‘Are you a feminist?’ asking society
After looking through social media accounts, only women were asked for ‘feminism verification’
Demanding account deletion, saying “It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong”
Passing responsibility to workers while paying attention to users
Civil society groups, including the Korean Women’s Trade Union and the Korean Women’s Association, are holding a protest rally in front of the Nexon Korea headquarters located in Pangyo, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do on the 28th of last month to condemn Nexon for accepting the ‘index finger’ controversy raised by Namcho site users. Provided by Korean Women’s Association
The ‘verification of feminist ideology’ triggered by the ‘Nexon game Closers voice actor replacement incident’ in July 2016 is still continuing in December 2023. Female workers are directly threatened with their livelihoods by being asked ‘Are you a feminist too?’ starting from the hiring interview process. Can the logic of ‘consumer rights’ and ‘corporate survival’ justify this verification of feminist ideas? Over the course of three episodes, we will focus on what is happening in the gaming industry and point out the problem of ‘filtering out feminists’ in our society. “I looked at Mr. A’s Twitter (now ‘X’) and the posts there seem to be quite an issue. I’m worried about the repercussions if you start working at our company. “If this becomes a problem in the future, how do you plan to take responsibility?” Illustrator A was asked this question by the CEO during an interview at a game development company last year. It seemed like the company had already looked through Mr. A’s Twitter content. The CEO said, “An employee of our company made a comment about feminism on SNS (social networking service), and we received complaints from users that ‘feminism was added to the game.’” He added, “Mr. “I asked the question because I was concerned that it would happen,” he said. On Twitter, the only posts posted were about Ms. Still, my heart sank. It was not easy to complain to the CEO about the job seeker’s situation during the interview. “I will be careful about what I say and follow company guidelines. “I will also clean up my Twitter account.” Mr. A responded as follows. On the way back from the interview, “I was so discouraged that I thought, ‘Have I made a mistake by publicly revealing that I am a feminist?’ and ‘Should I delete my S&S account right now?’” Mr. A decided never to enter the gaming industry again after this unpleasant ‘pressure interview’. The controversy over ‘verification of feminist ideology’ in the gaming industry is spreading uncontrollably. It has become official that once you are labeled as a ‘man-hating feminist’ on a male-dominant site, you will be reprimanded, including dismissal, from the company. At the same time, it has been pointed out that even the livelihoods of game industry workers are being threatened as ideological verification is carried out openly during the hiring process. Workers who suffer from the scrutiny of their ideology by numerous faceless netizens endure without any protection, and eventually end up leaving the industry. ‘Ideology verification’ begins with a hiring interview Game developer B also underwent ‘ideology verification’ during an interview at a large game company in 2019. The interviewer asked Mr. B, who has worked in the industry for more than 10 years, “Are you a feminist?” When Mr. B asked, “What kind of person do you think a feminist is?” the answer was, “Most feminists are not like that, but there are a lot of people who hate men.” Mr. B replied, “Then I am not the ‘feminist’ the interviewer refers to.” What is unpleasant is that “none of the male applicants interviewed on the same day were asked this question.” Mr. B passed the interview but did not join this company. Later, I heard from an official at this company that “because of the Nexon Game Closers incident, the higher-ups did not want to hire a female developer.” It wasn’t just this company that asked ‘Are you feminist?’ during interviews. Mr. B said, “I had interviews at three other large companies, and all of them had ideological verification interviews.” Mr. B said, “The company I am currently working for was the only one that did not verify my ideology during the interview.” ‘Bad precedent’ set by Nexon, the No. 1 company. Game industry workers who participated in the interview agreed that the verification of feminist ideology began in earnest following the ‘Nexon’s game Closers voice actor replacement incident’ in July 2016. When male users protested that voice actress Kim Ja-yeon, who voiced Clojure’s new character Tina, was ‘misogynistic’ for wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Girls Do Not Need A Prince’, Nexon responded. This is an incident where the voice actor was immediately replaced. Mr. A said, “There have been attacks by some users against creators online before, but I don’t think the company has ever taken away a worker’s job because of such attacks.” Kim Joo-bok, the development manager of Devcat Studio, which was Nexon Korea’s development subsidiary at the time of Mr. Kim’s replacement, said, ‘A company in a leading position in the industry took the appearance of acknowledging this logic, excluding (the victim) from its work and even forcing the victim to post an apology. A criticism was posted on S&S saying, “What you have done is to set a very bad precedent for the industry,” but this opinion was ignored. Rather, game casters and voice actors who criticized Nexon’s response lost their jobs one after another. In the industry, an atmosphere has been created that says, ‘Once you get caught in the feminism verification process, it’s over.’ As a result of the National Women’s Trade Union identifying cases of ideological verification damage in the content industry, from 2016 to early December of this year, there were 83 cases of people being fired for being ‘feminine’. In an atmosphere where there is no chance of winning by fighting over ‘What’s the problem with being feminist?’, there may be more potential issues that have not been raised.
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Companies Passing Responsibility to Workers After Nexon’s voice actor replacement incident in 2016, whenever controversy over feminist ideology was raised on Namcho sites, game companies passed responsibility on to workers, claiming that they had brought it on themselves. They have been participating in a ‘witch hunt’ in a ‘cutting off’ manner. Meanwhile, workers suffer from the validation of their ideology by numerous faceless netizens and eventually end up leaving the industry. A representative example is the case of Mr. C, a male freelance game scenario writer who was under fire from male-focused sites after posting an article supporting a female illustrator who was embroiled in a controversy over ‘degrading Korean men’ in 2018. When Mr. The representative said, “It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong in this controversy,” and “This is war, and we must protect our rice bowl.” There was a verbal conversation with this company about ‘let’s make a game together’ in the future. “When I think about it now, I don’t understand why such a request was made when there was no immediate contractual relationship,” but at the time, Mr. C had no choice but to accept the request. Mr. C received psychiatric treatment for depression for over a year after this incident, but there was no further contact from the company. At that time, the behavior of other companies I was planning to join was not much different. The company did not cancel Mr. C’s employment, but requested a ‘ban on S&S’ as a condition. He also requested that Mr. C’s name not be revealed in the work, saying that the company could suffer damage if his participation becomes known. “It is my work, but there are no traces of what I did,” said Mr. C. Ms. D, an illustrator, said, “I (as a man) was branded a radical feminist and harassed online because I retweeted the word ‘Hannam,’” adding, “I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but the work I was working on at that time suddenly stopped.” He said. Ms. D “has never received a work request from that company since,” she said. He expressed his opinion on the recent controversy over the ‘index finger’ in the promotional video for Nexon’s game Maple Story, saying, “A few hours later, I received instructions from my acquaintances at Nexon to ‘unfollow L’s S&S’ from the company.” “I also heard the story,” he said. Mr. Klitschko, a game illustrator with 10 years of experience, also lost work for 3 years after sharing a statement from an illustrator who was verified for his feminist ideology to S&S. Mr. Klitschko said, “The company I was working with unilaterally cut off contact without giving me a specific reason, so I had no choice.” He tried to survive somehow by even changing his ‘drawing style’, but eventually left the game industry. The gaming industry is becoming more similar to the Namcho community. Within the gaming industry, there seems to be an atmosphere of assimilation with the Namcho community beyond the level of ‘controversy defense’. In a group chat room where illustrators work anonymously, some game industry officials criticize women, saying, “Since things like that (index finger controversy, etc.) keep happening, aren’t game companies suggesting that they use artificial intelligence (AI) instead of people?” Stories come up sometimes. Mr. A said, “How can you draw a picture without expressing any of the finger shapes that appear naturally? “That’s a witch hunt,” he responded, and was forcibly kicked out of the group chat room. What Mr. A said in the group chat was captured in its entirety and posted on the Namcho site. The post was accompanied by abusive comments such as ‘Udonsari exploded ×’, ‘Crazy ×’, and ‘Pakdaegal ×’. At the time of the cancellation of Nexon’s voice actor contract, netizens who were trying to verify ‘misogyny’ visited and attacked not only those who posted posts defending Kim Ja-yeon, but also those who ‘liked’ the posts. Mr. B had been receiving comments and DMs with photos of women being hacked for nearly a month. It was also common for people to search S&S’s personal history information and report them to the company if they were found to be working in the gaming industry, telling them to ‘cut off their femininity’. Ms. B said, “I had an acquaintance who had strangers come to the event and ask, ‘Are you a game developer?’” and “Because she was afraid, her colleagues around her also deleted their S&S accounts.” However, Mr. B added, “I have never seen or heard of a situation where the company helps employees who are being attacked.” “On the contrary, whenever something like this happens, attacks on female employees increase even within the organization, increasing the stress on developers,” he said. What is noticeable is that when the person who defends feminism is revealed to be a man, the firepower of attacks from male-hating netizens is greatly reduced. Male illustrator Mr. Ms. C also said, “I think (the attacks against me) would have been worse if I had been a woman.” He said, “Even now, every time I go to an offline event, I’m afraid that someone who recognizes me will curse in my face or make a more realistic threat. I think it goes without saying that women would be even more afraid.” . Kim Min-seong, President of the Korea Game Consumers Association, said, “The reality is that not only the labor rights of game industry workers but also women’s human rights are being violated due to some extreme and hateful game users.” He added, “Game companies should make efforts to listen to the voices of the right consumers. “There is an urgent need for institutional measures to protect workers and companies from malicious users who make violence a sport,” he appealed. Reporter Chae Yoon-tae [email protected] Reporter Oh Se-jin [email protected]
2023-12-17 20:00:17
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