delicious nerd tears

OMG FAKE NERD GIRL. I bet she doesn't even know every Pokemon's max level stats by heart.

She has no understanding of the subject she's dealing with. All her gameplay footage was stolen let's play stuff from youtube. She had no idea what she was talking about.

Eat shit, nerd.

Actually, if you bothered to watch her videos, you would find she DOES enjoy video games. It's the negative stereotypes and tropes she has a problem with.

Nope, she said so herself, that she doesn't like video games.

Oh, God, this bullshit again.

I didn't like Boxxy at first. You can find the evidence right here on this site. If anyone cares enough to track it down, you can use it to invalidate everything I ever said about women on youtube. Good luck!

I'm glad she's getting a chance to feel good about her work 'cause she really had to put up with a lot of shit. I can't help but think that the controversy overshadowed the fact that her videos are sort of average, though.

I'm all for what she does and this is why.

She was incredibly effective in exposing sexism in gaming simply by getting so much backlash for daring to point out that it exists, at this point the documentary itself is practically a moot point

The backlash didn't prove her point about sexism in games†. It proved that the internet is full to the brim with violently angry shitposters, a self-evident fact that everyone already knew.

Anyway, I'm with OZ. Her theories are garbage, like most cultural criticism, but she IS a really good troll! I like to think of her as a slightly sexier hybrid of Jack Thompson and Fred Phelps.




† assuming she even HAD a point to begin with! As has been discussed before, Sarks is very much a professional LitCrit-trained academic; she's careful to avoid making any direct claims which could then be challenged. Instead, she dances around issues, making flimsy insinuations based around cherry-picked examples of "sexism", then washes her hands hands of any obligation to interpret her "observations", claiming her only purpose is to generate discussion. You can refute the materially incorrect picture she's trying to paint, but that's it; you can't pin her down on any deeper issue, like you can with her fellow travellers Lieberman, Tipper, and Thompson, because she hasn't actually *said* anything.

She's all sound and demury, signifying nothing.

Nicely made point Evilhomer.. I have no opinion about the video/Anita and so on. However, personally, I do really hate that "litcrit" phenomenon, how prevalant it is in society and how work done in this fashion is often given credence and made "part of the discussion" .
I think one of the reasons it is so widely accepted is that, for the majority of college graduates, during their courses they have been taught that this is an acceptable form of "research". They have not been exposed to *real* analytical tools like the scientific method, statistical analysis and so on.
Its self perpetuating also because the people writing the syllabus have gone through the same process.

Then I think about this* and it makes me smile.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Watching a couple of Let's play videos on youtube doesn't equal "research", which is basically what she did.

I agree with homer about her being a great troll. I respect trolls who elicit a response without doing anything wrong. In that sense Ghandi was a troll.

By any standard of the past 100 years, I think it's safe to say that most of our mothers qualify as "feminist", but forces on the net have made the word itself a lightning rod, like the republicans did with "liberal" in the 80s. In the current climate,if you put the word "Feminist" in your name and SAY anything about their precious video games, it almost doesn't matter what you have to say.

Here's where I disagree with Homer: While it's certainly true that we all know that the internet is infested with shitposters, I don't think we were all really aware how many MISOGYNIST shitposters there are, and how they automatically turn their attention to any woman who becomes visible in any way. I'll submit to you that women still pay a price for being visible on the internet that men don't pay, and we're only beginning to examine that and question that, as we continue to build the communities of the future.

Whatever meaning the term "troll" might had in the past, i think it already hit it's expiration date a long time ago. If this is all an act of "trolling" it makes whatever point she could made even more hollow.

Who appointed Riskbreaker as the guy who gets to stamp expiration dates on all our words?

Troll implies she has no or little intent beyond just fucking with people, which is not the case here.

nor with Ghandi... what the fuck kind of comparison is that?

She did it for the lulz AMIRITE GUYZ? HUEHUEHUE

That's basically the only audience paying attention to her, so, she's making zero impact outside the 4chan video game drama forum. Hardly what you will call sucess unless you are making a career out of that.

Really? So did you watch the video where she gets the award? Or is your brain just refusing to accept the information from your eyes and ears?

Your tears! They taste like... strawberry lemonade!

This whole thing made little difference and created zero real debates, is just one internet drama soap opera between 4chan and her. Both sides are retarded and should go away.

I don't know from 4chan. but this shit is huge on youtube. Some guys have released literally dozens of videos obsessively railing about Anita Sarkeesian. The amazing atheist is responsible for maybe a dozen.

Is more or less the same crowd, many of the guys who uploaded videos are the same type that post on 4chan, or the ones who probably defended that fat beardo who was harrasing a girl in that fighting game reality show thing.

The same crowd that seems to populate more of the internet than it should. The crowd that you don't want to be in.

Anita has her use, but don't pretend her direction and spotlight is not going to change just because she found success. If she's that hollow, then she won't stand the test of time. The internet is literally dissecting everything and still has a huge piece of growing to do, but it's tons more optimistic then what it could be.

Wayne who? Is that some dude Sarks is involved with?

Catie Wayne is a you-tube personality formerly known as Boxxy, heretofore to be known as The Goddess Cali.

Goddess Cali? The fuck is that?

And how'd you get the bold type?

A line of exactly sixty straight characters of non-whitespace followed by a carriage return triggers a site bug where a "BR" tag that gets automatically added gets split in twain so that it functions like a "B" (bold) tag.

012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789

Behold the bold! (unless I fucked it up)

"Again, it is the haters who make this so delicious. "

"If she didn't want it, she shouldn't have talked about video games so provocatively."

For you, Homer, I made a chart of the origin of the title "The Goddess Cali". Explaining a joke rarely makes it funny, so don't expect much.

https://www.mediafire.com/convkey/fd32/bb9edcc16yqcl5c6g.jpg

Wow. That was... that's certainly a thing, I guess. Is that something you made up, or is it a cool Boxxy-groupie meme I've never heard of before?

(if I were asked to come up with a meme based on that picture, I'd go for something like Cali-tan... you know, a Boxxyfied version of the ancient Nevada-tan meme. 'cuz she stabs people.)

Also, do Boxxy enthusiasts have a collective name for themselves? Like, I dunno, Boxxyfags? Queentards? Bronxxys? Stalkers? What would you consider yourself to be?

There's no name for fans, which is appropriate because we run the gamut. For example, there are 4channers, and 4chan haters.

The fan community is known as the "Boxxysphere", a term coined by Catie herself in "A NEW HOPE" the Star Wars themed video that marked her EPIC return to the internet after two years.

http://youtu.be/aTyCJQYrGt0

This is a great idea for a video. I had to watch it a couple of times before I realized that was Catie in the closeups, and not Carrie Fisher. However, there's no sign of the acting chops she would display later. Even her hand gestures seem awkward. Her discomfort is understandable, as she had been warned by internet crazies not to make any more videos, and she was facing a huge audience when before all she had done was make gag videos for her friends. There is evidence that she wouldn't have done this if she hadn't been desperate for money for college.

P.S. Goddess Cali is all mine.

She is still cute and lovable but a lot of the mystery is gone ya know? Once you lose that mystique it's an uphill battle to get it back. Surprised most of her videos don't go over a million though; she might have more hits being her quirky self while playing with some shrek playdoh shit.

She's doing fine. It's not about mystery with Catie, it's about little surprises the just keep popping. Like the the time she showed up in Philip De Franco's footage from Vid Con, touching her nose with her toes (you heard me) and maybe drunk, though probably suffering from extreme sleep deprivation. I'd been watching her for over 3 years the first time she opened her mouth so wide in a video that you could see her uvula. Never saw anyone's uvula before in a video that wasn't a cartoon. Catie has acting talent, and she's cuter than a box of baby ducks... but more than that, she seems to have some cartoon DNA.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/LLrMMXEGxzc/maxresdefault.jpg

http://chan.catiewayne.com/c/src/138275162868.jpg




The Boxxy thing in 4 chan happened five years ago. She came back three years ago, and most of her sicko fan base turned against her when she refused to crank out Boxxy catch phrases and devote her life to being a meme. She mostly started over. It took her two years to get 100K subscribers. It took her another nine months to get to 200K subscribers. She'd be at 300K by now, but in December she got a job working for the Discovery Network's Animalist channel, so she's been cranking out Animalist News videos full time, like maybe five a week since then.

http://youtu.be/wcED7t8KX7A

It's great how lately, I always get to talk about Catie in here, and this is one of the few times I was the one who brought it up.

I'm happy for you dude, you seem to like her and follow her career (I guess you could say) in only a slightly creepy way, at least that's how you come across to me in that last post.

I honestly wish she does do well. So she works for Animal Planet now? Pretty sweet deal, does her stuff get on the ol' TV or is it internet only? Either way is pretty rad when you think about it.

Just internet.

"Only slightly creepy" is pretty much how I think of myself.

Anita has divided a culture.

It certainly spotlighted the assholes I want to avoid with laser precision.

^

Those are some pretty long sentences. You must have very complex feelings about this insignificant issue. She got a worthless award at some industry circle-jerk. It isn't the Nobel Prize or something.

tl:dr

I think you're projecting an awful lot. Several of her videos have been here on POETV and in every one a lot of people, including me, were pointing out the things she either got wrong or blatantly lied about and at no point were the critics ever told they were CIS SCUM RAPISTS or whatever. In fact, I've seen a lot of well reasoned criticism of Anita and it has generated a lot of discussion. I mean, if you're talking about YouTube, YT is a fucking cesspool and should never be used ever as a means to judge the interactions of actual, not-socially-broken people when it comes to complex issues.
Still, however, that doesn't change the uncomfortable fact that most of her loudest critics are just whiny manbabies who are mad that she pointed out the glaringly obvious, massive sexism in their favorite hobby that they wish women would shut up about.

A woman is complaining about video games, despite the fact that she hasn't played every video game ever made? CALL THE YOUTUBE POLICE.

Actually, I could probably cut the second clause out of that first sentence and get a good summation of the internet's main objection to these videos.

Your debut novel needs a little work, BHWW. Have you thought of adding some sexy werewolves?

If videogames are no longer sexist then how come you can't play a girl in Counter-Strike 1.6 without modding it?

Checkmate.

Her videos are quite clumsy, she made a poor research. Her critics are indeed whiny manbabies TFL drones, but that doesn't mean she made any relevant point beyond "internet is full of idiots". The "controversy" is centered around her, not around the issue here, video games and sexism.

OH GOD WHOLE FIVE PARAGRAPHS WHAT HAVE I DONE, yes the old "heh TL;DR"

And yes, some actual reasoned discussion on these would be nice for once besides the usual suspects popping up to pat each other on the back for being so progressive and chuckling about "heh SWEET NERD TEARS, lol stupid manbabies"

Don't expect said discussion to take place here, or anywhere else on the internet BHWW. Loud idiotic insults attract more people than actual arguments. Internet drama with everyone insulting each other. This is why video games either need to crash again or attract more casual players (read: people who don't follow forums) maybe then a real discussion could emerge.

@BHWW/Riskbreaker: I don't have a lot of experience of Anita to argue against your bits there, but the whole "Everyone is from 4chan and 4chan is horrible" is really short sighted. Those reactionary of people railing against Anita make the difference between women hating TFL'er fans sticking with the reactionary and those who think better of the world and may have thought there was a decent direction.

The internet is still growing and generations are piling on. Anita, despite legitimate criticism, has merit when there isn't a lot of human ideals in the mainstream. It's sad, but her having 15 minutes of fame made more impact than a lot of feminists who make a video and leave it laying about on a medium (the internet, technology) that was considered more suitable for males? In a country where the most probable start for suffrage started out when women in the workforce was advertised due to a war? Not just one war, but both world wars? I mean, obviously the entire population of women in America could have easily swept up in aspirations outside of the kitchen, under the rug, but a certain horrible person named Hitler had to come in and ruin it. All of those male only secretary and in-flight stewardess jobs, lost.

I think I'll need to actually watch Anita's videos and sit through an hour lecture of benign rhetoric to agree with you on Anita, but I don't think I need to do that to point out that the internet has it's own set of "baby boomers" if you will. No doubt that if someone came along who would refute and debate against Anita will win by a landslide, but try finding that in a group that is split into "It's just entertainment, insipid feminist, I have a life outside of the internet and realize there are more immediate, life obstructing problems that could happen" or "They're making me interact with women!"

Until Anita finally becomes irrelevant due to the times, you're just gonna have to "man up".

I just kind of skimmed that thing, but I think her videos are responding to the themes in games as a whole. In that regard, mentioning "games never played" is perfectly valid. If gun violence were a major part of the most successful movies but never showed up in flops / TV movies / crappy TV shows / etc., they wouldn't be emblematic of a national obsession. The fact that they're in everything is the problem. Similarly, if just Mass Effect and Dead or Alive had grossly disproportioned women in skin-tight clothing, that would be one thing. The fact that every game has it makes it a lot worse.

Often times, you can look at the media that fails to see what makes up a people's zeitgeist. Popular art tends to have universal appeal. Unpopular art tends to reflect the creator and consumer's traits and biases more nakedly.

Not being sarcastic here. Five stars for Hooker for the very awesomely articulated observation. That summary drop kicks Tipper Gore's dried up cunt.

If she could reach such conclusions by just observing gameplay footage and other related gaming stuff then there was no need for the kickstarter. It also means she really didn't put that much effort into the whole thing. Action oriented entertainment is common in many other countries, does it mean the same thing for each culture? Not necessarily, that's why you research the context, the background, you don't go and make broad statements based on such little information, like she did.

@Riskbreaker:
Pot calling the kettle black.

I'm gonna go ahead and post this. I got tired and decided to sum up a response I had since I was losing patience, but unfortunately Nominal's bits seems to have made Riskbreaker feel he has a shelter.

@Riskbreaker
"If she could reach such conclusions by just observing gameplay footage and other related gaming stuff then there was no need for the kickstarter. It also means she really didn't put that much effort into the whole thing. Action oriented entertainment is common in many other countries, does it mean the same thing for each culture? Not necessarily, that's why you research the context, the background, you don't go and make broad statements based on such little information, like she did."


Okay, I'll be a little nicer here for the first half of your paragraph since there's at least SOMETHING there, but your last half was utterly ironic drivel.

But the problem I have with is it seems that it's the same thing being played here. "She didn't play these games, so thusly her views are invalid." (I wouldn't be surprised if this was an exaggeration.) But stories are literally secondary to the gameplay in the industry and the most I hear from the detractors is that some how equates to "harmless, aimless clichés and since it's not hard hitting writing it's obviously not going to defame a thing." But the problem is that those clichés still give the illusion of acceptance, which is the reason why any upfront use of slurs and terms are never easily tolerated even if they're used in a proficiently absurd manner that disarms any substantial use or weight of them.

I would love it if you could make a video, stating the times and videos you took those excerpts from and make Anita come off as a Post 9/11 Bush Administration before they were caught with their pro-war propaganda.

I'm not saying that Anita should be protected, but the whole "she could be making more valuable discussions over feminism" and not bringing anything to attention just makes you look bad. It sort of makes you look like the people who are railing for social justice, you know, the people who are trying to make something out of nothing? It's not a bad point to keep in mind priorities, but it's turning into a stupid charade if you ask me.

Ironically, I still have yet to see someone point out how there is something to the surface appeal that Anita probably hasn't even noted and that a lot of anti-Sarkeesian's over looked.

Something that tends to go along side with Sara Silverman's point of stating how when you openly state LGBT can't serve their country openly/can't marry in front of your kids. Not exactly, but it's around there.

PS: I am also referring to the story of a parent who modded a game to make a female character playable when their daughter was confused as to why she couldn't play her. Just to help out.

^

Didn't know you were still here.

I can't hear you, I'm already walking away.

Eat shit, nerd.

Can't hear you, already outside.

what's the point of going outside if you keep reading and responding on your phone?

Already in the parking lot, way out of earshot.

You could have put like 3 more clauses into this.

Back in the 90's, they were just called "bad girls."

If "possitive effect" means getting more "games" like Gone Home, i think i'll stay with the negative effects. Like, you know, games that actually have game play and not a hollow message that contributes nothing to either the industry or any real social cause.

Holy shit really.

You are that butthurt over Gone Home? I didn't play the game, it did not impact me at all. But I have to hear nerds cry about it like they were forced to play it at gunpoint.

Once again, I am forever grateful to Anita for making the shitnerds stand out so the rest of us can avoid you.

So wait, Gone Home is the by product of feminism and not the after birth of people trying something different and/or attempting to make video games "art"?

I know the moment a buzzword like "butthurt" is use(a word said shitnerds you are so "different" from love to use) i shouldn't even bother answering, but here i go....

Of course Gone Home is just a very small example, but again, that thing was fueled by all this social bullshit armchair campaigns. Praised by it's "themes" regardless of it's merits as a game, or the lack of said merits. Please, feel free to add an example of something truly good that came out of all this internet drama beyond "I WON'T SIT NEXT TO THOSE NERDS IN THE INTERNET CAFETERIA!"

By the way, sounds like the people who are truly mad are others....

It's funny seeing all the nerds being outraged by Gone Home and then praising games like the Stanley Parable and Dear Esther.

It's hipsters doing their thing, but of course they want to associate with the whole pseudo social justice movement, or whatever you want to call it.

Just check the wikipedia profile of the guy who made/wrote Gone Home. The funny thing is, none of these people, Anita and other "game journalists" guys actually care about all these "heavy social issues" This is their only way to be relevant in some way, because game journalism is a joke and just below sports journalism, and being a "pop culture critic" is not a real job.

I don't even know what your mad about? Did Gone Home not have enough shooting in it for you?

I don't even know why you assume i'm mad at Gone Home. Not liking something equals being mad? Please explain how that works.

@Riskbreaker

Gaynor is an enthusiast of feminism and atheism.[12] He is a fan of film noir,[4][10] Japanese cinema,[13] cyberpunk[5] and the Looking Glass Studios style of immersive simulation games. He has a wife, Rachel Jacks, who is referenced in Bioshock 2 as "Rachelle Jacques."[6]

Wow, that's not a lot considering the profile is centered around a game designer and not someone who has beliefs.

Oh, Binro. The people laughing up people's anger over this thing would immediately take the same position as their antagonists should a video series pop up complaining about the way men are portrayed in video games. I'm not trying to go all MRA - obviously men have far more privileged in society and its culture and the portrayals of men in video games are intended to flatter men - but there's nevertheless a double standard when it comes to this shit.

It's absolutely true that I picked up the word "butthurt" from a nasty little psychopath who used to troll me without mercy. Learned quite a bit fromn that little 18 year old piece of shit, now that you mention it.

Gone Home was mildly interesting as an interactive 90s nostalgia VR sim and that's about it.

The story sucks because it was built entirely on false dread. Take out the thunderstorm sound effects and it would have been too boring for most people to finish. The end is literally, "LOL just kidding everything worked out fine BYE!"

I'm looking at this whole page of comments and just giving my five stars to you, SolRo. Because I love the idea that these videos are shortening the lifespan of the corticate-manque squad.

I'm not sure i would even call it a scam, people got exactly what they wanted: more vapid aimless video of somebody pretending to know something about a theme said person never did any real research. Of course, you could accuse her of taking free money from idiots, but it's either her or a political party.

Sorry DairyQueenLatifah, but telling people to look it up rather than linking to it is just as much as a stupid circle jerk of "HURR UR A NERD FEDORA TIPPING MYSOGINIST VIRGIN DELICIOUS NERD RAGE TEARS LOLOL"

I'm indifferent to her and I feel that this thing is one of the foremost examples of how shitty Kickstarter is. For my benefit, could you please link me to some of this stuff, particularly her pyramid scheme thing?

No, wait, dairyqueenlatifah, come back! I love you!

You lost me at "white-knighting". This is what sociopaths do; they identify empathy for others as some kind of pathology. The purpose of defending someone who is bullied is so the person won't feel isolated and alone. It's easy to do, and based on the times I've felt bullied, it's effective. So naturally, bullies have a word for those who spoil their fun. I'm not saying that DQL is a sociopath, only that he's behaving exactly as a sociopath might behave.

>>But that's all I'll say about this cunt and her supporters. I fully expect to get lambasted with "HURR UR A NERD FEDORA TIPPING MYSOGINIST VIRGIN DELICIOUS NERD RAGE TEARS LOLOL"

So delicious! Like pink champagne.

Remember when that guy made that video game where you got to punch her in the face and she would get all bruised up?

I dunno, she's not telling me anything I don't already know about sexism in video games, but so what, maybe I'm not the person she had in mind when she made the videos.

People who aren't me wanted to see them to the tune of (a little less than) 0,000. She had enough of an audience to get some money for the time she was going to put into it. She wanted to make five professional-looking videos for ,000 and her goal was met within a day. People want her to do her thing. Why a bunch of guys think it's their business to tell her what she is doing right and wrong is anyone's guess.

SEXISM THO

"To spite assholes on the internet" is a stupid reason to send money to a stranger. It's a stupid reason to lose money, and it's a stupid reason to receive money, and probably a little embarrassing (not that I wouldn't accept it). I don't understand why people care so much how some idiots are feeling on some corner of the internet you have no need to ever pay attention to. This is the most baffling part of the whole thing to me.

For you can either have lunch tomorrow, or you can have a 0.005% stake in a "slightly annoy idiots" fund? It's , it doesn't really matter, but in no sane universe is that "money well spent."

I disagree. Five dollars will feed me for half of one day, but it's been a year and dairyqueenlatifah is still raging. What a bargain!

I'd like to get an app for my desktop that flashes whenever Anita Sarkeessian needs money for a kickstart project. I missed this one, and I'm, well, I'm a little butthurt over it. I could own a piece of every rant, every deranged video from Thunderf00t and the Amazing Atheist. For five little dollars. Where could I possibly get more FUCK for my buck? Nowhere!

When the hell did any of that happen you fat, smegma encrusted beardo.

I forgot to call you a virgin, sorry.

Oh wait, I should probably mention that I'm pretty close to not giving two shits about this site's "will" for discussion on the opposite end when people like you come out and start braying yet hopper submissions like "The Invisible War" never get out to either be dismissed or argued over.

Way to encourage activity, you fucking slobs.

I'm glad you got whatever grudge that was about hopper submissions out of your system.

Basically these videos turn this place into the same cesspool POEnews was before it died. The people bringing it up just want to get off on picking a side to yell at and start calling everyone beardo klansmen.

You just proved that nicely. WhoWantsDessert proves it daily.

Mind linking to a submission with the said "Non-POEnews easy breasy feel of everyone getting along in a debate" feel?

Cause I know quite a few videos that went into some pretty heated arguments/debates that didn't include Anita. So I wouldn't mind some sort of reference to go with so I can look forward to this site going back to a rose colored golden era of shininess.

PS: I have a buzz so I'm a bit bitey. But I still feel my stance has merit.

PS: So what about the other end? What about the folks on here who actually make attacking Anita look terrible?

PS: And what do you mean by grudge? Cause I didn't submit that video.

Invisible stars for you nominal. Remind me i owe you them in a less drama-inducing video.

Really? That's the ONLY bile you see? Shirley, you're not serious.

You mean aside from the dozen people here who just admitted to bringing this up for the sole reason of virgin neckbeard nerd rage tears, including you?

MRAs are awkward dorks (and let's be honest no one wants to hear men whining) but I've never seen a fraction of the vitrol from them that I see here every time a video is posted.

Let's all be honest that this is about getting your 2 minutes of hate in and not about changing real issues or helping people, unless you truly agree with Anita that songs like Santa Baby are sexist filthy keeping women oppressed. That's Tipper Gore nonsense.

People are shitty on the internet no matter how many skimpy outfits video game women wear. Public video game figures get death threats for tweaking the stats of an assault rifle grip accessory in Call of Duty. Rescuing a kidnapped Zelda leads to real life domestic violence or a glass ceiling or teen pregnancy or whatever the hell her point is as much as Mortal Kombat leads to spine rips during bar fights.

Nominal, I don't think there is anyone here who even believes Tipper Gore had any sort of merit or substance in her armchair psychology.

Sorry, in addition to two disingenuous posters addicted to feeling morally superior, I forgot to include the senior citizen with a creepy "nice guy" fixation on women a third of his age.

You have no idea how angry I'll be if you send your entire life savings to Anita. You better not do it!

JHM isn't "But I'm a Nice Guy™!" creepy.
He's his own, unique flavor of creepy.

FINALLY someone gets me!

When I google the word "creepy", I get "causing an unpleasant feeling of fear or unease."

It's something they accuse you of in lieu of an actual charge. I don't think I've done anything wrong, but if something I've done causes a feeling of unease or fear in you... well, I actually think that's kind of awesome.

What gets me is how everyone laughed off the "violent video games cause violence in real life" push to censor games and mocked its proponents, but now everyone is taking this seriously? Either games control the way people act in the real world or they don't. If violence in games isn't turning people into murdering thugs, how is poorly written women in games raising a generation of patriarchy conspirators?

The other funny thing is how the gaming "press" loves to pick their targets with this bs. The God of War games have the main character banging women all the time and nobody said a thing, then Dragon's Crown came out and suddenly a wave of complaints about sexism exploded because a female character has big tits.

Also, i think you sum up things pretty well Nominal, so this absurd controversy can be put to rest now....hopefully.

So in order to be worthy of criticism, pop culture has to turn everyone who is exposed to it into evildoers, or there's no point in talking about it.

Riskbreaker is right, Nominal has summed up the idiot-manchild argument pretty well. And this ought to put the controversy to rest.

To my knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated that Anita Sarkeesian had claimed that video games influenece bad behavior or advocated censorship by directly citing her work, which is the only way anybody actually proves anything. Not in a dozen of these crazy discussions.

Where does she say that? Show me, and I'll acknowledge it, but until then all she seems to be doing is what she claims to be doing, pointing out tropes, which is what critics do.

This argument that Riskbreaker is so impressed by seems totally fake to me, until someone actually establishes that Sarkesesian said these things. Wasn't in the video that I saw, and it's not my job to go combing her work looking for evidence to back up YOUR argument.

If you're arguing about something that she didn't actually say, riskbreaker is certainly right about this being an absurd controversy.

It boils down to only two possibilities: that video games affect the way people act in the real world (in which case "murder" simulators" should be a much higher priority than titillation by attractive women in outfits you'd see at a ballet or beach), or that girls should have a constitutional right for game characters to look and act how they want.

The former is obviously nonsense, and would set an alarming president for portraying any questionable real life activity in art and fiction.

If it's the latter, then this is the most counterproductive way possible to go about it. Not since the 80s has it been easier for a single author to make their own games. Encourage women to make their own. Offer half of the surplus she made from the kickstarter to fund some woman's indie game.

Holy shit. When the fuck did "women in videogames" become as fucking sensitive as gun control?

Jesus fucking Christ.

How about a third option, Nominal where said character doesn't fall into the tropes of being an emotional catalyst for the plot, isn't used as emotional leverage, isn't some patsy.

I fully agree that a woman writing a video game should be funded, thus giving more of a feel of genuine empowerment. It's really invigorating knowing Rebecca Sugar got to make her own show and is a big leap for women in entertainment. But oh my fucking god, could you make any more of a horrendous strawman? Seriously, I'd like to hear your rebuttal on why you made that post, because I have half a thought as to why you did it that way, but it literally comes off as if some hairy butch freedom fighter is shoving her vagina in your mouth grunting "freedom. freedom. freedom" with each satisfied thrust.

Besides censorship, the other problem with Anita is that she pushes the reactionary brand of feminism that says sexuality and sexism are one in the same.

Out of all the girls I've ever known who played games, I never heard a single one have any issue with skimpy outfits or princess rescuing or that Peach can't wear anything but pink. In fact, when given a choice of character, they always want to play as the chick with the biggest tits. It's just the equivalent of guys wanting to be the big gruff space marine. Both sexes want to play out an over the top power fantasy.

What words would Anita say to those girls? How about to feminists who organize slut walks?

Trick question. This whole thing is just the new Kony 2012 for self righteous slacktivists.

00?

She can do whatever she wants with the money people gave her for exactly this. It raises an eyebrow why she even needed 00 for the project when the final product looked like it was done in 30 man hours tops over 6 months at the public access studio, but whatever.

When you claim to be doing it for a charitable cause you're passionate about and you end up raising more than 25 times the asking amount through a service notorious for a lack of oversight and the surplus money just kind of disappears and is never mentioned...

Like the other guy said I wouldn't call her a scam artist, but it says something about character and sincerity. If I asked for 00 for homeless orphan puppy adoption posters and ended up getting k, made a hundred flyers and then nothing, people might be right to ask why I'm not donating a good chunk to a shelter if I care so much about animals.

Though I've been out of the Anita loop for a while and if she's actually donated 0k to a women's shelter or scholarship for computer science or whatever then I'll eat crow and be wrong.

Someone made a video game where you get to beat her up and she gets realistic bruises and cuts, a very vivid and frightening example of the widespread violent reaction she got to wanting to make five YouTube videos.

I'd be hard-pressed to find fault with anyone who donated to her kickstarter feeling disappointed that her videos don't reflect the money she raised. That said I'm PRETTY SURE the beatup game wasn't made by a disgruntled fan, and I'm pretty sure the guys threatening her with rape donated to her kickstarter because they wanted to see her talk about how women are portrayed in pop culture and they were just, you know, disappointed that it wasn't reflected in her videos. They were disappointment rape threats.

People made the exact same "beat up / kill this person" games back when Jack Thompson did his thing. Please explain how that was any different.

That question was asked here before and got the honest the god answer, "Well Thompson was an idiot with dumb claims so it was okay."

It's hard to read that and not see the mindset in play that women are weaker and need special treatment and protection.

I don't know about the censorship claims, or care what he thinks of her one way or the other, but Nominal absolutely hit the nail on the head on these submissions mostly being an exercise in self-righteous indignation, getting 2 minutes of hate in, and generally getting to feel superior. Which is maybe par for the course for poetv but still ridiculous. As many users on here have admitted, the videos themselves are basically non-entities.

This whole thing, along with MRAs, are things that I would have happily not had knowledge if it weren't for people going "Look! Look how much better I am than these losers!"

Nonsense. It's not about being superior, it's about gloating as people who acted like total dicks take a hit. Being superior to people who are total dicks is not really so great an accomplishment that I would care to brag about it.

It wasn't really aimed at anyone in here, but some people seem to take it personally that I gloat over people who are total dicks taking a hit. Does that make them total dicks? Not for me to say, but really, the gloating for it's own sake was mostly yesterday. This is more of a normal discussion.

I'm sorry John, but you've got your head way up your ass and if it weren't so clear that you've gotten emotionally invested, I'd say you were a top notch troll.

This is her mission:

"Think of it this way, if gaming is the air we all breathe, right now the air quality is currently extremely polluted with thick clouds of toxic sexism with radioactive particles of misogyny floating around everywhere. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way! It’s in all of our interests to deal with the mess although, as I’ve found out recently, the detoxification process will probably not be an entirely pleasant one. In the end though, I truly believe it will create richer, healthier, more complex and inclusive gaming universes for people of all genders"

This is how she wants to accomplish it:

"When it comes to the question of accountability, we obviously need our service providers to take online harassment seriously with built in structures and functionalities that actively deter bad behaviour and actually encourage good behavior. We also need to be creating a larger cultural shift away from impunity and towards a measure of social accountability. This is a long process of course but it starts with community members (especially men) publicly calling out harassment and challenging misogyny when they see it. It’s critically important to make it clear that abusive behavior will not be tolerated in our digital spaces."

In addition to this, and this is just my opinion, her entire message about tropes in video games sounds a lot like a publicity campaign to shame a community into changing to suit the desires of a small minority of community using only examples of laughably harmless or barely tenable stereotypes.

Yes, she advocates censorship. On the internet. Where everyone has the ability to censor anything they want themselves.

A mass campaign of shaming gamers sounds fine by me.

I'm torn on this, on one hand I have tried to be a dissenting voice among the "lol noob faggot cunt camper homo gay nigger dicksucker bitch" online FPS crowd a couple dozen times and for the most part I've found that people respond with vitriol to anything you say or do to attempt to clean up language and attitudes. Hyper-aggressive games attract predominately teenage-young adult males and rebellion to authority is literally in their blood. The less socially acceptable it is to use this kind of language in real life, the more it will be used to vent in frustration during anonymous interactions with strangers online.

On the other hand, if these attitudes are seen as perfectly normal in an online space that more and more people of all ages are going to spend their leisure time with there's no doubt that it will bleed into real life on some level. I have no solution, nor do I think one exists. The aggression of the Young Man comes with the spike in his testosterone as he grows up, just as mood swings and bloating come with periods. Certain aspects of the human existence come down to chemical interactions and being "in control" of emotions has never been an area in which teens excel.

Anita is framing the discourse to suit her goals, it's not like she's a research scientist trying to be objective. That pisses a lot of gamers off, and the most unhinged of the community will target her with all kinds of venom, is this shocking to anyone?

>>>I'm sorry John, but you've got your head way up your ass and if it weren't so clear that you've gotten emotionally invested, I'd say you were a top notch troll.

ORLY?

Please continue.

>>This is her mission:

>>>"Think of it this way, if gaming is the air we all breathe, right now the air quality is currently extremely polluted with thick clouds of toxic sexism with radioactive particles of misogyny floating around everywhere. The good news is that it doesn�t have to be this way! It�s in all of our interests to deal with the mess although, as I�ve found out recently, the detoxification process will probably not be an entirely pleasant one. In the end though, I truly believe it will create richer, healthier, more complex and inclusive gaming universes for people of all genders"

>>>This is how she wants to accomplish it:

>>>When it comes to the question of accountability, we obviously need our service providers to take online harassment seriously with built in structures and functionalities that actively deter bad behaviour and actually encourage good behavior. We also need to be creating a larger cultural shift away from impunity and towards a measure of social accountability. This is a long process of course but it starts with community members (especially men) publicly calling out harassment and challenging misogyny when they see it. It�s critically important to make it clear that abusive behavior will not be tolerated in our digital spaces."

Okay, ferzen, here'[s why you're so completely full of shit:

You've copied and pasted two quotes from two different sources, and you haven't read them carefully enough to comprehend that the first quote is about gaming, and the second quote is about harassment, which is not remotely the same thing, yet you're presenting them as if they're two parts of the same same object. That's a reading comprehension fail, buddy.

>> if it weren't so clear that you've gotten emotionally invested

Fuck you. The internet is the most important cultural development of my lifetime. It's where I spend most of my time, and it's where we're inventing the communities of the future. I'm not going to apologize to an apparent sociopath for caring about the problem of harassment. This is our culture, and I'll gladly admit to being emotionally invested in not letting entitled fucks think they can run the show.

Note: she also lays out what she did with the money: expanding from 5 to 13 videos, creating a curriculum for educators, making TROPES her full-time job. I suppose that last part means she's using some of the money for food and rent, but if it allows her to do the work, I think that's appropriate. What's not appropriate is to donate the money to a battered woman's shelter or anything other than what the money is supposed to be for.

Maybe you could explain to me just exactly how you made the leap from my stated disdain for censorship to my alleged acceptance of a large scale campaign of illegal harassment?

While you continue to accuse myself and others of misrepresenting Anita Sarkeesian's message?

REALLY? You mean Anita Sarkeesian made a video about it?

I'm not sure why people bother posting her videos here to "drink up nerd tears" when they could just go to Bo News (which is what people who did stuff like this did back during POEnews). They do this kind of thing every day there. You could go celebrate Christmas every day with your fellow back patters!

I sort of agree with you on posting her videos, Nominal, but at the same time I feel it's a good way of weeding out idiots.

I love this site for it's humanity, but let's face it, it's the internet. You have all the time and relaxation to plan ahead and do as you please. It just takes cold reading and the hope of blending in.

Hello! Hello, everyone! Hello!

http://tinyurl.com/qad6lsk

JHM is the only reason I bother clicking on Sarkeesian videos.

Me, too.

Ideally, it should encourage developers to think about the choices they make when creating characters and plots for their games.

They should ask themselves why they're doing whatever it is they do to their female characters. Are they just using an old negative trope out of ignorance or laziness? Are they really thinking about what it says about how they personally think of women?

Many male gamers don't think this is necessary, but I think we've slipped backwards a little in the treatment of female characters in games. While the original "Tomb Raider" was criticized for giving Lara Croft impossibly huge breasts and a skimpy outfit, the portrayal of the character was much more progressive than in recent incarnations.

Lara was originally as tough as nails, a literal survivor. At the age of sixteen, she was the only person to walk out of the jungle after a plane crash. She made a name for herself journeying to places where few dared go and fewer still survived. She didn't take shit off bad guys and had no problem plugging a vicious predatory animal between the eyes. She faced fire, rain, disease-riddled jungles, burning deserts, icebound mountaintops and the crushing black depths of the ocean. She did it all without complaint or crying. She also had no problem flirting with a guy.

Cut to the modern "dark and gritty" reboot. Lara whimpers and shrinks away from some two-bit goon who menaces her. She breaks down in tears when she has to kill a deer for food. And when a guy flirts with her, he's more likely to get a death threat, because all "tough" women obviously aren't into men.

I still don't think there's anything to enforce. Maybe I'm wrong, but scrolling upward, it looks like no one has yet demonstrated a pro-censorship agenda, using Anita Sarkeesian's words. She calls herself a critic, and critics usually like to comment on what they like and what they don't like. I think the idea is that enlightened discussion will bring progress. It's something that critics tend to believe in. It's how change takes place in a free society.

I'd have to say a game aimed for kids that didn't follow the tropes being used. Nintendo has their kid friendly Mario, but the few games where Peach and/or Daisy was actually the main star were horrible and demeaning. No kid friendly games where the main character is a girl as far as I know, especially a big franchise.

I definitely agree with your thought of funding an indie game helmed by a woman, Nominal. Expecting anyone to get interested enough to learn to code, write, and polish a game is a pipe dream when the same gender role shit being advertised by toy companies is prevalent in the gaming industry, especially in the mainstream. There are no role models to look up to. Unless you count Roberta Williams, which unfortunately, even with an impressive background of co-founding Sierra Entertainment and a hit series, will not really make an impact with how much point and click adventure games are barely making a line in mainstream gaming despite Telltale Games production. (Not to also mention that there was a pretty big acceptance of the 'norms' during her day)

Never played Tomb Raider, but if it has become as terrible as it is with the new reboot (not to mention the Metroid game where Samus was given a "personality" to help market the game [Or expand the game world, what ever stupid reason the developers had]) then yeah, I'd agree with Binro's post.

Hell, even a character that never really had a personality (as well as the design minimal enough to allow the player their own imagination to fill in the gaps) would be a shit ton better then what's being advertised. A casual game reminiscent of the NES days where it's not about having ULTRA HD HYPER EXPANSIVE AESTHETIC but worked with what options had to make some sort of guideline for the imagination to run about. Something that would kick every hipster dweeb in the balls and teabag them as they whimper over how it was even done.

PS: I actually remember my sister loving the idea of playing Minnie Mouse in NES Mousecapade's.

I did play the new Tomb Raider and I'd argue that including not wanting to hurt animals, not being able to deal with menacing would-be rapists and breaking down into tears after facing near-death scenarios are much more realistic portrayals of how MOST people man or woman would react if they were thrust into a life & death survival situation. Certainly moreso than playing as a Terminator with tits from the get-go and calling it "empowerment". The portrayal of Lara in the new game created an actual character arc so I felt truly bad-ass when I went from an inexperienced and terrified girl to an actual Tomb Raiding Rambo who shot flaming arrows into people's faces and stabbed them through the skull with an ice-climbing ax.