Journalism and sexism in the games industry

[Fighter]

"How to end GamerGate"

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/10/how_to_end_gamergate_a_divide_and_conquer_plan.html

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

Ending Gamergate will not happen by moral grandstanding. Let’s quickly go over tactics that have been tried so far to stop Gamergate, none of which have worked:

• Hyperbolic comparisons of Gamergate to ISIS, the KKK, fascists, terrorists, Ebola, child pornography, etc., etc.
• Endless ridicule and antagonism of Gamergaters on Twitter.
• Convenient erasure of Gamergate’s many female, LGBTQ, and minority members, however wrong they may be.
• Telling Intel and others they are misogynist cowards when they pull advertising.
• Hauling out celebrities to condemn Gamergate and telling them their heroes hate them.
• Threatening to blacklist Gamergate members from the gaming industry.
• Wishful-thinking pieces like “So Long, Gamergate.”
• Fire-and-brimstone sermons like “Stop supporting Gamergate.”
• Shutting all gamers (not just Gamergate members) out of media discourse.
• The old “video games cause violence” canard, unproven as ever.
• Defective quantitative analysis.
• Defective social science.
• Obtuse social theorizing.

 

[Namutree]

 

"How to end GamerGate"

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/10/how_to_end_gamergate_a_divide_and_conquer_plan.html

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

Ending Gamergate will not happen by moral grandstanding. Let’s quickly go over tactics that have been tried so far to stop Gamergate, none of which have worked:

• Hyperbolic comparisons of Gamergate to ISIS, the KKK, fascists, terrorists, Ebola, child pornography, etc., etc.
• Endless ridicule and antagonism of Gamergaters on Twitter.
• Convenient erasure of Gamergate’s many female, LGBTQ, and minority members, however wrong they may be.
• Telling Intel and others they are misogynist cowards when they pull advertising.
• Hauling out celebrities to condemn Gamergate and telling them their heroes hate them.
• Threatening to blacklist Gamergate members from the gaming industry.
• Wishful-thinking pieces like “So Long, Gamergate.”
• Fire-and-brimstone sermons like “Stop supporting Gamergate.”
• Shutting all gamers (not just Gamergate members) out of media discourse.
• The old “video games cause violence” canard, unproven as ever.
• Defective quantitative analysis.
• Defective social science.
• Obtuse social theorizing.

 

Do those links lead to the actual sites, or are they archives or something?

[Fighter]

Actual sites.

[Namutree]

 

"How to end GamerGate"

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/10/how_to_end_gamergate_a_divide_and_conquer_plan.html

 

So his plan to beat gamergate; is to have gamergate win? Okay. I agree.

[Volourn]

He's obviously a hateful little bigot. And, look at that. Another white male hater. I'm starting tomce around.. a lot of white male haters... hating on white males.. LMAO

[Namutree]

He's obviously a hateful little bigot. And, look at that. Another white male hater. I'm starting tomce around.. a lot of white male haters... hating on white males.. LMAO

He can be a hater all he wants. Clean up gaming journalism and I'll be happy.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

"How to end GamerGate"

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/10/how_to_end_gamergate_a_divide_and_conquer_plan.html

 

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

 

 

Ending Gamergate will not happen by moral grandstanding. Let’s quickly go over tactics that have been tried so far to stop Gamergate, none of which have worked:

• Hyperbolic comparisons of Gamergate to ISIS, the KKK, fascists, terrorists, Ebola, child pornography, etc., etc.
• Endless ridicule and antagonism of Gamergaters on Twitter.
• Convenient erasure of Gamergate’s many female, LGBTQ, and minority members, however wrong they may be.
• Telling Intel and others they are misogynist cowards when they pull advertising.
• Hauling out celebrities to condemn Gamergate and telling them their heroes hate them.
• Threatening to blacklist Gamergate members from the gaming industry.
• Wishful-thinking pieces like “So Long, Gamergate.”
• Fire-and-brimstone sermons like “Stop supporting Gamergate.”
• Shutting all gamers (not just Gamergate members) out of media discourse.
• The old “video games cause violence” canard, unproven as ever.
• Defective quantitative analysis.
• Defective social science.
• Obtuse social theorizing.

This has been repeated before several times. Address the ethical concerns and the concerned folks will no longer keep calling for more ethical journalism. The Escapist did this and shockingly has not been targeted by Gamergate supporters the way Kotaku or Polygon have. You would think that this wouldn't be too hard to figure out.

[Longknife]

 

If you have a counterpoint as to why I'm wrong, I'd love to hear it.

Seeing that you didn't directly quote the section you're responding to I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to be countering.

 

The difference is that liberalism and conservatism still have defining stances. Outlawing abortion is considered a conservative stance, whereas allowing it without restriction is considered liberal.

Well this is not true. A conservative can be an atheist and pro-choice. Despite the prevalence of religiousness in the American right-wing it is by no means inherent.

 

Their defining stances would be their economic views and the role of the state.

 

Feminism fails to do this. There is no defined feminist ticket on where the majority stands,

Opposition to sex based oppression and equal rights and/or liberation for the female sex.

 

nor are there names for subsets of feminism (for example "Sarkeesian feminism" or "Sommers feminism" or others like this do not exist as subsets) and their various views.

Lol, yes there are, it just sounds like you're ignorant of them.

 

Great example: there are feminists who would argue a woman who looks and acts sexy is empowering as being able to utilize her attractiveness is a form of empowerment that women are exceptionally good at,

That would be the third-wave, liberal "sex-positive" feminists.

whereas other feminists would argue that's exploitation and reducing a woman to nothing but her appearance.

Likely the second-wave, radical-feminists.

 

 

 

You've done an excellent job of misunderstanding my points. If attaching quoted segments you've made to numbers in a list I provide is too hard for you, then sorry, but I can't be assed to segment this quote on a friggin' ipad (**** Apple, seriously) so I'm sticking to the numbers:

 

1) Those were merely examples, and even so you've done nothing to prove me wrong in that regard. That's exactly what I said: we as individuals do not conveniently fall into categories or political stances 100% and a conservative can support liberal stances on various issues. This does NOT however change that there are liberal stances and conservative stances. This merely means people are complex individuals who support different ideologies on different issues. Feminism however lacks defined stances, which therefore leads to a lot of the constant hysterics and slander that goes on when opposing a feminist. They are free to claim that whatever their personal subjective opinions and stances are are infact the stances of feminism, and therefore if you oppose their personal opinion then you must be sexist.  

      This is problematic and leads to very unproductive discussion. You can see it for yourself in that half of the GamerGate discussion is now about our opposition to the feminist clique within the industry rather than against the corrupt journalists. The feminists would argue this is because GamerGate is truly about misogyny, but I would argue that until they clearly define what misogyny is, they have no right to be slinging that word about so liberally. On the contrary, them using the word so liberally is in my opinion what's made portions of GamerGate be so antagonistic towards them, because those kinds of claims offend them, and the fact that the feminists do a terrible job of backing up and reinforcing those claims rather than screaming "misogynist" and conveniently disappearing when questions start coming in only makes the anger towards them that much worse. It's not misogyny, it's anger towards a childish, unjustified and unproductive form of discussion that feminists employ. Defined stances would remedy all of this.

 

 

2) "Opposition to sex based oppression and equal rights and/or liberation for the female sex."

 

Congratulations. You have now named your opinion on what feminism is. Just like every other person who supports or opposes feminism.

 

The problem is that without defined stances regarding what feminism is about, your opinion is as valuable as those opinions opposing them. Fact of the matter is that regardless of how obvious and straightforward you may consider your above opinion, feminists who hate men and consider them problematic exist, and this contradicts your opinion. And no these feminists are not alienated by the collective; at best they're ignored while they continue to carry the title.

 

 

3)  I'm sorry I didn't clarify there. I am indeed ignorant about the exact types of feminism, and only had a hunch different types exist. However, in practice I do not know their names. And what does that tell me...? It tells me that despite the attention I give to Anita and Sommers, I haven't learned these subsets, which would mean they either do NOT name the subsets they belong to or are very vague about doing so. (aka terms as loose as "traditional" and "modern," which sure enough differ from the terms you just used. Even the terms to describe the different kinds seem to vary...) 

   My point was that when asked who they are, every single one identifies as "feminist." They all answer feminist. They may all adhere to different subsets, but they all wish to claim their subset is the "correct" one and thus don't even bother naming their subset. This is a problem that ultimately hurts them, because they end up associated with the very types of feminism they oppose. Likewise, you cannot fault a man who wishes to adhere to feminism, encounters a feminist who tells him a woman who appears sexy is empowering and thus he begins encouraging scandidly clad women to continue dressing provokatively, and lo and behold a feminist comes along and calls him sexist. He's only trying to please, and yet he's trapped in a scenario where regardless of what he does, he will be named a sexist because he cannot possibly adhere to both.

 

  And therein - again - lies the problem with feminism. The collective name of "feminism," regardless of which kind you follow, functions as a blanket belief that reserves the right to accuse anyone of being sexist. If person A believes women should dress provokatively to utilize the form of strength they were born with whereas person B believes women should dress conservatively so as to not demean themselves to only one "talent," and both views fall under one form of feminism or another, then feminism is capable of referring to both person A and person B as sexist and an enemy of equality whenever it so pleases.

    This is not ok, because it affords anyone under the title of feminism to be a blantant hypocrite and fails to define rules and guidelines for people who DO wish to adhere to feminism.

 

In that sense, feminism only hurts discussion and productivity, both because any discussion involving feminism will be subjected to ridiculous and exaggerated claims such as "the entirety of the opposition is sexist" whereas feminism itself is incapable of growing because it's members are incapable of coming to a consensus. A consensus would allow the movement to grow. Yes, it would scare off people who don't agree with the consesus, but it would also allow new people to correctly identify the group and realize "aha, I do support this." This would undoubtedly split feminism in two, one side would die out, one would live on, and the one that would live on would be the one that holds values the majority of the population agrees with. Overall, feminism and society would be better for it. Feminism, because it's allowed to move forward, and society as a whole because at the very least, this would help us realize which portions of feminism we do and do not like, AKA do we prefer women dress conservatively and try to downplay their sex appeal or do we want them to dress in more revealing attire, embrace their sexuality and not be ashamed of or fear being called a slüt?  (SPOILER ALERT: The answer is the latter)

 

 

 

 

 

 

   My position stands. Feminism needs to do a better job of defining what it does and does not stand for, and those who find themselves in the minority opinions should adopt a new name....for their own good. Until then, feminism has no right to scream and act outraged about people opposing it or about people being sexist, because feminism is neither the judge that gets to decide that, nor can it even make up it's own f***ing mind on what misogyny is, and typically it boils down to misogynist = someone who doesn't like my opinions.

Edited October 29, 2014 by Longknife

[Lexx]

Milo has much better hair.

That's not really hard to achieve, imo.

[TrashMan]

 This would undoubtedly split feminism in two, one side would die out, one would live on, and the one that would live on would be the one that holds values the majority of the population agrees with.

 

I kinds doubt that.

Opinions don't tend to die out as easily.

[Hiro Protagonist]

I agree. It won't die out. It's just different opinions and factions.  Some identify with one prominent person while others will identify with another prominent person and disagree with the former.

[TrashMan]

I like this one:

 

 

[Longknife]

 

 This would undoubtedly split feminism in two, one side would die out, one would live on, and the one that would live on would be the one that holds values the majority of the population agrees with.

 

I kinds doubt that.

Opinions don't tend to die out as easily.

 

 

 

Let me rephrase that:

 

One side would undoubtedly become the "radical" view that most of society conciously disagrees with and would lose it's ability to call anyone that disagrees with it a sexist, at which point it would largely lose the ability to demand the floor at any given time just based on that claim alone. They'd become a more "extreme" viewpoint that wouldn't be given the time of day they're all given now.

   Despite this I would still argue both would benefit from this because internally, both would discover less debate amongst themselves and thus be able to decide on and focus on what they wish to focus on while being able to move forward with their ideals.

[kirottu]

For the feels:

[Longknife]

For the feels:

 

 

I was also going to link this vid for dem feels, but realized while the first portion is incredibly on point, the second part would be the part the SJW's cling to and think "YEP THAT'S ME I'M A REVOLUTIONARY:"

 

[Longknife]

Our favorite radical said this: https://archive.today/sDV11

 

He actually pulled it and it's only available in archive form now. GGers are basically reacting with "yeah sure dude, you were only PRETENDING to be retarded."

Regardless of whether it was sincere tweets or not, I find the reaction pretty hilarious. It's either a radical being called out on his weird **** or a lesson in why you don't "troll" by purposefully acting like an idiot.

[Shallow]

Isn't acting retarded so people will have fun laughing at you more of a clown thing than a troll thing? Isn't trolling supposed to be more like people you making people go ape**** and then laughing at them?

[Malcador]

Gamergate must end as soon as possible. The human cost in harassment, threats, stress, and sheer nastiness is too high

Ahhh, that was good, I needed a laugh today

[TrashMan]

[kirottu]

https://twitter.com/GitGudGG/status/527417272856756224

 

No need to wonder anymore why MSNBC has been so anti-GG. 

[Blarghagh]

I guess I better go get my tinfoil hat.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Our favorite radical said this: https://archive.today/sDV11

 

He actually pulled it and it's only available in archive form now. GGers are basically reacting with "yeah sure dude, you were only PRETENDING to be retarded."

Regardless of whether it was sincere tweets or not, I find the reaction pretty hilarious. It's either a radical being called out on his weird **** or a lesson in why you don't "troll" by purposefully acting like an idiot.

[TrashMan]

https://twitter.com/GitGudGG/status/527417272856756224

 

No need to wonder anymore why MSNBC has been so anti-GG. 

 

We just keep hitting diamonds!

 

[Longknife]

https://twitter.com/GitGudGG/status/527417272856756224

 

No need to wonder anymore why MSNBC has been so anti-GG. 

 

 

....Does this explain THIS tweet?: https://twitter.com/gitgudgg/status/527419777183408128

 

lolololollolololololool

[TrashMan]