The Felicia Day/Destructoid situation

[Vaar]

Well I'm over 18 and have only recently become unemployed, and I think he still deserves what he got. All I can say a job in the video game industry (regardless of how thankless it is), is still considered by and large to be a privilege.

It's not like the jobs been destroyed, it'll just go to someone more worthy of it (hopefully anyway).

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

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

1. they weren't private as soon as they were out there

2. in NO WAY was what he said valid..it wasn't a question or concern, it doesn't matter who he was saying it too or weather or not you agree with him...going to someone "YOU! justify yourself to me!" is a dick move, the intention was not to ask a question but to insult

3. did he deserve to lose his job?...no, but it stand as an example of why you don;t do stupid shit with social media...its sad yes, but it happens

For what it is worth, he seems to have apologized for his remarks.

I knew this was going to explode in hatred for absolutely everyone. Someone needs to make a 'love and tolerate' macro with Felicia, who, for the record, only had this to say throughout the entire ordeal:

@PissedOffRyno I accept your apology, genuinely hope you mean it, and hope this can end all the hostility being flung both ways.

Yep. Totally seeing why people hate her.

CAPTCHA: smashed potatoe

Yes, captcha, a potatoe has indeed been smashed. Wonder when he will be for dinner? Mmmm...

 

[Murmillos]

I love how people are calling him sexist...what part of his comment is sexist?

By many indications of this thread, everything he said was just a dickish (if valid) foot in the mouth comments up until he decided to compare that she was no better then a glorified booth babe. That's where many felt he crossed the line (and turning the comment directionally sexist).

 

[clangunn]

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!

Someone might have addressed Nomanslander's post already, but I think that this is actually an invaluable lesson for people under 18 who haven't worked full time.

If you are relatively new to a job don't go out of your way to draw negative attention to your employer. Otherwise you. will. lose. your. job.

Secondary side note - if you are a working professional and like to muck around on personal social media outlets like Twitter do not forget that you are on a social media platform. Invariably, your "totally rad" dumb ass post/picture/update will get out and find it's way back to either (a) your current employer or (b) potential future employers who are now stockpiling this data for use in the screening process.

 

[PirateRose]

Felicia Day is an active gamer, she plays video games, she has a level 85 priest in WOW. She's like any other male journalist/show host in the industry, who plays games and present themselves as a personality.

She does more than just be a pretty face though. She has voice acted roles in games, such as Fallout: New Vegas, Dragon Age II, and Guild Wars 2. She also cosplays pretty seriously.

She's a nerd to the core that's living a dream nerd job.


I never thought I'd be coming to Felicia Day's defense, because she isn't hyper sexualized like so many of the women in the industry are. She doesn't go around sucking hotdogs and licking PSPs to get attention. She dresses like a warrior elf with duel blades.

And that's why this issue comes off incredibly sexist. She does similar things to most of the male personalities in the industry, but she comes into question and is compared to a booth babe. A woman who would probably not care about video games and geeky things, they just get paid to stand around and look sexy. Felicia Day is sexy because she's herself and isn't trying.

BTW, this Ryan Perez guy seems to say a lot of bone head things and this has been a long time coming. He says fantasy fans are like crazy twilight fans, because they like the same old stuff (elves and dragons) in their fantasy worlds.

 

[Vivi22]

You know who really IS sexist? Her fans that are rabidly defending her from a GOOD question, yes, the way it was worded came across as being a total a-hole, but he has a damn point.

Except he doesn't really have a point unless he's prepared to ask the same question of just about every games journalist out there. What have many of them done which makes their presence on the gaming scene any more valid than hers? Many of them, it could be argued, have contributed less to the actual production of games. She's an avid gamer, has lent her voice to a number of titles, and has developed quite the fan base both as a result of her acting, and her web series. How is her career any less valid than the careers of people who do nothing more than write about games for a living? Or do video reviews online?

If his question is valid there'd be an answer to those questions which isn't "because she doesn't have a penis" but I'm having trouble thinking of one.

Moreover, her notoriety in gaming culture doesn't need to be justified to him. She has nothing to prove to anyone, and if he wants to judge her on her actual merits and find her wanting, then he's more than welcome to ignore her, or even state what she's done that is bad for gaming, or how he thinks she could be doing what she does better. But that's not what he did. He questioned her place in gaming culture on the basis that she's done nothing for gaming professionally when a simple google or wikipedia search would demonstrate that the assumption he bases his statements on is demonstrably false, and which is something I doubt he would ever have asked a male in a similar cultural position.

 

[Khazoth]

I am really starting to hate gamers and their need to wax philosophical about feminist and racist issues every time some white guy says something insensitive. How about we highlight a racist woman for once, eh? No? Ah well.


Yeah, thanks, the escapist community and these incessant threads have turned me into a gamer that hates other gamers.

 

[Kiwilove]

i'm not sure if this has any bearing on the conversation or not, but i think if HE was a woman, s/he'd still have been fired. It was a profoundly stupid statement, it reflected badly on the company, and it showed poor research skills. Also, he was misusing the company name to make himself seem credible, seeing as he's an intern, not a journalist. They fired him 'cause he sucks both at his job and the job he was pretending to have. Simple.

 

[Elate]

Hm, usually I would rail against all these people calling him sexist..

But he kinda is, she is a pretty decent actor, last I checked that's somewhat more impressive than some game journalist I've never heard of.

The dude is a dick, he shouldn't have lost his job over it though, it isn't even tangibly related to his job, on his private twitter account. That said, people are expected to act the part, not run around demanding people explain themselves, when said individual has no arguable merits of their own worth explaining in the first place.

tldr: Guys a dick, deserved it.


Off topic: What the fuck captcha, it asks me "What is math" gives me a drop down list with crap like "cabbage" and an algebra equation, I pick the equation, it's wrong. WHAT.

 

[Khazoth]

I am really starting to hate gamers and their need to wax philosophical about feminist and racist issues every time some white guy says something insensitive. How about we highlight a racist woman for once, eh? No? Ah well.

Find me an example of one and I will tell you she's wrong. I'll even say why if you want.

No, i'd just say no but i'd get a warning for a one word post. Just no. Unlike the people who make these threads EVERY DAY, I have better things to do then to browse twitter looking for internet celebrity drama.

The only one I can think of isn't related to gaming, but Obscuras Lupa acting like an entitled five year old and causing drama in a situation she had no buisness being in, then not getting in trouble from her boss, who she happens to be friends with.

But yeah, unless Yahtzee goes flashing his willy to every booth babe at E3 I tend to stay in the dark until someone makes a post on the escapist forums that makes me want to barf up three feet of lower intestines.

 

[Zeckt]

He was a bit of a dick but I hate how we have to be so politically correct that if you say one thing wrong you get publicly lynched and attacked by a million internet jackals who want to tear your corpse apart. When did we become such wussy's?

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

I have no idea who she is, so I don't know what she's contributed. I don't think he should lose his job over something he did privately.

 

[The Rainmaker]

I can't stand Felicia Day's acting and I've always pictured her to have an annoying and arrogant personality, mostly because of how she seems to really want to and enjoy coming off as "hot". The only reason this comment is such a big deal is because he is supposed to be a professional, but I mean come on, he wouldn't have posted this if he didn't only have like 50 followers. Besides, I could see myself tweeting about why she is so popular as well, as I simply don't like her. People have to stop getting so mad at the opinions of random people.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I have no idea who she is, so I don't know what she's contributed. I don't think he should lose his job over something he did privately.

It's hardly "private" if you tell the entire internet about it via twitter.

It's not like he's writing this in his special secret diary that he keeps locked in a desk drawer with "gurls keep out" written on the cover.

He's writing it on Twitter, where everyone on the internet can see it.

 

[Vivi22]

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. Obviously anything you say on any social media is public and there's the potential for people to see it that you might not want to, including your employer. So if you're going to act like a dick in public you're going to be treated like one.

And I actually do agree with firing him considering he was working for a major gaming related website. Like it or not, how you behave publicly is a reflection on your employer, especially when it's known who you work for. If I owned a company and one of my employees said the crap he did I'd want to can him to on simple principle, not to mention the entire anyone with a brain could figure out who he worked for. Taking no stand on this at all is simply admitting you don't have a problem with it. Bad business with such a big backlash.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

He did something that wasn't very smart and reflected poorly on the company he was associated with, so they distanced themselves from him to avoid a hassle. It happens all the time, much less publicly, in situations large and small. This is normal people. The only reason we're in a lather about it is other events that happened to have occurred recently that tangentially relate to the circumstances of this particular instance.

 

[LadyTL]

Honestly I somewhat agree with him in that I feel that she is over-saturated in gaming and nerd culture. She chose not once but several times to flaunt around in boob enhancing armor (her character from the game on the guild, the music video she did, her incredibly out of place choice of armor for the Dragon age stuff). If she was that great of an actress by herself they would not have referenced her part in Fallout as being voiced by "Felicia Day from the Guild" they would have just said by Felicia Day. She only got those parts by The Guild being popular at that time on Xbox and now she is being used and treated the same way as Olivia Munn.

 

[Knight Templar]

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.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I think the blog Escher girls best described what was wrong with the guys statement .

Why I wanted to point this out is that, again, this is an example of reducing female geeks to ?they?re just women? because he even ADMITS he had no real idea who she is. So, then what?s his complaint? She?s a woman. She?s a geek. She?s well-known. Therefore it MUST be because of her looks, therefore it MUST be because she?s a woman, and not be because she?s witty, or clever, or anything. She?s just like a ?booth babe? because well? she?s a woman, what else could she offer?

And that?s the underlying message of both of the above, and a LOT of the harassment and misogyny that is directed at women gamers, women comic book fans, at women in geek spaces:

You?re just a woman. Your worth is your body. We don?t care who you are, what you think, what your issues are, how good you are at what you do, or anything else.

In another thread on this forum a guy is like 'I hate this girl for showing off her rig on youtube. She is just doing it for attention' and then points out that the reason it annoys him is because she is attractive...

Like it is her fault she is pretty or something. Would you make a youtube video and put yourself out there in public without looking your best?

 

[Vault101]

In another thread on this forum a guy is like 'I hate this girl for showing off her rig on youtube. She is just doing it for attention' and then points out that the reason it annoys him is because she is attractive...

Like it is her fault she is pretty or something. Would you make a youtube video and put yourself out there in public without looking your best?

and if she wasnt attractive those youtube commetnts would have been

"get a Wii fit fat ugly *****"

you can't win eather way