The Zeropunctuation thread

[Mordrak]

I don’t quite understand what the point of the “hey, come to England so I can stab you wink wink” part was.

Cue Angie Gallant*.

Anyway, he’s a misanthrope because he’s a comic. Do you know lots of stand-up comedians that are nice, happy people? He gets his humor from his hatred of everything, including himself. It’s what works. It annoys me when people don’t understand that for what it is.

It’s not just that he’s a misanthrope. If you look at his body of work, it’s clear that he has women issues and that’s what the video is partly addressing not just a biting sense of humor. Her argument is basically he’s wrapping up misogyny in humor and feeding to an audience that doesn’t need any more negative images or associations of women.

*I’d post the pic myself but I don’t have it saved. Heh.

[asspennies]

It’s not just that he’s a misanthrope. If you look at his body of work, it’s clear that he has women issues and that’s what the video is partly addressing not just a biting sense of humor. Her argument is basically he’s wrapping up misogyny in humor and feeding to an audience that doesn’t need any more negative images or associations of women.

I’m not sure I believe that. “Dicks jokes are funny” is not an indication that someone has woman issues, it’s just an indication that he likes humor that swings more towards males then towards females. He very often points out how shallow the portrayal of women is in gaming, and how every woman in games seemingly has to have huge breasts and no clothing on. And he treats that as a negative.

I’d like to know what specifically he’s done to harm women in gaming, or a link to a review that clearly shows some sort of attitude towards woman in general that isn’t part of a larger joke about how everyone is awful.

[Mordrak]

I’d like to know what specifically he’s done to harm women in gaming, or a link to a review that clearly shows some sort of attitude towards woman in general that isn’t part of a larger joke about how everyone is awful.

Just look in his latest video where he associates motion controls to being as useless as women having their period.

Edit: Alan Wake’s review nearly opens with a joke about not looking a gift whore in the poo pipe. But I’m not going to go slogging through every review searching for each instance of it. If you want to look for it you can, but it’s a repeated theme throughout his a lot of his work. I’m sure some people here remember better examples.

[asspennies]

Just look in his latest video where he associates motion controls to being as useless as women having their period.

I think he was using it as a reference to moving from kids to adolescence in a jokey way (it was first period, not just a period) with a nice, easily understood and yet gross visual component. If he used “testicles dropping”, would that have been better? Or would that have been anti-men?

[Mordrak]

I think he was using it as a reference to moving from kids to adolescence in a jokey way (it was first period, not just a period) with a nice, easily understood and yet gross visual component. If he used “testicles dropping”, would that have been better? Or would that have been anti-men?

Potentially, if he had spent the rest of the review discussing how useless the change that’s part of his metaphor is and repeatedly used that theme as something negative. Instead he repeatedly chooses women and uses them in ways for his jokes that show larger issues. Like I edited in above about the Alan Wake. You can go through all his reviews if you’d like, I’m certainly not going to spend 4-5 hours doing that for you just to pull more examples.

Edit: Here’s another example, beginning of his Brutal Legend Review, he says that his relationship with Tim Shaefer amounts to that if he had a doomsday device he’d wipe out everyone in the world but him, Tim Schafer, and maybe a woman if she wore a Tim Shaefer mask.

[Bill_Dungsroman]

I teach a class in Critical Studies of Games that is mostly college freshmen.

You get paid to teach a class like that? God, where did I go wrong.

When I ask them who their favorite game critic is, the overwhelming response for the last three years has been Yahtzee. When I ask them to name another game critic, I usually get, “Kotaku.” Once in awhile I will get someone naming Gerstmann, Jeff Green, or possibly Crescente.

Big deal. I ask my students who Neils Bohr, Watson & Crick, or any other famous scientist are and I am lucky if they are even paying attention enough to say “Who?”

When I ask them to write a critical analysis of a game, they generally go very negative. I have to fight with them to get them to name anything positive about a game that I assign.

They also dress like Lady Gaga. It’s very depressing.

You want to argue. Okay. Yahtzee has used the word “gay” many times to mean “bad.” There you go.

Seriously? That’s it? Where who go? He freely uses every expletive in the book and that’s your bone of contention?

So, she’s asking if Yahtzee is being ironic by making fun of people who shit all over everything, or is he just shitting all over everything. It’s the same defense that Rush Limbaugh is using nowadays-- “I just said that outrageous thing to tweek the liberal media.”

Yahtzee: The Rush Limbaugh of Gaming Criticism. You heard it here first.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

Edit: Here’s another example, beginning of his Brutal Legend Review, he says that his relationship with Tim Shaefer amounts to that if he had a doomsday device he’d wipe out everyone in the world but him, Tim Shaefer, and maybe a woman if she wore a Tim Shaefer mask.

I assume he wants to spend his time with the last persons on Earth with a sense of humour that’s not from the comic strip Cathy?

[Mordrak]

I assume he wants to spend his time with the last persons on Earth with a sense of humour that’s not from the comic strip Cathy?

Your response is a good example of what he’s fostering. I didn’t know all women’s sense of humor amounts to what’s contained in Cathy.

Look, I enjoy Yahtzee’s reviews and I think even earlier in this thread , his issues with women have been brought up. All he’s doing is just lazily playing into an edgy gamer stereotype, not personally propping up all of patriarchy.

I’ll continue to enjoy his reviews, but it doesn’t mean her criticism is unfounded or isn’t worth noting.

[idrisz]

You get paid to teach a class like that? God, where did I go wrong.

My critical game study teacher was Dave Arneson, so you got to be a famous old dude who invented nerdism.

anyways, we didn’t do much in that class other listening to Dave talk about samurai and ninjas.

[McKnight]

Edit: Here’s another example, beginning of his Brutal Legend Review, he says that his relationship with Tim Shaefer amounts to that if he had a doomsday device he’d wipe out everyone in the world but him, Tim Shaefer, and maybe a woman if she wore a Tim Shaefer mask.

That’s not misogynistic at all?

If you can’t obviously see why I’ll explain tomorrow, when I’m not ridiculously tired.

[Jason_McCullough]

Can you name a time he portrayed any woman in a positive light in any of the reviews? They’re generic internet guy misogynist for whatever reason.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

Your response is a good example of what he’s fostering. I didn’t know all women’s sense of humor amounts to what’s contained in Cathy.

I guess he’s fosters the point that politically correct people have no sense of humour and enjoys Cathy. :P

It’s not to say that women don’t laugh nor find anything amusing. (I find Sarah Silverman funny because she has a dirty sense of humour (see her segments in The Aristocrats)).

But in general, don’t women look for a sense of humour in men as a possible courtship trait, whereas how many guys do you hear that they are attracted to a woman because she’s funny?

[maxle]

Can you name a time he portrayed any woman in a positive light in any of the reviews? They’re generic internet guy misogynist for whatever reason.

I’m not sure that’s the best argument, since he rarely portrays anything in a positive light. Though I don’t disagree with your assessment.

[Zylon]

That’s not misogynistic at all?

No, it isn’t. If you weren’t ridiculously tired, you would have figured out that the joke here is that Tim Schafer’s games are better than sex.

[Mordrak]

No, it isn’t. If you weren’t ridiculously tired, you would have figured out that the joke here is that Tim Schafer’s games are better than sex.

He was putting that to me. He holds the position (or something similar) which you put forth.

My question to you then, is what does putting a Tim Schafer mask on a woman have to do with playing his games? He already has Tim Schafer in his doomsday device. What does putting Tim Schafer mask on a woman have to do with enjoying his games more than sex? Obviously you’re reading the presence of a woman as a stand in for sex, which itself is an objectification of women. If that’s true, he doesn’t need to bring her along, just some Tim Schafer games.

So even taking your very generous reading, in your mind while de-constructing the joke you have to swap women for sex.

[Zylon]

Okay, better explanation then-- Because in stereotypical doomsday scenarios there’s always a woman left (usually named Eve). So Yahtzee is thematically constrained to include a female survivor, but he still loathes all humans except Tim Schafer, so she has to at least wear a Tim Schafer mask.

[Mordrak]

That’s getting better, but again, there’s a couple of questions… first? Why is there always a woman left? There’s legitimate criticism around many of those scenarios too.

But even ignoring that, given his phrasing this is his doomsday scenario, not someone else’s. He’s taking ownership over his fantasy, not playing off end of the world scenarios. He’s creating the end of the world and discussing who he would not destroy.

Why is he potentially willing to save a woman only if she wears a Tim Schafer mask? If he wants more company, he could just bring another guy and put the mask on them. And he doesn’t seem like someone who would want to repopulate the earth, but even if he did, that’s reducing women to role of childbirth. If he wants her just for sex, then again, that’s objectification.

I’m sorry, it’s a joke that’s tinged with misogyny and even a little homophobia if you want to read it that way as well.

[Dean]

BTW, I think there was some sort of bet, or offer between the two of them, that she’d write him a song if he’d go visit her… or something. She’s mentioned it a couple of times.

I would bet they’re on good terms with each other, and a little friendly rivalry between Escapist personalities is good for everyone. I’m sure Yahtzee was very happy with the song. I’d also bet that Yahtzee takes his whole internet fame thing with a grain of salt, which is why he’s using it to do things like open a bar and write novels. ZP isn’t going to last forever.

Well. . . I think maybe your students are terrible. And maybe they’re douches.

They are neither. They’re young and uneducated, which is why they’re going to college. A number of them have looked in on Qt3 and mostly they think we’re a group of old pricks. Then they go back to GAF, but more and more they’re off to artist forums and programmer forums, which is much better.

But I don’t really understand what the fact that your students name Yahtzee and “Kotaku” has to do with anything (outside of them either being ignorant, and/or just being terrible). If you were teaching this class 12-15 years ago, they could cote about Scorpia (who frequently was negative too, as people sometimes forget). And Martin Cirulis’ “What’s the Deal With. . .” columns.

Because those were opinion columns and ZP purports to be reviews. Every week they start with “Zero Punctuation reviews…” Now the general opinion seems to be that they’re not really reviews, they’re some sort of meta-commentary on games journalism and the game industry, but they’re presented as reviews.

And yes, the shtick is that he’s equally mean to everyone. He’s the Don Rickles of gaming.

It’s easy to dismiss my students as ignorant and tell them to go read some Costikyan, but that’s not going to teach them what Yahtzee’s place in the the world of criticism is. I’m certainly not arguing that everything should be sweetness and light. I’m trying to get them to learn to think critically, and that means more than scoring points among people who basically are just like you.

Yahtzee is very popular with straight white males. Not so popular with others.

It seems to me that when examining game criticism, the overall level of negativity/positivity is secondary to actual quality criticism. That was certainly Jose Lizbot’s problem.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I know. Do you really think he’s insensitive to plight of the gays? Or something like that?

I have no idea. But if Yahtzee can call something he doesn’t like gay, then why can’t the guy who screws up in your MW2 match be called gay? And if we can call him gay, why can’t we call him a faggot?

Yeah, I know, slippery slope fallacy and everything, but role models matter.

You get paid to teach a class like that? God, where did I go wrong.

You just have to volunteer for the right committees.

Big deal. I ask my students who Neils Bohr, Watson & Crick, or any other famous scientist are and I am lucky if they are even paying attention enough to say “Who?”

Yeah, but then you get to explain who those people are. I’m stuck with games journalists.

Seriously? That’s it? Where who go? He freely uses every expletive in the book and that’s your bone of contention?

That was just the low hanging fruit.

My critical game study teacher was Dave Arneson, so you got to be a famous old dude who invented nerdism.

I, sir, am no Dave Arneson.

[Mordrak]

Yeah, but then you get to explain who those people are. I’m stuck with games journalists.

Why are you stuck with games journalists? There’s no peer-reviewed work you can go to, even from other disciplines applied to games?

[Dean]

Why are you stuck with games journalists? There’s no peer-reviewed work you can go to, even from other disciplines applied to games?

It was a joke.