Feminism

[clyde]

What world do y'all live in where people get competitive jobs without knowing someone who works there? I'd like to visit.

I've heard that in South Korea, you put your glamour-shot on your application. That seems uncomfortable.

Who actually thinks that hiring is a pure meritocracy? You are delusional.

[Nachimir]

[Stuart]

That was a great video. 

[syntheticgerbil]

What world do y'all live in where people get competitive jobs without knowing someone who works there? I'd like to visit.

Close friends, not just friends. As in someone you may be sharing a house with or sit and talk with personal matters extensively outside of work, thus compromising the work force and creating favoritism. I actually just went to an IGDA thing last night where someone spoke of this and said you want your friends to work with you, but you want the friends you bitch with and cry on to work at other companies.

 

You guys can say you've never heard nepotism mean close friends, but that doesn't change the fact that it gets used for that as well, plus many definitions (not all) carry the friends stipulation. No one is incorrect for using the word nepotism to refer to the Mighty No. 9 situation.

[Ben X]

Yeah, a quick search online shows that one in two or three definitions includes friends, so fair enough. Language changes etc, though it annoys me a bit when it seems to be creating redundancies (why generalise out the specific term "nepotism" when we've already got "favouritism"?). But anyway, semantics, meh, sorry if I got pedantic there.

 

I'm curious about Clyde's statement though:

 

What world do y'all live in where people get competitive jobs without knowing someone who works there? I'd like to visit.

Who actually thinks that hiring is a pure meritocracy? You are delusional.

 

Are you talking about the games industry or generally? Because I got a few (non-industry) competitive jobs without knowing anyone, purely on the basis of CV and interview...

 

This is all a bit off-topic, though, so yeah those Mega-Man guys are arseholes.

[Twig]

We're like way off-topic at this point, but is there any evidence that she doesn't deserve that job, previous relationship or not? I've no issue whatsoever with people getting jobs because they know the right people, as long as they actually deserve it. Or are people just upset because she's a "woman with an agenda" who happened to get a position, and this is something they're latching onto as justification for their hatred?

 

Side note: out of morbid curiosity I once watched an "anti-feminist" rant by some lady who ended up sounding a fool on YouTube and now YouTube is always recommending I watch more. Usually just one video suggested on the side, among all the ACTUAL related videos. So I'll watch a music video and get one suggest anti-feminist video. Or I'll watch a game trailer and get one suggested anti-feminist video. I never get pro-feminist suggestions, though, despite having watched a ton of Sarkeesian's videos. GOOGLE CONSPIRACY HO!

 

Side side note: I did a quick type into Google to check I was spelling Sarkeesian's name right and the third suggestion was "sarkeesian can be stopped". So that's cool.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Apparently someone hacked the twitter account of the Mighty No. 9 lady (or something like that), found geotagged info in some tweets (or something...) and posted her address online so that's great. Hooray video game culture.

[Twig]

I think you mean hooray internet culture.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Yeah because on Internet car forums or Internet knitting forums or Internet cooking forums people flip the fuck out about women and harass them constantly.

[Brannigan]

Don't fuck with internet knitting

[tegan]

[Twig]

Yeah because on Internet car forums or Internet knitting forums or Internet cooking forums people flip the fuck out about women and harass them constantly.

My point was it's not exclusive to video game culture.

 

Way to overreact at me unprovoked.

[syntheticgerbil]

Or are people just upset because she's a "woman with an agenda" who happened to get a position, and this is something they're latching onto as justification for their hatred?

I think this. It's insane to think that a community manager is somehow going to change Mighty No. 9 into a game about gender politics. Community managers wouldn't be that close to the development in anyway, so as far as jobs you can give to people close to you, community manager is pretty meager pickings. NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE BY THAT. The worst that could happen is a ton of awkwardness for everyone if they broke up.

 

Also, did you draw that awesomeness Tegan?

[Merus]

I kind of love how the fedora has become internet shorthand for misogynist nerd when it was originally a ladies' hat.

[Ben X]

it was originally a ladies' hat.

 

Really? I can't find anything about that with a quick search, only the bit in Wikipedia about it being named after a play in which it was worn by a female cross-dresser...

[Nappi]

Apparently someone hacked the twitter account of the Mighty No. 9 lady (or something like that), found geotagged info in some tweets (or something...) and posted her address online so that's great. Hooray video game culture.

 

Oh for fuck's sake..

 

[Malice Song]

Okay this is the most baffling thing ever.

 

Isn't this at least a potential tipping point? As in where every sane person would have to take a deep breath and wonder what's wrong with people. Without the intention to play devil's advocate, in past episodes I witnessed there was at least a motive behind that stuff, something that might point to an argument gotten out of hand or something along those lines. It feels like there's absolutely nothing like that here. I mean, what's her crime, drawing fanart?

[Twig]

People are fucking scum. I mean I honestly don't know what can even be done about it. They just don't care. They're a bunch of sociopaths on the internet. If it were real life, I'm sure most of them would never dare, but since it's the internet they can do whatever they want. Even if it does directly after HER real life, they're in no danger. Anyway, it's gross. I don't know what can even be done about it.

[tegan]

Also, did you draw that awesomeness Tegan?

 

I wish. It was drawn by Meredith Gran, creator of Octopus Pie.

[clyde]

Okay this is the most baffling thing ever.

 

Isn't this at least a potential tipping point? As in where every sane person would have to take a deep breath and wonder what's wrong with people. Without the intention to play devil's advocate, in past episodes I witnessed there was at least a motive behind that stuff, something that might point to an argument gotten out of hand or something along those lines. It feels like there's absolutely nothing like that here. I mean, what's her crime, drawing fanart?

 

I think that what this is a potential tipping point for, is realizing that minorities have significant additional challenges in achieving equal opportunity. As Twig mentioned, there will probably always be people with sociopathic tendencies. However, I believe that there is the potential in us to realize how all this fits together.

I think that when a community declares a person or group as an enemy,  sociopathic predators will see it as an opportunity to attack. When predators see that the larger community is no longer protecting a potential target, they are less deterred from victimizing. From my perspective, this is a important reason to criticize behaviors rather than criticizing individuals or specific communities. It bothers me that the center of a community will declare than an individual is an enemy and then when that individual (or group) is victimized beyond the intention of the community, the reaction is typically "I had nothing to do with that, but I guess they kinda had it coming." The Mighty No. 9 community needs to consider the totality of their responsibility for what has happened here and take an active role in changing what types of behaviors are seen as acceptable.

My hope is that this instance will help some people understand that equality does not come by reaffirming that it already exists and decrying special treatment. Women and other minorities have challenges specific to them that must be accounted for if we want to create a circumstance of equal opportunity. We can't remove tendencies of violence, oppression, and favoritism; but we can accept that they are there and create buffers.

[Ben X]

Was it a backer who leaked her address? If so, and if I were in charge, I'd close down the forums, the comments sections, everything, and just say "this is why you can't have nice things, we're doing this without your feedback and input from now on. You pull this shit with one of us, you pull it with all of us." A lot of decent people get put out slightly (but hopefully would have a sense of perspective about it), but when it gets to this stage I think it's necessary to take that kind of action and the community as a whole needs to feel the push-back; it needs to drag its self-policing up to a higher standard so people don't feel as supported when they do this kind of thing.

 

EDIT: Tycho, do you have a link or anything regarding her address being leaked?

[Gormongous]

Was it a backer who leaked her address? If so, and if I were in charge, I'd close down the forums, the comments sections, everything, and just say "this is why you can't have nice things, we're doing this without your feedback and input from now on. You pull this shit with one of us, you pull it with all of us." A lot of decent people get put out slightly (but hopefully would have a sense of perspective about it), but when it gets to this stage I think it's necessary to take that kind of action and the community as a whole needs to feel the push-back; it needs to drag its self-policing up to a higher standard so people don't feel as supported when they do this kind of thing.

 

I definitely agree that it's a bad thing for the standard response to be soldiering on and ignoring the hate, rather than calling it out or making there be consequences. One thing that the harassment campaign of the Depression Quest developer made me aware of is that "don't feed the trolls" is actually the rallying cry for acceptance of and conformity to such behavior. The question is, what developer bigger than one is going to risk losing fans in order to send the right message? I don't know.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Was it a backer who leaked her address? If so, and if I were in charge, I'd close down the forums, the comments sections, everything, and just say "this is why you can't have nice things, we're doing this without your feedback and input from now on. You pull this shit with one of us, you pull it with all of us." A lot of decent people get put out slightly (but hopefully would have a sense of perspective about it), but when it gets to this stage I think it's necessary to take that kind of action and the community as a whole needs to feel the push-back; it needs to drag its self-policing up to a higher standard so people don't feel as supported when they do this kind of thing.

 

EDIT: Tycho, do you have a link or anything regarding her address being leaked?

If they closed down everything she'd be out of a job

The link about the address is from here from someone who understandably didn't post more because they didn't want the info spreading around.

[Ben X]

If they closed down everything she'd be out of a job

The link about the address is from here from someone who understandably didn't post more because they didn't want the info spreading around.

 

I meant everything else feedback-related (I guess the forums and comments sections would pretty much cover it, though).

 

However, if there's just that one post to go on, it may not actually have happened, right?

[clyde]

Here is a link to the comments in the Mighty no. 9 forum to get an idea of the overall tone (and a few people who try to evoke rationality).

 

Also this odd Youtube video's comment section presents some of the overt misogyny that is running rampant.