The Felicia Day/Destructoid situation

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Sylveria

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Cheesepower5 said:
He's not in hot water because of his gender, it's because of the gender of the person he's speaking to. That's just as bad. It's like dropping two people in a warzone for no reason, and saying to the girl: "Oh yeah, here's your bullet proof armour. You get it because you have a vagina."
That's pretty much what things have been reduced to when it comes to gaming. The industry, especially the journalism/consumer side of the industry, has been trying so hard to not appear sexist towards women that every little thing is now considered sexism, an attack, sexualization, whatever. Like someone above said, if Morgan Webb or some other attractive female personality came out and said this against someone like Nathan Fillian, not an eye would be batted. Anything that demeans, brutalizes or objectifies men is totally ignored, and we have people like Movie Bob saying "oh well that's different."

Sexism, sexualization, misogyny, etc, they're all two way streets. As a woman, I am really sick of this industry and this culture trying to act like we're fragile flowers who need to be protected and sheltered and covered up or else we're being abused or exploited in some fashion. I like Ivy's provocative costumes, I like Juliet Starling fighting zombies in her cheerleader outfit, and I wish that people in gaming would grow the hell up and stop losing their minds when there's a flash of panty on screen.
 

NightHawk21

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As far as video games go didn't she just voice a couple characters? I mostly know her from web series (Dr.Horrible <- if you have not seen this you're doing yourself a disservice). Going off the VA knowledge only, how has she contributed any less to video games than any other voice actor, and why would he call her out publicly like that in what I would say is a very confrontational tone? I don't know what the guy's issue is, but the same question could be asked of almost every video game journalist.
 

Kahunaburger

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Link Kadeshi said:
Kahunaburger said:
Yeah, because getting in hot water over sexist remarks is totally the same as being the target of sexist remarks, guise. (Like, seriously, did anyone call, for instance, Nathan Fillion a "glorified booth babe" for being in and helping to promote a Halo game?)
Funny, that. I said this when I found out his inclusion: "Wow, looks like they have nerd bait in ODST." Which is quite similar to "Booth Babe" in that respect.
I think the key difference is that there isn't that nasty undercurrent of sexism. Patrick Stewart would also qualify as this type of "nerd bait," but the key difference is that one is saying "this person is in a game because nerds who like his/her past work will be more likely to buy the game" and the other is basically saying "this person is in this game only because she's attractive."
 

mindlesspuppet

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Kahunaburger said:
mindlesspuppet said:
Felicia Day is a no one that made a web series Joss Whedon alum and gained notoriety from it. Had people not found her attractive she not been on Joss Whedon shows she wouldn't have been given the opportunities to be prominent in the gaming community. able to leverage the resulting geek cred into giant piles of money.
Like, I get you're doing the whole "I'm uncomfortable with women I find attractive being successful T.T" thing, but at least get the cause and effect right, man.

And there's nothing wrong with actors having careers. I'm not about to question Nathan Fillion's gamer cred or w/e because he's been in a Halo game ("okay, Fillion, if that's your real name, how many roguelikes have you beaten? What's your position on old-school RPG mechanics and skill ceilings in multiplayer shooters?") or get a case of the madbros because he has (shocker of shockers) acted in roles that he got in part because he was on Firefly.
I've never found her attractive to be honest (quite the opposite in fact). Weird facial structure, too thin, just not my taste. Awesome assumption there though; I suppose now you'll accuse me of either lying or being a "virgin with no clue what real females look like"? I'm a guy on the internet so surely I'm either attracted to anything with a vagina OR I only like fictional girls from games/anime and I live in a basement?

She's a Joss Whedon alum, but The Guild gained her a ton of notoriety, especially with gamers. She likely would have faded away in obscurity otherwise -- with the occasional role in Law & Order SVU or something. Of course you could say "she wouldn't have made The Guild if she didn't like gaming", to which I'd respond;

She couldn't find real acting work so she resorted to a webseries, pretty much every popular webseries at the time (and still for that matter) were gaming based, so subject matter was an easy choice.

Here in lays one of the glaring problems with her; when she's writing for something, sure she seems like a gamer. On the other hand I could write something and seem like an expert on Hinduism via the magic of Google, but I most certainly am not, and could not discuss as such.

Nathan Fillion is associated with sci-fi which is why many gamers like him, not with gaming the way Felicia Day is.

So good job pointing out Felicia Day is an actress. Ever think she's acting like a gamer because she's not attractive enough to be a leading lady and not talented enough to be a dramatic actress?
 

Moonlight Butterfly

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FelixG said:
Moonlight Butterfly said:
FelixG said:
Vault101 said:
DigitalAtlas said:
I agree with everything you said OP.

"Miss Day" does nothing. In fact, the video series she's popular for just focused a sitcom around a game. A game, mind you, that isn't even real. She's not adding to any specific game, she's just there to entertain the community. Oh, and now she's doing Let's Plays just to keep the fanbase going. Like we didn't have enough of those.

She's not even a journalist, nor does she give any insight to designers. She's just a glorified fan. Even CHOBOT has more on her.
and are there not alot of guys who are pretty much the same? why don;t they come under such criticsm
Might I ask who? Because I am only aware of Day.

I actually rather like her, makes me sad she is only going to be getting one season on Eureka and I loved her in the Sing along blog, but I am just asking out of interest who her male equivalent would be?
Wil Wheaton or Nathan Fillion probably.

You don't see someone floating up to them and saying 'HEY HOT GUY! Aren't you just there to look pretty?!?!'

Sounds very silly doesn't it.

Any guy who does let's plays and games reviews and looks half decent would count too.
Ok il give ya the first part. I haven't payed much attention to Wheaton career (Though I have been hearing about him more and more as of later!) But Fillion is bro material. Though he is fairly comical, if someone did (float?) up to him saying that he would probobly just strike a pose and agree. Just his personality type

The second part though is completely false, "any guy who does lets plays and game reviews and looks half decent" arent exactly cultural icons like Day or Fillion are.

Unless you are expanding it to "any girl who middle middle and looks half decent" as well, then I would have to agree, but point out jim sterling only got so far because he is a ball of drop dead sexy :p
Yeah okay but I know Miss Day does plenty of web stuff in relation to games and boardgames. So that's why included that part.

I agree that Nathan Fillion would probably strike a pose and laugh but only because the question is so bloody stupid.

We need to get to a point where it's silly to say that to a lass too and not drenched in insinuation and assumption.

mindlesspuppet said:
It's so funny the way you give Fillion a free pass because he's male but Day can't possibly be a real gamer because she has lady bits!
 

Tsun Tzu

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I like Day, quite a lot actually. When she was on Supernatural, I actually man-squee'd.

I also don't think the guy should have been fired for speaking his mind and, frankly, he was quite polite compared to most folks who get canned for the stupid shit they expel from their mouth holes (or hands, in this case).

I'm very much a proponent of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Now, I'm aware his rights weren't violated, but losing ones job over something so...honestly, trivial, is just as asinine as the initial comments.
 
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No, he didn't deserve to be fired. He also didn't deserve to be called a sexist or misogynist or whatever. Someone should really only be fired for things that effect their job performance. This doesn't. And it's not sexist because...It's not sexist. He says absolutely nothing about women in general, just this one woman. It's like I say "That black guy is a car thief", it's not racist. Provided I've actually seen him steal a car.

I can't really say much more then that, seeing as I don't know too much about Felicia Day, and I'm not really sure why he's complaining, or what he's trying to imply. Nonsensical and mean-spirited? Sure. But not sexist, and not worth firing him over.
 

Charli

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DustyDrB said:
I like Destructoid, but this guy is a dick and his comments had no validity. And yes, it is sexist. I wasn't ready to go there until he made the "glorified booth babe" remark.

And for people defending the contents of his remark (even if you admit how he said it was wrong), what makes Felicia Day worth singling out? She's an actress. She's voiced characters in games. She's done a damn good job in some of those (Veronica from New Vegas being a great example). If you have a problem with her in games, then you should also have the same problem with Patrick Stewart or Seth Green. Do you? I highly doubt it. She has a lot more relevancy to gaming than Mr. Perez.

Sexism is a thing. There's nothing wrong with pointing it out when it actually happens. You don't have to tip-toe around the issue when some some douchebag shows his true colors.
...I don't have much more to elaborate, Dusty says all of my stuff.
I know who both of them are, Destructoid was in the wrong, end of.

Captcha: toe the line

My Captcha you are really getting good at this 'appropriate for topic' thing.


Being fired should be at the discretion of the company, if they think he has crossed a line it could be over eating a hotdog next to the wrong sponsorship sign and having it photographed.
 

Archraven

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so I feel like a lot of information is being left out of the arguments here, such as the fact that he personally apologized to her and said himself that his statements where both stupid and ignorant, and that he felt he deserved most of the reception he received. If you don't believe me you can check his twitter feed.

Personally after reading his explanation and apology I think its just a case of a guy getting drunk and making a very public mistake that blew up in his face. Personally after seeing his apology I don't think he should have been fried but considering that he was basically an intern for the site and was not being paid I can see why the site would not want to keep him around after this for fear that he may do something similar again. I read his apology myself and it came off as genuine so really for me that should be the end of it. Of course at this point is gone way further then I thought possible with people on different sides using it to argue about things they most likely had strong opinions about before the tweets even happened. But I guess that is the nature of the internet, especially on a site like twitter where almost everything is public.

As far as the question of does he have a point? I would say no. She is popular, hard working, and passionate about video games as a hobby. Companies have the right to hire her to do voice work or speak at press events to generate publicity for their products just as they can other any celebrity, and she has the right to accept that work to both make money and raise her own profile. At least she is passionate and outspoken about her love of gaming and has doe voice work in games. You could really level his questions to any celebrity who shows up at any gaming event really though so for me what really makes the statements bad is the hostile nature of confronting her directly with it in a very public forum.

As for the last comment he made goes I am just going to say that I felt it was at the least in bad taste and brings up a lot of implications which I don't think he intended, though based on his apology I don't think he intended almost any of this.
 

Elamdri

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DigitalAtlas said:
Vault101 said:
DigitalAtlas said:
I agree with everything you said OP.

"Miss Day" does nothing. In fact, the video series she's popular for just focused a sitcom around a game. A game, mind you, that isn't even real. She's not adding to any specific game, she's just there to entertain the community. Oh, and now she's doing Let's Plays just to keep the fanbase going. Like we didn't have enough of those.

She's not even a journalist, nor does she give any insight to designers. She's just a glorified fan. Even CHOBOT has more on her.
and are there not alot of guys who are pretty much the same? why don;t they come under such criticsm
To me, they are. Most Let's Players and show creators especially. For instance, unless someone can tell me what Michael Shanks does, he just made a good geeky show. Nothing more.
Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.
 

Cheesepower5

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NinjaDeathSlap said:
Cheesepower5 said:
Kahunaburger said:
Cheesepower5 said:
Kahunaburger said:
Hmm... I wonder what Ryan Perez has "provided to gaming." Oh, wait, nobody asks that question because he has a Y chromosome and it's not a good question.
Yeah, far be it to see anybody EVER being cruel to a man. Not like losing his job for a few dumbass comments, that'd never happen.
Yeah, because getting in hot water over sexist remarks is totally the same as being the target of sexist remarks, guise. (Like, seriously, did anyone call, for instance, Nathan Fillion a "glorified booth babe" for being in and helping to promote a Halo game?)
Prove it was sexist. He never said anything to women, he said it to Felicia Day. Last I checked, Felicia Day is not women.
So, in order for something to be sexist, it has to be directed against an entire gender as a whole, rather than just using gender, gender inequalities and other unpleasant things related to gender as a means to insult? OK then...

"HEY *****! GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE ME ANOTHER SANDWICH WHILE I MASTURBATE TO THE THOUGHT OF CHEATING ON YOU WITH YOUR SISTER YOU DUMB *****!"

That was me making derogatory comments to my girlfriend and putting her down based on her gender. But it's like, totally OK you guys, because I only said it to her, not all women. Last time I checked, ***** is not women, right fellas?

[sub]I didn't actually just say that stuff btw, just so we're clear[/sub]
No, but it should constitute something that is demeaning to the gender as a whole and not just, you know, Felicia Day. Is this so complicated? He wasn't acting like the **** you guys are making him out to be, he was clearly some form of lesser ****. He insulted Wheaton, nobody gives a fuck. You ignore this and say he targets women exclusively, but clearly his issues extend far beyond just women. If I had to venture a guess, he's probably a bitter "hardcoar gamur" who hates fake gamers in general. It doesn't all boil down to your black and white world of EVIL SEXIST PIGS and GOOD CHIVALROUS GUYS LIKE ME. People who do this shit are just trying to feel better about themselves.

Kahunaburger said:
Cheesepower5 said:
I recall numerous forum posts complaining about people like Neil Patrick Harris and Will Wheaton not deserving big spots on E3 because of not really representing gaming, I'm not going to dig weeks back into every game tabloid's comments and forum posts to link you specific examples.
Not analogous. Notice how that sort of criticism didn't involve terminology like "glorified booth babe," and didn't involve raging at them for being visible in gaming at all.
I doubt it would, as I've never seen a male "booth babe." You can discuss that problem all you like, I'm sure we could both agree that booth babes are ridiculous and stupid as fuck, that's not what matters. The same criticisms, with similarly venomous terminology is levied against men all the time. Now it's a woman, and people freak out. It's just blatant what's going on here, and that's a huge negative reaction to a few assholes that make white knights attack the neutral zone, of all fucking people.

Public Service Announcement: Don't call shit like this sexist kids! It totally undermines the meaning when you use it on REAL sexists like Rush Limbaugh or the Islamic extremists. Seriously, I doubt I'll ever take the word misogynist seriously again, and this past month in video game tabloids alone is basically the cause.
 

Kahunaburger

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mindlesspuppet said:
Ever think she's acting like a gamer because she's not attractive enough to be a leading lady and not talented enough to be a dramatic actress?
This sort of thing isn't helping your case any. It's inaccurate in a way that's immediately obvious to anyone with an internet connection [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1260407/] and fails to address the core issue re: people not getting their jimmies rustled over whether Nathan Fillion/Vin Diesel/Will Wheaton et al. have demonstrated sufficient nerdiness. ("Okay, Vin Diesel, you claim to be a D&D player, so answer me this: as a 10th level 3.5 character using only materials provided in the PHB, MM, and DMG, how do you break the wish economy? You have one minute to answer.")
 

DigitalAtlas

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Elamdri said:
DigitalAtlas said:
Vault101 said:
DigitalAtlas said:
I agree with everything you said OP.

"Miss Day" does nothing. In fact, the video series she's popular for just focused a sitcom around a game. A game, mind you, that isn't even real. She's not adding to any specific game, she's just there to entertain the community. Oh, and now she's doing Let's Plays just to keep the fanbase going. Like we didn't have enough of those.

She's not even a journalist, nor does she give any insight to designers. She's just a glorified fan. Even CHOBOT has more on her.
and are there not alot of guys who are pretty much the same? why don;t they come under such criticsm
To me, they are. Most Let's Players and show creators especially. For instance, unless someone can tell me what Michael Shanks does, he just made a good geeky show. Nothing more.
Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.
But the voice acting came BECAUSE of her fandom videos. Not before. She didn't WANT to be a voice-actor. They just thought it'd be a cool cameo because she's everywhere and gets worshiped yet does nothing.

Also, adding to the medium and adding to the community are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. All she's doing is showing her appreciation to the medium through the community. She's not a f*cking ambassador, and she's not an insightful analyst. She had a camera, and made a show that went viral.
 

Seneschal

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Veldt Falsetto said:
Kahunaburger said:
Hmm... I wonder what Ryan Perez has "provided to gaming." Oh, wait, nobody asks that question because he has a Y chromosome and it's not a good question.
Only...Ryan Perez is a reviewer for a web magazine and Felicia Day is famous for doing web comedies about gaming, who also runs a weekly series called Vaginal Fantasy and starred in a Bioware game.

While she obviously has contributed more to gaming than Perez, this is clearly NOT a matter of sexism but I remember the community outrage when that Jessica Chobot from IGN was announced to be in Mass Effect 3, no one raged when Felicia was in Dragon Age 2. This is just one guy questioning why Felicia is so famous on the web and in all honesty, that's probably the where the sexism lies, in the fact that she's female. Jim Sterling from this site and Destructoid gets questioned all the time, people say MUCH worse than what Perez said about Day but because Felicia has female tits as opposed to fatty man ones everyone's in outrage and I think it's pathetic that when a journalist says such a throw away remark in private about a woman the internet points the finger and calls him sexist
Felicia Day doesn't represent a gaming publication. Chobot does, and she's no actress to boot. With her involvement, it looked like BioWare was bribing IGN in broad daylight, in front of everybody. Now, I don't know about you, but I like my gaming scores rigged to 8.9 behind closed doors.

No, it's not about her being female (not the way you think). Imagine if a film critic attacked Howard Shore or Hans Zimmer by saying: "What do you actually do for film? Did you film anything? You're just a glorified street performer!" You can bet your ass he'd get chewed out.
 

Kahunaburger

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Cheesepower5 said:
Kahunaburger said:
Cheesepower5 said:
I recall numerous forum posts complaining about people like Neil Patrick Harris and Will Wheaton not deserving big spots on E3 because of not really representing gaming, I'm not going to dig weeks back into every game tabloid's comments and forum posts to link you specific examples.
Not analogous. Notice how that sort of criticism didn't involve terminology like "glorified booth babe," and didn't involve raging at them for being visible in gaming at all.
I doubt it would, as I've never seen a male "booth babe."
Precisely. This type of criticism is generally not leveled at men involved in games, and when it is, it is not presented in a way that belittles the men in an explicitly gendered way.

Cheesepower5 said:
Public Service Announcement: Don't call shit like this sexist kids! It totally undermines the meaning when you use it on REAL sexists like Rush Limbaugh or the Islamic extremists.
Let's put it this way: I can assure you (based on past experience) that it sucks to get hit in the face with a hockey stick. It also sucks (but not as much) when I stub my toe. The fact that stubbing my toe is not as painful as getting hit in the face with a hockey stick doesn't mean I don't avoid stubbing my toe where possible.
 

jamesbrown

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DoPo said:
And because nobody answered my question, I went crying to Google. To my surprise, I found this article [http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/07/01/the-wreck-of-the-s-s-censorship-or-how-writers-steer-their-careers-into-the-rocks/] on top. So go and read it because it's by Chuck Wendig. I still didn't get my answers, but I love the dude's writing.
This article is very good, thank you for pointing it out; Also who cares who "contributed to gaming" seriously in the end, good games matter, if you were part of that process get a cookie ( and lots of money); otherwise who cares.
 

TAdamson

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Don Savik said:
On his personal twitter? That's pretty goddam stupid if you ask me. Firing sounds a bit extreme in this situation, but we know how the video gaming community feels about about women. We can't can't handle anything calmly.

[sub](past 2 months of rape and feminism threads on the escapist)[/sub]
Mr Ink 5000 said:
DustyDrB said:
Mr Ink 5000 said:
i think sexism is wrong(and most -isims)
but an extreme response by the employer to sack the offender doesnt help anyone. he'll probably walk away harbouring more ignorance and hate due to the injustice he no doubt sees he was subjected to.

you can not force tolerance, only hope to show/teach/lead by example.
Firing him help's Destructoid's image, or it at least prevents a black mark to their image. They lost next to nothing in firing him, as this guy was an intern and hadn't contributed anything of note other than a sexist question on Twitter.

They're not firing him to teach him a lesson. They're firing him because he publicly made an ass of himself and, by proxy, the company he worked for.
i understand that side of it, good publicity etc etc. but to clarify, i meant this doesnt really help the battle gainst sexism.
CAPCHA: i like you
It's not about the sexism... It's about being an unprofessional douchecannon. The fact that he's a sexist unprofessional douchecannon just adds to it.
 

Elamdri

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DigitalAtlas said:
Elamdri said:
Well, if we ignore the premise that her show about gaming doesn't actually add anything to gaming (Which is wrong btw, but there is an easier way to deconstruct this argument), she is in fact "Adding to any specific game" because she is in fact a voice actor for multiple games.
But the voice acting came BECAUSE of her fandom videos. Not before. She didn't WANT to be a voice-actor.
So what? The question posed was "What has she contributed to gaming."

DigitalAtlas said:
They just thought it'd be a cool cameo because she's everywhere and gets worshiped yet does nothing.
I wouldn't call writing, producing and staring in a popular web series "Nothing." People like Day because she's nice, funny and most of her audience relates well to her. Yes she's attractive, but there are plenty of attractive women who play video games who don't get nearly the attention that Day does because they don't share her personality.


DigitalAtlas said:
Also, adding to the medium and adding to the community are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. All she's doing is showing her appreciation to the medium through the community. She's not a f*cking ambassador, and she's not an insightful analyst. She had a camera, and made a show that went viral.
As it turns out, (given the Recent Retake ME3 movement) video game communities are very important to the industry. If Felicia Day goes out and says "Hey, lets boycott this video game because it's sexist" or "Lets petition Bioware to change the ME3 ending" or "Lets ask this developer to add a character back to a game we really like" THAT can have a lot of impact if all of her followers do what she says. She's a celebrity and part of that appeal is being able to mobilize people very easily. If you don't recognize the importance of that, you are very naive. I guarantee you game developers certainly recognize it.
 

SecondPrize

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These are not questions this guy was asking. I know you might be confused by the presence of question marks, but these aren't questions. This was a demand for justification brought on by "OMG why are THEY talking about THIS B*** again," whiskey and "This will get my name out there for sure. Yes, this plan cannot possibly go wrong."
It's not a question because such a demand for justification certainly isn't worth a response from Ms Day, and dumb as he is, there's no planet on which this asshat could have actually thought that she needed to reply to him. If you don't expect a response then, your question isn't a question. In this case, it appears to be, instead, a finely tuned plan designed to get oneself fired. I really can't see another outcome when you're punching above your weight-class and being such a dick about it like this guy, but I'm not a complete fucking moron so I just can't get into his head and guess how he saw this ending.