This thread has been really sad to read. PA is usually a nicer, more human, place than this.
Any place that is being only nice and humane to a person who stood behind and approved of a movement so foul and stuck with it until the end probably could be assumed to have a lot in common with TB's lesser qualities.
I largely ignored his stuff because personality-wise he seemed like kind of a tool. After reading what so many have posted that was quite apparently the least of it. Sucks that he died and especially of cancer, but its obvious that he himself was a cancer of sorts to numerous people.
Also if you have a family history of colon cancer, especially if you have a first degree relative who got colon cancer before 50, you might want to talk to your doctor about asymptomatic screening
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
"Ethical" being a relative term given his contributions to Goobergate.
His opinions on nebulous internet drama are completely irrelevant. His contributions to the PC gaming industry are titanic. If you don't think it's ethical for a media critic to disclose their ties to the creator of the content they're reviewing, then I can see why you'd disagree.
Since you're outing yourself as a pro-GamerGator here, I'd like to apologize to everyone in this thread who wants to keep the discussion away from the sad, messy, shitty stuff in TB's life, because it was @Carnavon's post (and my reply) that touched off this whole discussion, and if I had known I was talking with someone who supporter GamerGate I wouldn't have engaged in the first place, because of course down that route lies nothing but despair. If people want to talk about whether TB supported GamerGate, which is obviously a terrible shitty thing to do, then I'm happy to have that discussion, and I don't think that's disrespectful or out of place in this thread, but it has to be a discussion that admits from the top that GamerGate is awful. (So, for instance, @Apogee I'm happy to continue our conversation.) I don't want to turn the thread into a fight about GamerGate, the way @Carnarvon is trying to do here, so I'll stop engaging with anyone who supports the harassment of women and everything else that comes along with supporting GamerGate. I encourage other people to do the same, because whether GamerGate is awful is a separate question from where TB stood on it. Whatever one's own views on GG are, they are irrelevant to what TB's views were.
The fact that you dont think its disrespectful to use a casket as a fucking soapbox to stroke a hate boner you've been stroking for years, unable to take a single day off of it..unable to let the body even cool the fuck down before you start, much less make a separate thread about it, says more about you than it does anyone else.. and its a fucking disappointment.
Seriously, one day. You and others couldnt show some base human decorum to keep your hate boners in your pants for one day. This isn't god damn Jimmy Savile or fucking Manson we're talking about, its guy on the internet, with one issue and view you didnt agree with, and you couldnt show the base human decency to put your hate boners in your pants for one day and reserve your opinions. Couldnt go create a thread for this topic thats so important as must be discussed, Couldnt not dance on his freaking death announcement.
It took less than a page for this to happen. For fuck's sake people.
Exactly, I'm not even angry..I'm just disappointed about the whole fucking thing.
Good lord consumerism has warped people's brains.
"Nebulous internet drama" "Stroke a hate boner". Yeah mates, the unreasonable thing here is hating a person for using their celebrity to legitimize a movement that has made women scared to leave their damned homes due to constant harassment and rape/death threats. Can't we all focus on the important things in life? Like that this man liked the same video games I like. At the end of the day, isn't unity in brainless consumption of electronic media more important than real harm done to real people?
I think what Carnavaron said is worth considering: I think he would have loved a memorial to be filled with acerbic controversy
This is nothing when you look at what happened during the passing of much more prominent figures, who themselves were very vocal. Look at what happened when the brilliant Christopher Hitchens died, for instance.
Most mourned his passing as he was a great mind and brilliant debater, but those who were deeply religious had some words (to put it very lightly) about the fate that he should see and how much he deserved death. And those weren't people that he actually attacked, just people that felt slighted because of what he so often spoke out against and stood for.
There is a book series that I imagine many people here will be familiar with, by Orson Scott Card, which begins with Ender's Game.
It's a book I first read over 25 years ago, and have re-read many times.
It was many years after I first read and loved it that I found out that OSC holds some... unfortunate, if not outright loathsome views that I disagree with wholeheartedly.
But in that series there is the concept of the "Speaker for the Dead", someone who tells the truth, in full, to the best of their knowledge. I've always liked that idea. We don't need to completely forget someone's failings, or ignore their accomplishments, even immediately following their passing. Truthfully, that moment, when it is on the forefront of people's minds, may be the time to speak of it. Delicately, not in an unnecessarily cruel or boisterous manner, simply to reflect upon the complicated nature of being. This kind of sentiment holds a touch of irony (imo) coming from an author whom I feel similarly conflicting notions of.
I don't think anyone here has been dancing on a grave. There has been sober reflection that he held some unfortunate views, which may have caused harm to others, and may yet be continuing to cause harm (not that I doubt the reports of his fans dox'ing people, but it is second hand information and I haven't gone digging myself, hence a reasonable asterisk). I enjoyed his videos, his sentiments over anti-consumer bullshit like lootboxes and pre-orders.
So while these are obviously not perfect 1:1 contrasts, I think there's a similar sentiment present. He has passed, he did some things that some of us liked, he did some things that caused harm. He was neither saint nor devil. He was a person, one with a voice that I wish he hadn't used in ways that caused or showed tacit approval for gg's bullshit (as some have been posting about here in particular, again, I didn't follow him that closely), one that I didn't wish ill upon, and yet that doesn't change the initial sense of empathy I have for his family and those close to him.
While occasionally heated or frustrated, I think there has been a general sense of sober decorum here, and it doesn't surprise me at all to find it on the forums I've called home for so long.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
There is a book series that I imagine many people here will be familiar with, by Orson Scott Card, which begins with Ender's Game.
It's a book I first read over 25 years ago, and have re-read many times.
It was many years after I first read and loved it that I found out that OSC holds some... unfortunate, if not outright loathsome views that I disagree with wholeheartedly.
But in that series there is the concept of the "Speaker for the Dead", someone who tells the truth, in full, to the best of their knowledge. I've always liked that idea. We don't need to completely forget someone's failings, or ignore their accomplishments, even immediately following their passing. Truthfully, that moment, when it is on the forefront of people's minds, may be the time to speak of it. Delicately, not in an unnecessarily cruel or boisterous manner, simply to reflect upon the complicated nature of being. This kind of sentiment holds a touch of irony (imo) coming from an author whom I feel similarly conflicting notions of.
I don't think anyone here has been dancing on a grave. There has been sober reflection that he held some unfortunate views, which may have caused harm to others, and may yet be continuing to cause harm (not that I doubt the reports of his fans dox'ing people, but it is second hand information and I haven't gone digging myself, hence a reasonable asterisk). I enjoyed his videos, his sentiments over anti-consumer bullshit like lootboxes and pre-orders.
So while these are obviously not perfect 1:1 contrasts, I think there's a similar sentiment present. He has passed, he did some things that some of us liked, he did some things that caused harm. He was neither saint nor devil. He was a person, one with a voice that I wish he hadn't used in ways that caused or showed tacit approval for gg's bullshit (as some have been posting about here in particular, again, I didn't follow him that closely), one that I didn't wish ill upon, and yet that doesn't change the initial sense of empathy I have for his family and those close to him.
While occasionally heated or frustrated, I think there has been a general sense of sober decorum here, and it doesn't surprise me at all to find it on the forums I've called home for so long.
Yeah, I was thinking of that and almost brought it up.
I avoided it because OSC, the man, is an asshole. But the whole speaker for the dead thing resonates here, in my opinion.
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
Hitchens is a weird one to pull if only for the framing of the criticism of him being the the part of some evangelical pearl-clutchers he offended and not that he was one of the more prominent "liberal" media cheerleaders for a war that killed millions of Iraqis and thousands of americans over his belief in an actual clash of civlizations.
kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
You can support GG’s stated aims of journalistic integrity and oppose people like Sarkesian as offering a shallow and facile analysis without endorsing the misogyny or harassment or participating in any kind of twitter mob. Those are my politics and far as I can tell they were TBs. in particular it’s incedibly mendacious to accuse any critic of Zoe Quinn or Sarkesian as misogynist.
I’m all for interesting Frankfurt school or intersectional analyses of games, but justice because you label you’re project intersectional. It drives me nuts that people are able tonescape legitime criticism because they are also the targets of reprehensible harassment. TB understood how to delineate the two and it made him one of the best voices in the whole mess.
You can support GG’s stated aims of journalistic integrity and oppose people like Sarkesian as offering a shallow and facile analysis without endorsing the misogyny or harassment or participating in any kind of twitter mob. Those are my politics and far as I can tell they were TBs. in particular it’s incedibly mendacious to accuse any critic of Zoe Quinn or Sarkesian as misogynist.
I’m all for interesting Frankfurt school or intersectional analyses of games, but justice because you label you’re project intersectional. It drives me nuts that people are able tonescape legitime criticism because they are also the targets of reprehensible harassment. TB understood how to delineate the two and it made him one of the best voices in the whole mess.
This is basically all I knew of his position on the thing. I might disagree with the way he expressed it being taken up as a shield and sword for hundreds (thousands) of MRA's, but I don't fault him with being extreme because of them. At worst maybe myopic of his responsibilities given his following?
People can be more than one thing. When Mike or Jerry leave this world, do you think all anyone is going to mention is the dickwolves?
You can support GG’s stated aims of journalistic integrity and oppose people like Sarkesian as offering a shallow and facile analysis without endorsing the misogyny or harassment or participating in any kind of twitter mob. Those are my politics and far as I can tell they were TBs. in particular it’s incedibly mendacious to accuse any critic of Zoe Quinn or Sarkesian as misogynist.
I’m all for interesting Frankfurt school or intersectional analyses of games, but justice because you label you’re project intersectional. It drives me nuts that people are able tonescape legitime criticism because they are also the targets of reprehensible harassment. TB understood how to delineate the two and it made him one of the best voices in the whole mess.
This is basically all I knew of his position on the thing. I might disagree with the way he expressed it being taken up as a shield and sword for hundreds (thousands) of MRA's, but I don't fault him with being extreme because of them. At worst maybe myopic of his responsibilities given his following?
People can be more than one thing. When Mike or Jerry leave this world, do you think all anyone is going to mention is the dickwolves?
There are some significant differences there.
Mike and Jerry have apologized multiple times for the Dickwolves. TB never backed down with regards to his support of Gamersgate. And while there are some legitimate gripes to be expressed about video game media, TB tied himself to Gamergate and remaining tied to Gamergate, even after its flaws became apparent. It's fine to disagree with Sarkesian and think that video game media is problematic. That was never the problem. The problem was the continued association with and support of a misogynistic group.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I don't think Game Gate was actually ever truly about journalistic integrity. But even if it was, better to completely drop it when the change to it becoming what it is known as happened and not get caught up with that lot. Talk about something being not worth entrenching oneself with.
Hitchens is a weird one to pull if only for the framing of the criticism of him being the the part of some evangelical pearl-clutchers he offended and not that he was one of the more prominent "liberal" media cheerleaders for a war that killed millions of Iraqis and thousands of americans over his belief in an actual clash of civlizations.
And that is the part where I say no, that is a bad Hitchens. Bad Hitchens!
But reactions to his passing that were not so gracious were almost wholly about one thing in particular and that wasn't it.
You can support GG’s stated aims of journalistic integrity and oppose people like Sarkesian as offering a shallow and facile analysis without endorsing the misogyny or harassment or participating in any kind of twitter mob. Those are my politics and far as I can tell they were TBs. in particular it’s incedibly mendacious to accuse any critic of Zoe Quinn or Sarkesian as misogynist.
I’m all for interesting Frankfurt school or intersectional analyses of games, but justice because you label you’re project intersectional. It drives me nuts that people are able tonescape legitime criticism because they are also the targets of reprehensible harassment. TB understood how to delineate the two and it made him one of the best voices in the whole mess.
You have linked to that as though it's a defense of TB, but that is in fact the very sort of rhetoric that we are being critical of, full of falsehoods and apologetics to defend the GG movement with. The subsequent posts in that link say, among other things, that GG was not an organized harassment campaign, and that the only people who oppose GG are either "ignorant but well-meaning" or "intellectually dishonest."
GG was an organized harassment campaign.
Any other "stated aims" were bullshit covers to justify the harassment.
People who opposed the harassment campaign did so because it was a terrible thing, not because they were "ignorant" or "intellectually dishonest."
Gamergate started with an angry ex spreading personal details about his ex girlfriend in an attempt to round up an internet lynch mob against her. That immediately worked and then began targeting other women and minorities, such as a Bioware employee, other indy devs, a Nintendo employee, Felicia Day, Kotaku writers, etc. The suggestion that they did good stuff too is an outright lie. I feel the same about that suggestion as I do that there were "many fine people on both sides" at Charlottesville.
Posts
Any place that is being only nice and humane to a person who stood behind and approved of a movement so foul and stuck with it until the end probably could be assumed to have a lot in common with TB's lesser qualities.
I largely ignored his stuff because personality-wise he seemed like kind of a tool. After reading what so many have posted that was quite apparently the least of it. Sucks that he died and especially of cancer, but its obvious that he himself was a cancer of sorts to numerous people.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Good lord consumerism has warped people's brains.
"Nebulous internet drama" "Stroke a hate boner". Yeah mates, the unreasonable thing here is hating a person for using their celebrity to legitimize a movement that has made women scared to leave their damned homes due to constant harassment and rape/death threats. Can't we all focus on the important things in life? Like that this man liked the same video games I like. At the end of the day, isn't unity in brainless consumption of electronic media more important than real harm done to real people?
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"Niceness" predicated on pretending bad things didn't happen ain't worth much.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
This could of been a thread for people to grieve.
This is nothing when you look at what happened during the passing of much more prominent figures, who themselves were very vocal. Look at what happened when the brilliant Christopher Hitchens died, for instance.
Most mourned his passing as he was a great mind and brilliant debater, but those who were deeply religious had some words (to put it very lightly) about the fate that he should see and how much he deserved death. And those weren't people that he actually attacked, just people that felt slighted because of what he so often spoke out against and stood for.
It's a book I first read over 25 years ago, and have re-read many times.
It was many years after I first read and loved it that I found out that OSC holds some... unfortunate, if not outright loathsome views that I disagree with wholeheartedly.
But in that series there is the concept of the "Speaker for the Dead", someone who tells the truth, in full, to the best of their knowledge. I've always liked that idea. We don't need to completely forget someone's failings, or ignore their accomplishments, even immediately following their passing. Truthfully, that moment, when it is on the forefront of people's minds, may be the time to speak of it. Delicately, not in an unnecessarily cruel or boisterous manner, simply to reflect upon the complicated nature of being. This kind of sentiment holds a touch of irony (imo) coming from an author whom I feel similarly conflicting notions of.
I don't think anyone here has been dancing on a grave. There has been sober reflection that he held some unfortunate views, which may have caused harm to others, and may yet be continuing to cause harm (not that I doubt the reports of his fans dox'ing people, but it is second hand information and I haven't gone digging myself, hence a reasonable asterisk). I enjoyed his videos, his sentiments over anti-consumer bullshit like lootboxes and pre-orders.
So while these are obviously not perfect 1:1 contrasts, I think there's a similar sentiment present. He has passed, he did some things that some of us liked, he did some things that caused harm. He was neither saint nor devil. He was a person, one with a voice that I wish he hadn't used in ways that caused or showed tacit approval for gg's bullshit (as some have been posting about here in particular, again, I didn't follow him that closely), one that I didn't wish ill upon, and yet that doesn't change the initial sense of empathy I have for his family and those close to him.
While occasionally heated or frustrated, I think there has been a general sense of sober decorum here, and it doesn't surprise me at all to find it on the forums I've called home for so long.
If you think a post crosses a line, then report it.
Yeah, I was thinking of that and almost brought it up.
I avoided it because OSC, the man, is an asshole. But the whole speaker for the dead thing resonates here, in my opinion.
Read him here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/Cynicalbrit/comments/402uqe/totalbiscuit_speaks_out_on_gamergate_again/
I’m all for interesting Frankfurt school or intersectional analyses of games, but justice because you label you’re project intersectional. It drives me nuts that people are able tonescape legitime criticism because they are also the targets of reprehensible harassment. TB understood how to delineate the two and it made him one of the best voices in the whole mess.
This is basically all I knew of his position on the thing. I might disagree with the way he expressed it being taken up as a shield and sword for hundreds (thousands) of MRA's, but I don't fault him with being extreme because of them. At worst maybe myopic of his responsibilities given his following?
People can be more than one thing. When Mike or Jerry leave this world, do you think all anyone is going to mention is the dickwolves?
There are some significant differences there.
Mike and Jerry have apologized multiple times for the Dickwolves. TB never backed down with regards to his support of Gamersgate. And while there are some legitimate gripes to be expressed about video game media, TB tied himself to Gamergate and remaining tied to Gamergate, even after its flaws became apparent. It's fine to disagree with Sarkesian and think that video game media is problematic. That was never the problem. The problem was the continued association with and support of a misogynistic group.
And that is the part where I say no, that is a bad Hitchens. Bad Hitchens!
But reactions to his passing that were not so gracious were almost wholly about one thing in particular and that wasn't it.
You have linked to that as though it's a defense of TB, but that is in fact the very sort of rhetoric that we are being critical of, full of falsehoods and apologetics to defend the GG movement with. The subsequent posts in that link say, among other things, that GG was not an organized harassment campaign, and that the only people who oppose GG are either "ignorant but well-meaning" or "intellectually dishonest."
GG was an organized harassment campaign.
Any other "stated aims" were bullshit covers to justify the harassment.
People who opposed the harassment campaign did so because it was a terrible thing, not because they were "ignorant" or "intellectually dishonest."
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"Don't y'all minorities go gettin' all uppity now ya hear?"
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