Should web culture go up in flames?

[Queen Michael]

Youve got to fight for your right to PARTY!

This is an inalienable truth.

And honestly, the only Internet culture I want to get rid of is Tumblr "social justice." It is to actual social justice[footnote]which I fully support[/footnote] what Catholic pedo-priests are to Christianity.

Okay, maybe that's kind of stretching it, but I'm so fed up with people who support racial segregation and think it's not racist.

 

[rgrekejin]

Well, if you dont want to actually look at what has happened, to address/correct the problem, and instead just want to wring your hands, and commiserate about the toxic environment that they created without pointing fingers. That's your prerogative. Enjoy the New Toxic Zeitgeist of Class, Race, Gender, Sex Warfare, it's not going anywhere without being actively confronted and ostracized from civil society. It will be the new norm in perpetuity.

Ok, this may be the absolute weirdest thing to pick up on from all your... interesting viewpoints, but I haven't actually seen any of the people I think you're bothered by reference class in a very long time. Seems to mainly be race and gender with a dashing of sexual orientation these days. Last thing I remember any energetic kids doing for class issues was Occupy, and that kinda went nowhere fast.

I'm not certain, but I think they're referring to the rich vs poor vs middle class narrative. It may not be a hot topic on these boards, but it's certainly not a topic that never comes up anywhere (if you're an American, you may recall this coming up quite frequently in the recent State of the Union address).

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

The only thing that needs to git gone is Twitter. It has just enough characters for someone to make a totally asinine self-righteous statement, but not enough fully rebut it. I could guarantee you that if Twitter up and fucked off, the internet's toxicity would be cut by half.
And then there's that dark, utterly stupid part of tumblr which keep rising form depths on occasion. Someone should really plug that hole.

Aside from those things, The internet is one of the biggest boons to humanity in all of history. People are able to express their ideas, discuss them, defend them, have them rebutted, and rebut other ideas.
It's a place where information can flow freely.
And without it, we'd all be misinformed puppets, living the way the rich and powerful want us to live.
Take away the internet for any reason, and create a dystopia.

 

[visiblenoise]

Who knows, maybe the people you're talking about actually become less unpleasant to be around in real life because they have an outlet for their venom.

*laugh track*

 

[Thaluikhain]

Political buzz words do one thing and one thing only. They enrage and piss people off. That's it. Definitions be damned. Those words only exist to tick other people off and offer no real solution or definition of how to fix anything ever in the history of the modern world.

Disagree there. By themselves they aren't much use, sure, but discussing those issues in any way is going to annoy people, whatever language you use.

Web culture is a lot bigger than games, and a lot of important stuff (and lots more noise) happens there.

 

[L. Declis]

Cultural Marxist Progressive Identity Politics is tribalist and agitates grievance, resentment, hatred of "the Other" to advance a political agenda. This is embraced by all Center Left parties in European Christendom, thus empowering it to the Zeitgeist, legitimizing it. So what you are witnessing is just this powerful movement getting around to video games, creating a toxic atmosphere, as it demonizes the industry & it's community of gamers.

If you dont like this. You have to disempower the Left political establishment that promotes this tribalist resentment & grievance, race & sex & gender & class warfare. Because this strategy has been very successful for the Left and it's gaggle of organized minority Hate Groups.

God dammit.

This is the worst part about an opinion on the internet is you may state a somewhat less progressive and more liberal (as in liberty based, not "American liberal") point of view and the guy who agrees with you walks up behind you and starts shouting about Nazi Space Jews, so you look crazy by association.

What he says has merit, to a degree. Although I would say that Gamergate is simply the first time that things like mutually guided agenda driven journalism, third wave feminism, social justice warriors and New Progressives have encountered a group that responded so... enthusiastically, and vocally, shall we say.

I imagine it's how a lot of anti-gamer gaters feel as well. They'll state something normal, like "Well, I think that we should have a discussion about female representation" and then someone walks up behind them and shouts "Fuck all cis-white privileged males, make all male characters female, the only good game is Portal because it represents a vagina and not a penis" and then the normal person looks crazy by association.

Back to OP: If you think web culture is toxic, perhaps you would like to go to the Middle East where they shoot little girls in the face for wanting an education? As far as toxicity goes, web culture is really, REALLY far down on things we should worry about.

 

[Loonyyy]

Youve got to fight for your right to PARTY!

You know that song is satirical, and is mocking that very sentiment, right? In other news, Wild Horses literally tried to drag Mick Jagger, and Princess Diana (Or whoever the song is dedicated to at the time) is literally a Candle In the Wind.

 

[Ahri_Blaze]

Cultural Marxist Progressive Identity Politics is tribalist and agitates grievance, resentment, hatred of "the Other" to advance a political agenda. This is embraced by all Center Left parties in European Christendom, thus empowering it to the Zeitgeist, legitimizing it. So what you are witnessing is just this powerful movement getting around to video games, creating a toxic atmosphere, as it demonizes the industry & it's community of gamers.

If you dont like this. You have to disempower the Left political establishment that promotes this tribalist resentment & grievance, race & sex & gender & class warfare. Because this strategy has been very successful for the Left and it's gaggle of organized minority Hate Groups.

God dammit.

This is the worst part about an opinion on the internet is you may state a somewhat less progressive and more liberal (as in liberty based, not "American liberal") point of view and the guy who agrees with you walks up behind you and starts shouting about Nazi Space Jews, so you look crazy by association.

What he says has merit, to a degree. Although I would say that Gamergate is simply the first time that things like mutually guided agenda driven journalism, third wave feminism, social justice warriors and New Progressives have encountered a group that responded so... enthusiastically, and vocally, shall we say.

I imagine it's how a lot of anti-gamer gaters feel as well. They'll state something normal, like "Well, I think that we should have a discussion about female representation" and then someone walks up behind them and shouts "Fuck all cis-white privileged males, make all male characters female, the only good game is Portal because it represents a vagina and not a penis" and then the normal person looks crazy by association.

Back to OP: If you think web culture is toxic, perhaps you would like to go to the Middle East where they shoot little girls in the face for wanting an education? As far as toxicity goes, web culture is really, REALLY far down on things we should worry about.

I am very much aware. Still it goes back to that Critical Miss comic from a while back. Where yes. This is incredibly low on list of things in the world that needs fixing. However it is my little corner of the world that and I'd like that to somehow be made better.

 

[Fox12]

Have you seen Fox News?

People are the way they are. You can choose to see the bad or the good. The culture here is pretty positive, actually, other then some GG threads here and there. And those still keep pretty civil (comparatively).

Well, if you dont want to actually look at what has happened, to address/correct the problem, and instead just want to wring your hands, and commiserate about the toxic environment that they created without pointing fingers. That's your prerogative. Enjoy the New Toxic Zeitgeist of Class, Race, Gender, Sex Warfare, it's not going anywhere without being actively confronted and ostracized from civil society. It will be the new norm in perpetuity.

Marxist conspiracy, ubermansch, austrian economic movement against right wing utilitarian forces, John Stuart Mill, cognative dissonance. We must make the world safe for democracy by exporting the revolution to the shamalongadindong.

I'm sorry, I wanted to sound smart. I actually have no idea what you were trying to say. I don't know what I was trying to say either. I just... sometimes I open my mouth, and I can't stop talking, and I make a fool of myself. I'll be going now...

(It's possible that I haven't slept in, like, two days).

 

[psijac]

How exactly do you plan to kill "Web culture"? What would be the metaphorical silver bullet?

 

[EternallyBored]

Cultural Marxist Progressive Identity Politics is tribalist and agitates grievance, resentment, hatred of "the Other" to advance a political agenda. This is embraced by all Center Left parties in European Christendom, thus empowering it to the Zeitgeist, legitimizing it. So what you are witnessing is just this powerful movement getting around to video games, creating a toxic atmosphere, as it demonizes the industry & it's community of gamers.

If you dont like this. You have to disempower the Left political establishment that promotes this tribalist resentment & grievance, race & sex & gender & class warfare. Because this strategy has been very successful for the Left and it's gaggle of organized minority Hate Groups.

God dammit.

This is the worst part about an opinion on the internet is you may state a somewhat less progressive and more liberal (as in liberty based, not "American liberal") point of view and the guy who agrees with you walks up behind you and starts shouting about Nazi Space Jews, so you look crazy by association.

What he says has merit, to a degree. Although I would say that Gamergate is simply the first time that things like mutually guided agenda driven journalism, third wave feminism, social justice warriors and New Progressives have encountered a group that responded so... enthusiastically, and vocally, shall we say.

I imagine it's how a lot of anti-gamer gaters feel as well. They'll state something normal, like "Well, I think that we should have a discussion about female representation" and then someone walks up behind them and shouts "Fuck all cis-white privileged males, make all male characters female, the only good game is Portal because it represents a vagina and not a penis" and then the normal person looks crazy by association.

Back to OP: If you think web culture is toxic, perhaps you would like to go to the Middle East where they shoot little girls in the face for wanting an education? As far as toxicity goes, web culture is really, REALLY far down on things we should worry about.

I am very much aware. Still it goes back to that Critical Miss comic from a while back. Where yes. This is incredibly low on list of things in the world that needs fixing. However it is my little corner of the world that and I'd like that to somehow be made better.

So you want to make something flawed better by basically destroying it completely? Interactions on the internet can be shitty at times, so we just shouldn't interact with each other online at all?

First off, let's get out of the way that what you are proposing would be close to impossible to implement in any realistic fashion. The internet does not work in a way that would allow what you are proposing to be done.

What you are suggesting is basically the equivalent to suggesting that the way to make the problems in the Middle East better is to nuke the whole region. Basically a fantasy land solution that wouldn't actually work as proposed anywhere in the real world.

I understand that you see a problem in something you enjoy, and want to make it better, but your proposed solution is nonsense hyperbole, and amounts to a magical "what-if" scenario, tantamount to proposing that a good way to solve U.S. political hostility would be to put walls around all of the individual states and turn them into their own countries. It might solve the original problem, but it would be nearly impossible to implement, and create worse problems than the one it set out to address.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Social media is absolutely terrible. If that got down-played or if it went away for a short while, I wouldn't cry over Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. declining.

Web culture is alright. People get pissy here more than in the real world because the internet is a very personal thing. Seeing a disapproving comment is not the same as say, someone disagreeing with you irl. It feels more personal because those pixels will be forever placed on this magical wall you keep staring at every single day. It feels like "your" internet is insulting you, not another person.

There's this whole psychology of attachment: unlike with other forms of media, you can wilfully ignore anything that disagrees with you and create your own echo chamber. People get entrenched, and since video games are a medium based on emulating personal experience, this effect gets amplified. Hence, why people start great flame wars over game X not being liked by person Y or whatever(though that's another thing entirely, and more to do with the delusional thought process that if something you like is "bad", it reflects badly on you as a person, since you treat it as "belonging" to you. Though this is a problem with society, capitalism and namely "conspicuous consumption". Just that it gets exemplified when it comes to games).

This gets further espoused by the fact that the internet is run by nerds. Sure, there are sites exclusively populated by movie buffs, or exclusively by philosophers or what-have-you, but the dominant trend across the majority of sites is nerd-dom. This is again, another factor that further emphasises the echo-chamber effect, because the whole point of being a nerd is showing intense enthusiasm towards a specific hobby. The earliest forums and discussion boards were run primarily by the classic definition of nerds: tech buffs with interests in games, rp'ing, etc.

As a result, even with this mass designation of games, anime, fantasy etc. that is constant across the majority of the internet, each community falls into it's own niche that it is intensely dedicated to. Yes, people like games, but say, IGN has a preference for Halo, PCGamer is exclusively PC, Eurogamer is focused on Europe(as indicated in their respective titles). Like with gated communities, these niches can also become stagnant due to the lack of an exchange of ideas. It's good that sites like ours tend to mix things up a bit(as are many sites in general by this point), but there are still domineering mentalities across every single one.

Therefore, things tend to stay locked-down, so when hostilities do arise(or even contrary ideas), shit gets pretty explosive. It's this almost-unification-but-not-quite-absolute-unity that begets these sorts of events like 'recent controversies'. It's not the internet itself that does this, but the way in which people treat it and use it, same as with facebook(though that stuff is designed around vanity and breaking down human communication until everyone might as well communicate through grunts and squeaks for all the good that happens with it. Even as I might jest that I detest those sites, I see the value in them. I just don't see the value in the communities which use these sites in a manner that instead of "choose how you use this site" we now have tacit agreements as to how to "use" facebook: that pisses me off).

As for what would take for that sort of unification...I don't know. I retain hope that we will eventually link hands and complain about games instead of having some extraneous event force us into doing so. In theory, if a game was released, one that absolutely everyone likes and has played and has attached some of their own personal meaning to, perhaps we'd gain a better sense of camaraderie, but that's naive. Not only is the idea of such a game unrealistic, but due to the commercialisation of gaming ensuring that even with stuff that everyone is playing, there are massive economic barriers that would prevent this sort of coming together. Movies didn't have this problem due to standardisation: a ticket costs relatively the same throughout all cinemas, but games are not only more expensive, but also range wildly in quality and accessibility(having a dedicated games machine for example, though that is starting to slowly go away) not to mention the way that we assess a game's worth...but that's a discussion for another time.

TLR No, web culture shouldn't die, it just needs to grow up or get shaken up by a huge, external cataclysm.

 

[Erttheking]

Well I have to admit watching it all go up in smoke would appeal to a sadistic element within me, the logical part of my brain is pointing out that it wouldn't make anything better. In fact it might make things worse without any established rules and all the steps we've taken, no matter how small, being erased.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I can see where you're coming from, but it wouldn't help.

At best you'd be hiding the problem. Sweeping it under the rug as it were.

The real problem is that this is a straight-forward extension of human behaviour in general.
It's just, the internet exposes that more clearly, and draws attention to some of the worst aspects of human behaviour.
It also highlights the obscure, the unusual, the strange...

All of which existed before the internet, it just was much more hidden, and hard to spot.

Hiding a problem is not the same as solving the core reason the problem exists...

And what you're advocating amounts to little more than 'out of sight, out of mind'...

It would accomplish nothing, but simply make it easier to make it look as though things are all just fine.

 

[Barbas]

Well I have to admit watching it all go up in smoke would appeal to a sadistic element within me, the logical part of my brain is pointing out that it wouldn't make anything better. In fact it might make things worse without any established rules and all the steps we've taken, no matter how small, being erased.

Yes, I agree. Too few people think about who's going to rebuild it all after it's torn down, which is why it so often comes back worse than it was - if it does at all. Somebody once told me, "Revolutions are often called that because they end up going full-circle." The daily cost in minor frustrations is really a small price to avoid that.

Besides, what of the people who desperately need this kind of social interaction because they've been denied it for much of their lives? If we were responsible for pulling the plug on that, what could we even say to them?

OT: Welcome to the Escapist. Pleased to meet you!

No, I think the problem was never web culture. People say so often that without seeing the effects of your actions, you're much likelier to say something utterly inhuman to another person or treat them terribly, but that's something we'll have to learn to adapt to. Besides, almost every time I've heard that, it's been used to try and excuse nasty habits. It's humans that need to clean up their act. As Eclipse said, a lot of the scuffles are the result of misunderstandings. Giving the benefit of the doubt is something that doesn't hurt, which makes it the immediately preferable option.

The internet is still comparatively recent. We'll adapt to treat each other better over time, and the ones who don't will be left behind in their ever-decreasing cliques. Abusing the internet for the purposes of harassment, belittling and division and is really spitting on the work of the productive minds that made it a reality. This is not a high school playground, and those who hated their high school years so much would do well to remember that before they become the exact same people who tend to make those years so unpleasant.

Anyone who wishes to isolate themselves can do so. I often hear that MLP, GamerGate or whichever sensation happens to be sweeping social media and forums is "inescapable", but anything can be escaped by logging off. I think that quite little is truly "in turmoil" as you put it. What's popular will be popular. You can't change it, so why lose hair over it?

 

[Thaluikhain]

The internet is still comparatively recent. We'll adapt to treat each other better over time, and the ones who don't will be left behind in their ever-decreasing cliques. Abusing the internet for the purposes of harassment, belittling and division and is really spitting on the work of the productive minds that made it a reality. This is not a high school playground, and those who hated their high school years so much would do well to remember that before they become the exact same people who tend to make those years so unpleasant.

Er...not seeing how it's different from a playground. Yes, people are mean to each other on the net, but it's not like being mean was something the world had gone without beforehand. The internet is a new medium for us to behave the way we've always done.

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

It's as good or bad as people want to make it. You can encourage people or drive them away entirely, boost their confidence or make it more or less impossible for them to leave their home. A lot more hinges on your self-control. Yielding to peer pressure online often produces disastrous results that you can't see. I'm bloody thankful I didn't have access to social media sites when I was an angry and vindictive youth.

It can be like a playground at its very worst, just as it can be like a monkey house. I don't see why it should be either.

 

[bauke67]

Would anyone mind explainig just what "recent events" that brought the internet into "utter turmoil" we're talking about? I feel somewhat ignorant since I've noticed no such thing, and everyone keeps frasing things in such a way that I can't tell what this is about. Is it another sexism thing?

 

[Starbird]

So I'm new here. Long time stalker of the Escapist and finally just up and made an account because why not. This is probably going to be a bit heavy and for all I know I'm putting it in the wrong place as because of the content it might entail.

Given....recent events we all know the internet is in utter turmoil. Lines being drawn in the sand and people at each other's throats on a near constant basis. Web culture and video game culture are probably the two most closely tied cultures on the planet right now. Pretty much everyone that engages in forum discussions like these are also gamers to one degree or another. I like to think of myself as an optimist. I've played video games for basically my whole life and try to see the good in all people. Given what I've witnessed lately though you'll forgive me if I don't see that second thing anymore.

So my question to you Escapist people. Should web culture just go up in flames now and never come back? No more forum chatting. None of this. Sites exist, you read them, but no engaging. I'm honestly at the point that I think it should. People hate each other. Extra Credits and TB are getting into it now. I've seen people call one side monsters. I've seen others try to make the other side look like a fool and not leave them alone even when they ask to be left alone.

We don't deserve to interact with each other it seems. This has gone from being simple opinion based nonsense and straight into "This side is right no matter what and anyone that disagrees I'm going to go out of my way to humiliate them, make them feel awful, and maybe even possibly enrage them even if I don't mean to!" At this point being completely isolated from each other would be better than anything I have witnessed lately.

Yeah I like to make a strong first impression.

I really don't think that a few forums and casters = 'web culture'. Not at all. The whole point of web culture is that it's not centralized.

Would anyone mind explainig just what "recent events" that brought the internet into "utter turmoil" we're talking about? I feel somewhat ignorant since I've noticed no such thing, and everyone keeps frasing things in such a way that I can't tell what this is about. Is it another sexism thing?

This. I've heard a few people quit a few publications. That's about it.

 

[Mezahmay]

(Video game) web culture is not that broken, I don't think we need to go scorched earth here. I've been following the mess from the side lines between classes and apathy and it's been interesting, but I don't personally understand the scope of said turmoil. It all occurs so far from me that it doesn't even register until something big happens, like hearing an explosion from a chemical manufacturing plant I never knew existed several miles away.

Anyway, I think we could do with some reforming to better facilitate actual discussion instead of stupid nonsense like uncontextualized Twitter posts. That isn't interaction and it's far worse than actually forming a structured clause or response to another's opinion. By your definition of interaction in the original post is that is not necessarily discussion: at best it's debate and at worst it's verbal poop throwing. Engagement isn't the problem, it's how the vast majority conducts said engagement that is the problem.