The thing that confused me about PAX's diversity hub thing is that PAX itself has been fairly open about giving people platforms to talk about diversity topics in the past. They already have an anti-booth babe and anti-harassment policy in place. They hosted Fat, Ugly, or Slutty panels and have had a top female game characters of all time panels and all kinds of stuff. From what I had heard prior to this, PAX, unlike PA, actually has a decent reputation, other than the Dickwolves comments during that one panel. And when I looked at their schedule from last year, I saw, without actually delving into the actual descriptions, like twelve events that were directly stated to have been about some marginalized group or discussion thereof, and like five other events where diversity topics were more than likely brought up. So it's not like PAX is a horrible horrible place, it's that the Penny Arcade guys trend toward douchiness, Gabe moreso than Tycho. Like I kind of see PAX (and previously, PAR) as being separate from PA itself, though obviously they're related. I mean if you go you're still giving them money so you can't really separate them, but at least in theory, it doesn't seem like Gabe or Tycho have much to do with how the convention itself is run.
But yeah, I don't know that I would ever feel comfortable going to the convention anytime soon. The biggest problem is that Gabe doesn't learn from his mistakes. Like after the dickwolves thing you'd expect that maybe he'd learn to shut up about things he's never had to deal with, but no, let's make some awful comments about people who identify as trans. Fantastic. At the same time, if all the people who think they're shits leave, that leaves an echo chamber where these people don't get challenged. It's a weird situation where honestly I'm not sure anyone wins.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-04-16 01:31 pm (UTC)But yeah, I don't know that I would ever feel comfortable going to the convention anytime soon. The biggest problem is that Gabe doesn't learn from his mistakes. Like after the dickwolves thing you'd expect that maybe he'd learn to shut up about things he's never had to deal with, but no, let's make some awful comments about people who identify as trans. Fantastic. At the same time, if all the people who think they're shits leave, that leaves an echo chamber where these people don't get challenged. It's a weird situation where honestly I'm not sure anyone wins.