I'm trying to verify these numbers and I'm not finding much.

The closest I can find to a source is that these were claims from Moshe Elad in articles in Tablet Magazine and Algemeier.

In Mashal's case, he was the treasurer of Hamas at the time and Elad seems to be just attributing the entirety of the organization's assets to him personally.

I'd be really interested to see if anyone else can find more concrete proof of this claim than I could.

Except that's not the whole story.

The song was co-written by Victor Willis (the lead singer) and Jacques Morali (their producer). Originally, executive producer Henry Belolo was also credited, but his name was later removed after lawsuits.

Willis is straight (as far as I can tell publicly in any case) and has indeed claimed that the song is simply about the YMCA and has nothing to do with gay culture.

However, Morali is gay. He was essentially the founder of the group and has been quite explicit that the group was created to because he "[wanted to do something only for the gay market"](wanted to do something only for the gay market). The name "Village People" is a reference to Greenwich Village, a gay community.

So we have 2 writers credited. One of whom was the singer who was hired on and later left while the group continued in without him, who claims the song was not about gay people at all. The other was gay, was basically the founder, and has been explicit about how the whole project was intended to target gay people all along.

So I suppose every listener needs to judge for themselves. But my own conclusion is that it's 100% about gay culture, just like most of the rest of their catalog. I could only speculate as to why Willis wants to distance himself from that.

Maybe he never expected to become a gay icon and was never comfortable with it. Maybe he's trying to to make sure that the song appeals to the largest market possible for the sake of getting more royalties. Or maybe there's something else going on.

Yeah it sounds like something mainstream media would accuse TST of doing. Like, I strongly suspect that most of the "movements" to include pedophiles in diversity conversations are really just bigots astroturfing because that just makes more sense.

And I still think it's worth supporting TST just for the legal work they do alone.

Oh I remember seeing that in development a while back when I looked up what the BioShock devs were up to. I didn't realize it released!

Another similar game in my backlog is Vale: Shadow of the Crown. Except instead of having a visual flash, the game relies entirely on audio cues to play and is completely blind-accessible. So completely different, but somehow feels like the same realm.

I'll admit I've never been a member of either organization, but I have friends who were TST members and last year a good chunk of that congregation split off to join GoS. And they've since helped others so the same. So this is basically how they've described it to me.

From Wikipedia, it looks like GoS started in 2018 as a UK split-off for various concerns. Wikipedia focused on specific issues the UK branch had, but I was also told a huge factor was the logistics and goals. TST is a very US-focused organization that puts a lot of resources into US legal battles. They also had strict controls over branding, policies, and structures that just didn't suit them.

The main reason for the schism in my local chapter was more specific. TST regularly streams online services and last year had a leader from a chapter who advocated for welcoming, accepting, and celebrating people regardless of sexual preference. Which sounds great..., except he also explicitly called for the inclusion of pedophiles as part of LQBTQ+. Despite pedophilia being in direct opposition to tenents 1 and 3. The local chapter (and several other chapter) complained to their national representatives and the response was... Nothing. No statement from the national organization, no consequences for that leader. Just swept under the rug.

Also of significance was allegedly there was some sort of documentary released in 2023 called "The Lies of the Satanic Temple" by Dead Domain that claims to expose fraud and abuse from TST leadership. I have not watched it (although coincidentally I have watched a couple of her videos on videogames- she had a really interesting interview with the creators of Paradise Killer), but I heard that it caused several other congregations across the country to split off of TST.

GOS is much less centralized. It's more of a collection of guidelines, resources, and suggestions. Some chapters keep their own branding, like the House of Heretics in Seattle.

From an outsider's perspective, it seems to me like GOS is more focused on replacing the role of the church in an individual's life with a secular alternative. They do charity work like adopt-a-highway, food drives, clothing drives, etc. A lot of the members are young, queer, alternative people, and if their families disowned them they don't have a support system. They have support for things like non-religious sobriety programs. I almost get the impression it's like a religious rehab for people who grew up in very restrictive or abusive churches. At Pride this year the local chapter was doing "un-baptisms". They have potlucks and parties and other social events. I think some of these things they might have carried over from TST.

They keep a much lower profile than TST. They don't engage in the legal battles that TST does, and a lot of the people I know who left TST still respect the organization for fighting that fight. Personally... I'm really confused as to why GOS still keeps the "satanic" imagery of TST because I thought the point of that was to serve as a counterpoint to Christians in those legal battles.

Personally I'm just introverted and not interested in all that "community" and "networking". But I've donated to both organizations for the work they do.

Edit: in the interest of fairness I've seen claims that the Dead Domain documentary has been debunked.

I actually love this in videogames. It's a really cool way to interact with the environment and literally see the world through a different lense with a level of control that no other medium of storytelling can achieve.

Maybe this dude should go watch a movie if he doesn't want to interact with things.

Oh yes of course there's very good reasons for the different organizations. Personally I've been a bit turned off by some of the stuff TST has been doing and more interested in the Global Order of Satan (GOS).

I just think it's funny how Christians don't seem to have any problems separating (and feuding against) the hundreds of thousands of different denominations, many of which have nearly identical names. But two different organizations with 0 words in their name in common is apparently too confusing for them to handle.

But it's really weird and sinister to even bring up the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan purposefully does not publish numbers, but the best estimates I can find have them peaking at 300 members. They haven't been relevant since the 80's when LaVey got in front of the media during Satanic Panic. TST might have more congregations than CoS has members.

It would be like saying "the Roman Catholic Church, which is different from Christian Scientists".

Despite its name, TST is not affiliated with the Church of Satan

I find it really funny that they need to call this out given the thousands of different Christian churches that all have varying degrees of affiliation or animosity with each other and often nearly indistinguishable names.

As embarrassing as liking a social media post about getting rid of one of your active players?

I mean, that kind of stuff already exists today with the current copyright laws. I remember as a kid reading all sorts of X-Men books and wondering why the characters in the cartoon were so different. Did Han shoot first in Star Wars?

I played the Ratchet and Clank (2016) game this year that's like... Kind of a re-make ish of the first game? Except the story is quite a bit different, there's new characters added and some old ones removed. Half the old levels are gone and there's a couple of new ones added. Mechanically it's a completely different game. And yet that's even from the same studio.

How quickly people forget how common it was to see Roach on rooftops in the Witcher 3.

GTAas an entire series has tons of reels of people doing ridiculous and hilarious things.

I've never understood the weird hate for Bethesda games in that regard.

I would have absolutely zero interest in an Unreal Elder Scrolls or Fallout game.

There's already hundreds, maybe thousands of indie games trying to be that very thing available on steam today and they all suck.

You see, it's funny because marriage is terrible!

No thats Nostradamus

I think this could be stemming from another creator's jokes.

Her name is "CitiesbyDiana". I believe she started doing Cities Skylines and Truck Simulator content but that transformed over time into talking about urbanism in real life. She makes short-form videos that are hyper-edited "brainrot" and usually have AI voices. Either celebrities like Trump and Biden or OC characters like "Lane Man"- a prodigy of Robert Moses who advocates for paving the entire world with highways.

She's also moved to to other things. If you've seen memes about food or pharmaceutical grade glycine from Dongua Jjnglong, it originated with her ironically simping for the company as a joke.

I've noticed she's started to use AI to manipulate videos from podcasts, including Talk Tuah. I haven't seen this particular one video, but this seems right in line with the kind of content she creates.

Just in case you need one more point to dismiss this as ludicrous, Milton is projected to hit 2 of the top 5 Dem-voting counties in Hillsborough (Tampa) and Orange (Orlando).

"Armed settlers"

Incredibly soft language

Lol that's absolutely not an excuse, or else we would see dozens of games with this happen every year. Somehow almost every game to every feature tastefully censored nude scenes managed to do so without modeling genitalia, but Beyond: Two Souls is an exception.

In a world where modeling costs money, studios are looking to spend less time modeling than they need to. Not more.

I remembered something else just after I posted this- i'm surprised it didn't come up in my first searches.

The other controversy was in Beyond: Two Souls. It was one of the first modern games to use motion capture for voice actors to get more realism. After release, people found that the devs had made a fully nude model of one of the characters. They never scanned the actor (Elliott Page) nude, but modeled what was missing. It doesn't appear in normal gameplay, but was accessible in debug mode.

Creepy as fuck.

In fairness to David Cage, his response to those (and other) allegations was:

"I have never said or even thought such things. I fully understand people were shocked by seeing those words, and I am deeply sorry for the pain and confusion they have caused to women and the LGBTQIA+ community. The quotes are abhorrent, and they do not reflect my views, nor the views of anyone at Quantic Dream."

Did he say it and/or believe it? I have no idea. But certainly something to think about before buying a Quantic Dream game.