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Gamergate: Hashtag in Search of Scandal
I needed anime to post.
boomRegistered User regular
boomRegistered User regular
Over the few months it has become difficult to use the internet to talk about video games without a certain subject coming up: #gamergate, the hashtag about issues of ethics in games journalism. Ethic issues like the proliferation of hipster SJW fucks who don't even like video games writing about them. And I wish I was exaggerating, but that is word for word one of the issues I have seen discussed.
Pictured: Zoe Quinn, an ethical issue in video games journalism
What is Gamergate?
After the revelation that Zoe Quinn, indie game developer, exchange sexual favours for positive press, the gaming populace had had enough of the tyranny of games journalism, and sought to overthrow their dark masters. Except, of course, Zoe Quinn never made that change, and the real start point is much much earlier.
Over the past several years the internet has sought to draw greater attention to the persistent issues of casual sexism and misogyny that pervade gaming culture. You've no doubt seen articles on the subject in the past, some you may have agreed with, and some you may have found clickbait-y. People don't like those articles, because people don't like being told that they're casually sexist. Wade into the comments of any article on the subject and you'll see a plethora of people stating that the issues raised by the article are no big deal or not real, and condemning the site for running it. As you look at more recent articles you'll come to see the term SJW thrown around, an ironic pejorative meaning Social Justice Warrior, intending to mock the individual for fighting for issues the insulter presumes are imaginary. Gamergate is the pushback against those articles come to a head. An aggressive, death-threat-laden head.
You may have noticed in the last week on the front page of Penny Arcade a newspost condemning people who used death threats. Many gaming news outlets published letters from the editor today informing a zero-tolerance policy on the matter. And if you happen to use 4chan - I'm not judging - you may have even noticed the subject of gamergate is banned. That's right - not even 4chan wants this shit.
Why is this an issue, who sides with death threats?
Lots of people, unfortunately. One of the more prominent Gamergate subreddits boasts over 12000 subscribers. For many people the issues in game journalism are not excused by the fact that there are people looking to hijack their hashtag for nefarious purposes. Sure, there are people using the gamergate tag who also routinely harass game developers and journalists, but they don't represent the cause, you know?
Pictured: the way things totally are, obviously
Organized gamergate campaigns have successfully petitioned advertisers on gaming journalism websites to remove their ads in an effort to directly drive websites they don't like out of business. Meanwhile the aggressors under the hashtag successfully drove game designer Brianna Wu from her home and forced a cancellation of an Anita Sarkeesian talk due to a shooting threat. Both of these events happened this week, in case you had any hopes that the hashtag - started in August - stood a chance of dying down.
Now, make no mistake, gamergate has lost the public perception war. They are deeply associated with death threats, and the most pro-gamergate publication? Breitbart, a right-wing extremist shithole that trades in racist fearmongering articles like "Obama Plans to Transfer Ebola-infected Foreigners to U.S. for Treatment" and "Muslim Gang Rapists are Springing Up Everywhere. Why Can't We Be Honest About It?" Oh, and that last one? That's an article by the foremost Gamergate journalist, who gamergators love and adore, Milo Yiannopoulos. I'm not linking to Breitbart, because literally fuck Breitbart.
But just because they've lost that war, doesn't mean that they cannot achieve some of their goals, and the frustration and anxiety over this is what drives much of the current gamergate discussion. Delving into the trenches of gamergate discussion reveals them speaking about Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn as con artists, because it's about ethics in games journalism, and why we can totally prove that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian didn't donate to charities, because it's about ethics in games journalism. (Also, Gamergate wound up proving that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian did donate to charities.) Harassment continues to this day, and people don't like that, because why would you like that?
From there, we discuss, because people will not stop talking about gamergate in other threads and we were told to shuttle it off to a condensed DnD thread so that it stops leaking everywhere. Oh god, all my indie games are covered in gamergate.
We had a thread about this in GnT a while ago, and it's still a good read. The majority of the rules from there should obviously apply to this thread.
Pictured: Zoe Quinn, an ethical issue in video games journalism
What is Gamergate?
After the revelation that Zoe Quinn, indie game developer, exchange sexual favours for positive press, the gaming populace had had enough of the tyranny of games journalism, and sought to overthrow their dark masters. Except, of course, Zoe Quinn never made that change, and the real start point is much much earlier.
Over the past several years the internet has sought to draw greater attention to the persistent issues of casual sexism and misogyny that pervade gaming culture. You've no doubt seen articles on the subject in the past, some you may have agreed with, and some you may have found clickbait-y. People don't like those articles, because people don't like being told that they're casually sexist. Wade into the comments of any article on the subject and you'll see a plethora of people stating that the issues raised by the article are no big deal or not real, and condemning the site for running it. As you look at more recent articles you'll come to see the term SJW thrown around, an ironic pejorative meaning Social Justice Warrior, intending to mock the individual for fighting for issues the insulter presumes are imaginary. Gamergate is the pushback against those articles come to a head. An aggressive, death-threat-laden head.
You may have noticed in the last week on the front page of Penny Arcade a newspost condemning people who used death threats. Many gaming news outlets published letters from the editor today informing a zero-tolerance policy on the matter. And if you happen to use 4chan - I'm not judging - you may have even noticed the subject of gamergate is banned. That's right - not even 4chan wants this shit.
Why is this an issue, who sides with death threats?
Lots of people, unfortunately. One of the more prominent Gamergate subreddits boasts over 12000 subscribers. For many people the issues in game journalism are not excused by the fact that there are people looking to hijack their hashtag for nefarious purposes. Sure, there are people using the gamergate tag who also routinely harass game developers and journalists, but they don't represent the cause, you know?
Pictured: the way things totally are, obviously
Organized gamergate campaigns have successfully petitioned advertisers on gaming journalism websites to remove their ads in an effort to directly drive websites they don't like out of business. Meanwhile the aggressors under the hashtag successfully drove game designer Brianna Wu from her home and forced a cancellation of an Anita Sarkeesian talk due to a shooting threat. Both of these events happened this week, in case you had any hopes that the hashtag - started in August - stood a chance of dying down.
Now, make no mistake, gamergate has lost the public perception war. They are deeply associated with death threats, and the most pro-gamergate publication? Breitbart, a right-wing extremist shithole that trades in racist fearmongering articles like "Obama Plans to Transfer Ebola-infected Foreigners to U.S. for Treatment" and "Muslim Gang Rapists are Springing Up Everywhere. Why Can't We Be Honest About It?" Oh, and that last one? That's an article by the foremost Gamergate journalist, who gamergators love and adore, Milo Yiannopoulos. I'm not linking to Breitbart, because literally fuck Breitbart.
But just because they've lost that war, doesn't mean that they cannot achieve some of their goals, and the frustration and anxiety over this is what drives much of the current gamergate discussion. Delving into the trenches of gamergate discussion reveals them speaking about Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn as con artists, because it's about ethics in games journalism, and why we can totally prove that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian didn't donate to charities, because it's about ethics in games journalism. (Also, Gamergate wound up proving that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian did donate to charities.) Harassment continues to this day, and people don't like that, because why would you like that?
From there, we discuss, because people will not stop talking about gamergate in other threads and we were told to shuttle it off to a condensed DnD thread so that it stops leaking everywhere. Oh god, all my indie games are covered in gamergate.
We had a thread about this in GnT a while ago, and it's still a good read. The majority of the rules from there should obviously apply to this thread.
Here are the rules. If you don't follow them...well, I heard Tube is looking to refurbish his skull throne.
- No namecalling except "silly goose" and ONLY THAT. You cannot call someone a "stupid goose" or a "silly duck" or even a "wacky waterfowl." This includes accusing people of trolling. Yeah, this is already a rule, but it bears repeating.
- No ad hominem attacks. Namecalling is not ad hominem. It is disregarding someone's argument because of a personal attribute they have, be it real or perceived. Let me give two examples.
"You all need to stop listening to Mario saying the glass is half-full. He's a stupid plumber so you can't trust what he says."
"Yeah, Luigi says the glass is half-empty, but are you going to believe a silly goose like that?"
THE FOLLOWING NOT AN AD HOMINEM
"Waluigi says the glass is only a quarter empty, but I took some measurements and the glass is 12 inches tall and the empty portion is six inches, not three. Waluigi is kind of silly goose for saying that."
"My wife/girlfriend/sister/mom/aunt/body pillow says X is Y." is practically an empty post. Don't do it.- Your post needs substance. A YouTube video and little else is not substance. This includes image macros and witty gifs! If you need a video or image as a supporting part of a greater post in which you post some valuable insight or share a lengthy opinion, then I will let it slide. If we're going to chat via video clips and gifs then we might as well move to Tumblr or 4chan. This includes posting tweets unless some major event happened and that's the easiest way to share the news. I need a gnome to add that a lot of the discussion about gamergate has been posting things to say "look how awful this is". If that continues to be the main thing people post, we don't need this thread and the moderators are right to close it.
- Chances are that you are not a moderator, so don't try to police the thread. If someone is obviously breaking a rule, the don't engage. Report their ass and move on, as chances are their goal is to get a rise out of your and drag the thread into a multi-page slap fight. Reporting the post and not acknowledging the person will avoid so many
conflicts and deny shitty trolls their precious giggles.- Addendum to the last point: disagreement is not a reportable offense, and people that abuse their report button can have it taken away.
- Feminism is a massive topic outside the scope of G&T. Let's keep it narrowed to the video game industry, because frankly that's big enough to keep us occupied for years. If you wish to discuss further than that, then check out D&D.
- There is not going to be a lot of slack with this thread, and there won't be any hesitation to throw out some serious infractions and/or boot people from the thread.
- Not everyone has an encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff, so take things slow and don't make with the whole faux-incredulous "Oh my god they're doing [X]!" shtick. Basically assume people are arguing in good faith.
+2
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Like it's supposed to be reminiscent of Watergate, but that wasn't even about water!
Also Wu and Zoe both are hinting at something big happening next week so this should be fun
Also Eurogamer.
Edit: And of those, Gamespots was so weak and ineffectual as to be a waste of time and space. In fact, don't even get me started on Gamespot. I'm disgusted with them and what they have let a terrible group of commenters on their website turn their comments sections into.
Giantbomb's was pretty moderate and reasonable.
Polygon's was scathing.
It is good in general to finally see these sites take a definitive stand and oddly enough, catch up to their non-gaming counterparts who did most of the initial actual work.
There was a great summary of how little discussion on social justic issues there actually is on gaming websites, which used some sort of database of articles, I can't remember where it was, someone's Twitter account. It turned out it was like 1% of all articles which made any mention of social justice issues. And yet many gamers primary dismissal is "oh god shutup, can we just talk about GAMES?!" It shows you how little dissent and self-criticism is required for them to become insanely defensive and feel threatened.
I don't get why people are harassing and sending death threats. Going to those lengths.
I mean, in most civil or social issues where stuff like this happens, I get it. I may not approve, but I get it.
But this?
Its fucking video games, man.
C'mon.
Gamespot is a terrible website that represents the dregs of all the actual, legitimate complaints about gaming journalism!? You don't say.
It did not end well.
If you would like to have that conversation again, feel free to dig up the old thread and yell at your monitor while punching yourself in the bits, because it has pretty much the same effect.