I would say that it's the goal at this point. All of it seems like an attempt to avoid having a discussion at all. Silencing those who are critical of a medium by continually tossing dirt (the PG term) at them is a pretty common political tactic. I agree that there is a lack of intersectionality in the discourse but while it's not really new, it is a different kind of discourse from simply a collection of tropes. It is great to see that Sarkeesian has continued to mount more critical analysis of the tropes and what they entail in a larger sense across the medium. I would say that by the end of this, we'll get to see some really great criticism, if the quality continues to increase as it has. At this point I would say it's a question of what direction the videos take towards the discourse (which is a question of whether or not there is an interest in the intersectionality of the tropes and the damage they cause across the medium but also across gender and racial lines).
#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
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VibratingDonkey
Member
So Nathan Grayson wrote a thing about brand deals, and ggate commenters are giving him shit for writing about ethics. And some on Twitter.
It's just... I'm just gonna go to bed.
It's just... I'm just gonna go to bed.
I'm curious what the reaction will be to GaymerX denouncing support of the movement. Considering certain members of GamerGate say the movement is really inclusive, it will be interesting to see if they will continue to claim that when one of the most notable LGBTQ conventions has publicly denounced them.
Some of the Twitter replies include people claiming that the GaymerX organizers were pressured into making a statement, so I guess that's how GamerGate will try to explain it?
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Edit: Also, something I've been meaning to say on GamerGate in general: I think the movement doesn't realize just how terrifying they've become. I've wanted to speak out against the movement on Twitter (I'm just a guy with a Twitter account, no one special), but seeing the reaction to ordinary people calling out GamerGate really deters me from doing so.
Some of the Twitter replies include people claiming that the GaymerX organizers were pressured into making a statement, so I guess that's how GamerGate will try to explain it?
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Edit: Also, something I've been meaning to say on GamerGate in general: I think the movement doesn't realize just how terrifying they've become. I've wanted to speak out against the movement on Twitter (I'm just a guy with a Twitter account, no one special), but seeing the reaction to ordinary people calling out GamerGate really deters me from doing so.
The vast majority of GG is reactionary. They really aren't political--they're actually right about that. What they're doing is responding in the negative to a group they feel is telling them what to do.
So it's not so much "I hate women" as it is a bunch of people responding negatively to the politics of people they see as troublesome.
Like "oh, Ben Kuchera believes X? Well, I hate Kuchera, so everything he stands for must be bad."
Politics never factors in, and despite the invocation of sexism by many involved, it has more to do with pushing back than lashing out at a system they don't believe in. Most of them, based on my interactions (I've got good friends on either side of the discussion), actually have no problem whatsoever with women, and would never resort to these tactics otherwise. They're only doing it because the people they don't like support women.
Still wrong and logically flawed, but not quite in the way they've been painted.
jim-jam bongs
Member
"#gamergate is all about ethics"
MHWilliams
Member
That's odd. I wrote a thing about it as well and everything seems fine. TB started the whole thing and he's firmly pro-GG.
Gaint bomb already talk about it. Before the whole gamergate started.
Gaintbomb got blasted for hiring Dan on twitter. Because he is a white male.
I have to say Dan was an awesome hire for gaintbomb. He fits in like a glove.
I think the GG impression is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Unlike you, Grayson was implicated in the event that set all this off, so he's seen as a hypocrite, where you're not.
Regardless of what you believe, the reaction isn't surprising. Personally, I don't think he is "corrupt" as people like to claim, so I read his article like a normal human being would. But I can see why people who think he's corrupt would target him.
So, as a curiosity, I would ask whether or not you consider game "coverage" to even be that anymore? Is it just a form of ubiquitous advertising? Because anymore I'm honestly not sure where that line is. Or if there was even one to begin with once the internet came into its own. Please note that I'm not indicting anyone for covering anything, more that people may have never had a chance to begin with, when collectively we are already doing much of the advertiser's work for them.
This is a common misconception, but in reality, active, fervent support for a sexist, inequality-stricken status quo is an inherently political, and (often unknowingly) sexist action.
Not being self-aware enough to realise this isn't really a great excuse in my book.
partyphone
Banned
how is that bullying?
I don't agree having read this:
The girl complaining is a sponsor.
Perhaps I'm just too tired, but I don't see how that's bullying. The sponsor complained about GaymerX's stance on GG, but it doesn't look like she harassed the person running the Twitter account.
MHWilliams
Member
I'd say it becomes advertising when you're directly profiting from said coverage. Even then, I don't necessarily have a problem with it beyond any lack of disclosure. TB for example, did sponsored content for Planetside 2, but he was completely open about the origins of the content. It was still good content, in the same way that Sessler's recent Evil Within videos were good sponsored content.
There are definitely situations that could be perceived as fuzzy in my area of work. USgamer's budget isn't huge and Ubisoft wondered if we wanted to attend a preview event. It wasn't in San Fran or New York, those we can cover on our own. So, Ubisoft offered to cover travel, no contract or stipulations. If there had been any stipulations on coverage, we would've just declined. By the by, most of your larger sites - Polygon, Kotaku, IGN - pay for their own travel. We do for larger events - PAX, GDC, E3 - but other single events are outside of what we can afford.
Where do people fall on that? I'm sure many would see it as a free trip. I flew out to Vegas on night, got to my hotel, ate, slept, woke up, played AC Unity for five hours, got back to my hotel, ate, and then spent the next 12 hours in the odd hell that is redeye airport travel. At the end of it, I wrote a long-ass preview and did one video on the game. How you feel about that is something for you as a reader to decide. My important thing is disclosing that Ubisoft paid for my travel to the event and being honest about my feelings on the game. Again, it's all about honesty and transparency (within limits).
There's more than what I took a screen shot of just now. Best if you go look for yourself and have an informed opinion, though. No doubt it can differ from mine.
partyphone
Banned
I read a bunch of those tweets from a lot of gaymerx supporters. Best if you go look up what bullying is and have an informed opinion.
I wasn't trying to be snarky with my reply.
Could you point me to an example of the bullying? I took a look at some of the tweets/replies, and aside from the conversation between Katie and Christine Love all I see are people arguing about GamerGate in the replies.
partyphone
Banned
Of course.
Yep! And she has the sweet bonus of having like, reasoning, and self-awareness, and empathy!
Don't forget the history of her and her friends being harassed by people claiming to represent gamergate, which may have soured her slightly on the whole thing.
shacklesmcgee
Member
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggh
someone from gamergate has started harassing my GF's good friend, and they are just a disgusting despicable sad embarrassing human being. My GF is really upset as she usually has never really been so close to internet harassment like this, and her friend is obviously very upset as well. I just wish I could help...
someone from gamergate has started harassing my GF's good friend, and they are just a disgusting despicable sad embarrassing human being. My GF is really upset as she usually has never really been so close to internet harassment like this, and her friend is obviously very upset as well. I just wish I could help...
without being even worse to this asshole
Can't she just block this person(if it's on the internet)? I usually just ignore people who are rude. You don't have to put up with that stuff.
shacklesmcgee
Member
Yeah, she has done that now, I more so meant doing something to help make her feel better.
And this stemmed from the friend's friend making a comment about gamergate, and this somehow made a guy get really pissed at her? Ridiculous... I can't wait for gamergate to just go away
I'd just remind her that a lot of these people don't see human beings on the other end of what they are saying. Part of buying into taking a side in this, for some is dehumanising the person on the other end, so it justifies them saying nastier and nastier things to anyone who disagrees or has another opinion. Maybe that will help her understand that he's the one with the problem and no matter what she said, he would've attacked her for it. Kind of of detach herself from it a bit.
Just let her talk and vent to friends in real life. Then distract her with something fun to do. Anxiety isn't much of an issue if you can let it out to people who listen and care.
The one thing I take some dubious pleasure in is that most of all this hubris only exists if you care for Twitter. I'm a liberal democrat, but this fetishism of journalists the world over to give a podium to the lowest common denominator always baffled me. This is what you get going in high and mighty and not having an exit strategy. Obviously it doesn't completely safeguard you as Sarkeesian blocked YouTube comments but still gets harassed, but for most people no Twitter = no drama.
shacklesmcgee
Member
Thank you, I will try this.
Neoriceisgood
Member
I think the issue is that twitter/tumblr/youtube are actually fairly great at giving minority voices a proverbial soapbox to stand on, but limited tools to cut down harassment to prevent mobbing these voices.
With youtube the only real solution to counter harassment = outright disabling comments.
twitter = privatizing your account completely. (which defeats the point of the medium and effectively silences someone)
I'm not too familiar with how effective tumblr is at these things, tumblr savior allows you to weed out a lot of toxic stuff but relies on people using accurate tags.
I think there's a great benefit in all three of them for being able to signal-boost voices that simply wouldn't do well in a sanitized commercial environment but there's essentially no to become that visible and not paint a target on your back.
I can appreciate this. It certainly seems tough and more than a bit murky though. Not that any standard form of journalism won't have similar problems.
Also, regarding harassment, I tend to think of most people who are big on harassment tend to construct an image of themselves that relates to language in such a way that they obfuscate their understanding of other people's experience. It's not an easy thing to see, but it does cause a particularly problematic worldview when the skew is towards your own experience and not those of others (given that we spend most of our time interacting with other people).
If you're honest enough to disclose your trip was paid for, then that says something about you, as a person, in my mind. I'd be more inclined to think your honesty was a genuine trait and therefore what I'd just read, was honest too.
Yeah, but sometimes it's not about honesty so much as integrity. If I pay you $1000 to give exposure to my product, even if you totally hate whatever product I give you, it's still a clear conflict of interest. This happens in just about every line of work, though I would say that politics, not game journalism is where it's particularly problematic (seriously - no one's getting rich off of writing about videogames).
Integrity is nice if you can afford it. But just say I'm a fan of M.H.Williams. I ask him why he hasn't reviewed Bubsy 3 and he says because he was too ethical to take the plane trip to the in-house review on the Publishers dime. Who loses in this scenario? I lose because I don't get to read my favourite reviewers opinion. He loses because a popular game is not reviewed on his site. The publishers lose because their game isn't covered to potential buyers. Paying for reviews is a different matter and I certainly wouldn't trust one that was paid for. It's shades of grey and comes down to winning the trust of your readers.
JesseEwiak
Member
On a side note, why do I have a funny feeling a lot of the people who claim to be "progressive" or "liberal" on the various #GG twitters found reasons to ya' know, vote for Romney in 2012 or against almost every Democrat, but love Rand Paul.
CambriaRising
Member
This is kind of a weird and largely irrelevant post. :-/
I think integrity is central to being able to empathize with others, because it necessitates a certain amount of appreciation for them as people. I think that integrity (or lack thereof) is also a big part of what has caused the mess we're in now, with people slinging insults and baseless rhetoric everywhere. Yes, that's a personal call but it's one I think people need to make. You have to respect yourself to respect others, as well as to expect it from your peers.
JesseEwiak
Member
Sorry, just read a long thread on Reddit from a whole bunch of Gamergaters about how they're disgusted with "progressives" and how they're real liberals who are for x,y, and z, but the nasty SJW's have pushed them toward reading Brietbart and the like.
It just kicked in old memories of arguing with people who claim to be Democrats forever, but this one, tiny thing finally pushed them over the edge to supporting Bush/McCain/Romney.
If someone is going to mob someone down, they can just make sockpuppet accounts, and will.
A company as large as Twitter can't IP block, as you'd have way too many false positives.
Start requiring real names/real ID- and that opens up another can of worms. See what Comcast just did to someone complaining about their service, they used it to call their boss, made up a story about him threatening them, and got him fired from his job.
Not sure anything can be done about it.
Debated a GG person on Twitter this evening. Was more or less civil. He believes that Jenn Frank wrote the footnote that appears on her Guardian article herself and the Guardian didn't (and still doesn't) know that it's there.
I had to stop the conversation at that point. (Also it's 4am where I am.)
I had to stop the conversation at that point. (Also it's 4am where I am.)
Alex_Mexico
Member
I have no idea if this has been already posted/discussed but I don't have the will to scroll through countless pages to see if it was so, in advance, my sincere apologies if this is a repeated topic.
This video is one of the most intelligent, interesting and well put out thesis I've seen on Youtube in a long time. Definitely the most sane I've seen yet regarding this whole fiasco.
Let me be clear: he doesn't agree or disagree with Anita. His video's sole purpose is to expose a baseless conspiracy against Anita that lacks proof beyond much speculation and "connecting the dots". I don't agree with Anita in some of her point and I think this video is the work of a very very intelligent person and agree 100% with what it says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D4l0izPVM0&feature=youtu.be
Theorize how I made money out of this post if old...
This video is one of the most intelligent, interesting and well put out thesis I've seen on Youtube in a long time. Definitely the most sane I've seen yet regarding this whole fiasco.
Let me be clear: he doesn't agree or disagree with Anita. His video's sole purpose is to expose a baseless conspiracy against Anita that lacks proof beyond much speculation and "connecting the dots". I don't agree with Anita in some of her point and I think this video is the work of a very very intelligent person and agree 100% with what it says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D4l0izPVM0&feature=youtu.be
Theorize how I made money out of this post if old...
tonysidaway
Member
Gamergate has been singularly effective in sabotaging the public reputation of gamers, as anyone following the mainstream press coverage will be aware. I've always been wary of engaging Gamergaters except to remind them of the harm it is doing to others in gaming and what an unremittingly toxic effect it is having at all levels.
I'm happy to see people like Jenni Goodchild engage in a more conciliatory way, and I hope she has managed to underline the message.
After two years of harassment of Anita Sarkeesian, though, my opinion of the gamer community was already very low. Imagine my disgust when, after years of ignoring this ongoing outrage, some gamers got very upset at a few gaming journalists calling the community to account for nurturing such hatred. My reaction at the time could have been accurately summarised as a contemptuous "awww, diddums, den!" My very low opinion on Gamergate, and the gaming community at large, has not improved since then. Real people have had their lives put in danger, and still we're waiting for _child-men_ to stop frothing and ranting over trivia.
It really is time for gaming to grow up and deal with the terribly toxic gaming culture.
A gaming convention received a credible threat to kill many people with a bomb if a certain prize were not rescinded. This is not normal or acceptable. It must not be written off, and it was the direct result if months of lies and harassment online. These huge, juggernaut-like harassment campaigns would not happen if gamers took action to condemn them _en masse_ and shut them down.
I've recently learned of Swatting, a highly illegal and shockingly irresponsible activity carried out by some gamers against their rivals. Fake active shooting reports are made with the intention of having a battle-primed armed police squad descend on another gamer's venue. This also has to stop, before somebody is killed.
I'm happy to see people like Jenni Goodchild engage in a more conciliatory way, and I hope she has managed to underline the message.
After two years of harassment of Anita Sarkeesian, though, my opinion of the gamer community was already very low. Imagine my disgust when, after years of ignoring this ongoing outrage, some gamers got very upset at a few gaming journalists calling the community to account for nurturing such hatred. My reaction at the time could have been accurately summarised as a contemptuous "awww, diddums, den!" My very low opinion on Gamergate, and the gaming community at large, has not improved since then. Real people have had their lives put in danger, and still we're waiting for _child-men_ to stop frothing and ranting over trivia.
It really is time for gaming to grow up and deal with the terribly toxic gaming culture.
A gaming convention received a credible threat to kill many people with a bomb if a certain prize were not rescinded. This is not normal or acceptable. It must not be written off, and it was the direct result if months of lies and harassment online. These huge, juggernaut-like harassment campaigns would not happen if gamers took action to condemn them _en masse_ and shut them down.
I've recently learned of Swatting, a highly illegal and shockingly irresponsible activity carried out by some gamers against their rivals. Fake active shooting reports are made with the intention of having a battle-primed armed police squad descend on another gamer's venue. This also has to stop, before somebody is killed.
Oh man! until about 45 seconds in I thought it was going to be a video by that crazy racist scam artist guy. It was super super relieving when the other guy spoke up.
Alex_Mexico
Member
You and me both. I didn't recognize that bald head of his (I should've known better) and was puzzled as to what audio he was showing. Just as I recognized the bigot I was about to bail and then the voiceover kicked in and decided to stay.
Alex_Mexico
Member
I'm 200% with you in every single word. That swatting thing is the straw that broke the camel's back, really.
I also didn't know who Anita Sarkeesian was until I began to see articles about the colossal harassment campaigns against her for a series of videos about women in videogames she hadn't even produced yet. The haters made her more famous. I probably had never heard of her if disagreers would've just nodded disapprovingly and moved on.
But no, they had to extreme asshole on her and only helped her prove her point that I'm appealed how some deny so vehemently: there is misogyny in videogames. I don't know at what level or how bad exactly but if never be as blind as to say that that statement is 100% false like many do.
This is not a matter of siding or not with Anita. Being a Social Justice Warrior (coolest "insult" I've ever been told, by the way) or not. Is just a matter of not harassing, death threating and theories of conspiracy when a woman dares to voice an opinion you don't agree with.
She's clearly not "conning" you or "stealing" your money. Let. Her. Be.
If you don't see how a movement striving to diminish voices pointing out political and social issues in video games is inherently political, I don't know what to tell you. If you don't see how "responding negatively to the politics of people they see as troublesome." as a political act in itself, I don't know what to tell you.
Also, tell your good friends that they are actively contributing and perpetuating a movement that as a result are harming and harassing people, most notably women, out of video games. If they really are ignorant and unaware of what they are doing, they should be informed and if they still continue, be called out for doing what they are doing.
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