Great read as always. Yeah the POV on TikTok reminds me of the “IMO” before giving your opinion on Twitter. It’s like, no shit it’s your opinion, you just wrote it and hit send. If it was someone else’s opinion you would be quoting or summarizing them. There is no need to qualify it’s your opinion when you are about to give your opinion.
It pains me to see you regret your former work. It was very entertaining, but I understand the feeling. It all feels worthless in the end. Just know that the work you did, the years of entertaining and informing people had brought you no small number of admirers. Of course the negative voices are the loudest. It's easy to judge society as a whole awful thing, but people doing the good work like yourself with the inclusion. It's a beacon in the darkness, but every light burns out in time. There's not enough "I'm sorry" to help the hurt you're feeling, but I hope you find some way to get by before it gets too dark.
As the game industry grew, the bad apples in the cheap seats grew more plentiful and nastier; which is an unfortunate parallel you can draw comparison with almost any artistic and non-artistic medium. On the flip side, gaming has never been more inclusive, accessible, and representative than it is today. It took a long time, in no small part it’s thanks to the likes of G4 and all of the other gaming peripheries that came after, for good and bad. As bad as the negatives have been, the positives have been far more monumental to the advancement of art and storytelling, and equally as impactful to the audience that understands and appreciates the quality. Always have and always will believe the positives have vastly outweighed the negative. The dipshit chud gamergater audience is bad, yes, but they arent as bad as tens of thousands of layoffs, studio closures, and artist burnouts that get sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Theyre the only poison in the well this industry should be concerned about.
Hi there! I'm sorry to say that I'm writing this from an account that isn't tied to anything, not because I'm worried about you or people who like you doing anything rude, but rather because I'm worried about people who find your page through the power of conservative hate boners. I wanted to write it under anonymous but I saw in the comments that it wasn't really appreciated when people do that.
Anyway, I can't really speak to everything that was written in this piece but I did want to comment on a couple of things, if that's okay, but I also want to recognize that I'm largely speaking from a position of ignorance here.
In the second paragraph you mentioned that you regret campaigning for the democratization of video games, decentralizing middle-class white men as the demographic focus of gaming culture. I didn't know this was something that you did. Of course there are people who have advocated for this, and I know that they've opened themselves up to harassment as a result, I just wasn't aware that you were one of them. (I would list those people here, but to be honest I feel like a lot of the people who are going to find this post are going to be particularly conservative folks with hate boners, and I don't want to expose any progressive content creators in online gamer spaces to any more harassment than what they already have to deal with.) There was your support of Frosk when she called out sexism in the game industry (or, to put it more bluntly and with my opinion on full display here, when she had the audacity to say correct things on television), but I didn't know there was anything before that. It's been many years since I watched X-Play, but I don't recall there being any particularly progressive messaging on the show, but it wasn't something that I watched often when it was on the air, largely because the nature of some of the jokes made me uncomfortable at the time. (Having been very young had a lot to do with that though, I think.) If there were positive messages addressing racism, sexism, and oppression of all members of the LGBTQIA+ community on X-Play before, then that's something that I'm definitely interested in looking back at. One thing I want to say is that I don't think it's at all worthless, let alone "foolhardy" to address sexism, racism, and hatred of LGBTQIA+ folks. The important thing with that kind of work is that you aren't trying to convince the person you're speaking to (Gamergate folks just aren't going to be receptive to that), you're showing the people who agree with you already and/or the people who are directly affected by those forms of oppression that they're not alone and that there is a space for them there. It's thanks to people doing that kind of work that I can find people who accept that I'm trans and fully be myself while engaging with a medium that I truly love, and find trans commentators on games who clearly love what they do. By no means do I intend to denigrate people who are defending their peace and mental health by stepping back from that discourse (it gets toxic as hell, which is why I generally prefer avoiding social media,) but I think that especially during pride month it would be good to look at the works of people who are affected by these forms of oppression, and the works of activists, artists, and the bravest folks in movements for social change and find some energy and guidance from the things they do. If it's something you're passionate about and want to continue contributing to, I just want to say that I don't think it's stupid, and although I personally didn't know about it, I'm thankful you were a part of what helped me be out and open in gamer spaces. Living in a red state makes that pretty hard, to be honest, so anything that makes it easier is deeply appreciated.
I have to admit that I'm not exactly understanding what's being said in the paragraph following that, except that there is a major concern about Pro-Palestinian protesters' and commentators' critique of the Israeli government being insincere, essentially just antisemitism dressing itself up in progressive language. What you're talking about here is something that gets lost in the conversation, but it's a real concern and I want to validate that. There is a particular content creator who's popular on Instagram (not exactly high-brow commentary, I know, but he at least has an MA in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and while he can be prickly I appreciate hearing what he has to say) who said something that I think is very important that more people should be saying, and if I'm understanding what you're saying here, then it seems like you'd agree with it, but I don't want to assume. I'll quote him here: "There will be antisemitic people who will try and infiltrate your Palestinian liberation movement in order to further antisemitic ideas. This has always been the case and it will always be the case that there are a vast number of antisemitic people on the planet. It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest form of bigotry on the planet. So while we advocate for a free Palestine, as we rightly should, it is still important that we make sure that antisemitism, hatred of Jewish people, does not enter into that advocacy for a free Palestine." The fella who said that goes by "TheHistoryWizard," and I don't think you would like him even slightly, but when reading what you wrote here I understood it as being similar, especially given that you specified that you've only been commenting on the rhetoric as it exists online and in the U.S., and haven't said anything about Gaza later in this piece. All that to say that when it comes to seeing antisemitism in this movement, you aren't alone in noticing it, even among folks on the left, and I'm sorry that the discourse is filled with so much hate that it gets obscured. I wish that more people would make a point of calling out antisemites in the movement instead of universally defending against any and all claims of antisemitism, because anyone who is making hatred of Jewish people their purpose in protest is simply not going to care about the deaths of Palestinian people or make their own efforts part of a solution for peace, and without a solution for peace, there's no point to protest.
Distressingly, I saw several folks on Twitter throw around some old Alex Jones clips trying to paint him as having an especially progressive viewpoint when in reality he was just stoking antisemitic belief in his audience. With that, and the quote from my previous paragraph in mind, I do think that there's a major risk that antisemites are using the current discourse surrounding Gaza to shift the ideological landscape of the U.S., bringing antisemitism out of the right wing and into left wing discourse.
I'm hopeful that you're well. Today I'll be reading "This Bridge Called my Back." I don't know you at all, but I know it's a good book, so I hope you appreciate it if you have read it or will read it. After that I'll be reading Nepantla Squared, but I don't know if it's good or not yet. Then I'll be reading Transgender History by Susan Stryker again, because it's been too long since I read it. Between those I'll probably be rereading some of Kimberlé Crenshaw's works, since you reminded me of my intersectional ass in this piece. ;)
As for the tiktok thing, I don't use tiktok. I don't have any experience traveling to Africa (Unfortunately I've only ever been in two places in my adult life; Ohio and France.), but I remember hearing back when I was in college that K'Swahili and French are both spoken in many countries, and French happens to be Senegal's official language. Wolof is Senegal's most commonly spoken language, though. Maybe picking up a little of those would help make traveling easier?
Hey, firstly I'd like to just thank you and appreciate the remarkably thoughtful response. I rarely get to read anything like that in regard to things I do and it does not go unnoticed. I completely get how a casual and infrequent viewer of X-Play may not have gathered there were social politics around it, a lot was subtextual and many young people who were slowly realizing who they were picked up on some of the humor. I was more outspoken outside of the show itself and then at Rev3 games and online especially as the independent game world gave voice to so many creative people.
To your primary point. My regrets that I detail in the piece are caught up in a sense of pain and betrayal because, since I was young, the prevailing logic was you stand up for other with the tacit understanding that they'll have your back when it's your turn in the barrel. After 10/7 seeing compatriots (and former friends) in the Gay and Trans communities, BLM and other groups excuse Hamas' actions and engage in (thinly disguised) anti-jew rhetoric with such confidence and practice was a breaking point. It makes me incapable of seeing the core argument (Israel shouldn't be waging an unfettered campaign of destruction against civilians) as sincere (That goal doesn't require one to call for the end of the state of Israel). What's worse is that, from where I am, there are so few voices like yours, who aren't jews, that stand up and call out the antisemitism. As you said, one of the functions for standing up for others is to let them know they're not alone. I can honestly say I am more alone now than at any time in my life (and my childhood was pretty damn solitary). It's not even that I'm choosing to retreat from my social justice outspokenness, but I can't do it anymore, my mouth can't form the words.
I want to wish you all the best and hope you keep reading and respond when something stands out to you. I really appreciate getting to read what you wrote.
I enjoyed this write up, as I have all of them so far. I am glad that you have left twitter behind as the venomous bile only grows with each passing day. I was sorry to see you mercilessly dogpiled by the screeching masses for daring to be angry at anti-Jew rhetoric. For all of their professed inclusiveness, progressiveness, and kindness, the sheer magnitude of hatred that spews from normally sane circles still shocks me. It appears they can hate with the best of them once one fails one of their increasingly arcane purity tests.
I hope for the best and look forward to your future musings
You lost me with with your ludicrous twitter comment right before the end of "why should I care for people who want to see me dead?" when talking about the Palestinians. Incredibly infantile and stupid. You are far more intelligent than that.
Going thru this huge crisis of confidence over your past is fair enough. Not sure why you want to share it with the public. I enjoyed the X-Play, Rev3, and X-Play stuff again with all the changes that were made. It's a shame the idiot minority shout the loudest and made it seem like a fruitless task, it isn't/wasn't.
I hope you come out at the end a calmer, relaxed and more happy with yourself and your choices.
That’s not what I said. I said I was I don’t care about the Ivy League Jew haters getting their teeth knocked in by the NYPD because they want me dead.
Never said word one about Palestinians. Just selfish shits co-opting their grief for personal satisfaction.
Great read as always. Yeah the POV on TikTok reminds me of the “IMO” before giving your opinion on Twitter. It’s like, no shit it’s your opinion, you just wrote it and hit send. If it was someone else’s opinion you would be quoting or summarizing them. There is no need to qualify it’s your opinion when you are about to give your opinion.
Best of luck out there,
Kevin
It pains me to see you regret your former work. It was very entertaining, but I understand the feeling. It all feels worthless in the end. Just know that the work you did, the years of entertaining and informing people had brought you no small number of admirers. Of course the negative voices are the loudest. It's easy to judge society as a whole awful thing, but people doing the good work like yourself with the inclusion. It's a beacon in the darkness, but every light burns out in time. There's not enough "I'm sorry" to help the hurt you're feeling, but I hope you find some way to get by before it gets too dark.
As the game industry grew, the bad apples in the cheap seats grew more plentiful and nastier; which is an unfortunate parallel you can draw comparison with almost any artistic and non-artistic medium. On the flip side, gaming has never been more inclusive, accessible, and representative than it is today. It took a long time, in no small part it’s thanks to the likes of G4 and all of the other gaming peripheries that came after, for good and bad. As bad as the negatives have been, the positives have been far more monumental to the advancement of art and storytelling, and equally as impactful to the audience that understands and appreciates the quality. Always have and always will believe the positives have vastly outweighed the negative. The dipshit chud gamergater audience is bad, yes, but they arent as bad as tens of thousands of layoffs, studio closures, and artist burnouts that get sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Theyre the only poison in the well this industry should be concerned about.
Hi there! I'm sorry to say that I'm writing this from an account that isn't tied to anything, not because I'm worried about you or people who like you doing anything rude, but rather because I'm worried about people who find your page through the power of conservative hate boners. I wanted to write it under anonymous but I saw in the comments that it wasn't really appreciated when people do that.
Anyway, I can't really speak to everything that was written in this piece but I did want to comment on a couple of things, if that's okay, but I also want to recognize that I'm largely speaking from a position of ignorance here.
In the second paragraph you mentioned that you regret campaigning for the democratization of video games, decentralizing middle-class white men as the demographic focus of gaming culture. I didn't know this was something that you did. Of course there are people who have advocated for this, and I know that they've opened themselves up to harassment as a result, I just wasn't aware that you were one of them. (I would list those people here, but to be honest I feel like a lot of the people who are going to find this post are going to be particularly conservative folks with hate boners, and I don't want to expose any progressive content creators in online gamer spaces to any more harassment than what they already have to deal with.) There was your support of Frosk when she called out sexism in the game industry (or, to put it more bluntly and with my opinion on full display here, when she had the audacity to say correct things on television), but I didn't know there was anything before that. It's been many years since I watched X-Play, but I don't recall there being any particularly progressive messaging on the show, but it wasn't something that I watched often when it was on the air, largely because the nature of some of the jokes made me uncomfortable at the time. (Having been very young had a lot to do with that though, I think.) If there were positive messages addressing racism, sexism, and oppression of all members of the LGBTQIA+ community on X-Play before, then that's something that I'm definitely interested in looking back at. One thing I want to say is that I don't think it's at all worthless, let alone "foolhardy" to address sexism, racism, and hatred of LGBTQIA+ folks. The important thing with that kind of work is that you aren't trying to convince the person you're speaking to (Gamergate folks just aren't going to be receptive to that), you're showing the people who agree with you already and/or the people who are directly affected by those forms of oppression that they're not alone and that there is a space for them there. It's thanks to people doing that kind of work that I can find people who accept that I'm trans and fully be myself while engaging with a medium that I truly love, and find trans commentators on games who clearly love what they do. By no means do I intend to denigrate people who are defending their peace and mental health by stepping back from that discourse (it gets toxic as hell, which is why I generally prefer avoiding social media,) but I think that especially during pride month it would be good to look at the works of people who are affected by these forms of oppression, and the works of activists, artists, and the bravest folks in movements for social change and find some energy and guidance from the things they do. If it's something you're passionate about and want to continue contributing to, I just want to say that I don't think it's stupid, and although I personally didn't know about it, I'm thankful you were a part of what helped me be out and open in gamer spaces. Living in a red state makes that pretty hard, to be honest, so anything that makes it easier is deeply appreciated.
I have to admit that I'm not exactly understanding what's being said in the paragraph following that, except that there is a major concern about Pro-Palestinian protesters' and commentators' critique of the Israeli government being insincere, essentially just antisemitism dressing itself up in progressive language. What you're talking about here is something that gets lost in the conversation, but it's a real concern and I want to validate that. There is a particular content creator who's popular on Instagram (not exactly high-brow commentary, I know, but he at least has an MA in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and while he can be prickly I appreciate hearing what he has to say) who said something that I think is very important that more people should be saying, and if I'm understanding what you're saying here, then it seems like you'd agree with it, but I don't want to assume. I'll quote him here: "There will be antisemitic people who will try and infiltrate your Palestinian liberation movement in order to further antisemitic ideas. This has always been the case and it will always be the case that there are a vast number of antisemitic people on the planet. It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest form of bigotry on the planet. So while we advocate for a free Palestine, as we rightly should, it is still important that we make sure that antisemitism, hatred of Jewish people, does not enter into that advocacy for a free Palestine." The fella who said that goes by "TheHistoryWizard," and I don't think you would like him even slightly, but when reading what you wrote here I understood it as being similar, especially given that you specified that you've only been commenting on the rhetoric as it exists online and in the U.S., and haven't said anything about Gaza later in this piece. All that to say that when it comes to seeing antisemitism in this movement, you aren't alone in noticing it, even among folks on the left, and I'm sorry that the discourse is filled with so much hate that it gets obscured. I wish that more people would make a point of calling out antisemites in the movement instead of universally defending against any and all claims of antisemitism, because anyone who is making hatred of Jewish people their purpose in protest is simply not going to care about the deaths of Palestinian people or make their own efforts part of a solution for peace, and without a solution for peace, there's no point to protest.
Distressingly, I saw several folks on Twitter throw around some old Alex Jones clips trying to paint him as having an especially progressive viewpoint when in reality he was just stoking antisemitic belief in his audience. With that, and the quote from my previous paragraph in mind, I do think that there's a major risk that antisemites are using the current discourse surrounding Gaza to shift the ideological landscape of the U.S., bringing antisemitism out of the right wing and into left wing discourse.
I'm hopeful that you're well. Today I'll be reading "This Bridge Called my Back." I don't know you at all, but I know it's a good book, so I hope you appreciate it if you have read it or will read it. After that I'll be reading Nepantla Squared, but I don't know if it's good or not yet. Then I'll be reading Transgender History by Susan Stryker again, because it's been too long since I read it. Between those I'll probably be rereading some of Kimberlé Crenshaw's works, since you reminded me of my intersectional ass in this piece. ;)
As for the tiktok thing, I don't use tiktok. I don't have any experience traveling to Africa (Unfortunately I've only ever been in two places in my adult life; Ohio and France.), but I remember hearing back when I was in college that K'Swahili and French are both spoken in many countries, and French happens to be Senegal's official language. Wolof is Senegal's most commonly spoken language, though. Maybe picking up a little of those would help make traveling easier?
Hey, firstly I'd like to just thank you and appreciate the remarkably thoughtful response. I rarely get to read anything like that in regard to things I do and it does not go unnoticed. I completely get how a casual and infrequent viewer of X-Play may not have gathered there were social politics around it, a lot was subtextual and many young people who were slowly realizing who they were picked up on some of the humor. I was more outspoken outside of the show itself and then at Rev3 games and online especially as the independent game world gave voice to so many creative people.
To your primary point. My regrets that I detail in the piece are caught up in a sense of pain and betrayal because, since I was young, the prevailing logic was you stand up for other with the tacit understanding that they'll have your back when it's your turn in the barrel. After 10/7 seeing compatriots (and former friends) in the Gay and Trans communities, BLM and other groups excuse Hamas' actions and engage in (thinly disguised) anti-jew rhetoric with such confidence and practice was a breaking point. It makes me incapable of seeing the core argument (Israel shouldn't be waging an unfettered campaign of destruction against civilians) as sincere (That goal doesn't require one to call for the end of the state of Israel). What's worse is that, from where I am, there are so few voices like yours, who aren't jews, that stand up and call out the antisemitism. As you said, one of the functions for standing up for others is to let them know they're not alone. I can honestly say I am more alone now than at any time in my life (and my childhood was pretty damn solitary). It's not even that I'm choosing to retreat from my social justice outspokenness, but I can't do it anymore, my mouth can't form the words.
I want to wish you all the best and hope you keep reading and respond when something stands out to you. I really appreciate getting to read what you wrote.
Adam
I enjoyed this write up, as I have all of them so far. I am glad that you have left twitter behind as the venomous bile only grows with each passing day. I was sorry to see you mercilessly dogpiled by the screeching masses for daring to be angry at anti-Jew rhetoric. For all of their professed inclusiveness, progressiveness, and kindness, the sheer magnitude of hatred that spews from normally sane circles still shocks me. It appears they can hate with the best of them once one fails one of their increasingly arcane purity tests.
I hope for the best and look forward to your future musings
You need some mental help. This is a bunch of rambling nonsense.
and you need a set of balls since you hide behind "anonymous."
Also, pro-tip: It's not cool to announce you have the comprehension skills of a 4th grader.
You lost me with with your ludicrous twitter comment right before the end of "why should I care for people who want to see me dead?" when talking about the Palestinians. Incredibly infantile and stupid. You are far more intelligent than that.
Going thru this huge crisis of confidence over your past is fair enough. Not sure why you want to share it with the public. I enjoyed the X-Play, Rev3, and X-Play stuff again with all the changes that were made. It's a shame the idiot minority shout the loudest and made it seem like a fruitless task, it isn't/wasn't.
I hope you come out at the end a calmer, relaxed and more happy with yourself and your choices.
Good luck
Alex
That’s not what I said. I said I was I don’t care about the Ivy League Jew haters getting their teeth knocked in by the NYPD because they want me dead.
Never said word one about Palestinians. Just selfish shits co-opting their grief for personal satisfaction.
Good luck with reading in the future.
I have no clue what that means.’is it intended for this post?