Meanwhile, Zoe Quinn offered a somewhat more coherent take on the subject on MSNBC today.
H/T — @alexlifschitz for tweeting that first video.
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Category: #gamergate
If you search Google for “Anita Sarkeesian” and “not a gamer” or “not a real gamer” you’ll find links to hundreds of angry gamer tirades against the gaming critic for allegedly not knowing what she’s talking about, among them several videos devoted to proving her “not a real gamer,” an article declaring her “the worst thing to happen to videogames since Sonic ‘06,” and an Encylopedia Dramatica entry that declares her to be, among other things, “a feminazi bitch and “pop culture critic” with whore earrings” as well as “a filthy Jew and a white race traitor [with] sandn*gger parents.”
Given this obvious antipathy towards people who aren’t gamers but who still have opinions about gaming, you might not expect the #GamerGate masses to embrace putative allies who who admit they’ve never played games. Yet #GamerGaters have not only welcome but lionized neo-con faux feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, Breitbart “journalist” Milo Yiannopoulos and PUA blogger/lawyer/juice marketer Mike Cernovich, a #GamerGate crusader who recently offered to fight entrepreneur Anil Dash in order to prove something or other about bullying. (Yeah, I don’t get it either.)
Well, it turns out that not only are Yiannopoulos and Cernovich not gamers, but before their emergence as #GamerGate celebrities both of them had histories as nerd-baiting gamer haters and bullies. Matt Binder — yep, the guy from The Majority Report with Sam Seder who recently gave Paul Elam a drubbing in a YouTube debate — has been poking around in the Twitter histories of both men, and has uncovered some pretty foul stuff from both.
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Well, I took another look at the A Voice for Men Facebook page. Lo and behold, their little meme makers have been working overtime! So here’s a little gallery of some of their latest work.
I have to admit that these aren’t quite as baffling as the John Galt meme originals we looked at a couple of weeks ago, or these also-very-confusing AVFM memes I posted last spring. But they are pretty darn terrible, in all respects.
Click on the pics to see the originals on Facebook, complete with thoughtful commentary from AVFM’s fans (except in the case of this next one, which I found reposted on an anti-MRA Facebook).
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So I was idly perusing Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield’s Twitter yesterday, and I came across an alarming tweet. It seemed as though Bloomfield had somehow penetrated the 47 levels of security protecting the Feminist HIgh Council to discover incontrovertible evidence of Operation Wicked Succubus. You know, the feminist plan to eliminate all men (except for me).
https://twitter.com/BloomfieldJanet/status/523458962704699393
Her followers were aghast:
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This graphic by somewhat_brave on Reddit pretty much nails it. (Click here to see a larger version.) When #GamerGaters talk about “ethics” in journalism, this is pretty much code for “journalists shouldn’t be allowed to say anything critical of us!”
And in case you missed the all-Cat version of the manifesto, here it is again:
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There’s a lot of really good stuff about the whole #GamerGate fiasco on Twitter. Here are several excellent collections of Tweets that have helpfully been put into Storify form for easy reading.
The He-Man #gamergate-rs Club. A collection of Tweets from @a_man_in_black showing that #GamerGate just the latest, if the most virulent, “outburst of a larger misogynist movement going back years.” He looks at the sordid histories of a number of current #GamerGaters and finds that many have been involved in misogynistic and transphobic harassment for years.
The most startling discovery: The creator of the “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian” game you may recall from two years ago … well, he still hates Sarkeesian, only now he’s a #GamerGater who pretends that he’s against harassment.
#gamergate doesn't tolerate harassment, says the creator of Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian. https://t.co/wz3W7LZg4g
— Jay Allen (@a_man_in_black) October 18, 2014
Click on that Tweet to see more from @a_man_in_black on Bendilin.
For still more on the background of some of the worst in the #GamerGate movement, check out The Bad Apples of #GamerGate on Medium. Also essential reading. You’ll notice some familiar names on the list.
@EffNOVideoGames has put together an amazing account of the origins of #GamerGate, poiting out that the “movement” has always been about spin. Deftly rebuts the notion that #GamerGate is about “ethics,” and provides numerous screenshots offering clear proof of the misogyny that’s been there from the start.
Oh, and if you want to see how serious #GamerGaters are about actually fighting harassment in their movement — which always seems to be the fault of a few “bad apples” — check out what happened when @ShadowTodd asked them to show their sincerity by donating money to help the women who’ve been harassed by these “bad apples.” SPOILER ALERT: What happened was a lot of victim blaming and “false flag”-crying and not one penny donated — even when Todd suggested that even if they hated Anita and Zoe and the rest, donating money to then would at least make them look less like the unrepentant woman-haters they are.
There was literally no downside. The only way it would hurt your cause is if your cause was actually… to hurt female VG critics…. OH GOD
— Todd in the Shadows (@ShadowTodd) October 17, 2014
Another chilling read: “There is no Virtue Without Terror” On the Ethical Landscape of GamerGate by Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon on Twitter), a researcher of online harassment who has drawn the ire of the #GamerGate crowd.
She reflects on the decidedly mixed performance of the media in all of this, and a bit on her thoughts what it means for her as an academic studying gender, in another set of Storified Tweets, Katherine Cross on the effects of GamerGate.
If you’re on Twitter, and trying to keep up with #GamerGate, I’d highly recommend following @a_man_in_black, @EffNOVideoGames, and @Quinnae_Moon, as well as the excellent @srhbutts.
And of course you need to follow @TheQuinnspiracy (that is, Zoe Quinn) and her dude @alexlifschitz.
H/T — @lawblob for the pic at the top.
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#gamergate a woman is always to blame antifeminism crackpottery doubling down drama kings elliot rodger entitled babies evil women grandiosity imaginary backwards land irony alert lying liars misogyny MRA none dare call it conspiracy playing the victim PUAhate sarkeesian! that's completely wrong threats
A Voice for Men offers proof that it was a feminist who threatened Anita Sarkeesian. Minus the proof.
“Andy Bob” of A Voice for Men has decided that the recent threats against Anita Sarkeesian are fake because … they’re too melodramatic.
In a rather remarkable bit of logicking titled “Anonymous feminist provides Anita Sarkeesian with a potential new source of revenue,” Andy Bob quotes this line from the threat email:
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#gamergate advocacy of violence all about the menz antifeminism crackpottery empathy deficit entitled babies excusing abuse fidelbogen gamebros gynocracy harassment men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA no games for girls no girls allowed oppressed men playing the victim post contains sarcasm reddit sarkeesian! self-congratulation victim blaming
The Top Four Men’s Rightsiest things said about the recent threats against Anita Sarkeesian
Men’s Rights activists are the only ones asking these tough questions about the recent threats against Anita Sarkeesian and other outspoken women in gaming.
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Reading through the luridly threatening email that forced Anita Sarkeesian to cancel her talk at Utah State University, originally scheduled for today, I found myself wondering, a bit dumbfounded: just where does this kind of hate come from?
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself again and again in recent days as I contemplate the ongoing fiasco that is GamerGate. How on earth have all these people gotten so angry, so worked up, so willing to dox and harass and threaten women (and some of their male allies) over video games?
How exactly does someone reach a point where it makes sense to them to threaten – and perhaps even to seriously plan – a “Montreal-style Massacre” because they don’t like a few videos pointing out sexism in video games?
Even after years spent tracking and trying to understand the misogynistic online culture that’s given birth to GamerGate, I don’t have an answer. And I’m not sure where to get one.
And so, as a kind of preliminary step towards finding an answer to this question, I thought I would ask a simpler and more empirical question: where does the language of hatred found in the threatening email sent to Utah State officials come from?
