Its less social justice and more a willingness to adopt identity politics jargon and tactics. It can be wildly successful if used in attack as SJWs turn on each other at the drop of a hat, especially if you lead them to a conclusion using their own favoured trigger words.
That’s the gamergate power fantasy anyway. GG cynically manipulates the SJWs! It’s super effective!!
And then the gators turn and eat each other, as usual.
GG have disagreed with each other from the start. Multi-factional nonpartisan movement means internal disagreement s are natural.
Only last night were some in NYS attacking Ralph retort for his article on IGDA due to it bring perceived as transphobic, thereby reducing the effectiveness of and trivialising the corruption message. Its not a hugbox, that’s the other side.
GG attack each other: strength!
“SJWs” attack each other: weakness!
Orwellian!
Teiman
4265
Allahu akbar, said Rambo.
Here is Randi Harper, of Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, describing her difficult time in the tech community and her experience of abuse working as a developer.
Randi Harper has not been discriminated against in open source, therefore discrimination is not a real problem anyone experiences.
Busbecq
4269
OK, the thing PwK posted is ‘ironic.’ Your goal is to find out why. Hint: google “freebsdgirl”, safesearch off.
Is it ironic because she was never harassed in open source but subjected to a sustained harassment campaign by gamergate?
Aleck
4271
Wrong thread and, I’m embarrassed to say, wrong movie. That’s Rambo III. Rambo (First Blood, Part II) was rescuing POWs in Vietnam. Nevertheless, Teiman, never change.
Quaro
4272
The creepiest thing is the ‘free GamerGate background check’ – what’s that, someone says it’d be cool to play a woman in a game? Someone rolled their eyes at an overused trope? We can’t let that horrible offense stand, summon the gamer defense force. Hundreds of people cataloging everything that person has ever said or done, in thread after thread, acting like they are at war to defend the abstract notion of ‘gamers’ or something.
(The latest with the IGDA Kate Edwards thing.)
Whom started this? (as in which ‘side’ got offended by the others ‘free speech’ rights?) As in what was the default status of ‘gaming’ in general when this all became a thing? Because like i have mentioned the civil rights movement etc, these came out of a reaction to a status quo that was harming people. That is really a fundamental core issue in this debate, and helps highlight the right and wrongs of it no?
In response to Zak, my thought is that the core of the current “troubles” is the Leigh Alexander article linked to in carltonbaumheiser’s post (#4140, page 138; and I presume much earlier, but this thread has run in so many circles as new participants join the fray it is the easiest reference to find). This is what prompted Adam Baldwin to create the #gamergate hashtag and accuse SJWs of trying to eliminate gaming in general. Various kooks from both sides added their opinions and the whole thing has turned into the current clusterfuck.
So, in my opinion, the status quo really was gamers putting up with ‘Gamers’ as a small minority and not really being too bothered by poor representation of non-white, straight males in gaming. Gamers (no quotes) have always been a little embarrassed by some of the more egregious offenders (Postal, female armor, Leisure Suit Larry, Custer’s Last Stand, offensive chat in online games etc.) but have generally let the free market decide what is acceptable. As gaming becomes more mainstream, what is ‘acceptable’ to a wider audience has come into play and there will be critics that point out issues and reactions that range from suggestions to developers to help make their games more inclusive to flat out attempts at censorship.
It is all pretty silly. Literature, plays, films (all art, really) have a wide spectrum of offensiveness and people consume what they are comfortable with. There are critics whom deride the extremes, but none of these industries feel very threatened by these criticisms. Being computer based, gaming is a much newer form of art and is more tied into ‘social media’ and the volatile, young whippersnappers who love to proclaim their ideas in their MySpace Twits. This tends to lead to things blowing out of proportion and this thread is a great example of that phenomenon.
Kemper, that article I linked was written by Leigh Alexander.
And Adam Baldwin didn’t play the guy from FMJ… but you might have been joking about that one. :p
But other than that, yeah, the original “Gamers are Over” article by Leigh Alexander, that lead to all of the various “Gamers area Dead” articles in other outlets, sparked #GamerGate although I think the general conflict had been happening at a lower intensity for some time.
Speaking of a clusterfuck…
Sorry, those were my mistakes. I knew it was one of the actors from Full Metal Jacket, but I didn’t bother to look it up. I’ll edit out the misinformation.
Don’t sweat it, it’s nice to have some levity in here for a change. Until now, this thread was starting to damage my calm.
Teiman
4279
As a open source developer, this is what I have to say about the relation to womens in this space:
On one hand, the open source space is not all that different than closed source. Is still programmers, of all ages and ideas. Problems you will have with closed source, will also present on open source.
Theres still some differences.
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The Open Source world is a meritocracy. So if you are ugly and boring, but your software is really cool, most people will use your software. Non developers will probably ignore that you exist, but will still use your shit.
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You can develop from a pseudonym, be anonymous, develop from inside a cardboard box, you can be so invisible people will discuss if you really exist.
In many cases, discrimination would be just impossible, in a way that has never existed before.
In other cases, when discrimination is possible, It probably have the same degree of healthiness as the closed source world. I just don’t think we are all that special. If the closed would is nasty, so is ours.
I’m sorry to offend, but Sid Meier is not exactly a swimsuit model. Brad, on the other hand … no, never mind.
