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Thoughts on the Zoe Quinn controversy, "Gamergate", the "death of gamer culture", etc.
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Comments
He would have done it either way, becuase the regulations that govern the youtubers are held more tightly than the ones on gaming news sites, FTC if I am not mistaken.
I just find the idea that any agent that does a harmful action in name of the group is representative of the group to be weird stuff. I can use the same argument to say that any beneficial action done by supporter of the group is also representative. And it leads us nowhere.
Interesting test. I'm taking it right now. Finished the rapid-response part and now I'm answering the survey questions.
I agree with Abyss here; I can't make sense of this paragraph.
FWIW:
Well, that was a little bit of a surprise. But by the end of this, I was pretty much answering the questions at the same speed, since I'd gotten used to it.
Also, I think I had more trouble with the Liberal Arts category because I'm not used to thinking of the things they named as "liberal arts". "Humanities", maybe. But they're just so really different.
Like Philosophy...I would totally not categorize it anything like Music. But whatever.
This reminds me of when Breivik cited Pamela Geller's blog as inspiration. Sure, she did not directly support Breivik with her Islamophobia, but if she's attracting that kind of person, it's a red flag.
Okay, so if GamerGate is not responsible for death threats and misogyny, than what is? And what has the hashtag done of value? What does it even stand for when its purported claims have been so thoroughly debunked?
Also worth noting, I have little patience for "balance" arguments, since false equivalence has turned the USA into an international laughingstock at best. e.g. the Republicans threatening to blow up the entire world economy over Obamacare and the US media still pretending both sides were in the wrong.
Somehow, he made it even more incomprehensible after I called him out. Hence his username I guess.
Well, the US media presenting both sides could be interpreted as an appeal to reason on the part of the audience, to judge which side is more reasonable.
Unfortunately, that judgement itself is clouded by a lot of focus-group-tested messaging tricks and stuff.
Actually you know what? Done with this. I'm done. I will hear no more about this, I will speak no more about it, and I will think no more about it.
It's not my fight, it was never my fight, I shouldn't have given a fuck but I gave too many fucks for no adequate reason and now my store of fucks has dried up and there is no more fucks for me to sustain myself with for the winter.
To me the issue of gamergate as a focal point from which death threats and harrassment spew from is actually looking at it backwards: It's not some imherent cesspool of misogyny, it's the biggest identifiable target available to attack, like one can assume fairly easily that the biggest voices in the group are sexist at best and misogynist at worst but it is still attacking the symptom rather than the cause is it?
Things of value they have done...hmmm I think it has donated money en masse to various charities and groups.
And the last one is actually pretty good as an examination of what drives an internet mob and the one answer that I can find is satisfactory is that trust has been lost: One can examine and say, the trust was lost because the part of the readership that got offended represent in some respect the idea that the games industry is no longer exclusively catering to them any more and they feel awfully indignated and as such lash out. But I find that analysis to be too simplistic and falling prey to simple moral dichotomy. I think that the trust issue is the reason they have grown insular in thinking and barely responsive to disagreements like the people keeping tab on what crusades has gamergate gotten into without actually having the facts to back up their outrage. Sensationalist click-bait has been eroding that trust for years, and now an apparent double-standard on abuse was a final straw so to speak(given the moralizing tone on the editorials of said click-baiting sites, this apparent hipocrisy was welcome news to the actual malcontents). I also can't really blame the sites for reliance on outrage-clickbaiting articles, business for press is tough when people feel like they don't have to pay for the news.
At this point I am just rambling. I am sorry man if this answer doesn't really add any nuance to your view of this stuff and if it falls prey to false equivalence.
1. There is a wave of "social justice" (whatever that means) activism throughout the web.
2. There are people who, demonstrably or allegedly, exploit and manipulate these groups and ideas for profit and other personal gains.
3. Many people are offended by this and/or consider it dangerous.
^Not quite. I'll try again with bit more sleep behind my belt: corruption, for much of GG, encompasses both the usual payola and favourable reviews in exchange for early access, as well as the critical analysis 101 clickbait written by journos/forum admins/etcetera who talk the talk but don't walk the walk. They advocate for progressive goals then turn around and fatshame, virginshame, bodypolice, and so on and so forth. This latter behaviour gets the gaters up in arms a tad harder, because while slanted reviews only cost you monies, being associated with negative -isms due to the games you enjoy or the groups you associate with(E-sports, FPS enthusiasts, to name the most obvious people who get tarred with the brush) brings about social ostracism and annoying stigmas.
Whatever happened to Listen and Believe?
Okay Nyktos...There's The Fine Young Capitalists, that's indisputable. There is also a depression charity, let me look it up when I am not in a hurry.
There's also this: https://www.crowdrise.com/gamergatestompsoutbullying/fundraiser/loping
But his post is basically taking the mick out of GG hounding Quinn's charity donations.
Anyhow, some interesting anti-GG takedowns by the ever-dramatic Jeff Kuntz(his take on the role of social media platforms inherently allowing abuse is accurate, but his villification of the propaganda methods is hilarious unselfaware, as the way he tells his story feeds into exactly that bombastic narrative):
http://designislaw.tumblr.com/post/100134685710/the-terrifying-face-of-internet-freedom-white-male
http://designislaw.tumblr.com/post/100651306295/the-gamification-of-terror-manufacturing-gamergates
To me the issue of gamergate as a focal point from which death threats and harrassment spew from is actually looking at it backwards: It's not some imherent cesspool of misogyny, it's the biggest identifiable target available to attack, like one can assume fairly easily that the biggest voices in the group are sexist at best and misogynist at worst but it is still attacking the symptom rather than the cause is it?
True, tech misogyny has been going on for much longer than GamerGate. But then if GamerGate is a symptom, what is your proposed solution to the root cause? I would think more women in game development, but people under the GamerGate banner have been actively undermining this goal by scaring women off. And no, donating to charity does not justify this, because giving money is a low-level form on engagement (only social networking activism is lower, e.g. KONY 2012). In fact, the GAF post explains how duplicitous they are in their donations:
There's a reason I don't take seriously people boasting about giving to charity. It's typical of corporations to use charity donations as PR while being responsible for horrible human rights violations in Bangladesh or other poorer countries.
This paragraph sounds like you're taking GamerGate claims at face value. Again, as the GAF post indicates, the evidence is against them. I ought to explain myself regarding false equivalence. Usually, it's proper form to acknowledge all sides, but when an opinion is based on unsubstantiated claims and false or misleading information, that opinion is wrong and entertaining that opinion ends up misleading the audience into thinking that false information has some validity (e.g. anti-vaxxers). Here, their complaints about click-bait and double standards hold no weight because all an outside observer can see is misogyny. Their claims about journalistic integrity have no evidence or even non-trivial examples to back them up.
I hope I'm not coming off as too condescending. It's just that I see this rhetorical trap happen too often in real life, and this one comes very close to the Chief Wiggum-esque response to Elliot Rodger ("I'm going to murder and enslave all women!" "Nope, clearly not about misogyny.")
I think this is a good time to point out that the main reason I was annoyed by your posts earlier was that you seemed to post any hearsay or claims, regardless of how unreliable the source, so long as it pointed a middle finger at the social justice latte liberals. Also, tangentially related, I still wonder why you find Zoe's ex's cyberspace-wide temper tantrum perfectly justified. I mean, the guy clearly has issues if he has to quit his job over getting incredibly angry on the Internet.
Uh, so after the multiple serious replies I should probably clarify that my last post was a joke. I was doing an impression of gamergate sea lions who respond to any tweet about death threats with "DO YOU HAVE PROOF IT WAS US????" Only I did it in response to a mention of something positive(ish) that gamergate did. Ha ha, irony, I'm a comic genius.
The point, if you're feeling charitable enough to believe that I had one, is that it's really tiring how gators will say that charitable donations by anyone who ever posted on the hashtag were done "by the movement" in one breath and then insist that death threats are false flags or "don't represent us" in the next, even when it's the same people doing it.
^Yeah, it was pretty obvious. My "Listen and Believe" response was also meant as snark. Donations are a lot easier to track than death threats(and the most prominent threats that showed up in pics in the anti-GG articles were relatively easily backtraced to a spamming Brazilian tabloid journalist, so it's understandable that that one was disavowed).
^^Because Eron was emotionally abused, or at least fell in a pattern that was close enough to it to be worth the risk of warning others about her. I've hung with those types in highschool(serial liars, suicide threats, switching to a "mea culpa I'm utterly worthless" the moment you call out them out on toxic behaviour), and they were emotional vampires flitting from circle to circle. Eron may very well display toxic behaviour himself(emotionally damaged people attract each other like magnets), but the whole story still functions as a warning to others regardless of what a douche he may be.
On the broader issue of misogyny throwing up hurdles for women in tech/dev/coding, I'd say this has the most to do with elitism and egos(which stems from masculinity, but is just as easily adopted by the big name ladies: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By6ZrVUIAAAuV0d.png ). You pointed at this earlier with the hardcore elitism of gamers(which is often gender-coded, but also part of a broader spectrum of -isms, and overcompensating counter -isms).
I figured. Looking back I guess it was just the one serious reply from vandro.Perhaps this could be addressed on a more fundamental level by generally us consumers as well as content creators and publishers and reporters being more self-conscious about to what extent gender influences our actions. For example, if we report on Zoe Quinn's allegedly sleeping around for favors (let's leave aside disputes over the truth value of this statement for the moment), then let's ask, to what extent have we asked the question about whether there exist other relationships between the gaming press and devs/publishers? Relationships by family? Relationships by romance? Relationships by professional affiliations such as what organizations one has worked for before? Instead of focusing on assessing whether the allegations against Quinn are true, we should actually be focusing on the broader problem that this one catalyst has served to highlight.
And from asking ourselves whether we're doing that -- whether we're discussing ideas, as opposed to people -- we can get a better assessment whether we're serving the community well or just acting like gossipers and tabloid magazines trapped in our first-impression reactions to things, with our biases and all.
I see. I guess there was also confusion over the meaning of "justified". The way I see it, while there is a reasonable justification for his actions at first, at some point, it no longer becomes a valid excuse. But I still maintain minimum sympathy for him simply because you're not well-adjusted if you persist in holding a grudge at the expense of your personal life.
Yeah, I'm well aware of queen bee/mean girls mentality. This is related to why I find NotYourShield incredibly irritating. Usually, others in a social group, in my case, Asians, hate the "I'm X and I'm not offended" card and refer to people who play them as kiss-asses.
I haven't got any information on this, what did the guy do after the original "Zoepost"? My take on him is that, belonging to a group that's big on preaching about abuse and that kind of stuff, he thought he'd support from them when coming out with it, rather than the opposite, that's a very vulnerable situation to be in.
Currently engaged in a court battle with her, his lawyer is going Pro Bono because the judge wasn't really paying attention, but it's reddit drama thread. Eron said his tumblr and posted a transcript from a buzzfeed interview about his involvement in GG, so basically his life is revolving around this, for better or worse.
He also participated in stoking the flames of the emerging movement in 4chan.
I can't remember whether it was GamerGate or the events in Ferguson, MO that introduced me to Storify...
Taking their claims at face value...That's tricky to answer, yes, I do agree with the idea of gamergate as a consumer movement that wants ethical journalism, and I am perfectly aware it has allowed people to focus harassment on pro-feminist voices on the industry, but even if I were to agree that all that the movement has and will continue to accomplish is attacking people for disagreeing with it(rather violently), I'd still stand by the lost trust comment: the appearance of impropriety is there whether one rightfully deserves or not, this appearance did not sprung wholecloth from the web of the fringe conspiracy theories, these were cobwebs already spun for a time and were the basis for the whole outrage mantle this has taken.
And just to be clear, I agree with the core idea that these people were doing poor job at managing interpersonal relationships between collagues, funding each other is a big no no.
@RedEyedAbyss
Holding a grudge at the expense of personal life is unhealthy indeed, but I cut him a tad more leeway on that with the genderflip method("How would I react if this was a dudette whose public BF gaslighted her, slept around without protection and then published her story as a warning to others that he was an abuser? Would I tell her to move on with her life when still confronted by the backlash against her publishing it, or revoke sympathy because she can't hold her job down due to the firestorm it caused?"). That doesn't mean I think it's the wisest course of action, but it makes it more understandable.
The NotYourShield remark can also be turned around: much as you dislike posturing "one of the guys" girls and minorities who think other members of their group are whiners, I have the reverse with 'autism pride' types and people on the spectrum embracing a mentality of demanding learned helplessness. They don't speak for me, they make something that should be just another personality aspect into their central identity, they actively create a stigma that causes others to walk on eggshells around me and cause me to be viewed as less capable.
And now it has arrived in Holland.
I'll spare you the clogspeak, but the tv report has shots of women being attacked in videogames were 90% of the victims are men, the claim that videogames allow you to not only kill but also rape women while none of the videogames in the footage has ithis happening(seriously, does any Western game even have that apart from Custer's Revenge), and the claim that Gamergate detests strong female protagonists, while they regularly dump charts with powerful female protags.
Luckily, they've already start organizing and the thread's diversity rollcall has the old Chanology crew, so I think I'll shift to more involved(and thus pro-GG) purely on tribal affiliation. It'll also allow me to curb the stupidest assholes more effectively.
Explicitly? maybe something by some fringe russian developer, but I'm drawing a blank.
Bonetown? the Hot Coffee mod?
I think that people talking about sexual activity and rape is more common in games than actually having it, mostly because publishers want to avoid a rating so high the game won't sell. That doesn't excuse it, but just puts it into context.
They afterwards went to a segment on strong protagonists and how a developer is making one that doesn't have ridiculous boobage. Objectification and women-in-refrigerators is an adequate enough qualifier, and they claim they consulted experts on the topic. Not even a mention of female protags getting way less marketing and top men in the industry dismissing female protags as not what the audience wants. No, it's all based on gamers' backwards taste. You can run that shit without making it sounds like a Thompson piece.
So apparently there's a Wikipedia page for this whole thing now.
I just read it.
This one paragraph stood out to me.
Basically, this -- if you want to change games journalism, stop making a huge hullabaloo about the indie game scene. Go after the actual big fish.