#Gamergate, the war on nerds, and the corruption of the left and the free press

[brycejones]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-iYPri69rk

Awesome, you-tube links just like stew....

 

[werepossum]

I love how the white knights and the press are just assuming that the rape and death threats are being sent by GamerGaters and not by the feminazis to themselves in order to gain attention and sympathy. There is no evidence that the threats are genuine, but that doesn't seem to matter. :\

All one has to do is a little research and the track record of these people will speak for itself. But that takes some effort, and emotarded knee-jerking is so much easier.

That's certainly a valid point, but looks as though there's plenty of embarrassingly stupid behavior short of death and rape threats. (Here I'm going on the word of people I trust like Atomic Playboy as I've never read/been to Gamergate.)

Awesome, you-tube links just like stew....

Let us all repeat after me: There is no wisdom to be found on Youtube.

 

[CitizenKain]

This thread does not go well...

Let's refocus. It is about ethics in games journalism.

No it fucking isn't. Its about a bunch of man children like yourself who are mad that not every game is catering to them.

 

[Victorian Gray]

I'm sure some are making threats but that don't mean all are from basement dweller.

Yep. I bet that some of them live on the main floor or even upstairs.

 

[Victorian Gray]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-iYPri69rk

And you continue to dig that hole even deeper.

 

[brycejones]

Let us all repeat after me: There is no wisdom to be found on Youtube.

LOL

 

[Blue_Max]

And you continue to dig that hole even deeper.

So sayeth the feminist. Just like TJ said, feminists don't discuss and never cede a single legitimate argument. Instead, feminists resort to name-calling, insulting, and otherwise avoiding the point entirely... it becomes all about emotion and making the other person "bad" for daring to criticize the movement (or even one single woman's actions.)

"Free speech for me, not for thee." Shut down discussion by hurling insults and, if that fails, use the greatest power feminists have at their disposal; victimhood. *sob* "The bad, bad man is hurting my feelings! He hates women! He's psycho! Misogynist! Come to my aid! Ban him! Make him go away!"

I have yet to see a free and open discussion that debates the points rather than attacking the person speaking.

 

[Victorian Gray]

So sayeth the feminist. Just like TJ said, feminists don't discuss and never cede a single legitimate argument. Instead, feminists resort to name-calling, insulting, and otherwise avoiding the point entirely... it becomes all about emotion and making the other person "bad" for daring to criticize the movement (or even one single woman's actions.)

"Free speech for me, not for thee." Shut down discussion by hurling insults and, if that fails, use the greatest power feminists have at their disposal; victimhood. *sob* "The bad, bad man is hurting my feelings! He hates women! He's psycho! Misogynist! Come to my aid! Ban him! Make him go away!"

I have yet to see a free and open discussion that debates the points rather than attacking the person speaking.

Anyone here recall me ever saying or even implying that I am a "feminist"?

Nope?

Didn't think so.

Now, you were saying something about casting aspersions against others being a bad thing and clearly the word "feminist" has some rather negative meanings to you (for some reason that I'm sure makes sense to you). That seems to make you something of a hypocrite. Other than your supposed insults, nothing but empty, lifeless screed.

Time to move up to an even bigger shovel. Or, get a life.

 

[Blue_Max]

Anyone here recall me ever saying or even implying that I am a "feminist"?

Nope?

Didn't think so.

Now, you were saying something about casting aspersions against others being a bad thing and clearly the word "feminist" has some rather negative meanings to you (for some reason that I'm sure makes sense to you). That seems to make you something of a hypocrite. Other than your supposed insults, nothing but empty, lifeless screed.

Time to move up to an even bigger shovel. Or, get a life.

Ditto.

 

[CZroe]

http://youtu.be/3w_NwLLqrDs

 

[brycejones]

So sayeth the feminist. Just like TJ said, feminists don't discuss and never cede a single legitimate argument. Instead, feminists resort to name-calling, insulting, and otherwise avoiding the point entirely... it becomes all about emotion and making the other person "bad" for daring to criticize the movement (or even one single woman's actions.)

"Free speech for me, not for thee." Shut down discussion by hurling insults and, if that fails, use the greatest power feminists have at their disposal; victimhood. *sob* "The bad, bad man is hurting my feelings! He hates women! He's psycho! Misogynist! Come to my aid! Ban him! Make him go away!"

I have yet to see a free and open discussion that debates the points rather than attacking the person speaking.

You shouldn't be banned....its funny to watch you look like a total tool.

 

[Blue_Max]

You shouldn't be banned....its funny to watch you look like a total tool.

Favoured tactic of the personal insult (again) duly noted.

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqyrflOQFc... she's talking to YOU.

 

[CitizenKain]

Favoured tactic of the personal insult (again) duly noted.

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqyrflOQFc... she's talking to YOU.

Hahaha, rightwing propaganda from the AEI. You gamergate people really will believe anything won't you. How many death threats have you sent to women Blue_Max? Or do you prefer to stalk them on twitter and send harassing messages.

 

[brycejones]

Favoured tactic of the personal insult (again) duly noted.
.

Again, stating the fact that you've shown yourself to be a total tool by your posts in this thread isn't an insult just pointing out reality.

Feel free to put me on ignore anytime you want to retreat to your little bubble.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Favoured tactic of the personal insult (again) duly noted.

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqyrflOQFc... she's talking to YOU.

Truth is insulting?

 

[Painman]

So, no, it's not about journalistic ethics, it's about anti-feminism. That's why the go-to label for their opponents is not "unethical", it's "SJW." That's why unethical, non-gamer pseudo-journalists are held up as the paragons of journalistic integrity by gamergate as long as they are staunchly opposed to feminism or cultural critique of any kind. That's why they exclusively target non-journalist women like Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn or Brianna Wu or Jenn Frank or Maya Kramer or Felicia Day when they dare say anything critical but ignore it when it's done by someone who purports to be on their side (last year Milo Yiannopoulos called gamers "unemployed saddos living in their parents' basements" which sounds almost exactly like what Leigh Alexander wrote that got her excoriated by GG). A ridiculous double-standard that only women who speak out get harassed? Why that sounds just like ethics in journalism.

Well that's the thing, isn't it? Cultural critique.

I'm no stranger to culture warriors and their shenannigans. They always hold themselves above reproach. Criticizing Anita Sarkeesian fits in with the left's War On Women narrative like a hand slipping into a fitted glove, doesn't it?

How about another Anita from a bygone era: Anita Bryant. No one on the left had any misgivings about pounding her into dust. Fair game, as an outspoken woman, because she was a fundamentalist Christian.

Same for Sarah Palin. The left mocks her relentlessly, and rightly so, most of the time IMO, but consider her "Mama Grizzly" persona compared to Ms. Sarkeesian's completely unironic Damsel In Distress narrative.

The left has no compunction when it comes to attacking women who don't comply with their narrative. It goes absolutely apeshit when their own darlings experience "cultural critique", aka "harassment and misogyny."

 

[CitizenKain]

Well that's the thing, isn't it? Cultural critique.

I'm no stranger to culture warriors and their shenannigans. They always hold themselves above reproach. Criticizing Anita Sarkeesian fits in with the left's War On Women narrative like a hand slipping into a fitted glove, doesn't it?

How about another Anita from a bygone era: Anita Bryant. No one on the left had any misgivings about pounding her into dust. Fair game, as an outspoken woman, because she was a fundamentalist Christian.

Same for Sarah Palin. The left mocks her relentlessly, and rightly so, most of the time IMO, but consider her "Mama Grizzly" persona compared to Ms. Sarkeesian's completely unironic Damsel In Distress narrative.

The left has no compunction when it comes to attacking women who don't comply with their narrative. It goes absolutely apeshit when their own darlings experience "cultural critique", aka "harassment and misogyny."

So how many death threats do you send to Anita?

 

[BoberFett]

So how many death threats do you send to Anita?

Probably the same number of children you rape.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Well that's the thing, isn't it? Cultural critique.

I'm no stranger to culture warriors and their shenannigans. They always hold themselves above reproach. Criticizing Anita Sarkeesian fits in with the left's War On Women narrative like a hand slipping into a fitted glove, doesn't it?

How about another Anita from a bygone era: Anita Bryant. No one on the left had any misgivings about pounding her into dust. Fair game, as an outspoken woman, because she was a fundamentalist Christian.

Same for Sarah Palin. The left mocks her relentlessly, and rightly so, most of the time IMO, but consider her "Mama Grizzly" persona compared to Ms. Sarkeesian's completely unironic Damsel In Distress narrative.

The left has no compunction when it comes to attacking women who don't comply with their narrative. It goes absolutely apeshit when their own darlings experience "cultural critique", aka "harassment and misogyny."

You misunderstood me. I have no problem with people critiquing feminism. I myself am a critic of Anita Sarkeesian's methods; I think she misapplies feminist theory and I think she cherrypicks her examples to paint the situation as far worse than it is. She should be allowed to critique gaming culture and other people should be allowed to critique her; that's how dialogue works, and that's an important thing to preserve. What I do take issue with is people taking those anti-feminist critiques and branding it as "ethics in journalism" because that sounds better from a PR perspective. If you have to lie about what your movement is about in order to convince people to join you, you're not operating in good faith. Every single time GG tries to tackle the issue of ethical journalism, they get it wrong. They should give up the charade and say "fine, we're a cultural movement aimed at preserving the status quo." I still wouldn't be on board, but I have a lot more respect for people who don't try to hide their real goal behind a more noble sounding one that they're not actually in favor of.

 

[BoberFett]

You misunderstood me. I have no problem with people critiquing feminism. I myself am a critic of Anita Sarkeesian's methods; I think she misapplies feminist theory and I think she cherrypicks her examples to paint the situation as far worse than it is. She should be allowed to critique gaming culture and other people should be allowed to critique her; that's how dialogue works, and that's an important thing to preserve. What I do take issue with is people taking those anti-feminist critiques and branding it as "ethics in journalism" because that sounds better from a PR perspective. If you have to lie about what your movement is about in order to convince people to join you, you're not operating in good faith. Every single time GG tries to tackle the issue of ethical journalism, they get it wrong. They should give up the charade and say "fine, we're a cultural movement aimed at preserving the status quo." I still wouldn't be on board, but I have a lot more respect for people who don't try to hide their real goal behind a more noble sounding one that they're not actually in favor of.

Part of the problem is that Gamergate is not an organization, it's a bunch of people using a hashtag on Twitter. People could use that tag to talk about Obama or what they had for lunch today if they wanted. So there are a lot of issues all rolled up in one "movement". Part of it is some guy butthurt that his girlfriend cheated on him. Some if it is this nebulous "ethics in journalism". Some just don't like the social justice movement in general and the fact that they're being maligned by a group of people who pretend that they're about equality and respect. And then there's even that part that's genuine misogyny and anonymous trolls sending threats. Of course that last one is the only one that gets any attention by the opposite side, because as long as you can paint an entire group by the actions of a view and get people to believe it, you've won without trying. You know, the exact kind of generalization and stereotyping feminists say they're against.

 

[Blackjack200]

What I do take issue with is people taking those anti-feminist critiques and branding it as "ethics in journalism" because that sounds better from a PR perspective. If you have to lie about what your movement is about in order to convince people to join you, you're not operating in good faith. Every single time GG tries to tackle the issue of ethical journalism, they get it wrong. They should give up the charade and say "fine, we're a cultural movement aimed at preserving the status quo."

But there is a component of this that does legitimately raise questions about journalistic ethics. Whether you agree with Sarkeesian or not, there has been evidence that dissenters have been silenced, marginalized, or demonized. The concerns are similar to the concerns about the Israel lobby or Scientology.

I thought Thunderf00t's videos made a pretty convincing argument.

 

[werepossum]

No it fucking isn't. Its about a bunch of man children like yourself who are mad that not every game is catering to them.

Um, no. One side (the gamers) is saying "Some games should cater to me, for I am legion". The other side (the non-gamers) is saying "No games should cater to you, for your very existence offends me." The ethics in journalism (to the extent that applies) is about whether the non-gamers should be allowed to silence the gamers because some of the gamers are not at all nice.

 

[Exophase]

You misunderstood me. I have no problem with people critiquing feminism. I myself am a critic of Anita Sarkeesian's methods; I think she misapplies feminist theory and I think she cherrypicks her examples to paint the situation as far worse than it is. She should be allowed to critique gaming culture and other people should be allowed to critique her; that's how dialogue works, and that's an important thing to preserve.

I'd like to hear more about how you think she misapplies feminist theory, and your concept of feminist theory in general. Have you made posts about this before?

I've seen some third-wave feminists not totally agree with some of Sarkeesian's videos (Kristin Bezio for instance) but the criticism was fairly mild.

What I do take issue with is people taking those anti-feminist critiques and branding it as "ethics in journalism" because that sounds better from a PR perspective. If you have to lie about what your movement is about in order to convince people to join you, you're not operating in good faith. Every single time GG tries to tackle the issue of ethical journalism, they get it wrong.

Ethics in journalism is a very vague/poorly defined concept and I don't think it helps either side to describe things this way (and I don't like using the term in general). It's much more straightforward to establish specific issues people have with (gaming or other) journalism instead of using terms like ethics or corruption that could mean pretty much anything. Everyone is then free to argue as to whether or not these are things that are happening and whether or not they're a problem in the first place.

I mean, don't get me wrong, part of the reason I'm opposed to the ethics term is because it's so loaded and detracts from any actual argument, meaning I think it was not something GamerGate should have ever gotten behind.

TotalBiscuit, as an example (yeah, the easiest go to on this, but still), has mostly spoken about specific concerns he has regarding the relationships between journalists and their subjects, journalists and other journalists, censorship, disclosure of ties between journalists and related commercial entities, and so on. He has encouraged others to focus on addressing ideas over people, and for the most part has stayed out of arguing anything related to social justice (save for one controversial post). But he routinely gets labeled a misogynist for reasons that are completely beyond my understanding - I've never seen an explanation except affiliation with GamerGate. Usually he's just called shit.

But pretty much anyone who talks about any of those things will get called out as a GamerGate supporter regardless of where they post or what hashtags they use or whatever - and they'll get called out as using it as a smokescreen for antagonizing women or feminists even if they really do just talk about how they don't like crap in gaming media. Only if they follow it up with something along the lines of "but all that harassment organized against women is a much bigger problem" do they get a pass. Maybe.

Guys like TotalBiscuit aren't really the exception, the others just don't really get a place to talk. I mean, he does because he has this big audience already, and he's not under pressure where he could realistically lose his job because he upset the wrong person. But the same sorts of stuff he supports come up constantly by GamerGate supporters. You can think that they're stupid, you can think they "get it wrong", but it's not really fair to flat out say they're lying when they say this stuff matters to them.

You are however undoubtedly correct that a large, possibly even dominating element of GamerGate opinion is opposing social justice advocacy online. Part of that is because of a very hostile early reaction by such advocates; that was bound to bring in people who were pissed off by what they see as patterns of this behavior. Some of this is intrinsically linked to journalism too, where the media is perceived as being overwhelmingly sympathetic to this side.

And that element (at least IMO) has a very ugly side to it. And I don't mean death threats and doxxing and stuff, which I see as primarily individual efforts. I mean a lot of people jumping at flame wars, taking things out of context, making hurtful assumptions and generalizations, and looking to stir up controversy at any opportunity. And a lot of chan culture which I personally find pretty unappealing.

So I can't pretend that I don't see a bunch of emergent patterns among the GG communities that I really don't like, that I'd even call damaging. But at the same time, if I also don't like some of the things that most of them happen to not like, what should my stance be? Shut up about it because opposition to it has been ruined by GamerGate? I guess I'm lucky at least, my posts are so long and rambling I get more ignored than insulted ;P

They should give up the charade and say "fine, we're a cultural movement aimed at preserving the status quo." I still wouldn't be on board, but I have a lot more respect for people who don't try to hide their real goal behind a more noble sounding one that they're not actually in favor of.

Disagreeing with modern academic social justice theory (and here I'd actually prefer to use the term philosophy) does not necessarily mean you're merely in favor of the status quo. Being against one group's ideas of change doesn't make you opposed to change in general. And I challenge the notion of what the status quo is exactly; from where I stand a lot of media representation of women today is rooted in a status quo of wanting to defend and protect them. Where victims are taken much more seriously on topics that have nothing to do with their victimhood - which comes off as patronizing. I wouldn't mind seeing this status quo challenged, it seems to me damaging to most women outside of the minority that are embracing it.

For a long time I felt like a lot of the big targets in this were just misunderstood/misrepresented, and there were reasonable people that wouldn't get called hateful misogynists (even worse than the KKK, etc etc) if they could speak clearly about what they think. Now I realize that people like me WILL get called things like that no matter what, because I don't agree with what modern feminist theory has to say about privilege, patriarchy, and sexism. And once that's out, whatever else I disagree with will automatically be invalid too. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned this isn't just about problems with journalism, but it has been a big object lesson with how hate mobs and inescapable horror narratives can form online. For both sides really.

 

[Nebor]

Um, no. One side (the gamers) is saying "Some games should cater to me, for I am legion". The other side (the non-gamers) is saying "No games should cater to you, for your very existence offends me." The ethics in journalism (to the extent that applies) is about whether the non-gamers should be allowed to silence the gamers because some of the gamers are not at all nice.

This.

The feminist types want ALL games changed.

 

[mikeymikec]

This.

The feminist types want ALL games changed.