A perfect storm (In a teacup). Why we should care about the so-called Quinnspiracy - By Melissa Devlin

     What an utter mess. Is Zoe Quinn a maligned angel or the root of dirty games to get ahead? What do we know? What is conjecture? What does it mean?

     First the low down for those who have never heard her name before. Zoe Quinn is an indie game developer who has been under fire lately and managed to find herself stuck in the middle of an argument about misogyny, transparency in journalism, media favoritism, victimization, hypocrisy, questions of conflict of interest, opinion wars, and social justice gone awry. For all this you would think she had done something spectacular. The truth is a little more convoluted, what little of it we actually know.


     I picked up this story when an indie developer friend of mine got burnt out on twitter discussing complaints of corruption in games journalism, he sent me to this link. Then this one. And this. And this. Don’t worry if you don’t feel like looking, I’m going to sum up and then break it down right here.

     The basics:

     Zoe Quinn created a game called depression quest. It didn’t get much attention at first and almost didn’t make it on steam. But then she alleged harassment from wizardchan - a message board dedicated to adult male virgins. The story was picked up, attention was drawn, more people checked out her game and it became popular.

     Had people from Wizardchan harassed her? According to most wizardchan users, no. One or two guys posted something negative about her but not directly to her. She said she had some pretty nasty calls by someone claiming to be from the board, a lot of wizardchan users think it was a troll from another board trying to cause a flame war.

     So the allegations flew. Zoe is a liar just using the female getting harassed card to get ahead. There is no proof. No screenshots, nothing traceable. I’ve had some pretty scary harassment handed down in person and I have to admit, it does sound a little minor. Scratch one mark in the Zoe is a devil category? Not yet. Let me lay down an alternative.

     Zoe, being a public figure, got some negative attention she accused Wizardchan for, but it might not have been them. That got her name out. People who weren’t paying attention to her game before looked into it for the first time. Those people actually LIKED her game and did not just support it in order to punish male virgins. It’s a numbers thing, more press, more people talking, bigger reach. Did she pull the victim card? We can’t know. But we might have an idea by the end of this post.

     Fast forward to recent events:

     Zoe Quinn used a claim of copyright infringement to take down the youtube video by an ex spelling out his complaints about their relationship. That’s mark one in the "probably shouldn’t have done that" category as it got picked up as a sign that she was trying to suppress the story. And suppression is a theme that comes up a lot. Was she doing that? Or did she not like an ex talking shit about her and just used a nit-picky point? We can’t know. It just wasn’t a smooth move.


     But, and this is going to be important later, she’s not a politician. So damage control isn’t in her training.

     What did the ex (Eron) have to say? Well in a long litany of complaints she cheated on him with five different guys. Two he keeps anonymous, three he names, one of which is her married boss, another of which is a Kotaku writer.

     Okay. I can hear you say, “Sucks to be him, but so what?”

     Not much really. Not that we know. The good press on depression quest happened before the sexy stuff (by a month) But what the imagination has wrought since has gotten a little unreal. So lets backtrack.

     Zoe was approached by a contest trying to promote women in gaming. The proceeds from the game are to go to charity, the creator gets an 8% royalty. (If only writers earned so much). Creator being a loose term as the person just have to develop the idea, the actual nitty gritty code and much of the interactive design would be done for them. Zoe wasn’t cool with it. But instead of just a “I want to get paid for my work but thanks for thinking of me” she called the whole thing oppressive. And according to the contest organizers (Fine Young Capitalists) she used trash talking the concept as a way to promote her own game jam. AND got them doxxed.

     (Doxxing is posting private contact information so other people will harass the shit out of them.)

     Wow ultra not cool. So Fine Young Capitalists tried to go to the media. And received crickets, no one would pick up the story. Why?

     Well the accusation is because Zoe slept with a writer and is good friends with a Reddit admin who suppressed the story and oh yeah lots of game journalists support Zoe through patreon. Oh my god conflict of interest. Well not really.

     First of all, the sex would have to be the most amazing addictive thing ever to be the reason no one picked up the story. And support through Patreon does not equate an investment where you gain anything much out of the success of your chosen creators. Zoe doing well is a warm fuzzy not a stock dividend. This is all a really big, red herring.

     But a story was squashed. There were shitty tactics used. It’s just not about five guys. While youtube vloggers were comparing Zoe to rapists (I’m serious), and complaining about integrity in games journalism, 4chan got in on the action. Oh yeah, shit just got real.

     First, their political group is a lot more cool than I expected. They rose to the rescue of Fine Young Capitalists, backed the indigogo and created a character for the game. Vivian James is a normal girl with a grumpy demeanor and iconic look. They got so much backing they got to pick the charity the contest would go to and chose (in 4chan humour style) chemo buthurt for prostate cancer. Wow, social justice is making headway.

     Then Fine Young Capitalists got shit for accepting money from 4chan. Because you know, feminism is a clique and you can’t accept a sign of progress like fucking 4chan doing something good. But that’s not all 4chan did. The users started digging around found that yeah, there really were some conflicts of interest with other indie game developers and reporters who were close friends or partners giving them favorable press.

     Hey, this is a real thing.

     But that tiny nugget of truth has been buried under the weight of the so called Quinspiracy. I seriously sat through the following argument:. Zoe said cheating on a partner and then sleeping with that partner is like having non consensual sex. She did that, hey she’s a rapist. People talked about the rape accusations of the maker of Cards Against Humanity. Why won’t they go into the private life of Zoe Quinn?

     Guys, Zoe Quinn is a hypocrite, not a rapist. Just because she made an extreme statement about affairs doesn’t actually mean anyone else has to pay attention to that bullshit or hold her up to those standards. Rape is a serious allegation. Consent is clearly defined. What she said was stupid. What she did was pretty awful. But not actually a fucking crime.

     And this is the garbage the “transparency in journalism” argument has gotten buried under. There is an actual touch of a real story and it is getting lost in the interesting but not really relevant sex life of one women who seems to be neither an angel, nor a devil, but human capable of doing good things and bad things.

     Back to politics. The argument has been brought up a few times that “Can you imagine if this was a politician who did this?” (Actually yes) But then I watched a video about Phil Fish. And then it all made sense. The point of the video was that internet fame makes celebrities out of ordinary people who may or may not really be ready for the public eye. Most of them don't have agents. They don’t have spin doctors. And apart from the occasional crowd funding project, they don’t have backing. Zoe Quinn became famous, and what people want from famous people is perfection. Sorry reality doesn’t work that way.

     There is a proposed protest at PAX this weekend about corruption in games journalism. It’s been hijacked by people who are mad about Zoe’s sex life. It’s been grabbed by actual misogynists who think that its a bad thing that reporters reflect on women in games. The true idea is getting buried like tea party extremists burning the republican party to the ground. (Says the liberal). Its really hard to tell if there is a legitimate argument going on because everything I read is tangent city.

     Zoe Quinn is easy to vilify and equally easy to defend. Lines are being drawn in the sand over her, “hey we just want reporters to recuse themselves if they know the person” is getting tagged as terrorism (I shit you not) just as much as “Hey Anita Sarkeesian here are some seriously creepy threats.” Baby, bathwater, out it goes. There is a war growing. And the loser is reason and logic.

     So back to my supposition. Do I think Zoe was harassed by someone, maybe not from wizardchan, but someone? Do I think she has the political acumen to play victim just to get ahead? Do I think she would be that shitty? Personal opinion. She’s made some seriously bad PR moves. I don’t think she’s that savvy. I’m willing to accept she got some creepy stuff, went public and it snowballed.

     But she’s just a woman. Let me rephrase that. She’s just a person. Not perfect, not glorious, she’s done some things that were liked, and some things that weren't. You know, pretty average.

     Why was the Fine Young Capitalists story suppressed? Favoritism? The narrative? I don’t know. But it wasn't smart. All it did was breed conspiracy theory. Should Zoe have claimed their campaign was oppressive? Probably not. Should others have just fallen in line with her, as is claimed? Yeah not really. Is everything Zoe has ever done a lie because she did some questionable things? NO. Is she above reproach because she’s a woman? NO. Does she really deserve to be in the middle of all this? NO. Is this really about her? Can you guess?

     What is this about then? Good question.

     Like all famous people she has become an icon, a representative whether she really asked for it or even deserves it. She is being built as a strawman by the “video game fans are just misogynist jerks” team just as much as the “fuck video game journalism for everything I disagree with” group. Anyone with an opinion in the middle is left out in the cold.

     Why should we care? Because my friends, this is what progress looks like. We’ve gotten to a point where there is a messy convoluted backlash that mixes true problems with crazy conjecture. On the surface it’s a bit silly. But my history loving partner pointed out that so was the shooting of Franz Ferdinand and look how that turned out. This mess, this chaos, this argument. It needs to be had. I just feel sorry for Zoe with her private life on display as part of the arena. Don’t get me wrong. I think cheating is wrong. And she seems pretty careless with words. But at the end of the day she’s just someone caught up in something so much bigger than her. This isn't about her. This is about us.

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What Was Wrong With The Lesbian Kiss on Doctor Who

By Alexis George

[Like it even needs to be said, but Spoilers!]

Don’t get me wrong. I like kissing. I like kissing a lot. I’d happily watch a television show called “Katana Wielding Lizard People Make Out With Victorian Ladies for 40 Minutes In Space” weekly, if they made such a thing. My problem isn’t with the kiss, or the gender of the two characters doing the kissing. But as a bisexual female Doctor Who fan (grab your flaming pitchforks now, folks) I have a problem. Let's start at the heart of it, with Steven Moffat's questionable portrayal of women.

There’s something borderline insidious about the representation of the ladies in Moffat’s Who universe. It began back with River Song’s arrival as a gun-toting femme fatale in season four under Russell T. Davies' watchful eye, and came to fruition as everything independent, likeable, and ultimately defining about Dr. Song was gradually stripped away and replaced with an almost creepy dependency on the show’s main protagonist. All of this followed Moffat's takeover as lead writer of the show. A woman whose existence is reliant on The Doctor’s destruction (and her borderline abusive relationship with him) is certainly one way to fail the Bechdel test.

We Need to Talk About Narrative

Unless you've been completely out of touch with our national media for the past few weeks, you know all about the situation in Ferguson. A young man was brutally murdered by an out of control racist police force, leading to weeks of peaceful protests that were responded to by nothing but overreaction. Strangely, at the same time, in the same town, a dangerous thug got into a fistfight with a heroic police officer, resulting in him losing his life - this led to weeks of riots, and a justified police force barely holding on to control.

If you're anything like me, both of these stories have been blowing up your social media and your conversations with your friends. And while I would say the evidence I've seen points more towards the former than the latter, the mounting posts that have filled my wall have pointed towards something I've been studying for years: How narratives are built for us every day, and how much we blindly follow them.

So what are we talking about when we say narrative? A narrative is another way of saying story. In this concept, it's taking a series of facts or rumors and using them to support your personal idea of what happened. Imagine this: A plane carrying a crate of puppies lands in a Houston airport. KLTPC might run a story focusing on how the puppies were to be used to help the blind. Meanwhile, Badger News runs a story about how they've uncovered that one of the dogs has worms, and that they're actually a secret plot by the President to infect all of our dogs with a fatal disease.

Now, this is a ridiculous example for humor's sake, but notice what I did there: In the sympathetic story, they're puppies. In the antagonistic story, they're dogs. Just a simple word change can affect the entire tenor of the story. The American (and international) News Media does this every day. And I'm not just talking about the largest players - the independent blogs you follow all do this, too. Writers, producers, and entire teams of folks all change their message in specific ways to make you feel and act the way they want.

Now why do they do this? Is there some specific agenda in manipulating our emotions? Yes and no. In certain cases, it's as simple as ratings - the opposing network has lapped up all the ratings by taking a political viewpoint, so a network will take the opposite to gain their own groundswell of support. Sometimes it's worse - a lot of stories get told to serve the agenda of a special interest or politician.

Back even as recently as ten years ago, when the dichotomy in our political system really started ramping up, this was almost impossible to avoid. Everyone watched TV news, and everyone absorbed the narrative they were told as truth. Show them a piece of evidence that conflicts their personal truth, and they'd dismiss it as fake. You meet these people still, every day. You know it, because when you talk to them, you can hear the voice of a news anchor coming out of their mouth.

In the last two or three years, however, things have begun to change. The advent of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Youtube has opened up a platform for new ideas - ideas that have a narrative of their own. Suddenly, instead of one or two single narratives being force-fed to you by talking heads, there are thousands brought to you every day.

That can be overwhelming. It's tempting to stay with the narratives you know, that you're familiar with. They seem safe. But with the new world available to you, you have an opportunity to see what life is like on the other side of the fence. By absorbing all of the narratives, and looking at every single one critically whether you believe in it or not, you can begin to forge an opinion of your own. You have no idea how rare that is in modern culture.

Reject the narratives you've been fed every day. Embrace ideas that make you uncomfortable, and study them with an open mind. You might reject them anyway, but in doing so you'll find yourself better informed and more unique than you've ever been before.

Mike Fatum is the Editor in Chief and Podcast Co-host of the Ace of Geeks. He's been preaching this shit for years, hoping someone will finally listen. I guess that's his narrative.

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Cosplay Shennanigans: Creating Brother Warth, Forgetting Arnim Zola, and Red Tornado to the Rescue! By John Garcia

I’ve been cosplaying for a couple of years, and it has gotten to the point that making and focusing on 1-2 new costumes per year had racked up quite a number of costumes. I used to plan it so that Anime Expo was the focal point of my “Cosplay Year,” but since the mid 2000s, I started going to San Diego Comic Con, and it has become the focal point instead.  Anime Expo became a “Trial Run” for whatever big project of a costume I’m working on.  

It's gonna be one of those years I never forget... Get it?  Because I'm am elephant, and apparently have to explain my really obvious jokes :-) (This is why we pay him peanuts. -Ed)

The 2014 “Cosplay Year” to me is not that different.  Usually, it consists of 1-2 new costumes, 1-2 comfortable costumes for shopping days, and whatever days are left filled by older/ previous years’ costumes.

Constantine, Flash, & Gotham...OH MY! By Brian J. Patterson

Comic Con Special by TV Guide Editors - Featuring Constantine

I have been attending San Diego Comic Con for approximately 15 years...I just needed to make that known right away, thank you. When I first started going to ‘the Con’ as we would call it, the convention center was barely 1/2 in use for this event. SDCC (San Diego Comic Con) did indeed grow as the years went on. How could it not with the comics and sci fi community as its supporters? We are known to be one of the most loyal fan bases ever. SuperHeroes are our idols and we run to worship at their alters. We tithe as much as we can to their causes, and are known to have: spent our last dollars, wait in lines overnight, and travel great distances to support their cause….on MULTIPLE occasions! It is not surprising that the Hollywood community would want to come and exploit..er, I meant to say take full advantage of that type of loyal fan base, by making films geared toward this audience. Frankly, it’s a win win situation. Because when you think about it:

Space Plankton

Space: the final frontier. Where, if you don’t have a pressurized field around you, you either die immediately, or very slowly (depending on which story you’re engaged in). A ridiculous amount of money is needed to build and maintain any life support system needed to survive in such an environment. All of this has been knocked askew now that a galaxy-shattering bit of news has arrived on Earth:

Life can exist in the vacuum of space.

Astronauts aboard the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) took samples from the outside hull of the station, and found marine plankton. Not only was it there, it was thriving, and it has probably been there for years. What one article highlights is that it has been proven that microorganisms can, indeed, survive in space, but what makes this so very peculiar is that it is marine plankton. The plankton in question is not native to the landlocked region the launching area for the Russian segment hails from, but there are several theories as to how it boarded the ISS.

One theory speculates that the plankton hitchhiked on supply ships from areas of the world where the launching stations are closer to water. Another suggestion (by one of the Russian ISS representatives) is that they were carried by air currents the 260 miles between the surface of the planet and the hull of the station. NASA has yet to make an official statement regarding the topic, and one article hints that this may not be news to NASA. Many articles speculate, but all are concrete in affirming that the plankton is from our planet.

This is shattering minds of SciFi nerds across the planet. Shows (like Star Trek and Doctor Who) have had entire plot lines surrounding a species of animal that lives in the vacuum of outer space. In the past, stories like these were less believable because science classes taught us that nothing organic can thrive in the vacuum of space. Those very same plot lines give a new sense of awe because it is possible for such beings to exist. Revisit those episodes, keeping in mind that it is entirely probable that species can evolve to survive in outer space.

Amongst all of this, there are many things that can be done with this knowledge. Although proof that life can exist in the vacuum of space is not new, this is the first we've seen of life reliant on water surviving out there. This still brings about many scientific queries. We can test the reactions of the plankton on the hull of the ISS to different circumstances. It clearly can withstand the cosmic radiation of our galaxy—what about the different kinds of radiation that other parts of our universe can output? How does it react to cooler/warmer temperatures in the vacuum of space? Will the marine plankton respond to high concentrations of ice? The opportunities and possibilities seem nearly endless, and we haven’t even scratched the surface.

Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2728979/Never-mind-alien-life-SEA-PLANKTON-space-Creatures-living-surface-ISS-officials-say.html
http://www.iflscience.com/space/marine-plankton-found-surface-international-space-station
http://www.cnet.com/news/sea-plankton-found-on-the-outer-surface-of-the-iss/


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Kari and Tory returning to TV sooner than you think!

Here's a bit of good news for your Friday afternoon - in response to the depressing news that Kari, Tory and Grant would be leaving Mythbusters, a very reliable source contacted us this morning. They let us know that at least two of our favorite Mythbusters wouldn't be off the air that long - you'll see them hosting a new show on the Travel Channel later this year. While details were understandably scarce, our source told us they'll be taking us to familiar destinations, but showing us new sides of them we've never seen before.

Good to hear that Tory and Kari, at least, will be back on our screens soon. Here's hoping Grant can get a reboot of Battle Bots off the ground or something.