4461

See, there was this movie called “The Great Escape”.

And in it, Steve McQueen played a character named “Virgil Hilts”. And see, in the movie, one of the main plot points was that Hilts kept acting out and getting sent to the cooler, where he’d bounce his baseball against the walls and catch it. And the commandant would say “Cooler, Hilts. 30 days,” when that happened.

And, you know, the guy who may have been gently touched posted under the forum handle “Virgil Hilts”, so…

Should I get flip charts and puppets here to try to help me explain this? #TheseAreTheJokesLady

4462

Indeed, I fell down on the job.

4463

Indeed, it is I have forgotten the face of my father (and the last name of the character in The Great Escape****, obviously). Truly, then, your joke was worthy and I humbly seek your forgiveness.

4464

Oh man, I had totally forgotten the character from the great escape was Capt. Virgil Hilts.

Virgil wasn’t nearly as cool as steve McQueen though. I mean, come on. Lame.

4465

There’s a bit of a difference when HR is looking at someone who called someone a mean name 13 years ago and one that associated themselves with a movement that openly and proudly harassed women. It’s an extremely large liability hiring someone with those views and bringing them into the workplace.

Then again, I guess HR departments are just a bunch of SJW fanatics pushing their non-harassment agenda. Who needs a job, anyways.

4466

Really? I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. That would be morbidly awesome.

4467

I think he’s joking. VH didn’t seem to really have any first hand knowledge of video games.

4468

I don’t know that Virgil ever posted in anything but P&R.

That just seems… unwise. I tend to track in P&R more than I post. Threads like this one draw far more of my attention than they really deserve. PWK and I are never going to find common ground here. At some point this thread just devolved into rehashing the same points, ad nauseum, each time someone new jumped in the conversation.

4469

Has to be. Kuchera isn’t into quite THAT brand of Quebecistan insanity.

4470

The artist of the batman cover in a Portuguese interview:

It’s not the cover itself that’s the problem, it’s the magazine where it would be published. A comic aimed at the teenage female audience should not have a dark cover like this. Regardless of the question of who is right or wrong, the cover that I drew did not serve the proposal it should have had.

I think those who know the “Killing Joke” got the point. But again, young people aged 14 to 17 years don’t have the obligation to know, and I think both myself and the publisher, unintentionally, erred in thinking that the image would be appropriate.

I see many people commenting on freedom of expression and that I gave in to pressure. I have always defended minorities. I think it is right and righteous. I do not think a comic that intends to raise women’s self-esteem should have an image that may suggest otherwise. In another comic, maybe it would make ​​sense. Not for the current Batgirl comic. Freedom of expression also means not saying what you do not want, and it was exactly that right that I exercised here.

I think, regardless of their position on the cover, feminism or freedom of expression, it is important to learn and to listen. Empathize with those who have a different opinion from yours. Put yourself in the other person’s place and think. Discussions on the Internet tend to turn infantile tantrums, on one side or the other. That’s what makes people lose interest in things. I think criticism is always welcome. But respect for those who do, for those who publish and those who disagree are what always validates criticism. Freedom of expression can not be limited only to what you like or want. Freedom must come with responsibility.

4471

Thanks, Quaro. That’s a great response.

4472

I do try and drop in new info and news, GG is still ongoing after all. Currently its lots of hoo-ha about the blockbots. The people I follow tend to support the bots as spam filters, but dont like the labels attached to each account.

Blockbot is interesting, its actually years old, and arose from the Atheism+ flame war. Hence Richard Dawkins being blocked with the labels of racism, misogyny, rapeapologist, beingadick. It’s also a tool of particular subset of the identity politics guys, those engaged in a flame war with TERFs. TERFS are trans-exclusionary radical feminists. They are a school of Feminist thought that (i paraphrase this from a position of little knowledge) dont recognise trans as women/feminists as they were once men. Mortal enemies of feminists such as Brianna Wu and the Tumblr set. Currently one of the TERFs are threatening a lawsuit over being labeled a bigot and harasser, and livid the bot is run by men. Blockbot just had to relocate to the US from the UK due to potentially violating the Data Protection Act. Although I suspect the ICO will only look at the time they were in the UK, and moving to another jurisdiction upon a DPA request wasnt wise either.

The TERF flame war was actually the reason Peter Tatchell received 5000 abusive tweets and death threats I mentioned earlier, as he co-signed the letter opposing No Platforming, a campaign that originated as a weapon against TERFs. Most of the abuse Tatchell and the other co-signatories received (mainly academics and activists from previous generations) came from a similar crowd mentioned in this thread on previous occasions.

So if you dont want GG tweets you are, depending on who you believe, also blocking up to “200 TERFs” (blockbot) or 1000 women (the TERFs). As well as Dawkins and some of the atheism community, and well, anyone else the creators/owners have had a fight with in the last few years. Who knows. You will filter out more persistant sealioners though, RalphRetorts mob, KiA, MRAs and Milos gang.

Maybe use Randi’s bot instead. Im confident its far more GG orientated.

I’ve also evolved my knowledge somewhat, trying to move away from “SJWs” to identity politics, as I’ve been reading the wrong links and going to the wrong places until recently and its helped crystallise issues and link up quite a few dots I hadn’t seen before.

Sarky comments aside, I was convinced the Batgirl issue was dead on the “its aimed at 14-17 year olds” fact, something missing from what I’d read that day.

4473

Virgil was Jon McIntosh?

4474

So, this is what this thread and the internet in general has done to me. Last night my kid was watching a toy video on YouTube. In the video, Joker and Harley Quinn tie up Robin and are going to throw him in a sandbox. Batman comes to rescue Robin, and he throws marbles to defeat Harley Quinn, cuz she slips and falls down on the marbles. All I could think is, “Batman just used the power of his balls to defeat a woman, robbing her of all agency, such misogyny.”

God forbid they tied up a Batgirl toy instead of Robin.

4475

At some point in the batman timeline, the Joker actually kills one of the Robins.

The Joker was definitely one of the worse supervillians in DC/Marvel comics, as in most, folks didn’t really die much. But the Joker killed a bunch of folks over the years. In some parallel universe, he killed Lois lane and made Superman go nuts and implement martial law on the whole world.

I think that in certain portrayals, especially the animated series, he is portrayed in a more comical way… he’s a bad guy, but it’s kind of funny too… just kind of a scamp of sorts. But in the comics, he was a really bad dude at times.

4476

What this means?

It means more zombie games.

Why?

Zombies can’t boycott a product, they can’t hash-campaign in twitter if they are offended for unjust representation on a videogame or comic.

Artist can’t take risks?

No, if people like this are going to judge you:

4477

Insane people? Because, honestly, who cares how they judge anyone?

4478

Because mobs of outraged people on Twitter do change things. Due to the 24hr news cycle and the must have now short term outlook on life common in society.

4479

LOL, no they really don’t. The best they manage is to draw the attention of the general populace who then force the change. That’s assuming the general populace gives a crap or ever hears about it. The only reason ANY of this got ANY attention at all is the rampant death and rape threats against people like Sarkeesian and Wu who no one, other than people who stalk them, ever heard of or cared about.

The public has already decided that GamerGate is vile. This battle was lost long ago. No one cares about it anymore. They think gamers are vile human beings for the time being, then they stopped caring about it or listening to anything related to it and went back to whatever they were doing before.

This is literally a battle for… nothing. If it wasn’t for all the damage done to people by doxxers and harassers it would be hilarious.

4480

Yeah, the whole GG thing really is essentially a non thing at this point. Basically no one gives a shit about it in the real world. There are a handful of stories covered by “real” media about aspects of it, but they’re bascially fluff filler pieces.