So a couple of days ago, as you probably have heard, Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn testified at the United Nations about online harassment of women. The two, along with a number of other victims of/experts on online harassment also paid a visit to Google Ideas to share their thoughts on the matter.
This is, in essence, what #GamerGate has achieved over the past year: By launching an unprecedented wave of organized harassment, mostly aimed at women, the Gators have brought about a new awareness of the seriousness of online harassment. And they’ve given the women whose lives and careers they’ve tried most energetically to destroy an influence they never would have had otherwise.
Naturally, Gators have been losing their shit over all this.
And so, as a public service of sorts, I would like to share with you the 13 most ridiculously hyperbolic pronouncements from Gators I have seen thus far in response to Sarkeesian and Quinn’s recent adventures. (On Reddit, anyway; I have not (yet) ventured into the wilds of 8chan or the Twitter hashtag to collect further examples, and I’m not sure I will.) Major props to the folks in the BestOfOutrageCulture subreddit, who have been energetically and hilariously documenting the man-steria, and who found a number of the examples below.
1) “We are literally fighting to save the world from an international alliance targeting the most fundamental human rights.“
In a KotakuInAction post with more than 300 upvotes, someone called frankenmine declares:
Make no mistake, we are literally fighting to save the world from an international alliance targeting the most fundamental human rights. …
The problem is not the UN panel and report itself. The problem was not the Google Ideas meeting. The problem was not the Congressional hearing. …
The mere ability to get access to these platforms shows that McIntosh and his ilk is building up a progressively larger and more influential network fairly quickly. At the rate he’s going, he might be able to infiltrate actually influential organizations, at the corporate and/or governmental levels, fairly soon.
The McIntosh in question is Jonathan McIntosh, Sarkeesian’s video-making partner. Unable to believe that a mere woman could actually be in charge of her own life many GamerGater’s believe that McIntosh is the evil puppetmaster pulling Sarkeesian’s strings.
2) “Now GamerGate has to save the world from authoritarian, women-infantising control freaks?”
In another KotakuInAction post, this one with more than 1600 upvotes, _Mellex_ makes, well, basically the same assertion:
So now GamerGate is being mentioned in the same breath as the United Nations, and apparently KIA is at the forefront of stopping unnecessary government overhaul of internet protocol. What in the actual fuck? …
Ethics in games journalism: That’s what this was all about. And now GamerGate has to save the world from authoritarian, women-infantising control freaks?
These guys do an awful lot of world-saving for dudes whose greatest accomplishments basically consist of being belatedly banned on Twitter for harassing women.
3) “It’s amazing that it falls to gamers to play a key role in this pushback against authoritarianism.”
LEGALIZE-MARINARA gets a hundred upvotes for this comment, made in response to _Mellex_’s post:
It’s amazing that it falls to gamers to play a key role in this pushback against authoritarianism.
Not big upping myself. I ain’t even a gamer, and I’m pretty late to this whole thing, and nor do I think it’s fair that so many politicians have abandoned their responsibilities in this manner. But that’s the reality we’re faced with.
So humble, these guys.
4) “If they win, if they get what they want, they kill free speech. For good. And the foregone conclusion is THX 1138 or Demolition Man.”
Ok, I cheated a little. This is evidently a rant from 8chan, which I found reposted on TheBestOfOutrageCulture subreddit. It’s a bit tl;dr, so I’ve edited a little and bolded the best bits.
Media is a tool. And corporations like to co-opt every single format for one purpose; to sell you sub par shit that you don’t need.
And the biggest threat to that is your ability to have just as big a soapbox to criticize their product as they do to push it.
That’s why they want to take away your ability to say mean things on the internet. It isn’t about poor little Anita. It’s about poor little Pfizer. Anita is a patsy. She’s a tool. Get everyone to rush to the defense of the damsel, take away the right to criticize and now you’ve got people going to jail for saying anything but “Coke is it! Coke is the best! Disney is the greatest! Nike totally doesn’t rely on third world child labor! Apple is an ethical company!” …
SJWs are useful idiots, savvy at narrative with their communications degrees, with social access to trend setting cliques. Those SJWs are the innoculation against those in the media who might break the narrative. They got Patton Oswalt. They got Sarah Silverman. They got Louis CK. They got the video games industry under lockdown. They have everyone in Hollywood except Eli Roth. …
The final result? Draconian control of THE most valuable social tool since Guttenberg. …
Gamers are the only thing holding the line right now, and I’m telling you, we can’t stop. Because if they win, if they get what they want, they kill free speech. For good. And the foregone conclusion is THX 1138 or Demolition Man. Then we all have to live in the subways, or live like them. And we ain’t got the cash to live in the good parts.
Well, someone’s got a vivid — if somewhat derivative — imagination.
5) “Not being a cuck is harassment.”
In a r/KiA comment with more than 900 upvotes, SinisterDexter83 sarcastically suggests that Sarkeesian and her allies are trying to declare everything and the kitchen sink to be a form of harassment.
Asking for evidence of harassment is harassment.
Questioning harassment is harassment.
Criticism is harassment.
Disagreeing with the harassing tactics of radical feminists is harassment.
Holding an opinion that contradicts the dogma of radical feminism is harassment.
Voicing an opinion that contradicts the dogma of radical feminism is harassment.
Holding an opinion that contradicts the dogma of radical feminism without voicing it is an especially sinister, underground form of harassment.
Continuing to have your own opinions after you have been informed of the official radical feminist dogma is harassment.
Not being a cuck is harassment.
He continues on for some time in this manner, but, really, what can beat “not being a cuck is harassment?” It’s Peak #GamerGate.
6) “Corporate enterprise is pushing this brand of feminism to isolate countries and decimate societies for profit.”
More conspiracy-mongering from this r/KiA comment. Sarkeesian and Quinn are puppets of an evil corporate plot to “decimate the public” because apparently decimating customers is a great way to make money?
Google Ideas, a think tank in NY, allowed the harassment to get high profile…
Google changes their monetization and wants more profit…
A new narrative (which is old to us) is put before the UN to spread worldwide.
What people should realize is that we’re seeing the rise of the corporate feminist which is a different type of feminism. This thing was okayed by a think tank to influence rates of growth for corporate enterprise. …
People are focused on fighting SJWs, they missed the bigger story and the article… Corporate enterprise is pushing this brand of feminism to isolate countries and decimate societies for profit. They mislabel gaming to justify cultural imperialism (we’re telling you what to make for our sake) and enact corporate friendly laws that decimate the public.
I’m not quite sure how the evil folks at Google secretly convinced a battalion of angry gamers to send multiple death threats to Anita Sarkeesian over the course of several years, but I’m sure there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation for it.
7) “This is only the beginning. … If this … spirals out of control from here I could see a full blown revolution down the road.”
A comment in KotakuInAction, with more than two dozen upvotes, suggests that if Gamergate and other “free speech” movements like it don’t succeed, the masses might ultimately have to resort to revolution:
More and more it’s becoming evident that movements like Gamergate are necessary. If no one fought for the rights these people are trying to take away we probably would have lost them long ago.
I’m gonna make this prediction, so mark my words.
This is only the beginning. Between the authoritarian right and authoritarian left and whatever group has an agenda to push we’re going to start seeing more and more attacks on our rights.
Privacy and free speech are going to be constantly attacked and they’ll use whatever excuse they can to try and legitimize their cause. Harassment, terrorism, sexism, bigotry, criticism, you name it and they’ll use it to try and take away your rights.
Gamergate will just have been the precursor, eventually I think there’ll be more movements based around fighting for freedom of speech ethics. If this only spirals out of control from here I could see a full blown revolution down the road.
Well, of course you can. Because you clearly have no understanding of history and only a tenuous connection with reality.
8) “When the lunatic horde comes knocking, we stand up, stand strong, arms linked and spirits high, voices joined in harmony, millions of different pitches mingling into a rising crescendo of unity and strength.”
In an r/KiA comment with more than a dozen upvotes, Ferlion123 gets all inspirational:
Where do we go from here?
We go to our families and we go to our friends. We go on with our jobs and our lives. And when the lunatic horde comes knocking, we stand up, stand strong, arms linked and spirits high, voices joined in harmony, millions of different pitches mingling into a rising crescendo of unity and strength.
We will go on with our lives until the call comes, and when it does we will stand before the tide upon our shores and before our fires will they disperse. We will stand before any rush and we will not break or fall.
What we do is EXACTLY what we’ve been doing. We stand on our own legs, allies at our side, and we finish this fight.
Is this plagiarized from somewhere? I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure Ferlion123 means it all quite sincerely.
9) “Now we are the only things that stand between them and world domination.”
In an r/KiA comment with 70 upvotes, Neo_Techni seems to have a hard time telling the difference between anime and reality.
It started with censorship, and the censors won. It was inevitable that they’d get drunk on that power and try to censor the world. Now we are the only things that stand between them and world domination.
It’d make a great anime so long as funimation doesn’t get to touch 1984 it up
No, I’m not quite sure just what that last, er, “sentence” is supposed to mean either.
10) “I can imagine SJWs one day coming up with a reason to defend diseases from being cured.”
In response to a comment in which someone called deathonwingz suggests, at least half seriously, that “I get the feeling this won’t be over until we’ve cured cancer, stopped world hunger, colonized mars and done many other things,” commenter FiveThou writes
Now you say that, but I can imagine SJWs one day coming up with a reason to defend diseases from being cured. “Viruses are living things that share our planet. How dare you be so cruel to them.” “Don’t go to see the doctor – he’s only going to AIDS-shame you.”
11) “You weren’t necessarily sent to the gulags for criticizing Brezhnev, but you never worked again.”
Tigers_ suggests that the power of Sarkeesian et al is comparable to that of the Soviet authorities in the era of Brezhnev. I suppose we should give him half a point for not going with a full-blown Stalin comparison.
I’ve been wanting to find a way to address these issues in an entertaining and accessible fashion for a few years now. Real life issues hold me back, but there’s also the incessant fear of something like that destroying any hopes I have at a career of my chosing for engaging. It’s not like there isn’t a massive risk. You weren’t necessarily sent to the gulags for criticizing Brezhnev, but you never worked again.
12) “Think feminism doesn’t kill people? Fucking yes it does, Srebrinca was possible because of feminist mindset.”
Xyluz85, meanwhile, gets no points for reining in rhetorical excess with this comment, not specifically referencing Sarkeesian but made in the wake of her UN visit.
It’s not about the fear that they can win this, it’s more about how big the damage will be when the time comes feminism goes away. And it get’s more horrifing by the day. I learn more and more about this mindset, and what it does to people. Think feminism doesn’t kill people? Fucking yes it does, Srebrinca was possible because of feminist mindset, Haiti women-only food pretty sure killed some people, lynchmobs killing innocent people surley happend.
I think I’ll just end this post here.
Oh, wait, I almost forgot TREASON.
13) “Don’t listen to the leftist lies: both Zoe and Anita (assuming she is a citizen of the United States) have committed a felony by explicitly and directly lobbying foreign governments for the abolition of Net Neutrality and the “licensing” of internet content providers.
HonorableJudgeHolden provided “evidence” for this assertion in the form of a meme-enhanced “info”graphic.
This is the only Reddit comment or post I’ve quoted here, in this Gamer’s Dozen, that #GamerGaters considered too ridiculous to upvote.
If you want to see what Sarkeesian and Quinn actually said at the UN, here’s a video of their testimony, courtesy of Laughing Witch.
“And the foregone conclusion is THX 1138 or Demolition Man.”
Gee, dude, you almost say that like it would be a bad thing.
Seriously — this is an odd comment to make, if only because, IME, gamer-types tend to like THX1138 and Demolition Man. They have such a well-documented crush on Mad Max that they threw fits when Fury Road came out and they had to sacrifice all the viewing-time they’d have dedicated to contemplating Max’s Manliness and scope out a good-looking woman instead. Just saying. So what’s the guy’s problem here?
I just have to say, VIRUSES ARE NOT ALIVE. That is all 🙂
@Robjec- there’s actually quite a bit of debate on that. I mean, they DO replicate, but yes they lack the machinery to replicate themselves without using something else’s cellular machinery…but…yeah they’re kinda in a grey area
Wow, for all their claims of people publicly making moderate opinions “authoritarians”, they really do see to be hitting the checklists for that characteristic pretty hard.
ahhh, The Logan act. Dumb when people were citing it re: Congressional Republican letter to Iran, even dumber cited by GGers. Seriously if your argument is based on a 216 year old law (no typo, passed in 1799) of dubious constitutionality that no one has ever been prosecuted under (only one even ever indicted) you’re not doing so hot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act
http://i1307.photobucket.com/albums/s598/Paradoxys3DS/finished_zpsqicxkq09.png
The myopic, simple minded paranoia going on with these people is off the chart. Seriously, its just video games. Feminists have been analyzing media for decades. Its nothing new. Get over it. Its not creeping “authoritarianism”, or “cultural marxism” or any of that nonsense. Its just criticism, and if video game companies are listening its cause they want to capture bigger markets. Women are 50% of the market and if being inclusive means larger profits margins, then the product is going to change or at the very least, diversify.
What these fools also don’t get is “cyber terrorism”, “cyber warfare/espionage”, and “cyber harassment/crime” are becoming part of the bigger issue of digital security. For better or for worse, the state is slowly going to crack down on this stuff, and death threats, swatting, hacking, and other assorted problems are going to fall under the same digital security umbrella. There’s too much at stake when you have people breaking into corporate and state held servers, and the laws are going to tighten around all of this stuff no matter what reddit, 4chan, youtube or twitter thinks or believes.
Speaking of harassment… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kat-blaque/this-insurance-agent-thre_b_8133114.html
Kat did a great job of writing an article about her harassment (and Kenneth’s subsequent firing) for HuffPo. I watched this all go down in real time on Kat’s Facebook page. The absolute gall of Kenneth was mindblowing. He continued to rant and threaten her, misgender her, say racist and transphobic things from his public profile that was linked to his employer’s profile for days! When he eventually tried to backpeddle and play the victim it was too late.
Lesson: if you’re going to be a piece of shit online, don’t do it from your personal profile where your employer’s name is clearly visible. Better yet, don’t be a piece of shit, period.
Okay, well, it’s time to lure some #GGers from their homes with cheap, nearby conventions so we can steal their computers and consoles to burn.
Enough is enough. They’ve revoked their privileges to the internet with this shit. It is done.
Time to go outside.
@Robjec, Alpine,RN
Reproduction with variation: Yes
Metabolism: No
Homeostatis: No
(Insert various other criteria)
Just depends on what criteria you think are important and what you consider a passing score.
Biology really isn’t very accommodating of people who like to draw clear solid lines between things. Full of definitions that work really well in most situations but have some issues in places. See also: What is a species?
@brooked
Dogma, good movie
Considering that this involved the UN, I’m kind of pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t a load of Zionist/Illuminati/New World Order conspiracy ramblings. Especially given the anti-Semitic leanings of ggers. It’s sad that the bar for them is that low.
Oh boy! Lots of raging stoopid! Let’s translate from Numbskull to English a bit here, shall we?
Translation: “Waaaaaa, those evil wimminzes got to testify to the UN and we didn’t! We must now collectively soil ourselves to show how mean and oppressive they are! WAAAAAAAAAAA!”
(Translator’s note: WTF, “literally fighting”? Um, no, guys, you’re just playing fucking video games, and throwing pee-pants tantrums whenever someone criticizes or develops alternatives to your macho faves. Get a grip. Your games, however intense, are NOT a literal fight for anything. They’re just games, bozos.)
Translation: “The gummint is coming for our vidya gamez! Hide the consoles and joysticks!”
(Translator’s note: “Women-infantising control freaks”? Um, duder…that would be YOU GUYS. You’re the ones who insist on having female characters remain non-playing, as prizes to be “won”, or at best, hookers you can beat up and rape and kill with impunity, remember?)
Translation: “Will nobody save our sexism? Oh, fine, I’LL do it. And I’m not even a fuckin’ gamer!” (sulks, pouts, poops pants EXTRA HARD)
Okay, no translation here; this idiotic hyperbole speaks for itself. Your translator will just thank you to leave Steve Guttenberg the hell out of this, as he hasn’t starred in a good movie in years. The guy who first printed the bible is Johannes Gutenberg, with one t.
And no, video games are not that fucking valuable; don’t flatter your Cheeto-fed selves. Once more, with feeling: They’re just GAMES, bozo.
Translation: Damn, am I ever one macho harassing son-of-a-cuss. Take that, bitches!
(Translator’s note: Damn, these guys really are pushing down hard on that Freeze Peach button. Also, they sure are big on being allowed to harass; look at how many “valid” excuses they need to be able to do it. Still scratching my head over that cuck bit, though.)
Translation: DAMN, these hallucinogens are STRONG.
(Translator’s note: “Corporate feminism”? The closest we actually get to that is the editorial board of Ms. magazine, bozos. And if you’re gonna go after think tanks, may I suggest you start with all those arch-sexism-pushing ones over there, on the right. You know, on YOUR side.)
Translation: We’ve lost already, and secretly we know it, but we’re still gonna fight like wildcats! We’ll fight ’em in the streets…that is, if we can get out of our basements! We’ll fight ’em in the office towers…that is, if the doorman doesn’t mistake us for vagrants and throw us out on our asses! We’ll fight ’em…er…oh, shit, who the hell am I kidding? We don’t know how to fucking fight. We’re a bunch of lazy-ass 12-year-olds with pizza faces. All we do is press buttons and move joysticks all day.
Also, this was never about rights, only privileges. Which we never fought for or earned, we just got them handed to us because of the Penis Pass. But shhhhhh, we don’t want THEM to know we understand that.
Translation: We’ll freep every poll! We’ll brigade the fuck out of comments sections, and “win” every argument we get into, simply by upsetting all the pieces and shitting all over the chessboard! Muwahahahaha, sheer genius!
(Translator’s note: And they call US a “lunatic horde”? As usual, the projection is strong with these ones. Good thing they’ve got all the unity and strength of a cloud of fruit flies.)
Translation: Sexism has lost…AGAIN. We are Epic Fail, personified.
Translation: DAMN, dudes, this acid is STRONG. I am projecting like a wild man here!
Translation: I really want to harass a woman out of my workplace, but I’m afraid she’ll report me and it will cost me my job, instead.
Translation: I just ate a really REALLY bad mushroom. Now I’m not even coherent. BTW, there’s a dragon in the refrigerator! Stay out of the kitchen, dudes, whatever you do!
(Translator’s note: Srebrenica, rape camps and ethnic cleansing, all carried out by macho bastards, ALL OF THEM MALE…a “feminist mindset”? I can’t even. There is simply not enough face to palm, and vice versa. Also, where in Haiti was there “women-only food”, much less said food killing someone? One would think that such a thing would make the news, if it actually happened. Guys, pro tip: when you have to make up news and history from whole cloth to support your arguments, it’s not us that are the wild-eyed lynch party. It’s YOU.)
What an enormous load of toss. I couldn’t really get much coherence out of that mess.
Great that the mainstream not only recognises the problem, but gives AS and ZQ the forum to make their cases about internet harassment. It is something positive out of all the crap they have been subjected to.
And the GGs can boohoo all they want – they behaved like a bunch of dickwads (and some were much much worse), and now even the UN know this!
It seems clear that he started to type “don’t let Funimation touch it” then changed his mind and wanted to say “don’t let Funimation ‘1984’ it, but missed a word.”
As others have mentioned, Funimation is one of the main companies translating and re-releasing anime for English-speaking markets. I don’t know anything about the recent GG-related incident, but there *is* a long history of censorship in anime translation. All references to alcohol tend to be removed from shows aimed at children, for instance. This includes changes to dialog (people pass out after drinking too much “juice”) and minor art edits (recoloring beer from yellow to clear, creating steins of water. Frothy, foamy water)
Also, #13: Lobbying is a “felony”? Better not let the US Congress know that they’ve been working with felons.
Also, Anita and Zoe addressing a UN panel is NOT “lobbying”, let alone a felony.
@ShakeB…so very very true…my Other Half is a biologist, and his favorite phrase is “well that depends” or “the results were somewhat unclear” :-p
It was here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123202099
Basically, organizations who study the impact food aid concluded a while back that giving food directly to women is the only way to make sure that children get fed. Women on average seem somewhat more likely to use use food for the general good and somewhat less likely to hoard it or use it as leverage.
You can basically put anything after the “…” and the sentence will still be true. She really does a LOT of good awareness-raising stuff and handled that whole situation with that rotted out railroad tie named Kenneth perfectly.
Re: the reactions to Sarkeesian, Quinn, et al speaking to the UN: quite a spectacle. I actually did scroll through a few of the replies to Google Ideas after they tweeted about their role in the project (with a photo of the group). Branding Sarkeesian, Quinn, and others such as Rose Eveleth as “con-artists” and “abusers” is of course both hilarious and disturbing, and shows just how out of touch these people are.
Every time I see stuff like this, all I can think of is this clip:
https://youtu.be/BcjIestFVOc
This actually is intellectually consistent, in my opinion. Deeply stupid, but consistent. It’s an ideology very similar to Libertarianism. If I hadn’t spent enough around lirbertarians, minarchists, and right-anarchists, I wouldn’t have gotten it.
Basically, the morality of an action has nothing to do with what it is, and everything to do with who is doing it. Anything a government does is bad; so is anything a corporation does that limits the way consumers can use or access their services. Anything done by informal networks of private citizens is good.
So, a government prosecuting harassment is bad because it’s the government. A corporation voluntarily exercising property rights would normally be good, but it’s undemocratic/immoral if it interferes with ordinary citizens doing whatever the hell they want.
On the other hand, terrorizing individuals wit mass harassment and driving entire subcultures off the web is good, because it’s a grassroots movement of private citizens who are concerned about something.
No, don’t google “concerned citizens council.”
Funimation’s got a lot of their own problems too. Vic Migonia, who does a lot of work for them, is a homophobic bible-thumping bigot who has been known to hit on young teenaged girls, and another one of their VAs, Scott Freeman, was arrested for child pornography last year, though to Funimation’s credit, they have cut all ties with him.
That, and there’s a lot of favoritism and nepotism that goes on there, and they only pick a handful of VAs to do their stuff, to the point where you can pick a lot of them out just by hearing their voices (because they have a minuscule voice range, if any).
Their whole shtick is that gamers aren’t delusional manbabies and they have the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.
They say that while pretending that they’re the underground resistance who are fighting against evil overlords bent on stealing their entertainment.
They aren’t making their case very well.
Oh I can’t wait to see the inevitable “We aren’t misogynists, we just want ethics in anime translations.”
http://imgur.com/iBjO8eX
I can has memes too
Okay, so there WAS women-only food aid…and it didn’t kill anyone. On the contrary, it enabled women (and children) to survive. And it prevented hoarding and speculation and profiteering. All of which are known to kill in places where food is scarce.
These guys are not only idiots, they are spectacular, monumental idiots.
That’s not how you make a meme. They must be utterly incomprehensible and or completely pretentious.
You obviously haven’t graduated from the AVFM School of Meme Generation.
Our Dear Leader/Cult Leader/God King Paul Elam will teach you how to make truly incomprehensible memes that will make the brains of any feminists who see them melt for the low low price of all of your worldly possessions and your immortal soul.