I don’t blog much anymore, so when I do think about posting something, I always wonder if it’s important enough to warrant sitting at the top of my site for days, weeks, possibly months.
This is just notice that I have removed two webcomics from my sidebar links. One, Red String, because the story is over. It was a good story and I really enjoyed it!
The other is Penny Arcade, which I have removed because of this issue. My internal debate over mentioning it wasn’t so much about whether or not it was important, but over whether or not I wanted to open myself up to abuse. I mean, I really don’t. For the most part, people don’t know me online. Mostly that’s because I’m not particularly important in any way, but it’s also because I’ve never made a strong stand on anything controversial enough to warrant attention. I don’t go picking fights. I also simply don’t tend to write about things when I know there is a large organized group that might disagree and make me a target to prove a point.
So why am I saying anything now, even this little peep of something that probably won’t get noticed anyway, despite the fact that I’m utterly terrified? Because silence is complicity, and I really don’t want anyone to think I support the kind of behavior we’ve seen here. I get disagreeing, I even think the original comic is funny, but I do not get being so callous to other people’s feelings and situations. Not everyone has had the same experience in life, and we should all be sensitive to that.
Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Damsel in Distress Part 3 includes an excellent discussion of “ironic sexism” and how people claim they’re being subversive when they are really simply continuing the status quo from their position of power. And here’s a comic illustrating the difference between “dark humor” and exploitative humor.