This video made my (GTAV over-saturated) week. Johnny's intelligent, reflexive insights were a refreshing break to the endless praise of this ''perfect'' game and the endless denial of gamers thinking games are --or somehow even can be -- devoid of social context. worse to see still was the endless vitriol directed at carolyn petit, who provided the initial breath of fresh air in her review of the game, in which i appreciated her candor surrounding GTAV's endemic misogyny. of course, her review was promptly followed by the usual mis-pronouning and both casual and overt transphobia and misogyny that pervades a disturbing amount of the critical comments she receives here, and in this case there was an even more extreme level of personal hostility directed at her. while repugnant, it is also sadly unsurprising given past responses to her attempts at discussing the social or political implications of games (or anyone else' for that matter, though as a women she is obviously targeted more because when a women brings up female representation, the dominant sexist attitude can dismiss her as self-serving or pushing a personal agenda). Discussion of a game's political and social implications *is* something i find deeply valuable in a review because those things affect my decision to engage with the game or not, and few other mainstream outlets even broach the subject. thank you for that, carolyn. now, obviously GTA is a bastion of politically incorrect, offensive trash--not just sexism, but racism and classism (etc.) abound. and like so much of current media, Rockstar doesn't have a grasp on (or doesn't care about) exactly where the line is between successful satire which challenges an offensive image or narrative, and that which simply reproduces and normalizes problematic representations, the latter of which media gets away with all the time with a wink and a nod and a dubious claim of ''irony.'' i would like to see more, deeper discussion of a game's representations and social context in reviews, not less. I typically cant stand most of the comments section, but the above vid made me want to scroll down and say thanks to johnny and co. for this episode. (yeah, people who publicly give a s**t about this stuff in the industry really are that rare.) and it's also true that i often click play on feedbackula with unease, knowing that i'm either about to just be offended by the BS and oppressive trash getting a platform, or feel warmed by your completely on-point and often hilarious take-downs of that same vitriol. this is especially true in relation to issues of identity and representation, as evidenced in the recent mammary gate ep, and it makes me hopeful to see you (honestly, ANYONE on a mainstream gaming site) openly discussing this problematic culture --and importantly, your own role in maintaining it and/or challenging it. i would like to commend gamespot for its integrity here. sadly, it comes shortly after i had this misfortune of watching Danny O'Dwyer make some of the most misogynistic comments i've ever heard in the random encounter vid for GTAIII. (And no, apologizing for the comments right after and saying you just got out of a break-up are no excuse for the seriously effed up way you just talked about women and their bodies. not even a little.) i definitely had no interest in watching any of his other vids following that, but even looking at this feedbackula ep and that random encounter alone - barely 2 weeks apart - demonstrates how much work there is to be done. if GameSpot wants to be committed to not spreading or allowing hate speech and misogynistic BS in the comments, why does it tolerate and even promote (it was a featured vid, after all) such behavior by its staff? why do we as a gamers allow --or through silent consumption, encourage-- these attitudes? i hope that this discussion is embraced, not stifled, and that people do start to use these comment boxes for more than s**t we can laugh at and pretend doesn't reflect very real and ugly aspects of gaming culture. because it's. not. just. gaming culture. gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's a subset of dominant culture, and as such has all the same problematic ''isms'' to deal with. there is no 'keeping politics out of gaming' because it's all part of the same wider set of beliefs, attitudes, and practices. media creates, reflects, and sustains culture and gaming is as much a part of that as TV, movies, books or the newspaper. pretending otherwise is just naive. games deserves the same level of scrutiny and examination of cultural context as any other piece of media. as johnny mentioned, aren't gamers advocating for gaming to be more widely accepted and valued for the art and culture it is? well, some responsibility--and importantly, accountability-- necessarily comes with that. it's hard to look at something you love and acknowledge it has faults --but that's a part of love, isn't it? how can we fix problems we refuse to see? it takes maturity, sure, but i think it's past time we grew the f**k up.