The Big Picture: With Great Power

[Havoc Himself]

I completely agree with the point that Bob made in this video, however I freaking hate Anita Sarkeesian. She doesn't seem to be for strong female characters in games so much as she is for making money and stirring up controversy. I just want her to fade into obscurity. That way others can take over, honestly I think just about any other female gamer would be better at doing what Anita does.

 

[Bruce]

Where does all of this come from?

It comes down to the moral guardians.

1956 the Comics Code was used to try and censor the comic "Judgement Day".

That comic had the gall to show a black man in authority. Its not that comic books were more racist than the mainstream culture of that era, it is that what could be printed was controlled with the mainstream culture in mind.

Which means that the social and moral views were always going to be that little bit backward. You can tell what society thought yesterday, you can't tell what it is going to think tomorrow.

The same thing happened with film, only even more so. The Motion Picture Production Code outright banned miscegenation in movies for example.

Children's TV similarly went through a period of precisely that same sort of thing. That's why in the 80s everyone was a team player except for the one kid who was always wrong.

Sure, that era was full of rainbow coalitions, but if you push the idea that the complainer is always wrong you end up with people who have any issues based on their race, religion, sexuality or gender treated like that one character. It prevents problems being solved because people are encouraged not to voice them, or not to listen when they are voiced.

And we see the same thing starting up with video games nowadays with publishers shying away from having strong female protagonists. This time they are trying to conform to social standards out of greed rather than self-rightousness but the effect is still pretty much the same.

Whenever you end up with limitations on creativity in order to conform to society's standards within a given field, you end up with more bigotry. The guy who wrote "The Corruption of the Innocent" was very critical of violence in comics, it was the accusation that Batman was gay that got traction. When you have any form of censorship the bigots will always win.

And generally it is geek mediums that somehow end up with these bodies trying to make them conform to the social norm. We grew up on those cartoons, we grew up on classic children's movies, we grew up on comics and on all of the stuff that has been poisoned by that attempt at social control.

And that has had an effect. What we do about this, I don't know. Personally I favour freedom, I favour the fact that we are having this discussion, and that we are seeing more people raising the issues they have with video games. I like the fact, for example, that feminists are getting angry, because anger is just another word for hope.

But I can't pretend to know that this will work. I can only hope, in my most raging voice that all of these games and all of this criticism pushes the medium and society as a whole forward.

 

[Dwarfman]

Never thought I'd ever accuse Mr Chipman of naivety. But there you go.

Great sentiment though, I support it the whole way. JUst don't see it happening among 'mainstream' geek culture - or anybody elses mainstream culture - any time soon.

 

[Strazdas]

with great power, you can do whatever you want since you can just do might is right anyway.

Your video would have been fine, btu you tried to defend aneta sarcasmian, so your whole video just became worthless.

I think most people, bob included, does not know what a Nerd is.
im not good with words, this guy is a lot better:

 

[DerangedHobo]

Again, wrong. Freedom of speech does not mean you can say anything without offending people. Freedom of speech entails that other have the right to be offended and counter your speech with theirs.

You missed the point, it wasn't my point that people shouldn't call me out and I can say whatever I want and that's 'free speech', my point was that in a utopia people won't take offense because they don't find a fucking word offensive, as I outlined in that big block of text above that.

That's completely untrue. It has as much to do with intent as it does perception. Words that are otherwise completely innocuous can be harmful when said with malicious intent. Your argument is particularly bogus, as it places all responsibility on the recipient, rather than the perpetrator. Following your logic, someone could scream a hate-filled rant about how black people are inferior to whites, and any offence taken would be in the minds of the listeners, rather than the speaker.

And like I said, your feelings are as meaningless as the racist's opinion and it truly sickens me that in 2013, an age where I can travel around the world in a day and have the vast majority of the human race's knowledge at my finger tips that we still cower and bicker over a fucking word. I don't care if someone was called it while being beaten by someone 200 years ago, that doesn't concern me. Humans will always be racist or hateful to some extent, it's part of the human condition. There is racism from all races and sexism in all genders and it seems that we're just ignoring that truth in favor of some thinly veiled 'civility'. I know that there are still atrocities going on, that's human vs human, regardless of the motive I don't see why you don't see it like that instead of 'IT'S RACIST!' or 'IT'S SEXIST'! If you start doing this then you start to put these motives on a pedestal and say that they're worse than xy or z. I may stab someone but if I stab someone because I hate hate their race then it's a hate crime and I'm a degenerate racist instead of just a murderer and if I beat a woman I'm a sexist wife beating scumbag instead of just a violent person who assaulted another human.

 

[KissingSunlight]

My first reaction to the video was: Gasoline, meet fire. Since it up to about 300 comments on the video, I say, "Mission Accomplish!"

My other reaction was: If Bob was talking about any other minority group, the overwhelming reaction would be: You are blaming the victims. Ever talk to a fan of a band or artist before they "Sold Out" and became popular? What the old fans complain about is the new fans coming in and ruining their scene. This is what happened to "Geek" culture. I didn't care about "Iron Man" until the first movie came out. I just finished reading "Extremis" last week.

I didn't know you were suppose to listen to other people blabbing while playing online multiplayer shooters. I just put the TV on mute and turn on my stereo.

I am only going to make this one comment about Anita Sarkeesian and will not respond any trolling/baiting responses to it. The reason people have to come and "White Knight" for Anita is because she doesn't respond to legitimate criticism to her videos. She is more than happy to exploit the trolls who say stupid, sexist, and insulting things about her. The reason for this is that her thesis about tropes being harmful to women is nonsense. Princess Peach getting kidnapped in every Mario game is not holding women back. We have women who are leaders of countries. The best selling book this year is written by a woman who is the COO of Facebook about how to get ahead in business. Not every woman in the world are that successful. Alot of them are being held back because of sexist behavior indoctrinated in both men and women because of religion. Not because of DOA Beach Party video game.

 

[MooShoo]

Instead what we get are feminists coming in and demanding that we change for THEM and we should adapt to THEIR needs, not even the needs of real girl gamers (they too have been around since the beginning) because from what I read they don't see the problems all these crazy feminists are talking about either.

So 'real girl gamers' cannot be feminists? You do know that there are plenty of female gamers on the Escapist who also identify as feminists?

There are different kinds of feminists, and the ones that complain so much about how offended they are at how women are often depicted in video games tend to be the crazy radical ones that you simply can't reason with, all they do is complain and whine and it doesnt do anyone any good.
What the current trend of complaints is looking like is more akin to walking around the shopping mall and freaking out about all the perfect body mannequins (apart from having no limbs or head) in a lingerie store shouting "I dont look like that, CHANGE IT!!!!!"

When it comes to personality and character development of women it has always been the same in almost any form of entertainment and I think video games are showing off many more strong women then most other forms of entertainment going back all the way to the old stories of chivalry and I am sure even the stories told before writing was invented. Yes I want to see better character development in games and bring some new elements and ideas into the equation, for both male and female characters. Also, should we look at Sex in the City and model our female protagonists in video games after those main characters? Or what is it exactly that these feminists want because I honestly have no clue, all I know if they disagree with how it is now.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Re: OP

Um, No, Bob.

I mean it would be great if it were true that we, the once-oppressed geeks now have the power to change society via the influence of our mighty culture. As one who was a geek in the 80s when the pre-Revenge-of-the-Nerds portrayals of us were either the comic relief or the psychopathic bad-guy, I would very much like to say we won. As it is I personally consider myself one of the custodians of social equality, regardless of what power I have, because I really don't want anyone else to have to endure the bullshit I experienced. As one who's (still white, male, cis-gendered but also) atheist and crazy[footnote]Major depression. Diagnosed. Lived with it all my life. It's called anaclitic depression when I'm trying to impress someone with fancy words.[/footnote], the national mainstream of the US still has plenty of inclination to marginalize me and my kind. But here are the things:

Firstly, the geeks haven't won yet on account of the media focusing on our interests, any more than the glass ceiling is gone for blacks on account that Obama is president. Exhibit A in this case is the SOPA hearings in the House of Representatives last year. Not only were tech and internet interests (and public interests) excluded save for one brave Google lawyer, but practically everyone in the House was desperate to qualify "Well I ain't no nerd" as if being tech savvy automatically made you one of the geeks, and as if having such knowledge was a disgraceful trait. We geeks are still the intellectual weirdos, partly due to an anti-intellectualist movement [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism] within conservative ideology (which is a topic of its own).

Exhibit B is the homogenization that is occurring to many of the intellectual properties that are being featured as part of geek culture. The new Star Trek movies are hardly Star Trek, the character studies, futurist exploration and ethical dilemmas as we knew and loved from from TOS and TNG[footnote]I have to rely on the reviews, including yours, for the second one. I haven't seen it yet, and given what the consensus was, I have little reason to bother.[/footnote](which is what I was hoping to see by number two of the reboot). Rather, they were action movies with Star Trek hallmarks, much the way that the new Tomb Raider was a cover shooter featuring Lara Croft (and I expect Thief to be a shooter featuring Garret). The IPs are from geek culture, but the releases themselves are targeted more towards a less-intellectual mainstream. And that's because...

And secondly, the people participating in the geek culture is not the geeks, it's the old jockish (at least jock-sympathetic) mainstream. Originally, only a small select set of computer users played games, and now almost everyone has a console in-house. Everyone plays games. But this is not because there was a sudden population explosion of geek (If only! Cloning.), but because games are able to appeal more to the mainstream. The same with superhero comics. The same with science fiction and fantasy movies (that is movies with sci-fi and fantasy hallmarks), and with all these people comes the usual fare of human behavior, including bigotry, misogyny, brutality and belligerence. You are correct in assuming that geeks are subject to the same human foibles as anyone else, but to depend on us and the power of our culture to change human behavior is overly idealistic. Look at the beatifications, allegedly the core of Jesus message, and then look at how often those are actually referenced when someone does something or says something in Jesus' name. Jesus was the king of culture and yet he was only able to influence things so far.

Our tendency towards indiscriminate jackassery is (so the current sociological explanations go) due to specific instincts that we have, one of which is to divide ourselves into small groups. We're not into being a citizen of the world or even an American or a Bostonian (San Franciscan, myself) but we identify our fellows by faith, political ideology, sports team, hobby group, street name and so on until there's less than a hundred people in our tight little band, and at that hunter-gatherer level, we have the tendency to feel all the other people (if one would call them that) must die for being abominable and deviant.

Our ambition of a pluralistic and tolerant society is not impossible. But we're still figuring out the particulars behind how to affect such change. Granted, lots of power is to be had through divisive ideologies, and those who are so profiting are going to fight with every last bit of strength and money to keep their cash cows. But we're better at sustaining large pluralities now than ever before, and we can expect this trend to continue.

238U

 

[maximara]

In connection to the Tropes vs Women reference, I don't take Alisia Sarkeesian seriously.

Watch her episode, then Facts vs Women and you'll see why.

While Thunderf00t's videos made rational counterpoints to Sarkeesian's videos, and that's a great start, we shouldn't forget the maelstrom of troll fire that arose after she announced her kickstarter

I'm not buying that...

I don't deny that it happened, but something acted as a trigger and IIRC, someone brought the Kickstarter to 4chan.

And spammed it to death in there. No one cared if she announced it, but why go and target the two largest communities that just want to enjoy good games or be left alone before trying to attack churches for lulz or other people?

I agree. Taking her then poorly researched comments blocked nonsense to 4chan was guaranteed to push buttons.

Are there problems with how females are depicted in games? Sure one only need to point to Shiva in Resident Evil 4 and the neurotic mess Samus became in Metroid other M to see that.

But like many extreme feminists Sarkeesian misses the point--video companies make what they think will sale. Are they creating the dynamic or are they merely playing to it?

 

[deadpool.forever]

Liberal Bob is liberal, its getting to the point I can't watch his videos anymore.

 

[-Dragmire-]

It sounds like aspects of geek culture appeal to the mainstream rather than the mainstream becoming geekish. Bob's evidence seems superficial at best.

I wasn't bullied or had connections to any particular 'click' growing up so I can't comment on that...

EDIT: I do find that sarcasm seems to be a common way to talk to people within this culture rather than outright hostility, I've noticed it in my own dialogue too. Cutting down on that is rather hard when I'm so used to it. That said, I'm only responsible for myself and the way others interact and express is their own responsibility.

 

[Broderick]

with great power, you can do whatever you want since you can just do might is right anyway.

Your video would have been fine, btu you tried to defend aneta sarcasmian, so your whole video just became worthless.

I think most people, bob included, does not know what a Nerd is.
im not good with words, this guy is a lot better:

I am not a fan of the lady, but the amount of vitriol she received was horrific. I do not see how pointing this out suddenly makes his whole video worthless when that was part of the point he was making. He was saying that we, as a collective(not individual) have the power to change what is socially acceptable within society today. Whether that is true for the whole of society(as he seems to suggest) is yet to be seen, but within the gaming community it rings true.

By choosing to block and shun people on games who exhibit nasty behavior(rage issues, unnecessary swearing, racism/sexism and downright asshattery) we send a message to those people, and that message is saying that we do not want to associate with them. One person doing this on their own has little effect, however, doing this en mass as a collective has the potential to make a substantial difference.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

Here we have another great example of a common logical fallacy and flawed argument with the critique towards geek culture.
Do we have to just nod our heads and say: mhm, yup, youre right, yes that does need to be changed, yup its all true.

When people like Anita use misleading, misinformed, flawed arguments like:
There is sexual harassment at geek culture conventions
Therefore all geeks are schrodinger cat sex offenders.

yes and another fallacy is setting up a straw man, so if you would like to address something she has actually said, that would be nice.

OT, I very much agree with bob here, I'm not sure if it was always there and that I've only started to see it recently, but geek culture seems to be getting more and more bigoted as the years pass. Whether people agree with Anita or not, the sheer enormity of genuine sexist backlash she got would have been unacceptable in many other mediums, and yet we've barely called the perpetrators out. Again, the volume of sexist, homophobic, etc slander that gets thrown around in online gaming is really unacceptable, and yet it's one of the mainstays of the community. I mean I don't know if we have 'won' as bob says, but none the less I would hope that nerd culture would have higher standards than this. It's gotten to the point where I'm no longer comfortable identifying myself as a nerd or geek, because I do not want to associate with these people.

 

[Goliath100]

You certainly could fight. But you won't will? You'll just ***** and whine and moan about how the prominent voices in the gamer culture aren't saying what you wish they were saying.

Ok,that was not what I was expecting. Sounds like you are trying to start a flame war here. And just as you know: Arguing does not equal bitching,whinin or moaning. And yes, I got a problem when "prominent voices in the gamer culture" are giving credibility to what is a STRAW feminist's claims to an authority she don't have.

 

[Gindil]

I am not a fan of the lady, but the amount of vitriol she received was horrific. I do not see how pointing this out suddenly makes his whole video worthless when that was part of the point he was making. He was saying that we, as a collective(not individual) have the power to change what is socially acceptable within society today. Whether that is true for the whole of society(as he seems to suggest) is yet to be seen, but within the gaming community it rings true.

By choosing to block and shun people on games who exhibit nasty behavior(rage issues, unnecessary swearing, racism/sexism and downright asshattery) we send a message to those people, and that message is saying that we do not want to associate with them. One person doing this on their own has little effect, however, doing this en mass as a collective has the potential to make a substantial difference.

I dare anyone to read all of the quotes and tell me that was "horrific". I read one of her posts and got more criticisms on there that said she didn't need to do this than "Tits or GTFO" or "You're a stupid ***** for doing a kickstarter on video games!"

It's like she gets a "get away from trolls free" card because she's a woman. Show me how all of those people didn't have speech and an argument. The information is lost and the only reason she HAD an open discussion was to make money off of people.

And again... Bob is not a moral guardian. When he goes on this tangent, he makes himself into a larger hypocrite who doesn't like expressed opinions. No one's blocking or exhibiting "bad" behavior. They just don't like it when they're mislead by people that don't lead from the front. And Bob is just as bad at this as anyone.

 

[Gindil]

Here we have another great example of a common logical fallacy and flawed argument with the critique towards geek culture.
Do we have to just nod our heads and say: mhm, yup, youre right, yes that does need to be changed, yup its all true.

When people like Anita use misleading, misinformed, flawed arguments like:
There is sexual harassment at geek culture conventions
Therefore all geeks are schrodinger cat sex offenders.

yes and another fallacy is setting up a straw man, so if you would like to address something she has actually said, that would be nice.

OT, I very much agree with bob here, I'm not sure if it was always there and that I've only started to see it recently, but geek culture seems to be getting more and more bigoted as the years pass. Whether people agree with Anita or not, the sheer enormity of genuine sexist backlash she got would have been unacceptable in many other mediums, and yet we've barely called the perpetrators out. Again, the volume of sexist, homophobic, etc slander that gets thrown around in online gaming is really unacceptable, and yet it's one of the mainstays of the community. I mean I don't know if we have 'won' as bob says, but none the less I would hope that nerd culture would have higher standards than this. It's gotten to the point where I'm no longer comfortable identifying myself as a nerd or geek, because I do not want to associate with these people.

Where to start about Anita...

She likes to mislead with no context. She doesn't like to show female empowerment until the critics force her. She goes by the argument, "If you ignore people until they insult you, they'll be reasonable until they want to be heard"

Her critics ride in on white knights using her videos as examples from the Bible instead of recognizing how they are entirely out of context. She sees a bunch of people from /v/ as a loosely connected organization... Yeah. There was no "volume of sexist comments". There was a person that triggered 4chan to spam a kickstarter to make money.

And people make the same moral arguments over and over again instead of recognizing that her videos are not good. They have no quantitative or qualitative data, they rely on ignoring Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory, they aren't representative of the female protagonists that are in games, they don't show antisex feminism in a good light, and it becomes obvious that Anita isn't a gamer because she can't get the stories right.

There's a LOT to be upset about. It's like seeing a child complain over and over again and having to coddle them into what the real world is like.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

Where to start about Anita...

She likes to mislead with no context. She doesn't like to show female empowerment until the critics force her. She goes by the argument, "If you ignore people until they insult you, they'll be reasonable until they want to be heard"

Her critics ride in on white knights using her videos as examples from the Bible instead of recognizing how they are entirely out of context. She sees a bunch of people from /v/ as a loosely connected organization... Yeah. There was no "volume of sexist comments". There was a person that triggered 4chan to spam a kickstarter to make money.

And people make the same moral arguments over and over again instead of recognizing that her videos are not good. They have no quantitative or qualitative data, they rely on ignoring Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory, they aren't representative of the female protagonists that are in games, they don't show antisex feminism in a good light, and it becomes obvious that Anita isn't a gamer because she can't get the stories right.

There's a LOT to be upset about. It's like seeing a child complain over and over again and having to coddle them into what the real world is like.

Well I disagree with you here, especially on this idea of white knighting, which is an utterly lazy excuse, but I'm not arguing about the validity of her views here. The fact of the matter is, your idea that she trolled 4chan is just speculation and even if she did, she received threats of rape and assault in retaliation and still does, resulting in her having to moderate her youtube comments and such. That is revolting, whether you agree with her not.

 

[Gindil]

Well I disagree with you here, especially on this idea white of knighting, which is an utterly lazy excuse, but I'm not arguing about the validity of her views here. The fact of the matter is, your idea that she trolled 4chan is just speculation and even if she did, she received threats of rape and assault in retaliation and still does, resulting in her having to moderate her youtube comments and such. That is revolting, whether you agree with her not.

And so do men when 4chan targets a site. And when she puts out tweets basically yelling at people to aim at her, I don't buy her argument that she's a victim. I buy more that she would "selectively edit" those comments so that she could show how they made her money. And no, you can read the comments yourself and they say that the trolls came from /v/. Given her degrees in communications and marketing, I don't see a good reason NOT to troll these communities and manipulate them for private profit on her part. It worked for EA in the Jennifer Halperin case and it sure worked for her.

And if you didn't know, she was moderating her Youtube BEFORE she ever announced a Kickstarter. Now she just closes it altogether so she doesn't deal with criticism.

 

[Yuuki]

Well I disagree with you here, especially on this idea white knighting, which is an utterly lazy excuse, but I'm not arguing about the validity of her views here. The fact of the matter is, your idea that she trolled 4chan is just speculation and even if she did, she received threats of rape and assault in retaliation and still does, resulting in her having to moderate her youtube comments and such. That is revolting, whether you agree with her not.

Wait a minute, someone who went out of her way to criticize some of gamer culture's most celebrated games as being inherently sexist/offensive received threats of rape and assault from anonymous nobodies on the internet? Let me guess, is that supposed to make her case special? Somehow "extra" revolting?
Right at the very moment I'm typing this there is someone yelling rape/assault threats at somebody else on the internet. The reason Anita's case got so much attention is because she took many screenshots/samples of the troll posts, made presentations out of it, did sob-story talks on the pretenses of "omg I'm a victim, look at me cry, help meeeee", etc etc. Attention granted, $160,000 raised. Some people might be genuinely revolted by rape/assault threats thrown over the internet, but the way Anita used all that to play as the victim and use white-knighting simply a tool to her advantage (while smiling behind everyone's back) is vastly more revolting.

But I guess it worked because the whole issue got a thousand times more attention that it deserved, instead of being just another nobody-feminist whining in the dark unknown corners of the internet she got the spotlight, mission accomplished.
I'm not against criticism or free speech - everyone has a right to criticize and express their opinion about anything. The problem is when that opinion gets given far too much weight (and ultimately resources) than it deserves and gets popularized through the roof for no bloody reason. Despite all that I still believe all her work will be forgotten within a a year.

 

[j1015]

One of the best episodes you've ever done. I'm with you, but it seems, from reading many comments, that you have your work cut out. I'm seeing a lot of denial and focusing on the minutia of the episode instead of it's broader theme and main point. *Sigh*