Jur wrote:


There's more than video game bullshit from maladjusted nerds going on. Some of the shit being said nowadays doesn't feel the same as it did, say, fifteen years ago. Sure, there was always the colourful phrases in joking banter. And there were always nuts out there. I doubt that will ever just up and vanish and I honestly don't give a shit about that. But some of the crap I'm seeing now is politically charged. Mix that up with a few back-to-back economic crisis and you can get some bad shit. History has a few fairly recent and jarring examples of those regression periods. And right now, there's a lot of situations that makes me think just how shitty and miserable of a people we are.

Throw a few nuts like Rick Santorum into the mix and you'd have to be blind to not get why some groups are getting a bit defensive. I don't blame them in the slightest. The fact is that some equal rights were fought for, and letting those gains slide isn't so much a good idea. Things aren't so neat and clean as linear progress.

SaMoKo wrote:


I am off, right this second, to cancel Orbit/Showtime in Kuwait because it is 400 channels of shit. I am happy to hook up my laptop to the TV and watch Netflix on demand, rather than the bullshit that masquerades for entertainment in this country. I'm looking forward to the discussion I will have with the company.

You can sign on to Orbit/Showtime at any of their myriad showrooms but, to dump it, you have to go to the, difficult to find, central office where they grill you about why you don't want TV in Kuwait. If you don't do this, they continue to bill you and, two years later, when you try to leave the country, you can't because you owe a fuckton of money to OSN. There is no postal service in Kuwait, so you don't know you are being billed.

Assholes. Of course, I have to pay for a proxy server so I can pretend to be in US or UK but it is worth it compared to paying $70/mnth for OSN.

Wish me luck !!!!

*UPDATE The good news was the interview wasn't too terrifying...'Why don't you want TV?....Because its rubbish' finito. The bad news is they need 1 months notice to disconnect (funny how they don't need one months notice to fucking connect you...that shit happens in 24hrs). Still, I feel better being more reliant on Netflix*

Delobius wrote:


It's the virtual equivalent of the shaved-headed, Tapout T-shirt/hoodie wearing wannabe thugsters that you see roaming around Gamestop.

SaMoKo wrote:


But ask yourself: has the world changed, or have I? People have kids and when you're in a store with your 10 year old and a 17 year old calls his girlfriend a "steaming puscunt" (or some such truly depraved string of adjectives) while his friends are giggling, do you laugh too at the creativity, or are you appalled and immediately want to bash him in the back of the head with a Spencer Gifts lava lamp because he just said something completely inappropriate in the presence of your child(ren)?

Jur wrote:


My world is soooo much better than it was 15 years ago. The video in the article linked to by the OP is sexual harassment in the workplace documented and served up as entertainment. You don't have to watch past the first few minutes of the woman's co-workers (and that's what they are) playing guess her bra size to see that. It looks like boys just joking around, but it is intimidation, bullying and harassment of a sexual nature. It made me realize how much easier and less stressful my job has been over the past 10 years, because it doesn't even enter my mind that today I'm might have to deal with stuff like that. The last time I witnessed a woman being sexually harassed at work was 10 years ago. A couple of youngs guys from Q&A were playing drop the pencil with a young administrative assistant. Their boss and her boss caught them at it and those clowns were gone the next week.

The "this is just the culture of the game industry" is the same lame excuse that people once used for every industry. We used to get, "well there are 297 men in this department and only 3 women, you have to expect a little flirtation and locker room talk." One year at the Christmas party all the women got a pair of panties as a gift. We had to hold them up and smile and say thank you while a room full of men laughed at us.

I also think that moving the conversation to focus on game culture in general rather than the specific incident is all deflection and smoke and mirrors to keep people from focusing on the issue Capcom doesn't want people talking about - sexual harassment in the workplace is illeagal and Capcom management knowingly allowed it.

ubarose wrote:


Brilliant point, Uba. It's to deflect liability because it's pretty pretty open and shut if the folks involved decide to retain counsel.

[quote="ubarose" post=118086]Jur wrote:
THANK YOU. I couldn't watch the videos. I saw a screen grab of her face and read the transcripts and that was enough for me. I hope none of the younger readers here are approaching this story with anything but this sentiment. She got up, went to work, and had her co-workers talk about her titties at her. This is not acceptable. I don't even care if there's some office romance going on--work is not the place to all about this. It's a good place to talk about /work/. I heard some horror stories the other day from co-workers about Ye Olde Leerer and it was nasty. It's not MAD MEN anymore. If he'd done this in any setting except for one where controversy counts he would have been shitcanned THAT DAY. He'd be remembered as "that asshole that used to work here," and some some pseudo martyr for the ass end of the Internet.

I love the way that people in my work talk about some of the guys that used to work here and the way they used to gawk and make hugely inappropriate comments. The reputations of these men have been completely dragged through the mud and i'm glad.

ubarose wrote:


I read this and almost spit my coffee at my screen. That's wildly inappropriate. It honestly sounds like a Sterling-Cooper prank.

Where does Uba work and I can I boycott that company's products or something?