Fucking Kotaku

[Waldorf and Statler]

Because she's the same girl who claimed I was a troll because I disliked FFXIII. And how exactly did I look bad?

[TheRevanchist]

Tell her something like "I forgive you my child". I'm sure the reaction will be worth seeing. Then, dismiss her reply. It has an even better effect on dickheads like that.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Because she's the same girl who claimed I was a troll because I disliked FFXIII. And how exactly did I look bad?

 

You escalated things very quickly. You both just look like big babies.

[Waldorf and Statler]

I mean I guess. But once you have dealt enough with these people it's hard to stay in a moral high ground. If somebody pokes you in the forehead enough you won't go "oh please stop" you'll go "fuck you I will bite your fucking finger off and shove it up your ass"

[Strangelove]

http://kotaku.com/the-gay-joke-in-far-cry-3-blood-dragon-is-harmless-or-496604699

 

i didn't even bother reading, I know if it's by Patricia, I know its nothing but bait. I wonder if shes actually so judgmental and bitchy or if they make her out to be that person. Theres always gotta be at least one.

[Mister Jack]

Oh for fuck's sake.

 

I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I don't think every single gay joke needs a crusade against it. I bothered to read the comments and virtually every self professed gay person who commented did not give a shit about the joke. A lot of them didn't even remember it until Patricia brought it up.

 

And for the small SMALL group that took offense? Well, too bad? I know gay people are fighting for their rights as we speak, but sometimes they need to be able to take a joke like anyone else and just let things go. If you start a big hoopla about every single little jab, people are going to become fatigued by it and not care about the more important issues. Pick your battles.

[Strangelove]

That always seems to be the case.

Straight people get offended FOR gay people.

And Kotaku enjoys making a big deal about something a very small group thinks. It's cheap.

[deanb]

It's a bit like "Campaign for Equal Heights" in the Discworld books. And gave Blood Dragon a spin earlier (It's way too dark, but might pick it up in future, FC3 first though), didn't find anything offensive about the quip, sounds like a jab I'd make tbh. Patricia could find an example of an -ism in Pong if you gave her a enough time.

[Mister Jack]

If anything, I'd say that articles like Patricia's, whether they're about sexism, racism, or homophobia, are 99% of the time more harmful in themselves than the things they condemn. Racism, sexism, and homophobia ARE real issues, and they're important issues, and they should definitely be written about. However cheap, sensationalist articles like hers cheapen real societal problems for the sake of page hits, which is not only counter-productive but frankly a bit insulting to boot. If Patricia writes 20 articles of silly bullshit like this, how many people are going to care when a 21st article written by, I dunno, Fahey or whomever, comes up to address an example of sexism or homophobia that IS significant? People are already sick of seeing it all the time on Kotaku. Patricia's articles run the risk of driving people away and rendering them apathetic to things they absolutely should care about.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Mister Jack

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Those cheap sensationalist articles are often pretty long and in-depth and involve multiple people talking about the issue. I find that people like you just hate talking about these hard issues because you likely have some of these prejudices and you don't want to own up to them. If people are sick of it then they don't really care about fixing the issue to begin with. All she's doing is driving away the people who don't really have a problem with these things.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

In this case, I'm going to say it's too widespread to be a "Fucking Kotaku" problem. "Fucking Society" or "Fucking Journalism", maybe.

[TheMightyEthan]

People can care about an issue but still get sick of what they perceive as nitpicking.  Also you run this risk of alienating people who might care some about the issue but not just a whole lot.  "If that's the worst discrimination facing Group X then it must not be so bad."  Then more important, bigger problems get lost in the sea of overly critical crap.  People only have so much energy to care, and if it gets gobbled up by a million tiny problems then they don't have any left when something important comes along.

 

*Edit* - Not saying it's right or that's how it should be, ideally we could address all injustices, regardless of how big or small, but when you're trying to change the behavior of society or any large group as a whole then you have to acknowledge the realities of how they will react to your methods.  Pick your battles.

Edited May 9, 2013 by TheMightyEthan

[Mister Jack]

You only hate these articles because you're prejudiced.

 

Even from you I would normally expect better than this kind of argument.

 

Also a single dumb gay joke from a cheesy 80's themed downloadable game is not a "hard issue."

Edited May 9, 2013 by Mister Jack

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

In this case, I'm going to say it's too widespread to be a "Fucking Kotaku" problem. "Fucking Society" or "Fucking Journalism", maybe.

 

Bingo.

 

@Ethan. I disagree and you're just proving my point. If you only care about "big issues" then you probably don't care much at all if you're okay with the smaller issues or think that they're non-issues. In many cases they're representative of the whole.

 

The Blood Dragon article seemed to be exploring if it was bad or not. My conclusion was that it wasn't. She just took fucking forever to get there.

[TheMightyEthan]

It's not that I don't care about the littler things, it's that I only have so much energy to invest in it and I think it's better to focus on the bigger problems first.

 

Take racism against black people in US.  First you fight against slavery, then once that's illegal you fight against voting discrimination, then once that's illegal you fight against economic discrimination, etc.  If you try to say "okay, we're going to outlaw slavery and also let them vote and you also you can't refuse to hire them and also you have to let them use the same bathrooms as white people and also you shouldn't make mildly racist comments" all at once people are going to go "fuck you, you're crazy" and you won't accomplish anything.

 

Messages about what should and should not be done should be addressed not to the people who already agree with you, but to those whose opinions you're trying to change, and if you spend too much time focusing on things that are going to seem innocuous to those people then you're going to desensitize them to the entire problem, which is the opposite of what you want to happen.

 

*Edit* - I haven't read the Blood Dragon article and have no idea where it falls in all this, I'm just talking about the idea of people needing to pick their battles in general.

Edited May 9, 2013 by TheMightyEthan

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

This all varies widely depending on what the issue at end is. You're only talking legally and not culturally which greatly misses the point.

[deanb]

There's many prejudices in society that need to be tackled, but tbh I'd rather not have Patricia on my side.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Fair enough. I'm not exactly a fan, either. I'm just glad that someone is bitching about these things.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm not talking legally, I'm talking culturally.  Granted I used some examples of changing laws, but in the context of a democratic society where you need to change the culture to get the laws changed.  Whatever you're trying to change, be it the laws or attitudes or whatever, you're not going to be able to get people to care if you try to do it all at once, so you need to prioritize.

[Mister Jack]

If this was the first time she'd done an article like this I'd dismiss it as merely silly, but she does this ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It's crossing the line into harmful because even fewer people take it seriously the more it happens. A lot of people probably don't even click articles written by her anymore. What if at some point she DOES have something major about prejudice to report? All those people won't even read it because of the reputation she's building for herself with pieces like this.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Well let's consider frequent Kotaku topics: Homosexuality, women in games, women in the games industry. There's not much in terms of law to change (obviously gay marriage is the big one for homosexuality) but rather those changes need to be cultural. Where do you focus if you want to prioritize on those? Most of what people are doing is raising awareness that these things are even issues to begin with because so many people are aware or won't admit to it.

[deanb]

There's many people bitching about -isms. Just not every needless thing that might come along that'll spur page hits. If you start taking offense with every minor thing that's 99% not offensive it just dilutes the cause. It's the boy who cried wolf. One day she'll end up with some story on Kotick having deep seated hatred of gay people and no one will care because "oh it's just Patricia and Kotaku pushing for hits again".

It's even worse when you realise it's Patricia putting her own prejudices in there, she's only seeing it as homophobic because she took the reference of the other soldier being gay to be a bad thing. It's just a thing.

 

I'm probably bad though cos I take the piss out of the straight guys for their straightness. A la

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in9SiDtJLaU

[TheRevanchist]

If this was the first time she'd done an article like this I'd dismiss it as merely silly, but she does this ALL THE FUCKING TIME. It's crossing the line into harmful because even fewer people take it seriously the more it happens. A lot of people probably don't even click articles written by her anymore. What if at some point she DOES have something major about prejudice to report? All those people won't even read it because of the reputation she's building for herself with pieces like this.

If an article has her name on it, I won't even read it anymore, because she does this "ALL THE FUCKING TIME".

[deanb]

 

So this is a thing.

[Mister Jack]

In this case he's referring to a "rumor" they wrote that said "Microsoft is six months behind on developing next-gen content, has canceled several failing projects, and is aggressively pursuing exclusive games."  His answer to that was basically "No shit, that's how the entire industry works."