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Author Topic: When Kickstarter goes wrong?  (Read 680691 times)

freeformschooler

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1530 on: July 28, 2012, 08:03:00 pm »

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Leafsnail

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1531 on: July 28, 2012, 08:19:23 pm »

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Draco18s

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1532 on: July 28, 2012, 08:28:37 pm »

Foot-AND-Mouth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_and_mouth
Yes, that's part of the pun.

Yeah, I missed something and had lost track of the conversation.
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Microcline

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1533 on: July 29, 2012, 12:23:22 am »

I think you undersestimate the number of left-wing douchebags who basically think "I'm pro choice and stuff, that means I can call anyone who wants more than that a crazy feminist bitch." See: Reddit, pretty much in its entirety.
Strange, I always imagined  Reddit being in the "Screw da haters XD" crowd.
Reddit is pretty fucked up.  It took the combined efforts of SomethingAwful and Anderson Cooper to get them to shut down their child porn subreddit, and there's still some pretty awful shit going on there.

Anita Sarkeesian Part 1: The College Graduate
Quote
This video is an examination of the patterns in Anita Sarkeesian's work.
https://twitter.com/Instig8iveJourn
'Tropes vs. Women in Video Games' may be the hot topic, but in order to understand what it means, we must examine Anita Sarkeesian's past products. She has been around for over three years, yet people speak as though she took the scene by storm. Anita Sarkeesian Part 1 is distanced from the current issue in order to gain objectivity.

I love this video. Everything he says in it is absolutely true.
The italics indicate emphasis, by the way. I'm not being sarcastic. Sarkeesian suffers from incurable podostomatism, not to mention a mild case of Hypocrite's syndrome.
I find this sad to see.  Investig8iveJournalism's stuff on the gaming press and the ME3 debacle, while a tad polemical, showed a certain degree of promise.  It's unfortunate to see that he's part of Reddit's MRA crazies.  His video is pointlessly anti-academic and anti-intellectual, and he doesn't seem to understand the idea of a bibliography (either supporting plagiarism or opposing referencing the work of others).  He doesn't have any grasp of modern feminism, stating (without citation) that sex-positive feminists are a small, silenced minority, when in reality during the third wave the radical feminists suffered losses and were heavily marginalized to the point of only being bandied about when a right-wing commentator wants to discredit feminism as a whole.  His attacks on Sarkeesian moderating her YouTube comments fall flat, as hers seem to have attracted an order of magnitude greater of death threats and shitposting, which given YouTube's normal quality is fairly telling.  Rebutting Sarkeesian's arguments is where he fails the most.  Regardless of what you think of Bayonetta's position as a progressive/sexist work, an add where subway patrons undress a billboard is undeniably sexist, and the reason Japanese trains need women-only cars is because certain individuals, perhaps the Japanese equivalent of Redditors, are unable to respect a woman's right to travel without being molested.

That said, there's still good reason to think this a Kickstarter disaster.  He's right that she doesn't seem to get that YouTube videos should not just consist of a personality talking at the camera (name one bearable internet celebrity who does this).  Her brand of pop-postmodernism (I will not call it postmodernism, as I will not associate those who need an excuse to obsess over Joss Whedon with the likes of Borges) is a vapid intellectual wasteland.  She demonstrates no ability to pick up on undertones or subtlety, although I've yet to see a "troper" capable of recognizing any degree of subtle characterization.  It might be stereotypical, but there's an argument to be made that the tvtropes philosophy of breaking stories down into user-friendly terms derived from anime parlance far removed from any sociological, psychological, or artistic study is poisonous to analytical ability.

In closing, I admire her for being able to get $160,000 for ranting about videogames on the internet.
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SealyStar

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1534 on: July 29, 2012, 11:15:56 am »

I find this sad to see.  Investig8iveJournalism's stuff on the gaming press and the ME3 debacle, while a tad polemical, showed a certain degree of promise.  It's unfortunate to see that he's part of Reddit's MRA crazies.  His video is pointlessly anti-academic and anti-intellectual, and he doesn't seem to understand the idea of a bibliography (either supporting plagiarism or opposing referencing the work of others).  He doesn't have any grasp of modern feminism, stating (without citation) that sex-positive feminists are a small, silenced minority, when in reality during the third wave the radical feminists suffered losses and were heavily marginalized to the point of only being bandied about when a right-wing commentator wants to discredit feminism as a whole.  His attacks on Sarkeesian moderating her YouTube comments fall flat, as hers seem to have attracted an order of magnitude greater of death threats and shitposting, which given YouTube's normal quality is fairly telling.  Rebutting Sarkeesian's arguments is where he fails the most.  Regardless of what you think of Bayonetta's position as a progressive/sexist work, an add where subway patrons undress a billboard is undeniably sexist, and the reason Japanese trains need women-only cars is because certain individuals, perhaps the Japanese equivalent of Redditors, are unable to respect a woman's right to travel without being molested.

Now I'm sort of worried. On this forum, where I assumed people would be reasonable about this, I'm the only one who doesn't seem to like Anita Sensaasian (bad pun, I know) or her work.

It's not that I am anti-feminist or anything of the sort; in fact, thanks, in part, to my own mother's life story, I am quite forward about the equality of females in our culture, even though I'm a male. But there is a certain healthy chunk of modern feminism (by no means the majority, but still significant) which I absolutely cannot agree with, the one where Sarkeesian stands. If I weren't so afraid of being labeled as a right-wing bigot by the ignorant, I would call them "feminazis" (I know, point out the irony between "right-wing bigot" and "-nazi"). I disagree fundamentally with the mistaken belief that women have already achieved perfect equality; there is still much room for improvement (i.e. wages, reproductive rights, etc.). But extreme feminists like Sarkeesian pretend that things are worse than the really are in a pitiful attempt at playing the victim card. Yes, video games tend to present a rather-unfavorable image of women (I personally don't even find any of the women in her poster remotely attractive, either). But the typical feminist argument against this has two problems:

1. Demographic-wise, even though there is an ever-increasing percentage of female gamers, it is still a male-dominated sector of the entertainment industry. I do believe that a more egalitarian gaming culture would be universally beneficial, but this is not the case at the moment. But Sarkeesian's viewpoint, which overall is that sexy/innocent/in-distress virtual females are demeaning to females as a whole. Even though, y'know, they're individuals. And not real. For feminists and moral guardians like Sarkeesian to police the industry and tell heterosexual males (and a few lesbians, too) that they can't see anything attractive in women is to return to the sexual mores of the ironically-patriarchal Victorian era.

2. Most games aren't that bad in the female-depiction department. Moreover, feminist critiques of the subject always seem to pick on the wrong games. For example, Samus from Metroid is a determined, strong, planet-saving female warrior. Her gender is never important to the gameplay or story; it's not even discovered until the end of the first game. But obviously, by having a typically "attractive" figure, she is just, as Sarkeesian would say in her sensationalist style, a "Fighting F***toy". And, hell, if being attractive is tantamount to being demeaning to an entire gender, what about Alyx Vance? She's intelligent, helpful, badass, and skilled in various technical fields. Oh, but guess what? She's wearing slightly-too-tight jeans, a slightly-too-tight sweatshirt, and a face that's not quite in the uncanny valley. Too attractive, symbol of patriarchy.

I'm not targeting anyone here in particular, just that you're all being unexpectedly apologetic and defensive about Sarkeesian's work, and ranting on the invalidity of arguments against it, even perfectly logical ones.
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DJ

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1535 on: July 29, 2012, 11:19:41 am »

How many male protagonists in video games are ugly? People like looking at pretty people more than looking at ugly people, so it's only natural that vast majority of characters in any media will be physically attractive.
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lordcooper

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1536 on: July 29, 2012, 11:26:23 am »

But at least our pretty man-dolls generally get to wear a full set of clothing.
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DJ

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1537 on: July 29, 2012, 11:34:26 am »

Uhm, yeah, I don't think so. It's basically a law that an action hero must rip off his shirt.
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freeformschooler

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1538 on: July 29, 2012, 11:39:30 am »

If this isn't objectified I don't know what is!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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UltraValican

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1539 on: July 29, 2012, 11:40:04 am »

But at least our pretty man-dolls generally get to wear a full set of clothing.
So do female characters generally.

Uhm, yeah, I don't think so. It's basically a law that an action hero must rip off his shirt.
Lets not forget about the "scrawny sexy male rogue or wizard" trope. (To be fair wizards and rogues tend to be cheesecake for both genders).
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scriver

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1540 on: July 29, 2012, 11:42:06 am »

Idealisation contra sexualisation.
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UltraValican

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1541 on: July 29, 2012, 11:51:30 am »

If this isn't objectified I don't know what is!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I hate the whole "b-but power fantasy argument", but Kratos IS the literal definition of a power fantasy.
I don't know much about GOW in general so feel free to correct me when I'm wrong.
Kratos, for a man who wheres the ashes of his family as a sign of eternal morning, sure does have a LOT of sex with other women.
He kills hundreds of innocents with little to no remorse/consequence.
He shags Aphrodite, the wife of a god that decides to help him, while her two bisexual servants make out.
He kills the husband of the chick he's shagging on virtually a whim.
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DJ

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1542 on: July 29, 2012, 11:56:47 am »

To be fair, that's all fairly standard stuff for a Greek hero.
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UltraValican

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1543 on: July 29, 2012, 12:01:22 pm »

To be fair, that's all fairly standard stuff for a Greek hero.
I know, why do you think they got so popular.  :D
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SethCreiyd

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Re: When Kickstarter goes wrong?
« Reply #1544 on: July 29, 2012, 12:06:16 pm »

She demonstrates no ability to pick up on undertones or subtlety, although I've yet to see a "troper" capable of recognizing any degree of subtle characterization.

It's common to bandy prejudice about a group when you associate the failings of individuals with the group to which they belong.  You might enjoy Chuck Sonnenburg if you are interested in Science Fiction, he's a "troper" with a review show that emphasizes the importance of critical thought in appreciating artistic media.

It might be stereotypical, but there's an argument to be made that the tvtropes philosophy of breaking stories down into user-friendly terms derived from anime parlance far removed from any sociological, psychological, or artistic study is poisonous to analytical ability.

I take exception.  Regardless of the origins of jargon employed, what evidence is there that the categorization of observed patterns is itself such a detriment?  It's not so removed from the disciplines you mention simply for being amateurish when it blends elements of those and more.  Since a TV Trope amounts to a culturally-relevant alias for an extant plot device, observed to be used commonly enough to indicate repetition, it would seem your issue is with the terminology, with the act of cataloging itself, or with a community you've just come to revile for one reason or another.  Is taxonomy also a poison to analysis?
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