Give a shit? I can't say. I do think GamerGate got more press than I expected, all of it painting gamers in a negative light. I also remember the harassment Sarkeesian recieved in the beginnings of her Kickstarter campaign getting good coverage as well. I'd guess that for those who actually happened upon this coverage, it likely left a fairly negative impression of the passionate gaming fanbase.
Bomb Threat Targeted Anita Sarkeesian, Game Developers Choice Awards Last March
- Thread starter Tiktaalik
- Start date
Felix Lighter
Member
Does not surprise me at all. Too many cowardly slimeballs out there aren't able to deal with even minor critism of their hobby.
Let's be clear though, people are not threatening to blow up the Oscars, Emmys, or Pulitzers because a woman won an award. This is a unique gaming industry problem.
Why did I expect a link to a right wing think thank, just because you wrote feminist wrong? Any actual feminists disagreeing with her? And why are you bringing this up?
ZeroMaverick
Member
There's really no way to prove that gamers are behind any of the terrible things that have been done to her or threatened. I'm just putting that out there. There could be larger forces at work with bigger agendas. It could also be a false flag. It's possible it didn't come from gamers.
Lionel Richie
Member
Calm down man, I'm not accusing you of anything. I just think your Jack Thompson argument sounded a bit too close to justification.
Debating it doesn't serve too much purpose. Misogynists don't admit being so, so openly saying it was a gender crime could do more harm than good. This isn't a group or an organization, against whom you can take actions more easily. This is a single asshole fucking shit up while remaining completely anonymous. The less attention he gets, the better.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
Let me guess: a feminist conspiracy?
ZeroMaverick
Member
Not necessarily. It could have come from anywhere.
I'm just saying that people shouldn't assume that it's coming from a group of sexist, male gamers just because she works in gaming criticism. There are much larger groups of masogynists that might see her influence as threatening to whatever they may be trying to achieve.
Slappers Only
Junior Member
There are several jokes I'm not making right now because they would be in taste too poor even for me.
The world is losing it.
The world is losing it.
Let's pretend that anyone who has EVER written down something personally negative about Ms. Sarkeesian equally shares in the blame for this event. And, let's ignore the timeline and pretend this happened yesterday instead of six months ago. How many people is that? 50? 100? 250?
58% of the american population plays video games. Assuming only 5% of them even identify as gamers, that's 8.7 million people. Let's round down to 5.
So 250 people now represent and condemn-by-association 5 million people? This is absurd.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
You are back
And now, read the article, this is about authorities being involved.
I read things, of course, tch. I know authorities were involved, and up until now it was the absolute right way to deal with it: starve it with no attention whatsoever, conduct investigation. Since nobody was arrested or whatever however, now you just embolden any other idiot that feels like they can get away with it. In truth, this is also what Sarkeesian should have done with the recent stuff as well, even though is its a difficult high road to take.
Its a tough call for Totilo because it is news, and it is disgraceful behaviour, but then its also just perpetuating this sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4
Aliens could have wrote it, an ape could have smashed a keyboard, a whale could have used Siri.... why not just used Okham and read the article?
Dude, don´t get me wrong, but you are not first, not even in this thread, who suggests to know what the right way is to handle threats and harassment. There isn´t one right way to do it and no matter what she/Totilo or whoever would have done, you guys would have found a reason for disagreement. Hence, this whole thing came up because people accused her of lying. Now she shouldn´t be talking about it. Whats next?
And yes, these guys will always a reason to attack her.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
#NotAllGamers
Well Sarkeesian did feminist critiques of media before she started the video game Kickstarter. I wonder how many death/rape/bomb threats she received before she had the gall to criticize Princess Peach's lack of agency.
Glass Shark
Banned
I wish I understood where this line of thinking comes from. What makes someone feel so threatened by something they like being criticized that they have to make death threat. I just don't know.
akidnamededdy
Banned
I dunno, I don't really like the blanket term "gamers." It sort of implies that the harassers are the way they are because they play games. I don't think being gamers made them into hateful bigots, but it did make them target Sarkeesian. If that makes sense.
I mean, I certainly take exception to being lumped in with these idiots.
I agree. Fucked up people like this seem like a dime a dozen these days. That, or we just notice them more often in our very connected world versus in the past.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I literally stated that it wasn't justification. It is impossible for you to validly come to the conclusion you made.
And no, we shouldn't ignore it. Ignoring it causes it to just be some lone whack job, except he's not lone. He's one of many people who have threatened to murder people due to Anita's prominence in the industry. What is the difference between this and the gigantic hate campaign that exists for Anita? What makes this an isolated incident? I've never seen a regular person in the industry receive so much pure, toxic hatred as Anita. Anita may be one of the most hated people to ever participate in gaming, and she literally did nothing more than criticize games. How often do you see devs threatened with rape and death? How often are they the targets of terrorism? The reason why it's gender-based is because it's always one gender predominantly getting the brunt of this kind of shit all the time. It can't just be a coincidence that women in the industry get harassed and threatened way more. At some point we have to actually accept that the pattern is very much intended. If we ignore this, then why not ignore all threats of violence Anita has received? They're all similarly anons who don't deserve attention, but when we ignore them, we're also choosing to ignore the violence. And if we ignore that violence, then one can continue to say "there's no gender-bias."
Or that games attract certain kinds of shitty people.
Anywhere except gaming community I guess?
PeakPointMatrix
Member
First page is a graveyard, yikes.
impetuous_silly
Member
Disgusting.
So you're saying the high road is to shut-up, suck it up, and deal with it?
You're really comparing this to a media circus for a mass slaughter? You understand why this makes your argument ridiculous, don't you?
MagnaderAlpha
Member
Can't FBI/CIA track who ever issued the threat? Bomb threat is serious business. This person has to be caught and made an example of. All this shit happening to Anita is just ridiculous. Someone's gotta find one of these assholes and throw the legal book at 'em(throw their asses in jail).
Lionel Richie
Member
What was your point on Jack Thompson then?
The only flaws in your logic (assuming you have data to back it up, which we are yet to see) is that this isn't an organized group. We can't deal with them because we don't know them. This is random dumbasses that even the police couldn't locate, so what's your solution? Find them and beat the shit out of them, Jay and Silent Bob style?
If you ignore a certain group purpose, it loses its purpose. Is there a better solution (assuming, of course, the authorities fail to find the guys)?
spookyfish
Gold Member
My hobby has come a long way from walking around the kids and pulling the hang tags at Toys R Us and buying some Nintendo or Sega game.
Find them and jail them.
Find them and jail them.
tonysidaway
Member
I see quite a lot of embarrassed people hastily scrabbling away from the horrifying notion that these death, bomb and rape threats (and yes, the chilling one threatening to cripple Zoe Quinn at a public event in October) are a bad reflection on gaming. That's a natural instinct and very understandable. But I think we should face this bravely. There is a very strong pattern of organised abuse specifically aimed at feminist women in gaming. The mainstream press has certainly noticed this, and correctly reports on it.
There is little data as yet on actual criminal acts, no perpetrators have been found. But meanwhile we are seeing real people, proud gamers, quite happily dehumanising Sarkeesian, and Quinn. Frauds, schemers, manipulators, they say. We've even seen it on this very thread, blaming the victim of a bomb threat for the bringing the crime on herself. Last weekend we had an organised campaign to falsely claim that Sarkeesian had lied about calling the police and Quinn had lied about her charitable donations. Both debunked quickly, but the stories are still circulating and the liars have gone on to further calumnies.
In the midst of this disgusting environment, journalists are being harassed for behaving in a reasonable and human manner when a sizable proportion of the game-website reading community has lost its head over a fantasy about a small tail of independent developers somehow wagging the large dog of the video game industry.
My friends, this is a very unhealthy environment. Lies are circulated, embellished and thrown in the face of anyone who will not join the mad crusade. The, one might well say, witch hunt.
And it's been going on at least since Anita Sarkeesian's kickstarter.
So let's not pretend that these horrible and increasingly credible threats have absolutely nothing to do with this sustained campaign of vilification. That would be extremely disingenuous. Pointless, too. The mainstream press has got that part of the story right. The problem is the gaming community's absolutely atrocious treatment of women. Or to be brutal about it: the witch hunt against feminist women.
There is little data as yet on actual criminal acts, no perpetrators have been found. But meanwhile we are seeing real people, proud gamers, quite happily dehumanising Sarkeesian, and Quinn. Frauds, schemers, manipulators, they say. We've even seen it on this very thread, blaming the victim of a bomb threat for the bringing the crime on herself. Last weekend we had an organised campaign to falsely claim that Sarkeesian had lied about calling the police and Quinn had lied about her charitable donations. Both debunked quickly, but the stories are still circulating and the liars have gone on to further calumnies.
In the midst of this disgusting environment, journalists are being harassed for behaving in a reasonable and human manner when a sizable proportion of the game-website reading community has lost its head over a fantasy about a small tail of independent developers somehow wagging the large dog of the video game industry.
My friends, this is a very unhealthy environment. Lies are circulated, embellished and thrown in the face of anyone who will not join the mad crusade. The, one might well say, witch hunt.
And it's been going on at least since Anita Sarkeesian's kickstarter.
So let's not pretend that these horrible and increasingly credible threats have absolutely nothing to do with this sustained campaign of vilification. That would be extremely disingenuous. Pointless, too. The mainstream press has got that part of the story right. The problem is the gaming community's absolutely atrocious treatment of women. Or to be brutal about it: the witch hunt against feminist women.
boiled goose
good with gravy
Some people have serious issues. These people should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and locked up.
That's completely untrue. Jeff Gerstmann, Adam Orth, Brad Wardell, David Vonderhaar...
http://kotaku.com/death-threats-follow-small-call-of-duty-tweak-888324886
Opinionatedfish
Member
Where do they (violent sociopaths) find the time to do these things?
Maybe if they loved their hobby more, they'd have less time to be completely shit people.
But.. I think Aristotle nailed it: "They who love in excess also hate in excess."
Maybe if they loved their hobby more, they'd have less time to be completely shit people.
But.. I think Aristotle nailed it: "They who love in excess also hate in excess."
A Link to the Past
Banned
I guess people don't actually know the definition of "typical" these days
By the way, make sure that you don't continue citing major figures like Call of Duty developers and Hideo Kojima, and make sure to only cite ones who were threatened for their gender.
By the way, make sure that you don't continue citing major figures like Call of Duty developers and Hideo Kojima, and make sure to only cite ones who were threatened for their gender.
DirtyManos
Member
Honestly how pathetic do you have to be to even contemplate doing something like this?
Nevermind going through with it...what a sad individual.
Nevermind going through with it...what a sad individual.
Cow Mengde
Banned
This.
Dictator93
Member
Any hobby that offers escapist or community forming interactions will attract people who do bad things. Overly generalizing statements about a population based upon small percentages is bad social science. The gaming community also happens to be tied up with social networks where all this vitriol occurs.
BUT! Writing how a generalized culture of apathy/compliance/enabling allows such bad eggs to occur. Or how some undercurrent in general socializing causes this is much more interesting. TBH, I am not sure if there has been a good enough critique to do that. And if there was one, it would wholly focus on stuff like princess peach, it would be more all encompassing. Some sort of Polical Economy of sexual relations.
Since I've gotten home I've gone ahead and done so. I understand if it was just now brought to attention, just time timing and everything else seems like a bad time to do so. I'm not agreeing with the threats in anyway. Such threats should not be taken lightly as they're not at all a joke. However, I just find it in poor time to post the article now, even if it was just brought to the writers attention a week ago and the fact that it was Kotaku (a site that was/is under fire for multiple things right now) that published it. Also, bomb threats usually make the news, no matter how big or small, so not hearing about this before makes it feel more iffy to me.
I'm not suggesting it was fake or anything along those lines, it just doesn't feel like the right time to talk about it.
You are suggesting alot for not suggesting anything. And what exactly did Kotaku wrong? And what would be the right time?
Sorry. I'm tired. I hope I'm getting everything across clearly while not being rude about anything.
Kotaku hasn't done anything wrong so to say, but seeing as the current argument that's going on against corruption in games journalism and that whole deal, which happens to include Kotaku, involves some of the movements that Anita is a part of. Everyone knows of the GamerGate and the likes and what's going on there. Not picking sides, but with that going on and the fact no clear conclusion has been reached between the sides makes adding anything relating to what GamerGate is fighting against and using fuel for (Anita, Zoe, etc) their arguments would be a bad move. I don't care who published it, just while all that's going on, why add more fuel to the fire? Especially if you're part of a group that wants to defuse the situation at hand (in this case, Kotaku).
Kotaku isn't "wrong" for reporting this, as it's important to know, just they should have waited for the situation to defuse. That's just what I think, and I'm not going to be upset with anyone who disagrees.
QuantumZebra
Member
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
your logic appears to be that zoe quinn slept with a kotaku writer and anti-feminists don't like feminism, so kotaku shouldn't report about bomb threats made against a gaming convention where a feminist spoke.
There's the huge argument everyone knows about going on (I'm not going to discuss it as it's not needed and I don't side with either). I never said they shouldn't report on it, just they should have done so after everything has died down, when this probably wouldn't be used as ammunition in any way.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
Ammunition to prove what, exactly?
Proved or not, most of the major pushers of GamerGate use whatever they can to try and disprove feminist theory or that there is corruption in journalism. The fact that this is being reported while all of that's going on and claiming (true or not) that the author was only informed a week ago could only lead to GG using it to theorize against them.
There's nothing else for me to say after that. I think that's probably about as clear as I could make it, and I hope that it makes sense.
Makes me wonder if this came out due to the arrest of that Xbox Live based Doxxing/SWATing group.
This situation is never going to diffuse dude. It's only getting worse as the weeks go on.
This situation is never going to diffuse dude. It's only getting worse as the weeks go on.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I don't understand the connection between "the argument that is going on" (which is that Zoe Quinn apparently slept with a Kotaku writer "for better reviews"--setting aside that this does not appear to have actually happened) and the fact that there was a bomb threat against another person. What's the connection?
1. Has Kotaku been corrupt? Or corrupted someone? How does Sarkeesian come into play?
2. What is going on with Gamergate?
3. What conclusion are you waiting for? Which sides? How many exist?
4. Using fuel for Quinns and Sarkeesians argument is wrong? What was the fuel? Reporting? The actual threat? And why is it wrong to fuel their arguments?
I know, many questions, but you make many claims.