Total Biscuit's legacy: GamerGate, etc.

OldSoulCyborg wrote:

Slayerx wrote:Sourcing funds from people online to make videos and then not actually making all the videos she raised money to make.

Pretty sure she did though. Even produced more videos than originally planned.

I'll look into it but she raised excessive amounts of money for a number of videos and in most cases failed to deliver or delivered them years later.

I feel she gives women a bad reputation in gaming you only have to look into the incident at Vidcon last year with Boogie2988.

She uses her position to have feminist donate money to her and bangs on about the so called patriarchal system.

Just my two cents of the things I've read and seen online other the last few years.

Dig Dug wrote:Always amazes me that her name can't come up without someone inserting something negative into sentences. Reminds me of when I went to a lecture at uni and her name came up in a presentation, the lecturer asked the class if they knew who she was. The guy who offered to explain who she was couldn't help himself when it came to putting negative adjectives in the explanation.

I have not seen much of her work but I have always considered it quite telling when most of the opposition to a commentator comes in the form of ad hominem.

regardless of how many videos she made she claimed to be a fan of games to get money when you can easily find footage of her just before trying to get the money saying that she didn't like games at all. If you study her it soon became apparent she used confidence tricks for a long term con, its fascinating to study. Yes sexism does exist in the world of games but she used this to make money... The important thing to realise is that shes not a feminist she used feminism as a part of her con in order to get money and to improve her position, I don't honestly believe she cares about the struggles of other women one little bit.

She is in the wrong for using trickery to take money from people and yes the people who sent her death threats and rape threats are also lousy people because there trying to get what they want through intimidation and threats. The thing I hate about the people who threatened her though is that it helped her, it gave her a shield to hold up to ward off criticism of her

kerr9000 wrote:regardless of how many videos she made she claimed to be a fan of games to get money when you can easily find footage of her just before trying to get the money saying that she didn't like games at all. If you study her it soon became apparent she used confidence tricks for a long term con, its fascinating to study. Yes sexism does exist in the world of games but she used this to make money... The important thing to realise is that shes not a feminist she used feminism as a part of her con in order to get money and to improve her position, I don't honestly believe she cares about the struggles of other women one little bit.

She is in the wrong for using trickery to take money from people and yes the people who sent her death threats and rape threats are also lousy people because there trying to get what they want through intimidation and threats. The thing I hate about the people who threatened her though is that it helped her, it gave her a shield to hold up to ward off criticism of her

Agreed any threat of violence is wrong and they just helped her cause.

I'm not sure it counts as trickery to have people willingly send you money in return for an often nebulous proposition about something that does not yet exist in even the most elementary stages, I guess it's similar to all those Kickstarters raising millions of pounds for dev teams fo ultimately fail to deliver on archaic, nostalgic properties preying on thrifty risk takers in the gaming community. Buyer beware etc.

Did she fail? Didn't she actually complete the video series in the end?

I have no idea. I watched one or two of the videos, seemed generally simplistic as to stuff already pointed out over the previous years or if not already embarrassingly obvious to anyone analytical and lost interest. So she seemed to be speaking to herself in the way I feel a lot of social activism does. It hardly seemed like a cutting, relevatory analysis you'd expect from good quality research but I suppose it put more discourse out there on a platform like YouTube. I can understand the skepticism as it doesn't really seem necessary to require funding to do something like that when so much criticism is done for free in people's spare time, especially if you are truly passionate about it. But I guess you would need to treat it like a job if you didn't really like games and felt like you needed to justify time spent playing to pick out, here's princes peach in a dress and you need to save her, here's vulnerable female character etc, here's grossly exaggerated female organs next this buff guy etc.

This is all speculation on my part, I do feel the whole thing was blown massively out of proportion by misyognists and male hobby protectionists. I just find sexism in a male dominated industry and audience like games so patently obvious it's ridiculous to me the idea it needs to be proven to either party, although insight into why it matters is perhaps more important.

kerr9000 wrote:regardless of how many videos she made she claimed to be a fan of games to get money when you can easily find footage of her just before trying to get the money saying that she didn't like games at all. If you study her it soon became apparent she used confidence tricks for a long term con, its fascinating to study. Yes sexism does exist in the world of games but she used this to make money... The important thing to realise is that shes not a feminist she used feminism as a part of her con in order to get money and to improve her position, I don't honestly believe she cares about the struggles of other women one little bit.

She is in the wrong for using trickery to take money from people and yes the people who sent her death threats and rape threats are also lousy people because there trying to get what they want through intimidation and threats. The thing I hate about the people who threatened her though is that it helped her, it gave her a shield to hold up to ward off criticism of her

You're completely wrong, dude.

1. She is a gamer: she plays and reviews games. She liked games before she started her project: she had a SNES and a Game Boy as a kid. She never hated games: there is a quote where she says she "isn't a fan of video games", but it's in the context of not considering herself the kind of "gamer" who engages with a specific kind of mainstream teenage-boy COD/GTA games.

2. She hasn't scammed anyone: she has provided by any sensible metric far more content than she promised in her original Kickstarter, and of a high enough quality to be considered to have academic merit.

3. You should hate the people who threatened her because they threatened her, not because they made it awkward for you to criticise her videos.

For what it's worth I don't really have any skin in the game here, I actually find it tough to sit through her videos because her presenting style doesn't appeal to me -- but it's clearly false to accuse them of being low-quality, or accuse her of not knowing stuff about games, or to suggest that she is the real baddie in any of the controversy.

Fair. I used to wax lyrical about women's lifestyle magazines in a similar way until I realised it was actually kind e of sexist to judge the lifestyle choices of women, although I was also aware of the male side things. I did not like the unrealistic depictions of ideals and that echoes through all of society for me.

I think some people feel raising funds to produce a documentary research series is somehow nefarious and aggressive if it is to some extent critical of them and their hobby, as if they are inseparable. I find that very strange, and it's very unfortunate you create a target when accepting money for content, especially it seems at the mercy of those that aren't even paying for it. It's a bit like people complaining about charity management or charities spending money on campaigns etc who don't or therefore don't donate to charity. A huge amount of energy is wasted rallying against people who are trying to effect change. It's very backwards. Some people just find it very difficult to allow criticism to happen and when it is rallied around those forces can be quite disturbing, often becoming violent. Seeing that happen on the Internet and seeping into the everyday, in seminars, voice chats and so on that feel more "real" is irksome. There is so much ire built up behind the screen, where ignorance or prejudice or bias can fester because there is so much filter. And that is how toxicity reaches epic levels, and we are all an audience to the spectacle unfolding, seemly powerless to act. The Internet is a fascinating thing.

She asked for $6000 to make a ten part video series.

She was given roughly $160,000, and made an eleven part video series.

Conning whore, or something.

Knoyleo wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:

Slayerx wrote:

Bleachyleachy wrote:Was Anita Sarkisian anything to do with it per chance? These replies are ringing a faint bell

Yeah tbh she is a leach at best all that money she raised to make videos.

Could you go into what you mean by this?

lmao, oh god, here we go.

(Sorry not sorry)

Annoyingly, everything I wanted to say has been said already by Karl and GG. I don't particularly like her style of presentation, nor a lot of the conclusions she draws, but I'm still amazed at the hate she gets especially in a world where arrogant dicks like TB have free reign to say anything, without consequence, simply because they're men. Worse, I'm shocked at the level of hostility shown by skayerx and others in this thread, whose rhetoric is almost identical to the GamerGate bile that infected our hobby back in 2014.

She promised to delve into feminist issues in games and not only provided the promised video series but went above and beyond, founding Feminist Frequency which has now become a feminist media review and analysis site and a strong voice for equality in that arena. The idea that she conned anyone is the online equivalent of "but her emails!"

Tafdolphin wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:

Slayerx wrote:

Bleachyleachy wrote:Was Anita Sarkisian anything to do with it per chance? These replies are ringing a faint bell

Yeah tbh she is a leach at best all that money she raised to make videos.

Could you go into what you mean by this?

lmao, oh god, here we go.

(Sorry not sorry)

Annoyingly, everything I wanted to say has been said already by Karl and GG. I don't particularly like her style of presentation, nor a lot of the conclusions she draws, but I'm still amazed at the hate she gets especially in a world where arrogant dicks like TB have free reign to say anything, without consequence, simply because they're men. Worse, I'm shocked at the level of hostility shown by skayerx and others in this thread, whose rhetoric is almost identical to the GamerGate bile that infected our hobby back in 2014.

She promised to delve into feminist issues in games and not only provided the promised video series but went above and beyond, founding Feminist Frequency which has now become a feminist media review and analysis site and a strong voice for equality in that arena. The idea that she conned anyone is hilariously untrue.

I hardly me feeling like she conned people out of money and calling her a leach as been overly hostile I just don't like what she did and how she acts as an individual within the so called SJW movement.

I dislike people threatening violence or sexual assaults for any reason it's a prick thing to do on multiple levels but I do think the fact people have done it gets thrown up as a smokescreen to try and prevent proper discussion.

I think she's a con artist because I think she put on a false act to get the money, not because of the amount of content she produced. One of my biggest areas of study was the social sciences and there's something about her that makes her come across as fake on multiple levels. I also think a whole party of the people criticizing her are either fake or deranged.

She's a clever conartist who has used a social movement to gain herself a business and a living part of me hates that and part of me respects it , I feel about the same about her as I do someone like the rogue trader who brought down bearings bank.

Slayer, sure you can dislike what someone does but that makes it sounds like she personally hurt you, how did she act as an individual in a way that upset you?

There's either good or bad social activism, social justice warrior isn't a title people take upon themselves. Actually I struggle to think of bad social activism, unless you mean ethnic cleansing, that was pretty bad.

Kerr, with respect I Just think you use the phrase con artist inappropriately for someone you suspect is dishonest in their intentions. I haven't seen any evidence she was dishonest besides people on the Internet trying to discredit someone they don't like the look of. Which is sort of the point.

Calling someone a leech is, by anyone's metric, hostile. This is especially true when the evidence is right there that she is not nor has she ever done the things you claim. The accusations against her are fabrications created by a group of angry young men attending to discredit her because uuuuurgh, a girl! was telling them that their hobby had a problem with the representation of women. Worse, she was doing it in a way that was aloof and kind of arrogant which, in the male dominated world of the YouTuber, was seen as fine and dandy until a women got involved.

Also, using the term SJW is if anything proving my point that you're continuing to use overtly hostile GamerGate rhetoric.

She riled people up. I did not like her persona because it was a little obvious. But that doesn't mean I judge her by her actions or her content. Because those actions were largely harmless. The content was apparently what it was supposed to be. People willingly gave her money admittedly quite a lot of money. I'm confused why that apparently drew so much hatred. There are exponentially worse examples of this where nothing was delivered at all.

So using the term SJW is now overly hostile rhetoric?

Its a very real issue that gives me cause for concern and I'm very much of the opinion of people like Jordan Peterson who's hardly an angry young man.

Ill just keep my thoughts to myself from now on if I'm just going to be accused as been overly hostile.

I think it just came across that way because of the "so called" air quotes.

And yeah leech is a parasitic invertebrate featured in resident evil as a mutant monster. It has gruesome connotations and a little strong. I can see why it would be used, but equally those giving money are pandering whales or something.

I think terms like that are infectious for those holding strong opinions even if they don't hold any ire towards individuals. They can come across in movements as overall hostility from a group or who appears to be a group and that's where things get ugly.

And then there are those "triggered". It is far to easy to group opinions together unit a combative scenario that is in most cases imagined. But when some bunch of zealots rally around a hashtag, it mutates into something else. It's all Internet stuff, I find it fascinating.

Slayerx wrote:So using the term SJW is now overly hostile rhetoric?

Its a very real issue that gives me cause for concern and I'm very much of the opinion of people like Jordan Peterson who's hardly an angry young man.

Social justice warrior (commonly abbreviated SJW) is a pejorative term for an individual who promotes socially progressive views, including feminism, civil rights, and multiculturalism,[1][2] as well as identity politics.[3] The accusation that somebody is an SJW carries implications that they are pursuing personal validation rather than any deep-seated conviction,[4] and engaging in disingenuous arguments.[5]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior

Much like your accusations against Sarkesian, a quick Google search reveals all. And Jordan Peterson?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... rnets-nest

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-amer ... 4za14.html

A quick Google again shows he's a willfully controversial psychologist, the "stupid man's smart person," a 'darling of the alt-right.' Even the second article there, from Australia's equivalent of the Daily Mail, calls a lot of the things he says 'bad.'

Tafdolphin wrote:

Slayerx wrote:So using the term SJW is now overly hostile rhetoric?

Its a very real issue that gives me cause for concern and I'm very much of the opinion of people like Jordan Peterson who's hardly an angry young man.

Social justice warrior (commonly abbreviated SJW) is a pejorative term for an individual who promotes socially progressive views, including feminism, civil rights, and multiculturalism,[1][2] as well as identity politics.[3] The accusation that somebody is an SJW carries implications that they are pursuing personal validation rather than any deep-seated conviction,[4] and engaging in disingenuous arguments.[5]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior

Much like your accusations against Sarkesian, a quick Google search reveals all. And Jordan Peterson?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... rnets-nest

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-amer ... 4za14.html

A quick Google again shows he's a willfully controversial psychologist, the "stupid man's smart person," a 'darling of the alt-right.' Even the second article there, from Australia's equivalent of the Daily Mail, calls a lot of the things he says 'bad.'

If you ever have a few hours listen to him on the JRE podcast he appears to be given a title as controversial or as been outspoken as he spoke out about Canadian laws forcing people to use transgender pronouns.