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[Rico]

It's possible that I'm entirely missing a part of the dickwolf storyline, but it seems like most of the ire is directed at the follow-up strip to it. I can see how that would set some people off, but... that's Tycho (and pretty obviously an entirely-written-by-Tycho strip).

[Royal☭]

It's possible that I'm entirely missing a part of the dickwolf storyline, but it seems like most of the ire is directed at the follow-up strip to it. I can see how that would set some people off, but... that's Tycho (and pretty obviously an entirely-written-by-Tycho strip).

No, people are angry about all the shit that Gabe did.

Debacle Timeline has a breakdown of the Penny-Arcade dickwolves controversy.

It's easy to forget the actual timespan of events as they took place when we remember them, so it needs repeating that it took five months of Gabe ceaselessly antagonizing rape-victims before he finally relented and apologized. And a lot of his comments miss the point, either claiming that people said he supported rape or going for the tired "You objected to what I said you must be trying to censor me argument".

But really it's the ceaseless antagonizing of rape-victims for five months that really gets me.

And while the Dickwolves controversy was a hallmark in just how awful a human being Gabe can be, he's been demonstrating his willingness to let his audience lynch people since the Harlan Ellison incident. And as Shinra pointed out:

...and said "I'm sorry, I promised myself I would never use Penny-Arcade as a platform for this kind of thing".

He's a fucking hypocrite about it. While I never said that Paul didn't need to be publicly shamed for his stupidly awful and insulting costumer service, Gabe kept pressing the point and delighting in well after the man's career was ruined. It stopped being about achieving comeuppance and more about grinding a man down into dust.

And that is why Gabe is a wretched human being.

[Shinra]

It's possible that I'm entirely missing a part of the dickwolf storyline, but it seems like most of the ire is directed at the follow-up strip to it. I can see how that would set some people off, but... that's Tycho (and pretty obviously an entirely-written-by-Tycho strip).

No, people are angry about all the shit that Gabe did.

Debacle Timeline has a breakdown of the Penny-Arcade dickwolves controversy.

Correction, crazy people on the internet who believe that we shouldn't be able to say the word rape are angry about the shit a guy who is classically a sarcastic internet troll said in response to absolutely batshit crazy people complaining about him on the internet.

Mike draws a comic on UStream.  His music selection during broadcast includes Tori Amos (a rape survivor) and “Tiny Little Mustache” by Stephen Lynch, about a woman who is a Nazi.

You see, if you fold the dollar bill exactly the right way...

It's easy to forget the actual timespan of events as they took place when we remember them, so it needs repeating that it took five months of Gabe ceaselessly antagonizing rape-victims before he finally relented and apologized. And a lot of his comments miss the point, either claiming that people said he supported rape or going for the tired "You objected to what I said you must be trying to censor me argument".

He wasn't ceaselessly antagonizing rape victims, he was ceaseless antagonizing people who were making statements like 'Your dickwolves comic is part of the reason why rape occurs in modern society', which is the most fucking batshit crazy ridiculous thing I have ever heard in the entire universe. This whole rape culture argument is so fucking stupid because it implies the only reason rapists rape is because our culture encourages them to rape. Nevermind that human beings have been raping each other since the dawn of time and that animals in nature rape each other for fun without anyone making silly jokes on the internet compelling them to do it. The complaint wasn't just 'Your comic offended me and offends rape survivors', the complaint was 'you're perpetuating rape culture', which is the new thing that people like to complain about on the internet and use as an excuse to censor our speech.

He's a fucking hypocrite about it. While I never said that Paul didn't need to be publicly shamed for his stupidly awful and insulting costumer service, Gabe kept pressing the point and delighting in well after the man's career was ruined. It stopped being about achieving comeuppance and more about grinding a man down into dust.

And that is why Gabe is a wretched human being.

I don't think I should need to remind you about something that happened in the last 3 days, but the entire contribution of Gabe to this was posting the original email exchange, posting the apology letter, and making a few twitter comments about it, all over the course of one day. The guy ground his career to dust all by himself after that, through a series of increasingly insulting and confusing posts, actions and interviews where he insulted industry professionals, consumers and his employers.

[Rico]

No, people are angry about all the shit that Gabe did.

Debacle Timeline has a breakdown of the Penny-Arcade dickwolves controversy.

This is kind of what I'm looking for, but it appears to be about 700,000:1 of a bunch of dudes' blog posts responding to a bunch of trolls talking about rape and dicks to actual anything by Gabe.

[Royal☭]

Correction, crazy people on the internet who believe that we shouldn't be able to say the word rape are angry about the shit a guy who is classically a sarcastic internet troll said in response to absolutely batshit crazy people complaining about him on the internet.

Actually, the original post merely points out that the poster did not find the joke funny and that it devalues the impact of rape. Nowhere in the original post on Shakesville does the other become the strawman you just knocked down, claiming that Gabe and Tycho shouldn't make rape jokes. It discusses the insensitivity of it and how unfunny they actually are. No calls for banning. Of course, if you'd read that, you'd probably know, but I suspect you just glazed over the article looking for cheap, easy strawmen to knock down because...

Mike draws a comic on UStream.  His music selection during broadcast includes Tori Amos (a rape survivor) and “Tiny Little Mustache” by Stephen Lynch, about a woman who is a Nazi.

You see, if you fold the dollar bill exactly the right way...

There's one right there.

It's easy to forget the actual timespan of events as they took place when we remember them, so it needs repeating that it took five months of Gabe ceaselessly antagonizing rape-victims before he finally relented and apologized. And a lot of his comments miss the point, either claiming that people said he supported rape or going for the tired "You objected to what I said you must be trying to censor me argument".

He wasn't ceaselessly antagonizing rape victims, he was ceaseless antagonizing people

I don't know, when the whole thing started out with some rape victims bringing their concerns to him then spirals in to this, I don't know what else to call it?

who were making statements like 'Your dickwolves comic is part of the reason why rape occurs in modern society', which is the most fucking batshit crazy ridiculous thing I have ever heard in the entire universe. This whole rape culture argument is so fucking stupid because it implies the only reason rapists rape is because our culture encourages them to rape. Nevermind that human beings have been raping each other since the dawn of time and that animals in nature rape each other for fun without anyone making silly jokes on the internet compelling them to do it. The complaint wasn't just 'Your comic offended me and offends rape survivors', the complaint was 'you're perpetuating rape culture', which is the new thing that people like to complain about on the internet and use as an excuse to censor our speech.

And there's the fucking "You objected to what I said you must be trying to censor me argument" that I just got done complaining about. I'm glad you've erred on the side of taunting and telling rape victims and others that their anxieties aren't real, and proclaiming that such a master of rhetoric and discourse as yourself knows the most about the "fucking stupid" rape culture argument.

Nobody is calling for a government ban or censorship on this stuff. What they're doing is pointing out the culture of permissibility, victim-blaming and ignorance around rape that permeates our culture. Nobody said that dickwolves caused rape, at least not unless you take the minority fringe as representative of the whole to make your point more valid, which would be a stupid thing to do. What most people were concerned about was the attitude dismissing the concerns of rape victims and people who worry about being raped (see: women) as frivolous which leads to rape victims being ignored.

I don't think I should need to remind you about something that happened in the last 3 days, but the entire contribution of Gabe to this was posting the original email exchange, posting the apology letter, and making a few twitter comments about it, all over the course of one day. The guy ground his career to dust all by himself after that, through a series of increasingly insulting and confusing posts, actions and interviews where he insulted industry professionals, consumers and his employers.

I don't think I need to remind you about something that happened in the last 3 days, but Gabe and Tycho both posted about the hard-on they were getting about this, and both knew they could stop it.

[Lottel]

I don't think I need to remind you about something that happened in the last 3 days, but Gabe and Tycho both posted about the hard-on they were getting about this, and both knew they could stop it

I actually read it that Tycho was fearful of this dark persona Gabe takes on and actually goes on to say he's not really sure how it came to be his entire life relies on this man liking him.
He's tongue in cheek about it, sure. But the fear is there.

[Rico]

A couple of points.

I kind of think that "ceaselessly antagonizing rape victims," requires just a liiiittle bit more than a comment once every month or two, almost always in direct response to someone else bringing it up.

While I would normally agree that bringing up the craziest elements would be a strawman, I really don't think it is in this case, because almost all of Gabe's statements over the entire timeline are specifically responding to these fringe elements and what they are saying to and about him. Now, it's true that had Gabe responded differently to these elements that a lot of the controversy may have blown over right there. But when "actual real life rapists get less hate than the Penny Arcade guys . . .", I think it's easy to understand how someone whose career involves making crude jokes could reply to crazy shit being said about him with... crude jokes.

I'm sorry, but when the claim is that Gabe is an awful human being I really do expect a little more, well, awfulness than making a couple sarcastic tweets about people who are literally asking him why he condones a cultural norm of violence against women.

A quick edit:

I don't know, when the whole thing started out with some rape victims bringing their concerns to him then spirals in to this, I don't know what else to call it?

This kind of implies that Gabe was behind any of the spiraling. As I said earlier, the ratio of everyone else:Gabe is super-heavily weighted on everyone else. The first time Gabe even appears on the timeline after the initial incident is 11 posts and a month later.

[Bal]

Additionally, the claim that he had the power to stop anything is ludicrous to the point of absurdity, and in fact in the post where he posted the "you have the power to stop this" e-mail he said that no, he didn't, he'd forfeited that power as soon as he made the initial post. He did go on to say he wouldn't stop it even if he DID have the power, but neither would I. That guy got everything he deserved.

[Rico]

Though Bal actually is an awful human being. He makes jokes about fucking peoples' dead mothers.

[Brentai]

Being a human being is really hard okay guys

[Bal]

I didn't know she was dead when I made the joke, ok.

[Thad]

Debacle Timeline has a breakdown of the Penny-Arcade dickwolves controversy.

Wow, that's...very thorough.

And while the Dickwolves controversy was a hallmark in just how awful a human being Gabe can be, he's been demonstrating his willingness to let his audience lynch people since the Harlan Ellison incident.

Ellison's pretty famous for starting shit.  I don't remember the details of that one, but Harlan's a big boy.

Correction, crazy people on the internet who believe that we shouldn't be able to say the word rape are angry about the shit a guy who is classically a sarcastic internet troll said in response to absolutely batshit crazy people complaining about him on the internet.

Shinra.

You know how you sometimes say shit that's way over the line and need to shut the hell up?

This is one of those times.

Additionally, the claim that he had the power to stop anything is ludicrous to the point of absurdity, and in fact in the post where he posted the "you have the power to stop this" e-mail he said that no, he didn't, he'd forfeited that power as soon as he made the initial post. He did go on to say he wouldn't stop it even if he DID have the power, but neither would I. That guy got everything he deserved.

He didn't deserve to have his home address posted, and his wife didn't deserve to be bothered on Facebook over it.  Gabe should reasonably have expected that kind of shit to happen, because again, that is what happens 100% of the time when you post a guy's name and contact info on a popular website after thoroughly detailing what an asshole he is.

He also could have made something resembling even a small effort to contain it in the first place.  Even a "Leave his private information and his family out of this" admonition at the bottom of the original post would have at least given a few people pause.

[Classic]

Tangent!
Gabe points out that he's surprised that the dickwolves comic was the issue (or more likely, the straw) for most people when the Fruit Fucker 2000 has been a breakfast staple of the series since the early aughts.
I can't help but wonder why. Maybe it's because outside of one early disturbing comic, there's no human face on the suffering the FF2K causes (vis-a-vis actual unconsented penetration on a human). Further, in spite of evidence to the contrary (again, portrayed as disturbing and for laughs) the FF2K is diminutive and nonthreatening (much like <insert least favorite poster's handle here>'s penis.

Dickwolves, by contrast, are unseen and implied to be threatening in the context of the comics they are described in. I suggest that it is the combination of these two things aspects, threatening v. harmless and empathic suffering v. projected suffering, which makes the FF2K and the dickwolves very different animals (pun intended).

[patito]

Nevermind that human beings have been raping each other since the dawn of time and that animals in nature rape each other for fun without anyone making silly jokes on the internet compelling them to do it.

You do realize you're making the argument that raping is a natural thing and we shouldn't complain about it right.

The point of the whole rape culture thing is exactly that we as human being can be influenced by our culture to a greater degree than just our nature. Otherwise we'd still just be fucking monkeys.

[Brentai]

And monkeys can't give consent.

[Rico]

Well, indirectly, by not tearing your weak human limbs off, or shredding your face.

[Shinra]

Nevermind that human beings have been raping each other since the dawn of time and that animals in nature rape each other for fun without anyone making silly jokes on the internet compelling them to do it.

You do realize you're making the argument that raping is a natural thing and we shouldn't complain about it right.

The point of the whole rape culture thing is exactly that we as human being can be influenced by our culture to a greater degree than just our nature. Otherwise we'd still just be fucking monkeys.

That's true, but considering that in the US the only people going out and raping anyone are people who deeply mentally disturbed or tremendous pieces of shit to begin with, and not doing it out of cultural predisposition (like they do in, say, south africa, uganda and afghanistan) the rape culture argument seems pretty hollow to me in the context of our culture, and it seems like just another way of controlling what we can and cannot say.

I'm not going to argue that Gabe handled it beautifully, but the loudest critics were the ones he was responding to, and they're the people who make blog entries like this. Considering you literally cannot approach this person with a logical, polite argument, I don't think it would have made a tremendous difference if he had anyway.

I can see the potential for offense. I can also see the potential for offense in a videogame like, say, grand theft auto where you spend the majority of the game murdering for people for fun. I didn't see anyone in our community rallying to the defense of Jack Thompson, or for that matter, any of the moms whose kids died in Columbine. That comic had the right to exist, and considering the long track record that penny-arcade had on this matter, if the person who made the pissed off blog entry in the first place was so easily offended by that kind of humor, maybe they shouldn't have been reading the comic?

I get the idea, 'joking about rape diminishes it'. Well, joking about murder diminishes that too. Joking about drugs diminishes the impact that drug abuse has on families. Let's just go through a list of things that affect others negatively, and not joke about them anymore.

Or, when you get offended by something someone says, you can just fucking ignore it.

[Ziiro]

A man is a rape-supporter if… ...He watches pornography in which women are depicted.

Man what. That's the actual sentence.

[Shinra]

This is why I'm saying these people are crazy.

She ends the blog entry by saying all men support rape. Someone criticizes this logic and she proceeds to go on a 30 paragraph tirade about how men are mentally and culturally inferior to women and predatory by nature, which contradicts one of the bullet points of her blog entry.

Edit: You know, which, by the way, can we have a discussion on why 'finding a joke funny that references imaginary rape by an impossible creature on a fictional being in a world that does not actually exist' somehow means I actively support the act of rape?

[TA]

Only if that discussion explains how that joke in any way trivializes rape or makes fun of rape victims for being rape victims*.  Maybe I'm just weird, but when a comic is mentioning rape as an example of something horrifying and torturous that it is ridiculous to even passively condone, I find it hard to take seriously the argument that the comic is somehow trivializing rape.  Or that it makes the artist a rape apologist.

*kind of an important distinction!  Being a rape victim doesn't confer a special magical status where stupid shit you spray on the internet becomes immune to criticism, and making fun of idiots for being idiots doesn't take on a misogynistic aspect just because those idiots are also rape victims.