{write/love/gasp} englishslit+anthropologist | :: game director @darkwebSTREAMER + @WHALITF | // host @DirectionalShow | thoughtrise @ 𝗯𝘀𝗸𝘆 - i'm there now
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i’ll take “what is moral obligation” for 500, alex
- award-winning game designer
- countercolonial cultural arsonist
- lapsed poet
- a little bit rowdy
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this is such an interesting time to be alive. we concreted the internet as our second equal and primary reality but it's full of ghosts now
we try to talk to them and they pass right through
it's a haunted world of dead things who look real but don't really see us
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as an anthropologist, one of my specialisations is authoritarianism & revolutionist practice in response to it
one of my research foci for is the social processes of a society's descent into authoritarianism
a historian once told me:
it happens slowly, then all at once.
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this is a really interesting post+thread that perfectly reflects my lifelong experiences being a woman in gaming spaces
many women chiming in in the comments
/r/GirlGamers is a really interesting and thoughtful subreddit, I really like it
(thread link below)
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CEOs were paid, on average, about 21 times as much as a typical worker in 1965
today, they’re compensated over 344 times as much - over 1000% more than they used to be
they take over 1000% more than was formerly normal and acceptable to the average worker
sit with that
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i'm vaguely perturbed by it but more interested than bothered
the death of individualised sites had already nailed the coffin shut on the Dream of the internet, so i observe this as merely an advanced stage of rot
i believe we'll make a new, better place. these are death throes
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holy hell this website has 3D rotatable renders of a ton of old PC game "big boxes"
so fkn cool
bigboxdb.com/
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i investigated questions like, how did it happen?
what was said, what was rationalised, what was tolerated?
how do people accept & normalise the killing of their neighbors they'd known for years?
hitler's rise matched trump's. hitler was once a political laughingstock too
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fascists accumulate bits of power at a time. they're cult leaders with wider political ideations
they create in groups + out groups. they grow loyalty by frenzying their followers into binaries of "i'm in the special group" & "those who are not are enemies to be destroyed"
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i was vaguetweeting weeks ago about a huge media org that fucked us over bad
gave me exclusive content requests + deadlines, set up meetings then ghosted me & cost us 1000s of dollars
i was going to keep quiet but you know what
@PCGamer don't treat women like shit challenge
Celebrate 30 years of PC Gamer magazine with us in our latest magazine issue. Look back on three glorious decades of being your trusted source for all things PC gaming.
✨ OUT TODAY ✨
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slowly, these core followers - brainwashed, rabid, desperate to prove loyalty & belonging - taint their own social groups
they normalise certain rhetoric. they defend it. parrot "rational" explanations fed to them. they convince others to join the cause, or at least numb to it
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there's one thing that has toppled EVERY authoritarian regime arisen:
networks.
make networks. cultivate resources. link up with other networks
what's your specialty? what can you do for others? rally people to help
the more rebel networks, the more power retained. use it
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im not saying thisll go away. our psychic dimension is haunted now. we've fragmented bits of ourselves, our humanity, into the digital ether. the shards echo
but the internet has always been a fundamentally supernatural place. we simply opened a new gate. we'll learn to live new
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when i say rebel networks, i actually mean things like this:
groups of people who:
- cook
- grow food
- travel widely&can move stuff
- make clothes
- have access to wide social groups
nazis were toppled partly by groups like mothers who organised+mobilised their networks. yes.
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i say again: people's realities are socially constructed.
if you are told over & over that something is right, or normal, eventually, for most people, it will start to seem that way
you begin to forget society used to be really different, or at least how it was. the edges blur.
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i can't tell you how many times me being my friendly&playful self has resulted in a sense of entitlement
people catching feelings is not a big deal, it happens
it's the anger & lashing out that follows, the diminishing of worth when sex is off the table, that is a huge problem
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family+friends get swept up in in-group out-group mentality
meanwhile, their leaders are growing more radicals amongst the population, to do the same thing their loyalists are already doing but at greater speed+efficiency
it's like sowing seeds in increasingly fertile ground
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normal gets inverted. "right and wrong" lose meaning. pushing back means a fight you start losing the mental stamina to have. & eventually, pushing back becomes unsafe
when loyalists hit critical mass & dissent is socially punished you no longer feel safe to speak up in public
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the wider this influence grows across society & people's social groups, the more dissent is suppressed
our realities are socially constructed:
when everyone else around you starts saying this thing is right, or "okay", or "can't be helped", it becomes difficult to push back
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counter-propaganda & safespaces of dissent are vital to surviving authoritarianism with your mind intact. challenge while you still can
if you cant:
- write that graffiti on the wall for people to see as they pass
- make plain statements in favor of decency instead of refutation
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recommended reading:
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE by Milton Mayer. interviews with regular people who became Nazis and how it happened for them.
inoculate yourself against slipping. learn the thought patterns. the justifications. eye-opening.
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anyone in this bar could be a loyalist. at this party. at school
when loyalists grow so much their fascist leader is able to gain political power, beware. their power is grown on the bed of being rewarded for in-group out-group mentality, rewarding the loyal, punishing the not
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"i am not alone"
keep the fire of "i am not alone" alive in the midst of a political environment that seeks to tell you that if you dissent, you will be alone. or worse
stand together. it's simple, it's banal, but it's the core of it
& if you can't stand together, sit together
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after a while, in Nazi Germany, you couldnt speak against because you might get punished. not just by the government but by your job, family, friend group. you can lose things you need or care about
when you stop practicing dissent - countering narratives - you become vulnerable
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if the threat of dissent is that our ability to meet our needs can be taken away, we need networks who can provide for those needs instead
food, shelter, clothing. humans don't need much in the end. if you can meet each other's needs you can protect each other & protect dissent
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as someone who's been approached about selling IP rights to Hollywood for my currently unreleased game:
DO. NOT. GIVE. UP. IP. RIGHTS. in your publishing contracts
you SELL THEM. a new phenomenon i've experienced is publishers directly stating they want IP included. NO.
Just seen a publishing deal which contains the following:
a) Publisher acquires the IP
b) Publisher has a termination for convenience right
c) If Dev wants to rebuy the IP after terminated for convenience, they have to repay a multiple of the dev funding received
🤒🤒
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propaganda & repeated narratives are so important because they change the way we think whether we agree or not
mere exposure to them angles our brain differently, forces us to relate to the world differently than we did before. "normal" gets skewed in favour of conditioned ideas
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when the authoritarian wields masses, powerholders come to them, tit-for-tat: i'll fund you you in exchange for this. have my people recruit for you if you do that
people with power stay close, looking to embolden themselves. they exchange resources for favors, now or future
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currently living two lives:
one paralysed in abject horror at the atrocities going on
one functioning somewhat as normal as i keep needing to work, parent, maintain my mental health to keep doing those things
but the horror. our language doesn’t have words. this is void.
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the wealthy+amoral band with the authoritarian, seeking more power, influence & preserving safety
this empowers the authoritarian. with the masses, the wealthy & powerful, the power of governance & the control of social narrative in their hands, their ideas become regime
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THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM by Hannah Arendt
a staggering breakdown of totalitarianism, authoritarianism, fascism & their social processes
if you wanna understand what's going on right now, & look at the roadmap - well, Arendt was a Jewish philosopher who lived through it
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i'm not going into mass jailing/murder right now. obv those are things to grapple with in later stage authoritarian regimes. but for now, keep the above in your pocket
each time you stand up against authoritarianism & indecency is a time you throw a lifeline to those around you.
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we’ve gotta allow space for people to fuck up. to say the wrong thing. or a mean thing, a rude thing, a wrong thing. we’ve gotta make room for people to have takes we disagree with
we are human. we fuck up. we grow. we grow because we are fuckup creatures
allow space. it’s love
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seeing women as objects of sexual potentiality & objects of conquest by default is a failing of our society
again, aint nothing wrong with burgeoning romance - i met my husband playing games - but retaliation against rejection being tolerated&normalised is fucked
& happens alot
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real talk:
some of the literal worst game devs i've ever met are employed as at specialist universities teaching games
they have no business doing that and institutions have no business charging students upwards of $40k per year for the instruction
please be careful out there
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THE ALTRUISTIC PERSONALITY by Samuel P Oliner & Pearl M Oliner
deep look into the ways in which people organised & assisted those persecuted by Nazis, uncovering the thought processes, belief systems and strategies of those who risked their lives+families to save others
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david helgason, @unity founder and member of the board:
"We, a platform service provider, failed to account to account for corner cases that would literally BANKRUPT OUR CLIENTS."
i've literally never seen something so wildly incompetent and unprofessional on such a grand scale
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if you're interested in interactive explorations of the internet as a supernatural and horror space, i'm making a whole ass game where you can do just that - @darkwebSTREAMER
check it out 🙏
store.steampowered.com/app/2…
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"bros before hoes" is a really gross phrase in context of this (and is a common quote in gaming circles)
feeling like it's okay to eject someone who rejected your sexual advances from a friendship circle -- and okay to ask others to eject them -- is egomaniacal
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oh my god. I’m heartbroken.
losing The Internet Archive is a loss for all humanity.
corporate greed and territorialism is a trait darker and more disconnecting than almost any other
BREAKING: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the long-running, closely watched copyright case over the scanning and lending of print library books. Full story to follow.
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people don't owe you shit. it's not a "betrayal" for someone to reject your advances. they didn't owe you anything. they didn't break rules.
acting like it's a betrayal for others to continue to engage with them is sexually entitled behaviour and it SUCKS
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while im here, it also sucks when someone's partner takes issue with you existing in a friendship circle by virtue of your gender
& happens a lot in gaming communities
"my partner isn't comfortable with us being friends" is pretty red-flaggy, despite how common it is in society
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daily reminder that piracy opens access to life-changing media for those who wouldnt otherwise have the means to access it
piracy is anti-capitalist & primarily an egalitarian mode of distribution, no matter how much creators & industrialists hand-wring about it
defend piracy🏴☠️
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this tracks
really good players tended to be secure & comfortable and chill
the most reeeee boys/men tended to be low-middle of the pack, or hypercompetitive wannabe pros who couldn't crack the top
"e-girls" came out of "girls being friends with boys who weren't misogynists"
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this is a really excellent and compassionate analysis of how men in particular can come to problematic interactions and dynamics with women who enter into their circles
gaming together can be particularly intimate & those rare connections can be established more easily+quickly
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went to a business awards ceremony last year. a solid 1/3rd we’re there as founders of AI startups
after speaking to a bunch of them it was abundantly clear not a single one had a fuck of an idea what they were talking about re: AI
literal scam artists, it was wild
This Australian data scientist has some thoughts about AI and the current state of his industry
ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-wi…
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steam generated 6.6 BILLION DOLLARS in gross revenue in 2021
they can spend 5 billion dollars & have a billy & a half left over for the year
they still take 30% of sales from tiny devs barely making rent
keep defending them though as benevolent pillars of the games community
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1/ i just wanna quietly say that i spent a year designing generative text systems specifically to make organic NPC dialogue
i also refused a massive amount of investors+VC who tried to buy/invest in the tech
partly because i was afraid of what companies might do with it
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me, the perpetually confused bi girl, being like, "well you may as well lock up all the humans then cuz apparently NO ONE IS SAFE"
your gender should not have a default element of threat level & if you or your partner perceive gender as threat you've got some issues to work on
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i'm a bit tired of talking about my experiences being a woman in games lately because, people, i do way fucking cooler things. WAY cooler.
but let me share a message sent to my game's email (listed on our biz card) from the show last weekend
/1
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fastest way to innovate is to pull combat out of your game design and figure out how you make it fun now
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nah most gamers are lovely normal human beings who we work very hard for
there is a small but very loud online subset of gamers who have main character syndrome who have convinced themselves that They Are The Many and devs are tired
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i LOVED this about the show. the male lead in a combat role isn't some big tough guy, he's just trying to get through - but he's not a "wimp stereotype" either
something i noticed in particular was his voice - frequently high-pitched and/or soft. it was so unusual to my ear.
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i'll note that there are definitely women who enter groups with the knowledge of this "power" & who wield it intentionally & without regard for fallout
gaming communities can be so toxic BECAUSE they can be intimate spaces for hurting people seeking connection and validation
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i think the reason we see so comparatively little innovation in video games these days are that many devs think, "what does a video game look like?" and try to make that
instead of thinking, "what could a video game be?" the way the pioneers did back in the day
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a lot of people in these comments claiming a studio/game aint indie if it gets publisher money
i don’t think people understand HOW HARD A DOGFIGHT it is to be a tiny unresourced team & convince a company to part with 100s of thousands of dollars
getting funding is PART of dev
The term ‘indie game’ has become completely meaningless.
I see people claiming games are indie because they have pixel graphics - but they are games published by multi billion dollar legacy studios.
It used to be a badge of honour, now it’s a marketing byline.
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I would argue sharing is not for Twitter clout but to raise awareness of what the lived experience of domestic abuse is like for some women. The more we share openly the more society is forced to comprehend the scope and reality of the problem.
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this ego fragility is fed by our societal narratives & normalised by the regularity of such behaviours & our willingness to defend them
"i was so nice to her"
"bros before hoes"
"she only plays for attention"
"she's just there for your man"
when we participate, we propagate
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all of these issues are fundamentally ego-driven.
fear of rejection. need for validation. protection against failure. insulation from competition. etc.
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why do i often talk about the problem with games degrees?
why'd i recently pull out of talking on a panel when i found out it was hosted by a university pushing their games courses?
because i DO NOT BELIEVE in going $40k+ into debt to work in a field that DOES NOT REQUIRE THEM
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my god i hope so
also, "dispensed with a prepared text on the grounds that it was boring"
i am using this as a form email response whenever someone sends me bureaucracy now
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and if there was any doubt:
the best halo player in the world got to marry me, point proven 😎🫡 @DanRyanOGRE1
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these orgs have so much power over us
when they toss us around, cost us money, make commitments they don't keep, lift us up just to break our hearts
we usually don't say anything because we don't want to feel their wrath in future
it's an abusive relationship & i'm tired of it
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how do fellow devs survive their game music not driving them ABSOLUTELY INSANE when hearing it for the 1001st time when playtesting?
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oh no not the office building value
Remote work risks wiping $800 billion from the value of office buildings in major cities worldwide by 2030 as the post-pandemic trend pushes up office vacancy rates and drives down rents, according to a new report cnn.it/3XSbhov
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def forgot to post the thread link:
teddit.net/r/GirlGamers/comm…
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ive heard dozens of similar experiences from indies
& we dont say anything because we dont wanna be "the problem child"
we don't want other orgs to be afraid to touch us because we spoke up about being mistreated
this is our livelihoods, we work years, we rely on their support
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i am not going to protect whoever is running this shit.
i mean, if you miss ROBERTA WILLIAMS in a historical roundup of influence you are not qualified to be calling shit in this industry
sorry, that's the facts
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remember the brief moment in time not long ago where industry was desperate for employees & bargaining conditions were insanely good for workers?
remember how FAST they clapped back, how quickly mass layoffs were organised across the most powerful companies?
not an accident 🙃
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Keeping mortifying stories "behind closed doors" has been so much the problem in our society for so long. It protects the victimizers more than the victims in most cases (with glaring exceptions, of course).
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so yeah, i was gonna be quiet and eat shit
but then i saw this org talk about being the trusted voice
and going over thirty fucking years of game history
AND NOT ONE WOMAN LISTED IN INFLUENTIAL VOICES???
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i’ve soent over a decade closely studying human cultures across geography and time
this girl is right, we were NOT meant to live this way
this is not freedom or abundance or security
this is insanity and destitution and constant threat
9-5 is spiritual murder
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(cw) this is a huge fucking issue. huge
online moderation services across the internet, both in games & social media/community spaces, normalise and permit the absolutely vile abuse of women on bigoted grounds
it's not normal or "banter" to make rape or death threats. do better
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