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GamerGate Explained!!! [locked]
 
It's this thing on the Internet.

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09/13/14, 05:42    Locked 01/04/16, 01:39
 
   
 
@Jargon

Indeed!

Otherwise it's another notch in the hopefully-kept-tabs-on column for "let it go."

Either way, I hope this is fruitful for people. Nothing worse than typing that much (not to mention the emotional drain it is) and having it be entirely meaningless.
11/09/15, 23:49   
Jargon said:
Well let's hope that now that Zero has admirably taken the time to exhaustively explain his point of view, Dave is able to take his apparent understanding with him and contribute positively in a way that may not have happened if Zero had been less patient.

I haven't changed my opinion that the best way bridge the widening gulf with GG is for both sides to actually try to understand where their opposition might be coming from, why they think the way they do. From day one this was a series of miscommunications where people made presumptions about the other side without just talking like rationale people.

Zero still thinks we should ignore them. But, more than anything else, that's exactly what made them so angry to begin with.
11/10/15, 00:01   
@DapperDave

Hear hear. I agree, and I think that makes such monumental sense that it's hard for me to understand the opposition to it. I guess it's because it feels like losing to consider trying to understand the other side, and people desperately don't want to lose.

Yet how else will we resolve conflicts? The only other way is to try to snuff the other side out, and that is exactly what is happening now. That is why there is a problem!
11/10/15, 00:07   
J.K. Riki said:
@DapperDave

Hear hear. I agree, and I think that makes such monumental sense that it's hard for me to understand the opposition to it. I guess it's because it feels like losing to consider trying to understand the other side, and people desperately don't want to lose.

Yet how else will we resolve conflicts? The only other way is to try to snuff the other side out, and that is exactly what is happening now. That is why there is a problem!

There is a lot if these days unfortunately. If someone disagrees with you, they are gone. That's it. No discussion. No understanding, they are just cut out of the picture.


The amount of work put in to DeepFreeze is insane. The enormity of the site and the exhaustive amount of information they put in it is mind boggling. This was made by people who must have gone off the deep end. I look at this site and I actually feel sorry for them. They must be deeply disturbed and troubled to put that much work into all this. What drove people to such absurd lengths?

This is what a failure on all sides to communicate empathetically has produced. A bunch of sad, resentful, bitter people who are jumping at every shadow and flying off the handle when they hear the words sexist or racist.

If this conversation produces anything I hope it makes someone try just a little harder to understand someone else's point of view. Not ignore/silence/ban/dismiss them, which only causes these kinds of insane reactions.
11/10/15, 00:42   
Edited: 11/10/15, 00:43
@DapperDave But see, I disagree. I don't see that this was a series of miscommunications at all. There WERE miscommunications, but the anger was there long before this. This was spawned by anger at people like Anita, "SJW" writers, etc. saying and writing things that Gamergate doesn't want anyone involved in the industry to say and write. That's not a miscommunication, that is people thinking they have the right to dictate what writers can write about and video makers can talk about.

To just say "understand the other side" is sort of empty to me, because it's not a real action. Yeah, it is good advice to try to get to the core of what the other side wants. Which I have done. But you don't seem to leave any room for a person to spend a lot of time and energy to understand the other side's positions and ultimately determine that the other side has inherently flawed positions that can't reasonably be acted upon. But that is what happens sometimes. Because honestly I feel the same way about Gamergate views that I do about say... the opposition to gay marriage. You can try to understand where they are coming from, but when it comes to action you don't say "well they want no gay marriage at all based on a flawed concept of how religion should influence a free nation, and we want equal rights, so... let's all talk it out and find a middle ground?" If their position is inherently flawed, you can't really do anything but reject it. Which isn't to say you can't have conversations with them, but there really isn't much space to take their views seriously, and compromises with inherently flawed positions are not automatically the best solution.

But let's put that aside. What do you think writers should do differently than they are already doing? What actions can they take to make this better outside of capitulating to people that demand them to stop doing things that are perfectly within their right to do or face repercussions? I'm seriously confused about what actual actions you think the reviewer / "SJW" side should be doing differently. Other than not specifically writing articles that mention Gamergate in negative ways to antagonize them more, but that is already covered in my "ignore the noise" solution that you don't like. So what should these writers seriously be doing differently right now?
11/10/15, 01:00   
Edited: 11/10/15, 01:04
Zero said:
But let's put that aside. What do you think writers should do differently than they are already doing? What actions can they take to make this better outside of capitulating to people that demand them to stop doing things that are perfectly within their right to do or face repercussions?

Hard to answer because I might give different suggestions depending on the individual or what position they have.

In general, my advice is for them to talk - that's a real action. Show them that you are trying to understand their position with questions. "Why are you so angry?" "What has made you think the way you do?" "What would you like see changed specifically in games journalism?" I'm not saying you have to make compromises or find middle ground (I said common ground, that's different). But just showing a willingness to understand can go a long way.



I'm pro-choice but I've thought about the issue enough to understand how being pro-life is not an unreasonable or evil position. I can completely understand where that person who disagrees may be coming from. But everyone else seems to think that if someone disagrees with them, they must be a bad person. It's the only explanation. Both sides do this. If you don't agree with them then you must be bad, and if you're bad they're perfectly justified in ignoring you, silencing you, or even doing much worse.


Here's what I think started GG and what continues to fuel GG. It's not ethics in games journalism or misogyny so much as it is a resentment for not being heard. When the Zoe story broke and people started asking questions and they were told - shut up, you're sexist, shut up, gamers are dead. I'm sure they knew that telling them this was going to piss them off. But who cares if they're pissed off because they're bad people. And the gulf continues to widen.

Think about it this way. These GG people, as terrible as they may be, are human beings like you. They probably have brains that work the same way yours does. So the difference between you and them may only come down to different experiences that shape our perceptions of the world. In other words, you don't have the same information. So communication can actually exchange information and bridge that gap.


Look! Even Brianna Wu found common ground with someone once thought was a bad person - a GamerGater! - when meeting with them and actually talking. (More on this) I wonder how anti GG reacted to this?
11/10/15, 01:43   
Edited: 11/10/15, 01:49
@DapperDave

This kind of talk sounds nice. Basically you're saying, "Let's all hug it out." And that's great and all. I'm a big ol' hippie half the time, so I want to believe that's a solution.

But it also reminds me of that scene in Bowling for Columbine where Marilyn Manson is asked what he'd say to the kids who shot up that school. His remark, which was widely reported and applauded at the time, was that he wouldn't say anything. He would listen to what they had to say, which he claimed no one else ever did.

Sounds nice. Sounds reasonable. Sounds like he's saying society has a role in helping prevent situations like that - that we can all take responsibility for not reaching out to outsiders and bringing them in from the cold. (And don't misunderstand me. Of course school shootings are more important than GamerGate. It's just the only metaphor I can think of, here.)

Sometimes it's even true that you can fix problems by listening.

But here's the problem with Manson's "Hug it Out" approach: It turned out to be full of shit. It sounded nice, and everyone could have a good guilt trip over why they didn't do more to prevent it, but the truth is the kids who shot up Columbine had lots of people who wanted to listen to them. They were fairly popular. They weren't bullied. They weren't outsiders, really. They even had engaged counsellors (who they lied to, straight-faced, about the progress they were making.)

Now, again, I'm not saying that GamerGaters are as bad as sociopathic school shooters. I'm just trying to illustrate a point: There's always a temptation to share the blame when there's an explosive situation like this. To say, "Hey, this is our fault for not doing everything we could to understand this other point of view and bring these people into the fold." Sounds reasonable. But it's not always true.

Anyway, I'm mostly with Zero on this. What GamerGate mostly seemed to want was to use social pressure to shut up the people they didn't like. They accused their enemies of deploying those same tactics on them, but the sad truth is that a combination of their tactics and the lack of power in their arguments sunk GamerGate. They didn't adequately handle their message and they have no one to blame but themselves for their failure.

As someone who's spoken out about how I think games journalism is a terrible joke, I'm disappointed that they slandered the whole call for reform of games journalism. If there's any lasting legacy to the movement, other than anti-bullying activism, it's probably that they scuttled any chance to affect positive change to games journalism from a grassroots level. And that, of course, makes the movement an abject failure.

This is what happens, though, when you build a movement on anger that some chick you never heard of is sleeping around.
11/10/15, 02:05   
I honestly don't think this started with Zoe at all, I think she was fairly irrelevant to this whole mess in the end. I think it started long ago and exploded with Anita and it would have found a coagulation point with or without Zoe eventually. Anita becoming such a huge and generally accepted (or at least, not condemned) voice in the game media got a lot of people really, really angry, and they tried to drive her out and shut her up and that didn't work, so things got worse and worse. This Zoe stuff is all just an extension of that anger at "SJWs" being so popular in the game media right now.

I think your interpretation of events is much different than mine though. I didn't see people being told to shut up and you're sexist for "asking questions". I did see people being told they couldn't use private forums to spread sexist shit like the "5 Guys" video or run around talking about this SLUT / WHORE all over the place. It got very nasty very fast, and a lot of forums just didn't want to deal with that. As a forum owner I totally get that. And the unfortunate result of handling messy stuff in forums is that you do often end up shutting down the decent parts of the conversations too. I'm not sure any forum owner has solved this yet. I sure don't know the solution there. We eventually just ended up locking our Tropes / Anita thread because it became such a huge mess that it was tough to get any decent conversation in there. It felt like a failure to me but it was probably the right decision at the time.

For the record that Gamergate stuff was never banned here. Not much of anything gets banned here other than being a jerk to others or abject racism / sexism / etc. It just never really came here in any big way. Some talk early on. Died off. I think this current string is about as long as it has ever gone here. Now Anita, on the other hand... oh boy. That was an epic thread.

Anyway, early on there was a lot more talking. And I think there were a lot of legitimate attempts by various media figures to understand the whole thing. I still have decent conversations with some of them, but it has gotten so much more rare.

Honestly though, I don't think talking will make this end, because they're always looking for concessions they have no right to ask for and no one is going to give them. They really just do not want to see certain things happen in the industry that are definitely going to keep happening, and that is sort of the sad fate of being on the right-wing side of things... everything tends to inevitably shift left over time, because well... society grows and changes over time? Whenever you pick a side that essentially comes down to "things need to stop progressing" well, good luck with that. I don't think anything will make it end, but I think what will make it lessen is the passage of time and the normalization of certain things. Feminism in gaming is scary now because it is new and it seems like it might cause massive changes to some people. 10 years from now when little has changed (or maybe a lot has expanded but the old still remains) it will be less scary. When I say ignore the noise I don't necessarily mean "don't talk to anyone on the other side", just that what is going to make this better is to continue normalizing certain things like social critique of games, etc. and people will realize it wasn't an apocalypse scenario after all. No one needs Gamergate's permission to do this, they can just do it and whether they engage with Gamergate or not, it will still have basically the same effect.

Some will realize it wasn't the end of the world, anyway. There will always be a right and a left. But the window slides over time. Usually to the left.

But honestly I don't see this ever going away, just like I don't see any way religious right versus atheist left is going away, or pro-life versus pro-choice is going away, or pro gay rights versus anti gay rights is going away, or pick your choice of a million hot topics. What I do see happening is what I think happened with gay rights... the window shifted to a point where it started to be considered normal and not scary. I honestly do not think gay rights happened because a bunch of people talked to the opposition and convinced them to change their minds. I think it happened because homosexuality was normalized through stuff like Will & Grace / Ellen and other media, more and more gay couples coming out and their friends and family realizing they're still good people, etc. Essentially, it wasn't long drawn out arguments over the merits of both sides that changed things, just more exposure to the scary thing and realizing it actually isn't that scary.

But that's just a theory too. What do I know.
11/10/15, 02:15   
Edited: 11/10/15, 02:26
How many people in this thread even care about GamerGaters? I don't know that anyone is defending them or the banner. People need to stop pretending that you either have to be an SJW or a GG. Like, can we just stop talking about GG? It's like trying to talk politics under the assumption that all conservatives are Tea Party or trying to talk gaming under the assumption everyone is an eSports star.

This conversation would be a lot more fruitful if people stopped positioning their opponents alongside GG. I've said it since the beginning, burn the GG banner down for all I care. Unplug all their computers, delete their harddrives. But the fact remains OUTSIDE of GG that there are important parts of gaming journalism that we shouldn't have to put up with and that folks like Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn don't necessarily have the best interests of others at heart and that awful online harassment is not just a woman's problem.

I'm not even sure it happens more to women per capita. I know it happened more to Zoe/Anita than it did to the male game journalists. But that's like being surprised that lightning struck a lightning rod more than a nearby tree. Part of the problem people have with Zoe and Anita is that they seem to thrive on and encourage controversy and being antagonistic because each death threat they receive gets them that much more good will from the rest of the world. I'm not saying it's a plan I'd be comfortable executing, but if they wanted it to stop, there are better ways. Ways that don't involve caving in, but ways that also don't involve poking bees nests and then crying foul when they get stung.

It baffles me that the terrible things that happen to Anita and Zoe are considered rock hard proof of pandemic misogyny, yet videos like the following are...... irrelevant to the conversation? These guys don't even really do controversial things yet they get it this bad all the time. Often with the same shallow insults about how they look and dress. So, why would casually labeling entire groups of people as sexist and racist based on obviously flawed methods not draw the ire of those same people?



I challenge this thread to continue the conversation without mentioning or referencing GamerGate because unless someone states otherwise, I don't think ANYONE in here is defending that label, the terrible actions associated with it, or its primary figureheads. So we can let the straw man lie and try talking about the issues alone, please? The thread title may be about GamerGate, but the issue hasn't been for a long time other than the fact that it is a great tool for dismissing the valid concerns of others.
11/10/15, 04:33   
Edited: 11/10/15, 04:34
@NinSage

How did Anita's videos "poke the bee's nest" exactly? For all your talk of "straw men", Zero has been engaging that very idea throughout this thread and he's done a very good job backing up his position that anyone who says there could be better representation of women in gaming gets attacked. You're going to have to actually substantiate your claims that she doesn't actually have the interests of others at heart.
11/10/15, 04:59   
Jargon said:
@NinSage
How did Anita's videos "poke the bee's nest" exactly?

I can't speak for the videos, but she did a whole tumblr thing showcasing the worst tweets she's received. It's a great idea for getting attention for yourself, but a terrible, terrible idea if you don't want to perpetuate the ugly cycle. You are absolutely encouraging this by reposting these people.

The defense to this, which I'm sure someone would post if I stopped typing there, is "people need to know this is happening." Cool, then you say "I'm very disappointed with the things people tweet at me, but I will keep trying to help people and do what's right." Boom. Done. Then if anyone wants to see details, they can look, because everything is totally public information you can search for. But you know what that method doesn't do? That doesn't get you oodles of attention yourself. Reposting the hateful messages does. And you see which route she picks, consistently.

The truth is both sides, BOTH, are being completely insane and unreasonable. As NinSage said, NO ONE HERE is defending the terrible actions of GG. Unfortunately there are a lot of people defending the terrible actions of the other side, who absolutely poke the bees nest. On purpose.

EDITED to attempt to take some of the heat out of my post, because I was becoming too unhinged and that doesn't help anyone.
11/10/15, 06:02   
Edited: 11/10/15, 06:13
@J.K. Riki

And yet again that point is completely absurd. You think those TV shows just arose ex nihilo? No they came from people who learned about feminist ideas in college and put them to work in their lives. And now that those ideas have reached a wider audience they're coming from people who learned about feminist ideas on the internet. Anita already is making a difference, by reaching people who know how to make games (which as far as I know, she doesn't). But you're right, we've gone over all of this.

I would like to point out how quickly you've abandoned your "let's talk it out and listen" when it comes to condemning Anita. Even if you don't think posting the attacks she's received, in the face of people saying she's making them up, is productive, you might want to think about what might motivate someone to do that under the circumstances instead of immediately going to malevolent motives. You know, if you sincerely care about understanding and forgiveness instead of just defending one side.
11/10/15, 06:22   
Jargon said:
@NinSage

How did Anita's videos "poke the bee's nest" exactly? For all your talk of "straw men", Zero has been engaging that very idea throughout this thread and he's done a very good job backing up his position that anyone who says there could be better representation of women in gaming gets attacked. You're going to have to actually substantiate your claims that she doesn't actually have the interests of others at heart.

Poking the bees nest:
Like I said, if you use sloppy methods to call entire groups of people sexist, racist or homo/transphobic, people will not respond well to it. People do not like being labeled as those things, especially to others, when they do not deserve it. It's such a messed up passive aggression where she makes all these implications and then couches it with "but, y'know, it's still OK to enjoy games and... I love them... and the people who I know who play games they're not bad people either." It's like, which is it? Cuz she straight up implies that games contribute to violence against women in at least one of her videos. Again, that's not an accusation people respond well to.

Evidence that she does not have the best interest of other's at heart:
1. Purposefully deceiving people about her history with video games. She stayed away from games making a gross generalizing that they were too violent to enjoy. Then, when it becomes convenient to be perceived as a long-time gamer lest her credibility be questioned, she changes her story and trots out the one picture she has where she is holding a SNES controller as a youngster. Why lie? Why try to start something meaningful with a deception people can easily see through (unless they choose not to)?

There is video on youtube of her saying how she never used to play games if you want me to post it for you. But maybe you've seen it already?

2. Doing shoddy research and then shutting off feedback mechanisms (comments/recording her talks) through which people would debunk her methods. If you really want to advance knowledge, you welcome constructive criticism because it can make your argument stronger in the end. I know the temptation is to turn this around and say "well what's wrong with Anita's criticisms making games stronger?" Except, as I've just pointed out, her critiques are not constructive in nature. They are based on half-truths and interpretations and do not offer alternative suggestions.
11/10/15, 06:22   
@NinSage

We've been over and over how they are not "sloppy", you just don't agree with the points. We've been over and over how she is not calling entire groups racist/sexist/homophobics, you just are unable to distinguish between cultural critique and personal attacks.

As far as whether she's being disingenuous about her past, I find it completely inconsequential. People are going to great lengths to try and discredit her and maybe they've dredged something up, maybe they haven't. If I went through every post and podcast you've written and tried to find something bad to say, I'm sure I could get a group of people who are already openly antagonistic to think they've caught you in a lie. But it doesn't affect the substance of her videos which make good points.

As for turning off comments, she didn't turn off the internet. People could post their rebuttals and they did (as posted in this thread). There's no reason she has to give people a forum to spout their vitriol when there are infinite other channels.

Like JKR your message that people just need to stop being so hostile and practice understanding has quickly dissipated when it comes to trashing this stranger. Funny that.
11/10/15, 06:35   
Edited: 11/10/15, 06:38
@Jargon

Look, a big tell that loses so much respect and favor for the side you keep defending is that none of you ever sound interested in reaching a solution. Like, I'm sure JK Riki, and DapperDave and myself are totally willing to discuss ways in which people who don't like certain parts of games can and should get games made for them to enjoy. Frankly, I feel like if you don't like certain things in games, you already have other options, but, if we need more of them, that's fine! Let's do it! Let's make games that Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn and Social Justice peoples enjoy! Let's do that! But we don't have tear down things other people like to make that happen. It's not a zero-sum game and people perpetuating that myth because it keeps their careers afloat is not beneficial.

People admit that Anita's methods aren't great, but at the same time refuse to just use her work as a springboard for something good. No, instead, people just try to defend her sloppy work and try to shove the square peg into the round hole until it fits.

When those things happen, you all sound like you aren't interested in anything other than looking "right" and being on the "right side of history" as determined by people who, far as we can tell, are not clairvoyant. That's why people don't respect it. That's why people are skeptical and push back. That's why people don't believe in the supposedly good intentions behind folks who think accusing people of bad things is more important than working to create good things.

You want to tell yourselves they're just pushing back because it's women. But no one seems to have a problem with Jade Raymond and she's actually IN the industry -- a place women supposedly aren't welcome. She's been a fixture for years and far as I can tell there hasn't even been a kerfuffle about it.

Again, the Jack Thompsons and Michael Pachters and any number of male game executives get all kinds of hate and threats and wishes of cancer, but no one makes front page news of it because for some reason no one cares, but, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't relevant or isn't a problem.
11/10/15, 06:40   
@Jargon

Dude, even people who support Sarkeesian often acknowledge that her methods are not good. Re-cutting footage to fit her agenda, completely leaving out valuable factors in her analyses, taking and presenting things out of context, framing conclusions instead of letting them speak for themselves. The list goes on. I know we've reached the rubber/glue portion of the internet debate, but, you are the one choosing not to recognize that. And no matter how much you keep trying to end every post with an ad hominem about how we aren't as peaceful as we claim, the fact remains that we are all willing to go to the table and talk and negotiate a compromise to try and make both sides happy. We're just getting frustrated by the complete and constant stonewall.

Around the start of this whole mess I was posting on twitter asking if there was interest in starting a group I was dubbing "the red mages" (.com) for people who were interested in the concerns of both sides (y'know, like how red mages learn both white and black magic? I liked it) to come together and work towards solutions. Sadly, no one was ever interested and my twitter feed doesn't have much reach anyway, so, I did what I could. Were it not for the fact that I can barely justify one .com that doesn't bring in any revenue, and the fact that I really shouldn't set aside any more time to things that won't get me above the poverty line (yay adjunct teaching!) I would have started the site and group anyway.
11/10/15, 06:50   
NinSage said:
How many people in this thread even care about GamerGaters? I don't know that anyone is defending them or the banner. People need to stop pretending that you either have to be an SJW or a GG. Like, can we just stop talking about GG? It's like trying to talk politics under the assumption that all conservatives are Tea Party or trying to talk gaming under the assumption everyone is an eSports star.
Is it really a mystery why people put you in the same box as the group of angry young men who are against feminists, deny that women get more harassment than men, and think that generally they invite it on themselves because they love playing the victim? Is it really something you haven't figured out?

You've been blaming the forum format for people misunderstanding your position, but the fact is, your opinions here are clear, black on white. There is no misunderstanding. Just a severe lack of self-awareness.
11/10/15, 07:04   
@NinSage

I've already explained that the two sides that I'm discussing are "Video games should have better representation" and "You can't say that.". As Zero has said, there is no "solution" to that since there's no possible common ground. Any move towards silencing progressive ideas is a non-starter.

As has been said a million times, Anita's videos have spurred creative people to make more inclusive games already. That's the solution to the actual problem and progress is being made. I've also made my point clear that what incites anger is people, particularly women, attempting to upset the status quo and not just about being a woman. A woman who poses no threat to the status quo is not going to have those problems.

Again, for someone talking about wanting understanding, you're not doing a very good job of listening to what I'm saying. And I can't think of a polite way to say that you apparently don't know what ad hominem means.
11/10/15, 07:11   
Edited: 11/10/15, 07:13
@Guillaume

Welcome back, Gui. Amazing how you constantly refused to talk with me one and one -- no matter how many times I reached out and tried to say that I wanted to listen to you and work with you to reach an understanding. Instead, you unfriended me on facebook, unfollowed on twitter, completely surrendered all forms of direct communication, but yet ......... never seem to take too long replying to my posts on this forum if you have a chance to take a swipe at me. Top notch work, man. Things will definitely not reach a resolution with you on the case.
11/10/15, 07:12   
Edited: 11/10/15, 07:13
@NinSage

I deleted my facebook, you poor thing. And no, I don't follow everyone on twitter.

Seriously, though. Is it a surprise? Is it a surprise, when you go all Gamergate is a deflection, no one cares about them, the real problem is this feminist I hate, is it surprising no one on the other side takes you up on your offer to sit down and "compromise"?

Listen to yourself. Read what you write.

If you want a one-on-one conversation with someone about Anita, you gotta show it's going to be worthwhile, or that you have something to say worth saying, that you haven't already said. Will a feminist want to give you that kind of time if they're expecting more of what you posted above? Outright lies about Anita's claims?
11/10/15, 07:17   
Edited: 11/10/15, 07:25
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