Your intellectual superior approves of how you’ve acted now that he’s given you permission to exist
Kotaku’s Brian Crecente writes a very odd follow-up to his rant on women in gaming.
I share the opinion of shrub.com when I say that his original assertion was pretty much just journalistic laziness. So what if Women Gamers isn’t the top-ranked gamer site? It’s still #1 on the google search for its target audience. I was willing to give Brian a pass on his original post… naturally, a woman blogger isn’t to be taken seriously unless she blogs for Kotaku or Joystiq or 1Up as they are the arbiters of talented game blogging… but I saw it as more solicitous than reproachful.
Then he went and burned through the grain of salt I gave him on the post reporting the opening of the Iris Network. (Apologies to Amanda for stealing her schtick).
Apparently I’m a cryptic and rabid misogynist and my thinly-veiled attempt at getting female writers to work for Kotaku was all about how there are no female bloggers out there and why I hate women. (Note to self, make sure my wife doesn’t read this, she’d kick my ass.)
“I have a wife! See, I love women! I especially love the parts of them that make them women! Like the sandwich-making parts. Hehehe, just kidding, my wife would kick my ass if she read this, because that’s what feminists like, right? Women beating the shit out of men?”
But despite the fact that I have a penis and write about gaming, something good came out of that post. In my caveman like attempts at prodding talented, strong-voiced women into writing more vocally about gaming I have stirred the ire of several feminist gaming writers who recently banded together to launch the IRIS Network a group, which will strive to bring women’s perspectives into the mainstream.
“I’m a man! I just wanted to let you all know that I learned that lesson. Oh boy did I learn that lesson. I’m just a big dumb man who doesn’t know any better. There’s a new website for girl gamers out that wouldn’t have existed without my post. So you see, you ladies owe me. I sired you. Those feminists are so cute when they’re ired!”
I’m very happy to see that, along with the dozens of women who have emailed me to either apply for the job opening or thank me for inspiring them to start their own blogs, this network is getting off the ground.
“No, really, ladies. Please. There’s only so much of me to go around. I have given you my permission to go forth and express yourselves. I won’t take it away, unless you’re a bitch, that is. Then I’ll sick my commenters on you. They hate fat chicks. But seriously, I wish these darling little girls the best of luck in their adorable new hobby.”
A diversity of opinion and perspective can only help the industry. And once more, sorry for the penis.
“A man! I’m a man! And I told a bunch of feminists what to do, and they did it! I feel so… powerful! This is what GOD must feel like! As long as I laugh about owning a penis, I can get away with murder! Hey buddy, what’re you looking at?”
So… you will pardon this woman gaming blogger if she rolls her eyes heavenward and suggest that Brian consigns future self-congratulatory wanking to a less public forum. Maybe that wife of his can engage in a little cosplay in which she’s the meek feminist gamer blogger and he’s the big strong Kotaku writer who gives her a safe environment in which to act out her wildest blogging fantasies. In the meantime, we’ll be here talking about less selective games.
Note: Feminist Gamers was launched 4 days prior to the publishing of the original Kotaku rant, so we don’t qualify as having received his permission to blog.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I firmly believe the nail was hit so hard on the head at shrub.com, that the nail passed through the wood and into another dimension. It was something along the lines of - perhaps the reason why women gamers supposedly arent “ya know, OUT THERE” is because of the kind of crap that is likely to be found in the comments section of that very link to Kotaku. Something along the lines of “this is one of those sites that strikes me as pointless sort of like gaygamer. Its not good enough to be just another gamer so you have to make a website that separates you from just being a gamer.” Or perhaps “So, you encourage them to become more active in the community and they criticize you for it? Must be that time of the month…”. See what I mean?
Its odd really, considering most female gamer oriented sites Ive been to are made so that they can actually be treated like a normal gamer for a change (and obviously the same applies for similar sites like gaygamer). Though I did see one or two decent Kotaku commenters suggest this. But at least that way that dont have someone saying “lay off that “Im a disenfranchised female gamer, give me attention!” crap will ya?”.
I think your right though, there definitely was a “I have passed the gaming torch on to our female counterparts!” feel to that post from Crecente.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
I’m more offended by the comments in his response to the response on his 1st post than by the original post. “must be that time of the month”? UGH!
There’s so much wrong with that one quote… it’s maddening even thinking about it.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
You know, if he’s really sorry about that penis, he could do something about it.
Just sayin’.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
That’s pretty much how I was feeling. His first post was just sort of benignly clueless, but when you see the sort of “audience” he’s playing to, it makes his little joking and cluelessness much less cute and much more obnoxious. He still claims in his comments that he’s just “being silly.” Whatev.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Now that I’ve gone and read most of this — I stopped reading the comments to his original piece when DigitalHero said “Well, many “gamer chicks” have this you must treat me better because I am a girl gamer attitude. So that makes its hard to take them seriously or even care for that matter.”
No, pinhead, just no. You must treat me as a human being and not a bot crossed with a RealDoll.
Probably the worst bit for Mr Crecente was his comment in the shrub.com tread. “I’m not ignoring you, you really don’t exist! And you totally misunderstood me when I said that there weren’t any women gamers out out there. See?”
Gah. There aren’t many women at the big gaming sites because the men have made them such a poisonous environment for us. I’ll just go play in my corner, thanks. >.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
…Also, is it wrong that while I was writing the last bit about cosplay, I was thinking about Spike and the Buffybot?
March 27th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
I probably shouldn’t say this, since I’m one of the people behind The IRIS Network, and our goal -isn’t- actually to pick a fight with Brian Crecente and/or Kotaku - but your “translations” made me laugh soooo hard.
The vague implication that our site would never have launched if not for his previous post (which, no doubt, is only further “silliness” and all of us are totally misunderstanding the much-abused Crecente yet again) is really my favorite part of the whole thing. Give me a break!
It’s true that his post was one of a series of things that happened in quick succession in the gaming internets (a lot of which were more specifically in the tabletop gaming internets, actually) that helped tekanji and I get our rage on enough to actually put the ideas behind The IRIS Network and Cerise into motion, but the ideas themselves had been stewing for ages, and would’ve taken form soon anyway.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
I am intrigued. Care to elaborate?
(I’m interested in tabletop gaming, but I’ve only been tracking the internets in a vague sense this year.)
March 28th, 2007 at 8:13 am
violet — if you like, there’s also a tabletop gaming open thread Roll d12 Initiative.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am
violet crazy girl, a more detailed version of the background behind The IRIS Network can be found here: http://www.theirisnetwork.org/site-history/
I’m a tabletop gamer, myself, primarily (been playing pretty much constantly since I was about six or seven!). I like video games, but I’m a very casual and occasional electronic gamer. Tekanji is the other way around, which is part of why we decided to draw on both of our combined experience in gaming to create a community for gamers generally.
Much like the fine folk here at Feminist Gamers have done - they cover both tabletop and video games. I don’t know why more gaming sites don’t do that. It seems like a really natural overlap, to me.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
I love this post.
I think it’s brilliant combining electronic and tabletop gamers. We’re combining our talents and numbers rather that fighting for the same resources and readers. With our powers combined, we’re modeling really great offline social justice tactics.
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March 30th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Interesting! I just read much of the SoTC thread and man, Fred comes off as ass, which is more than a little disappointing. (I also kept waiting for someone to mention the new SoTC supplement, which seems completely awesome and super-relevant. Yet… no. Was that an early April fools or something?)
And I was looking at the roll d12 initiative thread, but I don’t really play the games mentioned there, so I kinda thought chiming in with blah-hippygame-blah would be a bit of a derail.
Anyway, between this site and the bunch linked through IRIS, I’ve just found a bunch of feminists and women in general talking about games. Which is awesome. And hell, I never really thought I’d see someone from Pandagon / Feministe with her own gaming blog. Similarly: awesome.
March 30th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I’ll be doing some very light rumor/news blogging over the weekend — this year has shown people trying to pull April Fool’s jokes weeks in advance.
Reporting on awesome stuff like Resident Evil for the Wii, a port of RE4 to the Wii, etc, it’s all very exciting, but I sort of worry that we’ll get the laugh in a couple of days.
The d12 thread was an open thread: Just an opportunity for us to talk about ourselves, and get to know each other a bit better.
It’s really neat seeing all the Pandagonians and Feministers show up and comment. I’m very excited about how well we’re doing.
March 30th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
violet, if you’re talking about the supplement for Spirit of the Century that I think you are (New Horizons, yes?), it got announced right after Peaseblossom’s post - I gather that the guy writing it was inspired in part as a result of the discussion (I think he had the ideas before, but hadn’t acted on them - when he saw that there was interest, he decided to go ahead). So it’s still awesome.
Bruce Baugh has a livejournal where he’s been posting about it in bitty bits, if you want to follow the progress: http://bruceb.livejournal.com/
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 am
Your post title slayed me, it’s so perfect! That guy - whoever the heck he is - needs to go off and read about how to be a good ally.
April 4th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
So rather than dedicate post after post to Kotaku’s dumbassery, I thought I’d just add that today, Kotaku announced it’s on.
What the shit is that?
April 4th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
That the shit looks to me like a steamy pile of Kotaku’s usual if you ask me. They really must have gone through some sort of arrogance therapy, because its just out of this world when I see most of it.
April 5th, 2007 at 7:38 am
“So if you know a failed girl scout or two, direct them here to enter.”
That’s really dumb. Like you can’t be a really kickbutt girl scout AND go to computer camp. Pfft!
There’s nothing about being a girl scout that would ruin ones ability to understand and enjoy computers/gaming etc. The comment was asinine, and the commentor is an ass.
Course, I guess I’m just preaching to the choir here…