Female Protagonist in the new Doom movie?

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

19 hours ago, Arctangent said:

I mean in all fairness, this was and still is mostly true. Hell, it's probably only grown more true due to the repercussions of Gamergate. If you only frequent a handful of gaming communities, you'll only see vileness of the community leak in on occasion, but explore a lot of them and you'll find it absolutely rampant.

 

It really isn't a sweeping generalization so much as just the truth of the matter. The gaming community is a hellhole with pockets of pleasantness that aren't even breach-free.

While I hate to get involved in such a discussion, I feel I must voice my thoughts on this matter.

 

I don't believe that's actually the truth, that most gamers (or participants of any given community) are actually all jackasses. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, the problem we seem to face is not actually the general consensus amongst the participants of the community in question, so much as a minority group that shouts so loudly that they can't help but be heard, and so people focus on them and forget that your average participant is unlikely to follow said group.

 

The unfortunate part of this is that this can happen to both sides of a conflict, wherein one side is painted as horrible people who do whatever (gamers as basement-dwelling deadbeats, as an example) and the other as terrible people who do whatever else (to use an extremely specific example, Jack Thompson, the man who coined the term "murder simulator" to define video games) and everyone gets dragged down with these two minorities and suffers as a result.

 

A truly superb result of such branding tends to leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who had nothing to do with the event in question and can cause rivalries at best and up to and including assault on one side or the other because of flaring tempers.

 

Every community, in my experience, anyway, has the good people, who like to get along with as many people as possible and enjoy their object of focus (games, religion, hobbies, jobs, etc.). On the other hand, there are those I just discussed, who either enjoy dismantling a community or are unaware that they're doing so with their actions. Malicious intent is difficult to distinguish from stupidity sometimes.

 

But those are just my thoughts on the matter. Feel free to take them with a grain of salt.

Also, I apologize for rambling, I just needed to get that out there.

[Arctangent]

2 hours ago, scalliano said:

I can't speak for anyone else, but the notion pushed by the anti-GG side that I, by default, am a racist, sexist, homophobic neo-liberal, basement-dwelling shitlord simply by virtue of identifying as a gamer is not one that I am willing to bow my head and take like a scolded puppy.

I mean, it goes without saying that there's probably some people who wave around the Confederate flag who are actually pleasant, non-bigoted people, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're the exception, and that you really don't need to bother risking interaction with someone like that because chances are, they're going to be spewing all sorts of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. if you stick around them for longer than a minute.

 

If it's the flag you want to wave around, you're just going to have to face the fact that you're going to be associated with that for the likely decades or centuries it takes to remove that association, especially since ...

 

1 hour ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

I don't believe that's actually the truth, that most gamers (or participants of any given community) are actually all jackasses

One thing you might be forgetting to factor in is that gamers != people who play games. Gamer is a self-applied title, not one you're given just if you play video games. A pretty prideful one in most cases, actually, given the whole tone of the classical "hardcore gamer vs. causal gamer" debate where these "casual gamers" always seem to be spoken as if they are abominations upon the world that should either be "converted" or wiped clean.

 

The gaming community still has a depressing amount of toxicity spread around - seriously, it really isn't some sort of vocal minority, if you're thinking of just the folks who scream over mic in Call of Duty then that's not even the tip of the iceberg they're so insignificant in the grand scheme of games - but someone they're insisting that they're a gamer is basically a big ol' Confederate flag on top of that.

[Woolie Wool]

I agree and that's why I've personally rejected the "gamer" identity and plan to no longer buy "gamer" computer parts (instead I will buy the regular ones that are exactly the same only without all the garish RGB, heh). "Gamer" is not a descriptor for someone who plays games, it's an identity created around a marketing strategy Nintendo devised in the '80s to sell consoles to young boys after the 1983 US games crash. For me "gamer" is not only tied up in toxic masculinity, cruelty, and reaction, but also in an attitude towards games as just electronic toys whose features can be summed up on bullet points on the back of a box, and subject to the "objectivity" that Consumer Reports uses to review toasters. That's not what games are and that's not what criticism is for.

 

On 5/2/2018 at 2:07 AM, Impie said:

My point being, artistic integrity has become a joke for the sake of profit and far-left internet politics.

 

Kinda curious how Blade woulda turned out if they changed him to a cholita.

If "artistic integrity" was a priority, ever, there would be no Doom movies or spinoffs because the original iwads said what Doom needed to say to the mainstream and pwads, mods, and source ports take care of the rest. This movie exists for the $$$ and nothing else. BTW most "SJWs" are ordinary liberals, not far left. Marxists, anarchists, etc. are pretty uncommon.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Woolie Wool

[nax]

24 minutes ago, Arctangent said:

I mean, it goes without saying that there's probably some people who wave around the Confederate flag who are actually pleasant, non-bigoted people, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're the exception, and that you really don't need to bother risking interaction with someone like that because chances are, they're going to be spewing all sorts of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. if you stick around them for longer than a minute.

 

"risking interaction"
 

i don't understand this notion. you're not risking anything by casually interacting with someone who may have outlandish worldviews. you're not trying to interact with jason voorhees or anything. if the interaction finds that this person truly isn't worth interacting with, then the only thing you've possibly lost is a bit of time socializing, but i'd argue that's just part of interacting with anyone.

 

there's an older woman i work with who is possibly the most crass woman i've ever met in my life. she weighs people up in about 2 seconds of meeting them and has no problem calling people out (loudly) on their bullshit. she has some extremely colorful language, and by that I mean any time she's even a little upset you're gonna taste the motherfucking rainbow.  she absolutely has opinions that would get her flayed alive on social media.

 

and yet I never would have found out by not giving her a chance that she gives nearly all of her income and time to charity, she has adopted orphans and raised the older ones to be successful people, and routinely houses dumped animals until shelter can be arranged for them. she is a net benefit on the community around her as a result of her actions. you'd find some genuine diamonds in the rough if you actually gave people you thought you'd never get along with a chance.

 

i don't mean to go too off topic here, but the point as related to this thread is try not to write people off solely on having not very well regarded opinions on things.

[Arctangent]

1 minute ago, nax said:

you're not risking anything by casually interacting with someone who may have outlandish worldviews ... she absolutely has opinions that would get her flayed alive on social media.

Immediate question: are you someone actually in the firing range of those opinions, or are you just taking the stance that I should just give people that want to flay me over a cross a chance?

[scalliano]

@Woolie Wool: What even is "toxic masculinity"? "Dudebro" culture? Because if that's what it is, those guys were never gamers to begin with. They were the jocks that rolled into the community off the back of the OG XBox. I could get into the whole spiel about female protags in western games all but disappearing during the mid-late 2000's and things like the Bioshock Infinite boxart completely snubbing the star of the game and all that other shite that resulted from the endless "dudebro" marketing, but I'll refrain. Dudebros weren't gamers - they were the bully boys who beat up the gamers in school. I know this, because I was one of the nerds on the receiving end of more than one beating at the hands of those twats when I was a kid. If that is "toxic masculinity", then I kind of see your point, but the definition of that term out in the wild is so damn vague that for me it comes off as nothing more than a buzz term.

 

@Arctangent: "They're not all bad, but ..." XD

 

You appear to be conflating "right-wing" with "redneck". I live in Northern Ireland, where the right-wing religious conservatives are predominantly middle-class and, granted, I find them to be morally repugnant (they're the reason same-sex marriage still isn't legal here), but most of the people on the ground I've interacted with are generally more open to discussion. Of course, there will always be the hardliners (that's why we had nearly 30 years of armed conflict and still the odd incident here and there), but things are changing. Slowly, but they are*. And how is that happening? Through discussion. Through the risk of interaction. Not through building echo chambers and "omg can't even right now".

 

*yeah, there is a political deadlock right now, but that's more down to points scoring than actually running the damn country, but that's another thread...

[nax]

if you think people will flay you because of an opinion on a cross over just attempting to socialize with someone then i believe you're hyperfocusing on peoples' opinions and not focusing at all at their actions.  opinions are usually a pretty bad indicator of the content of someone's character versus their actions as we are seeing with the amount of predators being unmasked today.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

This is going to sound terrible, but I'm going to go with it anyway.

A good friend of mine is a devout Christian, which is fine in itself, but he and I oppose each other on various views such as sexuality, gender identification, and (of course) religion proper, to an extreme degree.

His thoughts and views are his own, and I have no right to tell him otherwise, but we still get along. We got along because, one, we worked together, and two, we casually socialized together. Our opposing modes of thinking don't act as a roadblock or even a speed bump in our relationship, indeed, it deepens it.

Yeah, we've argued about these things and it's irritating sometimes, but that's all part of human interaction.

In short: I know what he thinks, but how he carries himself is what matters above that, and that is what I care about.

 

Minor edit: I'm completely perplexed as to how this became a political/branding discussion.

[Arctangent]

16 minutes ago, scalliano said:

 

I think the analogy that wasn't even aimed at you resonated a bit too much with you, considering that's the only way I can see what response even being related to what I said.

 

16 minutes ago, nax said:

if you think people will flay you because of an opinion on a cross over just attempting to socialize with someone then i believe you're hyperfocusing on peoples' opinions and not focusing at all at their actions.  opinions are usually a pretty bad indicator of the content of someone's character versus their actions as we are seeing with the amount of predators being unmasked today.

 

3 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

His thoughts and views are his own, and I have no right to tell him otherwise, but we still get along.

Good to know there's people on here would defend those that think I should be taken to a straight camp, I guess. But hey, I guess I'm the bad guy here for not wanting to risk psychological torture in a place that absolutely loathes my very existence when people plainly say that's what I deserve, eh?

[nax]

that's a pretty disappointing way to take "don't judge a book by its cover".

[Gez]

4 hours ago, scalliano said:

I can't speak for anyone else, but the notion pushed by the anti-GG side that I, by default, am a racist, sexist, homophobic neo-liberal, basement-dwelling shitlord simply by virtue of identifying as a gamer is not one that I am willing to bow my head and take like a scolded puppy. I am sure as hell gonna defend myself in light of such allegations. When it came to GG, the shit was flying in both directions, but nobody gave gamers a platform at the UN.

Identifying as a gamer doesn't necessitate identifying as a gamergater.

 

The gamergaters were definitely shitlords. The entire movement was created to harass women, and was originally the outgrowth of an angry ex's slander. I have never felt that they spoke for me or defended me.

[Arctangent]

2 minutes ago, nax said:

that's a pretty disappointing way to take "don't judge a book by its cover".

I mean, that's an absolutely terrible proverb. Ignoring the whole "the cover says this is a sci-fi book, I don't want to read a sci-fi" book thing, which in my case is "this person seems to be a sexist, homophobic prick, I don't want to deal with sexist, homophobic pricks," there's the whole point where the entire point of a cover is to give potential readers an idea of the tone and subject of a book to grab their interest, so if the author puts no effort into it, why should I put any effort into giving the book a chance when the number of alternatives exceeds what's possible for one human to read in their entire life?

[nax]

would you not rather be judged by the things you did instead of how you looked?

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I think I understand now.

Looking at some guy in the mall (as an example) and hearing him say some sexist/homophobic whatever, you could be expected to think, "That guy's a dick. Why would I hang out with him?"

I realize that's a poor example, but I hope it gets the general point across.

[Arctangent]

1 minute ago, nax said:

would you not rather be judged by the things you did instead of how you looked?

Y'know, this just made me realize that not only is that an awful proverb, but it doesn't even apply to the situation.

 

We're not talking about me not wanting to interact with your workplace grandma because she wears ugly dresses, we're talking about me not wanting to interact with your workplace grandma because she spewed some vile shit out of her mouth. That is an action. She not only thought a terrible opinion - which, hey, we all get intrusive thoughts sometime, that in and of itself isn't bad - but chose to express it. You've been making this whole dichotomy between opinions and actions, when we're talking about a person who is making vile actions anyway.

 

I mean, look at it this way: if you have an opinion but never act on it, then even if you want to strip the flesh of every human and turn them into tortured monstrosities whose very existence is pain, nobody will ever be affected by it. To drop Godwin's law, Hitler would be remembered far differently if he kept his hatred as just a private conversation piece, and he'd be remember even differently than that if he never spoke of or acted upon it at all. But he did, and now we have one of the most terrible incidents we've faced as a species forever staining our history.

[Grain of Salt]

Me not reading the dumb opinions in this thread

 

[[McD] James]

I made a post here the other night, but it was deleted. I'm baffled as to why. It was exponentially less inflammatory than at least 30% of the posts here. 

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I wouldn't be shocked if half my posts here were deleted. I've decided to step out of the conversation and let it run its course.

Frankly, they probably should be, I think I only exacerbated the situation. Oops.

[[McD] James]

I just want people to love one another and get along. 

 

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

@Ajora I wish I could like your post a million times.

[fraggle]

Think we've heard enough at this point.