So, how about that wacky Sarkeesian lady? Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . 24 NEXT | |
haha, she has to give out refunds now | |
I guess she didnīt know what she was gettin into. To play, analise, categorize that many games and make a video in so little time. The project was maybe too big for her to handle. Who knows? maybe she sucks and canīt get past half of most of them. I donīt really care if she releases the video or not because it wonīt make a difference. Gaming will just continue to exist like this never happened. She takes a lot of stuff out of context like some others replies have already pointed out and i guess most people can see that and it is why she is always so critisized. Stereotypes exist for a reason, and that is save a lot of time, work and efforts in story and character development. And sex is there to sell. Itīs another marketing tool and selling point like controversy, gore, graphics, etc. | |
As I said earlier, I was going to humor her (as I see the issue as a real one) and watch the first one at the least, it's a topic (even as a white, mid 20's male) that has always interested me, hence why I keep up on articles about the subject. Because I want to see the women in games get overall better treatment. I just don't understand the hate for her, I can understand disliking her I guess. But the bile people have been throwing around about her and the subject matter in general disgusts me and only really makes the issue stand out even more and make it worse. | |
One: In what way is how attractive she is or is not relevant? I speak as someone who did not back her (But considers her work worthy). I assume you will immediately brand me as "White Knight", but whatever. How attractive she is or is not does not matter on any level. I assume next time you see or hear of anything about Angela Merkel your first thought will be "Shes pretty ugly, only ugly people will support her, her views are dumb because she is ugly". As a slightly off-topic aside, its this form of accidental casual sexism (Or not so accidental, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt) that makes people want to support her. This community is rather sexist. Two: We need liberal arts majors. At least you are not trying to claim she is unqualified to do this research. Man, those people piss me off. Three: Why are you assume it is a con? These things take time, research schedules get shifted. OT: Uh, asking gamers what they think and if they can think of any characters that fall into the tropes she is trying to come up with is not as horribad as people seem to think. Its just a bit of baseline research, albeit stuff that she could have got started prior to the kickstarter, but well, I see no issue here. It is also important for someone doing research, especially research as public as her own, to see what the community thinks. Its not corrupt, its not a con, its not getting people to do research for her. Seriously, She is starting a survey. That pisses you lot off, her research method? Surveys are a pretty solid way of getting information and seeing how people think. Without them Sociological research would be all but impossible. | |
If one's first comment of another is their appearance, and their next is the same of other women, I must wonder if certain insecurities and issues are being projected. | |
I will have no problem telling how to actually use that money properly and do the proper research the second she officially gives up on the project. Honestly it is kinda obvious what she should of been doing especially if anyone else here actually went to college themselves and had to write a research paper. EDIT: I will certainly say crowd sourcing or delegating her work is certainly the wrong approach because all it will do is limit the view to that of what is subjective to the fans of Anita. It will make the project become even more biased and subjective than it already has been tainted with given the forgone conclusion that Anita has no problem saying out loud without even doing any of the research. | |
Jeff is just a troll with no real credibility. Don't mind him. As for this Sarksomething lady? I dunno, good intentions with terrible execution. Maybe we'll all learn something from this. | |
That's what I don't really understand either. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Have you seen the fantastic ill-doctrine vlog on the subject? I love how genuinely bewildered he is about their behaviour because that's exactly how I feel! To everyone on here who really hates her and what she's doing, can you explain why to me, because I really REALLY want to be able to understand. | |
That is technically incorrect. She would only have to give out refunds should she fail to deliver the promised rewards that are associated with the project. Any personal deadlines that she has set for herself are certainly a factor towards said potential failure but she would only be forced to give out refunds should said backers do not receive the reward they "purchased". | |
I hadn't seen that before, thanks for sharing that. I hope others will watch this, he more or less said way better what I try to tell people when I get the chance. | |
she calls video games sexist and then fails to find examples, fucking classy there you slimy con artist. | |
What if Anita's actually a bigger gamer than all of us put together? I mean, only a really dedicated gamer would go to the length of scamming thousands of people to get hundreds of free video games. | |
lolwut Have you actually read anything about this at all? Preeety sure if you had, you have seen her talking about sexism in games a lot. You know, like the entire Ico discussion that is happening here. On this site. Now. Someone read half the OP and jumped to comment, didn't they ;) | |
I've not really been paying attention to this endless to and fro, but that is pretty funny. | |
Ok so what exactly is so bad about what she's doing? I mean to me it seems like a pretty practical and useful form of research so long as it (and in this case, it probably is) being used in conjunction with other forms of research. Y;know, widening the net a bit more so you can catch what ya need to catch? | |
great, one example, one very stupid example, and apparently thats too much work for her and now she needs help from the people who gave her money. | |
So basically she's crap at what she does and is so unprofessional she has to ask her backers to do almost all the research for her along with all the money they already contributed. Yeah not shocked in the least that she wouldn't know what the hell to do when time came to step up and put that money to good use. I wish people could get their refunds back, this is just fucking ridiculous. edit: And seeing all this just makes me realize i'll never back something unless it's a legitimate video game on that website. Why the fuck do people back random idiots just because they have some half assed (unoriginal) idea for a web series? Shit's beyond my understand but hey it's their money they can feel stupid when they realized they've been duped. At least she has that Ico one HUR HUR HUR | |
One? Have you really done zero reading about the issue at all? Read the forum at all? Her criticisms and opinions are frequently debated here. Lego? Mario? Zelda? Tropes in general? It helps to actually know the topic before commenting >_> | |
I wouldn't say hate, but all her "educational" videos have poorly done research and go on her initial perceptions, only she treats her guesses and opinions as though they are fact. This would be fine except she then poses as an authority on sexism and goes out of her way to try and get these unfounded feelings of hers actually put into actual educational institutions. If you know anything about how to actually do proper research, what you do is take a broad random sample of a population and you test each member of that sample by strict identical criteria so you get an fairly accurate representation of the population. Saying "I don't have enough time to do the samples, could people please write in and tell me which are the bad ones so I can single them out" is not how you get an accurate representation of the state of games as a whole. By the sound of it it sounds like she's actually having trouble finding enough sexism to back up her previous assertions. There are some people who will see themselves as a victim no matter what. In her 'masters thesis' which consisted of watching several series of television shows (mainly Joss Whedon ones) and writing a report. She stated that all the women characters were either victims or "Acting like men", So in other words she's rigged her world view so that women can only ever be victims. In short, whether or not her intentions are good, she is a close minded bigot who does nothing but damage to equal rights. | |
so if she apparently has all these examples then why cant she just use them? why does she need to ask the people who payed her for examples? also how the hell is lego part of gaming? | |
Saying stereotypes exist for a reason is a completely different matter than saying they should exist or shouldn't be challenged. Also using stereotypes because you don't want to put the time or effort into making good characters is an awful justification for them. Sex is a marketing tool, yes, but it's so often a completely one sided one that kind of reinforces the idea of which gender these games are being made for | |
I backed Amanda Palmer's new album. | |
Her reply: @schnide - Perhaps I can clear up some of your confusions and assumptions: ... Yeah, that was her reply to the guy asking about/concerned about the method of research/take money AND ask for the work done. Apparently she hardly ever updates, compared to some who update 10 times a day. She doesn't update for I think fortnights apparently. And again, if the survey is not research... wait, what the fuck? How is a survey not research?! That's... that's the bloody point of a survey. You DISCUSS something if you want feedback, or you ask, a survey is for results, for answers. Besides, it's not feedback! It's just them filling in a sheet and saying "DIS GAME SEXIST!" | |
You're a really superficial guy, you know that? This is exactly what I said in the first place, why do you need to raise money to make youtube videos? | |
Aside from there being about forty Lego video games in the past decade? She was arguing that, much like the video game culture, the Lego environment is a boys' club and reinforces gender stereotypes and plays to subtle sexism. She gave examples such as the fact that almost the entirety of authority type roles and those of heroes in the Lego universe (police officers and firemen, for example) are male, while things such as chefs are women. She's constantly making comments and speaking to the community. She's simply asking here how her backers would most like the videos displayed and the information delivered. I didn't know when I begun this conversation that I'd need to explain the entire topic. I assumed someone commenting would at least know a little about what's going on. | |
Yeah! I once donated to Desert Bus! But hold on, they didn't ask me to drive the bus...? What were they thinking? | |
Isn't that a suggestion to Sarkeesian and not from her? It's what other people consider sexist or at least meriting a look for her reports. Saying the game has a negative trope during or in part of it or not doesn't mean the game is bad or not (in game-play or morals) just the sections mentioned unless someone was saying it's a recurring or consent throughout the game. | |
What you're doing there, I see it. | |
Yeah, but probably best to do that before she went out and bought 300 odd games with her backer's cash, surely? As it is, I think she's bought far too much and is now realising she cant play all the games she's bought and now needs to know which she should talk about. | |
i have seen that awful video she made about Lego, her argument was essentially "these legos are males, they must be sexist", even though Lego figures doesn't have any gender. and just because there is lego games doesnt make lego part of gaming, its like saying that cars are part of gaming because there happens to be cars in games. and i really dont see how gaming is a boys club, theres plenty of females playing games, its more of a unisex club. | |
It's what happens when two extremes collide. It's not enough to disagree, you have to actively hate the other side. | |
Could you have missed the point any harder?
No gender in Lego?
Willful ignorance because you dislike someone is no less unacceptable. | |
What astounds me is the fact that she asked for $6000, got $150,000, then felt the need to buy 300 games. Assuming each game was an average of $40 dollars, that's double the cost of what she originally asked for. She then proposed a completion date of August, and it's not August any more, and with 300 games to play I'm not surprised. Why she needed 300 games is beyond me. Why couldn't she have just got the $6000 she asked for and worked with it, then donated the rest to charity? She doesn't need $150,000 to make a video about sexism in games, and no one's going to give a flying shit about 300 examples, that's far too many to care about/play through in a reasonable timeframe. She could have done some research first, and bought games which people thought were or weren't sexist, then picked the most important or most popular 5 to use in a video, and maybe one or two examples of games with strong female characters etc. Also cherry picking moments of sexism like the Thief 2 example posted previously in this thread isn't going to help anyone's side of the argument. [1] inb4 I get attacked for not having followed every minute aspect of the debate | |
Thanks for answering my question so thoroughly! I see where you're coming from with your critique, but I have a couple of points:
I work in education and I know how thorough we have to be when deciding what gets used in the classroom, on syllabuses etc. If her videos are being used in educational institutions I'd see that as evidence that people who study sexism in society, and feminism in particularly, find what she has to say interesting, rather than a sign that educational institutions will take any old rubbish. Obviously that's just my reasoning, but it seems more likely to me.
I don't see it as her trying to get people to do her research for her - it seems more to me that she's hoping to include some of the ideas of her backers into her videos. The back catalogue of games she'd need to research for this is MASSIVE, so I can't see anything wrong in us giving some ideas. We won't know how thoroughly her videos are researched until her videos come out and we judge them on their merits.
Is her master's thesis available to read somewhere? If so could you post a link, because I'd love to read it. I can't testify to how good this one piece of her work is, but as someone who's watched her videos and read most of her articles I do find her work to be (mostly) well researched and balanced. Her videos on the Bechdel test in modern cinema and Lego in particular I find to be interesting, well-researched and balanced. I said 'mostly' because I don't agree with all of the things she's said about the video game industry thus far, however, most of those things I've read second hand on forums, game magazine articles etc. so I can't rule out that they were taken out of context. Basically, where I'm coming from is that we can't judge her current project until it's done. You may have legitimate concerns about her back catalogue of work but they seem to be more personal problems. | |
| Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . 24 NEXT | |
Anyone of her backers fancy just making up a game and seeing if she includes it? I cant help but think there'll be alot of copy and pasting from the suggestions here into her 'research'