July 3, 2020 • 37 mins
A wave of #MeToo allegations has rocked the world of video gaming, wrestling and the entertainment world at large. Anney and Samantha discuss these allegations, grooming, and the impact of #MeToo.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of iHeart Radio. For today's episode,
we wanted to start with a quick trigger warning. We
(00:25):
are going to be discussing sexual assaults, abuse, rape, and
grooming because what we're talking about sort of an update
on what's going on in the world of me too
and how how much this continued conversation of sexual harassment
(00:46):
an uneven power dynamic used again control is still ongoing
and important and something we shouldn't forget about and we're
seeing it and so many different industries take place, So
we're gonna be talking about some of that today and
also a lot of this is happening very quickly, so
(01:08):
just put a time stamp on this one. We are
recording on June, and I think I was seeing updates
like right before we came in, So just just to
put that out there right as um, you and I
are doing this. I know I'm in the last minute.
I don't know. We need to talk about this and
this and this, and we're definitely not going to cover
the entirety of everything that's happening, um, because I guess
(01:31):
we could include that. We're going to talk a little bit,
not necessarily about cancel culture, but holding people accountable and
how social media is helping us to do that. Yes, yes,
um yeah. And for the last several days we've been
seeing a lot of different young women coming out and
talking about being deemed again social media by celebrities. Are
(01:52):
being contacted through social media by different celebrities, specifically comedian
Chris Dahlia and actor ends All l Gorge. Uh. The
conversation has shown a disturbing pattern of men using their
fame as a way to meet up with young fans
and eliciting sex or at least sex s e x
T S. I can't say the tea very well, um
(02:14):
for both men's abuse of power has been a point
of conversation on the bigger again disturbing picture of grooming
young women. And when I say young women, they ranged
from fourteen to eighteen. Uh. And honestly, this could be
a whole other conversation of what do we consider an
adult and who do we hold accountable for what during
one age. But according to her Twitter post, Simone Rossi
(02:38):
alleged at the age of sixteen, Chris, who by the way,
has portrayed a pedophile and sex predator in two different
TV series. Just with that out there, um exchanged emails,
eventually leading up for Dahlia to request a meet up,
which apparently did not occur for her. But since that post,
several women have come forward stating that Smilar interactions with him,
(03:01):
including requests for nude photos from underage girls. He's been
terminated from the majority of his gigs and even denounced
by female comedian Whitney Cummings, who also has a podcast
UM and She's often had him on her show as
a regular um and by the way, this has led
to many criticizing her because they're saying she was too
(03:24):
quick to judge and not willing to listen to both
sides of the story. She tweeted at one point essentially
saying thanks to all the male comedians who called last
night or texted in support, and that was in sarcasm,
I believe um. So. Another young woman alleged that Angel
l Gored deemned her when she was seventeen, actually when
(03:45):
she was sixteen UM and he was twenty at the time.
According to the allegations, he not only solicited nudes from her,
but also eventually met up with her in person. And
had a sexual encounter the day she turned seventeen, uh,
which according to her was her first sexual encounter, UM
and sexual experience, and after denying the specifics of the encounter,
(04:07):
l Gored claimed he didn't know how the young girl felt,
so he wasn't going to put into her words how
she felt, but it was a relationship and that the
breakup was upsetting and that he should have not ignored her.
Apparently when they broke up, he just ghosted her. From
what I gather, that's what he's saying, and now is
seeing the results of that, so essentially gas lighting, saying
(04:28):
that she's got hurt feelings and accused him of something
unsanely I guess um And by the way, Dahlia also
denied the incident, stating the conversations were all out of
context and denied any wrongdoing. Surprise, surprise yeah. In both
of these situations, both of the victims said that they
did receive a lot of harassment, but also received many
(04:50):
messages if not only support, but similar stories and incidents
from people who had experienced these same kind of things,
which has been a part of the Me too movement
and online community that is able to share their experiences
and just know that they aren't alone. But with the
situation again shows the continued abuse of power and fame
(05:15):
in order to solicit sex or sexual favors. And again
again it is still hotly debated and the continued sexualization
of young women seems to be a point of conflict
as to whether it is the adult or the youth faults,
which is where a lot of the problem lies. So
(05:36):
it has continued to be a point of contention as
to who is in control when it comes to the
sexualization of young women between the r Kelly cases and
debate of Drake continuing to text young women UM and
the stories of different celebrities slipping into young fans d
m s which we've seen and continue to see. So
if we look at the YouTube start Shane Dawson UM.
(05:58):
He was recently called out for not all only those
sickening videos of talking to a fourteen year old about
her body sex administruation, but also performing a sexual act
to a cut out of a young actress Willows Smith,
and he, like many others, released an apology video without
having the conversation of the underlying issue of damage to
young women that this type of action produces. We discussed
(06:23):
UM last year, which was twenty nine Forever about grooming
and what exactly grooming is, but just as a reminder,
grooming is defined here as quote a method used by
offenders that involves building trust with a child and the
adults around a child in an effort to gain access
to and time alone with him or her. Extreme cases,
(06:46):
offenders may use threats and physical force to sexually assault
or abuse a child. In the case of l. Gore,
the victim specifies that he uses a manipulative tactic of
stating if she told anyone, he would ruin his career
and possibly his life. Tactics like this or gas lighting,
have been used for years on the fearmongering and manipulation
of power or in this case, their fame, and because
(07:10):
of the gas lighting, we still see the constant victim
blaming UM as well as the fact victims blame themselves,
which causes them to remain silent and not seek justice
or even worse treatment for these really harmful encounters. And
I would add the mere grooming can be traumatic in
itself even if an encounter or a violent sexual act
doesn't happen, This causes a trauma beyond just your every
(07:34):
day Hey, how are you so grooming in itself, we've
already talked about is a classification of harm and as
a type of trauma. Yeah, And I think that's a
good point to make because I've seen so many kind
of people say, well, just let's just say the way
it is, that's just part of it, as if that's
(07:56):
not harmful. I have seen so many people act as
if that it's just the way things are. That's almost
the boys will be boys mentality, and of course get
over it essentially, right, And this whole fame culture with
a and celebrity culture also teaches girls oftentimes and young
(08:16):
boys that they should be honored that they have been chosen. Again,
this is why I say this is such a manipulation
and just they don't even need to call talk about
harming someone, They don't even need to threaten someone, just
in itself being like being told you are special. So
therefore why would you complain? Right? Yeah, yeah, you're lucky
I'm giving you this attention, right, Yeah, And we also
(08:40):
wanted to look within the black community um during this time,
as the Black Lives Movement has been proceeding and has
gain ground there is also the much needed conversations of
who is supporting black women and why it's so hard
to have an open conversation when it comes to supporting
and believing black women. As we have previously discussed, Me
(09:02):
Too was started by Toronto Burke, a Black woman who
sought out a community to bring accountability as well as
healing for those who have been affected by sexual abuse
and violence and trauma, which meaning in the community continue
to ask why is it that when people say black
lives matter, why that sometimes seems to exclude Black women's lives.
One big conversation that has been happening is the rape
(09:24):
and murder of nineteen year old activists Tones Allow. Not
only has this brought about the attention of the needs
of protecting young women, but also the issue of the
predatory behavior and victimization towards homeless use, which she at
that time had been saying that she was homeless um.
She even tweeted during this time as she was being
an activist in Tallahassee, Florida, speaking loudly and powerfully for
(09:48):
the fact that she wanted to protect black men. She
was a victim of rape and murder, and we saw
it played out in her Twitter, she actually tweeted out
that she had been and sexually accosted and be used
even before all of this went down. So it's just
kind of one of those heartbreaking moments of where is
(10:09):
the protection for this young women? What have we done well?
How have we you know, failed her? And I say
we as a as a whole and the controversial multi
layered conversation with me too within communities of color are
really lengthy and really long, and we definitely want to
and need to address it as a whole episode or
maybe even the series, because we see all of these
(10:30):
things unfolding, like this tragedy and again the loss of
many trans lives and specifically trans black women as recently
as a couple of days ago, and the fact of
the matter is that it's kind of downplayed in comparison
to now. Of course, it's an intersectional conversation within feminism
but also within black communities too, and how do we
(10:54):
best address this and how do we look at what's
happening and find justice for each and everyone of those victims.
But if we look at examples like the CEO of
Okay Player and Okay Africa and indeed music website Abiola Okay,
who has been accused of harassment and continue manipulation and
gas lighting within his company. We can see that the
(11:15):
meat two continues to help in getting accountability, if not
through the law, but through the organization and companies taking responsibility.
The women who worked underneath him have come out and
speaking truths and having the conversation out loud of how
can we be given justice A and be wholesoone accountable
(11:35):
who hold our lovelihoods in their hands? And I will
say quest Love who was also part of that organization
and a lot of the people from UM that company
quickly rectified the situation and did terminate him from the company.
But it kind of is that, Okay, this is hopeful,
But it took all of this, It took all of
these women having to out themselves and put themselves in
(11:58):
the line of harassment in order to get any type
of justice, in any kind of accountability UM in the
first place, which again does rederate why the hashtag me
too is so important in this whole nature, even though
it's not necessarily it is and it isn't the cancel culture,
Why that can be beneficial and why that might be
(12:19):
the only form of justice that we see today. Yeah,
and we're gonna come back to that at the end
because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
But something else I've been thinking about a lot lately
and so a lot of people, it seems, is the
me too movement within video gaming. And we will get
(12:40):
into that, but first we're going to take a quick
break for a Worktimore sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
So let's talk about me too in the gaming industry.
(13:03):
In our recent episode on women and online gaming during COVID,
we touched on the online harassment a lot of female
gamers and gamers of other marginalized groups face, and how
another piece of that whole thing lies in the often
toxic environment on the development side. And it's not like
this is a secret. Reports on rampant sexism at Riot Games,
(13:25):
allegations made about a one time top developer at Take two,
Interactive Softwares incorporated rock Star Games. Those cos big stars
when the news broke, But the industry hasn't really faced
the same large scale me too scrutiny that Hollywood did,
but that could be changing. As of June, dozens of
women have made allegations of sexual misconduct against several prominent
(13:48):
men in the gaming industry, including streamers. These allegations largely
were made over social media yes a lot like um
me Too. Allegations usually are and as of recording, streamer
Jessica Ritchie's list compiling all of the accusations she can find,
has two hundred and fourteen injuries. Renowned video game writer
(14:10):
Chris Avalon received four allegations and in response, one developer
into their relationship with him, and he left another project
that was in the middle of production. The incidents related
by the women are similar. Some took place at conventions
or events, and one woman attempting to get into the
gaming industry, received sexually explicit messages from Avalon. Gaming companies
(14:31):
like Ubosoft Entertainment and Insomniac Games are often reportedly investigating
claims of sexual misconduct. Reporters in the game industry are
sharing stories of publications refusing to publish stories exposing valid
accusations out of fear of the pending lawsuit, or maybe
not having the money that they know they'll need for
(14:52):
the pending lawsuit. Twitch is facing its own reckoning. Amazon
dot COM's Twitch is the largest video game streaming platform,
and twich this whole thing is that it has democratized streaming.
If you have the hardware, you can do it. A
select few streamers a mass huge followings, and some of
these streamers are able to monetize, so there's an incentive
(15:15):
to break in to the industry this way. But as
the positions of power are held by men who do
the gatekeeping and there really isn't an HR to report to,
many women and other marginalized folks allege that they regularly
ignore toxic behavior on the platform and allow it to continue,
which are huge obstacles for finding success on this platform
(15:36):
or even just enjoying it without being harassed enough so
that some streamers were calling for a blackout Wednesday a
few weeks ago. As we record this hashtag Twitch blackout.
Because of the blackout, Twitch permanently removed some users with
allegations leveled against them. I think I just read that
Twitch band donald Trump. Twitch did band? Twitch did band Trump?
(16:01):
I I'm curious as to if Donald Trump was off.
I was kind of surprised too. I was like, I
don't understand what was the on Twitch or were people
who are fans or mega guys that had their own
platform dedicated to him. Is that what it was? I
have no idea. I'm kind of curious. It was just
(16:21):
sort of like CBR taking Donald Trumps not allowed. Okay,
it's kind of an odd do, but okay, cool, cool, cool.
I guess. One prominent case is a maid Dara Yani's,
the chief executive officer of the Online Performers Group, a
talent agency that represents many streamers, resigned after a woman
accused him of unwanted sexual behavior, as in asking hard
(16:44):
to be in the threesome with his wife. Interesting networking
is hugely important to succeed in this industry, and many
others detailed streamers with popular channels and or sponsorship deals
specifically targeting aspiring streamers with sexually predatory behavior and or
groomy young streams black and One such person was Sam Ernie,
a popular streamer who left the platform after multiple allegations,
(17:07):
posting in part quote, regardless of when any of what
you see is said to have happened, I want you
to believe the accusers. What is obvious is that this
behavior has gone on throughout my career and I directly
benefited sexually from it. While the people on the receiving
and were negatively impacted. Uh. And I have to say,
this is an interesting thing I've noticed through a lot
(17:28):
of the stories we talked about earlier and a lot
of these twitch stories, is several of the people who
are accused or like, I don't deny this behavior right
or the way you felt about it, but they still
get a lawyer and like, don't I guess admit that
(17:51):
they did something that could get them in more trouble.
I don't know. It's just interesting. It's sort of like
a halfway, like, yes, I acknowledge that I probably hurt
your feelings and if you read it in a way
that I didn't read it. But is that kind of
that whole conversation we've had previously is a manipulative but
(18:12):
be they don't want to see themselves in bad light,
and so they talked themselves into this conversation. And yes,
there is a lot to be said about perceptions and
how one may have perceived the situation. But however, when
you really you have the moment to take a chance
to listen to the different size, you have to have
put in account the power play. Again, that way we've
(18:34):
talked about and why that dynamic is so dangerous in
many ways. Right. Yeah, So as part of all this,
all these allegations that have come out, Twitch has promised
to take further actions to combat hate and sexism on
their platform, though they've been pretty vague about specifics. One
thing they have said is they do not intend to
(18:55):
vet streamers at this time. Employees on the inside say
that fire to this public outcry, allegations were brought up
and dismissed at internal all hands meetings. The world of
es force is undergoing its own wave of me to allegations,
and some of this is directly related to these Twitch accusations,
(19:15):
But that is another conversation that is happening as we speak,
as we record, And so many women have reacted to this.
Who's not in shock but with yes, uh, my feelings
are validated. I knew this was true. So many women
have stories about how they've cut that drinking or stopped
(19:35):
completely at events, at gaming events, specifically because they've been
warned what could happen? Are it has happened to them before.
So many women have plans of texting a friend after
a set period of leaving being an event after a
set period of time, and so many women watch out
for the newman, youngest women at these events, and it's
(19:56):
just sometimes it blows my mind how much we do.
That just shows how unsafe we are and how not
valued we are. We just doing It's just sort of
like second nature, I think for you and I were like, yeah,
of course, this is what you would do. This is
exactly what you do. This is how you keep yourself safe.
And this is what is a rate like even if
(20:19):
it's a single day, if it's a date, your first day,
we have a whole plan. Yeah, yeah, and you'd share
it with friends, and it's just understood I could get murdered, rape,
and that's the life the world we live. I mean,
even just taking lifts, I'm like, this is the picture
of my driver, just in case I disappear, and this
is what I'm supposed to know. It is a common
(20:41):
thing for women in general, so to see this, especially
when it's an industry that's dominated by men. And I
will say, when I was in the law enforcement side,
and even though I'm not law enforcement, we had a
small portion of our my work that had to be
under that as well. Whether it's we talked about gang activity,
or whatever. I was very, very hyper aware of the
(21:01):
fact that it was a very male dominated field, and
therefore I had to be even more so cautious. And
you talked about that just in gaming and trying to
be overly cautious to hide your gender. Mm hmm, yeah,
and that's sort of I think I was like eleven
when I learned that lesson um, which is wild and
(21:22):
very sad. Uh. And for a lot of reasons, all
of this that's happening right now is a big deal
for the gaming industry. Half of gamers or women. I
know you've said it before, I'll say it again because
people still seem shocked by that half of all gamers
or women that that all dude thing, that that perception
people have is left over from companies specifically targeting their
(21:43):
advertising two young boys with money and a lot of
popular games are hyper masculinized, leading to perception that is
still a hyper masculinized space that allows for rampant microaggressions
that are just dismissed. Again, that's the way it is.
Suck it up. If you to be in this gaming world,
we're kind enough to let you in, and then you're
(22:03):
going to have to deal with it. Um. And even
when it comes to things like in Cells, were just
as women expected to tolerate that. Um. But it's again
like blows my mind up, people like, yeah, I just
deal with it. That's such a big deterrent that turns
away so many people. I mean, we definitely had that
episode of in Cells, and I had people worried about it,
(22:25):
telling me not to do it. I WoT that we
were going to be docs and all these things, and
I was like, I don't because I'm not in that
world necessarily. I know it exists, but because I've never
been part of the gaming world, I've not seen it
into that level and how territorial it really is. But yeah,
it's yeah, that was one of the things I'm like, well,
I definitely don't want to be a part of it now.
(22:48):
And that's the sad thing that's it is. So gaming
obviously is a big business, like one hundred and fifty
billion a year big and obviously you would think we
should be striving for safe, welcoming environments. Um. And this
is a part of a larger conversation about creating those
(23:09):
spaces everywhere, but the world of gaming has been particularly resistant.
It's also yet another case of the responsibility for change
being placed on women and other marginalized community. Sharing their
painful stories with the threat of retribution and harassment to
enact change and quarantine has sparked several renewed ways of
(23:30):
social activism. And I will say part of this is
because of the Black Lives Movement. It has pushed forward
with seeking justice and kind of how we talked about
with women who organized that if had not been for
black activists, this would not be at the forefront either. Yeah. Yeah,
And I just saw an article before we came in
(23:52):
about me too and professional wrestling with the hashtag speaking
out and all that has come out of that. Um
so we could do me too on pretty much every industry, sport, hobby. Right.
There's no shortage of stuff to talk about here. And
(24:15):
something that's been on my mind lately is I had
sort of a hopeless day a couple of weeks ago
and I just thought, well, has me to accomplished anything
like what as it accomplished? And I tried to Google
search and there wasn't that much out there that was
sort of an overview. There were more like me too.
In seventeen what happened or me too in and so
(24:38):
I've been thinking about I feel like the conversation, Like
you said, Samantha, some companies are taking steps um allowing
other women to speak out if they want to, UM,
giving us a better scope of the numbers. I've definitely
had a lot of male friends. I sort of have
a reckoning realization of oh, okay, I didn't realize it
(24:59):
was this common, right. I think it definitely has opened
up to having the Okay, this is what you see,
but this is what we see the female male perspective,
and then just talking about why the conversations and our
thought processes are different, because that danger is safe mentality
that we have to have at all times. And and
(25:19):
and as we know, things have been happening, whether we
don't necessarily see the overarching this can be a historical context.
We're gonna look back in twenty years and this is
what happened. But you know, more news and more allegations
are coming forward at this time, and it looks like
Ron Jeremy, who is in the porn industry, has been
charged officially with twenty five different Council sexual mixic conduct charges.
(25:40):
And then Danny Masterson, who was a part of the
hashtag me to call out UM has actually been charged
with three counts of rape. Of course, both pleaded uh
not guilty. We'll see what happens, UM. And we know
that Harvey Weinstein is finally answering for some of his stuff,
not all of it, but some is better than none,
I guess. Unfortunately, is how we have to say it.
(26:02):
And though it has been around in politics, it doesn't
seem to be affecting those people as much. I want
to hold it like that, but it left the very
least we are talking about it. Yeah, I agree, I agree.
These are really important conversations to have and I did
(26:26):
want to include in here. There has been this whole
false accusations trend which I probably don't have to describe
to anybody, but it is what it sounds like where
people are saying all because there is this wave of accusations.
It's a trend, right, and people are just sort of
like buying in and lying on the trend. And the
(26:46):
the amount of detective works some Internet's lose claimed to
put in um to proving that these are mostly women
or young girls just trying to get a moment of fame. UM.
And even before we came in here, I was watching
a video about I was looking for videos of Chris
Avalon and the third result was like an hour long
(27:11):
video about how terrible the state of things are that
he is getting accused and had to leave this work.
And so that's still a conversation to be had as well, right,
And I know with the fact that when we were
talking about the two celebrities comedian and the actor, UM,
someone went out of their way to make similar false
(27:34):
accusations two stars that were beloved I think Riverdale stars,
just to prove a point and say, see how easy
it was for me to make the story up. UM
trying to discredit other witnesses. But if and as I
was trying to research it myself, when I went to
go and look at the tweets that were telling their stories,
they've been deleted. These women have left the platform because
(27:57):
they have been so continually harassed. UM. I am baffled
by the amount of people who say they are just
trying to seek attention because they don't understand what type
of attention is happening. And it's complete. Bullett put it
out there that people think this is a way of
someone getting famous, because more often than not. Their names
(28:19):
get forgotten, but their incidents are like still in conversation,
and that's problematic in itself. Yes, yes, so that is
another episode. We could come back to another conversation to
be had um. In the meantime, we did have some
listener mail we wanted to read, but first we have
(28:40):
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So we did want
to include some listener mail because we have heard from
(29:01):
listeners about this very thing that we're talking about. When
it comes to the gaming industry, Laura wrote, I started
working in the game industry in I know a long
time ago, and I am going to hope that is
why I was treated so poorly, but I seriously doubt
much has changed during my time in the industry. I
was ignored, dismissed, and belittle to the point that I
eventually completely ceased to make suggestions and just did my
(29:22):
job without ever again trying to enhance the state of
game development at my company. To be fair, I was young,
as I had started working there at age six, but
a lot of my coworkers were also young, albeit all men,
and I do not think I was treated even remotely
similarly to any of them. It did not help that
I was, for a long time the only woman in
my division, and I was always the only one in
(29:43):
my department. My boss fell quote in love with me
and proceeded to tell me about it every night. For
a while, he had me working a semi second shift
of noon to eight p m. In order to train
under his guidance in the evenings five to eight p m. Later,
he moved me to a ten am the start time,
but still made it clear that he expected me to
stay late each night. It was during these evening times
(30:05):
that he would go on and on about how he
never had sex with his wife anymore did I mention
he was married with two daughters, and other inappropriate things.
He would tell me that he loved me. I tried
to laugh it off. I told him to watch Oprah,
since she daggled topics such as spouses who no longer
had sex on her show. Basically, I was scared and
nervous and told him anything I could to keep him
at bay for a while. I dated another manager at
(30:27):
the company who was my age and single. I didn't
really like him, but he liked me, so I dated
him to keep my manager at Bay. It worked, but
the relationship was awful. Eventually, I broke up with the
guy because we thought constantly and he kept trying to
get me to marry him. After nine years, I went
to HR. I didn't make a reporter, even tell them
my name. I simply asked what the process was for
pursuing sexual harassment at the company. They kept trying to
(30:50):
get me to make a report, but I refused. Then
they laid me off. So yeah, that is the game industry.
I know a lot of other companies wouldn't even hire
young women because they weren't a good quote culture fit.
In other words, guys couldn't be overtly gross around them.
I thought that being super geeky would be enough to
earn me some respect in that industry. It was not.
(31:10):
I'd always hoped that the computers would be the great equalizer,
but sadly tech is as toxic, if not more so,
than other industries. I hope someday the industry will change
and we will see that change reflected in our entertainment software.
Until then, I would recommend a regular tech company job
over the game industry any day. Oh damn. She was
an o G two. Yeah, Yeah, that's awful. So Louise wrote,
(31:32):
I'm a big fan of the show. I've been listening
for a few years now and i just listened to
your online gaming episode and thought i'd reach out. I'm
a woman working in the UK game industry as a producer.
I'm currently working at Rare on ce of Thieves. Part
of what attracted me to this job is where's commitment
to diversity and inclusion. Was a player of CEF the
before I joined the team, and it's one of the
(31:52):
few online games in which I haven't experienced harassment. I
do have to be a bit vague here because the
industry is small, but at previous companies of ex variance,
micro aggression and pushback when I've tried to explain why
things are problematic, I think this lack of female and
black and Indigenous people of color l g pt Q
plus perspective of being accepted and taking on board definitely
informs why games are made in a way that marginalizes
(32:14):
these groups and supports straight white men as a default audience,
fueling gatekeeping. I do think the industry is getting a
lot better, though there's much more push for the diversity
inclusion because audiences are tired of the outdated attitudes nice
and in terms of being harassed in games, one of
my friends has an amazing technique for dealing with trolls.
He asked them if they're okay and if they want
(32:35):
to talk about anything. It totally calms them down, and
normally there's something upsetting them, which is true, and their
default reaction is to lash out. Now, obviously it should
never be the duty of victims of harassment to comfort
the harassers. But I think there's a much bigger conversation
to have about why there's so many angry men out
there who don't have adequate emotional support or healthy outlets
(32:56):
for their anger. I don't think this is something video
game companies alone can solve either, but I think we
can just start looking at it as a systemic problem
rather than looking at singular incidents and blaming the individual
harassers were being bad. Now, I'm not condoning their actions
in any way, and individuals are responsible, but I don't
think this happens in a vacuum. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
(33:18):
I think it just points to so many other systemic
problems we have we have to tackle um and that
responds to the troll. That reminds me Ben Bowlen, we
used to have a company policy that, Thank god it
is not around anymore, but you had to respond every
YouTube comment. Oh my god, it was awful. It's just
(33:38):
as bad as you can imagine and worse. Um And
Ben Bowling, who does He's on a lot of our
other podcasts on our network. Um. He When he would
respond to a trolley, you would say, I hope you
have a better day, which I appreciate it. I thought
that was solid. I always like to do it like
(33:59):
I had to do it for a while, and I
would just give the like sweetest as though I had
misinterpreted everything. They said, like, oh wow, look at that typo.
Let me correct that for you. Usually they didn't respond
once they realize, oh, a real person is actually here
in reading these. Yeah, but we did want to end
(34:21):
with a listener mail to show that it's not all bad.
Hannah wrote, thanks for this week's episode on women and
online gaming during COVID nineteen, I, like so many others,
have spent lots of time with animal crossing during quarantine.
Since Annie likes island facts, my island is named Googles
the same town name I've been using since Animal Crossing
was released on GameCube, and I have all female residents
(34:43):
on my island except for two male cats, because cats
are welcome in my feminist utopia. Also my dip for
avoiding animal Crossing anxiety, don't look on social media other
people's islands. I know that if I went out and
look at all the awesome islands people have created, that
I would feel like mine is completely inferior. But I
love my little island and its chill, underdeveloped vibes. You
(35:04):
definitely should play, just don't compare yourself to what others
are doing or if you're doing it right. I guess
that's pretty good life advice in general. Another way video
games have helped me during the pandemic is that I
started streaming my gameplay on Twitch, not Animal Crossing. Though
Google's is only for me, It's been a great opportunity
for me to showcase the offbeat types of simulation and
mystery games that I enjoy while staying in touch with
(35:25):
some friends and family who come to join me in
the chat. I've also found that streaming is a great
way for me to combat my imposter syndrome, since I'm
just talking to a microphone by myself. I feel like
I've been able to be more my real self rather
than the buttoned up, anxious version of me that's always
seeking to please others. I know it sounds completely counterintuitive,
but streaming has been therapeutic for me, and it helped
(35:45):
me feel less shy. My friends and family are getting
to experience a more authentic, weird version of me than
what I normally present, and hopefully I'll be more comfortable
being my real self when we're all back to seeing
each other face to face. I do worry that eventually
I'll get trolls in my channel or viewers who will
want to man plaining things to me, but it hasn't
happened in the two months i've been streaming, yet I
feel like I'll be confident enough to deal with it
when if it does happen, since I've really found my
(36:07):
voice video games. Video games. Yeah, but see, that's the thing.
That's a beautiful thing that we should be trying striving
to make for everyone. I love it. I love it,
and your Animal Crossing Island sounds amazing, Google, So that's
a good name. It's excellent, and please keep those uh
messages coming in, keep sending us what's going on on
(36:28):
your island. We love it, We love it. You can
email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media
dot com. You can find us on Instagram at stuff
I Never Told You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks,
it's always sort of superproducer Andrew Howard, thank you, and
thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You,
his production of iHeart Radio. For more podcast from my
Heart Radio, It's the I Hear Radio app, Apple podcast,
(36:50):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of iHeart Radio. For today's episode,
we wanted to start with a quick trigger warning. We
(00:25):
are going to be discussing sexual assaults, abuse, rape, and
grooming because what we're talking about sort of an update
on what's going on in the world of me too
and how how much this continued conversation of sexual harassment
(00:46):
an uneven power dynamic used again control is still ongoing
and important and something we shouldn't forget about and we're
seeing it and so many different industries take place, So
we're gonna be talking about some of that today and
also a lot of this is happening very quickly, so
(01:08):
just put a time stamp on this one. We are
recording on June, and I think I was seeing updates
like right before we came in, So just just to
put that out there right as um, you and I
are doing this. I know I'm in the last minute.
I don't know. We need to talk about this and
this and this, and we're definitely not going to cover
the entirety of everything that's happening, um, because I guess
(01:31):
we could include that. We're going to talk a little bit,
not necessarily about cancel culture, but holding people accountable and
how social media is helping us to do that. Yes, yes,
um yeah. And for the last several days we've been
seeing a lot of different young women coming out and
talking about being deemed again social media by celebrities. Are
(01:52):
being contacted through social media by different celebrities, specifically comedian
Chris Dahlia and actor ends All l Gorge. Uh. The
conversation has shown a disturbing pattern of men using their
fame as a way to meet up with young fans
and eliciting sex or at least sex s e x
T S. I can't say the tea very well, um
(02:14):
for both men's abuse of power has been a point
of conversation on the bigger again disturbing picture of grooming
young women. And when I say young women, they ranged
from fourteen to eighteen. Uh. And honestly, this could be
a whole other conversation of what do we consider an
adult and who do we hold accountable for what during
one age. But according to her Twitter post, Simone Rossi
(02:38):
alleged at the age of sixteen, Chris, who by the way,
has portrayed a pedophile and sex predator in two different
TV series. Just with that out there, um exchanged emails,
eventually leading up for Dahlia to request a meet up,
which apparently did not occur for her. But since that post,
several women have come forward stating that Smilar interactions with him,
(03:01):
including requests for nude photos from underage girls. He's been
terminated from the majority of his gigs and even denounced
by female comedian Whitney Cummings, who also has a podcast
UM and She's often had him on her show as
a regular um and by the way, this has led
to many criticizing her because they're saying she was too
(03:24):
quick to judge and not willing to listen to both
sides of the story. She tweeted at one point essentially
saying thanks to all the male comedians who called last
night or texted in support, and that was in sarcasm,
I believe um. So. Another young woman alleged that Angel
l Gored deemned her when she was seventeen, actually when
(03:45):
she was sixteen UM and he was twenty at the time.
According to the allegations, he not only solicited nudes from her,
but also eventually met up with her in person. And
had a sexual encounter the day she turned seventeen, uh,
which according to her was her first sexual encounter, UM
and sexual experience, and after denying the specifics of the encounter,
(04:07):
l Gored claimed he didn't know how the young girl felt,
so he wasn't going to put into her words how
she felt, but it was a relationship and that the
breakup was upsetting and that he should have not ignored her.
Apparently when they broke up, he just ghosted her. From
what I gather, that's what he's saying, and now is
seeing the results of that, so essentially gas lighting, saying
(04:28):
that she's got hurt feelings and accused him of something
unsanely I guess um And by the way, Dahlia also
denied the incident, stating the conversations were all out of
context and denied any wrongdoing. Surprise, surprise yeah. In both
of these situations, both of the victims said that they
did receive a lot of harassment, but also received many
(04:50):
messages if not only support, but similar stories and incidents
from people who had experienced these same kind of things,
which has been a part of the Me too movement
and online community that is able to share their experiences
and just know that they aren't alone. But with the
situation again shows the continued abuse of power and fame
(05:15):
in order to solicit sex or sexual favors. And again
again it is still hotly debated and the continued sexualization
of young women seems to be a point of conflict
as to whether it is the adult or the youth faults,
which is where a lot of the problem lies. So
(05:36):
it has continued to be a point of contention as
to who is in control when it comes to the
sexualization of young women between the r Kelly cases and
debate of Drake continuing to text young women UM and
the stories of different celebrities slipping into young fans d
m s which we've seen and continue to see. So
if we look at the YouTube start Shane Dawson UM.
(05:58):
He was recently called out for not all only those
sickening videos of talking to a fourteen year old about
her body sex administruation, but also performing a sexual act
to a cut out of a young actress Willows Smith,
and he, like many others, released an apology video without
having the conversation of the underlying issue of damage to
young women that this type of action produces. We discussed
(06:23):
UM last year, which was twenty nine Forever about grooming
and what exactly grooming is, but just as a reminder,
grooming is defined here as quote a method used by
offenders that involves building trust with a child and the
adults around a child in an effort to gain access
to and time alone with him or her. Extreme cases,
(06:46):
offenders may use threats and physical force to sexually assault
or abuse a child. In the case of l. Gore,
the victim specifies that he uses a manipulative tactic of
stating if she told anyone, he would ruin his career
and possibly his life. Tactics like this or gas lighting,
have been used for years on the fearmongering and manipulation
of power or in this case, their fame, and because
(07:10):
of the gas lighting, we still see the constant victim
blaming UM as well as the fact victims blame themselves,
which causes them to remain silent and not seek justice
or even worse treatment for these really harmful encounters. And
I would add the mere grooming can be traumatic in
itself even if an encounter or a violent sexual act
doesn't happen, This causes a trauma beyond just your every
(07:34):
day Hey, how are you so grooming in itself, we've
already talked about is a classification of harm and as
a type of trauma. Yeah, And I think that's a
good point to make because I've seen so many kind
of people say, well, just let's just say the way
it is, that's just part of it, as if that's
(07:56):
not harmful. I have seen so many people act as
if that it's just the way things are. That's almost
the boys will be boys mentality, and of course get
over it essentially, right, And this whole fame culture with
a and celebrity culture also teaches girls oftentimes and young
(08:16):
boys that they should be honored that they have been chosen. Again,
this is why I say this is such a manipulation
and just they don't even need to call talk about
harming someone, They don't even need to threaten someone, just
in itself being like being told you are special. So
therefore why would you complain? Right? Yeah, yeah, you're lucky
I'm giving you this attention, right, Yeah, And we also
(08:40):
wanted to look within the black community um during this time,
as the Black Lives Movement has been proceeding and has
gain ground there is also the much needed conversations of
who is supporting black women and why it's so hard
to have an open conversation when it comes to supporting
and believing black women. As we have previously discussed, Me
(09:02):
Too was started by Toronto Burke, a Black woman who
sought out a community to bring accountability as well as
healing for those who have been affected by sexual abuse
and violence and trauma, which meaning in the community continue
to ask why is it that when people say black
lives matter, why that sometimes seems to exclude Black women's lives.
One big conversation that has been happening is the rape
(09:24):
and murder of nineteen year old activists Tones Allow. Not
only has this brought about the attention of the needs
of protecting young women, but also the issue of the
predatory behavior and victimization towards homeless use, which she at
that time had been saying that she was homeless um.
She even tweeted during this time as she was being
an activist in Tallahassee, Florida, speaking loudly and powerfully for
(09:48):
the fact that she wanted to protect black men. She
was a victim of rape and murder, and we saw
it played out in her Twitter, she actually tweeted out
that she had been and sexually accosted and be used
even before all of this went down. So it's just
kind of one of those heartbreaking moments of where is
(10:09):
the protection for this young women? What have we done well?
How have we you know, failed her? And I say
we as a as a whole and the controversial multi
layered conversation with me too within communities of color are
really lengthy and really long, and we definitely want to
and need to address it as a whole episode or
maybe even the series, because we see all of these
(10:30):
things unfolding, like this tragedy and again the loss of
many trans lives and specifically trans black women as recently
as a couple of days ago, and the fact of
the matter is that it's kind of downplayed in comparison
to now. Of course, it's an intersectional conversation within feminism
but also within black communities too, and how do we
(10:54):
best address this and how do we look at what's
happening and find justice for each and everyone of those victims.
But if we look at examples like the CEO of
Okay Player and Okay Africa and indeed music website Abiola Okay,
who has been accused of harassment and continue manipulation and
gas lighting within his company. We can see that the
(11:15):
meat two continues to help in getting accountability, if not
through the law, but through the organization and companies taking responsibility.
The women who worked underneath him have come out and
speaking truths and having the conversation out loud of how
can we be given justice A and be wholesoone accountable
(11:35):
who hold our lovelihoods in their hands? And I will
say quest Love who was also part of that organization
and a lot of the people from UM that company
quickly rectified the situation and did terminate him from the company.
But it kind of is that, Okay, this is hopeful,
But it took all of this, It took all of
these women having to out themselves and put themselves in
(11:58):
the line of harassment in order to get any type
of justice, in any kind of accountability UM in the
first place, which again does rederate why the hashtag me
too is so important in this whole nature, even though
it's not necessarily it is and it isn't the cancel culture,
Why that can be beneficial and why that might be
(12:19):
the only form of justice that we see today. Yeah,
and we're gonna come back to that at the end
because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
But something else I've been thinking about a lot lately
and so a lot of people, it seems, is the
me too movement within video gaming. And we will get
(12:40):
into that, but first we're going to take a quick
break for a Worktimore sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
So let's talk about me too in the gaming industry.
(13:03):
In our recent episode on women and online gaming during COVID,
we touched on the online harassment a lot of female
gamers and gamers of other marginalized groups face, and how
another piece of that whole thing lies in the often
toxic environment on the development side. And it's not like
this is a secret. Reports on rampant sexism at Riot Games,
(13:25):
allegations made about a one time top developer at Take two,
Interactive Softwares incorporated rock Star Games. Those cos big stars
when the news broke, But the industry hasn't really faced
the same large scale me too scrutiny that Hollywood did,
but that could be changing. As of June, dozens of
women have made allegations of sexual misconduct against several prominent
(13:48):
men in the gaming industry, including streamers. These allegations largely
were made over social media yes a lot like um
me Too. Allegations usually are and as of recording, streamer
Jessica Ritchie's list compiling all of the accusations she can find,
has two hundred and fourteen injuries. Renowned video game writer
(14:10):
Chris Avalon received four allegations and in response, one developer
into their relationship with him, and he left another project
that was in the middle of production. The incidents related
by the women are similar. Some took place at conventions
or events, and one woman attempting to get into the
gaming industry, received sexually explicit messages from Avalon. Gaming companies
(14:31):
like Ubosoft Entertainment and Insomniac Games are often reportedly investigating
claims of sexual misconduct. Reporters in the game industry are
sharing stories of publications refusing to publish stories exposing valid
accusations out of fear of the pending lawsuit, or maybe
not having the money that they know they'll need for
(14:52):
the pending lawsuit. Twitch is facing its own reckoning. Amazon
dot COM's Twitch is the largest video game streaming platform,
and twich this whole thing is that it has democratized streaming.
If you have the hardware, you can do it. A
select few streamers a mass huge followings, and some of
these streamers are able to monetize, so there's an incentive
(15:15):
to break in to the industry this way. But as
the positions of power are held by men who do
the gatekeeping and there really isn't an HR to report to,
many women and other marginalized folks allege that they regularly
ignore toxic behavior on the platform and allow it to continue,
which are huge obstacles for finding success on this platform
(15:36):
or even just enjoying it without being harassed enough so
that some streamers were calling for a blackout Wednesday a
few weeks ago. As we record this hashtag Twitch blackout.
Because of the blackout, Twitch permanently removed some users with
allegations leveled against them. I think I just read that
Twitch band donald Trump. Twitch did band? Twitch did band Trump?
(16:01):
I I'm curious as to if Donald Trump was off.
I was kind of surprised too. I was like, I
don't understand what was the on Twitch or were people
who are fans or mega guys that had their own
platform dedicated to him. Is that what it was? I
have no idea. I'm kind of curious. It was just
(16:21):
sort of like CBR taking Donald Trumps not allowed. Okay,
it's kind of an odd do, but okay, cool, cool, cool.
I guess. One prominent case is a maid Dara Yani's,
the chief executive officer of the Online Performers Group, a
talent agency that represents many streamers, resigned after a woman
accused him of unwanted sexual behavior, as in asking hard
(16:44):
to be in the threesome with his wife. Interesting networking
is hugely important to succeed in this industry, and many
others detailed streamers with popular channels and or sponsorship deals
specifically targeting aspiring streamers with sexually predatory behavior and or
groomy young streams black and One such person was Sam Ernie,
a popular streamer who left the platform after multiple allegations,
(17:07):
posting in part quote, regardless of when any of what
you see is said to have happened, I want you
to believe the accusers. What is obvious is that this
behavior has gone on throughout my career and I directly
benefited sexually from it. While the people on the receiving
and were negatively impacted. Uh. And I have to say,
this is an interesting thing I've noticed through a lot
(17:28):
of the stories we talked about earlier and a lot
of these twitch stories, is several of the people who
are accused or like, I don't deny this behavior right
or the way you felt about it, but they still
get a lawyer and like, don't I guess admit that
(17:51):
they did something that could get them in more trouble.
I don't know. It's just interesting. It's sort of like
a halfway, like, yes, I acknowledge that I probably hurt
your feelings and if you read it in a way
that I didn't read it. But is that kind of
that whole conversation we've had previously is a manipulative but
(18:12):
be they don't want to see themselves in bad light,
and so they talked themselves into this conversation. And yes,
there is a lot to be said about perceptions and
how one may have perceived the situation. But however, when
you really you have the moment to take a chance
to listen to the different size, you have to have
put in account the power play. Again, that way we've
(18:34):
talked about and why that dynamic is so dangerous in
many ways. Right. Yeah, So as part of all this,
all these allegations that have come out, Twitch has promised
to take further actions to combat hate and sexism on
their platform, though they've been pretty vague about specifics. One
thing they have said is they do not intend to
(18:55):
vet streamers at this time. Employees on the inside say
that fire to this public outcry, allegations were brought up
and dismissed at internal all hands meetings. The world of
es force is undergoing its own wave of me to allegations,
and some of this is directly related to these Twitch accusations,
(19:15):
But that is another conversation that is happening as we speak,
as we record, And so many women have reacted to this.
Who's not in shock but with yes, uh, my feelings
are validated. I knew this was true. So many women
have stories about how they've cut that drinking or stopped
(19:35):
completely at events, at gaming events, specifically because they've been
warned what could happen? Are it has happened to them before.
So many women have plans of texting a friend after
a set period of leaving being an event after a
set period of time, and so many women watch out
for the newman, youngest women at these events, and it's
(19:56):
just sometimes it blows my mind how much we do.
That just shows how unsafe we are and how not
valued we are. We just doing It's just sort of
like second nature, I think for you and I were like, yeah,
of course, this is what you would do. This is
exactly what you do. This is how you keep yourself safe.
And this is what is a rate like even if
(20:19):
it's a single day, if it's a date, your first day,
we have a whole plan. Yeah, yeah, and you'd share
it with friends, and it's just understood I could get murdered, rape,
and that's the life the world we live. I mean,
even just taking lifts, I'm like, this is the picture
of my driver, just in case I disappear, and this
is what I'm supposed to know. It is a common
(20:41):
thing for women in general, so to see this, especially
when it's an industry that's dominated by men. And I
will say, when I was in the law enforcement side,
and even though I'm not law enforcement, we had a
small portion of our my work that had to be
under that as well. Whether it's we talked about gang activity,
or whatever. I was very, very hyper aware of the
(21:01):
fact that it was a very male dominated field, and
therefore I had to be even more so cautious. And
you talked about that just in gaming and trying to
be overly cautious to hide your gender. Mm hmm, yeah,
and that's sort of I think I was like eleven
when I learned that lesson um, which is wild and
(21:22):
very sad. Uh. And for a lot of reasons, all
of this that's happening right now is a big deal
for the gaming industry. Half of gamers or women. I
know you've said it before, I'll say it again because
people still seem shocked by that half of all gamers
or women that that all dude thing, that that perception
people have is left over from companies specifically targeting their
(21:43):
advertising two young boys with money and a lot of
popular games are hyper masculinized, leading to perception that is
still a hyper masculinized space that allows for rampant microaggressions
that are just dismissed. Again, that's the way it is.
Suck it up. If you to be in this gaming world,
we're kind enough to let you in, and then you're
(22:03):
going to have to deal with it. Um. And even
when it comes to things like in Cells, were just
as women expected to tolerate that. Um. But it's again
like blows my mind up, people like, yeah, I just
deal with it. That's such a big deterrent that turns
away so many people. I mean, we definitely had that
episode of in Cells, and I had people worried about it,
(22:25):
telling me not to do it. I WoT that we
were going to be docs and all these things, and
I was like, I don't because I'm not in that
world necessarily. I know it exists, but because I've never
been part of the gaming world, I've not seen it
into that level and how territorial it really is. But yeah,
it's yeah, that was one of the things I'm like, well,
I definitely don't want to be a part of it now.
(22:48):
And that's the sad thing that's it is. So gaming
obviously is a big business, like one hundred and fifty
billion a year big and obviously you would think we
should be striving for safe, welcoming environments. Um. And this
is a part of a larger conversation about creating those
(23:09):
spaces everywhere, but the world of gaming has been particularly resistant.
It's also yet another case of the responsibility for change
being placed on women and other marginalized community. Sharing their
painful stories with the threat of retribution and harassment to
enact change and quarantine has sparked several renewed ways of
(23:30):
social activism. And I will say part of this is
because of the Black Lives Movement. It has pushed forward
with seeking justice and kind of how we talked about
with women who organized that if had not been for
black activists, this would not be at the forefront either. Yeah. Yeah,
And I just saw an article before we came in
(23:52):
about me too and professional wrestling with the hashtag speaking
out and all that has come out of that. Um
so we could do me too on pretty much every industry, sport, hobby. Right.
There's no shortage of stuff to talk about here. And
(24:15):
something that's been on my mind lately is I had
sort of a hopeless day a couple of weeks ago
and I just thought, well, has me to accomplished anything
like what as it accomplished? And I tried to Google
search and there wasn't that much out there that was
sort of an overview. There were more like me too.
In seventeen what happened or me too in and so
(24:38):
I've been thinking about I feel like the conversation, Like
you said, Samantha, some companies are taking steps um allowing
other women to speak out if they want to, UM,
giving us a better scope of the numbers. I've definitely
had a lot of male friends. I sort of have
a reckoning realization of oh, okay, I didn't realize it
(24:59):
was this common, right. I think it definitely has opened
up to having the Okay, this is what you see,
but this is what we see the female male perspective,
and then just talking about why the conversations and our
thought processes are different, because that danger is safe mentality
that we have to have at all times. And and
(25:19):
and as we know, things have been happening, whether we
don't necessarily see the overarching this can be a historical context.
We're gonna look back in twenty years and this is
what happened. But you know, more news and more allegations
are coming forward at this time, and it looks like
Ron Jeremy, who is in the porn industry, has been
charged officially with twenty five different Council sexual mixic conduct charges.
(25:40):
And then Danny Masterson, who was a part of the
hashtag me to call out UM has actually been charged
with three counts of rape. Of course, both pleaded uh
not guilty. We'll see what happens, UM. And we know
that Harvey Weinstein is finally answering for some of his stuff,
not all of it, but some is better than none,
I guess. Unfortunately, is how we have to say it.
(26:02):
And though it has been around in politics, it doesn't
seem to be affecting those people as much. I want
to hold it like that, but it left the very
least we are talking about it. Yeah, I agree, I agree.
These are really important conversations to have and I did
(26:26):
want to include in here. There has been this whole
false accusations trend which I probably don't have to describe
to anybody, but it is what it sounds like where
people are saying all because there is this wave of accusations.
It's a trend, right, and people are just sort of
like buying in and lying on the trend. And the
(26:46):
the amount of detective works some Internet's lose claimed to
put in um to proving that these are mostly women
or young girls just trying to get a moment of fame. UM.
And even before we came in here, I was watching
a video about I was looking for videos of Chris
Avalon and the third result was like an hour long
(27:11):
video about how terrible the state of things are that
he is getting accused and had to leave this work.
And so that's still a conversation to be had as well, right,
And I know with the fact that when we were
talking about the two celebrities comedian and the actor, UM,
someone went out of their way to make similar false
(27:34):
accusations two stars that were beloved I think Riverdale stars,
just to prove a point and say, see how easy
it was for me to make the story up. UM
trying to discredit other witnesses. But if and as I
was trying to research it myself, when I went to
go and look at the tweets that were telling their stories,
they've been deleted. These women have left the platform because
(27:57):
they have been so continually harassed. UM. I am baffled
by the amount of people who say they are just
trying to seek attention because they don't understand what type
of attention is happening. And it's complete. Bullett put it
out there that people think this is a way of
someone getting famous, because more often than not. Their names
(28:19):
get forgotten, but their incidents are like still in conversation,
and that's problematic in itself. Yes, yes, so that is
another episode. We could come back to another conversation to
be had um. In the meantime, we did have some
listener mail we wanted to read, but first we have
(28:40):
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So we did want
to include some listener mail because we have heard from
(29:01):
listeners about this very thing that we're talking about. When
it comes to the gaming industry, Laura wrote, I started
working in the game industry in I know a long
time ago, and I am going to hope that is
why I was treated so poorly, but I seriously doubt
much has changed during my time in the industry. I
was ignored, dismissed, and belittle to the point that I
eventually completely ceased to make suggestions and just did my
(29:22):
job without ever again trying to enhance the state of
game development at my company. To be fair, I was young,
as I had started working there at age six, but
a lot of my coworkers were also young, albeit all men,
and I do not think I was treated even remotely
similarly to any of them. It did not help that
I was, for a long time the only woman in
my division, and I was always the only one in
(29:43):
my department. My boss fell quote in love with me
and proceeded to tell me about it every night. For
a while, he had me working a semi second shift
of noon to eight p m. In order to train
under his guidance in the evenings five to eight p m. Later,
he moved me to a ten am the start time,
but still made it clear that he expected me to
stay late each night. It was during these evening times
(30:05):
that he would go on and on about how he
never had sex with his wife anymore did I mention
he was married with two daughters, and other inappropriate things.
He would tell me that he loved me. I tried
to laugh it off. I told him to watch Oprah,
since she daggled topics such as spouses who no longer
had sex on her show. Basically, I was scared and
nervous and told him anything I could to keep him
at bay for a while. I dated another manager at
(30:27):
the company who was my age and single. I didn't
really like him, but he liked me, so I dated
him to keep my manager at Bay. It worked, but
the relationship was awful. Eventually, I broke up with the
guy because we thought constantly and he kept trying to
get me to marry him. After nine years, I went
to HR. I didn't make a reporter, even tell them
my name. I simply asked what the process was for
pursuing sexual harassment at the company. They kept trying to
(30:50):
get me to make a report, but I refused. Then
they laid me off. So yeah, that is the game industry.
I know a lot of other companies wouldn't even hire
young women because they weren't a good quote culture fit.
In other words, guys couldn't be overtly gross around them.
I thought that being super geeky would be enough to
earn me some respect in that industry. It was not.
(31:10):
I'd always hoped that the computers would be the great equalizer,
but sadly tech is as toxic, if not more so,
than other industries. I hope someday the industry will change
and we will see that change reflected in our entertainment software.
Until then, I would recommend a regular tech company job
over the game industry any day. Oh damn. She was
an o G two. Yeah, Yeah, that's awful. So Louise wrote,
(31:32):
I'm a big fan of the show. I've been listening
for a few years now and i just listened to
your online gaming episode and thought i'd reach out. I'm
a woman working in the UK game industry as a producer.
I'm currently working at Rare on ce of Thieves. Part
of what attracted me to this job is where's commitment
to diversity and inclusion. Was a player of CEF the
before I joined the team, and it's one of the
(31:52):
few online games in which I haven't experienced harassment. I
do have to be a bit vague here because the
industry is small, but at previous companies of ex variance,
micro aggression and pushback when I've tried to explain why
things are problematic, I think this lack of female and
black and Indigenous people of color l g pt Q
plus perspective of being accepted and taking on board definitely
informs why games are made in a way that marginalizes
(32:14):
these groups and supports straight white men as a default audience,
fueling gatekeeping. I do think the industry is getting a
lot better, though there's much more push for the diversity
inclusion because audiences are tired of the outdated attitudes nice
and in terms of being harassed in games, one of
my friends has an amazing technique for dealing with trolls.
He asked them if they're okay and if they want
(32:35):
to talk about anything. It totally calms them down, and
normally there's something upsetting them, which is true, and their
default reaction is to lash out. Now, obviously it should
never be the duty of victims of harassment to comfort
the harassers. But I think there's a much bigger conversation
to have about why there's so many angry men out
there who don't have adequate emotional support or healthy outlets
(32:56):
for their anger. I don't think this is something video
game companies alone can solve either, but I think we
can just start looking at it as a systemic problem
rather than looking at singular incidents and blaming the individual
harassers were being bad. Now, I'm not condoning their actions
in any way, and individuals are responsible, but I don't
think this happens in a vacuum. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
(33:18):
I think it just points to so many other systemic
problems we have we have to tackle um and that
responds to the troll. That reminds me Ben Bowlen, we
used to have a company policy that, Thank god it
is not around anymore, but you had to respond every
YouTube comment. Oh my god, it was awful. It's just
(33:38):
as bad as you can imagine and worse. Um And
Ben Bowling, who does He's on a lot of our
other podcasts on our network. Um. He When he would
respond to a trolley, you would say, I hope you
have a better day, which I appreciate it. I thought
that was solid. I always like to do it like
(33:59):
I had to do it for a while, and I
would just give the like sweetest as though I had
misinterpreted everything. They said, like, oh wow, look at that typo.
Let me correct that for you. Usually they didn't respond
once they realize, oh, a real person is actually here
in reading these. Yeah, but we did want to end
(34:21):
with a listener mail to show that it's not all bad.
Hannah wrote, thanks for this week's episode on women and
online gaming during COVID nineteen, I, like so many others,
have spent lots of time with animal crossing during quarantine.
Since Annie likes island facts, my island is named Googles
the same town name I've been using since Animal Crossing
was released on GameCube, and I have all female residents
(34:43):
on my island except for two male cats, because cats
are welcome in my feminist utopia. Also my dip for
avoiding animal Crossing anxiety, don't look on social media other
people's islands. I know that if I went out and
look at all the awesome islands people have created, that
I would feel like mine is completely inferior. But I
love my little island and its chill, underdeveloped vibes. You
(35:04):
definitely should play, just don't compare yourself to what others
are doing or if you're doing it right. I guess
that's pretty good life advice in general. Another way video
games have helped me during the pandemic is that I
started streaming my gameplay on Twitch, not Animal Crossing. Though
Google's is only for me, It's been a great opportunity
for me to showcase the offbeat types of simulation and
mystery games that I enjoy while staying in touch with
(35:25):
some friends and family who come to join me in
the chat. I've also found that streaming is a great
way for me to combat my imposter syndrome, since I'm
just talking to a microphone by myself. I feel like
I've been able to be more my real self rather
than the buttoned up, anxious version of me that's always
seeking to please others. I know it sounds completely counterintuitive,
but streaming has been therapeutic for me, and it helped
(35:45):
me feel less shy. My friends and family are getting
to experience a more authentic, weird version of me than
what I normally present, and hopefully I'll be more comfortable
being my real self when we're all back to seeing
each other face to face. I do worry that eventually
I'll get trolls in my channel or viewers who will
want to man plaining things to me, but it hasn't
happened in the two months i've been streaming, yet I
feel like I'll be confident enough to deal with it
when if it does happen, since I've really found my
(36:07):
voice video games. Video games. Yeah, but see, that's the thing.
That's a beautiful thing that we should be trying striving
to make for everyone. I love it. I love it,
and your Animal Crossing Island sounds amazing, Google, So that's
a good name. It's excellent, and please keep those uh
messages coming in, keep sending us what's going on on
(36:28):
your island. We love it, We love it. You can
email us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media
dot com. You can find us on Instagram at stuff
I Never Told You or on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks,
it's always sort of superproducer Andrew Howard, thank you, and
thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You,
his production of iHeart Radio. For more podcast from my
Heart Radio, It's the I Hear Radio app, Apple podcast,
(36:50):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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