There’s a lot of really good stuff about the whole #GamerGate fiasco on Twitter. Here are several excellent collections of Tweets that have helpfully been put into Storify form for easy reading.
The He-Man #gamergate-rs Club. A collection of Tweets from @a_man_in_black showing that #GamerGate just the latest, if the most virulent, “outburst of a larger misogynist movement going back years.” He looks at the sordid histories of a number of current #GamerGaters and finds that many have been involved in misogynistic and transphobic harassment for years.
The most startling discovery: The creator of the “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian” game you may recall from two years ago … well, he still hates Sarkeesian, only now he’s a #GamerGater who pretends that he’s against harassment.
#gamergate doesn't tolerate harassment, says the creator of Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian. https://t.co/wz3W7LZg4g
— Jay Allen (@a_man_in_black) October 18, 2014
Click on that Tweet to see more from @a_man_in_black on Bendilin.
For still more on the background of some of the worst in the #GamerGate movement, check out The Bad Apples of #GamerGate on Medium. Also essential reading. You’ll notice some familiar names on the list.
@EffNOVideoGames has put together an amazing account of the origins of #GamerGate, poiting out that the “movement” has always been about spin. Deftly rebuts the notion that #GamerGate is about “ethics,” and provides numerous screenshots offering clear proof of the misogyny that’s been there from the start.
Oh, and if you want to see how serious #GamerGaters are about actually fighting harassment in their movement — which always seems to be the fault of a few “bad apples” — check out what happened when @ShadowTodd asked them to show their sincerity by donating money to help the women who’ve been harassed by these “bad apples.” SPOILER ALERT: What happened was a lot of victim blaming and “false flag”-crying and not one penny donated — even when Todd suggested that even if they hated Anita and Zoe and the rest, donating money to then would at least make them look less like the unrepentant woman-haters they are.
There was literally no downside. The only way it would hurt your cause is if your cause was actually… to hurt female VG critics…. OH GOD
— Todd in the Shadows (@ShadowTodd) October 17, 2014
Another chilling read: “There is no Virtue Without Terror” On the Ethical Landscape of GamerGate by Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon on Twitter), a researcher of online harassment who has drawn the ire of the #GamerGate crowd.
She reflects on the decidedly mixed performance of the media in all of this, and a bit on her thoughts what it means for her as an academic studying gender, in another set of Storified Tweets, Katherine Cross on the effects of GamerGate.
If you’re on Twitter, and trying to keep up with #GamerGate, I’d highly recommend following @a_man_in_black, @EffNOVideoGames, and @Quinnae_Moon, as well as the excellent @srhbutts.
And of course you need to follow @TheQuinnspiracy (that is, Zoe Quinn) and her dude @alexlifschitz.
H/T — @lawblob for the pic at the top.
The epiphany that ShadowTodd had in that second tweet made me laugh so hard.
AVFM is in full recruitment mode like leeches on this GG shit..there website has a “welcome new folks” article that literally looks like a Disneyland ad..Paul Elam has scrubbed his name ..far as I can see.. from anyplace on AVFM that would indicate he’s is any sort of leadership position..
This is definitely a thing that needed to be documented, and I’m glad some people with the time and social immunity stepped up to do it. I hope this gets some media coverage. It needs media coverage.
Geez, who woulda thunk?
My current favorite thing about this is the way prominent people who come out against gamergate are catching hell for not “engaging” with “critics.” John Scalzi has repeated several times that he doesn’t care if gamergaters won’t buy his books, and has been muting the random twitter people throwing stupid at him. This is a guy with 70,000+ followers who has a spouse, a kid, and books to write, and he’s got people with less than 1000 followers throwing shade at him for not wasting precious time on the same arguments that have been debunked repeatedly.
And of course, if you want to take a tour of the festering stupidity and bile in its natural habitant, you can check out http://8chan.co/gg/ where a bunch of people who identify as GamerGaters are letting their freak flags fly.
Kris Straub summed up the dynamics perfectly: http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/10/15/the-perfect-crime/
That’s a rich mine of fail there at 8chan; one of my favorites is the “Everyone says that GG doesn’t have a clear list of demands, so I made one! What does everyone think?” (If you’re deciding to have that conversation THREE WEEKS into the GG movement, way to prove “them” right…)
And what does that list contain? Specific people who need to be punished or fired for having unacceptable views or opinions—I’m sorry, are guilty of “ethical lapses”. But it’s not about harassment, they just want to ruin the lives of specific people!
talbotfish:
I see lots of MRA terms in GamerGate discussion; trying so *koff*educate people about GG is “redpilling” someone, for example.
Oh this is rich. The creator of Bayonetta two responding to tweeters pestering him about GamerGate This might actually make me buy the game just for the laugh he gave me. XD
This is all so revealing. I woke up this morning thinking that if the FBI can’t nail the USU wannabe shooter, it’s going to reveal once and for all a type of crime that can be committed without punishment. I can see using proxy servers to send extortion death threats becoming big business. You can be in Namibia and send a death threat if somebody doesn’t bitcoin you the money, and what can anyone do but pay up as they say they’re right next door with guns watching you and the FBI just shrugs? They have to catch this person, or there’ll be reverberations much bigger than this one threat incident, because crooks are watching. The perfect crime will turn out to be this kind. people simply can’t take the risk that the person won’t carry out the threat.
Re: Media coverage: But… But… That wouldn’t be FAIR AND BALANCED!!!11one
Re: Bayonetta: A lot of feminists I know (including myself) see Bayonetta as being pro-feminism, what with her being a sexually-liberated, three-dimensional strong woman and all, so that would be a weird thing to rally behind even if the creator wasn’t awesome.
Re: Random thought: This isn’t really related, but sometimes I wonder how Lana Wachowski feels about the moronosphere stealing a line from her most well-known movie and using it to describe their misogyny and transphobia. Probably pissed off.
Yes, please check out http://8chan.co/gg/ and see how “crazy” everyone there is. Protip: they’re not.
How the heck does anything get done on Twitter? :/
Disjointed, out of context snippets of conversations – it’s like trying to make sense out of regurgitated alphabet soup.
@The Arbourist
Multiple generations have been raised on TV newscastings, which work on the sampe principles. It isn’t a style of communication geared towards getting things done or about making sense, but about being present in your viewership’s mind.
Can someone explain this “notyourshield” hashtag that has suddenly appeared alongside of GamerGate? Is this some sort of rally to make GamerGaters somehow not look like they hate all women? It doesn’t seem to be working but maybe I’m missing the point?
I’ve never been able to get the hang of twitter. FB, yes, MUSh, yes, Twitter nope.
@ktrantingredhead:
The only thing I can gather about “notyourshield” is that it supposedly is made up of non-white-male folks who don’t agree with social justice issues, and that somehow discredits SJ folks. Beyond that I have no idea how it’s supposed to work.
……but if it weren’t for MRAs and GamerGaters, no one would be hurling threats and harassment and thus no one would need a shield………
The #notyourshield people are claiming that “SJWs” are using women and POC as a shield to deflect criticism of their evil SJW agenda. Or something.
Many of the accounts using the hashtag have been outed as sockpuppets. They’re new, have few followers, use stock photos as avatars. The IRC logs include guys discussing amongst themselves how to pretend to be a woman or POC.
My co-worker is a model and a black women. She’s done stock photos before. It just occurred to me to wonder if anyone has ever used an image of her as a sockpuppet gamergater. I hope not. She wouldn’t approve.
How do we know they’re sock puppets?
Yeah, as I’ve heard it #notyourshield is supposed to be for women, queer folk, and PoC who are angry that “SJWs” point toward them and use their struggle as they basically silence criticism about themselves and use their privilege to speak. Which totally does happen in some circles and is a real problem. But has absolutely nothing to do with GG or any other bullshit misogynistic thing they’re trying to claim. It’s appropriation to the highest degree and laughably ironic as it’s being used right now.
@ktrantingredhead
They basically figured that having a female or a POC identity was a get out of jail free card with FEMINISTS, and that the movement could use them to easily silence their critics from that corner. They also figured that it’d defuse the claim that they’re another white men’s movement, so they created POC and female sockpuppet accounts to tweet at critics. There probably are indeed women and POCs in the movement, but they basically got thrown under the bus by the white male majority that just had to use fake accounts rather than let the women and POCs speak for themselves.
That turned the hashtag into another example of intersectionality at work and women and POC voices being ignored and drowned out by a white male majority. As it was to be expected and as it is the norm.
That…..doesn’t even make any kind of sense. “Let’s pretend to be gays and black people and trans people who are mad that white cis women tried to comment on how shitty gaming treats us and then the MRM…er…I mean, GamerGate will look good and feminists will look bad.”
…..what?!
The stupidity of these people just flat out makes me angry! They gripe about “SJW’s” but get mad when they’re called “keyboard commandos.”
How fucking stupid, hateful, and irresponsible do you have to be to even dream this shit up? Cheese’s Crust!
That’s another thing the #Gits and the Tea Party have in common: All of their “Black friends” just so happen to be popular on Shutterstock and iStock.
@ktrantingredhead
Reverse image searches revealed that a lot of images were culled from facebook, google searches and commercial image repositories.