Cancer Posted September 25, 2014 Report Share Posted September 25, 2014 Gah, what a meltdown. I never thought I'd be glad to say I hadn't bought a new game since 2002 or so ... but this makes me feel that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
薔薇語 Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 So I don't really follow video games, but #gamergate has apparently gotten so ugly that NPR had to cover it yesterday. My understanding is that some female industry journalists pointed out that mainstream video game culture is sexist and misogynistic, and mainstream video game culture rebutted that argument with rape and death threats serious enough to drive those women into hiding. Is that an accurate characterization? While not all that in the know, my understanding is a bit different. A female game developer cheated on her boyfriend with members of the game journalism press. Some time later her ex boyfriend put up a long form blog detailing their relationship along with reasons why he thought she had cheated on him (proof, not why she did the act). People got upset for a variety of reasons. The more sane individuals in the bunch were upset because of the very thin line between Game Devs and Game Journalists. Later it came out that she may have also had relationships with other press members (if I recall correctly) thus putting the entire industry under greater amounts of scrutiny. All while this was going on, the less sane members started harassing her. She and many others posted about that harassment and that lead to even more harassment unfortunately. So, from the information I have, it wasn't about some woman complaining about treatment of women in the industry, but more similar to the complaints about how the financial industry and its regulators are far too chummy mixed in with a bit of a sex scandal and a good heaping of hatred. La Rose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKJAM! Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 More or less, except that the "we care about journalistic integrity, really" people only started popping up after the harassment started getting negative press, presumably trying to do damage control for their in-groups. The "only fringe elements that have nothing to do with our core culture" defense, if you will. Tasha 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted September 26, 2014 Report Share Posted September 26, 2014 Will Silicon Valley Have Its NFL Moment? Sexist Behavior—Often Unchecked by Leaders—Remains Prevalent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
薔薇語 Posted September 29, 2014 Report Share Posted September 29, 2014 While transversing the various depths of the internet, I came across this little gem. It gave me a good chuckle and is kind-of on topic:Halle Berry Don't Count! La Rose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted September 29, 2014 Report Share Posted September 29, 2014 While transversing the various depths of the internet, I came across this little gem. It gave me a good chuckle and is kind-of on topic: Halle Berry Don't Count! La Rose. Hmm, that seems more like dumbism than sexism or racism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted September 29, 2014 Report Share Posted September 29, 2014 Siskel and Ebert made their own 'tropes vs. women' video in 1980And something tells me that they didn't get rape & death threats for it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted September 29, 2014 Report Share Posted September 29, 2014 Siskel and Ebert made their own 'tropes vs. women' video in 1980 And something tells me that they didn't get rape & death threats for it... That was pre-Internet, but in Chicago to boot. Those two things might sum to a wash. OTOH, I would be surprised if there wasn't a similar item by someone else rather before that. I am not enough of a scholar of popular media (or feminism) to be able to find one, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted September 30, 2014 Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 While not all that in the know, my understanding is a bit different. A female game developer cheated on her boyfriend with members of the game journalism press. Some time later her ex boyfriend put up a long form blog detailing their relationship along with reasons why he thought she had cheated on him (proof, not why she did the act). People got upset for a variety of reasons. The more sane individuals in the bunch were upset because of the very thin line between Game Devs and Game Journalists. Later it came out that she may have also had relationships with other press members (if I recall correctly) thus putting the entire industry under greater amounts of scrutiny. All while this was going on, the less sane members started harassing her. She and many others posted about that harassment and that lead to even more harassment unfortunately. So, from the information I have, it wasn't about some woman complaining about treatment of women in the industry, but more similar to the complaints about how the financial industry and its regulators are far too chummy mixed in with a bit of a sex scandal and a good heaping of hatred. La Rose. From what I've read; the promiscuity is true, but something of a smokescreen. The non-interested sources I've read point out that while she may have had a relationship with one of the reporters, it didn't seem to equate into any kind of free press. Certainly not the kind to build a scandal out of. Nor did her game win any awards given by "compromised" entities (ie judged by men she may have slept with) Also the woman in question lurks on 4chan and she (as well as a few others on her side) quoted messages from the various threads where the goal was less "Journalistic integrity*" and more "Make the girl suffer." The 4chan group "made the data available" in a huge 3k+ page dump as proof that they were not targeting her for abuse and apparently didn't think anyone would go through it. And apparently (again according to what I've read as I wasn't going to read 3k pages of 4chan for any reason) it was a rather large number of the posts. (though could have been a small, very vocal group) *This has been a problem for ages with the Gaming industry - not because some indie game designer with girl parts slept with a contributor to a game magazine - but because the AAA game companies basically use "journalists" to sell their games. Withholding trial copies, leveraging their advertising, etc. to get favorable press, up to and including getting not-on-board journalists fired from publications if they say bad things about their games. So the uproar about the girl seems to be based more on her parts rather than the integrity of an indie gaming mag/contest. Again this could be the roar of the minority. Tasha and Cygnia 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 The Sexual (and Racial) Politics of Nerd Culture: A Dialogue* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 Women talking video games online risk abuse, threats Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
薔薇語 Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 The Sexual (and Racial) Politics of Nerd Culture: A Dialogue* Well, I am glad I wasn't the only one who thought those were awful movies. Not only is the script and acting bad, but most everything the 'nerds' do is morally objectionable at best. La Rose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sociotard Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 At least they didn't accuse the MUs of being fake geeks. But yeah, I couldn't root for the protagonists, and they weren't interesting enough to watch without being able to root for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 https://www.yahoo.com/style/sexist-superhero-t-shirts-cause-controvery-98910258588.html Lucius Alexander Maybe I should get a t shirt with a palindromedary on it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 In a similar vein... Why does DC Comics keep insulting its fans? There needs to be a fundamental change of thought in the Comics industry to ensure that there are people in the decision making process willing to stop these things from happening before they ever reach the consumer. Whether that means firing some of the people already in that chain of command, whether it means hiring more women to offer their perspective, whatever - it just needs to happen, and happen soon. Situations like this aren't just offensive to women, they're offensive to all comic fans. As someone who loves comics, I'd rather not feel like I'm getting my intelligence insulted every time DC cocks up. But while we wait for that to happen, what can comic book fans do about it? Well, what they're doing right now: kicking up a storm whenever something like this happens. Not just for DC, but for Marvel, Disney, whoever - let them know that products like this have no place in 2014. Encourage them when they respond and apologise, when they do something about them - but perhaps most importantly, remind them that it would be even better if these scandals didn't happen at all. DC need to stop being reactive only when the public calls them out on sexism, and start actively beginning to ensure that these situations just don't happen again. Tasha 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern Ghost Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 I think that last line in the quote says it all. Plausible deniabililty shouldn't be allowed here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 Reddit hits a new low with a subreddit promoting the “corrective” rape of “sluts” and “harlots.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
薔薇語 Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 Reddit hits a new low with a subreddit promoting the “corrective” rape of “sluts” and “harlots.” To me it sounds like some troll is being a troll with the "philosophyofrape" page. Next, the cited numbers for page views and subscribers does NOT indicate support. And to push the 'these terrible sub-reddits have thousands of supporters' is showing a willful blindness to the fact that people, possibly like the author himself, subscribe to such sites to keep tabs on the happenings of them. And given that they are such great headline bait, it is unsurprising that people have followed links to those pages. Heck, the author of this piece fell foul of that exact same issues as he placed links to those questionable pages in his own article. And there is nothing wrong with what he did (providing links) but to then complain about views seems questionable at best. La Rose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKJAM! Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 The author may have used "do not link" to make the addresses not provide "views." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 3, 2014 Report Share Posted October 3, 2014 On sexism, sexual assault and the threat of the ‘non-bro’ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted October 3, 2014 Report Share Posted October 3, 2014 I must be too old, because the term "'bro'" as she uses it meant nothing to me. I see the distinction she's trying to make; It's merely a vernacular I don't know. Sigh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 5, 2014 Report Share Posted October 5, 2014 There's a culture war happening right now. It's happening in games, in film, in journalism, in television, in fiction, in fandom. It's happening online, everywhere. And everywhere, sexists, recreational misogynists and bigots are losing. They are losing, and they don't know why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 6, 2014 Report Share Posted October 6, 2014 http://secretgamergirl.tumblr.com/post/99278805850/the-longterm-plans-of-gamergate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted October 7, 2014 Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 Intel's awful capitulation to #gamergate's sexist thugs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
薔薇語 Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 Intel's awful capitulation to #gamergate's sexist thugs So a major hardware and software company had advertisements on a website that targets their key demographics. However that company decided to pull its ads from that site for whatever reasons. Now people are claiming they don't support women? Is it too early to call BS on this? I hope not. If the website was drawing a lot of negative attention, I can see why a brand might want to pull their ad support. It has nothing to do with supporting that website and the equality of the sexes, either. I can think of a few reasons why they might want to do this: 1) If they are supporting the site much the same way google ads support sites, then their click over traffic is important to them. But if the site is having an increase in traffic due to this news story but not generating extra click over traffic, it is a bad investment. It is an even worse one if they are paying per ad shown vs per ad clicked. 2) The company needs to make sure that its brand is seen with a positive lens. If the audience of that site (on either side of the gamer gate issue) is agitated due to 'misogynists' or 'feminists' or 'my little pony' or whatever, then their perception of other things on that site is going to be equally tarnished. It is why high-end retail chooses very carefully where they put up ads so as to protect the mystique of being high end. Intel needs to do the same. 3) Any number of contractual or financial issue that the website wasn't adhering to could cause Intel to pull support. At the end of the day, some people want to crucify anyone they can. This seems like such people are grasping at straws to attack Intel. La Rose. In full disclosure, I have a favorable view of Intel since they are a major sponsor of the StarCraft 2 e-sports events around the world and have brought me countless hours of quality entertainment. Much like RedBull. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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