"Videogames Cause Rape" Author Gets Amazonbombed

[Phyroxis]

Remember kids, psychology is more than saying "I'm a psychologist," then saying your opinion is fact because you're a psychologist.

In other news Karma is a *****

Shes a psychiatrist (med doctor first) not a psychologist. Shes trained in a totally different way.

That being said, your statement still holds true.

And that exactly is that difference?

My understanding is Psychologists is broader researched based and deals more with people who are mentally healthy and functional, such as why do people buy red fruit instead of green fruit or whatever.

Psychiatrists are more for people who - how would Dr Silberman put it - just plain nuts and need to be institutionalised. Or at least I think that's how it works.

But who would be more qualified to comment on how certain mass media affects rate of certain types of violent crime? Seems more epidemiological, more for Psychologist.

You got it. Psychiatrists come with the medical model, ie there is a cure and it is drugs. While psychologists focus more on therapy and more permanent treatments (ie giving tools to the client that they can use to get better).

Psychologists also focus a lot more on research and, as you suggest, are generally more credentialed to talk on issues relating to psychology. Psychiatrists are more credentialed to speak on issues of medicine and drugs.

So in a nutshell

Road to crazytown: Psychologist

Crazytown itself: Psychiatrists

"games turn you into rapist" sounds like the "road to" crazytown. I can also understand how someone who "works in Crazytown" dealing with psycho rapists and that sort can get a distorted perspective of the typical use of video games, like if she only sees psychos playing them.

I doubt it. The only time a psychiatrist would see a client playing a video game is... well.. never.

This is just a case of someone being called as an "expert" but giving their personal opinion. She doesn't have empirical backing, therefore its just her opinion. Unfortunately the M.D. after her name makes some (undiscerning) people assume that what she's saying is fact.

 

[Gitty101]

Who honestly didn't see this one coming? I knew this was going to happen ^^

Now if you excuse me I've got a review to write...

 

[Ih8pkmn]

HA.

Even funnier is that some idiot PR woman named Fiona Volpe carpet bombed the bad reviews with a form letter about the story, saying it caused "Emotional Turmoil". All of her posts were deleted by Amazon, sadly, so you can't read the form letter anymore.

Also, her book does sound like utter bs. One of the reviews said that the title should be "How to be a Prostitute". and after reading an excerpt online, I can't really disagree.

 

[godofallu]

Heh I just had some fun adding a review.

 

[ark123]

1 - Not a word
2 - The best thing to do in these cases has always been and always will be to ignore these buffoons. This only fuels the "gamers are evil" bonfire the crazies at fox have going.

 

[ark123]

By the way, people saying "psychologists are crazy sellouts" are worse than this ***** themselves. She also has breasts, are all people that are equipped with a pair automatically evil as well?

There are cunts in every profession.

 

[gNetkamiko]

We've all heard this argument before, except that it involved people saying that fps games train kids to be violent, cold-blooded killers. I believe that both the topic argument of games with sexually explicit scenes teaching our youth that you sometimes need to exchange sexual favors to get what you want (or, on a much broader topic, that it's ok to rape others), and the argument about fps games making murderers out of our children fall under the category of... well, I hope that The Escapist doesn't mind, but to get an idea as to what the name of that category is, here's a link on youtube to a show hosted by Penn and Teller:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWr4htYp9dM

 

[CMDR Zero C]

mispost

 

[boholikeu]

While this may be seen as "bringing it to her level", I don't think it's on the same level as, say, writing hate mail and such. She made an incredibly stupid statement, and compared a large portion of the population to rapists. I'm actually surprised at how mature the comments on amazon are, given the offensiveness of her original comment.

Granted, but take a look at some of the comments in this bloody thread. People are wishing all manner of violence on her and I'm fairly certain at least one person said they wanted to bash her face in with a sledgehammer.

The reviews might not be offensive, but that doesn't change their childishness. An angry letter (hopefully worded strongly and with no threats of death or whatever, "hate mail" can still be composed with a respectful tone) would be a more appropriate forum then Amazon.com, who has zip to do with her views on video games. Hell, encouraging game production companies to step up and say something would be more appropriate then posting angry reviews about a book you've never even read. Doing that is nothing more than petty, childish revenge, and it does more harm to our collective reputations, than good and defending this kind of idiotic behavior seems really fucking counter-productive to combating any sort of lingering stereotypes that gamers are immature.

God, I so incredibly grow tired of the reactionary idiots that get lumped in with me, just because we feel that any attack on our media choices is somehow personal and a struggle of life and death. Get real, people, and more importantly, get over it. The idiots out there aren't going to stop being idiots just because we threw a collective tantrum on Amazon.com.

Perhaps the reviews are childish, but then so is making a baseless generalization about rape and video games like she did. What's more, I think Amazon is an appropriate forum based on the fact that's she's trying to sell a book based on her credentials as a psychiatrist. If she's going to make statements on TV without any proof, I wonder about the accuracy of the research for her book.

Also, the last time this happened, the "expert" that was amazon-bombed actually came out and said that they were told what to say by FOX News themselves. They said they weren't actually knowledgeable of any of the research on the subject. They were just using Fox's pre-written "talking points" list to make their argument.

So maybe you're right that idiots won't stop being idiots because of Amazon.com review bombs, but perhaps it'll get people like this to think twice before shooting their mouth off on Fox without any proof to back it up.

 

[sleekie]

I didn't know she had a book until she garnered all this free publicity. Amazon will remove all those bad reviews within days.

Who's the clever one here, again?

 

[Chewster]

First off there is a difference between calling someone a dickhead, asshat, or moron, and calling them a rapist, or child molester, a vast difference.

Second, she said that games are responsible for a non-existent increase in rape, therefore implying that gamers are rapists, I'm a gamer, hence I'm offended at being called a rapist.

Thirdly I loath violence, it is never my first response, however unlike some people I understand that sometimes violence is the answer, it can be used to demonstrate a point, that you are not to be fucked with. The modern idea that violence never solves anything is stupid, it works fine, it shows people there is repercussions to actions, i.e be a jerk and get a sore jaw.

No one is denouncing all violence, but punching someone out because they called you a name, regardless of how vile it might be, is a reactionary, childish response. That you think it to be appropriate is amusing, but ultimately immature, though I doubt we'll agree on that point. And you obviously can't loathe violence that much if it is your first response to being called a bad name. Honestly.

And again, she didn't call you personally a rapist. She implied that there was a casual link between video game playing an an increase in rape. While what she said was obviously foolish and somewhat offensive (though personally, I don't get generally get worked up when people call me names, I guess I'm kind of an adult like that) she didn't go and say "all gamers are rapists". Grow up man, and stop being offended by the people on Fox News. No one in their right mind takes them seriously anyway.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Awesome. I've never "Amazonbombed" anything before, but I will now.

To those of you saying this accomplishes nothing, I would beg to differ. By leaving these one-star reviews, people are hitting her where it really hurts: the wallet. Few things are more potent in today's society than actively encouraging the boycott of a person's or organization's products.

 

[M4A1Sopmod]

Just the smug look on her face in that picture makes me want to dislike her. Her argument was already pretty unfounded as generalizing in terms of psychology is usually about as effective as performing triple bypass heart surgery with a sledgehammer. It is nice to see such an unlikable person have karma bite them in the ass though.

 

[Dr.Fantastic]

So Its ok to Base a whole book on sex and becoming a whore but if a game even says the word "sex"then its a thing thats gonna corrupt our children and turn them into rapists and murderers.

Im glad karma payed This fucking ***** a visit

 

[FoolKiller]

Maybe her book is contributing to rape when the angry men find out that they are being manipulated by these women. I wonder if she thought of that.... oh no... .it has to be the video games. People like this amaze me with how pathetic they are.

Oh, and take note: She writes a book about manipulating people, and then does so with the media even though there isn't a shred of evidence supporting her. At least she practices what she preaches.

 

[TechNoFear]

I didn't know she had a book until she garnered all this free publicity. Amazon will remove all those bad reviews within days.

Who's the clever one here, again?

Her current book has been reduced in price by 32% since this started.

Her older book is now selling new for $0.02....

 

[OrokuSaki]

I have no idea who she is, but one look at her picture and I personally want to spam her opinions with unrelenting hate. Plus her opinions are absolutely moronic. To think that video games even remotely teach rape. In the average game with a sex-scene you have to do at LEAST 2 hours of rather boring work to get them to put out..... at least in RPGs.

Action games might just have cutscenes, but even in God of War they hid the scene so you had to hunt it down.

 

[standokan]

Go ahead 4chan, she´s all yours.

 

[ace_of_something]

Never take advice from a woman who looks like she stepped out of the original [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_%28TV_series%29]cast of Dallas.[/a]

 

[duchaked]

Good stuff.

If I'd have read about her book before even hearing about what she said about games. I'd have agreed with the bad reviews she's getting on it now.

It's detrimental for women to have some people like this advising them to promiscuously sleep around for no other reason than to get ahead.

This isn't the 80's. You can get by on your own merit. Of-course that's probably difficult if you don't have any.

Well I guess we can take that book as a confession of how she really made it into the public light.

me too...most likely. it just seems like such a topic can put her in a bad light even without/before the comment on video games causing rape

Odds are that Amazon will pull the plug on at least some of the one-star reviews fairly quickly, although the fact that most of them are civil and more or less on topic could splash some confusion on the process.

love this hahaha keep it classy guys, the best way to troll-er, screw someone over xD