Longknife

I hear you and for anyone who isn't gay that would be applicable. But how high on the list of priorities would gay rights be for you if you were gay? I can tell you from experience that the further East you travel, the less gaydar people actually have. Noticed it VERY quickly when a class I had with people from various countries included a flaming gay Ukrainian and only myself and the latinos seemed to notice, while the asians and russians were all oblivious to it. I would later go on to advise a female russian friend that her love interest was flaming gay (which I determined after speaking to them for a grand total of five seconds) not once, but twice. In that sense, I promise you blending in as a "normal guy" if you're a flaming gay homosexual is pretty darned easy in Russia. They're not gonna drop dead suddenly any time soon. And having said that, I think what Fighter is saying is that you need to pick and choose your battles wisely. If a massive gay pride protest and parade took place in Moscow tomorrow, no one would take it seriously. If it were a protest for peace completely devoid of any gay representation, it'll be heard. Pick your battles and focus on the one you have a chance of winning first. If a gay Russian insists gay rights is more important, he's more than welcome to organize a protest aimed at that....though in my experience with the culture, I highly doubt anyone would have the balls to do that, and understandably so....which AGAIN highlights how that's the more difficult battle and the one to put on hold for now.

Now why can't our sub-culture get the reasonable feminists? http://www.independent.ie/style/celebrity/celebrity-news/emma-watsons-speech-on-feminism-inspires-at-un-heforshe-launch-30605135.html I seriously have to ask what exactly the goal is of feminism within the gaming world. There is indeed equal opportunity for expression within the gaming world. There isn't any known or recognized sexism within the gaming industry in the sense that female employees are refused or not prioritized by companies, and as we've seen, the mere fact that so many gaming journalists are lending the feminists their ears suggests there's no sexism within the journalism or media surrounding games. Likewise as I've stated before, I'd be willing to bet the quota of female protagonists within gaming is probably higher than that within gender-neutral TV shows and movies. So what exactly IS the goal? As I've said before the only correct observation they've made is "hey sometimes you go online or play an online game and you meet trolls or prepubescent boys who act all crazy when they hear a girl." In response: 1) Meeting them online isn't exactly a part of gaming, now is it? In an online game yes, on an online youtube video...? No. 2) Yes, teenage boys are like that. You're not going to be able to change that. PERIOD. If you don't like it, just find communities that don't house it. FFS I play TF2 and I know servers where players tend to be kids and young teens (the young teens often calling out the kids for being kids and therefore lame and totally uncool!), and my female friend with the stereotypical hot french accent...? Yeah, might pay her money to talk again because last time she spoke on mic she developed a small horde of personal defenders, all hoping that if they protect her in an online game then somehow this woman in her late 20's would fall in love with and go out with them....online. But in that very same game I can play on servers where a woman could talk and no one would bat an eye because it's normal. You cannot march into a small mining town of 100 people where 96 of those people are men and expect to teach them to calm down and not freak out and act weird when another woman passes through town. Same exact concept here. If you don't like a community? Ignore it and find one you do. I'm sorry you have to face this annoyance whereas I do not, but that's reality. You can either adapt to reality, or you can piss and moan and piss people off by doing so. It's a very odd request to expect reality to change itself around you and your needs, especially when for that to happen, we'd basically need to phone in women to play video games against their will or something... 3) Video games are young. Mario himself is only 33 years old. I promise you as time goes on, new generations are born and video games become more commonplace within the world and not just "that thing only nerds play" that you'll see more women playing aswell, diminishing the unique little reactions some of those communities have to women. Taking the same mining town example above....you CAN actually change a community online in the sense that....If that mining town only has 4 girls but that mining town also has wifi access, and so does Brazil where women actually vastly outnumber men and the women act accordingly...? (true fact btw) Then guess what, problem solved. This problem will literally solve itself with time. So yeah, I honestly don't understand the goal, assuming there is one.

Captain Fact Check saves the day again!!! Also, those are pretty entertaining... :D

Not gonna lie, those are pretty awesome.

Here, minor update on that last vid about him. Just popped up in my recommended vids list right next to "Baby reaction to 2 girls 1 cup" and "Spy Sapping my Everything." Thought I'd share it with you guys:

I just don't see the point of sitting around all day being shocked by terrible things they do. They do terrible things. Case Closed. And none of them are exactly a cornerstone of my ability to live a happy life, while ALL of them depend on my viewership to make money... ....So don't watch their vids or read their articles. GG.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry at this. It was only made worse by all the youtube comments agreeing this is definitive and irrefutable proof of it being rigged.

F*** yes, my apartment was getting pretty messy lately. Thanks!

That's why I always try to check into the stuff myself, cause it's very true that there ARE hysterics on both sides. Assuming the bomb threat is legit (I highly doubt it isn't) at least helps put things in perspective as to why they act this way as they have at least one legitimate situation to think "wow wtf seriously??" and determine there's sexism in the industry. Therein lies the disagreement though as I'm sure for Anita & Co. it was "ok this is undeniably a sexist industry" whereas for most gamers it's "ya that's called **** on the internet. It's sadly normal and no it's not going away." Personally for example I would argue much of her complaints would be more appropriate if she targeted the internet, not the gaming industry. The gaming industry has every right to be outraged with her over the things that've been discovered, as well as some very misleading videos she's made where misinformation was clearly purposefully presented. I see no reason to assume the dickbag with the bomb threat was some guy who really hates women and wanted her dead cause omg "women, in MY video games? NEVER!!" No, it was probably some idiot dickbag who's used to the toxic internet culture who didn't like her videos due to the misinformation or whatever (her take on the song "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is also pretty f***ing special) and decided to mess with her via the threat and didn't really think it through. Kindly redirect your complaints to the internet, Anita. No one will disagree it's a toxic community. However, you also won't find a soul who would argue anything can be done about it because the internet is ridiculously huge, and the moment you start changing the internet culture is the moment you start censoring it, which is a whole 'nother unpopular can of worms. Understandably a lot of us prefer absolute freedom on the net if it means having to withstand "you suck ****" comments from anonymous people.

A bomb threat would go beyond the interests of Anita and become a public interest. AKA not only would the threat be taken seriously with police watching it, but her neighbors and community would be alerted aswell. No one in their right mind would privately handle a volatile weapon like a bomb without alerting anyone within a radius potentially vulnerable to it. The town I live in Germany got BOMBED TO SH** in WWII. They STILL find old bombs and everyone gets evacuated. An entire quarter of town gets sealed off, it goes all over the news and the police go door to door ringing doorbells and evacuating people. I highly doubt that Anita's neighbors wouldn't be warned, ESPECIALLY if she lives in a condensed area with lots of apartment buildings like San Francisco. ***EDIT: Went and looked up the article myself. Allegedly the bomb threat was to the Game Developers Choice Awards if they featured her. I'm certain there was probably increased security there and the organization (and police) can both confirm it. It's possible. Only strange thing about it is the timing, which is OBVIOUSLY a PR stunt. Honestly if they lied about that, the police could confirm it as a lie and omfg they'd be in so much ****, so I'd be inclined to believe it's at least true.....or they're unbelievably stupid. And if your reaction is "maybe Anita wrote the threat," I also find that farfetched because for how stupid it'd be of kotaku to write a lying article, it'd be 10x stupider for Anita to fake a bomb threat; if she got caught she'd be in deep ****. To me, this would be the only thing worth validating: Refers to the guy who dug up that they had no record of her harassment claims. Simply call them up again and ask them to comment on it. Ask for a timeframe etc.

Well if you'll give me a second, I've got a rather large wall of text I think you should read. Allow me to give you a hypothetical: I'm disabled....that part's not hypothetical, that's true. I was born with one leg and have been disabled my whole life; having two legs would feel as alien to me as having one leg would feel for you. Being disabled and seeing as we're at least decently uncommon in most regions, there's this effect where oftentimes if people hear touching stories or news stories involving disabled people, they get forwarded to me. You may have heard African Americans complain they get stupid comments from white people when they're the one black friend. It sorta functions like this. Bladerunner? Yep, I've heard of him, and not on my own or because I care, but because everyone says "LOOK LONGKNIFE A DISABLED GUY WHO RUNS FAST, YOU CAN TOO!!" Ok one, no I can't cause those costs thousands of dollars and I don't have that, two, if you did some research you'd know those regularly get banned from races for making disabled guys run inhumanely fast with comparatively tiny effort, and three, who the HELL said I have this dream of running fast wtf?? The recent story about Kanye West? Yep, got that too. Nipped it in the butt early and posted a blanket statement response on my facebook (which I rarely ever use) to stop them. So as you can see, I too can get involved with "discrimination" or "stereotyping" or whatever you wanna call it. I put it all in quotations cause I wouldn't exactly call it that and I see no reason to freak about it. Now let's say, hypothetically, that I were to tell you all of that DID bother me and that I find it utterly disgusting how under-represented disabled people are in video games. You think the representation of female protagonists is barren? Try the disabled. I could easily compile a list of female protagonists that's by no means small (Samus, Lara Croft, Faith, Kazooie of Banjo and Kazooie, Bayonetta, etc etc), but you'd struggle to name a single disabled protagonist. And let's be real here. There is a serious struggle amidst the disabled community. But it's not the one you'd expect. And I think it's one YOU'D be wise to listen to and hear out. So now for the hypothetical. Let's say I came to you claiming I was mortified by what Kanye West did and that I think we should ALL boycott him. After all, that jackass made a spectacle of two disabled people right? What an ****, everyone with common sense should boycott and shun the guy much like Ceelo Green is being boycotted for his rape comments, and anyone who disagrees simply doesn't understand, sympathize with and respect the disabled community enough. We don't have a fancy word like sexist or racist (proof of how discriminated against we are!!), but if there was one, it'd apply to Kanye and anyone that refuses to boycott him. I get the sense that I could say the above paragraph to you and you'd be behind me 100%. Or hell, maybe you even read it and thought it's a good idea with extremely valid points, hypothetical or not. Here's the problem.... When you lack a personal motivation where the situation effects you directly and on a personal level, there's this element of not knowing how much is too much. You cannot accurately judge the difference between "equality" and "entitlement." You can, but if you do so and you get an angry, entitled disabled person screaming at you for how hateful and discriminatory you're being...? You'll likely back down and take his side and adopt his stance. You dunno if he's right about you or if he's actually entitled. So, in fear of being discriminatory and with an attitude of loving everyone and wanting equality for all and knowing equality is the right thing to do, you adopt his argument and do as he says. So how do you know when you've wound up being a shield for an entitled person who's self-interested and doesn't actually care about the cause beyond how it can benefit them personally? Someone who doesn't only want equality, but rather wants their group to have an advantage and to get more, and all that only due to self-interest and the fact it'd profit them themselves? (aka if they succeeded and got their group special recognition, these very same people would turn on their fellow members of their group to try and argue they THEMSELVES deserve even more special recognition) In all due respect, I think that's your problem. You mean well - NO ONE is doubting that or saying you don't (cept 1 or 2 who I'm sure could possibly read this post, calm down and apologize to you before agreeing with me. Maybe, who knows) - but the way you're taking the stances is rather....blind. And you may think to yourself: "well my methodology isn't perfect, but at least this way I assure equality!" That's just it: you don't. I'll wrap this up with some real life and relevant stories. True stories that actually happened and affected me life. Some time after I was born, my mom had an encounter with a disabled man in town. The disabled guy was well known. Why? Well he was stuck in an electric wheelchair and largely paralyzed (could move his mouth somewhat and anything above), and more importantly, he was a f***ing ****. He got jollies out of being **** to people or even ramming them with his wheelchair, but often times even the victims themselves would LET HIM out of pity for him, or a distorted belief that it's ok to be an **** cause you're disabled. Well one day this guy tried rammed his wheelchair into my mom for whatever reason and she was understandably pissed, but of course only walked away. (say of course not because he's disabled, but because most people would walk away and not start **** or pick a fight) Later that same day, she happened to see him out the window of a cafe trying to ram another person, though this time he hit the curb and tipped his wheelchair. He was stuck there, helpless. After some consideration my mom decided to go pick him up and put him back on his wheels. After doing so, she asked "are you ok?" His response? Though he struggled to speak, he managed to piece together a nice "f*** you" before speeding off again. This guy, luckily, was kind of a point that had influenced how I was raised. When I was born, my mom was freaking out cause I was missing a leg and she didn't know how to raise a disabled child. By mere chance, she one day awkwardly approached a disabled couple that would later be my Godparents. Both were paralyzed from the waist down and one would later work under the Clinton administration in disabled rights (and passed away somewhat recently, RIP :C). When my mom approached them asking for help, at first they looked at her like she was crazy, but then realized why she was asking. When she asked how to raise me and what to do special for me? Their response? "You don't." You don't do anything special for me. Sure ok, if I'm in a wheelchair one day and kindly ask that you get the door for me, sure, but don't go thinking omg I'm disabled so that gives me a pass to be as lazy as I want or whatever. Be realistic about it. Best advice they could've given. I was raised in such a way that, well, just last week I met friends of friends and it took them DAYS to realize I was disabled. What finally gave me away was we had to walk down a ridiculously steep slope that had everyone uncomfortable from walking on it, and I had to warn my friends in advance that I wasn't sure how my prosthetic would handle it and so I'd need to take it slow. I don't go screaming and crying if someone takes my disabled parking space cause I know I can manage. I DON'T need it; save it for another guy who does. Likewise the bus system for my town expects people to surrender their seat to those who need it more and sometimes someone will notice my leg and offer. No, I don't need it, I'm fine. Me standing is probably about on par with you standing, so I feel it'd be unjust if I took that offer unless I truly am in pain that day. The above-mentioned struggle within the disabled community? It's a struggle that so many of us grow up to be spoiled **** BECAUSE we're constantly given special treatment by people too afraid to have an opinion and say "I'm not discriminating, you're just being an entitled little ass." I've seen it so many times and it's sad. So many disabled people grow up lacking confidence, spoiled rotten or expecting special treatment because people give it to them. The pity and attention feels good and yes, as kids who don't know better, they feed off of it. You're just as capable of hurting a disabled person by enabling a personality-damaging trait to develop by pitying them as you are capable of hurting them via neglect. Humans adapt. Charles Darwin never said the strongest, the smartest, or the fastest survive. He said those most capable of adapting to their scenario, their living conditions and the hand that life dealt them are the ones that will survive and flourish. As such, yes, the disabled adapt to be disabled. I've gotten multiple looks for how fast I am on crutches, I've found I've got a surprising amount of upper body strength from them, and I can carry mutliple bags of groceries home and up stairs...on crutches. For you? You'd fall on your ass and hurt yourself, but this is my life, so I've adapted. People need to recognize that and realize just because the situation seems tough for you doesn't mean it's tough for the disabled person. Try to be objective with it. Ask yourself if you think they truly need the help or if it seems like it's being used as an excuse. If they ask you to open a door ok, but if they ask you to go buy their groceries....? Motherf***er if you can't buy your groceries cause you're in a wheelchair, then you're dumb as rocks, you can't adapt and you deserve to starve to death. Tell him to buy his own damned groceries. And just for clarity, no it's not outrageous if a guy on crutches requests help carrying groceries up stairs. :D I'm more daring than others and don't fault others for not trying. I often don't learn to run with new prosthetics because the advice on learning how to run I'm given is "JUST GO AND U'LL FALL ON UR FACE A LOT BUT DUN WORRY U'LL GET IT" and I think "yeeeeah screw that, it's not like I need to run that often in a day-to-day scenario anyways..." And the Kanye West story? Everyone asks me how offended I am. The truth? When I heard someone took off their leg and waved it in the air to show him? Lucky bastard!! I wish I got handed a free excuse to take my leg off and wave it around. You ever seen how much people freak out due to that? It's fun as hell. Used to stick my leg out the school bus window for that exact reason until I got told that's too dangerous and had to stop. I promise you the two disabled people at Kanye's concert was ok, and the disabled community does NOT need nor deserve a free pity party because some idiot forgot we exist. So yeah, please, take that all as a lesson. Take it as two. Take it as a lesson that you cannot and will not fully understand minority groups you're not involved with, but you can't let that lead you to adamantly defend ANY minority who screams discrimination, because some of them ARE infact just entitled and using their position. Likewise, sometimes protecting a person like that actually harms them. It encourages bad habits and bad personality traits which eventually robs them of more than they realize; guess how many friends disabled wheelchair d-bag who would ram people had? He had about as many as he had functioning limbs. ;P I get you want gender equality. A LOT of us do. But this? This isn't it. You want gender equality? Go ask corporations why women get paid less. Go confront them about their admittance that women who want kids are less likely to get hired. If you really wanna tackle the issue and want a practical solution, the largest and most significant frontier where gender inequality is actually a real thing is the work world. Video games? Specifically when it involves messages spouted by people like Anita? Yeah, this isn't it. I'd be willing to bet the female protagonist quota in video games exceeds that of female protagonists found within movies or gender-neutral (aka not My Little Pony, GI Joe or shows geared towards one gender) TV shows. And more importantly, the very group so fervently spouting this feminist dogma has been caught in lies. MULTIPLE TIMES. It's time to sit down and think it through and realize if you want to support feminism, this isn't the way to do it. As I've said before, if anything Anita & Co. are HARMING feminism by making the word become synonymous with "dishonesty" and "zealot" for an entire community of people, and I'm sure that the less intelligent members of that community COULD actually learn the wrong lessons and develop into sexist individuals because of it. Ever seen a racist black guy who became racist BECAUSE of all the times he was targeted by racism? I have, it's one of the most tragic things in the world cause you wanna sympathize but at the same time the guy's a ****. They exist and it happens. And it could happen here too, with some men or gamers concluding that women are all selfish liars that seek special treatment and attention, and if they don't get it they'll try and ruin your life. Please, don't be a part of that and don't support that. ;P The side opposite to them is by no means perfect either, but it is in my opinion the more logical choice. I avoid dishonesty like the plague, regardless of the party's gender, race or other status.

Let's be clear here: We're talking about San Francisco. I was born there, that's a pretty competent city. San Francisco is not a city synonymous with incompetence and corruption like some other cities. No, San Francisco is known for gay parades, lots of disabled people and being an absolutely fabulous town to live in (albeit very expensive) as well as visit. There's a reason the song about meeting gentle people there exists. If a single individual repeatedly contacts the police over bomb threats, stalkings and threats of rape, you better believe there'd be a ****ing police report on it. The girl's a liar. Simple as that.

WHY DO THE SCREENCAPPED DOCUMENTS VIBRATE ON MY SCREEN WTF THOUGHT IT WAS AN EARTHQUAKE TREMOR

This. Bruce I think you mean well, but at the same time you seem to overreact to anyone simply not agreeing with a point made by a feminist. I mean name where excuses were made on behlaf of the people harassing her. If anything, the most common voice has been "she's irrelevant to the main issue anyways so I don't see why people bother harassing her." If I may...?? Why are you so passionate about the feminist movement? Why does it interest you so much? I don't mean that to sound like a pandering attitude, rather I'm merely curious about your backround and what your personal motivation is for liking and supporting the feminist side of things so loyally. I mean, you aren't a woman. Not being a woman doesn't mean you can't show interest (I would show interest in supporting equality for gays, blacks, women and klingons, and I'm none of those) or support, but it does mean your reasoning isn't as straightforward as "it benefits me," thus I'm curious.

At this point I begin to wonder if they actually believe in anything they preach or if it's all just a convenient front to promote themselves and their careers, cause from an objective, third-person standpoint, Anita and Co. (Silverstring and all with ties to them that keep popping up) are undeniably harming the feminist cause and the feminist name. "Feminism" is beginning to become associated with "dishonesty" and "zealots" and other words that no one in their right mind would want to be associated with.

Has thunderfoot even said anything out of line...? Anytime I've come across a video from him it was basically a rebuttal or counter-argument to something Anita said in her videos. Yknow, a response. Those things Anita so fervently avoids by disabling comments and screaming misogynism.

AI program spotted!!!

Phew, I was worried for a moment!

Not exactly disagreeing with you, but I just wanna toss out there that amongst the accusations involving her and her character are several (aka from multiple sources) accusations of her being guilty of harassing others not unlike she's being harassed now. "Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" and all that, but that's a pretty high moral high ground and we ARE talking about the internet. Not excusing, just looking to provide some logical explanation for you as to why there's such heated discussion on this.

Was just reading through the forums and noticed a pattern with user comments for a surprising amount of users: Bester - "That sounds like something only a communist who doesn't appreciate the US of A would say." obyknven - "Those are just typical western media lies to distract from the poverty of everywhere that isn't Russia." Sharp_One - "-insert comment about black people here-" BruceVC - "Excellent post! I highly suggest everyone read it. It does a fantastic job of explaining the truth of the matter." Top that off with multiple users who almost always respond with single-word replies or blatant sarcasm, as well as mods who never seem to post anything that exceeds one line of text in length, and... ....Well, gotta be honest. I'm beginning to suspect you're all AI programs designed to give this place some semblance of an active forum, and I feel as though I may have fallen for it. So I gotta check....you guys ARE real people right? I'm not in a dream or in a community run by robot overlords?

I went to a hooker. Then I beat her up. Take THAT, estrogen!

Lawl the LAST thing I wanna do is get involved with another MMO. xD As I said, I was smart enough to see these kinds of problems coming and jumped ship. For me though...? Reason I said I tend to take looooooooooong breaks from MMOs is because the communities are all kinds of god damn special. When I first sign up for one, it's this attitude of "think of all the hours of entertainment I'll get out of watching a bunch of egotistical, anti-social and highly dysfunctional people interact with each other in a game world and show maturity on part with a 4-year-old." And it IS fun, largely for those exact reasons. I wish I'd've save a screenshot of a guild leader on my server telling my guild leader "well then we can't be friends anymore!" cause our guild declared war on theirs. xD (I **** you not, that was sadly his exact wording, the exclamation point being the only part he didn't include) Then after awhile...? It wears and tears on you. You start to be ashamed that you're in the same species as these people. You start to be driven mad by how childish and illogical the community can be, and you cease to find it funny so much as it is outrageously sad and pathetic. And that's where I am now. I've no interest in interacting with such people again. At least not for a couple years. I'm sure in a couple years there'll be a day where I think "OH MAN I WANNA JOIN ANOTHER COMMUNITY WHERE PEOPLE MAKE RAP VIDEOS ABOUT THEMSELVES" or "OH MAN I WANNA LAUGH AS I LURE PEOPLE OUT OF SAFE ZONE VIA PROMISES OF A REWARD FROM A BROKEN COMMUNIST HOLIDAY QUEST CHAIN, ALL TO MAKE A LIGHTHEARTED JOKE WHERE I KILL THEM, AND TO THE EXENT WHERE PEOPLE MAKE A PETITION ON THE FORUMS TO GET ME BANNED" .... Or even "OH MAN I CAN'T WAIT TIL SOME IDIOT MAKES A VIDEO SO CRINGEWORTHY AND PATHETIC THAT I FEEL COMPELLED TO PARODY IT AND THEY DON'T EVEN REALIZE I'M MAKING FUN OF THEM." That'll probably be the day I end up playing one again. But for now? NOPE, gonna stay away. :D Was fun while it lasted but as they say: "Never go full retard."

Random funny convo I had with a female friend I thought you firearms enthusiasts might enjoy. Girl is the girlfriend of a friend of mine and was describing having tried Skyrim and how she thought it was kinda dumb. I'd expressed my love for New Vegas before and she thought it sounded interesting. Her complaints about Skyrim though were mostly with the controls and just not knowing what to do (she's not a big gamer) so I said maybe she wouldn't like New Vegas either. She then expressed she thought she would cause she could probably understand it better. I asked what she meant and she said the funniest **** ever: "Well Skyrim had magic and all that weird crap. I doubt New Vegas has that cause who needs magic when you have a gun?" I laughed my butt off as I pictured a mighty wizard teleporting into our era ready to light everyone on fire with the sheer power of his mind before being mowed down by an AK-47.

I'm offended!!!!!