Intheflorsh
Banned
Seriously, this has to be the most elaborate internet conspiracy ever hatched by people who apparently have no idea how the internet works.
#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
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Seriously, this has to be the most elaborate internet conspiracy ever hatched by people who apparently have no idea how the internet works.
Lalalandia
Member
Complains about raising irrelevant issues, raises irrelevant issue.
GamerGate is Quinnspiracy:Fig Leaf edition
Indeed. The takeaway in all of this insanity should not be any single article, post, statement, skywriting, etc. It should be the big picture: women have been structurally excluded, mistreated, ignored, silenced in the industry for a long time. Just as a number of people (men and women) have begun bringing this structural problem to the surface, the latent structural oppression has also come to the surface in an ugly, gross, and violent way. The sexism in the industry has moved from being (largely) a silent and unconscious form of oppression into a loud and hurtful form.
All this finger pointing and "he-said-she-said" stuff in particular articles and posts is missing the forest for the trees. But thank god that some brave souls have been willing to put themselves out there and let people air their thoughts. It just sucks that some loud, oppressive voices in the industry have resorted to bullying tactics. Clearly a nerve has been struck. I hope the pressure is kept up and these ugly voices are forced into retreat. I'd hate to see one of my favorite art forms and its community branded with such an ugly mark as "dominated by sexists and apologists for sexism."
I agree that Jason saying "this is what it's all about" is sort of problematic, because even he's admitted that the campaign has grown beyond what its intentions were. And even if it started out as a negative outlet to attack people, and is still being used for that, clearly the campaign is no longer that for a lot of people.
But the issue I, and many have with this, is that this campaign against corruption really is based off something where no corruption took place. And where the perceived corruption supposedly was, it's entrenched in misogyny and was a hate campaign.
Suzushiiro
Banned
Yeah, the "gamers are over" articles got a lot of people who were previously either "neutral" or leaning towards the journalist/Quinn/Sarkeesian/etc. side to become activists for the gamergate side. It's generally a bad idea to antagonize an entire group of people just because a few of them are assholes.
Son of Cervantes
Member
Lime was the one who raised the issue of the pics, sneakily implying that they were private, intimate shots the ex leaked. I was correcting Lime, and clarifying that bringing up the pics in the first place is totally irrelevant. Maybe you should have read the post I was quoting before acting indignant.
Oh, they were for a porn shoot? That's just fucking great.
I'm curious, what are these "revelations"?
Exactly. It's complete bullshit and there's a reason why even Evilore didn't want Birther-like conspiracy threads on the topic. I have no idea why people want to use it as a platform for talking about corruption in games journalism.
SenorArdilla
Member
#GamerGate = Kony2012 v1.2.6?
hydrophilic attack
Member
But that person is specifically mentioning that he feels like he is being painted as a misogynist and nerd by journalists. The only thing I can think of that he would be referring to with that, is stuff like Sarkeesian's work (while of course missing her point entirely). What he is saying sounds very similar to the gamergate brigade, even though he says it in a slightly nicer way.
Edit: Actually, thinking about it, he may know exactly who he is siding with, but the colleagues that he is saying agree with him, may not. They may just quickly nod their head at him in the lunch room to get him to shut up, not knowing what kind of stuff they are silently (and unintentionally) legitimizing.
Its Quite Toasty
Banned
Shit I woulda gone int aristocrat
Delusibeta
Banned
At the end of the day, a successful work week for the harassers. See ya'll next time (probably the next Tropes vs Women episode, so in three months).
Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree that the corruption angle has always been a bit silly. I don't agree that it's based in misogyny, though. It's based on people feeling disenfranchised and even hated. Misogyny can find easy purchase in such an environment, though, absolutely.
Has the GamesOverGate link posted here ?
Long story short : Zoe Quinn infiltrated into the 4chan irc channel where people were planing Gamergate and the ridiculous notyourshield and recorded logs and logs and logs =P
If there was any doubt that 4chan was involved and it was a harassment campain ...
I personaly love the "abort the raid irc's zoe is in them" post on 4chan xD
Long story short : Zoe Quinn infiltrated into the 4chan irc channel where people were planing Gamergate and the ridiculous notyourshield and recorded logs and logs and logs =P
If there was any doubt that 4chan was involved and it was a harassment campain ...
I personaly love the "abort the raid irc's zoe is in them" post on 4chan xD
Son of Cervantes
Member
Yeah, so why the fuck are you even bringing them up in the first place?
One thing I have noticed is the categorising of media outlets. "We want an end to corruption and want transparency!" Except I have seen people pin publications as bad or ok. Apparently the only ones to be held to task are the ones that have had any social commentary. Others have been supporting gamergate, congratulated, "you're good now", "no Adblock for you". These are exempt?
It just strikes me as a big quest to take down a few perceived enemies and leave the rest as they are. Those who are drafted into the pr ideal of the movement don't seem to realise it is a particularly honed attack.
It just strikes me as a big quest to take down a few perceived enemies and leave the rest as they are. Those who are drafted into the pr ideal of the movement don't seem to realise it is a particularly honed attack.
Lalalandia
Member
No you're raising the photos and specifically labeling them 'porn'. Is ZQ a professional glamour model, are the sites where these were public? No then the leaking of them is a deliberate slut shaming move. Lime raised in the context of their leaking being a gross invasion of privacy. Why are you so keen for the world to know they were 'porn', do you think she's no longer entitled to privacy now?
If you're happy being that fig leaf go right ahead just don't expect not be called out for being one of Lenin's 'useful idiots'.
When you think about it, they are the only ones that really won anything out of this (if their goal was to drive people out, or make certain people's lives hell). Because nothing is going to come of this. Corruption (if there is any) isn't going to be fixed or addressed (especially when this campaign has no goal and is aimless with regards to corruption). So anyone that is apart of this campaign for those reasons, aren't going to get anything out of it. Those in the media/activist that have been trying to push social issues this industry, aren't going to get anything out of this (in fact, some of them have been driven to leave the industry after the attacks were too much).
So really, no one wins. Nothing changes. There is no positive outcome. Only the people that wanted to cause havoc, and hurt those that have any criticism of their hobby sort of won. What a shitty thing. What really worries me, is that I wonder what the implications of this are beyond this. Because I think a lot of people have become angry/alienated and burnt out. There are some serious issues this industry faces, that certain people have to suffer constantly. And I really fear that after all of this, the social discussion of equality will be pushed back as people are just tired of it, and now have lumped this into their perceived idea of corruption in the media. That + the poor handling of the message from the media/activist side (the gamer is over stuff), I really see this as damaging to any kind of discussion going forward.
All steps back if you ask me. Which again is a shame. Regardless what side you fall on any of this, just consider that, women in this industry are constantly dealing with harassment. They can't voice their opinion about issues that impact them without being attacked. So not only do they not have the same rights to voice their opinions, they can't even enjoy this hobby the way many do. And that's not even getting into how bad the industry is at representing their gender in the content they make. That journalists/devs/women face so much abuse on a constant basis, and yet that is getting obscured by all of this...is fuckin tragic. Again, even if you don't 100% agree with the feminist in this industry (their examples of sexism, or the degree of their view points), surely you can agree that women are having to deal with terrible shit, and that it's not excusable. Surely you at least see the problem exists, yes?
So we know this problem exists, and nothing gets done about it.
Son of Cervantes
Member
I am NOT raising the photos. DO NOT LIE. Lime was the one who brought them up. I was the one who dismissed them as irrelevant while clarifying their origins.
You are straight-up lying and trolling.
I think the cure is first of all that the articles posted, like the Rhodes and Keogh ones to contextualize what is going on for the ones who still don't understand why this "movement" is not something you want to be associated with.
But more importantly, we can see this assumed developer as touching upon the topic of education and information on issues that the listeners/readers are mostly unaware or blind to (like privilege and oppression).
How do you tell someone (let's say a privileged White dude) about issues and hurt that they are not exposed to because of their gender/race/sexuality? How do you make them understand that you are being harassed (gender slurs, rape threats), excluded ("you don't agree, therefore you can't get a job"), questioned ("do you even play games?"), denied ("I don't see a sexism, therefore there is none"), tone-policing "(I won't listen to your arguments because they are delivered in an aggressive tone!"), silenced ("men have it hard too you know!"), etc. and that feeds into your perception and understanding of the specific domain that constantly contributes to these different hurtful and marginalizing states? How can you ever hope to make them understand something that is unique solely to you and your identity as a specific gender/race/sexuality? And after voicing your grievances, some people will still be unable to understand and sympathize. So what do you do except feeling hopeless and defeated after all the struggles?
And what do you do when you are still, after all your efforts to educate and inform, being harassed, denied, questioned, etc.? What are the limits to one's patience and durability of being discriminated against on a constant basis in your society, local environment, workplace and in the products you consume? In almost every single human interaction throughout your every day? And how can you ever remain calm and gathered when the topic and conversation always hurt and harm you?
Personally I don't fault anyone who are legitimately oppressed and discriminated in these ways react in an aggressive and short-fused manner. But at the same time I don't know how these people who are blind to other people's oppression can ever understand the situation of others if they simply don't listen at all. I think it is the responsibility of other people who are not targets of harassment or being identified as a marginalized identity, like what Tim Schaefer or Manveer Heir, to speak up and take a stand instead of being silent and implicitly condoning.
How have they failed in their goal? They have forced women out of the industry. Not all women obviously but some.
#GamerGate has despicable origins and a shameful history. Its image can't be redeemed by Boogie or anyone else.
How are the abused women going to feel while Boogie is promoting #GamerGate after all that's surfaced?
Lalalandia
Member
To be clear you felt the need to clarify they were 'porn' which is a classic attempt to nullify sympathy.Designed to provoke the 'Oh they were porn of course they should be used to shame her on unrelated topics' response. Slut shaming in other words after all why else 'clarify their origins'
Son of Cervantes
Member
Ok, guy. Pretty clear you're trolling in an attempt to get me banned, putting word in my mouth, and obfuscating the truth. I won't be engaging with you any longer.
Phrozenflame500
Member
Probably a good idea. GamerGate has been co-opted by actual harassers/misogynists/edgy people "pretending" to be one of the two.
I think there's a legitimate argument to be made both on the journalistic ethics front as well as the whole "gamers are over" front, but it can't spring from something already inherently negative like this.
If you feel disenfranchised or hated because you feel like the press hasn't served you well, or because you feel think the press are part of a game industry bubble, or for other reasons involving journalistic integrity or ethics or cliquishness, let's talk.
On the other hand, anyone who feels disenfranchised or hated because reporters and reviewers have started talking about systemic industry sexism and problematic video game tropes and other "SJW" issues should probably just stick to 4chan.
The problem is that GamerGate pretends both of those are part of the same problem.
No. I'm not going to ignore the harassment of women. That is serious fucking business.
To be clear, you can be for these issue and still not 100% agree with the specifics. So I see nothing wrong with debate and criticism even with these issues. I think it's important the media recognizes this. And I think going forward the media/activist side of things needs to be more inviting with the issues, and encourage debate (even if sometimes, the issues aren't always debatable). Because at the end of the day, you are trying to reach an audience that might not always agree. Or who might be slow to change, because they are used to an old system that they don't think is broken (ie. they are either in denial, delusional or genuinely don't see the problem in an immediate sense).
These are the hurdles these issues face. But beating people over the head and making them an your enemy for not agreeing right away is not how you convince them or educate them (not saying you did this, or Kotaku did this). I'm speaking in general.
EDIT: Not to say you were saying that. Was just adding to your point, not refuting.
Because the whole Quinnspiracy Birthers and Truthers have no leg to stand on. Only misguided worldviews reminiscent of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
But you or PairofFilthySocks still haven't answered my question: What are these "revelations"? These ACTUAL EVIDENCE of corruption? Because this campaign and proof of corruption are mired in misogyny and intolerance.
Oppo
Member
actually it was a public site. not to drag this particular irrelevancy out.
Son of Cervantes
Member
PairofFilthySucks...classy. No wonder he's not responding to you. Neither will I. Feel free to come up with a childish, insulting nickname for me too.
Delusibeta
Banned
Pretty much. The harassers won this round.
What's going to happen in the future? In the short term: not a big pile. In the longer term, I suspect some developer will make a Twitter clone with some anti-harassment measures (and probably some registration restrictions) and there's going to be a migration over to it. I wouldn't expect this clone to topple Twitter any time soon, but I expect Zoe Quinn, Leigh Alexander et al will get off Twitter sooner rather than later.
That's...the poster's username?
EDIT: Oh wait, it's a U instead of a O. That's a typo
faceless007
Member
No one is saying that everyone who has grievances with the current state of game journalism is a raging misogynist who thinks harassment and death threats are totally cool. Everyone here agrees that there is a legitimate discussion about the current state of game journalism to be had.
But if you insist on doing so under the auspices of the #GamerGate hashtag, then you can no longer claim ignorance about what you are willingly associating yourself with. Not that you ever could, it was known pretty much from the beginning that the campaign was kicked off because of the tawdry tale spun by Zoe Quinn's ex and then co-opted into something targeting Anita Sarkeesian and other "SJWs" specifically. This was always known.
But now there's irrefutable proof that this was always the game plan and you people so very concerned about the current state of gaming journalism were just pawns to be used as a smokescreen while the trolls who started this debacle got to laugh and continue their campaign of misogyny and harassment.
Imagine someone starts a Twitter campaign called #SaveTheGays. You think, cool, I'm in favor of gay rights and this is something I care about, so I want to get on this train, let's raise awareness, let's get a discussion going.
Except, the campaign was actually coined, started, and propagated by the Westboro Baptist Church and only gained any prominence at all through concerted efforts by them to use sockpuppets and hijack other discussions to get it trending because they're also interested in saving the gays, just not in the way you're thinking.
You still want to use that hashtag? You still want to insist that #SaveTheGays is a totally meaningful and sincere campaign tackling a serious issue in the world? You really think you can co-opt it for your own purposes and expect people to forget where it came from in the first place?
It doesn't help that virtually everyone purporting to want to talk about corruption in game journalism either has virtually no coherent suggestions as to what they want to see fixed, or, when they give any suggestions, reveal that they have startlingly little knowledge of how journalism actually works in any medium and make utterly ridiculous demands like journalists publicly revealing everyone they might use as a source within the industry.
But if you insist on doing so under the auspices of the #GamerGate hashtag, then you can no longer claim ignorance about what you are willingly associating yourself with. Not that you ever could, it was known pretty much from the beginning that the campaign was kicked off because of the tawdry tale spun by Zoe Quinn's ex and then co-opted into something targeting Anita Sarkeesian and other "SJWs" specifically. This was always known.
But now there's irrefutable proof that this was always the game plan and you people so very concerned about the current state of gaming journalism were just pawns to be used as a smokescreen while the trolls who started this debacle got to laugh and continue their campaign of misogyny and harassment.
Imagine someone starts a Twitter campaign called #SaveTheGays. You think, cool, I'm in favor of gay rights and this is something I care about, so I want to get on this train, let's raise awareness, let's get a discussion going.
Except, the campaign was actually coined, started, and propagated by the Westboro Baptist Church and only gained any prominence at all through concerted efforts by them to use sockpuppets and hijack other discussions to get it trending because they're also interested in saving the gays, just not in the way you're thinking.
You still want to use that hashtag? You still want to insist that #SaveTheGays is a totally meaningful and sincere campaign tackling a serious issue in the world? You really think you can co-opt it for your own purposes and expect people to forget where it came from in the first place?
It doesn't help that virtually everyone purporting to want to talk about corruption in game journalism either has virtually no coherent suggestions as to what they want to see fixed, or, when they give any suggestions, reveal that they have startlingly little knowledge of how journalism actually works in any medium and make utterly ridiculous demands like journalists publicly revealing everyone they might use as a source within the industry.
Son of Cervantes
Member
Socks.
CambriaRising
Member
Uh.. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/member.php?u=81489 Edit: Heh, didn't even see the typo.
Anyway, you should probably respond to the question asked of you about what revelations have come out of this. Bickering probably won't be looked on too kindly.
This would be somewhat believable if Zoe didn't have a history of faking harassment and abuse to get her way, you know, like what happened with WizzardChan.
But we should ignore all that, I'm sure the delicate and innocent flower as Zoe wouldn't do anything like that...........again.
Intheflorsh
Banned
A) That's his username.
B) He's not responding because he's banned.
C) If I ask politely will you share these instances of corruption with me?
Neoriceisgood
Member
In case you're curious I would've gone for "Son of Cervixus" as your nickname personally.
j/k j/k
The Blue Jihad
Member
It's not like Lime's been QUOTING the guy over the past couple of pages, or anything...
Lime, you need to adjust your screen resolution, bud. I'm running 1920x1080, sitting 9 feet back from a TV and there was never any confusion about the name. lol
Son of Cervantes
Member
I already mentioned the stuff about Patricia Hernandez writing lengthy articles in support of games made by her ex-gf and former roomie. The fact that Leigh Alexander does PR and 'game journalism.' The connections between journalistic sites and Silverlight Media.
cubicle47b
Member
A replacement for Twitter is pointless if they keep the 140 character limit.
I thought Leigh Alexander does consultancy rather than PR? And Gamasutra doesn't do game reviews and is aimed at the industry rather than consumers.
Didn't she have a relationship with some developer who also happened to give depression quest some award? Though I haven't really kept up with this whole thing so no idea if that was disproved. (and of course would that be a little different then a journalist breaching ethics)
Delusibeta
Banned
In my theoretical clone, I'd increase the limit to 200 characters, and have a "auto-blog" function which automatically makes a Twitlonger-esque post for when you want to completely blow through that limit.
The "award" was being one of 24 Night Games choices. Basically it's an honorable mention type thing for hard to categorize and experimental games and aren't part of the "real" competitions. She didn't win anything.
Vox.com has a pretty long #GamerGate summary up.
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/6/6111065/gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/6/6111065/gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting
cubicle47b
Member
I'd go straight for a 500 or 1000 character limit. Enough to really convey ideas without letting someone make an enormous block of text. I'd also change the reply chain view to something comprehensible.
This was my understanding of it:
I have no idea if Quinn was using sex or relationships to advance her career. Maybe she did. The boyfriend doesn't even know (assuming he was even telling the truth). I'm just saying, even the guy that leaked all the info says he doesn't know. POINT being, is it possible? Sure. Anything is technically possible.
But are we really looking at a single person and the possibility she's a terrible person who did some questionable things for her career, and blowing that up to talk about massive media corruption? I mean, really? Because nothing being alleged of her was even remotely close to being a massive impact on the industry. Now, if her game had received like a ton of major awards from major outlets. And if she had multiple reviews that were like 10/10 (and there was proof that she had been in a relationship with those reviewers...then okay. Then it might have been something worth considering talking about corruption on the whole).
And keep in mind, none of this was even proven. I personally don't think this was ever worth talking about. I think it was an attack on her, simply because she belongs to an activist group that these extremists don't want in their industry. But even if we entertain the idea that maybe Quinn is a terrible person/corrupt, I fail to see how anything about her would warrant a full on campaign against supposed widespread corruption in the games media.
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