By all rights, the furor over rocket scientist Matt Taylor’s cheesecake shirt should have died down by now. After being chided earlier this week for marring the celebration over the landing of a space probe ON A GODDAMNED COMET by doing interviews in a tacky shirt covered with half-naked ladies, Taylor offered a brief but heartfelt apology. You would have thought we’d all be able to move on.
Not so fast. Because these days apparently no controversy can ever be over as long as it serves someone’s interest to keep it going. And so a loose but very familiar coalition of reactionaries and antifeminists and angry techies have started flogging an amorphous cause they call #Shirtgate or, more popularly, #Shirtstorm, purporting to be outraged that Taylor was “humiliated” into apologizing.
So many of the angriest voices in this, er, conversation are #GamerGaters it looks a lot like a sequel. Call it GamerGate Part Two: The Straw Graspening. And it’s not just me making the connection: #GamerGaters and #Shirtstormers, often one and the same, are making the connection:
So radical #shirtstorm SJW have attacked my games my #gamergate revolt and now they are attacking #science. Am i allowed to be mad ?
— Anti-ProcrusteanBed ☀️🏴 (@antiprocrustes) November 16, 2014
I am a man. I'm sick of hearing that because of my gender, my opinions don't count and sexism towards me isn't real. #GamerGate #shirtstorm
— Lord Inquisitor Ineptus Astartes (@AstartesIneptus) November 16, 2014
https://twitter.com/Scrumpmonkey/status/533409838207078400
Heck, our old friend Milo is making the connection:
Note to those infuriated by poor Dr Matt Taylor and #shirtstorm: this is what #GamerGate has been fighting against. Are you getting it yet?
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) November 15, 2014
Oh, it’s a veritable #GamerGate Old Home Week! GG mainstays Thunderf00t and Mundane Matt have rushed out videos about The Shirt.
People are making graphics covered with hard-to-read text:
There are giant complicated conspiracy theory graphics covered with red lines and angry red text. This one notes that Chris Plante, who wrote an article criticizing Taylor’s shirt, also wrote one of the now-notorious “Gamers are Dead” pieces.
https://twitter.com/Reyeko_/status/533482641774100480
Apparently there were a few dudes who were none too pleased with Plante’s story on The Shirt:
https://twitter.com/plante/status/533244307105648640
#Shirtstormers wrote angry “letters” in too-small-type. (Click here for larger, more readable version and here for one with angry graphics, too.)
https://twitter.com/Alpha_duck1/status/533698520100777984
While others tried to draw a parallel between Taylor’s alleged “humiliation” and … rape.
#shirtgate #SupportMattTaylor #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/L8s1GrOow7
— Mark 🐸 🗑 Samenfink (@MSamenfink) November 16, 2014
#ShirtStorm #shirtgate Matthew 7:1 pic.twitter.com/bRXr7bA1Si
— Be Just & Fear Not | Let None Survive (@SuperNerdMike) November 16, 2014
Neo-reactionaries and “Dark Enlightenment” types see opportunity in the #Shirtstorm hashtag.
https://twitter.com/voxday/status/533336186535030784
Don't judge me because of what I'm wearing – unless I'm a guy. Then you can define my personality and try to ruin my life. #shirtgate #NRx
— VDARE (@vdare) November 15, 2014
https://twitter.com/antidemblog/status/533341319184531456
https://twitter.com/BernardChapin/status/533628518077186049
As do MRAs:
https://twitter.com/deanesmay/status/533758421158227969
As does this familiar name:
Women do not face a hostile climate in science. And they can handle seeing a guy in an edgy shirt. #GamerGate https://t.co/8gvTyo0bg6
— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) November 16, 2014
They’re all there, all hoping to turn a debate over a shirt into another endless internet Benghazi.
I figured, if the story is in any way true, it’s a “we try to cover our asses” kind of thing from the part of the organizers blown way out of proportion. (“I read and understood this fire safety/anti-harassment/etc. policy.” Sign here: _____) But I could be missing the point, to be honest.
Malitia: I’m thinking that’s what it is too. It would fit with what I remember reading about the situation with harassment policies at atheist conferences and the push to make them more important/enforced.
Maybe God_wotan will be kind enough to link us to an actual story instead of a meaningless urbandictionary page.
OK. I wanted to read his answer, but then I saw the Urban Dictionary link and… and… BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! This must be a joke. XD
God_wotan ,
It is not YOUR community. You don’t own it. Do you even know what social justice is? I doubt it. So, here’s a tip for you: Feminists have been in atheism. Way before the “horsemen”, there was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ernestine Rose and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Madelyn Murray O’Hare founded American Atheists and she would have eaten you for a light snack, kiddo. She received the same harassment that women in atheism are receiving now. She got it from religious fundamentalists though, not from atheists. Plenty of that harassment was directed at her for being an outspoken woman. She received death threats toward her and her family, just like the threats your friends on the anti-social justice side of the rift send women now. She did not stop being a foul mouthed atheist activist.
Ya know what else? We ain’t leave’n either. We’re still atheists and we still care that all people, even the ones who are not white, straight, cis dudes, deserve respect. That’s not what they have been getting and that bullshit is going to change. You cannot stop it. We will move on without you and never once mourn the loss of a whiny little bigoted nit like you.
Even Bob Dobbs would think you’re pathetic, “Wotan”.
That deafening sound is the bullshit klaxon.
God_wotan, really? Only white men were required to sign this form? Really? Citation or it never happened.
And the form really said “I will not to rape anyone at this conference”? Really? Citation or it never happened.
If there is anything shittier than a puffed up little weasel defending a rapist and crying about how unfair it is that people believe the people he raped while that weasel pretends to be the Real Victim because he’s a white dude, I hope I never have to see it.
Disappear up your own ass, Wotan. It looks like you’ve already made a good start. Once you get the shoulders in too, your nearly there.
*you’re*
Wotan is up in arms over “Guys don’t do that” and women being harassed at atheist cons wanting sexual harassment policies. He’s also defending serial rapist, sexual assault perpetrator on sexual harasser, Michael Shermer.
He’s slithered out of the slime to come fling poo at the walls here. I recommend the mods feed him to the basement cat asap.
So, to be clear, Stalin existed and therefore SJWs are terrible? I guess it’s a new variation on godwinning.
PS – If you’re going to troll as a pretend atheist, try not using the name of a god as part of your screen nym, especially not one that’s been used by lots of racists as a dogwhistle already. Just trying to help you be the very best troll you can be, buddy.
Wait, he’s trying to connect Stalin to social justice?
Suuuure. That guy was all about civil rights and ….j/k. What the ever loving fuck is wrong with these guys?
I assume that communism destroyed my country + wotan + it’s only white men being made to do this = European anti-communist rather than Chinese (or somewhere else in China’s zone of influence) anti-communist, so yeah, presumably Stalin is the reason why evil feminists are making the poor defenseless white men promise not to rape people at conferences.
Wow, I fucked that post up somehow. Take 2:
Hmm? *Googles*
Well that’s just lovely. ಠ_ಠ
lea
I am not defending any rapist, i am a feminist (advocating the rights and equality of women), and i am not using feminist=SJW, i was not defending Sermer.
i am not engaging with people that are insulting me – i believe u are a troll. Also thanks for proving my point.
I have no citation because i have no smartphone to capture and record everything.
I am not trolling – my screen name dates from playing starcraft in 2000. I chose it because of my fascination with Nordic culture at a time when i was a Christian Orthodox.
“OK. I wanted to read his answer, but then I saw the Urban Dictionary link and… and… BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! This must be a joke. XD”
yes it is a joke – because i dont have the time or skill to explain to you a situation that happened, witch is complex, and spawns over a number of years.
No need to ban me because this is my last reply. I cannot and dont want to talk with hateful people who thinks that because i am a white male atheist named god_wotan means i am a rape apologist troll.
.
Mildly entertaining with the “I’m not a troll, she’s a troll! I’m leaving because you called me troll and hurt my feelings”
However, a bit long… Also, loses points for thinking the only way to cite is via recording. Citations and video evidence are not synonymous.
I’m guessing a four for the flounce.
Half a point extra given for the complex witch. I mean, you wouldn’t want a simple witch, would you?
Man, it’s a bit blustery in here today. Is that just me?
Wotan, cite one source that anywhere says there has ever been an theist conference where only white males were forced to sign a sheet asserting they wouldn’t rape anyone. I promise I won’t call you a troll if you do. However, if your sources are any indication, I don’t have high hopes for you.
(Anyone can submit a definition to UrbanDictionary: If you really want to see a good definition for atheism plus, you should have scrolled down more)
an *atheist conference, of course
He could really come down from that cross. What a waste of good wood (even metaphorical wood is wasted on him). :/
This reminds me: Shut up Woody! 😀
And there, in a nutshell, is the whole problem that the shirt symbolizes.
I keep forgetting to post this so I’llput it here ’cause it’s kinda relevant”
Remember the weird DARPA/DiGRA/FF conspiracy theory? It’s made it to Inside Higher Ed
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/11/gamergate-supporters-attack-digital-games-research-association
Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!
Will he stick the flounce?
My hunch says, “No”.
@Lea:
I feel like that’s a bit of a sucker bet. How many trolls have honestly stuck the flounce? One or two at most?
Haha, oh god every time I read the wotan-troll posts I heard the sad violin music from Young Frankenstein playing in my head. Then I started humming it. Now it is wotan’s sadsong for me.
Cry us all a fucking river, dude.
(That we may bathe in your precious tears)