Kickstarter "Tropes vs Women in Videogames"

[ZeroAX]

No we dont, it is made a binary thing when discussed online. You get lumped into one camp or the other.

Well honestly it's a very tiresome way to have a discussion.

And a lot of it is spent trying to prove that I'm not an elephant.

[marurun]

I don't place any blame on her, on the contrary I am of the opinion that victims should be open about the abuse they receive and use it to further their message, and there's nothing shady or unethical about that.

Again it's probably a cultural thing, you guys just have such a binary way of looking at things.

No we dont, it is made a binary thing when discussed online. You get lumped into one camp or the other.

I don't put any of you in the same group as the trolls who harass her on-line. In fact, I don't think any of you are bad people at all. And I don't think you are intending in any way to blame her for the vitriol she receives. The problem comes that every time we try to discuss the attacks thrown at her, the whole "But she's using it for publicity" thing inevitably comes up. Why are we unable to discuss these trolls without having someone accuse her of using it to promote her agenda? It clouds the issue greatly. Whether she's using the trolls as a boost is largely irrelevant to 1) her points made in her videos, 2) her larger goals of trying to talk about and address sexism in video games, and 3) the harassment she's facing.

I don't think she is using the trolls for personal advancement, and if she is using them to advance her larger agenda (which I consider separate from personal advancement), I'm fine with that. When life gives you trolls, make troll-aid. But it's being used as a kind of accusation, and it always comes up in the shadow of her receiving these attacks to begin with. That casts doubt on her character and suggests, even unintentionally, that on some level it isn't so bad. Hey, if a dark cloud can possibly have a silver lining, it must ultimately be a good thing, right? But no, it's just bad all around.

Also, the reason discussions on-line tend to approach the binary is that subtlety takes too many words and people on-line hate reading (and writing) long screeds unless they are masochists like Dave and me.

[Exhuminator]

Hell, she HAS been threatened with personal harm by people with her personal information (and my understanding is in that case she did call the cops).

I ask once more, does anyone know if she has gotten the FBI involved yet?

Put yourself in a woman's shoes. You pick up GTA. This is a AAA title everyone is talking about, and you're a gamer so you want to play it. Your option is to play a male lead. Hitman is a popular game so maybe you wanna give that a try. In Hitman you play a dude.

Okay, so I go and play Tomb Raider, Life Is Strange, Dreamfall Chapters, Alien: Isolation, inFamous: First Light, Transistor, or any number of popular modern games that feature strong non-purely-sex-object female protagonists. Oh wait in Anita's world games like that don't exist, because they don't fit her agenda.

When having these discussions, you have to set the level of detail, and she's doing broad and shallow for her examination. That's how you do an overview.

If you set the level of examination so obscured as to ignore the finer details so that you can falsely proclaim a bias as being reality, that's not good journalism, that's propaganda plain and simple.

You have to open the door to discussions first. And she's still laying the groundwork for those deeper discussions.

The trouble is she's not laying a proper groundwork. She's constructed a biased frame of reference based on inaccurate claims to bolster a non profit organization that she leads, while making herself a feminist liberal media rockstar in the process. She has limelighted the abuse she's gotten from trolls to feed an internet SJW army that blindly validates her biased "research" and burns any witch that dares to point out cracks in her work's armor.

And that's my final say on the matter. I've wasted all the time I'm going to waste on this. If you think I'm wrong, that's A-OK with me! This is real life, we don't have to agree on everything.

[Opa Opa]

If context truly has no place here then Ballz 3D is the most popular, most discussed, and highest rated title on this website.

[Ack]

If context truly has no place here then Ballz 3D is the most popular, most discussed, and highest rated title on this website.

Even within proper context, this is still true, Opa.

[ZeroAX]

I don't put any of you in the same group as the trolls who harass her on-line. In fact, I don't think any of you are bad people at all. And I don't think you are intending in any way to blame her for the vitriol she receives. The problem comes that every time we try to discuss the attacks thrown at her, the whole "But she's using it for publicity" thing inevitably comes up. Why are we unable to discuss these trolls without having someone accuse her of using it to promote her agenda? It clouds the issue greatly. Whether she's using the trolls as a boost is largely irrelevant to 1) her points made in her videos, 2) her larger goals of trying to talk about and address sexism in video games, and 3) the harassment she's facing.

I don't think she is using the trolls for personal advancement, and if she is using them to advance her larger agenda (which I consider separate from personal advancement), I'm fine with that. When life gives you trolls, make troll-aid. But it's being used as a kind of accusation, and it always comes up in the shadow of her receiving these attacks to begin with. That casts doubt on her character and suggests, even unintentionally, that on some level it isn't so bad. Hey, if a dark cloud can possibly have a silver lining, it must ultimately be a good thing, right? But no, it's just bad all around.

Also, the reason discussions on-line tend to approach the binary is that subtlety takes too many words and people on-line hate reading (and writing) long screeds unless they are masochists like Dave and me.

You make pretty valid points. Just one thing please, stop using the word agenda, it has a negative vibe. I think it's more valid to say she's using it to promote her goals/opinions and I repeat that is the correct thing to do. If expressing an opinion gets you abuse, then the right thing to do is to express that opinion louder.

[dsheinem]

I am trying to humanize her a bit since all her detractors seem to want to see is this demonized construct of a narcissistic, man-hating, ignorant, anti-gaming villain.

I do not personally recall anyone in this thread calling her that. On this forum I have only seen her method criticized, not her actual being.

She's constructed a biased frame of reference based on inaccurate claims to bolster a non profit organization that she leads, while making herself a feminist liberal media rockstar in the process. She has limelighted the abuse she's gotten from trolls to feed an internet SJW army that blindly validates her biased "research" and burns any witch that dares to point out cracks in her work's armor.

Nice critique of her methodology!

[Forlorn Drifter]

If expressing an opinion gets you abuse, then the right thing to do is to express that opinion louder.

Hitler was a cool guy. HITLER WAS A COOL GUY!!!!

I know what you meant, but still.

I'm still interested in how her series about masculinity and positive female figures are going to come out.

[pepharytheworm]

Can we stop saying mentally-ill/sick to describe the behaviors of these trolls? Mental illness has nothing to do with their negative behaviors. Nor are people with mental disorders prone to such behaviors.

[MrPopo]

Can we stop saying mentally-ill/sick to describe the behaviors of these trolls? Mental illness has nothing to do with their negative behaviors. Nor are people with mental disorders prone to such behaviors.

Then you need to come up with a proper descriptor for them that isn't just "troll". You can't just take away every good word for describing assholes just because it so happens that some non-asshole people can medically be described with it.