How did The Escapist's culture change so much?

[Guerilla]

Oh, this thread is fun. The person is looking for safe space. Safe from what? opinions that disagree? As far as i can see The Escapist is pretty safe. i mean even hinting at an insult will get you warned here, let alone an actual threat.

It is no secret amongst rational libertarian individuals (libertarian in the non-American sense of the word that can be both left or right, personally I'm a socialist libertarian for example) that SJWs are an Orwellian nightmare as far as terminology and authoritarianism are concerned. "Safe space" pretty much means censorship of every opinion that isn't theirs, "oppression" is free speech, democratic process, even counter arguments to their talking points they parrot and 99% of the time can't support, "aggression" is insisting on arguing against their bullshit, "psychological violence" means debate and hate group means everyone who disagrees with them.

 

[Phasmal]

Nobody gives a shit. The persecution complexes some gamers have are absolutely ridiculous. 99% of the time they're the result of nerds yelling at other nerds on internet forums they willingly went to for the express purpose of shouting at one another.

Even as someone who -back in the day- did get bullied a bit for liking games, the whole `gamers r persecuted against` has gotten way way out of hand. And besides, back then I was mostly teased for liking games by other people who liked games, figure that one out. =P

OT: I feel like there are a lot of people on the Escapist who feel they are being wronged in some way. I've seen the notion so many times recently that `outsiders` are coming to `change/remove our games`. That kind of paranoia cannot be healthy for anyone, and it's bound to make people who buy into it angry. Staying out of the GG stuff because gawd it is honestly so boring I don't know how anyone can stay invested in it.

But yeah, I don't think the Escapist is actually as bad as it used to be. I remember topics like `Can you make a whore into a housewife` and the like, which were A-Okay back then apparently. But we have our fair share of angry nerds, because nerds are good at being angry, generally. And we've been moving from controversy-to-controversy without much downtime and I think a lot of more moderate people have moved on.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Actually, the Escapist forums have been the laughing stock of the internet for many years, because...reasons. I actually have no idea why. Perhaps they're jealous?

In any case, I don't really understand why people get so worked up about certain forum topics when nobody's forcing them to participate. Take the R&P subforums, for instance. Speaking as a Christian, I'd be lying if I said it's not tiring to read so many threads that are openly hostile to religion (and when folks around here say they hate "religion," it's usually code for "Judeo-Christian faith"). My solution? I don't read them. There's plenty of alternatives in other subforums and their respective topics. Life's too short to get worked up over forum posts, and I'm not going to change anybody's mind by getting myself involved.

As for GG, it's a normal development we'd get lots of refugees when practically the rest of the internet banned discussion of the topic. Also, it wouldn't have soldiered on so prominently if certain users that shall remain nameless didn't poke the proverbial beehive so often. For all their whining about it and wishing it would go away, some GG opponents around here sure loved trying to pick fights in the megathreads, belittling participants in a shameful display of passive-aggressiveness. Hell, the second megathread fell into a routine where every Sunday a group of users would try to actively derail the thread, resort to ad hominem attacks, and generally stir up shit for its own sake.

 

[Risingblade]

This forum was fun once,then all the feminist talk appeared.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Changed so fast? The Escapist has been around for 10 years now... in internet time that is about a ten thousand years.
Plain and simply this is no longer a local friends club but a vast public place where any and all crazies can get their moment for fame, then everyone who had their shit together feels compelled to descend into madness with them.

 

[Kingjackl]

It's clearly to do with GamerGate. Early on, the Escapist became known as the one big site that was allowing discussion of those issues, for better or worse. Unfortunately, while that megathread did have it's fair share of reasonable discussion, they pushed it too far when they published those terrible interviews with a whole bunch of mostly pro-GG game developers. That gave it the image of a pro-GG haven, which is synonymous with "shit-hole". Doesn't help that it also cost the site it's best draw by pissing off Jim Sterling, who took a lot of punters with him.

That was the start of a downward spiral. While Moviebob claims his own sacking wasn't related to GG, it's clear a lot of Gators took that as a sign to move in now that the site had fired one of their most aggressively vocal detractors. Now, Critical Intel, Miracle of Sound and LoadingReadyRun are gone, and soon it's going to be back to just the Zero Punctuation site. When the two main draws to the site are tolerance of a now largely condemned hate group, and a series that's well known for being overly cynical, that's going to colour the audience, and not in a good way.

Just look at some of the threads that have popped up recently. "Why is it only sexual harassment when men do it?", "I hate Wil Wheaton because he likes Anita Sarkessian", and "Why are there so many LGBT characters? SOCIAL JUSTICE PROPAGANDA!" These are all paraphrased threads I've seen around in the last week, and all of them were totally lacking in self-awareness of how disgusting and stupid that sort of content looks to the outside world.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I felt that it was a safe place, where we weren't like the people on Joystiq or PC Gamer, we were more civil, more considerate.

I think you mean passive aggressive, and often in line with your views.
I can assure you, expressing an opinion here that is contrary to the majority is just as pointless a venture as anywhere else.
Instead of screaming ****** at you you though, people here would prefer to take the much more annoying passive aggressive route.

And, as has always been a constant, the Escapists forums current focus is whatever currently has everywhere else in flames. It was feminism in general for a while, then feminism in games and now I guess the 5 guys incident was a good segue into ethics in journalism. The fact that your opinion differs from most peoples here is the only difference. The Escapist itself has not changed.
And I guess its unusual the the site is so split over the issue. Normally there is a clear majority, such as the general negativity towards Sarkeesian, but in this case I have no clue who the majority is here.

 

[IceForce]

Easily explained. The site's content tends to have a fairly noticeable effect on the type of userbase the site has.

When ZP first came to this site, there was an extremely obvious shift in the site's demographic and culture.
Likewise, when Jim and Bob both left recently, they took with them much of their fanbase, which once again caused a noticeable change to the site's culture.

GG has played a small part too, but it's only one piece of the wider picture.

Hell, the second megathread fell into a routine where every Sunday a group of users would try to actively derail the thread, resort to ad hominem attacks, and generally stir up shit for its own sake.

 

[ForumSafari]

There was a mass exodus on 4chan /v/ near the end of 2014, when moot decided to ban all gamergate discussion.

The funny thing is that currently the Escapist forums contain more shitposting than the boards I frequent.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I think you mean passive aggressive-

Oh, no, that's still very much alive hereabouts.

I'd go so far as to say it's part of the Escapist user bases' collective identity.

See the very posts in this thread for reference.

 

[Random Argument Man]

I hate saying that's it has a culture of beating a deadhorse, but it really became this lately.

 

[megs1120]

I genuinely felt like standing and applauding that post, and not just because it's always nice to see another gamer that's as old as I am! )

It's not easy having more than two decades under your belt on this forum sometimes, I tells ya. Most days I feel like this:

Spoiler

People will make a "name the video game that got you started!" thread and people are posting MASS EFFECT! and BIOSHOCK! and I just want to curl up and have a cry.

Ha, same here, my first game was PT-109 in 1988, which was a big hit, so it must have sold around a hundred thousand copies.

 

[megs1120]

See that, expressing dismay that "people" would deign to have any concern for the treatment of vaguely humanoid monsters ("trolls"), who disturb civilized proceedings with their unsanitary behavior ("shit up panels")? I'd say the dehumanization going on here is a fitting example of the "coarsening" of the culture that we may bemoan, but hardly remain untouched by ourselves.

Good point, in retrospect, I could have worded that a lot better, but I was in a hurry to be somewhere and had to throw out a response quickly.

 

[megs1120]

OK, this is quite an exaggeration. Are there members here who have often expressed the idea that men are oppressed (and are doing so unironically)? Yes. Are there members who have called all women stupid? Maybe, but you'd really have to look for them. Generally they just hate feminists, and not all women are feminists, nor are all feminists women, so I'd say the "women are stupid" misrepresents these people.

At the very least, though, it isn't like that is what all of the most popular posts are declaring.

You're right, I generalized a bit more than I should have. I'm used to feminist to mean women and people who care about women's issues, so I took all the posts saying feminism is stupid and evil more personally than I should have.

 

[MrFalconfly]

I'm used to feminist to mean women and people who care about women's issues, so I took all the posts saying feminism is stupid and evil more personally than I should have.

What seems to have happened with the definition of the word "feminist" (thanks to a lot of 3rd Wave extremists), is that feminists are equated with the #KillAllMen crowd.

Personally I'm egalitarian, simply because I think as a member of the male part of the species, that I wouldn't be credible by calling myself feminist, not to mention the rising negative stigma with the label, but it's also a very efficient way letting people know that I don't give a toss what physical characteristics you happen to have, and only care what your capabilities are.

And personally it isn't so much the "new gay characters" that are beginning to give me a migraine, but rather all the excitable people who seem to think it's something important. It isn't. Whether the story is good is important, not whether some minor character happen to like it rough in the bed.

EDIT:

Mass Effects characters for example was brilliant.

And for the record I consider Femshep and Liara canon, no-matter what anybody else say.

 

[megs1120]

10/10 for flamebait

0/10 for rationale

A thread of 2 extremes.

The OP wasn't flamebait, if it had been, there would probably be a lot more flaming going on. I wanted to see if anyone else had noticed a trend that I had noticed, some people said that they did, and we've been civilly discussing it.

 

[MonsterCrit]

I just assuming the site change according with the times (internet news and social etc) since a few years ago there was no such thing as "gamergate", Mass Effect 3 wasn't made and Anita Sarkeesian was setting up her kickstarter.

In saying so I do know alot of people left during the Extra Credits controversial.

Pretty much this.


The landscape of the internet has changed. there were fewer polarizing politics in gaming 5 years ago. The most heated debate was.. XBox vs Ps3

Now.. yeah.. politics done got worked up in here and one politics get involved things turn very nasty very quickly. To this day I still can't figure out what GamerGate is because dear god it seems to be an umbrella term these days.