#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.
If that’s misandry, then sign me up. I’m a-misanderin’ away in my head right now.
@ Libarbarian – What Binjabreel said.
Why is it that the harassers Free Will to refrain from psychologically torturing people is never called into question? Where is their culpability for trying to bend the Free Will of others?
nothing about libtroll is ironic. that boring stupidity is played straight.
I’ve been misandering for over 20 years, why stop now?
In terms of libarwhatsit, I’m kind of hoping David will eventually get annoyed enough to ban the tedious little fucker. Minimizing death threats seems like a good reason to do that.
Well, if we want the troll gone surely we just need to light our scented fucking candles and make a bon bon offering to the mods/David and they can sweep out the trash for us, yes?
Boring troll wastes space. Tell our enemies to send someone worthy.
Neither incense nor bug spray seems to work, maybe we should try that weird chalk you use for roaches.
borax? shit’s toxic. diatomaceous earth ftw!
I’d be all for banning libarbarian for suggesting that trans people bullied into suicide are merely puppets. Trolling about such a serious topic is not amusing.
I really can’t comment on the second half of this post because my mind is defensively erasing the examples from my memory before they do any permanent damage, but the first half is magnificent. I love how enthusiastic and confident they sound. It’s like an old man in charge of in the marketing department of a toy store talking confidently about what the 12-16 demographic wants.
[Cave Johnson] “Tumblrs these days are into the animes and the homestucks! Can we get ponies on that? And put in a picture of “Doctor Wholock”, I heard they love that shit! And hearts, people! I want hearts EVERYWHERE! I wanna be bleedin’ hearts out my goddamn spleen I want so many hearts! Fuck! Hearts!”
Yeah, up until now he’s just been mildly annoying, but that was way over the line, and people have been banned for making similar statements before. If we’re allowed to vote, I vote for the banhammer.
They really should not try to hide behind the Homestuck fandom. Homestuckers do not like bigots. That won’t go well for the ‘gaters. No at all.
There’s even a character in Homestuck that was created to mock guys like ‘gaters.
Ah yes, the good old argument that the real transphobia is acting like trans people shouldn’t be harassed, because transpeople are strong and have agency and other SJW bullshit words. In fact, it’s practically transphobic to NOT harass trans people!
End hate! Stalk and harass everyone! Except cis white dudes because it’s just not fair that a cis white dude can’t have an opinion on anything anymore, gosh, will the PC police never stop???
The thing is that internet harassment has led to people killing themselves in the past, and this wouldn’t be the first time that the chans were involved. There’s a history there. They were plotting to do the same thing to Zoe Quinn for a while too.
^This
I really don’t get these people. They remind me so much of the bullies I had at school. That makes sense at least. These guys are grown up bullies.
I myself still have a lot of anger because I had an abusive childhood, but what these guys are doing is hateful beyond my understanding.
@libarbarian
Words have power. Actions have power. No one is a puppet, but hatred still causes pain. Still destroys. Still kills. Denying this only makes you pathetic. Not manly, cool, edgy, funny, ironic, or right.
If none are puppets, then these horrible wastes of humanity need not be puppet to their prejudices, hate, and bigotry. Direct your useless, hateful trolling towards them.
I second (third?) the move for banhammering.
(Oh stars this just- agh. This drivel is shouted a million times every time something about bullying or suicide comes up, and it’s horrible and NEEDS TO STOP.)
Bogdan – a good friend of mine went through an abusive childhood the likes of which these frass bundles can’t imagine. He, by sheer effort of will, has grown into one of the gentlest and most compassionate humans I know. They whine about being ignored by girls in high school? Pfft. He actually experienced an improvement in his environment when CPS put him in a group home. Imagine that, if you will.
Policy, when I was in university, we used boric acid. I hope that was less toxic than borax, but living without roaches was a high priority.
Harassment is bad.
Saying mean things to someone on Twitter or Facebook should never be a crime.
Thinking is hard. Some people aren’t very good at it.
See, cassandrakitty? What I said in the other thread; that was blunt, but not mean. 🙂
trying to drive someone to suicide, purposefully = saying mean things, by libtroll’s metric.
remind me again why this shit-for-brains isn’t banned?
I am frequently surprised by how many ignorant people think they can and should be able to “say mean things on twitter” with impunity. Wrong again troll. Isn’t there a bridge somewhere else with your name on it?
Has anyone emailed David yet? Cause here’s the deal. He can say “mean” things, and the host can decide to ban his ass as a result. Everyone wins! Except the people who’ve already been forced to read his bullshit.
I’ll email the mods