Web Crush Wednesdays: Star Trek Novelty Twitter

Here’s the funny thing about Star Trek: for a show about the future, its most beloved installments were made in the distant past. Next Generation has been off the air for twenty years, and most of its run is closer in time to the lo-fi 60’s original than the present day. Yes, J.J. Abrams has been mucking about in the canon lately, but that guy doesn’t get it. It’s all lens flares and space battles, rather than the space-procedural we all loved.

So, how do you fill the gap? Fanfiction? Yes, please. Speculation about a TV reboot?  Definitely! But there’s something even better:

Ladies, gentlemen, and the fine folk of all other genders, I give to you: STAR TREK NOVELTY TWITTER.

Wait, is Riker wearing a bathrobe?

Fangirls on Twitter: You Keep Doin’ Your Thing

Want to know what’s not new in the world? People ragging on girls liking things and the methods by which they choose to like things.

—via Giphy

This old song and dance has been going on for as long as one could probably imagine, and we’ve all been witness to it: from the small microaggressions of people condescendingly calling girls “cute” if they express an interest in something to the more blatant, angry shut downs of those who don’t value the opinions of those who don’t fit into the typical boy’s club or adhere to their mindset. I know in my life one of the most blaring examples have been from the (slowly dying, thank god) Gamergate controversy, in which the experiences of female game fans and developers were getting talked over because the patriarchy in the gaming community might not have been as solid as sexist dudebros had come to believe. But really, it doesn’t take a fiasco like that to see what’s going on: girls have been called out as “fake geeks” ever since men decided to pretend that women didn’t like nerdy things as hard as they did. (Never will I forget being called a fake geek because I had an opinion on something about DC Comics—and I don’t even claim to be a fan of Western comics.) While these things are unfortunately expected in any sort of of group (movies, sports—it’s not limited to stereotypical geeky things), I would have hoped that at least semi-respected news outlets and the people who write on them would at least have the good sense to take a step back and consider that this kind of thing might just be a little fucked up. Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t. And just as unfortunately, sometimes we get articles like Radhika Sanghani’s, as was published on The Telegraph on August 2^nd.

Joss Whedon, Driven Off Twitter by “Feminazis?” Um, No.

Gentle Readers,

A couple of days ago, Joss Whedon left Twitter. Packed up his bags and went, leaving us with this final tweet:

That’s kind of a shame. Joss has long been a writer/producer/dreamer of some of my favorite ideas and I really enjoyed his little corner of my Twitter feed. But what is much more important than that is why he left. After Age of Ultron was released, Joss received a non-trivial amount of Twitter vitriol, which you can investigate here, about the portrayal of Black Widow in the film. I had some issues, but nothing I want to get into here, and certainly nothing I want to scream into Twitter about. But what’s remarkable was the assumption that these tweets were the reason that Joss left Twitter. The article I just linked above, at time of writing, assumes that to be true, it seems.

More importantly, it was lent credibility by Patton Oswalt tweeting:

Yep. There is a “Tea Party” equivalent of progressivism/liberalism. And they just chased Joss Whedon off Twitter. Good job, guys. Ugh.

—Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) May 4, 2015

You know, I was really bothered by Black Widow’s characterization in Age of Ultron. I thought she was simpering and her on-screen time was wasted. I thought that attempts to show a softer side of her just made her feel a little less relevant, and made me wonder if Joss Whedon really understands the word “feminism”. The prima nocta joke just wasn’t funny, much less in good taste or appropriate anywhere, really. But does it make me want Joss Whedon to rot in hell?

rot in hell sexist piece of trash @josswhedon

— amrit (@zouiam) May 2, 2015

Does it make me want to curse him out on Twitter, to fill his feed with profanities so that he knows that he’ll never work again in this business?

@josswhedon i am gonna do everything in my power to destroy your career the way you destroyed natasha romanoffs character you piece of shit

— niki (@clintpietros) May 2, 2015

Eh. Probably not. But just the same, all people who respect free speech on the Internet should be ashamed that Joss Whedon was driven off Twitter.

There is just a single solitary problem with that: he wasn’t. In Whedon’s own words: “That is horseshit.” 

This Week in Video Game Things That Are Pissing Me Off

So, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is upcoming for the PS3 and PS4. That’s probably pretty exciting news, and the game will serve as capstone to the MGS era of Hideo Kojima’s career. So, a reasonably big deal. In case you didn’t see it, here’s the trailer from E3:

Okay. So, the other day, a funny thing happened. Dan Ellis, who works for 343i, a game developer known for its work on the Halo series, got on Twitter and called out Kojima on some new character design. MGSV will feature a sniper character, supposedly fairly important to the story, named Quiet. She appears to the right. Ellis referred to the character design as “disgusting,” and would later go on to tweet that he was in an industry “full of man babies.”

Web Crush Wednesdays: An Eldritch Horror for the Third-Wave Net Feminist.

If you’re a denizen of the internet, or better yet, a citizen of the internet, a so-called netizen, then you’ve probably seen a feminist remixing of one of your favorite persons, real or fictional. For example, there’s FeministHulk, the twitter account that’s equal parts Bruce Banner and bell hooks. (for whom he make capitalization exception!)

HULK TIRED OF FETISHIZATION OF VIRGINITY

If the Hulk isn’t enough patriarchy-smashing hotness for you, there’s also Feminist Ryan Gosling, which, frankly, is just a dream come true. Also there’s a book out now which you could pick up if you were so inclined. Now maybe Ryan Gosling isn’t quite your thing. Maybe you don’t have eyes. Maybe you aren’t into the gentlemen. Maybe you don’t find critical theoretical feminism from the mouths of babes such as Gosling believable. Well, do I have a horrifying eldritch cosmic entity for you! Feminist Yog-Sothoth, who by the way has no time for your irrelevant first-amendment bullshit whenever someone tells you they find rape jokes unfunny.

Created by Dave, over at Dave-You-Fool, Feminist Yog-Sothoth does not engage in victim-blaming nonsense—

—doesn’t succumb to nice-guy craziness—

—but isn’t a TERF or anything awful like that.

Basically, what I’m saying is that if Feminist Yog-Sothoth had red hair, it would be my ideal significant otherwordly omniscient being. Especially now that Lavinia Whately is out of the picture. Go check it out today!

Web Crush Wednesdays: FeministTaylorSwift

I don’t know about you guys, but I am not a fan of Taylor Swift. I don’t like her music because it always focuses on the most vapid, clichéd high school problems. Seriously, until very recently I actually thought Taylor Swift was only like eighteen and had just graduated from high school. But most of all, I don’t like the messages that Taylor Swift sends with her music. Many of her songs seem to support ideals of submissive, male-dominated women, but my biggest problem is her songs that describe how anything stereotypically feminine is bad.

For example:

She wears high heels,
I wear sneakers.
She’s cheer captain,
And I’m on the bleachers.

Anytime I hear this song I just want to send Taylor Swift a gold star and congratulate her on not being stereotypically feminine. Good for you, Taylor Swift! What a special and unique little snowflake you are!

Web Crush Wednesdays: The YUNiversity

What do we all love? Internet memes. What else do we love but sometimes need a little help with? Or rather: “What else do we all love with which we sometimes need a little help?” Grammar. I mean: “Grammar is something we love with which we sometimes need help.” Sometimes sentence-making and word-choosing doesn’t work out so well and we end up with really long phrases which may or may not use the write words or conjugations and maybe we even need to re-rite the whole sentence because it’s not good enough. Well, in those oh-so-rare occasions the YUNiversity is there to help!

When you have a grammar question you can send it to The YUNiversity. Not only will you get an answer, you’ll get a comedic answer utilizing some of your favorite internet memes. Some of the grammar lessons are quick and easy, while others may be a little more in-depth depending on the question being discussed.

I definitely consider myself a grammar nerd so this type of humor is right up my alley. Following The YUNiversity I’ve also learned quite a lot that I either didn’t know or had forgotten and it helps seeing the lessons presented in a fun way which makes them both memorable and enjoyable.

I follow The YUNiversity on tumblr where they not only post their own grammar lessons but also reblog other funny grammar lessons and jokes and they’re a great addition to my dash. Not only do they make me laugh but they help make me a better writer (which is a plus for any of you reading our blog) and I honestly love improving my own skills while enjoying a laugh or two at the examples used to illustrate the lessons.

If you’d like to see more you can check out their tumblr or twitter page and enjoy the education!

Invisible sexuality cannot and does not make a difference.

I found out the other day, while perusing internet speculation as to why Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat deleted his Twitter account on Saturday, that River Song is bisexual.

You know, I’ve been watching Doctor Who for almost two years now, and have seen the entire series at least twice all the way through, and I don’t think River’s ever been seen to be in a romantic relationship with a woman, nor has she ever shown more than platonic interest in a woman, nor has she really ever been given screen-time with women besides her mother except in her debut.

I am not trying to erase her sexuality. I don’t take kindly to people who say “Oh, she says she’s bi but she’s never actually dated a girl so she’s probably just saying that for attention/to get guys/stupid other excuse.”

But for a fictional character, this Word-of-God declaration is totally empty.

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Curiosity Landing Team!

Science is awesome. We don’t post a lot about hard science stuff here a lot, (which may be vaguely related to the fact that most if not all of our writers are or were liberal arts majors) but it nevertheless is really, really cool. And one of the coolest things that science has done lately is to put a new rover/laboratory (the Mars Science Laboratory, aka Curiosity) on Mars!

But obviously ‘Science’ isn’t a concrete entity, capable of building skycranes and calculating trajectories. This awesome sciencing didn’t happen without a metric crapton of human effort, and so that’s why today’s Web Crush is the Curiosity Landing Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

These awesome sciencey ladies and gents have been working on this project for eight years, and in the last week following their tremendous success, they’ve become bona-fide internet celebrities. They get major props from me for several reasons (above and beyond the whole ‘bein really smart and good at science’ thing):

Video Game Buzz: Sim City 5

What the $#@%… it appears we may be finally getting Sim City 5!  I know… it’s exciting…

How did this happen?  Sim City 5 has been such a long time coming; I’ll be honest, I’d begun to believe that I’d never see another Sim City game.  In fact, until the game is officially announced, promoted, and released, I still can’t help but be skeptical.

Why so reluctant?  Well, Sim City 4 came out in the beginning of 2003, and its expansion pack, Rush Hour, was released at the end of 2003.  Rush Hour’s release also marked the virtual end of support for the game, with no more patches being released afterward.  This was unfortunate for us fans of the series, since the game suffers from a still yet unpatched memory leak which can break the game.

I need to admit that technically a sequel was released in 2007.  However, Sim City Societies was a whole new manner of game entirely, developed by a studio other than Maxis (original developer of Sim City, The Sims, and Spore) to try and reinvigorate the series.  I, along with many other gamers, despise this game.

So here we are, almost 10 years since Sim City 4, and it would have seemed that all hope for a true sequel has long since been lost.  All of the sudden, though, there is all this buzz around the game’s announcement being right around the corner.  Hmmm, interesting—let’s take a look at where all this greatly awaited buzz is coming from!

The build-up goes as follows:

• Sim City Societies flops, the series appears to truly die
• Cities XL comes out to feed the hungry simulation fans, seemingly proving that city simulation games are still desirable and supportable.
• In 2010, Sim City 4 is re-released on the digital distribution platform Steam.  Hey, apparently Electronic Arts hasn’t completely abandoned it!
• Zynga’s CityVille hits Facebook.  In 2011 it even surpassed FarmVille as having the most active online users of any application to the date.  “Hey EA,” we began to think, “you know you want to cash in.  Give in to the dark side and give us a new Sim City!”
• Recently, EA started an official Facebook page for Sim City 4.
• Hermain Cain’s “9-9-9”  plan created buzz around and exposure for Sim City 4, since the game shipped with his particular economic policy built in by default.

Now it seems that EA itself is trying to actively promote some buzz around Sim City 5.  A big head in EA Public Relations teased a big announcement of something big from Maxis at the coming Game Developers Conference with a tweet.  A few days later, some apparently leaked screenshots of Sim City 5 cropped up on the web.

Sim City 4 was a wonderful game—I still play it, actually—but I have wanted this since before Sim City Societies or Spore.  I want Sim City 5 so badly that I am actually afraid to get my hopes up because it will crush me if all of this buzz and hype is for nothing.  EA will be streaming its GDC even on March 6^th, and I plan on watching it.  No amount of pessimism can change the simple fact that I am more excited about this than any other game announcement in the last 5 years, easily.

UPDATE: Maxis executive Lucy Bradshaw has apparently confirmed that Sim City 5 is in fact in the works.  According to her, we can look forward to a 2013 release.  It is apparently built upon the GlassBox engine, which has been developed from scratch to support the game.  However, Electronic Arts has still yet to officially confirm the title.  I’ll keep the updates coming.