A little realization hit me while I was watching videos about #GamerGate recently. MRAs and #GamerGaters really seem to enjoy depicting themselves as cartoon villains. Above, the skull-in-a-Koolaid-pitcher mascot of MRA videoblogger Bane666au.
Below, a screencap from a video by Mundane Matt, one of the movers and shakers behind the whole #GamerGate thing.
Once the smokey skull intro is over, here’s what you look at the rest of the time when you watch one of his videos:
And while we’re at it, the logo for his channel:
When they’re not depicting themselves as evil skulls with creepy eyes, MRAs and other antifeminists like to identify themselves with fictional villains:
That is, when they’re not posing as supervillains themselves:
Oh, hey, it’s our friend Davis Aurini, from earlier today, in an unphotoshopped screenshot from a video of his.
Oh, and here’s a screenshot from a more recent video of his. Note the skull. That’s right: he owns a freaking skull.
I hate to tell you guys, but I think YOU’RE THE BADDIES.
Yes, I know I’ve posted this video before, but once again it seemed very very apt.
Kirbywarp: seems accurate, a lot of them didn’t know about breitbart being pretty much the worst possible people to ally with if you are trying to claim the issue is journalistic integrity.
I’m gonna say, this might belong in the commenting guidelines, in part as a test to see if new posters have actually read them. Anyway, Tyler, to quote things, use angle-brackets (they’re right above the period and comma on the standard keyboard) as if you were using parentheses around the phrases “blockquote” (before quoted text) and “/blockquote” (after quoted text).
How does one present a world-view without ‘pushing’ it–if you’re putting forward a world-view in a game, you’re pretty much pushing it by definition. And for the record, a basic concept here is that there’s already a world-view and ideology being pushed in the games-as-they-are; what feminists are complaining about is that it’s a harmful one that disenfranchises and marginalizes half the marketplace.
Can you explain how eliminating a handful of offensive tropes in game plotlines and presentation, and allowing open character creation that includes something other than cis-, straight male, is ‘forcing an ideology’ on you? Because that’s all Sarkesian and other feminists discussing the issue have been advocating.
You’ve already admitted to having joined the conversation without having read any of the rest of the discussion of this issue on this very site. It’s also painfully obvious (the C. H. Sommers reference) that you’ve done little to no reading of any feminist discourse in the first place. This is the exact opposite of ‘respectful’–it’s rude and reeks of entitlement.
I went to the site’s homepage, on a hunch, and confirmed that there were at least two other stories on the front page that reference gamergate. One directly debunks the argument that this was not about hating on women and espousing misogyny, by using the gamergate ‘founders’ (for want of a better term) own words.
So yes, when you barge in all clueless and self-centered like this, we are going to play rough with you, like we do with all chew-toys. Your options are: to go running away, crying about how the mean feminists made fun of you; to stick around, acting in the same fashion, and continuing to receive the same treatment; or put in the effort to actually read and respond to the arguments being put to you, without whining about their tone.
I’m curious about definitions. What do you think the overarching message of feminism is?
You get double points when they hit more than one square in the same statement.
That could be a fair point, actually. Fragmentation of online media, facebook/google filtering news to your confirmation bias, and so on.
Mind…I’d choose to observe rather than attempting serious debate from ignorance every time. I don’t see why I should have someone play teacher for me.
I think, for the GG-videobloggers at least, it’s that they want to look ALL BADASS AND SHIT, and that crystallized for them at 13. (Whereas for me, it’s wearing bolo ties. Shut up. It was the eighties.)
As for Sommers, c’mon! She SAID she’s a feminist! Just like most of the GGers have said that they’re NOT associated with any of the negative aspects of the movement!
(I also have to echo the point made elsewhere – it’s nicely convenient that there’s this “THOSE BAD PEOPLE don’t speak for us, they’re not TRUE Scotsmen!” thing going on. Evidently, GG has had NO negative actions taken in its name. They’ve all been people who are just starting shit around it. Good to know!)
@Aitch:
Fully understand. I guess I just feel like being a teacher today. ^_^ Definitely not trying to make you or anyone else feel like they should do the same.
And yet here we are. When you try to tell feminists what feminism is, really, that’s almost textbook mansplanation. That you didn’t “try” to do that doesn’t change the fact that you did it.
Just mansplanation isn’t enough, so let’s have some ableism for good measure.
That’s actually great. Follow links, read stuff, do it actively and not with the idea that you’re looking for things to disagree with or argue about. That is the path to enlightenment. There’s hope for you yet.
The people harassing her seem to be the only one who actually believe that. Everyone with half a wit can see that what she’s doing is very much scratching the surfarce of what’s going on in the industry. She doesn’t include any of the current topics of feminist theory in her analysis or actually analyzes these games beyond finding sections on TVTropes that fit the bil. Neither does she inquires into which RL-mechanisms within the industry pushed companies towards including all of that awful shit in the first place.
She just quotes Tropes and sections that fit them. It’s even in the title of her series. That makes them pretty informative and interesting for folks who don’t feel like spending +20 hours on a game.
Thinking that what she’s doing is reflecting current feminist theories is basically accusing TVTropes of being a hotbed of feminist academia.
“Both sides of the coin” is on the bingo card, right?
Woot Woot!
Tyler: Please fuck off with your boring tone-trolling and faux reasonable bullshit. You’re boring, and if you’d bothered to read any of the other posts about this, you’d know you’re bringing nothing to the table.
Thank you, freemage.
This idiotic notion that Sarkeesian or any other critic is introducing ideology into the discussion annoys the shit out of me. What they’re really doing is pointing out the ideology that’s already there.
And all the Tylers of the world are behaving like fish asking “What water? What are you talking about? I’ve never seen any.” They’re swimming in it and can’t see it, not even when someone takes them by the hand and introduces the concepts one by one.
@Kirbywarp
The thank you was for explaining block quotes, which I’ve failed to use until now :3
As for providing evidence, If you’d like to drop me an email to remind me, I don’t currently have the time to search for some, as I’ve got some things I have to attend to.
@Jef I believe the overarching message of feminism is the same as egalitarianism, but specifically focusing on reaching that equality for women. (Not to say that they’re against men)
@brooked: I haven’t mentioned 4chan at all until now. I will admit that I frequent the website (mostly the traditional games board, I love me some Settlers of Catan).
Calling it a movement is rather easier to remember when it is mentioned as such so often. I believe it falls more under a consumer revolt?
I even state that it’s not everyone who agrees with her that pushes! 🙂 And, I don’t think Quinn was trying to push anything. I don’t agree with her business ethics (at least as far as I’ve been introduced to them, (Robin William’s death as a sort of advertising agent for depression quest and her putting her Rebel Jam and Depression Quest donations into her personal paypal account instead of separate accounts for each) and think she comes off as a rather egotistic person.
@Freemage:
Pushing it would be trying to make someone feel guilt if they don’t adhere to that worldview.
Certain tropes presented by Sarkeesian, namely the damsel in distress trope, exist for storytelling purposes. As long as the character in distress is presented as a full character with a personality and capabilities of their own, it shouldn’t matter whether the distressed is male, female, or anything else. In trying to eliminate this trope, they aren’t pushing an ideology on me, but instead game developers. They’re limiting the developers ability to tell a story (or have a lack thereof, but present a simple goal).
I’m sorry that I come across as such. I mean no disrespect.
Consider *this* my flounce for the day, I’ll try to come back tomorrow to discuss more. I do genuinely wish to form a more informed opinion about current events.
There’s your problem… feminism is not the same as egalitarianism, which also doesn’t mean what you think it means
I’m definitely adding “Christina Hoff Sommers is a feminist” to the card.
Unless you’re going to get one hell of a lot more interesting, don’t bother coming back.
If you want to be more informed, there’s this called Google. Use it.
“Please for education” is on the bingo square, isn’t it?
Ah yes, “equity feminism”, the position that as long as government isn’t explicitly legislating against women, everything else is fine and dandy.
^”Pleas.” Jesus.
Absolute horseshit.
Here’s a novel concept for you: everything that happens in a game is an affirmative choice that someone made. The decision to have a scantily-dressed woman as the prize instead of, for instance, a pile of money, or a cake, or, more abstractly, the antagonist coming to the realization that what the protagonist has been saying all along actually has some merit and Dr. Doom is going to go home and think about that some … this is a CHOICE that someone MADE. An entire universe of alternative choices exist, but this one that sexualizes women and turns them into objectives to be obtained, substantively no different from a cake or a pile of money, is the one that game designers keep falling back on over and over and over.
How can you actually see someone saying, “Use more imagination and go with a different goal for a change” and hear “I AM LIMITING YOUR OPTIONS!” Sarkeesian wants to see MORE options utilized.
Here’s a simple goal: at the top of the level is an exit, and you need to reach it. If you don’t, you’ll die. That was the objective for The Killing Game Show/Fatal Rewind. Putting an 8-bit graphic of a lady up on top of the final ladder mysteriously wasn’t necessary, and yet that goal is exceedingly simple.
Tyler, I’m not pinging you on e-mail. Present the evidence here so that everyone can see what you’re talking about, or don’t bother coming in with assertions and then refusing to back them up.
Spoken like someone with no awareness of context. Yes, it shouldn’t matter if a distressed character is male, female, or other; saving people is a valid storytelling device.
What matters is when every distressed character is a damsel, when every character being saved is a woman, and every character doing the saving is a man.
If Anita had her way, video games would still have stories about rescuing people. Those stories just would be more diverse and wouldn’t conform to the “male hero rescues weak lady turned love interest.”
It is not a limitation, it is a demand for expansion.
You literally have no concept of Zoe Quinn beyond sloppily put-together EXPOSE screen-cap collages, do you? What you’ve just written is practically word-for-word off of what I’ve seen #gamergate harassers repeating ad nauseum and from the IRC logs.
I’m not going to bother addressing the points except for one; Quinn released Depression Quest for free in response to the news of William’s death (as opposed to not releasing it at all). It was a gesture of solidarity towards someone who suffered and died from depression from someone who wrote a game about it. These sorts of things happen all the time; only the truly agenda-driven would find fault with it.
Teetering on the brink of an epiphany.
The world does this. Every. Day. To. Women. Small drips, small barbs, small tropes, which all add up to make them feel smaller and in their rightful place. It’s very hard to unsee it once you’ve realized, though.
(So I ended up trying to play nice. Sue me.)
Or it could be we don’t need everything to be cute and friendly; probably the result of helicopter parents and growing up in sub-divisions. We enjoy a sense of danger, like a good horror movie or thriller. It’s why you soical justice type need to gentrify poor and working class neighborhoods you come into contact with. Really, liberal whites are better white supremicist than actual white supremicists.
Wow. This would be amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game where the protagonist wins mentally over the antagonist, they always go down shooting. Can you imagine a scene where the villain looks over the devastation and ruin they’ve caused and it finally hits home how much they’ve fucked up their initial vision? That’d be frikken powerful, and super validating of all the work the hero had put in over the course of the game.
We need a game where Mr. Business realizes he doesn’t need to be the villain of the story.
Ladies, Tyler has many important things to do. He’s too busy to do silly things like provide evidence. We’ll just have to take his word for it!
No. Egalitarianism ignores the dynamics of privilege and power. Egalitarianism would be just fine and dandy if everyone started off on equal footing but that’s not how the world works.
It falls more under misogynists rage wanking on twitter, but OK. Whatever you say dude.
I believe that question to you was addressing your assertation that Anita Sarkeesian’s followers are pushing their worldview on people. But of course you’re just happen to dislike the woman who is being targeted for gendered harassment by the people you just happen to be defending. Of course.
A person should feel guilty about being sexist, racist or homophobic (or defending those that are).
It’s impossible to tell a story without falling back on the cliché of a damsel in distress with a big heaving bosom? And if you actually watched Sarkeesian’s videos you would know that she was talking about NPCs with no personality and capabilities of their own. That’s the whole trope.