u/oneandonlysquish

I want to start off by saying that this will be a long post. I have a lot of thoughts to write down, mostly because I’m very passionate about DTI. It’s become one of my favorite and most played games on Roblox and I even recently achieved Top Model. I’ve been playing since before the Brat update ( just a bit before, I think ).

Anyways, I can understand not wanting to do a Pride update. Many Roblox games don’t have one. Many queer people choose to not celebrate Pride. But I think what makes DTI not doing a Pride update disappointing is because the game has many references to queer culture, especially drag culture. The Star Baby walk, the Duck Walk pose, the Death Drop pose, some of the preset makeup and hair, the comically long nails, Style Showdown referencing RuPaul’s Drag Race ( especially with Pose Sync ), gender neutral and alternative clothing, and lastly, Lana and Nurse Julie are canonically lovers. You can also add ALL of the collabs they’ve done, since all of the artists they’ve worked with are icons in the queer pop community.

The devs clearly want to have queer culture in their game, which makes sense since the devs themselves are queer, but they’re not gonna do a small update for Pride? Nobody’s asking for a full scale update with 374553836375373 clothing items, especially not when DTI is gearing towards their summer update. Just Pride patterns or maybe a flag that you can toggle to show different Pride flag designs would’ve been enough.

A point that I’ve seen being brought up is that since DTI has all of the stuff listed previously, doesn’t that count towards showing support all year round as opposed to one month? As in, why would DTI need a Pride update if they do gender neutral/alternative fashion in every update? Isn’t that enough? Aren’t we asking for too much?

That since there’s already all of these references to queer culture, we should be grateful and accept the fact that they will continue to reference queer culture, but never outwardly acknowledge and showcase how queer culture influenced and inspired their game and how their queer influencers helped push the game. Just take all of the small references and stop acting entitled to anything more.

Let them throw a party all about you while you’re uninvited because they don’t want your presence there since you might upset the guests.

In case it isn’t obvious, I’m saying it doesn’t make any sense to not have a Pride update if they’re going to continue to promote themselves as a gender neutral fashion game and constantly reference queer culture. And just because there’s gender neutral clothes and male clothes in game doesn’t mean that it’s equal to the amount of female clothing items. There is a HUGE disparity in not just the amount of male vs female clothing, but in the quality of the neutral clothing items, since most of them are still bugged when equipped to the male model.

Another point I see being brought up is DTI being banned from certain countries that doesn’t support Pride, as stated by Zac. While I can be understanding of not wanting to lose a portion of your player base, haven’t they already alienated people because they chose to highlight countries in massive humanitarian conflicts for the World Culture update? Let me clarify : it’s actually amazing for them to do that, but where was the “we’re worried about losing our players” attitude during that decision? Why is Pride the straw that’s gonna break the camel’s back and not highlighting countries facing famine, gen0cide, and war? Because if 2+2 is 4 and 5+5 is 10…how tf did we get here?

The last thing I want to bring up is the fact that Zac mentioned doing small events like Adopt Me and Royale High have done. I can’t speak much on Royale High, but the fact that Zac brought up ADOPT ME of all games is crazy to me.

Since 2021, Adopt Me has added 2 versions of multiple Pride flags, 2 Robux Pets, Pride toys, Pride pet wear, Pride furniture items, pogo sticks, stickers, and now mega paints. All of this while still being one of the biggest games on the platform and still being considered child friendly. Now granted, the Pride update for this year is small ( especially compared to past updates ), and Adopt Me had to add the Pride mega paints under different names to get past Roblox’s censorship, but the fact that they still went ahead, planned, and executed a Pride update speaks volumes for a game that’s about trading pets and role playing.

In short, it’s pretty disappointing that DTI, a fashion game, won’t have a Pride update in the foreseeable future, considering how interwoven fashion and queer culture are beyond drag. Many huge fashion designers are queer, such as Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Giorgio Armani, etc, and it would’ve been cool to see DTI acknowledge and share the contributions queer people have made in fashion. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if they manage to do a secret update and bypass Roblox’s censorship, if they even plan to. According to Zac, there’s “been talks” about doing that, but given that there’s also “been talks” about adding plus sized models for years now, I have little hope.