Sexual harassment

[Galaktica]

TLDR: People need to start being adults more about a lot of things. Youre not receiving sexual harassment if someone is being stupid to your avatar. Youre not your avatar. Think of hte children is a stupid argument. Parents need to be exercising responsibility, and if they fail and your an adult, be a stand up person and just keep an eye on things and make sure younger players know youre someone they can talk to. Be rational about solving issues, not emotional.

I see where you're coming from, and I don't think you're necessarily wrong in your sentiment. I do think, however, that we can debate the nature of avatars.

They more or less represent you. It's how you choose to express yourself. For some people, that attachment is flimsy at best. They would be just as at home playing one race as they would another. For others, that expression means a lot more. They care about the work they put into their character so much that it feels like they're putting a piece of themselves out there for the world to see and judge. If the world responds negatively to that piece, it often feels personal. Some people choose to be a Miqo'te or whatever because they don't give a shit and it's just kinda cute to play as. Some people look at Miqo'te and think "this is how I'm going to choose to represent myslelf in this world. A fun-loving adventurous cat." Then some creepy dude comes by thinks "I know one Miqo'te who is a slut! This one must be too!" and it just puts a damper on the whole thing.

Is it as bad as someone slapping your ass in real life or calling you a slut to your face? No, but it still stings because it feels like that part of you that you put out there is being misconstrued.

Think about it like this: say in your free time you enjoyed making music or painting. Then let's say, you decided to upload your work to deviantart or youtube or whatever. Now, that work isn't necessarily "you" either, but it's still the part of you that you chose to put out there. You go, show off your work, and everyone shits on it. Now, it may not mean much to you for any number of reasons and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, for some, it may sting a lot. Again, they're choosing to put a piece of themselves out there in some form and it may not be easy enough for them or they just might care a whole lot more. Nothing wrong with that either.

This isn't directly entirely at you, but the thing I dislike about all these "snowflake" and "get over it comments" is this seemingly underlying thought process that everyone is the same. Or like we should all be connected to some weird hivemind. People are all different. That's like a kind of important part to being human. For some people, it's the painting and music is their choice of expression. For others, it's FFXIV (and video games in general).

[Areic]

Gamergate was a movement of men just harassing women constantly. That's all it was. (And yes, harassment is directly related to the topic... it's... it's like things don't survive in a vacuum!) It's also a stupid movement that served no real purpose.

And yes, they were a bunch of immature babies.

It was a stupid movement from both sides. You had extreme left and extreme right s&^%ting all over each other that just /started/ because one guy got stupid about an ex-girlfriend. There was indeed no point to the movement, I'll agree with you on that, but both sides were less than great about it.

Both were massive, immature babies because that's how some people on the internet are no matter your political views or beliefs, that's all I'll say on the subject. Just like how you were massively immature telling someone to "pump that one brain cell" and calling an entire group of people man-children.

It's good to think things out before you say things.

[LastFireAce]

I mean i never got Sexual harassment, but i guess the way i got harass more i feal like shit for it would be.
I kinda wanted to date someone, so i found someone for EB, everything was going oki until a third person when in, we all became best friend yay.... lol then little by little i started to notice i was becoming more of a third wheel? Party/say would stay silent yet they would somehow know where to go to each other place... Slowly i would get no inv and be forgotten to time....
Trash part is YOU know what was happening they wouldn't tell you.... welp by secret Tell/LS they started to date and i got left out... #fealbad

[Alaray]

It's good to think things out before you say things.

I don't even care about "Left/Right" dichotomy. It was literally prompted as an attack on individuals who, otherwise, just posted articles/wrote articles/videos about games. It opened floodgates of harassment and actively trying to claim it has no right to be mentioned near a topic of harassment is, at base, a bad observation and statement.

Because, frankly, the discussion taking place in the thread is about something that doesn't just encompass XIV. It encompasses a lot more than that, it's a problem that persists and being unable to mention other things (while initially mentioned in conjunction with a general load of items) and responding to it with "ew politics in my game???" is the worst position one can take in a topic literally based around the topic of harassment. When it directly correlates, and is within the same sphere.

Yes, I stand by my statements. I don't really care if you think I'm mature or not, whatever, your opinion about my personal character is the least of my worries.

But it just seems you were fishing for something to feel upset about and chose to nitpick something that doesn't even matter, compared to the rest of the content of what I typed out. Which, I mean, points for... well I don't really know what the point is, other than saying that defense of that movement which is hardlined into thinking harassing is a-okay. And I will continued to refer to the participants of Gamergate how I will, because that's what they are.

[Odstarva]

Ahah. Someone showed me this article yesterday.

Well, "article", really this is just a gossip piece like the sort you'd read on a magazine. Fc drama at the most!
Why did PC gamer even bother writing about that? It's just funny.

"He said!" "She said!" "I never said that!"
"We interviewed him in-game, and he said he could totally clear things up but wouldn't."

Wowza, I want them on the Jeremy Kyle show.

[Melichoir]

Snip

In game avatars are, ultimately, just that. An avatar. A 'doll' you can choose to model. Whether that is after you or not, matters little broadly. Because its not you. There are men and women who play characters who look nothing like them in real life. There are those who model htem as closely as possible. That is fine either way, but at the end of the day, it is not you. Its a puppet you control. People need to actually understand this. The game isnt the real world, but a stylized fantasy setting which we can interact with through our characters.

Thats what I mean by people needing to be adults. We can all have fun playing make believe, but at the end of the day, we need to still keep our feet (and our heads) in reality. If someone is running up and slapping your avatars butt, our response shouldnt be "OMG SEXUAL HARASSMENT!" but "Hey, stop that, youre ruining my experience here."

If the conversation becomes "Hey show me your 'X'" and "send pix" and the like, ok thats no longer dealing with the avatar, but you.

As for that 'sting', yeah, thats what happens when we place 'ourselves' on things. Its actually not a 'good' thing. We take criticism of something we made or a part of as criticism of ourselves and our worth. Its one thing to say "Hey youre character looks like hot garbage" and naother to say "You are hot garbage." One is criticism of something we made, but not ourselves, and the other is, well the other.

And to be clear, telling people to grow up is gonig to be a part of the discussion. Yeah there is oversimplification of legit harassment, but on teh same token, there are people becoming bent out of shape about things that really, as an adult, should not be something you should get bothered about. I get it, that it can be annoying. But if someone in a video game is like "Nice butt" to your toon, that isnt something worht getting worked up over. Smile about it, shrug it off, ignore them, slap them in the face, tell them to suck a butt, whatever you want, but it shouldnt be something that is 'scarring' you. And it wont, if you have some backbone to be unphased.

Or more simply put, people think that becoming desensitized is a terrible thing, but it actually has purpose. Becoming desensitized to small things so they roll off you will serve you much better than becoming upset and mentally disturbed at every little comment and provocation. So when people say "Grow up snowflake," there is a touch of truth to it, especially if its over a non issue.

[Penthea]

To people who don't believe sexual harassment can begin online, have a think about this:

It's a well known fact that people often meet their girl/boyfriends in online communities and it's far from unheard of for these relationships to lead to marriage. Yet you don't see people saying to them "you're lucky that your stupidity to become intimate with someone you met online didn't backfire" but when someone is unlucky enough to get into a relationship with an abusive person there are many comments that say things like "your pain is your fault for becoming close to someone online."

Why are happy endings more believable than bad endings? Are some people really naive enough to think happy endings are always the production of some sort of superior common sense or intellect? If only life always adequately rewarded those who are careful and deserving, but sadly it's not so simple.

[Areic]

snip.

I "nitpicked" as you put it because you got insulting with someone who simply asked someone not to bring some political agenda in here. Because that's what it was, political agenda. On top of insulting a group of people when both sides were far from innocent or virtuous

Scumbags exist on both sides. People shouldn't harass others, do things against others will's that involve them, etc. This is shown by the article that started this thread, it can hurt people emotionally especially when you go to the extremes. On the other side, people shouldn't blow things out of proportion make or false accusations that can seriously damage someone's name, etc. I'm on Balmung, I get hit on by male miqos generally a lot, often times something sexual. Know what I do? Nah thx mate, or blacklist them. Do I cry sexual harassment? Heck no, it's a god damn video game with people I'll never meet again. People I can easily ignore and never think a second thought about.

Online relationships can be more complicated, but on the same note it can be incredibly easy to cut them off. It really just depends how deep you let that grave get dug. If they have things to blackmail with like nude photos or such you let that happen. Anyone taking advantage of that is pure scum and should probably rot, but it's up to you to be careful with such things too because as the old adage goes, It's The Internet On the opposite end, many "victims" will just play something off to get their social circle to hate the "ex" since they don't want to be around them anymore.

You're right to not care what I think of you, because frankly I don't care about you, I don't know you, probably better that way. We obviously have conflicting views in the first place. But don't get nasty with people just because you feel "passionate" about a topic, especially when they aren't nasty with you in the first place

To the topic on hand from the OP though. It's an online game, it happens, you'll never stop it, it's the lowest tier of sexual harassment, though it can be annoying to some people. The world is filled with the great human race thats filled with a massive spectrum of mindsets and personalities. If you don't like what someone messaged to you, it's why we can block them.




.

[Zsolen]

"Political Agenda" is a buzzword that tries to give credence to a group of giant man-children who pitched a fit and threatened people. But uh. Yeah, go ahead and pump that one brain cell to think they were ever in the right, I guess?

You wouldn't be able to tell what my political philosophy is or who I support by my post alone. There is a reason for it. It has no place here.

[Elamys]

The fact that people think we're actually talking about people sexually harassing the characters on the screen and not, you know, the people behind those characters is astounding.

No, you can't sexually harass someone's pixel catgirl in Final Fantasy XIV but you CAN harass the actual person playing that pixel catgirl.