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[Flachmatuch]

You literally have no reading comprehension skills. Here, I'll bold it for you this time my man

First, you are *declaring* a word to mean something it does not and you are ignorant about what it actually means.

Second, doing something and post facto declaring that you did not do does not undo your original action. For example, calling you a moron and then declaring that I did not call you a moron doesn't make it so. Hello?

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Holy crap, just noticed the thread went well over 1k posts. Anything new happen since last night?

 

[Gucci Messiah]

Foreigners aren't a race, so using 'gaijin' isn't racist. It's insensitive and pathetic though. The same people praising him for it would most likely poop their pants if someone in America lamented the "inferior" thoughts, views, and/or actions of "them foreigners." And they'd be right to have an issue with that. Generalizing huge groups of people like that to make yourself feel superior is the action of a small person. There's a reason we mock the people that do it in America.

I get that Sammy, believe me. However, I believe he's using race to distinguish between "us" and "them" which is natural. To me, when you use the word "gaijin" in a negative context I feel like it comes with some racial undertones. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Cerebral Assassin]

Ah you're hopeless. I'm putting you on ignore not because you disagree with me, but because you are literally bringing nothing to the conversation. I appreciate the other posters who disagree with my opinion because at least they are making an effort to display their point of view.

See ya.

So you are a hypocrite(his post was longer than your similar post earlier) as well as having issues understanding English, that's good to know.

Foreigners aren't a race, so using 'gaijin' isn't racist. It's insensitive and pathetic though. The same people praising him for it would most likely poop their pants if someone in America lamented the "inferior" thoughts, views, and/or actions of "them foreigners." And they'd be right to have an issue with that. Generalizing huge groups of people like that to make yourself feel superior is the action of a small person. There's a reason we mock the people that do it in America.

I don't think he was referring to all foreigners, just the stupid ones (& considering he was talking about Kotaku, I don't really see a problem).

 

[Mael]

People stating 100% that gaijin isn't a racist term: Why do other terms exist for foreign born people, then?

It might not be on par with some of the more offensive racial slurs like the mentioned n-bomb, but what about gringo, haole, auslander, etc.? Would you put it on par with those?

It's a xenophobic term not a racist one, how hard is it to understand?

I get that Sammy, believe me. However, I believe he's using race to distinguish between "us" and "them" which is natural. To me, when you use the word "gaijin" in a negative context I feel like it comes with some racial undertones. That's all I'm saying.

But it's not.
That like saying yankee or some other disparaging word for american is a racist term.
It's nationalistic, xenophobic and whatever you want but it have nothing to do with race.

 

[Gucci Messiah]

blah blah white people get offended by the use of the word foreigner.You don't plan on buy his games who cares? Maybe you had a different idea about japan thanks to filling your heads with anime shit.

Why do you assume we're all white?

 

[2San]

How less offensive can you be in referring to someone who is foreign than a "foreigner"? Those other terms exist solely to be offensive, as far as I know "foreigner" is the one word we have that can be used to state that someone is foreign without being derogatory.

It becomes derogatory when you put "stupid fucking idiot" in front of it.

 

[Interfectum]

blah blah white people get offended by the use of the word foreigner.You don't plan on buy his games who cares? Maybe you had a different idea about japan thanks to filling your heads with anime shit.

I'm guessing a lot of these "white people" you are talking about are not so much offended at what he said but perplexed by the double standard in this thread.

 

[JDSN]

Its amazing to see the new influx of people calling him a racist, when it was already stablished that he said "some" before putting the insult, even tho he speaks in english, even tho he has clarified that is constantly baffled that the dumb attacks from his persona come exclusively from english-speaking people, even tho he constantly answer questions of his background to people abroad.

But what about kotaku tho? Are they racist too? After all, they are the ones with the section esentially dedicated to posting weird non-gaming Japanese shit because "lol japan", they are the ones who wrote the piece in which they paint in broad strokes the mentality of a whole gaming dev community despite active efforts of some to avoid that image (included PG itself), they are the ones with absurdly closed-minded notions of the japanese gaming. Oh, not to mention telling that japanese dev afterwards that he should read the article that provides a "Japanese perspective on PC gaming." in which they refer to the developer as "clueless". Are they racist? No, just ignorant and closed-minded, and so is Kamiya to some degree, but at least he admits that he doesnt care much about it, instead of plastering his dumb comments on a tabloid.

Kamiha has made great games but I don't like him trash talking.

That is not something Japanese people normally do.

See? like this.

 

[Baconsammy]

Edited because I get banned a lot, damn you for quoting.
But really, why is this causing so much trouble, if you follow the guy on Twitter he trolls people like this all day.

I'll kill my quote.

 

[Flachmatuch]

I get that Sammy, believe me. However, I believe he's using race to distinguish between "us" and "them" which is natural. To me, when you use the word "gaijin" in a negative context I feel like it comes with some racial undertones. That's all I'm saying.

You are factually wrong and simply ignorant about the meaning of the words you're using and putting down your ridiculous ignorance as "opinion".

 

[Jackl]

Eh, maybe the article is kinda bull to focus on one particular dev.

Still the topic of why Japan seemingly believes PC relatively doesn't exist is worthy of discussion.

As for the slur/xenophobia thing, various segments of Asia can be extremely racist, but I don't believe thats the case here. More like hastily translated rage posts.

 

[Coolwhip]

I'll kill my quote.

Thank you.

 

[Retro_]

I agree, maybe if you read more you could understand the difference between xenophobia & racism.

They aren't entirely mutually exclusive concepts

Honestly I don't get the purpose of this distinction in the context of this discussion

 

[2San]

As for the slur/xenophobia thing, various segments of Asia can be extremely racist, but I don't believe thats the case here. More like hastily translated rage posts.

He rage posted in Japanese.

 

[Gucci Messiah]

You are factually wrong and simply ignorant about the meaning of the words you're using and putting down your ridiculous ignorance as "opinion".

lol okay dude

 

[Flachmatuch]

They aren't entirely mutually exclusive concepts

Honestly I don't get the purpose of this distinction in the context of this discussion

Jesus fuck, is everyone an idiot here? Or twelve?

lol okay dude

Covering your ignorance with a "lol", nice. What a bunch of morons.

 

[qq more]

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/toast/

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=19041107&postcount=1

this guy is a legitimate nutjob.

Ugh, I've always hated that guy. He's so pretentious and indeed fucking nuts. I have a friend who actually follows that shit.

 

[Baconsammy]

I don't think he was referring to all foreigners, just the stupid ones (& considering he was talking about Kotaku, I don't really see a problem).

It bothers me because that's the same thing certain Americans do every single time someone in a foreign country says something disparaging or mildly critical of America. All of a sudden it becomes, "Them furrrrners." The intention being "we're better than you because we're American".

 

[demidar]

It's only racist if you imply that a certain race is inferior right?

 

[Alboreo]

I am not a person who is easily offended by racism when it is directed my way. I was not offended by what Kamiya said. I am not generally offended by the word "gaijin" and feel that its meaning is contextual.

However, based on the context of what his tweets said, I do feel that he was at least putting a negative meaning connotation behind it. I'm having trouble seeing how that would not be the case.

Just my two cents. Obviously most of you disagree and that's cool. I'm probably not the most informed on the topic, I am not at all fluent. That's just the way it comes across to me. Meh.

Edit: Why is everyone in this thread so angry?

Jesus fuck, is everyone an idiot here? Or twelve?



Covering your ignorance with a "lol", nice. What a bunch of morons.

Oh wow.

 

[Cerebral Assassin]

Didn't Kamiya do Devil May Cry and Resident Evil 2? I'll give him a pass. Though I would be nice if he did look at Steam / PC gaming. I would love to see his newest games on there.

Platinum have already stated they would like to release games on Steam (but is mainly to do with publishers).

I really don't get why so many people on NeoGAF keep attacking games journalism as a whole. You seem to think that "conventional" journalism is something better; bad pieces are written in every branch of journalism.
Hell, there are a lot of journalists that just regurgitate what news agencies write, adding just a tip of additional info with various degrees of accuracy.

Because the standards are far lower in games "journalism" than most other forms(when the gutter press has higher standards than them, that is an issue), too many games journalists don't feel that source checking is part of their job (personally I feel the editorial staff is more to blame, as they should be setting the standards).

Holy crap, just noticed the thread went well over 1k posts. Anything new happen since last night?

Not really, just certain posters trying to push their version of English on the rest of the world.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

He rage posted in Japanese.

faces at the end make it a joke post

... and maybe something was lost in the google translation

 

[Gucci Messiah]

Jesus fuck, is everyone an idiot here? Or twelve?



Covering your ignorance with a "lol", nice. What a bunch of morons.

lol it's just funny to see you getting so worked up over some random persons opinion on the internet. Take a second from rage pounding your keyboard to realize not everyone is going to agree with you.

 

[saichi]

When using the word "gaijin" I believe that Kamiya in this instance is putting up this barrier between "us" and "them" based on race. This is just my opinion, you can think it's wrong and that's fine.

Basically you don't agree with him using the word "foreigner" but that doesn't make him a racist using the word "gaijin" though. MachoSuave sums it up well.

How less offensive can you be in referring to someone who is foreign than a "foreigner"? Those other terms exist solely to be offensive, as far as I know "foreigner" is the one word we have that can be used to state that someone is foreign without being derogatory.

Certainly all words are up to interpretation but the only way I see this not being taken the wrong way is to use "gaijin-san". That's just not practical.

 

[Holy Order Sol]

Edit: Why is everyone in this thread so angry?



Oh wow.

Funny thread turned into semantics debate because some people MUST FIGHT FOR THE TRUTH OMG SELECTIVE QUOTING

 

[Retro_]

Jesus fuck, is everyone an idiot here? Or twelve?

lol

Kamiya calling people who are completely ignorant about Japanese culture "stupid foreigners" is pretty accurate. And btw, Americans do very, very often act in different cultures like "stupid foreigners". Comes with the empire, I guess. Stating this is not "racist" but "xenophobic", and considering the history of relationships between civilisations, xenophoby is completely rational and, at least for Japan, it worked. If they weren't as "xenophobic" as they were against the "Western barbarians", they'd be just another exploited, poor-ass ex-colony.

Anyone thinking that somehow xenophoby towards Western civilisation is not justified has to be completely ignorant about its history.

LOL

This is better than the Kotaku article

 

[Gucci Messiah]

Basically you don't agree with him using the word "foreigner" but that doesn't make him a racist using the word "gaijin" though. MachoSuave sums it up well.



Certainly all words are up to interpretation but the only way I see this not being taken the wrong way is to use "gaijin-san". That's just not practical.

Essentially though it is all up to interpretation. Some of us will think it's racism, others will not. I happen to be voicing my opinion that the remark has racial undertones and it's fine to disagree, debate is healthy.

 

[2San]

faces at the end make it a joke post

... and maybe something was lost in the google translation

Nothing was lost. The entire line was insults. No one is disputing the translation. Yeah the smiley face makes everything ok? You can't insult someone multiple times in English and the moment you say the offensive shit you switch to Japanese and put a smiley behind it. Using smiley face as joke works when you aren't hostile towards that person.

 

[Cerebral Assassin]

They aren't entirely mutually exclusive concepts

Honestly I don't get the purpose of this distinction in the context of this discussion

Because he made no reference to race at all, so I don't see why you would automatically cry racism.

It bothers me because that's the same thing certain Americans do every single time someone in a foreign country says something disparaging or mildly critical of America. All of a sudden it becomes, "Them furrrrners." The intention being "we're better than you because we're American".

I'm from England, & National stereotypes are thrown around like confetti here, & like most things context is key(& given Kotaku clearly went there first I see no real issue in responding in kind).

 

[Kikujiro]

You are factually wrong and simply ignorant about the meaning of the words you're using and putting down your ridiculous ignorance as "opinion".

No, he's not. His stance is pretty clear, you and the others on the other hand are just jumping on him by saying "lol learn to read", "lol learn some language hystory". His opinion may be wrong, but he's not being an ass about it.

And you call him ignorant.

 

[dave is ok]

How less offensive can you be in referring to someone who is foreign than a "foreigner"? Those other terms exist solely to be offensive, as far as I know "foreigner" is the one word we have that can be used to state that someone is foreign without being derogatory.

Expatriate, immigrant, displaced person.

 

[mclem]

Point of order: Is the entire 'gaijin' discussion derived from the "Sweet dreams and..." tweet? Because there's a lot of words *around* gaijin in that one to clarify it, yet people seem to be treating it as referencing, well, *everyone* who isn't Japanese.

 

[demidar]

Nothing was lost. The entire line was insults. No one is disputing the translation. Yeah the smiley face makes everything ok? You can't insult someone multiple times in English and the moment you say the offensive shit you switch to Japanese and put a smiley behind it. Using smiley face as joke works when you aren't hostile towards that person.

He could be completely playful, you never know with text. I can say "You fucking idiot" to my friends rather playfully. I'm just saying there's plausible deniability.

 

[Weltall Zero]

What, are we living in an alternate reality where Wikipedia doesn't exist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin

You're all having a discussion that is years old. You have all the shades of gray (with references!) there.

You're welcome.

 

[Holy Order Sol]

Expatriate, immigrant, displaced person.

140 char limit + limited knowledge of the language + those aren't even perfect synonyms (which is normal).

Way to blow shit out of proportion.

 

[2San]

He could be completely playful, you never know with text. I can say "You fucking idiot" to my friends rather playfully. I'm just saying there's plausible deniability.

Kotaku is friends with Kamiya? He insulted them before that line.

140 char limit + limited knowledge of the language + those aren't even perfect synonyms (which is normal)

Way to blow shit out of proportion.

Kamiya has limited knowledge of Japanese?

 

[Zoe]

Expatriate, immigrant, displaced person.

None of those apply in this situation.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

Nothing was lost. The entire line was insults. Yeah the smiley face makes everything ok? You can't insult someone multiple times in English and the moment you say the offensive shit you switch to Japanese and put a smiley behind it. Using smiley face as joke works when you aren't hostile towards that person.

just messing with you dude.

note the

I know Kamiya was attacking the stupid foreigners out there that love to tell him who and what consoles he should make games for and bloggers who want to show him that they know more about his culture than he does

 

[GeekyDad]

I love Kamiya.

We all do. But more importantly, I loathe Kotaku.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

lol it's just funny to see you getting so worked up over some random persons opinion on the internet. Take a second from rage pounding your keyboard to realize not everyone is going to agree with you.

There are dictionaries available online to everyone, some even that describe the history and etymology of words. I'm noticing more and more threads becoming derailed off their actual subject for pages because of people arguing semantics.

I'm not saying this just to be a nickpicky jackass. My point is, how are people supposed to come to the table to discuss anything when they have differing opinions on the meaning of words?

 

[2San]

just messing with you dude.

note the

I know Kamiya was attacking the stupid foreigners out there that love to tell him who and what consoles he should make games for and bloggers who want to show him that they know more about his culture than he does

Didn't notice the; . Yeah I really don't think he was racist or anything, but I think it should be clear that it's not ok to say that.

 

[MisterHero]

Yup it's clear that Kamiya doesn't like politcially correct games

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

Point of order: Is the entire 'gaijin' discussion derived from the "Sweet dreams and..." tweet? Because there's a lot of words *around* gaijin in that one to clarify it, yet people seem to be treating it as referencing, well, *everyone* who isn't Japanese.

yes


then the following tweet

 

[Cerebral Assassin]

No, he's not. His stance is pretty clear, you and the others on the other hand are just jumping on him by saying "lol learn to read", "lol learn some language hystory". His opinion may be wrong, but he's not being an ass about it.

And you call him ignorant.

I assume you missed him telling me to read his post(even though it was riddled with inaccuracies), strikes me as pretty ignorant to comment on something without checking your facts.

 

[Globox_82]

In the context, it sure seems that Kamiya is directing his vitriol at Kotaku, not at all non-Japanese.

Regardless, it is a mild heat-of-the-moment comment. I find no offense. I would buy Kamiya a beer and chat with him at the bar. Heck, I bet he would be probably a cool guy to work with/for. But that is what I gather from reading his tweets and interviews. You may see things differently.

edit: Technically, he is correct. Japanese have, on average, a statistically significant higher IQ than Americans in this meta-study.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v297/n5863/abs/297222a0.html

How is he enjoying all those American inventions? IQ tests are BS is what I am trying to say.

 

[mclem]

yes


then the following tweet

Yep. So referencing 'some' people and referencing one person. Not actually a blanket insult to all and sundry.

 

[Flachmatuch]

No, he's not. His stance is pretty clear, you and the others on the other hand are just jumping on him by saying "lol learn to read", "lol learn some language hystory". His opinion may be wrong, but he's not being an ass about it.

And you call him ignorant.

I call him ignorant because he does not know that there is a difference between "racism" and "xenophoby". That's ignorance by definition. Since he doesn't even want to know this difference (and puts it down to "opinion"), I think he's intentionally ignorant.

LOL

This is better than the Kotaku article

Actually that's how things are. I love how Americans (and Westerners in general) dislike when people do not accept their culture and have reservations and even prejudices about it (and let's leave the fact that this attitude is clearly justified historically) - when they themselves are mostly completely ignorant and unaccepting towards other cultures. Even in this discussion, people do not see the underlying current of patronising cultural ignorance and lack of empathy - or even actual curiosity - in the Kotaku article (or on Kotaku in general - or on gaming sites in general fwiw), which is worse by far than Kamiya's tweets, but are reacting only to his personal reactions. And this is how Americans (and Europeans) usually behave. They demand acceptance and patience towards their own culture but have none whatsoever towards others.

Expatriate, immigrant, displaced person.

Errr, none of these mean "foreigner", not even close. WTF.

 

[Gucci Messiah]

There are dictionaries available online to everyone, some even that describe the history and etymology of words. I'm noticing more and more threads becoming derailed off their actual subject for pages because of people arguing semantics.

I'm not saying this just to be a nickpicky jackass. My point is, how are people supposed to come to the table to discuss anything when they have differing opinions on the meaning of words?

It's the context the word is used in. "Cracker" by itself isn't a slur but when you apply it to a white individual it is. I don't know if that makes sense, I'm running on 4 cups of coffee.

EDIT: But this thread has been helpful, I originally thought gaijin was on par with the n word in America. Clearly it's not but I still view it as a slur.

 

[demidar]

Kotaku is friends with Kamiya? He insulted them before that line.

Kamiya has limited knowledge of Japanese?

He could be