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@humanity: It doesn’t seem at all cryptic to me. I’m quite confused why you seem to think that. The point is made quite clearly.

@corvak: Inflammatory? What? She says the most harmless and obvious things ever, in the politest way possible. I really do not understand where her detractors get the “inflammatory” from. That’s just completely incomprehensible.

Also, please consider that people have a problem when you call her stuff “inflammatory” despite being obviously anything but. Disagreeing with it is fine. But thinking what she says is “inflammatory”? What? How? In which world?! It’s so weird.

I mean, I guess it’s inflammatory in that people get super-angry about it, chase her from her home and call in bomb threats (all things that happened) but, little hint, that’s not actually what disagreeing means. Those people get angry without any rational reason for their anger. And yeah, when so many people do that it’s perfectly fine to get defensive and not give every bad-faith rebuttal (from people who didn’t even comprehend her arguments and seem to completely misunderstand everything all the time) your time.

@sinisterraven: There is no conflict of interest. It’s delusion. It’s bonkers. It makes no sense.

This makes me blood boil. You are a bully. Please don’t act so fucking irresponsible. Please don’t. I’m pleading with you. Why are you so cruel? Why? I’m at a loss of words …

@brodehouse: Dude, are you a psychologist or what? (I bet not, since most psychologists would probably be horrified at the thought of diagnosing someone through an article written about them.) If not I think you should really shut up. ’Cause that’s really not cool.

@phuturist: I looked at all 25 Worth Reading posts from 2014. For simplicity, I included only links with named single authors (excluding videos, podcasts, crowdfunding projects, tweets and anything from community members) to get an idea which authors’ longish form writing is linked to most frequently from this feature.

I’m sure I made a couple mistakes here and there, but probably nothing egregious that would heavily skew the data.

Patrick included 305 links that meet the above definition from 212 authors in his feature in 2014. As these numbers suggest, most authors were linked to only once (166 authors) or twice (50 authors). Ten authors were linked three times. Here is a list of the authors that were linked most frequently (four or more times):

1. Leigh Alexander (10)
2. Simon Parkin (9)
3. Cara Ellison (7)
4. Wesley Yin-Poole (5)
5. Christian Nutt (4)
6. Ian Bogost (4)
7. Jason Schreier (4)
8. Jeremy Parish (4)
9. Keith Stuart (4)
10. Kris Graft (4)
11. Nathan Grayson (4)

(In my defense, I was bored and had a few minutes. Here is the full list.)

As you can see, there is really not much to your assertion that Patrick features certain people much more frequently then others. Especially the people you named, while frequently linked (Jenn Frank was linked three times, by the way), are not linked much more frequently than others. Looking at the big picture I would argue that Worth Reading features a very wide selection of different voices.

I’m also not sure whether arguing for the exclusion of some writers is the right approach here. As Patrick already said, he is very open to suggestions, and considering the wide variety of authors he linked to so far, I’m quite sure he is willing to read anything from anyone.

You don’t have to like everything linked here. I don’t think anyone does. That’s just normal. However, if you are just unconstructively arguing from the exclusion of someone then that’s not very helpful. A bit less than seven percent of all the links were to the three authors you named. I think you will be able to deal with that. Especially since you know their names so well. Those should be easy to skip for you.

I also would really love it if you tried to approach any of these articles with an open mind. Especially Cara Ellison’s this week is full of tongue in cheek humor (like the sentence you quoted) and all around interesting. I personally think it’s an excellent article. But maybe you just don’t like it and that’s ok, too.

@joshwent: Sometimes fanning the flames is the right thing to do.

I think it’s important on such matters that people express themselves loudly (but I don’t even think that article was that loud, it was pretty harmless and explained everything extremely clearly, actually, it read completely uncontroversial to me and I still don’t understand why anyone has a problem with it). It’s not their duty to always play nice and always explain everything slowly. It’s nice that people do that, too, but being loud and clearly showing what you have a problem with is also necessary.

Especially when Nintendo makes such a disgusting statement.

@manmadegod: Your view is too black and white. I do not want to censor any games, I don’t think Anita wants to censor any games. It’s possible for a game to be good – great, even – and still use the DiD trope. Great games (or other cultural artifacts) can have flaws. (Scott Pligrim vs the World has some nasty sexist flaws that annoy me but I still love it to death.) That all is not really the issue here. (And I also never said that it is impossible to eliminate a stereotype – eliminating it is exactly the reason why people speak up, it’s exactly the goal. It’s why I care about this. You only have to look back at history to see that pushing a stereotype to the margins is very possible.)

Using the DiD trope doesn’t make you a sexist monster, though I would argue, given its past prevalence, it at least makes you a lazy and unimaginative storyteller, one that re-enforces a stereotype no less. Think about that and maybe pick a different approach. Is that so much to ask?

All this is is being critical of culture and the stories it tells. You are free to make as many DiD games as you like, but don’t be surprised when you get called out on it.

When is it ok to use the DiD trope? Well, it’s legal and always should be legal. I don’t think anyone is calling for a legislative ban of the DiD trope. Given its past prevalence however, and the context in which it exists I wouldn’t recommend any game developer (or screenwriter, or author, etc.) to use it, at least not without also subverting it. That’s just it.

@manmadegod: You reject and remove the stereotype by (among other things) not re-enforcing it with you own depictions of the stereotype, i.e. by avoiding or subverting the DiD trope. That’s it. It really is as simple as that.

You cannot wave a magic wand and make a stereotype disappear. In many ways that stereotype is constructed by stories using the DiD or similar such tropes. To separate the two is hard and often makes no sense. You can always ask which was first (the stereotype or the trope), but the stereotype likely owes its continued existence to DiD and similar tropes (among other things, obviously).

You treat the situation as though the situation of men and women were exactly equal and thus arrive at your conclusions. When a MiD (Men in Distress) trope is ok, why then is a DiD trope not ok? Because the stereotype of the weak and passive man does not exist the same way that stereotype exists for women, that’s why.

It’s not really necessary to prove intent. Yes, intent makes it worse, but it is possible and even common to do sexist things without intending to. The kind of consciousness raising Anita does is, in that context, especially valuable. Please note that in her video she accuses barely anyone (and certainly not Miyamoto) of intentionally doing sexist things and no one of being sexist.

I also think you kind of missed the point of her video. The Damsel in Distress trope (DiD) in isolation and without context clearly wouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes people really are caught and helpless (become objects) and other people have to heroically save them (are the subjects). Nothing wrong with that. If only the Mario games used the DiD trope and nothing else, there would be no problem. If the stereotype of the weak and passive woman didn’t exist and there would be more gender balance in who has to be rescued, the DiD trope would also be no problem.

The problem is the prevalence of the trope, how it fits right in with stereotypes of women and men and enforces them.

The problem is not that no games exist where a man is helpless and has to be saved.