#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.
These idiots have not been on Tumblr, ever. There is nothing on my dash except the blogs I follow, and I’m not looking for new ones. Most people they would consider SJW operate that way, the tags are always full of assholes.
If the posts David reposted disgust you, do not by any means look at the original thread. It’s mostly hilarious gifs of people vomiting to express how disgusting the 8channers find this very nice woman who politely tried to explain that she has nothing to do with the nonsensical conspiracy theory they’ve been harassing her over.
(As far as I can make out, she got dragged into 8chan’s efforts to find out who created a bot that automatically blocks GamerGate posts on Twitter. Because blocking people on your personal Twitter feed is an assault on free speech.)
But good news, transwomen! Since you’re “really” men, you have male intelligence, so at least you’re not stupid like a dumb cootie girl! Sure, you’re ugly, fat, mentally ill, and dressed in styles Gamergaters find intimidatingly cool, but so are all ciswomen who aren’t imaginary cartoon girls.
Ethics!! Get your ethics right here! Hot fresh ethics! Get ’em while they’re ethical!
Ugh. The trans hatred these guys spew. That and the idea that ‘any woman who’s into tech stuff is really a [slur]’ is just plain awful. They don’t like trans (of any flavour), they don’t like women (of any flavour) except for the ones who sit there quietly and nod along with the filth they spew. Ugh ugh ugh.
Oh, the ugly! So thick it is!
Those feckin’ IDIOTS. They’ve confused Bill Kaulitz (of the German band Tokio Hotel) with a trans woman? That is just so fucking wrong, on so many levels. There will never be enough face. Or palm.
http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131217081420/cardfight/images/thumb/8/8a/Triple_facepalm.png/640px-Triple_facepalm.png
(I love the misspelling of “completely”, too.)
I know, I know, regressing into insults and body shaming is bad whether you’re shaming men or women, but honestly? I’ve HAD IT with guys who look like your stereotypical male gamer (think: comic book guy from the Simpsons, but with twice the chins and neckbeard stuble) complaining about women’s looks.
If you’re 5’3″, 300+ lbs, and don’t shower (or even wipe your ass after taking a dump, since it’s sooooo tedious or so says Roosh V), why would you dare criticize someone else’s appearance? Or demand a partner that’s so meticulous with hers?
(Also, the transphobia. Ugh. Ugh. UGH.)
then maybe not do it
OMG i cant even :O
Reading this stuff is like imagining each of them has two figures on their shoulders as they post; instead of the usual devil + angel pairing, it is two devils, and each of them whisper increasingly more vile things to whip the other one to top it, and both of those devils have two devils of their own to do the same, and each devil on their shoulder has…
It is vile, slobbering imps all the way down, folks.
Meanwhile, this is for y’all trans people:
http://i.imgur.com/vLrLhTG.jpg
Virtual hugs for those who want. That’s all, that’s the best I can give right now. 🙁
They do know everyone can see what they are saying, right? At this rate, there will not be anyone left for them to insult, harass, and generally be vile to. Yeah sure, it’s about ethics. More like hate carousel.
I think I’ll just post some cute diverse friendship pics.
http://i.imgur.com/F9JLjHr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Zjdz0CG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VPvIRlq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1BeyXGs.jpg
And finally, a recipe for muffins that taste like donuts:
http://i.imgur.com/eOmWNhd.jpg
@Romy “Isn’t targeting a person based on sex and gender to get them to commit suicide classified as a hate crime?”
No. Because trans people have agency and are not puppet-objects who can be “made” to commit suicide by anyone
The message I’d like them to get is “we see you. We know what you do.”
The ‘trust fund’ slur is this decade’s version of ‘limousine liberal’, and closely related to a previous generation’s ‘radical chic’. In short, combining frothing resentment and galling envy. Not an attractive look.
I feel like their motto should be “life scares me”.
Also, thank you, Bina. I thought that was Kaulitz (who is indeed a dude, just for the record) but thought, nah, WTF could he possibly have to do with this mess? I guess any man that’s pretty is not really a man after all.
I kind of want to spam them with pics of visual kei dudes just to confuse them.
I’m reminded strongly of the film “Wag the Dog” with its scheming media manipulators. But done with much less skill and panache.
To be totally frank, it’s hard to tell if this is serious or if this was actually put out there by an infiltrator trying to get them to chase their own tails. If someone proposed this to me, I’d think they were having a lend!
I keep wanting to read the title here as Red Fish Blue Fish, and then my brain tries to complete it. Petulant Fish, Homicidal Fish?
Libarwhatsit can be Boring Fish.
I think I saw some screen-shots of this 4-chan thread, or one like it, the other day. The transphobia was pretty much the kind of vile shitspew I was expecting from these scum-suckers, but what I found most chilling was that while making a calculated plan to drive people to suicide, one of them said that it had worked before.
They acknowledged that they had reason to believe they had killed someone.
They have reason to believe that someone is dead, as a direct result of things they said and did to harass that person into suicide.
And I felt sick to my stomach, because that was a living, breathing, complex and wonderful human being whose life was extinguished for the sake of their sick sport, and they’re fucking crowing about it and planning more deaths and power-tripping on it because the chances are that they will never be brought to justice.
Part of me wants to reach through the Internet and strangle them all with my bare hands, but that would make me no better than them and they are the lowest of the lowlifes. Utter evil.
Libarbarian: please don’t try to stand up for me, you suck at it.
It is hard to tell what’s someone taking the piss and what’s Keystone Cops-style incompetence.
Funny, that’s not what I thought when I saw this guy. Or Nick Rhodes. Or David Bowie. I was more like “Ooooo, nice job on the makeup! And isn’t he cute!”
If I’m only interested in fucking men who’re that pretty then that’s the ultimate misandry, right?
Just trying to do my part, folks.
Fuck you libarbarian, fuck you and your minimizing a fucking coordinated campaign of psychological torture. Fuck. You. Right. In. Your. Fucking. Ear.
nope nope nope nope nope
Sorry, I don’t have anything useful to add except all my nope.
On the bright side, they make their awful plans obvious to everyone. They’re so bad at concealing their plots that it’s not hard to provide evidence for what they’re doing. Also, it makes it easier to spot anti-feminists who don’t actually know much about feminists outside of the straw and sockpuppet varieties (see: those who think free-bleeding and #EndFathersDay weren’t 4chan hoaxes).
@libarbarian
I love this ridiculous logic. “People have agency, so anything they do is 100% because of free will and not because of power structures, social pressure, harassment, marginalisation, etc.”
At least now it’s obvious that your name isn’t meant ironically, you’re definitely a libertarian.
@libarbarian There’s the door. Right over there. Please use it. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.