The Big Picture: Remembering the Real Jack Thompson

[Jaytr13]

Does Anita (or whatever you just called her) bother you that much? I'm pretty certain Bob didn't defend Anita... Hold on I'm going to rewatch. Nope, he did not explicitly agree with everything in Anita's videos. He said she is not the same as Jack Thompson which is true to anybody who can control their hate stiffy.

Bob is either missing the point or deliberately ignoring it. Most of the comparisons are about their beliefs, not their stated goals. I.e games cause violence vs. games cause sexism.

And? Seriously this one stupid person's opinions rile you guys up enough to bother making a comparison to someone who actually went out of his way to ban video games for what amounts to "political" reasons. This is like a joke that just keeps getting worse. Is it that hard for you guys to keep your hate stiffys in check? Can you guys do what i do when dealing with evangelical Christians that are not in positions of power and influence and ignore her? We have to post thread topics about her making a retarded tweet that was in poor taste? Gah i feel like I'm watching the inside edition.

She should be ignored but I wouldn't dismiss every criticism of her as hate stiffies.

Their is criticism and then there is banging a drum with your hate stiffy. Guess which camp GamerGate falls into? Here's a clue: Banging a drum with a hate stiffy means being loud and repeating over and over? Be my guest criticize her, point out her ignorance and then fucking let it go.

Then you let it go, why the fuck are you here then? stop harping on it and go away mate if you don't actually care about Anita, GG, or her feminist BS. Why did you even enter if you're so disinterested? this is a serious discussion stop trying to derail it and stop trying to discourage people.

I really don't get you "I don't give a shit but I'm gonna say my piece anyway" types. Quid pro quo. Either give us your opinion, or give us your fucking silence.

 

[ClanCrusher]

Well if we're going to start cleaning up our backyard, just keep making videos like this and we'll eventually gather all of the 'trash' into a single place.

That said, I enjoyed watching this video. I'd done some research on Jack and mostly forgot about him (save for that one thread where some 'exceptional individual' compared him to Anita) but having his absurd behavior delivered in a rapid fire beat-after-beat montage of ridiculousness like this really makes it entertaining to go over again.

I really like the message you're saying and though you've said it before, it's worth saying again. I just wish all these people who came here to argue about Anita could see the big picture.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Can anyone explain to me why people defend Hitman? I honestly don't get it, is it a really popular and amazing game series? I can honestly never heard of anyone talk about it being really good or talk about it at all.

But when it comes to gamergate and Anita people defend it as if it was the Alamo.

In the same video where Anita critizises Hitman she also talks about God of War but i've never seen anyone defend God of War.

Because Anita lied about Hitman.

And if you've ever played through a recent Hitman game, it becomes really obvious she lied about it. She basically killed 2 women for no reason, dragged their bodies around and said and I quote "Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters."

That's so far away from reality that it's disgusting (speaking as a fan of Hitman games). It becomes really transparent that she's either not doing research or making shit up to complain about.

She may take scenes out of context in some other games, but for this she's just making shit up out of nothing. You wanna know why you can drag bodies around in Hitman? So you can hide them. That's it, and anyone who's played the game for more than a couple of level would know this (and she would've had to have played a good chunk of the game to get to the level she was complaining about).

I'd compare it to Fox News complaining about Mass Effect.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Bob wants us to prove we're worthy of the freedom we won?

He wants us to prove we're worthy of free speech? Really?

Nobody should have to prove they're worthy of free speech. If someone wants to only say vile, hateful, offensive things (and I'm using a worst case scenario that doesn't involve threats or slander or whatever), they should have that freedom. Even if they're in prison for murder (again worst case scenario).

To use an example someone else gave, if someone wanted to use free speech to build monuments to Adolf Hitler that should be OK.

Saying some people aren't worthy of free speech goes against the nature of free speech (and don't give me anything about threats or any other speech that was nerve covered under free speech).

 

[cleric of the order]

[edit] forgive me if I'm a bit lacking in...eloquence, I'm measurably tired at the moment, I should be in bed right now.[edit]

Does Anita (or whatever you just called her) bother you that much? I'm pretty certain Bob didn't defend Anita... Hold on I'm going to rewatch. Nope, he did not explicitly agree with everything in Anita's videos. He said she is not the same as Jack Thompson which is true to anybody who can control their hate stiffy. Be mine and Bobs guest and criticize Anita all you want, her methods, and uncaring attitude. I have never watched her videos or any "sjw" videos and I don't have any intentions of doing so. She has the right to say whatever she wants and you have the right to express yourself. Just remember she is not some great evil which I'm going to say based on your comment that you do. I say criticize her but then don't carry the animosity that comes from hearing her stupidity with you. To be honest I don't understand why people like GamerGate keep banging on about her. All you guys do is give her more visibility and a soapbox. People go as far as to insult and threaten her for so much as voicing her thoughts. This in turn feeds the fires of her "fans" to insult and threaten all of her critics whether or not they were the ones responsible. Now conspiracy nuts are going crazy on anybody who is even nice to her and people who have their own criticisms of misogyny in video game. I express all this as an outsider. You say:

I have no idea where to start with you.
Firstly let me say I have not seen GG on about her, even in h8chan people will sage threads about her to death because she is not important to their discussion and shall never be.
At worst she is an example of annoyed /v/ers, frankly I haven't really been angry at her for a while, I'm kinda numb to her.
My anger flows differently.
I have the misfortune of being a fan of Prominent anti gg voices, bob, extra credits, Tim Shaffer, Adam Sessler (that one really hurt), etc.
And the ones that upload videos, bob and extra credits have been uploading videos talking about GG but not directly let me explain. my brother forced me to watch in at a around 4:54, the little gremlin laughed the whole time.
To preface, I am not a Fan of ThunderFoot but he's been cited as the man that refereed to Anita as the new Jack Thompson. Good to know because while my memory is foggy he suggested it was because some of here assumptions in her video series follows similar logic.
No in all seriousness I have really little concern for Anita, she's looking to get paid more then anything and I can sympathize, you can't use a communication degree as much as you'd want. And I hate her dead pan delivery or her dispassionate expressions she has ceased to be much of a curiosity for me long ago. She's dull start to finish.
I know it doesn't look it in my post, and disbelieve me if you will but when the flood gates are open, every word overflows.
See what angered me about this was he felt he couldn't have a discussion honestly about her with us, that is why I asked for him to do so.
I have never to this day heard anything explaining the expounded virtues of this woman besides she gets harassed.
Instead he hid up a tree and decided to be indirect and frankly I'm sick of bullshit.
The whole Time i was writing that I could only think of the Zen story about loving openly and all I ask is not toe be lied to or manipulated by people i trust and support.
If you don't think this is manipulation, fine but here are my puzzle pieces, The only person I have heard being called the next Jack Thompson. Why choose now if this was a big enough issue, (if he explained it, remember I could only make it through a bit of it.) and in context it appears to be directed to speak about her, during a time Anit-GG has been trying to frame GG as a harassment campaign.
Bob his the most pragmatic anti GGer I have seen from his tweets.
There is also a number of other videos released that by others (extra credits, himself and likely jim) that are trying to fit a similiar narrative.
We know Games journos Pros exists, we know that Jim is one it, we know that these people have a lot of connections and they have tried this in their guide to ending gamers thing before.
This is the same thing to me and that angers me that Someone I trusted and respected, would have abused our trust in such a way.
Also It really fucking pisses me off that no body has explained why Anita has anything important to say, Somebody explain this the the autistic humanities major, I could literally do everything she is doing better for free and have more interesting things to say. And i mean it literally down to the lack of objective research (fuck peer review) and goign to likely the same campus as she has.
Also I had to chuckle at the conspiracy theory stuff, yeah king of /pol/ is funny in a resent video they got him drunk and he started talking about aliens. Raving about nazi alien Jews, that guy is a riot when drunk

People have gone years without ever seeing me so much as irritated and I pride myself on that.

I actually doubt this if Anita bothers you.

You make a lot of presumption about a man you will never and have never met, or a life you have never lived. You can doubt it with the little information you were given but I stress it because it is true.
I can't help but crack a smile and know that people have never seen me capable of hurting a fly, they have seen me as a soft dignified figure, the anger of my youth sputtering it's last ashes deep below the surface.
I love that I'm know as the calmest Autistic out of the peers I had so long ago and better yet I revel in the persona of the pudgy foolish dotting young man.
further more I would never suggest he she would not have the right to speak, I defended Shitposters on 8chan for gods sake, I'd defend her right to speak, but frankly her kith and kin are more then willing to silence others or magnify others to silence a different group.
Also, I can't find the info graph but there was like an rather small minority of threats and anger directed to her by anyone at all. GG hunts people that claim to work with us that does that, we've caught people harassing them and we've offered a reward for the person that threatened Wu and Anita. We have no quarry with any of them.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

for the people trying to frame Bob as a hypocrite for "supporting" a death threat on Thompson (link here [https://twitter.com/the_moviebob/status/527993572734537728]), I can't see anything that openly supported death threats - sure, he said he "had it coming",

Which is all that needs to be said when it comes to explaining one's stance on that. Any ''but'' or ''however'' after that just reeks of implicitly condoning it by way of not condoning it.

At the very LEAST, the GamerGate members who DON'T support trying to outright kill Anita just to shut her up should call out any of their members who tried to do so, if only in a "GUYS!! Stop making US look bad!" motive.

Strange how the same thing wasn't asked of the gaming community back when Thompson was receiving death threats.

Almost makes me wish Thompson and his supporters had been more (new) media-savvy, really. It would've been amusing if there'd been ''Actually, it's about free speech!'' internet memes mocking gamers.

I enjoyed watching this video. I'd done some research on Jack and mostly forgot about him (save for that one thread where some 'exceptional individual' compared him to Anita) but having his absurd behavior delivered in a rapid fire beat-after-beat montage of ridiculousness like this really makes it entertaining to go over again.

I really like the message you're saying and though you've said it before, it's worth saying again. I just wish all these people who came here to argue about Anita could see the big picture.

So Jack Thompson was an asshole to people, lots of people - particularly people who are politically active - are. Tell me, did that make him an acceptable target for death threats and harassment?

 

[crimsonshrouds]

Does Anita (or whatever you just called her) bother you that much? I'm pretty certain Bob didn't defend Anita... Hold on I'm going to rewatch. Nope, he did not explicitly agree with everything in Anita's videos. He said she is not the same as Jack Thompson which is true to anybody who can control their hate stiffy.

Bob is either missing the point or deliberately ignoring it. Most of the comparisons are about their beliefs, not their stated goals. I.e games cause violence vs. games cause sexism.

And? Seriously this one stupid person's opinions rile you guys up enough to bother making a comparison to someone who actually went out of his way to ban video games for what amounts to "political" reasons. This is like a joke that just keeps getting worse. Is it that hard for you guys to keep your hate stiffys in check? Can you guys do what i do when dealing with evangelical Christians that are not in positions of power and influence and ignore her? We have to post thread topics about her making a retarded tweet that was in poor taste? Gah i feel like I'm watching the inside edition.

She should be ignored but I wouldn't dismiss every criticism of her as hate stiffies.

Their is criticism and then there is banging a drum with your hate stiffy. Guess which camp GamerGate falls into? Here's a clue: Banging a drum with a hate stiffy means being loud and repeating over and over? Be my guest criticize her, point out her ignorance and then fucking let it go.

Then you let it go, why the fuck are you here then? stop harping on it and go away mate if you don't actually care about Anita, GG, or her feminist BS. Why did you even enter if you're so disinterested? this is a serious discussion stop trying to derail it and stop trying to discourage people.

I really don't get you "I don't give a shit but I'm gonna say my piece anyway" types. Quid pro quo. Either give us your opinion, or give us your fucking silence.

This amuses me. Why am i here? because I"m bored and i go to the escapist to have discussions to help aleviate that boredom. Am i disintrested? why yes I am. Let it go? Me? Am i the one responsible for all the GG Antisjw/Anita threads? Nope. So what should I let go? I'm not the one with an obsession here. I Made two comments, one was asking why someone was so bothered by anita's stupid opinions and the other was pointing out that GamerGate was nothing but a leaderless angry mob that no rationale person would be a part of. I have been answering replies ever since including you. Why should i go away "mate?" Do my comments bother you when i point out the obviously pointless anger that you guys expel? This is a serious conversation? Really? I've had serious conversations and there are none to be found here. Because nobody who has serious coversations would harp on one idiots opinions for as long as you GGs harp on anita. Their is nothing that can be taken serious here. I haven't tried discouraging people. I tell people criticize anita but you must also realize that banging on about her like you guys do makes its seem like her opinions have legitimacy. You guys seem so desperate when you try to compare her to Thompson that it has reached the level of a wailing child. So, why did you respond to my comment?

 

[orangeapples]

See, I knew better than to read the comments, but that didn't stop me. The cringe is real.

Anyway, good video, Bob. You've put yourself on my list of people whose opinions I should respect again, and while that may sound cold, trust me when I say that list is probably... well, just you, Jim and Anita, at the present time of writing this. Maybe a few others, too, but you get the idea.

Why respect him and Anita?

Bob straw mans his critics and mocks them by just giving them wihny babyish voices, like a child.

Anita ... well there's a lot to be said about her but I'm curious why respect her opinion?

Well, I respect her opinion because she isn't technically wrong. There are a lot of cases in which females are used as eye candy, or prizes or goals or exist in some form of the main character's motivation.

Do I want games to stop using those tropes? no. Do I want games to use other tropes? I think they already do.

My main issue with Anita's videos is that it is so surface level. She never talks about how often male characters exist as part of the main character's motivation or what that trope does for the larger narrative. Her whole series is episodic so later episodes could be "using female tropes on male characters" or "female characters who defy the tropes". Until her work is finished I think it is best to reserve judgement. But from what I've seen so far she really hasn't said anything new, she's just presenting it very poorly.

 

[Dizchu]

Anyone that actually uses a Thunderf00t video as "evidence" is probably not going to be taken seriously. When the man makes a video titled "Feminism poisons everything" there is no real logic there. No real discussion is wanting to be had. He's not the best person to go to. For any of this stuff. Like at all.

I'm not Thunderf00t's biggest fan (though I did like his videos back in the creationism-bashing days) however... his sensationalist video titles are exactly like the kind of stuff Feminist Frequency posts on Twitter.

"Feminism poisons everything", "school shootings are caused by men"... the same kind of over-the-top exaggerations. The problem with all of Thunderf00t's "critiques" is that he takes on feminists by using their techniques, ie. generalisations, guilt by association, repetition, stereotyping and so on. It's like the argument is a big fire and they're all throwing gasoline into it.

We don't need gasoline. We need the fire brigade.

 

[crimsonshrouds]

snip

You said this

Firstly let me say I have not seen GG on about her, even in h8chan people will sage threads about her to death because she is not important to their discussion and shall never be.

Dude their is a problem with aligning yourself with a leaderless angry mob where all it takes to be a part of the movement is the use of a hashtag. The guys talk about almost nothing but femminist frequency, Anita, and SJWs For the first 11 mins i can get through. References to marxism which leave me confused as someone who has actually read the communist manifesto. I get it SJWs are crazy or at best stupid. The only thing i can gather is these people going on about conspiracies and all SJWs are evil blah blah. I just can't take this movement seriously especially one that goes after peoples jobs based on conspiracies.

One of the guys on their Sargon seems like a smart fellow but i think he has a hard time dealing with people he disagrees with to the point of dehumanizing them. I watched a video response where he insulted the guy the entire time and I just couldn't take him seriously.

And What does this mean

We know Games journos Pros exists, we know that Jim is one it, we know that these people have a lot of connections and they have tried this in their guide to ending gamers thing before.

And why is not everybody pointing out why anita is wrong pissing you off? I don't know why shes wrong because I don't watch her videos but i avoid arguing with feminists because the last time i did i swore i never would again. I'll probably add more to this response later i gotta go.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

Final straw for bob. I've been on the fence about this guy for awhile, and bringing up a person NOBODY has talked about in years, telling people to get over him... Ugh, just terrible.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

The best thing about the 'Anita Saarkesian is the new Jack Thompson' comparison every internet idiot and his dog makes is that it's completely ignorant of what BOTH of them were arguing about, instead boiling it down to 'Oh, she's criticizing our games and said they caused things. HE criticized our games and said they caused things. Therefore, she's trying to censor our games!' (side note: I think people are also getting real ignorant of what 'censor' actually means).

When, in reality, they are the proverbial apples and oranges, two things so wildly different from each other that attempting to tell someone they're one in the same will get you laughed out of the building on many an occasion.

Them being dead is in reality not the important detail in the pictures.

As for Anita Being wrong on one example.

Anyone that actually uses a Thunderf00t video as "evidence" is probably not going to be taken seriously. When the man makes a video titled "Feminism poisons everything" there is no real logic there. No real discussion is wanting to be had. He's not the best person to go to. For any of this stuff. Like at all.

When you dismiss an argument by attacking the source of the argument rather than the actual arguments that's called an ad hominem fallacy, which is what you did.

Now why don't you try actually addressing what he said. You can pretend someone else said it if it helps.

However, he does have a clear bias towards feminism and Anita Saarkesian. Since he's not approaching this subject objectively in the slightest, it's safe to say that use of his material as evidence against Anita Saarkesian is opening yourself up to misinformation from a biased source. And I don't know about you, but given the turmoil surrounding this entire shindig I'd rather a non-biased source rather than someone with a clear political standing of 'Anti-Feminist'.

Unless 'Feminism poisons everything' is an objective view, though I *highly* doubt that. Sounds a little too click-baity to be objective to me.

you're still focusing the person, not the facts presented. There is one very clear fact. In a candid speech to a class, she says she's not a gamer and had to learn about them. In a scripted, produced video, she says she's a gamer and loves games. She's not a gamer, she's a liar and poisonous to gamers.

 

[FogHornG36]

Nobody is talking about Jack Thompson, but if they do bring it up, its because he fought for "Video games cause violence" and Anita fights for "Video games cause sexism" you can't have one without the other.

Making a 5:40 video talking about Jack Thompson isn't going to change this.

I also have a problem with you saying you are part of "gaming culture" when you are backing up everyone who is saying that it is dead, and how to destroy it.

But thanks for going #FullMcIntosh, I'm just going to go back to not watching your videos knowing the kinda stuff you put out.

 

[DragonStorm247]

I dunno, I feel like remembering Jack is actually useful in that we can see how the Censorship Wars were completely different from the current situation. Don't get me wrong, it's completely ridiculous to call Anita, etc, the next Thompson, but we should remember history for history's sake.

 

[FenchurchSt]

I was under the impression that he has been "dead" politically on the video games front since the industry adoption of a comprehensive universal self-governing ratings system in America. Why did someone bring him up again? Eh... don't answer that, I know why: too many people being too worried about things they shouldn't be concerned about and dredging up old buried arguments while putting on the blinders and missing the things we should actually be paying attention to.

Either way, in all actuality this man was never a real threat. He may have had a lot of publicity, he may have had a lot of nasty claims to throw around, and he may have had a lot of backers at the time, but he never had the authority to dampen free speech. The type of censorship he was crying for was absolutely different from something like SOPA (something that was all written up and ready to happen) which was basically all dressed up as something to "protect rights" of copyright holders. Thompson's vision of censorship was only to remove rights of creators and block the sale of what is in other media legal content. Both were wrong, in my opinion, but one was a threat whereas the other, at worst, would have caused all of the major publishers to turn into Nintendo of America of that era, i.e., SELF-censoring to avoid actual censorship. Even if that were to happen, just like the film industry's heavy self-censorship during the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in Hollywood and Nintendo of America themselves, the publishers would have eventually abandoned it in favor of something better.

I honestly wasn't even aware that he is still worth talking about outside of video game history lessons.

Can i just take a moment to agree with the people calling for everyone to put their flags and hashtags and preconceived notions and battle lines and just talk to each other like human beings again?

I'm sick and tired of this broad-brush damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't arguing. I'm tired of everyone whining about what a group is or isn't about. I'm tied of a million different arguments all lumped into a tangled mess and watching everyone fruitlessly try to sort through it. I'm tired of anita and jack and bob and thunderfoot, and all the people who themselves have become symbols and buzzwords. It's psychotic, people are human beings, they're not some extension of some group. We need to narrow the damn brush already. The concept of the individual needs to make a comeback on these forums, and fast.

If this whole shitstorm has taught me anything, it's that hashtag politics are garbage. People can only be judged by who they are, by their personal stances on things, not by who they affiliate with, and that's probably a good lesson to have, but it's pretty much over now. It's sad, because i actually do want to talk about the state of game journalism, but i can't really do that anymore now can i? Shit, i don't even know how anyone is going to approach that topic anymore. So thanks a fucking lot all you flag-wavers, you poisoned an important and legitimate topic and now we won't get to talk about it without all this bullshit resurfacing for a long time.

Also, dude, can I frame this comment?

I feel like the gaming community used to be so positive and now I can't say anything without someone assuming something about me or watching people take sides over stupid things. I haven't been on twitter in months and I don't even care to look at it anymore. I want to have real conversations with people and not have them be all "oh you're a girl? you're probably going to say something weird like Anita Sarkeesian," or something. I don't even know the first thing about her, nor do I care for she's impacted nothing. I want to belong to a community that discusses things, not stand under a patron archetype that the internet determined I must fight for.

The whole affair is repulsive. No matter how proud I am to say I believe video games matter, no matter how close I was to thinking that gaming could be something worth talking about in "polite" company, all of this garbage makes me want to wash my hands of these notions and just go back to being a silent closet gamer. It's so shameful that I want to deny this part of my life and being involved in this monstrous community.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

you're still focusing the person, not the facts presented. There is one very clear fact. In a candid speech to a class, she says she's not a gamer and had to learn about them. In a scripted, produced video, she says she's a gamer and loves games. She's not a gamer, she's a liar and poisonous to gamers.

Ah, yes, of course. I forgot that once someone says something, they are permanently that thing forever and ever. It's why I'm still a grocery boy, even though I haven't worked in a shopping center for seven years. Or why my favorite colour is still orange, despite the fact that I currently find blue far more appealing. Object Permanency, it's a real pain in the ass, you know?

And really, poisonous to gamers? Are you entirely sure? 100% positive? I'm pretty sure she... you know, isn't. At all. Dry, short videos that offer up basic information on tropes in video gaming relative to feminism is hardly poisonous in the slightest, especially given the number of people who can view her material without adverse side effects. A more apt approach would be to say that some gamers are allergic to the contents of her material, and should therefore seek medical advice over dealing with allergic reactions in relation to Feminist Critic of Video Game Tropes.

its about how she presented herself in two extremely contradictory ways. You are wrong, and I don't feel like continuing this conversation, so I just wont.

 

[Absimilliard]

"Gaming needs to get over Jack Thompson". This might be because I'm not American, but I had to watch the episode to remember who he is, which in my mind is "one of those nutters who tried banning GTA, ha-ha, good luck with that one." (Of course there's more to the story than that, as was shown in the video, but that's about as much of my memory I'm willing to dedicate to him.)
Also, does it honestly surprise anyone that some people use false syllogisms and/or comparisons many people find unreasonable during an online discussion?

EDIT: On the plus side, now I do remember who he is if the topic comes up in a conversation I'm in.