#GamerGaters have been spending a lot of time lately trying to convince the world that they’re really quite reasonable people, actually, and that the “movement’s” reputation as a hotbed of hateful bullying is undeserved.
Today on 8Chan’s /gg/ board, for example, one enterprising anon announced the start of “OP FIREHEART,” a combination of “Operation Firefly + Operation Lonely Hearts.”
Operation Firefly, you may recall, is GamerGate’s attempt to flood Tumblr with Tumblr-fied versions of their standard propaganda. Operation Lonely Hearts is a more recent “op,” an attempt to hijack a new meme started and spread by people critical of GamerGate, in which Twitterers and others replace their avatars with heart-shaped icons to indicate their support of a diverse gaming world open to all. GamerGaters have appropriated these heart-shaped icons and are using them to spread their own terrible message.
Op FireHeart aims to take these GamerGated hearts to Tumblr.
The weheart.io heartpix we made are amazing and powerful. But we can take them one step further, and use OP Firefly to help them spread on Tumblr and Social Media. They are the type of post that Tumblr can’t get enough of. They’re artsy, fun and minimalistic.
Here’s the plan- we make a lot more of those memes, but we use popular anime and vidya characters along with people from superwholock /homestuck /mlp etc. Include hot guys and gals and load up on those pop culture references.
See guys we like anime so therefore we can’t be all bad right? NO ONE WILL SEE THROUGH THIS CLEVER RUSE.
Really, anything can be made into a fireheart meme. Pictures of food, alcohol, parties- make it fun and spreadable.
We post the images in those tags (where the character came from), with one simple message underneath: #Gamergate loves you. It’s a show of support and outreach, nothing else- but it will make a lot of neutrals curious.
Even aside from the fact that this propaganda campaign is, you know, transparently cynical and obvious – if you’re going to try to dupe the world it’s generally a bad idea to let the world know about it first – there’s one giant problem with Operation FireHeart and the RebuildInitiative and all of GamerGate’s attempts to win the PR war by pretending to be nice, and that is: WE CAN SEE YOU.
Evidence of your bad faith and bigotry is everywhere; you can’t wash it away with a letter-writing campaign or heart-shaped anime avatars.
Oh, you want evidence? Well, look no further than this thread from yesterday on 8chan. After one anon posted screenshots of an actual polite Twitter conversation they had with a woman GamerGaters have been going after lately, the thread quickly degenerated into a transphobic nightmare after one anon declared that the woman in question was “a man, baby.”
Some, er, highlights of what followed. Oh, and Trigger Warning for some really horrible transphobic crap.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that heart-shaped anime avatars aren’t going to dig you out of the hole your’re continually digging for yourself.
Oh, but there’s more.
That last comment is what passes for a “moderate” voice in this thread. It helped to inspire this, er, debate.
There’s not enough perfume in the world to make this shit smell sweet.
For more on this thread, and on “reasonable” GamerGaters, see “Polite” GGers – A Case Study, an excellent Storify of some recent Tweets from @alexlifschitz, which is what alerted me to this toxic thread.
And in other depressing news, some 4channers — remember them? — are launching a new “op” of their own … designed to drive trans folks to suicide. See here and here for more details. (Neither is a link to 4chan.) I can’t even.
It’s fucking disgusting that there are people who consider this “free speech”.
Psst! Gamergaters. Even if you shut your eyes to your hypocrisy, we can totally see you.
How do they not realise that everyone can see their secret plans?
“Confused”. The word you are looking for is “confused”, not “curious”.
On the quoted conversations, it’s as if their belief that women and/or people who care about social justice issues can’t internet is so strong that it never occurs to them that we might, you know, be able to find the conversations conducted in public spaces in which they’re saying awful things.
“It’s a show of support and outreach, nothing else- but it will make a lot of neutrals curious.”
“– if you’re going to try to dupe the world it’s generally a bad idea to let the world know about it first –”
That’s the downside of research across the board and everywhere; you decide to look into something-or-other and you find out about stuff you wish you hadn’t known. I expect the experiences of the Curious Neutrals (assuming there are any) will conform to this pattern. I’ll be darn surprised if they don’t.
Gotta hate the assumptions going on here. “Disagreement? With us and our reasonable opinions? MUST BE A MENTALLY DEFECTIVE SJW [Slurs, slurs, and more slurs].”
Seriously, fuck these guys. If their poor widdle egos can’t handle the fact that people think they’re people and deserve to be treated as such, and they want to have some games for themselves, then they really need to quit giving themselves colonoscopies with their skulls.
They … really don’t know what they’re talking about with tumblr, do they? They think they’re going to get support there when they come out with shit like this about the people using it?
ROFL they are so stupid
Hello, I found this site about a month ago and I actually keep coming back here to read the interesting debate in the commenting section as well as David’s posts.
Isn’t targeting a person based on sex and gender to get them to commit suicide classified as a hate crime? Targeting people to get them to commit suicide is beyond awful. Can they be locked up without access to the internet?
So, whenever a woman is good at programming they think… ugh. Also, have news for them, transwomen aren’t pretending to be women, they ARE women. *eye roll*
This is beyond sick and disgusting
Even though “kill it with fire” is a common insult not typically meant literally, I still took that post as a death threat because of how unfortunately common the murder of trans women is and because of the dehumanization of referring to trans women as ‘it.’
Although: maybe this is a result of their having watched too many movies while high. They forgot that the villain is supposed to gloat after enticing the hero into the deathtrap, not before.
Just when you think you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, it turns out to be a false bottom. I feel sick.
Oh (don’t) look, someone identified themselves as Nigerian while joining in on Muslim-bashing, so you can imagine where that went.
Women can’t code or make games or know anything about the internet or use computers at all ever!
Meanwhile in the heart thread, a confused gamergater has to be carefully walked through the process of creating an image with both green AND purple in it.
This is hilarious.
Wait, no, not hilarious. What’s the word? Nauseating. This is nauseating.
Is anyone else reminded of The Wire when these guys are planning their Super Seekrit Infiltration Operations on public fora?
http://thewirequotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Taking-notes-on-a-criminal-conspiracy-Stringer-Bell.jpg
Truth. Encouraging people to kill themselves is inciting violence and is not protected speech.
In related news, I see that a KKK chapter has started trying to become more inclusive.
A quote from the leader: “White supremacy is the old Klan. This is the new Klan. The KKK is for a strong America.” (So actually it’s about ethics in American politics.)
That’s satire, right? Right?
Genuine question: I know I could probably figure this out on my own by going on the GG boards but I honestly really don’t want to read any of this stuff unless it’s on a secondary site where people are making fun of it (like this one!) (My blood pressure can’t handle it.) So I’m wondering if anyone here knows the answer:
Is “The Leader of Gamergate” the default anonymous screen name on these boards?
Yes.
The “trust fund” line betrays a lot. They can’t be anything but the virtuous underdogs, because anyone who (pretends to) care about progressive politics is a privileged, rich, white asshole. And who cares about saying horrible things to privileged, rich, progressive assholes? It’s like South Park came to life.
This is just… I can’t even today. UGH
So…It’s actually about committing hate crimes against trans people? Ugh, I just…
I feel sick. Almost as sick as I did after listening to someone confessing to drugging and anally raping 3 girls and then find out the girls were bullied out of school.
I just can’t handle the world today…
As a trans gamer myself I wish I had any kind of useful input here but the lack of self-awareness is so staggering, especially since Gamergaters like to whine quite a bit about how feminists hate men or that gaming journalists are so mean and bully them because they hate their audience ’cause they’re a bunch of mean haters who hate.
I guess hatred is okay as long as it’s not MISANDRY. D: