And before you say "Yeah Janice, we noticed you've been kinda off the rails year-to-date", let me clarify that I'm referring to forum-related questions. Specifically, I have a sort of self-imposed project I'm working on that I'm afraid may prove too ambitious to be realized, but whether it is or not is what I'm here to clarify.
Okay, it's obvious that current affairs are stressful and unhappy for all of us, but let me add to that that the negative tone that prevails most every time that women are discussed here has also been kinda getting me down lately, so, I was just thinking about doing something to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) Tropes vs. Women in Video Games web video series that has left such a mark on the industry. It occurs to me that, while I've offered cursory thoughts on the subject before, I've never actually authored a thread about it or laid out my opinions on the series (or its lead creator and host) in any kind of detail to date. This being Women's History Month here in the U.S., I figured the timing was about as right as it would ever be, besides which it's something gaming politics to discuss other than the Russia-Ukraine War.
THAT SAID, over on the Google document where I'm drafting what I hope will eventually be said post, the project is quickly ballooning into something much larger than I originally envisioned. I was originally planning on like five paragraphs, whereas I currently have 13 and will definitely wind up with no less than 20 in the end, and maybe more like 25 even, despite my best efforts to condense my thoughts. By "condensing my thought", I mean that I'm not even going into like the video's comments on specific games or anything per se, this is just me doing a broad and streamlined, largely spoiler-free, chronological overview of the history from my own perspective. Even so, I've been forced to develop an outline and divide it into seven periods of time rather than the originally-planned two:
1) The Age of Angst: Feminist Frequency's Youth (2009-12)
2) Making a Splash: The Announcement of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games (2012)
3) The Mainstream Period (2013)
4) The Feminazi Era (2014-15) <-- My favorite.
5) The Pragmatic Reset: "Season 2" (2016-17)
6) Post-Tropes: From Feminism to Wokeness OR The Return to Obscurity (2016-19)
7) Radio Kills the Video Star (2017-Present)
There's obviously some overlap between the periods I'm discussing because my aim is to focus on themes one at a time, with rigid chronology being a more secondary consideration. I'm coming from a lesbian feminist perspective in my analysis and critique (rather than an intersectional feminist one; I differentiate between the two things, and accordingly differentiate feminism and what's was called wokeness back in its heyday). The perspective I'm advancing is overwhelmingly supportive of the Tropes vs. Women project and earlier, foundational points in Feminist Frequency's history, but one not aligned with where Feminist Frequency has gone since Donald Trump's election in 2016, and especially post-Tropes, which can be characterized as an organizational identity crisis that has been filled with, and I'm quoting Anita here, "We need to abolish the police" type of thinking and projects corresponding to this mindset that have at best nothing to do with the social advancement of women and at worst could be harmful thereto; a degeneration into the type of cliched "SJW progressivsm" that opponents had always, and somewhat wrongly, associated with FF from the outset. That's my premise. It will be a political commentary, yes, and I'm sure controversy will be generated, no doubt. But it's my honest take.
ANYWAY...it's turning into a mammoth project that I may not actually finish before the formal tenth anniversary of the Tropes announcement arrives in May, if at all. I'm pretty sure that, if realized, it be my longest post ever, and to that end I need to know some things:
QUESTION 1: What's the character limit per post on VGC? Am I going to have to divide this up into two or three posts? Because that might make the whole project unworkable.
QUESTION 2: Is there a way to copy/paste content from Google Docs or from a draft email sent to one's self on Gmail to a forum post without it screwing up the spacing of paragraphs in a way that can't be undone? I find that when I copy/paste stuff I've written originally over on Google Docs often gets posted with the wrong paragraph spacing on forums and that attempting to edit it to the intended spacing has no effect. Is there a way to edit it so that it will or am I looking at having to re-type the entire behemoth manually once I decide to post it here on VGC?
QUESTION 3: Less technical: Is there any interest in this project anyway? Would you be interested in my more at-length thoughts on this subject (anyone)?
I have a couple other, much smaller alternative projects in mind that have nothing to do with the Tropes series if this doesn't work out, but I just wanted to know how viable this is actually going to be be before I proceed with that particular project any further. I mean I'm having to re-watch some of the Tropes videos because I don't remember the specific contents of some of them anymore and everything and...it's just taking a long time. I just need a gauge of project viability here. Is it worth continuing and is there any interest in it anyway?
