The Big Picture: Tropes vs. MovieBob

[Darkmantle]

MASSIVE SNIPPAGE

I'm not offended, it's an inherent risk with devil advocate arguments or turning peoples logic against them, the last person to read it might not know the context.

no worries though.

 

[Matt_LRR]

What's say we scrap referring to the last post at all, along with everything on your list, and just call it even.

Because I think this paragraph:

I feel that the main issue is to actually get more women who actually have the skills and desire to work in the video game industry to actually prove themselves in the video game industry. I gotta be honest, to me I really don't see much a solution cause the first step is actually finding those people both men and women who want to work in the video game industry and actually get them to start early and understand what they need to learn and take those skills and apply them building a portfolio. It's not a solution where you can just throw money at it or hire people who aren't qualified. But chances are by typing this I'm making even MORE of a mess. But I know there are good ways to find the right solution that if more women wanted to get involved in the video game industry they can.

is way more interesting to discuss.

Surely you see that this is a vicious cycle, right? The games industry is a boys club, the boy's club alienates women, fewer women become interested in games, fewer women enter the industry, and the industry remains a boy's club.

If this is the case, then isn't it somewhat self evident that speaking out about the ways that the games industry serves to alienate women, and doing so with an eye to making the industry's products more inclusive and diverse, will help to generate more interest in the industry among women, and more women subsequently entering the industry?

If nothing else, generating awareness of these issues helps to make the women who are interested in gaming but are uncomfortable with the way the industry represents them feel like they are supported and more welcome among those who share their interest?

-m

 

[Matt_LRR]

snip

Heh, responding to this just for my own amusement. I apparently also don't know what I'm talking about, but I was judging from what I saw produced rather than this image.

The equipment and space is the sort of thing you can throw together If you're an enthusiast or hobbyist.

We shoot with very similar lights (they run a hundred bucks or so per set), the *exact same* microphone (like 150$), and a similar camera, actually. Looks like they're shooing on a DSLR, which is consumer-level video equipment, but that's what we shoot on too. They run between 700-3000$. I'm kind of astonished they don't boom her (or use a lapel mic), instead of mounting the mic to the camera though.

If they're editing on that little macbook pro, they could probably stand to do better.

I'm legit impressed by the space though, but I'd bet they built it, it's not a professional-level room.


Edit:

Yeah I'm nowhere going to say it is professional level but yeah imagine having that level of quality equipment as your starting point as a youtuber. God damn she has some good gear and place though.

Thing is, if you're really into doing web video you just acquire the stuff. You buy it out of pocket, you use what you have, you ask for it for Christmas, whatever. Hell, Graham won our first decent camera in a contest. But there's always room for improvement.


-m

 

[CaptOfSerenity]

Yes I read your condescending bullshit justifications for hate speech. Snipped for readers' convenience.

What makes me think they're just men?

WHY WOULD WOMEN ATTACK HER FOR BEING ON THEIR SIDE? What weird-ass logic do you conform to? It's men, scared, frightened men and boys, who attacked her because she DARED probe the issue of women caricatures in gaming.

Also, she is qualified to speak on the subject: she has a Master's Degree in Social and Political Thought, and a bachelor's degree in Communication Studies, according to her site. So, she's smart.

Harm? What's harmful is the outrage that she sparked. What's harmful is the people, like you, who clearly aren't ready for women to be equal.

All your argument consists of are fallacies, claiming that her viewpoint, that women don't have good representation in games, will end free speech? The fuck? You put words in her mouth: have you seen all her shit? Have you heard her say games make people more misogynistic? I probably don't agree with her on all her ideas, but I'm not stating things for her. You have.

Unfortunately for you, she is right: women are treated poorly by games, in games

and most importantly, by gamers.

 

[Matt_LRR]

What's say we scrap referring to the last post at all, along with everything on your list, and just call it even, and let it go under the bridge. Because I think this paragraph:

SNIP by Tenmar

is really interesting.

Surely you see that this is a vicious cycle, right? The games industry is a boys club, the boy's club alienates women, fewer women become interested in games, fewer women enter the industry, and the industry remains a boy's club.

If this is the case, then isn't it somewhat self evident that speaking out about the ways that the games industry serves to alienate women, and doing so with an eye to making the industry's products more inclusive and diverse, will help to generate more interest in the industry among women, and more women subsequently entering the industry?

If nothing else, generating awareness of these issues helps to make the women who are interested in gaming but are uncomfortable with the way the industry represents them feel like they are supported and more welcome among those who share their interest?

-m

And I was just making the entire post commenting on each of your posts...I feel 50% relieved and 50% robbed. I'm gonna go with the relieved though cause I'd much rather get to know ya and make a friend I can have a beer with than go into the picky uni stuff. I will post how far I made it just for the record so you might see where I was coming from.

Now onto your post.

That main problem I have here is that while we can both agree on that more men want to be involved in the video game industry than women.

(Wait hold up I do have a follow up question to this. What do we exactly qualify as being involved in the video game industry? What criteria should we roll with here? That in itself is pretty interesting considering voice actors when you think of dubbing and how quick their jobs can end.)

But I just don't view it as a vicious cycle at least not yet. I mean this maybe flawed thinking to try and relate it to the 1970's but I think that is part of an industry that is just growing up. I mean we are now officially on the third generation here that is finally old enough to actually become employed by a company related to the video game industry when just all those years ago it was nothing more than people like Nolan Bushnell and friends and a company that used to make hanafuda cards transform themselves over and over again where the business was already structured and where it was more about the cultural standards that were changing.

So I think we certainly should consider the factors of time and culture as being part of the situation as one of the reasons why women were not involved in the video game industry at least in the past. Which is why we would both we right when I say that right now women being involved in the video game industry has nowhere to go but up and I honestly see that everywhere I can think of.

I think of Riot Games and thanks for a friend I made there actually tried to help me get a contract position(didn't get it) but I can honestly say from the grand tour he gave me that the staff they had there certainly wasn't a boys club or a girls club. Hell they even hired Christina Norman(took a while to find her but I remember her being hired) who used to be lead designer and programmer for the entire Mass Effect series for Bioware. They have a very diverse staff there of young guns representing that third generation and have been successful as a company with their single IP.

I think of women like Morgan Webb and regardless of what we think of Xplay she certainly has made her mark being an star in video game circles. Hell I even remember my college UCSB actually getting magazine interview about her career back in 2005.

I also think of Dodger from The Game Station(presshearttocontinue) on youtube. Heavily involved in their projects and has her own channel. Haven't checked out her work myself but I know she's pretty popular and is very active for The Game Station.

So I do see women who have proven to be very qualified and worked hard to be part of the video game industry to say it is a vicious cycle just yet.

As for women becoming less interested in games? Thankfully now we have groups like the ESA to actually make statistics today from what was once pure speculation back in the 1970's and 1980's.

http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp

But however I think the more interesting question to which I think you are getting at is what type of content do women actually like to play? People will always find someway to entertain themselves but the video game industry is a legitimate industry that there is no way going to revert back to a boys club until our medium becomes a dead medium and we are grumpy old men designing games like rebuilding classic cars.

NOTE: Posting this now and will edit in the second and third questions. It is late for all of us and rather have this read now so Matt can go to sleep.

I'm going to reply to this in a fairly cursory way, I think, and then I'm going to try and let the whole topic drop - I'm going to be heading out of town for the weekend, and if this whole thread is still raging by the time I get back, I may have to throw myself into traffic.

First off, you and I are coming from a really similar place here, I think we're just interpreting what we're seeing differently.

For clarity's sake, when I said "entering the industry" I meant working on game development as artists, programmers, testers, writers, and so on. Being in a position to manage and affect in a tangible way the kind of content that is approved and created for consumption - providing a female "voice" within game production, basically.

We both seem to agree that more women working in the industry will help to even out the representation of women in games, and create more products that interest women gamers.

So, what I'm seeing a vicious cycle, but one that is slowly breaking down, because more women DO play games now than ever before, and more women ARE working in the industry than ever before. Women are gaining an ever stronger voice and representation within the industry.

By the same token, I see efforts like Tropes vs. Women as a necessary and productive addition to this voice. By strengthening the role of women in gaming, and by drawing attention to ways in which the treatment of women in gaming is not equitable, we serve to drive the industry towards a more diverse, productive, welcoming, accessible, and profitable position.

(As a side note, I don't actually believe that the addition of women to the industry is necessarily enough on it's own to resolve the problem either, but that's going down a rabbit hole of sociological discussion I'm not terribly interested in getting into at the moment. Long and short of it is that women are also not immune from misogyny, owing to the nature of patriarchal upbringing. (See: the Twilight franchise) If you're interested in doing some reading on the topics, discussions of privilege [http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/], patriarchy [http://www.du.ac.in/fileadmin/DU/Academics/course_material/hrge_06.pdf], and internalized misogyny [http://stopgirlhate.tumblr.com/post/15382276740/what-is-internalized-misogyny] would be good places to look.)


On the other hand, you seem to think a vicious cycle does not exist. And, given that perspective, it would follow that these efforts are simply unnecessary at best and harmful at worst. That's a fair conclusion, given the premise, but I challenge the premise as simply mistaken. I never meant to suggest that the industry was building a vicious cycle by continuing to marginalize women, simply that it was perpetuating it, and resisting its dissolution.

-m

Edit: And on that note, I'm out.

 

[jmarquiso]

I think you may have this a bit back-to-front boy. While she may have spammed 4-chan she made her target well before any controversy. Indeed she made $24,000 before the animalistic hoard descended upon her (Figuratively I mean.)

If the sexist comments of a few enabled her to leverage another $125,000, well what the bleeding hell did they expect? Sexist attacks on a feminist web-saavy blogger kickstarter? Gold!

How do you not see something wrong with goading a group of known internet misogynists so that she could stir up controversy and play the victim?

As I said earlier - if she was sincere and didn't expect the backlash, they posted terrible misogynistic comments and stirred up the controversy.

If she was baiting them and they took the bait, they posted terrible misogynistic comments and stirred up the controversy.

Either way - they posted terrible misogynistic comments and stirred up the controversy.

Misogyny still happened, and it isn't tempered by the possibility that they may have been baiting them.

 

[jmarquiso]

How could you not see something wrong with a known group of internet misogynists?

I have to ask the question here. Who is exactly a "known group of internet misogynists"? Who is exactly accountable in terms of a leadership position that said group is willing to follow? Cause you are now getting to a specific here yet still not specific enough to actually spark a conversation on the topic of said group.

Also could you please prove that said group is organized, has a leader and has demonstrated that they are organized to commit enough acts that they are misogynists?

First - thanks for the great response to mine. Now that I'm awake, I can look into it, but it appears it's been asked and answered already.

Second- "known group of internet misogynists" refers to 4chan. It's unfair to call 4Chan as a whole this, I agree. However, the response to "she spammed 4chan" was "she spammed a known group of internet misogynists". While if she did this, she does bear some responsibility, but it's the internet equivalent of saying, "she shouldn't have walked down that alley at night." That is, while she may bear some responsibility for provoking, it's on the few that responded for being provoked. And it's on the general gamer response for - instead of acting in disgust on what happened - using the opportunity to criticize her.

And further, if the purpose of the harassment was to say "$6,000 is way too much to ask for with an internet series", then it's a really bad way to communicate that.



Captcha: up or down. That's hilarious.

 

[jmarquiso]

I feel that the main issue is to actually get more women who actually have the skills and desire to work in the video game industry to actually prove themselves in the video game industry. I gotta be honest, to me I really don't see much a solution cause the first step is actually finding those people both men and women who want to work in the video game industry and actually get them to start early and understand what they need to learn and take those skills and apply them building a portfolio. It's not a solution where you can just throw money at it or hire people who aren't qualified. But chances are by typing this I'm making even MORE of a mess. But I know there are good ways to find the right solution that if more women wanted to get involved in the video game industry they can.

See here I agree with you. Now here's the problem with that - in an environment in which someone making feminist videos will get this sort of response, where's the motivation for female voices to come into gaming? We are still at the "you need a thick skin to work here" variety, and this is decidedly more harsh and unequal reaction.

Taking a look at Kickstarter's Film and Video section, he's not the only webseries asking for money.

This guy's asking for 40,000, save for several (albeit good quality) episodes already produced. (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jabarijohnson/jabari-presents-season-2-documentary-web-series?ref=category), originally distributed "for free"

This guy's making a satirical video game webseries (fictional), the kind of thing others have done "for free". They asked for 75,000 and were overfunded to the tune of 275,000. Hasn't even made more than the pilot yet.

This guy asked for 60,000 for Bronycon the Documentary - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/257527888/bronycon-the-documentary - and while he was criticized in one case in the SAME VIDEO as criticized Tropes vs. Women - did not receive the same treatment.

Journeyquest, which has been making a webseries since 2010 (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zombieorpheus/journeyquest-season-2?ref=category) asked for 60,000, and receiving 113,000. Despite making 2 seasons for free.

SMBC wants to expand into an animated webseries http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smbctheater/smbc-theater-goes-to-space?ref=category for 15,000

Whether or not you disagree with her videos, there is some unfair treatment here. She was singled out. One could only speculate as to why. The excuse they're currently going to is that costs outweighed the demand, and now funding outweighs importance. I would argue the above examples could fit into that same criteria, and yet she is singled out. She asked for a fraction, 10% of what most of the above are asking for. She has been singled out.

Seriously, the cost of production, the amount of funding she got, etc - that's between her and her backers.

While I don't necessarily agree with the Tropes vs. Women videos, but I really like that those videos exist. I want to hear similar perspectives, and I want to hear it provoke discussion. Whether she's the right person for "the job", well she's not the only applicant. There will need to be others (Ashley Burch, I'm looking at you), but we aren't going to see it soon if the kind of barrier they have to traverse to get there.

That's what's wrong here.

Full disclosure, I'm not a backer. I've discovered that a few of my facebook friends are, however.

 

[Gunner 51]

I never said corporal punishment should be used frequently. My point was that parents should discipline their kids for saying stupid shit. Pardon my french.

It is true that such things should be used infrequently, but there's a lot of lazy parents out there who will go nuts with it. But you are also right in saying that children should be disciplined for saying deliberately sexist / racist or offensive things.

 

[PiCroft]

If you do not count yourself among the people I described, then the correct pronoun would have been "they." So why did you choose to include yourself with "we?"

Because you were obviously addressing that to the people who are/were criticising her.

Bull. Fucking. Shit. That is not what I said, and you know it. Why are you lying?

That's certainly what you meant.

I could say the same about you. You've been nothing but an utter child for the last several pages.

"You dare criticize my glorious beautiful waifu? TO THE GALLOWS WITH YE!"

I presented my argument, and you posed no counterargument. What exactly am I supposed to do?.

You made a claim, not an argument. Saying that you made an argument implies you have some sort of evidence to support your statements, which you do not. You cannot ask me to prove your claims, that's your job.

What are you here to talk about?

I'd say Anita and her relentless hordes of White Knights.

Wow, you really hate Anita and from the sounds of it any woman who voices her opinion on sexism, don't you?

 

[PiCroft]

Wow, you really hate Anita and from the sounds of it any woman who voices her opinion on sexism, don't you?

You're never going to have sex with her. Hug?

This may come as a shock to you, but it is feasible for people to support a womans opinion on something without wanting to have sex with her. The fact this is your go-to argument tells loads ofn your views on women and the validity of their opinions.

She wanted to make a video about something, got a massive amount of support (and hate) and now plans on doing what she set out to do with a greatly increased scope. Every post of yours on this thread has been accusing her of being a scammer, an incompetent and every other horrible thing under the sun, all because she's talking about something you don't like.

In short, grow up you massive fucking child.

edit: I also reported your contentless post.

 

[PiCroft]

snip

I guess a hug won't do. How about a double hug?

Do you actually have any proof she is a scammer, an incompetent or anything else you have accused her of?