Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde

[Vrex360]

[

This is youtube. You can find examples of commenters ganging up on people for videos that have nothing to do with video games. So why should the gaming community take flak for this? You see anyone threatening to rape her on gaming forums?

Well given that here on the Escapist, the supposed creme de la creme of the game community I'm still seeing people shout 'what a slut' and 'she deserved it' I wouldn't be surprised. In addition if the story is to be believed a lot of the 'call to action' was initially started on gaming forums.

Quit exaggerating, other people have done that and have not received so much heat. Maybe they just don't like her, she has her flaws.

Are you kidding? Look up the article 'What the hell is up with the new Hitman trailer' and scroll down to the comments. Personal attacks have been issued and direct insults against the woman who made that article.
Hell it's too bad that Sady Doyle's twitter hashtag mencallmethings isn't active anymore because it seems like damn near every time feminists online criticize anything they get viciously insulted... but video games were always the worst.

She's talking about tropes, you don't need high qualifications to do that. Extra Credits and Yahtzee do it fairly effectively.

Yes but people kept asking 'why is she qualified to talk about this, who is she to make this video series' so I thought I'd point that out.

Criticism falls under fair use so she doesn't need to pay licensing fees. She already has some equipment and I don't know why she can't use roms and/or youtube footage for research.

Admittedly you may have a point there but I don't know much about how copyright law works. Regardless she set it up and apparently people wanted to chime in, that's their right. It's not like she demanded the 70 thousand dollars, it just happened to fall into her lap and given how many charities and local community workshops she supports and helps run I figure the money is more likely to go there.

Point is even if she were scamming people, she doesn't deserve to have her work blacklisted as 'terrorism', her wikipedia page sabotaged with porn, her inbox flooded with threats of rape and attempts to hack her account to seize her funds.

By contrast all she is trying to do is make a video series. I know who the baddie is in this situation and for fuck's sake IT IS NOT HER!

You expect the gaming community to care about the Amazing Atheist? I can't remember him ever making a video on video games. Or are we now admitting that it was the youtube community doing the hating?

Well, considering his videos are brought up so often in online discussion and he gets celebrated so much I'd argue its a valid point. The point it he blatantly scammed $20 000 dollars from people and there was never a reaction like this. Making it really hard for me to honestly believe that the people motivated in doing this were just mad about her business practises.

Also youtube, Escapist, Giant Bomb or anywhere else all represent parts of the gaming community. The fact that I've seen people on the Escapist who are essentially parroting the exact same thing those people have said or are vocally defending the right to 'e-intimidate'.

Once sgain there is more outrage against her for making the video series then there is that gamers bombarded her with rape and death threats! WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?

This is the first time she's not censoring the comments on her videos and allowing people to disagree with her.

Incorrect, if you actually take the time to read the comments you will find that opinions that differ to her pop up all the time, in the Smurfette principle episode there was a brief conversation about how The Big Bang theory now has a much larger female cast and on the Straw feminist. People disagree with her all the time and often you'll see her take the time to participate in those debates as well.

She puts a censor on her comment pages so that messages exactly like the ones above can't get in the way and cause disruption. As she says 'I want to make a space where people can talk about gender and politics without being flooded by aggressive spam in the process' (paraphrased obviously). If you have something to say and can do it in a calm reasonably thought out manner, you can do so.

However if you'd rather call her a 'feminazi skank who should get raped in her asshole!' then you can fuck off. You really think comments like that are being censored just because they disagree with her? Now who's exaggerating?

Maybe this time she put the comment barrier down, for what it's worth it's a good idea, because when talking about video games she wanted to also demonstrate the ugly side of gaming's culture towards women in the process. In which case, well done guys, you proved her completely and utterly right.

Project much? Seriously people hate her so they must be fat. Ouch, I bet they never heard that one before.

Oh okay so calling her a slutty feminazi ***** who should get raped is all fine and dandy but when I call a man who would say something like that to a woman he's never met a fat virgin now I'm projecting?

Simply put I refuse to believe people this disgusting towards women would ever get laid, nor should their if there is any justice in the world. God if all this was was criticism I WOULDN'T BE THIS ANGRY but because rape and death threats were issued against her then FUCK YES I WILL INSULT THE PEOPLE DOING IT!

No she's done a few on games before.

Yeah, one video on iphone games. Hardly the same thing.

This is the first time she's decided to tackle, at large, video game culture and women and in response to this the video game culture just demonstrated the absolute worst side of their cultre.

Then went one step further by continuing to dismiss it and being more mad at her for making the video then the people who tried to threaten rape on her to get her to not make it.

I say again:

THE GAME COMMUNITY CAN GO FUCK ITSELF

 

[Frotality]

youtube: reminding humanity that "civilized" is really just a quaint fantasy.

 

[4173]

It isn't necessary about happiness but the potential for happiness, for self and others.

(Unless you want to talk about "happiness" derived from achieving whatever change was the goal, and not necessarily the results. If we go down that rabbit hole the already dubious labels become farce; Are satisfaction or closure happiness, how long should one be happy because an event, how do we handle happiness brought about by making someone else happy?)

The potential for happiness means nothing if it doesn't lead to actual happiness. Feminism has accomplished its original goals: women have the vote, are economically independent, and the sexual revolution has made birth control easily available.
And yet, women are still more unhappy than they were. Feminism keeps on adding more and more goals and women keep on becoming less and less happy. Getting what you think you want will never make you happy.

The only way to know what will make you happy is to try various things.

I suppose that could be true of some schools of feminism, but I'm not sure it's truly representative, or if those groups just shout the loudest. At the same time, just because some take it too far, that doesn't make the proper response shrugging and saying "eh, close enough."

So what, the first feminists were just douchebags out to trick gullible women? How far back do you blame them: voting? owning property?

Just how much protection do these simple, delicate women need from the ability to make choices?

Out of morbid curiosity: what about husbands? Are they just poor brainwashed saps who actually should be out eating raw meat and wrestling bears?

I think feminists are the same as everyone else. They are pursuing things that they think will make them happier and have a better quality life. The problem is, they're deluded, and the ideology has been twisted nefariously. Feminism is now about demonizing men and victimizing women, giving them an attitude of entitlement.
'I deserve a job for my Women's Studies degree! Why is it not there? GOVERNMENT, DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.'
Previously it was merely about giving some equal footing, which was cool despite the delusion, but the way it is now it is only detrimental to society and women as a whole.
As to your questions:
1. It's well known that increased number of choices lead to unhappiness.
2. Husbands do what they do to secure steady sex and progeny. Men sacrifice their freedom to wander just as much as women sacrifice their freedom to work in a traditional relationship. What people don't seem to realize is that men sacrifice just as much or more when subscribing to gender roles. Workplace competition is leaps and bounds more intense for men than it is for women.

I'm not sure I would say deluded. I think it is more that certain groups (not all feminists) are looking for revenge so to speak, for recent and/or historical conditions.

1. Granted, that is literally true some sense, but I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

2. I disagree with most of that, but I'm not prepared to source counter-arguments, so I'll refrain from further comment, except to note that system starts to break down when a two income household becomes a necessity (not in the strictest literal sense perhaps, but certain standards).

Ah man yeah you fuckin got me bro whenever I'm out I'm all about the gratuitous rapage, lmao.
I CHOSE to drink. Women CHOOSE to drink. Your friend CHOSE TO TAKE THOSE DRINKS. While I wouldn't do that to a woman (I obviously get sex by being raped rofl), the blame rests on your friend's shoulders just as much as her friend's for taking those drinks. If I-or she-'d been slipped a fucking roofie then I'd probably be more upset or be blameless, but MY CHOICES led to that result.

Not necessarily. If he was stone sober and maliciously manipulating her the entire time. You don't need an literal roofie to roofie someone. Same thing applies for the sex act. If the individuals are at different levels of sobriety, then it falls on the most sober to ask for consent.

Otherwise it doesn't matter how risky the victim's behavior, the majority of the responsibility has to rest with the attacker.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

youtube: reminding humanity that "civilized" is really just a quaint fantasy.

Ain't that the damn truth.

Especially the fights that take place there, one part sad and the other part entertaining.

OT: Just let her make the video. If you don't like it, don't fund it, and certainly don't watch it.

This just makes me sad and disgusted, whatever happened to just letting people have differing opinions and just leave it at that?

 

[Angryman101]

Even going by your barebones logic, women will simply return to their original state as housewives, which is another state of unhappiness as well(as the feminist movement informs this is ALSO an unhappy state). If anything unhappiness for women extends from the outdated stereotypes associated with the genders. Women in the coming years will be the primary earners of households, and are still expected to be the primary caregivers of children and house cleaners. In many ways they still retain many of the responsibilities they had before, but men haven't budged in their willingness to extend theirs.

Women in the coming years won't be getting married, and will have to live as single mothers if marriage trends continue. This is their own fault.
Housewives aren't in a state of unhappiness, feminism just promised something more that women thought would make them happier. It didn't.

According to your previously stated logic, we are all driven by our need for happiness. Since happiness is a subjective term, as you stated, we ourselves as men are not qualified to determine the path to happiness for women, as they can determine themselves. Just as a farmer seeks additional technology to make farming "suck less", women sought through their discontent with their current state of affairs(housewife) to remedy their unhappiness with "feminism". As we are all driven by happiness, and are the ultimate judges of own, it should be a self-regulating force. Women should have naturally deviated from feminism upon the realization that happiness was not gained from what feminism proposes. Under this logic and your "study"(women are unhappy with their lives), women and their job numbers should be on their decline rather than increasing. This is certainly not the case, as their job numbers continue to increase to the point where they're surpassing men both in overall job numbers and college degrees. Maybe the answer isn't as simple as feminism is "wrong" and should be "destroyed". What basis do we have for it? A few statistics you're having difficulty extrapolating meaning from?

You seem to have very limited views on subjects based off a few selective statistics.

'A few selective statistics'? Look up on google, 'Women's happiness trends'. There are literally 5 studies of statistics that are trying to explain why modern women are less happy and I didn't even have to scroll down.
People are always trying to achieve a constantly happy life. Biology gave us the means to be happy-dopamine and biological motivators, but it also prevents anything resembling lasting happiness. This drives us to constantly seek things that will make us happier, or regain that sense of happiness. Women turned to feminism when it promised them a life of constant happiness emerging from all of that equality. It failed them, but they stick to it regardless because it promises them more and more. They got what they wanted, but they are less happy now than they were before the whole thing started. There's a reason for that.
Getting what you want won't make you happier. That man who invented the plow wasn't happy after he got all that success and fame. After the initial dopamine rush left him, he wanted more. He went on to create the printing press, the steam engine, the automobile. All in pursuit of happiness.
People are always searching for new things that will give them that dopamine rush constantly, but they'll never find it, and the pursuit sometimes leaves them emptier than before.

 

[punipunipyo]

This kind of stuff, talked about by a women... is NOT convening as Non-Bias... because she is a woman, SHE might have Female "Superior-ism complex"..(is there even such complex? not a psyc major... but you get what I'm saying...) however... When Movie-Bob/Game-Overthinker talked about it, it made more sense... AND I think that whole Bayonetta Vid explaining how she is NOT used as an sex object was quite nice for the balancing topic, unlike Anita Sarkeesian's pick of "appropriate" game that portrait women in "portal"... it's so generic, and lazy pick... I don't hate feminist, not really... I think people CAN, and have the right to be PROUD of who they are... but she is demoralizing "Gaming/Games/GamingCommunity", by accusing it being "demoralizing women", and along the way, making big bucks from anti gaming communities... to create videos to attack, and out right devalue game as an matured art medium... I mean... did ANY check out her site? she have already made more than 6X of her goal... not that I am jealous or anything, but I think someone wants to USE her to create propaganda of game hating... STARTS with the women..

 

[Angryman101]

Not necessarily. If he was stone sober and maliciously manipulating her the entire time. You don't need an literal roofie to roofie someone. Same thing applies for the sex act. If the individuals are at different levels of sobriety, then it falls on the most sober to ask for consent.

Otherwise it doesn't matter how risky the victim's behavior, the majority of the responsibility has to rest with the attacker.

She was stone sober as well at some point, and she chose to take those drinks. What he did wasn't cool, but some of the blame rests on her shoulders as well.

 

[Vrex360]

snip

Did not know Escapist claimed to be the best.

Not best, but it has a reputation as being the best or considered 'elitist' by other gaming sites.

Sure games community is the worst? I would think politics itself would be much more brutal.

You'd think that but it always seems to be video games that attract the absolute worst.

Yes but Yahtzee is comedy and Extra credits aren't biased as all hell towards the view they wanted. FF is 100% serious and bears some circular reasoning.

Yahtzee actually takes himself pretty seriously and Extra Credits can be pretty biased themselves, FF isn't boldly stepping out of line to any significant degree higher than that.

Welcome to the internet. Where a population well over 4 billion(minimum) can go online and pretend to be a badass. threats come with the anonymity they are granted. After ten years of this i would think people would realize that 80% of threats made on the internet are empty.

Thing is even if they are (and there have been cases where they followed through) the fact remains that these behaviors are repulsive and unpleasant and in no way deserving of defending. That's why I'm amazed, and angered, by people on the Escapist who are trying to defend the act of intimidation to get people to shut up.

As to making a video series, its the oen she has been making for several years now. The research she would be doing could be done in TV tropes and google & likely will be.

Not really she made clear that she will need to buy video games to play and study, she's not just looking up on google she's actually playing the games as her basis of research but regardless if people want to give her money to support that, let them.
If I saw something and was sure it was a ripoff (which I still don't think this is) I would roll my eyes and walk away, not aggressively bombard the people selling it with insults and threats.

Wasn't that 20k for a website with a failed premise, a bad site designer, and worse luck? Cause i thought it was. And for the record he got a lot of flak for it, so much that he had to restate what went down a few months back.

The site failed because basic protective software, bandwidth and file space hadn't been added. He had 20 grand but didn't spend any on the basic stuff needed. And while there was an outrage he didn't get nearly the level of backlash as this.

She still censored most comments. While it is to serve mostly to keep out youtubes common group its not exactly indicative of gaming's underbelly(considering gaming culture is more widespread than she(sometimes) gives it credit for, its not really a point made. And twisting youtubes regular behavior into gamers are evil seems self defeating. Death threats over the web have less than a 1% chance of being taken up on.

Again the fact that this is the first time she's made a project aimed just at video games and also the first time she's recieved backlash. Likewise while you can argue that youtube doesn't represent the gaming culture sites like the Escapist sure do and the same attitudes are certainly present.

 

[RPGxMadness]

Look, even thought I think we should have discussion about gender equality(in roles and esthetics) in medias, but I don't think that she's the one person to do so, not responsibly and with an unbiased documentary-like manner. She has a history of turning and twisting certain parts of media into her own vision to make it seem as if it's objectifying her movement or her gender (my favorite example I can give is the straw feminist episode when she just starts making a Power Puff Girl episode seem like the most misogynistic material ever made, along with her Lego saga and her top 5 Ipod games where she says that the number one game had sexist hostess).

If you look at this from the message she wanted to send, she obviously never intended to approach about the subject with neutrality. You can look at the the original goals of her fundraiser, The 5 original videos of her documentary was negative, then she got major support so she obviously offered to do more videos at certain future set goals. The next 5 videos are certainly going in on a further more negative and contradictory light the only positive video was a 15,000$ bonus video. Let's be more clear, her original goal was 6,000$ and it's going in for negative and biased reasons, but it takes 15,000$ to make her talk about "Positive Female Characters" for one video out of her 13 part documentary, this is not objective in any way.

Again I do believe that we should have that discussion about diversity in media, but there are more objective ways to talk about it. You could have her discuss about all the negatives of the media, but have another person talk about the reality of the manner and another one talk about the positives the subject. Many excellent documentary does this, because they don't want to make your opinion they want you to make a conclusion about the subjects, whether it will change or solidify or even Educate you about a subject you didn't think about it before...

 

[Skeleon]

Who's that hot nurse character from the title screen of their video?
I kid, I kid...

 

[G-Slice]

I've no idea why we have an article about the negativity of youtube comments (Of all things, its youtube for god's sake). You really can just say that: X video has attracted Y horde on youtube. There really is no need for this at all.

 

[Vrex360]

I haven't seen those escapist posts you're talking about

Scroll down the first page, there's a guy making a heartfelt plea for the rights of 'e-intimidation'. I found a lot of similar posts throughout the comments as well.

I can't find it. I tried googling it. Got nothing

Okay for a second try go to Hitman Plan B and read the comments. I left a big comment on the first page (you can't miss it and I link the article below it.

I think if she used the money for other purposes it'd be fraud. Then again it'd be hard to bust her for.

Possibly but again people willingly gave her that money long after she had made clear that they had reached their goal. So perhaps she'll use it to fund future projects as well, who knows?

I never defended the youtube trolls.

Fair enough, I'm sorry but it just sort of seemed like you were.

You are literally the second person I've seen on the escapist to bring him up. And for what it's worth he did have an explanation for that freespeechvids page, a while after he took down the site, (it's called response to criticism or something, this all happened before I heard about him so I haven't kept up).

My point was that it's just as legitimate to get up in his grill about the same issue but he was never bombarded with rape threats.

Really, because the majority in this don't like them. There is no discussion value in it so people have moved on to the series itself.

True but like I said I've seen a few comments that honestly seemed to be defending the reaction against her, or acting like she deserved it. That I just find wrong.

Yeah only with other feminists with small disagreements, I've tried posting criticism (without insulting her) and all the comments need to be approved by her and criticism almost never shows up.

Actually I do remember seeing this really vicious response to her first video on LEGO that she allowed to be posted. Granted she then ripped him a new asshole in the comments (destroyed his argument in like two seconds) but still she let him post.

I cannot, I have tried, if she wants to make that space she certainly isn't making it in the youtube comments. There are other ways to deal with trolls. Please stop acting like she's willing to engage with people with strong disagreements on youtube. I know that she isn't.

I'd argue that if she's making video series like this then she is aware that she is encoring the wrath of people with potentially differing opinions and again I have seen some people strongly disagree with her position in the past manage to get into the comments. Frankly I actually like the idea of censoring comments, this whole reaction has made it pretty clear why it's a good idea.
Filter out the shit heads piece by piece. I can get behind that.

I don't think it's fine and dandy.

My point was that if people are calling her a feminazi ***** who should get raped like the youtube commentors (and some forum goers are) then I will call them like I see them.
I mean for what it's worth you seem level headed and reasonable, so don't think I'm addressing it to you.

 

[Vrex360]

Again the fact that this is the first time she's made a project aimed just at video games and also the first time she's recieved backlash.

This is not the first time she's received backlash I know that for a fact.
This is just the first time she's not censoring the comments, and she's also highlighting some of the worst ones on her website.

It's true but the backlash has never been this severe. She actually used to use the 'mencallmethings' hash tag on twitter to highlight the comments she'd had to censor but I guess this is the first time it got bad enough to warrant public attention.

Anyway can't be replying for a while, getting ready to get on a train to London, so if possible can we postpone further debate until I get the chance?

 

[RPGxMadness]

Okay, I'm done.

If this is what passes for journalism on the Escapist, then the Escapist can go fuck itself.

Goodbye, you won't be seeing me again.

Oh, was the ovendodger comment yours?

Oh for fuck's sake, I knew some smartass would crawl from the woodwork with some shit like this, I knew I said I wouldn't ever comment again, but I'll be fucked if I'm not gonna defend myself.

No, the comment wasn't mine, the fact that I think this kickstarter project is a load of horseshit* is irrelevant to my post, and has nothing to do with her being Jewish.

What I have a problem with is that this article is a piece of garbage of no POSSIBLE interest to anyone.

"OH NO! PEOPLE ARE BEING MEAN AND WACIST ON THE INTERWEBS!!!" You might as well link to any given thread on fucking 4chan and call that "Journalism".

I frankly can't fucking believe that this article was approved.

*Incidentally, if you want to know why I think it's horseshit, this video is a nice place to start:

Hey thanks, I was trying to find this video...