Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde

[Clearing the Eye]

You've been raped?
Tough luck, you shouldn't have worn that short skirt.

Someone threatened you with sexual violence?
Hey, it's just smack talk.

That guy wouldn't stop hitting on you even though you told him to stop?
Boys will be boys!

Mmm. Because all of those are so very common. Hell, I can think of at least... no one I've heard say that. P-lease. You want to cherry-pick a tiny fraction of attitudes and sterotype an entire culture? Alright, but don't get all bent out of shape should someone quote a few random extremists within the feminist movement and call the entire movement absurd. I can give you a few from some delightful individuals that describe any act of a man penetrating a woman to be rape. if you'd like.

But please, continue to throw around hot phrases and gross conjecture. It'll make it easier for the actual sexists to do the same in return.

I've seen a lot of the disgusting and vile stuff spewed at female players in online games described as 'just smack talk' by male players, and that the recipients should 'toughen up'.

That's right. Toughen up. What, are women wilting flowers that need to be protected and spoken to in gentle voices? How sexist of you. Men treat men like crap all the time online and we as a community say "Yup, people suck." Then move on from it. But oh lord, should someone say something rude to a woman, how horrible! I've been called everything from a ****** to a ******, I've had people describe the sex acts they wish to commit upon/with my mother and have been harassed with no end when I casually flirted with my boyfriend in a game of TF2. Know what I did? Muted them. Or should I have cried about it and made a thread about how horrible men are to me?

Women aren't babies, they're just as strong as any man and they don't need you protecting them. People are dicks online and we all need to ignore them.

 

[newdarkcloud]

Whether or not this woman's videos are any good is an entirely separate debate (which I'm quite willing to have). The point is that is sheer volume of bile and vitriol thrown at her is completely unacceptable. Is saddens me to see the gaming community act like this. We were supposed to be the all inclusive group, but those days are long gone.

Its the normal ammount of shit, bile, vitriol, and other fluids as usual, except she stopped filtering comments. This is mostly just youtube commenters being themselves & even then i think i will go find the outside game forums that are hating on the kickstarter project & see how they hate on it.

You know, sometimes I forget the sheer amount of horrible, horrible people on YouTube comments. Even still, it doesn't make it any less of a problem. This kind of crap still needs to be corrected. I, for one, appreciate that stuff like this is getting more awareness than it used to.

Stuff like this? You mean the ass end of any progressive goal? If you could call this progressive. See, ms. Sarkeesian is the feminist equivalent of an MRA member. (mens rights advocate) being that all she does is ***** about a problem/perceived problem. Any proposed action ultimately results in more bitching with no actual outcome other than being back to square one. Her series is just a circle jerk of how bad some writing is & the kickstarter is just a continuation of the same thing she has been doing. She has about 27k subscribers and the activity of that number is debatable. I doubt she would have met her goal had she not stopped censoring youtube hate. My point is that her kickstarter is no different from her regular series, her series itself is just mental masturbation for the sake of people that share her viewpoint, and serves no purpose at all.

Remember, she is the very person people think of when they think of the angry feminist. That one that complains about every small thing being a slight against man- i mean womankind. She is the very face(in its most harmless form) of feminism as known by republicans and MRAs.

As for the quality of her videos, they are a poor documentary. Heavily biased, it bringing no talking points past 'x is bad because it portrays women as y'. The whole point is a mental circle jerk over how the media is unfair to them, and in traditional circle jerk fashion proposes no answers past 'this needs to change'. Go find ANY MRA activist on youtube & see that all they do is ***** about problems in the world/thinks they THINK are problems in the world, tie it to feminism, then proceed to mentally jack off to the camera.

Neither holds ANY value whatsoever.

I was talking about the hate, not the videos. Personally, I agree with you. A lot of the things she says do come across as trying to hard to prove a point. Even knowing this, there's no reason to rage so much against her.

On the other hand, people have been ignoring the vast quantities of hate and bile on the internet for far too long. THAT needs to be addressed. The videos are completely irrelevant. The bile needs to end, or at least be mitigated. Telling her to get back into the kitchen is needlessly adding fuel to the fire.

 

[Richardplex]

.

There is nothing to be gained by either of us by continuing, so I'm walking away from this. Thought I'd let you know instead of leaving you hanging.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

You know, I'd be interested in watching the videos, just not willing to pay to fund them. It's a problem the industry will eventually grow out of, and hopefully the userbase too.

 

[Danzavare]

At the very least, these people have given her an overflow of evidence she can use to prove sexist attitudes still exist in the gaming community.

Considering this is a gaming site that focuses on gaming culture I'd say this article needs to be here. Most kinds of legitimate media revisit already existing issues because they're still relevant in the present day. Why accept and put up with the disgusting comments of rednecks/brats/idiots/etc when we smack them with a good backhand of disapproval, disassociating ourselves from them and discouraging the attitude at the same time. It's an embarrassing part of gaming culture that shouldn't be part of the norm.

Seriously, it's the internet, if you want different news you deem worthy google it. :/

Bile aside, while I'd be very keen on watching the videos I'm not entirely sure what she needs the funds for. I suppose if it's going to be a comprehensive and time-consuming series then I'd understand (Especially if it took away her capacity to support herself via a more profitable job) but I'm still curious. I suppose I won't care what the money was for if she delivers us something good which, knowing the issue she's tackling, shouldn't be too hard.

Before I forget, screw anti-male sexism. It exists, I'm male, it annoys me. If I really want to talk about it I'll make my own thread or start my own discussion. It's a stupid disclaimer that people shouldn't have to make. A discussion about the terrible attitudes taken toward women in gaming would be less focused if the person behind the discussion had to keep going on tangents to put disclaimers on obvious things like that. Not mentioning it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means that in the broad spectrum of issues in gaming culture, it's not the one they're focusing on. (Overall though I'd argue females have it much worse)

 

[Phasmal]

At the very least, these people have given her an overflow of evidence she can use to prove sexist attitudes still exist in the gaming community.

Yep.
Sadly this proves to reinforce more stereotypes about certain types of dudes in our community than any of her videos ever could. People had a chance to let other people express opinions which they may not agree with but no- not in our community.
(As for people who say this is `just youtube`- bull-fucking-shit. If you* honestly cannot see that our community has women problems, then your head is so far up your arse you will never see daylight).

*Objective you, not personal `you`.

It's also funny to see so many people gloss over the reaction and just go `oh well she shouldnt make those videos`.
Piss off. There are videos out there of guys nailing their dicks to bits of wood. People can make videos of what they want- dont like it? Don't watch it.

 

[Kahunaburger]

acknowledge the unspeakable, namely that women themselves

'rape culture'...insulting half the human population,

feminists...don't dare to attack religion at all, while it's no doubt their main enemy.

I get the impression that you're less responding to feminism as it is actually practiced by actual human beings and more that you're responding to whatever Rush Limbaugh or the local equivalent wants you to see feminism as. Because these are some pretty monumental mistakes.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Games in that vein and most of them, yes.

Games in the vein of Farmville? So, in other words, Diablo and F2P MMOs? (Naw man this game is totally hardcore look it even has teh devul on the box!)

 

[anthony87]

Yeah, the "documentary" (it's not really going to be one) is fucking stupid.

"HEY GUYS LOOK THERES STEREOTYPES IN MEDIA LETS FOCUS ON THE ONES ABOUT WOMEN GIMME MONEY PLS AHUEHUEHUEHUE"

No. Fuck off. Take your bullshit elsewhere, until you learn how to make an actual documentary. Thank you.

As for the people commenting, well, it happens. I don't see why the Escapist is running an article on it - white knight syndrome, perhaps.

It's not nice, but it's hardly an uncommon thing, and I don't see why this one should stick out from the millions of videos on Youtube that got the user insults and threats.

Also, one more thing - can you guys please stop talking about gamers as though they are some collective? "Omg dis totally shows this and that about us gamers" - no. There is no "us" or "we". This is a bunch of stupid cunts who have to much time on their hands writing stupid shit on the internet. I have nothing to do with them. I am not one of them just because I play games, and neither is anyone else.

It's like saying the reputation of vegetarians and pet owners was massively harmed by Hitler. (There, Godwinned this *****. Let's let it die now.)

Yeah.........I don't have a thing at all to add to this. I'm just quoting you in the hopes that other people will see what a post made out of common sense looks like.

I really would like to know what all this "community" bollox is about though. I mean since when has a bunch of youtube idiots equated to every single person who plays video games?

 

[minuialear]

snip

The article was crap, apparently rape culture doesn't have to have rape involved? Then it isn't rape culture!

It's about the sexualisation of women and the objectification of the female body, reducing them to a form and series of holes to stick parts into. By reducing women to items and sex objects, you take way their humanity and create a culture wherein the actual needs of female partners are ignored. Basically: men fuck women because it feels good and don't care about the girl, her feelings or if she enjoys it.

Which is all bullshit. But that's what they are trying to tell us.

Funny you say that... [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090216-bikinis-women-men-objects.html]

I was talking about the hate, not the videos. Personally, I agree with you. A lot of the things she says do come across as trying to hard to prove a point. Even knowing this, there's no reason to rage so much against her. Telling her to get back into the kitchen is needlessly adding fuel to the fire.

I think there is quite a legitimate reason to "rage" at her. She is more or less abusing a demographic and her character to basically con people out of their money to which she has not actually proven that the content is actually going to be any different or superior to her previous videos.

That's not an excuse to "rage" at someone. If you disagree with someone's Kickstarter, the most reasonable response to it is not to get enraged and spew that kind of hate over it. These comments weren't well-thought-out counter-arguments to her claims that women aren't represented fairly in video games. They weren't just comments of the tune "Well I don't agree, so I'm not going to spend my money on this." These were people who didn't respect her right to have an opinion (regardless of whether it's right or wrong), and felt the need to knock her down for having a different one because of it.

Not to mention, a lot of Kickstarters are as vague as hers, or don't prove that what they'll do is actually better than anything else they've done or that others have done; I'd bet you not half of them got this kind of hate for it.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

snip

The article was crap, apparently rape culture doesn't have to have rape involved? Then it isn't rape culture!

It's about the sexualisation of women and the objectification of the female body, reducing them to a form and series of holes to stick parts into. By reducing women to items and sex objects, you take way their humanity and create a culture wherein the actual needs of female partners are ignored. Basically: men fuck women because it feels good and don't care about the girl, her feelings or if she enjoys it.

Which is all bullshit. But that's what they are trying to tell us.

Funny you say that... [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090216-bikinis-women-men-objects.html]

Oh, god! One study shows that women wearing bikinis turn men on and draws their mind to their barely concealed sex organs! That proves it. Rape culture.

 

[Eamar]

I think, rather than engaging in this thread any further, I'm just going to sit back and play this: http://geekfeminism.org/2011/11/03/quick-hit-sexism-in-games-bingo/

It'd be funny if it wasn't so damn depressing.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Games in that vein and most of them, yes.

Games in the vein of Farmville? So, in other words, Diablo and F2P MMOs? (Naw man this game is totally hardcore look it even has teh devul on the box!)

You really think that pretending that by Farmville I mean Games like Diablo is going to help your case? No, I'm talking about them making up the majority of the (to use the esa pdf) 42% playing Puzzle, Board Game, Game Show, Trivia and Card Games online. That kind of thing, not that you didn't already know that.

But most puzzle/board/card games aren't games like Farmville, because they aren't skinner boxes. More to the point, I'm not sure why, if you had to group the games Civ 4, Risk, Farmville, and Diablo 3, you'd group them (Diablo 3 Civ 4/Risk, Farmville) and not (Diablo 3, Farmville/Risk, Civ 4).

 

[minuialear]

snip

The article was crap, apparently rape culture doesn't have to have rape involved? Then it isn't rape culture!

It's about the sexualisation of women and the objectification of the female body, reducing them to a form and series of holes to stick parts into. By reducing women to items and sex objects, you take way their humanity and create a culture wherein the actual needs of female partners are ignored. Basically: men fuck women because it feels good and don't care about the girl, her feelings or if she enjoys it.

Which is all bullshit. But that's what they are trying to tell us.

Funny you say that... [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090216-bikinis-women-men-objects.html]

Oh, god! One study shows that women wearing bikinis turn men on and draws their mind to their barely concealed sex organs! That proves it. Rape culture.

It proves it's not complete BS. When men (as a general demographic; obviously doesn't apply to all) sexualize women, they start thinking of them less like people and more like "a series of holes to stick parts into" (or to do other acts upon). As this is supported by the science thus far, it's not too much of a stretch to consider that sexualizing women in general leads to women being viewed as objects, in general.

Do you actually have an argument against that concept, or are you just going to keep up the weak, snide remarks?

 

[Paladin Anderson]

Oh "gaming community".

You're just upset because no-one touches your penis, aren't you?

This is the best response to this article that could possibly be written. Nothing more needs to be said.