Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Literally would be writing things down and then physically putting the words in Anita Sarkeesian's mouth... which I don't think anyone here wants to do.

edited 13th Dec '12 6:21:15 AM by Talby

My tiredness is showing...

And regarding the trolls, I think people in this thread at least should understand by now that he criticized how she dealt with the situation, not trying to defend the trolls or anything of the like. While they were at fault for making these comments, she did her best to present herself as the Damsel in Distress that she wants to criticize.

Literally?

You mean this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=8qSkaAwKMD4

People keepaccusing her of this.

... How?

She made a few posts about it (After she had already reached well beyond her kickstarter goal, remember) and pointed out some of the nastier attacks on her blog.

This is a completely natural, normal and reasonable course of action to take.

But people are acting like she fell to the floor weeping tears screaming "I need your help! Oh! Woe is me!"

She's talked about the harassment, but the harassment is a huge freaking deal. You can't just sweep something like that under the rug, and there's no reason to do that anyway.

She did the monetary equivalent. Honestly, if you have to use people's abuse of you to gain the money you need, I can't imagine your cause is that strong. Everyone's comments needed to be approved before they were posted on her video but she still approved every single one, regardless of how offensive they were ... and then tried to claim money over them. Sorry but there's something very odd about that; how offensive could she possibly find them if she was willing to use such offensive remarks to take people's money? And it's not like she was taking the money from the people who were insulting her. The average troll making the disturbing anti-Semitic remarks isn't affected in any way. It's the innocent person who takes sympathy on Anita and gives her cash out of the goodness of their heart who is hurt by this.

Yes, Anita actually made money from anti-Semitism. I have no respect for anyone who takes advantage of other people's compassion, since Anita herself could've done something about those comments. This was greed, pure and simple. One big Wounded Gazelle Gambit that worked like a charm.

One thing I gotta ask, does youtube force you to act as a moderator for comments on your videos, or can you just set it so anything will go through on it's own?

Because like others have said, some people do have ethical concerns about blocking comments and things like that, and so might refuse to do it on principle even if they find the comments revolting.

Also, Guest 1001, did you donate any money?

edited 13th Dec '12 11:03:09 AM by Morganite

You can just set it so every comment gets posted automatically. But if it needs to be approved first, it'll tell you when you submit it. And it said that when people commented on Anita's Kickstarter video.

Also, if she had got any ethical concerns about blocking comments, I don't think she'd have disabled the comments after her Kickstarter ended. It's possible but I doubt it.

And no, Morganite, I didn't donate any money.

You seem to be condemning someone pretty harshly for a few internet comment mechanics that have plenty of other possible explanations, many of which are simpler.

The way you're describing it I see a malnourished basement troll rubbing her hands together going "Aha! By manipulating the COMMENTS SECTION of these videos I shall PURPOSEFULLY CHEAT several people out of money they want to give me! Mwahahahaha!"

It's... A stretch which flies pretty hard in the face of the facts that this is a woman who has spent several years taking time and effort into espousing a philosophy she believes in.

What is about feminism that instantly makes one immune to do heinous acts?

Please excuse the double posting.

edited 13th Dec '12 1:35:38 PM by AnOtherT

What exactly is a simpler explanation? Last I checked, money was a pretty good motivater. And letting people comment is actually rather unusual behaviour from her, as far as I have seen. She even warned people ahead of time of ugly comments.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:04:01 PM by Besserwisser

That she wasn't filtering comments? That she wasn't paying attention? That she didn't think about things too hard? That it wasn't even her making those decisions? That she was a little overwhelmed by the massive amount of publicity she was getting? They seem a bit more likely than the whole "Manipulative feminazi" angle you're trying to sell, and honestly just getting angry about the treatment over a comments section in the first place leaves me baffled. Christ, I'm still a little confused as to what she supposedly did that's so bad in the first place. If I understand right, you think she specifically monitored all the comments and only let the "Bad" ones through or something?

Wasn't she accused of filtering out moderate comments in favor of the most vile?

That's why there is an aftertaste of distrust without any proof there was something behind it. The same goes for accusations of Anita posting links to her kickstarter in places that can bring her the "wrong" attention.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:21:26 PM by googlebot

Shouldn't it be up to the people who actually gave her money to decide when they're hurt by it?

That sounds inherently difficult to prove.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:16:41 PM by Morganite

You seem overly protective of her, for very little reason. She did profit immensely from the comments and assuming she planned this in a way is not very unlikely, considering of how she seemed to be aware ahead of time that comments like that would appear.

Doesn't mean I can't feel bad for the people who did.

Shirow, she could've refused to post certain comments. She didn't. She could've chosen not to publish the comments on her blog. She did. If she claims to find these comments morally wrong, I don't see how it could be considered morally right to publish them to gain the money and sympathy of people who are actually offended by them and not just doing it for a cash grab. Besides, plenty of people have verbally abused me online in the past but I've never published their comments to any of my blogs as an attempt to (A) elicit sympathy from others or (B) use them as evidence of "extreme levels of harassment many men (or "insert Guest's race/sexuality/nationality/religion here") face when gaming/posting/watching Youtube videos".

There's no way of knowing if she specifically filtered out the good ones/rational anti-ones in favour of the bad and, looking at the screengrab of comments she posted on her blog, I'm hesitant to say either way. Seems odd that people would need approval but comments would just get published without incident though, so logic dictates that there was a reason why comments needed to be approved.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:34:55 PM by Guest1001

Odd, seeing as I see you as attacking her for very little reason.

Good for you if that's what you believe in. But just because someone approaches their projects in a different way doesn't mean they're manipulative evil bitches preying on the generosity of others.

The screengrab was from youtube, not Kickstarter.

Sure. And if Anita wasn't manipulative and preying on the generosity of others, I'd be saying, "well, she approaches her project in a different way than I would but I guess that's fine".

"Very little" reason? Bullshit. We have plenty of reasons to attack her, and none to defend her.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:47:01 PM by CrimsonFlameKnight

You know my reasons by now. Frankly, even if I did see nothing wrong with the whole trolling thing, I still wouldn't defend when someone would see a problem with it. Her videos are just that horrible.

edited 13th Dec '12 2:47:09 PM by Besserwisser

Ugh.

Don't know about that. She's done a good chunk of derpworthy things, but I find myself agreeing with her more often than not. The thing is most people are going off on her for things that are either completely inconsequential, vacuous, or based on assumptions. Calling her out on her filesharing site video? Go for it. Going off on her because one of the videos she hasn't made yet is tentatively titled "Man with boobs" and assuming merely from that she supports traditional gender roles? Not cool.

Feel free to take apart the videos she's actually made. You'd have some actual footing on that one.

Actually Shirow, when we criticised that, we didn't make those assumptions "merely" from the title of the video. We also went by Investig8iveJournalism's two videos about Anita on Youtube, about a paper she did on gender roles in television and film. It used to be hosted on Feminist Frequency but has since been removed. Essentially that's what we were criticising and simply hoping that her "Man with boobs" video wouldn't be more of the same.