GamerGate's Image Problem

aliengmr

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runic knight said:
VVThoughtBox said:
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, "SSJW" 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.
So what if I say that I think sexism is a thing, and that in the games industry it is something that need fixing. That its okay to criticize social issues in games with the understanding that it doesn't reflect on you. That's its at the developers discretion to take those criticisms to heart and the gamers discretion to purchase games they want to play.

I would say that, yes, I have moderately feminist views and want those discussions to take place, but no inclination to force those views on games themselves. Criticisms? Yes. I want that.

Am I your enemy?
 

entelechy

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Lunar Archivist said:
It simply boggles the mind how they can get away with this and everyone seems to just not notice for some reason.
The reason why they "get away with it" is because your description of nearly all of those incidents is outrageous hyperbole. People tend to "get away with" quite a lot when their critics actively mischaracterize them. Below is what happens to your post when the hyperbole is removed:

Lunar Archivist minus the hyperbole said:
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 {showed conclusive proof that some of} the women and minorities standing up to them didn't exist, were sockpuppets, {and many of the others exhibited signs of} internalized self-loathing.

They go on and on about some of GamerGate's {most prominent video bloggers} attacking Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, but conveniently fail to address how {some of} their unruly members attacked Jayd3 Fox (an Asian woman) {for making a really lame parody of Anita Sarkeesian's videos} and about four gaming sites all {informed the public about the conservative employer of, and lack of evidence presented by} Christina Hoff Sommers when she attempted to debunk their claims that {much of} the anger was coming from straight, white males.

They claim they want more women and minorities in the game industry, but Quinn {denounced} The Fine Young Capitalist's Kickstarter {due to their questionable trans policy motivated by the fear that dudes might pretend to be trans to get that sweet, sweet 8% of profits} and Leigh Alexander {said that} one black man on Twitter {might have a hard time getting into the industry after being a giant douche to so many of the people working in it} and actually seemed to {be pleased that the industry she works in will not hire people who are openly an asshole to their potential colleagues}.
And as you can see, when you remove the hyperbole the situation looks a lot different.
 

KokujinTensai

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Please correct me if I'm wrong but the consensus appears to be that people aren't necessarily against what GG wants they just despise the way its going about it? It also seems like many of you object to the treatment ZQ received at the start of this fiasco. I for one wish there was a better catalyst to all this besides her. If so then I wish there was a way we could all achieve the same goal without cutting each others throats. I'm terribly sorry you guys view GG the way you do. I also object to certain elements being involved as well. Not all who support GG are whatever negative buzzwords are being used to describe us. We just want to read game news without an agenda shoved down our throats. I hope when this is all over our community here won't be fractured.
 

Ikaruga33

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Daystar Clarion said:
Been a gamer for 23+ years. At the end of the day, this entire thing started because a woman had sex with someone, and people got angry. In my mind, that's always going to be what I associate Gamer Gate with, and all the negative connotations that comes with it (as well as the stupid name, Gamer Gate? Seriously? It's fucking video games for christ's sake).

A gross simplification perhaps? Maybe, but I find a movement is only worth as much as what sparked it in the first place, and anything that uses the term SJW unironically isn't something I want to associate with, or be associated with.
Because she had sex with games journalists.
A games developer, having sex with games journalists.
Do you not see the issue?
If it had been anyone else, no one would give a shit.
 

runic knight

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BobDobolina said:
Yes, starting from a sane, totally not hyperbolic and nutty set of assumptions like that, I'm sure the exercise of "exposing" "them" should go splendidly for you.

I think you need a shorter acronym, though. That comes out to MAMOOTDDDADO. You need something that shortens to something short and punchy like E.V.I.L. (Elitist Villains In Lairs?).
Your scoffing is noted. Sadly though, as history has shown, the use of a moral authority in order to manipulate outrage and attack people with it while deflecting criticism is a very real and sadly too common occurrence. McCarthyism is a prime example I mentioned before.

Your dismissing that the recent tend in the gaming media to brand people as misogynists, or to try to call all of gamergate that merely shows either you are oblivious to it or you are just being sort of dishonest about the whole thing.

What I find particularly odd though is that I am trying to find a way to separate those who have legitimate drive to address social issues and be an advocate for worthwhile causes from the people who abuse those causes and use quick labels and moral judgements of people to avoid criticisms and to attack people. Should I assume you do not agree that social issues should be separate from the corruption going on in the news media?
 

RexMundane

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KokujinTensai said:
Please correct me if I'm wrong but the consensus appears to be that people aren't necessarily against what GG wants they just despise the way its going about it? It also seems like many of you object to the treatment ZQ received at the start of this fiasco. I for one wish there was a better catalyst to all this besides her. If so then I wish there was a way we could all achieve the same goal without cutting each others throats. I'm terribly sorry you guys view GG the way you do. I also object to certain elements being involved as well. Not all who support GG are whatever negative buzzwords are being used to describe us. We just want to read game news without an agenda shoved down our throats. I hope when this is all over our community here won't be fractured.
See, here's my thing. I want better game journalism. You want better game journalism. You know who else does? Game Journalists.

I promise you, all these discussions about, for instance, how to handle potential conflicts of interest through crowdfunding, were already happening. Avoiding agendas entirely might be unattainable unless your idea of "Game Journalism" is just reading from a press release and review aggregator like Metacritic, but balance in a variety of viewpoints from some of the larger channels would have been more than welcome. There's always improvements to be made, and these people want to make them and are constantly talking about how to improve it.

But I'm looking in the Gamergate thread, and the twitter feed, and I may be blind to it, but I can't recall the last time journalistic policy guidelines were talked about. Instead "They who must not be named" keep coming up again and again to get attacked, the email list as a way to attack people, people outside the movement are "deluded" and "unethical" so lets go show them, etc. It's all about the drama and the fighting, so is it any wonder so few would willingly address it directly? You don't start a reasonable debate by calling the other side a pack of liars and whores, and they haven't stopped doing that in all this time. Who in their right mind would want to respond to that?
 

AntiChri5

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Ikaruga33 said:
Daystar Clarion said:
Been a gamer for 23+ years. At the end of the day, this entire thing started because a woman had sex with someone, and people got angry. In my mind, that's always going to be what I associate Gamer Gate with, and all the negative connotations that comes with it (as well as the stupid name, Gamer Gate? Seriously? It's fucking video games for christ's sake).

A gross simplification perhaps? Maybe, but I find a movement is only worth as much as what sparked it in the first place, and anything that uses the term SJW unironically isn't something I want to associate with, or be associated with.
Because she had sex with games journalists.
A games developer, having sex with games journalists.
Do you not see the issue?
If it had been anyone else, no one would give a shit.
No, she had sex with a single games journalist who, it has been proven, has not shown her any favoritism.
 

Mr. Omega

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KokujinTensai said:
We just want to read game news without an agenda shoved down our throats. I hope when this is all over our community here won't be fractured.
Yeah, GG lost any right to make that claim when Breitbart entered the picture. And they wren't exactly safe in making that claim beforehand, what with such fine folks like Adam Baldwin and Davis Aurini on their side before the name was even coined. GG embraced an agenda right at its outset. And that's what bugs me more than anything: GG is a right-wing rage mob that insists that theirs is the neutral view when it clearly is not.

I get that not everyone associates with them, but there has to come a point where one must realize the overall movement is past a point of no return. That the movement doesn't actually want what they said they wanted when you joined. I tried to overlook the ugly start of GG and hope they'd actually try and do something good. But they've only been getting worse.
 

aliengmr

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You know, I want to point out one small issue.

I get the impression that Anita Sarkeesian is reflective of the "SJWs" that is the enemy of GG.

I don't see her in that way when it comes to the games industry.

I am trying to simplify the disconnect we may be having.
 

runic knight

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aliengmr said:
You know, I want to point out one small issue.

I get the impression that Anita Sarkeesian is reflective of the "SJWs" that is the enemy of GG.

I don't see her in that way when it comes to the games industry.

I am trying to simplify the disconnect we may be having.
aliengmr said:
So what if I say that I think sexism is a thing, and that in the games industry it is something that need fixing. That its okay to criticize social issues in games with the understanding that it doesn't reflect on you. That's its at the developers discretion to take those criticisms to heart and the gamers discretion to purchase games they want to play.

I would say that, yes, I have moderately feminist views and want those discussions to take place, but no inclination to force those views on games themselves. Criticisms? Yes. I want that.

Am I your enemy?
Not in the least. Actually, you would be arguing from the same position I do as well in that vein.
It isn't that gaming doesn't have issues, or that it can't have political, social or cultural discussions within it. Actually, doing so shows the growth of it as an artform and an industry.

The problem arrives when the discussions on that are skewed with a moral absolutism that is used to manipulate and manufacture outrage that is then directed, be it to deflect legitimate criticisms or to attack people.

An example of the difference would be thus. Spec Ops: The Line is largely regarded as a great game for the twist in the story and the way it forced people to think about their actions as a player. The first Bioshock was an exploration of a very Ayn Rand philosophy run amok. They were smart games that tried to use gaming to tackle the ideas involved in a way that only gaming as an interactive medium could. They were not perfect, but they were criticized fairly for their failings and still stood out as examples of how to do that right.

On the flip side, since the relation of its creator in all of this, Depression Quest is a terrible game. Barely constituting as a game because of a lack of scoring or "win" condition leaving it a computerized choose your own adventure story, the way it handled the subject matter and what was presented about it was very flawed. However when criticized, the criticism was called misogyny and detractors were attacked because they failed to meet a moral standard in the exact same tactic as someone being called a "communist" would be in the Red Scare.

That is as clear example of the difference I can think of off the top of my head.

as for Anita, she represents the latter, as criticisms of her work were dismissed as "misogyny" with the same sort of tactics. That is why she is largely seen reflective of the issue with "sjw" as a whole.
 

entelechy

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Now to sum up the thread so far, it seems like the best suggestion we've gotten is the idea of a SourceWatch for gaming news sites. That's an idea that I think anyone could support regardless of their "side."

But the dominant response to this thread from pro-gamergate posters has been to either claim that the image problem is purely a result of "lies" spread by opponents or that this image problem cannot be solved without damaging the movement in some way, and thus they have to live with it. The first of these arguments is at odds with the facts. Awful behavior by the anti-Quinn movement (and the later gamergate movement as well) is well documented. So, the only real argument is that the image problem is real, but that this is a price worth paying in order to maintain cohesion, momentum and/or key contributors.

This is an interesting claim. It essentially means that the toxic anti-Quinn people within gamergate are considered indispensable to the movement. I realize that not everyone would share my view that Internet Aristocrat (who made the videos in the original #gamergate tweet) is a sexist jerk. However, I think it is undeniable that a major concern and motivation of his is specifically to counter feminist and social justice critiques of video games. So, if IA is an indispensable part of the movement, then gamergate is explicitly a movement about anti-feminism. It may have other issues, but if IA is an indispensable part of the movement, anti-feminism is definitely one of gamergate's core issues.

It also appears that at least some pro-GG people would actually agree that fighting Social Justice Warriors is an important goal of the movement. I don't think that view is universal, but it is at least there. It's also easy to see why Quinn and Sarkeesian would keep getting brought up (even in GG echo chambers) by the part of the movement that is riled up about fighting SJWs.

So, my questions to pro-GG posters are:

Do you think anti-feminism (or even anti-some-feminism) is a key issue that gamergate is fighting for?

If you answered no, do you feel that people who answered yes are something to be concerned about?
 

Nirallus

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Mr. Omega said:
KokujinTensai said:
We just want to read game news without an agenda shoved down our throats. I hope when this is all over our community here won't be fractured.
Yeah, GG lost any right to make that claim when Breitbart entered the picture. And they wren't exactly safe in making that claim beforehand, what with such fine folks like Adam Baldwin and Davis Aurini on their side before the name was even coined. GG embraced an agenda right at its outset. And that's what bugs me more than anything: GG is a right-wing rage mob that insists that theirs is the neutral view when it clearly is not.
It's not difficult to fall to the right of groups like DiGRA and Silverstring Media. Their side has already said fuck objectivity [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSNFZYvgVY4&index=3&list=FLai_3N9Qf7bQcp9GsxttutA], it's more important to undermine the heteronormative hegemony [http://i.imgur.com/xWXKwRg.jpg].

If that puts me on the right wing, so be it: These people and their penchant for censorship, feeding us controlled narratives "for our own good" because they know better, legitimately scares me. I hate to use such a loaded term, but what are these people if not Cultural Marxists?
 

epicdwarf

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The biggest problem with gamergate is that the people against it do not see the entire picture.

Most anti-gamergate folks are unaware of most issues like the mailing list, doxxing by Quinn and Leigh, feminist support of gamergate, notyourshield, and ect. They only look at the surface and think "MRA vs SJW" and don't look deeper. We need a source of information to inform people of what is really going on. We also need to inform people that this is not some MRA vs SJW shit show.
 

runic knight

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BobDobolina said:
runic knight said:
Your dismissing that the recent tend in the gaming media to brand people as misogynists, or to try to call all of gamergate that merely shows either you are oblivious to it or you are just being sort of dishonest about the whole thing.
Or that you're still incredibly oblivious to the fact that they outed themselves as misogynists from the beginning.

Some of them are still obsessing about attacking women. There are posts in the epicthread going after Moot's SO now (picking a fight with Moot seems like a bizarre decision, but no more bizarre than anything that came before was, I guess). You're deluded if you think Garme Journalizm just pulled all of that out of thin air. They got criticized that way because that's what they showed themselves to be, it's incredible that you're still incapable of facing that. (Yes, yes, You're Not One of Those. But once again you're reliant on distorting and mischaracterizing other people's arguments and pretending not to understand or apprehend plain facts. And you're mystified as to why nobody's taking you seriously.)
-sigh- Alright, I'll bite. Please, show me where they are attacking a woman for being a woman. Not attacking a person who they dislike who happens to be a woman. Not attacking a person who claims they want women in gaming through misrepresented and cherry picked arguments. Not attacking a person who claims they are coming to the defense of women. Show me actual hatred to women for being women alone.

Because for all the claims to the contrary, all I have seen, all I have ever seen on gamergate that is labeled misogyny has been how people react to individuals for how they act as individuals, or groups for how they act as groups, and never women for being women alone. And that is a very important distinction, because it is the difference between actual misogyny (when you hate a woman for being a woman), and just hating a person for who they are irregardless of the gender they happen to be. Because I will tell you right now, that second one, that dishonest assertion of misogyny that bastardizes the English language to assert a moral authority, that is straight up sexist.
 

runic knight

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entelechy said:
Now to sum up the thread so far, it seems like the best suggestion we've gotten is the idea of a SourceWatch for gaming news sites. That's an idea that I think anyone could support regardless of their "side."

But the dominant response to this thread from pro-gamergate posters has been to either claim that the image problem is purely a result of "lies" spread by opponents or that this image problem cannot be solved without damaging the movement in some way, and thus they have to live with it. The first of these arguments is at odds with the facts. Awful behavior by the anti-Quinn movement (and the later gamergate movement as well) is well documented. So, the only real argument is that the image problem is real, but that this is a price worth paying in order to maintain cohesion, momentum and/or key contributors.

This is an interesting claim. It essentially means that the toxic anti-Quinn people within gamergate are considered indispensable to the movement. I realize that not everyone would share my view that Internet Aristocrat (who made the videos in the original #gamergate tweet) is a sexist jerk. However, I think it is undeniable that a major concern and motivation of his is specifically to counter feminist and social justice critiques of video games. So, if IA is an indispensable part of the movement, then gamergate is explicitly a movement about anti-feminism. It may have other issues, but if IA is an indispensable part of the movement, anti-feminism is definitely one of gamergate's core issues.

It also appears that at least some pro-GG people would actually agree that fighting Social Justice Warriors is an important goal of the movement. I don't think that view is universal, but it is at least there. It's also easy to see why Quinn and Sarkeesian would keep getting brought up (even in GG echo chambers) by the part of the movement that is riled up about fighting SJWs.

So, my questions to pro-GG posters are:

Do you think anti-feminism (or even anti-some-feminism) is a key issue that gamergate is fighting for?

If you answered no, do you feel that people who answered yes are something to be concerned about?
I don't think anti-feminism is a key issue in the least so much as anti-moral authority posturing under the guise of feminism. And it is because of that I would answer no to the second one as well. I have talked to a lot of people because of this, and it seems every time I talk to them about this, even if they rabidly hate "SJW" types, it is very easy to help them see that it is not those promoting social advocacy that are the ones they have a problem with, but rather those who abuse the causes to manipulate and manufacture outrage.

Hell, posted in the main thread, this sort of sums that up entirely.