The New York Times has a fascinating collection of articles today on the fifth anniversary of the start of GamerGate, and how that media ethics crusade mob harassment campaign put in place a sort of template for the culture wars of the past several years, “jump[ing] out of the obscure fever swamps of the internet and into mainstream consciousness.”
I’m quoted in Charlie Warzel’s overview, examining the ways that GamerGate helped to channel the inchoate white male angst of 4chan and gamer culture into a reactionary political crusade that continued long after the #GamerGate hashtag itself died, and that created a whole new class of “harassment influencers” who profited off the mob.
One of the media entities that exploited the GamerGate mob most effectively was, of course. Breitbart. Wurzel writes:
Breitbart’s coverage elevated Gamergate across a growing far-right media ecosystem, which drew attention from the mainstream press, who viewed the entire conflict as an online circus with endless carnival barkers. “It didn’t help that these people are, in addition to their harassing, always embroiled in their own personal dramas,” David Futrelle, a Chicago writer who covered Gamergate extensively for his blog, We Hunted The Mammoth, told me. In other words, they weren’t just pundits, they were characters. “That outrageousness made them irresistible to media,” he said. It was this attention — from influencers and the press — that cemented the status of Gamergate.
Warzel’s piece is well worth a read, as are the other pieces in the package.
–David
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@Moggie: this seems appropriate
@Allandrel, thanks. I’m glad you see it that way.
Related and maybe relevant, from today’s Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/aug/16/the-game-the-game-angela-washko-pick-up-artists
Serious content warning on this, especially on the video. *shudder*
@Solecism
Yup; I think it’s going to be the marching one; that’s brilliant. Thank you!
@Cyborgette
What a brilliant inversion. And good god, Xiu Xiu really drove home the terror of those situations with the soundtrack.
@Cyborgette
Even my cat flipped out. I mean it was probably the soundtrack for him, but holy shit that game. You can download it for free (not pirated) here.
@Mels
Right?!
@Big Titty Demon
Thanks for linking, and umm yes I think I’ll pass on that! My skin was legit crawling after just the first guy in the video.
(Cishet guys, if you decide to play that game above: it is quite realistic. This is what being on the receiving end of manipulative abuse feels like, this is how serial abusers actually behave, and this is how none of your choices seem to matter. It really is that bad.)
@opposablethumbs, thank you!
@Alan Robertshaw, happy to help!
@Cyborgette, thanks for sharing that, I think? I don’t think I want to try it out firsthand, just the description of the game was nauseating. I commend Angela Washko for doing that work (at great personal and emotional expense). I hope she has a lifetime of adorbs fur babies to help her recover from the research.
Remember when we used to get regular visits from a PUA? He seemed to sincerely believe that he was doing the right thing, and yet he was so utterly, utterly oblivious of what his intended “conquests” thought that it was pretty much impossible to communicate with him on any rational level. I think his basic argument was “if I don’t manipulate women into bed, I’m going to die a virgin, which is the worst thing EVER.”
@Alan Robertshaw:
Belated and lame. Anyway, here they are:
The safe demonstrator
Shouting under the eye
Sleep at home
Fight or fright
The cops had no problem
Apart from this, I’m surprised that in the UK it’s a criminal offence to stop lawful activities, even if it’s by peaceful means and these activities are being carried out in an unlawful way. Where I live, there have been “you’re not going to build this” demonstrations.
@ucalegont
Thank you for chipping in! These are all handy to keep anyway for possible future use.
The S.68 thing was primarily aimed at hunt sabs and road protesters; hence the formula. It is a matter of fact and degree as to when the lawful activity threshold is crossed. For example; I would argue that a ‘drag hunt’ that results in the death of a fox has crossed the line to become an illegal actual hunt.
I’ve never understood the point of involving foxes, really. It’s all about showing off your riding skills, and those have zero influence on the fate of the fox. Why not just have a steeplechase ffs? You can even let some dogs loose in front, and they’ll have a fine time running around and barking up a storm.
@Alan:
“Civil Dis/Obedience: Different protest strategies, different legal and social consequences”
ETA: Oops. didn’t realize you’d actually picked one already. BTW, though, I also liked marching without getting the boot. It’s a good one.
We had a nice time today. It was the big animal rights march in London. And it’s been a very productive weekend generally in terms of animal rights related legal stuff.
Foxes are so beautiful. I can’t imagine wanting to hunt one 🙁
I saw one in the yard next door at my aunt’s house on the 4th of July, and I was so excited. He was so pretty! There’s apparently a little family living in my aunt’s neighbor’s yard. I didn’t get to see the mom or the kits. Just the dad.
There aren’t any foxes in my neighborhood, so I don’t ever get to see them.
I mean, look at the adorableness
http://b50ym1n8ryw31pmkr4671ui1c64-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/11/files/2018/04/Mammal-Red-Fox-Kits-Wyoming-Rick-Kramer-278×300.jpg
http://www.kywildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/IMG_1435fb1-1024×683.jpg
FYI I actually found my way here from a mention in another NYT article on Aug 10. It’s inspiring that voices of reason, logic and (possibly the most important) respect still exist without devolving into a LOTF free-for-all. I’ve become an avid lurker on here. Some of the most intelligent and informed discussions I’ve read since 2016.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyny-dayton.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
There are foxes in my parents neighborhood. There used to be a house cat that was pretty friendly across the street from them, and the fox that moved into that area that year was very friendly also. We used to watch the cat and the fox playing. It was the cutest thing.
Although, cynical me was always worried one or both of them would end up trusting the wrong human/other animal, but thankfully (my lucky stars!!) that never happened.
OT: I’m not sure if any of you know this (don’t know if I mentioned it) but I am a singer. The chorus I sing with is (of course!) a feminist LGBT chorus, and we’ve been really involved in the Stonewall 50 events. Some of us got invited to sing with the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus, and I was one of them. The show was last night and they had surprise guests that we weren’t told about beforehand, Shoshana Bean from the Broadway show Waitress and Chrissy Metz from This Is Us, and they performed their own songs plus one with us. This was such a cool experience. I’m so happy, I’ve been floating pretty much since last night.
Ok, I’ll stop now. ?
When it comes to fox hunting, it may be a cultural fossil. When it became a thing, the gentry provided the military officer class. Part of the expected skill set would be cross country horse riding, which the hunt provided practice for. The fox hunt may have arisen because large challenging prey such as wild boar had been hunted out, and hunting foxes didn’t risk compromising livestock quite as much, along with the fox handily being considered a pest. Keeping domestic fowl safe from foxes can test a farmer’s ingenuity and patience, which was one of the principal excuses trotted out by the fox hunting fraternity before the practice was banned. At least a drag hunt’s scented lure provides focus for the dogs so the pack can be kept together under some semblance of control, though now it’s even reaching mainstream news outlets that established hunts don’t always lay drag trails in a way that avoids foxes, or compromising those private properties where hunts are not allowed. There’s also been thuggery directed against protesters/monitors that have resulted in the perpetrators receiving a criminal record.
Don’t know if people can see this; but it was a fun day on the march.
https://www.facebook.com/friendsnotfoodUK/videos/472949873557776/UzpfSTU1OTg4NTkzNToxMDE1NjQ4MjIyNzQ5MDkzNg/?notif_id=1566121353470479¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
Scroll down for multiple videos of foxes invading the backyard of someone trying to write in their garden studio/retreat room:
https://www.wonkette.com/all-these-nice-things-rock-like-a-mother
I heard something about domesticated foxes a while ago, but it seemed like a rather sensationalized account so I’m not expecting them to be available for a while longer (or ever). I just think it would be fun to have a pet fox, if we ever do get real domestic foxes.
Over all, I really do not like hunting. It simply feels wrong to me to kill animals for sport, and I would like it to stop. Especially non-food related hunting, which seems doubly wrong. I can maybe understand subsistence hunting (though still not a fan) but I can’t stand trophy hunts or other times people kill animals just for fun.
Foxes, lions, mammoths, it’s all wrong to hunt.
David, is there something wrong with some of the things I try to post? I’ve noticed that sometimes my posts never show up. A couple of times it was a just a delay because I changed usernames, and that makes sense, but for the last couple of times, this was not the case.
I’m hoping it’s just an accident, but I wouldn’t put it past myself to royally fuck something up either.
Naglfar – The domesticated fox thing is real. The experiment started in 1959 and is still ongoing! The Wikipedia article is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox
There’s at least one documentary I’ve seen, too.
Apparently people keep Fennec foxes as pets, but they’ve not been systematically domesticated so it’s like keeping a skunk or raccoon.
Domesticated foxes are “real” in the sense that they are tame enough to be comfortable with human contact (which is all that Belyayev selected for), but they still retain many traits of the red fox (e.g. pungent odor, marking of objects with urine, tendency to roam and dig) to a degree not seen in domestic dogs.
From a PBS NewsHour article on them:
Aww…
Oh.
I’d still put them in the “exotic pet” basket.
A spam filter likely ate my comment about “Tierra del fuego dog”, a breed of domesticated fox that was historically kept by the natives of South America’s southernmost tip. It went extinct sometime around 1900.
Now I wonder if Native South Americans had any actual dogs in prehistoric times? AFAIK Native North Americans had dogs all along but these may have been lost when crossing the rain forest in Panama.