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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35494 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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June 22 2020, PCGamer - Chris Avellone accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women

"He got me blackout drunk on Midori Sours (on the company dime). He and two friends somehow got me back to my room, where he pounced in front of the other guys. They left after a few moments (also drunk), and one of them told me what he had witnessed the next evening. I had very vague impressions that someone had made out with me when I woke up that morning, but thought it was a dream," she wrote(opens in new tab).

"When I asked Chris about it, he told me that I had eventually refused him. When more of the night came back to me, I realized the ONLY reason I was able to refuse him in my blackout stupor was because I was on my period that weekend. The ONLY reason."

Karissa said she witnessed Avellone act in a similar fashion with multiple other women at the event, and eventually reached the point where she, backed by two men who were also aware of his behavior, reported him to organizers, who immediately blacklisted him.

"His behavior didn’t stop, though. If anything, it got worse. It took years for his employer to finally fire him (I honestly don’t recall the exact reason he was given, it was a while ago and I wasn’t there personally—this was relayed to me by a friend who also worked there)," she wrote. "He moved to other studios. Other projects. Other conventions until they stopped inviting him on their own accord (whether due to behavior or relevance, I don’t know). I pushed him out of my memory, as did my dear friends, and we only discussed our anger and disgust if he happened to come up.

June 29 2021, PCGamer - Chris Avellone files libel suit over last year's sexual misconduct allegations

Barrows stands by her allegations. "The only statement I will make at this time is that I stand by my story," Barrows told PC Gamer when reached for comment this week. "I told the truth. I am not at liberty to speak further until legal proceedings have concluded."

Along with the lawsuit, Avellone published a blog post titled "It's Come To This"(opens in new tab), in which he claims that Barrows became antagonistic toward him when his relationship with a friend of hers soured. In 2020, Barrows claimed that her best friend "endured over a year of heartache, gaslighting, and emotional abuse at [Avellone's] hands." Avellone says that the friend in question did become "unhappy," but that they had not been in a committed relationship. (The friend is only identified in the post as someone named Jackie. She is not identified in the lawsuit, either.)

March 25 2023, Chris Avellone's blog - JOINT STATEMENT FROM KARISSA BARROWS, KELLY BRISTOL, AND CHRIS AVELLONE

Mr. Avellone never sexually abused either of us. We have no knowledge that he has ever sexually abused any women. We have no knowledge that Mr. Avellone has ever misused corporate funds. Anything we have previously said or written about Mr. Avellone to the contrary was not our intent. We wanted to support women in the industry. In so doing, our words have been misinterpreted to suggest specific allegations of misconduct that were neither expressed nor intended. We are passionate about the safety, security and agency of women, minorities, LGBTQIA+ persons, and every other community that has seen persecution in the video game industry. We believe Mr. Avellone shares a desire to protect and uplift those communities. We believe that he deserves a full return to the industry and support him in those endeavors.”

March 25 2023, PCGamer - crickets

March 25 2023, Kotaku - crickets

It's remarkable that rpgcodex had the coverage that aged best.

Erik Kain working his beat as a based games journalist as well.

I'm not sure what more to add to this that hasn't already been said. Mostly I felt like summing up the entire event from primary sources for posterity and clarity, so that it's obvious who the liars are, and who the good faith actors are.

Didn’t this just happen to the creator of Rick and Morty?

I’m ready to say I will never believe a rape accusation unless (1) it makes it through the courts and (2) I can see the evidence myself. I might make an exception in cases where I can evaluate the repute of the woman — let’s be honest, false accusers fit a certain type. What other option is there? False accusations are endemic for the most significant creative men in America. Something similar happened to the frontman of Arcade Fire not long ago.

If we want to end sexual assault, our best bet is to reintroduce guardrails for male-female interaction (like every developed society in history). We can’t implement a norm of texting affirmative consent, because women do not want consent to be verbally agreed upon (read the testimony of women getting the ick about this online, it’s hilarious). Unless you don’t want to have sex, asking women to clearly write out what you can do to them when they get to your apartment is a false start. Women clearly desire the costly signal of a guy only relying on implicit consent, and also appear to like the inherent high stakes and seduction of the situation. This is probably biological. You can draw a line from the oldest tradition of husbands “wifenapping” his bride from her family, to the convoluted sexual games which make affirmative informed consent impossible.

This whole thing can be fixed with just: don’t hang out or drink with guys you don’t want to have sex with. Don’t go into a guy’s place alone, ever, unless you want to have sex. Don’t hang out with guys you don’t trust. Literally you can put to bed (pun intended) our whole cultural neuroticism by enacting these rules. I had a conservative Pakistani Muslim friend in college who gave me a shocked look when I thought we were going to her apartment together (we were walking and she needed to grab something). She explained she would never be with a guy alone in an apartment. Guess which demographic is probably not being sexual assaulted?

Didn’t this just happen to the creator of Rick and Morty?

Yes, but in the course of the legal proceedings for domestic assault and kidnapping (technically, preventing someone from leaving by blocking a door or taking their keys counts as attempted kidnapping, so it sounds like a drama-filled domestic spat), there was a bunch of fishing around and apparently he made some joke about a 14-year-old fan being Jailbait while interacting with said fan. Which also turned him into a groomer and a pedophile according to Reddit. So legal exoneration now doesn't do much for him. Plus he generally has a drunk-texting habit, which provides additional examples of being "creepy," the ultimate sin.

In the course of this, there were also claims that he hadn't actually done any in-person work apart from voice stuff on any of his shows or projects since Rick&Morty Season 3, which I'm slightly skeptical of; it sounds like all his friends and co-workers distancing themselves and claiming they never liked him anyways and none of those projects should suffer cancellation because they don't represent his work. Buuut, you can tell on the Season 3 R&M commentary that he's less involved; there's a lot more guest writers and randos and vapid LA circlejerking; and there's no Season 4 Commentary, which is consistent with less engagement from him. It's also consistent with someone who was muscled out of his own show by Dan Harmon. Genuine shrug here, the evidence is ambiguous, everyone involved has motivation to lie or elide.

My own hypothesis is that guys who luck into fame and success (and the sexual opportunities that come with it) later in life often don't know how to handle it, they're the eternal underdog who finally caught the car. Famous men who haven't lived through decades of sexual deprivation before becoming famous have better OpSec and don't fall for Crazy so easily.

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