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[Apt101]

I think the problem most civilized people have with these anti-feminist, pro "gamer gate" supporters is the level of their reaction and their vitriol. There is of course a price to free speech, one being debate. But what they're doing is abuse, for women simply pointing out inequities. If one disagrees then fine, disagree and have a conversation like a normal person. That is not what many of them are doing.

Then there's also the clear misogyny. Even the most vocal among them don't deny it. Hell, on 4chan they embrace it.

 

[Mael]

*See people equating hate movement with people hating said movement...
Must resist urge to reach Godwin*

Did I just have a dream or did someone really come here to try the "the real racists are the one who always have a problem with racism"?

Man these threads are really entertaining, if it wasn't linked to people getting their lives destroyed it would totally be worth it.

 

[Oersted]

*See people equating hate movement with people hating said movement...
Must resist urge to reach Godwin*

Did I just have a dream or did someone really come here to try the "the real racists are the one who always have a problem with racism"?

Man these threads are really entertaining, if it wasn't linked to people getting their lives destroyed it would totally be worth it.

They are putting Zoe Quinn, victim of harrassment and supporter of victims with harrassers into a " both sides are evil" equation. Let that sink in for a moment. Its either willfully malicious or complete disinterest in actual reading.

 

[BlastProcessing]

They are putting Zoe Quinn, victim of harrassment and supporter of victims with harrassers into a " both sides are evil" equation. Let that sink in for a moment. Its either willfully malicious or complete disinterest in actual reading.

We also can't have a Zoe Quinn thread without Anita Sarkeesian being brought up and vise versa. Anything to shift the debate from the actual subject.

 

[Zambayoshi]

If there is an actual issue related to game journalism you'd like to discuss, we have a thread for that. But note the rules in the OP and if there's even a whiff of it being GG bullshit we will respond harshly.

Awesome. Now that's what I'm talking about!

 

[Neoriceisgood]

Awesome. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Fun fact: That thread vanished from gaf for like 3 months during Gamergate at its peak, because their biggest contribution to gaf was making actual discussion of ethics in video game journalism impossible.

 

[RionaaM]

Fun fact: That thread vanished from gaf for like 3 months during Gamergate at its peak, because their biggest contribution to gaf was making actual discussion of ethics in video game journalism impossible.

Truer words have never been spoken. These GargoyleGonads idiots managed to ruin the very thing they (falsely) claimed to be demanding.

As far as I am concerned, I can't give a shit about real ethical issues anymore. Let the bad reviews and media coverage keep coming, I don't mind. That well is poisoned now, and it's not like bad games journalism affects my life anyway.

 

[Kimawolf]

Wow seems like the actual thread subject,you know, giant nameless companies refusing to hire someone over their "drama" rep was never the intent of the thread at all.

GG isn't hiring ( or not in this case) hiring people. That is where your outrage should be directed, you know what the thread was originally about before 30 pages of "fuck you gg cunts" followed by "fuck you too".

But I suppose its easier to bitch between each other and try to figure out who can be the most angry at GG than really engage on the thread topic. Because then you would realize you're supporting a industry that really doesn't care about any real social issues. But hey us black people knew that after the millionth game came out starring some white dude or more recently some white female.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Wow seems like the actual thread subject,you know, giant nameless companies refusing to hire someone over their "drama" rep was never the intent of the thread at all.

GG isn't hiring ( or not in this case) hiring people. That is where your outrage should be directed, you know what the thread was originally about before 30 pages of "fuck you gg cunts" followed by "fuck you too".

But I suppose its easier to bitch between each other and try to figure out who can be the most angry at GG than really engage on the thread topic. Because then you would realize you're supporting a industry that really doesn't care about any real social issues. But hey us black people knew that after the millionth game came out starring some white dude or more recently some white female.

I agree the thread has steered off topic, which is why I left it yesterday expecting it to be locked this morning. Despite that, at least most of the individuals who have continued to post in it have only been off-topic in good faith, compared to someone like you who just came in to make an even more off-topic blanket attack?

I also doubt very much you've read the '30 pages', because if you had then you'd see at least half of it is on topic, or at the very least tangentially on-topic, while the other half is off-topic due to JAQ-offs, crap-posters, and similar ilk.

 

[creatchee]

Fun fact: That thread vanished from gaf for like 3 months during Gamergate at its peak, because their biggest contribution to gaf was making actual discussion of ethics in video game journalism impossible.

One of my biggest problems with Gamergate (well, one of many) is that even if everything that they claimed about ethics in video game journalism was true: who cares? Ethics in video game journalism as a whole is always going to be different and more "shady" than other fields of journalism simply because of the subject matter. Previews are based on controlled information releases from publishers. Review copies are accompanied by swag bags and NDAs. "Insider" information dictates rumors, which turns into reaction pieces. Almost every facet of video games journalism is controlled in some way by the companies selling the games in the first place. Therefore, almost every problem with video games journalism can be attributed to companies selling the games. So, if the concern is having better and more ethical journalism in regards to video games, how do you change it?

You can't. And you don't really want to, even if you think you do.

A purely ethical journalistic system for video games would involve reactions only. It would kill the previews and "hype" for games. It would preclude a lot of reviews and editorials because of prior knowledge and acquaintance. Websites would be homogenous with each other in terms of content, as all information would be confirmed and experienced in the same way. Many voices with different tones and opinions would be replaced by the lowest common denominator. Basically, it's replacing the beauty of subjectivity with the banality of objectivity.

Now in other fields, like REAL news, this is what is preferred (although they have their own problems in ethics that I won't discuss). But video game coverage is different in that it concerns a hobby and is almost exclusively dictated by the companies that provide that hobby. In essence, the news is written and reactions are predicted before it happens - which is fine because, again, this isn't real news, it's video games. Imagine if pro wrestling news had to be ethical. It wouldn't even make sense because of the subject matter and the fact that, you know, it's scripted and is a product rather than an actual event that happens without planning.

tl;dr ethics in games journalism is not important enough to wage war over, and really isn't desirable in the first place.

 

[EdibleKnife]

God I'd never known about the story of the Mighty No. 9 community manager before Zoe mentioned it in her post. It most certainly made her point about the unheard and lesser known names that are still suffering through this movement truly resonate. That dumb idea of "professional victimhood" that gaters like to tout falls apart when you truly realize the scope and breath of the destruction GG is causing to the industry. People are being attacked and scared away from the industry for absolutely nothing.

Let us turn now to Mighty No. 9, a Kickstarted spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise, that even has Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune involved. This week the makers of the game introduced their backer community to the game’s newly hired community manager, Dina Abou Karam, as one of the Mighty Numbers, just like all of their backers, with some fan art she’d done of a female version of the game’s titular main character Beck, the Mighty No. 9. This may seem obvious to you, but it will become important in a moment: the update was clear that this “female Beck” was simply fan art, or, as might be implied from the framing, Karam drawing herself as Beck.

Some members of the Mighty No. 9 backer community took this to mean that Dina was a corrupting feminist influence on the game, delved into her personal life, and demanded that she be fired and that they be given refunds. From Gameranx:

Finding fault with her presentation, these persons decided to pry into Dina’s personal life by combing through her Twitter account for other transgressions against the human race, and found that she had written tweets supportive of feminism and linked to one of Anita Sarkeesian’s videos. In a similar case, her being initially hired as a community manager and artist became tantamount to BioWare’s employment of Jennifer Hepler as a writer for the Dragon Age games—sometimes dubbed as the “cancer that is killing BioWare.”

Kickstarter does not, in the vast majority of cases, allow refunds: the company’s policy is that you’re choosing to trust the project creators with your money, so once you’ve handed it over, their participation is over. However, as a recent rash of “kicktrolling” has shown, it is fairly easy (or at least doable) to get your credit card company to reverse the charge, even after you have received backer rewards.

Without access to the backer forums, it’s unclear how numerous Karam’s detractors are, but Comcept, the game studio behind Mighty No. 9, felt forced to make a statement in response to accusations that she holds “biased views towards social justice in favor of women and transgendered LBGT community members,” that since being hired she has altered or will alter significantly the content of the game to follow a “feminist” agenda, and that she slept her way into the job because her boyfriend also works at Comcept. Naturally no such parallel investigation was made to see if there were other qualified Comcept employees had a friendship with another employee before being hired.

Comcept actually sat down and responded to questions like: “Will the community manager be creating their own robots and levels and programming, or changing the game in any way, from what the core creative team wants?!” The answer, of course, is no, because that’s not what a community manager does, and were they to try they would probably eventually be fired for annoying the dev and concept teams.

Link

Makes me absolutely sick. I can't wrap my head around what exactly is a biased view in favor of women, trans, and LBGT members beyond making them feel like they exist and matter? The idea that making a marginalized group feel heard is somehow bad or a ruination of everything pure is disturbing.

 

[Mael]

So that's why some Gaffer hate Mighty N°9 now?

 

[Mohonky]

I think the problem most civilized people have with these anti-feminist, pro "gamer gate" supporters is the level of their reaction and their vitriol. There is of course a price to free speech, one being debate. But what they're doing is abuse, for women simply pointing out inequities. If one disagrees then fine, disagree and have a conversation like a normal person. That is not what many of them are doing.

Then there's also the clear misogyny. Even the most vocal among them don't deny it. Hell, on 4chan they embrace it.

The problem is, you can't criticise people like Anita or Zoe without being labelled pro-gamergate. I can agree on a number of points Anita and Zoe are making, but I can disagree with other points also, but doing so is like walking through a minefield as people will instantly assume you must be pro-gamergate and therefore a misygonist and sympathiser of the idiots sending death threats etc. I honestly don't even 'get' gamergate, I don't know who they are, where they hang out (4chan? Twitter? IRC?) or what the stupid thing is supposed to be all about, the only thing I know is what I've read on these forums which is that its a group who have being sending numerous threats etc to certain people in the industry seen to be aligning with or a part of this feminism in games debate.

The problem for me in all this debate is that because of gamergate, you cannot freely criticise people like Anita and co. The backlash against them has provided them with justification for their vilification of gamers (and the industry at large) and to be seen disagreeing is to be lumped in with being a part of the problem

The issue I take with a lot of these threads about feminism in gaming is that a few names are championed (Anita probably being the largest) above others. They are the goto people, the ones with the largest influence and in turn the ones looking to make the changes and implement the concepts that they want for the industry. The issue I have with this is that it is those with the loudest voices and the ability to reach the largest audience that are essentially imparting their own variation of what they believe to be the 'truest' form of feminism onto the industry and passing down judgement.

For me the problem with this is that feminism is different things to different people and having looked into what the ideal feminism is the only thing I seemed to be able to come away with from it all was that no one seems to know exactly what feminism stands for, or is seemingly trying to achieve simply because there seems to be so many people who have differing views of femininity in society. Where one person sees a character who is sexually empowered as a positive chatacteristic, another sees the same character who is being displayed as a sex object. One group sees a strong independent women, another sees a chataracter that is simply a male character reskinned to be female, and so it goes on and on till your sitting there wondering whose brand of feminism is the one that is supposed to be the model we should strive for?

.....and the problem here and now is, as I said earlier, we are getting the brand of feminism from the ones with the loudest voices and debating to the contrary immediately puts you in the firing line of being pro-gamergate. Gamergates shitty antics and numerous threats should not give anyone a free pass from criticism or debate but essentially that is what has happen, gamergate has literally destroyed any notion of having a rational debate because to be seen criticising people like Anita has become synonymous with supporting the numerous threats they receive.

 

[ApharmdX]

The industry at large is embarrassing because it remains silent regarding a long-term organized harassment campaign targeted at a portion of its colleagues, out of fear of losing profits generated by the purchases of an extremely loud and obnoxious minority, who are in turn fanned by people with no attachment to or interest in the future of gaming, for their own political ends.

Do you think other entertainment industries would just lean back while such a thing happened?

Yes. Hollywood ignores shocking stuff, worse than GamerGate IMO, all the time. There's a culture in Hollywood of young flesh being traded for parts, for instance. It's child sex abuse but do you see A-listers fighting that? No, they are too busy adopting African kids.

There is obviously no inherent obligation toward diversity in representation, but even then from a profit standpoint, why actively alienate potential customers? When people express a desire to buy something, why not take steps to provide it? An intelligent business does not succumb to the irrationally of a portion of its customer base. Gamergaters would still by the annual mass-produced GOTY-wank if those same publishers actually took risks on other things as well..

I agree with you, I think the market is strong and diverse enough now to handle some different-look protagonists. But game publishers are extremely risk-averse as the cost to develop next-gen games has gotten so out of control. Plus a fair number of previous games with non-white, non-male (but un-fetishized) protagonists have underperformed sales-wise.

GamerGate is loud, but it is by no means the bulk of the AAA gaming market's customer base. The problem is that these are corporate giants who have the ability to stamp out a particularly toxic segment of the gaming community, and they didn't. They saw people being harassed, threatened, and doxxed, and they did nothing.

Wouldn't you agree though that the pro-GG crowd outnumbers the strongly anti-GG crowd among actual gamers who spend lots of money on games? I feel like more core/hardcore gamers still tend to be male, and still tend to be insensitive on these issues. (edit: generally, not all gamers, again) The corporations just will not risk alienating these consumers to take a stand on this issue.

Perhaps not. But companies should have a moral obligation to ensure that a part of their customer base doesn't hurt anyone. At the very least, they should ask themselves why their games appeal to such a hateful group of people. If you wrote a book that gained a huge following of klansmen or neo-nazis, wouldn't you at least want to know why they liked your writing so much?

But the industry won't do that, because that would require introspection, and effort, and all the things that well-rounded adults (people who are sorely missing in the games industry) are supposed to have.

I think part of it is that the gaming industry draws in people who are perpetual children, and appeals to those with lacking social skills. Maybe that's not fair, and I don't make that as a blanket statement about everyone involved in gaming, but I feel that way as a long-time gamer.

 

[EdibleKnife]

The problem is, you can't criticise people like Anita or Zoe without being labelled pro-gamergate. I can agree on a number of points Anita and Zoe are making, but I can disagree with other points also, but doing so is like walking through a minefield as people will instantly assume you must be pro-gamergate and therefore a misygonist and sympathiser of the idiots sending death threats etc. I honestly don't even 'get' gamergate, I don't know who they are, where they hang out (4chan? Twitter? IRC?) or what the stupid thing is supposed to be all about, the only thing I know is what I've read on these forums which is that its a group who have being sending numerous threats etc to certain people in the industry seen to be aligning with or a part of this feminism in games debate.

The problem for me in all this debate is that because of gamergate, you cannot freely criticise people like Anita and co. The backlash against them has provided them with justification for their vilification of gamers (and the industry at large) and to be seen disagreeing is to be lumped in with being a part of the problem

The issue I take with a lot of these threads about feminism in gaming is that a few names are championed (Anita probably being the largest) above others. They are the goto people, the ones with the largest influence and in turn the ones looking to make the changes and implement the concepts that they want for the industry. The issue I have with this is that it is those with the loudest voices and the ability to reach the largest audience that are essentially imparting their own variation of what they believe to be the 'truest' form of feminism onto the industry and passing down judgement.

For me the problem with this is that feminism is different things to different people and having looked into what the ideal feminism is the only thing I seemed to be able to come away with from it all was that no one seems to know exactly what feminism stands for, or is seemingly trying to achieve simply because there seems to be so many people who have differing views of femininity in society. Where one person sees a character who is sexually empowered as a positive chatacteristic, another sees the same character who is being displayed as a sex object. One group sees a strong independent women, another sees a chataracter that is simply a male character reskinned to be female, and so it goes on and on till your sitting there wondering whose brand of feminism is the one that is supposed to be the model we should strive for?

.....and the problem here and now is, as I said earlier, we are getting the brand of feminism from the ones with the loudest voices and debating to the contrary immediately puts you in the firing line of being pro-gamergate. Gamergates shitty antics and numerous threats should not give anyone a free pass from criticism or debate but essentially that is what has happen, gamergate has literally destroyed any notion of having a rational debate because to be seen criticising people like Anita has become synonymous with supporting the numerous threats they receive.

People are more than free to criticize Anita or Zoe and many many people do. The issue is that the criticism that comes from many GGers is, rather than replying to point or efforts they make, it always boils down to who Zoe and Anita are rather than what they say or how what they say is in anyway a justification for the vile ways they are treated.

Anita and Brianna Wu have clashing views on Bayonetta; Anita believing she is a male-gaze sexpot and Brianna believing that Bayonetta is an empowered character with depth and the ability to embrace her own sexuality. The rub though is that Brianna will always go to bat for Anita and vice versa because their ultimate goals are the same: the industry should take care to not only create more female characters but also think about how they present those characters in a way that draws in and respects their female audience rather than repel them. That's the ultimate goal of many feminists that work in the industry and that's also the core idea that seems to go over the heads of the people that harass and threaten women in the industry.

Nobody expects everything to be 100% perfect. Every movement will have people at different levels of intensity or expectation but the duty of the people who listen should be to understand the core of the movement, identify if it's a worthwhile goal, and try to do their part to forward that goal. You don't have to change your development team's creed to specifically Team Anita or Team Zoe or Team Brianna and they don't expect you to. The idea is that you think critically about what you put in a game.

I can say that Anita isn't perfect but I will always say that the conversation she has started and is looking to perpetuate is extremely valuable and I only got to this place by listening with an open mind. And as usual when a story comes out about how Anita gets rape threats or has her speaking event canceled by a bomb threat, that's not really the time to bring up how I think her videos aren't that great because its irrelevant within that thread yet that is often how threads like that get derailed, i.e. I don't like Zoe. I thought DQ sucked hard but man it sucks that she got rape threats :/. The value of their work is irrelevant if you recognize that nothing they could say would be worth being threatened every day of their lives by the very community they belong to.

 

[Neoriceisgood]

The problem is, you can't criticise people like Anita or Zoe without being labelled pro-gamergate. I can agree on a number of points Anita and Zoe are making, but I can disagree with other points also, but doing so is like walking through a minefield as people will instantly assume you must be pro-gamergate and therefore a misygonist and sympathiser of the idiots sending death threats etc.

This is fundamentally untrue. I'd argue there's frequent & major disagreement and discussion even within the so called "SJW"-sphere.

I've seen plenty of feminists & some of the loudest voices against Gamergate get extremely critical at Anita recently for supporting an article writen by someone who had fairly black/white views on sex work, for example. (I don't know the specifics, but I do know that a lot of people who generally support her took issue with her views.)

The thing is, there's a massive difference between nuanced/substantive criticism and disagreement versus what you usually see; people essentially wanting to voice extreme dislike for Anita or anyone similar to her, and getting mad that people aren't universally praising them for bravely stating how much they hate perpetual victims of harassment.


The "loudest voice" issue you're talking about has little to do with Anita personally, especially if you consider that Anita, Zoe and say ... Brianna Wu do seem to hold substantially different views on some areas of feminism/representation. The issue comes with the fact that harassment of people who TRY to look at games from a social justice/feminist/societal lense outright stifles the desire for more people to participate into this kind of criticism.

I think it'd be great for more people to give high quality/polished criticism from a social pov (feminism being one example) similarly to Anita ... but honestly if you look at how Anita's treated as a result, it's not shocking very few people decide to do the same thing from a different pov.

Same story with Zoe and depression quest, which is what earned her the initial hate from channers preceding gamergate. A bunch of depressed guys found her game inaccurately portrayed depression. Rather than making interesting criticism of it, or a better game about depression ... they decided to hatemob her.


I think it's absolutely ridiculous to somehow shift blame to Anita for being "The loudest voice" when it's shocking she's even willing to keep producing content in such a toxic online climate. And I think it's honestly ridiculous to conclude;

"Well if only one person dares to present their view like this, the only thing we can do is be extra critical to her in the midst of all this harassment to make sure she's not talking over other voices too scared to actually do similarly."



Edit: Edibleknife provided another good example of a clear/known disagreement with Anita that didn't end with everyone being called "gamergater".

 

[Azih]

You can dislike Quinn's game or disagree with Sarkeesian's views all you like and give your reasons for doing so all day with no problem on GAF. That's completely different from the victim blaming, throwing out crap like 'Both sides have blood on their hands', or shrugging off GG's harassment campaign though.

 

[Neoriceisgood]

You can dislike Quinn's game or disagree with Sarkeesian's views all you like and give your reasons for doing so all day with no problem on GAF. That's completely different from the victim blaming, throwing out crap like 'Both sides have blood on their hands', or shrugging off GG's harassment campaign though.

What stands out to me is that a lot of the "criticism" boils down to people finding it absolutely necessary to post how much they actively dislike them.

Like ... Anita threads need specific rules to keep the criticism substantive because so many people want to throw conspiratorial ad hominems into the discussion.

 

[BrutishMrFish]

Wouldn't you agree though that the pro-GG crowd outnumbers the strongly anti-GG crowd among actual gamers who spend lots of money on games? I feel like more core/hardcore gamers still tend to be male, and still tend to be insensitive on these issues. (edit: generally, not all gamers, again) The corporations just will not risk alienating these consumers to take a stand on this issue.

Given the number of GamerGate figureheads like Adam Baldwin, Milo Yiannopoulos, the Return of Kings people, and Christina Hoff Summers - all people who have never been involved in games before (Baldwin didn't even know what E3 was, the RoK guys admitted that they haven't played a game in years, and Milo insulted gamers in one of his articles). If GamerGaters were truly that large in number, they'd have more leaders who were involved in games than just TotalBiscuit. They're loud, and they're noticeable, but they're not the majority.

Publishers know they aren't - the ESA is made of some of the largest publishers in the world, and their studies have shown that the crowd that they cater to isn't nearly as large as some think. You're right that they aren't willing to risk alienating that part of their customer base, but it's not because they buy the most. What publishers have is working, yes. That doesn't make their silence acceptable.

I think part of it is that the gaming industry draws in people who are perpetual children, and appeals to those with lacking social skills. Maybe that's not fair, and I don't make that as a blanket statement about everyone involved in gaming, but I feel that way as a long-time gamer.

I don't disagree with you there, but the industry draws in a lot of other people, too. The problem is that the industry (specifically publishers) has been catering to the same type of people for far longer than is appropriate. They could take a stand against GamerGate and come out financially unscathed.

 

[Mman235]

Literally this week a bunch of people GG would label "SJW's" heavily disagreed with Anita's perspective on the new Mad Max movie, and the vast majority argued amicably and without drama, because they engaged with her argument rather than trying to make it personal, actually understood basic feminist theory rather than (willfully or not) misunderstanding it to twist her words, assumed good faith rather than trying to argue that her opinion isn't genuine, didn't link to conspiracy videos or half-hour+ rants from people who are known misogynists if you do the slightest research on them, and didn't call her a cunt.

 

[Matty77]

The problem is, you can't criticise people like Anita or Zoe without being labelled pro-gamergate.

The problem for me in all this debate is that because of gamergate, you cannot freely criticise people like Anita and co. The backlash against them has provided them with justification for their vilification of gamers (and the industry at large) and to be seen disagreeing is to be lumped in with being a part of the problem

I am calling bullshit. First can we stop lumping two very different people , one who actually works in the industry, and the other a feminist critic of all media that includes games? They're not the fucking Borg.

As for Anita, in this very thread during the delta posts I stated I disagree with her a lot on a lot. I am not banned and no one jumped down my throat. Of course my reaction is to not watch her videos, but that stems from my disagreement being on points she makes and some oversimplifications, not the fact that she's a women and has issues with things in my hobby, she has that right and the right to share them and to crowd fund to do it.

The only people that lump together seem to be those that cannot separate the criticism from her being a women, and that's GG doing that. When people make a real criticism of her criticism no one complains. Like in the fury road topic in GAF OT where a lot of people are disagreeing with her, I just guess the movie community is a little more secure and debating the merits of her points versus some gamers and the " someone with a vagina said things I dont like, women are trying to ruin my hobby and tell me what I can do" mentality and then harass and threaten.

It's just entertainment folks, keep it classy.

 

[hurricanes]

I am calling bullshit. First can we stop lumping two very different people , one who actually works in the industry, and the other a feminist critic of all media that includes games? They're not the

Actually I've been called pro-GG one time when I disagreed with Brianna's response to a GGer. Some people are VERY aggressive in the GamerGate OT. That doesn't happen often thought.

 

[Toxi]

So that's why some Gaffer hate Mighty N°9 now?

Nah, they hate it because the footage released actually looks pretty mediocre.

 

[Palette Swap]

The can't criticize bit is bullshit. If I clicked Nintendo's financial results threads to explain why I think Pokemon is terrible, I'd be utterly derailing the discussion (ie trolling) and would eventually get banned. You wouldn't expect to see me going off somewhere else about how the Pokemon Illuminati really run GAF.

There's plenty of room to criticize Anita's works in threads dedicated to her videos. As for Depression Quest or whatever ZQ is working on, get on a game thread.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Literally this week a bunch of people GG would label "SJW's" heavily disagreed with Anita's perspective on the new Mad Max movie, and the vast majority argued amicably and without drama, because they engaged with her argument rather than trying to make it personal, actually understood basic feminist theory rather than (willfully or not) misunderstanding it to twist her words, assumed good faith rather than trying to argue that her opinion isn't genuine, didn't link to conspiracy videos or half-hour+ rants from people who are known misogynists if you do the slightest research on them, and didn't call her a cunt.

Yup.

To say that you can't disagree with her or criticize her arguments without being accused for being pro-GG is false.

It's easy, people; all you gotta do is avoid: showing bad faith, calling her names or attacking her integrity, mentioning her money, mentioning her earrings or her shirt, throwing a tantrum...

Apparently that's really fucking hard for some people.

 

[More_Badass]

Yup.

To say that you can't disagree with her or criticize her arguments without being accused for being pro-GG is false.

It's easy, people; all you gotta do is avoid: showing bad faith, calling her names or attacking her integrity, mentioning her money, mentioning her earrings or her shirt, throwing a tantrum...

Apparently that's really fucking hard for some people.

In simple terms: criticize her discussions and points, not her

 

[Mael]

In simple terms: criticize her discussions and points, not her

But she's a woman! I can't simply lower myself to her level and take her arguments seriously!
/s

 

[jstripes]

Fun fact: That thread vanished from gaf for like 3 months during Gamergate at its peak, because their biggest contribution to gaf was making actual discussion of ethics in video game journalism impossible.

Plenty of people in GG genuinely want to discuss ethics in video game journalism. The problem is the vast majority of them aren't mature enough to know how to hold a proper discussion. That's why it usually degenerates into slurs, cursing, name-calling, strawmen, dog piling, sea lioning, etc...

The other problem is a true lack of understanding of what they want to discuss, which leads to frustration in all parties.

 

[Bionic]

But she's a woman! I can't simply lower myself to her level and take her arguments seriously!
/s

I know that it can be fun to mock people by mimicking the irrational things they say or the irrational ways they act, but it can produce the same effect as people saying it without the sarcastic tag. Saying something sexist sarcastically and saying the same thing seriously is still saying the sexist thing one more time.

You're welcome to keep doing it if you want to, of course, and I'm not saying that you're intending to put something sexist out there. But is it really adding something of value to say something sexist and then say the equivalent of "just kidding", any more than it would be to say something racist and then "/s" afterwards?

 

[Toxi]

Plenty of people in GG genuinely want to discuss ethics in video game journalism. The problem is the vast majority of them aren't mature enough to know how to hold a proper discussion. That's why it usually degenerates into slurs, cursing, name-calling, strawmen, dog piling, sea lioning, etc...

The other problem is a true lack of understanding of what they want to discuss, which leads to frustration in all parties.

8 months ago I'd believe that.

Now? Anyone who hasn't gotten off the crazy train by now probably doesn't want to seriously discuss improving video game media.

 

[Kinsei]

Plenty of people in GG genuinely want to discuss ethics in video game journalism. The problem is the vast majority of them aren't mature enough to know how to hold a proper discussion. That's why it usually degenerates into slurs, cursing, name-calling, strawmen, dog piling, sea lioning, etc...

The other problem is a true lack of understanding of what they want to discuss, which leads to frustration in all parties.

 

[jstripes]

8 months ago I'd believe that.

Now? Anyone who hasn't gotten off the crazy train by now probably doesn't want to seriously discuss improving video game media.

I dislike GG as much as anyone, but I have seen gators that still hold onto the delusion that it's "actually" about ethics.

I imagine it's partially attributed to a matter of pride preventing them from admitting they're wrong.

Also, 8 months doesn't matter. They're still duping people into joining up.

 

[BUNTING1243]

The two main "ethical breaches" I've seen from Gamergate are a lie (that Zoe Quinn was dating someone who gave her game a good review) and a non-issue to anyone who actually understands how people work in an industry (that dumb email list).

The whole ethics angle is a cover for the anti-feminist propaganda that the movement's leaders actually care about. I feel bad for anyone in Gamergate who actually cares about ethics in journalism because they are being manipulated into pawns for a larger and way grosser culture war.

 

[cakely]

Plenty of people in GG genuinely want to discuss ethics in video game journalism.

I quite simply don't believe this.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Plenty of people in GG genuinely want to discuss ethics in video game journalism.

As someone who was, initially, blinded by the "ethics" reasoning, I wanted to believe that.

While I'm sure there's people who identify as "GamerGater" who care about ethics in video game journalism, I think the ship has long sailed for any sort of legitimate concerns to be taken seriously because of the association when it's paired with "GamerGate" as a group. The "movement" started on a lie and continues to use that lie to target women, not even with sensible or logical debate but with harassment with "ethics" as a cover.

 

[Mesoian]

The problem is, you can't criticise people like Anita or Zoe without being labelled pro-gamergate. I can agree on a number of points Anita and Zoe are making, but I can disagree with other points also, but doing so is like walking through a minefield as people will instantly assume you must be pro-gamergate and therefore a misygonist and sympathiser of the idiots sending death threats etc. I honestly don't even 'get' gamergate, I don't know who they are, where they hang out (4chan? Twitter? IRC?) or what the stupid thing is supposed to be all about, the only thing I know is what I've read on these forums which is that its a group who have being sending numerous threats etc to certain people in the industry seen to be aligning with or a part of this feminism in games debate.

Of course you can. People do it all the time.

 

[jstripes]

The two main "ethical breaches" I've seen from Gamergate are a lie (that Zoe Quinn was dating someone who gave her game a good review) and a non-issue to anyone who actually understands how people work in an industry (that dumb email list).

The whole ethics angle is a cover for the anti-feminist propaganda that the movement's leaders actually care about. I feel bad for anyone in Gamergate who actually cares about ethics in journalism because they are being manipulated into pawns for a larger and way grosser culture war.

The ethics thing is 100% a smokescreen, it always has been, but some people bought into it. Like this guy:

As someone who was, initially, blinded by the "ethics" reasoning, I wanted to believe that.

While I'm sure there's people who identify as "GamerGater" who care about ethics in video game journalism, I think the ship has long sailed for any sort of legitimate concerns to be taken seriously because of the association when it's paired with "GamerGate" as a group. The "movement" started on a lie and continues to use that lie to target women, not even with sensible or logical debate but with harassment with "ethics" as a cover.

That's exactly it. They jumped on a bandwagon, but didn't notice it was being driven by channers and right wing lunatics. Some of them are simply too dense or stubborn to jump off of it, so it keeps chugging along.

 

[Toxi]

I dislike GG as much as anyone, but I have seen gators that still hold onto the delusion that it's "actually" about ethics.

I imagine it's partially attributed to a matter of pride preventing them from admitting they're wrong.

Or more likely, they're not arguing in good faith.

Which is something we've seen from GamerGate from the beginning. It's just now the only people still in GamerGate are the die-hards.

Also, 8 months doesn't matter. They're still duping people into joining up.

GamerGate has been constantly shrinking for the past half-year. People aren't joining up, people are leaving.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Yeah this got me good

I love how threads like these weed out the gaters on gaf. It's beautiful and restores my faith in gaming as a community that's inclusive and intelligent. At least in here.

 

[jstripes]

Or more likely, they're not arguing in good faith.

Which is something we've seen from GamerGate from the beginning.


GamerGate has been constantly shrinking for the past half-year. People aren't joining up, people are leaving.

People are leaving faster than they're joining up, so it is shrinking (and in the process, distilling the crazy), but they're still joining up.

Yeah this got me good

I love how threads like these weed out the gaters on gaf. It's beautiful and restores my faith in gaming as a community that's inclusive and intelligent. At least in here.

LOL. Check my post history if you want. I even got banned once for taking too strong a stand against GG. I'm just being realistic in the fact that a small portion of GG are some truly dense and stubborn people who actually buy into the "ethics" bullshit. Just like "vaxxers" and "truthers".

 

[Mman235]

I dislike GG as much as anyone, but I have seen gators that still hold onto the delusion that it's "actually" about ethics.

That's what they say, but nowdays, just about every time I've seen them pushed a little you end up with an anti-feminist rant, or a bunch of hate for people who have nothing to do with games journalism. So many of them are straight up liars intentionally using that reasoning as cover for hate that it's impossible to tell what minority who actually believe in ethics discussion is left, or if there even is one.

 

[hurricanes]

I dislike GG as much as anyone, but I have seen gators that still hold onto the delusion that it's "actually" about ethics.

I can second that. They are very delusional, to say the least.

 

[jstripes]

That's what they say, but nowdays, just about every time I've seen them pushed a little you end up with an anti-feminist rant, or a bunch of hate for people who have nothing to do with games journalism. So many of them are straight up liars intentionally using that reasoning as cover for hate that it's impossible to tell what minority who actually believe in ethics discussion is left, or if there even is one.

Ya, there's definitely a bit of denial involved. There's almost always a seed of resentment under the surface in "ethics" belief.

 

[Neoriceisgood]

I think there's still people in GG who think it's about ethics, but it's comparable to how the anti-vaccination movement is technically for health improvement.


The same way anti-vaccers see a massive big pharma conspiracy where the government/big pharma/some bad guy is pushing horrible disease causing/non-functional vaccines on us, a lot of GGers seem genuinly convinced that feminism has invaded all walks off life and is either an illuminati-type organisation or a collective of "professional victims" abusing people's fear of being called racist/sexist to make money & stiffle criticism.
There's strong undercurrents of individualism versus a type of social collectivisim (signal words: bootstraps, hard work, freedom, "earned" status) where any attempt to inject any sort of social consciousness into media is inherently seem as debilitating freedom, and thus counts as censorship.


Obviously this narrative of "professional victims" & people injecting a freedom-surpressing ideology into media only works under a very narrow status quo-oriented definition of freedom and generally presupposes that many (if not all) people who have a stronger view on race/gender issues must be lying about it for personal gain.

What I actually see in GG beyond the harassment is also a strain of conspiratorial thinking finally managing to find a tag/name to unite under & pat themselves on the back for "seeing the truth" regarding "SJWs" sneakishly trying to infilitrate.
The fact that they all know, and have known this fact that feminists and SJW are taking over media simply means they'll do the thing any conspiracy follower does: They'll point at any anomaly they can find, and add it to their big collection of examples of a feminist take-over.

In that way the "Ethics" thing does make sense. I'm sure the people fighting the illuminati or reptilian invaders would say they're fighting for ethics too if you asked them about it, after all .. what's more ethical than fighting a great sinister evil?

 

[BumblebeeCody]

GG, GG.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

I think there's still people in GG who think it's about ethics, but it's comparable to how the anti-vaccination movement is technically for health improvement.


The same way anti-vaccers see a massive big pharma conspiracy where the government/big pharma/some bad guy is pushing horrible disease causing/non-functional vaccines on us, a lot of GGers seem genuinly convinced that feminism has invaded all walks off life and is either an illuminati-type organisation or a collective of "professional victims" abusing people's fear of being called racist/sexist to make money & stiffle criticism.
There's strong undercurrents of individualism versus a type of social collectivisim (signal words: bootstraps, hard work, freedom, "earned" status) where any attempt to inject any sort of social consciousness into media is inherently seem as debilitating freedom, and thus counts as censorship.


Obviously this narrative of "professional victims" & people injecting a freedom-surpressing ideology into media only works under a very narrow status quo-oriented definition of freedom and generally presupposes that many (if not all) people who have a stronger view on race/gender issues must be lying about it for personal gain.

What I actually see in GG beyond the harassment is also a strain of conspiratorial thinking finally managing to find a tag/name to unite under & pat themselves on the back for "seeing the truth" regarding "SJWs" sneakishly trying to infilitrate.
The fact that they all know, and have known this fact that feminists and SJW are taking over media simply means they'll do the thing any conspiracy follower does: They'll point at any anomaly they can find, and add it to their big collection of examples of a feminist take-over.

In that way the "Ethics" thing does make sense. I'm sure the people fighting the illuminati or reptilian invaders would say they're fighting for ethics too if you asked them about it, after all .. what's more ethical than fighting a great sinister evil?

This is depressingly spot on...

 

[Neoriceisgood]

This is depressingly spot on...

It's also why I think it's a mistake to think that believing it to be about ethics & harassing are necessarily mutually exclusive.


Anita is evil & manipulative + you can't be critical of her at all + the media loves her and simply makes her influence stronger => she needs to go, and they'll treat you as a monster even if you say so nicely.

^

It's very easy to create a path towards harassment being acceptable (especially within a culture that constantly tries to justify rape threats/harmful language as "just being playful/part of the culture) when you begin with the notion that the target is manipulative, evil or an existential threat that cannot be reasoned with.

 

[QuantumZebra]

I think there's still people in GG who think it's about ethics, but it's comparable to how the anti-vaccination movement is technically for health improvement.


The same way anti-vaccers see a massive big pharma conspiracy where the government/big pharma/some bad guy is pushing horrible disease causing/non-functional vaccines on us, a lot of GGers seem genuinly convinced that feminism has invaded all walks off life and is either an illuminati-type organisation or a collective of "professional victims" abusing people's fear of being called racist/sexist to make money & stiffle criticism.
There's strong undercurrents of individualism versus a type of social collectivisim (signal words: bootstraps, hard work, freedom, "earned" status) where any attempt to inject any sort of social consciousness into media is inherently seem as debilitating freedom, and thus counts as censorship.


Obviously this narrative of "professional victims" & people injecting a freedom-surpressing ideology into media only works under a very narrow status quo-oriented definition of freedom and generally presupposes that many (if not all) people who have a stronger view on race/gender issues must be lying about it for personal gain.

What I actually see in GG beyond the harassment is also a strain of conspiratorial thinking finally managing to find a tag/name to unite under & pat themselves on the back for "seeing the truth" regarding "SJWs" sneakishly trying to infilitrate.
The fact that they all know, and have known this fact that feminists and SJW are taking over media simply means they'll do the thing any conspiracy follower does: They'll point at any anomaly they can find, and add it to their big collection of examples of a feminist take-over.

In that way the "Ethics" thing does make sense. I'm sure the people fighting the illuminati or reptilian invaders would say they're fighting for ethics too if you asked them about it, after all .. what's more ethical than fighting a great sinister evil?

This is a great write-up.

I think GG has devolved into two camps - the people you describe here (conspiracy theorists essentially), and troll-assholes who feed off stoking the flames of hatred (Mike Cernovich, Milo, etc...).

I highly doubt the 2nd group (troll-assholes) cares at all about "ethics" or games journalism, or anything else, other than making a bigger name for themselves and shitting on people they don't like (feminists).



Funny enough the thought just occurred to me:

Fox News (no surprise, a conservative mouthpiece) has this dichotomy as well. The people who stoke the flames and "just ask questions" (The pundits, Bill O'Reilly, Hannity, etc...), and the people who buy into their bullshit/conspiracies (the average viewer).

It seems this sort of paranoid & reactionary thinking is deeply ingrained in certain people - seemingly those who are less educated (or more prone to fear/doubt of others, especially "academics" or "SJWs") and/or have an agenda (Again - the ones profiting or enjoying it... Milo, Cernovich, Hannity, etc).



Just my 2 cents.

 

[BrutishMrFish]

The whole "professional victim" angle that GamerGate has ran with tells so much more about them than it ever did about the people it was directed towards. It's so easy for them to assume that someone championing a particular cause is doing it for personal gain because that's exactly the sort of thing that they themselves would do (and have done, if you include GamerGate's figureheads), and they assume that everyone else would be like them in that regard.

 

[EdibleKnife]

The whole "professional victim" angle that GamerGate has ran with tells so much more about them than it ever did about the people it was directed towards. It's so easy for them to assume that someone championing a particular cause is doing it for personal gain because that's exactly the sort of thing that they themselves would do (and have done, if you include GamerGate's figureheads), and they assume that everyone else would be like them in that regard.

I've thought similar about this consistent bringing up of "didn't she sleep with a journalist for X" falsity. An idea already expressed in this topic is that if this was simply about journalism, the fault for any conflict of interest would lie with the person breaking their responsibilities, i.e. the journalist in question. Yet Zoe is painted as the evil succubus who used sex to manipulate a journalist into writing about her game and almost 2 and a half years later, it's still her that is on every gater's lips as the instigator and the reason for ruination of the industry. I'd think if you're so fervently against Zoe based on this non-truth, barely paying any bit of the responsibility to the person with the job that will be compromised, it's possible that you are fully aware of how easily you'd drop your responsibilities if sex was on the table. I don't know whether it's true or not but I've seen this same "my hate hides my true nature" phenomenon too much outside of gaming to not think about it.