GamerGate's Image Problem

[RexMundane]

Serves me right, I leave the thread for the evening to try and have some kind of life and it gets overrun shouting down dissent all over again. Dunno why I expected any different, really.

Reading the megathread is just silly at this point, they're back on attacking Sterling over godknowswhat, NPR and Escapist are headed for the blacklist for daring to be unflattering, Mass Effect 2 over somethingorother, they're talking about Zoe and Anita and Leigh again and pretending they're not, like usual, so I dunno anymore. Pointing out the asaninity of it at this point has itself become asanine. There hadn't been anything worth addressing out of this madness in what feels like years now.

An observation I've had numerous times before is that People remember the wrong damn part of the movie Network. They remember the "Mad as Hell" rant, and literally nothing else. But you watch it, and it's obvious that Beale isn't the hero of that movie, he's the tragic figure because he's allowed to think he's the hero. I mean, you watch the scene yourself [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q], it's clearly showing how unhinged and rambling he is, all over the place with random greivances, and once he just keeps repeating the "Mad as Hell" line, the network knows they hit easily exploited paydirt, and out in the world everyone's doing it too.

And why do they do that? Because they agree with his pointless ramblings? Because he made anything like a coherent argument? No, because the fact is that anger is fun. Him and his audience get to think that anger is effective and useful, in spite of the whole damn movie demonstrating that no, wow, it really really isn't, that it's just a way to get people excited while keeping them ineffectual.

Beale's position becomes that of one freak in a sideshow when he gets his new program after the rant, but has convinced himself, and his audience, that they're powerful and just and in the right in all things. So he eventually whips them into a frenzy about cancelling a business deal where Saudis are buying American businesses or something, it's been a while and I can't remember details. They successfully stop it, but Beale's network needs to reign him in.

At this point we get what I think is the real "defining moment" of the movie, Ned Beatty delivering "You Have Meddled With The Primal Forces of Nature, Mr. Beale!" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKkRDMil0bw] Which starts out where you're thinking Beale is getting chewed out by the boss, but you eventually come to realize the cold, logical reality that the world Beale lives in, with great enemies and heroic legacies of fighting against oppressive foreign concerns, is largely a fairy tale. That Beatty, while not a good guy, isn't evil either, and his worldview is, while arguably perverse and fixated on currency, more rational, less emotional, and working towards everyone getting along through free flowing commerce rather than fighting phantom enemies and fixating on ill-defined ideologies and inflated sense of self-worth. Beatty, wrong as he arguably is, is ultimately trying to help people, while Beale can only ever hope to frustrate them.

Beale comes to realize that all the rage which filled him and fueled him was valueless, and ultimately amounted to frustrating things instead of fixing them. People love to be angry because it's simple, and don't like to fix things because it takes more effort. It's simple sociological tricks like that that FoxNews and Breitbart and Alex Jones exploit to get people watching constantly, because anger is fun, it's easy, it lets you think you're affecting something just by screaming at people. And boy, are you not. Rage is silly, it's pathetic, it's people at their worst and weakest. It's a refusal to fix something when it's more fun to break it even further because that will show it who's boss. It's Basil Fawlty giving his car a damn good thrashing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc] for breaking down. Yes it feels right, it feels good, cathartic, empowering... but it's all you have, and when you get tired, and you will, because of course you will, you're left with the same broken thing you could have been trying to fix this whole time instead of raging blindly.

edit: kept adding bits, think I'm done now.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

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.

So basically the first reply in the thread is what people really need to see: the superficial, prejudicial antagonists who have allergic reactions to GamerGate, and think pointing the finger back at them is the source.

The issue needing discussion isn't GamerGate for having an image problem. Have an objective look at the people who try to give GamerGate an image problem, in so much as they piss on its face.

Those above aren't exactly "gross simplifications". A gross simplification would have been to call GamerGate a bunch of people complaining about integrity. What you have is called an animus, and it's no better than what "game journalists", Cracked and people like Zoe have been doing to dismantle GG, marginalize gamers and anyone seen as a threat for calling them out for their corruption and bullshit.

If there's a good voice to be heard opposite the GG fence, they would say you're not someone they want to be associated with. Well, they would need to if these absurd opinions would ever give image problems to the social justice union, but from experience it's established that, when holding the right positions you basically have diplomatic immunity to say whatever you want.

'Marginalise gamers'

Lol yeah, a'reet.

If you took the time to read the entire thread, instead of getting all excited at the first post you saw, you'd notice someone explains the the whole thing to me in greater detail several posts down, and I actually agree with them.

But that's fine, you keep on going ;3

 

[aliengmr]

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TomBattey/20140923/226276/

Just wanted to post something interesting about art and criticism.

This seems to be major issue and it explains things very well.

 

[jonc83]

...snip...

People love to be angry because it's simple, and don't like to fix things because it takes more effort. It's simple sociological tricks like that that FoxNews and Breitbart and Alex Jones exploit to get people watching constantly, because anger is fun, it's easy, it lets you think you're affecting something just by screaming at people. And boy, are you not. Rage is silly, it's pathetic, it's people at their worst and weakest. It's a refusal to fix something when it's more fun to break it even further because that will show it who's boss. It's Basil Fawlty giving his car a damn good thrashing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc] for breaking down. Yes it feels right, it feels good, cathartic, empowering... but it's all you have, and when you get tired, and you will, because of course you will, you're left with the same broken thing you could have been trying to fix this whole time instead of raging blindly.

edit: kept adding bits, think I'm done now.

Nicely said. It's a difficult thing to do and requires a level of self-awareness which most of us lack.

Aristotle phrased it roughly as:
It is easy to fly into a passion - anybody can do that - but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time with the right object and in the right way - that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it.

 

[Madmonk12345]

snippedy

I am aware, I choose it because it seemed to be accepted and promoted by, well, lets just say social justice encourager. Furthermore it also mentioned the difference between "who plays most" as well as "who buys most" which would be the "core" gamer demographic. In both cases, his claim lead to people being in the 50's when you add 20 years though.

That seems like a recipe for accusations of cherry-picking. What I'm trying to say is that both statistics are flawed (if they are flawed at all) in similar ways. If one is true or false, then so is the other statistic,depending on whether or not "casuals" count as gamers for the discussion. If we contend that the "48% of women are gamers" stat to be true, however, statements of how the primarily male(? Know I swore I saw some GGer using that in an argument here.) GamerGate is primarily a pro-consumer movement instead of the misogynistic movement it's accused of being fall a little flat because it isn't gender balanced like the consumers it claims to represent.

As for what makes them "core" gamers, that is easy. Financial weight of the demographic. If you buy gamers more frequently, you are contributing more and thus are more weighted in "importance" as an audience. This is especially true when you realize that the big 3 will sell a console at a loss just to get the game sales to make it up later on. That is why I call them "core" in this case.

This was the statistical problem I was mentioning. Games are not of equal price. Most frequent games purchaser(NOT PLAYER, key problem here) != group spending most money buying games because self identified gamers tend to take consoles, pcs, etc. where games are significantly more expensive than games in the non-gamer market, on occasion limiting the number of games they can ultimately purchase in ways the supposed casual gamers simply aren't. This skews the demographic of the statistic mentioned towards an older more casual market, which is a relevant skewing when discussing the age of self identified, "core" gamers.

Ignoring that "casual" is a stupid term to begin with, how would you define a core demographic in a business sense?

Oh. I thought you actually took that term seriously when you brought up core gamers. Apologies. I take it for a stupid term to begin with myself.
As I was saying, if I *had* to provide a definition of core gamers for the sake of statistics, I would go by people who spent the most money on gaming. While that might include those supposed mythical "whales"(god I hate that term) those are much fewer in number and would have less sway on the statistics overall.

 

[runic knight]

snippedy

I am aware, I choose it because it seemed to be accepted and promoted by, well, lets just say social justice encourager. Furthermore it also mentioned the difference between "who plays most" as well as "who buys most" which would be the "core" gamer demographic. In both cases, his claim lead to people being in the 50's when you add 20 years though.

That seems like a recipe for accusations of cherry-picking. What I'm trying to say is that both statistics are flawed (if they are flawed at all) in similar ways. If one is true or false, then so is the other statistic,depending on whether or not "casuals" count as gamers for the discussion. If we contend that the "48% of women are gamers" stat to be true, however, statements of how the primarily male(? Know I swore I saw some GGer using that in an argument here.) GamerGate is primarily a pro-consumer movement instead of the misogynistic movement it's accused of being fall a little flat because it isn't gender balanced like the consumers it claims to represent.

Two key points in rebuttal.
First is that the info I gathered remains fairly consistent on the two stats I gathered. Be it either demographic size of the largest demographic, or demographic profitability by the most reoccuring customers, the largest group still is in their 30's, so my rebuttal to the group being 20 years younger the comic fans remains the same.

Secondly, it is a lot more gender balanced then you think. Hell, the very tag of #NotyouShield shows that there is a huge variety of people participating in gamergate. Now I have no data on the exact stats, and I don't imagine such data is possible to gather to any degree of fairness, but the movement itself is quite varied in stark contrast to the perpetual accusations that gamergate is just a bunch of misogynistic white males.

Also in rebuttal, the only stats relating to gender representation in gamergate itself was drawn from sites relevant to the topic. Sites like Kotaku, gamesutra and polygon, ones very heavily bias against gamergate, had a much much higher rate of males to females then sites like the escapist or even 4chan. This was actually used to try to combat the claims of misogyny before since it was obviously a bit unexpected that not only were the sites who claimed they represented the interest of women in attacking gamergate heavily males, but that even a site known as the cease-pool of the internet like 4chan, was more gender balanced then those sites.

furthermore, even if we go with your assumption of the general core demographic being younger males, then the representation of minority or female gamers within gamergate being less numerous then males would still be consistent with the gamer "average". Essentially like a state with state with 20% black population and 80% white electing a governor with a poll showing that the average voter support was about 25/75 black to white support. Still consistent to what the state has, though could very easily be misrepresented as being "racist" if someone unscrupulous enough wanted to spin it.

This was the statistical problem I was mentioning. Games are not of equal price. Most frequent games purchaser(NOT PLAYER, key problem here) != group spending most money buying games because self identified gamers tend to take consoles, pcs, etc. where games are significantly more expensive than games in the non-gamer market, on occasion limiting the number of games they can ultimately purchase in ways the supposed casual gamers simply aren't. This skews the demographic of the statistic mentioned towards an older more casual market, which is a relevant skewing when discussing the age of self identified, "core" gamers.

Alright, in the regard of games being of different prices, I will grant you that it is possible that the largest purchaser may not be the largest financial demographic. I will state that it is counter-intuitive a claim though and one that lacks any evidence to support really outside of just it existing as a possibility at the moment unless you have some more indepth stats to draw from. The data I provided is fairly uninvolved in regarding who is purchasing and what they are purchasing, so it does suggest the idea you bring up is certainly possible, I just don't think it is more likely then the greatest purchasers also being the most financially impactful group. Especially since the grou pin question is the same demographic that was targeted in the past, just "grown up" as time marches on, as well as having the money to actual make those purchases. After all ,you are essentially saying that older males are buying so many ap and "casual" (god I hate that term) games that they are skewing the data to a higher overall average while the "core" remains a younger demographic, as if the younger demographic itself, which would be much more accepting of the growing mobile technology that propagates those very same sort of "casual" games, would not. Just doesn't make sens to me that gamers from 10-20 years ago that grew up during the console wars grew out of it and into mobile and casual gaming while the younger generation that embraces the mobile devices and technology far more intimately, would actually be the smaller market for those games and the larger ones for the massively costly console/pc gaming market. I guess we can look into it and see what the data actually says when we scratch beneath the surface.

Ignoring that "casual" is a stupid term to begin with, how would you define a core demographic in a business sense?

Oh. I thought you actually took that term seriously when you brought up core gamers. Apologies. I take it for a stupid term to begin with myself.
As I was saying, if I *had* to provide a definition of core gamers for the sake of statistics, I would go by people who spent the most money on gaming. While that might include those supposed mythical "whales"(god I hate that term) those are much fewer in number and would have less sway on the statistics overall.

"Whales"?

If we are going solely on who spends the most money, then I would wager it being on the demographic with both the history of buying games and consoles and pc's as well as the actual income to spend on it, and the greater likelihood to resist the growing mobile platform market. Sorry, my conclusion would still have to be the average of around 30's that the stat data shows. At least until I see some more indepth evidence anyways. Just doesn't make a lot of sense to me otherwise, especially with the way games are marketed more to the adults then the kids for at least 2 of the 3 major consoles for the last several years. People grow up and grow older but still play games. Plus they have the money.

 

[RexMundane]

Latest in the Gator mega: Humor website is proof of global media ineptitude, while a blatantly political newspaper who writes an article that uses the term "Feminazi" in the title without a trace of irony? That's the journalistic integrity we've been talking about!

Athough I will say I actually was a bit disappointed with Luke McKinney's latest article on this at Cracked.com. He spends most of it fixating on the Zoe Quinn aspect of the whole thing, which is completely valid, yet ignores so much more hilarious awfulness that's transpired out of the whole debacle. I feel there's almost a legitimate frustration there for Gate, because so much focus does seem to be on the self-evidently awful nexus of this whole thing that still informs the "debate" to this day in the mega. It's just that, like I keep saying, if they could bring themselves to look past that (and honestly, why should they when y'all keep on about it?) the layers underneath are hardly flattering.

 

[aliengmr]

Latest in the Gator mega: Humor website is proof of global media ineptitude, while a blatantly political newspaper who writes an article that uses the term "Feminazi" in the title without a trace of irony? That's the journalistic integrity we've been talking about!

Athough I will say I actually was a bit disappointed with Luke McKinney's latest article on this at Cracked.com. He spends most of it fixating on the Zoe Quinn aspect of the whole thing, which is completely valid, yet ignores so much more hilarious awfulness that's transpired out of the whole debacle. I feel there's almost a legitimate frustration there for Gate, because so much focus does seem to be on the self-evidently awful nexus of this whole thing that still informs the "debate" to this day in the mega. It's just that, like I keep saying, if they could bring themselves to look past that (and honestly, why should they when y'all keep on about it?) the layers underneath are hardly flattering.

Nobody in the mega thread seems to understand you can't explain the really horrible stuff away. Much like we can't explain away the hurt caused by the "gamers are dead" articles. That this might be why the female developers felt the way the did. I was being super diplomatic about it all.

The response? Another fucking timeline breakdown showing how because this and that happen at such 'n such a time that...

Slammed my on the desk.

I'm sure if I were to try and rationally explain why the GGers reaction to Leigh Alexanders article was misinformed many would be insulted.

 

[AgedGrunt]

If you took the time to read the entire thread, instead of getting all excited at the first post you saw, you'd notice someone explains the the whole thing to me in greater detail several posts down, and I actually agree with them.

But that's fine, you keep on going ;3

Implying your (original) opinion is no longer relevant to the whole issue of GamerGate, which is where I directed my main point.

And I'm not wading through almost 20 pages of text walls and quote wars to check for that astronomical event where someone actually takes back what they've said and admits they were ignorant about a subject, especially when they were the first to jump into the topic and had extreme views, but I'll tip a glass of water in your direction if you're open-minded.

Can't say that for the game "journos", infected websites and their Twits. I mean naive followers.

 

[RexMundane]

@RexMundane, the "Network" post is excellent.

(And you know what? I never have watched that movie in full. I do believe I will. )

Athough I will say I actually was a bit disappointed with Luke McKinney's latest article on this at Cracked.com. He spends most of it fixating on the Zoe Quinn aspect of the whole thing, which is completely valid, yet ignores so much more hilarious awfulness that's transpired out of the whole debacle.

The trouble is that while the awfulness is hilarious, in a pitiable sort of way, it's not that interesting to a larger audience. There isn't any really new information, save the ever-plummeting standards of what a 'gater thinks of as "new information."

Well that's fair enough for maybe one article or two, but this makes the, I think, fifth article in two weeks they've put out about it, it feels like they're trying to be perceived as keeping up on it but sticking in what now feels like its distant past somehow. Again, it's valid to point out, just that they've done it already at the expense of yet further comedy gold. At any rate, thanks for the kind words, and enjoy Network.

Nobody in the mega thread seems to understand you can't explain the really horrible stuff away. Much like we can't explain away the hurt caused by the "gamers are dead" articles. That this might be why the female developers felt the way the did. I was being super diplomatic about it all.

The response? Another fucking timeline breakdown showing how because this and that happen at such 'n such a time that...

Slammed my on the desk.

I'm sure if I were to try and rationally explain why the GGers reaction to Leigh Alexanders article was misinformed many would be insulted.

And that's what gets me about those Gamer's are Dead articles. I read them and knew, even as a big fat cis-male beardy white dude in his thirties, that they weren't talking about me. I can concede it's possible, given we don't have easy taxonomical terms for classifying sub-species of "Gamer" that people might have gotten upset from misreading the intent, but this level of anger is just bizarre, and feeds into the whole persecution complex thing.

New updates in the mega: Apparently Nokia, HumbleBundle, and Paypal are part of the ultra-conspiracy as well, Reddit is confirmed as a silk-road-style black-market, but Notch is officially part of the movement because he made a quasi-related joke once, and they're petitioning the South Park guys to make an episode about all of this from their perspective.

 

[RexMundane]

And now we're back to blind rage at some random jackass on twitter who compared Gate to Nazis. Which yeah, stupid, awful, obviously trollish thing to do, but when you've got a guy with an avatar that reads "Major Butthurt Reporting for Duty" uses it as a jumping off point to respond [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.860762.21440725]:

Exactly shit like that! Those jackasses post that vile stuff all the time. At some point you just want to break something! You constantly have to fight with yourself just to keep level, to not go down there and mop the floor with their asses.
And its the knowledge that there are no reprocusions for them! Noone reports on shit like that, no one from the other side calls them out on it.
And fucker like devin faraci acts like we are vile ones and he is on the side of the ones comparing this to the holocaust.

I know we aren´t supposed to say things like that let me make clear this my personal opinion and has nothing to do with gamergate.

If devin faraci gets hit by a bus or something, i´ll fly over, dig up his corpse and fashion his skull into a toilet bowl just so i can shit on his head for the rest of my life!

So... yeah. That's healthy. Rage seems to really be working out for them, keeping that image positive.

 

[aliengmr]

New updates in the mega: Apparently Nokia, HumbleBundle, and Paypal are part of the ultra-conspiracy as well, Reddit is confirmed as a silk-road-style black-market, but Notch is officially part of the movement because he made a quasi-related joke once, and they're petitioning the South Park guys to make an episode about all of this from their perspective.

Seriously this is what happens with unchecked speculation. Its never going to end until everyone gets bored and goes home, having accomplished ZERO.

What I find funny is that this is exactly what you get when you are a leaderless, directionless mob. They are right though, it's hard to attack an endless stream of nonsense.

"WHY ARE WE HERE?!" Uhhh *mumbles*

"WHAT DO WE WANT?!" Huhh *mumbles*

That's a winning tactic if I've ever seen one.

 

[MerlinCross]

New updates in the mega: Apparently Nokia, HumbleBundle, and Paypal are part of the ultra-conspiracy as well, Reddit is confirmed as a silk-road-style black-market, but Notch is officially part of the movement because he made a quasi-related joke once, and they're petitioning the South Park guys to make an episode about all of this from their perspective.

Gotta hurry, late for something.

Dunno about the Nokia and Paypal. HumbleBundle is oddly timed for 'supporting women'. But some are saying let's use this as TFYC again, prove that we aren't bad by giving money to a cause. Me I just want some games. Dunno about Reddit, again late, can't do my research. I recall seeing Notch named but didn't read the tweet. People seem up in the air about it. As for the South park thing, it was brought up but then waved off as not going to happen since this isn't main stream enough.

Side note, yeah we have to fix our image. Best that some of us can do is shout down the vocal guys spewing hate. And I gotta go, later guys.

 

[RexMundane]

New updates in the mega: Apparently Nokia, HumbleBundle, and Paypal are part of the ultra-conspiracy as well, Reddit is confirmed as a silk-road-style black-market, but Notch is officially part of the movement because he made a quasi-related joke once, and they're petitioning the South Park guys to make an episode about all of this from their perspective.

Gotta hurry, late for something.

Dunno about the Nokia and Paypal. HumbleBundle is oddly timed for 'supporting women'. But some are saying let's use this as TFYC again, prove that we aren't bad by giving money to a cause. Me I just want some games. Dunno about Reddit, again late, can't do my research. I recall seeing Notch named but didn't read the tweet. People seem up in the air about it. As for the South park thing, it was brought up but then waved off as not going to happen since this isn't main stream enough.

Side note, yeah we have to fix our image. Best that some of us can do is shout down the vocal guys spewing hate. And I gotta go, later guys.

The HumbleBundle thing is getting weird now, before it was because they were associated with some sort of unsubstantiated fraud thing involving paypal. Now the weekly bundle has this Girls Making Games thing which is positive, but even there it looks like they're trying to find reasons to hate it because they're supported by Tim Schaffer whose still on the blacklist for... some reason? Time will tell how that pans out, best that'll likely happen is they might try to group funds together to make one big donation of a couple hundred and put #Gamergate as a top contributor on the list which... I mean it's money going to a cause I support, I can't be mad, but it's blatantly using a good cause to grab PR for yourselves, like that suicide charity thing on the 11th when y'all lost your minds over Zoe and Anita again and wanted to deflect bad press for becoming an angry mob again. It's not evil exactly, it's just not, y'know, "good."

 

[RexMundane]

The megathread is great for unconscious irony [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.860762-GamerGate-Discussion-Debate-and-Resources?page=321#21440977].

Oh good, they're back to calling their critics "Marxists" again. Like sane people do. I like the quote further up the page, though, intended to be about SJWs:

The thing about this movement is that it operates almost ENTIRELY on presumed or imagined enemies, and more on presumed or imagined in justices than actual ones.

I don't like to be pithy and say "submitted without comment" and such, but honestly, what else can you say to that?

 

[kyp275]

And now we're back to blind rage at some random jackass on twitter who compared Gate to Nazis. Which yeah, stupid, awful, obviously trollish thing to do, but when you've got a guy with an avatar that reads "Major Butthurt Reporting for Duty" uses it as a jumping off point to respond [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.860762.21440725]:

Exactly shit like that! Those jackasses post that vile stuff all the time. At some point you just want to break something! You constantly have to fight with yourself just to keep level, to not go down there and mop the floor with their asses.
And its the knowledge that there are no reprocusions for them! Noone reports on shit like that, no one from the other side calls them out on it.
And fucker like devin faraci acts like we are vile ones and he is on the side of the ones comparing this to the holocaust.

I know we aren´t supposed to say things like that let me make clear this my personal opinion and has nothing to do with gamergate.

If devin faraci gets hit by a bus or something, i´ll fly over, dig up his corpse and fashion his skull into a toilet bowl just so i can shit on his head for the rest of my life!

So... yeah. That's healthy. Rage seems to really be working out for them, keeping that image positive.

So basically:

When a pro-GG posts vitriolic stuff, you go "look at this terrible thing! and you guys wonder why we're against GG!!!!"

When an anti-GG posts vitriolic stuff, you go "well, yea, it's stupid, aweful, trollish... HEY LOOK AT THAT GUYS' AVATAR LOLOLOLOL!!"

Where's the "omg the anti-GG people are terrible" part? why did that instead morph into an ad hominem attack against another poster based literally on nothing other than his avatar?

 

[aliengmr]

The megathread is great for unconscious irony [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.860762-GamerGate-Discussion-Debate-and-Resources?page=321#21440977].

My thoughts exactly.

They are so completely wrapped up in group think they can't see past how they want to take the fight to the enemy.

This keeps up they may come full circle and start agreeing with the other side.

 

[RexMundane]

And now we're back to blind rage at some random jackass on twitter who compared Gate to Nazis. Which yeah, stupid, awful, obviously trollish thing to do, but when you've got a guy with an avatar that reads "Major Butthurt Reporting for Duty" uses it as a jumping off point to respond [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.860762.21440725]:

Exactly shit like that! Those jackasses post that vile stuff all the time. At some point you just want to break something! You constantly have to fight with yourself just to keep level, to not go down there and mop the floor with their asses.
And its the knowledge that there are no reprocusions for them! Noone reports on shit like that, no one from the other side calls them out on it.
And fucker like devin faraci acts like we are vile ones and he is on the side of the ones comparing this to the holocaust.

I know we aren´t supposed to say things like that let me make clear this my personal opinion and has nothing to do with gamergate.

If devin faraci gets hit by a bus or something, i´ll fly over, dig up his corpse and fashion his skull into a toilet bowl just so i can shit on his head for the rest of my life!

So... yeah. That's healthy. Rage seems to really be working out for them, keeping that image positive.

So basically:

When a pro-GG posts vitriolic stuff, you go "look at this terrible thing! and you guys wonder why we're against GG!!!!"

When an anti-GG posts vitriolic stuff, you go "well, yea, it's stupid, aweful, trollish... HEY LOOK AT THAT GUYS' AVATAR LOLOLOLOL!!"

Where's the "omg the anti-GG people are terrible" part? why did that instead morph into an ad hominem attack against another poster based literally on nothing other than his avatar?

You literally quoted me saying the hitler tweet was bad, then asked why I didn't condemn it.

You quoted me quoting him and his fantasy about decapitating a mans corpse to shit in it, and insisted I was engaging in ad hominem over his avatar alone.

Shall I repeat myself? The "Hitler Tweet" was terrible and stupid. The person who made it was obviously being awful, and likely trolling. To the slight credit of much of the mega, many tried to calm him down, but nobody I saw disparaged him directly for what he said. One comment was along the lines of "careful with talk like that, what if someone else reads it."

Look, I'm willing to acknowledge the assholes who are anti-Gate. Hell, in my weaker moments I've been driven to become one myself. But Gate's persistence in pretending they themselves are all erudite egalitarians whose cultured idioms wouldst ne'er deign to speak in so coarse and vulgar a tongue, just plain grinds my fucking tits to shit.

And the real thing about it? Before this happened, I wouldn't have pegged the guy the type to make that sort of comment. I don't know you, but I don't peg you the type either. Yet given what we both know, watching another "sane" one snap, you want to bet money that you're somehow better and wouldn't snap yourself? What makes you more special than he?

 

[aliengmr]

So basically:

When a pro-GG posts vitriolic stuff, you go "look at this terrible thing! and you guys wonder why we're against GG!!!!"

When an anti-GG posts vitriolic stuff, you go "well, yea, it's stupid, aweful, trollish... HEY LOOK AT THAT GUYS' AVATAR LOLOLOLOL!!"

Where's the "omg the anti-GG people are terrible" part? why did that instead morph into an ad hominem attack against another poster based literally on nothing other than his avatar?

I officially denounce what a random twitter poster said.

Yet through all the abuse GG has endured, where's the sympathy? I mean the past harassment was bad but instead of feeling remorseful about that you try to explain how it didn't happen. Its a PR game for GG.

You all don't deserve what is happening. I mean that. But you allowed this to happen by being an uncoordinated mass of anger that is on the search for the bad guy. People are going to fuck with you. You are in the spotlight, just like those who were harassed by GG before. I've tried to spell it out for you, but mega thread won't listen.

Your true enemy: #GamerGate

 

[kyp275]

You literally quoted me saying the hitler tweet was bad, then asked why I didn't condemn it.

Actually, the point that I wanted to make is that when it's the pro-GG people spewing the vitriol, you and some others typically uses that as evidence to show that GG is bad. But when it's the anti-GG people spewing the vitriol, you may condemn the offender themselves, but doesn't take that leap to say that anti-GG is bad (which is the correct thing to do).

You quoted me quoting him and his fantasy about decapitating a mans corpse to shit in it, and insisted I was engaging in ad hominem over his avatar alone.

You could've very easily made your point about his post without the avatar bit, that was my point. Just as I'm disagreeing with you right now without making up some silly jokes about your avatar picture.

But Gate's persistence in pretending they themselves are all erudite egalitarians whose cultured idioms wouldst ne'er deign to speak in so coarse and vulgar a tongue, just plain grinds my fucking tits to shit.

Just as there are some really downright terrible people in the anti-GG gate who seems to consider themselves the Most Enlightened and Wise champions of humanity annoys me to no end, but I'm not going to take that out on you.

What makes you more special than he?

I wouldn't know, I don't even know the guy, why would I consider myself more special than him?

On topic though, this article I think mirrors my thought on the subject pretty well. To be blunt, there isn't really any point on discussing "image", at this point that kind of talk is about as useful as a conversation about how to improve the image of the GOP and the Democrats in each others eyes.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/25/gamergate-an-issue-with-2-sides/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29