Feminism

[Twig]

Here is the Storified version of the conversation:

http://sfy.co/sg1H

Wow that guy is completely convinced that "nerd culture" is built on being persecuted.

 

From that perspective, I guess it totally makes sense to be afraid of criticism of any sort, as it's just seen as an extension of that systemic persecution. SJWs, for that kind of person, are the new bullies, slipping through their video game safety net.

 

I wonder how old he is. I mean I was definitely bullied a lot as a kid, like a ton, so I'm familiar with that kind of feeling. But now that I'm older, I am much more able to disassociate the things I love from the things that drove me there.

[SuperBiasedMan]

The worst part of this for me is that he's entrenched a nerd culture of victimisation in himself where the GGers feel like an underdog that's finally managed to strike a blow back against the massive power structure that's keeping them down... when that's literally the exact opposite of what is happening. He is a part of the power structure that keeps the others down repeatedly, and I think part of why he sees it the other way is because he has a need to identify as a victim to retain his nerd culture status.

[James]

Another not-strictly-feminism-related aside (ignore at will):

There is an assumption in the manifesto (and probably in many similar ones) that freeing information will take down oppressive power-structures, but no consideration that those who oppose the normalized patriarchy of the populous will get all their personal information publicized to create a loose-cannon threat.

You might want to read The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov. It's been a while since I read it, and I'm far from the most politically astute of readers, but from what I remember one of the major themes was that a lot of the characteristics and principles which supposedly make the Internet a force for liberation are completely blind, and make it just as effective a tool for oppression. As you say, it's just as easy to leak a innocent person's personal details as it is a corrupt politician's crimes.

Incidentally, it also includes an interpretations of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World that I found quite interesting. Roughly speaking, where Nineteen Eighty-Four describes something similar to soviet communist propaganda, Brave New World depicts government-mandated hedonism that is perhaps closer to how inhabitants of the modern Western world can be manipulated. And not unrelated to this apparent death of adulthood, I suppose.

[Erkki]

Another not-strictly-feminism-related aside (ignore at will):You might want to read The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov. It's been a while since I read it, and I'm far from the most politically astute of readers, but from what I remember one of the major themes was that a lot of the characteristics and principles which supposedly make the Internet a force for liberation are actually politically blind, and make it just as effective a tool for oppression.

 

The rapid exchange of ideas, such as must be behind the quick spread of feminism, could not be possible without the internet. Neither could the current mass-harrassments. Initially the ideas about the internet seemed to be idealistic, but when it got widespread enough it got assimilated into the real world. For me already the step from FidoNet to Internet somewhat signalled the end of a dream of a technology-led utopia, maybe because I was just the right age when that switch happened.

[Synnah]

After the first quarter of back and forth I thought maybe this guy actually has some interesting insight into how games criticism is lacking. But as the conversation continues it becomes clear this is about something completely different. Then, two thirds in he shows what he is really about.

 

Here is the Storified version of the conversation:

http://sfy.co/sg1H

 

Now, the way he argued makes it seem he is genuinely convinced, not "just" of institutionalized male oppression by feminism but of how this relates/is opposed to "nerd culture" (whateverthatisexactly).

I find this radicalized nerd identity is a weird form of extremism--it's the first time I've come across it in person, not just MRA itself but born out of this kind of identification.

 

Weird and troublesome how such extreme right thinking has found fruitful ground for recruitment there.

 

He's got a lot of weird ideas, but the crux of that whole conversation for me is when he asks you, "Can you tell me a single demographic who is less guilty than nerds of anything?". Which is kind of an insane thing to say. Like you told him (And he completely ignored it), nerds have a tendency to pass on the mistreatment of them that was common in the '80s and '90s, even though that's no longer really the norm. The hostility of nerd culture towards women is well-documented, culminating in the Fake Gamer Girl fiasco from a couple of years ago. But he also doesn't seem to grasp that 'nerd' doesn't have to be your entire identity. Considering my interests as a child, I definitely consider myself a nerd, but I'm a whole bunch of other things too. That's what makes people fascinating. And saying that Leigh Alexander can't identify as a nerd because of her criticism of nerd culture just typifies the tribalism that results in the hostility that I just mentioned.

 

So yeah, dude's kind of a textbook case, and as you say it's a form of extremism, which is a term that gets thrown at SJWs a lot by Gaters. But the social justice movement is anything but extreme; it's mostly built on intersectional feminism, which isn't even a radical branch of feminism.

[tegan]

I appreciate this rant.

 

My Least Favorite Trope (and this post will include spoilers for The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Matrix, Western Civilization, and—cod help me—Bulletproof Monk*.) is the thing where there’s an awesome, smart, wonderful, powerful female character who by all rights ought to be the Chosen One and the hero of the movie, who is tasked with taking care of some generally ineffectual male character who is, for reasons of wish fulfillment, actually the person the film focuses on. She mentors him, she teaches him, and she inevitably becomes his girlfriend… and he gets the job she wanted: he gets to be the Chosen One even though she’s obviously far more qualified. And all he has to do to get it and deserve it is Man Up and Take Responsibility.

And that’s it. Every god-damned time. The mere fact of naming the films above and naming the trope gives away the entire plot and character arc of every single movie.

 

 

This kind of ties into a discussion I was having with another forumite about the Bechdel Test a while back. The Bechdel test frequently gets misinterpreted as a flat criteria for reviewing individual movies, when its value lies in its use as a cultural barometer for the state of film as a whole. The joke in the comic strip that it originate from isn't that a certain movie is terrible, it's that one of the characters hasn't found a movie that passes the test in six years.

More specifically, the Bechdel test is eye-opening because it presents a standard that most movies either fail to meet or just barely eke by, while the reverse of that standard (two men having a conversation about something other than a woman) is a standard that maybe one film out of every decade will fail to pass. The particular part of the test that stands out, to me, isn't the film industry's bizarre that there can only be one woman in a movie at a time, it's that on the rare occasion when they interact with each other, they almost inevitably turn their conversation to focus on a man. Or to put it another way:

 

Two, whenever Poochie's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Poochie"?

[Problem Machine]

Yeah a lot of people seem to misunderstand how the test is generally applied. One movie failing the test isn't a problem at all -- it's the fact that nearly all movies fail the test, and that the test itself is such a meager degree of equal representation, that's so damning.
 
While I don't 100% agree with that post re: Guardians of the Galaxy (the group saving the galaxy was the intended message), I do find the character of Gamora a bit troubling as an example of a weird backhanded version of female empowerment we've been seeing a lot: The woman who is desirable for her body, not because of sex but because of martial prowess. It's a bit weird to see objectification as weapon so commonly subbed in for objectification as sex object by storytellers who seemingly think that's more feminist/empowering. It's something that's struck me as odd about a lot of the Whedon-esque recent sci-fi stuff.

[Apelsin]

It looked for a while that the Feminist Initiative Party in the Swedish elections today were going to just make it into the riksdag, getting the 4% that is needed to be allowed in. However, now it seems they're just missing out by about 0,8%.

While this is a bummer for them, it still is a fairly large increase compared to their previous results which looks hopeful for the future.

[brkl]

Zoe Quinn wrote a Cracked article:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-i-learned-as-internets-most-hated-person/

[Nachimir]

I appreciate this rant.

Whoah, I notice that trope sometimes, but probably more often than not I don't (The Lego Movie, for instance). I really liked Maleficent on this basis:

 

The women have agency, and the men are largely villains interfering with that agency, or incidental. Even the princely love interest is thrown aside in a "yeah whatever" kind of way.

[tegan]

I feel like Maleficent probably owes that to the source material. There are only six real cast members in the original Walt Disney adaptation of Sleeping Beauty, five of which are women. Aurora and Philip are basically just agents of the good fairies and Maleficent.

[SecretAsianMan]

Zoe Quinn wrote a Cracked article:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-i-learned-as-internets-most-hated-person/

 

While I really appreciate Cracked, of all places, putting out stuff like this I'm really having a hard time taking it as seriously as I should when the article is also surrounded by ads with almost nude women and links to articles about the hottest women of something something.

[brkl]

That's all of the internet these days.

[SecretAsianMan]

It is for sure, it just stands out a lot more when you have an article about how a woman was harassed by being called a slut and a whore surrounded by clickbait ads full of sexy women covering their boobs with one arm.

[sclpls]

I see a lot of those ads while reading RPS and it is a bummer to be sure.

[Synnah]

It depresses me to see 'From Around The Web' adverts like that on RPS, but it just seems to be the form that most advertising on the internet takes now. 'Look at these tits!' 'Here is a thing you should never eat!' 'Is it a woman? Is it a foot? Who knows?!'. Being annoyed about this kind of thing is nothing new, obviously, but there's a sexist, sensationalist streak to them that I wish would just go away. Are there no less-shitty alternatives?

[tegan]

Sometimes I feel bad for using Adblock, but not that often and not that bad.

[Twig]

I've seen some questionable ads on RPS, but never anything as bad as you guys are talking about. Weird.

[miffy495]

HAHAHA! The ad at the top of the Zoe Quinn article: "20000+ Asian Women Are Ready To Date You! CLICK HERE"

[Synnah]

Maybe I was generalising about ads on RPS. I'm pretty sure I've looked at them and been disappointed in the past, but the worst ads I can find when I sit and refresh the page are things like, "If You Have Gmail, You Need This Trick". Which isn't bad at all, really.

[aprettycooldude]

The actual wording of the Cracked article is amazing. Zoe's a champion human, and given the toxic nature of Cracked comments, I'm thrilled to see such a great piece on the site. The Cracked editors calling out their own user base for being scummy about this whole campaign of abuse was a great touch as well.

 

That said, yeah, the surrounding "Top 10 Hot Football Wives" and the comments (yes, first rule is don't read the comments, but also know thy enemy) make Cracked a really scary place to put something like this out. If I didn't already have the Maximum Respect for Zoe Quinn, it would be there now.

 

And re: terrible ads on websites, I think Cracked (obviously) and likely RPS and others all just use ad sense, which pulls based on your history/site content. I work for a sports network and get a bunch of "Top 10 Freak Athletes" next to the aforementioned "Football Wives" based solely on the fact that I'm checking our homepage on the regular to make sure it isn't broken.

[miffy495]

I'm pretty sure it's just visiting gamer sites that puts me in the "probably has an asian fetish" targeted demographic, which is a sad statement on things.

[Twig]

Maybe I was generalising about ads on RPS. I'm pretty sure I've looked at them and been disappointed in the past, but the worst ads I can find when I sit and refresh the page are things like, "If You Have Gmail, You Need This Trick". Which isn't bad at all, really.

Yeah that's most of what I see, too.

 

It's possible it used to be worse! I only very recently (as in the past few months) disabled Adblock for RPS.

[Dewar]

Cracked is completely blocked for me at work for quite a long list of different reasons, so that's how I feel about it I guess.

[SecretAsianMan]

I was rather surprised it wasn't blocked for me.  If the ads really are being pulled from browser history, then I don't know what's going on there either because my work computer certainly hasn't been to those sites.  I suspect that in the absence of other usable data, the ads will be targeted toward the largest expected audience (i.e. heterosexual dudes).