[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

The part about nerd subculture being increasingly commodified and appropriated by people who are not "nerds" in the traditional sense is true though, and by no means limited to video games. Here's a moderately interesting (if a bit self-congratulatory) take on the topic, shown to me by one of my tech friends.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Proof that Gamergate is NOT the product of a vast right-wing conspiracy: any political movement with a Karl Rove (or equivalent sociopathic PR wizard) on their side would be pushing for a serious rebranding right around now.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I think more could be said about the culture war aspect of Anita & co's own operations but now is probably not the time

Adi's take on them and their motives is very much a good-faith reading and while I think it is accurate in plenty of individual cases there is also more going on there, culturally and politically, than just that

Adi I also think you haven't really quite managed yet to infiltrate the headspace of these 4chan weirdos in terms of understanding what drives them and how they think, but earnestly struggling to identify with people who have mean-spirited and evil thoughts is not exactly a mark against your integrity
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I've... already said some of it? In this very thread. I think people like Anita are trying to control the means and terms of discourse and thought w/r/t social issues, and that's part of a larger cultural mission for which video games are just one chosen battleground. Just like the GG reactionaries, they're trying to mold these cultural channels to suit their ideological wants, albeit through very different means. That's their "culture war".
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Who's "you"?
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I mean can we please not go back to the "if you don't like Anita you must be one of the misogynist hate brigade" thing, I thought we were over that
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I should probably clarify that by "people like Anita" I don't mean "feminists" so much as a particular subset of people who could be referred to as "culture warriors". I guess it's kind of tricky to define if it isn't self-evident but I'll give it my best shot tomorrow if anyone actually cares.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I guess we're referring to different things then
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I've expressed this before but I think a lot of the rhetoric she uses (and she's hardly alone in this) is designed more to cultivate obedience than inquiry, i.e. to foster and strengthen a particular political cult rather than open up channels of discourse. This is just as much an issue with various schools of social politics in the academic world, people like Anita just transfer it to a different cultural battleground where onlookers, for better or worse, tend to be more naïve about these matters.

Like, if I really and truly bought that she just wants to foster a dialogue via critique as you guys (and plenty of my friends) seem to believe she is I would have no problem with anything she's doing. Maybe I'm just a lot more cynical than that, I dunno.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I had a long response typed out but my phone destroyed it
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Obligatory link to Anita's boyfriend's Youtube video insinuating The Daily Show is sexist because Stewart makes jokes about dicks

He must be so ashamed right now
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

tbh I don't really see a huge difference in style or substance between the silly hand puppet telling you what to believe or Anita staring into the camera telling you what to believe

At least the puppet is slightly better versed in the academic theories he's mindlessly repeating as though they were his own
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Maybe I just hate the entire "amateur lectures the camera" format of internet videos, iunno
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I mean I think you guys are kinda rushing to judgment over a moderately ambiguous 30-second clip but... whatever

There's a decent possibility I will buy it soon so I guess I'll report back on whether this part is actually what it looks like when I get there
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I honestly don't know if I would have processed that brief sight gag as a rape joke (or… rapey joke) had it not been pointed out to me as such

I mean, I think it's ambiguous enough that it doesn't necessitate being read as a reference to rape, but it's hard to say how much my perception is impacted by the fact that I don't want to think of it as a reference to rape, because that would definitely dampen the fun of the game's playful atmosphere.

Even under the most uncharitable interpretation, I'm not about to boycott the entire game, let alone call for Platinum's head, over a single tasteless gag that most people won't even see, let alone get; but it'll definitely hang over my head, when and if I get the game. On the other hand, even under the most generous interpretation it's still undeniable that the joke is based on the conflation of violence and sex, and I can fully understand why that would make some people uncomfortable.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

miaou I never meant to suggest that not buying the game because you find its content distasteful is an unreasonable response; in fact, it's the most reasonable response there is. I was just trying to explain my own response to this, not attack yours.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Leigh Alexander?

I like how they all have "le happy merchant" hands. Subtle.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Are people genuinely offended by Dead or Alive anymore? Nobody will argue that it's a pro-feminist game series, but considering how comically upfront it is about its own motives I always considered it one of the more innocuous examples of boobage in gaming.

I do remember that brief period during which Yosuke Hayashi talked about maybe wanting to take DOA5 in a more dignified direction, only to be shouted down by hysterical fans on both sides of the pacific until he almost immediately caved in and released bikini costumes DLC. Pretty lulzy
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

I think Criminal Girls is probably the deepest non-porn level of weeb-misogyny hell

(Though in total fairness I haven't actually played it... nor do I want to)
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

If this was a roundabout way of proving the point that we live in a brave new world where offending the wrong group of anonymous crybabies/assholes on Twitter can destroy your career, well... big success.
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Just another savage day on Planet Earth.

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

That said, it was a dumb/unprofessional joke to make
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Disclaimer: I have no idea who Mattie Brice is. Was she the one who wrote that article in defense of Bayonetta? That was pretty good and also the first I've ever heard of her
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Nothing you're saying sounds wrong but I think it's worth pointing out that plenty of "establishment" indie/industry personalities like Phil Fish (among many, many others) seem to pretty much be living in a perpetual high school mindset already - which is a huge contributor to the indie community's cliquishness in the first place - so it's not like 4chan is an anomaly in this regard (though it's certainly true that they're "aggressively antisocial", in their own unique way, even compared to other subcultural outlets). Nerd subcultures, though especially video games, have long been a haven for emotional instability and arrested development; but I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone here.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Just fyi I made a post on the last page about how "problematic" is a shitty word and it got deleted by mods without explanation. Perhaps I should've let someone else speak for me.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

In all seriousness though, I haven't been reading this thread closely but it kind of seems like some people might be confused about the distinction between an action that is racist and a person who is racist

A person who is not, like, an ideologically committed racist can still say a thing that is, in and of itself, racist - knowingly or not. Though like any other act of deriving meaning from language a certain amount of subjective interpretation comes into play here and that's what causes problems…

It seems like a lot of people struggle with this distinction though and that's probably a big contributing factor to why race is still so uncomfortable to talk about in our society

God I'm starting to sound like TMKF now aren't I
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Now that I understand what we're arguing about I'm going to agree with flylighter here that there is a meaningful difference, however slight, between being a racist and just being an asshole. The end result may be the same but the appropriate response is different.

And yes intention does matter when we're talking about the person and not the words. Just, in general.
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[Ni Go Zero Ichi]

Are they actually doing anything semi-tangible anymore or have they pretty much sunk back into snarling at "da SJWs" from the rafters

I just looked up The Hashtag and all I saw were idiots yelling at each other
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