GamerGate (especially run ins)

[Hexen]

For those who know what GamerGate is, has anyone had run ins with them? Well recently I've been arguing with this person on youtube on a video based on Trans representation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrvhHc8TFRw

This is what I had to put up with after calling this person out called "millgiass":



millgiass 1 week ago
Yeah screw 'safe spaces.'
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zonilo1 19 hours ago
+millgiass And you are the reason why they exist in the first place.
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millgiass 11 hours ago
+zonilo1 The hell I am, people need to stop coddling these pathetic sacks of shit.They need to grow the fuck up and stop sucking their thumb acting like the whole world needs to bend over and cater on hand and knee to their whiny little overly sensitive, hyper PC sensibilities. If they can't exist in the world without a fallout shelter the world doesn't fucking need them to exist. Nobody in their right mind should be that weak willed. We shouldn't have to walk on eggshells all the time because some whiny maggot might get offended. Toughen up, there is going to be things that offend you in life. LIVE WITH IT. Again I say, screw safe spaces and the weak-minded crybabies that need them.
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zonilo1 4 hours ago (edited)
+millgiass Know what? I know you going to be beyond reasoning with because your lack of compassion & empathy is showing and there you go self-explaining yourself why people need safe spaces to protect themselves from assholes like yourself who and your entire privileged group most likely go around abusing people and dominate the entire space and chasing people out hence why they create those spaces in the first place because you have no fucking clue and idea how privileged you really are and the world does not revolve around you. Plus I think you have no idea what PTSD is nor it's less than likely you ever experienced it which is another reason as well. Otherwise Fuck Off. Especially people who use keywords like "Grow a Thicker Skin" "You're being overly sensitive" or "Grow Up" should never be trusted with very good reasons.
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millgiass 4 hours ago (edited)
"Privilaged group." Shut the fuck up you propaganda spewing piece of garbage. I'm sick of you SJWs and your fucking nonsense. You make the world a shittier place to be in for every well adjusted person. You mis-characterize everything, and nit pick fucking EVERYTHING. You don't know me, yet you're laying a bunch of claims on me like you do. I'm not the one who has everyone bending over backwards to make special exceptions for me or giving me some goddamn bias or perpetual pity party. You wanna suggest "the world doesn't revolve around you" as an argument? Well I can turn that fucking argument right back at you. You are the scum of the Earth and you're making it a terrible fucking place to be. You wont be satisfied till everyone is walking around with a wad in their diaper so afraid to offend people and get labeled that they don't WANT to talk. I've experienced more than you, some ignorant fucking dip-shit SJW on the internet will ever fucking realize. I guarantee you I've suffered PTSD for MANY things that have happened in my life. The difference is I'm not going to be the one crying about it begging for people's attention and begging them to bend to my whims, that's your think tank not mine. So yes, people should grow the fuck up. There is no goddamn reason college aged adults need to have a "safe zone" where they can go be fucking crybabies in. Maybe some middle schooler who doesn't have a grasp on how the world is but fucking adults? This is why people can't take us seriously, why they call college students "Kids" when they aren't fucking kids. Peddle your humiliating bullshit propaganda to someone gullible enough to buy it you pantywaist. You tear people down and devalue them as mature adults far more than I ever will. Treating them like weak willed pathetic pseudo children. I'm sick of SJWs constantly saying to "check your privilege" when their view DOMINATES the airwaves. More sensible people don't have a strong public voice because any argument against your stupidity gets them labeled a plethora of false titles. So fuck you. I don't have any goddamn privilege other than being fucking American and not having to starve and wonder where my next meal will come from. I might have to wonder how I'm going to pay for it but that's far better than being a starving African. It's fucking pathetic how people like you cry about your first world problems like it's actually some sort of trial. I'd love for you to realize what real problems are one day. Nobody who needs trigger warnings or safe zones deserves ANYONE'S empathy or compassion. What they deserve is a good shaking and a "GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF MAN!"
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zonilo1 3 hours ago (edited)
And this why you're privileged because everything is invisible to you because you don't experience it therefore it doesn't exist for you because you're too self-centered to realize that. I think you can pretty much fuck off at this point and I'm done speaking to you or let alone it was foolish of me replying to you at the first place as no one else did (perhaps for a very good reason...) but someone had to call you out but then again I have better things to do than wasting my time with GamerGate shitheads like you.
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millgiass 3 hours ago (edited)
+zonilo1 I'm calling YOU out shithead. The fact that you call me a "GamerGate" shithead means you are so shoved up your own ass you can't see the light of day. I have nothing, nor have I ever had anything to do with gamergate. I've been an objective observer all this time. You wanna spout your propaganda bullshit, I'm gonna just smack it right down into the bin where it belongs. That's why I responded to your mindless regurgitated drivel. Only an SJW would view gamergate as a bad thing. It's supposed to be about ethics in gaming journalism. There are abusive assholes in every movement, That does not mean that they are the representative standard. The thing may have gained it's initial momentum based on some dumb angry ex bf but it certainly revealed some truths about gaming journalism that show how corrupt it is. Trolls are gonna troll, but you can't say "Durr trolls are representative of gamer gate." because there was plenty of trolling done by supposed anti-gamer gate people too. The thing is, while the gamer-gaters who were serious moved on from the little scandals the 'feminists' cling to within a week or so, that's just the only thing they can grasp at. That's why they fucking lost and why so many games journalism sites are being shaken up and changing their policies, because anti-gamer gaters had no legs to stand on. So honestly the gamergaters have a good set of ideas and points. I don't support trolls or harrassers. Which you obviously are. You took such offense to a simple statement of opinion that you had to harass me and insult my own experiences and the people I know when what I want is for everyone to stand up and face the fucking world with courage and a goddamn spine. So I stand by my statement, screw safe spaces. And screw you too SJW troll.
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zonilo1 2 hours ago (edited)
+millgiass .... You're so out of touch of reality and it's not even funny. You seem to miss the point that GamerGate has nothing to do with "Ethics and Games Journalism" it never has and never was, it's actually nothing more than a harassment campaign by a stalker and abuser/rapist to destroy his girlfriend reputation and it has grown like a cancer to attack and chase out women/PoC/Transpeople out of the gaming sphere to preserve your imaginary homogenous white male gentleman's club and this is the "movement" that you support while you claim yourself as a "objective observer". Apparently it seems you're now reversing my words saying "NO U" like a 7 year old pointing fingers to avoid responsibility for their own actions it seems like while you paint yourself as the victim saying that you're "harassed" or calling anyone who disagrees with you a "troll" while in reality the only person actually doing the abuse/harassment/etc is you . Know what? Why not just fuck off because you're just a waste of time arguing with and I have no doubt that you're a stalker/rapist/abuser in your personal life or you might be heading towards that path and you don't even know it since not only you're unaware but also you think you're entitled to do every the flying fuck you like at the expense of others. People like you are nothing but maggots and it's people like you that make the world the worst place to live. Now Fuck Off you piece of shit, I'm done with you just like the rest of you.
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millgiass 1 hour ago
You say I'm out of touch with reality but everything you've said is bullshit. "GamerGate has nothing to do with "Ethics and Games Journalism" it never has and never was, it's actually nothing more than a harassment campaign by a stalker and abuser/rapist to destroy his girlfriend reputation and it has grown like a cancer to attack and chase out women/PoC/Transpeople out of the gaming sphere" Bullshit. And you say I'm out of touch. Way to suck that propaganda cock like a whore. It highlighted an incest between game devs and game journalist. In this case the 'victim' was literally sleeping with a journalist who was giving her a leg up in the indy dev world for a trash game that deserved no praise. And another woman who was said to be victimized by it was literally caught sending herself hate mail to play the victim. You're in your own little delusional world. Sorry I'm not as stupid as you are and am not gonna suck up that hateful sexist garbage your gobbling up. You've obviously NEVER even attempted to examine what Gamer Gate actually stands for and what they are trying to accomplish. Hook-line and sinker, you've just gobbled up whatever the SJW media wants you to. Sorry but they've been proven to be liars with agendas more centered around weaseling idiots out of their money and silencing opposing points of view. Secondly I don't call you a harasser because you disagree with me. I call you a harasser because you're jumping on my ass because I disapprove of something. Then you come at me with wild accusations, baseless and ignorant and try to paint me as some villain, as is typical of SJW pricks. So yeah, you're a harassing troll. You didn't have to be a little ***** about my opinion. You could have been polite and say you disagree, but instead you're accusatory from word one. "...no doubt that you're a stalker/rapist/abuser in your personal life or you might be heading towards that path..." More baseless nonsense from you, a person whose every opinion is copy paste garbage you learned from other SJWs. slow clap You prove my point more the more you talk. It is in fact YOU who are the trash here. Had you not bothered me I wouldn't have had to point out what a blithering mindless drone you are. I'm not gonna sit by and be pushed around or told to fuck off by some simpleton SJW who does nothing but regurgitate talking points from their favorite propagandist. You're no better than the scum who work at Fox News, and yes, you're making the world worse. You're making everyone believe they need to be coddled. That these first world problems are fucking important when they aren't. The false perception that there is some sort of inherit 'privilege' to being a certain gender or color, guess what, there fucking isn't. The only people who are truly privileged are the wealthy 1% so stop distracting yourself with this fucking garbage. Stop attacking people because they don't buy your politically correct propaganda. And quit spreading so much misinformation, because that is something feminists just can't help themselves but do. I will never be pushed around by the likes of you. If you're so done with this discussion and spitting out more faulty propaganda, then stop replying. GOOD DAY.
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Can anyone help debate with this reactionary or can anyone debunk his crap?

[BIXX]

Why even bother

Make the world a dangerous space- for him

[Armchair Partisan]

The best advice I can offer is to take your own advice:


and I'm done speaking to you or let alone it was foolish of me replying to you at the first place as no one else did (perhaps for a very good reason...) but someone had to call you out but then again I have better things to do than wasting my time with GamerGate shitheads like you.

This is not a debate, it's a flamewar, and unless you enjoy slinging the insults it's a colossal waste of time.

[Hexen]

I know for a fact it's a waste of time 'debating' with him but I wonder if anyone could debunk and refute everything he said?

[Rafiq]

Why don't you just use this:

If the qualifications for what something stands for is based on what they claim themselves to be, then by those same qualifications he would have to accept that ANY opposition to gamergate is justified because it represents... EXACTLY what it claims to represent! If he doesn't accept this, he's a hypocritical scumbag. And the fact of the matter is that only someone with their head so far up their ass would believe that what sustains and powers Gamergate is outrage over the fact that some marginal journalist may have given an indie dev a good review because he slept with her. The fact of the matter is that bribery, "corruption" and unfair reviews in the video game world, have probably always been prevalent. One wonders why a movement about "ethics and gaming jouranlism" would have to be kicked off by the revelation of the steamy details of a female game developer cheating on her boyfriend with someone in a position of power. Maybe because it ideologically encapsulates the pathological nightmare of every reactionary anti-feminist, which basically seeks to associate "those in power" with feminism, it is self-victimizing in the same way that Fascists were self-victimizing, i.e. as as means to sustain their own barbarity necessary to combat the growing waves of "feminism" that have become popular as a result of the increase of women in jobs that would have otherwise been solely reserved for men. This sick motherfucker claims that "A few trolls aren't representative of the whole movement" as though somehow all of the disgusting, sick and depraved scum that gamergate has produced are somehow an exception or an anomaly. Conversely, the truth is that those members of "Gamergate" who have to incessantly apologize for it while outwardly "condemning" the excesses are the true anomaly to the movement. Even the PRETENDED purpose of it, which has been "ethics and gaming journalism" reveals its unambiguously reactionary nature. They're all infuriated at the sight of an outwardly violation of public sexual morality (which is always hyper-sexualization coupled with the hypocritical denial of a women's sexual identity) coupled with the profit-driven games industry. If Gamer Gate was simply about "ethics and gaming journalism", an ambiguous term that any sensible person would agree with (What is ethical? What is NOT ethical?) then frankly it would be a movement that is politically diverse. The truth is that all of those who represent gamergate are politically reactionary, maybe with a few exception. If this was about "ethics and gaming journalism" then the debate would somehow be polarized simply along those lines. Instead, the controversy is eventful in that it encapsulates a wide variety of issues, and the association of "SJW"'s as the primary target of a movement which was just deemed as simply about "Ethics and gaming journalism" proves that it is NOT just about that. This piece of shit keeps going on about how "you know nothing about gamergate" when to a certain degree his prejudice maybe right: Yes there is a very deep, sick and festering ideological foundation of gamergate that many liberals have been simply unable to "get", but that's precisely the problem. If this was a movement composed of honest people, then their actual demands would be clear to everyone. Instead, like any group of crypto-fascist scum, the minute they reveal their true intentions publicly, the minute they ridicule themselves EVEN BY THEIR OWN standards of public gesturing. Even the so-called "responsible" members of gamergate are almost complete scum deep down, and there are various instances where people who try to apologize for it civilly are actually found to be caught in the ragged gutter filth of sick and depraved poison that has pretty much ACTUALLY defined the movement. And of course, trying to obfuscate and mystify issues by saying "OMG be grateful you're not a starving african child" is of course compeltely fucking worthless, because a third worlder living in absolutely abdominal conditions can by the same hypocritical standards be told to "be grateful" that they aren't being slaughtered or dying of disease. In fact, that actually IS the case, with most apologists of IMF globalization claiming that "While things are bad, they're better than before". So shove that right back up your ass you piece of shit.

Oh, and no one gives a fuck about your feelings. Frankly in an ideal world scum like you would not only be bullied into shutting their fucking mouths and being forcefully kept from proliferating the perpetuation of oppression and systemic violence, they would simply be shot and killed in a quick revolutionary trial by the masses. And before you go about claiming "You're no better than they are!" remember that I don't give a single fuck.


In fact, you don't even have to read it, I promise you it will probably shut him up. And yes this was done out of complete boredom, so there's no need to thank me. Clearly this person is a bully taking advantage of your politeness.

[Atsumari]

Nice Rafiq. One of the funniest things I read in a while.

[G4b3n]

My advice: Don't touch these people with a 10 foot virtual stick. Stay away. Less headaches.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

GamerGate is pretty reactionary. Misogynist, transphobic, pro-rape, etc., and many of them suffer from rage issues. Arguing with them is pointless. They're immune to facts and reason.

[Mr. Piccolo]

The funny thing is that the GamerGaters think that "SJWs" control the media when the opposite is true. Video games, for example, are obviously designed to cater to the white male 18-34 year old demographic so coveted by companies. This group is catered to more than any other, so there is a need for other voices to get a hearing, thus the existence of the much-maligned "social justice warriors."

I am not sure if there is any meaningful debate to be had with these types. They have a persecution complex. They are threatened by any other demographic having a voice in their little closed world, especially if this involves getting called out on their rampant misogyny.

[Invader Zim]

I hate the term 'gamergate', and the entire saga that went with it. The term itself simply became a reductive slur by assholes who want to force "core" gaming back into mom's basement, and generate crude stereotypes. Thus:

"Video games, for example, are obviously designed to cater to the white male 18-34 year old demographic so coveted by companies."

Meanwhile, a significant and vocal collection of morons within the gaming world used it as an opportunity to troll.

There is a serious discussion to be had about the future of what is, now, the largest entertainment industry, what gamer idenity is (assuming it even exists) and why the games media is so tepid and in many ways corrupt (though other forms of entertainment commentary are just as bad).

And I also hate the accronyms and associated terms 'SJW' and 'MRA', which are again lazy, reductive and stupid.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I hate the term 'gamergate', and the entire saga that went with it. The term itself simply became a reductive slur by assholes who want to force "core" gaming back into mom's basement, and generate crude stereotypes. Thus:

"Video games, for example, are obviously designed to cater to the white male 18-34 year old demographic so coveted by companies."

Meanwhile, a significant and vocal collection of morons within the gaming world used it as an opportunity to troll.

There is a serious discussion to be had about the future of what is, now, the largest entertainment industry, what gamer idenity is (assuming it even exists) and why the games media is so tepid and in many ways corrupt (though other forms of entertainment commentary are just as bad).

And I also hate the accronyms and associated terms 'SJW' and 'MRA', which are again lazy, reductive and stupid.

I don't think it's just people trolling, though. Trolling generally doesn't escalate to death and rape threats. There are some genuine misogynists out there, and the rhetorical thrashing they receive is the least people can do. It's just that, as you said, there have been a lot of lazy stereotypes about gamers being thrown around (which is far less serious than rape and death threats, but I don't think I specifically have to point out those are bad at RL).

Although, sure, some companies do cater to the 18-34 demographic. Many of them also pride themselves on how "diverse" they are, and are adored by some of the less informed people in this debate, like Bioware, which uses lesbians as cheap window dressing and masturbation material, then pats itself on the back for being pro-gay, in an industry that, to be honest, was never particularly anti-gay by the standards of mainstream society.

[Invader Zim]

I don't think it's just people trolling, though. Trolling generally doesn't escalate to death and rape threats.

Generally no, but it is far too frequent - there was nothing particular new or unique about this. It is also a fact that the "anti-gg" (another term I hate) also sent death threats to those people who had serious concerns raised by the saga and tried to articulate them in a serious fashion, and trolled to an unbelievable degree. This, quite frankly, went ignored in the media coverage, only further confirming to many that the games media is useless.

I basically said what I've said here on a different outlet and was treated like a misogynist leper. That said, I did enjoy then going through their posts and pointing out that they didn't have the first clue about the gender-studies themes they were inaccurately regurgitating - the best bit was when they cited a friend and former colleague of mine to alledge that I didn't know what I was talking about.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I basically said what I've said here on a different outlet and was treated like a misogynist leper.
Considering you think there were legit issues raised by GG, I can see why someone might come to that conclusion.

[Invader Zim]

Considering you think there were legit issues raised by GG, I can see why someone might come to that conclusion.


And the above is precisely the kind of two dimensional thinking I've been talking about.

The fact is that there were plenty of people who associated with gamergate who had grown fed up with the rank amateurism in games journalism, and who absolutely do not agree with making inane misoygnistic comments to women. Are you really this binary, and can only see complex discussions in black and white terms? You should take Mark Twain's sage advice:

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

[Rafiq]

The fact is that there were plenty of people who associated with gamergate who had grown fed up with the rank amateurism in games journalism, and who absolutely do not agree with making inane misoygnistic comments to women. Are you really this binary, and can only see complex discussions in black and white terms? You should take Mark Twain's sage advice:

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

What triggered gamer-gate, and how does this specifically encapsulate the problems associated with games journalism, something that has for most of its existence always been amateur?

[Comrade Jacob]

Who remembers elevator-gate? Fuck, this gamergate poppycock has gone on too long.

[OGG]

Could someone explain what gamergate is to me in less than 5 sentences?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Could someone explain what gamergate is to me in less than 5 sentences?

It's a gaggle of misogynistic assholes who use an otherwise admirable goal of 'ethics in gaming journalism' as a prerequisite for taking out their mal-directed hate against any and all women and minority groups who speak up about the lopsided way games portray said groups.

[#FF0000]

And the above is precisely the kind of two dimensional thinking I've been talking about.

The fact is that there were plenty of people who associated with gamergate who had grown fed up with the rank amateurism in games journalism, and who absolutely do not agree with making inane misoygnistic comments to women. Are you really this binary, and can only see complex discussions in black and white terms? You should take Mark Twain's sage advice:

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."

I'd say it's pretty two-dimensional to complain about people dismissing Gamergate because "they have a point", ignoring the fact that it was born out of a harassment campaign. They make good points about (lmao) games journalism being bad? Very good for them. I'm sure the local Militia group has some people who have cogent points to make about NAFTA, police brutality, and the predatory nature of large banks, but I'm not so short sighted that I'd defend a broken clock for being right twice a day.

And while we're on the subject who cares about video game journalism? Do people read the National Enquirer or watch E! n complain about the quality of journalism there too?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

And the above is precisely the kind of two dimensional thinking I've been talking about.
I don't know you, but I do know what I've witnessed from GamerGate from day one. I've personally been harassed online for calling out the misogyny of GG. Not anywhere close to the same degree as some other women, but enough to know it's not just a fringe element of GG supporters doing it.


The fact is that there were plenty of people who associated with gamergate who had grown fed up with the rank amateurism in games journalism, and who absolutely do not agree with making inane misoygnistic comments to women.If people have legit issues with gaming journalism, the worst possible way to call attention to their issues is to be associated with GamerGate, which has repeatedly shown itself to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy when it comes to how it treats women (even GG women can be seen defending rape threats against other women, which is truly sickening).

The triggering event for GG, that a female game developer had a relationship with a male gaming journalist who then wrote a positive review of her games, has been proven to be false. The journalist never reviewed her games, and the only article he wrote about her was prior to their personal relationship. Yet this false claim resulted in her personal details being posted online, rape threats, and death threats. That is the true face of GG.


"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt."A pity you don't take your own advice.

[Invader Zim]

I'd say it's pretty two-dimensional to complain about people dismissing Gamergate because "they have a point", ignoring the fact that it was born out of a harassment campaign. They make good points about (lmao) games journalism being bad? Very good for them. I'm sure the local Militia group has some people who have cogent points to make about NAFTA, police brutality, and the predatory nature of large banks, but I'm not so short sighted that I'd defend a broken clock for being right twice a day.

And while we're on the subject who cares about video game journalism? Do people read the National Enquirer or watch E! n complain about the quality of journalism there too?

Gamergate was not merely born out of an harassment campaign, the hashtag which has become the moniker for aggrieved gamers (whether you think their grievances are worthy or not) might have started regarding Zoe Quinn, Eron Gjoni and Nathan Grayson, but the underlying issues and discussions long predate it (TFYC saga (http://apgnation.com/articles/2014/09/09/6977/truth-gaming-interview-fine-young-capitalists), etc). Meanwhile, the actual hashtag was utilized by many thousands of individuals, the vast vast majority of them who had nothing to do with any acts of harassment. Meanwhile, harassment on this issue was very obviously a two-way street, but reported as being exclusively by proponents of gamergate.

My assessment is that gamergate was a text-book example of a media generated moral panic (http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/samplepages/ashgate-research-companion-to-moral-panics-intro.pdf), in which legitimate discourse and sensible voices (which was the majority and most popular of actual online discussion) was ignored and sidelined while the spurious narrative that this was entirely a misogynistic rebellion by an army of white, male, mouth-breathing nerds living in their parent's basement was given maximum airtime. Had it been reported that there was a minor storm-in-a-teacup about the poor quality of games journalism that some trolls had usurped in order to troll a number of women, then this would never have blown up into an issue of any significance. But that doesn't result in clicks which sell advertising space and nor does it sell newspapers, moral panics do. And neither does pointing to the large numbers of perfectly ordinary and non-sensational discussions (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1).


And yes, plenty of people complain about unethical media practices and shitty journalistic quality all the time. Try buying a copy of News of the World.

[#FF0000]

Gamergate was not merely born out of an harassment campaign, the hashtag which has become the moniker for aggrieved gamers (whether you think their grievances are worthy or not) might have started regarding Zoe Quinn, Eron Gjoni and Nathan Grayson, but the underlying issues and discussions long predate it (TFYC saga (http://apgnation.com/articles/2014/09/09/6977/truth-gaming-interview-fine-young-capitalists), etc). Meanwhile, the actual hashtag was utilized by many thousands of individuals, the vast vast majority of them who had nothing to do with any acts of harassment. Meanwhile, harassment on this issue was very obviously a two-way street, but reported as being exclusively by proponents of gamergate.

Yeah and the grievances that people have with the police or NAFTA or whatever predate the Militia movement too. That doesn't mean the Militia movement is something worthy of defending, even though a lot of people involved aren't any more right-wing than a run-of-the-mill American conservative. You're missing the forest for the trees here -- Gamergate was born out of a harassment campaign (and continued to act as one), talked about "ethics in games journalism" while focusing almost exclusively on indies and blogs that espoused certain politics, and is an internet tantrum whose most vocal and visible figures include former associates of Breitbart.


And yes, plenty of people complain about unethical media practices and shitty journalistic quality all the time. Try buying a copy of News of the World.

If anyone actually, seriously complains about the quality of journalism in tabloids, they're an absolute fool.

If you're older than 16 and still read video game media expecting anything worthwhile, that's your own fault. And frankly, when it comes to video games, everyone involved from the media to the publishers to the developers to the core audience are all terrible in their own special ways and deserve each other.

[#FF0000]

I mean this is how a lot of gamergate discussions go -- the person who favors gg downplays the harassment that was the genesis of the thing, and the person against tries to explain that the harassment is a one huge reason one should abandon it. Like Danielle said, if you actually care about "ethics in video games journalism", then associating with the people who made "ethics in..." a punchline and who rallied around radical right-wing hacks who needed a new hustle after their meal ticket keeled over might not be the best idea.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

There is a lot to be said about the practices of gaming media, but now is probably not the right time to say it, unless you want to be associated with violent misogyny. And I think it's disingenuous to imply that the "movement" did not have a misogynist component from day one, when the person they chose to focus on was not an AAA developer, but a woman indie developed, whose influence in the industry is, well, nonexistent.


If you're older than 16 and still read video game media expecting anything worthwhile, that's your own fault. And frankly, when it comes to video games, everyone involved from the media to the publishers to the developers to the core audience are all terrible in their own special ways and deserve each other.

This, on the other hand, is one of those things that is being constantly repeated by people whose only engagement with games is the anti-gamergate "movement" (so I'm surprised you're saying it), and it's just not true. And it's especially hypocritical of people to single out games when there are a lot less politically troubling games than there are movies, or books, or whatever.

[Antiochus]

Has any of the harassment and threats via this "movement" materialized? I mean, has anyone actually been physically targeted or is this just a movement by a bunch of nerds writing a few words online?

I don't know much about it but if you think this level of harassment is bad, you should see Total War. Its a shame because they are such good games but half the people are mentally insane, promote Nazism or are deeply vindictive.

[#FF0000]

This, on the other hand, is one of those things that is being constantly repeated by people whose only engagement with games is the anti-gamergate "movement" (so I'm surprised you're saying it), and it's just not true. And it's especially hypocritical of people to single out games when there are a lot less politically troubling games than there are movies, or books, or whatever.

What part of it isn't true?

When I say "awful" I don't mean "politically questionable", keep in mind. I just think that the devs, publishers, and journalists are all terrible at what they do, and that the community is just terrible no matter what the politics of the people involved.

[#FF0000]

Has any of the harassment and threats via this "movement" materialized? I mean, has anyone actually been physically targeted or is this just a movement by a bunch of nerds writing a few words online?

Some lunatic crashed his car trying to find that Brianna Wu person. I know a person involved with some games-centered Media Studies group was stalked by their students for a bit after GG started talking about the group. And I mean, words online are one thing, but when you have a whole group of people flooding your e-mail, twitter messages, and maybe even your actual mailbox, I can see how that itself can be worrying or disruptive on its own.


I don't know much about it but if you think this level of harassment is bad, you should see Total War. Its a shame because they are such good games but half the people are mentally insane, promote Nazism or are deeply vindictive.

What are you talking about?

[Antiochus]

I don't know much about it but if you think this level of harassment is bad, you should see
Total War. Its a shame because they are such good games but half the people are mentally insane, promote Nazism or are deeply vindictive.

Its a set of RTS games for the PC.

[#FF0000]

Its a set of RTS games for the PC.

I know the game, but what are you talking about with the level of harassment re: Total War?

[Invader Zim]

Yeah and the grievances that people have with the police or NAFTA or whatever predate the Militia movement too. That doesn't mean the Militia movement is something worthy of defending, even though a lot of people involved aren't any more right-wing than a run-of-the-mill American conservative.

And this all has what to do with the price of tea in China? Let's stick to the issue and not make inane comparisons.


You're missing the forest for the trees here -- Gamergate was born out of a harassment campaign (and continued to act as one),Your simply repeating an assertion does not make it true and your depiction of tens of thousands of individuals as a monolithic block, who all think the same and behave the same, is facile. Sure, there were some trolls who immediately used the issue of an alleged relationship between a game developer and games journalist (which transpired to be all smoke and no fire) to behave appallingly - nobody denies that. However, had there not been the underlying question regarding the propriety of that relationship then there would never have been a controversy for the trolls in the first place. The issue regarding Quinn, which as noted above turned out to be groundless, was only an issue in the first place because of the long established belief that nepotism between games journalism and the games industry is rife - which it is. And a conversation about that is well worth having, and allowing that conservation to be sidetracked by misogynistic trolls is unfortunate.


talked about "ethics in games journalism" while focusing almost exclusively on indies and blogs that espoused certain politics,This is simply untrue, criticism from gamergate was levelled at media outlets from Rock Paper Shotgun to giants like IGN (indeed, IGN has a long history of criticism or its work (http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/former-ign-employee-admits-review-scores-are-skewed-due-to-public-relations)), particualrly when it came to the issue regarding leaked GameJournoPros emails.


and is an internet tantrum whose most vocal and visible figures include former associates of Breitbart. Regardless of what you may think of Milo Yiannopoulos, the GameJournoPros leak needs to be discussed on its own terms, not the source of the leak. Ad hominem dismissal is cheap, lazy and ineffective beyond superficial analysis.


If anyone actually, seriously complains about the quality of journalism in tabloids, they're an absolute fool.Why? Or do you think that because the behavior of the tabloid press is generally so appalling, that there is no point challenging it to be better or at least to act with some ethical credibility? The extension of that argument is that nobody should have complained about the phone-hacking that ultimately led to the demise of the News of the World. But, you are evading the point; the implication of your question was do people complain about crappy journalism? And the answer is yes, they do and do so regularly. Scandals regarding the ethical practices of elements of the media are ten a penny. Your belief that people are fools to complain when elements of the media behave, even by the appalling low standards of much of the press, is neither here nor there.


If you're older than 16 and still read video game media expecting anything worthwhile, that's your own fault. And frankly, when it comes to video games, everyone involved from the media to the publishers to the developers to the core audience are all terrible in their own special ways and deserve each other.http://36.media.tumblr.com/6a34be8f6d76e0b364faab27f7b9c6d6/tumblr_nc088uvdga1tgkjz9o1_1280.jpg

[Antiochus]

Have you ever been to the RTW lobby?...

I'll just post a quote from one of the forums used by the players there:

you insolent little trash, my grandfather killed commies at stalingrad while your grandfather was picking beans aragon and gwyn's grandfather was eating shit in a concentration camp.

Anyway, off topic. Surely death threats and rape threats are by their very nature against the law. It would be nice if an example was made of 1 or 2 of these morons, and not necessarily by,,, ehm,,, legal means.

[Invader Zim]

Some lunatic crashed his car trying to find that Brianna Wu person. I know a person involved with some games-centered Media Studies group was stalked by their students for a bit after GG started talking about the group. And I mean, words online are one thing, but when you have a whole group of people flooding your e-mail, twitter messages, and maybe even your actual mailbox, I can see how that itself can be worrying or disruptive on its own.


Again, though your wouldn't know it by reading the media's response to the gamergate fiasco, the pro-gamergate trolls far from had a monopoly on harassment.

[#FF0000]

And this all has what to do with the price of tea in China? Let's stick to the issue and not make inane comparisons.

What I'm saying is that your apologism for gamergate wouldn't fly for any other comparable movement or event. You wouldn't defend, for example, the racist New York Draft Riots for being nominally anti-war when it was actually an anti-black pogrom (not everyone involved killed black people, after all. this isn't some monolithic block!).


Your simply repeating an assertion does not make it true

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the harassment of Zoe Quinn wasn't the genesis of Gamergate?


and your depiction of tens of thousands of individuals as a monolithic block, who all think the same and behave the same, is facile.

I'm not saying that at all -- in fact my entire point is that it doesn't matter, and that you could say the same thing for literally any movement or even organization. Not everyone in UKIP is racist! Not everyone in the EDL is racist! Not all Tea Party Patriots are racist! In the end I'm not concerned with what's in the heads of atomized individuals -- I'm concerned with how the movement as a whole actually acts.


Sure, there were some trolls who immediately used the issue of an alleged relationship between a game developer and games journalist (which transpired to be all smoke and no fire) to behave appallingly - nobody denies that. However, had there not been the underlying question regarding the propriety of that relationship then there would never have been a controversy for the trolls in the first place. The issue regarding Quinn, which as noted above turned out to be groundless, was only an issue in the first place because of the long established belief that nepotism between games journalism and the games industry is rife - which it is. And a conversation about that is well worth having, and allowing that conservation to be sidetracked by misogynistic trolls is unfortunate.


This person was harassed by the same milieu before, though, and it was openly misogynistic and explicitly political from the very inception. Plus, clearly no one was ever interested in the facts because the harassment of Zoe Quinn didn't stop for months afterwards, despite the fact that the story of nepotism was shot down within a week.


This is simply untrue, criticism from gamergate was levelled at media outlets from Rock Paper Shotgun to giants like IGN (indeed, IGN has a long history of criticism or its work (http://www.zeldainformer.com/news/former-ign-employee-admits-review-scores-are-skewed-due-to-public-relations)), particualrly when it came to the issue regarding leaked GameJournoPros emails.

Rock Paper Shotgun is a blog, though, and IGN didn't get near the attention that these blogs designated at "SJW" blogs got e.g. Kotaku. I mean, one of the other major "SJW" targets was, of all places, Gamasutra and Ars Technica, which are both probably the only decent places that write about video games because they hire actual journalists and not amateur hobbyists.

And above all they still targeted, primarily, indie devs who get funding on patreon and kickstarter. It's not as if AAA publishers and devs weren't doing anything questionable at this time either -- EA had released Shadows of Mordor around this time and was making video game streamers sign agreements that dictated how they were supposed to stream the game to best promote it. It was scarcely talked about, and one youtube personality who was a big gamergate figure even signed the thing.


Regardless of what you may think of Milo Yiannopoulos, the GameJournoPros leak needs to be discussed on its own terms, not the source of the leak. Ad hominem dismissal is cheap, lazy and ineffective beyond superficial analysis.

I don't think it does, because of all things on planet Earth, video game journalism is among the last things we need to talk about (yet here I am).


Why? Or do you think that because the behavior of the tabloid press is generally so appalling, that there is no point challenging it to be better or at least to act with some ethical credibility?

Yes, because anyone who reads a tabloid and expects anything but made up stories about celebrities has no one but themselves to blame. Tabloids have their role -- to be garbage. Similarly, game journalism has its role -- to be advertisement. The irony in all this is that Gamergate actually ended up targeting a couple of sites that were the exception to the rule on this, because it isn't about ethics. It's about people's political and social views.


The extension of that argument is that nobody should have complained about the phone-hacking that ultimately led to the demise of the News of the World.

No, because that's an actual crime that was committed.


But, you are evading the point; the implication of your question was do people complain about crappy journalism? And the answer is yes, they do and do so regularly. Scandals regarding the ethical practices of elements of the media are ten a penny. Your belief that people are fools to complain when elements of the media behave, even by the appalling low standards of much of the press, is neither here nor there.

I have a couple points.

1) You're an idiot if you cry about video games journalism or entertainment journalism in general.
2) Having a "good point to make" doesn't excuse all else. In the US, white workers very often rioted and went on strike over wages and hours, only to turn their ire on other immigrant groups instead of the bosses themselves. You don't even have to look that hard to see the parallel here -- people are complaining about games journalism, and then attack rags like Kotaku but also indie devs and other blogs and sites based on whether or not they are "SJW", regardless of actual quality of the source or anything else.


Have you ever been to the RTW lobby?...

There's a pretty clear difference between regular ol' forum drama and people being dumb in online lobbies and people going out of their way to send people actionable threats of violence. They are against the law, and folks report them.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

we have GG apologists now? What next, a new posadist international forming on revleft?

[BIXX]

Let's face it IZ has some misogynist leanings

[Armchair Partisan]

I don't think it does, because of all things on planet Earth, video game journalism is among the last things we need to talk about

This is pretty much what the whole issue boils down to. "Video game journalism", it nearly sounds absurd. It's increasingly irrelevant, and pretty much dying, now that people increasingly get their information from Youtube let's plays.


I hate the term 'gamergate', and the entire saga that went with it. The term itself simply became a reductive slur by assholes who want to force "core" gaming back into mom's basement, and generate crude stereotypes.

Are you really implying that people are out to get gamers?! Okay, just to make this clear: the ones who oppose GamerGate are, by and large, gamers. They are the ones with a horse in this race, they want their reputation to be preserved from being corrupted by the GG bunch. Most people who aren't gamers wouldn't care about the issue, partly because they aren't regularly exposed to it, partly because they care even less about "video game journalism" than everyone else.

PS.: Some light reading for anyone interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/wiki/timeline

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What part of it isn't true?

When I say "awful" I don't mean "politically questionable", keep in mind. I just think that the devs, publishers, and journalists are all terrible at what they do, and that the community is just terrible no matter what the politics of the people involved.

I don't think the community, or the developers, are uniformly terrible, particularly not compared to other similar groups. I mean, some of the "anti-GamerGate" crowd are openly insinuating that people who play games are all frothing misogynists and various other kinds of bigots (but thankfully games aren't for them anymore and we have these wonderful diverse developers). This has not been my experience, to say the least, and the evidence - the sort of games that have been made and that have been popular, and the sort of stories and characters they included - don't really support the charge. Of course there are bigots who play games, and some of them are quite vocal. That doesn't really set games apart from any other form of entertainment.

If anything, part of the problem with game journalism is that gamers and the broader "community" have been too nice to indie developers, and game journalists are unlikely to give an indie game negative coverage.


Anyway, off topic. Surely death threats and rape threats are by their very nature against the law. It would be nice if an example was made of 1 or 2 of these morons, and not necessarily by,,, ehm,,, legal means.

Damn son, are all your posts basically macho fantasies about shooting people you have to type one-handed?

[Invader Zim]

Let's face it IZ has some misogynist leanings

:rolleyes:


What I'm saying is that your apologism for gamergate wouldn't fly for any other comparable movement or event. You wouldn't defend, for example, the racist New York Draft Riots for being nominally anti-war when it was actually an anti-black pogrom (not everyone involved killed black people, after all. this isn't some monolithic block!).

There are two major problems here. First, your entire position is an attempt to justify the use of association fallacies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy). That line of argument will never work, because the underlying axiom is fatally problematic. Second, the examples you cite are not comparable precisely because gamegate is not actually a movement (though for simplicities sake it is popular, if misleading, term) and nor is it a single event. There is no party line, no manifesto, no shared perspective, no membership statement, nor even a clear or agreed meaning to the term - it is a twitter hashtag that huge numbers of people employed to express a wide variety of ideas, concepts and positions. What Gamergate meant to, say, the youtube John Bain is not what it means to, say, Adam Baldwin. Meanwhile, many commentators saw it as the manifestation of a culture attempting to negotiate an existential crisis. And that is because hashtag was an umbrella for general resentment - and yes, some of it by people who resent the fact that gaming is increasingly becoming a gender inclusive cultural space. My problem is not in acknowledging the existence of the latter but the refusal to recognise all of the others, because all of them are true.


Are you seriously trying to tell me that the harassment of Zoe Quinn wasn't the genesis of Gamergate?

The gamergate hashtag was adopted after the Quinn issue blew up, the Quinnspiracy as it was idiotically known. Adam Baldwin coined, or at least popularised the gamergate hashtag citing the following central argument, that he objected to the "enforce[ment of] arbitrary 'social justice' rules upon gamers & the culture." Not that I agree with that sentiment, turn over any rock in the online gaming world and all kinds of pondlife scuttle for cover. Others then retroactively applied it to the Quinn issue, while others still used it to outline a variety of other issues.

But what we are talking about is the spark, not the underlying genesis of the powder keg which has been years in the making and has a complex cultural history that still needs to be properly unpicked. But what we can be assured of that Zoe Quinn's sex life did not result in many thousands of individuals choose to identify themselves with a twitter hashtag or to begin a weird consumer revolt against both games media and developers. Your analysis simply cannot explain that.


I'm concerned with how the movement as a whole actually acts.

Clearly you aren't. What you appear to be interested in is how a tiny vocal minority of trolls act. As you have amply demonstrated, you have no actual idea how it began, why it began, who was part of it, why they were part of it, or what gamergate means to the people who used it. All you are doing in this thread is regurgitating a reductive and superficial media-driven narrative.


This person was harassed by the same milieu before, though, and it was openly misogynistic and explicitly political from the very inception.

Undoubtedly some of it was, but a lot of it was not - some of them just hated her game and were incredulous at the number of fawning reviews it received. Similarly, Anita Sarkeesian received a great deal of the most vicious misogynistic abuse for making videos critical of videogame culture and lazy story telling. However, that does not meant hat there was not, in fact, a vast plethora of actually very fair-minded, respectful but ultimately negative criticism of her videos. Part of the problem here is that this "milieu" is disparate in the extreme, yet is being treated as being monolithic.


Plus, clearly no one was ever interested in the facts because the harassment of Zoe Quinn didn't stop for months afterwards, despite the fact that the story of nepotism was shot down within a week.

Well, most of the serious commentators on the issue who held some sympathies for some of the various concerns people were trying to raise never uncritically accepted it as being true (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1) in the first place, but continued to highlight the actual issue it had raised. So, your assertion here is simply untrue and it is increasingly clear that you are merely reguritating what has been reported on sites like Salon.


Rock Paper Shotgun is a blog, though, and IGN didn't get near the attention that these blogs designated at "SJW" blogs got e.g. Kotaku. I mean, one of the other major "SJW" targets was, of all places, Gamasutra and Ars Technica, which are both probably the only decent places that write about video games because they hire actual journalists and not amateur hobbyists.

Nope, IGN got plenty of negative attention (http://uk.ign.com/blogs/robojules/2014/09/02/the-editor-has-no-clothes), and actually changed the way they outline their ethical policy and updated it in the wake of gamergate (http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-igns-code-of-ethics-is-now-public/).


And above all they still targeted, primarily, indie devs who get funding on patreon and kickstarter. It's not as if AAA publishers and devs weren't doing anything questionable at this time either -- EA had released Shadows of Mordor around this time and was making video game streamers sign agreements that dictated how they were supposed to stream the game to best promote it. It was scarcely talked about, and one youtube personality who was a big gamergate figure even signed the thing.

This is just wrong. But don't take my word for it. I'll leave that to John Bain (http://blueplz.blogspot.nl/2014/10/saloncom-knows-nothing-about-gaming-and.html), the youtube "big gamergate figure" you allude to, who, as you note, revealed the whole tawdry episode.


I don't think it does, because of all things on planet Earth, video game journalism is among the last things we need to talk about (yet here I am).

Indeed, yet here you are.



No, because that's an actual crime that was committed.

Very well, what about this storm that resulted regarding the Sun's coverage of the Hillsborough disaster? Were people wrong to complain about that?


I have a couple points.

No, you don't.

[BIXX]

None of what you said, IZ, shows that you aren't a misogynist. You've gone to some sort of lengths to try and deny that GG was misogynist in nature, where it ever so clearly was.

[Invader Zim]

None of what you said, IZ, shows that you are a misogynist. You've gone to some sort of lengths to try and deny that GG was misogynist in nature, where it ever so clearly was.

I know that thing I have said reveals anything misogynistic, which was why your suggestion that I hold 'misogynist leanings' is so ridiculous, unfair and dishonest.

I haven't denied anything other than the validity of reductive stereotyping. My point is that GG didn't have a single 'nature' because it was not a coherant movement, group or phenomenon with a central or agreed narrative. It is/was a many-headed hydra, each head with its own aims, narratives and concerns. Thus, these reductive narratives, the product of a simplistic and self-serving media narrative, hold little (if any) value. My objective is to understand GG, not label it.

[Invader Zim]

Are you really implying that people are out to get gamers?!

It depends on what you mean by 'get'. Of course, the media, to break my own rule and treat a disparate body as a monolith, has certainly long seen gamers as an easy target to villify, and likely since long before you were even a twinkle in your daddy's eye. This episode, a media drivel moral panic, was no different in that respect.


Okay, just to make this clear: the ones who oppose GamerGate are, by and large, gamers.That may be the case in many instances, but certainly not in all.



They are the ones with a horse in this race, they want their reputation to be preserved from being corrupted by the GG bunch. Most people who aren't gamers wouldn't care about the issue, partly because they aren't regularly exposed to it, partly because they care even less about "video game journalism" than everyone else.

PS.: Some light reading for anyone interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/wiki/timelineI'm fairly sure that the journalists who further stirred this pot of shit, at the Guardian, the Telegraph and Salon, had no such highminded ambitions. Oh, and the timeline you posted is about as objective and fairminded as Goebbels diaries.

[BIXX]

I know that thing I have said reveals anything misogynistic, which was why your suggestion that I hold 'misogynist leanings' is so ridiculous, unfair and dishonest.

Lol you did the same thing as me. Accidentally leaving off part of a word really changes the meaning of a sentence.

But yeah you definitely are a misogynist. There's no point really supplying evidence- its in this board and even when explained to.you why its misogynist you won't see it. I guess its for the readers to decide.

[Invader Zim]

Lol you did the same thing as me. Accidentally leaving off part of a word really changes the meaning of a sentence.

But yeah you definitely are a misogynist. There's no point really supplying evidence- its in this board and even when explained to.you why its misogynist you won't see it. I guess its for the readers to decide.

You're right, I don't see how arguing that reductive stereotypes and guilt-by-association arguments are inherently problematic is misogynistic - because it isn't and the very suggestion is manifestly absurd. And as you aren't willing to explain, you plainly don't see it either - but the best defense is a good offence, right? A schoolyard bully tactics for a schoolyard bully mind. Par for the course on revleft. It is pretty much revleft's version of the white flag of surrender, lose an argument and call your opponent a misogynist or closet racist. Unfortunately, for you, it loses its impact once you have seen it wheeled out scores of times. But keep on plugging away, one day you'll say something original!

[#FF0000]

There are two major problems here. First, your entire position is an attempt to justify the use of association fallacies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy). That line of argument will never work, because the underlying axiom is fatally problematic. Second, the examples you cite are not comparable precisely because gamegate is not actually a movement (though for simplicities sake it is popular, if misleading, term) and nor is it a single event. There is no party line, no manifesto, no shared perspective, no membership statement, nor even a clear or agreed meaning to the term - it is a twitter hashtag that huge numbers of people employed to express a wide variety of ideas, concepts and positions. What Gamergate meant to, say, the youtube John Bain is not what it means to, say, Adam Baldwin.

This is true of virtually every single movement that has ever existed, though. Look, it's very easy to get the gist of what most GG folks are about -- you just have to go to one of their chans or subreddits and watch them froth at the mouth about SJWs. It's really just that simple. You can go on about the underlying causes that lead to this, but one could do the same about every conservative or reactionary movement that had roots in legitimate populist anger.


Your analysis simply cannot explain that.

Please explain my analysis back to me, because I don't think you've actually read my posts at this point.



Clearly you aren't. What you appear to be interested in is how a tiny vocal minority of trolls act.

What tiny vocal minority? All of /pol/? 8chan? The folks on the GG subreddit? Every Breitbart or Youtube hack that put themselves at the head of this thing?


As you have amply demonstrated, you have no actual idea how it began, why it began, who was part of it, why they were part of it, or what gamergate means to the people who used it.

Nah I was on 4chan n twitter when this was all kicking off actually.


All you are doing in this thread is regurgitating a reductive and superficial media-driven narrative.

Nope I'm telling you what I actually saw happening when I was watching this whole thing start up on twitter and 4chan. This is what's so baffling about the whole thing -- all you have to do is go to one of their hubs and look at how they talk. It's all about SJWs. On their subreddit they have a list of "good sites", which are, again, sites of varying journalistic quality (usually just amateur blogs, again) but all of which adhere to an "anti-SJW" bent of politics.



Nope, IGN got plenty of negative attention (http://uk.ign.com/blogs/robojules/2014/09/02/the-editor-has-no-clothes), and actually changed the way they outline their ethical policy and updated it in the wake of gamergate (http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-igns-code-of-ethics-is-now-public/).

They did not get nearly as much as other ones did, though, and other sites were put on the GG blacklist for their perceived politics as much as for their journalistic standards.


This is just wrong. But don't take my word for it. I'll leave that to John Bain (http://blueplz.blogspot.nl/2014/10/saloncom-knows-nothing-about-gaming-and.html), the youtube "big gamergate figure" you allude to, who, as you note, revealed the whole tawdry episode.

I was thinkin' of the other dude actually. The actually physically really big guy.


Very well, what about this storm that resulted regarding the Sun's coverage of the Hillsborough disaster? Were people wrong to complain about that?

Yeah that's still different since you're talking about The Sun speaking ill of folks who died in a disaster and comparing it to game magazines being bad at reviews. If you're equally outraged by both, then that's your thing, I guess.

[#FF0000]

I don't think the community, or the developers, are uniformly terrible, particularly not compared to other similar groups.

I'm making generalizations here. I think a lot of developers are really dumb and have hella narrow vision due to being socialized by children's media their whole lives. I think the same goes for the community, largely. And the journalists, who have no credentials whatsoever to review anything.

But yeah I agree that video games aren't any worse than other, larger media industries.


If anything, part of the problem with game journalism is that gamers and the broader "community" have been too nice to indie developers, and game journalists are unlikely to give an indie game negative coverage.

Yes this is absolutely true. People have this idea that independent automatically means innovative and original. imo independent developers just rely on different sets of tropes. Instead of brown-n-bloom it's lazy faux-retro sprites.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Has any of the harassment and threats via this "movement" materialized? I mean, has anyone actually been physically targeted or is this just a movement by a bunch of nerds writing a few words online?
There was a threat of a mass shooting if an anti-GG feminist spoke at a college, which was taken seriously. Quite a few of the most outspoken anti-GG women had their home addresses published online with suggestions they should be raped or murdered.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

At the end of the day, anyone who doesn't see that GamerGate is steeped in misogyny has a pretty big blind spot (and that's the kindest interpretation). Fucking brocialists, man.

[Invader Zim]

There was a threat of a mass shooting if an anti-GG feminist spoke at a college, which was taken seriously. Quite a few of the most outspoken anti-GG women had their home addresses published online with suggestions they should be raped or murdered.

And an anti-GGer threatened to bomb (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2015/05/03/gamergate-dc-gathering-targeted-bomb-threat#.VVqba5MkT4Y) a recent GG event which was taken seriously, and quite a few of the most outspoken and entirely civil GGers have been doxxed and been the victims of all manner of abuse including death threats - Yiannopoulos alleges he was actually mailed an unknown substance and a dead animal. If true, that enters rather sinister, one might even say threatening, territory - yet the central media driven narrative is this two dimensional scenario in which GGers send death threats and anti-GG people receive. The reality is rather more complex.


At the end of the day, anyone who doesn't see that GamerGate is steeped in misogyny has a pretty big blind spot (and that's the kindest interpretation). Fucking brocialists, man.

Which I presume is directed at me, which suggests that you don't merely have a blind spot but are blind, fullstop, or at the very least functionally illiterate, because at no point have I denied that gamergate does indeed include misogynists who harrass women. Indeed, this enire tiresome discussion began when you took umbrage with the suggestion that the misogynist trolls had diverted attention from legitimate concerns raised in the course of this debackle. The central imperative point being that there are indeed misogynist trolls who identified with and/or utilised the GG moniker.

So, basically, jog on.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

And an anti-GGer threatened to bomb (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2015/05/03/gamergate-dc-gathering-targeted-bomb-threat#.VVqba5MkT4Y) a recent GG event which was taken seriously
So? The fact remains that GG began as a misogynist assault on women, complete with threats of rape and murder. Now GG people are getting a taste of their own medicine and are whining about it.


Which I presume is directed at me, which suggests that you don't merely have a blind spot but are blind, fullstop, or at the very least functionally illiterate
You continue to insist that the misogyny and threats from GG represents only a small fringe of GG people, when in fact the existence of GG itself is due to misogyny. Walks like a brocialist, quacks like a brocialist...

[#FF0000]

Which I presume is directed at me, which suggests that you don't merely have a blind spot but are blind, fullstop, or at the very least functionally illiterate, because at no point have I denied that gamergate does indeed include misogynists who harrass women.

Yeah that's the issue though -- you act as if they're some fringe element to the whole thing, and not the driving force of it, which is absurd to suggest when all one has to do is head to one of their boards and see what they say away from twitter.

[Invader Zim]

This really is tiresome. Your repetition of debunked claims, and strawmanning my replies (which, are in fact, only a call to understand that the situation is rather more complex than the lazy narrative you are pushing) isn't a substitute for argument or analysis.

[Invader Zim]

Yeah that's the issue though -- you act as if they're some fringe element to the whole thing, and not the driving force of it, which is absurd to suggest when all one has to do is head to one of their boards and see what they say away from twitter.

Two things.

1. The trolls, the people actually sending death threats clearly are a tiny minority.

2. The assumption here being that that kind of environment is where you will find the 'HQ' of gamergate - which doesn't exist. Alternatively, if you look elsewhere you will find a different kind of discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e78JRIHRjC0), in this instance one with over 360,000 views and over 15,000 likes, or this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbQk5YqjO0E) (the guy i assume you made reference to earlier) with its 280,000+ views and 19,000+ likes. So the idea that misogynists sending death threats is all that this phenomenon was built upon, and that the only audience for the disucssion are those who wish to see a less inclusive gaming culture doesn't stack up.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

This really is tiresome. Your repetition of debunked claims, and strawmanning my replies (which, are in fact, only a call to understand that the situation is rather more complex than the lazy narrative you are pushing) isn't a substitute for argument or analysis.
Your continued defense of a misogynist movement is what's tiresome. "It's more complex than that." No, it really fucking isn't. The inciting incident behind GG was based on a lie, and the misogynists ate it up like manna. It had fuck all to do with "journalistic ethics".

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Now you're whinging about threats to GG people. Who started it? Back when I was a kid, there was another kid who used to push me around every day, telling me how fat, stupid, queer, and ugly I was. One day, I punched him in the face so hard, he ended up in the ground with blood spurting out of his nose. To my thinking, that was all his own fault. "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit" as the saying goes. The same applies to GG, or any other reactionary movement. Some of us bash back.

[Invader Zim]

Your continued defense of a misogynist movement is what's tiresome. "It's more complex than that." No, it really fucking isn't. The inciting incident behind GG was based on a lie, and the misogynists ate it up like manna. It had fuck all to do with "journalistic ethics".

But this leads us back to the central problem, it actually is more complex. You contend that the entire thing had noithing to do with "journalistic ethics", yet the lie which set the spark to the powder keg was one of a journalists relationship to a developer. Had that central accusation not been brought up none of this would have happened. Moreover, I simply do not accept that the many thousands of people involved in this, who identified with the hashtag are all raving misogynists. To believe that would be absurd.

[Invader Zim]

Now you're whinging about threats to GG people. Who started it? Back when I was a kid, there was another kid who used to push me around every day, telling me how fat, stupid, queer, and ugly I was. One day, I punched him in the face so hard, he ended up in the ground with blood spurting out of his nose. To my thinking, that was all his own fault. "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit" as the saying goes. The same applies to GG, or any other reactionary movement. Some of us bash back.

An internet warrior, cute. But, to be honest, I don't really care about your macho fantasies. They don't interest me. But the question of who "started" it, or rather "what" started it, is interesting, provided you are willing to think about the wider cultural forces at play. This goes back to the issue of what gaming culture is, the relationship between the games industry and the traditional media over many decades, the history of moral panics surrounding games, and the cultural criticism levelled at the industry and community. Now, I'm happy to have a serious discussion about that, but I don't think it can be with you. You are too busy raging against 'them' without a clear method of understanding who 'they' are. Is John Bain, who has consistently lambasted misogynist trolls and called for greater inclusivity in gaming, yet also receieved death threats, one of 'them'? Apparently, you seem to think so, which highlights the inadequacy of your simplistic and childlike approach to multi-faceted complex problems.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

An interest warrior, cute.
Do you mean an "internet warrior"? Not even close. An internet warrior is someone (usually a man) who likes to threaten other people online (I'm not a man, and I don't go around threatening people). Like most of the GG people, actually. You're just projecting now.

What that was, was an anecdote about a time when I was repeatedly subjected to physical and emotional abuse by a bully when I was a child. When I eventually snapped and hit him back, the blame ultimately was his. Any violence or threats directed at an oppressor are ultimately their fault.


But, to be honest, I don't really care about your macho fantasies.
Macho = showing aggressive pride in one's masculinity. Since I'm a woman, I don't see how that applies. "Bash back" was a reference to a slogan in certain radical queer circles in the US, so I'll forgive you for not getting it.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Also, I love that I shared about being repeatedly abused by someone for being "fat, stupid, queer, and ugly", and one time I hit him back hard enough to cause injury (which was the only way to make him stop), and suddenly I'm a "macho internet warrior"? Jesus, way to show sympathy for queer kids being repeatedly abused by bullies, and way to ignore the point I was trying to make about how victimizers can't complain when the tables are turned on them.

[Invader Zim]

I know the etymology of the term 'bash back'. But on to the point, please provide evidence that most of the GG people "like to threaten other people online". Certainly we know that some do, but I have yet to see you or anybody else present evidence that the majority of these many thousands do. And I guess that is really the nub of the issue here.


Macho = showing aggressive pride in one's masculinity. Since I'm a woman, I don't see how that applies.

Gender is a social construct, your being a woman does not proclude you from behaving in a macho fashion any more than having a penis procludes men from presenting characterists typically associated with femininity. This is an important axiom of social construction theory as it applies to gender, if you are interested I can provide a short bibliography.

[Invader Zim]

Also, I love that I shared about being repeatedly abused by someone for being "fat, stupid, queer, and ugly", and one time I hit him back hard enough to cause injury (which was the only way to make him stop), and suddenly I'm a "macho internet warrior"? Jesus, way to show sympathy for queer kids being repeatedly abused by bullies, and way to ignore the point I was trying to make about how victimizers can't complain when the tables are turned on them.

Sorry, my normally considerable reservoirs of sympathy for people who minutes earlier dishonestly call me a "brocialist", liked a post which accused me of misogyny, and flagrently misrepresent my words, are running a little dry at the moment.

And why would I know that you were a queer kid, when I neither know nor care what your sexuality is?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Sorry, my normally considerable reservoirs of sympathy for people who minutes earlier dishonestly call me a "brocialist" and flagrently misrepresent my words, are running a little dry at the moment.
Mmm, says the person whose first response to me in this thread was to use a Mark Twain quote to call me a fool.


And why would I know that you were a queer kid, when I neither know nor care what your sexuality is?Dude. Just stop. You responded to a post where I wrote: "Back when I was a kid, there was another kid who used to push me around every day, telling me how fat, stupid, queer, and ugly I was." It never crossed your mind that I might actually be queer? Really?


I know the etymology of the term 'bash back'.I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact your first response to me in this thread was to call me a fool, followed by calling me illiterate, and then an internet warrior.


But on to the point, please provide evidence that most of the GG people "like to threaten other people online".My experience, based on what I've seen from day one, simply isn't that it's a small number of people responsible for the misogyny and threats. I've said that before in this thread. Oh, and the transphobia. Trans women who called out GG people really got some nasty responses.


Gender is a social construct, your being a woman does not proclude you from behaving in a macho fashionIf I said I was going to Wales to kick your ass because of the things you've said to me, then maybe you could legitimately call me a "macho internet warrior". Since I haven't done that, I don't know what you're on about.


This is an important axiom of social construction theory as it applies to gender, if you are interested I can provide a short bibliography.Yes, I know. Is there a reason why you keep talking down to me in a way you aren't to male posters in this thread?

[Invader Zim]

Mmm, says the person whose first response to me in this thread was to use a Mark Twain quote to call me a fool.

In response to your post basically asserting that I diserved to be treated like a misogynistic leper because I had the temerity to suggest that some of the points raised in the GG fiasco had merit... As you said, "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit". So, it's a bit late for you to complain now.


Dude. Just stop. You responded to a post where I wrote: "Back when I was a kid, there was another kid who used to push me around every day, telling me how fat, stupid, queer, and ugly I was." It never crossed your mind that I might actually be queer? Really?

No, and nor do I care what your sexuality is - why would I consider it? What would it matter? Why would I assume that what a bully says, in order to get under your skin, would be true? Unless you would also like me to assume that, based on this bullies say so, you are ugly, stupid and fat.


despite the fact your first response to me in this thread was to call me a fool, followed by calling me illiterate, and then an internet warrior.

Like you said, "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit".


My experience

So, no actual concrete evidence then. I see. Moving on.


If I said I was going to Wales to kick your ass because of the things you've said to me, then maybe you could legitimately call me a "macho internet warrior". Since I haven't done that, I don't know what you're on about.

You presented a graphic and bloody account regarding how you floored another person (who does indeed sound like they had it coming) and then made reference to violent retaliatory strategies within the queer community. Sounds like a case of internet tough talking to me, but I stand corrected and withdraw the comment.


Yes, I know.

Then why bring your gender into it, when you know it makes no odds?


Is there a reason why you keep talking down to me in a way you aren't to male posters in this thread?

1. Who is male and who is female? Like their sexuality, I neither know nor care.

2. I've replied to you in the spirit of your opening comment to me, with disdain.

[#FF0000]

1. The trolls, the people actually sending death threats clearly are a tiny minority.

I'm not even talking about these people, because it's impossible to know who sent the threats or who they were affiliated with anyway -- I'm saying that it's fair game to critique the movement as a whole as an explicitly right-wing and anti-feminist phenomenon. That's what I've been saying this entire time.


2. The assumption here being that that kind of environment is where you will find the 'HQ' of gamergate - which doesn't exist.This is just wishful thinking and this is where you're exposing your own total ignorance of how this all started. Gamergate, despite what you wish it was, didn't come out of people from all walks of life coming together -- it was centered on reddit, and 4chan -- specifically the videogames and politics boards, both of which, it is safe to say, are virulently anti-feminist and skew to the radical right. Then there's 8chan which grew exponentially specifically because gamergate discussion was banned on other chans. And then there's the KotakuInAction reddit, where at this moment, the top 5 threads are pinned threads asking for donations for the legal defense of Zoe Quinn's ex boyfriend who made the allegations that sparked this off to begin with, followed by a post complaining about "SJWs".

How willfully dense can you be to continue to deny that there's an explicit political bent to GG?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

In response to your post basically asserting that I diserved to be treated like a misogynistic leper...
"Considering you think there were legit issues raised by GG, I can see why someone might come to that conclusion." That's all I said. I didn't call you a misogynist there, I said that based on what GG was, someone might come to that conclusion.


So, no actual concrete evidence then. I see. Moving on.
What, did you expect there to be a scientific poll of everyone using the #GamgerGate tag? A year-long study of GG by anthropologists?


You presented a graphic and bloody account regarding how you floored another person
I'm a writer. I use vivid words. It's why I was the public relations officer for the IRSP's North American section.


but I stand corrected and withdraw the comment.
Fair enough.


Then why bring your gender into it, when you know it makes no odds?
I think it's a fair question to bring up in context of an argument where misogyny is one of the issues. It mirrors my experience of GG, where female critics of it were treated more harshly than male critics of it.

[Invader Zim]

I'm not even talking about these people, because it's impossible to know who sent the threats or who they were affiliated with anyway -- I'm saying that it's fair game to critique the movement as a whole as an explicitly right-wing and anti-feminist phenomenon. That's what I've been saying this entire time.

Yes, I grasp what you've been saying - it isn't rocket science - but again, there are plenty of repositories of thought which show individuals explicity rejecting the 'explicitly right-wing and anti-feminist' element within GG which you utterly refuse to acknowledge. Indeed, you elected to ignore that segment of my post which evidenced the popularity and the scale of audience for those sentiments.


This is just wishful thinking and this is where you're exposing your own total ignorance of how this all started. Gamergate, despite what you wish it was, didn't come out of people from all walks of life coming together -- it was centered on reddit, and 4chan -- specifically the videogames and politics boards, both of which, it is safe to say, are virulently anti-feminist and skew to the radical right. Then there's 8chan which grew exponentially specifically because gamergate discussion was banned on other chans. And then there's the KotakuInAction reddit, where at this moment, the top 5 threads are pinned threads asking for donations for the legal defense of Zoe Quinn's ex boyfriend who made the allegations that sparked this off to begin with, followed by a post complaining about "SJWs".

How willfully dense can you be to continue to deny that there's an explicit political bent to GG?Again, I do not deny that some elements of GG certainly have horrible politics. And if you care to read my posts back, you will see that. Again, my point is, and only ever has been, that the simplistic narrative that GG and all who use it are sexist is a fundermentally reductive analysis that does not stand up to scrutiny, and that GG has, in fact, competing and highly contested meanings attached to it. I'm not sure what there is to deny in that.

Again, regarding Zoe Quinn and 'how it all started' - she is to Gamergate what the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was to the First World War.

[#FF0000]

Yes, I grasp what you've been saying - it isn't rocket science - but again, there are plenty of repositories of thought which show individuals explicity rejecting the 'explicitly right-wing and anti-feminist' element within GG which you utterly refuse to acknowledge. Indeed, you elected to ignore that segment of my post which evidenced the popularity and the scale of audience for those sentiments.

Except that Bain n the other dude aren't opposed to folks like Milo or even Eron, seeing as they've sat in chatrooms and engaged with these people. Once again, I'm certain there are people who are only in it because they don't like Kotaku and think video game reviewers are bad -- but those people are as confused as people who try to join the CPUSA to salvage it. The thing is, this isn't something new, because "SJWs" were part of the rhetoric from the start.


Again, I do not deny that some elements of GG certainly have horrible politics. And if you care to read my posts back, you will see that. Again, my point is, and only ever has been, that the simplistic narrative that GG and all who use it are sexist is a fundermentally reductive analysis that does not stand up to scrutiny, and that GG has, in fact, competing and highly contested meanings attached to it. I'm not sure what there is to deny in that.Listen, I'm saying this again: your point that "oh, not every single person involved believes that" is nothing insightful. It can be said for virtually every. single. movement. that has ever existed. What I'm saying, though, is that the movement as a whole is very clearly, and undeniably oriented towards radical right-wing and anti-egalitarian politics. If you don't think that's true, please show me one gamergate forum where the anti-"SJW" rhetoric is absent and discouraged. Just one.

[Invader Zim]

"Considering you think there were legit issues raised by GG, I can see why someone might come to that conclusion." That's all I said. I didn't call you a misogynist there, I said that based on what GG was, someone might come to that conclusion.

Yeah, and the implicit point being that thinking that some of the points raised is indeed evidence of a misogynistic attitude. But, again, I'll take your word for it that you didn't mean it like that, and take this opportunity to apologise and withdraw the attacks I levelled in return.


What, did you expect there to be a scientific poll of everyone using the #GamgerGate tag? A year-long study of GG by anthropologists?

No, and that is actually part of the point. There does, actually, need to be serious study of gaming culture and gamergate if the actual cultural forces behind this are to be unpicked and the competing narratives assessed. I've actually considered doing it myself when my current project is concluded.

[Invader Zim]

Except that Bain n the other dude aren't opposed to folks like Milo or even Eron, seeing as they've sat in chatrooms and engaged with these people. Once again, I'm certain there are people who are only in it because they don't like Kotaku and think video game reviewers are bad -- but those people are as confused as people who try to join the CPUSA to salvage it. The thing is, this isn't something new, because "SJWs" were part of the rhetoric from the start.



Listen, I'm saying this again: your point that "oh, not every single person involved believes that" is nothing insightful. It can be said for virtually every. single. movement. that have existed. What I'm saying, though, is that the movement as a whole is very clearly, and undeniably oriented towards radical right-wing and anti-egalitarian politics. If you don't think that's true, please show me one gamergate forum where the anti-"SJW" rhetoric is absent and discouraged. Just one.

The problem here is one I already addressed, the GG phenomenon cannot easily be juxtaposed with a party or a movement. It has no leaders, no manifesto or central narrative outlining aims or purpose - what can be said for movements or parties has no relevance because the comparison is faulty. At the end of the day, if you join a party or movement then you implicity agree with enough of that party or movement's (usually codified) statements of intent. Gamergate has no such statement of intent. Some groups within GG do, but they compete with the other groups. Ultimately, GG is nothing more than an alliance of percieved greivance. If we compare this to the irish republican movement, as an example, while different bodies within that movemement may disagree on virtually everything, fromg strategy, political direction to economics, they all have one unifying purpose which is what makes the movement a movement. Gamergate does not. Your assumption that it does results in the error in your analysis. But, of course, no matter how many times we go over this, we are going to keep having this stumbling block. As far as I'm concerned you've misunderstood what GG is and vice versa.

[BIXX]

Lol I can't believe IZ is still trying to claim that he isn't a misogynist.

[#FF0000]

the worst part of all this is how I gotta admit how I follow internet drama like ppl watch reality TV.

[#FF0000]

The problem here is one I already addressed, the GG phenomenon cannot easily be juxtaposed with a party or a movement

I disagree -- if you're familiar with the cultures involved it's real easy to do. I mentioned before, Gamergate mostly came out of the chans, specifically the video games board n politics board on 4chan, both of which are very right wing, with the latter being almost uniformly radical right.


It has no leaders, no manifesto or central narrative outlining aims or purpose.Nothing official, but I think it's pretty easy to pick out who the de facto leaders are -- you could point to folks like Bain and other youtube personality, Milo and other dorks from the Internet Radical Right, or all of the Chan figures that have come and gone since the beginning like that Aristocrat dude. It's actually real easy to discern them. The narrative is also real easy to discern if you're at all familiar with how dorks on video game boards on the chans or reddit talk about things -- they don't just believe that video games journalism is bad because of the quality of writing, but because they feel that journalists are trying to inject "SJW" politics into the industry. You see this angle all over the place on their discussion boards.

And this is why I have to ask what planet you are from if you don't see this -- because it's so blatant, so obvious, so on the surface to anyone who is even remotely familiar with these communities.

[#FF0000]

I'm gonna go look at myself in a mirror and write down the date so I remember the day I hit rock bottom by arguing about gamergate in a multi-page thread on revleft.

[BIXX]

Just remember, at least you aren't the guy who hates women.

[#FF0000]

The one objectively good thing about Gamergate is that reading and talking about it made me feel like I needed to go outside.

I lost some weight and got a lovely garden thanks to Gamergate.

[BIXX]

The one objectively good thing about Gamergate is that reading and talking about it made me feel like I needed to go outside.

I lost some weight and got a lovely garden thanks to Gamergate.

We should start a thread about the bright side of gamergate.

Gardens, weight loss, social interaction, going to college, eating at restaurants instead of going on your planned 7 day cheese-it binge, and hiking.

[#FF0000]

i'm very glad we were able to pull this thread out of the nosedive it was in. well done placenta cream.

[Mr. Piccolo]

So what exactly were the ethical violations involved in GamerGate? Was it the claim that Quinn was sleeping with gaming journalists to get positive reviews? Was it the claim that Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian are using feminism as a weapon to close down business rivals like The Fine Young Capitalists?

[#FF0000]

So what exactly were the ethical violations involved in GamerGate? Was it the claim that Quinn was sleeping with gaming journalists to get positive reviews?

This p. much. Folks in these circles already weren't fans of Quinn (she had been harassed before) and this was also supposedly an example of the quid pro quo that goes on in the video game industry (where developers give writers merchandise or something like that for good reviews).

[Delusional Kid]

Friendly reminder that KiA collectively masturbated over how great Justine Tunney is (former OWS turned Neoreactionary) and even defended some of her ideas for a technocratic neo-feudalist society. http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/30cpbu/justine_tunney_occupywallstorg_founder_gavin/

KiA is supposedly the politically "neutral" one, 8chan's /gg/ board is even worse.
whether or not they're misogynistic, they're still a right-wing bunch using a non issue as way to push their agenda, and most of the "leftist" faction are liberals who are also against those damn "extreme leftists" and "cultural marxists"

As some one who's been playing video games their entire life, I didn't care about any of the trivial issues gg has brought up, really if you're going to work with rightists over some something as trivial and stupid as game journalism you should probably get your priorities straight.

[Armchair Partisan]

Oh, and the timeline you posted is about as objective and fairminded as Goebbels diaries.

Well, that was an excellent and thorough refutation. You try to act like the GG hate squad is just a small minority of a diverse movement, and when someone shows you the scale of harassment they are involved in, you Godwin it away with an off-handed remark. Well, can't argue with that. (I mean that literally - it's impossible.)

[PhoenixAsh]

I love the basic assertion that everything originates in hating Zoe Quinn; that very specific person over a game nobody has ever heard of (Depression Quest)

....and that it isn't actually more complex or that it didn't develop on the back of widespread resentment about developer-journalism influence and the game industry itself....and that yes...gamergate is only a small minority.

Because fuck analysis :laugh:

It is like a mass protest and the media only focuses on the couple of dozen or so people throwing molotov cocktails and burning down some pop and mom shops. Jeez who would have thought.

It should be an interesting thought that a multi-billion dollar industry managed to shut down all the developing debates about the conduct of the huge corporations, and the intertwining of corporations and journalists profiteering etc and shift attention away to a handful of very specific developers....based on the history that it was all because of Depression Quest.

[#FF0000]

No one asserted that. I don't think you read the thread at all, PA.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes I did. Does my post require clarification as to why I subtly say that everybody in this discussion is almost entirely wrong?

The entire debate is based on an arbitrarily fabricated time line that suits a specific narrative of a very complex development over the past years involving the direction of game development, shoddy dor games, profit seeking from additional content, upping prices, and the mutual influence and corruption between developers and journalists etc.

On that back somewhere in the far corners of the gaming community was some annoyance about a game nobody had heard of by a relatively unknown game developer....which later developed into the Quinnspiracy

This controversy started on Wizardchan. NOT on 4chan, not on Reddit...but on Wizardchan BEFORE her game was launched on Steam green light and after it was rejected by steam... mainly about the content of the game and why steam would even release that game. As always part of the criticism was legit, some of it wasn't and of course there was mysogeny because there always is...except that was done by maybe three or four participants in that debate. Zoe Quinn heavilly participated in that discussion though. And there is some merrit in the assertion that she did use that debate to fire up controversy in order to garner attention to her game. Zoe Quinn claimed harassment because she was a woman based on a handful of posts and claiming Wizardchan doxxed her. And Wizardchan defended against that charge. Phil Fish had his now famous twitter retaliation meltdown defending Zoe Quinn and that garnered widespread media attention when he basically called everybody who criticised Depression Quest and the Steam decision "rapists" lumping the entire group together based on the actions of a handful.

Now all of that is what started the "Quinnspiracy" it wasn't some mysogeny started shit fest. It wasn't some ultra conservative movement. It was a dime a dozen shitty debate on Wizardchan started about the content of a game in some niche site in which the developer herself played a less than blameless role. And without any moral judgement on either behavior...because I really don't care whether or not Quinn tried to hype it for support of the game release... that debate was exploited by developers, game media, larger corporations, traditional mainstream media...and otherwise would have basically gone unnoticed and should have gone unnoticed. THAT is the origins of what later became #Gamergate.

Now several general comments here:

* That debate was in origins legit. It wasn't a mysogeny shit fest.
* Quinn is not somebody who started out a victim but played an active, even directing pivotal role in escalating it, hyping it and taking on that role based on the posts of a handful of people in that debate...and at the expense of hundreds of women in the game industry.
* That does not justify any of the threats she did receive or how she was later vilified...nor does it deny that she did indeed later was targeted specifically because she is a woman.
* The allegations of mysogeny in the game world is totally legit and should be addressed
* This debate preceding the Quinnspiracy however is not a legit basis for addressing the issue...and doing so provided the basis for a widespread narrow view polarising controversy
* The ten thousand members of #gamergate are a minority of the previously developing larger group dissatisfied with the direction of the game industry that now have been largely silenced because of the label of mysogeny and the singular focus of the media that have been drawn to the hash tag...because that is all that it is....a hash tag.
* #Gamergate is not a homogenous movement, it doesn't have a unified goal. It is highly contradictory. It is fluent. It has consistent members who now act like spokes persons and pretend that they lead some movement. Which is like saying I speak for this specific section of the fast flowing river.
* #Gamergate is totally mysogenist in it's core...nobody should deny that
* #Gamergate consists mainly of trolls and socks exploiting a trope...nobody can deny that.
* #Gamergate is hijacked by larger corporations protecting their domination of the market, protecting their traditional market segment.
* Death threats, threats have been a staple from both sides.
* The media focus is extremely one sided with nuanced accounts that were available in the early weeks vanishing rapidly

This debate has all but totally silenced the criticism directed at the game developers, corporations that seek to stifle independent producers, profiteering and exploitation. Right now everybody criticising the game industry is immediately confronted with #gamer gate fall out. And if you have been paying attention corporations take the side of #game gate while pretending they do not.

Aside from that...everybody seems to act like gamer gate is something special and that some shit hole of mysogeny opened up suddenly. The fact is that gamer gate is a hyped label...nothing special happened. This level of mysogeny is NOT special or remarkable and is omnipresent everywhere...NOT just now in the social segment of the gamer community. Women in leading positions or positions of importance always get death threats, are always targeted.

We must debate and discuss mysogeny in every segment including the gamer community. But gamergate is probably the worst start to do so. Since it is a lot more complex than mere mysogeny bubbling to the service and it is not a representative segment of that community. In fact...it is arguable the case that most gamer gate participants are not gamers. But the main reason is that the gamer gate discussion focuses entirely on the end users and NOT the manufacturers. Within the debate the user's get blamed for manufacturers using the trope...rather than creating and perpetuating it.

[Ele'ill]

I'm not familiar with this gg stuff but I think the difference is how easily and rapidly threats and harassment can occur electronically plus whatever else that also occurred irl. Misogyny is everywhere, its also online, also with the gg, I see no reason to say 'well its everywhere and there are probably more extreme examples therefore we cannot talk about this instance'

[#FF0000]

What happened on wizardchan was the earlier instance of harassment I mentioned in my posts. That was separate from the "Quinnspiracy" which started later over her ex-bf's accusations. and the minutiae of the timeline is irrelevant anyway, imo.

how do you jump into a thread acting like you're the only person who's got it all figured out, and then just say things that everyone else already said?

[PhoenixAsh]

The problem is that gamergate is narrowing the scope of mysogeny to the event/incident of gamer gate. If you debate gamer gate the subject goes way beyond mysogeny and it should be done on a correct time line. Aside from that gamer gate debates spiral to excesses and not the underlying trend and origins nor the complete topic of mysogeny in games.

If the subject of the debate is mysogeny in the game community then gamer gate is a huge simplification on a group/event/incident not representative of the community.

[#FF0000]

yeah but this thread is specifically about gamergate. I mean, we did talk a little bit about the community at large, and how gamergate isn't really representative of that -- Xhar Xhar was talking about that a little bit. No one's ignoring or forgetting about the broader scope. It's just that it's not the subject of the thread.

EDIT: actually i see what you're sayin' re: everyone focusing on gamergate and their brand of misogynists while giving a pass to less extreme misogyny elsewhere in gaming. I don't know if I agree but I see what you're saying, I think.

[PhoenixAsh]

What happened on wizardchan was the earlier instance of harassment I mentioned in my posts. That was separate from the "Quinnspiracy" which started later over her ex-bf's accusations. and the minutiae of the timeline is irrelevant anyway, imo.

how do you jump into a thread acting like you're the only person who's got it all figured out, and then just say things that everyone else already said?

Actually it was not seperate from the Quinnspiracy. And because you say stuff like that is basically the reason why I am jumping in this thread saying you, and most people here, are wrong. Because the analysis is shoddy, lazy and rejects the proper origin. And yes...that proper origin is important to understand why a trivial issue as a debate over a small unknown game spiraled into a media frenzy over the label gamer gate. You can't just arbitraly point towards a specific point in time and say: "everything before that is irrelevant" because it suits a narrative.

The fact of the matter is the whole gamer gate situation did not originate in mysogeny....which is widely alleged in the thread. Nor is the situation easily reducible to mysogeny....again....as is widely alleged in this thread. Nor did it develop without a basis in legit criticism....again as is widely alleged in this thread. Nor is gamer gate representative of a significant subsection of the gaming community nor the basis of mysogeny within the gaming world... And adding to that...The idea that it is not important because it is "merely about games" is denying the fact that we are talking about a multi billion dollar industry.

IZ is right to the large extend that he claims the entire debate focuses merely on a portion of what is going on
...and that portion was indeed hyped and hijacked and made into the focus point at the expense of a lot of issues and is reductionist. He is wrong on that the hash tag gamer gate hasn't developed in a mysogenist shit fest.

But what is more....the entire debate here and elsewhere has shifted the focus of mysogeny in the gaming community from the capitalization of the game world, big corporations exploiting tropes to putting the blame and origins entirely within the user segment... Basically saying "the user's are mysogenist and therefore games are mysogenist and the gaming community is mysogenist". Because THAT is what is happening now. Giving into that is shoddy beyond words and beyond comprehension for people who claim the moniker of revolutionary socialists and traditionally should not give in to blaming the individual but rather the social and economic mutual influence and origins of these kind of issues.

As such gamer gate, as you yourself have more than once tried to articulate, is a non subject. A mere hyped label used to deflect attention away from several conflagrating very important issues.

Gamer gate is not merely about mysogeny it is about corporations defending their monopolisation of the market exploiting sexism to do so. THAT is the important issue....not some users in a hash tag.

[PhoenixAsh]

yeah but this thread is specifically about gamergate. I mean, we did talk a little bit about the community at large, and how gamergate isn't really representative of that -- Xhar Xhar was talking about that a little bit. No one's ignoring or forgetting about the broader scope. It's just that it's not the subject of the thread.

EDIT: actually i see what you're sayin' re: everyone focusing on gamergate and their brand of misogynists while giving a pass to less extreme misogyny elsewhere in gaming. I don't know if I agree but I see what you're saying, I think.


Yes!! :) :) Exactly! Extremes are an expression of deeper and even more latent issues. The focus on gamer gate is merely adressing behaviour of some people. This behavior is not special or specifically attention worthy but originates in cultivated and capitalised tropes purposefully marketed.

Some articles out there try to make this about people defending their privilege...and to some extend that is probably true...but that privilege originates in the industry itself rather than the community. It specifically marketed the tropes.

Gamer gate for as far as it still consists of actual gamers is a representation of a small segment of a dwindling matginalized community: the hardcore gamer identity.
Which, let's face it, consists of the absolute bottom of the male identity hierarchy in a socially constructed gender identity.

The catering of a fantasy world of masculinity where marginalised identity groups could spend money to create te illusion of social relevance is how game corporations market their games and where most of their base income originates. It is their interest to keep that core alive and protect it from altering the nature of the marketing segment.

Even in so called equality games the portrayal of women is one sided and again plays into tropes. In these games the hero might be a strong Woman but the role of other women or female characters are still either evil when they are independent or submissive and victims when they are supposed to be good. Their role is substantially different from a very diverse range of male characters with a huge array of personalities. Female roles are always always placed in the dichotomy good woman bad woman.

There is a lot of necessity to portray women as actual people In the range diversification that male characters traditionally get.

[Invader Zim]

Thanks PhoenixAsh for some really very fair minded posts on this issue. I do however, have one or two reservations. Your discussion of the precise origins of GG, and Quinn's far from passive role in it, are, of course, true. However, I think that your earlier point about the far older structural origins are worth far greater emphasis:

"The entire debate is based on an arbitrarily fabricated time line that suits a specific narrative of a very complex development over the past years involving the direction of game development, shoddy dor games, profit seeking from additional content, upping prices, and the mutual influence and corruption between developers and journalists etc."

But I would go further than developments in recent years. This, actually, has underlying mistrust between gamers and journalists which are rooted in the creation of a marginalized consumer culture - which has developed over decades. The entire 'gamers are dead' element of all of this plays into historical stereotyping of gamers and gamers as a subculture, which essentially characterizes 'core' gamers are nerdy, over-weight (or stick thin), unemployable, socially arrested troglodytes, who are on the one hand the most pathetic elements of a lost generation and on the other potentially dangerous psychopaths in the making. In the 1970s it was the fear of the arcade as a dangerous unsupervised space entirely alien to the parents of the post-baby-boomer generation; in the 1980s, the fear was of badly made home-brew games (that very few actually played) with rape content poisoning the minds of impressionable youngsters; in the 1990s video games made children fat, stupid and violent; in the 2000s+ games made children and young people, fat, stupid, violent, rapists, and to blame when some nutcase blows a brain fuse and guns down classrooms of elementary school children (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516427/Sandy-Hook-shooter-Adam-Lanza-83k-online-kills-massacre.html).

The points you outline, build into this general mistrust of the traditional print and television media.

I also, still, disagree that misogyny is necessarily at the central core of gg, for two reasons that you actually outline, but ultimately because GG has no actual definable core:

"Now all of that is what started the "Quinnspiracy" it wasn't some mysogeny started shit fest. It wasn't some ultra conservative movement. It was a dime a dozen shitty debate on Wizardchan started about the content of a game in some niche site in which the developer herself played a less than blameless role. And without any moral judgement on either behavior...because I really don't care whether or not Quinn tried to hype it for support of the game release... that debate was exploited by developers, game media, larger corporations, traditional mainstream media...and otherwise would have basically gone unnoticed and should have gone unnoticed. THAT is the origins of what later became #Gamergate."

And:

"* The ten thousand members of #gamergate are a minority of the previously developing larger group dissatisfied with the direction of the game industry that now have been largely silenced because of the label of mysogeny and the singular focus of the media that have been drawn to the hash tag...because that is all that it is....a hash tag.
* #Gamergate is not a homogenous movement, it doesn't have a unified goal. It is highly contradictory. It is fluent. It has consistent members who now act like spokes persons and pretend that they lead some movement. Which is like saying I speak for this specific section of the fast flowing river."

As I've repeatedly said, there is a lot of openly misogynistic discourse in gamergate - but much of it is not. As you pint out, saying that GG is about 'x' issue is to miss the point that GG is not actually about any one thing, and even what it is periodically about was fairly ephemeral.

As #FF0000 notes, if you go to 4chan and reddit, the assholes of the internet, then you will find all kinds of sexist shit (including, ironically shit posting to prevent assholes from doxxing, but whatever) which explicitly a reactionary dialogue pointedly opposed to increased inclusivity in gaming. However, as I have demonstrated, if you look elsewhere online, you can find statements which have attracted massive support and popularity openly supporting GG actively calling for greater inclusivity in gaming. This does not tally with the suggestion that GG is inherently misogynistic and nor does the claim that it is inherently not misogynistic stand up to scrutiny. The only viable conclusion is that GG is not, as I have repeatedly noted, a movement, a monolith or a party - it is, as you point out, a twitter hashtag which people used to promote a vast array of messages. The only thing that they have in common is general antipathy regarding some facet or other of the gaming subculture or how that subculture is reported.

[Hexen]

So in this case should Invader Zim be restricted for defending a movement born from misogyny?

[Armchair Partisan]

So in this case should Invader Zim be restricted for defending a movement born from misogyny?

Do you really think that IZ is arguing with a secret misogynist agenda in mind, as opposed to just being plain wrong? People are wrong about things all the time, and the solution to that is talking it out instead of using the mods as a weapon. After all, that's the only way someone who is misinformed will change their opinion - otherwise the only reason they will have to do so is "because everyone else told me to", which will only lead to a brainless groupthink.

I wish I understood IZ's way of thinking a bit more, though, because all he says just sounds bizarre, but that's another matter.

[Invader Zim]

Well, that was an excellent and thorough refutation. You try to act like the GG hate squad is just a small minority of a diverse movement, and when someone shows you the scale of harassment they are involved in, you Godwin it away with an off-handed remark. Well, can't argue with that. (I mean that literally - it's impossible.)

Of course you can argue against my reply, the point of the remark, though deliberately etched in hyperbolic terms, was that timeline as a source is worthless because it presents the events with a misleading and dishonest spin. I don't mind people having an agenda, provided that they are, at least honest. The author of your timeline was not.

For instance, it described the following as a 'hit piece (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1)', and attempts to legitimize Phil Fish's juvenile and abusive "retort" (a strong word for such a terrible reply) on twitter.

Any credibility an open minded reader might wish to afford it evaporates at the first glance. If you want to try to go on a futile defense of flagrant dishonesty then you are setting yourself a Sisyphean challenge.

[Invader Zim]

So in this case should Invader Zim be restricted for defending a movement born from misogyny?

Which is a total misrepresentation of everything I've written in this thread. For a start gamergate is not a movement, despite what various hacks have claimed. It is a widely employed twitter hashtag, which was utilized by a wide variety of people to champion a wide variety of causes - some of that was indeed was championing misogyny my point is that a lot of it was not. Therefore accepting the media-driven, moral panic, binary narrative of misogynists on one side and harassed women on the other misses the complexity of the true picture. That is not a misogynistic argument, it is a call for considered critical analysis of a cultural phenomenon.

This is, of course, the problem with revleft, whenever someone tries to add a little bit of nuance to an issue then the first port of call for those who have neither bothered to read or understand the arguments presented is to toddle off in tears to the mods to start a biannual witch hunt.

[Hexen]

Do you really think that IZ is arguing with a secret misogynist agenda in mind, as opposed to just being plain wrong? People are wrong about things all the time, and the solution to that is talking it out instead of using the mods as a weapon. After all, that's the only way someone who is misinformed will change their opinion - otherwise the only reason they will have to do so is "because everyone else told me to", which will only lead to a brainless groupthink.

I wish I understood IZ's way of thinking a bit more, though, because all he says just sounds bizarre, but that's another matter.

I'm sorry but from my own personal past experiences, sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. Although I certainly hope IZ is only misinformed but once again based on my own past personal experiences, sometimes though people aren't willing to change their minds that easily no matter how much evidence/substance you provide whatever the reason maybe.

[L.A.P.]

The issue regarding Quinn, which as noted above turned out to be groundless, was only an issue in the first place because of the long established belief that nepotism between games journalism and the games industry is rife - which it is.

No. It was an issue because of the paranoid sexual fantasies that gamers have of women in the video game industry; that the only possible way a woman could make it in the industry was through being a sex-object.

Seriously, just fuck video game culture. I've dealt with these guys irl enough in my dorm room this year to know that, though the most extreme elements of GG are a minority, the latter have an infectious influence over the "moderates".

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

A lot of people who don't seem to play games at all have come out to tell us just what gamers think and how gamers are. Outstanding. If you're going to comment on something, then at least try to understand the subject.

Oh and let's just note that female and woman developers were present in the industry from day one.

I mean I think "gamergate" is pretty much a cesspool of misogyny but the comments on this site have started to resemble my racist grandma making sweeping judgments about Indians based on watching soap operas.

[L.A.P.]

I'm not telling you how gamers are and how they think. I'm just commenting that the supposed "moderate" elements of GG still lend legitimacy to the discourse of the frothing misogynists.



Oh and let's just note that female and woman developers were present in the industry from day one.yeah, so...

You just conflated racism towards Indians with generalizing video game culture.....wow. I don't care if your identity as a gamer is being offended. Seriously, again, fuck video game culture.

[Invader Zim]

No. It was an issue because of the paranoid sexual fantasies that gamers have of women in the video game industry; that the only possible way a woman could make it in the industry was through being a sex-object.

OK. But in that case can we see correlation between the way that males video game consumers have treated, say, Kim Swift or Amy Jo Kim?

As PhoenixAsh has noted, there is an underlying complexity to the question that simple answers do not get to the bottom of.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

yeah, so...

You just conflated racism towards Indians with generalizing video game culture.....wow. Seriously, again, fuck video game culture.

The rhetorical device I used is called a simile. The point is in the uninformed generalisation. And the point is that gamers in general don't object to female and woman developers, and haven't for over thirty years.

[L.A.P.]

It's a poor simile that abstracts the huge differences between making a generalizations on a group of people that share nothing but a common ethnicity that they, of course, didn't choose, and people who choose to immerse themselves in a common activity.


And the point is that gamers in general don't object to female and woman developers, and haven't for over thirty years.

This is the point where I honestly dont know what im talking about, because I havent played a video game since middle school; but from what I understand, it's not so much that they object to women being in the industry as much as it's about women developers not adhering to the hyper-macho sexist tropes prevalent in popular video games.

[BIXX]

I'm not telling you how gamers are and how they think. I'm just commenting that the supposed "moderate" elements of GG still lend legitimacy to the discourse of the frothing misogynists.

yeah, so...

You just conflated racism towards Indians with generalizing video game culture.....wow. I don't care if your identity as a gamer is being offended. Seriously, again, fuck video game culture.

I play games, and used to play a lot more, and you're totally right.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's a poor simile that abstracts the huge differences between making a generalizations on a group of people that share nothing but a common ethnicity that they, of course, didn't choose, and people who choose to immerse themselves in a common activity.

A common activity that has nothing direct to do with gender politics. It's not as if we're in the eighties anymore, gamers aren't the people who hang around the comic shop and read Dragon; gamer culture as such does not exist in any meaningful sense anymore. Being a gamer is having a hobby (a hobby that is still stigmatised, both by conservatives and hyperventilating liberals).


This is the point where I honestly dont know what im talking about, because I havent played a video game since middle school; but from what I understand, it's not so much that they object to women being in the industry as much as it's about women developers not adhering to the hyper-macho sexist tropes prevalent in popular video games.

You're moving the goalposts around. And what "hyper-macho sexist tropes" are prevalent in "popular video games"? A lot of people who don't play games seem to have become experts on narratives in videogames overnight, so - what specific "hyper-macho sexist tropes" did you have in mind?

[L.A.P.]

Video games are fun. It's the gamers that killed it for me (and never having enough money to buy myself an Xbox 360 when I was 13)

[Invader Zim]

Video games are fun. It's the gamers that killed it for me (and never having enough money to buy myself an Xbox 360 when I was 13)

So, you haven't actually played a game in what? Nearly a decade?

Well, there certainly are sexist tropes that are employed in videogames today, usually the product of lazy and/or inept storytelling. But nothing really to write home about; cinema, music, literature, the print/online press, and television, are no different. Just like each of these other forms of entertainment media, plenty do not employ such tropes.When the likes of Anita Sarkeesian point it out, using fairly inept and highly questionable skewed methodologies, to present gaming as notably backwards, she over-eggs the pudding. Her basic point is right, and if it gives game developers a bit of a kick up the ass, and actually make game story-arcs, on the whole, unrivaled in their sophistication then great. However, she needs to sort out her methodology because her work is currently replete with confirmation bias.

[PhoenixAsh]

No...playing video games is fun. Video games themselves are a multi-billion dollar industry. This has nothing to do with creating fun anymore. It has everything to do with hyping, profit and maximizing income.

[Armchair Partisan]

Of course you can argue against my reply, the point of the remark, though deliberately etched in hyperbolic terms, was that timeline as a source is worthless because it presents the events with a misleading and dishonest spin. I don't mind people having an agenda, provided that they are, at least honest. The author of your timeline was not.

For instance, it described the following as a 'hit piece (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1)', and attempts to legitimize Phil Fish's juvenile and abusive "retort" (a strong word for such a terrible reply) on twitter.

Any credibility an open minded reader might wish to afford it evaporates at the first glance. If you want to try to go on a futile crusade to defend flagrant dishonesty then you are setting yourself a Sisyphean challenge.

I read a random sampling of the events within the timeline before posting it and they seemed pretty correct to me. Luck of the draw, I guess. TotalBiscuit's article was indeed not much of a "hit piece", but I guess the point was to tell the events leading up to the harassment campaign against Phil Fish. After all, that is the timeline's point: to document the harassment campaigns launched by GGers (as well as the other reactionary shit involved).

[L.A.P.]

A common activity that has nothing direct to do with gender politics. It's not as if we're in the eighties anymore, gamers aren't the people who hang around the comic shop and read Dragon; gamer culture as such does not exist in any meaningful sense anymore. Being a gamer is having a hobby (a hobby that is still stigmatised, both by conservatives and hyperventilating liberals).



You're moving the goalposts around. And what "hyper-macho sexist tropes" are prevalent in "popular video games"? A lot of people who don't play games seem to have become experts on narratives in videogames overnight, so - what specific "hyper-macho sexist tropes" did you have in mind?

No, the goalposts are the same: it's sexism/misogyny in video game culture. Again, I don't pay video games, that statement comes from anti-GG who actually do have knowledge on video games.

Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck; and if that rubs you the wrong way, then maybe you take your hobby way too seriously. Also, between you and Zim suggesting that gamers actually get stigmatized nowadays is just one of those traits of false self-victimization that I love (:rolleyes:) about gamers. Oops, I made another generalization.

[PhoenixAsh]

No, the goalposts are the same: it's sexism/misogyny in video game culture. Again, I don't pay video games, that statement comes from anti-GG who actually do have knowledge on video games.

Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck; and if that rubs you the wrong way, then maybe you take your hobby way too seriously. Also, between you and Zim suggesting that gamers actually get stigmatized nowadays is just one of those traits of false self-victimization that I love (:rolleyes:) about gamers. Oops, I made another generalization.

See this is actually what happens in GG. People who know fuck all tell a story they heard from a friend of a friend who knows a thing or two and who plays more video games than most...so it must be true. Also thank you for demonstrating how shit like this escalates within a 110 posts....as well as stigmatizing gamers with sweeping generalizations in order to prove they are merely self-victimizing.

[Invader Zim]

No, the goalposts are the same: it's sexism/misogyny in video game culture. Again, I don't pay video games, that statement comes from anti-GG who actually do have knowledge on video games.

Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck; and if that rubs you the wrong way, then maybe you take your hobby way too seriously. Also, between you and Zim suggesting that gamers actually get stigmatized nowadays is just one of those traits of false self-victimization that I love (:rolleyes:) about gamers. Oops, I made another generalization.

It is sad that you think that the 1.2 billion people world wide who play games are basically:

http://assets2.bigthink.com/system/idea_thumbnails/48393/primary/Nicholson.jpg?1353453984

And I do love the irony of your post which is all the more amusing because it has plainly sailed way over your head.

[PhoenixAsh]

In late 2013...way before gamer gate...there was a huge development regarding harassment in the game world.

This harassment got so bad in the last years that the game industry itself started talking about creating help groups for developers who were confronted with harassment, threats of violence, death threats to themselves and their families on a daily basis.

Now...these threats, other than what gamer gate suggests, did not specifically target women. In fact...most of the targets were male developers. That is not to say that the harassment of women did include harassment because they were women or to day that the harassment of women did not take on specifically misogynist tropes and characters...

BUT generally the trend was an over the board steady increase for the last years in harassment.

Prime examples are Microsoft devs, SIM City launch delay, X-box, Bioshock, Activision, EA, the COD BO II patch announcement...the list goes on and on....most of the victims were male. Some of them were female...DA Inquisition II for example. Ironically in 2013 Phil Fish was accused in an harassment campaign of being a complete and utter racist because of his criticism of the Japanese game industry....which subsequently led him to quit being a dev for the first time. Harassment even had, and has its own research departments.

That is kind of all pushed to the background on the back drop of gamer gate.

Yet this is an important fact to keep in mind...because the harassment of women that is now supposedly the core of GG suddenly emerged out of nowhere while mere months before the increase in harassment was flooding the entire industry for years. Which should give pause. This is too significant to ignore in a real and actually useful analysis of harassment.

And why did this happen?

Because it was hyped. That doesn't mean that it isn't a real issue. It also doesn't mean that harassment of women doesn't need a specific focus or takes on a specific dimension... But it is not the singular issue and it can not be seen as separate from the trend across the board. Yet gamer gate does give that impression.

[PhoenixAsh]

On the sideline of increased harassment there is nothing about the increase of support and positive interaction. Which does give the impression that gamers are indeed some weird abstraction of the picture above.

Yet...as far back as DA II the Devs received tons of positive and supportive emails from the community. And those being harassed have more than once stated that they got a lot of support from the very same community from which the threats originated...all of which these devs claim to be from a very small subsection of that community.

Hepler for example points towards niche communities within gamer culture for the origins of the threats...threats that she sideways acknowledges are caused by the detachment between what the niche gamers want/need and what is cost effective to produce and what keeps the multi billion dollar industry afloat.

Now...her arguments are not without merit. But that is the core of the issue. In recent years the need for capitalization and revenue increase to maximalise profits as well as the industries influence over journalism and review sites has deepened the gap between gamers and the developers.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

No, the goalposts are the same: it's sexism/misogyny in video game culture. Again, I don't pay video games, that statement comes from anti-GG who actually do have knowledge on video games.

Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck; and if that rubs you the wrong way, then maybe you take your hobby way too seriously. Also, between you and Zim suggesting that gamers actually get stigmatized nowadays is just one of those traits of false self-victimization that I love (:rolleyes:) about gamers. Oops, I made another generalization.

So you openly admit that you have absolutely no knowledge of the things you are talking about, making wild generalisations, and in the process erasing the entire history of women, gay and trans* people and ethnic minorities in game development, all so you can hop on the bandwagon of the next moral panic and jerk off some cultural critics and developers over how sensitive and enlightened they are.

But of course you wouldn't want to actually, you know, research your claims. No sir.

[L.A.P.]

It is sad that you think that the 1.2 billion people world wide who play games are basically:

Not everyone who casually plays a video game is necessarily a "gamer". I shoulve qualified that statement; gamers just suck.


And I do love the irony of your post which is all the more amusing because it has plainly sailed way over your head.

You're not clever

[Comrade Jacob]

The reason MRAs get so touchy about gamergate is because they have nothing in their lives except video games and if someone bashes video games they bash them and everything in their life. It's sad af

[Invader Zim]

You're not clever

You calling my mummy a liar?

[L.A.P.]

So you openly admit that you have absolutely no knowledge of the things you are talking about, making wild generalisations, and in the process erasing the entire history of women, gay and trans* people and ethnic minorities in game development, all so you can hop on the bandwagon of the next moral panic and jerk off some cultural critics and developers over how sensitive and enlightened they are.

But of course you wouldn't want to actually, you know, research your claims. No sir.

Listen bro, youre actually being the hysterical jerk off here. My original statement was just to point out that people were quick to believe this rumor about some female developer having sex with a male journalist in order to get a good review because of their paranoid sexual fantasies, not some context of the corruption between developers and journalism (which Invader Zim suggested). I then made a generalization about the "moderate" adherents of GamerGate lending legitimacy to the misogynists "on the margins", and that the "moderates" are, in fact, not that far off from the misogynists.

You seemed to have a problem with the short statement I wrote before my generalization about GG (emphasis that it was a generalization of GG, not necessarily all gamers) that read: "fuck video game culture". In all honesty, when I said "fuck video game culture", it was really a meaningless phrase that served rhetorical purposes. Now you're going on about how I've erased the history of LGBT people in video game development (which I don't see how being of the opinion that video game culture is sexist would erase that).

I need to step back at these series of posts and realize that I didn't need to explain myself to you. If you want to misinterpret my initial post so you have an opportunity to whine about non-gamers' attitudes towards gamers, and that gamers are stigmatized. Then I have nothing else to say but to point out that oh so lovable self-victimization, and FUCK VIDEO GAME CULTURE!

[#FF0000]

the thing about women n gay n trans folks in game development is that for the most part they had to carve their own niche out in the indie scene. They're largely absent from the mainstream. The lack of women in mainstream video game development is also a modern thing, which started around the mid to late 80s, which is around the same time women were disappearing in the tech industry as a whole. I don't think it's a coincidence that this is also around the time advertisers started marketing video games directly to adolescent boys. So actually, the "gamers have accepted women for 30 years" thing isn't true -- women were accepted early on, and then the industry became male dominated, which has been changing only recently.

Also L.A.P. is 100% spot on about "video game culture" and people who self-identify as "gamers". Source: i play too many fucking video games

EDIT: also again, for what it's worth:


And what "hyper-macho sexist tropes" are prevalent in "popular video games"?

The "Bald Space Marine"? It's not as common as it once was but I think that's because male protagonist archetypes changed in media in general -- hella muscled action stars don't really exist in Hollywood or television anymore, replaced by lean dudes w/ stubble.

[L.A.P.]

I'm big on cars; I live in South Florida, which prob. (along with Southern California and Tokyo) has the largest car/mod/street racing cultures in the world. What I would do to sell my shitty automatic rebuilt-title Civic LX for my dad's friend's classic blue 1999 Honda Civic Si and mod the fuck out of it. However, if you were to tell a gearhead like me that car culture is just a petty bourgeois white boy's club, I would say you have a keen sense of observation. Not get butthurt, and go on about all the Latinos, gay guys, women, and proles that are part of the scene, and how youre trying to marginalize us by making generalizations about our history blah blah blah stfu....

[PhoenixAsh]

I'm big on cars; I live in South Florida, which prob. (along with Southern California and Tokyo) has the largest car/mod/street racing cultures in the world. What I would do to sell my shitty automatic rebuilt-title Civic LX for my dad's friend's classic blue 1999 Honda Civic Si and mod the fuck out of it. However, if you were to tell a gearhead like me that car culture is just a petty bourgeois white boy's club, I would say you have a keen sense of observation. Not get butthurt, and go on about all the Latinos, gay guys, women, and proles that are part of the scene, and how youre trying to marginalize us by making generalizations about our history blah blah blah stfu....

At this point I think it is firmly established that L.A.P. knows fuck all about the subject he is talking about, neither being a gamer and basing himself on what a friend told him, and basically is of the opinion "OMG all gamers suck and therefore everything should be believed at face value".

What you also seem to forget is the factor of gender and socially constructed gender hierarchy. As you so formidably argued is that playing games does not equal gamer status, which is one of the few correct assessments you have made, you should also be aware that when we talk about the niche gamer community we are talking about people who are traditionally marginalized in their gender structure. Not to mention by basically everybody ranging from politicians and main stream media.

Now that is a tad different from the car modding/street racing community...but we could of course discuss the intertwining of that community with organized crime, gang culture, histories of family violence, misogyny and all the problems that are rampant in that community if you so wish.

[PhoenixAsh]

Listen bro, youre actually being the hysterical jerk off here. My original statement was just to point out that people were quick to believe this rumor about some female developer having sex with a male journalist in order to get a good review because of their paranoid sexual fantasies, not some context of the corruption between developers and journalism (which Invader Zim suggested). I then made a generalization about the "moderate" adherents of GamerGate lending legitimacy to the misogynists "on the margins", and that the "moderates" are, in fact, not that far off from the misogynists.

Yeah...only that statement is utter conjecture and does not jive with the facts.

The reason people believed so rapidly that Zoe Quinn used sex to get favorable reviews was because of her conduct within the Wizardchan debate and using the allegations of harassment (that did not happen to any mention worthy extend) to actually get her game launched after initial rejection by Steam. So when that came up a month later...people of course believed that.

Basically because of the same reason you behave here like you behave...they heard from a friend of a friend who heard it from somebody close to Zoe so therefore it must be true.

And yes...THAT was at the core of the developers vs journalism debate and did not develop in a mere vacuum....as you so much want it to have done

Now...so far you have basically ignored all the facts, time lines etc presented here in order to maintain your trope of the gamer community and actually rejecting the fact that the situation is a little more complicated than you seem to be willing to accept.

On top of that you now seem to even be so ridiculous as to argue that gamer gate...which developed on the back of the game industry criticism debate is ...legitimized by the actual legitimate criticism and gripes which preceded gamer gate. Wauw.



You seemed to have a problem with the short statement I wrote before my generalization about GG (emphasis that it was a generalization of GG, not necessarily all gamers) that read: "fuck video game culture". In all honesty, when I said "fuck video game culture", it was really a meaningless phrase that served rhetorical purposes. Now you're going on about how I've erased the history of LGBT people in video game development (which I don't see how being of the opinion that video game culture is sexist would erase that).

I would like to remind you of what you actually wrote:


Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck

That not merely stops at gamers in total...but includes everybody who ever played a video game. Now...that just doesn't match with your back tracking here. Sorry...thanks for playing though.


I need to step back at these series of posts and realize that I didn't need to explain myself to you. If you want to misinterpret my initial post so you have an opportunity to whine about non-gamers' attitudes towards gamers, and that gamers are stigmatized. Then I have nothing else to say but to point out that oh so lovable self-victimization, and FUCK VIDEO GAME CULTURE!

You indeed need to step back and realize that not only do you not have anything substantial to add but have no fucking clue what you are talking about....and basically advance the " OMG gamers!!!" trope.

Thank you by the way for illustrating just what is wrong with the gamer gate debates...and why they are a non issue. Basically no debate addressing the issues in a comprehensive manner about harassment, capitalization of the game industry and about misogyny within the gamer community will ever get anywhere and that is basically because of people like you...don't know what they talk about, don't want to accept facts, rehash tropes, making sweeping generalizations...

[#FF0000]

What you also seem to forget is the factor of gender and socially constructed gender hierarchy. As you so formidably argued is that playing games does not equal gamer status, which is one of the few correct assessments you have made, you should also be aware that when we talk about the niche gamer community we are talking about people who are traditionally marginalized in their gender structure. Not to mention by basically everybody ranging from politicians and main stream media.

my favorite part about "gaming culture" is the subset of hella insecure manchildren you're talking about who manage to swing an elitist n exclusionary attitude along with some weird persecution complex where they think gaming is "under siege" even though people from every demographic play video games.

[PhoenixAsh]

my favorite part about "gaming culture" is the subset of hella insecure manchildren you're talking about who manage to swing an elitist n exclusionary attitude along with some weird persecution complex where they think gaming is "under siege" even though people from every demographic play video games.

Do you know what they identify as gaming when they talk about "gaming being under siege"?

Because that is actually where the problem starts. Not with expansion of the demographic but the disassociation what is produced and how it is produced with what they see as quality products.

And that definition of quality is fluid based on the niche you are asking.

[#FF0000]

Do you know what they identify as gaming when they talk about "gaming being under siege"?

Because that is actually where the problem starts. Not with expansion of the demographic but the disassociation what is produced and how it is produced with what they see as quality products.

And that definition of quality is fluid based on the niche you are asking.

Nah. I think you're alluding to folks who cry about mobile/casual games and but that's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about people who sit there and believe that people treat video games in 2015 the way people treated D&D and metal when people associated them with Satanism in the 80's even tho, like i said, everyone plays games.

In any case L.A.P. is spot on about "gaming culture" in general and even tho I'm a person who grew up with video games and still plays hella video games, I can tell you that when someone self-identifies as a "gamer", there's an even chance that they are awful to be around.

[Cliff Paul]

my favorite part about "gaming culture" is the subset of hella insecure manchildren you're talking about who manage to swing an elitist n exclusionary attitude along with some weird persecution complex where they think gaming is "under siege" even though people from every demographic play video games.

I was going to say I've noticed that part of the 'gamergate' movement seems to be a reaction against alternative games. Personally I could care less about playing something like "Depression Quest" or whatever but I've noticed from metacritic that alternative games tend to get pretty high reviews from critics - and pretty low user reviews (which tend to be like: "this isn't a game, etc. etc.").

[bcbm]

Do you know what they identify as gaming when they talk about "gaming being under siege"?

who cares?

[bcbm]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=9594&stc=1&d=1432099109

[Invader Zim]

who cares?

I guess it depends on what you want. If you want to be able to engage people, talk about issues like misogyny in online culture (not gaming culture), and have something either interesting/constructive to say, then people should care. If you just want to show up, buy into some crude stereotypes, fire some pot shots at people you don't understand, and fuck off without any kind of engagement (which has literally been how the print media has dealt with gaming for decades), then you are going to generate resentment. The marginalisation and resentment created is the soil in which the seeds of phenomena like gamergate are sown.


Listen bro, youre actually being the hysterical jerk off here.

More hilarious and unintended irony.

You get that you are basically presenting yourself in this thread as the unreconstructed, jejune jock archetype from a Savage Steve Holland or John Hughes movie, right?

[#FF0000]

I guess it depends on what you want. If you want to be able to engage people, talk about issues like misogyny in online culture (not gaming culture), and have something either interesting/constructive to say, then people should care.

Nah, I don't think anyone should care what some dweeb counts as trve kvlt gaming.


fire some pot shots at people you don't understand

y'all keep posting this despite the fact that L.A.P. is the only person itt who doesn't play videogames. bcbm plays video games. I play video games. almost everyone itt plays videogames and is familiar with the cesspit of "video game culture".


The marginalisation and resentment created is the soil in which the seeds of phenomena like gamergate are sown

truly gamergate is the last civil rights movement.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

the thing about women n gay n trans folks in game development is that for the most part they had to carve their own niche out in the indie scene. They're largely absent from the mainstream. The lack of women in mainstream video game development is also a modern thing, which started around the mid to late 80s, which is around the same time women were disappearing in the tech industry as a whole. I don't think it's a coincidence that this is also around the time advertisers started marketing video games directly to adolescent boys. So actually, the "gamers have accepted women for 30 years" thing isn't true -- women were accepted early on, and then the industry became male dominated, which has been changing only recently.

I don't think the first statement is true at all. Most "indie" developers are straight cis-men. The percentage of women, gay and trans* people in indie and "mainstream" game development is probably roughly the same, although I'm not aware of any sort of survey or similar, and am basically relying on my impressions here. A lot of people think that the indie scene is a refuge for marginalised people, but a lot of people have unrealistic ideas about the indie scene in general. (Which incidentally explains the good reviews of Depression Quest without having the invoke some kind of "evil woman used her feminine wiles to get her way" Neanderthal bullshit.)

And it's true that the number of women in the entire tech industry declined in the late eighties - early nineties. But, first of all, a number of prominent women developers remained in the industry, without being driven out by the unwashed hordes of misogynist gamers, and second, you're effectively blaming consumers for the decisions of the company owners and structural effects embodied in market trends.


Also L.A.P. is 100% spot on about "video game culture" and people who self-identify as "gamers". Source: i play too many fucking video games

I play a lot of video games too, and my experience has been pretty much the opposite of yours, even with the dreaded "online culture" (before this "gamergate" nonsense, the last real burst of activity from online gamers I could think about was everyone telling Yoshio Sakamoto that he's a horrible human being for reducing a formerly strong independent female character to a codependent womanchild). I don't frequent 4chan, and I don't pay much attention to liberal and reactionary Tumblr blogs, though. As they say, your mileage may vary. In any case it's a pretty bad reason to proclaim an entire group of people to be misogynist cave-dwellers.

On the subject of self-identification as gamers, sure, some of the people who do it live in an imaginary world where everything was great until devious women came and ruined their hobby. From personal experience, I would say these people are a minority. Other people still remember a time when playing games was not widespread. Other people want to emphasise that they play "game games", and not little Flash things that you click on every once in a while (not that those can't be fun), and so on.


The "Bald Space Marine"? It's not as common as it once was but I think that's because male protagonist archetypes changed in media in general -- hella muscled action stars don't really exist in Hollywood or television anymore, replaced by lean dudes w/ stubble.

That's a hyper-masculine stereotype, sure, but how is it sexist? It is also something that was mostly restricted to one sub-genre (the modern shooter, which has so many other problematic points that fat space/American marines are at the bottom of the list), was sometimes used as pure camp, and was in part motivated by the state of the art in bone animation (pauldrons keep shoulders from jutting out at weird angles, but if you're going to have pauldrons then you need other armour as well).

But the point is, I'm aware that there are sexist tropes in video games. I would personally give the example of Kojima and his fucked-up view of women (seriously, the guy needs help). But this is something that happens in every medium, and in fact I think video games are a bit better than the average when it comes to that. The point was that L.A.P. was talking about things they obviously had no idea about, shouting about evil misogynist gamers and game developers without actually being able to specify any instance of misogyny in games.

Also RL has this problem where a lot of people think "stigmatised" means "persecuted". Gamers are not persecuted. They are generally stigmatised, though, apart from a brief lull between "this spree killer was once seen near a PlayStation, obviously games made him kill" and "gamers are basement-dwelling misogynists but thankfully we have inclusive developers (TM) who aren't making games for gamers anymore". The problem is that RL believes in magic and in the idea that the material reality is determined by words.

[#FF0000]

I don't think we actually disagree Xhar-Xhar, but it seems like we're talking past each other on some things.


I don't think the first statement is true at all. Most "indie" developers are straight cis-men.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that indie game development is all women/trans/people of color. I think what I was trying to get at is that marginalized people have a niche in indie game development where they're the most visible. I'm sort of relying on my impressions here too tho, and this is probably irrelevant anyway since indie and mainstream game development are different in some major ways.


you're effectively blaming consumers for the decisions of the company owners and structural effects embodied in market trends.
I don't think it's the fault of consumers at all. I don't know what caused women to suddenly start disappearing from the tech/game development fields. I did speculate that advertisers beginning to gender the product also may have contributed to "gendering" the industry.


In any case it's a pretty bad reason to proclaim an entire group of people to be misogynist cave-dwellers.yeah, like I said, the neckbeard troglodyte is just a subset of game culture people.


Also RL has this problem where a lot of people think "stigmatised" means "persecuted". Gamers are not persecuted. They are generally stigmatised, though, apart from a brief lull between "this spree killer was once seen near a PlayStation, obviously games made him kill" and "gamers are basement-dwelling misogynists but thankfully we have inclusive developers (TM) who aren't making games for gamers anymore". The problem is that RL believes in magic and in the idea that the material reality is determined by words.100%

[Invader Zim]

Nah, I don't think anyone should care what some dweeb counts as trve kvlt gaming.

So, if LAP was trying to be Roy Stalin, you're trying to be John Bender. Right down to terminology. Your crude and perfunctory dismissal is literally an 80s comedic caricature.



y'all keep posting this despite the fact that L.A.P. is the only person itt who doesn't play videogames. bcbm plays video games. I play video games. almost everyone itt plays videogames and is familiar with the cesspit of "video game culture".

And yet you still draw upon ludicrous stereotypes you must surely know are nonsense. If you really agree with the following statement, then the value of your opinion is less than nill.

"Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck"


truly gamergate is the last civil rights movement.

Yeah, because that is clearly what I said. I realise that you've already spent an entire thread having considerable difficulty in addressing my actual points, but you'll only confuse yourself further if you try to make them up for me.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MtaU7sq3ZkE/T3y1oB3ZK8I/AAAAAAAABaY/5RdDl2K1cOU/s1600/straw.png

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

invader zim, have you ever filmed any long-winded videos about your thoughts on gamergate? And if so, A: were there skulls in the backround, B: were you in the bath or C: both?

[Invader Zim]

invader zim, have you ever filmed any long-winded videos about your thoughts on gamergate? And if so, A: were there skulls in the backround, B: were you in the bath or C: both?

No. And by revleft standards my posts have been comparatively short. Are you projecting some deep seated fear that you possess only a teeny-tiny attention span?

[PhoenixAsh]

In this thread I agree on a lot of thing with IZ and Xhar Xhar....

Hell froze over :grin:

Anyways what seems to be the issue for most people:

* Gamer gate is more complex that OMG misogyny?
* Gamer gate does not originate in anything misogynist?
* Harassment was an increasing issue years before Zoe Quinn across the gender board?
* The Zoe Quinn issues played on the back drop of years of growing resentment and a deep mistrust of users for the conduct of the industry?
* That this has an economic perspective and origine?
* That gamer gate is not representative of the gaming community?
* That gamer gate is a media hype
* That gamer gate actually serves to frustrate the debate about misogyny and the position of women by focusing merely on excesses by a few?

What?

[Counterculturalist]

* The Zoe Quinn issues played on the back drop of years of growing resentment and a deep mistrust of users for the conduct of the industry?


This is kind of it for me. The "gate" in "gamergate" implies a scandal. What is the "scandal" that kicked off gamergate?

Invader Zim likened the Quinn issue's relationship with gamergate to Ferdinand's assassination's relationship with WW1.

Why were so many people scandalized by Quinn's sex life? If gamers were deeply mistrustful of the gaming industry, why was the public face of their rebellion focused on something so insignificant?

The idea that women often "sleep their way to the top" is a misogynistic stereotype with little bearing in reality. Assuming for a minute that that's what Quinn was trying to do, why didn't the self-described guardians of ethical behavior condemn the guy who - if the allegations were true (and we know they weren't) - would have been exploiting her by trading sex for good reviews? Where was the outrage against him?

For me, the misogyny implicit in the assumptions behind this backlash seem to be too much to ignore.

[Cliff Paul]

The idea that women often "sleep their way to the top" is a misogynistic stereotype with little bearing in reality. Assuming for a minute that that's what Quinn was trying to do, why didn't the self-described guardians of ethical behavior condemn the guy who - if the allegations were true (and we know they weren't) - would have been exploiting her by trading sex for good reviews? Where was the outrage against him?

Iirc, the original article posted by her ex didn't allege that she slept with people for reviews, just that she cheated on him and lied about it.

[PhoenixAsh]

This is kind of it for me. The "gate" in "gamergate" implies a scandal. What is the "scandal" that kicked off gamergate?

The label gamer gate was fabricated long after the Zoe Quinn affair started. One of the issues we are trying to address here is that gamer gate is a fictional hyped label.

But the scandal here is that developers and game journalists have long been mutually influencing each other with serious money being handed out in order to hype products and create demand. That issue has been brewing for years.


Invader Zim likened the Quinn issue's relationship with gamergate to Ferdinand's assassination's relationship with WW1.

Yes. Basically that is what happened. But with the added difference that it was hyped on the basis of basically a handful of people involved in the discussion...and we are not talking about dozens....no...we are talking about literally 3 or 4 in a debate involving more than 70 people.


Why were so many people scandalized by Quinn's sex life? If gamers were deeply mistrustful of the gaming industry, why was the public face of their rebellion focused on something so insignificant?

The discussion around Zoe Quinn started way before Gjoni posted anything about her sex life and revolved around legitimate criticism on her game Depression Quest which was rejected initially by Steam on Wizardchan. Whatever you want to make of it Zoe Quinn participated in that debate, played a less than squeaky clean part, escalated the debate, focused on some post by four members and is accused of using those posts in order to trump up harassment claims over being a woman in order to promote her game which sparked outrage...the game was subsequently released on Steam Greenlight.

That controversy was before there was any Gjoni post.

What was painted in Gjoni's 9000 word revenge post for being cheated on was an entirely different picture than the public persona Zoe Quinn and basically what Gjoni wrote was that she was a manipulative and abusive person and that she cheated with notable people from the game industry in order to get ahead. Given her previous alleged conduct that was of course believed as plausible.

Basically that was not the only issue, but that is what got press attention, there was also anger about her crashing a dev reality show and some fine young capitalist charity event etc.


The idea that women often "sleep their way to the top" is a misogynistic stereotype with little bearing in reality.

Assuming for a minute that that's what Quinn was trying to do, why didn't the self-described guardians of ethical behavior condemn the guy who - if the allegations were true (and we know they weren't) - would have been exploiting her by trading sex for good reviews? Where was the outrage against him? [/quote]

Yes actually there was.

And even way before Zoe Quinn controversy. He was already under fire for not only his methods of journalism but about a shit load long list of conflicts of interests....with the Zoe Quinn controversy starting after Gjoni posts it was discovered that he had a personal relationship with Zoe Quinn since 2012 and contrary to magazine policy never disclosed his personal ties with her.

That said....Zoe Quinn received about 10 times more messages during the entire course of the tag gamer gate. That said...none of the men actively participated in the debate prior to and after.


For me, the misogyny implicit in the assumptions behind this backlash seem to be too much to ignore.

Yes...several questions:

1). Is this special to the gamer community?
2). Is this representative of the gaming community?
3). Is it widespread in the gaming community?
4). Do you believe that sexism in the gaming community is caused by the users/consumers or do you believe there is more to it than that?

Now...to put it in the words of Zoe Quinn (paraphrasing): this is done by some fringe elements in a huge and diverse community.

Think about it and the implication of that statement.

[PhoenixAsh]

Iirc, the original article posted by her ex didn't allege that she slept with people for reviews, just that she cheated on him and lied about it.

Not just that...it alleged psychological abuse by Zoe Quinn.

[L.A.P.]

You get that you are basically presenting yourself in this thread as the unreconstructed, jejune jock archetype from a Savage Steve Holland or John Hughes movie, right?


So, if LAP was trying to be Roy Stalin, you're trying to be John Bender. Right down to terminology. Your crude and perfunctory dismissal is literally an 80s comedic caricature.

Where the fuck are you coming up with this shit? Are you mental? The thing is I've prob. experienced this (as a straight cisgender man who didn't fit the ideal) more than most other straight cisgender men:


What you also seem to forget is the factor of gender and socially constructed gender hierarchy..... you should also be aware that when we talk about the niche gamer community we are talking about people who are traditionally marginalized in their gender structure.


"Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck"


Not everyone who casually plays a video game is necessarily a "gamer". I shoulve qualified that statement; gamers just suck.

You're (still) not clever


Seriously, next time I see users on this forum talk shit about continental philosophy/post-structuralism/crit-theory, I'm gonna get as outraged as you guys over the gross generalization and lack of having a clue in what one is talking about.

Nice way of a few video game enthusiasts taking a thread that was originally about some reactionary abusive GamerGate asshat, and making it about themselves and their "stigmatization". It's like when a woman talks shit about men, and the guys just jumps down her throat going "NOT ALL MEN!".

[Counterculturalist]

Yes...several questions:

1). Is this special to the gamer community?
2). Is this representative of the gaming community?
3). Is it widespread in the gaming community?
4). Do you believe that sexism in the gaming community is caused by the users/consumers or do you believe there is more to it than that?

Now...to put it in the words of Zoe Quinn (paraphrasing): this is done by some fringe elements in a huge and diverse community.

Think about it and the implication of that statement.

I'm not one of the people arguing that the gamer community itself is somehow more misogynist than society at large; my comments were reserved for those using the gamergate banner.

Let's look at a similar situation, one that occurred a couple of years ago in the horror movie journalism scene.

A prominent horror reviewer and blogger, Lianne Spiderbaby, was caught plagiarizing and pretty much run out of the horror scene, which sparked a fairly intense, if short-lived, debate about ethics in the horror journalism world.

Those who were following the situation will recall that a handful of reactionaries used this scandal as an excuse to attack women in the industry and condemn things like "women in horror month" as feminist propaganda.

A couple of differences: First of all, instead of becoming the public face of the investigation into the horror scene's ethics, the reactionaries were basically ridiculed and criticized into oblivion. And second, the spark that lit the fuse was not a misogynist fairytale, but an actual case of outright plagiarism. Once the trolls were purged, the debate continued and was, all-told, fairly productive.

Gamergate, it seems, devolved into an excuse to harass women and air ultra-reactionary grievances.

[Lily Briscoe]

This stuff seems like about the single most uninteresting storm in a teacup ever.

"Amateurism in video game journalism" serious business

[#FF0000]

And yet you still draw upon ludicrous stereotypes you must surely know are nonsense

how many times do i have to qualify my statements by saying "a subset of people" before you read it?


"Just shut the fuck up, people who play video games just plain fucking suck"this is actually true. source: have you ever been in a videogames club in university.


Yeah, because that is clearly what I said. I realise that you've already spent an entire thread having considerable difficulty in addressing my actual points, but you'll only confuse yourself further if you try to make them up for me.I dunno if you're reading the same thread as me but I've responded to your points directly, whereas I'm still waiting for you to explain why radical right wing politics are so popular in the movement that they're immediately visible when you go to any of the (very large) forums associated with it.

[Lily Briscoe]

Just as an extremely important aside, I recently met a group of really hip thirty-something lesbians who are self-described "gamers" AND into cosplay (I am not joking). I thought I was going to be the first confirmed case of death due to cognitive dissonance. I don't care about video games, but I don't think I want to live in a world where Sakura-con is socially acceptable.

[Invader Zim]

this is actually true. source: have you ever been in a videogames club in university.

Actually, back in the days of yore I founded one (:ohmy:). And the membership comprised a fairly representative cross-section of the undergraduate cohort, politically, socually and demographically, of that time. The only thing in common they had was that they went to the same university, wanted to play video games, and make some friends while doing so. Some of them were assholes, most were not.


whereas I'm still waiting for you to explain why radical right wing politics are so popular in the movement that they're immediately visible when you go to any of the (very large) forums associated with it.

Which basically boils down to saying that if you follow gamergate on 4chan and reddit and you will find rabid reactionaries sentiments, and then saying, look I told you that 95% of everybody who used the gamergate hashtag is far right. That's like going to rural communities in the heart of the Bible Belt, asking about gay marriage and then concluding that 95% of Americans hate gay people. Not a particualrly convinsing methodology.

And I'm waiting for you to explain away the (many) highly popular calls for increase inclusiveness and rejection of just those kinds of rightwing politics.

[Armchair Partisan]

And I'm waiting for you to explain away the (many) highly popular calls for increase inclusiveness and rejection of just those kinds of rightwing politics.

That's actually something I meant to ask you, considering you bring it up so often. Where are these calls? What movements identify with GamerGate yet make a serious effort to cast out its misogynist hate groups? To continue with analogies, it sounds more like Confederate flags and "states' rights" to me. I'm sure that there are like 50-100 people in America who are relatively nice and socially progressive people with an odd interest in states' rights and a huge confusion of what the flag represents, but it doesn't really absolve anyone waving the flag, nor do people calling for increased decentralization or whatever associate with the Confederacy just because it has big exposure (provided they aren't hardcore bigots).

[#FF0000]

Which basically boils down to saying that if you follow gamergate on 4chan and reddit and you will find rabid reactionaries sentiments, and then saying, look I told you that 95% of everybody who used the gamergate hashtag is far right.

Where can you follow gamergate where that is not the case, though?


And I'm waiting for you to explain away the (many) highly popular calls for increase inclusiveness and rejection of just those kinds of rightwing politics.

Are you talking about that totalbiscuit thing you posted earlier? Because that's pretty weak as a denunciation, especially from someone who was still sitting in IRC "planning" rooms with people from Breitbart and 4chan's politics board.

[Invader Zim]

Are you talking about that totalbiscuit thing you posted earlier? Because that's pretty weak as a denunciation, especially from someone who was still sitting in IRC "planning" rooms with people from Breitbart and 4chan's politics board.

So, no true Scotsman shares a platform with Breitbart journalists.

I don't think I need to outline the brain farts there.

[cyu]

Eric Hoffer:
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

...in a different environment, they might become neo-Nazis. On the other hand, this drives some of my own reasons for posting on revleft. The ruling class sometimes makes use of this for their own purposes, whether to push nationalist based warfare, or to distract the population into irrelevant pursuits. It is just harnessing the power of a population, for good, for bad, or for useless reasons.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well for one 4chan is heavily involved with the TFYC charity trying to fund starting female developers in the game industry. Ironically that is the same charity Zoe Quinn tried to shut down preceding gamer gate and the Quinspiracy in favor of her own event Rebel Jam using lies and slander about the initiative. Of course 4chan only became involved when the shit already hit the fan.

[Culicarius]

Gotta say, on all the places on the internet I frequent I thought revleft would be the last place I'd see anyone actually supporting GG.

At any rate, I learned one thing from this massive shitstorm. Apparently there's actually something called gaming journalism and it ended up being one of the internet's pandora's boxes.

[BIXX]

Actually, back in the days of yore I founded one (:ohmy:).

Explains a lot.

[bcbm]

I guess it depends on what you want. If you want to be able to engage people, talk about issues like misogyny in online culture (not gaming culture), and have something either interesting/constructive to say, then people should care. If you just want to show up, buy into some crude stereotypes, fire some pot shots at people you don't understand, and fuck off without any kind of engagement (which has literally been how the print media has dealt with gaming for decades), then you are going to generate resentment. The marginalisation and resentment created is the soil in which the seeds of phenomena like gamergate are sown.

ah, i see who the real victims are now


But the scandal here is that developers and game journalists have long been mutually influencing each other with serious money being handed out in order to hype products and create demand. That issue has been brewing for years.

so the scandal is that a market for particular goods in a capitalist society functions as such?


Gotta say, on all the places on the internet I frequent I thought revleft would be the last place I'd see anyone actually supporting GG.

you must be new here, there are people who will support about anything horrible

[Invader Zim]

ah, i see who the real victims are now

Who said anything about victims? Learn to read, you can start with the difference between marginalisation and victimisation.

[Invader Zim]

Gotta say, on all the places on the internet I frequent I thought revleft would be the last place I'd see anyone actually supporting GG.



How does one "support" a twitter hashtag?

Next.

[bcbm]

you're saying the gamers are victims of marginalization, which causes resentment, which results in them spewing vile misogyny or whatever

[Invader Zim]

you're saying the gamers are victims of marginalization, which causes resentment, which results in them spewing vile misogyny or whatever
Or whatever, indeed. Because you clearly haven't understood the point, or, if you do then haven't dealt with it with even a modicum of honesty.

Suggesting that various long term factors, including marginalisation, contributed to the creation of the space from which gamergate was to emerge is nothing like saying: marginalization --> misogyny. Nor is pointing out, entirely accurately, that gaming has been marginalised suggest that gamers have been the victims of gamergate, that would be absurd.

Your view on this seems to boil down to PA's summary of many of the posts in this thread:

"Because fuck analysis"

[willowtooth]

fuck you you fagget as ***** yeah suck my dick you punk ass fairy ass ***** yeah i killed you what try again im the king *****

(normal conversation on a mmorpg game on xbox live)

sorry its just reality:wub:

[Invader Zim]

fuck you you fagget as ***** yeah suck my dick you punk ass fairy ass ***** yeah i killed you what try again im the king *****

(normal conversation on a mmorpg game on xbox live)

sorry its just reality:wub:


Have you ever been in a pub? Clearly not.

The idea that gaming attracts a profoundly reactionary type of person, and that you will see of hear wildly more reactionary or anti-social shit, be it content or quanitity, than in other social spaces, is absurd.

[PhoenixAsh]

so the scandal is that a market for particular goods in a capitalist society functions as such?


Yes. Basically that is the basis in which this came to fruition.

But the real scandal is how this hyped and mutually influenced towards escalation non issue has taken over several important debates that were already running for years...in which both sides are less than clean and are not how they made out to appear in the media and are seriously obfuscating what is actually happening by serving their own agenda.

In the end this issue is not about virulent misogyny but about economic agenda's. The whole issue started months before and really took off after the Total biscuit vs Phil Fish debate. Read Bains orginal comment so far it is extremy sad to say that that has been the most impartial and most level headed contribution in the entire debate. Yet it sparked economic driven outrage by several devs including most notably Fish. Before that the debate was as was said in several tweets by both Quinn and Fish about revenue and attention.

Analysis of the hash tag gamer gate has established that 90% of all tweets in that hash tag are either positive or neutral towards gender issues. Based on the remaining 10% of tweets however the conclusion is drawn that this is about misogyny....of that 10%...20% is directed at companies or men.

Saying gamer gate is all about misogyny is lazy, shoddy and reductionist and ignores a huge amount of preceding history, development and facts that seriously contributed to it and are vital to understanding what is going on.

And while misogyny undeniably happened and is an issue and is also an issue that needs to be adressed it is also an issue that is seriously harmed by this kind of reductionist thinking.

1). The debate squarely puts the blame for lack of diversity on the public. It is the communities fault. Before gamer gate the debate was about industry driven sexism. Weeks before Quinn went public in her attempt to exploit the situation at Wizardchan that was what you read about. How the industry itself was non inclusive, drove sexist and misogynist representation of women in games as a trope, how women were put in secondary positions etc. Not anymore...now all of the sudden it is user direct attacks at women only.

2). Weeks before the whole situation the discussion was about the fact of the increase of user directed harassment of every Dev across the gender board. Not just women and not specifically directed at women but a complete increase across gender lines mainly aimed at everybody to such an extend that the industry wanted to institute help centers for their devs and created special seminars on dealing with harassment....as well as trying to find the origins. After the whole situation it is just about misogyny.

3). Before the whole situation the general discussion and research into the increase in harassment was focusing on the widening gap between devs, industry and gamers and placed the origins of harassment on abandoning the needs and wishes of gamers in favor of increasing profits. Not anymore. ..today....misogyny.

4). Before this the debate was about industry influence over media and the downright conflict of interest, bribes, plagiarism and hyping. Not anymore because that issue doesn't exist because...misogyny.

5). The lines are clearly drawn by the media misogyny vs inclusiveness it is either one or the other. Evil vs good. It doesn't mention facts or nuance. Nor does it make any mention of the facts that:
* The so called heroes of inclusiveness tried to shut down inclusiveness initiatives for self gain with lies slander and calls for hacking, doxxing etc.
* Death threats made by the opponents of GG.
* Hacking by the opponents of GG.
* Doxxing by opponents of GG

6). Industry influence and hijacking of the debate and how they play both fields to maximise gain and perpetuate the conflict in order to protect their markets and serve company interests

So while it is undeniable misogyny is at play...and that it should be addressed...attributing GG to misogyny is lazy and reductionist and obfuscates the complexity of the situation. It is at heart a liberal position "the root of all evil is some people....if only users were less misogynist" that this board should stay away from.

The basis is economic. The basis is industry driven. The specific conflicted started about economic interests.And yes...capitalists do what capitalists do...polarize and play one against the other. Classic....and we should look beyond that for solutions and explanations based on correct and comprehensive analysis.

Because let's face it...do you really think that the industry is lopsided on gender inclusiveness because of some small niche minority saying bad things about women or do you think it might be more complex?

[PhoenixAsh]

fuck you you fagget as ***** yeah suck my dick you punk ass fairy ass ***** yeah i killed you what try again im the king *****

(normal conversation on a mmorpg game on xbox live)

sorry its just reality:wub:

Shall I quote some popular music lyrics? Because I am nor seeing any widespread controversy being hashed out in the media about sexism and misogyny in music...or widespread internationally covered outrage over death threats towards feminists in that industry. But apparently the gamer world is especially misogynistic rather than representative of the population at large.

[PhoenixAsh]

But just look at this thread.. simply saying: gamer gate is more complex than misogyny and does no find its origins there... gets you immediately branded as pro-GG, anti woman, misogynist, calls for bans/restrictions, conservative.

It is pitiful that so many people seem to think that this all originated overnight because gamers hate women.

[Redistribute the Rep]

The idea that gaming attracts a profoundly reactionary type of person, and that you will see of hear wildly more reactionary or anti-social shit, be it content or quanitity, than in other social spaces, is absurd.

It doesn't seem absurd to people who have tried playing games while being female

[Cliff Paul]

Have you ever been in a pub? Clearly not.

The idea that gaming attracts a profoundly reactionary type of person, and that you will see of hear wildly more reactionary or anti-social shit, be it content or quanitity, than in other social spaces, is absurd.

This.

'Gamers' are not a monolithic/ distinct subculture. True you do get your cesspools of reaction and misogyny - America's Army, Call of Duty, first-person shooters in general, etc. But the average Call of Duty fan and the average Legend of Zelda fan tend to have little in common except for the fact that they both play video games...

[Invader Zim]

It doesn't seem absurd to people who have tried playing games while being female

http://www.pcgamer.com/researchers-find-that-female-pc-gamers-outnumber-males/


Masochists, obv.

[Invader Zim]

Yes. Basically that is the basis in which this came to fruition.

But the real scandal is how this hyped and mutually influenced towards escalation non issue has taken over several important debates that were already running for years...in which both sides are less than clean and are not how they made out to appear in the media and are seriously obfuscating what is actually happening by serving their own agenda.

In the end this issue is not about virulent misogyny but about economic agenda's. The whole issue started months before and really took off after the Total biscuit vs Phil Fish debate. Read Bains orginal comment so far it is extremy sad to say that that has been the most impartial and most level headed contribution in the entire debate. Yet it sparked economic driven outrage by several devs including most notably Fish. Before that the debate was as was said in several tweets by both Quinn and Fish about revenue and attention.

Analysis of the hash tag gamer gate has established that 90% of all tweets in that hash tag are either positive or neutral towards gender issues. Based on the remaining 10% of tweets however the conclusion is drawn that this is about misogyny....of that 10%...20% is directed at companies or men.

Saying gamer gate is all about misogyny is lazy, shoddy and reductionist and ignores a huge amount of preceding history, development and facts that seriously contributed to it and are vital to understanding what is going on.

And while misogyny undeniably happened and is an issue and is also an issue that needs to be adressed it is also an issue that is seriously harmed by this kind of reductionist thinking.

1). The debate squarely puts the blame for lack of diversity on the public. It is the communities fault. Before gamer gate the debate was about industry driven sexism. Weeks before Quinn went public in her attempt to exploit the situation at Wizardchan that was what you read about. How the industry itself was non inclusive, drove sexist and misogynist representation of women in games as a trope, how women were put in secondary positions etc. Not anymore...now all of the sudden it is user direct attacks at women only.

2). Weeks before the whole situation the discussion was about the fact of the increase of user directed harassment of every Dev across the gender board. Not just women and not specifically directed at women but a complete increase across gender lines mainly aimed at everybody to such an extend that the industry wanted to institute help centers for their devs and created special seminars on dealing with harassment....as well as trying to find the origins. After the whole situation it is just about misogyny.

3). Before the whole situation the general discussion and research into the increase in harassment was focusing on the widening gap between devs, industry and gamers and placed the origins of harassment on abandoning the needs and wishes of gamers in favor of increasing profits. Not anymore. ..today....misogyny.

4). Before this the debate was about industry influence over media and the downright conflict of interest, bribes, plagiarism and hyping. Not anymore because that issue doesn't exist because...misogyny.

5). The lines are clearly drawn by the media misogyny vs inclusiveness it is either one or the other. Evil vs good. It doesn't mention facts or nuance. Nor does it make any mention of the facts that:
* The so called heroes of inclusiveness tried to shut down inclusiveness initiatives for self gain with lies slander and calls for hacking, doxxing etc.
* Death threats made by the opponents of GG.
* Hacking by the opponents of GG.
* Doxxing by opponents of GG

6). Industry influence and hijacking of the debate and how they play both fields to maximise gain and perpetuate the conflict in order to protect their markets and serve company interests

So while it is undeniable misogyny is at play...and that it should be addressed...attributing GG to misogyny is lazy and reductionist and obfuscates the complexity of the situation. It is at heart a liberal position "the root of all evil is some people....if only users were less misogynist" that this board should stay away from.

The basis is economic. The basis is industry driven. The specific conflicted started about economic interests.And yes...capitalists do what capitalists do...polarize and play one against the other. Classic....and we should look beyond that for solutions and explanations based on correct and comprehensive analysis.

Because let's face it...do you really think that the industry is lopsided on gender inclusiveness because of some small niche minority saying bad things about women or do you think it might be more complex?


OMG! Facts and analysis! There might be more to this than basement dwelling man-children? But that contradicts what I skimmed about gamergate on wikipedia and the Guardian... Maybe if I call them a misogynist and/or ridicule them for passing a comment, they'll stop asking me to think. That'll be a winner.

[Armchair Partisan]

Analysis of the hash tag gamer gate has established that 90% of all tweets in that hash tag are either positive or neutral towards gender issues. Based on the remaining 10% of tweets however the conclusion is drawn that this is about misogyny....of that 10%...20% is directed at companies or men.

[citation very strongly needed]

[Redistribute the Rep]

http://www.pcgamer.com/researchers-find-that-female-pc-gamers-outnumber-males/


Masochists, obv.

I don't know why you think this is a response to what I've said. I don't consider myself a masochist for playing games even though I have to put up with harassment. I simply enjoy some games that much, and other women do to apparently. This doesn't negate the fact that I've consistently experienced more misogyny in basically all of the various multiplayer games I've played than in my other day to day activities

[Culicarius]

you must be new here, there are people who will support about anything horrible
Oh, I know. I just frequent other places as well and have spent quite some time watching and occasonally participating in threads about gamergate and journals in ethics gaming, I thought revleft might be saved from the long drawn out gamergate threads, but alas.

[Invader Zim]

I don't know why you think this is a response to what I've said. I don't consider myself a masochist for playing games even though I have to put up with harassment. I simply enjoy some games that much, and other women do to apparently. This doesn't negate the fact that I've consistently experienced more misogyny in basically all of the various multiplayer games I've played than in my other day to day activities

You sound like my mother, around the turn of the millenium, when she first heard Eminem and promptly wrote off all music made after 1975.

Ever thought about picking and choosing servers and games? Gaming is a massive and diverse social space, and it is perfectly easy to find a corner of that space which speaks to you. I've been playing a lot of the new Elite Game, and have racked up about 80 hours before quitting - not because of abusive assholes but because I'm shit at the game but it doesn't attract the audience of say a Call of Duty game. Or maybe starting your own server or picking one with codes of conduct? If you just join a random ones it is basically like going onto a random reddit thread and then promptly judging the entire internet. I used to get fed up with shitty behavior in games, and decided simply not to play on servers, particularly in FPS games, without codes of conduct because I can't be bothered with the bullshit that goes with them.

Yes, there is a problem with reactionary shit in games, but that is reflective not of gaming but of internet culture and indeed culture, period.

[Invader Zim]

Oh, I know. I just frequent other places as well and have spent quite some time watching and occasonally participating in threads about gamergate and journals in ethics gaming, I thought revleft might be saved from the long drawn out gamergate threads, but alas.

Well, might I suggest you try any one of the other 181,669 threads on Revleft rather than participate in a discussion on a topic that you don't like? Just a thought.

[PhoenixAsh]

So are we interested in discussing what some individuals say and are we done LARP-ing we are revolutionary socialists or are we in fact revolutionary socialists trying to explain, find solutions for, and create alternatives based on Marxist and Anarchist methodology of economist and social analysis and class perspective?

Because so far we have a handful of people on both sides actually interested in comprehensive debate and a shit load of people who apparently just want to gawk at shit people say...and take the liberal position of blaming the individual for societies wrongs....and if only people weren't such bigots the world would be so much more prettier.

But I get it...racism is the fault of racists, sexism is the fault of gamers...etc. No more analysis needed...because they are not an inherent part of the system...

[PhoenixAsh]

[citation very strongly needed]

Graph from the same research that concluded that gamer gate is about harassing women by analyzing 25% of the posts in the hash tag

http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embedded_full/public/2014/10/24/sentimenttotalpercent.jpg?itok=dQ1LTKkZ

This graph does not actually support that conclusion. Less than 10% is negative...the rest is either neutral or positive. That said...less than 10% is positive as well.

[PhoenixAsh]

It doesn't seem absurd to people who have tried playing games while being female


This.

'Gamers' are not a monolithic/ distinct subculture. True you do get your cesspools of reaction and misogyny - America's Army, Call of Duty, first-person shooters in general, etc. But the average Call of Duty fan and the average Legend of Zelda fan tend to have little in common except for the fact that they both play video games...

The funny thing is that way before GG and way before Zoe Quinn there was a huge controversy about X-box life and how that was a cesspool of hate. Now I have never experienced anything of the sort on the PS systems in COD, BF and the many games I played online. Nor have I ever encountered that when I played X-box. That does not mean I didn't encounter it...but I never encountered like that was made out to be and never experienced more of it than in any other public activity and to this day the most misogynist space I have ever frequented is the men's locker room in my gym....and that isn't even especially virulent compared to MTV (even after the bleeps and censorship).

And when something resembling it was encountered this was most of the time kids in the age range of 10-15 years old. Usually directly negatively reacted to by other players in an attempt to shut them up. When I DID encounter sexism it was usually of a far different variety than slurs, threads, sexual innuendo and derogatory language and resembled white knighting and guys trying to fit the male female stereotypes of being protective, overly nice and flirtatious....that I encountered plenty...but again not more than in an average bar, disco or club.

So it seems that the individual experiences vary...which is NOT to say that individual experiences aren't true!! (just adding that so it isn't misunderstood)...

But whether or not there is sexism on the internet is not the basis for GG. Yes there is. Is there misogyny...yes there is. The real question is where does the misogyny really come from, is this the origin of gamer gate and what contributed to the escalation and what is the role of the industry and its exploitation.

[#FF0000]

It is pitiful that so many people seem to think that this all originated overnight because gamers hate women.

Nobody in this thread thinks that though. You just came into the thread without reading it and kept repeating this. Of course GG didn't happen solely because some people decided "yeah we don't like women" and logged into twitter -- but the misogyny can't be downplayed just because there were other factors (a point which nobody ever denied and which I even acknowledged because, well, duh). It'd be like saying someone's being "reductionist" for pointing out the racist character of, say, the Tea Party in the US, which was born out of the same conditions and found popular support for some of the same reasons Occupy did, but was shot through with nativism, xenophobia, and deep-seated conservatism from the very start.

What you're saying isn't new information for anyone. What I'm saying though, is that gamergate is more about politics than consumer protection, which is evident from who they attack (indie devs with "SJW" politics, blogs with "SJW" politics, youtube personalities with "SJW" politics, academic video game research associations w/ feminists) and who they support (indie devs with anti-"SJW" politics, blogs with anti-"SJW" politics, youtube personalities with anti-"SJW" politics).

[#FF0000]

(lol this thread's got 3,000 views in less than a week)

[Invader Zim]

Of course GG didn't happen solely because some people decided "yeah we don't like women" and logged into twitter ... a point which nobody ever denied
Placenta Cream called me a misogynist for saying nothing more than what you just wrote. I think that counts as denial.

Edit: Ha, Placenta Cream thanked your post, the central tenet of which their daft posts disprove. Irony.

[Counterculturalist]

It'd be like saying someone's being "reductionist" for pointing out the racist character of, say, the Tea Party in the US, which was born out of the same conditions and found popular support for some of the same reasons Occupy did, but was shot through with nativism, xenophobia, and deep-seated conservatism from the very start.


In fact, we can draw a parallel between the Tea Party and Gamergate. The Tea Party was largely sparked by the election of a black president, while gg was sparked by outrage over a woman's sex life (and maybe, depending on who you ask, speculation that she was trading sex for advancement in the industry.)

Both became causes that reactionary bigots rallied around because the anger they provoked was steeped in reactionary and bigoted assumptions: that a black president is unacceptable, or that a promiscuous woman is unacceptable.

Is this oversimplified and reductionist? Yes, to drive the point home. But ignoring the reactionary origins of these trends is straight-up revisionism. Which is why it isn't surprising that gamergate became a rallying cry for misogynistic bigots.

This isn't to tar gamers in general as reactionary, but to help explain the attraction of gamergate to the more reactionary elements within the gaming culture.

[PhoenixAsh]

Nobody in this thread thinks that though. You just came into the thread without reading it and kept repeating this.

Perhaps you should read the thread again because apparently we are reading different things....I can quote seven posts from the first half of page 1 alone alleging this and writing it off as purely misogynist in nature...including a post of your own....and that is excluding the people calling IZ misogynist and ask for him to be restricted.

So yeah. I read the thread...just not selectively.


Of course GG didn't happen solely because some people decided "yeah we don't like women" and logged into twitter -- but the misogyny can't be downplayed just because there were other factors (a point which nobody ever denied and which I even acknowledged because, well, duh).

No it can't; but on the other hand it should also not be up-scaled and hyped....because not only did it not originate in misogyny it is also not the leading motivation behind it.


It'd be like saying someone's being "reductionist" for pointing out the racist character of, say, the Tea Party in the US, which was born out of the same conditions and found popular support for some of the same reasons Occupy did, but was shot through with nativism, xenophobia, and deep-seated conservatism from the very start.

Nor is racism the defining characteristic of the Tea-Party nor is it born from racism...and would somebody do so THEN it would most definitely be reductionist.


What you're saying isn't new information for anyone.

Really? Because it certainly does seem so based on the majority of posts in this thread the defining characteristic is misogyny and only misogyny and rejecting all the other influences and in fact, the more than dubious role the leading characters played in escalating it.


What I'm saying though, is that gamergate is more about politics than consumer protection,
which is evident from who they attack (indie devs with "SJW" politics, blogs with "SJW" politics, youtube personalities with "SJW" politics, academic video game research associations w/ feminists) and who they support (indie devs with anti-"SJW" politics, blogs with anti-"SJW" politics, youtube personalities with anti-"SJW" politics).

That we agree on...the part about consumer protection.

I see gamer gate however as an economic tool used on both sides to protect industry interests. And exploited by devs based on economic factors from the start...and the start of this whole debacle was attacking several devs (male and female) who self admittedly exploited the controversy for economic gain...like fe. Phil Fish and Zoe Quinn. Who...other than the persona they try to portray were also active in shutting down equal opportunity and inclusiveness activities in order to hype their own events.

Now...I am not sure what an SJW actually is...but it sounds thoroughly liberal and I oppose them on principle.

Seriously though...I also strongly disagree with your argument that they operate this black and white...seeing as the multi faceted support for anti racist organizations, inclusiveness campaigns (like TFYC fe.) etc. It isn't that clear cut.

[cyu]

Is #notallmen similar to #notallgamers?

[BIXX]

It might not seem clear cut to you but it is.

GG is misogynist, defending any aspect of it is misogynist.

[PhoenixAsh]

Is #notallmen similar to #notallgamers?

I am not sure...why don't you ask Zoe Quinn & Wu who both now claim these are merely fringe elements not representative of the gaming community?

[cyu]

I'm fairly sure rapists don't represent me. #notallmen <- Is that sarcasm?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy can be applied to so many political arguments it's not even funny - well, maybe it is funny :laugh:

[PhoenixAsh]

I'm fairly sure rapists don't represent me. #notallmen <- Is that sarcasm?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy can be applied to so many political arguments it's not even funny - well, maybe it is funny :laugh:

That fallacy is liberally applied here by associating GG with the gaming community....as well as in the GG debates by the opponents of GG.

So I am not really sure what you are trying to say here...except that what you seem to be saying is an association fallacy in and of itself.

[Invader Zim]

GG is misogynist, defending any aspect of it is misogynist.

We are having a discussion about the central premise and there is no 'defence' of misogny in this thread.

Oh, and:

Rap music is homophobic, defending any aspect of it is homophobic.
Cinema is sexist, defending any aspect of it is sexist.
Marx was racist, defending any aspect of Marx is racist.

[cyu]

The point is simply that it is widely used in politics.

Person X is bad, therefore we should exterminate his ethnic group.
Person X is dumb, therefore everyone from that gender is dumb.
Person X is popular in movies, therefore he would make a good president.
Person X killed person Y, therefore the group that contains X is at war with the group that contains Y.

[#FF0000]

Perhaps you should read the thread again because apparently we are reading different things....I can quote seven posts from the first half of page 1 alone alleging this and writing it off as purely misogynist in nature...including a post of your own....and that is excluding the people calling IZ misogynist and ask for him to be restricted.

Go ahead then, because I just looked and all I can see is that people are saying that misogyny is rampant in Gamergate, which is true.


No it can't; but on the other hand it should also not be up-scaled and hyped....because not only did it not originate in misogyny it is also not the leading motivation behind it. The idea that it didn't originate in misogyny only works if you believe that gamergate existed before the Zoe Quinn "scandal", which is flatly untrue. Sure, the attitude that gaming journalism was bought and paid for and was far too cozy with developers existed beforehand, but also in the mix was the idea that feminists and other so-called "SJWs" were injecting politics into gaming and ruining it for "gamers". That was present in the rhetoric from the very beginning. Again, gamergate is not just a consumer revolt -- it's an explicitly political movement of a radical right wing and anti-egalitarian character.


Really? Because it certainly does seem so based on the majority of posts in this thread the defining characteristic is misogyny and only misogyny and rejecting all the other influences and in fact, the more than dubious role the leading characters played in escalating it. Because the defining characteristic is misogyny, and it's evident in the movement's own rhetoric.


I see gamer gate however as an economic tool used on both sides to protect industry interests. And exploited by devs based on economic factors from the start...and the start of this whole debacle was attacking several devs (male and female) who self admittedly exploited the controversy for economic gain...like fe. Phil Fish and Zoe Quinn. Who...other than the persona they try to portray were also active in shutting down equal opportunity and inclusiveness activities in order to hype their own events. I wonder why you don't also apply this same standard to pro-GG people, who are every bit as opportunist in this as the folks you think are on the other side. For example, Milo and every hack from Breitbart, many of whom were making fun of people who play video games just weeks before latching onto the thing.


Now...I am not sure what an SJW actually is...but it sounds thoroughly liberal and I oppose them on principle.
"I don't know what this means, but it sounds bad so I don't like it. By the way, did I mention you're being reductionist?"

'SJW', for the record, is a political slur like "stalinist". It can be used to describe anyone with left-leaning politics, but is most often used against people who talk explicitly about anti-racism and anti-sexism.


Seriously though...I also strongly disagree with your argument that they operate this black and white...seeing as the multi faceted support for anti racist organizations, inclusiveness campaigns (like TFYC fe.) etc. It isn't that clear cut.Frankly if you think the support for these things is in good faith, you're just too naive for politics. I know folks in the American Third Position who are active in overtly racist skinhead groups who support black conservative politicians like Ben Carson and Allan West -- I suppose that means the American fascist movement is more multi-faceted than we give them credit for too.

And, for what it's worth, The Fine Young Capitalists were also involved in a minor scandal over their rules, which excluded transwomen from participating in their event.

[#FF0000]

That fallacy is liberally applied here by associating GG with the gaming community....as well as in the GG debates by the opponents of GG.

No it hasn't, because the people involved have stressed multiple times that GG is a subset of the video game community/video game culture.

I think video game culture is a cesspit for reasons beyond politics, which I also said earlier in this thread.

[Invader Zim]

The Fine Young Capitalists were also involved in a minor scandal over their rules, which excluded transwomen from participating in their thing.

Their trans policy was that participants were eligable "as long as they have transitioned before the start of the contest". Would an email requesting a change/clarrification, as opposed to a campaign to kill the entire project (complete with doxxing, harrassment and death threats), not have sufficed?

The other allegation was that the women who participated would see no fiancial remuneration for their efforts, which was a charge completely without merit.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

'SJW', for the record, is a political slur like "stalinist". It can be used to describe anyone with left-leaning politics, but is most often used against people who talk explicitly about anti-racism and anti-sexism.

Yeah, so, I pretty much stopped commenting on this thread because I don't want to be seen as defending #gamergate or whatever (I wonder if any myrmecologists are angry at the tag), but I don't really think this is true. "SJW" refers to a specific subset of internet liberals, mostly associated with sites like tumblr, influenced mostly by privilege and intersectionality theory but pretty much off the deep end. People who specifically label themselves "anti-sjw" tend to be reactionaries, but this does not mean people who call themselves "SJWs" or are called that derisively are off the hook for what are often deeply problematic positions (including the defense of whatever internet troll fad - including transphobic mockery like 'otherkin' - as long as it sounds vaguely progressive).

[cyu]

If a gamer does something getting negative attention, do you feel the need to defend him because you are a gamer?

If someone from your ethnic group, gender, or political party is getting negative attention, do you feel the need to defend them because you are afraid of guilt by association?

If a police officer killed someone under questionable circumstances, do you feel the need to defend him because you are a former police officer?

Maybe I just need to check my anarchist privilege - if an anarchist did something "negative" it's not like he was going to listen to me anyway :lol:

[#FF0000]

Yeah, so, I pretty much stopped commenting on this thread because I don't want to be seen as defending #gamergate or whatever (I wonder if any myrmecologists are angry at the tag), but I don't really think this is true. "SJW" refers to a specific subset of internet liberals, mostly associated with sites like tumblr, influenced mostly by privilege and intersectionality theory but pretty much off the deep end. People who specifically label themselves "anti-sjw" tend to be reactionaries, but this does not mean people who call themselves "SJWs" or are called that derisively are off the hook for what are often deeply problematic positions (including the defense of whatever internet troll fad - including transphobic mockery like 'otherkin' - as long as it sounds vaguely progressive).

That's what it used to mean before it became popular with the Reddit/4chan milieu -- angry internet liberals who are more passionate than knowledgeable (similar to, I guess "keyboard warriors"), but that isn't quite how it's used anymore. I know a lot of folks who are feminists, but not liberal feminists, who get attacked as "SJWs". I've been called an SJW in the past for being a communist.


Their trans policy was that participants were eligable "as long as they have transitioned before the start of the contest". Would an email requesting a change/clarrification, as opposed to a campaign to kill the entire project (complete with doxxing, harrassment and death threats), not have sufficed?"Transitioned" how? Surgery? Hormones? Does just coming out as trans count as transitioning? See, that can still very easily be seen as transphobic. I didn't bring this up to argue some more stupid minutiae here, but I wanted to point out that Phoenix Ash is bringing up a lot of issues that are sticky and confusing in their own right, while presenting one side's version of the scandal as if it's a simple fact.

[BIXX]

We are having a discussion about the central premise and there is no 'defence' of misogny in this thread.

Oh, and:

Rap music is homophobic, defending any aspect of it is homophobic.
Cinema is sexist, defending any aspect of it is sexist.
Marx was racist, defending any aspect of Marx is racist.

I didn't say gamers are sexist, defending them is sexist. I said GG is. There is a difference despite how terrible gamers are.

[PhoenixAsh]

Go ahead then, because I just looked and all I can see is that people are saying that misogyny is rampant in Gamergate, which is true.

Look again. And maybe just a few posts up...



The idea that it didn't originate in misogyny only works if you believe that gamergate existed before the Zoe Quinn "scandal", which is flatly untrue.

The hash tag did not exist but every aspect of that hash tag did exist. So no. And the events leading up to the creation of the hash tag are in hfact a vital part of the hash tag.


Sure, the attitude that gaming journalism was bought and paid for and was far too cozy with developers existed beforehand, but also in the mix was the idea that feminists and other so-called "SJWs" were injecting politics into gaming and ruining it for "gamers". That was present in the rhetoric from the very beginning. Again, gamergate is not just a consumer revolt -- it's an explicitly political movement of a radical right wing and anti-egalitarian character.

I am not saying it is a consumer revolt. As a point of fact in one of my first posts I clearly stated that GG as a hash tag has little to do with the gaming community. What I did say is that it developed from a widening gap between the gaming community and the industry and a deeper underlying economic issue.

In point of fact I repeatedly called GG a hyped event and non-issue that basically would never have existed if it wasn't for the economic agenda's of some people actively trying to bank on obscure internet debates.

Yet here we are...umpth posts further and people still make this about the gaming community.

Sure you do not want to see it....but yeah.


Because the defining characteristic is misogyny, and it's evident in the movement's own rhetoric.

No, it really isn't. So here we are. Using the same research data to substantiate our claims.



I wonder why you don't also apply this same standard to pro-GG people

I am not? Because as a matter of fact I have repeatedly said that both sides were played and hijacked.

Maybe you should read the thread?


, who are every bit as opportunist in this as the folks you think are on the other side. For example, Milo and every hack from Breitbart, many of whom were making fun of people who play video games just weeks before latching onto the thing.

I do not disagree. As was Zoe Quinn who during the Wizardchan debate openly bragged about how she wrote a program to automatically change the word "gamer" into something like little assholes...I don't remember the exact words. Hey...even somebody from the gaming industry posted that "nerds should be discriminated again...and bullying should be brought back" as an anti-GG post.

And that is my point. Neither side here is clean. The whole issue is a hyped, exploited and hijacked.


"I don't know what this means, but it sounds bad so I don't like it. By the way, did I mention you're being reductionist?"

'SJW', for the record, is a political slur like "stalinist". It can be used to describe anyone with left-leaning politics, but is most often used against people who talk explicitly about anti-racism and anti-sexism.

I know what the term means but it isn't a well defined one. It is most often used against liberals and identity politics.

And for the record...I don't like Stalinists either.


Frankly if you think the support for these things is in good faith, you're just too naive for politics. I know folks in the American Third Position who are active in overtly racist skinhead groups who support black conservative politicians like Ben Carson and Allan West -- I suppose that means the American fascist movement is more multi-faceted than we give them credit for too.

I think your argument is beyond ridiculous...and along the same lines as your dismissive attitude towards the facts mentioned earlier about pro-GG men and women being threatened, hacked, doxxed and harassed and receiving rape threats.


And, for what it's worth, The Fine Young Capitalists were also involved in a minor scandal over their rules, which excluded transwomen from participating in their event.

Actually no...the terms were: "anybody who identified as a woman before the <date of competition>" that did not exclude transwomen

But yes...hooray for mentioning the lies and slander that were used by...tada...Zoe Quinn to shut down the initiative and were totally disproven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fine_Young_Capitalists

[PhoenixAsh]

If a gamer does something getting negative attention, do you feel the need to defend him because you are a gamer?

If someone from your ethnic group, gender, or political party is getting negative attention, do you feel the need to defend them because you are afraid of guilt by association?

If a police officer killed someone under questionable circumstances, do you feel the need to defend him because you are a former police officer?

Maybe I just need to check my anarchist privilege - if an anarchist did something "negative" it's not like he was going to listen to me anyway :lol:

Maybe the subtlety was lost and I tried to hard to sound nice about it but I was actually calling you a hypocrite in my previous post applying a double standard.

[PhoenixAsh]

"Transitioned" how? Surgery? Hormones? Does just coming out as trans count as transitioning? See, that can still very easily be seen as transphobic. I didn't bring this up to argue some more stupid minutiae here, but I wanted to point out that Phoenix Ash is bringing up a lot of issues that are sticky and confusing in their own right, while presenting one side's version of the scandal as if it's a simple fact.

Yes coming out as trans before the contest date was considered transitioning.

What you managed to produce however was something that was already very clearly explained in both the published rules and was debunked several times which did not lead Zoe Quinn to actually stop her claims of trans phobia. So what you brought up was a fictitious fabrication by Zoe Quinn while trying to promote her own event.

But the question is this...even if the organization was excluding trans women...would that justify shutting down a project aimed at getting more women included in gaming which is supposedly a stated goal of Zoe Quinn? Or should she have considered trying to influence the organization to be trans inclusive?

[cyu]

Just because I accuse one side of falling prey to association fallacies, doesn't mean I don't think all sides fall prey to association fallacies.

In fact, if humanity were finally cured of association fallacies, much of modern politics would probably disappear.

[PhoenixAsh]

I didn't say gamers are sexist, defending them is sexist. I said GG is. There is a difference despite how terrible gamers are.

That doesn't actually address the argument nor make the argument of IZ against your claim any less valid.

Your claim is that GG is misogynist...not just sexist...misogynist (there is a difference)...you collectively ascribe every member of a fluid amorphous ever changing group of people with no central platform and consisting of various groups and subsets as a common label.

Your further premise based on your extensive previous contributions in this thread is that saying that gamer gate is a lot more complex and that parts of the movement touch legitimate concerns is in your eyes defending GG and therefore misogynist.

"Rap music is also sexist and misogynist" is the exact same application of a label based on the actions of a large and extensive subsection of the genre as you just did. Defending any part of the label rap music and saying that rap music is a little more diverse and complex than is therefore by the same application of your previously stated logic...misogynist.

[#FF0000]

Look again. And maybe just a few posts up...

I've looked again. Please, quote them yourself.


The hash tag did not exist but every aspect of that hash tag did exist. So no. And the events leading up to the creation of the hash tag are in hfact a vital part of the hash tag.

Yes, which is why it's fair to say that gamergate has its roots in online misogyny.


I am not saying it is a consumer revolt. As a point of fact in one of my first posts I clearly stated that GG as a hash tag has little to do with the gaming community. What I did say is that it developed from a widening gap between the gaming community and the industry and a deeper underlying economic issue.

In point of fact I repeatedly called GG a hyped event and non-issue that basically would never have existed if it wasn't for the economic agenda's of some people actively trying to bank on obscure internet debates.

The thing is, it isn't fair to act as if both sides are equal in this. Quinn was targeted for harassment at the very beginning of this and had no control over it whatsoever. Gamergate also targeted blogs they didn't like by e-mailing their sponsors and threatening their advertising, and it was actually a pretty bad thing for some of these sites for at least a short time, when readership plummeted at places like RPS and Kotaku (oh well). Your hypothesis that it's a thing that's benefiting "both sides" is, at best, faulty, and at worst, victim-blaming when we're talking about people who were harassed and stalked. Obviously this is happening both ways, but the difference is that "Anti-gamergate" isn't an organized movement, whereas Gamergate is, loosely though it may be.


No, it really isn't. So here we are. Using the same research data to substantiate our claims.


lol "research data".

Yo like I said, you can go to 8chan or the gamergate board on Reddit (KotakuInAction) and the first posts are all about SJWs and donating to the legal fund for Quinn's ex-boyfriend. I have a friend who works with DiGRA and they get bombarded on twitter all the time by people who are going on about SJWs and Feminists and all that. It's so blatant and surface level that you have to delude yourself to not see it.


I know what the term means but it isn't a well defined one. It is most often used against liberals and identity politics.

It's used against anyone left-of-center, because, just like social democrats who call every communist a "stalinist", the folks who use political slurs generally aren't sophisticated to know the difference between a liberal, radical, or marxist feminist. To most of them, they're all "radical feminists".


I think your argument is beyond ridiculous...and along the same lines as your dismissive attitude towards the facts mentioned earlier about pro-GG men and women being threatened, hacked, doxxed and harassed and receiving rape threats.

I was never dismissive, because I never even talked about the harassment beyond the initial harassment of Zoe Quinn at the genesis of gamergate. I avoided it specifically because it devolves into tu quoque bullshit where everyone is absolutely scandalized that it happened to their side, but don't care when it happens to the other. You and IZ are guilty of it just as much as anyone defending Quinn is, for the record. I don't think anyone involved, (including you and Zim) actually care about the threats. You don't really care about the threats against GG people because they give you an excuse to downplay or ignore the threats against folks like Quinn and Wu, who you see as people who are cynically exploiting the situation for personal gain, and who aren't actually affected by the harassment anyway.

[Invader Zim]

Quinn was targeted for harassment at the very beginning of this and had no control over it whatsoever.

Again, the issue regarding Zoe Quinn was not the 'start' of this, as I've already said, she was at the "start" of this in the same way that that Gavrilo Princip was at the start of the First World War. We've been over this, you were wrong then, what do you think has changed over the last couple of days?

Edit: Actually, the Gleiwitz incident is a better historical analogy.


I avoided it specifically because it devolves into tu quoque bullshit where everyone is absolutely scandalized that it happened to their side, but don't care when it happens to the other. You and IZ are guilty of it just as much as anyone defending Quinn is, for the record.

Me from my very first post:

"Meanwhile, a significant and vocal collection of morons within the gaming world used it as an opportunity to troll [specifically a reference to the harrassment campaign]."

So, in a word: No.

I don't have a side, unless arguing for accuracy and recognising complexity is a 'side'. In which case, guilty as chared. I'd rather be branded as a misogynist by morons than actually be a moron and leave their moronic nonsense unchecked (which isn't you by the way; I disagree with only some, and by no means most, of what you've said in this thread).

[#FF0000]

Again, the issue regarding Zoe Quinn was not the 'start' of this, as I've already said, she was at the "start" of this in the same way that that Gavrilo Princip was at the start of the First World War. We've been over this, you were wrong then, what do you think has changed over the last couple of days?

I think I agree w/ that analogy but I don't see how it makes me wrong. That controversy almost immediately evolved into gamergate. IIRC Alec Baldwin came up with the hashtag a week (if not days) after the "quinnspiracy" started. They used the same IRC channels and everything.

[#FF0000]

Edit: Actually, the Gleiwitz incident is a better historical analogy. lmfao what

[Invader Zim]

lmfao what

The Gleiwitz incidentwas a false flag attack on a German weather station, a device (Edit: the incident, not the weather station - I just saw how that read), staged by the Nazis, to "justify" invading Poland. Ignore the false flag part of it (I don't buy into any of the GG conspiracy theory shit), but the important thing to remember is that large parts of what we think of the Second World War were already being fought and had been for years - that's my point.

[Invader Zim]

I think I agree w/ that analogy but I don't see how it makes me wrong. That controversy almost immediately evolved into gamergate. IIRC Alec Baldwin came up with the hashtag a week (if not days) after the "quinnspiracy" started. They used the same IRC channels and everything.

Yeah, but this was just an extention of what had been happening for years. An example: The Feminist Frequency nonsense, in which the exact same lunacy occurred. Sarkeesian and McIntosh posted their call for money, they were trolled and viciously harrassed, Sarkeesian in particular as the figurehead - and yeas because she is a woman - and then that promptly drowned out the myriad of legitimate criticisms of their appauling and methodologically bunkum videos.

A disclaimer on that: Her fundermental point is right. Game developersa do need a massive kick up the ass (as does every medium of the arts/entertainment industry) to make better and more inclusive art - so fair play on that level. But the video game industry needs better critical discourse than feminist frequency has to offer - which is literally nothing but comfirmation bias masquerading as academic research and actually does a massive dis-service to a hugely precient issue. There were plenty of verygood online discussions and critiques (not thunderf00ts) which made the same point I'm making, but were utterly ignored. Everything waqs just reduced to manchild gamers harrass a woman. The annoying thing about that is, as I've just said, I completely agree with her central message, but think that the pair of them are basically third rate, with a sophomoric grasp of the issues they are trying to discuss, who have set back the entire enterprise because and sexist asshole can pull their shit to pieces without actually having to think. Meanwhile, interested neutral parties will just take one look and conclude bullshit.

[PhoenixAsh]

The thing is, it isn't fair to act as if both sides are equal in this. Quinn was targeted for harassment at the very beginning of this and had no control over it whatsoever.

Two things:

1). She was very actively escalating an obscure debate. So I don't agree.
2). That doesn't justify harassment.



Gamergate also targeted blogs they didn't like by e-mailing their sponsors and threatening their advertising, and it was actually a pretty bad thing for some of these sites for at least a short time, when readership plummeted at places like RPS and Kotaku (oh well). Your hypothesis that it's a thing that's benefiting "both sides" is, at best, faulty, and at worst, victim-blaming when we're talking about people who were harassed and stalked. Obviously this is happening both ways, but the difference is that "Anti-gamergate" isn't an organized movement, whereas Gamergate is, loosely though it may be.

Where have I said that both sides benefited? I specifically said it benefited some individuals and some organizations that exploited the controversies for personal gain.

And are you really suggesting that gamer gate is an organized movement in the face of the entire press and university study groups devoted to it and basically everybody involved on both sides claiming it isn't? Because: LOL


lol "research data".

Yo like I said, you can go to 8chan or the gamergate board on Reddit (KotakuInAction) and the first posts are all about SJWs and donating to the legal fund for Quinn's ex-boyfriend. I have a friend who works with DiGRA and they get bombarded on twitter all the time by people who are going on about SJWs and Feminists and all that. It's so blatant and surface level that you have to delude yourself to not see it.

Uhuh. Very interesting. I know a female feminist who is pro gamer gate and received numerous rape threats as well as frequenting some blogs that called for direct action against people belonging to the pro-GG group. Shall we swap stories?


It's used against anyone left-of-center, because, just like social democrats who call every communist a "stalinist", the folks who use political slurs generally aren't sophisticated to know the difference between a liberal, radical, or marxist feminist. To most of them, they're all "radical feminists".


Actually that isn't true and usually they reserve the term Marxists and Stalinists for anything that is social democrat. Everything liberal is called SJW and as far as I encountered the term in the last few years on places like 4chan, 8chan and a whole slew of other chans...the description xhar Xhar gave was mostly resembling how it is used.


I was never dismissive, because I never even talked about the harassment beyond the initial harassment of Zoe Quinn at the genesis of gamergate. I avoided it specifically because it devolves into tu quoque bullshit where everyone is absolutely scandalized that it happened to their side, but don't care when it happens to the other. You and IZ are guilty of it just as much as anyone defending Quinn is, for the record. I don't think anyone involved, (including you and Zim) actually care about the threats.

You can't get much more dismissive than completely ignoring it while pointing towards that as the primary focus point of your criticism of another group....now can you? And personally I find that position to be beyond hypocritical of you when you frequently mention those kind of attacks as the basis of your own position?

It is part of the argument both IZ and I make about how the reporting on the GG issue is one sided and serves a specific agenda as part of the hyping of it....leaving out equally rampant misogyny and equally base actions from one side while focusing on those of the other side detracts from understanding the nature of the debates and leaves a wrong analysis based on subjective labeling within a moralist spectrum of good vs evil.

How can you try and claim to understand what is going on if you purposefully tell one side of the story yourself?


You don't really care about the threats against GG people because they give you an excuse to downplay or ignore the threats against folks like Quinn and Wu, who you see as people who are cynically exploiting the situation for personal gain, and who aren't actually affected by the harassment anyway.

Let me correct you on that: I don't care about threats to anybody equally.

But between you and me...I mentioned the threats on both sides and saying that there is no good side here. You on the other hand just admitted to completely consciously ignoring threats made against women from one side while using the threats made to another side to trump up your own position.

Now...given that little fact I don't think you are in a position to actually make the vile and base allegation you are making here...

But as for Zoe Quinn...yes...she did say herself in twitter before GG that she used the debate to garner interest for her game and used it. And Phil Fish specifically mentioned at the start of his tirade against the Blain tweet that he had economic motives.

But yeah...I am the asshole for mentioning that nobody is clean and the situation is a little more complex than mere misogyny and that GG originates in deep rooted and long standing issues about economics within the industry itself. Hooray!

You on the other hand... against all your previous claims still focus on what you claimed you weren't focusing on. Bravo!

[#FF0000]

Yeah, but this was just an extention of what had been happening for years.

I agree on some level, but I think it's muddying the waters to rope that all in as part of gamergate.


A disclaimer on that: Her fundermental point is right. Game developersa do need a kick up the ass (as does every medium of the arts/entertainment industry) to make better and more inclusive art. But the video game industry needs better critical discourse than feminist frequency has to offer - which is literally nothing but comfirmation bias masquerading as academic research and actually does a massive dis-service to a hugely precient issue.

I kind of agree here but I don't think Feminist Frequency is really trying to be "academic research" anymore than something like Bill Nye The Science Guy is.

[Invader Zim]

I agree on some level, but I think it's muddying the waters to rope that all in as part of gamergate.

Maybe. But I'm paid to muddy waters and look back to origins beyond origins, and I can't turn it off nor would I want to. So, I guess we're at an impasse on that one. Yeah, before anyone asks, my partner hates it. ;)




I kind of agree here but I don't think Feminist Frequency is really trying to be "academic research" anymore than something like Bill Nye The Science Guy is.Well, they presents themselves in that framework, sells themselves in that framework, and utilised the language and style of that framework. I agree that they aren't actually trying to do actual academic work, its really fucking difficult and boring to do it properly; it annoys me that they are pretending to have done it.

[PhoenixAsh]

I think I agree w/ that analogy but I don't see how it makes me wrong. That controversy almost immediately evolved into gamergate. IIRC Alec Baldwin came up with the hashtag a week (if not days) after the "quinnspiracy" started. They used the same IRC channels and everything.

The Wizardchan issue was in December 2013.
WC defended on april 2014. This was prior to the release of DQ which was released in august 2014 (11th).

Gjoni posted in august 16th of that year.

On the 17th that same date tumbler posted a series of screenshots providing evidence Quinn faked the allegations against WC.

On the exact same day Escapist Magazine posted a critical post about Zoe Quinn using the death of Robin Williams as a means to market her game.

On the 17th (again) Phil Fish ranted against people critical of DQ and Zoe Quinn calling them rapists.

On the 18th the Five Guys Burger Fries video was posted.

On the 19th the Spectacular Spider Girl posted evidence the hacking and doxing claims by Quinn were fake and no actual personal info was released

The 19th TFYC released their statement about the events previously in that year regarding he TYFC and Rebel Jam controversy.

On the 19th TotalBisquit posted his tweet about the DMCA take down of the video based on using the DQ game cover as background

On the 19th Phil Fish went ballistic...because that is what happened.

On the 20th Kotaku responded to the Grayson claims.

On the 27th Alec Baldwin

On the 28th TotalBisquit expanded on his tweet.


The controversy surrounding Quinn had been underway almost an entire year prior.

[cyu]

Going to attempt to derail the thread again ;)

First world problems - while game developers do often work themselves nearly to death, it is because they work under capitalism that failure for them can be disastrous for failing to succeed at something so trivial.

It comes down to what people and organizations consider to be wealth. Under capitalism, their goal is cash from their customers. This translates either to satisfying the whims of wealthy patrons, or trying to sell themselves to a larger number of slightly less wealthy suburbanites.

If instead of cash, they considered wealth to be stuff like farmland, construction equipment, and hospitals, then these companies would undergo a transition similar to national economies switching from relying on cash crop exports, to an economy based on satisfying domestic demand. The result is that you're no longer worry about whether random people like or even notice your products, you only have to worry about whether your own people will use what they're producing.

[Invader Zim]

The Wizardchan issue was in December 2013.
WC defended on april 2014. This was prior to the release of DQ which was released in august 2014 (11th).

Gjoni posted in august 16th of that year.

On the 17th that same date tumbler posted a series of screenshots providing evidence Quinn faked the allegations against WC.

On the exact same day Escapist Magazine posted a critical post about Zoe Quinn using the death of Robin Williams as a means to market her game.

On the 17th (again) Phil Fish ranted against people critical of DQ and Zoe Quinn calling them rapists.

On the 18th the Five Guys Burger Fries video was posted.

On the 19th the Spectacular Spider Girl posted evidence the hacking and doxing claims by Quinn were fake and no actual personal info was released

The 19th TFYC released their statement about the events previously in that year regarding he TYFC and Rebel Jam controversy.

On the 19th TotalBisquit posted his tweet about the DMCA take down of the video based on using the DQ game cover as background

On the 19th Phil Fish went ballistic...because that is what happened.

On the 20th Kotaku responded to the Grayson claims.

On the 27th Alec Baldwin

On the 28th TotalBisquit expanded on his tweet.


The controversy surrounding Quinn had been underway almost an entire year prior.


Not that I disagree - but let's get old school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNq6AAzDoJY

And then we can talk about Night Trap (1992).

[PhoenixAsh]

Not that I disagree - but let's get old school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNq6AAzDoJY

And then we can talk about Night Trap (1992).

Shameless product placement but admittedly three fun games.

And

lets.never.talk.about.that.game.again :glare: Worst game ever.

But as memory serves it was found to be sexist because people believed it was about trapping women instead of weird vampire like creatures plus there was a woman in night gown....and there were Senate hearings.

[Invader Zim]

lets.never.talk.about.that.game.again :glare: Worst game ever.

Wrong. It was indeed a rubbish game; terrible even. But still wrong:

http://www.blondenerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/beat-em-eat-em.jpg
Beat 'em and Eat 'em (1982)

Though it would be easy to point to the dreadful and utterly unethical Holocaust 'simulator' games which came out of the same kind of British/EU homebrew revolution of the 80s.


But as memory serves it was found to be sexist because people believed it was about trapping women instead of weird vampire like creatures plus there was a woman in night gown....and there were Senate hearings.

Basically. But my point being that media generated moral panics about gamers/games being hell bent on destroying the fabric of society are nothing new. And neither are people who actually play games being subjected to amateurish psychological profiling who respond badly, and often counter-productively, to anything new either. Much of this is what pushed gaming from the arcade to "mom's basement". Like I said, gamergate is the manifestation of decades of bullshit. And you (not personally, of course) can't understand GG without understanding the bullshit. That doesn't exuse any of it, but does help explain the phenomenon we saw.

[Culicarius]

Well, might I suggest you try any one of the other 181,669 threads on Revleft rather than participate in a discussion on a topic that you don't like? Just a thought.
Not participating, more like making a casual comment while also subscribing myself to the thread.

By all means carry on.

[L.A.P.]

Invader Zim and PhoeixAsh: the GamerGate Left

[Invader Zim]

Invader Zim and PhoeixAsh: the GamerGate Left

No.

Next.

[PhoenixAsh]

The central driving force behind GG (on both sides) is imo mistrust brewing for years and even decades based on market manipulation, economic factors & interests and social factors including gender stereotypical hierarchy (both male vs male and male vs female), social stigma & feelings of (real and/or perceived) marginalization. In other words GG is an expression of capitalism and capitalist excesses. As such everything about GG is hijacked, hyped and influenced by groups with social and economic agenda's.

Misogyny is a factor in that spectrum but not it's defining characteristic and trying to make it purely about that ignores the trends, facts and tendences in both the game world, industry and does a great disservice to address the manifold issues that are at it's base.

I will expand this with regrouping arguments that I have mentioned in above posts later.

But one of the most telling aspects that has hugely been ignored is the rise of harassment across gender lines that was heavilly in the discourse years and weeks before #GG. This is an important fact which shows and indicates that gender plays a lot less significant role that is made out to be and that; while women do encounter gender specific insults like rape threats, comments about using sex, or being female that need to be addressed; the level of female harassment is a result of the level of general harassment of devs in general...

Another telling aspect is that within the GG issue gender specific threats like that and targeting occur on both sides with one being significantly under reported and ignored.

That does not excuse any of it nor does it downplay the effects and seriousness of them (because people apparently need disclaimers these days) but it shows that GG is a lot more complex than what it is made out to be.

[Fire]

I have a cadre of haters who stalk me across the internet. I'm pretty sick of it. They bully me for being a SJW and when I came out as trans this time last year, they bully me even more for that.

[BIXX]

So, two users in this thread have many times said at the very least questionable things about women. Both are tapping the line with their toes in regards to whether they want to openly support gamergate... And I know at least one of them has made women on this board feel uncomfortable. But I guess I would never criticize such upstanding members of the community.

This discussion can have only one conclusion that makes sense if you don't have a problem with women.

[Invader Zim]

Another drive by from Placenta Cream, without either political insight or even reference to anything that has been said in the thread. Which, aside from chit-chat style contentless crap, is basically symptomatic of virtually every post that they have made on this board in over two years.


So, two users in this thread have many times said at the very least questionable things about women. Both are tapping the line with their toes in regards to whether they want to openly support gamergate...

None of which is true, and is particularly rich from a person whose major contribution to the discussion is to utilise the term misogyny as a weapon with which to attempt to silence those with whom you disagree. The fact that you knowingly misuse the term in such a trivialising fashion, just to score points on the internet and derail discussion, and don't see why that is a problem, only serves to highlight your political apathy and complete lack of credentials to be on this board.

At least you're posting this shit in learning, which, quite frankly, is precisely where you belong.


And I know at least one of them has made women on this board feel uncomfortable.

Your terrible posts and non-existent politics make me uncomfortable.

[PhoenixAsh]

Placenta Cream's entire contribution to this thread:


Why even bother

Make the world a dangerous space- for him



Let's face it IZ has some misogynist leanings


None of what you said, IZ, shows that you aren't a misogynist. You've gone to some sort of lengths to try and deny that GG was misogynist in nature, where it ever so clearly was.


Lol I can't believe IZ is still trying to claim that he isn't a misogynist.


Just remember, at least you aren't the guy who hates women.


We should start a thread about the bright side of gamergate.

Gardens, weight loss, social interaction, going to college, eating at restaurants instead of going on your planned 7 day cheese-it binge, and hiking.


I play games, and used to play a lot more, and you're totally right.


It might not seem clear cut to you but it is.

GG is misogynist, defending any aspect of it is misogynist.


So, two users in this thread have many times said at the very least questionable things about women. Both are tapping the line with their toes in regards to whether they want to openly support gamergate... And I know at least one of them has made women on this board feel uncomfortable. But I guess I would never criticize such upstanding members of the community.

This discussion can have only one conclusion that makes sense if you don't have a problem with women.

Now tell me again how you are not trolling?

[PhoenixAsh]

And I know at least one of them has made women on this board feel uncomfortable.

Ironic that you are referring to that specific incident between me and a female member here....

Ironic because after the start of a debate about sexist gender role enforcing (on women) parts of her arguments she turned to whatsapp and calls to harass me that same evening IRL. I am sure it made her very uncomfortable when I called her out on that on the forum...

But yeah...I do make women feel uncomfortable sometimes...men too...

My...just yesterday I made a woman feel very uncomfortable during dinner with a group from the gym and mentioned that she not only had the highest female PR but also the highest overall PR on all core lifts in the gym by a landslide and was basically the strongest person at the table in response to the guy with the highest male PR in the gym claiming he was the strongest one. She was very uncomfortable about that.

And a week ago...I was at it as well...when I made a woman feel very uncomfortable for attacking her over her statement that black people are lazy and irresponsible by nature.

Never mind I made a guy very uncomfortable in the locker room when I complimented him on a tattoo....because it is naturally not about anything else or more complex than it may appear :roll eyes:

It seems to be a defining part of my personality...and it must definitely mean I have a problem with women though...and is of course a reflection of my misogynist nature. :roll eyes:

[Art Vandelay]

Now tell me again how you are not trolling?

I don't think PC is trolling, I think that's literally the level of contribution s/he is capable of making on this site. Anyone who takes even a cursory glance at his/her posting history, will see that s/he has racked up almost 2000 posts, doing exactly what s/he's done in this thread; as someone commented in the past, I don't think their politics are based on anything other than aesthetic and they consistently display a certain brand of anti-intellectualism. I don't know much about GG (and frankly don't care, I think video games are a bit of a waste of time, but to each their own), so I can't really comment much on the discussion at hand, but I certainly wouldn't take very seriously any usubstantiated accusations hurled by an open reactionary, whose politics have more in common with Ted Kaczynski than Karl Marx.

[willowtooth]

Have you ever been in a pub? Clearly not.

The idea that gaming attracts a profoundly reactionary type of person, and that you will see of hear wildly more reactionary or anti-social shit, be it content or quanitity, than in other social spaces, is absurd. yes, I have been in many bars before, but I've never before heard so much dramatically homophobic sexist language in any bar iv'e ever been to. Your either exaggerating or you should seriously rethink where you go to get drunk on Saturday nights. Saying gaming attracts reactionary types is just as accurate as saying competitive sports attracts reactionary types. The ideology of competitiveness drives you to common bigotry.


Shall I quote some popular music lyrics? Because I am nor seeing any widespread controversy being hashed out in the media about sexism and misogyny in music...or widespread internationally covered outrage over death threats towards feminists in that industry. But apparently the gamer world is especially misogynistic rather than representative of the population at large.

If you were a musician, you in fact would see a widespread controversy in the music world about sexism. And you would in fact be here defending/apologizing for let's say old tupac lyrics because it just happened to be in the news lately. You however are a gamer and feel that those attacking the gaming culture as a whole, are indeed attacking you, you feel, you are being attacked by this controversy that involves criticizing your religion/ hobby/ career. Allow me to use your example against you, if you grew up listening too rap music since childhood and a person began attacking it for homophobia racism, misogyny etc wouldn't you automatically feel offended?


aren't you guys essentially saying the media bares no responsibility for society

[PhoenixAsh]

If you were a musician, you in fact would see a widespread controversy in the music world about sexism. And you would in fact be here defending/apologizing for let's say old tupac lyrics because it just happened to be in the news lately.

Sexism in Games (excluding the term gamergate): 7.720.000 results
Gamergate: 7.630.000 results
Sexism in Music: 2.730.000 results.
Sexism in Rap: 535.000 results

And that is not even taking into account the really disproportionate amount of people music reaches in respect to games...so lets quit the silly analogies when the argument was clearly not involving what dev's see but about the public debate (which is largely and interestingly absent from the music scene).



You however are a gamer

Nope. I play games....and understand gaming culture.


and feel that those attacking the gaming culture as a whole, are indeed attacking you, you feel, you are being attacked by this controversy that involves criticizing your religion/ hobby/ career.

I do? And pray tell me what you base this conclusion on?



Allow me to use your example against you, if you grew up listening too rap music since childhood and a person began attacking it for homophobia racism, misogyny etc wouldn't you automatically feel offended?

O please do.

I did grow up on rap, reaggeton, hip hop music and I have always found it one of the most sexist, misogynist and degrading to women genre's out there....as well as the genre most focused on marketing sexism for quick bucks. I feel no need to defend it. Never have. Never felt offended when somebody said as much.

So as bad examples go...this was probably the worse.

But what you seem to be forgetting is that there is a difference in the number of people music reaches on a day-to-day basis and how much influence it has over the entirety of youth culture and social life of children, teens and young adults.... in respect to games.



aren't you guys essentially saying the media bares no responsibility for society

Aren't we actually the ones saying that the media hype is one of the factors behind the escalation of the problem with a huge trend to ignore the same problems in other fields? hmm...

[PhoenixAsh]

Saying gaming attracts reactionary types is just as accurate as saying competitive sports attracts reactionary types. The ideology of competitiveness drives you to common bigotry.


Hmmm....well surveys have shown that


WWE fans, Monster Truck fans, Tennis fans, and extreme action sports are slightly Democrat

Golf, baseball, football, Nascar and the olympics are slightly Republican

That is according to a study from National Media Inc., a Republican firm, which worked with the Nielsen and Arbitron rating agencies


So apart from concluding that overall sports fans are slightly more likely to be conservative....the sports both sides seem to support indicate that the more left wing you get to more you like violence.

So how is that for a conclusion?

[willowtooth]

Sexism in Games (excluding the term gamergate): 7.720.000 results
Gamergate: 7.630.000 results
Sexism in Music: 2.730.000 results.
Sexism in Rap: 535.000 results

And that is not even taking into account the really disproportionate amount of people music reaches in respect to games... yes but those stats are reflective of "whats been in the news lately" for example if you look up "illuminati jay z time travel" you will get 187,000 results that's hardly a reflection of our culture, or society, is it?


so lets quit the silly analogies when the argument was clearly not involving what dev's see but about the public debate (which is largely and interestingly absent from the music scene).
gamers and the internet are connected to some degree, I dont know a single gamer who doesn't know how to use a laptop, but plenty of musicians can't, and they are not writing articles for yahoo news, but writing music instead.

Saying you can find different search results related to gaming, more so than you can find music related news, is almost like saying their are alot of songs that talk about sexism in music (which there are more than thousands) but there are no songs about "gamer gate" as if you were suggesting, some kind of weird fault in society



I did grow up on rap, reaggeton, hip hop music and I have always found it one of the most sexist, misogynist and degrading to women genre's out there....as well as the genre most focused on marketing sexism for quick bucks. I feel no need to defend it. Never have. Never felt offended when somebody said as much. great so did I


But what you seem to be forgetting is that there is a difference in the number of people music reaches on a day-to-day basis and how much influence it has over the entirety of youth culture and social life of children, teens and young adults.... in respect to games. ?


Aren't we actually the ones saying that the media hype is one of the factors behind the escalation of the problem with a huge trend to ignore the same problems in other fields? hmm... there is no media hype, I think the "is the dress blue and black or white and gold twitter controversy" got more attention than gamer gate


Hmmm....well surveys have shown that

WWE fans, Monster Truck fans, Tennis fans, and extreme action sports are slightly Democrat

Golf, baseball, football, Nascar and the olympics are slightly RepublicanWhat an odd grouping??? tennis fans with WWe fans? figure skaters with nascar?, skateboarders with monster truck fans?


That is according to a study from National Media Inc., a Republican firm, which worked with the Nielsen and Arbitron rating agencies


So apart from concluding that overall sports fans are slightly more likely to be conservative....the sports both sides seem to support indicate that the more left wing you get to more you like violence.

So how is that for a conclusion? im sorry i don't know where your going with this last line of logic, are you saying leftists are more violent, or that right wing propaganda likes too paint leftist as such?

[PhoenixAsh]

yes but those stats are reflective of "whats been in the news lately" for example if you look up "illuminati jay z time travel" you will get 187,000 results that's hardly a reflection of our culture, or society, is it?

gamers and the internet are connected to some degree, I dont know a single gamer who doesn't know how to use a laptop, but plenty of musicians can't, and they are not writing articles for yahoo news, but writing music instead.

Music and the internet are equally connected to some degree...I don't know a single record company that doesn't use the internet for example.



Saying you can find different search results related to gaming, more so than you can find music related news, is almost like saying their are alot of songs that talk about sexism in music (which there are more than thousands) but there are no songs about "gamer gate" as if you were suggesting, some kind of weird fault in society

You make really weird comparisons. Because we are not looking for specialized information here...we use general and easily identifiable meta searches. So again you don't make much sense.



great so did I

there is no media hype, I think the "is the dress blue and black or white and gold twitter controversy" got more attention than gamer gate

Really? Then you probably live under a rock.


What an odd grouping??? tennis fans with WWe fans? figure skaters with nascar?, skateboarders with monster truck fans?

im sorry i don't know where your going with this last line of logic, are you saying leftists are more violent, or that right wing propaganda likes too paint leftist as such?

What I am saying is that your comparisons and conclusions don't make much sense (and I am being polite here)...and I illustrated that by drawing a conclusion based on data.