if you are free of malice and prejudice, why do you so choose to label some gamers?
In Russia there's a very strong drama going around USSR's role and participation in the World War II. The participants, the idea that divides them and terms they use are all different from the Western social politics, but the strength of the issue and the basic principle is 100% identical. Being able to observe the same situation from different angles and compare them is how I can know for certain I'm free of prejudice in either case.
As for labeling, the same can be said about using the word "haters", no? In any case, that's likely because I'm more Nietzschean in that regard, and believe that people do their cause a disservice if they let a word to crawl under their skin - I personally take pride when I'm called a "liberal retard" by my politically opposing compatriots. But yes, I probably should've put the "SJW" into quote marks, sorry about that.
PS By the way, back in the day I could never understand the idea of True Neutral alignment actively working to maintain balance, but in the recent years I've grown awfully sympathetic of the idea
May I ask, did you try and reason with her in any way? Or where do you come from, and are her parents terrible fallocrats?
Because in Scandi-nations, and most of EU-Europe probably too - a child that age shall have not lived without seeing a woman practitioner. In fact, it has tipped to be a female-dominated profession, because entry-criteria require academic merit (where females in Scandinavia tend to excel.)
This reminds me of DeviantArt contributor whom made a critical comic about making Isabela and Fenris sort of scandi-blond by modding. She made a point in the comments about a cousin thinking another cousin of theirs should aim at being a rapper or basket ball player, and not a doctor, because thou "half-white" that cousin looked "black.*
America - not unexpected, even if still wrong. This fantastic artist also quoted a study saying that when children watch telly, the only group coming out with self-worth unharmed are the white boys.
In Scandi-Europe, women do excel academically, such as entering the medical school. So now the discussion is about making the criteria more "male friendly" - as opposed to boys studying as comprehensively.
I just think that the underlying/true worth (of individuals/races etc) and inherited/perceived/de facto power worth are not aligned.
Yes, I did. She didn't really believe me until I pointed out that I went to a female doctor when I was a kid. I'm from Sweden, just like her and her parents. Working at preschools here in Sweden had quite an impact on me. Because, just like you say, I assumed that she had seen a female doctor. I mean, there was nothing weird when I saw one back in the 80s. And then this girl tells me this in the 2010s.
I assumed this new generation of kids I worked with, born after 2005, would be so much more open and less, well, sexist. Because things have changed and we lived in Sweden. Hard to find a country more focused on feminism. And yet they picked up these kinds of things all the time. Because kids stereotype to try to understand the world. And they'll pick up on the most subtle of stuff. I mean, three year olds frequently asked me why I didn't have short hair, shaved every morning and went to the office "like other dads" (being an adult male automatically made me a dad in their eyes). This of course reflected both the country and the comparatively rich suburbs they grew up in.
So it all goes deeper than just lack of representation of course. I just think representation helps a lot to counter this.
Oh yeah, btw, great article. I especially find the bit interesting about how David wasn't even aware at first that queer characters where even allowed at BioWare.
Can you guys imagine what BG2 would have looked like if the writing team would have gone all out in that regard back then? On the media drama surrounding that?
Well, the drama certainly would have looked differently, if there really had been a notable amount at all. I think the main game changer is the widespread use of the internet today, which wasn't really a thing in back when the game initially came out. Still, it is interesting to immagine how videogame magazines and the likes would have reacted and how the reader's letters section would have looked like.
Oh back then the internet would have been aflame with "They're pushing their politics down their throats." I used to write for RPGs and I saw enough of it from the fans when some RPGs had LGBT representation (mostly White Wolf's games).
We had usenet then, and the Bioware forum was active. Metacritic was fairly new then, and I don't think the tactic of review bombing had quite developed yet.
Today the fastest growing profession seems to be that of the Perennially Indignant. Not that there aren't things that need changing, but it feels like honest discourse and discussion just isn't possible anymore.
I personally can't tell if it ever was, since I have been witnissing this toxicity effectively from the day I started visiting the English speaking part of the internet.
I personally can't tell if it ever was, since I have been witnissing this toxicity effectively from the day I started visiting the English speaking part of the internet.
But of course it's worth it to spend time with incredibly good and awesome people like us.
I personally can't tell if it ever was, since I have been witnissing this toxicity effectively from the day I started visiting the English speaking part of the internet.
Yaeh, bloody Belize, always stirring up trouble. (I kid, of course, it’s Malta that’s the agitator here.)
I personally can't tell if it ever was, since I have been witnissing this toxicity effectively from the day I started visiting the English speaking part of the internet.
Yaeh, bloody Belize, always stirring up trouble. (I kid, of course, it’s Malta that’s the agitator here.)
I do think it's become much worse over the past few years, though.
That's when the censorship, speech control and thoughts policing started to trend globally, I think? I mean, outside of China and other totalitarian states (just look how much f***ed up the Russian internet has become in the last few years). Of course there'd be a reaction to that, I'd completely lose faith in humanity if it didn't try to protect its freedom.
I do think it's become much worse over the past few years, though.
That's when the censorship, speech control and thoughts policing started to trend globally, I think? I mean, outside of China and other totalitarian states (just look how much f***ed up the Russian internet has become in the last few years). Of course there'd be a reaction to that, I'd completely lose faith in humanity if it didn't try to protect its freedom.
That's when gamergate and the alt right started trending. Although harassment campaigns and doxing happened before they coalesced, it was often done by the sort of people who joined those movements.
Like say what you will about the left, I don't recall anything quite as virulent or organized as the campaigns against Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn, or several other women who said something about videogames gamergaters didn't like.
And the alt-right, well, they're Nazis.
I'm not saying that these groups are the entirety of the problem, but they're pretty emblematic. I mean, given a choice between someone who just wants me to respect their pronouns and someone who wants to genocide people like me, I'm gonna go with the pronouns every time, no matter how angry they are.
I mean, given a choice between someone who just wants me to respect their pronouns and someone who wants to genocide people like me, I'm gonna go with the pronouns every time, no matter how angry they are.
When comic Marcia Belsky sarcastically replied “men are scum” to a friend’s Facebook post back in October, she never anticipated being banned from the platform for 30 days.
That was exactly what happened.
Belsky was shocked at the severity of the punishment considering her relatively innocuous comment, and immediately spoke to her fellow female friends about the ordeal. They could relate.
And I most sympathize and agree with her. Still, what Facebook is doing there is merely taking a neutral stance on political views, and applying new rules equally to all groups. I don't know about others, but I don't wish to live in Orwellian world where people get jailed for real, not just on Facebook, - it already happens! - for saying something that somebody finds rude.
I mean, given a choice between someone who just wants me to respect their pronouns and someone who wants to genocide people like me, I'm gonna go with the pronouns every time, no matter how angry they are.
When comic Marcia Belsky sarcastically replied “men are scum” to a friend’s Facebook post back in October, she never anticipated being banned from the platform for 30 days.
That was exactly what happened.
Belsky was shocked at the severity of the punishment considering her relatively innocuous comment, and immediately spoke to her fellow female friends about the ordeal. They could relate.
And I most sympathize and agree with her. Still, what Facebook is doing there is merely taking a neutral stance on political views, and applying new rules equally to all groups. I don't know about others, but I don't wish to live in Orwellian world where people get jailed for real, not just on Facebook, - it already happens! - for saying something that somebody finds rude.
I think I overexplained myself, so rewriting:
As I understand it, the rules are not applied equally. Racist comments about black people don't seem to be removed or punished with the same alacrity, for example. I mean it's not just racist comments, it's also sexist, homophobic and other discriminatory comments. There may be a reason for this (report volume, possibly? I do not know).
As far as jail goes, I hope no one goes to jail just for being rude. But then I'm anti-incarceration in general.
The question of freedom is fairly simple, at least to this libertarian. Maximum personal freedom, without infringing on another’s inalienable rights, provided you accept maximum personal responsibility for your words and deeds.
Amazing thread this. I've read many a heart-warming post, and I feel grateful for that.
I'm all for inclusion and diversity and for dismantling stereoptypes in the media, in movies, TV shows and games. What's not to love about it making people feel represented, acknowledged? Or even helping (often young, insecure) people grow comfortable with who they are and with being 'different'? @Shandaxx and others with similar experiences: I'm deeply sorry about everything you've had to go through for not meeting the expectations of members of your social circle of even society at large.
Imo it really shows how much there still is to accomplish in this respect even today, and I thank the David Gaiders of this world who dedicate themselves to the cause.
Scout Harding (mmhhhmmm...) > Varrik (is a bro) > Lieutenant Renn (yo, ladies, we have leik created this awesome character liek by accident, what do we gonna do with him? LETS KILL HIM! fck YEAH!!!! we are da best... brains....brians....brainssssssssssss.....) > Dorian (is himself) > Cassandra (o hai, Jaheira!) > Iron Bull (actually great, truly tragic character, superbly voiced) > Vivienne (dat ass) >> Sera (for the needy) >> Cole (your personal Jesus the Assassin; has awesome ending in Tresspasser!) >>>>>>>>>>>> Cockwall the Max Payne Warden (chrrrrr...zzzzzz....) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nosferatu Elf (tupee or GTFO)
almost forgot, Shaper Valta (o hai, Dagna)
diverse enuff for me
ps. and now the other thing (God help me!): the more I look on/at all this "stuff" with a cool hehehhe head, the more I see that if you want to smuggle a certain themes or/and scenes into your game, you really need some kind of a trick (you can call it a cause or even ideology or whatever fits) like I'm just looking at you Cora and hehhehe my Ryder and I think "a handsome stud banging a sexy chick is still a handsome stud banging a sexy chick even if they are banging under the portrait of comrade Lenin", rite? Well... If I can you know I'm just a nobody a random from the net, but if I can treat all this "stuff" as a dat trick or exactly that specific "ideology" then I am totally Star Wars Justice Warrior 100%.
if you are free of malice and prejudice, why do you so choose to label some gamers?
In Russia there's a very strong drama going around USSR's role and participation in the World War II. The participants, the idea that divides them and terms they use are all different from the Western social politics, but the strength of the issue and the basic principle is 100% identical. Being able to observe the same situation from different angles and compare them is how I can know for certain I'm free of prejudice in either case.
As for labeling, the same can be said about using the word "haters", no? In any case, that's likely because I'm more Nietzschean in that regard, and believe that people do their cause a disservice if they let a word to crawl under their skin - I personally take pride when I'm called a "liberal retard" by my politically opposing compatriots. But yes, I probably should've put the "SJW" into quote marks, sorry about that.
PS By the way, back in the day I could never understand the idea of True Neutral alignment actively working to maintain balance, but in the recent years I've grown awfully sympathetic of the idea
Well, let me be called out if I employ such non-words, "haters" included - I hope I have not, but cannot be sure. It's easy signalling mechanism after all.
I have found it amusing, for example, that the concept of being a critical friend is so provocative for some - for example, that really I am The Witcher fan while earnestly thinking Dethmold diminished the whole series. But I have found it terrifying which amount of vitriolic unkindness towards some of our fellow gamers underlies such clumsy attacks.
What I would suggest you to consider though is as follows: video gaming is historically a position of power, prioritised immersion and fan-service for the white, heteronormative world.
Try to see this analogous to a very pronounced example of calling a freed-slave a "nigger" while intimidating them to stop them from voting - do you think they can just shrug it of, and take pride in it?
I don't think so.
There is to my experience a rather significant imbalance in actual experience of being attacked constantly for wanting to extend gaming joy and individual immersion more comprehensively than wishing to maintain the status quo.
Or even refusing to categorise that some class of gamers is more true than some other.
It does become numbing, energy sucking experience quite easily - because besides the tired insults getting old pretty quick, often there is this accompanying attack on the very notion that someone could be a "proper" gaming fan.
For example: I see GTA as a legit immersion, obviously, and don't mind it exists - even if I would find the mechanism of using prostitutes and killing them to get your cash back a rather cynical, sadistic gaming mechanism.
However, supposedly I cannot be a Witcher fan, but a "fake flamer feminazi" because I consider writing of Dethmold offensive and poor, diminishing the whole Withcer gameworld - and particularly disturbing in view that Polish constitutional court had just at that time accepted openly homophobic party-insignia as quite fine, in the real world.
Add to that some truly vile homophobic commentary, and I was not beaming with pride. It profoundly marked my online experience.
A lot of it comes down to personal responsibility. We live in one of this city’s two 1%er suburbs. This is the one with more conspicuous consumption. The other has BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus dealerships. We have those, plus Porsche, Audi/Lamborghini, Maserati, and Bentley. The othe suburb has money, but they dont’t flash it. Here, they do. My sons are in high school and the spoiled brat factor is high, WAY higher than when we lived in a more blue-collar-middle-class neighborhood. There is way more drug use by high school students (and I’m talking heroin, not marijuana), a higher teen pregnancy rate, and a lower percentage of teens working part-time jobs.
Now, guess which place holds their kids more accountable? Granted, you get a lot of lawyers’ kids here, who are nearly as bad as preachers’ kids, so that might skew things a bit, but still. I’ll just say that there are some examples I could cite of these Little Lord Fauntleroys (and the girls are just as bad).
Guys and gals.... if you're gonna keep on being civil and respectfully disputing with each other, then I'm going to be forced to put down my popcorn and get back to work...
However, supposedly I cannot be a Witcher fan, but a "fake flamer feminazi" because I consider writing of Dethmold offensive and poor, diminishing the whole Withcer gameworld - and particularly disturbing in view that Polish constitutional court had just at that time accepted openly homophobic party-insignia as quite fine, in the real world.
Detmold is a piece of shit human being that deserves no emphaty, pity or mercy. But hey, he's gay. That makes things problematic to you, yes? It would be okay if he was only white, male and straight, but the moment he's gay it's becoming a problem, isn't it?
Normal people see characters like Detmold as just a shitty human being. You on the other hand take offence because of sexuality, like it was the character's defining trait or like he was representing the entirety of gay people. That's disgusting.
And about Polish politics, you don't know a thing I assure you.
Try to see this analogous to a very pronounced example of calling a freed-slave a "nigger" while intimidating them to stop them from voting - do you think they can just shrug it of, and take pride in it?
Heh, I think you may have underestimated it when I said the subject of drama in my country was politics instead of social matters, because I meant it I've heard a few times I should get the hell outta my own country if I didn't like something there, and people's been threatened, doxxed and had acid thrown into their face just because they were in political minority. Granted, it's not an everyday occurrence like you can't even walk the streets safely (unless you're being particularly proactive, I guess? Who knows...), but I was under impression that in the West people don't get burned at the stake on daily basis for being RACE/SEX/RELIGION either.
So as I see it there are two extremes: 1.) total freedom without consequences for one's actions 2.) mind-control
I would say a possible way can only lie somewhere in the middle. I would not favor either of the extremes and I would not think that you do.
Indeed, but I feel right now there're two camps with more or less freedom for their own and mind control for their opponents. I.e. you can't even joke about "scum" or "attack helicopters" without it being taken literally. Like walking the minefield indeed. Which is precisely why I liked this quote by Buttercheese in the first place:
What a lot of people don't get is that it's not enough to just state your opinion to make other people agree with you. And attacking them over them - no matter how bigoted or mislead you may find them to be at first - only devides people further and makes them more hostile to each other. It's important to take the time and explain your point of view, to hear out the other person's point of view and then try to find some basic middle ground to start from. Everybody has prejudices. Even the most woke person on the planet has them.
Except I think some people may have suspected me for being secretly a nazi because I used the "SJW" word
So, to get back on topic, the whole point is that those opposed to the idea of servicing social minorities aren't likely to buy "it's not the writer's problem, it's theirs". You can pretend all of them are nazi bigots not worthy of consideration, but it's not really solution to peaceful co-existence.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Dethmold the only example of gay person in The Witcher 2?
He was the only male homosexual, if you don't count one male prostitute. But let's forget about lesbians, and how your sexuality has nothing to do with one's moral compass, just for you. This topic disgusts me more and more.
But let's forget about lesbians, and how your sexuality has nothing to do with one's moral compass, just for you. This topic disgusts me more and more.
I have no idea what it has to do with anything I said and reasons for your disgust elude me. I do not remember every character from the game I played like 3 years ago, so I asked.
And if the only gay men in the Wichter 2 are prostitute and degenerate and predator, then I see the reason for people to be angry. I don't feel that way, but I can see why.
Comments
As for labeling, the same can be said about using the word "haters", no? In any case, that's likely because I'm more Nietzschean in that regard, and believe that people do their cause a disservice if they let a word to crawl under their skin - I personally take pride when I'm called a "liberal retard" by my politically opposing compatriots. But yes, I probably should've put the "SJW" into quote marks, sorry about that.
PS By the way, back in the day I could never understand the idea of True Neutral alignment actively working to maintain balance, but in the recent years I've grown awfully sympathetic of the idea
I assumed this new generation of kids I worked with, born after 2005, would be so much more open and less, well, sexist. Because things have changed and we lived in Sweden. Hard to find a country more focused on feminism. And yet they picked up these kinds of things all the time. Because kids stereotype to try to understand the world. And they'll pick up on the most subtle of stuff. I mean, three year olds frequently asked me why I didn't have short hair, shaved every morning and went to the office "like other dads" (being an adult male automatically made me a dad in their eyes). This of course reflected both the country and the comparatively rich suburbs they grew up in.
So it all goes deeper than just lack of representation of course. I just think representation helps a lot to counter this.
We had usenet then, and the Bioware forum was active. Metacritic was fairly new then, and I don't think the tactic of review bombing had quite developed yet.
I do think it's become much worse over the past few years, though. Esp with organized harassment campaigns, doxing, and the like.
Like say what you will about the left, I don't recall anything quite as virulent or organized as the campaigns against Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn, or several other women who said something about videogames gamergaters didn't like.
And the alt-right, well, they're Nazis.
I'm not saying that these groups are the entirety of the problem, but they're pretty emblematic. I mean, given a choice between someone who just wants me to respect their pronouns and someone who wants to genocide people like me, I'm gonna go with the pronouns every time, no matter how angry they are.
That was exactly what happened.
Belsky was shocked at the severity of the punishment considering her relatively innocuous comment, and immediately spoke to her fellow female friends about the ordeal. They could relate.
And I most sympathize and agree with her. Still, what Facebook is doing there is merely taking a neutral stance on political views, and applying new rules equally to all groups.
I don't know about others, but I don't wish to live in Orwellian world where people get jailed for real, not just on Facebook, - it already happens! - for saying something that somebody finds rude.
As I understand it, the rules are not applied equally. Racist comments about black people don't seem to be removed or punished with the same alacrity, for example. I mean it's not just racist comments, it's also sexist, homophobic and other discriminatory comments. There may be a reason for this (report volume, possibly? I do not know).
As far as jail goes, I hope no one goes to jail just for being rude. But then I'm anti-incarceration in general.
I'm all for inclusion and diversity and for dismantling stereoptypes in the media, in movies, TV shows and games. What's not to love about it making people feel represented, acknowledged? Or even helping (often young, insecure) people grow comfortable with who they are and with being 'different'?
@Shandaxx and others with similar experiences: I'm deeply sorry about everything you've had to go through for not meeting the expectations of members of your social circle of even society at large.
I'll leave this vid here.
Imo it really shows how much there still is to accomplish in this respect even today, and I thank the David Gaiders of this world who dedicate themselves to the cause.
almost forgot, Shaper Valta (o hai, Dagna)
diverse enuff for me
ps. and now the other thing (God help me!): the more I look on/at all this "stuff" with a cool hehehhe head, the more I see that if you want to smuggle a certain themes or/and scenes into your game, you really need some kind of a trick (you can call it a cause or even ideology or whatever fits) like I'm just looking at you Cora and hehhehe my Ryder and I think "a handsome stud banging a sexy chick is still a handsome stud banging a sexy chick even if they are banging under the portrait of comrade Lenin", rite?
Well... If I can you know I'm just a nobody a random from the net, but if I can treat all this "stuff" as a dat trick or exactly that specific "ideology" then I am totally Star Wars Justice Warrior 100%.
have a good one, all
Free speech is not a bad thing just because bad people abuse it.
Well, let me be called out if I employ such non-words, "haters" included - I hope I have not, but cannot be sure. It's easy signalling mechanism after all.
I have found it amusing, for example, that the concept of being a critical friend is so provocative for some - for example, that really I am The Witcher fan while earnestly thinking Dethmold diminished the whole series. But I have found it terrifying which amount of vitriolic unkindness towards some of our fellow gamers underlies such clumsy attacks.
What I would suggest you to consider though is as follows: video gaming is historically a position of power, prioritised immersion and fan-service for the white, heteronormative world.
Try to see this analogous to a very pronounced example of calling a freed-slave a "nigger" while intimidating them to stop them from voting - do you think they can just shrug it of, and take pride in it?
I don't think so.
There is to my experience a rather significant imbalance in actual experience of being attacked constantly for wanting to extend gaming joy and individual immersion more comprehensively than wishing to maintain the status quo.
Or even refusing to categorise that some class of gamers is more true than some other.
It does become numbing, energy sucking experience quite easily - because besides the tired insults getting old pretty quick, often there is this accompanying attack on the very notion that someone could be a "proper" gaming fan.
For example: I see GTA as a legit immersion, obviously, and don't mind it exists - even if I would find the mechanism of using prostitutes and killing them to get your cash back a rather cynical, sadistic gaming mechanism.
However, supposedly I cannot be a Witcher fan, but a "fake flamer feminazi" because I consider writing of Dethmold offensive and poor, diminishing the whole Withcer gameworld - and particularly disturbing in view that Polish constitutional court had just at that time accepted openly homophobic party-insignia as quite fine, in the real world.
Add to that some truly vile homophobic commentary, and I was not beaming with pride. It profoundly marked my online experience.
Do you see where I am coming from, to an extent?
Now, guess which place holds their kids more accountable? Granted, you get a lot of lawyers’ kids here, who are nearly as bad as preachers’ kids, so that might skew things a bit, but still. I’ll just say that there are some examples I could cite of these Little Lord Fauntleroys (and the girls are just as bad).
Normal people see characters like Detmold as just a shitty human being. You on the other hand take offence because of sexuality, like it was the character's defining trait or like he was representing the entirety of gay people. That's disgusting.
And about Polish politics, you don't know a thing I assure you.
I've heard a few times I should get the hell outta my own country if I didn't like something there, and people's been threatened, doxxed and had acid thrown into their face just because they were in political minority. Granted, it's not an everyday occurrence like you can't even walk the streets safely (unless you're being particularly proactive, I guess? Who knows...), but I was under impression that in the West people don't get burned at the stake on daily basis for being RACE/SEX/RELIGION either. Indeed, but I feel right now there're two camps with more or less freedom for their own and mind control for their opponents. I.e. you can't even joke about "scum" or "attack helicopters" without it being taken literally. Like walking the minefield indeed. Which is precisely why I liked this quote by Buttercheese in the first place:
Except I think some people may have suspected me for being secretly a nazi because I used the "SJW" word
So, to get back on topic, the whole point is that those opposed to the idea of servicing social minorities aren't likely to buy "it's not the writer's problem, it's theirs". You can pretend all of them are nazi bigots not worthy of consideration, but it's not really solution to peaceful co-existence.
I have no idea what it has to do with anything I said and reasons for your disgust elude me. I do not remember every character from the game I played like 3 years ago, so I asked.
And if the only gay men in the Wichter 2 are prostitute and degenerate and predator, then I see the reason for people to be angry. I don't feel that way, but I can see why.