MovieBob leaving The Escapist

Zontar

Mad Max 2019
Feb 18, 2013
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DugMachine said:
Zontar said:
Uh, no, he did nothing of the sort. He called all of us (as in, the 99.999% by the lower end of estimates) who are neither trolls, nor harassers, nor doxxers or anything of the like 'acceptable targets'.

If his twitter account wasn't a factor in his getting canned, I would be shocked, because in any other industry he'd have been sent to the door 4 months ago. Hell, in other parts of this industry he'd have gotten it 4 months ago. He had it coming, and in his own words he 'reaped what he sowed'.
And why does this upset you? According to you you aren't a troll, harasser or doxxer. What is the issue? He said gamers, is he not a gamer?
The tweet I was referencing was one he specifically was mentioning GG, not gamers in general, so the issue is about the same as one would take if someone said something along the same lines towards, say, liberals or conservative. The only one I'm aware of for gamers as a whole was that the one regarding the portrayal of gamers by the SVU episode (a portrayal which only someone who never met a gamer in person could believe, not that such a situation would be a surprise in Bob's case) was accurate, which was a statement so stupid it isn't worth commenting on.
 

DugMachine

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Zontar said:
The tweet I was referencing was one he specifically was mentioning GG, not gamers in general, so the issue is about the same as one would take if someone said something along the same lines towards, say, liberals or conservative. The only one I'm aware of for gamers as a whole was that the one regarding the portrayal of gamers by the SVU episode (a portrayal which only someone who never met a gamer in person could believe, not that such a situation would be a surprise in Bob's case) was accurate, which was a statement so stupid it isn't worth commenting on.

Well I'll be honest with you I stopped caring about gamer gate a week into it. I was talking more to the person that mentioned the SVU episode. So anything that I see with gamer gate in it I immediately lose all interest.
 

lostlevel

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Nov 6, 2008
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I enjoyed Bob's content though I didn't always get where he was coming from or agree but I can always appreciate another perspective when it's well explained or informed. I wish him all the best as ever as losing a source of income is never a good place to be.

After extra credits left, loading ready run concluded and Jim left the only thing I really have to visit the site for is Feed Dump as I watch Zero Punctuation on Youtube. The fact I first heard of Bob's departure via my feed there shows that I don't visit the site as much as I used to.

In part I think this site may have changed, though thankfully Smosh Games was short lived but I guess I've changed too. I consume my video game news on my phone via a podcast app and my former arch nemesis the youtube app.

Though now I only check in from time to time now I hope the Escapist can hang in there and avoid echoing the clickbait/pandering of certain other sites but I much as I loathe it that stuff does make money.
 

2HF

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666!!!

I've been waiting for that awhile.

So anyway, Bob reviewed 50 shades on YouTube and be doesn't seem to have missed a beat. Glad I can still go to him for my movie reviews. His taste and mine align pretty well.
 

faefrost

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DugMachine said:
Zontar said:
Uh, no, he did nothing of the sort. He called all of us (as in, the 99.999% by the lower end of estimates) who are neither trolls, nor harassers, nor doxxers or anything of the like 'acceptable targets'.

If his twitter account wasn't a factor in his getting canned, I would be shocked, because in any other industry he'd have been sent to the door 4 months ago. Hell, in other parts of this industry he'd have gotten it 4 months ago. He had it coming, and in his own words he 'reaped what he sowed'.
And why does this upset you? According to you you aren't a troll, harasser or doxxer. What is the issue? He said gamers, is he not a gamer?
That kinda leads into one of the things that I think ultimately drives Bob and at times limits him. Yes Bob is a gamer. Yes Gaming greatly shaped Bob's life. It's just... he never seems very happy about it. I really hate using this type of term because it gets bandied about a lot and is generally bullshit, but if there is such a thing as a "self loathing gamer" Bob might be an excellent case study. In so many ways Bob is the very stereotype that they seek to portray gamers as. The aging manchild still living with his parents and dwelling on high school. heavy, hairy, and with a great deal of pent up anger that he seeks to vent online. But Bob is also self aware and does not like this or want to be this. And somewhere in there is a talented and compelling producer. If he would just stop warring with himself and his audience. Sadly Bob's path seems to be leading him closer to Devin Faraci. A man who IS a vile troll, true misogynist and unrepentent bully. I canot imagine such associations will allow Bob to find his maturity and sense of balance that he does so desperately need.
 

Vigormortis

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DugMachine said:
Must it be written in plain English or can you just not understand when someone says "All ____ers are ____" they aren't necessarily talking about you personally? Clearly movie bob isn't calling himself a rapist nor subhuman.
Except, you're wrong. When someone add the qualifier "All" at the beginning, they are, in fact, referring to all members of that particular group.

If they wished to NOT implicate all members of a group, then they should not use the world 'all'.

Besides, I honestly can't understand this rational of "Well, his insults don't describe you, right? So why are you offended?"

That's absurd. If someone said, "All black people are rapists!", you wouldn't say to someone who was offended, "Are you a rapist? No? Then why are you offended? They clearly don't literally mean all black people."

No, you'd berate the hell out of the jerkoff who said the insult. You wouldn't sit there and rationalize the comment until it seemed benign.

Personally, I don't care if you, or others, are fans of Bob's work. I hope he continues doing what he does and that people can enjoy it as they please. However, please stop trying to rationalize or excuse his abhorrent behavior. It serves no one, least of all him, and he'll never learn to 'tone it down a bit' unless he understands the harm it causes. To him, his fans, and those associated with him.
 

DugMachine

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Vigormortis said:
Except, you're wrong. When someone add the qualifier "All" at the beginning, they are, in fact, referring to all members of that particular group.

If they wished to NOT implicate all members of a group, then they should not use the world 'all'.

Besides, I honestly can't understand this rational of "Well, his insults don't describe you, right? So why are you offended?"

That's absurd. If someone said, "All black people are rapists!", you wouldn't say to someone who was offended, "Are you a rapist? No? Then why are you offended? They clearly don't literally mean all black people."

No, you'd berate the hell out of the jerkoff who said the insult. You wouldn't sit there and rationalize the comment until it seemed benign.

Personally, I don't care if you, or others, are fans of Bob's work. I hope he continues doing what he does and that people can enjoy it as they please. However, please stop trying to rationalize or excuse his abhorrent behavior. It serves no one, least of all him, and he'll never learn to 'tone it down a bit' unless he understands the harm it causes. To him, his fans, and those associated with him.
Black people are rapists =/= gamer gaters are rapists. Funny how Bob is supposed to be this radical SJW that shouts down everyones 'opinions' (which can be wrong) yet you rational thinkers take it to the same extremes as to compare yourself to the plight of the black community.
 

DugMachine

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Lono Shrugged said:
DugMachine said:
Gamer Gate is seriously not that big of a deal
This is either a troll or you have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
Please enlighten me on how exactly it's a huge deal. And I'm being genuine here, why should it concern me? From the get go many months ago it just seemed like a shitfest involving people I didn't care about who wrote articles for websites I didn't frequent promoting shitty games I had heard nothing of. To my understanding it's evolved into the beast that it is today but why should it concern your average male gamer like myself? I still play the games I want to and read the articles by authors that I want to.
 

DugMachine

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Vigormortis said:
And besides your ridiculous comparison. I'm not rationalizing bobs comments. They are dumb comments and of course painting entire groups with huge sweeping generalizations are irrational but when that person is a part of the group they're criticizing or you don't think highly of his opinion one way or another why the hell would you listen? It's like you want to be upset
 

Lono Shrugged

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DugMachine said:
Please enlighten me on how exactly it's a huge deal. And I'm being genuine here, why should it concern me? From the get go many months ago it just seemed like a shitfest involving people I didn't care about who wrote articles for websites I didn't frequent promoting shitty games I had heard nothing of. To my understanding it's evolved into the beast that it is today but why should it concern your average male gamer like myself? I still play the games I want to and read the articles by authors that I want to.
You are perfectly entitled to do whatever you want and to ignore or patronize whatever webpages or discussion boards you like. The angle you seem to be approaching this argument from is "why should I care?" Well, Dugmachine. You don't have to care and no one is forcing you to. But other people do care. Some could not care two tugs of a dead dogs cock about Gamergate. But it enlightened Escapists on the character and principles of some people. (Greg Tito deserves a lot of credit) No one is suggesting for a second that you should have to care or be involved.

But you cannot tell people that gamergate was not a big deal when it tore a schism in the online community, cost jobs and personal relationships and has far reaching consequences. Gamergate may not be a big deal to YOU. But it is to other people. Feel free to argue for and against on whatever side you like. Read whoever you want to read and play what you want to play. Log off and go for a stroll if you like. No one will try and drag you into this or force you to click on any links But walking into a discussion and saying that no one cares about what is being discussed and that the discussion itself is pointless is a sign of poor judgement to say the least. You mentioned several times that you don't care and why should anyone else care. I don't understand why you are being so vocal in a discussion you purport to have no stake in. So Dugmachine, why does it concern you?
 

Davroth

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Apr 27, 2011
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McMarbles said:
Davroth said:
Vault101 said:
...extremist?...really?
His twitter is full of extremist rhetoric as well. Not sure how you missed it.
Define "extremist". I find that a lot of people who use that word don't know what it means. Like "corruption" and "ethics".
Luckily it's rather unambiguous with good old Bob "There is (almost) no bad methods, only bad targets." Chipman. I'll guess you never bothered to check out his Twitter.
 

DugMachine

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Lono Shrugged said:
You are perfectly entitled to do whatever you want and to ignore or patronize whatever webpages or discussion boards you like. The angle you seem to be approaching this argument from is "why should I care?" Well, Dugmachine. You don't have to care and no one is forcing you to. But other people do care. Some could not care two tugs of a dead dogs cock about Gamergate. But it enlightened Escapists on the character and principles of some people. (Greg Tito deserves a lot of credit) No one is suggesting for a second that you should have to care or be involved.

But you cannot tell people that gamergate was not a big deal when it tore a schism in the online community, cost jobs and personal relationships and has far reaching consequences. Gamergate may not be a big deal to YOU. But it is to other people. Feel free to argue for and against on whatever side you like. Read whoever you want to read and play what you want to play. Log off and go for a stroll if you like. No one will try and drag you into this or force you to click on any links But walking into a discussion and saying that no one cares about what is being discussed and that the discussion itself is pointless is a sign of poor judgement to say the least. You mentioned several times that you don't care and why should anyone else care. I don't understand why you are being so vocal in a discussion you purport to have no stake in. So Dugmachine, why does it concern you?

Because I want to understand why it's a big deal. You may think I'm patronizing but I genuinely do not understand what the issue is. IIRC did this not all start because somebody slept with someone or another over some obscure indie game for a pretty mediocre article and then suddenly the whole of gaming journalism was corrupt and the two sides started going for each others throats? Like, how did something so trivial turn into the bloodbath its become today?

For an outsider it seems like the only reason the battle rages on is because the piss babies who send death/rape threats on both sides won't let up.
 

Lono Shrugged

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DugMachine said:
I meant 'patronizing' to mean giving it your business. Not that you ARE patronizing.

I personally think that the cause of Gamergate blew far out of proportion and some reactions from both sides were overblown. it's not really about understanding it as a whole as understanding the players involved. It was an opportunity for people to push agendas, for griefers to fuck with people and for some people to make money.

MovieBob behaved in a very unprofessional and foolish way. For those of us who were fans, many of us felt that he was losing touch with his audience by his behaviour and hypocrisy. Which has been covered in detail in this thread. An example though would be drooling over pictures of female stars and then talking about objectification of woman in media.

Gamergate gave some people a chance to shine (on both sides) by calling for discussion and open debates to address the myriad of issues. Others acted like animals and said and did things that were on the level of political extremists who only stop yelling so they can take a breath. I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it's really the way it was.

Bob, who always championed himself as being enlightened, considered and articulate posted disgusting close minded trash talk that dehumanised the opposition instead of addressing their concerns. (Again this happened on both sides) For Movie Bob fans this was like going to your favorite diner you visit every week (even though the service is getting gradually worse) and the owner coming out and shitting on your plate. It didn't matter if you were pro of against gamergate. His sheer lack of class and tact made fans on both sides of the fence revile him.

I mentioned this in an earlier post. A lot of people here posting negative comments were moviebob fans and now that it's all done we can finally discuss the journey that brought us here to this ending. It is a raw feeling to support someone and to feel so let down by them. Some people might have felt like Bob spoke for them. That he articulated thoughts and feelings we all wanted to say as pop culture nerds who think the 90's sucked and comics were weird. It was a real slap in the face for some folks. Again, you might say, big deal, who cares. But people in this thread care so please understand that.
 

Kameburger

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Apr 7, 2012
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2HF said:
666!!!

I've been waiting for that awhile.

So anyway, Bob reviewed 50 shades on YouTube and be doesn't seem to have missed a beat. Glad I can still go to him for my movie reviews. His taste and mine align pretty well.
My tastes and his used to align really well. I think that stopped around Man of Steel. I mean Man of Steel was meh at points but it wasn't offensively bad. Like no where near offensive. ASM2 was meh pretty bad, but his reactions started to cloud my expectations quite a bit, and I ended up likely a lot of movies that he HATED, because I started to not rely on his taste as much. But it was very gradual. For a while he was hitting them out of the park for me. Very weird. I also loved Big Picture when it was about random obscure things.
 

Vigormortis

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DugMachine said:
Black people are rapists =/= gamer gaters are rapists.
First: Bob's made sweeping generalizations about gamers in general, not just GamerGate supporters.

Second: How are those two things not equivalent? They're both sweeping generalizations about an entire collective of people.

Funny how Bob is supposed to be this radical SJW that shouts down everyones 'opinions' (which can be wrong)
I don't think it's funny at all when he does that. If you do, that's fine, but I think it's appalling.

Also: When did I utter the acronym 'SJW'? I keep looking at my old posts and I'm not seeing it. Maybe you can point me to it?

yet you rational thinkers
"You rational thinkers"? Is that supposed to be an insult? Really?

take it to the same extremes as to compare yourself to the plight of the black community.
Aaaand you've lost the plot. I don't associate with GamerGate. I didn't compare myself to anyone. And I certainly didn't make light of anyone's "plight".

No. All I did was point out how patently absurd it is to tell people, "Well, if you're not a racist/sexist/rapist, then why are you offended by Bob calling you as much?" I'm sorry that using an analogous example to point out that absurdity was lost on you, but I stand by what I posted.

DugMachine said:
And besides your ridiculous comparison.
I think the word you're looking for is "analogous".

I'm not rationalizing bobs comments. They are dumb comments and of course painting entire groups with huge sweeping generalizations are irrational
If you freely admit that Bob is making insulting generalizations about an entire collective of people, then why are you excusing those actions? Why are you seemingly so confused as to how anyone could possibly be offended?

but when that person is a part of the group they're criticizing
I was unaware that self-loathing wasn't a 'thing'. I was also unaware that it is impossible to generalize an entire group of people, yet exclude ones self from that same generalization.

Or maybe, irrational opinions don't adhere to the general confines of rational thinking.

or you don't think highly of his opinion one way or another why the hell would you listen?
I never said I didn't think highly of his opinion. I never said I liked his opinions either. If anything, I'm mostly indifferent. However, when people (Bob certainly isn't alone in this) make a point of trying to belittle and marginalize a group of people by using their media presence to spread lies and negative stereotpyes, I speak up about it.

It's like you want to be upset
Heh, no. In fact, I'm pretty happy right now. Today was a good day.
 

mizi

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Bob was an interesting guy to listen too, even if I didn't always agree with him. He was a big reason I started watching more stuff on this site than just zero punctuation. With Jim and Bob leaving at nearly the same time...it sounds like internal politics got them both on the 'bad' list. With him and the podcasts gone, there's not much reason for me to check this site more than once a week.

EDIT: A google search on this topic revealed only a bunch of creepy dudebro gaming blogs laughing at the fact that he got fired. I guess that demographic might be the escapists bread and butter?
 

wulf3n

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DugMachine said:
faeshadow said:
How do I know that? He doesn't make any distinctions. Neither did the SVU episode he claimed was "spot on".
Must it be written in plain English or can you just not understand when someone says "All ____ers are ____" they aren't necessarily talking about you personally?
Uhhh... what! I can't tell if you're being serious?

If some one says someone says "All ____ers are ____" and you are a part of "____ers" then they are talking about you personally.

That's kind of the point of the word all. Now whether or not said person means all is another matter entirely.

But in that case your post should have been

Must people express their opinion coherently or can you just not read peoples minds?
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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Silvanus said:
AsurasEyes said:
What's the qualifier for being a "gamer"?

Do the "dudebros" play video games? Yes

Do "gamers" play video games? Yes
The problem with that is that when somebody refers to a category, they are not by extension referring to any group which includes that category.

For example, if somebody says "pirates are bad", it is not reasonable to accuse them of saying "humans are bad", on the basis that pirates are humans. The statement was quite clearly more contained than that.
If you say pirates are bad, it means that pirates are bad, whereas not all humans are pirates. if you say dudebros are bad it means that dudebros are bad whereas not all gamers are dudebros. if you say gamers are bad then you include both dudebros and non-dudebros gamers.

Skatologist said:
Actually I believe those tweets were taken before he announced he was fired/laid off, the day before if I'm correct, so please go on about he was ever so sorry he was fired; I find it entertaining to have such a flawed spin on this. Oh, also mind to dig up the subhuman comments he's made too? Cause I can't quite find them, only the "lie down with dogs" and "no bad methods" ones, most of his other stuff in context considering I don't go through his reply tweets very often.
The anouncement was more than 2 days after he actually got fired though and even then on his own accord on his blog. he had plenty of time to reply on twitter before the public learned of him being fired.

here is twitters own rehost of the tweet about subhumans:


Archon said:
some long-overdue improvements - hi-res video, mobile optimization, and more.
First of all, yes indeed i care about the site, after all it is my favorite website. i hope Escapist prospers for a long time.

Secondly, Hell yeah finally videos in acceptable video quality. I had to resort to opening the page to load ads and thne going to youtube because the current quality was that bad. Heres to hoping you will actually dever good quality (as opposed to low-to-mid quality on youtube) video stream!

And yeah navigating website with a mobile phone was quite hell mostly due to javascripts misbehaving and elements deciding to refresh themselves. hopefully this may fix the news section a bit too but thats another thing entirely.
 

DugMachine

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Vigormortis said:
Stopped reading after you still think the troubles that the black community face are in some way equal to the plight of white straight male gamers. I understand you're using them as an example of two communities facing sweeping generalizations but it's a bad one. Change it and I may take you seriously