@Notch and the 'F-bomb'

[orangeban]

General rule of thumb, don't swear in front of strangers or kids (kids meaning 12ish and under). They might not be cool with it and it isn't worth offending someone.

And yeah, Youtube is hardly a delightful picture of humanity, but censorship of it A) is kinda against the point and B) wouldn't work. Fox News is a delightful example of how cussing filters don't actually work.

 

[JoJo]

Show me a kid who doesn't know the words Fuck, *****, slut, ****, whore or asshole.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Probably just him trying to save face with his company in case some "Oh god my sensibilities I must sue!" idiots come along or making sure they'll be able to comeback for MineCon next year.

My eight year old sister for one, and before you say "she might just have the presence of mind not to say them in front of you", she has quite the temper and occasionally will (to the rest of family's hilarity) belt off the worst words she knows: "stupid" "baby" "fat" "hairless" in anger at anyone who speaks to her. Also I'd make the point that the kids I worked with in the past didn't use any of those words although admittedly that doesn't mean they definitely didn't know them. I'm not going to get into the argument about whether swearing matters or not since that's subjective and will go no-where but there's your example of a kid who doesn't know those words.

OT: I'm with Notch on this one, there are some things you just don't do and swearing in front of other people's kids is one of them. If it's your own then I disapprove but at the end of the day it's your own choice, however you should respect other parent's choices for how they raise their kids.

 

[Musiclly enhanced]

wait what? kids in the minecraft convention in las vegas? yep probably scared of profanity then

 

[Jumpingbean3]

This is a big fucking deal!

Seriously though. While dropping the F Bomb in front of kids is not very good publicity I think it's an over-reaction to refuse to work with them again. Yeah they made a mistake but at least give them one more chance.

 

[Yetipumper]

Where are the twitter posts etc that show this so-called 'explosion'?

"something of an explosion"- type in 'Notch' and 'yogscast' in the search field of twitter.
Emphasis on 'something'

 

[major_chaos]

so reading this I realized that I had never watched yogscast so I decided to give it a try, and dear god how can anyone stand those obnoxious whiny gibbering morons, let alone subscribe to them?

OT: Notch is over reacting(most of the "kids" there probably had already worse than that), and if he was that concerned about it he should have told everyone beforehand. besides I'v never rely thought of minecraft as a "kids game"

 

[GrandmaFunk]

"no homo"

Didn't know that was homophobic. It's simply the gay version of "that's what she said" only with sexual innuendo of the homoerotic nature.

of course it's homophobic, it's exact meaning is "please don't think i am homosexual despite what i've just said/written".

this not only implies that homosexuality is wrong but also that certain comments/opinions could only be made by a homosexual.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

I find it odd that he was offended at the yogscast saying the f-word in front of children, when he talked about masturbation and shagging simons mother in a interview he did with them, which will be watched by Thousands of children.

That's what I was thinking. Anyway, this is a bit silly. I can't exactly say that the Yogscast were completely innocent (sorry, but I seemingly don't hate children as much as everyone else on these forums), but banning them from Mine-Con's pretty harsh.

 

[Esotera]

So, what do you think? Are these problems that need to be addressed? Do you think they are acceptable? Are they even there?

It's perfectly fine to swear in my opinion, as long as it's not meant in an offensive way. Most of my sentences involve at least one swear word, but they're used more as a sort of punctuation. Basically, there's a massive difference between:

1. "X is #'@! awesome"
2. "You are a #@2;!"

 

[Yarkaz]

I don't see a problem with his reaction. Minecraft is a pretty kid friendly game, I think that part of its designs was on purpose. Makes sense Notch would want to keep his convention kid friendly too.

Yes people usually hold child friendly conventions at Sin City. Scumbag Notch.

Mmm, yes. I lived in Las Vegas for a couple years, and aside from the strip (a very small part of the city) Las Vegas is mostly inhabited by normal people with normal jobs who occasionally have *gasp of shock!* children.

Believe it or not.

 

[hazabaza1]

Wow, Notch seems like a very Passive Agressive person based on his current twitter posts.
Looking forward to seeing the Yogcast's side of this. Should be funny.

 

[alandavidson]

It's Notch's event, he sets the rules, and Yogscast broke them. He has the right to not work with them again if he doesn't want to, as well as the right to announce it in any manner he wishes.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

I find it odd that he was offended at the yogscast saying the f-word in front of children, when he talked about masturbation and shagging simons mother in a interview he did with them, which will be watched by Thousands of children.

people forget youtube is a 12+ site. It's still pretty young, but most 12 year olds know about that stuff, at least to a lesser degree. At minecon however, there are a lot younger children, and it is a little...riske to use that language so openly when the kids are going to look up to you

 

[JochemDude]

What is this madness?
Two pages and I've not been ninja'd?

 

[RoyalWelsh]

Maybe the yogscast shouldn't of swore, however I am suprised at Notch's overreaction to the whole thing. Not working with them ever again and banning them from Minecon is incredibly harsh.

 

[S14]

Since no one has posted it yet here is the panel in question it starts at about 2:20:

EDIT: I learned how to embed

 

[Treblaine]

overuse of the word 'retarded' as an insult.

As someone with a younger brother who is deaf/blind, I don't see a problem with using it as an insult. I used to, then I realized these people aren't talking about my brother, or any specifically 'retarded' person.

I see it more this way, they aren't comparing them to a group of people who are mentally handicapped, due to a physical/genetic some other condition.

They're calling them retarded in a way that says they are actively choosing to do things that don't make sense. They're acting like dumbasses so to speak.

That and life is too short to be constantly offended by offhanded comments.

One might say they are "Socially Retarded". Not because of disability, but because of poor decisions and approach to life, their own volition brought their "condition" of repeatedly doing inappropriate and dumb things. Like "He's collecting for the red-cross, not a crusader, you Retard".

Though the etymology is undeniable in it's purpose as an insult "are your retarded?" clearly means are you so clueless on the situation that you are like those people who have severe mental/physical impairment to need to remain in care all their lives.

In the same way some clueless person who has no clue what foolish thing they are doing like driving a lawn mower over a flowerbed you might yell "What are you doing? Are you blind?". They aren't blind, they simply aren't looking where they are doing but the purpose of the "are you blind" is as an insult that their foolishness is effectively a disability.

It's actually an old gag to have the "Are you blind" respond with "actually, I am". I don't think there has been a "are you retarded" respond with "actually, I am retarded". I think there was a family guy episode that did that once.

 

[samaugsch]

I'm just going to say this: the day western society gets over this ridiculous notion that certain words are inherently "bad" will be a good day indeed.

Yeah. Sometimes, I feel like swearing during certain situations just to see people react as if I had just broken a puppy's neck.

 

[godofallu]

I don't think it's strange to want people speaking at your event to an audience composed partly of kids to keep it age-appropriate. "Never working with them again" is arguably a bit of an overreaction, but it's within reason.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

You can get fired at my job for showing up without a tie, or a tie of the wrong color.

Swearing in front of children at a public convention, while representing your company?! Fired is the least of your problems.

OP: "So many kids watch these videos and assume these attitudes are acceptable." They do, and then they become the stupid/racist/assholes that use bro every other word and talk about banging sluts and calling each other fags. These kids arn't born like that, the people around them mold them into that.

 

[David Bjur]

Well, the people that says that it is perfectly fine to swear in front of children, probably don't have any.