#GamerGate and Men’s Rights: two terrible tastes that taste terribler together.
Ok, maybe that slogan needs a bit of work. But it’s true that when you combine the poor-oppressed-me-we-hate-AnitaZoe-Sarquinneesian narrative of the #GamerGaters with the poor-oppressed-me-feminazis-rule-the-world narrative of the Men’s Righsters you get some amazing outbursts of indignant self-dramatizing self-pity.
Take, for example, this melodramatic email sent by A Voice for Men’s “operations manager” Dean Esmay to … a grocery chain that advertises on the game site Kotaku, a bete noire of the #GamerGate movement. I’ve highlighted some of the Esmay-ist bits:
Greetings. I have been a Kroger customer, with a Kroger value card* me and my family use, for about 20 years. I have been grossly offended by the insults by Kotaku to me and my son, who have played video games together since he was about 3 years old (he’ll be an adult soon). Kotaku has been spreading hateful messages about people like me and my son and has been involved in what looks like blatant journalistic corruption. Please stop supporting this hateful publication with your advertising. If you do not, I will look to shop exclusively at your competitors in my area, including Meier, Bush’s, and Hiller’s.Stop Kotaku’s abuse of my family. Thank you.
That’s right, Esmay thinks Kotaku is literally ABUSING his son, and the rest of his family to boot, by spreading “hateful messages” about gamers.
What sort of terrible hatred does Kotaku promote? Consider these ABUSIVE quotes from the site’s Editor in Chief:
I’m the editor-in-chief of a large gaming site with millions of readers. I consider myself a reporter. How else do I define myself? I’m a gamer. I don’t mind the term. If you do, that doesn’t bother me. I’m confident in who I am. If you’re a gamer who harasses? Who sends rape threats or stalks Twitter feeds or terrorizes people from their home or gloats at others’ struggles? Find a new hobby. If you’re a gamer who wants better games reporting? Be specific about what you dislike. Please seek, support and celebrate those whose work you do like. …
Gaming is better when it’s diverse, when it lets marginalized people find their creative voice or their escapist outlet or a social circle that welcomes them.
What a disgusting hatemonger!
Oh, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Consider this list of the most popular stories now up on Kotaku:
Live game footage of Final FantasyXV? Gameplay tips!? Pictures of Japanese people dressed up like video game characters!?!!
It’s as if the site were literally run by FEMINIST HITLER.
But all hope is not lost! Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit one angry and ever-so-slightly melodramatic gamer tries to rally the troops:
Sorry, I got a little carried away with the highlighter there, but almost everything he wrote is pure gold. If by “pure gold” you mean “the most ludicrous pile of crap I’ve seen in a long time, and I’m someone who reads Men’s Rights sites pretty much every day.”
H/T: Mancheeze, r/againstmensrights
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NOTE: Just in case anyone missed it, this post contains
Well, sarcasm from me. I’m pretty sure those other dudes are serious.
Octo,
Right? Gamers cannot be both welcoming to all people if gaming culture only belongs to one gender. I’m reminded of Raising Arizona. “Which is it to be young fella? If’n I freeze I can’t get down and if’n I get down I’ll be in motion. “
@il.vel.05 Wow, that video was no different in “content” than what I expected it to be. The original video I’d avoided, I mean – this one was great in that there weren’t really that many argumentative musical interludes required to point out how fallacious the “arguments” were. (obvious Thompson comparison baiting and “join usss gamers” tone is obvious)
I’ll have to find a way to sneak that video on his timeline :). Facebook’s pretty weird about stuff like that these days, though.
@Barney K.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty tricky thing, politically, and I imagine we were getting about 25-50 emails a day about… open-carry and concealed-carry policies in our stores.”
Seriously? Are folks mad that they can’t bring guns to the store, or that people with concealed carry permits can? Or is it people with open-carry permits who just want to carry their weapons in plain sight while shopping? The idea that I need a gun to shop for food safely is just mind-boggling.
Why would you ever need a firearm at Kroger’s? I used to live in the south/shopped at southern grocery stores and I know certain stores, Kroger’s included, do hire security if they feel it’s necessary.
FWIW I’m also 90% the security is there to prevent non-violent shoplifting.
Not that I’m surprised about Esmay. The last time I spoke to him on Twitter he called me a “compassionless cunt” without any sense of irony. He was bitching about the whole Jessica-Valenti-male-tears-shirt-gate and I asked him if he understood that Valenti was being humorous.
These people get closer to Michelle Bachmann level every damn day
I grew up with two brothers and started playing video games around the same time they discovered them. ( Very first game I ever played was Pong.) It’s ridiculous for these guys to believe they can just stop half the population of the country from being gamers, many of whom have been playing longer than some of them have been alive, if they just whine about it loud enough.
The same thing is going on in Comic books and movies. These are the last bastions of media that seem thoroughly dedicated to catering to young, White, straight, men.
Maybe in a few years some of them will grow up ,realized their lives have not been upheaved by diversity and will realize how utterly silly their overreaction was and feel even a little bit of shame. Then again ,it could become like racism after the Civil Rights era and just metastasize underground.
Ugh. Talk about the concept of patriarchy to any of these dudebros, and they’ll deny, deny, deny its existence. “Male culture”, though? WE MUST PRESERVE IT AT ALL COSTS!
I know, right? It’s a weirdly complimentary insult. They could easily come up with the most grotesque, degrading term imaginable…and yet they go with one that sounds downright heroic.
It kind of reminds me of Thunderf00t and co.’s utterly bizarre claim that games are “misandrist” because they make the protagonist character suffer in order to save a woman. ‘Cause, as we all know, those same characters are never venerated and awarded for their actions since time immemorial and women have never been portrayed as petty, vindictive, and manipulative in fiction ever. Oh God, the totally imagined horror…
Uh, no – it isn’t. Like a lot of terms people want to attach gender to, it’s perfectly unisex. It refers to people who like playing videogames and, to my understanding, half of that consumer base is women. The people who claim that a certain kind of fandom is exclusive to one gender may as well take it to the next logical extreme and say that it’s also racially exclusive to white people, while they’re at it.
I feel the same way I did when someone referred to Neko Case as “the best female musician” around and then felt insulted when Ms. Case rightfully pointed she wasn’t fond of the qualifier of “female” – as if it is abnormal for women to use instruments properly. Then again, that applies to being a writer or comedian or any other occupation that either gender can do: “female” doesn’t need to be used as a clarification, especially if you start describing them with “she” – as in “she is a gamer/writer/comedian.” Adding “female” is both repetitive and redundant, given that.
Kotaku is the only gaming website I’ve ever read because I read Gawker and Jezebel and it’s convenient. The comment section is filled with diversity hating white bros. If Kotaku is hated amongst those types, I don’t even want to know what happens in the comments sections of sites they like.
Seriously, one week they had a story about a female journalist being harassed by a male developer. The majority blamed her for not being direct enough and not giving him a firm hard no.
About a week or two later they ran a story about a young woman who was employed at Hot Topic being stalked and creeped on by a customer who decided she must be his dream girl and wouldn’t stop sending FB messages. So she finally replied in a firm and direct way and explained why his behavior was inappropriate when turning him down nicely didn’t work. She was a bit caustic, but after so many unsolicited messages, I can’t blame her. Of course the commenters were mad at her for being mean because he’s just socially awkward and what if he’s ASD?
Sorry to ramble but if the supposedly pro SJW site has so much misogyny not amongst its writers, but its readers at least, is it much of a surprise that feminists have chosen to focus on sexism in the gaming community lately?
Whoops, accidentally posted the same quote twice. The second one was actually…
No, playing video games doesn’t make you a bad person. And no, saying that is not controversial. But starting a movement that is explicitly against people who are calling out sexism and racism in the gaming world is not a very virtuous position! When one person is saying “omg there’s too much sexism here”, and another person is saying “shut up, we love sexism”, and yet another person is saying “shut up, you’re making me look bad”, you’re still telling the person who is trying to make the world better to “shut up”, even if you’re not yourself the one who loves sexism.
“Neutrality” isn’t neutral when one side is clearly good and the other side is clearly bad. If you want to disassociate yourself with the baddies, then you should help the goodies, not tell them to shut up. It’s the baddies who are making you look bad.
I really have to convince my brother to read this. Maybe it’ll get him to stop saying Indie Illuminati.
I think that’s a bit of a misinterpretation–the “style” of anime reads to their original audience (Japanese, other asians) as asian. It just so happens that Western audiences don’t see overtly asian characteristics and read them as white instead. This tends to result in a lot of confusion when some people point to “clearly white anime characters” when that’s only rarely the intention.
I appreciate Esmay for being so very explicit that it’s not about him being allowed to play games, it’s about everyone else not being allowed to do so.
@katz
I know, right? It’s almost thoughtful in a weird sort of backwards way.
I remember when social justice activists leapt through my window and ripped my keyboard from under my fingers for playing something released by a major studio all the while cackling over their evil plan to make a game via crowd funding . Truly gaming is a dangerous hobby these days.
I’m mildly disappointed no one mentioned the Illuminati, too. Can’t think of it too long though. I have to go clean my computer’s pores now. I might play some Dragon Age later.
@Zoinier—I’m sorry. That must have been traumatic.
With this letter from Esmay and yesterday’s weird appearance of director John Glower in the comments talking about abuse regarding criticism toward Aurini crappy film, the meaning of the word “abuse” has received some serious abuse recently.
@ It’s A Furret
Good point, I didn’t even think of the western misinterpretation of anime characters as ‘white’. I guess it’s more the lack of diversity in the playable main characters compared to previous games in the FF series that seems such a huge step backwards. For me, in the last few releases it was the increasingly great mix of male and female characters in the main party of all ages and backgrounds that made it such a great experience – in the game before last the series had it’s first female protagonist, and she kicked ass. In this latest … eh. It seems to have veered into a completely different direction via this bog standard Team Dudebro out to Save Da World.
RE: Barney K.
I actually work for Kroger’s support team, and deal specifically with folks who send in emails.
I am so sorry. You are truly of valiant spirit.
RE: Lea
Kroger’s also supports unions and covers comprehensive women’s health care for employees.
…I suddenly am so glad I shop at Kroger’s!
CMD: With this letter from Esmay and yesterday’s weird appearance of director John Glower in the comments talking about abuse regarding criticism toward Aurini crappy film, the meaning of the word “abuse” has received some serious abuse recently.
I’d say that lately “abuse” has been kept in a pit in a basement and told to rub the lotion on its skin…
Zolnier:
Oh wow! That was you? Dude, I totally did you a favor.
Wouldn’t they be four young Japanese dudes? “Unmarked” is not the same as “white”.
Whoops, already been addressed. I hope people enjoy the essay at least.
That essay was a good kick in the proverbial – damn but did I fail all over the mammoth.
Exactly. I mean, I own more than 100 console games. (I tend to pick them up late in the console cycles for cheap.) And over the years I’ve owned 5 different consoles; 7 if you count replacement consoles bought because I wore out the originals. 8 if you want to count the Sega Genesis a roomate of mine owned and which I played the crap out of Sonic 1 and 2 on. Oh, plus I used to obsessively play games on an old PDA which was basically a gaming handheld for me. Scratch that, 2 PDA; I wore the first one out PLAYING GAMES.
But I’m sure I wouldn’t count as a gamer to these guys because, I don’t know, even though I play a lot of shooters I often play on the easy setting, and I don’t play multiplayer, and the games I’ve played the most of have been open-world games in which I mostly just goof off. And the games I played on the PDA were things like backgammon.
Oh, and also because I don’t consider gaming to be a giant part of my identity. I mean, I watch a lot of movies, and while I definitely consider myself a big movie fan I don’t call myself a “movier.”
I like that “gamers” (or at least the #GamerGate types) are happy to accept people like Hoff Sommers and that dude from Breitbart as experts on the subject of sexism in gaming — even though that Breitbart dude has played only one game ever — but somehow Anita Sarkeesian is a fake gamer even though she’s played dozens if not hundreds of games.