Criticism as a defense against Criticism

[Twintix]

It's possible you're crossing this with another game, which was an RPG. There was one where the cover artwork had the female character more exposed than the male. Divinity: Original Sin, that was it. The art was changed and the artist didn't take it well. He railed against "forced self-censorship"--the idea that it's a horrible thing that the people who opt to publish or commission your work can set limits upon it if you wish to be paid--which is one of those things anyone who has ever lived in civilisation should scratch their head at.

Our kickstarter campaign for Divinity: Original Sin has gotten quite some criticism on its original poster art. Apparently it was deemed to be sexistic and women unfriendly by the way the female protagonist was portrayed: with a bare belly. A bare belly was for some enough a trigger to send our company enough hate and threatening mails to persuade my boss to ask me to change the cover. I did, but did so reluctantly. Disagreeing wholeheartedly with the claim of the artwork being sexistic, the better half of me decided to meet "offended-by-design" people somewhere in the middle.

That's the original and modified art, and the artist's comment about being less than thrilled to change it. Note the bit about "hate and threatening mails" which are something of a consistent theme in these sort of situations (when shaming doesn't work alone, threats and doxxing usually follow in short order).

This wasn't "boss asked me to change it because he didn't like it", it was "boss told me to change it because we were getting threats." Here's the irony: if it were a bunch of people sending Wu threats demanding that she change Rev 60 to meet someone's arbitrary standards, it would be seen as a transmisogynistic attack on her for daring to be a trans woman in the gaming industry and many of the same people treating the D:OS thing as no big deal would see it entirely differently.

I, uh... actually prefer the "after" picture. It's sexy as well as functional and I hope that others realize that the two are very compatible.

But regardless, why is everybody's kneejerk reaction to things they don't like "send them death threats" these days? It's happening to people involved in GamerGate and game writers for having the "wrong" opinion and concept artists for drawing the "wrong" things. Jesus...

 

[Schadrach]

I, uh... actually prefer the "after" picture. It's sexy as well as functional and I hope that others realize that the two are very compatible.

I could take it or leave it, but that was the change made in response to the far more important thing that people like the one I replied to like to leave out which is that this wasn't the artist's boss wanting it changed because he didn't like it, but in response to hate mail and threats.

But regardless, why is everybody's kneejerk reaction to things they don't like "send them death threats" these days? It's happening to people involved in GamerGate and game writers for having the "wrong" opinion and concept artists for drawing the "wrong" things. Jesus...

It happens to everyone with more than 10 readers involved in every side of the GamerGate stuff. If it's a person and not a company being targeted there's also "try to get them fired from a job unrelated to my complaints about them" that's as, if not more, popular. Honestly, I don't have a good answer as to why it's become such a popular tactic except that it appears to work frequently unless the target is a woman who is good at monetizing victimhood.

I do think it says everything about the kind of tribalism going on in that stuff that the "good guys" (according to the dominant media narrative) are defending pedophilia these days. Which is extra ironic after the 8chan stuff about a year ago.

 

[FreeRunner]

This reminds me of a video of a man arguing with a religious person on a college campus. He said something like "no tolerance for intolerance!"

 

[Twintix]

I, uh... actually prefer the "after" picture. It's sexy as well as functional and I hope that others realize that the two are very compatible.

I could take it or leave it, but that was the change made in response to the far more important thing that people like the one I replied to like to leave out which is that this wasn't the artist's boss wanting it changed because he didn't like it, but in response to hate mail and threats.

Hmmmm, true. An artist should be able to draw what they want without kneejerk reactions like that.

Just like a work should be able to have minorities without being accused of tokenism and pandering to the PC crowd. If we look past the obvious difference that nobody has demanded a change in a character's gender/skin colour because of accusations of being a SJW, that is.

It's a shame that companies can't give some people a professional middle finger sometimes.

 

[Abomination]

If it's a person and not a company being targeted there's also "try to get them fired from a job unrelated to my complaints about them" that's as, if not more, popular. Honestly, I don't have a good answer as to why it's become such a popular tactic except that it appears to work frequently unless the target is a woman who is good at monetizing victimhood.

Remember, there are no poor tactics, just poor targets.

I think that's the general SJW mantra these days.

 

[Schadrach]

Just like a work should be able to have minorities without being accused of tokenism and pandering to the PC crowd. If we look past the obvious difference that nobody has demanded a change in a character's gender/skin colour because of accusations of being a SJW, that is.

I've noticed the tendency is for lots of people to complain about this when it involves retconning existing characters and the like, but lots of people complain whenever you break canon without a damn good reason.

You see a lot less of it when talking about new characters being whatever gender or race. You didn't see really any complaining about Lee or Clementine's race from TellTale's Walking Dead, or Max Caulfield's gender (or the bits that suggest her expressly either lesbian or bi friend Chloe Price has a thing for her) from Life Is Strange (side note, if you like the kind of games that TellTale typically makes, this is a *fantastic* example of the genre [it's also proof that DONTNOD can do something really good, as opposed to Remember Me], arguably the best such game to date. Play it. Now. Last chapter due out 10/20.), or wherever else. Hell, there weren't many people complaining about Kaine from Nier's sex/gender either, and Kaine was a femme (and very sexualized and intentionally so) intersex character.

It's a shame that companies can't give some people a professional middle finger sometimes.

Don't see why you couldn't spam filter some keywords that show up commonly in the threats and hatemail, politely tell them you have no intention of changing your title to meet their demands and go about your business despite them -- the number of people whose decisions to buy or not will be effected is a drop in the bucket. See CDPR and the people complaining about the lack of brown people in what is essentially mythic Poland in the Witcher 3.

The Pillars of Eternity thing was kind of interesting in this regard, as the hate mob formed over a backer-supplied epitaph deemed alternatively homophobic or transmisogynistic and did not let up when Obsidian caved and asked the backer to write a replacement, as his replacement epitaph poem was essentially mocking the same folks to demanded it be changed (in the new epitaph, he's killed because people misread his joke). Of course, it has 5 thousand-odd reviews on Steam (89% positive), and an all-time high of 42 thousand simultaneous players (for comparison that's about half the peak for Witcher 3 or MGSV for a Kickstarter funded indie cRPG inspired heavily by Baldur's Gate).

Hate mobs don't have to be your audience, because most of those in them never were to begin with.

 

[C14N]

I do see this a lot alright, often mixed up with total misunderstanding of "freedom of speech" and whatever as well. I vaguely remember it happening a lot when that PC RPG game came out where one of the female characters had ridiculously huge boobs and some games sites criticised it for objectifying women, being juvenile, blah blah, and then a load of people who I guess really like massive tits in their games started complaining about how this was censoring artists or creators or whatever as though free speech only worked one way.

It does seem to be more often a two step process as opposed to the 3 step one the OP seems to believe exists.

I guess it's more something I see on internet discussions, but I do kind of get what the OP means too. You especially see it on sites like Reddit where your comments get downvoted, which many people basically treat as a form of censorship. I couldn't count on two hands the number of times I've seen a comment where someone is complaining that a community is censoring their opinions on X or Y topic because their comment got downvoted for it. Ironically, a huge number of these complaints get heavily upvoted.

I'm surprised that downvotes would be viewed as a form of censorship. A comment with a slew of downvotes can be a magnet for viewers with an adequate amount of morbid curiosity. Of course, it can also cause people to assume that you're saying something dumb before they even read your comment. Still, in my case, that usually gets resolved after I've done the reading.

That is true, there's a sort of curiosity to see what kind of thing the person everyone hates said, but for the most part you get buried at the bottom of the list of comments and most people never make it far enough to bother reading it.

 

[Fallow]

Kinda like every topic on social issues ever

Im putting this on a bumper sticker.

The problems arise when people conflate criticism to harassment and think they can never be wrong.

Conflate criticism to harassment, or conflate criticism to "censorship" .

Honestly, a lot of people just have extreme difficulty whenever they encounter an opinion that does not align with theirs. I'd offer some recent or timely incident as demonstration but my word, take your pick.

What, why would anyone go on the internet if they couldn't comport themselves properly?

The Pillars of Eternity thing was kind of interesting in this regard, as the hate mob formed over a backer-supplied epitaph deemed alternatively homophobic or transmisogynistic and did not let up when Obsidian caved and asked the backer to write a replacement, as his replacement epitaph poem was essentially mocking the same folks to demanded it be changed (in the new epitaph, he's killed because people misread his joke). Of course, it has 5 thousand-odd reviews on Steam (89% positive), and an all-time high of 42 thousand simultaneous players (for comparison that's about half the peak for Witcher 3 or MGSV for a Kickstarter funded indie cRPG inspired heavily by Baldur's Gate).

Or it could be because the damn thing was so frikkin confusing that I still don't know if Obsidian did the right thing (putting the offer to the supporter) or not (maybe should have stood firm by their backers and never asked in the first place). It's very difficult to maintain a heated 'maybe' in such debates.

 

[C14N]

Yeah I think that's it. I didn't really follow it very closely, I just remember it being brought up once or twice in Jimquisition. I guess it might have been a brawler, I just saw a small bit of footage and I guess I thought it was an RPG based on that and the aesthetic.

It's possible you're crossing this with another game, which was an RPG. There was one where the cover artwork had the female character more exposed than the male. Divinity: Original Sin, that was it. The art was changed and the artist didn't take it well. He railed against "forced self-censorship"--the idea that it's a horrible thing that the people who opt to publish or commission your work can set limits upon it if you wish to be paid--which is one of those things anyone who has ever lived in civilisation should scratch their head at.

Yeah, bummer. And if I were to show up for work without pants, I wouldn't get paid, either. My continued employment is contingent on self-censorship. Such cultural marxism in action.

Anyway, I believe the game was also featured on Jimquisition, and it was billed as a cRPG (which is now on consoles).

OT, but still related: Like with the notion of censorship, the validity of criticism depends on what's being said. A friend of mine just blocked someone for a comment which used three words, all of which are negative terms to describe a woman. After he was blocked, the guy declared she couldn't take criticism. And if the comment had been more than three insults, he might have an argument. This is something I've noticed a lot. Snarl words called "criticism." Insults, strawmen, outright fabrications.

I get an artist being annoyed by having their work messed with, but the simple fact is that if you're doing it for a wage for somebody else, you've got to conform to what they want. It's very childish to complain about the person who hired you to draw something making changes to it when they're the ones who have to sell it.

What's worse though is when you get fans who complain about censorship when it was the original creator who decided to censor something. I saw a Crash Course Astronomy video recently that had been taken down and re-uploaded. The creators made a pretty mild, subtle joke that might have been seen as offensive to transgender people and it was taken down and re-uploaded without the joke. Of course, most of the top comments under the video were about this, and most of those were complaining about the SJW fascists who make everyone conform to their agenda etc. This was despite the fact that the creator made a blog post explaining that his staff noticed the joke was a bit iffy and that he immediately wanted to change it so he wouldn't cause offense. He and his team did it entirely of their own accord. It wasn't the government coming and shutting them down, it wasn't a lynch mob trying to sue them, they just wanted their educational video to not have the joke but that wasn't enough for some people. It's not the only time I've seen this, it's just one of the more glaring examples.

People don't seem to realise that part of your freedom of expression is your right to not say things. It's not 1984 just because some people choose to be compassionate and try to empathise with someone else instead of deliberately trying to provoke and upset others and getting defensive and doubling down if anyone points out something they did that is mean or that just has unfortunate implications.

 

[sageoftruth]

I do see this a lot alright, often mixed up with total misunderstanding of "freedom of speech" and whatever as well. I vaguely remember it happening a lot when that PC RPG game came out where one of the female characters had ridiculously huge boobs and some games sites criticised it for objectifying women, being juvenile, blah blah, and then a load of people who I guess really like massive tits in their games started complaining about how this was censoring artists or creators or whatever as though free speech only worked one way.

It does seem to be more often a two step process as opposed to the 3 step one the OP seems to believe exists.

I guess it's more something I see on internet discussions, but I do kind of get what the OP means too. You especially see it on sites like Reddit where your comments get downvoted, which many people basically treat as a form of censorship. I couldn't count on two hands the number of times I've seen a comment where someone is complaining that a community is censoring their opinions on X or Y topic because their comment got downvoted for it. Ironically, a huge number of these complaints get heavily upvoted.

I'm surprised that downvotes would be viewed as a form of censorship. A comment with a slew of downvotes can be a magnet for viewers with an adequate amount of morbid curiosity. Of course, it can also cause people to assume that you're saying something dumb before they even read your comment. Still, in my case, that usually gets resolved after I've done the reading.

That is true, there's a sort of curiosity to see what kind of thing the person everyone hates said, but for the most part you get buried at the bottom of the list of comments and most people never make it far enough to bother reading it.

Ah, so they order them according to popularity?

 

[C14N]

I do see this a lot alright, often mixed up with total misunderstanding of "freedom of speech" and whatever as well. I vaguely remember it happening a lot when that PC RPG game came out where one of the female characters had ridiculously huge boobs and some games sites criticised it for objectifying women, being juvenile, blah blah, and then a load of people who I guess really like massive tits in their games started complaining about how this was censoring artists or creators or whatever as though free speech only worked one way.

It does seem to be more often a two step process as opposed to the 3 step one the OP seems to believe exists.

I guess it's more something I see on internet discussions, but I do kind of get what the OP means too. You especially see it on sites like Reddit where your comments get downvoted, which many people basically treat as a form of censorship. I couldn't count on two hands the number of times I've seen a comment where someone is complaining that a community is censoring their opinions on X or Y topic because their comment got downvoted for it. Ironically, a huge number of these complaints get heavily upvoted.

I'm surprised that downvotes would be viewed as a form of censorship. A comment with a slew of downvotes can be a magnet for viewers with an adequate amount of morbid curiosity. Of course, it can also cause people to assume that you're saying something dumb before they even read your comment. Still, in my case, that usually gets resolved after I've done the reading.

That is true, there's a sort of curiosity to see what kind of thing the person everyone hates said, but for the most part you get buried at the bottom of the list of comments and most people never make it far enough to bother reading it.

Ah, so they order them according to popularity?

There's a slightly more complicated algorithm that also takes into account the age of the posts (to try and help newer posts have a chance to be seen too) but yeah, it's mostly that more popular posts will be at the top of the list and the most visible.