The Black Hole Of Controversy: the Starr Mazer takedowns · 3:51pm Jun 28th, 2017
So let's see if I can summarize this mess. I first learned about it through a YouTube channel which I pay some attention to, which meant I was actually in the first wave of those who learned what was going on. It's been spreading ever since, and doing so at a rate which the Black Plague would envy. At this point, it's... bad.
Yes, that's a deliberate understatement.
And I wanted to talk about it for a few minutes, partially to get it out of my head and mostly because in doing so, it prevents me from speaking about it anywhere else.
*deep breath*
Once upon a very recent time, there was a videogame company named Imagos Softworks, which wished to create a game called Starr Mazer. This game, a hybrid of shooter and old-school point & click adventure, was on Kickstarter at one point, and gathered nearly double their launch goal. And once they had the money to begin their work, Imagos put some aside to hire a composer. After all, most good games benefit from a soundtrack.
This composer was brought in on a fairly standard work-for-hire contract, which has since leaked to the Internet. And at some point during the employment period, there was a dispute between employers and contractee. I can't really speak to the nature of that disagreement. I just know it seems to have ended with a parting of the ways, plus a very unhappy composer. But Imagos had gotten at least enough music tracks from that hire to go forward, and the game was eventually released to the public with those songs in place.
Here's the game's website. It was also available on Steam.
Was.
*next deep breath*
Okay. So as is typical with just about any videogame, some YouTubers started to film their play of it. Because it's fun, you get to crack wise over the footage, and you never know which games are going to catch and bring your channel over the top. It's called a Let's Play, and there's a huge number of channels which try that view-gathering tactic, along with just having some fun with the game itself. In terms of original content creation and dodging copyright issues, it's generally considered to be safe: the game may be owned by someone else, but this is your playthrough. Such channels generally don't have to worry about what's called a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) Takedown, or 'copyright strike'. And that's a perpetual concern for just about everyone else on YouTube, because anything which is the intellectual property of anyone else can be removed simply through any party -- any party -- filing a complaint into a completely automated, code-based and mindless system, one which doesn't bother to evaluate exactly what's going on. This removes the video. Period. You don't get an argument or any measure of debate. If anyone claims a video is using content which legally belongs to someone else, that video vanishes. The code dictates it.
The channel has only one say in the matter: they can put in a counter-claim. Whoever put the Takedown on then has two weeks to respond -- and the only response possible is to formally take the case to court. As such, most DMCA issues resolve themselves after those two weeks, and the video goes back up.
However... a Takedown is still something to be feared by virtually every channel. Because there's a YouTube rule in place: if at any time, your channel has three unresolved copyright strikes against it, then your channel will be removed. Permanently. Every video you've ever posted is gone. And this can happen to practically anyone. While YouTube does recognize that some channels draw revenge-based strikes by their very nature and gives them a little more protection -- Jim Sterling may be the Ur Example of a moving target -- for the most part, the system just runs automatically, without any humans thinking about what's going on. Three strikes on you at any one time and you're out.
Browse YouTube long enough and you'll hear jokes about the fear. You'll also notice that people who break out into song tend to do so for ten seconds or less. But Let's Plays? Those are safe, because the vast majority of videogame companies appreciate the unpaid advertising. And a few people -- mostly tiny channels, the ones with barely any following, who had no protection of popularity -- began to play Starr Mazer.
Every last one of those people was hit with a copyright strike.
Their Let's Play video vanished. The automated system informed them that they were a third of the way to death.
What happened? The composer. She apparently felt that due to the dispute between herself and her former employer, she still owned the music which plays during the game. And so she filed her complaint. Complaints. About seventy of them, and possibly counting. (Some channels got as many as five if they'd been breaking up the play into multiple videos -- but because the DMCAs were from a single source, it counted as one strike.) Frightened, startled channel owners contacted her and asked what they'd done, what they could do to resolve the issue. And she basically told them that if they had any complaints, they could take it up with Imagos.
I can't speak to motivation. Some people felt she was trying to organize a little army against that former employer. The possibility of extortion was mentioned: pay me or no free Let's Play advertising. Others thought it was taking any kind of revenge available. Personally, I'm not in the telepathy business. I just saw SidAlpha talking about the results: removed videos, scared creators. He'd seen the contract and while he was no lawyer (that I know of), he understood it to mean that even if the composer had been dismissed early, all work she'd done for the company still belonged to the company. That would mean she had no true legal claim or cause for a copyright strike -- but the strikes kept coming.
Sid, because he's something of a completionist about his research, contacted the composer. A number of people did, especially as the story began to spread. Some of those contacts were much less than kind. Put someone's true name on the Internet during a bad situation -- or for that matter, a good one -- and watch the anger come out. The composer has been posting insults which she claims were directed at her. Some of those would have been visible on the game's Steam page before all the arguments got it taken down. Sid has screenscaps of a few portions, and the composer was actively participating. She's been freely communicating with just about anyone who spoke to her, and those messages are... also not happy. She's said she doesn't see playing games as a real job, and there may have been similar comments about reviewing them or just covering the industry. She brought out her own threats at one point: Sid got a capture of that too, as one was directed towards him. People have been attacking her on a personal level (although I don't feel Sid was ever one of them: he's tried to present the view from all sides), but you can see her lashing out as well.
Things became stranger. The Starr Mazer tracks were at one point apparently posted on a music sale website. One thousand dollars. Possibly per track. This page was then taken down.
A little channel, tiny and unprotected, so minor that in YouTube's hierarchy, it barely exists -- in other words, right around my number of followers -- contacted the composer. The channel's owner wanted to give her a chance to truly have her say, and offered the opportunity of an interview. The composer agreed -- but not to a sit-down or phone-in. A text interview, similar to what the Royal Canterlot Library does with featured authors: the channel would write the questions, she would write her answers, and everything would be read aloud in the resulting video. Said video popped up as a Recommended on my feed because I'd been watching all the coverage, and so I became one of the relatively small number of people who saw it before the composer filed a DMCA strike against the interview and had the whole thing taken down.
So how do you claim a copyright strike against words you'd provided to be read aloud, when there was no music played at all? Because at one point during the video, a picture of the composer was displayed. She's claiming ownership over her own image.
(At this point, I should mention that the composer is transgender and the picture shown was apparently from the time prior to transition. So there could also be an emotional component there, especially since there have been insults of a very predictable kind flying at her since this began and her status became public. Even so... rather than have the entire video struck, you'd think there would be the option to just say 'Would you please either edit that picture out or use one I provide instead?' instead of throwing copyrights strikes in all directions. If you're calm. If you take a moment to breathe. If...)
So that channel offered her the chance to truly have her say. And she had the video taken down.
A Twitter account for the composer (or one claiming to be so) has surfaced: some attacks were launched from there, and more than a few were directed at it. A noted YouTube copyright attorney -- as in, he has a YouTube channel in which he speaks about copyright law and is noted for it -- offered to represent Imagos and put up a GoFundMe page to cover all legal fees. At the time of this writing, it's less than a thousand dollars away from succeeding. (At the time of this edit, it had succeeded. You may want to visit that page, as it provides Imagos' for-public-consumption view of the issues.) The price he's paying for that? The composer is now going after him.
This story has been pulling so many people in.
When I first found Sid's channel, it was a small one: for subscribers, he had only fourteen times my follower count. (Yes, this is a running joke.) He's improved since: up to about 43k, as his talent for breaking stories has been noticed by others and a few larger channels are fans of his, directing views towards that YouTube section. Jim Sterling, who's defended Sid before, picked up and spread the story, with appropriate credit. (Jim is a prince of many things, but the crown of Appropriate Credit is to be borne proudly.) Jim has about half a million subscribers. After he ran the story? Total Biscuit put up his own video, acknowledging the full chain while spreading the word. Guess how many subscribers are involved there? Around 2.2 million. Which means the gaming industry has now taken notice. Articles are popping up: The Five Things You Need To Know And Probably Wish You Didn't About The Starr Mazer Takedowns. The composer isn't trending on Twitter, but give her five minutes, especially if that's her real page. And from there...
I've said something about the general insanity of the online vs. pre-Internet world before, and I want to repeat it here: It was always this bad. It's just faster now.
The composer? People have threatened her. She's made her own threats. Her legal case towards copyright ownership on the music tracks, as I understand it (and copyright attorney not be me), is dubious on its best day, possibly a laugh-out-of-court on the worst.
Composing music is a talent. It's very much a real job. (So is playing videogames for an audience, if someone's willing to pay you for it.) It's a skill I don't have, one I've sometimes wished for (although I wouldn't trade whatever writing ability I have to acquire it). I can admire and respect that skill. I haven't heard this composer's music, but -- she got hired, and it wasn't her first job in the industry. I'm going to assume that when it comes to music, she's good at what she does.
Or did.
Because whatever happened with the contract, whether she has any true copyright claim or not -- this is how she responded. If she has a legal issue, she could have gone after her former employer in court. Instead, she went after the channels. She doesn't seem to care about what happens to their owners. It doesn't feel like she cares about anything other than being angry in any direction which will provide some personal satisfaction, and maybe a sense of power. That's my impression. I could easily be wrong. But when you look at what happened...
She originally targeted the smallest of channels: the defenseless. But a somewhat larger one noticed. A bigger channel picked up the story. A decidedly large one took it from there. And there are still potential magnitudes of viewership to go. She started by biting the smallest guppies in YouTube's ocean and by doing so, has attracted the attention of sharks.
Whatever happened with the contract, whatever the true story is there, even if the legal issues between herself and Imagos comes down on her side -- this is how she reacted. It certainly got her issue out there, didn't it? Far more people know about this than they would with a simple lawsuit. Her name is racing through the gaming industry. Pretty soon, just about everyone's going to know who she is.
This story broke four days ago.
Five days ago, she was a composer who'd worked on some videogame tracks and had a good chance to be a part of more.
Today... today, I don't know if she'll ever work in the industry again. Would you hire her? Would you let her sit through a full interview while you thought about the last time and wondered what might go wrong?
I haven't used her name once in this blog post. (Anyone here could learn it through watching any of the videos, reading even a single Breaking Story, looking at the attorney's summation.) Am I trying to dodge her anger through making sure it's harder to find me? It's possible, if a little unrealistic on my part: after all, even if I did say who she was here, at this point in the story, it would probably take searching through at least a hundred pages of Google results of her own name before she got to me. (By tomorrow, it could be a thousand.) I'm not vulnerable: other than watching videos, I have zero YouTube presence. Besides, expecting that she'd come here is borderline delusional, and not just because she has so many other places to go. So many other fish to bite. And still, I looked at what was supposedly her Twitter page and very briefly thought about directly asking why she hadn't just asked the interviewer for that picture swap -- then resumed full sanity and backed away. If that is her, then speaking directly, even with a basic inquiry regarding common courtesy as opposed to putting someone's channel a third of the way to death, felt like a really bad idea.
But when I looked at the story, all the coverage of it, and read the captures of her words... it's easy to perceive anger. Lashing out in all directions. And some of those go inwards. A few of the captures had her talking about the people who were going after her and how that was making her feel. One of her comments to Sid basically worked out to her desire to take him out before going after -- a more local target. And added to that is my knowledge of what it's like to have one truly bad day when you feel like the entire world is against you, how ten minutes of silence can stretch out forever.
In searching Twitter to see what the coverage was like there, I found what might be her page. It could also be a spoof. The page hasn't said much. As mentioned above, what is there tends to be reposts of people attacking her, added to some of what might be her own tweets: those are mostly going after the other people involved in the story.
But there's also a top-bar image. It takes up the entire upper half of the page. You can't miss it.
This story is a black hole. And the thing about a black hole is that nothing which gets too close can survive.
The signature image on the Twitter page shows a person pressing a knife to their own skin.
Ironically techies are more worried about the Digital part of the law than anything else. Since it made to make sell, know about or disseminate tools to circumvent copy protection like that on DVDs or the DRM on ebooks
We should never 'otherize' someone to the extent we lose sight of their humanity.
However, from the case and information you have presented, I am having a very hard time conjuring up more then just a scrap or two of sympathy for this composer. This seems self-inflicted and a great moral story about why there is such a concept as professionalism.
Could she have had a pre-existing mental disorder though? Perhaps.
However again, to be honest, this reminds me a lot of the so called 'Sarkeesian gambit' of money making, illustrated in this comic,
Just rename some of the parts of the panels, and add a 4th panel where she cashes in her 'victim bux', and it could be a possible angle.
So basically this could be a stunt, or signs of debilitating mental problems.
Hard to tell nowadays, but being dyed in the wool cynic, I assume the worst about some people.
I've been following this story as well. I'm an infrequent follower[1] of SidAlpha (and a regular of Jim's, which is where I was linked to the former), so I've been tracking this. After his video this morning reporting on the death (slash suicide) threat said composer made to him (who I will also not name, since you didn't), I've had his channel page open, in case there is news, because I'm just a little concerned (and he did not come out and say he'd reported it to the authorities. He probably did, but... the lack of confirmation worries me.) That's how unstable this individual is coming across.
SidAlpha is a better man than me; I would like to believe I would be publically as icy calm, rational and measured as he is in a similar situation; I have a lot less sympathy for people than he does; let's leave it at that.
Though even that said, the behavior of the people sending the composer - and, through sheer idiocy, to the person at Imagos whose email Sid provided for the folk suffering for the strike to try and help - is deplorable at the highest level. I'm not sure which I find more offensive, that action or the attitude of people who say "it's youtube, you should expect it" but I shall, again, not further elaborate that that, because I am, frankly, better than them[2] and should not sink to their level (as said composer has done, not that they had any morale high ground to stand upon).
Like you, I needed a bit of a vent, and here is probably a relatively safe place to do so where civility is more likely to hold sway than not, so thanks for bringing the topic up, Estee.
[1]I am one of those terrible people who doesn't have a youtube account (my Dad's google account is usually up and I can never be arsed to switch out and I llike the conveniance of the progres bar telling me what I've watched, so I'm not a subscribed to anyone, prinicpally out of sheet laziness. This does, however, keep me out commenting on youtube, so that's a bonus...
[2]Okay, I'm REALLY not; I'm actually far worse than probably everyone on the planet, but I am better MANNERED than them.
The internet is a strange and terrible place, and some days, it's more one than the other.
4585554
There have already been people making the
Step #1. Multiple copyright strikes.
#2. ...
#3. PROFIT!
joke.
One of the weirder possibilities -- and something I just thought of as I was writing this reply -- is that if this goes to court, she could try to file for damages based on injury to reputation and emotional pain. Why? Because the story got out and put her in a situation where her reputation was injured and she suffered emotional pain. If the gambit was to place herself in a setting where she knew she would be trashed and then try to collect a payday from it...
...well,realistically, then you're better off holding back that Master Plan until you're working for a videogame company which doesn't need Kickstarter to get going.
As always, every time a writer thinks they've come up with an improbable plot, here comes Real Life!
On mental issues, I can't really say anything, because professional psychiatrist I not be either (and if I was, in the U.S, I legally couldn't say much anyway). She reads as currently being all over the place, but there's a lot of stress at the moment -- much of which she brought on herself.
I am, however, utterly sick of all the YouTube commenters who are seizing on this to say that being transgender is the mental disorder and all we're seeing is a symptom. The Internet Is For
PornOpportunistic Sewage.4585555
I remember the first time SidAlpha got in trouble while covering a story. Jim popped up in his Comments with a single line: "I got your back, Boo." And you could just about hear the superhero theme music heating up in the background. You dare to mess with a channel? While I still have hat and plague doctor mask? I am the terror which exposes asset flippers in the night! I am the reason Digital Homicide no longer exists! I'm Jim @$%ing Sterling, son, and you're finished!
And they were. Because while Jim doesn't have the raw numbers of many other channels, he has respect and tenacity. In Pratchett terms, he's Steam Greenlight's terrier: he never stops chasing and when he catches up, he clamps down and will not let go.
Sid... if I could make one suggestion to the man, it's that he needs to try going into voice acting. He's got one of those sounds. He could have been a politician or a preacher, but he wound up covering game industry news on YouTube. Go figure.
The way some people are reacting and using all contact possibilities to attack... *sigh* See Opportunistic Sewage. I'm not surprised by it. I sort of wish I still had the innocence to be surprised.
And as for perceived stability? Even given some of the things said and that Twitter image, the possibility of deliberate (if strange) manipulation exists. But it's still far too easy to picture this whole thing ending with a suicide. And given that little threat...
I know SidAlpha has a daughter: he's mentioned her on the channel. I am now hoping he also has a gun and training in how to safely use it while realistically accessing any threat which might come into his home. Because the odds are almost zero -- but not quite.
4585591
People often say that about sewers.
I learned about it through Totalbiscuit and The Know. The comment I saw that, to me, most accurately summed up what she did wrong was that, during the fight with the company, she effectively used human shields. The other really sad part for her is that it sounds like the company has tried multiple things and made multiple concessions to try and solve this, and she keeps refusing. So yeah, no one is likely to hire her again, in any industry, because she's presented herself in such a bad way. As someone who, when they have a legal dispute, won't pursue legal actions but instead make it personal. And drag in third parties. And possibly break the law in the process.
The whole thing is a mess. And while it certainly looks like she has some issues...what she did was very very wrong. And she kept digging that hole. I fear this can't have a good ending at this point, but I hope it doesn't have a sad one.
4585651
The latest semi-rumor (not enough confirmations yet to call it fact) is that she's been contacting those filing counter-claims and calling them perjurers, along with sending them pictures which hint at self-harm. (It's also rumored that SidAlpha might not have gotten the only threat.) If the self-harm part is true, then she might be at the point of using herself as the human shield: give me what I want or see what you made me do!
Watching this happen has been like second-hand living through a primer on a certain kind of abusive relationship.
I heard about this story 3 days ago. I then saw one of my streamer friends start playing this game. There was a very quick and very emphatic warning to NEVER stream that game, or the other one said composer is DMCA'ing for.
The word "insane" was used a fairly large number of times between the two of us in that conversation.
4585636
Oh, this composer is transgender?
Hm... Then the percentage for this being caused by mental issues just rose. Let me explain, so I do not come across as a bigot.
According to some available statistics, regretfully, points to that trans-people do have a much, much, higher rate of mental issues then the norm.
The suicide rate of pre-op trans people is around 40-45%.
The suicide rate of successful (as in, people can't tell what gender they had before) post-op trans people is around 35-40%.
That is a sky high suicide rate, not seen in any other segment of the earths population in any time in human history, even amongst those people who are fully accepted as their new gender.
The only conclusion I can make from that last statistic is that there is a large correlation to underlying mental issues, and being transgender.
Hashtag "NotAll" of course, only the stats do make a case for a connection.
4585669
Bullying has been steadily escalating over the last few years. Part of this is from certain treatment finally being recognized as such, but a lot is simple escalation added to additional mediums which you can bully in. Add to that the fact that if you're in the LBTGQ categories, your odds of being openly bullied go way up, throw in the little game so many kids happily play known as 'Want to bet we can make that one kill herself?", figure for the number of parents who don't take their child's identity all that well, toss on so many elements of society which are happy to tell you that you've got no right to exist, and the odd number isn't the high suicide rate: it's the number who managed to come through it.
When you have that many people softly screaming "DO IT!", the words tend to have a rather slow-fading echo.
Sweet Cthulhuh!
This is completely crazy.
YouTube has its problems on all sides, but I was first made aware of the mousetrap sensitivity of the takedowns by Legal Insurrection's issue it had when it posted footage from the Modern Language Associaion's annual meeting in which many quite offensive statements were made against Israel. It seems the MLA posted its own footage of the event on YouTube, then when it started getting flack for all the bigots who had been invited to speak, they went through YouTube with three accounts and DCMA'd every single copy of the meeting as well as taking down and deleting their own. Blammo. Instantly, hundreds of videos on LI became unreachable. Thankfully, it is a site run by lawyers, so they got them back.
So it could have been worse. If the composer had two friends, they could have auto-nuked *every* channel with footage of the game on it.
The Moral of the Story:
A) Backup your work
B) Trolls don't just live under bridges
C) Treat everybody with kindness, respect, and the understanding that at any moment, they may go complely nuts
D) All of the above
4585665
So how's the actual game? Because I don't think it'll be back on Steam for a while: not just the comments war, but Valve may have pulled it due to potential legal disputes.
For that matter, how's the music?
4585723
From what I've seen, it's good. I didn't hear the music, thankfully, because he was smart enough to be using his own music over it (fairly common practice lately for all games that MIGHT have copyrighted music).
Though honestly, how good would the music have to be to warrant taking it this far? Like, seriously.
4585702
You pretty much just pinned down the terror. LI has the resources to head into courtroom war and get their channel restored. All just about anyone with a smaller channel needs to ruin their lives is to either have three people angry with them in a two-week period or get one person with the computer savvy to look like three.
No money. No fight. No more channel.
It's something just about every YouTube creator has cause to fear. And the more popular you are, the more you tend to @#$$ people off. I think I can safely say that if FIMFic worked under a Three People Just That Mad At You system, I'd be long-gone -- and as noted before, measuring my viewership against that of the better-known channels requires running the figures after the decimal point way out to the right. Given the toxicity of so much Internet culture as a whole, I'm not sure how anyone with 10k or more subscribers manages to get through a week.
It's scary out there. And as long as the system stays automated, it's not going to get any better.
Thanks for the journalism.
This honestly is basically video game politics. He reminds me a lot of the stuff I see in the political theater
This article claims to have some details about the pre-DMCA situation. (All parties are identified, so approach at your own discretion.) If accurate, the contract was originally broken when the composer had to leave the project due to illness.
Also, I forgot to mention that she went after Turner Broadcasting with a cease & desist. Well... you can sort of guess that they might have some money.
4585675
I think this may be too simplistic an explanation, Estee. Just taking some brief glances around, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention white males have some of the highest suicide rates, considerably higher than woman and blacks, but right up there with American Indians. Taking the common view that white males are the least oppressed and bullied class in the world by far, this is the opposite of what you would expect. To complicate matters, women actually attempt suicide more than men, but men are more likely to actually die from it (so who has it worse? I dunno).
Drawing the hypothesis of "it's just bullying and social non-acceptance" seems too simplistic for such an intricate matter, and has more the whiff of politics than it does real inquiry. Not that that's your intention, because it obviously isn't.
Honestly, if I ever make a video game and get into a similar situation, I'll dump the soundtrack and replace it with myself playing block flute rather than letting things get to this level of out-of-hand.
4585727 Well, at some point, your channel gets a 'nail' in it, which is to say a live human being will look at DCMA takedowns and toss out the nuts rather than just autonuking. Not quite sure where that point is, but it exists.
The degree to which nuts out on the internet can ruin your life is startling. There's a certain individual with the initials BK who was a domestic terrorist who set off a number of bombs in Indiana in order to cover up a murder investigation, sold drugs, etc... This person managed to get into the spotlight by claiming to have sold Dan Quayle drugs (despite never having been within a hundred miles of him), then enjoyed that spotlight so much that he has been an endless source of murderous trouble to ordinary people since. As an example, several of the people who exposed his activities were SWATted by the police.
It's terrible all around. Someone close to me was stricken with a fast-decay mental state and this is looking an awful lot like that. I know it's tempting to just bellow anti-social justice epithets, and I admit I don't know the facts, but from what I've seen this is psychological collapse that is in no way being made better by the fact that literally no one is left in her corner.
God, I hope she's okay. I don't condone her behavior but in a very real way I don't think she's 100% in control here.
4585669
my personal theory to explain it is basically the same as my personal theory for why there is also so many odd fetishes in furry porn.
basically, if you can make yourself jump from a high place once than you are more likely to be willing to jump from similar places again. -- if you are public about the furry porn, than it isn't as big a step to be public about your vore fetish.
if something in your life as whatever gender you were born as makes you feel like the only possible solution to your problem is a drastic and often irreversible change. than you could be more likely to go through with it if there is a point in your life where you are feeling like doing something drastic and often irreversible.
I'm likely wrong but it makes sense to me
4585810
Interesting theory. Slippery slope I think your are referencing to. Could be so.
I may take some flak for this opinion, but I think that some (#NotAll) may have large underlying mental issues that need to be treated with therapy, not the scalpel (considering the suicide rate of post-op people).
This because as some may get pushed into undergoing the transition, because of the massive progressive societal hype, promising this as a miraculous cure-all, only to find that everything is still the same afterwards. It did not "cure" them.
With the difference they now can never have kids, spent a boatload of cash, may suffer complications (physical and mental), a lifetime of medications, and still suffer from mental issues that led them to the decision in the first place.
Which pushes quite a few over the edge and why the suicide rate barely goes down post-op, in my layman opinion.
I speculate that in a hundred years, society will look back at this era with the same sense of horror as we do when we look back at forced sterilizations, lobotomies, and eugenics.
This weird societal pressure to do massive invasive medical procedures, with lifetime consequences, while promising the sky, when the real answer could be as simple as a specific form of therapy yet to be widely used (or invented).
I am of course speculating wildly, but I take the perhaps extreme view that something as complicated as the human mind, can't often be fixed by just a scalpel.
4585852
The counter argument is that the mind itself, as the seat of the identity, is not the disordered part; the body, which is viewed as the problem inasmuch as it is wrong for the mind it houses, is treatable with the scalpel.
Ultimately I think we need to focus on the actual issue which honestly has nothing to do with transgenderism. This is about YouTube's broken assailant-friendly DMCA complaint procedure and a woman who used it to hold innocents hostage in attempt to incite mob justice when she felt that conventional remedies weren't an option.
The sad part about it is that the actual music that is the bone of contention here is quite good.
Good enough that I took the game's data file apart to get it out.
4585897
Ah yes, I was going off on a tangent only partially relevant to the original topic. So back to the actual topic.
And I agree. The composer acted/acts like an buffoon, regardless of perceived gender, and Youtube does have massive issues in some departments such as copyright strikes, and demonetization for no good reason.
Special snowflake syndrome, the guy is just an asshole.
From what I'm now 90% convinced is her Twitter:
She also apparently told her former employer that she hoped he died in prison along with the new lawyer (then deleted that tweet) and followed that up by exposing someone's email after having screamed about people attempting to 'dox' her.
Oh ain't she sweet,
Well see her walking down that street.
Yes I ask you very confidentially,
Ain't she sweet?
4585852
i'm not sure if that is the name for it. it is more like how jumping out of a plane is hardest the first time you try it ... my English is failing me on that part.
well yes, if they were fine with everything in their life they probably wouldn't want to spent a shitload of money on an massively invasive medical procedure.
it is an uncomfortable thought that the kind of things that makes some people go under the scalpel can also be the kind of things that makes some people take a knife to themselves.
4585897
there was the "Where's The Fair Use" campaign awhile ago (link) that explains the shittyness of the youtube system.
i'm not actually surprised something like this happened
4585800
What I said about SidAlpha earlier about him being a better person than me[1]?
His video today included that he was going to/had been in contact with the authorities at her end to make them aware of the situation (I am under the impression she might be from this side of the pond). Apparently SidAlpha and the police his end are not hugely concerned with the threat to his life due to the "3000 mile gap", but he is concerned she might be a real danger to herself (and others), and went as far as to say that in his opinion that all this copyright nonsense, for all that it is Bad, was not as important as her life. Stand-up bloke, that chap.
So, despite it all, he's sort of not completely against her; I think at this stage, he seems as much concerned that she's had/having a breakdown as he is annoyed-slash-baffled at her behavior.
[1]Not that that is HARD, mind...
4586535
Sid's response has been pretty commendable. He's matured a bit since he was unable to resist a "neener neener I won you lost" back in the Fur Fun controversy.
4585669
4585675
Pretty much this. Yea, a lot of us suffer from depression - but mostly, what TG people tend to feel above all else is fear, and over time that fear can easily build into despair - especially when it is coupled with real-world identity rejection and bullying just for existing and trying to assert who you are.
I'm one of the lucky ones who has faced my crucible and come out the other side far stronger for it - but I still spent years wandering the mental maze and staring into the abyss wanting to jump. I was testing the waters, once - but that testing was the moment I blinked, and realized I did not want to fall, and went to ask for help. Nowadays, when I face new abysses? I might look - but then I almost always back up, turn around, and walk away.
Then turn around again, get a running start, and jump that goddamn abyss because I want to know what's on the other side.
But many, many of us trans* folk stare into that abyss that carries all the whispers of inner fear, and many also are surrounded by actual voices telling them to jump, denying that they will ever be who they know they are, calling them sinners who will burn in hell, not wanting to know they exist...I can recall plenty of comments like 'I'm okay with them existing but I wouldn't ever want to date one, that's gross, and really I just don't want to be around that sort'...and, well, when even the 'decent' folk are saying that (And at this point your eyes has become clouded by hateful mist, shrouding the truly good ones who want you to be happy)...well.
I can understand why many stare into the abyss and finally make the choice to fall into it, because they don't want to wander the maze anymore. They just want it to end, even if that end means oblivion.
So yea. That's why Transpeople kill themselves.
4585702
You don't even need two friends.
VPN, spoof a MAC address, run separate user profiles (Or just use 3 separate devices and don't let them cross over), and thus appear to be 3 different people, and boom.
Fortunately most people aren't that capable.
4585755
See my 4586727 comment. It's not entirely bullying and fear, but it's one of the biggest if not the biggest component.
People commit suicide due to despair. Why are white men despairing? I'd bet you that those killing themselves are disproportionately rural and have low educational attainment, and likely live in areas the Opioid epidemic is in full swing. Their source of despair? That they were raised to believe that what makes them worthwhile as a human being is having a job that allows them to support themselves and ultimately a family. A job like working in a factory making cars, or mining coal, or smelting steel. Jobs that have been vanishing for decades, with nothing in place to replace them. And so, to them, their lives have no true fulfillment, no meaning to keep them going, and they see no way forward.
As to why they succeed? Men use firearms far more than women do. A shitton of people who survive suicide attempts are because they pursue a method like ingesting pills, and then before it's too late realize they don't want to die and call 911 in time for EMS to save them. With a gun? Once you pull the trigger, you aren't surviving unless you did it wrong. There's no 'Come to your senses' time when you blow your brains out. And if you do it wrong and get rescued in time? Well, you are probably crippled for life.
Women tend to pursue suicide attempts with less instant lethality - so more women have time to back out.
4585852
I mean this as delicately as possible, but : Unless you have experience directly with how the process works then speculating like that is dangerous, and is exactly the sort of comment that transpeople see that reinforces the despair cycle.
Because the truth is that the barriers to transition are large. Mental health practitioners & physicians absolutely under no circumstances want to have someone start hormones for whom it is not the right path, because the consequences cannot be undone. They are acutely aware that irreversible changes will occur and if they encourage a transition and the person later changes their mind and believes it wrong? They may be exposed to malpractice suits.
There will be some bad actors out there, yes, who do not do adequate vetting and control - but the long grievance of the Transgender community is that medical practitioners are too unwilling to let them transition, not that the process is too easy. In the old days you were expected to live for 1-2 years as the opposite gender without any medical intervention - you were to do so purely via changing your clothing, makeup, aggressive shaving, taping genitalia or breast binding, things like that - and only after that period could you begin hormones.
These days it is thankfully easier, because the idea of trying to spend a year feeling an imposter is fucking terrifying to many. When I look in the mirror most of the time, I see all the bits of the 'Old' me - despite the fact that, even though at this stage I am still presenting in my old gender, most new people see me as my true identity when they meet me for the first time. And when I finally make the full plunge and fully change my dressing and makeup, I'm going to pass without issue.
I'm one of the lucky ones. The reason so many post-op people commit suicide is arguably because they still feel like they aren't who they know they are - they don't regret the operation. They just feel they are still incomplete, because their genetics are wrong.
There is one exception to this : Iran. Iran will in fact push gay men into gender transition, because Iran is surprisingly progressive on Trans* rights while being super regressive on gay rights - which means that male x male relationships are wrong, but transwoman x male relationships are ok. So plenty of gay people who identify as male in particular are pushed into gender transition because of their sexuality, not their gender identity.
But that's not in the first world.
4586750
I am unsure of what you have stated pertains to the high percentage of transgender people who very successfully transition and still commit suicide, which was more or less the focus of my post you replied to. But I will treat it as a reply on the content I wrote. If it was in error, please disregard the following:
I will respect that you gone through this yourself, and can sympathize with the issues you may have had to deal with. I can only imagine.
But, unless what you say is backed up by some sort of study, I can only assume you are operating from a factual sample size of one. Which is regretfully a form argumentum ad verecundiam.
How would you explain the almost identical suicide rate of the successful "can't tell previous gender at all" post-op segment?
Clearly points to there being more issues at hand then the difficulty of getting the operation (as it has been now completed successfully).
I still think it may be a symptom of society treating going under the knife as some end all, magical cure, that will whisk away all your mental troubles, and when it does not deliver for that 35-40%... Well, what is left?
They did the biggest step they could think of to heal their plight, and it did not help. In fact, may have even added massively to their woes down the line.
Therefore therapy should be applied first to those identified with previous mental issues. And since there is no progressive societal pressure to utilize therapy first hand, or develop genuinely effective therapy measures (quite the opposite actually), these people will keep dying.
Now again, I reiterate. This is about the segment that commit suicide despite transitioning very successfully. As in hashtag "NotAll" transgender people need therapy. That is not what I am saying.
TL;DR = Progressive society needs to stop hyping the scalpel as the sole and best treatment for everyone even remotely interested in transgenderism. The human mind is complicated and what works for some, won't work for all, thereof the high post-op suicide rate. Is my theory anyway.
P.S. Please do not take anything I say personal. I like a good discussion, but if you feel uncomfortable in any way, I will end it immediately.
4586750
4586807
First off, I want to thank you both for keeping this discussion civil on an issue that would have had many others reacting with anger and insults. I'm frankly half tempted to join in (I'm one of those weirdos who loves a good debate).
That said, would it be okay if you two finished this discussion via PM? Not that this isn't an important topic of discussion, but we seem to be veering from the topic of the original post, and I'm a little afraid what will happen if someone less mature than the two of you decides to jump in.
4586903
No worries. I will drop the discussion. However, I would ask Morning Sun get the opportunity to reply (if so desired), so I do not get an unfair last word.
4586807
The short version : Nobody is encouraged to get bottom surgery at all. It's a personal choice. There is 0 pressure I have observed or have ever seen anyone comment about to get bottom surgery. The opposite, in fact - the wave from within the community is 'Do what's right for you'.
On suicide : That all comes from one 2011 Swedish study. The physician who performed said study is interviewed here and clearly says that people saying 'Post-Op Transwomen are more suicidal' are distorting their conclusions - and then she gives multiple sources showing that WPATH Standards of Care in fact reduce risks of suicide.
The progressive left community looks at gender identity like this, and it's very simple : You assert your identity is X. Cool! That is your thing, and we respect that. You say you are going to handle X in a certain way. Also cool! You do what works for you!
There are going to be some hardcore crazies, I am sure, who advocate insane things, but the GLBT community as a whole? The philosophy is simply 'Live in the way that makes you happy, and if you want help exploring different ways, we're here for you'. That's it, really. It's very very much about letting individuals explore and determine who they are without insisting they conform to some preset expectation.
Anyhow, that's my end of statement I guess
4586750
^.^
Well, the problem is one guess is as good as the next without any actual data.
I mean, if education is a big factor for men (which I guess begs the question why it isn't for women--or maybe it is?), and considering the poor state of it in the black community, this would lead me to expect higher rates among black men. But whites are way higher (about 17% vs 6% according to those AFSP stats). Why is that? I have no idea. Maybe there are studies on this.
I agree, that could certainly be why women have a lower rate than men. It would be very interesting to see what percentage of attempted suicides used a particular method. Looking at those stats from the CDC, 55.4% of men use firearms, compared to 31% for women. Is that enough to account for the rate of men being about 3.5 times higher? I don't know. You'd have to work out the math. Firearms are the second most common method for women, coming behind the 34% who use poisoning, which isn't that much of a difference surprisingly. By the same data, in 1999 women used firearms more than poisoning, by a slight margin, though still not as much as men.
It would also be interesting to see what constitutes an attempted suicide: are they all failed suicides? Or does it include seriously considering suicide, like holding the bottle of pills but choosing to call 911 and not swallowing? What about the rates of other groups no one disagrees are marginalized by society, like convicts?
The whole thing's a complicated mess. And morbid :(
This whole situation has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of days . . . since you posted the blog post, really, since I didn't know anything about it beforehand, and kinda read up on it based on the comments and whatnot.
It's kind of a mess all around, isn't it?
I don't know a lot about copyright law and all that, but sometimes what I like to do is examine a situation from a point of view I do understand and sort of work it out that way . . . so, I work as an auto mechanic. And let's suppose that my boss says that he'll pay me $20 to mount a set of four tires on a car--that's pretty decent*, so I'm happy with it.
Come the end of the week, he decides that he doesn't want to pay me at all, for whatever reason. It doesn't matter what the reason is, he just says that he's not gonna pay me. Well, obviously, my beef is with him. I can't go around slashing the tires on customer's cars, who bought them in good faith.
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*Normally, a set of tires pays .6 hr (that's how Flat Rate works, and I could elaborate, but that's really not the point), so $20 for a set of tires works out to $33/hour which is a decent rate for a mechanic in my market.
Even so, I can't help but think about copyright as well. I don't know how a court would come down on a fanfiction being repurposed without authorization, since it in and of itself is kinda a violation of copyright. But it did make me think, I've had readings of several of my stories, and playing Devil's Advocate here, would I be within my rights morally to call down a DMCA strike on a reading that I didn't approve of?
I guess in some senses this is fairly black and white--was there a contract, and if so, what did it say? And did the developer live up to his end of it? Did the composer?
But I don't think it's very hard to imagine the case being a lot more grey than this one appears to be.
Also, kinda related, I wonder if I ought to copyright or trademark the word biscuit?
4589504
You might actually be able to enforce a fanfiction-related trademark on the word.
4589502
The strike system is platform-specific, to YouTube and other sites with similar systems. It's not a part of copyright law. And you can't file a claim on behalf of a copyright holder; as the injured party they need to do that. That said, fanfiction has always existed in a legal grey area and it is possible it might be found infringing.
4589769
I want it to apply to everything. Like, when someone orders biscuits and gravy, I want a cut.
4590065
Right, but arguably if someone did a reading of one of my fanfics, I'm theoretically a copyright holder.
If it was all OC, like Quicksilver, I actually might have a pretty good claim.
4590099
You are either not a copyright holder or you are an infringer; I doubt a case about an OC set in another property's universe would hold up in court. it's not settled law, so it's possible, but there's a reason why publishers trying to monetize fanfic go about systematically removing the original IP (50 Shades of Grey).
4590584
Well, in the case of that particular story, the only FiM word in it is 'mark' (referring to a cutie mark), and I could scrub that easily with little effect on the story. I doubt Hasbro has a trademark on 'pony.' That's actually why I used that one for an example.
But I don't disagree; it would be very difficult for me to claim copyright as a way to take down a reading of one of my fanfictions that I didn't approve of.