Gamergate, No "Right Side." - We Should Avoid Picking Sides

[V da Mighty Taco]

Can... can this be the new GG thread? Please, with a cherry on top?

Seriously though, as a former GG supporter I'm firmly entrenched in the idea that both sides are utterly abhorrent. So many personal attacks, blatant dismissals, villainization of the opposition, strawmanning the fuck out of people's arguments, complete disregard for being the better person; the list goes on. Nobody's in the right here. Not the pricks calling GamerGaters terrorists and subhuman, nor the monsters devoted to making Sarkessian's life hell. Seriously, at this point the only people that come to mind that I respect in regards to this debate is TB and Tito.

I also don't blame the OP for not wanting to post in the monster thread. I haven't been there in weeks, but if it's anything like it was when I dropped out of it then at best he would have gotten very biased responses, since so few against GG actually post there. At worst... well, I think you already know the answer to that one. We don't go to Ravenholm the GamerGate thread.

Guys, can't we all just get drunk, hang out and relax a bit?
PM me if you want to get drunk and hang out.

But I don't do alchohol! Whatever shall I do?! T-T

 

[erykweb]

Anti-GG do not want to see the points of Gamergate, while Gamergate only acknowledges those who completely exercise there ideals from Feminism or SJW. In a sense. You can't be a SJW and support Gamergate, that's the rhetoric I hate.

That depends on how you define a SJW and what you stand for. I agree with the gamergate stuff and I'd consider myself a "feminist". I may not have a social sciences degree, but in college I took a few courses on race and gender relations (because contrary to popular belief, there's more to such a topic than women). I know what my privileges are and I know what they aren't. Going by what I've seen, SJW's just want to argue about political correctness and do a bunch of finger pointing. Hell, I hate the phrase itself. Social Just "Warrior". We don't need warriors, there is no war. What people need are education and understanding.

People who are labeled as "SJWs" do not call themselves that. It is a pejorative term used by GGers to refer to those who are offended by the harassment of women in the industry.

Lets look at the timeline overview here: GG started as a group trying to shame everyone involved in the Zoe Quinn Scandal (Except her ex boyfriend). When people suggested that they were trying to slut shame Quinn (which may or may not have been the case), they called those people "SJWs" and disregarded their concerns. And then the harassment of women, Zoe Quinn and others, escalated to the point where the GG movement had to fall back and deny that it was ever a misogynist movement. They legitimately were concerned about journalists accepting sexual favors for reviews at the start, seen as a sign of corruption in the industry but it was vastly overshadowed by the vitriol thrown at Quinn at the time.

Now, they see themselves as opponents to these "SJWs," but in reality those people they define as such are not trying to prevent anyone from looking into the corruption levels in the video game industry. They just want people to stop harassing and threatening women (or anybody, for that matter) in the industry. Anyone who is pro-GG should avoid calling people "SJWs," because that is directly saying "I hate that people think I shouldn't harass women in whatever way I see fit." Social Justice and GamerGate are /NOT/ diametrically opposite viewpoints in theory, a person could support both. If you really care about the corruption in the industry, you should realize that singling out women or those who support women in video games only muddies the water, and clouds the issue.

 

[erykweb]

They legitimately were concerned about journalists accepting sexual favors for reviews at the start, seen as a sign of corruption in the industry but it was vastly overshadowed by the vitriol thrown at Quinn at the time.

Don't forget that the review they claimed they were getting in an uproar about never existed and there was zero evidence of Quinn granting sexual favours to any journalists for gain.

That, coupled with the "SJW" comments (and a whole bunch of other stuff), made everyone see right through the "Journalistic ethics" smokescreen.

The reason I did not mention that is that it did not come out that all of that were lies made up by the aforementioned ex boyfriend until a week or so later. It is interesting to note, however, that GG was born in an act of harassment of a woman (by the ex boyfriend). This article has a good look at how all of this happened, and how well intentioned people have been mislead over time by the message of the movement, despite its behavior: http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010


Captcha: She sells

No, Captcha she does not. Depression Quest is free to play.

 

[Calbeck]

This could have quite easily been posted in one of the existing GG threads rather that further monopolising the front page of OT.

Oh shush, we haven't gotten the whole front page to be about GG yet.

Also like that the OP specifies that there's no point talking in the GG thread, because people won't pay attention.

Translation: "for the umpteenth time, no we're not going to disband or re-organize the entire movement, nor try to once again discuss why YOU think GG is about Subject X when we've been talking about Q, B and R for the last fifteen pages. Please do realize that after 700 pages, we've heard all the standard routines numerous times and could you try being a bit original this time out for pity's sake".

 

[Lieju]

There really aren't two 'sides', are there?

You might make an argument how Gamergate is a 'side', but what accountability does it have? It just seems like a huge mess to me.
The anti-Gamergate seems to be either people who aren't on board with them (for various reasons, by now a lot of people just want them to go away so they can talk about video-games) or some nebulous 'SJWs' who are doing somethingsomething Tumblrsomethingconspiracy.

And considering how the term 'SJW' is thrown around, if you unironically describe your opposition as that it's pretty likely I'll be siding with them and going 'no, I'm gonna pick that side'.

I'll tell you what.
Gamergate has done a lot to make many people start using 'gamer' as a pejorative.

I NEVER heard the word 'gamer' used in a negative light before this whole business, where now in many circles who aren't video-game focused 'gamer' has become synonymous with 'Gamergater'.

So, well done.

I never had to be ashamed to call myself a gamer before because for example in feminist circles no one cared if you played video-games.

EDIT:
For the record, I don't think Gamergate rose just from misogynism. There was also the pre-existing distrust of reviewers.
It wasn't only that a woman was involved, it was that ALSO buying reviews, which a lot of people believe happens (despite the evidence to the contrary) and that added with the fear of losing an identiy = perfect storm of shit.

Now, I do think there are problems with the review-system (think of the Shadow of Mordor-thing) but there are two ideas thrown around every time a review people don't agree with is posted:
1) that the reviewer was paid off. As if companies would resort to directly bribing like that
2) that it's unfair reviewers get free games, I want free games too! Unfair!

Which both make you sound childish.

 

[Calbeck]

The reason I did not mention that is that it did not come out that all of that were lies made up by the aforementioned ex boyfriend until a week or so later

Since you brought that whole mess up, recall that she actually admitted to "all the lies", so no, they're not all lies. Also recall that Grayson did indeed write an article favorable about her (indeed, it practically makes her the center and heroic figure of "Game Jam"), at a time when they had a close relationship. The sex didn't begin until nearly a whole month later, so of course since sexual contact is the point where game reporter/game developer relations suddenly become an issue, no concern whatsoever there.

Hey, I wouldn't mention it except you decided it was worth trying to dismiss the entire movement over an incident no one otherwise cares about in the face of "Gamers Are Dead" articles that REALLY pissed everyone off.

Care to talk about those?

http://jezebel.com/

Ah yes, THE source for balanced news regarding feminist issues, almost as clean-cut as Breitbart. Since we're tossing around news sources, though, at least the latter produced documentation of journalistic favoritism (because "let's use this as an excuse" to review a game developer's game isn't iffy in any way).

Depression Quest is free to play.

Please consult your doctor if you are taking medication for depression before playing.

No, seriously. And if you don't have a doctor, it's okay, an actual doctor's office is presented right there in the game as part of the fiction, so you'd have to be blind-calling what you thought was a fake number in order to get the help you actually need.

 

[Calbeck]

I never had to be ashamed to call myself a gamer before because for example in feminist circles no one cared if you played video-games.

Ah, then you never read any of the dozen articles which kicked Gamergate into high gear.

Since, after all, their entire point was to tell you WHY you should be ashamed to call yourself a gamer, and why specifically there were feminist reasons that you should be ashamed.

Or, you could go with Samantha Allen's screed on how no one who is not a straight male "cannot feel safe" on any gaming-related forum, including several of those which wrote the "Gamers Are Dead" articles, a year beforehand. Do you feel "unsafe", even here, just inches of textspace away from the Gamergate forum thread which makes you feel so ashamed to be a gamer?

http://www.reactionzine.com/an-open-letter-to-games-media/

And just remember, this is the same woman who literally, openly, proudly, hates you if you have male genitalia:

http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=101902

EDIT: Here's a much better link --- the Internet Wayback Machine remembers all!

https://web.archive.org/web/20140701225929/http://unpitchable.tumblr.com/post/79931857273/what-misandry-means-to-me

i?m a misandrist. that means i hate men. i?m not a cute misandrist. i don?t have a fridge magnet that says, ?boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.? my loathing cannot be contained by a fridge magnet.

i am not an equality feminist. i don?t believe that an asymmetrical world will be cured by polite obsequence to male-dominated systems. i am not a liberal humanist. i don?t believe that i need to stand up for men when they?ve been standing on top of everyone else.

misandry is not a political program; it?s a stance. i don?t care whether hating men is a good or bad feminist strategy (and i care even less what men think about misandry). i don?t think i have a responsibility to change the world. i think i have a responsibility to survive.

GamerGate wasn't started by misogyny.

It was started by misandry.

 

[Lieju]

I never had to be ashamed to call myself a gamer before because for example in feminist circles no one cared if you played video-games.

Ah, then you never read any of the dozen articles which kicked Gamergate into high gear.

Since, after all, their entire point was to tell you WHY you should be ashamed to call yourself a gamer, and why specifically there were feminist reasons that you should be ashamed.

And I had no bloody reason to care. Why do you care about people like those then?
I never read Leigh Alexander or whoever it is who so offended some gamers. Just like with Sarkeesian, I would have never heard of them without all the people opposing them and dragging the discussion to places where I go just to talk about video-games.

They had no significance to me.

But now suddenly a 'gamer' has become a synonym for 'gamergater' in places and in discussions where it simply meant a 'person playing games' before.

It was started by misandry.

I thought it was started by 'a lack of journalist ethics'.

 

[Verlander]

I'll happily join the on-the-fencers if it stops hogging forums. Doubt it will though.

 

[Thorn14]

I never had to be ashamed to call myself a gamer before because for example in feminist circles no one cared if you played video-games.

Ah, then you never read any of the dozen articles which kicked Gamergate into high gear.

Since, after all, their entire point was to tell you WHY you should be ashamed to call yourself a gamer, and why specifically there were feminist reasons that you should be ashamed.

And I had no bloody reason to care. Why do you care about people like those then?
I never read Leigh Alexander or whoever it is who so offended some gamers. Just like with Sarkeesian, I would have never heard of them without all the people opposing them and dragging the discussion to places where I go just to talk about video-games.

They had no significance to me.

But now suddenly a 'gamer' has become a synonym for 'gamergater' in places and in discussions where it simply meant a 'person playing games' before.

I care because I spent a majority of my life being teased and harassed simply for enjoying video games and now I gotta deal with shit who are supposedly supposed to write for me? Sorry, but I refuse to let that lie.

 

[Calbeck]

And I had no bloody reason to care. Why do you care about people like those then?

You're defending stereotypes developed by an open misandrist?

I never read Leigh Alexander or whoever it is who so offended some gamers.

Well then, kindly don't go around telling people they're overreacting to something you haven't bothered to check for yourself.

Just like with Sarkeesian, I would have never heard of them without all the people opposing them and dragging the discussion to places where I go just to talk about video-games.

That's... what SHE was doing, and what other people were doing in response. Talking about video-games.

So you just wanted to go someplace to talk about games and then someone talked about games and someone else talked about games and you're being huffy about it because they didn't talk about the games the way you wanted?

But now suddenly a 'gamer' has become a synonym for 'gamergater' in places and in discussions where it simply meant a 'person playing games' before.

Synonym to WHO? And incidentally, before you start in talking about "unwanted national attention" (since, honestly, I can only presume that's what you're talking about), exactly who made it a national issue, aside from people who're opposed to the movement?

Oh, and also before you go on a possible tangent about threats --- the USU police, in conjunction with the FBI, have investigated Ms. Sarkeesian's most recent threat claims and dismissed them. Not only did they dismiss them, but comments were also made to the effect that the previous threats were just as empty.

http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54178

And yet, Ms. Sarkeesian has been riding a minor tidal wave of supportive national press which seems not to want to bother to inquire with the FBI as to how its investigations went. And that's why things have gone national, and that's why the term "gamer" is synonymous with "gamergate" --- assuming one can realistically make that statement.

It was started by misandry.

I thought it was started by 'journalist ethics'.

A journalist being a misandrist, and shopping misandry to push a journalistic narrative... is ethical?

 

[QuicklyAcross]

I dont see it in the way of two perspectives fighting over which opinion is right because the answer is already crystal clear for many.
They only argue semantics and not the actual issues.

 

[Lieju]

And I had no bloody reason to care. Why do you care about people like those then?

You're defending stereotypes developed by an open misandrist?

Yes, I am obviously doing that.
Somehow.
By saying I don't care what they think.

?

 

[Calbeck]

Yep, seems Anita's claims ultimately didn't hold water, according to the Utah State University and its own report on the matter:

http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54179

Following a disturbing email received late Monday evening, Utah State University police and administrators have been working throughout the day to assess any level of risk to students or to a speaker scheduled to visit. USU police, in conjunction with several teams of state and federal law enforcement experts, determined that there was no threat to students, staff or the speaker, so no alert was issued...

...Throughout the day, USU police worked to assess the level of threat with other local, state and federal agencies, including the Utah Statewide Information and Analysis Center, the FBI Cyber Terrorism Task Force, and the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. After a careful assessment of the threat, law enforcement officials determined that it was similar to other threats that Sarkeesian received in the past.

 

[Irick]

That's a great article. It even highlights more harrassment of women in gaming (what has Anita Sarkeesian have to do with Gamergate too? Oh right nothing, yet they keep on bringing her up) for no good reason.

Anyway even though it never came out until a week later, you should've mentioned it because it highlights the fact that no one involved with the Zoe Quinn abuse bothered (or more likely, cared) to check if the accusations were real. It wasn't until they got a bit more attention and others checked if their claims were real that it came to light.

Of course the smokescreen was quickly put up to try and make it look like it was about ethics in journalism, despite even that spawning from a review that never existed.

Serious question: does any of that actually matter to the question of ethics in journalism?
If ethics in journalism is being used as a smokescreen, does it make it any less important of an issue?
Is there some rule that says we can only discuss either ethics in journalism or the harassment of people in the gaming community?

What exactly is stopping them both from being discussed and considered?

They are obviously important issues to non-insignificant portions of the gaming community, so why exactly shouldn't we be discussing them like they are, rather than saying one is just a smoke screen or a distraction or a non-issue?

Do you want to talk about harassment? I'll talk about harassment with you. It's a problem. We have no-name assholes who are making death-threats and putting out private information because they don't like someone. That's some sick shit and it needs to be stopped.

We have members of the press 'jokingly' supporting bullying and gloating about it in the public sphere. That's some sick shit and it needs to be stopped.

We can't let people make our community toxic. We have to take steps to identify it, contain it, and penultimately nullify it while maintaining our own level-headedness and fairness.

It's going to be a challenge, and it's not going to happen overnight, but why shouldn't we?

And why the hell shouldn't we address the serious breach of ethics that's going on in the media? Have you been paying any attention to them? Beyond just the abuse that we've had going around on twitter and the very real censorship that is hitting as close to home as The Escapist itself we have the long history of shady practices in organizations like IGN. Games as a medium are growing up, and that means that it's more important than ever to have these kinds of discussions as our medium interacts more and more with the wider culture.

I don't see the issues in the same sort of natural dichotomy many seem to. They both need attention and discussion.

 

[Calbeck]

And I had no bloody reason to care. Why do you care about people like those then?

You're defending stereotypes developed by an open misandrist?

Yes, I am obviously doing that.
Somehow.
By saying I don't care what they think.

?

You don't care what the misandrists think, or what people think of misandrists driving a wedge smack into the gaming community on charges of widespread misogyny?

 

[Calbeck]

but comments were also made to the effect that the previous threats were just as empty.

I hadn't heard that (I'm uncertain if you mean previous threats against USU or her). Could you clarify which and link me to those?

Edit:

One sec looks like you added one.

Edit Edit:

Actually scratch that, that claim wasn't in the link, refer back to the original question.

Took a little extra digging to find the update, I mistakenly put up the original statement whereby the police decided Ms. Sarkeesian's life and that of the students was not actually at risk. That is later clarified as being that there was no actual serious threat at all.

Nonetheless, there's the narrative in the New York Times et al, clearly not bothering to check for updates or any sources beyond those supporting Ms. Sarkeesian's claim.

"Listen and believe", after all...

 

[cleric of the order]

They legitimately were concerned about journalists accepting sexual favors for reviews at the start, seen as a sign of corruption in the industry but it was vastly overshadowed by the vitriol thrown at Quinn at the time.

Don't forget that the review they claimed they were getting in an uproar about never existed and there was zero evidence of Quinn granting sexual favours to any journalists for gain.

That, coupled with the "SJW" comments (and a whole bunch of other stuff), made everyone see right through the "Journalistic ethics" smokescreen.

The reason I did not mention that is that it did not come out that all of that were lies made up by the aforementioned ex boyfriend until a week or so later. It is interesting to note, however, that GG was born in an act of harassment of a woman (by the ex boyfriend). This article has a good look at how all of this happened, and how well intentioned people have been mislead over time by the message of the movement, despite its behavior: http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010


Captcha: She sells

No, Captcha she does not. Depression Quest is free to play.

That's jezebel, I'm sorry but I don't think that would make the best citation.
That site is a thing....politically it's like getting your news of some sort a anti-/pol/.
I've been around watching those whole thing unfold and I can assure you that isn't what happened, not entirely.
Now what seemed to get the ball rolling was the mundane matt video which are actually lacking in harassment, hell compared to his other videos they are pretty tame.
He went over what happened and then found the video fulled and across the internet every piece of information destroyed and people banned because of it.
Now that enraged me like a fair amount of people the implication that a person could have enough pull to silence a swath of people even as far in as 4chan.
When people started talking about it, boom, gamers are dead and Alex Baldwin gets angry and then we rallied around that title for that goal.
At the very least we have evidence of corruption, in the indie-cadie and the like. at the very least the mailing list and i understand how tiresome it is but at this point i feel like we could for better from out established media.

on another note, just because I have a love for expunging trivia here is a list of things I know Zoe has done. If it does help to build the character of Zoe Quinn, objectively we have proof that she intentionally shut down TFYC, has lied about the proceeds of her game going to iFred and Harassed wizard chan. All of which leaves me sad. TFYC's business model and goals were something i really liked, it's a shame they were blacklisted.

 

[cleric of the order]

but comments were also made to the effect that the previous threats were just as empty.

I hadn't heard that (I'm uncertain if you mean previous threats against USU or her). Could you clarify which and link me to those?

Edit:

One sec looks like you added one.

Edit Edit:

Actually scratch that, that claim wasn't in the link, refer back to the original question.

Took a little extra digging to find the update, I mistakenly put up the original statement whereby the police decided Ms. Sarkeesian's life and that of the students was not actually at risk. That is later clarified as being that there was no actual serious threat at all.

Nonetheless, there's the narrative in the New York Times et al, clearly not bothering to check for updates or any sources beyond those supporting Ms. Sarkeesian's claim.

"Listen and believe", after all...

Crud that's something

 

[cleric of the order]

]objectively we have proof that she intentionally shut down TFYC,

Actually no. No we don't.

We have this though. [http://imgur.com/a/KEtcp]

Really, huh.