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.
No. I mean, yes, Indian right wingers took all kinds of private actions to stop distribution of The Hindus. But it was state censorship that eventually killed it. Penguin fought it in Indian court for 4 years, then cut their losses. Some other Penguin authors are furious, but Wendy is saying she doesn’t blame them, at least publicly.
Thank you for reminding about this; I really need to go read it. She is an outstandingly good lecturer, so I’m looking forward to it.
Oh, please. EJ is someone who has a lot of privilege being a white guy who is I believe cishet (sorry if I’m wrong about that!) and is not someone who would be a target for gamergate harassment. He’s better equipped than many of the people here to emotionally detach and engage with someone who is playing the all too common troll game of pretending to be above the fray but really just siding with the other side. The lament about political correctness is a really obvious tell.
The commenters who were a little harder on Max were women and/or LGBTQ. That is, the demographics that tend to be the ones subject to the bulk of gg vitriol. As a woman, hearing apologia for rapists and people who make rape threats can make me feel pretty exasperated and angry. That’s definitely not something I feel inclined to apologize for.
Not to speak for EJ here, but I’m pretty confident he’d readily admit that he has privilege which allows him to address gg bullshit in a more level headed way. I also read his post as not 100% sincere and poking a bit of fun at the drive by troll by being fake nice.
Oh, and if anyone is inclined to give Max the benefit of the doubt, I did a quick Google search and found out that he’s subjected a female Labour candidate to racist harassment on Twitter, which may explain why his account is suspended. Yeah, he’s real neutral. http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11055532.Labour_s_Brighton_Pavilion_candidate_trolled_on_Twitter/?action=complain&cid=12537648
Why is it a shame? Sometimes it’s immediately obvious that someone is a bigot. Sometimes their first post is prima facie bigotry. There’s no reason to pretend not to see it. We really only have one duty wrt trolls, and that’s to refrain from ad hominem arguments. That is, we ought to cordon off the factual claims and intellectual arguments and deal with them fairly or not at all. Insult is not the same as ad hominem. I would say that any of the following are equally acceptable responses to random bigots who post:
A: (no response, just ignore)
B: You are obviously a troll and a bigot. I am not going to bother engaging your arguments or debunking your claims.
C: You are obviously a troll and a bigot. Also, (reasoned and accurate rebuttal)
The only response that doesn’t fly is
D: You are obviously a troll and a bigot. Also, (inaccurate or illogical rebuttal)
I saw a lot of C in this thread, a little of B, and absolutely no D. (I didn’t see A either, but that’s how A works)
I’m ‘cishet’ male who’s been into RPGs since the mid 90’s. Gamergate doesn’t represent anyone outside it’s own obnoxious sphere. Diversity is the norm now in a number of AAA franchises (along with notable exceptions). It doesn’t need to and indeed has not had an impact on gameplay, the most important factor for the majority of gamers. Games, like any form of entertainment, are open to critical analysis, whether you agree with those critiques or not. It’s an issue for them because they’re fundamentally more authoritarian than progressives they attack and harass.
Maybe because he came in super fucking hostile and spouted a bunch of “PC is the downfall of humankind!” rhetoric, which bigots use?
He didn’t have one single redeeming argument, and to be honest, I’m not a fan of tone policing. I’m not going to be nice to someone like that because it’s the “polite” thing to do, they come out hostile, they’re gonna get a hostile response.
We shouldn’t have to sit around and try to be nice to him, or anyone else who comes in here spouting GG-apologia while trying to say we lack the reading comprehension to see that while he says he’s “neutral”, he’s really fucking not, and then throw a temper tantrum and hurl ableist slurs when his comments go into moderation.
I made a serious error is judgment/communication/awareness of context for which I would like to apologize. The Kerzner article contained a moderate amount of content that had nothing to do with Anita Sarkeesian or gamer gate. I enjoyed that content and recommended the article because I thought other people might like it too. I forgot that the article was explicitly framed as an anti-Sarkeesian piece, and was posted by an anti-Sarkeesian poster on a thread about other anti-Sarkeesian posters. I was surprised that people thought I was posting against Anita, because in my mind I was not even talking about Anita at all. In retrospect, it’s obvious that of course my post would come off as a dig at Anita. My attention is easily diverted to tangential topics, but in the future I will work harder to remember the context I am posting in.
No apology necessary, I understood you perfectly.
That said: I take issue with false equivalency and think you may be rather ill-informed about what GamerGaters claim to be about as opposed to what they do.
Yeah, haven’t seen that argument a billion times before…
“Investigation”? You and every other person who take conspiracy theories from Redditors as indisputable fact…
This is always rather amusing: acting as if someone being called out for associating with a bigoted group and/or bigoted statement is more of an infraction, than the association or statement itself.
Weird how the same group who faults others for being too over-emotional and “politically correct” throw childish tantrums over someone observing that, y’know, what they said was incredibly problematic racially or otherwise. What was that saying about glass houses and throwing stones…?
Ok which of his statements was bigoted exactly? Must’ve missed it.
“MEANIE FEMINISTS! MEEEAN! WHY CAN’T YOU DEFER TO YOUR MALE SUPERIORS LIKE GOOD GIRLS – err I mean WHY CAN’T YOU BE NICE?!”
Why yes SFHC I support the idea that you shouldn’t be hostile to people just because you disagree with them. It’s this radical new idea called “not being an asshole”.
Well shit, I didn’t see Max’s second comment, must’ve skimmed over it. Yeah I guess he wasn’t exactly being nice. Sorry about that.
Now to wait for Slurpee57 to apologise.
…
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-80iBqnffCog/TZEh3pREzlI/AAAAAAAABIU/46ThZ-Z_574/s1600/Indiana+Jones+and+the+Last+Crusade+4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kaEjTYe.jpg
Boy would that image have worked better if it didn’t land on a new page.
http://i.imgur.com/64GzU.gif
Wow, WWTH, no one said you had to do all your waiting at once!
Also, is that “hugbox” thing referring to the hugging machine Temple Grandin made? If so, wow- that’s a new low for ableism. I’m not mad, just really disgusted.
Nah, that just represents how long we’ll be waiting for.
@Silky,
apparently that’s where it came from, but I don’t think most people who use it know that.
Firstly, weirwoodtreehugger is right, as always. I am a breathtakingly privileged person. I have all the common forms of privilege (white heterosexual cisgender male educated first world thin tall able-bodied conventionally-attractive white-collar STEM) and a few less common ones I’m working on (I collect citizenships, for example.) For those few forms of privilege I don’t have, I can normally pass, too. I am, by myself, more or less the winning move in a Privilege Bingo scorecard. For these reasons, when I see gamergaters, my first reaction is not to feel threatened, but to feel pity for them. I would not expect anyone who doesn’t share my frankly improbable collection of advantages to feel as invincible as I do.
Secondly, I usually act nicely to people because that’s what I’m good at. The commentariat here is crammed full of funny, angry, insightful people of all genders who are vastly better at takedowns than I could ever be. This gives me the luxury of playing “nice cop” which I wouldn’t have if I didn’t know that the important task of saying “fuck you” has been covered.
Saying “fuck you” is a vital task; and because nobody seems to have said it to you yet, slurpee57, I’ll say it at the end of this piece. It is vital because it is the correct answer to someone throwing vitriol at you unasked-for and uninvited in a space that is not intended for such things. More importantly, it is vital because attitudes like that of Max are fundamentally injurious to all of humanity, and should not be tolerated.
Thirdly, we get to the interesting bit.
One must remember that the internet is made up mostly of readers, not writers. It’s easy to believe that a website consists only of those commenting, but that’s not the case: there are probably hundreds of people reading each one of my posts for every person responding, if not thousands. As a result I’m not just addressing you or Max, I’m addressing every one of them.
This creates an interesting dynamic, because when people read such comment threads we tend to identify with certain posters and see them as analogues for ourselves; and when they clash with others it becomes a battle-by-proxy. Max understood this: it’s why he signed off with a shout out to all the #GGers reading the thread. He is no longer a person sitting at a keyboard, and has instead become an archetype of every Gator out there.
This has two consequences. Firstly, it means that if someone identifies with me, then my posts are going to be influential to them, and as such I need to behave as a role model. When I am nice to people, even people like Max, it sets an example for how one can act. I show that an absurdly privileged white man is capable of kindness and understanding even to those he can get away with scorning, and hopefully thereby influence others to do the same. Likewise, when WWTH speaks with dignified anger, she shows every woman and girl who identifies with her that they too can be unafraid, and can stand up to the assholes in their lives.
Secondly, it means that when I interact with someone, then readers who identify with that person will see me not as an individual but as a stand-in for a sector of humanity, and will take my words and actions to be representative of that sector. For example, if Jackie talks about Hogwarts and I respond enthusiastically, then the next time someone who identifies with Jackie sees a corporate dude in a suit, they’ll feel slightly less threatened, because their mental image of white dudes in suits now includes them being feminists who read Harry Potter rather than just being distant and intimidating authority figures. In a sense, I am an ambassador for white privileged guys.
This is why I’m kind to Max when I disagree with him: so that people who identify with him see that the world is not all against them, merely against their actions; and that if they reform and cast aside their hateful actions, we won’t sneer at them and call them neckbeards and basement dwellers. It’s to make them feel that they aren’t backed into a corner and don’t need their siege mentality.
Likewise, WWTH and M are doing sterling work showing that you do not fuck with women on the internet, because they are not soft targets.
This is also why I have to say “fuck you, slurpee97”: it’s to show you that even as I am not against Max as a person, I am not for you either. The way you’ve behaved is unacceptable, and the fact that you’ve praised me as an example of how to behave does not mollify me.
The way back, if you are interested in taking it, is to respond and apologise to WWTH. Watch what Orion has done: he’s a good guy. Learn from him.
@EJ
http://i.imgur.com/lm69D66.png
Here´s one privilege that is easily forgotten, first-world privilege. Especially if you live in the USA, Canada, UK or Germany.
http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2015/09/29/ashville-two-robbers-arrested-after-selfies.html
Let the redpillers sputter threats over the internets and reap the legal consequences!
You realize that this anti-women idiocy is coming from Paultard Libertarians, right? It’s pure white supremacist conspiracy theory schtick as old as the hills.
Toronto University Press published a 7-year study in the 1980s entitled “Is God a Racist? The Right-Wing in Canada” (which is actually about the white supremacist movement in America infiltrating Canada). You’ll discover every ‘Tea Party’ meme under the sun in that book, including the hatred for women. May I suggest you locate a copy and read it. Th John Birch Society has been preaching this creative idiocy for decades. Ron Paul and the ‘Tea Party’ mainstreamed it. Also see the Southern Poverty Law Center. Meanwhile:
“Libertarians get medieval on women”
“Mises on women and feminism
This whole debate recently led Mike Konczal, a blogger at the Roosevelt Institute, back to Ludwig von Mises’ classic 1922 text Socialism. Mises was a pioneering economist of the Austrian School, whose political writings have inspired multiple generations of libertarian activists in the US and elsewhere.
Mike took a special interest in the fourth chapter of Socialism, “The Social Order and the Family”, in which Mises has some retrograde things to say about women and feminism. This led Mike to conclude – prematurely, it turns out – that Mises was against birth control, which he wasn’t, but as I made clear in the comments thread to Mike’s post, Mike’s larger point – that Mises was neither in favour of women’s sexual autonomy nor was he in favour of other kinds of autonomy that would free women from the dominion of their husbands – still stands.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/201244104251611609.html
The next time someone tells you that Libertarians are “socially liberal” feel to tell them how full of it they are.
Funded by Libertarian billionaires: “The Koch Brothers’ Fake Libertarianism: War, Forced Pregnancies, and Homophobia”
http://www.vice.com/read/the-koch-brothers-fake-libertarianism-war-forced-pregnancies-and-homophobia-729
FYI: Libertarians are not now nor have they ever been separate from the religious right:
http://thepoliticalspectator.com/tag/ron-paul/
Ron Paul’s Koch-funded Young Americans for Liberty is targeting millennials for enlistment into to white supremacist movement: http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2011/12/ron-paul-and-the-neo-fascists.html
Ron Paul’s YAL website: http://www.yaliberty.org/posts/yalcon14-videos-ron-paul-glenn-greenwald-rand-paul
The YAL ‘Reading List’ for budding young fascists: (Mises. Ayn Rand, Rothbard, Hoppe, white supremacist Thomas Woods) http://www.yaliberty.org/resources/reading
You’re welcome.
P.S. Forgive my typos… I’m in a bit of rush:)
Haven’t read the comments yet, but I wanted to add that the thought of the left defending diseases from being cured was kind of satirically addressed in Futurama by Free Waterfall Sr. He said not to clap because it kills the bacteria on your hands. (It was in the penguins on Pluto episode.)
Now off to the oldest comments.
I don’t really think “first-world privilege” is a thing, or at the very least, that shouldn’t be the phrase for it.
The whole idea of “first-world privilege” or “first-world problems” is really fucking racist, because it denies the fact that so-called “third world countries” don’t have things like smartphones, internet, or any of the media we consume, or ways we consume it, because something something stereotypes and something something xenophobia.
Sure, some places don’t have cellphones or internet or all that good stuff that we enjoy (and sometimes take for granted), but there’s still a hell of a lot of them world-wide, even in “third-world” countries.
Are those robbers stupid? Absolutely. Did they deserve what they got? Hell yeah.
Is it “first-world privilege”? No.