Jimquisition: The Wacky Harassment Blame Parade

[FogHornG36]

We can talk about it until we are blue in the face, its not going to change the nature of the internet.

Sorry Jim, but we do need to talk about it, ever aspect, I personally think this was a false flag operation run by the feminists (they have done it before) to continue to draw attention to their cause.

You know, if you're going to make claims like that, some evidence would be helpful. You just can't make claims like that with nothing to back it up.

I personally think this was a false flag operation run by the feminists

Weird, I must have missed that meeting...

(they have done it before)

Source?

Sure i can, this is the internet, but here you go anyway, i can find only one good one because im too lazy to keep looking.

http://imgur.com/gallery/Kyc6fY9 (thats the just of it)

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=4731 (but this is the news article)

Not saying all feminists are bad, but not all feminists are the same.

 

[ron1n]

Can someone please define 'gaming community' as it relates to this instance?

That term gets thrown around so much in these discussions so I can only assume there's some official, exact definition of this?

Because all I see is a multitude of smaller communities with vastly different attitudes.

The argument in the video was made that people cling to some false idea that 'these people aren't representative of the wider community' and that we are tolerating this behavior by stating as much. Except there isn't a 'gamer community'. The people who 'tolerate' or encourage that kind of behavior are completely removed from the crowd who are so adamant about bringing the issue to the forefront. Just like they in turn are far removed from people who are too busy playing games to actually pay any attention to internet drama at all.

For example: The escapist forums are a completely different beast compared to the competitive gaming community I take part in.

Are both communities centered around gaming? yes. But that's like saying a group of democratic senators and Marxist rebels from south america are all just 'Leftists'.

 

[veloper]

Bullshit. I have no relation to the harassers. Gaming is a worldwide hobby now and the idea that we are a single community is absolutely nuts. I don't even consider myself a part of certain communities within the games that I play.

+10 this.

Gamers are not a hivemind and the harassment isn't even taking place on the Escapist.

Jim may like to take all the responsibility for the behaviour of others, but we're not responsible for the nasty things that we only just heard about, being said to this developer by people we don't know, in places we don't visit.

There is nothing we can do about this and the sort of people who harass developers over the phone really are the strange aliens Jim doesn't want us to call them. Those are some crazy fuckers and not even internet trolls do that shit.
This is not the fault of gamers. Crazy people simply exist and we're not the police. We're not even moderators.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Ok. I'm well aware that there are feminists who are bad like that. I didn't hear of this though, thank you for pointing it out. I was asking for evidence that it was the case with the Depression Quest fiasco.

 

[Dragonbums]

While I agree that it is terrible these women are being harassed for simply being born the wrong gender, I can't agree with the rest of this video. I'll verbally support the developer till I'm blue in the face, but I'm not going to throw money at a project simply because the creator was harassed by trolls and crazy people. Stuff like that could be too easily staged. That isn't a point made in the video, it is just something I wanted to bring up. I also don't see anything wrong with simply denouncing the people harassing these women and moving on either. Just because I don't take the time to police the internet, doesn't mean that I'm contributing to this behavior or that I condone it. These devs don't deserve to be harassed, but you paint the gaming community with a wide brush that I don't appreciate.

You didn't disagree with a single thing in my video. You seemed to agree with it all, then made up new arguments to disagree with.

I didn't tell you to give the dev money OR police the Internet. Just maybe show some support, or at the very least, shut up as opposed to trying to make sure your *own* back is covered by trying to draw a line between "real gamers" and the harassers, as if the harassers don't talk about games online just as much as the rest of us and contribute to the exact same wider community.

That's what this episode was about. Not about policing or financing, but about - at the VERY least - not instinctively looking out for number one when somebody's been victimized.

But THOSE harassers weren't on the Escapist, or any other gaming site I know of. So NO they don't contribute as much to online gaming and its discussion as we do.
They have specific type of sites, they say what they want to say and YOU make it look like WE did it.

People can have various accounts on various websites. Those people were mainly from Wizardchan. That doesn't mean those same people aren't browsing, and participating in other communities like Kotaku and Destructoid.

 

[themilo504]

I find it sad that this even needs to be said.

 

[hexFrank202]

I can act like this shit isn't my problem, and I can tell you that this shit isn't my problem, because this shit isn't my problem.

None of the websites I go to, do I ever see sexism or homophobia or anything of the sort. Not on The Escapist, not on Screwattack, not on TGWTG, and not on any of the Youtube channels I follow.

The only place I ever see or hear about hatred against women is when you and Bob talk about it in your videos, and always line it with the tone that if I don't directly confront people like this, then I'm part of the problem. And in this most recent episode, you actually brought that subtext to the front.

I'm sorry, but being a gamer and starting game designer does not make me responsible for the entire friggin industry. I have a Youtube channel, that occasionally features my female friends. If anyone were to place a gender-based abusive comment, I'd either delete it or chew the user out in a heartbeat.

One of those friends made a lot of the graphics in an RPG I'm making. If and when I get involved in a small development team with a website, and women in the team get inundated with misogynist flaming, I'd change those user's names to "Dickcheese" and "Dumbass", make a giant post on the front page about how all assholes must be shunned, and post a video of me cutting up dolls representing those users with a knife.

If I see a bunch of sexist comments below a video of some female content creator, I'd go to war with them for the rest of the afternoon.


So, please, Jim, you can address the people who are involved in these tussles, but you don't have to bring your entire userbase into it. I don't WANT to go to websites that are filled with insensitive pricks.

 

[Harleykin]

Standing up and making it clear that we won't tolerate the crap that they do? Exactly how is that something that we can't do? It's very easy to do! I went to Steam and typed out a few paragraphs on how what happened to her was disgusting and gave her my support. Took me ten minutes.

let me try to be the least dickish with this as possible.

so did it help?

seriously posting on the internet to "stop" idiots from the shit they do is like if you'd pray or just walk outside and scream these messages.
yes this is possible yes it might have an effect on 2-3 people but guess what these people had that mindset before you posted anyway.
and no i don't say just stop it it's no use but i really gotta ask what do think will it do to the whole subject and people that act that way?
if these people don't have to FACE someone that'd know their name and face after the stupid shit they said there is no need for ignorant people to read understand or adapt to what you me and the whole of the escapist might have to say on this.
and i really don't want to attack you but it's just....really it's "those poor kids in africa" "what do you do to help?" "i pray every night"....thanks a bunch

and again i don't want to attack you if you do feel i did please attack me right back i'll take it and i wont start a flame war. vent on me in the pm system i'll read it. what ever
i just got no other way of expressing this. (english isn't my first language...)

 

[Bruce]

The major problem is, it isn't a minority. Not really.

It is that the majority of gamers are basically chimps.

When a beta chimp wants to bolster its position in the troop, it finds a weaker chimp it can bully. It invariably ends up impressing the other chimps, and the beta gets treated with more respect while the weaker chimp's position is, well, weakened.

And that is what happens with online harassment. You get one or two betas picking out somebody they consider weaker for one reason or another, and the contemptible horde backing the harassment campaign.

Gamers have a serious sexism problem. An incredibly serious one.

When you get the argument that games should actively exclude a potential audience - there is a serious problem, and that is an argument I have seen posters put on The Escapist forums.

Women are automatically placed in that weaker position because of this, and as a result you have these people who are natural bullies targeting them.

The people nerd-checking women are the exact same people who a few decades earlier would have been beating up on nerds, because back then the nerd was socially disadvantaged and thus an easy target for them to use to bolster their position in the troop.

Now that the power balance has shifted towards nerdy things being cool, they take the guise of nerds and find other groups to harass. Women happen to be one of those other groups.

Each harasser who tries to put a woman 'in her place' would do exactly the same thing to male gamers if given half a chance.

But of course, most gamers are little more than chimps, trying to figure out ways to find ways to blame the targets and argue for the bullies.

 

[deathjavu]

2 pages in and we've got several cowards who are too "afraid" to post in these kinds of conversations because both sides are "too extreme!" Way to have a spine and an opinion, people. And strangely enough, you had no problem posting here. I guess some people are just terrified of having to defend or otherwise answer for their opinions.

And a whole multitude of people engaging in justifications of the exact type of behavior described in the video. Because there's nothing that can be done about these damnable trolls. Yeah, I'm sure ignoring problems is the best way to fix em.

Ah, I gotta love a video decrying a certain type of behavior, and then a comments section filled with exactly that type of behavior.

Well, maybe love is the wrong word. Hate? Yeah, probably hate.

 

[xPixelatedx]

To look at what the woman did wrong and scorn her for it

Jim, are you really going to pretend this has anything to do with gender? Because even looking back to some of your videos from this year alone and you can plainly see that harassment in the industry has nothing to do with that. Oh, don't get me wrong, "social justice" is indeed a problem, but unless Phil Pish, the whole Mass Effect team at Bioware and Cliffy B are all now women, there seems to be a bit of a flaw with the message of this video. There IS a lot of sexism in gaming, I just don't think these recent dramas had anything to do with it.
The overall problem here is the vocal majority now have a way to ***** directly at the people that they see have "done wrong", people who are usually connected to something they feel passionate about. Obviously, the Internet has not handled this new power well, and what everyone finds "wrong" is subjective, which why is mob mentality is a bad thing that never, ever works.

Again though, we know this has nothing to do with gender specifically. I am sure some sexist things were said to Zoe Quinnzel and whoever that is in the Mighty No.9 drama, but if they weren't women, they would have had their race, or weight or 'whatever the internet thinks it can make fun of' attacked instead. Hell , people might have verbally went after their family or friends if those individuals were publicly known as well. When the internet truly hates you, they just hate you, and they'll say whatever they think hurts the worse. And as much as I want to be as idealistic as you in hopes we can put a leash on this rabid beast one day, I don't see that happening.

 

[hentropy]

The footage of that dating sim (or whatever the hell it was) made me quite uncomfortable. If that was the intent, then bravo sir.

I've thought this same concept for a while now. I don't find myself obligated to throw my voice in with everyone else when a new case of harassment comes up (which seems to be sadly every other week nowadays), but it does bother me when someone busts in an feels the need to tell everyone shut up and stop talking about it. I can see the idea that these guys are trolls and they basically live off of everyone reacting to their BS, but ignoring it doesn't really do any good either.

 

[Erttheking]

Standing up and making it clear that we won't tolerate the crap that they do? Exactly how is that something that we can't do? It's very easy to do! I went to Steam and typed out a few paragraphs on how what happened to her was disgusting and gave her my support. Took me ten minutes.

let me try to be the least dickish with this as possible.

so did it help?

seriously posting on the internet to "stop" idiots from the shit they do is like if you'd pray or just walk outside and scream these messages.
yes this is possible yes it might have an effect on 2-3 people but guess what these people had that mindset before you posted anyway.
and no i don't say just stop it it's no use but i really gotta ask what do think will it do to the whole subject and people that act that way?
if these people don't have to FACE someone that'd know their name and face after the stupid shit they said there is no need for ignorant people to read understand or adapt to what you me and the whole of the escapist might have to say on this.
and i really don't want to attack you but it's just....really it's "those poor kids in africa" "what do you do to help?" "i pray every night"....thanks a bunch

and again i don't want to attack you if you do feel i did please attack me right back i'll take it and i wont start a flame war. vent on me in the pm system i'll read it. what ever
i just got no other way of expressing this. (english isn't my first language...)

You're missing the point. I'm not acting like a few comments here and there are going to magically stop all harassment everywhere. I am not that naive.
And you know what? If I changed the minds or two or three people, I'll call it a win. It's like I said, we can do little things to help. This is a massive problem that is going to take years, maybe even decades to get rid of. Sexism isn't a being that can be pulled out of Human beings and killed. We're going to have to confront it as it comes, deal with it on a situational basis. The best we can do for situations like this is show our support to the developer, show them that they are welcome in the gaming world, and speak out against the people who harass them. It's a small thing, but all big changes have small starts. Sexism isn't going anywhere for a long time, but at the very least we can do what we can to help people who are on the receiving end of it and make it clear we don't support it, no matter in how small of a way.

You're fine.

 

[Harleykin]

There are so many intricacies to the debate, that goes beyond "don't be a dick", and you paint it all as simple and just a matter of the immature gaming community. I do take this personally, not because I think everything you say applies directly to me, but because I have an enormous respect for you and I genuinly think you are a sort of a spokesman on a lot of issues and qualities of gaming, so it hurts me to see you make a video that really does makes me want to go and tell you to shut up, because I don't think you're helping.
I don't think you're giving people perspective, I don't think you're in any way unraveling the debate, any of the hostilities, preconceptions, vitriol or any actual misogony, but merely adding to "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality that's permeating one side of the community.

if i'd just waited ten minutes...i could have saved my dumb comment and pointed at yours to express how i feel about this video the message and jim sterling :x
thanks anyway Smilomaniac you somehwat spoke for me and made it sound less butthurt than i did!

 

[mjc0961]

I don't know what's more depressing, the harassment of female game devs because they had the gall to be born female, or the fact that everyone else is too bloody spineless to tell the harassers to go crawl back under their rock when this shit happens.

"Oh, but they'll accuse me of 'White Knighting'"! Big whop. "Grow a thicker skin" and to hell with their neanderthal insults. Stand up for what's right, damn it!

Okay, but what happens after we grow that spine and thicker skin and tell these people to crawl back under their rock?

Because my experience with trolls is that telling them to shut up doesn't make them shut up. It makes them keep going at it because that's what trolls do: start shit and then enjoy as people go nuts over said shit. So the question I found myself asking at the end of this video and upon reading your post is this: what would you like me to do about it that will actually help? Because going to the harassers and telling them to shut up isn't going to end it, it's just going to waste my time while not fixing the problem.

You didn't disagree with a single thing in my video. You seemed to agree with it all, then made up new arguments to disagree with.

I didn't tell you to give the dev money OR police the Internet. Just maybe show some support, or at the very least, shut up as opposed to trying to make sure your *own* back is covered by trying to draw a line between "real gamers" and the harassers, as if the harassers don't talk about games online just as much as the rest of us and contribute to the exact same wider community.

That's what this episode was about. Not about policing or financing, but about - at the VERY least - not instinctively looking out for number one when somebody's been victimized.

Hmm, okay then. Fair enough; showing support (if commenting a few places here and there that I think the harassers are disgusting people counts as showing support) shutting up and not drawing lines between them and me is what I was already doing anyway. So I guess I'll keep doing that.

Someone is probably already reading this while rolling their eyes and waiting for a "TLR". But that's the thing; there has to be room for some fucking nuance

Just completely aside from this other grander discussion of harassment and what to do about it, can I just say I completely agree with this sentiment? Maybe the reason I come to forums with large character limits is so I can actually explain all my thoughts on something in detail without leaving any room for someone reading to draw an incorrect assumption of my thoughts (although stupid people will do that anyway), and to read other people's thoughts in detail as well. Maybe sometimes people want to have discussions and sometimes discussions can be lengthy depending on the issue at hand.

And yet there are people on forums who will attack you for "writing essays" if you write a post that's no longer than Jim's post that I quoted earlier, because how dare you write six whole fucking sentences! Well you know what, if you don't want to read long things on the internet and need everything shrunk down to you in a "tl;dr", how about you go use Twitter for all your internet communication and leave people who want to have actual discussions alone.

Yeah, again, a little off topic, but it's nice to see someone else on the internet who's also a bit sick of this "tl;dr" mentality.

 

[deathjavu]

can't as much as look at a commercial with some female objectification(which are by far mostly aimed at women) without getting stressed and wondering who the hell it pisses off now,

This quote right here? Let me tell you how I read it, so you can see how it's undermining everything else you're saying.

"I can't help but see sexist shit on TV and wonder how it's hurting other people, and that's a bad thing."

It's like someone took a blanket off your head and you want it back.


And isn't pointing at the extreme end of the "other" side and using it to justify your opinion or behavior the exact same 'us vs them, black and white' mentality you're decrying in this very post?

The argument you made in this post isn't even internally consistent.