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News & ArtsTuesday, July 28, 2009
Nerd Way to Make Nerd Culture Inviting, Guys
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:02 PM
Comic book and other nerd conventions have always been depressingly tolerant of booth babes—women who are dressed in skimpy outfits for the express purpose of drawing horny young men into the booth of a vendor.
But some are calling a marketing campaign by Electronic Arts at this most recent San Diego Comic-Con a step too far. From Enter the Octopus:
The “Sin to Win” contest encouraged attendees to “Commit Acts of Lust” by snapping pictures of themselves with as many “Booth Babes” as possible, posting the photos online and Tweeting the game’s publicity team. The contest winner, EA promised, would win “Dinner, a sinful night with two hot girls, a limo service, paparazzi and a chest full of Booty”.
Can you imagine how uncomfortable that "sinful night with two hot girls" will be? Just take a moment to visualize the sadness of the fake paparazzi. Consider the women who are paid to spend time with some loser who took all that time to take photos of himself with other women who were paid to take pictures with him. Imagine the dinner conversation. Holy fucking shit, nerds. This is disappointing.
1
Yeah. Thing is, a day after reading this, "chest full of booty" is still the phrase that bugs me the most. Because of the context, it makes for an accidentally weird visual image.
7
Well, there's always the guys at cons and the like to are unable to refer to women by anything other than acronyms (like several of the guys in King of Kong. I think the new high-score leader was initially disqualified not because of a replacement board, but because he was married with kids).
Worse still were the ones who frequented the video game store in which I used to work (this included the regional manager). I guess if all your dating tips come not from friends who date or life experience but instead from Leisure Suit Larry and RapeLay, this type of contest would be appealing and terrifying.
Worse still were the ones who frequented the video game store in which I used to work (this included the regional manager). I guess if all your dating tips come not from friends who date or life experience but instead from Leisure Suit Larry and RapeLay, this type of contest would be appealing and terrifying.
10
I actually find it sad that in order to win, one must *sexually harass* the "booth babes". One might argue that the Booth Babes signed up for it, so we shouldn't feel bad for them, but that's just sad. Weird on all counts.
11
@4 has it. Rarely has a video game done well when its preceding PR machine has sucked. Acclaim was famous for putting out bad games with worse advertising campaigns, like the promotion for ShadowMan 2 in which they asked families to place billboards on their deceased family members' tombstones in exchange for cash. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/200…
I mean, for cryin' out loud. A video game version of Dante's Inferno? The jokes write themselves.
I mean, for cryin' out loud. A video game version of Dante's Inferno? The jokes write themselves.
12
The only thing I can figure is that they are looking for negative media attention with this stunt. Any exposure is good when launching a "risque" title.
13
So i'm not really sure how taking a picture of yourself with someone is sexual harassment. Especially when that someone is consenting TO BE PAID to stand around and look like hot.
Unless these nerds are being intimidating or otherwise coercive (which may or may not be happening but I didn't see mention) this just seems like an extension of the whole booth babe phenomenon.
Unless these nerds are being intimidating or otherwise coercive (which may or may not be happening but I didn't see mention) this just seems like an extension of the whole booth babe phenomenon.
14
EA is mostly filled with sports nerds.
Imagine prepubescent boys that never grew up, with some geek that went bad as it fermented in the back of the fridge next to some imported beer from Lithuania.
Imagine prepubescent boys that never grew up, with some geek that went bad as it fermented in the back of the fridge next to some imported beer from Lithuania.
15
this just makes it crappier for ladies to attend events. Slog did a series (last summer maybe) on weird incidents of young males forcibly touching normal (sorry, I'm not trying to call anyone "abnormal"... but you know...) ladies at comic and game cons. I just think it's really unnecessary.
16
You know what would make nerd boys less obnoxious with regard to all this stuff? If non-nerd women would have sex with them.
I don't really mean to suggest a course of action here. Everyone wants to fuck whoever they want to fuck, and if women don't want to fuck nerds that's just the way it is. But in my experience, most nerd guy misogynists are nerd guys who were utterly rejected by women during a time in their lives when they couldn't think of anything but women, and they're then pissed off about it for the rest of their lives. And what I've noticed is that nerd boys who somehow form relationships with non-nerd girls during that pivotal 15-17 age range will completely change course later on. They don't all become great people, but they do at least stop to ask whether a chainmail bikini is really going to stop a sword, and sometimes that's all it takes to bring them down to earth.
But once one of these hairy-palmed little peckerwoods gets to be about 18, and they still can't get a normal girl to so much as speak to them -- much less explain to them that cutting and washing their hair would make all the difference int he world -- the damage is pretty much permanent.
Just my two cents.
Holy fucking shit, nerds. This is disappointing.
You know what would make nerd boys less obnoxious with regard to all this stuff? If non-nerd women would have sex with them.
I don't really mean to suggest a course of action here. Everyone wants to fuck whoever they want to fuck, and if women don't want to fuck nerds that's just the way it is. But in my experience, most nerd guy misogynists are nerd guys who were utterly rejected by women during a time in their lives when they couldn't think of anything but women, and they're then pissed off about it for the rest of their lives. And what I've noticed is that nerd boys who somehow form relationships with non-nerd girls during that pivotal 15-17 age range will completely change course later on. They don't all become great people, but they do at least stop to ask whether a chainmail bikini is really going to stop a sword, and sometimes that's all it takes to bring them down to earth.
But once one of these hairy-palmed little peckerwoods gets to be about 18, and they still can't get a normal girl to so much as speak to them -- much less explain to them that cutting and washing their hair would make all the difference int he world -- the damage is pretty much permanent.
Just my two cents.
17
Much like games in the past telling people to put down the controller and take a break, it should be mandatory that programmers include a game break every few days for showers and face to face conversation.
I'm looking at you, WoW!
I'm looking at you, WoW!
18
Wow, Judah, that's... that's really special.
I'll agree that nerdboys need some educatin', and counterpropose that the best way for them to get it is for someone in their lives with a little wisdom to sit 'em down and explain that all the boobs on the front of their gaming books are not earning them any respect from women. They need to be given a list of the basic things that they need to do in order to talk to girls: take a shower, change their clothes occasionally, don't leer, that sort of thing.
But it's not in any way, shape nor form the responsibility of teenage girls to suck up the lameness and abuse that a horny, misogynistic, maladjusted nerd boy can dish out without even thinking. At most we should be asking girls to give specific reasons for leaving the dorks in the lurch. "I might talk to you, if you could get your eyes out of my cleavage, and if you didn't smell like blue cheese and sweat socks."
I was a teenage dork, and I had a high-school girlfriend, and to this day I wince when I think of some of the crap she put up with. I've managed to become a semblance of a decent human being, but I don't think it's at all fair to lay that kind of thing on the shoulders of the poor girls.
I'll agree that nerdboys need some educatin', and counterpropose that the best way for them to get it is for someone in their lives with a little wisdom to sit 'em down and explain that all the boobs on the front of their gaming books are not earning them any respect from women. They need to be given a list of the basic things that they need to do in order to talk to girls: take a shower, change their clothes occasionally, don't leer, that sort of thing.
But it's not in any way, shape nor form the responsibility of teenage girls to suck up the lameness and abuse that a horny, misogynistic, maladjusted nerd boy can dish out without even thinking. At most we should be asking girls to give specific reasons for leaving the dorks in the lurch. "I might talk to you, if you could get your eyes out of my cleavage, and if you didn't smell like blue cheese and sweat socks."
I was a teenage dork, and I had a high-school girlfriend, and to this day I wince when I think of some of the crap she put up with. I've managed to become a semblance of a decent human being, but I don't think it's at all fair to lay that kind of thing on the shoulders of the poor girls.
19
@16,
Yes, it's women's responsibility to dispense sex to anyone who needs it, because we don't have any needs or rights of our own.
You suck.
Yes, it's women's responsibility to dispense sex to anyone who needs it, because we don't have any needs or rights of our own.
You suck.
20
@16: I think I support your sentiment in that *some* girls need to stop being huge fucking bitches to your average hapless dork (although the same goes for huge fucking douches who are dicks to your average hapless girl-dork ... and that usually goes way beyond the ages of 15-17). That's more along the lines of civil conversation though.Not sure that extends to fucking.
Still, if you can't learn by 18 not to grab a woman's boobs without being asked, I'm sorry. Nobody owes you anything. A few teenage girls telling you to fuck off doesn't count as irreparable trauma that you heal through sexual assault.
Still, if you can't learn by 18 not to grab a woman's boobs without being asked, I'm sorry. Nobody owes you anything. A few teenage girls telling you to fuck off doesn't count as irreparable trauma that you heal through sexual assault.
21
Despite marinating in what seemed like a week of Comic Con coverage across scores of geek websites and blogs, working at a game dev studio, and sitting around dozens of nerds who went to the con (almost none of whom read comics, interestingly), this is the first I've seen of this "story", so I'm guessing that this PR campaign was a colossal bomb. Did they actually have anyone enter their contest?
The biggest nerd outrage I've seen from the Con was over toy exclusives, most specifically, believe it or not, Mattel's Comic Con only figure of the Wondertwins' pet space monkey Gleek from the Superfriends...
The artists that sit next to me at work got to meet Hayao Miyazaki at the Con and see his new film "Ponyo" for free in a special showing (they did have to wait in a line for hours, though)...
The biggest nerd outrage I've seen from the Con was over toy exclusives, most specifically, believe it or not, Mattel's Comic Con only figure of the Wondertwins' pet space monkey Gleek from the Superfriends...
The artists that sit next to me at work got to meet Hayao Miyazaki at the Con and see his new film "Ponyo" for free in a special showing (they did have to wait in a line for hours, though)...
22
Could you quote the part of my comment where I said that? No you can't, because I didn't say it.
What I actually said was, "I don't really mean to suggest a course of action here. Everyone wants to fuck whoever they want to fuck, and if women don't want to fuck nerds that's just the way it is."
So I guess I'm wondering, since I didn't say anything remotely like what you're accusing me of saying and, in fact, said the opposite -- well, never mind. I'm not really wondering anything. You gave me exactly the kind of unexamined knee-jerk freshman humanities bullshit I was expecting from some slog reader in response to my post. Live the stereotype there, genius. I'm sure someone's impressed.
Yes, it's women's responsibility to dispense sex to anyone who needs it, because we don't have any needs or rights of our own.
Could you quote the part of my comment where I said that? No you can't, because I didn't say it.
What I actually said was, "I don't really mean to suggest a course of action here. Everyone wants to fuck whoever they want to fuck, and if women don't want to fuck nerds that's just the way it is."
So I guess I'm wondering, since I didn't say anything remotely like what you're accusing me of saying and, in fact, said the opposite -- well, never mind. I'm not really wondering anything. You gave me exactly the kind of unexamined knee-jerk freshman humanities bullshit I was expecting from some slog reader in response to my post. Live the stereotype there, genius. I'm sure someone's impressed.
24
Heinlein said that boy children should be trapped in a barrel and fed through the bunghole until they reach 18. That solution is also inadequate.
25
Yeah, Judah, but blaming women even without a "course of action" is still shitty. Fuck that. I am not responsible for anyone else's misogyny. It seems way more likely that their misogyny is the reason they can't get laid.
Also, @13: The thing is, inappropriate touching, stalking and generally going beyond asking to pose for a picture has been a problem at these kind of events for a while now, and this is just adding fuel to the fire. It's exacerbated by the fact that there is often insufficient con security, so if you do get groped, there isn't really anyone to turn to. It also tends to mean that women who aren't getting paid receive the same kind of attention because of confusion or a general attitude that any woman in a costume is an object for public consumption.
Also, @17: The programmers didn't have anything to do with this, this is all marketing. There are feminist game programmers (even female game programmers) who are just as pissed about this as we are. Unfortunately, they don't have a lot of power.
Also, @13: The thing is, inappropriate touching, stalking and generally going beyond asking to pose for a picture has been a problem at these kind of events for a while now, and this is just adding fuel to the fire. It's exacerbated by the fact that there is often insufficient con security, so if you do get groped, there isn't really anyone to turn to. It also tends to mean that women who aren't getting paid receive the same kind of attention because of confusion or a general attitude that any woman in a costume is an object for public consumption.
Also, @17: The programmers didn't have anything to do with this, this is all marketing. There are feminist game programmers (even female game programmers) who are just as pissed about this as we are. Unfortunately, they don't have a lot of power.
26
@16
"And what I've noticed is that nerd boys who somehow form relationships with non-nerd girls during that pivotal 15-17 age range will completely change course later on."
"...they still can't get a normal girl to so much as speak to them..."
'Cause, uh, nerd girls don't count? Oh, wait, all nerd girls are *obviously* chubby and socially retarded and gross, just the same as all nerd boys.
K, sarcasm over.
Nerdiness does not prevent people from behaving normally in social situations. Trust me; I know. I'm about as nerdy as they come. I've seen all ends of the spectrum, from the guy with the neckbeard and the dragon t-shirt to the sexy, sexy nerd-boy I date. Hell, I'm friends with the whole spectrum. And I do agree that the less socially adept of us could benefit from the attentions of a cute significant other. But it's their job to get to that point, and not anyone else's.
That said, do be kind to the neckbeards (and their female counterparts). They're often scared, lonely people who more need a friendly face or two more than anything else in the world.
"And what I've noticed is that nerd boys who somehow form relationships with non-nerd girls during that pivotal 15-17 age range will completely change course later on."
"...they still can't get a normal girl to so much as speak to them..."
'Cause, uh, nerd girls don't count? Oh, wait, all nerd girls are *obviously* chubby and socially retarded and gross, just the same as all nerd boys.
K, sarcasm over.
Nerdiness does not prevent people from behaving normally in social situations. Trust me; I know. I'm about as nerdy as they come. I've seen all ends of the spectrum, from the guy with the neckbeard and the dragon t-shirt to the sexy, sexy nerd-boy I date. Hell, I'm friends with the whole spectrum. And I do agree that the less socially adept of us could benefit from the attentions of a cute significant other. But it's their job to get to that point, and not anyone else's.
That said, do be kind to the neckbeards (and their female counterparts). They're often scared, lonely people who more need a friendly face or two more than anything else in the world.
27
When will marketers realize that they are diminishing their profitability by systematically exploiting women? I love video games, but perpetually feel ostracized by the negative portrayal of female characters in a variety of capacities. Is it so much to ask that women have some ostensible stake in the industry?
This promotion is unspeakably ignorant. Can people ever again question why women are so vastly disinterested in this area?
This promotion is unspeakably ignorant. Can people ever again question why women are so vastly disinterested in this area?
28
Uh-huh. Could you quote the part of my post where I blamed women?
No?
I'm sensing a pattern here. Jesus, you guys. Email me when you learn to read, or have an original thought.
Yeah, Judah, but blaming women even without a "course of action" is still shitty. Fuck that.
Uh-huh. Could you quote the part of my post where I blamed women?
No?
I'm sensing a pattern here. Jesus, you guys. Email me when you learn to read, or have an original thought.
29
What also is bad that it involves the girls working for OTHER people, who probably had no idea EA is pulling this stunt when they signed up to work at the con, who probably don't want people do fly by "grab and snap" every few seconds while the pathetic goons try to get their place in the contest.
But again, this is for a game where the designers were disappointed they couldn't shove Dante up Cerebus' ass.
But again, this is for a game where the designers were disappointed they couldn't shove Dante up Cerebus' ass.
30
Judah, I get what you're saying: a little social ego boost might help nerdboys be less afraid and thus less weird around the ladies. Problem being is that you phrased it in a reverse IF / THEN statement:
"You know what would make nerd boys less obnoxious with regard to all this stuff? If non-nerd women would have sex with them."
IF non-nerd women would have sex with nerdboys, THEN nerd boys would be made less obnoxious with regarad to all this stuff. Ergo, it's non-nerd women who are holding up the great nerd socialization.
"You know what would make nerd boys less obnoxious with regard to all this stuff? If non-nerd women would have sex with them."
IF non-nerd women would have sex with nerdboys, THEN nerd boys would be made less obnoxious with regarad to all this stuff. Ergo, it's non-nerd women who are holding up the great nerd socialization.
31
Well: the promotion didn't say to go grope the girls. But saying "Acts of Lust" is pretty fucking misleading. :/
Most gals I know who dress up for booth babe duty are fully aware of what they are signing on for. Some of them like the power they have over the fanboys. I'd suggest it's a case of mutual exploitation, in most instances. The girls get paid to lord their hotness over geekboys, & the promoter makes out by getting their booth lots of attention.
Our booth at cons has never had a booth babe. Of course, half of our fans are female, I'm female, & I enjoy both the guys & gals who dress up for con. There was a Spartan @ CCI who was positively droolworthy. & I take pictures of them. But it comes w/ the territory when you dress up.
This promotion, however, makes me wonder what a nice gal like me is doing in an industry like this.
Most gals I know who dress up for booth babe duty are fully aware of what they are signing on for. Some of them like the power they have over the fanboys. I'd suggest it's a case of mutual exploitation, in most instances. The girls get paid to lord their hotness over geekboys, & the promoter makes out by getting their booth lots of attention.
Our booth at cons has never had a booth babe. Of course, half of our fans are female, I'm female, & I enjoy both the guys & gals who dress up for con. There was a Spartan @ CCI who was positively droolworthy. & I take pictures of them. But it comes w/ the territory when you dress up.
This promotion, however, makes me wonder what a nice gal like me is doing in an industry like this.
32
"You know what would make nerd boys less obnoxious with regard to all this stuff? If non-nerd women would have sex with them."
There's a problem with sexing the nerd ladies? Man!
There are so many secret wonderful things in life.
There's a problem with sexing the nerd ladies? Man!
There are so many secret wonderful things in life.
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