The Felicia Day/Destructoid situation

[K84]

Felicia Day is as much a gamer as any 'gamer girl' who think that playing Mario games and having played a Legend of Zelda game when they were a kid makes them qualify for the position. She's probably contributed to gaming the same way she's contributed to being a good actress. Hell, fucking Kirsten Stewart (idk if I spelled her name right, but it's Twilight *****) could out act Felicia Day and that's saying something.

I met Ms. Day in Germany last year on a scifi convention, she had some talks there and many people asked her a lot of game specific questions.
(germans+questions = interrogation)

She knows her gaming, trust me.

Heck, later on, we even had a nice talk about Mass Effect 2 and why it's impossible to kill Paarthurnax in Skyrim.
Can't get over the fact she was romancing Thane, but that aside....

She's a nice person, knows her stuff, and does not deserve such treatment by a rogue factor.
(Destructoid is awesome in general, so i call this a solo flight by that dick)
Go hate on that Chobot thing or sumtin'....

And as for Kirsten Stewart....watch The Runaways, that flick redeems her Twilight run.
Calling women "bitches" is not cool btw.

 

[happy_turtle]

Wow the mods are really falling asleep here, I've read through this and about 15-20% of the comments should be deleted (not for their opinion, but for the language used).

 

[Nukarama]

Does a man deserve to lose his job for some opinions he holds privately?

Well anything you put on the internet, much less twitter, isn't private, so he really brought it on himself.

 

[Kyle Grafton]

She's an entertainment personality that brings video games into new lights of entertainment mediums. That's what she does, and that's why she's known in the gaming community. She's a fan that knows how to work with video game stories or characters and bring them into what some gamers see as better video game themes movies or web series that are done WAY better then anything Holly Wood has been able to achieve.

Who's this other guy? What has he contributed? A few reviews? Some jokes about gaming culture?

 

[Knight Templar]

Does a man deserve to lose his job for some opinions he holds privately?

Well anything you put on the internet, much less twitter, isn't private, so he really brought it on himself.

He even suggested that he and Destructoid part ways.

 

[TheMagicLemur]

I still believe that Destructoid has no right to fire him because of this. Sure the government isnt stepping in or something but the next time some game-journalist wants to tweet about something he/she has to think about the fact that they might get fired. Indirectly the company sets up its own rules of freedom. I personally dislike Destructoid more after this than i dislike Ryan to be honest. I know that if this would happen in my country (sweden) im sure the media would follow the story with great focus. The company doesnt have rights to fire because of opinion. Especially in this case were the opinion in itself isnt to extreme, just how it took shape is terrible.

To me the comments were very specific about this one person and cannot be compared to the entire gender. The question as i see it is "I see you all the time, why are you famous? Or why should you be famous?". The same question that we ask ourselves about many other celebs.

I think that when you often publicly represent a company, it's fair that they'd be concerned that what you're saying reflects their opinion. I do think that really all that should have happened is a "this man's comments in no way reflect the views or opinions of Destructoid etc. etc." followed by a stern talking-to about how, given that he's known as a writer for them, he should maybe think before saying whatever stupid thing falls out of his head.

Also, technically he wasn't fired, just pressured into resigning. He could have said no and taken the issue to court.

 

[TheMagicLemur]

Does a man deserve to lose his job for some opinions he holds privately?

Well anything you put on the internet, much less twitter, isn't private, so he really brought it on himself.

Exactly. Unless your twitter account is set as a private one, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy for the things you say on it. As that one judge said, it's functionally equivalent to yelling it out a window.

 

[pezwitch]

And I don't know if any you understand this, but we're in a recession. Getting fired is a very BAD thing, and over a matter like this with this publicity--well, he's probably not going to be able to find a job in the game industry ever again. That is so fucked up in so many ways I don't know how to comment any further.

Now any of you under the age of 18 that would say it was just, if you haven't worked a day in your life or had to deal with unemployment, than you have no right to speak! NONE!

I'm over the age of 18, worked more than a day in my life and have had to deal with unemployment, so I would like to share my opinion with you.

My opinion is: In this age where employers are asking job seekers to sign into their private FaceBook accounts so they can snoop ( see this link [http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401999,00.asp] ) a freelance writer should have known there is no longer such a thing as a "Personal" opinion on the internet, Big Brother is always watching. And, in Mr. Perez's case, Big Brother did not like what he saw.

 

[Bmagada]

But this has nothing to do with her being a woman. It has to do with what she does. She's an actress. That's it.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

Well I kinda agree, what IS her job exactly?
It'd be fine if she listed herself as a voice actor, or developer, or writer, etc. but it's not and she doesn't. It's like she wants to be an actor, but she'll take what she can get, including video games.
(seriously, her video game credits includes 4 games and 1 web series; which doesn't really count since it was her start and that's a whole different conversation altogether)

But really she just seems to be one of the posterboys (or girls, god forbid I dont sepecify) for "quirky". Like Nathan Fillion has seem to become in recent years.

I don't think he did anything specifically wrong, maybe could've been a little less dick-ish. Definitively bad timing, considering all the recent hubbub about women in videogames. But if his job is to be offensive (as seems to be) then he shouldn't have been fired.

 

[theLadyBugg]

I don't really care for Felicia Day -- I haven't met her or seen panels or read interviews or listened to commentaries that would show me who she is as an individual, so as far as her personal character, I have no opinion. In the greater scope of her "celebrity" or status in the community, I don't find her particularly impressive. I don't get more excited when I discover she is involved in a project, and I don't consider her a vital part of the gaming world. My impression is that she is to gaming what Zooey Deschanel is for hipsters - cute, quirky, living the culture and relatively famous, but not necessarily an innovator or somebody we need to fawn over. And yes, I did watch The Guild - I enjoyed it, but my opinion remains unchanged.

Does that make me a sexist? Or a horrible person? Do I now deserve to get driven off the forums and online gaming because "WE LOVE FELICIA AND ANYONE WHO DOESN'T ISN'T WELCOME HERE!"? Honestly, jerk though this guy may have been acting, that's what this looks like. We can't forgive a writer -- and think about the functions of a writer -- for questioning why we're all supposed to be admiring a particular figure?

 

[theLadyBugg]

Does that make me a sexist? Or a horrible person? Do I now deserve to get driven off the forums and online gaming because "WE LOVE FELICIA AND ANYONE WHO DOESN'T ISN'T WELCOME HERE!"? Honestly, jerk though this guy may have been acting, that's what this looks like. We can't forgive a writer -- and think about the functions of a writer -- for questioning why we're all supposed to be admiring a particular figure?

I just made a post above you explaining that he garnered more flack for the way he responded than for the slightly crass way he wrote Day off. I explained that he wasn't fired, he resigned. Do you not see how absurd it is that there is an explanation directly above you and you still went with the knee-jerk reaction?

At the time I started writing, your post wasn't up, so I didn't see it above mine until after I had submit. So yes, I still went with *my* initial reaction, instead of preemptively amending my feelings to fit your announcement.

You may also notice that I made no direct mention to his career or Destructoid's decision to let him go -- as a business decision, it makes sense to cut the intern loose when he's generating that much bad publicity. My observations revolve around the (in my opinion) disproportionate community backlash to his original tweets and by extension any unfavorable opinions about Felicia Day. The article I read indicated that after he questioned Day's importance in a tweet directed to her, Wil Wheaton held him up to the masses as a figure to be scorned - which is where he really fell off and acted like a complete ass under fire, as you indicate. Most of the comments on that article, and in fact several on this thread have been along the same line -- who is he to question the Great and Powerful Felicia Day? I'm seeing her referred to as among the "pantheon of Geek Gods" for the first time over the past two days. I'm wondering if that's now the protocol for anything that touches her, similar to the way the entire world would freak out of anyone even thought about "being mean" to Taylor Swift two years ago.

 

[theLadyBugg]

(sigh) Sorry for snapping. As you've probably guessed, I'm getting weary of these sorts of stories. Ever since the Feminist Frequency Kickstarter incident, any mention of women around here turns the whole thread into a circle jerk of bad arguments, male privilege, and otherwise obnoxious behavior.

We cool?

We're totally fine. It is entirely too easy to get worked up about this kind of thing lately, and you were obviously just trying to set the record straight.

 

[ElPatron]

Hmm... I wonder what Ryan Perez has "provided to gaming." Oh, wait, nobody asks that question because he has a Y chromosome

And yes, it is sexist. I wasn't ready to go there until he made the "glorified booth babe" remark.

He was fired despite his "Y chromosome". There are glorified assholes in this industry too, I think it's hard to find Y chromosomes in booth babes unless events started hiring crossdressers/transsexuals.

"oh hey guise that Spic/Jew Zimmerman shot a Negro in self-defense, let's call it a hate crime because it's unacceptable to fight people from other races - meanwhile let's pretend we are not racist so that we can sell more newspapers!"

And to ask a question that way when you're supposed to be a journalist is completely unprofessional.

I'll parrot what Jim Sterling usually says.

There is not a single drop of "true journalism" in the gaming media. It has been declared that reviews are not objective and just represent personal opinions of the reviewer. There is also no investigation involved, but personal opinions are the bread and butter of gaming websites.

Copypasting a press release and calling it a "[REPORT]" is the same thing as me finding a pen I was looking for and shouting "I'm a Detective!".

Jim already stated that he feels like gaming media is more about blogging and writing than actual journalism.

 

[Spud of Doom]

I'm not sure where that agressive questioning came from. While I don't think she's particularly connected to gaming, I also don't see her claiming to be so. Why get so mad?

 

[eevangoh]

Oh look, some game journalist's being a dick to an actor. Nothing to see here.
OH WAIT! Are you saying he's being a dick to a WOMAN? Quick, assemble an army of champions and accuse him of sexism! Don't stop at that, demand his company fire his ass!

 

[LadyTL]

I don't think he should lose his job over something he did privately.

He didn't do it privately. Twitter feeds are not private, they are public. And when people called him out on it, he freaked out and attacked them.

I'm not sure why people even make this mistake.

Neither was I, so I asked him. Apparently he was totally ignorant of how twitter works.

her incredibly out of place choice of armor for the Dragon age stuff)

That armour was more modest than most of the armour in the games, but not out of place.

Maybe compared to dragon age 2 but in Dragon age 1, her armor would be down right slutty and it makes it worse given she picked it before DA2 came out.

 

[Knight Templar]

Maybe compared to dragon age 2 but in Dragon age 1, her armor would be down right slutty and it makes it worse given she picked it before DA2 came out.

You are aware that the outfit was for DA2? And that DA2 was out when they started making anything related to the character? The outfit might also be considered slutty compared to churchgoers outfits, but I fail to see how that's relevant to anything about DA2.

Furthermore, it was DAO I was thinking of when I made that comment. Remember the Dalish Leather Armour? Duster Leather Armour? Morrigan?

 

[Vault101]

who the hell necrod this theread? I demend blood!

[small/]oh crap Ive done it myself[/small]

 

[eevangoh]

OH WAIT! Are you saying he's being a dick to a WOMAN? Quick, assemble an army of champions and accuse him of sexism! Don't stop at that, demand his company fire his ass!

You do realize that he resigned of his own free will, right? He was the one who first suggested it, in fact.

What's it matter? Doesn't affect what I was trying to say in any way.