Why is casual racism/sexism more accepted in video games than other forms of media (these days)?

A somewhat heartwarming story of the Troll Who Came In From The Cold

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps

http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-harassment-on-twitter

I really have a lot of hope for all of this, like it is really cool that there is this constant discussion going on now. It would be cool if this was true about movies or tv or politics. Not the part about people being harassed, but about people having discussions. There is a mass awareness of feminism right now and for most of recent pop history it has been portrayed in a scary and misleading light. Note that pop portrayals of feminism have in the past tended to be written or commented by men. She has an opportunity here to really educate an entire generation (and more) of previously oblivious men and women about feminism. If this is the most famous she is going to get I say she should make her next video Feminism 101. That's just a suggestion tho.

i have pretty much the opposite view - to me the whole gamergate farrago has been a demonstration of how resistant a certain subset of men are to having discussions about anything which could, no matter how unlikely, be a threat to the things they hold dear.

how many gamergaters have actually watched a feminist frequency video? sarkeesian's points are level-headed and well-framed for a general audience - you don't need to have a deep understanding of feminist theory to grasp that the fact that she's found hundreds of examples of women in videogames being treated as set dressing or damsels in distress or reskinned male characters. and she's not saying that games should be banned or censored, just that these tropes are very, very common and there's value in pointing that out. it's basic cultural criticism ffs! if games are going to be considered an artform then of course they're going to be subject to the same scrutiny as movies or tv or politics.

but the actual content of her videos is never really discussed by gamergaters. if they do want to discuss femfreq at all, it's 'what happened to her kickstarter money' or 'hey ea, what role is she playing in mirror's edge 2 let's start a petition hurr hurr' but more often, as that link from her tumblr shows, it's just hurling the most vile abuse imaginable and refusing to even consider thinking about what she actually has to say.

it's great that sarkeesian's work is getting exposure in the new york times and on colbert, and that might well lead some people to think more than they ever have before about feminism, but i think those messsages are clearly failing to reach the people who most need to hear them. instead, they're doxxing people, issuing death threats, and convincing themselves that feminazis want to replace Call of Duty with Gone Home.

the bitter irony of the gamergate backlash against those 'gamers are dead' articles was that they were celebrating the widening of gaming culture - the stereotype of the cheeto-dusted basement-dwelling social inadequates is over because everyone's a gamer now! but as a result of those articles, those people have set their minds to dragging gaming back into the basement and making gaming culture as hostile as possible to anyone perceived as an 'outsider'.

I don't know that's it's never discussed, more that there's a litany of criticisms (It's all out of context / she's stealing other people's let's play / she's making claims not backed up by the footage) that get recycled without much need to actually view the videos.

Also of course the straw manning that there is no female character that would make SJWs happy because (goes through checklist).

and she's not saying that games should be banned or censored

This gets a lot of "No but you can tell that they mean it" - though that tends to be the end that believes that she's not writing any of it, the whole thing is a Jonathan McIntosh presentation.

bizarro gazzara otm

gamergate's really hit the bigtime now with its very own svu episode:

According to fan blog All Things Law and Order, an episode of Law & Order: SVU titled "Intimidation Game" will air next month. The episode covers a woman game developer who is preparing to launch her first game only to be met with "a stream of online insults, intimidation and death threats from the male-dominated gaming community." Another woman developer is assaulted at a gaming convention, leading to intervention from series mainstay Detective Tutuola (played by Ice-T).

http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/29/7949153/law-order-svu-gamergate-episode-nbc-tv

i'll be super-disappointed if this doesn't include a scene where munch asks a davis aurini analogue why he has so many skulls in his apartment.

Ice-T's a massive gamer, isn't he?

yeah, i think he is. i'm sure he'll be getting sealioned by gamergaters asking for his REAL opinion on ethics in games journalism in no time.

The pathetiness of all of this was really driven home when they started attacking Tyler White lately for dating a Ubisoft "PR Girl", as one idiot blog described her. The tone of everything was at such breathlessness belying the fact that they'd all talked about it on podcasts & elsewhere for a good three years running.

Munch retired, iirc :(

a little help with your post: who are the they who were attacking, who is Tyler White, what would an Ubisoft PR Girl be, what was the person really, what was the breathless everything (was it all blogposts? or directed attacks? or), and who are the they that were talking about it* on podcasts for three years? it's kinda opaque!

*p sure this is the relationship that may or may not exist between Tyler White and a girl

xpost to kingfish

GamerGate / PC Gamer writer, actual surname Wylde / PR is a shorthand (or 'acronym') for Public Relations / Anne Marie Lewis, Communicaitons Specialist at Ubisoft and blogger on their blog / breathlessness was imgurs, reddit threads, 8chan, all sites of GG activity, quickly stepping up and then slowwly stepping down from the claim that PC Gamer were deleting the offending articles - not sure about directed attacks but wouldn't surprise me / they in this are I assume Tyler and Anne Marie, though I hadn't heard about podcasts.

more like law and order: sjw

high-fives

but, countdown to GG'ers going for "professional victims unit"

countdown is t+7 hours at least.

it's about harassment

https://storify.com/StephenAtWar/can-we-talk-about-this-1

"Raina refuses to delay the launch, and the cops must 'level up' to protect her," reads the official description.

http://boingboing.net/2015/01/28/a-beginners-guide-to-the-red.html

speakin of, has anybody read Angry White Men? Is it any good?

it's been my opinion for some time that this will end with someone being seriously hurt or killed

http://internet.gawker.com/the-psychopaths-of-gamergate-are-all-thats-left-and-th-1683271908

i had to stop reading that article it was upsetting me

matt binder tweeted out the vid of the 'street racer' dude, he just sounds legit medically delusional. though idk what kind of traction that guy really has within the community

the endless energy, though, that the the major figures have for harassment of really minor internet people is just fucked up

https://storify.com/StephenAtWar/can-we-talk-about-this-1

who can read these things w/o wincing, let alone following along? truly will never get it.

matt binder tweeted out the vid of the 'street racer' dude, he just sounds legit medically delusional. though idk what kind of traction that guy really has within the community

i mean, given what we've seen delusional ppl do in america in the last 10 years, shootings wise, does it matter what kind of cred he has in #gg? this stuff sets ppl in motion and there's no way of controlling the consequences, they sure as hell won't do anything but encourage him

yeah true, i was just saying. my (weak) understanding (from gawker comments lol) is that the guy is kind of an established internet crazy person?

you are right about the danger, absolutely.

The car crash video is insane.

It's especially weird since there's this entire "humor" these guys claim to have, like counter-troll trolling, and all these weird references, and it's completely inscrutable. It makes it nearly impossible to figure out what claims are from the mentally ill, which ones are from teens who have no concept of reality, or a bizarre combination.

There are plenty of comments acting as if this guy rolling a car is hilarious, mocking him but at the same time nodding to the fact he's saying all the right memes.

jesus

Can't understand why that guy hasn't been arrested yet?

good lord that guy is genuinely fucking crazy

There are plenty of comments acting as if this guy rolling a car is hilarious, mocking him but at the same time nodding to the fact he's saying all the right memes.

it's a weird mixture of things... watching that video i get the sense that he's 90% joking/putting on a character for the entertainment and approval of the faceless mass of 8channers he doesn't know but desperately wants that approval/infamy/personal encyclopediadramatica page or w/e -- that's the impression i get from tons of chan/reddit nerds that i've witnessed, not uncommon in internet communities but a lot worse in internet communities built around totally lonely angry boys

but then there's that extra 10% driving him above and beyond and it's combination terrifying/sad as fuck

damned if i'm going to link it, but did you watch that video where he has a "duel of honor" where he and a friend slapfight and nunchuk beat some rando? i made it to the part where he puts a gun to his head and starts screaming about a citizens arrest
genuinely fucking crazy.

hell no, I barely watched the linked video, this dude doesn't need any more of my time

Oops, sorry, yeah, I should have given more background to my complaint upthread

"GG supporters are the majority on twitter, on reddit, on comments sections in gaming news sites, on youtube, on comments sections of MSM news sites. (self.KotakuInAction)"

hmm.

― max, Thursday, January 15, 2015 5:57 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everyone saw this last fall right, it rules

https://medium.com/message/72-hours-of-gamergate-e00513f7cf5d

The median Gamergate supporter has 67 followers, follows 134 accounts, has posted 1,194 tweets, and joined Twitter a little over two years ago.

The median Gamergate critic has 144 followers, follows 234 accounts, has posted 3,765 tweets, and joined Twitter four years and three months ago.

i guess GG has their own data scientist who says there's like 150k of them and they're all really positive people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6I1VQTkrCU

HA, of course this is on SVU

tsk liberal media

The earrings are a nice touch.

ACTING!

Fan reaction to this should be interesting: Future Call of Duty Game May Have a Female Lead, Says Sledgehammer COO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXGJGuH59qw

comments on that article already almost unilaterally terrible xpost

like that amy schumer clip, also bummed at the likelihood of that tribunal having already happened

−
Avatar
dorkgeniuz21 Retsu Unohana
2 days ago
Has no one played tomb raider before, Lara is the perfect example of a female who can become strong, smart and still seem feminine.
0 Reply

can't tell if [tweet is] serious. can't decide which is worse.

schumer clip was aired well before gamergate started

is anyone watching this svu? i have it on mute cos i'm on the phone with family

earlier tho someone did use the phrase "subthread on redchan"

it's staged pretty badly and one of the badguy kids looks like wes anderson

ice-t is talking a lot about being a gamer

dick wolf