Support NeoGAF

[DOG3NZAKA]

I just want to try to distinguish the point I'm trying to make here. I'm arguing that yes, the personal is political, and personal choices, actions, and even speech carries latent values associated with them. I'm not trying to argue that this is necessarily a bad thing or something that we don't want to occur. I'm just taking issue with an argument that proceeds from "This action has no subtext associated with it" when it clearly does (in my opinion anyway).

If I offer you a sandwich and you say "I'm a vegan" instead of "yes or no", you're inherently making the issue political (the degree or severity to which you do so is obviously minor in the grand scheme of the spectrum). That doesn't mean that saying you're a vegan is a 'bad' or 'wrong' response, but it's certainly not a 'neutral' response. A neutral response is simply "no". Take his car/environmentalist example. I offer my friend a ride in my car, he says "I'm an environmentalist". That can't tell me anything about his decision unless the context is supplying a negative relationship between environmentalists and the use of cars. Else I could simply ask "Do you as an environmentalist want a ride in my car?" and he might say yes, after all, perhaps he only strongly limits, not entirely excludes, the use of cars in his life.

There's a spectrum of political behavior with that of the individual on one hand and that of governments on the other.

This too.

I'm fine for people thinking or believing whatever they want and living their lives as they see fit. However, they don't need to make simple questions or innocuous, pedestrian situations more complicated with their personal political/ social perspective. All that does is make the moment awkward and creates unnecessary debate and questions that normally shouldn't be asked over something so insignificant. A simple yes or no is sufficient. As if I care you're a vegan or an environmentalist. To me, that shows a level of misguided sanctimonious pride and self righteous, that you have to tell me why you can't accept my sandwich or why you can't accept my offer for a ride. People have the need to express themselves but forget the world doesn't revolve around them and that nobody cares.

 

[UncleGrumpskin]

I try my best to never talk about GG cuz it bums me out so much, and I genuinely don't want to upset or argue with anyone involved. But I can already tell their "next move" for this. They'll try to "investigate" the guy who made the videos and find some sort of collusion that he's done or some other bad thing he's done years ago. They'll then use these things to discredit every single thing this guy says.

Which is ironic since thats the same tactic the "SJWs" use. "Don't listen to him, he's racist/sexist/etc!". It's got to be some of the most hypocritical shit I've ever seen.

 

[DOG3NZAKA]

Tell that to the people who got doxxed. Or the people who got chased out of the industry. Or the people who have faced years of anti feminist harassment before gamergate even had a name. How are you so fucking broken that you think something like on disc dlc or broken releases are anywhere close to that?

Then why did they go largely ignored previously, and even while GG was in full swing? Gaters continued to ignore large and egregious actions done by their favorite AAA devs while continuing to focus on indie devs and journalists.

It's also unfortunately not an isolated incident or over

Are we really going to debate on who is a bigger victim? Nope. I'm not jumping down that rabbit hole.

Things like the Xbox 360 RROD, PS3 $599 and the Xbox One's pre launch DRM were huge, industry changing events. Gamergate? What did that change? That's a rhetorical question by the way.

 

[DragonGirl]

Well-made videos, if a bit condescending (the atheist part was rather insulting). .

Not at all. I'm an atheist. I was there to watch Elevatorgate rip through the atheist/skeptic community. Gamergate was the same sort of thing and both made it clear to me that there are irredeemable assholes who share my communities.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Are we really going to debate on who is a bigger victim? Nope. I'm not jumping down that rabbit hole.

Things like the Xbox 360 RROD, PS3 $599 and the Xbox One's pre launch DRM were huge, industry changing events. Gamergate? What did that change? That's a rhetorical question by the way.

Not sure who you think is debating on who is the bigger victim, but you seem to have your own version of events so I'll leave you to that.

 

[DocSeuss]

Someone on my Facebook (because I shared this) actually used this as a negative. His post verbatim:

"Here's my takeaway. Angry Jack is a straw man, a projection, a label. It's much more broad and basic a label than most (misogynist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever), and what's better it doesn't require much evidence to behaviour or ideology before slapping it on. All Angry Jack needs to be is a dissenting or dismissive voice. Then he becomes a white, cis, heterosexual male and a neo-nazi puppet, with a persecution complex and dichotomist worldview. Very efficient. Especially with the "we can all be Angry Jack, even I" bit at the end. With that in mind it won't matter if the Angry Jack provides evidence that they don't fit the archetype, since we can all be Angry Jack, he/she is still Angry Jack. They will always be Angry Jack. They just refuse to realise it, the poor fools!

That considered, I am happy to be Angry Jack. The idea amuses me."

Needless to say, I'm planning to unfriend him, because the problems in that statement just run a bit too deeply for my personal taste. Thankfully, I didn't see much of what he had to contribute to a topic in the first place and he largely ignored me, so I lose nothing in that scenario.

This sounds like a bunch of my friends, though. They're some of the happiest, kindest, nicest people you'd ever met, and because they're on the "wrong side," they're made out to be horrible monstrous boogeymen.

Heck, I've been there. I've had totally innocent conversations with people where people totally try to loop me in with that. I've been called pro-Gamergate scum, anti-gamergate corruption, you name it. Plenty of people have treated me like I'm some angry, hateful monster on a topic I care nothing about just because I might disagree with this or that person in my feed.

Don't like Gone Home? Must be a monster. Don't like that one ex-journalist gamergate guy who talks about how great he is all the time? Must be a monster.

So, like, I completely sympathize with the "ah, so it's not so much real people as a boogeyman designed to help whip up a fervor" of your friend there, because, well... yeah. I've been made out to be the boogeyman. And I never get mad about online stuff, except commenters on my articles who post "tl;dr." I'm like the anti-Angry Jack.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

You're an angry Joe. The normal response to finding out facts about other people's lives is "oh, I did not know that."

I'm pretty sure the intended takeaway from his videos wasn't to start using 'angry Joe' as an ad hominem .I've been pretty clear and levelheaded in my posts, and made a point to delineate the limited point I am trying to make.

Or it could just mean "I'd rather not eat your sandwhich". I don't know how complicated your life is, but when my friend refuses a sandwhich I offered him by reminding me he's vegetarian, I just say "okay" and move on.

Except it obviously doesn't just mean that because otherwise people would say that instead. This is exactly the point I'm making: There is more meaning embedded in saying "I am a vegan" than just "I don't want your sandwich". People don't want to admit this because it removes you from a place of neutrality and in the context of his video, a kind of moral superiority. It means you can't simply castigate everyone responding to you in a non-positive way as the 'bad guys', it forces you to think about the mode of expression you are choosing. Is it more important for you to express why you don't want X or simply that you don't want X? That's where identity politics comes into play. Side note, why do people keep switching the context to that of friends when he clearly described the examples in his videos to be more between acquaintances or even strangers, it's an important distinction. ED: Heh, I just noticed I did this too without realizing it. Friend is so generalized it's easy to assume/impute different definitions and contexts without much reason for it, apologies.

In the grand scheme of things, yes, sure, the statements we make and why we make certain choices are political. But that's beside the point of the videos. We're not talking about analyzing every day decisions. We're talking about a standard scenario, a simple occurrence that could happen any day. People don't fret on every political sentiment out there. And when they do, it's usually in the form that was described in the video, when people take a neutral statement and turn it into a political action against themselves regardless of intent.

If you're familiar with the term micro-aggression, then you're aware that feminists and critical race theorists do just that regarding 'everyday' or 'ordinary' behavior. I'm not putting forward any particularly novel analysis here, although to be clear, I'm not equating these two things, I'm just pointing out that they operate via similar mechanisms. Let's turn the scenario into one that more clearly implicates traditional concerns, I think you might see that your position is perhaps a bit too strict.

If I invite someone to my gay friend's anniversary party, and they respond with "I'm a Christian", is that an apolitical or neutral statement? Is their answer truly interchangeable with "No thank you"? Is the fault truly on me alone for responding to that in a different way than had they simply said no? What about reminding a friend that Rite-Aid is offering free flu vaccines for kids, and they respond "We do natural parenting" or "We don't vaccine".

Is someone saying "I don't drink" or "I'm a recovering alcoholic" to your offer of a drink going to make you considering the political ramifications and their stances on prohibition because saying "recovering alcoholic" doesn't necessarily tell you exactly their stipulation on alcohol (maybe they're weening, or only certain alcohols, or whatever)? I'd assume not, so unless you're offering the drink at an AA meeting, it's okay to not have to consider every single political ramification of a solitary statement that might not necessarily be intended.

I would wager that most people's reaction to that statement would be to think about why the person they are talking to doesn't drink. Do I think they go through the specific logic chain he details, no, but internally something analogous to that may be operating under the hood. That's a completely normal reaction, it would be abnormal to assume the person does not drink for no reason. I discussed the problem of the bolded in my original post which I'll copy over (although people will have the same objections because I'm mostly just reiterating):

Now many people are just thinking ahead and assuming that the next question from the person will be "Why don't you want my sandwich?" or some other kind of aggressive political interrogation; they're just trying to shut that down before it happens: "I just want to decline a sandwich without having to make it political". But this is the same kind of problematic thinking that we're castigating the question asker for: "I just want to offer a sandwich to my friend without it becoming political". The difference is that the respondent is the one interjecting politics directly in a flawed attempt to circumvent it, and then complaining that the other party responded to that latent expression of values in a normal way.

I think you're reading too much into this. "I'm a vegan" could equally mean, "Yes, I'm hungry but for <reasons> I don't want your sandwich". Those reasons could be due to personal preference rather than personal politics.

I think you're missing my point entirely which is that personal preference is personal politics (as well as selling vegan-ism short because I don't think many would describe it simply as an aversion to the taste of meat or a preference for non-meat). I discussed the decision-reasoning jump in earlier posts (some of which is above).

 

[DOG3NZAKA]

I'm pretty sure the intended takeaway from his videos wasn't to start using 'angry Joe' as an ad hominem .I've been pretty clear and levelheaded in my posts, and made a point to delineate the limited point I am trying to make.



Except it obviously doesn't just mean that because otherwise people would say that instead. This is exactly the point I'm making: There is more meaning embedded in saying "I am a vegan" than just "I don't want your sandwich". People don't want to admit this because it removes you from a place of neutrality. And people keep switching the context to that of friends when he clearly described the examples in his videos to be more between acquaintances or even strangers, which is an important distinction.



If you're familiar with the term micro-aggression, then you're aware that feminists and critical race theorists do just that regarding 'everyday' or 'ordinary' behavior. I'm not putting forward any particularly novel analysis here, although to be clear, I'm not equating these two things, I'm just pointing out that they operate via similar mechanisms. Let's turn the scenario into one that more clearly implicates traditional concerns, I think you might see that your position is perhaps a bit too strict.

If I invite someone to my gay friend's anniversary party, and they respond with "I'm a Christian", is that an apolitical or neutral statement? Is their answer truly interchangeable with "No thank you"? Is the fault truly on me alone for responding to that in a different way than had they simply said no? What about reminding a friend that Rite-Aid is offering free flu vaccines for kids, and they respond "We do natural parenting" or "We don't vaccine".



I would wager that most people's reaction to that statement would be to think about why the person they are talking to doesn't drink. Do I think they go through the specific logic chain he details, no, but internally something analogous to that may be operating under the hood. That's a completely normal reaction, it would be abnormal to assume the person does not drink for no reason. I discussed the problem of the bolded in my original post which I'll copy over (although people will have the same objections because I'm mostly just reiterating):

Now many people are just thinking ahead and assuming that the next question from the person will be "Why don't you want my sandwich?" or some other kind of aggressive political interrogation; they're just trying to shut that down before it happens: "I just want to decline a sandwich without having to make it political". But this is the same kind of problematic thinking that we're castigating the question asker for: "I just want to offer a sandwich to my friend without it becoming political". The difference is that the respondent is the one interjecting politics directly in a flawed attempt to circumvent it, and then complaining that the other party responded to that latent expression of values in a normal way.



I think you're missing my point entirely which is that personal preference is personal politics (as well as selling vegan-ism short because I don't think many would describe it simply as an aversion to the taste of meat or a preference for non-meat). I discussed the decision-reasoning jump in earlier posts (some of which is above).

I think you've made your point more clear than you needed to. I think your logic is spot on and pretty rock solid, but of course some will naturally disagree. This isn't a bad thing, merely just a different perspective.

I'd just let it go. You can only elaborate so much and make your case so much until you start repeating yourself or end up writing a thesis, when in the end, people are just going to say you're wrong without really grasping exactly what you're trying to say. It's best to stop while you're still ahead, while you're head is level before you end up being the bad guy.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Are we really going to debate on who is a bigger victim? Nope. I'm not jumping down that rabbit hole.

Things like the Xbox 360 RROD, PS3 $599 and the Xbox One's pre launch DRM were huge, industry changing events. Gamergate? What did that change? That's a rhetorical question by the way.

The difference in severity between feeling safe at home and a shitty, overpriced console isn't really up for debate.

But please, continue to downplay the suffering of the victims of gamergate because you can't be assed to even empathise with other people for a minute.

 

[Ban Puncher]

I am angry because it gets me views on YouTube.


Don't forget to like, comment, share and subscribe!

Also, check out my Patreon!


MAD = MONEY

 

[DOG3NZAKA]

The difference in severity between feeling safe at home and a shitty, overpriced console isn't really up for debate.

But please, continue to downplay the suffering of the victims of gamergate because you can't be assed to even empathise with other people for a minute.

Uh... What...Seriously. What?

This is why I avoid these discussions, because people are far too emotional and too quick to respond with passive aggressive bullshit to see what is clearly in front of them.

I'm merely talking about which events have a profound effect on the industry, not which are are more important in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Terrell]

I almost fell over in the GG video when he talked about how the GG's group identity is based on being oppressed and thus GG'ers always has to find the next villain. It's a never ending cycle. A feminist supporter just said that with a straight face. I wonder if he thinks feminism will ever end, or will it always need another villain to feed the group's identity?

This video series has been interesting so far. I would serve as supporting evidence of his Angry Jack position. I felt defensive originally of Anita's videos. Since that time it has led to some interesting thoughts about how the capitalist system operates if the wealthy are/were sexist/racist/wtfever. So I did find some interesting thoughts due to Anita's videos, but those thoughts were really outside of realm of the content of her videos that I saw.

All that being said I feel like looking at a object or situation from a different lens can lead to insight, but the problem is when one uses only that lens for insight.

So there is an example, to clarify my meaning, that if someone only looked at a pyramid from underneath they would see the pyramid as a square. If another person only saw a pyramid from the side it would only look like a triangle. We only get a full & complete understanding of the pyramid when it's viewed from all angles. I feel like much of the feminism work I have been in contact with has only used the single lenses for insight and tried to say that their perspective is the one that matters, and if you disagree you a supporter of patriarchy.

EDIT: I haven't finished this 6 part series. I only made it about half way through the third video so far.

When you see feminism as needing a "villain", I think you're not exactly seeing things from all perspectives, either. I mean, why would they need another villain when they've been fighting the same villain for thousands of years?

I just want to try to distinguish the point I'm trying to make here. I'm arguing that yes, the personal is political, and personal choices, actions, and even speech carries latent values associated with them. I'm not trying to argue that this is necessarily a bad thing or something that we don't want to occur. I'm just taking issue with an argument that proceeds from "This action has no subtext associated with it" when it clearly does (in my opinion anyway).

If I offer you a sandwich and you say "I'm a vegan" instead of "yes or no", you're inherently making the issue political (the degree or severity to which you do so is obviously minor in the grand scheme of the spectrum). That doesn't mean that saying you're a vegan is a 'bad' or 'wrong' response, but it's certainly not a 'neutral' response. A neutral response is simply "no". Take his car/environmentalist example. I offer my friend a ride in my car, he says "I'm an environmentalist". That can't tell me anything about his decision unless the context is supplying a negative relationship between environmentalists and the use of cars. Else I could simply ask "Do you as an environmentalist want a ride in my car?" and he might say yes, after all, perhaps he only strongly limits, not entirely excludes, the use of cars in his life.

There's a spectrum of political behavior with that of the individual on one hand and that of governments on the other.

I would counter-argue that someone offering you an alcoholic drink is also a "political" statement by your definition and also contains subtext, because it makes an assumption that the person you are offering it to belongs to a default set of preferences and values.

So, as in mathematics, if the same variable is applied on both sides of a polynomial equation in equal but opposing measure, they cancel each other out to zero. In this case, both statements are as "neutral" as they possibly can be, because they're both terribly subdued political statements in opposition to each other, and thus essentially cancel each other out to a "neutral" status.

Either both statements are dripping with political subtext or neither of them are, you can't see one that way without it being true of the other.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Uh... What...Seriously. What?

This is why I avoid these discussions, because people are far too emotional and too quick to respond with passive aggressive bullshit to see what is clearly in front of them.

I'm merely talking about which events have a profound effect on the industry, not which are are more important in the grand scheme of things.

Gamergate has politicized the gaming community in a way that no event before it has, it has driven developers and commentors out of the industry, it has discouraged future developers to join the industry and it has silenced many female and progressive gamers for fear of retaliation.

But yeah sure, that was nothing compared to $599 and I'm the one who can't see what's in front of him.

 

[DOG3NZAKA]

Gamergate has politicized the gaming community in a way that no event before it has, it has driven developers and commentors out of the industry, it has discouraged future developers to join the industry and it has silenced many female and progressive gamers for fear of retaliation.

But yeah sure, that was nothing compared to $599 and I'm the one who can't see what's in front of him.

So Xbox One's DRM fiasco was just overblown nerd rage? Or was it an event so catastrophic to MS, that it single handedly cost them being the dominant force for a good portion of this console cycle, if not it's entire course? At this moment, two years later, Sony still has significant market and mind share over them, plus a massive gap in hardware sales world wide without having to put forth much effort at all.

I'm looking at events that have business and economic ramifications, not social or political. We are talking apples and oranges. I can't comment on Gamergate because I stayed out of it, and to this day, want no part of it. It's far too venomous and just so stupid at this point.

 

[Hackworth]

This series is amazing so far, I'm part way through episode 3 so it could all fall apart but it's really well written.

 

[TakeItSlowDude]

Everyone has their own biases, on any subject you want to name - that's where politics originates from. GGers have their own biases, as do those who oppose them, and that's fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if it is patently, empirically wrong.

Inflicting those biases on others, or acting on those biases to the detriment of others, especially in harmful or illegal ways, is where the huge NOPE sign should appear in a conscious person's mind, but it sadly rarely does, because we all believe ourselves to be innately righteous and good. Yes, even people who hate themselves (and/or everyone else) believe they're right to think so. It's the only way some people can even get through life without going mad or committing suicide.

I hope that, one day in the distant future, we can all evolve beyond such narrow self-centeredness.

(I haven't watched the videos yet, btw - I just wanted to reply to this specific point.)

The fact that everyone has biases is a lazy excuse for reducing the positions of your opposition as the products of guilt or cogitative dissonance. Sure it can be fun to try and psychoanalyze your opponents, but it is almost always intellectual masturbation used to make the arguments of your opponent unworthy of serious consideration. It is funny because in part 3 Innuendo Studios is using the same logic that he condemns GG for.

For all of the meandering in these videos he does get down to brass tacks in part 5. Though he essential goes on to assert that games need to be changed because it will make the world a better place in a non trivial way. I would imagine that a significant number of people are going to disagree with that assertion and are going to make cogent counter arguments. Counter arguments that can not be waved away by trying to psychoanalyze the people making those counter arguments.

 

[hiryu64]

I've only watched the first two videos so far, but I pretty much agree with what I've seen so far. I see my own thoughts and positions expanded and articulated in a way that I've always wanted to be able to do myself. I intend to share this with my roommates and get their take on it. I live with at least one "Angry Jack" who gets visibly upset when I mention things like "hypermasculinity" and gets angry and defensive at the most random topics, so that should be fun. Maybe he'll surprise me this time and extract some insight from these videos. That's my hope, anyway.

The discussion of identity politics within this thread is a very interesting one to me. Brawndo, I see the point that you are making as well as the logic chain that leads to it, and it makes sense. However--and this is not an indictment on your character or your position--the need to label such self-identifiers as "political" in conjunction with frustration over "injecting politics" into otherwise mundane discussion has been, and continues to be, a silencing and/or dismissal tactic used by people who succumb to all or part of the "Angry Jack" syndrome described in these videos, so I can also understand other posters' objections to your logic. Ultimately, I have to side with your detractors, but with the distinction that the labels in and of themselves are not political. I will not deny that they have been politicized, but I submit that that has been done largely out of necessity. In any case, whether the neutral declination "I'm an x" in this hypothetical scenario is deemed political should be up to the person saying it (i.e. the refuser), and not the person offering the offending (and I use that term loosely) substance. If the refuser wants to engage in identity politics as a follow-up, allow them to steer the discussion that way. Other than that, I think it's safe to assume neutrality, even if there may not be any, lest one gets offended by what effectively amounts to nothing.

I got your point just fine. I'm telling you that it's not helpful to constantly look for political subtext in everyday conversation. Somebody refusing your sandwich because they're vegan isn't necessarily a passive-aggressive critique of your dietary choices (you monster!). I also reject your supposition that everybody who is vegan has become so for political reasons.

This is essentially what I'm trying to say.

 

[travisbickle]

I'm pretty sure the intended takeaway from his videos wasn't to start using 'angry Joe' as an ad hominem .I've been pretty clear and levelheaded in my posts, and made a point to delineate the limited point I am trying to make.

....

I think you're missing my point entirely which is that personal preference is personal politics (as well as selling vegan-ism short because I don't think many would describe it simply as an aversion to the taste of meat or a preference for non-meat). I discussed the decision-reasoning jump in earlier posts (some of which is above).

The whole "Good Guy" video is about the fact that these topics aren't about individual actions of people, they're too small, and the only people who get offended by someone else small individual actions are Angry Jack. It leads to his point about the difficulty of talking to Angry Jack, their "puritanical mindset" that immediately thinks everyone is judging their bad action just by themselves doing something else. Concluding with no one knows what is a good or bad action and all we're doing is discussing different actions.

 

[Erin S Kittens]

This was a good video series.

Privileged people often get offended by people speaking out/taking action against widespread structural oppression because it makes them feel judged. If they were to believe that the people speaking out about their pain are correct, it would make them question whether they're a good person or not. Their natural instinct is to find a reason to write off arguments that would discredit their worldview. The reason for this is that they believe that as long as they are ignorant to structural oppression and their role on it, they are innocent and therefore not accountable for their actions and beliefs. They're offended by us because we threaten to take their innocence away and force them to confront themselves.

Their comfort is prioritized over the lives and humanity of marginalized people.

 

[MGrant]

I'm gonna be that guy and correct people: it's "Angry Jack," not "Angry Joe." Angry Joe utilizes his anger for youtube hits, Angry Jack uses it to hold together his entire worldview.

 

[Aquavelvaman]

Great series. Hope it reaches some kids who need to hear it.

 

[MaddenNFL64]

This gamer gate thing is gonna go on forever it seems.

 

[kinggroin]

Lol, the angry atheist.


Good video. I feel for Anita.

 

[xevis]

I think you're missing my point entirely which is that personal preference is personal politics (as well as selling vegan-ism short because I don't think many would describe it simply as an aversion to the taste of meat or a preference for non-meat). I discussed the decision-reasoning jump in earlier posts (some of which is above).

I got your point just fine. I'm telling you that it's not helpful to constantly look for political subtext in everyday conversation. Somebody refusing your sandwich because they're vegan isn't necessarily a passive-aggressive critique of your dietary choices (you monster!). I also reject your supposition that everybody who is vegan has become so for political reasons.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

So Xbox One's DRM fiasco was just overblown nerd rage? Or was it an event so catastrophic to MS, that it single handedly cost them being the dominant force for a good portion of this console cycle, if not it's entire course? At this moment, two years later, Sony still has significant market and mind share over them, plus a massive gap in hardware sales world wide without having to put forth much effort at all.

I'm looking at events that have business and economic ramifications, not social or political. We are talking apples and oranges. I can't comment on Gamergate because I stayed out of it, and to this day, want no part of it. It's far too venomous and just so stupid at this point.

Then why are you participating in this discussion about a series of videos on Angry Gamers that is specifically about harassment, GamerGate, etc?

 

[chaobreaker]

Watched it a couple of hours ago. Great overview of everything wrong with Gamergate and the whole anti-feminist movement.

I'm not exactly proud of it but I was more and less an Angry Jack a couple of years ago. Took a lot of soul-searching in a low point in my life to change my views. Plus spending my time in a post Anita-kickstarter internet slapped some reality in me real quick. I guess it's the reason why I participated as fervently as I did on those two GG threads here.

One thing the video series probably should have brought up is how the whole FUD Angry Jacks develop over their ever-changing hobbies is totally happening outside of videogames as well. For example, comicbooks seem to also have these growing pains regarding their industry being more inclusive and less... "patriartical" in general. Look at all the positive new female comic book heroes out now, like the Ms Marvel, Thor, and that new Batgirl series. Or how alot of superheroines are designed less sexualized than usual. There's also some pushback over some PoC taking or sharing the mantle of etablished superheroes, like Miles Morales. There's this level of push back and FUD by old guard comicbook fans that is not so different from the likes of GG.

 

[purdobol]

Live and let live. Simple as that. It's ok to not like homosexuals. To not agree with any religion. To be pregidous. Even to worship Hitler or Stalin or Devil or whatever. It doesn't make you a bad person. What you think is yours and non can take away that.

What makes you a bad person is doing harm too another human being (except self defence).

Forgotten golden rule.
Great videos.

 

[Forkball]

Good videos. Those tweets are pretty horrific. I know some will say, "but most GamerGate tweets are not like that!". Maybe true, but the fact that ANY are like that should show you what kind of people that group attracts.

I have no idea what their overall goal is. Do they expect Sarkeesian to disintegrate like a JRPG boss? You say she's wrong or a liar? Then don't listen to her. It's that easy. I don't like mustard, but you don't see me tweeting shit at French's twitter account and focusing on efforts to delegitimize mustard as a condiment. I ignore mustard. It's not part of my life.

On a side note, I am very curious about what games GamerGaters actually play. I mean, are these people Mario fans? After playing a level, do they think, "Wow, that level was really well-designed and imaginative. Finding that last green star was pretty tough. Also, fuck feminists." Do they say, "Man, you can tell the SJWs really brought down Forza with this new installment."? Or, "I really need to breed a Snorlax with good IVs, but I really gotta tweet angrily about tumblr."

 

[Baron von Loathsome]

One thing the video series probably should have brought up is how the whole FUD Angry Jacks develop over their ever-changing hobbies is totally happening outside of videogames as well. For example, comicbooks seem to also have these growing pains regarding their industry being more inclusive and less... "patriartical" in general. Look at all the positive new female comic book heroes out now, like the Ms Marvel, Thor, and that new Batgirl series. Or how alot of superheroines are designed less sexualized than usual. There's also some pushback over some PoC taking or sharing the mantle of etablished superheroes, like Miles Morales. There's this level of push back and FUD by old guard comicbook fans that is not so different from the likes of GG.

There are still issues in comics, particularly in superhero comics, of getting female and/or non-white people into writing jobs. Ms. Marvel is written by a Muslim-convert woman, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

Good videos. Those tweets are pretty horrific. I know some will say, "but most GamerGate tweets are not like that!". Maybe true, but the fact that ANY are like that should show you what kind of people that group attracts.

I have no idea what their overall goal is. Do they expect Sarkeesian to disintegrate like a JRPG boss? You say she's wrong or a liar? Then don't listen to her. It's that easy. I don't like mustard, but you don't see me tweeting shit at French's twitter account and focusing on efforts to delegitimize mustard as a condiment. I ignore mustard. It's not part of my life.

On a side note, I am very curious about what games GamerGaters actually play. I mean, are these people Mario fans? After playing a level, do they think, "Wow, that level was really well-designed and imaginative. Finding that last green star was pretty tough. Also, fuck feminists." Do they say, "Man, you can tell the SJWs really brought down Forza with this new installment."? Or, "I really need to breed a Snorlax with good IVs, but I really gotta tweet angrily about tumblr."

I think the videos illustrate more accurately what is really happening. And from what I've seen of GamerGate since its inception and my own experiences prior to that, it's more like they're just playing the games they like. Some of those games are problematic, some of them aren't.

But the second you suggest that some of those games *are* problematic, he loses his fucking mind. I don't think most people who align with GG and do so in a way that means they're sitting around all day thinking about it, or even really thinking about it when they're actually playing games.

 

[MrJoobJoob]

OT GAF should probably skip the "prominent athiests can be assholes" part in the second video.

But seriously, interesting stuff so far.

I mean, it's sort of true though. I'm as atheist as they come but I can admit some of the prominent atheists (the guys on youtube with big followings, you know the ones) are huge assholes. Even Richard Dawkins acts like a jerk these days.

 

[creatchee]

I mean, it's sort of true though. I'm as atheist as they come but I can admit some of the prominent atheists (the guys on youtube with big followings, you know the ones) are huge assholes. Even Richard Dawkins acts like a jerk these days.

For sure. I'm an atheist and a libertarian and I think that both of those groups are rife with assholes. It's almost a direct correlation with the level that their signal has been boosted to (in most cases).

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

I mean, it's sort of true though. I'm as atheist as they come but I can admit some of the prominent atheists (the guys on youtube with big followings, you know the ones) are huge assholes. Even Richard Dawkins acts like a jerk these days.

After Hitchens died Dawkins took over as king asshole. The guy is a raging misogynist and racist. New Atheism in its entirety is a vile thing.

 

[cubicle47b]

I disagree with a bunch of his points (Phil Fish isn't an asshole because he's famous in the wrong way, he's just always been an asshole and more people see it because he's famous), but these are pretty good videos overall.

 

[MrJoobJoob]

I disagree with a bunch of his points (Phil Fish isn't an asshole because he's famous in the wrong way, he's just always been an asshole and more people see it because he's famous), but these are pretty good videos overall.

I don't think he ever says Phil Fish isn't an asshole. He states more than once that the video isn't about the real Phil Fish, it's about "Phil Fish" the boogeyman construct.

 

[cubicle47b]

For sure. I'm an atheist and a libertarian and I think that both of those groups are rife with assholes. It's almost a direct correlation with the level that their signal has been boosted to (in most cases).

I find most groups are rife with assholes, but yeah, atheists are up there with the best of them. I think a lot of that might come from growing up in religious households and having to hide their beliefs or end up in fights with their parents and/or church. It tends to put a chip on people's shoulders.

 

[The Technomancer]

Yeah I saw these when he was posting them, really great series overall

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Glad this got its own thread. It's a great series of videos I recommend most people watch. It's not all about games, but definitely related to many recent events and issues surrounding the larger gaming community.

 

[Jackben]

One word:

Entitlement.

 

[axisofweevils]

This is a very enlightening series of videos. I've often wondered why so many people I meet online seem to be so hostile about everything. (And yes, I've probably been guilty of that, too, myself in the past.)

 

[BY2K]

Finally, a clear explanation of what GamerGate is...

 

[Odrion]

Like the "this is phil fish" video, I see that the point totally went over some people heads.

This sounds like a bunch of my friends, though. They're some of the happiest, kindest, nicest people you'd ever met, and because they're on the "wrong side," they're made out to be horrible monstrous boogeymen.

Heck, I've been there. I've had totally innocent conversations with people where people totally try to loop me in with that. I've been called pro-Gamergate scum, anti-gamergate corruption, you name it. Plenty of people have treated me like I'm some angry, hateful monster on a topic I care nothing about just because I might disagree with this or that person in my feed.

Don't like Gone Home? Must be a monster. Don't like that one ex-journalist gamergate guy who talks about how great he is all the time? Must be a monster.

So, like, I completely sympathize with the "ah, so it's not so much real people as a boogeyman designed to help whip up a fervor" of your friend there, because, well... yeah. I've been made out to be the boogeyman. And I never get mad about online stuff, except commenters on my articles who post "tl;dr." I'm like the anti-Angry Jack.

Have you watched the videos? "Heck, we all been there" is one of the key points about it. Which is why I find these videos to be important to show and talk about. We all say we're above doing something like Gamergate. But we all get a little angry Jack sometimes.

 

[dramatis]

So Xbox One's DRM fiasco was just overblown nerd rage? Or was it an event so catastrophic to MS, that it single handedly cost them being the dominant force for a good portion of this console cycle, if not it's entire course? At this moment, two years later, Sony still has significant market and mind share over them, plus a massive gap in hardware sales world wide without having to put forth much effort at all.

I'm looking at events that have business and economic ramifications, not social or political. We are talking apples and oranges. I can't comment on Gamergate because I stayed out of it, and to this day, want no part of it. It's far too venomous and just so stupid at this point.

Unsurprisingly, the maker of those videos said in his follow up post:

The thrust of Part 6, the point that the entire series is building up to, is that Jack - the person privileged people become when they want to dismiss realities that make them uncomfortable - is a problem that communities have to take responsibility for. I feel that, too often, people who are not the victims of abuse don’t take that responsibility, which leaves the people who are being abused to deal with it. The actionable advice I gave was that we, privileged people who have most certainly been Angry Jack at various times in our lives, need to engage with him when he shows his face. His rhetoric is an enticing narrative that tells people feminism and racial politics and social issues aren’t worth thinking about.

Yes, your posts focus on the business-changing events. Your initial posts are dismissive about Gamergate and its effects, choosing instead to talk about how much more game-changing business policies are, compared to the cultural ramifications of Gamergate. And then you walked back a bit and drew a line between the social and the business/economic aspects. As if the method of content delivery is significantly more important than the creation and substance of the entertainment the method is supposed to deliver. You said you stayed out of Gamergate discussion because it makes you uncomfortable.

This is a thread about a series of videos talking about Gamergate, so why do you feel the need to come in and talk about how other things are so much more important?

 

[cubicle47b]

I don't think he ever says Phil Fish isn't an asshole. He states more than once that the video isn't about the real Phil Fish, it's about "Phil Fish" the boogeyman construct.

Right, it's about how Phil Fish is seen by his audience. He makes this argument. Phil Fish acted a certain way before, then he became famous and continued acting the same way, and because he was now famous it was a problem. I disagree. How he acted was always a problem. He just didn't have an audience pointing that out (how they pointed it out is a massive problem, of course).

I agree with most of what he said in the video, just not everything.

 

[shanshan310]

Thanks! This is really interesting!

I love how salty the comments are.

I don't. Jesus youtube comments are the worst.

 

[Terrell]

After Hitchens died Dawkins took over as king asshole. The guy is a raging misogynist and racist. New Atheism in its entirety is a vile thing.

Yeah, and lord help you if you choose to be a modern agnostic or an apatheist (read: we can't prove the existence or lack of existence either way, so why's everyone so bent out of shape?), cuz that makes you an enemy on both sides of that debate, because neither of the worst screamers on either side of that debate can stand a true neutral moderate stance on the issue, when that's exactly what should be achieved in the end, albeit achieved without compromising one's position on the subject, as it's an entirely personal belief. Like the video says, everyone can't stand the idea that their views aren't right or correct. So an agnostic is the worst person ever, because they're signalling both sides that they're both "wrong", in the same way vegans signal to people eating a ham sandwich that they're "wrong" by their very existence.

 

[Fuchsdh]

This is a very good series. The Gamergate part is very much on point. I had lots of people asking me to join with then in the Gamergate movement because I have ranted quite openly about the state of journalism and the increasing cohabitation of marketing and journalism. I saw through the "it's about ethics" bullshit from the start.

If people want to have a discussion about ethics in journalism, great! But that discussion must be a discussion about journalism as a whole not just a very specific subset of journalism. By picking a subset and ignoring actual, honest examples of questionable journalistic ethics outside of gaming showed it was little more than a smokescreen to cover a different premise.

Not that this entirely relates to the topic, but why do you think that people have to make their cause about journalism in general and not games journalism in particular? There are unique problems in games journalism, and it's obviously an area of passion for a lot of gamers. That's ignoring the fact that even the GG supporters often brought up questionable journalistic ethics outside of strict gaming (Gawker, et al)—if anything, their critiques there were more valid, probably because since it wasn't related to gaming they didn't have as much of a blind spot regarding their actions.

It's akin to saying "why are you making your cause corruption in your city, corruption at the federal level is more important!"

Haven't gotten around to watching This Is Phil Fish yet, think it's worth going back and watching that before I continue with this series? Just got through the first ep.

 

[Camp Freddie]

Good series. The follow-up with Quinn et al is really interesting too.
I think it's important to speak up when "Angry man" tries to take over a conversation, but we have to be careful not to fight fire with fire - particularly when other people get caught in the blast radius.

Going slightly off-topic - I think theists are often assholes because it's easy to believe that you've figured out "the truth" and therefore everyone else is stupid and should be looked down upon. Ironically, religious groups tend to produce assholes for the same reason.
And I'm an atheist by the way (a "strong" one even).

 

[pants]

Why Are You So Angry? Part 5: "The Good Guy"

I like this one very much

 

[kinoki]

Right, it's about how Phil Fish is seen by his audience. He makes this argument. Phil Fish acted a certain way before, then he became famous and continued acting the same way, and because he was now famous it was a problem. I disagree. How he acted was always a problem. He just didn't have an audience pointing that out (how they pointed it out is a massive problem, of course).

I agree with most of what he said in the video, just not everything.

But why do you feel that you need to point out that he is anything? Phil isn't noteworthy in his behaviour. In any way. Most people are worse than him and the vast majority of his critics are considerably worse. He's not an asshole. He is a normal person.

Also, on topic, these were really well-made videos with tons of insight. Great job. Enjoyed them.