Lovers of literary catastrophes rejoice! Some GamerGaters are crowdsourcing a book about what they see as the death of 4chan and the rise of GamerGate, and so far the results have been even more amazingly awful than that even sounds.
So far all the Gaters have managed to produce have been some rough drafts of a lyrical prologue written almost entirely in mixed metaphor, a somewhat plodding first chapter, and a rough outline of the rest of the book. But there is much comedy gold in these rough pages.
And so I would like to present to you The Nine Most Ridiculous Quotes from The Crowdsourced GamerGate Book That Were Actually Written by Real Human Beings Who Thought What They Were Writing Was Awesome.
1) The endless sea of ones and zeroes
We would not be forgotten in the endless sea of ones and zeroes that many other events have been dissolved by, but drowned by liars who could only just grasp the lowest bars of the social ladder.
2) The Steps We Took To Pull Back the Curtain
Let’s take a walk through no man’s land. What you will find here among the ash piles are evidence of lies, deception, ill-gotten gains, facades, and false morality. You will also find the mark of our footprints; the steps we took to pull back the curtain and expose the corruption around us.
3) Never Stop Riding
Hold on to your seat. The ride never ends.
4) Like Terminator or Something
I’m writing in nostalgia of a now lost past, and fear of an uncertain future. You know, like Terminator or something.
5) Fighting in a Maelstrom of Pettiness
The ugliness on both sides, and the villains, and heroes, all fighting in a maelstrom of pettiness for a future that doesn’t care for them.
6) Something Larger in the Vacuum
While on the surface it just seems like trolls feeding trolls, death threats, and angry nerds on the surface, the picture painted is of something larger moving through the cultural vacuum that is the modern west.
7) Calculated and Painful
We were scattered by a well calculated and painful defeat.
8) Like Many a Writers Have Commented
4chan is probably, and like many a writers have commented before us, one of the most important websites of its type in the English world; known even to have affected how other unrelated websites published content and worked.
9) Not Technically Illegal
Despite being a minor, a majority of Poole’s early updates to 4chan were adding explicit boards. Many critics claimed the content of these boards were of borderline legality. Originally in /b/, and later /h/ (hentai) and /d/ (hentai/alternative), anime pornography of children (lolikon) and anime pornography depicting extreme fetishes such as necrophilia (guro). Poole responded to these complaints, by reminding them that this type of pornography is not technically illegal, and the content would not be removed.
So what will this new masterpiece be called? Well, there have been many suggestions so far. A few of my favorites:
1984Chan – The Rise and Fall of 4Chan
The point is MOOT (moot does not mean what you think it means) -40 keks
Our Kampf
So whats the deal with 4chan?
To Reign in Hell: The Fall from Grace
The Willing Executioners
Poole’s Closed
404 – (Chronicle of the Executioners), (4chan Not Found), (Freedom Failed to ` Load), (Freedom Not Found)
The Caliphate of the Internet
To Kill |Crush| a |Mocking| Cloverleaf
Ooh, someone took high school English!
The heroes who rose from the pariahs
Tales of the struggles of modern-day Huckleberry Finns
Oh, yet another High School graduate!
How we tried and slew Leviathan
How to win friends and crash your community, by MOOT
We are piss babies who like to suck diaper farts
I don’t think that last one was meant completely seriously.
(I am also aware that the bit about the Terminator was probably added by a troll.)
H/T — To Literally Who herself for pointing me to this literary masterpiece. She is also organizing a crowdsourced dramatic reading of the book’s prologue.
BONUS: Here are a few more of the proposed book covers.
The title and tags are amazing. Wow.
Also:
“I’m writing in nostalgia of a now lost past, and fear of an uncertain future.”
Kudos for admitting it, random GGer, but that ain’t something to be proud of…
Somewhere George Orwell’s ghost is sobbing.
Truly, this is the “Atlanta Nights” of self-pitying GamerGate fanfiction.
“We’re not a hate group. Let’s express that by either naming our book after Hitler’s manifesto or using a picture of our avatar smiling in front the KKK’s church burnings for the cover. Then the world will see just now not-hateful we are.”
And so Poe just gave up and promptly vanished in a puff of unlogic.
That cover art is no prize either.
I don’t feel quite as bad about my own artistic and grammatical foibles.
Wait, what are they all losing their shit over? Did 4chan get shut down or something?
Wouldn’t a “maelstrom of pettiness” sort of just be like one of those miniature dust-devils that swirl around the trash in a corner of a parking lot?
C’mon. “Our Kampf” is a GREAT title.
In a world where it is almost always one’s opponents who compare one to Nazis, it’s nice to see people willing to just bite the bullet and do it to them themselves.
10 out of 10 for style, but minus several million for good thinking.
“Gone with the Chan: A Chronicle of the War of SJW Aggression”?
I hope no actual editors are harmed (by having to read that shit and make it make sense) in the making of their “manifesto.”
I’m guessing that none will, since freeze peach requires that all their utterances be treated like precious, precious gold.
Only, you know, you couldn’t sell it for love or money.
http://i.imgur.com/KSx1Sgf.jpg
@ronanwills
4Chan booted them out for being too bigoted, abusive and evil. I’m not kidding.
It never ceases to amaze me how highly and dramatically they think of their badly managed mega tantrum about women taking part in or criticizing their hobby.
“Our Joysticks, Our Selves: A Journey of Gamer Self Discovery”
You know, #GamerGaters, you probably think you’re really edgy and cool and evil in an awesome way with your pompous screeds, pretentious online personas and villainous plans, but all I hear is:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__HQWKX8g3_0/SKSYNjbiBPI/AAAAAAAAAwg/qOf2ZGjwHAE/s400/AbominalSnowKitten.jpg
Minus the adorable, of course.
Anyway, the whole “we’re so evil!” thing seems to be just another proof that they don’t really care whether or not they are in the right. All they want is for people to be scared of them and shut up. These confusing manifestos are only there to bolster their wavering belief in the righteousness of their cause, not to actually convince any outsiders.
[sees girl reading “Our Kampf”] “Ah, I love that book. The way he just [clenches fist] kills/crushes the mocking clover.”
(I’m sorry.)
“Make sure you source everything. Try to make it look somewhat like an academic paper. Official styles of writing: MLA, APA”
Try to make it look like it’s cogent and thoughtful, without it actually being either.
Any one of these would win at least an honorable mention in the Bulwer-Lytton contest.
What is moving through our modern Western vacuum? Is it the Lint Ball of Depravity? The Rattly Penny of Academia? The Unseen Paper Clip of Cultural Marxism? The Lego of Painful Stepping On?
Did we forget to unplug Western culture and check under the sofa again?
“Make sure you source everything. Try to make it look somewhat like an academic paper. ”
Make it look somewhat thoughtful and well reasoned without actually being either.
Unser Kampf? They have to be kidding? Are they really that stupid?
“Wait, what are they all losing their shit over? Did 4chan get shut down or something?”
I’ve read strange internet people say that Gawker “bought” the founder of 4chan to get rid gerberghazi.
I hope they spell checked “Our Kampf” …
Snorfl.
Anarchonist – that sounds right. They’re not going to attract any new supporters with this. . . thing. This could be the ‘bitter ender’ rhetoric phase of the process.
What I’m curious about is just how many people are actually involved on their side. Somehow, I can’t believe that they’re anywhere near as numerous as they seem to think. The gradual increase in negative feedback from just about every online source must be feeding the bunker mentality.
I can’t see anything problematic about calling the book “Our Struggle” in German. Indeed, I commend them for thinking of the needs of the non-Anglophone market, as I’m sure there must be plenty of German gamers out there.
Perhaps they could put a Buddhist peace symbol on the cover as well, just to make it clear that their intentions are nothing but benign?
Oh, my.
May I submit my prologue?
We were lost, rambling without a home. 4chan, that most wretched hive of scum and villiany cast us out into lonely exile. Separated, lost, lonely, confused, we hunted to find a home, to find eachother, and to strike back at the horrid hordes of SJWs that somehow forced us out of our fetid home. Never once did we stop to consider that perhaps if our posts were too vile for 4chan, it meant that we were the scuzziest of all scum.
No, that could not be.
Our beloved home had caved in to the pressures of political correctness, the fancies and foibles of feminists, the nagging of nattering nabobs, the scourge of silent gamers everywhere, the SJWs.
4chan had fallen to the vicious armies.
We searched and searched for a home to tolerate our scheming, a Helm’s Deep for our battle to keep games homogeneous and formulaic replicas of eachother. Reddit had fallen, Twitter had betrayed us and fallen in cahoots with WAM! The weak willed people had spoken on these forums and said that pointing out the obvious using foul language and threats (that were really just jokes) was ‘harrasment’.
Where could we turn?
What had happened to cause these sights to reject us?
We have only just been fighting for the powers of good: the priviledge of continually misinterpreting the constitution, the right to keep nasty women out of our games, the totally correct principle of ethical journalism only being ethical if it agrees with our tastes and doesn’t critisize our beloved games to any degree, and to create a digital woman and use her as our shield while declaring women in gaming were not their shield.
We only wanted to
harrasswomen like Sarkeesian and Quinn in peace! Why did the world begrudge us our death threats?4chan has fallen. But, this is not the end. Our hordes will find a place to rest and regroup, and we will triumph.
Even though everyone really wishes it were and that we’d just knock it off already and try to be nice people.
…. stupid SJWs, anyway. WE ARE THE TRUE WARRIORS FOR JUSTICE!
How’d I do? GG-style florid enough?
🙂