What the hell did I just watch?: Law and Order SVU

I know, Olivia. I miss Elliot, too...

 So I watched last night's Law and Order SVU episode. You know, the one about the strong female game developer who is fighting against the big bad group of white males in order to put out her game?  The "ripped from the headlines" version of what is supposedly going on out in the "darknet".

Not to steal lines from Young Justice. but after watching this I can honestly say that i'm completely whelmed.


So the episode starts with a young girl being harassed by two scrawny white guys at her booth at what I'm guessing is like some cross between PAX and some big gaming tournament. She takes a potty break and is attacked by said scrawny guys in a bathroom stall. She winds up beaten and groped, but she's for the most part fine, they on the other hand "Leveled up!" *cue Final Fantasy music* .  Ice T and the two new cops, I like to refer to them as "Not Olivia" and "Not Stabler", enlist the help of some guy who they knew from a previous case to nab the two perps thanks to what I'm guessing is a twitter feed? "Not Stabler" mentions something about DMing him, so I'm making that assumption, whatever. 

The two guys brag about copping a feel on the young girl, The black Developer guy and "Not Stabler" coax them into more details, and "Not Stabler" brags about Doxxing Raina Punjabi? (Seriously, how racist does that name sound? Is that like a "I'm Indian, so it's alright if I make cultural jabs at myself , but this was probably written by a couple of white people who are using this as a 'get-out-of-racism' free card" statement?) Seriously, FanFiction.net writers could work out a better character name. So Punjabi, and her venture capitalist boyfriend, for the sake of argument I'll call him "AntiJosh" talk to "Not Olivia" and Ice T about the incident, and how they nabbed the guys. Ice T unironically name drops Kotaku. Say what you will about T, but he's a legit gamer. I've seen his interviews and how he goes on about Gears and COD:MW2 like it's the freaking second coming of Christ. Granted he's forced into this stupid episode of people spewing out terminology that no human being has ever stated ( "FAL" anyone?) , but he tows the line like a champ, and I have to give props where they're due.  It appears that these two kids are just fanboys of K.O.B.S. (Killl Obliterate Bull Shit? I don't know... ), which is I guess some group of people who would rather be playing FPSs? The name sounds like they're midwesterners for some reason... (Shut up, I live in the Midwest).

                                                                              

They can't even get infographics right....

So,  This Punjabi woman, who is, I suppose a version of both Sarkeesian and Quinn doing the fusion dance and coming out looking like a tall slender Amazonian looking woman with third-world hoops dangling from her delicate lobes, does an interview with A guy I'm going to call for the sake of this, "Not David Pakman", because he has the most miraculously styled hair I have ever seen, in my life. Like good god. I want his hair. I don't even like hair. I shave my head religiously, because I dislike maintaining hair, but I want his freaking hair!  Anyway, Mid-interview she gets swatted, and the thing that makes me laugh at this scene, despite the fact that swatting is not a laughing matter, is the one S.W.A.T. guy who leans into the camera at the end of this scene. Seriously?  Is that like your "You're under arrest! and oh HAI M0M!!!111" face? or are you vindictively staring at the camera like "see , I got dis bitch!" Ooh!! plot twist!! he's working with the secret cabal of straight white men who don't want Amazon Warriors, the bastard child of fable, WoW and farmville to be released! Got it!

So after SVU shows up, Punjabi, who obviously has all the strengths of the two aforementioned people who merged to become her, but none of the crazy from Literally Wu, still wants to go forward with the release of her game, despite getting those darn rape and death threats, that the kids seem to be doing, lately. She goes on stage after her game is shown off... Okay what the hell is going on with the tech being shown off on this show? First a shitty twitter knockoff,  now, a game that looks like Evony would beat it out in a run for GOTY? Granted, the concept seems interesting, but the title is incredibly misleading... Is that some subtle jab towards the "bait and switch" tactics of Ms. Sarkeesian?  I'm intrigued, but I don't exactly care enough to want to venture further into the realms of thought here.  Back on track - As she's giving the speech, we notice a series of dots appear on her person, Olivia looks around for any signs of snipers, only to find that it's about five-or-six white males (whom I'm supposing are Cis, I don't have the sexual preference radar that a lot of angry SJWs have, so I'll have to go off of general appearances, thank you very much! )  holding lazer pointers. Soon after, they are rounded up, the stage goes dark , someone plays gunshot soundfiles and Punjabi is nowhere to be found. Security, for all of their technological expertise, get their footage hacked (when the hell did Anonymous learn that trick? )  And now shit just got real.....

                                                                           

Those S.W.A.T. 4 sessions get really hardcore!

Shortly after, her captors show a live feed of a brutal gang rape of Punjabi. The thing that really makes this scene strange is the looks on both Olivia and "Not Stabler's" faces. "I'm disgusted, i'm looking away, but I have to watch. I've never seen a livestream of a rape before... I'm so conflicted" Secondly, where would a video of this be hosted IRL? The Ralph's video proof of SRHButs' chatlogs were taken down from Youtube, and the only place where it could be hosted was Dailymotion, but even then that would only be until someone got a wild hair up their butts over it. This was also uploaded to the dreaded RedChanit, which is another amalgamated thing-supersite on "The dark net" 

I'm trying to keep myself from breaking from the narrative in order to go on to explain the episode, but I just can't. why aren't the cops tracing the IP address of live feed? Jeez, it took less for Lizard Squad to get some of their people caught, even though that was fallout from rival hax, and leaving a paper trail we could see from space. Well, as it turns out, the first half was a live feed, because it goes after Punjabi's attack to where she's stating that women need to get out of gaming, and that she never really loved her boyfriend, and slept with him for status and power. That's when T cuts the video and states that the video they just watched was uploaded on RedChanit, and that the file itself wag Geo Tagged, which led them to a suburban residence (Da da daaaa) SVU gets to the residence and storms into this woman's house who states that she lives alone. T notices her son in a picture, and asks if he's there. she replies with no, and after being asked where he usually games (I actually laughed and yelled "IN THE BASEMENT, IN THE BASEMENT!!" ) The next scene has them storming the basement, which was where poor miss Punjabi had been held. They're all gone, and so are their guns.


"Not Stabler" interrogates the woman, who declares that her son is a good boy and isn't possible of doing these things, despite overwhelming evidence, and then we're treated to "Not Stabler's" heartwarming speech, and the mother's realization that maybe her son is in with a bad crowd. So she gives up details and Ice T. states that rape is a mod of level 16 in the K.O.B.S. game (Whatever, bro).  Apparently, in the game the characters are supposed to ambush the cops when they come to rescue the hostage. After hearing gunfire, they flashbang the warehouse and rush in as the screen fades to black. They enter the room to find Raina strapped to a chair with a shotgun taped to her wrists, as another gun soundfile plays. Okay, that's

                                                                         

And here ends the most boring FPS ever!

pretty clever.  The "Not" twins chased the perp to the roof and catches The woman's son, while cuffing him to the door. The second perp noobs out and gets taken out by his own recoil while "Not Stabler" makes some quip about this not being a game. He's ambushed by the third perp, who apparently out quips his quip while the camera goes into some bizarre first person mode. It's then where I realize that this is the cheesesiest thing I have ever watched, but I'm getting ahead of myself, here. "Not Olivia" sneaks up from behind whilePerp 3 grandstands.

Of course, he's crazy, so he has to grandstand. that's like villain 101 and clearly he's been influenced by every Video game antagonist and bond villain ever, so he has to have some sort of profound speech about his worldview. He gets her to disarm while the two perps go on about sluts, and how women are taking away the only thing men have.. I'm assuming that's vidya, which is a bit overdramatic, but it's television.  T strolls out from his hiding spot and engages Perp 3, only for the Perp to pull, and get gunned down like a bitch. When "Not Stabler" asks if he was camping he responds with "It's bad form but it's effective". We've now come full circle, boys. We can go home, now!!! (canned applause)

                                                                           

Canned Applesauce

Next scene has Olivia and T talking about how his FPS skills saved the day, and she places him on administrative leave. Why, I have no freaking idea. He had no ties to anyone in this case, and he was doing his job. When he placed his shield and gun on Olivia's desk, she told him there was no need, and that the shot was fine. Maybe this was written in because T wanted to take some time off from the show, because this episode was total bullshit, and he-like everyone else- knew it, but what do I know? Raina and "Not Olivia" talk about how the one perp copped a plea, but the other wants to go to trial. Raina says she'll be alright, but stares out into the distance, claiming defeat at the hands of gamers. "Not Olivia" asks that she thought that if she didn't fight, then the neckbeards win. A battered crying, Punjabi stares into the distance, and replies..

They already won....
                                                   
                                                                           

*Snickers*

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Great Galloping fuck!!! I don't know what I just watched!! I thought the "Second Life" episode was full of shit, but this is new levels of "what in the blue hell!!". Why would Call of Duty derivative players want to kidnap a person who was making a game that had absolutely nothing to do with them? Granted that Amazon Warriors game looked really silly and inconsequential, but like we've all said; People don't care what games are being made, just don't screw around with the games that already exist. The problem with how things are now, is that we have people who aren't game developers coming in and dictating what can and can't be in games, because it's offensive to them, personally. The scenario presented in this incredibly silly fantasy bizarrely "ripped from the headlines!!" has absolutely nothing to do with #Gamergate, and is purely just ratings fodder made to titillate the audience, if it even did that.

                                                                            

They didn't start the fire....

 Five years ago, I backed away from television because there was literally nothing left for me to watch. Of course, there's my few favorite shows like Arrow, or Supernatural, and I suppose The Flash is creeping into my comic-book show fandom interests (Don't ask me about Gotham. something about the premise irks me, for some reason.) However, I flick of the tablet and I can watch those with very little interaction with anything else other than a couple of commercials. Since August, I'm really starting to understand the full extent of why I backed off of TV, and I didn't quite understand the whole thing when I was younger, but now I'm fully aware; The mainstream media doesn't care about truth, representation, balance, fairness, honor, or any of those things. It's all about ratings. It's always been about ratings, ever since the last of the integrity eeked out of mainstream journalism and television way-back-when. Granted, I'm sure the Social Justice crowd went to this episode looking for some sort of leg up against those "filthy neckbeard FALs" , but in the end, they got shafted just as hard as Gaming culture did. The funny thing is, I like many others, knew this was going to be a (s)hit piece from the start, so we went in this for what many other people were watching this for... for lack of a better word: entertainment.


It's been decades since I've first used a joystick and button set to play my first game, and during that time we've seen movies about Tom Hanks discovering how bad Dungeons and Dragons is, Jeff Bridges getting sucked in to play Ultimate Frisbee and ride around in digitized motorcycles, Fred Savage taking his autistic brother to California to play Super Mario Bros 3, Emilio Estevez shooting 8 bit monsters in an arcade with a light gun, Corin Nemic and a group of programmers getting stalked by a killer video game villain while watching Julie Strain bounce up and down naked, and a literal fuck tonne of crappy Uwe Boll films. There have hardly been any films accurately portraying what video games are like. Pfft, even Indie Game: the movie! has inaccurately depicted some aspects of the development of Fez according to last week's Pinsof Interview. 

thank you for single-handedly taking on nothing.      

If this does anything positive, going forward, It definitely created a discussion. As of now, Oliver Campbell is going Italian BMT (one step further than Ham, in my opinion) on Gawker Media. Kotaku especially. Anita is doing her best impression of her beau, McIntosh. Willfully denying that she had any part to play in the media depiction of her unauthorized alternate universe biography, and damning it at the same time. Isn't that special, and very robust in a lack of self awareness?  Let's not forget that while half of us are snarkily making responses to this "very special episode" of SVU, the other half of responses are praises of real life violence against women in video games. Because clearly the gaming landscape is overrun with scrawny blonde haired and brunette white men climbing in your launch events snatching your people up. Please. This isn't the case. This isn't Turkana IV, and these women are definitely not Tasha Yar.  Threats are one thing. Threats are serious, and of course we condemn that type of behavior, but to say that schlock show accurately depicts the things that are going on in gaming right now is incredibly laughable, and outright falsehood. But one thing is for certain, though.

There is no reset button

-Game On!