Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

“For some guys, being themselves means making mildly lecherous comments or racial jokes. Now, a bunch of idiots are conflating and exaggerating this with actually being racist or sexist. That’s supremely fucking stupid, because they’re not even close to the same.”

smdh

playing WoW with ostensibly adult people who:

- bragged about failing all of their classes and getting kicked out of school
- bragged about missing work and not calling in so they could play
- would leave in the middle of a raid to go to Taco Bell
- liked to type rape jokes in general chat
- liked to belittle anyone who made a mistake, no matter how minor and no matter whether they had ever made that mistake before
- were by and large massively proud of their blinding, overwhelming ignorance of EVERYTHING aside from the game

... all of that, and then realizing this was one of the FRIENDLIER gaming communities, really sucked a lot of the fun of gaming out of my life, which is why I'm now playing single-player games on my phone, PS3 and Vita rather than gearing up for the next WoW expansion pack or checking out The Old Republic.

- would leave in the middle of a raid to go to Taco Bell

I'm sorry, this is hilarious

- would leave in the middle of a raid to go to Taco Bell

disgusting savages

oh I'm not gonna lie, that WAS hilarious

The whole 25 person raid was sitting on Vent listening to this dude babble (he babbled a LOT, and also used to bug the shit out of the women in our guild) and something happened where someone had to go AFK and he said "okay I'm doing a run to the border, I'll be back in 5 minutes".

We all were sitting there going "... WHAT?", especially since he was gone for half an hour.

The Old Republic has been pretty good, I must say. I've been playing since launch in December and I think I've only had to ignore-list four or five people.

maybe he meant 'going to the border gave me runs'

and he was playing on his desktop and not his laptop

when he got back, he was talking about how much he loved Taco Bell but he really had to stop going there because he weighed close to 400 pounds, but sometimes he couldn't resist and just had to drop everything, ask his mom for some money, and make a run for the border

IIRC he was 24 or 25

Urgh, that must be a horrible experience. Then again, the knitting community isn't that great either (in my country). :-( As a result I rarely socialize.

you forget that ilx is actually one of the more decent communities until you bump up against this idiocy

You might want to consider not reading any of the comments on that Craig Bannister article, not that you would have anyway.

My new WoW guild are alright, but there's a few subjects that I cringe whenever they come up - it just seems that unless a group is actually set up demographically to avoid sexism / racism / homophobia, there's no reason to expect them to avoid it. But even then if you call them on it they'll mostly be embarrassed or cut it out or at least work your dislike into the narrative - I've not seen the hateful "f u this is our right we will make our stand here" stuff from that thread. The only other place I've really seen it anywhere (that I can think of) is the "Gay just means lame, that's all, jeez granddad", which doesn't really seem to have turned up that much on this side of the Atlantic.

Disclaimer: I am a straight white male, so obviously I am wearing a +12 suit of pillows in all of this.

one of the most interesting things I watched happen was seeing my gay coworker join my WoW guild and seeing him shortly afterward start using "gay" to mean stupid, something he never did before

it was especially jarring seeing this coming from a 40+ year old

it's kind of hilarious to contrast the dramatic environment that the game designers created vs. the regressed man-children who play the game and turn the austere fantasy world into a bunch of orcs calling each other "fag" every 2 seconds

nb I've never actually played WoW I just imagine that's what it's like based on my other online gaming experiences

depending on the server, it can get like that

they should invent a new character that you can play that's called a fag and make it the most powerful character just to throw everyone off

well, they are adding cute little panda monks in the next expansion

they should invent a new character that you can play that's called a fag and make it the most powerful character just to throw everyone off

too close to reality

Urgh, that must be a horrible experience. Then again, the knitting community isn't that great either (in my country). :-( As a result I rarely socialize.

:O

Nath, how so??

the only fabric they use is human skin

if knitting in belgium is anything like playing WoW with glutton homophones, man idk

Every knitting group I've been a part of has been almost entirely arty feminists (men & women alike), which means sometimes having to pretend their pattern for a felted vibrator cozy is some kind of high-concept art piece, but that's really as "bad" as it gets.

is a vibrator cozy really that functional, or is it just an aesthetic nicety to put on a vibrator?

It seriously was some convoluted concept piece that was supposed to be a commentary on the TSA.

haha what

My sorta-arty/pretty-geeky feminist best friend used to knit Diva Cup cozies!

I know I love ensconcing things in cabled wool.

had never heard of the diva cup [glow of newly acquired wisdom]

What, where have you been??? We've done menstrual alternatives like 4 times!

lolling at the name "diva cup"

RIP Whitney

oh wait

i took a vacation

menstruation vacation

http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/_img/chars/char_16963.jpg

a menstruation vacation I say

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/2hzr39l.gif

mooncup over my hammy

I haven't read this thread yet but are you all talking about vid games because of the whole streetfighter controversy

Kind of laughing at StarCraft 2 as a comparative point of positivity, in that there are still a bunch of morons who think launching into sexuality-based insults or racial slurs at the beginning of a game is funny. Not all that many, but it happens.

― valleys of your mind (mh), Wednesday, February 29, 2012 9:16 AM (5 hours ago)

sorry to derail, but i just have to come back to this real quick. SC2 is light-years ahead of every other gaming community that i've had any experience with (which admittedly is mostly only through brief encounters and friends who have been into other games.) yes, there are still plenty of morons on battle.net, of course, but as far as the dominant culture of the game goes, it is almost mind-boggling how much better the SC2 community is--politeness is ingrained into the standard interactions between players ("glhf", "gg"), and while its not always practiced, it is really surprising how often it is. there has been major blowback from the community every single time someone in the spotlight has made any kind of racist or misogynistic remark, and overall the SC2 community is very self-conscious about how they come across to outsiders and they're very self-aware of the general perception of gaming communities. there's this whole idea that has taken root within SC2 that they are the ones that can really grow "eSports" by being more mature, presentable, professional, etc. i think this is largely due to the intense strategic difficulty of the game keeping the bar for entry somewhat high combined with the influence of certain community figures.

starcraft is actually brought up in this srticle

http://kotaku.com/5889066/competitive-gamers-inflammatory-comments-spark-sexism-debate

This is a community that's, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it's not the fighting game community—it's StarCraft. There's nothing wrong with StarCraft if you enjoy it, and there's nothing wrong with anything about eSports, but why would you want just one flavor of ice cream, you know? There's eSports for people who like eSports, and there's fighting games for people who like spicy food and like to have fun. There's no reason to turn them into the same thing, you know?

Later, when asked about whether shouting "Rape that bitch!" at a match is acceptable behavior, Bakhtanians replied, "Look, man. What is unacceptable about that? There's nothing unacceptable about that. These are people, we're in America, man, this isn't North Korea. We can say what we want. People get emotional."

It's called "diva cup" now? What happened to "mooncup"?

huh interesting

what is glhf?

xp

btw I thought up mooncup over my hammy yesterday thank you for letting me post it

good luck have fun

America!

I don't think I've ever heard "diva cup" used in Finland (seriously, what does it have to do with divas?), everyone I know says "mooncup" or plain ol' "menstruation cup".

think diva cup is a brand

the branding being something like "you are embracing your powerful womanhood by menstruating into a cup"