How can "gamers" and "social justice warriors" get along?

[Dragonbums]

How?

SImple SJW's... stop attacking us

Does that even happen on this website? I'm not being accusatory, I'm honestly curious.

No, it doesn't.

Like seriously if your projecting your very identity into a hobby such as videogames, than it's no wonder you get defensive about it. We aren't talking about you as the player. We aren't even really talking about the base morals of the people who made this game. We are talking about the product presented to us.

If your entire being is videogames than your going to have a very hard time.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Of the above image, I don't see how the women on the right is sexualized. I know plenty of women in my college who dress like that. Hell, just look at pictures on Instagram.

Is it because she has big boobs? LOL, compared to the muscular handsome shirtless hunks in every game lol.

So do you really not see it, or are you trying to make a point that you see, but don't think it's a problem. Because they are very different. It's practically a game of spot difference sexulation version. See if you can spot all the ways the character has been made to look more sexy. (I found around 6.)

Big boobs ( So mythical and unrealistic!), bare midriff ( wow! So sexualized), and makeup. Stuff that women wear every day.

Like I don't get it, do you want women to be ugly or something? I call sexualized stripper poses and chainmail bikini armor, not something you would wear during the summer time lol.

Boobs that large don't really look like that, for one. They tend to sag quite a bit (not to mention how rare it is to have boobs that big with that body shape, without any sort of implants).

But the issue isn't that the one on the right is too sexy. Both girls are pretty attractive in different ways. The difference is that the picture on the left was made to look like a real person, and one on the right was designed primarily to be attractive to dudes. That's the issue. When male characters are designed, it's "how do I make this guy look cool?" When female characters are designed, it's "I want 13-year-old boys to fap to this."

(On a side note, I think it should be a rule that, if you are going to intentionally make your character sexy, you actually have to show them going after guys and having full-on sex. A sexy girl girl character who just prances around being sexy, but doesn't actually have a sex life, is just a juvenile fantasy. It's softcore porn at that point.)

Well I didn't know boobs had o "look" a particular way to not be fanservicey or not, but whatever.

There are plenty of women who would love to look like tat, not to just to attract boys ( many of my female classmates talk about each others boobs, so I don' know.)

And look like an actual person. So you think curvy women with flat stomachs don't exist? Better go tell my college friends that they are objectifying themselves lol.

Spoiler

Sp mthical and unrealisic.

And besides, why would you want someone to look like someone you see every day anyway. I'd much rather see attractive bodies than normal nancies or dull Dan's. If I wanted to do that, I'd just go outside.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

They won't get along. They don't need to get along.

It becomes a lot easier when you stop caring about the politics surrounding gaming. Yea there are issues that should be addressed (bad business practices, etc.), but lately it seems like every issue no matter how small is suddenly a mountain of injustice.

If you're letting the bullshit that's on websites such as this actually interfere with your ability to enjoy your hobby, there's a problem.

Kinda hard to enjoy your games when people are complaining that the stuff you like is sexist or racist, and whoever likes them will be that way in real life.

Sarkesian was literally comparing the people who play Hitman and Bayonetta as subway molesters and wife beaters lol. ( Though, it's obvious she doesn't know what she's talking about, anyway.)

But whatever.

 

[Notshauna]

Eventually the average gamer will become diverse enough that the SJWs will see far more diverse roster of game characters and better ones too.

But, in regards to sexualization male characters rarely are sexualized mainly for the same reason why many female characters are, most developers are straight men. Sexualization is caused when a decision is made to make a character more sexy, be it a skin tight catsuit, cleavage windows, chiseled features with just enough stubble, et cetera; the important thing is the reasoning not the result, many male characters might be attractive and sexy by traditional standards but they are not sexualized unless they were designed to be so. Of course sexualization in itself isn't bad, there are good sexualized characters, it's only a problem when a character is sexualized in a manner that goes against their character or when they aren't characters just glorified blow up dolls.

Alright do tell me what makes a male character sexualized. See women have told me various things in regards to this, but they seem to most often tell me that the genitilia should be portruding. Something that men don't even ask for as far as making something blatantly portruding.

What do you suggest as an alternative as far as making men sexy to women, that is not something that is considered generally societally unaccapetable?

The genitalia protruding example is really only comparable to the most explicitly sexualized characters, which despite what a lot of writers suggest is very rare. Examples include many of the Mortal Combat women, Ivy from Soul Calibur, Dead and Alive (the whole thing), and Jessica Rabbit. I'm not aware of male characters this sexualized, though I am certain they exist.

The more common and more acceptable form of sexualization is pretty easy to describe and I'll do so with a couple male characters I know to be deliberately sexualized, Nathan Drake, Feneris from Dragon Age 2 and Varus from League of Legends. Nathan Drake is witty and with lean muscles, just the right amount of messyness in his hair and just enough stubble, the man is essential a model brought to life in a game and given a desire for adventure. Feneris is broody, he's designed to be the teenage heartthrob of the bunch and knows it, only revealing his sensitive side to those who he loves. And finally Varus has the brooding personality and the lean muscle of an archer, the fact he's only wearing a relatively small amount of clothing and that which he wears is rather tight makes for a character described by the creators as sexy.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Well I didn't know boobs had o "look" a particular way to not be fanservicey or not, but whatever.

There are plenty of women who would love to look like tat, not to just to attract boys ( many of my female classmates talk about each others boobs, so I don' know.)

And look like an actual person. So you think curvy women with flat stomachs don't exist? Better go tell my college friends that they are objectifying themselves lol.

Spoiler

Sp mthical and unrealisic.

And besides, why would you want someone to look like someone you see every day anyway. I'd much rather see attractive bodies than normal nancies or dull Dan's. If I wanted to do that, I'd just go outside.

Let's see:

1. Boobs should looks like real breasts that women actually have. Anything else is 100% fanservice. (Fun fact: boobs weigh more than a volleyball).

2. True, there are billions of women on this planet, at least one of them probably thinks that. The vast, vast majority of women I know would not want boobs that big. (The key words in this paragraph are "I don' know." That's okay! You don't have to have an opinion on things you don't know anything about)

3. Oh my god, no one is saying they don't exist. It's all about the intent. Your college friends are all real people with sex lives and personalities. They were not created by God to be fapped to. Most female characters in video games, however, are created to be fapped to by 13-year-old boys. That's the difference.

The issue is that these characters are created with the intent that 13-year-old boys will want to fap to them. Not that women like that don't exist. Does that make sense?

4. So you're admitting that you just want your video game characters to fappable. If that's the case, why are you only defending fappable female characters? Most male characters aren't fappable at all! If they were, they'd look like this:

Spoiler

Top google search for "Cute Guy"

1.) I don't see the diffrence between the game character picture and the women I posted before.

2.) Explain why women go to get breast implants then.

3.) So anytime a women is attractive, it is to appeal to teenage boys. Ok then lol.

Besides, it's not like there are actual that many games with female characters like that, and even if they are, the males in the game are equally dressed in skimpy clothing too. I didn't see any skimpy clothed female characters at E3 this year.


4.) I don't speak for all owmen, but many of the ones I know say they want big strong man. Whenever I go to the gym, they always stare at the muscular hunk football players. The shows I watch, like Arrow, Spartacus, and the Marvel Cimenatic Universe, with muscular hunks like Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman are all extremely popular with women.

Many male game characters fit that mold, yet no one complains.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

ANother thing about the Real women vs Fictional women...

I don't get it, why would you compare yourself to someone that doesn't exist. I can't fly or shoot lazers out of eyes, nor do I have a perfectly chiseled body builder physique, but I don't complain.

It's senseless to compare yourself to someone who isn't even a "someone" in the first place lol.

 

[ultratog1028]

As someone who spends probably 60% of my time online on Tumblr, I have to say, occasionally people do call them out on it, though it rarely is seen. A popular opinion gets noticed more on tumblr. So people logically disproving why something is wrong doesn't get as much attention as the source post by default.

Tumblr isn't wrong, they are just overacting. Most of tumblr isn't actually filled with SJW. Just regular people. The ones that leak out to other places just tend to be loud, obnoxious and give most of the sight a bad name. The loudest and most extreme opinions get the most attention so people who want to feel liked use extreme opinions to get notes and such. Audience + Anonymity = Asshat. Tumblr people just tend to be a different type of asshat then say /b/.

 

[ultratog1028]

Also, Tumblr has to deal with SJW more then you. See? not all Tumblr people agree with SJW: http://www.tumblr.com/search/sjw

 

[Something Amyss]

... Or should that be "bogeywoman"?

(Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

I am offended by your attempt to retcon my monster under the bed!

<.<

Hence why I reffered to them as "people" and not SJWs. Whilst "social justice" is the topic at hand and not just the act of demanding diversity.

And I referred to "Social Justice" as well. That's the issue. Though "Social Justice Warrior" is largely concentric for the purposes of this topic.

I'm still suspect that the "people" demanding it all the time are nothing more than a bogeyma---errr...bogeyperson or strawperson.

From what I can see, this would be tantamount to the claim that people demand new endings to games all the time based on the Mass Effect 3 dbacle and a couple other lesser incidents.

Most of the big "social justice" controversies come with some sort of context. It's not so much that there needs to be a female Assassin in Unisex so much as they claimed that it was too costly in one respect or another. It wasn't that there was going to be "rape" in Tomb Raider, but that it was described as a character defining moment for Lara. even Tomodachi Life got sparked because of some translation that implied gays were abnormal.

Most games don't have this controversy and that should be telling.

I don't think anyone is out there looking for a black, hispanic, asian, gay, female, trans, bisexuals, pansexual, left-handed, handicapped or atheist option for every game. Though, to be honest, I would like more of these options in more games. The difference is in the notion that there's any significant number of people who want it "all the time." I bet most such alleged people are simply annoyed at the overarcing trend and not out for anything close to full time demands.

And that's why those specific ones bubble up. Because something particularly stupid happens.

 

[Therumancer]

Lately, I've been noticing a massive divide between hardcore gamers and gaming journalists or critics with a social agenda. There has been a lot of accusing, finger pointing, misrepresentation on both sides, and an ugliness that I hoped never to witness.

What is the middle ground and how do we reach it?

The fact is that gaming has become a mainstream hobby and developers, publishers, artists, etc. should have the freedom to create whatever they want and critics have the right to criticize whatever they want. How do we move past the argument? How do we move past the name calling? How do we find the the paradise where all gamers, social and hardcore, man and woman, can join hands and say "We love Video Games!"? I like games but there's always room to get better, whether it's graphical, gameplay related or in a social meaning.

Can't we all just... get along?

The problem as I see it is that SJWs on one hand will argue they don't want to take games away from people or change what they are, while at the same time saying that they pretty much want to take away a lot of the creative freedom and pretty much force people into quotas. What makes someone a SJW is fighting for such things, and actually going out of their way to point out when someone doesn't meet their personal social agenda, and passing judgment on it. The problem is that in many cases such people tend to get into a groove where it becomes more about politics and someone's personal ivory tower ideals, than about games themselves.

Basically a lot of the resistance is that when SJWs tend to start getting involved, everything gets turned politically correct. Gamers as a general rule want to see gaming remain a sort of wild west of creative freedom. The occasional really offensive game is a small price to pay for freedom. What's more if the philosophies of SJWs ever become truly mainstream they will be reflected in games without needing to be pushed. Basically a lot of SJWs want to use games as a way of pushing a specific idealogy as opposed to reflecting what's out there. If people like you, or that think like you, or members of whatever group, don't appear very often in games, that's because they just aren't much of a mainstream societal force yet. With time that will happen on it's own if it's going to happen, and people will accept it on their own. Nobody wants you trying to force things down their throat or telling game companies what they should be making based on social principles. Heck, when you consider that the point of entire, huge, game franchises is to get away from societal norms and be fairly sociopathic (Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto) it should make it fairly clear that gamers do this to get away from reality.

The two sides by definition can't get along as they are diametrically opposed. There is no middle ground, you either turn games into a socio-political platform and start imposing standards, or you don't. People tend to get kind of miffed in being told that it's somehow wrong for a game to not be politically correct or meeting with someone's particular social idealogy.

I think a lot of it is also that this is purely an American phenomena as you tend to see Americans argueing largely about western games, and that in many respects makes a lot of SJW arguments seem hypocritical. For example you see Japanese games featuring all Japanese casts, and say Russian games featuring all Russian casts, yet it's rare that you see a SJW saying "you know, this JRPG is just wrong because there wasn't enough ethnic diversity" when really those mono-ethnic cultures are more offensive to the ideal being proposed than the people they spend all their time criticizing. This is why a lot of those opposing SJWs oftentimes get snarky in pointing out that the typical platform seems to be racism against white westerners since that seems to be the only group ever accused of being too prolific in games. You rarely hear someone complain about too many Russians (eastern even if white) or Japanese/Korean/whatever people in a game from those areas.