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Anita Sarkeesian shows what one week of harassment directed at her looks like

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I see this retweeted a lot on Twitter to this very day. Such a stupid tweet and image.
 
Yeah, I don't really get these. That's a very personal thing but my wife is awesome, my parents are awesome and my friends are awesome. The fact that there are weird people out there doesn't tell me I shouldn't have kids but rather that we need more awesome people to have in our lives.

That's a useful perspective for its optimism if nothing else. I don't mean to suggest that optimism is naive either, just that I find that it's very easy to be cynical on the internet and that cynicism can be self reinforcing. So in the long run it's good to maintain a bit of optimism because the internet is not the whole world, and it can be a pretty warping window on it.
 
https://data.archive.moe/board/a/image/1378/70/1378701208341.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

Tyler is (and by implication, youare) unfortunately incorrect in his assertion that cyberbullying doesn't have any consequences. That should be obvious to anyone familiar with the importance of online presence and communities, the spill-over into the real world, swatting, sending pictures, just basic communication in general.

Saying what happens on the Internet is insignificant is like saying that phone calls or text messages or news papers and all sorts of communication media is irrelevant and insignificant. Which they obviously aren't.
 
the fact that people are still losing their minds over the fact that they think $65k is some outrageous salary is pretty telling as to who those people are.

That's 65k over 3 years. So about 22k a year.

It's also salaries for the entire project. She has at least one other person working on this stuff with her, if not more. So it's actually quite a bit less than $22k a year... most likely half of that or less.

These people are out of their minds.
 
Serious question; what can we do as a community to educate these commenters, or hamper their rage-speech?

A lot of these tweets are written so poorly that they're comparable to the text-speech of tweens; or they're just poorly educated. My friend's cousin said something in poor taste on Twitter once. His father then created a Twitter account only to follow him and him alone. To me, that's good parenting; it keeps the child in check (he's a teenager) and makes them reflect on their words before they post. And if it's clear we can't communicate with every parent (still assuming most of them are young adults/teens) then who do we sit down to make some change happen? Let's be honest, these people are just going to continue spewing vile comments to anyone and anything that they disagree with. It's already written in their code to be disrespectful.
 
I know very little about Anita and this path she has walked, but since day 1 people have criticized the way she has gone down this path. Most have not attacked her for being a woman or her message, it has been about how she has handled everything.

And whenever someone criticized how she did things or gave her advice, 100s of posts would follow of people calling them woman haters.

Both sides of this "thing" are wrong and right, that's how most things work.

Anita should be able to do her project and fulfill her promises with the money she was given, she apparently hasn't and people have a right to be angry at her. Anger does not mean making threats and people should not immediately jump to her side when those threats occur.

Allow her to report these threats to twitter and stop allowing yourselves to jump up to save her from her problems, she is an adult and can handle immature individuals on the internet.

Her message is what you should focus on, not the people angry with her or her constant posts about it. FOcus on her project and motivate her to get it done. Then the backers of her project will be happy and discussions can occur on her project.

Please tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to hear your logic on how doing anything else will be positive.
 
I have no ducks in this race, but being a public figure will always bring you heat, no matter what the subject is, sadly.
 
I know very little about Anita and this path she has walked, but since day 1 people have criticized the way she has gone down this path. Most have not attacked her for being a woman or her message, it has been about how she has handled everything.

And whenever someone criticized how she did things or gave her advice, 100s of posts would follow of people calling them woman haters.

Both sides of this "thing" are wrong and right, that's how most things work.

Anita should be able to do her project and fulfill her promises with the money she was given, she apparently hasn't and people have a right to be angry at her. Anger does not mean making threats and people should not immediately jump to her side when those threats occur.

Allow her to report these threats to twitter and stop allowing yourselves to jump up to save her from her problems, she is an adult and can handle immature individuals on the internet.

Her message is what you should focus on, not the people angry with her or her constant posts about it. FOcus on her project and motivate her to get it done. Then the backers of her project will be happy and discussions can occur on her project.

Please tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to hear your logic on how doing anything else will be positive.

You're wrong.
 
Serious question; what can we do as a community to educate these commenters, or hamper their rage-speech?

A lot of these tweets are written so poorly that they're comparable to the text-speech of tweens; or they're just poorly educated. My friend's cousin said something in poor taste on Twitter once. His father then created a Twitter account only to follow him and him alone. To me, that's good parenting; it keeps the child in check (he's a teenager) and makes them reflect on their words before they post. And if it's clear we can't communicate with every parent (still assuming most of them are young adults/teens) then who do we sit down to make some change happen? Let's be honest, these people are just going to continue spewing vile comments to anyone and anything that they disagree with. It's already written in their code to be disrespectful.

That's a very good question. Here's some stuff that I have come across that might help:

http://leighalexander.net/but-what-can-be-done-dos-and-donts-to-combat-online-sexism/

http://www.mattiebrice.com/how-do-i-help/
 
Anita should be able to do her project and fulfill her promises with the money she was given, she apparently hasn't and people have a right to be angry at her. Anger does not mean making threats and people should not immediately jump to her side when those threats occur.

Compared to the number of hours of content that was promised, she's already exceeded that in her output. Her episodes have been longer and more thorough than had been promised.

We should not jump to her side 'when those threats occur'? Excuse me? Why not?
 
Serious question; what can we do as a community to educate these commenters, or hamper their rage-speech?

Educate those venomous commentators? Not much can be done unfortunately. You'd lose your mind trying to reason with them. They've dug themselves into such a false reality that I think only time has a chance to fix it. I think Anita knows that which is why she rarely directly engages any of them. Instead she's focused on changing the community through the creators of content. I personally try to offer support to those like her that are trying to create positive change as well as those being targeted by certain hate mobs.
 
I know very little about Anita and this path she has walked, but since day 1 people have criticized the way she has gone down this path. Most have not attacked her for being a woman or her message, it has been about how she has handled everything.

And whenever someone criticized how she did things or gave her advice, 100s of posts would follow of people calling them woman haters.

Both sides of this "thing" are wrong and right, that's how most things work.

Anita should be able to do her project and fulfill her promises with the money she was given, she apparently hasn't and people have a right to be angry at her. Anger does not mean making threats and people should not immediately jump to her side when those threats occur.

Allow her to report these threats to twitter and stop allowing yourselves to jump up to save her from her problems, she is an adult and can handle immature individuals on the internet.

Her message is what you should focus on, not the people angry with her or her constant posts about it. FOcus on her project and motivate her to get it done. Then the backers of her project will be happy and discussions can occur on her project.

Please tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to hear your logic on how doing anything else will be positive.
It's funny, we had this discussion in the thread about how she used the Kickstarter funds, and guess what? The people that backed her are happy. Hell, she's gone above and beyond what she said promised, between longer videos, doing talks and speaking on news programs, etc. Oddly enough, it tends to be people that aren't backers getting upset over what she does
 
Whenever I hear someone utter a racial slur or wish death upon homosexuals in a game lobby, a thought I commonly have is, "I wonder what these people do when they're not busy displaying their lack of intellect and empathy before those that are unlucky enough to share their hobby?"

Now I know.
 
I know very little about Anita and this path she has walked, but since day 1 people have criticized the way she has gone down this path. Most have not attacked her for being a woman or her message, it has been about how she has handled everything.
There are literally people insulting her by calling her "woman". I'm personally offended that people would conduct themselves this way, especially since they're responding in this way towards about a women keeping constant and open communication where she gets her money from. I don't see why we shouldn't be able to be outraged over something actually terrible happening, and even then I don't see any of us in this thread threatening to rape or murder.

I also think it's fair to be embarrassed to be associated with this people in any way, even if it's simply "we both like games". They're making me look bad.
 
Yeah honestly I cringe a bit every time I see someone shit on us as a species. Oh boy some twitter posts from idiots makes you feel about OUR GROSS SPECIES yes I'm sure please tell me more from that pedestal while I smash my face into my desk.

I mean don't get me wrong, it's gross, but come the fuck on man. Comments like "gross, this species is" is such thinly veiled elitism. I guess you must hate your parents for bringing into this cold evil world with videogames. If only the dinosaurs had taken over instead, I'm sure they were all about social equality and free love and jazz!

LOL.
 

I like Tyler and understand where he is coming from, but this is simply not the case for Anita. Not only because the cyber bullying goes way beyond aggressive tweets, emails and messages, but also because a lot of work Anita does is taking place on the internet and she can't just "move away" like that.

I wouldn't even say that this is cyber bullying but something way more malicious.
 
Some of those are not even threats (though offensive) , and everybody involved in controversial subjects get a shitton of those anyway.

tumblr_inline_nitxijhzdO1qikfve.jpg


This is as much offensive as anything she says.
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.
Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Now I raise my flame shield.
 
Educate those venomous commentators? Not much unfortunately. You'd lose your mind trying to reason with them. They've dug themselves into such a false reality that I think only time has a chance to fix it. I think Anita knows that which is why she rarely directly engages any of them. Instead she's focused on changing the community through the creators of content. I personally try to offer support to those like her that are trying to create positive change as well as those being targeted by certain hate mobs.

I agree that it's difficult, if not impossible, to change the minds of people with ingrained false beliefs about reality.

But I think it is possible that they listen to the people or companies or developers that they admire. You see how so many tried to rationalize comments by that Blizzard guy, Neil Druckmann, Tim Schaefer, DICE, etc. , because they can't bear to reconcile that their idols would agree or support the work of someone who these bigots think are the literal Antichrist.

If more publishers and developers spoke up, the problem wouldn't be as big as it is.
 
I know very little about Anita and this path she has walked, but since day 1 people have criticized the way she has gone down this path. Most have not attacked her for being a woman or her message, it has been about how she has handled everything.

And whenever someone criticized how she did things or gave her advice, 100s of posts would follow of people calling them woman haters.

Both sides of this "thing" are wrong and right, that's how most things work.

Anita should be able to do her project and fulfill her promises with the money she was given, she apparently hasn't and people have a right to be angry at her. Anger does not mean making threats and people should not immediately jump to her side when those threats occur.

Allow her to report these threats to twitter and stop allowing yourselves to jump up to save her from her problems, she is an adult and can handle immature individuals on the internet.

Her message is what you should focus on, not the people angry with her or her constant posts about it. FOcus on her project and motivate her to get it done. Then the backers of her project will be happy and discussions can occur on her project.

Please tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to hear your logic on how doing anything else will be positive.

When your post starts with "I know very little about Anita...", it should then end with "...so I'm not going to comment on shit I know nothing about."

Like, you're admitting ignorance, but instead of trying to remedy that, you figure the logical approach is to repeat hearsay that you haven't investigated to any degree? I find that baffling.
 
I like Tyler and understand where he is coming from, but this is simply not the case for Anita. Not only because the cyber bullying goes way beyond aggressive tweets, emails and messages, but also because a lot of work Anita does is taking place on the internet and she can't just "move away" like that.

I wouldn't even say that this is cyber bullying but something way more malicious.

yeah. I think calling this stuff bullying or trolling is dangerous. it makes it sound like schoolyard taunting. but it's actuslly harassment. it's pretty vile and a lot of it is illegal.
 
When your post starts with "I know very little about Anita...", it should then end with "...so I'm not going to comment on shit I know nothing about."

Like, you're admitting ignorance, but instead of trying to remedy that, you figure the logical approach is to repeat hearsay that you haven't investigated to any degree? I find that baffling.

Yeah, that's what I found offensive about that post. Summarized, it's basically, "I haven't bothered to inform myself on the subject, but both sides are clearly wrong". No, both sides aren't wrong.
 
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.

I'm sorry this is just super distressing and factually and logically untrue. I don't even know where to start.

Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Why do you think that is the case? Why would anyone want to be in video games culture, especially as a woman, when you see people behaving against women like this?
 
Some of those are not even threats (though offensive) , and everybody involved in controversial subjects get a shitton of those anyway.

tumblr_inline_nitxijhzdO1qikfve.jpg


This is as much offensive as anything she says.
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.
Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Now I raise my flame shield.

You don't ignore one set of problems because there is another set of problems elsewhere.

It can be argued that there aren't more female developers precisely because gaming culture doesn't make them feel welcome in it. Her current predicament is a clear example of that and it mirrors the kinds of situations most women face in gaming.
 
This is as much offensive as anything she says.
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.
Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Please tell me more about "women's true problems."
 
When keeping it real goes wrong.

Tyler is young. I know he means well trying to downplay this sort of bullying (in the sense that young victims at school can then overcome this more easily by assigning less impotence to the opinions of others), but it's obviously not applicable here. In this case it has clearly escalated way past what he is taking about, with actual dangerous rape threats, death threats, bomb threats being called in to universities, made by legally responsible adults towards other adults.
 
Some of those are not even threats (though offensive) , and everybody involved in controversial subjects get a shitton of those anyway.

tumblr_inline_nitxijhzdO1qikfve.jpg


This is as much offensive as anything she says.
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.
Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Now I raise my flame shield.
If you were treated like Anita, and had people say you were ignoring women's true problems and were insulting women with "real" problems every time you drew attention towards your own harassment, wouldn't you choose another career?

Are men's true problems the fact that women are trying to change our videogames, like the tweet suggests?
 
Some of those are not even threats (though offensive) , and everybody involved in controversial subjects get a shitton of those anyway.

tumblr_inline_nitxijhzdO1qikfve.jpg


This is as much offensive as anything she says.
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.
Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Now I raise my flame shield.
The fuck are you on about?

First, you didn't link that Twitter post to anything she said; so you sound like you think she made that tweet. The second, intellectual fraud is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard when discussing a series of videos detailing opinions. The third, is that there are social pressures for 99% of engineers to be men in part due to male shit stains that make them feel unwelcome.
 
Those tweets are gross. I'm going to send some money her way on Friday after I get paid to give her some more encouragement.
 
This is why echo chambers are bad.

"Rape and death threats are an intrinsic part of gaming! Why are you trying to take that away from us?"

I wonder how their parents and grandparents and children feel if they ever read this garbage.
 
It doesn't matter that she has made any money at all from this, she had a small channel and made small videos about feminism in culture

The only reason she has any money or fame is because people got irrationally upset that she decided to make some videos about video games and gave her all this publicity and then the hate was reported on and subsequently proved her point about the industry being a toxic place for women

The ones who hate her the most have put her where she is, and though all of this she has tried to just stick with it and make her videos

She could have made $100m from this and it wouldn't invalidate her point

Her videos are not perfect, and every example she uses isn't either, but all her videos are setting out to do is highlight some issues

If you think gaming has no issues at all you're deluded, her videos should be the starting point to have a debate on the portrayal of women (and other minorities) in video games, but instead everyone is too busy obsessing over her for the most ridiculous reasons
 
I know very little about Anita and this path she has walked, but since day 1 people have criticized the way she has gone down this path. Most have not attacked her for being a woman or her message, it has been about how she has handled everything.

And whenever someone criticized how she did things or gave her advice, 100s of posts would follow of people calling them woman haters.

Both sides of this "thing" are wrong and right, that's how most things work.

Anita should be able to do her project and fulfill her promises with the money she was given, she apparently hasn't and people have a right to be angry at her. Anger does not mean making threats and people should not immediately jump to her side when those threats occur.

Allow her to report these threats to twitter and stop allowing yourselves to jump up to save her from her problems, she is an adult and can handle immature individuals on the internet.

Her message is what you should focus on, not the people angry with her or her constant posts about it. FOcus on her project and motivate her to get it done. Then the backers of her project will be happy and discussions can occur on her project.

Please tell me I'm wrong, I'd love to hear your logic on how doing anything else will be positive.

I've never seen a post be more wrong on this forum, in fact.
 
If more publishers and developers spoke up, the problem wouldn't be as big as it is.

Exactly. Which is what I think Anita is trying to do. She does academic events where she's speaking to the current and future developers and content creators of the gaming industry. I'm not in her position though, and I haven't the education or the access to talk to those people. So the most I really do is fund and support her organization and those similar to it.
 
What is with all the juniors in this thread?
Social junior warriors lol

This is why echo chambers are bad.

"Rape and death threats are an intrinsic part of gaming! Why are you trying to take that away from us?"

I wonder how their parents and grandparents and children feel if they ever read this garbage.
I think being able to identify things like this is one of the strongest skills you can have. In your career, in your personal life, in everything. Even if it's something as small as "why are we still using this outdated filing system?" to something like this.

"If the gaming community stopped giving rape threats, then there wouldn't be anyone in the gaming community threatening to rape people! Are we willing to give that up?"
 
Some of those are not even threats (though offensive) , and everybody involved in controversial subjects get a shitton of those anyway.

tumblr_inline_nitxijhzdO1qikfve.jpg


This is as much offensive as anything she says.
Anyway she's an intellectual fraud, making lots of money while ignoring women's true problems.
The fact she says things like this is an insult to women who really have fough for their rights and are or have been in danger.
Also, if there aren't women in game studios is because engineers are 99% male, as women choose other careers.

Now I raise my flame shield.

"Clearly you need to be educated" it a pretty condescending thing to say. Sure, this might not be an insult (although still pretty insulting) or a threat, but it's still a pretty worthless tweet. He's making gaming not sound inclusive at all, by claiming it to not be her business. Like, who gives him the right to decide that?

Also I'm not sure Anita ever claimed that being misrepresented in videogames was the biggest problem for women. I also think that goes both ways. I always wonder why GamerGate was started as this big 'ethics' movement, but it was kicked off by some meaningless gossip about an indie dev, and seems more focused on harassing or criticising videos like Anita's, all the while game studios are putting out broken games that are met to critical acclaim.
 
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