this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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I think gamers as a whole, though specifically those in niche communities, need to take a long and hard look at themselves. We should celebrate the volunteers that create wonderful content for us, generally with no financial gain. Instead, commonly, there are communities that criticize and tear down every little thing they can think of. They even went as far as to doxx the poor woman. We need to be better, and we need to hold these kind of toxic trolls accountable. Especially those of us who are men, we have a responsibility to call out other men who mistreat women in the gaming industry, or gaming in general.

*Edit: I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all. My sentiment is that many of us do not think about this kind of thing, and less are willing to speak out against their friends. We need to be better about that as a whole. I appreciate you as a person if you are already of this mindset.

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[–] Aceticon 6 points 3 hours ago

Welcome to the world of making software for random people, almost certainly made worse by she being a woman.

As others pointed out, most people do appreciate it, but they tend to be silent about it, whilst a small minority are demanding little whinny bitches (in a non-gendered way) who think they're owed service and some are even trolls.

To those reading this, I suggest when you get something you like for free you at least give some feedback that you liked it and, if the person has some kind of sponsoring scheme going on and you really like it, consider contributing, if only to incentivise more of the same.

Those on the other side are people too and they will appreciate it.

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan 18 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I don't want you to feel like you're getting it from all sides but...

I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all

You really gotta ignore those "not all gamers" type of posters. They are literally adding nothing to the conversation. If you are a normal person who doesn't harass women only, then you should also be a normal person who doesn't take offense when the community as a whole is criticized.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

I always hate these kinds of responses. Let me just go to the extreme, would you say the same if someone made broad negative generalizations about a race?

[–] brad_troika 2 points 2 hours ago

If you're a woman keep your drinks covered around men. Responding not all men is pointless even tho I'm a man and I don't think women should be afraid of me but I get it that they could be and the person that could help change this the most is me and men not women.

And again this is a pointless tangent to the original statement.

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[–] SendMePhotos 26 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

"I poured many years of my life into this, just to feel empty. In quitting, I have found my real passion, and have been obsessively working on music. I've even released my first ever album, SPIDERWEB PRINCESS, which is filled with my darkest, most genuine feelings from all of my experiences. Nothing I've ever done has ever been so meaningful to me. I have so much of myself to share with the world, and I'd much rather be remembered for something I actually enjoy."

Apparently her new passion is music. SPIDERWEB PRINCESS

[–] pech 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you for showing me this, she rocks.

[–] SendMePhotos 4 points 13 hours ago

Yeah it's pretty neat.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

[–] BranBucket 2 points 9 hours ago

A rather astute observation found in an unlikely place, and one of my favorite move lines of all times.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

This is the sexism that we saw come out during the election. We thought the country was getting better but they were just quietly simmering but connecting online.

I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

We thought the country was getting better

Who the hell thought the country was getting better? No one I know. This is the same weak basket of deplorables excuse the DNC used for Hillary Clinton’s loss. Because they’ll blame anyone but themselves for their failures.

The Democrats fail because they’ve embraced grinding neoliberalism for an entire generation, because they abandoned the working class long ago. The DNC crushed Sanders—twice—because even a little social safety net, as a treat, is a bridge too far for them. Why the Democratic Party CANNOT and WILL NOT be Reformed

I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.

Fascism isn’t on the rise in the US in particular and the West in general for no reason. The cause is ever-worsening neoliberalism, which is monopoly capitalism in decay. I wrote about this two months ago, but I’ll spare everyone the copypasta and just link to it.

[–] IzzyJ 2 points 9 hours ago

I did, for one

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[–] Kyrgizion 119 points 18 hours ago

The only interaction I've ever had with authors of mods and such was sending them thanks for their hard work. Sad.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 15 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

IMO the vast majority of people that use community mods are pretty thankful and just enjoy them despite any issues the mod has so long as overall it works well. They just play and keep their mouths shut.

There are a few that offer real and constructive criticism.

And the rest are the vocal trolls that just hate on everything. Unfortunately if they aren't "fucking your mother last night" on whatever game chat you might be on they're busy trashing on the "unplayable" game they've spent 500 hours playing in the last several months or on the forums berating the modders' efforts. They're just hateful people and hating on women in general is par for the course, if one dares participating in gaming they're just another target for their shitty incel behavior.

[–] Smoogs 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

If you’re assumed to be a male, the trolls attack you if you don’t carry them. Fine, move on.

If they find out you’re female, they attack you just for existing. You can move on but It is relentless.

There is a difference in gaming experience when it comes to trolls.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 1 points 3 hours ago

I wasn’t debating that at all.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 13 hours ago

I think the gaming community being made of socially awkward, isolated and unemployed people doesn't help the scenario. But I think there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[–] [email protected] 103 points 18 hours ago

Good for her for making the right decision for her own wellbeing. Too many sad little fucks on the Internet who spend all their time harassing others. Pathetic existence.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

"gamers as a whole"

leave me out of this i didnt do anything.

[–] Beardsley 62 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (5 children)

The sentiment is that we all have a responsibility to hold our community accountable for this type of behavior.

You can disagree, it is likely a matter of philosophy. I feel a responsibility to try to put more positive influence to the world, and to call out harmful actions. Not everyone does, that is fine too, albeit a little sad.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Lol you're getting downvoted for having a rational viewpoint and wanting something you care about and enjoy to be safe for other humans to enjoy it too.

How fucking dare you

[–] Beardsley 20 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Lolol. Win some, lose some, it doesn't really matter. I made my point and am satisfied with that; it's anyone's right to disagree with me.

And if I am in the wrong for wanting a better community, then the state of humanity just makes me a little more sad. Far from surprised, however.

"Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what makes you cheer!"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

"Our community" feels a bit monolithic. It's like saying "film watchers" or "readers". Lumping anyone that plays video games regularly into a single social group feels unhelpfully reductive.

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[–] Duamerthrax 7 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm not a gamer. I play games, but I'm not a Gamerᵀᴹ. I noped out of the "community" a long time ago.

I'm a little curious where she's getting the harassment from. If it's from twitter, I don't know what to tell her. It's designed to amplify hate and anxiety. If it's from lan parties or irl shit, yeah, I haven't experienced it, but I have seen that to a degree.

edit: Wait. Is the "harassment" coming from needy fans asking her to tweak her work for their liking? That's a little different from what I assumed this was about. I'm not going to side with the community nagging her for tweaks, but if she's creating this for herself, she needs to disengage from those types. If she's creating these mods, putting them out online and expecting only positive comments, I don't know what to tell her. This is something all big modders and have to deal with.

[–] TheLowestStone 19 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The article glosses over the sexual harassment until the end. She says that pictures of her were distributed on discord and mentions the daily harassment and sexualization from the community.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (7 children)

I don't understand people who "demand" things from volunteers. Open source devs, modders, and still recently content creators are/were treated like public service workers, by some.

Imagine if we went around treating artists as if they were obligated to please each of us individually with their every piece? I'm very happy to see this attitude improve with streaming and youtube, where creators are more and more met with care and support when they have to step away for a bit or retire entirely.

It sadly seems like this modder was eventually putting in tremendous effort, in a vain attempt to please absolutely everyone using her mods. But that isn't a good reason to work for free.

Any work I do for free, is something I do because I want to, but this modder explicitly says she did work she didn't want to do in order to please fans. And I can't help but ask, why? (I know why, but someone should have cared enough to show her she is allowed to just say no, and do whatever she prefers.)

The blurb about her doing music is how you're SUPPOSED to feel doing something for fun. I'm happy that she found her way to something that makes her feel that way.

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[–] darthelmet 32 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

People are asses sometimes, but whenever these conversations come up, I wonder: What do you even want from us? How are random people on the internet supposed to hold random anonymous trolls on the internet “accountable?” You can call them asses, but so? What if they don’t care? They’re anonymous. You could get mods to ban them, but if it’s a free service they can always make another anonymous account. It’s even more confusing in the context of something like an online game as opposed to a forum. What are you supposed to do about someone being an ass when you’ve probably never seen them before and probably won’t see them again?

[–] Beardsley 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, call them asses. Maybe they don't care, maybe they do, but we keep the problem relevant by being vocal against this kind of thing. To not do anything at all is to encourage trolls.

[–] TexasDrunk 6 points 13 hours ago

The prevailing wisdom for dealing with trolls in the past has been report, block, and move on. You never know if someone is going to thrive on that kind of conflict and a whole lot of motherfuckers love it.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong because honestly I don't know. I'm just sad they're running off people contributing to their community and mad that they're sexually harassing people.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 17 hours ago (8 children)

now before anyone gets misled by some of the reddit threads gamesradar linked to, some quotes from the relevant reddit thread:

I worked extensively on most of her mods. In the period immediately following the Daegon 2.0 controversy, I tracked down several recurring trolls (people here might remember them as cycling through Reddit usernames like "SeranasStankPussy" and other such things) as originating from literal Kiwifarms.

She made a female follower mod called Daegon. It was a suggestive follower with sexy voice and looks, and "bratty princess" personality.

There was an idea about developing romance option for the follower. The fans were so excited about it. However she ended up adding a bodyguard character as Daegon's romantic partner instead of opening the options to player. Daegon also had a major backstory rewrite, which was deemed as straying too far from TES lore. Fans felt betrayed. The backlash was so fervently hostile that anything the author posted always received downvotes and she was demeaned/harassed for posting anything (something like "you dare to show your face here?"), even when it's not related to Daegon.

At the time, she removed the old version and people leaked her discord server chat, which was very hostile and demeaning to the people complaining.

Basically: the mod author developed and people on her discord developed a para-social relationship and it went as expected. You can search this sub for that whole thing

There's more details on her discord (as usual):

my photos get passed around on skyrim servers, im called a slut and whore, and for what?

gamesradar linked to a few of the threads that got overwhelmed with trolls, who amplified how she blocked users (some of which inappropriately) from her mod pages and claimed she encouraged her fans to doxx people based on a single out-of-context screenshot of a random discord fan.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 14 hours ago

Sounds like the exact kind of entitled, whiny man babies i was expecting.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

i’m sorry that you have to deal with the outfall of this, OP. gamers are notoriously the most overly sensitive group to generalize, even when they’re meant to think “i recognize that this is pointing out bad apples in my community”. instead, they immediately start defending themselves as if you specifically named them

the sane response is to go “wow that is awful. the gaming community does indeed contain some terrible people, i am glad to be one of the good ones and will distance myself from this behavior”

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 13 hours ago

I think gaming is too mainstream like television/movie viewers to lump it into some type of niche group/activity these days. Especially with the increased communication and connectivity that the internet provides that brings all sorts of wanted and unwanted people together.

I'm someone who enjoys gaming, and when I play games like The Finals these days I disable chat/voice because most people are assholes. Game previously didn't have chat and enabling that turned it from what felt like a wholesome community because I wasn't exposed to their thoughts to it breaking the illusion when they were able to express themselves.

I think this is more a more broad societal issue and a worrying one of being shown what people truly think. Even a minority is a huge amount when the population is billions, so a lot of damage can be done. Games is just another avenue they choose to be toxic in along side other vehicles provided to communicate their thoughts.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

This broad dynamic isn't new and it isn't unique either to gaming or to men. Every single creative volunteer community on the net is filled with assholes and drama llamas, of any and all genders. It's just the nature of the thing. You see the same things over and over with game modding, cracking, romhacking, emulation, manga scanlation, anime fansubbing, vocaloid production, mmd modeling, fanfic, fanart, and so on and on.

People often (generally?) are willing to invest the time and energy into whatever it is that they're going to post online at least in large part because they crave the attention they hope it will bring, and specifically, they want to be lauded for their talent and skill.

And that often runs up against the fact that an awful lot of the responses they're going to get are going to come from self-absorbed and entitled assholes bitching because they don't like whatever it is that they're getting for free, and think they have to be accommodated.

And very often, the response from the creator, unsurprisingly really, is to effectively (or even literally) say, "Fine then - fuck you all. I'm done."

And 'round and 'round it goes, and has from the start, and likely will never stop. It's just an unfortunate but pretty much inevitable clash between a personality type that's likely to create and share something online for free and a personality type that's likely to comment on something somebody else created and shared with them for free.

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