Video Game Culture 2: A/S/L vs. SJW

[Kalbear]

Continue from the prior thread.

[Kalbear]

Do you play MMOs looking for potential racists and misogynists or to have fun? I'm thinking is the latter, so if you encounter people you dislike rather than waste precious time and effort trying to change them why not simply ignore? We have a big world outside of gaming, where people can debate this stuff endlessly, gaming to me at least seems an entirely inappropriate medium for these kind of activities. That's the point I'm making though no doubt Kalbear will use this as proof of my latent Nazism.

When I played, I played because I wanted to be part of a specific group and enjoy a good environment. As it turns out the only way to foster a good environment is be an active, positive part of that environment. Ignoring people's bad behavior doesn't help make it better.

Gaming isn't an inappropriate medium because so much of gaming is social interaction. This argument is akin to saying that the internet shouldn't be used to debate because the internet is about cats and porn. Social interaction is especially true in an MMO, which relies heavily on first-party interaction with others fairly regularly. That it also can have players directly impacting your fun via griefing makes it even more important to self-police; it's not like CoD where you can simply make sure you never, ever interact with that person again.

Really, anywhere that you can socialize you can have a good effect. If you want to and care about your community - whether that be an online one or a real one - you need to actually do something to make it a better community.

ETA: I think that one of the big hangups you're having here is that you believe it is a waste of time and effort. It turns out it isn't. Someone speaking up makes a huge difference in self-policing community. Peer influencing is one of the most powerful influencers for humans. Even more than that people - both observers and direct participants - take silence as assent. There's even a latin term for that - Qui Tacit Consentire. The effect of one person speaking up often allows others to agree with that person when they might otherwise have been afraid to speak up.

I do agree that it's really, really hard to always do the right thing and speak up when you see something really wrong. As you say, games are for fun, and the last thing a lot of people want to do is to educate people on an internet message board or game chat about the horribleness that they're spewing. But it's also really effective in getting people to change and stop the spreading.

[Kalbear]

And to Lyanna:

I want justice for people. How can that be wrong? What is the opposite then? Anti-justice warriors?

I think the opposite would be anonymous cowards.

[Liam Prieto]

Re:liam

Please read more about Dr. MLK Jr. It's one of the modern travesties that this man's deep anger has been whitewashed by the white culture's need of a house negro. See if you still think, after reading his writings, that what he called the white supremacists of the time was still not vitrolic given the cultural context of his time. The mere act of agitating for equal treatments for black people was subversive and antagonistic, according to most people at the time.

So, yeah, your example is horrible.

And there is plenty of time where anger is the appropriate response. Equating the oppression with the reaction, albeit an angry one, to that oppression is first-class level insensitivty. Which, of course, is not a grievous offense and nobody is obligated to be sensitive to anything. So feel free to continue.

One last thing - having your opinions opposed doesn't mean you're prohibited from posting here. If it were, we would have had no posts past the first 7 in this thread. So please stop pretending otherwise and cut the drama on your right to express your opinions being curtailed in any way. We do limit free speech on this board under specific circumstances, e.g. we don't allow advocating rape on any person real or fictional, and you'll get a message from a moderator if you run afoul those standards. But otherwise, you're welcome to post your opinions even when others disagree with you.

Re: Gears

Sorry, I didn't respond because I didn't really get what you were saying. But now I do and disagree. The best thing you can do is ignore trolls, they thrive off the reaction - that's their whole purpose for making such seemingly repugnant comments. The best way to enable trolls is to respond to them and give them a voice (like showing everyone at a TEDx conference a big collage of troll comments for instance...). The term "don't feed the trolls" exists for a reason. Who cares how trolls justify their behaviour, they're fucking trolls; if you're even thinking about how they justify their behaviour you're fucking up because you're listening to them and letting it affect how you act.

No.

The best way to fend off trolls is for the entire community to react to it firmly and consistently. Silence is the excuse that people make up to justify doing nothing. It doesn't stop trolls. Silence emboldens trolls and/or pushes them to troll harder. Hearing "Hey, you're being a sexist asshole with that comment, so stop it" from multiple people does a much better job at stopping trolls that silence all around.

No, really.

I learned this from moderating this board for 12+ years.

"Dont feed the troll" doesn't mean don't call out their trollish antics. It means don't deliberately prolong the trolling for the lols.

This is why this community differs from a lot of the other places on the internet. We encourage our users to speak up and establish a community baseline for appropriate behaviors. The mods help, but especially after the HBO show, we cannot have enough presence in the entire span of this site. We rely on our users to be decent human beings and set the right tone. We help by suspending posting privileges of those who consistently violate the basic standards and rule

Terra: First I would ask you to please not use the term "house negro" as thats extremely offensive term.

Secondly I never said I was being oppressed, i asked not to be lumped in the same group and got quite a bit of hostility from it. I don't think you truly understand what I was trying to say. Maybe you should go back and read the exchange where I explained that i understand getting angry against injustice but that anger should be taken out on perpetrators of rape threats and not posters with different beliefs.

Lastly, my point about Dr. King wasn't that he wasn't angry, which is ridiculous, but that his goal was to CONVERT people to his side through reason rather than his anger.

[TerraPrime]

Re: Lyanna

If you said "SJW" with a sneer, like U.S. conservatives say "communists," you'll get the idea. ;)

Re: Gaming for fun

What seems to be not registering is that for me, hearing racist comments as I try to time my DoTs on the boss is NOT fun. Hearing sexist rape jokes when I try to farm materials to craft items is NOT fun. When games require social interactions, such as team work or in MMO, the social interaction is, by design fiat, part of the game. Why would I have to "go look for" things to be offended by when these things are so pervasively common? Insulting remarks based on race, sex, sexual orientation, and sometimes religion, are to some milieux of gaming as water is to fishbowls.

When I was playing WoW, every time I play I had to make a conscious decision to not let the racist and sexist shit derail my gaming. Some days I just don't have the energy to do more than mute the offending person and to ignore the low-level crap, e.g. "let's go rape that boss!" or "that tier look is so gay." I always, however, send someone a /tell to let them know I appreciate it when they speak up. But my decision doesn't mean that I don't find those comments offensive or that I don't think people should do something about it when they can. I do speak up a lot, and I have left raid guilds over these issues and I have quitted public raids on these problems. Just not all the fucking time because lord knows, that'd be all my subscription fee is good for if I tackle every single piece of crap comment.

[aceluby]

Anyone who plays games does so to have fun. When one person, or a group of people, work on ruining that fun for others by being asshats, it's no longer fun. Not only that, but they have the ability to consistently harass people, over, and over, and over again. If you think that's 'ok' and the person should just give up the thing they look to get enjoyment out of because of those people, enjoy being rolled over your entire life or being a douche along with them, which is the exact opposite of not feeding the trolls.

Ignoring these people is no longer the answer. You need to stand up for yourself and others and make them realize how stupid they are acting. I get messages all the time berating me in games. I always respond with a simple message "classy". That's it. 9/10 times I get a response back and instead of stooping to their level, I just show them the proper behavior when I win, lose, draw, or whatever. Engage and take the high road. It is much more effective than doing nothing, because doing nothing will accomplish nothing.

[daskool]

When I played, I played because I wanted to be part of a specific group and enjoy a good environment. As it turns out the only way to foster a good environment is be an active, positive part of that environment. Ignoring people's bad behavior doesn't help make it better.

Gaming isn't an inappropriate medium because so much of gaming is social interaction. This argument is akin to saying that the internet shouldn't be used to debate because the internet is about cats and porn. Social interaction is especially true in an MMO, which relies heavily on first-party interaction with others fairly regularly. That it also can have players directly impacting your fun via griefing makes it even more important to self-police; it's not like CoD where you can simply make sure you never, ever interact with that person again.

Really, anywhere that you can socialize you can have a good effect. If you want to and care about your community - whether that be an online one or a real one - you need to actually do something to make it a better community.

ETA: I think that one of the big hangups you're having here is that you believe it is a waste of time and effort. It turns out it isn't. Someone speaking up makes a huge difference in self-policing community. Peer influencing is one of the most powerful influencers for humans. Even more than that people - both observers and direct participants - take silence as assent. There's even a latin term for that - Qui Tacit Consentire. The effect of one person speaking up often allows others to agree with that person when they might otherwise have been afraid to speak up.

I do agree that it's really, really hard to always do the right thing and speak up when you see something really wrong. As you say, games are for fun, and the last thing a lot of people want to do is to educate people on an internet message board or game chat about the horribleness that they're spewing. But it's also really effective in getting people to change and stop the spreading.

Well you have made some strong arguments

I'm not saying it's wrong for people to stand up to bullies anywhere or at any time, good for anyone who does that. However the SJW who're targeting gaming forums and media have gone way beyond that. They have an agenda, they're looking to change the culture from something that's fairly small L libertarian to one with strict rules. This goes way beyond ending obvious racist/sexist/homophobic trolling to, for example, demonizing FPS gamers or picking on non existent racism in games like Bioshock. Many gamers have had enough, and they're standing up for themselves.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Well you have made some strong arguments

I'm not saying it's wrong for people to stand up to bullies anywhere or at any time, good for anyone who does that. However the SJW who're targeting gaming forums and media have gone way beyond that. They have an agenda, they're looking to change the culture from something that's fairly small L libertarian to one with strict rules. This goes way beyond ending obvious racist/sexist/homophobic trolling to, for example, demonizing FPS gamers or picking on non existent racism in games like Bioshock. Many gamers have had enough, and they're standing up for themselves.

If someone makes the case that Bioshock is racist, or perpetuates racist attitudes or reproduces white privilege or whatever exactly the criticism is, what, exactly, does this have to do with gaming community or gamers or whatever "standing up for themselves" ? Critically engaging the text of Bioshock isn't an issue for which any individual gamer should be taking offense. A gamer can't stand up for himself by arguing otherwise, because a criticism of Bioshock isn't a criticism of any individual game player. That criticism of Bioshock is either good or true or it's bad and false. Either way, the only way to respond is by offering a countervailing criticism of the text. It's like saying that "film buffs" or "movie goers" need to defend themselves because of criticism of the racist content of Birth of a Nation or the use of the White Savior trope of Last of the Mohicans or Avatar.

[daskool]

If someone makes the case that Bioshock is racist, or perpetuates racist attitudes or reproduces white privilege or whatever exactly the criticism is, what, exactly, does this have to do with gaming community or gamers or whatever "standing up for themselves" ? Critically engaging the text of Bioshock isn't an issue for which any individual gamer should be taking offense. A gamer can't stand up for himself by arguing otherwise, because a criticism of Bioshock isn't a criticism of any individual game player. That criticism of Bioshock is either good or true or it's bad and false. Either way, the only way to respond is by offering a countervailing criticism of the text. It's like saying that "film buffs" or "movie goers" need to defend themselves because of criticism of the racist content of Birth of a Nation or the use of the White Savior trope of Last of the Mohicans or Avatar.

That supposes you can reason with the more out there SJW, trust me you can't. And it's not their arguments that are at issue, it's more their near boundless determination to bring their agenda to the fore by endlessly trolling and bullying and by so doing ruining the experience for everyone else who wants to have fun, Can we have one space that's free from the fucking culture wars? Just one??

[Seli]

... However the SJW who're targeting gaming forums and media have gone way beyond that. They have an agenda, they're looking to change the culture from something that's fairly small L libertarian to one with strict rules. ...

That is not what is happening. People are fed up with those who somehow lost the concept of accountability, who forgot the thing that makes a liberal society possible: when people don't like what you say they can criticize you and tell you off.

Get used to it, we all need that to live together.

[Relic]

Hey, two threads! We made it! Good job all.

[Seli]

That supposes you can reason with the more out there SJW racists, trust me you can't. And it's not their arguments that are at issue, it's more their near boundless determination to bring their agenda to the fore by endlessly trolling and bullying and by so doing ruining the experience for everyone else who wants to have fun, Can we have one space that's free from the fucking culture wars? Just one??

Works as well. Think about it.

[Inigima]

"Can we have just one place where I can be a big asshole without consequence"

To be honest, I'd rather you didn't.

What exactly are you "standing up for " that you think is so goddamned valuable? Why is it so important that you get to call someone horrible things without them getting mad at you?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

That supposes you can reason with the more out there SJW, trust me you can't. And it's not their arguments that are at issue, it's more their near boundless determination to bring their agenda to the fore by endlessly trolling and bullying and by so doing ruining the experience for everyone else who wants to have fun, Can we have one space that's free from the fucking culture wars? Just one??

I don't even know what this means. Video games are part of culture, and perpetuate certain dynamics of culture. What you identify as the "culture war" appears to me to be "disagreements between proponents of two different cultural views." The "culture-war free zone" you are advocating appears to really be a zone where people are free to make racist and sexist comments, and people are free to make videogames that perpetuate stereotypes, without anybody being allowed to comment or criticize either. This is not a "culture war free" zone. It's just a place where obnoxious, odious views are allowed to roam unchallenged.

[daskool]

Works as well. Think about it.

As you completely refuse to address my argument no I really won't.

That is not what is happening. People are fed up with those who somehow lost the concept of accountability, who forgot the thing that makes a liberal society possible: when people don't like what you say they can criticize you and tell you off.

Get used to it, we all need that to live together.

That is what's happening. I was recently lectured at length on a gaming forum from someone who identified herself as a white female and assumed I was a white male. Should I have been offended at her whitesplaining? No point, whatever I said she was so wrapped up in her precepts and prejudice would have been a complete waste of energy. So I won't be going to that forum so much, which is a shame because I had some good discussions on there.

[Lyanna Stark]

To Stannisaurus:

So you agree with me that feminists don't bother eradicating sexism against men and misandrism from their own (feminist, not necessarily gamer) groups? Because you kinda skipped commenting on that part.

Why do I need to comment on it? Because it is not an endemic problem. Men online, and male gamers, do not encounter a huge amount of misandrism and sexism.

Or are you going to argue that men who game become targets of misandrism often enough for this to be an issue worth mentioning? That they are targets of sexism? From feminists? I suppose you can go to MMO Champion and start a topic with vote function whether male players of MMOs feel they have been victims of misandry.

Do you play MMOs looking for potential racists and misogynists or to have fun? I'm thinking is the latter, so if you encounter people you dislike rather than waste precious time and effort trying to change them why not simply ignore? We have a big world outside of gaming, where people can debate this stuff endlessly, gaming to me at least seems an entirely inappropriate medium for these kind of activities. That's the point I'm making though no doubt Kalbear will use this as proof of my latent Nazism

How do you have fun in an environment filled with racists and misogynists? Personally I find that difficult. I mean sure, I have learnt to shut my eyes and ears to a lot of stuff, but it gets through, and that's not what I think of as "fun".

Ideally, I'd like MMOs to be made up of people who feel they can communicate without using homophobic, racist or sexist language.

The question then becomes: how can I make this happen? Being silent and ignoring it certainly doesn't make it happen, and neither does stopping playing. If I want to game and I want it to be a fun and welcoming environment for me too, the I need to speak up, or nothing will happen. As a raid leader and co guild-master in WoW, I've booted a good many people out of raid groups and guilds. Some of them for being misogynist asshats.

"Can we have just one place where I can be a big asshole without consequence"

Well, yes. This is what it feels like when people complaing about "Social Justice Warriors". It's this overwhelming need to be a big asshole and to use various slurs. Why is it so hard to avoid that? I am not sure.

[1918me]

That supposes you can reason with the more out there SJW, trust me you can't. And it's not their arguments that are at issue, it's more their near boundless determination to bring their agenda to the fore by endlessly trolling and bullying and by so doing ruining the experience for everyone else who wants to have fun, Can we have one space that's free from the fucking culture wars? Just one??

You know why SJWs argue with people, right? It's because it's not fun anymore for them. That's the entire point! I'd imagine that most so-called SJWs would want nothing more than to just enjoy themselves without engaging in "culture wars," but it's not an option anymore, if misogyny and racism and homophobia are seen as acceptable behavior. I know I'd like to do nothing more than to play games for fun, I don't want to argue with people on the internet when all I wanted to do was relax with a good game, but when I see behavior that makes me uncomfortable, I feel no choice but to speak out against it.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

That is what's happening. I was recently lectured at length on a gaming forum from someone who identified herself as a white female and assumed I was a white male. Should I have been offended at her whitesplaining? No point, whatever I said she was so wrapped up in her precepts and prejudice would have been a complete waste of energy. So I won't be going to that forum so much, which is a shame because I had some good discussions on there.

Why don't you link to the discussion? Maybe we can use it as a Case Study, exercise a little critical analysis, and see whether she made a good point or a bad point.

[daskool]

I don't even know what this means. Video games are part of culture, and perpetuate certain dynamics of culture. What you identify as the "culture war" appears to me to be "disagreements between proponents of two different cultural views." The "culture-war free zone" you are advocating appears to really be a zone where people are free to make racist and sexist comments, and people are free to make videogames that perpetuate stereotypes, without anybody being allowed to comment or criticize either. This is not a "culture war free" zone. It's just a place where obnoxious, odious views are allowed to roam unchallenged.

You're assuming there is some kind of debate, a sharing of ideas, really there isn't Just one bunch of trolls arguing with another about what's allowable and what isn't whilst playing a game where grown adults pretend to be elves, or space marines.

[Inigima]

I'm not sure what point you think you're making.

Every community has its standards of behavior. (Ever seen the shit you'll catch for rolling Need on something you don't need? Or for AFKing in a dungeon?) Most of the civilized world sees the sort of abysmal conduct so often seen in online gaming as unacceptable.