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.
There was a Florida man who was killed because a swat team thought he was dealing drugs. They busted into his home in the middle of the night and he grabbed a gun to defend himself from the intruders. It was the last thing he ever did.
Not that it matters, but they only found a tiny baggy of weed in his house.
That’s the kind of thing that can happen when the cops don’t think you are a killer. Swatting could definitely end in a death.
Yeah, but the comments don’t seem to be faked, or satire. Can someone assure me that the comments are also spoofs?
Do they think people won’t figure this out? Then again, the average level of intelligence in this particular group doesn’t seem too high. I also join in the crowd wishing to take the name gamer from them. Games are supposed to be fun. Games are sitting with your friends battling, a Christmas morning spent beating monsters and exploring dungeons, victory and defeat, but fun the whole time. Their bigotry and fussing about not having every game cater to their ideals and threatening anyone who wants to change things isn’t fun. So ‘gamer’ shouldn’t be for them.
And WTF, a gay filter on games? I can’t even think of any games where prominent homosexual content isn’t optional. What do these guys want, exactly?
Belladonna,
You’re right that “asswit whiny gamebros” is a much better label for these haters. I think the point of the word “gamer” being over though is that when everyone is playing games, the label loses it’s meaning. That’s not a bad thing. Lots of folks here play games and have friends and family who play games. My husband is crushing our son in Halo right now. My daughter just showed me a music video made by a DJ she likes about Five nights at Freddy’s. I’m the weirdo because I don’t play. Even my very serious workaholic aunt plays Candy Crush. My little kids play educational games nearly everyday. My besties call and tell me all about the games they play and how much fun they have. They spend hours and hours in gameplay and love it. I just don’t, oddball that I am. Though, once upon a time I learned how to breastfeed using the football hold with one arm while I played on a text based multi user dungeon with the other. I played on the Commodore 64 and Atari as a kid and later switched to Nintendo. I do not identify as a gamer. It’s not a consistent hobby for me, even though I’ve played games for entertainment in the past. The last games I played were Hexic and dys4ia. I’m going to check out Depression Quest tonight. So, what qualifies a person as a “gamer”? I think as time goes on and games get better and more varied more and more people will play. They may play only a little or play games that asswit whiny gamebros don’t consider serious games, but they will play and as that happens the definition of who is and is not a gamer will be too nebulous to have much meaning. Instead of “Do you game?’ I think people will ask, “What do you play?”
That’s just my guess. I don’t see gaming going away.
JJ, these people are upset because games like Mass Effect, which takes place in the far future, treat same sex relationships as normal and not worth commenting on. There were people who complained about the pilot character Cortez from Mass Effect 3, who mentions early on in the game that his husband was killed in the alien attack that sets up the events of the game. Nobody was shoving anything in anyone’s face, he just talks about how devastated he is that his husband is dead, and how he focuses on his work to cope. You could’ve substituted “husband” for “wife” and nobody would be able to tell. This is what they refer to as “shoving the gay agenda in my face.”
I just said, “No, honey it’s not a “snifer” rifle. Daddy is shooting your brother with a “sni-Per” rifle.
Priorities. I got ’em.
Which presumes that women cannot be gamers.
Welcome Belladonna993! 😀
@Lea
I appreciate your response, Lea, and have seen many of your comments on this blog. I have a great amount of respect for you. However, I have seen a lot of commentary on blogs recently, such as http://badassdigest.com/2014/08/26/video-games-misogyny-and-terrorism-a-guide-to-assholes/ that lead me to believe that people aren’t disidentifying with the term “gamer” because everyone is playing games so it becomes meaningless, but rather that they are disidentifying with the term “gamer” because the gamebros are claiming it as their own.
Even if we disidentify with the word “gamer” because the practice of gaming has become so mainstream as to be meaningless, the point, to me, is not to let these assholes appropriate the term, even in a historical sense. Even if “gamer” is in its last dying gasp, I don’t want it to go down in history as a term that refers to these young, idiotic, mysogynistic, pathetic idiots. It predates them. And it isn’t about them. And they don’t deserve that kind of power.
Thanks fruitloopsie!
You know what would be awesome? If these guys could be tracked via their IP or whatever, and banned from any online gaming network. Or even a virus that causes all their local games to stop working. I know it’s just a fantasy, but OMG it would be so satisfying. To take away the one thing that they are so adamant belongs only to them.
I’m wondering though, if there has been any response or statements from any professional gamers.
Hey, Lea, correct terminology is very important. *is still amused*
@tesformes
Oh, shit, a side character mentioned they were gay. Yes, this is promoting gay agenda. That is some ridiculous shit. Programming in a female character is too much work, but programming alternate dialogue/animation/etc. anytime homosexuality comes up isn’t a waste of effort/hugely bigoted. (Well, male homosexuality. Female homosexuality is fine as long as the male hero can watch/join in. *gags*)
And women/LGBT/POC are the ones asking to be catered to. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Done with laugh. Morons.
I hear that!
…and thank you.
@J.J.
I started to say this earlier and got sidetracked, but I think it would be more appropriate to add “homophobic” or “sexist” or “racist” filters to videogames. That way, these terrifying creeps could buy the videogames that really appeal to them and the rest of us could avoid them. We’d then soon see where the true demand lies in the market. If the game devs were really all about economic efficiency, instead of hiding behind it, this would be a good experiment for them, too.
NationalReport Dot Net is a parody news site, like the Onion except so subtle that Poe’s Law often comes into effect.
@Lea Thank you for hearing me!
In case anyone has missed it, this isn’t the only terrible thing the misogynists of 4chan have done today. http://jezebel.com/did-someone-just-leak-nudes-of-jennifer-lawrence-1629098030
I’m not sure quite how “btw my husband died” could be seen as promoting any agenda.
Gay agenda = WHY DO YOU REFUSE TO PRETEND YOU DON’T EXIST FOR MY SAKE??? WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
I’m so sick to my stomach over just how fucking despicable the trash that posts on 4chan and reddit are. I hate this world. So much.
Criminy! I got suckered by a FB friend on a fake news site. My deepest apologies to you all and I thank you for the correction.
Belladonna993, hi, have a Welcome Package!
I love “asswit” and must steal it.
Do my comments go to moderation?
I dunno, should they go to moderation, MichaelMcG??