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

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.858347-Zoe-Quinn-and-the-surrounding-controversy?page=563

just in case you lose track of how these people think, members of the "cause" rationalize this too. Also this weird hangup about "the media" - who? What?

So, am I the only one not seeing the big deal about Zoe's IRC 'leaks'. I mean it was a public IRC that anyone could join and there was nothing bad about anything she uploaded.

Why are they saying we've to hate on a guy that got cheated on at least five times and forced into a nervous breakdown by his ex?

These youtube/4chan gamer dudes strike me as elliott rodgers types more than bro.

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Friday, September 5, 2014 12:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lot of nerds being labeled bro these days and its just not right not everyone u dont like exists on the hipster-bro continuum

Yeah, I agree with that. Many of the games are bro-y in various evident ways, and many of them (esp. shooters) are popular with bros, but it's not 1:1 at all, and I suspect a lot of the really distorted "never been out of the house" circles have relatively few bros in the room. But I really don't know. Like I figure WoW and Final Fantasy are less bro-y fandoms than CoD and God of War, right?

yeah it's kinda lol that these punks want recognition for their easily purchased AAA widely-advertised blando gaming habits; can you even beat hell in cave story+ bro?

If the internet has taught us anything it's that nerds are worse than jocks when given the chance

Thing is that jock types are generally dbags for a brief bout of junior high and into college and then they become normal dudes who don't even remember the people they pushed into lockers for better or for worse, whereas a lot of these nerds just spend the rest of their lives post-high school in a state of simmering hate and nursing grudges against a whole type of person that didn't "get" them back in the day or fucked with them.

"They thought the people who will die 500 times and keep getting back up in Dark Souls would fold" is priceless, so good it kinda has to be a parody.

That's the beauty of 4chan, you'll never know!

If the internet has taught us anything it's that nerds are worse than jocks when given the chance

OTM to the nth.

Yah also there are different jock types like some really great athlete ones that are super popular but also academically high achieving could be really nice to everyone, I think due to total self confidence and genial nature they have nothing to prove as having been totally successful on every level of high school from football to inevitably good looking and excellent student gf so feel no need to tear down others lower on totem pole. More borderline or dumb ones are more dangerous at time but tend as you say to verge into khaki dadhood and are probably chill dudes in their cul De sac

Also it should be said that lots of these nerd types really just despise and look down on pretty much everyone, and there's a partic strain of pseudo intellectual bs that differentiates them from actual "smart kids" and continues into adulthood.

where do mark cuban and steve ballmer fall on the nerd/jock/chillbro continuum?

Steve Ballmer is by most accounts just a spectacularly excitable weirdo

Yeah, you guys are talking shit about nerds vs jocks. What has happened here is that you're far closer to nerds, so you see every pockmark and dribble of sweat, whereas the jocks are off wayyyy over there and they look a whole lot better to you right now. If you like I can balance it out by posting all the craploads of stories about American college jocks drugging and raping women and getting away with it. But I don't think anyone really wants that.

Sadly misogyny is EVERYWHERE. It's not special to nerds or gamers.

Yeah, let's not become Captain Save-a-Jock - good point. I do think it might be useful to identify the specific strategies, channels, and rhetorical guises misogyny takes in these different circles though - your fedora-wearing, arms-crossed internet cynic nerd rationalizes misogyny through very different channels and rhetoric IME.

red bull seems to be doing its part to bridge the nerd/jock/bro divide:
http://www.redbullmusicacademy.jp/jp/magazine/digging-in-the-carts

I'm actually very close w people who were jocks. And nerds. I also have a very specific window into things here, which is first hand reading all the garbage emails and rape threats received by my female coworkers so yeah maybe I see it a certain way....

Or to say don't doubt that for every Zoe Quinn or Anita S there are 20 women who don't go public w stuff in games

Um, is that addressed toward me? Because believe me, I don't doubt it. Nothing in what I said implied that I doubted it. I have no idea how you could possibly infer that I doubted it.

Sorry u too many #notallgamers & #notyourshield crap this week, sincere apologies, I almost get used to things going aggro from the jump

Oh, no, the shit coming from the gaming world is very real and pernicious, obv. I'm just saying that there's real and pernicious shit everywhere else, too. It's all horribly, horribly depressing.

in england, certainly, the sort of people who will own, say, 'gears of war' swag, don't, i think, map onto either 'jocks' or 'nerds'. they might map onto 'people who have conversations about mobile phones'. i wonder how they map onto 'metal listeners'

i think the intensification of misogynist content in games rn is a bit like the intensification of misogynist content in 'rock' music over the period '70-'89, maybe, both seem an artifact of the balkanisation of a previously monolithic (or possible to treat as monolithic) audience

unclear perhaps whether god of war is at the 'virgin killer' or 'appetite for destruction' end of that cycle

i get the sense that jocks today are de facto gamers because madden etc... is part of their training protocols now. maybe in england it's different because there are no rowing simulators. fifa though...

these people wd play iss pro

not sure if that's accurate tbf

is there a video on the internet of milhouse shouting 'im not a nerd - nerds are smart!' that i could link here

If the internet has taught us anything it's that nerds are worse than jocks when given the chance

― rap steve (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, September 6, 2014 12:09 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

never give nerds a chance my motto

Also it should be said that lots of these nerd types really just despise and look down on pretty much everyone, and there's a partic strain of pseudo intellectual bs that differentiates them from actual "smart kids" and continues into adulthood.

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Saturday, September 6, 2014 1:27 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i feel like this is the defining characteristic of nerd culture thinking youre better than everyone cause youre smart, thinking being smart is the only thing that matters, defining intelligence so narrowly as to be meaningless

irks me how nerds are always portrayed as gentle inquisitive souls when theyre often so completely arrogant, not that gentle inquisitive nerds dont exist

Gentle inquisitive nerds rock, but don't tend to have very popular YouTube channels.

Thought this was good:

http://deathofgamergate.tumblr.com/

That is very good

also lol @ GamerGate, now and forever

i always think of
http://aznbadger.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/shadowgate3.png

The tumblr is very good - one thing that it largely misses though is the collection of bugs under this uncovered rock, people who are convinced that 'SJWs' have been involved in a protracted effort to infiltrate games journalism and now the, er, ivory towers of indie games (?!?) because they hate gamers and they have as their goal the elimination of the gamer identity and the ruining of games by 'forcing' them to change from the good old days (Sarkeesian is far more of a hate-figure for this mob than Quinn).

I'm aware of the very large gulf of analogy, but the tone of the language actually reminds me of 30s German anti-semitism: These people are responsible for the fact that it's not the days of glory any more, these people are invisibly in cliques in positions of influence (and can only be there for subterfuge as they definitionally can't share the same identity as you and I), these people must be fought against at all costs.

http://cdn.broscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/nerd1.jpg

The floor recognises the representative from broscience.org

I sort of understand where Mordy's coming from with the desire to hold onto a flag you find worthwhile even as its been poisoned by others, but having fought that fight myself over a few different flags I'd argue it's almost never worth it--you wind up backing into a corner splitting hairs and spluttering that you're not Like Those People, and no true scotsman would ever be.

http://i.imgur.com/ZWKH45N.png

I'm aware of the very large gulf of analogy, but the tone of the language actually reminds me of 30s German anti-semitism:

this exact thought came to me as well.

also on the level of "we need to keep an eye on these people"

whats it like to fight over a flag

cramped i wd imagine

capture the flag is one of my all time favorite games

http://jeff.rainbow-100.com/other/dosgames/21-1.png

^ more accepted in this form of media

h00s, i was thinking about this a bit over the weekend. it was particularly funny when someone mentioned Zionism as a metaphor for gamers itt bc obv that's a much more complex/controversial flag under which i fight. i just don't think it makes sense to abdicate identity markers instead of reclaim them - both bc ceding the ground leads to unintentional results (like only terrible ppl representing a cause you might otherwise believe in) as well as personal loss. idk.

i can think of like a dozen other examples of this - i'm not about to toss away the NFL bc of concussions and Ray Rice and Incognito etc either

i wanna make a free online game about flag-burning, anyone kno flash

one thing imo strongly identifying as a gamer is kinda frivolous and consumerist, like if thats yr thing in life u might not be doing that good

i don't necessarily think being a 'gamer' (at least how i've understood it) is frivolous and consumerist. yes, it can be, if you organize your identity around your game purchases. but you could be very active in, eg, the IF community, write your own games, play other ppl's games, write reviews + give feedback, and that's a totally different emphasis. or like hardcore board gamers or war gamers, i've never thought of them as particularly consumerist (even tho you do have to buy the games in those cases, but that's not what distinguishes the hobby).