Luftmensch

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Posts posted by Luftmensch

  1. Posted

    I’m starting a fundraising campaign to help me do an animated short:

    Dbk76iF.png

    at: http://igg.me/at/ssrids


    Ssrids will be a sort of animated sketch journal, animated in hand-drawn 2D. It will be a short film, roughly between five and ten minutes, covering the weeks after I stopped taking sertraline. It's just something that I really want to make and that maybe means a good deal to me personally, and I really hope that it connects with other people.


    I hope this clicks with you folk, keep being cool.

  3. Posted

    MRA posits a systemic solution to a systemic problem that doesn't exist: men are not oppressed as a result of their masculinity, any more than white people in America are oppressed as a result of their whiteness. And that is why people object to it. 

    Then you're objecting to something I also disagree with, which also happens not to be what I'm talking about or what the concept even means by any definitions I've found so far.

  4. Posted

    Trying to neatly excise patriarchy as a term because it's a "buzzword" with "baggage", then talk about "rhetorical disenfranchisement" is a complete rhetorical pile of shit

    a.) wrong, because dismissing buzzwords for being loaded and incapable of allowing neutral discussion is not the same thing as dismissing an entire social activist stance off-hand to insult people I don't like. That's on the same level as calling Al Qaeda members Muslim Camelfuckers (but it's different, I hear you retort)

    b.) good, you're at least thinking about it, even if you're still making up reasons to justify your visceral reaction. You're literally saying that caring about and addressing anything that isn't being "systematically oppressed" (because apparently we live in a society with so few problems that we have to put bad pay and shitty media representation on the same level as being shipped to the gulag) is bullshit.

    Anyhow, I'll check out the link Argo, sounds worth reading.

  7. Posted

    About the money: Not to re-beat a very stupid horse, but of the now 110 comments below the video - backers only, so people who actually put money into this - there is still only one negative comment.

    That's kind of the status of this thread on the money situation. Nobody's actually defending the money critique in this thread anymore (except maybe Stalin). Jake poking in to wax eloquent kind of feels like if Superman dropped down from the heavens right now to deliver a speech about the problem with eugenics. It's cool to get his attention but its kind of not a thing anymore.

  8. Posted

    I hope people are at least aware that it is problematic and emblematic that people are apply this level of scrutiny and criticism to 1 second, two words, of expressed emotion. it's really something else.

    I think you're vastly, vastly overestimating the scruitiny the two words actually got. The way I saw it, 90% of the talk about the phrase was a meta-discussion about whether its even valid to criticize the word choice. The intimate attention to "regressive crap" was in support of defending a completely benign opinion ("I didn't like the sudden gear change") from a really aggressive retaliation ("who are you to criticize FemFreq?"). Look at the thread. This isn't about her anymore.

  9. Posted

    Just because a problematic trend has been normalized in a culture doesn't mean you shouldn't confront it.

    Its because he internalized pernicious lies perpetuated by a post-colonial society.

     

     

    there's no "writing 101" standard of objectively bad writing you can point to.

    Alright, challenge accepted. If you want to play word games, no, I can't say that there's a true "objective" standard of quality writing. But there's lots of good reasons for using a consistent tone, and it is basically common knowledge and common practice.

  10. Posted

    I take from your evasiveness that we're in agreement: No, noone was criticizing her for having emotions. I also agree that the grounds for the style critique are debatable.

     

    (oh yeah: In before tone police! There's another shitty buzzword for you)

  12. Posted

    There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on a subject. It's a youtube video, not a dissertation.

    I actually haven't seen a single post on this thread criticizing Sarkeesian for having an opinion. Not one. If you can find one, pull it up and I'll retract my statement. Every single comment I read criticizing the phrase "regressive crap" is critiquing the sudden change in tone. That's style 101, pick a tone and stick with it, you don't decide to start being an opinion piece after 10 pages of objective analysis. I for one wish she was willing to express her opinions more openly throughout.

  14. Posted

    I entirely disagree. I watched the video, accepted her argument, and thought she presented it well with plenty of supporting evidence.

    That literally has nothing to do with what I said.

     

    I think it's quite naive to assume that the merit of an argument or claim is directly proportional to how many words of discussion it generates on its core topic. Humans are hugely imperfect and can get distracted by all kinds of other factors, whether they're conscious of it or not.

    That's fair, like I said it's an arbitrary metric so I'm not going to defend it. I'm not sure we're on the same page about what I was saying though.

  15. Posted

    it plays into the exact stereotype of how women are held to a different arbitrary standard than men whenever they open their mouths about video games.

    Honestly, I feel like the discussion is about the stereotype. There were one or two members who actually sincerely thought the video was complete bullshit and was totally wrong, which you'll always have. But 95% of the conversation is people arguing over whether it's even fair to criticize the video at all. It's a recursive hype machine.

     

    For me, it's really sounding like she's expected to ride this incredibly fine line between being completely objective but also engaging and conversational. This whole issue is over literally two words she said in a 23 minute video, and I really find it hard to believe that two words can completely dismantle her entire argument. 

     

    I mentioned earlier in the thread, nobody's talking about her argument because nobody seems to think it's worth talking about. A standard metric I use to judge the value of a film (and I know this is arbitrary but bear with me) is when I go to the movies with friends or family, what do we talk about on the ride home? If we talk about the film itself, home run, it's thought provoking, and perpetuated itself for an additional 20-40 minutes. If we talk about basically anything else, then blah, it was a couple hours worth of entertainment and that's it.

     

    The fact that 10 pages of argument rose up over inconsistent tone I think both is a product of the recursive hype machine I mentioned above, and the fact that the content of the video isn't thought provoking in itself. Which many of you argue wasn't it's purpose, so whatever.

  16. Posted

    Even the most season academics slip up and express an emotion every now and then.

    I don't think the criticism is that she showed emotion (as I have covered aplenty), though I think it's interesting to look at the dry tone as a reaction to anticipated criticism. But, you know, there's editing. It's not like she was in a live interview and passionately lashed insults at her critics. The funding's been complete for what, nine months now? The project was conceived and planned well before then. There's a point where you can read it to friends and colleagues, and someone can say "that's out of place" or "this is too dry", and you can fix it. It's not a "slip" anymore, it's a product she's been working on for nearly a year.

  19. Posted

    You know, I would really love to read something, anything that could convince me that feminism isn't relevant any more, because that would certainly make my life easier.

     

    They're pretty terrible arguments, it's pretty much stuff like women are allowed to vote, women are allowed to be elected, women are allowed to do X or Y. Did I give the impression that I thought any of these were convincing arguments?

     

    Except I specifically addressed that in my next paragraph; approaching it from the angle that Men's Rights Activists choose is not a way of actually getting to the root of the issue, and inevitably becomes shoring up or completing the existing power imbalances.

     

    Then don't expect it to. The false equivalency arguments only work if you treat them as exclusive approaches to the same problem.

  20. Posted

    Except that self-declared Men's Rights Activists demonstrably are an outlet for the worst regressive crap of how the Internet treats women, as evidenced by any number of posts collected on the Shit Reddit Says subreddit. They're for gender what people wondering why we don't have a channel called "White Entertainment Television" are for race.

    That's basically the Limbaugh argument, and this pretty exactly resembles the reaction I get when I try to talk about Feminism with die-hard southern Republicans. When I talk about feminism here, the common response is, "sure, Feminism use to be good and there's some fundamental values I agree with, but really people who identify as feminists are bra-burning irrational lib'rels who just hate men." I'm not even exaggerating (though I am paraphrasing because who writes quotes in regular conversation?), and people still do say "bra-burning" unironically. It's completely acceptable to say Feminism isn't relevant, and people can provide plenty of evidence to boot. The fact that you can find Reddit threads--in fact, a propensity of them--full of frustrated males in no way justifies undermining the core ideas with casual dismissal. Is it as important an issue? Probably not. Is it counter-productive? In some cases, I think so. Is it irrelevant/invalid/just for angry white guys? Absolutely not.

    Given that MRA is largely an exercise in false equivalency, "rhetorical disenfranchisement" is an eminently appropriate response.

    I disagree. I think that if you view it as a zero-sum game, it is, and some people are glad to make that claim on both sides of the fence. I don't subscribe to that, and I don't think anyone who takes Feminism and MRM with any seriousness does either.

     

     

    I'm waiting to hear what you and Luftmensch and everybody else saying, "It should be different, more _____," actually think this Youtube series should resemble, beyond just "not what it is".

    I can't echo Twig in saying I'm not even upset it wasn't what I wish it was, but I think I explained a lot of things the video very well could have/should have been in my opinion and failed at.

  21. Posted

    MRA shitheads

    This is basically the same thing as Rush Limbaugh's Feminazi meme. Actively associating the values of Feminism (equal representation, reproductive rights, social reform) with irrational fascism is no different from actively associating the values of Men's Rights Activists (addressing higher incarceration rates for men, lower life expectancy, legal disadvantages in divorce and child custody/support cases) with whiny thieving assholes. Congratulations, you're participating in rhetorical disenfranchisement.

     

    Queue kneejerk "but it's different" response.

  22. Posted

    As someone who followed the thread and saw which arguments were coming from whom, it seems to me you're conveniently compressing all the individual arguments you disagree with into one very contradictory chimera. You admitted, "[this] is how the mass of criticism looks to me when reading through this thread." It's not a single mass, so don't address it as one.

  24. Posted

    The defensive reaction first to the Kickstarter campaign and now to this video shows that people know there's something wrong, even the people least receptive to this, but they don't want it talked about.

    Out of context, this snippet could just as easily be describing the situation between the people criticizing Sarkeesian's video and the people getting defensive over it.

    Which isn't to say that it necessarily goes both ways, but it doesn't necessarily go either way.

  25. Posted

    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.

    It's absurdly unfair to act as if she should have thought of every single possible example and angle conceivable in a single video.

    Is it unfair to imagine she could have thought of a better one?

    I really feel like people are holding this video to a ridiculously specific standard that is quite unusual and intimidating.

    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.