On Geek Privilege

[C.S.Strowbridge]

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,

I guess you didn't actually read my post. I'll try a different approach.

TYT Sports was talking about the Super Bowl and they took viewer questions. One of the viewers compared the game to a rape. Anyone who has played an online game should not be surprised with that comparison. However, the host said we need to stop using that term when describing a sporting event. It didn't take him 200 hours to do that. It didn't even take him 2 minutes to say calling anything but rape rape is offensive. If everyone did that, then people would stop using that term so inappropriately. If you are not doing that, then you have no right to complain when people point out misogyny in sports, using this example, or in video games, as it happens there as well.

I'm not calling ultreos2 part of the problem because they are not rallying around my banner. I'm calling him part of the problem because he is actively fighting against those who are pointing out sexism in the "Geek Community". Saying, "Stop attacking me!!!!!" whenever someone points out a real problem in the "Geek community" is making the problem worse, because it gives the offenders cover.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Says the Hypocrite, as Jack Thompson did exactly the same as these two. Prove me wrong, and after that I can prove me right.

MovieBob and Anita Sarkesian used media platforms to point out problems within the video game community. Jack Thompson tried to use the legal system to make video games illegal. Those are not the same thing. Those are not even close to the same thing.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

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.

You have to be joking. Please tell me you are joking.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize someone. If it didn't, you would be guilty of infringing on MovieBob and Anita Sarkeesian's freedom of speech.

Talking about a problem and offering solutions is not the same and trying to make something illegal. It is not even close.

 

[Karadalis]

God damnit there are so many priviliges out there that telling someone to "check his priviliges" is not meant degratory.. it literrary means that you should check your priviliges to see just how many of the bloody things you have accumulated.

You could be running around with a privilige and not even know about it!

So boy and girls check your priviliges... knowing is better then not knowing...

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.

You have to be joking. Please tell me you are joking.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize someone. If it didn't, you would be guilty of infringing on MovieBob and Anita Sarkeesian's freedom of speech.

Talking about a problem and offering solutions is not the same and trying to make something illegal. It is not even close.

What solutions? Neither Anita nor Bob have ever offered solutions. And before you claim Anita did with her idea for a video game: That idea goes against every single thing she ever said or done on feminist frequency and her academic papers so no.. it is not a solution.

Also there is no geek "community" or games "community"

Theres gamerdom and geekdom. Community would mean that every single gamer or geek is part of one organized community when the truth is that both couldnt be any further unorganized if they even tried.

Its like saying everyone who ever painted a picture is somehow part of the "art community", everyone who bakes cakes is part of the "baking community".

If we really where all part of one big community there would have to be one singular place where every single member of said community would go to to inform himselfe about his hobby. You know.. being all part of the same community?

 

[Vegosiux]

-snip-

There's a difference between saying "There are problems with sexism in the community" and "The community is sexist".

 

[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.

You have to be joking. Please tell me you are joking.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize someone. If it didn't, you would be guilty of infringing on MovieBob and Anita Sarkeesian's freedom of speech.

Talking about a problem and offering solutions is not the same and trying to make something illegal. It is not even close.

I'm not saying Anita and Bob can't criticize, I never said they couldn't. I'm saying they aren't credible, and shouldn't be given the time of day. I'm also pointing out that their criticism has an end goal of stigmatizing certain things to paint them as sexist or anti-progressive.

This more subtle approach to infringing on someone's expression is possibly more dangerous than straight-up legal action, because it bypasses the rigorous checks that a law goes through. Anita and Bob don't have to provide sound logic, they just have to dress their argument up enough and get people on the bandwagon of "progress." And when people accept that, that's when the dangerous part begins*. Look at Anita's work, it is of low quality, poorly researched, inflammatory**, and heavily biased. This is not a credible person, and yet we are giving her so much leeway, for no other reason than she is a woman. If a man tried the whole "Wounded Gazelle" shtick, we would have told him to buck up, and when his unscrupulous actions came to light, we would have raked him over the coals.

Also, as someone pointed out, "solutions" is pretty laughable here. Bob's solution is, "Police the whole of your nebulously defined community and root out the offenders wherever you see them, be ever vigilant, or you are part of the problem." But at least he does better than Anita, who has no real solution that isn't a contradiction of some other part of her irrational dogma.

*(maybe I should have specified that accepting their claims leads to a road of self-censorship for fear of being branded as sexist, rather than directly censoring those people like a law would, I apologize, I thought that was understood)
**(except when she's making her token concession that contradicts everything she said but it's got to be there so she can point to it when you call her inflammatory)

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

SNIP

Again, missing the point. If you see someone saying someone sexist, homophobic, or racist, then you should point it out. How many times have you heard one player calling another player a fag online? How many times and you heard some player refer to a match as a rape? If we admit this is a problem and call people out when they do it THAT WILL HELP ALLEVIATE THE PROBLEM. Calling someone out when they engage in unacceptable behavior is a solution to a problem.

On the other hand, playing the victim when someone points out there is a problem makes that problem worse.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

-snip-

There's a difference between saying "There are problems with sexism in the community" and "The community is sexist".

MovieBob is saying there is a problem with sexism in the community and the community as a whole needs to do better to prevent that. We need to recognize it when we see it. If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I'm going to ignore most of your post, because it was little more than taunting, but I have to address this.

*Even if those did qualify as sexist, in some bizarro reality, that would make the developers sexist,

Nope. As Anita Sarkeesian pointed out, the Damsel In Distress trope is sexist, but that doesn't mean the people using it are sexist and have some evil intent. They could be lazy storytellers who don't realize the harm that this trope does.

 

[Vegosiux]

If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

*rolls eyes*

Well, good that you make it a point to tell people "you might be part of the problem" despite not knowing what they're thinking. Seriously, I wish people would stop doing that.

No, I don't think MB is attacking me. What I do think is that you jumped on that ball way too quick, just to get a personal jab in.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

*rolls eyes*

Well, good that you make it a point to tell people "you might be part of the problem" despite not knowing what they're thinking. Seriously, I wish people would stop doing that.

'All that it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.'

There is a problem with sexism, racism, homophobia in the Geek Community. If you don't call it out when you see it, then you are part of the problem. It doesn't matter what you are thinking, because by your inaction, you are part of the problem.

 

[Floppertje]

If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

*rolls eyes*

Well, good that you make it a point to tell people "you might be part of the problem" despite not knowing what they're thinking. Seriously, I wish people would stop doing that.

'All that it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.'

There is a problem with sexism, racism, homophobia in the Geek Community. If you don't call it out when you see it, then you are part of the problem. It doesn't matter what you are thinking, because by your inaction, you are part of the problem.

When is the last time you launched a campaign against the pornography industry? What's that? You haven't? Yet you are on the Internet where not only is it rampant it actually meets the true definition of objectification, where as video games don't even come close. And last I checked pornography is such a huge industry, it can afford to deal with many of its products being free far more then the game industry can.

So here you are on the internet, when the last campaign against pornography you launched? Your inaction after all, makes you a huge part of the prblem making you complacent and at fault as much as the industry itself. You see how much bull this way of thinking is?

That comparison only makes sense if you actually see someone making porn and objectifying women (and no, not all porn does that). It's simply a matter of seeing someone doing something objectionable, and saying 'hey, that's not cool'.

 

[Floppertje]

So to be clear, because you don't personally bare witness to it but you know it happens, daily, here on the Internet, you as part of the internet community don't bare responsibility for it because you don't personally see it.

Yet me, part of the geek community, bares responsibility because I'm clearly doing too little.

Yeah this is pretty much your excuse. Good go.

I'm not campaigning against anything. All I'm doing is calling people out when I see them acting like an ass.
I'm about as responsible for porn as I am for the Iraq war.
Furthermore, your claim that porn in itself is sexist is a rather misogynistic statement. You don't think women can decide for themselves if they want to get into that business? Yeah, I'm sure some of them are doing it against their will but that doesn't mean there aren't others who are perfectly happy doing it. The way your talking it's like they don't have any agency at all and they need to be protected or something.

 

[Floppertje]

snip

In that wall of text full of completely unrelated tangents, you neatly forget that I never said that female characters are supposed to be sexually objectified. You also missed my point (again), I didn't say women in porn are supposed to be objectified, I said it's misogynistic to assume every woman is being objectified because it assumes they have no agency.

 

[Robert Marrs]

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?

It comes from feminists and other social justice warriors who like to use that phrase to assume a moral high ground and shut up people they don't want to talk. Very popular term to use when somebody is deconstructing your argument or position and you have no argument. Its basically the same thing as saying your white so you can't discuss problems in the african american community or your a man so you can't talk about problems that women have unless you just shut up and agree with what we are saying. Its a buzzword used to shut down conversation.

 

[Robert Marrs]

What fun things to say! If you don't know her motivations why support her on any level? It is in fact a two way street. If we can't determine her motivations she deserves neither support or dissent. Since you seem intent to support her that in fact means we can in fact determine her motivations and she is in fact subject to dissent. Much like whacko Jacko who was attacked in ways far worse the Anita will ever know, and we're lucky for that, as she would use it to further her already paper thin cause.

Thanks for proving your lack of knowledge and your lack of reading into the text you're given though. It demonstrates your side in a much more intriguing light.

I don't know her motivations. I do, however, know what she has said. And what she has said is fairly basic, fairly obvious feminist analysis of some inherently sexist tropes.

See, since I don't know her motivations, I have to take her at her word. And her words so far have been nothing particularly groundbreaking - it's typical criticism of a fairly obvious trend. Nobody would have cared if internet misogynists hadn't flipped their shit, and the only reason we keep getting dragged back to her is because people like you can't accept basic criticism.

Instead, what you do is construct this effigy of Sarkeesian (and MovieBob, and probably me for that matter) in your head, built on your failure to grasp unfamiliar concepts and your inability and/or unwillingness to be objective, and you have arguments with that instead of actually considering the valid points of people you hate for no better reason than they want you to think about things on a deeper level.

Dude. Really now I have been reading through this conversation you two have been having and I have to say its pretty one sided. The guy posted several sources of well known youtubers whose job is to debunk and expose things but you just dismiss them as being "angry white guys". He made a very well thought out comparison between Bob, Anita and Jack which I had never even considered before but it really does make a lot of sense. In fact he has done nothing but make points for his argument ranging anywhere from stupid to spot on but at least he is trying. All you have done is finger point, shake your head and give a bunch of non-arguments as to why he is wrong and you are right.

You have essentially said "uh-uh!" for the past 4 or 5 posts all while somehow maintaining that the only person who actually bothered to put together any sort of argument "doesn't know how wrong he is". It really seems like this is more about something challenging your ideology and less about whether or not Anita actually has a valid argument. Also you totally dismissed the fact that she DID in fact troll bait on 4chan and used the guaranteed backlash to garner extra backers. Personally I don't really care about Anita either way but if nobody else is going to call out how totally weak your argument is I will.

 

[Vegosiux]

If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

*rolls eyes*

Well, good that you make it a point to tell people "you might be part of the problem" despite not knowing what they're thinking. Seriously, I wish people would stop doing that.

'All that it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.'

There is a problem with sexism, racism, homophobia in the Geek Community. If you don't call it out when you see it, then you are part of the problem. It doesn't matter what you are thinking, because by your inaction, you are part of the problem.

That would only hold water if there weren't any other actions a person could do (i.e., you either do that or nothing). You, as a reasonable person, should know that that's simply not true; and no pretentious quote is going to change that. You simply advocate the action that requires least effort and pretend as if it's the only thing that could possibly help, which is rather unsavory in its own right.

There's another problem in the "geek community", the problem of self-absorbed, big-headed people with a Napoleon complex who think they own the place and/or are the saviors of it; and think that gives them the right to tell everyone what to do, and to treat people like shit if they decide not to jump on their particular bandwagon. But goodness help you if you call those out.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

*rolls eyes*

Well, good that you make it a point to tell people "you might be part of the problem" despite not knowing what they're thinking. Seriously, I wish people would stop doing that.

'All that it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.'

There is a problem with sexism, racism, homophobia in the Geek Community. If you don't call it out when you see it, then you are part of the problem. It doesn't matter what you are thinking, because by your inaction, you are part of the problem.

When is the last time you launched a campaign against the pornography industry? What's that? You haven't?

Nope. Because the porn industry is not something I interact with on a regular basis. However, when I do, I make sure I get porn that isn't sexist, one where women are treated as equals in the men. This does limit my choices. When I hear someone say something sexist about porn, I do speak out.

On the other hand, I do interact with the Geek Community a lot.

Yet you are on the Internet where not only is it rampant it actually meets the true definition of objectification

Wrong. You can have porn where the woman is shown to have agency. Showing women who want and enjoy sex is not objectification. Showing women as merely the objects of the lust of men is objectification. Showing women as merely objects for men to rescue is objectification.

This is where the problem lies. You don't know the definition of objectification, but you have strong opinions on the subject.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

So to be clear, because you don't personally bare witness to it but you know it happens, daily, here on the Internet, you as part of the internet community don't bare responsibility for it because you don't personally see it.

Yet me, part of the geek community, bares responsibility because I'm clearly doing too little.

Yeah this is pretty much your excuse. Good go.

I'm not sure why this is confusing to you. As someone else said, we don't have 200 hours a day. I'm not asking you to start a campaign, I'm asking you to call out someone when you see sexism, racism, homophobia. It's the least you can do.

On the other hand, you are not only doing that, you are attacking people who are doing that.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

If you think he's attacking you, then that says more about you than about what MovieBob said.

*rolls eyes*

Well, good that you make it a point to tell people "you might be part of the problem" despite not knowing what they're thinking. Seriously, I wish people would stop doing that.

'All that it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.'

There is a problem with sexism, racism, homophobia in the Geek Community. If you don't call it out when you see it, then you are part of the problem. It doesn't matter what you are thinking, because by your inaction, you are part of the problem.

That would only hold water if there weren't any other actions a person could do (i.e., you either do that or nothing).

When did I even imply there were only two courses of action? I think you are just trying to pick a fight at this point.