John Oliver makes a fine rant about the nastiness of internet trolls — it’s a little familiar to those of us who have been and are targets, but I’m happy to see more attention brought to the problem.
He failed to mention something, though: GamerGate. But that’s OK, because GamerGate immediately accepted the mantle of guilt.
John Oliver delivered a righteously satisfying segment last night about online threats and harassment against women. Here is a word he did not use, once, at all, ever: Gamergate. And yet for some unfathomable reason, many Gamergate fans are unhappy about the segment, believing it to be unfair and one-sided and besides, online harassment isn’t real anyway. Oh, word?
Oliver didn’t mention the Gamergate perpetrators at all, focusing a good chunk of the segment on revenge porn and the difficulty victims have in getting it taken down. The segment does, however, briefly feature clips of interviews with Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian, two of the three women relentlessly harassed and threatened by fans of ethics in gaming journalism. Also, Oliver had the temerity to suggest that white men have a different, less threatening experience on the Internet than anybody else.
Interesting. Talk about internet hate groups, and Gamergaters assume you’re talking about them. It’s almost as if they have a rudimentary sense of self-awareness.
It also reminds me of a recent report by David Futrelle…that as Reddit finally begins to crack down on a tiny number of hate groups within its labyrinthine morass, a whole lot of other, unbanned groups are worrying that they’re going to be targeted next. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that they have guilty consciences — it’s more that they already recognize their affinities to neo-Nazis, homophobes, transphobes, and such miscellaneous haters and collections of anonymous cowards.
Yeah, I saw the video yesterday and made the silly mistake of reading some of the comments. Lots of Gamergate whining about how terrible it was that John Oliver never mentioned Anita Sarkeesian’s dishonesty, about how Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu were never subjected to harassment and were in fact themselves guilty of harassing people. Not one of them provided examples, of course.
The following comment by “designbot” in the above-cited forum pretty much says it all:
The contrast between “that’s not harassment, all you have to do is unplug your computer!” and “but they’re bullying us!” is just too rich. It’s like they can’t even hear their own words.
Are these people even grown up enough to be called hypocrites?
I assumed they downvoted this video like that just because he was generally defending women on the internet. Misogyny seems to be the default on the internet, so of course they won’t accept someone being against it. I’m actually surprised that the video has more up- than downvotes at the moment. Usually anything even remotely smelling of feminism is instantly rammed into the ground.
*looking down*
He’s good.
@2 Raging Bee
If designbot hadn’t mentioned unplugging computers, i wouldn’t have known if they were talking about gamergaters or white, male scientists.
Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia wrote:
It’s amazing how many things that construct works for by simply replacing “that’s not harassment, all you have to do is unplug your computer!” with another phrase.
“You criticize girls in a lab, or they’ll cry!”
“Women are too emotional to do science!”
“Women are bad at computers because they’re too emotional and not logical enough!”
etc., etc.
@Raging Bee (#2):
Of course, the bestest part about just unplugging your computer is that, all of a sudden, nobody can read or post anything about you on the Internet, and any private personal details and images just magically disappear! All you have to do is unplug your computer, and the world forgets all about you! Honest!
Like when Revenge of the Sith was released, 10 years ago, and several among the right-wing started yelling about it being an obvious attack on George W. Bush’s administration and the Republican party in general. They complained it was painting them to be fascists and manipulating the public in handing over greater and greater power in the name of security and order, represented in the movie by Emperor Palpatine and his fledgling Empire. Sadly for them, Lucas had stated quite a bit ( and long before either the prequels or Bush 43 were a thing) that the Galactic Empire was little more than a stand-in for fascism in general- though if there were a real world analog it would naturally be the Nazi party during WWII.
Perhaps they, just like Gamergate, thought they passed a mirror and didn’t like what they saw.
Shesh, mine isn’t even that white and I get the same privilege.
It is horrible to contemplate that a police force, that is so ready to go kill people for no reason at all, can’t even be bothered to learn, I don’t know… fucking technology? At least write a fucking report so the victim can have some kind of evidence.
And this whole thing (online harassment/threats/etc) is a hellpit with no bottom. Because it is online, no state has jurisdiction (unless both parties are in the same state) or resources. The feds won’t give a crap unless it is a high-dollar crime, so what are we left with?
But what happens if you are in fact a woman with a penis? That just tends to make it all even worse…
My favorite comments are the ones from people saying something like “I agree with Oliver 99% of the time, but i can’t believe how wrong he is on this issue. Why didn’t he do the same thing he does on every other report.”
I love it because how completely unaware or self reflexive that comment is. The more people they list (Colbert, Stewart, etc) the better the comment.
bojac6: That is absurdly hilarious and hilariously absurd. Or, in other words, Typical Gamergate.
To be fair, it IS logical to assume that anyone giving a few seconds of screen time to Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu thinks that Gamegate is full of shit
laurentweppe:
And ironically, if you go on from there, and give Sarkeesian and Wu many, many, MANY minutes of screen time, and talk about them specifically for hours on end, it is logical to reach the exact opposite conclusion.
An epiphany few baddies will ever have. “Are we the baddies” from Mitchell and Webb.
@Dauphni 10
Very interesting observation. My first thought is that “she’s good!” should be fine. But some people don’t feel either connection…
And, of course, you’re effectively silenced in what is an increasingly important social space. A decent translation of ‘just unplug your computer’ given the centrality of the online world in the modern world is pretty much is ‘just shut up and disappear’…
… but, then, I figure that’s frequently exactly what the harassers are going for in the first place. So, great advice, that.
(And never even mind that ‘just unplug your computer’ really isn’t much gonna get at the problem if they’re emailing your employer.)
It’s like the worse possible version of the “First they came for the…” poem.
Instead of uniting in common humanity (despite their diverse beliefs) against fascist purges, they unite in solidarity over their offensiveness and willingness/desire to go and actively and invasively harass women or other minorities and groups online.
“First they came for the neo-nazis who preach racial violence…then they came for the fat-shamers who post photos and real identifying information without consent….then they came for the misogynist doxxers who make physical threats and attempt to bully women into silence….”
Just amazing how their glorified “free speech” is always revealed to actually be the “freedom to harass others into silence with focused mass abuse without any consequences or talk-back.”
I don’t want to disown them from humanity (well, OK, I want to disown them, but I know that it’s a bullshit way to cut myself slack), but MAN, these people are really just letting their shittiest possible sides show.
Brony @16:
Does John Oliver identify as female? They don’t seem to present that way.
@NelC 19
The idea had deviated away from John Oliver. I thought it was interesting, but really don’t have the perspective to know more than that.
I thought the gamergaters claimed that all the harassment stuff was either made up, or not them.
When an Australian morning show recently blamed the victims of revenge porn sites, one journalist – Clementine Ford – publicly criticised them:
Which, of course, generated the usual backlash that happens when women are seen as getting airs beyond their station:
Skimming her Twitter feed, I noticed a sizable percentage of the assholes were proudly affiliated with GamerGate, many even including the hashtag. Nothing about her message was directed at that (bowel) “movement” at all, but they still felt compelled to lash back.
Ford was shortly after given a 30 day ban on Facebook for republishing some of the vile shit she was receiving, because she was seen to have violated their “community standard”, while those who she was reposting weren’t banned at all. She was further attacked by the assholes for making “private” threats public, which is pretty much peak hypocrisy given the subject of her original post.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go drink myself into a stupor over the Australian Federal government and their opposition scrambling today to make legal the offshore concentration camps they’ve been funding for the past decade.
Hey Matt #22 – I think I’ll be drinking tonight and for much the same reasons.
Between the online misogyny and the despicable actions of both sides of our parliament, it’s a shameful way to be.
Re: the penis comment
I understood it not like “if you have a white penis, you don’t get harassed and you cannot understand what this is about” but as a “if you cannot understand what this is about because you don’t get harassed, you probably have a white penis, i.e. you’re a cis white guy, probably straight”
But I see how it can be interpreted as gender essentialist.
Re: advice on revengeporn
It’s just another way guys can have their cake and eat it.
First of all, it ignores all the pictures that got taken non consensually.
Second, if you, as a woman, are in a relationship with a guy, and you think he’s the love of your life, and he wants a nude shot, and you say “no way, if we break up, you might post it as revenge porn!”, youR’e gettinga ccused of misandry, of thinking horrible things, who d you think I am, I am disappointed, you don’t trust me, you think all men are rapists. Let him take one and you’re to blame if you’re a victim of revenge porn ‘Cause you should have known better.
Dauphni @10
True. Outside the main 3, the main group of women being relentlessly attacked by Gamergate are all trans women who are in or adjacent to gaming or who dare notice that they’re being attacked. And the forums that scum comes from (specifically the -chans) frequently make a sport out of trying to drive trans women to suicide through relentless harassment and doxxing. Not to mention that they often like to drag in trans women who have absolutely nothing to do with their hate-ons.
Which makes sense as trans women have always been viewed as a very specific threat to the type of insecure toxic masculinity that drives these little hate fests.
Giliell @ 24
Yeah, it’s always very interesting to see all the misogynist comments on rape survivors and victims of harassment come from this space of “it’s all your fault, why weren’t you more careful, blah blah blah” and then see those same people justify their whole misogynist hate-ons on those women that “follow” that “advice” by taking extra precautions and being more aware of red flags and so on. All the screams about the “misandry” of Schroedinger’s Rapist or the cold flat rejections of women at bars or “bitches” being all cold and prudish and not giving them the time of day or the nudes they demand within 5 seconds of meeting them.
It all ends up being painfully obvious that what these people want is not even to shift the blame to women for things men do, but to be able to do anything they want to abuse women and have women remain silent or happily thank them for it and even then they probably wouldn’t be happy because by the rules of toxic masculinity, the fear and pain caused to women is the point and beating up on a target that has given up and just takes it to make the hurting stop doesn’t earn you as many “I swear I’m a man because look how not a woman I am” points as beating up on someone who dares think they have a right to equal access to society.
In short, they are terrorists and like many terrorists wouldn’t even be happy in their “ideal” society.
Ah, previous comment got et.
Dauphni @10
True. Trans women are a huge strike target for Gamergate outside of the main 3 and some of the most vicious and direct campaigns have been aimed at trans women who spoke out on the misogyny or dared exist in or next to the gaming industry. And the forums they come from (the chans) often make a game out of seeking out some random trans kid somewhere and trying to bully them into killing themselves.
Giliell @24
Yeah, when you combine their “why weren’t you more careful” rhetoric with their whiny screeds about Schroedinger’s Rapist, Elevatorgate, women at the bar not falling for PUA crap, or pretty much anytime a woman is generally aware about red flags and dangerous behavior, it really becomes obvious how much their whole edifice is really about doing abusive behaviors and then getting away with it or better yet, having their victim’s existence as victims serve as proof of their evils and as justification for more harassment*.
*Gamergate are the absolute kings of this maneuver. Pretty much every bit of propaganda about the main 3 targets at this point to serve as their justification for attack is based around interpreting their existence as victims who haven’t disappeared yet as some horrific violent attack on them personally and proof of their evil greedy ways. Because carrying on and doing business as normal when a bunch of entitled white guys don’t want you too is proof that you were never harassed and that you made up all the harassment and therefore should totally be harassed for such evil duplicitous behavior.
And it’s all such transparent gaslighting, but pretty much any excuse the dominant groups in society can use to avoid thinking about the suffering and oppression of oppressed groups is considered a good one to them.
Matthew Trevor @22
The way that shitheads in one arena turn up as shitheads in others and the way that members of one hate group (such as Gamergate) turn up so often in other hate groups like white supremacists and MRAs, has lead me to start lending more and more credence to the Unified Shithead Hypothesis. That being that the assholes in one scenario are so often the exact same shitbirds that show up in other fucked up attacks or will soon join them.