In which the trio talks about the sometimes-touchy subject of various kinds of harassment. Don’t worry, the whole episode isn’t doom and gloom, we swear!
Disclaimer: We are three white, cisgender people and as such we don’t really go into racism or intersectional topics aside from gender, as that’s not our lane or lived experience. We speak almost entirely from personal experience in this episode.
For a bit more on those topics, we recommend our discussion with Chris Spivey (episode 46) or James Mendez Hodes’ website, at https://jamesmendezhodes.com, just two of many discussions on things we didn’t cover.
- WW Usenet days versus today
- We didn’t screw up the intro until we did
- Podcast disruptions
- Harassment based on being visible online
- Criticism vs. harassment
- Malicious intent vs. single shitty comments
- Anonymity of the internet
- Whistleblowing vs. brigading
- Transformers fandom
- Getting personal
- Company size
- A bit on the video game industry vs. the RPG industry
- On personal attacks and defending your friends
- In-person harassment
- Convention interactions
- Eddy stands up for introverts!
- Unintentional harassment
- Eddy tells a personal story
- On unwanted touching
- A hypothetical!
- On the current state of the industry
- Matthew lives in the ocean
A very important topic to talk about and I’m glad you went into depth about it. Fans need to learn to be a lot more respectful if a creator is giving them their time and access.
This is a discussion that needs to be had more and more. There are some major issues in the RPG community, and it bugs me, because it makes us look bad.
Sadly, many of us have issues with understanding Real World People. I know that I, pesonally, have issues reading people. ( I have REAL trouble telling when someone is joking or being serious, for example, so tend to take everything seriously.) I think that contributes to the unintentional side. It is something we, as a community, really should work on, but who wants to admit they have issues with something so normal?
Of course, if I am talking to a creator, I am always going to err towards telling them what I like, because I have seen the toxicity of the so-called “fans” and repercussions. (I backed Robotech Tactics…the sheer venom on that kickstarter was horrific.) I mean, my brief interaction with Eddy at GenCon last year was just me telling him how excited I was for Monarchies of Mau. I think we fans really should share our love of games, not what we don’t like.
As someone making my first few tentative steps into this industry this is an issue I often ponder about.
I found the episode tremendously interesting on multiple of levels. I am glad to see someone stand up and talk openly about it, not in an abrassive way, but in a carefully thought out way. In a way that makes you think wherever you may find yourself on the spectrum.
Thank you Onyx Pathcast for this incredible episode. It can’t have been easy. I hope the positivity some of us try to bring helps make things easier.