It's so tempting for people to try and have it both ways, but it tends to end up just pissing everyone off instead of only some people. Seriously, Penny Arcade, what good does it do to 'acknowledge' that something upsets people and state that you'll be removing it from sale, as follows:
We want PAX to be a place were everyone feels welcome and we’ve worked really hard to make that happen. From not allowing booth babes to making sure we have panels that represent all our attendees. When I heard from a few people that the shirt would make them uncomfortable at PAX, that gave me pause. Now whether I think that’s a fair or warranted reaction doesn’t really matter. These were not rants on blogs but personal mails to me from people being very reasonable. It’s how they feel and according to them at least, removing the shirt would make them feel better about attending the show. For me that’s an easy fix to the problem. I really don’t want to have this fight and if not having it is as simple as not selling a shirt then I’ll do it. Contrary to what they might think I’m not a complete asshole.
... and then to proudly state that you intend to wear and display it yourself?
Yes, obviously, I am aware that many people interested in this stupid t-shirt are doing so in what they consider to be an Ironic Fashion and are not, in fact, in favor of rape.
But ironic or no, it's also obvious that walking around proclaiming yourself to be part of Team Rape is going to upset some people very badly. You coolkids may not care if people less ironic than yourself are made upset. But you can't very believably pretend to care and then wear the damn shirt yourself.
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Uh, no. teamrape is the name of another twitter user http://twitter.com/#!/teamrape that is vocally in "support" of the dickwolves thing.
So, no, Gabe from Penny Arcade is not calling himself teamrape.
Sorry, my fault for being confusing there - I know that the 'teamrape' guy is not Gabe. My post titles are often a bit tangential to the post.
I was _separately_ being bemused that anyone would actually call themselves teamrape, and that was what the title was referring to... saying that the user in question was seriously calling himself that, as opposed to using that username as an insult to try and call out the Penny Arcade guys.
Someone over at Penny Arcade needs to slap Gabe and stop him digging the hole any deeper. It's now pretty much guaranteed this is going to be a nasty undercurrent at PAX.
Someone at Hothead should drop the PA games rather than be tarnished by this nastyness that they started
Well articulated.
Some of us are working on ways to correct against this kind of boorish behavior so that PAX can indeed be an inclusive experience. If you want to know more when the time comes, please send an email to paxteamrespect@gmail.com
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