Giant Bombcast 540: Sailor Bruno Mars

If you are employed at a major cooperation and your social media presence isn't set to private it would be wise to not engage whatsoever with customers. People are scum, people on the internet are emboldened scum because there are few consequences to shit posting on someone for whatever nonsense pops into your mind. Should she have been fired for overreacting to her stresses? No. However, as a professional, you have to know better than responding to a customer with such vitriol, that is just common sense.

Actually, the reason it's a problem isn't because I think Arenanet fired him to avoid claims of sexism, and rather he was fired because of the pressure from the same sharks swimming over to see Price get canned.

I'm not going to pretend disciplinary action against Price, however deserved, wasn't going to attract your usual collection of internet unsavories.

I take it you maybe don't pay attention to the news?

Because there's kinda been an ongoing thing about calling out the rampant sexism for some time. "We live in a sexist society" shouldn't really be a shocking statement if you're paying attention.

Star Wars was brought up due to the targeted right-wing harassment of the people who made it, to the point where they've had to retreat from social media.

ComicsGate is a group, largely the same people as GG, harassing comics artists and writers, especially targeting women and other marginalized groups, and being lead by a genocidal right-wing asshole who has openly said the world would be better if all the gay people were murdered.

If you aren't aware of these two things, you really don't have the background with which to reasonably discuss the targeted campaigns that have been going after marginalized folks. Which is what has been happening - mass letter writing campaigns are going on to get women fired from video game jobs - in some cases, the reports are the form letters are even mistakenly just saying "$FemaleName". Because that's always what this was about.

Also, I find it very disgusting that people are trying to make a comparison between Price, and Nick Robinson, a dude who sexually preyed on underage kids, to try to justify it. As if what he did was "just opinions", and not actively dangerous.

@mittens: Sadly he's pretty much ignored in articles and they yell sexism anyway.

Yea, the ArenaNet dev. seems like an asshole but she definitely didn't need to be fired for her response. US residents seem way too sensitive nowadays. ArenaNet's brand isn't damaged by what she said.

Are the guys being ignorant or just don't want to address that the ArenaNet employee in question has a blotchy history of stuff like this? I'm sure there was much more going on behind the scenes and that she's had a talking to before. She's said some gross things on social media before. The confusing thing is why they fired the other employee.

If you're talking about the GB staff, it's because the articles they're using as a source don't mention it.

If only an example that people took the lead from what happened with Arenanet to go after other women: https://twitter.com/patrickklepek/status/1016876991260381184

@karrius: There was definitely some gloating. There was a particular tweet that made me do a double take that went something like "Is it just me or does the air taste fresher today?"

Hey guys, I'm the lead dev on Indie Pogo! I'd be more than happy send you guys some review codes for use or for giveaways! Also, I can provide a secret passcode that can unlock all the fighters (since Viridian take quite a few coins to unlock) You can easily reach me at https://twitter.com/LoweBros

Thanks for the shoutout!
~Trevor

Don't expect them to read up on it. Every "news" outlet is taking it out of context and will just stick to that narrative. Guess I can just lash out at my customers and expect to keep my job hmm.

@catladon: Actually the Beastcast mentioned Totalbiscuit's passing. IIrc Vinny said he was an important but also controversial figure in the industry and gave his condolences to his family.

Menfeels. Menfeelin'

@karrius: i disagreed with TB on many thing's but he i always thought

1, he was sincere in his beliefs,

2, he wasn't a racist, sexist, homophobe(i am the only the gay in the village and i had no probs with him)

3. I respected his commitment to the community and industry and being a fellow Brit i understood his dry , ironic and sometime dodgy humor, he was a geordie after all.

I'm not saying you can't criticize the dead, but firstly give it some time, and secondly the attacks weren't criticism they where personal attacks from ignorant people.

@stereotype: good, sry must off missed the reference, while not to everyone's taste's, he was committed to consumer welfare and took no fools and was highly influential.

@karrius: to be fair , SW been s**t since Empire :)

When the youtube comments are more cival then the website comments. Feelsbadman.

Some thoughts:

Firing Price and Fries was shortsighted panicked pandering by a nincompoop.

Calling someone a "rando asshat" shouldn't be a fireable offense.

Defending a co-worker shouldn't be a fireable offense.

Men will often feel free to give condescending feedback to woman devs (and scientists, and musicians, and artists, and . . .) at a much higher volume than they will give to male devs. Deroir's "suggestion" isn't the worst of the genre I've seen, but it was likely the thousandth time she'd gotten something similar.

The TB post is irrelevant to the current situation. O'Brien didn't mention it, and as far as we know Price wasn't reprimanded for it. Thinking this must be the end result of a pattern of behavior on Price's part willfully ignores the evidence at hand.

Hiring Jessica "I won't be demure for you" Price and expecting her to muzzle her twitter feed is just stupid.

As for folks bringing up the Subnautica dev: he was or had been openly racist, sexist, and transphobic for the luls, which seems somewhat more severe and damaging to a company than calling someone an asshat.

Anyhoo, this was a very good Bombcast and I'm proud of the boys for handling this subject so well.

Even if firing was an extreme response, Price was in the wrong, the guy she told to fuck off did nothing wrong and she refuses to apologize for her lashing out. I understand that there's a pretty big mob of people that are loving that she gets fired, and I understand that you instinctively don't want to side with those guys or see them "win", but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and if nothing else, they're right she over-reacted and acted unprofessionally.

God why does gaming have the absolute worst fanbase in existence. 'Attacking customers" jesus christ so many people ready to defend someone literally losing their job over, no, not racist tweets (where they would deserve it), but simply saying "Hey this shit sucks this is what people like me get on a daily basis".

South park sucks but its literally the joke where cartman wants to fight but whines bloody fucking murder after one little tap on the shoulder.

The guy Price replied to didn't want a fight. Very far from it.

I can go along with most of what you said, but this here is where I have to go "No." I know how you want this statement to be taken, but it can just be as easily responded to with "It was a mistake for ArenaNet to hire her in the first place."

And? I was talking about the sheer outpouring of offense from so many gamers over someone daring to be mouthy with *gasp* !!!a customer!!! on twitter. Women get so much shit in this industry as it is, and when they dare to say anything about it, they stand a risk of getting harassed out of a job, like whats happened here.

If Price actually responded to Deroir with this explanation for her own reaction after he made it very clear he did not intend his original tweets to her to be taken as an attack, I would be much more sympathetic to her.

But she didn't, and it would not be reasonable to expect people to interpret what she did say as such. As it stands, she's someone that fucked up, but also received punishment that outstrips the infraction.

As I said previously, I find it far more troubling that a coworker defending her also got fired.

@thefncrow: Im going to say this so everyone can understand whats happening in these "crazy times" a little bit better.

News outlets stay alive based on click throughs and ad revenue. The absolute best most fail proof way to get clicks is to mention sexism, racism, politics, and murder. So naturally, in a competitive capitalist society, outlets are going to utilize this to their advantage.

With the decline in print media and the rise of ad blocking, outlets have had to resort to the less legitimate forms of journalism, clickbait, to make up for losses.

Clickbait has always been around. Its poor journalism mixed with sensationalism. Spin, hyperbole, omitting facts and picking attractive soundbites.

In addition, the internet is a place of anonymity. 100 something characters of text is a very poor form of communication. Social media creates like-minded bubbles. What we are seeing in America, and the world, is a result of social conditions, not everyone being horrible people.

People are good. People only do what they believe to be right. America is fine.

The media sensationalizes. The media is a business. If you take to heart everything you see in the news or the forums or the comments sections, you are fooling yourself.

These are not "crazy times". We are all fine. What's wrong with society is people who claim there is something wrong with society while failing to realize they are the ones throwing rocks through storefronts, yelling into car windows, and crying out for something to change.

We don't have to be living in 'crazy times' to be living in a society built upon sexism and racism, I hope you can understand this.

FWIW, I DIDN'T defend her losing her job.

I used customer as that makes it direct relevant to the company, rather that just randomly lashing out on Twitter, which would be the company grossly overstepping their bounds. It's not intended to imply any sort of entitlement.

Nothing generates phony, pearl clutching outrage quite like a woman not behaving perfectly on social media. Keep on fighting the good fight!

I'm sorry professionals are forced to use twitter - this stuff used to be hashed out in newsgroups and IRC (I'm an old retired dev), platforms that had a bit more barrier to entry. I've been on both sides of suggesting and being suggested to and equally dismissive and dismissed. No one was fired, though. Everyone but the youtuber is in the wrong here.

The reason why this got a massive sheer outpouring of a reaction is because the sexist gamergate types saw this as an opportunity, because there's actual legitimate unprofessionalism from Price, because the guy she attacked is a very respected dude on the Guild Wars 2 community (To the point that he's a business partner of Arenanet and an NPC in the game) and because no sane person is gonna look at that response and think Price didn't over-react. The fact that those gamergate types used it as an "avenue of attack", so to speak, does not mean Arenanet was wrong in firing her.

I hate commodity fetishism so much. Workers lives mean nothing because they got snarky with a gamer lol gotta love capitalism, gotta be on your best behavior lest the customer feel the slightest bit inconvenienced. Work retail at some point and maybe you'll sympathize.

I worked retail for 5 years in and out of college until I payed of my student loans, starting as a seasonal cashier and working every position that was not a managerial one. (I was a key manager at the end, but that's essentially being given managerial responsibilities without equivalent compensation.) Do you really want to make this personal?

I can think of a million reasons when telling a customer to fuck off would be appropriate. The “customer is always right” mentality is such ridiculous bullshit.

I wish I could grab every well-intentioned person who sides with ArenaNet by the head and show them how this worked back in 2014 because we're going down the same fucking rabbit hole again. The last time it gave us Trump and the rise of fascism again.

Believe women. Believe workers. Believe the people who pour so much of themselves into the things you enjoy, instead of immediately siding with the exploiters and the harassers.