Ugh. I almost wrote about Jonah Goldberg’s column about conservative values finding a home in the evil Uber-Liberal world of the moving pictures. His rhetorical laziness and blatant force of ignorance will always trump any sort of real cogent point he could make about the excellence of “conservative values“.
Instead, something else fell in to my lap, which is much more worthy of my rankles.
I don’t think people understand what debate is anymore. Reading this hot garbage Newsday fueled “debate” on whether Republicans are cold-hearted or not makes the case that the two authors don’t either. Then I read the comments. Yeah, people don’t have a goddamned clue what debate means anymore.
It’s easy to understand how this came to be. Real debate is hard for normal people. For the pundit class, who get paid to think by their ideological monied interests, it’s all too easy. For the pundit class, debate is just yelling over someone who thinks differently from you, not answering the original question asked, and going of on some tangent that’s somehow remotely related to the debate topic…and inexplicably not answering the question. That’s debate in the 24 hours news cycle, so can you really blame normal, everyday people, if they think that what the see these days is “debate”?
I tend to avoid reading these kind of “pro” and “con” articles when they appear in the newspaper. They lack any real substance and simply boil down to a “chocolate” or “peanut butter” solution from their respective camps on the myriad of topics foisted at it. It’s also just blatant status quo upkeep in the grand false equivalency.
So the topic goes: “Recent poll results from the Pew Research Center raise the question anew: They show that 86 percent of self-described "steadfast conservatives" believe that in America, "the poor have it easy." Just 6 percent of "solid liberals" believe the same thing. Who is right? Are liberals too soft-hearted, or are conservatives big ol' meanies?”
Joe Mathis (I guess representing the left-wing?) and Ben Boychuk (Umm…the right-wing…but not because he is a LIBERTARIAN!) “debate” this question.
Coming in at a (generously counted) blazing sixty-hundred and sixty-ish words you kind of get the notion that there’s not going to be much, if any debate. And wouldn’t you know it? There isn’t! Mr. Mathis does attempt to answer the question. Of course, the answer is yes: because they are!
Mr. Mathis makes some good points. He discusses the last election, and Romney’s “47 percent” comment, behind closed doors. It’s in their veiled racism towards “others”, like Reagan’s “welfare queens” of yore. Further, it’s in the GOP/right-wing’s exaltation of “policy wonk” Paul Ryan’s annual attempt to gut welfare budget’s and garner huge tax cuts for the wealthy through his “budgets”. It’s going on now with the current immigration problem, as the pundit class looks at those children living a life in limbo and squalor and just keep screaming “Eww! Eww! Send them away! Obama do something! Ick! Ick! Ick!” It’s in GOP/right-wing in congress being the arbiter’s of the general “Do-Nothing Congress 2.0” nature. If they are not cold-hearted, then what are they? They certainly aren’t pragmatic or sensible currently.
Mr. Mathis undercuts most of this by continuing to hedge his answer towards the false equivalency. It’s kind of hard not to. Regular people aren’t as black and white as the pundit class is paid to be. They can be of two minds on a topic. Believing that some poor people aren’t trying hard enough, AND that government is doing too much harm than good or in their case, probably not spending the money on the things they think the government should be spending their tax money on.
Ben Boychuk, in perfect right-wing fashion, doesn’t even bother answering the question. He’s basically “Answer?…pssh! That poll is stupid!”. The End. He does site a shortened version of the poll you the viewer can participate in and of course he came up “solidly conservative“. Then goes on to I guess site the actual poll where people could answer “I don’t know” to some of the questions, and has one of his buddies at the LIBERTARIAN Cato Institute double down on Mr. Boychuk’s assertion that the poll’s questions are dumb, therefore the poll itself is dumb. He then rattles off some debunked right-wing talking points, and calls it a day.
The Pew Poll website quiz that Mr. Boychuk sites is indeed a bit dumb. There are only two answers to a question, and it’s PRETTY OBVIOUS which answers are which. But the debate question isn't “Is this poll dumb and why?” and I’m pretty sure if we count this as a debate, then the answer is “Yes, Republicans are cold-hearted…and stupid…and don’t take direction well when asked to debate a question.” But hey at least Mr. Boychuk was found to be "solidly-conservative". Whew!
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Giant Bomb vs. Samantha Allen
The greatest trick Giant Bomb ever pulled was convincing regular people they could get hired at their site.
Samantha Allen, a trans writer “activist” known for her provocateur nature writing on gender politics and videogames, had a point: Giant Bomb hired two white guys they already knew? Yawn.
If only it was constructed that way.
Initially, Ms. Allen had my sympathies in the great shitstorm on the internets that arose over her disappointment in Giant Bomb hiring to white males to their staff and her nascent need to comment on it as a trans woman. In the ensuing hours and days after her twitter post, it was nigh impossible to get a clear picture of what just instigated Giant Bomb’s “community” to spew hot trash and vitriol someone just speaking their mind. Giant Bomb’s staff were on twitter vaguely commenting towards the assholery and telling those in the “community” to stop and that they didn’t represent the site and so on. It wasn’t helping matters. Then Jeff Gerstmann wrote a vague editorial admonishing those who would attacks critics of the site.
But after reading Ms. Allen’s work, I find that my sympathies have greatly diminished for her. While I don’t condone the insults and harassment she received, I do believe she brought in on herself with how shittily she handled the entire situation. I think she knew what she was doing when she expressed her opinions, she just wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of push back she received.
It’s been over a week since the debacle, and it’s been interesting to see so little of those in the videogames press attempt to discuss the Giant Bomb debacle, as most of them are white males, with any clarity. Aside from the “we need more women in videogames” and the “oh you…the internets…up to no good again!” comments, nothing’s really being discussed in depth. This topic needs to be treated with respect and honesty.
Giant Bomb’s staff, aside from the editorial, has said nothing else on the subject. Which is pretty disappointing, as again, I think this a topic worth discussing. Of course, it’s a minefield, both as Giant Bomb being owned by CBS and the very real notion that Ms. Allen was indeed the instigator in the hot mess that everyone found themselves in.
I’m of the mind that the harassment Ms. Allen experienced may have been fueled by Giant Bomb’s “community”’s disappointment at not getting hired at the site, and they couldn’t really lash out at the staff. Ms. Allen was a perfect target to focus this communal rage at not gaining access to the promised land of games journalism. She apparently looked to be starting a fight, and the internets being the internets, obliged her.
Let’s be honest: “games journalism” is a shallow, tiny pool. Giant Bomb itself and past hiring practices have been one of friends and known entities to the various staff members of the site. It should’ve been a foregone conclusion that Giant Bomb was going to hire someone everyone knew, for maximum awesome and general site personality cohesion. It was ALWAYS going to be a white male.
Ms. Allen initially had a point: Giant Bomb could’ve hired ANYONE else. The tired argument goes “It is 2014 after all“, and while it is indeed a small minority (no pun intended), there are a lot of other people besides 30 something white males that have opinions on videogames. But Ms. Allen handled her point inelegantly, and because of her “activist” nature, swung a mighty feminist cudgel when none was necessary.
But my biggest question about all of this: why white trans women like Ms. Allen (and to a lesser extent Caorlyn Petit), are pushing such a hard-line feminist agenda? In addition why do they insist on doing so in the low hanging fruit venue of videogame websites? This same subculture has allowed man-children the ability to whine and scream about videogames and their corporate overlords doing them injustices AND getting paid to do so! Predominantly overweight white men to boot. It’s a subculture of man-babies creating content for fifteen year old boys.
Reading most of Ms. Allen’s writings, there is a clear thread of provocation. Which she has never been unclear about. She’s an unapologetic misandrist. Which makes her wading in to the videogame’s press sphere a tad insidious. When you’re a hammer everything seems to be a nail, and so it explains when a fellow twitter writer wrote that maybe Giant Bomb’s new white male hire’s were the most qualified she replied “Go Fuck Yourself”. Unfortunately, those tweets were deleted from her feed, in a move to probably appear more victimized than initially observed. But the bulk of her misandry and views on videogames press is still present in her twitter feed.
To be fair, after everything was said and done Ms. Allen appeared to lament her knee jerk reaction that inevitably lead to the shitstorm she found herself in and made her vacate twitter for a week. I hope this becomes a teachable lesson for her, and any young “activists” that think provoking people is a viable method of converting the masses to your cause. Too often young activists just don’t understand how long it takes to actually affect real change.
But this fiery attitude is immeasurably useful to any movement. The fire and brimstone nature of youth gives any change movement the energy it needs in the long cold months when it seems like nothing is ever going to change for the better. But the sexiness of activism wears off quickly for young people, and they soon abandon their “principles” once they realize that revolution has not taken hold overnight.
This fiery attitude can also lead to the Giant Bomb/Samantha Allen fiasco as well. It should be noted that Ms. Allen is knee deep in academia at Emory University. So I believe she should know better than to entertain the kind of firebrand proactive baloney she keeps finding herself in. She has some good things to say, and her activist bent is going to be an evergreen one as our country itself begins to understand and accept sexualities that may confuse and scare them. But the last place she needs to couch some of it is in the videogames press. Enthusiast press of all sorts isn’t really the venue for ANY kind of political activism, it’s existence is based on true escapism from the “real world”.
I’m of the mindset that the videogames enthusiast press isn’t going to change any time soon. I’m less concerned with the diversity of it’s ranks and more concerned with the toddler tantrum nature that seems to be the entire foundation of it’s being. I would love if videogames could be taken seriously as an art form, but it is still shackled to the notion by and large that it’s still a toy for children. Videogames themselves have a long way to go, and “gamers” themselves have even further. I would enjoy the notion that we could discuss the topics Ms. Allen and others bringing up in the videogames press with some maturity, but for now that is largely absent from the proceedings.
Samantha Allen, a trans writer “activist” known for her provocateur nature writing on gender politics and videogames, had a point: Giant Bomb hired two white guys they already knew? Yawn.
If only it was constructed that way.
Initially, Ms. Allen had my sympathies in the great shitstorm on the internets that arose over her disappointment in Giant Bomb hiring to white males to their staff and her nascent need to comment on it as a trans woman. In the ensuing hours and days after her twitter post, it was nigh impossible to get a clear picture of what just instigated Giant Bomb’s “community” to spew hot trash and vitriol someone just speaking their mind. Giant Bomb’s staff were on twitter vaguely commenting towards the assholery and telling those in the “community” to stop and that they didn’t represent the site and so on. It wasn’t helping matters. Then Jeff Gerstmann wrote a vague editorial admonishing those who would attacks critics of the site.
But after reading Ms. Allen’s work, I find that my sympathies have greatly diminished for her. While I don’t condone the insults and harassment she received, I do believe she brought in on herself with how shittily she handled the entire situation. I think she knew what she was doing when she expressed her opinions, she just wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of push back she received.
It’s been over a week since the debacle, and it’s been interesting to see so little of those in the videogames press attempt to discuss the Giant Bomb debacle, as most of them are white males, with any clarity. Aside from the “we need more women in videogames” and the “oh you…the internets…up to no good again!” comments, nothing’s really being discussed in depth. This topic needs to be treated with respect and honesty.
Giant Bomb’s staff, aside from the editorial, has said nothing else on the subject. Which is pretty disappointing, as again, I think this a topic worth discussing. Of course, it’s a minefield, both as Giant Bomb being owned by CBS and the very real notion that Ms. Allen was indeed the instigator in the hot mess that everyone found themselves in.
I’m of the mind that the harassment Ms. Allen experienced may have been fueled by Giant Bomb’s “community”’s disappointment at not getting hired at the site, and they couldn’t really lash out at the staff. Ms. Allen was a perfect target to focus this communal rage at not gaining access to the promised land of games journalism. She apparently looked to be starting a fight, and the internets being the internets, obliged her.
Let’s be honest: “games journalism” is a shallow, tiny pool. Giant Bomb itself and past hiring practices have been one of friends and known entities to the various staff members of the site. It should’ve been a foregone conclusion that Giant Bomb was going to hire someone everyone knew, for maximum awesome and general site personality cohesion. It was ALWAYS going to be a white male.
Ms. Allen initially had a point: Giant Bomb could’ve hired ANYONE else. The tired argument goes “It is 2014 after all“, and while it is indeed a small minority (no pun intended), there are a lot of other people besides 30 something white males that have opinions on videogames. But Ms. Allen handled her point inelegantly, and because of her “activist” nature, swung a mighty feminist cudgel when none was necessary.
But my biggest question about all of this: why white trans women like Ms. Allen (and to a lesser extent Caorlyn Petit), are pushing such a hard-line feminist agenda? In addition why do they insist on doing so in the low hanging fruit venue of videogame websites? This same subculture has allowed man-children the ability to whine and scream about videogames and their corporate overlords doing them injustices AND getting paid to do so! Predominantly overweight white men to boot. It’s a subculture of man-babies creating content for fifteen year old boys.
Reading most of Ms. Allen’s writings, there is a clear thread of provocation. Which she has never been unclear about. She’s an unapologetic misandrist. Which makes her wading in to the videogame’s press sphere a tad insidious. When you’re a hammer everything seems to be a nail, and so it explains when a fellow twitter writer wrote that maybe Giant Bomb’s new white male hire’s were the most qualified she replied “Go Fuck Yourself”. Unfortunately, those tweets were deleted from her feed, in a move to probably appear more victimized than initially observed. But the bulk of her misandry and views on videogames press is still present in her twitter feed.
To be fair, after everything was said and done Ms. Allen appeared to lament her knee jerk reaction that inevitably lead to the shitstorm she found herself in and made her vacate twitter for a week. I hope this becomes a teachable lesson for her, and any young “activists” that think provoking people is a viable method of converting the masses to your cause. Too often young activists just don’t understand how long it takes to actually affect real change.
But this fiery attitude is immeasurably useful to any movement. The fire and brimstone nature of youth gives any change movement the energy it needs in the long cold months when it seems like nothing is ever going to change for the better. But the sexiness of activism wears off quickly for young people, and they soon abandon their “principles” once they realize that revolution has not taken hold overnight.
This fiery attitude can also lead to the Giant Bomb/Samantha Allen fiasco as well. It should be noted that Ms. Allen is knee deep in academia at Emory University. So I believe she should know better than to entertain the kind of firebrand proactive baloney she keeps finding herself in. She has some good things to say, and her activist bent is going to be an evergreen one as our country itself begins to understand and accept sexualities that may confuse and scare them. But the last place she needs to couch some of it is in the videogames press. Enthusiast press of all sorts isn’t really the venue for ANY kind of political activism, it’s existence is based on true escapism from the “real world”.
I’m of the mindset that the videogames enthusiast press isn’t going to change any time soon. I’m less concerned with the diversity of it’s ranks and more concerned with the toddler tantrum nature that seems to be the entire foundation of it’s being. I would love if videogames could be taken seriously as an art form, but it is still shackled to the notion by and large that it’s still a toy for children. Videogames themselves have a long way to go, and “gamers” themselves have even further. I would enjoy the notion that we could discuss the topics Ms. Allen and others bringing up in the videogames press with some maturity, but for now that is largely absent from the proceedings.
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