Why I think it's hard for GB to diversify the staff.
By OrangePylon 191 Comments
It looks like Giant Bomb's new hires are turning into a bit of an issue, and not because of their unspellable last names.
So Dan and Jason are white dudes. Lots of folks were hoping that the new hire would be a woman or a member of a minority group. Patrick Klepek's interest in the polarizing "feminism and minority representation in gaming" debate has, in turn, cultivated a crowd of duders and duderettes who want to see more diversity in the Giant Bomb cast of characters. With all of the gaming diversity debate shitstorms on GB, it might seem hypocritical that they ended up hiring two white dudes anyway. Since this is a personality-driven website, it's natural for people to want someone they can identify with for the sake of discussions and reviews/quick looks, so I fully understand the desire to see a female or minority staff member. However, I also think this view is misguided and shows a lack of understanding of the range of abilities a person needs to have in order to do what Giant Bomb does.
Giant Bomb needed to hire people who are well-established, experienced, and skilled in this weird on-camera video game personality field. They needed people who can produce high-quality content without a long gestation period to learn the craft. Otherwise you're just asking for shitty, boring, awkward, meandering content. There are very very few people in the world who have that kind of experience, who have proven themselves capable of producing great off-the-cuff content and discussion about video game bullshit. Out of that already narrow pool, how many are women or minority? It's probably not a lot. That's a sad fact of this subculture, it happened to start with nerdy white dudes, then stereotyped as something that only white guys did for so long that the scene has become extremely protective of its demographic. In this kind of environment, it makes sense that the most able candidates for something like a Giant Bomb staffer would end up being white dudes. It's incredibly unfortunate, but that's the world we live in.
You could argue that maybe they could hire a less experienced or skilled candidate for the sake of an alternate perspective, and maybe grow their skills from there. I don't think Giant Bomb can afford to do that with its paid full-time employees. The value of this site's content rests in how well you know these people and their quirks, so the site needs to stay somewhat "small" in order to retain the audience familiarity. Because the staff needs to remain small, yet still consistently produce interesting and popular content, every single member of the staff needs to be at the top of their game. It's not the kind of place that can act as a proving ground for the inexperienced, unless CBSi wants to bring in some interns (which would be great!), but every paid full-time employee of this ramshackle operation needs to be pretty damn good, because every weakness will chase off subscribers and further polarize the community. Youtube and Twitch are the proving grounds, the place for the inexperienced to hone their skills and hopefully make connections. Giant Bomb just can't afford to take on an inexperienced unskilled candidate no matter how interesting their background might be, because an alternate viewpoint is worthless if the person isn't able to articulate it well on camera/microphone, or slows down the workflow behind the scenes.
Furthermore, I don't think you need someone with a particular skin color or sex organs in order to discuss and point out issues of gender or racial stereotyping or discrimination. I think you're gravely underestimating the intelligence and awareness of the GB staff if you think they're part of the gender or racial inequality problem in gaming culture. They're not just "white guys", they're also adult humans with fully-functional brains, and they work very hard to make this website and its content inclusive, so it can be enjoyed by everybody. For example, I think the way they react to stereotypical depictions of women in video games is the right way for this website: they mock it, they treat it with sarcasm and ridiculousness, with maybe brief discussion about what's wrong. They usually do not get too serious or overly "political" (for lack of a better word), because that is not the tone that brings people to Giant Bomb. Patrick catches a lot of shit for mentioning and discussing the issues, but that's mainly because the issues themselves are controversial, he doesn't actually focus on that stuff much more than the other serious topics he discusses. Anyway, the staff's race and gender aren't preventing them from keeping this site inclusive (Jeff's rap lyrics notwithstanding).
On a side note, I bet someone's gonna make the argument that a female or minority staff member would make the rest of the staff far too guarded and careful on anything involving gender or race, and the content would become more awkward and stilted as a result. That kind of thing only really happens with people you don't know very well, GB is close-knit by nature so I don't think that kind of guardedness would happen. You can cross certain barriers around friends that you wouldn't cross around acquaintances.
My point is, Giant Bomb can't just "hire a woman" or "hire a black guy" or "hire a genderless purple thought entity". Above all else, they need people with mastery of a certain rare combination of abilities, which gives them such a narrow pool to draw from that requiring a particular combo of genes would just not work. GB is still expanding, maybe in the future they can find someone who comes from a more interesting background and possesses the skills they need to grow the site into something even dumber.
I'm speculating a lot here, though. What do you folks think?
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