"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Ben X]

Hey, those earrings are the No Man's Sky logo!

[Vasari]

Hey, those earrings are the No Man's Sky logo!

 

Anita Sarkeesian is at the centre of the galaxy in No Man's Sky. Those who reach her are invited to join the Feminist Cabal.

[miffy495]

Since it's been brought up, no judgement on her fashion choices or anything here (she can wear whatever the hell she wants) but every time I see her ears I wince a little bit. It always makes me involuntarily imagine that much weight being placed on my own ears and how uncomfortable that would be. *shudder*

[Vainamoinen]

I started out in May 2013 criticizing "those earrings", or rather her eyebrows, not really with an idea about what direction the series is heading into.

 

I was much too slow to march to the right side.

 

Never again.

[Problem Machine]

Even as a joke taking the time specifically to critique a woman critic's appearance seems, to me, to cut a bit close to the bone...

Sorry to be a killjoy, I just have a hard time imagining any fashion choice a male critic makes inspiring that kind of joke, even if his ears were guaged or something.

[Ninety-Three]

Even as a joke taking the time specifically to critique a woman critic's appearance seems, to me, to cut a bit close to the bone...

Sorry to be a killjoy, I just have a hard time imagining any fashion choice a male critic makes inspiring that kind of joke, even if his ears were guaged or something.

 

As someone who would and has criticized a male critic's ear fashion (specifically a bar piercing), I feel compelled to jump in and defend this, even though I don't share the specific criticism. It's perfectly possible to say something like that without gender being a factor.

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, could be I'm reading too much into it, it just seems like an awful volatile thing to joke about under the circumstances.

[Mawd]

Are the jokes really funny enough to bother crossing over into murky territory?

 

Sure people get given shit/critique for having gauges, industrials, tattoos, or elaborate/heavy earrings but is it all really worth opening your mouth and giving your two cents on someone's fashion/expression choice especially when they've surely heard it all before? "Not on my daughter/son" - Cool beans buddy that was a really worthwhile statement that made for some truly productive conversation.

[Ninety-Three]

Yeah, could be I'm reading too much into it, it just seems like an awful volatile thing to joke about under the circumstances.

 

I seem to be missing something, what are these volatile circumstances?

 

 

Are the jokes really funny enough to bother crossing over into murky territory? Sure people get given shit/critique for having gauges, industrials, tattoos, or elaborate/heavy earrings but is it all really worth opening your mouth and giving your two cents on someone's fashion/expression choice especially when they've surely heard it all before? "Not on my daughter/son" - Cool beans buddy that was a really worthwhile statement that made for some truly productive conversation.

 

That seems like an argument which both doesn't apply (the comment is being made on the Idle Forums, not sent to Anita, so "she's heard it" is irrelevant because she won't hear this) and could be used to shut down all discussion of pretty much everything everywhere for all time. "They've probably heard it before so why are you saying anything?" I guess from now on we should only express novel opinions that have never been heard before.

 

 

Priceless.

 

Cool beans buddy that was a really worthwhile statement that made for some truly productive conversation.

[Mawd]

That seems like an argument which both doesn't apply (the comment is being made on the Idle Forums, not sent to Anita, so "she's heard it" is irrelevant because she won't hear this) and could be used to shut down all discussion of pretty much everything everywhere for all time. "They've probably heard it before so why are you saying anything?" I guess from now on we should only express novel opinions that have never been heard before.

 

Cool beans buddy that was a really worthwhile statement that made for some truly productive conversation.

 

Tell me is it worth singling someone out in person to talk about their earwear? 

Oh yes lets pull that direct statement about the worth of doing the above and apply it to all opinions and forms of communication because that's surely not petty and that's surely what I meant.

 

If you're wondering what's volatile you might be missing the context that a lot of people think they have free reign to comment on a woman's appearance in terms of appeal. Likewise they might comment on a man's appearance because it makes them uncomfortable to see earings, or bars, or gauges on a guy which sure can be for a multitude of reason beyond just the "it's too effeminate" one; although that's usually what crops up most frequently in my experience. Anyway the subtext is that the person making the critique is pointing out something that the wearer should change about themselves because that self expression is incompatible with the critic's style. That's acceptable when you're talking about someone wearing only a mankini in the middle of the street but is pretty weird when we're talking about decorative ear jewellery.

 

It's really not worth being rude to say that you think someone should change their style of jewellery even when it is controversial to say have a nose piercing or an industrial which like I said earlier would mean that they get a lot of crap from jerks which is why I said they've surely heard all the insensitive opinions before making the lame comment just one more aggression on the pile.

 

With the other context about specifically Anita a lot of people demonize her which means a lot of people talking like they should have ownership of her appearance in terms of what's sexy or ugly or whatever so one passably funny joke or comment about whether her appearance is suitable brushes close to those discussions.

 

And you're right this is the Idle Forums not 'Anita Sarkeesian: Fashion Police'.

[Ninety-Three]

It's really not worth being rude to say that you think someone should change their style of jewellery

 

joke or comment about whether her appearance is suitable

 

You seem to be responding to comments that are occurring somewhere else, because here's what's being said in this thread:

 

no judgement on her fashion choices or anything here (she can wear whatever the hell she wants)

 

The other comments are in no way condemning (EDIT: how did this get auto-corrected to condensing?), they're simply using the fact that her earrings are elaborate, with absolutely no indication that that's bad.  

 

 

 

And you're right this is the Idle Forums not 'Anita Sarkeesian: Fashion Police'.

 

It's also not 'Anita Sarkeesian: Popcorn gifs', or 'English: How to pronounce robot' or 'International politics: Greece edition' but all those things show up here. That's a terrible argument.

[Ozzie]

I don't think people comment about Anita's fashion here because she's a woman, but because she has a good fashion sense that sticks out.

Note also that nobody criticizied her fashion here, one person merely said that they wouldn't like to wear such heavy earrings because of the weight they would put on their ears.

So...this discussion befuddles me.

[Problem Machine]

I seem to be missing something, what are these volatile circumstances?

moddy pretty much covered it, but yeah basically that both these women have been targeted extensively for harassment and an extremely common way to disregard/dismiss the actual content of women's speech and ideas is to criticize their appearance.

 

That seems like an argument which both doesn't apply (the comment is being made on the Idle Forums, not sent to Anita, so "she's heard it" is irrelevant because she won't hear this) and could be used to shut down all discussion of pretty much everything everywhere for all time.

She's been on the podcast. It's hardly out of the question that she'd read this topic on the forum. And even if that never happens, it's still in poor taste under the circumstances: I'm sure most of the other people here have also heard it, and I don't think the people who haven't have missed much.

 

edit: Whether it was positive criticism or negative criticism isn't really salient. Women who are experts in their field don't want to hear about how good they looked giving a presentation any more than they want to hear about how bad they looked (unless it's from a friend). Taking the opportunity of a picture of Anita Sarkeesian to comment on her appearance is, at best, kind of tone deaf. Actually, that's about what it is at worst too: It's not like this is some kind of massive misogynist atrocity, it's just unnecessary and kind of rude.

[Ozzie]

It wasn't even criticism in any form, it was an obversation. That the earrings look like the No Man's Sky logo. Another person thinks they might be too heavy on their ears. And those weren't observations that ignored what Anita had to say in a presentation in favor of merely commenting on her appearance, it was a comment about a gif of her munching popcorn and of another of her and Zoe Quinn doubtfully looking at each other!

Anyway, obviously I disagree with you. I'll bow out now because I shouldn't take part in a discussion I can't invest myself in. I'll never learn...

[Vainamoinen]

Coooooool down. There's really no need for a breach of the peace. I like the peace! It's one of the reasons I come here.

Yes, the problem with criticizing Sarkeesian's appearance is that it has been, throughout TvW history, been used to ignore the points she brings forward. And that's why this particular comment, which combined one bad reason to ignore her points with one bad conspiracy theory to achieve the same, may have struck one chord too many.
 
As Rock Paper Shotgun guy John Walker famously notes in his Ms. Male Character comment expectation FAQ:
 

But Anita Sarkeesian is wearing make-up in this video!!!
 
You’re too stupid for a keyboard, and you have to hand it in at the nearest police station.

 

 

I'll leave it at that and hope the thread continues as hoped for...

 

...has anyone been on Derek Smart's twitter lately...?

[Mawd]

What Problem Machine said. Particularly his edit.

You seem to be responding to comments that are occurring somewhere else, because here's what's being said in this thread:

Actually on second thought I'm not going to play 'read what people typed on the last page and piece together the conversation that was happening' by copy pasting people's statements because they're they're one click away on the previous page.

There were two parts to my previous post and the jumping points for my initial part of the discussion surrounded Vainamoinen, Problem Machine, and you. Not specifically Miffy or BadHat.
-V. had expressed regret about making his initial thoughts on her appearance based rather than content based (my interpretation anyway)

-P. had said that making jokes about her appearance is kind of uncomfortable given the surrounding context stated earlier which as a post likely had as much to do with V's post as Miffy's earring weight comment or BadHat's weird joke about some dude sitting in her earrings whispering things slyly to her (that's probably weirdest to me because I'm missing whatever context is supposed to make it funny).

-Then there's your comment about how critiquing ear fashion/self expression doesn't have to be gender based because you've done it to a man before and defending that choice of critique.

Then over the course of two posts I elaborated a point that even though it's not gendered (although these sorts of things tend to be said more to people who specifically look non-threatening)
it's still rude and really not worth saying.

Oh and some stuff about the volatile context.

 

It's also not 'Anita Sarkeesian: Popcorn gifs', or 'English: How to pronounce robot' or 'International politics: Greece edition' but all those things show up here. That's a terrible argument.

Given how you earlier extrapolated my statement from before to mean 'all opinions ever' I'd say its fair play.

 

I don't generally feel like I have to present an audit of a conversation but you seemed to have lost some comments and context so I located them for you.

 

Anyway with this summation I consider this concluded.

[Ninety-Three]

I would continue, but apparently this is concluded. So uh, cool discussion bro?

[Vainamoinen]

Yes please. And of course, moddy has interpreted my post absolutely correctly.

[Twig]

I legit am completely distracted by her earrings every time I watch her in a video. They're big and always jiggling around and I'm part cat I guess!

This is not a judgment on her look, but on my ridiculous fixation with shiny dangly things.

Edit: I just remembered I made this comment once before on these forums and got yelled at for it. Don't yell at me this time!

[Reyturner]

As a fellow dude who gets intensely annoyed when people like me get their fashion criticized and judged while they're talking about something totally unrelated and important to them, I'm sure you wouldn't need to be yelled at to understand why it is rude and bad. 

[BusbyBerkeley]

Holy fuck, stop talking about Anita Sarkeesian's earrings you weirdos. 

[Mangela Lansbury]

I think all the conversation I've heard about any fashion choice made by any man combined is dwarfed by the amount of conversation I've seen about just Anita Sarkeesian's earrings.

I think they look really good on her and am jealous because I really like big earrings like that, but I can't really wear them. That is my contribution, thank you and good night.

[Twig]

Holy fuck, stop talking about Anita Sarkeesian's earrings you weirdos. 

You're weird!

 

To be fair, there's been more talking about talking about the earrings than actual talking about the earrings, and it would've died off a million times faster if a big deal hadn't been made out of the original (and, in my opinion, harmless) comment.

 

But you know I guess that's what happens in these forums!

[Ozzie]

Holy fuck, stop talking about Anita Sarkeesian's earrings you weirdos. 

 

[Apple Cider]

Most earrings are made out of lightweight metals and therefore, do not hurt as such?