Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde

[Sagacious Zhu]

Misogyny aside, there really are problems with this Kickstarter.

1) NO ONE IS CENSORING ANYONE

She already has a channel where she does this kind of thing already. All this Kickstarter is for is to pay her for what she's already doing for free

2) Her "analysis" basically consists of naming a trope, displaying a character that embodies the trope and going "Well, there you go." She makes no effort of going beyond that point; no effort to understand WHY these tropes exist. It's journalism in its shallowest form

3) No one is saying you CAN'T contribute to her kickstarter; they are saying that you SHOULDN'T for some of the reasons listed here.

4) This documentary brings nothing new to the discussion and won't likely change anyone's minds. The purpose of this documentary is to confirm the biases held by the filmmaker and those who share their views. There is nothing that prompts discussion and nothing that attempts to understand why women tend to be portrayed less than realistically in games (e.g. Marketing practices that target 15-25 year old men as the primary consumer of games; the negative stereotype of GIRRRL Gamers)

In short, there are reasons why this documentary is a bad idea/redundant/superfluous that have nothing to do with the creator's sex or gender. It has everything to do with people funding an ego trip that won't effect any change and won't do anything beyond make the creator richer

Like I said, no on is saying that you can't support this project. We're saying that better projects and more valid attempts at understanding women in games should be supported; egocentric confirmation bias should not be.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

This Kickstarter NEEDS horrendous people making these posts. Because this kickstarter NEEDS to fail.

You're about $45,000 too late haha.

Because all one has to do is say "Sexism" and...



Because throwing money at a problem is easier than trying to acknowledge it.[/quote]

Well, considering that the entire point of this project is to educate (and it's part of a larger effort to express feminist theory in an accessible manner to non-academics) I'm having a hard time seeing where you're coming from here.[/quote]

There's a chance I'm wrong, but I fully expect the entire point will be to educate about how horrible men are and how badly we stereotype women, and how ashamed we should feel about ourselves as a result.

Never mind that a man isn't considered a man unless he shoots first and asks questions later, screws the rules, and has the emotional range of an enraged howler monkey, what really matters is that a woman isn't considered a women unless she's not any of those.[/quote]

You'll be wrong. Pointing out shit that is harmful to women or sexist isn't necessarily saying that people should be ashamed about being guys. Yes, we do this. Usually without ever thinking about it. It is our responsibility to use our social power to NOT do it, and pointing it out helps do that.

And gee, it's almost like there's a video series there to be done about how sexism and the patriarchy is harmful to men and male characters, too. Maybe you should start a Kickstarter for that :)

Because she is under no obligations to be all WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?? when she's doing something specifically about female characters. Why don't you start one?

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

The documentary is proven to be needed by the vitriolic hatred she received, but WE know it's not needed.

So.

The fact that we gamers - and yes, hardcore gamers - started throwing misogynistic slurs and threats around, tried to get her shut down with unethical and not-really-legal means, shows that the gaming culture has a problem with sexism, ergo, this documentary is needed.

But we know it's not needed.

But.

You just.

I don't.

What.

 

[satsugaikaze]

It's great that she's raising awareness towards the issue, and misogynistic pricks on youtube are misogynistic and pricks, but I'm not quite sure why she needed the Kickstarter when she's already achieved a metric ton of cultural influence without it.

But hey, alright. Moar is better. Nothing motivates like getting paid, right?

That said, it'll be interesting to see the boundaries between exactly what characters she defines as "sexist" or "misogynistic" - as one of my favorite Escapist podcasts discussed, "sexy" in contrast to "sexual". The heavy-handedness and over-simplification of her language in the pitch doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me (not enough to get my dollars, anyway), but at least she has the ambition to do her research and extrapolate accordingly.

I just hope her final product considers context of her examples reasonably. And maybe give a shout-out to the writers and character designers who are doing these things right. God knows at the very least that 50k could go towards an incentive for developers to improve on that aspect.

 

[Something Amyss]

Wow. He starts with a strawman and works his way down. Amazing.

 

[ex951753]

I haven't looked too much into this but does the Escapist pay people to put up "news"? I don't agree to those youtube comments but I'm kind of baffled that something like this made it to the news section. Please keep to actual news instead of repeatedly posting "internet people are dicks" as news. Or better is there anyway to block all threads started by OP?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Nothing like a raving mob of boys and man-children throwing their toys around yelling about how the girls want to spoil their fun.

I wonder how many of these mental reprobates have gone on-record as saying they want more maturity in games? (Of course, to this crowd, "maturity" means T&A.) And how many have complained that the stereotype of "gamer" is "mentally-adolescent shut-in"? (Which, of course, they then go and prove here.)

Sharp shootin', pardners, y'got yerselves right in the collective foot.

 

[Kahunaburger]

There's a chance I'm wrong, but I fully expect the entire point will be to educate about how horrible men are and how badly we stereotype women, and how ashamed we should feel about ourselves as a result.

Never mind that a man isn't considered a man unless he shoots first and asks questions later, screws the rules, and has the emotional range of an enraged howler monkey, what really matters is that a woman isn't considered a women unless she's not any of those.

Maybe you should try watching some Feminist Frequency videos sometime so you don't have to guess. Gender stereotypes that are harmful to men are definitely discussed when relevant.

 

[Ninjariffic]

Is it just me or did a lot of the comments seem to come from /b/ros? Sounds just like everyday conversation on /b/. The name BoxxyIzQueen is a pretty big giveaway too.

This seems like it could just as likely be /b/ comment bombing it for lulz rather than an honest reaction.

 

[ARCTIC_EAGLE]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

they deserve it, the fucking scum should be thrown into the street like the trash they are.

 

[The Wooster]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

I haven't given out any information he wasn't willing to share. What exactly are you suggesting? That I should avoid naming people in news posts? That'll make things kind of vague.

 

[Thrashgrinder]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

they deserve it, the fucking scum should be thrown into the street like the trash they are.

Yeah. If you say so.

 

[Thrashgrinder]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

I haven't given out any information he wasn't willing to share. What exactly are you suggesting? That I should avoid naming people in news posts? That'll make things kind of vague.

By adding direct links you are basicly suggesting people to go to their profiles and harrass them.

 

[ARCTIC_EAGLE]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

they deserve it, the fucking scum should be thrown into the street like the trash they are.

Yeah. If you say so.

I do, as should those who support segregation, bans on equal rights (based on race, sexual orientation, religion, etc), the KKK, Al Qaeda

 

[Thrashgrinder]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

they deserve it, the fucking scum should be thrown into the street like the trash they are.

Yeah. If you say so.

I do, as should those who support segregation, bans on equal rights (based on race, sexual orientation, religion, etc), the KKK, Al Qaeda

Well, You and I have very different opinions on this matter. There is no reason for argument.

 

[ARCTIC_EAGLE]

"so you're a bolshevik feminist jewess that hates White people and does website design for Tim Wise extremist platform and you expect to be taken seriously when you're "critique-ing" video games," writes charming YouTube user, Haploguy. [http://www.youtube.com/user/haploguy]

"fucking ovendodger," he adds.

Wow. Nice job targeting individual people on the internet. I think you should also give the persons home adress too. That's the kind of journalism this site was lacking.

they deserve it, the fucking scum should be thrown into the street like the trash they are.

Yeah. If you say so.

I do, as should those who support segregation, bans on equal rights (based on race, sexual orientation, religion, etc), the KKK, Al Qaeda

Well, You and I have very different opinions on this matter. There is no reason for argument.

agreed, I just wanted to be sure you understood the kinda of people I group with the commenter's. So how do you evaluate these people? Morons on the internet, jerks, trolls, or people who have an opinion yet haven't articulated it well?

 

[Eternal_Lament]

At this point in time it would seem more reasonable (and more productive) to use Kickstarter to fund games with better female characters rather than to make a documentary about the lack of good female characters in video games. It's sort of like a hospital getting funding to help improve hospital standards, and rather than improving the hospital the money is instead used to make a documentary on how the hospital is in disarray. I guess my thought is that with the countless number of youtube videos, blogs, even forum posts dedicated to the subject, it would seem to me that we have gone past the "Identify the problem" stage and should be heading into the "How do we resolve this" stage.

I disagree, because it seems we haven't identified the problem. The problem is sexism, not mysogyny. The problem isn't how women are treated badly in games, it's how all genders are forced to adhere to respective sets of stereotypes. Focusing on the misogyny while ignoring the misandry isn't helping, it's showing unfair bias.

The point really can apply to any group or issue. My point was that if this person was really upset about the portrayal of women in games, a better solution would be to use the kickstarter to fund a game with a positive portrayal of women rather than making a documentary about how there are few games with positive portrayals. The first one is productive, the second one does nothing to help. As people said, it's not just because many vids or vlogs have been done on the subject or that it may be a very opinionated documentary, but because it just prolongs the issue. To use another analogy, it's like a burning building. Sure announcing the fire brings attention to it, but sooner or later someone has to put it out or call 911. We don't need more people making vids about the issue, we need people to take a proactive stance and actually make products to help rectify the issue.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

I would like to point out that the amount of money she's gotten would suggest that there are in fact a lot of gamers who are more than okay with this, and just don't comment on Youtube.

More to the point, why does she need thousands of dollars for this? She talks about the "scope and scale" of the research and production work involved, but, based on what I can see of her work, there are people out there who produce content of similar quality for no money at all (besides what they get from website ads).

For this price, the finished product had better be pretty damn impressive. It should also feature audio quality significantly better than what I can hear in that video (seriously, what is with all that white noise in the background?).

 

[Kahunaburger]

We don't need more people making vids about the issue, we need people to take a proactive stance and actually make products to help rectify the issue.

We need both. Constructive discussion is good, better portrayals are good. There's no mutual exclusivity, here.