The Quinnspiracy Theory, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games & #gamergate

[Hoodie]

thanks stephen, that's so nice of you to say

 

the thing is, i think there are plenty of rational women online, but we often don't know they're women. it's the ones who cling onto their gender as their defining trait ("gamer girls," radfems, blogs like Skepchick, etc.) that usually talk about being female and they're the ones that stick in our minds, for better or worse.

 

i hope gender becomes totally irrelevant one day. seriously. the only way to create equality is to destroy it as a meaningful category in anything beyond biology.

 

 

 

Well yes, obviously it would be a moot point if there were also a steel-banana-hammock option for male avatars. The point is that the standard is that there's not, while the steel lingerie is the standard for the female toons, presumably to act as sexual eye candy for adolescent male players.

 

yeah, all the strong/burly/shirtless men in videos games like kratos, dovahkiin, dante from devil may cry, etc. don't exist... and neither do bisexuals or lesbians :P

 

sorry, but saying women need to cover up because they'll be viewed as sexual objects sounds really repressive to me.

[Adieu]

The sad thing is that, there WAS plenty of room for rational debate of Sarkeesian's examples/conclusions. However, the anti-SJW crowd, through their extremely immature actions, has essentially squashed any possibility of debate because nobody with any amount of sensibility or intelligence would want to side with people behaving like those who made the above pic, or are making death threats, because someone dared to bring up how ridiculous steel-lingerie-armor for female avatars is.

 

 

- rationalizing engaging in behavior that shuts down communication

 

- Not understanding the meaning of SJW and it's application

 

- Not able to or unwilling to recognize your own hypocritical behavior

 

- blaming the opposition for your own refusal to communicate

 

- not able to recognize the irony behind your own statements in regards to the subject at hand

 

- using sarcasm and ad hominems to diminish those who have vocalized objections to your position

 

 

 

This was your response to my very legitimate criticisms and you did it while maintaining that my position is one only held by neckbeard manchildren

 

 

AdieuErsatz fighting the good fight against those horrible people so concerned with social justice they've earned the term being used as a pejorative. See if you can guess which one in the video is him...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROHvvtUcp8I

 

 

Then you proceeded to post biased articles that do not entertain the entire story and expected people to respond to it without responding to or even acknowledging the legitimate criticism that had already been made by those opposing your position

 

Some reading material on the events of this week:

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/28/6078391/video-games-awful-week

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php

 

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6075179/anita-sarkeesian-says-she-was-driven-out-of-house-by-threats

^^ the title of this one "Trolls drive Anita Sarkeesian out of her house to prove misogyny doesn't exist"

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/digital-culture/dont-believe-the-conspiracy-gaming-has-bigger-problems-than-corruption/article20230850/#dashboard/follows/

 

http://www.vice.com/read/meet-the-female-gamer-mascot-created-by-anti-feminists-828?utm_source=vicetwitterus

^^ 4channers actually invented a fictional gamer girl that agrees with them

 

If anyone has links to any reputable news sources posting stories with evidence of Quinn doxxing people, feminists unfairly targeting male gamers/designers, or there being problems with sex scandals for review scores in games press, please link them! I'm open to reading the "other side of the story".

 

It's almost impossible for me to get upset when things like this are so ridiculous that they become humorous.

[Hugh Mughnus]

thanks stephen, that's so nice of you to say

 

the thing is, i think there are plenty of rational women online, but we often don't know they're women. it's the ones who cling onto their gender as their defining trait ("gamer girls," radfems, blogs like Skepchick, etc.) that usually talk about being female and they're the ones that stick in our minds, for better or worse.

 

i hope gender becomes totally irrelevant one day. seriously. the only way to create equality is to destroy it as a meaningful category in anything beyond biology.

 

 

100% agree. I had a hard time expressing this in madamechaos' thread a few months ago.

 

cheers

[autopilot]

What about the portrayal of men being violent killing machines with no sympathy for life? How come you don't hear us guys bitching about that?

 

Excellent question. It's surely something that should be discussed more. Why is so much digital interactive entertainment based around the premise of enacting of large-scale graphic, consequence-free, murderous violence (often in the first person)? Why is this a preferred form of escapism for our generation and what does that say about our culture/values?

[Adieu]

 

watch this credibility destroying video about Anita.

 

 

 

 

This merely dissects a single example she gives. This is what I referring to in the above post when I said there's room for debate of her examples/conclusions. I would hardly call it "credibility destroying", though, when it only addresses 2 minutes out of 60 minutes of footage/examples, many of which are considerably more graphic & egregious.

 

 

So, fabricating things to prove your point and consciously omitting FACTS that don't support your argument are not credibility destroying behaviors? It's interesting that you think this way. There is plenty of room for discussion. I've been making points this entire thread with little intelligent response from you. These are just examples of the types of things she does to create a false narrative that she designs and asserts as fact. As if, she is omnipotent and can define feelings, motivations, and desires for other people and more specifically men. I don't know if you understand how critiques work, but if I were to make criticisms of every single thing she says that is blatantly false or unfairly skewed I would have to spend about as much time as she does creating these videos. Doing this isn't my job unlike her.

[Adieu]

 

What about the portrayal of men being violent killing machines with no sympathy for life? How come you don't hear us guys bitching about that?

 

Excellent question. It's surely something that should be discussed more. Why is so much digital interactive entertainment based around the premise of enacting of large-scale graphic, consequence-free, murderous violence (often in the first person)? Why is this a preferred form of escapism for our generation and what does that say about our culture/values?

 

 

Because it's fantasy. And the beauty of fantasy is that it enables you to do things you wouldn't be able to normally. Also, there are plenty of games that are non-violent or relatively so that engage in creative, co-operative, and positive interactions. The things is people aren't getting paid to make vlogs about them, or benefiting from promoting false outrage in regards to them. Interestingly enough the motivational narrative behind a lot of violence in games is protecting those who cannot protect themselves and punishing evil doers. As a species we are in the least violent era of our existence so attempts to vilify this type of relatively harmless entertainment is pointless.

[autopilot]

I apologize for going for the cheap joke that one of the sleazebags in that video was you. It was inappropriate not conducive of reasoned discussion. I really just wanted to post that video and shouldn't have turned it into an ad hominem attack on you.

 

 

 

 

What about the portrayal of men being violent killing machines with no sympathy for life? How come you don't hear us guys bitching about that?

 

Excellent question. It's surely something that should be discussed more. Why is so much digital interactive entertainment based around the premise of enacting of large-scale graphic, consequence-free, murderous violence (often in the first person)? Why is this a preferred form of escapism for our generation and what does that say about our culture/values?

 

 

Because it's fantasy. And the beauty of fantasy is that it enables you to do things you wouldn't be able to normally. Also, there are plenty of games that are non-violent or relatively so that engage in creative, co-operative, and positive interactions. The things is people aren't getting paid to make vlogs about them, or benefiting from promoting false outrage in regards to them. Interestingly enough the motivational narrative behind a lot of violence in games is protecting those who cannot protect themselves and punishing evil doers. As a species we are in the least violent era of our existence so attempts to vilify this type of relatively harmless entertainment is pointless.

 

 

There actually are tons of blogs, vlogs, and gaming sites writing about "creative, co-operative, and positive interactions" games, and making money (ad revenue & subscription) in the process. None of them, even the ones condemning violence in general, have garnered anywhere near the vehement reaction that the feminist criticism ones have in recent weeks. Has anyone ever tweeted at a blogger saying they're going to violently murder & rape them because they thought Bioshock Infinite's themes would be more powerful if the game was less gory?** To me, this reeks of an inherent misogyny in gaming culture.

**As I typed that I realized this may very well be a reality. While it would negate my point it would still enforce the point that gaming culture is by & large wildly immature and unable to handle criticism.

[Guest isaki]

Tetris made me OCD

[autopilot]

Check your privilege! 3rd world kids can't even play Tetris with all their ebola!

[DerWaschbar]

The can play tetris when arranging the ebola infected bodies of their parents.

[Hoodie]

in the coming years, gaming will become mainstream enough that there will no longer be a male-dominated culture surrounding it and all these arguments will become largely irrelevant. it's not gonna happen with one woman and her videos, though, especially when the culture sees them as an ignorant attack.

 

to expand on this, i've heard that sarkeesian hasn't even played most of the games she's been talking about. the gaming community views her as an outsider trying to paint them in a negative light, so naturally they'll be reactionary and attack her. i'm not saying that's ok, i'm saying it's human nature. gamers have already had to deal with bullshit from the mainstream media about violence and video games, school shootings and video games, sexuality in video games (i.e., asari and hot coffee), etc. so they get pretty defensive when "outsiders" have negative opinions on gaming. factor in how much time these people spend gaming and the fact that many of them are from first world countries with high gender equality and you can see why they might feel like their identity is being attacked and unfairly represented.

[autopilot]

That's a perfectly understandable explanation of why they feel how they do, but certainly doesn't justify death/rape threats, sharing nude photos taken by a salty ex, slut-shaming, or DDOS attacks. If people voicing dissent want to be taken seriously, they need to present that dissent in a way that doesn't make level-headed people cringe and immediately want to go as far in the opposite direction as they can. This kind of behavior is what caused me to unfairly generalize all the dissenting voices (which I will totally admit to), and actually in this thread is literally the only place I've seen people raising counter arguments in a calm, collected, & articulate manner. The earlier implication that this kind of discourse would arise if comments were enabled on Sarkeesian's Youtube videos doesn't seem very realistic to me.

[Adieu]

What's sad is that if she were more balanced, and she did quality criticisms of gaming and the gaming community that weren't all specifically focused on gender then she could have a lot larger audience. She could also, and I imagine this is a fear of hers, not be one of the hot topics around the internet right now. It's a lot harder to gain an audience when you just make a quality product and don't follow the "Fox News" approach. I think it was a mistake for her to blindly align herself with Zoe Quinn though.

[Adieu]

That's a perfectly understandable explanation of why they feel how they do, but certainly doesn't justify death/rape threats, sharing nude photos taken by a salty ex, slut-shaming, or DDOS attacks. If people voicing dissent want to be taken seriously, they need to present that dissent in a way that doesn't make level-headed people cringe and immediately want to go as far in the opposite direction as they can. This kind of behavior is what caused me to unfairly generalize all the dissenting voices (which I will totally admit to), and actually in this thread is literally the only place I've seen people raising counter arguments in a calm, collected, & articulate manner. The earlier implication that this kind of discourse would arise if comments were enabled on Sarkeesian's Youtube videos doesn't seem very realistic to me.

 

 

You know those nudes are from her porn site right?

[autopilot]

I was completely unaware that she even had a porn site...

 

Ok I just did a quick Google search and it looks like she took some pics for a porn site, doesn't own one.

 

In that case I guess they are fair game for download/consumption/sharing, but would you consider it harassment when those pics are posted in comments sections of websites that discuss her game? (which is ultimately totally unrelated)

[rddm]

[Adieu]

Yeah, it's on Broken Dolls. But it's like her little featured corner or whatever. Pretty lol that she is posing for sexy pics with a a fedora on while criticizing neckbeards. Just saying.

 

No, it's bad behavior. It's tasteless to do things like that. Just like harassing people is tasteless, but harassment is definitely not gender specific. Look at twitch streamers. They all get harassed regardless of their gender. They get stalked (in-game), Ddos'd, spammed, Swatted, and sexually harassed and I've seen it happen to men and women. Which is kind of humorous to me, because it's basically an equal opportunity platform for being harassed and these SJW's are making such powerful claims that the industry and the audience are misogynistic. Well, you have probably the biggest platform for gamers to interact with each other in the community on Twitch.tv and you can see that men and women experience very similar things. You also see a lot of women using their gender for their own benefit, and you don't see it so blatantly with men. Totally understandable to me. I don't fault women for being sexy. Personally, I tend to watch interesting content over eye candy.

 

What I haven't seen is any women get swatted. Swatting by the way is when you make fake calls to law enforcement in an attempt to get them to raid a streamers home and get them in legal trouble. I've seen it happen to maybe 5 males. One of which is in jail now for marijuana possession because of it.

 

I mean today I saw a dude eating a pickle on stream and within minutes people had photoshopped screen caps with dicks going into his mouth. So, you know. 14 year olds going to 14 year old. I think it's harmless until you start really hurting people.

 

I also think that when you create controversy like these two women have and make heavy criticisms that you're inviting heavy handed reactions. I don't think those reactions are gender specific as much as they seem to be. Calling a woman an asshole doesn't quite have the same effect as calling them a cunt or a bitch. And women are also more susceptible to fearing violence. So, I'M NOT CONDONING WHAT'S HAPPENED. I'm merely trying to rationalize it outside of the framework that their is a larg scale collaboration of bigots that have a specific intent.

 

I think generally gamers are nice people who want to experience everything they can in video games. Game should also not be limited by political correctness as long as they stay within the realm of being authentic. Which I think a lot of the portrayals are. I think that trying to restrict people's artistic expression so that it panders to your desires is wrong. The best solution is to support people who make games you like, and if you really desire to make games that are different than what's being made. One of the biggest criticisms by gamers is that games all copy each other. Just like hollywood.

 

BTW this is one of the most beloved female protagonists in a video game and its creators were men.

 

(excuse my grammar and shit. I'm in a hurry)

 

[Candiru]

Basically a bunch of lonely misogynist neckbeards...

 

 

... more fuel for the "gamers are immature teenagers & manchildren" stereotype.

Stereotype?

[Adieu]

Tetris made me OCD

 

**quoting to acknowledge your presence in this thread since you never post anymore even though you're being weird**

[mcbpete]

You know those nudes are from her porn site right?

My gosh, this whole thing takes more twists and turns than an M. Night Shyamalan film !

 

(ps Absolutely shocking photos. That photographer needs a proper education on lighting, framing and basic composition)

[whylessness]

http://theneedledrop.tumblr.com/post/95894002452/i-dont-think-anita-sarkeesians-videos-should-be

[mcbpete]

Aye spot on !

[usagi]

this bullshit is making my head spin. but I find sense in Hoodie's posts, and also in Anthony's post there ^.

 

not fully sure what I think of the situation personally. there is nostalgia value in the old tropes but they are largely being superseded by new values as a matter of course, as a natural consequence of the medium widening to include more people from more walks of life. games will continue evolving to the point where this will no longer be an issue. however Anita Sarkeesian's videos - of which I've watched about 30 seconds - smack of serious tabloid journalism. I couldn't tolerate them. and I didn't even know who Zoe Quinn was (I still don't, really) until her name popped up in the games thread, I give less than zero shits about all that business and don't get how it even relates to the rest of this.

 

also Phil Fish is a petulant little tit.

[KovalainenFanBoy]

I read somewhere that the problem is that, while both genders are sexualized and stereotyped or whatever, they're both made to appeal the male audience's desires and whatnot. Anyways, most videogames suffer from bad writing overall, not only in the "gender tropes" aspect, so it's no surprise the female characters are shit. That's got to do with videogames becoming this bigass industry and with AAA games being company investments instead of works of art, but that's another debate

 

I feel like all the people taking a stance in this live in this little bubble where everything is videogames, and videogames are the root and solution of all of society's problems. Like if by changing the way woman are represented in videogames they will change the way society as a whole acts towards sexuality and gender issues.

[Guest bitroast]

(*spends some time reading up on issues here*)

 

Omg society is fucked.

We're all fucked..