You don't have to define them. They can really define themselves. I'm not bothered with what label marketers wish to place on me.
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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos
- Thread starter papersleeves
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This is a well-used argument that often comes up within these discussion ("I don't see race/sexuality/gender/etc., I see people"). All types of harassment are not equally harmful. Harassing a person who's into car mechanics is entirely different than harassing a person for e.g. their sexual identity. The levels and amounts of individual, collective, structural and legal discrimination in Western society towards homosexuals is incredibly more powerful and harmful than someone's self-chosen hobby.
I'm not trying to have an oppression olympics, but the nature of harassment and oppression are severely different in identifying as a "gamer" than as a "homosexual", for example. It should be obvious.
True. Identities, notably the most popular ones, will be appropriated in the interest of capital. However, I do think it is a healthy attitude to adopt to be weary and critical of the stuff an individual chooses to identify as. I mean, we all want to have stability and a sense of collectivity and belonging to a group, but it's still good to be self-reliant and independent from arbitrary markers of identities, especially ones constructed in the interest of profit (or oppression for that matter).
Good counterargument. I definitely agree. I would like to add that you often see cases of individuals fighting back against labels and appropriated identities - as soon as the "corporate claws" have engulfed the identity group, there's an identity flight from that particular label. Cf. examples like cultural appropriation of African American culture in the US or fashion tendencies.
It doesn't matter. Gamer isn't going anywhere, it's too late, there really is no need to worry about it. If anything, all of this is just going to make gamer more relevent in pop culture. There would have to be a pretty large media swing, plus a rather large segment would have to go with the sentiment, and it seems that it is more of a big deal to a rather large amount of people. But yes, to assume that corporations wouldn't adjust and find a new moniker is silly. Beauty products are already doing this with feminism. Money always wins.
There is no GIF to adequately respond to this. Do you just have to be a complete fucking psychopath to lecture other people on morality when you hold views like this?
These people are not just losing the argument. They are going down in flames.
RockTurtle
Member
#notyourshield is certainly...colorful right now.
Gsak
Member
Hijacked, I take it.
Totally. It's not my place or anyone else's to define who a person is based on a shared interest. It's like naming someone a Call of Duitier simply because they like Call of Duty. I think it's more interesting to ask why someone likes a certain game than just defining them by what they like. There's always a different answer and that's ten times as fascinating than generalizing someone because of their interest.
It's more about acknowledging that there isn't this specific stereotype demographic that you have to try and aim towards (market to, cater to, etc), because who "gamers" actually are IRL is increasingly broad. I also think a lot of folks--particularly socially-liberal people--find themselves looking at a lot of the bigoted attacks coming out of a vocal part of what they felt was a largely similar community and finding they have little in common with them.
Gsak
Member
I thought they called them "dudebros"(a little humor to lighten the mood).
AstroNut325
Member
Eh... I'm mostly seeing supportive tweets that are asking for more honest journalism and not using misogyny to hide/skew facts.
RockTurtle
Member
no i'm just a little taken back by some posters accusing gay gamers of supporting homophobes, minorities of supporting racists etc.
the very same people they are supposed to be representing. i saw a post about "well there are black republicans" and it's just..*sigh*
the very same people they are supposed to be representing. i saw a post about "well there are black republicans" and it's just..*sigh*
I agree with this, but I also think that this is why most media tend to describe themselves in terms of movements, whereas videogames tend to currently describe themselves as "Generations", which is entirely based on console-progression, which means the entire framing of cultural discourse for videogames is based on the corporate dominance of a given time period. Videogames have become far too comfortable being signified by corporate interests and have yet to really escape this because they continue to be commodified without attempting to elude definition by exploring new concepts. It's more than a bit disturbing to suddenly be seeing a bunch of games defining themselves as "Souls-like" without any real consensus on what that means as well as there being no real critical upheaval when regarding that as a style.
Labels are used by corporate interests to commodify entertainment, but I've never seen it occur anywhere as quickly and aggressively as in the videogame industry.
MHWilliams
Member
Which would be nice if that's how it happened. The traditional interview process has a number of gates to shut out good potential applicants.
Let's start with names. You're more likely to pass into the actual review process if your name is closer to John Smith.
But, what about appearance? Female musicians comprised less than 5% of the top five symphony orchestras in 1970, but made up 25 percent in 1997. What changed? Did women get better?
Nope. Most orchestras just switched to blind auditions.
"We find, using the audition data, that the screen increases - by 50% -the probability that a woman will be advanced from certain preliminary rounds and increases by severalfold the likelihood that a woman will be selected in the final round."
Why? Because they could see the player was female and that actually effected their judgment of the audition. Many directors subconsciously believed women were worse. Women diverged from what they expected in a great orchestra member.
"Not only were their numbers extremely low until the 1970s, but many music directors, ultimately in charge of hiring new musicians, publicly disclosed their belief that female players had lower musical talent."
Take away the visual aid, and your left with only the audition, meaning women are more likely to be picked.
Here's another one, this time with race.
Rarely are these problems in hiring due to outright bias. They tend to be due to implicit biases that we all hold.
Essentially, the meritocracy is a beautiful idea, but it has little bearing on actual reality.
Now I'm gonna have to shoot slice you.
Do you think Ian has anything to do with the current controversy? Beyond being an awful person I guess.
IrishNinja
Member
another excellent post - you're my favorite gaffer right now
>Music industry after Sgt Peppers
Art gets copied if its successful. Souls like game just expresses a combat system similar to those found in the souls game. FPS has been copied thousands of times to varying degrees.
Hell, think about how many movies tried to go after the 300 or Sin City look, think about everything which is a response to a successful endeavor in art. This shit has happened since the beginning of art.
Lowlander2
Banned
That Gamergate IndieGogo where people are actually asking to hire a lawyer is among the most insipid things I have seen in a long time and goes a long way to having the rest of us throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes the issue, but some of the responses are interesting in their own way.
This tweet in particular just makes me laugh and laugh. The irony can be canned and sold wholesale.
This tweet in particular just makes me laugh and laugh. The irony can be canned and sold wholesale.
PsychoSoldier
Banned
Inflammable Slinky
Member
Interesting thing about that IndieGoGo thing.
https://twitter.com/ctatplay/status/507291861644349441
https://twitter.com/ctatplay/status/507292009497755649
EDIT: beaten by squidofman
I think that is just because the game industry isn't as good at it(subliminal advertisement). Most of the other industries do a much better job at subliminal messaging, where as the game industry has always taken the sports approach.
ColicoVision vs Atari
COD vs BF
Sega vs Nintendo
Sony vs Sega vs Nintendo
Microsoft vs Sony vs Nintendo
Wowkiller
Halokiller
And ect
Video game industry took a bite out of sports advertisement. Seems they went the different angle of most house hold products, where advertisement in household products try to use subliminal advertising(Drinking X alcohol makes you cool, Using X beauty product makes you strong and ect). Even movies and music advertise more similar to house hold products, using more...social reasons to want a product. Where as with the game industry it is one product being better then the other. So they let gamers argue about which game is better, all the while doing the advertisement for them, ala Red Sox vs Yankee's.
That's my opinion anywho.
#GamerGateIndieGoGoGate begins.
Lowlander2
Banned
this is a good post. post more about people being stupid in this stupid stuff
He has a point, he just really has a shitty time representing the point
Games can be good, but not be "fun" is what he's trying to say
But at the same time, a lot of games that aren't "fun" are very shallow and don't really present anything beyond a nice narrative. Bringing out other emotions is not bad, and can be a sign of a great work, but games being made that aren't "fun" aren't exactly what people crack them up to be.
It's similar to this, many people will only listen to fun music, but there's plenty of music that's unsettling, sad, but at the same time incredibly beautiful pieces of music.
I think VR will help with these things, but I also feel like there's some games that aren't very "fun" but present a very good narrative. Papers Please is awesome, and i wouldn't consider it "fun." GOne Home is kind of silly (it has a decent story) but i wouldn't call it fun. People accept Papers please more then Gone Home because one's a legitimately good game that presents issues that make the player comfortable. The other is a walk and read a story in a house.
Yeah, it's been happening to both sides. A riled up extreme with access to money is like a scam artists wet dream. Remember Dash-Con?
There's a particularly illustrative study related in Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race, which should help illuminate the problem with this thinking:
MHWilliams
Member
If it works out for them, cool.
Seems like it's more about the website though. I wish them well with that. Doing better is always an admirable goal.
Gsak
Member
Oh no, teabagging soon to follow!
He is one of the persons who is insulting pro-GamerGate people on Twitter. He also published this on Gameranx (He's the EIC). I will let you draw your own conclusions. https://archive.today/P2mPb
This article is a good reason why we should want more POC and minorities in gaming journalism, gaming jobs in general. Ive heard some negatives with regard to the sample of the study (College student is pretty inclusive and arguers would say that they still hold these preconceptions because they are still young) but Ive seen the thing where applicatns with black sounding names were less likely to be hired.
The Giant Bomb thing was a mudslinging event, but it had a good point.
Ive always wondered why games journalism is so white male still. You'd imagine these sites would be clamoring to hire more POC and females on their staff, especially with how many female gamers there are and how many POC gamers there are.
In addition to this, there's also the studies done on what has been termed "benevolent" sexism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id7hPJS05V4
1. Read Mumei's post above mine, not related to it, but I don't want to take attention off of it with this post.
2. I said I'd address why this is a big deal to me earlier in the topic. Doing so kind of ran long, I hope it's alright that I post it. If not, I'm sure the mods will feel free to delete it or ask me to do something with it:
Gamer
So this wasn't originally intended to be the essay it has become. It was meant to be a short forum post on why I so vehemently object to conversion of the term "gamer" from meaning an enthusiastic fan of games, into what it's already being warped into. Why the idea of abandoning the term, a term I chose to be one of the myriad ways I define myself, being abandoned because a bunch of people have determined it's old and ratty and dragged it through the mud. That it's not worth using unless you're one of the human flotsam that they insist all gamers are. Because surely if you're not, then you're not describing yourself as a gamer at this point. Why would you?
But I can't make this short. Like I said earlier, this whole thing, for me, is to the bone.
The Family that Plays Together...
It's the summer of '92, I'm three years old. Having endured a trip south, not the first I'd ever taken, but the first I would remember, I arrived with my mother at my grandparent's house. It was a small-ish place, relative to the number occupants. 4 rooms, a hallway, a bathroom and a kitchen. Here lived my grandparents, my third oldest aunt and her daughter, my youngest aunt, and my youngest uncle. Over the course of this summer and many summers to come, here would gether the entirety of my family. Not my "extended" family, a term I use for 3rd cousins and great great aunts, these people the people my mother grew up with, they were my family.
It wasn't the first time I'd been there, but I couldn't remember the times before. I met the dog they'd bought for me (who would one day save my life), and then I just kind of sat around, uncomfortable with the unfamiliar surroundings. Until my aunt called me into the other room.
There she was with my uncle and her daughter, gathered around a fairly small CRT TV screen, rectangular controllers in hand, playing my then 16 year old uncle's NES.
I own that NES now.
And for years to come the four of us, and ocassionally a few more of us, would gather around TVs no matter where we were, pick up some controllers, and have a good time. Double Dragon, TMNT, Strider, games whose names I'd have to go find the cartridge for in order to remember them.
When I got a SNES we fell in love as a family with, of all games, Mortal Kombat. I still recall my uncle maining Sindel, every time he used her throw shouting "Hair 9-1-1!"
I remember my cousin and I struggling through Goof Troop together until we ran into a block puzzle we couldn't solve. We were completely stumped and then out of nowhere my 2nd oldest aunt came in, took one look at it and showed us how it was done.
I remember when my cousin's father bought her a PS1 and we played the hell out of that demo disk. We were masters of Rally Cross, or at least that one stage of it. By the time she actually got Tekken we all had Jun and Lei down. I moved on to King and I've been maining him ever since. She of course got both MK4 and Mythologies (Sub-Zero was my aunt's favorite character). Took us forever to beat that game... And we cheated to do it.
We still play, though with me being all the way across the country, it's harder and rarer. But those times, those were good times. And they're a part of us. They are a part of our shared family history. And for that reason I identify as a gamer.
My Dad Worked for Nintendo!
Or so I'd been told. Apparently back when he and my mother lived in Seattle he, in addition to his military duties, worked Nintendo's tip hotline. He didn't live with my mom by the time I was 3.
Let me divert a moment from my father, though I will still remain on the post's topic.
My mom started... seeing(?), dating(?), I don't know, I was only three at the time, a man named Greg. Greg was a cool dude. I remember he once took us to this really nice restaurant with some really good food. I threw up. I shouldn't feel bad about it now, but I do.
Greg bought me my first console. An NES, like my uncle's . Except with this really weird controller. To this day I can not find an image of this thing. If any of you play MTG it looked like the symbol for Conspiracy.
Anyways, as I was saying, Greg, the cool dude who was hanging out with my mom, bought me an NES. Set it up for me. Played it with me and my mom. Good times.
When we moved to Alabama we had this awesome neighbor named Herb. He'd talk to me, not down to me, but actually to me. He'd let me hang out, which in retrospect could have turned out terribly if he wasn't who he seemed to be, but he was indeed who he seemed to be.
He bought me a Gameboy, Tetris, and Super Mario Land.
I still hear from him. He helped me buy a car in College. He's one of the most consistent positive male influences in my life.
My dad, well... My dad has, in recent years how poor a father he was to me in may regards, and how terrible of one he was to my older sister. But I didn't realize that at the time. I still actively used the middle name he bestowed upon me and appended his surname after my mom's. I would talk to him every now and then and every few months I'd get a package in the mail. A Gameboy game, or a SNES one.
Those were, to me, my father's love encapsulated in square packages of circuitry. Every game he ever got me I held close to my heart. Even now I will fight you, physically fight you, if you bad mouth Taz-Mania to my face.
He'd go on to buy me my N64, Gamecube, PS2, and Wii over the years, though not so much the games for them. Although when he bought me the N64 we had an argument, not a heated one, over whether he was going to get me Mario or Zelda. I had only played Zelda at the daycare I'd gone to while I lived in Alabama, didn't much like it back then. Mario was a cornerstone of my life at that point. Eventually Mario won out.
Back while we were in Virginia, and when we moved back there, my mom knew a guy named Bernard. He would, eventually, become my step father.
I remember him driving me home from school one day, and I was going on and on and on about Pokemon. And he was just listening, occasionally saying something. I loved the show. I'd just seen the little manual one of my classmates got with his game. God did I want it so badly.
I woke up a week later and there was a package waiting for me. A brand new Gameboy Pocket, Pokemon Red, and Pokemon Blue.
Up to and including the point I was 17 every single game console, except for my favorite of them all (my SNES, bought by my mom) was purchased by one of the men who had an impact on my life. And for that reason as well, I identify as a gamer.
We Owe it to Each Other to Tell Stories.
I'm a writer.
I've loved reading ever since my mom introduced me to Edgar Allan Poe at age 4.
But I hated writing. I hated the physical act. I hated the time it took. I hated everything about writing.
It wasn't a book that changed my mind.
And no, I'm not going to say it was video games. Not directly at least.
It was Smashboards circa 2001. The text based games they hosted. Some of which eventually became just telling stories back and fourth.
I migrated from there with a group of members to a board named The Nintendo Network (TNN for short). There I began writing my own games. And then stories. I started to really enjoy it. I got reasonably good at it. And things just spiraled from there.
That wouldn't have happened if not for Smash Bros. I had, to that point, had no interest in internet forums. But I wanted to talk about this game with people and that's where I could do it.
I met people there that I remain friends with to this very day.
And for that reason I identify as a gamer.
Sing me a song
I'm running out of steam here. When I started I didn't set out to write my dissertation, so I'm going to keep this brief.
Music.
I arrange and write it.
Why?
Because Majora's Mask is a beautiful game and the Song of Healing is a beautiful piece of music. And I wanted to play with it so badly.
So I learned how to use Finale. I'm still learning how to use Finale. Still learning music theory bit by bit for that matter.
It started out just arranging: https://soundcloud.com/addermoray/arrangement-8-melodies-earthbound-mkii
But now I even do original compositions: https://soundcloud.com/addermoray/wonders
And writing music brings me something that my other writing doesn't. Just a sense of joy and self-satisfaction I get from completing a piece.
And games gave me that.
And for that reason I identify as a gamer.
Wrapping Up
To conclude, I'm a lot of things. A reliable friend, a writer, an activist, a composer, and I wouldn't give any of these identities up just because someone, or a group of someone's decided it was a dirty word. And gaming, gaming has had such an impact on my life that if you removed it from me I very literally wouldn't be the man I am.
And besides the impact they've had on me personally, I love them.
That's why I identify as a gamer. That's the whole story. That's why I won't stop identifying as such. And that's why this shit hurts me.
2. I said I'd address why this is a big deal to me earlier in the topic. Doing so kind of ran long, I hope it's alright that I post it. If not, I'm sure the mods will feel free to delete it or ask me to do something with it:
Gamer
So this wasn't originally intended to be the essay it has become. It was meant to be a short forum post on why I so vehemently object to conversion of the term "gamer" from meaning an enthusiastic fan of games, into what it's already being warped into. Why the idea of abandoning the term, a term I chose to be one of the myriad ways I define myself, being abandoned because a bunch of people have determined it's old and ratty and dragged it through the mud. That it's not worth using unless you're one of the human flotsam that they insist all gamers are. Because surely if you're not, then you're not describing yourself as a gamer at this point. Why would you?
But I can't make this short. Like I said earlier, this whole thing, for me, is to the bone.
The Family that Plays Together...
It's the summer of '92, I'm three years old. Having endured a trip south, not the first I'd ever taken, but the first I would remember, I arrived with my mother at my grandparent's house. It was a small-ish place, relative to the number occupants. 4 rooms, a hallway, a bathroom and a kitchen. Here lived my grandparents, my third oldest aunt and her daughter, my youngest aunt, and my youngest uncle. Over the course of this summer and many summers to come, here would gether the entirety of my family. Not my "extended" family, a term I use for 3rd cousins and great great aunts, these people the people my mother grew up with, they were my family.
It wasn't the first time I'd been there, but I couldn't remember the times before. I met the dog they'd bought for me (who would one day save my life), and then I just kind of sat around, uncomfortable with the unfamiliar surroundings. Until my aunt called me into the other room.
There she was with my uncle and her daughter, gathered around a fairly small CRT TV screen, rectangular controllers in hand, playing my then 16 year old uncle's NES.
I own that NES now.
And for years to come the four of us, and ocassionally a few more of us, would gather around TVs no matter where we were, pick up some controllers, and have a good time. Double Dragon, TMNT, Strider, games whose names I'd have to go find the cartridge for in order to remember them.
When I got a SNES we fell in love as a family with, of all games, Mortal Kombat. I still recall my uncle maining Sindel, every time he used her throw shouting "Hair 9-1-1!"
I remember my cousin and I struggling through Goof Troop together until we ran into a block puzzle we couldn't solve. We were completely stumped and then out of nowhere my 2nd oldest aunt came in, took one look at it and showed us how it was done.
I remember when my cousin's father bought her a PS1 and we played the hell out of that demo disk. We were masters of Rally Cross, or at least that one stage of it. By the time she actually got Tekken we all had Jun and Lei down. I moved on to King and I've been maining him ever since. She of course got both MK4 and Mythologies (Sub-Zero was my aunt's favorite character). Took us forever to beat that game... And we cheated to do it.
We still play, though with me being all the way across the country, it's harder and rarer. But those times, those were good times. And they're a part of us. They are a part of our shared family history. And for that reason I identify as a gamer.
My Dad Worked for Nintendo!
Or so I'd been told. Apparently back when he and my mother lived in Seattle he, in addition to his military duties, worked Nintendo's tip hotline. He didn't live with my mom by the time I was 3.
Let me divert a moment from my father, though I will still remain on the post's topic.
My mom started... seeing(?), dating(?), I don't know, I was only three at the time, a man named Greg. Greg was a cool dude. I remember he once took us to this really nice restaurant with some really good food. I threw up. I shouldn't feel bad about it now, but I do.
Greg bought me my first console. An NES, like my uncle's . Except with this really weird controller. To this day I can not find an image of this thing. If any of you play MTG it looked like the symbol for Conspiracy.
Anyways, as I was saying, Greg, the cool dude who was hanging out with my mom, bought me an NES. Set it up for me. Played it with me and my mom. Good times.
When we moved to Alabama we had this awesome neighbor named Herb. He'd talk to me, not down to me, but actually to me. He'd let me hang out, which in retrospect could have turned out terribly if he wasn't who he seemed to be, but he was indeed who he seemed to be.
He bought me a Gameboy, Tetris, and Super Mario Land.
I still hear from him. He helped me buy a car in College. He's one of the most consistent positive male influences in my life.
My dad, well... My dad has, in recent years how poor a father he was to me in may regards, and how terrible of one he was to my older sister. But I didn't realize that at the time. I still actively used the middle name he bestowed upon me and appended his surname after my mom's. I would talk to him every now and then and every few months I'd get a package in the mail. A Gameboy game, or a SNES one.
Those were, to me, my father's love encapsulated in square packages of circuitry. Every game he ever got me I held close to my heart. Even now I will fight you, physically fight you, if you bad mouth Taz-Mania to my face.
He'd go on to buy me my N64, Gamecube, PS2, and Wii over the years, though not so much the games for them. Although when he bought me the N64 we had an argument, not a heated one, over whether he was going to get me Mario or Zelda. I had only played Zelda at the daycare I'd gone to while I lived in Alabama, didn't much like it back then. Mario was a cornerstone of my life at that point. Eventually Mario won out.
Back while we were in Virginia, and when we moved back there, my mom knew a guy named Bernard. He would, eventually, become my step father.
I remember him driving me home from school one day, and I was going on and on and on about Pokemon. And he was just listening, occasionally saying something. I loved the show. I'd just seen the little manual one of my classmates got with his game. God did I want it so badly.
I woke up a week later and there was a package waiting for me. A brand new Gameboy Pocket, Pokemon Red, and Pokemon Blue.
Up to and including the point I was 17 every single game console, except for my favorite of them all (my SNES, bought by my mom) was purchased by one of the men who had an impact on my life. And for that reason as well, I identify as a gamer.
We Owe it to Each Other to Tell Stories.
I'm a writer.
I've loved reading ever since my mom introduced me to Edgar Allan Poe at age 4.
But I hated writing. I hated the physical act. I hated the time it took. I hated everything about writing.
It wasn't a book that changed my mind.
And no, I'm not going to say it was video games. Not directly at least.
It was Smashboards circa 2001. The text based games they hosted. Some of which eventually became just telling stories back and fourth.
I migrated from there with a group of members to a board named The Nintendo Network (TNN for short). There I began writing my own games. And then stories. I started to really enjoy it. I got reasonably good at it. And things just spiraled from there.
That wouldn't have happened if not for Smash Bros. I had, to that point, had no interest in internet forums. But I wanted to talk about this game with people and that's where I could do it.
I met people there that I remain friends with to this very day.
And for that reason I identify as a gamer.
Sing me a song
I'm running out of steam here. When I started I didn't set out to write my dissertation, so I'm going to keep this brief.
Music.
I arrange and write it.
Why?
Because Majora's Mask is a beautiful game and the Song of Healing is a beautiful piece of music. And I wanted to play with it so badly.
So I learned how to use Finale. I'm still learning how to use Finale. Still learning music theory bit by bit for that matter.
It started out just arranging: https://soundcloud.com/addermoray/arrangement-8-melodies-earthbound-mkii
But now I even do original compositions: https://soundcloud.com/addermoray/wonders
And writing music brings me something that my other writing doesn't. Just a sense of joy and self-satisfaction I get from completing a piece.
And games gave me that.
And for that reason I identify as a gamer.
Wrapping Up
To conclude, I'm a lot of things. A reliable friend, a writer, an activist, a composer, and I wouldn't give any of these identities up just because someone, or a group of someone's decided it was a dirty word. And gaming, gaming has had such an impact on my life that if you removed it from me I very literally wouldn't be the man I am.
And besides the impact they've had on me personally, I love them.
That's why I identify as a gamer. That's the whole story. That's why I won't stop identifying as such. And that's why this shit hurts me.
I still don't get the Giant Bomb argument. If they looked at all the candidates side by side and compared their submitted works and qualifications, why should they not go with the person they think is the best person for the job just because he's male and white. And why is NOT hiring someone a dismissal of their qualifications? It's not, someone was better than you. Just like all things in life, you aren't always the best for the job. And employer not giving you the job isn't a dismissal of your qualifications.
Unless someone has some insight and there is proof GiantBomb dismissed candidates that were female (ie. they didn't take their applications seriously or had a severe bias to the male applicants purely on their gender). But how do you prove that. If they 100% were genuine in their hiring process and seriously considerd each candidate, and still found the white male guy as having the best quality work, why is it bad for them to hire him vs hiring someone else that is worse then who they could have hired.
If my view on this is wrong, then I'm open to understanding why it's wrong. I just never understood the outrage. I can understand diappointment. But I don't get why GB should be criticized if they were genuine about the process and really thought he was the best for the job. I also found it unprofessional of Leigh and others that applied to rant on twitter because they didn't get hired. Unless they actually had proof their application wasn't taken seriously, I don't see how you can criticize a company for picking someone else over you.
Interesting read. I still don't know how you enforce that, to make sure biases don't happen. Unless we start forcing private companies to have a mandatory quota for how many people are of different race/gender. But if we are taking a study like this into account, then we are saying 100% the guys at GiantBomb has a sub-conscious bias against the female applicants, because white male/gender tend to rate higher with white/males when viewing high qualified applicants side by side.
Would a blind application process be better? ie. People submit a number instead of their name, with their work attached + their qualifications. Then they hire based purely on the facts, not knowing what the gender/race is?
Unless someone has some insight and there is proof GiantBomb dismissed candidates that were female (ie. they didn't take their applications seriously or had a severe bias to the male applicants purely on their gender). But how do you prove that. If they 100% were genuine in their hiring process and seriously considerd each candidate, and still found the white male guy as having the best quality work, why is it bad for them to hire him vs hiring someone else that is worse then who they could have hired.
If my view on this is wrong, then I'm open to understanding why it's wrong. I just never understood the outrage. I can understand diappointment. But I don't get why GB should be criticized if they were genuine about the process and really thought he was the best for the job. I also found it unprofessional of Leigh and others that applied to rant on twitter because they didn't get hired. Unless they actually had proof their application wasn't taken seriously, I don't see how you can criticize a company for picking someone else over you.
Interesting read. I still don't know how you enforce that, to make sure biases don't happen. Unless we start forcing private companies to have a mandatory quota for how many people are of different race/gender. But if we are taking a study like this into account, then we are saying 100% the guys at GiantBomb has a sub-conscious bias against the female applicants, because white male/gender tend to rate higher with white/males when viewing high qualified applicants side by side.
Would a blind application process be better? ie. People submit a number instead of their name, with their work attached + their qualifications. Then they hire based purely on the facts, not knowing what the gender/race is?
Lowlander2
Banned
Having observed Cheong's writings and musings for the better part of two years, I can say that, waffly and prone to switching as his views are, these are not ones he has embodied for a long time. And I always see this being brought up as evidence that his opinion is not worth listening to at all only when people perceive theirs as being infringed upon, which always loses weight when it turns out he's already reconciled this as a part of his life where he was an absolute asshole and he's moved on.
Rarely can that claim be taken as law, for reasons I pray are obvious, but it baffles me that, given he's explained his prior actions and done everything in his power in the last five years to nullify it, it's used to describe why he's suddenly a bad person in the now, rather than when he made it, the latter of which he has never disputed.
Hey guess what, a large part of society is about consumption. You are consuming right now as you are browsing this forum. Welcome.
Cinephiles and bookworms are controlled by studios and publishers. How I spit on their identities.
Feel like everyone should read Romeo and Juliet again.
call_kotaku
Member
Her videos and critiques wouldn't pass the sort of thorough academic and critical review that any political/feminist critique would undergo in a more established medium, hence my comparisons to other works. I agree that there's a level of jargon and unfamiliarity (which some of Anita's supporters are using as weapons to bully people with), but I don't think a critique needs to reference other works in order to be nuanced and rigorous, though having Anita's videos as a point of reference for a large number of people is definitely going to help.
My problem with her videos and her more extremist supporters is the undertone of conspiracy theory she invokes (ironic in context of current events, I know). She has a somewhat flimsy thesis that's more implied than overt, and cherry picks examples to prove a pattern which is anecdotal evidence at best, which leads to a conclusion that's a variation of "coincidence? you decide". If you disagree with the premise, or call into question the mechanisms of the argument, you're called what's essentially a "patriarchy shill", which is conspiracy theorist 101 and you see it on both sides of the debate. People who support her will point to the controversy, and people who argue against her will point to the lack of context of her analysis or her qualifications to make these claims, while nobody actually debates the core problem because nobody knows what it is. It doesn't lead to productive discussion, atleast not yet.
That said, I think we all sort of understand that nuanced and thorough analysis that seeks to educate and not produce confrontations/controversy will not get the sort of viral attention her videos have gotten and will continue to receive. Unfortunately in the twitter/forums/leave-a-comment culture we're in right now, this might be necessary to get an idea to the front page and help it stay there for an extended period of time. Hopefully if this issue gets enough attention we'll all collectively grow past the sort of accusatory tone we're all using and the sort of ineffectual discussion her content is likely to produce, and actually discuss this like adults.
MHWilliams
Member
As I stated just in the last page, implicit biases may find a candidate chosen not purely on their on paper merits.
Issues with implicit biases generally are not clear cut situations where you can go "you did wrong" but taken as a whole across a number of organizations, it becomes a problem.
Giant Bomb wasn't the nuke, it was just the straw that broke the camels back. While hiring the best candidate is fine, there's no denying that gaming journalism is still incredibly white and male. And while what they did wasn't bad, there are studies that show that this might've come from internalized biases against women and minorities. it's important to have diversity in this avenue, especially when you talk about how important diversity is.
I edited my post after quoting Mumei. But here is what I said:
Interesting read. I still don't know how you enforce that, to make sure biases don't happen. Unless we start forcing private companies to have a mandatory quota for how many people are of different race/gender. But if we are taking a study like this into account, then we are saying 100% the guys at GiantBomb had a sub-conscious bias against the female applicants, because white male/gender tend to rate higher with white/males when viewing high qualified applicants side by side.
Would a blind application process be better? ie. People submit a number instead of their name/gender, with their work attached + their qualifications. Then they hire based purely on the facts, not knowing what the gender/race is?
Does Anita have any collegiate degrees in Womens Studies or in Sociology, or is she just a "pop culture critic"
There's nothing wrong with Anita discussing the things she discusses, but her presentation and arguments leave a lot to be desired. It reminds me too much of a paper written by a sociology freshman as opposed to someone who's actually in the know. My only hope is that this leads to more exploration by trained people who have studied these things to an incredible degree
Lowlander2
Banned
It won't, because the people who are in it, heart and soul, are either too spread out or do not have the will or disposable income to justify the rather lofty price tag, and everyone one the fence is likely to be turned off by the alarming nature of the event's urgency.
Which is why I said that tweet made me laugh my head off. The implication is meant to be that if you're involved in a IndieGogo virtually doomed to fail because the sample size of "true believers" is just too small, that's something to be ashamed of, but anyone who was involved in Re/Action in a similar capacity, especially on the anniversary of its failure, should be the last people saying that.
I believe she hosts her master's thesis for all to read on her website.
SenorArdilla
Member
She has a Master's degree in Social and Political Thought.
That ignores the interview process, and also many other processes. I also dont think anyone should actively hide who they are when applying for a job.
There's a lot of reasons why Giant Bomb might not have wanted to hire her (and honestly, her shitflinging on twitter probably furthers that point) but like I said, it just happened to be the straw that broke the camels back and created a discussion.
Moon_frogger
Member
So essentially they should hire a minority, not merely to support diversity but also so they don't appear prejudiced to the public because of a study that states they might be unconsciously biased and then just cross their fingers and hope the minority is at least remotely suited to the position. Why bother even looking at resumes at this point?
Maybe video producing isn't her strong suit then, I just don't think her arguments are the best out there.
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