Over on 4chan, angry gamebros are organizing a vast wave of Twitter, er, ” activism” to SAVE VIDYA GAMES from the evil fake gamer girls and their Social Justice Warrior allies.
According to one anon, who’s been posting this message into numerous threads, the best way to fight “journalistic corruption” in the gaming world is to … set up fraudulent sockpuppet accounts on Twitter to make it look like there’s a groundswell of opposition to the evil game ladies.
If that’s a bit hard to read, here’s the text, with some bolding for emphasis added by me. The bits at the end are my favorite.
We campaigned against journalistic corruption; we were told that gamers are dead. Both lawfag and marketingfag told you to flood the pax hashtags as it would get the attention of their advertisers. You now have the opportunity to save vidya and get the average person on your side.
Why are you not doing shit /v/? GET OUT THERE AND FLOOD THE HASHTAGS. Here is a quick guide:
>1) Make a gmail throwaway if you don’t want it linked to your main email.
>2) Make a testing tweet and choose an appealing description of your account.
>3) Make a few tweets proclaiming your newness.
>4) Make a few tweets about #GamerGate.
>5) Increase your visibility by following people — search the #GamerGate tag and follow people you like. Remember, you’re legit new, so at least some should follow you back.
>6) FOLLOW THE PEOPLE WHO ARE FOLLOWING THESE PEOPLE. Chances are some of these are your fellow anons, so with luck we can increase our follow counts.
>7) Continue tweeting about the cause with the pax hashtags (#PAX #PAXPrime) with the #GamerGate tag.
>8) Seach the hashtag, favorite and retweet supporting tweets. That’s the star icon. Get your anons to the top.
>9) If you get stuck with zero followers. Reply to someone, chime in that you agree with them. But don’t argue on this step. Let them do that if they want to do that.
>If you are confronted, remain calm, don’t lose your spaghetti, and be the better person. Explain that this is not about girls being victimized, it is about the vilification of gamers and jounalistic integrity in the media.
>For extra class, present yourselves as normal people who sjws by their own standards should sympathize with, like an indian cab driver who can’t read traffic signs. (this requires extensive shitposting experience.)
So what’s got these dudes so enraged today? Aside from, you know, their normal misogynstic manbaby rage, there’s been a FLOOD of articles on gamer sites and mainstream media outlets alike arguing that “gamers” — as they’ve traditionally defined themselves — are about to take a plunge into the dustbin of history, and that if the game industry is to survive it needs to free itself from the clutches of the angry young dudes currently yelling at the top of their lungs against Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian.
Here are some of the articles that have really pissed them off:
‘Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over, by Leigh Alexander at Gamasutra
The End of Gamers, by Dan Golding, on his own blog
It’s Dangerous to Go Alone: Why Are Gamers So Angry? by Arthur Chu at The Daily Beast
The death of the “gamers” and the women who “killed” them by Casey Johnson at Ars Technica
A Guide to Ending “Gamers” by Devin Wilson at Gamasutra
This guy’s embarassing relationship drama is killing the ‘gamer’ identity by Mike Pearl at Vice
If you only read one of these, make it that first one by Leigh Alexander, which is awesomely blunt.
He sounds just lovely. Have your daughters date him.
Every time they try to convince the rest of the world that gamers aren’t horrible people they just end up reinforcing the stereotype that gamers are horrible people. Is this where Judgy Bitch learned her PR skills?
BadAssDwg69 cried for his mama when his sentence was read.
Of course he did.
I wonder how many tears he cried for the man he got shot?
This just reinforces my natural instinct to treat most loud, obnoxious gamer bros like badly behaved children. Ground the lot of them and take their internet access away until they can learn to act like reasonable people.
Shit, I’m about to be that person.
Isn’t the National Report a satire site?
…wait, I thought that the National Report was one of those fake news sites? Or am I just confused again?
Thebewilderness
That’s just beyond awful. I need brain bleach
http://youtu.be/Vw4KVoEVcr0
If it is satire it just proves that Poe’s Law is true.
CassandraKitty
I agree with you
Yup, the National Review article is a fake.
I’ve actually heard about the thing where they’re trying to sic SWAT teams on online enemies, which if nothing else should land them with a huge fine for wasting police resources even if nobody gets hurt. Hit them right in the wallet and they’ll knock that shit off pretty fast.
CassandraKitty
Say what?
National report is a satire site.
Yeah, National Report is a fake news site, just like The Onion. However, like The Onion, the phenomenon they’re spoofing is real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
So a boy didn’t kill anyone?
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/03/security-reporter-tells-ars-about-hacked-911-call-that-sent-swat-team-to-his-house/
Stepping back, and administering a spanking or two by the Elders in articles like these is a strategy too.
Just like Gjoni’s Misogyny Retribution Machine (MRM) call-out was not an anomalous individual incident with no class or caste repercussions, so the gaming industry’s stepping in to contain things with a few spankings isn’t meant to really stop the problem, which is everywhere. The gaming industry is not an anomalous instance of anything. It’s part of a pattern, and that’s where none of these articles are willing to go. Spanking one industry and pretending that every other business, profession, and industry is non-sexist and doesn’t need change just won’t work any more. The gaming industry is representative of industry. A lil spanking of one industry won’t change the big picture, and the guys writing these articles know that.
Yeah I think they call it getting V&ned on 4chan. And i think they call being arrested the “party van”.
Welp,
I fell for that. Swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
😛
That’s….actually a relief. No one got shot or saw their parent shot and no one has to repay a debt to society for it. That’s better than it being real by a long shot.
It’s still scary that swatting is a real thing though. I honestly do not understand people’s motivations at all sometimes.
The kid’s actions almost got someone killed, and he did it because he got his ass kicked on a video game
I find the comments really…stupid, too. Some commenters expect the police to react as if it might be a false call… No. WTF.
For the safety of the officers themselves they are going to assume they are entering a scene in which there will be an armed, dangerous shooter that they will have a fraction of a second to shoot first. They will have weapons drawn and safeties off.
Jesus Penis, these people do not know how shit in meatspace works, do they???
Also have you seen the Vivian James thing? A bunch of misogynistic gamer bros create a fake girl as a way to somehow “combat” the evil that is Zoe Quinn. And it never occurs to them that doing so will just make them look even more like clueless misogynistic bros.
Oh hell! Dur de DURRR…
I feel foolish now.
However, someone is going to get killed in a swatting, because, well…what I said above. A bunch of really jumpy cops run into a building thinking they have to shoot first to avoid being shot themselves.
Also, in the comments on the Vice article, commenter by the name of Josh Morris pretty much exemplifies why this whole mess is happening. Petulant much, dude?
First-time commenter here, but I have a plea, even though this ship may already have sailed. I am a woman. I am a feminist. I am 46 years old. I also have self-identified as a “gamer” for longer than most of these air-sucking, whining, moronic children who think women are intruding upon their world for the first time have been alive. I have two teenage children, one of each gender, who also self-identify as gamers. So this trend to disidentify with the term “gamer” because these assholes are colonizing it disturbs me. Doesn’t it just solidify their inane worldview that this is their world, and we are all intruders?
They are not “gamers.” They are asswit whiny gamebros. I have loved computer gaming, tabletop RPG, tabletop board games, and CCG for well over two decades. I am a gamer. I am not willing to let these creeps appropriate this identity. It is NOT theirs.
@ redpoppy
So, they say it’s not about victimizing girls but about gamers being vilified….all while they victimize girls and women. Sounds promising.
And using tactics that give gamers a bad reputation! Resembling that remark: they does it.