Operation Krampus: The #GamerGate Grinches Who Want To Steal Christmas

@wordsp1nner

I sent a letter to Intel before I saw the shooting spree threat bullshit. I hope enough people do to get them to reconsider.

Yay! If you’re interested, my letter to Intel went like this (also before I read about and further investigated the threats against Anita Sarkeesian at USU):

I’m writing to thank you because your support of GamerGate has saved me a lot of time. Next time I need to upgrade my gaming PC, or my husband’s, or one of my children’s, I will not have to read any reviews about which chip is best for gaming. I will simply tell myself that AMD is surely good enough.

Your spokesman said “We take feedback from our customers very seriously especially as it relates to contextually relevant content and placements.” Next time a vocal minority organizes a letter-writing campaign to you, perhaps you would be wise to consider the contextual relevance for the silent consumers of your ad campaigns. In this case, at least one of those was me—a woman who has identified as a gamer and spent many thousands of dollars on my hobby (and computers to play it on) for many, many years before most of the GamerGate boys reached “maturity” and started telling me and my daughter that we couldn’t possibly be real gamers, because we were “girls.”

Despite the fact that even I was a bit appalled by Leigh Alexander’s unfortunate article, where she basically gave the power to define the term “gamer” to the kind of guys who have been trying to be its gatekeepers all along, supporting GamerGate is not an ethical or appropriate response.

If you want to convince me that “Intel does not support any organization or movement that discriminates against women” you cannot do it by supporting GamerGate. Behind its thin scaffolding of “corruption in journalism,” GamerGate is entirely about silencing and threatening women. And by pulling your ad campaign, you are definitely saying that you support them over women like me, who have been playing games for more than 30 years, despite always wishing for better representation of female characters in the medium. So put your money where your mouth is and reinstate your ad campaign, and I may begin to believe you mean it.

My next step: Write to Apple and tell them that my $4500 PowerMac is reaching end-of-life and here is one (of the several) reasons my next computer won’t be an Intel-based Mac. An AMD-based Windows machine with a Linux VM sounds okay, at this point, even if I kind of hate Microsoft a lot, too.

Additionally, I object to them appropriating an icon of my people’s holiday culture. Krampus has nothing to do with Christmas in the first place, for christ’s sake.

Add delusions of grandeur to their many, many other delusions!

lol @ Sparky.

I was talking about the folks lamenting at how the gamergaters are tarnishing the ‘good’ name of krampus, which I find a bit odd, to say the least, since he’s basically a mythical child abuser.

Now, before you say anything, I am aware krampus isn’t real. That’s why I used the word ‘mythical’. He’s a fucked up myth written during a fucked up time period, at least from what I’ve read about him.

Oh dear, my apologies, Hallucinogenic-Coffee.

I thought you were talking about something totally different. I’m sorry.

Shit! I know the artist who did that Krampus illustration. I can’t imagine she’d appreciate her artwork being used like that. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised they have no problem violating people’s copyright.

I have to say, this whole thing is going to put a dent in game sales to my household, but not because I think game publications should apologize to crazed gamers. Rather, I’m just so grossed out by the whole game culture/industry, in general, and so thoroughly convinced by this point that electronic gaming is about the last thing anyone in my house needs to spend any amount of time doing, that I’ve decided that making my home a total online game/XBox-free-zone is the only logical course of action.

Mind you, no one in this house beyond my 17 year old stepson is much of a game consumer to begin with, and he’s been pretty tightly restricted in how much time he can spend gaming for the past several years, so it’s not like the decision to ban the damn things completely will result in a radical alteration of the status quo around here. However the conversation about why he’ll have absolutely zero XBox access here should be worth something.

Every now and again, I feel a little nostalgic for the days when my own sons were teenagers, and we had some fun hanging out with each other taking turns shooting monsters and Nazis in Doom and Castle Wolfenstein or revisiting the battlefields of World War II in the original Call of Duty or getting frustrated over puzzles in Myst. But yeah… those days are long gone. I don’t even care at this point that there are some ‘nice’, not insanely misogynistic games out there. Unplug yourself and sit at a table with other flesh and blood people if you want to play a game, for crying out loud.

Inspired in part by this old ThinkGeek April Fool’s gag, I decided I’d at least make it sting a little if any of the Gamebros want to regurgitate their talking points at me:

https://twitter.com/StrivingAlly/status/522651385779613696

Let’s see what happens. 😀

Oh yeah, refuse your stepson access to his hobbies because people on the internet are being fools. That’ll be the solution.

Isn’t a 17 year old officially old enough to decide for themselves what their hobbies should be? I mean, if what you were saying was that you didn’t feel right about giving him money for gaming after this then that would be one thing, but when someone’s that age they’re kind of past the point where you can just say “you will no longer be into Thing, because I have decided that Thing is not appropriate”.

Silly blockquote beastie–what happened to my selected text? Ah, well.

Co-opting the language and posture of grievance is how members of a privileged class express their belief that the way they live shouldn’t have to change, that their opponents are hypocrites and perhaps even the real oppressors. This is how…you end up with an organized group of precisely the same video game enthusiasts to whom an entire industry is catering honestly believing that they’re an oppressed minority.
…
What we’re seeing now is a rehearsal, where the mechanisms of a toxic and inhumane politics are being tested and improved.

@Mary, not sure what you think that would realistically achieve, apart from making your stepson (justifiably) upset and angry with you. You might as well ban the internet while
you’re at it because game culture, makes about as much sense.