On Geek Privilege

[acosn]

Don't be obtuse. The point of the sentence was to drive home that Anita Sarkeesian manipulated people into fighting one another over her content.

Alright, then, leaving aside for a moment whose fault it is to get suckered in by a troll, I think there's a burden on you to prove malicious intent behind her actions if you're going to make that accusation.

There's nothing malicious about what Sarky did. It was purpose built based on known forces within the internet community to drive a funding project where she's push sophomoric research and present it as academic. Yet she's on the record as saying that she's both a gamer, and not one. She's going to have to do a ton of research, yet demonstrably stole other users content to use in her videos- this is what we call plagiarism; she's presenting work that isn't hers as her own. She claims she's a feminist yet also is on the record as saying she feels estranged from the movement. We know she was involved with her current boyfriend in a pyramid scheme years prior. She produced a straw man with simplistic youtube comment policy. The idea that she has a shred of integrity or credibility is dubious at best.


And for that, my hat is off to her. The wider internet community really let this one slide under the radar. They didn't do their research, and instead played the role of inadvertent promoters for her. The fact that she's done so well without having to have really ventured any risk, let alone effort, tells me she is going to be able to ride this for a very long time, and milk it for a lot of money. I predict a book deal in her future. I mean, she's already duped academics and teachers into showing her plagiarized content in school environments so why not?



Sarky didn't do anything malicious. She literally led the internet to a cliff and said, "jump if you want to. You'll just be proving my point, however ridiculous it may be."



As for privilege, I'm waiting for someone to take that old dog out back with the shotgun. the word's been abused to hell and back by people who don't understand it's application to describe people they don't understand, painting in hilariously broad strokes and misunderstanding the issue of social theory which is lacking in application and logical conclusion.


And every time I see some "nerd" wearing their fandom like a badge of honor I die a little bit inside. If you really think hobbies are your defining characteristic I got some bad news for you....

 

[Norix596]

An excellent piece

 

[Mysnomer]

Please note that we're talking about 4chan. The comparison to animals was not coincidental.

That's a funny line, but it's not a useful one. That they are members of an unpopular group does not excuse them from behaving like sane adults, and dismissing them because of their association more than whiffs of No True Scotsman.

4chan is home to the scum of the Earth. While you could call it "No True Scottsman," if you want to start slinging rational jargon, you should understand and accept that the unknown quantities of trolls make a determination of the actual intent of the masses impossible. Thus, you can't really call NTS, because it is a fallacious defense against provable rebuttal that conflicts with your primary assertion. But there's no way of knowing how many were trolls, and how many were straight examples. You might as well dismiss them all as trolls, it's more productive than treating them as valid. I mean, look at your own disbelief, "How could people do this?" That actually makes a lot of sense, and most of them probably don't hold those tenants in real life.

Don't be obtuse. The point of the sentence was to drive home that Anita Sarkeesian manipulated people into fighting one another over her content.

Alright, then, leaving aside for a moment whose fault it is to get suckered in by a troll, I think there's a burden on you to prove malicious intent behind her actions if you're going to make that accusation.

Also make sure to check links in the videos for more I might have missed.
Flying Turkeys [https://www.youtube.com/user/MrFlyingTurkeys/videos]
Crowd Demon: Anita Manipulates Comments, also Contradicts Herself [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nO9F7okbo]
This is a little tangential, but brings up important stuff [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERF9q40iS0]
Dangerous Analysis, just look for Anita related stuff. Also watch his MovieBob video, to help you get a grasp on why people might not be on board with Bob in this article. [https://www.youtube.com/user/dangerousanalysis/videos]
Kind of negative, but the middle third goes over some good points [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWtJpHys_xA]
Instig8tive Journalism:
~Part I [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gLmcS3-NI]
~Part II [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk5F-S_hI]
Trigger warning or smth, I guess. Strong Language, but it pretty much espouses my feelings after watching the previous videos and still seeing people put Anita on a pedestal. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqJCCnued6c]

I acknowledge that they happened, but what do they add to the conversation?

They establish the environment the conversation exists in, and the baggage the conversation carries with it. I'm sorry if you feel it's unfair to have to say, "I never played the game where you punch Ms. Sarkeesian's face," but those people have marred your position by claiming it as their own. Sometimes you gotta disavow the nutters.

...WHICH I HAVE DONE REPEATEDLY. I have done nothing but disavow them. Pointing out that they don't add anything to the conversation is the epitome of disavowal. It may be assumed that if you can speak about Anita Sarkeesian in a reasoned tone for more a paragraph, you have pretty well disavowed yourself of being a woman-hating, filth-spewing, bigot. If you continue to split hairs and wheel off to discuss non-issues, the pointlessness of this exercise will overwhelm me.

btw, did someone say gaming culture?

 

[Dexter S. Bateman]

Okay, so I enjoyed the article on gay male privilege, and from there it was obvious where you were going to go. I agree with your general thrust. I'm someone who is into "nerdy" intellectual pursuits, the less mainstream genres of videogames, and also follows sports, and I've noticed that my sports friends are far more accepting of my geek-outs than vice versa. When I used to be on Facebook (years ago now, thank Glob), my smart friends could never let my comments on a Crows or Titans game go by without a snide remark. So the "jock bullies nerd" trope always seemed outdated to me.

I got confused at the end though. It seemed like you were getting too hyperbolic in order to make a point/generate traffic. I grant you, I live in Australia and I'll never make it to SDCC, but is conference-goers actually GROPING cosplayers really a thing? If people are doing that, they deserve to be scorned, but morals aside, a nerd-type with the sheer self-assurance required to act that way in public isn't even something I can construct in my mind. Likewise, I've read some dopey forum arguments but I've never once seen someone claim racial oppression on account of their geekdom. So unless someone can show me the error of my ways, I'm going to assume you just went off the rails there in your enthusiasm, and for me, it kind of soured the whole thing.

This is why I imagine every issue being raised by an American on any side of anything as being filtered through a Today Tonight/A Current Affair lens and then trying to backtrack to the core of the argument and/or issue. Most people have something valid to say, but once predominantly American communities start trying to take sides everything starts having Jerry Springer level rhetoric. The only real exceptions to this is when everything is being framed as sarcasm instead. Moviebob tends to do a better job than most at avoiding it though.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Do you have any evidence to back that up? The half a percentage point. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say, "Of course there are half naked women in the game. Look at the target demographic." On of those two arguments has to be really wrong.

You argument seems to be based on an unfounded claim that it is an extremely small minority of people who act this way, therefore talking about the problem is... not worth the time? An insult to gamers? A bigger insult to gamers than the sexist, racist, homophobic bullshit I've had to put up with while playing online, and I'm straight, white, and male.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Ooof. Reading the article and the linked article and all the responses is giving me a headache. Too much to process at once.

I'm going to guess it all boils down to "don't be a jerk, no matter how persecuted your group was/still is". That I can do.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

You know your comments in that regard is absolutely hilarious.

No seriously, everyone has to agree with her damning a group of millions for the actions of an extremely small minority, because we have to disavow the nutters to have our opposing position taken seriously?

Again, you keep claiming it is a small minority, but you have no proof of that.

Blame a racist for being racist. Don't blame all white people.

Blame a Nazi for being a Nazi. Don't blame all Germans.

And for the love of God, blame the Geek Bully/Sexist for being a Geek Bully/Sexist. Quit blaming the entire damned enchilada. It's disgusting, it's wrong, and it doesn't help your point, it just makes us want to oppose you personally, not what you're for persay.

There is a saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Not sure who said it (it is attributed to Edmund Burke) but it is a very important in this context. When we see someone being racist, homophobic, sexist, we need to point it out and do something about it. If we don't, we are culpable for what these people say and do. "Qui tacet consentire videtur." "He who is silent is taken to agree." You are not "good man doing nothing", you are fighting against those who are trying to do something.

But let me tell you about sexism. In America, a women can lie about being raped, and no one is allowed to question her about it...

Daisy Coleman was raped at a party and her unconscious body was dumped on he lawn in the middle of the night. When she said she was raped, the town she was in turned against her.

Joseph DiBenedetto went on Fox news and famously said, "I'm not saying she deserved to be raped, but..." But before he said that, he speculated she wasn't raped, but was lying about it because she didn't want to get into trouble for staying out all night.

She was dumped on her lawn in the middle of the night in January. Yet people think she has sex had consensual sex and was lying about being raped.

At best, at absolute best, you are woefully ignorant on this subject.

At worst, you are part of the evil good men have to fight against.

 

[Mysnomer]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Do you have any evidence to back that up? The half a percentage point. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say, "Of course there are half naked women in the game. Look at the target demographic." On of those two arguments has to be really wrong.

I wish he hadn't used an actual figure, as he had a point before exposing himself to being derailed by making a claim he can't prove. HOWEVER, the target demographic is not misogynists, it's people who are enticed by T&A. So unless you want to argue that a majority who find attractive videogame women sexy are misogynists, you might want to rethink your phrasing.

Blame a racist for being racist. Don't blame all white people.

And for the love of God, blame the Geek Bully/Sexist for being a Geek Bully/Sexist. Quit blaming the entire damned enchilada. It's disgusting, it's wrong, and it doesn't help your point, it just makes us want to oppose you personally, not what you're for persay.

There is a saying, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Not sure who said it (it is attributed to Edmund Burke) but it is a very important in this context. When we see someone being racist, homophobic, sexist, we need to point it out and do something about it. If we don't, we are culpable for what these people say and do. "Qui tacet consentire videtur." "He who is silent is taken to agree." You are not "good man doing nothing", you are fighting against those who are trying to do something.

Again with people being obtuse. He is not advocating doing nothing. He's opposed to sweeping generalizations that blame a population at large for the acts of a few. Honestly, if Bob had encouraged lynch mobs, targeted at those who harass women because they feel their space is being invaded, or those who bully the newcomers because of high school grudges, it would have been less damaging than saying, "You are all responsible for this, because you haven't stamped it out yet." Honestly, it sounds more like a reductio ad absurdum refutation of "silence = complicity." This article would be more useful as a farce to demonstrate the over-reach caused when one is too consumed with social justice, and can't focus on the problem.

But let me tell you about sexism. In America, a women can lie about being raped, and no one is allowed to question her about it...

At best, at absolute best, you are woefully ignorant on this subject.

At worst, you are part of the evil good men have to fight against.

Rape issues cut both ways. There are examples of both men and women getting the short end of it, but women get more screen time, that's pretty well accepted. I just hope that after we're done dealing with the priority of women's issues, men are also given a fair shake.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

He blamed literally Millions of people for a problem that is probably not even perpetuated by a half a percentage of the people he is saying are at fault.

Except he didn't.

Sorry, you lose all credibility when you claim that people said things they didn't say. You're just making up your own arguments here, and I see no need to continue to engage with somebody who makes stuff up, especially given your previous hostile comments and personal attacks.

 

[JimB]

There's nothing malicious about what Sarkeesian did.

Fair enough; I withdraw the word "malicious" and replace it with "deliberate." How do you prove her frame of mind?

That's a funny line, but it's not a useful one. That they are members of an unpopular group does not excuse them from behaving like sane adults, and dismissing them because of their association more than whiffs of No True Scotsman.

4chan is home to the scum of the Earth. While you could call it "No True Scotsman," if you want to start slinging rational jargon, you should understand and accept that the unknown quantities of trolls make a determination of the actual intent of the masses impossible.

The intent, so far as I can prove, is to say horrible and hurtful things to punish someone who disagreed with people.

Also make sure to check links in the videos for more I might have missed.

Ugh, video links. Forgive me for not clicking them on my own, but I live in the woods, and my ISP rations my bandwidth on a daily basis, so this is not really the format for me. If you have no textual links, would you terribly mind summarizing the evidence those links assert? I hate to seem as if I'm dismissing your evidence out of hand, but I really would rather not have my download speed reduced to dial-up rates for the next twenty-four hours because I've exceeded my allotted bandwidth for February 3, 2014.

I have done nothing but disavow them.

Don't get me wrong; I've been where you are. In internet debates, I find myself often having to point out that I did not say what my opponent accused me of saying, which he presumably did because he's mistaken me for some cartoon villain in his head. Hell, I just did it half a dozen times in this thread. It gets tiresome, but that seems to be the nature of the format.

Pointing out that they don't add anything to the conversation is the epitome of disavowal.

It can come off as an attempt to sweep them under the rug. Just FYI. Take that or leave it.

If you continue to split hairs and wheel off to discuss non-issues, the pointlessness of this exercise will overwhelm me.

I kind of resent you taking yourself hostage like that, but whatever. At the end of the day, it's your choice to participate or not, and I'm not going to beg you to stay.

 

[MB202]

Honestly, I've never heard of the phrase "check your privileges" before MovieBob mentioned it in one of it's videos. Where, exactly, did that come from?

 

[Mysnomer]

4chan is home to the scum of the Earth. While you could call it "No True Scotsman," if you want to start slinging rational jargon, you should understand and accept that the unknown quantities of trolls make a determination of the actual intent of the masses impossible.

The intent, so far as I can prove, is to say horrible and hurtful things to punish someone who disagreed with people.

But you can't say that for sure. Trolls generally don't care about the subject matter, they just take contrary positions to waste people's time and exasperate them. I mean, I guess that's bad in it's own way, though I tend to view it as mischievous, because of how easy it is to ignore them. Some clever trolls may slip through, but it's mostly about cutting down on the unsubtle ones who simply spout irrational statements in all caps. So, in a sense, the intent of the words may have been...negative, but that doesn't mean that they espouse misogynist beliefs, which would mean we don't actually have a widespread problem with misogyny.

Also make sure to check links in the videos for more I might have missed.

Ugh, video links. Forgive me for not clicking them on my own, but I live in the woods, and my ISP rations my bandwidth on a daily basis, so this is not really the format for me. If you have no textual links, would you terribly mind summarizing the evidence those links assert? I hate to seem as if I'm dismissing your evidence out of hand, but I really would rather not have my download speed reduced to dial-up rates for the next twenty-four hours because I've exceeded my allotted bandwidth for February 3, 2014.

I would recommend getting yourself to a library or something, because a lot of the stuff I linked are great dissections of things like game journalism, social justice scandals, and various internet pundits. Basically, if someone starts a controversial bandwagon that nobody's questioning (as is often the case with internet-based social justice), channels like Dangerous Analysis are there to break down the fallacies or inaccuracies propping these things up.

As to the summation: Anita has been dealing with trolls, specifically those from 4chan, for as long as she's been on Youtube. Her action was at first to disable comments altogether, but later she allowed comments but strictly moderated them. No negative comment was let through unless she had some way to rebut it (whether it was valid argument, or just a snappy comeback). Now, her 2 videos before the Kickstarter video went back to having comments disabled. This, combined with the Kickstarter video having unmoderated comments, funneled any and all dissenters to that video. Also, threads for Anita's video were spammed across 4chan, not just in /v/, where they were relevant, but the anime, the torrents, the obscure off-shoots, and even the unsavory places. Obviously, this will draw the wrong kind of attention, which Anita reveled in. She took all the crap 4chan could throw at her, and put it up on a page claiming it proved the validity of her cause, that it was a large-scale coordinated attack (this is something she parrots often in her lectures). But considering the hornet's nest she stirred up, how many comments even came from dedicated gamers; from people who truly represent the community? How many are just trolls lured in with promise of an easy target? Anita demonstrated she knew how to deal with trolls (and legitimate detractors ) by moderating comments, but suddenly when it serves her purpose [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit], they are allowed to run free and she is considered a proud feminist crusader for standing up to them. Now, in the present, she puts out her episodes at a meager pace. Despite evidence that "Damsels in Distress" was filmed all at once, the three parts were released over the course of several months. Her videos show little improvement in quality, and her footage is taken from Let's Plays [http://victorsopinion.blogspot.com/2013/07/anitas-sources.html]* (without citation or requested permission, and while normally that falls under fair use, remember that she plans to sell DVDs of her episodes, which negates fair use defenses).

That's just for her videos and Kickstarter. I suggest you go to the Flying Turkeys link I posted, as the video "Anita Sarkeesian is not a gamer" contains important video evidence that can only be viewed as a video. Basically, she admits to not enjoying or being a fan of videogames, and she had to "learn a lot about them" for a project (this video is from 2010, and she has claimed to have been a lifelong fan of videogames). Flying Turkeys also picks apart her tweets and shows that until TvWiVG, Anita showed no interest or care for gaming, except Angry Birds, her (infamous) Bayonetta video**, and a blip about supporting gay romance in Dragon Age 2. However, her twitter feed has now morphed into that of someone who is knee-deep in gaming and its headlines. This stark contrast makes it hard to believe she is a "lifelong" gamer.

Her thesis for college shows that she either holds contradictory beliefs about how women are and should be portrayed, or she has is feeding people what she thinks they want to hear (this is from the Instig8tive Journalism videos). After he criticized her thesis, she took it down from her website, Instig8tive mirrored it here [https://mega.co.nz/#!UBxSEY6S!fsPHYmoZO2XigZTBDYxRGxZQbxUqxj_Jx4tTxw4bM-A].

These are the most important videos, and I implore that if you can't make time for the others, please try to watch these:
Not a real gamer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw] 10 min
Hypocricy outlined [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nO9F7okbo] 10 min
Weak methodology refuted [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwFx-tz9TY] 20 min
Anita does not advance feminism, and is detrimental as its modern representative [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk5F-S_hI] 10 min

*If you ant some interesting content by a female who is actually a gamer, you should read Vicsor's blog.
**It was so poorly researched, and showed such ignorance that even her fans weren't on board with her, and she pulled it to protect her image.

 

[Mysnomer]

Neither Bob Chipman nor Anita Sarkeesian has ever tried to make geeky things illegal. Neither has ever sued anybody. Neither has ever been disbarred for bringing frivolous lawsuits before the supreme court. Neither has said that you should be ashamed of yourself for pursuing geeky things.

I don't think attaching the social stigma of an anti-progressive to someone is much better than calling them a potential criminal. And while Jack Thompson tried to infringe freedom of speech through the legal system, it's hardly better to infringe it through peer pressure and browbeating.

Honestly, I've never heard of the phrase "check your privileges" before MovieBob mentioned it in one of it's videos. Where, exactly, did that come from?

Supposedly it comes from a rather inoffensive sounding idea that you realize that when discussing cultural issues that you are not an expert on, you listen to those that have experience before you start talking like you know what's what. Like you would check a coat at the door on entry to a restaurant, you leave your "privilege" (preconceptions based on your life in which you probably had some advantage that said people did not) behind as you enter into the conversation. However noble that may be, it has morphed into a farcical parody of itself, in which oppressed people get into privilege measuring contests to see who is the most guilty and to whom they should kowtow. This is a rather sarcastic take on it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192mLlOBzvE&t=5m51s], and concludes with the idea that, it's basically the Left's idea of Original Sin. As it stands today, that's pretty accurate.