Redditor explains why they left #GamerGate. (tl:dr: The raging hypocrisy.)
Goodbye, and thanks for nothing!
Here’s an interesting post by someone claiming to be a former GamerGater on Reddit explaining why they left the, er, movement and helpfully summing up a lot of what’s wrong with it. At least when it comes to GG’s rampant hypocrisy. Take it away, turbonerdsupreme!
It was a mixture of things really, but I think the starting point was Milo’s “You take your tits out for a living tweets” to Liana K. Basically what gradually convinced me GG wasnt about ethics (journalistic or otherwise) was the bayonetta affair, and their sheer hypocrisy.
They claim to be fighting for Journalistic ethics, while supporting and championing highly unethical journalists like Milo and Pinsof. It’s also important not to forget the Bayonetta affair where they tried to pressure a publisher into pulling a Gerstmann, and dropping advertisments on a site that gave their game a bad review. THEY LITERALLY TRIED TO BRING ABOUT THE SECOND COMING OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS EXAMPLE OF CORRUPT GAMES JOURNALISM IN HISTORY.
They denounce journalists like Leigh Alexander, being rude to people on twitter, while joining in with and celebrating the outright bullying, abuse and harassment of Milo “real professional journalist” Yiannopolous (i’d hyperlink an example but there’s way too many of them to pick just one, this guy is really scum, google it)
They attack Anita for not providing good value for her kickstarter money, while supporting, glorifying and No I’m Spartacusing, someone who scammed around $15k out of people using kickstarter as well as the obvious scam that is the Sarkeesian effect. [Although good news is Sarkessian effect stuff is starting to be voted down sometimes on KiA] They also welcomed the support of the Amazing Atheist a known scammer
They mock Cheong’s neo-nazi past, while having Davis “white nationalist on paper” Aurini, Milo “Iron Cross” Yianoppulous/Wagner (seriously what the fuck is wrong with this guy), the Holocaust denying King of /poll, and Stormfront among them. Not to mention their propagating of anti-Semitic /pol/ memes and frequent use of Jew as a slur.
They Call Chu a rape apologist (a completely bullshit accusation), all the while endorsing Roosh “No never means no” V, and Mike “Why Should I care when women are raped?” Cernovich. [Although to be fair support for Roosh has met some opposition]
They get super mad at Sarkeessian for supposedly not even liking video games, all the while championing Christina “Still hasnt actually played any video games to my knowledge” Sommers, and Milo “Are you noticing a reoccurring theme here yet?” Yianopoulos.
They claim they want politics and politically charged thinktank funded academics out of video games, while supporting Christina “works for a rightwing think tank” Sommers.
They claim Anita is the new Jack Thompson while supporting Jack “The Old Jack Thompson” Thompson.
They claim Milo Yianopoulos has redeeming qualities as a human being, while being frequently exposed to his tweets, articles, and videos. While admittedly this is not hypocrisy it does show extremely poor judgement.
In conclusion the majority of GGers show such a massive double standard in their treatment of progressives and social conservatives, that it is impossible to construe it as anything other than a thinly veiled right wing socially conservative movement, with no real care for journalistic ethics. That is why I left.
The links scattered around in there are pretty illuminating.
H/T — A Division by Zer0
Posted on November 19, 2014, in #gamergate, douchebaggery, evil SJWs, hypocrisy, reactionary bullshit, reddit, sarkeesian! and tagged #gamergate, anita sarkeesian, anti-feminism, antifeminism, reddit, video games. Bookmark the permalink. 113 Comments.
I guess it’s mostly about people feeling threatened, feeling like their favourite hobby or thing is “under attack”, which, in turn, means THEY are under attack. And when somebody feels threatened, it’s very easy for others, or even himself, to find some obscure, all-powerful target that clearly must be behind all of this.
I guess the chain of “logic” goes something like this:
I am a gamer -> somebody is questioning my games -> somebody is questioning me -> other people agree with the person doing the questioning -> I know for sure that the thing being questioned is perfect -> the people who are questioning my thing are either a) ignorant and not true fans of my thing or b) malevolent and actively hateful.
Note here that “questioning” can mean anything from changing the name of your favourite gun to pointing out feminist criticism to not praising your favourite chosen game into high heaven, or damning your favourite chosen worst video game.
@ted the fed
Well, there technically is something of an ethics problem in gaming – specifically, it’s an open secret that large review sites (namely IGN) and well-known individual reviewers have been accepting bribes from EA and Ubisoft in exchange for undeservedly good scores – but, of course, even #GamerGate’s bullshit cover story couldn’t give one dried-out dingo turd about any of that and they even count some of the bribe-takers amongst their numbers (*cough*TotalBiscuit*cough*). ETHICS!
@ Lordcrowstaff – two factors that add to the toxic stew. One: a persecution complex that leads many gamers to believe that nerds – that is, male nerds like themselves, who are/were picked on in high school – are the victims in any given situation (which of course means that whatever is happening to Zoe Quinn, she’s the real bully, and all of the people trying to defend her are just the popular kids picking on you). Two: the fact that although they feel constantly bullied, they’re actually privileged beyond all measure in the gaming world. Which means that every advance by someone else really does take something away from them, in the sense that their privilege is not total anymore. Where they once got the whole dozen cookies and left everyone the crumbs, now they only get eleven cookies. And since they’re the victim in any given situation, that means the high school mean girls and their bullying SJW minions have come to take away their only haven.
It really does make sense, if you start from a foundation of utter delusion.
It means this is not high on that person’s priority list, and probably not even in that person’s mind at all. If it were a big factor, why would the post not mention it? You’re still writing something into this that isn’t there. My reason for not supporting GG is because GG is a toxic sewer of misogyny and hate. That’s not a difficult thing to state, and this post could have stated that if that were actually a reason why this person doesn’t support GG anymore. That statement is not there.
The “Bayonetta affair” gets the all-caps treatment, but misogyny doesn’t even warrant a footnote. You’re not going to convince me that misogyny was super-important to this person, so important that the breakup post doesn’t even bring it up.
I’m saying it wasn’t enough for this person to leave GG, because it is not listed as a reason for leaving GG. I am taking this person at their word. I believe what they say. Why do you not believe what they say?
Let’s look at what the post actually says about the rape apologists.
Funny, I don’t see, “I don’t want to be associated with rape apologists,” anywhere in there. I see, “Here’s another example of the hypocrisy which I stated in my first paragraph was one of the two reasons why I left GG (the other being the Bayonetta affair).”
Give me some statement out of that post, any statement, that says something to the effect of, “I don’t want to be associated with a movement that welcomes rape apologists.” If you can’t come up with one, then that statement is an invention of your mind and not present in the post.
MY is cited as being bad because he’s a Nazi, because he doesn’t play games, and because he’s an all-around, unspecified bad person. He’s cited as a bully and a harasser, but there is no indication whatsoever that the high-gendered nature of the harassment has even caught this poster’s notice.
In fact, the only mention of any kind of gendered anything is the first paragraph:
There’s no hint that misogyny is a problem for this person. It is not listed as a reason for leaving GG. At best it was a “starting point,” but it wasn’t the ending point, and at no time does this post say anything about gendered terrorism (or gendered anything) as a reason to not like GG. One of the two stated reasons for leaving GG is hypocrisy, and the bulk of the post talks about (surprise!) hypocrisy.
There are many opportunities for, “oh, and also the misogyny” to be incorporated into the post, and none of those opportunities was taken. This means that it wasn’t that important. Nobody writes an essay listing the reasons why they left GG and then forgets to include a big super-important reason that was one of the major factors. The fact that the Bayonetta affair gets all-caps and misogyny doesn’t get a mention means that the Bayonetta affair was an important reason and misogyny isn’t.
If you can’t grasp that, then I can’t help you because you don’t want to grasp it and I can’t make you do something you willfully refuse to do.
But why didn’t he mention the misogyny in GG when he gave out all his other reasons for no longer supporting it? Sure, it’s nice that he doesn’t like blatant rape apologists. But he also called the harassment and threats that gamergaters did “being rude on twitter.” That tells me he still doesn’t get it. I’m glad GG lost someone, and I’ll take it. I’m not saying he’s a horrible person who should die in a fire or anything. But I’m pretty sick of being asked to set the bar for human decency so low for men. It gets a little tiring being expected to baby men and cheer them on for the slightest little glimmer of goodness. Especially since our culture sets the human decency bar very high for women.
This whole thing reminds me of those men that don’t see the need for feminism until they have a daughter. Better late than never I guess but it’s still problematic that they can’t see women as humans until one emerges from their loins. It’s still wrong that they’re only women in relation to themselves.
Only seeing women in relation to themselves rather. I wish there was a timespan of 5 minutes in which we could edit our posts!
@weirwoodtreehugger – Frustrating as it is, it’s really better like this. I shudder to think of the gaslighting some of our trolls would have done if they could rewrite their posts. Anyone here remember MRAL?
So this guy I’ve never heard of no longer supports ethics in journalism, because of a bunch of other people I’ve never heard of? Well, okay.
@titianblue – Come on, now… how could I possibly be sarcastic about prominent right-wingers pretending that they are not part of a prominent right-wing movement?
@Plaat *hangs head in shame*
I guess the way I see it is that there are good yet extremely misguided people in GG, and there presence is used to give the movement some air of legitimacy as its leaders and most virulent activists behave like scumbags. The only person in that group I really had any respect for is TotalBiscuit, and he seems to have tacitly backed away from the hashtag and come to accept that the movement is mostly awful like everyone else had much earlier.
I am uncomfortable when not everyone agrees with my tastes? That’s all I’m really getting from this. Damn gaming journalists, finding stuff entertaining that bores/annoys me, how very dare they.
Pffft. Too little, too late.
I’m with Policy of Madness and weirwoodtreehugger, here. Gamergate started out as a misogynist crusade against one woman, and the only way it’s “evolved” was to target more women. It was never about ethics in video game journalism. Ever. And the misogyny in gamergate isn’t hidden or subtle, it’s right there in your face. I can see someone getting suckered into it for five minutes without actually knowing much about it, but to spend any kind of time as part of it? Without being totally sickened by the rampant misogyny? Yeah, it’s a good thing this guy left and all and gamergaters are huge hypocrites, but the core of gamergate is misogyny.
Yeah, I have to say, when he went directly from describing the harassment of women on twitter as “being rude” to calling the harassment of a man “harassment” it was pretty clear that he doesn’t give a shit about misogyny, and that he may not quite be grasping the whole women are people thing yet.
To be fair, the “being rude on Twitter” post was, I believe, supposed to refer to Leigh Alexander’s behavior, not the behavior of those toward her. And the “harassment” was supposed to refer to MY’s behavior, not the behavior of those toward him. The grammar is not great, but that’s what I got out of that paragraph.
It’s one of many “examples of hypocrisy,” which in the whole comprise almost the entirety of the post. You’re being hypocritical if you slam one person for being rude while supporting someone else who is being abusive.
Nope. No no no. There are no good people in Gamergate. Anybody involved in Gamergate is engaged in the act of not being a good person. Good and bad are actions, not states.
There is no way to be honestly confused about what Gamergate is about and what Gamergaters do. That boat has long since sailed. This has been going on for months and it’s been obvious from the beginning that Gamergate is about harrassing women.
Anyone still involved in Gamergate either thinks that’s awesome, or is wilfully denying it exists. There’s no third way for the good-but-misguided who don’t know it’s happening. Supporting Gamergate is a bad thing to do and people should feel bad for doing it.
So, what you’re saying is, turbonerdsupreme ACTUALLY does care about ethics in games journalism!
I think I like this guy.
Because, yeah, ethics in games journalism is something worth pursuing. Ethics in any sort of journalism is worth pursuing. Ethics, in general, is worth pursuing.
The #GamerGate, as such, however, has so little in the way or real ethics, that it has driven away real ethical people, who want ethics in games journalism.
There’s a name for this. Now what was that, again? Cosmic irony?
@wordspinner
Yeah. I decided NOT to plunk down $60 or so for the Sims 4, because of what I read and/or watched on videos of games journalism.
Now I am reading stories by people who have played the game, and I believe that if someone were to give me the game, I would enjoy playing it. Although I don’t know if I’ll ever “get over” the lack of toddlers in the game.
It’s like comparing carob to chocolate. If you expect chocolate, and get carob, you’ll just hate it. But if you go in, knowing that you’re going to eat carob, and not chocolate, it’s actually quite tasty, in its own way.
Sims 4 is a different flavor, and plenty of people are liking it. However, they all need to know that it is a completely different flavor.
Thus, GOOD games journalism is important.
I’m pretty ‘meh’ on this explanation. I think it was aimed at ggators, which is probably why it doesn’t mention the rampant misogyny and terror campaigns; you can’t convert others with the talking points ggators already ignore.
But.
Like the others here, I found d00d’s reasons for FINALLY stepping away are just a little bit less than compelling.
I’m gonna go ahead and give turbonerdsupreme some credit for waking up, smelling the coffee, and finally figuring out just why it smells like piss so much. I’ve seen neo-Nazis go through their own “reform”, for lack of a better word, and what I took away from these folks is that what most people see as basic decency, can be a huge paradigm shift for others. It takes more effort than we might think, for these types to come to grips with the fact that they invested so much to a bad cause.
With that in mind, I also agree with others above that turbonerd does not deserve a medal, like, at all. Basic decency is not an achievement, it’s the expected bare minimum. From Day 1, it was blatantly obvious that GamerGate was a smokescreen for the internet’s latest excuse to harass women. The hypocrisy of sending death and rape threats to a financially vulnerable woman who clearly has nothing to do with journalism, because some guy couldn’t get over a break-up, all in the name of “ethics” in journalism; of sending death and rape threats to a feminist critic who said some games had some sexist content, then turning around and claiming you’re all about inclusiveness; of sending death and rape threats to a woman who retweeted a joke about GamerGate and then pretend GamerGate has nothing to do with it, and of course she must have made it up; all these signs and so many more were in plain sight from the beginning. Claiming that “I really thought it was about ethics” strains credulity, to say the least.
When I saw those neo-Nazis realize that their ideology was bullshit, I didn’t congratulate them on their victory, but on their first step towards victory. Some got better, and some remained horrible people, but in a different way. The same goes with GamerGate. Realizing it was bullshit is just a first step. The next one is to act on that realization and stop being a horrible person.
(Well, that rant went quite a bit longer than expected…)
@badgersdaughter
THIS.
I just went to the doctor today, and found out that my A1C went down by 1 tenth of a point. YAYYYYYYY! It needs to go down a lot more, and at this rate, it will take years, but still! It went down 1 tenth of a point!
Considering all I have to deal with, I’ll call this a (minor) win, and be happy. Mind you, if it went down a whole point, I’d be ten times happiER, but still, I’m happy.
I used to be a perfectionist, and I was exceedingly unhappy about life, because nothing was ever perfect. I have since accepted that “Good enough” is good enough, and if someone does something right, even for the wrong reasons, it’s still worth celebrating that they did something right.
As people learn and grow, their reasoning changes, too. Children generally do the right thing, because they know that their parents will put them in time-out or something, if they don’t. Eventually, they start to understand the reasons for their parents’ rules, and as they get older, they start claiming those rules as their own, then raising their own children with those rules, as well. Oh, sure, some of the rules change from generation to generation, but the really important ones (Share! Be kind! Be honest!) are the ones that last through the ages. And they last, because the more people follow those rules, the more they understand why those rules are important.
So, does he get a cookie? Sure. He can have an Oreo. Does he get a jumbo-sized home-made Oatmeal Scotchie with a tall glass of cold milk? No. But he can have that Oreo, from me.
I mean, I get what Policy of Madness is saying. Yes, I want more, too. I’m hoping that this is a sign that he’s on his way to learning something about misogyny and real equality. At least his mind is not completely closed, anymore. There’s hope. I’m happy.
I’m inclined to be happy about this, too, not that I require anyone else to be.
Yeah, I read that as well, though I had to re-read a dozen times, because as written it looks a lot like the author is saying GG denounced Alexander’s rudeness while bullying MY. But that doesn’t make sense in context of the author painting MY as a hero.
“author painting MY as a hero.”
That should be “author painting MY as a hero to GG.”
Michelle, congrats!
Btw I emailed you, did you get it?
@wordsp1nner
I love that so much. That’s exactly how I’ve imagined Vivian’s reaction to GG ever since I first saw the character design. The ‘gaters really should have realised that “Shuddup, play video games” cuts both ways.
Hey, do you know I can go to find more good!Vivian art without having to wade through the pro-GG stuff? I’m honestly scared to google for it.
The reddit thread is really interesting. I like this one, from someone who was probably more in the typical gamergater spirit than most of the others (didn’t like Sarkeesian, watched Internet Aristocrat video wanting to agree, etc.). It shows once again how patiently debunking and document everything (like David does here) is fundamental. It adds up, and the evidence slowly becomes impossible to ignore for whoever is willing to keep an eye open.
@kittehserf – When did you email me? I looked through, but couldn’t find anything from you. Sorry.
I’m afraid I haven’t checked my email in a while, so there’s a lot to look through.
Oh, it was a day or so at most. No prob, I’ll send it again now!
… aaand done! I might have sent it to your wrong addy before.
@kittehserf – Got the email! Thanks!
OK, I just had a tweet favorited, and I’m not exactly sure how to take it.
Granted, I’m very inexperienced with Twitter. But from his profile, I think he “favorited” my tweet in order to mock me.
Ah, well. Have fun!
Meanwhile, my sister, Mom and I just finished watching the Lord of the Rings. Couldn’t turn it off and go to bed. That movie is sooooo good!
Hobbit – next month! Yaaay!
Ooooh, you know what? I’ll bet they interpreted that as me being a GamerGate supporter, even though I was trying to be sarcastic about how I’m a woman gamer, and yeah, I really exist.
Clearly, I did a lousy job. Ooops.
Politics – I’m bad at it.
It took this person this long to figure this out?
I read the rest of the thread on which this particular post was made, and a good number of them (shorter and not as cleverly written) specify that it was the obvious misogyny that made them veer off of GG after a few days. So there is still good in the world.
Ah, slatestarcodex.
It really is an odd odd place.
One comes to his senses! There is hope!
ted the fed
So…it’s less about “corruption” in gaming when it comes to indie titles (and I don’t get why they’re not talking about AAA game devs being shitty either when AAA devs are practically the worst people next to Gators) and more like “I didn’t like it! Why is everyone going on and on about how good it is?! Stop liking what I don’t like! A game I didn’t like isn’t worthy of that much praise! IT’S OBVIOUSLY CORRUPTION AND I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SEE IT!”?
Sadly, that’s a pretty prevalent attitude in gaming culture. If you like a game some didn’t, then you’ll get shit. If you don’t like a game someone else did, you’ll get shit. “Stop liking what I don’t like!” syndrome is rampant. Just look at the fact that one of the GTA titles got 9/10 because the author thought it was a little bit sexist, and there was utter *outrage* on behalf of the readers. Petitions to get the person fired and change the game core were all over the place.
[sarcasm] We can’t all have different tastes! We’re all supposed to be a hive-mind because that’s how gaming works! We’re all supposed to like Call of Duty! We’re all supposed to hate indie games that are about wimmens and have stories that aren’t about war and make us feel things other than testosterone-fueled anger! ONE OF US! ONE OF US! HAIL ACTIVISION![/sarcasm]
“Sadly, that’s a pretty prevalent attitude in gaming culture. If you like a game some didn’t, then you’ll get shit. If you don’t like a game someone else did, you’ll get shit. “Stop liking what I don’t like!” syndrome is rampant.”
Pretty much. Gamers aren’t happy unless they’re shitting on someone, even if it’s just a fan of a different game/series.
Btw i’m not sure why Call of Duty (or any FPS for that matter) gets used as the example of “that game everyone gets angry if you don’t like”, it’s pretty much the opposite. If you mention you like CoD anywhere on the internet, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get called a “CoD kiddie” followed by any one of 1000 slurs.
Nah, if you really want to make someone angry on the internet, tell them you don’t like Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or that you like Mass Effect 2 or 3 more than Mass Effect 1.
I can’t even get through Mass Effect 1 the controls are wonky
shadethedruid
Mostly because when I mention I’m not a fan of CoD (or any “modern military shooter” for that matter, I get told that I should and I’m a terrible person for not doing so. Granted, you do get a lot of people on the opposite side of the shit spectrum telling you that you shouldn’t like CoD too.
Honestly? I like Morrowind, but not so much as to defend it to the death. I like Skyrim far better (and Oblivion too). I had a game-breaking moment in Morrowind that made me so thankful I was on PC so I could fix it. [Don’t ever try to steal a mage’s belt. They will summon a daedra that will sap all your strength, and it won’t come back. I couldn’t even wear pants without being over-encumbered!] The game is good, and it’s mark on the series is astronomical, but Bethesda really took the good bits and moved forward with Oblivion, and then with Oblivion to Skyrim, as a good developer should.
I didn’t play Mass Effect though. Sci-Fi’s not my thing. : P I could never really get into it. It seems far more complicated than good ol’ fantasy is for me. (Saying “it’s magic!” compared to long, engineering-based discussions and the like.)
ParadoxicalIntention: Yeah, I guess there’s big differences depending on where you go. Most of my experience comes from random game forums (especially FPS game forums, which are pretty much the worst place ever), where CoD is the go-to scapegoat for when you really need to hate on someone (or something).
I like Morrowind for what it brought to the series (i’m a huge fan of game lore, I can literally just sit for hours watching videos or reading things about made up history), but I just couldn’t get into the gameplay.* The mix of first person and hit chance was a deal breaker for me (if it was turn based, a la Might & Magic, I would’ve been fine with it).
I played for an hour, spending far too long talking to NPCs and exploring (as I do with those sorts of games, i’m terrible), generally having fun. But as soon as I got into a fight with a rat in a basement, I just noped straight out of the game. :P Skyrim is definitely my favourite. Oblivion was good too, but like you said they took that and improved on it a lot.
But I do love me some sci fi, in fact I love it just as much as I do fantasy. I guess that’s from growing up watching sci fi as a kid (Star Trek TNG and Farscape being the main ones for me) and being super into space stuff. Equally though, i’m also a huge LotR/Hobbit (movie versions/general world lore, i’ve never read the books) and D&D fan.
*I had a similar issue with Mass Effect 1. Good game, but the gameplay made me too frustrated to continue past a certain point. It also didn’t help that I played it after i’d already completed Mass Effect 2, so i’d been “spoiled” by the gameplay in that.
Meh all I see for and against it now is empty rhetoric.
There is an issue with the collusion for writing the gamers are dead series of articles and there are problems with friends promoting each other or taking bribes for positive reviews. But gamer gate isn’t offering alternatives.