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ALISON RAPP, NINTENDO... AND THE ENDLESSLY REPEATING CYCLE OF ABUSE - by Mr Biffo

11/4/2016

104 Comments

 
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There are days when I just throw my hands up in despair at the world. Do you ever get that? Where you feel like the only one who can see what's going on?

The rise of Donald Trump is a case in point. Here's a man who is so clearly an idiot, so clearly saying nothing - but saying it in such a charismatic, manipulative, sometimes funny way, that his supporters don't care that there's no substance there, that he's obviously making it all up as he goes along.

It makes me want to scream - "Why can't you see what he's doing?! You're being played!!!"

Fortunately, Trump's campaign appears to have jumped the shark. Unfortunately, if Trump fails to get the Republican nomination, that leaves Ted Cruz - a genuine right-wing, religious, nut, who has actual polished intellect behind his convictions, and could be even more dangerous and damaging for America and the world. But I digress. I'm not here today to talk politics.

Anyway. Ugh. Gamergate. Social Justice. Whatever you want to call those players in this so-called "culture war".... I didn't really want to talk about them again, because every time I do, both sides mistakenly and inexplicably think I'm siding with the other. And yet, this Alison Rapp/Nintendo situation - you may have read about it - is such a perfect illustration of one of my pet personal frustrations that I'm compelled, like a big idiot, to do so.

WHAT HAPPENED?
So here's what happened with Alison Rapp and Nintendo, as I understand it.

Primarily, because she has been outspoken on Twitter over the abuse received by many women in gaming, Alison Rapp - who worked in a mid-level PR/marketing role at Nintendo of America - became targeted over the removal of semi-sexualised content in the localised versions of Fire Emblem Fates and Xenoblade Chronicles X... despite having nothing to do with that decision.

When I say targeted, it was the usual disgusting sort of thing: social media abuse, men telling her to kill herself, others trawling through her Amazon wishlist to find things which might embarrass her, labelling her a "paedophile sympathiser" over an old college thesis in which she expressed surprisingly liberal views over the sexualisation of teenagers in Japanese culture, petitions to have her fired, etc. etc. etc.

Angry gamers took to Twitter looking for someone to blame, and found in Rapp (a “feminazi face piercings bitch", in their vernacular) a scapegoat. It was the usual thing: taking apart anything and everything Alison Rapp had ever said, or done. And Nintendo never once came out in defence of its employee.

And then Alison Rapp was fired.
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SUFFICE COLD
​Suffice to say, the timing of Alison Rapp's firing made it look as if Nintendo had lost its nerve.

That the company had let her go because of the grief she was getting online.

It looked very much as if a big corporation had jettisoned a female employee in the face of online abuse from men, and left her to fend for herself.

Here's how Nintendo announced Rapp's firing: "Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo's corporate culture. 

"Though Ms. Rapp's termination follows her being the subject of criticism from certain groups via social media several weeks ago, the two are absolutely not related. Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race or personal beliefs."


Consequently, Nintendo received a lot of grief from both social media and gaming news outlets, and Rapp certainly wasn't shy in stoking the fires:

"When I got back from vacay, Nintendo stripped me of my spokesperson status and did a 'lateral move” so I wouldn’t lead games as a PM anymore.

"This was because the GG mess meant they 'looked at my tweets' and decided I wasn’t a good representative of the company.

"The second job thing? Funny story. Moonlighting is actually accepted at Nintendo. It’s policy. To pay off student loans (weeee), I started moonlighting under a fake name, and with no real identifiers. An anon found out, told them, and here we are. It was moonlighting Nintendo didn’t like, despite the fact that it was anonymous.

"Here’s the thing: Do u honestly think that without GG’s attacks, the 'lateral move' and the obsessive privacy digging would have happened? Do you think that if the industry wasn’t afraid of women, sex-positivity, etc. that the anon moonlighting I did would have been a problem?"

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RAPP STAR
​Sympathy in the situation was, speaking broadly, with Alison Rapp. It looked very much as if she'd been targeted by "Gamergaters", Nintendo had abandoned her and bottled it, and that she was every inch the innocent victim.

Fresh petitions sprung up demanding that Nintendo support her, that they were - in firing her - leaving her alone to face her abusers.

Support for Rapp came in the form of sympathetic tweets, as well as gifts and groceries - she linked to her Amazon wishlist from her Twitter profile, and suggested her supporters might like to purchase spa vouchers for her husband, as he had been such a rock throughout her ordeal.

However, many seemed to miss an important part of Nintendo's statement. While moonlighting - as Alison Rapp stated she was - might well be an accepted part of Nintendo's corporate culture, that isn't why she was fired. It was because - as the statement reads - she had "a second job in conflict with Nintendo's corporate culture".

Unfortunately, alleged details of Rapp's moonlighting have now emerged - due, of course, to the psychotically obsessive digging of certain individuals, determined to make her pay for the crime of being an outspoken woman. And those details at least appear to point towards Alison Rapp moonlighting as a sex worker. In direct conflict with Nintendo's corporate culture. And, indeed, the law in the state where she lives.

Suffice to say, those who had originally targeted her, are loving it. Rapp - and all those who supported her - have been made to look foolish, exposed for their knee-jerk support, because she was a woman receiving abuse online. It made Rapp appear hypocritical, and it has given those who do this sort of thing one of their biggest ever victories.

​Yes, none of this would've come to light were it not for the "obsessive privacy digging", but Rapp doesn't seem to appreciate the part she played in losing her job.

REASON'S END
See... the reason I'm talking about all this, when you might well know it all already, is because it comes back to something I've talked about several times before; most recently, when I wrote about the Jim Sterling/Digital Homicide situation (link below). The Alison Rapp/Nintendo situation is textbook drama triangle.

Before I get into that, let me state that Alison Rapp obviously deserved none of the abuse she started getting. Certainly, we could argue that - by being outspoken on social media, as a representative of Nintendo, she attracted attention - but that's a tangential, murkier, issue.

Before I once again get accused of victim-blaming... all I'm trying to do here is get to the root of something that keeps happening, that doesn't have to keep happening. To point out that there are other ways of stopping the abuse women in gaming are receiving online.... because I want it to stop happening, and nothing anyone is doing currently is helping.

You see, rather than step out of the triangle when she started getting abuse, Alison Rapp - who, it should also be stated, identifies as having a mood/personality disorder - subconsciously seemed to encourage it, without any real awareness of what she might've done differently:

"I'm having a lot of weird feelings about having to clean out my desk on my bday tomorrow."

"btw in case you were wondering about the health issue I mentioned yesterday - I got a new diagnosis that means I need 3 doc visits a week"

"Aaaahhh, nothing quite like waking up to a bunch of GG-ers and white supremacists in my mentions, trying to ruin my life because video games”


"I'm not going to say anything more about this right now, but just fyi, they're doxxing my family as we speak. This is the world we've made."

The more she posted stuff like that, the more sympathy she got... and the more she got attacked. And this is the reason why:
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ROUND AND AROUND
The way to stop this sort of thing happening again and again, to stop it going around and around and around, is to deprive one of the parties its emotional payoff.

Don't give the persecutor the satisfaction of having power over the victim - or feeling right and justified. Don't give the rescuer the feeling of being needed, feeling like they're a good person. And don't trap the victim by letting him or her remain feeling like a victim; empathy is very different to sympathy. One is helpful. The other isn't.

​The Karpman Drama Triangle isn't applicable to every situation, but it does depict a type of very real, very common, dysfunctional relationship, wherein each of its players is trying to get selfish needs met. 

When it arises, there comes a time when you have to stop pandering to people who identify as victims, for their own sake. Even if you've broken your leg through no fault of your own, at some point you're going to have to get up off the sofa and stop using it as an excuse to get sympathy, or have people fetch things for you. You need to learn to walk again. Not keep milking it.

The abuse of women online... if you want it to stop... then you have to stop being part of the problem. This isn't victim-blaming - as some misinterpreted my comments on the Jim Sterling issue - but victim empowerment. Think about it: how often when you do a "good thing" for somebody else does it make you feel good about yourself? Think about what that person really needs, not what you need.

It's horrible to realise this, but you are not going to change the nature of abusers. They have a psychological need to abuse. Attacking them is only going to lead to entrenchment, and fuel their power trip.

HUMAN NATURE
It's human nature to feel pain when we see somebody else struggling. It's instinct to want to help when somebody asks for it. But consider this: you find somebody sprawled on the roadside one day begging you to help him get where he's going, because his legs don't work so good. You pick him up, and carry him to his destination, feeling pretty good about yourself. Now imagine if everyone did that for him. No wonder his legs have withered away to nothing.

If we're insulated from our mistakes, our roles in any given situation, it becomes impossible to learn from them, to grow from them.

And here's a poncey, pretentious quote from Portia Nelson, whoever that is, which nevertheless illustrates it perfectly: 

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
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JIM STERLING VS DIGITAL HOMICIDE... WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON? - BY MR BIFFO
104 Comments
dab88
11/4/2016 01:01:05 pm

Superb. That poncey, pretentious Portia bit was the best ;)

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Damon link
11/4/2016 01:01:50 pm

Without all the drama triangle stuff I have been saying this for years now. You can't be empowered if you keep labeling yourself as a victim.

Maybe she needs a little short-term help for losing her job but it isn't the users of twitter's job to help her. It's her network of family and friends she hopefully has.

And also Awww so sowwry you were fired on your birthday what are you 12? Time to put on the big girl panties.

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Nige
11/4/2016 01:05:39 pm

Absolutely bang on.

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MrPSB
11/4/2016 01:07:59 pm

Fannies

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 01:08:45 pm

This is why I love you.

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Menu
11/4/2016 01:09:41 pm

One day I'd like to hope we'll all be smart enough to realise we'd all have a much better time if we just fucking got along with each other. But alas, what do I know?

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MrPSB
11/4/2016 01:15:52 pm

Double Fannies

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Menu
11/4/2016 01:17:26 pm

Sounds like a win to me tbh.

Anon
11/4/2016 01:12:23 pm

Yeah. No. Someone shouldn't have to suffer in silence about the abuse they recieve for the sake of removing the wall of that triangle - that seems to be what you are suggesting. Whether you want to label it victim blaming/empowerment, that expectation is damn pretty shitty and does seem to shift the blame to the injured party.

If people don't speak out, victims especially, then nothing will ever get done or change. This toxic culture is allowed to flourish in that silent vacuum.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 01:14:44 pm

I'm not advocating silence. Not in the slightest. There are countless ways of supporting someone without making it worse.

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Random Reviewer
11/4/2016 07:09:21 pm

Why so salty? I honestly didn't get the same vibe as you from this article. I really don't know how you inferred it.To me Biffo wasn't advocating silence bu instead advising a slightly wiser selection of choices in how people speak out. It's possible to publicly comment on that internet bees nest without accidentally kicking it everytime one does so.

For me It isn't about shifting the blame onto the victim but acknowledging that the circumstances will be different in each case and that, yes, the party who has been attacked can play a role in escalating or deescalating the abuse, based on how they react.

I'm sorry if that's an unpopular opinion but if heeded it might actually be of more use than just feeling you are 'right on' and expressing the ' ideologically correct' view. It could actually help make someone's life a bit better and wind down the cycle of abuse before it goes into overdrive.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 08:05:39 pm

Cheers, RR. I'm gaming's very own Stephen Fry!

Tehy
11/4/2016 11:08:10 pm

Their argument began with a 'yeah.no.', so you could easily deduce their tribal loyalty and disinterest in evaluating the argument being out forth. From there, it is what it is...

Darcy
11/4/2016 01:12:31 pm

I was wondering if you might say something about this tragic mess. It feels like it's impossible to be objective and not take sides these days without everyone accusing you of supporting the other.

This must be how the BBC feels!

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The Advocate
11/4/2016 01:25:25 pm

As an advocate of the sex trade being legal and without stigma (and someone who has made use of it), I find this all very sad.

Alison comes across as liberal, intelligent, and with regards to games and content creativity in games, very open minded. She wanted less censorship in games, making her a valuable asset to the community.

Alison seems the polar opposite of the supposed "feminazi" archetype which GG hates.

Really awful to see this.

I for one, having now discovered that she was an escort, support her all the more. So fucking what I say? As long as it was mutually consensual and all parties acted respectively, what does it matter?

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Col. Asdasd
12/4/2016 11:52:28 am

I think that's the only thing that I've really learned from seeing these sad events play out.

I see so many from the GG side trying to her tear down, despite her advocacy of not over-correlating fantastical depictions with IRL consequences, an assumption in which so much of social justice's criticisms of gaming seems to be rooted. And then turn that around and use her very advocacy to demonise her!

I know it's impossible to say what GG stands for as a whole, but from my viewpoint they seemed to coalesce around the defence of the idea that the kind of games they enjoy had a right to keep being made, free from external interference. And in Alison Rapp, they seem to have taken up such vehement opposition to someone who seemed to be fighting their corner, without ever stopping to consider the contradiction. It's baffling.

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Dr Kank
11/4/2016 01:28:40 pm

I thought the pressure on Alison Rapp had been coming from the Wayne Foundation rather than gamers.

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Euphemia
11/4/2016 01:42:42 pm

Well said, sirs.

Also, "drama triangle" sounds rude. Fnar.

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Clive Peppard
11/4/2016 01:48:54 pm

All this has happened before and it will happen again.

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What
11/4/2016 01:50:11 pm

So your advice to people receiving abuse online, as you said in your other misguided article, is to grin and bear it?

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 01:57:05 pm

Of course not. Not even remotely. And nowhere do I even slightly advocate that, and if you still don't get it after all my "misguided" articles, then I doubt I'll ever get my point across to you.

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What
11/4/2016 03:19:50 pm

"Stepping out of the triangle" and "depriv[ing] one of the parties its emotional payoff" involve pretending the abuse isn't happening and not referring to it publicly. Metaphorically "grinning", while you "bear" the burden of being abused, if you like.

I think what's evident from your two articles is that you fail to understand that removing oneself from social media, like you did when you were getting torrents of abuse, is just simply not possible in certain professions. PR and Marketing, Independent Games Development, Games Journalism - you need to be an active, sociable, visible internet user in order to succeed in them. And being those things is incredibly tough if you're receiving a torrent of abuse every hour of every day - it'd be completely impossible if you had no way to tell people it was happening, and no emotional support to balance it out.

You can't apply your own situation and the way you handled it to what these people are going through, and to do so is misguided.

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 03:36:17 pm

Hey - "What". I'm not sure if this will reply properly to your comment at 15:19:50. But this is a response to that.

You might not be able to remove yourself from social media in certain professions... but you can certainly remove yourself from the drama triangle. And I think that's the point you're missing. I'm really sorry... but I do think you're wrong, or at least not understanding me.

And to speak from my own personal experience is only part of what I'm doing. That said, what else have I got? I can't speak from somebody else's experience. But what my experience led to was me spending the best part of three years learning to be a psychotherapist, getting a fitness to practice in that profession, and seeing what works (and what doesn't). A huge part of that training is about conflict resolution, looking beyond the surface of what people are really saying, digging into what's going on beneath. Getting past the false self that people project, and finding ways to heal trauma and empower the real them.

I'm trying hard not to sound patronising, but I think I'm fairly uniquely placed to understand what does and doesn't work in these situations, and to comment on it. I hope that's part of what makes Digi unique. And I entered into the training because I wanted to understand the dynamics that led to my own experience.

When I came back, I saw Gamergate and was horrified, because I identified with the victims. I want the abuse to stop, I don't want anyone to receive abuse - those are my own rescuing tendencies - and this is my way of trying to help. Because the other way doesn't work. It perpetuates it. It just simply does. What you're advocating just lets it continue. It won't help.

Have I ever been a woman who has been abused online by Gamergaters? No. But I've been abused online and had my own stalker. I also found a way of stopping it and recovering from a fairly comprehensive emotional battering. I also know women who have been abused. And what frustrates me, is that not a one of them ever played the victim card.

I've also counselled people who either were victims, or who identified as victims. Sometimes part of the job is telling which is which, and a big part is of either moving them beyond their trauma, or making them realise that there's more to them than being reduced to the status of something as reductive as "victim". For some people, it's a hard label to let go of, and continuing to call people as such, or keeping them stuck in that place, stops them getting on with their life.

Davey
11/4/2016 02:16:06 pm

I know what you're saying, but I haven't seen any evidence that your approach would actually work. In fact, anything I've seen that examined the success of silence / not engaging has shown that it doesn't make things easier.

The attacks are a kind of performance, not to the aggrieved party, not to the aggrieved party's supporters, but to other attackers.
Is it a vicious circle, or triangle, or is it a sociopathic pissing contest among a fucked-up peer group?

What we see is the tip of the iceberg, the real shitshow is happening on chans and IRC, and it's a full-time job for these people. And they'll do it when there's no splashback on social media, and have done before.

As for Alison Rapp, I feel bad for her. As an adult, her body is her own property, and nobody's business.
As for Nintendo, I can understand why they let her go, and their policies are public. However, what I don't accept is that they felt it was unneccessary to support her in any way, over months of a hate campaign directed at her in part due to her position within the company.

The culture of appeasement and/or silence on the part of publishers in relation to the reactionary crusade against women and anyone who doesn't fit the gamer archetype has gone on too long, and it stands as evidence that, yes, the game industry is pretty shit, the culture is pretty toxic, and anything where the light shines in is the exception, not the rule.

No major publisher has done anything at the level of Intel's diversity campaign. It doesn't matter if the freaks are less than 1% of the market, they'd still rather throw staff under the bus than lose that fraction.

Nintendo can choose to fire people moonlighting as sex workers because it clashes with their ethos. I accept that.

Yet their ethos doesn't stretch to condemning a misogynistic hate campaign against one of their own? Well done, gang, real family friendly. Nintendo can go fuck themselves if you ask me.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 02:46:40 pm

Well, it does work, and I can point to a lot of therapeutic evidence - not least my own past situation - which backs it up. If you've not found evidence of it in gaming, that's because I've not seen evidence of anyone trying it. Just lots of people poking hornet nests with sticks, then complaining when they get stung.

Of course, it's absolutely a sociopathic pissing contest - but there's absolutely no reasoning with that. Is it fair that you're not able to fight fire with fire, and that the best option is to withdraw from the fight? Of course not, but sometimes that's the only option, for the sake of your own sanity. You can still talk about it without engaging with it, and without perpetuating it.

This "culture war" - as it has been called - isn't like the civil rights movement, or the suffragettes. There's no end game. It's frequently a bunch of pricks who enjoy being pricks. You can't fight that. As you say - it's a performance, and it only works if they get a reaction from the crowd.

Totally agree with you on Nintendo not supporting her though. But I suspect their advice might've tallied with my own - withdraw from social media. It's sad, and shit, but that honestly the only way to deal with it, because they are sociopaths.

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Ben
11/4/2016 02:19:29 pm

I'm too old for this shit. There was once a time when it was deemed socially unacceptable to talk religion or politics and to keep your opinions to yourself and now people live their entire lives in explicit detail through the medium of Twitter et al. I am by no means saying that the former 'old school' philosophy is in any way preferable, but if you are going to share the forensic detail of your life and mind with a voyeuristic, judgemental, reactionary and entirely anonymous online world, I don't know how you could be oblivious to the possibility that you are leaving yourself open to exploitation and abuse. Honestly, folks bemoan the loss of privacy at the hands of government, corporations etc, but it seems to me that the social media generation have completely sacrificed any notion of privacy with gay abandon.

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Stoo
11/4/2016 02:23:10 pm

Okay I get how this triangle can be a useful model in assessing a problem. But we can't reduce problems to it entirely.

I mean, we want a better outcome than just "the triangle stops happening", right? We could meet that by, say, women stopping having opinions about videogames, but that's totally unacceptable.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 02:40:22 pm

Well... yeah. Not every problem can be reduced to it, but a big number of them can. In the case of the Alison Rapp situation - much as it pains me to say it - is very much a textbook example of the drama triangle. There's very little personal responsibility being taken, as far as I see.

Obviously, she didn't invite the unwarranted abuse initially. She was just a woman, working for a big company, who spoke about games. But when she did get fired - even if it was a result of "obsessive digging" - she laid the blame on GG-ers etc., rather than looking at her on, not insignificant, role in the situation. And this was after accepting gifts and sympathy from people etc..

I'm not blaming her, but her lack of self-awareness - and the decision of others to rally around her and choose to continue portraying her as a victim - is exactly why her abuse isn't going to stop any time soon for her.

That doesn't make her supporters wrong, but it makes them misguided, even if it is for the right reasons (and even if those reasons come from a selfish place). Those who are allegedly doxxing her family, or abusing her, are obviously completely in the wrong, but they're being given fuel to their fire.

I'm hugely jet lagged. I've no idea if I'm even making sense anymore.

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Stoo
11/4/2016 02:41:14 pm

I typed that a bit off the cuff so let me try and explain better. I'm worried that if we approach the "sexists vs women in gaming" problem via this triangle, we come up with answers that don't address the social and cultural problems. Sometimes people really are victims, and they're up against regressive and prejudiced attitudes, and it's important to stick up for them for the sake of combatting said attitudes. Even if we risk falling into a category in a psychology textbook.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 02:50:24 pm

I think that's the biggest misconception that I'm coming up against - that people think I'm saying there are no real victims. Of course there are. Sticking up for someone, or better still supporting someone, is different to colluding with them. There are victims and then there are "victims".

It's the difference between a car mounting the pavement and running someone down, and someone carelessly stepping into heavy traffic, getting hit, and then blaming the cars for not stopping. And then trying to cross the road at the exact same point again, grumbling that "Those ruddy cars had better stop this time", and when they get hit again, a whole bunch of bystanders gathering around to have a go at the driver.

Damon link
11/4/2016 02:50:34 pm

But even if someone is at the receiving end of abuse surely the healthy thing for them to do it so help them move past it. If someone really wants public abuse to stop then the only thing they can do is try and remove themself from the public eye-- at least for a time.

Once the Abusee is empowered (I don't want to use the word 'victim'-- it's overused and too often people ARE victims instead of WERE victims) they can help others and address the issues. The part of those far divorced from the abuse is to help the seed of empowered formerly abused by empowering them and teaching them how to live life post-abuse.

Every empowered person, when they speak of their abuse says they WERE a victim of something. Not a person, a thing. "I was a victim of spousal abuse". In this way they can remove themself from it but they can also help others.

People who are not empowered often say they ARE a victim or say "I was abused by my ex husband". They may be on a road to recovery but they still have a long way to go.

This doesn't mean that people should not be helped. This means that the help people are given should be good for them in the long-term, not the short term. Recovering from abuse is a long-term problem and needs a long-term solution.

Stoo
11/4/2016 04:10:49 pm

Mr B, what is our parallel with the person who insists on walking into traffic? Would it, say, a women who keeps expressing feminist opinions about gaming on twitter?

Damon, I get that someone has to disappear for their own health. But "remove yourself from the public eye" can't be the general answer to sexist harassment, that's just ceding gaming to the dudebros.

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 04:14:23 pm

Stop - ok... I'm not saying literally remove yourself from the public eye. I'm saying remove yourself from the drama triangle. That's something different. If I did say people need to step off of social media... well... I'm tired.

stoo
12/4/2016 12:13:38 pm

Ok, I'm just trying to picture what following your advice actually looks like, when applied to problems like online sexist harassment.

For what it's worth I'm not trying to label you a GG fan or anti-woman or whatever. It's just the methods I'm questioning here, not your motives. I understand you're trying to suggest a better way foward.

Super Bad Advice
11/4/2016 02:43:04 pm

Funnily enough the Karpman (worst super hero ever, by the way) Triangle has a lot in common with the fire triangle, in that if you take away oxygen it gets rid of the issue. Science jokk!

But other than that, my admittedly not well informed take on the whole thing is this: a woman lost her job because people who blamed her for something she wasn't connected to raised her profile with her employer to try and get her fired and they discovered she had a second job that didn't really sit well with her being a spokesperson for a family-friendly company so DID fire her. Until that came out, everyone who supported her went batshit crazy about how unfair it was, and now it has come out everyone who wanted her fired for the thing she didn't do is now crowing about it, even though she was actually way more in line with their thinking and they potentially got - if not an ally - a sympathiser sacked.

Literally no one has come out of this well. Some worse than others, and some obviously behaved worse than others - there's no excuse for abuse of women (or anyone) online, doxxing, pestering someone's employers etc. But more to the point, nothing has changed. No one 'won'. People just lost, to varying degrees, and everyone got a bit angrier along the way.

Blergh.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 02:51:04 pm

What he said.

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The Green Spurt
12/4/2016 12:20:51 pm

Don't you think Anita Sarkeesian has come out of it pretty well?
Despite all of the abuse and harassment she has received she's soldiered on, doing what she does, while never once stooping to the level of her attackers.
"No one's come out of this well" is another great Gamergate fallacy, up there with the old "both sides" false dichotomy. There are plenty of victims of GG/reactionary right wing abuse, from what I can see, who have handled themselves with dignity and composure.

vinz link
17/12/2016 01:51:42 am

Bringing up Benita Mussokeesi in any rational sense of 'dignified' or 'good' is exactly why this will never end. She definitely "came out of it pretty well" all right. Monetarily.

Keith
11/4/2016 02:57:07 pm

The problem I have with the triangle, is that even on the example of it shown above, the language used is actually fairly neutral for the aggressor, while being slightly judgemental for victim and "rescuer"; "poor you"/"poor me". It has uncomfortable connotations with terms like "white knighting". Maybe I'm thinking too widely, and not specifically about Gamergate or whatever, but I just can't get on board with the idea that showing a bit of support when you see someone being abused/harassed/shouted down is the wrong thing to do. It might not always be the right thing to do either, and sometimes showing support might be better placed by pm'ing someone and saying "hey, seriously, that guys a moron. Best off utilising the block function because the reaction you're giving is what he wants"

Also, the thing that comes over, as a genuinely positive thing, is that you (addressing Mr Biffo directly here) have worked your way through this stuff yourself, and are almost certainly right about what is the best thing to do once you're at a stage in life when you're able to do so. But I dunno, not everyone can handle stuff the same way. I just can't get away from the idea that "victims" and "rescuers" shouldn't be considered equal sides of the triangle to the "persecutors".

I dunno

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 03:08:12 pm

But you've got absolutely the right idea. You use the word "support" and that's exactly how to think about it. It's what form that support takes which is the thing.

In all honesty, part of why I've not spoken much about the persecutors/attackers is because, to me, they seem so obviously in the wrong. They're so obviously fucked-up, and there's so little we're ever going to be able to do to tackle them, that they don't seem worth addressing. When it comes to the victims and rescuers, I see them more as "my" people, if that makes sense. I see myself in them, and nothing of myself in the attackers. I'm appealing to their capacity for self-awareness, because I know I was capable of it.

The triangle isn't about apportioning degrees of blame, it's just looking at how social interaction in these situations can work... and a model for how that cycle/triangle can be broken.

It's like co-dependency... in those relationships it's usually an addict and someone who acts as a "nurse". Without realising, a non-addicted partner will often subconsciously facilitate the addict to stay an addict and helpless, because they need to feel needed/helpful. They'll collude and not really support them to get better.

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Keith
11/4/2016 03:16:48 pm

Yeah, I must admit that the first time you mentioned this a few weeks back it got my heckles up more than it does now, and I do see your point. But.. There's always a but.

I dunno, maybe it's just about bearing the dynamics in mind before intervening, and working out whether you're joining in because you really can help, or joining in just cos you've thought of a killer response that will turn the tables a bit. As Ive gotten older I suppose It becomes clearer whether engaging will be any use.

But, as I say, I've stayed well out of Gamergate. I feel like if I read more than my surface understanding of it I'd fall a bit out of love with games. I suspect that GG may well be so polarised that you're absolutely right that there's no real point for anyone to argue about it

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Meeeeeeeehhhhh
11/4/2016 03:18:12 pm

Those insane vultures will attack anyone for for having a vagina, her tweets would have been out of frustration, had she not tweeted they still would have continued until they got her sacked, then patted themselves on the back for shutting up a "feminazi" and getting her sacked, they would have been so proud of themselves, any attempt at ignoring it on her part would just be seen as another victory and help spur them on to seeking out their next victim.

See the problem with your hypothesis about all this sort of thing is that your triangle is based on the actions and reactions of normal sane human beings working in a world of sound logic and normal emotional states.

There's GG people that are anything but normal, I am not saying they are all crazy, mob mentality can whip up even the smartest and cause thrm to act like fools, but the core of GG is a few hardcore Elliot Rodgers types who are frightening in their thinking, there seems to be increasing amounts of those people online and they'd jump on GG weather they are gamers or not to fan the flames, theres no logic to dealing with those people.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 03:20:10 pm

But those are exactly the sort of people that this hypothesis (it isn't mine) is designed for!

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Meeehhhhh
11/4/2016 04:10:01 pm

It doesn't work, they see victory in everything and end up spured on.

If you ignore it they see it as you frightened they are winning and will continue, if they deem they have won and that only happens if they have completely hounded, the quarry out of job and home, it boosts them to find new victims faster.
If you shout at it they see it as a challenge they must and will win.
If other people support you in it and maybe fight on your behalf you get the same results as shoiting at it.

The victim is stuffed no matter what due to what is a very small number of unhinged misogynists. Your piece does indeed sound like victim blaming as the fundamental deference between gamergate type rubbish and anything you have suffered in the past is that its not based on a humans action but rampant unfetted hatrid hatrid for half the worlds population because they have vaginas, if the tables were turned and gamergate was a kkk campaign trying to hound black men out of the industry for the crime of being black men, the whole thing wouldn't have been given the oxygen to get as big as it has and continue as it has, sadly no one cares about sexism its dismissed as a minor thing.

You stated it yourself this whole thing started up because of something that was absolutely nothing to do with her, she was just picked on because she was a women in a publicly facing role at a games company, it sends the message of dont employ women in PR for games companies, it absurd.

And for the record I dont understand what Nintendo is up too, definitely this was bad timing I think they did fold, also even with the cutting out of the boob size slider and making the outfits less revealing on the 14 year old BLADE its still very sexist, its the armour, what looks like a massive space marines armour on a male looks like body paint on a female, its a hell of a job trying to get my character not to look like something from a S&M dungeon its nonsensical.

Dr Kank
11/4/2016 04:25:56 pm

I don't get how people think that Nintendo are in the wrong for firing Alison Rapp. I've had jobs before where there were clear limits on what I could do in public and what other employment I could take, in case it reflected badly on my employer or created a conflict of interest. Most employment is probably like that to some degree, and it sounds like Nintendo have pretty clear policies in place to protect their family friendly image. Firing a PR representative that has not only breached their policies but has been involved in illegal activities is a total no-brainer.

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 04:31:09 pm

"It doesn't work, they see victory in everything and end up spured on."

This is the issue! I mean, let the arseholes have their "victory". They're lunatics. What does it matter if a bunch of sociopaths think they've won? The alternative is to allow them to carry on and destroy your life. An eye for an eye doesn't work. It's true that there's no better victory than a life well lived.

Y'know... I'm being very much misrepresented over this - to say I'm victim blaming is starting to grate on me a bit. When what I'm advocating is empowering victims. I'm sorry that you don't see that, to get people out of a "poor me" or "poor them" mindset.

I mean this is the sort of thing I've had on Twitter today: "I can't be the only person to be gutted that Digitiser's Mr Biffo is a GGer, right?"

Followed by someone else saying: "his piece today was horrible "yeah, but she was a sex worker!", as if that somehow justifies everything".

Which I never said! Remotely. I simply reported the situation as it stands. And I have explicitly stated on numerous occasions that I think GG is toxic and horrible, and that if anything I lean towards whatever Social Justice is. Though... there are plenty of Social Justice Warriors who I think behave just as badly or stupidly as Gamergaters. Doesn't make me a Gamergater. Ugh.

I expected it, of course. I've had it before every single time I've tackled this topic, despite repeatedly and explicitly condemning Gamergate. And unfortunately, such responses from so-called "Social Justice Warriors" simply make me dig my heels in and despair.

It's such a narrow "If you're not one of us you're one of them" view of the world. People so utterly blinded by their own point of view, that everything is filtered through it. They see what they want to see, not what's actually in front of them.

It's the drama triangle, frankly, and in this instance it's them attempting to turn me into the persecutor they want me to be, because I'm standing outside their circle. Where it'll stop is that I'm not going to go "Oh, poor me - I'm being attacked'. I brought it upon myself for writing this article!

It's not uncommon in therapy for the counsellor to be attacked for challenging long-held beliefs, or saying things that the client doesn't want to hear. Tough love is sometimes necessary, though.

Do I want abuse of women in games to stop? Of course. Do I think it'll be stopped by people going "Poor them!" and attacking Gamergaters? No. Do I think it'll be stopped by people actually trying to find a solution? Potentially. In the short-term the best people can do is get out of the line of fire, before it does them some proper damage. That doesn't mean dropping off of social media. It does mean not making things worse.

Meeh
11/4/2016 05:48:04 pm

Not sure why theres no reply button on the lower replies so I'm going to mess up the continuality if thats a word by posting my replies here.

Dr kank I'm not saying they sacked her for being harassed although that did put her in tne spotlight so inadvertently they did, but they could have waited until it all blew over by firing her in the thick of it, thry give the impression they folded snd the hate campaign was a success.

I dont know about nintendo but I used to wotk for sega and all it said in there contract was that you here not allowed to have a 2nd job in thst was in the games industry, so no part time blogging in case you broke the confidentiality agreement that kind of thing, and we did have a staff member who'd done a bit of porn to pay the bill and it common knowledge in the whole office.

Unless nintendo explicitly states you cant have certain side jobs in their contract I dont see what the issue would be with her being a prostitute on the side if thats what she was doing.

Mr Biffo the main problem is that you are still looking at it as being a single victim, its not like that sterling bloke as the GG lot don't actually care about the victim, its not actually anything personal although they get personal to try and hound the victim, its a scatter gun approach against women in the industry in general, its a very different thing that certainly shouldn't be ignored or walked away from.

I question how much of the GG crowd are gamers and not just misogynist social warriors, it would attact them from all over, if they keep doing this and make companies think teice about employing women they will move on to target another industry imho, such as Hollywood or most likely sport as they already have a problem with these types.

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 06:05:03 pm

Meeh... I suspect that Nintendo's contracted was possibly worded along the lines of not engaging with "activities that are not in keeping with the values of Nintendo". It's pretty standard - I've signed contracts like that. But that's by the by, to be honest. Do I think that there's still a part of Parr's firing that came about because she was attracting a social media storm, and that was used as an excuse? Absolutely. I'm pretty sure Nintendo bottled it, because her public persona was becoming problematic.

And, again, I'm not advocating not tackling misogyny or attacks on women. I'm talking about how much the type of rescuing behaviour I'm talking about helps. It doesn't. It fuels the fire of those doing the attacking, and it stops the people being attacked from helping themselves. It doesn't apply to every situation. Yet all too often when it comes to Gamergate it does apply. And I get why people are struggling with this concept - because the idea of systematically, as part of a group, trying to dismantle someone's life, is so alien to most of us that it's something that we feel we have to either tackle in kind, or defend those who are on the receiving end. As counterintuitive as it sounds, that's exactly what GG wants.

Ultimately, all we have at the end of the day is our ability to take personal responsibility for our own actions, or own pain, and our own healing.

A Concerned Citizen
11/4/2016 08:00:07 pm

Biffo, this entire situation is not just a drama triangle. It's a drama tetrahedron. And the tetrahedron is on fire and occasionally sprays acid. You really stand to gain nothing except enemies by engaging in it, no matter what you write. And no matter how much nuance you try and put in, it will not appease anyone. In fact, that just gets people angrier.

Wait, crap. Am I a rescuer now?

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 08:14:11 pm

You're Stephen Fry.

Klone
11/4/2016 04:25:03 pm

Don't feed the trolls might be a bit flippant, but it's still good advice for anyone who has to work on social media.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 04:35:49 pm

It's tried and tested, certainly.

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Darcy
11/4/2016 05:11:38 pm

I keep coming back to this, reading the comments, here and elsewhere and I just ... I dunno. It's depressing.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So long as both sides are trying to achieve "victory" over the other, this cycle will only escalate, along with the damage to those caught in the middle.

History of the human race right there, I guess :S

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 05:21:20 pm

Same. It's heartbreaking really. And it's very hard to make any sort of coherent moral sense of the situation.

Certainly, Nintendo should've at least publicly stated that Rapp had nothing to do with the localisation controversy, once she started getting scapegoated and attacked. I wonder what sort of support she got within the company?

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Geekette
11/4/2016 06:23:16 pm

I'm not going to say anything specific to Rapp. There is more than enough speculation about the mental health and lifestyle choices of this latest target of the mob, and its completely inappropriate.

But I am going to say something about you misappropriating the language of therapy. This is starting to get quite offensive, and your misapplication of therapy ideas to gamergate and the victimisation of women who have opinions in the video game space is harmful to anyone who believes it. As a mental health professional I cringe at the misinformation you are spreading, and your profound lack of empathy for the recipients of threats and harassment. I am very glad you say you no longer work in a related field.

Portia Nelson's poem is pretty profound, and something I have used myself in clinical work, but it is not relevant here. If women fall into familiar holes of persecution when they speak out about sexism in the video game sphere, this doesn't tell us what they need to change about their behaviour, any more than women need to be responsible for dressing in ways that mean they are not raped. The responsibility for unacceptable behaviour belongs to the person doing it. Just as the mental health of the victim does not mean it was their fault they were persecuted. Vulnerable people are easier to victimise, yes, but that still doesn't make it their fault. If you leave your mobile phone in view it may make you a more attractive target to a pickpocket but it doesn't stop it being a criminal offence to steal it, or stop the person who takes it from being a thief.

And your implication that "his legs don't work so good" because of his own choices is profoundly offensive and blames people for having mental or physical health problems. Do you say that to people with cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy? That they are disabled because of their own dependence on others, rather than being placed in a position through no choice of their own in which they require support?

You remind me of a the homeopath who claims some sugar pill helped their cancer and it should now be the only thing given to anyone with cancer. Your personal experience is not representative enough to tell other people what to do. What seemingly worked for you hasn't for many others, and acting like there is an easy answer doesn't actually address the cause of the problem, which is harmful enough without the additional step of blaming the victim on top of that.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 06:48:35 pm

Well... I actually never worked in the mental health field, as I never practiced professionally. I chose not to, as I don't actually believe talking therapies are always the best way forward, and I lost faith in the industry in quite a profound way.

Also, I believe, strongly, that there are many, many therapists working today who shouldn't be doing so, precisely because they collude with their clients, precisely because they can't get beyond that rescuing tendency, and because they'd rather keep their clients stuck. In my experience, too often, humanistic theory is illness focused, rather than wellness focused, and serves to make people worse. CBT, however - though I've only had a little knowledge of it - is far more effective, from what I know.

Sorry you've taken offence to what you see as me misappropriating therapeutic language, but you're going to quite extreme lengths to put words into my mouth by stating that I'm blaming anyone... least of all any victim in this particular situation. I fail to see where I've said or done that, and it strikes me that you're as triggered by all this as some of the other people who have commented today.

Also, I would say that if you are a mental health professional, then you'll know that working through our own experiences is a massive part of the training... and when we're faced with clients - backed up with empathy, unconditional positive regard, and other elements of our training - it's an essential part of our therapy "toolkit".

And, frankly, if you think my metaphor about a guy whose legs don't work is me being literal about people with muscular dystrophy then you're as off your nut as some of the people I encountered in my training. Precisely the sort of people who led me to turn my back on the profession.

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Spinnything
11/4/2016 07:02:34 pm

Thanks for posting this and giving an even handed look at the shades of grey in this horrible event.

The thing that struck me is that fhe Games sites that were quick to condemn Nintendo over this issue have gone completely silent since. On Neogaf, there were three massive 40+ page threads criticising Nintendo, but the thread about her second job was immediately deleted.

This is bad because it just adds fuel to GG's phony "Ethics in Games Journalism" crusade.

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The Green Spurt
11/4/2016 07:09:02 pm

Biffo, I really think you are wrong about this.
Have a look at this article, and the comments from Gators ...

http://www.gamezone.com/news/it-seems-former-nintendo-pr-employee-alison-rapp-was-a-prostitute-3435712

You talk about the "two sides" dichotomy to this, but I really don't see anything at all from the anti-GG side that comes anything close to the levels of nastiness and anti-progressiveness (?) of the GG side.

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 07:20:01 pm

ARRRRGH! The article wasn't saying both sides are as bad as one another! I'm talking about the drama triangle!! Something completely different.

Certain people are projecting all sorts of subtext into my piece which simply isn't there. I'm not victim blaming. I'm not saying women bring it upon themselves. I've quite clearly, and repeatedly, stated that the behaviour of many who identify as Gamergaters is "disgusting" and sociopathic. And nowhere have I said that SJWs are as bad as Gamergaters.

My crime here would appear to be saying that I don't believe that you help someone by colluding with their self-pity, and by escalating the conflict.

Does that apply to every victim of Gamergate? No. Of course it doesn't. Do I think it applies to the Alison Parr situation? Yes, to a point, I think it does. Did she bring the doxxing etc. upon herself? No.

Do I think people are helping her by doing the whole "poor you" thing, and setting up petitions, and buying her gifts, and attacking me? No. It does the opposite.

The frustrating thing is... I'm on your side, y'know. I'm trying to suggest that there's a better way through this mess than what has been tried. Which is why I used the Portia Nelson quite. That wasn't aimed at the victims. It was aimed at the rescuers. Those who I've spent my entire day explaining myself to.

However, what I am saying in these comments - which is a sorry fact - is that I've been attacked again and again by Social Justice Warriors... In that respect, I do think they have their sense of perspective all out of whack, and - frankly - there's no making them see anything than their own projected and distorted sense of reality.

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the green spurt
11/4/2016 09:55:15 pm

Just wondered - did you perceive my comment to you as an "attack"? or other comments on this page? Perhaps you have come under attack somewhere else I'm unaware of, like Twitter. But I think you are getting close to conferring victim status upon yourself, if you think that comments people are leaving on this blog are "attacks".
(Unless there are some really nasty ones I haven't read).

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 11:09:47 pm

No, you make a perfectly reasonable point in saying that, Green Spurt - by using that word, "attack", yes, it puts me in a "victim"-y perspective. Which is all too easily done - as we see here!

Cheers for allowing me to check myself.

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Adam
11/4/2016 08:07:21 pm

Anyone who uses the word 'vacay' deserves to be sacked, man or woman.

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Random Reviewer
11/4/2016 08:48:14 pm

It's a tricky one to unpack. We do all seem to be dancing around the elephant in the room here.

First off I'll add this next bit to save the hard of thinking replying with witless comments; Me no likey those who hound Rapp supposedly over localization issues, but really just cause she has a VJay Jay.. Me think dems is just da worzt. Me no want this to happen to anyone, male or female, in any industry.

So, regarding that elephant, namely Alison Rapps pro-pedophile tweets and essay. Her essay I can understand and forgive. We were all young once and prone to some wrongheaded views. Plus she was looking at Japan as a model which has always been vastly different from the west in their attitudes to acceptable sexual mores.

But Rapp has also publicly tweeted;

-in defense of child sexualisation
-her outrage at a pedophile being reported to the police by his neighbors
-her strident belief that the laws on depictions of sexualised images of children should be relaxed.

and so on, and so on. It's all publicly available. Forget the webcaming job (which anyone with half a brain could figure might be at odds with Nintendo's corporate culture and family friendly image), those tweets alone are a sackable offense. Never mind the fact that the tweets tarnish Nintendo by association; I wouldn't want anyone like Rapp anywhere near a company that has a strong tradition of creating games for children. Aside for my kneejerk disgust at her views I would also note that the potential risk for Rapp to be a subtly pernicious influence would be too great. Nintendo have a duty of care to their audience and the only moral action is, in fact, to sack her.In my mind Nintendo are at fault for not discovering this behavior and taking action sooner.

There are those who say that we are only hearing about this because of the obsessive actions of a mob, which is true. But at this stage I don't really care how this information has become available. I'm just glad it has come to light. I'm sorry Nintendo didn't come to Rapps aid sooner over the localisation bullshit, but I can't say I'm sorry she's lost her job. It's horrible that the shitheads who went after her have been vindicated in some way, but its also a relief that we've removed someone from a position of influence who holds and expresses views that help to legitimize child pornography.

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A Concerned Citizen
11/4/2016 10:25:16 pm

Wow. That's probably most of the reason for getting rid of her right there. PR disaster waiting to happen.

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Nick the Gent link
11/4/2016 08:48:44 pm

The drama triangle perfectly sums it all up, Mr. Biffo. Thanks again for another thoughtful analysis.

Everything is about the overriding "narrative" (or narratives). If you're wading into something like this, about business/corporate ethics, discrimination, social and cultural points of view, then say goodbye to nuanced discussion!

Or any discussion based on what actually happened. If you're coming at this from the point of view of ethics in games and so on, you've got a narrative that proves your point. Likewise if you see this as an example of harassment of women in the games industry.

For me, part of the problem is also the medium. First, the internet. Then, forums, comments section. Now, Twitter and social media where it's too easy to mobilize and declare war on others.

Taking a hiatus from social media may not be a solution. But I can't be the only one in being extremely wary of posting something that could provoke a backlash.

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Sat Fow
11/4/2016 10:07:07 pm

The fact that you offered an *opinion*, something based on your own personal experience and produced a very delicate, thought-provoking and nuanced read..yet have people unfollowing you on Twitter for not having EXACTLY the same opinions as them (mostly the idiots over at Gamer Ghazi, I'd imagine) says everything you need to know about these people. You do not need them as followers, you're way too good for them, Biffs x

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 10:53:46 pm

Cheers, ears. I expected it from this article: it happens every single time, sadly.

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Dr Kank
11/4/2016 10:13:57 pm

It feels like every time there has been one of these controversial articles, there's talk of SJWs going on the warpath on Twitter. Just out of curiosity Biffo, has there ever been any attacks or harassment from Gamergate supporters?

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Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 10:52:31 pm

A little from the GG-ers... but nothing major, which has surprised me.

To be fair to the SJW types who have had a pop at me, I actually probably say more about them than I do about GG-ers, because I believed that it was mostly a lost cause. I figured there might at least be reasoning or discussion with SJWs, because they seemed to have some degree of empathy and compassion. Time and again I've been proved wrong, sadly. I don't want that to be the case, but it is.

And for the record, this isn't me categorising all SJWs as one thing. I know there are degrees of extremes in any group. But, yeah, the ones who have been unreasonable or arsey with me are people who identify as Social Justice Warriors. And that pains me, because even in pointing that out I'm now waiting to be attacked as a "Gamergater" sympathiser. Again: drama triangle.

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Mr Lion
11/4/2016 11:07:22 pm

Genuine question: does this not suggest that maybe your opinion on GG is possibly ill-informed by the wall-to-wall negative media coverage?

Simply looking at how the Rapp case has been reported in an incredibly one-sided manner, and then the absolute silence once she was revealed to have been working as an escort should show that.

I personally hated GG until I actually did a little digging and visited the Kotaku in Action Reddit, because I believed what I read in the media. The reality absolutely shocked me. And yes, there are douchebags there, but in no greater numbers than any other community.

Mr Biffo
11/4/2016 11:11:39 pm

Lion - yeah, in all honesty, today has made me question lots of things. It's good to be challenged...!

Mr Lion
11/4/2016 11:12:00 pm

I should also add, GG and Social Justice are not mutually exclusive.

It's a huge misconception that GGers are anti-social justice. They aren't. They're against the movement they see as corrupt, not the principles.

Brad Glasgow did a survey on GG and discovered a huge range of sexualities, ethnicities, religions and an above average number of trans people. Politics ranged across the spectrum, but was mainly very liberal.

I follow GG over the SJWs because I believe in social justice, not because I'm against it in some way.

Bunty Hoven
12/4/2016 12:24:03 am

Without knowing the details, my first inclination was to view the SJW side as being misguided, but ultimately correct as they appear to share a lot of my views. However, the more I see, not just with Gamer Gate but Twitter in general, the more I get the impression that a lot of the SJW type people on the internet are nasty pieces of work that want to get the thrill of bullying somebody while trying to pretend to be morally superior by veiling their unpleasantness behind faux liberal concern.

Bunty Hoven
12/4/2016 12:26:31 am

Also, I forgot to add. Good work Biffo, I don't agree with everything you have to say, but it's nice to read articles on this subject that are genuine and attempt to be even handed.

Kendall9000
12/4/2016 01:17:23 am

Some SJWs are a bit like a school bully who goes around thumping other kids, then runs crying to teacher as soon as they get a taste of their own medicine. They play the victim to create a goodies vs. baddies false dichotomy, when in reality they're guilty of behaviour just as bad as that of the people "abusing and harassing" them.

Some of the nastier Twitter dogpiles targeting wrong-thinkers have been driven by the same people crying over nasty comments they've received. Sorry, but it's not different when they do it, even if they're doing it in the name of "social justice".

Having said that, I personally wouldn't get too close to a "movement" that has Milo Yiannopoulos as its mascot. There are some genuinely nasty far-right characters with links to Gamer Gate - fundamentalist Christian nutter Vox Day/Theodore Beale for example. Not to mention the GG supporters who genuinely have been abusive, not just guilty of disagreeing with/mocking the wrong person.

There are GG related people I follow -- mainly the libertarian crowd like Lauren Southern, Mercedes Carrera, ShoeOnHead, Christina Hoff Sommers, ThunderF00t, Sargon of Akkad, etc. -- and even if I don't always agree with them I think they're reasonable and decent people, but that's also true of people who are firmly on the SJW side of the debate. It's a shame just how polarised it is, and how little actual discussion (rather than name calling) there really is on the subject.

Mike
11/4/2016 11:01:24 pm

I always liked the saying 'if you play in the mud with the pigs, then you get muddy and the pigs get happy'. Im not sure it fits this situation but nevertheless. Thanks for the measured article Mr Biffo.

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Mr Lion
11/4/2016 11:03:04 pm

The issue many people have who are anti-Rapp is the assumption (be it correct or not) that she's the persecutor in this angle, and that she won't step out of the triangle because she's got a vested financial interest in it continuing indefinitely.

Leaving out the quagmire of what constitutes Gamergate (it was actually a number of other loose to non-affiliated groups that targeted and doxed her) attacks on her started by her regularly poking the bees nest by smearing these groups on her Twitter. Once she was fired, she doubled down on this by blaming GG and indirectly Nintendo, despite knowing the real reason she was fired, only admitting moonlighting once Nintendo was forced to put out a statement.

I agree that this is a classic triangle case, but it's also a classic DARVO case too, with Alison reversing the order of victim and offender. You only need to look at what she's done to her husband to see how much of a classic abuser she is in private.

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Tehy
11/4/2016 11:15:38 pm

Man, it would be hilarious if people really are calling this guy a GGer...he nailed all the narrative points, from not pointing out her tweet of 'a guy got arrested for having child porn, hate legal bullshit', to taking all her unsubstantiated claims at face value, to ignoring that she originally pissed gamers off not by being 'an outspoken women in games' or 'part of treehouse' but by shit talking gamers and being a social justice feminist.

Biffo, do yourself a favor and really DO join GG; we're much more supportive of our people and not inclined to go lynch- mob crazy at disagreements.

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RisingFire
11/4/2016 11:42:42 pm

I appreciate the evenhandedness of this article, you've clearly done your research and I commend people who actually look into things rather than knee-jerking. Even though there's issues here and there.

I'm female and hang out with a lot of GG people, a lot of people were split on the Rapp situation because it's a bit of a moral dilemma. You find out someone expresses very strong opinions about pro-pedophilia and you know there's evidence they work with kids in their job sometimes. Is it safe for that person to be in that situation? When they could enable abuse?

For what it's worth, I'm actually setting up my own business, Gamergate people have been incredibly supportive in helping me cope with depression and never had a problem with me or other women who don't cry "muh hurrassment plz give money" when things go south.

Jamie Walton of "The Wayne Foundation" was the one who actually made the call to NoA, she runs a shelter foundation for people who have been abused in sex trafficking so felt it needed to be brought up, But ultimately nothing the likes of Gamergate or The Wayne Foundation came into this case,

She did have a second job as an escort, with an escort advertising site set up as early as January. People on GG side are irritated because the moment she was sacked, she came onto twitter and pointed to "Gamergate" - when I'm almost certain it would of been made very clear in her disciplinary what her contract violation was. Her friends at Kotaku wasted no time posting stories blaming people who had 0 involvement with Nintendo's disciplinary process.

I'm a decent person who always did right by my employers and I don't mess around. Why should someone else get away with it because they go "AND I WOULD OF GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT, IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU PESKY DAMN GATORS (AND YOUR LITTLE MASCOT TOO)"

Having a vagina shouldn't mean I get a free pass to break my contract and take advantage of the companys consumer base by begging for Amazon wishlist purchases. I'll make my own money and buy my own stuff thank-you-very-much

Rapp wasn't fired because people were mean to her on the internet, she was fired because she drew attention to herself by insulting people despite having something to hide and already pushing her luck. A lot of Nintendo America staff couldn't post anywhere near the flirty ms-nerd stuff she brazenly got away with. We're talking about a company that fired a guy just for talking about the internal indie approval process.

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Kendall9000
11/4/2016 11:55:17 pm

There've been a few attempts to get opponents fired on both sides of this kerfuffle. Doxxing and digging up dirt on people, if not outright making stuff up, then contacting their employer to try to cost them their job. See the SJW attempt to get Dr Phil Mason (Thunderf00t on Youtube) fired by contacting the police, local newspapers, and his employer, with false claims about him being a neo-Nazi racist and misogynist, for example.

That kind of thing takes it from just regular mutual trolling (most of those supposed “victims of harassment” are shit-stirrers who give as good as they get) to something really twisted and vindictive. There’s nothing to justify it whichever side’s doing it, no matter how much some self righteous wankers convince themselves otherwise.

If Nintendo firing Rapp was down to her sex working, that’s depressing in itself. Somehow I doubt they’d have had the same reaction if she was moonlighting in some other field. Of course even former sex workers can end up being fired for something they’ve long moved on from - past behaviour can still be a breach of a contract’s “morality clause”. It’s just puritanical bullshit in my opinion.

Considering how often GG supporters attack SJWs for their puritanism, and mock pearl clutching radical feminists like Anita Sarkeesian, it's pretty fucking hypocritical for any to support Rapp being fired for sex work.

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RisingFire
12/4/2016 12:10:32 am

The problem isn't the type of job, it's any second job at all.

Personally I'm very sex positive. If someone want's to work as an escort or in porn, by all means go for it!

But know your rights in advance, a lot of places expect you to be 100% dedicated to your one job. Rapp's contract likely had a clause for no other jobs. Also...kind of awkward when the PR person who's supposed to be representing your kid-friendly brand is also doing nudeshoots and escort work. In a situation like that, I don't think that is appropriate.

If Rapp really wants to be an escort and enjoys it that much, I personally wish her every success. But she should of made that decision and left her job at Nintendo beforehand. Then there would of been no controversy. She would of quit on her own terms, set up her business, not burned her bridges and allowed her a chance to go back in case hey- it's actually not everything she thought it would be.

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Kendall9000
12/4/2016 01:43:33 am

Do you really think she'd have been fired if her side job wasn't sex related?

I've seen disciplinary action over moonlighting in the company I work for. But even someone who'd used company time and materials for their side job just received a formal warning. According to Rapp, other people moonlight at Nintendo without it being an issue, and at most they'd get a slap on the wrist over it.

Considering the fact that sex work is highly stigmatised (not to mention outright criminalised where Rapp was working) moonlighting as an escort wasn't a smart move, especially when working for a "kid-friendly brand". But I've never bought the idea that just because someone's a sex worker they're inappropriate to be around anything kid related. It's similar to the argument I've seen when teachers have been fired over sex work - I disagree with that too.

Apart from anything else, her sex work was well and truly under the radar until someone dug it up (searching for the serial number of her camera, extracted from the EXIF data of photos she'd uploaded), and she wasn't doing anyone any harm.

I'm not in any way surprised that she was fired - but just because that's the reality of the situation, it doesn't mean I have to like it.

RisingFire
12/4/2016 02:48:17 am

I get where your coming from and sort of understand it. Just giving a different perspective. Agree to disagree on certain things, but won't get into those mostly because to give them proper discussion would make this comment far longer. But it's okay, we don't all have to agree with each other. It'ld be boring if we were all the same!

At the end of the day we all don't know the full details and never will. It might of been a perfectly harmless (if sadly illegal) venture. Or it might of been that the second job was starting to take her focus away and people noticed. I imagine if the second job starts to make the main job performance suffer, eventually HR start to worry about that sort of thing.

Also considering she initially lied about why she was sacked for sympathy, I'm a little sceptical of whatever she said after unless backed up. Her co-workers sadly can't reply, as Nintendo likely would pinkslip if they said "oh yeah I moonlight" or even refute the claim. Lose-lose.

Also worth noting that at the time of sacking, nobody outside of Nintendo even knew there was a second job (that was a surprise to everyone!). They had their own internal investigation and found their evidence. Other people found what I (presume) Nintendo found yesterday, after the fact. The people that found that are generally just curious people who like to study people-of-interest and are a community that have some strong rules about messing with their study subjects direct. They have no side in "Social Justice" or "Ethics in journalism" - they just find people certain people entertaining.

chris
12/4/2016 09:56:58 am

"ignore them and they'll go away" simply doesn't work with these people. what about phil fish? he had the audacity to (correctly) criticise the japanese games industry, quit twitter, and the industry, and STILL receives abuse apropos of nothing. imagine if he was a woman!

there is no middle-ground with these people (GG or whatever you want to call them). alison rapp was ostensibly on their side and she's been hounded out. they're currently outing her husband as a sex worker also - what did he do to encourage that?

sarkesian essentially doesn't interact with her abusers at all, and gets it all the time. how is she at fault here?

i think the real trigger of any of this abuse is being a woman and having opinions that GG don't like. you need to eliminate these two things from the industry if you want to stop the cycle. personally, that's not acceptable. stop catering for these people. they're not this industry. they contribute nothing and ruin everything.

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Mr Biffo
12/4/2016 10:02:29 am

Yes, agreed - but that's my point really: how much better off, emotionally, as an individual, is Anita Sarkeesian for remaining above it and not engaging? Hopefully it works for her.

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chris
12/4/2016 10:47:57 am

anita has had death threats, bomb threats, and daily abuse. that's the best alison could hope for if she followed The Strategy?

i think this is a good read: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/28/chvrches-lauren-mayberry-condemns-online-trolls-sexist-abuse

this stuff is entirely caused and controlled by one side.

Mr Biffo
12/4/2016 10:58:12 am

Being Devil's advocate, Chris - what would you do to stop it and help?

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chris
12/4/2016 11:22:07 am

i think introspection is needed. what is it about games specifically that has created so many people capable of this sort of behaviour? why do these people think the industry and press owe them so much?

i think the enthusiast press has been completely toothless and created generations of gamers (and broader 'nerd culture') who have no idea what criticism even is. they're unable to cope with contrary opinions after having decades of buyers-guide, artless quantifying of ‘longievity’ and ‘graphics’, for the false god of ‘objectivity’. it’s not criticism, and I’m not at all surprised at the shrieking of some gamers about opinions they don’t agree with.

the whole entrenched sexism stuff is another story, but i personally believe that games are getting better and creatives are progressive people who are in more control now than they ever were.

i have no solutions, but i also refuse to bargain with these people. for me, this stuff is the final mewl of a bunch of gamers who didn't let the rest of their life inform their hobby. they're defined by this thing they like, and can't handle it being criticised, but it will be. eventually there won't be much left for them.

RisingFire
13/4/2016 12:21:43 am

When Sarkeesian cancelled an Ohio University talk about 2 years ago. The local police had looked into it and declared that they did not take the threat recieved to be serious or likely to occur - she actually cancelled that talk on the basis that Ohio is a conceal-and-carry state so police couldn't confiscate guns for a talk. Not because she was in any real risk. There was some weird GDC bomb threat story, but it was reported a year after it happened...for some reason.

Also I know many in gamergate who had nothing to do with any threats to Sarkeesian but we did monitor twitter daily for a period because a brazillian journalist had about a period of 6 months where he would make burner twitter egg accounts to tweet fairly abusive things at FemFreq - we did inform FemFreq of this persons identity when we worked it out but got blocked and ignored, almost as if they didn't want the problem to be solved.

I don't personally much care for Sarkeesian's views as I consider her a con woman and generally an offendertron - there's plenty of proof out there she isn't actually into gaming including a past advertising for con-men.

Really it's sort of funny how people like chris say they care for women in gaming when really they just care about one or two women who are very loud and very visible, and generally not for positive reasons.

chris
13/4/2016 12:54:04 am

@RisingFire
when did I say I care for women in gaming? what does that even mean? one can want better out of gaming for purely selfish reasons. this culture of anti-criticism, anti-intellectualism, and horrible writing (both in and about games) is not what I want.

additonally, Anita and co can criticise gaming's cultural impact without caring one bit about the medium. you're another gamer who doesn't understand what criticism is.

I did enjoy your latest GG explanation for all this abuse that they and various others have got for daring to ask for more from gaming: a Brazilian did it all! of course! it all makes sense now!

Dangerous Dave
12/4/2016 10:52:21 am

I've not long woken up, so I don't really have anything to add to the discussion that hasn't already been mentioned.

Well done though, Mr Biffo, on tackling the subject matter in a reasonable and considerate manner. Bringing perspective through your own personal experiences, rather than from one's inexperienced high-horse.

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Superbeast 37
12/4/2016 11:12:47 am

Come off it! After I read the press articles I knew immediately they were lying and covering something up so I had to research it myself as until that point I'd never heard of her.

She applied for a PR job with a hyper conservative company that sell family friendly products.

She had a Twitter account where she listed her employment and got into a war with the companies customers instead of handling the PR like a professional. That drew her employers attention.

She had used said account to advocate in favour of animated child porn, posted explicit highly sexualised pictures of herself whilst holding her companies merchandise and then it turns out she was working as a high class prostitute.

Nothing to do with culture wars. Her sacking was absolutely justified. How someone so utterly stupid that they thought such actions were appropriate in her position ever got that job is a mystery to me. She clearly wasn't fit to hold that position.

Nothing to do with GG or whatever. As a neutral I am still waiting for evidence from the press/progressive side that GG is not a pro-ethics group. Peer reviewed study produced by Twitter/WAM states that only 0.66% of "related" people were involved in harassment. That to date is the only reliable study.

Seems to me that GG is becoming a convenient bogeyman to blame when someone with the right genitals but the wrong number of brain cells does something wrong.

Her own behaviour drew her employer to her actions.

It's was all openly publicised by her aside from the prostitution - but that didn't come out until after she was fired and appears to have been dug up as a response to progressives/the press trying to blame Nintendo and cover up her gross incompetence.

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Random Reviewer
12/4/2016 10:47:50 pm

Nailed it. As for how she got the job, I'm at a loss. I can only assume Nintendo's background checks are not very rigorous and don't cover social media.

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Michael
12/4/2016 03:51:23 pm

You have to realize something. This whole mess would not have occurred, if the Overton window wasn't being closed by outrage.

Outrage over asses, butts, breasts, have made careers.
And ruined plenty.

Behaviours, once thought of as acceptable, have been vilified by the media, while those that support them commit to and peform behaviours that are yet to be accepted.

And outrage culture made that all possible, by closing the gate, as it were, by getting mad over:

Dancers who chose their own dancing gear
Shirts
Words
How deep someone's buttcrack is

When that Overton window gets closed, inevitably, there are going to be casualties as a result of the outrage that has become popular these days from the media.

And Allison Rapp is one of them.

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gun-toting-liberal
13/4/2016 04:02:36 am

Dude, she got fired like 12 days ago, and you're already talking about this like she's got some kind of chronic victim complex. If she's still acting like this in two years, THEN you might have a point. In the meantime, give her, like, a second to pick up the pieces. Good lord.

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DeLoftie
15/4/2016 11:48:36 am

This is a very crucial point.

The psychological techniques MrBiffo talks about being used to help people move forward with their lives, such as CBT, are very real and often very helpful.

But they are designed to help people deal with not being able to move passed events that have already happened (often a long time ago) that the person is stuck reliving. They are not about stuff that is actually happening to you in the moment.

While therapy might help an abuse victim move forward in their life long after the abuse has stopped, help them to get passed a loop that holds them in place constantly dwelling on the abuse, they are NOT about learning to live with the abuse *while it is happening*

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Matty link
13/4/2016 08:01:54 pm

"It's such a narrow "If you're not one of us you're one of them" view of the world."

Well, as a wise man once said "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists"

Good piece, Biffo. Thoughtful and humane which are two things seriously missing from the whole idiotic GGvSJW internet war.

I've little to add to this piece which I think lays out a good argument but I'll mention one thing. I'm sure everyone is aware of the idiotic fallout from the new Balders Gate expansion. For those who don't know, a minor NPC in the new game states that they were born and brought up a "boy" but felt more like a girl and prefer to identify as a woman. We would now, of course, describe this as a transgender person. The reaction from GG'ers has been predictable but I honestly wonder how many of those person exposed to the same character and the same dialogue in say, 2000, would have reacted. This is conjecture but I think most of them wouldn't have seen it as anything but a quirky piece of the character's background. It certainly wouldn't have had the reaction it has had now. This is part of what I find worrying and what I think will have an ugly chilling effect on media: you have people who are basically encouraged to sniff out things that they associate with their "enemies" and basically try and snuff them out by pile-ons, boycotts, campaigns etc etc. This all feeds into the toxic and, I think, very American problem of everything becoming politicised and requiring the individual to "pick a side".

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vinz link
17/12/2016 02:11:47 am

Actually the blow-up on that was because you couldn't make anything other than complimentary choices. There's not even an awkward-sounding "Well, ok, I guess you 'are' that way" sort of line.

In 2000, the writing would have been better, not just the audience.
This is what happens when you allow high school and college dropouts that never matured to become your cultural captains.

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DeLoftie
15/4/2016 11:31:58 am

The advice in this article is very very wrong, and I'm glad others (including some psychologists) have countered it.

As someone who suffered bullying in their childhood and was given similar advice by well meaning but very misinformed teachers, I find it quite depressing that it still is the "common sense" attitude doing the rounds with how to deal with bullying.

I was told by (again well meaning) teachers when I was in school that the way to deal with the bullying I was receiving was to "stop making myself a target".

In their mind I was being bullied because I wasn't dis-engaging from the bully, I was doing what ever behaviour drew the ire of the bully, and the way to deal with that was to figure out what that was and to stop doing it. The bully would then ignore me. The 1980s version of don't feed the trolls.

Just like this article these teachers would not have seen this as victim blaming, but rather "victim empowerment". I had the "power" to stop the bullying, I just need to figure out what ever it was I was doing that was causing the bully to single me out and stop doing it.

Ironically part of that involved telling on the bully, which as a 11 year old kid left me rather bewildered. I was told I shouldn't tell the bully I was going to report them to the teacher, that would only make the bully angier. I shouldn't "whine" about the bully bullying me, that just makes him angerier. I should completely ignore the bully (even when they were bullying me), I should get away from the bully as much as I could, I should not "engage" the bully. I shouldn't show them I was upset. I shouldn't cry in front of them. All of this just made me more of a target, I was told.

I should do nothing that could be perceived as provocation *by the bully* (whether it was or wasn't meant by me to be provocation)

And this was how my well meaning teachers were going to "empower" me to stop my own bullying.

They, like this article, though of bullying and bullies as simply things that exist that are to be best avoided. If you don't want to get bitten by a shark don't go swimming with sharks. If you don't want to be mauled by a lion, don't walk through a lion cage. This isn't victim blaming, this is just obvious common sense! Cause and effect!

It probably didn't occur to them to ponder should they do anything about the fact that there are sharks and lions intermixed with the children at the school. Because they though they were powerless to do anything about the actual bullies, that they were simply a fact of nature, then the only way they could deal with the bullying was to "help" the bullied kids try and just not get bullied.

While you can all this "empowerment" all you want, the psychological effects of this attitude are still with me in my late 30s. I learnt through a horrific period of trial and error over the course of my school years various tactics to keep myself out of the target sight of bullies, that could involve complete changes of aspects of my behaviour. I regulated when I spoke, what I said, how enthusiastic I appeared about something, when to enter a room, when to exist a room, where to sit, when to answer a teacher, how much work to do, how enthusiastic to appear about school work. Constant planning and preparation to avoid the eye line of the bullies.

This was not empowerment. The bully had all the power throughout the entire process. He wasn't changing anything, because the only consequence for his bullying was that I changed my behaviour to try and avoid what ever it was that last set him off.

Bullies bully ultimately as a way of gaining power over an individual as a way of compensating for a lack of control or power in other aspects of their lives. This is what they are seeking, power and control. I have no idea if my bullies ever though about this at the time or later in life, but they had all the power over me. And the teachers were simply confirm this, yet spinning it as empowering me to make themselves feel better about the situtation.

Years later I learnt that the boy who bullied me the most was actually from a very abusive family. He needed help as much as I did. But neither of us got help. I was simply told head down stop making yourself a target, and because the teachers viewed bullying as some natural phenomena he was ignored. No one pondered why was he bullying, he just was because sharks and lions will attack you if you go near them.

Of course I have no doubt that the teachers were not meaning for me to act in such an extreme way, for the interpretation of the "advice" to be so extreme and to have such an effect. They wanted a simply solution so they could stop feeling bad one of their students was going through hell. Just don't make yourself a target, the bulling will stop, simple. But that is the point, this advice is abstract to the point of being useless and it is up to the victim to figure out how much they have to change to avoid the eye of the bully. And more often than not this gets

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DeLoftie
15/4/2016 11:33:22 am

... And more often than not this gets stuck in a terrible feedback loop of constant change. Well I stopped doing that, the bullying still happened, I should probably stop doing this as well. Oh that didn't work either. Lets try this. You end up running, as fast as you can, from who you were to who you hope is a version of you that won't be bullied.

Again this isn't "empowerment". And I get entirely this isn't what you meant by empowerment either. Just remove yourself from the "drama triangle", that is easy isn't it. No one is asking anyone to completely change who they are to appease the bullies. But that is actually what ends up being asked of people when this attitude is taken.

What instead I wish my teachers had said was "That is terrible, you keep being yourself and if you are bullied we will give you all the support you need to get through it, and we will do anything we can to stop the bullying"

There are 3 things victims of abuse (physical, mental, emotional, sexual whatever) fear

1 - People won't believe them.
2 - People will tell them it is there fault (and this includes "victim empowerment").
3 - People will tell them that there is nothing that can be done and ignore it.

More often than not all 3 of those things are not true. But it is often messier for other people to try and tackle the problem, and thus they choose the superficial route of attempting to change the victim rather than change the circumstance that made that person a victim in the first place.

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Random Reviewer
17/12/2016 02:32:20 am

Yes but what you fail to realise is that not all situations are analogous. Rapp is not a child but a grown woman who worked in PR for family friendly Nintendo and championed the lowering of the age of consent PUBLICLY. I now find that she was incredibly dickish to Nintendo fans bringing up localisation issues. She also ran an escort service as a sideline. This is all the opposite of good PR. It is antithical to everything one would expect from someone you would hire to generate positive buzz for your firm. These are all actions that she actively took, presumably knowing they would have consequences. When you take away accountability for an adults actions you infantilise them and reduce them to the status of nothing but a victim. There is little chance for lessons to be learned and therefore little chance for personal growth. A good friend/mentor may not tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear, which can often be uncomfortable. But necessary. By stating that Biffo is objectively 'wrong' you play into the hands of those looking to take advantage of people's compassion and empathy.

Cc
16/4/2016 11:01:49 am

Q. Why was the bee so cross?
A. Money problems.

Reply
Cc
17/4/2016 11:32:49 am

Honey problems. Sorry I thought this was the Man's Daddy comments.

Reply



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