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What Atari Was Really Like, According to Women Who Were There
- mdimec4 9y agoWell SJW have tendency to destort the rality. And to destroy everything thats fun.
- drharby 9y agoI am sick of the virtue signalling that happens in the gaming industry. -oh he deserves it, but it might send the wrong signal- Frig off
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- noobermin 9y agoI think it's becoming clear that the 70s and certainly the 60s were just a different time, with different standards of behavior. While much of the behavior[0] we're learning about is probably indefensible, I also don't know how I feel about telling people who don't feel bothered by what they experienced that it was wrong and they should feel it was wrong. Perhaps that isn't what people who tweeted #NoNolan meant to do, I admit though. [0] speaking in general, not just this story
- drharby 9y agoCultural relativism is lost to many, i feel
- Nav_Panel 9y agoI've heard the current trend described as "relativistic across space, absolutist across time". EDIT: found the source https://twitter.com/roundsqrcupola/status/927331324574216193 https://twitter.com/roundsqrcupola/status/927331324574216193
- drharby 9y agoI have to steal that one - rings very true, i feel
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 9y agoCultural relativism is judging Vikings for engaging in child sacrifice. But lots of things were common in the US in the 1970s that were recognized as bad at the time.
- michaelchisari 9y ago(Misread your comment)
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- Gargoyle 9y ago"Over the last week, Kotaku interviewed 12 of Atari’s earliest female employees, in the hopes of hearing their stories—good or bad—about working at Atari in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. The culture they told us about was certainly, as Playboy described it, one of “sex, drugs, and video games,” but one in which all 12 employees say they freely participated, if they participated at all. Many interviewees said it was the best job they ever had, adding that news of Bushnell’s rescinded award struck them as shocking or unfair."
- danieltillett 9y agoI wonder what the activity that seems OK now will be seen as beyond the pale in 20 to 30 years time. Tattoos are all that come to mind.
- nwatson 9y agoEating a burger /s .
- tzar 9y agoThat's a remarkable death prediction for a cultural practice that's been active for many thousands of years.
- danieltillett 9y agoYes but at times they have been considered rather marginal. I was just trying to think of something that is acceptable now that might change in that sort of time frame.
- jerf 9y agoSocial media mobbing would be one good guess. If you're berating someone online, and you have no previous relationship with them, you're more problem than solution. In fact, I'd even suggest that you need some sort of strong relationship with them, not just "I'm one of their 25,000 followers". In general I expect online social mores to be very different than they are today, because they are entirely unsustainable today. Another possibility that comes to mind is today's hard-core helicopter parenting. As more and more stuff comes out about how ultimately damaging it is it's going to be harder and harder to justify. But it will be interesting watching the school systems have to adjust back to allowing boys to rough house and take risks after so many years of inhibiting it. That's going to be a rough transition.
- seany 9y agoSeems like not everyone interviewed for this is quite happy with the angle they took on it: https://twitter.com/lonireeder/status/963260767079317505 https://twitter.com/lonireeder/status/963260767079317505 EDIT: This is the article she's talking about: https://medium.com/@Brad_Glasgow/the-metoo-fueled-character-assassination-of-nolan-bushnell-2405452b635d https://medium.com/@Brad_Glasgow/the-metoo-fueled-character-...
- Slansitartop 9y agoSome excerpts: > Talking specifically about Brianna Wu, Loni Reeder said, “based on her political aspirations, personal assumptions, and libelous accusations against a man [Nolan Bushnell] where no complaints have been raised or filed — she made a big, unfounded noise against Nolan — and the Pioneer Award honor was withdrawn.” > ... > To Summarize… > •Activists expressed prior desire to bring the #MeToo movement to the video game industry. > •No one who has worked with Nolan Bushnell has complained of any impropriety. > •Several past employees, including women, have come forward to speak in Bushnell’s defense. > •Al Alcorn directly refutes Brianna Wu’s interpretation of his story. > •All former Atari employees are telling stories that are consistent with one another. > There were drugs, there were hot tubs, there were relationships, and none of that would fly today. But none of it indicates a culture that was hostile to women. > Indeed, Loni Reeder and other former Atari employees recently worked on a spreadsheet in order to contradict the sexism claims being lobbed at Nolan Bushnell. According to their research, in those pre-Warner days of Atari, 36% of the workforce were women. It's sounds like the accusations are basically a twitter political hit-job with little grounding in fact. Social media was a mistake.
- digi_owl 9y agoI was waiting for something like this to happen ever since the whole hashtag started rolling...
- peterwwillis 9y agoAll of the people (edit: one of the people) who were interviewed admitted that there was sexist behavior at the company (Uh, a game where you grab a woman's tits? What?). But the women who worked there don't seem bothered by it. So the point of this whole situation should really be two questions. The first question would be: is sexism okay if nobody minds? The immediate, modern answer has become "No." A zero-tolerance policy is being adopted by most organizations in the world, due to mounting pressure to hold people accountable for unacceptable behavior. But it's clear that has not always been the case. If we rigidly judge all past behavior based on modern standards, we end up with cases like this. And maybe that's fine? Maybe we should judge all old actions based on modern standards, because we should continue to live by our current standards. But is this fair to the people who lived decades ago? Should we just say, they should have known better? This second question is how other controversies have developed recently, such as the tearing down of monuments depicting people who represent injustice. We are judging their former actions based on modern-day standards. And again: maybe this is fine. But I don't think our society has come to a definite conclusion. In any of these cases, a moderate person would perhaps try to find a common understanding and seek the best solution that weighs all the merits of each individual case. But society is not shaped by moderation. Emotional exuberance is how human society is guided, and the silent consent of the majority drives it forward. So expect more controversy for quite some time to come.
- workthrowaway27 9y agoI don't understand why the standards[0] of 2018 are relevant to the culture of a startup in the 1970s. [0]: And these standards aren't broadly shared. Rather there's a vocal minority who wants to classify much of what was previously common behavior as harassment.
- erispoe 9y agoIt's not because it's common that it's not harassment, there's no causal link here.
- rayiner 9y agoIt’s not fair to apply one era’s standards to people from another era, but it is fair to hold people accountable for shitty culture that was recognized as such at the time. For example, Loving v. Virginia was decided in 1968, at a time when 70% of people disapproved of interracial marriage, and half thought it should be illegal. There is nothing wrong with judging those people for failing to meet a moral standard that was recognied, even if only by an enlightened minority. Morality is not decided by popular vote. As for Atari: > Holding board meetings in hot tubs, asking a secretary to get in with them. Doling out “the best-looking secretaries” like prizes to the star employees. Code-naming the home version of Pong after a female employee whom Bushnell said in 2012 “was stacked and had the tiniest waist.” Making a 1973 game called Gotcha, with joysticks replaced by a pair of pink silicone domes, meant to look and feel like breasts. Even in the 1970s, people knew this was wrong.
- Slansitartop 9y ago> but it is fair to hold people accountable for shitty culture that was recognized as such at the time. For example, Loving v. Virginia was decided in 1968 This isn't anything like Loving v. Virginia, and that's very easy to see: The Lovings were pretty clearly unhappy with their lot in 1968, hence the lawsuit bearing their name. The people who were actually part of the Atari culture aren't complaining about it, and they're actually organizing to dispute the accusations. The only people complaining about any of this are twitter activists in 2018, and they don't have any credibility, frankly.
- bryanlarsen 9y agoPlease read the conclusion of the article. According to the author, the problem isn't the Atari culture of the 70's, it's the culture of today that celebrates perceived misogyny there instead of its inclusiveness. "If it isn’t the women of Atari who paint a bad picture of Nolan Bushnell, it’s the culture he created there that, decades later, has mushroomed into something else. It’s a culture where bragging about “stacked” secretaries as late as 2012 garnishes Atari’s mythos instead of muddying it. It’s a culture where Carol Kantor’s groundbreaking research isn’t evoked as often as a hot tub purchased to lure in new talent. It’s a culture that, today, celebrates the sexiness of Atari’s early women employees more loudly than their contributions. If it isn’t the women of Atari who paint a bad picture of Nolan Bushnell, it is his braggadocio attitude, his carnival-barker hype with a chauvinist tinge, that does."
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoNolan Bushnell was forced out of Atari in 1978. How long should he be responsible for their culture? Will we blame the White House culture's issues on Barack Obama in 2056? This seems to be pushing it. Also why does anyone care what the culture of Atari is today? Look at their website https://www.atari.com https://www.atari.com . They are NOT a force in the gaming industry. No one looks to them to set expectations of behavior. They basically only exist to port classic implementations of ancient games onto new hardware. If there core offering is nostalgia, I wouldn't be surprised if there office culture is a little behind the times. This feels like the a take down piece on the shitty culture at my local gamestop. It might not disagree that Atari culture sucks, but I don't understand why anyone should care. Disclaimer: Nolan Bushnell was briefly my neighbor. He was a super shitty neighbor and his construction workers parked on my lawn. In case he reads this... all the neighbors still don't like you 15 years later. Should I write on article about it to expose him?
- bryanlarsen 9y agoWhen I and the author are talking about the "culture of today", we're not talking about Atari any more.
- rhapsodic 9y agoI'm old enough to remember when self-described "liberals" used to say that what went on between consenting adults was no one else's business.
- gaius 9y agoRight. That's what disturbs me about this. Everyone is a product of their time. Would the people applying 2018's standards today have applied 1968's standards, if they'd happened to be born 50 years earlier? Would they have been homophobic, opposing interracial marriage, and all the rest? How will the people of 2068 judge them?
- rhapsodic 9y agoImagine if it were Christian fundamentalists going after Bushnell for the "hedonistic atmosphere of Atari's workplace and its corrupting influence on young women." The fundies would be universally mocked (rightfully so) and Bushnell would be hailed as a hero.
- allthenews 9y agoThe puritanical regression of modern "feminism" is laughably contradictory with the roots of women's sexual liberation. Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian, and the like, have weponized victimhood into lucrative careers. They embody everything wrong with the direction into which modern feminism is morphing - this article, what transpired at google recently, gamergate, all symptomatic of narcissistic, sociopathic women using perceived, and in some cases invented, oppression and harassment, in order to accumulate power and wealth. For some reason, the tech industry seems to be particularly accommodating for this toxic culture, and the spread of unnecessary guilt. These divisive politics are infesting every facet of our first world culture. We should not give these people attention. They damage the movement that they claim to champion by behaving so irrationally, so viciously, so selfishly. Dont believe me? Look up Anita's past as a literal con artist.
- rhcom2 9y agoI've seen all those criticisms applied to every feminist, maybe even every activist. This is just one long ad hominem attack on people whose views you don't like.
- allthenews 9y agoPerhaps what you are perceiving is backlash against a growing culture. These "activists" behave fairly consistently, after all. I'm not interested in making personal attacks. I'm only highlighting two of the more prominent scammers that hide behind this facade of tolerance and inclusiveness, a behavior which I find particularly abhorrent, especially when combined with life ruinous doxxing and trial by twitter, which these women specifically and hypocritically complain about. There are two sides to every story, after all. It isn't fair to simply dismiss any inconvenient argument as an ad hominem. Perhaps you should make an open minded attempt to understand why there are millions of successful, rational, adjusted people who feel as I do, but only in secret. Ask yourself, why is it taboo to critically analyze anything associated with these women or modern feminism?
- rhcom2 9y ago
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- creep 9y agoI really liked this article. As a woman who is surrounded by radical feminists and red pillers alike-- and those who are in-between-- I have a hard time parsing how exactly I feel about all of this (whatever "this" is). I don't know where the line is, if there is a line at all, and most alarmingly I don't know how sexuality fits into 2018 society. I was not alive during the 70's, I don't know what it was like to feel sexually liberated for the first time, I don't know what it was like in emerging tech culture. I don't know what it should be like. I don't know the ideal dynamics, I don't even know what people are talking about when they talk about "female empowerment". I feel empowered, I guess? I mean I definitely don't feel oppressed. I honestly go through life with the outlook that I'm responsible for the people I surround myself with and I'm responsible for creating my own opportunities, standing up for myself, the whole 9-yards. I don't think we have reached the "right" perspective in society, even though many people think we're very close. We're apparently simultaneously very close to "equality" (whatever that means) and very far away from it. But it's necessary. Analyzing an era retrospectively is really interesting for that reason. You can see the mass-consciousness that influenced everyone, you can see people getting caught up in the energy of their time. And I wonder what will be said about our time in 50 years. We still look at things with a dualistic perspective; is it right, or is it wrong? I think what I'm looking for in general is balance-- in that, there is no right or wrong, it's a dynamic definition, if it should be defined at all-- and I think the movements of different times take extremes in order to bring balance. A good deal of my thoughts about our culture at the moment is that we are right at the tip of extremism, trying to balance the opposite extremes of the ages before us. So I wonder what balance looks like. If equilibrium can be reached, does that mean stagnation? Surely a bomb will be thrown at the resting pile and we'll have to find balance within that system once again. Maybe the question I'm asking, maybe the question every body is asking, is what's my role in this? I'd rather not think about it and just live my life the way I want to live, but surrounded by so many extremes, so many ideals, I find I'm constantly being pushed to participate. And maybe that's not a bad thing. I tend to throw a little middle-ground in there. It's very complex at the moment.
- rayiner 9y agoFor those people citing anecdotal accounts of "well the employees were okay with it," it's probably worthwhile to read what someone who was a professional woman in the 1970s has to say about what things were like back then: http://wgntv.com/2018/01/22/ruth-bader-ginsburg-describes-facing-sexual-harassment http://wgntv.com/2018/01/22/ruth-bader-ginsburg-describes-fa.... > “Every woman of my vintage knows what sexual harassment is, although we didn’t have a name for it,” she told the session’s moderator, Nina Totenberg, before detailing an incident when she was a student at Cornell in the 1950s and preparing for a chemistry test. > “My instructor said … ‘I’ll give you a practice exam,'” Ginsburg said. The next day she discovered that the practice exam was, in fact, the real test. “And I knew exactly what he wanted in return,” she said. “And that’s just one of many examples.” > Ginsburg said there was nothing a young woman could do about harassment at the time. The general attitude of the day, she said, was “get past it” and “boys will be boys.”
- kstenerud 9y agoSome people just desperately want to be angry over something.