The Felicia Day/Destructoid situation

[Archraven]

so I feel like a lot of information is being left out of the arguments here, such as the fact that he personally apologized to her and said himself that his statements where both stupid and ignorant, and that he felt he deserved most of the reception he received. If you don't believe me you can check his twitter feed.

Personally after reading his explanation and apology I think its just a case of a guy getting drunk and making a very public mistake that blew up in his face. Personally after seeing his apology I don't think he should have been fried but considering that he was basically an intern for the site and was not being paid I can see why the site would not want to keep him around after this for fear that he may do something similar again. I read his apology myself and it came off as genuine so really for me that should be the end of it. Of course at this point is gone way further then I thought possible with people on different sides using it to argue about things they most likely had strong opinions about before the tweets even happened. But I guess that is the nature of the internet, especially on a site like twitter where almost everything is public.

As far as the question of does he have a point? I would say no. She is popular, hard working, and passionate about video games as a hobby. Companies have the right to hire her to do voice work or speak at press events to generate publicity for their products just as they can other any celebrity, and she has the right to accept that work to both make money and raise her own profile. At least she is passionate and outspoken about her love of gaming and has doe voice work in games. You could really level his questions to any celebrity who shows up at any gaming event really though so for me what really makes the statements bad is the hostile nature of confronting her directly with it in a very public forum.

As for the last comment he made goes I am just going to say that I felt it was at the least in bad taste and brings up a lot of implications which I don't think he intended, though based on his apology I don't think he intended almost any of this.

 

[Elamdri]

I agree with everything you said OP.

"Miss Day" does nothing. In fact, the video series she's popular for just focused a sitcom around a game. A game, mind you, that isn't even real. She's not adding to any specific game, she's just there to entertain the community. Oh, and now she's doing Let's Plays just to keep the fanbase going. Like we didn't have enough of those.

She's not even a journalist, nor does she give any insight to designers. She's just a glorified fan. Even CHOBOT has more on her.

and are there not alot of guys who are pretty much the same? why don;t they come under such criticsm

To me, they are. Most Let's Players and show creators especially. For instance, unless someone can tell me what Michael Shanks does, he just made a good geeky show. Nothing more.

Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.

 

[Cheesepower5]

Hmm... I wonder what Ryan Perez has "provided to gaming." Oh, wait, nobody asks that question because he has a Y chromosome and it's not a good question.

Yeah, far be it to see anybody EVER being cruel to a man. Not like losing his job for a few dumbass comments, that'd never happen.

Yeah, because getting in hot water over sexist remarks is totally the same as being the target of sexist remarks, guise. (Like, seriously, did anyone call, for instance, Nathan Fillion a "glorified booth babe" for being in and helping to promote a Halo game?)

Prove it was sexist. He never said anything to women, he said it to Felicia Day. Last I checked, Felicia Day is not women.

So, in order for something to be sexist, it has to be directed against an entire gender as a whole, rather than just using gender, gender inequalities and other unpleasant things related to gender as a means to insult? OK then...

"HEY *****! GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE ME ANOTHER SANDWICH WHILE I MASTURBATE TO THE THOUGHT OF CHEATING ON YOU WITH YOUR SISTER YOU DUMB *****!"

That was me making derogatory comments to my girlfriend and putting her down based on her gender. But it's like, totally OK you guys, because I only said it to her, not all women. Last time I checked, ***** is not women, right fellas?

[sub]I didn't actually just say that stuff btw, just so we're clear[/sub]

No, but it should constitute something that is demeaning to the gender as a whole and not just, you know, Felicia Day. Is this so complicated? He wasn't acting like the **** you guys are making him out to be, he was clearly some form of lesser ****. He insulted Wheaton, nobody gives a fuck. You ignore this and say he targets women exclusively, but clearly his issues extend far beyond just women. If I had to venture a guess, he's probably a bitter "hardcoar gamur" who hates fake gamers in general. It doesn't all boil down to your black and white world of EVIL SEXIST PIGS and GOOD CHIVALROUS GUYS LIKE ME. People who do this shit are just trying to feel better about themselves.

I recall numerous forum posts complaining about people like Neil Patrick Harris and Will Wheaton not deserving big spots on E3 because of not really representing gaming, I'm not going to dig weeks back into every game tabloid's comments and forum posts to link you specific examples.

Not analogous. Notice how that sort of criticism didn't involve terminology like "glorified booth babe," and didn't involve raging at them for being visible in gaming at all.

I doubt it would, as I've never seen a male "booth babe." You can discuss that problem all you like, I'm sure we could both agree that booth babes are ridiculous and stupid as fuck, that's not what matters. The same criticisms, with similarly venomous terminology is levied against men all the time. Now it's a woman, and people freak out. It's just blatant what's going on here, and that's a huge negative reaction to a few assholes that make white knights attack the neutral zone, of all fucking people.

Public Service Announcement: Don't call shit like this sexist kids! It totally undermines the meaning when you use it on REAL sexists like Rush Limbaugh or the Islamic extremists. Seriously, I doubt I'll ever take the word misogynist seriously again, and this past month in video game tabloids alone is basically the cause.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Ever think she's acting like a gamer because she's not attractive enough to be a leading lady and not talented enough to be a dramatic actress?

This sort of thing isn't helping your case any. It's inaccurate in a way that's immediately obvious to anyone with an internet connection [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1260407/] and fails to address the core issue re: people not getting their jimmies rustled over whether Nathan Fillion/Vin Diesel/Will Wheaton et al. have demonstrated sufficient nerdiness. ("Okay, Vin Diesel, you claim to be a D&D player, so answer me this: as a 10th level 3.5 character using only materials provided in the PHB, MM, and DMG, how do you break the wish economy? You have one minute to answer.")

 

[DigitalAtlas]

I agree with everything you said OP.

"Miss Day" does nothing. In fact, the video series she's popular for just focused a sitcom around a game. A game, mind you, that isn't even real. She's not adding to any specific game, she's just there to entertain the community. Oh, and now she's doing Let's Plays just to keep the fanbase going. Like we didn't have enough of those.

She's not even a journalist, nor does she give any insight to designers. She's just a glorified fan. Even CHOBOT has more on her.

and are there not alot of guys who are pretty much the same? why don;t they come under such criticsm

To me, they are. Most Let's Players and show creators especially. For instance, unless someone can tell me what Michael Shanks does, he just made a good geeky show. Nothing more.

Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.

But the voice acting came BECAUSE of her fandom videos. Not before. She didn't WANT to be a voice-actor. They just thought it'd be a cool cameo because she's everywhere and gets worshiped yet does nothing.

Also, adding to the medium and adding to the community are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. All she's doing is showing her appreciation to the medium through the community. She's not a f*cking ambassador, and she's not an insightful analyst. She had a camera, and made a show that went viral.

 

[Seneschal]

Hmm... I wonder what Ryan Perez has "provided to gaming." Oh, wait, nobody asks that question because he has a Y chromosome and it's not a good question.

Only...Ryan Perez is a reviewer for a web magazine and Felicia Day is famous for doing web comedies about gaming, who also runs a weekly series called Vaginal Fantasy and starred in a Bioware game.

While she obviously has contributed more to gaming than Perez, this is clearly NOT a matter of sexism but I remember the community outrage when that Jessica Chobot from IGN was announced to be in Mass Effect 3, no one raged when Felicia was in Dragon Age 2. This is just one guy questioning why Felicia is so famous on the web and in all honesty, that's probably the where the sexism lies, in the fact that she's female. Jim Sterling from this site and Destructoid gets questioned all the time, people say MUCH worse than what Perez said about Day but because Felicia has female tits as opposed to fatty man ones everyone's in outrage and I think it's pathetic that when a journalist says such a throw away remark in private about a woman the internet points the finger and calls him sexist

Felicia Day doesn't represent a gaming publication. Chobot does, and she's no actress to boot. With her involvement, it looked like BioWare was bribing IGN in broad daylight, in front of everybody. Now, I don't know about you, but I like my gaming scores rigged to 8.9 behind closed doors.

No, it's not about her being female (not the way you think). Imagine if a film critic attacked Howard Shore or Hans Zimmer by saying: "What do you actually do for film? Did you film anything? You're just a glorified street performer!" You can bet your ass he'd get chewed out.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I recall numerous forum posts complaining about people like Neil Patrick Harris and Will Wheaton not deserving big spots on E3 because of not really representing gaming, I'm not going to dig weeks back into every game tabloid's comments and forum posts to link you specific examples.

Not analogous. Notice how that sort of criticism didn't involve terminology like "glorified booth babe," and didn't involve raging at them for being visible in gaming at all.

I doubt it would, as I've never seen a male "booth babe."

Precisely. This type of criticism is generally not leveled at men involved in games, and when it is, it is not presented in a way that belittles the men in an explicitly gendered way.

Public Service Announcement: Don't call shit like this sexist kids! It totally undermines the meaning when you use it on REAL sexists like Rush Limbaugh or the Islamic extremists.

Let's put it this way: I can assure you (based on past experience) that it sucks to get hit in the face with a hockey stick. It also sucks (but not as much) when I stub my toe. The fact that stubbing my toe is not as painful as getting hit in the face with a hockey stick doesn't mean I don't avoid stubbing my toe where possible.

 

[jamesbrown]

And because nobody answered my question, I went crying to Google. To my surprise, I found this article [http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/07/01/the-wreck-of-the-s-s-censorship-or-how-writers-steer-their-careers-into-the-rocks/] on top. So go and read it because it's by Chuck Wendig. I still didn't get my answers, but I love the dude's writing.

This article is very good, thank you for pointing it out; Also who cares who "contributed to gaming" seriously in the end, good games matter, if you were part of that process get a cookie ( and lots of money); otherwise who cares.

 

[TAdamson]

On his personal twitter? That's pretty goddam stupid if you ask me. Firing sounds a bit extreme in this situation, but we know how the video gaming community feels about about women. We can't can't handle anything calmly.

[sub](past 2 months of rape and feminism threads on the escapist)[/sub]

i think sexism is wrong(and most -isims)
but an extreme response by the employer to sack the offender doesnt help anyone. he'll probably walk away harbouring more ignorance and hate due to the injustice he no doubt sees he was subjected to.

you can not force tolerance, only hope to show/teach/lead by example.

Firing him help's Destructoid's image, or it at least prevents a black mark to their image. They lost next to nothing in firing him, as this guy was an intern and hadn't contributed anything of note other than a sexist question on Twitter.

They're not firing him to teach him a lesson. They're firing him because he publicly made an ass of himself and, by proxy, the company he worked for.

i understand that side of it, good publicity etc etc. but to clarify, i meant this doesnt really help the battle gainst sexism.
CAPCHA: i like you

It's not about the sexism... It's about being an unprofessional douchecannon. The fact that he's a sexist unprofessional douchecannon just adds to it.

 

[Elamdri]

Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.

But the voice acting came BECAUSE of her fandom videos. Not before. She didn't WANT to be a voice-actor.

So what? The question posed was "What has she contributed to gaming."

They just thought it'd be a cool cameo because she's everywhere and gets worshiped yet does nothing.

I wouldn't call writing, producing and staring in a popular web series "Nothing." People like Day because she's nice, funny and most of her audience relates well to her. Yes she's attractive, but there are plenty of attractive women who play video games who don't get nearly the attention that Day does because they don't share her personality.

Also, adding to the medium and adding to the community are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. All she's doing is showing her appreciation to the medium through the community. She's not a f*cking ambassador, and she's not an insightful analyst. She had a camera, and made a show that went viral.

As it turns out, (given the Recent Retake ME3 movement) video game communities are very important to the industry. If Felicia Day goes out and says "Hey, lets boycott this video game because it's sexist" or "Lets petition Bioware to change the ME3 ending" or "Lets ask this developer to add a character back to a game we really like" THAT can have a lot of impact if all of her followers do what she says. She's a celebrity and part of that appeal is being able to mobilize people very easily. If you don't recognize the importance of that, you are very naive. I guarantee you game developers certainly recognize it.

 

[SecondPrize]

These are not questions this guy was asking. I know you might be confused by the presence of question marks, but these aren't questions. This was a demand for justification brought on by "OMG why are THEY talking about THIS B*** again," whiskey and "This will get my name out there for sure. Yes, this plan cannot possibly go wrong."
It's not a question because such a demand for justification certainly isn't worth a response from Ms Day, and dumb as he is, there's no planet on which this asshat could have actually thought that she needed to reply to him. If you don't expect a response then, your question isn't a question. In this case, it appears to be, instead, a finely tuned plan designed to get oneself fired. I really can't see another outcome when you're punching above your weight-class and being such a dick about it like this guy, but I'm not a complete fucking moron so I just can't get into his head and guess how he saw this ending.

 

[Evan Waters]

I agree with everything you said OP.

"Miss Day" does nothing. In fact, the video series she's popular for just focused a sitcom around a game. A game, mind you, that isn't even real. She's not adding to any specific game, she's just there to entertain the community. Oh, and now she's doing Let's Plays just to keep the fanbase going. Like we didn't have enough of those.

She's not even a journalist, nor does she give any insight to designers. She's just a glorified fan. Even CHOBOT has more on her.

and are there not alot of guys who are pretty much the same? why don;t they come under such criticsm

To me, they are. Most Let's Players and show creators especially. For instance, unless someone can tell me what Michael Shanks does, he just made a good geeky show. Nothing more.

Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.

But the voice acting came BECAUSE of her fandom videos. Not before. She didn't WANT to be a voice-actor. They just thought it'd be a cool cameo because she's everywhere and gets worshiped yet does nothing.

Except, you know, act, and write an entire web series and such.

Here's a question. Why does she HAVE to prove any kind of True Gamer Cred to anyone? Would it be so wrong if her perceived geekiness were just a foot in the door to an acting career? What damage would be done? This isn't a church, or a political party, we don't need to look for wolves in sheep's clothing.

What kind of criteria does she need to produce? What business is it of Ryan Perez?

Seriously, the woman is being criticized for becoming famous within a specific subculture and using that niche to get work. The acting business is, in case you haven't noticed, RIDICULOUSLY competitive, and focusing on a niche to sell yourself is probably the least unethical way to get ahead in it short of being discovered at a laundromat.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

Ever think she's acting like a gamer because she's not attractive enough to be a leading lady and not talented enough to be a dramatic actress?

This sort of thing isn't helping your case any. It's inaccurate in a way that's immediately obvious to anyone with an internet connection [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1260407/] and fails to address the core issue re: people not getting their jimmies rustled over whether Nathan Fillion/Vin Diesel/Will Wheaton et al. have demonstrated sufficient nerdiness. ("Okay, Vin Diesel, you claim to be a D&D player, so answer me this: as a 10th level 3.5 character using only materials provided in the PHB, MM, and DMG, how do you break the wish economy? You have one minute to answer.")

Feel free to call me an idiot, but what exactly is made obvious by her IMDB page? That she's gotten more work after The Guild? Or that aside from her recurring role on a SyFy show (which would no doubt want her for to garner her 'nerd' audience) she's pretty much only had minor guess starring roles in TV shows?

People don't get their "jimmies rustled" over Tricia Helfer being doing game voices and being at expos either, because she doesn't try to act like she's "one of us".

Nathan Fillion doesn't pimp himself out to gamers, quite the opposite in fact, he tends to tell us to shut up from time to time.

Pretty certain Vin Diesel could answer that, he seems to be somewhat of an anomaly.

Do people like Will Wheaton?

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Hmm... I wonder what Ryan Perez has "provided to gaming." Oh, wait, nobody asks that question because he has a Y chromosome and it's not a good question.

Only...Ryan Perez is a reviewer for a web magazine and Felicia Day is famous for doing web comedies about gaming, who also runs a weekly series called Vaginal Fantasy and starred in a Bioware game.

While she obviously has contributed more to gaming than Perez, this is clearly NOT a matter of sexism but I remember the community outrage when that Jessica Chobot from IGN was announced to be in Mass Effect 3, no one raged when Felicia was in Dragon Age 2. This is just one guy questioning why Felicia is so famous on the web and in all honesty, that's probably the where the sexism lies, in the fact that she's female. Jim Sterling from this site and Destructoid gets questioned all the time, people say MUCH worse than what Perez said about Day but because Felicia has female tits as opposed to fatty man ones everyone's in outrage and I think it's pathetic that when a journalist says such a throw away remark in private about a woman the internet points the finger and calls him sexist

Felicia Day doesn't represent a gaming publication. Chobot does, and she's no actress to boot. With her involvement, it looked like BioWare was bribing IGN in broad daylight, in front of everybody. Now, I don't know about you, but I like my gaming scores rigged to 8.9 behind closed doors.

No, it's not about her being female (not the way you think). Imagine if a film critic attacked Howard Shore or Hans Zimmer by saying: "What do you actually do for film? Did you film anything? You're just a glorified street performer!" You can bet your ass he'd get chewed out.

I agree with your Chobot thing, Felicia is actually an actress so it's all fair enough but honestly, questioning famous composers about what they've done for films is completely different from asking an actress who is treated like a gaming celebrity even though she has very little to do with the actual industry.

You can't compare the two, it's like you're asking both Hitchcock and someone who enjoys films what they contribute to cinema, obviously Hitchcock contribute more than the film-goer.

 

[GM.Casper]

There's a new defense tactic for sexist asholes apparently. When someone calls them out on their bullshit, they now use the 'oh you are just 'white knight'/feminazi if you accuse me of being sexist'.

 

[Evan Waters]

I agree with your Chobot thing, Felicia is actually an actress so it's all fair enough but honestly, questioning famous composers about what they've done for films is completely different from asking an actress who is treated like a gaming celebrity even though she has very little to do with the actual industry.

So, composers contribute to their industry but performers don't? Odd line to draw there.

 

[sabercrusader]

I don't think he really deserved to be fired for it, but it was totally uncalled for. Anyone could just as easily ask what he did that's so important to the medium. Regardless if his questions had some validity or not, that was certainly not the way to express them. Very unprofessional. Either way, I kinda like Felicia Day, and while I can't really say how she's contributed to the medium, she hasn't really hurt it either, so really, she's just kinda there. Nothing wrong with that honestly.

 

[Ruzinus]

Wait a sec, they fired a guy for asking a question? Has the whole world been P-whipped?

Being a prick or not, he asked a simple question, and because he asked it towards a women everyone got sensitive and Perez became the villain.

I'm sorry, this isn't like when that one sexist and racist DJ called a bunch of women from women's basketball "nappy headed hoes,' this is completely different.

He asked a questions that is honestly on a lot of peoples minds towards a lot of women in gaming. The fact is the industry wants more women involved, but name me a female personality in gaming that isn't "cute" at least and I'll show you the only reason they have their jobs. So the industry is sexist to begin with and firing a man that asked such a simple question is OUTRAGES!

OUT-FUCKING-RAGES!!

"JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTENCE TO ME YOU WORTHLESS BOOTH-BABE!" doesn't carry any sort of sexist undertones to it?

Umm, I've read his question he said:

"could you be considered nothing more than a glorified booth babe? You don't seem to add anything creative to the medium."

What you did there was blantantly place additional words into a person's mouth to villify them.

Do you not see how FUCKING wrong that is?

Don't comment back! I'm not interested in arguing with someone that can't even read a simple twitter message correctly..>>

He also said, "Do you matter at all?" as a direct question.

I don't see any semantic difference between doing that and saying, "Justify your existence."

 

[Knobody13]

She's and actress lol
her job is to bring OTHER peoples creativity to life
(yes i know acting can be a creative process too, but this is far less relevant in games)
that's like blaming paint for not being creative, or contributing anything new to painting.

As for him getting fired, Destructoid prides itself on open-minded, intelligent, and creative content providers. This is not the kind of discourse they want associated with their name in any way. In regards to it being his private account, he posted it TO Felicia Day, on her twitter. That means, 2 MILLION people heard him say that she had no value other than being a pair of breasts to be oogled by gamers. Personally I think Destructoid made the right choice.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

I agree with your Chobot thing, Felicia is actually an actress so it's all fair enough but honestly, questioning famous composers about what they've done for films is completely different from asking an actress who is treated like a gaming celebrity even though she has very little to do with the actual industry.

So, composers contribute to their industry but performers don't? Odd line to draw there.

She's been in..what 1 set of DLC for 1 game? Ok then, it's like asking an extra in a film what they contribute.

Serious, she's a film and tv actress, the only reason she is a gaming celebrity is because she likes them and she's a girl. I would be completely on the other side of the fence is he had said this to some high profile game actress but Day hasn't contributed much, if anything to gaming. TV and film maybe but seeing as he commented on gaming and he's a game reviewer he has the right and reason to say it, maybe not on twitter or to her face or whatever but still he has a point.