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The world just seems too full of drama lately... <RANT>
11 years ago
General
WARNING: This journal is an opinion piece. I tend to try and keep my personal views about politics and policy out of my journals, but there will be a little here. Also, there might be things that I talk about that might be a trigger for some. Read at your own risk.
Disclaimer out of the way, onto the stuff.
In the last few months, we've seen a ton of stuff emerge that has polarized certain groups. #GamerGate and #NotMyShield being a big discussion, the systematic take-down of almost every furry-related site, to the insane number of death threats going over social media; it's all a bit much right now, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The polarization between the groups involved just makes my head spin, though that really isn't the case in the furry site take-downs. Honestly, in that case, I think we mainly just want answers. However, the fact that someone may have planned a mass DDoS attack isn't far-fetched and it only brings up more questions about why and not the how. I think this all mainly boils down to cyber-bullying.
The #GamerGate movement has been almost universally declared by the media as nothing but cyber-bullies and misogynists, labeling a large group of people by the acts of a certain few extremists and pretty much being a bully for doing that in turn. Name-calling and demonizing a group over a cause they believe in isn't going to fix the problem, it's going to make them feel more isolated and in need to defend themselves. That is why open dialogue instead of accusing and belittling is the answer to maybe trying to bridge the gap that was created. In fact, I'm writing a paper about the issue of misogyny and sexism in gaming for one of my classes right now. It's an important issue and I want to give both sides a voice and then give an educated opinion about the issue, and that's what most of the media isn't using. They are latching onto the loud cries of the vocal minority and seemingly isolated incidents.
And then there was the DDoS's. Pretty much every site that was furry related got attacked, and there is a rumor that 8chan's furry board got hit too. vici told me that she apparently got a tweet from someone who may have been involved saying that it was a Chinese group that did the attack on behalf of others, most likely someone who paid quite a bit of cash to have it done. This is just another form of bullying, but this case is a much larger crime. Cyber-bullying is a tough crime to track sometimes, and cyber-attacks of the scale of a DDoS can be even harder to track, but it's a worse crime overall because it hurts businesses that may not even be associated with the group being targeted, in this case FA's host. It's almost insane to think that anyone could really hate furries that much, but I guess that's the world we live in.
And then I have one last thing to talk about that actual deviates from the rest of the above topics, but still involves a bit of drama, but it's a much lower priority. I'm sure that everyone has seen the ad on FA linking to the Rio figure Kickstarter. I read through the whole description of the the character and the reason why he was created and it got me to thinking, "why is this relevant?" There are plenty of feminine male characters out there, so why is it necessary to forward the idea of having a character break the mold of gender stereotypes when they are broken almost daily by other artists? Hell, my own character, Jun, fits into the category of not fitting the male gender stereotype: he's gay, a cross-dresser, and feels comfortable being himself all while still identifying as a male. He even breaks that mold a bit more by being overweight, bringing up the fact that you don't have to be skinny or in-shape to be good looking or comfortable with yourself. If I have any issues with the Rio character, it's that he's skinny. It pushes the stereotype of needing to be thin or athletic to be beautiful or happy. If he was a bit more heavy-set, maybe a little chubby, I think that he would be a better role-model.
</RANT>
Disclaimer out of the way, onto the stuff.
In the last few months, we've seen a ton of stuff emerge that has polarized certain groups. #GamerGate and #NotMyShield being a big discussion, the systematic take-down of almost every furry-related site, to the insane number of death threats going over social media; it's all a bit much right now, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
The polarization between the groups involved just makes my head spin, though that really isn't the case in the furry site take-downs. Honestly, in that case, I think we mainly just want answers. However, the fact that someone may have planned a mass DDoS attack isn't far-fetched and it only brings up more questions about why and not the how. I think this all mainly boils down to cyber-bullying.
The #GamerGate movement has been almost universally declared by the media as nothing but cyber-bullies and misogynists, labeling a large group of people by the acts of a certain few extremists and pretty much being a bully for doing that in turn. Name-calling and demonizing a group over a cause they believe in isn't going to fix the problem, it's going to make them feel more isolated and in need to defend themselves. That is why open dialogue instead of accusing and belittling is the answer to maybe trying to bridge the gap that was created. In fact, I'm writing a paper about the issue of misogyny and sexism in gaming for one of my classes right now. It's an important issue and I want to give both sides a voice and then give an educated opinion about the issue, and that's what most of the media isn't using. They are latching onto the loud cries of the vocal minority and seemingly isolated incidents.
And then there was the DDoS's. Pretty much every site that was furry related got attacked, and there is a rumor that 8chan's furry board got hit too. vici told me that she apparently got a tweet from someone who may have been involved saying that it was a Chinese group that did the attack on behalf of others, most likely someone who paid quite a bit of cash to have it done. This is just another form of bullying, but this case is a much larger crime. Cyber-bullying is a tough crime to track sometimes, and cyber-attacks of the scale of a DDoS can be even harder to track, but it's a worse crime overall because it hurts businesses that may not even be associated with the group being targeted, in this case FA's host. It's almost insane to think that anyone could really hate furries that much, but I guess that's the world we live in.
And then I have one last thing to talk about that actual deviates from the rest of the above topics, but still involves a bit of drama, but it's a much lower priority. I'm sure that everyone has seen the ad on FA linking to the Rio figure Kickstarter. I read through the whole description of the the character and the reason why he was created and it got me to thinking, "why is this relevant?" There are plenty of feminine male characters out there, so why is it necessary to forward the idea of having a character break the mold of gender stereotypes when they are broken almost daily by other artists? Hell, my own character, Jun, fits into the category of not fitting the male gender stereotype: he's gay, a cross-dresser, and feels comfortable being himself all while still identifying as a male. He even breaks that mold a bit more by being overweight, bringing up the fact that you don't have to be skinny or in-shape to be good looking or comfortable with yourself. If I have any issues with the Rio character, it's that he's skinny. It pushes the stereotype of needing to be thin or athletic to be beautiful or happy. If he was a bit more heavy-set, maybe a little chubby, I think that he would be a better role-model.
</RANT>
