#crackgate

Photo of hairline crack in Vision Pro front glass (credit: Reddit user Inphenite) A small number of Apple Vision Pro owners have discovered that their spatial computers developed a hairline crack down the middle of the front cover glass without having been dropped. Inphenite via reddit: ‎ Like a few others, I just discovered a long crack in the front glass of my Vision Pro. It’s been sitting…

Apple je izgledno na početku još jedne afere, ovaj put put revijalnog naziva #crackgate, a odnosi se na iznenadno i neobjašnjivo pucanje safirnog stakla koje štiti modul dvostruke kamere iPhonea X, inače najprodavanijeg smartphonea u prvom tromjesečju ove godine.  (more…)

As of yesterday, the 18-month DCI ban on Sidney Blair--the Crack Curator, Pablo PicASSo, the genuis behind the Grand Prix Richmond Crackstyle masterpiece--was officially lifted. It’s an Erev Rosh Hashanah miracle.

For the unenlightened, the photo series is perfect in its simplicity: a large, bearded man, dressed for a funeral, kneeling somberly next to the hairy butt-canyons of sixteen oblivious players. Sid Blair is the hero Magic deserves, but not the one it needs.

Maybe Sid doesn’t think himself a scholar, but Crackstyle (and more tellingly, the spectrum of responses that it elicited), has evolved into a fascinating commentary on the body-politics of the Magic community. 

When I saw those pictures, and heard about Sid’s ban, I had a TON of questions, as a fellow player, an artist, a radical feminist, a survivor of harassment: why the ban? did the taking and broadcasting of these butts constitute bullying? was this fat-shaming? illegal? was the photographer also banned? why 18 months, specifically? is this a publicity stunt from WotC?

I don’t know what the appropriate official response should have been, if an 18-month suspension reflects the severity of the crime or not. I don’t know if I believe Sid when he says he was “just expressing himself”. I don’t know if WotC is overreacting or simply covering their bases and making sure ALL online harassment is accordingly addressed. I don’t have the nice, neat answers to these questions. But I do know this: #Crackgate might be stupidly offensive, brilliant, or both, but if I hear one more dude complaining about Sid Blair I’m gonna flip the goddamn proverbial table. 

For example, check out this hilarious Change.org petition trying to ban Sid from more events:

“...No one should have to live with the fear that at any moment some immature person could be taking a photo of their privates while they are trying to enjoy a game in what they believe is a safe environment free of the judgment of the outside world. Banning this player from all major events would be the only reasonable way to eliminate this fear...”

Wait, what?

It speaks VOLUMES that it’s Crackstyle (not a player threatening to rape Helene Bergeot, not the live-streamed venom targeted at Jackie Lee and Feline Longmore) that threatens to destroy their “safe environment free of the judgment of the outside world”. If only the Magic community at large could direct its white-hot fury towards, oh I don’t know, REAL PROBLEMS, like the shitty people in local shops making rape jokes, or the racial and gender imbalances in card art, or encouraging more trans/women and POC to become judges and commentators. I could go on. 

It’s almost like these poor, defenseless dudes have never experienced what it feels like to be objectified and ridiculed, and for the first time, they’re discovering that it doesn’t feel so good.

Sid Blair himself touches on this fucking shameful hypocrisy (emphasis mine):

“... within every group of people is a much smaller group of people that present the community in a bad way as well. Whether it be the guys that make fun of new players for using Lava Axe which makes them not want to come back to a LGS, the guys who have naked anime characters on their sleeves/playmat that make women not want to play or the dudes that smell badly and make people not want to go to a certain store. I think that vilifying me is easier for a lot of people than realizing that they might have something to improve about themselves for the community. Not to take the blame away from myself, but that's how I feel. It's much easier to criticize someone else than yourself...

...This theoretical dude with anime tits on his deck box, for example, gets a pass because he is expressing himself. I don't think it's okay for the community at large to be cool with this guy having pseudo-nudity on his MTG paraphernalia, but not cool with my controversial way of expressing myself. I'm not saying what I did was right; in retrospect, it wasn't. Just because these guys were exposing their ass doesn't make it okay for me to take pictures of them, in the same way that Anime Dude shouldn't be able to get away with having that shit because he's expressing himself. I think the line should be a bit more clearly drawn...”