common misconception. He’s kind of load bearing in the game though so we’re going to just change some textures and get someone to redo his lines.
As always, please be careful to say we’re doing these things, not that we have done them. I have a weekend in Vegas booked for my sister’s wedding and the last thing I need before I get on that boat is another scare like Mark at the land acknowledgement last month.
We’d also like to respond to the allegations that the game’s same-sex romance options were removed in some localised Camnasian releases. While it’s true that our very talented localisation teams make painstaking adjustments to our products to best ensure we reflect the sensitivities of every culture we release games in, Cribipisque stands with the LGBTIQ+ community worldwide. We pledge to do better, starting with (content to come from you)
We all agree you should take out the region and just call it a localised release. Also change to “stands with our rainbow family worldwide.” Focus groups find it insincere if you use the acronym too many times. I finally heard back from Legal on this – we can lose the whole last sentence.
We’re also working closely with RBIPOC-owned consultancy groups to ensure all content for our products is designed to create a welcoming experience for all players who want to be part of the uprising when we release Stonewall to home systems next year.
We’ve been advised you should change this to say “some of the consultancy groups we work with are, or have been, part RBIPOC-owned.” You could say “part or wholly RBIPOC-owned” if you want to, just make sure to emphasise the “or,” if you do. Still waiting for final word from Legal on this one honestly. I understand there’s also been some push to change the acronym by splitting it up into RB & RI POC. Mona said the house style is “Remaining Black and Indigenous people of color” because it always sounds weird when someone says letters out loud. Up to you though.
Other than that, we’re looking solid! Oh, and finally some good news: We heard back from Est. Downeyjunior and it’s looking like we’ll be able to get the likeness for one of the multiplayer seasons. Obviously we can’t mention iron man or any of that but we got the go-ahead to put him in a generic suit of powered armor and we can spin up a couple “Oh, this is familiar,” or “This feels…right, for some reason,” when he puts it on, some little quips like that. We’re also talking to Doublet Bear and the Double Bears about possibly doing a concert in-game. Let us know what you think.
Regards,
HG