Game journalism backlash - the microcosm theory

[Soapyfrog]

Mainly that they seem more idiotic than threatening.

I was just wondering why you made the distinction. The way you responded made it sound like you were responding to someone who claimed they were threatening (or even threats, which technically many are but I agree not super credible).

I think the main point of posting a snapshot of tweets is to show the deluge of shit she has to deal with on her twitter feed, and that are just the new ones who have not yet been blocked or suspended.

[Tin_Wisdom]

Most of the foul-mouthed illiterate tweets are more dumb than threatening, but far be it for me to dismiss them. I can’t imagine getting that volume of stupidity thrown my way in just one week.

That was my reaction too. I barely made it through a third of them before I just quit reading out of disgust. I can’t imagine having that volume of abuse mixed in with the “serious” correspondence that she (presumably) also has in her feed, it would just be depressing as hell.

[Scuzz]

So has #GG come out and said she faked all that stuff?

[Dave_Markell]

Anita Sarkeesian posts one week of tweets.

http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-harassment-on-twitter

Some of them are really bad. NSFW and all that.

I went into this expecting awful and still couldn’t take more than a few of them. The worst part is that we’re well past the peak of GG activity now. I don’t want to try to imagine what it was like for her a few months ago.

[Telefrog]

So has #GG come out and said she faked all that stuff?

Funny you should mention that. Most aren’t saying they’re faked, but there’s a lot of discussion in GG about how folks are going through them and not finding any “core” GG supporters, so it’s all okay.

[LMN8R]

GamerGate supporters like to say they can claim who does and does not represent GamerGate. But unfortunately for them, it doesn’t work that way.

They have no formal leadership, so they have no formal goals, and no formal stance on anything. The closest they came to having official spokespeople that many in GamerGate aligned themselves with were disgusting pieces of trash like Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, lawyer Mike Cernovich, and actor Adam Baldwin. And, hilariously, Jack Thompson.

So individuals can try to claim who represents “core” GamerGate supporters, but it’s all just empty, impotent nonsense.

The only things that have actually been consistently accomplished in the name of GamerGate is imposing censorship through companies dumb enough to play along (after which they apologized and pledged to do far more to address problems instead), and destroy the lives of women in games.

[Alstein]

It’s disgusting whether you agree with someone or not.

[playingwithknives]

To quote um, me in one of the other GG threads back in Sept.

Games Journalism 2014: The Wherever-the-hell-this-has-gone

The thing with 4chan its like 20 million eyes looking at 20 million places, but rarely, all the eyes look at the same thing and BAM its the Eye of fucking Sauron man, and you’ve got an army of orcs running towards you.

Although to update it for today, its more prolonged and far larger than anything 4chan would do and is probably fucking Morgoth looking at those tweets. Those who were forced to take* the folorn hope when trying to break the walls of gamerdom have undoubtedly opened themselves up to a torrent of shit rather the glory they were told to expect.

*I say that because those that actually declared war on gamers and roused the beasts were mainly males in the games journalism industry, and Anita, Zoe and co are still being used as sacrificial lambs by the same people. The gamers are dead/neckbeard/nerd/basement/fedora insults originated from them not Fem Freq or Quinn, yet this has never been acknowledged.

Also if Twitter isn’t the best tool to enable random abuse from anonymous people ever invented then I don’t know what is. Gamergate and the troll and anti-identity politics-SJW cultures it created might well be the milestone that enable development of social media that treats the users security and well being as a core feature.

[Aleck]

Disgusting to see that Sarkeesian is still getting that kind of abuse. While I don’t agree with her and think most of what she’s presented so far consists of shallow, strawman style analysis, nothing she has done – absolutely nothing! – could justify that kind of treatment.

I know I keep asking this, but does anyone know if there has been any progress on the legal front? Last I heard Sarkeesian was meeting with law enforcement and planning to press charges, but I haven’t seen any info in at least a month.

[Virgil_Hilts]

LOL Aleck can’t even condemn that shit without caveating first that AS is totally wrong(even as precisely that shit PROVES HER RIGHT). What a hero.

[Soapyfrog]

*I say that because those that actually declared war on gamers and roused the beasts were mainly males in the games journalism industry, and Anita, Zoe and co are still being used as sacrificial lambs by the same people. The gamers are dead/neckbeard/nerd/basement/fedora insults originated from them not Fem Freq or Quinn, yet this has never been acknowledged.

Another window into the alternate reality GG supporters inhabit. Evil journalists are MAKING us attack women!!

[Nesrie]

Well, those are more the games people /keep/ playing, Nesrie.

Other games come and go.

Understood. I don’t really play competitive games which would explain why i don’t really fit into the crowd or felt the need to watch them. I would challenge the keep playing part though. There are a lot of games that are played for years, that are not that competitive if at all; they’re just not in leagues or on that list.

Yea, it’s kind of like watching sports but for the next gen. Heck, my 8 year old daughter loves watching that stuff.

I don’t watch sports either. In fact it’s a bit of a running joke around work, about how few people actually watch them over there save for the world cup last year I believe and the fact a team just up north is in the super bowl.

Anyway, this explains a lot as to why it’s just not a part of the market I’ve felt the need to go to. And of those of us who play at work, i think the last time I heard about anything competitive might have been D3. I don’t remember Runescape being competitive but that’s been probably a good decade since i did anything there.

[Starlight]

Understood. I don’t really play competitive games which would explain why i don’t really into the crowd or felt the need to watch them. I would challenge the keep playing part though. There are a lot of games that are played for years, that are not that competitive if at all; they’re just not in leagues or on that list.

WoW isn’t really competitive either, but that may well be the Blizzard effect. Still, good point on that.

[Brad_Wardell]

The toxicity of the Internet never ceases to disappoint or surprise.

People are very brave behind their keyboards. Unfortunately, the tweets she’s posting aren’t that much different than the kind of “in game” abuse one can expect in a multiplayer game. This evening’s Starcraft outing was unusually disappointing.

While I may not agree with Sarkeesian’s views on games, I am very glad she is putting a spotlight on this behavior where people are paying attention to it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to take people’s computers away for an “Internet timeout”?

[Soapyfrog]

People are very brave behind their keyboards. Unfortunately, the tweets she’s posting aren’t that much different than the kind of “in game” abuse one can expect in a multiplayer game. This evening’s Starcraft outing was unusually disappointing.

For the mainstream games I tentatively agree, you can see that kind of abuse, but I have to say playing games like World of Tanks, War Thunder, Mechwarrior Online this kind of behaviour is almost unheard of in my experience, even in competition. It could be that the “sim-lite” games just have less broad appeal and a more mature audience. Compared to CoD or CS or LoL it is night and day.

However a key point to remember is when I shut down Counterstrike, the trash talkers aren’t going to then follow me to my Twitter and email and every comment thread I am in anyway involved in and keep shit talking me for 8 months without any sign of stopping.

While I may not agree with Sarkeesian’s views on games, I am very glad she is putting a spotlight on this behavior where people are paying attention to it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to take people’s computers away for an “Internet timeout”?

Well said exactly so.

[ShivaX]

The more I read about these things, the more it reminds me of “metal purists” in music.

They bitch that “X isn’t metal” and “chicks can’t be metal” and the like non-stop everywhere. Nothing is metal enough and anyone who does anything that isn’t Cannibal Corpse is ruining metal for everyone and anyone who likes anything else is destroying metal and blah, blah, blah.

I mean it’s almost point for point the same crap, only the metal heads don’t threaten rape as often (don’t get me wrong they do it). It’s just a group who’ve created this identity around some small subgenre of culture that feel threatened that somehow anyone else enjoying that subculture is a direct threat to everything they hold dear.

If Otep and In This Moment exist, then Amon Amarth are going to turn gay or something. Of course they’re not metal anymore, much like Pantera isn’t metal somehow. It’s all the same notes as you see with the extreme ends of GG as near as I can tell.

[Alstein]

Where Online Social Liberalism Lost The Script

This really seems appropiate as a way to sum up my general views on the political side of things.

[Juan_Raigada]

The toxicity of the Internet never ceases to disappoint or surprise.

People are very brave behind their keyboards. Unfortunately, the tweets she’s posting aren’t that much different than the kind of “in game” abuse one can expect in a multiplayer game. This evening’s Starcraft outing was unusually disappointing.

While I may not agree with Sarkeesian’s views on games, I am very glad she is putting a spotlight on this behavior where people are paying attention to it. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to take people’s computers away for an “Internet timeout”?

I think most of it has to do with perceived anonimity. I for one am sad Blizzard didn’t go forward with their real name policy. I know that since I started signing everything I write online with my name (long time ago) I have been forced to actually thinka bout what the fuck I’m saying…

I think anonimity is necessary on certain places. However, that the default is anonimity is weird.

That said, some of those crazies sign with their real name…

[Trelane]

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/08/21/where-online-social-liberalism-lost-the-script/

This really seems appropiate as a way to sum up my general views on the political side of things.

Yeah, as a lifelong liberal, I find it disappointing that the busybodies have mostly moved from the religious right to the progressive left. This bit sums it up for me:

It seems to me now that the public face of social liberalism has ceased to seem positive, joyful, human, and freeing. I now mostly associate that public face with danger, with an endless list of things that you can’t do or say or think, and with the constant threat of being called an existentially bad person if you say the wrong thing, or if someone decides to misrepresent what you said as saying the wrong thing.

[Virgil_Hilts]

Remember when switching to Google+ was supposed to make Youtube comments better since people would be using their real names?