Has the ex-boyfriend been getting any grief?
This youtuber breaks it down well. Links in the low bar. No nasty names besides calling her a liar. He doesn’t care about her sexual habits, but focuses on the larger implications.
No, this youtuber breaks it down based on his completely biased opinion. He gets points for not using gratuitous profanity or slurs, but he is no closer to unbiased than other internet sources. Ironic that somehow he tries to claim the high ground by criticizing other news sources as being corrupt.
Look, I don’t know Zoe. I don’t know her personal strengths and morals. But all of this just smacks of an internet lynching.
I’m amazed that so many people confuse opinion with fact. In that video I heard a LOT of opinion, but not really many facts that aren’t already known.
I think this whole situation is one of those things where there might be a legitimate concern in there, but the actual Zoe Quinn example has turned out to be more-or-less baseless, petty, and fueled by misogyny and misplaced anger.
There are some serious concerns about the gaming industry and gaming journalism, especially as it becomes clear just how powerful and major the medium is already and will continue to be. Major social issues like race and gender are coming to a head in a way they really haven’t previously, and these issues get messy.
There absolutely is a movement from certain folk to push issues of gender to a much bigger place within gaming culture. I’m actually OF that viewpoint, and think broader gender, racial, and cultural representation is extremely important and SHOULD be encouraged and developed. Not only because I think current games are problematically skewed, but also because I think games would offer a uniquely powerful viewpoint to help people learn to empathize and understand others. I think that’s massively, massively important.
That said, even I have occassionally winced at how heavy-handed or knee-jerk some reactions are. Sarkeesian, for instance, makes lots of very good points but has also, at times, seemed willing to ignore context, nitpick, and otherwise distort reality to fit her narrative. Sure, that’s pretty common with polemicists, but it also dumps fuel on the wrong part of the fire (in my book).
I don’t blame people for being angry and on edge. People on boths sides of these issues are making messes and fanning flames pretty much constantly. Self-styled Internet-based “radicals” on both sides have been told that making other people angry, embarrassed, scared, or silenced is “winning.” There’s a common view I’ve seen that actually convincing people is impossible (because everybody intelligent / worthwhile already agrees with the self-evident truth of X viewpoint), so the real work is just to shut down opposing views.
Traction is difficult; the footing is sludgy. I mostly stay out of the morass, but I try to at least stay aware of the shape of things. I hold out hope that the folks who truly value equality and representation will win and the angry, opportunistic, and vitriolic will fall away.
typoink - No. Just no. There is no equivalency between the people working to make gaming a more inclusive environment and the people whose death threats were so severe recently that Sarkeesian had to leave her house with the police.
Perhaps she makes a mistake here or there. None of that makes her or Quinn deserving of the treatment they receive from violent misogynists and useful idiots.
When one person says “We should stop treating women like background objects” and dozens of people respond that they hope she and all her family die violently in a fire while being skullfucked by Pedobear - there is simply no possible equivalency.
It is not helpful to hurry in with “both sides have made mistakes” and “those skullfucking fans make some good points”.
His name is Eron Gjoni. Not really, but then 4chan is on his side. Vice did an article about him -
http://www.vice.com/read/this-guys-embarrassing-relationship-drama-is-killing-the-gamer-identity-828
He’s trying to claim that people are blowing the misogyny out of proportion when they should be discussing video game journalist corruption. As if it was really only Edward R. Murrow fans doxxing Quinn and Sarkeesian and harassing their families.
Oh, I missed that.
I wonder if her unusual name plays a part?
Merneith – well, there are feminists who are exactly as bad as the 4chan crowd, but they’re generally not affiliated with Sarkeesian anyway. There have been legitimate cases of some of the crazier corners of Tumblr doxxing people and sending death threats to random people they’ve arbitrarily deemed persona non grata. (Two example victims are Laci Green and Jeph Jacques, moreso Laci Green on the “doxxing” side)
I mean, this is more or less a hijack and not related to Quinn, Sarkeesian, or Gamergate at all, but there are people ostensibly working towards “making things more inclusive” that are doing anything but.
Someone on the internet is being hated upon? That is just awful. And it’s a wimmin? That is worse. Or better. And she got ahead? Must be because of the sexy things she does with her lady parts, because computer games aren’t nearly as good as the sexy she has engaged in with her many conquests with selling video games, writing the storiez and dominatrixing her many sexy times partners.
But she is not the worst person on the intertubes unless she has is disagreed with most strongly by people with opinions on the intertubes that are superior to her own opinions and used logic for the purposes of causes not liked by the majority of the porn lookers on the intertubes. Since she plays video games, designs them, gets sarcastic and likes to fuck all without anonymity, the intertubes seems like a sort of heaven for that kind of person.
I say it is a tempest in a teapot. But not the kind I find entertaining. There is a lot of porn on the internet, and it isn’t going to watch itself. I promise to watch it until my weener falls off or Benghazi, whichever comes first.
Oh, and FWIW, I apologize for calling Quinn a jerk for cheating on her boyfriend in the Gamergate thread since apparently that turned out to be unsubstantiated. I know that was a really minor criticism, but she’s had enough shit thrown on her that I feel like I really should apologize.
Well, yes. There’s no equivalency between inequivalent examples, and I make no argument about whether the worst elements of one side are worse than the other.
You’ll never hear me condoning actions that personally demean, degrade, or threaten others. I certainly do not wish to suggest Sarkeesian was asking for it or anything similar, but I did see a backlash of this sort coming as soon as I first saw her videos. It’s not a question of blame – people that behave poorly are always the blameworthy ones.
I’m interested in the legitimate topic at the core, not the shitheels making a swamp out of it.
Okay, then, a software developer may have been intimately involved with software reviewers who never reviewed her games.
Cite for an organized group of feminists who have orchestrated harassment campaigns such as the ones directed at Quinn and Sarkeesian, where the targets are doxxed, their families harassed, nude pictures of them are dug up and passed around and they have to flee their homes because of death threats?
Let me start by saying I apologize for using the term “useful idiot” above. I didn’t intend to call you an idiot but my writing was sloppy and I did. Sorry.
Secondly, there is no legitimate topic here. This was always about Eron Gjoni trying to stir up internet hate at his ex-girlfriend. If Gjoni was trying to have a serious discussion about the integrity of games journalism (which is to laugh) - then he was a fool to start it off with a lengthy discussion about his girlfriend’s infidelity, which he proceeded to plaster all over the swamps of the internet.
Gjoni’s just trying to cover his ass now by pretending that this was always about journalism. Quinn may be cheater, but like Ethilrist says, she didn’t sleep with anyone for reviews.
We talk about this a bit in the Pit thread, but Quinn is a nobody. She’s a Z-list developer who just so happens to have a lot of friends in the industry (both developers and journalists). That happens when you attend all the major events on the gaming calendar, you get to meet a lot of interesting people. But her games are little known and hers is not a name that carries much (if any) weight in the industry.
We talk about this in the Pit thread too and these concerns are non-existent. Gaming journalism is no more “corrupt” than any other kind of entertainment journalism. No one is trading sex for good reviews. And no one expects a keychain to swing a bad review over to a good one. Do the journalists who wrote about Quinn’s game consider her a friend? Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know her and I only have a passing acquiescence with them. But talking to people you know about projects they’re working on is how you come up with stories. That’s not “corruption.” Most journalists would call them “leads.”
Sure:
http://jezebel.com/5924950/internet-social-justice-mob-goes-batshit-on-well-meaning-sex-ed-activist
The fact that Sarkeesian got instantaneous, outrageous backlash shows me how important her videos are. Movie and tv fandoms did not come after her with virtual pitchforks and torches. I don’t agree with every point she’s made, but I overall support what she’s doing because it isn’t shitting on media, just teaching people how to look at things differently.
I really don’t think the issue has the shape that is currently assumed. There have always been asshole young men. However, what they used to do was ephemeral: if they called someone a nasty name it was mostly well out of earshot of responsible adults or polite society. Now what they say is on (semi) permanent record to anyone. It’s like putting a microphone and recorder amongst a bunch of drunk sailors in 2014 and concluding that *nowadays *there is a terrible *trend *of swearing amongst sailors.
I’m also not very convinced that the apparent misogyny is deep seated. Mostly its about sitting in the proverbial basement and wanting (like all young people) to do something (however pathetic), to be noticed, to make a mark, to have an effect, somewhere, somehow. They are like the cute little three year old who hears their dad say “shit” and so starts saying it, and then keeps saying it, because doing so causes people to make a fuss. If they thought Zoe Quinn (and half the internet) would get really upset if they called her a qwerty, they’d call her a qwerty.
If it were just a permanent record of asshole comments, maybe, but these people also get personal email address, phone numbers, home addresses, places of employment… if people used to say things out of earshot, now they say them directly to you, over the phone, via email, via text, they go to the places you hang out online and say them there, they say them to your boss, your family, your friends…
I don’t know how deep the misogyny goes, but even shallow misogyny, if you’re willing to excuse it as such, combine with internet vigilantism can completely ruin someone’s life for a few months, years, or more. I don’t know why you’d want to compare assholes like that to cute 3-year-olds saying “shit” to get a laugh.
Is this article about the same Zoe Quinn ? It predates any trouble.
It’s fairly straightforward. Zoe Quinn, lacking marketable talent of any kind, decided to become a professional victim by proclaiming that she was a feminist (not a real one, of course, but since she’s also an incredible liar, that hardly matters). Her ex-boyfriend posted proof that her personal and professional conduct completely contradicted and undermined her status as an icon of feminism, and instead of apologizing like any adult would do, she threw a temper tantrum, and, aided by every games “journalist” in the world, attempted to shout down everyone else who recognized that she was a horrible person and not worthy of being taken seriously anymore (anathema to the “I’m oppressed, give me money” types). Unfortunately for her and the bloggers who worship the ground she walks on, the people she’s spent her entire “career” insulting and degrading aren’t letting this go, no matter what they do. She’s done in the court of public opinion, and now exists only as an object of ridicule, and a perfect example of the contempt that fake games journalists have for their audience.