Creating a thread to route the conversation from the current Conference Call thread to.
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:SarielsBaby wrote:I honestly don't understand the hate towards Total Biscuit. I disagree with his point of view sometimes. But the level of vitriol some people exhibit is surprising.
Well... He says that transphobic abuse is the fault of the victim, and pushes that pretty messed up viewpoint regularly. That alone makes the "vitriol" some people exhibit towards him understandable. If you have a toxic, contemptuous viewpoint, you attract contempt. Though he's also got a pretty healthy litiny of other offenses: For example, he's utterly dismissive of racism as being a thing that exists in the world (his views on privilege in general are pretty messed up.)
He encourages harrassment and casually shrugs off death threats to anyone he doesn't like as no big deal.
His take on Patreon is absurd, and completely unsupportive of independent artists - (ie, the very people who need the money the most.)
He supports Gamergate and presents himself as a "moderate" voice while enabling some pretty awfully not-so-moderate activities. He bemoans the days that people could navigate the internet without having to have empathy. And yet, if you criticize him, he's got insanely thin skin and is quick to accuse someone of character assassination. Of course, he has no problem making false / ridiculous accusations about other people if he doesn't like their politics.
And then there's the framerate police. The bragging about his IQ score. Etc.
I've been following him for a year now and your representation could hardly be more wrong. I've seen him be conciliatory and apologetic of some of his earlier statements. I've seen him not only have a transwoman as a guest on twice recently but also attack his own audience on her behalf when some complained about her presence. I've seen him apologize to Dodger for asking her "as a woman" questions. He's a thoughtful man with evolving views who has committed the grave sin of not wholesale subscribing to a specific brand of groupthink.
And he's not a gamer gater, he's merely not 100 percent against them. And this again is a grave sin with a certain group of people who are quite comfortable dismissing and dehumanizing people as much as they claim anybody else does.
Also. Whats so horrible about the framerate police? I'm genuinely curious on that one?
The banner for this has cracked me up. All of the plusses, Dimmer. All of them.
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:The banner for this has cracked me up. All of the plusses, Dimmer. All of them. :)
For what it's worth, though I'm glad the banner image is giving folks smiles, I would like this thread to be a space for reasonable disagreement.
Folks can draw different conclusions about Total Biscuit as a person, and as long as they're willing to (politely) show their work, that's okay by me.
Yeah, that probably needs some emphasis. Harpo was good enough to put some links to examples together only to have them dismissed with a "that's not fair" and then a broad-brush accusation that anyone doesn't like him has that mindset due to "groupthink". Not a fantastic start :\
This thread has been a long time coming.
This thread has been a long time coming.
I'm hoping this thread is absolutely dogpiled with Coffee Grinders just asking questions for 20 pages and then the whole forum is once again dismissed as a hugbox.
edit: To be fair, I'll put my opinion about this guy out there - I am pretty bored to death with the "look at me, I'm unrepentantly aggro and acidic about things I don't like! Look at me, I'm being sarcastic, therefore I don't have to say anything particularly unique or insightful!" sorts of podcasts, hosts, articles, and whatnot. TB does exactly nothing to stand out of a crowd of people who seem to think they're being edgy and unique rather than standing in a very crowded, very safe room.
I can't wait for all of us to be dismissed via being lumped into one group. Goodjerati is the new Tumblrati!
I don't care for him myself, I find him condescending and self absorbed. I don't watch his channel and only know him through his time as TR faction leader in Planetside 2. Which, for the record, he was pretty bad at. I followed him on twitter at that time but could only take a week or 2 of that.
I have no hate for the man.
I can't wait for all of us to be dismissed via being lumped into one group. Goodjerati is the new Tumblrati!
Aww, I think the last time that happened was before you were on the board.
I , for one, hope that my Goodjerati card comes in the mail real soon. I'd like to thank Dimmerswitch for creating this thread and reminding us of some very basic principles (also known as the "Citation or GTFO" in the medical and skeptic community). I'd also like to thank Harpo for his patient and thorough posts in the GWJCC thread.
As for my own opinion of TB... It's a terrible disease, and I hope we eradicate it soon before it develops more resistance to multiple antibiotics.
Just kidding.
To say I'm not a fan would be an understatement. As Bloo Driver pointed out so well, the sarcastic, cynical, "edgy" tone is just not that original, and frankly, a bit annoying. I really find I can't relate to him on any level, and that my gaming reality is lightyears away from his. And there's the rest which Harpo has covered extensively. Honestly, even if he has attempted to "mend his ways" this year, that won't be enough to convince me. I don't see why he should get points for treating a woman - cis or trans - like a person, like any decent human being. That should be a given, something that's automatic, not something that gets praised and lauded.
Werd to Bloo and Eleima's sentiments that the Bileful Internet Man persona is well and truly played, rife and ridden with its own cliches. I've never watched a video from this guy, but if I had to venture a guess, a key aspect of his persona is some sort of hat, correct?
It still feels absurd to seriously talk about someone known as "Total Biscuit." To my ears and mind, the term falls somewhere between "road apple" and "dookie."
Wow, his 60 fps thing is hilarious.
Personally, I'm so used to high framerates I can't play games at 30 fps anymore.
Omg. I'm rolling at how funny this is! He's serious! He's completely serious!
This is the sort of thing that makes me want to throw up my hands and yell "get a life" at the screen. Can you imagine if people put all this effort into making people in the world less hungry instead of worrying about game framerates being as high as they want them to be because of their own particular tastes they have developed?? The world might, just might, be a better place for everyone, not just those who are lucky enough to have all the latest PC hardware.
Ahem, sorry. Hilarious! What a waste of one's life.... 30 fps. lol
I read that if you game at 30fps you get tuberculosis in your eyes.
I picture Dennis Hopper, on a walkie-talkie, talking to Keanu Reeves. "If this game dips under 30fps, then everyone playing it will die!"
When referring to a joke about a trans woman not disclosing her trans status to a man before they had sex (e.g, the oldest trope about trans people ever that frequently leads to the death of the trans woman):
"If he was misled into sleeping with a man, it's entirely possible you could claim this guy is a rape victim, for instance."
This encapsulated why my opinion of John Bain is not a favorable one.
Goddammit I keep forgetting his real name. It just makes me so mad, he's wasting a perfectly good given name. It's marketable and punchy. If my name was John Bain, I wouldn't have to rely on dumb marine phlebotomy jokes.
;
Dammit now I have to dig up that outstanding YouTube video that had all kinds of information on this guy's shenanigans. I searched for an hour the other day with no luck.
If there was a way I could find all the posts I made to GWJ between July 17 and July 19, I could find it. I already tried searching Google, YouTube, and reddit (where I found the video in the first place), with no luck.
Ok I'll bite Full disclosure, I do sub his videos and I've seen maybe 10 (ish) videos. I wouldn't call myself a huge fan. I'm actually very indifferent and if I heard something horrid I wouldn't regret or bat an eye at unsubbing.
Well... He says that transphobic abuse is the fault of the victim, and pushes that pretty messed up viewpoint regularly. That alone makes the "vitriol" some people exhibit towards him understandable. If you have a toxic, contemptuous viewpoint, you attract contempt. Though he's also got a pretty healthy litiny of other offenses: For example, he's utterly dismissive of racism as being a thing that exists in the world (his views on privilege in general are pretty messed up.)
I don't see any citation for the transphobic part so can't speak to it but for the other part, I skimmed the linked article and it seems to be more speaking about not understanding the American idea of white privilege.
Since he grew up in the UK I wouldn't expect him to understand it. In the US African Americans were long denied the right to vote, were denied a proper education, kept separate from whites, and forced to live in low income areas. Since they were denied a good (or even adequate education) they had to take low income jobs leading to a cycle of poverty and often crime as young African Americans saw their situation as hopeless.
To the best of my knowledge, they didn't experience this in the UK, at least not to the extent that the US did.
He does go on at length about how classism effects the UK. He concludes that he wants equality for all races but thinks others are going about it the wrong way.
Am I missing here? Because I don't think that's a huge deal
He encourages harrassment and casually shrugs off death threats to anyone he doesn't like as no big deal.
His take on Patreon is absurd, and completely unsupportive of independent artists - (ie, the very people who need the money the most.)
Sounds horrible until I looked at the cited links. Here is what he says on encouraging harassment: "do with it what you will, come after me fine, come after my audience, enjoy the consequences.". The rhetoric here is not so bad. He seems to be just defending his fans.
The death threat part is fairly terrible. He's essentially saying you can't take a death threat seriously until you're dead. Which is, frankly, dumb.
On patreon he says he supports it when it's used for a "reliable" product but is against using it as a form of "welfare". I believe that by product he's referring to any source, from physical products to broadcasts. As for the welfare part, he's saying he doesn't like people using it to collect free money. That's fine. It doesn't bother me that people use it for this and his dislike of it also doesn't bother me. *shrug*
He supports Gamergate and presents himself as a "moderate" voice while enabling some pretty awfully not-so-moderate activities. He bemoans the days that people could navigate the internet without having to have empathy. And yet, if you criticize him, he's got insanely thin skin and is quick to accuse someone of character assassination. Of course, he has no problem making false / ridiculous accusations about other people if he doesn't like their politics.
I seriously need a citation for the gamergate bit because that is (to me) very damning. As for the thin skin part, I don't care about that at all. A lot of people have thin skin when it comes to being insulted/attacked or even differing opinions. To each their own.
As for the false accusations, here is what he said: "Or perhaps that's just what happens when you find your journalistic inspiration at the bottom of a bottle. Sigh.". It's directed at an e3 Giant Bomb cast where some of the presenters may have been inebriated. Having been to e3 myself and hanged out with a few journalists, I can say it's very possible she was drunk on the broadcast in question.
So he's basically taking a jab at a game journalist who was drunk on a broadcast about e3. Not so terrible and if she was broadcasting drunk then maybe not undeserved. He's not calling her an alcoholic or a terrible person. He's just saying the show was bad because she was drunk. Big BUT though...I maybe misunderstanding that whole exchange.
Last part is about him being the frame rate police and bragging about his IQ. I've only viewed maybe 10 of his videos and never heard him brag about his IQ. He is snotty about frame rates which does bother me. I don't mind any frame rate above 30, maybe even 25.
All in all I see no evidence of him being a terrible person. I need more. As I said at the onset, I'm not a huge fan and won't regret unsubbing but most of this is minor quibbling and the most damning accusations, transphobia and supporting gamergate, have no citations.
When referring to a joke about a trans woman not disclosing her trans status to a man before they had sex (e.g, the oldest trope about trans people ever that frequently leads to the death of the trans woman):
John Bain wrote:"If he was misled into sleeping with a man, it's entirely possible you could claim this guy is a rape victim, for instance."
This encapsulated why my opinion of John Bain is not a favorable one.
...And if you want some of the GamerGate stuff, this is a good place to start.
Or, in short:
http://whatdidtotalbiscuitdonow.tumb...
The thing is, he strikes me as a person who's got a generally good moral compass, but who will throw that right out the window at the first whiff of being challenged. The previous discussion had examples of TB standing up against transphobia right alongside (and usually within a short span) of TB practicing transphobia. He's got the same vibe as the Penny Arcade guy - someone who never learned impulse control, and lashes out at any sign of being challenged.
On race relations in the northern UK - ask the centuries of Pakistani, Indian, Caribbean and Chinese immigrants if white privilege exists, and they'll tell you TB is 100% full of sh*t on that front.
I chalk him up to the entire video game scene these days.. something I avoid like the plague. Frankly the emergence of all these "f*ckwads" has driven me to largely avoid everything "videogamey" outside of GWJ. I find their voices grating and their entire "schtick" tiresome and completely exploitive.
As for the false accusations, here is what he said: "Or perhaps that's just what happens when you find your journalistic inspiration at the bottom of a bottle. Sigh.". It's directed at an e3 Giant Bomb cast where some of the presenters may have been inebriated. Having been to e3 myself and hanged out with a few journalists, I can say it's very possible she was drunk on the broadcast in question.
It's not an e3 bombcast, it was an e3 after hours show, and it weren't just "a gaming journalist" but the direct recipient of a ton of vitriol, Leigh Alexander.
Everyone was drunk on that show.
That is the whole point of those shows.
This year Johnny V tweeted out Dave Lang's phone number during the show he was so trashed.
Bain just wanted to score cheap points playing it up to the GG or at least anti Alexander choir (intersection non empty) and it's a sh*tty thing to do.
"I talked to a trans woman more than once and managed to do the bare minimum of being a decent human being to her" isn't really a defense for uncritically perpetuating stereotypes that get trans women killed more or less daily.
Okay, so on to some of the other stuff...
So, the stuff you skimmed that's about race doesn't at all come off to me like a simple case of "I don't understand internal American politics because Brit." It comes off to me like the typical defensive white person who conflates economic privilege with racial privilege as a means of dismissing the existence of racial privilege as a thing. Tanglebones covered this well.
The harrassment stuff is particularly sinister to me. He has a half a million followers, mostly gaters, ready to pounce and he tends to do this thing where he says "X person/thing/etc is bad. Call me a terrible person for saying so if you like, or you know, react to my displeasure with them in whatever way you see fit." It is very much a dog whistle for his followers to then go on the offensive...
Much like he did with that inspiration from the bottle comment... I met the particular person he lobbed that insult to right in the thick of some of her worst days with this stuff, as she is a good friend with someone I've collaborated with artistically and we were both helping said friend pack/move. He typically lobs insults and accusations at her, and it unleashes a flood of his followers upon her every time. She's someone who does a lot a of good for gaming, and even if she was drunk once (which you say may or may not be the case) at what is essentially a giant party, that hardly seems to be ground for an accusation that she discovers all of her inspiration for writing from drinking. That's an incredibly problematic leap. And even if meant as a harmless joke, given the context of half a million followers frothing to strike at anyone deemed an "SJW" then it is a dramatic failure to read context as there is no way it can be anything BUT harmful.
The framerate stuff and the Patreon stuff go hand and hand. Its all about attack a certain type of artist, namely an indie one who might have left leaning politics.
...And if you want some of the GamerGate stuff, this is a good place to start.
Thanks Harpo. For those who don't do the deep dive, a link in that article is to a video explaining what gamergate is all about. TB has a written reply to that video in which he says
This information turned out to be inaccurate to a point, it alleged that the journalist (Nathan Grayson) had written a positive review of the game while in a romantic relationship with the developer. This is not true, however what is true is that Grayson wrote an article using Quinn as a source on March 31st of this year, regarding a game jam, in which he promoted her game. In "early April", the two began a romantic relationship. Editor in Chief at Kotaku Stephen Totilo claims he does not see a problem with this, since the romantic relationship began after the article was written, however many people including myself disagree, since it is unlikely that the relationship suddenly sprang out of nowhere and that a friendship was in place prior to this. I and many supporting Gamergate believe this should have been disclosed or that Grayson should have recused himself from writing this article. Kotaku disagrees.
First of all, yes, a relationship can, in fact, "suddenly spring out of nowhere." to assert that it can't is absurd.
Second of all, he does indeed associate himself with gamergate, as you can see in the bolded section.
Third of all, unsubbed.
Thanks Harpo
The thing is, he strikes me as a person who's got a generally good moral compass, but who will throw that right out the window at the first whiff of being challenged.
So you're saying that a guy who effectively sells clicks on the power of his "entertainingly" gruff, unpolished, egotistical style of reviews... might actually be like that all the way through?
huh
Tanglebones wrote:The thing is, he strikes me as a person who's got a generally good moral compass, but who will throw that right out the window at the first whiff of being challenged.
So you're saying that a guy who effectively sells clicks on the power of his "entertainingly" gruff, unpolished, egotistical style of reviews... might actually be like that all the way through?
huh
Sometimes a sh*tty cigar is just a sh*tty cigar.
Sometimes a sh*tty cigar is just a sh*tty cigar.
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