None of that is the problem that Christine has. The problem Christine has is that she has received death threats, and graphic messages about how people want to rape her. Of course she is going to express disgust at that. That sort of crap is not what any person should reasonably expect.
I'm confused as to why, when I was researching this, the complaints I was finding were about stuff like the gendered insult he made against her (which IMO was pretty cruel and not OK) and people being disgusted by the flip it or rip it game (which IMO is not even in the same stratosphere). It should be more clear that she was receiving death and rape threats because that's a whole different universe than even the gendered insult, let alone the flip it or rip it thing.
This makes it really simple. If you're sending someone death or rape threats, you're a criminal. If you're explicitly encouraging others to do it, you're a criminal. If you're implicitly encouraging others to do it, you're still pretty terrible.
Since TPTB are outlining all of the things this is NOT about: this is NOT about anyone needing to adopt 4th wave feminism or any of the other neo-marxist claptrap that they're going to try to shove down our throats. I say this is about whether we are going to tolerate someone threatening or encouraging others to threaten members of our community. We should also be asking ourselves how we can identify and shut down these situations more rapidly. That's my take, at least.
A lot of these details were lost in the narrative building everyone has been making. Unfortunately she has gone dark on social media so I cannot pull up the examples she shared, and she has been mostly silent thisnweek elsewhere.
To be blunt, I am of the opinion that a lot of people crossed the line, amd that its time for Thanks-suspensioning for a lot of people all over the place. Jeremy is not wrong that he is being hate mobbed; he has received death theeats and the like, and thatbis absolutely not right. That doesnt mean he is at all innocent in the matter, just those that engage in the hate mobbing also now need to be dealt with.
WotC has used Sprankle and other cosplayers at events and included them in disseminated photos/videos online. Fact.
1. Does anyone know if any of them have been paid by WotC? (Or are they just being used after signing away rights to the images)
She apparently does get paid either WotC for official WotC events and the like, or by the tournament organizer for Grand Prixs if they use her in an official capacity.
2. Why is it right for WotC to benefit from these people's work product? (I recall recently seeing Avacyn pics with displays highlighted by WotC) Frankly if their ad team had any chops they'd take on 3-4 of these creative people and do photo ops and videos to generate buzz. Ever been to a boat or car show? COMIC CON?
I imagine they are independent contractors, however I don't know the details. They do compensate for any official work being done, however.
This. ALL OF THIS. I’m so sick of hearing how integral parts of the game I LITERALLY grew up loving are “TOOOO POWERFUL!!” Bull. Magic just needs to go back to the 2001-2007 era.
Yes, Magic just needs to go back to the era it came closest to dying in. There are aspects of that era which could be brought back, but don't forget the era itself contains Mirrodin and Kamigawa alongside all the good.
I consider Mirrodin to be a GOOD part of that era.... The competitive deck of the time was both cheap $$ wise and easily portable to older formats. It also brought up loads of great staples for both legacy and EDH.
Cosplay is in the end just a reflection of what they impersonate and image.
Its especially easy if you portrait a sexualized image with cosplay that you are indeed just doing that, you sexualize yourself.
If there is a stripper character and you cosplay that, guess what, you portrait yourself as a stripper ; its still cosplay.
Not of this has anything to do with Christine, whose MTG cosplays are anything but sexualized. THis is just fabricating a "truth" when the reality doesn't fit your narrative. Christine doesn't use overt sexuality to sell her cosplay, at all. None of her promotional material is laying on the sexual layers. She isn't portraying herself as a stripper by making her costumes skimpier and skimpier. This is the exact sort of false narrative that others have been fabricating about her for the sole sake of defending Jeremy. Nevermind that Christine does not do this, or that her MTG cosplay are not sexualized at all. No, no, she is like a stripper because cosplayers are selling their bodies.
So nobody blames people for dressing up as game characters, thats fine.
If its done in a sexualized manner, it will get feedback, either from people that enjoy that, or from people that do not ; and you cannot really blame anyone, especially if the person in question knows about that its controversial and still does it, just to get the feedback they want and blame the others for feedback they dislike.
The thing, again, is that Christine does not. This entire argument is a fabrication. It has nothing to do with Christine, because it is not something she engages in.
Further, she does not complain about criticism as far as I have seen. She complains about a subsection of people whom have sent her death threats, or insultingly lewd and graphic messages. And then people like Jeremy say she is whining because she doesn't want the attention she is getting, completely misrepresenting what is going on. It is utterly valid for her to complain about people sending her death threats, or telling her how they want to shove their dick up her ***, or other such crap. Forgive the language, but that is the reality of the situation when she was complaining about the messages sent.
She is not complaining about people telling her she's hot. She's complaining about the utterly disturbing ***** people send her, and then Jeremy bemoans that she complains about it. Hell, she didn't even bring Jeremy into these discussions at all. Jeremy decided he was going to interject his philosophical nonsense into the discussion by completely misrepresenting what Christine was complaining about. She was complaining about people sending her death threats or sending her messages about how they want to rape her. Not that she was just uncomfortable because young boys had the gall to think she is attractive and tell her so.
Again, if you do that in private or as a hobby, its a hole lot different than doing it for money, as a job, getting paid by someone to do that.
This is no issue with her being female at all, it would be the very same if a male did dress up like chest free Jace cosplay and get paid to do so from women (but face it, cosplay has way more females, thats just how it is).
Her being female is just how it is, but thats not the issue at all.
None of this is the issue at all, and it is a narrative being spun by people trying to sell you their truth. The fact is that Christine does not engage in the sort of behavior that these armchair philosophers talk about, and it is intellectually dishonest to frame the situation like that.
What exactly makes you think he did what he did just to feel people miserable ?
It is the entire reason you troll people. Your exact reasons for doing so do not matter, your politics do not matter. If you troll people, you are doing so to make those on the receiving end miserable.
Negative critic will always make some people feel miserable, but only if they cannot stand to take critic.
Theres a lot of people which simply assume everything they do is cool, everyone loves them and they are all about how positive everything is.
But thats not reality. In reality some people might not like what you do and express critic.
They might do so in a rude manner, especially if its a heated or more personal kind of discussion.
It doesnt make the critic any less relevant, people can just choose to ignore it.
And if the context of a discussion is sexualized, the critic will be too, quite likely.
Jeremy doesnt have to carefully choose his words, so nobody can possible be offended.
You can choose to do so (and face it, with enough feedback people will change as they will recognize that being rude wont give you many friends).
Jeremy goes above and beyond criticism. He points his trolling followers at people, and gloats when they troll them. He actively encourages it.
He posts ***** that has nothing to do with criticizing the person, at all, and instead is solely designed to harass them. Such as this:
THere is no criticism about Christine there, she wasn't the topic he was discussing, and she wasn't discussing him at all. He decided to make a public cheap shot at Christine for no reason, at all, and involved her for no reason, at all, in his rant about Anti-Female-Spikism.
He's not being persecuted for his opinions or offending people. He is being punished for being an ass. Newsflash: If you are an adult who acts like a child, you will be treated like a damn child.
If you have a group of 10 guys , bit nerdy talking to each other its a hell lot different than doing so in public.
I talk way different to my parents than i do to my friends.
But i value that i can speak FREE and without thinking about my every word, that is important for me, but i do not go out in the world and insult people on the streets ; thats something you learn by your culture, your friends and it cannot be forced, you have to realize that on your own, by peoples feedback and its a lengthly process.
None of this, and I mean none of this has anything to do with Jeremy. This is not about off-handedly offending people; this is about him intentionally causing problems for people. There is a world of difference, and framing it as though Jeremy is just speaking his mind and getting punished for off-hand offensive remarks is an absurdly oversimplified version of what he has done.
I really believe the critic from Jeremy is fine as it is.
Simply because Sprankle is no longer a private person in her cosplay, shes a "professional" actor in that way and so critic is totally valid in that respect, even if its rude.
Is not a critique of Sprankle's cosplay. It is involving her in his "SJWs are ruining Magic" narrative, for no damn reason at all as she was not vocally involving herself in it. At all. He does not just engage in "critique", he engages in active harassment of individuals, and posts like this are not critique. There is not critical substance associated with it, at all.
Yes he doesnt have to, but he can and thats not an issue, simply because she is a public figure, presents herself and that has an effect, she gets responses and feedback, even if she doesnt like it.
None of that is the problem that Christine has. The problem Christine has is that she has received death threats, and graphic messages about how people want to rape her. Of course she is going to express disgust at that. That sort of crap is not what any person should reasonably expect.
Thats the big difference between a private person and a public figure.
Nobody is directly blaming Sprankle as a person, but that is in conflict with the "job" as a cosplayer which directly puts the body in display, so critic to that body suddenly becomes the same as critic on a job (which makes this topic especially difficult to talk about, as critic on a body or person would be inapropriate if the job would be different).
I'll reiterate this point again. This is not him critiquing her cosplay:
It is him lumping her into the groups that he has proclaimed are destroying Magic.
There is an discussion in the magic community for a long LONG time how the game gets pushed to include more females, more sexualized artwork etc. etc. Thats a good topic to talk about, but chances are it easily slips into someone being insulted, just as any other similiar topic.
This has nothing to do with Christine's feelings being hurt or just being insulted. That is a false narrative that has been constructed to undersell the situation.
Its important to see that Jeremy how rude however the comments might be, isnt the devil incarnate ... Just to keep things on a proper level to not go over the top.
Just as Jeremy somewhat blames Sprankle for way more than she actually represents , Jeremy is blamed for way more than he actually represents ; so its the same coin, just flipped.
Jeremy is not the devil incarnate. He is an ass, who acts like an ass intentionally to get attention. He whinges and moans when people have a problem with him being an ass, and when his assery goes too far and crosses the line he whinges and moans that he loses his privileges. Sorry, but I am not going to shed a single tear for a whiny brat getting the axe. It's comeuppance, not persecution.
Its a terrible problem of feedback loops.
If you let someone talk for months without feedback, guess what, they will continue, they dont suddenly stop.
I wouldnt say Jemerys point is completely wrong. But i absolutely think he is way too rude in how he expressed that arguments (i wouldnt do it that way, but if you, that is absolutely not harassment, its ongoing critic).
This is not part of his ongoing critique of Christine's cosplay:
That is harassment. You may not think it's the end of the world, but that's just mincing words and trying to explain away his behavior.
I wouldnt sign that statements here.
No matter what, troll or not, any adult is responsible for what they do.
And its by no surprise that a lot of people in the internet are trolls. Some are fine, jokes are fine, and its not difficult to go over the top.
And when you go over the top, you are held accountable. The people who trolled her are accountable. And to a degree, a person who has made active efforts to encourage his fanbase to troll people he disagrees with should also be held accountable.
I dont even sign that he actively just and only targeted her. He blames a lot of people and a lot of problems and the critic alone isnt hurting, isnt harassing anybody.
What people do with this is the actual crime, yes, if people write death threats, thats a crime and it shouldnt even be necessary to tell somebody that is going way too far.
If some sick individuals are your followers, you are not responsible for what they do. You cannot be.
When you actively encourage your followers to be trolling asses, and gloat that they are trolling *****s, and actually try to convince them to troll people, you are partly responsible for them when they act like trolling asses. I highly suggest looking into the Milgrim Effect on this one. While Jeremy can't be held completely accountable for everything they do, you bet your ass that he should be held accountable for encouraging them to engage in this behavior.
Being a troll isnt illegal.
Just to make that clear.
Playing Magic isn't a protected right. It is a privilege. Privileges are afforded to those who follow the rules and act like an adult. If you don't want to follow the rules, that is fine, but don't whinge about persecution when your privileges are revoked. I don't care, and I don't want to hear it. If he wants to be an edgelord, then he can be an edgelord. When Wizards decides to remove his preview cards, and refuses to acknowledge him, and eventual bans him for it, he has nobody to blame but himself. Nobody forced him to be an ass. He chose it.
But i still have to accept that there are trolls out there that actively just want to post crap.
And like it or not, for quite a margin that is acceptable, and people have to endure it (as not everything is a crime, and the world isnt perfect either).
If someone expresses themselves in a bad way, you can either assume they downright hate you, or you ask them out.
Its either to assume people are just evil, mostly they just dont know better and the right way is teaching them, feedback is key, punishment might not help and just fuel the fire of the problem and further make discussing difficult if not impossible.
Jeremy isn't evil. He's a child who doesn't want to face the consequences for throwing tantrums left and right, and getting his school-yard friends to go spit on people and throw rocks at the people he doesn't like. To bad, friendo. You act like a petulant child, you get treated like one.
i still think we have to make sure female (and male) cosplayers do not downright become live-strippers at Grand Prix events
...
Isnt that a valid point ? (For me it is, and for Jeremy as well)
The concept that cosplay is like live-stripping and that Jeremy was merely expressing his concern for the preservation of the moral of youth playing at GP is...
Evek ifnthis were true, the insinuation that this is what Sprankle was doing is patently absurd if you see the costumes she wears to GPs and the like. It is just armchair philosophizing deflection lacking any real substance. Wgen youvstart to fully accept your own fabrication as reality, particularlg when reality directly contradicts you, you are gonna have a bad
I thought there was an article about how profits were up, or was that more of Hasbro losing money elsewhere?
But if the player base is contracting that much it means they are becoming more reliant on a core of high spenders, reminds me of Warhammer, not the healthiest place for a company to be.
Whatever issues are the cause in loss of players I doubt any change will happen untill Hasbro sees profits dipping.
Like I said, it is in no small part due to a large increase in Game Stores opening. My LGS had FNMS reaching 70 or so people about four years ago on average. Now we have about 40 or so show up. Are people quitting? Well, no, not at all. About 8-12 people go to the newer store that opened that caters specifically to casual, non-competitive crowds, about 15-20 people go to the new store in the sister city, in no small part due to proximity. We also have another shop that didn't run tournaments at all start running FNMs this year, with about 8-12 people showing up there.
All told, I'd say that the area FNM attendence has gone *up* by about 20-30% over the past four years or so, even though attendance at the specific LGS I attend has gone down significantly. A lot of people are opening stores lately, from what I've seen, and that stretches the fanbase significantly. Still, this is part of why WotC profits go up, even though LGS's seem to have a drop in attendence. We are opening stores faster than we gaining new players. Now, I can't speak for New Player acquisition or retention specifically, as I havne't seen said numbers.
It's not that WotC is lying about what is going on, it's that they very possibly may not know why this seemingly paradoxical situation has arisen. Hence why their explanations seem hollow and daft; they likely don't know why sales are up even though average attendance is down. Average attendance is likely down in no small part due to adding more stores that fracture game stores community more and more, driving down average attendance even though the total number of people either hasn't really changed or has increased.
To illustrate my point, if the number of Game Stores doubles, and nothing else changes, then that means that the average attendance drops by half per store. Even if the stores grow at a 25% rate every years (Which is a perfectly reasonable, if high, growth rate), that would take over three full years of growth at that rate to reach attendance levels at the original store that matched it.
The critic is if cosplay goes as far as to be commercial it also comes down to "sex sells" , and at that point it becomes exactly the same deal as models that show themselves in sexualized pictures , that clearly sells ; to weak minded male or not, is another topic on its own, and adults can spend their money as they like, but in the end, how exactly is that part of the game Magic the Gathering ? Do we need it ? Do we even want it ?
If someone earns money selling their body its fine and if someone earns critic for that its sexismn or an insult ?
Come on.
I must say, i dislike it.
I dont think we have to go and forbid cosplay at magic events, but i still think we have to make sure female (and male) cosplayers do not downright become live-strippers at Grand Prix events , even if some might enjoy that, its not the right place. Do that on a website, your youtube channel or whatever form of media you want to, and still someone will critic you for that, positive or negative, which you can either accept or ignore, and if you think its insulting or somewhat hurts you, solve it by communicating.
Isnt that a valid point ? (For me it is, and for Jeremy as well)
And even if you disagree, do not just call it stupid, that doesnt help any argument.
----
And for the critic on that.
If someone has a payed job to cosplay, i have every right to critic what they are doing, as i critic the job.
And for someone that sells its own body, the body is somewhat part of the job, so what is an insult to a private person could very well be just critic to a model.
So yes context matters a lot. Sexualized comments are on the very same line than show casting your body in a sexualized manner at live events , posting sexualized pictures and getting "payed" for them by your donator.
I believe these are valid points and ignoring them is as ignorant as just ignoring any other (if you have arguments provide them, but just calling the other opinion stupid isnt helping anybody and just fuels the fire that prevents any further discussion, so it hurts the own argument).
----
The basic issue with Jeremy and Sprinkle is downright laughable small.
Its just comments, somebody said something about another and thats it.
If you have a true issue with that, there is plenty of room and options to solve them, without going to public and blaming someone else for your own actions.
That means, if she wants to quit magic cosplay, go ahead, your choice.
Blaming Jeremy for it in public ? That clearly incited hate mobs , so it was a bad move and i really believe she didnt see that comming, even the respons of the Professor i truly believe he simply didnt know that his video would also incite hate mobs further ; he thought it would just express his opinion (which it does) , but as a public person it will not be the right channel to express that ;
*Which leads to another problem that personal issues should be better expressed as a separate channel that is exactly for that, a more private one, that clearly distances itself from "magic" , so stuff doesnt get mixed up ; the very same for this issue here, distancing it from magic would be better, but as it is, stuff gets mixed up and topics are thrown together left and right, suddenly its all about politics, sexismn and what not, while the basic true issue bogs down to a bunch of twitter comments and youtube channels, which is downright laughable in its impact compared to what monster evolved out of this.
----
He also has a point that a lot of people cannot even express their true opinion, as they are in a real danger to get caught by the *****-train in public and depend on public opinion for their job and income.
So this further diffuses a public image that is drawn, and countless people just join one mob, they dont even care to have any argument at all, they are happy if at the end someone is bloody and destroyed, thats what they think is a "solution", thats crazy, its chaos and self-justice, anything but reasonable.
Its really easy to just look at videos and people that have a very similiar opinion that you have.
But that doesnt give you any new ideas, it just fuels your illusion that "everyone" has that opinion, which isnt the case.
If you want an open discussion you have to listen to the other side, no matter how stupid they might sound for you.
Then you can bring arguments and find some common ground, or help to solve issues that arise without burning places and people ; it doesnt help any discussion to threaten anybody.
Allow me to frame this in a matter that is a bit more clear:
Jeremy has made it a point to argue that Wizards catering to social issues is, in effect, ruining the game. He has made it a point to argue, for instance, that not only was it pointless to make Spike, Tournament Grinder female, but it is actively harming the game because it is pushing social issues on individuals on people who do not want it pushed on them, and it is focusing on things that do not matter. He has equally argued that female cosplayers are more or less predators who at best don't deserve recognition, and at worst are trying to prey on young men who don't know any better. He has made his opinion very clear that Wizards focusing on cosplayers is another route in which they are doing something that actively harms their hobby.
He has, in the past, reveled in making people miserable for the sake of making them miserable. He encourages his fanbase to troll people. He gloats that his fanbase helped him get banned from online communities by helping him troll people.
He then involves, on multiple occasions and without provocation, Christine Sprankle into the conversation about how cosplay is harming the game. He also, a week before this all went down, posted a picture of her with her name in it in his rant about on social justice issues and Spike, Tournament players being female were ruining the game for everyone because of PC-ness. Note that she didn't involve herself in the discussion, and that she didn't make any big or greater issue about it; she posted a picture of herself dressed as the character Spike, and for some reason Jeremy decided to involve her in his argument, without provocation.
It is pretty damn clear that he has, on multiple occasions, heavily insinuated to his followers that Christine Sprankle is part of the reason why Magic is going downhill now. He has insinuated that she is the real problem they need to focus on. For whatever reason he may have had, that is exactly what he is doing because he didn't have to talk about her at all in this light. This isn't a case of one mention six months ago being blown out of proportion; he has made his view on her very clear over the past year and a half, and he has connected her to his narrative of SJWs killing the game as late as a week before she decided to quit. He also knows full well a lot of his followers are trolls, because he freely admits and delights in it. If you tell a bunch of trolls that this person over here is ruining the game, and that they are terrible, what the hell do you think is going to happen? Jeremy knew full well what was going to happen, because he encouraged them to do this before to other people. He delighted in it, in fact. Jeremy went well above and beyond critique of her for her cosplay; he involved her in his greater anti-SJW narrative about how they were destroying the game, and pointed a mob at her for whatever reason he had. He knew full well that the trolls would hound her, because he acknowledged doing this in the past to other people.
He is being called out on this crap, and being held accountable for encouraging his fanbase to be trolls (As well as direct harassment). At some point, when you are a celebrity, you are held accountable for encouraging such behavior. You have influence over people that regular joes and janes do not. He thinks he is some sort of shock-jock similar to Howard Stern or even Larry Flynt; the fact is, these people were vastly more intelligent about their methods, and knew where the line between shock and harassment was.
No you didnt correct anything, we are just supposed to talk about how shocked we are that someone who refuses to back down has a sizable following.
Yeah... no.
The narrative that he said one mean thing to her in one video six months ago is the narrative I have dispelled on multiple occasions, and is the narrative that people keep repeating. He made a great many statements about her over the past year and a half, and the last time he did was about a week before this crap went down, dragging her into his argument that Spike, Tournament Grinder being female was a terrible thing, and that this is harming the game. I don't know why he felt the need to drag her into that argument, I have no clue why he had to denigrate her appearance in the process, and I have no clue why he decides to harass her, without provocation, on numerous occasions over several months. But he did.
The simple fact is he has a hate-on for her, and has made it clear publicly. He dresses it up as some greater political issue, and dresses it up as him not saying anything about her ever except once, but that's simply lying at this point.
Fair enough. I have just scene that narrative thrown about too often, even after I corrected it and gave prklf of said correction. Not annoyed by you, so much expounded on some things.
As for your final point, absolutely. I see no real need to dig deeper into the situation at all as far as national politics is concerned.
I think the issue is how the discussion has turned to politics. This may sound catty coming from someone outside the US, but Americans can't seem to debate or quarrel without eventually bringing in the current president. I mean sure the president is in charge of the country and all, but they cannot be literally responsible for every asinine move any american makes.
While the scale is a bit extreme, the truth is this isn't new. Just seems that way as social media is wide spread and rampant, giving instant access of yoir statements to large audiences easily. The US has all been a politically charged nation, to be frank (The Red Scare comes to mind)
A guy flames a girl in a video. The girl issues a cry for help. Evidence is lacking because it supposedly has been destroyed. People are debating now what action to take while others are questioning whether action should be taken, with some side discussions as to the guy's innocence. Debate on censorship and political correctness and what construes proper acceptable social behavior and contract ensues. And of course someone manages to mention Trump. If this had happened a year ago, Obama's name would be on the previous page.
Don't bring up politics, guys.
And this narrative is woefully misrepresentjng the situation. There are are multiple videos od him berrating her, tweets spanning a year and a half ish, and theblatest tweet involved him insulting her while discussing the female-Spike issue a few days before all of this went down. He has a hate on for spanklr, had insinuated that Wizards supporting her is bad for Magic, and has interjected her into his rants on how their pushing a certain docial agenda is ruining the game.
Look, here's the thimg: at some point you are partly culpable if you constantly imply that a given person is part of the real problem with the game, and you cheer your fans on for trolling people (including instances where he delighted in them helping him get banned or blocked), as well as air your dirty laundry out for the public to see. He also directly harassed on a few occassions, most recently about two weeks ago.
Does this mean the people doing the same to him is acceptable? No, it does not. But that doesn't mean he did not know full well what he was doing. He delights in being an edgelord, and delights in making people miserable and harassing people for whatever reason he may have. Why should I feel any sympathy when it backfires on him? Everything that may be taken away from him is a privilege, not a right. If my child were to act like him, you best believe they would regret. It makes no damn sense to me why we would expect better behavior out of a toddler than we would out of a grown adult.
Earlier this year, neo-Nazis staged a tiki torch rally to bring attention to their racist and hateful cause of "Unite the Right" with such wonderful slogans as "sieg heil" and "blood and soil." Naturally, this sparked a little bit of controversy, as Nazis tend to do. One common theme, however, was for those identifying as right wing, especially Trump voters, to take an odd kind of personal offence to the backlash, as if an attack on Nazis is somehow an attack on them. A similar note of extreme defensiveness sprung up with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus's marketing of "Make America Nazi-Free Again." The very same people who would happily shoot Nazis in Call of Duty: World War II get very anxious when the context is changed to killing Nazis on American soil.
It should go without saying that if you feel personally attacked when someone denounces the Nazis, you ought to take a good, hard, long look inside yourself to find out where that Nazi sympathy comes from. And then you kill it with fire from a good, old-fashioned, American-made M1A1 flamethrower, a fine weapon responsible for killing many Nazis in the actual World War II.
It absolutely is an attack on them. The "Make America Nazi Free Again" is such a bonk you on the head obvious allusion that you're either going to make that connection or you're going to have a migraine. Or both. It's honestly quite disgusting in its blatant exploitation.
Consider an alternative future where Bernie Sanders is elected and this emboldens a very small but vocal set of American communists. The right then moves to associate Bernie with communism, because that is a politically obvious move. What they hope to accomplish in this situation is to tarnish all support of Bernie or any policy that he holds with the communist label. As we mostly (but not fully, because there is an abundance of Marxist or quasi-Marxist sympathy in Hollywood and in the education system) consider communism to be cruel and evil and, as we now associate Bernie and his supporters with that, we begin to dehumanize them.
That is what's going on here and that's precisely what this game wishes to capitalize on. That is why it is such a despicable game.
If you feel that you can't comment on MTGSalvation without being singled out by the mods, ask yourself why that is.
If you find yourself feeling offended when the same call for introspection is repeated back at you, ask yourself why.
Yeah I dont get it, .0025% of the population is a member of the KKK and at the neo-nazi march in Charlotesville at most 500 people showed up and I have seen figures that put it as less then 200, yet somehow there is a Nazi epidemic.
PA didnt vote for Obama twice and then suddenly all of the white supremacist showed up and voted.
People need to get over losing an election.
The vast majority of the people have.
Also, this is not the point of the thread.
I mean it is really.
This dude gives them a chance to take out their frustration for President Trump winning the election.
That actively has nothing to do with it. Any similarity you see is purely imagined nonsense, and any such reasoning is utterly ridiculous deflection being mmade out of desperation for lacking any greater point of argument.
For someone so great at seeing insidious narratives, you are horridly bad at seeing the ones you follow about blindly, without question.
While my LGS has had a noticeable drop in attendance, I would attribute that more to the opening of two other stores (And another store that didn't run tournaments now running them) than it is to do with anything involving the game itself. I feel this may be the case in larger metro areas, particularly in the states, as more and more people want to open a game store.
There's been an explosive growth of new LGS over the last few months due to various factors. I'm pretty sure a lot of them are going to go under and only the more established ones are going to survive, though.
I feel this is a large reason as to why WotC sale figures keep going uo, even thougb it seems like to some that their scene is going down in attendance. If you have 100 people split amongst 4 game stores, it will seem like fewer people than 50 people in one.
Couple this with online sales being a much larger part od the market than it was even 5 years ago, and you have the appearance of a game that is declining, even though the reality is more nuanced.
Earlier this year, neo-Nazis staged a tiki torch rally to bring attention to their racist and hateful cause of "Unite the Right" with such wonderful slogans as "sieg heil" and "blood and soil." Naturally, this sparked a little bit of controversy, as Nazis tend to do. One common theme, however, was for those identifying as right wing, especially Trump voters, to take an odd kind of personal offence to the backlash, as if an attack on Nazis is somehow an attack on them. A similar note of extreme defensiveness sprung up with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus's marketing of "Make America Nazi-Free Again." The very same people who would happily shoot Nazis in Call of Duty: World War II get very anxious when the context is changed to killing Nazis on American soil.
It should go without saying that if you feel personally attacked when someone denounces the Nazis, you ought to take a good, hard, long look inside yourself to find out where that Nazi sympathy comes from. And then you kill it with fire from a good, old-fashioned, American-made M1A1 flamethrower, a fine weapon responsible for killing many Nazis in the actual World War II.
It absolutely is an attack on them. The "Make America Nazi Free Again" is such a bonk you on the head obvious allusion that you're either going to make that connection or you're going to have a migraine. Or both. It's honestly quite disgusting in its blatant exploitation.
Consider an alternative future where Bernie Sanders is elected and this emboldens a very small but vocal set of American communists. The right then moves to associate Bernie with communism, because that is a politically obvious move. What they hope to accomplish in this situation is to tarnish all support of Bernie or any policy that he holds with the communist label. As we mostly (but not fully, because there is an abundance of Marxist or quasi-Marxist sympathy in Hollywood and in the education system) consider communism to be cruel and evil and, as we now associate Bernie and his supporters with that, we begin to dehumanize them.
That is what's going on here and that's precisely what this game wishes to capitalize on. That is why it is such a despicable game.
If you feel that you can't comment on MTGSalvation without being singled out by the mods, ask yourself why that is.
If you find yourself feeling offended when the same call for introspection is repeated back at you, ask yourself why.
Yeah I dont get it, .0025% of the population is a member of the KKK and at the neo-nazi march in Charlotesville at most 500 people showed up and I have seen figures that put it as less then 200, yet somehow there is a Nazi epidemic.
PA didnt vote for Obama twice and then suddenly all of the white supremacist showed up and voted.
As far as rip it or flip it, i didnt even know that was a thing until yesterday and I guess I always knew people get mad about people ripping up magic cards but I never got it.
Do you have a source for that?
Yes, it was about that. Go look at the early social media threads on it.
It wasn't until well after this whole thing got rolling that Jeremy & Co. starting changing the narrative on the subject to be that she is a whiny cosplayer who doesn't like that people say mean things about her or sexualizing her. Neither of which has anything to do with the issue. The issue is that Jeremy has a lot of beef with Wedge, TCC, and Sprankle for being snubbed from an event a few years ago. Rather than realize that the reason he was snubbed is because he is an ass that people didn't want to be associated with, he decided that it was persecuting him for his beliefs. So he went off the damn deep end, doubled down on his persecution complex, and became an even larger ass.
Again do you have a source, Im not being pendantic I have watched the Professors video, Magic Mics and then his video, and they all seem to focus on that exchange and then some his other stuff regarding other people.
I have to do all the work around here, don't I? Anyway, there weren't any articles written about this as the conversation quickly morphed by outside forces, but read the first major reddit thread. To make it easy, just ctrl+F "Flip it or Rip it". There are enough posts to get the point across.
And honestly its sounds the same as what people say about Ben Shapiro, is Ben Shapiro off the deep end?
I honestly have never seen, nor heard, anything by Shapiro that I can recall. I won't comment on someone I honestly can't recall any anecdote about. That said, I despise the current trend of passing off political commentator as news or some vital truth, rather than for what it is: opinion. I have a fundamental lack of respect for any regular person labled as "commentator", regardless of political leaning.
On to the point, Jeremy is off the deep the end for complete other reasons than politics. All of this nonsense stems from him having problems with Wedge two years ago, and the drama that unfolded because of it. He hates TCC and Christine because they are friends with Wedge, to be frank. He tries to sell it to his audience as some greater concern, but all of this is just petty bullocks because Wedge got him dis invited from an mtg Youtuber convention because Wedge didn't like him, and threatened to pull out of it. I am by no means supporting Wedge, mind you; he did not and has not been much better, if at all. That said, Jeremy has decided that the best way to cope with this snubbing is to act more and more like an ass over the years, creating more and more problems. He attacks anybody who works with Wedge or is friends with him largely out of vindictive spite, and pettles it as something else.
If you think he is "telling it like it is" to Wedge and Co. because of PC nonsense, you are being played by a truly petty individual who has a history of weaponizing his followers in a long-standing feud with another youtuber. While Wedge is hardly blameless in this, the fact is Jeremy has decided to go on an endless crusade against him and everyone whom associates with him out of pure spite that he dresses up as political witch huntery. The problem is, he has crossed several lines in this crusade, and has decided that the best way to deal with this feud is as a miserable edgelord. Acting like a miserable edgelord, regardless of your reasons, comes with consequences and repercussions.
To be frank, I don't think Jeremy is a massive misogynistic ultra-conservative women-hating Nazi. I think he peddles the vapid Anti-SJW talking points in order to sell the notion that he is telling it like it is, when in reality it's just deflection for years of feuding with other MTG youtubers because of personal problems.
Maybe familarize yourself with the other sides point of view then. Because hes saying pretty much stock right oriented stuff in the context of magic the gathering.
And part of that is that the left wont engage in open debate but will instead label you a sexist or bigot and never address your arguments directly and seeks to censor you.
But lets say your right and hes being completely disingenious and this is a personal beef and he really doesnt care about these issues, it doesnt change how events have played out.
First, I am well aware of these talking points. I give them about as much respect as do leftist talking points. Meaningless drivel meant to rile up the base, where people get upset and offended over trhe nonsense while ignoring greater, more important issues.
Second, you mean the events that he has made a point on many occasions to insult Sprankle without cause, up to and including the week before this mess went out? That he includes her in hisnrants about how X or Y is ruining the game, unprovoked mind you?
Whether or not you think it is particularly severe, the fact is he has made it a point to harass her to some degree, including earlier this month amd often without cause. I have seen not one iota to indicate this is some sort od SJW conspiracy to silence a conservative talking head; I have seen plenty to indicate that this is come uppance for someone who stirs up drama every six months or so, and has a well known and documented feud with other parties. He is an entitled wank whom blames the world for his problems. Prople do not dislike him because he is male, not because he is conservative, not because he is white. But because he is an entitled ass.
If you act like an ass, you get your privileges revoked. Its not a damn witch hunt, its how the damn world works for all functioning adults. Nobody owes a damn thing to anybody in this world. Jeremy needs to bloody well learn that.
While my LGS has had a noticeable drop in attendance, I would attribute that more to the opening of two other stores (And another store that didn't run tournaments now running them) than it is to do with anything involving the game itself. I feel this may be the case in larger metro areas, particularly in the states, as more and more people want to open a game store.
A lot of these details were lost in the narrative building everyone has been making. Unfortunately she has gone dark on social media so I cannot pull up the examples she shared, and she has been mostly silent thisnweek elsewhere.
To be blunt, I am of the opinion that a lot of people crossed the line, amd that its time for Thanks-suspensioning for a lot of people all over the place. Jeremy is not wrong that he is being hate mobbed; he has received death theeats and the like, and thatbis absolutely not right. That doesnt mean he is at all innocent in the matter, just those that engage in the hate mobbing also now need to be dealt with.
She apparently does get paid either WotC for official WotC events and the like, or by the tournament organizer for Grand Prixs if they use her in an official capacity.
I imagine they are independent contractors, however I don't know the details. They do compensate for any official work being done, however.
And it nearly killed the game in the process.
Not of this has anything to do with Christine, whose MTG cosplays are anything but sexualized. THis is just fabricating a "truth" when the reality doesn't fit your narrative. Christine doesn't use overt sexuality to sell her cosplay, at all. None of her promotional material is laying on the sexual layers. She isn't portraying herself as a stripper by making her costumes skimpier and skimpier. This is the exact sort of false narrative that others have been fabricating about her for the sole sake of defending Jeremy. Nevermind that Christine does not do this, or that her MTG cosplay are not sexualized at all. No, no, she is like a stripper because cosplayers are selling their bodies.
The thing, again, is that Christine does not. This entire argument is a fabrication. It has nothing to do with Christine, because it is not something she engages in.
Further, she does not complain about criticism as far as I have seen. She complains about a subsection of people whom have sent her death threats, or insultingly lewd and graphic messages. And then people like Jeremy say she is whining because she doesn't want the attention she is getting, completely misrepresenting what is going on. It is utterly valid for her to complain about people sending her death threats, or telling her how they want to shove their dick up her ***, or other such crap. Forgive the language, but that is the reality of the situation when she was complaining about the messages sent.
She is not complaining about people telling her she's hot. She's complaining about the utterly disturbing ***** people send her, and then Jeremy bemoans that she complains about it. Hell, she didn't even bring Jeremy into these discussions at all. Jeremy decided he was going to interject his philosophical nonsense into the discussion by completely misrepresenting what Christine was complaining about. She was complaining about people sending her death threats or sending her messages about how they want to rape her. Not that she was just uncomfortable because young boys had the gall to think she is attractive and tell her so.
None of this is the issue at all, and it is a narrative being spun by people trying to sell you their truth. The fact is that Christine does not engage in the sort of behavior that these armchair philosophers talk about, and it is intellectually dishonest to frame the situation like that.
It is the entire reason you troll people. Your exact reasons for doing so do not matter, your politics do not matter. If you troll people, you are doing so to make those on the receiving end miserable.
Jeremy goes above and beyond criticism. He points his trolling followers at people, and gloats when they troll them. He actively encourages it.
He posts ***** that has nothing to do with criticizing the person, at all, and instead is solely designed to harass them. Such as this:
https://twitter.com/mtgheadquarters/status/931189044905742338
THere is no criticism about Christine there, she wasn't the topic he was discussing, and she wasn't discussing him at all. He decided to make a public cheap shot at Christine for no reason, at all, and involved her for no reason, at all, in his rant about Anti-Female-Spikism.
He's not being persecuted for his opinions or offending people. He is being punished for being an ass. Newsflash: If you are an adult who acts like a child, you will be treated like a damn child.
None of this, and I mean none of this has anything to do with Jeremy. This is not about off-handedly offending people; this is about him intentionally causing problems for people. There is a world of difference, and framing it as though Jeremy is just speaking his mind and getting punished for off-hand offensive remarks is an absurdly oversimplified version of what he has done.
Crap like this:
https://twitter.com/mtgheadquarters/status/931189044905742338
Is not a critique of Sprankle's cosplay. It is involving her in his "SJWs are ruining Magic" narrative, for no damn reason at all as she was not vocally involving herself in it. At all. He does not just engage in "critique", he engages in active harassment of individuals, and posts like this are not critique. There is not critical substance associated with it, at all.
None of that is the problem that Christine has. The problem Christine has is that she has received death threats, and graphic messages about how people want to rape her. Of course she is going to express disgust at that. That sort of crap is not what any person should reasonably expect.
I'll reiterate this point again. This is not him critiquing her cosplay:
https://twitter.com/mtgheadquarters/status/931189044905742338
It is him lumping her into the groups that he has proclaimed are destroying Magic.
This has nothing to do with Christine's feelings being hurt or just being insulted. That is a false narrative that has been constructed to undersell the situation.
Jeremy is not the devil incarnate. He is an ass, who acts like an ass intentionally to get attention. He whinges and moans when people have a problem with him being an ass, and when his assery goes too far and crosses the line he whinges and moans that he loses his privileges. Sorry, but I am not going to shed a single tear for a whiny brat getting the axe. It's comeuppance, not persecution.
This is not part of his ongoing critique of Christine's cosplay:
https://twitter.com/mtgheadquarters/status/931189044905742338
That is harassment. You may not think it's the end of the world, but that's just mincing words and trying to explain away his behavior.
And when you go over the top, you are held accountable. The people who trolled her are accountable. And to a degree, a person who has made active efforts to encourage his fanbase to troll people he disagrees with should also be held accountable.
When you actively encourage your followers to be trolling asses, and gloat that they are trolling *****s, and actually try to convince them to troll people, you are partly responsible for them when they act like trolling asses. I highly suggest looking into the Milgrim Effect on this one. While Jeremy can't be held completely accountable for everything they do, you bet your ass that he should be held accountable for encouraging them to engage in this behavior.
Playing Magic isn't a protected right. It is a privilege. Privileges are afforded to those who follow the rules and act like an adult. If you don't want to follow the rules, that is fine, but don't whinge about persecution when your privileges are revoked. I don't care, and I don't want to hear it. If he wants to be an edgelord, then he can be an edgelord. When Wizards decides to remove his preview cards, and refuses to acknowledge him, and eventual bans him for it, he has nobody to blame but himself. Nobody forced him to be an ass. He chose it.
Jeremy isn't evil. He's a child who doesn't want to face the consequences for throwing tantrums left and right, and getting his school-yard friends to go spit on people and throw rocks at the people he doesn't like. To bad, friendo. You act like a petulant child, you get treated like one.
Evek ifnthis were true, the insinuation that this is what Sprankle was doing is patently absurd if you see the costumes she wears to GPs and the like. It is just armchair philosophizing deflection lacking any real substance. Wgen youvstart to fully accept your own fabrication as reality, particularlg when reality directly contradicts you, you are gonna have a bad
Like I said, it is in no small part due to a large increase in Game Stores opening. My LGS had FNMS reaching 70 or so people about four years ago on average. Now we have about 40 or so show up. Are people quitting? Well, no, not at all. About 8-12 people go to the newer store that opened that caters specifically to casual, non-competitive crowds, about 15-20 people go to the new store in the sister city, in no small part due to proximity. We also have another shop that didn't run tournaments at all start running FNMs this year, with about 8-12 people showing up there.
All told, I'd say that the area FNM attendence has gone *up* by about 20-30% over the past four years or so, even though attendance at the specific LGS I attend has gone down significantly. A lot of people are opening stores lately, from what I've seen, and that stretches the fanbase significantly. Still, this is part of why WotC profits go up, even though LGS's seem to have a drop in attendence. We are opening stores faster than we gaining new players. Now, I can't speak for New Player acquisition or retention specifically, as I havne't seen said numbers.
It's not that WotC is lying about what is going on, it's that they very possibly may not know why this seemingly paradoxical situation has arisen. Hence why their explanations seem hollow and daft; they likely don't know why sales are up even though average attendance is down. Average attendance is likely down in no small part due to adding more stores that fracture game stores community more and more, driving down average attendance even though the total number of people either hasn't really changed or has increased.
To illustrate my point, if the number of Game Stores doubles, and nothing else changes, then that means that the average attendance drops by half per store. Even if the stores grow at a 25% rate every years (Which is a perfectly reasonable, if high, growth rate), that would take over three full years of growth at that rate to reach attendance levels at the original store that matched it.
Allow me to frame this in a matter that is a bit more clear:
Jeremy has made it a point to argue that Wizards catering to social issues is, in effect, ruining the game. He has made it a point to argue, for instance, that not only was it pointless to make Spike, Tournament Grinder female, but it is actively harming the game because it is pushing social issues on individuals on people who do not want it pushed on them, and it is focusing on things that do not matter. He has equally argued that female cosplayers are more or less predators who at best don't deserve recognition, and at worst are trying to prey on young men who don't know any better. He has made his opinion very clear that Wizards focusing on cosplayers is another route in which they are doing something that actively harms their hobby.
He has, in the past, reveled in making people miserable for the sake of making them miserable. He encourages his fanbase to troll people. He gloats that his fanbase helped him get banned from online communities by helping him troll people.
He then involves, on multiple occasions and without provocation, Christine Sprankle into the conversation about how cosplay is harming the game. He also, a week before this all went down, posted a picture of her with her name in it in his rant about on social justice issues and Spike, Tournament players being female were ruining the game for everyone because of PC-ness. Note that she didn't involve herself in the discussion, and that she didn't make any big or greater issue about it; she posted a picture of herself dressed as the character Spike, and for some reason Jeremy decided to involve her in his argument, without provocation.
It is pretty damn clear that he has, on multiple occasions, heavily insinuated to his followers that Christine Sprankle is part of the reason why Magic is going downhill now. He has insinuated that she is the real problem they need to focus on. For whatever reason he may have had, that is exactly what he is doing because he didn't have to talk about her at all in this light. This isn't a case of one mention six months ago being blown out of proportion; he has made his view on her very clear over the past year and a half, and he has connected her to his narrative of SJWs killing the game as late as a week before she decided to quit. He also knows full well a lot of his followers are trolls, because he freely admits and delights in it. If you tell a bunch of trolls that this person over here is ruining the game, and that they are terrible, what the hell do you think is going to happen? Jeremy knew full well what was going to happen, because he encouraged them to do this before to other people. He delighted in it, in fact. Jeremy went well above and beyond critique of her for her cosplay; he involved her in his greater anti-SJW narrative about how they were destroying the game, and pointed a mob at her for whatever reason he had. He knew full well that the trolls would hound her, because he acknowledged doing this in the past to other people.
He is being called out on this crap, and being held accountable for encouraging his fanbase to be trolls (As well as direct harassment). At some point, when you are a celebrity, you are held accountable for encouraging such behavior. You have influence over people that regular joes and janes do not. He thinks he is some sort of shock-jock similar to Howard Stern or even Larry Flynt; the fact is, these people were vastly more intelligent about their methods, and knew where the line between shock and harassment was.
Yeah... no.
The narrative that he said one mean thing to her in one video six months ago is the narrative I have dispelled on multiple occasions, and is the narrative that people keep repeating. He made a great many statements about her over the past year and a half, and the last time he did was about a week before this crap went down, dragging her into his argument that Spike, Tournament Grinder being female was a terrible thing, and that this is harming the game. I don't know why he felt the need to drag her into that argument, I have no clue why he had to denigrate her appearance in the process, and I have no clue why he decides to harass her, without provocation, on numerous occasions over several months. But he did.
The simple fact is he has a hate-on for her, and has made it clear publicly. He dresses it up as some greater political issue, and dresses it up as him not saying anything about her ever except once, but that's simply lying at this point.
As for your final point, absolutely. I see no real need to dig deeper into the situation at all as far as national politics is concerned.
While the scale is a bit extreme, the truth is this isn't new. Just seems that way as social media is wide spread and rampant, giving instant access of yoir statements to large audiences easily. The US has all been a politically charged nation, to be frank (The Red Scare comes to mind)
And this narrative is woefully misrepresentjng the situation. There are are multiple videos od him berrating her, tweets spanning a year and a half ish, and theblatest tweet involved him insulting her while discussing the female-Spike issue a few days before all of this went down. He has a hate on for spanklr, had insinuated that Wizards supporting her is bad for Magic, and has interjected her into his rants on how their pushing a certain docial agenda is ruining the game.
Look, here's the thimg: at some point you are partly culpable if you constantly imply that a given person is part of the real problem with the game, and you cheer your fans on for trolling people (including instances where he delighted in them helping him get banned or blocked), as well as air your dirty laundry out for the public to see. He also directly harassed on a few occassions, most recently about two weeks ago.
Does this mean the people doing the same to him is acceptable? No, it does not. But that doesn't mean he did not know full well what he was doing. He delights in being an edgelord, and delights in making people miserable and harassing people for whatever reason he may have. Why should I feel any sympathy when it backfires on him? Everything that may be taken away from him is a privilege, not a right. If my child were to act like him, you best believe they would regret. It makes no damn sense to me why we would expect better behavior out of a toddler than we would out of a grown adult.
That actively has nothing to do with it. Any similarity you see is purely imagined nonsense, and any such reasoning is utterly ridiculous deflection being mmade out of desperation for lacking any greater point of argument.
For someone so great at seeing insidious narratives, you are horridly bad at seeing the ones you follow about blindly, without question.
I feel this is a large reason as to why WotC sale figures keep going uo, even thougb it seems like to some that their scene is going down in attendance. If you have 100 people split amongst 4 game stores, it will seem like fewer people than 50 people in one.
Couple this with online sales being a much larger part od the market than it was even 5 years ago, and you have the appearance of a game that is declining, even though the reality is more nuanced.
The vast majority of the people have.
Also, this is not the point of the thread.
First, I am well aware of these talking points. I give them about as much respect as do leftist talking points. Meaningless drivel meant to rile up the base, where people get upset and offended over trhe nonsense while ignoring greater, more important issues.
Second, you mean the events that he has made a point on many occasions to insult Sprankle without cause, up to and including the week before this mess went out? That he includes her in hisnrants about how X or Y is ruining the game, unprovoked mind you?
Whether or not you think it is particularly severe, the fact is he has made it a point to harass her to some degree, including earlier this month amd often without cause. I have seen not one iota to indicate this is some sort od SJW conspiracy to silence a conservative talking head; I have seen plenty to indicate that this is come uppance for someone who stirs up drama every six months or so, and has a well known and documented feud with other parties. He is an entitled wank whom blames the world for his problems. Prople do not dislike him because he is male, not because he is conservative, not because he is white. But because he is an entitled ass.
If you act like an ass, you get your privileges revoked. Its not a damn witch hunt, its how the damn world works for all functioning adults. Nobody owes a damn thing to anybody in this world. Jeremy needs to bloody well learn that.