Yes, both sides are quite guilty of using accusatory and hyperbolic language. They frequently are when things such as this break out. That's why I try to avoid political discussions in the first place.s69-5 said:
You may personally be talking about the wider internet in general, which I can respect, but many people do seem to think that the same accusations of misogyny frequently happen right here which is why it has become a point of contention for so many of the people who aren't decidedly supporting GamerGate (or, in broader terms to cover longer than a month ago, the "anti-SJW" crowd). It's fairly laughable for anybody to be able to look at the thread history of The Escapist over the past two years and then think that we're some sort of bastion for Tumblr SJWs.
But it's also worth noting that simply pointing out "Well, they're saying rude things too!" is just a deflection of the argument. Pointing out that the "SJW" side are saying really obnoxious, hateful things on Twitter isn't going to make the hateful things coming from pro-GamerGate people any less hateful, and the reverse is true as well. Most of us recognize that both sides have their sour apples, the difference is that for far longer than they should have, the pro-GamerGate people were (and possibly still are, I really don't care enough to check anymore) actively promoting the actually sexist people who were just using #GamerGate as an excuse to harass and belittle feminists in the games industry.
To be fair, you were also sprinkling in language that made it seem like you were implying that The Escapist is being overtaken by a horde of political correctness police. Intentional or not, it's something that both Zeconte and I picked up on.
And, quite frankly, I don't know what I would call the influx to that 800+ page thread other than an "invasion"; people, many of whom are self-admitted to being against the likes of Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian or whatever other brand of internet feminism they might perceive to be a threat, weren't allowed to discuss the subject on most other websites where they would have normally been, while The Escapist left a thread wide open and became one of the only websites on the entire internet allowing for its discussion. A large influx of users from places such as 4chan or Reddit was inevitable, and while "invasion" may be a crude way of putting it, it's still more or less accurate.
Well, yes, that's where I've tried to remain and I've largely abstained from actually stating my own opinions on the whole kerfuffle of "social justice" topics. I don't believe that any productive discussion is going to be had on the topic of ethical games journalism or "inclusiveness" in video games so long as people are so quick to go for the throat of every single person they perceive to not be on "their side". Unfortunately, history so far has also shown that many people aren't going to actually stop with their emotionally-charged rants either, which is why I tend to only get involved in these threads when I want to either explain something or try to calm somebody down.
I'm sure most people who have seen my posting history over the past month can reasonably intuit that I'm not a proponent of GamerGate, but it's not because I disagree with the push for higher standards in games journalism; quite the contrary, in fact, as I don't believe the readers have set their own standards high enough when they're still perfectly happy to consume tabloid articles so long as they're pushing something like negativity in relation to EA. But the readers are only going to get as much as they have shown they're willing to read, and beyond that they'll only get what they deserve in the first place. Considering the amount of impotent rage and conspiracy theories that have been hitting everyone from every direction for the last month straight, I don't think that the gaming community as a whole has really earned better journalism.
