I know I've said it before, and time travelers from the future tell me I'll say it again, but we here at Kotaku love Destructoid. They're just a great little site and deserve all the publicity they can get. But recently, there's been a little spat between Destructoid writer Faith Naked and Kotaku, and before it gets out of hand, I'd really like to just address it and hope sooth some worried, red-head brows.

We love Faith. She's like an excitable little cat who just freaks out into a flying ball of fur and razor-sharp claws every time you gently tug her tail. It's why we can't resist teasing her from time to time. But — apparently — I took it too far in a recent post of mine, in which I expressed disappointment when she said that hard core porn star Liz Vicious was not someone she intended to emulate as a girl gamer. This prompted her to write the following on the Destructoid Editor Forums:

I just wanted everyone to know that I refused to write, link or even read Kotaku.com anymore. I had enough of the bullshit that is posted on that site and I am especially tired of people like Florian and Eliza picked on me every chance they get. That site is a great example of bad journalism and I refuse to read their garbage anymore.

I think I speak for both Eliza and myself when we say that we never dreamed she'd take our playful little gibes so hard. We think she's just swell. We read her site every day. We hastened to make amends. But Faith's Kotaku Boycott is already in full swing. She's even taken time out of her schedule to draw up an official logo, seen to the right. And she's requesting signatures for an impromptu Boycott Kotaku petition.

I'd like to extend an olive branch to Faith. Obviously, she's right: I'm also pretty sick of my garbage. I would like to ask a personal favor of all of you. Would you please go over to Faith's site and sign her "Boycott Kotaku" petition?

I imagine a vast sea of tanned gamers in swarthy gladiatorial gear standing up and crying their outrage in unison, like at the end of Spartacus. As you can see, I led the charge. Don't be rude. Voice your full support for an Internet wide Kotaku boycott! It's the only way we'll be able to put me out of a job once and for all. And click her ad links while you're there. Show your support for a lone, brave voice crying out in the wilderness! Join the movement today!

Hopefully if Faith gets enough signatories it'll help brush aside all this animosity between us once and for all. After all, it's a small step between fellow game lovers and just plain lovers. And as Destructoid editor Niero also wrote on the editor forums, "I think Florian secretly wants your babies." Florian Eckhardt

Reminder: BE NICE! I'm not sending you over there to rake her over the coals. It's a conciliatory gesture! Various Anonymouses, I'm looking at you! Don't be rude!

Boycotting Kotaku.com [The Girl Gamer]

Yes, we admit, not very interesting, in which Liz Vicious (HOO HAH! Not safe for work!) sits around and plays Sega. Mildly racy, but nothing more than that. More interesting than the video, however, is perhaps this inexplicable comment by Faith Naked, lamenting the sorry state of girl gamers:

Liz Vicious plays video games before she decides to have her camera man zoom in like a perv, and then she shows off her new undies.

Shoot me if I ever do a video like this, because this is what is wrong with supposed girl gamers.

So the problem with girl gamers is that they're porn stars? Jeez. I wish! Faith Naked: Susan B. Anthony of Girl Gamers! Give poor Liz a break here, Faith. It's not like she's working at a strip club or anything. Florian 'Not Wearing Pants' 'Pre-Emptive Lighten-Up, Faith!' Eckhardt

Who gets off on this? [The Girl Gamer]

Faith Naked, the girl behind the Top 10 Hottest Guys in Gaming List, was interviewed over at Destructoid, one of our favorite sites. This is not news. But I found this quote from Faith disingenuous enough to comment upon:

Fronz: Speaking of embrace, readers want to know if you embrace the "girl gamer" status/stereotype, or would you rather be known as simply a "gamer?" There seems to be a divide between those who would rather be anonymous and those who embrace their minority, sometimes pretty vehemently. How do you feel about this digi-feminism, and which camp do you find yourself in, if any?

Faith Naked: Hey, I'm a girl and I can't change that. I want people to treat me as a normal gamer, but as long as there are guys who are going to send you Myspace messages like "Hey, you wanna play with my joystick?", my status as a girl gamer will always stand out.

You know, that's an interesting thing for a girl who sprang upon the 'scene' at the tip of the quivering, dew-tipped erection of gamers' collective desperation to say.

Look, I have nothing against Faith Naked. She seems nice. She posts cool things. Her writing is passable... more than we can say about most game writers. She doesn't take herself too seriously. She sends us tips! And hell, I'm apparently inadvertently responsible for her newfound "fame", being the Kotaku staffer who posted her Top 10 Hottest Guys in Gaming List in the first place, which was consequently picked up by Attack of the Show.

But doesn't this sort of statement ring completely hollow when she first became noticed for posing almost entirely naked for Destructoid, with the exception of some game controllers covering her vagina with the exception of a Gabecube hovering over her pudenda and a diaphonous bra? Or when almost all of her mentions on Destructoid are accompanied by a picture of her similarly disrobed? And when I discovered her 'Top 10 List of Hot Gaming Guys', even I was following a link from Destructoid to see if I couldn't figure out what she looked like pubically.

If Faith really wanted to be treated as "just a gamer" (and, presumably, as "just a game writer")... why all the nudity? Because she doesn't want to be just a gamer or just a writer... she wants to be that hot girl gamer. That hot, naked writer.

To be clear, what bothers me is not that Faith Naked shakes it for attention. Hey, you got it? Flaunt it, baby. I just hate the entire "I just want to be treated the same as everyone who isn't a hot, half-naked gamer/stripper" disingenuousness.

There's nothing wrong with hot girls getting attention for being hot girls, or using their personal attractiveness to draw attention to what they are saying. Sex is marketing. But either be unapologetic about using sex as marketing or don't use sex to sell yourself at all.

For example, consider our own Eliza Gauger. When Eliza posts, we don't accompany it with a picture of her naked. Part of that is because she is morbidly obese; sort of the estrogen-saturated, anthropomorphic equivalent of Goatse.cx's gaping, flabby anus, and just as attractive. But the larger reason is that Eliza's a quick enough wit, a clever enough writer and has interesting enough things to say that her writing really speaks for itself. And while I am less talented than Eliza, the reasons there aren't naked pictures of my godlike genitalia on Kotaku's front page are similar.

This isn't really meant as an attack on Faith, but it's obvious why a lot of gamers are paying attention to her all of a sudden, and denying it makes her less credible, not more so. Despite what she says, she doesn't really want to be treated as a gamer... instead, she realizes the practicality of marketing her writing with her body and she's using that fact to further her career. And that's fair enough: writers are a dime a dozen, and you need any edge you can get. If Faith's talented, then people will keep paying attention. If she isn't, people will get bored and move on.

But the first step to everyone getting bored? Deluding yourself about your most base and obvious appeal. It's better to just cheerfully admit it and be interesting enough that we keep on listening once we turn our oggling eyes to another lustful female frame. Gaming already has enough Frag Dolls, after all. Florian Eckhardt

Edit: Faith correctly pointed out the original photograph we used of her wasn't her. Apologies for the mistake, but I hope everyone can understand why I confused one red headed, half-naked girl for another.

Weekend Reading: Faith Naked Interview [Destructoid]