How can "gamers" and "social justice warriors" get along?

[TemplarofSteel]

Easily-offended individuals will always find something to be offended with. There's nothing that can be done about that.

Like Gamers being offended at someone pointing out that their favorite game might have some serious problematic implications?

I consider myself a gamer and don't relate to what you're talking about.

Every single thing in the world "might have some serious problematic implications" if you ask the right people, depending on what they consider "problematic" and "serious". I grew up hearing that "games are for awkward nerds", "games are for kids", "games make people violent"... there's not outstanding to be seen here. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, there'll always be something.

If a person will care for everything everyone else thinks, that person will likely go crazy, because people think all kinds of weird stuff all over the world.

Anyway, fear of mass hysteria is still part of basic human nature, and also not completely devoid of reason. That's why zombies are so popular, and why films like The Mist in the scene where

Spoiler

everyone starts following the crazy lady

and anything using the "Go Among Mad People" or "Only Sane Man" tropes can hit people in the right places. But fear of mass hysteria and cult mentality is a different thing from genuinely feeling offended about something, and most people are unable to word the difference of what's going on in their minds when they react to stuff they read online.

Big fan of the Mist myself, and I probably shouldn't have said that, I was pissed off and reacted badly. The area I meant more was that when there seem to be problems in games or aspects of genres. Spec Ops the line got plenty of people angry calling it a bait and switch when it was set up to show the problems in a lot of the modern warfare type games. Also, it does get frustrating when apparently actually caring about how others are treated in media is treated as some kind of pejorative or something that is so radical that it's ludicrous.

Half of the arguments made against this stuff could easily be used for other forms of media too. Saying that if you want minorities to have proper roles make your own TV station, make your own film company, etc. Nevermind the problem is that in part the main media is dominating the cultural narrative and thus is helping perpetuate problematic stereotypes. The thing is that maybe, JUST maybe the issue is that mostly white guys buy games because they're the ones that get marketed to. And no one ever really explained either why they seem to think that a company NEEDS to justify a minority lead character or a woman lead but default white straight dude, well of course that's NORMAL.

 

[Lightknight]

That remains to be demonstrated.

What? That gamers should have the ability to skip content they don't want? I'd think that giving consumers what they want is an unmitigated good thing.

You're assuming there are two distinct and separate games within the game, 'Action' and 'QTE'; I submit that a good game should have those interwoven, and not just 'action time' and 'story time'. One can quite easily envision games in which the design decision to split the two off (for ease of development) lost that weaving.

If I could skip QTEs, I would skip all the QTE's. All the QTE's in the world. I'm not even bad at them or anything, I just wish they would go the way of the Dodo.

Most games have non-content action. Even if the developer decided to shoehorn in some QTEs into a video, why should we be forced to play it? Most of the time they aren't combined. Generally, you eventually shoot the thing to death and then a cut-scene rolls. There may be some mild talking during the scene but nothing to captivating because you've got shit to do (namely figure out how to get your bullets into their body).

All she advocates is for a way to make games less action and more story. This could expand the gaming market and improve the narrative for all. It isn't a bad idea and shouldn't impact those of us who like to play the game.

 

[Vegosiux]

Half of the arguments made against this stuff could easily be used for other forms of media too. Saying that if you want minorities to have proper roles make your own TV station, make your own film company, etc.

That's...an order several orders of magnitude taller than designing your own game or writing your own book, though. Thing with designing a game or writing a book, a lot of people can do that as it doesn't take that much capital investment. Filming a movie or starting a TV station, though, well...

 

[wetnap]

You know because you couldn't possibly set the boob size lower when you have a choice.

Who is anyone to say that the second body image is less valid than the first? Why do you get to decide what the default is? Why should it be the body of a twelve year old boy with a girl's head on it?

I rarely get to make my male characters into fat bastards. Should people make an similar image as above but of a fat bastard on one side and a gloriously chiseled ab machine on the other and complain that most avatars don't look like the former?

Yes, avatars are generally made to look attractive and/or dangerous. Same as why certain actors/actresses are hired to star in movies.

The funny thing is its just another kind of box feminists want to place on others. Only "this" is acceptable, everything else is bad. Lets be honest, some women do dress like that and slather on too much makeup, its real, and its just a valid as that slouchy fml first world problems attitude chick pictured on the right.

Feminists and sjw's just want to bland things down, fantasy is a thing, people want to be more than what they are in real life. People watch starwars not because luke skywalker lives through the struggles to become a tax accountant and pay off his student loans, people want to experience the exceptional, not the mundane, and that goes with body types and appearance as well.

Hell just look at womens magazines, do the pictures represent normal women? Of course not. Its just a concern which has a fundamentally incorrect assumption at its basis, that these images matter that much. If skinny models in magazines really affected women, I'd be really pleased, America and the rest of the west would be the land of the thin, the land of the fit, but guess what? We are the land of the morbidly obese. Funny how that works! In fact its been found in studies that plus sized models actually lower womens self esteem, the closer to home you make things, the more people will make comparisons which actually hit closer to home. No one compares their car to a Ferrari in a magazine, they compare their car to their friends and neighbor in real life. The impact of your friend getting a new car is far more than if you glance at Bugatti Veyron in a magazine. People compare in real life, this is just common sense, something which is missing in sjw/feminist circles these days.


The only way sjw and gamers will get along is when sjw's go away. Its like how will filmmakers and extremist religious people get along, how many concessions to prudery do you have to make before they go away, sorry it doesn't work that way. The filmmakers have to just stand up and protect their freedom of speech, and if the religious fundamentalists want their own forms of entertainment, its up to them to make it, not to demand others be forced to conform content to their tastes. Just imagine it swapped around, instead of not enough women, not enough jesus. both seem to hate sex so no difference there. There is no appeasing Mullah Sarkeesian, people just have to learn to stop taking them seriously.

Anyways kim kardashians games success laughs in the face of these so called feminists. She got off her big ass and made a game....if she's so "stupid", and even she can manage to make a game, and rake in millions, what are people like anita?

And yes kim kardashian is exactly the type of woman the picture above dismisses out of hand. Funny that. Which again goes to show there is nothing quite as sexist and misogynistic as a feminist.

Anyways
Why do people like exaggerated and extraordinary human forms?
Its biological.
Documentary - BBC How Art Made The World 1 - More Human Than Human.
The first episode asks why humans surround themselves with images of the body that are so unrealistic.[4][5]
How Art Made the World
Genre Documentary
Presented by Nigel Spivey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eGRoSjp3Ik

 

[Michael Kirley]

Not at all. SJWs hijack the cause of social justice to pontificate about things that have nothing to do with real struggles. They piggyback off of legitimate movements to make themselves relevant.

What constitutes as a real struggle depends on person to person. So let me ask you again, what have you done for impoverished kids around the globe besides complaining about teens on tumblr? Because this argument ONLY pops up when the poster in question tries to lessen the problem of another. It's the most dishonest tactic of them all. Because the reality is you give no shits about impoverished kids as the people your complaining about.

You still don't seem to understand what I'm arguing.

You've misunderstood my argument.

Not at all. I've seen this plenty of times. Person A complains about something. Person B thinks Person's A's argument is stupid. Person B states there are greater for Person A to complain about regardless of it's personal relevance to Person A's. This is despite the fact that Person B also doesn't care too much about the problem they bring up, but do so to simply 1-Up Person's A's complaints in an attempt to label it as irrelevant.

Except that's NOT what I'm arguing. I'm not criticizing SJWs because they are ignoring "bigger problems." I'm criticizing them for using a respectable social movement (i.e. social justice) as a legitimizer for all sorts of views that have virtually nothing to do with the important work actual activists have been doing for decades. I'm denying that the viewpoints in question even constitute social justice/feminism/activism at all.

Except this is not what they argue at all.

Except that's what they are arguing about. Like I've said, I've seen the post myself on my dashboard. I haven't seen anywhere near what you've claimed. I browse tumblr a fucking lot dude.

It's not limited to one post, wtf? Cultural appropriation is fucking ALL OVER Tumblr as a concept, and even seeps into real life from time to time. I've met people at my university who talk about how white people should never wear dreadlocks, for example, because it's "appropriation."

First off, wearing Bindis or Kimonos isn't perceived by the majority of Western culture as being indicative of a lack of free will,

Are you really going to claim this? Especially when Islamic and Hindu people themselves have said this very thing?

Yes, I am, especially since there are tonnes of educated Islamic and Hindu people who don't think that Hijabs and Bindis are oppressive.

and yet SJWs on numerous blogs claim that someone who isn't, say, Japanese, shouldn't be wearing a kimono.

How did we jump from Hijabs to Komonos?

We didn't. Cultural appropriation has been called on Tumblr for tonnes supposed misappropriations of another culture's garb/music/food/whatever. Kimonos were actually the cause of some uproar a few months back, I seem to recall.

Also what if the person claiming this is Japanese themselves?

And what if they are?

There are definitely people of other cultures who take their religions seriously.

And? There are definitely people of every culture who don't take any religions seriously, including their own. Besides, cultural appropriation is often discussed in the context of overarching cultures, not in the context of certain religious individuals.

I'm not going to act like a Japanese expert, but perhaps there is something about the Kimono that other people are doing wrong? I don't know.

What's to do wrong? Seriously, it's a garment. It isn't owned by the collective consciousness of Japanese people. If I think someone is wearing a snapback wrong (and oh man, so many people do) or a crucifix wrong, that's really just my personal opinion. It's not immoral to wear clothing in an unorthodox or casual fashion. Beyond this, though, there's the issue of things like dreadlocks on white people, which, to my knowledge, have no serious, widespread religious overtones. But even if they did, the claim isn't "oh, person X is wearing dreads/kimonos/bindis/whatevers without respecting the religious heritage." It's "oh, person X is wearing "..." and isn't black/Japanese/Hindu/etc." If your hypothesis was correct, we'd see actual Hindu people being accused of cultural appropriation for casually wearing a bindi. But we don't see that (certainly not in any great numbers, anyway).

Either way I personally think cultural appropriation is a bit too extreme. But it also helps to at least understand the history of the garment your wearing.

I'm glad you agree that it's too extreme, at least.

Get off your high horse. I've debated with tonnes of SJWs. Everything I've said so far has come almost verbatim out of the mouth of multiple Tumblrinas that I've talked to in the past.

I'm sure you have. That's why you use ad hominem insults like "intellectually bankrupt". Sorry if I'm not going to take you seriously when you start out your posts with stuff like that.

To call an argument intellectually bankrupt, or a movement intellectually bankrupt isn't an ad hominem. Ad hominems refer to people, not to arguments.

That's not an ad hominem in the slightest. An attack on an argument isn't an attack on character.

Yet you've claimed all SJW's are intellectually bankrupt. With your only claim being "I argued with some people on Tumblr", and since you lump all SJW's into one humongous hivemind it might as well be a judgement of their character.

I said that the vast majority of their arguments are intellectually bankrupt. Beyond that, you're making a No True Scotsman Fallacy.

I posted a non-exhaustive list of things that I think are ridiculous and which SJWs are wont to say. You can read it here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.855605-Reclaiming-SJW?page=3#21190947

And this goes right back into your thinking SJW's are a hive mind. Shame really because the majority of the page was having a pretty calm discussion.

Do you honestly believe all SJW's believe universally half the stuff in that list?

What kind of question is this? I don't believe any group universally believes anything, but that's hardly an indictment of criticizing groups that mostly or significantly believe some particular thing.

I mean, really now. That's like going on the Escapist right now, finding a couple of people who advocate for Nintendo to go third party, and making the claim that "Gamers" want Nintendo to go third party. Ignoring the fact that just as many people within the gamer community are against that.

No, it's really not like that at all.

Also some of these things you listed (like skewed statistics.) can easily be applied to other groups with their fair share of insane.

So what? Simply because more than one group is guilty of the same error doesn't mean none are.

Out of that whole list, a good chunk of them are easily ignorable, or are regulated to such a small minority that most people don't give a shit.

You keep saying this without providing any evidence. I can search the "privilege" or "racism" or "sexism" or "misogyny" or "misandry" tags on Tumblr any day of the week and get hundreds of posts backing up what I'm telling you SJWs say.

Except I'm not doing that. You're not the first person I've encountered who's sympathetic to SJWs.

And I certainly won't be the last.

Struggle is real.

When you use pretty extreme terms like intellectually bankrupt to describe an entire group of people then that reads off as a pretty extreme statement. That's not going to get you brownie points in any debate between said people.

Describing arguments, not people.

Wrong. The "racism = power + prejudice" equation is ubiquitous on SJW Tumblrs.

Is it? Because as a tumblr users, I just told you the opposite.

Well I mean unless you're using a different version of Tumblr than I am, I don't know what to tell you. If you type in tags related to racism and discrimination and so on (you know, tags relevant to the equation I'm talking about), you get all kinds of examples of what I'm talking about.

https://www.tumblr.com/search/privilege

I scrolled through this for literally 10 seconds and found at least 10 examples of people talking about racism = power + prejudice.

Not coming "right out of the gate." We're discussing SJWs as a category; obviously I'm going to generalize based on the ones I've encountered. The ones I've encountered have been almost entirely poor people to discuss with.

Then perhaps you should find better people to discuss this with instead of continuously looking for tempermental crybabies on tumblr and using them as representative of an entire group.

Another disguised No True Scotsman.

Lol. Do you really want to go down this road? You actually want to deny that SJWs say these things? I think you're the one unfamiliar with the cesspool that is Tumblr.

Yeah. I do. Because with things like this it's always the same. Cherry picked, temperamental nut cases that make up maybe 5% of the group, brought up to the forefront and used as the face of an entire movement.

In the absence of any evidence beyond browsing Tumblr tags, how exactly can you say with any degree of certainty that I'm cherry picking anything?

It's like claiming all MOBA players are pimple faced, basement dwelling losers because out of the whole group, 5 of them made an ass of themselves on a grand public scale.

No, again, it's nothing like this.

It's like Anita with gaming feminism. The people who hated her, and feminists in gaming period took this women from being a zero to a star and now user her as a scapegoat for why feminism in gaming is bad.

This is sorta true, but think about what you just said. Do you seriously think Anita's fame/success/support is entirely insidious anti-feminists trying to mold her into an easy scapegoat? Come on. There are lots of people who legitimately think that Anita is right and an activist worthy of supporting (hence the donations and so on). Those people are feminists in gaming, whether you admit it or not. Now, they certainly don't represent the entirety of the feminist movement, but the support Anita got (and still gets from enough people to keep her relevant) proves that there's a fair number of people who actually agree with what she has to say and with what she does. You can't just say that's an irrelevant, minuscule minority, because it isn't. It's relevant enough that the whole internet is talking about it, if nothing else.

(For what it's worth, I'm not an anti-feminist, just to be clear).

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Lately, I've been noticing a massive divide between hardcore gamers and gaming journalists or critics with a social agenda. There has been a lot of accusing, finger pointing, misrepresentation on both sides, and an ugliness that I hoped never to witness.

What is the middle ground and how do we reach it?

The fact is that gaming has become a mainstream hobby and developers, publishers, artists, etc. should have the freedom to create whatever they want and critics have the right to criticize whatever they want. How do we move past the argument? How do we move past the name calling? How do we find the the paradise where all gamers, social and hardcore, man and woman, can join hands and say "We love Video Games!"? I like games but there's always room to get better, whether it's graphical, gameplay related or in a social meaning.

Can't we all just... get along?

If "we love videogames" was a statement that could be made honestly, there'd be no issue. The problem is that for a lot of the social side, it would be more accurately to describe how they feel as "we don't care about games any more than movies or books but sometimes when there's time to waste we'll play a videogame here and there, we still don't care all that much though".


Unless the casuals start caring more, the hardcore will find their indifference insulting. This in turn will make casuals see the hardcore as exclusionary or elitist. To fix this we need more games that act as gateway drugs so that we can de-casualize everyone.

 

[Dragonbums]

Except that's NOT what I'm arguing. I'm not criticizing SJWs because they are ignoring "bigger problems." I'm criticizing them for using a respectable social movement (i.e. social justice) as a legitimizer for all sorts of views that have virtually nothing to do with the important work actual activists have been doing for decades. I'm denying that the viewpoints in question even constitute social justice/feminism/activism at all.

Then I can see your point in that regard. However like I said, what's important to you, may not necessarily be important to other people. (If I remember Social justice dealt with economic status?) However I would avoid using the "Starving Kids in Africa" fallacy. That in itself has been used a lot to diminish arguments. Think of it as the "Make it yourself!" fallacy everytime someone criticizes a piece of major entertainment.

It's not limited to one post, wtf? Cultural appropriation is fucking ALL OVER Tumblr as a concept, and even seeps into real life from time to time. I've met people at my university who talk about how white people should never wear dreadlocks, for example, because it's "appropriation."

Yeah, it's not all of tumblr. I even recently ran into a post where someone claimed that eating foods from cultures you were not a part of is "appropriation" and it got promptly mocked. In fact, have you looked inside the notes? Just because a post gets 100k notes, doesn't mean everyone supports the post. You'd be surprised how many of the notes in a popular tag are people openly disagreeing with the OP.

Yes, I am, especially since there are tonnes of educated Islamic and Hindu people who don't think that Hijabs and Bindis are oppressive.

Of course they don't see it as oppressive. But I wasn't talking about people within a culture claiming their own garments were oppressive. I was talking about people outside that culture (i.e a huge majority of Western culture.) seeing them as oppressive. Which in turn gives a lot of Hindus and Islamists a hard time.

We didn't. Cultural appropriation has been called on Tumblr for tonnes supposed misappropriations of another culture's garb/music/food/whatever. Kimonos were actually the cause of some uproar a few months back, I seem to recall.

I guess that one flew by me.

And? There are definitely people of every culture who don't take any religions seriously, including their own. Besides, cultural appropriation is often discussed in the context of overarching cultures, not in the context of certain religious individuals.

Fair enough. As I already stated, I think cultural appropriation is bull anyway. For me as long as you understand the history of it then I really don't care.

What's to do wrong? Seriously, it's a garment. It isn't owned by the collective consciousness of Japanese people.

That's not what I'm getting at. Some things have a lot of history and meaning behind it that the people of said culture take seriously.

It's annoying to see someone ape another aspect of that culture completely wrong and when told correctly what it means get ignored or shunned off.

If I think someone is wearing a snapback wrong (and oh man, so many people do) or a crucifix wrong, that's really just my personal opinion. It's not immoral to wear clothing in an unorthodox or casual fashion.

As I've said in a post earlier nothing pisses off people of other cultures to no end when they see someone from an outside culture use their own stuff and mass market it in the wrong way, and when told to correct it they get brushed off.

I'm pretty sure that hipster store- or what's it- Ambercombie? got in a lot of shit for doing that. No one said it was immoral. But it is the height of arrogance.

Beyond this, though, there's the issue of things like dreadlocks on white people, which, to my knowledge, have no serious, widespread religious overtones. But even if they did, the claim isn't "oh, person X is wearing dreads/kimonos/bindis/whatevers without respecting the religious heritage." It's "oh, person X is wearing "..." and isn't black/Japanese/Hindu/etc." If your hypothesis was correct, we'd see actual Hindu people being accused of cultural appropriation for casually wearing a bindi. But we don't see that (certainly not in any great numbers, anyway).

It doesn't have to religious to be important. Cultural history plays a huge role as well. I can't say for the latter. Maybe it's a Western thing only. Maybe it happens in the Middle East? I don't know.

To call an argument intellectually bankrupt, or a movement intellectually bankrupt isn't an ad hominem. Ad hominems refer to people, not to arguments.

But you were referring to SJW's as intellectually bankrupt weren't you? People have referred to both individuals and groups of people as "SJW's"



.

What kind of question is this? I don't believe any group universally believes anything, but that's hardly an indictment of criticizing groups that mostly or significantly believe some particular thing.

But that can be said of ANY group. So how is that exclusive to just SJW's?

No, it's really not like that at all.

But that's what you did. You made a list you've seen/heard self proclaimed SJW's made, regardless of how relevant, serious or popular it is within that group and claimed that SJW's believe these things.

I can do the same thing with gamers. List things "gamers" support and make arguments of regardless of how relevant they are within the gamer community and say "gamer support these things."

So what? Simply because more than one group is guilty of the same error doesn't mean none are.

So why are SJW's the only one singled out as a group that has ideas within that are radical or stupid? You rarely here people harping on gamers for doing the same crap.

You keep saying this without providing any evidence. I can search the "privilege" or "racism" or "sexism" or "misogyny" or "misandry" tags on Tumblr any day of the week and get hundreds of posts backing up what I'm telling you SJWs say.

Dude. What your doing right now is the very definition of looking for this shit. It's like me looking up feminism on Youtube and being surprised that the comments are overrun with men who believe stupid shit like women minds were built for making nappies and men's brains are built for being brute apes and math.

On any regular day your browsing tumblr on your dashboard your more likely to see shit meme of the week, and Homestuck.

Well I mean unless you're using a different version of Tumblr than I am, I don't know what to tell you. If you type in tags related to racism and discrimination and so on (you know, tags relevant to the equation I'm talking about), you get all kinds of examples of what I'm talking about. https://www.tumblr.com/search/privilege

I scrolled through this for literally 10 seconds and found at least 10 examples of people talking about racism = power + prejudice.

Again, you just admitted to actively going out of your way to find this shit. Which kind of proved my point all along. I've probably seen the racism thing on my dash maybe 5 times in a total of 4 months. You'd be surprised how normal the sight is when you aren't going out of your way to look up these things.
It's a self perpetuating circle. There are what- 15 million blogs on tumblr? The most notes an SJ post will get is like 300k last time I checked. If your not going out of your way to find this stuff, it's horrendously easy to hardly ever see this on a day to day basis.

In the absence of any evidence beyond browsing Tumblr tags, how exactly can you say with any degree of certainty that I'm cherry picking anything?

Because in previous posts above you basically admitted to going into heavy socio political tags and running into the very kind of people you would expect to find. If your going to sniff out shit, don't be surprised to find yourself head deep in it. It's like saying Reddit is a hub for misogynists and yet everytime I browse the thread I go directly into the /atheists/ thread where those kinds of people tend to lurk.

No, again, it's nothing like this.

That's what you did with your list.

This is sorta true, but think about what you just said. Do you seriously think Anita's fame/success/support is entirely insidious anti-feminists trying to mold her into an easy scapegoat?

Honestly I do. Because the first time I heard about her was over some Kickstarter controversy. Started by none other than Amazing Atheist and other anti feminists who had to make a big fucking deal over some nobody on Youtube.

Come on. There are lots of people who legitimately think that Anita is right and an activist worthy of supporting (hence the donations and so on). Those people are feminists in gaming, whether you admit it or not. Now, they certainly don't represent the entirety of the feminist movement, but the support Anita got (and still gets from enough people to keep her relevant) proves that there's a fair number of people who actually agree with what she has to say and with what she does.

Most of her KS support came from people who saw how much shit she was getting over it to the point that it made news gave her money as a sort of pity support. Her true, actual followers are pretty tiny all things considered and had no real impact on anything. Yet alone her popularity. In fact even the ones who do like her videos often criticize her videos from time to time. But they are far from fanatic. That title goes to those who dedicate their entire waking hours finding every obscure video to show how much of a fake and scam she is because she admitted 30 million years ago that she didn't play vidya.

You can't just say that's an irrelevant, minuscule minority, because it isn't. It's relevant enough that the whole internet is talking about it, if nothing else.

Feminism in gaming isn't miniscule. However Anita was until we made her into a big deal.

(For what it's worth, I'm not an anti-feminist, just to be clear).

I'm not going to make such a claim. I see Anita as really boring at best. It's just college writing paper 101 in video form. Personally I still can't see why people give even half the shits over this woman as they do.

 

[Dragonbums]

-snip-

I don't think you actually know what an ad hominen IS. Saying "your argument is intellectually faulty" IS NOT an ad hominen, defined as a personal attack on the presenter.[/quote]


I do actually. The problem apparently is that SJW is used to describe individuals, groups, and concepts at the same time. Either way that is being discussed with Michael.

Saying "you're stupid" IS.

I would also say your initial post about SJW's was a good example as well. It was rife with it.

And from what I've seen Micheal is pretty on the money about his statements. Most SJWs are generally unlikeable human beings.

That doesn't surprise me you agree with him in those regards in the least. Considering your previous posts.

Oh and it's not a matter of "Slaves dying elsewhere invalidates argument". It's a case of claiming something is a massive issue when it isn't.

And once again, what you see as unimportant doesn't mean it has not importance to other people.

 

[Michael Kirley]

What kind of question is this? I don't believe any group universally believes anything, but that's hardly an indictment of criticizing groups that mostly or significantly believe some particular thing.

But that can be said of ANY group. So how is that exclusive to just SJW's?

Everything above this seems mostly settled. It's not exclusive to just SJWs, obviously. But I don't think your criticism was valid to begin with. My claim is that a significant number of SJWs actually do believe the things I'm telling you.

No, it's really not like that at all.

But that's what you did. You made a list you've seen/heard self proclaimed SJW's made, regardless of how relevant, serious or popular it is within that group and claimed that SJW's believe these things.

That's because SJWs clearly do believe these things in numbers large enough to be relevant. SJW, as you know, is a pejorative (mostly) term used to describe precisely the kinds of people I'm talking about. It doesn't refer to anyone who has an interest in activism in general. It doesn't refer to all feminists. It refers to the online phenomenon of caustic Tumblrinas posting twenty different genders a week, arguing about what the appropriate punishment for Robin Thicke would be, and so on.

I can do the same thing with gamers. List things "gamers" support and make arguments of regardless of how relevant they are within the gamer community and say "gamer support these things."

The gamer community differs in one crucial way: its existence is predicated on a mutual interest that isn't intrinsically political. Not that it's a bad thing, but feminism, or liberalism, or SJW-ish are all political movements. They're not just incidentally political; they're political and that's all they are. And that's fine, but to compare that to something like gamers is disingenuous because gamers are united in category by something that has relatively little to do with political or philosophical views, even if correlations exist. On the other hand, to be an SJW is to be political.

So what? Simply because more than one group is guilty of the same error doesn't mean none are.

So why are SJW's the only one singled out as a group that has ideas within that are radical or stupid? You rarely here people harping on gamers for doing the same crap.

There are lots of groups deserving the same criticisms (e.g. Men's Right's Activists, Red Pillers, and so on). I don't think gamers are deserving of this particular critique.

You keep saying this without providing any evidence. I can search the "privilege" or "racism" or "sexism" or "misogyny" or "misandry" tags on Tumblr any day of the week and get hundreds of posts backing up what I'm telling you SJWs say.

Dude. What your doing right now is the very definition of looking for this shit. It's like me looking up feminism on Youtube and being surprised that the comments are overrun with men who believe stupid shit like women minds were built for making nappies and men's brains are built for being brute apes and math.

But you're missing my point: a lot of people actually take this shit seriously and believe it. It doesn't really matter whether it's cropping up on your Tumblr dash or not. What matters is that there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of actual human beings (mostly from America) who militantly advocate this stuff. Before you say it has nothing to do with real life, let me just say that my own university (Toronto) was recently afflicted with some SJW initiative to replace all campus representatives in the student union with representatives of minorities only. In fact, just today I read that the University of Wisconsin (which has a class in "feminist biology," by the way), a school of more tha 80 000 students, is considering adjusting placement and grades based on whether one belongs to a "historically oppressed class." That's lunacy.

Well I mean unless you're using a different version of Tumblr than I am, I don't know what to tell you. If you type in tags related to racism and discrimination and so on (you know, tags relevant to the equation I'm talking about), you get all kinds of examples of what I'm talking about. https://www.tumblr.com/search/privilege

I scrolled through this for literally 10 seconds and found at least 10 examples of people talking about racism = power + prejudice.

Again, you just admitted to actively going out of your way to find this shit. Which kind of proved my point all along. I've probably seen the racism thing on my dash maybe 5 times in a total of 4 months. You'd be surprised how normal the sight is when you aren't going out of your way to look up these things.
It's a self perpetuating circle. There are what- 15 million blogs on tumblr? The most notes an SJ post will get is like 300k last time I checked. If your not going out of your way to find this stuff, it's horrendously easy to hardly ever see this on a day to day basis.

I don't know abut you, but 300k people is nothing to sneeze at, especially when there exist gigantic websites with a decidedly SJW bent to evidence the influence of said supporters (look at the gradual SJW-izing of sites like Cracked and Buzzfeed, for example; for a fullblown fountain of vitriol, look no further than Jezebel).

In the absence of any evidence beyond browsing Tumblr tags, how exactly can you say with any degree of certainty that I'm cherry picking anything?

Because in previous posts above you basically admitted to going into heavy socio political tags and running into the very kind of people you would expect to find. If your going to sniff out shit, don't be surprised to find yourself head deep in it. It's like saying Reddit is a hub for misogynists and yet everytime I browse the thread I go directly into the /atheists/ thread where those kinds of people tend to lurk.

Er...except these are things that shouldn't have gigantic masses of people supporting them on account of being massively fucking stupid. My point isn't that SJWs are impossible to ignore in every aspect of life; it's that there are a lot of them, and that they're not some infinitesimally small minority of people. Their influence on real life is growing yearly, and this is obvious just by paying close attention to news coverage.

No, again, it's nothing like this.

That's what you did with your list.

Not at all.

This is sorta true, but think about what you just said. Do you seriously think Anita's fame/success/support is entirely insidious anti-feminists trying to mold her into an easy scapegoat?

Honestly I do. Because the first time I heard about her was over some Kickstarter controversy. Started by none other than Amazing Atheist and other anti feminists who had to make a big fucking deal over some nobody on Youtube.

I think this is you relying too heavily on anecdote. As a counterexample, I never listen to the Amazing Atheist (because I think he's a twat) and I still came across Anita in due time.

Come on. There are lots of people who legitimately think that Anita is right and an activist worthy of supporting (hence the donations and so on). Those people are feminists in gaming, whether you admit it or not. Now, they certainly don't represent the entirety of the feminist movement, but the support Anita got (and still gets from enough people to keep her relevant) proves that there's a fair number of people who actually agree with what she has to say and with what she does.

Most of her KS support came from people who saw how much shit she was getting over it to the point that it made news gave her money as a sort of pity support. Her true, actual followers are pretty tiny all things considered and had no real impact on anything. Yet alone her popularity. In fact even the ones who do like her videos often criticize her videos from time to time. But they are far from fanatic. That title goes to those who dedicate their entire waking hours finding every obscure video to show how much of a fake and scam she is because she admitted 30 million years ago that she didn't play vidya.

My disdain for Anita isn't tied up in whether she played video games in the past. It's tied up in her arguments being mostly stupid, her KS being basically a fraud, and, most importantly to me as someone who values content creation, her unapologetic plagiarism and copyright infringement.

You can't just say that's an irrelevant, minuscule minority, because it isn't. It's relevant enough that the whole internet is talking about it, if nothing else.

Feminism in gaming isn't miniscule. However Anita was until we made her into a big deal.

I don't think it's fair to blame this "on us." If someone condemns someone who has no supporters, that person gets stopped into oblivion by the criticism. Only a decent network of actual supporters can sustain someone under fire. And given that Anita is still a talking point, it's safe to say that she's made some allies from her exposure instead of just enemies.

(For what it's worth, I'm not an anti-feminist, just to be clear).

I'm not going to make such a claim. I see Anita as really boring at best. It's just college writing paper 101 in video form. Personally I still can't see why people give even half the shits over this woman as they do.

I think she's not worth the attention she gets, but she absolutely deserves being called out for stealing other people's work and scamming money from her supporters.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

A lot of these "social justice warriors" seem to spend most of their time talking about stuff rather than actually getting it done. Posting anon rants on the internet isn't fighting, people. People do it all the time on YouTube.

Which is why, ironically, 4Chan and Anonymous are better activists than actual SJWs.

The Final Boss of The Internet actually gets shit done, turning in people who ask for child porn, tracking down animal abusers and other instances of internet vigilantism.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

No one ever said that People are tired of the second one because that's a lot of what we get in video games. Exceptions are very rare. People want variety. What's wrong with having a slouchy flat chested girl for ever perky busty one? I feel like you're misunderstanding arguments here.

Again, no one ever said that. And that's just the thing. Women watch media because they want to escape their lives. And a lot of women don't want to escape their lives as Slave Lea. Look, I'm a hetrosexual twenty year old man, I freaking love that outfit, but variety is the spice of life. We need something different.

Actually, thin women in magazines are cited as one of the reasons a lot of women feel pressured to appear thin, which has led to the rise of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Yes we have a obesity problem, but there's more to America than fat people. You could fit a couple of European countries in Texas alone. We're a vast country and we don't conform to one stereotype. We've got people who eat too much AND nowhere near enough. They're both problems. Please do not insult the people you are arguing against.

It doesn't present yourself in a very good light when you say that one side of the argument should just go away. Freedom of speech does not mean protection from criticism. When people said that the storyline of Dark Knight Rises was awful, the filmmakers were not having their freedom of speech violated. When video game makers are criticizes for making poor female characters, they are in the same spot. And the "make your own" argument is an iffy one. Most people treat video games and movies as a hobby. They can't drop everything to make something they want, but taking away their ability to criticize is just unfair. Also there are plenty of sex positive feminists. I'm one of them. There's a difference between a woman having sex because she wanted to and being objectified in media.

I don't see how. I highly doubt she made it herself. She probably hired someone else to make it. She's a very rich person, a luxury most people don't have.

No it isn't. Because she isn't a video game character. That picture is talking about video game characters who are designed to titillate. Not real people who decide to look good because they want to. It' the difference between night and day.

I hope to hear from you soon.

 

[Karadalis]

-snip-

I can't say anything about Bob, but I'm fairly certain Jim Sterling has said in one of his videos that he finds Anita's videos at best boring and obvious and at worst incorrect. Not once did he openly praise her as some sort of top tier feminist gamer.

In fact I specifically remembered him stating that Anita started off as yet another person on their corner of the internet enjoying her echo chamber with nobody giving a shit about her. Yet her dissenters couldn't shut up about her for more than 5 seconds that she went from Youtube nobody to Youtube celebrity.

Yes.. a couple of sentences before he went on to tell us how toxic we gamers are when the real "toxic" waste that was thrown at her came from the biggest hive of scum and villainy the internet knows.. and not from his viewership or the folk here on escapist.

What i critisize jim for is that he never gets tired of telling us how people like jack thompson or EA exec "whatshisname" are full of shit yet wont talk about the elephant in the room.

Jack thomspon did not get invited to EA to talk to developers (even thought i do believe that this is just a publicity stunt and everyone just shrugged after she left), yet anita did.. making her legit in the eyes of everyone who doesnt bother to take a closer look at her ridiculus arguments.

Im more worried about the people outside gaming taking her for full because no one prominent in gaming journalism is going "Wait wait wait.. hold on a sec.. the things she says? Completly ripped out of context and btw. she lies like no tomorrow and brings up some very poor arguments the rest of the time, and here is why"

When jack thompson was on TV claiming that GTA turns kids into killers there was a huge outrage.

When Anita sarkesian is on TV or talks infront of "academics" and claims that mysoginistic games (even thought i have yet to come across one of them) make little timmy over there hate women... no one bats an eye.

Even thought they come from the same train of thought one gets justifiably dismissed and laughed out of the room... while the other keeps being ignored and left to sit.

And since no one of prominence debunks her claims ofcourse people from the outside will take her word for granted.

Now i could understand that jim tries a "ignore it and let it die aproach", but that didnt really helped now did it?

And meanwhile Bob chipman claimed shes "the most dangerous woman in gaming" without realising what the danger she (or people like her) pose really is... she is telling people outside of gaming that games are mysoginistic, sexist works of women hate... in turn making us all look like giant assholes in the process and just further reinforcing stereotypes about gamers and games... you know.. like jack thompson?

Only that no one who people actually listen to seems to be willing to speak out against her. (and yes people do listen to what jim has to say or else he wouldnt have his job now would he?)

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.



Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

 

[Fireaxe]

It's impossible to get along with people who are literally trying to be offended on a regular basis.

So the only way it's happening is if SJWs grow up and realise that not every aspect of media in society needs to align with the demographics of said society and that just because the villain isn't a white heterosexual male doesn't mean the game is sexist/racist/etc.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.

Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

 

[carnex]

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

Of course she is, that character was meant to be as appealing to audience as possible. It's a cheap marketing ploy but it works. And it not just females, why do you think Nathan Drake looks like he looks? Because of "every woman wants to be with him and every man wants to be him" paradigm that's embodied in so many characters but James Bond probably is the best known example of that idea.

But why stop there. Even cartoon and even non human characters are made same way, to appeal to widest possible audience. It took a year, for example, to finish with all back and forth during the design of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Is it sexist? Not in my opinion. Is it problematic? Well... I would say maybe, more research on it's effects should have to be done. But even then, in my opinion, it's less problematic than all the beauty advertisement which is also less problematic than all the modified images on social networks (I go with idea that the less removed from reality it is, the greater impact it has on person)

But in the end, people should be free to make what they want to make and offer it to the public. If public hates it, it will fail and if market loves it it will succeed. That's about it. Individual feeling can and should be expressed but should not be forced upon creators.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.

Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

Big boobs ( So mythical and unrealistic!), bare midriff ( wow! So sexualized), and makeup. Stuff that women wear every day.

Like I don't get it, do you want women to be ugly or something? I call sexualized stripper poses and chainmail bikini armor, not something you would wear during the summer time lol.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.

Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

Big boobs ( So mythical and unrealistic!), bare midriff ( wow! So sexualized), and makeup. Stuff that women wear every day.

Like I don't get it, do you want women to be ugly or something? I call sexualized stripper poses and chainmail bikini armor, not something you would wear during the summer time lol.

Maybe you are missing a lot of it. There are a lot more details then a unrealistically large chest. Notice the shoes, the hair, the mark on her cheek, all the other stuff. There is really a lot to unravel. It's not really a ugly thing. I mean the left picture isn't ugly.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.

Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

Big boobs ( So mythical and unrealistic!), bare midriff ( wow! So sexualized), and makeup. Stuff that women wear every day.

Like I don't get it, do you want women to be ugly or something? I call sexualized stripper poses and chainmail bikini armor, not something you would wear during the summer time lol.

Maybe you are missing a lot of it. There are a lot more details then a unrealistically large chest. Notice the shoes, the hair, the mark on her cheek, all the other stuff. There is really a lot to unravel. It's not really a ugly thing. I mean the left picture isn't ugly.

I only noticed the breast, midriff and makeup, but I don't know.

I didn't know shoes were sexualized...?

Also, unrealistically large? Just go on Instagram for a few minutes lol.

I just don't see how she is sexualized. Not conservative, sure, but just because she has big tits and a flat stomach doesn't mean she's sexualized.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.

Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

Big boobs ( So mythical and unrealistic!), bare midriff ( wow! So sexualized), and makeup. Stuff that women wear every day.

Like I don't get it, do you want women to be ugly or something? I call sexualized stripper poses and chainmail bikini armor, not something you would wear during the summer time lol.

Maybe you are missing a lot of it. There are a lot more details then a unrealistically large chest. Notice the shoes, the hair, the mark on her cheek, all the other stuff. There is really a lot to unravel. It's not really a ugly thing. I mean the left picture isn't ugly.

I only noticed the breast, midriff and makeup, but I don't know.

I didn't know shoes were sexualized...?

Also, unrealistically large? Just go on Instagram for a few minutes lol.

I just don't see how she is sexualized. Not conservative, sure, but just because she has big tits and a flat stomach doesn't mean she's sexualized.

Let me see how may I can point out. Working form the feet up. We have heeled sneakers; We have some stockings. Notice how they are more sheer and they even show that band; Extra bracelet on her arm.; Exposed belly; Her shirt logo gets changed. Now it's a more generic heart then the hipster steam punk thing.; The extra large chest that looks out of place on someone so skinny.; A lowered neckline with A bit of cleavage.; Big hoop ear rings.; Now she is smiling.; A lot of extra makeup to cover that mark on her cheek. Oh and eyeshadow.; Bigger eyes.; Longer hair.; A big pink bow.; Finally they are saying different things. (About 13.)