Support NeoGAF

[Kamina]

So even if it was true (that they indeed say retard in the song) i still don’t know what is worse:
The fact that unaffected people are getting outraged for the ones affected, or that more and more words, symbols and gestures are being blamed rather than accounting for context.

Just realized that Kotaku in german translated (my deutch is bad) means Excrement and Batteries ... in other words "never ending shit producing" drivel? Do people still follow these sites? IGN64 anyone? Why?!

What does Kot mean in German?

English words for Kot include feces, excrement, filth, muck and ordure. Find more German words at wordhippo.com!

www.wordhippo.com

Kotaku doesnt mean anything in german per se. “Kot” meaning Crap is correct however. And Akku, not Aku, is short for Akkumulator -> Accumulator (rechargeable battery)
So yeah Crap-Battery is correct, lol

 

[petran79]

This was eventually meant to happen.
It also shows that the leadership those people serve, sees them nothing more as another opportunity to gain quick money and dispose them once they served their use without any compensation or protection.
They dont regard social values at all.

 

[The Scrivener]

How on earth did it become trendy to be a gay autistic trans woman?

That's what her Twitter profile reads.

I am sorry if you are autistic.
I'm okay if you are gay.
Be transgender for all I care.
Good luck making a profession as a writer.

But mix it all up on your Twitter profile and it as good as replaces your CV.

I'm not a trendy asshole, do what I want, do what I feel like.

You can't tell me they didn't get the job as games journalist any other way.

Fuck trendy sheep.

 

[The Scrivener]

We used to stack fucks like that in NAM and used em as sandbags.

OMG if I didn't have a sense of humour this would have killed me! Class A lols. I'm a staunch anti-reeeee'r, but this pushes it pretty far out. Well done this man.

 

[LegendOfKage]

 

[LegendOfKage]

The problem with that line of thought is that you don't go to your boss with such bullshit unless you want it published. Whether it's just a "maybe" or "certain" is irrelevant. You are ill-intended from the very moment your radar is set to pick up the shittiest stories on the internet. Normal people with a sound mind would never pay attention to these matters so they would never get in trouble.

She heard what she thought was the word "retarded," listened to it several more times, couldn't think of anything else it could have been, but still understood she couldn't be sure, and then asked for her editor to ask Nintendo about it. This was done with the understanding that if they said "yes, that's the lyric in question," or "we have no comment" nothing in her article would have been factually wrong, especially if she expressed uncertainty.

Instead, her editor got rid of all the uncertainty from her article and rushed to publish it without waiting for Nintendo to comment.

I'm not offended by that word, but some people are, and it probably would have been a bad idea for Nintendo to allow it into Smash. And if all that was true, then the article would have had some level of merit, no matter how eye-rollingly "woke" you or I might find it.

 

[cormack12]

The whole thing is ridiculous. Let's just take this at face value. This is a 'professional' games reporting site. Probably one of the biggest. So in context, this is what happened (with examples!!)

Someone listened to a song:



They heard what they wanted to heard (in the above, I heard '...and I'm a shoe'). They then decided to publish an article to everyone highlighting what a crap lyric writer this particular person was and calling them an awful person. Then washed their hands off it and said '.....if it's wrong, the onus is on the victim now to prove it'. Scum. Usually these would act as teachable moments for people in LKDs case, but you can see their stupidity knows no bounds and there is no resolve to improve. And people syaing tis is exclusive to a small number of Kotaku staff or Rich Stanton need to look deeper, beyond their for Schreier for example

The author of that piece, Jason Schreier, has also asked to say the following...

"Over the past couple of days, I've spent a lot of time reading reactions and feedback to the article I published last week, and I've spent a lot of time regretting it. The post was rash, and hasty, and below my usual standards

It's no wonder this is Kotaku UK, as UK tabloids are the worst in manipulating a story. I'll give another example here. Years ago now (late 90's), one of my friends sisters was dating a reasonably successful professional football player. There was cheating (by him and a bit of a fallout. The tabloid filth descended to her house and basically camped there for weeks. Each day they'd make up some ridiculous allegation and press her to comment. Obviously she had been told to say nothing via her legal team. So just as an example:

Tabloid filth: Is it true that (name) used to have humiliating swinger's parties at their luxury mansion in (place)?
Woman: (ignores and gets in car)
Tabloid Headline: (Name) involved in multiple sex orgies.

This article would be sourced by anonymous people, all conjecture and based on wild fantasies, then at the end they'd stick on '...ex-partner (name) refused to deny these allegations when questioned'.

 

[shark sandwich]

She heard what she thought was the word "retarded," listened to it several more times, decided it couldn't have been anything else, understood she couldn't be sure, and then asked for her editor to ask Nintendo about it. This was done with the understanding that if they said "yes, that's the lyric in question," or "we have no comment" nothing in her article would have been factually wrong, especially if she expressed uncertainty.

Instead, her editor got rid of all the uncertainty from her article and rushed to publish it without waiting for Nintendo to comment.

I'm not offended by that word, but some people are, and it probably would have been a bad idea for Nintendo to allow it into Smash. And if all that was true, then the article would have had some level of merit, no matter how eye-rollingly "woke" you or I might find it.

Ehh. You’re talking about a person who has made a career out of being perpetually offended, and who has a history of writing these sort of outrage-bait hit pieces. Some of which are outright fabricated (see her story about being “misgendered” at E3, or her story about being “almost kidnapped”).

If this was an isolated incident then I might give her the benefit of the doubt. But she and her publication have a long history of this kind of garbage.

And even if her story is true, then basically she wrote a low-effort outrage-bait piece, then her boss edited it to be even more outrage-y and published it without her permission. It’s hard to feel sorry for either party in this situation.

 

[Abriael_GN]

She heard what she thought was the word "retarded," listened to it several more times, couldn't think of anything else it could have been, but still understood she couldn't be sure, and then asked for her editor to ask Nintendo about it. This was done with the understanding that if they said "yes, that's the lyric in question," or "we have no comment" nothing in her article would have been factually wrong, especially if she expressed uncertainty.

Instead, her editor got rid of all the uncertainty from her article and rushed to publish it without waiting for Nintendo to comment.

I'm not offended by that word, but some people are, and it probably would have been a bad idea for Nintendo to allow it into Smash. And if all that was true, then the article would have had some level of merit, no matter how eye-rollingly "woke" you or I might find it.

Let's forget for a moment that hunting for outrage-bait like that is in itself despicable and that this specific writer has a long and inglorious history of doing exactly this.

If the situation you describe has any truth to it, then the editor in chief is guilty of extreme misconduct. If he doesn't get replaced or demoted immediately (yes, the situation you describe would absolutely warrant it), then the author of this piece should quit and seek greener pastures. By writing for an outlet in which that kind of practice is accepted, you quietly make yourself accomplice of them.

I've had plenty of moments in which I did not see eye to eye with my editors in chief, but none of them involved turning a legitimate piece into a hit piece under my name without my consent and then throwing me under the bus with a gag order.

 

[angelic]

We shouldn't get upset at kotaku's shit journalism, it should be celebrated because 1/ its funny and 2/ each one subtracts further credibility from them.

 

[kraspkibble]

i knew straight away who wrote it before even looking. typical SJW bullshit.

 

[Wink]

What? Have you ever been to America? It's a requirement in virtually every school to learn a second language. The usual options are French, German, and Spanish.. but some schools offer more like Japanese and Italian.

Edit: I personally speak (with full proficiency) English, German (my native language), Russian, and French. I am currently learning Japanese because I want to start importing some games from Japan.

I'm statistically correct, even factoring in the multilingual community it's still most americans do not get to any sort of proficiency in a second language. Look it up. Though it was clear I was refering to americans raised monolingually, where the stat is abysmal. I'm not judging by the way, if you can go for thousands of miles not encountering a language barrier and the rest of the world uses your mother tongue as standard, why would you.
Of all the things to respond to it's really weird to call me out on something that's not even wrong. Congratulations on making your way to a polyglot though.

 

[Traianvs]

I

I remember a halcyon GAF where this clickbait shithole was on the banned sites list.

Then we let in weasels like Schrier who when given half the chance, turned on the administration and noble userbase here.

With the power of our belief, we can return to those original golden days! Let's re-ban them.

I Respectfully disagree.
I really love GAF as a community and I believe we are better than other places like Era were wrongthinking is censored and banned.
While I think that kotaku UK is a trash level tabloid, only caring about their political agenda, I also believe that most of us are smart enough to listen to them and constructively criticize them, without the fear of other opinions.
We are a better community let's never forget it

 

[angelic]

I think it's best to laugh at kotaku rather than banish them, else you become just like them.

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

Also:


"You can't delete things from the internet so we're not gonna bother."

Keep fighting that noble fight, Kotaku.

 

[BlackTron]

Just found an earlier gem by this person

This is a nothing blogpost written by a mentally-deranged individual who has no idea how to be a journalist.
I realize all of that is typical for Kotaku, but jesus fucking christ it annoys me.

Jesus christ. You know, as a straight person, gender-swapped dream daddy art also bothers me. The difference is that my solution is to ignore it and leave it to its intended audience instead of bitching and moaning that your gender-swapped dream daddy art bothers me as a straight person.

Fucking psychos.

 

[Guileless]

I can just imagine this author shaking with excitement at the opportunity to burn another witch while writing this article.

 

[angelic]

I can just imagine this author shaking with excitement at the opportunity to burn another witch while writing this article.

This is key, SJWs only pull this stuff for little dopamine hits.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Hahahahaha

 

[BlackTron]

I can't get over this shit. What's next? Cat people complaining that dog calenders should be pulled from stores? It's not for you, ignore it DAMMIT.

 

[zenspider]

This is key, SJWs only pull this stuff for little dopamine hits.

That, plus prestige and status. I'm interested to see the half-life of the fallout, if any.

In a sane world, this should be a long road to redemption. Credibility should be king, and even Ree folks are pulling back from this -though I think that's more about being in love with the Persona series.

Unfortunately, my guess is after a few days of dopamine withdrawl from "taking a break from social media sorry everyone", everything will reset to square one like a bad sitcom.

 

[zenspider]

Taking one step back, is there a list of all the shot attempts kotaku has taken at making Smash Ultimate "problematic" since December?

 

[dolabla]

How on earth did it become trendy to be a gay autistic trans woman?

That's what her Twitter profile reads.

I am sorry if you are autistic.
I'm okay if you are gay.
Be transgender for all I care.
Good luck making a profession as a writer.

But mix it all up on your Twitter profile and it as good as replaces your CV.

I'm not a trendy asshole, do what I want, do what I feel like.

You can't tell me they didn't get the job as games journalist any other way.

Fuck trendy sheep.

Also, the thing with LKD is you don't know what to believe. LKD is a known liar who's made up some ridiculous stories in the past. This whole being autistic could be just another one of LKD lies to score major sympathy points.

 

[Raven117]

I also believe that most of us are smart enough to listen to them and constructively criticize them, without the fear of other opinions.
We are a better community let's never forget it

I think it's best to laugh at kotaku rather than banish them, else you become just like them.

This right here. Banning is silly in this instance. We aren’t in the business of virtue signaling by taking stupid stances on stupid things.

 

[JORMBO]

Just reading up on this.
Bad even by Kotaku standards.

 

[dolabla]

I think it's best to laugh at kotaku rather than banish them, else you become just like them.

Yep, banning them would be a stupid idea. Censorship sucks. That wold be no better than Ree, which we don't ever want this site to become. It's best to just read it (or you don't have to) and mock them for garbage journalism.

 

[Nikana]

I get that you have to pay the bills right...but when you make a colossal fuck up like this...it makes way more sense to fix it rather than get the ad revenue.

 

[shark sandwich]

I get that you have to pay the bills right...but when you make a colossal fuck up like this...it makes way more sense to fix it rather than get the ad revenue.

They’re loving this controversy. All these page clicks to see what the fuss is about, and more clicks to view their “we fucked up” article.

And the SJWs have put another of their own through the meat grinder.

 

[JunkerWoland]

Common Sense: Persona 5 has been out in the West since 2017, surely someone would have heard "retarded" in the song by now, better investigate, first.

Kotaku: But think about the clicks!!!

 

[infinitys_7th]

I've got an idea - let's just co-opt their name and start using it instead of the r-word. We can just use the same word for all tenses and parts of speech, and make it uncountable.

"That's Kotaku."

"Don't be a Kotaku."

"Anyone see that movie 'Forrest Gump'? It's about the life of a Kotaku."

BRB setting up FoxReplace.

So even if it was true (that they indeed say retard in the song) i still don’t know what is worse:
The fact that unaffected people are getting outraged for the ones affected, or that more and more words, symbols and gestures are being blamed rather than accounting for context.


Kotaku doesnt mean anything in german per se. “Kot” meaning Crap is correct however. And Akku, not Aku, is short for Akkumulator -> Accumulator (rechargeable battery)
So yeah Crap-Battery is correct, lol

Germany confirms: Kotaku is a shit generator.

 

[infinitys_7th]

Also, I just noticed that Kotaku UK outs Secret Gamer Girl in their banner. Very distasteful. This is 2019 people - allies don't out 400 lb bearded men who pretend to be trans online to score oppression points.

 

[checkcola]

Seems like the SJW crowd has had issues with Atlus for awhile because of Catherine and the Persona series, then I have to figure the Smash fandom is huge, thus some of it is SJW, so here comes something they don't like invading that space. So, the tactics is always the same, social justice outrage.

The issue with reporting, goes beyond gaming news, when misinformation is reported as fact, the mess-up gets much more exposure than the retraction/apology/whatever. In a sane world, the article would be removed.

 

[KLoWn]

Trash article by a trash person.

 

[angelic]

What is it with this hobby that attracts these victims? Why do people think at 16 years old, I know, I want 1/ a sex change and 2/ to become a game journalist. None of my other interests are as infested with SJWism as videogames. Maybe it's because it's such a loner pursuit in some cases, it attracts nutters, highschool shooters, SWATers and inverse racists.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

What is it with this hobby that attracts these victims? Why do people think at 16 years old, I know, I want 1/ a sex change and 2/ to become a game journalist. None of my other interests are as infested with SJWism as videogames. Maybe it's because it's such a loner pursuit in some cases, it attracts nutters, highschool shooters, SWATers and inverse racists.

You'll notice that they never go off and create their own hobbies, their own social media platforms, their own technologies, their own communities. They have to infect existing ones.

The fanatic does not create. They only burn and destroy in their righteous indignation.

 

[deriks]

Kotaku is more than Laura. I hope that everybody realizes that

 

[Moneal]

What is it with this hobby that attracts these victims? Why do people think at 16 years old, I know, I want 1/ a sex change and 2/ to become a game journalist. None of my other interests are as infested with SJWism as videogames. Maybe it's because it's such a loner pursuit in some cases, it attracts nutters, highschool shooters, SWATers and inverse racists.

gaming journalism is the perfect place to impose your views on the world. it has and always will be about reaching a young audience to mold their minds.

 

[zenspider]

This right here. Banning is silly in this instance. We aren’t in the business of virtue signaling by taking stupid stances on stupid things.

I haven't given them a click in about a year now. That's the only good thing about a ban - not making it easy to give them thier precious clicks.

I like to see OPs put a cached or archived link so we can check sources but not feed them.

 

[kunonabi]

Taking one step back, is there a list of all the shot attempts kotaku has taken at making Smash Ultimate "problematic" since December?

There was Mr. Game and Watch's feather which they got removed, some bitching about the some of the Spirit battles being racist, and this newest retarded one. I think the lack of women on the roster also got brought up and how sexist it is that some of the defaults are the male versions instead of the female ones.

 

[zenspider]

There was Mr. Game and Watch's feather which they got removed, some bitching about the some of the Spirit battles being racist, and this newest retarded one. I think the lack of women on the roster also got brought up and how sexist it is that some of the defaults are the male versions instead of the female ones.

Jesus. That's a pretty good batting average for trying to 'problematize' one of, if not the most inclusive game designs in the industry- especially considering there's no consequences for striking out.

Hypothetically, if I was colluding with like-minded individuals trying to push an agenda through the low-hanging fruit in journalism, I would call this campaign against a worldwide franchise a success.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

 

[mcjmetroid]

Lol, this is getting interesting.

You know, for a “journalist” her spelling mistakes and punctuation errors in those Twitter posts are not very becoming.

I know right! Fucking hell it was bad to read through.

I'm no grammar expert but I'm also not paid to write good English.

Anyway this whole thing sounds hilarious and everyone deserved what they're getting here.
I will say I believe her story about the management throwing her under the bus but I also think she deserves to be fired for not researching the situation correctly.
You cannot just make these accusations out of nowhere.

 

[mcjmetroid]

 

[Majukun]

to be honest the word on the track sounds a lot like retarded, and we still don't have any confirmation about what it actually says, since it's an improvised part that does not appear in the lyrics (thus the atlus esponse about the lyrics not having the word in it, we do know that already).

it can definitely also just be confirmation bias..they tell you that a word is in it an you will keep hearing it forever.

it can also just actually be the word retarded from a foreign speaker that doesn't necessarely abides by the same cultural standards and thus sees no harm in it..from this point of view the first article was definitely hinting too much towards ill wil without any kind of proof other than the "i can say it" part that follows.

also,they were in the wrong to not wait for nintendo or atlus reply before the irst article, but they already kind of admitted that

 

[Harlock]

This was the prime example of media sites having to find anything clickbaiting to survive.

 

[Ogbert]

'It looks like we got it wrong'.

They are so fucking lame.

 

[Fitzchiv]

retardation means slowing down, its used in physics, music and many other areas doesn't have to mean something nefarious. but its a slow news day and kotaku wants the SJW army to click on something and get angry and have a PC circlejerk. jason schreier really is the only good thing over on that site and i think he should go independent.

A retarded news day?

 

[Fitzchiv]

Kotaku is sadly still part of my casual site-hop roster when staring at my phone rather than engaging with my family, doing work or driving or something - as I don't really immerse myself in the online gaming world, are there any genuinely decent game news sites left?

 

[Xisiqomelir]

I Respectfully disagree.
I really love GAF as a community and I believe we are better than other places like Era were wrongthinking is censored and banned.

That we can have this discussion is in and of itself a positive sign that GAF is on the road to recovery

In the old days, site-banning did not take the form of forbidding quotes and the like, it was a simple link rewriter that changed the "kotaku" or "vgchartz" in a url to "*******".

 

[tkscz]

Is she really trying to put her mistake in her boss? I mean, WTF?
Wow. Living and learn I guess.

Umm... She stabbed her friend in the back, a friend who helped her get her position at Kotaku. A friend who, when she was attacked for being associated with him, stopped being her friend so she would keep her job. A friend who had fucking cancer while all that was going on, but would still shit talk him because her new group hated him. And when he died from the cancer and an article was made to shit on his grave, she made no move to defend him (I'm of course talking about Totalbiscuit). This woman is completely untrustworthy. She'll stab you in the back and then throw you under the bus the moment it suits her.

 

[The Scrivener]

Kotaku is sadly still part of my casual site-hop roster when staring at my phone rather than engaging with my family, doing work or driving or something - as I don't really immerse myself in the online gaming world, are there any genuinely decent game news sites left?

Don't drive and Kotaku.