That's really what it comes down to. The internet's worst revolve around discussion of video games like vultures, and game culture has only allowed this aspect to fester. People either ignore it, deny it, or foster it. The small minority that has tried to fix it has simply found themselves the new target of the backlash with no one to back them up. Most of this forum spends our time ignoring it; I mean hell, that's kind of the point of this forum, an attempt to have discussion without the vultures. It is not a solution, merely a workaround, and one that still leaves people vulnerable.
I think it's an unfair generalization, and an oversimplification. It also ignores the vast amount of people who aren't doing this unintentionally because they don't get it, and who are actually malicious jerks. There's more of them than you'd like to imagine.
This, too, is an obvious oversimplification.
The sad thing about human beings is that you don't have to be on the autism spectrum *at all*, nor be malicious, to be that kind of jerk.
So, I finally bothered to look into the whole Gjoni story, and (unsurprisingly) it's just depressingly sad. The root cause of the entire Gamergate shitstorm is just a shitty relationship between two people who don't understand each other at all well.
I'm inclined to think Gjoni really believes most of the things he has said about Zoe Quinn, i.e her being selfish, abusive and emotionally manipulative. It doesn't look like it's primarily about revenge; he really does seem to think he's doing some kind of civic duty by "protecting" other people from Zoe Quinn.
Of course, even if that is what he believes, and even if what he believed was true, that would still be hardly any kind of justification for his actions. Not even the shittiest of people deserve to have their private lives exposed in that way.
Feminist Frequency did criticism of genre novels and TV/movies for years before Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. Only after TvWVG did the death threats, etc. start pouring in en masse.
Feminist Frequency did criticism of genre novels and TV/movies for years before Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. Only after TvWVG did the death threats, etc. start pouring in en masse.
No, he's right, it was always present - feminst critics have been dealing with this kind of trash as background noise for years. It's just that gamergate represents a massive spike in volume on one type in particular, with a less pronounced rise on all the others. Adam's on the right track, though - it's practically always the same people and groups.
Also, don't forget - the big kick-off about Anita Sarkeesian and gamergate has pushed this topic firmly into the mainstream spotlight. Prior to that, Anita Sarkeesian was definitely an established critic - but was still practically nobody outside of certain feminist circles. There's Feminist critics who are easily orders of magnitude more known than Sarkeesian, you ask a hundred people on the street, 90 of them will say "Who?"
This is a series of events that put the topic on everyone's lips and fingertips - so naturally, the hatred that was previously contained is now rather like a lanced boil, oozing out all over the shop. Everybody in the feminist sphere is getting more hatred now, because the mainstream attention brought to it has brought with it every sleazy shitbag in town.
I still think one of the worst side effects of gamergate is that it makes it harder to make valid criticisms as long as all this shit is still going on.
I always wondered if feminism might be refreshed by some sort of public rebranding, but it'll probably just be couple by the media pretty quickly anyway.
I still think one of the worst side effects of gamergate is that it makes it harder to make valid criticisms as long as all this shit is still going on.
True that. There's a lot of places where so much as suggesting that maybe Zoe Quinn, while she didn't deserve one iota of what happened to her, isn't really a beacon of light and goodness and just might have been super shitty is met with accusations of being a gator, and weird, wild justifications as to why what she did is not only okay, but an entirely rational and correct thing to do, beyond reproach.
It admittedly makes me a little nervy. After all, we already know what happens when you have a movement that completely lacks any self-awareness or ability to examine itself - we call it Gamergate. Not to mention what happens when - and I'm not suggesting that this would happen with Zoe, but as a general comment to which I can provide an example - you have someone who keeps doing things that you know are wrong, and they know are wrong, but they're never allowed to be called out for because they're one of yours.
I still think one of the worst side effects of gamergate is that it makes it harder to make valid criticisms as long as all this shit is still going on.
True that. There's a lot of places where so much as suggesting that maybe Zoe Quinn, while she didn't deserve one iota of what happened to her, isn't really a beacon of light and goodness and just might have been super shitty is met with accusations of being a gator, and weird, wild justifications as to why what she did is not only okay, but an entirely rational and correct thing to do, beyond reproach.
It admittedly makes me a little nervy. After all, we already know what happens when you have a movement that completely lacks any self-awareness or ability to examine itself - we call it Gamergate. Not to mention what happens when - and I'm not suggesting that this would happen with Zoe, but as a general comment to which I can provide an example - you have someone who keeps doing things that you know are wrong, and they know are wrong, but they're never allowed to be called out for because they're one of yours.
Well, it seems like Zoe Quinn actually was emotionally abusive in that relationship. The funny thing is that it never comes up due to GamerGate's inability to understand any kind of nuanced issue,
Oh Johnathan McIntosh is a real person. I thought Johnathan Macintosh was like some made up name for the guy who created Macintosh computers.
Yeah man, He's Anita Sarkeesian's offsider.
The DARPA thing isn't a joke either, they literally think that DARPA is involved with their enemies, hereafter referred to as the vast skeleton conspiracy. They get there from Silverstring media(with whom both Sarkeesian and McIntosh are involved as advisors), and noticing that some of their people had been to a DiGRA conference. So, they looked up DiGRA, and noticed that on the DiGRA site, there was a job listing for a job at UCSC, in a project funded by DARPA. Next thing you know, anti-GG and any attempts to add diversity or anything interesting to games is obviously a push from DARPA to achieve... something, but it's clearly against gamergate because the links to Sarkeesian and McIntosh, the masterminds of the vast skeleton conspiracy, are RIGHT THERE MAN.
Edit - Not joking. The previous image was obviously taking the piss, but here's an actual, GG-produced picture illustrating exactly that, which they genuinely believe.
Edit - Not joking. The previous image was obviously taking the piss, but here's an actual, GG-produced picture illustrating exactly that, which they genuinely believe.
My response to GGers that believe that image to be factual would be as followed:
Edit - Not joking. The previous image was obviously taking the piss, but here's an actual, GG-produced picture illustrating exactly that, which they genuinely believe.
What a lot of the crazies don't get is that the entire chart could be correct but that doesn't make it a conspiracy. We're all connected one way or another. Its just a case of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.
I really don't see how it's noteworthy in any way that professionals in a field know other professionals in that same field. I do find it surprising that these idiots pay so much attention to people they don't like though.
I really don't see how it's noteworthy in any way that professionals in a field know other professionals in that same field. I do find it surprising that these idiots pay so much attention to people they don't like though.
Because reasons and Internets?
A possible answer if the professionals you refer to are game Devs and journalists.
Though a non "totally" insane but still crazy theory might go like this. If game Dev X and reporter Y are close friends reporter Y may choose to report on game made by X for rather than game Z for reasons that have nothing to do about merit despite knowing a similar level of things about both games. This could unduly influence customers. Thus problems with level of relationships between game Devs and journalists.
Above problem seems either unsolvable (to a degree) or self correcting to me.
Except that's also how every form of media/journalism works, and it is delusional that some people think it is a "unique corruption" of game journalism. Just isn't.
Comments
full of shit"being facetious". /sWrite a feminist critique of a movie.
Write a feminist critique of a videogame.
Only one of those generates an automatic constant backlash of shitposters and sealions.
The sad thing about human beings is that you don't have to be on the autism spectrum *at all*, nor be malicious, to be that kind of jerk.
Here's someone talking some truth. Can we keep politics out of gaming?
Hint: No.
I'm inclined to think Gjoni really believes most of the things he has said about Zoe Quinn, i.e her being selfish, abusive and emotionally manipulative. It doesn't look like it's primarily about revenge; he really does seem to think he's doing some kind of civic duty by "protecting" other people from Zoe Quinn.
Of course, even if that is what he believes, and even if what he believed was true, that would still be hardly any kind of justification for his actions. Not even the shittiest of people deserve to have their private lives exposed in that way.
Also, don't forget - the big kick-off about Anita Sarkeesian and gamergate has pushed this topic firmly into the mainstream spotlight. Prior to that, Anita Sarkeesian was definitely an established critic - but was still practically nobody outside of certain feminist circles. There's Feminist critics who are easily orders of magnitude more known than Sarkeesian, you ask a hundred people on the street, 90 of them will say "Who?"
This is a series of events that put the topic on everyone's lips and fingertips - so naturally, the hatred that was previously contained is now rather like a lanced boil, oozing out all over the shop. Everybody in the feminist sphere is getting more hatred now, because the mainstream attention brought to it has brought with it every sleazy shitbag in town.
It admittedly makes me a little nervy. After all, we already know what happens when you have a movement that completely lacks any self-awareness or ability to examine itself - we call it Gamergate. Not to mention what happens when - and I'm not suggesting that this would happen with Zoe, but as a general comment to which I can provide an example - you have someone who keeps doing things that you know are wrong, and they know are wrong, but they're never allowed to be called out for because they're one of yours.
The DARPA thing isn't a joke either, they literally think that DARPA is involved with their enemies, hereafter referred to as the vast skeleton conspiracy. They get there from Silverstring media(with whom both Sarkeesian and McIntosh are involved as advisors), and noticing that some of their people had been to a DiGRA conference. So, they looked up DiGRA, and noticed that on the DiGRA site, there was a job listing for a job at UCSC, in a project funded by DARPA. Next thing you know, anti-GG and any attempts to add diversity or anything interesting to games is obviously a push from DARPA to achieve... something, but it's clearly against gamergate because the links to Sarkeesian and McIntosh, the masterminds of the vast skeleton conspiracy, are RIGHT THERE MAN.
Edit - Not joking. The previous image was obviously taking the piss, but here's an actual, GG-produced picture illustrating exactly that, which they genuinely believe.
My response to GGers that believe that image to be factual would be as followed:
It cuts off at the end but Jeff coes a great job of laying facts down on the topic.
A possible answer if the professionals you refer to are game Devs and journalists.
Though a non "totally" insane but still crazy theory might go like this. If game Dev X and reporter Y are close friends reporter Y may choose to report on game made by X for rather than game Z for reasons that have nothing to do about merit despite knowing a similar level of things about both games.
This could unduly influence customers.
Thus problems with level of relationships between game Devs and journalists.
Above problem seems either unsolvable (to a degree) or self correcting to me.