Jake

Idle Thumbs 173: Ridonkulous Rift

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At some point (and I'm sure this attitude isn't helping) I just have to give up, the internet is such a confusing mess at times (all times really). I just can't be bothered piecing it all together like a detective.

 

The relative lack of coverage by gaming journalists of this is both laudable (Quinn doesn't need every site writing about this), but also unfortunate because clearly this is one of the dominant conversations going on, but there aren't necessarily easy entry points written by credible people to learn about it that are going to pop up in your news feed. 

 

I was talking to a friend in real life last night, a gamer who pays only slightly passing attention to gaming news and culture.  I brought up the Quinn/Sarkeesian stuff, his reply was along the lines of it just seems like everyone on all sides is an asshole.  Which on one hand is kind of infuriating to hear, but somewhat understandable if you're only glancing into the monkey cage of the Internet every once in awhile, and every time you do it just looks like all the monkeys are throwing shit at each other. 

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Yeah there was a lot of really dumb comments flung around by lots of people during this conversation. The Buzz Aldrin comparison was actually pretty apt for some of them, but maybe not for others.

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Popped into the conversation for a few points: one, to echo Doug, both on his ban policy and to add that fiery rhetoric -- and I'm including those who more or less agree with the things on the cast, needs to be kept in check because it's a spring board to really worthless conversation.

 

Secondly, my opinion of Red Dead did not change -- Anita's video was a reminder that, in addition to all of Anita's excellent points in her video, the homogenous and pervasive and shear tonnage of the *same* violence is really gross and boring.  Anita's point is that the violence in these games IS either totally contextless or designer window dressing to get the player to do a thing. Think about that for a second and it's pretty gross.

 

Three, you can't compare violence against women in games to violence against women in other media because context matters and 99% of the execution of this trope in games is conceived of and implemented thoughtlessly, artlessly and meaninglessly.  Instances of worthless and manipulative violence against women in film *is* attacked the same way except it can be handled on a case by case basis because it is, unlike games, not perpetrated in the majority of its content.

 Hey Sean!   Thanks for the response.  Much love to ya brother.

  • Two (since your second point was about my post): Ah..Gotcha.  I'll be honest, it totally sounded like your opinion on Red Dead as a whole changed by seeing the instance in a different light.

 

  • Three: I'd argue you can't compare violence in video games to violence in other media in general.  I think a LOT of systems in games are executed thoughtless, artlessly.  I'd even say the majority of the violence in games IS either totally contextless or designer window dressing to get the player to do a thing.  I think if you put together a super cut of violence to everyone in a typical AAA game nowadays, and sent it to CNN, they would have a field day. 

Once again, my point was less the: "LOL..sexism doesn't exist" and more that without context, meaning can be completely lost.  Because it is the context which can change something violent and boring into something different, and you kind of made me realize that.

 

Thanks for the response again...

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I read John Bain’s measured take on the matter and then I looked at some of Mr Fish’s childish responses which left me shaking my head in disbelief 

 

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1

 

I can't take someone seriously if they can't be bothered to spell a person's name correctly. If you're going to write about Zoe Quinn, have the decency to get her name right.

 

And I have no idea why her having a Youtube video where some guy talks about her sex and personal life pulled is a huge controversy or abuse of the system. If something like that existed about me on the Internet and I'd do everything in my power to have it removed.

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Are the dragons and zombies and 5,000 foot high medieval structures historically accurate? Have you ever noticed how people tend to focus on the supposed historical accuracy of injustice in otherwise totally outlandish settings?

 

Also, are you sure it's accurate? We have an actual medievalist posting here. We're talking about a made up fantasy land, but on earth, there were female rulers, and eras of enlightenment. There was no one way. If you're looking dark ages type stuff the society was deeply pious, with many decisions controlled by religious leaders, but that is rarely covered in many of the cartoon fantasies we're talking about. 

 

I love that my reputation (or rather, my inability to disentangle my personal life from my professional life) on this forum means that someone makes the exact post I'd make before I'm even awake to make it.

 

You even brought up religion in fantasy! This is the fight I have with someone pretty much every other week. For some reason, the people who argue that rape is an important way to flavor a setting as "medieval" are usually the ones who argue either that religion isn't important for that same flavor or that everyone was secretly an atheist in 1066. I don't think it represents an idealized past for most of them, but I do think it's relevant that they find violence against women more immersive and thematic than belief in God. Basically, what Bjorn said:

 

Anytime someone says, "historically accurate", what I hear is "presenting a view of history that matches with my view that has been shaped by my education and pop culture, no matter how terribly misinformed that is." 

 

Whatever you think you know of history, it's probably wrong in very important ways, even if you've tried to educate yourself from a variety of sources.

 

Even with my professional training, I am always very careful to use "authentic" rather than "accurate" in most situations. The former says that something feels right based on current knowledge, the latter that something actually was that way, which is a crock of shit. There are so many ways for games (and movies and TV) to be authentic to a time and place without violence against women, but the fact that that violence is epidemic in our culture right now means that it gets used all the time by developers without much conscious thought about whether it should be used.

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I can't take someone seriously if they can't be bothered to spell a person's name correctly. If you're going to write about Zoe Quinn, have the decency to get her name right.

 

And I have no idea why her having a Youtube video where some guy talks about her sex and personal life pulled is a huge controversy or abuse of the system. If something like that existed about me on the Internet and I'd do everything in my power to have it removed.

 

Maybe chemotherapy suppresses the inner spelling Nazi in us all ?  

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Even with my professional training, I am always very careful to use "authentic" rather than "accurate" in most situations. The former says that something feels right based on current knowledge, the latter that something actually was that way, which is a crock of shit. There are so many ways for games (and movies and TV) to be authentic to a time and place without violence against women, but the fact that that violence is epidemic in our culture right now means that it gets used all the time by developers without much conscious thought about whether it should be used.

 

:tup:  Agree!

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Maybe Chemotherapy suppresses the inner spelling Nazi in us all ?

Dude, this is not how you want to do this I'm pretty sure. Yikes.

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I also think TotalBiscuit's (who I honestly don't follow at all) take is full of nonsense and foolishness.

 

Filed under nonsense:

Internetaristocrat did the main video on this, a channel mostly dedicated to debunking SJW topics and complaining about how prevalent they are in todays media. A fair cause for the most part, though it's a fine line to walk at the best of times.

 

Filed under nonsense and foolishness:

Games journalism as a whole has a massive nepotism problem, encouraged by the publishers and developers and actively partaken in by many outlets. [snip] So much shit goes on behind the scenes, more than you could ever possibly know about.
 
Ooh, conspiracy! More than who? Me or him? Does TotalBuscuit have the hot scoop on all these improprieties? He forgot to list them! Maybe he's working on his own Pentagon Papers? 
 
Filed under nonsense 
If Zoey Quinn did engage in censorship via the abuse of the DMCA on Youtube then I thoroughly condemn her actions as being both fucking stupid and unethical.
 
If? Remember when he was talking about how crummy the press is? How about some confirmation? Asking somebody not to say something isn't censorship. I'm sure you've all noticed people have retained the freedom to say horrible things about and to this woman and her games, and many different companies leverage their digital rights all the time. If there WAS a DMCA violation, that would imply the law was on the side of the plaintiff. If there even was one, which we don't know. 

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I can't take someone seriously if they can't be bothered to spell a person's name correctly. If you're going to write about Zoe Quinn, have the decency to get her name right.

 

And I have no idea why her having a Youtube video where some guy talks about her sex and personal life pulled is a huge controversy or abuse of the system. If something like that existed about me on the Internet and I'd do everything in my power to have it removed.

Strictly speaking, the DMCA law (as I understand), you are suppose to notify the party in question first they are infringing on your copyright.  Also, although personal, the video my "friend" sent me had no clips of anything related to Depression Quest or anything copyrighted by Zoe.   So basically, you can be sued for false DMCA, or it can overturned.  (This almost happened to a creationist who was DMCAing a scientist for posting a rebuttal to his arguments about the evolution...(which the creationist asked for, btw))

 

This of course, doesn't matter if you're a media conglomerate, then you have that ContentID stuff which works automatically... (sigh)

 

As far as I know, there is a process for abusive videos at Youtube, but it's a lot slower.

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Dude, this is not how you want to do this I'm pretty sure. Yikes.

 

No way so put those brakes back on, the man is going through some heavy shit right now so I'm not going to discredit what he said because of a freaking spelling error.

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Oh I agree with you that tropes can be limiting, ubiquitous, and it can be very dull. 

 

However, I think without context, it is super equal easy to take characters and shove them into tropes because they fit some of the qualities of said trope.  Does every women who gets kidnapped is a Stock lady Character A trope?  Does every character who is black and a villain Stock black Character B?

 

In an old cartoon, Dragon Warrior (a.k.a Dragon Quest in Japan), the main hero's girlfriend gets (stop me if you have heard this one before) kidnapped.  Now I could cut out the kidnapping out of the story at this point in time and it becomes Stock lady Character 5342344234234234234234242 trope.

However, if you continue to watch the show, she escapes on her own, using her cleverness and then it becomes a story about two character searching for each other.

 

Could the author do something clever and different with the characters and avoid the whole kidnapping thing?  Sure!  Does this mean because they used the kidnapping subplot, it automatically makes the story bad?  In my opinion, it doesn't.

Neither Anita or I are saying that using tropes means that you're necessarily writing a bad story. (Heck, one of my favorite leisure activities other than games is reading YA.  Clearly I don't think that everything using them is bad! :))  

 

People are going to have different interpretations of things because they are different people and have had different lives and experiences.  This is ok!  This does mean that some people may be especially sensitive about certain tropes and feel certain characters fall into them while others may find that completely baffling.  Like you say, in the example you give, if I only saw the first episode, I could easily say that it falls into the trope of "Something Bad happens to Girl in order to prod Boy into action," and I might sigh and stop watching because I find that trope really frustrating and it really is all over the dang place.  "Ah!" you then interject, "She rescues herself two episodes later though!"  But neither of us is actually wrong -- the show falls into the trope mentioned but then neatly avoids the "Boy rescues the damsel in distress" trope.  If the creators had chosen to avoid that initial scenario, perhaps Theoretical Seasleepy would have kept watching.  It doesn't mean the show is bad, it just means it is yet another drop in the ocean of things that use that trope.

 

As far as I know, there is a process for abusive videos at Youtube, but it's a lot slower.

Which is probably why she (allegedly) used DMCA in this case.

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Neither Anita or I are saying that using tropes means that you're necessarily writing a bad story. (Heck, one of my favorite leisure activities other than games is reading YA.  Clearly I don't think that everything using them is bad! :))  

 

People are going to have different interpretations of things because they are different people and have had different lives and experiences.  This is ok!  This does mean that some people may be especially sensitive about certain tropes and feel certain characters fall into them while others may find that completely baffling.  Like you say, in the example you give, if I only saw the first episode, I could easily say that it falls into the trope of "Something Bad happens to Girl in order to prod Boy into action," and I might sigh and stop watching because I find that trope really frustrating and it really is all over the dang place.  "Ah!" you then interject, "She rescues herself two episodes later though!"  But neither of us is actually wrong -- the show falls into the trope mentioned but then neatly avoids the "Boy rescues the damsel in distress" trope.  If the creators had chosen to avoid that initial scenario, perhaps Theoretical Seasleepy would have kept watching.  It doesn't mean the show is bad, it just means it is yet another drop in the ocean of things that use that trope.

 

Fully agree.  Though it does kind of show how easy it is (without context), things can lose all meaning.

 

Admittedly, the more I think about it, the more I think: "Man, AAA video games are full of useless violence in general..."

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The bit at the end opened my eyes, where she talks about how she, noted gay person and drag queen, is homophobic, as is the audience and everyone, and of course they are because how could they not be? In a society that is still grappling with homophobia, it's unavoidable that at least a little is going to rub off on everyone. It's a great watch, highly recommended.

It's the same thing with racism and sexism; we're still grappling with it, and a little is going to rub off on everyone.

 

So I've consciously made my Twitter feed one where feminist women are predominately speaking. At one point, one of those women started calling out a type of misogynist behavior that upon reflection, I found myself practicing. I was kind of surprised/disappointed at myself, but it made me really think about what the video's point got at: misogyny (along with racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) is not some burden we can just throw off- it's more like a chronic disease we've gotten from existing in societies that still perpetuate those things.

 

Even with my professional training, I am always very careful to use "authentic" rather than "accurate" in most situations. The former says that something feels right based on current knowledge, the latter that something actually was that way, which is a crock of shit. There are so many ways for games (and movies and TV) to be authentic to a time and place without violence against women, but the fact that that violence is epidemic in our culture right now means that it gets used all the time by developers without much conscious thought about whether it should be used.

 

Neat distinction! I don't ever find myself talking about a thing's worth in terms of how 'accurate' it is, but if I ever do, this is definitely the route I'll take instead.

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No way so put those brakes back on, the man is going through some heavy shit right now so I'm not going to discredit what he said because of a freaking spelling error.

 

Leveraging said shit in a post just to get people's ire up and then slap them with it in a follow-up isn't the most productive discourse, though.

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Leveraging said shit in a post just to get people's ire up and then slap them with it in a follow-up isn't the most productive discourse, though.

Fair do's, there was just something about the petty misspelling jibe that didn’t sit right with me.

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Fair do's, there was just something about the petty misspelling jibe that didn’t sit right with me.

 

We don't really care?

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Just popping in to say that I really enjoyed the 'cast. I'm still working out solutions on how to tackle injustice through my (art)work but it's super valuable hearing you guys talk through some of it. Keep up the good work and I love you all

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I read John Bain’s measured take on the matter and then I looked at some of Mr Fish’s childish responses which left me shaking my head in disbelief 

 

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1

 

Total Biscuit says

 

"Internetaristocrat did the main video on this, a channel mostly dedicated to debunking SJW topics and complaining about how prevalent they are in todays media. A fair cause for the most part, though it's a fine line to walk at the best of times."

 

and essentially personally validates the InternetAristocrat narrative while putting on, "I'm the only objective one in the room.' airs.

 

Phil Fish was unnecessarily nasty (not to mention just plan less effective because I bet a lot of people just read the line and went from there) in his response, but I totally understand where he was coming from.

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Just popping in to say that I really enjoyed the 'cast. I'm still working out solutions on how to tackle injustice through my (art)work but it's super valuable hearing you guys talk through some of it. Keep up the good work and I love you all

I have trouble enough working out ways to vocally articulate my feelings on this stuff. My hat's off to anyone tackling it through another artistic medium, I think that's a really valuable pursuit (exemplified by the impact of games like Coming Out Simulator).

 

Similarly, wanted to give major kudos to the Thumbs, especially Chris (taking nothing from Sean or Jake, of course), on their vocal articulation of their feelings on the situation. I haven't been following the events discussed very closely, but I thought I thought it was admirable that you guys tackled the discussion like you did.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention that I had the Banjo Kazooie N64 VHS and watched the shit out of that thing. It's also still one of the my favorite games of all time, and it's probably because marketing for it was burned into my brain at a young age. But I'm oddly okay with that.

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I'm just popping in to say I really, really appreciate this community. I wasn't on the show this week because I've been on *vacation* -- however, both my girlfriend and I are getting a steady stream of online abuse (and in her case, hacking threats), so, we're really still in the middle of internet shithatestorm 2014.

 

There's an emotional cycle with this stuff - it starts with rage: "how dare these misogynist assholes!" and it often devolves into utter exhaustion and a desire to have nothing to do with the internet. So having a place to go where people are empathetic, smart (and sassy when the time comes) is very important. To me, anyway!

 

Keep on keeping on.

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