Luftmensch

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Everything posted by Luftmensch

  1. Feminist Frequency

    I'm seeing people repeatedly misinterpret my complaint about suddenly saying "regressive crap" as an attack on emotion. Either I poorly phrased it or you're putting words in my mouth. Either way, my critique was of her noncommitted tone. From the start, she establishes an academic and objective tone, and isn't able to follow through. This isn't a controversial criticism, it's style 101. Honestly, I wish she was willing to just use an emotional tone. Maybe it would have been passionate and engaging. Instead it felt uncontrolled. Is it unfair to imagine she could have thought of a better one? What's unusual? It's political, there's been a lot of hype built up. If you can't anticipate scrutiny coming with self promotional hype and calling your critics evil, maybe you have poorly calibrated expectations.Speaking of poorly calibrated expectations, here's more or less what I expected the video to be: I figured it'd be a reboot of sorts, to bring in a larger audience and work on its own. Check. I expected it to provide some sort of background and research into the subject she wanted to cover. Also check. I expected it to establish a framework with which to think about the subject. No dice. Besides telling me what a damsel in distress is, and how to say it in French, there weren't any concepts introduced that would have empowered me to see the world in a new light. She did arm lots of people with the word "pernicious" which is fun to say and sounds nasty. Finally, I expected the video to be high quality and well produced. Well, I don't think so, but some people think it was so maybe that gets a half check which really is just a v or a slash depending on how long you make the tail.
  2. Feminist Frequency

    I think(?) I was in basic agreement, if only in the sentiment that its a terrible word to bring into this (or any) discussion. So yeah, basically I said "ugh, buzzwords, baggage." Don't read too much into it; I (ambiguously) called it an aside in the post.
  3. Feminist Frequency

    Yeah I keep forgetting to mention, Vi Hart is very casual and has a lot of personality and is doing very well as a teacher thank you very much. Anita Sarkeesian is kinda pretentious.
  4. Feminist Frequency

    Except this is something I'm invested in and want to be good. Don't give me this take it or leave it bullshit, I don't go on the Paradox Interactive forums to complain about their games because I have zero interest in their success. I think Feminist Frequency is badly done, and I don't like that because its about something I care about and want to be better. Complaining on a forum isn't necessarily productive, to which I say that's right and I don't have a good defense.
  5. Feminist Frequency

    Maybe I'm missing a comment, but I'm not seeing anyone, in this thread, saying "that's an interesting way of looking at it". There seems to be some agreement that the video is good to exist because it tells facts that needs to reach an audience, and there's agreement (mostly from a different crowd but there's overlap) that the video is poorly was poorly executed. Some people are impressed with the new facts they learned, most people think its old news, a couple people assert the facts are wrong (some convincingly). But as far as I see, nobody at all think that the argument, perspective, or presentation is novel, insightful, or unique. Apparently the trendy rebuttal right now is "oh you think she's obligated to make her videos your way?" And of course I don't think that. I think it's just not impressive. It doesn't have any qualities that I want or admire in a study or a report or a lecture. I can waffle around and say "well, you know, it's not good, but it's Good." Maybe it is Good. But it's not good. It doesn't inspire me, or make me think, or make me want to learn more. It makes me bored and only halfhearted convinced its Good, and the only thing it leaves me thinking about is why it wasn't good. It may have succeeded for someone, but not for me. Did it need to? I dunno. But it didn't.
  6. Feminist Frequency

    Ugh, what a terrible buzzword. It's up there with patriarchy and oppression. They all have too much baggage to bring into a neutral discussion. Remember when people were trying to redefine racism to only mean racism against minorities? Lame aside, I just wanted to spit out the bad taste in my mouth. I hate when buzzwords are invented to justify ad hominem rebuttals.
  7. Feminist Frequency

    I'm interested in where the conversation is going and in the things people have to say. I'll own up to my own bullshit. I'll also call out your bullshit in a second. Block me if you think that's trolling.
  8. Feminist Frequency

    Yes, what I'm saying is that actually she's obligated to make a video my way. You see, I'm a big angry man and all I want is to oppress women. By expressing my opinion with a critique, I'm actually engaging in a power fantasy where Anita is subservient to my masculine desires. Also I am very insecure about my penis. That is what I said. After all, a dead Greek once said that man is political and therefor everything I say must be about power.Weird, how did all those words get in my mouth?
  9. Feminist Frequency

    Right, which I acknowledged before, but doesn't magically absolve her of critique for making poor use of the medium. Good business != good art (or journalism, or writing, or whatever noun you prefer). It's just a lecture with a few motion graphics and swishy sound effects. A two-second shot of pixel panties doesn't warrant 22 minutes of video.
  10. Feminist Frequency

    I think this would have been better if either it committed to being a research paper or it ditched that pretense and committed to good journalism. You can call something regressive crap and still be a good journalist. I disagree that the insult is unwarranted, but I think if this is a video that throws out insults at crappy games, the academic pretense absolutely was.
  11. Feminist Frequency

    The Damsel in Distress definition is addressed in the video but there seemed to be some dispute here in the thread. The claim that everything is inherently pregnant with gender politics is a really politically-centric view. Insisting everything's political, period, is true in that the field of politics encompasses anything and everything it wants, but it's nonessential to talk about the structure of the Golden Gate Bridge in terms of how it represents income disparity in the Bay Area, even though I'm sure someone can, probably has, done that. To a women's studies student with a hammer, every problem looks like a patriarchal power structure constructed to suppress women's rights, or however the saying goes.
  12. Feminist Frequency

    I think the "for the benefit of the hero/protagonist's story" caveat is probably the one that makes it work. It's an extremely common and valuable storytelling element to completely disempower the protagonist. This is where the tension comes in, where you have major reversals and redemptions. It's easy, without making that distinction, to muddy a story analysis with gender politics. The scene where Indiana Jones is going to be crushed under the lowering ceiling could be interpreted as damsel in distress if he was Georgia Jones, but that interpretation would only serve to discredit an otherwise fun and exciting story. Political (in this case feminist) story analysis is, to a degree, prescriptive, so it's necessary to place limits on its scope or else instead of highlighting differences it creates them.
  13. Feminist Frequency

    That's an enormously broad scale. YouTube has everything in quality and budget from grainy home videos of hamsters eating to network TV programs. It's above average, but not exceptional. That's a common and reasonable critique to the money question, and since I did contribute to Idle Thumbs, I can say that I felt satisfied with the money I spent. I think it's gross that access to research materials is a special privilege to people who paid her $50, and I'm underwhelmed with the quality of the product relative to the hype. But I'll grant that the budget isn't an entirely fair criticism, except that you can't say that $6000 was the budget for the series. The budget was $26000 with stretch goals. Minor correction.
  14. Feminist Frequency

    Because, by Anita's definition, Damsel in Distress is something that happens to a character, not what a character is. It's a (temporary?) condition. It's a valid point if you're measuring the video's net contribution to the discussion. She created a well-curated platform to present these examples, but her video, at this point, is just an aggregate. Which would be fine, but let's face it: It's kind of a double standard to expect FemFreq to have all the praise and attention that comes with all the money and hype, but not expect it to be criticized on the same grounds.
  15. Feminist Frequency

    It's fine in the theoretical YouTube-edited version of the presentation but there's not really any tonal consistency. I'd be fine if she was willing to own up to her opinions, but by blurting out the phrase "regressive crap" when she does, she sounds more like an adolescent trying to hold a straight face until her emotions get the better of her. It makes her sound like she's not in control of her own presentation and isn't willing to commit one way or another. Far better journalists have been able to present as many words in less time and with a clear, distinct, consistent tone, and been more entertaining and informative in the process. That's a point that I avoided, because it seemed petty and the fundamental complaint is still true, but there is a lot of unqualified picking and choosing as to what is "core" Mario. I don't really care because I understood what she meant, but Mario games aren't tied by a chronology and there's a lot of shared gameplay throughout the franchise so you do have to explain where you get the list. Any outsider who doesn't know what is game could look at her list and compare it to the list of all Mario Franchise games and fairly ask, "why are these fourteen of these core?" This is where references come in handy.
  16. Feminist Frequency

    Tycho, my point was that the video was poorly written and executed. My conclusion with the citations left a tiny room for redemption: If only she had citations, than at least she'd have a boring, tone-inconsistent research paper that didn't have any value in being a YouTube video except to get more hits, but she would have actually done research. The fact that she does have research leaves her, as I said from the start, with finally having research and being able to back herself up. It still doesn't give her a well written and produced video, which was what I actually criticized.
  17. Feminist Frequency

    I have a feeling this is about more than whether or not her works are cited to you. I didn't think to follow the link through to the Tumblr page because I figured it was basically just a Tumblr page. Neither the YouTube nor official FeministFrequency page provided anything resembling a bibliography, which was only a bullet hanging on the end of my overall critique. I said there wasn't anything in the video that justified itself being filmed instead of just published in text. Why is this a huge emotional concern that I don't like the video? Were your parents murdered by a guy who didn't like your favorite YouTube videos and now you lurk the forums at night hunting down people who don't like your favorite YouTube videos?Basically I agree with Twig. It's boring and it's stuff I already know.
  18. Btw I had totally forgotten about Wind Waker's new game plus costume but I remember playing and loving the bizarre make believe story it implied (centered around Link's grandmother with dementia).
  19. Feminist Frequency

    This is definitely a video that benefits from the HTML5 speed options. Considering basically zero parts of the video meaningfully benefitted from the visual elements, except for a few vintage ads that could have been easily removed without any real loss, it's disappointing there isn't an audio only version (if there is I didn't find it). I'm still totally not won over by the delivery either. The video lacks any personality, which would be fine if she didn't insist on taking 20 minutes of purely academic study and suddenly start calling it "regressive crap". Nothing in her delivery was interesting, the soundscape was flat, the humor was dry. Seriously, there's nothing that makes this video special except the reputation. This same material may as well have been published in text on The Escapist. Based purely on the quality and depth of the research and writing, I would be astonished if anyone without prior knowledge of her reputation and thought this was anything more than a sophomore project for a college feminism class (if it was, it would get an F because its completely uncited). Anyway, I'm in the mood for being contrary (as usual), and maybe that's why I'm not impressed. Or because of the reasons I said. Edit: Uncited is an entirely inaccurate description: Clearly there's plenty of citation. But none of it is listed in a bibliography, none of the definitions are backed by any authoritative sources, there's no list of games that appear in the video. The "Hundreds of Examples" claim literally demands you just take her word for it. Which, fine, if you can definitively provide the research that shows, yes, here are hundreds of catalogued examples, than you will have research. Otherwise you have a bland video making unoriginal claims and zero new contributions to the discussion.
  20. Internet Comics

    I'm trying to decide if the current Sinfest arc is about. Is it about two characters with deep emotional preconceptions about the world clashing against each other? Or is it about how boys are dumb? I'm hoping for something smart and funny to develop, because one of the great strengths of Sinfest has always been empathetically personifying cultural symbols, but there have been a few too many straw dudebros for me to be optimistic.
  21. Half-Life 3

    I think it's worth addressing those kinds of issues as objective limitations in the system. The value of one issue versus another is certainly subjective, but it seems fair to look at Valve and say, "as a company, you are very bad at doing X, Y, and Z," and opening a discussion about whether a.) the claims are true and b.) the claims actually are important, rather than just taking an "if it ain't broke don't fix it"/"if you don't like it leave" attitude. Not to single out or over simplify anyone's arguments, just broadly speaking for the discussion.
  22. Half-Life 3

    Damned iPhone double post.
  23. Half-Life 3

    Not just person in charge, but it seems to me entirely possible that Kim Swift might not have been able to pull support behind her projects at Valve, just because there wouldn't be enough interest. It seems entirely possible that the company's all-volunteer structure actually discourages working on your own projects. If you're working on your own project separate from the team, not only are you missing out on the stuff that all your coworkers are into, but you're actually financially disincentivised by Valve's pay system. Valve (allegedly) pays employees on a scale based on their group contributions. Hiding in a corner and making an all new game isn't a group contribution.
  24. Oh sweet, I didn't realize jake basically said what I was saying while I was writing my reply. Good thing he did, he's nicer than me apparently.
  25. Oh fun, now there's going to be a reactionary movement where everyone who calls someone/something else pretentious is bad (I'm still waiting on which word people will settle on). Regardless of how much merit you think the idea of pretentiousness even has, they were talking about a certain stylistic quality that they, along with plenty of other people, find distasteful. Dismissing it as "just something they don't like" gives no credit to the meaningful stylistic implications the term carries. It's just a relative thing anyway, if you're bothered or insulted that people don't like Wes Anderson because they feel he's pretentious, maybe you should focus more on understanding what they don't like instead of how they're technically semantically wrong. Anyway, it looks like the exact kind of game I'd love to play. I saw screenshots and clips of video and assumed it was elaborate 2D vector work, bi if its 3D I'm really interested. I love flat graphic styles with lots of layers, and Id love to see how that can be done well in 3D (I'm like Jake, I love me some parallax). Blender is OSL compatible now, so maybe I can learn how to do that cool stuff.