If you found yourself repulsed by Andrew Sullivan’s ugly weaseling on #gamergate, here’s an antidote: Anita Sarkeesian on Colbert. She’s a reasonable person defending reasonable views.
But wait, I can’t leave you feeling pleasant — for all the reasonable people saying reasonable things, there seems to be a mob of thugs putting on airs of reasonableness to defend bizarrely awful views. Like the gamergaters who got together at a strip club to reasonably share their opinions in an atmosphere of alcohol, boobs, and shit-flinging camaraderie.
Inside the club, the 8channers sat around tables eating cake under elaborate rotating chandeliers. They traded the kind of rationalist locker room banter familiar to anyone who has spent much time browsing geek message boards, the dankest murmurations of the male id dressed up as pure logic. Dieter and Raj were deep in conversation about the nature of sexual attraction. Dieter believed it was an uncontrollable force of nature. He posited that it was only natural for a man to find women of one race more attractive than another. “It’s not racist,” he said. “I think evolutionary psychology plays into what you find attractive. It’s not up to you; it’s up to your dick. Your dick choses.”
The 8channers gathered at the club moved their chairs into a ragged line and gawked for a few obligatory minutes as a compact Asian dancer extricated herself acrobatically from a fishnet body suit, before forming into tight-knit clusters around small round tables. They were overwhelmingly young white men in their early to mid 20s. An enormous bald man named Hans, an 8channer who had flown from Texas for the party, pointed out three women in attendance, two bona-fide female 8channers, and one girlfriend, a model and actress with a neat Suicide Girl look who was the only partygoer dressed more for the club than Comic Con. “Naturally, accusations of misogyny are thrown around, but as evidenced by the presence of women, of which there are a few, it is a diverse group.” Hans paused, then winked. “By the way, table dances are $10 and lap dances are $75, if you’re interested. May I recommend Ms. Rain?”
Just to be fair, I think the gamergaters also ought to get invited on Colbert…and mocked, ruthlessly.
I bet they’ll even let them use their bathroom too.
Heck yeah…especially if they take some of their clothes off, and don’t mind the little webcam in there.
Sorry to make a tangential comment so early in the thread, but I’m having trouble finding an older post, and I hope someone might remember it. It was basically an attempt to explain what it’s like as a woman to be the subject of frequent uninvited attention by telling an analogous story of being frequently approached by women in public with the ulterior motive of talking about Jesus. Does that ring a bell for anyone? I’m sorry to ask, but I’m having trouble zeroing in on it with Google.
Their pretense at reason hardly qualifies as a mask — more like a few crooked smears of face-paint.
Errm… well, for one thing, I’m fairly sure most of my impulses come from my brain. But I kinda have to doubt this assumption. It’s true that the majority of my partners have been white, but I live in a majority white area, so that would suggest that it’s more about who was available for me to be attracted to, rather than that I have a evolutionarily psychologised preference for white people. However, I have dated a few people of colour, and I honestly haven’t found them to be any more or less attractive than white people. It seems odd that these guys are so convinced that it’s natural to only be attracted to your own “race.”
Every time i think it’s not possible for these pieces of shit to dig their own graves any deeper, they seem to find the strength to cross a few more strata. Hopefully they will break through the mantle soon…
dwtaber@3: There are a couple of open threads PZ runs that are more suited to inquiries such as yours:
The Lounge and The Thunderdome.
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~Descriptions for each are in the sidebar to the left.
I would pay good money (but not a cable bill, fuck you Comcast) to see a gaggle of these misogynist harassing assholes (I think the collective term for internet harassers is a “twitter”) ruthlessly mocked on Colbert. I bet you could even find one or two that think Colbert’s a Real Merican Conservative and would break down on screen for our edification.
It’s fucking hilarious how the one dude points out how diverse they are…when they’ve convened at a place that’s only of interest to people who are into nekkid women. And of course it would be misandry and political correctness run amok to suggest that they might have chosen a more neutral venue.
“What kind of music do you usually play around here?” “We got both kinds, country and western.”
Well at least I can enjoy some schadenfreude at them getting ripped off.
Athywren (#5)
I doubt that’s what this guy is defending. He probably has a fetish for East Asian women he wants to justify.
Well, that explains cultural variation in the perception of sexual attractiveness.
Oh, wait. No, it doesn’t.
You’re expecting #Gaters to have any cultural perspective that goes beyond their own navels? Please. They can’t even understand the culture they consume and claim to own.
The guy clearly states that his cultural perspective extends all the way to his dick.
Dunc
Nah, they think the sun rises in their navels and sets in their scrotum*. There’s no way to extend it beyond their dicks is the problem.
————————
*I don’t remember where I heard this before, sorry.
Well, now they can never run for governor in Kansas.
My folks were an interracial couple. They heard whispers of “He married her?” all the time, from whites of both genders.
@Allastor Russell (#11): “Well, that explains cultural variation in the perception of sexual attractiveness. Oh, wait. No, it doesn’t.”
Sure it does. If one happens to be a racist with no understanding of human genetic variation whatsoever. Which is to say, no, it doesn’t.
The worst part of that account, arguably, is not that they went to a strip club, but they ignored the strippers:
So Anita Sarkesian’s observations about women in video games extend into gamers’ real lives.
fmitchell @ 18 – I saw that part too. Brilliant strategy. “To prove we aren’t misogynists, we’ll meet at a strip club! And we’ll bring a couple women along to prove there’s no sexism in this! Then while we’re there, we’ll ignore the people whose livelihood depends on customers paying attention to them and tipping them, take up space that more profitable customers could have had, and not even buy drinks!”
@dwtaber #3 it sounds like Can I buy you a coffee from Ferrett Steinmetz (who has made his own hiccups in his time but does seem to have owned and learned from a lot of them).
¡hostia! I’ve never seen dancing tables. I have seen many tables with a bun dance on them though.
Don quijote, they must be a quaint foreign thing.
Of course not! They scare away the flying pink elephants.
(Also, they spill the drinks.)
So, any way to watch it if you happen to live in europe?
I found at least something on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L_Wmeg7OTU It’s not yet blocked in Germany.
And: OMG, I haven’t heard of this colbert guy before, but that guy is a fucking genius! :D
Is it just me or does it not seem that these gamegaters are really more interested in each other and what their buds think of them then any thing else. the focus seems to be so approval seeking.
See how ( any positive adjective) I am! my insults are even cool and funny!
uncle frogy
Spilled drinks make Ivan sad.
(But at least they don’t make your teeth slippery.)
After reading the linked article, I am rather tickled to learn that even 4chan has banned the gamergaters. Yo, assholes! When your behavior is so vile that even the cesspit of the internet wants no part of your whinging, it is time to admit that your vile behavior is the problem.
The logic for this group not being sexist is familiar.
“The Republican Party isn’t racist! Look, we have a small number of people who aren’t white! Now, let’s get back to chasing away those filthy foreigners and arresting ‘thugs'”.
prae #24:
Assuming you have Firefox or similar handy…
• Install Modify Headers
• In the “Select Action” drop-down, select “Modify”
• In the next box, put “X-Forwarded-For” (without the quotes)
• In the next, put “12.13.14.15” (without the quotes)
• Add a comment if you want to, then click “save”
(You should end up with it looking summat like this.)
• Enable the modification, click the “Start” button and visit the Cobert Report site, and watch there.
Well this is a shitty example of my sex in action. I guess I’m not as depressed because this is great material for showing others.
People reading this get to see these gamergaters doing all the things that involve women as objects and not persons. They were obsessed with sex at their event, while claims against gamergaters involve a lot of obsession about sex that is socially disgusting. They reinforced ideas having to do with males being unable to control their impulses (fuck you very much for that 8chan). And the cherry on top was racial bias involving sex that leads to reasonable questions about how their group is biased about much more.
A group that is not biased when it comes to sex should not have to point out that they include any women. It should be obvious by how they actually behave and what they say. A person unable to specifically mention very obvious misogyny when such is attached to their group looks like a person that simply does not care about suffering as a moral priority.
They look awful in a situation involving literal terrorism.
Next week, we hear they are going to have a meet-up at Big Al’s XXX Movie Theater, where they’ll be hanging out in the lobby all night.
@ daz #30: omg, that’s a very clever technique. How I never thought of that. Thank you!
Tethys (#28)
I don’t think 4chan has any moral objection to GG. I think the gaters were banned for failing at their ops so miserably—mostly by being incredibly obvious and abandoning anonymity—that they are an embarrassment to 4chan. The game was 100% up when Quinn released transcripts of the harassment and #notyourshield planning sessions from the #burgersandfries IRC channel. Trying to continue the charade now just makes everyone look stupid in addition to evil. And while evil is one thing, stupid is unforgivable.
Dear Gamergaters- wanna’ prove you’re not sexist? Find a venue your pitiful number of female supporters might find enjoyable. You might even scare up some additional female supporters. But then, if you knew to do that, or even cared enough to, you wouldn’t be attacking feminists who point out how sexist your games are, would you? You’ll always have a miniscule amount of female supporters because you don’t have the foggiest idea of how to treat women.
So it is with most activities where misogynist men are found in high concentrations. It’s all about the homosocial approval.
Reading the article there was a lot that stood out to me. Some of it just drive home how ridiculous the people involved in GG are (though that hardly detracts from the damage they can do) while others just highlight how bizarre it all is.
That could be cognitive dissonance kicking in. Arousal generally requires more than just having a person’s genitals shoved into your face (even for us men despite our innately uncontrollable urges to bang every woman that appears within our sight). Even though this Dieter person is in high school, I don’t want to make assumptions about his experiences, but if his only familiarity in regards to sex has been derived from video games, porn and the crap he finds on 8chan, then no wonder real life didn’t live up to his expectations.
And…
I wanted to address these two together as they get at the same point that is trying to be made by GGers. In my teen years I met people who were members of the KKK. They could be “super, super nice” and really come together and go out of their way to help out, even people they hardly knew. So long as those people fell within the right parameters. They were certainly nice to me (a white male) when I first met them. That changed as time went on, however, as they got to know me. If they honestly think that accurately describes GGers, then I say they should put it to the test. Let’s see Brennan suggest he’s kicking GG off 8chan and Sarah point out something in a video game is sexist, then we’ll see what they have to say.
Nice of him to agree with people like Sarkeesian that there is sexism in games and that it would be nice to have that removed. Since we’ve established that, if he disagrees with how she and others go about addressing it, maybe he could do something a little more than hang out on some internet site, e-mailing corporations about how they shouldn’t advertise on this or that site, and sending out tweets whining about “Social Justice Warriors” to tackle the problem of sexism in games.
Others have mentions this but I wanted to add my two cents: I used to work at a strip club as a DJ. I still know many people who work at one or another club around town in one capacity or another. While it isn’t the worst thing you can do in a strip club, taking up a large area of a club and not tipping the dancers is high up on that list (this is one reason “Race Week” is regarded with seething animosity by the strip club workers who I know). I have to assume that the club in question simply wasn’t that busy that night or occupied a rather large space. That or someone in the group was really good friends with the owner/ manager. Otherwise, if they weren’t giving the dancers money, they’d have been asked to leave.
Somewhere in there is supposed to be a compliment but hell if I can find it. I mean, I guess pointing out how they apparently have a lot of free time, or are willing to let a lot go to free up more time, but since he just praises them for using it (not wisely or anything, just using it) I’m not sure he knows how a compliment is supposed to work. I mean, if the best someone could say about me was along the lines of, “Wow, if we could just channel all the energy you don’t use, the wonders we could accomplish”, I’d reconsider a few of my life choices.