She's been covering this for a while. Helped me unpack some things. This video in particular I think is sort of the culmination of her efforts to actually try to understand both sides.
Please hear her out. She's not me. She's closer to you guys. I think you might find what she has to say interesting particularly in this video where she gets into the moral foundations of various groups (referencing this paper: http://politicsofthemind.com/2012/12...)
Here's her video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgB4...
I'd really like to see GWJ have her on. She has more to say than Totalbiscuit does and I'd like to see her get more exposure. It could heal the rift. This is also why I give it its own thread rather than posting it in TB's. Liana needs to be heard.
EDIT: Its a 36 minute video and I'm not even done watching it yet and it occurs to me thats a bit irresponsible on my part. If she goes off the rails after the 26 minute mark, I apologize. I also had something in here about people "rolling their eyes" that would have come off as pointed. In the wake of my first discussion on this board, I've had two very nice people contact me and its convinced me that this community is worth me having some patience and holding my tongue. You've got ladies and gentlemen in your crowd. That pointed remark also would have been against the spirit of the video I posted. So there's that.
EDIT EDIT: It just occurred to me that this might sound a bit one sided so for context, she's a feminist trying to communicate with GamerGate, so she's focusing on appeals and language that speak to what she believes to be many GGer's core motivations. This is why she might seem to frame GG as "us" and feminists as "them" in some places. But she's not a GGer.
I won't have time to watch the video until probably later this weekend, but I'll be sure to check it out and share my thoughts afterward.
This isn't me trying to mini mod or anything, just giving an earnest suggestion: the idea that there's "me" and then "you guys" as far as who LianaK might be closer to is doing yourself a gigantic disservice. I'd take a moment and analyze that sort of dichotomy in your head, especially in light of the topic there.
This isn't me trying to mini mod or anything, just giving an earnest suggestion: the idea that there's "me" and then "you guys" as far as who LianaK might be closer to is doing yourself a gigantic disservice. I'd take a moment and analyze that sort of dichotomy in your head, especially in light of the topic there.
I dunno; that might feel pretty fair, considering the rough intro to Goodjerdom.
Nice to see the contribution, WnN. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but only in P&C.
I dunno; that might feel pretty fair, considering the rough intro to Goodjerdom.
Nice to see the contribution, WnN. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but only in P&C. ;)
Indeed. Indeed. For example, you could go to Steam and pick up...say...I don't know...Rocket League (10% off!) and play with all kinds of nice Goodjers.
Wait. What? This isn't a Rocket League thread?
Chumpy_McChump wrote:I dunno; that might feel pretty fair, considering the rough intro to Goodjerdom.
Nice to see the contribution, WnN. We're a tough crowd sometimes, but only in P&C. ;)
Indeed. Indeed. For example, you could go to Steam and pick up...say...I don't know...Rocket League (10% off!) and play with all kinds of nice Goodjers.
Wait. What? This isn't a Rocket League thread? ;)
They all are. They're all Rocket League threads.
She seems to ramble on in a chaotic way. That thing she said about conservatives staying out of people's lives is grade A BS. The party is for removing the choice in abortion and they want to prevent gay marriage. Then it is mainly conservatives that want creationism taught in schools and Christian imagery in government places.
Then to what I guess as her main point about being offended I think she is a off base. She was basically saying people don't have the right to complain when offended. She is literally doing the very thing she is complaining about. I think a better position is that you don't have the right to shut someone down because you were offended.
Are there people out there calling gaming morally wrong? Who is doing that?
I don't think anyone is calling the hobby morally wrong. People are criticizing the content of some of the games in hopes of making them more inclusive. The same could be said of action movies. If people didn't like games in general, the message would be different.
I think it's very much that women are attracted to games for many of the same reasons men are, and those that play them do so despite the fact that many games aren't "for them." This is a problem across entertainment media, and to be fair, it does affect boys as well.
I have both boys and girls, and in looking for games, toys, and movies for them I've found two basic problems. First, how females are portrayed in most media really isn't that great. They are often effectively powerless even when they're presented as capable (female superhero still needs the male superhero to save her all the time). Also, they're generally half naked. Second, in the media where that is t the case, boys are often excluded. Take the Tinkerbell movies for example. They're really girl-positive, but there are no toys for the boy fairies, so my son doesn't feel like he can play with them even though he wants to. On the flip side, there generally aren't toys of girl characters in media presumably targeted at boys. Good luck finding a Selene or Hera toy for Star Wars Rebels.
A final point I'd like to make is that altering media to be more appealing to women doesn't mean making it less appealing to men. Take Trinity from The Matrix or Black Widow from Avengers. The fact that they're portrayed as legitimately capable didn't make those movies any less appealing to men.
The whole idea that us nerds were rejected by the cute girls in school (among others, but that sting tends to hurt worst). We turned to our geeky hobbies, gaming amongst them, to get away from that. And now some of the most visible people attacking us and calling our hobby morally wrong are attractive women.
So its like "I have hot digital women in my games as part of my coping strategy for when you rejected me and now you're attacking me for that."
I'm worried that the casual objectification of women here isn't being addressed. I'm worried that describing video games as a way to "get away from [girls]" operates under the assumption that video games are not a place for women. If I'm reading you right, you're saying that hot digital women need to be in games because you use them as a stand in for real life rejection. Without making judgment on that particular statement, remember that video games are not By Men For Men. From what I can see, the strongest complaints about the objectification of women in video games comes from video gamers themselves.
Essentially, claiming that non gamers are calling video games morally wrong isn't factually correct. Claiming that some video gamers are not being represented accurately or in a positive/fair light would be a better statement.
GamerGate is one of the most exclusionary groups on the Internet right now. Regardless of what they claim, their actions have shown a desire to limit both game developers and games themselves to cater solely to a straight, white, male audience, by attacking anyone making games that don't cater to that audience, attacking anyone who criticizes games catering to that audience, and providing a hostile online environment for people who aren't that audience.
I don't think anyone is calling the hobby morally wrong. People are criticizing the content of some of the games in hopes of making them more inclusive. The same could be said of action movies. If people didn't like games in general, the message would be different.
I think it's very much that women are attracted to games for many of the same reasons men are, and those that play them do so despite the fact that many games aren't "for them." This is a problem across entertainment media, and to be fair, it does affect boys as well.
I have both boys and girls, and in looking for games, toys, and movies for them I've found two basic problems. First, how females are portrayed in most media really isn't that great. They are often effectively powerless even when they're presented as capable (female superhero still needs the male superhero to save her all the time). Also, they're generally half naked. Second, in the media where that isn't the case, boys are often excluded. Take the Tinkerbell movies for example. They're really girl-positive and also have some great boy characters, but there are no toys for the boy fairies, so my son doesn't feel like he can play with them even though he wants to. On the flip side, there generally aren't toys of girl characters in media presumably targeted at boys. Good luck finding a Sabine or Hera toy for Star Wars Rebels or any female superhero toy at all.
A final point I'd like to make is that altering media to be more appealing to women doesn't mean making it less appealing to men. Take Trinity from The Matrix or Black Widow from Avengers. The fact that they're portrayed as legitimately capable didn't make those movies any less appealing to men.
[edit] (writing long posts on a phone sucks)
The "GG is about corruption in game reporting" is very much a false flag they can use to discredit people who criticize them for anything else. It makes critics seem like they're attacking GGers for no reason because "GG is actually about game reporting--who said anything about sexism?" Even though it's actually all about sexism.
Yep. And that's entirely fair. However, I think everyone would agree that emotions aren't rational. While the first reaction to FemFreq might be "they're saying my games are bad! This is all I have!" What typically follows (or should) is "okay, now that I'm done freaking out, what are they really saying?" Humans are rational animals. You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything. It's the "why" that needs investigation. I think people understand why people are freaking out about GG. The problem is getting everyone to move past that towards a discussion of the real underlying issues.
I should have figured I'd get responses like these. I describe feelings and personal experiences and some of the rebuttals are treating this as though I were constructing moral, ethical and/or factual arguments.
So lets be clear. I KNOW that the perception I presented is a distorted one. I was trying to give you a peek at some raw base reactions.
Do you have specific personal experiences? Because you didn't list any. Did I miss them somewhere?
So you feel persecuted (by others) though you know that your perception is distorted. So that's someplace we can start this discussion from. But it's not carte blanche to take things out on other people, particularly vulnerable ones. You have a right to your emotions. You don't have a right to hurt other people with your emotions. You don't have a right to badger other people to acknowledge your emotions.
As for the feelings of betrayal: I think that they've been entirely constructed for you. You've been told that you've been betrayed, but you haven't been. That's why when outsiders look at the issues you bring up, they dismiss you out of hand: because the supposed ethics violations never happened. Because when people who have some actual experience with things you think are betrayals take a closer look they realize that there are massive misunderstandings behind most of the claims. Because the places in gaming where there are actual ethical issues have been entirely covered up by this past year's brouhaha.
Now maybe you've got an example of an actual betrayal, or of something that you find personally upsetting. Or of an emotional perception that it hurting you. If you'd like to share it, I'm willing to listen. As long as you don't hurt others with it.
Can you explain exactly how games don't contribute to rape culture? You could do it in the rape culture thread if you'd like.
Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.
Ah, the first issue: When Feminist Frequency says the aspects of games that she is critiquing contribute to a culture of rape apology (also referred to as "rape culture") that is not the same thing as saying that all of gaming is immoral. Or even that most games are. Or even that the entirety of a game that happens to reinforce a rape culture trope is entirely immoral. Super Mario Brothers can simultaneously be a good game and a game that has a problematic damsel in distress trope.
...and I was generalizing the experiences of other awkward male geeks.)
I'd like to make a personal request to avoid generalizing like this in this thread. It muddies the issue when specific experiences are better anecdotes. If anecdotes may not be data, but generalization doesn't even rise to that level. You are not anywhere close to being the only awkward male geek on this forum. (Let alone the experiences of the non-awkward geeks, the non-male awkward geeks, and the awkward people who aren't geeks at all.) Please don't try to speak for me when you speak to me.
If you go to their boards, ethics in games journalism is mostly what they talk about amongst each other,
Uh, no. Not even close. I've been to their boards, I've read what they have to say. I have followed GamerGate from the very beginning. I have a transcript on my computer from the chat a year ago where are bunch of people intentionally organized the movement to harass women: I got it from GamerGate people who were spreading it around under the mistaken belief that it exonerated them. I've got a copy of the some of the other operating documents too, none of which show a competent interest in the ethics of journalism.
And I'll thank you not to call me progressive, because I doubt I fit what you think of when you use that label.
Well, the mainstream media murdered a princess once, and has casually destroyed the lives of innocent people in the past, I shouldn't be surprised).
This is called tu quoque, the fallacy of the appeal to hypocrisy. No one here really cares about the mainstream media one way or the other. The narrative of GamerGate being misunderstood is appealing to you, but it really doesn't hold much water for someone like me who has been looking at it up close for way too long.
complexmath wrote:You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything.
Why not? Other groups get to. And they've had a game pulled from stores, and content in other games changed because of it.
There's a difference between "this upset me a bit" and "this is actively harmful to me". And you'll want to back up that claim about games getting pulled with some evidence, because I can't recall any actual examples related to the current subject.
And all the content changes I'm aware of were entirely voluntary and welcomed by the devs.
Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.
And that's the basic GG inaccuracy writ large. At most, they are attacking some games as immoral. That's not the same as painting gaming as a hobby as immoral.
More accurately, some critics are painting aspects of some games as problematic. Note the difference in breadth between those two statements: "aspects of some games are problematic" vs "gaming is immoral". When folks say the former and people get upset about the latter, it's really not surprising to see the chasm between the two sides.
(No interpretation justifies the sh*tstorm that a number of primarily female devs have been put through.)
GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.
While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.
You seem to feel somewhat persecuted in this thread. Is there something that is bothering you in particular?
Femfreq has said games contribute to a culture of rape apology. And her and others have strong issue with the violence in games. So yes they are attacking gaming as immoral.
I disagree. While there are some books that contribute to a culture of rape apology, some of which I'm sure have been criticized as such, I've never heard of anyone that thinks literature as a whole is being attacked as immoral. The cirticism is very much about specific elements in some games, and some of the problem isn't that the elements are there at all but rather how pervasive they are. Take saving the princess, for example. In an of itself, that's a fine goal to have. The problem is how often it crops up. What makes it worth examining is that saving the princess is a goal in zillions of games, and by virtue of how pervasive it is, the aggregate message is that princesses (or women) are helpless, and exist to be saved by a male hero. The games are still fun, but the underlying message, which some might not be aware of, has negative elements.
complexmath wrote:You can't use "this upset me" as a justifications for anything.
Why not? Other groups get to. And they've had a game pulled from stores, and content in other games changed because of it.
They don't. That may be the start of it, but the decision about what to do is very much about the "why." And to be fair, this is a boundary that's continually being refined. Take all the recent talk about microaggressions, for example. Ultimately, a huge problem with all of this is that the underlying issues are extremely complex, and people in general like to paint things black and white, particularly when it's something they feel strongly about.
I present Liana Kerstner as an alternative. She's smarter, shes an actual gamer and she is actually trying to communicate rather than shutting us down and blocking us while she preaches.
I still have to watch the video, so I can't comment on it specifically yet. What it sounds like Liana is trying to do is to find common ground with GGers in an attempt to move past the visceral response towards an open discussion. And I think that's a good thing. However, I think you undermine your point by comparing Liana to, presumably, Anita. Anita is a gamer as well, and she's certainly quite smart, but ultimately neither of those things matter. What's important is whether what either of them is saying is actually accurate. And I think Anita does make good points, even if she might have miscast some of the games she used as examples.
A very large portion of the most popular video games out there are violent to varying degrees (even games like Super Mario) so its a pretty widespread attack.
Who said violence was a problem?
WideAndNerdy wrote:GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.
While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.
It also seems that part of the divide here is whether fiction exists in a vaccuum outside of a culture or society, or if it is part of the culture and society that spawned it with all of the relevant issues.
Gremlin wrote:WideAndNerdy wrote:GAMES ARE FICTION. There's no amount of so called insidious programming that will counter the explicit message being broadcast loud and clear these days that rape is wrong. I've heard the words "toxic masculinity" enough for all of our lifetimes combined.
While it would be nice if it was true, unfortunately I don't think that everyone believes "that rape is wrong". There's too many rapes that still happen, for starters, and it's too easy to get people to admit they committed rape as long as you don't use the r-word.
It also seems that part of the divide here is whether fiction exists in a vaccuum outside of a culture or society, or if it is part of the culture and society that spawned it with all of the relevant issues.
Also true, and probably worth a whole discussion in itself. It's one reason why people are invested in these discussions and defensive about what they chose for entertainment. It's a part of their culture. Having to critically examine that, and potentially reject some of it is traumatic cognitive dissonance because it requires them to examine part of their identity. Especially because it's cultural, and hence unconscious until examined.
That's part of what "toxic masculinity" means, by the way. It doesn't mean that males are toxic, it means that a particular framework that has been established to perform masculinity is harmful, particularly to the men who are trapped in it. You can have a non-toxic masculinity.
Pages