PAX East 2012 Panel

Woo!  It was pretty cool.  I got to get a picture with gtz and Jon.  It turns out I was nervous and it was pretty embarrassing how much I stammered.  Ah, the slower pace of the typed-form!

I freaking love that “activist”‘s speech at the end!! For a loooong time, I’ve believed the only way to change the gaming culture was for the silent majority (of gamers) to rise up and shake up the harassment and bullying. But now I finally see what the “missing piece of the puzzle” is: VISIBILITY. Of course. Visibility Matters – a slogan from the LGBT movement…and it applies here too. The general population’s attitude towards the LGBT community didn’t change simply because the silent majority suddenly decided hate speech should no longer be tolerated. A very important driving force for the change was the LGBT community itself, who had gotten stronger, bolder, and more visible. I can see it now. Thank you. :D

But… I have to admit, in some ways, coming out of the gender closet is actually harder than coming out of the orientation one. Ahh, shit. >.< You people have guts.

You guys are awesome.

I loved watching this video! Some really good stuff on here!

I can’t believe though how much idiocy there is on the Youtube comment side of things though. Seriously, this video on youtube has a majority of dislikes with a bunch of people telling these lovely ladies to “make a sandwich”. Makes me so sad that people think that this is okay, man or woman.

Yeah being flamed on the internet, huge civil rights problem

Might pity had they not sounded like feminists.
That alone is worse than being fat, ugly or slutty

Dear Mr. qiang_ren22, as Rebecca West said:
“People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.”

I guess that YOU would be completely OK if someone flamed you… let’s say, for your Asian origin? (Of course I only assume that you are Asian.)

This was very cool. Whenever I get hate messages, I try to ignore it but its gives me a tight chest bottling it in, luckily I have a group of friends who I can tell and its such a relief that I can’t help but laugh :P Making the abuse public like this I think will help change things, people might think before they hit the dashboard and type their puny little message of hate ^^

This is an issue that’s not talked about enough, and could bring together a very diverse group of people. Full disclosure: I’m politically probably nothing like most of you folks, but I am Jewish and loved online gaming until the sheer volume of the evil spewed out made it mostly unpalatable. It’s impossible to underestimate how disgusting people can get when hidden behind a computer screen. On one particular server I listened to months of the worst kind of vitriol I’ve ever heard thrown at Jews, women, homosexuals, and other minority groups. Also, the guys are generally just cruel and crude to each other, well above and beyond tough competitive talk.

This atmosphere is damaging not only to your soul but your very body. I tried to pretend hearing “hitler hitler hitler hitler” twenty million times didn’t bother me, but of course it does. Raised blood pressure, poor eating habits, and all kinds of other real effects ensue. It becomes addicting, you could just quit but you want to either prove that it doesn’t bother you or make the “bad guys” knuckle under. Of course it’s a fight you can’t win unless you are genuinely as evil as they are.

Conservative men recognize that our sons and younger brothers are hurting themselves by behaving this way and hurting our society. Parents have not played the right role in their children’s online gaming experience, acting as though it’s out of sight and out of mind. There is no way, however, to spend hours a day online cursing, insulting women and minorities, and behaving generally evil and have it not affect your offline behavior. I hope we can get more attention to this.