It is hard to parse if those people are just mysoginist or can't seperate the character from the actor. Both are not a good look obviously.
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Actress Laura Bailey getting heinous harassment and death threats over The Last of Us 2 character
- Thread starter jett
- Start date
I think she did an incredible job portraying Abby. She made me actually like her character. Please send positive vibes her way. I did. She's a mother. Let's drown out this negative shit.
Careful for anyone who hasn't played/beaten the game if you are to go directly to twitter to read what's going on or even just show her support. I just had something important spoiled for me.
Edit: But like also go support her because she needs it. Just don't read anyone elses responses.
Edit: But like also go support her because she needs it. Just don't read anyone elses responses.
Yeah the conversation around this game is getting worse. I have near finished it twice now and it's incredible. Yet I can't talk online about it because it always devolves into shit. Everyone getting death threats, buff woman, lesbians. It's fucking vile the way people are being treated because of something they dislike. Even this place. I come in here and somehow neil is the bad guy? Wtf era, seriously? The way this game is sending people crazy is mind boggling.
... they're sending her death threats, to her parents, her child and herself... do we really need to figure out what angle the garbage people were going for?
Era mods doing jack with the Druckman shit just makes me not wanna use this site anymore,
That's ridiculous and embarrassing. Just like every time someone sends death threats and harassment to someone because something you didn't like happened in a game that person worked on.
It happens to a lot of voice actresses too. It's disgusting.
Finally, this is Laura Bailey. She's probably voiced at least a dozen characters you like.
It happens to a lot of voice actresses too. It's disgusting.
Finally, this is Laura Bailey. She's probably voiced at least a dozen characters you like.
This isn't even a gamer thing, it's a fandom thing. Plenty of actors on The Walking Dead series have received death threats. Actor Josh McDermitt received death threats because his character "betrayed the group by pledging loyalty to Negan". Sarah Wayne Callies was called all sorts of awful things because her character Lori caused the conflict between Rick and Shane. And if you think this is exclusively an male incel thing, Grant Gustin (The Flash on CW) received countless death threats because fans were concerned that his character was going to create a wedge between two other characters. Just type in 'celebrity death threats' on Google and you will find plenty of other examples.
The thing is, this has always been a thing, William Atherton to this day still gets called "dickless" based on a quote directed at him on Ghostbusters. I remember an interview with Robert Patrick who stated that he received so much hate early on when he took on the role of John Dockett in the X-Files. I truly believe that the only reason these are relatively tame in comparison to the vile stuff thrown around today is because social media didn't exist back then. While some may use their real names on social media, the vast majority use the anonymity of social media to give them the power and free reign to say whatever vile shit they want without consequence.
I think I need to delete Twitter. Seeing tweets like that stream in from people affects my mental health and I'm not even the person receiving them. I'm so sorry for Laura and everyone receiving harassment, these people are idiotic, pea-brained subhuman scum.
Yup.
This whole thing has solidified people actually do not give a fuck about crunch. They just love having a villain, and in this case it's Neil Druckmann.
This sadly isn't new for the industry. Publishers and developers largely ignored GamerGate, or in a few cases leaned into it, and because of that nothing really changed. Even people like Jim Sterling couch their disgust for these people in a larger video about crunch. And let's all be honest, crunch needs to be called out and ND have been really poor at treating their employees. However, coming into a thread about getting death threats and bringing up crunch is just gross. Especially considering Laura Bailey is a voice actor, she's not even part of the damn studio!
It goes back to how I feel like some people view this industry. It's an either-or, if they don't like a developer or publisher, they see everything as 'bitch eating crackers'. I don't like everything Neil has said about the game and I think he can put his foot in his mouth but his support for the VA and his staff IN THIS INSTANCE has been pretty good.
As far as social media, they will do as little as possible for as long as possible. They are complicit in how badly discourse and the world has eroded over the past 20 years.
You walked into a thread about someone who's been receiving death threats for literally no good reason and you find a way to make it about someone else who has also been receiving death threats(much more than her) AND anti-semitic insults added to it who has been doing from the beginning what you said he wasn't. What did you expect?
Disgusting and abhorrent. No one should be subject to this kind of treatment. It's quite horrifying how commonplace this behavior has become across so much of the entertainment industry and online fandom. Both towards any and all who helped create a piece of media to just other fans or people tangentially related like youtubers, reviewers and such.
The mix of internet/social media, misogyny/toxic masculinity and just the relative toxicity/extreme nature of fandoms in general is a potent and very dangerous and destructive mix. So many people, especially women, must be greatly questioning, if not already outright avoiding, working in these industries and on certain projects as a direct result. Passion can only take you so far and allow you to put up with so much.
The mix of internet/social media, misogyny/toxic masculinity and just the relative toxicity/extreme nature of fandoms in general is a potent and very dangerous and destructive mix. So many people, especially women, must be greatly questioning, if not already outright avoiding, working in these industries and on certain projects as a direct result. Passion can only take you so far and allow you to put up with so much.
Official Staff Communication
Please report posts that you find problematic and avoid derailing the thread by attacking each other. Let's dial this back a bit and keep on topic.
I actually can't believe that people in James Gunn's tweets are going "Actors don't deserve this. But writers tho...."
Actually, what the fuck am I saying. Of course I can believe it. People are fucking garbage
There has to be some way to stop this from even happening, right? With the amount of data twitter has on this crap shouldn't it be possible to train an algorithm to filter a large amount of that out so it doesn't show up anywhere but on the sender's page? Best would of course be if that was then followed up with bans without having to use the report function, cause as soon as these messages arrive at whom they're intended for the damage is done.
Yep.
Tell me about it. Imagine attacking someone who has already received multiple death threats in a thread about someone else receiving death threats. These people should be perma-banned.
Unfortunately, I see this as an event that is going to keep happening over and over again as media gets more progressive. The misogynists and racists are going to keep trying to assert their vitriol and protect their safe space, but the only silver lining I guess is that things move forward
We literally have threads that have become ground zero for shittalking Neil, and the threads sometimes aren't even about Neil or ND. It's unacceptable.
I'm not in the industry, but I want to be, but stuff like this makes me not want to.
It's 100% the same anti-SJW, PC culture types that rush Youtube for their Angry Joes who just yelling back what they already believe. This is just a carbon copy repeat of The Last Jedi.
If I was incharge of a franchise like Star Wars or The Last of Us, I'd be scared as fuck to try something truly bold because I'd be the next Rian Johnson or Neil Druckmann.
[edit]
Even on ERA you had the threads discussing the harassment cast members from TLJ got and yet the thread was filled with people crisiting their characters or how shit they thought the movie was. Same shit, different year.
Toxic, regressive, immature, hateful, ignorant and unwelcoming.
This is why so many of us would never refer to ourselves as or associate with "gamers".
The vile bullshit directed towards her and others is absolutely repulsive.
This is why so many of us would never refer to ourselves as or associate with "gamers".
The vile bullshit directed towards her and others is absolutely repulsive.
This is the exact kind of thing that Xbox Milgrau did. Harassing women, attacking POC and LGBT+ people.
Man that sucks. I'm fine with people not liking the game or even hating it for whatever reason, but wtf, taking things too far. People need to chill, it's a game, on top of that there's a global pandemic, you'd think there'd be better things to worry about.
Yeah, this is too much for me. Probably my fault for hoping the response to this would be pretty cut and dry
Era isn't helping sadly.
I mean I dislike Abby too but for the love of god please detach the actor from the role. It's never that serious.
Like I said in other threads, I've found that it's a lack of emotional maturity that is at the core of the toxic reaction the TLOU2.
Imagine tying your personality so closely with a fictional character that you feel personally insulted when they their story doesn't turn out how you think it should.
Imagine tying your personality so closely with a fictional character that you feel personally insulted when they their story doesn't turn out how you think it should.
It's sad that this game asks the player to try out a bit of empathy and in turn the developers get death threats. Asking more emotional maturity was too much for some people.
idk what could be done against this sort of thing, really. how do you stop someone from sending those kind of messages in the first place?