GamerGate's Image Problem

[Kontarek]

Even if I were to somehow ignore all of the harassment and vitriol that has spewed from this movement as many of its "non-misogynist" proponents would have me do, I'm just not terribly moved by this supposedly noble demand for ethics in games journalism. Every single form of journalism has elements of corruption to it; might be sad to say, but nowadays it really falls on the consumer to find publications and individual journalists that they trust.

But sure, I don't want to accept shitty things for what they are; I could hardly say I'd be against a more honest industry. It's just that on the list of shitty things that I'd like to see change, games journalism ranks pretty fucking low on the totem pole.

"Oh good, IGN won't just throw 9's at AAA releases anymore... sex slavery is a $9.5 billion industry in the United States..."

"Oh boy, Kotaku will no longer hype the crap out of new releases from Activision... tensions in the Ukraine continue to escalate..."

I am not suggesting that we are incapable of caring about more than one thing at a time, it's just that come the fuck on. How important is this shit REALLY?

That's the heart of the problem with GamerGate. It's so much wasted energy for a cause that at the end of the day means jack-squat. Which, to be honest is why I have a really hard time ignoring the fucking staggering levels of harassment that has poured out from every one of its orifices since the very beginning. Even the people who claim to be all about the "ethics" side of the conversation keep routinely bringing up the allegations against Quinn as if they were fucking gospel.

So uh, no. I don't really think they can improve their image.

 

[Jux]

I heard somebody mention on Twitter that somebody is making a forum just to discuss GamerGate...

I can only hope so, I'm honestly tired of seeing the escapist being used as some sort of staging ground for their mob social media campaign.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

You can't fix whats already been pulverized into a fine dust. The KKK might have an easier time mending an image problem then Gamergate. Maybe if the inciting incident wasn't motivated and broadcast by misogynists[footnote]Not everybody who is involved with Gamer-gate and such is a Misogynist, but some of the loudest fuck-knuckles most likely were. I have now lost 15% more faith in humanity form having to clarify this.[/footnote] then yeah maybe, but at this stage, better luck next time. One can only hope for another rotting pile of shit like Kane & Lynch 2 or Aliens Colonial Marines.

 

[Louzerman102]

snip

Then why was no one talking about her before all this bullshit started? I've heard a lot of people say she was created out of spite, and it certainly seems so. And please don't post anything citing 4Chan of all places. It's not exactly going to get me looking to positively at the situation.

I'm sorry I guess I was not clear enough. Vivian James did not exist before August 22 2014 iirc. She was not talked about before because TFYC had not launched their fundraiser before this shitstorm started August 18 2014. It's kinda hard to create a character because your donations hit that reward tier when the fundraiser does not exist.

Again:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/vivian-james

 

[runic knight]

Gamergate's got an image problem because it's been slandered and lied about in mainstream articles.

Exposed in their own words [http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/] some time ago because one of them got overconfident and didn't think anyone would actually read the chat log.

To me it reeks of being a cover. Like a "I'm not racist, look I have black friends!" sort of deal.

Exactly. Also precisely what #notyourshield turned out to be.

Bob...no...bob... really? You are more then 2 weeks slow if you think that the public chat, which released the full details willingly where they refutted the cherry picked statements made by Zoe, actually says what you think it does. It doesn't. I highly suggest you actually go through the full thing and look again, because otherwise you are showing you haven't looked at the issue at all. Hell, even the mainstream dropped that line of argument as soon as the full chat log was released and people looked it over. Do you think everyone who supports gamergate would be so dumb as to... you know what, I think I know your answer there.

Actually, if you cared to look (sensing a pattern about your willingness to investigate anything that runs contrary your initial assumptions here), you'd see that the whole "not your shield" thing is not male gamers pointing to women and minorites and going "look, look!" but rather women and minorites who are part of gamergate because they agree with it themselves saying that the journalists do not speak for them and for the journalists to stop using them as a shield from criticism.

Even if you think that gamergate is stupid, and I get the feeling you do, you have NO RIGHT to say that the people who have used and promoted #notyourshield are not responsible enough to speak for themselves. You actively dehumanize them when you say it is just people pointing and saying it is just "I got black friends". People made their choice to be part of gamergate and spoke up to have their voices heard when the journalists we largely dismissing their voices entirely as merely being "just white male sockpuppet accounts". Please stop dehumanizing people like that. I'll grant you all the right in the world to call them stupid for their actions, but you don't get to dismiss their actions like they aren't real damn people just because it upsets your preconcieved notion about who makes up gamergate. It is diverse as all hell, and denying that is quite literally dehumanizing all who aren't white males in the group as you say they don't exist. Stop that from here on.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

snip

Ahh, how coincidental. Made after the mess already began. Yeah, it's becoming even harder for me to separate her from the bullshit as a separate, unrelated character in an unrelated video game. That she's been adopted as a "mascot" and is on some lame meme site doesn't really help her case very much either.

But if she's truly as good a character as I've heard, then I hope the devs can be successful on their project and separate the character from this debate. Seems like it'd be a difficult task though.

 

[Jux]

I heard somebody mention on Twitter that somebody is making a forum just to discuss GamerGate...

I can only hope so, I'm honestly tired of seeing the escapist being used as some sort of staging ground for their mob social media campaign.

I hope the irony is not lost on you. It is quite delicious.

Is this one of those instances where someone is saying 'ironic' but doesn't really know what irony means?

 

[Louzerman102]

Like I've said before, if you don't want to be misrepresented, don't attach yourself to something you have no control over. Organize. Start a kickstarter to build a forum for GamerGate or something like that.

That is one of the more interesting facets of this entire event to me. Gamergate cannot organize itself anymore than the youtube comments section can choose a spokes person that "speaks for them." There is no possible way to control a message when it is being spread over twitter by anyone who wants to talk about it and when anyone who is hostel can also say anything they want about it.

Edit for sentence structure. Damn I need a full time proof reader.

 

[runic knight]

Well here's a major issue. This is what happens when I search the hashtag "gamergate" in Twitter.

Now, lets have a breakdown. And for the record, I don't know why the hell "shoeporn" showed up.

Your post indicates that pornography involving shoes might have an image problem. While we are on the discussion of how to make gamergate interesting to people who don't care about it lets also talk about how to fix shoeporn.

More on topic now. There is a theory that music industry itself makes hits. That radio stations playing a song over and over and over will make the song popular regardless of the quality of the work. Gamergate has an image problem beacuse the discussion started in a nasty place and shifted in multiple directions simultaneously. It will continue to have an image problem when sites that get millions of views per day and make millions in gross revenue claim that the people involved are misogynistic murderous men who make bomb threats. It is also difficult to keep Anita out of the conversation when her image is used in the header images of these articles.

Its not misrepresentation when people using #GamerGate on Twitter are making it about feminism and SJWs and Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian.

Like I've said before, if you don't want to be misrepresented, don't attach yourself to something you have no control over. Organize. Start a kickstarter to build a forum for GamerGate or something like that.

I've used this comparison before and I still think it is apt.

Think of this as someone trying to figure out a murder. We have a body, we have stab wounds and the general conclusion drawn is it was a stabbing. As such, the weapon would most likely be a knife.
Now, because of that, p[eople are talking about a knife in relation to the stabbing. It isn't about the knife so much as how the knife was used in relation to the event.

Now, what if someone started protesting that we were talking about knives to much, that we shouldn't keep talking about knives and how it is knife-ist and we should be ashamed. What would you call that, exactly?

The knife in question was the tactics of dismissing and deflecting criticism by calling "misogynist". It relates in how thee SJ movements were used here, but the protest is not social justice itself but rather the use of it to cause harm like it has.

We aren't attacking knives even if the conversation often mentions it.

 

[Jux]

I am not quite sure, Alanis. Perhaps you can make up a new definition for it.

Irony is generally accepted to mean that one is expressing their meaning using language that would normally imply the opposite, though situational irony would imply a reversal of situation based on expectations. So, the only real case where this would be a case of 'irony' is if Gamergate were getting their own subforum at the escapist.



edit: I'm going to add that the common argument of Alanis Morissette's lyrics "It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife" not being irony technically could qualify as situational irony, as it would be a reversal of expectations if one expects to find at least one knife laying around with all those spoons.

 

[runic knight]

Well, I'm not going to get too in the weeds with debating with you about the nature of speculation except to just say that whenever you discuss anything, you're speculating on some level.

Think about it this way. You've managed to side with the people who would see a game developer have sex with game journalists who also happen give her good press, and claim that people speculating on the impropriety of that relationship are playing fast and loose with facts. If you ask me, and probably most people, they'd SPECULATE that it's related, just as you've speculated that it's not. As to who is playing faster or looser with the truth, well . . . what do you honestly think?

Except, you know, the fact that he didn't give her good press, he simply gave her press, and by all accounts, including the ex-boyfriend who initially made the claim, the relationship didn't even start until after said press was given.

You see, in order for me to believe what I do, I simply have to take into account all the facts as stated by all parties involved in the matter. In order for you to believe what you do, you have to take some facts as truth, deny other facts as lies, rearrange the timeline of events, and misrepresent what was actually said about her and her game in what little press she received.

The problem was not that she was given good press or no press, the problem was how long it took to get an actual investigation into the issue, the behavior and attitudes of many journalists in shutting down any and all conversation about possible wrongdoing and the tactical and systematic censorship of discussion of possible wrongdoing.

Yeah, he didn't write for her. Doesn't mean he couldn't have used his networking to help get her story covered about the whole wizardchan thing, among a plethora of other possible issues that would suggest conflict of interest. Sure, could be nothing at all between the 5 guys she had relationships with that promoted her career. That still doesn't excuse the complete lack of accountability or professionalism in how the gaming press handled and continues to handle the situation.

I've said it before, had they simply released a story about it, said they were investigating and went that path, they would have had egg on their face, been laughed at a little and then no one would care. But no, they had to try to shame people for daring to ask about what certainly could have been a conflict of interest (remember, since no investigation had been done at the time, no one knew). That is why gamergate formed, not because some dev of a game had sex, but because the implications raised about the credibility of the sites covering her was met with total and abject hostility.