Fappy said:
I educated myself today on what exactly has been going down and ended up with more questions than answers. Don't get me wrong, I understand the facts of the situation. I understand who said and did what (many of whom are ancillary at best and blatantly irrelevant at worst), and I understand what the point of #GamerGate is. I get it, people want a more accountable gaming press as well as a more ethical and fair Indy development scene.
But what the fuck is all this unrelated bullshit doing here? Why have the lines been drawn between so-called 'SJWs' and 'misogynerd' (or whatever the fuck they're called)? Why is feminism a factor at all? Oh wait, I see, many of the 'misogynerds' are saying that the Indy/Gaming Press Illuminati is using feminism/misogyny as a smokescreen to censor debate. Well if that's the case, then why the fuck are women, some of which have NO connection to any of this (like Anita), getting bombarded with harassment in the form of death and rape threats in relation to this?
You really wonder why people aren't giving #GamerGate the time of day? Really? It doesn't compute? STOP GIVING THEM AMMO! Teach the idiots within your ranks to keep their goddamn mouths shut. Whether you agree with their insane ravings or not, they are associated with your movement and their actions do reflect on your message. The only thing holding me back from supporting this movement is the simple fact that it is so over-saturated with immature, volatile and outright hateful people that I can't bring myself to support it. I cringe every time I see one of your ilk cry "Social Justice Warrior" and that Vivian James (or whatever) mascot is just a sad attempt at the "but I have black friends" defense.
Don't get me wrong, I won't for a second sit here and tell you that I give a damn about any Indy developers and publications getting thrown under the bus if they deserve it. If they are guilty of the crimes they've been accused of, then of course they deserve to be brought down for it; but you know, in an ethical, mature and humane way. Any prying into their personal lives or threats against them are obviously crossing the line, but that should go without saying.
If you want a more accountable gaming press, you're going to have to prove that you deserve it. Some of the more visible names on the #GamerGate side of the fence are clearly concerned about what truly matters, but many more seemingly are not.
Please, tell me if I am off-base, because from where I stand I think I am actually being more fair to #GamerGate than it deserves. As someone who studied journalism, I have always been critical of the gaming press' integrity, so I am naturally inclined to throw in my support; but this case is not so simple. I will not associate myself with a movement that is harassing and threatening people nor one that sees fit to blame everything on feminism of all things.
Define your message and cease this childish 'SJW' finger pointing. Look to the men that inspired the movement's namesake: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and follow their example. They were professionals who acted with discretion, and if your movement wants to be taken seriously so do you.
/flameshieldactivated
SMALL UPDATE: At least something good came out of all this - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/12223-The-Escapist-Publisher-Issues-Public-Statement-on-Gamergate
In the end, I think most of us really wanted the same thing.
I have to admit I was skeptical at first because I'd never assumed that anyone reporting on games was actually a journalist. Spun back to the 90's I remember reading nerd mags like Nintendo Power and Inquest Gaming and they never once pretended to be journalists. If people would write in asking how to get their jobs, it usually involved some nuance about being a good writer and holding an
English degree. Inquest Gamer even told folks point blank that if they wanted to see more articles about X that they should be talking to the folks who make X because those people are the ones paying Inquest to run the articles.
So the prospect of biased reporting from enthusiast pages such as Kotaku and Polygon and IGN wasn't anything new. Them giving games that just
barely pass the bar for what even constitutes a game (I'm still not convinced that Gone Home constitutes one because there's no potential to "lose") near-perfect or perfect scores does raise an eyebrow, but doesn't particularly surprise me. Nintendo Power never gave a bad rating to a Nintendo first party title, but then, Nintendo didn't typically make garbage.
There does, however, seem to be a substantiated link between people who are overtly pushing a "SJW" agenda trying to "infiltrate" video gaming as an industry, and while a lot of circumstantial evidence doesn't imply a crime, it does imply that we should be treating such things with suspicion. Kotaku running articles about how I- because we all need to remember that only white, adult men playing video games are bigots here- should be ashamed of my hobby and how much of a bigot I- allegedly- am didn't really phase me because I could assume most people didn't take this shit seriously but when you see this morph into an overt attack on the house that
we built into a multi-billion dollar industry, yeah, it makes me angry.
#GamerGate is not misogynist. It is not racist. The idea that an inadament object can posses these traits is silly at best, and the assertion that Vivian James is a, "But I have minority friends!" argument is mildly insulting when you literally have people going on twitter when someone tries to call them sock puppet accounts and physically giving them a photo of themselves with a timestamps. Are there people within the movement who exhibit these traits? Absolutely. The SJW community also has to grapple with the fact that they have members literally threatening to kill people after doxxing them because the person refused to recant on what they said. Mind you, it was a 10 year old who said it was a comedian's job to find the fine line on social norms, and then cross them.
Quite to the contrary, "but I have minority friends" actually speaks to the diversity present in gaming. Three of the strongest women I know I met through online games. One was hands down the best druid healer in my raid guild, the second was a damn commendable hunter, and the third is- by odds- going to be dead somewhere in the next 6 years or so, assuming her liver behaves. Less if it just gives up. They were, and are, all great people and I wouldn't have met any of them if it wasn't for gaming. Or the gay Australian. Or the two Europeans.
People keep saying gamers are a bunch of bigots but I got no idea what they're talking about. If you can't understand that the actions of a minority do not constitute the position of the majority, then you have to assume the absolute worst about all movements. Because you got feminists who claim all sex between a man and a woman constitutes rape because it "reinforces" the woman's role as subservient to the man. Because you have liberals who literally welcome the prospect of the end of the "white" race, while being white themselves. You have people living in the United States who say with a straight face that communism would do the US some good, while citing figures like Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao as people to emulate.
Every movement has its fair share of crazy people. They do not constitute the movement as a whole, and in a place like the internet you have to doubly assume that if they're not outright trying to sabotage the movement, they're at least talking out their arse.
