4 ms·

Hang on, learning from experiences? They talked about how they would've persisted with the offensive merchandise. How is greater insensitivity becoming a better

Hang on, learning from experiences? They talked about how they would've persisted with the offensive merchandise. How is greater insensitivity becoming a better person? I was happy to read his comments about trans stuff, but it seems to me that he's still a shoot first, ask questions later person. In fact what prompted the trans apology originally was more deliberately incendiary commentary. He's not a villain but I don't really see this as anything except a very slow process involving a cycle of deliberately offensive commentary followed by recrimination followed by apologies. It's just sad to see that in this case it seems he wasn't all that sorry after all. So what's next? Another "not sorry" response regarding trans folk? I would restate the first point as follows: the trolls have the same view as Mike/Gabe. And that particular view is that, what, social censure is censorship? It's not an uncommon view among the angry (predominantly white) male gamer crowd. @teamrape is just one particularly good example of a bunch of people organizing behind this principle.

wonderzombie 13y ago
I take back what I said about him not being sorry; I just had the chance to read this, and I think it's fair-ish. http://penny-arcade.com/2013/09/04/some-clarification http://penny-arcade.com/2013/09/04/some-clarification I think pulling the merchandise might not have been good for PA as such, but I think it was better for the PA brand overall and as a peace offering. It demonstrated some amount of respect and contrition, in a very tangible way.
- saraid216 13y ago
  This letter sums up the problems with this apology fairly well: http://makemeasammich.org/2013/09/05/dear-gabe-i-dont-hate-you-but-we-need-to-talk/ http://makemeasammich.org/2013/09/05/dear-gabe-i-dont-hate-y... It's hard to determine whether or not Krahulik wants to learn to be better. His apology says that the mistake was engagement, but really, the mistake was that when he found out he'd hurt people, his response was to rub it in. He doesn't seem to recognize that the problem wasn't that he produced a follow-up strip, but that the follow-up was deliberately hurtful. Maybe he's trying and he's just not there yet. Maybe he's just responding to the firestorm and doesn't really want to learn. I sure as hell can't tell the difference.
pyrocat 13y ago
Did you see the Q&A? Did you read his follow up comments? He regretted everything that happened after the intial comic. You're also confusing "they" with "Mike". Did you really see his reponse to the trans stuff as a "not sorry" response? Here are his responses, from the horses mouth http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/19/twiiter-sucks-sometimes http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/19/twiiter-sucks-sometim... http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/well-that-escalated-quickly http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/well-that-escalated-q... http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/going-one-step-further http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/going-one-step-furthe... http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/also6 http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/also6 Yeah he's made mistakes. You can take his apologies as genuine and believe he wants to get better or you can think he's just playing lip service in order to save face. Having met the guy and talked to him several times, as well as listened to him on the podcasts/PA show/strip search, I believe it's the former.
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  See my reply to my own comment regarding the first point. (Not sure what HN best practice is on this one.) Regarding the trans stuff: I did really read it, yes. For what it's worth, I've been reading Penny Arcade since 2000, and it's been in my RSS reader as long as I've used one. Did you any of what he said on Twitter? The man's sincere in his contrition, but his shoot from the hip style without thinking about what other people think plus his penchant for lashing out is insane. I don't think he's just paying lip service. I think he's probably a nice guy at heart. If you want my honest opinion, I think he's unaware of a lot of (dare I say it) privilege that he has, and reacts with hostility when called on it. So again I am willing to take his trans apologies at face value. But it's part of a pattern, and maybe after stepping in it a few times, the guy could take at least a little more care. I don't think this makes him a villain, and I suspect he'd find this criticism fair, as he has explicitly discussed this in the past. I give him credit for being self-aware. Maybe I can summarize it like this: it's strange to hear people (not necessarily you) intimate that a) he has nothing to apologize for because he's a flawed but nice guy, and b) he's apologized so stop with the criticism. We wouldn't be here in the first place if the guy maybe thought a little bit more about how he communicates. And neither of the above invalidates this as a jumping off point for a discussion about the widespread insensitivity/hostility in gamer culture when it comes to folks who aren't cis, hetero, white males.

wonderzombie 13y ago

I take back what I said about him not being sorry; I just had the chance to read this, and I think it's fair-ish. http://penny-arcade.com/2013/09/04/some-clarification http://penny-arcade.com/2013/09/04/some-clarification I think pulling the merchandise might not have been good for PA as such, but I think it was better for the PA brand overall and as a peace offering. It demonstrated some amount of respect and contrition, in a very tangible way.

saraid216 13y ago
This letter sums up the problems with this apology fairly well: http://makemeasammich.org/2013/09/05/dear-gabe-i-dont-hate-you-but-we-need-to-talk/ http://makemeasammich.org/2013/09/05/dear-gabe-i-dont-hate-y... It's hard to determine whether or not Krahulik wants to learn to be better. His apology says that the mistake was engagement, but really, the mistake was that when he found out he'd hurt people, his response was to rub it in. He doesn't seem to recognize that the problem wasn't that he produced a follow-up strip, but that the follow-up was deliberately hurtful. Maybe he's trying and he's just not there yet. Maybe he's just responding to the firestorm and doesn't really want to learn. I sure as hell can't tell the difference.

pyrocat 13y ago

Did you see the Q&A? Did you read his follow up comments? He regretted everything that happened after the intial comic. You're also confusing "they" with "Mike". Did you really see his reponse to the trans stuff as a "not sorry" response? Here are his responses, from the horses mouth http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/19/twiiter-sucks-sometimes http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/19/twiiter-sucks-sometim... http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/well-that-escalated-quickly http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/well-that-escalated-q... http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/going-one-step-further http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/going-one-step-furthe... http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/also6 http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/06/21/also6 Yeah he's made mistakes. You can take his apologies as genuine and believe he wants to get better or you can think he's just playing lip service in order to save face. Having met the guy and talked to him several times, as well as listened to him on the podcasts/PA show/strip search, I believe it's the former.

wonderzombie 13y ago
See my reply to my own comment regarding the first point. (Not sure what HN best practice is on this one.) Regarding the trans stuff: I did really read it, yes. For what it's worth, I've been reading Penny Arcade since 2000, and it's been in my RSS reader as long as I've used one. Did you any of what he said on Twitter? The man's sincere in his contrition, but his shoot from the hip style without thinking about what other people think plus his penchant for lashing out is insane. I don't think he's just paying lip service. I think he's probably a nice guy at heart. If you want my honest opinion, I think he's unaware of a lot of (dare I say it) privilege that he has, and reacts with hostility when called on it. So again I am willing to take his trans apologies at face value. But it's part of a pattern, and maybe after stepping in it a few times, the guy could take at least a little more care. I don't think this makes him a villain, and I suspect he'd find this criticism fair, as he has explicitly discussed this in the past. I give him credit for being self-aware. Maybe I can summarize it like this: it's strange to hear people (not necessarily you) intimate that a) he has nothing to apologize for because he's a flawed but nice guy, and b) he's apologized so stop with the criticism. We wouldn't be here in the first place if the guy maybe thought a little bit more about how he communicates. And neither of the above invalidates this as a jumping off point for a discussion about the widespread insensitivity/hostility in gamer culture when it comes to folks who aren't cis, hetero, white males.