Avoiding running into misogyny in Let's Plays
October 21, 2015 1:05 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for Let's Players/Streamers on YouTube who aren't assholes to women. Are there any good recommendations for who I might want to follow? So many times now I've started watching someone's video and then out of nowhere there's a weird misogynistic comment, or someone will seem decent and then I learn they're actually a vocal GG supporter. At this point I want to stop gambling with my time.
The only games I'm not all that interested in are e-sport/competitive multiplayer types. Otherwise I'm really into hearing someone's insightful commentary on whatever title they have at the moment.
Who are the people that make it very clear they're not immature dude-bro asses?
The only games I'm not all that interested in are e-sport/competitive multiplayer types. Otherwise I'm really into hearing someone's insightful commentary on whatever title they have at the moment.
Who are the people that make it very clear they're not immature dude-bro asses?
I like LPs for background noise, which I say to preface the fact that I've now apparently watched more than 800 of Northernlion's Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and have never heard a word in favor of GamerGate. Occasional the usual sort of young male mildly tone-deaf, but he's very, well, Canadian. I won't recc RockLeeSmile because you were the one who posted about his LP of The Beginner's Guide, but RockLeeSmile periodically does a stream with NL, so. Everything I saw out of that circle GG-related was pretty sane. I don't really love watching MathasGames most of the time, but he said something at some point about how if someone wanted to actually discuss real issues, they needed to not do it under the GamerGate label because it was "poisoned". Anyway, when they do multiplayer stuff, it's friendly-competitive, not serious-business competitive.
PurpleMentat had some Minecraft videos that were useful to me but I was vaguely frustrated that he didn't get very far in the series I was watching before dropping it. He had at one point tweeted something about the #GamerGate hashtag being created for the purposes of harassment and was generally pretty good about explaining what he was doing, which was why I was watching it, so.
A lot of the guys who do this sort of thing are, well, young white guys, so I don't expect any of them to be perfect, but I'm not willing to keep giving views to anybody gross, so I've been particular about looking people up. But I'm looking forward to looking through that list of female LPers... most of who I watch right now was culled just from trying to find LPs of very specific games, rather than generally.
posted by Sequence at 1:41 PM on October 21, 2015
PurpleMentat had some Minecraft videos that were useful to me but I was vaguely frustrated that he didn't get very far in the series I was watching before dropping it. He had at one point tweeted something about the #GamerGate hashtag being created for the purposes of harassment and was generally pretty good about explaining what he was doing, which was why I was watching it, so.
A lot of the guys who do this sort of thing are, well, young white guys, so I don't expect any of them to be perfect, but I'm not willing to keep giving views to anybody gross, so I've been particular about looking people up. But I'm looking forward to looking through that list of female LPers... most of who I watch right now was culled just from trying to find LPs of very specific games, rather than generally.
posted by Sequence at 1:41 PM on October 21, 2015
Northernlion's Binding of Isaac: Rebirth runs. Of course I miss the edit window.
posted by Sequence at 1:47 PM on October 21, 2015
posted by Sequence at 1:47 PM on October 21, 2015
I like itmejp with his whole Rollplay He has a twitch stream & posts videos on YouTube,though less there than he used to, I think he's between seasons at the moment.
I found him as he plays a lot of RPGs like D&D, Shadowrun etc, he has some fun people that play with him & most of his RPGs includes women players. He is also a little older around 30 I think. He has recently started doing more Lets Plays & even started a sort of talk show & podcasts. While I don't know for sure he's not a GGer, in many hours of listening I've never heard him or any of his guests be anything but . .err. . well nice . . for the want of a better word.
I also follow Day9 on Day9tv on twitch he does a fun play through of old point & click style adventures with 2 friends called "Mostly Walking" which I love for the nostalgia & because they sometimes let some great insight into game design slip into their joking. Also some random Let's Plays & Hearthstone. He's another ex Starcraft guy like JP, so a little older. He's a great storyteller when he goes off topic.
I have just started following Margaret Krohn on twitch, she seems good but I've only just started following her.
My tip if wading through the guy side of thing is to look for older players. They tend to have a more open world view as it were.
posted by wwax at 2:03 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I found him as he plays a lot of RPGs like D&D, Shadowrun etc, he has some fun people that play with him & most of his RPGs includes women players. He is also a little older around 30 I think. He has recently started doing more Lets Plays & even started a sort of talk show & podcasts. While I don't know for sure he's not a GGer, in many hours of listening I've never heard him or any of his guests be anything but . .err. . well nice . . for the want of a better word.
I also follow Day9 on Day9tv on twitch he does a fun play through of old point & click style adventures with 2 friends called "Mostly Walking" which I love for the nostalgia & because they sometimes let some great insight into game design slip into their joking. Also some random Let's Plays & Hearthstone. He's another ex Starcraft guy like JP, so a little older. He's a great storyteller when he goes off topic.
I have just started following Margaret Krohn on twitch, she seems good but I've only just started following her.
My tip if wading through the guy side of thing is to look for older players. They tend to have a more open world view as it were.
posted by wwax at 2:03 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Cabal are Danielle Riendeau and her girlfriend Patricia Hernandez, and they are great streaming together. They've been doing a Mario Maker series lately (The Boo Lab) but there's a bunch of other stuff on their channel.
posted by backseatpilot at 2:08 PM on October 21, 2015
posted by backseatpilot at 2:08 PM on October 21, 2015
I know exactly what you mean. Apart from a couple of reviewers like Errant Signal and Matthewmatosis, all the youtubers I watch are women.
I like Kim and Hannah at Yoggscast for generalist LPers, of the sort who have connections with publishers. And I've been watching a lot of Dark Souls LPs lately. Of interest: Self-Critical Automaton's regular Dark Souls playthrough and Kay's beginner-to-expert playthrough.
posted by these are science wands at 2:24 PM on October 21, 2015
I like Kim and Hannah at Yoggscast for generalist LPers, of the sort who have connections with publishers. And I've been watching a lot of Dark Souls LPs lately. Of interest: Self-Critical Automaton's regular Dark Souls playthrough and Kay's beginner-to-expert playthrough.
posted by these are science wands at 2:24 PM on October 21, 2015
Scott Manley ("Hulloo I'm Scott Manley and you're reading this in my voice") and Bob Fitch for Kerbal Space Program. Both do long form let's plays in KSP. Scott's quick to ban hammer the gamer gaters if they're in chat on a livestream. I've never heard Bob stream but he's made it a point to do a couple Kerbal videos with his daughter and had her do character voiceovers for his last series.
Kurt J Mac for Minecraft, specifically Far Lands or Bust -- he's raising money for charity by walking to the point in the Minecraft world where the terrain generation algorithm breaks down. It's going to take literally years of walking and Kurt fills the time with general science, coffee and gluten free nerdery. At donation milestones he hosts a multi day stream and brings on non-dudebro Minecrafters as guests.
posted by nathan_teske at 2:40 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Kurt J Mac for Minecraft, specifically Far Lands or Bust -- he's raising money for charity by walking to the point in the Minecraft world where the terrain generation algorithm breaks down. It's going to take literally years of walking and Kurt fills the time with general science, coffee and gluten free nerdery. At donation milestones he hosts a multi day stream and brings on non-dudebro Minecrafters as guests.
posted by nathan_teske at 2:40 PM on October 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh, also, Beaglerush for XCOM: The Long War mod. He streams other games on Twitch with his girlfriend Miss Jamball. Jamball frequently pulls chat moderator duty on his streams (and vice versa).
posted by nathan_teske at 2:45 PM on October 21, 2015
posted by nathan_teske at 2:45 PM on October 21, 2015
dunno how you feel about ASMR, but ASMRAngel does play alongs with some regularity.
posted by sazerac at 3:09 PM on October 21, 2015
posted by sazerac at 3:09 PM on October 21, 2015
Zachscottgames is g rated enough for me to be comfortable letting my 3 year old watch.
posted by bq at 4:35 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 4:35 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seconding Sean Plott/Day9--he does mostly non-StarCraft stuff nowadays and he is very feminist-friendly and anti-GG.
Day9's show Mostly Walking introduced me to the wonderful Sean Bouchard, who is a streamer as well.
posted by JuliaJellicoe at 4:46 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Day9's show Mostly Walking introduced me to the wonderful Sean Bouchard, who is a streamer as well.
posted by JuliaJellicoe at 4:46 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Geek Remix - Stacy and Mari are feminist, funny, play a lot of different kinds of games, and have good commentary.
Christopher Odd - very story-oriented, a pretty laid back guy who seems nice, thoughtful, and a little goofy.
posted by automatic cabinet at 5:18 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Christopher Odd - very story-oriented, a pretty laid back guy who seems nice, thoughtful, and a little goofy.
posted by automatic cabinet at 5:18 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I was going to mention Christopher Odd, his SOMA playthrough was very good, mainly because he isn’t into the whole overacting, playing up to the audience style of Lets Play. He just wants to actually, you know, *talk about the game*.
I can’t guarantee that he’s a paragon of feminist virtue, but I’ve just checked out the beginning of his playthrough of the Witcher 3 which features lots of lingering camera shots of both a naked male & female body & not a peep out of him about either of them. So that’s probably a good sign overall - honestly I expected some commentary on it because each shot takes so long!
posted by pharm at 1:30 AM on October 22, 2015
I can’t guarantee that he’s a paragon of feminist virtue, but I’ve just checked out the beginning of his playthrough of the Witcher 3 which features lots of lingering camera shots of both a naked male & female body & not a peep out of him about either of them. So that’s probably a good sign overall - honestly I expected some commentary on it because each shot takes so long!
posted by pharm at 1:30 AM on October 22, 2015
I mostly watch Civilization V lets plays and have never heard a peep of anything political out of Marbozir or The Solar Gamer who are both pretty great.
posted by litereally at 5:55 AM on October 22, 2015
posted by litereally at 5:55 AM on October 22, 2015
Nerdcubed fits the bill. Plus he's hilarious. My other suggestion is Cooptitude with Felicia and Ryon Day.
posted by altopower at 6:56 AM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by altopower at 6:56 AM on October 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Fantastic amount of stuff to go through, thank you guys so much! It'll be really nice to dive into these without worrying about jarring commentary.
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:13 AM on October 22, 2015
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:13 AM on October 22, 2015
Best answer: The Femhype website has a channel. They've asked a similar question to yours recently. I've never heard anything offensive from Jon at the Many A True Nerd channel, who is one of the best players IMHO.
posted by conrad53 at 11:08 PM on October 24, 2015
posted by conrad53 at 11:08 PM on October 24, 2015
Response by poster: I really really loved Christopher Odd, through several full playthroughs, and decided to watch the final test of anyone's character: The Witcher. He was doing really well for a while considering the subject matter, and then out of nowhere made a joke about a (female) character running like a girl.
Breaks my heart to permanently cross him off my list.
His SOMA play through was also one of the most enjoyable I watched. Really disappointed.
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2015
Breaks my heart to permanently cross him off my list.
His SOMA play through was also one of the most enjoyable I watched. Really disappointed.
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:09 PM on November 8, 2015
Boo. What a shame. Given his total lack of misogynistic commentary in the explicitly sexual bits of the Witcher that I watched, I think Chris does OK overall, but unconscious sexism can still lurk in all of us no matter how well intentioned we are & pop up when we aren’t consciously watching out for it.
(Ask me about the homophobic crap I found myself spouting in the college bar one time. It was mortifying, but I said those words, so that script was clearly there inside me somewhere :( )
posted by pharm at 6:10 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
(Ask me about the homophobic crap I found myself spouting in the college bar one time. It was mortifying, but I said those words, so that script was clearly there inside me somewhere :( )
posted by pharm at 6:10 AM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Yeah, he was also really great through Vampire: The Masquerade, a game that had me raising my eyebrows the entire time.
But maybe he's gotten more aware of stuff like that recently...? Argh. I've been agonizing over giving his videos another try just because his personality is fantastic, and I very much appreciate the initial recommendation in this thread.
Going through this "Awww... what..? But I liked you... :(" definitely sucks.
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:11 AM on November 9, 2015
But maybe he's gotten more aware of stuff like that recently...? Argh. I've been agonizing over giving his videos another try just because his personality is fantastic, and I very much appreciate the initial recommendation in this thread.
Going through this "Awww... what..? But I liked you... :(" definitely sucks.
posted by erratic meatsack at 10:11 AM on November 9, 2015
(That should have been “the explicitly sexual bits of the Witcher III that I watched” btw - I didn’t watch any of his Witcher I playthrough.)
Hopefully it was a one-off then, maybe? One of those scripts one learns as a child that just rises up unbidden & he didn’t think it was bad enough to justify editing it out after the fact? (I think the Witcher playthroughs are recordings of his live Twitch streams?)
(This probably sounds like I’m making excuses for the guy & I sort of am I guess, probably because I like the guy, but at least his sexism batting average seems to be pretty good overall: perhaps that’s what made the singular instance you saw stand out so much? You get to set the bar for sexism in the media you consume wherever seems right to you of course.)
posted by pharm at 2:56 AM on November 10, 2015
Hopefully it was a one-off then, maybe? One of those scripts one learns as a child that just rises up unbidden & he didn’t think it was bad enough to justify editing it out after the fact? (I think the Witcher playthroughs are recordings of his live Twitch streams?)
(This probably sounds like I’m making excuses for the guy & I sort of am I guess, probably because I like the guy, but at least his sexism batting average seems to be pretty good overall: perhaps that’s what made the singular instance you saw stand out so much? You get to set the bar for sexism in the media you consume wherever seems right to you of course.)
posted by pharm at 2:56 AM on November 10, 2015
Fair warning: I’ve been watching Chris’ Dark Souls playthrough on and off over the last couple of weeks & just had a “Bitch!” come out of no-where (after being killed by a dragon). It’s the only bit of explicitly sexist language in the whole series (up to about Ep 21) that I’ve watched, but it is there.
He’s clearly aware enough not to comment in unpleasant ways at explicitly sexualised elements in the games he’s playing, which is good, but can’t be relied on to be completely clear of (unconscious? hard to say without knowing him personally) the occasional use of sexist language / ideas if that’s what you’re looking for.
posted by pharm at 1:29 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
He’s clearly aware enough not to comment in unpleasant ways at explicitly sexualised elements in the games he’s playing, which is good, but can’t be relied on to be completely clear of (unconscious? hard to say without knowing him personally) the occasional use of sexist language / ideas if that’s what you’re looking for.
posted by pharm at 1:29 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Automocar at 1:23 PM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]