alex

@synthesis_landale: I'm not sure that I agree with the notion that women who have disagreed with Anita's assertions have been roundly dismissed or mistreated. At least not across the board. Maddy Myers wrote a glowing review of Bayonetta 2 and has talked about how she finds the character to be an empowering one. Maybe she's taken more flak for that stance than I've seen, but there are dissenting opinions from women writers out there.

This is maybe my favorite post in this entire thread.

@heyguys: I just wrote a lengthy response to GJP a couple of pages back, but if that response doesn't cover what you were asking, I'd kindly ask you to repeat it once more. I think I missed your follow-up question.

@fengshuigod: I think Patrick meant that it's unprecedented in games criticism. Not in feminism.

Okay, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed that.

@mister_v: No, it's fine! Like, I'm not against you challenging me on what I put out into the world. I disagree that there was anything truly nasty about either of those jokes, but I also get why someone might feel that way. That said, they're representative of my own thinking, in some bizarre way, so I don't have a problem promoting them myself.

What @sargus has said here is the bulk of what I would say. The group existed as a forum for people from various publications to discuss what was going on in the industry. It's the kind of thing that's common everywhere in media. My girlfriend is a photo editor and she belongs to a group of photo editors that discuss pretty much the same kinds of stuff we did.

The post that got everyone riled up, the one where some people were discussing the idea of making some kind of collective statement about denouncing what had taken place with Zoe, mostly consisted of a lot of writers sharing disparate opinions on what the best approach in this situation would even be, and in the end, no such statement was ever made. It was an idea floated that eventually died.

Everything that's taken place around that group is so full of misinformation it's beyond distressing. Half the emails in that group were people asking for freelancers to cover games/events for publications and people posting fucking pet photos, for god's sake. People in industries talk to one another. They network, they converse, because that's what human beings do. If we all treated other publications and their writers as off-limits, this industry would never grow. We'd all just be in a bunch of hermetically sealed bubbles with no perception of what anyone else in the business actually thinks about what we do. That's not only an unwelcome idea, I think it's kind of a dangerous one.

@wolfgame: OK, that's my bad. I got that confused with this tweet.

https://twitter.com/alex_navarro/statuses/484078455030824960

But yes, that statement was in regards to harassment, and it's OK. I'm not mad about you bringing it up or addressing my tone on twitter. I think that's a valid concern. I try to address things with proper tact, but I sometimes don't articulate things well.

@mister_v: I don't know. I found those bits humorous in regards to a situation where very little is worth laughing about. I've also lashed out and said some mean things on twitter from time to time, and I've deleted those tweets and explained why in most cases. I don't think the idea of poking fun at a movement I consider to be illegitimate is a terrible thing. But I also try to be choosy with the jokes I promote so as to not be aggressively insulting to people. I've probably fucked up on that a few times, but it is how I generally try to conduct myself.