Feminist Kickstarter Project gets Harassed/Threatened

[Kahunaburger]

I simply put it back where it belonged.

Oh, so you are still saying:

To critique the product is to critique the consumer.

Care to actually defend it?

It stopped becoming a passionate side project when it started generating real and sizable revenue return.

Okay, so let's go back to the original "grandiose and sweeping statement." (This particular one, at least - you make a lot of those.)

She is and always was a professional feminist propagandist,

Yeah, turns out that when you write something on a message board, it doesn't go away. So, care to explain to me how someone who makes youtube videos as a passionate side project is a professional propagandist?

And yes, men and women in Australia do receive equal hourly pay for equal hours worked.

Hmm... let's fact-check that statement. Looks like the Australian pay gap is pretty terrible. [http://www.business.curtin.edu.au/files/295watson1.pdf] So you can rest at ease that "teh evul feminazguls" won't be taking away your video games any time soon (leave that to the social conservatives) if they don't even have enough political power to deal with the pay gap. Also, taking a step back to reality for a second, have you considered talking to some self-identified feminists in order to discover what they actually believe? Because feminism, as a philosophy, is characterized by diversity of viewpoints and debate between these viewpoints, and you're not going to find feminists marching in lock-step on an issue as contentious as speech law.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

I simply put it back where it belonged.

Oh, so you are still saying:

To critique the product is to critique the consumer.

Care to actually defend it?

My choice of phrase was a little imprecise, but I'll give it a shot.

The idea I was trying to convey is that by critiquing the product you critique the consumer or audience that it was created for. The creators of the work, the work itself and the intended audience of the work form an interconnected relationship to the extent that to turn your attention solely on one separate component of that relationship is to indirectly examine the others.

Okay, so let's go back to the original "grandiose and sweeping statement." (This particular one, at least - you make a lot of those.)

She is and always was a professional feminist propagandist,

Yeah, turns out that when you write something on a message board, it doesn't go away. So, care to explain to me how someone who makes youtube videos as a passionate side project is a professional propagandist?

http://www.feministfrequency.com/about/ <-- Information contained therein. I even watched a couple of episodes of her show before it was all cool to hate on her. Would you have preferred if I'd said she was a qualified professional propagandist, rather than a simple run of the mill professional propagandist?

And yes, men and women in Australia do receive equal hourly pay for equal hours worked.

Looks like the Australian pay gap is pretty terrible. [http://www.business.curtin.edu.au/files/295watson1.pdf]

To be completely honest I knew absolutely nothing about the pay discrimination Australian women faced when pursuing managerial careers. I don't move in the sort of circles that involve talk of glass ceilings effecting anyone I personally know, and like it or not as far as I'm concerned anyone who does earn enough to do so can look after their own problems. I'm a mere economic foot soldier in the grand scale of things, but for what it's worth and that isn't much, that is a pretty damn raw deal.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Is grandiose another one of those words you happen to really like? Like 'over-systematize'? Because c'mon, you can do better than that! Get nasty on me with a thesaurus, show me your big words with all those filthy syllables and consonants.

Really? There's nothing wrong with having a vocabulary. And "grandiose" is not a word that should have anyone reaching for their thesaurus.

The idea I was trying to convey is that by critiquing the product you critique the consumer or audience that it was created for. The creators of the work, the work itself and the intended audience of the work form an interconnected relationship to the extent that to turn your attention solely on one separate component of that relationship is to indirectly examine the others.

I see what you're trying to say, but I have to disagree. You can criticize an element of a work without criticizing the audience. In fact, I'd say audience pandering is its own specific category that can be criticized or looking at completely independently of the work itself. I can, say, praise a game like Mass Effect for its juvenile approach to sexuality while at the same time hailing certain game play conventions or characterizations, and while doing so be making no commentary whatsoever on the intended audience.

And I do wish we could stop treating feminists like some terrifying "other" on these forums, some black menace from beyond the void, reaching out with tentacles of pure estrogen to strip away all the rights and privileges of man. It's embarrassing to read.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I simply put it back where it belonged.

Oh, so you are still saying:

To critique the product is to critique the consumer.

Care to actually defend it?

My choice of phrase was a little imprecise, but I'll give it a shot.

The idea I was trying to convey is that by critiquing the product you critique the consumer or audience that it was created for. The creators of the work, the work itself and the intended audience of the work form an interconnected relationship to the extent that to turn your attention solely on one separate component of that relationship is to indirectly examine the others.

Well, it looks like I was basically ninja'd by BloatedGuppy haha, but here goes:

We all like things we don't endorse every aspect of. I like Ghost in the Shell and will hold up pretty much any version of it as one of the best cyberpunk things out there, but think it would be better without (depending on the incarnation) hilarious amounts of objectification. This doesn't mean I'm calling myself a sexist, and doesn't mean I'm calling people who like GitS sexist.

See also: Tolkien and the lack of female characters, Hemingway and (for all intents and purposes) the lack of female characters, Vance and gender essentialism, Wodehouse and replication of sexist stereotypes, and so on. It's not an attack on anyone to point out problematic aspects of things.

 

[Shavon513]

Ugh, it's not just gamers, it's everywhere. Feminists are looked upon as something extreme in all sectors of society. It's such a shame that humanity is still so uncivilized that they can't listen to a woman like Sarkeesian without all the immature reactions. I hope the government gets involved and fines some of these people. There is no excuse for threatening others; the Internet is not an excuse to lower standards of behavior.

 

[Thatrocketeer]

Well, she got 160000 dollars for her "Youtube Series", it looks extremely excessive, and you know what, it really is. Cameras, studios, and other things could amount to at least $10000-25000, and I think that's completely too much money already, Let's plays can be the main method on game research, are completely free, and it shows you the whole game, not to mention some insights on the game itself. So yeah, $160000 are TOO MUCH.

This looks nothing more than a cash grab, with her capitalizing on the image that she's an oppressed woman tormented by men.

Well, good job lady, while others may actually pity you, in my eyes you pushed backed the feminist movement by claiming to be furthering the movement but then using a "damsel in distress" schtick in order to get the funds you need. Hell, other kickstarters regarding feminism never resorted to such an underhanded trick in order to further the feminist movement.

 

[Kahunaburger]

but then using a "damsel in distress" schtick

Ahahaha no. Oh, internet.

1. Find a thing that annoys you online.
2. Give that thing free publicity.
3. Whine about being "tricked" into giving the thing that annoys you free publicity.

 

[BNguyen]

I have to say after watching her videos, I do not agree with any of her views
true she points out problems but not any sort of problem that is worth mentioning. The whole problem with her views are that she wants to either censor what people create or at least heavily impose on them to change. It would be the same as telling an artist to change their painting just because it has too much of a particular color.
If you don't like how things currently are then actually try to change them yourself, don't try to force others to conform to your views because you believe yourself to be politically correct.

Another fact is that she doesn't see the other side of the problem.
Men can also be highly stereotyped in the roles they are portrayed in.
How many games or books or movies have you seen where men seem to only fulfill the role of headstrong and buff or thin and nerdy? Her research seems to only focus on females but you can't just focus on one aspect without addressing the entire problem at hand.
The media, in all its forms with only take the form of fashion magazines - the over sexualized will always appear first and foremost while the majority will be secondhand. When she can start to put the whole issue into her videos then she can actually gain respect.

 

[Thatrocketeer]

Ahahaha no. Oh, internet.

1. Find a thing that annoys you online.
2. Give that thing free publicity.
3. Whine about being "tricked" into giving the thing that annoys you free publicity.

Except I never donated to her "cause". Hell I already saw it for the shameless cash grab that it is. I merely posted my opinion on the whole thing.

She got her project funded in 24h. If the idiots that are the gaming community would've just ignored it it would've reached the ~20-30k$ and everything would've been fine. But now the gaming community behaved like dicks, sites reported that, she got more attention and more money... and now the gaming community complains more. Good Job.

And yes, this is the gaming community. This behaviour is normal and accepted within and some even argue that this behaviour is part of gaming culture.

http://kotaku.com/5886674/bioware-writer-describes-her-gaming-tastes-angry-gamers-call-her-a-cancer

http://kotaku.com/5889637/sexual-harassment-is-a-joke-to-these-fighting-game-fans

And this are the most prominent cases of this year.

What are you talking about? It's the gaming community that's more or less backing the whole thing, a quick look at the comments in the kickstarter page can tell you that. Hell, the gaming community is more or less the misrepresented party in this whole mess anyways.

From the article, it's the Youtube community that's been mostly hurling slurs at her, not gaming, YOUTUBE, the community that's known to be the worst among all communities around, hell, it's even worse than 4chan! People there are overtly aggressive, not to mention prone to threats the moment you post something that they disagree with especially with touchy topics like the feminist movement itself. I'm not surprised that this is the community that they chose to represent her "attackers", anyone can get a sob story with this community.

But do you wanna know how you can avoid those comments? Disable the comments on your video. You can do that if you posted the video. You don't need the comments anyway if you just want people to know about your kickstarter thing. Clearly she didn't, and hell, she was able to use that for her schtick. And you're wondering why I didn't take her side.

Also, Kotaku overtly exaggerates things, though I may have seen the Hepler thing back on /v/ and here. But hey, Bioware had their own PR to deal with that mess, not to mention I remember Hepler actually baiting the trolls by fighting back. She should've just let the PR people of Bioware handle those stuff.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

So you assume that it's a scam on her part?

Confirmation biases are wonderful things. All feminists are wily tricksters, didn't you know?

 

[Thatrocketeer]

I'm willing to bet money that if a professional game reviewer based all of their reviews on Let's Play videos, half this forum would call for their blood. So that's a hollow statement.

Game reviewers also need to review graphics, how a game works, bugs and glitches, replayability, technical stuff about the game.

She's doing a documentary on female characters and how they're represented in video games.

Thing is, you don't need to play a game to know and judge a character, you do need to play it to know and judge technicalities in a game. There's a difference. Let's plays can let you know a character for free, without getting into the technicalities, plus some free insight on characters. Ever seen the LP on KOTOR 2? They did a great job on explaining Kreia's character, not to mention providing some insights as well.

Did you pay attention to what happened at all? She put the thing up, got harassed, it was reported on, and people funded her because the visibility increased. Why are you blaming her instead of the people who made this such a big deal?

I'm not blaming her. I'm saying I'm having a hard time seeing this as a not-a-cash-grab kickstarter. The article said that youtube comments are the main source of harassment, which could've been avoided had she disabled the comments when posting her video.

The article did nothing but generalize the gaming community once again and placed it in a light where we're the "bad guys" once again, when in fact that there are other types of communities in youtube aside from gamers that could've made the harassments such as those who hate feminism as a movement, those who hate her, those who hate her views, and so on and so forth.

If you'd take a look at the comments in her kickstarter page, you can see that mostly gamers support her cause.

 

[Ryotknife]

So you assume that it's a scam on her part?

It feels that way to me. This is nothing against what she is trying to accomplish but a lack of faith in humanity in general when it comes to that kind of cash (or any kind of cash really). Hell, it may not have even started as a scam but merely smelled opportunity when the commenters attacked.

That kind of cash can easily split families, a person selling out is trivial compared to that. I guess it now depends on how she uses the cash.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Because rape was not meant to be the joke

Yep. But it was part of the joke's set-up, and when they got called out on that, they absolutely started making rape trigger jokes,

Where?

Check this thread for a link - I'm pretty sure I left one a page or two back from the quoted post.