Last night, as you may have heard, the woman known to #GamerGaters as “Literally Who 2” pulled off a bit of a media coup, appearing on The Colbert Report for a brief interview by the sympathetic Colbert, who gently satirized some of the sillier “arguments” of the Gaters with a series of deliberatly obtuse questions. You know, his regular schtick.
When Anita Sarkeesian posted the picture above (well, a non-blurry version of it) to Twitter yesterday evening, thus alerting the world to her upcoming appearance on Colbert’s show, it set off a wave of panic and despair on 8chan’s /gg/ board, one of the central organizing hubs of the GamerGate “movement.”
Some declared it a disaster, the end of GamerGate, while others tried to rally the troops with melodramatic speeches. Still others set forth bizarre conspiracy theories about the evil SJWs who allegedly control the media.
There was so much amazing stuff there that I knew I had to start screencapping like mad.
And so, without further ado, here are the Top 22 Most Ridiculous Things Said on 8Chan About Anita Sarkeesian’s Appearance on the Colbert Report.
1) One anon advised the 8chan army on how to turn this truckload of lemons into lemonade:
2) This fella was a little less optimistic. Somehow I’m guessing a lot of his conversations involve bizarrely detailed exegeses of the sinister plots of Cultural Marxism.
3) This fellow suggested that 8chan might be able to lobby Congress for some legislation that would put an end to the SJW “gang.”
4) There were a lot of posts like this. GamerGaters just can’t help talking like cartoon supervillains.
5) This guy urgently warned fellow 8channers not to even discuss the highly charged issue of misogyny, ending his little speech with a bizarre kicker not only denying that 8channers had anything to do with the threats and doxxing that have driven Sarkeesian from her home, but flatly denied that the threats and doxxing even happened at all.
6) This fella lamented Colbert’s terrible betrayal, and the effect this would have on his late-night television viewing.
7) And this charming post reminded us one of the main reasons why GamerGate increasingly appeals only to trolls and assholes. (Note to 8channers: It’s the picture, derived from an anti-Semitic caricature, that’s the real problem here.)
8) This fella reminded his comrades that media figures like Colbert “never really cared sincerely about vidya [games]” anyway.
9) And we’re back to the rising fire.
10) More fire, accompanied this time by the howling wolves of … Twitter.
11) Winston Churchill famously proclaimed that brave British soldiers “shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” This GamerGate warrior will do the same, only with email and Twitter.
12) A lot of 8channers think that Sarkeesian is little more than the brainless puppet of Feminist Frequency co-writer/producer Jonathan McIntosh.
13) This melodramatic fella declared in despair that Sarkeesian had won, “sitting in the lap of a group more powerful, tenacious, driven and sinister than you could ever hope to be.”
Huh. I thought they were supposed to be on the side of Truth and Light. Why would GamerGaters hope to be sinister. Could it be that maybe they are the baddies after all?
14) And speaking of GamerGaters monologuing like supervillains …
15) This fella offered his comrades a “waifu to encourage you along.”
Wait, what?
16) This fella might be spending just a little too much time with the vidya games.
17) This commenter thought that the fact that Sarkeesian appeared in public showed that she wasn’t really scared by all the threats she’s gotten. CHECKMATE, SARKEESIAN!
18) More conspiratorial nonsense about Colbert and his alleged ideological puppetmasters.
19) THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAA!!
20) Uh, dude, “some newspaper” in this case was the New York Fucking Times, and it was more than a paragraph.
21) This fella hoped that this bitter loss would help to harden the resolve of “weak” GamerGaters.
22) And this guy brought a report from the far reaches of Upside Down Backwards Land.
GamerGaters, you are officially ridiculous.
@Misha
I laughed so hard I nearly spit out my coffee 🙂
Ridiculous thing number 5 also made me giggle … methinks someone might be overcompensating (with that sword). I know … broadswords were much bigger than most people realize (in history) but that just seems … (giggling)
I know I shouldn’t, but I’m starting to almost feel bad for GGers. Their lives must suck to need to be so deeply embedded in fantasies to cope. I can see why such worlds are attractive. I mean, I LOVE fantasy novels and gaming, but some of these guys just seem unhealthily over the top.
Oh man, the line about being the PCs in a world of NPCs… I know everyone is the hero in their internal narrative, but that’s just ridiculous.
They care about “integrity”, “honesty”, “ethics” and “transparency” in the media and press? Do they know that there’s more media and press than those dedicated to the gaming industry?
If they really care about ethics in the media, well, how about they check the Latin American press? We could use some honesty over here.
Oh, no, they care about gaming media only. To hell with Latin America, the world, ethics and the rest of the media everywhere else, I guess.
By the way, the gaming media is focused on videogame-related products (duh!), just as most mainstream media usually shows a certain preference for a political party or another, this tends to happen in other variants of most media.
As a journalist, I know for a fact that absolutely “independent journalism” is a complete utopia. And a beautiful one, but still an utopia.
It doesn’t seem like they know anything about journalism, general business or game developing. At all. But they do know about hating.
They’re absolutely delusional, confusing reality with fiction, using terms like “win” and choosing names and faces to give them the “enemy” status, dehumanizing them completely on the way.
I think that calling them names or reducing them to @ssholes (and other terms like that) is oversimplifying the core issue and viewing them as “evil enemies” as well. They have a confussion towards reality and life itself. Furthermore, they’re not harmless, they affect others negatively as a consequence. They’re dangerous.
Life is not a videogame. People are not NPC’s. Much less enemies. They’re not discardable. They don’t respawn. “GamerGate” is not some quest to complete and get a final prize or level up as a reward. Discussions are not PvP.
I’m beyond despising them. I was wrong all along. They need professional help before any of them actually harms someone motivated by this horde of hateful, delusional and confused people.
PS: I’m not sure if I’m being ableist using the word “delusional”, I must clarify that I don’t mean to harm anyone and apologize in advance. If anyone feels offended, please call me out so I won’t mess up again.
One of the best parts of her interview was when he raised ethics and the audience burst out in laughter. I have never wanted Twitter for myself but I do love to lurk via David’s links. The level of sputtering foolishness in the face of such obvious defeat must be hilarious.
Wow, near the end of #13:
That couldn’t be more apt.
Also, on the topic of fictional characters, I know I’ve seen at least one twitter GG’er with a Rorschach avatar. And yeah, most GG’ers seem like just the type of people who would think Rorschach is awesome.
I’m really struggling to comprehend how they think that male gamers are oppressed by society and the media. Oppressed by anyone at all, except maybe those high school jocks they went to school with a decade ago. (Let it go, dudes!)
I think that in their world oppression is when a member of a different group says “Hi, me and my peers want to be involved in what you do but that privilege of yours is making it hard. Could you tone it down so we can all share in something we love and have fun together? Create a larger community where everyone is happy? We promise we won’t take your games from you, we just want in without the discomfort and harassment for being female.”
@ikanreed
Yes, but in Red Son, they literally made Superman a communist dictator who brainwashes the people opposing him by means of surgery.
I don’t think that’s being ableist, personally. Self delusion is a very real thing among some people who are fully able and otherwise sound of mind. It’s a choice, not a disability/illness.
@Sunnysombrerra
Anyone at all saying that your hobby isn’t totally and completely perfect is oppression.
Notice that a couple of the posts addressed the other gaters as “brothers.” Funny how they pretend in comment sections of articles about gamergate and on Twitter that there are so many female gamers in gamergate. Yet when they think nobody is looking, they acknowledge it’s a boy’s club. It’s almost like #notyourshield was apocryphal bullshit all alone. Who’d have thunk it?
http://imgur.com/0BI6cmf
Teal deer:
GG: Colbert would never really b on the SJW side IT MUST BE A CONSPRACY!1!!
This has been a delivery by Teal Dear deliveries. A free box of brain bleach has been thrown in as well.
http://www.rabbit.org/adoption/bunny.jpg
I like #13:
Yep. “Horrible verbal diarrhea” is about how I’d describe what comes out of 8chan.
MTV: “Gamergate suffers ultimate defeat, Anita Sarkeesian appears on The Colbert Report”
When the ultimate in satirical comedy takes on your “righteous fight”, its game over.
In comments on the Ars Technica article, some GGs are pointing out that she didn’t name 3 games; they ignore that she also said she had viewed hundreds.
And, really? Really? That’s all you got?
Ninja’ by Moddey!
“We were never truly viewed positively”
OH HEY AND LET’S ALL WONDER WHY, SHALL WE
@Arnold
If you wouldn’t call all that hate, you *might* need your hate-o-meter adjusted.
PS: if you were being sarcastic, I’m sorry and suck at communication.
@Arnold:
Yeah, that is weird. Have you tried opening your eyes?
Boy that last one is a hoot.
OK, so, the first step is to take off the sleep mask that you stole during your last transatlantic flight. All done? Cool. The second step is to stop being a fucking idiot.
I realize you may have a bit more difficulty with that one.
“Skimmed” and “looking really hard” are opposites, sir.
And anyway you’d be able to find what you said you were looking for just by skimming.
Skimmed what, might I ask? You won’t find GG violence, hate and misogyny in the butter churn.
Knowing how awful they are, I’m really curious what the 22 “best” things that have been said are. Hmmm.
@Arnold Maynard
In case you weren’t being sarcastic (with all the #GG trolls around here, it’s impossible to tell), this took me a grand total of two minutes to find:
https://twitter.com/srhbutts/status/527792678507802624
Kind of O/T, kind of not. Just got forwarded this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29821050
An incredibly moving interview Zoe Quinn gave to the BBC today.