Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[Straps]

Adam Baldwin has quit Twitter because he's sick of SJWs silencing honest, hard-working conservatives.

[NEG]

I'll alert SEGA that the hype for a new Shinobi is now.

[MDY]

 

[MDY]

Found this too 

 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb1DME0WwAEPAdP.png

[ah]

See, this is a large part of why gamergate gets support in the first place - insecure and unhappy people who once found refuge in an online games culture about which nobody else cared now have to contend not only with the ongoing ridicule of the outside world but also with supposedly intelligent, supposedly more successful members of society stepping into their cherished circle and not only criticising things they love but then also ridiculing them from within for being the stupid, evil morons they actually mostly aren't.

 

But hey, clever jokes demonising your opponents is basically what social media loves best, so what's a right-on left-leaning graphic designer to do? Think of something funny and cruel and then choose not to say it, even though it would take no time at all to draw? Heaven's above, but how would anyone know how clever and right-on s/he is if s/he did that?

 

(Not really aimed at you MDY, more the whole endless cycle of mutual hatred and may-the-wittiest-man-win that this kind of conversation has mostly become. Thanks a bunch, "like" buttons everywhere...)

[matt0]

51 minutes ago, alistarr said:

See, this is a large part of why gamergate gets support in the first place - insecure and unhappy people who once found refuge in an online games culture about which nobody else cared now have to contend not only with the ongoing ridicule of the outside world but also with supposedly intelligent, supposedly more successful members of society stepping into their cherished circle and not only criticising things they love but then also ridiculing them from within for being the stupid, evil morons they actually mostly aren't.

 

But hey, clever jokes demonising your opponents is basically what social media loves best, so what's a right-on left-leaning graphic designer to do? Think of something funny and cruel and then choose not to say it, even though it would take no time at all to draw? Heaven's above, but how would anyone know how clever and right-on s/he is if s/he did that?

 

(Not really aimed at you MDY, more the whole endless cycle of mutual hatred and may-the-wittiest-man-win that this kind of conversation has mostly become. Thanks a bunch, "like" buttons everywhere...)

 

This only works as an argument if you forget people have been hounded out of jobs and homes by these clowns, the sheer volume of sexual threats, the constant bad faith arguments and misinformation spread over ever gaming news site you care to mention, the links to white supremacy groups etc. et-fucking cetera. All over misunderstanding a couple of articles and youtube videos and a lunatics online harassment of his ex-girlfriend.

 

A jokey picture of an egg seems incredibly mild in comparison. I've no doubt there's a lot of insecurity and unhappiness fuelling it but just look back at the shit they've been up to and the things they've said this past year and a half (that long!). I've got very little sympathy for GG folk in the grand scheme of things.

[ah]

What I'm saying is that the yolky picture of an egg is indeed mild by comparison, but is only mild by comparison. As a standalone joke you don't have to be sympathetic to gamergate to see that it remains small-hearted and does nothing beyond help some people feel pleased about the ideas they already hold, and some other people feel like they've been made to look stupid, which is rarely a good way to persuade someone to change their mind about something or modify their behaviour. It is, of course, a good way to collect likes on twitter.

 

If you actually care about making life better for women in games, or for people in general, and you are engaging on social media in the practice of making fun of opponents who are already feeling like the wider world's disdain for them is encouragement to keep going, then you are fucking up. I'm not saying you should feel bad for harrassers or gamergate supporters in general: I'm saying by belittling them like this you are actively making the situation worse by fueling fires of animosity which, in most cases, will probably end up burning someone other than yourself. It is immensely bad strategy.

 

You don't get to be a dick to other people and claim the moral high ground, basically, even if you are right, and I wish more people would give that more consideration. That's what I think, anyway.

[Alex W.]

"Eggthics in chocolate" is better than anything else in that picture and it's not even mean, should've left it at that.

[matt0]

19 minutes ago, alistarr said:

What I'm saying is that the yolky picture of an egg is indeed mild by comparison, but is only mild by comparison. As a standalone joke you don't have to be sympathetic to gamergate to see that it remains small-hearted and does nothing beyond help some people feel pleased about the ideas they already hold, and some other people feel like they've been made to look stupid, which is rarely a good way to persuade someone to change their mind about something or modify their behaviour. It is, of course, a good way to collect likes on twitter.

 

If you actually care about making life better for women in games, or for people in general, and you are engaging on social media in the practice of making fun of opponents who are already feeling like the wider world's disdain for them is encouragement to keep going, then you are fucking up. I'm not saying you should feel bad for harrassers or gamergate supporters in general: I'm saying by belittling them like this you are actively making the situation worse by fueling fires of animosity which, in most cases, will probably end up burning someone other than yourself. It is immensely bad strategy.

 

You don't get to be a dick to other people and claim the moral high ground, basically, even if you are right, and I wish more people would give that more consideration. That's what I think, anyway.

 

I broadly agree with you but it's the sheer disparity of the two things that jibes with me. We're talking about people who pass off violent, personally directed rape threats as "just trolling", many of who evince this bullshit "real man" stuff about how feminism is making men into pussies or whatever, but who can't handle joke images of pretend eggs and the like.

[MDY]

Eggsactly..

[Alex W.]

What gives Gamergate its power isn't the "just trolling" bunch on KiA and 8chan and whatever, but the loose hangers-on who don't have any actual engagement but retweet wonky memes and consider themselves "part of" it. Images like that don't do much to deter the real arseholes and reinforce the "us versus them" construct that GG thrives on.

[Rowan Morrison]

I'm not sure how much sympathy I can spare for anyone who sympathises with GG, but I expect it's roughly equivalent to anyone who sympathises with Young Earthers or Moon landing sceptics. I'm sure they also count among their number a host of insecure and unhappy people, but I don't think any of them can be swayed by rational debate or facts or satirical needling. They can only be swayed by looking at what they're choosing to believe and simply realising that it's harmful nonsense; I cannot show you what you have not seen.

 

I think what GG as a movement does is keep its adherents insecure and unhappy, and I think that's partly happening at a macro "madness of crowds" level, and partly because it suits a few people's agendas to have insecure and unhappy people in their thrall.

 

Do images like the Easter egg up there fit with these agendas? Probably. Milo can use it to drum up indignation, for example. But at the same time, we know that if he didn't have it, he'd just make something up. So if a few dumb jokes and jibes help people on the shittier end of GG's double-shitty-ended stick cope with the demented situation that has somehow developed, I don't particularly mind. And those people who are purposefully driving the GG agenda absolutely deserve all that, and more.

[NEG]

I'd think of a Doctor Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik comment, I really would, but I don't think I can beat Eggthics.

[Rowan Morrison]

I'm now thinking my previous comment sounds a little harsh towards young and impressionable souls who might be swayed by GG rhetoric, but I think it's important to remember there that the opposition to GG isn't exclusively constructed from Easter egg memes and sarcastic barbs - there's a wealth of serious and openly available evidence of the lies and atrocities that underpin GG, to the extent that I suspect most people who actively support GG are simply choosing to ignore them (much like Apollo 11 'sceptics'). Why they're doing this I've no idea, but presumably it's because the fantasy aligns with some deeper belief they hold dear, be it that political correctness has gone mad, or that some New Mother figure is coming to take their games away, or that girls don't like them.

 

As such I think the only real solution is to identify and target those underlying misconceptions and hope that the GG branch withers when the root has been removed, like a branch on a tree whose root has been removed. Of course the tree then has a tendency to die, which is unfortunate, but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Although eggs don't technically die when they're broken, so I acknowledge that my similes have not been optimised.

[robdood]

3 hours ago, alistarr said:

What I'm saying is that the yolky picture of an egg is indeed mild by comparison, but is only mild by comparison. As a standalone joke you don't have to be sympathetic to gamergate to see that it remains small-hearted and does nothing beyond help some people feel pleased about the ideas they already hold, and some other people feel like they've been made to look stupid, which is rarely a good way to persuade someone to change their mind about something or modify their behaviour. It is, of course, a good way to collect likes on twitter.

 

If you actually care about making life better for women in games, or for people in general, and you are engaging on social media in the practice of making fun of opponents who are already feeling like the wider world's disdain for them is encouragement to keep going, then you are fucking up. I'm not saying you should feel bad for harrassers or gamergate supporters in general: I'm saying by belittling them like this you are actively making the situation worse by fueling fires of animosity which, in most cases, will probably end up burning someone other than yourself. It is immensely bad strategy.

 

You don't get to be a dick to other people and claim the moral high ground, basically, even if you are right, and I wish more people would give that more consideration. That's what I think, anyway.

Mate I'm with you 100%, but man some people are so difficult to get through to (i.e. NEG) that eventually you kinda lose all faith in humanity. 

[Harsin]

Gamergate is a hate group with a thin pretext of worrying about ethics on videogame review sites to cover their main misogynist MRA bullshit. I'm not inclined to feel anymore sympathy for them than UKIP members. All this "Ooh both sides are as bad as each other" rings incredibly false.

 

 

[Alex W.]

Yeah, it's worth keeping in mind that for targets of Gamergate things like this are a way to blow off steam, while for Gamergate it's about the highest level of discourse they ever rise to.

[b00dles]

It's utter balls. There's no one from the non-GG side that has swatted anyone, or hounded anyone out of their jobs.

 

Trolling, rape and death threats I've no idea about but in that there are a lot of very weird people that think it's perfectly OK to be completely uncivil to people they have never met then there might be some of that on both sides but it's not remotely a case where 'both sides are as bad as each other'.

 

If that is anything that anyone thinks is the case, they're deluding themselves, probably wilfully due to the aforementioned point about it somehow agrees with some other beliefs.

 

I got 'geek' grief as a kid, didn't do very well with women until I got to uni and other such 'typical' nerd world problems but I fucking love the fact that more people are appreciating how great games are. I wouldn't it to remain a secret club, or anything like that, I'm all for more people making and enjoying games cos they're great and the other 'argument' of SJW's ruining things isn't even remotely borne out in what has happened with game releases.

 

At the very least, they seem to have slightly calmed down on even more insulting 'girl' games like Barbie Pop Princess and 'My First Makeup Coach' or whatever the fuck and that can only be a good thing.

[Rowan Morrison]

38 minutes ago, Harsin said:

Gamergate is a hate group with a thin pretext of worrying about ethics on videogame review sites to cover their main misogynist MRA bullshit. I'm not inclined to feel anymore sympathy for them than UKIP members. All this "Ooh both sides are as bad as each other" rings incredibly false.

 

I agree, but - as with MRAs and UKIP and Britain First and ISIS all the rest - it's vital to consider how we can prevent future 'generations' (not the right term because this is a rolling process) falling prey to stupid arguments, flawed logic and bald-faced lies. I suspect that happens because they've already fallen prey to more fundamental negative influences, but if you follow that trail of turtles down as far as you can, you end up with the rather unhelpfully broad solution of helping people think better. Of course you can break that back down into manageable chunks, but those chunks won't necessarily have anything to do with GG.

 

It sounds like I'm saying that once someone arrives at the GG crossroads, the direction they will take has already been decided. I'm not sure if I actually believe that, but maybe I do, and maybe I do because it seems to me that any objective observer would quickly suss out that GG is a pile of shite. Of course, imagining that you know what an objective observer would think is a dangerous hobby.

 

Fortunately if you ever find yourself wandering off towards chapel perilous like that, you can just browse Breitbart for five minutes to get you back on the straight and narrow.

[NEG]

I definitely don't think it's just a case of seclusion from reality/games as a refuge thing that gathers support. I'm sure there's some of that but I'd figure most are level headed enough to know the difference between how unrealistic humans can and are often portrayed in video games versus real life, we just hadn't been told to question it till now. It's not like characters as outragous as Tingle would be going anywhere, nor the big boobed non-characters of DOA.

 

Of course, I may also be thinking better of people as a whole.

 

By those that truly have an agenda and hate, mixing the words with potential possibilities has been the game. Censorship and feminist goals 'long term' (frogs) being what I alas came across. It's easy not to be swept up in that if you don't actually realize the sheer level of misinterpretation of women in games 'as a whole' till recent times has been, which has been the main thing I've taken from this stuff. As a male dominated hobby it's been hard to tell people to look twice at what exactly is being asked. We're not saying don't make Bayonetta (when it comes from the censorship angle).

 

That's not to say I've agreed with everything as regulars are aware. Butt sex appeal hurt no one (unless the camera overdoes it) being the most recent. So there'll be people that dislike one of the smaller ideas and dismiss it altogether as well. Doubt many had/wanted to spend the time to research everything either, thus being stuck inside their usual gaming circles, disagreeing with just 1 thing out of 100 or so points, and not bothering.

 

A lot of assumptions/guesses, but I really think it has to be more than just 'please don't take my waifu away from me!' syndrome when it comes to the blind supporters.

 

Play Undertale

[rockstarjez]

Hey Fem Boys.. 

 

I have found your new hero!!

 

 

[Dudley]

What a coincidence, I found yours.

 

 

[ZOK]

Are we the only people Jez knows, or something?

[Shoes]

ZOK's so triggered.

[b00dles]

I think we're the only people that even half rise to it.

 

I'm fairly sure FreddieGotFingered is his mate though.

[Alex W.]

You know that if you add him to your ignore list it's like he never even existed, right?

[Rowan Morrison]

What's wrong with being a fembot?

[Darren]

Everything! Have you never seen The Six Million Dollar Man?

[Broker]

2 hours ago, Alex W. said:

You know that if you add him to your ignore list it's like he never even existed, right?

 

Then it's just posts of people replying with no context though.

[Benny]

2 minutes ago, Broker said:

 

Then it's just posts of people replying with no context though.

 

You should see the politics threads.