#oneaday Day 93: The Truly Tragic Tale of the “Woke Content Detector”

One of the most truly insufferable things about the “gaming community” over the course of the last decade has been the rise of the “anti-woke” crowd, which started to really raise its head around the same time as the Gamergate saga — and, indeed, which many people still point to as the real point behind Gamergate rather than any legitimate concerns over ethics in games journalism.

To be clear and completely transparent, around the time of Gamergate being active I may well have expressed some sentiments and concerns that might have got me lumped in with this crowd.

However, I made an effort to distance myself from the movement as a whole, because I could see it was something of a scarlet letter, regardless of whether or not an individual had legitimate, worthwhile concerns.

My issues were always to do with the games journalism side of things, with my particular focus being on reviews and articles that treated Japanese titles (particularly those which featured sexually provocative content) unfairly and from an ill-informed perspective. I steered well clear of any discussions where it was clear people were being full-on racist and sexist — i.e. objecting to a game because it had a woman in a leading role, or a non-white person appearing prominently. I was entirely concerned with how certain portions of games journalism were treating specific games — and the people who enjoyed them — like absolute shit: nothing more, nothing less.

To put it another way, I always thought the people who were objecting to “woke” content in games were being massive weirdoes, and I didn’t want anything to do with them. Where games did feature obnoxiously over-the-top “look how progressive we are!” content, I tended to just steer clear of those — or perhaps comment on them in terms of alternatives that did the same thing, but better. To date, my favourite example of this is Read Only Memories and VA-11 HALL-A. Both of these games unfold in the same “world”, with the latter being a spinoff of the former, developed by a completely different team. Read Only Memories is absolutely obnoxious about how it handles progressive themes; VA-11 HALL-A integrates them extremely well into the plot.

But I digress. I have zero time for people who object to games purely on the grounds that they contain “woke content”. Particularly when the definition of “woke content”, as defined by the Woke Content Detector group on Steam, is so broad. I invite you to take a look at their official spreadsheet of which games are and are not “woke” and have a good laugh at it, and we’ll pick out some classics below.

Starfield

A screenshot from the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains overtly Pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Contains overtly pro-DEI messaging. Pronoun selection including the option for they/them. All populated areas are equally diverse. Many important people are POC."

Here’s a prime example of what this list is actually about: being sexist, racist, transphobic and homophobic. I’m not sure much more needs to be said about this definition, other than to clarify for those who are somehow unfamiliar with Starfield that it is an open-structure role-playing game set in space, in which you play a self-insert character. Therefore having the option to select your name, gender, ethnicity and appearance makes a lot of sense. The implication of “many important people are [people of colour]” is that in The Future, we will have moved beyond white dominance and oppression of non-white people, but this is a bridge too far for the anti-woke crowd.

Civilization VI

A screenshot from the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains overtly pro-DEI messaging. Contains overtly pro-climate action messaging. Race swapped Suleiman and added historically unimportant female leaders. Global warming and carbon capture mechanics."

This one is particularly hilarious. A game about running a civilisation on our planet, and considering important matters that both occurred in history and which might occur in the future is “woke” for acknowledging things like climate change. I guess we add “climate change denier” to the “sexist, racist, transphobic and homophobic” list. Some racism and sexism on open display there, too.

BioShock Infinite

A screenshot of the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains overtly anti-western society and overtly pro-DEI messaging. Colombia's residents are hyper-exaggerated, racist caricatures of 19th century Americans. Heavy social commentary on racism."

Another good one. The funny thing about this one is that they clearly got the point of BioShock, but then got offended by it.

Forza Horizon 5

A screenshot from the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Prnoun selection including an option for they/them. Uses unlabeled presets instead of clearly defined male and female options during character creation."

I have to include this one just for how stupid it is. Forza Horizon 5, the game in which you spend your entire time in a car, is “woke” because it allows you to choose how the in-game characters refer to you. Because only big strong boys play car games, you know.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

A screenshot from the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Contains overtly pro-DEI messaging. Prominently displayed pride and BLM flags. The new POC main character overshadows Peter Parker."

This one is brilliant, because it’s criticising the fact that the protagonist named in the game’s title is “overshadowing” the character who is explicitly not the protagonist. Because he’s black. Let’s not beat around the bush here: this is racism. Again.

Disco Elysium

A screenshot from the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains overtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Features multiple LGBTQ+ characters, including the player character. Heavy social commentary regarding communism. Whether pro or anti is unclear."

I’ll take “I played Disco Elysium and didn’t understand any of the big words” for 2,000, Alex. If you played Disco Elysium and didn’t understand whether it was pro or anti communism, you don’t deserve to be playing video games that have words in.

Final Fantasy VII

A screenshot from the Woke Content Detector database. Reads "Contains subtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging. Contains subtly pro-climate action messaging. Forced cross-dressing. You start the game working for an ecoterrorism group."

And I have to include this one just for the giggles. Final Fantasy VII features “subtly pro-climate action messaging”. Yeah, Final Fantasy VII is real subtle about its environmental message, guys. Real subtle.

I’m utterly amazed at how committed these people are to being pathetic and weird. Because that is exactly what they’re being. There are 386 entries on their “Recommended” (i.e. “not woke”) list, while there are 746 “Not Recommended” (“WOKE!!!”) titles and 299 “Informational” (“A BIT WOKE!!!”) titles.

That’s a thousand and forty-five games that these people will refuse to consider because they might be exposed to a black person, a gay person or, heaven forbid, a woman. There’s no way you can look at that and not think it’s utterly pathetic.

Unless you’re one of them. In which case fuck off. I don’t want to know you.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

2446: We’ve Reached Peak Idiot

At least, I hope this is peak idiot: I present to you an actual article that appeared in the actual business section of the Washington Post, which sported the headline “Is your dog’s Halloween costume sexist?”

No. No, your dog’s Halloween costume is not sexist. It is a costume for a dog.

Between this and Vice’s recent monstrosity of an article about Forza Horizon 3, in which the writer proceeds to spend 1,500 words using the Australian setting of Forza Horizon 3 (a game about nothing more than driving pretty cars very fast around pretty scenery) as an excuse to go off on a tirade against Australian politics in general (actual specific references to the game come in just two out of the article’s 13 paragraphs), it’s hard to imagine if online journalism can get any worse. It’s even harder to imagine exactly why there are people out there who still defend this kind of garbage.

I’ve been continuing to read old back issues of Page 6, Atari User, ANALOG, Antic and ACE recently, and one thing that repeatedly strikes me whenever I read any of these magazines is that the writers know their audience because they are part of that audience. And in the case of all those magazines, that audience is computer enthusiasts; who better to write for them than fellow enthusiasts? Should be a no-brainer, surely.

Nope; instead we get dross that reads like it was written by a recent Social Sciences graduate and which inevitably takes a negative tone of some description — usually of the “Here Are All The Reasons You Should Feel Bad for Liking the Things You Do” variety — rather than performing what, I believe, is a much more valuable function: bringing people together under the banner of the things they love, celebrating those things and perhaps teaching them some intricate, specialist details.

Take the old Atari magazines. Every single one of these, without fail, opened its first issue with a comment from the editor about how Atari computers are far more than just the games machines that people at the time apparently assumed they were. The stated aim of Page 6, ANALOG, Antic and Atari User alike was to explore the length and breadth of titles available for the Atari computer, teaching enthusiasts new things along the way. These old magazines had type-in BASIC listings with full breakdowns of what was happening where in the program, memory maps of the computers so you could learn to program in machine code, special techniques that could elevate your programming from “eh” to “wow!” and all manner of other stuff.

The most negative things ever got was in the editorial section, where editors would occasionally vent their spleen about Atari’s repeated failures to market their own products, or about how they had been let down by industry contacts. This was always framed as an explanation of why, say, the issue didn’t have a feature that readers might expect, rather than being the sole point of the article. The articles themselves were all positive in tone, often educational and far less frustrating to read than the daily garbage modern online journalists seem to be expected to churn out to order.

Times have changed, of course. Magazines used to be published monthly or, in some cases, bi-monthly. Internet publications are expected to be updated on a daily basis, otherwise they are seen as “irrelevant” and “not up to date”. With the amount of pressure on Internet writers, it’s little surprise that they pluck something out of their arse that they know will “get people talking” (i.e. is contentious for one reason or another) rather than spending the time to do proper research or to enthuse about the things they are passionate about.

There’s too much negativity in the world as it is, and it’s coming from all angles: both traditional media and social media. Negativity begets negativity, and the longer it goes on, the more cynical we get. We’re at a stage now where many people simply don’t trust the online press to cover things as an enthusiast would, and that’s going to be hard to recover from. Meanwhile, the Men In Suits see outrage-bait like the articles linked above as “successes” because they bring in the clicks and consequent advertising revenue.

Advertising impressions lie, however. An impression on an article in the commercial press doesn’t mean someone liked what the author had to say. More often than not, it’s the result of someone having a look at an article out of sheer disbelief that someone really wrote an article about dogs’ Halloween costumes being sexist, or about how Forza Horizon 3 depicts a “better Australia than [Australians] deserve”.

I wish it were possible to just make this mess stop, and for us all to go back to a world where enthusiasts write about the things they are knowledgeable about rather than everyone, everywhere trying to make everything somehow “political”. There’s a time and a place for politics, and, unless you are reviewing a game that deals with political issues — either through its narrative or its mechanics — then that place is emphatically not in the games press. Certainly not in an article about a driving game; and certainly not in an article about a driving game that exists solely to revel in the sheer joy of driving.

Also, you can dress your dog up however the fuck you like so long as you’re not hurting it. Make it extra slutty, take loads of photos for Facebook and immediately unfriend anyone who whines about sexism. You don’t need dickholes like that in your life.

1158: Forking One’s Dongle

Some of you may have been following this recent unfolding story via the social Web and other avenues, but I thought I’d mention it here for those who haven’t seen it. I am talking about the recent incident at PyCon, a conference for Python developers all over the world.

There’s a comprehensive rundown of what happened over at VentureBeat (and follow-up here), but in case you can’t be bothered to read all those difficult words, here are the pertinent points:

“Evangelist” is an actual job title these days outside of the religious community. Sweet Jesus. No pun intended.
Adria Richards, a “developer evangelist” for a company called SendGrid that has something to do with email (I don’t really understand it, to be perfectly honest, but that’s not massively important) “called out” two male developers during a keynote session at PyCon for making allegedly “sexual” jokes about “forking repos” and “big dongles”. She did this by taking a photograph of them and then posting it to Twitter.
“Forking a repo” apparently refers to taking a piece of source code and developing it into a new piece of software not, you know, fucking it, despite the fact “I’d like to fork that” is a somewhat innuendo-laden phrase, particularly if you say it like a Cockney while rubbing your thighs, which reports don’t suggest these two gentlemen did.
“Dongle”, a piece of hardware that allows a particular function to happen, is an indisputably funny word because it has the word “Dong” in it. “Dongle” is also ripe for innuendo because it has the word “Dong” in it.
The inevitable Twitter shitstorm kicked off as a result of Richards’ tweet.
Richards started receiving rape and death threats but continued to feed the trolls.
One of the developers in the photograph was fired after the incident.
One of the developers (I’m not sure if it’s the same one who was fired offhand) apologised to Richards.
SendGrid suffered a DDOS attack following the incident.
SendGrid fired Richards today, explaining that the company supported her right to speak out against content she found objectionable, but not in the very public, provocative manner in which she did so.
???
Profi– wait, no, that’s something else.

Now, I’ve said a number of times on here that I recognise and accept that women in the tech industry generally — not just the video games sector — are in a difficult position, having to compete against something of a “boys’ club” mentality. And these women should speak out when something inappropriate is said or done to them.

This incident, though? I could tell yesterday when it all kicked off that it was going to be a real mess. The big issue we have here is that the things the male developers said weren’t really sexist comments. They weren’t directed at a woman, they clearly weren’t maliciously intended and for all we know, they really were talking about literally wanting to fork the repo under discussion rather than making the rather childish joke it seems they were making. (And come on. When your profession requires you to talk about “dongles” with a straight face, even the most sour-faced git has to crack a smile every so often.)

There’s also the issue of Richards and whether or not she invaded their privacy. The comments were made between the two men as a “private” joke — or as private as a joke can be in a crowded conference hall, anyway. Richards, the argument goes, eavesdropped on their conversation then shared details of it to the social Web when what she should have actually done was spoken to the two men herself, told them that the things they were saying made her uncomfortable, given them the opportunity to apologise if they wanted to, and that should have been that.

The flip side to the issue, of course, is that by making innuendo-laden jokes at a tech conference like this, these gents could be seen to be perpetuating the “boys’ club” mentality — even if the comments weren’t directly addressed to a woman. But in response to that I would again point out that at worst they were indulging in a childish, harmless pun that even a primary school kid would shake their head at, and at best they were simply using programmer slang with absolutely no intended sexual connotations whatsoever. Besides, I know plenty of women who are a dab hand at the old innuendo game themselves. And even Richards herself was caught making jokes about stuffing socks down someone’s pants for when the TSA felt them up at the airport.

In short, the whole thing ended up being rather surreal, and no-one really came out of it a winner. Richards came out of it looking like one of the stereotypical feminists that those ridiculous “men’s rights” groups get up in arms about, getting offended at something that really wasn’t worth getting offended over. The developers who made the comments have had their names and faces dragged through the mud. And in the meantime, two people have lost their jobs and at least one of them is suffering a considerable amount of bullying and abuse as a result of this whole situation.

Ultimately, Richards’ “speaking out” against the two developers’ behaviour has probably done more harm than good, not least because the manner in which she did it cost her her own job and attracted the wrath of the very worst the Internet has to offer. I sympathise with her from that perspective, having suffered cyberbullying on a far smaller scale than this incident — but I also think she was a complete pillock for inciting this whole shitstorm in the first place. To reiterate: that doesn’t justify the atrocious behaviour and abuse that has been directed her way, but at the same time, she’s not at all blameless in this matter.

The social Web is a powerful tool and can be a force for good. But it can also destroy lives. Think about that before you do or say anything stupid.

1144: A Life Without Nerd-Rage

I haven’t even contemplated going back to Twitter yet, but not because I have no desire to run into the scumbuckets who drove me off it in the first place. No, my lack of desire to go back to Twitter stems from my dislike of irrational table-thumping arguments on the most ridiculous of subjects, usually video game-related.

Mr Craig Bamford said it best back in February:

CAN WE PLEASE STOP TRYING TO HAVE SERIOUS DEBATES ON TWITTER OF ALL THINGS?

See title.

No, really. See title. I’m enormously, impossibly tired of how everybody who writes about games seems to think that the best-or-only way to have debates on serious, often wrenchingly-personal issues is on Twitter.

Yes, I’m guilty of this myself. I know. But every single time it happens, I feel like I’ve made a mistake. I’m just reminded of how Twitter is an incredibly dumb way to handle these things. The posts are too short, there’s no proper threading, you can’t follow the discussion properly unless you follow everybody involved, expanding the size of the group makes it even worse, you can barely mention people without drawing them in…

…it’s just a gigantic dog’s breakfast that makes absolutely everybody involved look bad.

Worse, it elevates bad arguments. It seems custom-tailored for dumb appeals to authority/popularity and thrashing of strawmen and misquotation and pretty much everything OTHER than an actual grownup discussion of issues. It’s absolutely one-hundred-percent boosting the arguments that are “simple, straightforward, and wrong”, as the saying goes. That likely has a lot to do with why everybody seems to rush to the most extreme interpretation of arguments and positions. Extreme arguments tend to be straightforward ones.

Sure, there’s worse. Facebook, for example. But every day I’m more and more convinced that Twitter should really be used to link to arguments, instead of make arguments. It’s not working. So, please, stop.

I agree with him entirely. Too many times over the last year in particular have we seen game journalists and critics with disproportionately loud online “voices” telling us what to think. Usually these loudmouths are attempting to address the issues of sexism and misogyny in the industry — a noble goal, for sure, as few can deny that women still get treated like shit at times through no fault of their own — but more often than not they get so embroiled in beating their fists on their desk that they lose all track of their arguments and end up coming across as… well, a bit childish really. Often these rants come about when the full information on a given situation isn’t available, either — they’re a kneejerk response to things which often aren’t the “problem” they appear to be at first glance.

Let’s take the recently-released Tomb Raider reboot as an example. I haven’t played it yet, but I’ve been discussing it with a friend who has this evening. He’s an intelligent sort of chap with a keen critical eye, and he has found himself very impressed with the depiction of the young Lara Croft as a vulnerable young woman caught up in a situation that she isn’t entirely comfortable with, and having to do things that she finds difficult or scary. The tale of Tomb Raider is as much one of Lara overcoming her own difficulties at dealing with particular things as it is about… whatever the overarching plot of the new game is. (I’m intending to “go in blind” when I eventually play it, so I have no idea what the actual story is about.) My friend compared it to the movie The Descent, with which it sounds like it shares many of its themes and much of its tone. This means that Lara is frequently put in various types of danger — from the environment, from wild animals, and from other people. This also means that there are times when the wet-behind-the-ears young Lara is absolutely fucking terrified of what is happening to her, and justifiably so.

Is this sexist? No, not really; it’s a perfectly human response to shit your pants (not literally… I don’t think) at the prospect of having various forms of unpleasantness inflicted upon you, regardless of whether you’re male or female. Likewise, as much as we would like to forget it happens, violence and sexual assaults do happen to women — and men too, for that matter — because there are certain portions of human society who are complete scumbags who have no regard for human life, male or female.

Lara happens to be female, which means that the situations she is put in over the course of Tomb Raider have been under a disproportionately greater amount of scrutiny than if she was a male hero — regardless of whether or not said male hero is a realistically-rendered character (as Lara is intended to be in this reboot) or a muscle-bound caricature. Lara is put into some difficult situations over the course of the game, including at least one scene where she appears to be at risk of sexual assault. Much was made of this scene when it was first revealed — particularly comments from the development team that it would make players “want to protect Lara”. This was immediately interpreted by the aforementioned loudmouths as being misogynistic and in a sense they’re correct to say that — the characters in the game are misogynists who don’t care about Lara’s wellbeing. But — and here’s the thing — this doesn’t mean that the developers share these attitudes just because they put these characters in the game. You have to have conflict and tension for something to be exciting. Did it have to be the implied threat of sexual assault? No, of course it didn’t, but equally that doesn’t mean we should shy away from such subjects in our entertainment — to do so can actually be pretty harmful, as it makes genuine victims of this sort of thing feel like their suffering is something to be ashamed of. It’s also just plain insulting to grown-ups who want their entertainment to acknowledge that Sometimes Bad Shit Happens to Good People.

I don’t want to get too bogged down in Tomb Raider because it’s just one example of this sort of thing going on. I happened to sneak a glance at Twitter earlier out of curiosity and it seemed that the latest controversy to hit the Intertubes related to Sony’s new God of War game, which features an automatically-attained story-related Trophy awarded to the player the moment after the lead character Kratos stomps on the face of a Fury following what, I assume, is one of the series lengthy combat sequences. The trophy is called “Bros Before Hos”, which is arguably somewhat in bad taste, but we’re talking about a series full of a muscle-bound man ripping the eyeballs out of mythological creatures the size of your average Ikea while shouting incoherently, so I think we can agree that subtlety went out of the window a long time ago.

Because a Fury is a woman, this scene (and by extension the Trophy) is now misogynistic. Again, it might well be in the context of the game — I haven’t played any of them so I don’t know what sort of person Kratos is (besides “the angriest man in Greece”) and what his attitudes towards women are — but in the case of the game’s development, God of War is based on established mythology (or an interpretation thereof, anyway) in which the Furies were (are?) female, and not very nice things to encounter to boot. If you had the opportunity and the means, you would probably want to stamp on their face too, and that’s nothing to do with the fact they are women — it is, however, everything to do with the fact that they are infernal goddesses of much unpleasantness. Do we now have to disregard established mythology because of concerns over violence against women? No, that’s ridiculous; that’s wrapping the world in cotton wool, which helps no-one.

Note that in all of these cases I am not advocating for people to be free to promote things that are harmful to society. I would feel deeply uncomfortable playing a game in which you were somehow rewarded for inflicting domestic violence on someone, for example — although if tackled with sensitivity and care (which many triple-A developers lack, but which many smaller-scale or indie developers have proven themselves to possess in abundance) it could be possible to create an interesting, if distressing sort of interactive story about domestic violence. (In fact, it has sort of been done at least once, to an extent anyway: for a fascinating and challenging exploration of an abusive relationship through the use of allegory, play the game Magical Diary — which was written by a woman — and pursue the romance with Damien.)

What I am instead saying is that getting outraged any time a female character (or, for that matter, a non-white, young, elderly, homosexual, trans or other “non-white twentysomething cis male” character) is placed in peril, regardless of the circumstances, is counter-productive. It diminishes the value of the arguments as a whole, and distracts attention from content that genuinely is a problem. After the controversy over the Hitman trailer with all its leather-clad nuns and other assorted ridiculousness dreamed up by the 14-year olds in Square Enix’s marketing department, I confess I found myself blocking most of the people involved in the “discussions” around the issue on Twitter not because I wanted to deny there was a problem, but because I couldn’t deal with the way people were arguing about it. There was no debate, no discussion — nothing but “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” for day after day. And as soon as one controversy subsided, another appeared. And so it continued for month after month after month. It made me stop caring completely, which is the complete opposite of what these people presumably intended.

Rage like this doesn’t even have to be directed at a sociological issue, though; just recently everyone has been getting extremely angry at EA because of SimCity’s online requirement, just like they did with Diablo III. Again, very few people are considering all the facts at play here, which I won’t get into now, and instead resorting to kneejerk rage which, if you disagree with, you’re somehow an asshole. There always has to be something to be angry about. And it’s exhausting.

So, in summary, I am very happy to have now, for the most part, taken a step back from the seething masses — and while said masses are still seething I have very little intention of heading back in a Twitterly direction unless absolutely necessary.

I’ll let Irina sum up how I feel about all this with the Understatement of the Century.

Quite.

1078: Things I Hope We See the Back of in 2013

As I noted yesterday, 2012 was a reasonable year, if a relatively unremarkable one. However, it did play host to a number of trends that really, really need to fuck the fuck off. Here is a selection of my picks for things that I would very much like to not see any more next year.

Gangnam Style

LOOK! LOOK AT THE FUNNY KOREAN MAN! HE DANCING! HAHAHAHAHA

No. Fuck off. When your “viral sensation” gets performed on X-Factor, you know it has officially jumped the shark.

The phrase “jumped the shark”

I can remember it now, but I originally had to look this up five or six times before I could actually remember what it meant. It is a Happy Days reference, for heaven’s sake. Is there not something a bit more, you know, timely you could refer to? Or perhaps just say what you mean? Speaking of which…

Using the term “nice guy” to mean “creep”

I have ranted at length on this subject before so I will spare you that this time and simply say that by doing this you are simply perpetuating the stereotype that people who describe themselves as “nice guys” are creeps and rapists-in-training. Some of them are creeps, to be sure, but some of them are simply shy people with poor social skills. I count myself in the latter category, and have referred to myself as a “nice guy” in the past, and now feel hideously guilty about that. So quit tarring everyone with the same brush and find a new term to describe creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable, regardless of what they call themselves. I suggest “creepy guys who make women feel uncomfortable” or perhaps just, you know, “creeps”. Capitalising Nice Guy or adding a ™ is not an acceptable way of creating a new term.

Reducing complex sociological issues to binary debates

This is apparent when you look at a number of different issues in today’s sociological climate, but it’s particularly evident any time someone starts talking about sexism and/or feminism. If you’re not in support of the most vocal, outspoken, ranty people who are standing up against sexism, you’re a misogynist. If you are someone who speaks out against sexism, regardless of whether or not you’re being obnoxious in your arguing techniques, you’re a “feminazi”. If you try and have a reasoned, rational debate on this subject, you’re “part of the problem”. There are no shades of grey here.

(Clarification that I am annoyed I feel obliged to include: My beliefs: sexism is bad, regardless of who it is directed towards. Women are awesome. Men are equally awesome. If the world learned this and treated people accordingly, it would be a much nicer place. Yelling incoherently at people is not the same as re-educating them.)

“dot TXT” Twitter accounts

NaNoWriMo participants, fanfic authors and bloggers are all pretty brave to put their work out there for public scrutiny, so how do you think they might feel about having extracts of things they have written or said quoted out of context, posted to Twitter and then retweeted to all and sundry? Yeah. Cut that shit out. On the subject…

Public shaming

Twitter users like “@fart” spend an awful lot of time trawling the social network for examples of things like “ungrateful teens” at Christmas, retweeting what is apparently their most offensive tweet and then, as a bit of frantic backpedaling, encouraging their followers not to harass these people. (I’m aware @fart isn’t the only one, but he’s certainly one of the most well-known.) Sites like BuzzFeed then collect together these tweets and post them as evidence of “first world problems” and other such bullshit. An example was here, but it has since been removed by the author, perhaps partly as a result of this article on Slate.

Public shaming of people for things like this is a horrible way to behave that makes you little more than a bully — especially in cases such as this, where we see that all is not necessarily as it first appears. Call people out if they are genuinely being publicly offensive, sure, but don’t hold them up for ridicule.

Tumblr

Back in 2008, I posted this short entry in which I lamented the fact I didn’t really know what Tumblr was for or why anyone would want to use it. Now I know: it’s for telling the world how awful white people, men, and white men are. The second a white person says something stupid, you can count on there being a Tumblr for it within a matter of minutes, which runs whatever “joke” there was well and truly into the ground, often setting world records for how quickly it can make grumpy people like me want to set fire to anyone who makes such a reference.

White straight cis male guilt

Much of the above leads to white straight cis male guilt. (If you don’t know what “cis” means, it is an abbreviation of “cisgender”, which is where an individual’s self-perceived gender matches their sex, and the opposite of “transgender”. I had to look it up, despite the number of people who are now using it regularly, often in an attempt to make themselves look super-socially aware.) Being a white straight cis male is not anything to be ashamed of, but from the number of people who preface pieces of work by seemingly apologising for being the person they are, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. The white straight cis male viewpoint is just as valid as the black gay transgender female perspective, and nothing to feel guilty about.

The only thing you should feel guilty about is not giving viewpoints other than your own the time of day, regardless of your ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, sex and any other factors. You can give respect to viewpoints other than your own without diminishing the relevance of your own contributions.

Variations on that Keep Calm and Carry On poster

If I never have to see an “amusing” poster that says “Keep Calm and [something that isn’t Carry On]” again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. Indeed, if I never see a piece of merchandise that has the original “Keep Calm and Carry On” slogan on it again in 2013 and beyond, I will be happy. For those who were unaware, the original poster was put out in very limited quantities in 1939 to raise the morale of the British public in the face of the rise of the Nazis, and was subsequently rediscovered in 2000, at which point it exploded and was everyfuckingwhere. Ironically, the reaction on seeing a “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster is now a crushing sense of distress at the state of the modern world rather than a feeling of increased morale.

Data limits

We’re living in the future. We really are. We carry around gizmos in our pocket that are straight out of Star Trek, and yet our usage of them is artificially limited by mobile phone companies’ desire to squeeze as much money out of us as possible. That didn’t happen in Star Trek.

Negativity towards new tech

The new consoles that have been released recently — 3DS, Vita and Wii U — were all met with negativity upon their initial release. The situation with 3DS has improved somewhat, but Vita is still struggling a bit, and it’s too early to say with Wii U so far. These are all great bits of kit that, in many cases, don’t deserve the beatdowns they get. In 2013 I’d like to see a much greater focus on the things that these systems do well, and things that people who have bought one can appreciate, rather than endless Why Not To Buy One pieces.

Sales figures being equated to whether something is any good or not

People don’t like buying stuff that isn’t selling (see: Vita) but this doesn’t mean that those things aren’t actually any good. The Vita (sorry to keep harping on about it, but it’s a good example) is a gorgeous piece of kit, but people are ignoring this arguably more important fact because its sales figures aren’t very good.

Fact: pretty much everything I’ve enjoyed this year has been a “niche” title that hasn’t been designed to sell in massive quantities. Not everything has to be a blockbuster.

Unnecessary mobile social networking apps

If you’re considering seeking funding for a new mobile app that “lets you Like anything!” or is yet another Instagram ripoff then just stop. Now. No-one is going to use your product for more than five minutes. Before you design your app consider whether or not the world really needs it or would at least find it somehow beneficial. If the answer to either of those questions is “no”, then reconsider what you are doing.

Blind reposting

This has been a particular issue on Facebook this year. People see something that they think is amazing (like that supposed Morgan Freeman quote on the school shooting) and then blindly reshare it to their Facebook friends without checking to see whether or not it’s actually true. It subsequently spreads and spreads and spreads, because very few people along the way bother to fact-check it. When someone does fact-check it, discovers it to be bollocks and says so, they are often lambasted. “It does no harm,” people will say. “It’s a nice quote, does it matter who said it?”

Well, perhaps not in the case of a thought-provoking quote misattributed to Morgan Freeman, but when you see the massive virality of scaremongering posts accusing, say, Red Bull of containing a chemical that causes brain tumours, that’s when you can hopefully start to see where the problem lies.

Let me introduce you to Snopes.com. If something sounds suspiciously like bollocks, it probably is, so check it out on Snopes.

____

I could go on but I’ve already written nearly 1,500 words so far. I think if all of the above just went and vanished in time for the new year, I’d be happy for maybe a few days at least. Then something new will undoubtedly come along to irritate me, and I can write another post like this on December 31, 2013. See you then.

(Actually, I’ll see you tomorrow, but you know.)

Oh, and happy new year for later, I guess.

1050: I Said A-Snark, Snark, A-Snarkitty Snark, A Snark-Snark-Snarkitty-Snark

Another day, another day of snark on the Internet. This time the sources were twofold: firstly, the Pope joined Twitter (and, apparently, his first tweet will be on December 12, begging the question why the account has been set up and announced now) and secondly, it emerged that Kate Middleton (or whatever we’re supposed to call her now) is pregnant and suffering from “acute morning sickness”, apparently.

Neither of these things are of particularly earth-shattering importance, and both of them can be easily ignored. I have spent most of the day ignoring them both completely, and am only mentioning them now out of frustration — not at the things themselves, of course, but rather at the reaction to them.

The Pope’s presence on Twitter was, of course, greeted by numerous sarcastic replies and fake retweets; the news of the “royal baby” (as it is now known) was greeted by general disdain and constant repetition of “THIS ISN’T NEWS”. Well, whether or not it is is a matter of opinion, of course, but if you don’t think it’s news and have no wish to contribute to making it news, you could always, you know, stop talking about it.

I don’t know if my weariness with this sort of thing is just a symptom of getting older or general fatigue at having seen so much snark over the past couple of years in particular, but either way… yes, I am tired of it. Because it doesn’t let up, either. You can unfollow and block the people who are being a pain, but they’ll get retweeted and quoted; you can close your social media windows altogether, but then you can’t talk to your friends. (And when you are, at least for the next couple of weeks, a long way away from your nearest friends, yes this is a big deal.)

It is probably related to my general fatigue with the Internet-based slacktivists (previously discussed here) who rant and rave about a particular issue (usually, at the time of writing, sexism) until they’re blue in the face but then don’t appear to actually do anything beyond declare certain blog posts and articles “mandatory reading” and then ignore any attempts to actually engage in discussion or education.

The ironic thing with this behaviour is that it drowns out the actual message they’re trying to convey. In the case of the fervent anti-sexism brigade, who are quick to splatter anyone who disagrees with them with the “privileged white male” brush — perhaps fairly in some cases, perhaps not in others — it means that the underlying message of tolerance, acceptance and equality gets lost in all the noise of people shouting and screaming and demanding that everyone unfollow a particular person on Twitter because they said something they don’t agree with. (It wasn’t me.)

Not only does it drown out the message they’re trying to convey, it makes me care less, which is the complete opposite of what they’re trying to do, surely. I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but I certainly do. The more these people froth at the mouth and shout and bellow and point fingers and demand that people read this article by their friend, the less of a shit I give — because I don’t want to be associated with them. Not because I disagree with their ideals — as I’ve mentioned a number of times previously, I agree with what they’re arguing for in most cases! — but because the confrontational, aggressive way in which they try to get their points across is just so completely loathsome to me that I don’t want anything to do with it.

So I block them. I literally silence them. Which is exactly one of the things that they complain about, usually without any sense of irony that their own furious, righteous anger is itself intimidating and silencing people who genuinely want to discuss, engage and understand these complex, non-binary issues in greater depth.

I didn’t take the decision to block a bunch of these people lightly, and I occasionally feel guilty that I have done so. Many of them are supposedly “respected” figures, and some are friends with people that I consider to be friends. But I haven’t unblocked them.

Why? Because I have tried to engage them in discussion. I have tried to see these complex issues from a variety of different perspectives and talk about them accordingly. I have tried to have a rational, reasoned debate. And yet the last time I attempted to do this — I forget the exact topic now, as I unfollowed the Facebook comment thread shortly afterwards feeling genuinely upset — I was shouted down with the words “get a grip”. No attempt to engage. No attempt to discuss or debate. No attempt to help me understand their points of view. A simple shutdown.

I gave up at that point. That is when I wrote this post. That is when I simply decided to avoid confrontation altogether and “stay out of trouble”, as it were.

This isn’t how it should be, surely. People should be aware of these issues and feel able to discuss them openly without fear. Fighting hate with hate is counter-productive and achieves nothing except alienating people like me while causing both “sides” of the debate to dig their heels in and argue ever-more aggressively.

#oneaday Day 988: Love and Tolerate

The world is full of social issues that really, thinking about it, we should probably have gotten over by now. As a general rule, hating anyone for arbitrary reasons such as their gender, race, sexuality or haircut is something that the human race of the 21st century should have moved past now, but it’s sad to see that this sort of thing still goes on. And yes, people probably should speak out against sexism, misogyny, racism and all manner of other issues when they crop up. If they don’t, then these issues just continue to fester and get worse. If you don’t get any sort of feedback on the things you say, you never learn that they aren’t acceptable, after all.

At the same time, I can’t help feeling discomfort at the tone in which some of these criticisms are presented. I read an article over on Boing Boing today about “why the fedora grosses out geekdom”. Perhaps I’m not clever enough to “get” Leigh Alexander’s writing, but I came out of that article having absolutely no idea of what she was getting at. Supposedly she was exploring why the fedora had such negative associations, even among members of geek culture — this is the first I’ve heard of it, I have to say — but it actually came across to me as yet another rant against the phenomenon of “Nice Guys”. I’ve written about this topic in the past and it really does bother me — even more so since learning that a very good friend of mine (and a genuine nice guy (no caps) to boot) abandoned his previous (excellent) blog due to its name — “Nice Guy Gamer” — having negative connotations. While I don’t argue that there are guys out there who do fulfil the “Nice Guy” (with caps) stereotype, as someone who believes himself to be nice (no caps) it irks me enormously any time this discussion comes up.

In short, Alexander’s piece just came across as rather judgemental, even if that wasn’t the intention. In providing links to the various “shaming” Tumblrs that focus on men wearing fedoras and these supposed negative connotations, she has fuelled the fire and made people aware of another avenue of bullying people based on their fashion choices. Not only that, she has also drawn attention to a supposed connection between the people who choose to dress this way and undesirable character traits. Statistically speaking, there probably are some men who wear fedoras and who are manipulative jerkwads, but equally, there are probably also plenty of men who choose to wear them purely as a means to express themselves. We geeks aren’t particularly known for dressing well at the best of times, so perhaps we should cut those who make an effort to give themselves a distinctive appearance a bit of slack. (NB: I do not own a fedora. I do have a straw trilby that was purchased entirely to stop me giving myself sunstroke when sitting outside, and not as a fashion statement.)

I guess my point is that while there are plenty of issues that really do need resolving — the way that many women are treated on a daily basis is unacceptable; racial epithets just need to go away; medieval attitudes towards sexuality need to be thrown through the window — there are clearly better ways of going about it than attacking (or at least drawing unnecessary attention to) subcultures or trends that may or may not have anything to do with undesirable character traits. Attack sexism, misogyny, racism, homophobia and all that other bullshit the world can do without when it comes up, yes. Speak out against injustices. Make a difference.

But seriously. Dudes in hats? Let them enjoy their quirks. Love and tolerate. Not everything is bad. At this rate there will be very little left in the world for people to enjoy without feeling guilty or self-conscious. And that sounds like a pretty miserable existence to me — especially as a geek who feels perpetually uneasy and self-conscious.

#oneaday Day 953: Like A Dragon

I beat Yakuza 3 tonight, which is why I’m up so late.

The Yakuza series is excellent for many reasons, chief among which is protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, who is just so effortlessly badass throughout that you can’t help but admire him. And yet he somehow manages to be this way without falling into the testosterone-fuelled arsehole trap, which is good. One could argue that it’s further evidence that the Japanese are actually rather good at writing strong, interesting, deep and flawed characters, while the West is often stuck in Tropesville. (This is a gross generalisation, of course, but Yakuza does provide good ammunition against anyone who says Eastern games are just about big-eyed anime girls and floppy-haired teenage protagonists.)

However, one thing was at the back of my mind while I was playing, and it relates to this (rather ranty) Eurogamer opinion piece from a week or two back, during the “girlfriend mode” scandal, also known as “Game Developer Says Something Stupid, Episode 357”. The article had a point — people should speak up when misogyny and sexism rear their ugly heads — but the fact that the article specifically called out Yakuza for being sexist really bothered me.

It raised an interesting question, you see. Yakuza certainly features depictions of a particular breed of sexism and misogyny endemic to Japanese big-city life, but does that make the game, in itself, inherently sexist? Does the fact that the game allows its protagonist to visit “hostess bars” and attempt to romance the women within mean it is a sexist work? Does the fact that the game allows the protagonist to visit a poledancing club mean that it is misogynistic?

You could argue the case for “yes”, clearly, but the perspective from which I approach the Yakuza series is that it provides a (mostly) realistic depiction of another culture that is relatively alien to my own. Part of that culture is sexist, and to deny that it exists causes the depiction of that culture to no longer be accurate or realistic, putting the developers in something of a quandary. Sure, we could probably do without the lengthy cutscenes depicting poledancers doing their thing just before there’s a big manly fight, but for the most part, the Yakuza games depict sexism rather than actually being outright sexist. (As a matter of fact, the incidental female characters in the “hostess bars” are considerably more well-developed than any number of T&A-toting heroines from Western games in recent years. The game also passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours.)

Should we decry Yakuza as a bad thing for showing it like it is and not attempting to make a positive change in society? No, no we shouldn’t. Because not all art is there to make life better. Not all art is there to make a positive change. Not all art is there to create a utopian vision of What Life Should Be Like. Some art is there to depict How Life Is, and Yakuza succeeds in that admirably.

While I do believe it is important to call out sexism and misogyny in the industry when it comes up, I don’t believe the Yakuza series is the biggest problem. I don’t believe it’s a particular problem at all, to be honest. The writers of Yakuza create female characters who are real, interesting people rather than sex objects, and the protagonist interacts with them accordingly. Any sexism present in the game is a result of accurately depicting a sexist society — with the possible exception of the aforementioned poledancing cutscene, but one could argue that was there to establish ambience and atmosphere. And it’s not as if Kazuma goes around beating or raping women, either — every antagonist in the game is male, and Kaz himself treats all the women he comes across with nothing but respect, save for the odd option to give a cheeky, innuendo-filled response to a hostess.

Were the Yakuza series to be sanitised and watered down, with anything deemed to be sexist or misogynistic stripped out, a big part of the game’s authentic-feeling Japanese atmosphere would be gone. As much as we would like to believe we live in a world where there is true equality, the fact is we do not — and in many places around Japan, this is particularly obvious. To deny that this happens by whitewashing your content — particularly in a game that is aimed at adults — would just be short-sighted, and I’d argue that it’s more helpful to acknowledge that all this goes on without being hysterical or sensationalist about it.

But anyway. Yakuza 3 is pretty great. You should play it.

#oneaday Day 938: Stop Shouting, Start Talking

As I have said before on a number of occasions, I do not enjoy conflict, disputes, arguments or anything that gets a bit “heated”. My own social anxiety tends to make me overthink it and repeatedly go over it in my mind and worry that it’s “personal”, even if it isn’t. And the sort of passive-aggressive comments that inevitably come up when one of these situations arises inevitably make me paranoid that they’re talking about me, even if they aren’t.

But that’s a little off the point of what I wanted to talk about, though it does involve conflict.

For those who weren’t following the debacle on Twitter earlier, Gearbox Software, developers of Borderlands 2, chatted with Eurogamer about an addon character that would be following the game’s launch. The developer in question (Hemingway? I’m writing this on my phone so can’t be arsed to multitask) commented that this character had a skill tree called “Best Friends Forever” that provided a number of significant boosts to a less skilled player, allowing them to play alongside someone very familiar with first-person shooters and still have a good time. Things like being able to ricochet bullets into enemies if you aimed vaguely near them rather than having to be properly accurate — real noob-friendly stuff, and actually a really good idea to make the game accessible to less skilled players, or two co-op partners of uneven skill.

The trouble arose when the developer referred to this particular set of abilities as “for want of a better term, the girlfriend skill tree”. This was misquoted by Eurogamer in its own article as “girlfriend mode” and the whole thing then spiralled out of control through the usual game of Chinese Whispers, making significant proportions of the Internet very angry indeed and effectively tainting what was actually a very good idea with the distinct whiff of sexism.

The dude’s words were ill-considered and stupid and Gearbox should have apologised for them rather than poncing around trying to do “damage control” like they instead chose to. The fact they were said at all is symptomatic of a large sexism problem within the video games industry, and this is an issue that should be addressed.

Addressed calmly and rationally.

Unfortunately, that latter part is what is escaping commentators on both “sides” of this debate. One side starts yelling about how awful this is, making increasingly over-the-top arguments, then the other strikes back in exactly the same way, leaving everyone looking rather foolish. I of course understand that this is something that people are passionate about — particularly feminists who work hard to promote a much-needed female equality agenda — but “passionate” should not mean the same as “angry” or, at times, “disrespectful”. Any time either side descended into all-caps sarcasm (and BOTH sides were guilty of this several times throughout the day) it just ruined the point of what they were trying to say and ended up looking rather childish, really.

I’ll reiterate: I believe sexism is a problem in society, particularly in the video games industry. But spitting feathers, swearing, making false comparisons, wilfully misquoting things and taking a “who can shout loudest” approach is just counterproductive, surely. I accept that it is frustrating every time something this stupid happens, and I agree that it should be talked about — there were plenty of people out today just wishing everyone would shut up, which isn’t a helpful attitude to take — but yelling isn’t the right way to go about it because it just leads to a downward spiral of both sides becoming more and more defensive.

Instead, what is needed is rational, sensible, calm and honest discussion. Those upset by the comments should be able to point out that they were upset — and why — without fear of reprisal. Those who didn’t see why there was a problem should open their minds and see the other side’s viewpoint rather than immediately going on the defensive. And the hidden third faction who just wanted everyone to shut up should calmly accept that different people hold different views, and just because they don’t want to hear about something doesn’t mean that no-one should talk about it.

Unfortunately, the very nature of the Internet means that immediate, passionate knee-jerk reactions are the way most people go — and once someone gets up on their high horse it’s very hard to get them down again, regardless of what viewpoint they hold. It becomes exhausting for everyone involved and everyone observing, and just ends up leaving a distinctly bitter taste in the mouth — one that could have easily been avoided had the issue been addressed promptly, calmly and rationally by everyone involved.

Instead, we get what we had today, which was a bit of an embarrassment for everyone involved. I sincerely hope that one day we can sit down and talk about these things without all of the RIGHTEOUS FURY, because then we’re much more likely to get something productive done about it.

Because seriously, people, it’s 2012 and we’re still discussing gender issues. Surely the human race should have moved past this sort of discrimination by now?

At least there are certain corners of the Internet where sexism is tackled effectively, calmly and rationally — just as it should be. Check out this great story to see How It’s Done.

#oneaday, Day 252: 5 Social Norms That Need To Die The Hell Out

There are some things which have become so firmly entrenched in normal society that we just don’t question them. We don’t necessarily like them, but we certainly don’t question them if someone happens to bring them up. They’re so well-known that countless comedy routines have drawn attention to them over the years; so much so that many of them are now clichés. That doesn’t stop people writing about them and perpetuating said clichés, though, as I’m about to do right now.

So without further ado, let me present Five Inexplicable Social Norms that the World can Really Do Without™.

The toilet seat thing

Alluded to above. Roughly 50% of the world’s population, give or take, have to take a piss standing up. Well, they don’t have to. But gentlemen who choose to urinate whilst in a seated position are generally scorned and looked upon as some sort of weirdo. For a chap, sitting is for pooing and standing is for pissing. Would the ladies out there who whinge about toilet seats being left up prefer it if said gentlemen just left it down all the time and pissed all over it instead? No? Then consider this: the seat has a hinge on it so it can be lifted up and put down. If it is in the incorrect position for one’s desired toilet activity, one need simply use one’s hand to move said seat to the correct position.

While we’re on, those toilets whose seats don’t stay up can die in a fire. Having to hold on to the toilet seat with one hand and directing one’s flow with the other often feels rather precarious and I feel that anyone who inadvertently spills in a place they shouldn’t whilst under such arduous pissing conditions should not be held responsible.

Man flu

Apparently, guys aren’t allowed to get ill any more. Whether it’s a tickly cough, some form of debilitating brain cancer, ebola or itchy scrot, it seems that everyone is quick to cry “Man flu!” at the first opportunity. The zombie apocalypse will not come from some sort of biohazard outbreak at a local lab. No, it will come from the man who caught zombie disease, went to hospital, was accused of just having “man flu” and sent on his way.

Overenthusiastic use of the word “random”

“OMG! I’m such a random person really. We went out and had a drink and it was like OMG! Random!”

No. “Random” means… well… random. Completely by chance. Out of all the possibilities that are there, everything has an equal possibility of happening. It is not “random” that you met that hot girl at The Dungeon one night, because you knew she was there. Your night out was not “so random”, because you’d planned it weeks in advance with your compadres. You are not a “random” person, because otherwise your conversations would run something along the lines of “Cabbage! 352! Cocks. Horatio! England. Belching squirrel. 976!”

Settling for second-best

This could be applied to so, so many things but I’d like to particularly refer to the world of employment. How many people do you (yes, you!) know personally who regularly bitch and moan about their job, their colleagues, how much they hate what they’re doing, how they “wish” they could do something “better” and then never do a damn thing about it? Some people don’t have a clue what it is what they want to do. To those people I say: think harder. If you are sitting in an office surrounded by other people who clearly want to slit their wrists or take far more regular toilet breaks than a normal person because they’re actually going there to cry for five minutes at a time, then you are probably in The Wrong Job.

Being unemployed has been a festival of suckitude, but I just know that if I was in that aforementioned office, while money might be coming in the way I’d be feeling would be ten times worse, because I’d feel trapped and unable to pursue the things I really do want to do. (Talking of which, I have a job interview for a job I really do want tomorrow. Wish me luck.)

Embarrassment over bettering oneself

I went out for a run today, but felt the familiar pang of anyone who is unfit going out in public to exercise: “what if anyone sees me?” This immediately jumps up to something doubly worthy of panic if you are doing some form of exercise which has the potential to hold up traffic, such as cycling along country lanes. But running! People will see you doing exercise, and they will laugh at you. Because going out and doing something about your own fitness is inexplicably somehow more shameful than just walking down the street gasping and wheezing after climbing a flight of five steps.

This whole thing also seems to apply to kids in school, many of whom seem to see success as being somehow shameful. But that, of course, is a topic I have waxed upon at great detail many times in the past.

So I know I certainly wouldn’t shed any tears if any of the above norms disappeared overnight. Perhaps they’re uniquely British things. In which case… anyone want to help me get a visa?