For years I was a proud libertarian, equally disgusted with right and left, quick to disparage the extremes of both sides, but also finding some common ground with folks from both sides of the spectrum as well.
Trumps administration, and the abject arrogance of his followers pushed me further left to the point that I am likely more akin to a liberal viewpoint than a conservative one (though a number of right leaning issues still resonate with me).
I mention this to help illustrate that as I began to become more left, I found that there was an expectation that simply leaning left wasn't enough for many of those ideals. For many you cannot simply stand up for sexual and racial rights. There is no room for moderation of any sort, and to claim you believe in just one tenant of the right, devalues you to them no matter your claims to beliefs on the left. You are only as good to some of these people as the strength of your commitment to their personal causes, and frankly, that's f'd up, and does much to fuel contempt for the very cause they are espousing.
More to the point of your article, You used the term social media activist and that is dead on accurate. Many of the people pushing cancel culture do it from a place of cultural moral superiority. They find the tiniest evidence that someone does not (or at some point in the past did not) jive with the level of cultural acceptance they have determined is acceptable, and therefore are worthy of excoriation - not for the purposes of education, discussion, or even to reform their beliefs, but to completely punish them, ruin them and diminish any opportunity for dialogue they may ever have again.
Thanks for the really insightful comment, Jeremy. Yeah, it's a weird space right now. It doesn't take much to get hounded by people who claim to be these super progressive, tolerant types but really just seem more like bullies pretending to believe in social justice issues. I'm not sure why it's gotten this way, but I suppose the ease of social media activism and the various incentives therein make for fertile soil.
Thanks for this, Erik. This seems like an incident that could have been prevented - if the relevant publications had more opinion/political diversity. (Or maybe not - perhaps these things are just driven by social media.)
So, see you after next week's cancellation? I'm sure it will be diabolical.
Hard to say. I think at this point where we're at with social media probably is more of a factor than political diversity in the publications themselves but I suppose it's all connected.
Your comment of none of the articles seemingly having watched any videos is spot on and a point that I challenged on Twitter (where I usually avoid any argument because it's Twitter and utterly pointless). But in this case, people were saying it was good he quit and the videos were abhorrent, so I simply asked which ones? Which videos were the offenders as I'd like to evaluate them myself, could they name one vs did they just accept what they were told.
The one I asked simply deflected with a dismissive "oh I got owned" but no video. Someone else linked the "Celebration of Cultural Appropriation" which I was glad they at least picked an example.
I watched it and asked them what points were troubling. Specifically, I was curious:
Was a young black girl wearing full Scottish regalia and playing drums cultural appropriation?
Does Troy have a point that there is a difference in cultural appreciation, as he believes with the Utah College emblem being in homage to the local native American tribe, versus cultural appropriation? My specific question was whether the Utah college is respectful vs Cleveland Indians emblem being a caricature?
Wouldn't the UN's definition of criminalizing "cultural appropriation" extremely limit creatives of all cultures?
I was asking the person who presented this horrific video what they thought on these points.
Their response?
1. My definition of cultural appropriation wasn't even accurate, but they didn't expect me to argue in good faith. I noted it wasn't my definition, Troy's video takes the language direct from the UN's document. They deflected saying the UN doesn't have a say in it.
2. Everything I said was racist and gross. I pointed out I didn't say anything, I was asking them their opinion on Troy's points.
3. Shouting "debate me" doesn't make me right. I concluded wasting my time at this point noting that I was asking questions to have a conversation, not a debate.
So you're spot on and not only do the articles not examine Troy's videos, nor do I suspect the authors have viewed them with any intent to evaluate them, but the readers then take up the torches and pitchforks and set out to find the monster without doing an ounce of evaluation themselves.
Troy's latest comments are resoundingly important: Don't let others think for you. But that's exactly what people are doing.
Hey Erik. I am a fan of Troy Leavitt and have seen most of his videos. I want to thank you for this article. Just to let you know that all Troy did was criticise people for holding anti-gamer views and for attacking people being accused of sexual harassment/assault without listening to both sides. Troy has never said anything sexist, racist, homophobic or transphobic. Anyone who says that he does never watched a single video and only went off what Kotaku says, and Kotaku is known to do outrage clicks alot. And from what I've seen from other gamers that I've met and talked too, no one sees Kotaku seriously at all. After all, this is the SAME publication that went after Nintendo and Atlus over a lyric in a Persona 5 song, accusing it of being ableist and refusing to take the article down when fans called them out on it until a voice actress who worked on said game called them out for being terrible people. No one trust gaming journalists and everyday they prove exactly WHY no one outside of the truly ignorant folks trust them.
Thanks! Yeah, I watched some of his videos and found nothing untoward about any of them (even if I didn't always agree with his takes). He seems like a nice, down-to-earth guy and it's really shitty that he has to deal with this. Hopefully WB just ignores all the outrage.
Thanks, Erik. I have not watched anything from Leavitt’s channel, but I did read the Kotaku piece and it felt kind of... scary to me. Burn the witch for his opinions differ from ours.
The worst part of this attack is that the guy seems so genuinely excited about the game he’s making. And his politics aren’t anywhere in his social media posts related to it. Imagine if we started doing that in our own lives? Cathy from accounting is REALLY good at her job, but she’s a vocal Flat Earther so...
I really, really dislike a lot of major news sources, gaming or otherwise. It's refreshing finding someone that looks at everything and can think clearly about a situation. I know there are more out there but trudging through all the rocks to find a gem is frustrating. I'm glad I found you though. Hope to read many more of your articles.
this article is stupid. there is a valid position to be in where you hate Anita and Resetera, but also think running a quartering-wannabe youtube channel is cringe-worthy and unbecoming of someone in such a notable position. I doubt this HP game is even going to be good, as this guy has never worked on a good game. So I don't know why he was given the Lead Designer role despite being mediocre and an out-of-touch boomer. tldr fck off erik
This game already had problems with being associated with Rowling's war to wipe out trans people in the UK, which no sane person should support
Now it has the additional problem of being designed by the kind of loser who used to make bank off the "complaining about SJWs" Youtube cottage industry that is associated with trying to take trans people's rights away, especially in the UK where Rowling is inflicting real tangible consequences on their ability to access medical care
WB said they were distancing themselves from Rowling in the development of this game but clearly they haven't distanced themselves from her ideology, they hired the exact kind of person who has zero credentials outside of thinking the same way she does, showing that their statement of distancing was flaccid
Kain's perspective is myopic at best, focused around pleasing his built-in fanbase of reactionaries who pop a stiffy every time he name-drops Anita Sarkeesian seven years out from her name being any kind of important, and not around any actual tangible understanding of people and their problems
The tangible problems that Rowling has been creating in people's lives exists in a real way that has been robbing people of their quality of life, especially in the UK, it's not something that only some kind of manufactured strawman caricature of the left and their issues would care about
Kain is just as bad as the people he claims are poisoning the discourse, there are real stakes in people's lives that he just doesn't care about, he writes it off as "bullies pretending to believe in these issues", which is gobsmackingly dumb
He has zero understanding of the stakes people are living with in relation to Rowling's hate campaign because he doesn't have to live with those problems affecting his life, so why would he
Hey Kain how about you try to talk to these people and understand their perspectives and why they'd feel strongly about something like this instead of trying to minimize them to continue selling the same brand of impotent bellyaching to your readers that you've been selling since 2014 (the reason they have stakes in it is if they live in the UK Rowling is actively convincing politicians successfully to take away their access to life-saving medical care, and it could happen in the US too)
Do you actually believe this shit? Or do you just minimize everything except "nothing to see here, it's just whining bullies" because it's what your readers want to hear, in spite of the inner voice of your common sense?
This comment is remarkable. It manages to mix together so many red herrings and falsehoods at once it's honestly rather stunning. I'd be happy to engage with you in the future if you could open with something other than a steaming pile of horseshit. Better luck next time.
Everything you accused Kain of doing is everything Kotaku has been doing for the past 5-10 years. You think Kain has been "poisoning the discourse?" Why? By giving Troy the benefit of the doubt? If that's what you truly believe, then you need a long look at the mirror cause you're pretty toxic yourself.
Consider which is more "problematic": people whining on social media, or the game industry's sad nepotism, churning out bad projects with bad, unqualified leaders. I'm sure there were a dozen other people in the building who could have done this guy's job, who didn't spend their free time mining anti-sjw outrage clicks from losers on YouTube.
I fail to see how him making videos you find cringe-worthy has any bearing on his employment somewhere. Should he simply not have a job at all because you dislike his videos?
That right there proves that you've never watched a single video. You only went off on what Kotaku, the gaming press and what Sarkeesian say. Troy is nothing like Quartering and even then Quartering has his own good moments where he helps smaller YouTuber from being completely screwed from YouTube's absurd and unfair strikes by bringing attention to the issue. Troy has never clickbaited and got straight to the point. He never said anything that was sexist, racist, homophobic or transphobic and if he did, we wouldn't even be here right now. Erik has done nothing wrong and has only shared his two cents on the topic. Why can't he say what he has to say?
Thanks Danny. Yeah I disagree with him a lot also but he definitely isn't just trolling or going for clickbait or saying awful things about people. He's making arguments (some better than others) and he's not being an asshole about it.
We seem to share similar views and values.
For years I was a proud libertarian, equally disgusted with right and left, quick to disparage the extremes of both sides, but also finding some common ground with folks from both sides of the spectrum as well.
Trumps administration, and the abject arrogance of his followers pushed me further left to the point that I am likely more akin to a liberal viewpoint than a conservative one (though a number of right leaning issues still resonate with me).
I mention this to help illustrate that as I began to become more left, I found that there was an expectation that simply leaning left wasn't enough for many of those ideals. For many you cannot simply stand up for sexual and racial rights. There is no room for moderation of any sort, and to claim you believe in just one tenant of the right, devalues you to them no matter your claims to beliefs on the left. You are only as good to some of these people as the strength of your commitment to their personal causes, and frankly, that's f'd up, and does much to fuel contempt for the very cause they are espousing.
More to the point of your article, You used the term social media activist and that is dead on accurate. Many of the people pushing cancel culture do it from a place of cultural moral superiority. They find the tiniest evidence that someone does not (or at some point in the past did not) jive with the level of cultural acceptance they have determined is acceptable, and therefore are worthy of excoriation - not for the purposes of education, discussion, or even to reform their beliefs, but to completely punish them, ruin them and diminish any opportunity for dialogue they may ever have again.
And it is done so gleefully.
That's the nefarious part of all of this.
Thanks for the really insightful comment, Jeremy. Yeah, it's a weird space right now. It doesn't take much to get hounded by people who claim to be these super progressive, tolerant types but really just seem more like bullies pretending to believe in social justice issues. I'm not sure why it's gotten this way, but I suppose the ease of social media activism and the various incentives therein make for fertile soil.
Really good post, man - I’ve been following a very similar trajectory with strikingly similar observations.
Trump’s, tenets; dolt
Thanks for this, Erik. This seems like an incident that could have been prevented - if the relevant publications had more opinion/political diversity. (Or maybe not - perhaps these things are just driven by social media.)
So, see you after next week's cancellation? I'm sure it will be diabolical.
Hard to say. I think at this point where we're at with social media probably is more of a factor than political diversity in the publications themselves but I suppose it's all connected.
Yup. Great read. Dunno if there's anything I can add beyond that.
Thanks Jacob!
Your comment of none of the articles seemingly having watched any videos is spot on and a point that I challenged on Twitter (where I usually avoid any argument because it's Twitter and utterly pointless). But in this case, people were saying it was good he quit and the videos were abhorrent, so I simply asked which ones? Which videos were the offenders as I'd like to evaluate them myself, could they name one vs did they just accept what they were told.
The one I asked simply deflected with a dismissive "oh I got owned" but no video. Someone else linked the "Celebration of Cultural Appropriation" which I was glad they at least picked an example.
I watched it and asked them what points were troubling. Specifically, I was curious:
Was a young black girl wearing full Scottish regalia and playing drums cultural appropriation?
Does Troy have a point that there is a difference in cultural appreciation, as he believes with the Utah College emblem being in homage to the local native American tribe, versus cultural appropriation? My specific question was whether the Utah college is respectful vs Cleveland Indians emblem being a caricature?
Wouldn't the UN's definition of criminalizing "cultural appropriation" extremely limit creatives of all cultures?
I was asking the person who presented this horrific video what they thought on these points.
Their response?
1. My definition of cultural appropriation wasn't even accurate, but they didn't expect me to argue in good faith. I noted it wasn't my definition, Troy's video takes the language direct from the UN's document. They deflected saying the UN doesn't have a say in it.
2. Everything I said was racist and gross. I pointed out I didn't say anything, I was asking them their opinion on Troy's points.
3. Shouting "debate me" doesn't make me right. I concluded wasting my time at this point noting that I was asking questions to have a conversation, not a debate.
So you're spot on and not only do the articles not examine Troy's videos, nor do I suspect the authors have viewed them with any intent to evaluate them, but the readers then take up the torches and pitchforks and set out to find the monster without doing an ounce of evaluation themselves.
Troy's latest comments are resoundingly important: Don't let others think for you. But that's exactly what people are doing.
Hey Erik. I am a fan of Troy Leavitt and have seen most of his videos. I want to thank you for this article. Just to let you know that all Troy did was criticise people for holding anti-gamer views and for attacking people being accused of sexual harassment/assault without listening to both sides. Troy has never said anything sexist, racist, homophobic or transphobic. Anyone who says that he does never watched a single video and only went off what Kotaku says, and Kotaku is known to do outrage clicks alot. And from what I've seen from other gamers that I've met and talked too, no one sees Kotaku seriously at all. After all, this is the SAME publication that went after Nintendo and Atlus over a lyric in a Persona 5 song, accusing it of being ableist and refusing to take the article down when fans called them out on it until a voice actress who worked on said game called them out for being terrible people. No one trust gaming journalists and everyday they prove exactly WHY no one outside of the truly ignorant folks trust them.
Thanks! Yeah, I watched some of his videos and found nothing untoward about any of them (even if I didn't always agree with his takes). He seems like a nice, down-to-earth guy and it's really shitty that he has to deal with this. Hopefully WB just ignores all the outrage.
Thanks, Erik. I have not watched anything from Leavitt’s channel, but I did read the Kotaku piece and it felt kind of... scary to me. Burn the witch for his opinions differ from ours.
The worst part of this attack is that the guy seems so genuinely excited about the game he’s making. And his politics aren’t anywhere in his social media posts related to it. Imagine if we started doing that in our own lives? Cathy from accounting is REALLY good at her job, but she’s a vocal Flat Earther so...
Yeah and he's not some big celebrity either. This is a game dev with a tiny Youtube channel getting piled on. It's just...lousy.
I really, really dislike a lot of major news sources, gaming or otherwise. It's refreshing finding someone that looks at everything and can think clearly about a situation. I know there are more out there but trudging through all the rocks to find a gem is frustrating. I'm glad I found you though. Hope to read many more of your articles.
this article is stupid. there is a valid position to be in where you hate Anita and Resetera, but also think running a quartering-wannabe youtube channel is cringe-worthy and unbecoming of someone in such a notable position. I doubt this HP game is even going to be good, as this guy has never worked on a good game. So I don't know why he was given the Lead Designer role despite being mediocre and an out-of-touch boomer. tldr fck off erik
This game already had problems with being associated with Rowling's war to wipe out trans people in the UK, which no sane person should support
Now it has the additional problem of being designed by the kind of loser who used to make bank off the "complaining about SJWs" Youtube cottage industry that is associated with trying to take trans people's rights away, especially in the UK where Rowling is inflicting real tangible consequences on their ability to access medical care
WB said they were distancing themselves from Rowling in the development of this game but clearly they haven't distanced themselves from her ideology, they hired the exact kind of person who has zero credentials outside of thinking the same way she does, showing that their statement of distancing was flaccid
Kain's perspective is myopic at best, focused around pleasing his built-in fanbase of reactionaries who pop a stiffy every time he name-drops Anita Sarkeesian seven years out from her name being any kind of important, and not around any actual tangible understanding of people and their problems
The tangible problems that Rowling has been creating in people's lives exists in a real way that has been robbing people of their quality of life, especially in the UK, it's not something that only some kind of manufactured strawman caricature of the left and their issues would care about
Kain is just as bad as the people he claims are poisoning the discourse, there are real stakes in people's lives that he just doesn't care about, he writes it off as "bullies pretending to believe in these issues", which is gobsmackingly dumb
He has zero understanding of the stakes people are living with in relation to Rowling's hate campaign because he doesn't have to live with those problems affecting his life, so why would he
Hey Kain how about you try to talk to these people and understand their perspectives and why they'd feel strongly about something like this instead of trying to minimize them to continue selling the same brand of impotent bellyaching to your readers that you've been selling since 2014 (the reason they have stakes in it is if they live in the UK Rowling is actively convincing politicians successfully to take away their access to life-saving medical care, and it could happen in the US too)
Do you actually believe this shit? Or do you just minimize everything except "nothing to see here, it's just whining bullies" because it's what your readers want to hear, in spite of the inner voice of your common sense?
This comment is remarkable. It manages to mix together so many red herrings and falsehoods at once it's honestly rather stunning. I'd be happy to engage with you in the future if you could open with something other than a steaming pile of horseshit. Better luck next time.
"Rowling's war to wipe out trans people in the UK"
Rational post incoming.
Everything you accused Kain of doing is everything Kotaku has been doing for the past 5-10 years. You think Kain has been "poisoning the discourse?" Why? By giving Troy the benefit of the doubt? If that's what you truly believe, then you need a long look at the mirror cause you're pretty toxic yourself.
Consider which is more "problematic": people whining on social media, or the game industry's sad nepotism, churning out bad projects with bad, unqualified leaders. I'm sure there were a dozen other people in the building who could have done this guy's job, who didn't spend their free time mining anti-sjw outrage clicks from losers on YouTube.
I fail to see how him making videos you find cringe-worthy has any bearing on his employment somewhere. Should he simply not have a job at all because you dislike his videos?
That right there proves that you've never watched a single video. You only went off on what Kotaku, the gaming press and what Sarkeesian say. Troy is nothing like Quartering and even then Quartering has his own good moments where he helps smaller YouTuber from being completely screwed from YouTube's absurd and unfair strikes by bringing attention to the issue. Troy has never clickbaited and got straight to the point. He never said anything that was sexist, racist, homophobic or transphobic and if he did, we wouldn't even be here right now. Erik has done nothing wrong and has only shared his two cents on the topic. Why can't he say what he has to say?
Thanks Danny. Yeah I disagree with him a lot also but he definitely isn't just trolling or going for clickbait or saying awful things about people. He's making arguments (some better than others) and he's not being an asshole about it.