10 thoughts on “#GamerGate”

  1. Very hard to read this guy. Couldn’t even finish the article. Why does the F-bomb and S-bomb need to be dropped at all? Gives me no sympathy at all for gamers. Their “leet speak” just marginalizes them even more.

    1. Let me translate your comment for gamers.

      The amount of fucks you give approaches zero, you literally have no fucks to give.

      Gamers like to swear and joke around. A sense of humor is a prime requisite for gaming. Gamergate is not all that interesting to read about. It is like listening in on girl talk when the topic is how nasty some other girls are. While it is interpersonal drama we find everywhere, it is alien to most people, even gamers.

      Much like with science fiction, there is a movement of journalists/bloggers to reshape gaming to mirror hard core progressive ideology. Games are criticized for not having enough transgender or gender neutral characters. Having 15 races and 30 classes isn’t enough. Game developers are being pressured to turn video games into progressive morality tales to indoctrinate gamers. And gamergate is a part of that with journalists and bloggers coordinating their efforts to shape the industry from behind the scenes. There is an element of subterfuge and the people involved are all very secretive about the collusion.

      But gamergate did not start because of political ideology. It sprung from accusations of unethical writing practices. The SJW response from writers was just a way to attack their critics, just like leftys do all the time, to dehumanize and ostracize critics from the gaming community.

      Some gamers responded to gamergate by being total jerks and said some offensive things. That doesn’t help the conversation and it gave these bloggers and journalists a pretext to ban all comments that they don’t disagree with. This would have happened anyway because dissent is not tolerated by many a blogger, but now they had a pretext.

      A lot of this is friendly fire. I’d wager most of the people at 4chan voted for Obama if they voted at all. They are open to some progressive ideals. They are upset about corruption but in defense, the bloggers and journalists framed them as young straight white male homo rapiens from the suburbs rather than deal with the controversy. When was the last time you saw a lefty deflect criticism by saying the criticism was motivated by race, gender, class ect?

    2. Your typical gamer doesn’t give a shit about “marginalization” or “social status”. This makes the typical SJW tactics useless. And as mpthompson noted there are many in the gamer ranks who are technologically sophisticated. At least a few of these SJW journalists got their bank account numbers and passwords published on the Internet.

      1. My point is that they throw in a plethora of obnoxious words as if they are still cool high school kids. It’s all very adolescent and silly. My point about marginalization was that nobody will pay attention to you when you swear. I understand that gamers don’t care. We all have our interests. But this is one reason why gamers have such negative stereotypes.

  2. I’m not a gamer, either, but I’ve read several articles on the matter. The gamers are mad that there’s evidence that many of the gaming journalists are not only demonstrating unethical behavior, they’re attacking and insulting their audience. That seems unwise. While the game companies can buy good print in many of the gaming magazines and websites, ultimately they depend on having readers. Anger too many of your readers and you don’t have an audience any more. No audience, no money from the game companies, either. If your readership no longer trusts you enough to buy your magazine or visit your website, you won’t have a job very long.

    1. That’s my reaction to this as well–this just reflects a larger problem of journalists unethically colluding. It’s not all left-right stuff, and some of it is financially motivated, but it’s not at all what journalism is supposed to be about.

  4. I’ve been following GamerGate off and on for about two weeks. I’m not a gamer myself, but I do find the interactions interesting in comparison to how libertarians and conservatives are treated by the media.

    As mentioned in some of the links attached to the article, the gaming journalists attempted to paint the gamers the same way as the general media paints the tea party supporters. As unsophisticated, racist, misogynist rubes who should be banned from participating in civil society. However, unlike the typical tea party supporter, the gamers are much more technically sophisticated and were able to fight fire with fire. Things quickly escalated out-of-control in forums where the gaming journalists thought they wre safe and could control the messaging. To their surprise they ended up fighting a defensive war which still shows no signs of abating.

    The ironic thing is that the trouble began with a debate on journalistic ethics in the gaming industry which had very little, if anything, to do with politics. However, the journalists, following tried and true leftists tactics, quickly made the issue over politics to deflect away from their own malfeasance.

    It will be very interesting to see the fallout from #GameGate and what lessons could be drawn from it to to combat the broader media in general.

  5. They thought they could use the old racism and sexism charges against the Gamers but the Gamers just got hyper-mad instead of being cowed.

    They punched-back four times as hard and they are winning because of it. The moral of the story is there comes a time to go for the jugular and finish your hateful enemy instead of just continuing to play tit for tat. There comes a time to take the gloves off.

  6. Hi, I’m the psudonymous blogger known as Daddy Warpig. My real name is Jasyn Jones. Some general responses…

    1. *Rand Simberg* linked to my post? Now I’m intimidated. I’m going to sit at my desk and wonder what street I turned down to end up in this universe. Because it sure isn’t mine.

    2. The swears. This article was written as a snarky introduction to #GamerGate, for my usual audience, all of whom I’ve known for at least 5 years. I was not expecting a traffic bump of three orders of magnitude. (x1000, unless I wasted my years in college. Which I may have done.)

    I was not expecting attention from engineers and physicists, or really anyone who could be introduced with multiple groups of letters after their name. People whose academic achievements are expressed as multiple polynomials were not my target audience, please believe me.

    Had I known the post was going to get that much attention, I might have done it differently. Or, knowing myself, might not. I, and my usual audience, find the profanity amusing. (In fact, it makes it easier to read posts.) Juvenile? Yes, but the information in the article is solid. I did another round of fact-checking after the second day of ultra-high traffic, just to make sure.

    3. Rand Simberg? Reason, PJM, CEI, “Safe Is Not An Option”? Instapundit RT, Adam Baldwin RT x2, Larry Correia praise, sidebar at AoSHQ, Rand Simberg link.

    Not to brag, but somebody call Sweden, because I just confirmed the multiverse theory.

    4. If you’re interested in my opinion on #GamerGate, not just a chronology, that’s the topic of today’s post. Surprisingly, the conclusion has some bearing on matters of interest to Conservatives and Libertarians.

    Also, there’s no swearing. (Not from me. I quote someone who swears, but I had to maintain the integrity of the quote.)

    Again, if you’re interested, here’s the link:
    http://daddywarpig.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/was-there-a-gjp-mass-effect-3-conspiracy/

    Thank you for the attention, one and all. Best wishes.

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