2020 Miscellaneous Links: Untitled Moose Game

[Captain K]

There were too many big words in that article for me.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Politics matter, so I don't see anything wrong with feeling out some views on a first date. Your own list (and mine) is not the same as the author's, but I can say that for me personally, someone who denied the Holoucaust, or thinks that global warming is a myth, or thinks that a woman's place is to be subservient to her man, would be someone I 100% would not date. Some things are just deal-breakers and getting those figured out sooner rather than later saves everyone time. It's up to each individual to decide what the deal-breakers are.

The article frustrates me for a different reason, because it implicitly puts forward the toxic belief that "you're not a feminist unless you also support unrelated A, B, C, and D", which is an outstanding way to drive people away from your movement. If I weren't already firm in my feminist views an article telling me that I have to hate capitalism or be anti-Israel in order to be a feminist might well drive me away; be assured that it has for others.

[Cmdr_King]

Fundamentally the argument in intersectionality is that sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, thusforth are in fact all linked (broadly, patriarchical authority perpetuates itself with the endgoal of placing straight white men in power over other groups, and the means by which they play these groups against one another is how said patriarchy stays in power, with capitalistic competition being a key mechanism in achieving this).

It's still a pretty bad article.  1) it assumes anyone reading it accepts this argument whole cloth and 2) assumes that there's a single, correct answer to all of the many issues that fall under the intersectional umbrella, both of which are spectacularly dumb for a non-academic casual reader base.

[Grefter]

Also pretty sure that is just framing for “things to discuss with prospective partners”.   Only the Headline says First Date and I guarantee you that is editorial decision to drive clicks etcetc.


As someone that doesn’t date though, I would expect if you are politically active they are good and interesting topics to cover off with someone you are interested in sometime, but not just first date material?  Idk though.


Edit - disagree that it is a bad article.   All of those are good/interesting discussion points, they don’t have to pass/fail checks.  They can just help you identify where someone sits on issues.   Also like anyone actually engaged in Feminism on an academic level presumably anyone interested in this knows you can’t really engage the broader public with academic terms.   Like even something as “simple” as ‘Can any human be illegal’ is some pretty fucking densely communicated subject matter.

An article on a feminist website presumably targeted towards people familiar with the concepts doesn’t need to be talked to in those terms though.

[Cmdr_King]

*shrug* I dunno, I feel like the framing of the questions lead to a definite pass/fail check, and the overall breezy language and list formatting definitely suggest it's for a general audience, not necessarily dedicated feminists.

[Grefter]

The format for Every Day Feminism is kinda bad yeah.  It is pure new media listicles and content farm buzzfeed style bullshit talking about actual real academic concepts.  Some serious whiplash going on there, but that is a problem at the site level, not this particular article.

[dunie]

I wouldn't say the article's denying anyone can be a feminist, but to be an intersectional feminist certainly means embracing and engaging things from the list and beyond. Saying you love diversity but give money/*edit* or don't care about strategizing against the capitalist structures of corporations that displace diversity is an incongruity intersectional feminists wouldn't embrace.

Also. I totally agree that it is okay to pose these questions in a generative way for first-date-ish conversations. Also agree that I doubt it would be rigorously enforced (unless that person is just plain awkward or was great at conversation, which most people are not). It'd probably disinterest even the wokest folk who don't feel the need to prove themselves to someone whose pants they want to unzip or persons they want to know better. Feminism, Anti-Capitalist, Anarchist, whatever, the liberationist standpoints that force individuals to prove their credentials to one person in reality reinforces the belittling of someone's personhood, so... bye to that fluff. I ain't got no one to prove myself to but myself.

But I will say, as an avowed IF myself, these questions definitely do help weed out men, especially white men, who have no interest or are resisting the futurity of their potential POC child with me or possible life with me. So. It definitely helps. But this is a DATE piece and is therefore fundamentally a tragic piece of clickbait.

[NotMiki]

Yeah, def. been on at least one first date that took the form of a long-form questionnaire on my political beliefs. there wasn't a second date. I am one of the types of people who will absolutely not date someone politically incompatible - I think this stuff matters. but getting hit all at once with the whole laundry list was a bit much. (and it moved from there to the topic of how well I get along with ex-girlfriends. like. no.)

[SnowFire]

Have you ever felt like everyone is out to get you in a game?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20931304

[Grefter]

Huh, weird seeing someone you know from there online work before they joined Blozzard being quoted.  Not sure why she is a reference quote for it, but she is probably a decent enough reference I guess?

Edit - clarification.   Olivia Grace is rad and does good work, just calling her only a WoW Expert and moving on is pretty void of context.  The article doesn’t even say he was playing WoW?

[NotMiki]

article's 4 years old so maybe that's why?

[Grefter]

I fooooorget when she started at Blizzard, she could be being quoted just as a freelancer which was what she did before that but still confused tbqh.  Like presumably it was because it was being ganked in WoW?

[Luther Lansfeld]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/13/opinion/contributors/salma-hayek-harvey-weinstein.html

Yikes.

[dunie]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/29/new-marvel-editor-in-chief-under-fire-for-using-japanese-pseudonym

I like to think the situation's more complicated than the internet police would allow. This isn't to give dude leniency; but pre-2006 "catfishing" would have been a style of avatar'ing that dude would have a strong familiarity with. I catfished on the internet in gamer circles as a white chick since it was far easier to connect with people joining around games. No excuse. But. I do wonder if his catfishing fits the same mold of the last couple years of white authors using PoC pen names to win awards, funding and publication opportunities-- which, you know, is wrong on lots of levels and doesn't help dismantling the race-based awards system that must exist so other folk can publish. Then I'd be angrier. I dunno, I read this article very quickly. But also, what kind of office culture is so lax that you don't know who really works there?  I'll show up and clock in then myself!

[Shale]

There are a few reaaaaaaalllllllllllllly shady layers in the whole "Akira Yoshida" thing.

1) Cebulski was writing stories set in Japan and/or about Japanese people using the persona of a Japanese man -- not just ethnically Asian but actually from Japan -- to lend his (in hindsight, terrible and stereotyped) stories a layer of authenticity.

2) Cebulski was employed as an editor at the time, so there's at least a strong implication that whoever signed off on hiring "Yoshida" was giving his friend a job and hiding it so he wouldn't look like a nepotistic ass.

3) "Yoshida" was hired as part of an initiative that was supposed to give up-and-coming comics writers a shot at working for Marvel. Hiring one of your full-time employees in secret instead of a newcomer totally undermines the integrity of that project, but promoting the guy after it becomes public knowledge undermines the integrity of any outreach they do while Cebulski is there. Who's going to trust this guy to deal fairly with writers and artists?

[SnowFire]

Still...  how bad are we talking about?  At risk of pointing out the obvious, superhero comics tend to be about as authentic as a three-dollar bill in their portrayal of American society (too?).  And somebody who lived in Japan and learned Japanese seems like that to the extent it's terrible and stereotyped, it'll be terrible & stereotyped in an admiring weeaboo kind of way, which is a lot less alarming than negative stereotyping.

The only source I've found on this topic with actual examples seems to be a certain ancient Internet personality who's apparently still kicking:

https://twitter.com/Seanbabydotcom/status/935168667897044992 
This is some stupid shit, but doesn't appear any stupider than your average JRPG plot?

https://twitter.com/Seanbabydotcom/status/936223503690240000
This is an example of insane American comics to compare it to.

--
Anyway I should drop off an Americans-doing-Japanese-stuff link of my own, so:
https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/implementing-japanese-subtitles-on-netflix-c165fbe61989
Interesting reading.  (Feel free to skip the second half of the article, which is nitty gritty "what fields map to what" minutiae though.)

[Shale]

Still...  how bad are we talking about?  At risk of pointing out the obvious, superhero comics tend to be about as authentic as a three-dollar bill in their portrayal of American society (too?).  And somebody who lived in Japan and learned Japanese seems like that to the extent it's terrible and stereotyped, it'll be terrible & stereotyped in an admiring weeaboo kind of way, which is a lot less alarming than negative stereotyping.

The cultural stereotyping was mainly the usual ninjas-and-honor stuff you see in western comics all the time -- certainly not egregious, but also not exactly helpful to have it coming from someone who was supposedly raised in actual Japan.

More hilariously, for a guy who lived there as an adult he didn't seem to care at all about basic factual stuff that doesn't really slide based on comic-book logic, like an offhand mention in his Elektra book about Japan's five islands (there are four).

[DjinnAndTonic]

I like to imagine that the extra island is some Marvel-universe-original locale, like Namda Parbat or the Inhumans' city or... Krakatoa or something.

Or like... Okinawa, maybe?

[dunie]

3) "Yoshida" was hired as part of an initiative that was supposed to give up-and-coming comics writers a shot at working for Marvel. Hiring one of your full-time employees in secret instead of a newcomer totally undermines the integrity of that project, but promoting the guy after it becomes public knowledge undermines the integrity of any outreach they do while Cebulski is there. Who's going to trust this guy to deal fairly with writers and artists?

Yeah, I'm beginning to find my critique in this -and- the problematic component of cultural appropriation -- power and representation-- that prevented the hiring of another person.

Saw this, too https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/asian-comic-writers-cb-cebulski-controversy_us_5a1f118fe4b0d52b8dc25be8

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5229079/Dallas-woman-arrested-6-months-fatal-hit-run.html

My best friend's aunt was killed by a drunk driver. The comments are predictably horrible. I met Brenda a couple of times. She didn't like being around other people and leeching off of family members and her schizophrenia make her restless and unpredictable. That was the choice that she consistently made throughout her life, but that doesn't mean that her family didn't love her. On the contrary, I know my friend's mom always tried to help her in any way she'd accept.

[dunie]

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-first-denaturalization-result-operation-janus
https://rewire.news/article/2018/01/09/justice-department-revokes-naturalized-citizenship-citing-fingerprint-issue/

I've read a couple articles and it seems unclear if the cases DOJ has identified were all prior to the digitalization of fingerprints. Too impatient to find the official date of that processing with google. I did come across: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-citizenship-fingerprints-20160919-story.html saying that those identified were before records were digitized.

Yes yes, illegal is illegal. But also, what does it mean when the country legalizes one's citizenship and then revokes it over bureaucratic folder-combing? And damn if being abroad hasn't made me realize my privilege of being able to move through different western countries easily. I don't know if Baljinder Singh is still married, but imagine what would happen punitively if Americans married abroad were treated similarly. Or perhaps they already are, I don't know.

Janus, huh.

[dunie]

#stillcatchinguptotherealworld

happened in 2013 but whatevs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M&feature=youtu.be

[Cmdr_King]

Speaking of albany expressions:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-XtMNYHsZc

(In the style of NieR Automata, mostly posted for Djinn's reference.)

[NotMiki]

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AndyWallace/20171122/310166/Urzas_Dream_Engine__The_RoboRosewater_RoboDraft_Creating_a_machine_learning_algorithm_to_illustrate_Magic_cards.php

[dunie]

https://www.facebook.com/bbc/videos/2063688563646332/

XD