The Zoe Quinn sex-for-reviews scandal
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
That was your assertion not mine, I just commented on it. If anyone's moved the goalposts, it's you with your constant lowering of the amount of information needed before you accuse someone of collusion of some sort.The money trail connects her to other principals in the story.
So suddenly the assertion changes from "they don't want to take anything away" to "everybody makes demands."
I'm being 100% sincere when I say this, but this seems like blind hatred from your end when it comes to Sarkesian (note, I'm talking about her, not any other person that you or anyone else mentioned).
GasBandit
Staff member
As I posted 12-odd pages ago, they're all connected through not only personal contacts but through Silverstring Media, and yes, their Patreons are all intertwined. But one can't say what the amounts are, that information isn't public.
That does bring up an interesting question though, just speculation - if you and I both have a Patreon, and I support yours to the tune of $1000/mo, and you support mine to the same amount so that nobody's actually out any money, how much gravitas would you say that lends both from the perspective of the average viewer who comes in and sees the figure on the patreon page? I know I'm personally much more likely to support a kickstarter that's already nearer its goal, for example. Agan, entirely speculation on my part here - nobody's made that accusation nor is there any evidence that it is going on.
Ah, no, it was Necronic's. Sorry.
It's not blind, and it's not hatred. It's more of an "informed strong disapproval." She's a charlatan and a huckster, personally and professionally enriching herself by the detriment of my favorite hobby.
Last edited:
GasBandit
Staff member
Milo Yiannopoulos is a self-serving mercenary tabloid reporter who is looking to profit by trying to stir the pot. This year he is ostensibly "pro GG?" Last year he was lambasting/vilifying gamers:So many of the Gamergate heroes are such scumbags.
https://storify.com/x_glitch/the-gamergate-supporting-journalist-who-hates-game
A hypocrite of the highest degree.
Mike Cernovich is a psychopath, and I fully expect to read news of him being disbarred/put in jail in the near future. He clearly DOES hate women, and finds GamerGate's ill-deserved reputation for harassing women to be acceptable cover for his ongoing shenanigans.
Neither of them are actually gamers.
GasBandit
Staff member
And several gamergaters didn't look too closely at Mike either, and trumpeted his legal shenanigans vs Zoe Quinn at face value as well. I, for one, refuse to say anything nice about either of them, however. They duped a lot of people to be sure, but they're not gamers, and they're terrible people who have no actual place in the entire narrative... no dog in the fight other than personal enrichment from fraud and chaos. If only more people knew about their reprehensible crap and weren't so quick to embrace an "enemy of my enemy" they'd never heard of until 10 minutes ago.
Interesting article popped up on my facebook feed today
http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/01/misandry-in-the-gamergate-controversy
http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/01/misandry-in-the-gamergate-controversy
GasBandit
Staff member
Reason.com is usually a good and levelheaded source on whatever topic it addresses, and this article seems par for the course.
GasBandit
Staff member
I make dick jokes at work on an almost daily basis.
While at a convention, representing the company you work for, around people you don't know and have no idea how they'd feel about it.
GasBandit
Staff member
Ya got me, it's a fair cop. No, obviously not in mixed company at an industry function where I represent my employer around people I've just barely/not yet met. The people who did that should have known better. Bowie's statement was nebulous and I was kinda poking fun at it.
But yeah, within the confines of the office where I work, where we all know each other and nobody on the outside can see? I won a game of gay chicken a few weeks ago, and it was CLOSE.
My biggest issue with the whole "Big Dongle" scandal is that the woman didn't even just turn around and remind them that they should be acting more professional. At least give them a chance to apologize for being insensitive and stop the jokes. Instead she turned, smiled at them, took their picture, posted it online, and then lambasted them on Twitter in a very public manner, which ultimately got them expelled from the conference and fired. This is why nothing gets done anymore, we decide to make all our issues public to everyone else other then the person we have a problem with.
I'm getting a serious sense of deja'vu
I'm confused. Whose responsibility is it to make sure they act professional?
Ultimately themselves, and I never said otherwise.
As someone that works a convention every year for my company, both as a booth operative and contact associate that wanders the floor, you can sometimes get overwhelmed by the sheer size and noise of the whole thing, and soon that leads to becoming deaf to the existence of others around you. Combined with how "open" some people can be with close colleagues, that can lead to a lapse in judgement. The "Big Dongle" guy made one of those lapses in judgement by joking with his colleague next to him in a space filled with many other people.
However, those situations, especially when you are representing your company, can already be embarrassing when you realize you are doing it. In those instances, if I was in those shoes, I would prefer the person who takes issue with it to bring it up to me so I have a chance to personally apologize and hopefully stop any future outbursts that may ruffle other peoples feathers, for both myself and the company I work for. I don't want someone to turn around, snap my picture, post it online without my permission, and turn me into a pariah over Twitter. There is nothing constructive in that, it's a social media witch hunt.
I figure as long as I am not talking about GamerGag anymore, I should be able to talk about other conversations in this thread.
It really depends on where you work. Some places treat each other more like friends rather then coworkers, others the exact opposite. The place I work at, we sell all over the world, but at the office when things are light, we all have lunch together and joke around, including jokes that would be inappropriate with clients but are perfectly acceptable with each other, because we are all friends. The women in the office are often times the more crude too when it comes to the things like dick jokes.
Once, at one of the conventions I mentioned earlier, we were walking to the hotel from the convention center and I was tired as hell. We were flying out the next morning, and the owner of the company wanted us all to carpool to the airport. My brain told me to say "Just come over to my door and bang on it to wake me, I might still be sleeping!" But my mouth said "Just come to my door and bang me...". To the fucking president of the company.
The laughter that could be heard from everyone from the owner to the vice president to my fellow reps filled up a block.
Bowie, did you just take a veiled jab at my place of employ due to differences in how we work? If so, then you obviously have nothing better to discuss. Good day.
You do realize that sexual harassment in the workplace is illegal? whether it comes from men or women. Chalking it up to "working different" doesn't make it any less inappropriate.
I'm not saying that the incident that you bring up is in particular sexual harassment, but telling dirty jokes and such in the workplace is the textbook definition of sexual harassment. That may seem all well and good from your perspective, but imagine that you're a new employee. You want to desperately fit in with your new coworkers, maybe even make some friends, however you're uncomfortable with a barrage of sexual innuendo and sexually charged jokes.
What do you do? Most likely, you go to work and feel uncomfortable, maybe even force yourself into some dirty jokes so you fit in.
Trust me, I know what that feels like, because I've told gay jokes at places of employment to fit in. It's gross, it's uncomfortable, and has no place in the workplace.
More than anything, your workplace should watch it, or they could get slapped with a major lawsuit.
I'm not saying that the incident that you bring up is in particular sexual harassment, but telling dirty jokes and such in the workplace is the textbook definition of sexual harassment. That may seem all well and good from your perspective, but imagine that you're a new employee. You want to desperately fit in with your new coworkers, maybe even make some friends, however you're uncomfortable with a barrage of sexual innuendo and sexually charged jokes.
What do you do? Most likely, you go to work and feel uncomfortable, maybe even force yourself into some dirty jokes so you fit in.
Trust me, I know what that feels like, because I've told gay jokes at places of employment to fit in. It's gross, it's uncomfortable, and has no place in the workplace.
More than anything, your workplace should watch it, or they could get slapped with a major lawsuit.
Then you bring up those issues with the employer. If the employer refuses to bring these issues up, or the employees refuse to act on them, then you have cause to take this stuff further. Don't make it uncomfortable by trying to "fit in", but don't try to squash all levity just because you can't handle specific speech. Sexual Harassment is when the acts create an intimidating or hostile work environment. Respect goes a long way to making sure no one feels that, whether a random dick joke is thrown out there or not. If no one is feeling sexual harassed, then it's not sexual harassment.
At the place I work we are all about being inclusive, it's why we are very rigid with new employees in how we act and how we train them. As time passes though, and comfort settles, then jokes are more likely to come out. If the person is uncomfortable with those jokes, they can bring it up to us and we respect that and act accordingly, even if that means not making those jokes in his/her presence, because that is what you do in a respectful work environment, you take into account others without breaking the core that makes you work well together.
I am sorry that you felt you had to make jokes versus your orientation to fit in, I really do, but people can't change if they don't know they created a problem, and sitting silent and trying to run with the flow is not the way it should ever be handled. Speak out. If they respect you, they will take your feelings into account, and if they don't, well I think it be better to say "fuck'em" and move on.
Last edited:
Seems like this joke is leaving you guys a bit cold.
You know, I actually think that one was pretty cool.
Maybe you need to just to let it floe, man.
figmentPez
Staff member
I think an interesting parallel here would be the morbid humor often found in the medical profession. From what I'm told, many doctors and nurses tend to make jokes about death that would be highly offensive in most other workplaces. It's a coping mechanism that may be a healthy psychological response to a profession that encounters death far more often than the general population. If someone made those same kind of jokes while working at most desk jobs, they'd make the people around them horribly uncomfortable, quite possibly to the point of harassment. However, in a locker room or other private area, away from patients, in a hospital? Most likely there are going to be jokes made about death and illness.
Different workplaces have different standards. Figuring out when that environment crosses the line from familiar to dysfunctional is not always a clear line. The amount of crude humor that indicates something wrong at a large accounting firm is going to be lower than at a small tech company, which will, in turn, be much lower than what is to be expected in a theater company (because if you think a group performing Shakespeare isn't making dick jokes off-stage, as well as on-stage, then you don't know actors).