Today is Veterans Day in the US, a day to honor those who’ve served in the armed services. That is, real soldiers, who have fought in real wars.
As one person with a silly name but a good point wrote on Reddit:
There are many examples of military-themed calls to action and propagandizing in [Kotaku in Action, the main GamerGate subreddit] used to rally their users into a virtual “battle” against ideas that they don’t agree with. …
Today, take a step back and remember that very real people fought in very real battles and answered very real calls to action for their country. Today should serve as a sobering reminder of not only those who served, but also how ridiculous [GamerGaters] sound when they pretend that this is some type of war they are nobly fighting for when there are those who actually serve bravely for their country.
GamerGaters love comparing themselves to soldiers fighting a war against, well, whatever it is they think they’re fighting a war against.
Their propaganda, much of which is made for internal consumption, is drenched in military imagery — some taken from video games, some from real life and real military propaganda. The ridiculously bombastic GamerGate video I posted here yesterday mixed game imagery with documentary footage from World War II.
It’s true that most of this military-themed GamerGate propaganda is intended, at least in part, as a joke. (At least I hope this Starship Troopers reference is meant ironically.)
But it’s also clear that a lot of GamerGaters take these “joke” memes and over-the-top rhetoric a lot more seriously than it deserves to be taken. They really think they are fighting some sort of noble battle for truth and righteousness.
Today, GamerGaters, try to have a tiny bit of perspective. You’re not fighting Hitler. You’re not breaking down the Berlin Wall. You’re not fighting for the future of civilization against the barbarian hordes.
What you’re doing is harassing women (and some men) and sending emails designed to punish online publications for daring to criticize you. It’s not a war. Hell, it’s barely even activism. It’s closer to a collective tantrum — though unfortunately, one that’s doing real harm in the real world.
When you compare what you’re doing to real war, you’re insulting those who fought in real wars.
Below, I’ve pasted in a bunch of #GamerGate graphics, found on 8chan and on Twitter. There are countless more just like these out there. And they are an embarrassment.
I guarantee you the majority of those whiny-ass crybabies couldn’t make it through basic, let alone the multiple enlistments I did. They can’t deal with criticisms of their hobbies; how the hell could they deal with active duty?
Signed,
A female veteran
P.S.
Please don’t thank me for my service. I didn’t protect anyone’s freedoms except those of corporate CEOs to exploit people and the planet. Just tell me you’re glad I’m home and done and doing better things.
I hope they listen. I somehow don’t think they will though.
MissyL:
Glad you’re home, and doing better things.
Holy crap on that last one… Censoring out the person’s face to insert themselves. That’s a whole new kind of low.
Gawker: because we couldn’t make it any clearer that we are the same assholes still angry that Violentacrez got outed.
It’s like some sort of social experiment designed to see how little self-awareness people can have.
Admitting that #GamerGate is a damaged hashtag? I love it when hints of possible future self-awareness somehow slip through the brainwashed idiocy.
The military imagery irks me, too. The gamergrotz want to appropriate the honor and nobility (such as they are) of serving in uniform, without ever getting off their own lazy, smug asses and putting in the effort. I don’t care how many times you died trying to save Princess Peach, you stupid asshole, it doesn’t compare to a single day of life as a fighting man or woman.
P.S. Missy, I’m glad you’re home safe, and doing better things.
Missy: I’m glad you’re home safe, and doing better things. And if you ever helped my niece while she was serving, thank you for the fact that she’s home safe and doing better things, too.
Those posters are… wow.
Note that the first image, indeed most of the images, aren’t even real militaries. Just fictional ones. In fact number one and number three are both art from Warhammer 40k’s fiction Imperium of Mankind. A decadent, xenophobic, bigoted, race-obsessed, myopic and casually genocidal theocracy that thinks nothing of sending its own citizens into literal meat grinders and worships a thing that’s not there anymore and probably never was. I hope the irony of associating with blood-drenched racists and race-purifiers isn’t lost on th- oh it absolutely was who am I kidding?
On the plus side, according to this we’re Tyranids or Orks! Orks are fucking rad as shit. Oooh, maybe we’re Necrons!
The Imperium are space Nazis, so it’s a perfect fit.
I’m waiting for them to claim that they have PTSD from all that dying during games and that therefore it’s extra super evil for people to call them out for being shitheads, honestly. It’s the next logical step for them to take after Operation Take Over Tumblr.
Please tell me they aren’t actually trying to appropriate Veteran’s Day with a million self-congratulations.
They are, aren’t they.
Yet more face-value media consumption and appropriation from these uncritical non-thinkers.
Does a time-out in which we all just leave the room and ignore their grotesque display of naughty behaviour work on a tantrum of this scale? Either way, I’m thoroughly bored of it, and ready for a glass of wine.
Missy: I’m glad you’re home safe, and doing better things.
Tyranids > Orks! I mean, what else invades worlds (forums/subreddits/sites), consuming and converting all the biomass (innocent users/menz) to increase its own power before moving onto the next.
Sounds just like SJWs/feminists! /s
(Note: I may be biased, Tyranids are my favourite race of the 40k universe. I figured if you’re going to choose one species out of a setting where species is horrible, you might as well choose the cool biology Alien-esque one that eats everything).
You know how you effect change in the world? You work at it every day. You walk the walk, you talk the talk. You discuss the problem and you explore solutions. You try to get people on board by appealing to their sense of decency, of justice, or of outrage. You don’t run around crying about how mean everyone is being to you. You don’t waste your time on incomprehensible memes and overwrought YouTube videos and goofy anthems.
The problem is that the real force for corruption in games journalism aren’t the journalists and bloggers, it’s the AAA studios. Plaid Social wanted editorial approval over reviews of Shadows Over Mordor in exchange for getting a review copy; where are the boycotts, Gamergators? Ubisoft embargoed same-day reviews for Assassin’s Creed Unity; where are the stupid memes of Assassins shivving IGN and Kotaku for trying to get the word out?
This is a movement that is first and foremost concerned with making its members feel good about themselves. I mean, their list of demands (well, one of the lists, anyway) involves forcing Gawker to apologize for saying gamers are dead. WTF. As someone who would be interested in having a discussion about ethics in games journalism, I wouldn’t touch Gamergate with a 100-foot pole. Especially since their endgame appears to be to increase the very real corruption in games journalism.
See, this is an actual issue with ethics in journalism. I cover a different kind of entertainment, and I’ve had PR flacks/artist’s management try to pull that crap. You know what you do when that happens? You say no. At which point they usually back off, if they realize that you mean it. If they don’t, then you still say no, and you blacklist them until they’re willing to follow normal review procedures. It’s not all that unusual for people to try to pull that shit, but for the media to allow them to get away with it? Yeah, that’s a problem that needs addressing.
For the real heroes, the real poem by Laurence Binyon
In comparison with real heroes Creepy gamer doodz deserve nothing but contempt.
I mean seriously, if your ultimate enemy is gawker and you’re as frothing as GG is, you have major fucking problems!
I encountered another one. Other tweets from his account indicate that he really is a US Army veteran, although one without much of a sense of perspective.
http://imgur.com/xeAGzww
The pictures they put together, though… you look at them and think they surely must be made by anti-Gamergate people in order to make Gamergate look as completely artless as possible. This is what happens when you grow up with a sense of humour and creativity entirely based on taking someone else’s photo and then stapling some Impact typeface across it.
Missy, glad you’re home safe, doing better things!
Jordan Owen said in one video that he thought people should be literally out in the streets protesting … Anita Sarkeesian.
There was a story in one of the local newspapers today about Congresswoman Duckworth. Her helicopter was shot down in Iraq and resulted in the loss of both her legs. It’s kind of insulting to real veterans when GamerGate compares their collective temper tantrum to a real war. These people suffered for something meaningful.
Duckworth, being a Democrat, is probably considered to be an “SJW,” and she’s suffered more than these losers ever will. Gators will keep talking about themselves as if they single-handedly fought off the Nazis. Of course, these folks don’t care about real veterans…
In the UK we just had Remembrance Sunday. The last thing I was doing when I reflected upon the machineries of war and how it chews up and spits out young men (often from lower socio economic backgrounds), and how glad I am that my sons will never be a part of it, was thinking of of how gamergaters are fighting a war too!
As has been said before – those war analogies are an insult to those who have served, whether living or dead, and those who mourn the dead.
While this is about the latest challenge (taken up by the Supreme Court) to the ACA, it reminded me of GG/MRM/”Dark Enlightenment” bozos:
http://grist.org/politics/david-roberts-explains-postmodern-conservatism-in-36-tweets/
in that they all seem willing to define contexts, situations, and even facts by their own terms (whether through true belief or willful obtuseness, I don’t know).
re: the source: I found this through Zite, so I can’t speak for Grist itself.
@davidknewton: That is one of the weirder things I’ve ever seen.