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IndieStatik Founder apologizes for "inappropriate" comments to female game dev

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jschreier

Member
Didn't think he'd be exposed so quickly. Good job as always, Jason.

This guy is gross. Seriously. I just can't put into words how fucking vile he is. He totally deserves to be exposed. There's no excuses and no explanation for what he did, and he had this coming. Let's hope he doesn't work as part of the games press again.
If there's something else you think people should know about, I'm at [email protected].
 

Harlequin

Member
Yeah, in fact, if you think about it she was kinda asking for it.

Seriously? If you disagree with me, at least use your head and reply with rational, logical arguments. You're likening these harmless one-off Facebook comments to rape. Get a grip.
 

PetrCobra

Member
Look at all the gentlemen here out for blood. I guess none of you ever got shitfaced and did something you regretted the next day or whenever someone told you about it.
Well, I did. But that's okay because I can safely say that I have never put a private conversation online for people to see, to discredit someone in it, after I ignored anything the other person said that I didn't like and before I gave them a chance to apologize at least. And yes, I know that her friend put it online.
 
What a gross individual. Talk about uncomfortable, and he wouldn't drop it, either. I can't believe she'd respond to him after that, or not tell him to stop because it's entirely inappropriate and unasked for. People like him don't understand unless they are explicitly told to back off, or better yet, just ignore him. She tries to avoid addressing the issue and responds to other aspects of his messages, but that only makes him think that what he was doing was okay. A lot of women, unfortunately, are confronted with sexual harassment all their lives, and learn avoidance defense mechanisms.
 

x3sphere

Member
That Sunday conversation looks like it's missing a post from her. What was he saying "I know" about? Looks like a reply to something she wrote:


RoEJZUf.png

The whole exchange doesn't make the 'I was drunk angle' look good tbh... he seems very coherent and the grammar is good also. If he was seriously drunk I'd be surprised if he was forming sentences like that.
 
Look at all the gentlemen here out for blood. I guess none of you ever got shitfaced and did something you regretted the next day or whenever someone told you about it.
Well, I did. But that's okay because I can safely say that I have never put a private conversation online for people to see, to discredit someone in it, after I ignored anything the other person said that I didn't like and before I gave them a chance to apologize at least. And yes, I know that her friend put it online.

No, you're just projecting to make yourself feel better about what you did.
 

Llyranor

Member
I'm going to assume you're a straight male and ask you this question: would you consider it sexual harrassment if a woman sent you similar messages? Be honest, please. I'm pretty sure most men wouldn't (I as a gay guy know I wouldn't if a guy texted me that sort of thing - if it were a one-time deal, that is) and the fact they feel that this is sexual harrassment only proves that gender equality is still not a reality. It won't be so long as men (and women, for that matter) feel the need to protect women from other men because they're not able to protect themselves. Do I like the way he talked to her or condone that kind of behaviour? No, I don't. Especially not considering this was a journalistic inquiry and such comments are completely unprofessional. But do I think the reaction this has been getting online is justified? Definitely not.

Someone I had a strictly professional relationship with? Definitely sexual harassment.

If a woman hits a man, do you consider it conjugal violence? Or does it not matter because 'women are weaker than men'?
 
I'm going to assume you're a straight male and ask you this question: would you consider it sexual harrassment if a woman sent you similar messages? Be honest, please. I'm pretty sure most men wouldn't (I as a gay guy know I wouldn't if a guy texted me that sort of thing - if it were a one-time deal, that is) and the fact they feel that this is sexual harrassment only proves that gender equality is still not a reality. It won't be so long as men (and women, for that matter) feel the need to protect women from other men because they're not able to protect themselves. Do I like the way he talked to her or condone that kind of behaviour? No, I don't. Especially not considering this was a journalistic inquiry and such comments are completely unprofessional. But do I think the reaction this has been getting online is justified? Definitely not.

Of course it is. Sexual harassment is sexual harassment, and it's not okay in any context.
 

Marcel

Member
I'm going to assume you're a straight male and ask you this question: would you consider it sexual harrassment if a woman sent you similar messages? Be honest, please.

If it's unwanted and offensive to the targeted party, it's harassment, regardless of orientation or gender.
 

Omikaru

Member
You do know every games journalist outfit within this galaxy will be hitting you up for inside info right?

wow...I just...lol wow

Is there a history?

If there's something else you think people should know about, I'm at [email protected].

Oh Jesus. Sorry, I think you've all misunderstood me here. It's my fault as I didn't express myself clearly, as it's past midnight where I am and I'm tired. I have no info on this that isn't in the public domain, sorry. I meant exposed from the point when the anonymous Facebook chat was posted on Twitter, to less than an hour later where his name and site is posted on the front page of Kotaku. :/

Sorry, I didn't intend to imply that I had any other knowledge on this. I wrote a really long post (mostly about depression), and then filed it down to what you all quoted which was basically my opinion on today's events written really poorly, and yeah. Blegh. Sorry.
 

J.ceaz

Member
I can't believe people in here saying this was blown out of proportion SMH. You're basically saying people should be allowed to sexually harass their professional peers/colleagues.
 

Majanew

Banned
Look at all the gentlemen here out for blood. I guess none of you ever got shitfaced and did something you regretted the next day or whenever someone told you about it.
Well, I did. But that's okay because I can safely say that I have never put a private conversation online for people to see, to discredit someone in it, after I ignored anything the other person said that I didn't like and before I gave them a chance to apologize at least. And yes, I know that her friend put it online.

How can that female dev keep her cool. It really makes it seem like she is used to this shit.

Being drunk is such a bullshit excuse.

He wasn't drunk. She asked and he said "no, just fat thumbs"

It's just one of his excuses because he got busted. His dead brother is his other excuse. Now, feel sorry for him so he can go do worse, to cope with his hard life.
 

2San

Member
Look at all the gentlemen here out for blood. I guess none of you ever got shitfaced and did something you regretted the next day or whenever someone told you about it.
Well, I did. But that's okay because I can safely say that I have never put a private conversation online for people to see, to discredit someone in it, after I ignored anything the other person said that I didn't like and before I gave them a chance to apologize at least. And yes, I know that her friend put it online.
So do you get shitfaced for 8+ hours as well.
 

Riposte

Member
I don't really consider the guy a total monster, because I don't think he was leveraging any power over her. Completely unprofessional, but without that element I don't know how much ire a misguided horny drunk (possibly looking too far into a friendship?) should create. (EDIT: Which isn't to say "no ire", more like, maybe not "he must be immediately removed from the industry/beyond redemption")

I like how people in this thread are still upset about Leighs appearances on a podcast after all these years, keep up the wonderful work guys, doing truly important work yelling about the internet lady who liked the Metal Gears and got a number wrong.

Because she totally didn't bring it up in her self-obsessed way of thinking.

I find that Leigh has no redeemable traits, so I'm not above criticizing her when she does something annoying yet again.
 

Bedlam

Member
Sadly standard issue death and rape threats most woman in this industry deal with.
There are fucked up people out there but let's not pretend that everyone sent her a death threat. The overwhelming majority was just incredibly annoyed by her bombcast appearance. And I'm also pretty sure a couple of particularly polarizing male personalities in the industry have received those kind of twitter messages as well. Hell, the Bioware writers may have received death threats for the ME3 ending. Nope, that shit just comes with the territory (the internet).

I like how people in this thread are still upset about Leighs appearances on a podcast after all these years, keep up the wonderful work guys, doing truly important work yelling about the internet lady who liked the Metal Gears and got a number wrong.
I completely forgot about it until she brought it up again.

Look at all the gentlemen here out for blood. I guess none of you ever got shitfaced and did something you regretted the next day or whenever someone told you about it.
Well, I did. But that's okay because I can safely say that I have never put a private conversation online for people to see, to discredit someone in it, after I ignored anything the other person said that I didn't like and before I gave them a chance to apologize at least. And yes, I know that her friend put it online.
Look at the timestamps. No excuse.
 

Harlequin

Member
If it's unwanted and offensive to the targeted party, it's harassment, regardless of orientation or gender.

Is this offensive, though? That's supposed to be a genuine question. I wouldn't have considered it offensive if it had been directed at me. I think basing what is and isn't sexual harrassment on whether the recipient found a comment offensive is rather dangerous, considering how much people's opinions on what is offensive are going to differ.
 

Valnen

Member
Was it wanted? No? Sexual harassment. The genders aren't really the point.

Is there more to this story? She doesn't tell him to stop in those shots of the facebook conversation. If it was unwanted it's certainly harassment. I suppose the fact that he apologized is direct evidence of it being harassment, though the Kotaku article and apology don't seem to mention the victim being offended by this at all.
 

Orayn

Member
Do I like the way he talked to her or condone that kind of behaviour? No, I don't.

Just a little friendly advice on how to be a better poster: If that's what you were trying to say, it would have been prudent to emphasize that over the MRA thread derailment.
 

Hubb

Member
Sadly standard issue death and rape threats most woman in this industry deal with.

I like how people in this thread are still upset about Leighs appearances on a podcast after all these years, keep up the wonderful work guys, doing truly important work yelling about the internet lady who liked the Metal Gears and got a number wrong.

I'm pretty sure any post that even seems to be upset with her is more about her turning this real issue into being about her.
 
Seriously? If you disagree with me, at least use your head and reply with rational, logical arguments. You're likening these harmless one-off Facebook comments to rape. Get a grip.

"One-off" comments that lasted for two hours, and then resumed the next morning.
 

SmokyDave

Member
Fair enough, then feel free to get outraged over this. I'm pretty sure you're an exception, though.
Whilst I wouldn't be outraged, if a female colleague of mine started messaging me about putting her vagina on my penis, I'd ask her if she was fucking high and warn her that my missus would break her face if she found out. Then I'd advise her to work on her dirty talk because terms like 'penis' and 'vagina' ain't doing shit for anyone.
 

JDSN

Banned
I'm going to assume you're a straight male and ask you this question: would you consider it sexual harrassment if a woman sent you similar messages? Be honest, please.

Ill laugh the first two ones, but look at the time stamps, its two hours of that shit and then some more at 6am just in time for breakfast, so yeah thats sexual harassment. Not sure why you think that our outrage is not justified while your outrage about our outrage somehow is.

I like how people in this thread are still upset about Leighs appearances on a podcast after all these years, keep up the wonderful work guys, doing truly important work yelling about the internet lady who liked the Metal Gears and got a number wrong.

People are expressing that its kinda shitty that she is trying to make this story about her when its about sexual harassment, you know, the think that mostly happens to women that we should cull. Its kinda silly that you try to turn this into a "boy vs girl" thing when she is the one doing the harm here.
 
Is there more to this story? She doesn't tell him to stop in those shots of the facebook conversation. If it was unwanted it's certainly harassment. I suppose the fact that he apologized is direct evidence of it being harassment, though the Kotaku article and apology don't seem to mention the victim being offended by this at all.

She did give one piece of evidence to show she was perturbed by it...when she said "Are you tipsy?"

The burden isn't on her to demonstrate her victim status in a situation like this. It's very possible that she dismissed / joked about the subject because she was scared / didn't want to provoke anything.
 
Whilst I wouldn't be outraged, if a female colleague of mine started messaging me about putting her vagina on my penis, I'd ask her if she was fucking high and warn her that my missus would break her face if she found out. Then I'd advise her to work on her dirty talk because terms like 'penis' and 'vagina' ain't doing shit for anyone.

Sir can I inquire about you putting your throbbing rod in my quivering quim.
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
I don't believe in Boycotts, but seeing as I think I might have watched a total of maybe 2 IndieStatik videos in my time, I'll just continue not visiting their site. Simple.

I get all my Indie information from IndieGames.com and RockLeeSmile and sometimes Nerd3 when he does them or TotalBiscuit. (I don't care, I don't want to hear it.)

That was just cringeworthy. Like WTF wow.

And even if the roles were reversed, yes it would still be harassment and completely inappropriate. Especially in a work environment.
 

Harlequin

Member
"One-off" comments that lasted for two hours, and then resumed the next morning.

Ah, you're right. Didn't see that the last one was posted on the next day. Still, if it ended after that, I'd consider it all part of one conversation. Although that does place it a little closer to harrassment territory in my opinion.
 
I'm going to assume you're a straight male and ask you this question: would you consider it sexual harrassment if a woman sent you similar messages? Be honest, please. I'm pretty sure most men wouldn't (I as a gay guy know I wouldn't if a guy texted me that sort of thing - if it were a one-time deal, that is) and the fact they feel that this is sexual harrassment only proves that gender equality is still not a reality.
Sorry, but if a man harasses me with explicit messages and continues to do so after showing no interest in reciprocating, then I'm not exactly going to feel flattered about it. I've lost a friend that way, and it's not very comfortable for the recipient.
 

Zabant

Member
For the moment I think he should exit the industry until he shows good evidence that he has recovered from his alcoholism and brothers death.
 

FStop7

Banned
Could someone summarize or link the Leigh Alexander thing? (not the tweet, the thing the tweet is talking about) I'm completely lost on that half of the thread's discussion

She showed up wasted on the E3 Bombcast 2 years in a row. On both occasions she was disruptive and rude. The second time around was worse. She was called out on it (by the audience and some peers) and tried to cover up her bad judgement by hiding behind a poorly constructed defense consisting of "you're all bros and you just hate me because feminism." Which is not only insulting to real feminist issues, it's also insulting to the intelligence of anyone who was listening to the show.
 
She took the embarrassingly bad flirting attempts in stride though. I give her credit.

That said, if I did something like this, I wouldn't give a long and drawn out sobbing apology like this, as if I murdered people. I would make a joke about it with an apology perhaps slipped in, because really, his texts are so bad they're actually funny. Even so, his ineptitude is out there on the internet now so he might never fully recover from it.
 
Ah, you're right. Didn't see that the last one was posted on the next day. Still, if it ended after that, I'd consider it all part of one conversation. Although that does place it a little closer to harrassment territory in my opinion.
they're talking about work, and it was not reciprocated at all. not sure what else you would call it. maybe 'pathetic and weird', but an unsolicited text message to a work colleague at 6am on Sunday about how good you are at making women cum... I'd probably call it harassment, too.
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
To be completely honest, I don't get the outrage. Were his comments strange and desperate? Sure. Were they inappropriate for a journalistic inquiry? Yes. But I don't think they're anything to get upset over (at least not for the reasons for which people are getting upset over it - if they got upset over it because of his lack of journalistic integrity, I would be inclined to agree). We're all adults, sex and sexual desire is something natural that we should be able to deal with without attaching shame or our dignity to it. I mean, the only reason people get upset over this is because a man said this to a woman. Had it been the other way around no one would have given a fuck. Of course, sexism is a problem in the gaming industry, a lot of females in the industry do get treated unfairly and there is a line that should not be crossed in that regard (not by men and not by women). However, I don't think this is crossing that line and it's being blown way out of proportion. Another example of people pointing the finger at others so they can feel better about themselves and of the amazing double standards that still exist in our society in regards to gender.
... okay firstly, WOW. This was just baffling to read.

Secondly, this isn't him asking her out or something. This is him making hugely inappropriate comments to a woman he's supposed to have a relatively professional relationship with, and with her having provided zero reason to assume that this was okay. Next time you're at work, ask a female coworker to do you a favor, and in return, offer to perform cunnilingus on her. Come back and tell me just how incredibly uncomfortable her face looks right as you ask that.

Thirdly, no, if it were a woman saying this shit to a man and were posted for public consumption, it too would be scrutinized and come off as super sleazy. This isn't some biased slant. It's a fucking sleazeball being a creepy fucking sleazeball.
 

Harlequin

Member
Sorry, but if a man harasses me with explicit messages and continues to do so after showing no interest in reciprocating, then I'm not exactly going to feel flattered about it. I've lost a friend that way, and it's not very comfortable for the recipient.

I'm not saying it's a great thing to do or that I'd be overjoyed by it. I'm just saying I don't find it to be as despicable or awful as everyone here makes it out to be.
 

SeanNoonan

Member
My spine could hardly take the cringe, though I'm not going to lie, I was laughing pretty hard by the end of this.

...and then I thought about all involved. Shitty for all involved, though the lasting damage will be on Josh, that aint gonna go down well in indie circles.

Weird that she didn't just say "whoa there, hold your horses, let's not go there"... it sucks, but she's gotta be used to it by now, having worked with so many nerdy men.

A couple of women I know in the industry have said they have difficulty knowing when they can or can't go for a drink or coffee without them leading guys on - it's pretty rough and awkward. She should have nipped it in the bud, but really it's on him.
 

Valnen

Member
David Jaffe is seriously fucking up how I view him as a person.

He has a fair point, she really should have told him to stop if she was offended. I mean he even says what the guy said was out of line. Is that not a position you agree with?
 

SmokyDave

Member
Sir can I inquire about you putting your throbbing rod in my quivering quim.
Now that's what I'm talking about, a little coquettish flirtation. No need to be flashing your ankles on the first conversation.

And why do these people always feel the need to state that they give great head and they love it? Why is there always some '14 more nerves' biology textbook shit thrown in? It just sounds like a pre-emptive coping mechanism for not being able to bring the goods in other areas. So creepy that my skin has crawled off my body and now I look like an extra from Beetlejuice.
 
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