Friday, June 22, 2012

Zon | Mat Jones – You are a fucking moron

By Joé McKen at 3:56 AM ET | »

The following is a guest post by Zon.

(Note from Joé: The game in question is obviously and explicitly intended to satirize Hentai-style tentacle rape porn. Whether or not you personally believe it is amusing or appropriate has no bearing on A) any actual merits of the game, nor B) whether or not the game has the right to exist. Kindly keep this in mind during any ensuing discussion. Thanks.)

‘Tentacle Bento’ logo

When it comes to current events, I'm lucky if I'm following news while it's still breaking. I almost never catch a news story when it first surfaces. I usually find out about it a few months later, and then spend some time on Google searching for everything I missed.

To that end, I'm certain that a few of you are familiar with Tentacle Bento. If not, it's a card game about tentacle rape. Now, if you haven’t heard of that, well, welcome to the internet.

It's exactly what it sounds like. Japanese schoolgirls getting raped by tentacles. From what I know of it, it came into existence to fight Japanese censorship laws; a penis needs to be censored. A tentacle that looks like a penis? Nope.

Hilarious loopholes aside, Tentacle Bento is a card game where the point is to “snatch” as many schoolgirls as possible. I think most people share the opinion that the game is certainly in poor taste. Despite its tasteless nature, I find the concept at least to be a bit funny, though I have no interest in playing it. Even if I owned a copy, I wouldn't know what to do with it, beyond putting it on one of my bookshelves as a conversation starter. No matter which way you look at it, however, the game has a right to exist. You know, that whole pesky freedom of speech thing.

John Cadice, the creator of the game, ran a Kickstarter campaign to get the funds to produce and distribute the game, which wound up getting canceled. It was moved to another site, funds continued to be raised, and people continued to either complain or compliment it.

Enter Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik (aka Gabe), and the main subject of this post, Mat Jones.

Now, I've written about Penny Arcade (and Mike) before. I'm sure If I know Joé like I think I do, he'll be adding links to my previous posts here and here. [Mental note: Zon knows too much. —JM]

Mat, however, is new to me. I don't know anything about the guy, other than the article he wrote on the Tentacle Bento controversy. It is this article, however, that led me to form the opinion that he is a fucking moron. Please read through it. I don't mind waiting.

Did anyone catch a problem with it? If not, follow me on this exciting walkthrough. The first thing that caught my eye was the third paragraph.

I approached Mike with shock, not necessarily due to his support of the product, but in confusion as to why a man already under scrutiny for his opinions surrounding rape culture would stoke flames even further. He suggested that though I personally don’t appreciate the product, it has a right to exist.

Now, Mat was nice enough to link to the tweets he had sent Mike. The only problem with this was that someone intelligent might come along and read them. Mat seemed to be under the impression that by using this article, he could rewrite the reality of the conversation.

He states that he approached him with shock, wondering how, after the dickwolves incident, he could possibly be supporting this game. His tweet, however, says different.

That's not approaching anyone, let alone with shock and confusion! That's being rude, condescending, and deliberately antagonistic! Now, I understand that etiquette on the internet doesn't exist, but when you tweet something like this, you lose the right to take the moral high ground on your blog. Just because you explain yourself later does not mean that you haven't already set the tone of discourse as the exact opposite of civil.

Mike responded, saying:

Which, personally, I agree with. However, we're two posts into the discussion between them, and already we have one person being a dishonest asshat, and so far, it isn't Mike. I'm interested in the subject though, so I continue.

Mat continues explaining how he feels the game is in poor taste, which (again) I agree with. I have no problem with his point of view, and I understand it completely. Once his point is made, he continues with the twitter conversation.

In a reply, I flippantly suggested that we couldn’t deny the merit of a game about kidnapping and rape, to which Mike countered with an assertion that, because games trivialize violence and we find them acceptable, rape clearly also serves as a relevant and acceptable place to draw entertainment from.

So I check Mat's self-described flippant text, to find this tweet:

Well, wait a minute. What merit? Mike said the game has a right to exist; where, at any point, did he say anything about its merit? However, I quickly brushed that aside as I focused on Mike's 'assertion'. At this point, I'm thinking Mike's gotta be one screwed up guy, saying that rape is a relevant and acceptable place to draw entertainment from. I mean, that just sounds terrible. Until you look at the tweet.

Wow. At this point, I am getting a feel for how the rest of this blog is going to go. Granted, Mike didn't exactly make the best response, trying to shift the discussion to the trivialization of murder in video games, but nowhere did he say rape is an acceptable place to draw entertainment from. That's not even out-of-context; that's a complete fabrication! It seems that Mat Jones enjoys a bit of creative exaggeration.

We now get to my favorite part of Mat's article – The List. It is a three point list that describes, in his words, “Why Murder is more acceptable.” Here it is:

1) Murder in games is normally justified within the fiction. There’s no justification for rape.

2) Much of society doesn’t view murder as acceptable. We’re still trying to get there with rape.

3) Murder victims aren’t continually reminded of their attack through media.

The first point I can agree with, albeit on a limited basis. Murder can be justified in fiction, mostly as self-defense. However, I cannot say that it is “normally” justified. Skyrim, for example, allowed you to kill just about everyone, except the children, and even then someone released a mod for “Killable Kids.” No reason for it. Just a mod so you could do it. I also agree that there is no justification for rape, but that one seems obvious.

The second point, I'm not entirely sure about. There is a lot to analyze there, and I don't have the knowledge. In my experience, I've never heard anyone take an instance of rape less than seriously, though I'm certain it has happened. However, I really don't feel that you can actually make the comparison between murder and rape on this point. Murder has different degrees, not to mention self-defense and manslaughter. Rape is always bad. Murder? Not always. Killing someone in self-defense is still technically murder. The woman who shot a burglar with a shotgun to protect her two kids? That was technically murder, yet I haven’t heard anyone say that they disagreed with the outcome.

Finally, we get to his third point, which is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard anyone say. Mat seems intelligent enough; yet, this can either be two things: a badly thought out point, or a complete joke. Mat, are you aware that someone needs to be dead to be called a murder victim? And if you were aware of it...what part of you thought that it was funny?

You obviously weren't thinking of the families of murder victims. Certainly, a teenager killed in a drive-by wouldn't be reminded of it through the media, but his father, mother, and sister/brother definitely would be. Perhaps you can call up some of the parents of the students at Columbine High School, and see if they find your third point as funny as you did.

Before we continue on, I'd like to explain the above by saying that, while I find murder and rape to be equally contemptible, I do not find them to be comparable. Both murder and rape are terrible things; however, murder has many shades of gray, whereas rape is a sea of black.

So, to continue the chronicles:

Mike made a few more comments that aren’t worth much further discourse, then affirmed that his position was entirely one of wishing to fight censorship (while also exerting his right to silence anyone he disagrees with).

Unfortunately for Mat, I've looked up the comments that he judged as unworthy of further discussion. Behold, the comments that Mat left out.

Seriously, Mat? These were the comments you thought were not worthy of further discourse? In all honesty, he clarified his point a lot better than you did. In fact, if your article wasn't about explaining the situation, I never would have even understood the context behind your tweet in the first place! And second, please don't confuse censorship with blocking an irritating asshat. Read your tweets to him. Everything you tweeted was condescending, sarcastic, or just plain antagonizing. Is it any wonder he brought up wanting to block you? If you tweeted to me like that, I'd block you too!

And don't even get me started on this one:

I suggested that, as a show of faith that this is truly his position and not that he continues these posts in active support of rape culture, that Mike should donate some money to a charity that supports rape victims. Rape continues to be a serious issue, even if the staff of Penny Arcade would like to defend the freedom of speech, the least they could do would be to support those that have suffered through the reality of what’s being discussed. He responded to this by questioning my mental health.

So am I. I really want to know how you function on a day to day basis. Sure, you ask him to donate to a charity. However, when you respond to this tweet:

With this:

Is it any wonder you got this?:

That plea to donate to a rape charity was completely out of nowhere – it didn't even fit the conversation you were having, nor did you explain it in any logical manner whatsoever; not until you posted your article, at any rate.

Allow me to sum up my final thoughts. Mat Jones – You are a fucking moron. You feel that a blog article allows you to rewrite reality. You add words where none were before, and you exaggerate to make yourself look better than you really were. Your article paints the picture of civil discourse, when really, the discussion that you started involved you being a total asshat. You completely ignored posts where Gabe explained his own point of view better than you explained your own, judging them unworthy to post on your own article. You are everything that is wrong with people on the internet: just another person who managed to come across some information, but completely lacks the intelligence to use that information in a responsible manner.

Go to hell, Mat. And take your stupid with you.

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