This Gamergate thing

[Angst]

I thought Gamergate was about corrupt gaming journalism. That was my impression when it was all up and noisy. But then this Danish article shows up and talks about it being about feminism/antifeminism all of a sudden, and I watched the Colbert Report as well here where Sarkeesian showed up and said that Gamergate was about misogynists vs ********s or social egalitarians vs feminists or whatever label you want to use. The news outlets say the #gamergate tag is about feminism and I think that's dumb. Has this whole movement dropped the ball? Has it seriously become about feminism?

 

[caketastydelish]

Most of the gamergate people are libertarians without a job, supportive of a ruthless free market in the protection of their parents comfortable upper middle class suburban living room.

 

[sophie]

I thought Gamergate was about corrupt gaming journalism. That was my impression when it was all up and noisy. But then this Danish article shows up and talks about it being about feminism/antifeminism all of a sudden, and I watched the Colbert Report as well here where Sarkeesian showed up and said that Gamergate was about misogynists vs ********s or social egalitarians vs feminists or whatever label you want to use. The news outlets say the #gamergate tag is about feminism and I think that's dumb. Has this whole movement dropped the ball? Has it seriously become about feminism?

It was never not about sexism. During this whole thing when did the "gamergaters" go after journalists? They went after a game designer and an academic(ish) games critic. Hell forget about journalists, they don't go after non-women period, as Chris Kluwe nicely demonstrates. Notice that it wasn't, say, Gamespot's handling of Kane and Lynch, or the very visible proliferation of paid endorsements among youtube personalities (especially with recent major releases like Shadow of Mordor, or Dead Space 3 last year also comes prominently to mind), but rather it's one woman engaging in sexual relations with a man (who never actually reviewed her game, mind) and the ex-boyfriend who was bent out of shape over it that kicked this whole thing off. Saying #gamergate is about journalistic integrity is like saying that the voter id laws are about preventing voter fraud.

 

[Antilogic]

Hey, I saw some tweets that said a handful of gamergaters were disappointed with men they 'shipped like Stephen Colbert, so clearly it was all about journalism.

 

[JollyRoger]

Gamergate is what the more socially awkward MRAs do in between bouts with cheetos.

 

[Leonel]

I knew that it was definitely about women when that lady got doxxed just for even mentioning she was afraid of being doxxed but the guy who just ripped into GGers and calling them every name in the book got nothing.

 

[Kyriakos]

I want to be of the view that the reason 'gamergate' or 'Sarkeesian' are even known web terms by now is that some experiment is run where the point is to examine how close something can approach absolute zero and still be a visible non-zero.

Otherwise... 'gamergate' started because some text-game female ''programmer'' got her text-game reviewed by some non-important online reviewers. The whole issue was a charade from the start. A dull text-game is now a web issue due to... feminism? Mkay.. (and Sarkeesian is duller as a critic than even that text-game is as a game).

 

[Kozmos]

Gaming journalism has been crap since...oh I don't know well before 2005. It's just more obvious now with how important Internet is. At the same time I have to laugh about these initiatives where people complain about videogames where you kill women or complain about how a typically asperger loaded industry of techies or full of smug marketing bozos and dudebro business school managers can't grasp the concept of a tech-oriented or gaming interested woman or how to deal with them. I'd imagine I'd find better targets, like I don't know pushing law-mandated reform for equal pay and discrimination/workplace harassment lawsuits. You sure as hell ain't going to change peoples opinion (at this point in life people are so hardwired to believe in whatever they believe) or win them over by telling them how to live or whatever commercial products they should like or feel bad for liking. Cultural progress of equality will advance at its usual glacial place unless women escalate with violence.

 

[Arwon]

It was never not about sexism. During this whole thing when did the "gamergaters" go after journalists? They went after a game designer and an academic(ish) games critic. Hell forget about journalists, they don't go after non-women period, as Chris Kluwe nicely demonstrates. Notice that it wasn't, say, Gamespot's handling of Kane and Lynch, or the very visible proliferation of paid endorsements among youtube personalities (especially with recent major releases like Shadow of Mordor, or Dead Space 3 last year also comes prominently to mind), but rather it's one woman engaging in sexual relations with a man (who never actually reviewed her game, mind) and the ex-boyfriend who was bent out of shape over it that kicked this whole thing off. Saying #gamergate is about journalistic integrity is like saying that the voter id laws are about preventing voter fraud.

And then Sarkeesian, who not only isn't a journalist or insider, but is actually a critical outsider engaging in exactly the sort of thing they claim to support.

 

[useless]

GamerGate Originally the "Quinnspiracy" was always about attacking certain women, the earliest videos by Internet Aristocrat were entitled "Five men saga" a reference to the claim that Zoe Quinn apparently slept with 5 dudes. Now if that isn't evidence of it being based on attacking a woman i don't know what is.

I'd heard numerous times that apparently this is the "straw that broke the camels back" but if that is the case, why did it take some relatively unknown indie game designer to produce this "movement"? It's just an excuse to attack women, women who are making up an increasing amount of game's demographics.

I'm sure we'll have the usual suspects in here to tell us how we're all wrong, but the movement was born in misogyny and continues to support it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Eh, if this was a movement, who are its spokespeople?

With all the 'strawman' term and its variations used online, is it still less evident that this whole case is another blown-up non-story? This is not about a movement, but about dumb counter-movement people (eg Sark) trying to present themselves as intellectuals by posing against pieces of hay. It is pure make-belief.

 

[useless]

It doesn't claim to have any leaders, but tellingly Adam Baldwin (A man who believes rape isn't that bad), Internet Aristocrat, Sargon of Akkad, Aurini (A vile racist mra) and a few others who are equally as bad, are the loudest and most important members.

 

[Kyriakos]

Don't know who the first one is, and the others are web-names, so just how non-tenuous is the claim this is an actual movement?

 

[Flying Pig]

Movements don't have to be centralised - who's in charge of Occupy?

 

[crabe]

There are a few people who insist that it is a movement for ethics in gaming journalism and NOT a crusade against the influence of academic feminism. They are few and far between and even some of them will happily link to the likes of Sargon of Akkad. Most of the people supporting it claim that it is, if not outright anti-feminist, at least about countering or rooting out the influence of "extremist" feminists (like, you guessed it, Anita Sarkeesian) who they say are engaged in a conspiracy to force their values on the gaming industry.

edit:

It was never not about sexism. During this whole thing when did the "gamergaters" go after journalists? They went after a game designer and an academic(ish) games critic. Hell forget about journalists, they don't go after non-women period, as Chris Kluwe nicely demonstrates. Notice that it wasn't, say, Gamespot's handling of Kane and Lynch, or the very visible proliferation of paid endorsements among youtube personalities (especially with recent major releases like Shadow of Mordor, or Dead Space 3 last year also comes prominently to mind), but rather it's one woman engaging in sexual relations with a man (who never actually reviewed her game, mind) and the ex-boyfriend who was bent out of shape over it that kicked this whole thing off. Saying #gamergate is about journalistic integrity is like saying that the voter id laws are about preventing voter fraud.

I agree 100%.

 

[Kyriakos]

^I am sure Firaxis/Eidos/other companies will care massively about what Sarkeesian has to say, cause she likely influences gamers..

Again, how is this not a make-belief issue?

Maybe next people should sue Paradox for setting problematic stats for some countries

 

[crabe]

^I am sure Firaxis/Eidos/other companies will care massively about what Sarkeesian has to say, cause she likely influences gamers..

Again, how is this not a make-belief issue?

It is a make-believe issue.

Of course, she has influence. She has a platform and an audience. She also has her fair share of detractors, some of whom seem to think #GamerGate speaks to their concerns, which should tell you something.

 

[gay_Aleks]

^I am sure Firaxis/Eidos/other companies will care massively about what Sarkeesian has to say, cause she likely influences gamers..

Again, how is this not a make-belief issue?

Maybe next people should sue Paradox for setting problematic stats for some countries

Eidos, maybe, but considering that the stars of Firaxis is for the most part Civilization and XCOM, which as far my knowledge goes, don't indulge into any kind of deep feminist grounds or whatever, will probably just move on.

 

[Tee Kay]

The term "movement" bestows upon Gamergate a coherence it doesn't have.

I very much prefer "hysteria", or perhaps "mass hallucination", as in the sentence "the mass hallucination known as #Gamergate is such a massive waste of time".

 

[gay_Aleks]

Mass hysterical hallucination, the occasion when people imagine things that don't and never have existed, for reasons even worse.

See also: the Internet.