Speaking of munchausen by proxy my wife had an Internet / irl friend (she came to birthday parties of our kids) that was arrested and is in prison for a while for rubbing feces on her child's iv line that ran directly to her heart. Look her up online or in the tdcj offender search. Emily Beth McDonald
The Zoe Quinn sex-for-reviews scandal
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
GasBandit
Staff member
You seem to think that I'm siding with Sarkesian on this. You would be wrong. I just don't think inaccurate hyperbole pushes any discussion along.Ah, you poked holes in my cherry picked data. Good. Now let me pick holes in yours: School shootings have stated at roughly the same levels since the 1970's. They're not on the rise. Toxic masculinity and gamer culture, and all of the societal changes that have occurred over the last 40 years seems to have had little effect on this statistic. As I said, sarkawhatever is pushing misandry in the guise of social justice. decades of violent "misogynistic" video games have done nothing to nudge the school shooting trend upward.[DOUBLEPOST=1414255760,1414255727][/DOUBLEPOST]
I bet those words taste bitter in your mouth
seemed like we were coming to the end of a discussion...decided to leave it where it lay
I rather wonder what Jack Thompson makes of the whole debate.
Sadly it doesn't appear that he has made any public comments. The last time he raised his head appears to have been back in 2013 with the release of GTA 5.
http://www.gamezone.com/originals/g...pears-gamers-addiction-has-made-them-retarded
Sadly it doesn't appear that he has made any public comments. The last time he raised his head appears to have been back in 2013 with the release of GTA 5.
http://www.gamezone.com/originals/g...pears-gamers-addiction-has-made-them-retarded
Nothing of value would be gained if he butted in. He's already proven himself to be badly in need of deep psychiatric care.
And, even if he does comment, I hope the whole world ignores him.
Fox Noise won't be able to help themselves.
And then Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver will take that bit of tape and...
I kinda want Jack Thompson to say something...in support of GamerGate.
Then the whole lot of them will be like, "Uhhhhh, you know guys, maybe...?"
Then the whole lot of them will be like, "Uhhhhh, you know guys, maybe...?"
Necronic
Staff member
It really does suck to have your voice marginilized or co-opted by crazy people. Not having a strong voice in a community you care about, especially if there are problems that you feel hurt you (or the community), like the ethical problems you pointed out. And to stand up, as a marginalized voice, only to be unfairly compared to a rapist/murderer is even worse.
That really sucks, truly. No sarcasm.
However, do you know what sucks worse than being marginilized and compared to a rapist for having a voice? Being marginilized and threatened with rape or murder. And this is what the women are having to deal with, and have had to deal with far longer than us.
This isn't a point on victim Olympics, this is about recognizing and using a learning moment for men. Take your feelings of marginalization and voicelessness and use that to create an empathic template for understanding women in this situation.
Also, recognize how being marginilized makes you angry. It makes me angry. It makes anyone angry. And if I am marginilized hard enough, long enough, maybe I am more willing to listen to a less than reasonable voice defending my position. Maybe, if I've been pushed around enough, I start preferring the Malcom X to the MLK. Maybe I start letting my own views get a little more extreme, and over the top. Maybe I make mistakes, like Sarkeesian and the SJW tumblerinas do.
I think it would be a positive if we, the traditionally privileged, could use this event to develop a deeper understanding of the traditionally marginilized position.
KUMBAYA MY LORD, KUMBAYA....[DOUBLEPOST=1414416309,1414416201][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, fwiw, I'm not really talking about you in particular. I think a lot of us share your feelings, and I thought your comments were a good jumping off point for talking about the deeper significance that may be there.
I wish to be clear that as much as I don't agree with Sarkessian on many things, I believe she has the absolute right to say what she feels without threat of rape or violence. Never said my own issues were on the same level, just that it's not as simple as one side being douche bags and the other side saints. That is not what is happening, and giving the idiots on one side a free pass just because the other side has people even douchier is not something I accept. A bully is a bully.
Dude, they got a legit nazi on board and still don't think that way.
Necronic
Staff member
Jus so I'm clear as well, I'm definitely not accusing anyone of that, I can't stand the oppression Olympics.
GasBandit
Staff member
Gaming media is comparatively small. However, it undeniably shapes gaming through setting expectations, narratives, and by providing publicity. It is also trying to be "taken seriously" as a journalistic medium. Thus, corruption, collusion, agenda-driven reporting and incestuous practices are anathema to both the audience and the author. We all sit here and haughtily sniff as we sip our tea and comment on how "yes we all know Kotaku/Polygon/etc is shit and should not be taken seriously" but they get millions of eyeballs. Furthermore, gaming is inextricably entwined with public discussion forums ranging from reddit to 4chan. What made this scandal blow up was not that somebody slept with somebody, but that the discussion mediums tried to squelch it to the tune of dozens of thousands of deleted posts and the "gaming media" suddenly circled the wagons and marched in lockstep with identical chants of "gamers are over" on their lips. If it hadn't been for these supposedly internet-savvy people somehow forgetting how the Streisand Effect works, I doubt this thread would have ever existed.
Gaming is the highest grossing "hobby" on the market. It's big business. Yet its coverage is surprisingly tiny and tightly knit - thus skewing/influencing it is a great order of magnitude easier, which has an effect on future development. People get passionate about their hobby. No, they shouldn't be harrassing journalists and developers, especially not with rape or death threats. But to say integrity is not necessary is to marginalize-by-proxy the obsessive hobby of millions because you are saying in a roundabout manner that gaming doesn't matter.
Yup.
Necronic
Staff member
One thing I don't really get about this though. People who are "pro" gamer gate are saying that this is about journalistic integrity and ethics. As far as I can tell though, that has nothing to do with Zoe Quin though right? That turned out to be a non story right?
The only story of journalistic ethics I can see is how five guys tried to spin bullshit and the underlying misogyny of the gaming world jumped at that.
I don't see how, if you are arguing against the journalistic integrity, how can you not also be arguing against how misogyny led to (or exposed) said weaknesses in integrity?
I just....I don't see what the "sides" are here. Phil fish is an asshole, some gamers are misogynistic assholes. Games journalism is bad. Where are women in this beyond being victims of the combination of those three factors?
The only story of journalistic ethics I can see is how five guys tried to spin bullshit and the underlying misogyny of the gaming world jumped at that.
I don't see how, if you are arguing against the journalistic integrity, how can you not also be arguing against how misogyny led to (or exposed) said weaknesses in integrity?
I just....I don't see what the "sides" are here. Phil fish is an asshole, some gamers are misogynistic assholes. Games journalism is bad. Where are women in this beyond being victims of the combination of those three factors?
GasBandit
Staff member
I don't consider it to be a non-story, the article he wrote about her was the most press exposure she'd got up to that point, which then was leveraged in the "harrasment" allegations into getting the gaming journalism and indie gaming development support network in place for the defense. She's basically now making $3,600/mo ($43,000) as an actual, literal, professional victim.
But as has been stated umpteen times, the story moved past Quinn when the "Gamers are Over" thing took over.
GasBandit
Staff member
That's a disingenuous comparison. I said it was the biggest hobby, no the biggest GDP contributor.
GTA V made $1 billion in its first 3 days. Avengers' total box office gross was $623 million ($207 mil on opening weekend). Video games outsell movie tickets, outsell books, outsell DVD purchases, outsell rentals.[DOUBLEPOST=1414435003,1414434940][/DOUBLEPOST]
I'm highly skeptical about the wizardchan thing.
GasBandit
Staff member
By your definition, movie and TV coverage are WAaAAAAY out of kilter then, to an astronomic degree, and book coverage basically shouldn't exist. The video game industry made more than twice the revenue in 2013 than the NFL did. Does professional football also "not matter," and thus there shouldn't be any media coverage of it, nor should we care about its scandals?
[DOUBLEPOST=1414436599,1414436536][/DOUBLEPOST]
Well, of course, nobody would say she didn't get harassed AFTER the 5 guys story broke. But I'm saying she had demonstrably cried wolf before that, ostensibly to increase her "gaming media" visibility.
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GasBandit
Staff member
What can I say, seems a few million people disagree with you.
And as I should have pointed out earlier, you're quoting numbers that are out of date - 5 billion was the 2009 number for video games. It's over 20 billion now. 5 years is a non-trivial amount of time to be out of date, when the previous 5 years saw gaming industry revenue double (when in the same time period, 2005-2010, the GDP only grew 16%).
GasBandit
Staff member
If that were true, Dan Rather would still have a job.
There's a difference between you think she may be making things up and demonstrably.
You do have practice managing large groups of mewling children.