Here’s an interesting post by someone claiming to be a former GamerGater on Reddit explaining why they left the, er, movement and helpfully summing up a lot of what’s wrong with it. At least when it comes to GG’s rampant hypocrisy. Take it away, turbonerdsupreme!
It was a mixture of things really, but I think the starting point was Milo’s “You take your tits out for a living tweets” to Liana K. Basically what gradually convinced me GG wasnt about ethics (journalistic or otherwise) was the bayonetta affair, and their sheer hypocrisy.
They claim to be fighting for Journalistic ethics, while supporting and championing highly unethical journalists like Milo and Pinsof. It’s also important not to forget the Bayonetta affair where they tried to pressure a publisher into pulling a Gerstmann, and dropping advertisments on a site that gave their game a bad review. THEY LITERALLY TRIED TO BRING ABOUT THE SECOND COMING OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS EXAMPLE OF CORRUPT GAMES JOURNALISM IN HISTORY.
They denounce journalists like Leigh Alexander, being rude to people on twitter, while joining in with and celebrating the outright bullying, abuse and harassment of Milo “real professional journalist” Yiannopolous (i’d hyperlink an example but there’s way too many of them to pick just one, this guy is really scum, google it)
They attack Anita for not providing good value for her kickstarter money, while supporting, glorifying and No I’m Spartacusing, someone who scammed around $15k out of people using kickstarter as well as the obvious scam that is the Sarkeesian effect. [Although good news is Sarkessian effect stuff is starting to be voted down sometimes on KiA] They also welcomed the support of the Amazing Atheist a known scammer
They mock Cheong’s neo-nazi past, while having Davis “white nationalist on paper” Aurini, Milo “Iron Cross” Yianoppulous/Wagner (seriously what the fuck is wrong with this guy), the Holocaust denying King of /poll, and Stormfront among them. Not to mention their propagating of anti-Semitic /pol/ memes and frequent use of Jew as a slur.
They Call Chu a rape apologist (a completely bullshit accusation), all the while endorsing Roosh “No never means no” V, and Mike “Why Should I care when women are raped?” Cernovich. [Although to be fair support for Roosh has met some opposition]
They get super mad at Sarkeessian for supposedly not even liking video games, all the while championing Christina “Still hasnt actually played any video games to my knowledge” Sommers, and Milo “Are you noticing a reoccurring theme here yet?” Yianopoulos.
They claim they want politics and politically charged thinktank funded academics out of video games, while supporting Christina “works for a rightwing think tank” Sommers.
They claim Anita is the new Jack Thompson while supporting Jack “The Old Jack Thompson” Thompson.
They claim Milo Yianopoulos has redeeming qualities as a human being, while being frequently exposed to his tweets, articles, and videos. While admittedly this is not hypocrisy it does show extremely poor judgement.
In conclusion the majority of GGers show such a massive double standard in their treatment of progressives and social conservatives, that it is impossible to construe it as anything other than a thinly veiled right wing socially conservative movement, with no real care for journalistic ethics. That is why I left.
The links scattered around in there are pretty illuminating.
H/T — A Division by Zer0
@kittehserf – Got the email! Thanks!
OK, I just had a tweet favorited, and I’m not exactly sure how to take it.
?dl=0
Granted, I’m very inexperienced with Twitter. But from his profile, I think he “favorited” my tweet in order to mock me.
Ah, well. Have fun!
Meanwhile, my sister, Mom and I just finished watching the Lord of the Rings. Couldn’t turn it off and go to bed. That movie is sooooo good!
Hobbit – next month! Yaaay!
Ooooh, you know what? I’ll bet they interpreted that as me being a GamerGate supporter, even though I was trying to be sarcastic about how I’m a woman gamer, and yeah, I really exist.
Clearly, I did a lousy job. Ooops.
Politics – I’m bad at it.
It took this person this long to figure this out?
I read the rest of the thread on which this particular post was made, and a good number of them (shorter and not as cleverly written) specify that it was the obvious misogyny that made them veer off of GG after a few days. So there is still good in the world.
Ah, slatestarcodex.
It really is an odd odd place.
One comes to his senses! There is hope!
ted the fed
So…it’s less about “corruption” in gaming when it comes to indie titles (and I don’t get why they’re not talking about AAA game devs being shitty either when AAA devs are practically the worst people next to Gators) and more like “I didn’t like it! Why is everyone going on and on about how good it is?! Stop liking what I don’t like! A game I didn’t like isn’t worthy of that much praise! IT’S OBVIOUSLY CORRUPTION AND I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SEE IT!”?
Sadly, that’s a pretty prevalent attitude in gaming culture. If you like a game some didn’t, then you’ll get shit. If you don’t like a game someone else did, you’ll get shit. “Stop liking what I don’t like!” syndrome is rampant. Just look at the fact that one of the GTA titles got 9/10 because the author thought it was a little bit sexist, and there was utter *outrage* on behalf of the readers. Petitions to get the person fired and change the game core were all over the place.
[sarcasm] We can’t all have different tastes! We’re all supposed to be a hive-mind because that’s how gaming works! We’re all supposed to like Call of Duty! We’re all supposed to hate indie games that are about wimmens and have stories that aren’t about war and make us feel things other than testosterone-fueled anger! ONE OF US! ONE OF US! HAIL ACTIVISION![/sarcasm]
“Sadly, that’s a pretty prevalent attitude in gaming culture. If you like a game some didn’t, then you’ll get shit. If you don’t like a game someone else did, you’ll get shit. “Stop liking what I don’t like!” syndrome is rampant.”
Pretty much. Gamers aren’t happy unless they’re shitting on someone, even if it’s just a fan of a different game/series.
Btw i’m not sure why Call of Duty (or any FPS for that matter) gets used as the example of “that game everyone gets angry if you don’t like”, it’s pretty much the opposite. If you mention you like CoD anywhere on the internet, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get called a “CoD kiddie” followed by any one of 1000 slurs.
Nah, if you really want to make someone angry on the internet, tell them you don’t like Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or that you like Mass Effect 2 or 3 more than Mass Effect 1.
I can’t even get through Mass Effect 1 the controls are wonky
shadethedruid
Mostly because when I mention I’m not a fan of CoD (or any “modern military shooter” for that matter, I get told that I should and I’m a terrible person for not doing so. Granted, you do get a lot of people on the opposite side of the shit spectrum telling you that you shouldn’t like CoD too.
Honestly? I like Morrowind, but not so much as to defend it to the death. I like Skyrim far better (and Oblivion too). I had a game-breaking moment in Morrowind that made me so thankful I was on PC so I could fix it. [Don’t ever try to steal a mage’s belt. They will summon a daedra that will sap all your strength, and it won’t come back. I couldn’t even wear pants without being over-encumbered!] The game is good, and it’s mark on the series is astronomical, but Bethesda really took the good bits and moved forward with Oblivion, and then with Oblivion to Skyrim, as a good developer should.
I didn’t play Mass Effect though. Sci-Fi’s not my thing. : P I could never really get into it. It seems far more complicated than good ol’ fantasy is for me. (Saying “it’s magic!” compared to long, engineering-based discussions and the like.)
ParadoxicalIntention: Yeah, I guess there’s big differences depending on where you go. Most of my experience comes from random game forums (especially FPS game forums, which are pretty much the worst place ever), where CoD is the go-to scapegoat for when you really need to hate on someone (or something).
I like Morrowind for what it brought to the series (i’m a huge fan of game lore, I can literally just sit for hours watching videos or reading things about made up history), but I just couldn’t get into the gameplay.* The mix of first person and hit chance was a deal breaker for me (if it was turn based, a la Might & Magic, I would’ve been fine with it).
I played for an hour, spending far too long talking to NPCs and exploring (as I do with those sorts of games, i’m terrible), generally having fun. But as soon as I got into a fight with a rat in a basement, I just noped straight out of the game. 😛 Skyrim is definitely my favourite. Oblivion was good too, but like you said they took that and improved on it a lot.
But I do love me some sci fi, in fact I love it just as much as I do fantasy. I guess that’s from growing up watching sci fi as a kid (Star Trek TNG and Farscape being the main ones for me) and being super into space stuff. Equally though, i’m also a huge LotR/Hobbit (movie versions/general world lore, i’ve never read the books) and D&D fan.
*I had a similar issue with Mass Effect 1. Good game, but the gameplay made me too frustrated to continue past a certain point. It also didn’t help that I played it after i’d already completed Mass Effect 2, so i’d been “spoiled” by the gameplay in that.
Meh all I see for and against it now is empty rhetoric.
There is an issue with the collusion for writing the gamers are dead series of articles and there are problems with friends promoting each other or taking bribes for positive reviews. But gamer gate isn’t offering alternatives.