Zeusthecat

I apologize if I came off that way. My comment was meant to be a general statement about someone hating a group of people.

This statement bothers me. Even if someone has been given "good reason", I don't think it is ever acceptable to hate an entire group of people. And I have to agree with Twig that anybody who honestly thinks an entire group of people should die is indeed a little crazy.

Dude, are you actually aware of what you posted (hint: I provided it in my post above yours)? There is literally no other way to interpret it.

That... is such a beautiful picture.

I don't think anything else needs to be said.

Sorry dude. Your posts are rude and offensive. If you were actually "discussing issues" that would be one thing but your posts have been pure trollshit.

Thanks guys. Luckily I already got through Full Throttle so it sounds like I'm good to go.

I'M SO OFFENDED!!! You turdface* *Turdface in this instance is also used as a term of affection. I'm not actually implying that you have a turd for a face and I'm really just jealous of your good looks.

We don't exist in a vacuum. A big part of how we understand words comes from how they are used in society. If I hear a word used exclusively in a negative context, it will have a negative connotation for me. Likewise, if I hear a word used exclusively in a positive context, it will have a positive connotation for me. I see a lot of value in taking terms that carry a negative connotation and turning them into something positive. Growing up, I identified as a nerd but that term was only really used as an insult. Now, nerds around the world carry that title with pride because, for the most part, that term was subverted and lost a lot of its negative connotation.

If a term is generally used as a pejorative, then hearing that word will most likely carry negative connotations. If, over time, the pejorative use is stripped from that term, hearing that word will most likely not carry the negative connotations it once did and it can actually become a positive thing (I think Bjorn's nerd/geek example is a perfect illustration of this). What is so hard to understand about that?

I'm not sure I can spell it out any more clearly than I already have. It sounds like you are unwilling to be convinced so let's just agree to disagree and move forward with the conversation.

You first asked the question in this post: Then you answered the question in this post: The value in reclaiming words is that the understanding of what that word means to a person can change to something positive and the word can cease to cause harm or at least carry a much more positive meaning.

So this directly proves the value in reclaiming a word.

This is absolutely not true. I have inadvertently used words in the past that have caused emotional harm to another person even though I used them with no malicious intent. Certain words can be trigger words regardless of how they are being used.

Bjorn, that was an excellent post and I think the geek/nerd example is a perfect illustration of the benefits of reclaiming a word.

Yes to this. I think her perspective on games would be an excellent complement to the Idle Thumbs podcast. And crazy idea: what if they stole her from Polygon and hired her full time to play games and write about them on Idle Thumbs in addition to being a permanent cast member? Having some words on the site would be awesome. (I can dream right?)

tabacco, thank you so much for your diligence in weeding out the unsavory folks that slip in from time to time.

Having recently witnessed the glory of several of Tim Schafer's games for the first time, I think this is a mandatory listen. Even without the lens of nostalgia I am finding these games to be quite excellent and I am super interested to hear what he has to say. I'm in the middle of playing through Grim Fandango for the first time though and just wondering if I am safe to listen to this cast in it's entirety or if I should skip the GF stuff until I finish.

On a positive note, you guys interrupting each other on the cast and bouncing between discussions has greatly improved my brain's multi-threading capabilities.

Thanks for the hint! I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be solvable yet. Now I know.

So is the Windows 8.1 update going to be available for all phones currently running Windows 8 or will it only work with new hardware? After having had it for over a year now, I still really like my Windows 8 phone but I haven't heard much about their phones in recent months so I've been a little concerned that interest has been waning. I'll be up for an upgrade soon and I'm on the fence about whether I should stick with the Windows phone in the hope that it will continue to receive support and gain more features/apps or if I should jump ship back to Android.

Fair enough. And thanks for the good discussion. I think my opinion has been swayed enough at this point that I can't reasonably defend the way this kind of language was used in the game.

I have started paying attention to what the race announcer is saying and I suspect I might get some hints from that. Also, I'm not sure if the day I am on is Kitty Hat Day or not. I don't think it is and if it isn't, then I'm guessing the ticket I print out will be one for the previous Kitty Hat Day and I will somehow be able to glean from the announcer or someone else, which cat won the race on the last Kitty Hat Day. This post sounds really weird.

This is true, but I honestly can't imagine how a game could get away with reflecting that reality in a constructive way. It may be lazy or unrealistic to only have the bad guys talk this way but I think it would be far more problematic if you had random "good guys" using that same language as might happen in real life. After seeing some of these other posts I'll definitely concede that the writing in this regard was pretty lazy and they could have excluded the misogynistic behavior altogether and had a better game for it. Personally, though, I think the sexualization of every female character in this game is far more problematic than what we're talking about.

Along those lines, here's another angle to think about. The bad guys in this game exhibit misogynistic behavior and the good guys do not. I think one could argue that having that contrast, at least at some level, does make a statement about that kind of behavior not being acceptable. So while they may be presenting that kind of behavior as the norm, it seems clear to me that they are certainly not endorsing it. Edit: I just saw Ben X's post above mine and, seeing it framed that way I feel like I don't have the strongest of arguments.