GamerGate's Image Problem

[RexMundane]

Considering your whole point seems to be "You just don't like the guy" you maybe didn't need to spend so many words saying it.

And I've listed my reasons, not least of all pertaining to his failures of ethical behavior as a journalist. Continue to ignore them if you like, and further dismiss any criticism of the movement from anyone outside. But be aware that you do so to your detriment.

Well the response seems to have to come up a whole lot when all your reasons seem to be merely your opinion. And I repeat it because I wanted to address your points one at a time, even if that meant repeating myself a lot in the process.

You dislike him because of his political affiliation.
You dislike him because of his sites other stories.
You dislike him because he ran his mouth even if he apologized after.

I'm not ignoring your reasons, I am saying your reasons don't translate into convincing someone else since they are largely your personal opinion on the matter. Hence why I could boil it down like I did. And hence why I keep asking the question "alright, you dislike the guy, the site he is on, or his behavior on twitter...now what is your point" in relation to why your personal opinion affects the larger whole and why should your personal opinion be seen as something of merit or value in that larger discussion when you largely admit a natural bias against him?

You seem to be having a completely different conversation than the one I'm having. I never contextualized anything as mere dislike. I never mentioned his politics. Aside from the article where he slags on gamers, I never mentioned other stories.

My point, which I keep reiterating, is that he is a poor excuse for a journalist, as his record through out this ordeal has demonstrated, and evidently more interested in self promotion than in responsible reporting.

Edit: I really shouldn't be doing this on a tablet.

 

[runic knight]

The man is a complete arsehole. I have never read that article (the one oft linked and adored), I saw the picture and read the word "promiscuous" alongside "greedy, manipulative bullies" and didn't bother (although it was nice of him to put his arseholery right there in the address bar as a heads up). As everybody is now treating him as the saviour of the "movement" I decided to go back and give it a chance. After all the giant unflattering picture of Zoe Quinn (I presume) may have not been indicative of the content.

I at the end of paragraph one I was laughing out loud that THIS was what "gamergate" have chosen to rally behind, two paragraphs and I had to stop reading as my brain was dribbling out of my ears.

Is the third paragraph where it becomes clear the whole thing is satire?

This again?

everybody is now treating him as the saviour of the "movement"

No, people are not treating him as the savior, they are just excited that he is actively engaging and participating in the whole thing. Now people like Bob and Rex above keep trying to paint him as the savior of the movement that is true, but by and large I see the reaction to him now as the same as Adam got, as the same as Camera girl got, as the same as jontron and totalbiskit got, as the same as IA got and so forth. relevant, important people to what gamergate is, but saviors they are not. none are the end all, be all, and even Milo, for all his superstar reception, would be ignored if he went off the deep end at this point. Hell, people were ready to drop him over the twitter comments if he didn't apologize. I don't recall a lot of saviors getting that sort of treatment.

Also, I would suggest, even if you find the tone uncomfortable, you give the stories released recently a once over. It isn't because of his tone that people like him, it is because of the evidence dug up showing the claims about collusion and unprofessionalism in the industry are entirely true.

 

[runic knight]

Predictive text is screwing with me, please stand by.

You seem to be having a completely different conversation than the one in havingcontextualized anything as dislike. I never mentioned his politics. Aside from the article where he slags on gamers, I never mentioned other stories.

Sorry, getting my wires crossed between you and Bob and between the larger thread a little since I was repeating myself a bit there. You are right, you didn't mention his politics there. My apology for including it as it implies you did.

 

[CymbaIine]

The man is a complete arsehole. I have never read that article (the one oft linked and adored), I saw the picture and read the word "promiscuous" alongside "greedy, manipulative bullies" and didn't bother (although it was nice of him to put his arseholery right there in the address bar as a heads up). As everybody is now treating him as the saviour of the "movement" I decided to go back and give it a chance. After all the giant unflattering picture of Zoe Quinn (I presume) may have not been indicative of the content.

I at the end of paragraph one I was laughing out loud that THIS was what "gamergate" have chosen to rally behind, two paragraphs and I had to stop reading as my brain was dribbling out of my ears.

Is the third paragraph where it becomes clear the whole thing is satire?

This again?

everybody is now treating him as the saviour of the "movement"

No, people are not treating him as the savior, they are just excited that he is actively engaging and participating in the whole thing. Now people like Bob and Rex above keep trying to pain him as the savior of the movement that is true, but by and large I see the reaction to him now as the same as Adam got, as the same as Camera girl got, as the same as jontron and totalbiskit got, as the same as IA got and so forth. relevant, important people to what gamergate is, but saviors they are not. none are the end all, be all, and even Milo, for all his superstar reception, would be ignored if he went off the deep end at this point. Hell, people were ready to drop him over the twitter comments if he didn't apologize. I don't recall a lot of saviors getting that sort of treatment.

Also, I would suggest, even if you find the tone uncomfortable, you give the stories released recently a once over. It isn't because of his tone that people like him, it is because of the evidence dug up showing the claims about collusion and unprofessionalism in the industry are entirely true.

I don't find his tone "uncomfortable". Also I don't know who Rex, Adam, Camera Girl or jontron are. I am going from what I have read on these boards about him tonight.

Here is the thing with all this "evidence"- It's not accessible. I don't wish to wade through piles of shite written by a prick to find out what the fuck he is using to justify his tantrum.

You know who does want to wade through it? People who agree with his agenda in the first place. People who think "Hey I often suspected there is an army of mentally ill sluts ruining our games! Let's dig through the evidence so I have something to back up what I want to whine about!".

 

[runic knight]

Not of "gaming," of "the movement." Lots of specific language to that effect in the thread, and again you can read the same posts I did and you know that. Again this just looks like hairsplitting and sophistry to avoid admitting a perfectly obvious fact that you are finding momentarily rhetorically inconvenient.

I get that you're annoyed that Milo isn't panning out. But you don't get to make up your own alternate reality where anyone who can see how desperately the "movement" was hoping for him to rescue some species of "victory" for them is somehow lying or engaged in rhetorical shenanigans. That's not okay. It's not honest. It's also quite transparent, and you should stop trying to do it.

Alright, let me reword then, since the obviously meant word not being there threw you off.
"the excitement about Milo has to be because they see him as some savior of gamergate?"
Congratulations, the rest of my post remains both utterly unchanged and largely ignored.

Now, would you care to actually address the post this time, please? Or would you rather continue to spend two paragraphs dodging it to instead cluck and shit on the chessboard once more about how all hope is lost or what not? I'll wait, I am a patient guy.

As I have said before, people being excited about someone is not new, see adam, jontron, totalbiskit and so forth.

You know, I could take that as a jab.

Don't. It's not a jab. It's a fact. The opinions of people who had some knowledge of what Breitbart was and who Milo was did in fact predict the poor and embarrassing outcome we're now watching unfold. Yours didn't. Therefore it doesn't really matter that much what credence you give to, say, Rex's views, because the facts have been on his side and not yours and he therefore has more credibility as an observer at this point than you do.
I don't care if you like that. I don't care if you can deal with it. It's simply a fact.

It is a fact that in your opinion someone else's predictive capability is better then mine? That is an odd statement of personal opinion.

Furthermore, you keep making assertion that are only your opinion and are not quantifiable in any way.
"the poor and embarrassing outcome" -to you. Not everyone thinks this is poor or embarrassing and your assertions that your opinion is correct on this is part of what I keep trying to point out is actually not as valid as you think. And no, such opinions are not "fact" in any degree. YOU think it is poor and embarrassing. YOU think that is reason to abandon ship. I do not.

Alright, I'll try to break this up since I think we are talking past each other at this point.
Not everyone thinks that the articles and the recent events with Milo are some great catastrophe. Not everyone things that his former reputation is something that must always apply, even after he admits and apologizes for it. Not everyone things that blatantly obvious evidence of collusion is something to dismiss or scoff at. At no point are any of those claims you made "fact" when they are subjective opinions. As such, despite your perpetual insistence of them, and of the conclusions your draw from them about all hope i nthe movement being lost and what not, it doesn't make it fact.

Going beyond that, predicting that association with Milo will lead to more smearing is a non-prediction. The raining day analogy of before explains why. Predicting that Milo will result in a negative reaction though, well, that depends on how people actually look at things and if they see them as negative. As said, no, not everyone agrees with your opinion about a lot of this. This a prediction that this will result in negative sort of depends that two people look at the same thing and reach the same subjective conclusion. That isn't a valuable prediction to me, sorry.

I don't find his tone "uncomfortable". Also I don't know who Rex, Adam, Camera Girl or jontron are. I am going from what I have read on these boards about him tonight.
Here is the thing with all this "evidence"- It's not accessible. I don't wish to wade through piles of shite written by a prick to find out what the fuck he is using to justify his tantrum.
You know who does want to wade through it? People who agree with his agenda in the first place. People who think "Hey I often suspected there is an army of mentally ill sluts ruining our games! Let's dig through the evidence so I have something to back up what I want to whine about!".

Rex and Bbo are posters in this thread. Adam is Adam Baldwin, who joined and coined the movement's name. Camera girl and jonron are other youtube personalities that got involved in gamergate at one point or another. The point I was making is that the excitement about Milo is nothing new, as the other three involved in gamergate also received the same sort of fervor.

As for the accessibility, it is there, all of it. Just search, or go into the main thread and ask, or even look up the various articles from Milo or raptortech or nichegamer or where ever else. It is out there, it is easily accessed.

Your last statement has me confused though. Who the hell has that opinion? Unless that is trying to say that the only people who look up this stuff in the first place have an agenda, which seems a bit of an unfair way to dismiss things entirely without addressing them.

 

[CymbaIine]

Rex and Bbo are posters in this thread. Adam is Adam Baldwin, who joined and coined the movement's name. Camera girl and jonron are other youtube personalities that got involved in gamergate at one point or another. The point I was making is that the excitement about Milo is nothing new, as the other three involved in gamergate also received the same sort of fervor.

As for the accessibility, it is there, all of it. Just search, or go into the main thread and ask, or even look up the various articles from Milo or raptortech or nichegamer or where ever else. It is out there, it is easily accessed.

Your last statement has me confused though. Who the hell has that opinion? Unless that is trying to say that the only people who look up this stuff in the first place have an agenda, which seems a bit of an unfair way to dismiss things entirely without addressing them.

You misunderstood the use of the word "accessible", I've been through this stuff before (indeed many of my points have been raised and ignored on this very thread) I am past caring. Luckily none of this matters very much.

 

[runic knight]

You misunderstood the use of the word "accessible", I've been through this stuff before (indeed many of my points have been raised and ignored on this very thread) I am past caring. Luckily none of this matters very much.

What did you mean then? and why does it not matter much?

 

[aliengmr]

I'm just going to direct this to the Gamergaters who genuinely care about the image.

Gamergate is in conspiracy land now and it keeps getting worse all the time. For quite a while that mega thread on the topic has been an echo-chamber and one of the worst I've ever seen. It doesn't matter anymore what new information comes up innocent or damning, it all being treated as the gospel of Lord Milo (<---I wouldn't doubt that was actually said). Milo could deliver some guys shopping list and GG would freak the fuck out about it.

I hate conspiracy theories. They are absent of any logic and quite immune to criticism no matter how dumb they are.

This is where Milo becomes dangerous. This man has a following of sycophants that hang on his every word. His motivations are suspect at best. And for a "movement" that has reached this point with its lack of direction and absolute overload of information there really is no point anymore.

Those with their sanity just need to focus efforts elsewhere. Milo isn't going to single-handedly reform games journalism in a week. He's going to keep stringing gamergate along by playing on all the fears and preconceived notions they've built, while not doing anything to solve the problem. Gamergate's real enemy is time. Once those precious nuggets of information start drying up people will stop caring, Milo knows that. But real change takes time, more time than gamergate has.

Gamergate is a reaction not the solution.

 

[runic knight]

Now, would you care to actually address the post this time, please?

Pretending not to understand extremely plain English is also not going to help you. But by all means keep on dodging and weaving.

Hmm? I am sorry, I am afraid I don't know what you mean. You said you didn't like the word I used as if that was a problem, so I changed it and then waited on a reply. Sadly, despite the length of text I give and the various points I try to make, you seem to get shorter and shorter in reply and more and more of those points go unaddressed and ignored til all you have to reply with is claiming I am dodging.

Perhaps we would be best to re-address the original starting question of "how can we improve the image of gamergate without repeating the same points that are falsely labeled upon the movement?"

In relation to Milo, I do understand why people keep saying that distancing the movement from him or from conspiracy theories in general, but I disagree both with the reasons given thus far (since it largely boils down to a personal opinion of him or his site that is not shared by everyone, and since dishonest representations in the media remain consistent).

I'm sorry you feel I am dodging in spite of my posts carefully explaining my points, but if you don't wish to continue discussing that, all we can do is agree to disagree. You can have your opinions on this and I can have mine.

 

[CaptainChip]

http://mitrailleuse.net/2014/09/19/intellectual-bullying/

I feel like this post is extremely relevant, especially with the arguments that the anti-GG side is currently making in this thread...

 

[VVThoughtBox]

Aren't gaming journalists and the Social Justice crowd hypocrites? Something about the way that the journalists and SJW activists have been acting the past couple of weeks seems contradictory. They're accusing their target audience of lack of diversity, but many of these journalists and SJW are predominately white middle class people between the ages of 21 and 34, who engage in sexist behavior. You can't really call yourself a feminist and then shame a female video game characters like Mai Shiranui, Morrigan, or Felicia for not living up to your improbable standards.

 

[keithkc81]

I think people need to look into things a bit closer. Media bias will always be there, they just want views/clicks https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/497856477802278912. I'm sure people have looked into who owns various media outlets outside of gamergate. I feel news has just been a way to make money for a while now. On the internet it's click bait articles, on TV it's owning multiple stations telling each demographic what they want to hear.

News hasn't worked in a long time. I don't think it is possible to fix, there is too much money involved.For at least the past 14 years I've tried to listen to both sides and try to average them. I don't really have time to do it properly. I don't get it, if someone paid for a review with something other than cash. Why is it worse? Companies buy reviews all the time. We all know it happens. BTW, I do like the new "Paid by notice".

Honestly, I think air fare and hotel are OK. If you want people to come and look at what you have, you should at least pay to get them there and put them up for the night.

Just remember I may be a sexist swine, but I do believe there are sexist sow out there as well.

 

[runic knight]

Aren't gaming journalists and the Social Justice crowd hypocrites? Something about the way that the journalists and SJW activists have been acting the past couple of weeks seems contradictory. They're accusing their target audience of lack of diversity, but many of these journalists and SJW are predominately white middle class people between the ages of 21 and 34, who engage in sexist behavior. You can't really call yourself a feminist and then shame a female video game characters like Mai Shiranui, Morrigan, or Felicia for not living up to your improbable standards.

I never like that term, "SJW" when describing such people. They are not actual social justice advocates and it just muddies the water into an "us v. them" thing. It is better to call them out for the behavior and attitudes they have without trying to fight that fight in their battlefield.

They are manufacturers and manipulators of outrage. they deflect, dismiss, defame and decry people because of the outrage they control. They abuse social justice agendas but they are not advocates for social justice itself. They are using the same tactics as McCarthyism before, so call out that behavior and not the color of the flag they are wrapping around themselves. You can't win against someone calling you a communist in an attempt to shut you up by calling them a capitalist, and you can't win against someone calling you a misogynist by calling them a SJW. There is too much public perception around the term and it really isn't what you are fighting anyways. Why fight the battle the way they want it fought?

 

[VVThoughtBox]

Aren't gaming journalists and the Social Justice crowd hypocrites? Something about the way that the journalists and SJW activists have been acting the past couple of weeks seems contradictory. They're accusing their target audience of lack of diversity, but many of these journalists and SJW are predominately white middle class people between the ages of 21 and 34, who engage in sexist behavior. You can't really call yourself a feminist and then shame a female video game characters like Mai Shiranui, Morrigan, or Felicia for not living up to your improbable standards.

I never like that term, "SJW" when describing such people. They are not actual social justice advocates and it just muddies the water into an "us v. them" thing. It is better to call them out for the behavior and attitudes they have without trying to fight that fight in their battlefield.

They are manufacturers and manipulators of outrage. they deflect, dismiss, defame and decry people because of the outrage they control. They abuse social justice agendas but they are not advocates for social justice itself. They are using the same tactics as McCarthyism before, so call out that behavior and not the color of the flag they are wrapping around themselves. You can't win against someone calling you a communist to shut you up by calling them a capitalist, and you can't win against someone calling you a misogynist by calling them a SJW. There is too much public perception around the term and it really isn't what you are fighting anyways. Why fight the battle the way they want it fought?

But these people are self-identified social justice advocates. They say that they're fighting for equality and diversity without doing anything meaningful in terms of promoting tolerance. If it's not okay to call them SJW, then what do we call them? Moral Guardians?

 

[Lunar Archivist]

Aren't gaming journalists and the Social Justice crowd hypocrites? Something about the way that the journalists and SJW activists have been acting the past couple of weeks seems contradictory. They're accusing their target audience of lack of diversity, but many of these journalists and SJW are predominately white middle class people between the ages of 21 and 34, who engage in sexist behavior.

If only there were more people like you who realized this.

They claimed to be standing up for women and minorities as far as representation in video games was concerned, but when #NotYourShield started up, they claimed all the women and minorities standing up to them didn't exist, were sockpuppets, or had internalized self-loathing.

They go on and on about some of GamerGate's unruly members attacking Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, but conveniently fail to address how their unruly members attacked Jayd3 Fox (an Asian woman) and about four gaming sites all attempted to smear Christina Hoff Sommers when she attempted to debunk their claims that all the anger was coming from straight, white males.

They claim they want more women and minorities in the game industry, but Quinn torpedoed The Fine Young Capitalist's Kickstarter (which was meant to actually help women create video games) and Leigh Alexander has threatened to ruin the career of at least one black man on Twitter and actually seemed to relish having destroyed the careers of other people she didn't like, male or female.

It simply boggles the mind how they can get away with this and everyone seems to just not notice for some reason.

 

[RexMundane]

Aren't gaming journalists and the Social Justice crowd hypocrites? Something about the way that the journalists and SJW activists have been acting the past couple of weeks seems contradictory. They're accusing their target audience of lack of diversity, but many of these journalists and SJW are predominately white middle class people between the ages of 21 and 34, who engage in sexist behavior. You can't really call yourself a feminist and then shame a female video game characters like Mai Shiranui, Morrigan, or Felicia for not living up to your improbable standards.

While I imagine such people exist, I haven't really heard the argument that those characters "shouldn't exist" or otherwise be shamed for, I presume from your implication, being sexualized. There isn't any sort of ethical "problem" with a woman being depicted as attractive, such as it is, and creators are free to make the games they want the way they want.

Mind you, I would argue that it is indicative of a broader problem that, while men in games can be short, tall, fat, thin, ugly, bald, hairy, whathaveyou, but women tend to only exist in a sort of "standard attractive female" template. Like I'm sure you could easily name a dozen fat male characters off the top of your head, but for women the list sort of begins and ends with Ellie from BL2, and she's an NPC. Not that I'm saying the solution is we need more fat women in games per se, as there are no easy fixes, just that their absence is indicative of a larger problem.

Also, saying "SJWs make lazy generalizations, but watch as I do the same to them" isn't exactly taking the ethical high-ground. I'd ask if you had any numbers to go on for your blanket assertion, but even if you did it wouldn't prove very much.

 

[runic knight]

Aren't gaming journalists and the Social Justice crowd hypocrites? Something about the way that the journalists and SJW activists have been acting the past couple of weeks seems contradictory. They're accusing their target audience of lack of diversity, but many of these journalists and SJW are predominately white middle class people between the ages of 21 and 34, who engage in sexist behavior. You can't really call yourself a feminist and then shame a female video game characters like Mai Shiranui, Morrigan, or Felicia for not living up to your improbable standards.

I never like that term, "SJW" when describing such people. They are not actual social justice advocates and it just muddies the water into an "us v. them" thing. It is better to call them out for the behavior and attitudes they have without trying to fight that fight in their battlefield.

They are manufacturers and manipulators of outrage. they deflect, dismiss, defame and decry people because of the outrage they control. They abuse social justice agendas but they are not advocates for social justice itself. They are using the same tactics as McCarthyism before, so call out that behavior and not the color of the flag they are wrapping around themselves. You can't win against someone calling you a communist to shut you up by calling them a capitalist, and you can't win against someone calling you a misogynist by calling them a SJW. There is too much public perception around the term and it really isn't what you are fighting anyways. Why fight the battle the way they want it fought?

But these people are self-identified social justice advocates. They say that they're fighting for equality and diversity without doing anything meaningful in terms of promoting tolerance. If it's not okay to call them SJW, then what do we call them? Moral Guardians?

I think the problem here is that they claim they are social justice advocates because of the potential for misconduct that comes from being in a position of moral authority. We have seen how such moral authority has been abused after all. And because it ties them into a group who will defend them from the consequences of their actions under the misguided assumptions that such responses are attacks against social advocacy itself and not just because they have been abusing their position and connections for dishonest purposes.

As for what to call them, honestly, not entirely sure. Social justice parasites seems a common one, but the problem remains that it still concerned with the social justice aspect and largely ignores the underlying tactics and behavior that is the real problem.

Maybe just call them what they really are? Manufacturers and manipulators of outrage to deflect, discredit, dismiss and decry others. pastors of the Mega-Church social advocacy. News Speakers if you like 1984.