Getting Furious Over "Girlfriend Mode"

[Num1d1um]

God damn it people. This is what he said:

"That's not a sexist, tired stereotype, that is a fact. All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Those who do, may be good at them, I don't know because I have never seen one. But it is known that males have a better spacial sense than females on average."

Notice how he says "All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Those who do, may be good at them, I don't know because I have never seen one.", NOT "All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Therefore there are no girls who play shooters."

It's not that hard to go back half a page, check what we're talking about and read it. If you think the above paragraph implies no women play shooters, you're doing the exact thing I said you do, but unconsciously. He's not saying that. You want him to be saying it.

 

[The Lunatic]

It's not that hard to go back half a page, check what we're talking about and read it. If you think the above paragraph implies no women play shooters, you're doing the exact thing I said you do, but unconsciously. He's not saying that. You want him to be saying it.

You're really expecting people who get mad at something being called "Girlfriend mode" to not be irrational and sensational when somebody says something?


This is kinda the problem, a lot of these people just don't read or understand what the original person is saying, which has been demonstrated right now and in the context to what the original debate is about.

 

[KrystelCandy]

God damn it people. This is what he said:

"That's not a sexist, tired stereotype, that is a fact. All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Those who do, may be good at them, I don't know because I have never seen one. But it is known that males have a better spacial sense than females on average."

Notice how he says "All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Those who do, may be good at them, I don't know because I have never seen one.", NOT "All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Therefore there are no girls who play shooters."

It's not that hard to go back half a page, check what we're talking about and read it. If you think the above paragraph implies no women play shooters, you're doing the exact thing I said you do, but unconsciously. He's not saying that. You want him to be saying it.

I made an account! Just for you!

Ahem...

That's not a sexist, tired stereotype, that is a fact. All gamer-girls I know don't play shooters. Those who do, may be good at them, I don't know because I have never seen one. But it is known that males have a better spacial sense than females on average.

Again... did you see the part you forgot to mention?

That's not a sexist, tired stereotype, that is a fact.

He then proceeds to use a personal anecdote that no girls he knows plays shooters. He then proceeds to treat the "good female shooter player base" as a mythical beast, who may or may not exist, as he himself has never met one and then backs up his claim using "evidence" that men are inherently superior in terms of spacial sense.

Yeah, no.

I play shooters mainly myself... mainly because most RPGs nowadays are awful, but still, and I can safely say I play better than alot of my friends, and even my last boyfriend. He sucked at games, and judging from the number of guys I've killed in CS, TF2, etc, lots of men suck at games.

I think we should call this mode "boyfriend mode" as the vast majority of male players I've met have been absolutely awful at shooters.

I wasn't personally offended by the girlfriend comment, I raised an eyebrow, said "really?" and moved on... what I'm interested in is the fact people are defending it. Whether the reaction is too far or not is irrelevant to me, I'm more flabbergasted in how people can just say "It's a-ok that he said it because it's TRUE!" And "women shouldn't complain, these games are meant for boys, just get a sense of humor." Yeah, I could point to many examples over the years of problems with this... but really, I shouldn't have to at this point.

Developer guy said something dumb, sure, some chuckled it off, some people got offended, sure, then people defended the original position and... what?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Ta Krystal was just about to point that out but you beat me to it. I too had a bf that was pants at games. But I have met plenty of guys who are awesome (and better than me) ofc.

Welcome to the escapist. :3

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I thought "girlfriend mode" was what the developers called and it's really just called the BFF skill tree

I think that may be what a majority of readers readers read it as and just went nuts about it. But making the statement wasn't helping anyone to begin with.

Should have called it noob mode.

 

[KrystelCandy]

snip

Ta Krystal was just about to point that out but you beat me to it. I too had a bf that was pants at games. But I have met plenty of guys who are awesome (and better than me) ofc.

Welcome to the escapist. :3

Thank yous!~

Now back to my lurking ways.

Rewrote this like 6 times... my captcha said "think twice".

 

[Num1d1um]

PLEASE

I wrote out like 3 paragraphs of f*cking text trying to imagine how I could possibly phrase this in a way that people understand what I'm saying. I'm starting to wonder if I have some kind of communication problem or if you simply don't get my point.

Let me make it clear, and I'll be talking about hemmingway here, not tiama.

The reason this guy is using girl as part of his relationship-based nickname for the skilltree is because in his PERSONAL experience, in the inept/adept couple situation this mode was made for, the female has been the inept part. He is projecting this onto the general gaming public because he is getting the impression that this is how it is with almost everyone.

What he's not saying is that this is good, right, true, absolute or an ought state. There's a severe disconnect that happens everytime in discussions like this where people like you think that a speaker who states what he perceives as an IS must be also think of that state as a desired OUGHT. Saying how you think things are is not equal to saying you want them to be like that or that they're good how you think they currently are. Those are seperate statements that are not implied in a perceived IS statement.

This exact thing happens in debates about evolutionary psychology and societal gender roles. In those things, people who, for example, think women are on average physically weaker than men, are accused of implying that there should be a social consequence that disadvantages women based on that thought. They don't imply that, and pretending they imply that is a corrupt way of strawmaning their position into something that is easy to attack and makes the attacker appear to have an inherent moral advantage in the debate.

That's exactly what's going on in all the controversy going on right now. It's manipulative, drives attention away from the real, underlying issues and is just an outright shitty and cowardly thing to do.

Please stop misrepresenting what people say and then attacking a misrepresented position.

 

[KrystelCandy]

PLEASE

Snip

You're the one who doesn't seem to be listening. His personal experiences don't mean anything, and we can say he's wrong as we are females who are outside his personal experiences, end of that story. Him projecting this doesn't matter, being wrong doesn't mean it's OKAY to be wrong, and defending him for being wrong because he used his own personal experiences to support his position is silly.

I also never said anything about it being good, right, true, or absolute, I just pointed out exactly what he said and which you seem so keen on ignoring. How he prefaced his comment is very important.

At no point did I say things are not equal, I never raised a big fuss about this... but I am about you.

You're just putting words in my mouth and saying how I'm wrong, all I did was refute your comment. Everything else was just a personal female opinion on the overall subject and not directly at your post, his post, or even the OP.

You also bring up a faulty analogy in regards to physical strength because that one actually has evidence to back it up, but it doesn't deny women can't BECOME physically strong. And of course anyone who thinks women should be disadvantaged over having less average physical strength should be ignored as an idiot... much like this comment should have been.

What did you say again? Strawman? Hmm... my spider-senses are tingling.

Edit: I like how you snipped my comment and named it "PLEASE".

 

[Num1d1um]

PLEASE

Snip

I'm gonna name this PLEASE cause you obviously didn't get why I did that

You are about me? Really? I hope not, I don't even know you. And you make comments on my snipping...

So what you're saying is that when a guy comes to a faulty conclusion about something based on personal experience that doesn't reflect the entire world, we should shit on him for not being everyone and having that insight? Seems a little crass to me.

I'd love if you'd actually make an argument instead of saying "this is silly". On top of that, you still didn't get my point. I'm not saying it's okay that he's wrong. I'm saying it's more important to look at why he(and so many others) are wrong so we can prevent other people from getting wrong perceptions. The notion that personal experiences don't matter is ridiculous, as I presume you're a human and thus also base most of your opinions and impressions off of your personal experiences. When personal experience is the foundation of a statement, ignoring that and saying it's irrelevant is like asking why earthquakes happening and then saying plate tectonics don't matter when someone gives an answer. As opposed to you, I'm actually concerned with how and why hemmingway got this impression instead of labeling him an idiot and forgetting the thing entirely. In case you haven't noticed, his position is quite popular, and ignoring it won't fix anything. Ignoring problems doesn't tend to solve them in general, you should know that. Saying his personal experience is irrelevant is ignoring the root of the issue, and labeling him and idiot worth ignoring is pretending there is no issue.

But that's not true. This guy isn't just some idiot, just like a rampaging shooter isn't just some psycho - to solve issues we need to find out why dumb people say dumb things and why crazy people do crazy things, not shove them to the side and pretend they don't exist.

If you don't look into what made him and someone like tiama make the statements they make,more people will make these statements believeing them to be true because you refused to fix the cause, or even acknowledge its existence.

 

[KrystelCandy]

PLEASE

Snip

I'm gonna name this PLEASE cause you obviously didn't get why I did that

You are about me? Really? I hope not, I don't even know you. And you make comments on my snipping...

So what you're saying is that when a guy comes to a faulty conclusion about something based on personal experience that doesn't reflect the entire world, we should shit on him for not being everyone and having that insight? Seems a little crass to me.

I'd love if you'd actually make an argument instead of saying "this is silly". On top of that, you still didn't get my point. I'm not saying it's okay that he's wrong. I'm saying it's more important to look at why he(and so many others) are wrong so we can prevent other people from getting wrong perceptions. The notion that personal experiences don't matter is ridiculous, as I presume you're a human and thus also base most of your opinions and impressions off of your personal experiences. When personal experience is the foundation of a statement, ignoring that and saying it's irrelevant is like asking why earthquakes happening and then saying plate tectonics don't matter when someone gives an answer. As opposed to you, I'm actually concerned with how and why hemmingway got this impression instead of labeling him an idiot and forgetting the thing entirely. In case you haven't noticed, his position is quite popular, and ignoring it won't fix anything. Ignoring problems doesn't tend to solve them in general, you should know that. Saying his personal experience is irrelevant is ignoring the root of the issue, and labeling him and idiot worth ignoring is pretending there is no issue.

But that's not true. This guy isn't just some idiot, just like a rampaging shooter isn't just some psycho - to solve issues we need to find out why dumb people say dumb things and why crazy people do crazy things, not shove them to the side and pretend they don't exist.

If you don't look into what made him and someone like tiama make the statements they make,more people will make these statements believeing them to be true because you refused to fix the cause, or even acknowledge its existence.

/sighs.

Last post from me.

Point by point, I'm concerned about you because you're defending a post you really shouldn't.

I also note how you post my comment refuting what you said and pointing out how you casually ignored the part that makes his comment offensive you named "PLEASE", which says a whole lot of things.

You then make a bunch of arguments against things I never brought up.

Yes, we should expect him to have a bit of insight, the world is no longer one persons little bubble, and even if he DOESN'T have that worldly insight, the simple knowledge that girls play games, and there's alot of us as gamers, and yes, we can do good at them too should not require any kind of in depth study or knowledge.

I'm not making an argument because I never argued, I refuted your initial defense because you ignored how he prefaced his own comment. The reason he and so many other people have problems is the culture of videogames, and that's a different discussion I'm not getting into because I don't like you and don't feel we'll get anywhere with someone who just labels my comments as a begging phrase, clamoring for attention and understanding.

https://twitter.com/wyp100/status/234981941097684992

Not just him, it's the culture of the industry itself, they'll learn... over time, as long as we keep calling it out and saying "not cool guys!". By calling him out he's learned something outside his bubble of personal experiences, that is to be applauded, it's another personal experience for him.

And I was calling YOU the idiot, not him, he hasn't said anything since, maybe he doesn't care, or maybe he learned, we won't know until he says something else, but since you seem to treat my post so politely by making up arguments and dismissing me. Well!

 

[Num1d1um]

I told you you didn't get what the PLEASE was meant to say, and you didn't. I'm not trying to say that you're begging for anything or clamoring for attention. Saying PLEASE is my way of abbreviating the slang phrase "n*gga please" I'm sure you know.

Everything I've said in this thread has been trying to rephrase what you just said, that the root problem is the culture and not the guy. What I've been trying to get across is that I think the root problem is more important than criticizing hemmingway for being affected by it.

You also still don't get that his statement does not suggest he thinks girls don't play games, he thinks all girls are bad at games or any of that shit. All it's saying is that his girlfriends have been worse than him at videogames. How is that so hard to understand.

It might've actually helped your point dramatically if you'd provided the preface to his comment that seems to be of such critical importance to your argument. I haven't seen it yet and since you've apprently given up on this I'll probably not see it at all.

On the idiot thing, well. This is what you said: "And of course anyone who thinks women should be disadvantaged over having less average physical strength should be ignored as an idiot... "

You might have noticed I didn't actually say that. I made an analogy in which a hypothetical character is being accused of implying that while he actually says something else. I don't know if you didn't read that or you don't understand hypothetical analogies, but I don't see the part of your post in which you called me an idiot.

Which is bad debating by the way, kinda like calling something silly without actually refuting it is.

edit: If you were actually concerned about me(which is kind of ridiculous in the first place, being concerned about someone with an opposing(not even that) or slightly different viewpoint as if anyone who doesn't agree with you is impaired or something) you wouldn't just call me an idiot and bail.

 

[Narcogen]

Wow. I can't decide what's more depressing-- the idea that Escapist is now pandering to the portions of its audience that want to defend Hemingway's remark, or the idea that the author believes it is defensible.

 

[Num1d1um]

Wow. I can't decide what's more depressing-- the idea that Escapist is now pandering to the portions of its audience that want to defend Hemingway's remark, or the idea that the author believes it is defensible.

Oh my god, people with different opinions are allowed to voice them! How depressing!

edit: You f*cking serious?

 

[Narcogen]

I personally don't think the whole girlfriend mode thing was anything to get upset about, which is what bothers me about this article. To me, "Girlfriend Mode" doesn't mean "women can't play games." It means that very often the significant others of a gamers are not gamers themselves, and this was clearly the intention.

Unfortunately, the use of individual metrics in this case is unhelpful. Anyone can cite anecdotes to support one side or the other. "I'm a girl gamer, and I'm not offended" or "my girlfriend doesn't see what all the fuss is about" or "well it's true that girls aren't good at shooters AMIRITE?"

The yardstick is not whether the phrase "girlfriend mode" translates to "women can't play games" for you, for me, or for everyone. It is whether it can be read that way, and whether that reading is more or less reasonable than others. I suggest it can plausibly be read that way-- more plausibly than any other reading, which requires a bit of "well what he really meant was X" mental gymnastics.

We don't need to talk about this. He was not being sexist. The use of gender specific wording does not always track to a gender specific meaning, and I firmly believe that his intention was not gender specific.

This is rank revisionism. Words mean things. Gender-specific wording DOES always track to gender-specific meanings, or else there's no point in using such wording. This is yet another application of No True Scotsman. You start with "Hemingway was not being sexist, because Hemingway is not a sexist, therefore what he said must not have been sexist, and so we conclude with a non-gender-specific interpretation of a gender-specific term.

The contortions are clearly painful. If a gender-specific term was not most applicable, it should not have been used. The use of just about any gender neutral terminology-- including the one the game itself uses-- backed up with an anecdote from his own experience placing himself in the role of the 1st player, with the mode applied to the second, in this case, Hemingway's girlfriend, would most likely not have attracted any attention whatsoever.

Hemingway appears to be so in love with the term that he used it-- even though he prefaced it with the phrase "for want of a better word" and even though it's not called that in the game, which leads me to believe there's a clear head somewhere, even if it belongs to neither Hemingway nor Pitchford.

I don't how how sexist Hemingway is or isn't. I do know he used a term that is, and rather than apologizing for it, both he and his boss have adopted a bunker mentality instead. This article seeks to blame the critics for their response and seeks to advise gamers who want the genders treated equally-- regardless of whether or not they currently enjoy parity in terms of skill or numbers-- that we would catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar.

I'm wondering why we're trying to catch flies.

 

[KrystelCandy]

Snip

Putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about girls not playing games. Alot of us already know the root problem. We still criticize people for making mistakes regarding it, letting them fester in their mistakes isn't going to happen. I know you didn't say that, I'm just saying your example that if anyone agreed with it, their opinion on the subject isn't valid. I never said you said it. I just said your comment is also stupid.

I did refute it, you keep making up words and sticking them in my mouth and then refuting them. Your viewpoint doesn't mean anything to me.

In the minds of many, Hemingway was proving the existence of the casual sexism that is endemic in videogame development and culture by playing off the tired stereotype that women either don't play or are bad at shooters.

There, that was his initial sentence, which was followed with...

That's not a sexist, tired stereotype, that is a fact.

He's saying it's a fact we are bad or don't play shooters. Not much else to say.

We know the cause, we know the symptoms, letting the symptoms have free reign because we know the cause would in fact, be silly.

 

[Narcogen]

Wow. I can't decide what's more depressing-- the idea that Escapist is now pandering to the portions of its audience that want to defend Hemingway's remark, or the idea that the author believes it is defensible.

Oh my god, people with different opinions are allowed to voice them! How depressing!

edit: You f*cking serious?

Yes, I am serious.

I am not depressed that he is allowed to express his opinion.

I'm depressed that he holds the opinion that the real problem is the reaction to Hemingway's use of the term, instead of his use of the term itself, because that strikes me as pandering to the baser instincts of the site's audience, something I believe the site has studiously avoided in the past. I'm depressed that in this exchange, he thinks the problem is essentially an overreaction-- that being offended is a a bigger problem than blatantly sexist terminology.

The interest of the gaming press in defending Hemingway is clear: nobody wants studios to tell developers to stop talking to the press because they're afraid of causing a problem like this, so the severity of the problem is being downplayed. I'm depressed the Escapist would be party to that, because that's not the sense of the site's editorial vision I have developed over years of reading it.

 

[Num1d1um]

You know I'd make the effort of replying to that but seeing as it's apparently depressing to you that I'm allowed to post here and you're obviously not open to any kind of serious discussion, I'm not gonna do it.

edit: this was a reply intended to your previous post

 

[Num1d1um]

Snip

Putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about girls not playing games. Alot of us already know the root problem. We still criticize people for making mistakes regarding it, letting them fester in their mistakes isn't going to happen. I know you didn't say that, I'm just saying your example that if anyone agreed with it, their opinion on the subject isn't valid. I never said you said it. I just said your comment is also stupid.

I did refute it, you keep making up words and sticking them in my mouth and then refuting them. Your viewpoint doesn't mean anything to me.

In the minds of many, Hemingway was proving the existence of the casual sexism that is endemic in videogame development and culture by playing off the tired stereotype that women either don't play or are bad at shooters.

There, that was his initial sentence, which was followed with...

That's not a sexist, tired stereotype, that is a fact.

He's saying it's a fact we are bad or don't play shooters. Not much else to say.

We know the cause, we know the symptoms, letting the symptoms have free reign because we know the cause would in fact, be silly.

Wow.

Really, wow.

If you actually refuted my point, why did you tack an insult on top of that?
If you actually were concerned about anything, why does my viewpoint mean nothing to you? And if it does, why do you reply to my fucking posts after claiming you'd leave?

On the topic of my example, opinions can, by their very nature, not be invalid. If you really think calling something or someone silly or stupid somehow proves that they are indeed so, you're mistaken. If you think claiming how much you don't care while continuing to post demonstrates that you're above this in some way, you're also mistaken. People who have proper arguments don't need insults to get them across. People who properly refute points don't have to reinforce that with petty labels.

I'm gonna do an exercise in your style of argument now and just call you stupid, haha I win. Oh wait I don't. But I guess you kinda win the game because I've spent an entire page trying to get a point across to someone who is obviously not interested in an argument, so I for one am actually going to stop now. And you know what, even though you don't give a fuck about my opinion or me or anything related to that, I'm gonna stop posting entirely. Kinda like you opened an account to tell me how much you don't care. One could cut the irony with a fucking knife.

 

[KrystelCandy]

Snip

Because I thought you were being dumb and I'm being consistent across all my posts.

I am concerned because you keep using strawmen to support your arguments rather than facts.

Your actual viewpoint means nothing to me because I cannot actually have a debate with you with you making things up about what I said.

Depends what the opinion is on, an opinion can in fact, be wrong, if not invalid. If someone hates women and think they should be marginalized due to physical attributes, their opinion on women cannot be held in any kind of rational discussion with women. Therefore it is not valid for the purposes of that discussion. This does not mean invalid however, but for the sake of such a discussion it cannot provide any kind of meaningful input.

Again, my insults are simply because I keep answering yours, and I'm being consistent across all my posts about what I intended by the term.

You'll note I take the time to actually say things before I call you stupid. I never swore in any other way, you're the one who keeps getting angrier and angrier.. despite ostensibly agreeing with me that the problem is the culture not the person.

You are being dumb for defending the initial post because he was being dismissive of the female population. Say your own opinion, don't defend a bad one then state your opinion, it becomes easy to conflate the two.

If you can't tell by my stilted sentences, I had changed my mind and have kept responding to you. I didn't open the account to tell you you didn't care, I opened it to point out the fact you were defending someone who shouldn't have been defended.

Now you need to stop being so OFFENDED about it, thank you.

 

[Lyri]

Well as long as everything is catered to you I guess it's all okay.

They were basically saying all women who play games are idiots and only play because their boyfriend is playing.

That's bloody stupid.

No it isn't but this is the reason why we can't have nice things.

Girlfriend mode is for the girls who don't play games, can't play games and otherwise won't play games.
It's to get them into the game and to play with their boyfriend easily and not be too overwhelming, it has absolutely nothing to do with women who do already play video games.

Next we'll be calling student cookbooks condescending and offensive because all the recipes are simple, easy to use.
Obviously we're insulting their mental capacity as individuals.