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.
@Kakanian … um, sources? Or we should just trust you on this?
And @Alex M, I am also totally over that false equivalence garbage. “Both sides are just as bad, HUR DUR”. Bullshit. Show me the people who stand with Anita and Zoe creating sockpuppet accounts to harrass people. Show me the people who want a safer, better gaming culture that resort to 4chan to try and create some fake groundswell.
I guess the good news to take away from the OP – these douchecanoes HAVE to resort to sockpuppetering because there are more of US than there are of THEM. 😀
(Also, I don’t raid in SWTOR anymore because of the casual dudebro culture. I got tired of “Oh, I got r*****d. He totally r*****d me. Etc. Etc. 🙁 )
“By letting not forget that we do, in fact *exist* and that we *are*, by the very nature of our existence, human–and all that our humanity entails.” -Micheal Mc G
What an illiterate way to remind me not to forget about the menz.
Anyone playing Neverwinter Online? I started about a month ago and am having heaps of fun. It’s free to play, and you can spring some real cash for extra things, but the free parts are not, as in some free-to-play games, inferior to what paying players have. (Then again, I avoid PvP, so maybe it makes a bigger difference there.)
I got interested, because I really liked Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and of course Neverwinter Nights, so I find the world familiar and engaging.
And concerning Cortez in ME3, the fact he was married to another man is a problem, but the player protagonist having relationships with female aliens is fine? (They probably don’t vare about relationship options for female characters, but my Commander Sheppard usually gets serious with Garrus.)
??? There was a question asked about what “gay filter” means, which led to, “Yeah, a gay man exists in Mass Effect,” which in turn led to, “Why is a guy mentioning his husband in passing ‘ramming the gay agenda down our throats’?” Then Michael McG responded with an answer to that question. I don’t see how that is out of line in any fashion.
idledilletante
Wow! Just wow!
What an utterly uncharitable way to read what I wrote!
Granted I have not said much about myself, so I can’t expect anyone to know I am gay. However, I fail to see how the “we” in my post refers in an any more sensible way to men–which it might within the context of the *post* itself–than to GLBT people–which it does within the *discussion* of “gay filters” in which it was a response to a question about how referring to one’s same-sex spouse is “promoting any agenda”. In particular, my post was a sarcastic explanation that GLBTs’ mentioning their romantic partners in the incidental dialogue in video games is “offensive”, filterable comment merely by the fact that it does not let the players forget that GLBTs exist and are human.
I just wanted to jump in and mention that #GamerGate participants are now openly promoting the work of a Breitbart journalist and AVFM.
This is a reactionary right wing movement, make no mistake.
I just thought I’d better chime in with an obligatory “Shut up, Woody!”
Also, shut up, Christina Hoff Bummers. Your fantasy “feminism” bears no resemblance to anything that would work in the real world. Pretending that the playing field is already level when it’s clearly not is NOT FEMINISM.
@Belladonna; my kitty’s been sick the last week or so, and we took her to the vet Saturday night. They told us she was anemic, feverish, and dehydrated, but they couldn’t pin down a specific cause. We’re still waiting on her tests to come back, but we’ve started her on antibiotics. So far she’s still sleeping pretty much all day every day, but she’s eating and drinking, so we’re just keeping an eye on her and waiting on the test results. Thanks for your concern!
@childrenofthebroccoli fingers & toes crossed for your kitty. Hope she gets all well again soon.
@Michael McG
I read your comment as referring to gay people, and the gamebro need to erase their existence, but I completely didn’t see the “we” part. It’s weird how we parse things, isn’t it?
It seems like there is a huge amount of misunderstandings in this article and the comments sections.
First, 4chan is by definition chaotic, there’s not a general consensus on anything so individual posts are irrelevant, specially one that got only 4 responses. Trying to explain a movement based on a single opinion of a single person is unfair.
Second, the title and article is extremely misleading. The reason that this post exists is because a lot of people on that website aren’t too social and don’t have a twitter account. It’s just a guide for twitter newcomers to get used to it.
Third, I’ve seen the word “manufactured” thrown around the comments sections. How is it artificial if there are real people with genuine concerns and opinions behind each of those accounts? They aren’t “fake”, it’s just people who never used twitter getting iniciated to counter-argue, what they feel, is a torrent of misinformation. A single account for a single person expressing their opinions, what’s exactly wrong with that?
Fourth, the author outlined the parts about getting followers on twitter. The main reason is because fair arguments are usually dismissed because of the amount of followers/tweets on that account. Coming from an anonymous website where the only way to judge someone is because of their words, some are surprised of the amount of ad hominems that fly around places with fixed accounts like twitter. Having followers helps diminish unfair criticisms and derailments of discussion.
Fifth, this was never about women. The “misogyny” word gets also thrown around a lot, but since the start it was about bringing to light corruption and nepotism issues in gaming journalism, specifically in this case in the indie scene. You can see for yourselves the amount of women in the #GamerGate twitter hashtag. Another good evidence against this claim is how 4chan is the major supporter of a campaign in favour of women developers called The Fine Young Capitalists, which has been outlined some posts above.
In conclusion, this article is spinning the issue into some kind of malicious raiding, when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Using adjectives like “misogynistic manbabies” to refer to people (men and women) that are just trying to point out what they feel are problems in the gaming industry only helps make the problem bigger and cause divisiveness within the community, as well as making discussion more heated and aggressive. Please try to understand that there are other sides which also deserve being heard out, that are right now and due to articles like this being misrepresented and unfairly dismissed (what is also known as the strawman fallacy).
I’m not a native english speaker so sorry for any mistakes or weird wording.
@childrenofthebroccoli: My heart goes out to you and kitty. Hope she’s well soon.
@paticzak
Mine too!
@inurashii
If you read through the comments you’ll see there are plenty of people with different ideologies supporting the article. People like JonTron or TotalBiscuit supported the movement, you think they are “reactionary right wing activists”? I’m personally far, far away from being right wing, and would jump at the first sign of a misogynistic action, yet I agree with that article and #GamerGate. This is not political. This is about corruption and videogame journalism not having a clear Wall between developers and journalists.
@Kakanian – Posting a link to your game in a forum where they are already talking about you is what’s called good marketing. If you’re an indie developer… or an indie anything, you need to market your product aggressively if you want to further your career, because no one else is going to do it for you.
But of course, when men do it, this is called “smart” or “savvy” or “being driven”. When a woman does it, it is just terrible and we should probably send her rape threats to let her know how wrong she is.
Even if Zoe Quinn did bait some internet misogynists into harassing her as a marketing strategy, what does it say about the existing gaming culture that she’d have been able to predict correctly that she’d be harassed for an off topic self promotion post?
Of course, I’m very dubious of this claim. It seems like people are just making assumptions about her motives that are predicated on the notion that women just do things for attention and drama. Also, it doesn’t matter. There’s no reason anyone has to harass anyone ever. If these guys don’t like Zoe Quinn, they can just say she isn’t to their taste, not play her games and move on with their lives. But no. That’s too hard for them. I’ve never understand the argument that someone can be excused for saying terrible things if they were baited into it. Remember when Donald Sterling made the ridiculous claim that V Stiviano somehow made him say racist things? A lot of people bought it because a lot of people like to bend over backwards to protect assholes from being held accountable for their words.
I know, right? I mean, we have people here posting unwelcome comments all the time. We are briefly mean to them and then ban them. I don’t think anyone’s trolling here at WHTM has resulting in them receiving a weeks long barrage of death threats.
If Zoe Quinn posted to this board and it was so unwelcome, they could have done what normal people do: tell her to fuck off and then delete the thread.
I got as far as “present yourselves as normal people” in the headline and almost LOL’d. Oh, 4Chan, stay classy.
@childrenofthebroccoli I really hope your kitty will be okay! It’s probably a good sign that she can eat and drink.
@paticzak, @gilshalos My first two ME playthroughs, I romanced Liara, the third time I romanced Liara in 1, Thane in 2, then went back to Liara in 3. (I’m bi, but a little toward the homoaffectional side of the scale). But my fourth playthrough, I romanced Kaidan, then Garrus, and Garrus was definitely the most satisfying romance. I did try romancing Traynor one time, but that romance is really kind of abusive and disturbing. I think it’s definitely aimed to titillate a male audience rather than be a serious Lesbian relationship. I’ve never played Neverwinter online. I’m a bit less than enamored of the D&D leveling system, but the Baldur’s Gate series was great. And I think Bioware was one of the earlier game companies to at least try to give women some credit for being human (and to even consider that they might want to play games themselves).
I was actually really confused when I first read Kakanian’s post. I wasn’t sure if he or she was seriously trying to defend 4chan and Zoe’s attackers, or if he or she’d come here to present 4chan’s position in such a ludicrous way as to satirize it. I’m still not entirely sure that satire wasn’t the intent.
Really. So, “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.)” is standard advice for twitter newcomers in your world? That’s what you’re saying?
I didn’t even bother to read the rest of your essay, because right here you’ve told me everything about you and your point of view that I need to know. You’re so twisted up that you think that someone advising 4channers to misrepresent themselves as racial stereotypes can be passed off as totally legit, benign advice to twitter newcomers, as long as you just say so.
That’s not actually how facts work.
@TownFromSpain
Well, there is now that you’ve posted your commentary.
Setting aside for a moment that I believe most of us have formed our opinions of 4chan based on much more than this single person’s post, by your own logic, is there a good reason we should change our opinion of 4chan based on your single post?
This “Newcomer’s Guide to Twitter” tells people where to go, what to say, and how to behave, which is all well outside the scope of technical guidelines. I guess you mean this is a newcomer’s guide to how to spread GamerGate propaganda on Twitter.
The “throwaway” email makes me suspect the intent was not a single account for a single person, even though the directions carefully avoid telling users explicitly to violate Twitter’s rule on serial accounts. Creating a new gmail account for the sole purpose of using Twitter might not be unreasonable, but calling it a “throwaway” has a different connotation. Also, the fact that the directions have to remind you “Remember you’re legit new” makes me think this isn’t intended for real new users. There are plenty of reasons for us to suspect that this is intended as instructions for creating sock puppets. I think you’re being disingenuous to assert otherwise.
Blah, blah, blah, ad hominems, blah, blah. We love makin”em. Even more, we love accusing everyone else of them. What I want to know is what you’re referring to when you say “that account”? The original article didn’t specify any specific account with lots of followers/tweets. I think you may have slipped. Who is it you’re supposed to hound and where did you get this secret knowledge? I’m so sorry your undoubtedly boring, broken-record type of “fair” arguments get dismissed. It’s just that we get tired of refuting the same, unoriginal arguments all the time.
It’s comforting that you tell us the “individual post” was “irrelevant,” then you heartily defend it despite its irrelevance, and then you absolutely follow its advice about what to say. Yep, I’m convinced that “4chan is chaotic” and that there’s “no general consensus.” Good job!
Also, I’m concerned about corruption in journalism, so I’m going to attack any woman who sleeps with a journalist! Brilliant!
In conclusion, blah, blah, blah, we’re misunderstood, blah, blah, why won’t you listen to our side, blah, blah, blah, you’re the ones causing divisiveness, blah, blah, let me share my superior knowledge of strawman fallacy with you, blah.
Oh, I didn’t correct any of your grammar or word usage, though, since you indicated you’re not a native English speaker. You’re welcome.
I’m late to this discussion (again), but will chime in to say that I’ve gamed since I was 7 (1987) through the present – I even got my husband into playing (he never did because he grew up without enough money for games) – and I can be damn good.
But I’ve never gotten into playing online. Every time I’ve dipped my toe in it’s come back with the flesh torn off from the pirhanna dude-bros.
While I love gaming, enduring harrassment (or searching for ways to avoid it) just isn’t how I’d like to spend my limited free time.
Reading some of the discussions on this topic (in other venues) I’ve seen people comment, “You never see women playing online, anyway, so why’s it a big deal?”
Well, yeah – douchebaggery will do that.
For those that have the energy and fortitude to forge spaces for women to play: Keep fighting the good fight.
@TownFromSpain
Yes, it has never been about women. That’s why a woman who isn’t even working in video game journalism gets to feel the brunt of this so-called “backslash against corruption”.
@deniseeliza
From what I could gather, Wizardchan is not a gaming forum, but an echo chamber for men who have really wierd ideas about sex and virginity. Their complaint basically boiled downt to that surely she can’t know what real despression feels like because she’s a woman riding the cock carousel, which is both sexist and dumb. It apparently didn’t participate in the harssment either as it’s… well an echo chamber for men to communally feel bad about not having had sex yet. They’re apparently like a Pro-Ana message board – deeply beholden to sexism, but not particularily aggressive against people. Another group who likes to smear them because they´re easy pickings started the harassment.
The post that wasn’t displayed had a link that outlined more of what some of them chose to make their “official” story and, yes it does indeed reproach her for using various social hacks any indie dev will use to spread word about his game. I think we can at least agree that that’s bullshit,
In any case, it’s pretty small-minded to assume that somebody has to be a shining paragon in order to “deserve” support against a massive harassment campaign.
Please, give a try to the rest of the post, you might understand my point clearly.
When I meant “misleading” I was refering to the “sockpuppet” part. The objective is simply to be able to voice concerns on a platform not many people on 4chan use. That’s the misleading part: there are real people behind each account, they are not lying or inventing points, because the whole reason they are complaining in the first place is for corruption issues to be adressed. Points 1) to 10) are advice to make conversation flow around. Make an account, use hashtags and get followers. That seems quite benign, don’t you agree? Still, you are right with point 11) in that it’s trying to encourage making up online personas, but I made my justification later on: ad hominems in twitter happen constantly, a lot of fair opinions and criticisms are dismissed because “he doesn’t have X amount of followers” or “he has an anime avatar”. In the end what matters is the message. I’m not saying that it is the right thing to do, but again, 4chan is chaotic and anyone can post anything he wants, so ditching a whole community because of a single poster is unfair.
My main point is that the issues trying to be discussed are real (in short, journalists being way too close to the devs they are reporting on and reviewing) and people from different websites like 4chan are trying to discuss it outside their confort area. The “misogyny” label is completely dishonest, and tries to apply the actions of few, very few harassers (who have no kind of support anywhere) to a whole different movement.
To end: if you actually search on the archives, that post was only made 12 times and received in total 14 responses. For reference, there’s approximately 50 threads made each day with 600+ replies in every single one of them, and it has been going for two weeks. Don’t generalize the words of few to the actions of everyone.
Translation: “Here’s a ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy followed by a complete deflection on the issue by bringing up something else…”
Oh, and $2000? Gee – the world will be turned upside down, with that kinda money! It still doesn’t detract from the fact a significant amount of people from both 4chan and Reddit have been going out of their way to doxx someone. But apparently we’re supposed to ignore all that ’cause a small percentage of them donated money to a particular project. Some 4channers may’ve become part of Anonymous too – that doesn’t mean all of them think that way. Hell, even then, it isn’t like Anonymous hasn’t also done shitty things.
So, what, we can’t bring up bad shit 4chan does for…reasons? Fuck off.
Speaking of which…
You mean it’s so chaotic that they can’t organize well enough to do stuff like hacking and doxxing…even though that’s what they and Anonymous (who, again, splintered from that group) do so all the time? Bull. Fucking. Shit.
Don’t argue against manufactured controversy when you don’t know what it is.
First of all, the anger these people feel are obviously real – but that’s not the issue. The issue is that they have their anger directed at a particular person, and with quite a bit of intensity, based on fallacious claims concocted by other sources. Second, “real people” fake “genuine concerns and opinions” more often than you think (or want to honestly admit given your reply). Third, the fact you read that and just saw “guidelines for beginners” – despite the fact the intent of the post has little semblance to that – tells me you are utterly disingenuous and just being the apologist.