tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12737953651030497132024-03-05T02:16:39.191-08:00icklenellieroseThoughts from the mind of a little LondonerEllen Rosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946824763000946122noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-12342265087401735272015-07-15T15:10:00.004-07:002015-07-15T15:10:58.553-07:00Holy Schmidt, my Kimmy cosplay went viral!So I went to my first MCM London Comic Con in October last year and loved it so much I've decided to make it a regular part of my calendar.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUrs-wKzirnJEK7WMI_bcPB9i8SiJVhCIwnfNr_vwp2kpGe3hfRWeR2N3fX-0G5S7m0dv3TgzDFL9M459u__7BWg3km7YUHzFrRYUaW3UuqXfkTFkPYyswJYr6xVtxDL__Xyax2WtTCe_4/s1600/MeCosplayLara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Lara Croft cosplay" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUrs-wKzirnJEK7WMI_bcPB9i8SiJVhCIwnfNr_vwp2kpGe3hfRWeR2N3fX-0G5S7m0dv3TgzDFL9M459u__7BWg3km7YUHzFrRYUaW3UuqXfkTFkPYyswJYr6xVtxDL__Xyax2WtTCe_4/s320/MeCosplayLara.jpg" title="" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Lara Croft Cosplay</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Back in October, I cosplayed as Lara Croft, but this time I had a more comedic character in mind.<br />
<br />
I'm a massive fan of Tina Fey's work, so when Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt appeared on Netflix, I KNEW I was going to love it, and love it I did. And whilst I was watching the first episode, I found I had a great affinity for Kimmy and her happy upbeat nature. I also noticed something. "Hey," I thought to myself. "I have half of that outfit already, and I've still not decided what to wear to MCM this May..."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_BdN4RgugbPt6GUhY-AfTvLHJGlb1Tv7V0tufnB2_WsBkPSqS1TKGBrztT5P2qKDFQFmY5rjuijkGGFp8bSWQi7059aeMSIDRDgst7e2NexSJ2SNzPMLagWPuP8AN6ItkaAnOlQKETT3x/s1600/kimmyschmidt.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kimmy Schmidt" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_BdN4RgugbPt6GUhY-AfTvLHJGlb1Tv7V0tufnB2_WsBkPSqS1TKGBrztT5P2qKDFQFmY5rjuijkGGFp8bSWQi7059aeMSIDRDgst7e2NexSJ2SNzPMLagWPuP8AN6ItkaAnOlQKETT3x/s1600/kimmyschmidt.jpeg" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kimmy in New York</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And that's when I decided to be Kimmy for London Comic Con. Before I'd even finished the series, I knew I HAD to be her. I trawled shops and the Internet for the items I didn't already have: a ginger wig (I'm brunette, yo), a yellow cardigan (and butterflies to sew on), a flowery shirt (which are surprisingly hard to find in women's sizes...!) and a purple backpack. I was so excited...!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDs7ICNaHxnW4fDBLjPJZ53AUMb6ad0ZKVGgdz1jXI81hquzJs3eoZccA0qVK8avbQhn0lskOP-qkymf0V5R3LGkan-b7uxUIdnUxpE7fNNTjp_hRc92pngmsmIcR9BY1ltDye3UdUYigl/s1600/mecosplaykimmyschmidt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kimmy Schmidt cosplay" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDs7ICNaHxnW4fDBLjPJZ53AUMb6ad0ZKVGgdz1jXI81hquzJs3eoZccA0qVK8avbQhn0lskOP-qkymf0V5R3LGkan-b7uxUIdnUxpE7fNNTjp_hRc92pngmsmIcR9BY1ltDye3UdUYigl/s320/mecosplaykimmyschmidt.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before I left for MCM (yes I went on public transport like this)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-Rl2Hk5ME5PMScdWcCCN3LQnQ-rzo76t24BCUCvnwXLUpaWcMPKz0-NjYkU9xCbztjjv9mkG9gNvBe2luXJRs4sOd2GOT8_yXLfiGpiluDE9S3HalvUgPrW_TkcYVZVy5BAdw9z2xcgj/s1600/kimmyme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kimmy Schmidt cosplay" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-Rl2Hk5ME5PMScdWcCCN3LQnQ-rzo76t24BCUCvnwXLUpaWcMPKz0-NjYkU9xCbztjjv9mkG9gNvBe2luXJRs4sOd2GOT8_yXLfiGpiluDE9S3HalvUgPrW_TkcYVZVy5BAdw9z2xcgj/s320/kimmyme.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kimmy enjoying Comic Con!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then something occured to me.<br />
<br />
I was going to a convention FILLED with wonderful cosplaying geeks. Iron Man is a thing geeks like. And this is a thing that happens in episode 1:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenOxwp_zofdBriLeAIu_uU5K1__J_8E8lI1GnFbnQZXnJPlXTYZjyTpnSEhb0XAU6SrQb83NBje1UwZpcgg_Ic6_gIAM2zBun_hM6gXs3hqtbsUvE2-buJezim4Lw43uz01njSc553BrZ/s1600/kimmyschmidtironman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kimmy Schmidt and Metal Hero Friend" border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenOxwp_zofdBriLeAIu_uU5K1__J_8E8lI1GnFbnQZXnJPlXTYZjyTpnSEhb0XAU6SrQb83NBje1UwZpcgg_Ic6_gIAM2zBun_hM6gXs3hqtbsUvE2-buJezim4Lw43uz01njSc553BrZ/s400/kimmyschmidtironman.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"THE CIIIIRRRRRCLE OF LIIIIIFE!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Kimmy has a best friend. His name is Titus and in episode one, he has a job where he dresses up as Iron Man knock-off "Metal Hero Friend", handing out fliers in Times Square. Kimmy sings the Circle of Life with Titus to encourage them to grab life with both hands, resulting in the above frame, used for much of the show's advertising on Netflix.<br />
<br />
I knew there would be Iron Man cosplayers at MCM. I made it my mission to recreate that frame.<br />
<br />
So I went to MCM London Comic Con dressed as Kimmy Schmidt, and my wonderful friends helped me to get photos with two incredibly accommodating Iron Men to get two fabulous photos:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRJcg8CBs1fcPOZVKFy9gM0EuBj_heHhBqisUA4krcX0Ql3NjFXPzVxDSXsfCu-xk_RXeAKD5a_9u62IIm_bc5dM7drq7hF_Y2Ds8uFrzCvO6F_GT2azWp2KSkLV8fX6MREV55vefWy6m/s1600/mekimmyironman1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Iron Man and Kimmy Schmidt Cosplay" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRJcg8CBs1fcPOZVKFy9gM0EuBj_heHhBqisUA4krcX0Ql3NjFXPzVxDSXsfCu-xk_RXeAKD5a_9u62IIm_bc5dM7drq7hF_Y2Ds8uFrzCvO6F_GT2azWp2KSkLV8fX6MREV55vefWy6m/s400/mekimmyironman1.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Matt - he was so confused</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjjWkWv1mzzAxLijNR1hXebxcIK7iPyEkbxwLmQXHRmuj29wCZdQ6lrLHFBwYWl9TLSmLZh1CBQEy28pcKgjLgyrPpBuvFBVES1vwIIrWA8GvdZOxTEPgWHF2jC6bo236j6L8x9ggAlEnw/s1600/mekimmyironman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Iron Man and Kimmy Schmidt cosplay" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjjWkWv1mzzAxLijNR1hXebxcIK7iPyEkbxwLmQXHRmuj29wCZdQ6lrLHFBwYWl9TLSmLZh1CBQEy28pcKgjLgyrPpBuvFBVES1vwIIrWA8GvdZOxTEPgWHF2jC6bo236j6L8x9ggAlEnw/s400/mekimmyironman.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Ashley - he was also confused, but totally got into it</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On the Monday after MCM I put up a tweet sharing these photos and an actual frame of Kimmy Schmidt for reference. It did pretty well but then blew up a couple of days later (after I'd just come out of hospital after an operation! I wondered if I was just dreaming it up on the anaesthetic!!!).<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
I went to MCM London dressed as Kimmy Schmidt & confused the f*** out of some Iron Man cosplayers.
It was glorious. <a href="http://t.co/qWQv8BPx7Y">pic.twitter.com/qWQv8BPx7Y</a></div>
— Ellen Rose (@icklenellierose) <a href="https://twitter.com/icklenellierose/status/602819315755327489">May 25, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
I have no idea what sparked the sudden flux of retweets (I have a feeling it was a combination of tweeters with large followers and Reddit), but it was a wonderful and bizarre experience, and I ended up getting featured on several websites!<br />
<br />
Some ee Cards<br />
<a href="http://happyplace.someecards.com/superheroes/a-woman-dressed-up-as-the-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-in-order-to-confuse-iron-man-fans/">http://happyplace.someecards.com/superheroes/a-woman-dressed-up-as-the-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-in-order-to-confuse-iron-man-fans/</a><br />
<br />
Reddit<br />
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/37kvqn/fan_art_cosplayer_goes_to_con_dressed_as_kimmy/">https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/37kvqn/fan_art_cosplayer_goes_to_con_dressed_as_kimmy/</a><br />
<br />
TheMarySue<br />
<a href="http://www.themarysue.com/things-we-saw-today-845/">http://www.themarysue.com/things-we-saw-today-845/</a><br />
<br />
Fashionably Geek<br />
<a href="http://fashionablygeek.com/costumes/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-cosplay/">http://fashionablygeek.com/costumes/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-cosplay/</a><br />
<br />
Kotaku<br />
<a href="http://cosplay.kotaku.com/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-cosplay-1708370672">http://cosplay.kotaku.com/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-cosplay-1708370672</a><br />
<br />
Cheezeburger<br />
<a href="http://cheezburger.com/504581/geeky-cosplay-kimmy-schmidt-confuses-iron-man-at-mcm-london">http://cheezburger.com/504581/geeky-cosplay-kimmy-schmidt-confuses-iron-man-at-mcm-london</a><br />
<br />
TenEighty<br />
<a href="http://teneightymagazine.com/2015/05/30/vidfest-uk-may-2015-recap/">http://teneightymagazine.com/2015/05/30/vidfest-uk-may-2015-recap/</a><br />
<br />
Quick mention on the Cape Crisis podcast (about 45 mins in!)<br />
<a href="http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/2015/06/05/cape-crisis-140-faces-of-doom/">http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/2015/06/05/cape-crisis-140-faces-of-doom/</a><br />
<br />
The one I am most proud of, however, is actually getting featured on Wired's weekly round up of the Internet:<br />
<a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/05/internet-week-charlie-charlie/">http://www.wired.com/2015/05/internet-week-charlie-charlie/</a><br />
<br />
They thought I was an unmissable part of the Internet for that week! They called me "the Unbreakable Ellen Rose"! Eep...!<br />
<br />
Anyway, it was all weird and wonderful, so thank you, Internet. You're really awesome sometimes.<br />
<br />
Go check out the awesome Iron Man Cosplayers who played along and were generally lovely people:<br />
<br />
Matt:<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/MB_CustomDesign">MB CustomDesign</a> on Twitter<br />
Facebook Page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/devilishcosplay">https://www.facebook.com/devilishcosplay</a><br />
<br />
Ashley:<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/Ashley_piper_90">Ashley Piper</a> on Twitter<br />
Facebook page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amgpiper-props/733512820052336">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amgpiper-props/733512820052336</a><br />
<br />
...and I will leave you with my vlog from the day I WAS Kimmy Schmidt.<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/w84oSVI90KI/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w84oSVI90KI?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<br />icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-74295624806802616572014-06-02T13:06:00.002-07:002015-02-01T15:57:03.833-08:00The Patriarchy & Male Victims/Survivors<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have likely heard of the word "patriarchy" - now, before anyone jumps to conclusions and starts ranting about "feminazis", I want to tell you this: it doesn't refer to some secret male society or some "conspiracy theory that blames all men, even decent men, for all women's woes", as some would like to tell you.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, after someone on Twitter said I was victim-blaming male victims of domestic violence because I said they were negatively affected by patriarchal systems, I thought I'd explain what people mean when they talk about "the patriarchy".</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At its most basic definition, <b>a patriarchal society is one where there are unequal power relations between men & women, with men holding the vast majority of positions of power & men being traditionally seen as the more powerful/important gender</b>. Men are heads of countries, businesses, families, are traditionally the first in line for inheritance, etc., whilst women are seen as "unable" to lead men, often accused of being too "emotional", "not logical" or some other sexist bollocks. Men are seen as (and encouraged to be) authoritative, women are seen as (and encouraged to be) submissive.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It also means that men in this society are expected to <i>want</i> to be in power positions and fit in with other set definitions of masculinity (i.e. fit their gender role). Men who do not fit traditional, patriarchal gender roles are often looked down upon (e.g. homosexual men, effeminate men, men who fall into the 'submissive' role of 'victim', etc.).</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With regards to problems faced by male victims/survivors of domestic violence due to patriarchy (which I was trying to point out to this person), patriarchal values mean they are not taken seriously because that society (in general) holds these types of opinions:</span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a man should stand up for himself, because that is the 'manly' thing to do</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a man cannot be victimised by a woman, because men are stronger than women</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">women are incapable of being violent or a threat to any man because they are delicate & weak</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a man being victimised by a woman is the ultimate 'joke' as it "can't happen"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a man being victimised by a woman is the ultimate sign that a man is not a "real man", as a "real man" would know how to "control his woman" or would be strong/assertive/authoritative enough to stop her, or to stop her from doing anything in the first place.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Men are supposed to be the authoritative ones in a patriarchy, so when a man does not fit that idea and instead is in the "submissive" role of a victim, people either mock him or don't believe him. Also, the male DV victims/survivors are also attacked by men (apparently more so than by women), so they also suffer thanks to men that buy into the patriarchal idea that real men are strong men who "assert" themselves and choose to be "authoritative" by use of violence, threats and anger.</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Male DV victims will be told to "man up", "grow a pair", "tell him/her who's boss", when they should be told "they do NOT have the right to hurt you like that".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafUl4S9pUDguAHOnAd529HHL8TRX-99SGXtJU1JpVYpF8uBpJbIRrm-XNNgjHPeB0C55R_U_sEjJ5lGWJf_Xfcm_DYXiHQpHN01pMr6NDG8CfVpAHBCV9hyphenhyphenLs57sdy7tvUNXWjZSSDPFx/s1600/maleDV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiafUl4S9pUDguAHOnAd529HHL8TRX-99SGXtJU1JpVYpF8uBpJbIRrm-XNNgjHPeB0C55R_U_sEjJ5lGWJf_Xfcm_DYXiHQpHN01pMr6NDG8CfVpAHBCV9hyphenhyphenLs57sdy7tvUNXWjZSSDPFx/s1600/maleDV.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Excellent poster campaign highlighting that men can be victims of DV too</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and points out that the perpetrator is not always male</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason I got into this discussion at all? Because this person retweeted a picture of a great progressive advert for a domestic violence helpline from Surrey Police (<a href="https://twitter.com/CISimonNelson/status/473149017774628865" target="_blank">which had been previously tweeted by a Surrey Police Inspector with a thoughtful caption</a>), but instead of saying "This is brilliant, more people need to be aware of this", the original Tweeter / OP said this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The feminazi sisterhood will be FEWMIN at this."</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yup. The original poster didn't use this as an opportunity to bring real awareness (although his tweet makes people 'aware' of it in some fashion because of the poster, not his comments), or to say how happy he was that this was being recognised and that male victims of DV are being taken seriously and getting better help through this campaign.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was to bitch about feminists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, I know I should have left it. It's a pointless argument & I also don't want to be all "not all feminists!", as I know there ARE problematic people in feminism who I try to stay the hell away from & not associate myself with. I really don't think saying "but I'm not like that!" helps anyone. Also, pointing out that feminism is trying to derail gender roles that also negatively affect men (as is the case with male victims of DV) is just <i>not</i> going to get through to some people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I stepped in to say something, because:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">this guy (the retweeter, not the OP) has actively asked me questions about feminism in the past, seems open to learning about it & I didn't want him to be someone to help turn this serious issue into an "us v them" thing, with feminists & male DV victims on either side. It is divisive and unhelpful.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wanted to point out that feminists - whether they realise it or not & whether they are directly helping male DV victims or not - are fighting the very social system that makes it hard for men to feel like they can report certain crimes against them </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what I am SICK of seeing online is male victims/survivors of abuse (such as DV and rape) being used by anti-feminists to derail conversations, imply feminism is somehow evil, & try to undermine the efforts of people trying to make a real change for everyone, often those who address the very issues male victims have to deal with.</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I didn't get a chance to get to that third argument as being accused of blaming male victims for their own abuse kinda pissed me off and made me have to 'defend' myself and ultimately step away from that conversation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My problem is this: whenever women/feminists discuss the problems we face with regards to any kind of harassment, assault, abuse, etc., we get this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"men get raped too!" "men can be victims of domestic violence too!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is <i>extremely rare</i> for me to come across a feminist who denies that men can be victims; as much as I try to "stay away" from extreme feminists, I do try to educate myself about them and get an overall picture of feminism. In countless discussions I have seen and been a part of online, women have always been sure to point out the problems faced by male victims and criticise those who forget male victims in these discussions; they also do this in a way that <i>doesn't negate from the fact that women are more likely to be victims</i>, but <a href="http://jezebel.com/5865167/domestic-violence-ad-implies-only-men-are-abusers" target="_blank">makes sure men are not ignored and doesn't imply women cannot be perpetrators</a>. Feminism has overlooked male victims too much in the past, and lots of feminists I follow/know are now trying to rectify that problem; whilst sometimes feminists may focus on female victims, male victims are not ignored, at least not in the feminist circles I find myself in (i.e. the feminists who actually study what feminism is, it's implications and the vast spectrum of ideas within it, not just women/girls who don't know much about feminism & just say "girl power!!! men are stupid and smelly! lol!!").</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I once found myself in a conversation online with a guy who felt like he'd been taken advantage of by a girl whilst drunk; I sympathised with him as I know the pressures put on men to automatically enjoy sex & not feel like they can say no or that they were too drunk to consent drunk & didn't want it. He reached out to me after I complained (in a discussion of a weird rape scene on TV) how a female-on-male rape scene in a TV show was not dealt with as seriously as male-on-male/male-on-female rape in most things I've seen, and I'd said that had made me feel <i>really</i> uncomfortable. I let him know that he was allowed to be upset at what happened to him & he appreciated my words. (This sounds like a weird humble-brag but this is honestly just me laying out the fact that I'm not ignoring male victims of violence & <i>actively bring them up in conversations about this stuff to bring attention to their problems</i>.)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What happens too often though, is that anti-feminists bring up male victims in a way that implies women can't be upset that this happens to them, or that because it happens to men too, it's not an issue for women, despite women still being the majority of victims and men the majority of perpetrators <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_298904.pdf" target="_blank">for crimes such as rape and DV</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Too often guys are not bringing up these victims & survivors in order to bring attention to them and get them help, but <i>purely to undermine female victims and feminists that address these issues. </i>They turn a serious issue into a competition of who is more 'victimised', but often do nothing to solve either genders' issues. Male victims/survivors are just an argument tactic to these guys. And you know what? <a href="http://the-unpopular-opinions.tumblr.com/post/83672441343/warning-this-opinion-is-about-rape-hello" target="_blank">That can really piss off guys who are actual victims of violence and assault</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I saw that tweet and I snapped. Well, really, I thought "oh ffs." and tried to explain to the guy that retweeted it that feminists often bring light to these issues by discussing the problems male victims face and fighting the patriarchal structures that imply men cannot be victims. He's someone I've had sensible and intriguing discussions with before, even if we haven't always agreed on things, and I thought I might add some insight & be all "please don't bitch about a movement that has been helping bring this stuff to light; that doesn't help the victims <i>at all</i>".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, he saw "patriarchal values" and immediately thought I was saying "it's men's fault" (rather than the fault of the society that buys into these ideas) and therefore extrapolated from that, that I was saying the victims, being men, are to blame for their own assaults against them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhh, no. No. No no no. No.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sick of people not understanding what feminists mean when they talk about "patriarchy". It's not a word feminists made up. It's a word that's been around for hundreds of years, a way to describe a social system where men are more likely to be in authority positions than women and are EXPECTED to want to BE in those positions. As our society changes from a patriarchal to a more equal one, male victims will be given more and more help and less and less hate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway. Thanks to that guy for then also mentioning the original tweeter when replying to me as it meant I got some lovely messages from people telling me to "make me a sammich" and other such bollocks, encouraged by the original tweeter, as shown below.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7cyVf3cxJPRDunzaptLR4uaFDRrghnoRyzlWh530N5ex23hcq8XzrtInQ-eq3mxgkbcjVVv7UdistXLUbQYfJUmXnk1y4HxXvKoiMa9jF3h8TgeEJA-c242mVPjEuSrXgd9LnJ6oiJXK/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-06-02+at+20.08.14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG7cyVf3cxJPRDunzaptLR4uaFDRrghnoRyzlWh530N5ex23hcq8XzrtInQ-eq3mxgkbcjVVv7UdistXLUbQYfJUmXnk1y4HxXvKoiMa9jF3h8TgeEJA-c242mVPjEuSrXgd9LnJ6oiJXK/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-06-02+at+20.08.14.png" height="63" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah, "McHoebag". Classy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But yeah, those tweets didn't bother me (I've gotten much worse, believe me!), it was more that the guy I tweeted opened me up to those comments when I was just trying to talk to someone who I felt would be understanding & listen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought he was better than that. Oh well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
</div>
icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-23305261645274290662014-05-26T08:22:00.004-07:002014-05-26T10:43:25.914-07:00Godzilla is BIG - but the Clichés are Bigger...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>--- BEWARE! SPOILERS LURK BELOW! ---</i></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, Friday night I went to see the new Godzilla film (a.k.a. Godzilla 2014). Having seen <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIu85WQTPRc" target="_blank">the trailer</a> for it, I was pretty excited to see a monster/disaster film on the big screen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="http://www.tasteofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Godzilla-movie-review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.tasteofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Godzilla-movie-review.jpg" height="222" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, here are some things I liked about the film:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excellent visual effects</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bryan Cranston</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Excellent music</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bryan Cranston</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Great action sequences not completely given away by the trailer</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bryan Cranston</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godzilla's roar</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bryan Cranston</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, despite still enjoying the film, I didn't enjoy it half as much as I thought I would. See, there were a few problems I had with it, some with the film itself and some with how the film vastly differs from the trailer (in a less "kindly avoiding spoilers" way and a more "slightly misleading the audience" way). I'd like to share those things now, but BEWARE - SPOILERS ABOUND!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, these are my problems with the film:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bryan Cranston's character features HEAVILY throughout the trailer, but he actually dies in the first half of the film. HE NEVER EVEN SEES GODZILLA.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
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<a href="http://filmmakeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Godzilla-Cranston1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://filmmakeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Godzilla-Cranston1.png" height="134" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"I don't see Godzilla?!"</span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">No...</span></i></div>
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<a href="http://blog.muchmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Untitled-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://blog.muchmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Untitled-1.jpg" height="188" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"WHAT THE HELL?"</i></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is especially annoying as he's easily the strongest actor in this film, the most interesting character, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I understand that the filmmakers don't want to give away the fact that he dies, but instead of just featuring for a bit in the trailer, he is put across as the main character when he isn't the main character at all (and it's really disappointing as soon as you realise that when watching the film).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you don't want us thinking he's the main character, then just use his narration instead of putting tonnes of action shots of him in it.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He's replaced by his son, a blue-eyed, perfect-bone-structured all-American-soldier type-character.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn.clotureclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Godzilla-Lt.-Ford-Brody.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.clotureclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Godzilla-Lt.-Ford-Brody.jpg" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>America! FUCK YEAH!!!</i></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This guy is in the trailer, but he literally looks like an extra in every shot he's in except for a couple, including one with Cranston; even then he looks like a side character. He says nothing in the trailer & is hardly focused on, yet the is the central character of the film. </span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://gotchamovies.com/sites/default/files/godzilla-bryan-cranston-aaron-taylor-johnson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://gotchamovies.com/sites/default/files/godzilla-bryan-cranston-aaron-taylor-johnson.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">"They know I'm the main character, right dad?"</span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span>
<ul><ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our focus is on him even more than Godzilla. Yeah, screw the massive monster, here's a soldier! You've never seen one of those before!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The actor (Aaron Taylor Johnson) seems half decent, but it's hard to tell because this character is a complete cardboard cutout of every white all-american-hero-type characters. Completely one dimensional.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The trailer shows the Statue of Liberty, which we never see.</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/godzilla-2014-trailer-statue-of-liberty-devastation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" src="http://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/godzilla-2014-trailer-statue-of-liberty-devastation.jpg" height="165" width="400" /></i></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Don't worry, she's 'armless...</i></span></div>
<ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the whole film I was being a complete numpty, wondering when we were going to get to New York, only to never get there & never see the Statue of Liberty, leaving me confused. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I realised immediately afterwards that it was obviously the </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vegas</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> mini Statue of Liberty, but I didn't realise until I stopped to think after the film, because that shot is never actually shown in the film (at least not the cut I saw!).</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godzilla is not in the film enough</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yo, I came to see a Godzilla film, not an advert for the American Military or the white American nuclear family</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even just glimpses, anything. Just more giant-t-rex-slash-stegosaurus-thing-with-atomic-breath please.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/files/styles/blog_post_in_content_image/public/Godzilla%20Roar.jpg?itok=pYeG8Bjc" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/files/styles/blog_post_in_content_image/public/Godzilla%20Roar.jpg?itok=pYeG8Bjc" height="198" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"I demand more screen time!!!"</i></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SO MANY HOLLYWOOD FILM CHICHÉS:</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 white nuclear families at the centre of everything, Cranston's & then his son's: </span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dad, mum (or mom) & son.</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The main character just <i>happens</i> to always be at the wrong place at the wrong time (or the right place at the right time)</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the nuclear plant gets destroyed, he witnesses it & both his parents happen to be working there as super important people</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the Mothra-type creature first emerges, he's there</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the Mothra-type creature is in Hawaii, he's on the passenger train it crashes/derails</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the Mothra-type creature is in the US, he's on the rail bridge it destroys</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He ends up being the ONLY PERSON who knows how to disable the bomb</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is included in the super-dangerous mission</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is the only one that thinks to destroys the evil squiggly eggs with a big fiery explosion</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because he stayed back to kill the eggs, he's the only person that doesn't get killed on the boat by mummy-Mothra and has to drive the boat out by himself, the ULTIMATE SACRIFICE. *violins play*</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The main character's family </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">just </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">happens</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to be at the wrong place at the wrong time (or the right place at the right time)</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Johnson's family are in the EXACT city where the monsters are all converging</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Johnson's son gets on the bus to safety at the LAST MINUTE</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Johnson's son is on the Golden Gate Bridge at the EXACT MOMENT Godzilla destroys it, but the bus gets to the other side </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">just in time!!</i></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Johnson's wife, played by Elizabeth Olsen, gets safely into the subway stations at the last minute, just late enough to see a glimpse of Godzilla roaring behind her</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godzilla stops the main character being killed JUST IN TIME. Twice I think.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whenever there is imminent danger, the camera zooms into the face of an innocent child.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whenever there is imminent danger, the first person to notice anything is an innocent child.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dog barking at then running away from imminent danger</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<a href="http://kalindamage.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/godzilla-dog_-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://kalindamage.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/godzilla-dog_-2.png" height="223" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"Shit, shit, shit, shit... I really should learn to not bark and just run..."</i></span></div>
<ul><ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Main character ends up looking after a lost child during a major disaster.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lost child then runs away from the main character immediately after the disaster, but it's totally fine for them to run away <i>this </i>time, because it's because they saw their parents. Immediately frees up main character for the next part of the story.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mother tells child to "turn that TV off" when it's breaking news of a crazy imminent disaster that will directly involve them later in the film.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Main character gets saved at the last minute & is happily reunited with his family, all of whom are totally safe.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People do <i>everything</i> wrong:</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they ignore the advice of the people who studied the creatures for years who say they feed off of anything radioactive</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">instead</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> they just exacerbate the situation by trying to bomb the shit out of the monsters with nuclear weapons, only to end up pretty much handing them their food source on a platter, with tonnes of deaths in the process</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they have no idea that Godzilla is the good guy even though it ends up being obvious about half way through</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some not-quite-common-but-still-stupid-clichés that also annoyed me</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">American soldier <i>just back from military duty</i>, suddenly has to rush off the very next day despite saying to his young son that he'll definitely still be there in the morning</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Son disbelieving of his father's "conspiracy theories" only for them to ultimately and overwhelmingly</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> be proved right </span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<a href="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/cs_UYLfWtgg/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/cs_UYLfWtgg/maxresdefault.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>"What was that about 'moving on' from my 'conspiracy theories', son?"</i></span></div>
<ul><ul>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Father dies immediately after being proved right & son admits that he was wrong; takes his place in the film, taking up his father's mantle to make up for not believing him for years</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enthusiastic & friendly Hispanic American solder introduced by name & put as a sidekick to the main white character, only to inevitably be killed about 20 minutes later.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stupid eye-contact between Johnson's character and the monsters as he "connects" with them</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mummy-Mothra-type creature looks into the eyes of Johnson's character because somehow she KNOWS it was him out of all the humans in the area that killed all her babies. She f*cking KNOWS.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godzilla gives him sad eyes when he's injured, just in case it wasn't obvious enough already that Godzilla is totally not the bad guy.</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BBBWWWAAAAAAWWWWHHHHH music that apparently has to be in EVERY DARK SCIFI/COMIC BOOK FILM NOW thanks to Inception.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Focusing on only one family causes problems:</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">means that everything feels extra scripted rather than natural (see list of clichés above, showing how they end up awkwardly forcing the narrative around the centr</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">al character instead of the monsters & disasters caused by them)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the massive destruction doesn't seem as massive because, as the main family aren't there to aim the camera from, you mostly see it from news helicopter cameras in the sky, not the people down below - except for the tidal wave sequence in Hawaii, that was done pretty well</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
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<a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/a12118580021f26d269b2c72caa6e37c/tumblr_n3u0camdMv1rqb7v2o1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/a12118580021f26d269b2c72caa6e37c/tumblr_n3u0camdMv1rqb7v2o1_500.jpg" height="206" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>This also worked well, although it just felt like there weren't enough people </i></span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">on the</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i> bridge, just cars. You'd think more people would be running by this point!</i></span></div>
<ul><ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nearly zero characterisation of any other members of the public affected </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">because: </span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you see most of the damage done from a distance on news feeds, so the people just seem like ants</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<a href="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/uopCoWDc6Cw/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/uopCoWDc6Cw/maxresdefault.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>More shots like this would've helped to keep perspective of size & show</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>the public view, not just the news & military & one main character</i></span></div>
<ul><ul><ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">if any of the main family is there, the focus is on them rather than anyone else</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">isn't as harrowing to watch as you feel it should be because you don't feel as connected to any other members of the public, and watching this stuff in a film is not the same as seeing it on the news in real life. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">something awful happens but then the film immediately rushes onto something else, so the awfulness of what happened doesn't have time to sink in</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The family the movie focuses on are so boring, such cardboard-cutouts, that I literally didn't care if any of them died.</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm usually someone who is all "RUUUNN!!!" in disaster/monster films, but that really didn't happen to me in this one. I was happy to just sit & watch things unfold, uncaring about what happened to them (good or bad), which is really unlike me.</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
</ul>
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<a href="http://www.indiewire.com/static/dims4/INDIEWIRE/f1e8cf2/2147483647/thumbnail/325x227%3E/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fd1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net%2F0e%2Fd2%2F627aa20e45499dd5d82b73f2c668%2Fresizes%2F500%2Fgz-04930.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.indiewire.com/static/dims4/INDIEWIRE/f1e8cf2/2147483647/thumbnail/325x227%3E/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fd1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net%2F0e%2Fd2%2F627aa20e45499dd5d82b73f2c668%2Fresizes%2F500%2Fgz-04930.jpg" height="223" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>I wanted to know more about these two!</i></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought Godzilla was supposed to be a representation of America by Japanese filmmakers? A sleeping giant awoken by Pearl Harbour to destroy Japan?</span></li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Way to shoot torpedoes at your own representation, America...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is that why you did the whole "oh but see, he's really a good guy!" thing?</span></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the end of the film, everyone seems totally fine, except for a few casualties lying down in beds, people with crappy bandages and people pulling themselves out of the rubble; it just seems so meh and fake.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And I can't fully comment on the cheesiness at the very end of the film, because the picture cut out in our cinema about 1 minute before the end.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, those are just some thoughts I decided to spew out into a post. Ultimately the film was enjoyable, but my boyfriend and I actively had to stop ourselves from laughing out loud or openly groaning at some of the stuff that happened in this film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This wasn't a monster/disaster film. This was a DISASTER of a monster film!!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Just kidding, I just really wanted to put in a bad film-critic pun somewhere...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godzilla was good, and the monsters were fantastically designed and animated & I love that the trailer didn't give the whole story away (although I'm still annoyed about the whole Cranston thing), but after about 1/3 of the way through it just got very... bland.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EDIT: Thought I'd pop in a <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/9210-Godzilla-Breaking-Kaiju?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all" target="_blank">link to MovieBob's review</a>. Yup, he thought the same things as me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-42164814891441333422014-05-01T05:44:00.001-07:002014-05-01T05:47:51.539-07:00My Cystine Kidney Stones<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I have a rare condition called <a href="http://www.cystinuria.com/what-is-cystinuria/" target="_blank">Cystinuria</a>, which basically means my kidneys are super great at making special rare kidney stones. Wooooooo...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was in hospital a couple of weeks ago with intense kidney pains, but with a little bit of help from the Nurses & Drs (and drugs, lots of drugs), I managed to pass the 0.7mm stone myself along with lots of smaller stones, or "gravel"; this meant I avoided the need for surgery to get it out & could go home the day after. Wooo!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those of you who are curious to see these rare stones I make (as I know many people are, because people often ask what they look like), here is a picture I took for my records & to show my consultant at a different hospital down in London (I'm currently up in bonnie Scotland). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">WARNING: this photo also includes some of my pee. Enjoy!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_22pSMRsRW5fdxlkg5XnQ6h9Y-d1fAE_RAxgIegFNhrtQt-EcKTkMicbfAun49YO6vkXXoMALCITaWOLv2KuPxnGM2_ygkVylT_eTaRqdETZRqaMtqLM1oTk-5EIz2mtS9BEMnmu7HsL/s1600/photo1+(1).jpg" target="_blank">(PHOTO)</a></span><br />
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<br />icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-65888234634706813472014-03-10T04:48:00.003-07:002014-03-10T04:57:21.304-07:00"Fantasy" Disney Wedding Venues<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEN01c4GRoefpuA5cnQm681Htcx_XtBrvOs0KfFoDyZkX4N6RU4ItRKZ6LLjebE_NaddaZ4sE8Cs0AWGb0fXbEkI2FTTHI8jRw599ZV5ynCU2M4QhpGfXHupEow6Am8drQJTrykgenGD27/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+11.46.20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEN01c4GRoefpuA5cnQm681Htcx_XtBrvOs0KfFoDyZkX4N6RU4ItRKZ6LLjebE_NaddaZ4sE8Cs0AWGb0fXbEkI2FTTHI8jRw599ZV5ynCU2M4QhpGfXHupEow6Am8drQJTrykgenGD27/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+11.46.20.png" height="76" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5vOnvulQnNsx34mer5GY8t90d2x46XU_moYusw93al0N1ZsU27vYSWq6NrcB7wB0pdrsGRrLXLDgYP2xE1xt-DY8CeuXlu-0EiYJQYA3SzOgMIAvBNBczNp8KqG6R2MNohyphenhyphen3jcImDI-w/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+11.42.24.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5vOnvulQnNsx34mer5GY8t90d2x46XU_moYusw93al0N1ZsU27vYSWq6NrcB7wB0pdrsGRrLXLDgYP2xE1xt-DY8CeuXlu-0EiYJQYA3SzOgMIAvBNBczNp8KqG6R2MNohyphenhyphen3jcImDI-w/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+11.42.24.png" height="330" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>This one was edited to add the bits in brackets, after many people pointed out the mistake ^^</i></span></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg713RfxbUOHpUxVIDee0NiQsfjxItAtvTz99f5Ob-8fgG-n_ikximN-Bag6-M9syjRmRTNbTJHNM2ezKORw6N-eD018edAlcIu4QM1wGVeEySvhE4a9hMx-uD8UA9zxSPRJO4e2yze9eK5/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+11.42.45.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg713RfxbUOHpUxVIDee0NiQsfjxItAtvTz99f5Ob-8fgG-n_ikximN-Bag6-M9syjRmRTNbTJHNM2ezKORw6N-eD018edAlcIu4QM1wGVeEySvhE4a9hMx-uD8UA9zxSPRJO4e2yze9eK5/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+11.42.45.png" height="322" width="400" /></i></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>This one, however, remains the same.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*screams internally*</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/javim2/18-fantasy-disney-wedding-venues-you-wish-exsisted-bw9q">The article this was taken from.</a></span></div>
<br />icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-85835547038168105472014-02-25T06:56:00.001-08:002014-02-25T06:57:03.829-08:00UPDATES!<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hello all,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this year I've decided it's going to be the year of me putting extra effort into my online "presence".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've already updated my YouTube Channel banner to a nice one, rather than one I just hurriedly made because YouTube forced me to. I've used the same banner for my Facebook page, changed my Twitter background and have now updated this blog so I have nice matching "branding" across all of my social networking sites (might be doing my Tumblr next...just changed the colour to match for now). Basically I've been working really hard to make everything shiny & nice for you all & make everything a bit more welcoming than the black and white & grey look my old channel banner had.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've also added links to EVERYTHING in the tabs on this blog, so you can easily find all my social network accounts & YouTube channel up there if you want to see more regular postings than this blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another thing I've been doing is editing some old BioShock vids to make highlight videos; not everyone wants to sit through hours of gameplay, but they might enjoy shorter clips of me squeaking with fear and going "what the f*** was that??" at the tiniest of noises. More full BioShock Let's Plays will hopefully be coming soon too - I just have to set up my recording device again...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to make sure I make regular videos for everyone to enjoy and for me to keep sane whilst I job search. But, don't worry - I don't just want to churn stuff out. I want to work hard on it all & be proud of everything I put out. I also want to try and do some "lighter" vloggy-style videos alongside my more scripted stuff; it will be a little bit more relaxed & I just think it would be a nice addition to my channel for you to learn a bit more about me and some of my more embarrassing moments...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway - WOOO UPDATES.</span><br />
<br />icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-36718564613760339742014-02-14T10:38:00.001-08:002014-02-14T10:38:28.583-08:00Valentine's Day rant<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Valentine’s day is something that has so much potential.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a chance to let people in your life know that you love them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a chance to give someone a confidence boost by sending an anonymous card (without being creepy), just to let someone know that there is someone out there that thinks they’re great.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a chance to fully confess your love for someone, an excuse to get it out there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a reminder to always make the special person in your life feel special, when your life is otherwise too hectic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s an excuse for the romantics to do something nice for the person they love.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a chance for people to learn about all different kinds of love between all different kinds of people, by seeing it everywhere all at once.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead, however, it has gone beyond simple card giving and gestures of love to become a massive thing to shame men into buying crap for their wives/fiancees/girlfriends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the adverts I’ve heard regarding Valentine’s Day have been this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BUY HER A MASSIVE CARD</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SEND HER OVERPRICED FLOWERS</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BUY HER FANCY CHOCOLATES</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">GET HER SOME EXPENSIVE JEWELLERY</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TAKE HER OUT TO A REALLY POSH RESTAURANT</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DON’T WRITE HER A POEM, YOU’RE SHIT AT POEMS</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DON’T BUY HER ANYTHING OTHER THAN FLOWERS AND CHOCOLATES AND JEWELLERY</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW THESE RULES YOUR SPECIAL LADYFRIEND WILL OVERREACT AND BECOME A SCREAMING HARPY AND WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU AND THINK YOU ARE A MASSIVE IDIOT THAT SHE NEEDS TO DUMP IMMEDIATELY.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know what? If you’re a dude with a special ladyfriend this Valentine’s Day, don’t feel pressured by advertisers. Get her flowers and chocolates if you want to; take her out for a meal if you want to; but don’t feel like you HAVE to. The main thing is just let her know she’s loved on a day where love is being rubbed in everyone’s faces.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And LADIES - <b><i>we should not be exempt from gift-giving</i></b>. Do not be like those women who expect their man to just buy them tonnes of crap in order to “prove” himself to them. Valentine’s Day marketing preys upon this and is SO one-sided and deep-rooted in awful out-of-date gender roles where the guy pretty much buys himself into a woman’s pants or buys crap to “prove” himself or avoid being put in “the dog house”. Not very romantic, is it? They should want to buy you flowers, not feel like they have to, or else it’s not a day of love, but of fear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do understand with some things - it can feel rubbish if someone you know gets flowers when you don’t; it’s LOVELY to get flowers but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get any. Do not - I repeat, DO NOT - feed the stereotype of the angry screaming-harpy lady who gets annoyed that her man did not get Valentine’s Day gifts/gestures right. Also, did you bother to send them flowers?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make Valentine’s Day a MUTUAL thing. Everyone wants to know they’re loved. Don’t pander to the marketing execs and outdated ideas of chivalry, or be scared into buying tonnes of stuff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, and btw - marketing execs: LGBTQ+ PEOPLE EXIST TOO. Honestly, some of the most romantic people I know are gay - I cried my eyes out at my friends’ civil partnership ceremony because of they lovely things they said to each other. Not only is it rude & discriminatory to ignore them, but it’s also BLOODY STUPID TO CUT OUT A HUGE POTENTIAL MARKET.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Idiots.</span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-25343598438464597792014-02-05T13:47:00.003-08:002014-02-05T13:50:21.158-08:00Tube Strikes and Broken Promises<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, there's been a lot of stuff on my Facebook & Twitter about the Tube Strike. It's mainly been people I know complaining about "selfish" Tube workers who decided to strike, saying things like "I hope you're happy" after a long commute home in the rain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know what? I don't think they're happy about you getting soaked in a rainstorm, gleefully laughing as they sit watching the news at home; I really doubt they did this just to give you a shitty journey home so you could bitch about them on Facebook.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They are angry & they did it to send a message to someone that broke a promise & they wanted ALL of London to hear that message.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2008, Boris said that if he was made Mayor of London, he would ensure that all ticket offices that were currently in use would remain open. He reiterated this several times after that as Mayor. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now he wants to close them and cut 950 jobs in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is about TfL putting people into unemployment so they can save a little extra cash each year (which I doubt will be passed onto commuters' fares). This is about Boris Johnson getting votes off of a false promise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think strikes should be done willy-nilly. They are annoying for people just trying to get to work and are definitely not a good way to get the commuting members of the public on the side of the Tube workers. But these strikes were because people are angry that Boris - *gasp* - broke a promise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to be angry at anyone, be angry at Boris for talking bollocks during his campaigning and getting into power thanks to false promises.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some people don't see ANY need for these people to be angry and are perfectly happy with all stations just having ticket machines, but not me. I like having the option of speaking to a person when buying a ticket or topping up my Oyster card. I like knowing that someone has a job and is there to help people not confident enough to use the machine (of which there are many). Computers are great, they help us do so much, I have studied them and written programs for them, but too many people use them to completely replace people and label it as "progress". </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If it was just restructuring, if all the people were just being transferred to have all staff out and about in stations, I'd be fine with that, but the problem is, they're not. Most of those jobs are just being cut & replaced with machines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, we live in a world right now where all we hear about is companies doing anything to to cut low/modest-paid staff on the ground & replace them with technology to save money, but giving bigger and bigger paycheques to executives. People are getting angrier and angrier about it, and when people get angrier, they are more likely to protest and say "screw you" to the powers-that-be - especially in a job where they are often at the end of verbal and physical abuse (which is one reason why I doubt I could do the job).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think Tube strikes are the best way for them to get their point across or make commuters like them, but I <i>understand</i> why they are doing it. They don't want TfL to walk all over them and they want people to listen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So please, feel free to be annoyed at your commute, but do take the time to think about <i>why</i> these strikes are happening, <i>why</i> these workers are so angry and who your anger is best directed towards. Is it the little guys doing the only thing they feel they can do to be heard, using the little bit of power that they have through their union, knowing that they could get a backlash from the public? Or is it the Mayor that breaks his promises & forces people into unemployment in a recession?</span><br />
<br />icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-1468511888426542322014-01-30T05:35:00.002-08:002014-01-30T06:12:16.765-08:00Woman disowns 'gay' cat<br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seriously. I'm not making this up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An unnamed resident of the town of Lafia, Nigeria, discovered (or at least claims) that her seven year old moggy, Bull, had certain 'tendencies'. Instead of pursuing the female cats in the house, the woman claimed that he shunned them and made advances towards the other male cats. The woman called this "<i>an unnatural sexual behaviour</i>" & said that it was "<i>a contradiction of the laws of nature</i>". She sounds lovely...</span></div>
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<a href="http://bigcatface.tumblr.com/post/12470736216/nyan-cat-lives" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luat2i2iP01qahipuo1_500.jpg" height="249" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">What I think the cat should look like </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(picture found via Tumblr user 'mygaycat')</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, as we all know, Nigeria is <i>extremely</i> progressive towards gay people (ahem), so her first reaction was to kick the kitty (not literally, I hope) out into the streets. Her second was to out it, declaring it gay to Nigerian newspaper Leadership and offer it to anyone who would take it away from her, saying, "<i>anybody interested in this gay cat can have it because I have no further use of it</i>".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Such is the dislike of homosexuality in Nigeria right now that, so far, no one seems to have come forward to give the cat a home. However, it has been reported that lots of people have gone to the house to try and 'see things for themselves' (wtf?).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If anyone knows of a way for the cat to be sent over to the UK, I would be more than happy to have a gay kitty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sources:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://leadership.ng/news/339272/woman-disowns-cat-for-being-gay">Leadership</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/29/woman-throws-out-pet-cat-for-being-gay-4282096/">Metro</a></span></div>
icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-75357694414424161392014-01-29T08:21:00.002-08:002014-01-29T09:06:31.623-08:00"Reverse Racism" and False Equivalence<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been a while, so I thought I'd share this with you.<br /><br />So, someone kept writing comments on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqkz5_3gfcI">this video of mine</a> (which discussed the topic of racism) about the Black Panther Party and the crime problems in South Africa (particularly those aimed at white people), and how this is PROOF of how racism against white people is totally a thing. All I had said about this “r<i>everse racism</i>” in the video was that those spouting how racism against white people was “<i>totally a thing</i>" should go look up the words <i>false equivalence</i>.<br /><br />Anyway, he kept replying to most of my posts and said I shouldn’t be “taking things so personally” (I wasn’t taking anything personally, btw, just explaining various things to racist people & overly-defensive white boys), and kept bringing up the BPP and the situation in SA like he was trying to convert me or something. So, I decided to finally address his 2 examples, and I’d like to share my reply with you as it took a bit of time to write and I have seen arguments similar to his elsewhere.<br /><br /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No? Its not taking it personally, it’s purely deciding to explain things to those that choose not to listen & point out small extreme groups like the BPP.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, I know about South Africa. My mum’s friend (who actually lives there) was visiting someone (another white family) when they got robbed & she had a gun pointed at her. There is a LOT of crime directed at white people in SA right now, it’s bloody scary, but I’m pretty sure white people would not be targeted like this if it weren’t for the years of abuse at the hands of previous white colonists; segregation, apartheid, theft of land, restrictions on voting… None of those things excuse what certain people are doing, but for them it is a kind of “retaliation”. It is stupid & wrong & misguided & messed up in its approach, but they’re not just doing it because these people are “different”: they do it because <i>they feel that those people represent the oppression they have faced</i> & they are angry at things still being hugely unequal, like unequal wealth distribution (e.g. only two of South Africa’s 14 richest people of 2013 are black, despite black people making up 80% of the population). Also, factors that increase a country’s general crime rate include: “high levels of <b>inequality</b>, poverty, unemployment, <b>social exclusion</b> and <b>marginalisation</b>" (note the highlighted words); basically, what is happening in SA is likely caused by (and is basically an extreme and violent backlash to) white privilege.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your argument fails because both things you have pointed out <b>would not exist if it weren’t for the racism of white people</b>. They are a <i>direct result </i>of white racism against black people. Discrimination based on race has created lot of groups of upset and righteously-angry people, but some get so angry that they attack anyone that represents the people that made life hard for them; that is “racism” of a sort, lumping people together based on race, but not the same dehumanising and restricting racism that is faced by POC.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You cannot just throw in 2 examples to go “Seeeee!!! Racism against white people!!! They’re JUST AS BAD.” without looking at why those examples might exist in the first place. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />So yeah, false equivalence.</span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-57024727473440053602013-12-05T05:17:00.002-08:002015-09-15T15:10:05.409-07:00Microsoft - I love you. But please do better.<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I haven't had the Internet for a while, been very busy, and am currently ill. I am therefore a little behind on this piece of news and will be writing this as a blog post rather than making a video (I also look awful but cannot go for a shower - or film anything anyway - as there are 2 plumbers loudly installing a new hot water tank 2 days after they said they would - exciting!).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, here goes.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/xbox-one1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/xbox-one1.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>WHY, MICROSOFT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?</i></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was scanning the web to catch up on some tech gossip & I stumbled across <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/11/27/xbox-one-ad-gender-stereotypes/">this little news story about the Xbox One</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is supposed to be a funny, interactive and engaging piece of marketing to help potential buyers encourage their partners to "let" them buy the system together, but to me it comes across as a cringeworthy, dull and enraging piece of marketing. It's basically a letter pleading for men to plead with their girlfriends/wives to get the "amazing" new Xbox One. Here is the default letter, which allows you to change certain parts to make the letter applicable to you and your partner...:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Xbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Xbox.jpg" height="375" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is, this "letter" comes across as a man calmly & pathetically pleading for permission to buy a new toy from his possibly-angry-and-game-hating girlfriend, rather than a funny tongue-in-cheek ad with reasonable arguments as to why a household should invest in an Xbox One.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> MS have since made changes to the text, which suggests that it wasn't as totally non-offensive as they had hoped it was. For example, you can now prefer to do taxes over gaming, instead of knitting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do not enjoy doing taxes and I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO KNIT. I can however do pretty damn well in Assassin's Creed Multiplayer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, another small thing: in your big Xbox One TV spots, I have only seen ONE woman using the system, and she was watching Netflix. Not gaming. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a guy in an important office meeting who gets invited to ride in a giant robot, a guy in a football stadium is invited to take a free kick, a guy driving down a highway is invited to drive a fancy sports car, a guy studying in a library gets invited to go shoot some zombies, a guy in a suit relaxing outside a fancy cafe with some papers (can't tell if newspaper or letters) gets invited to be a roman soldier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The woman? Stopped whilst standing around at a train station (not doing anything in particular, just standing there reading a book whilst waiting for a train) by the new pretty Spock, invited to watch him be a badass in space. He's so pretty she drops her book when she first sees him. No, it's not in shock at him suddenly appearing out of thin air, she has her back turned the whole time when that happens, she just turns round & sees him there with a phaser & pretty pointy ears, gesturing her to follow him - watch him, though, not join in on the action. Just <i>watch</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>OMG, it's SPOCK. *fangirls & drops book*</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically, all the gamers are men, <i>doing </i>things, and there is ONE WOMAN in the whole advert who just stands about reading what looks like a novel then WATCHES A MOVIE WITH A PRETTY MAN IN IT BEING A HERO. Honestly, I wouldn't mind this depiction of a woman <i>- </i>it's really not the worst - but it's the ONLY ONE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wanna know something MS? I encouraged my boyfriend to get an Xbox 360 instead of a PS3 so we could play online together. I, a <i>female, </i>got a guy to buy one of your gaming systems. I <i>actively created a sale for you.</i> I also talk about games available on your consoles, including exclusive ones, on my channel - it's only small, but people have told me that they've made one or two purchases based on my recommendations. I have also played your system since 2009, and played games on MS PC systems since I was a small child. I LOVE your systems. Please let me know that the people creating those systems also love me and value me as a customer. Get some more girls and women gaming in your marketing, pretty please!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Although, just gonna say, the Xbox one announcement got really uncomfortable when that guy from the Killer Instinct team</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> said the words "Relax, just let it happen, it'll be over soon" and "wow, you like this" whilst </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">virtually beating up a woman. No. Nooooo. Nonono. Plz no. Never do that again. Plz.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It just gets very frustrating when you don't feel represented by a company you have supported for many years. I really hope this changes soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Regards,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A frustrated Xbox 360 owner xx</span></div>
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icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-39043518078023320432013-11-14T04:26:00.000-08:002013-11-14T05:43:26.163-08:00Dear Amazing Atheist (on Rape Culture)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Amazing Atheist,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone on my Twitter pointed me to your recent videos about rape culture and rape, and wanted to know what I thought of them. I was a bit wary, as I (being honest) am not a fan of some of your previous videos. You, like me, are an opinionated person and I don't always share the same opinions as you on things, so I went in feeling slightly defensive. However, you calmly explained your feelings on the matter - thank you for that. It also meant I watched both videos in full (if anyone wants to watch them, they are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KQQ1bzQn0k">here</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBgSfdfJQqk">here</a> - set aside some time as they are about 25 mins each).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You asked for responses from people for your first video, as you said you were very willing to listen to different viewpoints, so here I am. There are a few things from your video I'd like to mention. Apologies in advance if I'm totally wrong on any of it (stats wise, assuming your feelings on matters, etc.) and I hope I don't come across as rude, patronising or condescending at any point. It's very difficult to convey tone in text & I was actually planning to maybe make this a video, but I am a bit strapped for time at the moment, so I have had to just tweak my original script.</span></div>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>"No Rape Culture"</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am a noob to the saying "rape culture", and I have not seen it thrown around lightly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From my small understanding, rape culture is called "culture" because there's a big enough and influential enough group of people that do various things & hold various opinions (like some in the definition you found) in society to stop the massive problem of rape and sexual assault from being properly dealt with, thus it prevails. Rape culture is all the social stuff that <i>allows rape to keep happening and allows rapists to constantly get away with this crap.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even though it is linked to our general culture, not everyone is a part of rape culture and it does not describe our society as a whole - we just have one <i>within</i> our society & it affects a lot of people in it. America has a gun culture - does that mean everyone in America likes and has guns & knows everything about it? No. But a <i>lot</i> of people who aren't a part of gun culture are affected by it</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. In western society there are war cultures, drinking cultures, party cultures... Does that mean we like & understand why people like all those things, or that everyone knows about them? No. But, just because we are not a part of those cultures or they are not obvious to us, doesn't mean they're not there or that we're not surrounded by them and/or directly affected by them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In your second video you got upset about the Stubenville case not getting to light without the internet, despite masses of evidence - certain people in law enforcement trying to sweep stuff under the rug to save the boys, rather than punish the crime? You're upset at rape culture. You're upset at people hoping bad guys in prison get raped because they know & revel in the fact that that happens? You're upset at rape culture. You're upset at people using power structures like those in the army to rape someone just because they want to/can? You're upset at rape culture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, lots of people argue over what rape culture is, but I think it's because it naturally varies greatly between different places; for example, rape culture for women in America is asking things like "well, what was she wearing?", but in other places it can also escalate to forcing them to marry their rapists or stoning them to death for being "impure".</span></div>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>"Different levels of rape"</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You used two examples to try and say that there are "different levels of rape" in the same way that there are different levels of killing such as pre-meditated and accidental. The "stranger jumping out of a bush = on-purpose killing, the boyfriend ignoring his girlfriend saying no = accidental killing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's where that analogy falls to pieces: the girlfriend said no. If she said no, then they boyfriend KNOWINGLY had sex without her consent. Being in a relationship with someone doesn't mean you are entitled to have sex with them whenever you want, whether they want to or not - I'm sure (or at least hope) you realise this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The boyfriend in this hypothetical situation, did not do this by accident. She said no and he actively ignored her. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He abused the girlfriend's trust and took advantage of her.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She trusted him enough to be alone with him, and he raped her. <i>That is f**ked up</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To me, and many others, that's not "less bad" than being raped by a stranger, that's just a <i>different kind of f**ked up</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, even if a guy "accidentally" rapes a girl because he "forgot" to check if she was ok with it, <i>that's also still f**ked up, </i>because he didn't stop to think "is she into this?"; instead he completely ignored her agency and worth as a human and just selfishly focused on his own sexual desires. You didn't make this argument, but it is one I've seen online a couple of times & I wanted to address it...</span></div>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>"Everyone is different"</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I completely agree - everyone has different comfort zones & limitations, gives off slightly different signals... However, I've popped this one in because it's so effing easy to double-check that someone is ok with having sex. You don't have to ruin the mood - you can ask it in a sexy way, e.g. "<i>do you like it when I do this?</i>", and make sure you get a truly positive response. Normal people can also read body language to make sure someone is enjoying it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone is different, and yes, some people may say "no" when they mean "yes", but even then, it's effing obvious what they mean & it's really not hard just to ask flat-out "are you ok with this?" Again, there are ways to ask sexily without ruining the mood (e.g. "</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">are you ok with this? Be honest with me, b</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ecause you're effing gorgeous and I want you <i>right now, </i>but I want you to <i>really enjoy it</i>" *insert sexy smouldering look*).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />As you said, there are a lot of people that <i>can't </i>read people properly, and that's why a lot of people want people to be educated about consent. That's one of the things they mean when they say "teach people not to rape" - teach people that instead of just looking for "ok" or a mumbled, scared & unhappy "yes", they should look for <i>enthusias</i>m, which is pretty easy to spot and easy to ask about<i>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>"That's what lawyers are paid to do"</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just because a lawyer is paid by their client to discredit a victim, it doesn't mean that what they're doing isn't morally reprehensible. Why do you think everyone makes bitchy jokes and comments about lawyers? The justice system should be about justice & getting to the truth, not getting paid to spin blame onto victims, even when rape did obviously occur. Burglars don't get let off if the victims left a window open and were therefore "asking for it"; rape is far worse, so why do lawyers say victims were "asking for it" by their behaviour or clothes (which often is just something like "wearing a skirt" and "being friendly")? They grasp at straws such as clothes and approachability, then as soon as one guy is let off because of it, this part of rape culture seeps into our everyday lives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You see, this stuff doesn't stay inside courtrooms. This "asking for it" idea is in a lot of people's heads, especially when alcohol is involved - when lots of people ask "why did they take advantage of a drunk person", there can be just as many asking "well why did the other person think it was ok to get so drunk around other people?" Just look at any comments section on Stubenville & Maryville news pieces.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The questions directed at female victims also affect women in general: we feel like we have to police our own clothing to fit within certain standards in case something should happen to us, because, even though <a href="http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/commonmyths2.php">there is no correlation between a particular kind of clothing and being raped</a>, we don't want to get the finger of blame pointed at us if something does happen. Women are told all the time that that have to look good, but they can't look <i>too good</i>, because then they're "asking for it".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, when I was 13, some boy followed me down the street and grabbed my arse. When I whacked his hand away and said "don't touch me", he said, "Well you shouldn't have worn that skirt" (it was my school uniform).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This sh*t does not stay in the courtroom. People eat that crap up and use it to try & justify their harassment of other people. <i>That is part of rape culture.</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>"Three options"</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You said everyone has three options in cases with little-to-no evidence except each person's story: always say you don't know, always side with the accused, always side with the accuser. I think a hell of a lot of people switch between saying they don't know and choosing a side, often just by how each side looks / comes across. Also, although I try to be unbiased, sadly, according to studies, if you always side with the victim you seem to be statistically more likely to be choosing the truthful side...(see next point).</span></div>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>"Being falsely accused of rape ruins your life"</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, I'm sure it does, and I think it's awful and horrific. It's a good thing then that false accusations of rape are actually <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/08/the_enliven_project_s_false_rape_accusations_infographic_great_intentions.html">so incredibly rare</a>. It is statistically far more likely for a woman to be raped, take the guy to court & lose the case, then likely have her life ruined by being accused of making a false claim because she's just a slut that was ashamed of sleeping with that guy who is totally innocent because the justice system in every country is perfect & no one guilty goes free blah blah blah I want to scream...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, the majority of women who make false rape claims <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/08/the_enliven_project_s_false_rape_accusations_infographic_great_intentions.html">don't actually properly describe or name a perpetrator</a> - that's a big sign to the police that the claim is fake. The woman wants sympathy & she won't get it if the person she falsely accuses calls her a liar & she's proved false. Also, with so many people crying "false claims!", actual rape victims get very little sympathy for pointing the finger.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't stand when women make false accusations of rape against men; not only does a man's life get ruined, but so many people cling onto those few examples to shout down the thousands and thousands of women who have genuine claims. This is one massive reason why the <a href="http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/commonmyths2.php">majority of women do not report their rapes</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="color: orange; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>"I was sexually assaulted - it is harder for male victims to be taken seriously"</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not disagreeing with you in the slightest here, especially for the first part. T</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he woman that sexually assaulted you in the workplace is an <i>arsehole</i>. A <i>grade A arsehole</i>. As for the people who decided to make fun of you and call you "gay" for not immediately reciprocating her advances, they're arseholes too. And I think I know why they didn't sympathise with you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have likely heard of the word "patriarchy" - now, it doesn't refer to some secret male society or some "conspiracy theory that blames all men, even decent men, for all women's woes". All it roughly means is that, in general, men are in the majority of power positions of businesses, relationships, etc. and fit in with other set definitions of masculinity. It also means that men are <i><u>expected</u> to want to be in power positions and </i></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>fit in with other set definitions of masculinity</i> (i.e. fit their gender role)</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In many societies, masculinity often means that men must automatically like any sexual approach from a female because "what guy doesn't wanna have sex, amiright?". If you don't like it or reciprocate, then there must be something "different" about you. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People take you being upset at assault and try to insult you by saying it's strange you turned them down, so you're weird, un-masculine (i.e. feminine or effeminate) & they make jokes about you being gay (which is also extremely homophobic).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You got crap because of the restricting gender roles that many feminists are trying to change, for <i>both sexes </i>(yes, not all feminists spell this out or believe it, but it's true for most from what I've seen and heard). You shouldn't have to "man up", "deal with it like a man", automatically enjoy her advances because you're a heterosexual man, or not allow yourself to recognise that you were the victim in this situation. You are allowed to be pissed off with her invading your personal space, <i>especially</i> for taking advantage of you at work, where often people can't feel like they can shout back for fear of losing their job. That woman should get the sack if she hasn't already got it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also know that there are tonnes of women who know <i>exactly how you feel</i>. There are lots of awful cases, <a href="http://jezebel.com/the-worst-details-of-the-worst-sexual-harassment-lawsui-1460958831?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow">like this one</a>, of sexual harassment, assault & sexism in general against women in the work place. Also, many women, including myself, have been sexually assaulted or harassed, only for our attackers & their friends (& a few others) to call us lesbians for not responding positively to their "compliments". We are made to feel weird, rude or unladylike for telling a guy to stop touching us or to get out of our personal space. It happens in clubs, in the street, in workplaces... Fortunately it has become easier for women to report this stuff, but you hear so many stories that suggest that a lot of harassment towards women still gets swept under the carpet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically, thanks to rape culture, women are supposed to "deal with it because that's just what happens to women", "ignore it", realise they were "asking for it" or "take the compliment"; men are supposed to "enjoy it". </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Truthfully, we cannot say exactly who has it "worse off" when it comes to reporting assault (men do have an extra barrier of "you should like it"/"you could've easily pushed them off you"), but it needs to be made easier for everyone; currently, w</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">omen are far more likely to be a victim of some form of sexual assault & it is highly likely that their assaulter will get away with it, whilst men are often afraid to report the crime & feel like they won't be taken seriously (or helped at all), especially if in prison or assaulted by a woman. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rape culture doesn't just refer to assaults on women, because it affects both genders - It just ends up focusing on that because sadly women are the ones most affected by it, therefore those that fight for women's rights (i.e. mostly female feminists) are the ones doing a lot of the work on researching & exposing it. Not all feminists are crazy man-hating bra-burners - that's just a very vocal minority. Most are just people that see the gender roles that restrict everyone (especially women), and the idea that anything feminine = bad (i.e. you not being allowed to feel like a victim by your colleagues, because that's not 'masculine'), as stupid ideas; rape culture feeds off those ideas, causing both sexes to suffer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I appreciate your calmness in your videos, and I understand your anger at what happened to you - I really do & I especially sympathise with you for it happening in the workplace. You must've felt very trapped.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope you will take the time to read this and consider my opinions. If so, thanks! This was a long post... Your second video definitely emphasised how much you hate this crime & I think it's great you addressed those issues, even though I have a slightly different viewpoint on some things you said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, in regard to the "well why aren't I as upset by people being killed?" question, <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5972-Rape-vs-Murder">this video by Jim Sterling</a> regarding rape & killing in video games which may give you an answer. I also once saw written down that "Rape is a kind of torture" - it sounds harsh, but I'm sure a lot of rape victims will relate to those words.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kind regards,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ellen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P.S. I hope you don't mind open letters - everyone's complaining about them in the UK because of some recent examples, but I like them... It's more like I'm talking face to face with you as a person rather than criticising you like you were a book or study or something...</span></div>
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icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-22591738091134830852013-10-22T09:09:00.000-07:002013-11-12T16:34:42.209-08:00"Motorboating Girls for Breast Cancer Awareness"<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Does anyone else still find this vaguely disconcerting? Like an idea that probably started with the phrase, "You know how I bet we could smash our faces into a lot of tits?""</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Yes but this "campaign" magically turns inappropriate behavior into appropriate behavior. Oh and if you do find it inappropriate? You're just hating on good intentions and not, say, the right for some guys to use this as an excuse to be pervy."</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Simple Pickup – I stumbled across your “motorboating girls for breast cancer awareness” video.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly, I just want to state a few things:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s great that you wanted to give money to charity. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's great to bring attention to the problem of breast cancer.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I, unlike some of your viewers & critics, do not think that the women who took part are "sluts". As much as I dislike the video, I’m not annoyed at them for doing something that they probably only did because they were told it was for charity.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I almost didn’t want to make this video for fear I’d just get hate from your fans like anyone else that said they didn’t like your video and got comments like “fuck u. get a life. or eat a dick...”</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I felt I had to fully explain to you these reasons as to why I, and many others, had problems with it and maybe why the charity you gave to actually chose to reject the money.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think women who have had their breasts removed to fight their cancer would appreciate a breast cancer awareness video that is all about how "amazing" boobs are or that the video starts "let's go save come boobies". It's tongue in cheek (or, more correctly, tongue in tit) but, come on... How about "let's go save some ladies" instead?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many don't see it as charitable because it's not very altruistic. Altruistic giving is giving purely out of concern for others, without wanting anything in return: it's definitely not saying "I will give $20 to charity IF I get to put MY face in YOUR tits". Also, you were NOT "raising money" as many defenders said you were: technically, you were holding back money you already had until you got to touch the boobs of women who would likely need treatment in their future. Doesn't sound as nice when I put that way, does it?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You basically used breast cancer as a reason to touch women's boobs. If anyone disagrees, let me just ask, do you think these guys would make a video rubbing their faces in guys' arses for prostate cancer awareness, or rubbing their faces in guy's crotches for testicular cancer awareness? Hmm? Plus, they seem to be just approaching attractive young women. The fact is, 8/10 women that get breast cancer are actually over 50. Why weren't you also approaching older women more at risk of breast cancer? Probably because they’re not sexy young ladies that viewers can perv on & you enjoy touching. Yaay, using “cancer awareness” to further sexualise young women.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of awareness, I dunno about other viewers, but whilst you mentioned breast cancer (emphaisis on breast) this video taught me nothing about it. Neither did it address the fact that men also get breast cancer – you guys have breast tissue too. I personally think that you could’ve explained to your viewers that out of all the women you approach in all your videos 1 in 8 of them could get breast cancer. Or that 1 out of every 1000 of your male viewers could get it too. Just saying breast cancer exists doesn't do much to spread awareness of it when people already know that it exists. Perhaps add some real information so that your viewers become more aware about breast cancer, rather than just more aware of breasts.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We haven't seen footage of how you asked women or when a woman said "no". Did you go "oh come on... Let us do it, it's for charityyyyy. Please?! Don’t be a spoilsport!" or did you go "ok! No problem, have a nice day!"? People just want to be sure none of the women were pressured into it. We can’t just trust the happy plinky plonky music. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sorry for sounding like I’m trying to spoil your fun - there's nothing wrong with trying to help charity with a “fun” video that could easily go viral, but your video just left a bad taste in my mouth (and probably yours if those women hadn't had a shower for a while). In truth it's probably because my parents have lost friends to breast cancer and, more recently, two friends of mine lost their mum.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I did not like thinking that you were using the cancer that cut her life, and so many others, short as an excuse to motorboat random young women on Venice Beach. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can’t fully explain everything and to show how much your viewers are learning about Breast Cancer, let me read out some of the comments from them left on the video:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for spreading the awareness, dudes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the script I used for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BouhioJDdfE">my video</a>. It is good to say this stuff, but sometimes people don't listen until they read it themselves in black & white. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, I am fed up of people who have reasonable and justifiable criticisms being labelled as "HATERS", because people refuse to sit and listen to them. Yes, sometimes people over-react, but sometimes the people they're criticising need to sit back and listen. Simple Pickup, t</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ake time to look at the root cause of the outrage (your video), rather than just get angry at the outrage itself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a good response (which, of course, has been marked as spam by your viewers)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, I didn't actually see/hear anyone who complained say that the charity should reject the money. The charity could've taken it, with a stern warning about how people could find your video inappropriate, sexualising, that is objectifies women, etc.. But instead they chose the harsher route. Why? Because really, $7000 isn't that much to risk sending the wrong message or risk copycats using your idea to touch women (but perhaps lying about the charity). They appreciate every penny given, yes, but they can't afford to look like they're promoting the idea of men going out and touching up women for charity, especially when they can get FAR more money elsewhere from other people who put in WAY more effort than you did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry to rant at you, I just studied a lot about charity & altruism at uni, plus my sister actually works for a charity. Donations to charity are not payments to avoid criticism, so please stop going "<i>but it was for charity!</i>" to try and shut people up. People who are pissed off with you are pissed off with your video and the way you chose to "fundraise"; they are NOT trying to deprive a charity of money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get your heads out of your arses and bloody listen.</span></div>
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icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-49136785149331494892013-10-15T03:47:00.000-07:002013-10-15T03:47:02.102-07:00Girls getting blind drunk at parties<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, so Steubenville happened, and now <a href="http://gawker.com/family-gets-driven-out-of-missouri-town-after-daughter-1444590830">another case has come up from Maryville</a> where a 14 year old girl had been drinking, was raped by an older guy aged 17 (there is evidence and <i>confessions</i>) yet the girl and her family have been run out of town, and their old home (still owned by her mother) <i>mysteriously </i>burnt down. Oh, and her 13 year old friend was also raped by another boy who also filmed the other rape. However, the prosecutor said there "wasn't enough evidence" and decided to not take it to court because of...<a href="http://kcur.org/post/why-was-maryville-rape-case-dropped">reasons</a>. Maybe it was really because one of the accused is the grandson of a "prominent former Missouri state representative". A Republican one (we all know how much they like the ladies and their rights!).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, in these cases, you always hear a few people going "well WHY were they drinking so heavily in the first place?!" Not in a concerned way, but in a "well if they weren't drunk, they wouldn't have gotten raped" way. In a victim-blaming way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So why do these young girls drink so much at parties, especially with older guys? Let's see:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>They want to impress</b> - in a lot of teenagers' minds, drinking = acting like an adult, because only adults are legally allowed to drink. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>They want to look cool</b> - drinking underage = rebelling/messing about = cool. Also, most older kids are often automatically seen as cooler, so hanging out with the older kids = you become cool by association. Cool = life is easier/don't get bullied.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>They are constantly told that drinking is the best way to have fun and parties without alcohol are laaaame</b> - just look at films/adverts/tv. I looked into alcohol adverts as part of my degree and the majority of them equate drinking with having fun. Alcohol is highly glamorised.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Peer pressure </b>- basically everyone who conforms to the above ideas forcing them on others.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And to those of you wondering why their parents "let" them drink: they didn't, they were teenagers sneaking around. Also, I can be harsh on parents sometimes, but these kids were teenagers who need a little independence and trust from parents. Also, the mum of one of the victims (in whose house the girls were originally staying), was ASLEEP. Yeah, those stupid, unconscious, lazy parents....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And to others wondering why these girls were "stupid" enough to get drunk around boys: NOT EVERY GUY IS A POTENTIAL RAPIST. I reckon most guys wouldn't encourage young girls to get blackout-drunk. I also reckon most guys would help a drunk girl get home instead of rape her & leave her to freeze on her front lawn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't drink huge amounts (especially on nights out) because of these reasons:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to remember the night</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't want to lose any of my stuff (keys, purse, phone, etc.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't want some creep trying to take advantage of me</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">HOWEVER, if I am at a party with friends & was surrounded by <i>people I trusted</i>, I would assume that I could trust them enough to make sure I was ok if I ended up drinking a little too much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would advise fellow ladies not to get blind-drunk, but to be honest, women & girls who drink a lot and then are sexually assaulted should not be told "well you shouldn't have drunk so much"; they are not to blame for their rapes, the rapist taking advantage of them is. I also don't think kids should be drinking that amount at that age, but no one deserves to be raped because they were naive teens who made a couple of stupid mistakes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only thing they are guilty of is trusting someone who took advantage of that trust & turned out to be a rapist, & those guys don't tend to go around wearing "I'm a rapist" t-shirts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry for the slightly serious/sad topic. I just saw the articles & had to get this off my chest. Just to let you know, <a href="http://ickle-nellie-rose.tumblr.com/">I also have a Tumblr now</a> and I do shorter, more frequent (& usually more light-hearted) posts on there. Please do go follow me on there if you have one too!</span></div>
icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-8661333503620552962013-10-10T11:39:00.001-07:002013-10-10T16:14:39.446-07:00Badass "third world" feminist spells it out for ignorant idiot.<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes. I'm talking about feminism again. YAAAAY!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, so I stumbled across <a href="http://www.xojane.com/issues/my-picture-was-stolen-and-turned-into-a-fat-shaming-anti-feminist-meme">this old(ish) article</a> about how a woman's photo was stolen and turned into a meme, at her expense. She is a lady of larger build and in the photo she is holding a poster that says "This is what a feminist looks like". Yeah, the arseholes had a field day - lots of fat-shaming, feminist-hating and stupid "hahahahahaha VIRGIN" lines. Classy, guys. Classy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, this lady, <a href="http://www.xojane.com/author/kelly-broderick">Kelly Martin Broderick</a>, decided that she wasn't going to take this lying down. She tried to have the photo taken down, but Facebook said it didn't violate her privacy, so it wouldn't remove it. So she decided to write that article & tell the whole story, showing how rude these people were being. In it, she posted up another photo from the set hers was taken from, which was actually part of a project to show how <i>diverse</i> feminists were, and she encouraged other feminists to share their photos too. Basically, she wanted to break the stereotype that those idiots were using her picture to try & cement (all feminists are fat women, who must also be virgins, who should be openly mocked for being feminists) and show that feminists come in all shapes, sizes, races and genders.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See? Lots of different people!</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, I'm a sucker for going down to comment sections - having a YouTube channel, I'm so used to going down and reading through comments that it's just something I do now. I enjoy seeing good conversations, interesting questions and stories, and also pull my hair out at some of the self-righteous, ignorant drivel that people often like to spout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There of course was an idiot in the comments section. And here he is:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Andrew Adkins: </b></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"The abused and oppressed women of the third world will rise up and thank you for your great strides and tremendous efforts to correct this atrocious injustice that will ripple through the sands of time as a momentous and paramount example of the terror that women must experience every day in the United Sates of America." </i></span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- </i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">289 upvotes, 133 downvotes as of writing.</span></i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(I think there would probably be more downvotes on that one if people didn't have to create an account to do so...)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is something that idiots have said to me when I have mentioned problems women have to deal with. On my video of street harassment, someone said I shouldn't be complaining about being leered at, groped and followed down the street, because women in other countries have it worse. Firstly, just because someone has a worse problem than you, doesn't make your problem any less <i>legitimate</i> - just smaller and maybe easier to deal with. To quote the beautifully eloquent <a href="http://youtu.be/-m0Vmn_hoOk?t=3m22s">Neacfy</a>: </span><br />
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<i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Yeah, it could be worse, but this is a struggle for equality; just because there are women out there who are lower down the equality ladder, it doesn't change the fact that even in our supposedly "enlightened" culture, the scales are still </i><u style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">unbalanced</u><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">." - </i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neacfy <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-hKCok28ZkxaRNbSxQA_VQ">(seriously go watch his videos)</a></span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The comment in question from my "Street Harassment DOES Suck" video, & my reply.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They word it as if you don't bloody realise that other people have problems, that they think anyone who complains about sexism is automatically self-centred & ignorant, only showing concern for people in the same western society as yourself. Well, newsflash - a lot of us realise that women elsewhere go through waaaaay more crap, and we try to show solidarity for them too by raising awareness of their problems. However, we try not to always speak on their behalf (like Andrew did), as to do so would be EXTREMELY patronising, especially since we could easily be ignorant of what they actually think and what they truly have to deal with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I was extremely happy when I saw that a woman named Sarah, <i>actually from a "third world" </i>(as Andrew put it)<i> country</i>, had decided to reply to Andrew's little "speech"...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Sarah: </b></span><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"@Andrew Adkins. As a third world woman, I'd like you to thank you for doing the man thing and talking on my behalf. It is extremely helpful to dismiss someone standing up for anti-feminist bullying with the "others have it worse" excuse.</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You mock the ripples? Here's my third world view of this. If feminists in the first world are being bullied and shamed out of being feminists, the following will happen:</span></i><br />
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<li><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fewer women in the first world will dare be feminists, because they don't want to run the risk of being ridiculed.</span></i></li>
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<li><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, fewer people will be concerned with what happens to 3rd world women like me, because they wouldn't want to be labled as "feminists" and be shamed</span></i></li>
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<li><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Women in third world countries will hear/see this ridicule, and will feel helpless as they will feel no one will find their suffering worth fighting for. (Except now, we will see that it is)</span></i></li>
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<li><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To a lot of women in third world countries, what happened to Kelly is EXACTLY what their fathers and brothers tell them, to deter them from joining feminist groups. "look what happened to this woman, and she's in AMERICA. Imagine what they'll do to you here. They'll humiliate you."</span></i></li>
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because believe it or not, even in third world countries, publicly shaming someone is scarier than beating them.</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So as an oppressed woman of a third world country, I would like to kindly ask you to quit the pity fest and not talk on my behalf. What Kelly did in response to stealing her picture is more helpful to me than you realize.</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bullying those who stand up for my rights is not okay no matter where it happens in the world.</span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">@Kelly: Thank you." </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>955 upvotes, 11 downvotes as of writing</i>.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, Sarah - thank YOU. Thank you for explaining something so simple, that these idiots don't seem to understand. There IS a ripple effect. Once there is success/progress in one place, others will follow; once there is failure/mockery in one place, others will avoid it. Also, nicely done, calling out the 21 yr old white boy from Arkansas (pro tip - if you're gonna be a judgemental, ignorant douche, don't comment via Facebook) who thought he knew how all women in countries thousands of miles away from him would feel about this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See, this is why I risk the comment section - you just might find an absolute gem like this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Edit: since first publication, I have added in quotation marks around "third world" in the title, because I wanted to clarify that I was quoting Sarah, who was quoting Andrew in his use of the term. I know that some dislike the term, and I was not using it from my own vocabulary. Ta!</i></span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-79077189617661657732013-10-08T16:54:00.005-07:002013-10-09T05:20:52.523-07:00TomSka, I AM an angry feminist<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, TomSka wrote a blog on his Tumblr about his journey with feminism, from "MEN HAVE PROBLEMS TOO!" arguer to "oh crap, sorry I was all defensive and thanks for calling me out on it". <a href="http://thetomska.tumblr.com/post/63475380372/today-i-realised-how-close-i-was-to-1000">It's a good post and I recommend you read it.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Within it, he said how he wanted to make a video about feminism and how close my video got to the particular type of thing he wanted for his young, largely-male audience. However, he did have some criticism, which I found fair, but I also want to clarify a couple of things spoken about in this bit:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Although when it comes to making my own video I’ll probably try to avoid slating “radical feminism” as much as Ellen does because it’s extremely hard to quantify what is radicalism and what is justifiable frustration. In the same way people are often quick to brush off valid criticism as “hate” I reckon there are plenty of folk ready to write-off an angry feminist as a “man hater.” That being said, it’s also important to note that sometimes people are just crazy and that there are assholes on every side of every argument."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think that feminists aren't allowed to be angry/frustrated. I am angry/frustrated a LOT of the time. There are so many times when I want to scream into someone's face, but I usually bite my tongue (except when I put a snarky comment to highlight their sexism/stupidness/ignorance). When I express annoyance at something obviously sexist & I have someone tell me to worry about something "important", it pisses me off. When I read through the tweets on </span><a href="https://twitter.com/EverydaySexism" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyday Sexism's Twitter feed</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, only to see replies from men going "are you sure they were even talking to you?" or "that's not sexist" or "take a damn compliment" or "well </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> wouldn't do that [so it must not have happened]", it pisses me off. I want to tear my hair out every time I see some ignorant idiot "mansplaining" or suggesting that women are overreacting, reading too much into stuff, being over-emotional, etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have no problems with angry feminists, because I am one. I'm just a passive-aggressive, overly-British, mildly-socially-awkward one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was focusing on the small minority of crazy assholes/arseholes who think all men are inherently evil.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my video I spoke about my dislike of "angry, man-hating feminists" - when saying that, I specifically meant the women that hate men, the women that have become so riled-up with sexism against women that they have become sexists themselves; I was not meaning women who were just angry (who I would then assume were "man-haters"). In fact, that's one of the reasons I get annoyed at the <i>very</i> vocally-angry men-hating arseholes - any woman who labels herself as a feminist and is rightfully angry about something sexist is shouted down & silenced by being accused of being a sexist "man-hater". It sucks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feminists are allowed to angry and frustrated, else most of us would have to hand in our membership badges, but we cannot fight sexism with sexism. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feminism, to me, is a campaign for freedom and equality, and I've come across some extremist man-hating ladies that scared the crap out of me, who became</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> one of the reasons I didn't call myself a feminist for a long time. I just couldn't relate; I wanted change for women, but, I liked most of the men I knew and didn't want to write-off the idea of maybe getting married to one one day. I also didn't understand all the women saying crap like "if women ran the world there would be no war" - I went to an all-girls school, and to that I say HAHAHAHAHAHAHA no. Every woman has a right to be angry at a lot of the crap we go through, but you can take anger at injustice too far; </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't believe you can fight fire with fire - at least not if you want a happy ending. Female feminists are more than welcome to be angry about the patriarchal systems holding many of us back, but I don't think we should mark all men as arseholes - in fact, a lot of the feminists I know are actually men.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The extremists also create double-standards of sexism that MRA groups then latch onto and go "SEEE, FEMINISM IS EEEEEVIL. They don't want equal rights, they want DOMINANCE." Urgh.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In truth, though, I am also as equally pissed off with these idiots that look at the extreme man-haters and assume that they are a fair representation of all feminists. Really? You think any woman that points out an inequality also wants to destroy all men? However, I didn't approach my video like this, because they were some of the the people I wanted to get through to and I didn't want them to just switch off. I wanted to explicitly explain to them that feminism isn't about hating men, but hating complex social systems that have separated men and women into arbitrary groups (outside of sexual reproduction functions), creating the idea of "masculine" and "feminine" traits which each group must stick to (and god forbid you go in-between, else you're a weirdo/"gaaaaayyyy"/"tranny"/other vile insults here). <i>(Just to clarify, these are all entirely social constraints that people are free to ignore - just pointing out that those that do - and did in the past - can come under <u>intense</u> scrutiny and be shunned by those in society that prefer traditional gender roles. <a href="http://liftingtheveilinfo.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/the-wayward-indian-girl/">Just look at this example</a>).</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could've gone in guns-blazing, but I decided to rationally explain my thoughts & feelings on the matter, saying "hey, I had problems with feminism too, but then I <i>actually learnt about it</i>". I explained that feminism is also about letting men embrace their "feminine" side, not have to shun them and "man up" all the time, and about women wanting to be treated equally in <i>all </i>ways, good and bad. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is, "man-haters" are the ONLY thing a lot of these people see about feminism; people argue that I shouldn't call myself a feminist if I like men, because liking men means I'm not a feminist, apparently. So many people think feminism is this extreme "thing" because of Internet people like TheAmazingAtheist and others </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">only talking about the extreme groups, </i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">because, hey, what YouTuber wouldn't be angry at all that sexism and want to mak</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">e a video about it? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wanted to show people that there are different </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">types </i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of feminists and different </span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">branches</i><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of feminism, and not all of them relate to each other (ideologies can be very similar to religions in that respect). </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I just wanted to put across the other side - the passive-aggressive side that gets lumped in with the more vocal, extreme groups because people are lazy and stereotype. As you (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m0Vmn_hoOk">and Neafcy in his wonderful video</a>) have said, women are allowed to be angry, have every right to be angry - I just think that we need to calmly explain to people <i>why</i> we're angry as well, because - fun fact - unless we do so, people will likely label us as: over-dramatic, over-reactionary, attention-seeking, buzz-killing, PMT-ing, over-emotional and over-sensitive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because, you know, we're <i>women</i>, and all women are hormonal messes that just need to <i>calm the hell down</i>. (See what I did there...? I'm a bloody comic genius.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, thanks for the shout out and the insightful comments - I always try to be clear in my videos and it seems I didn't make it clear that I was talking about the tiny minority of feminists that actually hate men, not justifiably frustrated women. Sorry about that. It's great to see that you're not afraid to talk about stuff like this and that you're taking everyone's comments on board. It takes real maturity to admit when you were wrong about something, and I love that you want to share this stuff with your young, male viewers. Sadly, with this topic, guys won't always listen to a woman/girl, because they have an "agenda", but they might just listen to you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although I would suggest you brace yourself for the inevitable white-knight comments... Let's hope the rational ones drown those out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, if you want to see me really angry at sexism, I suggest you watch my videos on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UiTY5e_vSU">Street Harassment</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HpNLJYcgJQ">some woman telling teenage girls what to do so as not to "tempt" her innocent sons with their pyjama-covered boobies</a>. I get a bit more shouty in those two...</span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-77078292233007119102013-09-27T10:41:00.002-07:002013-09-27T11:16:15.336-07:00Accessible Gaming - Gaming with a Disability<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I recently did a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybJMZ7SRAYA">video on Accessible Gaming</a>, particularly focusing on easy modes and how they help new and less 'able' gamers to play, whilst different difficulty levels stop games becoming too easy as a whole for veteran and high-level players. WIN WIN, PEOPLE!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In it I mentioned my older sister, who has mild cerebral palsy, and I said how easy modes enable her to enjoy games she would otherwise be unable to play - because of easy modes she has been able to play games such as the recent Batman Arkham Asylum/City games, but games without easy modes have been very difficult for her to get into.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whilst my sister is very shy & self conscious on camera (her disability gives her a slightly strained voice which means it can sometimes take more effort to get words out) (also she is ginger - LOL), she is an <i>excellent </i>writer & I asked if she could write something about playing games with a disability, rather than just have me speak on her behalf.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, take it away, Emily! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gaming for special people. That's what I'm supposed to talk about, isn't it? I'm not really a hardcore gamer (unless you count getting to level 350 in Candy Crush Saga) but when you live in the same house as icklenellierose, it's hard not to get at least a little bit enthusiastic about these things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember eagerly hijacking my first car in Grand Theft Auto....it was so much fun: pulling that poor defenseless man out of his car at gunpoint, jumping in the driver's seat and IMMEDIATELY crashing into the central reservation. I took a breath, backed up to try this "driving malarkey" again...and drove straight off the flyover. This was more or less my entire experience of every GTA game I've tried. My character got sent to that ER far too many times. Chase sequences were particularly infuriating. My joints don't cooperate well under pressure, so as the drug dealer/gang warlord/general bad guy drove further and further out of sight, so my body would become more and more tense from the stress. My fingers would cramp, slip off the controller and BAM - an old lady was dead. I simply cannot take that kind of pressure....I just wanted to play a game. Murdering innocent pedestrians (by accident) soon became more than I could bear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've had this frustrating experience with many games. Prince of Persia was a nightmare. I couldn't even make the person move properly so had to angrily shut down the console before I'd even properly started the game. Musical games like Rockband gave me cramp like I'd never experienced before. I was actually traumatised in Red Dead Redemption when I kept accidentally herding those cows into a ravine. In the end, the story mode of that game became so inaccessible that I had to end up trotting through the mountains, stopping here and there to pick wildflowers. I'm guessing Rockstar had put ridiculous amounts of time energy and money into this game and I was GARDENING.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I guess I've had to adapt and play to my strengths. By strengths, I mainly refer to LEGO. I rule at Lego games. I think it's the way they progress: I like that you finish story mode of the first book of LOTR/Harry Potter and you're still only something like 7% of the way through the entire game. There are so many opportunities to go back, unlock more parts of the game, get achievements and smash up more stuff. The smashing up stuff is particularly enjoyable. But, I need to stress, the Lego games are not necessarily easy. Just because they're bright and colourful and the characters make these cute little noises whenever they jump, it doesn't mean I can automatically sail through them without a care.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ellen went away for a week in August. I had the Xbox all to myself. I had two new Lego games: it was going to be a good week. I reckoned I could near enough 100% the Lord of the Rings game, give or take a few missing minikits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until I got stuck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The camera angle wasn't co-operating and I just couldn't figure out how to make Legolas jump up onto the Oliphaunt (I know NOTHING about LOTR, by the way, so all these words are confusing). There was no hope of that 100% now. All those achievements seemed to be slipping away in front of my eyes. I was frustrated. But I persevered; I had a tea break and then went and played that level until my fingers went numb. And finally the little guy made that jump - his long blonde hair flowing triumphantly as he flew through the air. And I felt like I had achieved something. I hadn't - I was just playing a computer game - but it was encouraging nonetheless and it meant that I could reach the end of the game. This is why "easier" modes are so valuable to me. I'm not an expert gamer and I never will be. But games that are accessible mean I can still enjoy them and, if they're designed well, can still be challenged by them. Challenge is good. Impossibility is not.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're sisters, honest! (at London 2012 Dressage)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/emjric">Follow Emily on Twitter!</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://emjric.wordpress.com/">And/or read her blog!</a></span></div>
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icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-60881908339378799262013-09-19T03:50:00.000-07:002013-09-28T11:39:30.808-07:00GTA, Rockstar & Misogyny<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right, so I've already said my piece on the whole "9/10" thing in a video, and please watch that below if you haven't done so already (only 4 mins!):</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I got a bit angry & sweary...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some people have said in response "a few people are more angry over the <i>reason</i> it was given a 9, not the score itself".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, why did the reviewer give it a 9? She lists 2 reasons: because it was "politically muddled and profoundly misogynistic" and "character behavior is sometimes inconsistent."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, character behaviour being inconsistent is a big problem in a story-driven game, but, <i>of course</i>, most complainers overlooked that COMPLETELY and just chose to complain about the "misogynistic" comment because "NERRRR STUPID FEMINISTS ARE TRYING TO PUSH THEIR AGENDA ONTO US AND RUIN OUR GAMES!!!".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly, feminists are not trying to ruin your/our games; they are trying to ENHANCE them by making them less bland and s***, something different from the games that come out of the same focus-group-tested bollocks that caused Elizabeth to be relegated to the back of the <i>Bioshock: Infinite</i> box, even though it was HER F**KING STORY.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Secondly, I have not had a chance to play GTA V yet, so I cannot comment on the apparent misogyny in the game, but to me it's a fair critique. Why? BECAUSE IT IS HER REVIEW OF THE GAME AND IF IT <b><i>AFFECTED HER ENJOYMENT OF THE GAME</i></b> THEN IT IS A FAIR CRITIQUE. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">GTA is famous for being satirical & taking the mic out of the stupider side of people (especially Americans, from a British perspective) and our society as a whole. Many people have screamed "BUT IT'S SATIRE!", but, as we all know from Alex Day's little mistake a few months ago, satire can be difficult to pull off if it looks too much like the real thing. You can also stumble into the problem, if you are as successful as Rockstar, of having large numbers of fans that don't understand the satire you're trying to convey and actually <i>agree with the sentiments that Rockstar is perhaps trying to mock </i>(just see Twitter the night before the game came out); that ends up not helping the cause and people end up seeing Rockstar as catering to misogynistic fans rather than trying to critique them.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRGUEKRmwW-MhFUYR0zNR_8RMOP_tQbM_vTk3aLaUqAHz73H4AlAzlD_QUgXjqtJprDZFNXa074w5ZT_kWJoLZyMuPBchfxuNI4hTxzaT8Zuipou_I8YGxcVu7xR0OSgx0UibhNFR9Xcs/s1600/1348525002_attractivehookersmodOpen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguRGUEKRmwW-MhFUYR0zNR_8RMOP_tQbM_vTk3aLaUqAHz73H4AlAzlD_QUgXjqtJprDZFNXa074w5ZT_kWJoLZyMuPBchfxuNI4hTxzaT8Zuipou_I8YGxcVu7xR0OSgx0UibhNFR9Xcs/s320/1348525002_attractivehookersmodOpen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Sadly, not all fans of GTA IV were happy with the hookers and wanted them to be more "attractive", s</i></span><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">o they <a href="http://www.gta4-mods.com/player/model-attractive-hookers-mod-v1-f17089" target="_blank">made mods like this one</a> to give them huge fake boobs, big bums and skinnier frames than the more realistic Rockstar models.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically: GTA is known for its satire, but for some reason - if the misogyny <i>is</i> satire - it has perhaps failed to pull it off, and that would be a big disappointment for any GTA fan. The series is known for being a critique of the world we live in, and Carolyn Petit felt that it came across more like it was in support of misogyny and it took away from her experience of a game she otherwise absolutely loved.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In response to my video, one person said, "Interesting to note that another woman from IGN rated GTA V a 10/10 and didn't let her personal and political views cloud her judgment of the game...".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sorry, what?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly: NOT ALL WOMEN ARE AUTOMATICALLY THE SAME. Perhaps she has different personal views or felt the gameplay made up for it? Also, why should a reviewer throw away/ignore all their own political and personal views when playing and reviewing a game??!! </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are not machines that can just turn our feelings off when we play a video game, so why should reviewers do that? The way we view entertainment is always going to be affected by our own world views - it would be stupid to assume otherwise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People also need to realise that game reviews - in fact any review of any form of entertainment - is always going to be SUBJECTIVE, NOT OBJECTIVE. People will like different things depending on their already-established tastes - you may not see a problem with the things Carolyn disliked, but now those that might feel uncomfortable with certain parts of the game know that they can expect to see and hear certain things, and they are now prepared for that if they want to play.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, a lot of people have said that the game has "always been misogynistic" and that it should be "expected" - but I'd like to say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, so the main playable character has never been female (I will talk a bit more about that later on), and the games are not perfect, but the main gameplay itself is not misogynistic, at least not the way <i>I </i>play the games...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, you can go around punching 'hookers', or just women in general, but you don't have to - you can leave people alone or even punch both men<i> and</i> women, in swimwear <i>or </i>work clothes - woo equality! You can do all the 'pimp' escort missions, but you don't have to (I did it imagining I was overthrowing the evil current pimp to be a kinder boss to my lady employees, offering better guarantees of their safety and the opportunity to go to college or something if they want). You can hire a 'hooker' once just to see what all the fuss is about (not much to be honest, just a wonky car), then run her over to get your money back because you hardly have any at the moment (and no, I would obviously never do that in real life) - but you <i>don't have to</i>. If you hear some guy going on about how he's "looking forward to beating up some hookers in GTAV!" then he's either a) jokingly saying it because it's a bizarre part of gameplay extremely separate from reality b) only saying that because he's a noob and that's all he knows about the GTA series from the news or c) focusing on that one part of the gameplay because he has some serious social issues, especially with women.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are, however, lots of missions and tasks where you go around killing lots of men. Like, tonnes. The criminal underworld is very 'traditional' and not the best at inclusivity, and the games reflect that. I fully expect the main characters and criminals in general to be a little misogynistic, because they seem like they would be in the extreme GTA world - manly men who go into crime to get money and, therefore, fast cars, women (because they see them as objects to be won with money), etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You shoot a lot of bad dudes - there haven't been many female police officers in previous games either. Some think it's lazy design for male gamers and some think it is reflecting & saying something about our society.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, it would be bloody interesting to get the perspective of a female protagonist having to deal with all this crap. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In truth, as much as I am looking forward to playing, I was a teensy bit disappointed that not one of the main protagonists was a woman. Just think of it: s</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he's gone in for the money and the thrills, yet has to deal with a load of men telling her she's in the wrong job, not expecting much from her - then, even with all that, she rises to the top with the rest of the gang, one of whom always believed in her and the other who eventually came round to liking her, both of whom have also had to deal with hearing crap like "getting a woman to do your job then?". SO MUCH CHARACTER DYNAMICS & DEVELOPMENT!!! WOOO!!! It's not just because I'm a lady, but because I think it could just add so much to the story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>But</i>, if the writers have chosen 3 male characters to tell <i>THEIR STORY</i>, then fair enough, it's <i>their story</i> - as long as the characters are interesting enough for me to play as them, I have no problems whatsoever playing as a male character. At the same time, though, I do think it's fair for people to ask "why do all three characters have to be male?", especially since women can have 'masculine traits' too and other games have easily interchanged male and female characters without changing their personalities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The annoying thing is, the Saints Row series has dealt with sex and gender so well (the male and female versions of the player are the same character, without it seeming at all weird, and you can even have a sex-change in-game) and, as a Rockstar fan, it's annoying to see the old GTA clone come out looking more progressive than the original. Sex and gender (and race too) is such a non-issue in the Saints Row world and I enjoyed playing as a lady in SR3rd. However, I understand why Rockstar doesn't have that option: the characters in this game seem to have been written very much as traditional aggressively-masculine male characters in a world with very definite gender lines, very much defined by the social gender roles of our world, just on a more extreme scale to try and point it out to the player - satirically or otherwise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>GTA Online will let you play as a female character & previous online games have done so before</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do think that Rockstar has the ability to write a strong female character who doesn't bitch and moan but just gets on with crap - I know so because they had </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bonnie MacFarlane in Red Dead Redemption. For a lady stuck in the ol' Wild West, she just kept going and worked her arse off, and she wasn't scared to let John Marston know she fancied him (she also graciously backed off when she found out he was married). John does have to save her at one point, but she's not just another damsel in distress, as John has to save her, with helpers, from an entire gang - he also has to save his fair share of men throughout the game too and Bonnie is a very well developed character, so this is not some token 'save-the-girl' mission - it's about saving a friend. The treatment of her character in that mission by her captors is also used to show how badly many women were treated back then, no matter how strong, good and independent they were. In fact, the awful treatment of women by certain men of this period was showcased and pointed out as despicable behaviour throughout the whole game - you get actively rewarded for saving female sex-workers from arseholes trying to rape/kill them and the villains are pointed out as real <i>sick </i>villains with suggestions that they are rapists; this makes me think that Rockstar didn't mean for GTA V to come across as misogynistic, but to point out misogyny as they did in RDR. One of their main ladies, Bonnie, wasn't just some whinging, overly-emotional stereotype who complained about 'stupid men' all the time; she was awesome and the type of character I would love to play as. MORE PLEASE, ROCKSTAR! Thanks! ^-^</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Such a badass</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">GTA games <i>can easily </i>have strong, interesting female characters - I seem to remember some pretty badass ladies in San Andreas and, with the right writer (you can do it Dan Houser! Just think outside the box!) GTA could have the next Fem Shep. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to GTA Online, where a player can have a male or female character (which is also possible in the GTA IV online multiplayer) and shoot the hell out of everyone and run over as many people of any age/sex/race/etc. as they want. The GTA universe is a pretty diverse one, and it's also pretty cool to see such a hugely successful franchise with <b>2 MASSIVE games that have African American men as main protagonists </b>- ok, they're both criminals, but hey, at least they're multi-dimensional characters you actually play as rather than just more brown people you have to shoot at whilst playing yet another white American dude built like a bloody brick.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm also looking forward to meeting Michael's son Jimmy, and seeing just how much Rockstar is willing to take the piss out of the younger, more childish and entitled, members of its fanbase through this character... Tee hee!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Such a charming young man</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, those are just some thoughts pre-game, and I shall share my thoughts once I have played it (which might take a while as I spend a lot of time just driving round listening to the awesome tunes on the radio).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm also very much looking forward to meeting Trevor. He looks mental. And awesome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-23158942254420291902013-08-09T13:23:00.002-07:002013-08-09T13:33:07.921-07:00An example of what happens when you confront an arsehole<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey everyone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I'm guessing if you're here, you've already seen my video about trolls and arseholes (if you haven't, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiWMMyOFVTQ" target="_blank"><i>you should totally go watch it</i></a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I gave some advice in there and I feel that I should show you that I have used my advice and it has worked. I went through some old comments and messages and found this rather unique example that happened a few months ago, wherein I exposed a flamer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Someone left this comment on a video of mine:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAa3Wbjbu0MLCnRrmXWG7mwMJ80-bFbF_kreS7_ktRW0wA8pTbVzZNRqqlgm0KVT3uMnIS7PN4trTl-N6oq4vwL3ydvgFnhfOUl2McMXhhbuI_rp3ETVZvQkqvDr1wUqvg6H6MRo69fbO/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.20.04.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="57" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAa3Wbjbu0MLCnRrmXWG7mwMJ80-bFbF_kreS7_ktRW0wA8pTbVzZNRqqlgm0KVT3uMnIS7PN4trTl-N6oq4vwL3ydvgFnhfOUl2McMXhhbuI_rp3ETVZvQkqvDr1wUqvg6H6MRo69fbO/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.20.04.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I decided to use one of my tactics of mocking the poster by correcting their spelling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwIFMymETBmzuAyAQPbky7VHHSXzB52VTugsJ4WjLz9Hx-N2ZTD53_zqjjqWUHi7JDsN2I4uZ3zxs14oQ5Z8aYbZ4irIxe-ZvOBC-j_WcZB8sh8zV13hgqDm3_zHGNzzjXrcBAL43i1_N/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.20.18.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwIFMymETBmzuAyAQPbky7VHHSXzB52VTugsJ4WjLz9Hx-N2ZTD53_zqjjqWUHi7JDsN2I4uZ3zxs14oQ5Z8aYbZ4irIxe-ZvOBC-j_WcZB8sh8zV13hgqDm3_zHGNzzjXrcBAL43i1_N/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.20.18.png" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His post was down-voted into oblivion, whilst mine got (and still has) lots of likes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I later got a private message from the person who left the comment, apologising if they offended me and explaining that they were just trying to wind people up (i.e. confessing to being a flamer).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqplKVMdx1YeYHrU_Z2esIOVLhhZVM8ipR5N84pVuw6foE1l_Lui2T5WuEsco0hMCXYHKl112B5iMq7IHGKYilamEePLLahtUiNqbiD9tJFUBo27wrtSqT7Y8qaq-CWCqKUyPTnnm2bg9U/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-30+at+14.24.40.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="52" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqplKVMdx1YeYHrU_Z2esIOVLhhZVM8ipR5N84pVuw6foE1l_Lui2T5WuEsco0hMCXYHKl112B5iMq7IHGKYilamEePLLahtUiNqbiD9tJFUBo27wrtSqT7Y8qaq-CWCqKUyPTnnm2bg9U/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-30+at+14.24.40.png" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I decided to explain what he really meant, explain how YouTube works and explain my feelings on the idea of just trying to start arguments online for no good reason.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEwMw5KcMCzCGKi9OyCjpEqzcGXQBCfO0KwTJMo-dUwhJXMI5_GThxyiVuF6lxXL40dW_6hc3ovqW_-0d7TXPr5OMkA-ldcWlFmukhunsJI-pVETQ7CKEcjr0r0o_Ulm9ACtu1n1ZqW2Rq/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.03.06.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEwMw5KcMCzCGKi9OyCjpEqzcGXQBCfO0KwTJMo-dUwhJXMI5_GThxyiVuF6lxXL40dW_6hc3ovqW_-0d7TXPr5OMkA-ldcWlFmukhunsJI-pVETQ7CKEcjr0r0o_Ulm9ACtu1n1ZqW2Rq/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.03.06.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He didn't seem to like this, and also came up with reasons (read: crappy excuses) as to why he was trying to piss off strangers online.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6k07IMFkHaoON-iZgSdf9Vb1Jl_1UTkU0jPrXE9uRK2floLelSLqrIcChMeQudjMSeelPEanqd480_TCiPU7iKt9qnW3NHCDk0ToXQvrao8pWcioUGJMtFxyaZCopZ9MGmVQJjygj6GXT/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-30+at+14.24.48.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6k07IMFkHaoON-iZgSdf9Vb1Jl_1UTkU0jPrXE9uRK2floLelSLqrIcChMeQudjMSeelPEanqd480_TCiPU7iKt9qnW3NHCDk0ToXQvrao8pWcioUGJMtFxyaZCopZ9MGmVQJjygj6GXT/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-30+at+14.24.48.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I decided to explain some things to him. Again.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhke0i5g0peL68_nKGyOuakv0Befa6lbA_YNQcUhFwasACwe5Qnyo3-62S0bkh1tFkWNgWGaXfJvYpX14KU-5hppzNKWqrVr9MuT3J43igFgKA8et6_Mc5QcHt8HPvuv5R24KrQ4t0_M6Ms/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.03.26.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhke0i5g0peL68_nKGyOuakv0Befa6lbA_YNQcUhFwasACwe5Qnyo3-62S0bkh1tFkWNgWGaXfJvYpX14KU-5hppzNKWqrVr9MuT3J43igFgKA8et6_Mc5QcHt8HPvuv5R24KrQ4t0_M6Ms/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-08-09+at+20.03.26.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He apologised (and tried to pop in something weird about good/bad things).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22JFPVddiCV4PQHSBv3aUhGsHru0IzNa4nzSuMDDUCP9eKWNRbewgXliaKtqj_Ed7Nrz6MLyLhGc-JKyZQTfLPtWlCxY89Owkr9xZX9CN_ZJm6myo5lqfm0sXC4ND0XCzXwqtOB0nC9MP/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-30+at+14.24.56.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="75" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22JFPVddiCV4PQHSBv3aUhGsHru0IzNa4nzSuMDDUCP9eKWNRbewgXliaKtqj_Ed7Nrz6MLyLhGc-JKyZQTfLPtWlCxY89Owkr9xZX9CN_ZJm6myo5lqfm0sXC4ND0XCzXwqtOB0nC9MP/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-30+at+14.24.56.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I didn't find any more sent messages to him, so I must've felt he'd learnt his lesson (or I just couldn't be arsed explaining any more stuff to him). However, I would just like to point out that yes we all do stupid things from time to time, but you don't <i>need </i>people to do bad things in order for people to do good things. That is a load of bollocks. Sorry.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, I have blocked out the name because I don't want anyone going off to find him to start a stupid fight or anything; I've already given him a piece of my mind and he admitted he "was acting like a prick". He also doesn't seem to have tried to start any wars on my recent videos and I'm happy with that (he's either learnt his lesson or he's scared of me...not sure...lol). But, if I do see him trying anything again, I will not hesitate to confront him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I just wanted to show that if people stand up to arseholes, and others band together with them like my viewers banded behind my comment and downvoted the flamer's, they might just feel a bit embarrassed and feel they have to apologise (even if it is in private).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seriously. Confronting. Liking/disliking. Explaining. It works.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-82300809157828907982013-08-06T04:11:00.000-07:002013-08-06T04:32:06.121-07:00Abuse ≠ Trolling (also that #twittersilence thing)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there was a Twitter silence on Sunday. It was organised by <a href="https://twitter.com/caitlinmoran" target="_blank">Caitlin Moran</a> in response to some of the threats people, especially women, were getting through tweets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She created it as a "you can join in or do something else to make a stand" type thing, but some people were a <i>little bit</i> militant in wanting other people to join in & Caitlin got the blame. People also <a href="http://storify.com/BethanyBlack/caitlin-moran-champion-of-women-if-you-re-white-ab?awesm=sfy.co_cNgt&amp;utm_campaign=&amp;utm_content=storify-pingback&amp;utm_source=direct-sfy.co&amp;utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter" target="_blank">dragged up tweets of hers from <i>four years ago</i></a> to try and say "see! she's abusive too!!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grasping at straws, much? Also, <a href="http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rlojgc" target="_blank">she explained them all <i>beautifully</i></a> & made you look even more silly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, although I didn't take part in it fully (I decided to join in the interesting discussions that were happening & share my video on the subject), it brought attention to the issue at hand. High-profile men & women making a stand online made the news. Also, whilst some said it was the goal of "trolls" (they're not trolls...but more on that in a sec) to silence the women that took part, they weren't being silent for the "trolls". It was to send a message to Twitter to say "I can live without you, I can easily use another site". Just look at all the sites that used to be huge & are forgotten now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, it wasn't forever. They were not silenced, they just went quiet for a bit. They walked off for a day, and you know what? Sometimes you do just need to walk away for a bit and come back. Often it clears your head & gives you a fresh perspective when you return.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But some people decided to call it a "Trolliday".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry, but no. I am fed up of this mistake. I used to make the same mistake, but then I realised I was wrong. The arseholes sending abuse to people are NOT "trolls". Trolls do not send death threats, rape threats or bomb threats - those people are ARSEHOLES. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have created this handy little poster to explain the differences between trolls and the less-fun people of the Internet (the last 2 fit under the wider category of "arsehole"):</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-huPz31tQNLUSJVhPc00fXErdNCelOy-mMyPmksQceO3_K6TrCxqMLiFv8pWaMvGmkM06yuKLqyxtot54cwRA3t4y-sygOWyKmWPUDnKzEKCwEYz5Kmn5RcD1F7SWFAb-6Hrc6b1MByt/s1600/TrollFlamerShithead.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-huPz31tQNLUSJVhPc00fXErdNCelOy-mMyPmksQceO3_K6TrCxqMLiFv8pWaMvGmkM06yuKLqyxtot54cwRA3t4y-sygOWyKmWPUDnKzEKCwEYz5Kmn5RcD1F7SWFAb-6Hrc6b1MByt/s400/TrollFlamerShithead.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You see, I believe we should call these people what they are. They are not "trolls". People are not called "trolls" because of the ugly fairytale character. People are called "trolls" after the verb to "troll", one of the meanings of which is to fish by drawing bait along in the water. They use bait to lure people into falling for their tricks/jokes. They do not send bomb threats "for a laugh".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you want to see me rant more about this, here's is my video on the subject:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, please do spread the word. We mustn't let arseholes try and brush off everything they say as "trolling" & try to make out that they didn't actually mean it (when they usually do - even if their threats are often hollow, there is often real malice in them) & that they were just joking. And to those that try to "troll" by saying abusive/threatening things, we must teach them that they are actually just being really, <i>really</i>, stupid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The people that abuse & threaten others online, without any hint of sarcasm, are arseholes, exactly the same name as we would call them in real life. To quote myself: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, and an arsehole is an arsehole whether they're saying something rude to someone's face or via Twitter.</span></div>
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icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-14139065210846682702013-08-01T11:57:00.000-07:002013-08-01T15:53:13.184-07:00Geeks are not Hipsters...!!!!!<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok. So I am someone who understands, and is actually pretty happy, that geeks are now seen as "cool". As a teenager I was a closeted geek, hiding behind an emo-looking fringe. I enjoyed getting good marks at school and was a fantasy-geek (also with a bit of a love of sci-fi), spending my time counting down the days to the next Harry Potter book or film release, playing video games like Runescape and wanting to be in Lord of the Rings (although, to my shame, I have not read the books yet...). I'd spend my time online watching Weebl and Bob, or the latest Rathergood or Matazone animation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically, I wasn't the sort of person who was in the popular group. I was fortunate enough not to be at a school where people got beaten up, but I often found that I was a little bit invisible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically, when I was 16, I wouldn't have had the confidence to make YouTube videos like I do today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I came out of my shell whilst at uni & embraced my inner geek and looked for more geeky stuff I could enjoy. I also started to proudly show off the geeky things I enjoyed, both online and off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love the fact that people can literally wear a "geek" badge, on t-shirts, jackets, etc. I don't even mind that non-geeks are wearing them - it's kinda funny honestly, and an amazing sign that geeks can be proud to be themselves without being worried or scared (at least not to the extent that generations before them have been). Although, I personally feel that actual geeks don't usually wear t-shirts with just "geek" written on them, just geeky t-shirts in general...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Edit: a Facebook user named Callum <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=667383486605572&set=a.406996909310899.107057.370324426311481&type=1&theater&notif_t=like">replied to the picture shown below</a> & told me how a girl shouted "F**king geek!!!" at him whilst she was actually wearing a jumper with "GEEK" on it. Perhaps stupider people don't realise it's labelling the wearer and assume it's like wearing a jumper with "you're a tosser" on it?]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I saw this today and it made me want to punch something.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijJeoDa1kZxjP0jfJDjaj8o4X65uC1_78AASRWD4nT9B3dV3v-joGGso_gg5Z6fcSwp06yPhi8ZmJmN4camRAuuuFfUhEjISsi_IHvlAntwmw3CIXvEGyO9Jrbmc90nTiCRIKQHhd4KQKu/s1600/BQmhHMTCIAEiAVv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijJeoDa1kZxjP0jfJDjaj8o4X65uC1_78AASRWD4nT9B3dV3v-joGGso_gg5Z6fcSwp06yPhi8ZmJmN4camRAuuuFfUhEjISsi_IHvlAntwmw3CIXvEGyO9Jrbmc90nTiCRIKQHhd4KQKu/s320/BQmhHMTCIAEiAVv.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">GEEKS. ARE. NOT. HIPSTERS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whoever owns this pillow is a hipster, a wannabe hipster or someone wishing to mock hipsters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can understand the specs - both geeks and hipsters wear thick-framed glasses. However, the geeks that wear them wear them so they can READ a statement, not so they can MAKE a statement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the MOUSTACHE?! That is NOT a symbol of geekdom. Some geeks may happen to have moustaches, but moustaches are not inherently linked to geeks or show how much of a geek someone is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Moustaches DO often show how much of a hipster a guy is - usually on younger guys. The flouncier the moustache, the bigger the hipster.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that the word "geek" is merely put in there ironically, as glasses and moustaches together symbolise hipsters, and hipsters effing LOVE irony.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Either that or the designers at Primark just stamped a load of shit onto a pillow because they thought people would be stupid enough to buy it, and they couldn't be bothered to work out the difference between a hipster and a geek because...money.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah... My guess is on the second one.</span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-40606139600880374942013-07-27T13:41:00.002-07:002013-07-27T14:38:08.958-07:00Some of my favourite tweets from #asktommyrobinson<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, today on Twitter, there was an amazing trending tag. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was set up by Tommy Robinson - aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka leader of the English Defence League - for people to ask him serious questions regarding the EDL and their ideologies (for those that don't know who the EDL are, they are very anti-muslim and are basically massive ignorant racists who shout about being English, but don't even know how to write/speak it).</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some examples of EDL members...</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This, however, did not happen. Instead it was hijacked by the Twitter community and thousands of tweets appeared, asking some pretty fantastic and hilarious questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I list some of my favourite tweets below for you to enjoy.</span><br />
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23AskTommyRobinson&src=hash">#AskTommyRobinson</a> isn't it strange that EDL stands for 'English Defence League' yet so many of its members struggle to speak basic English?</div>
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— Jahed (@jahed_m) <a href="https://twitter.com/jahed_m/statuses/360907348753129475">July 26, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> Why don't you monitor your Wikipedia page better? <a href="http://t.co/taQPr3jRaC">pic.twitter.com/taQPr3jRaC</a></div>
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— Josh Weller (@joshweller) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshweller/statuses/361063402065494016">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> what's your problem against Narnia? <a href="http://t.co/ziIQB3FXzz">pic.twitter.com/ziIQB3FXzz</a></div>
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— Connor (@Connor_Weston_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Connor_Weston_/statuses/361077126323126273">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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If you shave a member of the EDL do they grow back thicker?
<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23askTommyRobinson&src=hash">#askTommyRobinson</a></div>
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— Lisa (@BiscuitAhoy) <a href="https://twitter.com/BiscuitAhoy/statuses/361079839068921857">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> do you feel that the Oreo cookies oppress the white cream <a href="http://t.co/6igeb4M5VV">pic.twitter.com/6igeb4M5VV</a></div>
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— دكتاتور (@Habibistan) <a href="https://twitter.com/Habibistan/statuses/361105417792798723">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> do you sport are troops? <a href="http://t.co/iPQpg1nY0q">pic.twitter.com/iPQpg1nY0q</a></div>
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— Princess Snaisy (@snaisy) <a href="https://twitter.com/snaisy/statuses/361091675524853760">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> When the moon is crescent shaped, what's the best kind of rock or stick to throw at the night sky in impotent rage?</div>
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— Scriblit (@Scriblit) <a href="https://twitter.com/Scriblit/statuses/361091911232135168">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> Who's reading these to you?</div>
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— Frankie Boyle (@frankieboyle) <a href="https://twitter.com/frankieboyle/statuses/361070111290953728">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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Tommy, this morning my toaster didn't work as well as I'd have hoped. How did Islamic ideology corrupt my toaster? <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23AskTommyRobinson&src=hash">#AskTommyRobinson</a></div>
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— Peter Charles (@peter27afcb) <a href="https://twitter.com/peter27afcb/statuses/360898226401980416">July 26, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> how do you feel about all these Muslim women covering their faces in publik? <a href="http://t.co/tsp9U2fYAq">pic.twitter.com/tsp9U2fYAq</a></div>
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— ىاسمين (@yasmin_027) <a href="https://twitter.com/yasmin_027/statuses/360914808700293120">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a>
Will I be the lucky victim number 2? <a href="http://t.co/WiKAxWes6Z">pic.twitter.com/WiKAxWes6Z</a></div>
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— someone actually (@scouse_hijabi) <a href="https://twitter.com/scouse_hijabi/statuses/360917855950233600">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> I thank you tommy, this trend is a melting pot of different nationalities and cultures all laughing at you. Together</div>
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— Daniel Turner (@Turn_burner) <a href="https://twitter.com/Turn_burner/statuses/360921069126823937">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> does my cat get deported or not? <a href="http://t.co/4UkLManalo">pic.twitter.com/4UkLManalo</a></div>
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— Jøsh. (@JoshRobinson94) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshRobinson94/statuses/360940090408726528">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> Are you a fan of irony? <a href="http://t.co/4V4jhRVTuo">pic.twitter.com/4V4jhRVTuo</a></div>
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— Kieran Psyl (@Kieran_Psyl) <a href="https://twitter.com/Kieran_Psyl/statuses/361074843384418304">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> how do you feel about this? <a href="http://t.co/i11u37yLfB">pic.twitter.com/i11u37yLfB</a></div>
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— Adam Member (@AdamMember10) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMember10/statuses/360959010532368385">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And finally, a cheeky couple of my own that got a few retweets:</span></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> My partner is a handsome, kind Scot, but should I dump him for a real Englishman like one of these? <a href="http://t.co/J3h8nct8B9">pic.twitter.com/J3h8nct8B9</a></div>
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— Ellen Rose (@icklenellierose) <a href="https://twitter.com/icklenellierose/statuses/361108994179342336">July 27, 2013</a> </div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23asktommyrobinson&src=hash">#asktommyrobinson</a> do you realise you must keep plastic bags away from children? Oh, & your stupider EDL members... <a href="http://t.co/Xhd3i7Dxiy">pic.twitter.com/Xhd3i7Dxiy</a></div>
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— Ellen Rose (@icklenellierose) <a href="https://twitter.com/icklenellierose/statuses/361198497141231618">July 27, 2013</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Silly EDL...</span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-37647564550031715042013-07-22T07:53:00.002-07:002014-05-29T04:15:26.264-07:00David Cameron doesn't know how the Internet works...<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, so if you've seen some of my tweets lately, you'll have may be seen that I'm not really inspired to go and see the new film, "The Internship".</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgphVNpG1FqX5Om9uUuSKVAiqrh_sHGCYuFaFze78ORixqhzR9rc2J6B3XtMLJPfUqdYKnDrTm7Soow3Yqtb6DFZdBSrnQIODn20I479jME01n_uT9LeghZt0NuxcTe9UKnYZl1L93Te1iF/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-22+at+13.38.42.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgphVNpG1FqX5Om9uUuSKVAiqrh_sHGCYuFaFze78ORixqhzR9rc2J6B3XtMLJPfUqdYKnDrTm7Soow3Yqtb6DFZdBSrnQIODn20I479jME01n_uT9LeghZt0NuxcTe9UKnYZl1L93Te1iF/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-22+at+13.38.42.png" height="80" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, despite me finding that old-people-not-getting-the-Internet a crappy joke, especially as so many older people DO understand how it works, it seems that the film may have actually based its main characters off of David Cameron.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See, I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard that Dave was sending a warning to Google, saying that they had to do more to block child pornography or face dire consequences.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm all for preventing child porn being circulated, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE HAS NO IDEA HOW THE INTERNET WORKS.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>But I thought Google owned all the Internet..?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does Davey-boy realise just how many pages of information are created each day? Just by writing this blog I am creating a brand new link that can be searched for on Google. Google also has tonnes of measures already in place to try and block unwanted pages; you think they haven't already thought about this problem?! You think that you have to bloody remind them?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you search "child pornography" on Google (wow, my search history is going to look weird now), it doesn't give you links to sites showing disgusting material; instead it links to news articles or sites that talk about tackling the problems or explaining the issues around it. At the moment it does link to disgusting material, as most of the links are talking about you (ooooooo buuurrrrnnnn!). It already has measures in place to filter out the more disturbing sites - also I'd imagine they pass on any information they find to the relevant police departments.<br /><br />Also, in the radio segment I was listening to, an expert in tacking the problem of child pornography explained that most people use private servers, share peer-to-peer and use very different methods to search for this kind of stuff. They send private emails to each other, find other ways of preventing any online footprints. They share things offline to avoid an internet footprint entirely. They know that what they are doing is wrong and against the law, and one expert said that <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/paedophiles-will-laugh-at-web-porn-crackdown-says-ex-police-chief-8725717.html" target="_blank">child abusers would "laugh at" Dave's crackdown</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically, these people do not create "this is my child porn collection" websites, showcasing their collections to get hits from Google searches. That is the quickest way for them to get caught. You moron. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even if people do make pages or search for stuff online, Google doesn't have complete control over the Internet. It is a very powerful company, but it does not have the ability to immediately block pages that break laws, just because there are <i>millions</i> of pages created each day and it is a <i>massive</i> job that they are constantly working on. They have algorithms in place, they try their best, but they are not all-powerful beings that can see every internet page made ever.<br /><br />Dave, mate, your "demands" are just an obvious desperate grasp for public approval - you know that 99% of the public will agree with you that child porn is wrong. The thing is, if you <i>genuinely</i> cared about this issue, you would've done a little bit more research and realised just how difficult it is to keep on top of the <i>ENTIRE INTERNET,</i> which is constantly growing and changing, and seen just how much work is already going into trying to prevent illegal images from being shared online. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In trying to make yourself look like the good guy, you have ended up looking like an ignorant tit who has no idea how the Internet works.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, as this is related to your recently-reported 'opt-in for porn' pledge</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, I just wanted to share this hilarious image from the Daily Mail website, which I found </span><a href="http://www.themediablog.co.uk/the-media-blog/2013/07/the-mail-claims-victory-in-moral-crusade.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>YEAH! OPT-IN FOR PORN! WE WIN! (Mainly because lots more people will then have to rely on all our pictures of "all grown up" celebrities in bikinis, often taken without their permission)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As someone who has grown up using the Internet, I just want to ask Dave, "Are you THAT bloody stupid?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stop child pornography = <i>good thing to announce</i>. That stuff is horrible and abusive, anyone would support you on that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Setting up an opt-in policy for porn = <i>bad thing to announce</i>. Forcing people to to </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">basically <i>publicly announce to their service provider that they want to watch other people having sex</i> is going to piss off a lot of voters.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I agree with trying to restrict/add laws against certain violent (not BDSM, actual abusive violence) or simulated-rape porn; even if laws are difficult to implement, some stuff online is horrific and just pointing out that it's wrong helps bring light to the issues around it. But block all porn entirely? Is that really going to automatically make the UK a safer, more 'wholesome' place?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My problem with it is the "<i>think of the children!!" </i>mentality behind it. It's the same stupid mentality behind the "<i>video games are making children violent!</i>" argument. The real problem that is easiest to solve? Parents not restricting what their kids have access to. There are already opt-in options for blocking porn to your home, there are countless parental blocking systems to stop kids accessing this kind of stuff; people just can't be arsed to set them up themselves, so they want it done by default at the expense of everyone else who may actually be old enough and responsible enough to access that material.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, it won't work. It's the Internet. People <i>will</i> find a way around these blocks. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The whole thing is difficult-to-implement, easily worked-round by using different codewords to list and search for stuff, and there will probably be a hack for it within days/weeks. Hell, there is already so much material out there that is now saved onto people's hard drives or phones, and that will only increase after this announcements as people try and save up secret collections; people will just find other ways to share it offline, away from all the blocks & pushed down to the same level as paedophiles (the ones that Dave thinks use Google Image as their go-to site to find their law-breaking material).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, and the easiest way to stop kids - especially teenagers - from getting the wrong idea of sex from porn? Explain to them that that is not what real sex looks like and that thepeople in it are actors, are faking things, porn filming is often actually very clinical, etc. Just bloody TALK to them, or show them programmes rather than push all the responsibility onto Internet providers. You can't stop them from doing everything, but at least take some bloody responsibility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh and Dave, in response to this quote from <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/paedophiles-will-laugh-at-web-porn-crackdown-says-ex-police-chief-8725717.html" target="_blank">this article</a>:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #666666; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">But challenged whether Page Three-style images of topless women should be banned from newspapers, he refused, saying: “It’s an issue of personal choice whether people buy a newspaper or not.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's also an issue of personal choice as to what people choose to look up on the Internet, and you're not refusing to get involved in that argument, are you? Hmm?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BAM! Crappy argument SLAMMED.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Urgh. I can't wait to vote against you again in the next election, you ignorant tit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some good articles & blogs that explain a few things to Dave:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micwright/100009396/david-cameron-cant-protect-us-from-child-porn-because-he-doesnt-understand-the-internet/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David Cameron can't protect us from child porn because he doesn't understand the internet</span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://paidcontent.org/2013/07/22/the-uks-opt-in-system-for-porn-is-a-terrible-idea-and-heres-why/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29" target="_blank">The UK’s opt-in system for porn is a terrible idea, and here’s why</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://delts.tumblr.com/post/56255005293" target="_blank">"David Cameron's Porn" (with link to gov epetition)</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/22/david-cameron-crusade-internet-pornography?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487" target="_blank">Online pornography: Cameron's 'war' muddles two separate issues</a></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EDIT: I couldn't release all my anger/frustration just by writing, so I created a video too. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/CP23K6thbkc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-45445909581413396562013-07-16T07:15:00.002-07:002013-07-16T18:05:38.743-07:00Fox news - and by that I mean weird news about a fox<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok. I love foxes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think they are adorable, with their fluffy tails and little pointy noses and ears. In fact at one point it was a dream to own a fennec fox as a pet. I changed my mind to "maybe", but you can see why I had the initial desire:</span><br />
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<a href="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2099/2240836940_b05af1e652_z.jpg?zz=1" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2099/2240836940_b05af1e652_z.jpg?zz=1" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DEM EARS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See, whilst I adore fennec foxes and think they are ridiculously cute, I am also aware that they are a <i>wild animal </i>that has only recently been domesticated. I should perhaps start on a more domesticated species as my first "big" pet step-up from hamsters and fish... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am also aware of how the urban foxes that live throughout London, whilst living near humans, are still <i>wild animals</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to point you to <a href="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/10534660.Catford_fox_horror_for_man_on_toilet/?ref=mr" target="_blank">this article</a>, from <i>This is Local London, </i>a friend posted up on Facebook. It is a RIDICULOUS story of a fox walking in on a man on the loo, then biting his cat's face and him and his parter as they chase it around their home. It also comes complete with awful posed photos reenacting the scene. Seriously, <a href="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/10534660.Catford_fox_horror_for_man_on_toilet/?ref=mr" target="_blank">go read it</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, there are just a few things I would like to say about this article:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everything, from the in-depth description of the "attack" to the weird reenactment pictures, screams "slow news day".</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/resources/images/2530979.jpg?type=articleLandscape" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/resources/images/2530979.jpg?type=articleLandscape" width="216" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Wtf..?</i></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is one of the worst pieces of writing I have ever read, and I read the <i>Twilight Saga</i>...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To reiterate my last point, it includes the quote "I didn't even have time to wipe myself." This is the level of journalism we're at, ladies and gents...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fox manages to "nose" its way into the loo - LEARN TO CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR, MAN. Even if you don't lock it, at least close it so no one / no animal can just push the door with their nose to open it!!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The guy is quoted as saying, "It was so frightening. It was like a wild animal." Guess what, it <i>IS</i> a wild animal! And you chasing it with your hands outstretched like in the picture</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> below is going to scare the crap out of it and make it follow its defensive instincts - i.e. IT IS GOING TO BITE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU AND ANYTHING NEAR YOU THAT MOVES.</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/resources/images/2530934.jpg?type=articleLandscape" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/resources/images/2530934.jpg?type=articleLandscape" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"Just like that..."</i></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You say the cat's face was mauled. To be honest, it doesn't look too bothered in this picture. In fact, it looks more pissed off than scared - it has a lust for revenge in its eyes... I just feel sorry for it that its owner terrified a wild fox into a biting frenzy.</span></li>
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<a href="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/resources/images/2530935.jpg?type=articleLandscape" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/resources/images/2530935.jpg?type=articleLandscape" width="209" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"I've been through worse with the cat down the road...just wait 'til he comes back..."</i></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He says the cat is too scared to go into the living room. Can I just ask, where the hell is the picture above taken, then?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"At the time I wanted to kill the fox. But it must have been in real trouble, really hungry. It panicked - I don’t blame it for that." Let's just read that again <i>"At the time I wanted to kill the fox"</i>. Not only is it bad grammar (the journalist should've put a comma after 'time', otherwise it's an incomplete sentence), but it makes me feel even less sorry for the man who was chasing after a fox with his bare hands stretched out, even if he did realise the poor thing was terrified afterwards.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We were concerned for our neighbour’s baby next door." Not every fox is planning its next baby attack, but hopefully your neighbours take care to not leave their baby unsupervised where a fox can easily access it.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could go on... Just read the article and see for yourself.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some tips about foxes:</span></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THEY ARE WILD ANIMALS. DO NOT GO UP TO THEM WANTING TO KILL/STROKE THEM WITH YOUR HANDS.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't chase a fox that has wandered into your house. If you run towards it, it will attack you. It is in strange territory and there are giant animals chasing it - it WILL bite you in defence. Instead, move very carefully around it. Try to close doors to prevent it running further into the house, and gently "shoo" it out with a tea-towel or something else that helps you keep your distance without being overbearing, for your safety and the fox's calmness.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you cant get it out your house, or it seems aggressive, trap it in a room (by shutting the door, that is) and call an animal service like the RSPCA who have experts that know how to deal with wild animals.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be aware that they are <i>carnivores</i> - I love foxes, but I am also aware that they eat bunny rabbits, another of my favourite animals. In fact, if it weren't for us humans killing off a lot of the rabbit population with myxomatosis to keep them off of crops, foxes wouldn't have wandered into urban areas looking for food.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be careful when you leave back doors and downstairs windows open. It is rare that a fox will come inside, but foxes are curious, just like cats, and might wander in - especially if they smell food. They are getting braver around people, so don't invite them into your unattended kitchen.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you don't want them near your home, do not feed them. Also, don't feed them inadvertently - keep your rubbish properly tidied away in dustbins.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Foxes do sometimes attack cats, but we have lots of cats and foxes around where we live and they steer clear of each other. Also, cats are far more likely to be run over than be killed by a fox (1in4 pet cats are killed on the roads in the UK, whilst fox attacks are very rare).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you have a cat, don't leave its food outside as it will attract foxes. This will piss off the cat - just watch <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM8QnIzbeKU" target="_blank">this video</a>...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1221867958"></span><span id="goog_1221867959"></span>JUST BE CAREFUL. Just because something is fluffy, doesn't mean it's automatically a nice animal. Wild animals are unpredictable.</span></li>
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<a href="https://static-secure.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2012/8/17/1345199474299/Urban-fox--008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://static-secure.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2012/8/17/1345199474299/Urban-fox--008.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, the whole thing is just bad, lazy journalism. Sarah Trotter & others at <i>This is Local London</i> made this man look like a bit of a tit whilst trying to get a cheap easy-scare story - "ooo people don't like urban foxes! Let's write about them attacking people <i>and </i>cats!" Well, it backfired as readers soon figured out that the man was the agressor and scared a wild animal into attack-mode. The comments section is hilarious - I recommend you read them and see how badly this story has gone down with readers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what have we learnt today? Foxes are WILD ANIMALS that EASILY SCARE and you should NEVER go up to them if you want a guaranteed bite-free day. Also, local papers are weird.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EDIT: It seems that Anthony Schofield (the man the article is about) has gone on a reply-spree in the comments section of the article. It's an interesting read. Be aware that the comments are from a man who let someone photograph him on the toilet, for an article about his "frightening" ordeal with a wild fox, where there was "blood everywhere". He also said the sentence: "There are a lot of foxes around here - it was an utter surprise." I dunno about you, but I think it would only be a surprise of there <i>weren't</i> a lot of foxes around there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, the more I read the article, the more I feel the over-exaggerations in the writing perhaps give away that there may be some over exaggerations in the story... Hmm...</span></div>
icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1273795365103049713.post-66826368319771132972013-07-14T05:47:00.001-07:002013-07-14T06:28:27.192-07:00A warning for Apple users (and how to easily detect email scams)<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My mum came into my room this morning to ask if I thought an e-mail she'd gotten through from 'Apple' was genuine, as it seemed a bit "weird"; she asked if I could double check it and if there was a way to send it into Apple so they know of the scam. Here it is:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Subject: Your Apple ID is automatically disabled</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8EYm67iVF37pBu2CaOgD_-yxHwV8Qxev61r0RXVqxQtVauQUoYUzcyo0XccKLELPEzvF9V_GhvE0QsH7KDb6sMtuSVTQpFemFDdOSxrDFJOMv-ZWv1a3g-uFkRgcCrGvaPbdJwZMATy7/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-14+at+13.13.53.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn8EYm67iVF37pBu2CaOgD_-yxHwV8Qxev61r0RXVqxQtVauQUoYUzcyo0XccKLELPEzvF9V_GhvE0QsH7KDb6sMtuSVTQpFemFDdOSxrDFJOMv-ZWv1a3g-uFkRgcCrGvaPbdJwZMATy7/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-14+at+13.13.53.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuK0mIpWOhJ-T_y142kFmmYw2wOS7OhDP-oKkzGHz_c07ubRygft7MaotuMcaLSypHShAw-N4CFbL1q4wlnS4pIUotGJtqTzimZ2vZurjYYHoq1agOywS2fHKXAClKfOiXKWNdqUPvTEQ/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-14+at+13.14.19.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuK0mIpWOhJ-T_y142kFmmYw2wOS7OhDP-oKkzGHz_c07ubRygft7MaotuMcaLSypHShAw-N4CFbL1q4wlnS4pIUotGJtqTzimZ2vZurjYYHoq1agOywS2fHKXAClKfOiXKWNdqUPvTEQ/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-14+at+13.14.19.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My mum was completely right to think it was a scam. Here are some obvious reasons why:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sender was labelled "Apple", but if you clicked on it, you saw that the actual e-mail address was "ap-confirm@dfds.com". Hmmm...</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason for "disabling" the user's account is reaaaaally vage. I'd understand if they'd "detected" unauthorised login attempts, but "detect" is not in past-tense, so it sounds like they did it for no reason whatsoever. In fact, it is full of weird spelling and grammatical errors which make it look very unprofessional. Bit stupid...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It said my mum's Apple ID was disabled, but if that was true, then she probably couldn't have used her iPad to check her emails online... Ahem...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was asking the receiver to click on a link and enter their login info - most companies say they will never ask for your login details in emails. Another weird thing was the wording - they "recommend" users do it to get their ID back, rather than say they <i>need</i> to. Riiiight...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The link leads to "http://thehaystackgroup.com.au/api", which then lengthens out into "http://apple.session.id94.cepl.com.au/IDMSWebAuth/login.html/jsessionid//index.html?login=1&appleid=loginuk", showing this page:</span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97wiIw9NZMuVN57I0dTNnTezNVDB-PBJ9pRiioWkVsD5TYgSt_-6fvip2_AHzSJzu12CQx0Pi51PN93kQndvNo-s1I-76M0puLFo9xR2_M49bLGaJtzmWvlcxz9F-ynZI1dgN0hiEATnQ/s1600/Screen+shot+2013-07-14+at+13.57.02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97wiIw9NZMuVN57I0dTNnTezNVDB-PBJ9pRiioWkVsD5TYgSt_-6fvip2_AHzSJzu12CQx0Pi51PN93kQndvNo-s1I-76M0puLFo9xR2_M49bLGaJtzmWvlcxz9F-ynZI1dgN0hiEATnQ/s400/Screen+shot+2013-07-14+at+13.57.02.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the links lead to "www.google.com/"insert Apple product here". Seems legit...</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The link for any comments or queries going to "Apple.com" actually sent you to a <a href="http://www.tescobank.com/help/contact_us.html" target="_blank">Tesco Bank Contact Page</a>. Bit weird...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It then lists the address of "</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apple Personal Finance plc." (a company which doesn't exist), which I immediately recognise as the rather large Tesco Bank offices in Edinburgh, as I've gone past it on the train more times than I can remember... Erm...</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It then finishes off the smallprint with "No responsibility is accepted by Tesco Personal Finance" when talking about possible viruses. What?</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My conclusion: someone used the template of a previous Tesco Bank phishing scam and has changed some of the words to "Apple".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you know of anyone with an Apple ID, do let them know that this e-mail is doing the rounds and to be careful if it gets past the spam filter. Also, if you know anyone who isn't sure of the signs of an email scam, do show them what to look out for; don't forget to let them know that some scam/phishing emails are more professional-looking than this one...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basic scam-detecting tips:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check the sending address. Don't trust an email from Services_Payments@Pay_PAl.Com, especially when you use paypal.co.uk and only ever get emails from an address from that site.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't input your login details for anything ANYWHERE other than the actual site you use them on.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look at the spelling, grammar & punctuation - if it's odd, then it's most likely spam.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">READ THE SMALL PRINT. They often re-use templates and sometimes don't change all the details properly (like in the email above).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you click the links, check the site address for obvious differences to the ACTUAL site you use, look out for any re-routes as the page is loading, etc. If you don't want to click the links (just in case of viruses), you should be able to easily see the addresses by hovering your mouse over them.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you do click the links and go to the site, look at any links on that page; sometimes they don't bother to link them all properly in the hope that the receiver of the email will be in too much of a rush/panic to check that they're real links </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(like in the email above).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't just trust something because it has a logo on it. Anyone can use Google Image search.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you don't actually have an account with the company apparently sending you a letter, that's a big giveaway...</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And to Internet scammers: nice try.</span><br />
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icklenellierosehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17588993297142346006noreply@blogger.com0