Gamergate

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This strikes me as a bit reminscent of Suey Park and the #CancelColbert crap. After that started there was tons of counter-tweets explained to Suey Park why she was a f[inks]ing idiot (which she is) and why this was so stupid, and a handful of misogynistic and racist disgusting comments that represented a fraction of 1% of what was posted. And then Suey Park cherry picked those as "proof" she was right all along. Now Wu was obviously nowhere near as wrong or off base as Park was, but this doesn't really prove anything about anyone aside from one obviously very sick individual.

It reminds me of how some C-list black actress in 2012 endorsed Romney, got lots of comments attacking her for it and calling her a race traitor and the feigned Republican outrage over that. People being stupid and being assholes on the internet is nothing new, and there's no reason anyone should be surprised over it. It's similar to those dumb "OMG check this out, some random state legislator or county party chairman somewhere said something really stupid!" threads that constantly pop up here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Man do I hate nerds.

#NotAllNerds


My two cents - don't blame nerds... exclusively. You need to blame men of all persuasions: nerds, jocks, hipsters, whatever. It's not because these people are nerds that they're behaving this way, it's because they're stupid boys who think their penises give them the right to act this way. And they're stupid sh**ts.

Also true and what I was thinking. The people posting this type of stuff aren't representative of anything except themselves. I'd be surprised if most people who regularly play video games even know what an MRA is, much less are one. And for that matter anyone who thinks this group is almost exclusively male needs to enter the new millennium.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Although having read the Gawker article and timeline on it now, it does seem there's more to it than just the one person posting really sick tweets highlighted in the link. Ugh.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The problem I've always had with Anita Sarkeesian is that her videos frequently receive very well thought out and argued rebuttals, this series more than anyone else...which she conveniently ignores completely and instead highlights only the responses from mysoginistic trolls and then basically says "See this is what everyone who disagrees with me is like!"

And talking about the "gamer community" in 2014 is like talking about the "TV watching community". That term needs to go away.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've always thought the strange thing about Sarkeesian is the contrast between the MOR content of her videos, and the incredible emotion in the wider world they provoke. Although I normally find them interesting enough, "Tropes vs Women" strike me as very standard feminist analysis. It seems ridiculous the amount of passion is poured into attacking her or obsessively weeding out her "hypocrisies". And because of that enormous backlash, "gamers" (in reality, dweebs who inexplicably believe themselves representative of all gamers, and edgy political regressives seeking a movement to co-opt), have actually vastly increased Anita's and other SJW's influence on the industry. Which is ... quite funny I guess? I find it funny.

Some rebuttals make sense, but a lot of them are made by stupids who don't seem to understand the difference between a review and a critique. Some of them made by STEMlords dissing entire academic fields flippantly almost make me embarrassed to be a science student. 

This, this, exactly this.  It's pretty obvious that a lot of the opposition to her is not so much directed toward the specific content of her videos, but comes from a place that tries to discredit or dismiss the very idea of cultural critique.  And that's a stance that I have an incredibly hard time respecting.

Well perhaps, but that still doesn't change the fact her videos are full of overgeneralizations and inaccuracies that she never responds to when called out on and focuses only on the trolls. The "Damsel in Distress" one is incredibly bad and comically inaccurate to video games in the 21st century. Most critiques of video games in general basically assume that video games stopped evolving when the year 2000 hit.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The problem with Sarkeesian is not that she's "radical" (nor is she, I've never heard her talk about "PIV" and strap ons for lesbian being a tool of the patriarchy or attack trans people) it's that her videos are full of over generalizations and inaccuracies and she never responds to her serious critics, only trolls.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also it should be said the Gamergate folks are quite ridiculous, even the ones who aren't blatant misogynists are still flipping over minor trivial s[inks]. Even if the "corruption" allegations are true it's the definition of first world problems. But the idea that they represent "gamers" as opposed to "a handful of folks on Reddit and 4chan" is even more absurd.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think it's more in reference to people like Sarkeesian who clearly hasn't played many of the games she's criticized. But yes people like her are not the majority of Gamergate targets.