Jimquisition: The Wacky Harassment Blame Parade

[wAriot]

If you genuinely do not care what other members of your community and species think, then it is extremely likely you have some sort of disorder along the lines of sociopathy. If you do not have such a disease, then I think you are overstating your case.

That is not what I said, and you clearly don't know what a sociopath is. I didn't say I don't care about what other people think about me, but I'm not afraid of voicing taboo opinions.

So are murderers. That does not mean we should just shrug and accept it instead of striving to prevent and punish their behaviors.

Calling a guy an idiot through Twitter is VERY different from killing a person, and honestly I'm kind of awed you can even try to make this comparison.
But I'll try and take it seriously: you can punish a murderer (in case the killing wasn't in self-defense or something similar) because there is a particular crime that everyone (sane) agrees is very bad. Meanwhile, there is no possible consensus on what kind of insults/harassing should be punished or not: what I find offensive may be very different from what you do.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Another brilliant video, Jim.

I wish I had it in me to call out the assholes in the gaming community as I see them. Dunno why. Maybe it's a cowardice thing. I'm generally hard pressed to let out my claws coz I have a long fuse. Then again, if I did lash out, I'd kinda end up banned, or something due to the surprising amount of assholes on the forum.

Honestly, people, we can't have our cake, and eat it, too. So long as people like the people that harass Zoe, and basically act like some of the worst in humanity exist, are tolerated, aren't called out, the gaming community as a whole will likely bear their burdens. There's no real way around it. They're a small, but massively ugly blemish on the gaming community.
Said gaming community are basically the people who enjoy gaming. Are passionate about gaming. Are willing to defend it from criticism.

It's fine if you want to look towards why a person got all the hate they have, but to side, entirely with the haters, not saying anything about the worst of the haters, and such kinda messes with the image. Even more-so when one actually joins in with the excessive haters.

A part of this problem is not really fair in an aspect. If a guy defends a woman from criticism, there's an insult for it basically custom designed for trying to make them stop defending women. The "white knight" term, I mean.
I'm really not aware of a special made term that's thrown out by people to make people stop defending guys.
"White Knight" gets tossed out like it's cool to hate women because one's obviously insulting the people who don't hate women.
"White Knight" being used to attack a person kinda marks that attacking person as an asshole to me. I mean, it denotes a hatred/dislike for people who want to side with the women on something. And regardless of MO, these people who want to stop gendered assaults against women get insulted... by assholes. That's just how I see it.

Yeah, the people who say there isn't a problem, the people who want to silence the complaints at every turn, they're assholes, too, IMO. Lacking in empathy, and being rather selfish. Or maybe ignorant of the dim view the gaming industry, and gamers have of women.

We should be mad that people are insulting a person viciously for little to no good reason, shouldn't we?

I know we can't police everyone, but if you see garbage on the ground, and a trashcan near by, don't we usually pick it up (Provided it's not utterly disgusting, I guess ) and put it in the garbage? Report the assholes, and the vile haters if you see them.

This stuff, the harassment, it is our problem. One of us might not make a huge dent in things, but we should try to do what we can. I certainly try to. A lot of us can make a difference together. Even lacking in organization, many individuals that happen to be working towards similar goals can make something happen.

 

[Sticky]

Okay, Jim. Once again I have to point out that you've made a big video about a few trolls in the community that you KNOW exist, and you KNOW are going to post the same thing no matter what the subject material is. Then tried to spin it like it's somehow our fault and our problem that places like youtube exist in which there are no repercussions for trolling. Like any of us, you especially, are able to make those places go away and be huge peace circles where everyone sings just because you said a few stern words to a nebulous entity you refer to as "the community", made up of possibly millions of people of all creeds, religions, and ethnic origins like you can somehow sit us all down in the corner and tell us like what we did was wrong.

Why am I even responding then? You've done me a huge disservice with framing the MN9 argument in this light. I actually go to the MN9 forums and have participated in some of the Dina discussion threads. (My stance is "She's an acceptable CM and deserves every bit of respect that a CM does" before anyone tries to paint me with a strawman).

See, Jim. When you go and paint the entire opposing argument with the "They just hate women a bunch of nerdy pricks who just want their 'No gurls allowed' club" brush, you only reinforce their entire argument. You only make them feel MORE right, because you didn't take the time to understand what they were trying to say and communicate to the world, you instead just paint it as a misogyny problem without even PRETENDING to care why they were passionate about their argument. So they feel bitter about their treatment, they feel that they need to fight and be even LOUDER in order for people to stop mis-interpreting them.

And as someone who participates in the community and have to fight against this shit every time it pops up, it gets irritating. It gets irritating being reminded that while we have intelligent discussions about the issue, the entire internet has labeled it and the whole community as a bunch of women-haters because of the sheer ignorance of the entire issue and maybe the interest of generating clickbait.

Here's the actual argument being done by the actual community. Dina:

Against:
-She's a newbie CM seemingly sucked up from the community
-She has no design or drawing skills worth mentioning on any project
-Her claim to the position was seemingly done through connections within the company
-She has zero familiarity with the Mega Man series or any of its counterparts

For:
-She fulfills all the requirements for the CM position (Bilingual, fluent English, Lives in Japan)
-Her design skills are on-par for designers and was never a subject of the debate to begin with
-Comcept is entitled to hire any person that shows up with the required credentials. The fact she lives in Japan instead of in the US like the rest of the 84 crew (The people handling community management) is icing on the cake
-No where, ever, has there been a CM who has been allowed to play the games on behalf of the community. Her familiarity with Mega Man is meaningless because she's really just a glorified moderator. I can't even think of a CM of any official community who even played video games, much less the ones in question.

There it is, the actual argument that has been going on in a nutshell.
My emphasis on the last point because it's the argument I've always been making. That she does not need to play any of the games because those are not part of the qualification of holding the job as CM.

No where, in this whole argument, has the fact that she's a woman ever came up. Comcept ALREADY HAD women staff, they are in the first kickstarter trailer. No where has "I hate her because she's a girl" ever become an issue. Trying to paint it that way and then give us a stern talking to like WE are the ones that are ignorantly slinging shit like we don't know what the fuck we're talking about is a very hypocritical thing to do, Jim.

 

[Silverbeard]

Wait wait wait, hang about, Jim old boy. Collective responsibility? Where did this idea come from?
Is it now our job to hunt down the few deranged chaps who use Modern Warfare games as training simulators and get them behind bars before they go on shooting sprees? That's certainly worse than slinging death threats against some developers, is it not? Let us do that and protect the good name of the gaming community!
Bring out the pitchforks, mates! We've got some witch hunts to organize!

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I got a life philosophy for you Jim

it's got Individualism

it's the mind set that says "claiming we're all part of a group and who we are and what we do as people is unimportant in the face of what we contribute to the 'group' is kinda evil and fucked up"

As terrible as Jim's argument in this video is, that's an even worse answer.

So, you're just an individual, huh? I presume that you gave birth to yourself, and raised yourself through your childhood? Oh, wait, you didn't? You depended on something called a society?

The way you frame your argument seems to be as if there are only two options - individualism or some sort of communist collective. The fact is that we can acknowledge that there are individualist and communal aspects to all our lives. None of us live in isolation from the world, and none of us lack individual agency. It's a complicated combination of both.

I'd like to see the people advocating this individualist/libertarian philosophy actually live a life without the support of society or other people. I'm guessing it wouldn't last long.

 

[Sticky]

I got a life philosophy for you Jim

it's got Individualism

it's the mind set that says "claiming we're all part of a group and who we are and what we do as people is unimportant in the face of what we contribute to the 'group' is kinda evil and fucked up"

As terrible as Jim's argument in this video is, that's an even worse answer.

So, you're just an individual, huh? I presume that you gave birth to yourself, and raised yourself through your childhood? Oh, wait, you didn't? You depended on something called a society?

The way you frame your argument seems to be as if there are only two options - individualism or some sort of communist collective. The fact is that we can acknowledge that there are individualist and communal aspects to all our lives. None of us live in isolation from the world, and none of us lack individual agency. It's a complicated combination of both.

I'd like to see the people advocating this individualist/libertarian philosophy actually live a life without the support of society or other people. I'm guessing it wouldn't last long.

And as bad of an answer that he had, you have an even WORSE answer.

The entire crux of this problem is that these people aren't part of our lives. And have no bearing on what actually goes on and therefore are accountable to no one. That's how trolling is allowed to take place, it's such a minor inconvenience that no one is going to seriously take the time to punish some bile that was spewed on a youtube video.

These people didn't raise me, this 'community' didn't give me clothes or food or shelter. I'm so many degrees separated from it that it might as well not exist in my life. I am so far away from any one of these 'community' members that it's impossible to even tell if the same person isn't pretending to be multiple people.

And then you go and say that I'm somehow responsible for people that I don't know, I've never met, and the one sharing factor that even allows anyone to group them into the same species that I am is that they enjoy video games. A fact that neither of us can prove as their past-time may actually be pissing people like Jim off so he defecates himself in futile anger.

So to recap, I'm "responsible" for these people that I'm at least three degrees separated from, who I can't prove exist, who I can't prove are being genuine with their opinion, who I can't prove actually play video games, who I don't know where they live, or what their real name is, or even what their past-times may be.

And yet we're still somehow coordinated enough to be considered a separate society?

I also have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you, you would be of course responsible for the maintenance of that bridge by reading this message. After all, we're part of the "Bridge-Selling community" now.

 

[Arakasi]

I take exception to you saying that part of my hobby is harassing women and such. A small portion of the community does this, I am not responsible for it by virtue of being associated by gaming. If I were a sports fan would I be partially responsible for a football team raping a woman? Or a football fan beating the shit out of someone at a game?

I'm not saying it shouldn't be talked about, or that the victim is to blame, I'm saying that the people who are to blame are those who made the comments, not the video game culture, nor the people associated with the video game culture.

 

[MPgmr]

Seriously 4chan isn't a hivemind where everyone has the same opinion and not all users are responsible for everything that a minority of users do. This is akin to blaming everyone with an account at the Escapist for one reviewer giving a game a bad review. In summary just because a minority of a larger group acts badly doesn't mean everyone in this group is equally bad, nor should they all be tarred with the same brush simply because it's easier than actually trying to figure out who should be blamed.

This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

As a frequent /v/ user, I can with 100% certainty say we've been dealing with a massive case of Poe's Law and shitposters that started around the time of the first /v/gas [footnote]which in hindsight were an awful idea that many of us have since disowned, but a handful of (figurative) fags for some reason keep making them. Please do not encourage those people.[/footnote]. If you ever see a wave of explicitly sexist posts anywhere, it's either filth from /b/ or /pol/, trolls or aforementioned Poe's Law people that actually think we're sexist/racist/edgy preteens/etc., which should either be:

1) IGNORED, depriving them of the attention("delicious tears") they're looking for, or if you're feeling confident,
2) told to go back to /b/,/pol/, Gamespot's "System Wars" forum or something, in a broken-record manner,[footnote]ONLY use this if you are absolutely sure that you know what you're doing, and should only be done two or three times in a single instance[/footnote]

and then reported for good measure. No, reporting is not giving them attention; as long as you do not acknowledge them in a way that they can respond in an effective manner, you're breaking the cycle.

Yes, we don't like a lot of people in or around the industry (Hamburger Helper, Anita, anyone writing for Slowtaku, etc.) for many reasons (terrible writing, flimsy reasoning, clickbaiting, etc.), but NEVER, NEVER for any intrinsic trait such as race/sex/gender/whatever.

TL;DR - Don't blame 4chan's /v/, we're got our own crap we're trying to deal with. Don't blame entire demographics, either; it doesn't solve anything and ultimately amounts to stirring the pot.


[HEADING=1]P.S. - 4chan had nothing to do with the Depression Quest dev. As was stated very early in the thread, that was Wizardchan's doing, NOT us.[/HEADING]
[small]P.S.S. - Joel McHale was the only redeeming thing about VGX[/small]

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Not me. I maintain that those poisonous forum going fuckheads are the rule as opposed to the exception.

 

[Defenestra]

Honestly, I hadn't heard much about Depression Quest until this cherry little shitstorm erupted. ZQ hasn't done a bloody thing (that I've seen, anyway) to draw the fire of the many and varied assholes of the internet, and I am increasingly tempted to buy her game out of spite.

So yeah, I think Jim's right on this one.

 

[Sticky]

Not me. I maintain that those poisonous forum going fuckheads are the rule as opposed to the exception.

And there you go, doing the same thing Jim just did.

This is based on: Zero experience, zero evidence of the sort, zero knowledge of these people or even knowing what kind of arguments they are trying to spin.

Your rule has inspired me so much that I decided to make one too, here's my new rule: Everyone on The Escapist is actually a cat. Using kitty-friendly keyboards to express their opinion between quick naps and trips to the food bowl. Until every account on The Escapist, active or inactive proves that they are not of feline persuasion, then I must assume that every person who reads this post is actually licking themselves and sharpening their claws on their mousepads.

EDIT: I just realized this may be sarcasm, my apologies to canadamus prime if it is.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Uuuuuh, yeah...

I do not agree with this video.

First of all: when you go to 4chan and expect to reason with the folks that lurk there in a civilized manner, you actually do have it coming. Seriously, that site is the asshole of the internet, and that's one of the first things you learn online. You could visit an asylum for the criminally insane and complain about the lack of manners just as well.

Secondly: the internet is a harsh place. Matter of fact. I openly admit being a brony, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people know what reactions that sometimes triggers. I've spent a lot of time in...let's say not THAT tightly moderated places and maybe that hardened me. When I get shit from someone for whatever reason, I don't whine about being harassed. I tell that particular person something like "go choke on your dads cock" and that's it.

This is the internet. A place with anonymity and little consequences. Uncivilized at times, and rough to those who cant adapt. A good old "go fuck yourself" is usually the best response to this kind of harassment. Whining about it just makes you seem weak and therefore easy prey.

The problem with your solution is some people actually like not being banned on the Escapist. Telling people off in forums will generally lead to being banned. Or having one's privilege to post removed, even if temporarily.
While it might be nice to be able to tell people off freely, things would degenerate fast, I'd say.
And heaven help you if you're trying to represent something. If you're an employee, or a staff member, it generally gets worse.

Sure, you might be able to get away with crass language in less policed areas of the net, but what about places like The Escapist? What if the offensive person hasn't passed the line where they can be punished for being offensive?

Hardening up, and/or ignoring them just lets them know it's at least neutral that they can act like that, so they likely will again. It doesn't deliver a consequence to the asshole. Especially if the asshole is a bored asshole, or an angry asshole with not much better to do at the time than be one.

It can get kinda hard to ignore people that manage to phone you, and so forth, too. The harassed are lucky that harassers don't seem to actually visit them in person.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

\Is it? Is that how /I/ was framing the options? Or was it how Jim was? Cuz based on the video I saw he was the one putting forth that we're a communist collective and we must all be responsible for people we've never even met/spoken to/have had any amount of contact with whatsoever.

Yeah, and I disagree with that.

And also, either I didn't explain it well enough, or you're deliberately missing the point, since I put forth the definition that Indivisualism is basically saying "Fuck the needs of the many, the few are just as if not more important." It means that yes society is nice, but that doesn't give society the right to grind those who make it up into the dirt in order to self sustain itself.

If you're going to call your personal philosophy "individualism," then yes, that logically means that you consider society unimportant and that the needs of the individual take precedence. I'm not sure how the term "individualism" would be interpreted in any other way.

If "society is nice" is part of your "individualism" philosophy, then you chose a really inappropriate name for your philosophy.

It means it's not okay to blame EVERYONE for the actions of what SOME people have done,

I agree completely.

Nice job projecting there, though, don't know how libertarianism got raised but you keep jerking that hate boner, buddy.

Because Libertarians are one of the main political groups to raise the "individualist" flag? Perhaps you could describe the distinction between "libertarianism" and "individualism" in more detail?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

The entire crux of this problem is that these people aren't part of our lives. And have no bearing on what actually goes on and therefore are accountable to no one. That's how trolling is allowed to take place, it's such a minor inconvenience that no one is going to seriously take the time to punish some bile that was spewed on a youtube video.

I agree with that.

These people didn't raise me, this 'community' didn't give me clothes or food or shelter. I'm so many degrees separated from it that it might as well not exist in my life. I am so far away from any one of these 'community' members that it's impossible to even tell if the same person isn't pretending to be multiple people.

I agree with that.

And then you go and say that I'm somehow responsible for people that I don't know, I've never met, and the one sharing factor that even allows anyone to group them into the same species that I am is that they enjoy video games.

Wait, what?? I never said anything of the sort.

In fact, I have argued in this thread that Jim is wrong in his video. His argument that the "gaming community" (which isn't really a thing) needs to own this is completely ridiculous. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was making any such argument.

I also have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you, you would be of course responsible for the maintenance of that bridge by reading this message. After all, we're part of the "Bridge-Selling community" now.

I also disagreed with Jim on the idea of the "gaming community" - that's a complete myth. I don't belong to any gaming community.

All I was disagreeing with is that "individualism" is a viable personal philosophy. The idea that we exist as individuals is not really supported by the facts. Yes, we have a certain degree of individual agency, but we are also part of society, and our actions are to a large degree culturally and socially determined.

That is all. I never said that you need to take responsibility for the actions of trolls.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Not me. I maintain that those poisonous forum going fuckheads are the rule as opposed to the exception.

And there you go, doing the same thing Jim just did.

This is based on: Zero experience, zero evidence of the sort, zero knowledge of these people or even knowing what kind of arguments they are trying to spin.

Your rule has inspired me so much that I decided to make one too, here's my new rule: Everyone on The Escapist is actually a cat. Using kitty-friendly keyboards to express their opinion between quick naps and trips to the food bowl. Until every account on The Escapist, active or inactive proves that they are not of feline persuasion, then I must assume that every person who reads this post is actually licking themselves and sharpening their claws on their mousepads.

EDIT: I just realized this may be sarcasm, my apologies to canadamus prime if it is.

No no, your reaction was quite justified. I wasn't being sarcastic. Although to counter it I must point out that there is plenty of evidence that these ridiculous forum going fuckheads exist. The only question is whether or not they are the majority or the minority and I maintain that they are the majority as much as the gaming community (such as it is) would rather believe otherwise.

 

[Nion]

So, Jim is saying that anyone who doesn't personally take the blame for anything done by any member, or assumed member, of the "gaming community" is an asshole. While rather pointedly separating himself from any blame. In effect, this video is Jim calling himself an asshole.

Also, it's kinda telling that, according to Jim, when some section of the gaming community does something bad, it's everyone's fault. But when some section of game journalism does something shady, it's nobody's fault.