New Tropes vs Women video is out (Women as Background Decoration pt. 2)

i'm not surprised.


no i'm suggesting you made an ignorant and sweeping generalization about the lesbian community based on the fact that straight men and gay women both happen to be attracted to the same gender and then somehow extrapolated that to mean "sexual violence against women must be made to appeal to both these groups".

is it your opinion that women, especially those who are attracted to women, want to see images of other women being denigrated and violated?


My 5-on-the-K-scale female friend rather enjoyed the GoW series.

So I can go ahead and make it my opinion that women who are often attracted to other women can want to see/play and appreciate such content, yes. :]

Personally, I just think it means she has bad taste in games, because it was redundant after the first. But hey, not everyone's perfect.
 
This.
The biggest flaw of these videos is the serious lack of context, both on the media side and the actual "videogame culture" one. It's almost as she doesn't understand how media work and how videogames work. For someone who loves to repeat "nothing exists in a vacuum" it's kind of ironic, really.

Anita's videos are pretty hollow. I could go to TVTropes and get a quicker and better picture of sexism in games and why it is negative to the perception of women.

However these videos usually perk up genuinely good discussions and get people talking and reflecting in both positive and negative ways.

Which is the only reason I'm mildly okay with them. Lol.
 
I wish people were better than they are, that they didn't make garbage and that they recognized garbage for what it is when they see it. I wish people took more responsibility.

That's not censorship.

One man's garbage is another man's treasure.

I don't even really like the GoW games. I got the Saga thing cheap off amazon a while back and played through them. They are fun to play, mostly mindless (I mean, like that one combo with the chain blades is like all you need) but consistently look great for the platform they are on, have high production values, are set in mythological Greece (my favourite pantheon of Gods) and are fairly fun to play (apart from some tedious and boring platforming in some parts of some games).

Yes, they feature brutal and gross acts of violence (against women, men and monsters. And deities.) and utterly stupid sex minigames (which I admit I did for the powerup things and/or trophies. Cant remember if there are trophies tied to them) but it seems fairly representative of actual mythological Greece (you know what I mean). Yeah, Kratos is an unlikable, unrelatable dick and very much not a hero but the games themselves are entertaining, they are fun to play (you might not like them if you can't handle extreme gore and violence) and in the end, that's what matters with videogames. That they are fun.

Yes, we all want to see the medium pushed to be the best it can and yes, we all want more fair representation of women and minorities and yes, publishers and devs need to learn that women are a big part of the audience and industry and to stop aiming their games only at the teenage male demographic but just because I can play a game and look past it's social shortcomings and enjoy the actual gameplay of a game doesn't make me part of the problem or immature.
 
Saying you think something is garbage =/= wishing other people didn't like/use said thing.

One is a personal opinion and possible personal action(re: not using/buying it).

One is desire over other people's opinions, and other people's actions(re: them not liking it, it not being available).

I don't like the PS3. I've never said "People using PS3s is a problem".

Nice try though.
 
i'm not surprised.


no i'm suggesting you made an ignorant and sweeping generalization about the lesbian community based on the fact that straight men and gay women both happen to be attracted to the same gender and then somehow extrapolated that to mean "sexual violence against women must be made to appeal to both these groups".

is it your opinion that women, especially those who are attracted to women, want to see images of other women being denigrated and violated?

What specifically about the imagery depicted only appeals to straight men? Why wouldn't the sexualization of a gender appeal to all of those attracted to the gender and not just those belonging to a particular biological sex?
 
It would double development costs to model and animate naked men.
Legit LOL'ed.

Anyway, it's the slimiest thing to do. Here's a chance to listen to a woman talk about the experiences of women--a rare perspective in the context of games--and your thought is to highjack it to talk about men?
Welcome to every discussion involving women's side, ever. :/

The comment sections of my videos get along quite nicely. :]

But then again I don't post a bunch of ridiculous videos of overblown, cherry-picked polemic. So there's that.

It was a wise decision on her part, though. When you are attempting to enact change as a vocal minority, it helps to silence the majority as much as possible.
This post is so much bullshit in so few words, I'm going to suggest trolling at this point. The notion that Anita is silencing anyone by disabling "I hope you get raped, cunt" comments is both hilariously stupid and borderline offensive.
 
Saying you think something is garbage =/= wishing other people didn't like/use said thing.

One is a personal opinion and possible personal action(re: not using/buying it).

One is desire over other people's opinions, and other people's actions(re: them not liking it, it not being available).

I don't like the PS3. I've never said "People using PS3s is a problem".

Nice try though.

A lot of people who object to a game get angry over people "liking thing."

It's a pretty common part of getting into an angry debate on whether the newest biggest disappointment of a game was good or not. A natural part about having an opinion is desperately hoping people agree with you.
 

I won't go through all of those but do they claim that a piece of entertainment that depict a specific thing needs to not exist because they think it's garbage?
 
Well, Zeus was an insane dickhead in Greek mythology. Why change that? Is there any reason why you want Zeus to be changed?

Not....really? Outside of his fucking everything that moved, Zeus is generally not portrayed that way. And really, outside of that, it also clashes heavily with his portrayal in the previous game where he is helpful and overall an ally.
 
I won't go through all of those but do they claim that a piece of entertainment that depict a specific thing needs to not exist because they think it's garbage?
Lol...yes.

There were petitions to stop The Wind Waker's development because everything looked like hot garbage to us at that time.

Even petitions to stop Skyward Sword because of mandatory motion controls. We've suffered through a lot here. Lol.
 
Yes, wishing they didn't make that thing you call garbage is the definition of advocating censorship.

Your opinion is not absolute. Many people don't care what you think, and until you respect that, you have a lot to learn.

"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

Voltaire never said this.

"The world would be better without bad things" is not "and I will make it so by force of arms". Stop saying "censorship".
 
After the first ten minutes I don't see where she is going with all these examples... She doesn't really mention what's wrong with it after a scene. AC2 and RDR for example.. Those are things that could happen in real life even today. Men (assholes) feeling empowered over a women because she is a prostitute and therefore treat her like shit. The male main characters step in, as one should do. Those are things that could happen in real life because prostitution (by force and by choice) exists as well as sick men. What's the righ thing to do in such a situation and why should it not be used to get an emotion out of the player? I also didn't get a lot of other examples.

I havent watched the first part and I'm already getting tired to just watch example after example without her telling me why she has just shown this scene except for "this occurs often".

I admire that someone steps up for the depiction of women in videogames because there are wrong things going on. I just don't get many of her arguments.
 
Saying you think something is garbage =/= wishing other people didn't like/use said thing.

One is a personal opinion and possible personal action(re: not using/buying it).

One is desire over other people's opinions, and other people's actions(re: them not liking it, it not being available).

I don't like the PS3. I've never said "People using PS3s is a problem".

Nice try though.


You're going to have to decide - are people you're arguing against saying "People shouldn't consume ______", or are they saying "People shouldn't make ______".

There is a big difference between those two statements, but if you want to invoke "censorship", then that only applies to the latter (people making/expressing things, not consuming messages).

Now, I ask you: with the exception of people who like watching bad movies and stuff like that, is it not a foregone conclusion that someone calling something garbage means they wish it hadn't been made (or made differently)? I think it's pretty sensible to say that you wouldn't say something is "garbage" if you didn't want it changed somehow.

Therefore, you're either going to accept that people can wish things hadn't been made without jumping to the "censorship!" threat, or you're going to be paranoid of every other post on NeoGAF.
 
Not....really? Outside of his fucking everything that moved, Zeus is generally not portrayed that way. And really, outside of that, it also clashes heavily with his portrayal in the previous game where he is helpful and overall an ally.

What?! Zeus was massive dickhead. He beat and rape Hera. In any case, as I said before, different writers, different directors, therefore, different directions. Also, people change, I guess?
 
Still not a huge fan of how tropes are at the core of this thing, as I don't think they are a very good way to argue with. The attribution of tropes often lacks context and is severely reductionist. That said, she stated the point quite well in the Background Decoration episodes.

Representing women in certain ways to add the grit to the environment is awkwardly common. I understand the thought process behind it to a certain extent. They are usually games where violence is your only means of interaction with a world, and so you'll want to contextualise that violence in your narrative. Painting a gross, seedy, crime-ridden world is an easy way to give the player context, as "kill the bad people" has been perpetuated in our media throughout the ages. It's probably why our villains usually have little to no nuance. Either way, those typical crime locations will have disrespect of women, and I assume that the people in charge think it's fine to throw in there, as their game makes sure to note that these opponents are bad people. They are not condoning anything, and indirectly convicting it. Derivativeness aside, it's not a colossal issue in of itself, but it becomes a bit weird when this is the extent of female participation across a ton of games is either submissive or not active at all.

In the end, it is again "more and better diversity" that could be the saviour here. I'd still roll my eyes at the above, but at least it becomes part of an entire spectrum, rather than being almost the entire spectrum itself.

Nopes, you're not supposed to identify with Kratos. Just because you're playing as him doesn't mean you're him. Same thing with Joel in The Last of Us. Same thing with the characters from GTA or Saints Row. It's similar to how women aren't meant to identify with Bayonetta.
I agree that they probably don't intend the player to identify as these characters, but they do serve as power fantasies. You pretty much live through them and they are supposed to make you feel cool and powerful.

Bayonetta's pretty much the only one of that list that worked for me though, but those devs know how to speak to me in that respect. She's cocky and toys with her foes, because she feels like she is in control pretty much at all times. One of my favourite additions is the dodge offset. Not only does it allow you build-up the ability to really dish out punishment, but the focus on the cocky dodging makes you feel like old martial arts movies or even animes where someone is clearly outclassing their opponent. She feels like cutscene Dante, even during gameplay.
 
Voltaire never said this.

"The world would be better without bad things" is not "and I will make it so by force of arms". Stop saying "censorship".

When you attempt to speak for others as to what is bad and what is not, yes, it becomes censorship. I don't think GoW is a "bad thing", and I don't care if you do. I would call it a lackluster game, but the world is a better place with GoW in it, as it's simply another entertainment option.

You do not get to decide what the world would be better with or without. You do not get to say other people consuming other content is a problem, because frankly, what content they consume is none of your business. Attempting to intervene there is an attempt at censorship, by removing the content they enjoy, period.

And while it's not a direct quote from voltaire, it's still a summary of his stance on censorship by Evelyn Hall, in Friends of Voltaire.
 
After the first ten minutes I don't see where she is going with all these examples... She doesn't really mention what's wrong with it after a scene. AC2 and RDR for example.. Those are things that could happen in real life even today. Men (assholes) feeling empowered over a women because she is a prostitute and therefore treat her like shit. The male main characters step in, as one should do. Those are things that could happen in real life because prostitution (by force and by choice) exists as well as sick men. What's the righ thing to do in such a situation and why should it not be used to get an emotion out of the player? I also didn't get a lot of other examples.

I havent watched the first part and I'm already getting tired to just watch example after example without her telling me why she has just shown this scene except for "this occurs often".

I admire that someone steps up for the depiction of women in videogames because there are wrong things going on. I just don't get many of her arguments.

Yeah. That's what gets me too.

While discussing with a friend I basically said:

The women are being used as "the ball" again. Just like a dog being kicked in the face. It's not really about the woman being harmed, it's about the main character having a reason to beat up the crook. What makes beaten women any different from a kicked dog or damaged property? Not much, besides the human empathy meter.

Games like Papa y Yo don't trivialize abuse, they actually talk about it and give it real soul. What does that pain really feel like in an interactive environment? What does abuse really mean? What does it do to one's character?

In these examples, those questions don't matter. The lady is being used as fuel for the player character's revenge. Silly...but I think I understand. Why is their pain being used to drive the player? Why isn't their pain being used to give understanding to the player? In games like Okami, Silent Hill, Majora's Mask and even Gone Home...the main character doesn't play as the main character. They are instead witnesses to other people's tragedy's. And instead of the player character making the game about them, the game is actually about someone who is rather...insignificant. This is powerful because it's great to have games that don't treat you like you're the most important thing in the world. Games that spin you around and tell you "F*** you! You're not the only thing that matters" is actually rather humbling for a change. And much more impactful too, because it subdues my expectation.

These game worlds were made for the player character...I understand that. But you can do an open world environment with characters who have story.
 
As long as she's putting out videos, she will never have to work a day in her life. Love or hate her, she's pretty brilliant for creating a product with this dynamic where any type of feedback is going to net her a profit, and none of her vocal adversaries will bother to create a similar counter-argument in the same format.

My girlfriend and I watched her first couple videos, and I have watched the last couple alone but I think this will probably be the last one I give views to. In my opinion at this point it's beating a dead horse and is simply catering to the audience who she expects backlash from.
 
Anita's videos are pretty hollow. I could go to TVTropes and get a quicker and better picture of sexism in games and why it is negative to the perception of women.

However these videos usually perk up genuinely good discussions and get people talking and reflecting in both positive and negative ways.

Which is the only reason I'm mildly okay with them. Lol.

Yes, there is an interesting discussion to be had. But the framing seems completely wrong to me. To be honest, the videos remind me of a lot of TV shows in the early nineties about how "satanic music" could corrupt youth.
A sequence of video bits about violence on women from different games doesn't explain much about videogames and how they present ideas. The representation of gender dynamics in The Witcher is not the same as the one in GTA, and both are very different than the one in Dragon Age.
Also, ignoring the mechanical reasons behind some things (like, the fact that random events happen many times in open world games) show, at best, ignorance about the subject matter and the way this medium works. It's like complaining that people in a musical sing.
 
You're going to have to decide - are people you're arguing against saying "People shouldn't consume ______", or are they saying "People shouldn't make ______".

There is a big difference between those two statements, but if you want to invoke "censorship", then that only applies to the latter (people making/expressing things, not consuming messages).

Now, I ask you: with the exception of people who like watching bad movies and stuff like that, is it not a foregone conclusion that someone calling something garbage means they wish it hadn't been made (or made differently)? I think it's pretty sensible to say that you wouldn't say something is "garbage" if you didn't want it changed somehow.

Therefore, you're either going to accept that people can wish things hadn't been made without jumping to the "censorship!" threat, or you're going to be paranoid of every other post on NeoGAF.

No, thinking something is garbage does not equate to wishing it hadn't been made.

I think raspberry poptarts are garbage. I really don't care if they were made or not, because as soon as I determined they were garbage, I stopped so much as thinking about them.

This is the difference between me going to my friends house and saying "you liking raspberry poptarts is a problem", and me choosing not to buy raspberry poptarts because I don't like them because I think they're "garbage".

I don't need Raspberry Poptarts to be made differently. They make Blueberry Poptarts as well. I can buy those. Brakke can buy some other game that he prefers to GoW. As soon as he steps his foot into "People liking GoW is a problem", it's an attempt to censor other people's interests to be more in line with his own, period.

I think 50 Shades Of Grey is garbage. I might even go so far as to think less of my date if she gushes about how much she liked it. Happened just the other day when a preview came on at the theaters. Didn't work out with her. Do I think it shouldn't have been made? No. I value other people's ability to discern what they want and don't want over my own ridiculously selfish concerns about controlling social perception, because I'm not a pro-censorship ****bird.
 
No, thinking something is garbage does not equate to wishing it hadn't been made.

I think raspberry poptarts are garbage. I really don't care if they were made or not, because as soon as I determined they were garbage, I stopped so much as thinking about them.

This is the difference between me going to my friends house and saying "you liking raspberry poptarts is a problem", and me choosing not to buy raspberry poptarts because I don't like them because I think they're "garbage".

I don't need Raspberry Poptarts to be made differently. They make Blueberry Poptarts as well. I can buy those. Brakke can buy some other game that he prefers to GoW. As soon as he steps his foot into "People liking GoW is a problem", it's an attempt to censor other people's interests to be more in line with his own, period.

So if he were to say, "People who like GoW are garbage," would that be okay with you?
 
If it's a personal opinion on character, and not an agenda for change, then yes.

"People liking GoW is a problem" is stronger wording than "People who like GoW are garbage". Problems are things to be fixed, garbage is just something you don't like.
 
Could not disagree stronger. What a low aspiration.

What can I say? I'm a simple guy. I like my games to be fun (and if they have a good story or good characters or break new ground in interactive story telling then it's a big plus).

This is demonstrably not true. Very many people do not want that.
And those people are likely the sexist and racist types that need to be drowned out by having more and more games with strong female and minority characters and more people like Anita shining a spotlight on problems.
 
If it's a personal opinion on character, and not an agenda for change, then yes.

"People liking GoW is a problem" is stronger wording than "People who like GoW are garbage". Problems are things to be fixed, garbage is just something you don't like.

Lol, where I'm from, garbage is something you burn.

And why is fixing a problem always a bad thing? Why is it bad to not want women to be treated like shit? Especially now that they're the overlords.
 
Still not a huge fan of how tropes are at the core of this thing, as I don't think they are a very good way to argue with. The attribution of tropes often lacks context and is severely reductionist. That said, she stated the point quite well in the Background Decoration episodes.

Representing women in certain ways to add the grit to the environment is awkwardly common. I understand the thought process behind it to a certain extent. They are usually games where violence is your only means of interaction with a world, and so you'll want to contextualise that violence in your narrative. Painting a gross, seedy, crime-ridden world is an easy way to give the player context, as "kill the bad people" has been perpetuated in our media throughout the ages. It's probably why our villains usually have little to no nuance. Either way, those typical crime locations will have disrespect of women, and I assume that the people in charge think it's fine to throw in there, as their game makes sure to note that these opponents are bad people. They are not condoning anything, and indirectly convicting it. Derivativeness aside, it's not a colossal issue in of itself, but it becomes a bit weird when this is the extent of female participation across a ton of games is either submissive or not active at all.

In the end, it is again "more and better diversity" that could be the saviour here. I'd still roll my eyes at the above, but at least it becomes part of an entire spectrum, rather than being almost the entire spectrum itself.

I totally agree apart from the bolded sentence. It's far from the entire spectrum. If you watch a TvW video you would say all videogames contain these tropes and rely on these narrative hooks. But it's actually something fairly common just in the narrative first- and third-person r-rated shooter action genre. Which is a subset of a subset of games, and not really the most popular. Why is this genre, which has a quite limited niche, taken as "all videogames".
 
No, thinking something is garbage does not equate to wishing it hadn't been made.

I think raspberry poptarts are garbage. I really don't care if they were made or not, because as soon as I determined they were garbage, I stopped so much as thinking about them.

This is the difference between me going to my friends house and saying "you liking raspberry poptarts is a problem", and me choosing not to buy raspberry poptarts because I don't like them because I think they're "garbage".

I don't need Raspberry Poptarts to be made differently. They make Blueberry Poptarts as well. I can buy those. Brakke can buy some other game that he prefers to GoW. As soon as he steps his foot into "People liking GoW is a problem", it's an attempt to censor other people's interests to be more in line with his own, period.

I think 50 Shades Of Grey is garbage. I might even go so far as to think less of my date if she gushes about how much she liked it. Happened just the other day when a preview came on at the theaters. Didn't work out with her. Do I think it shouldn't have been made? No. I value other people's ability to discern what they want and don't want over my own ridiculously selfish concerns about controlling social perception, because I'm not a pro-censorship ****bird.

People aren't that passionate about poptarts though. Toilet paper brands and shampoo brands aren't as passionately charged as say...cars, sports teams, games, politics and religion. You have to pick something equally as heated. People don't send out death threats because of poptarts. But they do send out death threats over opinions that rile up the "unconscious mind."
 
After the first ten minutes I don't see where she is going with all these examples... She doesn't really mention what's wrong with it after a scene. AC2 and RDR for example.. Those are things that could happen in real life even today. Men (assholes) feeling empowered over a women because she is a prostitute and therefore treat her like shit. The male main characters step in, as one should do. Those are things that could happen in real life because prostitution (by force and by choice) exists as well as sick men. What's the righ thing to do in such a situation and why should it not be used to get an emotion out of the player? I also didn't get a lot of other examples.

I havent watched the first part and I'm already getting tired to just watch example after example without her telling me why she has just shown this scene except for "this occurs often".

I admire that someone steps up for the depiction of women in videogames because there are wrong things going on. I just don't get many of her arguments.

At the end of the video, she explains how these situations are mainly depicted as having a "bad guy" mistreating a woman, while in reality women are usually raped or harassed by relatives, intimate partners, or other people they know, and that they are not the typical "bad guy". That's a part of the problem, because it minimizes the issue.
 
Ok. You don't know what censorship is. That's cool. It happens. Let's never try and persuade anyone of anything, lest you feel the need to die on their behalf. Let's not aspire to a better world. Let's let all the bad ideas just hang out. Because ideas are never harmful. Why, let them eat PopTarts. For freedom.

As long as she's putting out videos, she will never have to work a day in her life. Love or hate her, she's pretty brilliant for creating a product with this dynamic where any type of feedback is going to net her a profit, and none of her vocal adversaries will bother to create a similar counter-argument in the same format.

My girlfriend and I watched her first couple videos, and I have watched the last couple alone but I think this will probably be the last one I give views to. In my opinion at this point it's beating a dead horse and is simply catering to the audience who she expects backlash from.

She doesn't make money directly on new videos. She's recently set up a nonprofit to support her efforts, presumably she's applied / is applying for educational grants and such.
 
As long as she's putting out videos, she will never have to work a day in her life.

Britney-confused_zps9eff516a.gif
 
The value of freedom of speech, and thought, does not change based on the volatility of that thought.

Poptarts was a simple example, to illustrate a simple point. Things you don't like are not getting in the way of things you do like. There is no reason to wish something didn't exist, when it's not directly impacting you, unless it's your design to control other people. And if that's your/Brakka's design, I hope you lose.
 
I totally agree apart from the bolded sentence. It's far from the entire spectrum. If you watch a TvW video you would say all videogames contain these tropes and rely on these narrative hooks. But it's actually something fairly common just in the narrative first- and third-person r-rated shooter action genre. Which is a subset of a subset of games, and not really the most popular. Why is this genre, which has a quite limited niche, taken as "all videogames".

Because...they are often Game of the Year?

:3
 
No, thinking something is garbage does not equate to wishing it hadn't been made.

I think raspberry poptarts are garbage. I really don't care if they were made or not, because as soon as I determined they were garbage, I stopped so much as thinking about them.

This is the difference between me going to my friends house and saying "you liking raspberry poptarts is a problem", and me choosing not to buy raspberry poptarts because I don't like them because I think they're "garbage".

I don't need Raspberry Poptarts to be made differently. They make Blueberry Poptarts as well. I can buy those. Brakke can buy some other game that he prefers to GoW. As soon as he steps his foot into "People liking GoW is a problem", it's an attempt to censor other people's interests to be more in line with his own, period.

I think 50 Shades Of Grey is garbage. I might even go so far as to think less of my date if she gushes about how much she liked it. Happened just the other day when a preview came on at the theaters. Didn't work out with her. Do I think it shouldn't have been made? No. I value other people's ability to discern what they want and don't want over my own ridiculously selfish concerns about controlling social perception, because I'm not a pro-censorship ****bird.


I used your own words about people calling stuff garbage and wishing it hadn't been made, and now you're backpedaling and making fine adjustments on the placement of the goal posts.

I think you're ascribing an awful lot of "censorship agenda" sentiment where there isn't any. This series of videos never makes it a point to tell you not to play these games.
It's essentially a complaint, much like all the complaints on NeoGAF. If you don't care about this topic - then I must ask: why are you even here to discuss it?
Your earlier post about "this will lead to social and legal action" is right at the doors of conspiracy theory mania.

Also, comparing this to people's tastes in poptarts is just false equivalence, and a bit asinine.
 
I used your own words about people calling stuff garbage and wishing it hadn't been made, and now you're backpedaling and making fine adjustments on the placement of the goal posts.

I think you're ascribing an awful lot of "censorship agenda" sentiment where there isn't any. This series of videos never makes it a point to tell you not to play these games.
It's essentially a complaint, much like all the complaints on NeoGAF. If you don't care about this topic - then I must ask: why are you even here to discuss it?
Your earlier post about "this will lead to social and legal action" is right at the doors of conspiracy theory mania.

Also, comparing this to people's tastes in poptarts is just false equivalence, and a bit asinine.

I think the whole garbage=censorship thing is in response to Brakke claming that GoW is garbage and shouldn't have been made and not a comment on the videos or Anita's stance.
 
I used your own words about people calling stuff garbage and wishing it hadn't been made, and now you're backpedaling and making fine adjustments on the placement of the goal posts.

I think you're ascribing an awful lot of "censorship agenda" sentiment where there isn't any. This series of videos never makes it a point to tell you not to play these games.
It's essentially a complaint, much like all the complaints on NeoGAF. If you don't care about this topic - then I must ask: why are you even here to discuss it?
Your earlier post about "this will lead to social and legal action" is right at the doors of conspiracy theory mania.

Also, comparing this to people's tastes in poptarts is just false equivalence, and a bit asinine.

Uh, no, you didn't use my words about wishing things hadn't been made, because I never said I wished things hadn't been made. Those were your words.

And we're not talking about Anita's videos. Brakke's comment is what sparked the censorship debate, when he went off on the "people liking GoW is a problem" tangent, and Brakke's comment was what was being discussed.

I also never said Anita's videos would lead to social and legal action. In fact, I specifically said pretty much nobody cares about her, and those that do are outbalanced by some pretty loud negative press and attention that neutralizes just about any silly rhetoric she has to spew. I said that people recognize how public sentiment can turn into legal and social action, and that is why they respond harshly to nonsense like Anita.

You should really stop trying to put words in my mouth, and actually learn to read and digest comments before you attempt to quote and respond to them.

And if you want to think a simplified example demonstrating the difference between disliking something and saying other people liking something is a problem, is asinine, feel free. You'd be wrong in my opinion, but you're entitled to your own. :]
 
Are you comparing everyone to Elliot Rogers who doesn't share your view?

Of course not. But the idea that miring yourself in misogyny and uncritical power fantasies is the same as eating a PopTart is absurd. There are real stakes here. The media people consume affects the way they approach the world around them, which affects all the rest of us. If someone does a poor job of navigating that media such that it hampers their ability to engage in our society, then damn right the society is responsible for helping that person become better adjusted.

We should help each other to live in harmony and to not oppress each other. I've never once advocated censorship.
 
I'm just glad someone else picked up on how awful Kratos using that chick as a doorstop in God of War 3 was. I remember calling it out when the game was released, but no one else seemed to notice it.
 
Because...they are often Game of the Year?

:3

Well, that doesn't automatically make them representative of the whole spectrum of videogames. I think that FIFA, Candy Crush and Minecraft are more descriptive of what videogames are for most people than No More Heroes 2, Red Dead Redemption and Far Cry 3.
To me it feels like someone taking pages from random horror novels and trying to say something about books (not even novels, just books in general).
 
You should really stop trying to put words in my mouth, and actually learn to read and digest comments before you attempt to quote and respond to them.

You might practice what you preach and stop putting words in my mouth. And Voltaire's, too, he's too busy being dead to even respond.
 
Of course not. But the idea that miring yourself in misogyny and uncritical power fantasies is the same as eating a PopTart is absurd. There are real stakes here. The media people consume affects the way they approach the world around them, which affects all the rest of us. If someone does a poor job of navigating that media such that it hampers their ability to engage in our society, then damn right the society is responsible for helping that person become better adjusted.

We should help each other to live in harmony and to not oppress each other. I've never once advocated censorship.

But what about Shadow's of the Damned? That's a pretty big male power fantasy. You get a big dick gun called the "Big Boner" for a turret sequence. Also it falls victim to the "damsel in distress" trope where she is treated as an object and of course the stuff at the end. Can be seen as pretty misogynistic.

But then again it isn't just a fun TPS with a talking skull and a shit ton of dick jokes. Or is it?
 
I'm just glad someone else picked up on how awful Kratos using that chick as a doorstop in God of War 3 was. I remember calling it out when the game was released, but no one else seemed to notice it.

That was the most despicable thing I've seen in a game. It seriously ruined that game for me. That is probably the only example where I feel developers have been irresponsible. It's too much, too casual and too cruel, IMO. Not that I liked it that game much before - the combat system is too simple and the story lame - but that part was just awful.
 
I'd love something that presented a point or promoted discussion.

How do you propose she lives the rest of her life off of this? Her videos are only moderately popular and don't feature ads. Even if they did have ads, she has a fairly slow output. Those things don't add up to a lot of money, and her kickstarter, while a lot of money, isn't nest egg at 30 material.
 
Of course not. But the idea that miring yourself in misogyny and uncritical power fantasies is the same as eating a PopTart is absurd. There are real stakes here. The media people consume affects the way they approach the world around them, which affects all the rest of us. If someone does a poor job of navigating that media such that it hampers their ability to engage in our society, then damn right the society is responsible for helping that person become better adjusted.

We should help each other to live in harmony and to not oppress each other. I've never once advocated censorship.

Right, I feel you!

It's just that I am so cynical about our media (and our news) that just thinking about it makes me angry.

Perhaps most of all, it scares me how particularly black and Asian women are stigmatized by the beauty standards in Hollywood! I was in Beijing and was dumbfounded at how western looks, tendencies had infiltrated their society. Like they were trying to hide they were Asian. To think that these things are just re-affirmed constant images put in our heads in our entire lives and we don't even realize it. We can't see it, because it's just an add there, a Hollywood white washing portrayal over there, a misogynistic action film or video game over here.
 
Of course not. But the idea that miring yourself in misogyny and uncritical power fantasies is the same as eating a PopTart is absurd. There are real stakes here. The media people consume affects the way they approach the world around them, which affects all the rest of us. If someone does a poor job of navigating that media such that it hampers their ability to engage in our society, then damn right the society is responsible for helping that person become better adjusted.

We should help each other to live in harmony and to not oppress each other. I've never once advocated censorship.

But if you truly think media have such direct and strong power over people's real lives, then why shouldn't its content be heavily regulated?
 
But if you truly think media have such direct and strong power over people's real lives, then why shouldn't its content be heavily regulated?

Because that would be admitting to a desire for censorship, and we backed off that train real hard as soon as it was brought up.
 
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