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Sebudai

Sebudai

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Tanoomba_sl said:
Your entire last paragraph is pure garbage unless you can give me an example of a real-world negative effect her videos have had on people. She "seeks to change the public"? So fucking what? What "real-world changes" are happening as a result of her videos,besidesgame developers becoming more creative?
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Attention is a finite resource. Focusing on non-problems in lieu of real problems has negative effects on the feminist movement. The ideas expressed in her videos do not encourage creativity, they stifle it. Art mirrors the real world, sexism occurs in the real world, ergo sexism occurs in art. It's hardly even possible to tell a compelling story without some sort of problematic content. True Detective is 8 hours of some of the most problematic content imaginable. It's also a beautiful piece of art and almost nobody will be worse off for seeing it.

Your attempts to portray Anita as some sort of harmless Roger Ebert of video games are absurd on their face. She is not simply critiquing and calling for more creativity in video games.

Every day of my life I see the actual, real-life oppression of women with my own two eyes. It's disappointing and frustrating to see a good chunk of the movement obsessing over hookers in a video game.
 
fanaskin

fanaskin

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Tanoomba

Tanoomba

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Lithose_sl said:
IfAnita's work is accepted and praised at that threshold; then WHY isn't the counter example of THEIR behavioralsoaccepted within the same threshold.
...
The problem is--WHY isthis(Anita's) standard scrutinized for variables and inconsistencies when used to analyze the media--but accepted as "ground breaking" when used to analyze a video game?
...
If the media is willing to question well presented evidence of their bias, by pointing out small sample sizes, inconsistencies in context (ect) then WHY haven't they ALSO applied that scrutiny to Anita's work?
...
So why would her assessment be called "brilliant", while mine would probably be attacked as sexist. (Psst; because my target is a female critic, while hers is a video game. You were right earlier, the CONTEXT of who you are criticizing matters--"thems the breaks" though.)
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You asked a question four times then answered it yourself. But here's my answer, which I already gave:
She isn't attacking anyone personally and her words have zero power to harm anyone. Therefore, even if she was completely ass-backwards flat-out wrong about everything she says in all her videos (she's not), it literally wouldn't matter. It would be harmless opinion that was dismissed as garbage since legitimate criticism showed it to be lacking any merit whatsoever.
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I know you think this was a straw man, but this answers the first part of your question(s): Why is Anita's work accepted and praised/Why is Anita's standard accepted as "ground-breaking" when analyzing a video game/Why would her assessment be called brilliant? Because she is not attacking anyone. It's easy to see the good in what someone is doing when it objectively does no harm. Her goal was to get people talking about something they had taken for granted, to get us thinking about video games in a different way, and to encourage creativity in the industry. These are commendable goals that have nothing to do with "taking someone down a notch" and it is exceptionally easy for gaming journalism to portray her in a positive light. Sexism doesn't necessarily play a role in that.
To answer the second part of your question(s):
I think it's clearly the sexist assholes' fault. They're the ones whose shittastic behavior made all this an issue in the first place, and they're the ones whose continued shittiness has prevented much rational discussion from occurring. The media did pretty much the only thing they could be expected to do in such a situation.
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So yes, I've already admitted it's not necessarily fair, but when your desires have been hijacked by sexist assholes they're going to have a lot more difficulty being fulfilled. I would consider this more grievous if it wasn't precisely because of sexist assholes that these issues even came to light in the first place.

See? Both parts of your question can be answered without "sexism" playing a role on the media's part.

Again, I have nothing against you making demands of gaming journalism in an attempt to hold them to a higher standard (yes, technicallytheir ownstandard). That's a very noble cause and I agree with you completely that gaming journalism needs to grow up along with games and gamers. But the timing of this crusade and the examples you choose to target for criticism are going to make it an uphill battle for you.

Lithose_sl said:
There are stories that literally, and I mean literally, have called Gamergate asexism driven movement. That IS a story about Gamergate, I'm not sure how you can misconstrue it.
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Or, it's a story aboutsexism. No misconstruing necessary.

Lithose_sl said:
For fuck sake, Tan--even the Westboro Baptist Church, ISIS, Rwandan Genocide leaders (ect) were given chances to defend themselves in the news. Justthink about that for a minute. But I guess the "sexism" in gamers gate is somehow even WORSE than any of those things? That is what you're saying, that somehow the sexism in this case is SO bad that the media choosing to "only" cover one side is justifiable? lol....
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Gaming journalism is under no obligation to cover the Westboro Baptist Church, ISIS, Genocide leaders and the such. However, if you want to do a fair comparison, sexism in the gaming community IS a bigger story than the implications Gamergate has on journalistic integrity. Sorry, but it is. "Journalism is flawed" would likely not have been a shocking headline on anything other than the first newspaper ever printed. In gaming journalism alone we have had far more egregious examples of ethical breaches (again, Jeff Gurstmann). Zoe Quinn didn't "blow the lid" off anything. Yes, gaming journalism is flawed. It always has been, and those who have been paying attention have always known it (try to find a review on IGN that doesn't include accusations of being paid off in the comments). This isn't a topic that has suddenly become far more deserving of attention because a bunch of sexist assholes decided it is, even if it's a topic that personally has you tingling right now.
 
Denaut

Denaut

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Tanoomba_sl said:
Dude, stop. I know what she said, I saw the video. Unlike many of her critics, she's not calling for blood here. She's expressing an opinion that could be easily countered with a bit of context. These words are harmless, no matter how much they bug you. I swear, you're more sensitive about Sarkeesian's views than Sarkeesian is about death threats.

Also, you do realize you didn't actually counter anything I said in what you quoted, right? Lazy.
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That paragraph is a great steaming pile of 200 proof bovine excrement. She point blank calls the designers of the game sexually deviant psychopaths that use the game to personally explore, and encourage other to explore, horrendus sexual violence. She does this by pulling 30 seconds of what I am guessing is a 12-15 hour(?) game out of context, and then proceeds to put the worst imaginable thoughts into the heads of these developers for absolutely no reason other than to paint them with as despicable a brush as possible for her own personal gain.

She levels extremely severe and personal attacks at the very real people that work at IOI, some of whom I happen to know. I'm sure they would be happy to tell her, and anyone who bothered asking, that they aren't in fact deranged psychos and at no time did any thought of what she is saying even remotely come anywhere near the level design.

If the same kind of criticism was made of my work, and those kinds of words were put in my mouth, I'd be simultaneously horrified and enraged. Hell, I'm half enraged for them. Seriously, they are nice people and Denmark is one of the most gender equal societies on earth.

I could try and parse words and say that, blah blah blah, not technically a "lie", and so on. But screw that, I am flat out calling her a liar.
 
Tanoomba

Tanoomba

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Sebudai_sl said:
Attention is a finite resource. Focusing on non-problems in lieu of real problems has negative effects on the feminist movement. The ideas expressed in her videos do not encourage creativity, they stifle it. Art mirrors the real world, sexism occurs in the real world, ergo sexism occurs in art. It's hardly even possible to tell a compelling story without some sort of problematic content. True Detective is 8 hours of some of the most problematic content imaginable. It's also a beautiful piece of art and almost nobody will be worse off for seeing it.

Your attempts to portray Anita as some sort of harmless Roger Ebert of video games are absurd on their face. She is not simply critiquing and calling for more creativity in video games.

Every day of my life I see the actual, real-life oppression of women with my own two eyes. It's disappointing and frustrating to see a good chunk of the movement obsessing over hookers in a video game.
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Well, Fana, Seb's reply was a big "I got nothing". Hopefully you'll be able to come up with an example of real-world harm Sarkessian's videos have cau-
fanaskin_sl said:
actual rape culture enabled by this bending over backwards to give infinite privelage of benefit of the doubt just like tanoomba

Why Did British Police Ignore Pakistani Gangs Abusing 1,400 Rotherham Children? Political Correctness - Forbes
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Oh. You got nothing too. Well, that was fun. Thanks for the "feels".

rrr_img_76666.jpg
 
Sebudai

Sebudai

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fanaskin_sl said:
actual rape culture enabled by this bending over backwards to give infinite privelage of benefit of the doubt just like tanoomba

Why Did British Police Ignore Pakistani Gangs Abusing 1,400 Rotherham Children? Political Correctness - Forbes
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Yep,thatis rape culture. That is the real oppression of women. I see a much more subtle form of it in Utah, but it's there. Mormon culture is extremely patriarchal, and they have a storied history of shit like bishops advising rape victims to keep things hush hush. Here's a good example:

Kevin Garn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This dude was a bishop and a member of the Utah House of Representatives. He fooled around with a 15 year-old girl and bribed her to keep her mouth shut. When the scandal came to light and he was forced to resign, he received a tearful, standing ovation on the house floor from his colleagues. He was also arrested for DUI while serving as a bishop. The LDS church never excommunicated him. Guess who they did excommunicate though? The 15 year-old girl.

Maybe Mormons and Muslims just play too much GTA.
 
Sebudai

Sebudai

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Tanoomba_sl said:
Well, Fana, Seb's reply was a big "I got nothing". Hopefully you'll be able to come up with an example of real-world harm Sarkessian's videos have cau-
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You've embarrassed yourself repeatedly in this thread with the most recent gem being, "Just ignore the author's overall thesis and try to find the silver lining in their bullshit!"

Distracting the movement with non-problems causes real-world harm. Demonizing harmless content in art causes real-world harm. Dressing up bullshit with academic language causes real-world harm. You lost the argument. Try not to be so buttmad about it.
 
AngryGerbil

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I know I'm not going to get through, at all. But real quick I just wanted to interject a thing.

The reason people say they want to drink blood from her ripped open vagina is because they are attempting to cause the most sting with their words. She's a self-styled 'feminist' (although I'd say she's doing about as much good for feminism as Jenny McCarthy is for the health of American children) and so of course they focus directly onto that thing that makes her female in the first place, and desecrate it with words. That's all. That's all that is. They don'tactuallywant to do that to her. You do know that right? Stick and stones and all that jazz? Yes?

"All right, if the applicant is young, tell him he's too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. If the applicant then waits for three days without food, shelter, or encouragement he may then enter and begin his training."
 
Lithose

Lithose

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Tanoomba_sl said:
She isn't attacking anyone personally and her words have zero power to harm anyone. Therefore, even if she was completely ass-backwards flat-out wrong about everything she says in all her videos (she's not), it literally wouldn't matter. It would be harmless opinion that was dismissed as garbage since legitimate criticism showed it to be lacking any merit whatsoever. I know you think this was a straw man, but this answers the first part of your question(s): Why is Anita's work accepted and praised/Why is Anita's standard accepted as "ground-breaking" when analyzing a video game/Why would her assessment be called brilliant? Because she is not attacking anyone. It's easy to see the good in what someone is doing when it objectively does no harm. Her goal was to get people talking about something they had taken for granted, to get us thinking about video games in a different way, and to encourage creativity in the industry. These are commendable goals that have nothing to do with "taking someone down a notch" and it is exceptionally easy for gaming journalism to portray her in a positive light. Sexism doesn't necessarily play a role in that.
To answer the second part of your question(s):
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1.) Criticizing the gaming media is not attacking anyone by the very definition you have used to defend Anita's work (By saying she is not harming game developers OR the people who consume their content with her accusations of sexism, and how sexism/violence in games makes them violent.)

2.) If you believe it IS; because "Journalists" have to write those pieces, then you must also believe what Anita is doing is attacking the many Game Developers who write video games. Since, you know, her criticisms are of their work.

Come on now, Tan--this is a silly defense and you know it. How do you make the logical leap that leveling these criticisms against the media's portrayal of Anita is, on one hand, "attacking" them. While on the other hand; it's perfectly fine that she level these same criticisms against game content (And thus the developers). [And please don't say "it's because Anita is at the center of it"--nope, I'm criticizing the media through THEIR work on her content, just as Anita is criticizing the game industry through their work on various subjects.]
Tanoomba_sl said:
Or, it's a story about sexism. No misconstruing necessary.
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If it's a story about sexism, then the story should be ambiguous, or generalized in it's scope. It's not though, many articles have clearly associated Gamergate with sexism. This is a problem because many personalities have enjoined themselves to it, some of those personalities have fairly large media following themselves (Larger than Anita)---therefor, criticizing a group THEY belong to, is a criticism is THEM. And theyshould be allowed to respond.

Lets put the shoe on the other foot though. What if I controlled all these Journalists (I know no on really does, but bear with me)...And lets say tomorrow I had them ALL right about how feminism is deeply misandric, hateful and ignorant. They ALSO all wrote that feminist's within gaming, who were creating content, were deeply sexist psychopaths whose time had come and were no longer relevant (See: "The Death of Gamers" or other articles). Would it be fair to NOT give someone like Anita a chance to respond to that? Should Feminists be given a chance to respond to the criticisms leveled against their ideology? See what I'm saying, Tan?

The FIRST post between us in this chain, I was illustrating how you took offense to criticisms against feminism. You flat out said it was wrong to find the whole movement culpable for the actions of a few; and that, in your opinion, we should be mature enough to separate the opinions of the average movement and those crazy people. So tell me something, Tan? How would it feel, to you, as a Feminist, if the media within the gaming sphere did a 180 and perpetually began painting ALL feminists as the crazy ones (Like the Burger King Feminist or the Crazy red haired lady)....Would it be cool if the leaders of Feminism were NOT given a chance to respond just because I could find some examples of terrible behavior among feminists?

(And before you say...It's different because X person got threats. Once more, the started of #notyourshield has received RL threats now, Milo of Brietbart got a syringe in the mail and phone calls, people have been fired from work...ect ect)
 
Arbitrary

Arbitrary

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Tanoomba_sl said:
Also, you do realize you didn't actually counter anything I said in what you quoted, right? Lazy.
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Her opinion is so hyperbolic as to be not something worth spending time discussing. There's no conversation to be had. No one has any obligation to give serious critical attention to rhetoric of that scale. Where would you even begin? "Hello Mr. Developer of Hitman 3, are the players meant to derive perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters in the game you made? No? Thank you for your time. Sentence 1 refuted."

Do you see how ridiculous that is? When someone starts in on how Obama is a Muslim sleeper agent for Al Qaeda that is not a great time to talk about the perils of American Imperialism.
 
Sebudai

Sebudai

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Maybe Anita could benefit from an art history class, because just as ceci n'est pas une pipe:

iUc3eGq.jpg


This is not a woman:

qzi0Rf8.jpg


Most people who play video games seem to understand this.
 
Tanoomba

Tanoomba

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Sebudai_sl said:
You've embarrassed yourself repeatedly in this thread with the most recent gem being, "Just ignore the author's overall thesis and try to find the silver lining in their bullshit!"

Distracting the movement with non-problems causes real-world harm. Demonizing harmless content in art causes real-world harm. Dressing up bullshit with academic language causes real-world harm. You lost the argument. Try not to be so buttmad about it.
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Being accused of embarrassing myself by someone who used "time is a limited resource" as an example of how Sarkeesian's videos cause real-world harm. That's rich. Won't somebody think of the cat videos? Surely, they will be responsible for the collapse of society!

"Distracting the movement with non-problems"? Fuck you, she can talk about whatever she wants! I am shocked both by your sudden concern for the reputation of feminism and by your desire to censor free speech. These both seem to run counter to the typical bro-speak here.

But by all means, claim victory and run away. It gives me more ammo for the next time somebody tries to accuse me of that.
 
Sebudai

Sebudai

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Tanoomba_sl said:
Being accused of embarrassing myself by someone who used "time is a limited resource" as an example of how Sarkeesian's videos cause real-world harm. That's rich. Won't somebody think of the cat videos? Surely, they will be responsible for the collapse of society!

"Distracting the movement with non-problems"? Fuck you, she can talk about whatever she wants! I am shocked both by your sudden concern for the reputation of feminism and by your desire to censor free speech. These both seem to run counter to the typical bro-speak here.

But by all means, claim victory and run away. It gives me more ammo for the next time somebody tries to accuse me of that.
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1) I said attention, not time. But thank you for demonstrating just how finite a resource it is.
2) I have no desire to censor her and have never even hinted otherwise. I have only criticized her. If anybody here is arguing in favor of free speech, it's me. Censoring video games is not going to help anyone. I have always had a concern for feminism.
3) I'm not going anywhere.
4) Sorry about how mad your butt is right now.
 
AngryGerbil

AngryGerbil

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Tanoomba_sl said:
Being accused of embarrassing myself by someone who used "time is a limited resource" as an example of how Sarkeesian's videos cause real-world harm. That's rich. Won't somebody think of the cat videos? Surely, they will be responsible for the collapse of society!
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He said attention, not time. And nobody making cat videos is concerned about some social issue.

This reminds me of when I tell religious people that the Bible isn't 'holy' and is more akin to reading about Sun Tzu or Napoleon. They always counter with the same exact thing every time. 'Sun Tzu was real!!!' Of course he was. And maybe Jesus was too for all I know. But I don't worship Sun Tzu. I don't base my life on his book. Cat video people aren't attempting to claim your 'moral attention'. Neither was Sun Tzu. The Bible though? Yes. That book was trying to capture my moral attention. So is Sarkeesian.

"Distracting the movement with non-problems"? Fuck you, she can talk about whatever she wants! I am shocked both by your sudden concern for the reputation of feminism and by your desire to censor free speech. These both seem to run counter to the typical bro-speak here.
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You know what's funny? I would argue that the majority of us disagreeing with you here (I can't speak for everyone obviously) are more truly feminist than you are. And are likely disagreeing with youbecausewe are. Because we can see the harm being done by what Lithose (I think) called 'soft bigotry'. Reference the criticisms commonly leveled against Mother Theresa. By convincing people that their only true hope was prayer, not science, she very likely caused an outcome of greater aggregate human suffering. That's not a perfect analogy to this subject, but I think (hope) you get what I mean by it. You are actually hurting the cause you claim to champion. So is Sarkeesian.

But by all means, claim victory and run away. It gives me more ammo for the next time somebody tries to accuse me of that.
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Please.

You said, "Well, Fana, Seb's reply was a big "I got nothing". Hopefully you'll be able to come up with an example of real-world harm Sarkessian's videos have cau-"

If that isn't you just plain giving up, I don't know what is.
 
Agraza

Agraza

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The realness of Sun Tzu is debatable. There is no record of the existence of such a person aside from the book.
 
Tanoomba

Tanoomba

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Lithose_sl said:
1.) Criticizing the gaming media is not attacking anyone by the very definition you have used to defend Anita's work
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Absolutely right. Once you can get the people insisting on dragging Sarkeesian and Quinn through the mud to back the fuck off your cause, you'll find it remarkably easier to level legitimate criticism at the gaming media. This might be hard to do, since they're the ones that drew all the attention to this issue in the first place.

Lithose_sl said:
If it's a story about sexism, then the story should be ambiguous, or generalized in it's scope. It's not though, many articles have clearly associated Gamergate with sexism. This is a problem because many personalities have enjoined themselves to it, some of those personalities have fairly large media following themselves (Larger than Anita)---therefor, criticizing a group THEY belong to, is a criticism is THEM. And theyshould be allowed to respond.
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They have associated Gamergate with sexism because Gamergate is associated with sexism. Sexism is the reason Gamergate became Gamergate. What the mainstream media is doing isn't criticizing those who want to talk about ethical breaches in journalism, but rather they're talking about sexism in the game industry. Gamergate is a great example of how disgusting sexist assholes can be, even if that isn't what Gamergate is all about (or rather, what you don't like to see it associated with). It's like if some wacko sniper climbs a bell tower and starts blowing people away as a way of protesting the inferior quantity of Canadian Netflix content over American Netflix content. The media would be all over that story (obviously), and you would be doing the equivalent of saying "Let's be fair here, despite this man's actions being clearly reprehensible, Canadian Netflix contentisinferior to American Netflix content. The media is going crazy over the killer for click bait, but why aren't they addressing this underlying truthat all? There hasn't been asingle articleabout the legitimate concerns of Netflix users. Many, many people who have never and will never snipe anybody also want this disparity addressed, and it is bias on the media's part not to give any attention to this side of the story."

Lithose_sl said:
The FIRST post between us in this chain, I was illustrating how you took offense to criticisms against feminism. You flat out said it was wrong to find the whole movement culpable for the actions of a few; and that, in your opinion, we should be mature enough to separate the opinions of the average movement and those crazy people. So tell me something, Tan? How would it feel, to you, as a Feminist, if the media within the gaming sphere did a 180 and perpetually began painting ALL feminists as the crazy ones (Like the Burger King Feminist or the Crazy red haired lady)....Would it be cool if the leaders of Feminism were NOT given a chance to respond just because I could find some examples of terrible behavior among feminists?
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Well, let's make a more fair comparison: If a fringe group of radical feminists went on a spree of abuse, harassment and reprehensible behavior and THAT was the story being reported on, then no, I don't think it would be necessary to get Sarkeesian's point of view. In that case the news would not be about her, would not be about feminism, but would be about the feminist assholes doing shitty, shitty things.
 
khalid

khalid

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Tanoomba, I'm really shocked that you can say with a straight face that what she said didn't cause harm. Her critiques, if dishonest or mistaken, DO cause harm. They either correctly label someone as sexist or they slander someone as one. I just don't see how you can separate it out, act like the truth of the accusations don't matter.

Normally I can kind of see your point in some of this stuff, but boy do I not see how you can ignore or not give a shit about the truth of an attack piece.
 
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