#GamerGate was supposed to be a consumer watchdog.
If you think itâs about anything else, get out of the movement. Iâd rather have a small, knowledgeable organization with the agency to achieve its goals. What we have now is a fractured mob of purposeless noisemakers,...
If #GamerGate focuses on the actual abuses--the rigging IGF, the Silverstring media hand-picking who makes it into the industry, the abusers getting away with abuse, the subornations of perjury, the manipulation and gaslighting--then maybe we have a chance.
In a different world, I could have said "feminism is bad, but" or even "far right politics are good, but". Â My thesis--that it is impossible to control an artistic critique--would remain the same. Â It doesn't matter what you think about feminism. Â If you're only trying to stop corruption because it might help stop feminism, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Â People are going to be discussing women's topics in gaming for as long as there are games and women. Â Likewise, people should be discussing men's topic and movies for as long as those things also exist.
#GamerGate wasn't about that shit three weeks ago. Â It was a bunch of whistleblowers who caught industry no-goods red-handed.
Everyone who wants to weigh in on #GamerGate needs to first watch this video, by Devi Ever. Â "Brave as fuck" may well be the only descriptor I have for her.
This is the account of a transwoman who was bullied by the game industry's not-so-indie cabal. Â She was ousted by journalists and developers, in their never-ending quest to serve as gatekeepers for the new market. Â Leigh Alexander's anachronistic cries of "you'll never work in this town again, y'here!" echo back into the film-noir cyclorama of tragedy five years in the making. Â And Ms. Alexander has enough friends to make sure she gets her way.
All of this was done in the name of feminism.
But this is not feminism.
This is not equality.
This is corruption.
This industry is becoming a crew of high school bullies. Â They use gaslighting, dirty public relations campaigns, and sex-negative economics to manipulate others out of the industry.
This is beyond politics.
This is beyond gender.
This gatekeeping kills innovation.
This is killing the industry and the careers of creatives, who could revolutionize gaming.
End this.
Don't laugh it off. Â Don't say, "Yeah, but your side is..." blah blah blah. Â Don't conjure up whatever rhetoric you had in mind, to silence her.
#GamerGate was supposed to be a consumer watchdog.
If you think itâs about anything else, get out of the movement. Iâd rather have a small, knowledgeable organization with the agency to achieve its goals. What we have now is a fractured mob of purposeless noisemakers,...
#GamerGate was supposed to be a consumer watchdog.
If you think itâs about anything else, get out of the movement. Iâd rather have a small, knowledgeable organization with the agency to achieve its goals. What we have now is a fractured mob of purposeless noisemakers, prattling on about gender in ways they canât understand.  Women are a driving force behind #GamerGate.  Alienate us, and you're impeding the good work that real feminism is doing to combat the consumerist faux-feminist noise.
#GamerGate is about whistleblowing, consumer protection, ending corruption, ending the indie dev sceneâs gatekeeping process, and thwarting unfair business practices in gaming. Indie devs are being ostracized and even financially ruined, for not being a part of the clique. But it doesnât fucking matter what this clique talks about. Why did anyone latch onto someone else's message and make it the primary focus of a watchdog group?
If you focus on this eliteâs message, you empower them and prove that they control the narrative. It doesnât matter if you oppose or promote their message. Andâagainâit doesnât matter what their message is. That message can neither vindicate their nepotism and greed, nor diminish it. Holding a conversation with the elites is pointless. Holding a conversation with the people, about the elites, is what being a whistleblower is all about.
There is a contingent of #GamerGate who showed up to oppose the âfeminist messageâ in gaming. Motherfucker, art and entertainment industries are going to be discussing feminist issues for a long time coming. Feminist issues exist, and feminism is good. There are disparities between the genders. Moreover, both genders deserve a better public image.  We can fix these problems. We donât fix them by ignoring them.
Maybe youâre just cheesed because some people talk about gender way too much. I can relate to that, I guess. But I think half of you showed up too late to this thing.  You earnestly believe gender is what #GamerGate is all about.  Saying #GamerGate is about gender would be a lie.  Conversely, saying âgender isnât importantâ is also a lie. Denying disparities between the genders is outright wrong. Itâs derailment. It is the same derailment used by public relations people, to distract from their clientsâ immoral and illegal activities.
...
#GamerGate was not supposed to be about politics or gender,
Newcomers believe this way because thatâs what online magazines and social media soapbox-jockeys have told them.  Gender warriors showed up to fight on âteam manâ or âteam womanâ, and have another battle-of-the-sexes. Worse yet, some politically-minded goofballs started saying this was like the âTea Partyâ? Like every consumer watchdog is a far-right movement of some kind?
Aligning with a political party or a gender movement will get you some extra membership, but it is not the membership you want. IGF, Silverstring Media and their various stakeholders are tiptoeing away, while you numbskulls pull more enemies into the fight and alienate your allies. Shit, someone was posting images of Zoe Quinn with âPrison Notebooksâ, like reading a book about communist and fascist theory was the final brick in the illuminati temple holding up the great blue-mascara Eye of Providence that is #GamerGate. Some of you guys are nutjobs.
Members of the games media can promote whatever messages they want to. What they cannot do is promote their friends and fellow patriarchs, financially or through good press. If youâd rather oppose liberalism or social theory or feminism or MRAs or conservatism or journalistsâ right to promote whatever shitty message they want to, then shut the fuck up and leave #GamerGate.
Or euthanize #GamerGate, by merging it with some political party. Just make it quick.
 ...
#GamerGate has almost lost all of its focus,
A few people trying to orient #GamerGate, like schoolchildren tooling around on a Ouija board, have greatly harmed the image of the movement.
People on both sides appear like members of deranged cargo cults, uttering spells and rehearsing behaviors that will summon grand daemons to fight at their behest. Someone casts âmisogynyâ; someone else casts âRICO actâ; some nondescript wizard mumbles to himself in the Quidditch bleachers, desperate to counterspell the young mudbloodsâ foolishness.
If you really want #GamerGate to succeed, you have to willingly say âNope!â to some of the shit that people want to bring into it. Even if you agree with the things they believe in.
If youâre a Buddhist and someone says âGamerGate is about Buddhism!â, you have to willingly say âNope!â
If youâre a Republican and someone says âGamerGate opposes the Marxist messageâ, you have to willingly say âNope!â and âSeriously, what the fuck?â
If youâre a communist and someone says âGamerGate uplifts the proletariatâ, you still have to say âNope!â and get back on task. That task is whistleblowing.
We Need Some Actual Social Justice, Re: Zoe Quinn's Fanbase
Weâre trying to meet you halfway here, guys. Youâre looking at an issue that has somehow brought 4chan, reddit, and even half of tumblr onto the same side of the same issue. Weâre sick and tired of harassment, corruption, patriarchal game-playing, media blackouts, silencing of women and people of color, and domestic abuse. People from every walk of life, with every shitty political opinion you can imagine, should be rallying behind this cause.
This issue is not left or right (Adam Baldwin is certainly a right-wingy lunatic and, by my estimation, the worst person we could hope to commandeer a hashtag from). This issue is not male or female (but maybe we should stop bringing up gender 50% of the time, that is, whenever we need to discuss women). People love to talk politics and gender. If you give them any issue to discuss, theyâll try to simplify it into two teams.  Itâs a shitty way to argue. But thatâs besides the point.
This issue is about abuse and harassment. Of anyone and everyone. Women on both sides of the fight who are silenced by their supposed allies, victims of abuse (men and women alike), people of color who have to prove their ethnicity to so-called SJWs, young people who donât have the wherewithal to protect against doxing, and everyone inbetween. There is too much bullying and too much foolishness.
The only thing that would prevent you from joining us is fear. You fear that youâd have to turn against an in-group of like-minded friends, to face a greater world.
Exhibit A
Here are some cool people. A social justice crew laughed at them, called them white, and goaded them into proving their race. They would not be satisfied otherwise.
This is absolutely fucking disgusting. Isnât a just society one where we donât treat people of color this way? Why is it that your movement doesnât give two shits about these people? Help. End this.
Exhibit B
This is someone who considers himself a harbinger of social justice, and his opinions about a #GamerGate woman:
Would you say that to a woman? Is slut-shaming an appropriate way to argue against #GamerGate? Does this not fucking disgust you?
This man is a misogynist. His words and actions define him as a misogynist. Excusing that misogyny because heâs on âyour teamâ is sickening. We are not defined by our demographics and allegiances. We are defined by our actions. These are his action.
Ask yourself: Am I judging this person on the content of his character alone? If you can truly say and defend this scumbag, then we donât need you. You too are a misogynist piece of shit.
Exhibit C
Here are just some of the women of #GamerGate who continue to speak out, despite harassments like those shown above. I hesitate to list more, knowing what will likely be done to them, not to mention what is likely coming my way.
What I mean to illustrate is that these people, people who are on one side of a "gender divide", don't necessarily confirm anyone's biases on who needs defended from whom. Â They don't abide by the criteria, set forth by your "SJW team leadership".
They are people. Â They're not a demographic with a political party with a gender with a sexual orientation with a race with a tax bracket with aâwhatever else you want to measure about them.
They are human goddamn beings.
Now, I don't use the Internet frequently enough to understand why people choose not to help others on the basis of their race or gender. Â Out in the real world, my feminist book-learnin' always referred to such prejudices as "racism" and "sexism". Â All I'm asking is for you to put those opinions aside for just one moment and consider not shaming any more people that you disagree with.
At least until this #GamerGate thing expires.
Exhibit D, which rages me the greatest by far
A transwoman and Wikipedia editor was misgendered and doxed, in the name of Zoe Quinn. Another Wikipedia editor, a minor, was also doxed. They made the mistake of picking the wrong team, I guess. They wanted to shed light on an abuserâand what they got was abuse.
The person who administered the dox is Nathalie Collidaâshe insisted that the editor was âfaking itâ and couldnât really âproveâ her gender. This is what Zoe, despite all her fuss about TFYCâs transgender policy, has actually endorsed. âProve your genderâ? Really?!
My final appeal
Zoe Quinnâs fans are so good at defending abusers, theyâre likely putting in a good word for Ray Rice sometime soon. Note that these people have no agenda; they really donât. Donât let them sully the name of feminists; they arenât feminists. Donât let any cause they purport to follow look guilty by association; they would follow any cause to feel a sense of belonging.
They have no ethics. They have only loyalty to a specific person or group of people. Perhaps this loyalty stems from the fact that theyâve been manipulated. Perhaps they realizeâas Eron said time and againâthat standing up to Zoe would get them blacklisted from an industry they love. Perhaps this loyalty is because theyâd rather not feel alone. Consider how those who stood up against her were shouted down, represented as villains by Zoeâs media connections, and defamed by the industry. Itâs either stay loyal, or face that.
I want to honestly believe that social justice warriors stand up against abuse and harassment. They shouldnât stand for races or genders; they ought to stand for ethics, applied universally, to combat suffering and oppression in whatever form they might take. Enough with the politicking. Put some of your activism to good use.
Stand against abuse.
Stand against harassment, doxing, racism, and sexism.
Reject the simple messages perpetuated by the oppressorsâfor fucksâ sake, thatâs what stopping the patriarchy is all about. Â It's about going against the current. Â It's about questioning the dialogues that get rapidly accelerated by our culture. Â Help me stop this motherfucking patriarchy of paternalist posturing reprobates!
Itâs your chance to actually make the difference you pretend to make.
I am not the least bit surprised. Â Her die-hard fans have upped the ante. Â They're now demanding any women and people of color prove their "minority status" with pictures:
https://twitter.com/smktty/status/509098151568220160
It's horrifying.
Itâs the Tea Party of video games. And Zoe Quinn is its Benghazi.
Okay, But What Is GamerGate Really?
GamerGate has been disingenuously framed as a grassroots campaign of gamers âconcerned with the quality and integrity of video game journalism.â The campaign is, in...
As a feminist who has seen many abuse victims in my time, my sympathies typically lie with the abused party. Â I don't waste a lot of time figuring out what gender they are.
Maybe you're right. Â Zoe's abusive behavior is none of my business. Â Hey, maybe everyone's abusive behavior is none of my business. Â But--busybody that I am--I get involved in helping women and men escape domestic abuse. Â One could say I've made a living of it. Â It's mostly women I have to help extricate from these situations. Â Men are less likely to seek help when they are abused, but I've helped my share of men also.
As for #GamerGate, it arose in defiance to men and women being called "misogynist, neckbeard, basement-dwelling virgins". Â The kind of shame I heard directed towards a diverse group of people made me angry. Â If anyone here were concerned with social justice of any kind, they might think to protect the disenfranchised from an industry that shuts down whistleblowers by any means necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqBdCmDR0M
I'm not even asking for all that much perspective. Â Just realize that #GamerGate was a response to a battery of insulting articles published--in rapid succession--by several games journalists. Â The people were scarcely concerned about holding an abuser accountable anymore. Â Her PR campaign worked, and they'd lost.
They really had moved on.
If you absolutely hate whistleblowing, keep up the good work. Â Otherwise, at the very least, quit insulting everyone. Â I help keep the GamerGate folks in line when they harass and insult. Â Do you non-gamers try to keep people on your side of this issue in line, when they insult gamers?
Maybe you should start, before they dox another 13-year-old.
"If you like something you need to critique it!" What a shitty response given that they aren't gamers and people are ACTIVELY POINTING OUT HOW BIASED AND INCORRECT THEIR CRITICISMS ARE. Every post I see bashing Anita is one bashing her completely bullshit logic, not her vagina. Every post I see against Quinn is one talking about how she had sex with people to get ahead in the industry, not that she had sex.
They try to inherently twist the argument to be about them being women or slut shaming or similar. Why? Because they can win that argument then. They know that if they can twist the words and arguments into being about women and feminism they can play the victim and have people rush to their defense.
It is a scummy tactic because they inherently use it to paint anyone who criticizes them as a misogynist or sexist. Which works out great for them because people will quickly latch on to it.
It shows an immediate and core lack of ethics and integrity for them because rather than run off of merit and logic, instead of being respectable and honest, they want to do whatever the hell they want. It is a childish mentality compared (correctly) to throwing a tantrum because people wonât tolerate your bullshit.
More and more people are starting to use these tactics in gaming and comics and it is concerning. We need to eject these kinds of drama mongers, these people who crush free discussion under the hammer of âmisogynyâ.
As a woman, it offends me on an almost instinctual level to have these people undercut women in gaming. They donât care about female gamers. They care about themselves. Donât let them tell you anything different. They are in it for themselves and if they had to throw every female game dev and gamer under the bus to do so, theyâd do it if they thought they could get away with it.
The New Evidence about #GamerGate and Zoe Quinn! (and how nothing has changed whatsoever)
Public relations are a delicate game of chess.  Zoe Quinn is a woman, and PR treats women like pawns. A proper formation of pawns can be quite strong, but any one of them can be sacrificed to preserve the patriarchal power pieces. Thankfully for her, Zoeâs pawn has crossed the board; sheâs been promoted.  Any white knights who occupy her rank and file will gladly sacrifice themselves to save the Quinn. Also, Anita is a rook. Chess puns expended.
To anyone who reads this sentence: Fuck you. You are a dying demographic. I donât need your readership, ya shits.  You are a sexist, racist fool and people who read blogs will be better off without you.
Now, please continue reading. I beg you!
The law of parsimony dictates that the simplest explanation is usually the truth.
All of these well-evidenced things are equally true. When youâre done looking at the evidence that supports your own side, go look for the evidence that does not confirm your biases. Seriously! If you hold a point-of-view that has not been tested or is not falsifiable, then not only are you not right, youâre not even wrong!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Zoe Quinnâs dozens of pictures about an angry 4chan contingency should be considered mostly factual. Â These 4chan users secreted themselves away in a raid channel and attempted to guide the course of a Twitter hashtag, in an effort to enact social justice upon Zoe for being an abusive person.
Howâs about the wealth of evidence that preceded those 4channers? The evidence that didnât immediately get handed off to the Examiner as fact, but was instead left for Internet users to parse through. Most of that evidence is factual too. Letâs address all the facts, on both sides, one by one.
Fact one,
Zoe Quinn was welcomed into an industry which engages in the sexual economization of women. Zoe Quinn took the full force of the criticism, while Nathan Grayson and Joshua Boggs and several others slinked out of view. Mature industries have safeguards to protect women from gatekeepers who would refuse to value them for their talents. Other women in the industry who possess talent, but are not viewed as sexual currency for men, will fail as long as this patriarchal system thrives.
Joshua Boggsâ wife is a victim. My fellow feminists should care about her. But everyone Iâve talked to doesnât seem to care. Ignoring her suffering is not feminism.
At its most hilariously inflammatory (and I love to be inflammatory!), Zoe Quinn is a valued accomplice to the patriarchy. She emboldens the economy of femaleness, forcing other women to attain femaleness in order to compete.
Fact two,
Women and men whom Zoeâs abuse affected were speaking out on Twitter, and were promptly shouted down by Zoe and the incredible Mr. Fish. One of the people speaking out was a game dev who felt sexually harassed by Zoe. Instead of addressing the claim with any sort of candor, Phil Fish surprises everyone by being a complete fuckstump. Alert the media. Noâseriouslyâwhy didnât anyone alert the fucking media about the sexual harassment? These people are victims.
Fact three,
Zoe Quinn, in a panic, started contacting Reddit and 4chan to throttle information about her abuses and her fansâ DDoSing of TFYC. Â There's little more to say about these actions. Â They were moments of passion, for Zoe. Â She wanted to protect herself or advance her career and, instead of waiting for legitimacy or assistance from her friends, she took matters into her own hands.
She is not very capable at damage control. Â That should be evident to everyone by now.
Fact four,
Silverstring Media is connected with Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku, and Gamasutra; they rigged pay-to-enter competitions. Hopeful indie devs paid $50 apiece to enter a competition where, unbeknownst to them, their competitors were close friends with judges. Ultimatelyâsurprise surpriseâIGFâs cash awards went to the judgesâ friends and acquaintances. Indie devs looking to overcome the horrible hurdles of entering the gaming industry lost lots of cash. These people are victims.
Fact five,
A group of 4chan users helped promote the #GamerGate hashtag created by Adam Baldwin, which Zoe dislikes, as retaliation against Zoe Quinn. Â Adding their support to the tag was a definite act of vengeance on their part; however, the tag itself is also popular among many other people.
Tired of being accused of homogeneity, these 4chan users began using #notyourshield to prove game journalists wrong regarding their notions of the gaming demographic. Â They prompted one another on how to properly use the tag, allowing women and people of color (whose voices are often overlooked) a chance to have their say.
Remember,
Itâs âfactâ when a well-connected industry elite links a few pics from an IRC channel.
Itâs âconspiracyâ when thousands of different sources provide images and videos of widespread corruption.
Ha HA you dumb shitlords. The ever resourceful Zoe Quinn has exposed your little campaign for what it really is: a misogynist crusade to keep women out of the video game industry!
Oh, so⊠she proved that she didnât cheat on and abuse her boyfriend with other industry insiders for the sole goal...
What, don't want to bring up #notyourshield? Brave.
Iâm not bringing it up because itâs a sad situation where people who are part of oppressed groups have been misled to believe that theyâre not in any negative situation, and that the people trying to help them are the enemy. I have nothing bad to say about them because theyâre not stupid, simply misled and told the wrong things by the wrong people.
Misled? Â Really? Â These oppressed people just aren't as smart as their paternalist protectors, right?
Maybe--just maybe--you're entirely wrong about this movement. Â And each time you assign someone as a "gender traitor" or a "race traitor" because they think differently than you, you're the actual asshole.
I'm a feminist who is tired of being a public relations scapegoat. Â I am not "misinformed". Â I have the agency to think on my own; I have control over myself; I realize that there are many oppressive groups in control of me.
But the most oppressive of all is the group who says "There's no way you can think for yourself. Â Follow me--for your own good."
Not all of the people standing against people like Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn are male. Many of us are fully-grown women who are genuine gamers, and do not need others to speak for us, especially when theyâre creating controversy not for the sake of the future of gaming, but to fill their own pockets.
Thereâs a difference between legitimate sexism and misogyny, and knowing when someone is completely full of shit, regardless of their gender. When someone outright disallows you to play a game, or ridicules you when you do based on your gender, then yesâthat is sexism. However, as long as youâre not acting as if youâre entitled to special treatment because of your gender, the majority of other gamers in this world (male, female, trans, or non-binary) could care less how you identify, or what your political ideals are. They just want you to play the fucking game.  If people are pointing out your own contradictions and hypocrisy, suspicious actions, or the fact that you basically slept your way to success, then thatâs just letting everyone know that someone set off their bullshit alarm, and has nothing to do with âsexismâ.
The bullshit alarm doesnât care about gender.
I was born right before the North American Video Game Crash of 1983. I know what itâs like to play on a real Atari, as well as a Magnavox OdysseyÂČ, and I love my gaming consoles as though they were my children.
Thereâs been some suggestion lately that #gamergate and #notyourshield are semi-legitmate hashtags. Thereâs been some suggestion not everyone is there to attack women, but to express genuine outrage at corruption in the games industry, or to identify themselves as minority members of the âgamerâ...
Likewise, the misogyny-vs-SJW battle that always arises is culture jamming to distract from the initial revelation that Zoe Quinn was manipulating an industry, was killing off competing pro-feminist charities, and was scapegoated to protect Kotaku's sexual economy of men who value women not for their creativity but for their sexuality. Â Nathan Grayson, Joshua Boggs, and others in the indie dev scene scapegoated a woman as--yes--a shield. Â These men ultimately get away with what they do to industries, because they transform us women into celebrities and tiptoe away.
Call it culture jamming if you will; I call it un-derailment. Â Anyone who was here at the beginning--especially anyone who is a feminist and has an aptitude for seeing how the patriarchy spins its tales of gender politics--knew precisely how Kotaku, Polygon, IGF, et al would get away with their actions.
Every single person should hate misogyny. Â Every single person should be addressing misogyny, when that discussion is at hand. Â Changing every conversation that involves women into a conversation about misogyny is, in itself, the greatest jar of culture jam the patriarchy ever popped open. Â How can we ever talk about women as humans when every single conversation that involves a women devolves into the "battle of the sexes" genderball game that everyone loves to play? Â We can't. Â So we continue to focus on men.
When a man does something, we judge him as a human being. Â When a woman does something, we talk about gender. Â This is not fair to women; it is a function of the patriarchy to turn "womanhood" into "femaleness" and curtail all productive conversation.
In the end, Joshua Boggs' wife will never be considered a victim. Â The women of TFYC who have, time and again, seen their charity squashed by a few indie devs that hand-pick the winners and losers of the indie scene; they will never be seen as victims either. Â 4chan has a plurality of women (but I doubt anyone ever cares to actually look at Internet metrics and science when it's time to force their opinion):
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/4chan.org
/b/ and /pol/ are the biggest shitholes of the Internet, sure. Â But the women and men of /v/ who put $25,000+ into a charity, only to see it get hacked, DDoS'd, and destroyed? Â How are these people not victims in their own right? Â Can two different women be victims? Â Can the paternalists view "Zoe" and "Anita" as two completely separate human beings for a change, or are all women a single entity to be treated--not as equals to men--but as equals only to each other?
If the only way to beat the patriarch's paternalist attitude towards women is a heaping helping of culture jam, then pass me the strawberry.
You're wrong about #GamerGate and #notyourshield.
Gamer, feminist @j-k-degoya - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
