Kohan, Linliel and Demo

[Sera]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide.../5436-Not-Okay

Thoughts?

[Linliel]

You've asked me here and on twitter and on facebook! Where do I respond?! :D

[Greatguardian]

Not that there's anything wrong with what he's saying, but seriously - aside from the small, vocal, buttscum of the earth that is /b/ and people who think they're /b/ - do people really not know that sexual harassment is not okay? I mean, I'll give as well as I take as long as both sides know it's all in good fun, but if someone's taking offense or feeling harassed/uncomfortable because of shit like that then it's an immediate red light do not pass go or collect $200. Is that actually uncommon? Is sexual harassment really a thing people run into a lot outside of 4chan and adolescent douchenozzles?

Serious question.

[Greatguardian]

I just feel like, you know, I watched a video about how killing people is wrong. I mean, no shit killing people is wrong. I don't mean to belittle the issue - killing people is most certainly a big deal. But are there really people out there that need to be told that killing people is wrong? Is this not a pretty fundamental concept? There are always going to be sociopaths and murderers and other dregs of society, but do normal, functional people really not understand this already?

Maybe I should be glad my younger brother is a professional Starcraft 2 player rather than a professional fighting gamer.

[Sera]

You've asked me here and on twitter and on facebook! Where do I respond?! :D

here. 140 chars is hard imo

[Sera]

Maybe I should be glad my younger brother is a professional Starcraft 2 player rather than a professional fighting gamer.

You should.

[Not Kuno]

Maybe I should be glad my younger brother is a professional Starcraft 2 player rather than a professional fighting gamer.

Name?


I watched the video till he said it's not ok to say someone got raped if you beat them in a game. Fuck that.

[Linliel]

Not that there's anything wrong with what he's saying, but seriously - aside from the small, vocal, buttscum of the earth that is /b/ and people who think they're /b/ - do people really not know that sexual harassment is not okay? I mean, I'll give as well as I take as long as both sides know it's all in good fun, but if someone's taking offense or feeling harassed/uncomfortable because of shit like that then it's an immediate red light do not pass go or collect $200. Is that actually uncommon? Is sexual harassment really a thing people run into a lot outside of 4chan and adolescent douchenozzles?

The problem is that a lot of the people who do it don't realise they're doing it, or think it's "all in fun" when actually, it's not. It's definitely happened to me - everything from catcalls in the street to being persistently asked for naked pictures on the internet to bosses telling me that they'd only hired me because I was female. Thankfully nothing too bad as far as things go, but it's persistent, it exists, and it's something that women have to deal with a lot.

[Linliel]

I just watched the video and yeah, what that guy said, basically.

On a side note though, why do all escapist video makers feel they have to be like Yahtzee?

[Sera]

to flesh this out for anyone who doesn't know

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/when-p...-updated/4006/

The video, just listen to it. You can hear her asking them to not touch her and to get away, etc when apparently they were trying to smell her (ugh creepsters) and just some generally unnecessary shit. I don't so much mind the gratuitous use of the word "rape" to indicate a particularly vicious defeat, but several people said "please stop you're making her uncomfortable" and they just kept on. And this guy is supposed to be a community leader!

Rea: You know what it is, to be honest with you? We’re getting older. Do you really want to keep hanging around with a bunch of [guys in their] early 20s who don’t know how to treat one another with respect? That’s what it is.

Bakhtanians: Alright, man. The thing is...if you don’t like the scene, how it is right now, it just seems like you’re trying to create...turn it into something that it’s not, and it’s never going to be. You know what I mean?

Rea: That’s really unfortunate [inaudible]...the way it is right now, they want to enjoy fighting games, but they’re so incredibly turned off by [the language].

Bakhtanians: This doesn’t involve me, Jared, I don’t know if you can hear me--this is Aris. This doesn’t really involve me, but if you don’t like onions, you get your sandwich without onions, man. I mean, this is the fighting game community.

Rea: Can I get my Street Fighter without sexual harassment?

Bakhtanians: You can’t. You can’t because they’re one and the same thing. This is a community that’s, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community--it’s StarCraft. There’s nothing wrong with StarCraft if you enjoy it, and there’s nothing wrong with anything about eSports, but why would you want just one flavor of ice cream, you know? There’s eSports for people who like eSports, and there’s fighting games for people who like spicy food and like to have fun. There’s no reason to turn them into the same thing, you know?

You can’t go to the NBA and say “hey, I like basketball, but I don’t want them to play with a basketball, I want them to play with a football.” It just doesn’t...it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude, you know? These things are established for years. That would be like someone from the fighting game community going over to StarCraft and trying to say “hey, StarCraft, you guys are too soft, let’s start making sexual harassment jokes to each other on StarCraft.” That’s not cool, people wouldn’t like that. StarCraft isn’t like that. People would get defensive, and that’s what you’re trying to do the fighting game community, and it’s not right. It’s ethically wrong.

I know that you’re thinking “what do you know about ethics? You say racial stuff and sexist stuff.” But those are jokes and if you were really a member of the fighting game community, you would know that. You would know that these are jokes.

Rea: So, ensuring that we alienate any and all female viewers...that’s the ethical thing to do?

Bakhtanians: Well, you know, there are layers here, if you think about this. There are layers of ethics. There are people who are racist and commit hate crimes, right? And then there are people who are racist but they have tons of friends of all colors and they have deep love for those friends. Do you think those people are one and the same? Absolutely not.

[Sera]

On a side note though, why do all escapist video makers feel they have to be like Yahtzee?

lol, i don't know.

And I was waiting since the DAY this shit went down for Bob to take it on.

[Linliel]

Seriously though I have no real extra thoughts. He's right. Sadly I don't see it changing much very soon because, well, basically, people are dicks. And if they can't be dicks to one group they don't like, they'll find another group to be dicks to. Sometimes I swear the "us and them" mentality is ingrained into our genes or something. It's terrible.

[Sera]

I honestly had to turn off the stream the first time I tried to listen to it. It was just sad, how clearly uncomfortable she was, how nice she was TRYING to be and how she kept asking for him to leave her be and he just completely ignored her. It is also sad that she felt so uncomfortable she threw her remaining matches just to be able to gtfo.

I know gaming has its share of hazing. The guy gave an apology (which imo sounded like him just ... justifying the exact same thoughts using different words... but whatever I guess) but it really just left me feeling icky. It makes me sad because many of the guys I am the absolute fondest for are FGC people and/or gamers -- and I cannot imagine any of them treating me that way, you know? To me it wasn't about word choice or whatever, fuck using the words rape and bitch, I don't even care about that. I care about the feeling that is conveyed, and those guys were being fucking grimey to her.

Just listening to it made me want to bathe in boiling bleach with a steel wool pad. Fucking nasty.

[Linliel]

Yeah, the words don't really bother me much either, though there's something to be said for the normalisation of "rape". One of the things I discovered while researching online child protection stuff is that there's a lot of normalising of behaviour that would generally be considered wrong. A lot of that comes through the words they use, and the words they use are basically another "shared experience" that makes it acceptable within that community. So while yes, it is the intention behind the words rather than the words themselves, the words they do use take on a symbolic meaning which can be used in a peer pressure type way, if that makes sense. You see it in racist language too.

So, while the word "rape" may change as you use it into something that isn't actually descriptive of rape, you're taking the power away from the horror of the original meaning, which devalues the word, and, to the ears of the beholder, devalues the horror of the act associated with the word.

Sorry, rambling a bit, and I had to see a student mid-way so hopefully it sort of makes sense, I cba re-reading it

[Day]

[Demosthenes]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide.../5436-Not-Okay

Thoughts?

You aready know how I feel about it. I pretty much agree. Nerds are gonna nerd though. We are social victims, watch is make other people the victims the first chance we get.

[Demosthenes]

Women joning the military and working so close to men. What did they expect would happen?

[Sera]

Women joning the military and working so close to men. What did they expect would happen?

rofl. i hate you

[Sera]

So, while the word "rape" may change as you use it into something that isn't actually descriptive of rape, you're taking the power away from the horror of the original meaning, which devalues the word, and, to the ears of the beholder, devalues the horror of the act associated with the word.

Bleh, I go back and forth on how I feel about words. I think sometimes people make a huge deal about words without considering intent & i feel like words only have the power you give to them... but in this case the guys words and intent were both gross. And of course being an adult is about realizing that not everyone gives a fuck about your intent, only about how they felt when you said it.

[Demosthenes]

rofl. i hate you

I had to. Seriously though, the things that will happen here? Misogynists gonna misogyny and trolls gonna troll. We already know how spam handles this kind of subject.