Chris Kluwe posts on #gamergate. He’s not nice about it.
Dear #Gamergaters,
Do you know why you piss me the fuck off?
Because you’re lazy. You’re ignorant. You are a blithering collection of wannabe Wikipedia philosophers, drunk on your own buzzwords, incapable of forming an original thought. You display a lack of knowledge stunning in its scope, a fundamental disregard of history and human nature so pronounced that makes me wonder if lead paint is a key component of your diet. You think you’re making piercing arguments when, in actuality, you’re throwing a temper tantrum that would embarrass a three-year-old.
The GamerGaters raged. So much hate. But not much else.
Felicia Day posts on #gamergate. She’s sad and regretful about it.
I have been terrified of inviting a deluge of abusive and condescending tweets into my timeline. I did one simple @ reply to one of the main victims several weeks back, and got a flood of things I simply couldn’t stand to read directed at me. I had to log offline for a few days until it went away. I have tried to retweet a few of the articles I’ve seen dissecting the issue in support, but personally I am terrified to be doxxed for even typing the words “Gamer Gate”. I have had stalkers and restraining orders issued in the past, I have had people show up on my doorstep when my personal information was HARD to get. To have my location revealed to the world would give a entry point for a few mentally ill people who have fixated on me, and allow them to show up and make good on the kind of threats I’ve received that make me paranoid to walk around a convention alone. I haven’t been able to stomach the risk of being afraid to get out of my car in my own driveway because I’ve expressed an opinion that someone on the internet didn’t agree with.
Immediately, some GamerGater posted her home address and phone number.
At last it’s slowly beginning to sink in to them, though, that they’ve driven away most of their support.
For someone who’s sick of the abuse, these 8chan threads are pure schadenfreude:
One: https://archive.today/JASOw
Two: https://archive.today/xnFKyAmong the fallen heroes mentioned: Patton Oswalt, Seth Rogen, Felicia Day, William Gibson, Tim Schafer, cartoonist Mariel Cartwright, Joss Whedon, writer Greg Rucka, Wil Wheaton, writer Jim Sterling, John Scalzi, Adam Sessler, Jon Stewart, and the creators of Raspberry Pi, who came out forcefully against #gamergate.
But at least they’ve still got…Adam Baldwin.
I’ve also noticed something on Twitter: any time I mention this awful #gamergate bullshit, I get a flood of dismissive, insulting comments, and I have to exercise the block button frequently. Usually, I’ll take a look at who this person is: and most often, it’s some account with 0-50 followers, a few hundred (at most) tweets, and if I look at their twitter history, it’s all raging about Social Justice Warriors and #gamergate. The channers have been doing a good job of ginning up lots of fake accounts and making noise on the internet, but they’re all Quaker cannons — ignorable.
Now we just have to persuade the atheist movement that these raving anti-feminists are all bark, have no credibility, and are damaging every group they join.
In this otherwise righteous rant, Kluwe repeats a false claim I first saw in a recent Deadspin article on gamergate, to wit, that Gjoni’s account included an accusation that ZQ slept with reviewers in return for good coverage. Let it be known: whatever his other misdeeds (and we can discuss what I think those are if that’s a topic of interest to anyone), Gjoni did *not* accuse ZQ of sleeping with a reviewer for favorable coverage. If you read Gjoni’s account, you won’t find that accusation there. This has been true since at least about three or four days after it went up; I can attest to this because I follow feminist columnists such as Amanda Marcotte who were on this from the very start, and I myself found my way to his account in those sunny days of yore before gamergate really got rolling.
Oh wow, from that first 8chan thread:
But remember; we live in an echo chamber!
……some of them actually thought Wil Wheaton, John Scalzi or Joss Whedon would be supportive? It kind of shows how utterly oblivious these shits are.
Looking at that lost of fallen heros, a few names stand out: Felicia Day, Joss Whedon, Will Wheaton, John Scalzi, Jon Stewart. Really?!? Those are among the list of fallen heros? Why would they be “heros” to the #GG folks in the first place? Have the #GG folks not noticed that these folks have, through-out their career online, tended to be anti-misogynous, pro-feminist in all their works?
Ah, but it’s not about misogyny – it’s about corruption! And, ok, sure, they’ve done basically nothing to fight corruption, but I doubt that most of them realise that. I think some of them really believe that being critical of what’s actually happening under their banner is corruption, and so things like getting Intel to pull ads from Gamasutra for daring to criticise them and the gamer identity (which, apparently, we (the all encompassing we) attached to them in order to insult it, rather than simply calling them it because they adopted it as a part of their banner… I know, temporal mechanics is not my thing either, but they must have a Doc Brown on staff or something) probably look like legitimate activism to them.
So, basically, they’re not disappointed because their heroes came out as being against misogynist movements like GG, but because they believe that they came out against an anti-corruption movement, essentially as being pro-corruption. They (some of them) honestly seem to believe this nonsense wholeheartedly.
Hopefully the civility hounds take note that even though Felicia Day was extremely “nice” in her post that some asshole posted her info within the hour anyway.
Have the #GG folks not noticed that these folks have, through-out their career online, tended to be anti-misogynous, pro-feminist in all their works?
Probably because they think they are not misogynists and pro-feminism. They generally seem to think that misogyny can’t exist if you aren’t going around punching women in the face – and of course they have lined up a handful of women who have joined their cause (which they believe insulates them against all possible charges of misogyny).
They also seem to think that because “they” raised money for a non-charity that they are “pro-women in gaming” and therefore “pro-feminist. They’ve also bought into the idea that Christina Hoff Sommers is a “true” feminist, and all the women criticizing them are “out of control radical feminists”.
In short, they believed that Weedon, Scalzi, Stewart, and so on would approve of their “movement” because they have lied to themselves about pretty much everything.
It amuses me to no end that they’re all hurt over these folks scolding them. Especially Jim Sterling, since he’s someone who actually HAS spoken out about corruption in games journalism. Heck, he recently had a video about the shady practices the marketing company working on Shadow of Mordor had going on.
But they don’t ever talk about that stuff, do they?
Correct! Their main propaganda angle is “fighting corruption”, but their definition of “corruption” is “people who question the status quo of the industry”.
The FBI arrested the Anonymous crowd and left us with these bozos. I wish they’d do it again and mop up the rabble this time.
@aaronpound
Hardly. Most of that is just a smokescreen – remember, a currently #GG bravehero came up with the Punch Sarkeesian game, and they’re posting their enemies all over the Punchable Faces subreddit. They’re all disappointed because they swallowed the red pill of MRA bullshit and are all disappointed that decent people can’t see they’re the Saviors of The Male Race.
Anyway, their trial by fire is going to be their mass boycott plan (dubbed Operation Krampus). By Christmas, we’ll know exactly how much of a sliver of the total video game market they are.
@vaiyt, 9
I prefer the term “propagangle.”
I was wondering why the anons had gone all inept. I used to believe they were all super 1337 haXXor types, stealthily skulking through the internets – at least as far as it’s possible to skulk stealthily when your IP is left behind in basically every footprint you leave – and got incredibly confused my first actual interaction with them was this… shambles.
Hardly. Most of that is just a smokescreen – remember, a currently #GG bravehero came up with the Punch Sarkeesian game, and they’re posting their enemies all over the Punchable Faces subreddit.
Sure, but if you engage with a GamerGater (something I don’t really recommend) on the subject of the Punch Sarkeesian game, you will discover that virtually none regard it as misogynistic. Because she deserved it. They don’t see themselves as misogynists because they rationalize away any and all examples of misogyny.
That sounds familiar. Hmmm…
/glares in the general direction of the Nuge’s commentariat
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/512110699435524096
Dawkins is pro-gamergate.
Of course he is.
What an ass.
@Corey Yanofsky
In his original post the sociopath ex says
5 days later he goes back and adds an edit that there was a typo that might lead some passive and thoughtful readers to believe he and Zoe were on a break and that there had been some infedility in March. He never states anything about reviews or Depression quest in his blog. He wrote a monstrous screed and fed it to Reddit and 4Chan. A weekend is a very long time on the internet, and his edit makes no real difference.
No matter how generous you may wish to be with this Gjoni jerk, in his more recent Buzzfeed interview he is clear that if he could go back in time he would not change a thing. He has no regrets and adamantly rejects responsibility.
I laughed out loud with Kluwe’s article, but Charlie Brooker remains the king for that sort of thing.
@4 buddhabuck
It really takes a severe degree of delusion to think that any of those people could ever support a group with such blatant mysogyny and general immorality (but like Athrywren said, delusional they are). I was not at all surprised to see Patton Oswalt on the “fallen hero” list either.
@14 Jackie
Jesus fucking christ….i’m such an idiot for still feeling surprised and betrayed by the shit he says….
There’s one thing with PZ’s OP that I’ve got a problem with: the comment that they are “all bark.” We mustn’t forget Marc Lepine and Elliott Rodgers; also, people who are forced to leave their homes or afraid of going outside are also being bitten. Also, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea with taunting someone who MIGHT go violent with the “all bark” label.
Some of them both bark AND bite, and those who do (by sending specific and detailed threats, for instance) should be locked up.
Joss Whedon?!
W….T….F were these people thinking?
Today I learned that Felicia Day thinks that being mentally ill is the same as being a dangerous criminal. Okay.
So, Adam Baldwin is as much of a slow-witted amoral jerk IRL as the character he played on Firefly? Only without the comic relief angle….
I’m a gamer. I think Anita Sarkesian’s videos often cherry pick and am not a fan. I don’t especially like the rampant “corruption” in games journalism. On my list of things to care about, that comes in way down on page, hmmm I might be out of paper here, need another ream.
She has a video series I don’t like that’s almost entirely supported by her fans and isn’t actively hurting anyone? Seems like a prime target and a perfect example of corruption. An Indie game developer got reviewed on a national publication? Corruption! A massive company buys all the ad space on a game blog run by a large national corporation just before their game is being reviewed? Well that’s just business.
I don’t usually swear when typing, but fuck these gamergate assholes. Kluwe is %100 right. You want to keep the term “gamer” alive? Well, in the sense that smearing shit on something makes noticeable, mission accomplished.
http://gawker.com/these-are-the-creepy-4chan-successors-behind-gamergates-1648966614/+kcampbelldollaghan
Definitely do not click the link if you cannot stomach a picture of 2 naked woman being strangled underneath the words “are women humans?” Trigger warning for everything you can imagine And nsfw.
Apparently the forums where gamergaters hang out apparently have a not-insignificant quantity (1 or more) of pro-pedophile “support and discussion” groups. Who would have guessed people who are pro-rape and violence support child rape or are just perfectly willing to tolerate pro-child molestation sentiments.
These forums are for people too extreme and creepy for 4chan and something something something FREE SPEECH!!!!’mn!!!n!n111
@Eamon Knight 22
Adam Baldwin in real life is probably actually worse that Jayne. It’s been open knowledge for a while, pick an issue and there he is, on the wrong side of it. I’m actually surprised he isn’t writing for worldnetdaily.
At what point does it occur to these people that they’re wrong? When basically every geek icon is calling them doucheweasels, how do they not get that, you know, maybe they’re the baddies?
But I suppose if they had any introspection at all and had paid any attention to their own hashtag and to the track record of Whedon, Wheaton, Day, and Scalzi, they surely should have realized at the outset these people would never be behind that hashtag?
I actually saw my first pure GG supporter claiming it was purely about journalism ethics in the wild on a comment thread from one of the many web comics doing pieces critical of GG. It was…enlightening. I was just stunned at the apparent obtuseness of the commenter, really claiming that it was all about paid reviews, and ethics, yada yada, and completely ignoring the mass of sexism, the application of the tag to other sexist attacks that have fuck all to do with game journalism, the attacks on Sarkeesian, who has fuck all to do with game reviews or the kind of game journalism they’re supposed to be talking about, let alone the fact that it all started with an estranged boyfriend spreading lies. I wondered if this individual was really that blind and pure, or was outright lying. Look, if anyone really has a problem with ethics in game journalism, then they should drop GG like a hot rock and run far away and create their own movement. One that criticizes cozy relationships with male game developers and reviewers as much as female developers and reviewers. One that criticizes those relationships without sexist (or any other) slurs, harassment of any kind, or threats. And publicly disavow GG. Recognize that: A. GG was never that. It was always misogyny. B. Even if it was, it’s not anymore, it’s a lost cause and you should probably nuke the site from orbit.
Honestly, have we finally, with this issue, sorted out at least who the complete and utter doucheweasels are and can we now make them complete outcasts, unable to gain employment, let alone dates?
ARGGGH. That sucks. I hope she is corrected about that and doesn’t double down. I have such admiration for her and she’s tried to do the right thing and speak up even though she was scared to do so. . She’s been doxxed by the ‘gaters too.
I so don’t give any fucks. You guys always have to get that out there front and center don’t you?
If I may just address a small spelling issue here: “Raeg moar”.
Jackie @ 27
My point was just that even though I don’t like her work, I hate the gamergate people infinitely more. How much the fact that she disagrees with me bothers me=0, how much the fact that those idiots bother me= A lot.
We can dislike things without hating them and wanting to destroy them and everyone associated with them. I disagree with her opinions, and were I a student where she was going to give a lecture, I would have gone and sat quietly through it. Maybe asked a polite question if there was a question period. I would also be pissed that there isn’t going to be a lecture because of death threats (and that the university wouldn’t take steps to protect her).
Hoku @ 24
He writes for Breitbart, so close enough…
At least Jayne didn’t want anyone on the ship to know he had betrayed them and asked Mal to make up a convincing lie. Shows a sense of shame. Puts him ahead of Baldwin, who seems proud to be the asshole who named this particular round of misogyny and hate.
Kind of OT, but I don’t get that whole “Anita cherry picks” thing. Her argument is that sexist tropes exist within games, not that they are all that is present within games. Counter examples may well exist, but they’re not relevant to the point being made, so not giving them a great deal of attention seems more like not going off topic than cherry picking to me.
Cherry picking is where you claim that, for example, the bible is anti-killing, and then cite the passages that are against killing while neglecting to cite practically the entire rest of the book. If the argument was merely that anti-killing sentiments exist within the bible, well fine, that’s true, and it’s not cherry picking to ignore the parts that are pro-killing, because they’re not relevant to the argument.
Tabby Lavalamp @ 30
I’m trying to decide if that’s better or worse.
When Vox Day is speaking approvingly of what you’re achieving, it’s probably time to consider that the movement might have some notable misogyny in it.
The most recent Pandagon article on GamerGate attracted a small invasion from Return of Kings, including Roosh himself. They are pro-GG, of course.
applebeverage @20
Are you referring to this part of her post?
Are you saying that these words are saying she thinks all mentally ill people are the same as dangerous criminals? Because that’s not what I am getting out of it. I read it as talking about a few specific individuals she has already had problems with being incited to cause even more problems for her if they get her address.
If I am missing something, I’d like to learn to stop missing it.
ajb47
I read her post the same way applebeverage did (mistaking potential stalkers and harassers as automatically mentally ill rather than malicious criminals), but reading it again, I think you are right that she was referring to individuals she dealt with in the past.
But I still have problems with it.
First of all, information about the mental health of these individuals is confidential, so there is a big probability that she is assuming they are mentally ill, which may or may not be true.
And second, people’s mental health status is irrelevant to how large a threat they are in real life or how likely they are to act out on threats, so it was not only unnecessary to include the “mentally ill” qualifier onto “people who have fixated on me,” but it also has splash damage that hits people who face stigma for their mental illness. Nothing would have been lost for leaving that out, but including it does actual harm to people.
@36
That’s exactly how i understood it aswell. Doesn’t seem to imply that “being mentally ill is the same as being a dangerous criminal” at all. She is talking about specific individuals there, who happen to be both mentally ill and potentially dangerous.
@37 toska
I didn’t see your post until i posted mine. Those are very fair points.
Yeah! She claims there is a lot of misogyny in games and to illustrate her point what does she do? She shows several clips and image captures from games with a lot of misogygny in them! How corrupt! How unfair! What about the games that don’t have misogyny, huh? She never shows those, does she? I play a lot of Sudoku, no misogyny there at all, and it doesn’t get even a head-nod from Anita! Oh, the cherry-picking! Oh, the unfairness! Oh, the corruption! Why, it almost seems that if game producers removed misogyny from their games that Anita might even stop making her anti-misogyny videos altogether! And then what could we hate her for?
*end mouth-foaming mode*
Thank you, toska @37. I think I see it now. I missed that splash damage was still being done despite her focus on the small group of people she needed to get restraining orders for. Now that you pointed it out, I think I can see my thought process as she was trying not to cause splash damage by talking about her own stalkers/people who had fixated on her (and this is where I was originally but now I can understand) but she ended up causing some anyway.
I know this is off topic but like others I don’t see how cherry picking applies. She isn’t combing over the data and finding a statistical blip that indicates the existence of a “Damsel in Distress” trope.
The trope exists by the fact that it’s been defined as a storytelling convention we’re all (or most of us) are familiar with. Anita is presenting examples of this trope and discussing what the use of that trope says about us as a society, and maybe how it might influence/reenforce existing base assumptions regarding the agency of women both in reality and in fiction.
There’s more than one post up there, and I notice that only Felicia’s has been picked at. Was Chris more delicate in his language than Felicia? Do you just expect him to do whatever boys do? Does Felicia need to be an angel before she can have your support when she is dozed and stalked?
I get that she didn’t need to say “mentally ill” when she could have stopped at “stalker” and I really hate to pull the lived experience card on this, but, I am seeing a therapist myself and could fit under “mentally ill” myself. We don’t need a cred showdown.
My point, though, is that you are picking the one thing in her really relatively calm and nice and self effacing post, when Chris is quoted here too….
She was doxxed within a day.
His fallout? Nothing.
Her post, picked at.
His insult laden diatribe? Crickets.
I’m fine with being called a SJW. I’m willing to stand up for mentally ill folk, but, right here and now, castigating this particular person for something like this? it is a little like, I don’t know, slamming a game developer (of a free game) rather than a journalist for journalism ethics, or attacking an independent reviewer for reviewing games or something.
Kluwe did use some ableist language (“mouth breather” a couple times and “-tard” suffix off the top of my head) and wished harm in at least one spot. It’s definitely as worthy of criticism as Day’s post.
aerhina @ 42
Um…very little. One is trying to pass raging misogyny off as being a concerned consumer and the other is pointing out a single troublesome detail in a post that was otherwise well done.
Jackie @ 14;
At this juncture there are no depths Dawkins could sink to that would surprise me. He is consistently on the wrong side of almost every political and social issue these days, and I suspect has held these regresive and toxic attitudes for longer than any of us care to admit, since we have only noticed it relatively recently.
As such, I wasn’t surprised, having clicked on the link you provided, to find that the twitter feed was crawling with idiots droning on about ‘preferring equality to feminism’ (as if women don’t face special forms of discrimination in our patriarchal society), drawing false dichotomies between notional ‘fact based’ and ‘radical’ forms of feminism (where the apparently ‘evil’ radical feminism covers anyone who actually thinks that harrasment and abuse of women is truly a bad thing in any meaningful way), and ranting about the alleged perfidy of ‘SJWs’ (because fighting for social justice and in defence of the fundamental dignity and humanity of all people – rather than just privileged, white, cis/het doodz – is the most monstrous of evils in this world view).
There is even one spectacular twit who goes by the handle Andy Caldwell who asserts, seemingly without irony, that he ‘won’t be persecuted for his Y chromosome’;
*Snark* Because simply asserting that women are people too clearly amounts to the persecution of men as a social group, but of course. */Snark*
None of this surprises me, but it does depress me. Thanks to Dawkin’s still vast media profile, this is the nauseatingly bigoted face of atheism that millions of people will see. So not only is it monstrous in its misogyny and abusive attitude toward women, but it also offers all but unlimited ammunition to anyone who wishes to trade in the old trope that to be an atheist is automatically to be an unethical abomination utterly incapable of moral behaviour – that is fundamentally impossibe to be good without god.
Thanks a bunch for that, Richard.
aerinha #42
I left a reply to your post in the Thunderdome #258 because I don’t know if it’s derailing or not, but I do think the focus of this thread should be on criticizing the GGers, not Felicia Day.
Kluwe gets to lay out a pretty epic line:
“I’ve been made fun of by the jocks, even when I was on the football team.”
I would have left out the bit about wishing genital warts on people, though. Considering the gamergaters are threatening and wishing harm on people, it seems a bit of own goal.
His insult laden diatribe? Crickets.
I made my comment before I got to yours. Honest.
When Vox Day is speaking approvingly of what you’re achieving, it’s probably time to consider that the movement might have some notable misogyny in it.
Unless, of course, it’s racist or about bad books. Either way – with friends like him, you need an “I’m with stupid” Tshirt.
The paragon of atheist rationality, ladies and gentlemen. Happily teaming up with conspiracy theorists and racists if it means attacking women!
@skasowitz
Yeah, that Buzzfeed interview really showed that in spite of the SJ sympathies Gjoni professes, he’s descended to full-on douchebaggery.
“I guess”? Seriously?
So a list of semi famous people/institutions in favor of gamergate: Adam Baldwin, Vox Day, Dawkins, Breitbart.com, wikileaks, and who else?
@hoku:
I’m a gamer. I think Anita Sarkesian’s videos often cherry pick and am not a fan
I hear this a lot. And, though it’s slightly off-topic for the thread, I’d like to help you a bit with it.
What Sarkeesian is doing is not cherry picking. She’s not saying “all games are bad” which would be what you’d be trying to do if you were cherry picking pieces of games and trying to get people to draw a larger conclusion from the pieces she’s presenting. What she’s saying is “the stuff that I’m illustrating, here, is bad.” See how that works? It’s not even saying “the whole game that contains this is bad.” Just, “hey, this stuff, right here – this little bit here – it’s unnecessary, misogynistic, stupid, and doesn’t improve the game.” I think that many people’s reaction to Sarkeesian has been similar to yours: there’s a tendency to get defensive because there’s a feeling that she’s saying “all games with misogynistic content are bad” or even “games, bad!” (that’d be a stretch!) She’s not using those examples as cherry-picked evidence to accuse gaming in general; she’s attacking the bits in specific.
That’s why a lot of your more rational peers are puzzled why anyone thinks this is a thing. Because some people appear to be defending having scenes in games where you pointlessly* beat up prostitutes, etc. Of course, that’s the same problem going the other way: people who are defending games in general aren’t defending scenes in games where prostitutes are being pointlessly* beaten up. It’s important to understand the scope at which the critiques are taking place.
(* that word is really important in that context)
All fixed!
seven of mine @ 43
Sorry, forgot my snark tag on my last paragraph. The failure mode of humor, etc.
Marcus Ranum @52
I’ve generally avoided discussing that in this thread, other than to state where I’m coming from, because I want to keep the focus on the gamergate idiots. So I’ll be brief and say that my objection comes from video’s I’ve seen of hers pointing to scenes and things that I don’t think are in proper context. I’m not saying that the video game industry doesn’t have issues dealing with women (because that would be comically untrue), just that I think she often uses scenes to make her point that do not do so in context.
However, the fact that I don’t like her work doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be out there. That’s a lesson that the gamergate people need to understand. Well that and the fact that other real people are not NPCs, despite being on the internet.
So… you think there are contexts where beating up prostitutes, or watching them get beaten up, or where dead women are in sexual poses, is okay?
*edges away slowly*
@ rowan 56
No. But that’s also not what I ever said.
All you have done is make assertions of lack of context. Please show a concrete example or two to back up your claims.
hoku
Fucking learn how words work. If you think Anita’s leaving out context is a problem, then you think including that context would nullify or at least mitigate whatever she’s criticizing.
So if you *don’t* think there are contexts where such things are okay, what exactly is your complaint again?
@ Rowan 60
My complaint is a minor one about minor disagreements that lead me to not spend my time with a product (YMMV) and is largely irrelevant to the topic of how much the gamergate people suck.
Sooo… your initial complaint where you said stuff was out of context was a lie then, OR more likely you’ve realised that you truly stuck your foot down your esophagus and would much rather we forget that instead of stare at it in rather morbid fascination.
TOO LATE! We are staring.
@ hoku
One thing people are sensitive to here, for good reason, is how a person connects themselves to an issue. I appreciate that you are trying to keep things focused on gamergate idiots, but regardless of intent stating your opinion about Sarkesian’s videos is a qualifier.
In this context that qualifier looks like a bit of self-promotion. It’s not enough to say that you think the treatment of Sarkesian and women in gaming is terrible, you felt the need to do something to self-promote. It looks unseemly because if you are doing a good job of trying to help on this issue you should not need to inflate yourself. Your actions will be enough. So some people are left wondering, why did you feel the need to inflate yourself? It’s not wrong per se, but it’s not wise to give people who are rationally defensive a reason to question your motives.
The place where pointing out that you don’t like Sarkesian’s videos is really valuable is places where gamergaters are present and arguing their points.
hoku,
You brought it up. Be specific. Hold yourself to the same rules you hold her to. If it is so important that you mentioned your problem with her before you mentioned your problem with the people terrorizing her, I think you should be able to explain yourself.
things that I don’t think are in proper context
That was why I starred the word “pointlessly”
hoku @ 61
<blockquote.My complaint is a minor one about minor disagreements that lead me to not spend my time with a product (YMMV) and is largely irrelevant to the topic of how much the gamergate people suck.
So minor and irrelevant, in fact, that you went out of your way to inform us that you disagreed with her before you could condemn harassment of her.
boo, sorry bad blockquote.
The first two lines are hoku. Rest is me.
John Scalzi’s latest is also brilliant. (Yeah okay, when is Scalzi not brilliant?)
@ Daz:
When he’s shitfaced on Coke Zero!
(Not embedding as link to hopefully avoid autoembed); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3uc6ITyxbg
*applause*
hoku, #55
An example would be nice. It won’t derail the thread as that’s the very topic. Just link to her video and tell us the time when her objection to out of context sexism occurs.
@hoku, 55
I haven’t seen all of the relevant videos yet, but I have had that thought a couple of times in the middle of a video before. But, the thing is, that feeling goes away toward the end of the video when she clarifies everything that needs clarifying.
I found the arrogance and ignorance in this comment from one of the Gawker sites to be astounding:
The delusion is strong in this one:
I’ve tweeted a few times using the #StopGamerGate2014 hashtag, along the lines of “Stop GamerGate so I don’t have to keep explaining to my daughters that there’s no such thing as ‘boy games’ and ‘girl games'”. Within minutes I was accused of using my daughters to inject politics into gaming and they’re #notyourshield etc
hoku @ 55
The big example of this I keep hearing is her inclusion of Hitman in the 2nd women as background decoration video: “You lose points if you kill the strippers! You’re not supposed to kill them!!!” Which is just utter bullshit. The Hitman series prides itself on allowing players to choose their own path through the game, using either stealth or direct violence, or a combination of both. If you’re seen by these women during that level, they give away your location, requiring you to kill them and hide their bodies if you want to continue the stealth approach. It’s a valid approach within the rules of the game. Anyone claiming otherwise is either being duplicitous or hasn’t played the game, both accusations leveled at Sarkeesian over the same example.
Who wants to bet that the person writing this is 20 or younger? Not that there’s anything wrong with being younger than 20, but if they are, then I’d been villainously appropriating their culture several years before they were even born.
We’ve always been here, in ur culture, gettin pissed at ur misogynist bullshit. We are not appropriating ANYTHING from you. Neither are the moms spamming candy crush requests. Humans play games, we have done this for millennia, the fact that we’re now doing so on computers and have gotten over earlier generations’ weird idea that computer games are somehow less valid than boardgames isn’t proof that gaming is being invaded, only that not every game has to be hardcore. And so what? Hardcore is a nonsense concept that wraps itself around whatever the person using it likes and rejecting anything they dislike. It’s ridiculous.
We’re not demanding “entrace,” we’re demanding more pylons.
The status quo is “apolitical”, and the current ideologies ruling the video game roost are “neutral”. That’s the place they operate from. It should be familiar to any anti-racists and anti-sexists here, I think.
Few things, hoku:
You can’t just hide behind the wishy washy “it’s just my opinion, nothing worth talking about” card when you making specific, verifiable accusations.
Vague accusations of “out of context” without specifics or evidence are the most common and most inane “complaints” on the internet. They are a fucking irritant, especially since people regularly spew them out, expect to be taken seriously, and then when finally pressed on specifics, 9 times out of ten, they are full of shit.
You can’t expect us to not be irked when YOU decide to bring up this complain, despite it being apparently irrelevant to you, when this is also the same complaint that lots of gaters bring up to excuse their hatred of Anita.
The accusations of Anita taking things of context all even more likely to be bullshit than usual. Thunderf00t and many, many, MANY others whine and complain about her taking some scene in Hitman about strippers out of context. However, if they actually listened to what Anita was saying, during the clip itself let alone during the rest of the video, they would hear her arguments about what their “mitigating factors” are bullshit! They bring up the arguments as if they are novel, yet anyone watching the video would hear her giving the rebuttals to the very arguments that these assclowns are bleating out!
There is not a lot of intellectual honesty among the critics of Anita Sarkeesian. And, as you are well aware, there are outright malicious, violent, poisonous individuals hiding in the mob of dishonest handwringers. You know this, and it is why you have the good sense to not lay your cards and spell out your nitpicky complaints about her videos. But that just makes me wonder why you would bother to bring up nebulous accusations in the first place? What’s the point?
Unsolicited and insubstantial complaints about Anita Sarkeesian set off alarm bells for me at this point. It should for anyone who has been paying attention, honestly. Because, when it boils down to it, people oppose her for no real reason. They ultimately just exaggerate or outright fabricate reasons. She and her videos are just hated in a knee-jerk, blind, unthinking fashion. Everything else comes afterwards, as rationalizations. It is like fucking clockwork. Virtually every single shithead with a non-specific complaint about her, from demure to the howlingly enraged, when pressed for specifics, have absolutely nothing. Exaggerations and falsehoods and trivialities. That is all the fuel they need for their outrage machine.
I would sincerely not like to believe you in the same camp, hoku. But you seem to very uncomfortable with the prospect of defending your opinion on the matter, so maybe it is something you need to explore more, and examine more about the matter, and maybe even examine yourself and your prejudices and preferences and knee jerk responses. Or maybe just avoid bringing it up. Whatever works.
@Matthew Trevor
The Hitman series prides itself on allowing players to choose their own path through the game, using either stealth or direct violence, or a combination of both. If you’re seen by these women during that level, they give away your location, requiring you to kill them and hide their bodies if you want to continue the stealth approach.It is also worth noting that the penalty _isn’t_ for killing them, it’s for leaving their bodies around for someone to find. Note how you get the points back if you hide the bodies.