Tone in Sindome
Light hearted cyberpunk

First of all, I'm not sure if you're only talking about pubSIC or if there's anything else. In terms of pubSIC, yes, there is a lot of immature "fart and poop" and dirty humor that pops up from ambient NPCs/aliases. If this is a problem that the staff determine is unthemely, maybe it could be toned down some. When I see this sort of humor on pubSIC, I groan and am not surprised. I mean, that's what pubSIC is – a Dome-wide, chaotic Twitter newsfeed where people make no effort to contain their thoughts no matter how inappropriate for the situation.

Think of pubSIC like Twitter or Reddit, but even worse. It's the crudest humor, the lowest-effort comments and quips for the lowest common denominator. Sure, people can be genuine on pubSIC, but remember Withmore is a world where there's a popular TV show called Porn Puppets, for Anor's sake, and most of the populace are numbed with candy, alcohol and consumerism à la Brave New World.

Events and world moments are undermined by actions that are nonsensical and trivialise the reality of them.

In terms of recent events, tragedies, and atrocities that took place in Withmore, I would say that there are entirely valid and themely reasons why the powers that be would want to trivialize and gloss over them. Especially when the events in question primarily affect a population that is viewed by those in power/the privileged class as criminal and dangerous at best, and less-then-human at worst.

The way these events are framed in the public narrative supports that. Characters who try to draw attention to the actual horror of things that happen in Withmore, are viewed as subversive and thusly knocked down. It's in the best interest of the corporations' bottom lines that this happens that way, not to mention preserving order and stability in the city. ;)

Are there any other ways that the world seems like a "Saturday cartoon villain" for you? I'd say that the horror of Sindome is very well represented in the messaging and the tone of the game. Sometimes it is represented a little too much and makes people risk-averse. Interested in hearing your further thoughts.

As far as the tone, I can't really disagree though I think it may be a combination of alarm fatigue from only being able to care so much about disasters or terrorism or other types of abstract events that don't necessarily effect players directly, along with players adopting the tone that they are taught by NPCs and the world around them.

Suspension of disbelief is a delicate thing, and really only takes one interruption to break for good. I do know that players got pretty burned out from the oppressive tone (or oppressive threat of violence from NPCs) which was normal for a long time, but I think this kind of atmosphere is totally viable if it's carefully maintained as a consistent immersion layer so that rules govern outcomes and deadly seriousness is not undermined by handwaving outcomes, or non-sensical gross-out content (probably the worst offender for undermining anything being taken seriously), or logic invented in the moment and forgotten afterwards.

In the end though this sort of discordancy is always going to be some factor in a collaborative environment that really has no central design document, or theme guidelines, or creative director. It's the aggregate of many people all pulling in directions, along with everyone's own sensibilities or wants changing over time.

From characters verbatim reading off twitter comedy feeds onto pubsic, to seeing characters that are obviously 2-dimensional 'joke' characters that lack any serious depth and moonwalk their way around IC 'reality.'

Unfortunately, there isn't a heck of a lot you can do about it, especially when some characters in the past have made a game out of playing the game, and refuse to leave their hobbit hole to troll on SIC for days, months... YEARS at a time.

What I've done in the past with varying amounts of success:

1) Take the theme to them. Sometimes it's a new player who's sponged up living meme character attributes, and some good RP sessions can course-correct them.

2) Comment ICly about theme disparities. I.E. "Don't know what you're talking about nothing going on chum, there's bodies in the street that haven't even cooled off yet."

3) Leave OOC notes for staff if it's specific characters doing said thing regularly.

If all else fails, then there's the nuclear option:

-Completely disconnect that character from your IC reality. Don't give them RP. Ignore their existence. Don't feed the trolls.

You'll be amazed on how a player can go from living meme status to course correcting themselves or fucking off entirely. Either that or they'll go from making a joke of theme to complaining about boredom ICly, which is simultaneously hilarious and also more theme-appropriate.

Regarding the scat humor on pubsic: It's really overdone, tone-deaf and often simply annoying. By all means, make jokes and levity ICly, just for the love of God change up the material.