Anita Sarkeesian has posted more of her emails…like this one.
I thought it was bizarre — even if Thunderf00t had been exactly right and proper in his rebuttals of Sarkeesian’s videos (he wasn’t*), it would not excuse death threats against Sarkeesian and her family. But then, logic never has been one of the Thunderf00t fan club’s strengths.
I thought it was interesting, though, that MRAs will accuse anyone who agrees with a feminist of being a “white knight” — a pejorative to suggest that the only reason a man would agree with a woman is because he wants to have sex with her. Now here Thunderf00t is being invoked as a talisman against a woman, making him, I guess, a Black Knight.
But all right, let’s see what Thunderf00t has done to put her in her place.
wow 'anita sarkeesian forced to leave house due to harassment' story released to coincide with new video. A new low in attention-mongering,
— thunderf00t (@thunderf00t) August 28, 2014
wow ‘anita sarkeesian forced to leave house due to harassment’ story released to coincide with new video. A new low in attention-mongering,
Right! She’s just getting the threats and insults as a publicity ploy, and all those haters are actually her cronies. Some of his followers are sinking so low as to accuse her of making up the threats…when we can just look at her twitter feed and see the mob of haters.
number of women killed for criticising gaming=0. Yes, @femfreq is entirely justified in having to flee her house like an atheist in saudi!
— thunderf00t (@thunderf00t) August 28, 2014
number of women killed for criticising gaming=0. Yes, @femfreq is entirely justified in having to flee her house like an atheist in saudi!
In 2011, 1707 women were murdered by men. 1 in 6 American women will be stalked in their lifetime — stalking is a crime in which one deliberately attempts to instill fear in a victim. These are not problems only in Saudi Arabia. Women are killed all the time for defying men, right here in the US — and the level of violence threatened, the specificity of the threats, are good reasons to have reasonable fear for their life.
And then there’s the goddamned hypocrisy.
When I got serious death threats, I went 2 the FBI. @femfreq went 2 Polygon to publicize her 'death threats'. Who's the professional victim?
— thunderf00t (@thunderf00t) August 28, 2014
When I got serious death threats, I went 2 the FBI. @femfreq went 2 Polygon to publicize her ‘death threats’. Who’s the professional victim?
Oh. So when Thunderf00t gets death threats, it’s “serious”. When Anita Sarkeesian gets death threats, it’s “attention-mongering”.
By the way, I’ve also gotten death threats, sometimes from the same people for years on end. Early on, I’d report them to the authorities — I’ve left files with the local police, I’ve contacted the FBI, I’ve even sent information to the RCMP. End result: nothing. The police are not prepared to deal with internet threats from distant sources, and they don’t want to be. It has to be local and physical before they’ll notice. It’s also a case where the volume of threats doesn’t actually inspire a response — it means the police will take Thunderf00t’s position and dismiss the concerns because of a fallacious mathematical reasoning: there’s a thousand threats, and none have occurred, therefore we don’t have to worry about it. Never mind that it only takes one to follow through.
*Thunderf00t put out an anti-Sarkeesian video last month, before he got distracted with a crusade against Zoe Quinn for a while. I watched a few minutes of it; he claims Sarkeesian was lying about sexism in gaming because she showed a scene from some game in which enslaved naked women are standing on a stage surrounded by men. “But the players are fighting sex trafficking,” Thunderf00t says, making it all OK. I closed it at that point, no further investigation needed. What an idiot.
Dave Futrelle also notes how Thunderf00t has become the go-to guy for the anti-feminist rage brigade.
Seriously? People still listen to this lying shitbag, about anything? That’s just sad.
Also, she did call the police, as she mentioned yesterday. But carry on, Thunderfoot-in-mouth, please tell us more about how it’s not real.
Why so quiet?
Oh, I see, you’re moving the goalposts. Well, we’ll check in again later.
Asswipe.
Sez Thunderf**t:
Yep. It’s not like harassment, I don’t know, might have peaked because she released a new video. Nope, it has to be a suspicious coincidence. Rationality is not strong in this one.
It’s also not as if Thunderf00t hadn’t been inflaming his followers with idiotic accusations against Sarkeesian recently.
Yea, I’m super confused by that tweet. Obviously, she just released a new video and that brought out the haters. Case in point: Thunderf00t. That’s not a suspicious coincidence, that’s a direct causation.
That’s baffling in how idiotic it is.
Shorter thunderf00l: “I wanna see boobies! These mean women are trying to take away my sexy boobies!”
Who says Sarkeesian didn’t piblicize some threats and reported them to the authorities?
In fact, Sarkeesian says she did notify the authorities. But hey, don’t let reality get in the way of your hatin’.
(By “your hatin'” I meant Thunderf**t’s. Just to clarify my previous awkwardly worded comment.)
Just once I’d like for him to not confirm my worst suspicions about him.
Does Thunderfart actually believe the gas he’s passing, or is he just doing anything he can to be evil, including knowingly lying and using misleading arguments?
The rabid hate rage Anita Sarkeesian receives after every video proves her point. I have yet to see any intelligent and informed critique of her work (because she is right). All I’ve seen are gendered insults and rape and death threats.
Phil Mason is a blithering idiot. It’s incredible that this is apparently the best the anti-feminist crowd has to put up; a guy who thinks that mountain lions and wasps are useful analogies when talking about sexual assault.
I’d never heard of Thunderf00t before his spectacular flameout on ftb. Supposedly he did some good stuff rebutting creationists, thanks to his more recent output I can’t be bothered to look. Does his he still keep up the pretense of being a science educator or is it all misogynist garbage now?
Is it bad that I got the image in my head of thunderfoot hopping about on one leg screaming “The Black Knight always triumphs!” While PZ calmly retorts, “You’re a loony.” ??
jasbrimstone
There was that link in the OP.
So… it’s been several years since I watched any… were his anti-creationist videos actually all that intellectual, or did I just imagine they were because I was young and new to this skepticism gig at the time?
I have a hard time understanding how someone can be interested enough in rationality to make up their own word for skepticism, but still fail this hard. I saw it in the first video I saw of his on this topic (About two years ago, possibly about elevatorgate or his expulsion from here, where he quoted Sun Tzu about how it was dividing us, and that makes us weak against creationists, and then proceeded to argue in favour of ignoring the divide and doing nothing to fix it.) and it seems to be there in everything else I’ve seen since then. Granted, that’s only been a few videos, since I went off him when he was talking about the “ground zero” “mosque,” and have only seen things that were linked from other sources, but still, it’s… worrying.
Is it hopeless to think that we might manage something approximating a reliably skeptical view of the world, or did I just make a really bad selection of skeptical heroes when I was younger?
@chigau. Ah, my work blocked it. Glad I didn’t miss the joke anyway. Thanks! :-)
Anyway, thanks MRAs, you’ve finally convinced me that I definitely need to watch the Feminist Frequency videos. You’re doing a fine job of advertising Sarkeesian’s work, and thank you for finally pushing me to pay attention to them. Keep up the good work, you ridiculous bunch of hateful losers.
jasbrimstone @ 14;
In terms of rational argument, that has already happened months ago. Thunderfoot has his stable of obsessively misogynistic supporters, but anyone not comprehensively poisoned by that mentality sees him for the nauseatingly sexist bigot he so obviously is. The legs have been cut out from under his arguments (and even using that term is to grant him credit he isn’t due) long since.
He really has reached a new low in trying to claim that rape and death threats are no big deal. It is almost impressive that a single individual can acheive such a level of arsehole-itude.
PZ: [after PZ cut off both of the Black Knight’s arms] Look, you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left!
Black Knight: Yes I have.
PZ: Look!
Black Knight: It’s just a flesh wound.
Gee, I don’t know, that sounds kind of White Knight-ish of them….
@ Athywren
“A new low in attention-mongering,”
Says the guy who gets attention by piggy-backing off of the attention that Sakeesian (someone who actually produces something) is getting. Maybe if Thunderfoot did something of value, he’d get the attention he’s so envious of, too.
Morons.
If Tf00t et al wanted to take the publicity away from Anita then they should just ignore her.
Maybe I’m old enough to really not get why anonymously threatening people on the Internet over fucking YouTube videos is in any way relevant to anything. If this is the way the world is going I’m glad that I’m >50% through my time on it (statistically speaking) and have no intention of leaving any descendants.
“White knight”
“Social Justice Warrior”
Why is it that so many of the supposed insults reactionaries throw at our side read like compliments?
Imagine some schlock after-school special with a stock villain who has no real motivation for being evil. He just hates good people. He calls the heroes “goody-two-shoes,” as if it’s a bad thing. That’s what this sounds like.
I suppose it’s in a grand tradition of insults like “bleeding-heart” and “n*****-lover.” I don’t think either of those are bad things either, barring the racist identification of the recipient of my brotherly affection.
Protip: If your dialogue sounds like stock script for a simplistic villain, you might be on the wrong side.
““white knight” — a pejorative to suggest that the only reason a man would agree with a woman is because he wants to have sex with her. ”
Could it be that Mike is just white-knighting Thunderf00t? hmmm…
Obviously anytime someone goes public with the death threats they receive they must be fake. I mean, why would someone who fights against the misogynistic attitudes in the gaming community post personal evidence of the misogynistic attitudes in the gaming community?
Hehe, I had to think of this Mitchell and Webb clip: “Hans, have you looked at our caps…”
Well, I have to disagree with you there, Hairy Chris.
It’s not good for us to ignore trolls. If Sarkeesian were actually the hag of Tf00t’s nightmare’s, it wouldn’t be appropriate to ignore Sarkeesian either.
What they should do is make articulate, convincing arguments why Sarkeesian is full of shit, and then, if she doesn’t fix the errors, mock her then-incredible videos.
When others read the intelligent, thoughtful, unrebutted take downs of Sarkeesian’s arguments and witness Sarkeesian’s dunderheaded insistence upon relying on PRATTs, they will stop following Sarkeesian of their own accord.
Un/fortunately all they’ve got is the observation, “Writing a video game where a thousand enslaved women dance naked waiting for you to heroically rescue them and gain their voluntary, grateful worship isn’t as bad as writing a video game where you enslave women one at a time until you have a thousand to dance naked for you in fear and loathing,” followed by the non-sequitur, “therefore Sarkeesian is full of shit when she asserts some small trend toward the inclusion of sexism just might possibly exist within video games”.
No, silence isn’t the answer to people doing bad things. Silence by Tf00t won’t make Sarkeesian go away, and it wouldn’t even if Sarkeesian was a youtube cross between Walter Mitty, Cybele, and Hitler. It wouldn’t especially if Sarkeesian was a youtube cross between Walter Mitty, Cybele, and Hitler.
While I’d love it if the harassers of Sarkeesian would shut up, it’s not because that would be an effective tactic in ending the Tropes vs. Women series.
Thunderf00t is acting incredibly foolishly,
From the Verge article
If Thunderf00t his ilk want to be taken seriously in their criticism of Anita, dismissing concerns regarding death threats is not the way to go about it. Why the need for such horrific language? Why the need for personal attacks? Why assume the worst about Anita, and dismiss her views based on these assumptions?
It’s because they ARE misogynists, and are proving it with their over the top reaction to her videos.
The content of the criticism sets a tone where no level of abuse is too foul. It’s all fair game because Anita, CLEARLY is the worst person on the planet, and deserves to be bombarded with hate mail.
Why not make a response video that offers counter arguments, point for point, and explains why you think she is incorrect/overreacting or whatever? You know…. discuss the topic reasonably, considering Anita’s views and trying to maybe reach some common ground? Is it really impossible to have a discussion without being a raging misogynistic asshole about a topic such as CONTENT OF VIDEO GAMES?!
Thunderf00t is so critical of Anita’s financial gain to be had from her videos, and for supposedly “milking” the controversy. Isn’t this exactly how Thunderf00t also makes money?! He makes inflammatory videos about hot button issues, such as Anita’s videos, and reaps in massive amounts of Youtube Views (=$). If anything, Anita is only further enriching Thunderf00t as he’s sure to glean even more attention as a result of this.
Anita is a very brave woman, doing very important work. Thunderf00t should go back to making fun of creationists.
@ Thunderf00t
“Dear Muslima”, the gift that just keeps giving.
@28
Lol, i was thinking about the exact same sketch!
Yeah, if your cap has a skull on it, or in this case, if you are sending e-mails to someone just so you can pile as many sexist insults and threats as you can, you are most definitely on the evil team.
I seem to recall, sometime in the distant past, Thunderfoot dismissing discussion of feminism as a trivial distraction from the Real Issues™. Given his output since, I can only assume he’s easily distracted.
PZ Myers wrote”
That was in the video Women as Background Decoration – part1 at around 4:50 where it is used to illustrate, surprise surprise, the use of women as scenery. That one scene in Watchdogs also fits well into the “Damsel in Distress” three-parter.
Her series of videos is good though. Once this kind of stuff gets pointed out you can’t unsee it in games. Playing one now where a week ago I would not have given the start a second thought but it clearly fits in with those two videos
Can you really blame Sarkeesian for not wanting to be the first?
My recollection is of it being the latter. I watched some of his videos, but a lot of them seemed to be centered more on his ongoing personal feud than actually rebutting creationism, and the stuff that he did post on the subject wasn’t especially clever or original. Then there was that World Trade Center Islamic Center thing that occurred (what was that, 5 or 6 years ago?) and his videos started sounding like he was copy-pasting from Glenn Beck. At about the same time, he also started doing active “challenges” to creationists (taping himself walking around handing out fliers) where he proceeded to blatantly use the same tactics he’d previously accused creationists of (find some random people and ask them obscure questions, then crow about how much smarter he was then them when they couldn’t answer).
And of course in Part 2 here she explicitly talks about the “but the player can save the women” issue.
It’s because they ARE misogynists, and are proving it with their over the top reaction to her videos.
QFMFT!!!!
I see no points in trying to defend thunderfoot from sheep on this page. It doesn’t matter what kind of peer review objective evidence I post become some holier than you twit will scream misogyny simple because someone dared to ask litgit questions about methodology and the validly of the evidence.
If only it were just “legit questions about methodology and the validity of evidence”.
But you have already tipped your hand, Ranzoid.
look, mommy, I used those sciency words!
And it’s sheeple, thank you very much.
Ranzoid: Let me guess, you pee-reviewed it yourself?
Toddle off.
@39 Ranzoid
Present some. Present lots. Don’t be a sheep. Have fun. Kick the hornet’s nest. You might find a hook you can throw back. Maybe you can actually help Thunderf00t by providing ammunition.
Ranzoid #39
You don’t need to defend Thunderfoot in order to “ask litgit questions about methodology and the validly of the evidence.” Just askk the legitimate bloody questions already.
@16 Athywren
– The latter.
– Watched the creation-oriented stuff for a while, until the tone and approach began to become monotonous (and I ran into Aronra).
– I conpletely lost interest when I saw him attempting to argue with Hovind Jr. at some rally, doing this wierd “we’re talking about you” thing, like some twitchy hall monitor on Red Bull, and realized it wasn’t out of character.
– Between the two of them it was so completely Dumb and Dumber I couldn’t bear it anymore.
Why, there are no
contradictions in the Biblemisogynistic attitudes in the gaming community, therefore she cannot possibly have found evidence of them to post. Of course.*spit*
Oh, come on, don’t be awful rationalists at the poor kid! How is he supposed to run home with stories of how he “showed the sheep the invalidly of there position” if we’re here waiting for some peer review objective evidence to come around? Jeez guys, play your part, would ya?
You just scored 40 “Drama Vlogger Points” by posting to Pharyngula!
Tally:
+10 points for posting via Facebook
+15 points for science babble
+15 points for “Thunderfoot White Nighting”
Only 999,960 more points and Thunderfoot will make a 3 minute video thanking you profusely!
@ Ranzoid
Sure you do. That is what your comment is. Emotionally opining about the thoughts on TF are a defense, just not a substantive one. You are already revealing your role here as Goodbye Enemy Janine is pointing out.
Given the fact that you are prone to emotional “territory marking” in a social conflict while trying to disguise it I think that a better interpretation is just that you really really like poisoning wells. I’ve seen better.
@microraptor, 36 & knowknot, 45
Yeah… I kinda suspected as much. Of course, taking your word for it is clearly just me succumbing to the Groupthink Blogs sheeple machine, but I just can’t bring myself to go back and check… so fleece me up.
I never saw that he was doing atheist street preaching though, that was clearly after my time… wtf would make that sound like a good idea or reasonable approach?
@50 Athywren
Agggghhhh. No. (Makes complicated magical protective hand geatures.) I will not indoctrinate!
…ahem…
>>>> Love Thinderf00t. Really. Check him out. Just sad that he won’t let me do his laundry and stuff.
@39 Ranzoid
I’ve read some useless posts in my time but “I could defend Thunderf00t but I’m not going to because you’re all a bunch of meanies” is one of the most useless I have ever seen. At least you only took three lines to say absolutely nothing.
:3
Don’t worry, my opinion of him now are based on what I’ve seen of his recent activities, like that time he was on The Magic Sandwich(?) show with Lilandra, and suggested that, perhaps, the best way to stop rape would be to implement the brand new and entirely untried idea of doing exactly the same thing as has been tried for the last few thousand years without much success.
It’s just his old stuff I’m taking your word on… though maybe I should go be a proper skeptic and double check… just a bit afraid of (yet again) finding that young me was remarkably silly when it came to deciding who to listen to. All I’m saying, is I’m glad I had this atheism thing worked out before I found the various social medias of the world, because I’d hate to think of the philosophical crises I’d be going through right now if I’d let someone like him mould my theological worldview when I was still teen’d.
marcmagus @ 35:
Something Phil doesn’t understand at all is that he has no way of knowing if a woman (or women) have been killed over criticising gaming. It may well take place in a domestic situation.
While not directly about this story, I am tired of people like TF downplaying the possibly dangers of online stalking and harassment. I was just checking the BBC news website and saw this story about a live streamer getting raided by a SWAT team due to what appears to be a hoax call reporting a crime:
There are people that will move beyond just tweeting at you, or e-mail you all of the time. Those actions are bad enough, but some people are willing to move well beyond that.
Ranzoid:
Dude, check your spelling. It takes the polish off that attempt to sound high-minded, properly Vulcanish, and superior. Of course, you won’t present any peer-reviewed evidence, or indeed, any evidence at all, will you?
Oh, and if we’re sheep, what are all you loyal, mindless, bleating defenders of Phil? Goats, perhaps?
@53 Athywren
– There’s this ew-y buddhist practice in which one visualizes people (and one’s own self) as corpses in abjectly horrifying states of putrification. Apparently this is not done for purposes of entertainment (as opposed to the practiced ingestion of gaming images)… it’s intended to cause one to be mindful of mortality and impermanence, which humans tend to stumble over and end up feeling all godlike and stuff.
– I believe you have discovered a similar exercise, perhaps acquiring some degree of disindoctrinationability in the process.
– Or maybe just nausea.
Oh, and…
How difficult is it to defend against sheep, anyway?
@knowknot:
I don’t know?
Do I have mace, a taser, a glock, and a bulletproof vest to visually intimidate the sheep? Well, then I’d feel pretty confident handling the situation with just a few words.
Unless it’s a black sheep.
@Crip Dyke
– Wouldn’t all that be expensive, when you could just maybe… throw porridge? Or maybe sneeze?
– But yeah, the black ones. Still, in that case, whatever you decided to the white sheep would support you. Granted, from a distance… but…
– And then there’d be the Fleecebook donations.
On Fred’s old blog (the one with the fantastic take-down of the “Left Behind” books and films) we used to greet newcomers with “Please don’t kill us with sheep.”
All we like sheep.
Yay, sheep.
I remember a few years ago ol’ Thundermug was having problems with online harassment and namecalling and the world had to stop and listen to him rant about the unfairness of it all. He used to be really interesting and now I wish I’d never heard of the bastard.
I’m sure it’s just my nasty, suspicious, skeptical nature that makes me think drive-by troll Ranzoid doesn’t actually have any peer-reviewed objective evidence like xe bragged xe was keeping clutched to hir bosom.
This statement is offending me, for many reasons I can’t quite pin down. *attempts to do so anyway*
Death threats and online stalking are basically extreme online bullying (Thinking about it, maybe not extreme – death threats don’t seem all that uncommon on the internet). A more honest metric would be something like, “Number of human lives ruined by online stalking and online bullying = ????” That’s a number greater than 0. I do recall that at least one person has committed suicide over online bullying, I’ve lost count of the number of blogs that have shut down because of the shear load of abuse the owners received, and who the fuck knows how many ruined lives never make it into statistics because things that happen on the internet aren’t “real” and “can’t actually hurt” people.
If number of women killed for criticizing gaming = 0, then “it’s not a real threat.”
If number of women killed for criticizing gaming = 1, then “oh, you’re trying to exploit that other woman’s death for attention”
If number of women killed for criticizing gaming > 1, but number of killers = 1, then “those don’t count! That guy was clearly mentally ill!”
If number of women killed for criticizing gaming >1 and number of killers >1, then “well, that’s terrible, but you know, what do you expect? If I had a daughter….(insert analogies about unlocked cars)”
I find it offensive because even if he is technically accurate, it’s a dishonest use of “women killed for criticizing”. He has to frame it that way to avoid the larger issue because winning is the issue.
Part of me wants to say “Fuck Twitter”, but that just ignores the fact that the problem is responsible use of the medium, and frustration that responding to BS take more conceptual moves than the average tweet is capable of.
Obligatory GLaDOS quote for TF: “Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I’m serious, that’s what it says: A horrible person. We weren’t even testing for that.”
TF00t says he’s gotten “serious” death threats, but how can that be? The number of men killed for making YouTube videos criticizing dumbass creationists = 0.
Oh, wait, is it because every time you add a qualifier to a criterion, you reduce the number of circumstances to which it applies? Like, that’s the reason that the conjunction fallacy is a fallacy.
I wonder what the statistics are on women who’ve been killed after a stalker threatened to kill them in a specific way. I wonder what the statistics are on people who’ve been killed for being ‘controversial’ objects of hate movements after having their addresses posted online. I wonder if those > 0.
Crip Dyke #62:
Er, speak for yourself. Having played substitute sheep farmer for a summer I rather loath sheep as a class. I’m not proud of it because I’m sure the incredible, almost mythical, intractable stupidity of sheep was something that humans bred into them, but there it is: my prejudice, and I’ll just have to own it.
Sheeple.
Sheeple who need sheeple.
Are the luckiest sheeple in the world.
(It had to be done!)
@70 FossilFishy
– Members of my family from Montana referred to sheep as “range maggots.” Found that highly amusing when I first heard it.
– However, my grandfather raised them and liked them, and my father who shepherded etc did as well. Have also had friends with very wee herds who liked their silly selves as well, even given their battles against death by stupidity. Don’t really know why. Pastoral natures, perhaps.
– I must admit that I have some personal understanding of sheeps’ apparent and general “… ! … ? …” state of mentation. Or at least the anthropomorphized version of same. (Though I’m virtually certain that such identifying experiences were not the cause of fondness for the others I’ve mentioned.)
– But… oh yeah… that Thunderf00t. Opposable thumbs. What were we talking about?
Tom Foss @69:
It is always a pleasure to see you posting. I wish you did more often.
FossilFishy:
Many people exhibit almost mythical, intractable stupidity as well.
Janine #71
;)
Ranzoid:
Well since you’re not here to defend the thundering f00l, why did you even bother dropping by?
@Drive-By-Troll (Ranzoid) #39
There’s plenty of evidence that thunderf00t is a misogynist, though. It’s quite first-hand, too. Remember the whole “prevent rape by not looking like prey!” fiasco? I do. Maybe you agree with it. Maybe you’re just as unaware and insensitive to issues of violence against women as he is. I’d put a week’s wages on that bet.
The real point here is that one can raise many valid questions about Anita Sarkeesian’s criticism. None of the methods involve using sexist language. Let’s see some peer-reviewed scientific evidence that thunderf00t is 100% not a misogynist creep and a bully that has used his skeptic street cred with the boys to direct a fuckton of harassment at people that have (correctly) shown how much of a sleazy shitbag he really is.
Oh, ouch.
I just swung by the JREF to see what was noising around there. I guess I should have expected what I found. Mainsplaining, hating on Atheism +, pretty much the whole “OMG, girls are coming into our private club and soon they might expect to be treated as people!”
Pretty hilarious how what little actual of the actual “criticism” has been phrased. Lots of, “Sarkeesian is totally wrong because you don’t have to kill women in this game. There are plenty of poorly animated stereotypes of sex workers all over the game that someone else kills. Some of them only get slapped around!”
Sort of like dismissing one damsel in distress because she does something in a cut scene AFTER YOU’VE ALREADY BEATEN THE BOSS.
Some of the people who this is pissing off the MOST are the same kind of people with Xbox gamertags such as “iFvcked_urm0m”, and call each other racial and homophobic slurs over voice chat…. not the pinnacle of brilliance or tact.
The gamer community has some pretty shitty people in it. Thankfully, there are loads of good people in the gamer community as well, and I honestly think that most gamers watching Anita’s videos would concede that she has made several good points, and has identified an issue that should be addressed.
It is time that gamers and developers recognize that there IS in fact a problem here. You’re never going to get rid of all “tropes” in game design or any form of story telling, but there needs to be efforts made to at least reduce the prevalence of the worst of this stuff (sexualized violence). Its not like this shit is in just a couple “bad apple” games, its in a huge number of mainstream games with mass appeal, as documented by Anita.
Sometimes its not always necessary to “give the market what it wants”, especially if it causes legitimate harm to others, and society in general. It’s certainly possible to make a top selling game without relying on sexualized violence against women as background decoration.
188.138.9.49 – the address that the comment was posted from – is in Germany, and is a TOR exit router. So whoever the anonymous weasel was who posted that, they went to some effort to conceal their identity. In other words, they knew that what they were doing was wrong.
“OMG, girls are coming into our private club and soon they might expect to be treated as people!”
Here’s an interesting and relevant statistic:
(Source: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/25/study-adult-women-gamers-outnumber-teenage-boys )
The ESA report referenced in the piece above is here:
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2014.pdf
It’s got some great graphics and statistics that, taken with Sarkeesian’s points, say quite loudly that the gaming companies that understand the demographics of gaming are going to be the ones that survive and prosper. If women are 50% of the game purchasers, no game designer in their right mind is going to pre-piss-off such a crucial demographic. With $21billion (that’s billions and billions!) at stake, the gaming world is going to get more inclusive, real damn fast.
The report also has a statistic I find very interesting:
Average age of game purchasers: 35
Gender of game purchasters: 50% male, 50% female
Gamers who play with family members: 32%
@marcus #82
And with that new market pressure to be more inclusive, a better diversity of games with more depth and complexity! At least I hope so.
I play Kerbal Space Program and Minecraft and Prison Architect (it’s really more interesting than it sounds… And maddeningly difficult sometimes). I’m also a big fan of Tropico, Sim City, the Sims.. Rollercoaster Tycoon. I love endless play. I love dynamic little universes. I want more of this stuff.
Had a round or two with some anti-Anita types on the Interwebs, um, the misogynists. I can only report that they are dumb as rocks, and I do hope none of our female colleagues ever have to deal with them.
@Theron #84
Or anybody, for that matter.
jasbrimstone, 14:
If that’s bad, I’m joining you in the badness corner.
And let’s not forget the market of cis male white gamers who are tired of going “ew” and skipping through parts of games as fast as they can. You don’t have to be the target to get uncomfortable in a toxic atmosphere.
toddsweeney@77,
I’m sorry to hear that, but not surprised. I haven’t been to the JREF forum in years, and it sounds like nothing has changed.
2 Litgit 2 Quit
A couple of good articles that have come out lately in response to the reaction:
‘Games’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over. Leigh Alexander is fantastic and always worth reading.
Video Games, Misogyny and Terrorism: A Guide to Assholes The main picture is of the two assholes looking for patronage for their hitpiece The Sarkeesian Effect (they want $15k per episode, Anita was heavily criticised for asking for $6k for 5 episodes). Despite their protestations, they both look like prime examples of MRA/game players.
The rhetoric I’m tired of is “I hate how I’m unable to disagree with Sarkeesian with being branded a misogynist”, which usually comes accompanied with a heaped helping of “Not All Feminists!” Almost every time, such claims come with zero examples of how they disagree with her, or try to agree with what she says but not how she says it, or link to the same handful of bullshit examples that allegedly undermine the whole tropes project. We even have a classic example above in this thread.
The one objection I’m seeing a lot lately is “but she claims Hitman wants you to kill women when you actually lose points for doing so!!!” which conveniently ignores that a) negative scoring is as much part of gameplay as positive, b) if you can lost points it means that killing them is a possibility, c) they’re still wearing next to fuck all while the male targets are fully dressed and d) a sizeable proportion of gamers finding enjoyment in transgressing in-game rules and making their own “fun”. If someone has put a model of a half-dressed woman in a game and made that entity killable, then they’re intending that at some point in time someone will kill that woman.
Generally, if you replace any references to “Anita” with whomever is ranting against her, their statements seem amazingly self-descriptive.
“game players” should be the more distinctive “PUA”, given the thread context.
“with” should obviously be “without”, but I’ll just point that out for clarity.
win.
indeed. and he’s become the Pythonesque version of it to boot.
@FossilFishy, #70:
Sorry, Handel’s Messiah reference. It’s so in my brain that it just has to leak out any time someone mentions sheep.
Suddenly the fate of the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail appears to be very accurate!
“The Black Knight always triumphs!”
Even without arms and legs….
What’s more: Anita’s whole point, which verbatim is quoted in thunderfoot’s video, was that the women are used as mere props. Isn’t he paying attention at all!?
@96 petrander
No.
In that world – and in all worlds like it – attention comes at an unacceptable cost.
dbryte, #26:
Please don’t insinuate homosexuality to try to tar someone, thanks.
Sorry, I’ll try to rephrase my #98.
Please don’t use insinuations of homosexuality as an attempt to smear someone.
screechymonkey at 66 wins all the internets.
Travis @ 55
I actually know a broadcaster who experienced something very similar a month or two ago. Someone called his local police department claiming to be him and saying he’d just killed his parents. He got a call from a family member telling him to go outside with his hands up where he found the cops getting ready to raid his house. He ended up having to turn his computer over to them. None of this happened live; he just didn’t broadcast for a week or so and told us about it when he got his computer back and was able to stream again. I can also think of at least 3 others off the top of my head that I heard about 2nd hand.
Another broadcaster I know had a viewer show up at her door unannounced and took some persuading to leave.
And that’s just from my relatively small circle of watched streams.
I find the “great reason to leave your house” comment irrational (no surprise).
Anita said she’d contacted the authorities: *they* may well have advised her to, or at least strongly suggested, that she leave temporarily. Should she just ignore them?
And maybe authorities advising that, and the targets of harassment doing it, has contributed to the “number of women killed for criticising gaming=0”.
P. S. Crip @94, I got that reference right away! I can sing the whole Messiah from memory (and sometimes do, even when asked not to). Nice to know I’m not alone.
Folks, her name is Sarkeesian. You don’t go around calling Dawkins Richard, do you?
@ Weedless Monkey 103
When I am responding to actions that I believe are inconsistent with an authority I sometimes do. But it’s something I’m open to hearing objections to.
Seven of Mine #101
That is terrifying. I do not think it has happened to any of the people I watch, but maybe that is because I watch a lot of British people play games that are not big Triple AAA productions. A lot of Gmod, lots of indie games.
The events of the past week have made me happy that my own development endeavours are pretty separate from my personal accounts. On Twitter and gaming websites I go by the little name and logo I created early on to use on a splash screen, I use a separate e-mail account and I do not really post anything directly tying me to my specific projects on my personal accounts. I am sure some clever person could figure it out eventually, but hopefully most would not.
Travis @ 105
This person doesn’t play big Triple AAA titles either. Civ 5 is probably the most mainstream game he plays with any regularity. Otherwise he’s mostly indie games as well. He originally gained a lot of popularity from Minecraft; he’s one of the very earliest Twitch channels to get partnership/sub button but since he stopped playing Minecraft his channel has stagnated.
The person I know who had the viewer show up at her door was a reasonably small stream at the time as well…less than 10k followers I believe. An addendum to that story: an extremely popular Youtube Minecraft player stumbled across her stream and she helped him solve a problem he was having and he gave her a shout out via twitter for it. His followers flooded her channel and she exploded from maybe 6k followers to 60k practically overnight. Her chat during streams became full of fanbois of this Youtuber badgering her about were they dating and all kinds of inappropriate stuff. I shudder to imagine the contents of her PM inbox during that initial massive influx of followers.
Seven of Mine #106.
Okay, that is scary. I would say it might have to do with popularity, but as your second paragraph mentions, even limited popularity is no guarantee people will not be terrible. I forgot to mention this before, but I actually do not watch streams, I watch Youtube for the most part. Most of the people I follow do the occasional stream but they are not actually full time streamers by any means. But Youtube is a terrible place as well, I can understand why TheRPGMinx does not do facecam and shies away from giving away too many private details. I would hate to see her inbox.
@56 Inaji:
Goats are too smart to be them. IIRC, ‘Judas Goat’ was the term used for the goat used to lead the sheep to slaughter. The goat would jump the barrier, leaving the sheep to their fate.
He wasnt dismissing the seriousness of her death threat because she allegedly got one. He dismissed it as a publicity stunt because the “authorities”, the FBI and not local police, will tell you not to talk about it or let it be known its being investigated. The local police are not going to investigate an internet death threat. If she woke up and there was a note pinned to her door with a knife with these message, then yes local police would investigate.
His point still stands though, if she did talk to the FBI they would have told her not to talk about it because it gives the “perp” knowledge that now their actions are being investigated. She intentionally hurt the investigation into the death threat to gain publicity. You can be on her side or against her side but the fact remains that she is either stupid or doing it for attention (for the wrong reasons).
And someone who received death threats all the time was Michael Jackson, he has a huge file of them. I dont remember hearing about any of them until after he passed away. If the FBI has a file on them then those were serious and credible threats. Do you see the contrast in actions?
What investigation? Why do you think the FBI would take the case seriously? PZ had death threats for years from a Canadian, and the authorities weren’t interested.
@Matthew Black
Ah, yes. The FBI, who has worldwide jurisdiction in any location where e-mail is sent. Thus we know, conclusively, that the FBI is the relevant authority even though we have no idea from which jurisdiction the e-mail was sent.
Makes perfect sense.
Or the relevant authority asked her not to talk about it for a certain amount of time and she waited that amount of time.
Or they told her that the investigation was 10x more likely to result in charges if she stayed silent, but that it was the difference between 1:99,999 and 1:9,999. She considered this and reasonably concluded that the positive effects of publicizing the threat outweighed the vanishingly small chance that
the relevant authoritiesthe GLOBAL FBI! would successfully refer charges to a prosecutor with jurisdiction.Or…
Y’know, you can be on her side or against her side, but
disproving evolution does not prove creationismproviding false dichotomies and inventing the evidence necessary to sustain them before dismissing one option to justify insulting rhetoric relying on the truth of the other half of your made up dichotomy does not, in fact, make you the rational defender of all the only reasonable position.Instead it makes you rather this topic’s idiot.
Which might lead the harasser to shut up, out of self-interest, and stop harassing her. Sarkeesian isn’t obligated to sacrifice her safety or peace of mind so the FBI might have a better chance of running this person down and slapping them with a fine and a firm “No.” HER primary interest may be to get the harassment to stop. She has a life, thankyouverymuch.
(Going public may also alert friends of the harasser that there’s an investigation to which they can turn over info. It doesn’t necessarily hurt this kind of investigation in the first place.)
Going public also lets people know to be concerned if they don’t hear from you for a while.
Matthew Black:
Damn, do you shipistons ever think about what you’re saying? What am I saying, you’re a Thunderfucker apologist, of course you don’t.
I’m fucking sick of seeing “she did it for the attention” as one of the responses. Are you with the FBI? Do you know how they handle these situations? Do you even know if there’s an investigation? Do you know how she could have hurt such an investigation (as the FBI would determine it, not how your fool brain interprets “hurting an investigation”)? Why are you dismissing PZs point:
This isn’t a just world. It’s sad that people can and do get harassed and threatened with violence on the internet and nothing gets done about it. So if you’re hauling that Just World Fallacy around in the back of your brain, purge it. Now.
Also, bringing this shit to light by making people aware that this stuff goes on is a reasonable response to getting these comments. Far too many people are still unaware of what women have to deal with on the internet, and this stuff needs to be seen. It needs to be heard.
Now, since you’re a fuckfaced shitstain why don’t you just dive on back into your hole in the ground instead of gracing us with your presence?
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
You seriously posted that? You are a moron. The local police arent going to investigate it since no crime was committed in their jurisdiction. If she were on vacation in Miami and this guy attacked her, do you think SFPD is going to have jurisdiction? Did you fail critical thinking course in college? I didnt bother reading the rest of your comment for fear it was loaded with more stupidity.
Pteryxx
She isnt sacrificing herself for peace of mind. She notified the authorities. They are investigating. When you are trying to find a suspect, you dont want them to know that they are being hunted. Why? For the reasons you just stated. They will stop, hide, and wait till the heat blows over so they can try again. The goal is to catch the guy so he can never do what he described in his threat, not just shut him up.
Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm
Yup, makes sense except she could have personally told her family, and close friends. Advertising it to the world isnt letting people be concered about her, its putting herself in continued risk (see my comment to the guy above)
Tony! The Queer Shoop
Your argument is an ad hominem and also argument from ignorance. Are you in the FBI? No? Someone who went through this explained what he was told to do. And using rational thought it makes sense.
As for your comment to the other fellow…Welcome to the internet? The porn is to the left, pictures of the cats to the right. Walk pass the trolls and dont feed them. Its highly advisable that you ignore trolls. Oh and if someone says they are a Nigerian prince with money and need your help, dont listen to them.
I can post screenshots where I’ve been harassed in games and I’m a guy! I’ve been threatened with physical violence. The point being…Welcome to the internet! now grow a thick skin.
Matthew Black
Damn near a bingo in a single post.
Matthew Black:
insults are not ad hominem attacks.
Because trying to make the internet better is OPPRESHUN!!
You should have. Your sarcasm detector was malfunctioning, like your attitude is.
Show evidence for that, that they are truly investigating, rather than just taking the report and “filing” it. All assertions, no evidence. Typical of loudmouth MRA fuckwits.
Won’t happen and you know it. Meanwhile, you want her to shut the fuck up as it is an embarrassment
for those who don’t like the truth she tells.
I don’t believe the evidenced assertions of somebody essentially trying to shut her up. Your truthfulness and evidence to date is sorely lacking.
More evidence you don’t know what you are talking about. Just making a big mess loudly.
And your parting shot is that of bully. You must take my bullying.
I give you a 7 out of 10 for being a bullying asshole.
Matthew Black @ 115
How very neatly you just erased the concerns of the victim again. Facilitating the investigation is not necessarily the victim’s most pressing concern, fuckwit. Further, they may stop, hide, and be spooked enough not to try again.
*WHOOOSH* go the goalposts. It speaks to your claim that whichever authority is dealing with the case would certainly have advised against telling anyone. This may come as a surprise to you but law enforcement also has a duty to protect victims. The investigation isn’t their only concern any more than it’s the victim’s only concern. Further, don’t assume the gender of people you don’t know around here.
You are absolutely ludicrous. Ad hominem != insult. Also, “some rando told me a thing about the FBI” != knowledge of standard FBI operating procedure, much less knowledge of what they would say in this specific case.
The reference to Creationists is well-picked. Similar train of argument (my experience with it is with the Apollo Hoaxies). Basically, moving the goalposts. They never even seem to notice they are shifting to diametrically opposed arguments. All they know is they are still picking a side.
MRA: “She was wrong for making up threats.”
“She did get threats; here’s a screenshot.”
MRA: “Then she was wrong for not going to the police.”
“She did go to the police.”
MRA: “Then she’s wrong for interfering with a police investigation.”
What’s intriguing about the mental process is they seem honestly unaware that they are doing it. At any moment, they are strenuously defending what they see as a strong argument, and they take even mention of a different argument (such as, the argument they themselves were making on Tuesday) as a transparent attempt at distraction.
Daz: Experiencing A Slight Gravitas Shortfall
Why do you think there is a concept of freedom of speech? It will eventually lead to oppression if you start to limit it. Do what everyone else does, ignore the trolls. It will silence them eventually. As for real credible threats, they will be dealt with.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
If it was sarcasm then I did miss that but my attitude is defensive because having a belief has resulted into vicious attacks against it. I cannot give benefit of doubt because everything just so nicely lines up as an advertisement for an agenda to paint men in negative light given that she has also lied in the past. I also do not perpetuate the victimization of a group of people who are unknowingly being victimized for financial gain. If I’m wrong about her faking the death threat, it’ll be easily proven by an official report from the “authorities” and not by her “white knights” taking her word on the matter.
Ok so I’m MRA now? I wasnt aware that being a skeptic meant I’m a card carrying member of any particular MRA group. I actually find it funny that I didnt learn about MRAs till about last week and I concluded that they were about as organized as the teaparty was at inception. Meaning that each chapter of the MRA didnt have the same platform and therefore were not all the same. I still did not want to associate with them because I’m still learning about the different groups because I like to make informed decisions. So let me give you an idea of how I will choose what group I will fall under. First most, they dont perpetuate the idea of victimization as a profession. Second, they believe in equal rights across the board and not additional rights in one gender. They also do not try to force artists to censor themselves because a smaller group might be offended. Lastly, they dont resort to pulling fire-alarms, bomb threats, death threats, bullying tactics (and demanding proof isnt bullying tactics), and legislation to oppress anyone (which both MRAs and Radical feminists have groups that do this).
No, scrutiny is not an embarrassment. People should be questioning things so there is proof. I should not have to take someone for their word when they have lied in the past for financial gain, which leads into…
Really? Like how she played games her whole life but then a video surfaced where she was telling a class that she wasnt a gamer and doesnt like to play them because they are violent. Then makes a video about violent video games where argument points are cherry-picked to be taken out of context to fit the narrative of the video she made. Yup, sounds like someone who doesnt lie.
I’m not trying to “shut her up” or her sexist agenda. I’m asserting that if she were really in fear for her life that she wouldnt advertise that she isnt home and is staying at a friends house giving this stalker information to put her and now this other person in danger. Or advertise to the person that they are now investigated giving them ample time to destroy evidence that without could lead to that person still being out on the streets. A person like that, if indeed a real person, needs to be removed from society as they can not only cause her harm but others as well. I’m so glad that we’re so worried just about Anita and not anyone else. But hey, I’m only thinking like a man, right? /sarcasm>
I dont think you understand what a bully is. I provided a counter point defending someone. I instantly got vicious attacks. I’m still not bullying anyone and receiving vicious attacks. Just because I have a difference of an opinion than the people attacking me.
Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm
Uhh. So living in constant fear of the person that is “stalking” her is the most pressing matter? The investigation would help remove that fear. But hey, thats what logic would state. And I’m not saying she couldnt leave her home, but advertising where she is going is helping the “stalker” find her. Like seriously, I’m seeing so much disregard for common sense by people responding to me. It is really not common I guess.
And how do they protect victims? They find the people doing this and remove them from society. And she is perpetuating the victimization of herself by providing details to the person wanting to cause her harm. “Hey guys I’m leaving my life has been threatened so I’m leaving my house to stay at a friends house”, gee thanks. If I were the “stalker” I would know not to go look for her at the house which would narrow the other locations.
All I’m seeing is vicious attacks that show how little common sense people have. Whether she is or isnt being threatened, it makes no difference. When people do little things that dont add up you have to question it. Just because I didnt drink the kool-aid, doesnt mean I’m wrong.
toddsweeney
No, the goal post was never moved. We are dubious about the credibility of the threat and whether it is real or not. There is a term called “sock puppet” which is used to define an account in social media that is faked for a specific purpose. This is obviously the case. The question was whether it was a real threat or one invented. Posting a screenshot of it doesnt address the point.
As for being skeptical, I have reasons given that she has lied previously but no one seems to address those and just viciously attacks the person who mentions it.
Wow talk about self reflection there. You are defending a weak argument by trying to strong arm me with bullying and insults without addressing any of the points. Given that we cant address the points at this time, and may never be able to, you have to resort to personal attacks.
Good job. You do realize that I’m not part of an MRA. I’m a free thinker. And the only reason I have a beef with Anita is she has lied and exploited people. But hey, you seem pretty happy being exploited. How much did you donate to her after she had to flee her home?
Matthew Black @ 123
Looks like, acts like, quacks like, etc.
No, shithead, doing what keeps her the safest right fucking now is the most pressing matter.
Assuming they found and caught the person making the threats before they acted upon them, sure. Would you be comfortable making that assumption if it was your life?
“A friend’s house” isn’t advertising where she’s going to be.
Repeatedly invoking common sense does nothing to make you look like the most rational person in the conversation. Common sense means nothing more or less than “shit that doesn’t challenge my preconceptions.” It has nothing whatsoever to do with correct reasoning.
And also by not necessarily preferencing their investigation above the immediate safety of the victim. Finding them and removing them from society takes time (not to mention even convincing the authorities that there’s even a problem in need of their attention). Another thing that may come as a surprise to you is that CSI is not reality. Crimes are not committed, reported, solved and tried in the space of a couple of weeks in the real world (the real world being that place where people who aren’t you exist). There are endless stories of stalking victims killed by their stalkers while they waited for the authorities to get their head out of their collective ass.
It also makes sure the victim isn’t alone which means more people to interfere with the stalker’s plans and be witnesses to any crime the stalker might be contemplating and increases the likelihood that someone will be near to hand to contact authorities should the stalker show up at the front door. All of which facts can potentially be a deterrent.
Vicious attacks? You, fuckwaffle, have a lot of fucking nerve characterizing a few people calling you names as “vicious attacks” in a thread about someone who is being flooded with threats of actual vicious attacks.
They only don’t add up because you’re skipping over everything that doesn’t confirm your bias and inventing other bias-confirming shit in it’s place.
You know, I play a few video games — I used to play WoW, and then got bored with it. I currently play Minecraft, which I’m finding fun. But I also raised 3 kids who were all into games, and I’ve seen Halo/Call of Duty/Assassin’s Creed, and played them a little, and there were nights my house was rocking with the sounds of gunfire and screams and alien weaponry.
And I’ve noticed that people like me are dismissed as “casuals” and “not a real gamer”, because somehow the notion of genuine gaming has been coupled to violence and destruction and intensely competitive assholes who call each other “faggot” when they lose.
I can see how I, and Sarkeesian, can simultaneously be a gamer and not a gamer. She’s not lying — she’s illustrating the painfully twisted way gaming has become exclusionary and viciously narrow. It’s like one gang of twisted jerks have decided that the only good movies, the only movies that count, are ones made by Michael Bay, and their lips curl in a sneer when they hear someone say their favorite movies are by Miyazaki, and they never watch macho big gun movies. “Hypocrite,” they sneer. “Liar — you don’t really like movies.”
She’s also not lying about the violence and sexism. It’s there. I’ve seen it. It’s routine. And it’s fucking boring and cliched. That’s her point — lazy sexist tropes are what you find in way too many games, and assholes like you insist that not only are these the best kinds of game, but that the cheap titillation you get from naked virtual women and random mayhem isn’t there.
And then you refuse to recognize that real-life terroristic threats aren’t real, and that people who suffer them should just keep quiet about them.
Now fuck off. We’ve got your number, and you’re just more of the scum.
There’s another “oh, she’s faking” dude here.
Make that two.
Yeah, I saw. Fake Fanbois. Ugh.
Matthew Black #123
Having the legal right to say whatever you want does not mean that exercising that right in order to say hateful things is necessarily a morally good thing to do.
And ya know what—ignoring “trolls” doesn’t seem to have actually stopped people saying hateful things. Doing nothing about shit doesn’t make shit go away: it just leaves the people being shat upon wallowing in ever-deepening pools of shit.
Seven of Mine, formerly piegasm
Ok, so you are the stupidest person on the planet just because you look, act, and talk like one.
Because only the present is important and not the future too? Thats a very narrow mindset there and only made because you want to prove me wrong but in the end you still look stupid.
Yes, because I would take steps to protect myself. I would take a self defense class, I would buy a gun and learn how to use it (which I technically already did). How is tweeting about it doing anything about it? The only thing is has done was drive sympathy and donations to her. It doesnt make her safer or stop the other person.
If they are stalking her then they have seen where she goes. All the message did was mark one place off the list of potential places. And a really determined person can identify her friends by social media.
No, common sense is the basic ability to perceive and judge things. The fact that you lack it doesnt mean I dont have a strong argument, it just means you cant understand it.
You inferred all that from my comment? I didnt say she didnt have to leave her house. You are a real moron. I implied advertising her moments is pretty stupid as it gives an idea where she is and puts more people in potential harms way.
And I love how you are implying I believe in fantasies when I’ve been arguing all along that you are too. The only difference is one is on TV and the other is on twitter. Speaking of which, how much did you donate once she tweeted she received a death threat?
I’m guessing that you werent the brightest student in your class. See what you said here are vicious attacks. They are not physical but as life has told us, you dont have to be physical to “attack” someone, right? You proved my point by replying the way you did.
So, how much did you donate once you heard she had a death threat? Come on, you can say it, dont be ashamed you fell for a scam.
PZ Myers
That is not what she said. Watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afgtd8ZsXzI
Thats a broad generalization. You do realize the scene in one of her videos that depicts dragging the corpse of a stripper around and shoving it into a box as “players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating of unsuspecting virtual female characters.” and the problem with the scene is that she describes a core game mechanic as created only to do this to two female characters, while ignoring the fact the player is penalized for killing them. On top of that, you’re not suppose to kill them, which is the point of being penalized for doing so. There are more than that.
The funny thing is sexism is used as a nebulous term to be defined by the person claiming it. In what way is a woman dead on a bed, with a dead male on the floor at the foot of the bed, considered sexism against women? I’m using her recent video as an example.
And you refuse to realize that someone might be conning you for money, so I have to ask the question. How much did you donate to her after she tweeted that she was accepting donations shortly after she tweeted that she received a threat?
Oh please dont try to make me a victim. I might have to get a paypal account to accept donations.
Daz:
Yabbut Matthew can fuckin’ take it! He’s been harassed, y’know, and by gods, he did the manly man thing and grew a thick skin! So that Sarkeesian person should just grab her balls and man up!
Matthew Black:
Jesus Christ, you’re quite the idiot. You were being told to fuck off, Cupcake.
Jesus tapdancing christ. She isn’t complaining of multiple corpses, some of which are male and some of which are female.
She’s complaining about multiple corpses, some of which are male and are clothed and arranged in a non-sexualized manner and some of which are female and are clothed and arranged in a sexualized manner.
Those are not the same thing.
Daz: Experiencing A Slight Gravitas Shortfall
You are well within your with in your right to have an opinion and believe that people shouldnt say bad things and live by that. The point I made was once you start limiting what people can say, then you start limiting more and then more until all that is allowed are only things that a specific group want people to see. I have been labelled many things in this discussion and a lot of it is from prejudice without anyone actually taking the time to ask me politely my views. I didnt attack or insult anyone to begin with but I was attacked and insulted for having an opinion that conflicted with the message. That right there is oppression. Anything I said afterwards cannot be really used as me attacking since I’m technically at this point defending myself. I’m responding to you in a civilized manner because I did not take your comment as an attack but your perspective.
Inaji
Really? Did you help that poor Nigerian prince that keeps emailing you?
Matthew Black @ 131
The future isn’t very important if you’re dead before it arrives, diddums.
As far as you know, Anita Sarkeesian has already taken self defense classes and owns a gun which she knows how to use. Further, learning self defense takes time. Also, there is a lot of data to suggest that access to firearms increases your chances of being a victim of homicide. A larger, stronger man can overpower a woman with a gun and then use the same gun on her. That’s not particularly helpful advice. You’re also talking as if tweeting about it was all she did. It’s not and she doesn’t need your fucking approval for the tweets.
Why do you think that’s even an answer to the passage you quoted? You spoke of the investigation removing the stalker from society and alleviating the victim’s fears as if it happens overnight. It doesn’t. If you think it does, you must have learned everything you think you know about criminal justice from television crime dramas because you certainly didn’t get it from reality.
Apart from that, don’t think I didn’t notice you skipping over all the ways in which announcing that you’re staying with friends can protect a stalking victim as well as potentially deter the stalker.
This is really pretty hilarious because you’ve impugned the intelligence of at least one person in every post you’ve made so you really can’t claim you’re taking the high ground as far as using insults goes. Apparently what you’re objecting to is naughty words then. Which just makes you look that much more absurd than you already did.
Matthew Black #135
Fucksake, why do people presented with a social/moral argument so often turn it into a legalistic argument? I didn’t try to limit “what people can say.” I pointed out that can ≠ should.
You want the right to free speech? Great. Me too. Try accepting the fucking responsibility that goes along with it.
Let me know when you’re ready to stop arguing against straw-lawyers, huh?
That is not what she was implying. She implied that because a man is in a suit he isnt sexualized but if a woman is in a dress on a bed, she is sexualized.
She further implies that these scenes that depict women that were or being sexually assaulted were put in there for the sexual excitement of the male player. http://oi60.tinypic.com/2zdogvm.jpg
I’m willing to debate her positions but in essence her videos are propaganda and not serious research. Some of the scenes that she depicts are sexual by the location they take place in, like a strip club, but to imply that this location was chosen for only sexual arousal of the audience is false instead of the story is really just opinion. In Mafia II example she basically is complaining about shooting over the corpse of a stripper when in reality that probably would happen in real life. Does it make me or the game developers sexist? Only if you subscribe to the thinking that you should censor people for trying to create a story. As for some of the sexualized content, a lot of it just her opinion. She didnt get a sample of people and ask them to play games and then answer a bunch of questions, she only got one, herself.
Inaji
Please tell me how I am an idiot in detail. Its easy to retort with an insult and call someone a “cupcake” but to actually back it up is harder and especially with facts and not your personal opinion.
Daz: Experiencing A Slight Gravitas Shortfall
Let me know when you have a counter instead of an insult. I guess at this point I should just called you a sexist. Potentially misandrist. You havent given me any civil counters and resort to attacks based on my gender.
So accept responsibility for you being a bigot.
Matthew Black
You may want to peruse the Commenting Rules before you continue bleating about civility, paying particular attention to items 1 and 2 in Section V.
Matthew Black #139
Counter to what? You claimed I was trying to limit freedom of speech. I pointed out you were wrong. Even if I were mistaken in that belief, this would make me a possible misandrist, how, exactly? Your logicky logic circuit appears to misfired old chap.
Ah,our brave non-bully is certainly got the bully attitude down pat. Not providing anything other than we must take his word for gospel. *snicker*
Poor cupcake you need more than attitude, you need to shut the fuck up and listen.
But mansplaining is all you do.
Hey now Nerd, it isn’t just his word. He totally mentioned a person who told him a thing about the FBI once. Next step: peer review!
Seriously? “Undergarment-clad woman lying in bed with her legs apart and her back arched” isn’t sexualized?
What precisely is then?
You – and others – seem to be asserting that her criticism of the sexism in video games is censoring. Has she called for these things to be banned? Said that the people who enjoy video games are bad people? Said that the people who make them are bad people? No, she has simply criticized them.
There’s an excellent quote that I’ve seen, that was originally written by Pauline Kael in 1972 in a review of A Clockwork Orange:
Sarkeesian isn’t saying “you’re bad for making these games, and you’re bad for enjoying them,” she’s saying, “this is lazy writing and you can do better.” She’s not saying “ban it!” she’s saying, “hey, so can we talk about how this mirrors the real world in an ugly and generally unhelpful way?”
Here’s the other thing: what Sarkeesian is saying is stuff that has been said for years about books, about films, about comic books, about art. Do you want video games to be taken seriously as cultural works, as art, as worthy of serious study?
Then accept criticism. Seriously. So long as gamers react like brats to even mild criticism, you will always be regarded as spoiled children and video games will be derided as childlike trash.
Also, well, if your point is “Sarkeesian is wrong when she criticizes many video games for overreliance on sexist tropes and imagery,” using sexist and misogynist slurs against her is probably not the best way to prove that you aren’t an overgrown manchild who has issues with women.
Matthew Black:
Matthew Black, picking a location where women are treated in a sexualized manner isn’t just happenstance. Geeze, the last time I heard that kind of argument, it was from a child (some TV detective show had one of the female leads dressed in excessively revealing clothing, and when I said something about it, the kid snottily informed me that the character used to be a stripper).
Oh gosh you all, our poor dear troll is feeling put upon. We’re being soooo mean to him. He’s the victim here, what with people calling him harsh words and not being polite to him. Whatever shall the fuckwitted idiot to now?
Seriously, this whole “they don’t put this stuff in games because they think we like it, they do it for the story” shit is so inane. Ok, so they do it because they think you like stories about women being sexually abused and objectified. Apparently stories just magically bestow themselves upon game developers and they’re powerless to choose to tell a different story for a change.
Tony:
He could always notice that it was PZ, the blog owner, who told him to fuck off, and get a fuckin’ hint already.
That WAS a counter, you pitiful idiot. And one that COMPLETELY destroys your position, incidentally.
Let me know when you are capable of reading an ENTIRE post, instead of falling to pieces after encounter the first word or syllable that hurts your fee fees, you insipid child.
Ah so you hide your ignorance and naive self behind rules so you can bash anyone who just thinks differently than you. I get it. So we should block all the negative messages that dont fall within your line of thinking but its perfectly acceptable for you to come across as a bigot jackass who has a stick up their ass. Well why dont you come down on off your high horse there and you might learn something for once that wasnt disseminated in a pamphlet at your last rally meeting.
To be honest, too much going back and forth and I’m a bit tired of going and re-reading everything. I’m just going to back away from this to address the vitriol comments.
She was clothed. She wasnt assaulted. The positioning poor due to technical limitations of game engines and 3d modeling, which I’m going to make a big assumption that you never programmed a game or make a 3d model, limit what you can do. Since this was not an animated 3d model, its going to look like a mannequin while lying down on a bed. It was designed not lying flat on a bed but standing up straight. There are plenty of videos you can find on youtube on how to 3d model. The other reason they did not make a specific 3d model lying a bed is because of what I said at the top. Do you see how something innocuous can be seen as offensive? What would have been a clear sexualization would be if she were on the flat of her back with her legs spread, and an actual vagina textured on the body but this is simply not the case in that scene (and I’m speaking about the scene 2:28 into her last video).
As for one scene also from the game series where she goes on about attire of the women. In Bioshock, the whole back story is during a new years eve party people went psycho and I dont mean a little psycho. This is the 1950s, so going to a formal party it would be expected that a woman is wearing a dress and men in suits, fast forward 2 years when the story picks up with the player, I’d expect the dress to torn up a little. I’m also giving the benefit of the doubt when she mentions presentation that she means just the clothes and not how she pinned them against the wall herself when she killed them to stage the woman as though she was presented for us to “titillate” over her.
She then goes on about a woman in the game prototype who is execute, which she goes on about that stuff in a previous video, but the only complaint that during a major crisis that the woman’s clothes show heavy signs of wear and a garter belt is exposed. I dont really see that as “titillating” or how any normal person could find it sexually arousing.
I’m not going to go through the rest of the video but there are multiple points where she is implying that the game developers intentionally want bad things to happen to women but fails to note that a lot of them are just consequences that stem from the player not acting. Its not sexism, its just a narrative where the player makes the decision is a reflection of the person playing and their beliefs. Unlike a book, not all elements need to have purpose or intent. Applying the same logic of a novel to a video game is going to have issues.
But anyways, I’m done on this topic. I’m going to go play video games, or as Anita puts it masturbate all over my screen to dead women while dragging their corpses all over the place and oppressing women. In reality, I’m just going to play a video game and not try to think too deeply on the intentions of the game designers and enjoy a good story.
Matthew Black:
Thank you for finally departing you sexist pissant.
This is laughable:
No comments have been blocked or censored. The point in telling this smug clown to check out the commenting rules was so he would see that this is a rude blog. Civility does not rule here.
Matthew Black:
Emphasis 1: Yep, that’s your fuckin’ problem alright.
Emphasis 2: A good story that is based on gratuitous objectifying, sexualizing, dehumanizing violence towards female figures, used for nothing more than background noise to the Male Power Fantasy. That’s a story alright, but good? I don’t think so. Pity your standards are so damn pathetic.
Yep, that accounts for the dead men also being portrayed with arched backs, legs apart.
Oh, wait…
Woah there, I’m back now because I’m charged! Guess what, you know you can be sexist against a gender while being that gender. Guess what…YOU ARE A SEXIST. You’re only reason to attack me is I dont think like you, well thats probably because I actually think.
So if civility doesnt rule here, me calling you a sexist is fine because you are a sexist and that is acceptable here unless its sexism against women. Arguably you accuse me of sexism against women even though I’m only disagreeing with one specific person who just happens to be a woman. I mean I can disagree with a man, does that make me a sexist towards men? No.
And arguably your problem throughout life. You are so fucking stupid that no wonder why you have to regurgitate things brought up by other people. You havent even contributed a single thought but only conveyed that you are indeed part of the problem in this world.
See point above. And to counter your regurgitated point, why did I enjoy Mirror’s Edge which arguably was the opposite and you play a female who kills men. Does that mean I’m now objectifying, sexualizing, dehumanizing violence towards men figures, used for nothing more than background noise to the Female Power Fantasy. No you dumb shit. Again, you are part of the problem.
Yup easy to attack without a counter all because you are ignorant in the ways to make games. I like that approach as it makes me feel justified.
Well that flounce didn’t last long at all. This fuckwit must be one of those “gotta respond to people who respond to me” people.
Let me help you with that, Matthew Black.
Bye.
PZ:
Thank you.
Goshdarnit, what an angry troll that was.
@ Matthew Black
What the actual fuck are you even on about? I referred you to the rules because you kept talking about civility as if anyone here, up to and including the owner of the blog, has any fucks to give that your feefees get hurt when people use naughty words at you. I’m not a monitor, I have no power to influence PZ to do jack shit to your ability to post or delete your existing comments. Hell, I want you to keep digging. I want you to keep displaying that your understanding of the situation is so shallow and biased that you can’t do anything except repeat the same horseshit over and over and over as if it gets truer each time you say it. Keep showing us how much smarter you are than the rest of us by ignoring all the actual arguments in favor of losing your shit over some taboo words. Be my fucking guest.
Oopsie, he got banned while I was composing. Nevermind then!
Shit.
Oh, well. I’ll ask anyway.
Isn’t playing one of these games ‘for the story’ a bit like reading Playboy ‘for the articles’?
Seven of Mine:
Even though he was banned, your comment was still quite enjoyable to read.
I did like Matthew Black’s new gravatar.
@ anyone with a brain:
I love how when I said:
Yes, that’s right, the Matthew Black that hasn’t figured out that there exist locations in which the FBI has no authority is calling me a moron. How, precisely, does one become so stupefyingly arrogant in one’s stupidity that one entirely disbelieves in the existence of legal jurisdictions where the FBI doesn’t have plenary powers of investigation and arrest?
Curiously, Matthew Black goes on, b/c MB simply had to display some more ignorance lest we overvalue MB’s intellectual abilities:
Right, so, shut up? Okay. Got it.
Daz responds:
Which is neither here nor there, except that this is what spurs MB to write:
Ah, I see. MB is pissed that Sarkeesian is speaking about the actions of “trolls” because he wants unlimited speech. Except shut up, Sarkeesian.
And even if MB’s advice correctly predicted The Silence of the Trolls, well, MB is then advocating actions that **silence people**.
My dear, dear Sacred Midget of the Creation! Our most determined free speech warrior, who opposes any and all limits on speech, is now endorsing silencing tactics!
If we wanted to go on, we might just observe that “freedom of speech” isn’t freedom from other people saying shit you don’t like in order to persuade people to engage in actions that, from the speaker’s perspective, might make any part of the world – including the internet – a better place.
We might just observe that “freedom of speech” is a defense against **government action** and that, to date, “Anita Sarkeesian” is not synonymous with “government”.
Or perhaps we would just observe:
Well thank goodness that there have never been any attempts to even **start** to limit freedom of expression, like, say, by laws that make it illegal for you to earn money by expressing certain combinations of words or publicly distributing certain images, symbols, or combinations of symbols. Imagine, if someone had already started doing that, it wouldn’t take long before TYRANNY. Imagine if someone had started to limit freedom of expression some outrageously long time ago, like 25 years ago. If that had happened, then we would certainly by now be living in a tyrannical state ruled by thought police punishing reasonable people outrageously just for publicly stating an opinion!
Oh, my. Now scary notions are running through my brain.
Why that Michael Black might just be cruel and unusual punishment…
Crip Dyke @166,
You’re missing his point. You see, we have to protect the right of people to threaten others with physical violence for expressing the “wrong” opinion, otherwise it will lead to an oppressive, tyrannical state. You know: the kind of society where people are threatened with physical violence for expressing the “wrong” opinion.
We have to burn the village to save it!
Bwahahahahaha:
One more, for everyone’s enjoyment:
Correct. You think incompetently. We, being competent thinkers and wishing to spread competence in thinking, attack you. Or attack “you’re”. Or something. Perhaps you can teach me something of your idiosyncratic notions on what competent thinkers call “grammar” some day.
I expect it will be as entertaining as hearing “you’re” advocate silencing in order to save free expression from the terror of people using words to advocate that others change their minds about something.
@screechymonkey:
Oh, my lie! Never occurred to me to paraphrase MB like that.
@ CD
I c wut u did der.
Crip Dyke, thanks for 168.
Sigh.
I wish M.B. hadn’t gone so deep into the meta argument and the tone trolling and the heated retorts. Because the couple of times he actually started talking substance, that was useful.
It was useful because it revealed just how poor his understanding was about what Sarkeesian presented, and how simplistic (and trivially wrong) his replies to those arguments was.
But of course, he’s hardly going to take a critical eye at his own work, and see just how much work he still needs to do before he comes up to the level of the actual discussion in question.
And I haven’t seen anyone, yet, rise above trivially wrong and missing the point when it comes to their “critique” of her work. Just the same scattering of talking points so vastly similar one suspects none of them actually watched the videos themselves.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain, coherently, how AS is running some sort of ‘scam’.
She set up a Kickstarter to raise money to produce a series of videos.
People gave her money.
She started producing and releasing a series of videos.
Where’s the scam?
Hell, people gave her more money than she asked for, and she has currently produced more videos than she originally planned.
Again, where’s the scam? Who’s being fooled here? Just because some whiny dudebros don’t like the content (that they probably didn’t offer a dime for) does not a scam make….
It is one of Sarkeesian’s major points in this entire series that objectification of women makes the stories WORSE. Bad stories are made awful by its inclusion, and while good stories can survive and stay good, they are even better without it.
It is a notable demonstration of Michael Black’s toxic privilege that he considers that the inclusion of an aspect of narrative design SPECIFICALLY and INTENTIONALLY made to appeal to the base instincts of one subset of consumers, of which he is a part, but which alienates and diminishes the enjoyment of the product for another subset of consumers, equal in number to the first, but of which he is not a part, is somehow immaterial to the “goodness” of a story.
It is a pattern we see over and over and over again with Black’s ilk. His circle of empathy extends only to that subset of people that he considers to be alike to him. He is utterly incapable of imagining how those outside that circle may see the subject at hand, and, most damningly, he does not even care.
A well deserved banhammer.
Long may he splat.
It is also rather notable how all those so-called gamers, who I would presume are familiar with the gaming term “Leroy Jenkins”, are so prone to be charging into these forums, rhetorically blasting away, utterly ignorant of the subject material and unprepared.
Their eventual fate is rather predictable. TPK.
(Make that Leeroy Jenkins).
He was reminding me of the way creationists think. “The way the world is, is the way it has to be, and for very good reasons, and anyone who examines it is automatically wrong.”
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Next story:
Oh look, a scene in which a woman is beaten up…
Now I’m no gamer, but if this were an anthology of short stories, I’d begin to suspect that the author was a talentless one-shot and the publisher was a rip-off merchant.
@Feminace #173
It’s really quite simple. There is no scam. I know it sounds like I’m taking an opportunity to be a smart ass (okay, I’m totally doing that), but there’s no scam. You can’t explain that to them because anything Anita Sarkeesian does is automatically bad. If there’s something that she does of which her… detractors? I’m not sure that’s quite right… harassers and harrasser-enablers sounds right– If there’s something she does of which they approve she doesn’t actually do that and is just being a deceitful slut-whore that hates video games and wants them censored.
@gog #179
There is not enough alcohol in this neighborhood to help me understand that mindset. I mean, of all of their so-called “arguments”, you’d think that would be the first one they’d let go, because it’s the easiest to debunk.
Feminace, there is unfortunately a certain immature subset of males where the thought of even listening to what a female has to say, much less heeding it, makes their fee-fee wilt. They must get their fee-fee back, since they see themselves as alpha males, not the omega males the rest of us see them as, so they become internet bullies of the worst sort. Typical of omega males….
@Feminace #180
I think the comparisons that have been made to the mindset of creationists are pretty accurate. Stated above: “This is the way the world is. This is the way the world has to be.” The people using these arguments are interested in how easy they are to debunk; just plug their ears and go “la la la!” The psychology of people that are so devoted to their (demonstrably incorrect) view of the world (or other people/genders/races/whatever) is truly fascinating. The patterns of behavior are so similar.
aren’t</em interested in how easy
Yes – almost all criticisms of Anita’s video series are from people not getting the point, or more specificially – not watching the whole video and listening to what is actually being said.
The point isn’t that you couldn’t have a meaningful and feminist computer game storyline that included a concerted fight against sex-trafficking and violence against women.
You’d just have to treat the women being trafficked as actual human beings, with perspectives, agency, desires, instead of just objectifying them as eye-candy and props. It also doesn’t help to shovel on a whole heap of sexist stereotypes (violence and sexism against women happens from “monsters” and “bad guys” who are just evil and should be shot by the hero).
In other words what Anita has been saying in all her videos. Sigh.
The only slight quibble you might make is that some of the clips might fit better in the categories described by a previous entry. Instead of being “sexual violence as background decoration,” if it is actually meant as motivator, you could argue it belongs in “damsel in distress.”
I think the category works, however, because as subtle as it might seem, there is a difference between the princess in another castle who motivates the plot, and whose situation is therefor touched upon more than once as it develops, and the seen-once-then-ignored figures shown in the clips of the last two videos. Whether your in-game avatar is a white knight vis a vis them or not.
Which is pretty much how she lays it out. Way too subtle for the AAA brigade, of course.
Grr. And it doesn’t matter anyhow. Because even if your in-game avatar is actively stopping the assaults and punishing the promulgators, violence is still taking place. If the story-telling point was entirely about the heroics, your avatar would show up before the beating began, and stop it from happening entirely. Instead, as her examples show, your in-game viewpoint ranges a gamut from putting a stop to violence which is already happening, to passively permitting the violence to continue, to actively contributing to the violence.
Which means, from a Doylist perspective, the intent of the designers is to have the player experience an environment in which violence is being done to women. And regardless of how the player is expected to feel about it, they are playing the game, and purchasing more of the same, and perpetuating that presentation.
@Feminace
It’s actually quite easy. Imagine reading an article on “gender bias against men” by Thunderf00t, Paul Elam, Vox Day, Justin Vacula. It would be easy to reject that out of hand, and I for one would be looking for and expecting ulterior motives and misogyny in every line. Cognitive biases work that way, everyone does it. Also imagine reading an article that included words like “feminazi”, “mangina” ,etc. – femnist terminology appears absurd to these people and helps them immediately discount anything that’s being said.
The fact that feminists happen to be mostly right or more accurate is because it’s been (as far as I can see) a long-term concerted effort by those (mostly women) in a position to evaluate the discrimination and objectification they face.
Privilege blindness, cognitive biases and tribalism do automatic, knee-jerk rejections of anything a person says make.
Um, I guess.
It is actually a rather typical demonstration of these misogynist gamer’s intellectual dishonesty that they bring up the objection of “story” at all.
Sarkeesian’s point is that the women are background decoration. ie, it is about presentation.
Story is narrative. Story is plot.
Videogames are a VISUAL medium, presentation and plot are two completely separate issues. Damsel-in-distress is an issue with PLOT, but Women-as-background-decoration is about PRESENTATION.
Story is flat out irrelevant here. It is not about whether or not you are trying to break up a sex ring,* it is about HOW, visually and aurally, the break-up of the sex-ring is PRESENTED. One doesn’t actually NEED to have the break-up occur in the middle of a performance so the player can see the half-naked women gyrating on poles during the gameplay to tell the story. One doesn’t NEED to have a half-naked woman shot to death followed by a gun battle with the bad guys over her corpse, with her corpse being available to used as cover, to tell the story.
If you gave the dragon Smaug the voice of a sultry seductress, that doesn’t change the plot of Bilbo’s encounter with the dragon one bit, and when judging that choice of presentation, the story, the plot, does not matter one whit.
* (note that it is still about *breaking up a sex ring*, ie doing violence, actual and figurative to the people, mostly MEN, running the sex ring, and the focus is not really on “rescuing” the women victimized by the sex ring at all, and Sarkeesian gives multiple similar examples of situations where you the player gets to punish, typically with extreme violence, the perpetrator of the sexual victimization, but the victim herself you don’t interact with at all. You don’t talk to her, you can’t save her before her victimization, often you can’t save her at all, and in game-play, you run right past her dead body, with an option to pause and zoom the camera onto her corpse, chase down and kill the bad guy, and give zero more thought to her)
Yes, thank you. And we’ve all seen that world a hundred times. It isn’t an attractive world, either. If the kind of story you want to present requires a cruel, violent, world, then why not use one in which the divisions of power versus powerlessness play out across lines of culture, religion, ethnicity, or species? Why is it over and over (regardless of whether it is dressed up in trappings of a vaguely High Renaissance world, or a far-future world) that we are seeing the same seedy strip joint and stereotyped 2-bit hoods (and gender roles) out of a 70’s action movie?
One gets the strong sense of an echo chamber; one senses that the only research many developers do towards creating the latest “seedy” background is purchasing a couple other AAA games and playing them.
@ =8)-DX
Thank you, Punk Rock Smiley. That was well said. It is possible to be right on accident, with one’s cognitive biases no more in check than those of one’s rhetorical opponents.
I wouldn’t be looking for any real information in an anthology collected by joey, consisting of the wisdom of Foible, atrytone, and Michael Black. You encounter that, you have to deliberately choose to read for content, if you’re going to read at all, and fight your biases every step of the way. Otherwise you end up like Foible, who I am certain was actually worse off *after* reading critiques of Foible’s writing than before.
@Bill Nye, the Science Guy:
Do you think Punk Rock Smiley effectively reinterprets the emoticon sufficiently that no one will suspect your real identity and you can continue to comment here anonymou……
Oh, crap. Sorry.
Legion Of Doom Vs The Social Justice Warriors