This is just depressing. Why can’t people just… act like good human beings? Why is feminism being so misunderstood and hated?
You know, I don’t even know what Gamergate is. And I don’t want to know. I know it’s gonna be something terrible depressing that makes me feel anxious and angry and all that. Sexism and victim-blaming are so common these days, and I try to be a part of the solution and stand up to those people, but it’s all too personal for me and I can barely deal with my own problems with sexual assault and rape, where can I muster up the energy to fight it on the Internet too? It’s just all too much, and I feel like giving up because it’s draining me.
I just want to quietly be the girl gamer feminist that I am and crawl up in my own little hole, yet I feel like part of being a feminist is standing up for what is right and that’s usually my natural reaction. But this all bullshit, god this bullshit is too much.
TROLL: These evil women are just complaining about harassment because they want attention!
NORMAL PERSON: You don’t think they might be complaining because they want the abuse to stop?
TROLL: Does it stop when they complain?
NORMAL PERSON: Well, no. Usually it gets worse.
TROLL: (triumphantly) Well, there you are then!!!
I think that the reason he’s discussing race here is because many Muslims, especially in France are indeed people of color. If race and religion has been conflated, it’s likely it started with racist people in the first place.
That’s exactly my point, so I think we agree on that at least! But, of course, a company declining to allow someone to use their service because they are saying and promoting hateful things is not the same thing as a goverment doing it… for example:
Again, I think we agree here. But talking about how a film like The Stoning of Soraya does promote a certain view or idea about Islam and Muslims, and taking that discussion seriously, being critical of it, is not the same thing, even remotely as censorship.
And I think this is an important point. I understand the point of protecting even hateful speech, but some of these same people calling for protection and profiteering off hateful comments would happily be glad to see these critics they are attacking shut up.
There is also the complication of having corporations start to control speech. It’s like in malls. Those are often policed by private security, because they are private property, right? But the owners can set standards and discriminate against people based on whatever criteria, as long as it doesn’t run afoul of various federal laws prohibited racial discrimination. So, at the same time as we can recognize these things as hateful speech, do we want to do an end run around the state and have corporations make that decision for us.
So - in sumary - yes, it’s a slippery slope. Not all criticism of these guys spewing their bile in the general direction of SJWs and feminists is the same as calling for a ban on free speech (free speech doesn’t mean you get to free from consequences of your speech), and we have to think about whether or not we want corporations being at the forefront of regulating speech, because their primary motives are profit, and they aren’t going to hold the best interests of public discourse to heart. However, public pressure on a corporation can be useful and a good way to go.
I’m not exactly sure where that leaves us. Wine pops anyone!
But here is some discussion of Jenna Louise Coleman being yet another white companion:
He eventually did delete his twitter. I think he, for one reason or another, really pisses some people off (much like Jon Nathan Turner did in the 80s). I’d like to see more diversity on the show, FWIW, but I’m not going to blame Moffatt solely for that…
There is also this:
(Was is Richard Ayoade who turned it down? Idris Elba? WHO!!! This haunts my dreams… )
[edited to add] There is also the opposite of this, people bitching on twitter when the first Hunger Games movie came out and Rue was gasp a person of color…
I don’t see that from the post, as he says that Joseph “didn’t get it last time”… he doesn’t say specifically who was offered the role and turned it down…
But it needs to be Richard Ayoade… though I’d take Joseph for sure, he was awesome as Marquis de Carabas and in Peep Show, where he plays a real twat.
Of course I wouldn’t! Not by my standards anyway. I don’t have any patience for bigotry myself, but I have been told by some that the nature of my politics strikes many as being uncivilized. This makes it easy for me to relate to being on the muzzle-end of censorship or exclusion from commerce.
I think of crowdfunding as a partnership between those with “projects” and those who support them. I think it is a “slippery slope” to expect crowdfunding companies to police this for us. Not dissimilarly to how I think it’s important to buy a book from some product marketplace, even if the content or authorship might be considered objectionable.
What I hope is that if antisocial people can be so outspoken to keep ranting such stuff with all the adversity they encounter - that people with more inclusive attitudes can overcome the intimidation they face and exceed them.
What I’ve noticed about those active in gamergate is that many have gone from “they are professional victims!” to acting more like professional victims than Anita Sarkeesian or Brianna Wu ever have.
I would be interested to know this as well. Harassment, threats, and the like are banned by crowdfunding websites in their terms of use. This doesn’t seem to help. Campaigns can outwardly comply with all of the rules, but their funds may still be used for nefarious purposes.
It would be nice if the article in the original post would provide some possible solutions to this problem. For example: Would it be practical to just screen every new campaign and research the campaign’s founder? Would such screening impact the quality of the campaigns or unduly restrict the types of campaigns being funded? Would this be an undue invasion of privacy/potentially subject to abuse?
Not to go too off topic, but I find it rather amazing how quickly new accounts pop up on forums (not just this one) when GmrGt pops up in a topic. It’s like they have a spider crawling the web that sends out an all hands alert to “defend the cause” as soon as it trips over the subject.
Sorry @WalterPlinge, that was supposed to be a general reply to the thread.
Thanks for showing up. Thanks to @beschizza for inviting you to write here. I hope you continue to publish thoughtful reflections on gaming culture at B01n9 bOiNg, and I would also like it if you became a regular discussant on gaming matters here.
This is an interesting question. Sometimes brands enter business transactions with people they would prefer not to be associated with. For example, how Cristal wanted distance from their hip-hop drinkers, or how Louis Vutton was rumored to have given Gucci bags to Snookie.
So, while crowdfunding platforms may have a desired audience, do they have a right to refuse service? Should they be explicit that they plan to curate those seeking patronage?
And, despite the answer to that, isn’t there societal benefit from reporting on and documenting/exposing the funding sources of “haters,” without needing to call for the platforms to change their behavior?
I admit I lean in a certain detectable direction on these questions, but don’t see them as clear cut. Loki’s Bargain, and all (fedora-tip to @Mindysan33 for that Norse phrase). Would like to hear your thoughts.
This is not “victim-blaming Charlie Hebdo.” Plenty of people have said similar things, both here on BoingBoing and in the community of cartoonists. There are good conversations to be had about “punching up” vs “punching down” in satire.
I think it speaks to your bias against FF and McIntosh that you are quick to equate what is a fairly reasonable response to saying the CH people deserved to die.
I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.
Again, I have to emphasize the difference between a business transaction and a business partnership. I mentioned this in the article: Patreon is not Bell Telephone, offering a tool, or Wells Fargo, offering a money handling service. They’re entering into a business partnership more akin to publishing, and curating who you work with is typical and expected in that context. How they should curate their partners is an open question, but when you lie down with dogs, you won’t wake up smelling like roses.
I’m not sure Patreon sees themselves in that way. From their [Terms of Service][1]
Users of the Service sponsor other Users. Patreon.com will not be a party to any contracts for services.
It seems to me that they are trying to position themselves more akin to Wells Fargo, again from their ToS
The Service is a communications platform for enabling connections between Users… Patreon.com facilitates these contracts by supplying a medium for the exchange of money. Payment will be processed at the end of a completed content creation transaction on a monthly cycle.
Certainly, from the outside, I agree that a service inherits the reputation of it’s users. E.g., the backlash against GoFundMe over the Darren Wilson campaigns.
[1]: Terms of Use - December 14, 2023 — Patreon
One of the few upsides to all this awfulness has been the genuine bellylaughs some of these guys have provided. I mean, the teasers for Owen/Aurini’s “professional, wide release” “documentary” “film” have have been incredibly bad. Like just, gutbustingly inept. Not to mention their whiny, defensive – and somehow even more incompetent – responses to criticism of same.
Maybe he was thinking of someone else. I love Richard Ayoade but I don’t know if he’s got as much of an acting range as I’d like in a Doctor. Still, he does quirky well and I would definitely love to see the results anyway!
So, being similarly doxxed and receiving similar sorts of threats isn’t enough if one side doesn’t respond to those threats the same way?
JennOfHardWire for example received some horrible threats recently but those aren’t relevant. Just because she’s a pro-GG woman, and responded to being threatened with snark rather than trying to draw maximum media coverage and linking her Patreon (side note: the talk of “professional victims” is generally directed at the people who publicize how mean people are to them on the internet, and then tell everyone how to give them money in an attempt to capitalize on it). In case you’re wondering what threats I mean: https://storify.com/JennOfHardwire/i-made-a-new-friend-today
But, of course, a company declining to allow someone to use their service because they are saying and promoting hateful things is not the same thing as a goverment doing it… for example:
