So the lovely people on Kotaku in Action on Reddit have discovered my post yesterday about the reactions of various Gamergaters on Twitter to Hulk Hogan’s recent legal win over Gawker.
Naturally, gators being gators, they manage to get themselves pretty worked up over a number of points I didn’t actually make. Gators remaining gators, there’s really no point in trying to correct them, as this will only give them more opportunities to misrepresent me.
Instead, let’s take a moment to look at some of the most highly upvoted comments in this edifying discussion that are, well, a bit more personal.
Here, with 98 net upvotes, is the most-upvoted comment in the thread, the comment that KiA collectively feels is the most valuable of them all:
This next comment, which garnered dozens of net upvotes, spurred a somewhat surreal discussion:
![[–]PR_WEL 56 points 16 hours ago and to no one's surprise is a fat neckbeard. lol permalinkembedsavereportreply [–]BaconCatBug 25 points 13 hours ago I am a fat neckbeard too but I am self aware enough to not try and pretend otherwise. :P permalinkembedsaveparentreportreply [–]Pakars[?] 3 points 11 hours ago I'm not fat, but I'm lazy and sometimes have a neckbeard. Do I count? permalinkembedsaveparentreportreply [–]BaconCatBug 9 points 11 hours ago It's not the fatness in your heart that counts, it's the fatness in your heart that counts!](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/neckbeard.png?resize=553%2C432&ssl=1)
I may have to put this one in the We Hunted the Mammoth press kit:
This one only got a couple of upvotes, but it’s defintely going in the press kit. Hell, I’m tempted to make it the official WHTM slogan:
This one is a bit puzzling, but I do like the suggestion that telling someone to drink bleach is basically the same as saying they need to have their mouth washed out with soap. (Note: while neither of these procedures is recommended, only one will result in painful death.)
Given that to Gators will happily upvote insults and nonsense, you may wonder how exactly one might go about getting downvoted.
Here’s how:
It may be a little hard to see, because the text is small and light grey, but this comment has negative 26 points.
Gators will forever be gators, I guess.
Huh. Did they run that? I thought the “gamers are dead” meme originated with an (often misunderstood) editorial by Leigh Alexander at GamaSutra. But looking at RationalWiki, it appears the phrase is a reference to several blogs and articles, including ones by Kotaku and Ars Technica. The former is part of Gawker Media, which also owns Jezebel and…OK, I see the “why” of it now. You’re right about the advertising thing, too. Thanks, kupo!
Ironically, Alexander didn’t even use the phrase in her op-ed. She spoke of a specific gamer culture and mindset. Her piece is snarky as all hell, but she was right that “gamer” is no longer a fixed identity describing a bubble of faithful consumers who prefer games to people.
@TheDreadVampy
Hello! Welcome.
@Viscaria
I hope that things start looking up soon.
I shaved my legs once 16 years ago for a dance and never again! I have eczema, so I do not want to have to deal with unnecessary irritation. My leg hair is not very thick though, so it can go unnoticed. Legs do not have beards though. Why must MRAs abuse words?! Words mean things damnit.
What is a cry tabloid? Does David have a cry tabloid? Where does he keep it?
@Jaygee
Eczema/sensitive skin sufferers unite! I don’t even wear long sleeves, they make my skin feel too weird. Forget shaving anything.
@Tragedy of the Commas:
Alexander committed two unforgivable sins when writing that piece, which meat that the Gators hate her forever:
1) She addressed it over their heads to game publishers, speaking about players in the third person rather than pandering to them. This made the Gators realise just how inconsequential they are and how little it matters what they think, because the actual decisions are made by cold-blooded money people. She blew away the polite fiction that’s been built up by years of intense marketing and talked purely about the realities of the business, and that showed the Gators just how small they truly were and how little they actually had to offer game publishers.
2) She was a woman.
I really liked “Gamers are Dead”, and it’s the piece which made me stop thinking of myself as a gamer; but a lot of other people had been saying the same thing for a while and it’s odd that her piece drew so much flak compared to the others.
The terminal length of head hair differs with each individual – my hair gets to waist length when the overall condition is good, but only to where the bra band happens to be when my hair is in poor shape. I couldn’t even begin to assess the growth cycle for hair on the rest of me given that most of it is very light in color and none of it has ever been particularly uh…lush…in quantity. Based on a quick visual inspection, the only hair long enough for me to braid is on my head.
I did feel a slight twinge of disappointment over not being able to braid any of the hairs not on my head, just so everyone knows. 😛
I just wanted delurk to say that the meme with the straw feminist talking points that weirwoodtreehugger posted actually made me upset. The fabulous lady who has unfairly had her photo made into that meme used to run an awesome fatshion/fat acceptance blog that I really loved reading, but she deleted her blog because she had to deal with a lot of online bullying and had people (like the fuck knuckle who made that meme) constantly stealing her photos to make horrible things like that.
I’m really sad to see that she is still copping it.
@EJ
Honestly, the first point’s irrelevant in the face of the second. Take the article as-is, slap “Lesley Alexander” on the top and none of them would’ve even noticed it exists.
@M:
It’s 9am and I’m unlikely to read anything as true as what you just wrote.
@bluecat
I have a friend whose hair grew back very curly after chemo. It gradually lost that to some extent but has remained somewhat more curly than it was.
I started plucking that one hair on my chin when I was about 45. At 55 I realized that I was spending 20-30 minutes a day plucking. I shave now. I could grow a nice goatee if I so chose. But even though I have always hated shaving ANYWHERE, I don’t want a beard.
I quit bothering about shaving anywhere else years ago. I don’t like sleeveless on me anyway, and I found that af
ter a couple of years the hair on legs and underarms became very fine and hardly noticeable.
Roller derby is great to watch. Those ladies are tough. I have a feeling these boys are intimidated. I can’t imagine MGTOW and MRAs feel very confident with all their internalized misogyny. I like a woman who is my equal, not a doormat….not that women have to care what I like.
@Tom
But the woman you’re with should care what you like when it comes to such an important issue. And even unimportant issues. Of course, it doesn’t mean that she’ll always do what you like.
For all the celebration for Gawker taking hits… I wonder how Gamergaters are reacting to the shitstorm over at Breitbart
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-breitbart-idUSKCN0WG20E