Temple of Kraden News:
| Greetings, heathen. Perhaps some fortuitous blessing of Kraden's grace hath led you to our humble Temple, or perhaps you are simply curious about this strange and wonderful cult. Should you be willing - and dare to hope - to achieve enlightenment, the door opens before you. Lo! Leave your old life behind! For once you step through, you become something more than just yourself. You become a Kradenette. Are you willing to make the rapturous plunge? Do you have what it takes? One of us! One of us! One of us! Already one of us? Make your presence known: |
| SSB: Women, Men, & Gaming; I will make the topic | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 6 2014, 09:34 AM (14,627 Views) | |
| Ian889 | Sep 18 2014, 06:29 PM Post #61 |
|
Death comes to all of those who oppose me.
![]()
|
So for the examples of my previous post I'm going to post it mathematically. Anita wasn't attacked by the same amount of people before her video that she was after. I mean before this set of videos me, and probably a fairly large percent of the gaming population had never even heard of her. So before videos came out say 300 people attacked and 400 people knew her. All of whom I consider to be sexist. After video came out 3000 people attacked her and 8000 people knew of her. I'm saying a good portion of that 2700 people that didn't attack her before hand aren't inherently sexist. I apologize that I didn't make that clear the first time. Honestly I don't see it as everyone who dislikes and criticizes Anita is sexist. Like I stated before much in the same way every person who call me a F** online isn't a homophobe, and those who call each other N's isn't a racist. The truth is there are just hateful people in this world that will hate anyone just because they can. There isn't always an ulterior motive behind why they are doing/saying stuff. Some people just want to hurt others through message boards, chatrooms, and forums. Nell "'the gaming community is (incredibly- I'm going to add in this word because it's the truth) hostile, period'" This is what I see as fact. As I've stated I've seen in more than enough times to more than enough different groups of people for anyone to tell me that this is anything less than fact. You see it as a group of people who are attacking women because their women. To this you're correct there are people who do this yet as stated above not everyone who attacks a women hates women. Yet I see these people who attack women as the same people who will attack Gays for being gays, other races for being other races. Also these people I'd put money on are also the most likely to target people who don't play mid lane correctly, for using noobtubes, for camping, for not being good enough at dark souls ect. Almost none of these people are mutually exclusive to any one minority demographic. |
![]() |
|
| Kiki | Sep 18 2014, 06:40 PM Post #62 |
|
Kiki Martius Chantico
![]()
|
They may not be racist/sexist/homophobic deep in their souls, but if they are using racist/sexist/homophobic language to attack others, does it matter? It has the same effect. 2700 people aren't inherently sexist. So the rest are? That's a huge percentage. Or am I misunderstanding your post? (Totally likely hehe) |
![]() |
|
| Ian889 | Sep 18 2014, 07:05 PM Post #63 |
|
Death comes to all of those who oppose me.
![]()
|
That's actually been my point. The language used is to hurt, and is not entirely congruent with the feelings these people have. The issue to me is how do you stop people from being assholes to other people. The numbers are completely made up. It was just to help illustrate a post I made previously. But it's like this 3000(Number of people attacking Anita,)= 300 (People attacking her even before her videos came up who are more than likely sexist.) +2700 (Some of whom are sexist say another 300, but I think the majority of them aren't attacking her due to her gender but because it's gaming. Gaming communities can be extremely toxic especially when they feel that something they hold dear to them is being attacked.) |
![]() |
|
| Nell | Sep 18 2014, 07:11 PM Post #64 |
|
The Pretender
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Ian, I never said it was exclusive to one demographic - but the fact that the gaming community appears to hate everyone is irrelevant to the fact that the gaming community's treatment of women is overwhelmingly misogynistic. The equivalent proposition is that the gaming community's treatment of gay people is overwhelmingly homophobic. The fact that the gaming community hates everyone and is rampantly misogynistic are not mutually exclusive propositions. Neither does one explain the other. In that way, bringing up the fact that the gaming community is hostile to everyone/is hostile to other minority groups is, like I've said before, irrelevant to the point. The fact that they (we?) treat women differently than they do men, and gay people differently to the way they treat straight people* is actually in itself indicative that they (we?) don't hate everyone as a blanket nihilistic attitude, but rather, they pick out subjectivities, and they deride them in ways specific to that subjectivity (which is the damaging part). It seems pretty obvious to me, but the fact that they use certain perjoratives and behaviours depending on which minority group they're dealing with is actually indicative of their singling out of their minority groups for reasons inherent to their minority groups, rather than applying a universal attitude equally to all of their victims. That is, I don't see it as a group attacking women because they're women, as you put it - I see it as a group attacking women (and pro-women ideas) using certain methods because they're women. That's misogyny, too. *The race thing is less straightforward because in some gaming circles, Westerners are considered 'foreigners' and the minority, which is actually super interesting. |
![]() |
|
| Saturos | Sep 18 2014, 07:48 PM Post #65 |
![]()
heart-under-blade
![]()
|
RE your first paragraph. I bolded my problem with your reasoning. That assumes the only factor is the videos themselves. But the videos also greatly boosted her visibility and popularity and sparked all the discussion you see. So no, I don't think you can isolate "video" and "no video" as the sole factor, since there's also the variable of popularity. I would suggest there are a lot of misogynists attacking her now who simply hadn't heard of her before. But again, guessing at intention is futile. Seconding Kiki: if it walks like a misogynist, talks like a misogynist, and has the effect of misogyny, for all intents and purposes they are misogynist. If you want to rationalize it otherwise, okay, but I think that's kind of missing the point. There's a difference between you being called a f**, when you're not, or being called a n* when you're not black. You have to acknowledge context. Is calling a gay person a f** when they're talking about gay stereotypes homophobic? Is calling a black person a n***** when they're talking about racial stereotypes racist? Then, why is calling a woman a c***, a slut, or a bitch when she's talking about gender stereotypes not sexist?
And I think that's almost a definition of homophobia and racism. So all you're demonstrating is that misogyny, homophobia, and racism frequently co-exist. Which I have no problem with as a proposition. I think they're all rooted in similarly supremacist attitudes. None of that discredits or handwaves the current discussion, or the fact that Sarkeesian, Quinn, and other female journalists and developers were targeted in the language of misogyny, for all intents-and-purposes on misogynistic grounds. While those people might have also been racist or homophobic, as Nell said, with this particular issue it's the misogyny that's in focus and relevant. |
![]() |
|
| Ian889 | Sep 18 2014, 09:17 PM Post #66 |
|
Death comes to all of those who oppose me.
![]()
|
At this point it's pretty clear at this point that none of us are actually getting anywhere. We clearly disagree on the fundamental principles as to why Anita is being attacked. I continue to see that the reason why she's being attacked so much harder on games than on her movie videos because of her topic more so than her gender. I think the majority of hurtful people will use hurtful words with no additional malice if the person actually is the gender/color/ or sexual orientation of the word they are being called. I think the solution to the problem has more to do with eliminating the toxic culture of the internet than it does anything else. |
![]() |
|
| Saturos | Sep 19 2014, 01:49 AM Post #67 |
![]()
heart-under-blade
![]()
|
Ian, her topic IS gender, though. That there's misogyny in games and in gamer culture, and if you want to further say that it's more than what exists in movies, then that just further reinforces Sarkeesian's point. If you think calling a black person n***** and a white person a n***** carries the same weight of malice, then yeah, we just straight-up disagree. >_> I don't think it's only the internet, but I think calling people out for misogyny, something that's pretty stigmatized, would help to discourage some of the toxicity, as you say. Call it what it is, as well as doing whatever strategies on top of that you'd have in mind. The two, what you identify and what we identify, aren't mutually exclusive goals. |
![]() |
|
| Nell | Sep 20 2014, 01:17 AM Post #68 |
|
The Pretender
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Yeah, look, I have problems with the 'but they didn't mean to be misogynistic' argument for several reasons: a) it's not just words we're talking about here - it's a series of behaviours that are consistent with a long precedent of misogynstic behaviour'; b) it's not just the words or behaviour of one person, it's the behaviour of a vast group of people operating on a certain common understand, and I find it difficult to believe (and I think Occam's Razor would agree with me) that that common understanding is '[radio edit] doesn't actually mean [radio edit]', 'rape doesn't actually mean rape'; b) intention of the speaker is only ever part of how communication works. It's not definitive of meaning, and the way recievers and audiences make meaning is equally relevant; c) misogyny, like every ideology ever, is not always intended. It's often an unconscious perpetuation of values absorbed by osmosis through texts, culture, socialisation. So someone doesn't have to intend to hate women when he or she calls someone a slut, but that doesn't mean that his or her individual use of the word can be separated from the body of meaning and cultural baggage that comes with that word, because that's not how communication works; d) just because someone doesn't intend something doesn't mean they can't be held accountable for it. I might not intend to hurt you by hitting you, but if I do hurt you, I can be held accountable for your injury. And so we return to the problem of accountability (over anonymity). Not everyone responsible for this whole uproar is anonymous. Gonrij, or whatever the name of that guy is who was Quinn's ex-boyfriend, is a known, real person. So is that guy trying to fund his anti-Sarkeesian video and running around calling the SF police department. Not being anonymous hasn't stopped them from doing any of their problematic, hurtful stunts. But no one is holding them accountable for it. And I, for one, would be interested to see people try. Not necessarily those two people specifically, but calling out misogynistic behaviour when and when you see it, I think, would be actual, tangible progress to people being less bigoted. Too bad that the first rule of misogyny is: deny misogyny, and de-legitimise complaints. That, as you guys might be able to see, is what makes getting to the first step - that is, becoming aware of misogyny, being the fish that notices it is wet (as my old cultural studies lecturer would have put it) - such a problem. EDIT: For anyone who cares, a study showing that trolling correlates to a number of personality disorders, including narcissism and psychopathy: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists?tr=MostViewed Which may not in itself surprise anyone particularly, but it would support the idea that people don't bad things on the internet because suddenly anonymity, they do it because they have underlying preconditions. |
![]() |
|
| Saturos | Sep 21 2014, 08:31 AM Post #69 |
![]()
heart-under-blade
![]()
|
Couldn't have said it better. ^^; |
![]() |
|
| Admiral Miral | Sep 21 2014, 12:10 PM Post #70 |
![]()
The Light of Hope
![]()
|
So from what I gather since you two (three?) seem to be going around in circles, Ian believes that a lot of people simply say sexist/misogynistic things because it's an easy avenue to upset/hurt someone they don't like (if she is a woman) and would call someone a [radio edit] if they're black or a fuzzy little man-peachgot if they're gay? And that these things don't necessarily make that individual a sexist/racist/homophobe and Nell's argument is that it doesn't matter since it's still the same thing? |
![]() |
|
| Nell | Sep 21 2014, 06:13 PM Post #71 |
|
The Pretender
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
If you're going to frame it like that, my argument would be a) we're not just talking about misogynstic words here, we're talking about misogynistic behaviours, and though it's tempting to argue that "just because I use misogynistic language doesn't mean I'm a misogynist", where do you draw the line at "just because I behave like a misogynist doesn't mean I'm a misogynist"?; b) we're not just walking about one person walking around using language in isolation because they have somehow disconnected the words they use from every other meaning except the on they chose - this is a large number of people agreeing with each other and expressing (or trying to) a particular point, and using common language (common between each other, at the very least, if not common between everyone else) to express it; c) death of the author - what a person intends in saying something is only part of how meaning is made; and d) using misogynistic language because it's an easy way to denegrate someone who identifies as a woman is classic misogyny (just like calling someone a [radio edit] as an easy way to insult a black person is racist). Then there's the thing that the people that have made such a fuss about Saarkesian, et al. have had the label "misogyny" thrown at them a lot, and how many of them have retorted with, "that's not what I mean"? The general response I've seen is, "but I'm justified because she's a poser": see "delegitimising subjectivity", which I've already argued is misogynistic behaviour in itself. There has been the "we're not being misogynistic, we're legitimately concerned about the state of video game journalism", which has been debunked because no one is actually addressing the video game journalist in question, plus no evidence of actual journalistic corruption. |
![]() |
|
| Saturos | Sep 23 2014, 05:06 PM Post #72 |
![]()
heart-under-blade
![]()
|
I also think it's important to see that these kind of attacks don't just take place in a vacuum, and that they very closely resemble a larger pattern of misogynistic behaviour in society. http://www.vox.com/2014/9/23/6832243/the-sexual-threats-against-emma-watson-are-an-attack-on-women Though this isn't about video games, it also focuses on a misogynistic response to feminism coming from areas of 4chan and Reddit, much like this one. And it also connects that to a pattern both on and off the internet, anonymous or not. |
![]() |
|
| Role | Sep 24 2014, 06:28 PM Post #73 |
![]()
Fulminous Witch
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I'm... a bit lost. Has the issue of people objecting to her delivering and presentation, but not the overall message been addressed? I do agree about sexism being a big problem, but when I look at her presentations, Miss Anita has presented it in not only an unfair light to gaming, but in a manner that feels like it's designed to stir people up. She blatantly cherry picks and takes data out of context, and has been called on it. But... that's rarely ever the issue I hear. I just here people objecting and people being called racist for objecting... Lots of heated passions, and lots of drowning out of reason... |
![]() |
|
| Admiral Miral | Sep 24 2014, 08:50 PM Post #74 |
![]()
The Light of Hope
![]()
|
Really? If you look you can see a lot of Youtube videos, blog posts, and whatever detailing how Anita doesn't even play the games she critiques and just watches Let's Plays and asks her followers on Tumblr and Twitter for examples. These aren't at the forefront because her posse can't refute these claims and instead just go after the band of idiots assaulting her for being a woman. |
![]() |
|
| Saturos | Sep 24 2014, 10:04 PM Post #75 |
![]()
heart-under-blade
![]()
|
Role, I don't think it's as contentious that there are considerable flaws in Sarkeesian's videos. However, what was presently being contended was that the people attacking her (I think you meant sexist, not racist) for being a woman, for talking about women's issues, are misogynist/that response is rooted in gender, or if, as Ian proposes, that gender isn't a factor. I think that argument is more or less concluded? As Miral said, though, there's plenty of articles and videos critiquing Sarkeesian's methodology. However, speaking personally, I feel those videos in turn hurt their credibility when they mix in ad hominem or random, childish insults in addition to their analysis and refutation. It makes me less inclined to trust them, and less inclined to believe the points they in turn are proposing. You're right that a completely reasonable and rational analysis is usually missing, but in some part, I can't blame women for being passionate or committed to their representation in various forms of media, video games included. And to some degree, an amount of pathos and passionate appeal is a necessary component to a dry academic analysis. Sarkeesian in some ways is trying to be a "pop academic," and I think her balance is a little bit off presently. But she has the right idea, just a poor execution. I think her thesis is sound, based on my own anecdotal experience and from discussions with friends, but the data wants a really thoroughgoing analysis. Sarkeesian might be wise to have a group of researchers instead; collaborative papers and videos/roundtable discussions are a great way of handling a huge mound of data like this. EDIT: Ah, it appears it's come out that the whole "target Emma Watson" thing was a hoax by a marketing group in the US trying to get 4chan shut down. So yeah, don't worry about that one, and that's super scummy of that group to lie. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29341593 |
![]() |
|
| Nell | Sep 25 2014, 12:08 AM Post #76 |
|
The Pretender
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
That's funny, considering I was just saying to you the other day that it was almost like a conspiracy.
I get the impression that a lot of the time, the former line of attack is an offshoot of the latter (which is perhaps why people don't bother to refute it separately). Then there's the issue of, how exactly does one prove one's true gamer status to the satisfaction of others (or does one need to? Is gaming culture unique in that it is not allowed to be critiqued by 'outsiders'?)? (I've addressed the criticism of allegedly 'cherry-picking' earlier in this thread, but if you're tired of listening to me talk about it, here's an article that may or may not be more persuasive than I: http://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2014/08/tropes-vs-anita-sarkeesian-passing-anti-feminist-nonsense-critique. My issue with people trying to pass themselves off as shelving the ideological nonsense for 'real, hard, honest' analysis of her videos is that they often just project their own ideas onto it. You want to offer more pertinent examples? Go ahead. How about a reading of those same video texts and examples she uses as not being sexist? That would be great intellectual exercise. But I think it's important to remember that different readings of texts - even and especially resistant readings - are no more or less 'right' than each other, they're just usually born out of different subjectivities. Her greatest failure, if anything, is presuming that the wider audience is familiar enough with the process of textual analysis to comprehend the project, much less offer a thoughtful agreement or disagreement with it.) |
![]() |
|
| Admiral Miral | Sep 25 2014, 12:44 PM Post #77 |
![]()
The Light of Hope
![]()
|
It's less of "Anita isn't a true gamer" and more of "The gameplay videos used in Anita's videos have the exact same character position/health/score as the gameplay videos of popular Youtube Let's Play users." This is the issue that a lot of people have with Anita. She was given $150k to buy and research video games, but instead she seems to just watch Let's Plays and tote them as her own work and research. |
![]() |
|
| Nell | Sep 25 2014, 05:59 PM Post #78 |
|
The Pretender
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Well, let's deconstruct that. What's the issue at stake here? It's not her argument. The authorship of the footage is not what forms the basis of her argument, it's the fact that the footage exists at all that is. What's at stake is her authenticity and her legitimacy - her 'right' to be able to make the content, to argue from the position that she does. She was given money from Kickstarter supporters to fund her research into this area, which presumably involved buying and playing games to get a feel for what tropes were in play. If she was found to be featuring footage that she did not herself create, the argument is that naturally gives rise to problems with the whole project: a) she's using someone else's footage, must have not played the games herself/done her own research, she got all this money, didn't use it to buy games for the purpose of making her videos, breached a term under which the money was given to her, is a fraud; b) she's using someone else's footage, she must not have played the games herself/done her own research, you can't talk about how video games are a product of and perpetuate culture without having played video games, her criticism is invalid because she can't possibly know what she's talking about. But both of these matters are hinged upon a slightly tenuous assumption. The fact that the footage is not created by her, if that's true (and I don't know if anyone who may have been in the position to create those videos has spoken up), is not rationally evidence of her not having played - or purchased - video games. It has some probative value for the matter of copyright infringement - using another person's footage without license or giving due credit, or touting them as her own - but it has, at best, circumstantial relevance to whether she actually played/bought the games or not. There are a number of reasons why she could have played the game but chosen to use other footage - more recognisable, more demonstrative, more aesthetically pleasing, etc. We have no way of knowing what the decision was, but there are (at least, from my position), plausible and reasonable explanations for it, and it's hardly definitive of her authenticity. It certainly doesn't seem to have any bearing or relationship to the actual content of her argument. Then there are the other questions that come as corollaries, like whether you need to have actually played a game to understand how it interpolates players or would merely watching a playthrough be enough; or whether Kickstarter funding is actually an indication of production costs, especially if you get more money than you expect to get, or if there really is any necessary relationship in capitalism between money spent/invested/given and production costs (hello ebooks); or the point that the Statesman article that I linked made, that if she has been fraudulent in raising money this way, upon whom has she perpetuated fraud, from whom did she take money, and why are most of the complaints coming from people from whom she took nothing? So, in the end, I feel like it's a bit of the same sheep in wolf's clothing: delegitimisation of the subjectivity of the person, ostensibly justified by a fact that someone has discovered, but which upon examination seems to be considerably less than watertight proof of the matter in question - which is kind of exactly what happened to Quinn. Ultimately, I am not sure I am convinced it is completely separate line of criticism after all. |
![]() |
|
| Crash | Oct 13 2014, 02:28 PM Post #79 |
![]()
Wheey! I've became a human being!! I am very handsam!
![]()
|
So is anyone here still under the impression that Gamergate is anything more than a campaign of hate against women and other gender, racial, and sexual minorities, operating under the occasional guise of being about "game journalism ethics"? If you haven't kept track, we now have a third woman threatened so explicitly and violently that she had to leave her home for her safety. A trans woman developer who had been an ally of Gamergate was also instantly ousted by the movement and severely harassed as soon as she criticized one of the high-profile members of the group for a statement he made about transgender people. Intel pulled an advertisement campaign from Gamasutra, a publication that's not even aimed at gamers, because Gaters mass-emailed them to pull the ads because the site had published "anti-gaming" editorials. A social researcher today published her findings that GamerGate can considered a Hate Group due to heir methods and organization methods. And of course the general level of harassment high profile members of the community have been receiving nonstop for speaking out against GamerGate for literally months now. |
![]() |
|
| Saturos | Oct 14 2014, 08:07 PM Post #80 |
![]()
heart-under-blade
![]()
|
http://www.standard.net/Police/2014/10/14/Utah-State-University-student-threatens-act-of-terror-if-feminist.html And in other news, "crazy feminists ruin everything and now some guy's going to shoot up a university if Sarkeesian speaks." |
![]() |
|
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Games · Next Topic » |










![]](http://z1.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)








1:42 PM Jul 11






