#GamerGate Needs Damage Control Badly (Small OP Update)

[Fox12]

snip

Easier said then done. Most people here are pretty reasonable. Are there idiots? Sure, on both sides. I find certain people on the so called "SJW" side quite reasonable. There are also people like Phil Fish running off their mouths. There are also people making ignorant, hateful statements. There are also people on both sides hacking accounts. These people should be condemned and ignored, but to some degree it's impossible to reel in all the trolls.

At the end of the day I crawl through the bullshit and try to focus on the handful of real issues that have resulted from this. Because there ARE some real issues here. If someone derails the debate, then condemn and ignore.

 

[Agayek]

And then I get situations like that ten year old/sixteen year old (damn you rumor mill!)who got doxxed, and I don't know whether to lump them in with the whiners or actually make an exception because doxxing could lead to IRL attacks.

Well considering that the ten year old explicitly told the people defending him to back down and forget about it, I don't think you can classify him as a 'whiner'.

I dunno about the 14 year old trans girl that was doxxed for editing the GamerGate wikipedia page though. I don't think she's commented publicly at all and is just hoping it all goes away.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

Now, I haven't really picked a side on the whole Gamergate thing, but this, this reeks once again like double standard. So it's okay to dismiss the Gamergate movement outright for their extremists. Okay, fair enough. Movements need to do damage control, right? How else can anyone take them seriously.

Well, why then are feminists not held to the same standard? Have you guys read what some self-proclaimed feminists write on tumblr or say in Youtube videos? Noone calls for damage control their, or dismisses the cause of feminism. On the contrary, most people just wave that part of the movement away and ridicule people for even bringing it up.

So which one is it? You can't have it both ways.

I know this is a late reply, and sorry of you've had this answered a lot, but I feel I should answer this.

Firstly, I don't really understand why tumblr feminists are constantly brought up. They live in their own echo chamber and have pretty much no influence or sway on anything. I get it, they're annoying, and some of the things they say are complete and total bullshit. I'm a male feminist, and some of the things people have shown me that they've said really does get under my skin. But then I also realize they're all total nobodies (at least all of the ones I've ever seen), and so I have no problem just ignoring it in the long run. But I still do say that yes, they're pretty much insane in the stuff they say, and yes should be denounced. Not abused, not threatened, just denounced and then ignored.

The reason why I can do this is that they're not (at least as far as I can tell) rallying behind any current movement that has steam. They're just flinging shit in their own little corner of the internet. At the same time I don't get angry at the vile elements of 4chan doing their angry shit flinging on 4chan. As long as it stays there, good for them. It's when it leaks out that there's a problem, and here we're seeing a movement with momentum (momentum is important here as well as it should and does increase exposure and scrutiny) and it's leaking on all edges with vile scum out all over the internet. It isn't quite the same for that reason.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not being aggressive. I'm just saying this is at least my take.

 

[Davroth]

Now, I haven't really picked a side on the whole Gamergate thing, but this, this reeks once again like double standard. So it's okay to dismiss the Gamergate movement outright for their extremists. Okay, fair enough. Movements need to do damage control, right? How else can anyone take them seriously.

Well, why then are feminists not held to the same standard? Have you guys read what some self-proclaimed feminists write on tumblr or say in Youtube videos? Noone calls for damage control their, or dismisses the cause of feminism. On the contrary, most people just wave that part of the movement away and ridicule people for even bringing it up.

So which one is it? You can't have it both ways.

I know this is a late reply, and sorry of you've had this answered a lot, but I feel I should answer this.

Firstly, I don't really understand why tumblr feminists are constantly brought up. They live in their own echo chamber and have pretty much no influence or sway on anything. I get it, they're annoying, and some of the things they say are complete and total bullshit. I'm a male feminist, and some of the things people have shown me that they've said really does get under my skin. But then I also realize they're all total nobodies (at least all of the ones I've ever seen), and so I have no problem just ignoring it in the long run. But I still do say that yes, they're pretty much insane in the stuff they say, and yes should be denounced. Not abused, not threatened, just denounced and then ignored.

The reason why I can do this is that they're not (at least as far as I can tell) rallying behind any current movement that has steam. They're just flinging shit in their own little corner of the internet. At the same time I don't get angry at the vile elements of 4chan doing their angry shit flinging on 4chan. As long as it stays there, good for them. It's when it leaks out that there's a problem, and here we're seeing a movement with momentum (momentum is important here as well as it should and does increase exposure and scrutiny) and it's leaking on all edges with vile scum out all over the internet. It isn't quite the same for that reason.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not being aggressive. I'm just saying this is at least my take.

I can't really agree with your assertion of the situation.

First of all, their brand of radical, sex negative, second wave feminism has been slowly bleeding into the mainstream, at least in the video game sphere, to an alarming degree. Myself, as a sex positive, third wave feminist find that increasingly difficult to stand behind, and I basically decided to sit in the middle and wait it out months. It's not just tumblr and youtube, it's blogs, it's in tedx talks, it's bleeding into main stream media (although they do their best to hide their extremist side there, for good reasons, I'm sure). If GamerGate exposed anything, then it's that everyone, self proclaimed feminists, white knights, and gamers can be equally horrible people on twitter.

In a nutshell, I believe second wave feminism to be an antiquated movement that should by now be ignored in favour of tackling the real problems feminism faces today. But that's not happening. We are slowly pulled backwards, and for no good reason.

And another thing: You make some pretty sweeping assumptions about the people who frequent 4chan there, and it mostly shows me that you never bothered to actually research them. You only see the trolls bubble to the surface, and yes, most of the shit flinging is perpetrated by trolls, not actual feminist haters. You should take the time and actually look into it, and if you did and that's what you took away from it, well, I think you are wrong. But I probably wont persuade you. Just something to think about: When allegations were made that Zoe Quinn might not be on the up and up with her donations from Depression Quest, they raised over 2000 dollars in a few hours. And are still going. Allegations turned out to be exaggerated, but that's really not here nor there. There is nothing wrong with asking if donations reach their intended destination. Considering how scandal clad charities have been in recent years, noone should be surprised about that.

https://www.crowdrise.com/NSHGamers/fundraiser/loping

I'm pretty sure that's more then Depression Quest has raised for the cause of depression and suicide prevention, going by Zoe Quinn's own accounts on twitter, which, not bad for a bunch of degenerates and mysogynists. Again, my problem is that everyone looses their mind about the vile elements of 4chan while noone bats an eye about the vile elements of the other side, and they are out and about especially on twitter in full force these days. And the media coverage of all of this is very one-sided. I find that saddening. Also, not a word about this feminist indigogo project reaching its funding goal with 15 days to go:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-fine-young-capitalists--2#activity

They could use the exposure. Yet all the video game blogs seem surprising silent about them. I wonder why.

So overall, no, I'm sorry, I can't agree with you on either of those points.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

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I appreciate your take.

I think people rallied around this particular instance of collusion/nepotism because the targets were/are so very self-righteous. When a major hypocrit (and as an emotionally abusive user, Zoe the social justice champion is absolutely a hypocrit) appears among a tight-knit group of dedicated preachers who refuse to cede the moral high ground, no matter what, you better believe people are gonna seize on that incongruity and go on the attack.

 

[maninahat]

go on,

tell us how to stop the random assholes of the internet.

over and above that...which we are already doing.

i genuinely await your reply with fascination.

I can't propose a fool proof way to stop people being assholes on the internet. There are fairly basic steps that can be taken though to try and mitigate their effect.

1) If it is on a forum or an imageboard, forums and imageboards have moderators and rules. 4Chan even has moderators, though they don't take too much interest in what people are saying unless their comments fall afoul of a very specific (limited) criteria. If 4chan really cared about stopping homophobic or xenophobic or sexism or bullying etc, the moderators most certainly could do something about it.

2) Even without the powers that be getting involved, other interlocuters can do more to condemn the assholes. To pick on 4chan again, people will say whatever the hell they want, and it largely goes unchallenged. Many of the "haha jews" comments are often made by people who aren't genuinely anti-semetic, but are desperate for someone to laugh at their comment and pat them on the back, or to make some outraged response that they can smugly chortle to. Don't feed the trolls, but also make it clear to them that they aren't impressing anyone. If I was a supporter of the gamergate discussion, the last thing I would want is some asshole on "my side", bragging about how he taught some woman a lesson by sending her nude picks around. Make that clear to them, otherwise your failure to criticise or distance yourself from these people will get you tarred by the same brush.

 

[Davroth]

I am getting some severely conflicted notions on feminism. Old school feminists are calling the radical feminists 3rd wave, but self-proclaimed 3rd wave are blaming 2nd wave.

Might just be semantics, but I think we can all agree this SJW brand of trying to force their narrow and dangerously skewed morals on everybody is nothing but damaging to everything they get involved with. No wonder they hate actual progressives, that would take away their high ground in which to spew their vile bullying.

Actually, second and third wave feminists can be very easily distinguised from each other. Usually by which definition of patriarchy they subscribe to. One of the reasons I personally don't have a lot common ground with second wave feminists. But the internet is actually full of viable and neutral material where everyone can educate themselves of feminist theory.

I'd argue the SJW crowd isn't a feminist movement at all, though. They seem too busy hurling abuse at people who dare to not 100% agree with their opinions.

 

[mega lenin]

Hat tip to Marshal Zukhov on the find.

The lesson to learn:

When you find yourself in a knee jerk frothing mouth rage state, jumping to far fetched conspiracies as obvious conclusions to why you are in a knee jerk frothing mouth rage state, you'll soon find yourself approached by my boy Kane here from the Brotherhood of Nod to join him as a fellow traveler in the Tiberium Wars to come. Goofballs like this and infoporn profiteers like Breitbart aren't here to champion your cause. They are here to try and ensnare you into their personal tin foil hat club (Good ol' Kane) and or to herd you into their fetishistic infoporn sphere to make some sweet sweet cash off of you (Breitbart). Take it as an object lesson that whenever you are in an outraged state where all caution and skepticism is thrown to the wind, the internet is full of useless people trying to monetize your outrage or bring you into constant fellowship with that outrage as a fucking pathetic lifestyle.

 

[j4c0b1]

At least Kane was very charismatic, and well spoken.

On the original topic can we not say both "sides" are equally as bad, and nothing of value has been learnt by anyone in this clusterfuck.

 

[Requia]

But what the fuck is all this unrelated bullshit doing here? Why have the lines been drawn between so-called 'SJWs' and 'misogynerd' (or whatever the fuck they're called)?

The lines have been drawn this way because they have used classic SJW tactics of claiming harassment and bigotry to deflect legitimate criticism, while at the same time being bigots and harassing people. And by bigots I don't mean reverse racism or misandry, I mean they decry women who have their own opinions as gender traitors, harass a depression support groups, have made calls for men to defend women as men are obligated to do.

Why is feminism a factor at all?

Because the SJWs are perpetuating patriarchy, spreading transhate, and making appeals to sexism (that is, encouraging people to be sexist against women)? I think you missed all the feminist critique of the anti-gamergate crowd that's been spewing out of Tumblr and Twitter. Look up @MissAngerist on twitter, or j-k-degoya on Tumblr.

 

[Agayek]

Because the SJWs are perpetuating patriarchy, spreading transhate, and making appeals to sexism (that is, encouraging people to be sexist against women)? I think you missed all the feminist critique of the anti-gamergate crowd that's been spewing out of Tumblr and Twitter. Look up @MissAngerist on twitter, or j-k-degoya on Tumblr.

It generally works better [https://medium.com/@cainejw/a-narrative-of-gamergate-and-examination-of-claims-of-collusion-with-4chan-5cf6c1a52a60] when you provide [https://twitter.com/MissAngerist] links [http://j-k-degoya.tumblr.com/post/97436700191/everyone-who-wants-to-weigh-in-on-gamergate-needs] yourself instead of telling people to look it up. Just saying.

Edit:
Also, all y'all are gonna want to calm down on the inflammatory rhetoric. You're not gonna win any converts shrieking about how you're right.

Unless you're Leigh Alexander apparently.