#GamerGate Manifesto Translated into English
Courtesy of somewhat_brave
This graphic by somewhat_brave on Reddit pretty much nails it. (Click here to see a larger version.) When #GamerGaters talk about “ethics” in journalism, this is pretty much code for “journalists shouldn’t be allowed to say anything critical of us!”
And in case you missed the all-Cat version of the manifesto, here it is again:
Posted on October 18, 2014, in #gamergate and tagged #gamergate. Bookmark the permalink. 114 Comments.
Buttercup Q. Skullpants: Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker that said “Honk If You’re Devo” and had a laugh.
@Dennis Jernberg. Hi! Occasional commenter here. I was around during the days of which you speak, and I still consider myself a radical feminist. There are more of us still around, still working for feminist causes than you may be aware of. I don’t mind being characterized as an old relic, but I reject the label of “extremist”. Many of the things we advocated for back then were thought to be extreme but are totally accepted now. Women doctors, women lawyers, people forget how few we used to have. I remember having discussions with people about why I would go to a woman doctor, and why I thought women were entirely capable of being doctors. And I’m only in my 50s.
Radical feminism:
From here: http://bellejar.ca/2014/07/04/seven-reasons-you-should-thank-a-feminist-today/
True story: the final nail in the coffin of my friend’s marriage was that, when she went to the bank, she discovered that he’d cleaned out her account to go bet on the horse races.
It was not a joint account. It was her account. His name was nowhere on this account.
She expressed her displeasure to the teller, who responded, “But he’s your husband!”.
This was in 1985.
Seconded and welcome!
I had this weird moment of déjà vu where I was reminded of reciting the Apostle’s Creed in church as a kid, all those monotone voices speaking as one. At the time, it was comforting to have all my beliefs wrapped up in a premade statement and to be united as a group. But that groupthink scares me now. It’s weird, too, that they so blatantly jacked the style of the Apostle’s Creed (and similar creeds). Denotes a lack of willingness to think and question.
Interesting how older feminists are told to sit down and shut up because they’re too old, too extremist, too manhating and living in the past.
Yet, younger feminists are told to shut up because they’re too young and inexperienced, too privileged and sheltered, and besides women already can vote and have careers so there’s nothing left to do and women in the third world have it worse.
It’s almost like a woman of any age has to sit down and shut up. The men are talking!
Fifth Estate? What’s that? Is the Gaming Press it’s own estate now?
1st Estate: The Aristocracy.
2nd Estate: The Clergy.
3rd Estate: The People
4th Estate: The Press.
5th Estate…?
5th Estate is commonly used to talk about bloggers, bloggers, and journalists operating outside the “mainstream media.”
Well, semi-commonly, anyway.
The Fifth Estate is a long-running investigative journalism show on CBC in Canada. So there’s that.
People like Totalbiscuit, a popular vidya reviewer on YouTube, who a lot of people liked… until he started posting tweets like this:
Dude… There’s so much wrong with that.
* Many consumers DO care about things like sexist tropes in video games, and would rather play games that avoid them.
* The reason you think you don’t have a political ideology is that you share the ideology that games have been pandering too. Accepting the status quo is an ideological position.
* If you serve the consumer, you serve the consumer and you shouldn’t care about affecting sales for the company.
@cloudiah – So, TotalBiscuit IS showing his ass. I started suspecting he might be like this after I saw tweets of his on tumblr right after this whole kerfuffle started.
^ Yeah, that stance is asinine.
As with any other art, consumers/appreciators will learn which critics generally jibe with their POV and which don’t. One’s lense is part and parcel to the critical process.
The idea of a purely technical review makes no sense.
I mean, have you ever seen a film review that focused exclusively on the camera work and sound design? A book review that raved about sentence structure?
C’mon, guys – if you want video games to count as art, they’re going to be subject to the same cultural and critical forces as art.
“Yes, it’s clear that the artist used a #5 horsehair for the majority of this work.”
“Oh – what is the subject of this painting?”
“Oh, we’re not here to discuss that. It’s too open to interpretation. Let’s stick to the technical details.”
Anarchonist, Kittehserf, Wierdwoodtreehugger, thank you for the welcome! My very own welcome package!!!
Wormwood, you forgot that if you’re not too old to be relevant or too young to be experienced, you must have slept with someone to get your platform. it’s almost like…they’re…excuses, not reasons?
Gah! Sorry wierwoodtreehugger! You got autocorrected twice!
Oh, wait – I forgot that art /may/ be interpreted, it’s just that it must be interpreted through the dominant paradigm.
Otherwise, you’re a SJW Feminazi Sheeple-Drone.
Yep.
If you’re don’t subscribe to thoughts dominant in a particular sphere (like gaming), you’ve obviously given over to the hive mind.
My bad.
which is also why we don’t see very many of the man-hating ’70s kind of radfems the MRAs have always mirrored anymore…
I know that extremists were never mainstream in the women’s movement. But they had a much higher profile in the ’70s for two reasons:
I’m going to address the latter first: They were higher profile because the fight was being harder fought. Just as today the attempts to say “we don’t need feminism because…” trots out incremental gains as total reversal of the stautus quo, so too did the “radical feminists” get used to show that allowing those incremental gains would lead to inversion of the social order and destruction of all life as we know it.
As to the “mirrored”… nope. So fractally wrong as to almost make we want to ignore it. The most radical of feminists never engaged in systematic campaigns of terror against men. The MRM does that. Any woman who sticks her head above the crowd gets piled on.
Any movement which attacks women (e.g. GG) gets their enhtusiastic bandwagonning. Any women who get attacked for standing up (e.e. Malala) gets denigrated; and they say should have stayed in the kitchen where she belongs.
There is no parallel.
It’s interesting that you (a child, at the time) are telling those of us who were not children then, “how it was”. It’s also interesting how narrowly you’ve defined those who are allowed to have opinions. Not the “old relics” (who might have some perspective) nor the “angry teenagers” (who might have fresh perspective”. Nope, only the middle of the road sorts in their twenties and thirties (perhaps even their FORTIES…though that’s getting close to Old Relic).
Convenient that, the people with the most on their plates are also expected to add the burden of being the “good” voice of feminism. Not that fuddy-duddy radicalism we discredited, nor the ignorance of youth we want can ignore.
Nope… just the people who are most struggling with the present effects of inequality.
and now I’m late to work
The problem with TotalBiscuit can be described with a repurposed quote from Polygon: he treats video games like toys instead of cultural artifacts. That’s perfectly fine as one approach and I used to watch him because I like discussions of game mechanics, but he seems to think that’s the only valid one and complains whenever anyone talks about story or themes on a critical level.
TotalBiscuit is probably the worst casualty of all this because he has considerable reach and influence. He has 1.8 million subscribers and 360,000 Twitter followers. So long as he keeps posting shit in support of GamerGate and advocating for the silencing of all political discussion in video game media (he believes boycotts against advertisers for a site’s dissenting opinions are a valid tool), this shit isn’t going to stop. I’ve tried reaching out to his level-headed friends to try and get them to convince him that GamerGate is not the cause he should be backing if he cares about ethics, but honestly, he seems perfectly willing to go full-on “everyone is conspiring against me!” crackpot on this.
Also, let it be known: on day one of Zoe Quinn’s harassment, he was there on the front lines. He indirectly rebroadcast unproven accusations against Zoe, got in nasty Twitter fights with people criticizing that decision, and even yelled directly at Zoe because he’s so self-centered, any mention of “YouTubers” can only mean him. Since then, he has appeared as a guest on KotakuInAction and Kingofpol’s streams with MundaneMatt. I only listened to an hour and a half of the former, but he ate up every last conspiracy theory they threw at him and the worst quote of all is (paraphrased):
“I believe the idea of policing the community is bullshit.”
Make no mistake: he’s one of the bad guys.
@proxime “C’mon, guys – if you want video games to count as art, they’re going to be subject to the same cultural and critical forces as art.”
Whatever, femi-sheeple. Every REAL intellectual knows that Captain Killslaughter 7: Tale of the Death-Hatchet and Tittydragon 3: Legend of the Improbably Large Breasts are the supreme artistic achievements of the twenty-first century.
/sarcasm
vbillings:
It’s actually about as long and verbose as the Nicene Creed:
We believe in real Game,
the first person, the shooter,
rapist of hos and skanks,
of all that constitutes womankind.
We believe in one Prophet, Eron Gjoni,
the most sincere player of Game,
eternally delighted by the shooting,
Gamer from Game, Glow from Screen,
real Gamer from real Game,
enthused, not malicious,
of being one with the Shooter.
Through him all opponents are raped.
For us and our gaming culture
he came down into basement:
by the power of Journalistic Integrity
he became irate with Zoe Quinn
and was made an oppressed man.
For our sake he was criticized under Anita Sarkeesian;
he suffered bans and a restraining order.
On the third day he ranted again
in accordance with the Ethics
he ascended into internet
and is seated before the Screen.
He will come again in glory to shut up the social justice warriors
and his session will have no end.
We believe in the Journalistic Integrity, the ideal, the giver of reason,
which proceeds from the Game and the Gamer.
With the Game and the Gamer it is paid lipservice.
It has been talked about by Gamers.
We believe in one small manly Gamer community.
We acknowledge one gaming system for the playing of Game.
We look for the release of new editions,
and the playing of games to come. Amen.
My thought on the “We are alive” was “We are the Borg”
Nah. He just reflects the general sentiment of Gaters: he wants video games to be taken seriously only when it’s convenient for him.
Slightly irrelevant but related to the bank account story earlier: When my grandmother decided to get her tubes tied (when that was finally an available option for her), the doctor put the consent in front of her and said “Well ma’am, I can’t do it without your husband’s consent.” My grandfather was all like ??? “Okay… I’ll sign…” And my grandmother said, “You touch that pen and you’re a dead man.” Amazingly, they did the surgery anyway. I’m really disappointed I never got to meet my grandmother…
Somewhat on/off-topic, since Mundane Matt was brought up. YouTube was dumb enough to suggest this channel to me – another misogynistic talking head living under the false pretense of hyper-rationality and lacking the self-awareness to realize his “allies” include various reactionaries and racists. That means people like (of course) David Aurini:
https://www.youtube.com/user/SargonofAkkad100
@Alex – I remember him yelling at Zoe about YouTubers, I got into an argument about that on tumblr and lost some followers for it because I pointed out he just did the YouTubers version of #notallmen. Knowing he’s fully onboard with the runaway train that is GG means I will no longer support his crusty rear in any way shape or form. I really remember that argument because the kid I was fighting with (who posted really GROSS and graphic anti-Zoe propaganda) accused me of thinking all men were MRAs automatically.
When GamerGaters and their ilk demand that video games be “taken seriously as an art form,” what they mean is “I want my hobby to be treated as a Respectable Grown-Up Pastime so people treat me with reverence for devoting all my waking hours to it instead of giving me dirty looks when I talk about how I ‘raped’ the opposing team in Call of Duty.”
Hyper-rationality huh? The guy can hardly keep focused with a coherent argument. Like the Internet Aristocrat, nearly all of his channel is him screaming at the evil “social justice warriors”.
It is a rather odd sentiment, though, considering critical analysis of a game outside of its graphics and mechanics is taking videogames – as an artistic medium – seriously.
Most GamerGaters I find, far from being these intellectual titans they claim, to be incredibly anti-intellectual. That they behave as if somehow be “above” ideology is a a sign of such, when they take sources from Breitbart-related websites (so much for “journalistic integrity”!) and regularly throw their hats in with right-wing ideologues – it makes unfortunate sense given the majority of the “SJWs” they hate (including us here) are largely left-wing. The fact they give more of a shit about videogames simply being a product, an over-glorified toy, than as narrative that deals with issues of importance tells me they don’t want their much-loved medium to evolve.
@NickNameNick
Sargon is on this expose of the “bad apples” of GamerGate. That article’s only failing is bringing up Paul Elam, but not mentioning that he created a fake offender’s registry to coordinate harassment against women (which still exists, but has been gutted and abandoned). Seems awfully relevant now.
Fifth Estate? What’s that? The last few weeks have shown that they must obviously mean the mob.
Like I said: it’s a false pretense. Most people who go around claiming they are somehow more objective than anyone else are full of horseshit.
His “About” section is sickeningly self-aggrandizing while also managing to be kind of pathetic:
The kicker being…
Having trouble finding work myself, part of me feels it’d be unfair to mock him for such…but it doesn’t help he spends time making videos that are as long as four hours.
Seems less like a “job” and more of an “obsession” at that point.
Totalbiscuit, oy. So much for Let’s Players staying silent about Gamergate, the one person who makes noise happens to be on the pro- side.
Lacking? If you press them, you always end up with “The basic rights and dignity of non-whitecismen are just a matter of opinion, man! Calling the reactionaries and racists out is censorship, so let’s have a debate about what kinds of people count as human. And by debate I mean shut up! “. I spit on their faces.
I say “lacking self-awareness” because, in my experience online, some people are naive and gullible enough – not to mention desperate – to fall for racist and sexist arguments while reducing it down to “just an opinion”.
Question for those who ID as radical feminists:
What does “radical feminist” mean to you? In the circles I move in the term is entirely synonymous with trans-exclusionary radical feminism* and support for the criminalization of sex work.
*To the point where the word “radical” seems redundant; i.e. trans exclusionary feminism IS radical feminism and vice versa
Sort of off-topic, but I’ve come to the conclusion that hardcore #GamerGaters aren’t truly gamers anymore – not because “No true Scotsman” or “Not up to my standards,” but because they spend so much time harassing women on the Internet that they physically can’t have any time left for it.
Reblogged this on Confusing Medical Science Since 1971.
@M. the Social Justice Ranger
In their minds, they are still gamers because this is all an elaborate game to them and that’s what’s frightening. The fact that they dehumanize Zoe, Anita, and Brianna by calling them “Literally Who (LW) 1, 2, and 3″ and talk about the public perception of GamerGate if one of them is murdered is probably the part I find the most suspect about them.
@Leum
I speak for nobody but myself. For myself, I would say that the several non-radical flavors of feminism, in general, lack the ability to address the structure of society. Suppose the topic is the corporate glass ceiling. Liberal feminism says, “Women are people, and the problem with the glass ceiling is that women are facing forms of discrimination that men do not. If that gender-based discrimination did not exist, we would have more or less equal numbers of male and female CEOs.” Okay, that’s fair as far as it goes.
Radical feminism says, “The corporate structure is, at its base, is a male ideal, so there are no surprises in the fact that men do well in corporations. Corporations are designed with hierarchy, work hours, work structure, and work expectations that match a certain archetype that men are raised to fit, and women are not. So of course more men are at home in the corporate structure, and of course women struggle to fit. If a suit is tailor-made to one person, it should shock nobody when the suit actually fits that person and other people feel awkward in it.” That goes MUCH farther that the previous formulation.
Again, other people may have a different view and I don’t claim mine is the correct one.
@Policy of Madness, I personally favor radical politics over liberal politics. Radical politics gets to the very heart of the problem, which is usually extreme global capitalism. I find liberals very admirable in their cause of social justice. My problem, however, is that things like racism, sexism, classism, imperialism (practically every “ism” out there) are not bugs in the system, they are core features. As long we live in an extreme capitalist society we will live in a culture that rewards oppression and exploitation.
(I know non-capitalism societies like feudalism are very oppressive and exploitive also, but that doesn’t change the fact that our society is horrible.)
I am, as I have said here before, one of those raggedy old womens libbers from the seventies. The dominance and submission paradigm is postulated as the basis for the social hierarchy we are trained from birth to comply with, and even promote, in myriad ways. We aim to rip that apart and rebuild society without the dominance and submission and without the hierarchy.