I don't believe in giving something up just because some trolls decide to troll. That is too defeatist an attitude. Trolls need to be ignored wherever they are and if the trolls are committing crimes, then get the authorities involved. There are real issues that need to be discussed as many journalists themselves have said, but if you give in to trolls, there will be no other debate as they will take over any other hashtag or debate as well.
#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
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I don't believe in giving something up just because some trolls decide to troll. That is too defeatist an attitude. Trolls need to be ignored wherever they are and if the trolls are committing crimes, then get the authorities involved. There are real issues that need to be discussed as many journalists themselves have said, but if you give in to trolls, there will be no other debate as they will take over any other hashtag or debate as well.
It's a movement to silence, terrify, and ultimately drive away women. They were successful in that goal. I don't know how that could possibly be unclear.
1) No, the original controversy was started by a huge post by Quinn's ex-boyfriend, who accused of her shady behavior in her personal life. Few places covered it because it was about her personal life, not games. So the "controversy" morphed into "Zoe Quinn traded sex for reviews and no one will talk about it!" which itself was completely manufactured, because there was no evidence that it ever happened and the ex-boyfriend that was the source for everything never even alleged that it did.
2) On Baldwin being explicitly anti-feminist: this is really obvious if you've been following the things he's been saying, but I'll just take the most recent tweets from his timeline where feminism is mentioned.
(Yes, these are retweets, but they're retweets he agrees with. Read his Twitter.)
3) A angry mob doesn't really need a "leader."
4) The original #notyourshield stuff being a way for 4chan to use minorities as a shield was linked to earlier in this thread by a mod: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=128394476&postcount=62
5) People on /v/ did indeed support the hell out of TFYC, while continuing to attack Zoe Quinn and privately bragging about how the TFYC was great PR to deflect criticism of their attacks on Zoe Quinn.
At some point you have to ask the question of what "troll" means, though. It's not like these people just decided to harass people for the hell of it. I mean, there's certainly likely some who joined in for that reason, but for the most part they believe the hateful nonsense they're spouting. The people you're referring to didn't take over the hashtag or "debate" either, they started it. And anyone else that had good intentions to fight corruption were played by the originators into attacking the wrong targets without stopping to think about why they were attacking individual women instead of big sites/pubs. If you want to discuss the real issues, you need to distance yourself from that "movement" as much as possible, and that's not giving in.
EDIT: Which is not to say that if they were just "trolls" that we should pretend that their words don't harm people, because they still would.
Also, it is worth noting that you do not start a "movement" for transparecy by creating harassment squads on fucking twitter, of all things. Twitter.
You make an effort for transparency by making a gaming transparency website that tracks and lists trusted/well-standing sites, questionable sites and well-known "corrupt" sites (judged by visible points and goals), and just add and update that site as frequently as you can, as part of an ongoing effort.
That is a constructive approach.
Twitter is not that.
You make an effort for transparency by making a gaming transparency website that tracks and lists trusted/well-standing sites, questionable sites and well-known "corrupt" sites (judged by visible points and goals), and just add and update that site as frequently as you can, as part of an ongoing effort.
That is a constructive approach.
Twitter is not that.
I've seen this and similar dissections of the 4chan-infused, #GamerGate-spearheading #burgersandfries IRC logs a lot on Twitter today, and I'd like to link this one posted by Tom Lommel in particular due to the conversation that follows beneath it:
Please be aware that it obviously contains hurtful and offensive language.
What I found most striking about this about this link is that there are some 4chan users who, either genuinely or as a bleak parody of their perception of social justice, claim that their use of homosexual slurs aren't offensive due to the community's presumed presence of LGBT members and their reclamation of the term. This, obviously, offers no ostensible defense for the use of other slurs that can be found in the chat logs, racial and gendered in nature.
If you scroll downward through the responses to Lommel's tweet, you'll find that one account eventually goes into an outright solo tirade; Dante, Twitter handle @AlrightAnon. Looking through his tweets, I think it's interesting to view #GamerGate through the lens of someone who supports it without attempting to divorce it from its roots, as most of its apologists on NeoGAF and other venues have. Attempting to parse this image or reconcile this little joke with what is meant to be a positive movement being unfairly maligned by bullies is pretty difficult when you try to start with the assumption that they're not trolling.
Once again, everyone who believes that #GamerGate is some just cause that shouldn't be silenced on account of some bad eggs - either take more time to articulate what it is you actually care about specifically, because most aren't (words like "ethics" and "integrity" aren't cutting it, because even if they weren't utterly shallow, they're being drowned out by words much worse), or, preferably, reevaluate what's actually worth taking action over in this world.
Please be aware that it obviously contains hurtful and offensive language.
What I found most striking about this about this link is that there are some 4chan users who, either genuinely or as a bleak parody of their perception of social justice, claim that their use of homosexual slurs aren't offensive due to the community's presumed presence of LGBT members and their reclamation of the term. This, obviously, offers no ostensible defense for the use of other slurs that can be found in the chat logs, racial and gendered in nature.
If you scroll downward through the responses to Lommel's tweet, you'll find that one account eventually goes into an outright solo tirade; Dante, Twitter handle @AlrightAnon. Looking through his tweets, I think it's interesting to view #GamerGate through the lens of someone who supports it without attempting to divorce it from its roots, as most of its apologists on NeoGAF and other venues have. Attempting to parse this image or reconcile this little joke with what is meant to be a positive movement being unfairly maligned by bullies is pretty difficult when you try to start with the assumption that they're not trolling.
Once again, everyone who believes that #GamerGate is some just cause that shouldn't be silenced on account of some bad eggs - either take more time to articulate what it is you actually care about specifically, because most aren't (words like "ethics" and "integrity" aren't cutting it, because even if they weren't utterly shallow, they're being drowned out by words much worse), or, preferably, reevaluate what's actually worth taking action over in this world.
Eh, if it really was just the internet. Then has there ever been anything this absurd in other mediums? Has there ever been a movement created to secretly and successfully drive women out of those mediums?
I can respect this, but if we're coming at it from Leigh's articles and the bonanza of follow up's perspective. Why is it required we jettison the identity of "gamers" to do so? What does that accomplish? There's been a lot of good stuff done, more charities helped and lives improved through the way gamers band together then any other hobby I've ever been a part of.
That's the part of this that kills me, gamers have done so much good and have a lot of pride in ourselves, and for so many journalists to follow this "Gamers are dead/terrible" narrative and treat people that identify as gamers like they're some unsavable lot is unfathomable to me.
Even the stuff that chuckles at us used to have an underlying pride. Remember this thing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBzqOa9y02I
I don't feel that pride from gaming journalism anymore. What I see most of the time is shame. I can't point out when in the last few years it happened, but most outlets don't seem interested in even making an effort to draw a distinction. Everyone seems to just shrug at "Oh yeah, 13 year old racists on XBL" all this despite knowing life long gamers have a history with being seen as society's nae'r do wells or most recently, murder junkies.
Why is our own media fighting against the people they watch over? Where's our dissenting opinion? Our discussion? Why are outlets more interested in dictating the rules of how we're going to help women with abuse then having dialogues to see if anyone has any good ideas behind how to best handle internet harassment? Engage the community and see if anyone has ideas? Hell in this thread alone I've seen more ideas (filters/registration/say a good thing per bad thing) then I've seen in two years of reading articles on the subject from the press. The articles I've seen from the press ? Mostly I hear "HEY YOU GUYS STOP HARASSING WOMEN!"
"Thanks, I wasn't if you were wondering."
"oh well we weren't talking to you!"
"Well, maybe talk to me a little more? Maybe don't talk exclusively to unrepentant assholes? Maybe don't imply by your articles and attention that the bad apples are the apples that really matter in our culture? That would do a lot to reinforce our motivation to fight the bad, restore our interest in supporting the people hurt, and reduce their ego stroking at how powerful they feel for making the whole industry respond to their actions. Maybe be less our surrogate dad and more fellow gamers discussing a thorny problem to solve?"
"Please?"
Every gamer convention anyone goes to, every time we band together to help people less fortunate then ourselves. Hell even in this very controversy the only place that kept threads open the whole time was Escapist, it absolutely was rough through a lot of it but given time and discussion the topics went towards the right conclusions (Zoe's life is her business/women are harassed/what do we do about it?)
It might not be enough proof for you, but every gamer I meet is proof to me.
Women have attempted multiple times to demonstrate otherwise. Tropes vs. Women in Gaming, as a series, exists to identify that video games subject players to powerful sexist messages and thus make gaming an unsafe space for women.
And, sure, yes, you can find women in any profession that haven't undergone harassment, but the entire point of the #YesAllWomen Twitter campaign was to raise awareness that it's far more widespread than most would think. This is a fairly male-dominated industry and it is quite exclusionary.
duessano
Member
Imagine if women suffrage took place during the internet age.
There isn't a movement. Trolls and Goblins don't make or represent a movement and a few women were drived out of gaming which is a shame but this controversy isnt devised to keep women out of gaming.
What I see are people who are tired of being dictated to and also some trolls using the controversy to settle some imagined score with Zoe, Anita, etc for "lulz". It's fucking disgraceful.
If thousands of people sign onto a hashtag that was originally designed (and is still being used) as a cover for the harassment of women, it automatically makes signing onto that hashtag a bad idea for any responsible actor.
duessano
Member
So those actors will wait a week and use a new tag and the bad actors will leap onto that tag so are you saying the people with legitimate claims should just stay silent due to the trolls? The bad actors are the problem, not this specific hash tag.
poorlonelycomputer
Member
Honestly the fact that I'm seeing this said more often may be the closest thing to an upshot in this whole thing. I hope soon we can stop referring to "game journalism" entirely because there's no such thing (nor need there be).
poorlonelycomputer
Member
Ideas coming from an idiot are rarely good, so...yes?
TigerUppercut
Member
So because they support the side you disagree with they're easily lead sheep with no minds of their own. What a load of bullshit.
And yet the percentage of female gamers continues to rise exponentially.
In 1989, females only comprised 3% of the total gaming populace. Today that number is up to 45%. Women are flocking to the medium. Are we to assume that they are so helplessly naive that they blindly throw themselves into danger and it's up to a series of videos and a parroting group of individuals on gaming forums to save them from themselves?
No, it's clear that not every female gamer, or even the majority of female gamers, is under the same impression that the video game environment is "unsafe" for them.
Er, wouldn't the alternative be that they were knowingly supporting a campaign of harassment and hate?
The women I know who play video games regularly have been incredibly supportive of Sarkeesian's videos. The videos are an important critique of how the industry handles women in mainstream games. I'm not sure how the number of women who play video games increasing takes away from that? Or how this becomes "saving them from themselves"?
People making a tag that, then, due to the nature of the internet, some people using it as a weapon, is one thing.
People proudly proclaiming their support for a tag devised by someone in the middle of an anti-feminist/anti-"SJW" rampage in the context of discussing a YouTube video made by another anti-feminist is going to be viewed slightly differently by the women and feminists who are receiving rape and death threats under that tag.
This isn't that hard to understand. In America, almost no one has a problem with the US flag, although there are some people who use that flag as cover to do terrible shit. Plenty of people, however, have a HUGE problem with people using the Confederate flag, no matter how loudly the people who display it claim it's about something else entirely (e.g. pride in your heritage) than what the other people have a problem with (i.e. racism and slavery).
My goal here isn't to start a debate about the legitimacy of putting up a Confederate flag (Jesus, please, no one do that), but to make a point about perception. If you use the gamergate tag instead of waiting for everyone to cool off and then starting with a new tag, you're saying that what you get out of that tag is more important to you than the effect it has on the victims of harassment. And that sort of argument holds less weight than someone arguing the same for the Confederate flag, because there is no earthly reason why you should be so attached to a Twitter hashtag that your attachment outweighs the impact the tag has on others.
A tag, so a word or an idea, has an "effect" on you only if you want to. So it's your own choice and responsibility.
That's the difference between a discussion and a fist fight.
This is a total mess now. I'm out.
I hope in the end that those that were harassed get some level of justice. I hope that Leigh Alexander and those that supported her or wrote something similar see how misguided they were.
I hope that everyone involved can be a little less of an asshole in the future.
I hope in the end that those that were harassed get some level of justice. I hope that Leigh Alexander and those that supported her or wrote something similar see how misguided they were.
I hope that everyone involved can be a little less of an asshole in the future.
Drop the tag is good advice if you want to communicate effectively.
If you don't care what other people think, why even have a tag?
You are kinda completely off the mark. Give me a second, I'm trying to wrap my head around it.
Noone assumes they are helplessly naive, where the flying fuck is that even come from.
Sarkeesian showed harmful portrayals of women in videogames. She was able to do that, because lots of people gave her money to speak out. To show the problems.
Another part of the ongoing discussion was female writers/developers/gamers voicing in, because they are sick off the sexism. Off the harassment. Because the gaming community is partly a dangerous place for them. I'm amazed how you have been able to miss that.
This is identical to the argument that minorities "choose" to be offended by slurs, and aren't actually affected by it unless they want to be.
You're ignoring a huge body of scholarship on the subject, and I'm not interested in arguing with you about it.
Unfortunately, unless you know every woman who plays video games, the women you know are not an accurate representation of female gamers as a whole.
You're right that the videos are an important critique. Not everyone is going to agree with that critique, however, nor should they.
The number of women who play video games increasing over the years does not take anything away from the videos. It is simply indicative that Sakeesian's message is not one shared by the majority of female gamers.
If you knew an activity was dangerous to engage in, why would you actively engage in it? You either don't care, or you're unaware of the dangers.
If women were unaware of the dangers going in but quickly realized just how dangerous it was, we would see a sharp decline in female gamers, which we have not seen.
SlowRevolution
Member
I don't doubt that you would be, but would many others?
I keep hearing the "this isn't the time, give it a week/month" thing, and I don't even disagree with that at all, but the concern I have there is that I just don't buy that a ton of people in the industry are suddenly going to be willing to have real, public discussions about games journalism with their audience. All the things you listed (press junkets, review scores, etc.) have been brought up a ton of times in the past, and for the most part the conversation doesn't really go anywhere.
You keep posting these logical leaps. Its baffling.
It is not "kinda completely off the mark" to point out the flaws in a statement with facts.
I'm not arguing the content in Sarkeesian's videos. I'm arguing that her opinion may not be representative of the majority.
You posted nothing but assumptions so far. 45 % female gamers means they disagree with Sarkeesian is a baffling assumption which ignores facts.
I'm sorry if the Internet has embedded in your brain the false idea that "a tag is effective communication".
Things are so complex it takes pages to explain. Twitter is the WORST medium to have a discussion.
This is bullshit and must be fabricated. I need a reference or a citation, because that goes against the studies and interviews that I've read and done.
"Slurs" are intentional offenses. Here we were talking about people getting offended by "ideas" or concepts that were never intended to be offensive in the first place.
The problem is that you're saying that more women playing games means that gaming isn't an unsafe space for women when those two things aren't mutually exclusive at all. That's the leap in logic that Oersted is referring to.
Let me pose this another way that you may find less "baffling";
If the video game scene is so unsafe and so threatening to women, as Sarkeesian posits, then why do we continue to see a rise in the female gaming population?
It's not a leap in logic. As more and more evidence that smoking was dangerous surface, the number of smokers declined.
Did the number of smokers decline due to some unrelated phenomenon?
If the gaming environment was as dangerous as the claims have made it out to be, would we not see a similar decline?
http://variety.com/2013/digital/features/womengamers1200683299-1200683299/
"Were like unicorns, she jokes, but adds that there are more women entering the games industry, after representing just 3% in 1989. When theres a woman as the head of a studio, you do attract more women."
You posted your assumption now for the third time. Congrats.
To remind you: sideeffect of the growth is that we are discussing sexism. Because of women like Sarkeesian. Like Laurie Penny. Supported by women. We had women speak out under the hashtag #1reasonwhy. And countless other videos, articles and campaigns. Because they, women, see the problem. Face the problem.
You posted "In 1989, females only comprised 3% of the total gaming populace." Article states "games industry". Your fact was wrong.
It would stand to reason that if if the gaming space was a safe, inclusive space, that we'd see that 45% number translate to attendance numbers for gaming conventions like PAX, or that marketing departments would cater to all genders. I'm not seeing that. How do your stats hold up on a platform and genre breakdown?
I'll be honest. If you do a survey of a significant, random sampling of female players about the latest video and show me that the majority disagree with it, I'll be shocked.
moondoggerr
Banned
Disagree with this premise. Many people love and use the name of the Washington football team without meaning to offend. That doesn't make it any less of a slur to a native american.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
This whole cluster fuck might make a very interesting case study in social engineering as more of this stuff gets officially documented and exposed. I mean, everyone with a brain knew what was really going on, but to have this shit out in the open might actually suck the oxygen out of the fire.
Hopefully.
Hopefully.
Perfect. If you are offended by an unintentional offense (knowing it's unintentional), you're an idiot.
shacklesmcgee
Member
Being offensive due to ignorance is not really that much different than being offensive due to malice, I don't see how being hurt by one form makes you an idiot.
I'm not sure what the numbers were in 1989, however.
http://www.tntg.org/documents/gamefacts.pdf(2005 numbers)
This was before the boom of facebook and smartphone games. 44% of the people playing online games were women, so it seems women have been most comfortable in online environments. This infers to me, that women are most comfortable with online games(EQ, WoW, Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, and ect). Regardless of the numbers prior to the boom of online gaming, it seems at least after the boom, women became more populated. However the 3% number for actually playing video games isnt accurate(or known, I dont think).
Dude, no need for these words. You should know that offenses are offenses. They offend people.
Do I really have to explain that? I mean for fucks sake
Edit: Well, there goes that.
moondoggerr
Banned
This is one of those ideas that needs to be unpacked a little. The "female gaming population" you refer to is made up in large part of phone and social media gamers. This section of the gaming world is light years removed from what used to be called "mainstream" or "core" gaming and is much, much friendlier to women than, say, a typical game of CoD.
When women try to join the mostly male-dominated game spaces represented by console gaming, things change. They often start to notice the "male gaze" of the mainstream industry and want to give suggestions to change it. That's usually when the crazy harrassment begins.
So - lets just be clear. The women spending hours with Candy Crush Saga are: 1) the vast majority of women gamers; and 2) shouldn't be used to "prove" that most women are fine with female portrayals in games.
TLDR: There's a glass ceiling in games, and it's right above Candy Crush.
skullmuffins
Banned
1. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe a significant contributor to the increase in female gamers is due to the rise of casual/mobile gaming. Most of the popular games in that space don't really have the same issues with female/minority representation. "Core/hardcore" gaming is still dominated by males. Casual/less involved gamers who don't post or hang out on video game forums, play multiplayer games, or whatever are also not so likely to run into the misogynistic sentiment that sometimes comes out of people in the video game community.
2. Plenty of women (and people of all stripes) think that games could use some improvements wrt how women and minorities are represented, but they still play games. Problems with games aren't so overwhelming it's worth abandoning the hobby entirely.
Fair enough. Thank you for the correction. Still, the rise in the female gaming population is undeniable.
An article from 2009 based on a NPD Group study that claims females in the U.S. made up 28% of the gaming populace:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/06/video-games-girls-markets-equities-technology.html
Just four years later, a 2013 study from the ESA that shows that number has risen to 45%
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf
To remind you: We are discussing all manner of topics within a thread dedicated to #GAMERGATE. If you have an issue with my opinions, that's fine. But hurling insults without providing any further insight as to why you disagree is not how discussion works.
I think saying a large % women only care about candy crush is being disingenuous. Candy Crush came out in 2012, women have been playing online games much longer then that.
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