So, now the guy has hundreds more followers then before all of this blew up? I don't get people on twitter sometimes. Of course I guess that pretty much goes for what he did as well. I mean, it doesn't seem like it's that hard to use or understand, but holy shit, some insane things happen because of it.
As much as the guy was a douche, he was probably right in some sense. Wasn't Felicia Day on the Spike TV Awards with Geoff??? Makes me wonder, if she look like an actual gamer: overweight, laid back and not too pretty; would had she gotten all the gigs that bioware gave her...
@artgarcrunkle: @JustKamToo: For what it's worth, it was apparently his idea to part ways with Destructoid. He said he understood how it could reflect poorly on Destructoid and suggested that they distance themselves from him.
Also, for some reason, he called Wil Wheaton a "puddle of miscarriage soup". So, right when I think he "gets" why this happened and the repercussions of attacking someone unprovoked and calling them a "glorified booth babe", he gives more reason to think less of him. Some people...
As much as the guy was a douche, he was probably right in some sense. Wasn't Felicia Day on the Spike TV Awards with Geoff??? Makes me wonder, if she look like an actual gamer: overweight, laid back and not too pretty; would had she gotten all the gigs that bioware gave her...
Am I missing something? Did he really get fired over three tweets that, while still extremely dickish especially since he sent them right to her, are pretty weak. Or was there more?
I'm with you. I see how those tweets are generally dickish and dumb, but they don't seem offensive enough to be noteworthy.
No he got fired because the company he worked for didn't want to be associated with his views. Same way that if you worked for any company and sent insulting messages to someone else in that industry over a public forum.
Should that guy have been publicly fired on twitter, inciting an internet lynch mob full of white knights? Absolutely not.
I thought the "mob" came before the termination. But whatever, perhaps they should not have fired him publicly to save him some face, but if the company in question feels that he is making them look bad (in public, no less) they have every right to fire him. When your job is covering the game industry, and you act unprofessionally towards members of that industry in public - what else could you expect? What company would want to be associated with such a person?
As much as the guy was a douche, he was probably right in some sense. Wasn't Felicia Day on the Spike TV Awards with Geoff??? Makes me wonder, if she look like an actual gamer: overweight, laid back and not too pretty; would had she gotten all the gigs that bioware gave her...
Yeah, because actual gamers look like that.
Jesus fucking Christ...
Did we just read the dumbest fucking thing ever written?
You know the most fucked up part about this story?
If he attacked a guy, let's say Michael Pachter, nobody would be as outraged and he probably wouldn't have been fired.
You know it's true.
Thats complete bullshit - if he went on Twitter at @'ed Patcher calling him useless and insulting him in the same way the exact same thing would have happened - same for Nolan North. The problem wasn't that he doesn't like the Day or what she does but that he chose to insult her directly over a public forum.
I am amazed that people in professional positions don't realise that they can't use Twitter etc as if they were having a beery conversation in the pub. If you work on the internet, you have to consider it part of your workplace and the same way you wouldn't be able to go up to someone in your office and insult them you can't do it online - indeed it's worse online because its so public.
I love the way people manage to turn everything round and blame it on women.....its a bit pathetic.
Sure the guy's comments lacked tact - but where did he say anything remotely sexist or misogynistic? There seems to be this almost thinktank-style of culture within the games press - like as if nobody can be criticised by another press member.
I like Jim Sterling, I think he's one of the smarter people in gaming press - but why does he get away with the aforementioned posting of someones personal details? Or more recently, publicly demean an entire website in Valid Gamers? I found it funny, but it was still kind of harsh.
Er.....calling her a glorified booth babe is pretty sexist I think.....in anycase its not that what he said was sexist, just rude and unprofessional.
I think his first tweet was an interesting question and might have been an alright discussion if it wasn't directed right at her and he went off the rails with the rest of them. I mean interesting discussion because of the same thing that happened with Wil Wheaton where he claimed he was an ambassador for games and represented the industry or some other shit and got really defensive about it. On the other hand these people are so out of the way that I don't think they have any effect on the industry and should just do there own thing. This guy was a dick though.
@leebmx No, he's pretty much right. He's fired because he said something harsh about a woman that people like. If he said that Pachter or Whitta or out own Ryan Davis don't contribute anything besides personality, people would argue with him, but he would still have a job. If we fired people for being rude and unprofessional, Brad would be the only staff member left over here.
@leebmx No, he's pretty much right. He's fired because he said something harsh about a woman that people like. If he said that Pachter or Whitta or out own Ryan Davis don't contribute anything besides personality, people would argue with him, but he would still have a job. If we fired people for being rude and unprofessional, Brad would be the only staff member left over here.
I don't believe that's true. I think it'd be pretty much the same situation if he directed this question towards a popular male person within the industry rather than a female.
EDIT: To clarify, not just the initial question, but also the unprofessional attitude and the other remarks that followed.
@translucentfish: Hey I'm not trying to hate on women in the gaming industry, I love Tina Wood and I liked Laura Foy. Those two women knew their shit back in the day, they did their homework and could actually have intelligent conservations about gaming in G4's early days.
I get your argument that if men go down this route it's perfectly fine.
But hey, the sports media industry has had this same crap going on for decades. It's no different than the video gaming industry. It all boils down to whether you get their schtick or not whether it's Chobot or Skip Bayless. It's all about if your fake or not.
He got fired because he said something about a WOMAN. That's all there is to this. If we didn't have this faux feminism movement in gaming right now he would have apologized and went with his life.
Destructiod keeps Jim Sterling employed. Remember that when talking about this.
@leebmx No, he's pretty much right. He's fired because he said something harsh about a woman that people like. If he said that Pachter or Whitta or out own Ryan Davis don't contribute anything besides personality, people would argue with him, but he would still have a job. If we fired people for being rude and unprofessional, Brad would be the only staff member left over here.
Unless you can back up that claim, you're just creating a hypothetical, fictional situation and outcome to "prove" your point. If someone like Ryan or Whitta made a personal attack on someone like that, regardless of gender, I am confident they would get in trouble for it. They simply wouldn't do it. Why would they? Why does someone, for no apparent reason, question what another person "adds" to an industry? What does he add? What does anyone add? Why is that considered a good question, or a necessary one?
A dude lost his livelihood because he called out a Token Attractive White Female Gamer for being basically what she is and people are OK with that. Real life is wacky.
No, dude lost his job because he was a small fish going after a larger fish protected by a school of even larger fish. Dude was an idiot.
@Galiant Do you seriously believe he would have been fired if he said that Michael Pachter didn't contribute anything useful and was just an amusing personality? There would be a twitter argument, and nothing would come of it. There is no way he'd be fired for getting into an argument with a man. How many Kotaku writers have had fights with Jaffe? Over there it seems like its grounds for promotion. Ryan and Patrick read a tabloid article by Crescente and then said a bunch of shit about Jason Rubin, no one white knighted for him, and Ryan and Patrick never had anyone call for their jobs.
I don't agree with the guy, and his booth babes line genders the argument, but I won't call black white because it suits my image.
You know the most fucked up part about this story?
If he attacked a guy, let's say Michael Pachter, nobody would be as outraged and he probably wouldn't have been fired.
You know it's true.
Thats complete bullshit - if he went on Twitter at @'ed Patcher calling him useless and insulting him in the same way the exact same thing would have happened - same for Nolan North. The problem wasn't that he doesn't like the Day or what she does but that he chose to insult her directly over a public forum.
I am amazed that people in professional positions don't realise that they can't use Twitter etc as if they were having a beery conversation in the pub. If you work on the internet, you have to consider it part of your workplace and the same way you wouldn't be able to go up to someone in your office and insult them you can't do it online - indeed it's worse online because its so public.
I love the way people manage to turn everything round and blame it on women.....its a bit pathetic.
It's not complete bullshit, white knights come out in defense of women, Pachter and North are both guys, right? ...right?
Whether or not the end result would be the same is irrelevant, I'm just saying the outrage would have been on a smaller scale in comparison, I don't think insulting Pachter would have attracted anywhere near as much attention.
I'm not blaming women, I'm blaming the legions of horny gamer nerds that feel they have to rush out in the defense of women. Now that is pathetic.
More internet Drama. Last week SpoonyOne. This week Felicia Day. lol.. Don't ever change internet.
Spoony again? What did he do this time?
Basically he went on a HUGE rant at his fans on twitter and had a complete meltdown that led to him being fired from TGWTG and burning nearly every bridge he could do. Thats just the abridged version of what happend, there was a lot more to it than that which is around the web if your interested. He's since been diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder.
I liked The Guild and Dr. Horrible; but otherwise I find F Day incredibly annoying. Veronica Belmont is the perfect example of how not to be an annoying gamer girl, she is smart, knows her games and doesn't draw unnecessary attention to herself and the fact that she is a girl; F Day fails at all of these things but that isn't a reason to go after her with flimsy insults on twitter. As annoying as F Day is; she does do a lot of good for videogames in general bringing more people in to gaming and making video game related content/entertainment as much as she isn't my cup of tea, it's hard to argue she isn't doing work that needs to be done.
To me it seemed like this guy just said that to be edgy. No one really knew who he was and Felicia Day is a pretty popular woman that I imagine he thought the comment would just get looked over like any other hate comment about a celebrity, really. I'd assume nothing would've happened to him if he didn't advertise that he worked for Destructoid.
That said, just spouting hate for someone is pretty immature and spouting it under the label of a professional company is a good way to lose your job. (Apparently he didn't get paid anyway, but you just lost a pretty good relationship to get into journalism with.)
@Galiant Do you seriously believe he would have been fired if he said that Michael Pachter didn't contribute anything useful and was just an amusing personality? There would be a twitter argument, and nothing would come of it. There is no way he'd be fired for getting into an argument with a man. How many Kotaku writers have had fights with Jaffe? Over there it seems like its grounds for promotion. Ryan and Patrick read a tabloid article by Crescente and then said a bunch of shit about Jason Rubin, no one white knighted for him, and Ryan and Patrick never had anyone call for their jobs. I don't agree with the guy, and his booth babes line genders the argument, but I won't call black white because it suits my image.
While there is some merit to what you are saying, I think we also have to factor in how popular Felicia is. She is a little less than 100k shy of 2 million followers, which is a lot of damn people, especially when you are a site like Destructoid. That isn't even counting the followers of Veronica Belmont and Wil Wheaton. All of the people you mentioned (Pachter, Rubin, Jaffe) aren't even close to 100k followers, so the backlash that would result if this had happened to them wouldn't be significant enough for Destructoid to really care. Also, Ryan was an intern who nobody knew. Compare this to Sterling (the only reason me and many others actually know about Destructoid), who has never been condemned despite saying some vile crap as far as I'm concerned. All of those factors (including the female argument) contributed to the firing.
Compare this to the Sterling and Anna Anthrophy debacle. Anna isn't very famous so there wasn't as big of a backlash. As far as Destructoid PR was concerned, it made sense for them to fire this guy here and not fire Sterling before. It isn't necessarily right (like the heads of the company that runs Destructoid actually care about morals), but that's just how things work.
Just as a disclaimer, I would like to add that I don't agree with or support the comments that came out of that dude's Twitter feed, especially the booth babes comment. It was stupid and uncalled for.
@shadowdrone: I know exactly what Jaffe is meaning. Basically he is trying to say she isn't a frail little girl that needs protecting and she can fight her own fights without men coming out of the woodwork white knighting for her on twitter. Which he has kind of a point ... to an extent.
Reacting negatively to the misogynist bullshit that is pervasive in the gaming community is too often conflated with the concept of 'white knighting.'
I can't stand Destructoid or Kotaku because they just feel like gossip sites for the game industry.
Gawker runs their sites like that. It's their whole business model. It's why Kotaku is trash and people who write for it are deluded if they think they are contributing anything worthwhile to the industry.
Why is he complaining about Felicia Day not doing anything for the industry when that's not her fucking job? She's a voice actor and an actress, what does he expect her to do? Revolutionize the racing genre?
Someone got fired because of comments made about a person? If stuff like that happened in other businesses, everyone would eventually get fired. This is pathetic. Felicia Day may be talentless or an important person in this industry, but getting fired because of talking shit about her (and nothing that serious)? That is just sad.
Edit: I also have to agree that if it weren't for the target to be a woman or the fact that the feminist movement came to the videogame industry, this firing would never happen and some people and the target of this rant, would just ignore it.
This is true. Jim Sterlin has said much worse, hell his job is pretty much insulting everyone in the industry. Has he been fired or suspended? No.
So, Felicia Day is another talentless semi-hot girl with a legion of pathetic nerds protecting her?
This trend needs to stop.
Felicia Day is yet another talentless whore.
She shouldn't be where she is. I agree with Perez. You guys need to stop this nonsense.
She produced her own show and got it sold. WTF are you talking about? Oh right, you're a little kid.
oh, WOW. She produced a show for autistic manchildren.
Hey, how about not all girls around geek culture are there to be eye candy? Has Felicia ever posed in maximum or otherwise used her womanly assets for financial gain? No. She is a geek like the rest of us. And genuinely loves geek culture and contributing her own small part to it.
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