Anita Sarkeesian "I'm not a fan of gaming" leaked 2010 video reveals

[BloatedGuppy]

No that would be the lack of hard data, information bias, lack of credible sources and complete lack of peer review. Those are the things which make her arguments completely invalid.

Couple questions...

1. What would "hard data" look like given the nature of her arguments?
2. What would "credible sources" look like given the nature of her arguments?
3. Do you consider it standard practice to peer review media criticism?

"Covered in" - as in, the opposite of unraveled

My dictionary has "raveled" as meaning essentially the same thing as "unraveled". Weird.

 

[EtherealBeaver]

No that would be the lack of hard data, information bias, lack of credible sources and complete lack of peer review. Those are the things which make her arguments completely invalid.

Couple questions...

1. What would "hard data" look like given the nature of her arguments?
2. What would "credible sources" look like given the nature of her arguments?
3. Do you consider it standard practice to peer review media criticism?

"Covered in" - as in, the opposite of unraveled

My dictionary has "raveled" as meaning essentially the same thing as "unraveled". Weird.

1: How many games with male characters with agency vs female characters agency for instance. There are tons of examples
2: literature, psychology, knowledge of various tropes and why they actually function as they do and why they are even used as they are - thus far she only used "hero saves weak girl" but there are so many variants that its sickening and very few of them have to have to do with female victems at all. Even when she uses them in games like Zelda, she neglects to mention how many of the sages are also male, how Zelda is the holder of the Wisdom triforce and how she is the sage which decides to nobly let herself finalize the seal.
3: Yes. Period. Always. That is why others do not disable comments on stuff like youtube videos if they want to be taken seriously.

As for the other thing with raveled - oh well, Ill change it to make it clearer then. Thanks for noticing, wierd my dictionary says the oppisite. May just be a crap dictionary I´ve got then

 

[Kaendris]

My dictionary has "raveled" as meaning essentially the same thing as "unraveled". Weird.

Hopefully an english major can come along and explain this, I mastered in Psych, but as I understand it, it actually means ...both.

Ravel can either be to "untangle" a mess, or "uncomplicate" an issue. Yet it can also mean "to tangle or complicate".


English.. whatcha gonna do?

Source: (other than Google) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/raveled

 

[veloper]

Alright, I don't have much to say on this topic, as many others have said the exact same things that I would probably say. But I'm just going to throw one thing out there, and don't take this the wrong way, I'm simply trying to add to conversation...but...

If we can dismiss Roger Ebert's argument that video games aren't art because he himself wasn't a "fan of gaming", why is it not the same with Anita?

We shouldn't dismiss Ebert's POV on gaming, rest his soul. Gameplay (interactivity) was simply incompatible with his definition of Art and our best cutscenes and stories in games are poor compared to the greats of cinema.

The common gamer counter-argument was usually little more than posing a different definition of art and holding up some mediocre to decent stories from games as great examples.
Roger wasn't wrong just because he didn't like games. Art simply meant something different to him.

Likewise, Anita isn't wrong just because she's not that much into gaming. Too bad her vids amount to little more than showing cherry picked examples.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

1: How many games with male characters with agency vs female characters agency for instance. There are tons of examples

2: literature, psychology, knowledge of various tropes and why they actually function as they do and why they are even used as they are - thus far she only used "hero saves weak girl" but there are so many variants that its sickening and very few of them have to have to do with female victims at all. Even when she uses them in games like Zelda, she neglects to mention how many of the sages are also male, how Zelda is the holder of the Wisdom tri-force and how she is the sage which decides to nobly let herself finalize the seal.

3: Yes. Period. Always. That is why others do not disable comments on stuff like youtube videos if they want to be taken seriously.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree. This is perhaps the first time I've ever heard a call for "hard data" and "peer review" when it comes to media criticism, and I find it faintly ludicrous. I could understand if this was something she was submitting as an academic study, but it seems like something meant for popular consumption, much like any game review or music column or film criticism blog might be.

As for comments on YouTube videos, for reals? That does not meet any standard, even the most relaxed, for "peer review". If I had a YouTube channel the very first thing I'd do was disable comments. The ratio of wheat to chaff is like one part per million.

As for the other thing with raveled - oh well, Ill change it to make it clearer then. Thanks for noticing, wierd my dictionary says the oppisite. May just be a crap dictionary I´ve got then

Hopefully an english major can come along and explain this, I mastered in Psych, but as I understand it, it actually means ...both.

Ravel can either be to "untangle" a mess, or "uncomplicate" an issue. Yet it can also mean "to tangle or complicate".

For heavens sake. Fuck English sometimes.

No worries Beaver, I'd just never heard it used that way before so I was curious.

 

[grey_space]

That's a shame. The video itself claims that it's not attempting to incite hatred merely trying to make a point as to her lack of a gamer past.

Oh I call bullshit on that. The video is MOST DEFINITELY a smear piece. The language throughout is openly hostile. The addition of that sad little disclaimer does nothing to change that. It's like the classic "I don't wanna sound like a racist, but...".

Hmmm...On looking at it again you could take it that way. If you wanted. I'd prefer to take it at face value so when there is a statement saying that hate mail and threats do 'not help anyone' I'd rather believe them.

It is a rather short video though I would like to see the full lecture to get proper context.

Doesn't make her points any more or less valid.

No that would be the lack of hard data, information bias, lack of credible sources and complete lack of peer review. Those are the things which make her arguments completely invalid.

Were her pieces scholastically perfect?
No, not in my view.

Did she miss the point in a couple of games? Possibly.
Were some of her other examples on damselling in our media relevent?

I felt they were.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Well first off, Ha! I didn't buy her bullshit that she was a life long gamer, good to know my suspicion was correct.

Secondly wwwhhhhhyyyyyyy do you people give a fuck what one person on Youtube thinks???? This woman has the same amount of actual clout as Lindsay Ellis* or Douglas Walker. No one cares what she says except for the folks that get so threatened by her, and the people that give her money.

*On a unrelated note, turns out these two have formed a friendship.

I mean I'm almost sounding borderline trollish, but why do you people care about this one woman and her views bias or unbiased? It's like getting ticked off at something Mark Levin or Rush Limbaugh says on the radio. It doesn't amount to anything, doesn't change anything, she accomplishes really nothing.

I still say to this day, Anita knows already what she doesn't like about video games. Instead of critically analyzing them, SHE SHOULD MAKE HER OWN. You can't change things outside the system, you gotta be apart of it, then you can try to influence it. fuck.

 

[wetnap]

This is so goddamned stupid I don't even have words. This reminds me of those dumbasses who kept demanding Obama show his birth certificate. Where's your nerd cred Anita?! You don't like what she's saying, so rather than ignoring her, like an adult, you're just trying to discredit her with any little detail you can cling to.

When people ask if I'm a gamer, I say no. I say I play games a little bit here and there, and then I change the subject. Because the gaming "communnity" is so goddamned embarrassing and juvenile that I'd never want to be associated with it. Maybe Anita was doing the same thing?

This is where you are wrong.

Obama being a citizen was no more than a technical requirement.

Why are people concerned about her misrepresenting herself?


Imagine someone who is against a war arguing their case as a "war veteran". Now imagine they lied about their status. Isn't this quite different from your Obama example?

The difference you seem to miss is this, someone misrepresenting their status that way is different because they are using it to bolster their arguing through false experience and authority.

Why do people respect the opinion of people with experience vs none? Is it just arbitrary? Of course not. Also the issue of fandom or not changes her motivations. When someone genuinely has a stake in something you can be more certain of their sincerity on a subject.

 

[DrOswald]

The entire story of Mario is one sentence: "A man saves a woman from danger." I don't think we can say that absolutely every case of a man saving a woman is sexism at work but if many examples of this happen it can point to a trend of sexism. Anita uses Mario saving Peach as an example of a trend of sexism in games. And that is the key right there: a trend. In order to identify trends a level of expertise is required. We are essentially taking her word that she is sufficiently familiar with video games, she is sufficiently expert, to have taken in a huge body of data and analysed it in order to identified trends of sexism running through all of the video game industry.

I really have to disagree that you require any kind of gaming expertise or even a gaming background to identify a trend in gaming narratives. It's like suggesting that to illustrate a point about a "sexist" car commercial you need to have a degree in auto mechanics.

The only argument I could see is that if the narrative structure of "woman in peril, man saves the day" turned out to be essential for some underlying game mechanics reason that required a rudimentary background in gaming to understand. Off the top of my head, I cannot comprehend how this would be the case, but if someone has an example I'm open to hearing it.

I think we may have a bit of a disconnect in what is meant by "expert" in this context. I am not saying that Anita must be able to beat Mario 3, or have played X amount of hours to be an expert.

Lets instead consider what the qualifications for an art expert would be in a given field. An expert would be determined by a level of understanding of how and why a work is made within the field, of the history of art in the field, and have a familiarity with the significant works within the field as well as a familiarity with a statistically significant body of work within the field.

In other words, what an expert needs is context. An expert on paintings is not necessarily an expert painter. But an expert on paintings is capable of analysis that a layman is not. They can identify trends about technique and style, they can comment on how one artist was influenced by another. They can make claims with authority granted to them by their level of expertise. An expert can see how a single piece fits into the greater body of work and can therefore draw conclusions where a layman could only guess.

Claiming the sexism of a single piece of work is very different from claiming a trend across an entire industry. A single work can be identified as sexist easily. Even three, a dozen, or an hundred works can be identified as sexist easily. But three or twelve or an hundred individual examples of sexism does not make a trend. It is only by taking a statistically significant sample that we can identify a trend among a set of data.

The body of video games is massive. Thousands and thousands of games, most of which are no longer available and all of which have their own context to be considered, make up the body of data. Analyzing point by point a statistically significant portion of that data is a daunting task. I would almost say it is impossible. It would take thousands of hours. The only real way anyone can make any sort of authoritative claim on such a large subject is by being an expert - by claiming a level of contextual understanding that allows that person to understand how the single title fits into the industry at large.

This is why the importance of Anita's claim rests on her being an expert on video games. She pointed to 3 examples of what she believes is a trend in gaming (in the case of her damsel in distress video.) If she is an expert then her view is more significant than the average person. If not then her view is no more important than the average youtuber.

Unless, of course, you think that depicting a man saving a woman regardless of context is inherently sexist. In which case we are at an impasse, because that is a view that I cannot possibly agree with.

P.S. It should also be noted that an expert painter is not necessarily an expert on paintings. Similarly, simply being a game developer, even a good one, does not mean you are an expert on games.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Well said. I do agree with your assessment of why she claimed the things she has.

Perhaps she sis now see it as outright lying though. I am obviously not in her head, but who knows.

Thanks for the complement. I try my best.

I suspect the reason she wasn't upfront about it is that it was an attempt to gain acceptance from "the typical gamer," i.e., "the last person to care about her arguments."

Think of it this way: how many "typical moviegoers" or "typical readers" care about whether their stories include the "damsel in distress" trope? How about "the magical girlfriend," or "the magic pixie dreamgirl?"

I'd wager not a whole hell of a lot. They just want a good story. So, why would non-academic people care about something that is 1) primarily academic, and 2a) of real concern only to storytellers and 2b) of *grave* concern only to storytellers concerned with sexism.

While I belong to categories 1) and 2a), and I make a conscious effort to avoid blatant sexism in my works, I am more concerned with telling a gripping story, which necessitates using all tools at my disposal. If a story point is mildly sexist, then so be it. If enough people of both genders say they like the story, then it can't be too offensive.

The fact is that the people she needs to be concerned with accepting her views are people in the game design field, and academics. The "typical gamer" either listens to her arguments and enjoys the academic exercise, or thinks she's an arrogant blowhard who needs to shut up.

Trying to portray herself as a "typical gamer" when she's not doesn't really affect the opinion of the latter group of gamers, and hurts her credibility with the former group of gamers.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

In other words, what an expert needs is context. An expert on paintings is not necessarily an expert painter. But an expert on paintings is capable of analysis that a layman is not. They can identify trends about technique and style, they can comment on how one artist was influenced by another. They can make claims with authority granted to them by their level of expertise. An expert can see how a single piece fits into the greater body of work and can therefore draw conclusions where a layman could only guess.

Claiming the sexism of a single piece of work is very different from claiming a trend across an entire industry. A single work can be identified as sexist easily. Even three, a dozen, or an hundred works can be identified as sexist easily. But three or twelve or an hundred individual examples of sexism does not make a trend. It is only by taking a statistically significant sample that we can identify a trend among a set of data.

I guess what constitutes a "statistically significant sample" would vary from individual to individual.

As to her credentials...again, I think it's narrative and characterization that are under scrutiny, and those are elements that are not unique to games. I don't consider game narratives or game characterizations to be distinct or separate to such a degree, or sufficiently informed by their medium, to require distinct expertise in or knowledge of the industry in order to effectively critique them.

And while I can certainly understand debating or critiquing her arguments in return, I find there to be a curious degree of hostility and verve amongst her detractors. If I made a video series called "Too many brown shooters" or "Too much DRM in modern games" or "Enough with World War II already, there are other settings guys", and I gave half a dozen examples, no one would crash into my discussion demanding "hard data" or "peer review", question my sources, or demand to know my history with the industry. They'd say "Huh, that IS a lot of brown shooters" and call it a day.

It seems to me the effective counterargument to "This is a sexist industry" is "I disagree, and here is why" followed by a list of titles supporting one's argument. Instead what I see a lot of is "This ***** is a liar! She doesn't even game!". Frankly I'm ten times as convinced that elements of the gaming community have "girl issues" post Sarkeesian "debunking" as I ever was beforehand.

Not that I include you in that, you seem perfectly sane. But I'm sure you are familiar with the phenomenon to which I am referring.

 

[Dragonbums]

Why?
Just why?

You know what these threads remind me of?

The mentality of folks during the 2012 elections.

Obama said a thing 10 years ago- commie!
He doesn't look "American enough" where's that birth certificate Obama?

That's what I'm seeing here. Which is literally the same thread that was made just recently.

A lot can change in 3 years. A lot.

3 years ago, I wasn't a fan of the Zelda series. Got introduced to Twilight Princess, now a big fan.
3 years ago, I never would of imagined on playing games on my laptop. Now I have TF2, and a whole assortment of PC games on my Steam account.
3 years ago, I poked fun at the people who spent all their time playing Elder Scrolls. Now I can proudly say I do the same.

As you can see, something Anita said three years ago, is hardly relevant now. Especially when you are attempting to make it seem like it has some sort of validity to her current videos.

It doesn't. It's a Ad Hominem at it's finest, and doesn't even begin to address her actual points she makes in her videos.

I don't even like Anita's videos. They are basically University 200 essays in video form. However it is quite entertaining to see basic level research get the amount of attention and hate that it does. So much so, that I now encourage her to make more videos, just so I can see the collective gamer community get their panties in a knot over something that should've been ignored since the day she uploaded her first video on Youtube.

 

[Dragonbums]

Why even listen to what she says? What she said has zero relevance to me. I really could care less about her opinions.

Then why are you here? If you don't care, why did you take the time out of your no doubt busy schedule to inform us you didn't care?

It's hard to ignore when every other day a thread about the "evils of feminazi Sarkeesian" graces the gaming forums.

 

[DrOswald]

In other words, what an expert needs is context. An expert on paintings is not necessarily an expert painter. But an expert on paintings is capable of analysis that a layman is not. They can identify trends about technique and style, they can comment on how one artist was influenced by another. They can make claims with authority granted to them by their level of expertise. An expert can see how a single piece fits into the greater body of work and can therefore draw conclusions where a layman could only guess.

Claiming the sexism of a single piece of work is very different from claiming a trend across an entire industry. A single work can be identified as sexist easily. Even three, a dozen, or an hundred works can be identified as sexist easily. But three or twelve or an hundred individual examples of sexism does not make a trend. It is only by taking a statistically significant sample that we can identify a trend among a set of data.

I guess what constitutes a "statistically significant sample" would vary from individual to individual.

As to her credentials...again, I think it's narrative and characterization that are under scrutiny, and those are elements that are not unique to games. I don't consider game narratives or game characterizations to be distinct or separate to such a degree, or sufficiently informed by their medium, to require distinct expertise in or knowledge of the industry in order to effectively critique them.

For an individual work I think that is correct, but identifying a trend within an entire industry/artistic discipline (which is what she is attempting to do) takes context. You cannot determine if the industry is sexist without considering the industry at large. That requires an analysis of the industry. That requires expert level knowledge of the industry.

An expert on feminism might be able to determine if a single game is sexist, but it requires an expert on video games to determine if and how the industry is sexist.

And while I can certainly understand debating or critiquing her arguments in return, I find there to be a curious degree of hostility and verve amongst her detractors. If I made a video series called "Too many brown shooters" or "Too much DRM in modern games" or "Enough with World War II already, there are other settings guys", and I gave half a dozen examples, no one would crash into my discussion demanding "hard data" or "peer review", question my sources, or demand to know my history with the industry. They'd say "Huh, that IS a lot of brown shooters" and call it a day.

I don't know about that. I have seen several of flame wars about DRM in this past week alone. People constantly bicker, flame and troll about why X game is terrible or how Microsoft is ruining games forever or how COD is the work of devils (not literally, but there are those people too.) Gamers are extremely passionate about video games. Passionate people on the internet can turn nasty really quick. Anita operates on the internet, where death threats and personal attacks are common over even minor issues. She chose to make big claims about a really important issue. I don't think the attacks have been unusually severe. And I am sure this type of behavior is not limited to the gaming community.

That said, the pointlessly hostile and sexist and all around horrible attacks against Anita have been inexcusable. This type of behavior is not unexpected but it is still disgusting and inexcusable.

It seems to me the effective counterargument to "This is a sexist industry" is "I disagree, and here is why" followed by a list of titles supporting one's argument. Instead what I see a lot of is "This ***** is a liar! She doesn't even game!". Frankly I'm ten times as convinced that elements of the gaming community have "girl issues" post Sarkeesian "debunking" as I ever was beforehand.

An out of context list really isn't a refutation of the type of argument Anita made. Like I said, I can think of several games off the top of my head in which the woman is saving the man. But that list is out of context, essentially anecdotal evidence. Anita points to a larger trend within the industry, giving specific examples of that trend but ultimately resting the argument on the strength of her expertise. The only real counters to such an argument are to produce an expert opinion of your own or to call into question the qualifications of the one making the claim.

Not that I include you in that, you seem perfectly sane.

Thanks.

 

[Hagi]

I wonder when the movie rights to Sarkeesian's story will be sold. At this point there's so much drama involved that it'd make for quite the Hollywood plot.

Doesn't even matter anymore from which side you run it, she could either be the protagonist or the antagonist. Either way, there's simply so much drama to be found.

I'm thinking a female gamer fighting against Sarkeesian might work best, that way you can really grab most of the audience on your side. There could be like a scene where she types out a brilliant response which subsequently gets removed from the comments. Then there'd of course be like a montage where you see her going through tons of videos and material to uncover this information right there. Naturally there should be a scene where our female gamer agrees with Sarkeesians goals but rejects her methods or something like that, leaving Sarkeesian to regret her work. Fade to black.

Or you could go with Sarkeesian as the protagonist, probably easier to get the movie rights that way. Just need to add in tough-but-fair father-figure of sorts, should probably be dead at that point, from whom she remembers inspirational words whenever things get tough. She should probably go in not really liking the medium and doing it for other reasons, but then gradually falling in love with it or something like that. Of course, dramatic scenes of her being misrepresented and her first videos failing. Then a montage of her playing all sorts of games for weeks on end and ending up looking like crap, then BAM! Makeover and she looks great and does a video that finally does get critical acclaim. End with inspirational quote.

 

[Seydaman]

....Okay, so?

Someone doesn't like videogames? Uhm, okay? I don't like football, or soccer, or any physical activity for that matter.

I don't like a lot of things actually. People have different interests.

Get over it, honestly now.

 

[00slash00]

Holy shit you did it, you proved that she has never been a gamer! I know that I am exactly the same now as I was in 2010, so the fact that she didn't like games back then definitely means that she doesn't like them now either