just generally, i've felt that on this forum a number of people have given gamergate people far more credit than they deserve, and been overly critical of their detractors.
this isn't just about this one thread, this is something i wanted to say for a while but i didn't want to bring it up when the topic seemed like it was semi-taboo
it was mildly witty, i guess? as in, it was fairly clever how he thought he meant it would be painful for Bane, when actually Bane was saying it would be painful for him?
but that was a pretty basic joke and nothing to write home about
honestly ive never seen a real gamergate post i just relish the opportunity to talk shit about nerds because they treated me like garbage in high school
honestly ive never seen a real gamergate post i just relish the opportunity to talk shit about nerds because they treated me like garbage in high school
just generally, i've felt that on this forum a number of people have given gamergate people far more credit than they deserve, and been overly critical of their detractors.
this isn't just about this one thread, this is something i wanted to say for a while but i didn't want to bring it up when the topic seemed like it was semi-taboo
i'm saying even so, i feel heapers have been more charitable than is warranted
like Miko's post a few hours ago, when she appeared to take the 'ethics' criticisms seriously
or how back in the old gamergate thread several people gave the original movement and Quinn's ex the benefits of the doubt before the chatlogs came to light, when the entire idea that Quinn needs to be publically shamed for cheating is itself misogynistic
also i've seen (not just here, but from other tropers on tumblr) this repeated 'Anita still annoys me though' stuff which, well, that's fair i suppose, but she's pretty innocuous and this really doesn't seem the best time to hop on the hate wagon
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
I've seen a lot of gamergate posts and anti-gamergate posts. I won't label it a hate group, even if it has been largely sexist. I don't believe that a lot of the feminists and game journalists and "white knights" they criticize have pure intentions. I refuse to see it as good vs. bad.
I'm a nerd and the people nicest to me in school were probably nerds, even though I never fit in with them, or anyone else. Said nerds were not always white and male. Plenty of people treated me like garbage.
I feel like I need meds for anxiety but it might take a while to get a psychiatrist again. u_u I tried. sort of
Some nerds were extremely nasty to me at school, but the people who were nicest to me were definitely nerds.
i see absolutely no reason to suggest that the feminists have 'impure' intentions. The suggestion makes me angry, actually. The goal is to stop sexism, what could be purer than that?
Also 'white knight' is rarely applicable to anybody, and is just one of many stupid terms that internet reactionaries use because it lets them ignore activists' actual arguments in favour of attacking their perceived intentions.
Actually, as a few people have pointed out, ethics in games journalism *is* an issue, and gamergate never talks about it because they're too busy doxing women who criticize them, in between holding polite discussions of the pros and cons of driving feminists with depression to suicide and whether doing so would hurt their movement's PR
Actually, as a few people have pointed out, ethics in games journalism *is* an issue, and gamergate never talks about it because they're too busy doxing women who criticize them, in between holding polite discussions of the pros and cons of driving feminists with depression to suicide and whether doing so would hurt their movement's PR
That's kind of what I'm getting at though.
People essentially buy positive reviews for albums all the time, yet there is no "MusicGate"
This whole thing is the result of two super-insular, extremely self-uncritical subcultures--"hardcore" gamers and the worst kind of 4chan regular--meeting and deciding that yes, if people die or come close to dying in order to defend their hobby, that is perfectly acceptable. Maybe even a good thing.
Ethics in games journalism issues: pay-for-play reviews, sackings over negative reviews, the gamergate movement itself pressuring sponsors to remove ads from sites that publish reviews critical of misogyny and transphobia
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
Underneath all the social justicey stuff is politics: people wanting to keep up appearances and please the right people and say the right thing and maybe further their career. There has been censorship in "gaming" press, and people having their jobs threatened or taken away. If someone is "stopping sexism" because their boss is telling them to, I would assume the profit has a lot to do with it. I would never trust people who censor other people.
A "white knight" is a guy who is especially super nice and sympathetic and protective to a girl because it makes him look good and/or he likes gaining the favor of the girl, and maybe by extension, other girls... moreso than he would otherwise care about the problem, were it not a female's problem. This behavior occurs online sometimes, in my experience.
*opinions that might be unpopular here, who knows*
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
"Social justice" in some circles has become a social status game, where the most enlightened clash with those who disagree with them. Thus, it's not entirely about combating social ills, but about gathering power.
I'm not going to say the other side isn't awful (they certainly seem to be), but I don't keep track of this sort of thing.
I'm also not going to dispute anybody's good intentions. I just think that good intentions mean nothing unless backed by the proper use of power (which both "sides" show they are incapable of).
Everybody's an asshole and everybody's got one, and if pressed I would be on the side of the assholes I agree with. Folks that I would highly criticize and disagree with even if I agreed with them, but assholes nonetheless.
Underneath all the social justicey stuff is politics: people wanting to keep up appearances and please the right people and say the right thing and maybe further their career. There has been censorship in "gaming" press, and people having their jobs threatened or taken away. If someone is "stopping sexism" because their boss is telling them to, I would assume the profit has a lot to do with it. I would never trust people who censor other people.
A "white knight" is a guy who is especially super nice and sympathetic and protective to a girl because it makes him look good and/or he likes gaining the favor of the girl, and maybe by extension, other girls... moreso than he would otherwise care about the problem, were it not a female's problem. This behavior occurs online sometimes, in my experience.
*opinions that might be unpopular here, who knows*
Miko, you are not saying that people are anti-GamerGate because they want to bone Zoe Quinn, surely.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
I think Miko's trying to say that people are on Quinn's side because they want to be with that group's good graces.
And I've heard stories about folks getting into rigged video game creation contests, so maybe that might be part of that. But that's just something I saw on the internet and couldn't be bothered to follow through.
i'm not aware of any major games review sites having a feminist political agenda. Some reviewers have agendas, sure, but writing a review that ignores sexism is also political side-taking.
Re: 'keeping up appearances', 'white knighting', 'career journalism'... these are all ad hominems, and have no bearing on the criticism itself. The question is, is the criticism accurate? In my experience, the answer tends to be 'yes'.
And i particularly dislike this focus on supposed unsavoury intentions because it's impossible to prove or disprove it, and it's a really underhand way of undermining someone's credibility if you can't be bothered to address what they're actually saying. You can destroy a person's reputation that way, whether or not your remarks have any basis in fact.
I think Miko's trying to say that people are on Quinn's side because they want to be with that group's good graces.
There is definitely a sort of LGBTQ/Feminist Gaming Scene, but putting wanting to be in that group's good graces on the same level as calling in bomb threats (which GG people have done at least once) seems uh, misguided.
Like, on one side here we have people who are criticizing demonstrably sexist, homophobic, and racist tendencies in the AAA gaming industry. The worst thing I have heard about these people is that they may be doing it "for the wrong reasons".
On the other side you have people who have made a habit of deliberately trying to ruin peoples lives (we are talking doxxing--the real kind--rape and death threats, the aforementioned bombing incident, etc.) in order to silence the aforementioned criticisms. People who genuinely seem to think that defending "gaming" as a vague idea is more important than human lives.
Saying these sides both have problems holds some weight, saying that they are both equally wrong does not hold any.
Miko, you are not saying that people are anti-GamerGate because they want to bone Zoe Quinn, surely.
I believe "pleasing the female gender by appearing to fight sexism" could be a motivating factor for some people, or gaining the favor of a prominent female person because it looks good and feels good. I assume that many straight males wish to feel like they are liked by females. Maybe I shouldn't throw around the term "white knight" here, though, since it's too conjectural.
Miko, you are not saying that people are anti-GamerGate because they want to bone Zoe Quinn, surely.
I believe "pleasing the female gender by appearing to fight sexism" could be a motivating factor for some people, or gaining the favor of a prominent female person because it looks good and feels good. I assume that many straight males wish to feel like they are liked by females. Maybe I shouldn't throw around the term "white knight" here, though, since it's too conjectural.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Oh wait, I totally forgot about the bomb threats. Yeah, totally not gonna defend that.
Actually, you know what? I'm going to compare this to the European theater of WWII. GG is Nazi Germany, and Anti-GG is the allied powers. The latter might act in the name of good intentions, but the desire to attain of greater power is strong. Nobody's hands are unbloodied, but there is clearly a lesser of two evils.
If people choose to fight sexism because they think not fighting it will lose them readers, and the result is that sexism gets fought, then that's a victory for the feminist consumer.
One side does doxxing, the other side gets boycotts against projects they don't like.
One is clearly worse. But both bad, yes?
No?
Boycotting things you don't like does not hurt anybody, it is a conscious demonstration that you don't like what is being sold and are not going to buy it.
Are we going to next say that people who don't shop at Wal-Mart because they treat their employees terribly are bad?
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Well for one, if you paint yourself as "good", everyone critical is automatically "evil," even if they would have been with you if not for this one thing.
Well for one, if you paint yourself as "good", everyone critical is automatically "evil," even if they would have been with you if not for this one thing.
And to me, that's an improper use of power.
OK so we are now literally saying that thinking things are bad is morally wrong.
One side does doxxing, the other side gets boycotts against projects they don't like.
One is clearly worse. But both bad, yes?
A consumer boycott is an entirely valid form of protest, and the one form of resistance open to the consumer that attacks the capitalist system itself.
Well for one, if you paint yourself as "good", everyone critical is automatically "evil," even if they would have been with you if not for this one thing.
And to me, that's an improper use of power.
i'm not saying all anti-gamergater people are good, i'm saying that opposing the gamergate movement is not bad
More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.
Gamergate is like Anonymous, in that it's just a collective of anonymous like-minded people, with differing opinions, motivations, and factions existing under the same banner... except unlike Anonymous, their threats are wanton and completely empty. It's not completely the monolithic, mindless sexist hate machine it has been portrayed as. People with earnest intentions have aligned themselves with the "gamergate" banner. A lot of this is just understanding anon culture: that what one person or a small group does in the name of the larger whole can become attributed to the larger whole, and that the individual opinions and efforts of the many people will all meld together into a collective consciousness where no one thing can be attributed to a unique personal identity. So, I guess my point is, there's more depth to it than just "women are bad and let's make them go away."
Gamergate is like Anonymous, in that it's just a collective of anonymous like-minded people, with differing opinions, motivations, and factions existing under the same banner... except unlike Anonymous, their threats are wanton and completely empty. It's not completely the monolithic, mindless sexist hate machine it has been portrayed as. People with earnest intentions have aligned themselves with the "gamergate" banner. A lot of this is just understanding anon culture: that what one person or a small group does in the name of the larger whole can become attributed to the larger whole, and that the individual opinions and efforts of the many people will all meld together into a collective consciousness where no one thing can be attributed to a unique personal identity. So, I guess my point is, there's more depth to it than just "women are bad and let's make them go away."
Yeah but then the question comes down to if the good outweighs the bad, and I don't think it does.
Like I think they adopted a sea lion somewhere, and I can't think of a single other positive thing they've managed to do. Because that kind of stuff requires collaboration and cohesion.
Whereas doxxing and various threats only require one lone lunatic to claim he's doing it for the whole group.
Comments
this isn't just about this one thread, this is something i wanted to say for a while but i didn't want to bring it up when the topic seemed like it was semi-taboo
but since it got brought up i thought i'd post
but that was a pretty basic joke and nothing to write home about
i'm saying even so, i feel heapers have been more charitable than is warranted
like Miko's post a few hours ago, when she appeared to take the 'ethics' criticisms seriously
or how back in the old gamergate thread several people gave the original movement and Quinn's ex the benefits of the doubt before the chatlogs came to light, when the entire idea that Quinn needs to be publically shamed for cheating is itself misogynistic
also i've seen (not just here, but from other tropers on tumblr) this repeated 'Anita still annoys me though' stuff which, well, that's fair i suppose, but she's pretty innocuous and this really doesn't seem the best time to hop on the hate wagon
I'm a nerd and the people nicest to me in school were probably nerds, even though I never fit in with them, or anyone else. Said nerds were not always white and male. Plenty of people treated me like garbage.
I feel like I need meds for anxiety but it might take a while to get a psychiatrist again. u_u I tried. sort of
i see absolutely no reason to suggest that the feminists have 'impure' intentions. The suggestion makes me angry, actually. The goal is to stop sexism, what could be purer than that?
it's mostly just a circlejerk of sexism, dissenting videos are few and far between
A "white knight" is a guy who is especially super nice and sympathetic and protective to a girl because it makes him look good and/or he likes gaining the favor of the girl, and maybe by extension, other girls... moreso than he would otherwise care about the problem, were it not a female's problem. This behavior occurs online sometimes, in my experience.
*opinions that might be unpopular here, who knows*
Re: 'keeping up appearances', 'white knighting', 'career journalism'... these are all ad hominems, and have no bearing on the criticism itself. The question is, is the criticism accurate? In my experience, the answer tends to be 'yes'.
And i particularly dislike this focus on supposed unsavoury intentions because it's impossible to prove or disprove it, and it's a really underhand way of undermining someone's credibility if you can't be bothered to address what they're actually saying. You can destroy a person's reputation that way, whether or not your remarks have any basis in fact.
That means feminists are being listened to.
If people choose to fight sexism because they think not fighting it will lose them readers, and the result is that sexism gets fought, then that's a victory for the feminist consumer.
Nobody is ever obligated to buy anything.
Quinn criticized TFYC's policy on transwomen (they claimed to be open to all women, but were not open to pre-op transwomen).
4chan sided with TFYC and designed a protag for them, Vivian James; TFYC adopted the character which resulted in a backlash against TFYC.