Yesterday, I wrote about Vox Day’s extravagantly evasive — yet highly revealing — interview with David Pakman. But the interview also featured a few striking moments of candor. One of these came when Day — a sometime gave developer as well as the biggest asshole in Sci Fi — offered his answer to the question: “What is Gamergate really about?”
Suggesting that the issue of “corruption in game journalism” was little more than “the spark that set the whole thing off,” Day declared that
what Gamergate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design, develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play without being criticized for it.
Which is an. er, interesting perspective, as there is in fact no “right” to be immune from criticism.
If you write a book, if you make a movie, if you post a comment on the internet — you should be ready for it to be criticized. Because that’s how free speech works. That’s how art works. And that’s how ideas work.
Criticism — whether it is positive or negative — helps to sharpen ideas and make art less self-indulgent; it pushes creators to hone their craft and expand their vision of the world. And it helps the consumers of art not only to look at art with a more critical eye but also to appreciate it more fully, by helping to draw out the more subtle meanings of this art and to put it in a broader cultural (social, political) perspective.
Of course, neither the artists nor the consumers of art are required to listen to this criticism, but they have no right to demand that such criticism be eliminated.
But Vox is right in one sense: the elimination of criticism is in fact is what #Gamergate has been about all along — or at least the elimination of criticism aimed in their direction. Indeed, that’s what most #Gamergaters mean when they talk about fighting “corruption in game journalism” — shutting down those writers and publications that have dared to critique the prejudices of a backward portion of the gaming universe that is hostile to any challenges to the status quo ante — particularly from women with opinions different from theirs. That’s what drove the outrage over the “death of gamer” articles last Fall. And that’s what has driven “critics” of Anita Sarkeesian from the start.
Speaking of which: If you want to see how testy Gamergate types get when the criticism they lob at others gets turned back in their direction, even in jest, take a look at Jordan Owen’s new video responding to a post I wrote a few days ago gently mocking Owen’s recent plea for more money to fund The Sarkeesian Effect, the alleged “film” he and far-right Anton LaVey impersonator Davis Aurini are allegedly putting together.
Owen has devoted much of his life over the past several years to attacking Sarkeesian, a woman whose main “crimes” in the eyes of her detractors have been that 1) she raised more money than she asked for to produce a series of videos looking at sexist tropes in video games, and 2) that she’s taken longer than originally planned to put out these videos (which is largely because the extra money she raised has allowed her to research these videos more thoroughly and increase her production values, but never mind).
Yet Owen is outraged that anyone would even gently tweak him and his partner Aurini for going over budget and missing deadlines on their own film. Of course, Owen and Aurini are planning on charging their Patreon supporters more money at the end of the month unless these supporters specifically opt out; Sarkeesian herself never even requested any of the additional money she received.
In his video, Owen also compared me with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League which is, er, weird. But hey, it’s his right to criticize me, no matter how ineptly.
Here’s the video, if you’re interested. Alas, he did not film it in his famous bathtub.
And now I’m watching him read an article written by Anita that describes gaslighting as abusers purposefully claiming a false narrative to be true in order to make you doubt your sanity. Owen’s reaction? “People telling you you’re wrong is not gaslighting.”
Christ dude, you just read the frikken words… it’s like he think Anita, when she’s talking about general patterns of harassment, is specifically talking about him and his supposed legitimate criticism.
Oh my god, it isn’t “like” he thinks Anita is talking about him… He literally just said that he “knows” Anita, in continuing to write about her harassment and online bullying in general, is actually trying to pre-respond to his movie. Jesus, that paranoia.
@kirby
Wat. Isn’t there proof that Aurini was doing some serious gaslighting to Owen in those Skype transcripts? He’s been the victim of gaslighting! The hell! Tell me this is an old video!
It was the latest in his queue. Trouble is, he is only thinking of his group that he thinks is making legitimate criticisms. If Anita claims she’s being harassed, or gaslit, or whatever, in his mind she must be talking about those legitimate criticisms and nothing else.
Yes, there was pretty solid proof that Aurini was gaslighting Owen, and normally that would mean he would have a bit more empathy (since he appears to only be able to do that with things that he has personally experienced). But in this case, he’s convinced himself that Anita is reacting to a particular thing when she isn’t.
This is the video.
It starts off so well, too.
This video combined two things I love, Jorden Owen’s voice, and loudly rustled paper. Two great sounds that sound great together.
Aww, such a pretty kitty–
Annnd that went down pretty quickly.
I think he should step back from Anita and take a break from dissecting her videos. He’s concentrating entirely on Anita’s words as her experience alone instead of the experience of many women. He’s also not actually looking at the evidence, like when her Twitter and videos being bombarded with all that HATE, like many women get. He needs to listen to more than one source of a woman’s experience being harassed.
In fact, Owen should do an experiment:
1) Make three Reddit accounts, one that has a clearly feminine name (Jasmine1990), one that has a clearly masculine name (mrpeterjones), and one that has a gender-neutral name (Monocled_Pistachio).
2) Post critical opinion of a game that are slightly differently worded but of similar tone (don’t copy and paste) as those users in /r/gaming or your choice. Make sure the opinion is not inflammatory or trollish at all, and better yet raises a genuine criticism about the game.
3) See what happens.
I literally laughed out loud when he said “without being criticized”. Mentioned it in the other thread as it was one of the things that really stood out as extra stupid to me.
This is an important revelation, but I think for the rank and file, it only tells half the story. If they wanted *all* gamers and developers to be immune from criticism, they’d be consistent at least and we could say they’re merely misunderstanding free speech.
But they also think it’s proof of corruption when a game they dislike gets praised. I’ve had several gators ask me point blank why I think journalists should be allowed to “lie” in saying that Gone Home is a fun game, and been told that I’m a liar, too, when I ask them to consider that people actually did find it fun. This is the chief overlap between gamergate and the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies: one says “collusion” and the other says “clique”, but they’re both seeing people with different tastes from their own and intuiting the existence of a powerful conspiracy of untruth from it.
@Banana
Men get plenty of hate as well. But I guess we don’t care about that do we?
Day’s right that #Ganergate doesn’t like to be criticized. But it does want to have a screaming tantrum about Anita Sarkeesian and call it “criticism”. They would like death threats, rape threats, and mon harassment to be considered fair criticism of people whose opinions they hate. That’s gamergate in a nut shell.
@ 4th Survivor
Nope; because it has *zero* consequences.
Can’t any of these chucklefucks make a “response” or “criticism” video that is concise and, like, under 5 minutes long? I was gonna watch Owen’s response video, but 11 minutes? Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Video game devs and journos will be the first against the wall when the critical revolution comes.
You guys are so f*cking stupid. Vox used the wrong word in “criticizing gamers”. As in all revolutions, words have been redefined. Haven’t any of you heard of “Critical Theory”? The methodology of the Frankfurt school, where “criticism” is not criticism per se, but a methodology of deconstructionism and attack. The standards of attacking the video game industry and its products is done not by using standards of art, or objective goals of the purpose of a game, but it is about judging things according to political correctness. This is what Vox Day is fighting against. You guys don’t get it do you? This “criticism” that Vox Day is arguing against is Political Correctness (Social Justice). It is about gamers not being sufficienty “Marxisized”, cultural attuned, to the new realities of the New Order of feminism and gay politics.
What meaning of “criticism” do you use? The definition of yesteryear that is about the standards of art in itself or the goals of a game or the definition of the Frankfurt School that uses “criticism” as a weapon to beat upon recaltricants who are not feminized which is called Critical Theory.
It is quite obvious that you people have no clue on what is going on. You are useful idiots of the Marxist elite.
http://i.imgur.com/0mVUeR3.gif
@wlindsaywheeler: No, no. We perfectly understand that Vox Day wants MORE sexism racism and homophobia in his video games, and hates being called a bad person for enjoying that.
The average Gamergarter dosen’t give a shit whether their games are racist, sexist or homophobic.They just don’t want people pointing it out.
Oh, and “Marxist?” Fucking lol.
Wohoo!!! Let’s celebrate! I’ve been a mere useless idiot for years, I never dreamt this day would come.
*sobs
http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/57135398.jpg
What exactly is inherently wrong with criticism from a social justice perspective?
Who are our Marxist Overlords anyways? Putin? Kim Jong Un? Whoever’s in charge of China this week?
Oh no, it;s Anita Sarkeesian and Rebecca Watson, right? I bet it is. Or some shadowy cabal of college english professors?
Oh shit. We’ve been found out! We’re ferrets inside a David marionette whose strings are being pulled by the Marxist elite who as we all know, are really just being controlled by a secret cabal of cats.
Oh no. I’ve said too much…
@Kootiepatra
It was a joke. Not a good one, I guess. I was making fun of the perceptions of ggers.
Someone mentioned the differences between being critical of video games while male and being critical while female, and the differences is stark. I can call gamers stupid nerds, or some other terrible but true thing, and they will try and debate me. Because I’m male, and for no other reason. I guess we shouldn’t expect better from a culture raised by murder simulations.
I love how wlindsaywheeler has gone to the trouble of ‘*’ing the u in fucked. Because obviously it’s swearing in full, rather than the entire contents of their post, that’s gonna get them stick.
So, Leftwingfox, who says “racism”, “sexism” and “homophobia” is wrong or evil? Two hundred years ago, that was normal behavior!
So, Leftwingfox, are YOU IMPOSING your “morals” on other people?
Who cares if someone is racist, sexist and homophobe? Are you the judge? And what authority teaches that racism, sexism and homophobia are wrong?