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.
Colbert’s demand for “three” games which are male power fantasies is funny precisely because he’s asking for such a tiny number out of an answer which could include hundreds. The fact that the GGers are making any hay out of Sarkeesian’s non-answer only demonstrates that satire is too complicated a concept for them to grasp.
I completely get why she didn’t list three games. She is always bending over backwards to make it clear that she isn’t denouncing individual sexist games, hence putting the word trope in the title of her video series. Singling out a few franchises would suggest that there are a few isolated problematic games and take away the focus from the bigger picture.
And FifthInterval is right about how Colbert’s humor sails way over the head of GGers but that’s about as surprising as the sun rising.
@Social Justice Ranger
All your base are deserve to us
It’s not that, some of them seem to think she literally can’t, despite what must be hundreds of hours of research now. Refer to #12 in Futrelle’s list above, plus the older conspiracy theory about her not being a “real” gamer.
Found a great tweet from McIntosh (sorry still can’t format)
“These GGers are like little children who’ve wandered into an adult conversation they don’t understand & so are kicking everyone in the shins”
I didn’t know about him until today, glad I do now.
This has always seemed like the weirdest weird thing to me. I’m not a huge gamer, but I’m a solid one with a long, long history of playing games. I still think my funniest job interview story was from when I was hired to do QA for EA – I went in to interview and my boss said “Wait, you have experience?! And you’re a girl?! AND you have EXPERIENCE?! You know you’re so hired, right?!” All of my co-workers, including the one other woman, were delighted to have me.
But how could I possibly know anything about gaming, because ladyparts, amirite?
Brief summary: unintelligible, contradictory, rage-y, and clichéd. You know how there are times when people get so angry, they kinda lose the ability to speak, and so they turn into jittery, tic-y, mute balls of red faced rage? That’s what this reminded me of. Also, crying male toddlers.
It’s also kind of cute (and by cute I mean deeply disturbing) that these guys actually believe Stephen is right wing, and not a brilliant and incredibly scathing parody of a right winger. I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell these nutters, I’m sure they’ll buy it.
zennurse: For formatting, use the arrow brackets (located in the shift position over the comma and period on most keyboards) around the instruction you’re giving. Before the quote, you put “blockquote” in the brackets; after the quote, put “/blockquote” in brackets.
So, to blockquote the above paragraph, you would cut-and-paste the paragraph in, then adjust it like so, but use the arrow brackets instead of the curly ones:
{blockquote}zennurse: For formatting, use the arrow brackets (located in the shift position over the comma and period on most keyboards). Before the quote, you put “blockquote” in the brackets; after the quote, put “/blockquote” in brackets. {/blockquote}
*Crosses fingers that I haven’t messed this up*
@brooked, yeah my take on her not naming the three games was that the GGers would then:
– focus on those three games as the only problem games (because GGers shift the goalposts)
– argue that those games aren’t relevant anymore because people are now playing games X, Y, Z instead
– do angels dancing on the head of a pin arguments about how individual scenes in those three games are being misrepresented and how she’s “lying”
tl;dr there was no point in naming three games. The issue is wide-spread.
I love how they STILL think that throwing hate and vitriol at her will stop her. Yeah, guys, how did that work out for you the first time. Oh, you made her career? Huh. That’s a funny way to destroy somebody.
I know it’s beside the point and that this is not a list of the most violent etc. examples of ‘gaters but the most ridiculous Still, this is funny.
He skimmed really hard. Then he sauntered at top speed. Later he will wander with purpose and a specific direction in mind.
Wow, reading those tweets was like reading something out of one of the Ultimate Warrior’s comic books. Just…no one gives speeches like that in real life, guys, not even the President.
Oh Christ, there’s a screenshot on David’s Twitter where a #Git refers to Anita as “The Jewess.” But the Stormfront caricature is used totally out of context and is completely unrelated to anti-Semitism, you guize.
Freemage, thank you so much but I am stuck on a tablet where cut and paste don’t apply. I am expecting a laptop soon but until then I’m kinda screwed. :'(
I do want to mention again that the Boston Globe interviewed Brianna Wu posted today. She talks about how hard it is to hear from girls who are now concerned about going into game Dev. Its a good read.
@brooked: Oh man, you wanted a Thunderf00t fail? Check out Pandagon:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/gamergate-self-delusions-continue-to-be-hilarious/
Apparently Chunderhead was certain that Colbert would shred her.
This is my favoritest comment on this matter, and possibly forever (it was posted over on the Pharyngula thread on the topic):
I literally cannot get this (what’s the aural counterpart to ‘image’?) out of my mind….
Reblogged this on Kaal Alexander Rosser.
OMG; in what may be the best unintentionally self revealing comment of all time a gamergater declares:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if all dysentery against her name will have been eradicated….”
I can’t stop laughing now…
@Leftwingfox
They seriously thought Colbert was going to join them? Thats… hilarious. Wow. Dudes, you’re against about everything Colbert actually stands for.
He’s liberal.
He’s generally a feminist.
He taught his kid’s Catholic Sunday School class.
He mocks conservatives on TV all the time.
You really think he’s going to go along with harassing women? A liberal, feminist Catholic Sunday School teacher? Who does a show mocking conservatives…
I mean, some of those things wouldn’t rule it out, but the full list?
@contrapangloss
On top of Colbert being a liberal, don’t forget that he’s the guy who famously said “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” That alone would have told them if they weren’t so wrapped in the bubble.
Not weird at all. People that believe violent, hateful and misogynic nonsense don’t tend to notice it as a bad thing.
She named more than 3 sexist games in one title. Grand Theft Auto. The title includes GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, GTA; San Andreas , GTA 4 and GTA5.
I don’t like how in the Colbert interview, they didn’t talk at all about ethics in video game journalism. They openly mocked it, even though it’s the main thing GGers are talking about. Just seemed disrespectful and one-sided.
Me watching dunderf00l’s meltdown:
http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/108172339/31321706