On Geek Privilege

[Mysnomer]

Please note that we're talking about 4chan. The comparison to animals was not coincidental.

That's a funny line, but it's not a useful one. That they are members of an unpopular group does not excuse them from behaving like sane adults, and dismissing them because of their association more than whiffs of No True Scotsman.

4chan is home to the scum of the Earth. While you could call it "No True Scottsman," if you want to start slinging rational jargon, you should understand and accept that the unknown quantities of trolls make a determination of the actual intent of the masses impossible. Thus, you can't really call NTS, because it is a fallacious defense against provable rebuttal that conflicts with your primary assertion. But there's no way of knowing how many were trolls, and how many were straight examples. You might as well dismiss them all as trolls, it's more productive than treating them as valid. I mean, look at your own disbelief, "How could people do this?" That actually makes a lot of sense, and most of them probably don't hold those tenants in real life.

Don't be obtuse. The point of the sentence was to drive home that Anita Sarkeesian manipulated people into fighting one another over her content.

Alright, then, leaving aside for a moment whose fault it is to get suckered in by a troll, I think there's a burden on you to prove malicious intent behind her actions if you're going to make that accusation.

Also make sure to check links in the videos for more I might have missed.
Flying Turkeys [https://www.youtube.com/user/MrFlyingTurkeys/videos]
Crowd Demon: Anita Manipulates Comments, also Contradicts Herself [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nO9F7okbo]
This is a little tangential, but brings up important stuff [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERF9q40iS0]
Dangerous Analysis, just look for Anita related stuff. Also watch his MovieBob video, to help you get a grasp on why people might not be on board with Bob in this article. [https://www.youtube.com/user/dangerousanalysis/videos]
Kind of negative, but the middle third goes over some good points [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWtJpHys_xA]
Instig8tive Journalism:
~Part I [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gLmcS3-NI]
~Part II [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk5F-S_hI]
Trigger warning or smth, I guess. Strong Language, but it pretty much espouses my feelings after watching the previous videos and still seeing people put Anita on a pedestal. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqJCCnued6c]

I acknowledge that they happened, but what do they add to the conversation?

They establish the environment the conversation exists in, and the baggage the conversation carries with it. I'm sorry if you feel it's unfair to have to say, "I never played the game where you punch Ms. Sarkeesian's face," but those people have marred your position by claiming it as their own. Sometimes you gotta disavow the nutters.

...WHICH I HAVE DONE REPEATEDLY. I have done nothing but disavow them. Pointing out that they don't add anything to the conversation is the epitome of disavowal. It may be assumed that if you can speak about Anita Sarkeesian in a reasoned tone for more a paragraph, you have pretty well disavowed yourself of being a woman-hating, filth-spewing, bigot. If you continue to split hairs and wheel off to discuss non-issues, the pointlessness of this exercise will overwhelm me.

btw, did someone say gaming culture?

 

[Dexter S. Bateman]

Okay, so I enjoyed the article on gay male privilege, and from there it was obvious where you were going to go. I agree with your general thrust. I'm someone who is into "nerdy" intellectual pursuits, the less mainstream genres of videogames, and also follows sports, and I've noticed that my sports friends are far more accepting of my geek-outs than vice versa. When I used to be on Facebook (years ago now, thank Glob), my smart friends could never let my comments on a Crows or Titans game go by without a snide remark. So the "jock bullies nerd" trope always seemed outdated to me.

I got confused at the end though. It seemed like you were getting too hyperbolic in order to make a point/generate traffic. I grant you, I live in Australia and I'll never make it to SDCC, but is conference-goers actually GROPING cosplayers really a thing? If people are doing that, they deserve to be scorned, but morals aside, a nerd-type with the sheer self-assurance required to act that way in public isn't even something I can construct in my mind. Likewise, I've read some dopey forum arguments but I've never once seen someone claim racial oppression on account of their geekdom. So unless someone can show me the error of my ways, I'm going to assume you just went off the rails there in your enthusiasm, and for me, it kind of soured the whole thing.

This is why I imagine every issue being raised by an American on any side of anything as being filtered through a Today Tonight/A Current Affair lens and then trying to backtrack to the core of the argument and/or issue. Most people have something valid to say, but once predominantly American communities start trying to take sides everything starts having Jerry Springer level rhetoric. The only real exceptions to this is when everything is being framed as sarcasm instead. Moviebob tends to do a better job than most at avoiding it though.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Do you have any evidence to back that up? The half a percentage point. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say, "Of course there are half naked women in the game. Look at the target demographic." On of those two arguments has to be really wrong.

You argument seems to be based on an unfounded claim that it is an extremely small minority of people who act this way, therefore talking about the problem is... not worth the time? An insult to gamers? A bigger insult to gamers than the sexist, racist, homophobic bullshit I've had to put up with while playing online, and I'm straight, white, and male.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Ooof. Reading the article and the linked article and all the responses is giving me a headache. Too much to process at once.

I'm going to guess it all boils down to "don't be a jerk, no matter how persecuted your group was/still is". That I can do.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

You know your comments in that regard is absolutely hilarious.

No seriously, everyone has to agree with her damning a group of millions for the actions of an extremely small minority, because we have to disavow the nutters to have our opposing position taken seriously?

Again, you keep claiming it is a small minority, but you have no proof of that.

Blame a racist for being racist. Don't blame all white people.

Blame a Nazi for being a Nazi. Don't blame all Germans.

And for the love of God, blame the Geek Bully/Sexist for being a Geek Bully/Sexist. Quit blaming the entire damned enchilada. It's disgusting, it's wrong, and it doesn't help your point, it just makes us want to oppose you personally, not what you're for persay.

There is a saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Not sure who said it (it is attributed to Edmund Burke) but it is a very important in this context. When we see someone being racist, homophobic, sexist, we need to point it out and do something about it. If we don't, we are culpable for what these people say and do. "Qui tacet consentire videtur." "He who is silent is taken to agree." You are not "good man doing nothing", you are fighting against those who are trying to do something.

But let me tell you about sexism. In America, a women can lie about being raped, and no one is allowed to question her about it...

Daisy Coleman was raped at a party and her unconscious body was dumped on he lawn in the middle of the night. When she said she was raped, the town she was in turned against her.

Joseph DiBenedetto went on Fox news and famously said, "I'm not saying she deserved to be raped, but..." But before he said that, he speculated she wasn't raped, but was lying about it because she didn't want to get into trouble for staying out all night.

She was dumped on her lawn in the middle of the night in January. Yet people think she has sex had consensual sex and was lying about being raped.

At best, at absolute best, you are woefully ignorant on this subject.

At worst, you are part of the evil good men have to fight against.

 

[Mysnomer]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Do you have any evidence to back that up? The half a percentage point. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say, "Of course there are half naked women in the game. Look at the target demographic." On of those two arguments has to be really wrong.

I wish he hadn't used an actual figure, as he had a point before exposing himself to being derailed by making a claim he can't prove. HOWEVER, the target demographic is not misogynists, it's people who are enticed by T&A. So unless you want to argue that a majority who find attractive videogame women sexy are misogynists, you might want to rethink your phrasing.

Blame a racist for being racist. Don't blame all white people.

And for the love of God, blame the Geek Bully/Sexist for being a Geek Bully/Sexist. Quit blaming the entire damned enchilada. It's disgusting, it's wrong, and it doesn't help your point, it just makes us want to oppose you personally, not what you're for persay.

There is a saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Not sure who said it (it is attributed to Edmund Burke) but it is a very important in this context. When we see someone being racist, homophobic, sexist, we need to point it out and do something about it. If we don't, we are culpable for what these people say and do. "Qui tacet consentire videtur." "He who is silent is taken to agree." You are not "good man doing nothing", you are fighting against those who are trying to do something.

Again with people being obtuse. He is not advocating doing nothing. He's opposed to sweeping generalizations that blame a population at large for the acts of a few. Honestly, if Bob had encouraged lynch mobs, targeted at those who harass women because they feel their space is being invaded, or those who bully the newcomers because of high school grudges, it would have been less damaging than saying, "You are all responsible for this, because you haven't stamped it out yet." Honestly, it sounds more like a reductio ad absurdum refutation of "silence = complicity." This article would be more useful as a farce to demonstrate the over-reach caused when one is too consumed with social justice, and can't focus on the problem.

But let me tell you about sexism. In America, a women can lie about being raped, and no one is allowed to question her about it...

At best, at absolute best, you are woefully ignorant on this subject.

At worst, you are part of the evil good men have to fight against.

Rape issues cut both ways. There are examples of both men and women getting the short end of it, but women get more screen time, that's pretty well accepted. I just hope that after we're done dealing with the priority of women's issues, men are also given a fair shake.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Except he didn't.

Sorry, you lose all credibility when you claim that people said things they didn't say. You're just making up your own arguments here, and I see no need to continue to engage with somebody who makes stuff up, especially given your previous hostile comments and personal attacks.

 

[JimB]

There's nothing malicious about what Sarkeesian did.

Fair enough; I withdraw the word "malicious" and replace it with "deliberate." How do you prove her frame of mind?

That's a funny line, but it's not a useful one. That they are members of an unpopular group does not excuse them from behaving like sane adults, and dismissing them because of their association more than whiffs of No True Scotsman.

4chan is home to the scum of the Earth. While you could call it "No True Scotsman," if you want to start slinging rational jargon, you should understand and accept that the unknown quantities of trolls make a determination of the actual intent of the masses impossible.

The intent, so far as I can prove, is to say horrible and hurtful things to punish someone who disagreed with people.

Also make sure to check links in the videos for more I might have missed.

Ugh, video links. Forgive me for not clicking them on my own, but I live in the woods, and my ISP rations my bandwidth on a daily basis, so this is not really the format for me. If you have no textual links, would you terribly mind summarizing the evidence those links assert? I hate to seem as if I'm dismissing your evidence out of hand, but I really would rather not have my download speed reduced to dial-up rates for the next twenty-four hours because I've exceeded my allotted bandwidth for February 3, 2014.

I have done nothing but disavow them.

Don't get me wrong; I've been where you are. In internet debates, I find myself often having to point out that I did not say what my opponent accused me of saying, which he presumably did because he's mistaken me for some cartoon villain in his head. Hell, I just did it half a dozen times in this thread. It gets tiresome, but that seems to be the nature of the format.

Pointing out that they don't add anything to the conversation is the epitome of disavowal.

It can come off as an attempt to sweep them under the rug. Just FYI. Take that or leave it.

If you continue to split hairs and wheel off to discuss non-issues, the pointlessness of this exercise will overwhelm me.

I kind of resent you taking yourself hostage like that, but whatever. At the end of the day, it's your choice to participate or not, and I'm not going to beg you to stay.

 

[MB202]

Honestly, I've never heard of the phrase "check your privileges" before MovieBob mentioned it in one of it's videos. Where, exactly, did that come from?

 

[Mysnomer]

4chan is home to the scum of the Earth. While you could call it "No True Scotsman," if you want to start slinging rational jargon, you should understand and accept that the unknown quantities of trolls make a determination of the actual intent of the masses impossible.

The intent, so far as I can prove, is to say horrible and hurtful things to punish someone who disagreed with people.

But you can't say that for sure. Trolls generally don't care about the subject matter, they just take contrary positions to waste people's time and exasperate them. I mean, I guess that's bad in it's own way, though I tend to view it as mischievous, because of how easy it is to ignore them. Some clever trolls may slip through, but it's mostly about cutting down on the unsubtle ones who simply spout irrational statements in all caps. So, in a sense, the intent of the words may have been...negative, but that doesn't mean that they espouse misogynist beliefs, which would mean we don't actually have a widespread problem with misogyny.

Also make sure to check links in the videos for more I might have missed.

Ugh, video links. Forgive me for not clicking them on my own, but I live in the woods, and my ISP rations my bandwidth on a daily basis, so this is not really the format for me. If you have no textual links, would you terribly mind summarizing the evidence those links assert? I hate to seem as if I'm dismissing your evidence out of hand, but I really would rather not have my download speed reduced to dial-up rates for the next twenty-four hours because I've exceeded my allotted bandwidth for February 3, 2014.

I would recommend getting yourself to a library or something, because a lot of the stuff I linked are great dissections of things like game journalism, social justice scandals, and various internet pundits. Basically, if someone starts a controversial bandwagon that nobody's questioning (as is often the case with internet-based social justice), channels like Dangerous Analysis are there to break down the fallacies or inaccuracies propping these things up.

As to the summation: Anita has been dealing with trolls, specifically those from 4chan, for as long as she's been on Youtube. Her action was at first to disable comments altogether, but later she allowed comments but strictly moderated them. No negative comment was let through unless she had some way to rebut it (whether it was valid argument, or just a snappy comeback). Now, her 2 videos before the Kickstarter video went back to having comments disabled. This, combined with the Kickstarter video having unmoderated comments, funneled any and all dissenters to that video. Also, threads for Anita's video were spammed across 4chan, not just in /v/, where they were relevant, but the anime, the torrents, the obscure off-shoots, and even the unsavory places. Obviously, this will draw the wrong kind of attention, which Anita reveled in. She took all the crap 4chan could throw at her, and put it up on a page claiming it proved the validity of her cause, that it was a large-scale coordinated attack (this is something she parrots often in her lectures). But considering the hornet's nest she stirred up, how many comments even came from dedicated gamers; from people who truly represent the community? How many are just trolls lured in with promise of an easy target? Anita demonstrated she knew how to deal with trolls (and legitimate detractors ) by moderating comments, but suddenly when it serves her purpose [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit], they are allowed to run free and she is considered a proud feminist crusader for standing up to them. Now, in the present, she puts out her episodes at a meager pace. Despite evidence that "Damsels in Distress" was filmed all at once, the three parts were released over the course of several months. Her videos show little improvement in quality, and her footage is taken from Let's Plays [http://victorsopinion.blogspot.com/2013/07/anitas-sources.html]* (without citation or requested permission, and while normally that falls under fair use, remember that she plans to sell DVDs of her episodes, which negates fair use defenses).

That's just for her videos and Kickstarter. I suggest you go to the Flying Turkeys link I posted, as the video "Anita Sarkeesian is not a gamer" contains important video evidence that can only be viewed as a video. Basically, she admits to not enjoying or being a fan of videogames, and she had to "learn a lot about them" for a project (this video is from 2010, and she has claimed to have been a lifelong fan of videogames). Flying Turkeys also picks apart her tweets and shows that until TvWiVG, Anita showed no interest or care for gaming, except Angry Birds, her (infamous) Bayonetta video**, and a blip about supporting gay romance in Dragon Age 2. However, her twitter feed has now morphed into that of someone who is knee-deep in gaming and its headlines. This stark contrast makes it hard to believe she is a "lifelong" gamer.

Her thesis for college shows that she either holds contradictory beliefs about how women are and should be portrayed, or she has is feeding people what she thinks they want to hear (this is from the Instig8tive Journalism videos). After he criticized her thesis, she took it down from her website, Instig8tive mirrored it here [https://mega.co.nz/#!UBxSEY6S!fsPHYmoZO2XigZTBDYxRGxZQbxUqxj_Jx4tTxw4bM-A].

These are the most important videos, and I implore that if you can't make time for the others, please try to watch these:
Not a real gamer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw] 10 min
Hypocricy outlined [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nO9F7okbo] 10 min
Weak methodology refuted [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwFx-tz9TY] 20 min
Anita does not advance feminism, and is detrimental as its modern representative [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk5F-S_hI] 10 min

*If you ant some interesting content by a female who is actually a gamer, you should read Vicsor's blog.
**It was so poorly researched, and showed such ignorance that even her fans weren't on board with her, and she pulled it to protect her image.

 

[Mysnomer]

Neither Bob Chipman nor Anita Sarkeesian has ever tried to make geeky things illegal. Neither has ever sued anybody. Neither has ever been disbarred for bringing frivolous lawsuits before the supreme court. Neither has said that you should be ashamed of yourself for pursuing geeky things.

I don't think attaching the social stigma of an anti-progressive to someone is much better than calling them a potential criminal. And while Jack Thompson tried to infringe freedom of speech through the legal system, it's hardly better to infringe it through peer pressure and browbeating.

Honestly, I've never heard of the phrase "check your privileges" before MovieBob mentioned it in one of it's videos. Where, exactly, did that come from?

Supposedly it comes from a rather inoffensive sounding idea that you realize that when discussing cultural issues that you are not an expert on, you listen to those that have experience before you start talking like you know what's what. Like you would check a coat at the door on entry to a restaurant, you leave your "privilege" (preconceptions based on your life in which you probably had some advantage that said people did not) behind as you enter into the conversation. However noble that may be, it has morphed into a farcical parody of itself, in which oppressed people get into privilege measuring contests to see who is the most guilty and to whom they should kowtow. This is a rather sarcastic take on it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192mLlOBzvE&t=5m51s], and concludes with the idea that, it's basically the Left's idea of Original Sin. As it stands today, that's pretty accurate.

 

[Mysnomer]

Neither Bob Chipman nor Anita Sarkeesian has ever tried to make geeky things illegal. Neither has ever sued anybody. Neither has ever been disbarred for bringing frivolous lawsuits before the supreme court. Neither has said that you should be ashamed of yourself for pursuing geeky things.

I don't think attaching the social stigma of an anti-progressive to someone is much better than calling them a potential criminal. And while Jack Thompson tried to infringe freedom of speech through the legal system, it's hardly better to infringe it through peer pressure and browbeating.

Criticism is not 'infringing on freedom of speech through peer pressure and browbeating' - that's absurd. Neither MovieBob nor Sarkeesian has ever infringed upon - or even made an ATTEMPT to infringe upon - anybody's freedom of speech.

To be honest, neither did Thompson - but that was because he was an ineffectual buffoon, not for want of trying.

That whole line of thinking is moronic. I'm surprised that ostensibly sane people came up with it.

...
...

Criticism is not 'infringing on freedom of speech through peer pressure and browbeating' - that's absurd. [HEADING=2]Neither[/HEADING] MovieBob nor Sarkeesian has ever infringed upon - or [HEADING=2]even made an ATTEMPT to infringe[/HEADING] upon - anybody's freedom of speech.

To be honest, [HEADING=2]neither did Thompson[/HEADING] - but that was because he was an ineffectual buffoon, [HEADING=2]not for want of trying.[/HEADING]

You literally just said: They didn't attempt it. Thompson didn't attempt. But he attempted it.

This is inane. Thompson tried to outlaw violent games. His tool was the legal system. That's an infringement of free speech. There's really no contest, unless you argue that videogames aren't speech, but if you think something so tied to the families of cinema and literature isn't speech, you're off your rocker.

Sarkeesian won't be happy until everyone agrees with her. Her tool is social shame and guilt. The modern Mark of Cain that is sexism. She would brand those who do not conform to her ideals as heretics under the guise of criticism. Her criticism is entirely self-serving and has little value except as an example of what to avoid. I won't say she can't say it, that would make me no better than her, but I will say people shouldn't listen to it.

Sarkeesian is no better than Thompson. Both are self-serving narrow-minded individuals who want a medium they have no stake in to conform to their morality. The only difference is Anita used the fact that she is a woman to play the backlash in her favor, and Thompson was a bumbling fool who only sped his own demise.

 

[Gindil]

I personally prefer not to focus as much on the asshole as I do on making those that are being harassed know that they're perfectly welcome, and ignore Tim, he's a jerk, want to go kill some orcs instead?

Can't we do both? Can't we call out assholes and make it clear to the harassed that they are welcome?

I have no idea what the hell Moviebob is talking about. He's rehashing his old stuff to make his agenda known while misinterpreting old shows.

For example, you had Steve Urkel go after Laura Winslow.

You had Myrtle Urkel (Steve Urkel's "cousin") going after Laura's brother.

Then there's Myra, who was an attractive girl, going after Steve.

And Laura finally decided on Steve as the show neared its end.

That's just ONE of the contexts, Bob ignores in his view to paint "geekdom" as having some stalker BS and winning some battles like they did in his video "Magneto was right".

He conflates all people into this "community" when he has no idea who is a part and what their part is. Everyone shares an interest in games for various reasons and it just comes off as moralizing BS that he's rather become known for.

People join and leave the "community" for their own reasons. I don't see how Bob's insistence on telling others what to do will really help in this situation.

 

[JimB]

But you can't say that for sure.

Of course not. At the end of the day, only a telepath can say with absolute certainty what a person's motivations for an action are. All the rest of us can do is look at the action, what it accomplishes, and how well it does so, and from there make inferences.

Trolls generally don't care about the subject matter; they just take contrary positions to waste people's time and exasperate them.

Don't get me wrong, I do not mistake anecdotes for data...but I must say, your experience with trolls seems to differ wildly from mine. Every troll I have known has been someone with an ax to grind, someone seeking revenge for imagined slights, like some fuckwit on another site who kept trolling Doug Walker for not making a Nostalgia Critic episode about autism because that's prejudiced and keeping autistic people down, or whatever his bullshit reasoning was.

I would recommend getting yourself to a library or something, because a lot of the stuff I linked are great dissections of things like game journalism, social justice scandals, and various internet pundits.

The last time I was there, I don't think my library allowed YouTube access...but that's a good idea. I should take my laptop to Panera or something. I won't be doing it today because the first of seven predicted inches of snow has already fallen, but still, thanks, Mysnomer. I sometimes forget that I don't have to rely one hundred percent on my own resources.

Thank you for the summation of the videos' points, too. I hope there is more proven causation of the allegations made--for instance, you said "threads were spammed" without mentioning who did it--but I appreciate you taking the effort.

Jack Thompson tried to infringe freedom of speech through the legal system, it's hardly better to infringe it through peer pressure and browbeating.

I know you weren't talking to me, but this one is a pet peeve of mine: freedom of speech does not mean what you seem to think it means. It means the government can't censor you. That's it. It doesn't mean that people can't disagree with your speech, nor that influential people can't publicly declare your speech to be objectionable. To suggest that they ought not to be able to express their opinions of your opinions is to damage their "freedom of speech" as you seem to understand the term.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

If I were to start a conversation about ?Geek Privilege? the first thing I?d probably want to address is my own growing discomfort with unironically claiming the privilege of using words like ?culture? or ?community? to draw some kind of parallel between the nerd/fandom pop-ephemera and actual marginalized groups.

Great article Bob! Thanks for writing it. I think there are a lot of people here on the Escapist who need to be reminded that being nerds means we have a reason to be kind to others, not that we are automatically in the right.

Also, thanks for that link to the Gay Male Privilege article. I enjoyed reading it as well.

 

[Mysnomer]

No, what I said was they never did it, or even attempted it. And Thompson never did it either, because he was ineffectual, not for want of trying.

Learn to read.

You are fond of saying this, but my ability to read, and recognize sentence structure is what led me to point out how your post contradicts itself. If anyone should learn something, you should learn to construct a post that conveys your message properly, instead of just loading it with negations.

Sarkeesian won't be happy until everyone agrees with her. Her tool is social shame and guilt. The modern Mark of Cain that is sexism. She would brand those who do not conform to her ideals as heretics under the guise of criticism. Her criticism is entirely self-serving and has little value except as an example of what to avoid. I won't say she can't say it, that would make me no better than her, but I will say people shouldn't listen to it.

You know an awful lot about the motivations of a woman you've never met. Even though she's never said any of the things you say she has, and so far not only is her opinion rather mild, but her conclusions are so obvious that they pretty much go without saying - which is why people can't actually argue against her, and resort to the kind of ridiculous, nonsensical arguments and stupid, pointless ad hominem attacks you tend to favor here.

Ooh, you're so clever. This person, so fresh and new to the internet, how could I possibly divine her intention? It's not like we have hours of footage espousing her beliefs. Or her thesis paper. Here's some facts for you: Anita has judged works out of context, removed footage that undercuts her point, and denied the validity of satire. She's shown me exactly what her motivations are: Get her point across as right, no matter what.

I assume that you're only referring to TvWiVG, but if you can stomach watching Feminist Frequency, you'll find her savaging artistic metaphor as misogyny. That carries a weight, you understand. Misogyny isn't a crime, but a lot of people treat it like one. You don't get to demonstrate such poor critical thinking and research skills as to miss the entire point of a work, and expect to be rewarded for your ineptitude as some beacon of social progress. Yet that is exactly what happened to Anita.

Hey! More rational jargon. Please highlight my ad hominem attacks that don't come attached to a relevant point or serve to draw comparisons. Because, since I am not at an academic debate, I feel a bit of ad hominem is okay now and then, to let off some steam. I'd also like that highlighting, because ad hominem is when a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. I think it's pretty relevant that Anita is an unquestioned demagogue, and that her opinions carry the weight of coming from a progressive movement.

Trolls generally don't care about the subject matter; they just take contrary positions to waste people's time and exasperate them.

Don't get me wrong, I do not mistake anecdotes for data...but I must say, your experience with trolls seems to differ wildly from mine. Every troll I have known has been someone with an ax to grind, someone seeking revenge for imagined slights, like some fuckwit on another site who kept trolling Doug Walker for not making a Nostalgia Critic episode about autism because that's prejudiced and keeping autistic people down, or whatever his bullshit reasoning was.

A troll campaign can be started by such a person, but the adage "Don't feed the trolls" would have a lot less truth if everyone had a similar grudge. They can be so easily dismissed b/c they aren't invested beyond their own entertainment, for the most part. There are some cases where they go trolling for justice, but if this was such a case of unified intent, it still negates the accusations of misogyny, because those comments would have been an attempt to get Anita to make some sort of faux pas and discredit herself.

Thank you for the summation of the videos' points, too. I hope there is more proven causation of the allegations made--for instance, you said "threads were spammed" without mentioning who did it--but I appreciate you taking the effort.

I've heard some who don't believe it was Sarkeesian herself who did the spamming, but an actual denizen of 4chan would have known better, and she has proven her knowledge of the site, as when /v/ was trying to find a way to communicate with her without adding fuel to her fire, they said "Be polite and civil, pretend that you are female." She derisively quoted this on her twitter along with a screenshot of the post, I believe. So she's definitely aware of 4chan, and knew of it's potential for manipulation. If it didn't server he purposes so perfectly, I might have doubts as well, but I feel the pieces fall into place. Even if she didn't post it herself, I still feel she was involved.

Jack Thompson tried to infringe freedom of speech through the legal system, it's hardly better to infringe it through peer pressure and browbeating.

I know you weren't talking to me, but this one is a pet peeve of mine: freedom of speech does not mean what you seem to think it means. It means the government can't censor you. That's it. It doesn't mean that people can't disagree with your speech, nor that influential people can't publicly declare your speech to be objectionable. To suggest that they ought not to be able to express their opinions of your opinions is to damage their "freedom of speech" as you seem to understand the term.

Understand, though, that something doesn't have to be a law to create oppression. Is it against the law to be gay? No, but in certain communities, admitting you're gay or endorsing homosexuals is social suicide. In that way, freedom of speech is stifled. Maybe "freedom of speech" is not what I want to say, exactly, but the point is that Anita will attach hurtful labels like sexist and misogynist to games, without any consideration for context, or even in spite of context. When she talks about television portrayals of women in her paper, she lists "nurturing, cooperative, intuitive, and emotionally expressive" as positive feminine traits that would be displayed if television properly portrayed women. Under positive male traits, we have: rational, self-control, self-confident, objective, independent, decisive, daring, strong, and active. According to Anita, there can't be overlap, because any woman who portrays self-control and rational thought is only doing so in a charade of strictly masculine traits. (That's from Instig8tive Journalism's vid about her paper) Here's a straight quote, no filters:

Alien's Ellen Ripley and Terminator's Sarah Connor are two of the most notable strong female action heroes who attempt to subvert the traditional male gaze by becoming the traditionally male hero, but as Diana Dominguez (2005) observes they, "...eventually repudiate the feminine, becoming, in effect, sexless and less 'human' mirrors of male action heroes" (Dominguez, 2005, para. 6) instead of fully complex female action heroes.*

Under such logic, any female lead in video games where conflict resolution comes from action is simply a male stand in, and "doesn't disrupt the male value system associated with [masculine roles] and maintains male dominance."

Like I said, maybe "freedom of speech" doesn't cover what I want, but Anita has shown that she has power and pull, that she could be influencing the games of the future, and I feel like holding the Damoclesian blade of "ignorance," "sexism," or being "anti-progress" above someone's head is not going to encourage open dialogue.

*Which is bull****, by the way, as their femininity is often highlighted through maternal relationships all throughout their respective movies (we'll ignore Aliens: Resurrection, as it was written as a joke, and the studio approved it b/c they didn't realize).

 

[Therumancer]

Interesting, but fundamentally flawed. A good part of this revolved around the idea that nerds are no longer really the outcasts due to the proliferation of things normally thought of as geeky throughout society. That would be a valid point if it wasn't more of a case of the mainstream stealing from geek culture and changing things around to make them more acceptable to the mainstream as opposed to presenting them as they are. Your typical geek property being given the big budget treatment nowadays almost invariably comes under attack by the long-standing fans for being dumbed down for the mainstream, and oftentimes outright omitting aspects of a character or concept that actually made it popular among that crowd to begin with. The general argument in defense of this is "well, so what if it's changed so more people like it, if it wasn't for these changes you'd never see this multi-million dollar production taking this away from the fringes and putting it into the focus of society".

See, I would argue that REAL geeks and nerds are even more persecuted nowadays than they ever have been before, as you have the mainstream stealing things that were theirs, changing them, and taking them for their own. A sort of socio-economic version of getting your lunch money stolen, except in this case they are taking away your escapist havens. "We like this, and we'll also embrace it, but only if we changed it and start producing any further material involving it in this way so everyone else can appreciate it more...".

This also manifests outside of IPs into things like video games. Sure the mainstream has embraced video gaming, once a geek haven, but the mainstream did not meet the geeks on their terms, rather video gaming has been changed, and largely dumbed down, for the mainstream. You now see games of the sort that appeal to the "bros" (which I think is more inclusive and accurate nowadays than just saying "Jocks") being the major focus of the industry rather than the things that made it. Where once the deep, immersive, RPG with all of it's arcane management and stat balancing was king, today it's all about shooters, spectacle fighters, racing games, and similar, things which to be fair were always present, but hardly the focus of the industry. Nowadays you hardly see any RPGs at all, and the ones you see tend to be developed with budgets far smaller than action games (rarely to a true AAA level) and are increasingly simplified and/or spliced with action components and gloss over things like PnP RPG-like stats and micromanagement which was kind of a point of the genere. So yeah, video gaming has become mainstream, but it's NOT video gaming as geeks practiced it.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the central points being made here, but at the end of the day I don't think things have really changed. It's less a matter of it *ahem* "Being Hip To Be Square", so much as actual nerds and geeks have been pretty much made outcasts within what were once their own domain. You point to big budget comic movies for example, but understand, those movies simplified, changed, and ignored aspects of a lot of those characters. Indeed you now have arguments of a "Cinematic Universe" because simply put the movie versions tend to be far different from the ones in
the comics. They took aspects of these characters, mainstreamed them, and re-sold them. They did not make them popular as they were. Don't get me wrong, some good, entertaining products have been created, but do not confuse that with this being mainstream acceptance of the geek, since that isn't what's happening.

 

[Vegosiux]

There is a saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Not sure who said it (it is attributed to Edmund Burke) but it is a very important in this context. When we see someone being racist, homophobic, sexist, we need to point it out and do something about it. If we don't, we are culpable for what these people say and do. "Qui tacet consentire videtur." "He who is silent is taken to agree." You are not "good man doing nothing", you are fighting against those who are trying to do something.

Give me about two hundred hours in a day, and I promise I'll fight all the good fights that are to fight. But people have lives, most adult people have lives that are mostly occupied with all those self-serving things like "sleep" and "work so I don't starve at the end of the week", some even "spending time with my family" and "hanging out with friends".

But if you're going to play the guilt card, if you're going to tell people they're "part of the problem" because they're not rallying behind your particular banner, then remember: There are countless banners YOU aren't rallying behind. Will you apply your "part of the problem" logic consistently, and admit you're at fault for the overwhelming majority of nasty crap going on in the world because you're not doing anything about most of it? Will you realize you don't have a moral high ground just because of one particular issue you're invested in?

Don't you realize how conceited it is to tell people they're "the enemy" because they're not fighting your particular war? By doing so, you're making it about you as opposed to what it's allegedly about.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

He called Steve Urkel a Sexist for the love of God! Dismissing the entire plot of the show.

He called Urkel a stalker. What he did to Laura Winslow was horrible and was in no way based on love. If that happened in real life, she would have been able to get a restraining order.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Do you have any evidence to back that up? The half a percentage point. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say, "Of course there are half naked women in the game. Look at the target demographic." On of those two arguments has to be really wrong.

I wish he hadn't used an actual figure, as he had a point before exposing himself to being derailed by making a claim he can't prove. HOWEVER, the target demographic is not misogynists, it's people who are enticed by T&A. So unless you want to argue that a majority who find attractive videogame women sexy are misogynists, you might want to rethink your phrasing.

Arg.

Women in video games are very often treated as objects, sexual or otherwise, with no agency of their own. Yes, that is sexist. If a female character emphasizes their sex appeal over their competency in whatever endeavor they are on, then yes, that is sexist. If the more powerful armor is, the more skin it shows, that is sexist.

Saying, "What's wrong with making a character sexy." is ignoring the point.

Blame a racist for being racist. Don't blame all white people.

And for the love of God, blame the Geek Bully/Sexist for being a Geek Bully/Sexist. Quit blaming the entire damned enchilada. It's disgusting, it's wrong, and it doesn't help your point, it just makes us want to oppose you personally, not what you're for persay.

There is a saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Not sure who said it (it is attributed to Edmund Burke) but it is a very important in this context. When we see someone being racist, homophobic, sexist, we need to point it out and do something about it. If we don't, we are culpable for what these people say and do. "Qui tacet consentire videtur." "He who is silent is taken to agree." You are not "good man doing nothing", you are fighting against those who are trying to do something.

Again with people being obtuse. He is not advocating doing nothing.

I agree. He is actively trying to stop people from doing something. That's much worse than doing nothing.

MovieBob and others point out a problem in the gaming community and people like him, instead of admitting there is a problem, attack MovieBob for pointing out real problems.

it would have been less damaging than saying, "You are all responsible for this, because you haven't stamped it out yet."

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

MovieBob pointed out a problem and stated we all need to fix it.

If you interpret that as a personal attack, perhaps it's a guilty conscience.