You’d think they’d have totally exhausted the lode of all possible scorn and contempt already, but no — they’re still mocking the idiocy well. I thought this was something I’d said before, only they managed to wring out much more disdain out of it than I could.
Trawl through the #gamergate tag — and I really must urge you never to do so under any circumstances — and you’ll find huge a current of complaints about “Social justice warriors.” Gaters often rail against the evil influence of these people complaining about discrimination. No, there isn’t a comma missing after “people.” A large vein of gater traffic is effectively railing for discrimination. Because veins are what carry organic waste to be filtered out.
It’s always hilarious to hear SJW used as an insult. “Social justice warrior” is the basic plot of most ’80s action shows and cartoons. Arriving in places and fighting against discrimination? The A-Team were social justice warriors. It’s practically a synonym for Knight Rider. Insulting someone for respecting other people is like insulting them for masturbating — the fact you don’t do it has way more to do with why you’re so upset all the time.
When you use “wants equality” as an insult, you’re the bad guy. Look around: are you conforming to a movement with a large group of other people? Do you wait for a target and then pile on hoping that sheer numbers will wear them down? Are you wearing some kind of helmet which interferes with your ability to aim lasers at rebels?
Exactly. In my email and on twitter, I get called an SJW all the time, and all I can say in reply is “YES, and proud of it. What’s wrong with you?”
Now THAT’s a jet-fueled precision diss. That paragraph alone’s worth quoting before I’ve even read the rest of the article.
Cracked will never run out of snark. I’m pleasantly surprised that a site which prides itself on being predicated largely on dick jokes is taking the right side of this issue. Because they are killing it.
@Matthew Prorok:
Did you read the article? Right near the end was the father of all modern dick jokes. The seminal dick, if you will, used to great effect in erecting a monumental dick joke.
Woo, those comments! There is even one comparing Quinn to a child molester, because obviously “there needs to be a registry” of wrongdoing. And he has more upvotes than downvotes.
Are we the baddies? [YouTube link]
Confession: when I first saw the term “social justice warrior”, I took it to mean the sort of people who rail against “unwholesome” games and fiction because solving egregious sexism/racism/*ism was too hard. (See also slacktivist, morality police, Frederick Wertham.) As I saw “SJW” applied to more and more people — mostly by tabletop RPG gamers on my Google+ feed — I finally saw the hostility toward any attempt to address sexism, or indeed anyone who identified him- or herself as a feminist. A couple of game designers in particular went from mild sexism to gibbering Dave Sim lunacy … although maybe it was just my perception, and the rabid anti-feminism was always there.
BTW, the name “Rebecca Watson” seemed to trigger the most over-the-top reactions, akin to “Niagra Falls” in the old Slowly I Turned vaudeville routine.
Stroke of brilliance, that.
Crip Dyke: this one? (image)
.
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(spoiler and image description)
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.
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(it’s an engraved currency image of Freud with a caption reading “In this one case, it might really be all dicks.”)
It only makes sense that Social Justice Warrior is a thought of as an insult among Social Justice Barbarians.
When I joined the Social Justice Warrior Academy, I had hoped to receive my own talking car. Instead, I get flown around the country after being knocked unconscious. =:-(
So oblivious; they need mocking.
“Hans… are we the baddies?”
Chie Satonaka
Huh. I just read it and there’s no comments coming up at all. No little spinny disk showing its loading or a button or anything. The comment section is gone. I wonder if this is Cracked realizing their stance and their fans are wildly opposed and figuring out what to do about it.
Or this is just one comment section was so toxic even Cracked had to shut it down.
JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness
You’re right, the comments are totally gone now.
It looks like they’ve turned off comments on all the articles now.
I thought Social Justice Warrior is meant to be mockery much like the way we use “Freeze Peach” to mock assholes who believe that common decency is a bad thing (and somehow relates to the first amendment).
It’s just that they really are railing against Social Justice, as far as I can see.
Ugh. People are still commenting on the Cracked Facebook page, though.
…of course they did. ::facepalm::
Ah yes, “social justice warrior” is a term that came from Tumblr. I think “warrior” is meant in the sense of “zealot”–someone who blindly fights for social justice, regardless of any collateral damage, and believes they are right about everything because their cause is righteous.
I think there are many justifiable complaints about Tumblr, but “SJW” is a stupid term that fails to identify the problem.
I can’t express how pleased I am that I’m not even the second person to think of that Mitchell and Webb sketch in the context of the gater movement. The lack of introspection is incredible.
Cracked proper has had regulars fighting the good fight in their comment sections for at least a couple of years, going back at least to John Cheese’s articles drawing from his own experience with addiction and poverty. The more Cracked hews toward social justice, though (and the more they deal with feminism, specifically) the worse the douche contingent of their comments becomes. Many of the determined dirtbags are regulars, too, dating from back when Cracked *used* a lot more misogynistic comedy tropes than they (mostly) do now.
I have no idea what they’re up to with their comment sections right now – I’ve mostly stayed out for a year or more – but I’d bet their editorial staff is discussing it. They started off with an anything-goes sort of comment section but that’s likely not cutting it anymore these days, either for Cracked specifically or the net in general.
miller:
Any person who thinks Social Justice Warrior is a slur is either an idiot or vile. I don’t care where you fall on the spectrum of feminism, racism or classism. If you think calling someone a “social justice warrior” is some kind of bad thing, either your morality is f-ed up to levels where even Doctor Doom would look at you a bit askance or you’re an idiot.
Also, Superman and Lois Lane were social justice warriors before the silver age, and Farm Boy could be quite a nasty one to boot.
***
I suspect that it started that way, that originally it was meant as a sarcastic way to describe pretend warriors, the kind of people who overuse ideological jargon in order to demonstrate their “ideological purity” but would never move their sorry ass to actually defend the cause they pretend to love more than anyone else.
It’s quite clearly not the case anymore nowadays.
Comments are back up at Cracked. Looks like it was just an issue with their system. Nothing’s been deleted, or at least there are still 1400 comments on that article, most filled with tearful angst about how Cracked is just so meeeeeaaaaan.
Pteryxx
Gods, I hope so. They are definitely good commenters there, sometimes even at the top with assholes getting downvotes but that asshole contingent is nasty. Then with posts like the ones about Gamergate, they just seemed to get reinforced, which sadly makes sense because it’s so bad even I’ve stayed out of commenting there. There’s also that limit on downvotes/upvotes so I’ve seen several complain about that because there’s just too many assholes that they get overrun, which is why I usually find the comments getting more progressive as I load more because people tried but are outnumbered with no support or backup.
From what I’ve seen comments nowadays are usually assholes, the few fighting them and those complaining about “the new Cracked”, which mostly amounts to “SJW’s have taken over! Stop being so sensitive! Where is the funny?!?!” Might as well go whole hog, IMO, since the assholes are already threatening to leave and changing the comment section could bring a new batch of people.
@Jerthebarbarian
“SJW” is in fact a slur, sort of like how “fag” is a slur despite there being nothing actually wrong with being a fag.
I think many people who use the term “SJW” fancy themselves supporting social justice and equality. They see themselves as only criticizing the excesses of radical social justice bloggers. However, this should be taken about as seriously as the fact that Christina Hoff Sommers considers herself a feminist who only criticizes “radical” feminism. People who use SJW as a slur are anti-social-justice whether they think of themselves that way or not.
PatrickG
Damn, there goes that ray of hope. Oh well, their place, their rules. Sadly, this article’s comment section seems better than usual, especially considering the reactions to their first article on the subject. But that’s subject to change with new comments and as people vote away on them.
Sorry.
I just had to post that, for the mental imagery it conjures up.
–
JAL – that reminds me, more recently I’ve also seen Cracked writers snarking at their own commenters, usually pre-emptively. There’s been more than one ‘and if you agree with this in the comments you’re a terrible person’ sort of jab. The only one I can find to cite right now was the excellent Ferguson article which made SO many appeals to future commenters that it had to be meta-snark of some kind.
The reason the term “SJW” fails as an insult, despite the motive behind it, is that whoever coined the phrase has a poor grasp of English and how we process language.
“Social” : good!
“Justice”: also good!
“Warrior”: often good! (and in American culture in particular, really good!)
“Warrior” in particular is the interesting word here. It carries a lot of good connotations: honor, fairness, persistence, ability to get shit done. “Warrior” is like “soldier” but with more old-world drama attached. “Warrior” also carries more connotation of it being an avocation and the person being self-motivated and independent-acting. (Contrast with “soldier” who can be those things, but also has to obey orders. Most of them are near the bottom of a complex command structure.)
Double irony that the jerks who use SJW as an insult are typically manly-manly dudes who wish they were Conan the Barbarian.
Pteryxx
Ooooh! You’re right, I’d totally forgotten about that. I keep feeling like there’s more than just the Ferguson article that does it too but arsed if I can remember any. Maybe in one of their other #Gamergate articles? Hmm. I’ll keep thinking and looking when I get the chance.
I was rather surprised when the US military started calling its soldiers “warriors” in its advertising, and not surprised that it happened specifically under Fearless Flightsuit. I was used to “warrior” meaning “random bloke with a weapon”, as opposed to “soldier” meaning “a trained, paid member of an army”. So, I interpret “SJW” as intended to mean “crazed barbarian with a battleaxe who doesn’t understand what he’s doing, blinded by his cause”.
I grew up with that banknote ^_^ It’s 50 Schilling, about 3 1/2 €.
Yep.
Most of the comments I read were “Why are we still talking about this?” “This is clickbait!” “ANOTHER article about this???”
WHICH IS SUPER WEIRD. If you don’t care about something, then why the hell did you click it? Why would you clearly take the time to read it? Why would you bother to comment on it?
And it’s not like one or two comments. Some of them were the most UPVOTED comments. That kind of dedication to not caring baffles my brain.
JAL – I don’t have resources to search right now but I swear I’ve seen pre-emptive comment jabs in Cracked articles touching on sexism and rape and such, and not just in the last few months. When I have a chance I’ll look at my archive. Some of them probably are Cracked articles I’ve linked *here* in the last year or two.
I have no data for this, but anecdotally I first recall seeing “Social Justice Warrior” on blogs on Tumblr that were active in various causes, especially writers working on intersectional issues of race and gender. I don’t think it started out as a slur for those users – it seemed to be used as a call to arms for people who were embracing a less soft-spoken position and moving beyond “activism” into stronger action. The idea was talking politely wasn’t enough, people needed to not just support or be allies but be “warriors” for equality.
It was turned into an epithet by the trolls who targeted people who used the label (mostly women of color, go figure).
(Again, anecdata, consume with appropriate amounts of salt.)
miller @ 25
Funny you should make that comparison, because SJW is a newer term. It’s a polite one. The one that people accept and use without seeing it as a slur, because there aren’t any mean words in it.
A few years ago “justice fag” was getting tossed around, but I guess it was just a little too obvious.
David Marjanović #31
(Warning: anecdote from vaguely remembered TV documentary.)
I recall seeing a thing about the US Marines turning from the long-accepted idea that you have to dehumanise the enemy in order to get soldiers to be willing to kill them, toward instilling a more positive attitude of being the protectors of those who the enemy want to harm. It’s purely a guess on my part that they’re connected, but the “warriors” thing certainly fits that ethos.
I was wanting to distance myself from the term “gamer” but it felt as weird as distancing myself from the term “American” just because of the war mongering immigrant hating Americans. They make a good point here. Playing games is now as ubiquitous as watching TV or reading a book, so the term “gamer” doesn’t even mean anything any more.
I’ll go ahead and use the term “gater” too. The only outsiders accidentally grouped up with that term are news reporters insisting that every scandal is a “gate” of some sort, and I’ll gladly get the two confused.
David Marjanović@31:
Seen one way, it’s barbarians rampaging across the landscape, disorganized. But of course that’s actually propaganda from the other side. The Romans could call them “barbarians” all they wanted, but when they bring down the largest empire in the world, there must be a little more to them than mindless looting and pillaging…and oh, hey, there was.
Consider the phrase “warrior caste.” Lots of cultures had warrior castes, and those guys historically tended to be in charge of things. About the only counter to a warrior caste was a religious caste, because the only thing scarier than a guy who’s going to kill you in this life is the guy saying you’ll be tortured forever in an afterlife if you don’t listen to him (or her. But historically mostly him).
Who doesn’t want to be part of the elite caste in charge of things?
I’ve always parsed SJW as snark with a similar connotation to armchair quarterback–someone who does a lot of talking but not a lot of doing–but with an added zing that anyone who concerns themselves with social justice is mockable because “social justice” is one of those academic, post-modern, politically correct jargony terms that bleeding heart liberal effeminate males and radical communist butch females came up with.
@Mellowmonkey and drst
The knowyourmeme page I linked above confirms that the most common usage of SJW is pejorative (though I’m honestly not sure if that was the original usage). I’m happy that you only see happy associations with the term “social justice warrior” and all the more power to you if you feel you can reclaim it. Personally, I like how anti-SJW people shot themselves in the foot by basically admitting that they oppose social justice, and I have no desire to take that away from them.
SJW is like the opposite of “Teabagger.” SJW was intended to be snarky and belittling, but it sounds so positive that the targets of it don’t even get offended and in fact are happy to say, “Yeah, okay, I’m a social justice warrior. Good for me!”
Whereas the original Tea Party called themselves Teabaggers, much to the amusement of those of us who (a) were opposed to them, and (b) knew the other meaning of that word.
Yeah, language is not a strong suit of conservatives, is it.
miller @ 41, oh, no. I wasn’t disagree with your description of it at all. I was emphasizing what you said by pointing to the earlier term “justice fag”, not disagreeing. The fact that it doesn’t contain any “bad words” means a lot of people don’t recognize it for what it is, in the same way many people will miss certain racist/sexist/classist dog whistles because, gosh, they didn’t hear a bad word in there. The fact that they don’t recognize it doesn’t mean it’s not being used that way; it just makes it easier for people to spread it around and ignore exactly how vile the concept is.
“I’m angry at you and going to make fun of you because you care about social justice” can’t be anything but nasty.
I had never put those two reactions together in my head before, but that is pretty spot-on.
Wow, this I didn’t know:
These guys couldn’t be any more stereotypical losers if they tried.
Meanwhile, over on tumblr, I keep seeing people respond to accusations of SJW-hood with things like, Well, actually, I identify as more of a social justice wizard. [casts Magic Missile against the Darkness]
“time how long it took for her to appear naked, and then stuffed with and possessing every genital configuration ever imagined.
Rule 34, ayup!
Not to invoke Godwin’s Law – I’m not comparing them to actual Nazis by any stretch of the imagination – but these people complaining about SJWs always remind me of Mitchell & Webb’s SS officers suddenly realizing they might be the badguys. Except of course that they haven’t quite orked it out yet…
Oh, for the love of… stop with that Mitchell & Webb sketch already!
These people really are Nazis – hats and all. Don’t believe me? Go to 4chan\b\ or to 8chan and look at the threads. When I was there they were praising Ebola-Chan (who is also an anime girl) for cleansing the world of those who don’t belong to the “white master race”. Then they went on to talk about how South Park is too PC because it’s “half-Jew”.
They literary are Nazis.
OK, my fave phallic joke so far:
I’m sure there are more, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Thanks to CD @ #3 for prodding me to actually read the thing…it is indeed monumentally snarky!
I’ll just leave this here.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/25/gamergate-an-issue-with-2-sides/
@Rivendellyan #51
If your TechCrunch article is to be believed — and notably it failed to mention Zoe Quinn at all, never mind the death threats lobbed at her and her defenders — “GamerGate” sounds a lot like the Tea Party: an astroturfed movement that initially suckered in people with genuine concerns but rapidly became a vehicle for the lunatic fringe.
OTOH, I suspect the author hijacked the whole GamerGate mania to air his own views under the guise of “objectivity”.
My interpretation of “Social Justice Warrior” is that it’s meant to be a sarcastic putdown of certain activists who are perceived as acting knee-jerk politically correct and excessively hostile about it. Exactly what defines “SJW” is of course messy, and it’s true that the term has been thrown about carelessly in much the same way as “communist” and “fascist”. However, it appears to be most commonly applied to certain individuals who express hatred, intolerance, or irrational prejudice towards so-called majority or privileged groups. Misandrists and black supremacists for example are typically squeezed together into the SJW category.
Though if you think about, extreme hostility towards men, white people, heterosexuals, etc. isn’t really in line with the actual social justice platform either.
“Why are you against men’s rights activists? Are you against men’s rights?”
Setting aside that the insult is clearly sarcastic, this argument is stupid.
I commented, calling it a fluff piece. Which it was: there was little contained therein that wasn’t in their previous articles.
Brandon Pilcher 53:
[Citation needed]
That’s a big problem in your alternate universe, is it? Huh.
@ Jacob Schmidt #54
“Social Justice Warriors” attempt to promote social justice, even if some of them go too far.
“Men’s Rights Activists”, on the other hand, almost never talk about actual men’s rights; they’re by and large obsessed with shouting down feminists and asserting the inferiority of women. (See wehuntedthemammoth.com for examples.)
Brandon Pilcher @53:
??
The vast majority of the time, when I’ve seen SJW thrown out as an insult, it’s directed at people who speak out and criticize social injustice. That’s not the same thing as expressing hatred, intolerance, or irrational prejudice of majority/privileged groups.
ICYMI: Soren Bowie et al. at the Cracked tumblog.
@Tony! #57
I think he means “hatred, intolerance, or irrational prejudice” in the fundamentalist Christian sense, i.e. public protest.
To be reductionist:
Notice how the “good” group and the “bad” group both have “good” names? Notice how the “goodness” of the group is independent from the “goodness” of the name? There are plenty examples, including the American Family Association (“Why are you against family?”), Fathers 4 Justice (“What? You’re against fathers now?), Canadian Heritage Alliance (“How can you be against pride in Canadian Heritage? You’re the racist one!), etc.
I lost it at, “it’s an epic saga screamed into the outside of a locked door at kneeling height.”
That tumblr post is freaking hilarious.
Not quite correct. It’s frequently applied, fallaciously and pejoratively, to just about anyone who advocates for or publicly supports equal treatment for mostly women but also minorities, etc, completely regardless of their specific conduct. Lately it’s been used by many people from common garden trolls, right up to Dawkins, to insult people who support feminism and who call out sexist behaviour. Using SJW as an insult not only dismisses the target as someone to be ignored or mocked, it’s a signal to others to do the same.
As for misandrists and black supremacists, anyone calling them a SJW or lumping them in with feminists or LGBT supporters or racial equality advocates is the complete opposite of correct. Sexism and racism are wrong regardless of who engages in them and regardless of who the targets are.
That’s right, it isn’t. Which is why people who advocate for social justice don’t display extreme hostility toward men, whites or heteros (or if they do, they’re either doing social justice bass-ackwards wrong). This is because social justice isn’t a zero-sum game where the only way for the discriminated to “win” is to oppress and marginalise their discriminators.
You don’t have to even be a SJW to recognise that if one “side” loses, everybody does and the project fails. Social justice is about equality, for crying out loud – it’s in the name! – it’s not about a revolution to overthrow the privileged.
Note that I’m not accusing you but, for fucks sake, I do wish people would get that into their heads. Social justice has social, legal, economic, professional etc. equality for all people as its goal. All people, as in “everybody wins.” In wealthy countries like the US and mine, Australia, that kind of goal is a reachable no-brainer; the only thing holding it back is social and political inertia combined with ideological opposition to change.
From the tech crunch link by Rivendellyan’s #51:
No indeed. No one seeks to ferment a bitter brew from fear and panic.
That’s why brewers use hops.
…damn but that was a useless article.
As a straight white man, I thought I’d correct that for you.
Since posting this, I’ve gotten about 30 emails and twitter messages from people announcing that they are unsubscribing/unfollowing me, because I dared to agree with that Cracked article. These people are really, really bizarre.
Why do I suspect it is nothing but blather, or, if honest, they did subscribe/follow you for all of thirty seconds before rescinding the order….
How many of them actually read here? That you agree with the article is not surprising in the least.
PZ:
I’m sure you’re terribly distressed about this. Will you require the fainting chair?
How will you recoup the losses from lost clicks?
Are you going to provoke some outr…
*jumps on soogeeoh*
SHHHHHH!!!! Don’t give away the plan!
Zoe Quinn is a complete fraud, and now everyone knows it, despite her and her sycophants doing everything in their power (i.e., throwing temper tantrums) to keep the truth from getting out. Don’t forget to donate!
Laura Sanchez @72:
Arguments by assertion aren’t going to get you anywhere around here. You need to pony up with evidence that supports your claim that she’s a “complete fraud”. No one is going to take your opinion at face value. Incidentally, you have an uphill battle bc your opinion is not shared by most of the commentariat. I look forward to seeing you provide evidence to support your claim, and hopefully that will be forthcoming quite soon.
Toodles.
So the opposite of a “social justice warrior” would be an “antisocial injustice bystander,” which doesn’t *quite* describe these guys, since they’re pretty actively enforcing the status quo. Maybe “antisocial injustice enforcer” would sound good to their horrid little ears.
fpjeromeiv @74:
I think Social Injustice Enforcer works well.
Hrm, good point. It’s a remarkably social enterprise.
Some people have taken to calling the whole thing #GamerGhazi.
Still does not justify threats and harassment. Next troll, this one’s too weak to last a round!
Only tangentially related I suppose, but did anyone else notice the Humble Bundle weekly sale? It’s a collection of games with female protagonists, and the charity of choice this week is a young women’s scholarship fund for the gaming industry.
I don’t know if it’s a specific reaction to the whole ‘#gamergate’ thing (#GamerGhazi?), but it’s great to see something else positive going on :)
Back on topic – I’d be proud to be called a ‘Social Justice Warrior’.
One common refrain from gaters (love that term, btw) to justify the righteousness of their cause is to cite the charitable donation made by 4chan to a charity promoting women in gaming (I’m assuming this is was Laura Sanchez is referring). The only problem is it isn’t a charity and it isn’t aimed at helping women. It’s a for-profit organisation (The Fine Young Capitalists) with close ties to a game development company (Autobotika) that is rather cynically using the gater movement to line their own pocket. (Seriously, the big clue is in their fucking name…)
Laura Sanchez @ 72
I know this is a pointless request, but explain how this is true. Her game is pay-what-you-want (which includes free if you’re the kind of asshat who thinks people shouldn’t profit from their creativity). She made donations of some of those proceeds to a charity (which actually happened despite the best efforts of gaters to deny and then vilify her doing so). The game was never fucking reviewed by any of the people she allegedly slept with for favourable reviews (unless you’re a complete fucking sociopath who thinks that mentioning Depression Quest in a list amongst 49 other titles accepted onto Steam comprises an “endorsement”).
The reason why so many gaming sites talked about it is because it’s not the same bullshit dwarves-and-elves, jumpy-jumpy-platformer, pew-pew-shooty-men crap they have to talk about every. single. fucking. day to satisfy the emotionally stunted gaters.
I’ll just leave this here:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByUQQ6KIYAAPl-n.jpg:large
The million dollar question: How can we defeat these gaters / Vulcans/ fanboys so we can all enjoy what we enjoy without having to pull a #notallX when we talk to people outside of the fold who have only seen the gaters/Vulcans/babymen in action due to their excessive loudness?
Brandon Pilcher (#53)
Not only is this completely wrong, but who the hell are you to decide what is rational or irrational for oppressed people to feel towards oppressors? Seriously, why do you think you would be an appropriate judge of that sort of thing?
My favourite 80’s action social justice warrior show was “The Equalizer”.
Because of Edward Woodward.
Brandon Pilcher #53
And what do you mean by “are politically correct”? And “excessively hostile about it? “It” being people who are “politically correct”?
So
Fucking
Vague.
The negative use of SJW reminds me of the use of “hipster” as a pejorative:
Hipster: someone who feigns interest in something I don’t like in order to appear cool
Social Justice Warrior: someone who feigns support of an ethical position I don’t agree with in order to appear cool
In both cases, the user is incapable of believing someone would actually feel that way, so it has to be a pose.
The only thing I didn’t like in that otherwise hilarious and insightful article was the once again throwing gamers under the bus. I love how people just get to appropriate an identity that’s been mine all my life and drag it through the muck, and everyone just goes along with it.
#NotAllGamers. Sure. Whatever.
I mean, is it literally that people don’t know that “Gamers” are a thing quite apart from misogynist 4chan trolls? That maybe some people do define their lives through playing games and that maybe there isn’t actually anything wrong with that?
jedibear, #53
Do you think a new group of people just appeared out of nowhere and they happened to be sexist, abusive assholes and then they started calling themselves “gamers”?
Oh, jedibear.
They were there all along.
@Matthew Trevor #80
Let me stop you there for a second. It is not a hostile act to download Quinn’s game for free. Actually, she recommends that you do just that in her Cracked article. She doesn’t even say “pay what you want.” She says “free.”
And you know what? Some people actually have resource limitations, so maybe take that attitude and fuck right off with it.
Also, you seem to be forgetting the fact that GAMERS, a lot of them women, are the ones speaking out against the harassment. Other gamers, not just you and your pals, feel that the environment isn’t very welcome to female and non-hetero-white-males. This isn’t just about 4chan. And this isn’t just about gamers or gaming, either.
Not my point, @marilove #53
Gamers are a huge community, and like most communities, we have some misogynist trolls.
Who, for the moment, seem to have convinced the Internet that they speak for all of us.
@marilove #90
You have made an unwarranted assumption.
What isn’t your point? You’re not clear.
These aren’t merely trolls. You’re dismissing a systematic problem that isn’t just about gaming. Have you been paying attention?
What assumption?? Again, you’re not clear. I’m not making any assumptions.
#NotAllGamers in-fucking-deed.
More like #NotJustAboutGaming
More like #SystematicFuckingProblem
and
#WayToDerail
From the top of the article:
You seem to have latched onto the last words of the paragraph while ignoring the first. Not only is the author saying the assholes do not “represent gamers”, but he refuses to even call them gamers throughout the article as a result.
The fact that most game-playing people don’t “define their lives” through games doesn’t stop you from doing so. Just try to not be one of the assholes while you’re at it.
I get why the author said that, kagato, and I agree that “not all gamers” are terrible misogynists. But remember, this sort of harassment was happening *before* 4chan came into the picture. It’s not like women haven’t had to put up with a ton of harassment while gaming since like gaming was even a thing or anything…
And it doesn’t really help if these swell male gamers aren’t speaking out against the harassment.
And “speaking out against the harassment” does not include demanding that every time this discussion comes up, we must remember that #NotAllGamers! are misogynist jerks. Okay great! Some gamers act like reasonable, respectful people! Well, aren’t they awesome, acting like reasonable, respectful adults. Not all gamers are jerks and treat women with respect. HOORAY!
You seem to be more concerned with the reputation of gamers (which, not so incidentally, includes you!), and reassuring us that some gamers are totally acting like reasonable people … like they should be expected to … rather than, oh, I don’t know, being concerned about the women being harassed.
Do you want a cookie for acting like a reasonable adult and treating others (in this case, women) with respect? They’ll be store bought, I warn you.
I don’t disagree, marilove. I just thought it strange that jedibear’s complaint about the article was directly contradicted by the article text itself.
#NotAllGamers ? how about
#EnoughGamersToCallTheProblemEndemic
jedibear is feeling defensive, like it is a personal attack against their character, and obviously jedibear is the One True Gamer.
Indeed.
Well we already know that third-wave feminists (i.e., not real feminists) are incapable of arguing their “points,” since they scream misogyny whenever anyone calls disagrees with their garbage, but pretending to be oppressed would be a step too far, don’t you think? If they were capable of feeling shame, of course :)
Yes, the complete inability of the fake feminists to establish such a thing is no doubt a cause for consternation among them, but don’t worry, repeat it enough times and it’ll magically become true, I promise ;)
Say, when should we be hearing your moral indignation over gamergaters being doxxed and receiving death threats? Put it right here ———>
Sarcasm and irony detectors has been overloaded lately. I can’t tell if Laura Sanchez’s posts are parody or real.
Damn you Poe’s Law!
For just one example, consider the #CancelColbert Twitter campaign from a few months back. Stephen Colbert use obvious (and funny IMO) satire to mock the irony of the Washington Redskins’ “efforts” to reach out to Native Americans, but a bunch of kids on Twitter threw a shit-fit because his satire invoked racial slurs against Asians (never mind that anyone with half a brain could discern that those “slurs” were meant to show how offensive the Redskins’ team name is). Demanding that a certain show be canceled because you were too clueless to comprehend (pro-social justice) satire is a textbook example of excessively hostile political correctness if I ever saw one.
Maybe these kids don’t represent the whole social justice movement, but they are what most people have in mind when they say “SJW”. Let’s not pretend that there ever existed any political movements which are impervious to assholes.
I think we can all agree that racism, sexism, and other oppressive ideologies are wrong regardless of whom they’re directed at. In the US and other Western nations, anti-PoC racism might be the most damaging in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn’t necessarily make anti-white racism justified either.
You talking generally, Laura, or you do have a specific complaint?
It’s not like there’s been any published research on whether female gamers get worse treatment than male gamers online or anything.
http://nms.sagepub.com/content/15/4/541
Sure! I hereby declare my outrage over anyone who is receiving death threats! Never acceptable, never OK.
But, you do have some examples, I assume? I’ve seen plenty of documented cases of women being threatened, and hounded offline (or even out of their homes), especially as a direct fallout of #gamergate, but somehow I’m not really finding anything in the other direction. I don’t assert that it’s never happened of course, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be widespread.
Still, I’m sure you’re not just “tu quoquing” to dismiss the problem…
@Laura Sanchez
Fuck off, misogynist troll.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Brandon Pilcher (#104)
No, I don’t think we can all agree on that, because your understanding of those concepts is so warped as to be meaningless. That you believe there’s such thing as anti-white racism is proof. Nor does this answer my question. (Well, I can guess the answer, but I want you to try to cough up a justification.)
Why do you think you are a better, more rational judge of how to react to oppression than actual oppressed people?
Brandon Pilcher @ 103
Slurs (why the scare quotes?) are offensive words intended to shame an oppressed group of people, especially when used by someone belonging to a more privileged group. They should be handled with utmost care, and only used if really necessary. They are not something to dismiss so easily, and satire can be done wrong.
I wouldn’t have have called for the takedown of Colbert’s show, but I can clearly see why some people felt outraged. While definitely unfriendly, I don’t see how this is “excessively hostile behavior”.
By the way, “Political correctness” Is a right wing term used to dismiss any response to flat out discriminatory speech against several groups of people. It is usually used to cover the asses of people punching down the power ladder.
Laura Sanchez, can you answer any of the points I raised above or does your entire schtick revolve around drive-by inanities?
Brandon Pilcher @ 103
People weren’t responding to the show but to this tweeted comment from that segment:
In no way was it obvious that it was a comment on the Redskins.
The “funny” thing is you similarly took an issue out of context and used it to push your own agenda, which seems to be little more than trying to show your own intellectual superiority.
Brandon Pilcher, I think you might benefit from a bit of reading. You might want to try and think about what you’re reading, too: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.
Somebody is being a bigot on the internet. It is you. Prima facie evidence you dismiss feminism.
Since you dismiss people, you are dismissed. Don’t like it, shut the fuck up and listen and learn, so you stop spewing stupidity.
How ironic it is that the same gamers complaining about this are so free to do the exact same thing with “Social Justice Warrior”, among other labels.
Hah! Yes, this.
One of the frustrating things about the gibbering mob is that it makes it effectively impossible to have any sort of nuanced conversation about any of this. Sometimes I hear something from the “good guys” (if you will) and I’m like, “Hey, that doesn’t sound right to me…” It might be nice to say so, and make my point, and maybe somebody would explain to me why my thinking is wrong, or maybe I’d have a good point and it would make somebody else think, etc…. But how can I say, “Hey, I agreed with 90% of your post, but this 10% seems wrongheaded to me” when there is a horde of stormtroopers calling for rape and death over 100% of the post? At best, I might get mistaken for a concern troll.
All of this is not the worst thing: Agreeing with somebody who is 90% right is a pretty okay thing to do :D But it would be nice if we could actually talk about those dodgy feudal inheritance issues in Minas Tirith, instead of having to constantly battle the forces of Sauron.
marilove is on my internets again? The world is truly a wonderful place.
Brandon Pilcher @ 103
You make that assumption that “most people” think of that particular (really minor and not well known) example when they hear the term “SJW” based on what empirical evidence?
@104
There cannot be racism against a dominant majority. Racism = prejudice + power. There is no institutional power available to non-white populations in Western societies to enact racism against whites. Learn what words mean before you spout off on the internet about them.
Are we gonna pretend that SJWs are not frequently described as over-sensitive, white-male hating, overly PC, etc? It seems rather clear to me that they are, and that such is the basis on which the term is used as an insult.
Honestly, this annoys me. The common use of the term is “prejudice based on race.” That someone is using that definition does not mean they don’t what words mean.
@Jacob Schmidt
Are you under the impression that Cracked has a ‘no fluff piece’ requirement or something? Why would you bother to post a comment calling it a fluff piece?
No seriously, I really want to understand the psychology behind this decision. It boggles my brain.
doublereed @ 116: Comedy websites shouldn’t waste their time making comedic observations about the world and current events. This is why George Carlin was never funny and definitely never made dick jokes, because he understood that comedy requires an utter absence of fluff.
(Phew. I think I blew my sarcasm stash on that.)
Not the full idea, so why not link to show you are right. Then somebody will supply a link showing your concept is not full enough. Dictionary definitions are terse, often too terse, since they need to be. Reality tend to be messier, and include power/privilege differentials.
Also “gater” is perfect as it also rhymes with “hater”!
Jacob@ 115:
If you’re Al Stefanelli, sure.
Oh FFS. Did you go have a dip in the River Stupid while you were away? Common usage, fine. Common usage is not the whole of the definition, either, and I’m pretty sure you know that already.
“Social Justice Warrior!”: Because Social Justice ain’t REAL justice, and because caring about shit is, like, totally uncool, dudes.
It’s not surprised that the Cracked comment section would be flooded with sneers of “SJW”. They are the most hardcore apathists I have ever seen.
Masturgater.
Jacob Schmidt:
What a fluff comment. Trifling and irrelevant.
Fancy that. The culture uses “racism” in a vague way that is stripped of any sense of perspective such that whining privileged white doodz can whine about anti-white “racism”. Who would think that such would the common understanding of racism in a predominantly white society!? Truly amazing. And we are supposed to just look the other way when people bleat about “anti-white racism” because the simplistic idea of “racism” that completely overlooks cultural clout and power also happens, conveniently, to be the most popular definition of racism?
I’m not saying the description is generally accurate,* only that it is fairly frequent, and denying that is both wrong and pointless.
1) I never left.
2) Oi. There are two definitions attached to the word racism: “prejudice based on race” and “institutionalized prejudice based on race,” (i.e. the “power+prejudice). The former is over broad and frequently used by whiny twits to pretend some minority being mean to them is equivalent to systemic discrimination. It is, non the less, a valid definition, and criticizing people for not knowing what the word means is silly. You want to criticize someone for making false equivalences and lacking perspective? Cool, I’m right behind that.
—
*The extent to which it is accurate is negligible as far as I’m concerned.
@ Brandon Pilcher
And there’s no possibility that the problem was that you didn’t understand the objection, is there? Of course not. It must that they’re overreacting; it must be that they’re too clueless to understand that satire. It must be that you’re just so much more astute than all those people complaining about nothing for no good reason. Just like PZ must be rage blogging for the clicks because he couldn’t possibly have a legit criticism. Members of dominant groups don’t get to use members of marginalized groups as cudgels against oppressors. It’s exactly like Muslim/ex-Muslim women objecting to Dawkins, Harris, et. al. using their stories as a cudgel against western feminists.
TL;DR Fuck off with that shit.
I haven’t yet seen “Social Justice Warrior” used in any context BUT dismissal of any person defending minorities. When people say there was another definition, I have to take their word.
Wow, for people who pretend that there aren’t any assholes posing as “Social Justice Warriors”, you lot are almost a textbook example of that trend.
Only because you quoted Colbert’s statement out of context. This is what he actually said:
And for those of you invoking the “Invisible Knapsack” of White Privilege, have you considered that Suey Park and her acolytes may not represent an Asian-American consensus on whether this is offensive? A cursory glance at the #DontCancelColbert tag on Twitter finds plenty of Asian people who didn’t interpret Colbert’s joke as offensive the way Park did. Are their opinions any less valid than Park’s? Or do Asian people’s opinions only matter when they agree with your own ideology?
Jacob Schmidt @ 115
Apparently I hang out in very different corners of the internet than you, since as I said the other day, most of the times I’ve heard “social justice warrior” have been from people either proclaiming themselves to be one or mocking other people for trying to use it as an epithet.
No. My definition is the correct understanding of what racism is. That Brandon doesn’t seem to grasp the power dynamic inherent in racism and thus thinks there can be anti-white racism, or that you’re hiding behind some vague idea of “common use” to defend him, is not my fault.
There are a couple of things with this. Most often, this ‘high-level satire’ is just hipster racism, or hipster sexism. Seth MacFarlane is the king of this kind of thing. It’s not actually clever satire if the only thing that makes it satire is that you personally don’t agree with the view. Like MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs!” bit at the Oscars. Believe me, the joke was not over people’s heads. It was just poorly executed, and it’s not actually transformed into a hilarious bit just because those executing it are liberal, or pro-social justice, any more than calling your black friend “my nigga!” is turned into a clever inversion of racist tropes because you’re friends and you don’t personally condone racism. (I’m not saying you and your friends can’t call each other whatever you want, but don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re sticking it to racism in some ingeniously novel way.)
I never denied that racism against minorities has more power to damage on a large scale than racism against majorities. That still doesn’t mean that majorities can never be targets of racism. Seriously, just type “define:racism” into the Google search engine and this is what you get:
This says nothing about how only majorities can be racist. But even if we’re to redefine racism to cover only anti-minority discrimination, that can never eliminate the fact that anyone regardless of race can have a hateful and stereotypical attitude towards people outside their own social circle. Furthermore, if a minority individual has such an attitude towards an entire majority, what do they do when someone from that majority shows sympathy to the minority? It’s like that scene from Malcolm X in which the title character dismisses a white person who asks if white people could ever contribute to civil rights activism.
What? Asians don’t all think as a bloc, just like women? No, that’s never ever ever occurred to anyone here, and I’d like to ask you respectfully if I can nominate you to the Nobel Prize committee for your groundbreaking insight.
And Phyllis Schlafly, a woman, thinks women should stay at home. Checkmate, feminists! Brandon’s got your number.
Have you considered that people of colour, and women, might also be awash in a racist/sexist society and have internalized racist/sexist themes? Have you considered that a racist/sexist society punishes those who speak up, and that sometimes also includes people of colour, or women doing the punishing?
Have you considered that these themes and ideas are a lot more complex than the ‘PoC/Woman perspective good, white man perspective bad’ stereotype you seem to have in your head of social justice issues? Because SJW certainly have.
The lack of consideration is on you, bro.
This isn’t a ‘redefinition’ of racism. It’s a clarification of the term. It’s not about anti-minority discrimination, it’s about structures and institutions of power. Certainly PoC can be bigoted and prejudiced, but since they typically lack access to and control of power structures and institutions in North America (at least), then the power differential is in play.
The reason for this clarification of what racism refers to (in contrast with bigotry or prejudice) is specifically to highlight why, for instance, ‘cracker’ is just as bad as ‘nigger’ is a false equivalence.
I really hope you don’t think you’re coming in here with a bunch of ‘gotchas’ that nobody’s considered, Brandon. You’ve brought a Chick tract to a literature fight.
Here’s the thing which you cannot comprehend: Colbert’s joke was not advocating racism. It was mocking racism. This is fucking obvious if you read Colbert’s actual fucking statement in its full context!
Sure, there are minorities who internalize racist stereotypes about their own people. Minority conservatives are a perfect example of this. Nonetheless, there is a self-evident difference between “I think my own group is inferior” and “I can understand satire mocking racism”. Why are people on this blog too fucking stupid to understand this?
If this is the worst that it gets, then it sounds pretty reasonable to me. Seriously, what a small complaint. #CancelColbert is the example you use?
This is talking about #gamergate, where people were sending death threats and harassment to women developers for essentially doing nothing, and then pretending that it was about gaming journalism. And you relate this to some excessive twitter campaign, in which most people were not actually demanding the cancellation of anything? (That was just a sensationalist twitter hashtag btw). Think about the differences between these two things.
Holy fuck, are you stupid.
WE GET THE FUCKING JOKE, FUCKHEAD.
Why are you being too fucking stupid to understand that we fucking understand? And we still think it’s a problem because Stephen Fucking Colbert, a white man, doesn’t have the right to appropriate the marginalization of Asian people to be used as a cudgel against racists. The same way Dawkins, Harris et al, don’t have the right to appropriate the marginalization of Muslim women in the service of silencing western women.
You fucking asshats sit there and screech about people not understanding context when, the entire problem is that you are refusing to understand the context of the minorities who are sick to fucking death of being used as props so that cis-het white dudes can congratulate each other for how not bigoted they all are.
Brandon Pilcher
Your link is what he said on the show. What started #CancelColbert is the fucking tweet, which was quoted to you. That tweet had no context and acting as if she actually wanted the show cancelled is ignoring the facts. She wanted an apology and used the hashtag to get noticed. Colbert just distanced himself by “I didn’t tweet that personally, someone else did”. Do you even know what you’re talking about or just spouting the mainstream narrative? And…you know what? We discussed this already.
Derail anyone?
First of all, I’m not defending #GamerGate here. Those guys really are misogynistic witch-hunters as far as I’m concerned. That became obvious once Anita Sarkeesian got caught in the crossfire even though she hasn’t done anything like what Zoe was accused of. Nor do I dispute that “SJW” has been used to silence even legitimate arguments from a social justice perspective. All I am saying is that there are assholes who have jumped onto the social justice bandwagon, just as every other political movement in recorded history has attracted assholes to varying degrees, and these are the kind of people from whom “SJW” was originally coined.
Jesus Christ. I have to repeat this, just for the level of kindergarten level thinking this displays. That’s what you think the issue is? No one understands that Colbert plays a satirical character?
Do you regularly play with drycleaning bags as a child? What accounts for the big gaping gap where your cerebellum should be?
“Why’s all the feminisms hate men?” Brandon asks, and then is perplexed nobody immediately handed him a PhD.
This isn’t a ‘redefinition’ of racism. It’s a clarification of the term. It’s not about anti-minority discrimination, it’s about structures and institutions of power. Certainly PoC can be bigoted and prejudiced, but since they typically lack access to and control of power structures and institutions in North America (at least), then the power differential is in play.
The reason for this clarification of what racism refers to (in contrast with bigotry or prejudice) is specifically to highlight why, for instance, ‘cracker’ is just as bad as ‘n*gger’ is a false equivalence.
I really hope you don’t think you’re coming in here with a bunch of ‘gotchas’ that nobody’s considered, Brandon. You’ve brought a Chick tract to a literature fight.
Brandon doesn’t comprehend that something just occurring to him doesn’t mean nobody else has thought of it. I’d like to get him in front of a mirror, and put something on his head just to see if he tries to scrape it off and is thus able to match images to their real world equivalent. Like those tests they do with animals, to see how developed their consciousnesses are.
Brandon
This is a derail. Not to mention incredibly hyperbolic and insincere. The Colbert Report was never in any danger of being canceled because of that Twitter campaign, and I think you know that. But it is interesting to me that you find defending a wildly popular show (that’s about to end it’s run for completely unrelated reasons, anyway) more important than you do about embarrassment against female gamers. Also, “If I ever saw one” — what makes you the authority on “excessively hostile political correctness”?
And I can’t take anyone who uses the term “political correctness” with no irony or sarcasm seriously. It doesn’t really MEAN anything, when you get right down to it. It’s so incredibly subjective as to be useless, not to mention it’s a term favored by right-wingers — are you sure you want to use the same term that right-winters use to discredit and silence the oppressed for merely speaking out against their oppression?
And honestly, the topic of what the Social Justice Warrior terms mean is also derailing and off-topic and I’m kind of over it (It’s a near repeat of another argument over the term I saw last week). It’s clearly become a largely derogatory term, regardless of how else it may sometimes by used.
And seriously, the derail! It only seems like you’re trying to discredit feminist activists in general by pointing out one example of activity you didn’t agree with. This is what you sound like:
“I know that we’re talking about the very serious topic of female gamers being harassed, BUT BUT BUT!!! Don’t forget that there are these Social Justice Warriors over here that did this thing I don’t agree with and even though it’s not even a thing any more and it has nothing to do with the topic at hand, I must bring it up as an example of how awful and overly politically correct some of you Social Justice Warriors can be. Just awful! I am Brandon Pilcher and my opinion is the only one that matters.”
Can we stop the derail please?
Well said, marilove @142, and I’m sorry for my part in the derail.
@137 Brandon
I disagree strongly with this. It’s primary usage has been to silence legitimate arguments of social justice. It has arisen out of the trendiness of trolls and being offensive for offensive’s sake. People coined Social Justice Warrior to accuse people of peddling political correctness, because political correctness is some evil vile thing which hates baby jesus.
OH MY GOD THERE ARE ASSHOLES IN OUR MIDST, YOU GUYS!!!! NO WAY! Assholes?! They exist? EVERYWHERE?!!
Holy shit, dude. I am so enlightened now. How did I never know that assholes exist everywhere? Wow. So … so brilliant, you are, Brandon. Just so fucking smart! Man, don’t we feel stupid that we never thought about that before! Wow. *mind blown*
(Can you sense my sarcasm?)
embarrassment against female gamers <– Harassment! Jeez. I always put an extra "r" in harassment and my spell check then suggests "embarrassment" along with the correct spelling.
And what doublereed said in #144. I don’t know why people argue about this. It’s pretty obvious why the term was originally coined.
It’s still a total derail, though, and has nothing at all to do with the actual topic.
Jacob Schmidt (#115)
If Brandon Pilcher is trying to talk about racism in the context of social justice, he should damn well know and use the sociological definition that social justice advocates use. Otherwise it’s as dishonest as a creationist citing the common use of the term evolution as “change over time” in a discussion of biology.
Brandon Pilcher (#127)
Yeah, no one ever said their weren’t poser assholes, but your ability to correctly spot them is, shall we say, a wee bit lacking.
Have you considered that no one ever said they did? Also, it’s amusing that you seem utterly unaware of the fact that Park wasn’t ever serious about trying to cancel Colbert and the satire wasn’t ever beyond her. Her hashtag was a bit of a troll, which she admitted, to provoke people into paying attention to her criticism of using, as Seven of Mine says, “members of marginalized groups as cudgels against oppressors.” Perhaps not the best strategy given how many people are as unwilling to look past surface appearances as you.
But, again, why do you think it’s appropriate to set yourself up as judge of what is an appropriate response for oppressed people to have against their oppressors?
You need to ask yourself that. Here’s the thing. Let’s say you’re hosting ten people in your home and five of them say they’re way too cold and the other five say they’re fine. You still have to try to fix the problem for the five who are cold. You’d still have to even if only two were cold. They and their experiences matter. And racism is far more than just being uncomfortable; it’s actually harmful. So it doesn’t actually matter if there is a sizable contingent who say they’re fine with some racist behavior because there are still all the people who aren’t fine.
(#132)
No, dipshit, everyone gets that. Everyone, including Suey Park gets that. If you weren’t a clueless fucking asswipe, maybe you’d be a little bit better at listening to people’s actual criticisms. But it seems the second you get the least bit uncomfortable with the approach others are taking, you swap out them and their arguments for the idiotic strawmen you have stored in the wading pool you call an intellect.
Yes, I’d much rather get to back to the real question at hand: Why would Jacob Schmidt post a comment on the Cracked article accusing it of being a fluff piece? Why do people even bother doing such things???
Wow, “their” should be “there.” I blame trying to right replies write after getting up this morning. (Tee hee.)
doublebreed
Because he didn’t think that comment through and didn’t consider that people here are smarter than he clearly gives him credit for and would remember that Cracked is a humor website. Or he is not aware enough to realize that Cracked is a humor website. Either/or it’s pretty eye-roll worthy.
I remember seeing a tumblr post to the effect of “Social Justic Warriors alone can’t change anything. If you want to get stuff accomplished, you need a way more balanced party than that! Where is the Social Justice Healing or the Social Justice rDPS?”, with a number of comments chiming in with things like “Social Justice Rogue here!” Following that logic, I now am referring to protest singers as Social Justice Bards.
And– seriously? “You just don’t get satire” again?? Ugh. Once more for those in the back: WE GOT THE JOKE.
@marilove
Hahahaha “doublebreed,” Twins for everyone!
If anything I think he gave that comment too much thought. It’s like a mentality of “I don’t care so much that I need to tell somebody!”
True, but the resulting smackdown and deconstruction of the hipster whining about social justice has been a very entertaining read. :D Dudes: I’m not a sexist gamer so that’s irrelevant, let’s talk about the mean tone of SJW’s! My fee-fees are clearly more important than everything else! SJWs: yawn swat As I was saying, the sexism is endemic and needs to be addressed.
“Pardon me, I just wanted to let you know how far beneath my notice you are. Have a nice day!”
Iyéska #109,
Thanks for that wonderful link from your seemingly endless bank of eye-opening links. That list of effects of white privilege is amazing.
doublereed
Haha! I read your username like 4 times and still didn’t type it out correctly.
hyrax @153
I applaud this idea and claim my position as Social Justice Dragoon. Anyways…
The latest in this long long line of awful awful shit that is #Gamergate just makes me sad. As someone who calls themself a Gamer it’s frustrating that there’s such a loud and prominent contingent of truly awful people who call themselves Gamers as well. Those people have done a really impressive job of poisoning the well of that hobby with ugliness, and I don’t see an end in sight. I’m not even the target of the hate and just seeing it grinds me down, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have squadrons of people working around the clock to hate and harass you. Zoe Quinn is a far stronger person than I could ever be.
I want to believe that eventually things will change, but the bile seems absolutely fucking endless.
Scene: On the television screen plays a right-wing pundit dancing around in blackface, telling every woman in sight to get back into the kitchen. Uncle Jamesward laughs uproariously while Julie and Aunt Sallyford watch in abject horror.
Uncle Jamesward: What, why aren’t you laughing ladies?
Julie: Because it’s not funny.
Uncle Jamewsward: Oh, you just don’t get it! You and you silly feminine brains and your politically correct. You just don’t understand satire! Wit! The joys of a good sense of humor. Just a stick in the mud.
Aunt Sallyford: Oh, don’t mind your Uncle. He’s the kind of man who thinks that he has an artsy and refined taste in comedy because he loves both racial humor AND slapstick. Throw in some fart jokes for good measure and you get yourself Jamesward, Lover of The Fine Comedic Arts.
*Julie and Aunt Sallyford laugh*
Uncle Jamesward: (perplexed) What do ya mean by that?
Aunt Sallyford: I mean that you worship humor, and feel indignant when people don’t like what you find funny. But you don’t like most things that other people find funny either. In fact, what you find funny is the most simple, bottom of the barrel, lowest common denominator kind of shit. It’s like if someone was eagerly defending Music, and yelling at people for not appreciating Music, and how dare they do things that stifle Music, and then seeing them turn around and exclusively listen to Justin Bieber or Kids Bop or some dreck like that.
Uncle Jamesward: You still just don’t GET it. You don’t get the irony. The sophistication. The satire. You and your simple female mind will never understand! You are just a humorless harpy trying to drain all humor from every part of my existence! No sense of humor!
Julie: Hey, you can’t blame your wife for not wanting to giggle while jerking off to same power fantasies as you. She’s got shit to do aside from polishing a gun and polishing…other things. Maybe with your free time though, you can write us a ten page thesis on why That One Beer Commercial really was just super hilarious, objectively, and everyone who thinks otherwise is just a blind sheeple without your elegant and refined taste in titties and testicle punting.
Uncle Jamesward: ….. MISANDRY!!!1!!1
(Uncle Jamesward then stomped his foot repeatedly for four consecutive days)
Of course, the word “racism” has meant “hatred, mistrust, or resentment of members of a specific race” to nearly the entire US population for decades. This is an occupational hazard of constructing a specialized vocabulary by appropriating words from the common discourse and applying a specialized term-of-art definition that’s conceptually related to but distinct from the common understanding of the word.
There are, I think, good arguments to be made for this restricted usage of the term being more informative and useful (Miri made one a while ago, as I recall), but it’s not unreasonable to actually MAKE them instead of going “WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH EASTASIA” and pretending the common meaning of the term never existed.
I have a better definition:
“Racism” is whatever defines the current act being discussed as non-racist.
Social Justice Magus, ready for action.
Having watched too many discussions after #Ferguson get hijacked by racists, this is really the only working definition in the US, even if most people would overtly identify with the “common definition” (i.e. raw prejudice).
Laura Sanchez @100:
“We” don’t know anything of the sort, and you have produced exactly ZERO evidence to support your assertion. Howzabout you wander somewhere else until you find the substantial amount of evidence needed to prove your unevidenced assertion is true.
Toodles, fuckwit.
****
Brandon Pilcher @104:
White people in the West hold the power-on a social, political, religious, and economic level. The deck is stacked in their favor. African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans cannot be racist against white people. Racism is power plus prejudice. The ‘power’ in that definition refers to the social, political, religious, and economic power which is not held by People of Color. People of Color can be biased and prejudiced against white people, but by the definition of racism (as used by sociologists), they cannot be racist. Please don’t conflate racism with prejudice against others. There is quite a bit of difference.
****
Matthew Trevor @108:
Oooh, I know the answer to this one!
****
Jacob Schmidt @115:
I’m really surprised (and more than a bit disappointed) to hear you say this. Yes, colloquially racism is treated as “prejudice based on race”, but that’s not the whole of the definition as it doesn’t account for systemic bias and prejudice against a particular race. I know you know that. It’s not helpful in the battle against racism to use a definition that doesn’t fit the problem. People need to know that racism is NOT ‘prejudice based on race’. In fact, this is quite an important conversation that needs to happen in the US because so many people think that certain actions aren’t racist (see the disproportionate number of Blacks in the prison system for one example) because they don’t understand what racism means. I think you need to get over your annoyance at this bc people need to understand what racism really is if we’re to effectively fight back against it.
someone called?
(If you don’t get it you’re a #FakeGeekPerson and can’t be my friend because)
;-)
except that’s not how that works. racism, sexism, etc. are defined by the power used to implement oppression. there might be prejudice against men or white people, but there can’t be an -ism against them, because there’s NO power structure to allow for discriminatory effects of prejudice.
boring power-structure-denialist is boring.
thank you so much for confirming that SJW is simply an attempt at insulting people who understand how society works and have no problem criticizing every problematic aspect of it.
if only we had some research about whether there’s a significant difference here…
oh, wait, we do. Colbert’s satire is read as conservative mocking of liberals and minorities by conservatives and racists. so when he makes a satirical-racist joke, it still just works like your basic racist joke does: by furthering oppression.
Jacob Schmidt @124:
And why do people still use that definition of racism? Isn’t it possible that they haven’t been corrected yet? Isn’t it possible that far too many people are ignorant of what racism actually is, and when others correct them, people like you (again, I can’t believe I’m saying this about YOU bc I’ve generally held you in fairly high esteem) whine about the common usage of the word? When you say:
You give weight to this not-even-alternate definition of racism and make it that much harder to correct people. Please don’t do this.
****
Brandon Pilcher @127:
No. Each groups’ opinion is valid. However, I think part of the problem is that Colbert shouldn’t have even used the racist stereotype, bc without people understanding that it was intended as a joke that used that racist trope, some people would take it as serious. When I first read about his comment, I took it as serious. I don’t watch Stephen Colbert. I don’t have much awareness of him other than that he’s a comedian. So when I read that message, I don’t have the context necessary to immediately realize he’s employing satire. And sadly, even decent people can descend into racism or sexism. It’s not out of the question for even Stephen Colbert to be racist. And when celebrities demonstrate racism (or even perceived racism), I don’t think it’s out of the question for people to call for their termination.
****
Anthony K @129:
This ↑.
Colbert’s joke was poorly executed. In fact, I think the whole thing was ill conceived. I’m not going to go so far as to say racist tropes cannot be satirized, but one has to be very cautious how you go about it. Colbert failed in this case.
****
Brandon Pilcher @130:
No one is saying that black people cannot have bigoted or prejudicial views of white people, only that black people cannot be RACIST against white people, bc they lack the institutionalized power to back their prejudicial views. There is a distinction between racism and bigotry (or prejudice). You’re conflating the two.
@132:
What about people who don’t recognize satire? Even if you have the full context, if you’re not a person who understands satire, you might not know he was joking. It’s entirely possible for someone to read his comments as being serious. If you’re going to play with racist tropes and try to satirize them, you need to treat very carefully.
****
Just read marilove’s #142, and will no longer contribute to the derail. Sorry.
****
Saad @157:
[OT]
Not sure if you know, but there are several other checklists too (if you did, sorry; perhaps these lists will be of use to others):
Heterosexual privilege checklist
Male privilege checklist
Cisgender privilege checklist
Azkyroth @161:
This is all the more reason why the common definition needs to be supplanted by the sociological definition. There are far too many people trapped in thinking of racism in such limited terms and not understanding the what institutionalized racism is. As we ask people to confront their racial biases, they need to understand the depth and breadth of them. That’s not likely to happen as long as they labor under an improper definition of racism.
No need to apologize, Tony. Those are new to me too. I’m making a collection of things like these because they’re so effective in pushing people who are on the fence on these issues over to the right side (and believe me, I encounter quite a lot such people). I appreciate it.
Saad @171:
Can you hop over to the Thunderdome?
Brandon Pilcher
Firstly, I quoted Colbert’s statement in the context to which people reacted negatively to it ie a twitter of exactly that one line….which I clearly said in my post.
Secondly, the only asshole I can see here is you, posing as a morally superior fuckwit. You ignore the context of my remark and then criticise me for doing so? You’re either a fucking troll or so blinded by your ego you can’t see what the fuck people are typing. Either way, you’ve shown that you don’t give a shit about things like facts in order to sling your bullshit around.
The common discourse meaning is useless because
1) it makes racism lie purely inside the mind, and since we can’t read the minds of people, determining racism is impossible.
2) because of the above, any act can be construed as non-racist if one rationalizes hard enough.
3) it’s all about the racists and their feelings.
4) it creates an artificial equality between forms of prejudice, failing to address the problems originally covered by the term.
This is the best example I have ever seen showing the difference between the “common definition” (the wrong definition) of racism, and the useful and meaningful definition. I’m curious about what everyone in here thinks about it.
“Aamer Rahman (Fear of a Brown Planet) – Reverse Racism”
Brony @176:
What do I think?
I think that Aamer is spot on!
@Tony
That’s good to know. Oddly enough it was me posting this on an imageboard while trying to argue the same point where I decided that I like the term “SJW” because lots of the replies basically amounted to “that looks like that SJW shit”. I did have one person tell me that I “got it” though. But the internet being what it is I was still second guessing after that.
Brony @178:
Incidentally, that video you linked to prompted me to write a post on racism on my blog (attributed to you). So thank you for that.
<3 the regular Pharyngula commentariat.
@ Tony
I’m glad to have been able to inspire something like that. I don’t quite remember where I first saw the video (I want to say around two years ago here at FTB or maybe Skepchick), but if it worked on this white guy hopefully you will get some good use out of it.
Jadehawk (#167)
Also, it’s hard to come up with any so-called prejudicial beliefs about whites that vast numbers of whites aren’t more than happy to confirm is true. Often while pretending we do the opposite. Watching other white people write in to anti-racism Tumblrs has been really educational. Often they’ll be like, “Waaah, don’t stereotype white people! We’re not all the same!” and then follow with the exact same embarrassingly clueless shit that the last six dozen white people wrote in to say. It’s like a bad comedy routine.
I have been a gamer for about 30 years, pen and paper to cRPG’s up to MMO’s. I can’t play WoW or many other MMO’s due to the extreme level of vitriol casually levelled at women and LGBT (I am in their somewhere). Not just in world chat, but also in guilds which had talked themselves up as ‘No Drama’.
I am not at all surprised by the treatment that those that try to fight for equality receive. The thing is, it’s not as if anything more is asked for than space to enjoy games alongside other people.
Not more space than others, but the same amount of space, equality. Not so hard to understand I would have thought.
I find myself alone in these games and unable to trust others out of fear of being driven away from games I enjoy. It shouldn’t be this way, but ‘shouldn’t’ doesn’t buy a bottle of dehydrated camel spit.
I would stand up more, but I fear standing alone as a finely tuned social death machine sniffs in my direction. It makes me a bit of a coward I think, but I want to play these games.
Why must a computer game be such an existential crisis? Guys, guys, guys it’s a game for Christ’s sake. Settle down, get a life, do something radical and let others enjoy the game too.
Social Justice Stealth Survivor.
A. Noyd @182:
You wouldn’t be talking about sites like Yo! Is this racist? would you?
:)
@Chat_Noir1972:
Back in the days when I played WoW (WotLK through early ToT), I was an officer in one of those “No Drama” guilds. Most people confined themselves to the explicitly NSFW/No Rules forum on our website, but a few of them just couldn’t quite get the concept of boundaries. I tried to take a position of “I don’t care whether or not your comments offend anybody else in the guild, they offend me, and I’m the one who does raid invites. Do the math”. I didn’t want the burden to be on anybody else, and well, I was a white dude officer with the ability to leverage my power.
It was disheartening to be told that the moment I logged off, the c*nt jokes started. Wasn’t the whole guild by any means, but “no drama” really meant that people were reluctant to tell me just who was violating our rules: “He doesn’t mean any harm, and he’s one of our best dps. Besides, he only does it because you tell him not to.” Feh.
Tony (#184)
That one, yes, but it’s not even half as bad as a lot of others. I think that in order to keep things entertaining Andrew Ti doesn’t let too many asks through in a row that all say the same thing.
bwuh
lolwut
*30 seconds later: bursting out in laughter*
Vulcans? Those are Romulans.
Is that a jadehawk? :-)
matching comic @ cuteosphere.tumblr.com
[description: humourous association of SJW with role-playing games]