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Feminist Frequency

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It's because she got a hundred and fifty grand to make the videos and so far it's indistinguishable from any other random Youtuber talking to camera about the topic with a budget of zero.

 

I disagree with this. The amount of research involved, even just to get the clips to illustrate her points, must have taken many man hours -- and are exactly the type of thing you don't get with YouTube videos with a budget of zero. (Instead you usually just get people ranting, with no attempts to back up what they're saying at all.)

 

I was personally very impressed with how professional the whole thing was -- with the exception of [redacted].

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Thank you, Gormongous, for taking the time to explain rather than write a sarcastic comment! :tup:

 

To the first quote: I stand by that "using terminology like that just undercuts her whole detached and professional approach" -- because it does. Does that mean it undercuts her approach to the point where what she says is invalid? No, I don't think so, but it definitely detracts from from her professional demeanour.

 

As for the second one: Yep, that definitely gave out the wrong message. I apologize. I really did enjoy the video. But the fact I enjoyed it so much is why it bothered me that she made that slip. I don't want people to use it against her argument. (And if anyone thinks that's what I'm doing, then you've totally misunderstood my intent!)

 

I don't see why it undermines anything. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on a subject. It's a youtube video, not a dissertation. In fact, I think it would be odd not to have some kind of value judgement in a series called "Feminist Frequency". 

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There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on a subject. It's a youtube video, not a dissertation.

I actually haven't seen a single post on this thread criticizing Sarkeesian for having an opinion. Not one. If you can find one, pull it up and I'll retract my statement. Every single comment I read criticizing the phrase "regressive crap" is critiquing the sudden change in tone. That's style 101, pick a tone and stick with it, you don't decide to start being an opinion piece after 10 pages of objective analysis. I for one wish she was willing to express her opinions more openly throughout.

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I don't see why it undermines anything. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on a subject. It's a youtube video, not a dissertation. In fact, I think it would be odd not to have some kind of value judgement in a series called "Feminist Frequency". 

 

Fair enough. I personally think she was trying very hard to produce something professional and objective. Indeed, I would not have sat through two minutes if it was just someone stating their opinion, never mind 23. Also, just because it's on YouTube doesn't mean a video can't strive to be objective.

 

The reason I loved it so much was because it wasn't just a video with somebody going, "here's what I think", it was somebody taking the time to document something and try to educate the audience. A rarity in this day and age.

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I actually haven't seen a single post on this thread criticizing Sarkeesian for having an opinion. Not one. If you can find one, pull it up and I'll retract my statement. Every single comment I read criticizing the phrase "regressive crap" is critiquing the sudden change in tone. That's style 101, pick a tone and stick with it, you don't decide to start being an opinion piece after 10 pages of objective analysis.

I don't agree at all. There is no "style 101" rule that you must pick a tone and stick with it. In fact, tonal shifts can be an effective way of drawing attention to a particular item or point of view. Many great writers use tonal shifts very effectively. I don't think that was the intention here, but it didn't bother me or seem weird at all. I also don't think it's "unprofessional" to be upset at the way women are portrayed in video games, or to express that upset in the context of a video short. If she was writing a dissertation or something maybe it would bother me. But that's not the project she's working on.  

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Fair enough. I personally think she was trying very hard to produce something professional and objective. Indeed, I would not have sat through two minutes if it was just someone stating their opinion, never mind 23. Also, just because it's on YouTube doesn't mean a video can't strive to be objective.

 

The reason I loved it so much was because it wasn't just a video with somebody going, "here's what I think", it was somebody taking the time to document something and try to educate the audience.

I don't really think there's any tension there. You can both present facts and evidence, and then offer an opinion on those facts--even an impassioned opinion. The fact that an opinion is offered doesn't undermine the validity of the facts. 

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By writing 101, I mean it's an elementary guideline. It can and should be broken. With skill. Which I don't think it was here.

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I take from your evasiveness that we're in agreement: No, noone was criticizing her for having emotions. I also agree that the grounds for the style critique are debatable.

 

(oh yeah: In before tone police! There's another shitty buzzword for you)

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This will probably shock you, but questionable writing choices abound on the internet.

Just because a problematic trend has been normalized in a culture doesn't mean you shouldn't confront it.

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I take from your evasiveness that we're in agreement: No, noone was criticizing her for having emotions. I also agree that the grounds for the style critique are debatable.

 

(oh yeah: In before tone police! There's another shitty buzzword for you)

I'm not being evasive. I don't think there's much else to say. You didn't like that part of her video; it didn't bother me. It's purely a matter of taste: there's no "writing 101" standard of objectively bad writing you can point to. I don't think it is bad style for someone to display opinion or emotion in this kind of video. Obviously you do, although why you have selected this particular video to critique at length instead of any of the other countless internet videos is kind of baffling. 

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Just because a problematic trend has been normalized in a culture doesn't mean you shouldn't confront it.

Its because he internalized pernicious lies perpetuated by a post-colonial society.

 

 

there's no "writing 101" standard of objectively bad writing you can point to.

Alrightchallenge accepted. If you want to play word games, no, I can't say that there's a true "objective" standard of quality writing. But there's lots of good reasons for using a consistent tone, and it is basically common knowledge and common practice.

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You know, calling something a "buzz word" or dismissing it out of hand is not a very intellectually honest way of having a discussion. In fact, I think if you'll check your "Honest Discussion 101" course materials, you'll find that it's a pretty impolite means of debate. 

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Its because he internalized pernicious lies perpetuated by a post-colonial society.

 

 

Alrightchallenge accepted. If you want to play word games, no, I can't say that there's a true "objective" standard of quality writing. But there's lots of good reasons for using a consistent tone, and it is basically common knowledge and common practice.

It's not "word games". It's that there are many times where tonal shifts can be effective, which is a proposition that you seem to agree with. In this case, you did not think she was effective. I thought she was effective. It's just a matter of taste, with which there can be no dispute.

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The budget versus amount she raised is the least relevant thing in the world. If this wasnt on Kickstarter -- if she had said "I raised 30k from a grant to make some videos, and am putting them online for free but please donate if you like them," and then the same exact backlash and subsequent outpouring of financial support had happened, nobody would have expected the quality or intent of the production to change. That is, however, essentially what happened. That the funding and donations came in via the same means is irrelevant to FemFreq as a work. We're just holding it to a different and more insane standard.

She had a goal, she met it, meanwhile there was a backlash and an outpouring of support using pretty classic means of capitalism to say "we support you and what youre doing."

I don't think the people who gave her extra money thought that with their money they were saying "now because we support you, we are expecting you to do something subjectively better and objectively different from what you said you were going to do." And thank god they weren't because that would be insane. That is not supporting someone's vision, that is using your financial leverage to corrupt and change their vision under the pretense of being supportive. As a creator, changing your intent, plans, and vision under pressure from the money is usually called selling out, compromising, etc. Instead we have something that does exactly what it says on the tin and its somehow an issue? Garbage.

The notion of "stretch goals" have muddied the Kickstarter conversation significantly, because people just tend to assume that with Kickstarters, regardless of content or context, there are ALWAYS stretch goals. Stretch goals are not a part of Kickstarter as a platform, they were invented by people who develop kickstarter projects, to TRY and get more money out of backers. Sometimes a Kickstarter is just people donating to a person or cause they believe in, and not entitled shoppers force-feeding a creator to make them do more than they wanted. FemFreq never asked for significantly more money, and never promised anything but the original and uncompromised vision. In my opinion that's stronger than buckling to the money, or the peanut gallery. Whether you agree with me on that or not, I don't think there is any way to make a relevant argument that people who pledged got anything but what they paid for.

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I hope people are at least aware that it is problematic and emblematic that people are apply this level of scrutiny and criticism to 1 second, two words, of expressed emotion. it's really something else.

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I don't think the people who gave her extra money thought that with their money they were saying "now because we support you, we are expecting you to do something subjectively better and objectively different from what you said you were going to do." And thank god they weren't because that would be insane. That is not supporting someone's vision, that is using your financial leverage to corrupt and change their vision under the pretense of being supportive. As a creator, changing your intent, plans, and vision under pressure from the money is usually called selling out, compromising, etc. Instead we have something that does exactly what it says on the tin and its somehow an issue? Garbage.

 

Hey, you know that $200 I gave you for an isometric RPG? Whatever man, make Sexy Boggle. It's your cash now!

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how weird is it that my takeaway from the video was "oh man Double Dragon Neon I forgot I wanted to play that"

 

 

Actually, DDN is kind of a weird example to use since that game was specifically made to ruthlessly make fun of its source material for being so moronic.

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About the money: Not to re-beat a very stupid horse, but of the now 110 comments below the video - backers only, so people who actually put money into this - there is still only one negative comment.

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Hey, you know that $200 I gave you for an isometric RPG? Whatever man, make Sexy Boggle. It's your cash now!

I cant tell what this post means. If you think that's what I was trying to argue for -- doing whatever you want with the money -- I don't think you read what I said at all. I specifically said "people got what they paid for."

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I hope people are at least aware that it is problematic and emblematic that people are apply this level of scrutiny and criticism to 1 second, two words, of expressed emotion. it's really something else.

I think you're vastly, vastly overestimating the scruitiny the two words actually got. The way I saw it, 90% of the talk about the phrase was a meta-discussion about whether its even valid to criticize the word choice. The intimate attention to "regressive crap" was in support of defending a completely benign opinion ("I didn't like the sudden gear change") from a really aggressive retaliation ("who are you to criticize FemFreq?"). Look at the thread. This isn't about her anymore.

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Upon reflection I am very confused as to why this generated such strong positive and negative hype/discussion/backlash as it did.

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About the money: Not to re-beat a very stupid horse, but of the now 110 comments below the video - backers only, so people who actually put money into this - there is still only one negative comment.

That's kind of the status of this thread on the money situation. Nobody's actually defending the money critique in this thread anymore (except maybe Stalin). Jake poking in to wax eloquent kind of feels like if Superman dropped down from the heavens right now to deliver a speech about the problem with eugenics. It's cool to get his attention but its kind of not a thing anymore.

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Oh, yeah, I ignore you Luft, makes the discussion much more compressed and thus the money issue seemed much closer.

(Sometimes I click on 'View it anyway', because I'm weak.)

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