Feminism

[youmeyou]

http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke

[thestalkinghead]

http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke

better than i could have said it

[Twig]

http://penny-arcade.com/2013/09/05/some-clarification

 

To be honest, I've lost all energy and motivation to talk about Penny Arcade, but I thought I'd drop this link for posterity. I haven't yet lost the motivation to read other people talking about it! TALK AWAY! SCREAM FROM THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN!

[thestalkinghead]

seems reasonable

[Problem Machine]

Better than expected. There may be hope yet. I guess we can wait and see.

[Sententia]

I still feel like he's responding to the negativity directed at him, not to the fact of his actions damaging people's lives.  I believed every word though.

[Problem Machine]

Maybe, but that's still a good place for him to start thinking about it. Whatever gets him to more honestly appraise the impact he has on people is, I think, all to the good.

[Gormongous]

Yeah, it's a much better apology than the last, though it's still more "mistakes were made" than "I made a mistake." I just hope it sticks more than that last one, with its promise not to bring this stuff up anymore.

[SecretAsianMan]

The thing that kind of scares me is

 

What I can promise is that we will continue to be honest with you. There’s no bullshit, no PR, this is just Jerry and I and we’re doing the best we can. Hopefully we will keep getting better.

 

Honesty is good, but honesty is also what got him in trouble in the first place.  If he really thinks these things to himself he can.  If he wants to say them to the public he can.  He just has to be aware of how people are going to react which is when he runs into problems.  If it keeps happening like this, maybe he does need a PR guy to stop him once in a while.  I hope he does get better at it because I don't actually believe he's a bad guy, or maybe I just don't want to believe it.

[thestalkinghead]

apologies are hard, but i think something like a face to face interview on film would be a goos idea

[Denial]

I've just written a thing about this - but the short version is that it feels like the thing that needed to be said to encourage people who wanted to continue to attend PAX/ read PA or similar, but who were having qualms about doing so, to stop having qualms.

 

However, it does hit a few bum notes. Most obviously, it talks about people being hurt and offended by the strips, and about the "debate" that the merch being issued/pulled caused, but it doesn't really acknowledge that people, largely women, were repeatedly threatened with rape and murder by people who thought they were upholding the honor of Penny Arcade. That's not exactly the same as debate.

 

(Courtney Stanton did an amazing visualization/presentation of the abuse she got for blogging about deciding not to go to PAX, btw - slides here. Obviously, NSFW.)

[Codicier]

in some ways the fact that it's a imperfect response makes it feel more genuine, it sounds like a human trying to say they are wrong not a PR statement.

 

If he's genuinely sorry its a step in the right direction. If he not genuinely sorry but has been forced to by the PA organisation to say he is, then it means at the very least the organisation has grown to the point where it's exerting control over him and not him over it.

 

(Courtney Stanton did an amazing visualization/presentation of the abuse she got for blogging about deciding not to go to PAX, btw - slides here. Obviously, NSFW.)

 

Apart from being appalled at the abuse mentioned here, this raised another question. If one person can essentially track down the person behind the abuse just using the basic info that her blog's analytics give her, is there a reason that info couldn't be shared with PA & other big sites and the individuals warned or banned? 

[Henroid]

I'm in a weird place regarding Penny Arcade.

 

On the one hand, I've been a part of its forum community for over ten years. It's great over there. There's a lot of great people and there's been a lot of real world connections and help given and received via that community. It is tremendous. It is a staple of my life and has been for years and years.

 

On the other hand, one of the guys creating the content the community is built around is a pretty big asshole. And over the last couple years ability to speak out against them on the forum has been met with actual punishment (including bans of long-standing community members).

 

I've never been to PAX and at this point probably never will go. I don't want to support these guys anymore than I already am by being a part of the community. Luckily, they engage with the community so infrequently that said community isn't something they can take credit for; it forged itself over the years to become the great thing it is. But man... I'm getting tired of Mike's goddamn non-apologies. Even if he does get better at crafting them, sustained, actually-learned-something behavior is how he can show people his sincerity. Not just some goddamn PR post.

[syntheticgerbil]

n the other hand, one of the guys creating the content the community is built around is a pretty big asshole. And over the last couple years ability to speak out against them on the forum has been met with actual punishment (including bans of long-standing community members).

Yikes! How well does that end up working of for the community?

[Roderick]

Well, Idle Thumbs is still around, even after the 2008 anti-Chris Remo purge and the 2011 clearing of the Against Jake Rodkin Foundation.

[juv3nal]

Well, Idle Thumbs is still around, even after the 2008 anti-Chris Remo purge and the 2011 clearing of the Against Jake Rodkin Foundation.

 

Ironic, given that Congrats Nick can be uttered with impunity.

[Problem Machine]

Oh I always assumed that was some kind of salutation. Kind of like  "heil Hitler", but with... less... Hitler.

In Nicktopia, people on the street greet each other in the morning with a friendly "Congrats Nick!"

 

(The polite response is to say either "Congrats Nick!" or "And I'm Nick Breckon!")

[Henroid]

Ironic, given that Congrats Nick can be uttered with impunity.

For every "Congrats Nick!" there is an equal and opposite "Congrats Nick!"

[Henroid]

Yikes! How well does that end up working of for the community?

Every once in a while people decide to leave when they've had enough of it.

 

Anyway, reading over Mike's non-apology, nothing in there contains him saying he's sorry for making the offending merchandise in the first place. Every time he talked about how the situation should've been dropped on their part, he's included making the merchandise anyway. Like he doesn't effin' get it. He agreed to stop producing / selling the merchandise in protest and still protests. That is not the attitude of someone who is apologetic. It is the attitude of someone who remains bitter.

[Zeusthecat]

It is the attitude of a man-baby. Where's Nick Breckon when you need him?

[Twig]

Every once in a while people decide to leave when they've had enough of it.

 

Anyway, reading over Mike's non-apology, nothing in there contains him saying he's sorry for making the offending merchandise in the first place. Every time he talked about how the situation should've been dropped on their part, he's included making the merchandise anyway. Like he doesn't effin' get it. He agreed to stop producing / selling the merchandise in protest and still protests. That is not the attitude of someone who is apologetic. It is the attitude of someone who remains bitter.

I must be reading a different post than you.

[Niyeaux]

Every once in a while people decide to leave when they've had enough of it.

 

Anyway, reading over Mike's non-apology, nothing in there contains him saying he's sorry for making the offending merchandise in the first place. Every time he talked about how the situation should've been dropped on their part, he's included making the merchandise anyway. Like he doesn't effin' get it. He agreed to stop producing / selling the merchandise in protest and still protests. That is not the attitude of someone who is apologetic. It is the attitude of someone who remains bitter.

"With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an asshole on twitter to people who were upset."

Not sure how that could possibly be any clearer.

[Henroid]

"With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an asshole on twitter to people who were upset."

Not sure how that could possibly be any clearer.

Because after that part comes this:

 

We should have just stopped right then but we kept going and made the merchandise. Had we left it alone, the ongoing tension about the whole thing might have subsided but Robert made the call to pull the shirts. In hindsight all this did was open the wound back up and bring on a whole new wave of debate.

[Gormongous]

Because after that part comes this:

 

Wow, I didn't even put that together. In his apology for his comment at PAX, he reiterates his comment as stated at PAX unchanged. I was of the opinion that the apology was generally a positive step, but now I need to have another think about it.

[juv3nal]

"With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an asshole on twitter to people who were upset."

Not sure how that could possibly be any clearer.

He's still not owning it. Everything "we" did not everything "I" did. "People who were upset" as if that were some completely unrelated phenomenon instead of "people I upset". Isolating his assholeishness to twitter as if that were the only arena in which he we was an asshole. But all of that is of little consequence when placed in the context of him situating pulling the merch as equivalent to creating it in the first place. If he's not going to cop to how those are fundamentally different, I don't see how this is any apology at all.