Blizzard and Lvl90ETC apologies for the insults at Blizzcon

[Grimmer]

I don't understand why c@cksuckers are always compared with gays...only thing i can point out is that when a woman does it she'd be gay cause she likes men....

- A confused heterosexual man

Connotation is your friend.

"Cocksucker" was originally conceived as an insult against male gays because it was comparing them to women by saying that by indulging in practices similar to straight females, you are not a man and there is something wrong with that.

So it's actually a term that marginalizes gay men AND women by proxy.

Also, implying the word cocksucker is ever used in the context of a woman. It's either a slur directed at a gay man, or it's a generic insult at males in general because it is associated with homosexuality, which is bad. That is the connotation of the word.

[Nocturnes]

Pretty sure he said "faggot," too.

aha, the faggotpart explains alot to me....

---------- Post added 2011-10-26 at 01:35 PM ----------

Connotation is your friend.

"Cocksucker" was originally conceived as an insult against male gays because it was comparing them to women by saying that by indulging in practices similar to straight females, you are not a man and there is something wrong with that.

So it's actually a term that marginalizes gay men AND women by proxy.

Viola, there we go thx for that

[Deleted]

Damn right they apologised.

[Deleted]

And what bugs me much more than that is that people actually insult the people who were offended. I mean, it is so bad nowadays when you're not such a bitter and oblivious person that some things can catch you off guard and hurt you? Do we really want to make the world a place where only callous and "tough" people can survive, because everybody else's feelings get trampled and then spit on?

If someone can't handle a bad word that kinda sorta maybe insults a certain group of people that he may or may not belong to, and is getting deeply hurt feelings over that, then yeah, he's got problems.

[Shrymp]

I wasn't I have seen and heard much worse.

But just because I wasn't it doesn't mean, I have to agree that every child, mother or person not usually attending such a concert must see it the same way. And they were there, they were invited. Everybody knew there were not only "tough" metal heads in the crowd. It was Blizzcon.
And what bugs me much more than that is that people actually insult the people who were offended. I mean, it is so bad nowadays when you're not such a bitter and oblivious person that some things can catch you off guard and hurt you? Do we really want to make the world a place where only callous and "tough" people can survive, because everybody else's feelings get trampled and then spit on?
Even if that is exaggerated in this case, even if I see so much as a hint about it I will speak up against something like that. Count me as a carebear, I can "let that slide" ^^.

I'm not advocating hate speech. I agree that it's wrong.

But people need to just let it go.

1. He was doing a show.
2. He was entertaining.
3. He was pandering to 50%+ of the crowd who is horde.
4. He was entertaining.

[Dacia Ultan]

If someone can't handle a bad word that kinda sorta maybe insults a certain group of people that he may or may not belong to, and is getting deeply hurt feelings over that, then yeah, he's got problems.

You heard it, folks: If you're upset by bigotry, there is clearly something wrong with you.

What.

I'm not advocating hate speech. I agree that it's wrong.

But people need to just let it go.

1. He was doing a show.
2. He was entertaining.
3. He was pandering to 50%+ of the crowd who is horde.
4. He was entertaining.

So you say you're "not advocating hate speech," but then you turn around and defend it because it entertained you. Gotcha.

[Amsden]

Who cares what some no talent nobody thinks of a WoW faction? It's retarded to get upset over what someone who was just trying to entertain (or deafen ) a crowd says, He was just trying to get people amped up. I play Alliance, and I don't really care, if I saw the guy in game he can say how much I suck during his corpse run.

[chrisisvacant]

If someone can't handle a bad word that kinda sorta maybe insults a certain group of people that he may or may not belong to, and is getting deeply hurt feelings over that, then yeah, he's got problems.

How on earth do -you- know how deep someone's feelings are hurt?

[Shrymp]

Connotation is your friend.

"Cocksucker" was originally conceived as an insult against male gays because it was comparing them to women by saying that by indulging in practices similar to straight females, you are not a man and there is something wrong with that.

So it's actually a term that marginalizes gay men AND women by proxy.

Also, implying the word cocksucker is ever used in the context of a woman. It's either a slur directed at a gay man, or it's a generic insult at males in general because it is associated with homosexuality, which is bad. That is the connotation of the word.

You're an idiot if you think like that.

No hate words have any specific direction anymore. They are all blended together as various levels of general obscenity and hate.

(unless said DIRECTLY to someone of a specific race or sexual orientation, which is not the case here).

Infracted. Don't insult other users.

[chrisisvacant]

You're an idiot if you think like that.

No hate words have any specific direction anymore. They are all blended together as various levels of obscenity and hate.

(unless said DIRECTLY to someone of a specific race or sexual orientation, which is not the case here).

So you can't make your point without calling someone an idiot? No one will lose sleep over not making a convert out of you.

[Raziella]

I don't understand why c@cksuckers are always compared with gays...only thing i can point out is that when a woman does it she'd be gay cause she likes men....

- A confused heterosexual man

Why would someone bother to insult female WoW fans? It's sort of a minority of the population... and honestly, a VERY small minority of death metal listeners... (if those still really exist much anymore... I guess you learn something every day.)

You call a guy a cocksucker, and it is sort of the grand poobah insult because you're calling him gay.
You call a woman a cocksucker... and well, it just makes her really popular.
It's really less about gays, than the typical male homophobia.

On topic:
Alliance insults aside - and, using the above logic it really WAS a big insult to a lot of the WoW populace, if you look at it that way - but, that aside, there were a lot of people who had - very reasonable! - expectations that this was a family event, and that was really shocking/upsetting to them.

I use foul language way more frequently than I probably should, and often in a humorous fashion/as every part of a sentence, when I'm with my friends.
However, that doesn't mean that someday I would do that in front of my kids, or want them to be exposed to something like that without my consent.
Sure, you can use the "they hear it at school in the first grade" but if I'm actively letting my kid be exposed to it, instead of a "mommy's not here" situation, well kids DO know the difference.

Believe it or not, there's quite a lot of people of the adult age who are against that sort of language for personal or religious reasons (I've been in TWO guilds that kicked people for swearing... raiding guilds, not family guilds... nightmare...) and while they typically tolerate it in others, the amount that CC put out was... well... inarguably excessive... This wasn't a death metal concert, and there's such a thing as tailoring your message to an audience.

TLDR?
If I can get banned from the WoW forums for using any of the words that that singer used at a Blizzard event? I call ****ing bull****.

[Shrymp]

So you say you're "not advocating hate speech," but then you turn around and defend it because it entertained you. Gotcha.

I was not entertained. I hate death metal.

But I wasn't offended either. AND I'm Alliance. I would say I'm a pretty objective opinion when considering the context.

[Raziella]

Connotation is your friend.

"Cocksucker" was originally conceived as an insult against male gays because it was comparing them to women by saying that by indulging in practices similar to straight females, you are not a man and there is something wrong with that.

So it's actually a term that marginalizes gay men AND women by proxy.

Also, implying the word cocksucker is ever used in the context of a woman. It's either a slur directed at a gay man, or it's a generic insult at males in general because it is associated with homosexuality, which is bad. That is the connotation of the word.

If that's really where it was derived from, that's pretty interesting... Especially how in the last few hundred years, cocksucking has been lumped in with sodomy (called the same, in the law most places still) and is actually still illegal in states for male/female couples oO
Odd, but true.

[Nørf]

So lame that people get offended over that... Get real.

[Grimmer]

I'm not advocating hate speech. I agree that it's wrong.

But people need to just let it go.

1. He was doing a show.
2. He was entertaining.
3. He was pandering to 50%+ of the crowd who is horde.
4. He was entertaining.

I don't think you have negative intentions. I really DON'T. I get heated against most of the people in this thread, but you're not bad.

However, at the same time? I really can't do that. Letting things "go" is what causes speech like this to prop up all the time and ends up turning words that hurt these groups into common occurrences. The connotations those words carry end up ingrained in the cultural context as something that is inherently negative. Bullying against these groups isn't dead, especially in the teenage years, and whether or not people in your immediate area were spared this kind of treatment is irrelevant: gay teenagers and adults have killed themselves over this kind of thing.

Blizzard has a huge audience, spanning well beyond the millions of WoW subscribers they have out there, and I wouldn't be shocked if a large number of them were still watching BlizzCon when the concert came around. And the kind of marginalizing hate speech that he brought out has nothing to do with the 50% crowd who is Horde, especially when FACTION DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHY IT IS WRONG. The Alliance vs. Horde business can fuck off, because I don't care.

What matters is that by trivializing something like this, which deeply affected people, regardless of how many or how "thin skinned" you or others see them, is an issue. Ignoring shit like this is how social change DOESN'T happen, and ignoring instances of the same problems in other groups would've led to a very different world than we see now, even if there's still problems for a ton of groups that lack privilege and are marginalized.

Seriously. I already said that I appreciate that they apologized, my only real issue is that they don't seem to know WHY they apologized, just like people in this thread think it's an Alliance thing. It isn't. I fucking love the Horde, that's not the point.

If Blizzard knew why there was a problem and addressed that more directly in the apology, I honestly wouldn't care. It's not like we're calling for their lynching, why should anyone "let it go?" It should serve as a reminder to them, THAT is how change happens.

No hate words have any specific direction anymore. They are all blended together as various levels of general obscenity and hate.

Sigh. I said you didn't have negative intentions before I read this.

That varies, heavily. While they have gotten lumped together, they're largely negative words BECAUSE of a context of hate that originated the words in the first place. That kind of speech still exists to hurt those groups in the world, and some people confront them every day in a context that IS intended as hate speech.

So even if you don't intend hate speech for the sake of hate, that doesn't change what it is. You're still invoking those emotions and memories in people that HAVE had issues with that aspect of their identity, or have been hurt in the past.

It's not much different from, I dunno, showing a rape victim a video that would might really obviously trigger them without any warning. It doesn't matter if you didn't INTEND it, it still happened.

[majik16106]

Yah Im still not happy. I dont care about the band.

One of the posts on the front page sums up my problem. Blizzard as a company invited a guy who used slurs in his video to their press event. They put him on stage. They played a portion of it. Then allowed him to repeat some of that message while performing.

I dont care what faction it was about
I dont care what he thinks
I dont care what the band feels like

I care that the company de-facto supported it. So my response is to not support that company.

[Deleted]

If someone can't handle a bad word that kinda sorta maybe insults a certain group of people that he may or may not belong to, and is getting deeply hurt feelings over that, then yeah, he's got problems.

That is not for me to judge. When somebody is hurt, he deserves a friendly explanation that it wasn't meant that way and an apology. Then he can decide if he cheers up a little and says: "ok, if it is that way, I can take it and laugh about it." or if he still says: "ok, I take your apology for it, if you promise not to do it again." or he can say: "Apologies are like a*holes. Everyone's got one and they all stink. Should've used your brain in the first place."
Then everyone goes their way and all's ok. (Except that in the last case maybe everyone is still mad.)
But that is a thing about the one who hurt the other and the one who got hurt.
But being hurt and then being called dumb or weak for it by the crowd is simply not acceptable.

[Deleted]

Actually, he said:

'f*** the alliance, f***ing die you f***ing emo c***suckers'

That is neither appropriate, funny, or light-hearted. It's borderline Tourette's Syndrome and at the very least it is insulting to half of the customer base (not to mention women and homosexual men far and wide).

Your sig offends me as a fast tanker. I demand an apology.

[Dacia Ultan]

I was not entertained. I hate death metal.

But I wasn't offended either. AND I'm Alliance. I would say I'm a pretty objective opinion when considering the context.

"Alliance" has nothing to do with why people were offended by it. The faction-baiting is a red herring.

The issue was the sexual-orientation comments. And again, I've got a hell of a lot more sympathy for anyone offended by those than I do for anyone being dismissive about it.

I dont care what faction it was about
I dont care what he thinks
I dont care what the band feels like

I care that the company de-facto supported it. So my response is to not support that company.

I take it you weren't one of the many people who'd already signed up for an annual pass by then?

[The King in Yellow]

So let me get this straight......

They had to apologize because of some "bad words"

Brb, gonna sue Ozzy, Bruce Dickinson and Rob Zombie.