How much Activision does it take to change a Blizzard?

Given my utter lack of intellectual ability, not very many!

This may be the key, really. Women who can communicate to other women, from positions of experience and authority, to give young women just starting out the tools and support they need to push back.

I don’t want to give the impression that all of my students are like this, far from it. Just that even one or two is, in my mind, too many.

Well I can say I am boycotting Blizzard/Activision. I guess I have of a more loose/cavalier/shorthand deploy of the word boycott: I ain’t buying it.

Yeah, that was kind of pedantic for me to say I’m not boycotting them. I mean, I guess I am. I just don’t think of it as anything so grand or even organized. But that’s not really necessary to invoke the word “boycott”, is it?

I guess I would more readily call it boycotting if I were actively encouraging others to do the same thing, if I were proselytizing a cause. But, really, for me it’s just a matter of being deeply disgusted by their policies. I would hope others feel the same, but that’s up to them.

The difference is that you’re trying to characterize my choice as hypocritical or inconsistent by making the completely unsubstantiated claim to other game developers are just as bad. You’re furthermore claiming you don’t “support Activision”, which is absurd. You’re not only supporting Activision, you’re actively refuting people who object to their behavior. Throwing down juvenile challenges to “make a bet” is just icing on top of the absurdly blustery cake.

-Tom

Oh man, that one takes me back. I remember people rolling that one out during Apartheid in the 80s! I see it’s holding up now as well as it did 40 years ago.

-Tom

What company sold apartheid again?

Amazon, who coulda guessed!

https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Apartheid-Africas-Global-Propaganda/dp/0745399142

Don’t make me tap the sign again.

Good for Blizzard employees.

Now we know who will be laid off at the yearly Christmas-time layoffs.

While my ego likes that thought, and I still mentor some, I’m not really sure it’s true. I can tell younger women what to expect, but the tools need to be there in their environment. One retired lady is just a heads up and then sympathy if something happens. I have mentored men too, btw. Mentoring is good, but won’t solve this I think.

And when I worked, almost all the “tools and support” I had came from men. Men in power, my peers and sometimes even my reports sticking up for me. Which goes back to what stood out for me in the descriptions of what was going on at Blizzard. Not specific events, but when someone complained …

FieldCricket-600x450

I don’t know what that’s a euphemism for, but if it involves another Simpsons meme, I’ll pass!

-Tom

Not a simpsons one

So if there’s no such thing as ethical consumption, is there a such thing as having principles? Maybe you can share some funny cartoon character memes about that!

-Tom

You may well be right, sadly enough. I wish I had an answer. All I can do is keep encouraging students to really reflect on what they want, what they need, and what they really believe in. It’s tough when college costs a ton, loan debt is a terrifying (literally, for some) post-graduation prospect, and getting a job has become the sole measure of their own self worth.

Solve this? You’re talking about erasing thousands of years of collective bigotry, misogyny, racism and hate and doing it over the course of a lifetime(yes, i’m lumping in some different things here, but they’re all in the same vein). The progress is remarkable, if at times it seems slow. A hundred years ago, women couldn’t vote, and many weren’t allowed to work, and the industries they could work were limited (as was how high they could climb). Fifty years ago a “little grab-ass” on a secretary or stewardess was a token of how good a job they were doing, now it’s assault. Yeah, there are going to be setbacks, out-right failures, and course-corrections as we continue, but every one eventually pushes us further down the path we (humanity) need to go. Sounds like you were a part of that, too - and even if you only made it a little easier for even a few people (and it sounds like you did way more, for many more), it’s still progress to be proud of.

I dunno, that’s my take on it. Or, i guess it would be if i wasn’t really embracing not giving a shit or something.

Okay, this WAS funny.

So, basically, all consumption of consumer goods under a capitalist society is a bad thing, as capitalism is a system built to exploit resources for maximum profit. Be those resources human, animal or ecological.

Every single corporation does bad things, it is just how capitalism works.

If you have decided to draw your sand in the line over the blitzchung thing, that is fine. I appreciated your video explaining the history of hong kong, and the issue with blizzard, that was very informative.

But, to me, a “boycott” or a personal pledge not to consume x product from y capitalist corporation is a slippery slope with no end. All companies do bad shit all of the time, Actiblizz is up for the recent bad shit of the moment, but something else will come along and people will boycott that.

So, basically any talk of not consuming a product from any capitalist corporation is just nonsense to me, because they are all just as evil. We can’t help ourselves but to consume from categorically evil companies, it is just the way things are.

What we can do, is be vocal about our dislikes of actions these companies condone or perform. Make threads, give them bad press, make shareholders scared, get employees active and unionized to collectively bargain for better conditions.

So, when I say “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” that is what I mean. The whole system is so fucked up and down that tying consumption or lack of it (in a boycott) means nothing, as we will just go on to consume something from another faceless horror.

I mean, that’s patently untrue.