TheAmazingAtheist Is Not a Fan of Tomb Raider (Old)

This post is intended as a response to the video above, but I'll supply the original tweet that has garnered so much controversy (for whatever reason) here:

 

TJ, on his Twitter, has since revealed that he has only played the newest incarnations of the franchise and none of the originals by Core Design. So he couldn't be considered a fan and doesn't appear to do so himself anyway. However, that's not really important here, it just goes to prove my point that he's not a fan of these games. If he were, he'd be such because of the gameplay and, you know, the actual game design, and not because of the simple visual design of the main character. And really, given that you play from a third-person perspective in all of these games, you don't usually get a look at her breasts anyway unless some camera angles permit it, so the size of her tits is mostly portrayed in marketing materials. And that latter point is really important to understand, given that that's how Lara Croft became considered such a sexy character at all.

I do think that TJ is missing the point of contention many people have/have had with the above tweet, and that's the following: he's basically body-shaming Alicia Vikander, the lead actress in the starring role of Lara Croft, which is based on her current incarnation of the character. And why's he doing that? Because her breasts aren't big enough to match the promotional and marketing materials that have, through the 22 years of the franchise, through thick & thin, made her into (among other things) a sex icon in the videogame lexicon.

However, as a fan of the franchise (especially the Core Design era), I didn't much care for the big boobs aspect of Lara Croft. In fact, aside from her being a bad-ass, stone-cold (with a few exceptions) killer out to add to her collection of artefacts and treasures, and wealth, of course, I didn't pay attention to anything else about her. She was rather flat personality-wise and had undergone no character development in each game. The few exceptions, of course, being the odd gasp or disgust at the antagonists & their devious plans. The development of her character was left to the current era. No, I was a fan not because of what the marketing was trying to do, but because of how the games played. You know, the reason why we play games? If you play a game so that you can look at it, either because it has nigh photo-realistic graphics (Crysis was hailed for this aspect for years) or, in this case, because a character, no matter how few pixels could be derived from her polygons and textures, has big tits, then you're just not a fan. 

I liked the adventure, the puzzle-solving, the trial-and-error, and the thrill of success that was derived from the games. I liked that they were distinct in this regard: they were designed with a deliberate, and stand-out (but not always for the right reasons) grid-based movement system. The gameplay and the movements you made in order to complete the games were designed entirely around this system of tiles. If you mastered how it worked, you mastered most of the game itself. And that works in helping you enjoy the game even more. Because I still know plenty of people who can hardly even play, let alone enjoy, the games for how they are designed.

The main reason for her being considered a sex-icon of gaming is due mostly to the marketing around the franchise. Yes, her in-game model did have (progressively with each instalment) bigger and bigger tits, but it still wasn't central to the games, even to the character. And considering you said this:

You're just wrong. And what do I have to back that up? Why, an interview with the very creator of the franchise itself, Toby Gard (who left Core Design around the release of Tomb Raider II), in which he states the following:

It was never the intention to create some kind of 'page 3' girl to star in Tomb Raider. The idea was to create a female character who was a heroine, you know, cool, collected, in control, that sort of thing. The problem with those other games is that the female characters are actually there for purely exploitative purposes. I know you could argue that Lara with her comic book style over-the top figure is exploitative, but I don't agree. I think it's ridiculous to say that portraying stylised people is degrading. You can represent an over the top hero figure by augmenting characteristics like a jutting jaw, wide shoulders, thin waist etc. and that is not degrading to men. It may well be a stereotype, but it seems to me that people are overanalysing this whole thing. It's pretty simple, if women in a game are only there to be the equivalent of quiz show floozies then they are being portrayed in a sexist way. When it comes to Galleon there are all sorts of women in the Galleon world, just as there are all sorts of men.

 You could argue that Toby Gards' words support yours when he argues about how people were 'overanalysing' the portrayal of her figure, but it's his opening statement that shows he never intended Lara Croft to be so overly sexual in design in the first place. He wanted her to be bad-ass, stone-cold, unflapping in her drive to achieve wealth & fame. And to save the world while doing it, because other people want those same artefacts that she chases, but for nefarious purposes (destroying the world in some way) instead of simply putting them on display for fame & fortune. She's a cold-ass bitch who'll kill you without shedding a tear if you get in her way, but if you intend to use those same artefacts to rule or destroy the earth, she won't stand for that either.

As he explained later in the interview, he left Core Design (in part) because of his creative control over the franchise, which he co-created, by the way, was being taken from him. What did Core and, by extension Eidos Interactive, want for the creative department for the franchise? Why, to fixate on her sex appeal, because they felt it was an ace way to garner more and more money. And indeed, it was. But the co-creator did not agree with it, so it was one of the reasons for his departure.

So you trying to justify your crappy views by ignorantly stating that she was designed to be sexually appealing falls flat on its face, because of the very words of one of the minds behind the creation of the franchise as a whole.

Source: Gamasutra - Interview with Toby Gard (Oct. 23, 1998)

Then you said:

 

You are partially wrong with the above statement, and I am being generous here. The notion that Angelina Jolie's tits were as unrealistically large as they were in the videogames (and most prolifically, the marketing material) was debunked. How did they get her tits to appear so large? Why, have you not heard of the myriad ways women make their tits look bigger than they actually are? Wire bras, for instance, raise the breasts because ordinarily, gravity makes them seem smaller due to what is commonly derided as "sagging." According to some sources, like this one, in particular, the studio used "...padding to bring her from her normal 36C to a 36D. (The videogame Lara is estimated to wear a 36DD bra.)" Oh, and those C's and D's mean something, too. It makes all the difference from breasts appearing to "sag" to them appearing to be protrusile & firm.

So the studio had to use trickery (no CGI, thankfully) in order to make Jolie's portrayal seem closer to the videogame character, as she was being portrayed in the then current spate of Tomb Raider titles. Which, by the way, was only attributed to the progressively-increased polygon count and not necessarily to those same breasts somehow getting bigger and bigger in proportion. They just appeared more realistic with each new release. This, as mentioned before, was one of the issues Toby Gard disagreed with and left the same studio over. Even Angelina Jolie, who portrayed Lara in the first run of adaptations, wasn't as "buxom" as Lara Croft, even though the studios played up the character's sex appeal as much as they possibly could. And by the way, the sex appeal might've worked for you, but it didn't for me; indeed, the tits were cartoonish and ridiculous, distracting from what was far more interesting than a couple of tweaked breasts succumbing to the laws of physics before my very eyes (some would call this "boob physics").

You may argue that her big breasts defined her as a character, but going by the statements made by her co-creator, and by what I found to be more important to each game personally, I wholeheartedly disagree. And I definitely disagree with your body-shaming an actress for her (less sexually-appealing) portrayal of Lara Croft, who was only made sexually appealing because of marketing in the first god damned place. If she wasn't intentionally created just to be treated as a sex goddess, then I agree with her creator and not with people like you, who lack self-reflection and cannot concede that perhaps they're off the mark on this subject. 

I do agree that you got far too much exposure for this because, in the end, this was really another case of you trolling for attention. I already knew that about you, and I have for years, but the media clearly didn't. So that's the only reason I can forgive them at all for granting you this much-undeserved attention because you took part in body-shaming an actress for not matching the marketing that has surrounded her character for so many years. That same marketing that saw the character's co-creator resign from working with the character  Funny, now I know that marketing works more easily on you than it does on me, it appears that it is you who isn't fully capable of thinking for themselves. Amirite?

TheAmazingAtheist Gets Triggered by Sandra Fluke, and Bullshits His Audience

Yeah and everyone else is an SJW, right?

So the following tweet, which is rather harmless and really shouldn't trigger people (well, sane, rational people who don't have their heads up their asses), has done triggered the fat atheist. You know, because rational people get triggered by such things:

 

And how does he respond? Why, he takes her tweet way out of context, cries about how apparently Sandra Fluke is attacking egalitarianism even though she really isn't, and like the man-child he is he tweaks her surname to insult her. I mean, it's right there:

 

Who are the real SJWs again? Who are the real PC fascists, again? Does it look like Sandra Fluke argued, at all, that men don't deserve 'new parent leave'? Sure, she doesn't mention them, but is that the same thing as arguing that they don't deserve it, too? Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that women who have children on the job, in the U.S.A, are actually likely to lose their jobs just because they recently had a child. Fortunately for men, they are likely to get a bonus for fathering children; women, on the other hand, tend to get wage penalties. Indeed, women tend to lose 4% of their earnings for each children they rear, whereas men, fortunately for them, tend to earn 6% more earnings for each children they father. Their hiring and promotional opportunities actually tend to improve when they rear children because they're seen as more competent than their female counterparts.

The following block discusses the lack of protection for new mothers who are forced to go on leave because of a pregnancy, and if they are away for a certain (and very short, all things considered) amount of time they can lose their job or pay rates. They can even lose some of their benefits, like sick pay.

The professional binds begin, in many cases, before conception. Women who are even thinking about trying to get pregnant often feel tethered to whatever job they’re in at the time. A move to a new job—a better-paying or more prestigious job, a job with more manageable hours or a more dynamic boss—can mean losing vested benefits like built-up sick days, vacation days, or family leave, and with them, any promise of being able to take time off after a baby. The Family and Medical Leave Act, currently the only federal leave protection available to American workers who have babies, does not require that an employer pay a new mother for a single day of leave; it merely protects her job for twelve weeks of unpaid leave, and then, only if she has worked at her company for at least a year. So, in many states, if you take a new job and then, two months later, discover that you’re pregnant, and nine months later give birth, your employer has no obligation to hold your job for you; he can simply decide that he’d prefer to avoid the hassle and expense of finding a temporary replacement and let you go. During childbearing years, changing jobs—even for a fundamentally better gig—can be a very bad idea.

But don't tell TJ anything like this, because that'll hurt his bullshit agenda. You can criticize any and all groupthinks, TJ, but do it with integrity next time, you shithole.

Terroja Kincaid, You Officially Suck at Men's Rights Advocacy

Roughly two weeks ago, TJ/TheAmazingAtheist made yet another contribution to the insufferable yet laughable Anita Sarkeesian hate machine, entitled "ANITA SARKEESIAN, YOU OFFICIALLY SUCK AT FEMINISM." It need not be mentioned with much depth that all of the mansplaining and hatred that has been fired in her direction for the past three years has had an ironic effect rather than an intended one, but TJ's video adds to this cesspool of ignorance.

Below is the video in question:

The context of the video (The Scythian - Positive Female Characters in Video Games) to which TJ was responding was flat-out diminished in TJ's response to it, not that I find that surprising. If you actually watch her video, then you'll see that she does admit early on that the character is, personality-wise, a blank-slate. However, in the realm of video games, even in Zelda-inspired adventure games as seen in Anita's video, this is pretty much the norm. Often, in fact, player-characters are given a blank template in order to facilitate a flight of fancy in the player. Or in other words, this method allows players to insert themselves into the action. Well, some of the time it works, but I digress.

What TJ didn't tell you, like he almost always does, is that Anita's argument as to why the player character in that game is a positive female character is because in-universe, she is not discerned by her gender, but by her acts, and ultimately, her heroism. The gender neutral treatment of the character from others around her, and the fact that the character defies all odds stacked against her to save the land, is what earns Anita's praise. I have in fact seen Anita's video for myself and quite frankly, it was surprisingly unassuming and rather tame. As for why, or how for that matter, it triggered such a hilariously over-the-top response from TJ is not surprising given his recent contributions to the internet. But I guess you could say that this is just another nail in the #GamerGate coffin, one more among many.

Our hero fixates dubiously on the character's lack of personality when, on the other hand, it's her gender neutral treatment in-game that is most important in Sarkeesian's video. In fact, the Scythian's lack of personality is not even an important detail. By making a video that echoes the arguments that other Gamergaters/MRAs have made in equally (or moreso) stupendous videos, TJ has solidly cemented his place in the MRA/GamerGate echo-chamber. Said echo-chamber, in fact, has yet to demonstrably prove Anita false, nor produce content that reasonably debunks her arguments. Instead people have to watch idiots like TJ take her out of context, ignore entire parts of her videos/tweets, and whether inadvertently or not sic their tone-deaf subscribers onto her, thus continuing the vicious cycle that has both harmed and helped Anita.

He has proven in his video that he doesn't actually care about what Anita says in her video, or anywhere else for that matter, so there's no point in paying heed to his screeds about her. Not yet, anyway, because like all the others, he really has nothing to use against her but to resort to dishonest tactics like that seen in his response. It's funny though that in doing this, he hurt his side of the argument WHILE ALSO proving Sarkeesian's points about (typically male-derived, but there are females who do it too) treatment of females in our culture correct; condescension and belittling, two attitudes often exhibited toward women, are very real to this day. And they are both rampant in his video. Meanwhile, he failed to address her actual arguments in his response to her. Oh the unintentional comedy of it all.

All of that aside, I will poke at one of TJ's more ironic, hypocritical arguments, which is a strawman of epic proportions to say the least. The strawman in his video was his jab at Anita's puzzling inefficiency to deliver on all of the scheduled videos outlined in the infamous crowdfunding page all the way back in 2012. So far she has produced three of them, and there are eleven of them slated for production. While it may be telling, in some ways anyway, that her progress has been lacking on this project, I don't think TJ is the one who should be commenting on this at all. Why, you may ask?

It's because of NotProductive.

An embarrassing chapter for sure, NotProductive was supposed to be TJ's answer to ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, a site from which he was given the boot prior to his pitch for the project. With a target of $20,000, and an ultimate conclusion of $17,287 donated by various bleeding hearts & blind fanboys, one had to ask of it all: why? To get into details as to why everything about the project was fishy would require a dedicated blog post, so I won't bother with much more than that. From before the site's actual development was announced, I knew something wasn't right.

A year had passed before the site managed to launch, because the development cycle was mired in a lack of confidence (even if TJ worded himself otherwise) and a stunning lack of transparency, amidst setback after setback, a switch in developers included in it all. When it finally went online, the result was mixed, at best. An ugly, uncompressed background picture; sub-par (and probably cheap) webhost; disorderly arrangement of channels AND categories; in-your-face google ads; and blatant shortcuts like external hosting for comments for one. On top of that all, the fact that the videos were hosted externally on YouTube meant that everything could be watched through there, so the site as it was served little use to most people. Another deception was the "less editorial meddling" line, which is priceless because it contradicted the god damn mission statement for the site. Oh and there was a contest present when the site started, but who the hell knows what really came of it since the site crashed and burned.

When you look at it today, you see that NP is a boring YouTube channel which TJ seems to wish would be swept under the rug to never be heard of again. That or he simply doesn't promote it anymore because it is about as irrelevant a channel as you can get. The fact that the vLoggers involved were already at least marginally successful (with one of them even having two-hundred thousand plus subscribers) prior to NotProductive's launch, meant that he was a bit hyperbolic with the "people you've not heard of" line as seen in his sales pitch video below:

I'll give TJ this, however; Anita has indeed been slow, for whatever reason(s), but given his own history he really isn't in a position to give her shit over her own failings. Contrarily, at least she is more honest about her project, and hasn't thrown it under the rug like he has. He's failed to produce anything substantive with all of that handout money, and while she's taking her sweet time doing so, at least she's continuing to produce content that was outlined on the crowdfunding page for "Tropes Vs. Women." Also, she asked for a mere $6,000 on her Kickstarter campaign, but because of the army of idiots giving her a bad rap, she drummed up a lot of attention that afforded her nearly $160,000, which is nearly thirty times greater than the asking. 

Perhaps he could ask himself the following: "Why do I keep giving Anita the attention that has benefited her so well so far?" Better yet, maybe the Gamergaters and MRAssholes who are so obsessed with her as to constantly draw attention to her should take this kind of advice. Or maybe they can keep it up so that people can laugh at their expense.

And TJ needs to learn how to actually argue with people with whom he disagrees. Because clearly from this video, he's not only dishonest about it, but he's not very good at it. Age has dumbed him down, evidently.

Edited: Fixed a few typos.

I'm Being Silenced! Force Freedom of Speech (on Private Enterprise)!

Read the subject of this post here: http://amazingatheist.tumblr.com/post/58763857547/youtube-is-100-within-its-rights-to-remove-your

I've written about TJ a few times so far and each time I thought I've seen the worst of him, it seems that he tops himself a little later on, so I then feel the need to comment on him again.

The gist of the situation behind the linked Tumblr post is that a number of TJ's YouTube videos were flagged for removal. Now, no one knows the full story yet, perhaps neither does he, but it's safe to say even at this point that he is indeed being censored. The party responsible is unknown, but that's not really important. What is important is how he is reacting to the issue.

It's fine that he's notifying his more active followers to keep themselves posted on his other social media outlets, but in saying the following...

Let’s consider that for a moment. Should your phone company control what you say on the phone? Should your ISP control what you say online? Then why should YouTube get to control what you post on YouTube? 

If YouTube was a small, exclusive site, I think your argument would have merit. But YouTube is large enough now, culturally important enough now, that we must extend First Amendment protections to YouTube videos.

 ...he does himself no favors. To compare companies which provide actual services to that of websites, albeit with very high traffic (YouTube is ranked #3 by the Alexa Ranking System globally & in the U.S.), is fucking ridiculous. Memorandum to TJ: their site is their god damn private property, and they can set the terms of service for using their site(s) any way they damn well please.

Here is what he responded to. Keep in mind that it contains a bit of vitriol directed at him, but compared to what he's received from many other sources, it's pretty tame:

Youtube is 100% within its rights to remove your videos. They are a company. You are allowed to hold whatever (fucking stupid) opinions you wish, but they are IN NO WAY obligated to give you a platform from which to spout said (fucking stupid) opinions. Yes, I am "for real". I know you wish women didn't exist, but sadly for your sorry fat ass, they do.

Too bad for the big guy that the poster of the above (verbatim) paragraph is 100% correct regarding Youtube's rights on controlling content that populates what is their property. When TJ said that "if YouTube was a small, exlusive site, I think your argument would have merit", he threw in a non-sequitur; the size & reach of an entity in a market, except for utilities, does not serve as a barometer on whether said entity should be regulated in any way by the government. Instead, the function of a company is a category upon which to consider regulations of a private organization. Owned by Google (whose service I am using now, obviously), a private corporation, they are explicitly excluded from freedom of speech rights as declared by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The government has no ability to set limits, or even lift them completely, in the private sector.

And it should stay that way.

I assume that you, reader, have gleaned the aforementioned amendment within a valid copy of the document from which it can be found. In that case, I don't need to quote it to support my argument that TJ is either somehow ignorant of said amendment (the old-world English as used in said document may have threw him for a loop), or is outright cherry-picking it in order to advocate for the abolition of the barrier set in place by that same document. Given his nature as a money-hungry, fraudulent, shady motherfucker since, as an actual example, he's still wrapped in a controversy regarding his $17,000+ video embedding site (which went down within two months of launching, and has yet to return to full operating order as of this writing), I feel that he falls into the latter case.

An argument that pushes government mandates on freedom of speech rights within the private realm, be it the home of the Average Joe (provided it isn't owned by government assets and thus, being publicly-owned property), a small business, a web business, or anything along those lines, is an unsound argument. First of all, it violates the Constitution itself. Second, because YouTube (and Google, henceforth) are accessed by users throughout the world and their assets are not exclusively rooted in the United States (in spite of being founded in Menlo Park, California), it would be a burden to legally impose Free Speech laws on YouTube alone because it would have to be applied distinctly according to the rights (or lack thereof) of each country which grants access to the site. Google's monetary assets are extremely high, and they could challenge such wasteful theoretical scenarios with the best legal teams their money could buy.

TheAmazingAtheist, an admitted Social Libertarian (mind you that within the same context, Social Liberal is virtually synonymous with that position), who held starkly Libertarian views on economics, essentially wishes for the government (his government, mind you) to re-write the Constitution so as to mandate freedom of speech laws on the private sector, particularly YouTube/Google. Keep in mind that this is not out of principle, but rather out of necessity, for him. He doesn't care about the experience of others, but that of his own, since the guy is laughably dependent on his earnings through Google AdSense via YouTube partnership. He's also a shameless beggar who comes up with sob stories or snake oil sales schemes to bilk money out of his more naive subscribers. His channel is, due to a large number of his uploaded videos being flagged down, likely going to be on the chopping block and he is understandably in panic mode.

But arguing for the intervention of the Government to protect his right to a platform and to speak freely on what is the property of a private corporation is not only desperately reaching, it's sadly hilarious. I hope he realizes just how idiotic his response was to the user who posted that comment on his Tumblr, because if that were enacted in the U.S., then it would set a bad precedent of yet conceived proportions. I feel bad for the guy because he's a weak-willed individual with seemingly few principles, if any at all, and will say or do anything to avoid having to get a fucking job like most people do. After all, people who work earn their money, but he has to beg for it. He's 28 fucking years old and he asks for handouts in ways no different than teenagers, but the difference between he and teenagers is that he manages to sell himself doing it.