r/SubredditDrama • u/monoka • Sep 07 '15
TotalBiscuit not happy about his audience ragging on a 10 year old girl in the Dragoncon panel audience for having an annoying laugh and his subreddit disagree.
Basically couple of day ago TotalBiscuit did a panel at Dragoncon and upload the footage on his youtube channel. Apparently there is a kid sit next to the mic laugh a lot during the panel and people find her super annoying and complain about it.
Today TotalBiscuit respond to this by calling out some of the poeple on his subreddit for picking on a 10 year old girl and said this is why he don't link to his subreddit anymore.
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u/wrc-wolf Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
To put a bit more context onto this, he's specifically calling out his fans for this, even though it's such a small thing, because of previous behavior. It was just a month or so ago that he had a transsexual guest on his podcast and the subreddit suddenly became filled with transphobic hate mongering. Which was both gross and weird considering the guest in question had been on previously and was near-universally loved.
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Sep 08 '15
the guest in question had been on previously and was near-universally loved.
This doesn't look to be exactly the case. In both Reddit threads (Episode 69, Feb 26, 2015 and Episode 89, Aug 28, 2015), mods had to callout transphobia and was mass-banning/removing comments. The old thread definitely seems a lot more positive about her, but there's plenty of shit to go around in both.
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u/hiero_ Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Laura is a great person, but I don't enjoy her humor (it's why I stopped listening to the Jimquisition). A lot of the people in the thread were unfortunately absolutely disgusting with their transphobic comments and the endless flood of comments about how much they hate her voice. I sit in the camp that doesn't enjoy Laura as a guest because of her humor. It can pretty much be summed up in a joke she made on the podcast her first time one when she joked about "taking a shit on an 11 year old girl's chest" right after discussing "golden monkey cocks." I feel gross just saying that. I'm not kidding - she is incredibly crass and her comedy is purely sexually suggestive in nature in the worst kinds of ways.
Seriously. There's a reason a lot of people don't enjoy her presence, but unfortunately a shit ton of them are transphobic as hell.
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u/faceplanted Sep 08 '15
Laura isn't the only one making those jokes on the Jimquisition, Jim has almost the exact same humour.
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u/Ichthus5 Sep 08 '15
Jim's a bit hard to listen to as well. I personally found Laura pretty grating, but it sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with her gender. People just love being assholes about something that has no consequence to them.
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u/rsynnott2 Sep 08 '15
This is more a Jimquisition thing than a Laura thing, I think; both Jim and Laura are far more over-the-top on the Jimquisition than on their other podcasts, with Gavin as the straight man. Similar format to Dismal Jesters (though that was even moreso), which had Jim and Conrad mock-horrifying Jonathan Holmes.
You may prefer her in the Destructoid UK podcast, which is probably her best regular show.
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u/dragonblade629 Sep 08 '15
That reminds me that I forgot to start listening to that podcast. I was in between podcast managers when that one started up so I sort of forgot about it.
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u/Valvert Sep 08 '15
I definitely agree! It's definitely a Jimquisition thing and it's not really my favourite kind of humour so I think they both take it a bit too far sometimes, but it's still one of my favourite podcasts. I've heard her in other podcasts and she's definitely not as over-the-top there.
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Sep 08 '15
Laura gets a pass for me because she does have mental disabilities (as she's mentioned on twitter) that makes it hard for her to understand social cues or know if a joke hits. I do love her articles though.
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Sep 08 '15
she does have mental disabilities
I really like her work and I've never heard this, other than that she has issues with depression. What are you referring to?
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Sep 08 '15
she does have mental disabilities (as she's mentioned on twitter) that makes it hard for her to understand social cues
If only the people who hate on her took a few minutes to get to know her better. They'd find so much common ground.
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u/LuciusAnneas Sep 10 '15
I still find it hard to understand why people get upset about other peoples genitalia ... or about overt sexuality in general .. I guess we can thank christianity for that
I m more upset about Laura K having strange opinions, for instance shitting on classic games like Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines or being obtuse about the use of metaphor in science fiction generally, then about her choice of gender identity or what bits she was born with .. frankly in the 21st century people should start getting over those hangups imo. Also ragging anonymously about other peoples appearance or other character traits they have little to no control over generally seems a really cowardly and shitty move. Especially when targeted at a child. I think TB was totally right to stand up to that sort of bullying - I just fear that doing it on reddit is an effort of herculean proportions Internet culture in general is just way to casual about this sort of harassment imo
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Sep 08 '15
The lesson is that you get the audience you pander to. Since TB announced he was GG, his supporters have gotten increasingly insufferable. Before that, people weren't afraid to call him out for being full of shit. Now that he's Dear Leader, questioning His Wisdom is grounds for beating via imgurs with Truth Arrows, 12,000 word Twitlongers, and @-harassment.
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Sep 08 '15
I'm pretty sure TB has criticised journalists for insulting their audience (biting the hand that feeds) and insulting TB's audience. He's also blamed his critics for being harassed by his fans because they knew what they were getting into.
https://archive.is/4PCU7 ("Do with it what you will, come after me fine, come after my audience, enjoy the consequences.")
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sjkslb ("I thoroughly condemn the idea that my followers and viewers are horrible people who would engage in harassment.")
He's right here of course, but the hypocrisy is blatant.
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Sep 08 '15
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u/sanguine_song Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Not sure about right now but he was pretty supportive of GG.
He once wrote an open letter to r/KotakuInACtion urging them to try and not look so ridiculous. He said he was introducing game devs he met to the subreddit and sometimes what they saw there was embarrasing.
Edit Also, not saying TB is doing this but it is common for GGers to say they are neutral when they are not. Maybe they think it lends them credibility or maybe it makes it easier for them to say that "AGGROS" hate neutrals? Mark Kern is generally considered by GGers as neutral but if you see his twitter, you will find out how ridiculous this is.
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u/SaintKairu Sep 08 '15
I mean, I'm pretty sure he was in it for the actual "Ethics in Videogame Journalism" thing, because some would say he is a videogame journalist.
But that's just a guess, I don't follow his politics too closely.
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u/DocSwiss Sep 08 '15
I remember that. He basically got shat on for asking them to not be twats and then the ensuing drama showed up here. Good times.
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u/kraetos Sep 08 '15
He once wrote an open letter to r/KotakuInACtion urging them to try and not look so ridiculous
lol, you may as well ask a fish not to swim.
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u/ReggieJ Sep 08 '15
Ahh yes -- the same species as an "independent voter" who voted a party slate in the 15 out of the last 15 elections.
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Sep 08 '15
He shared what amounts to a manifesto / mission statement to KiA, so I'm not exactly sure he's sitting on the fence. If he disapproves of some GGers, he's still pro GG as a whole.
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u/reductios Sep 08 '15
About a month ago, he put a monologue on Sound Cloud where he talks about GG.
https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/enough
It's quite painful listening. He talks about how he's been in therapy after receiving death-threats. The jist was that he thinks the two sides are at cross purposes and arguing about completely different things and he thinks both sides had their share of absolutely awful people.
He doesn't come across as pro-GG, although I think he would probably agree with some of the criticisms they make of games journalism.
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u/rsynnott2 Sep 08 '15
I think he's finally starting to realise that gamergate are fucking awful. Unlike certain other gamergate celebrities, he was always more naive/gullible than malicious. At one time he was all in with gamergate, though, while making occasional pretenses of being neutral.
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u/yaypal Sep 08 '15
I haven't followed him for months (I unsubbed specifically for these reasons) but the issue with him was that he didn't understand that GG had morphed into the full out misogyny carnival and stuck to his guns that it was still Ethics in Games Journalism. He's probably changed by now since it's blatant that's what GG is but I found there's a lot less dumb drama on my dash without him.
I have faith that if it was clear to him from the beginning that's what the gators were going for, he would have either made no comment or at least said he didn't support the them. Doesn't stop him from sticking his nose in social media though.
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u/Alchemistmerlin Sep 08 '15
Biscuit uses gator rhetoric all the time, he really shouldn't be surprised to find out his audience is full of predatory reptiles unchanged since the dawn of time.
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Sep 08 '15
That's the community he's cultivated. It's hard to believe he would be surprised.
If the guest was last on prior to gamergate, I don't think that's surprising at all.
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u/chaobreaker Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Seems like its every other week that Total "IQ of 140" Biscuit has to call out his fanbase for being arrogant spiteful assholes.
Hmm I wonder why?
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u/bigDean636 Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
I mean, TB has gone out of his way to ensure his fans are only white teenage boys without an ounce of empathy or awareness. He shouldn't be surprised when they hate on minorities or, in this case, 10 year old girls. YouTube asshole has asshole fans, more news at 11.
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u/aceavengers Sep 08 '15
Even the mods are saying 'it wasn't that bad' and 'we didn't feel the need to remove any comments' but I looked back at the thread they're referring to and there's a lot of circlejerking about it. TB wasn't wrong to call it ragging on a 10 year old girl.
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u/TimeLordPony Sep 08 '15
To be fair, watch any convention video with an audience member being loud enough to be heard.
Watch any convention video with Q&A
This isn't isolated to TB fans, this is anyone that is interested in watching the panel, but was unable to attend, cringing or cursing that they can't hear the panel.
Dedicated WAM is still mocked to this day.
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u/teleekom Sep 08 '15
I left the comment there about the laugh, I don't understand how was I ragging or circlejerking, it was simple observation of someone's annoying laughter. I didn't know what sex the person was neither what age that person was. What I see as a circlejerk is the comments how "TB's fans are the worst" and how evil trolls are raging against 10 year old girl. NOBODY in that thread could have known how old the kid is, what sex the kid is or that the laugh is so loud because of the proximity to the mic. I just find the laughter annoying so I left the comment there, I'm not sure how this become such a drama. TB really blown this out of proportions on this one
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u/demacish Sep 08 '15
I can say that i was complaining that it was annoying, and i still agree to that, but at the time of my comments, i didn't know that she was just 10 years old, and for me it was just a person that i had no clue who it was, so imo it didn't affect anyone
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Sep 08 '15
TotalBiscuit fans are the fucking worst. They are the people who take "PC master Race" seriously.
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u/bushiz Sep 08 '15
Boy who knew when you cultivate a personality as an unironic asshole and do it without any finesse you end up with a shitty fan base.
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u/Devlinukr Sep 08 '15
You're not kidding, I think I listened to him for a while during my WoW days but fuck me is he a cock.
Pretty sure a large part of his popularity came from his accent but I'm English as well so he just comes across as someone I'd like to punch in the face.
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Sep 08 '15
A lot of his popularity comes from that he does know what he's talking about when it comes to video games. The problem is, and I say this as a moderate fans of his, is that he doesn't know when to shut the fuck up.
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u/tehlemmings Sep 08 '15
He rarely knows what he's talking about with video games. The subjective stuff sure, but he's made it quick clear he has no technical, design, or writing knowledge. He's openly stated as much multiple times. His best is to stick with just his opinion and review of the game's options screen.
He frequently makes those "it should be easy" type comments when talking about programming and new features that physically hurt any programmers out there lol
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u/detroitmatt Sep 08 '15
he's popular because he sounds like what dumb people, who think they're smart, think smart people sound like, so they can feel smart/smug for listening to him.
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u/GuildedCasket Sep 08 '15
Holy Jesus, I had no idea TB had all this drama surrounding him. I just liked his "wtf is..." series and port reports as background noise.
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Sep 08 '15
That's the only thing I really pay attention to of his. But even then, his 60fps crusade, while something I mostly agree with, is getting tiresome. Especially when Reddit takes it even more seriously and way too far.
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u/BilllyMayes Sep 08 '15
I watch his content that appeals to me (wtf is... series). I don't follow him on Twitter and am subscribed to the subreddit. That place is kinda shitty, but no less or more than YouTube comments.
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u/Dutchcrafter Sep 08 '15
Exactly. Just because you like his content you don't become a shitty person. It's not TotalBiscuit fans that are ''the fucking worst'' It's awfull people who just happen to be fan of TotalBiscuit.
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u/PartyPoison98 Sep 08 '15
We're not all bad. Most of us just just listen to his opinion on games (which he does know about) but nothing else that he prats on about
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u/ALoudMouthBaby Sep 08 '15
TB was pretty heavily involved in Gamergate, which speaks volumes about the kind of people that are his fans.
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u/beanfiddler Sep 08 '15
I figured he was just catering to the lowest common denominator for views and cash until he went totally off the rail. Then someone pointed out his long and storied past with total cringe, and I came to the realization that, by god, he is the lowest common denominator.
By cringe I mean his TL;DR atheist manifesto, his bragging about a 140 IQ, and waxing poetics about corruption in gaming journalism despite whoring himself out for Planetside 2.
Really, gaming drama is the gift that keeps on giving. It's like a never ending parody of itself. Just when you think that nobody can stoop any lower than that, by god, they're going to prove you wrong or die trying.
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Sep 08 '15
What's the story of TB and Planetside 2? Curious as a PS2 player who wasn't around in those days.
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u/DocSwiss Sep 08 '15
He was fairly heavily involved in the PS2 community and got paid to do some stuff so people assume that the video he made 'reviewing' PS2 was influenced by that money. It is entirely possible that I oversimplified things, but I think I'm about right.
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u/Dear_Occupant Sep 08 '15
It's like a never ending parody of itself. Just when you think that nobody can stoop any lower than that, by god, they're going to prove you wrong or die trying.
I said this about the Republicans and it's been decades now. Please make it stop.
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u/beanfiddler Sep 08 '15
I can't imagine what will be more cringey: a Clinton/Trump matchup full of sexism, or a Sanders/Trump matchup full of "lol, you're a commie."
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Sep 08 '15
I would like to say that since his videos on Planetsidr 2, TB has expressed the opinion that those videos were ultimatly a bad idea
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u/ALoudMouthBaby Sep 08 '15
his bragging about a 140 IQ,
It is actually kind of sad, if you go back and read this post he made on SA his rhetoric, his writing style, his bluster, pretty much everything is just about the exact same then as it is now. That post was made 8 years ago, it is as if he as a person has not developed one single bit. He has never engaged in introspective thought, contemplated a subject, strove to develop a skill, or done any of the other things that develop us as human beings.
For anyone interested in comparing, here is TB's notorious 2007 post on SA, and here is his writing about the concept of privelege, circa 2014.
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Sep 08 '15
Couldn't see the SA, but the more recent post makes me wish I was at a desk so I could bang my head upon it.
He leads with the almost accurately-stated notion that racism against people who as members of the majority wield power in their society isn't really a thing; or if it is it might as well not be for all the effect it has. Then he turns around and lists examples of powerful classes of people around the world behaving in racist ways toward less privileged groups, and somehow that's supposed to debunk white privilege in America?
I swear, if r/iamverysmart had a spirit animal, TB would be it.
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u/beanfiddler Sep 08 '15
Why would he evolve? He literally survives on that mindset. That's how he pays his bills. People reward him with lots and lots of money for his close-minded black-and-white thinking awkwardly cut and pasted over video game commentary and a British accent.
It's not like his fans ever really grow up. Either they're just as stunted as he is, or they actually physically grow up and get new hobbies. Problem is, there's always an ever-rotating consumer base of teenagers to replace them. So while TB gets older and older, his fanbase stays the same age.
I mean, how sad is it that some dude who's presumably well into adulthood has to cater to the childish tribal thinking of teenagers to make a buck, because it's the only buck he's ever made?
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u/NeverForgetCumbox Sep 08 '15
He's acknowledged that part of his past, especially the "140 IQ" part on the podcast. He said himself he was cringeworthy, he's not at all like that anymore.
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u/PissingBears Sep 08 '15
Well besides that he's not really super insightful when it comes to gaming
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u/ALoudMouthBaby Sep 08 '15
I dont know, Ive seen him pick apart the layout of a menu screen with a gusto you wouldnt believe!
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Sep 08 '15
He actually replied to me on youtube a few times going back and forth about those "gamers are dead" articles - I was kind of shocked at how much he missed the point of what they were trying to say.
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u/ALoudMouthBaby Sep 08 '15
Have you ever read his writing on any subject other than video games? He is not smart, not smart at all. Yet he absolutely insists on discussing topics he clearly has no familiarity with as if he were an expert.
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u/CressCrowbits Sep 08 '15
First time I heard about TB was when I posted on the comments of a reddit thread of one of his Lets Plays saying he seemed like a bit of a dick, and as if my magic he appeared, linked my comment on twitter and sent his hordes to downvote me and send me rather pathetic PMs.
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u/kingseeker__frampt Sep 08 '15
Care to post the comments or should we just take your word for it? Whatever those retarded articles were trying to say, the way they came off as intentionally abrasive and they meant for that.
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u/OkIWin Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
No he wasn't... He even made a video explaining how he wasn't affiliated with Gamergate, this is just something people keep saying over and over again till everyone believes it. Argumentum ad populum....
Even people who are part of Gamergate understand that only some of his views allign with theirs and that he has distanced himself from Gamergate over and over again.
Edit: As much as I disagree with TB - I find it absurd that you guys are painting someone to be affiliated with a group simply because he made videos agreeing with them. Being part of an organization and agreeing with an organization are two totally different things. If you want to attack him, attack him for his views - that's totally fair game. Making an assumption that he is affiliated with a group (simply on the basis of agreeing with that group) and attacking him on those grounds is completely unreasonable.
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u/Killgraft Sep 08 '15
I feel like he has distanced himself from GG as time has gone on, but at the start of it he seemed pretty much balls deep in it.
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u/ALoudMouthBaby Sep 08 '15
No, TB was very, very much involved with Gamergate. To cite a one month old post on KiA as demonstrating that he wasn't is fucking hilarious. It ignores the first six months of that shit show, all of which TB was heavily involved in.
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Okay thats not actually entirely correct. He talked about things around it, but never identified with it and never indulged in the shittiness of it despite one badly thought out tweet about death threats, and one very neutral tweet about Zoe Quinn.
This is coming from someone who despises everything about gg.
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u/happyscrappy Sep 08 '15
And on top of that some of them are so immature they probably are actually chronologically immature. And good luck trying to get 12 year olds to stop picking on 10 year olds.
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u/gaojia Sep 08 '15
they're also people who like TotalBiscuit which means they have to be fucking terrible
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u/bushiz Sep 08 '15
Boy who knew when you cultivate a personality as an unironic asshole and do it without any finesse you end up with a shitty fan base.
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u/VoltageHero Sep 08 '15
TotalBiscuit isn't a saint either.
While he isn't nearly as bad as some of other Youtubers in his "field", he is still very much a dick sometimes.
I recall when Totalbiscuit kicked the guest they had invited on the show from the TGS Podcast, just because.
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u/MisdemeanorOutlaw Sep 08 '15
I recall when Totalbiscuit kicked the guest they had invited on the show from the TGS Podcast, just because.
Well, this is a gross misrepresentation of what happened. If you're referring to the episode with the Underbelly guy, they kicked him because his roommate was sitting right next to him off camera talking loudly as if he was also on the show, and then, among other things, mooned and flipped off the camera. And the Underbelly guy did nothing to make him stop.
Here is the link The first comment links to the highlights...
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Sep 08 '15
So the topic of this thread is TB doing something decent and quite brave and calling his fans on their bullshit, but all anyone can talk about is how much of an arsehole he must be because his fanbase is shitty.
There's no winning with you guys.
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Sep 08 '15
Seriously. I always feel weird going to bat for the guy in SRD, especially when he does something good.
As for the other stuff that always floats around threads about him, Its like if you watch his content, his opinions on this stuff are pretty nuanced, I don't always agree with them, but he isn't this fucking uber-troll, as if someone rolled Sargon and Milo-whateverthefuckhisnameis together and gave him 10 fifths of vodka and a microphone. Yeah he's a bit obnoxius and has an ego the size of Manhattan, but thats about it.
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u/OpinionKid Sep 08 '15
It's hilarious in a sad way. People are out to ruin the dude. They hate his guts.
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u/dotpoint90 Sep 08 '15
Gamergate/Antigamergate is so polarizing that once you make a comment about either side you're going to have a hatemob forever, regardless of what you do.
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u/Venne1138 Sep 08 '15
I mean look at Jim Sterling...him and TB were on completely opposite sides of the 'culture wars' bull shit. But they don't hate each other. Sterling was even on the podcast 2 weeks ago...
I don't totally agree with all of TB's politics but that doesn't mean he's literally scum. I still enjoy his content because of muh sliders.
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u/TheCommieDuck Sep 08 '15
Maybe because they're sensible adults who don't base their opinions of people on their views on petty internet drama.
Just like this sub. /s
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u/jdmgto Sep 08 '15
Almost like if you're willing to sit down and talk with someone you can realize there's more to them than forum posts and tweets and you can be friends and not agree 100% about everything.
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u/Snoop_doge1 Sep 08 '15
There seems to be an anti gamergate and TB circlejerk on this sub. Im not a supporter of GG but people do seem to blow the things they do way out of proportion.
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u/Kiwilolo Sep 09 '15
You're totally right, but for me the nice thing about SRD is that you can post your comment on here and have that be decently upvoted as well.
SRD gets a little circlejerky, but at least it's sometimes marginally self-aware about it.
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u/Pointless_arguments Sep 08 '15
It's tribalism. You can see that polarizing effect with pretty much everything, OUR side is blameless and good, and THEIR side is scum and literally the worst people ever. It seems to be part of human nature to want to align with a group and vilify the opposing group.
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u/Nijos Sep 08 '15
To be fair, gg is pretty stupid. I don't really have a pony in the race but everything I see about it makes me feel like it's painfully dumb
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Sep 09 '15
There seems to be an anti gamergate and TB circlejerk on this sub.
Seems to be? Oh man, the anti-GG, anti-TB and even anti-MRA circlejerk is always on full throtle. There was a post recently that talked about Anita, just Anita, (Well, not just her, multiple other things but GG was not one of them) and it was very brief in the linked thread. That didn't stop multiple people with 100+ upvotes from bringing up GG and how awful it is though!
Glad this sub is self-aware though. Sometimes, at least. I'm glad people are going against this circle-jerk. Good on you and everyone else.
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u/respaaaaaj Sep 08 '15
I hate the guy because I've interacted with him, but I can't see anything he did wrong here. I mean TB calling out his fanbase for shit like this frankly is commendable. I still don't like him, but I have to respect him for doing this.
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u/Redditapology Sep 08 '15
It's stuff like this that always make me wonder what percent of a "public figure's" personality is just showmanship. You see these assholes randomly act like human beings, like Bill O'Reilly on the Daily Show kind of thing
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u/EmergencyChocolate Sep 08 '15
I don't know about "ruin", I just think he's always been polarizing. He's sort of made a career out of this shtick. Seems to get off on creating drama and Twitter feuds and trading on callout/outrage culture (when it suits him) and all that. He reminds me of Destiny that way.
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u/hiero_ Sep 08 '15
Every time TB is mentioned in the thread title on SRD you can guarantee the fuckwits will come out of the woodwork to derail the thread into "BUT TB IS A GROSS SEXIST MANCHILD WHO [LE]TERALLY EATS FEMINIST BABIES FOR BREAKFAST!"
After finally reaching the bottom of the thread this is basically how I feel
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u/observer_december Sep 08 '15
It's a dramatic person with a dramatic history doing taking part in something dramatic. People are going to talk about what they think of them, same as whenever Ides, Unidan, or the SRC founder does something relevant.
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Sep 08 '15
Basically this is how SRD works-
Anyone or anything featured is stupid and funny. Until SRD starts talking about a person, political stance or whatever the hell that you actually like. Then suddenly SRD is a circlejerking hatemob and you just can't believe your virgin eyes.
Until they start bashing flytape or something again. Then its all lols and pixiedust once more.
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u/Teddyman Sep 08 '15
The problem is exactly that TB is so close to getting it. He calls out shitty behavior when he has enough sympathy for the target. Dodger gets harassed/stalked and he thinks it's terrible. If Sarkeesian or random GG targets get harassed, he says nothing or points out how he already condemned harassment of anybody some weeks earlier. Transphobia is bad when it's targeting Scarlett or Liana K, but his tweets of variations of the attack helicopter stuff were just harmless jokes. Jim Sterling tweets an article about how murders of trans people need to stop and he needs to point out how murders of ALL people need to stop.
If he was a consistent idiot like Milo people would just write him off. TB has the right idea but seems to assume that people outside his circle are lying professional victims.
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u/Dioxy Sep 08 '15
I really don't think those attack helicopter jokes were transphobic at all. It's making fun of the people who say things like "I identify as a dragon" not transgendered people. I'm honestly really surprised people keep labeling him as transphobic because of those tweets
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u/tuckels Sep 08 '15
That's how it started, but it's definitely been co-opted by the anti-trans crowd (or at least people who don't see the difference between being trans & wanting to be a dragon). I can't speak for TB as I don't know the context, but it's become a bit of a dog-whistle term for a lot of people.
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u/Dioxy Sep 08 '15
Very true, but I think it's pretty obvious that's not the direction TB was taking it. He's been pretty openly pro-trans rights. Just a fyi in case you were wondering, he actually said "I identify as a toaster" not the attack helicopter copypasta
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u/Teddyman Sep 08 '15
Tweets in question. He probably doesn't mean to be transphobic, but he uses all the normal responses you'd see on KiA. Turning "cultural appropriation" around and making fun of triggers. Of course if you see a similarity with toasters and trans people, you are the real transphobe!
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u/Leprecon Sep 08 '15
It is because he creates and caters to his audience.
It is like a father who constantly spends time with his son, complaining how his son is so shitty. It is great that the father can see when his kid is acting shitty, but it just makes you wonder why the father doesn't ask the question 'where is this coming from?'.
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u/n0ggy Sep 08 '15
Nobody is harassing him.
I just don't feel that much sympathy for him. His previous opinions clearly pandered to the GamerGate crowd.
He simply shouldn't be surprised that his fans are reactionary and hateful men-children.
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u/rsynnott2 Sep 08 '15
He kind of brought this problem upon himself, by courting gamergate. A fitting punishment.
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u/redpossum Sep 09 '15
SRD got itself into an actual frenzy over gamer gate, equal to the rage of the most diehard on each side.
The subreddit has calmed down now, but there's still such residual hate that even a man defending a girl from internet abuse is getting massive abuse thrown at him here. Madness.
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u/conceptfartist Sep 08 '15
So the topic of this thread is TB doing something decent and quite brave and calling his fans on their bullshit,
I thought this subreddit was about enjoying drama? Not posting "they sure showed them", "look at these idiots", "this vindicates my sense of justice", "I can use this as a springboard to bring up one of my pet issues"?
Have, have I been misled all along.. ... ... ?
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u/hamie96 Sep 08 '15
I mean if you have a history of being a sexist asshole that shits on others, then people are going to remember you as "that asshole".
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Sep 08 '15
"Why are you guys giving a hard time for a guy with a history of being childish and supporting a sexist movement?"
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u/Barl0we Sep 08 '15
That's way too low-hanging circlejerk.
The guy actually supports ethics in whatever. He's lost old friends for criticizing them for not properly disclaiming when their videos were promotional.
Look, he might be sort of a horse's ass sometimes...But listen to the co-optional podcast, and you'll realize that he's not actually a bad guy.
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u/yaypal Sep 08 '15
This isn't the defend or condemn squad, he's just got years of great buttery material.
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u/MisdemeanorOutlaw Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
I'm surprised at how many people forget what it is like to be a ~10 year old. At that age me and all my friends were cussing up a storm. If YouTube existed when I was ten, and these guys made videos then, I most likely would have watched them...
I saw people in the thread imply that the girl must have awful parents or w/e and it is honestly surprising to me. It is also weird because reddit is generally in favor of "free-range parenting" and against "helicopter parenting" to an almost annoying degree. I hate both of those terms, btw, mainly because they make it seem like parents these days are SO MUCH more high strung then they were ~10 years ago, which isn't true at all.
For context, I'm from a painfully whitebread, upper-middle class, suburban town (basically the type of town where reddit thinks all of these ultra-high strung parents are) and for all intents and purposes had fantastic parents. But these people would label my parents "awful" and "irresponsible" if they knew some of the things they let me do/see/watch/listen to when I was ~10.
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u/hakkzpets Sep 08 '15
I don't really get what would be irresponsible with letting your kids watch TB. It's a guy who talks about video games and uses some swear words now and then.
How much bubble wrap do these people want to put around their kids?
As a 10 year old, I was watching random stuff on live leak (or whatever it was called before that). Anything on YouTube sort of pales in comparison with that (even though it wasn't as much "all we have here is videos of people decapitating people" back then). I watched god damn "Sallad Fingers" on Newsgrounds, which probably scared me for life. Shit, dad played Doom with me when I was four years old. I still have nightmares about that game.
But here I am 21 years later and I'm doing fine.
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u/ComputerJerk Sep 08 '15
I don't really get what would be irresponsible with letting your kids watch TB. It's a guy who talks about video games and uses some swear words now and then.
It's pretty common for them to talk about adult oriented games. You generally get a couple from the "Butt-touching" genre covered every co-optional podcast because that's Dodger's bread and butter.
All the same I think everyone, TB included, is blowing this well out of proportion. It annoyed some people, they said it annoyed them on the Subreddit... That should have been the end of it.
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u/BillyQ Sep 08 '15
Watching LiveLeak at 10 + 21 years later = 31. LiveLeak was around in 1994??
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u/hakkzpets Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
No, 21 years later than when I was four and playing Doom.
And i was thinking of Break.com, always thought they just changed into liveleak.com, but that seems to be wrong.
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Sep 08 '15
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u/hakkzpets Sep 08 '15
My point was that kids usually can see more stuff than some parents think without becoming psychopathic serial killers.
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u/hamie96 Sep 08 '15
But showing some content (like the rape scene in Rick & Morty) can really warp a child's view. It's why I agree with parents who says things like "I don't let my kids watch South Park" because usually it's better to censor some material at an early age.
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u/LoopyDood Sep 08 '15
With the trans drama a few weeks ago and now this, I've got a little more respect for TB. I just listened to the soundcloud from the last drama and it sounds like he's sick of a certain subset of his fans and actively trying to alienate them.
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u/Lodur Sep 08 '15
That made me so happy. I like TB and keep up with his content on YouTube and running into the trans drama really saddened me. I didn't realize Laura was trans (I was listening it on audio only) and seeing all the drama around her being trans sucked. I'm trans and trying to put together my own twitch chanel and gaming content and hearing that kind of stuff just frustrates and worries me. It's really nice to know some people of influence are willing to tell their fans to stuff it when they're being shitty. On the plus side, I learned Laura does her own gaming content and I'm looking at her work a lot more than I would have otherwise.
Anyway the general gaming communities are pretty misogynistic and transphobic which really, really sucks. I wish people weren't such assholes. Like why?
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u/LoopyDood Sep 08 '15
I think it just comes down to demographics. Look at the vast majority of gamers who consume that kind of (English speaking) content: straight, white, cis, teenaged to mid-twenties, and male. Most haven't experienced bigotry, discrimination, or oppression because of who they are. They don't have the life experience or emotional maturity to understand and empathize with less privileged or discriminated against people. Homogeneous subcultures tend to breed similar mindsets, and the circumstances of gaming culture formed a "less PC" one. Not to mention Gamergate which attracted an "anti-SJW" fanbase to TB, a subset of which are just straight bigots.
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u/GladiatorUA Sep 08 '15
I would have to disagree.
TB's biggest demographic is 25-34.
Skin color, sexual orientation etc. doesn't really stop anyone from shitting on other people over the internet, just very slightly restricts targets.
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u/LoopyDood Sep 08 '15
TB's audience was relevant to the last drama, but I was commenting on the bigotry in the general gaming community as a whole (who TB's fans are a part of and are influenced by). Yeah, people shit on each other all over the internet but there's a lot more bigotry in general among communities dominated by the least discriminated against.
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u/XDark_XSteel Sep 08 '15
Funny seeing how his fans in the subreddit suddenly not ok with his callouts when their the targets of it.
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u/hiero_ Sep 08 '15
Funny how SRD continues to shit all over the man at any given opportunity regardless of if he's trying to do the right thing or not.
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u/XDark_XSteel Sep 08 '15
Oh I think he's definitely right here, I'm just bitching about his fanbase in this case. His usual twitter callouts are a different matter altogether.
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Sep 08 '15
I feel like it's a bit late for him to start trying to do the right thing. If he starts doing it consistently, I might start to change my opinion of him.
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Sep 08 '15
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u/Minomos Sep 08 '15
Sure but the hate he is reviving here is insane.
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u/rsynnott2 Sep 08 '15
I think it's mostly more people making fun of him than actual hatred, really. A reasonable summary of most comments would be "he's an opportunistic hypocrite (and a bit of a dickhead) who's not half as clever as he thinks he is. And also periodically writes hilariously pretentious rubbish".
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u/anonveggy Sep 08 '15
The father called the people complaining about his daughter "pederasts" on twitter. that was funny too.
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u/arkansastraffic Sep 08 '15
A post is linked about TB shaming some idiots from his fanbase bashing a 10 year old
Quickly erupts into bashing him and talking about his involvement with Gamergate
Arguments ensue
Why even leave this thread for drama? I've got all the popcorn I need right here!
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u/BlackfishBlues Sep 08 '15
There's something about YouTube and podcast personalities that make them magnets for vitriolic, angry gremlins. Pretty much every YouTuber and podcaster I follow start out all excited about fanmail and happy to engage with viewers/listeners and end up just becoming disgruntled with their fanbase. It's almost like a rite of passage. The shift in attitude is very striking if you binge-watch/listen to a bunch of episodes at once.
A relatively new podcast I'm following, Hello Internet, is currently right in the middle of this. It makes me kind of sad.
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u/hakkzpets Sep 08 '15
How come that nerds as soon as they get older starts to think kids shan't ever do anything? Especially stuff they most likely did themselves when younger
"That kid shouldn't be there, TB uses swear words"
Wow, really? And here people wonder what happened to PG-13 movies.
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Sep 08 '15
I don't know, I have this mental block where 13 is where I'd be more lax about what kids do and look at, 10 is a bit young. The reasoning that "you did when you were their age" isn't really that good, considering I shouldn't have done it either.
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Sep 08 '15
Gathering every instance of TB claiming to avoid drama, and placing the quotes into a single block of text, would make for a great copypasta.
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u/cuddles_the_destroye Sep 08 '15
To be fair this isnt so much being controversial as it is yelling at his fanbase for being assholes. Unless that's a bad thing.
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u/Daspaintrain Sep 08 '15
Fair enough. He should just treat his fanbase with a little more respect.
if there's one thing I've learned from following multiple popular youtubers, it's that their fans really don't deserve much respect at all
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u/midnightvulpine Sep 08 '15
I watch TB's stuff, but I consider myself more a consumer than a fan. Fan's are crazy. And things like this are what make me think so. I tend to avoid the fandom aspect of those things I like, simply because it attracts people who care far more than they should about things.
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Sep 08 '15
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u/hiero_ Sep 08 '15
Someone needs to make a bingo card for what comments to expect any time TotalBiscuit is mentioned in a title on SRD because this shit is fucking obnoxious.
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u/MisdemeanorOutlaw Sep 08 '15
Yeah, I didn't think it was that bad at all. I stopped watching when they did the Q&A at the end though, because fan Q&As are almost invariably cringy. So maybe it was worse during that?
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u/dragonblade629 Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
I just listened to that and I could hear the laugh sometimes, it really isn't that bad. Well, it isn't bad at all, it's just background noise like at any con thing. The fact that this started drama is absurd.