The Felicia Day/Destructoid situation

[secretsantaone]

You see a goofy video and claim, "She's whoring herself out!" when really you are putting up a straw man argument.

You get the joke, but you fault her for glamming up in service of the joke. You completely overlook the tone of the whole production so you can scrape up evidence that she wants to sexually entice young men into putting her into every game, movie, and web series they consume. There was nothing in this video that was gratuitous and I highly doubt it got attention because a slightly more attractive version of Felecia Day was in it.

Hey, if you got evidence to support your argument feel free to toss that up here. You just won't succeed with this one.

Are you seriously saying that dressing Felicia Day in a skimpy outfit, having her do a series of suggestive poses and having the youtube preview be a picture of her being spanked did nothing to garner attention to the video?

Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Simply put - you do not need to justify your existence to ANYONE on this planet. So long as you do not infringe upon the freedoms of another human beings, I do not care what you do or practice.

Ryan was an asshole, got called on it and subsequently lost his job. No mystery. No spectacle. No brainer.

Regardless of what the US Constitution says about freedom of speech and expressions, it does NOT protect you from the consequences of said speech and expressions.

 

[Carnagath]

I like Felicia Day. She's always coming up with new content, she's done good work in many videogames, she's really passionate about gaming and has never been a ***** about any of those things. Even her reply to this guy was as reserved and cautious as it could have been. She's also very obsessive (to the point of autism) about the things she likes, which is obvious from her interviews, and this is not something that you can really fake. As for the Destructoid guy, he admitted that he was drunk-tweeting, he was a dick for no reason, and his claim that she has offered nothing creative to gaming is factually incorrect and can be answered via a simple IMDB search. So... the whole thing is just a shitstorm for no reason at all. Even Day didn't seem to get too upset by it, and she never mentioned anything about misogyny. It's just the Internet being the Internet. Nothing to see here.

 

[GoGoFrenzy]

Yup he deserved it!!

Felicia Day is a cool chick and I find The Guild hilarious. She's done voice over in games like DA2 and Guild Wars 2 and indeed a gamer--not a booth babe. But even besides all that, Ryan Perez acted like an asshat.

Also, judging by the public reaction over Ryan's words it seems she matters more than he does to the gaming community so good riddance to him. People need to grow up and realize that you are held accountable by your actions and how you behave towards others. Don't be surprised when your words come back to bite you on the ass.

 

[Vrach]

Does a man deserve to lose his job for some opinions he holds privately?

Twitter is not a place for private opinions (why is this less obvious than it should be?). If you're working for a magazine and being followed by a number of fans of that magazine because they want updates from you, you don't get to use it as a private channel because it's exactly NOT that.

So yes, he does deserve to lose his job over insulting someone (especially doing it for no reason) in a public channel as it's damaging to the PR of the business he works for (which happens to be all about the PR as it's a bloody e-magazine).

Following total uproar Ryan was pressured into resigning from his position with Destructoid as D-toid issued apologies to Miss Day. Other figures such as Adam Baldwin and Wil Wheaton have come out in support of Felicia. But quite frankly...isn't he right? What of substance has she contributed to the gaming medium?

Why would she do anything "useful" to gaming? The last time I checked she's an actress and doesn't work in the gaming industry.

^This. She's a fun celebrity that's connected to gaming as a person who likes games and as a person who got famous because of a show about games. She also promotes games/gaming in a few ways (the Dragon Age series, a few songs and such). Calling her a "glorified booth babe" however, is nothing short of an insult.

 

[tyriless]

Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

Hey, if you got evidence to support your argument feel free to toss that up here. You just won't succeed with this one.

Are you seriously saying that dressing Felicia Day in a skimpy outfit, having her do a series of suggestive poses and having the youtube preview be a picture of her being spanked did nothing to garner attention to the video?

Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

I believe in a lot of things but at the top of that list is that you can't tell difference between an inoffensive and humorous video and hardcore porn.

 

[secretsantaone]

Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

Hey, if you got evidence to support your argument feel free to toss that up here. You just won't succeed with this one.

Are you seriously saying that dressing Felicia Day in a skimpy outfit, having her do a series of suggestive poses and having the youtube preview be a picture of her being spanked did nothing to garner attention to the video?

Do you also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

I believe in a lot of things but at the top of that list is that you can't tell difference between an inoffensive and humorous video and hardcore porn.

And suddenly I'm saying it's hardcore porn. Thank god I have you to put words in my mouth, otherwise I might actually mean what I say.

 

[dantoddd]

What is felicia Day doing these days anyway? I haven't seen her appear on anything recently.

BTW, this perez dude is just a plain dick and most probably in need of therapy.

 

[tyriless]

I believe in a lot of things but at the top of that list is that you can't tell difference between an inoffensive and humorous video and hardcore porn.[/quote]

And suddenly I'm saying it's hardcore porn. Thank god I have you to put words in my mouth, otherwise I might actually mean what I say.[/quote]

I know you didn't actually say that, but it does suck when someone takes something you said and or did and presents it as a fallacy.

 

[GoGoFrenzy]

Okay so I went to this Ryan Perez's twitter page and if you scroll down you will see he apologized. That counts for something in my book. I doubt it will get him his job back but at least he was man enough to own up to his mistake.

Also...went to her Twitter profile and she accepted his apology. Cut and paste:

" @PissedOffRyno I accept your apology, genuinely hope you mean it, and hope this can end all the hostility being flung both ways. "

So yeah...that's good. Hopefully the net will calm down a bit.

 

[Thammuz]

Newsflash: ANYONE who is not workig into game development is not contributing to the medium.

This includes him.

Sitting on the sidelines taking pot shots at games/reporting/acting/etcetera is NOT contributing to the medium, it's POPULARIZING the medium. which is precisely what Felicia Day does.

 

[secretsantaone]

I know you didn't actually say that, but it does suck when someone takes something you said and or did and presents it as a fallacy.

When did I do that?

You said that Felicia Day's popularity wasn't based around her looks or sex appeal. I showed you a video where she's clearly using her looks and sex appeal to garner attention. You responded by saying that because the video is a joke, it doesn't apply, which is kind of like saying Army of Darkness isn't violent because it's so over the top.

I'm not saying she's on Olivia Munn's level, but if she looked like Hepler, she wouldn't be nearly as popular.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Ugh, another Twitter-related fiasco and firing right after Spoonygate settled down.

Smacks of a hotshot new comer trying to make a name for himself by prodding a bear, thing probably would've blown over if he just condensed it to "I keep seeing [you] everywhere. Do you even provide anything useful to gaming, besides 'personality?' You don't seem to add anything creative to the medium." Instead he, a relatively new intern "journalist", goes and demands that she justify her existence to him (hilarious), and adds this little gem: "could you be considered nothing more than a glorified booth babe?" Hell, it still probably would've flown under the radar if he didn't go and call publicly call her out. He might as well have stood outside her house banging coke bottles on his fingers and reenacting David Patrick Kelly's scene from

Spoiler: The Warriors.

Now he's going to be killed off before the half hour mark a la Sully from

Spoiler: Commando.

 

[Littaly]

If he deserved to lose his job is arguable, but it was still a stupid comment. Not necessarily because he was wrong, almost on the contrary, it's a very empty statement. You could say the same thing about almost any gaming/pop-culture related Internet celebrity, you could argue that nobody really "adds" anything. If people still want them around, then that's really all that's required for them to stay around, there's no quota of creative content to fill to stay in the spotlight. And last time I checked people still want Felicia Day around, regardless of what she does or doesn't do, so why bother discussing it further?

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

What has she contributed to the community? I have no idea. She's a moderately attractive (being generous) nerdy woman whom the entire internet seems to be in love with. Why? I have no idea.

Even with that being said, this guy asking this series of questions has got to be the dumbest career suicide I've seen in quite some time. Was it honest? Yes. Was he right? Probably. Was it a good idea to ask these questions? FUCK. NO.

 

[tthor]

I gotta disagree with you on the 'not sexist' part, I found the comment about Day being a 'glorified booth babe' a bit sexist; What exactly connects Day to being a booth babe? She doesn't wear skimpy cloths, she doesn't just merely act as eye-candy, the only thing that connects her to being a booth babe is that she's a 'babe', and she's been to Cons. (essentially making every female working at a con a 'booth babe')

And it doesn't matter much that it came from his private twitter, the tweet he sent was still very public, and in this social network age where people are connected so closely with fans, it is important that whenever in public (in places you are recognized for your work) to always represent your work in the most professional way- [huh, i guess i'm beginning to understand the argument for why Spoony was fired...]

 

[RN7]

...I thought Felicia Day was an actress, considering she presides over The Guild, one of my favorite web series. She also runs the Geekandsundry channel on youtube, which puts out alot of gaming-related content, mostly in the form of tabletop, but that's Will Wheaton's thing. I've got no problem with her being a "gaming celebrity" or whatever.

 

[LetalisK]

Never been a fan of Felicia Day since I find her particular brand of quirkiness irritating. That doesn't make Ryan Douchebag any less of a douchebag though. When reading his tweets I kept thinking "And who the fuck are you?"

 

[tyriless]

I know you didn't actually say that, but it does suck when someone takes something you said and or did and presents it as a fallacy.

When did I do that?

You said that Felicia Day's popularity wasn't based around her looks or sex appeal. I showed you a video where she's clearly using her looks and sex appeal to garner attention. You responded by saying that because the video is a joke, it doesn't apply, which is kind of like saying Army of Darkness isn't violent because it's so over the top.

I'm not saying she's on Olivia Munn's level, but if she looked like Hepler, she wouldn't be nearly as popular.

I doubt this video success was due to Day's sex appeal so much as it was funny to watch and easy to listen too. As far as Army of Darkness, the amount of violence doesn't change sure, but its quality certainly does when it's played as slapstick. It's for less shocking to see a man shoot his evil twin when they just did a bit from the 3 Stooges beforehand. It's the same with this video. The sexy (and I only state that cause you find it quite titillating, apparently) Felicia Day is only part of the joke. The intent is clearly not to turn on, but to amuse. And it is amusing.