Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade "Resolutions" (TW: Bullying, Violence between children)

[alexvdl]

I’m not always a very good person. I’m mean and I recognize that. I know exactly where it comes from too. As a kid I moved schools a lot. I was always the new kid and I was a weird looking new kid which made it worse. There was no nationwide movement to stop bullying back then. The advice I got from teachers was to “ignore them” or “try and make

Comments

[chaya]

We are all products of our childhood

I'm impressed that he straight-up says he's a bully, but this line is just plain false to me. I know so many people who are excellent people in spite of their childhood. Nothing really prevented this guy from working on his childhood-related issues until he was 36 except that he finally came up with such an enormous wave of negative feedback that he couldn't ignore anymore.

Also, this would have been a perfect time for him to actually words like 'sorry' and 'apologize' and name the groups of people he wrongly lashed out at and he didn't. Rape survivors and the trans community to start with.

Also also, "keep coming to PAX even if you don't like me" seems really ... yeah.

[pachakuti]

I don't think he's really saying that all we are is what our childhood makes us, but that our childhoods DO produce specific things in us. People who overcome terrible childhoods are still a product of their childhood; without the abuse and horror they climbed out of, they would be a different person than who they are. What he's saying isn't false, because I really don't think he's saying "we have no personal responsibility for what our childhoods make us as adults"; he's pretty upfront about how he chose to continue being this way into adulthood, that he could have done something about it and never did.

I agree with you that I was deeply disappointed to see his talk so much around the people he hurt, even while nominally taking responsibility for doing so. Just name 'em, Mike. We were there. We saw.

[chaya]

It's the article that surrounds it, and the fact that half of this thing is him talking about how he was treated as a kid, that makes me read 'We are all products of our childhood' as an explanation for why he is the way he is now, which, again, ignores the opportunities he's had to evolve and change.

[pachakuti]

Fair enough, I see your point there.

[rex_dart]

um but where's the apology tho

i think people can change but this guy will be a piece of shit until he actually fucking DOES something to prove otherwise

[alexvdl]

I didn't know what else to call it. It's like the front half of apology, or Step 5 of the 12 steps.

[mahsox_mahsox]

It isn't an apology it is an admission, designed to put his interactions with the world on a more truthful basis.

Obviously an apology would be better, a more complete response. But an admission isn't a bad thing in itself, and certainly isn't any more crap than not making either an apology or an admission.

[alexvdl]

That's a much better word. Thank you.

[shoujokakumei]

The ship sailed on me ever going to PAX a long time ago, regardless of what kind of help this guy gets, but hey. I hope he's successful in becoming someone who isn't a jerk, asshole, bully, piece of shit, etc.

[pachakuti]

I will say that I really never expected to see Mike take responsibility even this much. It's shitty that he doesn't NAME who he hurt, that he can't even describe his actual actions. Maybe he wrote this way with the "I don't want to dredge it up again" thought, but what he really did was erase the people he hurt from what is meant to be his pseudo-apology to them.

It's a seriously cool thing to see someone admit openly to being a bully to others, but it doesn't mean much if he won't acknowledge the actual situations and what he actual did.

[blackjedii]

I moved on from Penny Arcade years ago. It's such a teenage / early-20s dudebro comic that stopped being funny. I know it has a lot of sway so I can't be like "who the arse cares about PA anymore" but they quickly went from funny and kind of mean to outright toxic commentary so yeah. I've always appreciated the big push that led to Child's Play and the other charities that have springboarded off of that so it's not ALL bad... just something I don't need to be a part of.

I'll take Christopher Hastings any day of the week.