Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

[Luna Bliss]

15 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

6 hours ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

You're a woman, part of a group who are routinely discriminated against. I would hope that DEI would include women.

As for SL, well misogyny is rife and widely accepted. Abuse of women is glorified and mainstream, just look at some of the things that are sold at events and on the marketplace and you can see this. There are misogynistic groups and popular venues promoting hatred of women. And racism is an issue too, there are loads of racist groups and some venues that promote white supremacy. But I guess people will say "that's just roleplaying".

I guess in polite society it shouldn't be pointed out which gender is the largest consumer of misogynist items? Most of the males in SL wouldn't dare unless the women they are with demanded it.

Stephanie did not blame men but instead pointed out misogyny in SL.  You felt blamed though, hence your need to point the finger at women and away from men.

Finger pointing does no good  though (even if it would be true that women are the largest consumer of misogynistic items), and real abuse is never justified even if someone gives permission. We should not condone abuse. We should assist women in seeking healthier relationships instead of claiming the abuse is okay because they permit it.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

24 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I guess in polite society it shouldn't be pointed out which gender is the largest consumer of misogynist items? Most of the males in SL wouldn't dare unless the women they are with demanded it.

As to the racism, that is just misinformation. I hang out in places where both the dominants and submissive come and the overwhelming majority subscribe to active black supremacist groups. I can in fact only recall seeing one white one and it wasn't very active.

the thing is since at least 50% of females in SL are males in RL, a large percentage of the sl females engaging in misogeny are in fact rl males experiencing it from the other perspective.

Perfectly fine, your second life, your imagination 😂

[Zalificent Corvinus]

49 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I proposed that Zali not base her opinion about diversity inclusion on the one experience she had with games

Despite the post you were replying to clearly indicating that this is in more than one game. That' it's an observable trend in the whole damn industry.

There's a game called Stellar Blade or something along those lines. It's some Japanese game put out by Sony. The main character is female, and Japanese.

 

Gaming Industry Journalists have slammed it for not being diverse and inclusive enough. One wrote that the main character looked like "a sexualised doll" and stated that the games lead dev had obviously "never seen a real woman" because the character has boobs, and isn't UGLY by by Japanese cultural standards.

The character's appearance is based on his WIFE. She's appeared, in a press release video in a bikini, so the Gaming Journalist parasites, and every one else can plainly see the character LOOKS LIKE HER.

 

[Luna Bliss]

4 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

I proposed that Zali not base her opinion about diversity inclusion on the one experience she had with games

Despite the post you were replying to clearly indicating that this is in more than one game. That' it's an observable trend in the whole damn industry.

There's a game called Stellar Blade or something along those lines. It's some Japanese game put out by Sony. The main character is female, and Japanese.

 

Gaming Industry Journalists have slammed it for not being diverse and inclusive enough. One wrote that the main character looked like "a sexualised doll" and stated that the games lead dev had obviously "never seen a real woman" because the character has boobs, and isn't UGLY by by Japanese cultural standards.

The character's appearance is based on his WIFE. She's appeared, in a press release video in a bikini, so the Gaming Journalist parasites, and every one else can plainly see the character LOOKS LIKE HER.

I'm glad all this is being examined and discussed so much in the gaming industry. Sounds cool. This is how change happens, when awareness is facilitated through discussion. Of course some of it has no merit, or can be excessive. Still, the issues are being examined, and that's what counts.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm glad all this is being examined and discussed so much in the gaming industry. Sounds cool. This is how change happens, when awareness is facilitated through discussion. Of course some of it has no merit, or can be excessive. Still, the issues are being examined, and that's what counts.

What it all boils down to is, lets see if we can suck all the fun out of everything. 

Some people want everything to be dour and joyless, to match their own lives

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

9 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm glad all this is being examined and discussed so much in the gaming industry. Sounds cool. This is how change happens, when awareness is facilitated through discussion. Of course some of it has no merit, or can be excessive. Still, the issues are being examined, and that's what counts.

What it all boils down to is, lets see if we can suck all the fun out of everything. 

Some people want everything to be dour and joyless, to match their own lives

It's always the most fun for those with advantages, but not as much fun for those who are being trampled on.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm glad all this is being examined and discussed so much in the gaming industry. Sounds cool. This is how change happens, when awareness is facilitated through discussion. Of course some of it has no merit, or can be excessive. Still, the issues are being examined, and that's what counts.

A games industry company that calls it's self a "Consultancy Group", that BOASTS that it's staff is 100 % non-white, and claims that discriminating against job applicants on the basis of skin colour is "diversity".

A games industry journalist who claims that real women don't look like the games dev's WIFE.

A Microsoft "list of questions for their game devs" that ask if the dev's characters represent enough minorities, are unattractive enough, and display emotions sufficiently inappropriate to the games theme, such as a battle hardened combat veteran NCO showing their "emotional vunerability" in the middle of a firefight, but never asks if the game is actually FUN to play.

A games industry journalist stating that another "Consultancy Group" are NOT injecting D&I into games in an inappropriate way at all, because that's not what they do. Despite the Consultancy Group in question stating explicitly on their own website that this is EXACTLY what they do. Then when questioned in a comment to his "news piece", about blatant racist and genderist comments made by the Company's employees replied "You can't be racist to white people"

 

These idiots are creating a vast pool of anger, and because these idiots CLAIM they are doing it for the LGBTQAI+ community etc, that anger's inevitable backlash gets directed at, the LGBTQAI+ community.

 

These people are not "raising important issues", they are parasites feeding off the industry they are trying to destroy, because they hate people who like FUN.

[Rowan Amore]

You do all realize that a lot of men in those black supremacist groups aren't actually black men in RL?  Some white men make black male avatars because white female avatars often have a specific fetish in regard to black males so they have upped their chances of getting some SLex by quite a lot.    Interestingly, a lot of those white females are also piloted by...white men.

As far as the misogyny goes, SOME women allow it and actively look for it.  Sometimes, we can be our own worst enemies.  

Edited April 11 by Rowan Amore
Added SOME which I had assumed would be obvious but apparently not

[Ayashe Ninetails]

22 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm glad all this is being examined and discussed so much in the gaming industry. Sounds cool. This is how change happens, when awareness is facilitated through discussion. Of course some of it has no merit, or can be excessive. Still, the issues are being examined, and that's what counts.

Without veering too far off-topic, take what you're reading about what's happening in the gaming industry with a huge grain of salt. Not even worth going off to read about it, either. If you are interested in inclusiveness in gaming in general, though, there are some really amazing games in the indie scene that do it so well. 

Anyhoo, back to SL. One thing that's a bit of a challenge is even knowing how diverse the platform is overall. Avatar diversity here is good, but that says nothing about real diversity. Languages spoken here can help figure that out, though, to a point.

 

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

You do all realize that a lot of men in those black supremacist groups aren't actually black men in RL?  Some white men make black male avatars because white female avatars often have a specific fetish in regard to black males so they have upped their chances of getting some SLex by quite a lot.    Interestingly, a lot of those white females are also piloted by...white men.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Some white men make black male avatars because white female avatars often have a specific fetish in regard to black males so they have upped their chances of getting some SLex by quite a lot. 

Personally, even though 99% of guys I date in RL are black (not a fetish, they choose ME), I don't have a desire to be/use a black male avatar in Second Life. 

Heck, making a black female avatar was hard enough, and that choice had nothing to do with fetishes etc.

So, we all have our own reason for being "differently diverse" in Second Life than we are in RL.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

43 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

It's always the most fun for those with advantages, but not as much fun for those who are being trampled on.

So, who exactly is being "trampled on" because a female Japanese character in a game, looks like an actual Japanese female?

 

Exactly what "disadvantaged group" are being oppressed here?

[Luna Bliss]

41 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

I'm glad all this is being examined and discussed so much in the gaming industry. Sounds cool. This is how change happens, when awareness is facilitated through discussion. Of course some of it has no merit, or can be excessive. Still, the issues are being examined, and that's what counts.

Without veering too far off-topic, take what you're reading about what's happening in the gaming industry with a huge grain of salt. Not even worth going off to read about it, either. If you are interested in inclusiveness in gaming in general, though, there are some really amazing games in the indie scene that do it so well. 

That's good to know (better games in the indie scene).  I don't really know much about all this, as I don't play games. But I do remember discussions on GamerGate and how these guys resisted change that would benefit others outside of how they wanted games to be defined. And they became abusive over it.

I did peek a bit into what's going on and am heartened to discover there are so many organizations seeking change.

Edited April 11 by Luna Bliss

[Paul Hexem]

21 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I did pee a bit into what's going on and am heartened to discover there are so many organizations seeking change.

It's worth noting that they have to be careful. In many ways it's doing more harm than good, which is what @Zalificent Corvinus is pointing out.

These things are a lot like a pendulum. You want some back and forth, but if you yank it to one side and throw the whole thing off balance, it's going to swing that much harder back to the other side afterwards.

[Luna Bliss]

5 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

It's worth noting that they have to be careful. In many ways it's doing more harm than good, which is what @Zalificent Corvinus is pointing out.

These things are a lot like a pendulum. You want some back and forth, but if you yank it to one side and throw the whole thing off balance, it's going to swing that much harder back to the other side afterwards.

Only if you take the short view. I take the long view, and accept the present chaos.

It was a terrible struggle, back in the day, even more than what we see with the issues fought over today.  But in the end, women can vote, and Black individuals don't have to sit at the back of the bus.  I'm happy.

[Paul Hexem]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Only if you take the short view. I take the long view, and accept the present chaos.

It was a terrible struggle, back in the day, even more than what we see with the issues fought over today.  But in the end, women can vote, and Black individuals don't have to sit at the back of the bus.  I'm happy.

The long view is even worse than the short view. Too much yanking to the sides instead of gentle balance is gonna break the whole pendulum.

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Paul Hexem said:

7 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Only if you take the short view. I take the long view, and accept the present chaos.

It was a terrible struggle, back in the day, even more than what we see with the issues fought over today.  But in the end, women can vote, and Black individuals don't have to sit at the back of the bus.  I'm happy.

The long view is even worse than the short view. Too much yanking to the sides instead of gentle balance is gonna break the whole pendulum.

There's no gentle balance when change is occurring. People resist -- there's friction.  I'm sure some go too far though, become too extreme, or don't apply the tools for change in the best way possible, so I agree it's sometimes less than optimal in the present.  But even that, I accept as part of change and so look, with hope, to the future instead of the present conflict.

[Paul Hexem]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

There's no gentle balance when change is occurring.

I'm not sure that's true.

The most successful battles for change have always been the ones that wanted equality or fair conditions- said balance. Things being skewed to one side is exactly what we don't want and makes the pushback that much more forceful.

Back to the pendulum- the easiest spot to get to is right in the balanced center.

Edited April 11 by Paul Hexem

[Zalificent Corvinus]

49 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I did peek a bit into what's going on and am heartened to discover there are so many organizations seeking change.

Blatantly racist and sexist organisations who discriminate against almost everybody.

 

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

People resist

And in most of these cases they are right to.

 

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

But even that, I accept as part of change and so look, with hope, to the future instead of the present conflict.

I'm sure that's exactly what a certain man with a stupid lip-fur attachment said when ordering his army to invade every country in central Europe. What warmonger doesn't look forward to the day when they have crushed and oppressed their chosen enemies, right?

 

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

It's always the most fun for those with advantages, but not as much fun for those who are being trampled on.

So I'll ask again, who exactly is being "trampled on" because a female Japanese character in a game, looks like an actual Japanese female?

Exactly what "disadvantaged group" are being oppressed here?

 

11 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

There's no gentle balance when change is occurring

What exactly is the "benefit" in preventing female game characters from looking like actual females?

How do you justify the attempts to ban "attractive people" from games with the rants about wanting to end "body shaming" when what is being done IS "body shaming"?

How is it "diversity & inclusion" to make a game where you can ONLY play the character chosen to be deliberately anti diversity and anti inclusion, where is the "make your own character look how you want" option?

 

 

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Paul Hexem said:

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

There's no gentle balance when change is occurring.

I'm not sure that's true.

The most successful battles for change have always been the ones that wanted equality or fair conditions- said balance. Things being skewed to one side is exactly what we don't want and makes the pushback that much more forceful.

Here's the trick -- if you respond appropriately to the person/group who wants change (equality in this case) they have no need to push so hard. If you instead demonstrate that you really don't understand their position they will push harder until you do. The disadvantaged one is the side we should consider first, as they have been harmed.  It's your inability to have empathy, or to acknowledge their pain, that causes the trouble in other words -- the excess chaos.  I've never seen you acknowledge the other side as having any merit, but instead see any mention from the aggrieved person/group as an excuse to fight and stir up trouble, even if in partial jest.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

51 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

That's good to know (better games in the indie scene).  I don't really know much about all this, as I don't play games. But I do remember discussions on GamerGate and how these guys resisted change that would benefit others outside of how they wanted games to be defined. And they became abusive over it.

I did peek a bit into what's going on and am heartened to discover there are so many organizations seeking change.

Yeah, more of the same, pretty much. I just ignore all the flailing and keep on enjoying seeing myself and others positively represented in games for the first time in...well...ever. A lot of indie studios all over the world are just doing their thing right now. As someone who's been gaming steadily since the early 80s, I'm having a good ole time (minus waiting for Sword of Symphony's development - omg I need that game in my liiiiiiiiife).

SL kind of benefits from some of this, in a way, I would think. I know I certainly came here for the first time because I was told I could more accurately represent myself with SL's flexible customization system, and that was way before mesh. I don't even want to talk about what some of my gaming characters looked like ages ago. 😩

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The disadvantaged one is the side we should consider first, as they have been harmed

So I'll ask again, who exactly is being "trampled on" because a female Japanese character in a game, looks like an actual Japanese female?

Exactly what "disadvantaged group" are being oppressed here?

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I just ignore all the flailing

Oh great, and I'm over here waving my arms, trying to get your attention!

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

20 hours ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Outside of the LGBTQ+ side; SL has a very bad record on this. There's always been a very high tolerance for racism, and an even greater tolerance for misogyny. 

YES! LL really supports LGBTQ events on their own official channels. Women's day was ignored. 

Misogyny is rampant in SL.

[Love Zhaoying]

Ok, so Second Life gets a "bad score" on "Women" (misogyny, ignoring Women's Day, etc...)

..Yet most users are Women (AFAIK). That does not sound very smart at all of Second Life / Linden Lab!

 

[Persephone Emerald]

9 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

So I'll ask again, who exactly is being "trampled on" because a female Japanese character in a game, looks like an actual Japanese female?

Exactly what "disadvantaged group" are being oppressed here?

Is this happening in SL? This thread is supposed to be about Second Life, not the gaming industry as a whole.