People mainly discuss whether she's a "fraud," a "con-artist" or a "scam."
There is very little actual critical discourse about her stuff. Certainly not on the level of peer-reviews, as would be the academic standard.
It all gets drowned out.
#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
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People mainly discuss whether she's a "fraud," a "con-artist" or a "scam."
There is very little actual critical discourse about her stuff. Certainly not on the level of peer-reviews, as would be the academic standard.
It all gets drowned out.
If anyone's interested in discussing the wider background situation around this, about internet anonymity and this lack of accountability in our dealings with one another, I made a thread in Off-Topic. I wanted to talk in more general and forward-looking terms, avoiding the specificity of #GamerGate, about internet anonymity, the lack of accountability, the impact which the practice has on the victims, the impact it might have on the perpetrators even, what challenges kids growing up amidst such everyday examples could face, etc.
SerTapTap
Member
Yeah this is the worst possible time to try and actually talk about the significant issues. The free nexus 7s for Watch Dogs reviewers, now that was pretty gross.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I love this article.
And I def. agree with him in that the gaming press hasn't really ever worked like a proper journalistic industry for there to be "corruption" or anything of the sort to begin with.
I'm all for the death of enthusiast press and the hype culture, of previews being ads rather than informative news pieces, the close relationship between the press and publishers, and so on.
If #gamergate achieves that, I am a #gamergater.
She keeps engaging these people. Seriously, she needs to get the hell off twitter. She said she quit already, right? So, she needs to leave twitter for a while. Look at how Zelda Williams dealt with it - she didn't need to put up with the shit thrown her way, and just left twitter for a while. She eventually came back to make a single post, but she hasn't done much sense. This is the correct action.
Disengage the idiots -- they'll eventually get bored and go elsewhere. It's just the reality of it, as sad as it is.
i read that on the twitter tho and decided not to leave my home in fear.
i misunderstood the poster i think, but the point remains that a discussion of the reputation of a gamer should not usurp a discussion about the harassment of people. This specific harassment. the 'crimes' are not equible, related, and it hurts everyone involved to not just denounce the original crimes that occurred. Making the existing conversation about yourself (not you, folks pointing out that a twitter post is all down on them) is painful to watch.
Delusibeta
Banned
I'm not sure precisely when the #Quinnspiracy ended and when #Gamergate began, but I think it was around the time of Leigh's article (and subsequent concurrence by large quantities of the rest of the gaming websites). In other words, I suspect game journalists wound up putting a tonne of fuel on the fire.
It doesn't though. I mean, you have read the article.
#gamergate targets the people that are actually trying to change this. The fringe journalists, the critics that engage games not on the level of covering a "product." You know, actual criticism.
This is why it's so harmful.
They aren't really fighting corruption. They are just insulting people on the internet.
The articles aren't the problem, the problem is people attacking those who wrote them instead of formulating arguments and talking about what they didn't agree with them.
Acting like an immature and entitled brat is hardly going to help anything.
The more recent threads have fostered better discussion since the mods keep a close eye on the usual "arguments" and the rest of us can actually talk about what we agree or disagree regarding the actual content of the videos.
About your articles, I would say they would be a nice subject for a thread but given the current events it probably isn't a good idea.
Pretty hard thing to do. Especially when it's what she's been dealing with for years constantly. She's been pushed to the edge and now her entire career/life is being unraveled by assholes.
Cunts. Plural. I'm talking about all the arseholes on twitter I didn't single her out. And that word is also a lot more common and less offensive here.
Also for the situation with GB of course they hired him because they got on well. The entire site is about personalities. Not just hiring writer X but hiring someone the group as a whole can work with on camera and live shows. So yes, compatibility with the crew is 100% relevant to being qualified. Leigh Alexander bitched about how she can write better than anyone on GB. They had her on twice she RUINED entire live shows by being drunk, rude, obnoxious, and annoying. Her best contribution to the show was screaming "FUCK BOSTON FUCK BOSTON" and telling everyone Bobby Kotick spent $775 million of his own money on hiring a venue for a night. Not just one year but repeated it the second. If they hired her or someone like her it would be a shit show.
SerTapTap
Member
What else is there to say though? Do you want everyone to preface their defense of the word "gamer" with "harassment is TOTES BAD YO", I simply do not see any useful thing I can actually do about harassment. And I really don't find it ideal to just ignore harmful language being thrown around just because something else is worse. We'd never discuss anything if we could only focus on the single absolute worst possible thing going on at any given time.
That article definitely seems to have been a turning point when the debate stopped being about a few specific assholes and people started vastly broadening their definition of who's harassing people.
Interfectum
Member
I don't have a ton to add right now, I just wanted to say that nothing has made me question the time I've been putting into participating in, reading about, engaging with the community within games and gaming (35 years or so?) more than seeing Jenn Frank get emotionally tortured day after day on Twitter. Nothing has made me feel this shitty for simply having a hobby.
Lalalandia
Member
Except it won't because the targets are not EA/Activision/Capcom/etc but small indie developers and journalists covering that scene.
Uh... Zelda Williams got harassed on twitter? Why exactly!? I agree with you, Jenn Frank needs to stop replying and ignore twitter for a while. It's simply not productive, she's not being harassed by people who want an actual discussion.
Exactly, that's why I didn't hold my interest. It kinda was Feminist Analysis 101 stuff and I wish it was going deeper. Well I guess academics are not really the audience for this though, or she would be quoting Butler left and right. It's more aimed at the general public being video and all.
Coming from Germany my papers are in German anyway, so my audience is limited by that to begin with. It's a shame because I also have some very smart colleagues.
I... I get this, but...
That can't be it, can't it? That shouldn't be it. It's just so... so sad and infuriating that the only thing you can do is to shut yourself off from what is basically a large part of your life.
And then basically leave the field to the fuckheads, and wait until they've moved on to whatever else. (god help the "else")
Also it's pretty clear in her writing that the way she deals with problems is through her writing... so tell her she should stop writing about it on twitter is a bit insensitive.
That has zero to do with GamerGate and everything to do with Polygon's shift in direction and focus.
The problems will appear when it will be done.
I hope that new, better, websites will be created from Gamergate.
The market need compatition from the inside.
Why Gamergate? People like usung the gate suffic for scandals no matter how major or minor.
End corruption but stay the same? People are tired of "social justice warriors" who are colluding with certain devs to push an agenda.
Yeah, it was an inside job! Let's start with the conspiracy theories again. Go ahead. That will be constructive.
We need schematics with tweets connecting to other tweets or else they'll get away with it!
SerTapTap
Member
This is what I don't get. You did not do that. Why should you feel guilty? I don't feel guilty when fellow coffee-enjoyers murder people. Why are only certain "groups" supposed to feel bad when one of "them" do something? It's bullshit, and people maintaining this stereotype of "gamer" as being this evil hivemind that coordinates attacks on people is completely awful.
The self-loathing really has to end. This isn't even a situation like privilege where you benefit from others being put down even if you don't act.
And that means she should get rape and death threats.. because she was drunk on a podcast a long long time ago? Greg Miller was pretty drunk and annoying this year..
yes she said some off the mark remarks about Giantbomb or their hiring.. and? Those didn't merit the stuff she got back.
She wrote an article that said something about gamers, and I think that because it was her and it was a little harsh because it came on the heels of the quinn harassment, people chose to take it differently or for some reason personally.. the article only said that companies don;t need to make all their products pandering to a certain stereotypical gamer demo.. but that the gamer demo is actually much more varied.
I'm not disagreeing with the point, I'm saying that in a thread called "the harassment of anita" it is distasteful to talk about your own hardships in an unsympathetic way, but it happened in the extreme. We have (had?) a journalism thread that is more appropriate for the accusations of slander inherent in the system.
Metroidvania
People called Romanes they go the house?
I think a 'sensitive nerve' based on 'rocking the boat' may be assigning a personal judgment to it, but there's no doubt that it is certainly an issue of some contention/of a sensitive nature, as opposed to being something 'simple' to discuss like the PSN hack or the new Xbone specs.
I'm kind of curious as to how much the Adam Orth/Xbone-always connected issue got, as more of a basis of comparison for 'social issues'.
Because I have empathy.
SerTapTap
Member
I would agree if this situation hadn't turned towards slandering "gamer" as a slur, but it has, so it is certainly valid to discuss that. I do not think the ZQ situation is a remotely appropriate springboard for games journalism "corruption" discussions, but the situation has unfortunately grown beyond that.
Empathy does not necessitate guilt. I can feel for someone without marking myself as a bad person because someone who enjoyed a thing I did once hurt that person, that's self-defeating and helps no one. Guilt implies you have personally done wrong.
Neoriceisgood
Member
From what I observe there's quite a lot of people who use twitter as their prime means of "chatting" online with friends in a more "this way anyone I get along with can hear"-way than a private chat would allow. (Heck, the ability to have a protected twitter seems to be a way to essentially force twitter into a "friends only chat group" of sorts.)
The sheer visibility & easy digging makes twitter an incredibly easy place to dig up and misconstrue a person's messages and reactions as some sort of end-all-be-all regarding their conduct and who they are.
I've voiced my opinion on things very rarely on twitter cause this visibility bothers me a lot; Yet I've had me stating stuff in subtweets (which are generally invisible unless someone digs) lead to people I've never even heard of suddenly asking me to substantiate something or arguing with the person I was talking to.
She quit twitter for a while because people sent her [fake] photos of her deceased father. I assume they did it because it was "funny" to them.
Have you already discussed this video about the Indipendent Games Festival? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgW5NRUfs44
I think it's the most important part of gamergate, the implications are real and sad.
I think it's the most important part of gamergate, the implications are real and sad.
SkeptiMism
Member
Besides the points about which a couple of people here replied to you already, you're not seriously suggesting the SJWs are actually making fake twitter accounts to to harass themselves in order to get attention.
..
I'm not going to bother with that kind of thinking much sorry, but I will say this: please, reconsider your position.
SenorArdilla
Member
#KillAllMen is as much a hate speech as "Boys are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them."
When did I ever say that? Or even mention rape or death threats? I said there are arseholes on both sides. When GB hired Dan, Leigh Alexander was saying they're shit and she can write better than any of them all because Dan is a white male. I'm saying he was the right choice regardless of gender or race and simply putting someone in just because they aren't a white male is stupid. As my example I was saying if they hired Leigh Alexander, who says she's better than all of them, it would ruin the site. She's overbearing and obnoxious. That's a terrible combination for a site all about personalities..
What does the video bring up?
Really? Is there absolute evidence that it is just gamers doing this instead of those co-opting the movement? With those individuals arguably standing something to gain from this.
In phrasing it in this way, it isn't much different than how some people viewed the "gamers are over" series of stories.
SerTapTap
Member
Can't watch the video at work, what's it about? The comments are all over the damn place but look like somewhat (unfortunately) standard Youtube Comment Indie Hate.
Half of the GB crew is obnoxious and overbearing though people just enjoy their sense of humor, which may be because their actions are more acceptable as men in the eyes of their audience.
Imru al-Qays
Banned
The more I think about the issue the more it seems like the real problem isn't "games culture": it's Twitter.
Objectively Bad Opinion
Member
Imru’ al-Qays;128597669 said:
YouTube also has the same bullying problem. It's a short-form, unmoderated forum thing. All news sites have it.
It's hard to do, yes. But absolutely possible.
It's not insensitive. It's reality. She doesn't need to put up with being put through the grinder. The more she engages these assholes the more mentally and emotionally draining it will become. It's going to be an infinite vortex, the longer she remains there. It's the best option. It's a shitty one, but the best she's got.
It is unfortunate, but what else can she do? I really wish there was a better option than this. I guess she could take the time and just block everyone? But that would take too long and it would mean she'd be forced to read every message.
She had people telling her she needed to kill herself, and that she was somehow responsible for Robin's death, which couldn't be further from the truth. It was despicable, and ridiculously toxic. They were also sending her photoshopped images of her dad (someone that hung themselves with Robin's face superimposed) Instead of engaging those people, she said she'd leave twitter for a while.
Maybe I have, who can say? Maybe by just being a part of this community I've already compromised a lot of my personal values. Maybe I've just been shutting that reality out by thinking I can discuss my way through it, or that it'll just get better as society gets better, and that that's ok and not a way of trying to have my cake and eat it too.
robovanburen
Member
Imru al-Qays;128597669 said:
I think #GamerGate will drive more people from Twitter than the industry. Absolutely awful place to try and hold a conversation.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Oh wow, I missed that part ... what the fuck.
Imru’ al-Qays;128597669 said:
It plays a major role. Although even removing these platforms of communication (which also act as platforms for harassment), the extremist still will still doxx and harass you if you don't agree with them. So, while I guess in an alternate timeline where Twitter ceased to exist, I don't think these issues would go away.
They were around before twitter was a problem. But yeah, I would say most of this current fighting was probably launched from Twitter's form of communicating (the shit flinging).
Lalalandia
Member
When these 'others' are so successfully co-opting the GG 'movement' then you have to ask whether the movement was ever what you wanted it to be in the first place or is worth continuing to support. Honestly I do hope that those who are against what the GG label has gained infamy from do split off and form a new group leaving the trolls with the tag they have so completely co-opted.
Delusibeta
Banned
Pretty much. There's a reason why there's the word "bait" in the phrase "clickbait".
SerTapTap
Member
I'm sorry but that's extremely messed up.
Would it even be possible though? Literally all you have to do to co opt such a "movement" is tweet the exact same thing with #NewHashtag instead of #GamerGate
FF Seraphim
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