Microsoft Suspends Gamer For Being From Fort Gay 490
maclizard writes "The town's name is real. But when Josh Moore tried to tell Seattle-based Microsoft and the enforcement team at Xbox Live that Fort Gay was a real place, they wouldn't take his word for it. Or Google it. Or check the US Postal Service website for a ZIP code. I personally feel for those of you from Big Bone Lick, KY."
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think they think he hates gay people and was calling his lame town gay or something. Also, that if an actual gay person saw his town and thought he was using gay as an insult then they might get offended, and next thing you know, MS will have a color-coordinated protest on their hands. Or something.
The truly sad part is some unemployed guy who plays video games all day ends up getting AP coverage thereby legitimizing his unproductive ways.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
I try not to hold unemployment against anybody right now in this economy, when even minimum wage jobs get more applications than there are openings.
Re:RL location is no exuse for AUP violation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
Their problem is that the homophobic children of our society have come to use the word "gay" as a general purpose insult, and the homophobic adults of our society don't give enough of a fuck to say "that's not what the word means". It's the opposite of how gay people converted "queer" from being an insult into just an adjective: the moron community converted "gay" into an insult.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
my point was that the whole "it's exercise" thing is kinda lost when looked at the big picture. Yes, getting out and moving is good for you, breathing in coal dust for 12h a day for 20 years.... kinda offsets any perks you get from the exercise.
The real question (Score:3, Insightful)
Moore apparently wanted to show his Fort Gay pride
Fort Gay has been restored to the ramparts of Medal of Honor and Call of Duty.
Ok, you've got town pride - nothing wrong there. But insisting on displaying it on your Xbox Live profile?? Call of Duty? I mean now you're just asking to get flamed every time someone sees you're from "Fort Gay". It's not exactly the most tolerant community out there. **Note that I don't know if your town is displayed to other people when you're actually playing - but in case it isn't, then it still brings up the question of why care then? If no one gets to see your town in your profile then why care what your display is?
Re:please change your sig (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is it inappropriate?
Re:please change your sig (Score:0, Insightful)
hate to break it to you buddy, but if it has both X and Y chromosomes, then it IS a guy.
Social change causes corporate insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right - "gay" has been used for "lame" for decades now. The problem is that it is *also* used to indicate homosexuality.
When I was a kid (five decades ago, sigh), "you suck" was specifically meant to say that you performed fellatio. It was a fighting insult. Today, "you suck" or "it sucks" just means generic unwanted badness, perhaps with emotional overtones. Perhaps someone will be able to articulate the present meaning better than I can. But it doesn't mean what it used to mean.
Society changes, And corporations, being by nature psychotic, have a heck of a time trying to keep up. Look at Apple; perfectly happy to have massively violent games, head-shots, guts spilling out... but sex is cause for censorship. Absolutely out of their minds in the American Gothic, Religio-repressive tradition.
I can see Microsoft's position here, in the same way that I can see politicians pretending to be religious. There's no idiotic depth sociopaths will refuse to plumb if they think it will buy them something of value. And corporations, by their very nature, are sociopaths - one consequence being that they typically embrace the values of a pit viper, while trying to present the face of an angel.
Re:please change your sig (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why we rtfa, but I don't see the relevance of your post. The issue at hand is that they did not even bother checking BEFORE suspending his account, they refused to fix the issue despite multiple attempts to have them check the zip code, and it is extremely questionable whether the inclusion of the word in his profile even violated the code of conduct in any way. The fact that it took a manager to have some common sense and fix the issue a week later is as unacceptable as the rest.
Re:Social change causes corporate insanity (Score:3, Insightful)
one consequence being that they typically embrace the values of a pit viper
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? "Sunny or shady rocks are good for temperature regulation"? I'm kinda not seeing the connection here.
This is one of those "social changes change the meaning of expressions" things, isn't it?
Re:Summary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:please change your sig (Score:3, Insightful)
come on, i'm gay, and it made me chuckle.
uptight much ?
Re:please change your sig (Score:2, Insightful)
You might not realize this, but your post is overly sensitive and quite ridiculous, even if you did post AC. It's inappropriate to hijack a thread due to your sensitivity.
Now, piss off.
Re:please change your sig (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, over-sensitive people should just learn to close their eyes rather than force everyone else to conform to their narrow world view.
But I must say, that picture is neither narrow nor a world view :P
Re:please change your sig (Score:2, Insightful)
For somebody who's so very sensitive to the plight of those with gender identity issues, you seem remarkably callous to those with a genetic disposition to alcoholism.
I love a good shemale bukkake scene as much as the next guy, but please, spare a little of that sensitivity for the alcoholics.
Re:please change your sig (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not an "in your face" thing - I'd much rather that they hadn't been such blabber-mouths. Just like it would have been nice to have been able to help someone on slashdot w/o being exposed - but it's all for the better. (at least that's what I keep telling myself :-)
Re:please change your sig (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care what your gender is or was, but this whole section below marks you strongly as a sexist.
Of course, these same people couldn't do what we have to do to be ourselves - not for one day, never mind for a lifetime. Could you picture one of them even pretending to have "the talk" with one of their friends? Heck no! They'd volunteer to have their appendix removed without anesthesia first. That's "manly". Same as not asking for directions, leaving their dirty clothes on the floor, and not changing the toilet paper roll when they finish it - or leaving half a square neatly balanced on the roll so they can say they didn't "really" finish it. Come on you guys reading this, fess up, you do this all the time, and it bugs us that you think we're that stupid. It's 3-ply paper, and you leave a one-ply half square sitting there like an orphan, and you're hoping that when we open the door the draft won't blow away your sorry "excuse" for not changing it. You dissect the toilet paper, and then walk around all day making skid marks in your formerly-tidy-whiteys, rather than change the stupid roll of toilet paper.
None of those things are inherently male. They are all either signs of not giving a shit, or insecurity. I've know plenty of women that do the same thing.