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20 hours ago, jennegatron said:

 

I'll give you a hint: it's because she's a woman.

 

I don't know if that's exactly fair, but then again I'm not super clued in on the community. It seems like other women are pretty well receievd (Mary Kish, Zoey Quinn, Samanath Kalman , Gita Jackson, etc).

 

I thought she was a little grating on her first appearance (ala Greg Miller) but generally enjoyed her - sucks to see the community run off someone with an interesting point of view!

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It's absolutely because she was a woman. It's a shame that was my first exposure to her, the reaction around Giant Bomb definitely colored my impression of her for years when in fact she's basically a better person than anyone on Giant Bomb (sexy uniforms notwithstanding because that was unconscionable drunk or no).

 

Also- I have seen her a lot of times. She's a PoC? Not judging people by the color of their skin is a thing I'm kinda into but she and I could have the same parents, crazy frizz hair from my mom and everything.

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Just now, Badfinger said:

It's absolutely because she was a woman. It's a shame that was my first exposure to her, the reaction around Giant Bomb definitely colored my impression of her for years when in fact she's basically a better person than anyone on Giant Bomb (sexy uniforms notwithstanding because that was unconscionable drunk or no).

 

Also- I have seen her a lot of times. She's a PoC? Not judging people by the color of their skin is a thing I'm kinda into but she and I could have the same parents, crazy frizz hair from my mom and everything.

 

Yes. She's talked about being mixed race - https://leighalexander.net/on-twerking-and-being-mixed-race/ in some of her writing. Judging her by the color of her skin is not the same as recognizing that she's a woman of color. In that piece she talks about how she's light skinned, and her curly hair likely comes from her Jewish mother instead of her black father, and that she's got privilege, but also isn't white.

 

I don't really understand why dudes are telling me that the lasting legacy of her appearance wasn't about being a woman while in the same breath saying they don't actually know what the legacy of her appearance to the community was.

 

I am not a fan of Giant Bomb. I have listened to a handful of their podcasts and watched a couple videos. Their stuff just isn't my style. I am not a member of their fan community, but I am aware of the shit their community said about her in the time and years following.

 

eot asked a genuine question about why Leigh's appearance is remembered the way it is, and I was simply being honest. I understand that it rubbed people the wrong way, but the severity of the reaction and the lasting legacy of that reaction is absolutely because she's a woman.

 

This isn't about a single person's annoyance with her drunkness. This is about a vocal portion of a community of predominately men hating a woman for like 7 years because she was drunk and loud - a privilege only afforded to men.

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53 minutes ago, jennegatron said:

 

 

Yes. She's talked about being mixed race - https://leighalexander.net/on-twerking-and-being-mixed-race/ in some of her writing. Judging her by the color of her skin is not the same as recognizing that she's a woman of color. In that piece she talks about how she's light skinned, and her curly hair likely comes from her Jewish mother instead of her black father, and that she's got privilege, but also isn't white.

 

I don't really understand why dudes are telling me that the lasting legacy of her appearance wasn't about being a woman while in the same breath saying they don't actually know what the legacy of her appearance to the community was.

 

I am not a fan of Giant Bomb. I have listened to a handful of their podcasts and watched a couple videos. Their stuff just isn't my style. I am not a member of their fan community, but I am aware of the shit their community said about her in the time and years following.

 

eot asked a genuine question about why Leigh's appearance is remembered the way it is, and I was simply being honest. I understand that it rubbed people the wrong way, but the severity of the reaction and the lasting legacy of that reaction is absolutely because she's a woman.

 

This isn't about a single person's annoyance with her drunkness. This is about a vocal portion of a community of predominately men hating a woman for like 7 years because she was drunk and loud - a privilege only afforded to men.

I understand you're responding to multiple people here but my response was agreeing with you on every front. I'm not saying what she is, isn't, identifies as or doesn't, just that for all I know or care she could have been the same as me (Jewish mom)

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25 minutes ago, jennegatron said:

 

I don't really understand why dudes are telling me that the lasting legacy of her appearance wasn't about being a woman while in the same breath saying they don't actually know what the legacy of her appearance to the community was.

 

I'll attempt to clarify since you are obviously referring to me here.

 

I was really put off by her initial appearance on the show. I thought she was very rude and belligerent and it definitely gave me a more negative impression of her than of most other guests they've had on the show. I don't think that is an unreasonable reaction to have and I assumed that this 'lasting legacy' you keep referring to is just other people having the same opinion I did based on that appearance. I would think any guest who comes on a show and acts kind of shitty like that would have a similar 'lasting legacy', like David Jaffe, who was even worse (especially considering he was sober and still came across as a massive prick)

 

I don't really know much of anything about Leigh Alexander beyond her two appearances on Giant Bomb. She apologized on her second appearance and that was cool. But I can understand people having a negative impression of her if they don't know who she is and all they are going off of is that one appearance. And sure, a whole bunch of those people who have a negative opinion of her probably do because she is a PoC. I'm not disputing that. But saying that that is 100% the motivation for everyone lumps me into that group by default and that is, quite frankly, bullshit.

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I don't disagree with any of the points made, I was just more openly wondering what made the community react like that towards her opposed to the other women who have been well receieved by the community (even in situations where they have been loud and drunk).

 

Obviously the internet at large has an issue with the way it reacts to women in general, I just wonder about the pyschology behind stuff like this. 

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1 minute ago, Zeusthecat said:

 

I'll attempt to clarify since you are obviously referring to me here.

 

I was really put off by her initial appearance on the show. I thought she was very rude and belligerent and it definitely gave me a more negative impression of her than of most other guests they've had on the show. I don't think that is an unreasonable reaction to have and I assumed that this 'lasting legacy' you keep referring to is just other people having the same opinion I did based on that appearance. I would think any guest who comes on a show and acts kind of shitty like that would have a similar 'lasting legacy', like David Jaffe, who was even worse (especially considering he was sober and still came across as a massive prick)

 

I don't really know much of anything about Leigh Alexander beyond her two appearances on Giant Bomb. She apologized on her second appearance and that was cool. But I can understand people having a negative impression of her if they don't know who she is and all they are going off of is that one appearance. And sure, a whole bunch of those people who have a negative opinion of her probably do because she is a PoC. I'm not disputing that. But saying that that is 100% the motivation for everyone lumps me into that group by default and that is, quite frankly, bullshit.

 

Leigh, and specifically drunk Leigh's appearance on GB, entered gaming's cultural memory in a large part due to gg incessantly attacking her for months and claiming she was an unstable alcoholic.  I have my doubts that anyone would even really remember her appearances all that well if thousands of reminders of those appearances hadn't been floated all over the gaming internet for more than a year. 

 

It's the kind of stuff that seeps into you whether you're even highly aware of it or not.  So now, all these years later, bringing her up specifically is impossible to separate from the misogynistic hate that was spewed at her directly for the thing you are bringing up. 

 

I'm not saying that's why you remember her, but I think at this point it's very difficult to separate "objective" or even personally subjective criticism/observation from the toxic stew that gg cultivated around some people. 

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y'all should really read the article. She's a phenomenal writer. She attacks subjects with a thoughtfulness that Giant Bomb doesn't ever reach, and probably intrinsically never can.

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6 hours ago, Bjorn said:

 

Leigh, and specifically drunk Leigh's appearance on GB, entered gaming's cultural memory in a large part due to gg incessantly attacking her for months and claiming she was an unstable alcoholic.  I have my doubts that anyone would even really remember her appearances all that well if thousands of reminders of those appearances hadn't been floated all over the gaming internet for more than a year. 

 

 

 

 

What is really funny is that I loved that appearance. Yeah, she was really drunk but I was laughing my arse off. If  I remember it correctly she recounted a tale of stumbling over to the Voice Actor who does Cole Train in Gears of War and she was like 'You're my favourite' and he replied with 'Damn right I am'.

 

I can't understand people not being entertained by drunk ramblings. They are abnoxious in real life because it is hard to get away from them but in a recording I savour them.

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The vehemence and persistence of the games community's reaction to Leigh Alexander has always seemed like it was because she was a woman. She was brash and drunk, yes, but people seem to genuinely hate her for it, even now. It's very shitty. 

 

Anyway. 

 

The format of the E3 podcasts seems to almost unavoidably lead to a few highlights surrounded by a lot of disappointing noise. It's just too much stuff to form into any sort of coherent whole. Either there's too many people and you can't hear what's going on, or you're missing someone who isn't there, and the people you want to hear from are shuffled out to make way for someone else because they have to have a bunch of voices because that's the whole point of doing it at a convention. I find it interesting that people feel they've gone downhill, though; perhaps I'm misremembering, but wasn't there an awful lot more drunken incoherence in the early years? Jeff has spoken a number of times about being over drinking at E3, and other than the obligatory Midway reunion segment, it seems like not many of the guests are particularly riotous these days. I don't mean to contradict anyone's feelings on the matter - I have no personal investment in people's enjoyment of it - I just find it surprising.

 

I still look forward to their E3 coverage, but I've learnt that the hype doesn't add up to what I once thought it did. How much of that reflects the changes in E3, and how much the changes in me, I don't know. But if I come to it expecting nothing more than a bit of a change of pace, and a couple of interesting announcements in the press conferences/whatever they call them now, then I enjoy it. 

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I really enjoy the "talking over the press conference" bits. At this point I could take or leave the nightly stuff. It used to feel spontaneous, now it feels over planned.

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4 hours ago, Dewar said:

I really enjoy the "talking over the press conference" bits. At this point I could take or leave the nightly stuff. It used to feel spontaneous, now it feels over planned.

 

similar feelings. riffing over the conference stuff leads to magical moments like 'Weed3' and the only night stuff that i've ever found really compelling was when Jonathan Blow confronted the Microsoft guys on their Xbox Live Arcade publishing policies.

 

(oh, and the GB community definitely hated Alexander because she was a woman and they didn't afford her the same liberties as they did annoying drunk dudes.)

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I've been a fan of some of the night stuff, but it's a lot of stuff to chew through.  I enjoy some of the odd pairings and some good discussion often comes out, but I can't fault anyone that says it's too much, because it really is.  The GDC stuff they used to do (and seemingly just don't anymore) was also this, even if some of that stuff involved even more of people getting drunk (see, the last major one they did where they had a bunch of people passing around a bottle of Buckfast which was then capped with Dave Lang being Way Too Drunk and yelling a bunch at Ed Boon).

 

(On a side note, one of those old GDC cast nights was actually my first introduction to the Thumbs crew when Chris, Sean, and Jake were on the same night, and one of the panel breaks featured Jake and Sean watching mini-Chris play Space Asshole.)

 

Also, that Leigh Alexander stuff is a real low point in a lot of ways, not the least of which is the ways that the GB crew themselves really spurred some of that shit on.  If I'm not mistaken (and this was like almost 7 years old so I could be wrong), a number of the crew walked out of the room and held a second stream from Jeff's phone while Leigh was on.  Also, the weird GB meme of "<>" stems from that podcast, where at some point it turns into this weird non-audio signal for "I think Leigh is being annoying".  And then it doesn't help that there was some screenshot floating around either from Ryan or from someone who was talking to Ryan online where it appears Ryan calls her a sociopath.

 

There was some straight demonization going on there and no one from GB was exempt from it.   It's ugly and was unacceptable, and it worries me.  Because every time I seem to think things are OK, there's little incidents like their inadequate and late response to GG and how slow they were to react with the Samantha Allen thing (although the ultimate response there was a little better than the one they later mustered for GG).  It seems like they've generally been doing better of late, but I worry if that's not just me rationalizing this.  I guess we'll see whenever this latest round of hiring is completed.

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I just finished listening to the E3 2016 episodes and I mostly stand by what I said previously about these convention episodes. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what rubs me the wrong way about them but I get this weird sense that a lot of these game developers think they are celebrities or something and just have a way of being overly boisterous in a desperate attempt to sound cool on a podcast. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh but this whole "we're a bunch of cool dudes hanging out and partying and everyone listening is probably so entertained by our antics" thing just annoys me way more than it probably should.

 

Two notable exceptions though. A McElroy or two or three were on one of the episodes and those guys are legitimately entertaining. They just seemed like honestly funny and entertaining people and that whole segment was a joy to listen to. I think I need to check out some of their other podcast stuff. And Cara Ellison is absolutely wonderful. I had heard her on a podcast before and really enjoyed her perspective but kind of forgot about her until I heard her again on one of the E3 episodes. But glad to be reminded of her once again because she is very entertaining and her sense of humor is right up my alley.

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On 2/14/2017 at 2:02 PM, Zeusthecat said:

It's hard to put my finger on exactly what rubs me the wrong way about them but I get this weird sense that a lot of these game developers think they are celebrities or something and just have a way of being overly boisterous in a desperate attempt to sound cool on a podcast.

 

I imagine this is what happens to most people when you put them in front of a camera with an implied expectation that they be entertaining. Some people are naturally comfortable with it, but most aren't.

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That's a bummer, but I'm also pretty excited to see where GB West goes with two new hires to reshape it. Shake stuff up!

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tumblr_inline_o58r6dmSfe1suaed2_500.gif

 

I knew that the meme fame would get to his head.

 

Seriously though, Drew was my favorite Giant Bomb guy and I'm really sad to see him leave. I will miss his jokes that no one notices.

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Bummer, hope he's able to make it back to guest for Extra Life and such. I was hoping he and Brad would do some kind of Final Fantasy cast when he finished the GBA one.

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13 hours ago, rohlfinator said:

Bummer, hope he's able to make it back to guest for Extra Life and such. I was hoping he and Brad would do some kind of Final Fantasy cast when he finished the GBA one.

 

Yeah Extra Life is the saddest - no more Mary, Drew and Alexis Hijinks :(

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