"we're inclusive and accepting!" says #gamergate, before drawing racist caricatures of women they dislike. pic.twitter.com/zbFnWBOmdn
— Sarah Nyberg (@srhbutts) November 1, 2014
The other day, I posted a screenshot of an 8chan comment featuring the drawing above, a crude caricature of Anita Sarkeesian that’s a not-very-subtle variation on a racist and anti-Semitic cartoon that originally ran in a neo-Nazi newspaper.
Here’s the original, in all its crapitude:
Let’s face it! That is one fucking awful cartoon.
Now, if that picture — or at least the grinning fellow on the left — looks familiar, it’s because he’s been that’s turned into a meme (“Le Happy Merchant”) that’s proven popular with 4channers and Stormfronters alike.
Given that GamerGate itself has its origins on 4chan — and in an IRC channel populated mostly bey 4channers — it shouldn’t come as a complete shock that #GamerGaters, some of whom refer to Sarkeesian as “Jewkeesian,” have repurposed the image into a caricature of one of their most hated foes. Sarkeesian isn’t actually Jewish, but for whatever reason this doesn’t seem to faze her anti-Semitic non-admirers.
GamerGaters like to claim that this sort of bigotry “isn’t what GamerGate is really about,” and that anti-Semites and other bigots are fringe elements in their movement, if not “false flagging” feminazi shills trying to make GamerGate look bad. Here, one GamerGater makes that point with as much sarcasm as he can muster:
https://twitter.com/JakALope044/status/525839519161917440
This would be a much more convincing argument if GamerGaters weren’t so quick to excuse and/or explain away the anti-Semitic imagery every time it rears its ugly head.
Here’s one active GamerGater who wants everyone to know that, actually, it’s about ethics in game journalism.
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/524266371069517824
But she has a pretty unusual notion of what “not hate” is, given that she posted this picture several days later:
This lovely little drawing combines the racist caricature of Sarkeesian with another bit of neo-Nazi propaganda that’s been floating around the internet for a while, and which had already been repurposed as an anti-Muslim comic. In other words, @SlushStuff has posted a mashup of a neo-Nazi cartoon that’s already been used in another bigoted mashup.
We can’t blame @SlushStuff’s glee in posting this on her ignorance of the sources of the cartoon in question; she’s well aware that the picture is based on anti-Semitic propaganda. She just thinks this isn’t a problem, because reasons.
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/526342650375704576
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/526396368609615872
Then again, @SlushStuff doesn’t seem to have a problem with straight-up racism either.
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/521793824621088770
This is a common reaction amongst GamerGaters when confronted with this particular work of, er, art. When srh, who tracks GamerGate bigotry on Twitter, posted the tweet at the top of this post, here are some of the reactions she got, in a seemingly unending discussion that extended over hundreds of tweets. (These aren’t all successive tweets; see here for the whole thread.)
Yep. That’s right. A guy whose avatar is a white dude in an American Indian headdress (comedian Jim Norton, FWIW) is lecturing people about what is and what isn’t racism.
At this point I “noped” out of reading the rest of the thread before my head exploded from all the nonsense.
GamerGate claims to have an anti-harassment squad, but when someone posts caricatures of Anita Sarkeesian that are not just inspired by but probably literally traced from Nazi propaganda, these are the guys who show up.
To quote the robot bartender in The Fifth Element, do you want some more?
Here’s more.
After one anti-GamerGater posted a screenshot of Mary’s post featuring Sarkeesian painting fake threats on a wall, one #GamerGater had this response.
Here yet another GamerGater claims that the caricature is mocking Sarkeesian, so therefore it can’t be anti-Semitic:
https://twitter.com/NappalmSam/status/526385714968428544
Oh, wait, is this yet another GamerGater making the same terrible “argument?” Why yes, it is:
I ask #gamergate why they are condoning/reposting Ann anti Semitic cartoon. They respond: Jews Are Not A Race pic.twitter.com/Ef1mhYw6Dy
— Joshua Idehen (@joshuaidehen80) October 26, 2014
And, oh, it gets weirder. Here a GamerGater responding to a critic who was pointing out an instance of GamerGaters using “Le Happy Merchant” in an infographic … by suggesting he was “Jew-shaming.”
https://twitter.com/emvarez_dota/status/526379494580695041
And here’s a GamerGater who uses “Le Happy Merchant” as his fucking avatar … accusing Sarkeesian of anti-Semitism. And spelling it wrong.
I could keep going, but after this, is there any point?
Bottom of the barrel, consider yourself scraped.
EDIT: Added more info on the source of that second Sarkeesian cartoon.
The cognitive dissonance is strong with this crowd. The only question I really have about them is whether or not they believe their own kindergartener-level lies or they just hope that they can fool the rest of us. They’re a giant group of assholes who think they have a right not to be seen as assholes just because they insist on behaving like assholes.
I’d say something about their demands, ignoring the harassment and the racism and the transparent hatred of women, but those demands never exist long enough to be discussed. Every time someone points out how stupid a demand is (The review of Depression Quest doesn’t exist. Women and minorities are already in your secret clubhouse. Opinion pieces that hurt your feelings aren’t “unethical”. There’s no such thing as “objective” reviews. There’s no such thing as “apolitical”. Discussing the cultural aspects of video games is beneficial to creative development. etc etc) they change it to a new set of demands. Because the truth is, #GamerGate is some stupid identity they’ve all taken on, and they really just want people to respect that identity no matter what.
#GamerGate: You can’t hold us responsible for literally anything anyone in our movement does, but we demand to be taken seriously.
I see up there more than one instance of the argument that “it’s only racist if YOU think it’s racist.”
That was kind of the key holding in Plessy v. Ferguson. So, GGers! This isn’t an original position, and it has been pretty effectively panned by all thinking, non-racist people for more than 100 years.
Burn the internet. It’s the only solution. It was a nice idea but I think it’s pretty clear now that it’s more trouble than it was worth.
This supports my opinion that while GG is far from over, it’s very finely distilled at this point. Pretty much the only people left are far-right ideologues and/or channers.
I’m sure you’ve already seen this, but it’s worth linking the image so people can see them side-by-side. The anti-FemFreq cartoon that “Mary” posted isn’t based on an anti-Semitic cartoon; it IS an anti-semitic cartoon. It’s the exact same drawing, except that “Mary” (or whoever) pasted in a new head and swiped out some of the lettering.
http://www.islamophobiawatch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Hey-Rabbi-antisemitic-cartoon.jpg
That last one is a special kind of worthless…
I’m legit fascinated by the kind of person who comes out with “Uhm, actually, that is not what racism means,” as if their only concern is linguistic precision. Kind of surprised no one quoted the dictionary, actually.
It’s fairly common… been happening a lot with horrible atheists saying horrible things about Muslims: “That’s not RACISM!”
But I like how it’s supposed to be a gotcha, when it’s actually agreeing with the basic point being made. “The term you used for describing why this is terrible isn’t perfect. Here’s a more accurate one: antisemitic. CHECKMATE.”
Unrelated to these piles of puke (I did have a related post to make, but it seems it’s been deleted – too racist even for Twitter, I guess) but related to #GG:
https://twitter.com/quintega/status/529019496376590336
You can smell the ethics.
The supreme irony here is that the columnist here sees a drawing of someone with a hooked nose and a deceptive nature and HE leaps to the conclusion that the subject is being portrayed as a Jew.
I dob’t know if David Futrelle is a racist and/or antisemite, but this article is incredibly problematic and as a Jew I find it offensive.
I am so fucking sick of seeing that “happy merchant” and the other pictures from the same artist. Never knowing whether the person posting the picture just has an awful sense of humor, or they sincerely believe The International Jew is trying to steal their vital essence.
And in news actually about ethics in video game journalism, still nothing about Shadow of Mordor’s sponsorship flap, just baseless accusations of embezzlement against Sarkeesian
Affirming once again that they are indeed “the baddies”.
Speaking of ethics, one GGer has literally duplicated this blog post on their own blog. If you don’t check the url you would think it was my blog. When I protested they said only “take it up with my web host.”
Any thoughts on possible remedies? Not sure it’s worth it.
Here, Im putting it up as a donotlink post:
http://www.donotlink.com/cces
DON’T POST THERE
How can they support journalism without resorting to antisemitism? Frozen peaches and all that.
Interesting that you cannot get off that page with the back button, eh?
@David
I can only think of two reasons for somebody to do that – their site contains a virus or their site tracks IPs (#Gits love their doxxing). Does DoNotLink mask IPs?
4chan, it is too late to worry about looking bad, or pretending this has anything to do with ethics.
Their argument is essentially “it’s anti semitic to notice anti Semitism!” Idiots.
@David:
Apparently mirroring is pretty much GG standard practice at the moment. (link is to a Vice article tearing shreads off them for the practice – apparently stealing intellectual property so the original publisher can’t make any money off people reading it is totes ethical, Because Reasons)
“You didn’t use the precise term to describe my bigotry; therefore, it’s not bigotry.” It amazes me how often I hear this particular piece of horseshit.
Ampersand, I hadn’t seen that. MAkes it even more appalling. The cartoon Mary posted is basically a mashup of two grotesquely anti-Semitic cartoons.
How…how on Earth could that Utah State University image predate Gamergate when the event it’s “mocking” (HUGE quotation marks here) happened well after Gamergate started? Do these people just not know how time works?
Ampersand, do you know where that one is from?
Saul – being aware of anti-semitic tropes which are literally displayed in actual anti-semitic literature doesn’t make one an anti-semite. I’d say “nice try”, but it isn’t – it’s actually a mind-bogglingly stupid thing to allege.
@Saul W. Aswright
Do you read before you post? No? Didn’t notice that I already addressed your bullshit before you vomited it up? Okay, just checking.
@WWTH: it’s like the idiots who try and tell me feminists are the REAL sexists because they talk about men and women differently and OMG they’re reinforcing the gender binary!
Except, y’know, that’s laughably silly because the whole point of social justice movements is to point out that the world isn’t yet where we want it to be. If we were saying everything was equal and great, feminism would have no reason to exist. Or we’d be lying through our teeth.