Gamers Push Back Against Clueless Conservative
Gamers Push Back Against Clueless Conservative
January 16, 2008
Conservative pundit Kevin McCullough absorbed one of life's harsh lessons this week:If you want to condemn, you'd better be right.
McCullough, who savaged Mass Effect with some of the most outrageous nonsense we've ever heard in relation to video games, further raised the ire of the gamer community by following up with nasty generalizations about those who play:
The Gamer-Nerd universe exploded in anger over the tone and a couple of the specifics of my most recent column... If the few who wrote me are indicative of the rest of the gaming universe, we know at least they have passion - for their toy-boxes...
Look, if the Gamer-Nerds need their pervy outlets to find true release and inner peace - then make them drive to the outskirts of town and be forced to frequent those places that no one wants in the community to get them...
The inevitable backlash from the gaming community has popped up on places like Kotaku and in a variety of refutations of McCullough's off-the-wall premise, including this one on GamerDad. And, of course, in individual comments to McCullough's rants.
Penny Arcade, however, may have the most insightful take on what McCullough is up to.
Comments
Unfortunately, like good ole JT, people like him arent the type to admit failure when insulting their way out of a situation seems like the better option.
Most of us however realise you can't insult yourself out of any situation, the hole just gets deeper and deeper.
I wont even dignify his response with a rebuttal, he seems content not to even do any research and take word of mouth comments and extrapolate from them (he seems really repressed, suddenly the tasteful scene of implied sex and he is nitpicking moments that could be explicit content).
He is wrong, and the fact is he wont admitt it because he didnt research the topic accurately to beign with and to hell if he's going to do it now, anyone with jounalistic integrity would have at least made the effort to double check rather than falling back on their own convictions.
:: Raises GamerDad's arm in victory! ::
Winner by Intelligence: GamerDad!
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Fstdt.com Shiny Mirror award :)
Religious self-righteous fanatical morons are the same everywhere, regardless of the specific religion involved.
Also, gamerdad wins.
Also he's telling blatant lies, but that's nothing new to us. The only problem with the internet is that you don't have to post sources. Oh and the porn. All the porn. The porn that is easier to access than say.... the digital bottom in mass effect?
Man, at least JT was funny.
Buh? I'm still confused by this - the game is rated 12 over here and I haven't seen anything in it that should push it any higher.
and the uk are STRICT on ratings beleive me.
could it be infact that mass effect really isnt that offensive *gasp* shock horror.
gamerdad nails it though.
Just like sugary cereal, your kids may moan for it, but if you dont think its appropriate.. err... say no .
If you're prepared to obviously distort, falsify, and misreport on the content on a video game, why not go the whole nine yards and claim to have actually played the game?
It's like a film critic starting a review with, "Now, I haven't actually seen this film in its entirety but . . . ."
yeah, did you read his excuse for that? something about not needing to go to a whorehouse to know its wrong.....
what an idiot
"jim writes
Criminal element among Programmers
Now the problem that must be solved is the freedom and power that is available to computer programmers.
I first programmed a computer in 1950, I trained rooms full of PhDs and college graduates how to use and program a computer. In 1955 I was screaming to the powers at the RAND Corp. that they must do something about the progression from a normal person, to an programmer becoming an electronic addict.
(And just for fun, one of those computer weighed 250 tons, used 50,000 radio tubes, and filled a 4 story building.)
The power given to these criminal minded people is beyond what you can imagine. If you have a local street gang with guns, they at best can kill a few people in their neighborhood, and people a few blocks away are neither aware or concerned.
However, give a few boys out in the woods of the country of Romania a computer, and they can destroy a billion dollars worth of computers and files across the world. No one seems to identify this as a world-wide problem with a large group of criminal minded programmers.
Power corrupts. But the power to make use of a Computer can ruin the world.
You must know there are a million corrupt programmers who would love to break into the Pentagon, steal from the coffers of a bank, to see airplanes crash into the ground, trains crash in to each other, and every other kind of mayhem that can be imagined that is connected to computers.
Until someone puts aside their accounting structure, admits there is a problem, and spends the billions it will cost to correct problems in the Internet, you and all of us are living under the whims of criminals all over the world. "
Game, set, match.
If you don't care much for this blog and think its readers are a mental mess, then why, pray tell, are you still reading this blog and posting comments to it?
I don't care much for eggplant and therefore . . . I don't ever eat it.
Gamer: "OMG ur a totall retard u stoopid fuck mass effffect is the roxx0rz."
McCullough: "Hm. I see your point. Very well, I will retract my statements."
Gamer: "LOLZ!"
I really wish that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory wasn't true. Unfortunately, too many people fail to understand that being an absolute idiot/troll/jackass is not the way to go.
As for this writer, he is a hack. He found video games as a hot topic wrote a crappy bias article that only a right wing christian would take serious and then probably seeded links where ever he could. His figuring was it will get him on the news or at the very least on digg, pushing his hit rating up allowing him to feel important. He should be evaulated as if you had come across him on the street, an insane hobo that is looking for any attention good or bad, feel sorry for him and move on.
Sheppy was referring to Townhall. The comment he quoted is from that site.
AS for the greatness of GamerDad, I whole heartedly agree. I read his response and was well pleased with his no nonsense approach to the whole "controversy" (it is really hard to think of Mass Effect as a controversy.)
That is one reason I haven't written my blog post on Blu-Ray. ;)
1) Make up lies about a medium the know nothing about.
2) Use childish insults and generalizations when they are called on their lies.
3) Think the government should legislate morality.
4) Hate gays, gamers, young people, women's sexuality, etc.
And guess what? They are both motivated by "christian activism". Connect the dots- these people are fools.
My bad.
Make a few wild and baseless accusations about a popular video game, calling for what amounts to censorship, and you can be sure that it'll end up on sites like P-A, kotaku, joystiq, slashdot, and GP... it would be a page from the Jack Thompson playbook of attracting web traffic, if he actually had enough saavy to make his own web site instead of just e-spamming press releases. Although I suppose if you're addicted to googling your own name, it could be in a playbook for getting better results out of that.
Most likely, them two is swapping e-mails as we speak. Peas in a pod.
He's tried a couple time to establish a web presence (e.g., stopkill(dot)org). In fact, he's currently claiming to be establishing "rescuejustice(dot)com" as part of his campaign against the Florida Bar. However, I think that all his attempts end up being hacked to death.
Some of the worst mistakes happened at the hands of people who were convinced that they knew exactly what they were doing. Chernobyl was being operated by a highly experienced team of experts when it blew. People need to stop being convinced that they are always right and open themselves up to learning something. Since when was it such a crime to admit that you might have been wrong?
--
A man goes to a psychiatrist, and tells him "Doc, I think I have an obsession with sex." The doctor agrees to examine him and begins by showing him various drawings. First the doctor draws a square and asks the man to identify it. The man immediately says "sex". Next the doctor draws a circle, which the man again identifies as sex. Thirdly, the doctor draws a triangle, which of course the patient identifies as "sex". The doctor puts the drawings away and says to the patient, "Yes, I do believe t hat you have an obsession with sex." To which the man replies, "I'm not the one with the obsession! YOU'RE the one drawing all the dirty pictures!"
--
I bet this guy is more obsessed with sex than the people he calls "pervy".
As I mentioned before, thousands of gamers have seen that video and not one that I've seen has mentioned that the females breasts changed size between shots, however, Mr McCullough did.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out who was staring at what.....
In fact, he seems to be quite sex-obsessed- no one else got nearly this excited over videogame sexy time.
10/10
http://kevinmccullough.townhall.com/Blog/
I can respect that.
If I read what he said right, I think he was referring to the fact that the two different characters' breasts were different sizes; he'd assumed that the user had created both characters.
My guess, anyway.
It seriously bothers me, games are becoming the scape-goat for everything. Just wait, they'll be blaming video games for terrorism soon too. Wait, too late.
From what I've gathered of his ramblings (while popping pain relievers and placing a wet towel on my head) is that Kevin McCullough has no clue what he is talking about. His discussing video games is like a three year old discussing Quantum Physics. Five minutes of research would have dispelled any false information about the game that he had. The completely false information regarding Mass Effect proves that he was willfully ignorant, and as the police say, “Ignorance is not an excuse."
By contrast, GamerDad's article was sheer poetry. Someone should forward that to "Mr." McCullough.
Most definitely a permavirgin. Genepool wins again!
Huh. He apologized.
I can respect that.
Only in so far as the ratings enforcement. He never did apologize for pretending that this was Barely Legal Lesbo Catholic School Girls Fun Farm Fest III...
I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or what. He thanks gamers for this? He slaps gamers across the face and then apologizes? I'd like for him to clarify what he meant, but I'd probably just be accused of being some sort of perverted "gamer nerd."
"Of course they themselves probably started hiding their collection of Hustler Magazine under their beds when they were eleven and have thus a good idea of how the "letter of the law" differs from the "intent." "
The good old personal attack. You ignore our retorts, quote the idiots, and then accuse us (again) of being repressed porn addicts. Then you take it another step further and call us anarchists. I'm disgusted.
"Many challenges stated that unless I played it myself then I had no business pointing out its objectionably content. Would they say the same of a strip club at the end of their block or hookers knocking at their door? (Well maybe sexually repressed gamer-nerds would...)"
The whole point of this "challenge" was for you to see that Mass Effect isn't akin to a strip club. Mass Effect is NOT porn, nor are the people who play this game are sexually repressed sociopaths. I take personal offense to this.
I read the "apology"
This is far from substantial - I for one would want him to retract his rants on Gamer-Nerds.
If the guy is banking on more traffic to his site, why are people linking to it?
As long as gamers yell at the guy he will continue to insult and rant about it. Sounds like he really likes the attention.
Back on the air this afternoon - 2pm EST. One Hour ONLY!
SOME CULTURE:
GamerNerds from X-box Universe are screaming for my head, because I object to a game that features alien, lesbian, hetero sex - and is being played by 15 year olds! Here's their chance to dialogue about it - starting at the top of the show 2pm: (347)205-9765. (Free call on most cell phones. And in NYC metro area!)
SOME POLITICS:
Will Mitt bring home his first win in Michigan tonight, politicos - let's talk about what a Romney win will mean to the race.
SOME LIFE:
The average human being will lie 88,000 times in their lives, here's an interesting thought - who is the one person in your life that you believe would NEVER lie to you - and why...?
BONUS ROUND:
Manboobs make the case against socialized medicine!
It's not talk-radio without you!
Spread the word - and be by the computer at 2pm EST!
Where he then go on to explain that he found "Forty-five specific portrayals of sexual imagery in the first *120 pages*" (note my emphasis). And who seems deathly afraid that the "diabolical" liberal agenda "disdains" gays and is secretly outing them over the internet (which doesn't sound *at all* like someone's afraid of being outed, nope). I'm sure that some anonymous goons *cough cough* could find more than I coud though (particularly since I just searched google for about two minutes).
Oh, and Kevin honey, don't worry about Us, if you get outed We wont force you to carry around your membership card or attend any of the meetings. ;P
this is probably the best we are going to get even if it may be half arsed.
if ppl continue to attack and insult, thats just what he wants and he can say ' i offered an olive branch but these gamers are obsessed with conflict and degredation'
"i just hope ppl dont keep insulting him now"
I was about to say the same thing.
As I've said on GP's forum : "forgive, but don't forget".
The guy obviously didn't do his homework and went out and made a jackass of himself. However, I don't think the current trend of labeling conservatives overall in this issue is right or any better.
Hey Mccullaugh,
After reading you article on Mass Effect I felt embarrassed for you. You obviously do not understand the gaming industy. They have a system in place to help parents make decisions on what types of games that they should let their children play (ESRB). Mass Effect has a rating of "M" for Mature audiences. This means that children under the age of 17 are not the recomended audience. Now, what you propose is that we take parental control out of the hands of parents and put it into the hands of the government/corperations and let them make the decisions that parents should be making. This is not the solution. If you personaly know of a fifteen year old playing this game, maybe you should talk to the parents of this child and see why they feel that this is ok. Why don't you spend your time and resources to be the number one spokes person for children who smoke since tobacco is way more serious to a young persons health then video games will ever be?
Don't worry about this. We know for a long time that positions concerning video games are out of the Left vs. Right opposition. First, Leland Yee, Hillary Clinton and Roy Burrell are democrats (should I add Joe Lieberman ?). Second, while Bill O'Reilly loathes and despises games, gamers and IPods alike, Sean Hannity loves video games, and Rush Limbaugh agreed not to blame them too easily.
At which point, when you make accusations in a public forum which were not fact checked and known quite honestly blatant lies. I believe that's what one would call slander.
As J. Jonah Jameson once said, "Is not! Slander is spoken! In print, it's libel."
:p
Just as good :)
(Or I said something along those lines.)
This man is out to prove them wrong.
That right there hits the nail on the head of why I really hate people like McCullogh, JT and all those guys. It's not that they hate or don't understand video game, it's that willful ignorance and moral arrogance I can't stand. That sense of superiority that believes that they're right and everyone else is wrong, and that if you think differently from them or live your life in a way other than whatever they define as "normal," you are a deviant and a threat to public safety and the nation.
All my life it seems that whatever I've liked has been on the recieving end of some sort of criticism and attack; whether it was Heavy Metal music, comics, cartoons, Sci-Fi, Horror or even video games. I'm also in an open and non-mongmamous relationship. If these people had their way, I'd be at the very least locked-up and/or expelled from the country, at worst tortured and executed.
It's amazing the level of blind ignorance and intolerance exhibited by these peole, and I have to wonder what it is that makes them so convinced their way of thiking is right and so unwilling to listen to or consider alternative points of view to the point where they have to insult or belittle others? It's just a mystery of human nature I do not understand.
In the wake of such a huge response, he was forced to check his facts and he found out how wrong he was. He had no choice but to make some retractions. It doesn't change the fact that he's still a prejudiced prick.
EZK: It was obviously a joke so I will let you slide with the offending comment removed and a warning.
Of course, his last line of 'rebuttal' sums things up wonderfully:
"I will always speak up!"
Yes, Mr. McCullough. You see, the way free speech works, and that includes video games, even the village idiot, such as yourself, gets to have his say.
One can only hope the voices of reason are enough to drown you out.
His argument fails automatically in that he won't step out of his own fucking blog to back it up. His blog where he can be as scathing as he wants without backlash. He basically does the equivalent of calling a bunch of gang members pansies from his car, then driving away REALLY fast. Hell ,can't even call him a man as a man at least can or will admit to mistakes.
I wonder how many of the well written emails vanished.
Even as a "joke," threatening to rape his daughter is out of line.
Since he's not even bothering to move off of the 'net (to my knowledge), he might just be a little better for us, not to mention easier to monitor without extensive knowledge of the court system.
@Shrike:
Somehow I doubt it... he's only got problems with this one game, half of which is all in his head it seems.
"Old Hickory's Weblog
Public Journal
October 2003 ArchiveWednesday, October 15, 2003
5:50:00 PM EDT Ed Asner Maybe Not a Stalinist
The World Net Daily columnist who suggested that actor Ed Asner had come out as a Stalinist has made a retraction. I mentioned this in an earlier post.
The columnist, Kevin McCullough has provided this transcript of the exchange:
'If you could portray an historical biography and you had an unlimited budget, unlimited support cast and everything you could ask for, who would it be?'
Asner: 'Well, you know something, they've played Hitler, nobody has ever really touched Stalin, it just occurred to me. It's not because I am a liberal or anything like that. Stalin is one big damn mystery, I wonder why nobody has tried it? Many people, you know, speak of the fact that he killed more people than Hitler - why does nobody touch him? It's strange. So, and he was about my size, my height - with a wig I probably could do it.'
So, it appears from this that Asner was expressing the idea that Stalin would be a challenging character to portray."
Half of it, seems more like 99% of it is in his head.
Considering the tone of the anti-BioShock post he wrote, and then the attack on gamers after that, I'd say the guy has a number of serious issues, and that he has done this kind of thing before doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
"By Terry Krepel
Posted 12/6/2004
The recent report by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman detailing misinformation being taught to students in abstinence-only sex education program drew a lot of attacks on the ConWeb, though none on the substance of the study itself.
A Dec. 2 CNSNews.com story provides response by conservatives to the report -- but all of them attack Waxman personally as "a vocal proponent of more federal dollars being spent on condom-distribution programs" and "the same individual that has been defending the federal funding of flirting classes," not addressing what's actually in the report.
WorldNetDaily columnist Kevin McCullough goes a step further in a Dec. 3 column, claiming that some of what was cited in the report as misinformation was actually true.
'It seems some of the 'objectionable facts' that Waxman's 'investigators' spent time focusing on were whether or not women can become sterile from an abortion, whether or not condom failure rates are 15 percent or 30 percent, and whether or not it is possible for a teen to become pregnant through mutual masturbation,' McCullough wrote. All of these facts are easily provable ...'
Getting pregnant through masturbation is a 'fact'? Despite his claim that this is 'easily provable,' McCullough doesn't. And that was the one item for which we'd love to see proof."
I'm begining to suspect that this guy served an apprentince under Jack. Or stole Jack's play-book for his own use.
@JackDon'tKnowJack
Kevin's book was apparently criticized for being an "Anne Coulter Lite" over at Amazon.com
He's no apprentice - he's just a wannabe.
The play-book is the bible...and a healthy dose of unreasonable fire-n-brimstone zealotry.
but wasn't Mass Effect rated M due to the violence content? i was under that impression.
That wasn't really an apology except in the most back-handed manner possible.
He didn't correct the vast majority of the blatant lies he made in the original article.
He didn't apologize for any of the stereotypes he so broadly leveled at the gaming community.
He brought up the FTC study about underage purchases, voluntarily! And he didn't point out that video games are doing better than music AND movies.
No, this guy is a glory-seeking, remorseless asshat. I agree with PA (big surprise), we've said our piece, time to /ignore him and let obscurity swallow him back up.
Indeed.
So, how's the weather? :P
Not an apology so much as an "I'm sorry, but I'm still right.
Coulter actually does her research!
You can disagree with Coulter's conclusions all you want. You can get angry at the bile and invective she throws around. But at least she puts some effort into researching her material.
McCullough, on the other hand, throws crap around with all the bile and invective that Coulter uses without the benefit of fact checking. He's got his 5 minutes of fame on the intertubes to try to sell his book, and he's picking on the "gamer nerds" in hopes of rallying his "meatheads" (this is what he calls his "believers" similar to Limbaugh's "Dittoheads").
I've made it no secret that I am a conservative Republican. I am proud of this.
But McCullough is nothing short of an irresponsible douchebag pandering to the lowest common denominator to sell a few extra books. With all of this added attention he'll probably be able to start eating at TGI Friday's instead of Arby's. Congratulations, Mr. McCullough, you win the internets.
Oh, and if I were Bioware, I'd pound him down in court for libel.
"Meatheads," indeed.
1) They don't exist.
2) They exist, and he revealed his secret hatred for their "perverted" ways, and their love of "rape" simulator games.
3) They exist, never played it, and now get to be used as his scapegoat to throw to the wolves.
Either way, if they exist, he just denigrated and insulted in front of the world. Some "friend" he is...
No, if it was then it wouldn't be rated 12 in UK. Tey have a lower tolerance for violence than we do.
The more I read the more I think that this man doesn't even have an elementary school level of knowledge about sex. His insistence of calling the Mass Effect scene a "sex scene" proves this.
The material he says is in the game just isn't there, it's not debatable. People shouldn't even bother getting worked up about it.
If only everyone could be so reasonable while sticking to their basic principles.
It's a start. We still need to get the truth out, but it's much harder for game supporters because of our ... more zealous (death/rape threat posting) members and the perception that we're going to lie to protect our rights to hand Billy Everypreteen games where you either butcher or have sex with anything that moves.
McCoullough is a dink, but at least he can be bent towards more truth than he typically uses.
There is a difference, it's not only the game being attacked, it's the game and those who play it.
He pulled a JT and decided that we're inferior to him in every way, and refused to apologize by the looks of things.
But does it really come as a surprise? He looks like he should be trying out for the special Olympics and on top of him looking like toad his personality doesn't save him. Repressed wimps like him are going to end the human race with their ZOMG SEX IS EVIL attitude. Poor bastard probably never even touched a girl in high-school.
He pulled a JT and decided that we’re inferior to him in every way, and refused to apologize by the looks of things.
To be fair, he did say:
"Based on the multitude of response by gamers who share my concern for decency in the entertainment of our children, it is obvious that I had been misinformed on at least two points of substance in my original column.
For this I DO apologize to the gaming universe!"
He also admits in his radio show from yesterday that he should have done his homework.
Not a total retraction, but think of how many times JT has ever apologized for anything, or admitted any mistakes at all. Besides, JT thinks he's waging some ongoing crusade; I'd be surprised if this guy ever mentions games again.
My bad then. At least her gave somewhat of an apology.
hmm id buy that :P
never let the truth get in the way of a good story (or your career)
I mean it's rather like the legal threats that get sent to somethingawful. At first the stupidity is funny, but then it just keeps going and becomes kind of sad.
This is exactly what happened with Jack Thompson - some relatively obscure person thrust to international notoriety by undue response from the gaming community.
Now he's got his taste, do you think he's just going to go away??
(note sarcasm)
Actually, Thompson was around and doing his 'Moral Kerbstomping' for a long time before Video Games were his problem. And as for McCullough, you do realise he also already had a history of writing things that cause a great deal of ire, you are correct in assuming that is exactly why he does it. 15 minutes of fame? Perhaps, but better that then even a few people being completely lied to about our hobby, sometimes you have to fix the ignorance one person at a time.
So as bad as this guy's first Mass Effect blog post was, he's definitely no Jack Thompson.
Actually that women DID attack gamers, mostly it was the same things this guy pulled (we're all immature) along with a columbine reference.
And if history repeats itself this issue will all go away soon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073…pr_product_top
its a book written by the author in question
Now i dont normally review things without knowing all the facts and having read it, but apaprently that that is completely ok.
Im sure some people, myself not included, may want to go and review ths book.
Of course that would be wrong and based on no facts whatsoever and i would in no way endorse such actions. Reviewing based on absolutely no knowledge results in getting :
‘one or perhaps two points incorrect’
anyone think it would be an interesting read?
sorry for the double post on the stranglehold thread too. can a mod please delte that one? i had multiple windows open and was dumb!
his book is called MuscleHead Revolution if anyone wants to check it out
i bet not. however he couldnt claim its libelous. or hed be throwing himself in the firing line for the same comments he made.
I still say heads are for brains, not muscles.
Seriously i dont know why this bothers people so much?
As a videogamer im used to having people belittle and insult me, why should this man be treated any differently than every other idiot in my life?(with a blank stare and a light chuckle) I have to say,I stopped caring what others thought about me long ago.
Wow, very nice counterattack. Attack the argument AND the arguer.
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