Gamergate

[Sol]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a discussion about all this, considering that it combines two recurring Atlas interests, nerd culture and (anti-)feminism. Anyway, this is the latest horrifying development.

Anyway, Gamergate is reason #1,000,000 why MRAs are horrible.

[NerdyBohemian]

Man do I hate nerds.

[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.

[Holmes]

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.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Oh Jesus Christ, not this sh*t.

In before this thread goes south. Because we all know it's going to sink to Sandra Fluke levels eventually.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

For the record, BRTD somehow has the most profound post in this thread so far. A first?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Man do I hate nerds.

Hate does not resolve hate.

[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.

[Lief 🗽]

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This is beyond disgusting. Those behind these tweets need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[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.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

*image displaying terrifying lack of knowledge about the history of marxist thought*

dear lord is that real

[Marokai Backbeat]

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.

It's been going on for so long at this point with so many different motivations and "sides" now involved in it all that trying to explain what's happened up to this point in any condensed form does the entire controversy a disservice. It has been a nightmare to follow in general.

[Lief 🗽]

*image displaying terrifying lack of knowledge about the history of marxist thought*

dear lord is that real

I think so.

[Reginald]

Kind of tangential, but how much overlap is there between these people and actual MRAs? I'd imagine quite a bit but then again I think MRA is still pretty out there on the fringe... seems like it's used as some kind of a boogeyman term like we see with "SJW."

[SWE]

*image displaying terrifying lack of knowledge about the history of marxist thought*

dear lord is that real

I think so.

Yes, it's a political satire, but also sadly based on the truth of the current Social Justice agenda being pushed by groups like Silverstring Media, DiGRA, Feminist Frequency, Gawker Media such as Kotaku, Vox Media such as Polygon, Adria Richards ala Donglegate, Groups like Freethought blogs and Atheism Plus, Gender Studies via Academia such as Gail Dines anti-pornogray Stop porn culture, Marxist Feminist, WikiMedia, The US goverment with programed like It's On Us and Ban Bossy

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

*image displaying terrifying lack of knowledge about the history of marxist thought*

dear lord is that real

I think so.

>anarcho
>capitalism

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I have never been a gamer (the only game I play at all is President Forever 2008 and GTA V), but when my brother played XBox live, we often laughed about the surreal subculture. I can't count how many times we've heard "your so gay, I'm going to rape your dad" thrown at him. I think it becomes its own variation of the cliche High School jock culture.

[MaxQue]

At the same time, that disaster is going since August, and lots of people got involved in it for not really related reason.

A attacks B. The words used offend C and D. D answers by attacking A, offending E in the process (not hard to do, considering there was already tensions in the video game area).

There is plenty of people on both sides, much having nothing to do with the initial problem, but still fighting that battle because there is someone they hate or who offended them on the other side.

It's silly, it looks like one of those Middle Ages wars nobody had a clue why they fought or fought because the other side allied with their nemesis.

[Marokai Backbeat]

It's silly, it looks like one of those Middle Ages wars nobody had a clue why they fought or fought because the other side allied with their nemesis.

This is more or less accurate.

[AggregateDemand]

#bikesheddingfyd

[bedstuy]

I tried to read the wikipedia article on this, I still don't really know what it is. 

Near as I can tell...

Some people say that video games and video game culture tends to be male-dominated and misogynistic.  That's probably true.  To that bunch of internet trolls and socially weird gamers responded by saying, "who cares what you shrill, shrieking harpies have to say?  You don't even like video games!"  I think another group took these criticisms into strawman territory, "oh, now they're saying all video games should be designed by Gloria Steinem and involve setting up colloquia about third world post-structuralism feminist perspectives in Latin America."  Or, "these crazy women think tetris is a sexist rape fantasy because you're fitting pieces into slots without their consent."

On the other side, people overreact by latching onto the dumbest, meanest internet trolls and projecting their voices in the internet echo chamber.  That creates a backlash which creates page-views, which encourages more trolling and dumb meanness, which encourages more backlash, which creates backlash to the backlash.  It's all a stupid vicious circle where people are just caught up in tackling the straw-man example of their opposing view.

I guess the underlying problem is that the internet and video game consumers are not actual communities.  If you organize your communities off of twitter or buying the same toys as other people, it's going to be an unsatisfying mess for everyone.

[OAM]

The fact that the "controversy" has evolved into social commentary itself is a pretty big sign about how far derailed the whole thing has become.

The origin was basically that one game dev was using personal connections to generate positive feedback for their projects.  Basically, a "pay for good reviews" type system.  Then it went even further into the territory of using those same connections to control the "games media" to not only shut out bad press, but to start to cry wolf on projects that competed in the same demographic to get them shut down.  This, in my opinion, is pretty dire and damning.  Granted, I'm too cynical to think that media of any sort has much journalistic integrity, but at least most of the time it's not so blatantly obvious.  This is a legitimate thing to be up in arms about, though not to utter rage levels

However, the game dev in question is female and the connections she was making with the gaming media were basically characterized as having an affair.  Honestly, I don't think most people really even care about affairs anymore, but those in the gaming media who are feeling pressure from having their ethics questioned really really want the controversy to spill into a feminist rant, because it's not the issue that started the controversy, it's a red herring.  As a feminist I'm appalled that the debate got hijacked, because these kinds of debates tend to wear down into just wars of attrition that aren't productive.

[BaconBacon96]

If you actually do some research into it, like OAM above me seems to have, you'll find that the majority of Gamergate supporters are shocked and disturbed by the harassment of these women. It takes away from their point, which isn't actually about hating upon women. It has to do with the integrity and ethics (or lack of) of the gaming press. There's been some quite deep corruption of sorts involving gaming writers and companies.  The Wikipedia article is quite biased (against gamergate supporters) and the employee who wrote it has admitted so. In fact, certain people are using this as an opportunity to censor the gaming industry and advance a dubious somewhat extremist feminist agenda.

Indeed, the whole thing will probably die out because the MRA idiots who are involved in violently abusing these women game developers will distract from the main issue.

[OAM]

On the bright side, the ad revenue from the corrupt institutions is way down, for a variety of reasons.  There's the first group, those legitimately upset about ethics issues, who will of course boycott said venues.  However, the people involved aren't just corrupt for trying to shut down opposition and change the subject, but they're also horribly inept and being corrupt.  Within the first week of the story breaking[1] all of the major publications with "ties" to the original developer went on an offensive not just against the, at the time, very small group who were trying to stir up sexist trouble, but the entirety of the gaming community.  The bulk of gamers aren't mad because of straw-feminists, or whatever, the bulk are mad because Kotaku and the like ran articles calling all gamers immature and sexist.  As a gamer, I'd like to take a moment to say up yours too Kotaku, I'm more feminist than you are.  It's amazingly easy to find opposition when you make blanket statements insulting people.  It's borderline insanity when the said people you insult is the very demographic that makes up your consumer base.  Honestly, if you want to find the biggest threat to feminism in the gaming community, look right back to Zoe Quinn, the original developer involved, for hijacking feminism for personal gain.

[1] I'd also like to take a moment here to point out here that the only reason the story actually broke in the first place, because the media that would typically cover it were firmly in Zoe Quinn's pocket and thus wouldn't cover it, is when the threat of legal action from one group emerged.  Basically, this group was running a "game jam", which is kind of a contest to quickly develop games and generate hype, with the specific goal of helping aspiring women in game development achieve success.  Zoe Quinn had a competing project and wanted to hog the spotlight, so she threw false sexist claims at this group to the point that they were getting threats IRL from her supporters and lost significant monetary assets invested into the project.  The whole reason we know, for a fact, that these game journalists are indeed seriously corrupt is because when this group tried to go to them for assistance, not in retaliation, but clearing up misconceptions and hopefully salvaging their project, one of the execs literally said "What Zoe says in regards to sexism goes."  The whole thing originated as a typical, run of the mill conflict of interest case in journalism ethics.  Everything that's happened sense is the attempt at deflection, or stems from it.  Of course the small group of idiots who are harassing women are in the wrong, but it's just a part of the massive smokescreen that the journalists are revealing in because the more out of hand it gets the less people will be focused on roasting them over the pit of coals.