Problem Machine

Someone linked this as their favorite piece of Jenn Frank's. She's SO FUCKING GOOD. I feel shitty that "we're" losing this talent, but I think her getting out of this bullshit industry is absolutely the right choice.

'gamers' have seized upon Jenn's disclaimer as evidence of her corruption. Al Jazeera irresponsibly ran with the image. Jenn Frank has quit. I can't even fucking handle how angry and sad I am. How the fuck are these people real? Are they just going to keep going and going until there's nothing left?

THIS MADE ME SO HAPPY

On... what grounds exactly?

(tangentially, i think it would be kinda fuckin' cool if patricia were on the cast sometime)

Wait, what? Are they treating this as a crazy new thing? I thought that was common knowledge... Do they believe a relationship between two writers at different outlets is ethically suspect? What's the logic there?

I think she pushed to get it added back in so that people don't give her shit about it. Not that it's likely to stop them.

Presumably he read it for 11 years waiting for God to smite them.

I don't think there's anything wrong with liking someone who's been kind of a dick, or liking the content they produce. No one's perfect, and it's important to still be able to be friends and enjoy each others' company while not seeing eye-to-eye. That said, I'm super fucking glad that, as far as I know, none of the youtubers I regularly follow seem to have said anything particularly stupid on the subject. It's an uncomfortable position to be in, since certain gaming channels on youtube really brighten my day sometimes, I would find it really weird to have to give one up.

Jenn Frank submitted a piece about the controversy for The Guardian... and had her full disclosure nixed by the editors as irrelevant to The Guardian's actual disclosure policies.

For some reason this guy was always top comment on any video he posted on -- maybe because he posted on so many.

I don't think the argument is that people creating a fantasy world based to some degree on actual history shouldn't use situations inspired by historical social norms, even when those are distasteful to us, but that they shouldn't do so thoughtlessly. By all means, if the author wishes to write about a culture with regressive ideas about women, they can do so -- but it is a choice made by the author, and they have to defend it as a choice rather than citing history, since they're otherwise comfortable disregarding that history when it doesn't suit them. If the story abuses women, it has to justify that through its content, or else it's just using the suffering of its female characters as set dressing, which is gross and lazy. Now, as to whether this devotion to history is actually accurate or just accurate to a vague cliffs-notes idea of what historical social norms were is a whole other debate, and one which I'm not really historically knowledgeable enough to contribute to. I've read enough words by persons more educated than myself, though, to know that often times the social ideas that people cling to as 'historically accurate' are only accurate to our misunderstandings and misrememberings.

Wow, I've seen the name show up on a few Northernlion videos and had no idea it was such an infamous figure. Well, now I know.

They're alright, but the main thing is that they're uncommon outside of movie theaters, so they're kind of special for that reason. And yeah, York Peppermint Patties are pretty much the exact same thing but bigger.

I'm not sure if you're asking me or tegan at the moment, but: - Yes, it is extremely common in all forms of media. It may be especially problematic in games in some cases, since the objectification is systemic as well as narrative, but that's a critique to be applied on a game-by-game basis. - As mentioned above, extremely so. Using female characters solely to motivate male characters has been an ongoing feminist critique of the vast majority of popular entertainment. 'Expendable pawns' may seem an extreme example, but is really what it boils down to when these characters exist solely to serve the needs of another character. Sorry if my interpretation of your posts seemed unkind, but posts that brusquely question what other people are saying with no indication of greater context are at first glance very derail-ey. Especially considering that, frankly, your questions seemed rather naive within the context of the debates that have been ongoing on this forum.

On the first point: Viewing a piece in the broader context of the culture of its creation as just as important as viewing a component of a piece within the context of the whole. These are the standards of criticism. This is what critics write about. This isn't some special standard that tegan just invented. On the second point: Though you'll find relatively few people out there who will freely admit to viewing black people as less human than they are, that doesn't mean racism is dead. By the same token, though very few men will say that women exist solely for the pleasure of men, you will find that sexism still exists. The belief doesn't have to be made explicit, if people act in such a way that women are treated disposable, if hundreds of works of art disproportionately portray them that way, then I think it's safe to infer that the belief exists. I'm having a very hard time regarding these last couple of posts of yours as being made in good faith. These are questions which have been addressed in numerous places. If the topics interest you, I would suggest you spend some time researching cultural criticism and feminist theory, respectively, rather than asking tegan to educate you.

source

...GAMERS!

I think what Sean was saying was that threats of sexual violence against women have the weight of thousands of years of history behind them in a way that similar threats against men don't, but I don't want to put words in his mouth. edit: Oh, Gormongous got there first. For once.

I think mockery is one of the most valuable tools at our disposal though. And, since their appearance is to some degree a manifestation of their ideals of masculinity, that's fair game. I might refrain, though, from mocking things which they have less control over -- their bone structure, follicular deficiencies, etc

Yeah, I think most of the mockery centers around the way these dudes present themselves, which I think is an extremely unflattering representation of their personality which they chose to present to the world. The fact that this is how they choose to present themselves is incredibly telling, even beyond how fun it is to make fun of them.

It's a lot easier to be okay with this when you don't follow a lot of writers and game devs who are a few Patreon contributions away from homelessness. This is real fucking money that real fucking people need to make a living.

I think full disclosure is always the ideal, but I also don't think it's ever possible to fully disclose all the ways we're biased for or against things. it's something to strive for, and I applaud any steps taken in that direction, but I can hardly blame journalists for failing to disclose thoroughly enough in any but the most egregious of situations.

And buying a game is an investment in future games from the same company. It's a stretch, sure, but is it really more of a stretch than equating supporting an artist with financially investing in a company?

Taken to its logical conclusion, this would suggest that critics refuse to review any game from any developer that they've ever purchased a game from.