Argobot

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Everything posted by Argobot

  1. Adulthood, Age, and Modernity

    The Slate article isn't saying some YA is bad while adult genre fiction is good; it's arguing that any fiction that prizes storytelling over introspection is not useful. Fiction is uniquely good at providing that kind of insight to its readers. YA is good at introducing that concept to younger people who just lack life experience, but once you've lived a few years, it's better to read fiction that takes a more complicated look at those issues.
  2. Adulthood, Age, and Modernity

    I don't think the article is saying culture created the current crisis in adult; it's just the product of all the economic factors you've listed.
  3. Feminism

    Thank you for linking this. The subject of adults clinging to childish pursuits is something that I've been thinking about for awhile (I strongly agreed with the Slate YA article that AO Scott references) and it is frustrating to see intelligent people willing turn infantile over fandom. But I had never really connected this to the role of women in society. A few weeks ago I saw the movie Obvious Child, which is a comedy about a young woman who gets an abortion. The woman in the movie and I are the same age, and while I would (maybe incorrectly) consider myself more "adult" than that character, I could still strongly relate to many of the problems she faced, some of which were the direct result of her inability to mature. Women are finally being allowed to shirk responsibility in the way that men have always been able to, but Scott is completely right in saying that these women aren't distaff Adam Sandlers; they are more substantial, almost subversive, and unapologetically human.
  4. Happy Birthday!

    Oh wow, I missed all these birthday wishes. Thanks everyone! (And I suppose happy birthday to Chris as well)
  5. Here is a list of all the places he'll be over the next month. http://www.davidmitchellbooks.com/press/#events I haven't read any press on this newest novel, but I really enjoyed his last three books so I'm sure this one will be worthwhile.
  6. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Really hate that I am tagged in that guy's stupid tweet. I keep seeing notifications of it being faved by like-minded jerks. Leigh Alexander was a guest on a Grantland podcast on Gamer Gate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvWeOCjrpus#t=1100
  7. As much as I respect the opinions of the other Thumbs, it's personally gratifying for me, as a woman, to hear another woman's voice on this podcast. I hate that this gratification comes at the expense of someone else's emotional well-being,
  8. I can't take someone seriously if they can't be bothered to spell a person's name correctly. If you're going to write about Zoe Quinn, have the decency to get her name right. And I have no idea why her having a Youtube video where some guy talks about her sex and personal life pulled is a huge controversy or abuse of the system. If something like that existed about me on the Internet and I'd do everything in my power to have it removed.
  9. That attitude displays such a profound inability to empathize with others. The option to not get involved is a luxury that is only available to those who are not directly affected by an issue.
  10. Have you watched the latest FemFeq video? She directly addresses why "sexism is historically accurate" is such a nonsense excuse that allows creators to keep using these lazy writing tropes about abused women. For one, the abuse never reflects reality. In reality, women are far more likely to be attacked by someone they know, not some vile boogeyman that is often used in these games or other stories. Having the latter as the standard of how fiction defines rapists or sexual abusers makes it harder for real women to speak out against their real attackers, because unless your experience fits the ridiculous version prevented in fiction, many people are unlikely to believe you. This garbage not only normalizes abuse against women as "just the way it is", it also normalizes a completely inaccurate idea of what that abuse looks like. This is not real sexism. The fact that this overblown and unconsidered examples are being described as reflecting reality and just the way it is -- that's what sexism looks like. Also, Game of Thrones is not history. It uses some clear tropes from Western history, but it is not history. It has dragons and magic and whatever else in it. Rape in that show is another cheap set piece. Women are abused, but their abuse is nothing more than a plot point.
  11. Feminism

    Oh man, Chris is pretty great.
  12. Feminism

    The connection between Zoe Quinn making critical tweets and Fine Young Capitalists ending their game jam is so tenuous and shouldn't warrant this extensive discussion. It's all hearsay championed by those are already inclined to think the worst of Zoe Quinn (And let's pause for a moment here and think about why people may be inclined to think the worst of ZQ. Hint: it starts with an M- and ends with an -society predisposes all of us to distrust women and be more critical of their ambitions than if they were men which is why we keep seeing these overblown accusations being tossed at ZQ).
  13. Feminism

    Quote -- from the Sarkeesian Effect patreon Photoshop -- Chris Beyonce -- Beyonce
  14. Feminism

    If you're going to make statements like this, don't end them with this obvious out. Stand by your accusations.
  15. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Fair point, but buying something because you're a fan of ______ feels less substantial than what's happening with Patreon. Patreon requires more of an effort on part of the supporter than mindless consumerism. Again, not that I think there's anything inherently wrong with a writer contributing to a devs patreon; I just feel that in this case, because it's more direct than buying a game add-on, it's best to err on the side of caution and disclose. That would make me more comfortable as a reader.
  16. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    I'm willing to give Polygon the benefit of the doubt here but I hope that in the future, Patreon contributions are disclosed. Not that contributing to someone's Patreon is necessarily a huge conflict of interest, but it is something that reasonably should be mentioned.
  17. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    https://twitter.com/chrisremo/status/503775287486599169
  18. Feminism

    Skip to 23:12 if you just want to see this Internet crusade favorably compared to Tom Hardy with a cheese grater on his face. (Edit: Before this current incident, I had never delved so far into this part of the Internet. Watching and reading all of this garbage is doing nothing but making me sad and angry so I need to stop.)
  19. Feminism

    It shouldn't surprise me that these guys love their fascism. I watched one of the youtube videos (I know, I know, mistake) about the supposed ethical breach in games journalism and the guy narrating the video ended it with a warning against anyone not on his side, and then he spliced in clip of Bane from the most recent Batman movie to hammer home his threat. So you have an unquestioning support of fascist principles espoused by a "badass" fictional cartoon character.
  20. Feminism

    Much like it's only bias when it goes against their viewpoints, it's only called nepotism when the community promotes anyone not inline with who these dyed-in-the-wool gamers are and what they believe. People much smarter than me have pointed out how the high levels of access that gaming fans have to developers (as opposed to creatives in other fields) fosters a sense of friendship between the fans and the developers. That happens even on these forums, where the community often feels like they are friends with the Idle Thumbs. Unfortunately, not everyone is as smart and reasonable as the Idle Thumbs community. With a different group of people, adding Danielle as a permanent host would have been met with actual anger. That conflated sense of friendship makes it easier to swallow nepotism when it's benefiting someone who looks like them (ie, straight white men), because it's easier to imagine themselves filling that role. But the second anyone outside their group starts to advance or benefit, it suddenly becomes an attack on their place in the community ("I thought we were friends, how could you be friends with her, what has she ever done"). That's why no one from this gamer group made a peep when Giantbomb recently picked new editors (surprise, they were all white guys), but are up in arms over an indie game developer being friends with other people in the community. Gamers (and honestly, male nerds in general) have been conditioned to identify only with people who like them and no one else.
  21. Feminism

    http://nichegamer.net/2014/08/the-schism-of-gaming-zoe-quinn-nepotism-and-white-knight-journalism/ I can't stop myself from reading this stuff. The views expressed in this article and elsewhere are so far afield from what I responsibly feel like I can understand and yet I continue to try. Something I've noticed is that many of these pieces repeat the mantra that gamers made games what they are, not the journalists or writers, who are actually seen as threats to this gaming paradise. The unjustified and unearned entitlement is staggering. Years of tying the gamer identity to consumerism has given these people a sense of ownership over games, which is why they feel threatened by anything that can be seen as weakening that ownership. That's a horrible environment for producing meaningful and honest art.
  22. Feminism

    You seem to be throwing around a lot of accusations and treating them as fact. For instance, I assume the "Wizardchan fiasco from last year" that you're referring to is the "theory" that ZQ faked a doxing attack to promote her game being on Greenlight. I only know about that theory because I spent way too much time reading blog posts that have frighteningly chronicled ZQ's life for the past year in an attempt to look for a smoking gun that doesn't actually exist. The reason the situation feels foggy is because people are promoting unsubstantiated rumors as truth and then getting mad when those rumors aren't given any consideration. I hadn't heard anything about the sexual harassment accusations, but if you have any links I wouldn't mind reading about it to see what the situation is for myself. It's definitely true that Twitter creates an unfortunate echo chamber wherein even people who have the best intentions are often rewarded for not saying the smartest thing, but the loudest. There's no room for nuanced and honest conversation about complex issues in that kind of environment. However, that's not an excuse to frame the situation as binary, where both sides are equally wrong. If you actually believe in feminism, then work to improve the conversation around it instead of just walking away from it. And if you want to have a conversation about journalistic ethics, fine, but you don't need to bring ZQ's personal actions into it. As far as I'm concerned, there was no ethical violation. That was confirmed by a Kotaku editor and the journalist in question. You can choose to believe them or not, but unless you have the power to go back in time and witness private conversations between people, you'd be hard-pressed to find any proof against their statements. I'm sure that wouldn't even be enough for some people, who seem willing to believe in some nefarious video game conspiracy no matter what information they're given.
  23. Feminism

    Women, amirite???????? *fart*
  24. Feminism

    I thought this was a good summary of the mindset behind these attacks: http://ellaguro.blogspot.com/2014/08/on-right-wing-Video game-extremism.html JP LeBreton posted this older NPR interview that gets how women's underrepresentation in media ingrains a lot of these bad attitudes in us from an early age: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=197390707 The most important thing people can do now is speak out against the harassment and support those who are on its receiving end. It's frustrating that there isn't some kind of instant off switch we can pull to stop the abuse but that's the reality of the culture we've created. Until it's normal for women to be seen -- not just in games, but in all areas -- this shit is likely to continue for at least a little while longer. (Should go without saying that I in no way feel that we should give up because it's too hard, obviously.)
  25. Feminism

    Yeah, this discussion is in no way relevant to the topic of feminism. If someone wants to argue over a stranger's personal life they should start a thread called I am Overly Invested in Who is Fucking Whom on the Internet.