six high school seniors wear tshirts spelling out "RAPE?"

[Liberal_in_LA]

Outrage as high school seniors share photos on Twitter dressed in t-shirts spelling 'RAPE?' and posing with a trussed up classmate

Six students from Commack High School are under investigation 

Posted imaged with gold letters on the black t-shirts on social media 

First photo showed them with the word followed by a question mark

Second image shows person looking like they are tied up on the floor 

School district said they 'deeply regretted' the 'turmoil' incident caused  

[NYC_SKP]

1. Disgusting and stupid. They have a future in the NFL or maybe some career that involves guns.

Not to dump on my friends in law enforcement or the military, it's just that organizations such as these are notorious for looking the other way and even covering for rapists.

Shit.

K/R

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. dont let ypur daughters date these guys

[City Lights]

2. Sick fuckers. nt

[ZombieHorde]

3. I wonder what they are trying to communicate?

Are they simply trolling, or what?

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. i cant figure it out

[nomorenomore08]

93. I guess the way some dipshits' minds work, just mentioning "rape" equals lulz...

[msanthrope]

5. Their parents must be sooooo proud. Let's hope their prospective colleges and

employers get to see this.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. doesnt seem like they are trying to communicate an anti rape message

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Oh, I don't know. The University of Dish Washing and Advanced Mopping may have seats for them.

[daredtowork]

8. It's the gamer culture

Somehow this needs to be confronted on its own ground, because peer culture normalizes and leaks out into the real world. Just the fact these guys would think this is funny/cool says it all.

Now imagine the echo chamber they're in.

[Oktober]

17. What in the wide world of sports are you taking about...?

And what does it have to do with gamers?

[LostInAnomie]

19. There's a line of thinking in SJW circles...

... that gaming culture is rife with rape apologists and deranged mysogynists. It's the new "thing" to crusade against.

[Oktober]

20. Well that is just.... dumb...

[LostInAnomie]

21. Agreed

Too bad that's what passes for social critique now-a-days.

[Oktober]

24. As in the dumbest thing I've seen all week..

Maybe all month...

That is really saying something...

[daredtowork]

32. I would argue it's dumb to deny it.

And the argument isn't that the culture is rife with "rape apologists", but the trivialization of the concept of rape within gamer culture breeds desensitization and ultimately misogyny.

If you think I'm trying to score points in "SJW circles", I'd like to know what circles belong, too. Maybe I'm less of a loner than I thought!

[Oktober]

37. The logic gap occurs from...

High to school kids to ???? to gamer culture....

You are missing a connection.

[Oktober]

40. At least you are willing to admit that you are making it up as you go....

That's an important first step... Brava...

[daredtowork]

41. Blather on

Anyone who has spent 5 minutes with gamers knows what I'm talking about.

Denigrating me doesn't erase reality.

This garbage stems from gamer culture. That's what needs to change. Stop denying and try being part of the solution.

[Oktober]

42. Just to be clear...

Since you have no reason to assume that these teenagers are part of "gamer culture" other than the fact that they are young and male, a faulty assumption in addition to your others, let's look at the logical implications of that statement.

That would require that every other source of misogyny/violence/dark humor (pretty much anywhere that a rape joke can come from) in the world that existed up until the recent advent of "gamer culture" has been removed from society.

You should congratulate yourself, that's something like a 99.99999999999% solution. Since it obviously couldn't be anything else.

Secondly, the people you were hanging out with that you judged are either a) normal people and you are overly sensitive or b) assholes that can be found within any significant number of humans.

I've known many gamers and indeed some were assholes. That is because they were assholes in their off time as well and was unrelated to their Mario Cart adventures.

As with most folks that make wild assumptions and broad brush accusations, it says more about you and not a whole lot about them.

[daredtowork]

44. You can continue to split hairs and put yourself on the side of misogyny

or you can choose to stop believing your all "sly" in denigrating me. You're not. You sound like some looking reaaally, reaally hard for the flaw in the argument because you don't like what you're hearing.

This culture IS practically universal among young males. I'm making the generalization because I can. That's why it's a problem that really does need to be addressed.

You're obviously part of that problem.

[Oktober]

48. It's not splitting hairs to point out that you are making stuff up..

... Based on your own admission.

There is no need to 'dig deep' for anyone to see that you obviously have an axe to grind but until you can point to a connection to gaming other than their chromosomes and ages you are just making a fool of yourself.

Double points for trying to hang the misogyny label on anyone who points out the glaringly obvious flaws in your biased ramblings.

[daredtowork]

54. You think you are Winning Something here when all you are doing is nitpicking

You can pick holes in my argument all day, but everyone knows where this culture is coming from. Knock yourself out.

I don't need to be validated by your "point system", gamer boy.

[Oktober]

66. That's the cherry on top...

"Everyone knows" is one of the surest signs that everyone certainly doesn't know.

You think you know and project your false certainty onto the other 7 billion plus folks on the planet.

[daredtowork]

71. I take it you are chasing cherries in pac-man?

Level up, yet?

[Oktober]

76. Yawn...

Really? It would at least be a little bit stimulating if you tried to have an actual conversation. If you have a point other than "If you disagree with me, you must hate women and my point is proven by your pointing out my obvious logical failings" then please make it.

As it is, you are just resorting to stereotypes (old ones at that.)

You got any pong references you've been saving up?

[daredtowork]

82. What makes you think I'm here to "stimulate" you? nt

[Oktober]

84. There is certainly no requirement to conduct yourself in an intellectually honest adult manner...

... least of all on the internet.

However, I'm comfortable with thinking that it should be a universal goal for everyone though.

It seems like this issue gets you riled up, to the point where you bring it up in completely unrelated subjects, so it would be to your benefit to be able to explain yourself well instead of just attacking everyone who doesn't immediately hop onto your wagon.

[joeglow3]

126. Wow. You just make this shit up as you go...

[Bjorn Against]

50. I have known many gamers, most of them are not rape apologists

I do know the group of people you are talking about because I do see their comments on the internet, and yes they are disgusting. Please realize however that these people do not represent gamers, the vast majority of gamers are pretty normal people and they do not promote rape. Don't let a few immature assholes make you judge the tens of millions of Americans who are gamers.

[daredtowork]

57. Don't mix the people up with the culture

I'm not going up to every single guy's door and evaluating him personally for how many times he's used "rape" in casual conversation over the last 24 hours. There are millions of different levels of culpability here, different intents, and millions of indirect participants who support the system by laughing at the joke or standing by and doing nothing. There's no way to parse individual responsibility here.

This is a general cultural problem. I think it's more strongly reinforced when men are out of the company of women, so the only way to address it is for them to cop to it (and stop denying it and nitpicking over it) and make an effort amongst themselves to promote a culture where it's uncool to trivialize the concept of rape.

Men are always complaining about how they have been emasculated by the modern world, and that's why they've retreated to this right-to-rape fantasy. Well here is another way to man up: take some responsibility.

[Bjorn Against]

62. Gamer culture and rape culture are two different things

There is absolutely a rape culture in this country and that rape culture does have some level of overlap with gamer culture just as it does with sports culture, but that does not mean that gamer culture is rape culture. The large majority of gamers are not going around promoting rape, there is a certain subset that does but they by no means represent the culture.

[daredtowork]

63. They aren't directly promoting, they are indirectly promoting through trivializing

When they treat "rape" as a casual slang term for conquest or winning a point, then that's promoting the culture whether they think of themselves as rape apologists are not. When you laugh at the joke or when you stand by and let it go on, you are indirectly promoting the culture. That's what the "majority of gamers" are failing to get. Their culture is being represented by the subset because they are permissively harboring that subset.

Time to stop being defensive about it, and start thinking about addressing it.

[Bjorn Against]

68. I rarely hear any gamers I know use rape as casual slang

If I did hear someone using the word rape as casual slang I would speak against it, but when I talk to people about games no one that I talk to ever brings up rape. I do see people online say misogynistic crap and I have confronted them on it, but they don't represent the gamers I have talked to in day to day life.

I am not defensive of rape culture at all, I have spoken out against misogyny on many occassions. I am defensive of gamer culture because I know that the majority of gamers are not the stereotypical misogynistic loners who many people who are unfamiliar with gaming think they are.

[daredtowork]

69. I'm not against gaming

I'm also against stereotyping gamers. I know plenty. I've visited a few MMOs myself.

But I think you're making the mistake in rising to a defense of gamers here when change in the culture is what is called for. This is the same breakthrough moment that had to occur during the #yesallwomen conversation about misogyny. Some men finally got that maybe the way forward was for them to stop yammering long enough about how "not all men are like that" and start listening to what the problems were that needed to be addressed. Their defensiveness was just getting in the way of the problem being fixed. Women know not every man is a misogynist asshole, but men throwing themselves in the way to exclaim they weren't misogynist assholes were getting in the way with dealing with the ones who were.

The same thing is going on here. Obviously not all gamers are rape apologists. But when good gamers feel the misguided need to defend the entire community from the unjust accusation, they just end up protecting the rape apologists and perpetuating the problem. Isn't it possible that the women with this complaint know not all gamers are bad and might be gamers themselves?

All that's required here is for gamers to listen to the problem.

[Bjorn Against]

75. Why single out gamers?

I agree with much of what you say, my only objection is the singling out of gamers. I would agree with you that gamers do need to do more to combat misogyny, but I would say that of most of society as well. I don't see any reason why gamers need to be singled out for special scrutiny.

I do agree that there are many games that do present an extremely unrealistic and sexist portrayal of women, but the same is true of most forms of mass media. The way to combat that is to see the big picture and recognize that this is a problem that is not limited to the gaming community, we can and certainly need to demand better from the game developers but we also need to recognize that sexism in the gaming community is not seperate from the sexism in the rest of society.

I want to be very clear that I don't think gamers should get a pass, I don't think any group should get a pass. I do think sexist gamers need to be called out, just as sexist sports fans need to be called out, sexism in movies and books needs to be called out, sexism in the work place needs to be called out, sexism all over American society needs to be called out and we can't single out gamers when they are just one very small part of a much larger problem.

[daredtowork]

80. In my experience that's where it's being most reinforced

There are other sources - locker room sports culture, stock-trading boiler rooms, blue collar bars, male bastions of all sorts - but I believe gaming culture is particularly insidious because that acculturates guys while they are young. Rape trivialization becomes part of their upbringing - that's what makes it a norm. Furthermore, the online nature of gaming Internationalizes it.

This article explains why the unfortunate "subset" does represent the gaming community:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php

I don't think anyone is getting a pass, either. Misogyny is a general cultural discussion. Sometimes that discussion does comes to focus on problem spots, though. This problem has been closely examined in movies, rap music, and all sorts of popular culture. For instance this Indian fashion photographer raised an outcry when he used rape as part of his artistic/marketing vision:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-28670663

When celebrities make some joke about rape, they swiftly get a response from women (and hopefully their sponsors) because their voices carry. But the question is why did the celebrity think the rape joke was funny in the first place? We need to get down to the cultural sources.

Gaming is a major cultural source.

[Bjorn Against]

85. Gaming is a major cultural source, but it is not the major cultural source

Television, movies, music, and sports all reach more people than games do and therefore have a larger effect on our culture. Sexism is rampant throughout the media and you will actually find more sexism that is easily available to children in other types of media than gaming. So many of the games today that do have objectionable content are rated M and you have to be 17 to buy them, kids do sometimes get their hands on those games of course but it is usually more difficult for them to get an M rated game than it is for them to turn on the television and find numerous shows and advertisements that objectify women.

[daredtowork]

88. More mentions of rape minute in gaming

In my view, gaming is one of the biggest influencers here. Sure television reaches a larger audience, but TV is not pouring the word "rape" as a metaphor for power in our ears every few minutes. Moreover kids of any age can get into an MMO.

We are not talking about games that objectify women here (though that also needs to be addressed) - we are talking about how gamers talk to each other in online environments.

Did you read the Gamasutra article? There's really not much purpose to this last stand you're trying to make here.

[Oktober]

92. Don't you understand?

No one is talking about gaming besides you?

Not the authors, not the kids, not anyone else here except for those of us trying to figure out why you mentioned it.

It's like if someone saw the same story and complained about eskimos or folks who like metal detectors. They are unrelated until you prove why they are (which you haven't... at all...)

[daredtowork]

94. Take off your goggles

There are a couple of other threads going on.

Gaming is not exactly a central concern of DU. Congrats for bringing your crony here to try to "win" this one, but the reality of the matter is there is trivialization of rape coming from the gaming community.

You can stop being part of the problem at any time.

[Oktober]

95. Nailed it...

It's not multiple people pointing out glaring and obvious flaws...

It's a coordinated Internet strike against you.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

98. You might as well give it up

If video games were all banned tomorrow, it wouldn't bother them a bit. They'd enjoy a few hours of taunting socially awkward kids about destroying their hobby, and then move on.

Oh, and then Anita would have to target some other entertainment field to fund another phony kickstarter.


By the way, I fully recognize my hyperbole. That's just how absurd this whole discussion is.

[Oktober]

109. I know...

Thanks for talking me off the ledge...

I can never decide which is worse...

The idea that there is that much energy directed in such an ignorant manner or if they know it is all bullshit and are just trolling.

[Bjorn Against]

101. More mentions of rape per minute? I don't know what games you are talking about

Rape is not common in games at all, and the rare cases in which rape does appear in games tends to be extremely obscure independent games that hardly anyone plays. There is certainly sexism in games, but if you think rape is common in games you are just wrong.

[daredtowork]

103. It's very common

And part of the problem is it's just so normal that guys don't really hear it anymore. It's just part of their speech pattern. But women do it hear it. And they REALLY hear it when they try to say something about it and get all the blowback.

Again, I suggest to stop "defending" on it and just hear the problem.

[Bjorn Against]

104. If it is so common give me a list of games it appears in

I am not defending rape in games at all, I don't play games with rape in them at all nor do I know anyone else who does. Rape games are not mainstream at all, there are certainly plenty of violent games but rape scenes in games are extremely rare to the point that most life long gamers have never even seen a single one.

[daredtowork]

106. I'm not going to give you personal info about myself

if that's what you are fishing for.

But I can't believe anyone who has ever actually been in an MMO environment DOESN'T know what I'm talking about, so all I can conclude at this point is your fishing for something or practicing some rhetorical tactic.

Anyone who spends time playing these games and hanging out in the guy-dominated groups there will understand the culture I'm talking about. But anyone can come on a message board and just orate that "it doesn't happen at all" - after all, the only witnesses are going to be the gamers themselves aren't there?

As I've repeatedly said, the problem is happening in the spaces of the gamers community. It's in their court as to whether to do something or not. By going around purporting the problem doesn't exist, you reduce the pressure on them to do that. I've been hoping you're effort in that respect is misguided because you sound reasonable, but now I'm not so sure. It doesn't sound like you've even looked at the Gamasutra article yet, either.

[Bjorn Against]

107. I thought you were actually talking about rape in the games themselves

I do know there are idiots online that say stupid crap, but that is not just true with games it is true across the internet. I actually see far more evidence of rape culture far more frequently on internet message boards than I do in gaming, but there are certainly idiots who play online games no one will deny that.

As a gamer I wish I could stop those idiots from saying such stupid shit, unfortunately the best I am able to do is call them misogynistic idiots. And believe me I have told a number of people off for their misogyny, but that is all I can do as I have no control over them and no power to personally stop them from saying stupid things.

[daredtowork]

110. Oh hmm - nope, never seen that

Though I guess in MMOs it probably happens. It is all about role-playing - I'm sure there is plenty of sick role-playing, too.

The only think I've been trying to talk about in this thread is the casual way guys use "rape" in conversation as a metaphor for various things and in joking around. That trivialization desensitizes them to the concept, and that desensitization can result in behavior like what the teenagers in the photo above did. I think men should realize where the trivialization of rape leads and discourage that talk among each other. It can be done: you don't hear the N word very much anymore, do you?

That is all I've been saying here. I'm not bashing games. I'm not bashing gamers. I'm not calling all gamers rapists. I'm not calling for censorship or calling in any gamer police. The only thing I've been doing is saying that trivializing rape leads kids to think rape jokes are funny, gaming culture is a source of that, and it needs to be addressed from within gaming culture itself.

[Bjorn Against]

111. I think we probably agree on more than we disagree

I as a gamer see more sexism outside of the gaming world than I do inside of it so I don't think you will convince me that gaming has more sexism than the rest of the internet does, but that is because the internet is pretty much a cesspool across the board. I see so much misogyny on message boards that playing games gives me a break from that, but granted I usually don't play with idiots, or at least not idiots with microphones.

I think we would probably agree on the problem of rape culture and sexism in American society however, our only disagreements would probably be on the logistics of where the problem is the worst. And even there I certainly don't deny there is a problem with sexism in the gaming community, I just don't think it is something that defines the community.

[daredtowork]

112. Would you agree that

it's something that could be addressed through the community, if, for no other reason, young guys congregate there...?

I would also agree that the culture that I refer to as "gaming" is supported/reinforced by a larger Internet culture that involves specialty forums, and of course everyone's favorite 4Chan.

Actually the status of 4Chan baffles me. Memes seem to come from there, but do people actually still hang out there? Or do they only go there to somehow get stupid ideas that become memes, but echo them through private channels on Facebook, etc.

[Bjorn Against]

113. I agree to a certain extent

I think it could be addressed a whole lot better than it is being addressed now, but I also think that misogyny has been so ingraned in our culture through centuries of inequality that it will always be a problem and there is only so much the gaming community can do about it. I really do wish the gaming community really did have the power to make the misogynists go away, believe me I would love to be rid of them but it is extremely difficult to rid people of their deeply held prejudices. I do think the gaming community needs to do more to make sure that the misogynists in the community are taken to task however, as do other internet communities including DU.

I have never visited 4Chan, I have heard it talked about on DU and it sounds like a place that it is best to stay away from.

[DavidG_WI]

130. Thats because...

you don't have a leg to stand on. What you clim doen't exist and it's dead simple to take screenshots of MMO chat logs and use any free photo manipulation tool to put black bars over your screen name.

I AM a gamer who has played as female in MMOs, I know what happens and know you're full of it.

[lunasun]

127. Excellent points in first article and a fantasy to think young kids are not being bought the

Mature rated games by their paranoid parents who think life is better for them inside in their basement vs. the big bad real world of real interaction and will bow to the games wanted by their kids
It may be at it's end but the culture mentioned is still around plenty...

"Yet disclaiming liability is clearly no help. Game websites with huge community hubs whose fans are often associated with blunt Twitter hate mobs sort of shrug, they say things like ‘we delete the really bad stuff, what else can we do’ and ‘those people don’t represent our community’ -- but actually, those people do represent your community. That’s what your community is known for.

Suddenly a generation of lonely basement kids had marketers whispering in their ears that they were the most important commercial demographic of all time. Suddenly they started wearing shiny blouses and pinning bikini babes onto everything they made, started making games that sold the promise of high-octane masculinity to kids just like them.

By the turn of the millennium those were games’ only main cultural signposts: Have money. Have women. Get a gun and then a bigger gun. Be an outcast. Celebrate that. Defeat anyone who threatens you. "

[DavidG_WI]

129. Spoken like

Someone without a clue about gaming. Sex and violence have been there from the very start, because thats the basics of any interesting story. If you've got a story without sex and or violence what is your story about, what compels people to pick it up?
go look up all of history's great writings, sex and violence in every one of there works.

As to kids playing M rated games, thats the social disconnect of both the parents and of the ratings board, those of us in our 20s and 30s that have been life long gamers know that most of the games with an M rating had nothing to warrant it as you would see worse in after school cartoons. For the older parents, they assume that games are only for kids 12 and under and while they wouldn't give their kid an R rated DVD they'll give them an M rared game without batting an eye.

The big FPS franchises are dying of due to their stagnation and the game consoles are drying up as older gamers move to PC gaming as it's more cost effective and doesn't require the purchase of single use set top boxes. http://store.steampowered.com/ http://www.desura.com/ http://www.gog.com/ https://www.humblebundle.com/store is where gaming is headed. It's allot more cost effective to buy a $150 GPU and be able to buy games at up to 90% off or a bundle of 12 games for under $5 then a $300-500 console and pay $20-70 for single games.

Unfortunately women aren't coming along for the ride, while they are "gaming" more, they are only playing simple cellphone games, cellphones are terrible devices for gaming due to the limitations of a touchscreen only input device. The market however is effectively dead already ue to the very broken app store model, which favors only the entrenched incumbents, hence why the mainstays of cellphone gaming have always been Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Bejeweled clones and Fruit Ninja.

[DavidG_WI]

128. Um, what?

Really, where are you pulling all of this from? Outside of the one example of a distasteful ad everything else has no legs to stand on.

So drunkenly complaining about your Ex to a disinterested bartender = rape?

making lewd comments of any kind = rape?

I've got news for you, women do the exact same stuff, but nobody complains when they do it, but somehow men should never say anything about women...

Typical feminist double standard.

[seabeyond]

43. rape has become our entertainment for our young men. something to consider what we create as a

Last edited Sun Sep 21, 2014, 01:16 PM - Edit history (1)

society.

raising two sons.

the jokes, in comedies, (thinking when i met your mother, a good show) barney so often presenting rape, for a laugh. we condition well.

thank you for your posts.

[daredtowork]

45. Thanks

And don't worry about me: I know this problem is endemic, and I realize anyone who is wasting time nitpicking at whether my "argument" is strong enough is part of the problem.

I have nothing against gaming, jokes, comedies, or men. But I think men have been stupid to wait for society at large, and women in particular, to come kick their ass over trivializing rape. This is something they need to start fixing within and among themselves. The "man cave" doesn't have to be evil.

[seabeyond]

46. perfect all the way around. nt

[DavidG_WI]

131. Examples

Post videos.

[seabeyond]

132. no. i wont link to videos of rape entertaining men.

[DavidG_WI]

133. So you have no argument

because you won't back it up with any proof.

[seabeyond]

136. I do not need to link to rape videos to prove they exists

[DavidG_WI]

144. Perhaps because they don't...

exist? Get back to me when you can back up your claims, else for your argument it's:

[JTFrog]

147. No one is going to drag videos of rape entertaining men into this forum for you.

Are you saying that assholes like Tosh.0 and other comedians don't joke about rape for your entertainment? That there is no such thing as rape porn?

Did you miss the dudes in the OP?

Who in the hell are you trying to fool here? But go on "winning" that "game".

[DavidG_WI]

148. Right, because asking for the clips of the TV shows in question...

to back up their arguments will rape them...

End result, you already lost the argument, now I'm just kicking puppies.

[JTFrog]

149. You are offensive on so many levels.

I've have no patience for folks who troll the forum on feminist issues. And no one here is going to cater to games that are right out of the MRA play book.

[JTFrog]

140. What the fuck is wrong with someone who would tell another DUer to post rape porn videos.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

[DavidG_WI]

142. I didn't ask for rape porn

but do let your persecution complex get ahead of your logic.

rape has become our entertainment for our young men. something to consider what we create as a
society.

raising two sons.

the jokes, in comedies, (thinking when i met your mother, a good show) barney so often presenting rape, for a laugh. we condition well.

thank you for your posts.

So I asked for these examples, but in typical feminist form, the willingness to back up claims is lower then dealing with climate deniers.

[JTFrog]

145. You told her to post videos.

Of rape entertaining men.

Sorry that my illogical mind goes straight to rape porn.

[DavidG_WI]

146. I've...

Also asked for screen shots from MMORPG chat logs and discussion with GMs, but as I said before, feminists never have any proof to back up their claims. Instead they'd rather attack me for having an evil penis.

[littlemissmartypants]

22. Thanks. eom

Learning is fun.

SJW

Social Justice Warrior. A pejorative term for an individual who repeatedly and vehemently engages in arguments on socialjustice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation. A social justice warrior, or SJW, does not necessarily strongly believe all that they say, or even care about the groups they are fighting on behalf of. They typically repeat points from whoever is the most popular blogger or commenter of the moment, hoping that they will "get SJ points" and become popular in return. They are very sure to adopt stances that are "correct" in their social circle.

More at link :

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SJW

[NuclearDem]

47. It is rife with rape apologists and ugly misogyny.

And I say that as a gamer.

[VanillaRhapsody]

51. I am not a gamer.....and its part of the reason....

as even I have seen some evidence of it...

Its like denying misogyny as not part of the rap music scene....

[LostInAnomie]

52. It's rife with a ton of noisy 12yo dumb shits...

... that don't have enough life experience to do anything but try to be "2edgy4u". Their idiocy should be discounted for the same reason I discount when my 7yo nephew calls me a "stupid buttface".

Delete their cacophony from the equation and the gaming community is more diverse and accepting than most communities in real life.

[alp227]

55. lots of adults are also arrested adolescents too.

can't just assume every gaming troll is high school age or younger.

[seabeyond]

56. some game coming out, the makers said no, they were not having naked. and the grown men

threw a fit. i think it was mass effect or whatever. the maker said.... grow up. lol. i wish i was better at googlin. will try to find it. a good couple years ago i believe. it was totally stupid, and good for game makers, whoever they were.

no way am i pretending it is just the immature 12 yr old.

k. it was bioware. down to seeing them to tell straight white male to grow up, over gay relationship in dragon age. looking for the one before that.

[Bjorn Against]

64. Yes, that did happen and many of us applauded Bioware for it

There were certainly some people who did throw a fit over the gay relationship options in Mass Effect and Dragon Age, but don't think those people represented the gaming community. There were many people who praised Bioware for being inclusive and we all think the homophobic assholes who threw a fit over that are idiots. I know that as a gamer I am going to support companies like Bioware who do value diversity and there are plenty of other gamers like me. While there are misogynistic assholes in the gaming community there are plenty of others like myself who reject them.

[seabeyond]

114. my husband is a gamer. he does not want or need that crap in his games.

he just wants to tune out and play for a while. and the people he plays with are about the same. they will hook up with blow hards here and there and they pretty much ignore the dudes, and just play. but... they are certainly out there. none of these men will speak out against it. none of these men like it. none of these men do it. and ya... we need men to actually say, stfu or do not play with the dudes. but ya, i do know, there are plenty of gamers that just want to play the game.

[Bjorn Against]

116. I am sure your husband and I would see eye to eye on this

I have told misogynists to STFU more or less, but more often I just don't play with them. I play games to have fun, not to get pissed off by idiots so I do my best to avoid the creeps that are online.

[seabeyond]

117. it is important to recognize many many many men are not looking to play in the ugly. i agree.

but, it does not behooves us to deny that this is not prevalent, because i believe it is. be it the gaming world, or movies, tv shows and anywhere else our social environment takes us. to own it, acknowledge it is the only way we will be able to resolve it.

i stopped watching tv over a decade ago, because of the rampant sexism that i did not find entertaining at all, and did not find the humor in. my son has since started bring me dvds of shows. first big bang. ya some, but... we discuss, the way they do it, mostly it turns out ok. community. they go to far. parks and recreation gets a huge thumbs up for me. psych? "how did you know she was lying, (all four men say together) she is a woman. hit and miss. now we are doing how i met your mother. so many rape jokes for a laugh, with barney. and there have been three really bad, misogynist, typical storyline conditioning of this garbage. and most all the other shows excellent.

seeing these kids write this out on their shirt, having boys this age, i know they are not thinking thru the consequence of this type of humor. but.... it matters. and we have a society that is creating, feeding, entertaining us with rape.

why should any of us be surprised that the boys are entertained by it? it is their empowerment over another. kinda fun.

[Bjorn Against]

119. I don't disagree with anything you are saying

[NuclearDem]

59. If you seriously believe it's just kids, then that's sad.

And you're not doing gaming any favors by trying to pretend this isn't an issue.

[LostInAnomie]

61. Geez, I guess I'll just have to deal with being "sad".

And, that really hurts when it comes from a person that has no problem broad brushing a diverse community.

Gaming culture isn't what it was 20 years ago.

[NuclearDem]

70. What the hell are you talking about, broad brushing?

If I had said gamers are all misogynistic, basement-dwelling shitheads, that would be a broad brush.

Saying that there's a huge problem with misogyny and sexism in gaming culture is not broad brushing all gaming communities. I've been active in some that are terribly misogynist, and others that don't tolerate that nonsense.

Your diversion is no different, and subsequently, no more useful than "not all men rape."

[LostInAnomie]

74. When you say gaming cuture has a huge problem with misogyny it is a broad brush.

Because it blames the community as a whole for not ridding itself of a group it has no power to rid itself of. It's like blaming Muslims for not ridding itself of radical elements, blaming Christians for not ridding itself the WBBC, or yes, blaming men for not ridding rapists from their ranks.

It's the kind of lazy thinking that allows racists to not differentiate and blame a whole race for the actions of a few. But, I guess that kind of thinking is "ok" because it's done for a good cause, right?

[daredtowork]

90. hmm

Muslims assist with anti-terrorist efforts. If the WBBC does anything illegal, I'm sure they will be prosecuted for it. Rapists are arrested and sent to prison for their crimes. You've listed many instances where communities have acted to address problems in their own ranks - instead of just foaming at the mouth and trying to score rhetorical points.

Seems you have defeated your own argument for us. Good job!

[LostInAnomie]

97. Apparently, reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

There are radical Muslims and the Muslim community as a whole has very little ability to make them behave or stop calling themselves Muslims. The WBBC are bigots, but Christians can't do a thing to make them quit considering themselves as Christians. Rapists are disgusting filth, but despite harsh penalties for rape, men still can't remove them from their ranks.

Every group or community is going to have people that act poorly. A rational person with some critical thinking abilities recognizes that this small fraction are assholes and shouldn't be considered to be representative of the group as a whole. So, when someone say "gaming culture has a huge problem with misogyny" it is a idiotic broad brush statement because it makes no differentiation between the grand majority of gamers and the assholes. For some reason, it has become acceptable in social justice circles to make inclusive broad brush statements and assign collective guilt.

Let's see if you see anything wrong with these statements:
The African American community has a huge thug culture problem.
False rape accusations are a huge problem in the Female community.
The Mexican community should really do something about their abuse of public assistance.

I'm guessing you correctly assessed that these statements are racist/sexist. But, it's the same kind of specious logic that is present in the statement "Gaming culture has a huge rape apologist and misogyny problem".

[daredtowork]

99. Think in terms of spaces not races

Let's say there are rapists in America.

Americans don't go around screaming that they aren't responsible for all rapists. The rapes are occurring within sovereign territory: America. Therefore, Americans can make laws and send the creeps to prison.

The gaming community is instantiated in the spaces created by games. That's where all this rape chatter is going on, and that's where the opportunity to shut it down occurs. People on the outside can't get to that. It's up to gamers to police their own here.

All the communities you mentioned actually do have spaces of various sorts where they might choose to own a problem. The African American community will challenge stereotypes that lead to racial profiling, but that doesn't mean they will ignore gang violence or crime that is affecting their own community. They don't use resistance to stereotyping as a way to weasel out of responsibility. They realize it's just as much in their interest to reduce crime in their neighborhoods.

[alp227]

53. Maybe because it IS?

It may sound inconvenient, but gaming culture is full of low life scum.

[LostInAnomie]

58. No, it's not.

I know it feels great to fight misogyny and rape culture, but your fighting a dragon mostly comprised of 12yo idiots with no life experiences.

In real life, gamer culture is as diverse as any culture. Just take a look at any E3. You literally couldn't get a more diverse and accepting community. Their are a lot of scum bags with an agenda trying to broad brush the community as misogynist and rape apologist. But, if you take even a cursory look at most of their complaints they usually turn out to be cherry picked or full of shit.

[alp227]

60. E3 is a general tech expo that attracts a higher end audience,

as opposed to the more niche gaming conventions that attract the scum. E3 is for the professionals and polite tech enthusiasts. Guess what? As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and all the deflections and denials don't change the reality that gaming culture is full of actual adolescents (12 year olds) and arrested adolescents - adults in age only whose minds are stuck in jr. high.

http://www.wired.com/2013/09/penny-arcade-expo-dickwolves/

http://www.bustle.com/articles/38742-what-is-gamer-gate-its-misogyny-under-the-banner-of-journalistic-integrity

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2014/09/04/the-video-game-industry-has-only-itself-to-blame-for-misogyny-and-harassment/

[LostInAnomie]

65. Ahhh... so it's poor people that are to blame.

Maybe you should actually take a look at pictures and vids of the crowd that goes to E3 if you think only professionals attend.

What you are looking to do by pointing at "more niche gaming conventions that attract the scum" is cherry pick all the people you don't like and hold them up as representative of gaming culture as a whole.

I'm not going to bother looking at those links. Gaming "journalism" is a den of graft and incestuous relationships that shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone.

[NuclearDem]

73. No, it's anonymity.

Not many people are going to act like complete shitbags at E3 and expect to get away with it primarily because it's a more professional environment.

But plenty of people who both do and don't go to E3 lash out with some horribly vicious misogyny over YouTube and gaming websites when they're safely behind their wall of anonymity.

Jesus, you're grasping at straws here.

[LostInAnomie]

78. Yeah, people in large groups really tend to hold back.

If you think the dumb shits on youtube are representative of gaming culture your opinion probably isn't one anyone should take seriously.

[daredtowork]

87. Nope he thinks he's scoring points

Because he thinks he's still playing a game and he can "win" it on behalf of the gaming community.

[daredtowork]

67. This article is the best one I've read

This article puts the truth on the table: men can gape at it or men can do something about it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/your-princess-is-in-another-castle-misogyny-entitlement-and-nerds.html

[thucythucy]

81. Excellent read.

Thanks for posting the link.

[joeglow3]

138. That dude hangs out with some fucked up people

I was a nerd who hung out with a lot of nerds. I am talking magic: the gathering and dungeon and dragon nerds. I can honestly say a total of zero of the nerds I knew behaved in a manner this author portrays. Basically, all this article does is talk about two terrible scenes in two old movies (Nerds and Sixteen Candles) that everyone agreed was rape. He then tries to pretend like most nerds are like this. I can come to a few conclusions about the author:

1. He hung out with some fucked up people,
2. He bases his perception of reality solely on what he sees in movies, or
3. He is using this article as a tool to try and impress women, thereby being the very nerd he is condemning.

[daredtowork]

31. Don't play dumb. nt

[MohRokTah]

72. You get my vote for the most ridiculous post of the year. eom

[daredtowork]

77. I guess I must be on the gamer "who to troll/grief" list now

So here some articles for you.

This is what you are: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886914000324

But I also know what a griefer is if you prefer game-speak.

Here's a great article from Gamasutra explaining that that what you represent is going by the wayside, and why your fake defenses of "gamer culture" are full of fail: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php

This is what you are defending:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/your-princess-is-in-another-castle-misogyny-entitlement-and-nerds.html

So score your verbal points all day. In the end you are not going to "level up" in the real world. It's not affecting me one way or the other. It's your choice whether to deal with these problems or continue to be part of them.

[MohRokTah]

79. .

I was wrong, this post of yours is even more ridiculous.

[daredtowork]

83. Go spin your wheels on Discussionist. nt

[MohRokTah]

96. Nope, I despise Discussionist.

It seems like just the sort of place for your generalizations, though.

[DavidG_WI]

86. "gamer culture"

My ass. This has nothing to do with gamers or even sports. They're high school kids trolling for a reaction and you fell for it.

As to actual gamer culture, stop playing games with 12 year olds and nobody online knows who or what you are unless you tell them. I know plenty of guys that play female characters in MMOs and sext up the idiots for free gear.

Your online experience is entirely what YOU make it.

[daredtowork]

89. That would be true if you went online and all you talked to were other avatars of yourself

But when you go online you interact with other people. Culture happens. Conventions get reinforced. These guys may be "trolling for a reaction" - but where did they get this idea from?

Over the past couple of months there has been a huge discussion (to put it politely) going on about misogyny in gaming - you may have missed that. Some sectors may have even entrenched themselves and doubled-down on their right to "rape-speak".

Here's a good summary article from Gamasutra:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php


I hope you won't now go on to start "defending the gamer community", because half the problem is that kneejerk defense.

[DavidG_WI]

105. 4Chan, Something Awful etc...

And a great many of the trolls there are female. The most active publicly named troll right now is Anita Sarkeesian, Who is playing feminists for fools due to their blind support of her trolling antics, apply a little logic to her claims and the obvious troll becomes painfully obvious. Though you'd know how many female trolls there are if you'd been to the early anti-Scientology protests that where conducted primarily by trolls wearing Guy Fawkes masks.

And if you're going to defend Anita, before you do, go get her game, Depression Quest, off Steam, it's free, play it, it's short, then go look at her reaction to the reviews, which where negative because the game wasn't good and what she then did to attack those that disliked her game. What she's doing is the equivalent of companies suing because you gave them a negative review on Yelp. But unlike Yelp users, most gamers don't just bend over and take it, they retaliate. Que the media getting half the story and running with it because cyber bullying stories of the "poor defenseless female game developer" bring in the fresh eyeballs for ad dollars. Lets just ignore that the death threats are obviously staged by her, how else are you going to get a dozen of them all with perfect grammar and perfectly within Twitter's 140 character limit all within a few seconds of her Twitter posts?

I know full well about the feminist attacks on gaming, they would have a more legitimate bone to pick if thy actually targeted the proper subset of gamers and the crappy games they play, but even there, the don't play with 12 year olds rule still applies.

Kids are sexist and homophobic, because as Donald Glover put it best, they are:

Gamers being over is a joke, the stats for the increase in female gamers show that their primary growth sector has only been in the casual game market for cellphones and tablets. As lucrative as hat market may seem, breaking into it is nigh impossible and avenues to stand out from the crowd are few and far between.

The only part of traditional gaming that is "sloughing off" is the same that is happening to the entire entertainment industry. t' the decentralization of the industry from the major companies, rejection of the middleman publishers and move away from uninspired mass market mega tittles. It's already happened to music, its happening to the movies/TV and its now happening to the gaming industry. With Star Citizen we'll have the first completely indie AAA blockbuster title.

The argument put forth by feminists is that there are "no games made by girls", which is wrong. The fact is that there are no games good enough that people actually want to play them made by women at this time. Nobody is against playing games made by women provided they are actually entertaining.

Really? Wheres the female made equivalent to the best known strong female character in all of gaming, Samus Aran?



As to the writer of your little article, he seems to be confused as to what the conventions actually are, they are trade shows. Every industry has trade shows, attended by people who are there to look at new products and processes and hopefully walk away at the end of the day with a bag of free swag. The only difference with gaming is that with PC gaming at least you can also have a huge multiplayer event like Quakecon that is impossible to arrange otherwise.

The actual culture of gaming is one of nostalgia, storytelling and comradery. Some of the best times I've ever has was hanging out with my friends trying to beat each other in every type of game we had, racing, fighting, strategy, even single player trying to get top score or beat the game the fastest, constant challenge and competition is what brought us together. When we weren't playing against each other we would collaborate on long single player games like Final Fantasy or Breath Of Fire. And no, we weren't all guys, my neighbor and her cousin that used to hng out with her used to hang with us and could throw down with the best of them in fighting and light gun games, she was also the only person we knew that had a Sega Saturn, so she'd school us in games like Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop as well as non Saturn games like Street Fighter 2 Turbo and even Duck Hunt on NES. She hung out with us so often that she became "one of the guys" and none of us tried to hit on her when we started noticing girls, because we had spent so much time together with her that she seemed more like a sister then anything else. Can't say the same for her cousin that wasn't around us all the time though, I managed to get more then a few dates out of her.

[daredtowork]

108. No one is attacking gaming here

At least I'm not. Though I would argue that the other side of "women aren't designing good games" is "women aren't receiving the career support to become auteurs yet". Eventually women will catch up, and women will bring what they've got design-wise - and men will end up liking it.

Regarding Anita: her first kickstarter campaign was driven by genuine horrific trolling. I have no idea what the case is now, and I have no comment on her talent as a game developer. I can say the gaming community would be better off just not trying to score points against her. It's the same situation as in this thread. She had some valid feminist things to say: some schmucks chose to "win" over her instead of listening. And that became the reputation of the gaming community you now have to contend with. The more you harp on her, the worse it gets.

The issue here is not censoring games, taking away games, or randomly bashing gamers. The issue is how normal it has become to use the word "rape" in the gaming community, and how that desensitizes kids in the larger world. There is no need to treat this like the last stand of the Alamo, where gaming might go down forever should they admit it. Since we are not talking about the game builds themselves, we aren't talking about bringing in censorship committees. We're talking about guys listening and thinking about changing the way they talk. Sort of like they gradually stopped using the N word. But it seems like it's going to be a while before any of the gamers on this thread acquire that listening skill.

[DavidG_WI]

118. Then why did you bring it up?

I've been gaming online for he last 15 years, rape isn't a common word you see uttered unless you are playing with the idiot tweeners, thankfully they stick to CallOfHaloField for he most part. Exclude yourself from those games, at least on public servers and you don't see it, ever.

Want an excellent gaming experience? Use a gender neural name, have multiple accounts for everything with completely unrelated screen names, join an 18+ age requirement clan and don't tell anyone your gender. Magically all of your complaints disappear as you are now playing amongst the majority of gamers, those in their 20-30s that grew up gaming and have a clue about civility. Your internet experience is what you make it.

Otherwise your complaints are as pointless as those of every previous generation complaining and lamenting the newest generation as being lost. They aren't lost, they are just being doucebags, like every generation of kids before them and like every generation of kids after them.

Nobody stopped using the N word, its still used every day, these days non blacks just don't say it in public so they don't get punched in the face, unless they are douchbag yuppie wigger kids dropping N bombs on each other.

This is how the youth of America communicate these days https://imgur.com/gallery/LkYl0 black, white or hispanic, male or female, it's how they talk to each other and we did as well as kids, just in person because we didn't have cellphones an internet yet.

[thucythucy]

121. Thank you for this post.

"We're talking about guys listening and thinking..."

Exactly.

[DavidG_WI]

122. Save for the fact

that people like LostInAnomie aren't here to have a discussion, they are here to dictate to everyone else and ignore other's point of view to just parrot the same line.

I can point to plenty of examples that prove LostInAnomie wrong, but I may as well be arguing with a climate denier.

[thucythucy]

123. Save for the fact

that I was replying to daredtowork.

[DavidG_WI]

124. This is

A public discussion forum, if you'd like to have a private conversation you can do so vis DU Mail.

[thucythucy]

134. Thank you for the elucidation.

And just imagine, some people actually think some male gamers condescend toward women. Who woulda thunk it?

[DavidG_WI]

139. I don't

and I'm also not going to stand for misandry from feminists just because they they think they've found an easy target in gamers.

Nobody ever said girls can't game, I've gamed with plenty of them. I watch Pistol from Tek Syndicate's show "WASD" https://teksyndicate.com/videos/wasd-006-video-game-feels-gamescom-star-citizen-fps and have even checked a few of her Twitch streams to see if a game was worth buying.

The feminists here have done the standard "I'm so oppressed" line and complained of being harassed in MMOs, /I asked for some proof and they accuse m of wanting their personal data, instead of doing what a rational person would have done and taken the screen shots, opened them up in Gimp, Photoshop or MS Paint and draw black lines over the screen names along with any discussion they had with the GMs about being harassed, the GMs being the moderators of MMO games.

But as I posted before, the broken down sales data shows that girls are opting themselves out of the larger gaming market in favor of cellphone puzzle and word games. Which is basically 1 step up from my grandparents using the old P2 only for Microsoft Solitaire... So I'm guessing that thse people are in fact not gamers, but are attacking gaming as an easy scapegoat.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

100. It's the Harry Potter culture

After all, I bet at least four of those kids read the books.

I'm just gonna throw some random shit out there like you did, because why not? There's as many facts in evidence to make that case as you have shown.

[daredtowork]

102. Oh I must have missed that part

Where Harry starts waving his phallic-symbol broom around and spouting on about how he is going to rape this and that, and how Gryffindor will rape Slytherin, how he rapes everyone at Quidditch, and how he will be the hero of Hogwarts when he rapes Voldemort.

Truly a terrible influence on preteen culture, that Harry Potter series.

Seriously, if there is some problem endemic to Harry Potter culture that Harry Potter readers should at least be making an effort to address, let's hear it. I can't think of any.

Well, some fundamentalist crazies are taking the witchcraft seriously, but I think if you do a reality check you will find the trivialization of rape actually IS a problem from most people, whereas few care what kids are doing with witchcraft these days.

[TransitJohn]

150. As a 42 year old who has played video games for over 30 years

you are way off base laying it at 'gamer culture.'

[cali]

9. "deeply regretted the turmoil"? what a crap line.

[NYC_SKP]

11. Yup, I knew it. "Some of them are athletes. They're good students."

I knew it.

Wow. At the 00.38 mark:

"Yeah, they're all great kids. Some of them are athletes. They're good students."

[radicalliberal]

14. Great kids don't joke about rape. n/t

[NYC_SKP]

16. Yup. And as if being an athlete was some sort of endorsement of good character.

No class and clueless assholes.

[zappaman]

12. Maybe they meant to spell "Pear"?

Who doesn't love pears?

Seriously though, that's fucked up.

[radicalliberal]

13. Meanwhile, some (er, many?) people deny there's a rape culture.

Anyway, these six kids are punks.

[Agschmid]

15. Digesting and stupid. Should be suspension.

[KinMd]

18. ok so one of them said "Hey guys , you know what would be funny..."

and the rest agreeded

[littlemissmartypants]

23. Epic fail dudes, epic. nt

[alp227]

25. not even wal mart wants to hire these knuckleheads...nt

[freshwest]

26. Young women of America, look at all the great choices for marriage there!

[seabeyond]

27. Why would so many of our young men, boys, across the nation think rape a hoot,

Merely their entertainment. I ponder.

[aikoaiko]

28. Misspelled pear?

maybe not.

[awoke_in_2003]

29. It is little shits like this...

that want me to send my granddaughters to Kenpo classes.

[BlueJazz]

30. I thought this post about "wearing shirts with Rape" was something of a stand against..

..the Rape scenario.
I assumed they would act out a scene where they would severely denounce and ridicule the word/actions.
(Acting getting beat up by guys wearing Women's rights.????)

Naïve, silly, hope-for-the-best Me.

[IDemo]

33. Limbaugh should be finishing up his comments approving them about now n/t

[Tikki]

34. Their parents must be so proud...

or maybe they helped their son's put this together.


Tikki

[Quantess]

35. Looks like they are asking to get raped!

One could interpret it that way. Look what they are wearing!

[etherealtruth]

36. What rape culture ...?

This is simply a culture in which these young imbeciles felt completely comfortable in doing this and broadcasting it on social media.

[Rex]

39. What exactly is their message, I don't get it.

Is it a threat to someone they know or a general statement?

[DirkGently]

120. Some kind of poor attempt to comment on this --

Which, per the article, comes from a novel-now-movie called the The Fault in Our Stars.

What that has to do with rape, or what any of it has to do with "gamers" is a mystery.

[Orrex]

49. Is it possible that they mean "PEAR" and they simply don't know how to spell?

No, probably not. More likely it's six assholes being assholes.

[ailsagirl]

91. That's really W*E*I*R*D

Creeps

[cwydro]

115. how weird. nt

[hexola]

125. I hope the dude with the "G" shirt was late...

not cool guys...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

135. I did not think it was possible

to laugh out loud on this topic. But, damn, if only that were true.

[KamaAina]

143. Or the 'D'

[KamaAina]

137. I was hoping there'd be six others spelling out "STOP"

[Liberal_in_LA]

141. unfortunately no