Demonization of Moviebob and other Escapist Staff

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Lono Shrugged

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firebobm173 said:
I was specifically talking about Man Of Steel in that instance. Like I said, that not my main issue with him. It's just an indicator.

Also, try looking in his intermissions. You really feel it there.
 

NortherWolf

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Zontar said:
Everyone who supports GamerGate is an MRA? Well then, I guess that means the pro-corruption side are all radical feminists. At least, that's the only logical conclusion one can come to using that logic.
The majority of them seem to be. Like, the overwhelming majority. Not just...51%, but rather 99%. Because even the well-mannered ones seem to be, they're just to chicken to stand for it ^^.

As for Moviebob and such...I didn't call for him to be fired when he called me a subhuman idiot, I won't call for it when he's in the right. The GG movement needs to be shut down forcefully, as it's taken on a very hostile "You are all against us!" attitude. Not surprising considering it comes from the wretched bowels of Internet hell that is 4chan.
 

Here Comes Tomorrow

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Harry Mason said:
Zontar said:
Harry Mason said:
Honestly, if this GamerGate thing is the full brunt of of butthurt MRAs come to bear, it's pretty pathetic. It reminds me a lot of Occupy Wall Street.

"WHAT DO WE WANT?"

"JUSTICE!!!"

"FOR WHAT SPECIFICALLY?"

*voices shouting hundreds of different answers*

"AND WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?"

*mumbling crowd walks away with hands in pockets*
Everyone who supports GamerGate is an MRA? Well then, I guess that means the pro-corruption side are all radical feminists. At least, that's the only logical conclusion one can come to using that logic.
I love the term radical feminist. Someone who believes women should be treated equally, who also surfs the waves and rides and in a sweet hotrod? Sign me the fuck up! :)
Wait, I cam't tell if you actually don't know the difference between a radical feminist and a normal feminist.
 

Uriel_Hayabusa

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Caramel Frappe said:
The whole thing's a shame really... you'd think people wouldn't take opinions so heavily to heart- yet, here we are. Gamers so enraged by the mere thought of people speaking things that, dare say- are mere opinions that the gamers want them thrown out of the industry or anything relating to gaming as a whole.

What does it require, take, or mean to be a Gamer these days? I thought it was when you enjoyed video games.
''These days''? I really can't remember gaming culture having been anything other than hate-filled and hostile. I first started frequenting online gaming-forums well over a decade ago and even back then I remember disproportionate hostility: I've seen people sneerlingly dismiss my (and others') enjoyment of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as ''It was probably your first Zelda, LTTP is way better n00b!'' (or things along those lines). Hell, I once got flamed because I didn't know about Chrono Trigger.

There's this tendency to imagine that both games and gaming culture was better in the past, but if you ask me it's mostly revisionists trying to make themselves (and the things they like) look better.
 

Norithics

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Yeah, I'm pretty fuckin' sick of it to be honest. Just a giant pulsating gross volcano of people who mysteriously never gave a damn about conversation before, coming out of the woodwork to demand resignations, and (infuriatingly) claim to speak "for the audience."

I just want to shout "Hey dickstapler! I've been here this whole time and I don't want what you want! You don't speak for me."

Deaf ears of course.
 

Here Comes Tomorrow

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Norithics said:
Yeah, I'm pretty fuckin' sick of it to be honest. Just a giant pulsating gross volcano of people who mysteriously never gave a damn about conversation before, coming out of the woodwork to demand resignations, and (infuriatingly) claim to speak "for the audience."

I just want to shout "Hey dickstapler! I've been here this whole time and I don't want what you want! You don't speak for me."

Deaf ears of course.
That could apply to both sides.
 

Norithics

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Here Comes Tomorrow said:
That could apply to both sides.
Being that the 'other side' in this scenario is 'specifically me,' no, I disagree. It really could not. And as long as I am one component of "The Audience," it is pretty inappropriate for someone to claim they extoll the values of the whole.
 

Timmaaaah

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"Social justice warrior conspiracy"? Urgh god people can be so stupid... Since when did people begin thinking it was wrong to promote social justice? Are people THAT out of touch? Are people's minds still stuck in the fucking dark ages?
 

tyriless

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Dholland662 said:
Davis Aurini, one of tje guys behind the Sarkeesian Effect (go check out please) has been a target of Moviebob and a critic of him.

This man who is allegedly an evil hateful person.
You mean the guy who thinks black people are eager to start a race war
http://www.staresattheworld.com/2012/03/poor-little-trayvon-profiteering-off-hate/
You mean the guy who believes in the "Feminization of Society " as this video demonstrates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq5vRKiQlUQ&list=TLqAxJkmVjifnsNSB-3B3jXqx0MpUUSWZg
You mean the guy, who was chomping at the bit to prove that Anita Sarkeesian just had to be lying because she is an evil Social Justice Warrior, and thus needs to be put her in her place (and also wanted to get some of that MRA money, because intergrity)
http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2014/09/anita-sarkeesian-faked-death-threats/
(update #2 states there is a filing with the FBI)
You mean the guy, whose video you posted in another thread, which then got closed, because you failed to update the post to reflect new information that clearly contradicted what this man was trying to prove.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.860460-Guy-called-SFPD-no-record-of-Anita-reporting-her-threats#21385057
Now that's just wonderful that he is a big enough guy to not want to see Moviebob fired when the two of them have had issues in the past. I will give him that credit, but nothing else because he's pretty terrible human being on all other fronts.
 

Corran006

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Happiness Assassin said:
Now I am going to preface this by saying that the last thing I want is for anyone on the Escapist staff to be fired. I may disagree with them in this regard, but never would I consider having an differing opinion a fire-able offense. However...

This whole thing has left me extremely bitter against people in the industry and sites that I once frequented often, including contributors on this site. Moviebob has conducted himself in an extremely unprofessional manner, both in regards to this and at other points in the past and at this point I have stopped listening to anything he says, as he is so condescending and so abrasive that he makes Richard Dawkins appear cuddly by comparison. Jim on the other hand just makes me sad. He is always so vocal when gamers get the raw end of the deal and he has said almost nothing in regards to the mass censorship that has been going on sites like Reddit. I honestly couldn't care less about his personal stance on women in gaming (FYI I agree almost entirely agree that women are underrepresented), but the fact that he has being pretty damn selective in how he applies his ideals when it comes to people he personally knows disappoints me more than anything.

However, I also Devin Faraci (editor of Badass Digest) is an asshole to the nth degree and honestly is the only person in this whole debacle who should be straight up fired. Never have I seen someone in the games industry (much less an editor of a major website) act with open contempt in regards to anyone who disagrees with them (as well as those who had no skin in this game at all, like Boogie2988).

What got me into this whole thing was when I started hearing about this whole scandal on Reddit I went into a thread regarding this and asked why no site ever talked about The Fine Young Capitalists. I was then apparently shadowbanned (and later un-shadowbanned) for seemingly no reason at all. The fact that TFYC have barely even been talked about in the games media just drives that home for me. If you had told me a month ago that I (as a person who did and still does identify as a feminist) would be railing against the likes of Anita and others, I would have said you were crazy.
I know what you mean I already blocked Devin Faraci. The guy is an asshole.
 

Corran006

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Kontarek said:
Never much liked Moviebob, always seems to come across too smug about things I don't agree with him on (not that this incident is one of them). Doesn't really surprise me that he rattled the hornets nest on this thing, but I think firing him over it would be pretty fucking stupid.

But Jim is a fucking diamond. How anyone could perceive his utter neutrality on the situation to be an affront to their chosen side of the debate is just beyond me.
I know what you mean Jim is way more neutral and balanced. He looks at things from all sides and does not cast blame on anyone side because there is always more then one way to look at something. He said what was wrong from all sides and what was right.
 

Therumancer

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firebobm173 said:
Lately there seems to be a huge backlash against some of the escapist staff, and Moviebob seems to be the one bearing the brunt of it. There was even a thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.859921-Poll-Should-MovieBob-be-Fired-An-Open-Letter-to-the-Escapist] calling for him to be outright fired. Grey Carter of Critical Miss fame wasn't [https://twitter.com/GreyTheTick/status/508239619427557376] impressed [https://twitter.com/GreyTheTick/status/508242063473639424], and evidently neither were the moderators since that post was locked almost immediately. While Moviebob has actually calmed down quite a bit since then, Grey seems to have picked up the metaphorical sword and has been vocally against the gamergate movement on twitter [https://twitter.com/GreyTheTick], although he hasn't been quite as vehement about it as MovieBob was. People have even been trying to get Greg Tito fired by writing to his superiors at Defy Media. As for the forums in general you can find something of a "greatest hits" here [https://twitter.com/Escapist_TXT].
Even Jim Sterling hasn't been safe, and he was actually trying to stay neutral about this whole thing. The week before last, he made a video [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9676-Everythings-Awful-But-Its-Not-That-Bad] where he just tried to get people to calm by saying that things weren't as bad as they seemed at that we're all stil gamers (although in light of the events since then I feel it's safe to say that things really are that bad). By the time of next week's Jimquisition [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9695-Quit-Using-The-Term-Social-Justice-Warriors] he had been harassed by gamergate advocates to the point where he made the entire video about how stupid the anti-SJW movement is. He's even talked about how even though he wanted to be neutral in this, was effectively [http://i.imgur.com/lQrls16.png] forced [https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/504974988944748544] to take a side, and found that he was in good company [https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/504976633652985857].
While all of these people have been painted with the same tar brush, Moviebob seems to have become the mascot for the Social Justice Warrior conspiracy here on the escapist forums. As one last thing, I'd like to post what I believe to be moviebob's commentary on issues relevent to this.
Moviebob on #Gamergate [http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-long-post-about-gamergate.html](posted just before Zoe's 4chan IRC's were posted in twitter)
Moviebob on #GamerGate and how other media's journalists reacted [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/moviesandtv/columns/moviebob/12173-Comparing-Film-Journalism-and-Games-Journalism]
Moviebob on bullying in gaming culture [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJi0C3fhVtc](posted just before this whole Zoe Quinn and Gamergate thing exploded)
Moviebob on [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/5950-Tropes-vs-MovieBob]tropes vs women [http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-overbytes-tropes-vs-women](posted a while ago, obviously)
MovieBob talks about sexism in nerd culture [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/5436-Not-Okay](another old one)
Moviebob on conflicts between gamers and feminists [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/4719-Gender-Games]
Moviebob on problems in game culture [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/4969-Words-for-Nerds](for the most part only the last point is relevant here)
For what it's worth I agree with him on these issues, but want to give him a fair shake here on the forums and would like to here what other people think of what he's said.

Meh, I called this years ago. I've put up several posts making it clear that they should exercise some editorial control on the Escapist employees. By which I do not mean exactly censoring them, but they should require they run their material devoid of political or social criticism and attacks even against, or perhaps especially against, the right wing or those who don't agree with a socially liberal point of view.

Bob has gone so far in the past to do things like claim that people who liked the original "Expendables" were "the worst kind of people" in his own way, not to mention various leftist rants about race, gender, etc... presented as facts and attributed to movies and the like in order to make a social statement. As a general rule it's become sort of predictable that in being critical Bob will oftentimes say a movie isn't very good, but then lavish praise on a woman or minority (by American standards) as an exception to the cast when really they seemed to be just as bad as anyone else if your going to be critical of the movie because well... he's Moviebob. He's done so much stuff at this point that I can't exactly cherry pick exact examples... but in his case he's kind of sowing what he reaped. He's been at it longer than most Escapist employees and that's probably why he's at the forefront of the current wave of backlash. To be honest, despite disagreeing with a lot of his politics I think Bob is a fountain of knowledge on the subjects of geek culture, he very much deserves a platform for that, however his politics have been out of control for a long time. When I've raised the question and gotten responses, The Escapist pretty much said "no we're not going to reign in Bob" (publically) and I'm not surprised others have being saying the same thing, albeit less directly than I have. Now we're seeing the eventual backlash, since really you can only offensively present people who disagree with your politics as some repugnant minority equivalent to a mess on the bottom of your shoe, when they are really quite numerous, before there is going to be some backlash. Media control and trying to create a reality through denial only goes so far.

The "Critical Miss" team is another couple of guys that I've commented on needing to be reigned in, largely because of the whole "White Guy Defense Force" thing... which sort of demonstrated the whole problem here. They put up what was basically an attack piece, people got upset, and then The Escapist mods ran around swinging their banhammers turning that strip's comments section into a legendary bloodbath. Then of course they did the same thing again at which point I suggested The Escapist exercise some editorial control (don't censor what they release, but don't buy strips that exist specifically to piss off tons of people) and of course I was told that wasn't going to happen.... and chances are that contributed to some of these problems as well. After all when your being so one sided, and engaged in political and social censorship eventually it's going to come back at you. You ban that many people under those kinds of circumstances and then host a repeat performance people tend to notice.

Of course please understand that along with these comments, I have also mentioned that my preferred method of dealing with such things is simply to allow free speech on all sides. Basically, if someone like Bob wants to go around making pro-gay comments or Critical Miss wants to troll a bunch of people, they should have to reap what they sow and deal with the comments, basically no bans at all. The same applies to the "Religion and Politics" forum in a general sense. I however do not believe that anyone running a site will ever be willing to cede control and allow users full reign to
say what they want unless such becomes required by the government (and of course there is the question of maintaining order, keeping spam bots down, etc...), hence why I generally push for balance. Basically if your not going to let people strike back at the commentators for dropping their political bombs, then you shouldn't let the commentators drop them to begin with. Equal time, complete freedom of speech (my idea), or forced neutrality on political and social issues, those are the fair and functional options on the table. Basically if you don't want say strong anti-gay
comments on the site, don't allow anyone to make pro-gay comments either, and certainly don't let someone like say Jim Sterling do what he did when this was an issue over "Mass Effect 3" making options for a gay Shepherd.

Like it or not The Escapist has become fairly well known in the arena of geek culture, and as a result it's political slant is being called. A few years ago it wasn't as big a deal that someone like Bob was using his segments to be a "Social Justice Warrior" as much as talk about the subjects at hand (oftentimes by inserting a political agenda or opinion into what he thought of various material). Of course really it's just one front among many, given that the problem is one which exists all across the spectrum of geek culture.

To be honest I'll also say that I think part of the backlash is also because of how geek media has responded to various things like race-changing various super heroes and comic characters. For example you won't find many people with a platform saying that "Black Heimdall" was a stupid PC stunt (albeit one that worked). Or engaged in say an honest analysis of "Ultimate Spider-Man" which as some comics fans have jokingly pointed out is the best selling comic that almost nobody actually likes or reads. Milo Morales being in the same basic club as Sam Alexander and other hated comic change ups that still sell fairly well (basically people buy the books similarly to the old spectator boom, in hopes they will be worth something later). To put things into perspective if you say show up on a lot of forums and say "Heimdall isn't black, so he shouldn't have been black in the movies" you get attacked as some kind of racist, and won't find many people with a platform daring to agree with you. I've been in a few discussions on that subject here. Of course then again part of my entire opinion on the subject has always been that it's stupid to race-change characters when there are plenty of "minority" characters out there nowadays that could be promoted and given attention, much like they did with say "Guardians Of The Galaxy". I mean why do we need to make "The Human Torch" or "Captain America" black, when you have characters like say "Night Thrasher" and numerous others out there just waiting for a decent vehicle. Why does the world need "Black Captain America" when it has "The Black Panther"? (a comparison between the two, and even a few brawls is a classic comics match up). It's a publicity stunt, but one that the media that should be saying "you know, this kind of thing is getting stupid" rather than encouraging. The irony in a point like this is that I think it's actually counter-productive to the socially liberal agenda since it's making being a minority into a gimmick for someone else, rather than something a character just is right from their conception. Personally I think Mcfarlane should make another attempt at a "Spawn" movie in the current environment and show them how it's done.
 

Brian Tams

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If people feel that Bob Chipman was acting on twitter in a manner that was both unprofessional, and a poor reflection of the escapist, they have every right to ask for his termination. Just as the escapist has every right to ignore them, and then the people calling for his termination have every right to stop trafficking the escapist in protest. Whether you agree with what he said or not, the prior statement are all things people have the right to do. (for the record, Bob did act unprofessional on twitter, and it does reflect poorly on the escapist as a result, so nobody should be shocked that people are asking for his termination. That's how it works in the real world, people.)
 

IamLEAM1983

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Colour Scientist said:
The paranoia in that list of SJW journalists is astounding.

Ruin our hobby.
Culture of shaming and censorship.
Welcoming diversity as long as it's not diversity of thought.

You couldn't make that shit up. XD
This. A thousand times this.

I don't always agree with Yahtzee or Jim. I don't always agree with Bob. In the same vein, I love DougTenNapel's work as an artist, but I don't agree with his ideological views. TenNapel might have Right-Wing tendencies, but Earthworm Jim and Ratfist are neutral players in any debate. I'm what a lot of American guys I've met would have called a "Bleeding Heart Liberal" or even a "Communist" (I'm Canadian, so yeah. Social Democracy's in my blood).

Guess what? I'm still friends with these Americans. I still read those comics and play those games, because I enjoy them. The only personal limit I've stuck myself with involves the works of Orson Scott Card, but you'll never see me condemning anyone for liking his books - works of fiction that are harmless in and of themselves, and that primarily exist as elements of entertainment. I hate the subtext in OSC's work and I personally can't get past it, but I'm sure better readers than myself can.

As a mature human being, I have to make it my responsibility to accept the fact that we won't all have the same opinions on the same subjects. Demonizing staff members for their held positions is fairly useless and a huge waste of time, especially if they otherwise tend to create content you're entertained or informed by. Trying to corral people into neat little "Pro-SJW" or "Anti-SJW" boxes is utterly and completely useless. Not only that, it runs the risk of being offensive if a few of your attempts at graph-building or chart assembly are ill-informed.

The medium has its problems. The state of gender equality still includes problems, especially in terms of team ratios in the gaming business. Gaming journalism has problems. We just have to fix these things without trying to accuse or victimize anyone.
 

keniakittykat

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I never got why so many people are so offended by Moviebob...
He's not a radical by any means, and doesn't even seem to talk about any real controversial issues.
Seriously, he's less offensive than Jontron's random ramblings, and people make him out to be the reviewer's equivalent of Amazing Atheist who really doesn't give a fuck.
 

Zontar

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keniakittykat said:
I never got why so many people are so offended by Moviebob...
He's not a radical by any means, and doesn't even seem to talk about any real controversial issues.
Seriously, he's less offensive than Jontron's random ramblings, and people make him out to be the reviewer's equivalent of Amazing Atheist who really doesn't give a fuck.
You must be only seeing him threw his Escapist videos, because he basically said things on Twitter that is... we let's just say, better men then him have been fired for less, and he did so by attacking his own audience. He doesn't bring that to the Escapist (usually) because to be quite frank the moment he did so he'd be fired and blacklisted, which ironically he already would have been in any other industry related to video games.
 

firebobm173

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Ylla said:
Jesus christ, how come the GTAforums are less heated than the Escapist?
Because they allowed discussion of this #gamergate bullshit. Everybody who wanted to talk about how feminists and "SJWs" are the friggin illuminati and out to destroy gaming flocked here because it is one of the only places that allows people to talk about this, and the other sights banned discussion with good reason as I'm sure you've noticed. They gave The Horde an inch and they took the entire goddamn forums.
The whole situation reminds me of this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXsMaq0NU8c].
 

Zontar

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firebobm173 said:
Ylla said:
Jesus christ, how come the GTAforums are less heated than the Escapist?
Because they allowed discussion of this #gamergate bullshit. Everybody who wanted to talk about how feminists and "SJWs" are the friggin illuminati and out to destroy gaming flocked here because it was one of the only places that allows people to talk about this, and the other sights banned discussion with good reason as I'm sure you've noticed. They gave The Horde an inch and they took the entire goddamn forums.
The whole situation reminds me of this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXsMaq0NU8c].
You say all that as if it's a bad thing, when really it's just the result of the horrid state of the industry when this all started. Hell, I wonder what would have happened if the Escapist too had censored everyone who mentioned the issue. Would they to have lost a very significant ammount of traffic? I mean hell, even with them allowing us to talk about it the advertisers still called the home corporation up because they where angry with other parts of this issue.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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undeadsuitor said:
I wouldn't say everyone in Gamergate is an MRA, but since it blossomed from an outrage against a female developer and fueled itself with anger against a female critic (as well as a general distrust of female gamers thrown in) its pretty much a really easy way for brain dead MRA's to spew their anti-"femnazi" shit under the guise of the social progression of the Gamergate umbrella.
Uhhhh

Where's anyone distrusting female gamers? The only time anyone's sex has mattered is either a) when the blind idiots who demand a lack of ethics and accountability try to use it as a shield, or b) when the rash idiots who are overly sick of feminism tell the feminists to shut the fuck up already. I haven't seen anyone in #GamerGate ever actually be misogynistic (though admittedly, I'm refraining from calling "gets mad at 'feminazis' and 'SJWs'" misogyny).

If you have links, please share them.