Bizarro-world former developer Mark Kern, notable terrible boss and purveyor of multimillion dollar non-functional vanity buses, and supposedly recent convert to a religion he’s been preaching for months, recently found that he had some time to kill after hiccups on his last job. So he did an AMA where he had this to say about why some OTHER developers might oppose GamerGate.
Some devs are anti-GG, either through lack of understanding, or wanting things to cool down. More interestingly, there has been pressure from spouses who may not be gamers, and who only know tumblr…and devs want a happy household.
That’s right. You developers who generally oppose GamerGate may think that you’re doing it because you oppose the blatant and vicious harassment that some in the movement choose to use that targets people who oppose gamergate (including the very origins of the hashtag and leading into harassment of myself and fellow game developers, cultural critics, charities and press– and if you don’t believe them, then how about a former Gamergater who fell out of the fold). Or because they insist on brigading our conference hashtags, oftentimes with porn and other filth. You may think that you’re doing it because they engage in a culture of intimidation which leaves many of our female coworkers depressed and terrified. You may think you’re doing it because the current state of things makes it much harder for developers to engage with their fans.
You may think that you’re doing it because it’s no accident that the only media that will give them the time of day are right-wing tinfoil hat rags that make Fox News seem rational and well reasoned, Men’s Rights buffoons, and occasional attention from literal neonazi messageboards (largely because their eCelebs sometimes go there). You may oppose them because they frequently wade into blatant transphobia.
You might oppose them because you believe that an ethos of free speech doesn’t necessarily mean that the drunkest, most obnoxious asshole at the bar should win every discussion.
You might oppose them because the ‘ethics in journalism’ aspect of the movement is a joke, given that the movement doesn’t actually understand journalistic ethics, doesn’t understand that reviews are supposed to be tailored to a site’s audience, doesn’t understand free speech, doesn’t understand that diversity is good for making money, and generally creates an environment so overcharged that you can’t raise a vaguely progressive point of video games criticism without incredibly thin-skinned idiots throwing a hissy fit – and sometimes they’ll throw a hissy fit even if the topic has NOTHING TO DO WITH GAMES. You may think that you’re doing it because these idiots actually gave Jack Thompson a voice again.
No, according to Mark Kern, you probably just don’t understand. And if you do understand, it’s because your feminazi wife has you pussywhipped.
Anyway, Kern is now trying to get his League for Gamers idea off the ground. This is in theory a customer advocacy group that some have compared to my GAMR proposal from October of last year. I’m skeptical, but who can say? Right now, there’s only a countdown on the page – 21 days until we see LFG in all it’s glory (and great, that’s another useful gaming acronym that’s going to be destroyed along with ‘GG’ – thanks Mark). However, one part of the website is functional right now.
Yes, Kern’s new organization is 21 days from launching, but the #1 thing that had to get implemented STAT because it’s completely URGENT is the ability for people to see if they are blocked by Randi’s blockbot and the Atheism+ blockbot. That way, if you’re an abusive fuckhead, you can get a new Twitter handle so you can keep on sending messages to people who have installed the blockers to stop getting an avalanche of GamerGate crap in their twitter feed they don’t want. The primary reason someone might want this tool is so they can keep sending messages to people who don’t want to hear them.
Anyway, I was going to send Kern a message to ask if there was some secondary reason why this might be considered to vital. This was when I was reminded that irony is sometimes fucking hilarious.
Oh, and don’t forget that he refuses to let people write comments on his inane, paranoid blog posts.
You know, because free speech.
Blog post. Singular. Because Letting Mark Speak reveals he doesn’t have much to say.
http://grummz.com/
Takes effort to get beyond 140 characters at a time.
Just like a lot of the GamerGate brains trust.
After ‘No Girls Allowed’ it tends to run out of steam.
LET DAMION SCHUBERT SPEAK!
Mark Kern – Do as I say, not as I do.
He also reminds me of the people that support the confederate flag. They complain that people just don’t understand what the confederate flag is really about. The reason the vast majority people want to get rid of the confederate flag is that it is a symbol of racism despite all the rationalizations about meaning something different ( http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/ ).
GG is no different. Mark Kern can bury his head in the sand to ignore the facts of the history and true motives of the instigators and leaders of GG, but it does nothing to fool the rest of the world that can easily observe what is really going on.
Kern isn’t stupid. He knows exactly what GG stands for. He’s counting on it. His professional reputation is, shall we say, a bit troubled these days; notoriety is what he has left.
“Lead on WoW” was a running joke around our office — it seemed like every third person in games had that on their resume — but it’s nevertheless valuable leverage, because for the most part the success of WoW is still mysterious to most of the industry, and they’d like to be able to purchase some of that magic for themselves. But there’s only so many times you can use that leverage and have it amount to fuck-all before people start noticing.
So what he’s got left is throwing in with people who don’t care what awful shit he’s been up to, because supporting the awful is literally their raison d’etre. That they also happen to function as a private army he can deploy against the various industry media outlets that reported on his epic flameouts? That’s just a bonus.
Exactly.
He’s not an inept project leader prone to making catastrophically bad decisions, alienating his staff, and turning his career into a long, sad, punchline-free joke …IT’S SUM KINDA CONSPIRACY! Don’t you dare think his career is in a downward spiral! No, his farcical trajectory of failure is the product of a totally real, and definitely not made up liberal feminazi social justice pinko killjoy cabal whose sole purpose is to suck the life out of everything you hold sacred.
That’s right: YOU. They hate all the stuff you love, and they want you to feel bad about loving it. And they definitely won’t stop unless you terrorize them into silence, shout down all rational debate, and spew hateporn, horrifying threats, and shameful, endless lies into the world under the GamerGate banner.
Because hate.
I mean, ethics.
#LETZENSPEAK