Sometime last week, someone asked me in a comment here why I’ve been devoting so much time and energy to #Gamergate here on a blog that should be talking about game design. Shortly before that, Felicia Day provided me with an answer, in a clear, eloquent story describing how the scandal is affecting her. I’m clearly biased personally, because I have had a huge crush on Felicia forever to the degree that I would probably spontaneously turn into a 13-year-old fangirl if I ever met her, but its a beautiful, nuanced piece that describes her attempts to get past the paranoia that recent events have brought into her life.
[S]eeing another gamer on the street used to be an auto-smile opportunity, or an entry into a conversation starting with, “Hey, dude! I love that game too!” Me and that stranger automatically had something in common: A love for something unconventional. Outsiders in arms. We had an auto-stepping stone to hurtle over human-introduction-awkwardness, into talking about something we loved together. Instant connection!
But for the first time maybe in my life, on that Saturday afternoon, I walked towards that pair of gamers and I didn’t smile. I didn’t say hello. In fact, I crossed the street so I wouldn’t walk by them. Because after all the years of gamer love and inclusiveness, something had changed in me. A small voice of doubt in my brain now suspected that those guys and I might not be comrades after all. That they might not greet me with reflected friendliness, but contempt.
Minutes later, she was doxed. Some have claimed that the ‘dox’ was just the address for her agent – I genuinely don’t know, although speaking for experience, pointing that out usually just acts as an invitation for the doxers to try harder, and it doesn’t matter that much, since it had the intended effect of spooking everyone. Die-hard gamergaters were quick to point out that you can’t prove that anyone who spoke for #gamergate did it, and there’s a good chance that a third party troll was behind her doxing, much as one probably was behind my own as well as that of many others, pro- and anti-gamergate.
But by no means is that guarunteed: the initial response to her post on KiA and 8chan was reactionary and vicious, particularly given her writing was a careful, quiet attempt at outreach. Lord knows, there are individuals inside of #gamergate who aren’t averse to that sort of shitty action – after all, the individuals who originated the hashtag on Zoe Quinn and Anita’s shitty treatment are still ensconched within. And the leaderless, organization-less structure of the organization means that everyone inside the hashtag is doing what they think is right, based on gut instinct. And if Gamergate is teaching anything, it’s teaching that a lot of people have terrible gut instincts.
But that’s not the depressing part. The depressing part is the number of #GamerGate participants who earnestly believe that Felicia Day has merely bought into the media hype that #Gamergate is actually about harassment. They think that Felicia freakin’ Day is somehow ignorant of what’s going on on the ground floor of the games industry. A couple of people called her not a ‘real gamer’, with noted Youtube personality Sargon of Akkad leading the way. Yes, in the tweet below, he’s challenging Felicia ‘the Guild’ Day’s gaming cred.
@tha_rami@feliciaday Strange that she calls herself a gamer given that she has taken an anti-#GamerGate or #NotYourShield stance.
— Sargon of Akkad (@Sargon_of_Akkad) October 22, 2014
Yes, apparently some #Gamergate participants now believe that you can’t be a gamer without signing the #gamergate loyalty pledge or something. But Felicia was not fooled into being scared by an oppressive media voice. She described herself where the fear came from – and that was her even relatively minor interactions with the hashtag.
I have not said many public things about Gamer Gate. I have tried to leave it alone, aside from a few @ replies on Twitter that journalists have decided to use in their articles, siding me against the hashtag. Why have I remained mostly silent?
Self-protection and fear….
I have been terrified of inviting a deluge of abusive and condescending tweets into my timeline. I did one simple @ reply to one of the main victims several weeks back, and got a flood of things I simply couldn’t stand to read directed at me. I had to log offline for a few days until it went away. I have tried to retweet a few of the articles I’ve seen dissecting the issue in support, but personally I am terrified to be doxxed for even typing the words “Gamer Gate”. I have had stalkers and restraining orders issued in the past, I have had people show up on my doorstep when my personal information was HARD to get. To have my location revealed to the world would give a entry point for a few mentally ill people who have fixated on me, and allow them to show up and make good on the kind of threats I’ve received that make me paranoid to walk around a convention alone. I haven’t been able to stomach the risk of being afraid to get out of my car in my own driveway because I’ve expressed an opinion that someone on the internet didn’t agree with.
HOW SICK IS THAT?
I have allowed a handful of anonymous people censor me. They have forced me, out of fear, into seeing myself a potential victim.
Yes, someone who has in the past SHRUGGED OFF restraining orders and stalkers as kind of old hat – this person felt the need to silence her opinions, based on replying to a tweet. I know of what she speaks. I’ve been making MMOs for my entire career. Early MMO communities were not very nice places. This includes a stint on Shadowbane, which had a playerbase that… well, let’s just say that the most hardcore SB players were pure red meat eaters and quick to anger. And nothing I’ve ever experienced compared to the bullying and harassment I got when I tried to reach out to the gamergate mob and suggest a way for them to … well, actually DO something regarding ethics in journalism. Yeah, that’s the treatment I got for trying to get them to BE MORE EFFECTIVE.
You know why more attempts at outreach and conversation with #gamergate don’t happen? That’s fucking why. They see what happens to the ones who try.
Anyway, it turns out Felicia’s fears about being more vocal were not unfounded.
It is probably true that most people in the #gamergate movement genuinely oppose harassment and bullying, and truly believe that there aren’t agents acting on their behalf who are engaging in these tactics. Even if you accept this to be true (and I have a very hard time believing this based on even casually browsing KiA and 8chan), there is literally no doubt that #GamerGate-the-hashtag is, at this point, utterly toxic. #GamerGate-the-hashtag is about harassment and bullying – people constantly flinging it, denying it, decrying it, blaming others for it and defending #GamerGate’s right to exist despite it. By comparison, almost no time is actually spent talking about actual events of journalistic ethics in games, and the times that it does come up is based on penny-ante bullshit, or is trying to claim that feminist views in games journalism represents ‘corruption’ somehow.
No matter which side of the fence you stand, you’re liable to get a riverful of shit thrown your way if you say anything even remotely interesting to anyone. Most souls wiser than I have decided just to stay the fuck away from the topic altogether, much the way you would avoid the bad side of town. This included press for the longest time, and still includes devs and publishers. No one wants to stumble where Intel did, and have to figure out how to apologize to half the people in an uncivil war.
A couple of nights ago, NicheGamer (a generally pro-gamergate press outlet) asked on Twitter if they should try to get more devs to speak out about (and in general, in favor) of gamergate. To which I can only say ‘good luck, dude’. #GamerGate-the-topic is a toxic swamp – or better yet, it’s an active minefield. The people who ‘belong’ to #GamerGate will try to claim that they’re not the ones burying the mines. That really matters very little to the people who have been asked to wander into the field. They might get some people who are willing to speak, but in no way will they get a representative sample of devs. Those of us who have chosen to speak (on both sides) are a little bit crazy, and made crazier having to deal with it.
I made a quick list. There are literally 3 dozen people – almost all game developers – who have, either on Facebook, email or in person (usually at work) come up to me and said some variation of ‘Thanks for saying all the things I want to say. I would say it myself but, you know, I have a wife and kids would really not like to set myself up as a target.”
Some of these people mentioned they are unwilling or cautious to even ‘like’ tweets or facebook updates.
There are literally two (2) people – both game developers, who have come to me and said, “Dude, you’re way wrong on this. And I totally want to say this on my blog, but you know, wife, kids, being a target….” Note, I’m not saying these 36/2 proportions match the opinions of devs (people tend to fill their friends list with like-minded people, and most people are adverse to just coming up to a friend and saying ‘dude, your writing is terrible’). What I’m trying to say is that #gamergate-the-event is seen as a horrible, toxic minefield for anyone thinking of entering if from either side.
Why am I posting about it then? Well, because I already fell into the tar pit. So as long as I’m already down here, I might as well give voice to a huge, voiceless part of the equation: the devs watching all this and going “for fuck’s sake, please stop. You’re hurting gaming, the thing you love. And we don’t really need your help here.”
And so its important to acknowledge one of the more subtle things lost in the catastrofuck: it’s shutting down relationships between devs and players. A lot has been made about the fact that female voices feel the need to shut down while this thing is live – I made that note myself regarding the female developers interviewed by the Escapist – but its true for all the men as well, just to a lesser degree. Developers don’t WANT to be dragged into this. They don’t want to be forced to pick sides. They don’t like having to suddenly be super-careful with every single word for fear of accidentally bringing either an army of GGers or an army of their opponents against the walls.
I’ve seen more than one dev blog or tumblr go fallow during this escapade. I’ve seen more than one dev twitter account get deleted to avoid something that’s ancient history be used against them or their employers. I’ve been told by more than one person working elsewhere that they have actual bans on talking to fans (usually just about GG, but in one case, about pretty much anything game dev related), for fear that someone says something that results in the firestorm landing on them or their studio. And all of this is tremendously sad.
And ironic, really. Because losing direct contact with the devs makes the games press even more important.
The better angels of #GamerGate are trying to clean it up. Last night, the same crew of third party assholes who doxed me previously turned on the Dox machine, and the self-appointed Harassment Patrol of #Gamergate jumped into action to try to take care of it, report it, and make it go away as best they could. Even the editor of Kotaku was forced to note that. Of course, since twitter sucks, these dox tweets were up 7 hours later. And it’s clear that #gamergate has a good idea of where it’s coming from, but no good ideas on how to stop it. (Note to #Gamergaters: as much as I disagree with you, if I had ideas, I would most certainly help).
But there’s no doubt that there are some decent people in #gamergate-the-group, and they’re trying to get the conversation about the cause that matters: ethics in games journalism.
The question remains, though: why bother? GamerGate is, as a cause, an ethos, and an organization, associated with its undeniable past – one born DIRECTLY from the harassment of Zoe Quinn and expanding to chasing several other women out of their homes or the games industry. And these women are NOT the unethical press. They are an academic and two DEVELOPERS.
So, yeah, that carries some inherent bias in the opinions of many devs. Remember, we live in a world where we get death threats for making minor balance tweaks in games. Most of us reject that this should be just the cost of video games as a career choice.
Gamergate’s not doing itself any favors, though. The voices who have claimed that by ‘harassment’ they mean ‘feminist influence’ has been rising in recent days. Return of Kings, one of the most vile and hateful sites on the internet, has in recent days posted 3 pro-GamerGate articles. Anyone who has actually ever read more than 2 articles on that site know that that’s pretty much the endorsement of the MRA hate machine. Simply put, big companies are NOT going to engage or negotiate to anyone who gets too cozy with fringe elements like that. But because GG has no real organization or structure, they have no real way to distance themselves from it, even if they were so inclined.
Even worse for those who care about ethical journalism, #gamergate-the-hashtag is now so corrupted as a brand that when they DO stumble upon something that might be worth exploring, it can now be easily discredited as a Gamergate witchhunt and ignored. It doesn’t help that most attempts to actually look into game journalism ethics have ranged from laughable to bad to the exact opposite of ethics.
Last night in an chat room, I got in an absolute screaming match with a friend of 15 years. He’s one of my best friends – like, literally, one of those people I’ve turned to at some of the darkest moments of my life, and vice versa. In that conversation, he implied Anita and Brianna as professional victims, and made the mistake of saying that all of these people claiming harassment are, effectively, making shit up or bringing it on themselves.
As someone who has actually ENDURED some of the shitriver that #gamergate-the-event is capable of dumping on someone’s head, my response was very much in all-caps. Only because the option of reaching through my monitor and throttling him wasn’t an option. I made it clear that yes, these women were probably living in terror basued just on what I’ve seen in my own minor experiences. I made it clear that YES, it’s clear that there are really assholes that big and that stupid on the internet, taking advantage of anonymity. I made it clear that no, saying that these women should just shut up and take it silently was NOT acceptable, and that setting a precedent that bullying women to silence their point of view was NOT something that should be condoned or blithely allowed. I made it clear that anybody in the cause who claims to be butthurt by Gawker bullying nerds while Zoe, Anita and Brianna are still enduring a daily river of shit from KiA and 8chan needed to stop being fucking whiny hypocrites.
I used the word FUCK a lot.
Both of us left the conversation wondering how toxic #gamergate was that it could result with us going at each other’s throats.
#Gamergate-the-event is like that. It’s a black hole of bad feelings. It’s a toxic cloud. It doesn’t matter whether you’re for it or against it, it cannot be engaged in a way that is even remotely civil or productive. Whether or not #gamergate-the-people ever purge themselves of their worst elements, #gamergate-the-event will always be about the harassment that it was born of, and the vileness that envelops anyone who engages it on either side.
Damien listen to TotalBiscuit https://m.soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/whose-side-am-i-on
Perharps a way to end this can be found.
I call upon YouTubers to totally abandon advertorial content, disclosed or not, because it’s a much bigger source of improper influence than any of the concerns TotalBiscuit listed. I mean, seriously, the dude is calling for a witch hunt of who is sleeping with who, or even who is just friends with who, but he’s okay with (disclosed) cash payments in order in exchange for reviewing a particular game. Under TotalBiscuit’s preferred ethical regime, that Scientology sponsored content that got The Atlantic into trouble a while back would be legit–there was a bright yellow disclosure on top of the article, complying with FTC requirements.
And that’s yet another problem with GG as an ethical campaign. There are legitimate differences of opinion on “journalism ethics”. It becomes much harder to have that already messy discussion as a concession to an Internet mob, especially when that mob has absolutely toxic origins. Especially if TB is insisting that any dialog that occurs also includes some of the worst actors in this mess (Internet Aristocrat, RogueStarGames, Breitbart.)
It is like last year, in the political fight of the U.S. budget debt ceiling. Obama was right to insist that he wouldn’t negotiate “with a gun pointed at the head of the American people”. That’s exactly what holding a discussion over game ethics in the context of GamerGate would be.
I mean, that’s the position TB has. As he says, The Escapist, Polygon and Kotaku have changed their ethical policies. But not enough to satisfy TotalBiscuit. TotalBiscuit is (ahem) not taking sides, he’s just advising us that if we want the mob to go away we’d better give him what he wants.
There’s no other way to say this, but TotalBiscuit in that post has become the guy asking for $20 bucks ( http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/10/15/the-perfect-crime/ ).
I’ve seen other GGs make this argument, but there is a pretty obvious contradiction there, is there not? If TB is going to use any changes to ethical policies to claim victory for GamerGate, then I guess I should oppose changes to ethical policies.
If we’re making ethical demands, here’s my first demand. I call upon everyone to refuse to allow TotalBiscuit to become the new arbiter for ethical conduct in journalism. He’s smart and (I think) well- intentioned, but his judgment and self-awareness are completely lacking.
Whoops, I’m sorry, I said “reviewing” a game, I know, I know, TB is not a reviewer. The ethical problems remain.
TB is taking sides, he is self-proclaimed GG supporter, he does not play that neutrality game. Just fyi.
It’s also funny that you call demand of proper dislosure as witch hunt. Not writing about friends (without full disclosure) should be for a journalist literally law. It mindblowing if someone consider such demand as a witch hunt. And the last thing, bringing youtubers to the discussion about ethics in journalism is de facto derailing, because youtubers are NOT journalist and they dont present themselves as ones. And while its completels ok to critisize youtubers, it is its own category, it has nothing to do with journalistic ethic.
Publishing reviews of a game is in fact acting as a journalist.
Being paid by the publisher, agreeing not to show things that make the game look bad, agreeing to encourage people to buy, and agreeing to let them review your review? That makes you corrupt.
“Thank you for reading and know that the only “side” I am on is that of making this industry better for everyone.”
Yes, he has simulatenously started tweeting #GamerGate while claiming he hasn’t taken a side. He’s TotalBiscuit. He contains multitudes.
Proper avoidance or disclosure of conflict of interest regarding romantic relationships is not a witch hunt. Calling for “industry-wide investigation” of it is. Proper disclosure is important, but improper disclosures merit apologies and reprimands, not termination. Demanding an investigation of improper disclosures in the context of a gross invasion of privacy is deeply inappropriate.
Personally I’m getting a little tired of Biscuit being held up as this voice of reason when he’s made it explicit that his support for ending harassment depends on Gamergate getting what it wants.
From the text version of that soundcloud:
“Even if you truly believe this whole thing is about “harassment”, you have an opportunity to prove it by engaging with the ethical concerns. If once you have addressed these concerns harassment continues, then I promise you will have my full support in stamping out whatever toxicity remains. As it stands though, you have merely given it all the fuel it needs to grow and spread and I am thoroughly disappointed in that.”
Read: Give us what we want and then I promise to help stop us from harassing you. If you won’t then it’s your fault and I’m disappointed in you for that.
This is a rather straightforward declaration of his (partial! reluctant! conflicted!) support of the use of harassment as a tool of achieving “Ethics in Games Journalism.” It’s pretty disgusting that this guy is being held up as the platonic ideal of the Reasonable Gamergate Moderate.
Worst part: he doesn’t even need to that. He’s TotalBiscuit. He’s got a lot of fans. If he wanted those fans to start obsessing over game journalism ethics, he didn’t need #GamerGate to do that. Unlike the vast majority of GGs, TotalBiscuit already had a loud megaphone before the whole mess went down.
I think what he meant by that is that if “gamergate” is about harassment and ethics are a smoke screen, then engaging the ethical concerns would blow that smoke away and reveal the truth. Ignoring gamergate hasen’t worked. Labeling gamergate as X, has not worked.
Problem is that some of TB’s ethical concerns are bogus. You can’t clear away the smoke, because some (not all) of the smoke exists only in GG’s minds, and they can always blow more imaginary smoke.
That’s not what he says, not even close. But suit yourself. There are not many things that upset people more than if they are misinterpreted, so it’s people, and more precisely journalists like you who keep GG alive. I’m not sure whether you can’t read or you do it deliberately, but it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. As far as journalists will be doing exactly what you did here, i.e. misinterpreting our words, ignoring our demands and making one-sided generalizations, GG will be here.
That quote is real, so, yes, that is what he says.
Depending on personal taste, you might prefer this version: http://blueplz.blogspot.dk/2014/10/whose-side-am-i-on.html
Since it might not be clear via my reply-fail, this is a text-based version of Total Biscuit’s stance, as opposed to the audio version above.
Damiem migth be better idea to blur the description of your friend a little more.
Oh, man, I remember some of the Pinsof drama.
My take on that was split — I think Destructoid should have absolutely run the story he was working on since it was actually, honest-to-goodness newsworthy, but once they killed it, he shouldn’t have started Tweeting on it. If he wanted it out there, he should have anonymously leaked it to a competitor, or a local news outlet, and washed his hands of the whole thing. His firing never bothered me.
I didn’t realize that the mailing list folks got involved. Not that it matters — I mean, the guy openly defied his editors and got sacked for it. There’s nothing wrong with said editor talking to other editors about that, though leaving an e-mail paper trail was perhaps unwise.
Still, you’re right. This was a real-life example of gaming journalism fumbling all over itself when it came time to cover actual news.
I can’t stand Gamergate. I think it was started for all the wrong reasons, ultimately exposed no shady practices, and has resulted in a bunch of harassment and nothing else. But game journalism definitely has its problems.
And guess what? So does every branch of journalism. For a laugh (or a cry), read this piece from Dave McKinney, formerly of the Chicago Sun-Times:http://davemckinney123.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/why-i-left/
Wouldn’t it be nice if game journalism had something like jimromenesko.com, or CJR, to keep an impartial, watchful eye over it? The sad irony of Gamergate is that it’s made ethics harder, not easier, to watch over.
Overall this was a big shot in the foot of the so called games journalism. You can blame just gg if pleases you but I dont belive that and theres a significant group that does not either. The toxicity created by the incident will live on and Just dont bug me solution was always a bad solution. That didnt work for two months and it still not a great solution to this day.
Games will still be made. And everybody will reap what was sown one way or the other.
Come up with a solution that doesn’t involve giving in to the demands of people who joined something that started out as a toxic harassment campaign or set a precedent encouraging future GG-like idiocy.
I can only think of two solutions meeting that requirement
1) Non-evil people switch to a different hashtag to discuss game journalism ethics without all the misogynist bullshit, and do a better job distancing themselves from the bad apples–not just the actual doxxers, but the voices in GG who cheer doxxers on.
2) The rest of us start building safe spaces away from GGs. We can’t have a gaming culture in which the price of entry is that you have to put up with GG constantly questioning your legitimacy as a “real” gamer.
Guilt by association is as idiotic as the whole true scotsman idea. And you’re seemingly doing using at the moment.
Now onwards to your solutions:
1) Pure idiocy as you can’t stop people from using hashtags. Which is exactly why so much shit is happening under the current hashtag.
2) So making gaming exclusive instead of inclusive? And how will we have to indicate that we should be part of that exclusive group? By proofing that we’re real “Non-Gaters” ? For every freaking group you’ll have at one point the idea of “True XYZ” be it ‘true metal’, ‘true soccer fan’ or even ‘true feminism’.
My whole solution would be trying to become proactiv. Become the one who’s steering the whole situation. Try to seperate issues and not mix them up. Either talk about ethics in journalism or about problems in gaming culture or even tropes vs. women. Don’t mix them up as none of it justifies anything of the other topic.
And make no mistake here. You won’t hand victory to idiots by engaging in an open discussion, you’ll hand victory to idiots by not engaging in discussion with sane people, just because there are also idiots. Just make sure to mention that it wasn’t the nutjobs who helped that cause, but it was the moderates and sane people.
If there’s no common ground to be had, than we’re doomed either way. But if there’s a common ground to discuss things and you’ll choose not to take it than you’re driving people in the hands of extremists – simple lesson from history.
It’s not guilt by association. People will always be judged by the allies they choose to keep. I’m not talking about the false flag harassers. I’m talking about the very origin of the tag. I’m talking about the misogynists, racists, conspiracy mongers and the people either cheering on or denying harassment, even as they’re never caught harassing anyone themselves. Some of the worst of these folks have very prominent positions in the movement, and the moderates never spend any time calling them out.
1. You can’t stop people from using hashtags, but you can stop using a hashtag that originated in misogyny, and you can denounce the whole Eron Gjoni mess as the gross invasion of privacy that it was (when it wasn’t outright defamation) as well as the idiotic DiGRA/feminism witch hunt, and you can do a better job denouncing new idiocy as it appears.
Absolutely nothing would stop them from doing this except their own egos. Dropping a tag that has misogynistic origins is the absolute least that they could do–if they can’t do that, there is no common ground. No, that doesn’t mean gaming is doomed, because the fact is that there have always been assholes in gaming, it’s just a first that they’ve all marched under one banner like this.
2. Yeah, if you want gaming to be inclusive, you’re going to have to start excluding people who don’t, at least if they try to do their exclusion campaigning in our spaces. If they want to be included again, they can drop their campaign, or at least leave it outside.
GamerGate could use this advice. The idea that feminism is some kind of dominant, corrupting force in gaming culture is insane.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work in the other direction. Obviously, tropes v. women, to the extent that it’s a problem, is a problem in gaming culture. And AAA marketing dollars explain a lot about the way gaming culture has evolved.
Well, an idiot known as TotalBiscuit has declared that as a win condition that would validate GamerGate. And, actually, yes, having a dialogue with bad actors grants them legitimacy. That’s the problem with him holding dialogues with some of worst GG voices. We can’t make GG go away, but we should never grant them any legitimacy.
In fact, really, that’s probably the core demand of people who oppose GG: Stop granting bad people legitimacy. That’s the only way all of this mess–not just GG, but the current of bigotry that’s been in gaming for some time–can be solved.
I don’t know why you write such a long post just to tell me that there’s no common ground to have.
I mean you’re totally free to take any advice on how to sway people away from the radical/idiots or however you want to call them or not. Your strategy of ignoring and demanding something has worked out fine so far…
So i wish you a good day and much success with that grand strategy.
You made several arguments, I wrote a long post to explain the different reasons each of those arguments was wrong.
If you want us to stop making demands, then tell them to stop demanding that we kiss the ring of #GamerGate. That tag started as a vicious smear campaign and it has to be okay for the victims to hate it. Demanding that people pay respect to their abuser is abuse.
“Yeah, if you want gaming to be inclusive, you’re going to have to start excluding people who don’t, at least if they try to do their exclusion campaigning in our spaces.”
This is some impressive doublespeak!
Also “spaces” is a cultural signalling word. When you say that people need to build safe spaces what does that mean in non-cultural-signalling language?
Actually, Demon Investor was right, I did write too much. It’s actually much simpler. Damion and others did reach out. They got doxxed. No, it doesn’t matter who actually doxxed them ( http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/10/24/good-old-jim-hornets/ ). At this point, and actually probably from the beginning, it is irresponsible and unethical to advise people to reach out to GamerGate.
“This is some impressive doublespeak!”
Not as impressive as your trolling, when you demand that inclusion include exclusion.
If you’re trying to exclude others, you aren’t going to be welcome in an inclusive space.
“cultural signalling word” is a cultural signalling word. The concept is self-explanatory, but Google “safe spaces” if you’re having trouble.
@Consumatopia
Believe what you will. There are mainly three things you’ve proven to me.
That you don’t understand why people flock to said tag. That gating a community can never be the end of self proclaimed gatekeepers. And that i no longer want to discuss with someone who chooses driving people further away over engaging in a dialogue in a try to sway them.
Just to adress one point.
Gaters are often doing the same errors, so sure my advice applies the same ways were necessary (i think they’re active enough already). Fact though is that these people are not paid to keep the industry and positive press about gaming running, which basically is why i demand a bit more from self labelled journalists.
“Believe what you will.”
I believe that the origins of GG were toxic and that everyone who engages it is victimized (likely by third parties). I’m not sure how anyone can deny any of that.
“That you don’t understand why people flock to said tag. “
I didn’t say anything about why people flock to the tag. Some people probably have sincere ethical concerns. It’s still a huge, deal-breaking mistake to adopt a tag that originated in a smearing campaign.
“That gating a community can never be the end of self proclaimed gatekeepers.”
Internet communities have to have gates. This isn’t a video gaming thing. Any space on the Internet without gates is overrun by trolls, spammers, and criminals. The freedom of the Internet isn’t that there are no gates, it’s that you can build your own communities with your own gates relatively cheaply.
“And that i no longer want to discuss with …”
So it’s okay for you to decide you don’t want to have a discussion (and I agree, it is okay), but not for the rest of us? The rest of us have to discuss whatever GG wants us to discuss, with whomever GG wants us to have that discussion with?
Screw that. You get to decide not to have a discussion with me. I and anyone else gets to decide not to have a discussion with GG.
Fact though is that these people are not paid to keep the industry and positive press about gaming running, which basically is why i demand a bit more from self labelled journalists.
I’m not paid in this industry. You should ask hard questions about journalism. Understand, though, that their situation is kind of crappy these days, and they don’t belong to you or work for you. In particular, they aren’t obligated to provide a discussion platform and legitimacy to an amorphous internet mob with misogynistic origins, confused ideas, and a cloud of doxxing and harassment that goes after everyone who engages in discussion with them. In fact, they’re kind of obligated not to do that, in my view.
“Damion and others did reach out.”
Damion began by writing a hateful screed.
You seem very concerned with the toxic origins of GG. Why don’t the origins of Damion’s involvement with GG matter?
Damion began as a troll. And now he’s trying to shed that past and be productive – pretty much the same thing you could say for the GG movement.
The vast majority of people who I’ve seen reach out have only done so after first being highly confrontational and obnoxious. It’s no shock that they’ve been rejected.
No, troll, Damion is not a troll. And whatever harsh language is damn understandable in the context of privacy invasion, smearing, harassment and threats that have been with GG from the beginning.
It was confrontational. It was angry. But not obnoxious. The misogyny of Gamergate’s origins deserved to be confronted. As does their continued tolerance for misogynists and racists in their ranks.
Besides, if GG can’t deal with people who disliked them in the past, that means its impossible for them to discuss anything with anyone but themselves. Which explains a lot.
Judging a person is different from judging a hashtag. GG is not trying to shed that past. GG doesn’t denounce its misogynistic origins. It doesn’t drop the hashtag.
@Consumatopia
I’ll happily point it out to you again i decide nothing for you. I gave an advice on how to end the situation a bit quicker which you’re free to ignore. And if you don’t get the difference, it’s simply your problem.
Another free advice, if you don’t want to give attention to the whole shit, than simply don’t write anything about it. At least some journalists got that part right.
And please, please, please never stop saying that it’s okay to ignore a sane guy because you could get attack by an insane guy for doing so. As there’s no better sign for people to not take anything you write serious…
Well maybe add in your whole shtick about acting first, thinking about and discerning a situation later you brought up a few weeks ago.
“I’ll happily point it out to you again i decide nothing for you. I gave an advice on how to end the situation a bit quicker which you’re free to ignore. ”
Right, you can give free advice, I can give a free explanation why its both ill-advised and unethical. If you don’t understand that, that’s simply your problem.
“Another free advice, if you don’t want to give attention to the whole shit, than simply don’t write anything about it. At least some journalists got that part right.”
Yeah, they all tried that. Didn’t work.
“And please, please, please never stop saying that it’s okay to ignore a sane guy because you could get attack by an insane guy for doing so.”
Not listening to GamerGate means not listening to a stupid guy (the GG moderates) who choose to ally with an insane guy (KiA, 8chan, Breitbart) in an environment in which an unidentified dangerous guy, possibly one of their allies is going after anyone who engages with them.
In an environment in which victims are under attack, the people who say “these attacks, whoever is doing them, would go away if you victims gave into our demands” should not be listened to.
“Well maybe add in your whole shtick about acting first, thinking about and discerning a situation later you brought up a few weeks ago.”
Googling, the best I can figure out is that you’re talking about our exchange in this thread: http://www.zenofdesign.com/is-gamergate-anti-feminism-well-duh/
Two points:
A) What you just said is not the position I had back then at all.
B) You were a lot more reasonable and coherent back at the beginning of this month. The difference is so stark that it’s actually scary. For both our sakes, I’m done here.
Nothing that sparked the GG discussions including supposedly trading sex for game reviews or accusations of collusion between gaming journalists has the slightest basis in real life or the slightest ethical relevance to what journalists *do.*
You want journalists to take your ethical considerations seriously? Come up with some issues that actually exist.
You’re misinterpreting Sargon’s tweet. He was making a joke about the “gamers are dead” meme journos (anti-gg) made.
ie. “if you’re not pro-#gamergate, there’s no such thing as ‘gamers’ lol”
Is Vox Day joking too?
https://twitter.com/ChrisWarcraft/status/526540360114122752
I really like your logic. You say that GG harasses people, you say that anti-GG harasses people and then you conclude that it means that GG is toxic and that GG needs to end. In other words, harassment from one side defines that side and is enough to name it as toxic, but harasment from other side has no such consequences.
It’s a shame that such logic can be used in the opposite way. If harasment can make toxic one side, it do the same with the other one. So using your logic, you should immediately stop opposing GG, because anti-GG is toxic and your people cause this terrible minefield. There are GG supportes who were forced from their house, who were threatened by swatting, recieved syringe and even knife in their mail , which I consider A LOT more serious than threaths on twitter, and while I undestand that most of anti-GG people don’t do that, your opposition to GG is due to it extremly toxic and cause fear not only among developers. Therefore you should stop this madness.
Above that, an actual fighter of ISIS expressed on twitter his support to #StopGamerGate2014 (can provide evidence), anyone who has actually ever read more than 2 tweets from him know that that’s pretty much the endorsement of the most vicious terrorist organization of todays world. Simply put, big companies are NOT going to engage or negotiate to anyone who gets too cozy with fringe elements like that. But because anti-GG has no real organization or structure, they have no real way to distance themselves from it, even if they were so inclined. Please, reconsider your possition and leave your beliefs, your opposition to GG is toxic…
And tha last thing, you should really differentiate when you speak about GG as a consumer revolt, and when you speak about GG as a name for all recent events, because it makes huge difference and it wouldn’t let you make so much fallacies.
” You say that GG harasses people, you say that anti-GG harasses people and then you conclude that it means that GG is toxic and that GG needs to end.”
The harassment from the two ‘sides’ (in as much as ‘holy shit those fuckers are crazy’ can be a side) is not even remotely comparable. Not REMOTELY.
Does it happen directed at pro-GGers? Yes, and that is wrong. But attempting to say it’s the same in intensity or magnitude is very dishonest.
“Above that, an actual fighter of ISIS expressed on twitter his support to #StopGamerGate2014”
That was a twitter bot. A twitter bot that seeks out trending hashtags and posts to them in order to make more people see its posts. The exact same ISIS twitter bot also supported #GamerGate. You fail.
GG is not a consumer revolt, it is a reactionary movement designed to keep teh ebil SJWz out of gaming.
Gamergate has made me far more aware of the spectre of online harassment. I always knew it was there, but I’d never taken the time to look any further; it was enough for me to know that I wasn’t sending abusive messages.
Having followed this blog for the duration of Gamergate it’s been interesting to see the views and suggestions of a developer who has been exposed to some of the excesses online harassment can create.
I think it’s a sad reflection that a tool of communication as powerful as the internet is so easily used to target individuals for specific harassment. The implicit intention of which is to shutdown and silence contribution.
Then again my inner cynic wonders why I should be so surprised given the amount of violence that takes place on a daily basis in the real world. Go and Google ‘Domestic Violence Statistics’ to really put a downer on your day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22610534
Is it any real surprise then that there would be people out there on the internet who have an abusers mindset and the desire to do more than just place an offensive comment?
Maybe instead of trying to negotiate with a disparate mob, more of an emphasis could be placed on positive reinforcement of gamers against discrimination and violence.
In the same vein an anti-racism movement is present in football (that’s soccer to US readers 😉 )
http://www.srtrc.org/home
It would be nice to think that something positive and long lasting could emerge from this.
A quick question regarding your friend first, did you ever talk about the iCloud hack of this summer and was his immediate response to it “Maybe they shouldn’t have taken pictures/put them on iCloud”?
Anyway. There really won’t be an end to this in the immediate future. Gamergate community has its arms open wide for wingnuts, right-libertarians, MRAs, antifeminists, neoreactionaries, neonazis etc etc etc. Like seriously, at the very best you get a brogressive who thinks anything that doesn’t affect him/her directly is a non-issue. And that’s just barely better.
Because of these, there won’t be any “Let’s handshake and work together.” From neither side. Will you be able to work with Davis Aurini or someone who thinks he’s the bee’s knees? Can someone who believes that DARPA is funding DigRA work with Leigh Alexander? No. It will NEVER happen. Neither are people going to change sides, because, come on.
DARPA is funding DiGRA? That’s a new one.
Not really, that one has been going on for weeks. And they claim to have found real evidence of it, because of course they have. And you can’t disprove it, because… how?
I’m fairly certain a list of DARPA-funded projects is available online.
Found 2012’s in about 5s of searching.
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/Science_and_Technology/DARPA/12-F-1039_2012-DARPA-Funding-List.pdf
So..yeah. Pretty sure this information is available. Unless someone thinks DARPA is funding feminism at a CLASSIFIED level?
It ties into the core of all right qing conspiracy theories. “The government is out to get you, using underhanded tactics”. Either it’s by instating a Kenyan Muslim president or bringing Ebola to Western countries or trying to destroy masculinity and families by funding the Cultural Marxist ploy that is feminism.
right *wing
Ken White @ Popehat had the strongest and lengthiest criticism of GamerGate (as well as some mostly deserved criticism of some of the opposition) that I’ve seen from a right-of-center perspective (though I confess that’s not something I keep a close eye on.)
http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/26/ten-short-rants-about-gamergate/
At this point it seems
Sorry, ignore the fragment at the end.
This is less a criticism of GamerGate (although there is plenty of that) and more a criticism of the whole fiasco.
3 & 4 are huge problems with internet communication in general.
I think it’s healthy to view all internet discussion as coming with a large disclaimer. Social media is a medium for overreaction, posturing, throwing red meat to the crowd, performing for your like-minded peers, etc. More than anything else social media is about performance. Not communication but demonstration.
That’s why in these comments I stress consistency. I like it when people have the right principles (according to me!), but barring that I like it when people have ANY principles beyond “it’s ok when I do it.” That’s really the prevailing sentiment of most of the most vocal people on social media – it doesn’t matter whether they are conservatives or liberals or “progressives” or whatever else – they may differ on the specifics but the under-riding ideology in all cases is “it’s ok when I do it.” (For example joking about a bad thing)
2 is pretty damn scathing of #GamerGate as a “vehicle”. The Confederate flag and Westboro Baptist Church are both mentioned.
While there is plenty of criticism of bad behavior on both sides, it’s pretty clear that he opposes both the choice to retweet #GamerGate and finds most of the #GamerGate agenda to be wrongheaded. Note that most of the SJW criticism is talking about things that SJWs did in previous controversies.
Oh, and 3 is basically the same argument David Gaider made that you flipped out over. So much for consistency…
No.
David Gaider argued that perfectly legitimate criticism was off-limits.
This guy says “It is swell to use more speech to disagree with, criticize, or ridicule the criticism.”
Two very different positions.
The problem with the Gaider piece was that it wasn’t aimed at harassment or criticism that is fervant to a ridiculous extreme, it was aimed at criticism in any form. That just saying “these examples seem cherry-picked” is beyond the pale.
“David Gaider argued that perfectly legitimate criticism was off-limits.”>
You lie.
Here are the passages in question. Gaidar:
Here’s Ken White:
No, I don’t lie. Anyone can read his piece for themselves and see that he uses accusations of cherry-picking specifically as an example of criticism he finds unacceptable.
He didn’t find any criticism unacceptable! Both Gaider and White find the disproportionate intensity of feeling behind that criticism absurd. That’s all.
I can understand that Damien is sick of this. There migth be more losers than winners in the end. If we cant be productive in the comments no point in doing any.
Return of Kings is not a MRA site, but a RedPill site.
You say tomato, I say tomahto.
MRA’s, outside narrowly construed fields that focus on issues like disparities in child custody, are toxic waste dumps. “Red pill” can mean something broader, but it still is heavily flavored with the same “Yes, it’s TEH MENZ who are actually discriminated against” philosophy.
And one of the current headlines? “Why Feminists want to destroy gaming.”
Gag me with a spoon. Not impressed.
Different terms means different things.
A tomato and a potato are not the same. “But they’re both food!”
When you call everyone you disagree with an MRA you look like a fool. It’s no better than calling everyone you disagree with a Marxist or Feminist.
MRAs are just liberal boogeymen these days. Some guy in front of you at Starbucks taking too long? Probably an MRA!
“Different terms means different things.”
But related terms are related for distinct and particular reasons, and “Redpill” sites are explicitly linked to the MRA movement.
That does not mean every “Red pill” site is an MRA site, because you could theoretically be a batshit insane conspiracy theorist and claim to run a “red pill” site.
This particular site, however, has multiple MRA-centric and styled arguments including the aforementioned “Why feminists want to destroy gaming” and its own tagline “For Masculine Men.”
“When you call everyone you disagree with an MRA you look like a fool.”
But I haven’t. What I’ve said is that the two terms are often linked and that the link appears to be particularly justified in this case.
For God’s sake, man. One of the front-page articles on the site is “Why Men Shouldn’t Go To College.” It contains gems like this: “It’s clear that I’m not the only one who thinks this way. For as long as I can remember, the percentage of men enrolled in colleges has dropped every year. Universities across America are becoming giant clam-fests, coffee klatches of sexually frustrated co-eds whining about the quality of men they’re expected to hook up with”
and “You will be denigrated every day — and potentially arrested — for being a man.”
No, not every red pill site is an MRA site, but the two TEND to be linked, and are obviously and inextricably linked at Return of Kings.
If you want to continue conversing with me I’m going to have to ask that you tailor your responses to the things I actually say rather than your knee-jerk reactions to nonexistent arguments.
“But related terms are related for distinct and particular reasons, and “Redpill” sites are explicitly linked to the MRA movement.”
Do you know what the word “explicitly” means? It seems like you don’t.
“MRA”, “men’s”, “rights” or other language that would explicitly link Return of Kings to MRAs don’t exist. The word “rights” does not appear on the front page at all, nor does “activist”, nor do any classic MRA issues like divorce or custody.
If there’s an explicit link I’m not seeing it.
“No, not every red pill site is an MRA site, but the two TEND to be linked, and are obviously and inextricably linked at Return of Kings.”
You don’t know what MRA is. You’re just using it as a catch-all for anything you don’t like that appears masculine, pro-men or anti-women.
They are linked only in your own mind because they both have to do with men’s stuff. (Though in totally different ways)
“One of the front-page articles on the site is “Why Men Shouldn’t Go To College.” It contains gems like this: “It’s clear that I’m not the only one who thinks this way. For as long as I can remember, the percentage of men enrolled in colleges has dropped every year.””
Men’s Rights people tend to bemoan the fact that men are falling behind in education because they believe that education has begun catering too much to women and has ignored the needs of men. The idea that men should skip college because there are too many women is pretty much exactly the opposite of what MRAs believe.
It’s fine if you genuinely have no idea what MRAs are (which seems to be the case), but then stop calling people MRAs when they espouse views that are the OPPOSITE of what MRAs espouse.
This is from Wikipedia:
“Men’s rights activists describe the education of boys as being in crisis, with boys having reduced educational achievement and motivation as compared to girls.”
Jesus, just use the correct words for things. Is it asking you to learn what words mean and then use the properly really asking too much?
By the way, just let me head one objection off at the pass and so no, I am not an MRA or someone who is into “Red Pill”, PUA, manly-men alpha/beta talk or any of that shit.
I’m just someone is annoyed when people insist on using the wrong words for things. I’m not”defending MRAs, for the most part MRAs seem pretty lame. (Ableism!) But they’re lame in a different way than PUA / Return of Kings guys. (I suspect the RoK guys would think of MRAs as “betas.”)
A Voice for Men is definitely MRA.
https://www.google.com/search?q=red+pill+site:avoiceformen.com
https://reference.avoiceformen.com/wiki/Men_Going_Their_Own_Way_(MGTOW)
No doubt, the logical contents of AVfM and RoK are incompatible with each other. Some of them hate each other, just like some communists hate each other. But there is still a continuous manifold spanning the manosphere, even if that topology is not contractible to a point. It’s like a goateed evil dimension version of the Civil Rights/Black Nationalist split.
At worst, it’s like calling people who want increased welfare “socialists” or lower taxes “libertarians”. Neither is technically accurate, both are excusable shorthand.
AFAIK, MRAs started because second wave feminism was too rabidly anti-men, so they formed their own group devoted to fight perceived injustices performed against men.
RedPill is a radicalized section of the PUA movement that believes women are childish and inferior, and also believes somewhat that mankind was evolved to be lead by people who has the ‘dark triad’ (sociopathy, machiavellism, narcissism). I disagree strongly and vehemently with the former, but I think there is some evidence to believe the latter.
RedPillers indeed, see MRAs as useless whiners and betas.
In a Venn diagram, neither MRA nor PUA is a subset of the other. But all talk about “the red pill” and MGTOW is somewhere in the intersection between MRA and PUA.
Note that some white supremacist orgs claim to defend “white rights”. Also many of them denounce each other as shills or race traitors. Same stuff happens in the manosphere.
I can’t reply to you in-line, so I’m popping back up to do it here.
https://eruditeknight.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/venn1.jpg
This diagram, drawn by a self-avowed MRA, and noted as being a first-draft and not to scale, sums up the relationship nicely.
Not every Redpiller is an MRA. Not every MRA is a MGTOW. Not every MGTOW is either. But there’s significant overlap between the various bands, and they are often based on a common ideological recognition of issues, even if they vary deeply in their proposed responses.
The language of sites like ROK makes explicit and direct references to many of the arguments also advanced by the MRA movement — specifically that there exists a fundamental anti-male society around us that caters and values the needs of women but pushes men to the borders.
You can hold that thought in common and stil define your response differently, but you’re still starting in a similar place.
Damion, got two questions:
1- What do you think of TYTTalk constantly kissing GG ass?
2- Eron Gjoni says he’s a feminist and SJW. How? Really, like how?
Anyone can also answer these questions, btw.
Delurking to say:
I think that Eron Gjoni believes in SJ theory. By his own account Zoe Quinn was emotionally abusive to him during their relationship: lying even when caught out in lies, trying to make him doubt his own sanity, etc. Early in their relationship they both agreed (as per the more extreme SJ theories) that having sex with someone while lying about your sexual history is a form of rape (because it prevents them from making an informed decision about whether to consent). By her own definition of the word rape, Zoe Quinn raped Eron Gjoni.
He claims to have told his story because he wanted the SJ community to understand that they were admiring, protecting and valorising an abuser in their midst. He says that he didn’t anticipate the harassment against her from haters, but thought that she would be condemned by the SJ crowd (as people have been for far more minor offences eg. making dongle-dick jokes).
Reading through his tumblr, he sounds like a decent guy, and seems honest. On the other hand, who thinks that posting break-up stories to reddit and 4chan is good way to get SJ attention?
Let me put it this way: writing something as vile as theZoePost, and then attempting to aim 4Chan and Reddit at a jilted ex-lover is pretty much the atom bomb of abusive, harassment acts of an ex-lover. No matter what she did or says she did, it does not compare to that act. And he’s not particularly contrite about it either. He’d do it again, he says. He feels he needs to stay part of gamergate to keep things on track, he says. He appears to have little respect for gag or restraining orders, getting friends to post on legal proceedings that he’s bound by law not to discuss.
Even if everything written about Zoe were 100% true, which I doubt very much, Eron Gjoni is at the top of the list of people I have zero respect for out of this whole farce.