For the past few days on Twitter, the hashtag #GamerGate has been inescapable. While a gaggle of gamers object to what they refer to as corruption in gaming journalism, their hyperbolic language makes them all but impossible to take seriously. A number of outlets with a better grasp on gaming and gaming community have dealt with the accusations. These accusations could be referred to as zombie arguments – no matter how many times they’ve been debunked they just won’t die. Compounding matters, as they say, are the “Social Justice Warriors,” who by criticizing the gaming community have left irreparable damage to gaming. This, it should be said, is total nonsense.
As much as they say that this about journalistic integrity, they’re really fixated on Anita Sarkeesian, a gaming critic, and Zoe Quinn, a developer. From their viewpoint, Sarkeesian’s work into gaming, its tropes, and its relation to feminism is somehow affecting their enjoyment of gaming – that her criticism devalues gaming or something. On the other hand with Quinn, they accuse her of sleeping with a gaming journalist for special treatment. These two women have been the subject of countless attacks, some so vile and threatening that Sarkeesian had fled her home and contacted authorities. After the attacks on these women gained traction in the media, the gamers started the #GamerGate hashtag as a form of resistance to the dreaded Social Justice Warriors (I can’t type that without laughing).
It came across my feed that using the hashtag with a simplistic anti-gaming statement would garner multiple responses from people monitoring the hashtag. Boy, they weren’t lying! For whatever reasons, these people feel the need to create new Twitter accounts en masse, 90% of which feature anime avatars, and reply to anyone they disagree with. It’s not hard to mess with these people either. Like a wind-up toy, it doesn’t take much to get them spinning. They respond to any over-the-top statement and reply with a straight face, thus making the matters funnier. As if they’re working off of a script, they repeat the same platitudes over and over, never with anything resembling intellectual consistency. They speak of journalistic integrity while decrying the agenda of the Social Justice Warriors (Should I say Social Justice Warios?) without any rational explanation of what this agenda entails.
Now it’s one thing to have a hobby. It’s perfectly acceptable that you feel passionate about that hobby. But when the hobby moves into the dominant force of your existence, that self-identifying as a gamer is more important than anything, you’ve crossed into another realm, a dark and scary place where all is driven by hate, fear, and anger. But this idea that there’s no outlets that aren’t corrupt is laughable. The focus on the sex life of a female developer is abhorrent. As a film fan and critic, I constantly read stuff I disagree with. What separates me from the #GamerGate crowd is that when I see something I disagree with, I move on. I know that there are more works out there of greater intelligence, and it’s more draining to focus on the anger.
Look, I’m not innocent here. I was purposefully pissing people off on Twitter. But it takes more energy to actually care about what some yahoo on Twitter is saying than to just ignore it. Everything that is circulating around #GamerGate is rooted in an anger and fear – “They’re coming for your games!” It’s not a coincidence that anger-mongers like Adam Baldwin and Breitbart.com have taken the side of the #GamerGate crowd – they make a living off fear and anger, exploiting it for political gain and personal profit for some time. Their tactics and language are just as easily transferable to the health care debate or gun control. Facts don’t matter. What matters is repeating the same point over and over.
I’m not, nor have I ever been, a gamer. I’ve played games, some multiplayer, but I don’t have the time or interest to regularly commit myself to gaming. Even with all the crazies, I did get some decent replies from the #GamerGate crowd. Even with the few nice folks who understood my jokes, the amount of people who took the increasingly outrageous freak-out bait seriously is rather alarming. If a person demands to be taken seriously and you laugh at them, it drives them insane which makes it all funnier. My advice to the #GamerGate crowd: ignore the trolls. If you don’t take us seriously, we go away. I only continued messing with #GamerGate because of all the replies. Had I gotten no notifications, it would’ve ceased after the first tweet. More than anything, #GamerGate must learn to accept that change happens. Often we’re powerless to change. It can be frustrating, scary, but it never stops. Fighting to maintain old status quos is a certain path to unhappiness, to becoming obsolete. Feel free to speak up, but things like gaming don’t die because of critical analysis. As a matter of fact, critical analysis is proof of how much gaming is a part of our culture.
If anyone was seriously offended by my tweets, I’m sorry. Well, kind of. Just know when you take my trolling seriously, you’re giving me more power than I deserve. It takes more effort to reply to a tasteless joke than to ignore it. As long as you take my bullshit seriously, I’ll never take you seriously.
lol sean, seems you’re uneducated, both sides have done a lot to hurt innocent people(look at TGY).
Either way, your ignorance was shown when you aren’t allowed to comment on this issue anymore from your editor. Enjoy keeping your mouth shut like the rest of us have =D.
Blah blah blah. Get a job.
Great Post, Sean
This whole issue has seemed stupid to me from the start. What, exactly does feminism have to do with journalistic integrity? It seems like these modern day liberal feminist hippies are trying to tackle multiple unrelated issues at once and then stereotype all gamers as misogynistic psychos. It’s not just women who get attacked on line it is everyone. Saw Sarkeesian on Colbert last night. She thinks she’s way more important than she is. A random online threat means nothing to 99% of the population. These two women are crying out for attention. If the other chick did indeed sleep with a journalist for special treatment behind Her boyfriends back, then she deserves everything coming to her
Yeah, um, I don’t think there’s any way that a rational person can defend the horrible actions of GamerGate, including the death threats and harassment of women. Since you seem to missed my stance, let me be clear: I’M 100% ANTI-GAMERGATE.
I didn’t, you are misunderstanding. You are using the same argument that another uses for making misogynistic/racist and other preducicial statements about different identities.
Would it then be favourable for us to say;
“As long as you take my misogynist/racist bullshit seriously, I’ll never take you seriously.”?
Slandering any identity with such vitriol is going to offend, I think you know this mentality hurts people. We accept anonymous trolls doing this because they fear no repercussion but you seem content to label yourself a bigot publicly. Well you have balls I will give you that
Please explain how I’m a racist misogynist. This one I’d like to know.
Does that mean it is then okay to slander all Roman Catholics and Priests then as predetory pedophiles and not expect them to take it seriously? I am former Catholic myself Sean, I know exactly the kind of rotten institution the Church is. Still I have known many good priests and Roman Catholics in my life and to see anyone label them as pedophiles (even in jest) is disgusting bigotry and would not be tolerated in any civil society. The same thing is now continually applied to members of the My Little Pony community and other weird internet sub-cultures, is it defensible to label them this way as well?
>It really seems like you have the same attitude towards misogyny in gaming
How would you know? You never asked me, we were talking about your attitude to gamers that was the focus of your article. Little less assumptions please. The gamergate scandel has indeed brought out the worst of misogyny in the fandom, the way people like Zoe and Anita have been doxxed and harressed is shameful (and to to say nothing on the reverse to feminists on the other side like TFYC). However, it seems in some minds here that in order to fix this problem it is necessary to preach vile slander and spew vitriol at the the entire self-identified “gamer” community. Considering many of the arguments in the gamergate scandel is focused on how how dishonest games journalism (even in the indie community) is, it appears entirely reactionary how this is ignored almost enitrely in favour of trench digging and immature statements out to offend such as from yourself. Haressment and discrimination in our community cannot be tolerated but you are doing yourself and your profession a discredit by way of demonising the entire community instead of taking position of trying to understand all the concerns of pro-gamergaters.
Though maybe it’s just easier to label me a troll, misogynist, pedophile etc…
Lemme refer you to the last sentence of the piece: “As long as you take my bullshit seriously, I’ll never take you seriously.”
Even if I was using a fake name or email, how does that detract from the argument? Is it just about personalities in this whole debacle rather than the substance of the argument?
Does that mean you would defend the right to slander different identities? Catholic priests have been labelled pedophiles for decades now, would you really expect them to “not take it seriously”?
The Catholic Church didn’t take pedophilia seriously. That’s why the abuse lasted for decades in different parts of the world. But if you want to compare yourself to an institution that systematically covered-up sexual assault, feel free. It really seems like you have the same attitude towards misogyny in gaming as the Church had towards sexual abuse, i.e. it’s not too big of a problem to ignore.
Your problem Sean was the immaturity in your posts that rivaled many of these gamegaters. I think the whole back and forth between many is a case of trolls trolling trolls.
Regardless of all that, you do not identify as a gamer but some people do, and they do not deserve to be called pedophiles etc. Would you defend someone saying that about self-identified Catholics? Gays? What about fans of the MLP community? A little less ignorance from the media here please
Yeah, I’m still not taking you seriously.