Graham Linehan on the chapter about him in Jon Ronson's new book

It's not relevant as evidence in a legal sense, but this is not a court of law. It's relevant as an illustration of character: the person working to open up the women's festival to men is also a person who went on to murder women. Those women don't need to have been associated with the festival for it to be an illustration of character, and in fact they weren't associated with the festival.

My grown up children and their friends regularly use 'NPC' in conversation. None of them vote further to the right than LibDem. Is this possibly another US/UK confusion about language?

Blahhh blah blah

none of this makes men women so rather than dancing around with whatabouttery
do you believe men should stay out of Women's spaces or not?

I don't like Linehan very much; he's a bit too crude for my taste.

But I don't deny that he's genuinely extremely committed, has sacrificed a lot and has made a massive impact, both in the UK and abroad.

Him being arrested and held over a tweet made headlines in the UK and internationally. The women who are arrested or even charged, usually without being famous, simply don't have the same ability to generate publicity. That's one reason I suspect the police stopping investigations into non-hate incidents. And that was significant: it helped limit an avenue for activists to use against us.

Even his court case over knocking a phone out of someone's hand attracted a lot of attention, and his billboards there have repeatedly made the news, as well as a lot of questions about what's going on with some of this.

He's also a man, and we need male allies willing to stand up for us. That doesn't mean they have to be perfect people, that everyone has to like them personally, or that everything they say or do is useful. Sometimes the way they go about it isn't great. But their ability to attract attention and reach people that we otherwise might not is genuinely valuable.

Yes exactly. Talk about scraping the barrel.

it's just embarrassing that a man nearing sixty would use these terms

Oh, really?

Relevant to a piece about a festival that closed at least a decade before the unrelated murders took place?

Am I missing something?

@BernardBlacksMolluscs

I'm glad we're past the point of "Does he even use that language"

I can do the legwork to make a strong case that he now has a strong alignment to the anti-woke / 4chan / redpill culture these days, if you want. I'd probably start with his long, grovelling apology to nazi pug enthusiast Mark Meechan.

I'd like to know the stakes first. If I do that successfully, it reflects badly on Graham and should be taken into account when assessing the man and his words, yeah?

Because a repeating pattern is a demand for evidence; the evidence is given, and the response is "well, I don't care about that anyway; what about this other thing"

Be better not to waste each other's time if that's the case

So Graham Linehan, a gamer, uses gaming sociolect when arguing with his fellow gamers about game nerdery online.

This means we should take a jump to the left, a step to the right, & dismiss anything else he has to say because it’s ’a fair assumption that he has some alignment’ with some other people who like talking bollocks about completely unrelated subjects.

is that it?

Only I have 3 grown dc who also like talking unutterable incomprehensible bollocks about gaming, & they all seem like functional, reasonable adults the rest of the time.

I’m not sure it would be ‘insane to quibble’ about how Linehan uses ‘NPC’, which was a tongue in cheek insult 40 years ago when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons on graph paper.

It just seems rather unconvincing to build an ad hominem around ‘he’s a gamer, & he’s nearly 60, the sad git, & he uses gamer in jokes!’

Yes. But he’s still got a lot to say about gender ideology that is interesting & he’s been extraordinarily brave & bloody minded in saying it.

People are trying to create a story that a transwoman murdered two attendees of Michfest,

That is not how I read it.

The reality is that the murderer knew the murdered women as friends, and the dispute was about a motorcycle club that they were all part of.

That alone is absolutely enough to make it relevant.

When you assume you make an ass out of u and me.

Given how he uses it and other GG terminology he now has in this lexicon, it's a fair assumption he has some alignment with those red-pill dunces

is it? Why?

I tend to find it safer not to ‘assume’ people’s views but to actually try to understand them

He uses it in the same vein as 4chan, an insult to those he views as woke and guilty of operating under an ethical framework they never question.

Graham sees his pre gender criticism, left-leaning days as something to be ashamed of and describes himself as a former NPC, especially when talking about his involvement with Gamergate.

If you search his X feed for NPC, you can see him using the term again and again and again, usually coupled with an insult. These aren't unusual:

"Apologise to your mother you fucking NPC"* *

"You shut up, you fucking NPC nobody. Apologise to your mother."

He uses other 4chan / redpill terms now

"Jolyon Maugham is no normie. He's transed his daughter"

This doesn't make him inherently bad; it's just embarrassing that a man nearing sixty would use these terms, especially given the cultural pond they draw from.

People are within their rights to find that kind of behaviour a barrier to taking him seriously.

Anyway, you'd be insane to quibble over whether he uses the term NPC. Given how he uses it and other GG terminology he now has in this lexicon, it's a fair assumption he has some alignment with those red-pill dunces, and as to whether this makes him bad or dismissible? That's a matter of opinion; make up your own mind

It's toddler level magical thinking isn't it? People are on here arguing with women about "bad words" that apparently mean something specially bad. 🙄

So disappointed in Ronson. I’ve bought and read his books for years. Being a journalist and not recognising the points GL raises is nonsensical.

It's always the same isn't it

glinner said something intemperate ergo men are women and using PB on children is fine

And yet zero evidence about the way Linehan has used it has been provided. Readers are apparently supposed to take it as read that

1. he has used this term
2. he has used it in some sort of ‘dog whistle’ way
3. this makes him a Very Bad Man and as a consequence everything he says must be ignored

Using NPC that way isn't a gaming term; it's more commonly used by red pillers and taken from gaming terminology

I have to be impressed (not) that a line of attack against Glinner is his gaming.
I mean, the anti Glinner trans lobby have nothing at all.
Because if they actually engaged with the truths he represents, their little brains would explode

Perhaps you should try to consider GL as a human being not just some NPC in your thought experiment.

A Gamer using a Gaming term; lust be some sort of monster or deep state psyopor something something hmm hmm do you see?

and yes, a man role playing as a woman tells you a lot about how that man thinks of women (pro tip - not with respect). a man thinking women should be all good with spending enforced time with men who role play as women also tells you a lot about that man (pro tip - he views us as non player characters (ooh!) who should just budge up for the real people)

no, you haven't. you haven't explained why you think using the term 'npc' in some way undermines linehan's credibility (which is what I think you're implying)

you've just posted links to a bunch of stuff as if it is self evident. it is not

you did say

'I don't think being a dickhead online helps anyone and especially is not particularly effective in bringing anyone round to your point of view. Whatever the topic.'

If you want to persuade people of stuff, being able to articulate your thoughts on it will help you

This board alone is full of shibboleths that are meaningless to those not already entrenched in GC discussion.

What, like knowing that Kara Dansky and Dana Rivers are not the same person?

Exactly. It's so ingrained, he doesn't realise it's leaching out of every pore.