Feminism

[TychoCelchuuu]

Tycho you are so good at writing posts

I KNOW RIGHT

[TychoCelchuuu]

Also for people saying "I've been to PAX and it was fine" or "not a lot of issues are reported at PAX" (a group I can add myself to because I went to the first three PAXes) you have to keep in mind that the group of people who attend PAX are self-selecting.

The kind of people who go to a convention run by a guy who tweets about proudly wearing a dickwolf shirt and stuffed to the brim with people who will defend to death the dickwolves and anything else Penny Arcade does are maybe not the kind of people most likely to have bad experiences at PAX.

To push the example to the extreme, you wouldn't say a white supremacist convention was a safe space just because nobody there reported any feelings of racial exclusion. Why not? Well, because all the people there are white people. Anyone else would've felt hella crummy.

I doubt a lot of rape survivors are showing up to PAX, seeing Mike say his biggest regret is pulling the "Team Dickwolves" merchandise from the store, and feeling shitty about it. Rape survivors who don't want to put up with that shit, who are hurt by that shit, aren't going to be at PAX in the first place to hear Mike drop that pearl of wisdom.

[TychoCelchuuu]

AND FOR THE COVETED TRIPLE POST

All of the things I and others have mentioned here are sort of just the tip of the iceberg: the worst part isn't anything Penny Arcade does, it's what gaming culture (and more generally the world) are like. As exasperated as I was to hear Mike say his greatest regret is pulling the Dickwolf merchandise, that's nothing compared to how sick I felt when I heard the cheers and clapping and roar of the crowd in support of him when he said they shouldn't have pulled the merch. I was watching a recording of a livestream or something and I alt + f4ed it in disgust. Had I been in the convention hall I guess I would've just had to walk out and never come back (although at that point I don't see why I would've been in the hall - I'm having trouble imagining a future where I'm ever at PAX again). Imagine being surrounded by hundreds (thousands?) of people who cheer at the idea of making the world uncomfortable for rape survivors just so that you aren't seen as backing down from something. Jesus Christ. This comic sums it up well.

[Henroid]

So far I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt with their intentions on this, but having it be a corralled area or room does reinforce the sentiment that these people get segreted or ghetto treatment. Or "free speech zone" treatment. There's no escaping that.

 

But my biggest fear is people just bombshelling criticism with a "shut up, we know what's good for you" sentiment. I've seen it getting close to that. If it's someone attached to the operation of PAX, it'll just completely destroy any and all intent of good.

[BigJKO]

Solidifying their position as the biggest bags of dickless, sinister assholes an MRA group sent 400 made-up rape accusations to a college's inbox, likely drowning any legitimate cries of help..

 

Thanks a lot, have a merry christmas, assholes..

[SecretAsianMan]

While I mostly agree with what you're saying, I'm going to take exception to one thing.

 

The kind of people who go to a convention run by a guy who tweets about proudly wearing a dickwolf shirt and stuffed to the brim with people who will defend to death the dickwolves and anything else Penny Arcade

 

This is one of the anti-PAX sentiments that bothers me a lot.  I hear a lot of people saying they'll never go to PAX, either again or for the first time, because of the cheering in the dickwolves panel.  While that is a totally valid concern, there's a sort of assumption that because this happened at PAX, that's what all PAX is like.  I assure you this is not the case.  Are there rabid PA fans who attend PAX?  Absolutely.  Are there people who say/do horrible things at PAX?  Absolutely.  Are they the majority?  Absolutely NOT.  Yes, the people who cheered in the dickwolves panel are, but keep in mind this is a panel specfically about Penny Arcade, so of course the Penny Arcade fans are going to be there.  Most of the people I've met and talked to at PAX don't give a shit about Penny Arcade.  A lot of them don't even know what Penny Aracde is besides a thing that hosts a gaming convention.  The reason they're there is because they want to see games.  If people really do feel uncomfortable, or even afraid, attending PAX, then by all means they are allowed to say so and not go.  But don't assume that I'm the kind of person who's going to cheer at shit like dickwolves just because I said I like going to PAX.

 

And to be clear, I'm not attacking you Tycho (uh, our Tycho not PA's).  I'm not trying to start an argument or be belligerent or even imply that this is what you really think PAX is like, you just happened to mention a thing that really bothers me and I had to vent a little.  I actually agree with most of what you've said.

[osmosisch]

Motion I : to refer to TychoChelh(n*u) as TychoC in short from now on to prevent confusion with TychoB (see motion II)

Motion II : to refer to Tycho Brahe (Jerry Holkins) as TychoB in short from now on to prevent confusion with TychoC (see motion I)

[Twig]

But who's TychoA?

[Brannigan]

can I be Tycho1?

[TychoCelchuuu]

We could say Jerry.

[Brannigan]

We could say Jerry.

TychoJ

[TychoCelchuuu]

TycHolkins

[osmosisch]

TychoJ

Terry

[Dewar]

I happened to be catching up on old Giant Bomb Inteview podcasts and just listened to this one with a woman who ran a sexism panel at PAX earlier this year. She seems to think that we're making a huge amount of progress, that PAX is good for fostering those conversations, and that we're way ahead of other types of media in analysing our faults.

 

http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/checking-your-blind-spots/1600-607/

 

I guess all I'm asking is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Henroid]

Leigh Alexander wrote a thing people should read:

 

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/207402/Diversity_Lounge_PAX_has_a_lot_of_work_to_do.php

[Bjorn]

I've been trying to figure out a coherent way of explaining why the anti-PA stuff bothers me.

Ultimately, Mike is a relatively ignorant about these issues, with a big mouth, a bigger microphone and some mental health/self esteem issues. Combined, this is like a perfect recipe for hurting and angering people. Mike deserves to be criticized and called out for the dumb, hurtful things he says. And even more so when they can't keep elements of their community under control, or recognize the impact they have on that ignorant subset of their community.

But, that said, I often feel that the big dumb target that he's painted on himself and PA serves as a stand-in target for all the other sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist and other bullshit that goes on in the industry. Most of it is quiet. Not talked about, or has a million-dollar PR machine ready to grease over anything that might look or sound bad. Or it's just quickly forgotten about.

Look at something like this article on the creepy, rapey E3. Unnamed rude, insulting AAA developers. Unnamed molesting indie dev. Multiple shitty PR reps and the unnamed companies they work for. And yet we don't have months long, hand wringing discussions and tublr summaries of the problems that E3, the ESA and the major supporters of E3 have had with sexism. Because everyone with power wants to sweep these problems under the rug.

Or think about the litany of problems that Microsoft has had with women and gay gamers over the last 8 years or so. The recent sexist Xbox One letters. The E3 rape joke. The mocking of a transgender journalist at an Xbox One Europe event. Banning accounts because people identified as gay (sure, they stopped, but it never should have happened and it took 8 years from the launch of Live to have a policy that it was okay to be openly gay). Doing as little as possible (or nothing) to punish abusive and stalking accounts. People talk about safe and comfortable environments. Xbox Live is premium paid service, and I don't think you're going to find a lot of women or girls who would describe it as feeling safe or comfortable. It's toxic, and at times dangerous. And they can take weeks to bother banning accounts that threaten to rape people, and then only if you embarrass MS by pointing out to a whole bunch of people how laughably slow and unaccountable their system is. And that's just recent history stuff in the Xbox division. Let's not get into some of the weird shit that's gone on in other areas. Or inserting boob jokes into the Linux kernel. I would suspect that you could find one or more issues a year, every year, going back to the announcement of the 360 where Microsoft has been insulting or demeaning towards women and/or the LGBQT community. And yet, where is the hate for MS due to this history? Where are the calls for a boycott on them because of their actions? Sure, they apologized for most of this and changed a policy here or there. But it's not all fixed, and some of those apologies were pretty hollow. Much like how the PA guys apologized, and how they're trying to change policies.

And lets not even delve into the endless list of terrible things said by individual developers, game journos and others connected to the industry.

So my theory is that PA serves as a stand-in for all the other similar crap that goes on in the games industry. Because so much of that crap is faceless. And corporations do a very good job of not talking about stuff like this, except to issue a curt apology and then forget about it. But PA has faces, and voices. Faces and voices that don't know when to shut-up. And they engage with people (for better or worse), something else the faceless corporations don't like to do. So it makes them easy targets to get mad at, focus on and stay mad at.

I'm not saying they don't deserve some of it, they do. But I think the anger and concern about these issues ought to be spread around the industry a lot more than it is, and focused less on PA than it is.

Hopefully that makes some sense.

[Argobot]

Yeah, pretty sure that people are aware of (and angry about) all the issues you listed. PA isn't a scapegoat and the attention/criticism they get is reasonable given their huge influence and gross conduct.

[Merus]

I talked with my friend Jen about Pax when the dickwolves redux broke. Jen enforced at Pax Australia and is a good deal more sensitive to these things than I am, with my boatload of privileges.

 

Her feeling is that Pax has little to do with Penny Arcade - it's a gaming convention that happens to be run by Penny Arcade, and they MC the opening and closing, but they are not why you go to the show. (There is more Aus in Pax Aus than PA.) She also feels that Pax Aus is a good influence on the Australian convention scene - it treats its volunteers very well, the staff are experienced and organised, and they are, in her estimation, good judges of character, in that she noticed the organisers empowering volunteers who were helpful and friendly over ones who slacked off or were dismissive. She is enforcing next year, as well, both because she enjoys it and because she feels that there needs to be more queer people in positions of power and influence in conventions in Australia, and Pax Aus is the one that makes it the most pleasurable for her to be there.

 

My friend Michael, who has mild cerebal palsy (enough that he was in his wheelchair at Pax Aus) was treated, in the main, quite well, although there were some people who were unaccomodating. They were dicks, but we did not take their unwillingness to accommodate the disabled as an official policy of the mothership. Some people are cocks. Some of these people have power. It has always been thus.

 

One of the few panels I attended (Pax Aus was in its first year, and they severely underestimated the size of the rooms they needed, which led to massive queues) was the infamous panel that had this portion of the description excised when it was noticed:

Any titillation gets called out as sexist or misogynistic, and involve any antagonist race aside from Anglo-Saxon and you’re called a racist. It’s gone too far and when will it all end?

 

It turns out that this was chiefly excised because it had nothing to do with the panel at all, which was about the changing nature of games journalism in the face of the shift to online news and game distribution. One of the panellists was a female Greek/Aboriginal, who had responded to a jerk accusing her of wearing her boyfriend's Bioshock Infinite T-shirt by spoiling the ending for him. Another panellist recalled an investigative story Tracey Lien had done on an Australian developer as the best thing he'd ever been involved in, and that he was glad he'd been able to run it. The panellist who wrote that description was either playing to the supposed crowd, or winding people up. Rae Johnson's involvement was known from the beginning. Checking any of the panellist's Twitter feeds when it broke would have given you this information. To my knowledge, no-one who saw this as appalling did any kind of investigation into the people involved, and it was almost universally painted as Penny Arcade giving an hour to racist MRAs to complain about progressivism. This was instructive.

 

Penny Arcade, to me, feel like a proxy fight. Jerry knows enough to know how little he knows, Mike has at this point learned to avoid the issue entirely because he keeps fucking it up, and Robert realises that they have an image problem and that circumstances have associated it with a much greater problem amongst the wider gaming community. Mike and Jerry strike me, chiefly because of their comic, as old men who don't really get it any more. Neither hold a candle to Dave Sim, for instance. And neither are anywhere near as bad as the people who are making New Years' resolutions to kill Anita Sarkeesian, who are attacking Zoe Quinn for trying to greenlight a game about depression, who are trying to dox Dina Kara for having the gall to get a job at Comcept while simultaneously disapproving of rape. We wring our hands at this greater evil, so in order to continue to feel virtuous, we turn our vitriol towards someone easier to blame. We tell ourselves that Pax attempting to duplicate (in all three shows they run, in the next show they run after it became clear they needed to address the problem) their successful indie promotion efforts for social issues is in fact ghettoising them, despite the descriptions saying that it's intended to highlight content already in the program. We tell ourselves that, despite repeated assurances that Pax is intended to be inclusive, that Penny Arcade are somehow lying about this intention because Mike is a fuckwit and somehow we didn't notice all the other times he acted like a fuckwit (like that time he invited people to cyberbully the Ocean Marketting guy because Mike hated bullies). And we think that this is taking a stand against evil instead of giving it room to work.

 

I don't think they can commit to making the entire show a 'safe space', because what that term means is that no harassment or judgement will happen within. (For instance, comments on The Border House are not a safe space because of this, despite them taking a very dim view of sexism and harassment.) This is not something they can credibly claim while also having a policy to deal with harassment when it happens. This is not something they can credibly claim while gamers go there, and it is not something that any gaming convention that is not specifically about and for marginalised groups can claim.

[SecretAsianMan]

Before I get into any more discussion about PA, I need some clarification (although I suspect the thing I'm going to ask isn't very clear at all).  What exactly does it mean to be 'phobic', ie. homophobic, transphobic, etc?  I thought I knew but then I started hearing it used to describe things I didn't think were 'phobic' and now I'm just not sure.  I'm not trying to start another stalkinghead-esque argument but I feel like I can't respond properly without knowing this first.

[dibs]

They are words used to describe bigotry against a certain group. It does not imply you are afraid of them (though a lot of the comments you see could probably be happily labelled femaphobic or femanistaphobic). I'm not sure where or when it was decided that homophobic was the word rather than homogystic(?) or anti-homosexual, but it isn't someing you should get hung up on. If in doubt, replace the confusing word with "bigotary against xxxx" and see how the sentance reads. I've seen discussions derailed since i joined the internet because some shithead refused to participate in a forum where he claimed he was tarred as "being afraid of gay people".

[Bjorn]

Yeah, pretty sure that people are aware of (and angry about) all the issues you listed. PA isn't a scapegoat and the attention/criticism they get is reasonable given their huge influence and gross conduct.

 

Angry, yes.  At each individual incident.  But every time a new bad thing is done by Microsoft, someone doesn't feel the need to reiterate every single stupid thing Microsoft has done in terms of women and gays for the last 8 years.  Which is exactly what has been happening with Penny Arcade.  Tell me where I can find the wiki or curated list of awful things done by any other company or individual in gaming similar to the one for PA. 

 

Games journalists aren't calling for boycotts to E3, the way that some of them have announced that they are boycotting PAXes.  Why not?  Is it because it is safe, journalistically and financially, to boycott PAX whereas boycotting E3 would cost too much?

 

I don't think they are a scapegoat, so please don't put a word in my mouth I didn't use.  I think they deserve much of what they get.  A scapegoat is predominantly undeserving of its fate.  But I do think they pick up extra heat, and draw a lot more ink from journalists particularly, for their crimes compared to the industry as a whole.

[Brannigan]

I imagine it's also easier to argue/fight with an actual face in PA's case rather than a more or less faceless monolith like microsoft.  Now if terrible policies in xbox live were attributed to a singular source, I think it would be easier for some to latch on to that target.  Plus PA has a habit of not being able to keep it's mouth shut on something (re: dickwolf regret), while microsoft can more or less get away with just saying nothing.  Microsoft simply doesn't change/improve policy and doesn't talk about it.

 

Basically it's easier to get mad at the guy who can be argumentative and wants to be in the right in the heat of the moment. 

[I Saw Dasein]

Microsoft is not a community group. Penny Arcade is. People have a greater ability and commensurate responsibility to fix problems in their community than they do to fix problems in a huge multi-national community. 

[TychoCelchuuu]

Penny Arcade, to me, feel like a proxy fight. Jerry knows enough to know how little he knows, Mike has at this point learned to avoid the issue entirely because he keeps fucking it up, and Robert realises that they have an image problem and that circumstances have associated it with a much greater problem amongst the wider gaming community. Mike and Jerry strike me, chiefly because of their comic, as old men who don't really get it any more. Neither hold a candle to Dave Sim, for instance. And neither are anywhere near as bad as the people who are making New Years' resolutions to kill Anita Sarkeesian, who are attacking Zoe Quinn for trying to greenlight a game about depression, who are trying to dox Dina Kara for having the gall to get a job at Comcept while simultaneously disapproving of rape.

This to me is the heart of the issue: Jerry doesn't know enough to know how little he knows (I used to think he did, but he doesn't) and Mike has not learned to avoid the issue entirely. Jerry wrote a news post defending the Hitman trailer where 47 lovingly strangles sexy nuns in slow motion and Mike can't make it through a year without saying something hateful about some marginalized group. That these two people are old men who don't really get it any more would be the end of the story if they weren't also titans of gaming culture with a legion of fans who hang off of their every word and defend them voraciously. Gaming culture is a fucking shithole, as pointed out in that excellent Gamasutra article by Leigh Alexander that Henroid linked, and it's a shithole because people feel safe saying terrible things about women and so forth. Why do they feel safe saying these things? Well, in part it's because people like Mike and Jerry have got their backs on certain issues, so you get this kind of echo chamber effect.

People who self-identify as gamers and who very much want to fit in to gamer culture definitely get their cues on how to act from Penny Arcade - they're an integral part of gaming culture. You can mention "that Penny Arcade comic" that touches on some given issue or another (like "bullshots" or whatever) and people will know what you're talking about. So saying that Mike and Jerry aren't as bad as people who threaten to kill Anita Sarkeesian kind of misses the point. Nobody's mad at them for threatening people with death. We're mad at them for using their position of power to help keep gaming culture shitty.

Angry, yes.  At each individual incident.  But every time a new bad thing is done by Microsoft, someone doesn't feel the need to reiterate every single stupid thing Microsoft has done in terms of women and gays for the last 8 years.  Which is exactly what has been happening with Penny Arcade.  Tell me where I can find the wiki or curated list of awful things done by any other company or individual in gaming similar to the one for PA.

Tell me where I can find the people defending everything Microsoft does on Internet forums like this one, donating to Microsoft's charity, attending Microsoft's convention, and so on and I suspect I'll be able to tell you where you can find the list of stupid stuff Microsoft has done. That PA timeline thing popped up because there was such a controversy over the what PA did, and there was such a controversy because people give a shit. Nobody cares what Microsoft does. Obviously when they're sexist we hate it, but nobody's around to defend them because nobody gives a shit about Microsoft. Nobody's identity as a gamer is tied up in what Microsoft does and nobody looks at Microsoft's deplorable behavior and says "oh, it's okay to treat people who get up in arms about rape like this? Well, I guess I can keep being an asshole to feminists then, and I can keep my gamer card!"

Games journalists aren't calling for boycotts to E3, the way that some of them have announced that they are boycotting PAXes.  Why not?  Is it because it is safe, journalistically and financially, to boycott PAX whereas boycotting E3 would cost too much?

I can't speak for Rock Paper Shotgun or Fullbright, and personally I would never go to E3 (or at least not to the old E3 - I dunno what it's like these days). Has anyone else boycotted PAX? I think what you're seeing in terms of everyone piling on the "boycott PAX" thing is mostly a bunch of people whoa re in a position to boycott PAX saying that they'll do it. I for instance can't boycott E3 because I'm not invited. Most people are like me. A lot of indie developers wouldn't be at E3 anyways so they can't really boycott it. But PAX is open to everyone and lots of indie games are there too. So I suspect what you see as deafening cries to boycott PAX in the face of not a lot of whining about E3 is just a function of more people having that choice when it comes to PAX.

[Argobot]

Angry, yes.  At each individual incident.  But every time a new bad thing is done by Microsoft, someone doesn't feel the need to reiterate every single stupid thing Microsoft has done in terms of women and gays for the last 8 years.  Which is exactly what has been happening with Penny Arcade.  Tell me where I can find the wiki or curated list of awful things done by any other company or individual in gaming similar to the one for PA. 

 

Games journalists aren't calling for boycotts to E3, the way that some of them have announced that they are boycotting PAXes.  Why not?  Is it because it is safe, journalistically and financially, to boycott PAX whereas boycotting E3 would cost too much?

 

I don't think they are a scapegoat, so please don't put a word in my mouth I didn't use.  I think they deserve much of what they get.  A scapegoat is predominantly undeserving of its fate.  But I do think they pick up extra heat, and draw a lot more ink from journalists particularly, for their crimes compared to the industry as a whole.

 

Microsoft is a giant corporation that responds to what it thinks gamer culture wants. Penny Arcade actively helps to create gamer culture. That's why PA seems like much more of a target.

 

And plenty of games journalist did call for a boycott of E3, or they've certainly been more public in saying how worthless E3 has become in representing the games community.

 

If you agree that PA is in the wrong, then I don't understand what the argument is here. You want people to be as passionate when Microsoft messes up as they are when PA does? Well, that already happens.