1930

Now that you mention it, I don’t think Anita did produce any vetted documentation that she contacted the police!

Until I see that, I’m definitely going to assume that she just made the whole thing up to get attention.

Ugh. Just add this to the constant stream of deceitful underhanded malarkey she pulls every time she opens her mouth. And now she’s even breaking the law just to feed her ego!

There seriously is no stopping this woman.

1931

I’ve been monitoring gamegate for weeks, and actively tweeting notyourshield since its inception. Although gamergate has gone downhill in the last few days, as the journalist I linked earlier, a non gamer by the name of Milo Yiannopoulos has been digging for dirt on ZQ and unfortunately its put the focus of GG on ZQ, which many of us have been trying hard to avoid for weeks. However even with this, if you want to find the public hate, insults and name calling the vast majority is from the antiGG folks, at least with the hashtag attached.

I dropped out of GG with the “investigation” into depressionquest donations to a charity being done in real time and publicly, utterly unacceptable from my POV. Investigate, speak to both sides, collect evidence, summarise, conclude THEN publish, don’t do it all over twitter. The charity has wasted valuable man hours answering this which could have been done in private, and properly.

Notyourshield have been a fine bunch, with most of the ire being thrown in retaliation for Uncle Tom/House Nigger/Internalised racist comments being sent at us by the SJWs, but theres a definite focus on the gaming journalists, who have provided a fine collection of vile messages and tweets to be screen-shotted and passed around.

Bias in the media is still strong though, a Guardian journalist published a ZQ article/op-ed today, and although a self confessed SJW on his twitter account, fails utterly in defining what a SJW is at the beginning of the article, and the continues with the “its not real people, its not about gaming media neutrality, its just a 4chan sockpuppet hate campaign entirely aimed at ZQ and AS” meme thats been parroted here too.

1932

I have watched a couple of Sarkeesian’s presentations, and while I disagree with some of what she says I do find some of it is right on. She makes some very good points about the treatment of women in video games. And she is careful I think to not attack the actual game, only elements with in it. I do not understand how anyone would react with vitriol at her over these videos.

1933

Milo is in this for himself only, and GG have unwisely championed him.

There are currently investigations into AS’s allegations and comments on her interaction with the police, ZQs management of the depressionquest donations and some of the prize winning/funding amongst the SJW indie dev clique. However, all are allegations at the moment.

Oh and as a further note, GG and NYS donations to related charities in the last few days have dwarfed anything the other side is doing. 5 figures so far, and TFYC is fully funded.

1934

So, are the #notyourshield people going to go full on war mode against the blatantly corrupt payola-esque practices of publishers dictating IGN and Gamespot’s editorial content?

Or are you going to keep harassing tiny indie developers who may or may not be friends with people at gaming blog sites?

1935

From what I’ve seen it’s not that they have a huge issue with the content of the videos as much as the production of the videos (i.e. she got six figures to make them and she didn’t even make her own footage, she borrowed it from let’s play youtoube videos without crediting it) as well as the somewhat iffy justification for the coverage of it.

There are a lot of insightful videos on the game industry on YouTube. Sarkeesian isn’t some celebrated documentarian. Why were her videos promoted so hard in the gaming media? It certainly wasn’t the content, it’s just “more of the same”. It’s not the production values. I think the #gamergate folks would argue that it is because she promotes a point of view shared by the games media which they object to. I think many game sites (like RPS recently) would concede that and respond “That’s right, so what?”

1936

Who knows, its a flock of birds that happens to be flying in the same direction, not an organised group controlled by 6 shadowy 4chan guys in IRC.

The most popular tweets at the moment seem to be calling out leading SJWs in the industry on their bullshit, spreading around the insults thrown at the GG and NYSers and having a go at the GGers who are hassling that charity.

1937

I disagree with some of her points too, but I also don’t see the uproar over her making these videos, as if she doesn’t have a right to do it. As for her video choices, we’re talking about an industry that has been caught doctoring videos for marketing purposes and using video from one console to market to another. It’s not as if she is using made up footage. She might have purchased the games to experience the game and understand it better more than footage reasons. She goes out of her way not to attack the games or even the game makers, and still they attack her.

1938

And police often ‘file’ a report directly into the trashcan instead of filling it out. They’ve unfortunately been incentivized into not filing crime reports to make their statistics look better. (not to mention all the BS that tends to happen when women try to report sex crimes. – Though I should add that a man trying to report a rape will get a lot of flak as well)

1939

In this very thread, some guy linked to Thunderfoot’s ‘takedown’ videos! They have nothing to do with with anything other than the content of the videos. (though they tend to be nitpicky garbage in my opinion) Most of the uproar is over the content of the videos. Those other complaints tend to be background nitpicks at best, trying to undermine the purpose of the videos by attacking tangentially. (Sort of like when someone makes fun of how a person looks instead of combatting the message of that person)

For some reason people get really attached to games, and get really defensive when they get critiqued, especially with a feminist lense. (And even without, remember the uproar that Tom got over Deus Ex=)

1940

Sarkeesian been the eye in a storm of internet drama since the very first announcement of the video, long before they were even made. She’s a slick operator, and knows the continued focus will increase her value as a well known feminist activist for some time, there will be future kickstarters, public speaking, lectures, books and what have you, but she had no idea it was go this big.

Talking of storms, another reason shes attracted such abuse as her latest video coincided with a number of other events. Zoe split up with wotisname, who set her up like a good one, because pointing 4chan at your ex in a fit of revenge is only one step below burying her in a ditch. There have been lots of noise about gender politics in general, rage over Assassins Creed, rage over Minecraft avatars, rage over DOTA female models, rage over Lovecraft, rage over… lots and lots and lots of rage over comics, rage over the entire damn science fiction and fantasy industry from top to bottom, rage over the bloke from Man vs Foods diet pictures, rage over bindi’s, rage over Japanese influenced pop videos, rage over headdresses… Anyway, these have all intersected and caused the perfect storm, and unfortunately for ZQ and AS they’ve been caught out in it as the anonymous denizens from the depths of the web have awoken and are attacking anything remotely social justice related.

1941

Sarkeesian was a target well before the ZQ thing broke.

And as an aside, is her ex a pariah now. That guy had to really screw his own life up as well I would think.

1942

I think a lot of the anger directed as Sarkeesian has to do with her successful “self promotion” – meaning essentially that she has done a really, really good job of marketing herself and her content. Her work could really be a case study (unless she just got phenomenally lucky and hit the right topic at the right time – that’s possible too). Personally I find most of the analysis to be pretty trite (you could easily have made a series about tropes in gaming, rather than gender-based tropes, and it would likely have revealed that men are much more likely to be depicted as villains, sociopaths, mass murderers, etc., but that’s just my personal crusade). Storytelling in games generally reads a lot like the short stories I used to write in elementary school and junior high – not terribly complicated, not terribly nuanced, not terribly realistic, just… terribly terrible. That said, games generally aren’t about story as much as action (although of course there are notable exceptions).

I think lots of people are upset (if not threatened) when someone whose position they strongly disagree with (for whatever reason) is trumpeted in the gaming media as the second coming. That gets people riled up. I honestly think if she had not received the glowing positive coverage she has received, she would probably not be getting nearly the negative attention she is receiving. That said, while I disagree with a lot of the unwaveringly positive coverage, the negative attention is wholly unwarranted – as has been said many times here, neither Quinn nor Sarkeesian nor Fish nor anyone deserves to be treated this way, particularly for publishing/promoting content about games.

1943

Eh, I would respect these people more if any of them had an actual background in Social Services, at least they would know who really needs help or justice Because there actually IS a real need for social service people in the Inner City (at least where I work). Social Justice… theres actualy careers for it, it doesn’t pay much and you wont get recognition for it, in actuality you probably will be beaten and spat upon daily (I see this ocassionally)…these true social justice people, not the video game writers, abide and take it like champs I truly repsect them. But I guess its better to complain about video games, because theres perks! You get to travel and have fun at conventions. You can make new friends and write about there games. You might actually meet your future spouse too! And if you feel guilty, theres always the cause of less sexist tropes in video games to shoot for!

and Anita Sarkeeshians videos are so amateur and lazy, and most of the content is just plain obvious (oh really, a women being punched can be construed misogynist?). And I actually agree that there is some inherent sexism in ‘gaming culture’. I just get bothered that she is somehow cosnidered a ‘voice in gaming’ when she admits that she doesnt really like gaming because she doesnt want to shoot a room full of people?!? Those are her own words! She just seems like a charlatan. at least someone like Leigh Alexander (who i disagree with moreso) knows how to write and knows video games. If they really wanted to find somebody for a cause, theres gotta be somebody better than Anita.

All seems stupid and useless when i think about it more… its actually depressing!

1944

Knives, can you explain what, in your view, what #notyourshield is about? The only real context I have is what I’ve heard from some people who are diametrically opposed to it, so that may not be the most accurate representation.

I think there’s also a distinct possibility that people tend to assume agreement with their own position. An individual may engage in this conversation from an honest critical perspective, and so assume everybody else on their side is doing the same, thereby being blind to the bad actors who happen to be on the same side of the fence.

1945

According to that Brietbart clown’s twitter feed, he was wrong about Anita not filing the police report. It turns out the police directed her to contact the FBI. But according to him she is still probably generally wrong or misleading about other things, and he’s on the case.

At least tonight you can rest easy knowing that no uppity women are breaking any laws to get attention. They’re just getting the standard stream of rape and death threats.

1946

So which is it? Was the whistleblower lying?

I suppose wouldn’t be surprising if a shoestring charity can’t track individual donations, although there might be some tax implications there.

1947

The “whistleblower” contacted iFred and asked if they got any donations from Depression Quest. iFred said no. The whistleblower then announced to #gg that Zoe was lying. #gg went nuts, and went into another anti-Zoe fervor.

Then iFred caught wind of all of this, and realized that Zoe Quinn had donated in her name, and not under the name “DepressionQuest”. They then told the Brietbart guy that she did, indeed donate.

This then sparked #gg to start donating to iFred to one-up Zoe. They were able to give more money to iFred then Zoe, then proceeded to post harassing tweets about how useless Zoe was when it came to donating money to depression charities.

And now they’re posting on iFred’s facebook page that iFred is a corrupt organization that is breaking the law because they didn’t disclose that Zoe was donating money to them.

Keep in mind, iFred is a tiny non-profit with 3 volunteers and a half-time paid intern.

1948

They said they never received any, she said she sent them. I’m missing the end of the story!

1949

At this point in this shitstorm if the charity came out with proof that she had donated wouldn’t her attackers claim she had just gotten to someone at the charity?

I think there are some people out there who need to get a life, or maybe go actually play their video games.