While playing Darksiders II I realized the entire plot is based around saving your brother, War ,from imprisonment, essentially making the character of the first game a "damsel? Mansel? wat" in distress for the second game, or how does that work?
I know not many games have the player set out to save "the dude" but does it still fall under the same trope of "person of significance is in trouble and has been rendered useless, you must save them." or is it a female thing only? Of course "damnsels" have been thoroughly overrepresented in games, books and any media since forever so it'll take maybe 3000 years of saving "useless" dudes before it's equal, but for the sake of discussion, where would you place this version of the trope?
Two things about your post. First, could you please lead us down a little bit further your conclusion with this criticism? I am not sure I follow. Fairly obviously saintliness is not going to become the role of most male characters in games, so where would that leave gender equality in representation if the industry remains fixated on heroics? This is of course ignoring the wealth of heroines even in the 1940s like the Night Witches of 1942.
Second, I am fairly sure that you are mischaracterizing Buffy´s appeal as a strong female character by saying her strength comes solely from murder (is it even murder when it is a vampire?). I am not a huge fan of the series, but I always saw her as strong because she was the main character, had the most screen time, other characters looked to her for direction and decision making, in addition to her not being helpless when it came to physical altercations.
Let's try to frame this around Anita Sarkeesian's MA thesis (which I had earlier incorrectly referred to as a BA thesis. Sorry!). I couldn't find it only anymore, but I still had it on my computer, and can send it to you if it really has become unavailable and if you want it. Anyway, she posits that in the current television landscape, there are pretty much no negative masculine traits; all masculine traits (among others: rationality, confidence, decisiveness, daring, violence, dominance, competitivity) are regarded as positive. Meanwhile, most female traits (among them: shyness, weakness, submissiveness, cooperativity, intuitiveness) are seen as negative, with only a few female traits (dependency, passivity and being nurturing) being seen as positive, but only so in women. With such a frame of traits, the only way to make positive women is to apply masculine traits to them and no feminine traits.
What Sarkeesian suggests, by my understanding, is that we revalue that table of values. Some male traits (violence, dominance, competitivity) ought to be called into question and moved into the negative space. And some female traits (cooperativity, emotional expressiveness, intuitivity and nurturing) reshuffled to being considered as positive. Right now, you have good masculine traits and bad feminine traits, and she suggests that we ought to use good masculine traits, bad masculine traits, good feminine traits and bad feminine traits. That doesn't mean that women can or should only be written with feminine traits and men only with masculine traits we all know how untrue that is but it is acknowledging that the two genders are equal but not the same. I'm as little as an expert on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as you are, or possibly less, but as I understand it, Sarkeesian admires the writing of the character because she combines male traits such as being daring, strong and active (male as defined by Sarkeesian's table on p. 47) and female traits such as being cooperative and emotionally expressive.
All well and good. I would hardly say I'm in a position to have any authoritative opinion on this, but I agree with the idea, even if one can wonder whether Buffy is a deep character for having attributes or both genders or whether she's making a concession in the form of solving everything through violence.
Thing is, I don't see women being the protagonists of video games as a fulfillment of the ideal described above. The function of a Link or a Mario is to be independent, daring, strong and active (=male); it's a boy's manner of thought to go into a room and clean it out and solve a problem by singlehandedly applying enough skill. Positive female traits she lists as cooperative, emotionally expressive, intuitive and nurturing only cooperation really features in video games, and even then it's not particularly often and always in the form of competitivity (=male). Video game characters, or at least those in the kind of games Polycount is interested in, do manly things. To imply that women are only of value when they, too, can do those manly things and live up to manly ideals is pretty sexist in my view.
A difficulty is that women playing AAA games will obviously not have problems with competitivity or violence, or all our other 'manly' staples in women as video game heroes, because they're already playing these games but with men as the heroes; they're that part that enjoys those masculine traits. But their reservations and objections to games can hardly be considered those of the majority. If anything, you could argue that the success of Farmville and its ilk prove that non-destructive 'gameplay' is a much more appealing factor to women than is the portrayal of people of their gender; and after all, we, too, pick our games on the appeal of its gameplay and barely so on the gender of the protagonist. What the sexism debates which, again, I think are highly justified in their own right constantly harp on is the narrativist aspect, so to speak; the window dressing, the story, the graphics, etc. But we aren't acknowledging that there might be a difference in ludic preference between boys and girls. Indeed, it is possible to argue, though I don't consider myself in a place to do so, that games and their competitive nature are fundamentally a boys thing, whereas girls might be more drawn to the emotional nature of books. That's certainly what's happening, and everyone wants to draw the lines straight again and have equal distribution... which might just be a refusal to acknowledge a difference between the sexes.
Hey Hazardous, I thought I might add something, you touched on a very interesting point here!
I can see your point and that's a quite common way of looking at things, and there's no problem with this at all. Each person looks for something different while playing their games, watching movies... What we can't really ignore is that games are cultural products, just like any kind of entertainment or art form out there, right?
The way I see it, being a cultural product means that you draw from a source, our general culture, our past games, movies, stories, myths, fears, interests, prejudices, everything. And after your product is out there, seen and experienced by people, it feeds back to this cultural pool to influence the future and so on. And I believe is within our reach as communicators to stop perpetuating such old and obsolete concepts and step up, do something different, go beyond the basics, add something back to people. Making the world a better place bit by bit while still creating entertainment, you know? And by doing this we also help our whole industry to be more inclusive, bigger and more mature.
Yeah, I understand
But it doesn't mean that every game should all of a sudden become a David Attenborough documentary about our planet, if you catch my meaning
Theres room for all kinds of stuff in there and having it all stacked in the 'boys' corner is obviously not a good idea.
But it doesn't mean that every game should all of a sudden become a David Attenborough documentary about our planet, if you catch my meaning
Theres room for all kinds of stuff in there and having it all stacked in the 'boys' corner is obviously not a good idea.
You've inadvertently agreed with the Trope girls argument. The main argument isn't saying "remove all sexy females".
People are instead saying "can we have a bit of a better balance, and have SOME strong women with clothes on? Because there is really not very much..."
I'm not sure if these have been posted in the thread yet, but they're probably my two favourite deconstructions of Anita Sarkeesians' manifesto. They're relatively impartial even if they're quite scathing.
All well and good. I would hardly say I'm in a position to have any authoritative opinion on this, but I agree with the idea, even if one can wonder whether Buffy is a deep character for having attributes or both genders or whether she's making a concession in the form of solving everything through violence.
Thing is, I don't see women being the protagonists of video games as a fulfillment of the ideal described above. The function of a Link or a Mario is to be independent, daring, strong and active (=male); it's a boy's manner of thought to go into a room and clean it out and solve a problem by singlehandedly applying enough skill. Positive female traits she lists as cooperative, emotionally expressive, intuitive and nurturing only cooperation really features in video games, and even then it's not particularly often and always in the form of competitivity (=male). Video game characters, or at least those in the kind of games Polycount is interested in, do manly things. To imply that women are only of value when they, too, can do those manly things and live up to manly ideals is pretty sexist in my view.
Not ignoring you, I appreciate the really well thought out response, I just want to ruminate for a bit so I can make an equally well thought out response.
I'm not sure if these have been posted in the thread yet, but they're probably my two favourite deconstructions of Anita Sarkeesians' manifesto. They're relatively impartial even if they're quite scathing.
I haven't had much involvement in the thread or the topic in general but I saw the most recent tropes v videogames video and these two videos and found them all fairly interesting. While I did find the things that were pointed out in the deconstructions quite surprising, it seems to bring about a tone that anything you say is something you believe concretely and can't be taken back, and you can't evolve or change your beliefs. I personally could go back to things I said a week ago and disagree with them.
From those two videos though her actions make it seem to me like she wants people to agree with her thoughts but she doesn't really know what the right answer is. I wonder if she had been actively changing/hiding things that are part of her beliefs that don't go down well in order to maximize funding from kickstarter, a bit like how a company might take a certain path if it would make more sales.
I found her latest video alright though, and the people who funded the kickstarter will be getting the content they paid for.
@Pazonz thank you for bringing those videos into the discussion. not sure if they'd been posted before in this monster of a thread but it needs to be seen by anyone trying to get a level view of the situation.
despite my being skeptical of anita's videos. I did think this was a fairly tame first release. well see I bet things are going to get worse from here.
Yeah. I think he got a little too glib and snarky at some points and I don't necessarily agree with everything he said, but that's gone some way to putting into words what hasn't quite sat right with me about Sarkesian's video and movement on a few different levels.
Panzos thanks for posting those vids, i was legit thinking of posting them earlier today. Think instigative journalism made some really good points a while back, but this first video was suprisingly level headed. Though i really hope she posts some positive examples in part two, as i think it could be alot more constructive ultimatley. Or any deeper insights in general ^^
And since i cant post those videos now, i can just post this instead i guess >_>
Cool cool - interesting to see the project coming together, and good points being made! She comes out less annoying than before, that's great too.
While her research and observations are all sound (saving the princess over and over again is indeed getting old, and it's hard to ignore how stupid it is, really), I wish she would have gone deeper or at all into the subject of *why* a lot of games past and present ended up resorting to this used and lame trope in the first place.
It is as if she considers that the ultimate ambition of a game is to tell a story with protagonists, just like movie do. Yet I would bet that when these older arcade games where created, they were predominately built around game systems and mechanics : the mario jump, the power-ups to collect, the scores to strive for - the naive characterization most probably came later, and just like everything made as an afterthought, people in charge slapped on something kinda lame ... and familiar. (that doesn't justify or excuse the choice - it's just interesting to try to understand how this choices probably ended up being made.)
No wonder Monkey Island and HL2 did a better job than a Mario platformer ever could at providing a convincing, original story driven by well written male and female characters - that's their main point
And on the other side of the spectrum, Mario and the princess could have been abstract Tetris blocks without the game suffering much from it at all.
Now of course that doesn't justify the tiring repetition of the trope over and over again, and it is indeed sad to see such things still being used. I just feel like she missed an important point.
On a side note, I really hope she'll eventually mention Super Meat boy. Structurally it is basically traced over Donkey Kong and Mario (save the kidnapped girlfriend over and over), but the creator of the game spun it around : The princess is "Bandage Girl", and the hero needs her because without her, he is just a weak bloody piece of meat vulnerable to pretty much everything from the outside world.
There's also example of MegamanX, which could have easily been a damsel in distress scenario. Instead, it is a great bro setup against a background of evil cyborg world domination.
Maybe I should make a video about how all the male characters in games are perfectly muscled and fearless... Boy it sure makes me fell bad about myself.
Just read an interview with the creative director of Dontnod Entertainment on the subject of their upcoming game Remember Me
To play devil's advocate, why challenge gamers with a story that makes players ask questions? The biggest games in the world are just 'man with gun and a load of targets'.
Why not? Videogames have become such a formatted medium, but it's the most powerful medium in the world and it has the most potential in the future. Yet everything is formatted. We just wanted to do things differently. You said man with gun, but you forgot to say white man.
Straight white man, even.
Really. How f**king stupid is this industry to only bet on those stereotypes? It's the only thing you give people, they get accustomed to it and don't want anything else. So yes, our character, Nilin, is mixed race, she is female, her sexual orientation is her private life, so I won't go there. She runs around, climbs, leaps, kicks guys' asses, remixes their memories, only kills a few people - and does it all in a game with no blood. We made those choices to say: 'look you can have something that's kick ass, something that's powerful, and you don't need it to be ultraviolent'.
Rest of the interview is here. The game looks pretty cool! I don't think games need to be based on stereotypes to engage people.
Maybe I should make a video about how all the male characters in games are perfectly muscled and fearless... Boy it sure makes me fell bad about myself.
so before you read my rant, please grab a cup of tea and try to take it with a pinch of salt haha.
After watching her videos Ive come to the conclusion that I dont understand feminism anymore.
I used to think it was portraying females in a good and respectable light. Her videos take it to the extreme where I bet she would have issue with a female lead taking a punch even though shes just gunned down thousands. By being punched she immediately becomes disrespected as a woman!!!! If a female hit her its instantly a sexual thing, haha I know I'm over doing it here haha. Just after having a day or two to digest it I can see where shes over analysed, although she does hit some very good points.
I would like to touch on what MM said previously about us, lazy artists haha. I both strongly agree and slightly disagree with this statement.
On one end I'm sick of seeing bland looking female models with pointy chins, pouty lips, upturned noses, I'm sick of people spending more time working on boobs than faces, I'm sick of seeing overly naked characters with perfect bods, I'm sick of seeing fake boobs everywhere, I'm sick of people obviously not using ref haha. This doesn't mean I look down on people who make these models but I just don't find them interesting anymore. There is 100% a market for this so I know it has a purpose and again am not discrediting it but its just a bit tedious to me now, I can appreciate it but it doesn't stick anymore. I say this as a man who just made a cat-woman with massive bazongas haha, in my defence I was following Adam Hughes' concept which I feel Ive toned down a fair bit haha, but I still look at it as meh!!!
So does this damage the industry? All this personal frap-art that would fit more in a Heavy metal mag. I honestly dont think studios look at this as inspiration, game characters are very one dimensional and your better looking to film and real life for this stuff. Ive never had a character come through and told that a cg character is inspiration or ref. Maybe armour design but nothing deeper. With the CG industry being overcome with personal frap-art I think designers and that honestly mostly ignore this. (although almost all designers I know worship final fantasy....snore). There is a risk though of us over flooding the market with frap-art, but this is what makes artists like Branduarte so unique and aspirational, atleast to me anyway.
Now How much say do we actually get as artists? little to none in my experience. Which means we can make whatever the hell we want in our free time surely!!!! I know its contradictory but it doesnt have an effect on the professional market in my opinion unless the artists let it. Character design and traits are ultimately upto the designers and then over ridden by the publishers to sell more copies. Even concept artists get briefs from these people. As artists we can try to fight it but sometimes you will get the make the boobs bigger, the bum peachier, the face prettier....more Jessica Alba etc. This isnt to say all designers and publishers are pervs haha, far from it.
In production I do try to fight it, I stay away from Ryan Reynolds perfect abs, pornstar bodies and standard faces that plague many games these days. This is my little personal fight against the stereotype. Although I do often get told to tone down the man bits on male characters haha as I like to compensate, another visual issue that male characters have .....no ding dongs haha. I think Ive been lucky to work on mostly hyper/photo realistic NDA stuff so its not so much an issue. I just wish we saw this more in personal art is all.
So this touches on the visual aspect that we do get to tweak ever so slightly, ultimately the publishers and designers need to change in my opinion, we are just the monkeys bringing their ideas to life at the end of the day. And the visual aspect is only one aspect of female tropes, the main thing is their portrayal within the story and their personality in which we have no input. Slutty looking Bayonetta or past tomb Raiders are still strong, confident and intelligent women so it can work both ways but the visual look does cheapen their cause.
Conclusion
So in conclusion I think theres too much frap art and that it does come across in professional work as we dont switch that off enough when we should be pushing ourselves. And with next gen around the corner, the call for better artists is ever more prevalent unless we be replaced by 3d scanners. So we owe it to ourselves to push the female form past tits and ass and the stereotypical cheerleader faces. If we as artists can change the look just slightly, that may just be enough to making a more credible and realistic character. From our end we then have it covered and the designers, writers and publishers need to do the rest.
hopefully Ive not come across as a total prick haha, I've become a real art snob in my old age and see fault in absolutely everything these days, especially my own work!! haha
Just a completely useless sentiment on the side but: I loved the recent Borderlands II art dump, with it's woman/women straying far from what the Gamer has come to accept as the normal portrayal of a female character.
My problem with this stuff isn't the message. I'm all for that stuff, more equality, more strong female characters, all that stuff. But what irks me is that I'm starting to feel a bit judged.
It just so happens to be that this stuff is my favorite genre to work in when making personal art. Almost exactly as Crazyfool said, perfect T&A fantasy babes, huge Orks, and burly barbarians. It's just my favorite style to work with, and I seriously doubt I'll change it just because it's stereotypical.
Now, I don't know that anyone is actually calling for people like me to stop. I remember seeing one negative post in one of Hazardous's 3d-girl threads, but that's it. And that's fine. It's just that the whole thing is starting to feel a little too judgmental. At the end, even the "worst" of those games are simply guys making games that they think other guys will want to play.
After watching her videos Ive come to the conclusion that I dont understand feminism anymore.
I used to think it was portraying females in a good and respectable light.
There a number of schools of thought in feminism, but overall, it's not to portray women and girls in, as you say, a good light. It's about portraying them as varied people with different strengths and weaknesses, as compared to holding up the same ideal version of lady over and over again. If that means some of the women being depicted are awful, reprehensible people, or super gross, then that's still a step forward. It's all about context though, which is one of the most important (and overlooked) parts of the whole conversation.
My problem with this stuff isn't the message. I'm all for that stuff, more equality, more strong female characters, all that stuff. But what irks me is that I'm starting to feel a bit judged.
It just so happens to be that this stuff is my favorite genre to work in when making personal art. Almost exactly as Crazyfool said, perfect T&A fantasy babes, huge Orks, and burly barbarians. It's just my favorite style to work with, and I seriously doubt I'll change it just because it's stereotypical.
Now, I don't know that anyone is actually calling for people like me to stop. I remember seeing one negative post in one of Hazardous's 3d-girl threads, but that's it. And that's fine. It's just that the whole thing is starting to feel a little too judgmental. At the end, even the "worst" of those games are simply guys making games that they think other guys will want to play.
You're catching on.
Here's the issue: you're feeling the irrational irritation of postmodernist social philosophy. Diversity politics, feminism, inclusivism - they're built on a social philosophy school called postmodernism that is, at its root, complete bullshit. Because at its core, it is built on two things: assigning people into "groups" that are inherently either oppressors or victims (usually by skin color or gender or other politicized identities), and making the oppressors feel guilty about being who they are.
Good example... a decent everyday definition of racism is, more or less, "the belief that certain races are inferior and others are superior due to inherent racial characteristics."
Racism is bullshit. We all know that. It's offensive and completely without basis.
Want to know what the postmodernist concept of racism is? It adds ridiculous crap like "privilege", "power", and "oppression" into a big convoluted notion of "racism". Get this: postmodernist racism is where somebody is "racist" because they belong to a certain identity group that has unfair "privilege" because of their identity, and that those people therefore hold "power" and are "oppressive". Those who don't have privilege, and thus power, are victims. Supposedly you are born with privilege and can never get rid of it, or you are born a victim and can never not be one.
Know what all that crap actually boils down to? Postmodernist social philosophy - at least as it is commonly applied in the United States (which is really the only place it doesn't instantly fall apart in laughable tatters) - literally believes that white people, especially white males, are born privileged, born with power, and therefore born racist and can never NOT be racist no matter what they do. Inversely, it states that black people are born victims and can never be anything but victims no matter what they actually do.
Which is pretty fucking racist. That's about as far as you can get from judging somebody by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
You're feeling judged because you are being judged when people who ascribe to social ideologies built on that structure criticize you. Whether they understand it or not - and most of them, sadly, don't - their ideologies are built atop a social philosophy movement that fundamentally is about judging "privileged" people (you're probably in that category) and making them feel guilty in order to try and bring about radical social diversity political goals.
So don't feel bad ignoring them and telling them to piss off and pound sand. I don't. I'm in a biracial marriage, they ain't got shit on me to complain about not respecting diversity.
There a number of schools of thought in feminism, but overall, it's not to portray women and girls in, as you say, a good light. It's about portraying them as varied people with different strengths and weaknesses, as compared to holding up the same ideal version of lady over and over again. If that means some of the women being depicted are awful, reprehensible people, or super gross, then that's still a step forward. It's all about context though, which is one of the most important (and overlooked) parts of the whole conversation.
I think I was more going for visual traits than anything else. You are 100% right about context aswell. I think you can still make women sexy, just be tasteful about it. Witcher 2s female character is one of these examples where it's subdued and not over the top, again though people can argue against her and I think end of the day you can't please everyone or its going to get real boring out there.
Oh and Crazyfool, I got mad respect for you and your art. So nothing personal. I think your comment just hit home a little bit cause I happen to be working on a Red Sonja fan-art at the moment.
Here and elsewhere I've seen some talk about reconciling the feeling of wanting to model/draw what you like (sexy characters, etc) with the pressures of the women in games discussion going on in the background. There's sometimes a feeling that an artist might be judged for modeling sexualized characters, and occasionally that leads to defensiveness.
As best I see it, you can totally model sexy women/characters if you like. They're fun, they're good practice and sometimes it's just relaxing to mess around in zbrush on a character like that. The thing that an artist needs to keep in mind is just... context, and self-awareness, and if you're going to model a sexy lady for the sake of modeling one, own it, don't try to dismiss it as something it's not. "I'm going to model this big tittied night elf in heels and it's going to be best goddamn night elf in heels because I like it." That's a good enough reason.
But keep in mind there's a lot of that content out there, and that it's good to push yourself not only artistically, with your modeling, but with your subject matter too. No one says you have to, of course, no one's demanding you only create realistically proportioned women with depth, but keep it in the back of your mind, switch it up a bit, and approach criticisms by taking a step back first and looking at the broader picture.
I honestly don't see a problem with it, it's your expression and shouldn't be criticised in such. I have just grown tired of (as MM put it) lazy art with no substance. I personally just don't want to play as these characters anymore, i can still see the skill and attention to detail behind it. If people make big boobed, scantily clad women I'm not gonna post 'grow up' or criticise it in anyway. It's just not my thing and I will keep Schtum haha. I don't want to offend anyone or oppress their creativeness in anyway. It's not as if this stuff is going to the world stage, it's usually just kept to the art community.
My problem with this stuff isn't the message. I'm all for that stuff, more equality, more strong female characters, all that stuff. But what irks me is that I'm starting to feel a bit judged.
No one wants a stop of making sexy female characters. In fact, body portrayal alone is only one facet of feminism, and actually is not that much of a focus of Anita´s videos. She talks far more about the parts that the designers and writers would be in charge of, than the character or concept artists would be.
There are two issues, body portrayal, and character (ie, personality) portrayal. Within body portrayal, there just needs to be more variation. There is still plenty of room for pinups, and no one is calling for an elimination of sexy elves with big tatas. Women who look gorgeous exist in real life. The criticism is when women are primarily only portrayed as physically perfect, unless they are evil, and then ugliness is tied in with their character (Ursula in little mermaid for example, though I know she was based on the drag queen, Divine) This creates an immense pressure on women in life that they must measure up to this, or they are worthless (because their body type has no presence in media, whereas there are tons of fat, short, hairy men in film/media/games)
As for character, the heart of the complaint, is when you reduce the female model to only her elfy tatas. Plenty of the well lauded female characters are physically attractive. Anita herself likes Buffy, and Sarah Michelle Geller is hardly a fat uggo. Put some thought into the character, and even though we are only character artists, and have little control over narrative, be it jpegs on a message board, or our contribution on a larger title where we only get to model/texture, we can still influence design, and when you are designing a person and not an object that will shine through. If your only thought process, conscious or not, is how perfect her ass crack or cleavage is, it is going to be a sexual object you create.
Also think for a moment, that cringe inside, might not be a feeling of being judged, but waking up to an uncomfortable situation of which you might have been previously unaware. This is good stuff to think about, even if you decide after that you disagree, growth normally has some moments of introspection which can feel strange.
That is not an ad hominem. Joseph is not calling him fat or ugly or a woman hater. He is posting actual quotes that very rightly show the guy's character and belief system.
However, it is interesting you post that link, because it very conveniently outlines Guilt by Association, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Guilt_by_association Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem fallacy if the argument attacks a source because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.
Which is what the youtube poster in question did when bringing up other random people and trying to paint Anita with the same brush. (at 4.33 in particular).
That is not an ad hominem. Joseph is not calling him fat or ugly or a woman hater. He is posting actual quotes that very rightly show the guy's character and belief system.
However, it is interesting you post that link, because it very conveniently outlines Guilt by Association, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Guilt_by_association Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem fallacy if the argument attacks a source because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.
Which is what the youtube poster in question did when bringing up other random people and trying to paint Anita with the same brush. (at 4.33 in particular).
Lack of vulgarity does not make it "not an ad hominem". It's still an attempt to discredit his argument by attacking his character rather than the point he was making.
And no that is not at all what the video is trying to do. I'm assuming that you either didn't watch the whole thing or misunderstood the point, he highlighted those two illustrate that he gets "inane and insane" comments all the time and chooses not to censor them because he is open to dissenting opinions. He doesn't imply that those tumblr users are just like Anita Sarkeesian, he's trying to draw a comparison between the "inane and insane" comments he gets and the ones she does.
I suggest you watch the entire video because admittedly I too was very confused as to what the hell his point was until the 5:36 mark where he explains why he brought them up.
How does that invalidate his point that shutting down discussion is a terrible idea?
QFT. You guys don't say that Isaac Newton's ideas are shit just because he also spent a lot of time dabbling in alchemy researching the philosopher's stone and other occult stuff. Also to people that haven't watched The Amazing Atheist's videos he likes to say stuff for the shock value... a lot. Also he doesn't hate feminism in itself. He hates extreme feminism. http://youtu.be/5eCnmeaoGMA
Not meaning to defend him or anything because I agree that he most of the time goes way too far.
Here's the issue: you're feeling the irrational irritation of postmodernist social philosophy. Diversity politics, feminism, inclusivism - they're built on a social philosophy school called postmodernism that is, at its root, complete bullshit. Because at its core, it is built on two things: assigning people into "groups" that are inherently either oppressors or victims (usually by skin color or gender or other politicized identities), and making the oppressors feel guilty about being who they are.
Good example... a decent everyday definition of racism is, more or less, "the belief that certain races are inferior and others are superior due to inherent racial characteristics."
Racism is bullshit. We all know that. It's offensive and completely without basis.
Want to know what the postmodernist concept of racism is? It adds ridiculous crap like "privilege", "power", and "oppression" into a big convoluted notion of "racism". Get this: postmodernist racism is where somebody is "racist" because they belong to a certain identity group that has unfair "privilege" because of their identity, and that those people therefore hold "power" and are "oppressive". Those who don't have privilege, and thus power, are victims. Supposedly you are born with privilege and can never get rid of it, or you are born a victim and can never not be one.
Know what all that crap actually boils down to? Postmodernist social philosophy - at least as it is commonly applied in the United States (which is really the only place it doesn't instantly fall apart in laughable tatters) - literally believes that white people, especially white males, are born privileged, born with power, and therefore born racist and can never NOT be racist no matter what they do. Inversely, it states that black people are born victims and can never be anything but victims no matter what they actually do.
Which is pretty fucking racist. That's about as far as you can get from judging somebody by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
You're feeling judged because you are being judged when people who ascribe to social ideologies built on that structure criticize you. Whether they understand it or not - and most of them, sadly, don't - their ideologies are built atop a social philosophy movement that fundamentally is about judging "privileged" people (you're probably in that category) and making them feel guilty in order to try and bring about radical social diversity political goals.
So don't feel bad ignoring them and telling them to piss off and pound sand. I don't. I'm in a biracial marriage, they ain't got shit on me to complain about not respecting diversity.
That really sounds like more your interpretation/stereotype of what you call post modernism than any actual factual truth of the matter. Your post screams of an emotional defense disguised with factoids than a reasoned response.
Thinking back about it ... I kinda wish she would have recorded her play session of the games she researched while preparing this new round of videos - just to see her reactions to the material, what she found cool or not, and so on.
How does that invalidate his point that shutting down discussion is a terrible idea?
It doesn't -- it highlights the position he's coming from.
I didn't think I even needed to address his argument, since it is such an obvious strawman, but just so there's no confusion, here's what I'd have to say about the stand he took:
I think calling her locking youtube comments 'shutting down discussion' is an absolutely ludicrous idea. She is not calling for all of the blogs, message boards, youtube videos, and gaming publications to stop discussing her ideas -- she locked YOUTUBE COMMENTS.
I have never known anyone who would call the youtube comment platform a pace for discussion. Saying she is trying to prevent discussion just because she locked the comments is patently false.
Lastly, implying she is putting herself in the position of a damsel in distress by TAKING CHARGE OF HER SITUATION AND CONTROLLING HER ENVIRONMENT is equally absurd. Even if she was a power hungry, argument crushing megalomaniac like he seems to want to believe, that wouldn't be ironic, it would just be shitty.
I have never known anyone who would call the youtube comment platform a pace for discussion. Saying she is trying to prevent discussion just because she locked the comments is patently false.
dis·cus·sion noun an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.
Anyone calling Youtube a place for actual discussion is the one setting up a "too easily" dismissed viewpoint. It is the cesspit of the internet even when discussing normal things, veer into anything about discrimination or a subject of nuance and it is just pure garbage.
Her kickstarter youtube has over 14,000 comments the majority of which are abuse, using gendered insults. Calling on a single individual with no business behind her to put up with actual and literal rape threats so that one in a hundred comments can possibly bring up something worthy of discussion is asking for a feet of super human patience. I am not surprised in the slightest that the comments are disabled.
I read all the pages of the blog post tortillachips posted for instance. That is actual discussion.
dis·cus·sion noun an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.
too easy man
She isn't preventing any of that, she's disabled it on ONE SPECIFIC PLATFORM. Refusing discussion through a certain medium =/= attempting to squash opposition.
She won't allow discussion VIA YOUTUBE COMMENTS, yeah, okay, she's still allowing the other infinite types of discussion in the world, including EVERY OTHER WEBSITE EVER, your OWN BLOG, and ANY KIND OF PUBLIC STATEMENT, so... Until she writes you a cease and desist for discussing her in this thread, I think she's being pretty ok.
Maybe if she was attacking a MAJOR source of credible discussion, like, say, going after the gaming press or trying to get dissenting videos taken down or something, that'd be one thing, but she's only blocking discussion on a single platform that is not known to have ever held a meaningful discussion on ANYTHING ANYWHERE EVER.
yes youtube comments are pure garbage and shouldn't be taken seriously. except apparently the ones that are rape threats those should be taken seriously.
doesn't change the fact that it is defined under the English language as discussion and therefore causing it not to happen (Comments are disabled, replace comments with discussion and you have discussion is disabled)
im not using intelligence level as a rubric for what defines the word. Im using the actual definition of the word.
Are you attempting to imply that there aren't other places to discuss her videos?
I don't feel like she's preventing me from discussing them right now. I'm not sure what part of that you don't understand. No kidding she's preventing discussion within the incredibly narrow scope of youtube comments -- she'll probably also ignore all discussion via morse code and MAYBE even piglatin. I'm okay with that.
not at all. I can see now that needed to be clarified. when someone is shutting down discussion, that doesn't mean they're shutting down all discussion ever. it only means they're shutting it down within the context of the forum/area being referenced too.
Replies
I know not many games have the player set out to save "the dude" but does it still fall under the same trope of "person of significance is in trouble and has been rendered useless, you must save them." or is it a female thing only? Of course "damnsels" have been thoroughly overrepresented in games, books and any media since forever so it'll take maybe 3000 years of saving "useless" dudes before it's equal, but for the sake of discussion, where would you place this version of the trope?
Let's try to frame this around Anita Sarkeesian's MA thesis (which I had earlier incorrectly referred to as a BA thesis. Sorry!). I couldn't find it only anymore, but I still had it on my computer, and can send it to you if it really has become unavailable and if you want it. Anyway, she posits that in the current television landscape, there are pretty much no negative masculine traits; all masculine traits (among others: rationality, confidence, decisiveness, daring, violence, dominance, competitivity) are regarded as positive. Meanwhile, most female traits (among them: shyness, weakness, submissiveness, cooperativity, intuitiveness) are seen as negative, with only a few female traits (dependency, passivity and being nurturing) being seen as positive, but only so in women. With such a frame of traits, the only way to make positive women is to apply masculine traits to them and no feminine traits.
What Sarkeesian suggests, by my understanding, is that we revalue that table of values. Some male traits (violence, dominance, competitivity) ought to be called into question and moved into the negative space. And some female traits (cooperativity, emotional expressiveness, intuitivity and nurturing) reshuffled to being considered as positive. Right now, you have good masculine traits and bad feminine traits, and she suggests that we ought to use good masculine traits, bad masculine traits, good feminine traits and bad feminine traits. That doesn't mean that women can or should only be written with feminine traits and men only with masculine traits we all know how untrue that is but it is acknowledging that the two genders are equal but not the same. I'm as little as an expert on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as you are, or possibly less, but as I understand it, Sarkeesian admires the writing of the character because she combines male traits such as being daring, strong and active (male as defined by Sarkeesian's table on p. 47) and female traits such as being cooperative and emotionally expressive.
All well and good. I would hardly say I'm in a position to have any authoritative opinion on this, but I agree with the idea, even if one can wonder whether Buffy is a deep character for having attributes or both genders or whether she's making a concession in the form of solving everything through violence.
Thing is, I don't see women being the protagonists of video games as a fulfillment of the ideal described above. The function of a Link or a Mario is to be independent, daring, strong and active (=male); it's a boy's manner of thought to go into a room and clean it out and solve a problem by singlehandedly applying enough skill. Positive female traits she lists as cooperative, emotionally expressive, intuitive and nurturing only cooperation really features in video games, and even then it's not particularly often and always in the form of competitivity (=male). Video game characters, or at least those in the kind of games Polycount is interested in, do manly things. To imply that women are only of value when they, too, can do those manly things and live up to manly ideals is pretty sexist in my view.
A difficulty is that women playing AAA games will obviously not have problems with competitivity or violence, or all our other 'manly' staples in women as video game heroes, because they're already playing these games but with men as the heroes; they're that part that enjoys those masculine traits. But their reservations and objections to games can hardly be considered those of the majority. If anything, you could argue that the success of Farmville and its ilk prove that non-destructive 'gameplay' is a much more appealing factor to women than is the portrayal of people of their gender; and after all, we, too, pick our games on the appeal of its gameplay and barely so on the gender of the protagonist. What the sexism debates which, again, I think are highly justified in their own right constantly harp on is the narrativist aspect, so to speak; the window dressing, the story, the graphics, etc. But we aren't acknowledging that there might be a difference in ludic preference between boys and girls. Indeed, it is possible to argue, though I don't consider myself in a place to do so, that games and their competitive nature are fundamentally a boys thing, whereas girls might be more drawn to the emotional nature of books. That's certainly what's happening, and everyone wants to draw the lines straight again and have equal distribution... which might just be a refusal to acknowledge a difference between the sexes.
Yeah, I understand
But it doesn't mean that every game should all of a sudden become a David Attenborough documentary about our planet, if you catch my meaning
Theres room for all kinds of stuff in there and having it all stacked in the 'boys' corner is obviously not a good idea.
You've inadvertently agreed with the Trope girls argument. The main argument isn't saying "remove all sexy females".
People are instead saying "can we have a bit of a better balance, and have SOME strong women with clothes on? Because there is really not very much..."
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P.s. Zwebbie great posts and afaik she took the Thesis and Bayonetta video down once they both came against harsh criticism.
Not ignoring you, I appreciate the really well thought out response, I just want to ruminate for a bit so I can make an equally well thought out response.
I haven't had much involvement in the thread or the topic in general but I saw the most recent tropes v videogames video and these two videos and found them all fairly interesting. While I did find the things that were pointed out in the deconstructions quite surprising, it seems to bring about a tone that anything you say is something you believe concretely and can't be taken back, and you can't evolve or change your beliefs. I personally could go back to things I said a week ago and disagree with them.
From those two videos though her actions make it seem to me like she wants people to agree with her thoughts but she doesn't really know what the right answer is. I wonder if she had been actively changing/hiding things that are part of her beliefs that don't go down well in order to maximize funding from kickstarter, a bit like how a company might take a certain path if it would make more sales.
I found her latest video alright though, and the people who funded the kickstarter will be getting the content they paid for.
despite my being skeptical of anita's videos. I did think this was a fairly tame first release. well see I bet things are going to get worse from here.
And since i cant post those videos now, i can just post this instead i guess >_>
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While her research and observations are all sound (saving the princess over and over again is indeed getting old, and it's hard to ignore how stupid it is, really), I wish she would have gone deeper or at all into the subject of *why* a lot of games past and present ended up resorting to this used and lame trope in the first place.
It is as if she considers that the ultimate ambition of a game is to tell a story with protagonists, just like movie do. Yet I would bet that when these older arcade games where created, they were predominately built around game systems and mechanics : the mario jump, the power-ups to collect, the scores to strive for - the naive characterization most probably came later, and just like everything made as an afterthought, people in charge slapped on something kinda lame ... and familiar. (that doesn't justify or excuse the choice - it's just interesting to try to understand how this choices probably ended up being made.)
No wonder Monkey Island and HL2 did a better job than a Mario platformer ever could at providing a convincing, original story driven by well written male and female characters - that's their main point
And on the other side of the spectrum, Mario and the princess could have been abstract Tetris blocks without the game suffering much from it at all.
Now of course that doesn't justify the tiring repetition of the trope over and over again, and it is indeed sad to see such things still being used. I just feel like she missed an important point.
On a side note, I really hope she'll eventually mention Super Meat boy. Structurally it is basically traced over Donkey Kong and Mario (save the kidnapped girlfriend over and over), but the creator of the game spun it around : The princess is "Bandage Girl", and the hero needs her because without her, he is just a weak bloody piece of meat vulnerable to pretty much everything from the outside world.
There's also example of MegamanX, which could have easily been a damsel in distress scenario. Instead, it is a great bro setup against a background of evil cyborg world domination.
Rest of the interview is here. The game looks pretty cool! I don't think games need to be based on stereotypes to engage people.
I wept a little inside.
After watching her videos Ive come to the conclusion that I dont understand feminism anymore.
I used to think it was portraying females in a good and respectable light. Her videos take it to the extreme where I bet she would have issue with a female lead taking a punch even though shes just gunned down thousands. By being punched she immediately becomes disrespected as a woman!!!! If a female hit her its instantly a sexual thing, haha I know I'm over doing it here haha. Just after having a day or two to digest it I can see where shes over analysed, although she does hit some very good points.
I would like to touch on what MM said previously about us, lazy artists haha. I both strongly agree and slightly disagree with this statement.
On one end I'm sick of seeing bland looking female models with pointy chins, pouty lips, upturned noses, I'm sick of people spending more time working on boobs than faces, I'm sick of seeing overly naked characters with perfect bods, I'm sick of seeing fake boobs everywhere, I'm sick of people obviously not using ref haha. This doesn't mean I look down on people who make these models but I just don't find them interesting anymore. There is 100% a market for this so I know it has a purpose and again am not discrediting it but its just a bit tedious to me now, I can appreciate it but it doesn't stick anymore. I say this as a man who just made a cat-woman with massive bazongas haha, in my defence I was following Adam Hughes' concept which I feel Ive toned down a fair bit haha, but I still look at it as meh!!!
So does this damage the industry? All this personal frap-art that would fit more in a Heavy metal mag. I honestly dont think studios look at this as inspiration, game characters are very one dimensional and your better looking to film and real life for this stuff. Ive never had a character come through and told that a cg character is inspiration or ref. Maybe armour design but nothing deeper. With the CG industry being overcome with personal frap-art I think designers and that honestly mostly ignore this. (although almost all designers I know worship final fantasy....snore). There is a risk though of us over flooding the market with frap-art, but this is what makes artists like Branduarte so unique and aspirational, atleast to me anyway.
Now How much say do we actually get as artists? little to none in my experience. Which means we can make whatever the hell we want in our free time surely!!!! I know its contradictory but it doesnt have an effect on the professional market in my opinion unless the artists let it. Character design and traits are ultimately upto the designers and then over ridden by the publishers to sell more copies. Even concept artists get briefs from these people. As artists we can try to fight it but sometimes you will get the make the boobs bigger, the bum peachier, the face prettier....more Jessica Alba etc. This isnt to say all designers and publishers are pervs haha, far from it.
In production I do try to fight it, I stay away from Ryan Reynolds perfect abs, pornstar bodies and standard faces that plague many games these days. This is my little personal fight against the stereotype. Although I do often get told to tone down the man bits on male characters haha as I like to compensate, another visual issue that male characters have .....no ding dongs haha. I think Ive been lucky to work on mostly hyper/photo realistic NDA stuff so its not so much an issue. I just wish we saw this more in personal art is all.
So this touches on the visual aspect that we do get to tweak ever so slightly, ultimately the publishers and designers need to change in my opinion, we are just the monkeys bringing their ideas to life at the end of the day. And the visual aspect is only one aspect of female tropes, the main thing is their portrayal within the story and their personality in which we have no input. Slutty looking Bayonetta or past tomb Raiders are still strong, confident and intelligent women so it can work both ways but the visual look does cheapen their cause.
Conclusion
So in conclusion I think theres too much frap art and that it does come across in professional work as we dont switch that off enough when we should be pushing ourselves. And with next gen around the corner, the call for better artists is ever more prevalent unless we be replaced by 3d scanners. So we owe it to ourselves to push the female form past tits and ass and the stereotypical cheerleader faces. If we as artists can change the look just slightly, that may just be enough to making a more credible and realistic character. From our end we then have it covered and the designers, writers and publishers need to do the rest.
hopefully Ive not come across as a total prick haha, I've become a real art snob in my old age and see fault in absolutely everything these days, especially my own work!! haha
It just so happens to be that this stuff is my favorite genre to work in when making personal art. Almost exactly as Crazyfool said, perfect T&A fantasy babes, huge Orks, and burly barbarians. It's just my favorite style to work with, and I seriously doubt I'll change it just because it's stereotypical.
Now, I don't know that anyone is actually calling for people like me to stop. I remember seeing one negative post in one of Hazardous's 3d-girl threads, but that's it. And that's fine. It's just that the whole thing is starting to feel a little too judgmental. At the end, even the "worst" of those games are simply guys making games that they think other guys will want to play.
There a number of schools of thought in feminism, but overall, it's not to portray women and girls in, as you say, a good light. It's about portraying them as varied people with different strengths and weaknesses, as compared to holding up the same ideal version of lady over and over again. If that means some of the women being depicted are awful, reprehensible people, or super gross, then that's still a step forward. It's all about context though, which is one of the most important (and overlooked) parts of the whole conversation.
You're catching on.
Here's the issue: you're feeling the irrational irritation of postmodernist social philosophy. Diversity politics, feminism, inclusivism - they're built on a social philosophy school called postmodernism that is, at its root, complete bullshit. Because at its core, it is built on two things: assigning people into "groups" that are inherently either oppressors or victims (usually by skin color or gender or other politicized identities), and making the oppressors feel guilty about being who they are.
Good example... a decent everyday definition of racism is, more or less, "the belief that certain races are inferior and others are superior due to inherent racial characteristics."
Racism is bullshit. We all know that. It's offensive and completely without basis.
Want to know what the postmodernist concept of racism is? It adds ridiculous crap like "privilege", "power", and "oppression" into a big convoluted notion of "racism". Get this: postmodernist racism is where somebody is "racist" because they belong to a certain identity group that has unfair "privilege" because of their identity, and that those people therefore hold "power" and are "oppressive". Those who don't have privilege, and thus power, are victims. Supposedly you are born with privilege and can never get rid of it, or you are born a victim and can never not be one.
Know what all that crap actually boils down to? Postmodernist social philosophy - at least as it is commonly applied in the United States (which is really the only place it doesn't instantly fall apart in laughable tatters) - literally believes that white people, especially white males, are born privileged, born with power, and therefore born racist and can never NOT be racist no matter what they do. Inversely, it states that black people are born victims and can never be anything but victims no matter what they actually do.
Which is pretty fucking racist. That's about as far as you can get from judging somebody by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
You're feeling judged because you are being judged when people who ascribe to social ideologies built on that structure criticize you. Whether they understand it or not - and most of them, sadly, don't - their ideologies are built atop a social philosophy movement that fundamentally is about judging "privileged" people (you're probably in that category) and making them feel guilty in order to try and bring about radical social diversity political goals.
So don't feel bad ignoring them and telling them to piss off and pound sand. I don't. I'm in a biracial marriage, they ain't got shit on me to complain about not respecting diversity.
I think I was more going for visual traits than anything else. You are 100% right about context aswell. I think you can still make women sexy, just be tasteful about it. Witcher 2s female character is one of these examples where it's subdued and not over the top, again though people can argue against her and I think end of the day you can't please everyone or its going to get real boring out there.
As best I see it, you can totally model sexy women/characters if you like. They're fun, they're good practice and sometimes it's just relaxing to mess around in zbrush on a character like that. The thing that an artist needs to keep in mind is just... context, and self-awareness, and if you're going to model a sexy lady for the sake of modeling one, own it, don't try to dismiss it as something it's not. "I'm going to model this big tittied night elf in heels and it's going to be best goddamn night elf in heels because I like it." That's a good enough reason.
But keep in mind there's a lot of that content out there, and that it's good to push yourself not only artistically, with your modeling, but with your subject matter too. No one says you have to, of course, no one's demanding you only create realistically proportioned women with depth, but keep it in the back of your mind, switch it up a bit, and approach criticisms by taking a step back first and looking at the broader picture.
I posted once about this here, but it is a long thread so you might have missed it. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1615399&postcount=502
No one wants a stop of making sexy female characters. In fact, body portrayal alone is only one facet of feminism, and actually is not that much of a focus of Anita´s videos. She talks far more about the parts that the designers and writers would be in charge of, than the character or concept artists would be.
There are two issues, body portrayal, and character (ie, personality) portrayal. Within body portrayal, there just needs to be more variation. There is still plenty of room for pinups, and no one is calling for an elimination of sexy elves with big tatas. Women who look gorgeous exist in real life. The criticism is when women are primarily only portrayed as physically perfect, unless they are evil, and then ugliness is tied in with their character (Ursula in little mermaid for example, though I know she was based on the drag queen, Divine) This creates an immense pressure on women in life that they must measure up to this, or they are worthless (because their body type has no presence in media, whereas there are tons of fat, short, hairy men in film/media/games)
As for character, the heart of the complaint, is when you reduce the female model to only her elfy tatas. Plenty of the well lauded female characters are physically attractive. Anita herself likes Buffy, and Sarah Michelle Geller is hardly a fat uggo. Put some thought into the character, and even though we are only character artists, and have little control over narrative, be it jpegs on a message board, or our contribution on a larger title where we only get to model/texture, we can still influence design, and when you are designing a person and not an object that will shine through. If your only thought process, conscious or not, is how perfect her ass crack or cleavage is, it is going to be a sexual object you create.
Also think for a moment, that cringe inside, might not be a feeling of being judged, but waking up to an uncomfortable situation of which you might have been previously unaware. This is good stuff to think about, even if you decide after that you disagree, growth normally has some moments of introspection which can feel strange.
Really? THAT guy? I feel like he might be biased. (In that he, you know, hates feminism?)
However, it is interesting you post that link, because it very conveniently outlines Guilt by Association, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Guilt_by_association Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem fallacy if the argument attacks a source because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.
Which is what the youtube poster in question did when bringing up other random people and trying to paint Anita with the same brush. (at 4.33 in particular).
How does that invalidate his point that shutting down discussion is a terrible idea?
And no that is not at all what the video is trying to do. I'm assuming that you either didn't watch the whole thing or misunderstood the point, he highlighted those two illustrate that he gets "inane and insane" comments all the time and chooses not to censor them because he is open to dissenting opinions. He doesn't imply that those tumblr users are just like Anita Sarkeesian, he's trying to draw a comparison between the "inane and insane" comments he gets and the ones she does.
I suggest you watch the entire video because admittedly I too was very confused as to what the hell his point was until the 5:36 mark where he explains why he brought them up.
QFT. You guys don't say that Isaac Newton's ideas are shit just because he also spent a lot of time dabbling in alchemy researching the philosopher's stone and other occult stuff. Also to people that haven't watched The Amazing Atheist's videos he likes to say stuff for the shock value... a lot. Also he doesn't hate feminism in itself. He hates extreme feminism. http://youtu.be/5eCnmeaoGMA
Not meaning to defend him or anything because I agree that he most of the time goes way too far.
That really sounds like more your interpretation/stereotype of what you call post modernism than any actual factual truth of the matter. Your post screams of an emotional defense disguised with factoids than a reasoned response.
but she totaly seems to have transformed into one of theese "weapons don´t kill people, videogames do!"-people
It doesn't -- it highlights the position he's coming from.
I didn't think I even needed to address his argument, since it is such an obvious strawman, but just so there's no confusion, here's what I'd have to say about the stand he took:
I think calling her locking youtube comments 'shutting down discussion' is an absolutely ludicrous idea. She is not calling for all of the blogs, message boards, youtube videos, and gaming publications to stop discussing her ideas -- she locked YOUTUBE COMMENTS.
I have never known anyone who would call the youtube comment platform a pace for discussion. Saying she is trying to prevent discussion just because she locked the comments is patently false.
Lastly, implying she is putting herself in the position of a damsel in distress by TAKING CHARGE OF HER SITUATION AND CONTROLLING HER ENVIRONMENT is equally absurd. Even if she was a power hungry, argument crushing megalomaniac like he seems to want to believe, that wouldn't be ironic, it would just be shitty.
noun an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., especially to explore solutions; informal debate.
too easy man
Her kickstarter youtube has over 14,000 comments the majority of which are abuse, using gendered insults. Calling on a single individual with no business behind her to put up with actual and literal rape threats so that one in a hundred comments can possibly bring up something worthy of discussion is asking for a feet of super human patience. I am not surprised in the slightest that the comments are disabled.
I read all the pages of the blog post tortillachips posted for instance. That is actual discussion.
She isn't preventing any of that, she's disabled it on ONE SPECIFIC PLATFORM. Refusing discussion through a certain medium =/= attempting to squash opposition.
She won't allow discussion VIA YOUTUBE COMMENTS, yeah, okay, she's still allowing the other infinite types of discussion in the world, including EVERY OTHER WEBSITE EVER, your OWN BLOG, and ANY KIND OF PUBLIC STATEMENT, so... Until she writes you a cease and desist for discussing her in this thread, I think she's being pretty ok.
Maybe if she was attacking a MAJOR source of credible discussion, like, say, going after the gaming press or trying to get dissenting videos taken down or something, that'd be one thing, but she's only blocking discussion on a single platform that is not known to have ever held a meaningful discussion on ANYTHING ANYWHERE EVER.
doesn't change the fact that it is defined under the English language as discussion and therefore causing it not to happen (Comments are disabled, replace comments with discussion and you have discussion is disabled)
im not using intelligence level as a rubric for what defines the word. Im using the actual definition of the word.
I don't feel like she's preventing me from discussing them right now. I'm not sure what part of that you don't understand. No kidding she's preventing discussion within the incredibly narrow scope of youtube comments -- she'll probably also ignore all discussion via morse code and MAYBE even piglatin. I'm okay with that.