Is #GamerGate misogyny posing as concern for ethics?

[Covenant]

I don't think I need to address your back-story and explanation for her situation, as it's reasonably point-of-fact. Tell me if I missed something important.

No, I think you got it.

I think she's absolutely agitating for change; that's been part of the message I'm getting in her videos. And it's much needed change.

I think we're setting the bar too low for a revolutionary or even for a reformer. Reformers really should have an objective they want to work towards, a list of things they want to do in order to get there, and the willingness to take the lead in working towards those changes. Anita is really only pointing out things and saying "this is not great" without pushing for anything you could call a "reform" at all.

The way I see it, to use a different situation, a reformer for campaign finance would say we need to put a stop to anonymous SuperPAC groups and put forth a bill to that effect. Revolutionaries might say we need to enforce public-funding of elections and ban political TV-spots paid for by secondary groups, and take that message directly to the people at large. Critics would say that money in politics causes problems, identify those problems, but publish these thoughts mostly within a confined newsletter to similarly concerned citizens and not advocate for any specific legislation or recommend any specific candidates for election.

Of these three I see Anita as the last. She is not in the power structure, and is not trying to insert herself there (she gets invited to talks but isn't organizing protests or counter-conventions or anything) and mostly wants people who also care about these things to hear her examination, as well as to provide people in a position of power to change things (developers) an opportunity to hear an outside critique in a calm and rational way so they can make choices that are less problematic.

Perhaps I am setting the bar too high on this, but I think her commentary is basically around the same level of critical commentary we see from other game industry critics (Extra Credits, Jimquisition, Totalbiscuit) except that the advocacy she focuses on is constrained to one broad issue (depictions of women in gaming) and that her gender and topic combine to make her extra controversial. I wouldn't call these people reformers either. I think we're calling her a reformer here mostly because she is being supported by others and because she has controversial views.

And just to be as clear as I can be, I am not saying any of this to put her down or sideline her in any way. I think she's already on the sideline, really. I just see her activity as benign, non-pushy, non-revolutionary and basically non-controversial stuff in general, and yet all of the anger is focused on her? There's no good reason for this other than a vendetta.

And either way I don't see how hiding in the mantle of the critic could help. "Oh, I'm not out to change anything, I'm just a critic". Okay, then, come see me when you are ready to accomplish something. I'll just keep enjoying my power and privilege while you think it over.

I'm not saying that's better. I am not advocating it. I'm just saying that this is essentially the position that she, and a few others, do actually take. I don't say she's just a critic to deflect an attack, I say she's just a critic in order to highlight how absurd the level of attack on her is, in order to highlight the absurdity of the situation. This is why I say the attacks on her have so obvious an agenda: she is a minor voice in a big fight and she does not even make the loudest or most sweeping proposals, and yet she remains the target for harassment.

Because it's easier to agree with a human than an idea. And I think that's really important in this issue, because the people who have to change the most are generally contented, well-meaning people, more akin to cats in a sunbeam than whip-masters in a palace. That kind of person doesn't get off their ass to be part of a turbulent academic discussion.

Well, those people are really no good for anyone anyway. Since the level of discourse is in the tank as is, we can be sure they also won't get off their ass to enter a turbulent unacademic trolling shit-storm either. If someone is too lazy (intellectually or literally) to form their own ideas, and also too lazy (not accusing you) to "follow the message" of anyone who is controversial then all we have is a de-facto mushy middle once again, by merit of moral absolutism and a desire to avoid controversy. These people are useless for any kind of social change.

Plus, agreeing with a human is pointless. As soon as that person does something you may not approve of ("ermagerhd, Anita said women cannot be sexists? I can no longer listen to her!") or becomes controversial for any reason, the "agree with people, not with ideas" thing collapses inward. It becomes an infinite regress towards less and less controversial people, not even less controversial ideas. Given how (understandable, forgivably) falliable people are it becomes an argument for intellectual nihilism.

[PKRudeBoy]

The problem is that is not how many people think. People trust people that they like, which is why successful salespeople sell themselves, not the product. One of the reasons Dubya was elected was because he crafted an image of the president you could kick back and have a beer with.

[Covenant]

The problem is that is not how many people think. People trust people that they like, which is why successful salespeople sell themselves, not the product. One of the reasons Dubya was elected was because he crafted an image of the president you could kick back and have a beer with.

Well yeah, but how are you going to successfully turn the Dubya-voter demographic into a successful and positive social movement? The conservatives were already there--and the message they were being sold is "don't think, what you know is already true," which is antithetical to the kind of social progress we're talking about. You cannot just "sell the salesperson" when the message is challenging to people. That's the problem here.

The only actionable path forward if you want to corral this behavior for social change (as is being discussed) is to manufacture a persona, with the aid of extensive outside assistance to image-and-message control things being said, while also saying a great number of unchallenging things for every drop of controversial thought. Or you can follow the other established social progresses throughout history and embrace the fact that some people will be upset and disagree, perhaps loudly or violently, and continue working towards progress despite this.

There simply is no way to effect meaningful or noticeable change by appealing to a mindless middle. You are going to do better by tugging at the extremes and causing the "middle" to shift a bit. Small numbers of motivated people, and such. Unmotivated people are just not useful. You should address them, sure, in order to give them a chance to come along for the ride. But if your objective is upsetting the status quo then ignoring your torch-bearers to focus on presenting a sanitized and happy face to people who are averse to ideas and controversy... you'll go nowhere.

Where you focus the "happy and soft" efforts is on kids. That's what Sesame Street and other happy cartoons do--they give kids a "new norm" not defined by the status quo of their parents. Once they are 30 years old and grumpy your window is basically over. Either they lean to the left or they lean to the right, but if they don't lean at all you're not really going to turn them into revolutionaries by feeding them the intellectual equivalent of warm milk.

[Civil War Man]

Criticizing feminism because Sarkeesian said something stupid (and I can pretty much guarantee that various GamerGate havens are doing just that right this second) is on par with claiming that atheism is invalid because Richard Dawkins is an abrasive asshole. It may point to problematic attitudes in the person or the community they belong to, but it doesn't automatically make everything they have to say wrong.

Which brings me to my main problem with MRAs, "Nice Guys", or whatever other mean or sarcastic names you want to call them. They often bring up things that are legitimate problems for men, like how male rape victims are often stigmatized or outright ignored. When they bring up those problems, though, it's not done as a way to contribute to the discussion but as an attempt to silence it. They are not saying, "Men also experience those problems, so we should also account for that when coming up with a solution," but, "Sometimes men are also rape victims, so I think you should stop talking about endemic rape of women in college/the military/other settings." This is effectively what they are saying, even if they are not consciously doing it, because they often aggressively defend attitudes that perpetuate those very same problems. For example, the cultural attitude that men are aggressive hypersexual creatures, and that by extension any man who does not fit that mold is insufficiently manly, is a major contributor to both victim blaming of women (the onus of preventing rape is put on women since men cannot be expected to control their baser impulses) and marginalization of male victims (if men are hypersexual by default, they cannot ever not want to have sex). But it wasn't feminism that created that attitude, and you most often see it defended in explicitly anti-feminist circles (see whenever someone on Fox News complains about the "wussification" of the American male).

[PKRudeBoy]

The problem is that is not how many people think. People trust people that they like, which is why successful salespeople sell themselves, not the product. One of the reasons Dubya was elected was because he crafted an image of the president you could kick back and have a beer with.

Well yeah, but how are you going to successfully turn the Dubya-voter demographic into a successful and positive social movement? The conservatives were already there--and the message they were being sold is "don't think, what you know is already true," which is antithetical to the kind of social progress we're talking about. You cannot just "sell the salesperson" when the message is challenging to people. That's the problem here.

The only actionable path forward if you want to corral this behavior for social change (as is being discussed) is to manufacture a persona, with the aid of extensive outside assistance to image-and-message control things being said, while also saying a great number of unchallenging things for every drop of controversial thought. Or you can follow the other established social progresses throughout history and embrace the fact that some people will be upset and disagree, perhaps loudly or violently, and continue working towards progress despite this.

There simply is no way to effect meaningful or noticeable change by appealing to a mindless middle. You are going to do better by tugging at the extremes and causing the "middle" to shift a bit. Small numbers of motivated people, and such. Unmotivated people are just not useful. You should address them, sure, in order to give them a chance to come along for the ride. But if your objective is upsetting the status quo then ignoring your torch-bearers to focus on presenting a sanitized and happy face to people who are averse to ideas and controversy... you'll go nowhere.

Where you focus the "happy and soft" efforts is on kids. That's what Sesame Street and other happy cartoons do--they give kids a "new norm" not defined by the status quo of their parents. Once they are 30 years old and grumpy your window is basically over. Either they lean to the left or they lean to the right, but if they don't lean at all you're not really going to turn them into revolutionaries by feeding them the intellectual equivalent of warm milk.

I don't think I can agree with this on the whole. While you are absolutely going to piss off large numbers of people, the mushy middle seems to have fairly weakly held preferences. For example, I don't think the gay rights movement would have done nearly so well if it wasn't for easily relatable celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Ian McKellen, Neal Patrick Harris, or Elton John. The civil rights movement would have gotten nowhere if it was all Malcolm X and no MLK.

[Covenant]

I don't think I can agree with this on the whole. While you are absolutely going to piss off large numbers of people, the mushy middle seems to have fairly weakly held preferences. For example, I don't think the gay rights movement would have done nearly so well if it wasn't for easily relatable celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Ian McKellen, Neal Patrick Harris, or Elton John. The civil rights movement would have gotten nowhere if it was all Malcolm X and no MLK.

I believe you are downplaying the amount of controversy and division that MLK evoked among people at the time, even though his message was peaceful and his actions were peaceful and he is remembered nowadays as a good man. Furthermore, an appeal to moral absolutism (I cannot follow this person's message because they evoke controversy or do things I disapprove of) would exclude MLK because of his various personal scandals. I think what you are saying sounds reasonable to you, but I think it is actually very unreasonable in practice, and it also is a little cowardly.

I would absolutely say we need people like MLK to take a stand and put themselves out there, and not to play a wishy-washy message but to have a bold message, and I think that he did. He is absolutely a "torch bearer" of the civil rights movement, and not a sideline-sitting wishy-washy commentator. Now, if you just mean "yes we need firebrands AND we need moderates" then yes, that is absolutely true, we need people from traditionalists to revolutionaries to all work towards a better future and for the benefit of all people in an egalitarian way. But I think what is being said here is that the firebrands are "counter-productive" (though the first person to use that in reference to Anita did not mean it this way, I'm just re-using the term) and that it is better for us to support mushy-middle ideas that do not offend and present a positive and pleasing image in order to sell the personality instead of selling the idea. However, that is such a goofball idea that I don't think anyone here would ACTUALLY say that. I would consider it a consequence of what IS being said, however.

I think part of this may be a difference in terminology.

I would also agree that, yes, you get a lot of shift over a long period of time by having various celebrities be the "person you know who ___" that you can relate to and thus break down a stigma, but the fact that these people could come out at all was built up from a foundation of daring, ground-breaking, violently opposed effort that shattered the wall of silence and make it possible for someone to be both gay and not-dead at the same time. We should not expect mass media to tip-toe just ahead of the public conversation and defer all social progress to the television shows and celebrities (now that's some hero worship for you) while we stay in our closets.

If you refuse to support the people who are going to push the boundaries, and only the ones who spoon-feed it to people who are already okay with things, then you are going to get absolutely no movement whatsoever. You simply cannot tell me, with a straight face, that you honestly believe Neal Patrick Harris was the reason that people started to become okay with gay people. Neal Patrick Harris would never have been able to come out without a lynch mob coming after him if it were not for the blood and tears of people who came before him. We're comparing icebreakers to the pontoon boats that follow after.

[Civil War Man]

I don't think I can agree with this on the whole. While you are absolutely going to piss off large numbers of people, the mushy middle seems to have fairly weakly held preferences. For example, I don't think the gay rights movement would have done nearly so well if it wasn't for easily relatable celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Ian McKellen, Neal Patrick Harris, or Elton John. The civil rights movement would have gotten nowhere if it was all Malcolm X and no MLK.

I would argue that it also would have gotten nowhere if, to use your phrasing, it was all MLK and no Malcolm X. You need both a diplomat and a firebrand in order to get meaningful change. The former reassures you that you need not fear the change, while the latter warns you that there will be consequences if you try to ignore the problem. A sufficiently charismatic person can fill both roles, but you need both in order to succeed.

[TheFeniX]

I don't even care so much about the opponents or the middle. The fact is, it wasn't until the Internet that I really heard about anyone claiming sexism against men doesn't exist. I'd be more inclined to believe racism against whites is a non-issue (and it is, at least in the US) than to believe sexism against men is a non-issue. It's a big issue, not really for men because it tends to build them up rather than break them down, but for women because it breeds a shitty mentality.

Yea, I'm a guy. It's great and all. But I don't design marketing that tells me if I'm not some super-fit alpha-bro dog, I'm some weak beta-male who needs to step up his game. That pretty much all that makes me a man is tied to my fitness to provide. That my reward for providing is to be rewarded with hot women and high fives and if I can't get that: I'm a total fucking loser. That women and men are wildly different and really don't understand each other, so just pretend you give a shit and buy her shiny things so she'll open her legs for you. I don't make sure men get pounded with this bullshit every fucking day in all aspects of his life so they'll buy whatever shit I'm selling because it's "manly."

I consider myself a feminist. I laugh at the idea that some men (and women TBH) assert that there's parity in the amount and type of sexism vs men and women. But on that note, when people say "sexism against men doesn't exist:" I don't want to associate with those kinds of people because (at least in my experience) the sexism leveled at men leads to a rather large portion of what women deal with. You can't fix one by ignoring the existence of the other.

[PKRudeBoy]

I don't think I can agree with this on the whole. While you are absolutely going to piss off large numbers of people, the mushy middle seems to have fairly weakly held preferences. For example, I don't think the gay rights movement would have done nearly so well if it wasn't for easily relatable celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Ian McKellen, Neal Patrick Harris, or Elton John. The civil rights movement would have gotten nowhere if it was all Malcolm X and no MLK.

I believe you are downplaying the amount of controversy and division that MLK evoked among people at the time, even though his message was peaceful and his actions were peaceful and he is remembered nowadays as a good man. Furthermore, an appeal to moral absolutism (I cannot follow this person's message because they evoke controversy or do things I disapprove of) would exclude MLK because of his various scandals. I think what you are saying sounds reasonable to you, but I think it is actually very unreasonable in practice, and it also is a little cowardly.

I would absolutely say we need people like MLK to take a stand and put themselves out there, and not to play a wishy-washy message but to have a bold message, and I think that he did. He is absolutely a "torch bearer" of the civil rights movement, and not a sideline-sitting wishy-washy commentator. Now, if you just mean "yes we need firebrands AND we need moderates" then yes, that is absolutely true, we need people from traditionalists to revolutionaries to all work towards a better future and for the benefit of all people in an egalitarian way. But I think what is being said here is that the firebrands are "counter-productive" and that it is better for us to support mushy-middle ideas that do not offend and present a positive and pleasing image in order to sell the personality instead of selling the idea. However, that is such a goofball idea that I don't think anyone here would ACTUALLY say that. I would consider it a consequence of what IS being said, however.

I think part of this may be a difference in terminology.

I would also agree that, yes, you get a lot of shift over a long period of time by having various celebrities be the "person you know who ___" that you can relate to and thus break down a stigma, but the fact that these people could come out at all was built up from a foundation of daring, ground-breaking, violently opposed effort that shattered the wall of silence and make it possible for someone to be both gay and not-dead at the same time. We should not expect mass media to tip-toe just ahead of the public conversation and defer all social progress to the television shows and celebrities (now that's some hero worship for you) while we stay in our closets.

If you refuse to support the people who are going to push the boundaries, and only the ones who spoon-feed it to people who are already okay with things, then you are going to get absolutely no movement whatsoever. You simply cannot tell me, with a straight face, that you honestly believe Neal Patrick Harris was the reason that people started to become okay with gay people. Neal Patrick Harris would never have been able to come out without a lynch mob coming after him if it were not for the blood and tears of people who came before him. We're comparing icebreakers to the pontoon boats that follow after.

Yeah, I think we're probably talking past each other at this point. What I got from your previous posts seemed to be 'We're going to alienate them all anyway, so no need for message control' while you're interpretation of mine seems to be 'Let's all join hands and sing Kumbaya and everything will fix itself.' I absolutely agree that there needs to be people that push boundaries, but I also think feminism has had lots of icebreakers over the past century, to the point where it's opponents can effectively paint it solely as that. The fact that some of the most vocal feminists are also the most extreme and the most likely to get into fights about ideological purity doesn't help. I think one of feminists (and most leftists in general) biggest issue is PR, and that they have had success in spite of things like radical second wave feminism, not because of it.

[Darth Yan]

Out of curiosity what other instances of sexism has Milo Yianoppolous displayed?

[Covenant]

Out of curiosity what other instances of sexism has Milo Yianoppolous displayed?

Why is this relevant to anything?

Once again I call shenanigans on caring about the behavior of individuals over the ideas being debated. If or if not he has displayed other instances of sexism has nothing to do with anything. Burning his reputation to the ground will not refute his views on women in STEM fields or his view on media censorship/political correctness/games as activism. Nor would a sterling reputation add additional weight beyond the veracity of his claims.

[Gaidin]

Out of curiosity what other instances of sexism has Milo Yianoppolous displayed?

Why is this relevant to anything?

Once again I call shenanigans on caring about the behavior of individuals over the ideas being debated. If or if not he has displayed other instances of sexism has nothing to do with anything. Burning his reputation to the ground will not refute his views on women in STEM fields or his view on media censorship/political correctness/games as activism. Nor would a sterling reputation add additional weight beyond the veracity of his claims.

Because, all things being equal, #GamerGate isn't going forward according to sd.net's debating rules. PR may be some people's greatest enemy and draw attention away from their quite legitimate points. Very far away from it. Sd.net and reality are, quite often, two different things.

[Covenant]

Because, all things being equal, #GamerGate isn't going forward according to sd.net's debating rules. PR may be some people's greatest enemy and draw attention away from their quite legitimate points. Very far away from it. Sd.net and reality are, quite often, two different things.

While this is true, we are still debating according to SD.net rules here, I presume, right? I prefer to talk about GG here because talking about it out there is like trying to debate with a hurricane.

I understand that if one wishes to head out into the world, armed to battle with GG peoples and such, one might want to do so armed with gear appropriate to the terrain. But there is zero point arguing with these people. If you must go out and try to verbally take down this Breitbart goon in the eyes of someone else then attack him on the moronic stuff he says about the things to claim to know a lot about, which is tech industry stuff.

Milo is glad Net Neutrality is dead.

Milo calls Net Neutrality "Marxism" of the tech world.

Milo tells you what to think: "Stick it to the nerds" on Net Neutrality.

For gamers and people involved in the tech industry, Net Neutrality is not just a hot-button issue, but a tremendous turning point for the future of the internet and digital communication. That this right-wing mouthpiece would come out against digital discrimination is not at all surprising, and when you view his comments in line with his other comments about tech blogs, the STEM field, women and gaming in the past, it lines up to show him as less of a technological savant with an Ayn Rand political bent... but of a repeated college drop-out who likes to get paid to say incendiary things from behind the relative defense provided by a conservative front-line. Thus it is demonstrated.

But this is not new data. The GG people willingly disregarded his previous statements about game because they were bizarrely willing to fellate any media wing that was going to support them. This even includes (given the distributed nature of GG there can be no real consensus) the arch-enemy of all gaming Jack Thompson himself. If the GG people are more willing to whitewash the past of game haters like Milo and Thompson than they are to consider a measured criticism from the game players and game developers and nerd-culture icons who have advanced the medium (instead of trying to destroy it) then there can be no further discussion: you are speaking with madness.

[Elfdart]

I realize that this thread has been dormant, but there are a few points that have stuck in my craw and thanks to a miserable cold, I now have free time to address them.

This excerpt from the article struck me as uniquely relevant to this board...

Just like, reaching dizzying heights of absurdity, the incredibly nerdy Star Wars fan debate over exactly how many clone troopers there were in the Clone Wars became a reason to send threats, abuse, and screaming ranting videos to the one woman writing Star Wars books, eventually leading to her quitting the franchise. (Five years later, all that’s left of the shitshow is a brief but nonetheless surreal paragraph in her entry on the Star Wars fan wiki. But yes, trust me, it really was that bad.)

That article by Arthur Chu reminds me of some of the humorous trolling I used to do over at AICN under the name of Pud!, where everything was a racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semitic plot. Only I was doing it for a cheap laugh. Arthur Chu takes his hysterical bullshit seriously!

Let's have a look at some of the Cleveland Steamers Arthur Chu wants to drop on the readers' chests:

1) The notion that the anti-disco backlash was some kind of musical Krystalnacht by arena rock brownshirts out to oppress minorities makes Glenn Beck sound like Neil deGrasse Tyson. Was there some of that kind of knuckledragger mentality afoot? Yes, but racist, homophobic knuckledraggers could be found dancing under strobe lights just as easily as they could be found in the local arena listening to hard rock or metal. As an aside, it takes a blithering fucktard like Arthur Chu to try to paint disco performers as being on the cutting edge of "empowerment" for black women. Apparently this marvel of intellect never heard of Aretha Franklin or Dionne Warwick.

If that wasn't nutty enough, Chu must have been twirling ball bearings and muttering about missing strawberries when he went on this paranoid detour:

"Is it a coincidence that Disco Demolition Night happened almost exactly 10 years after the Stonewall Riots, nine years after the first issue of Ms. Magazine, six years after the election of the first black mayor of Los Angeles, three years after Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month?"

And only three years after the Bicentennial! And two years after Star Wars came out and six years after O.J. Simpson broke the single season rushing record and... and...
OH NOES!

As someone who was around back then and remembers the era fairly well, I can attest that the backlash against disco was nothing more than what inevitably happens when a fad has outlived its usefulness, yet is still being foisted on the public. Break dancing went through the same thing a few years later. For heaven's sake there was a major cultural backlash against the Western. If The Macarena had lasted longer it would have provoked a backlash, too.

He really is trying to give paranoid, incoherent conspiracy theorists a bad name. In other words, Arthur Chu is Suey Park, only with bigger tits.



2) Chu is clutching at straws to smear Zak S and The RPG Pundit, so he links to the semi-literate ravings of a dummy who has his panties in a twist because his two enemies were asked to be consultants on the new D&D. Fail, as the kids like to say.

3) Karen Traviss: Like Bloody Mary, if you say her name three times in a darkened room...

Arthur Chu's version of The Travissty bears little resemblance to what actually went on back when Traviss was shoveling more shit all over the Star Wars franchise than the retards who brought us the Holiday Special. When some of the poor hapless fools (including SDN members) pointed out just how ridiculous her idea of a galaxy being subjugated by only three million clones truly was, she likened her critics to terrorists, the Taliban and Nazis. She also fantasized about strangling Master of Ossus, Wayne Poe, Darth Wong and others with their own entrails. Oh, and she demanded the TheForce.net ban posters who criticized her writing or argued with her online. To their shame, TFN obliged (point of personal privilege here: I was banned from TFN for pointing out that George Lucas -you know, the person who created Star Wars in the first place- faced far more and far nastier attacks on TFN and other sites, yet those attackers are almost never banned).

After Traviss likened the 99% of Star Wars fans (or even just casual moviegoers who watched the movies and at least kinda paid attention) who think the Jedi Knights were the good guys in the stories to Nazis, she had clearly worn out her welcome among a large number of fans. She then rage-quit when the producers and writers for The Clone Wars chose not use any of her Wankd'a'lore'an nonsense and deliberately airbrushed her blemishes to the franchise out.

But her critics were a bunch of hoodlum blackshirts with bottles of castor oil at the ready.

How much did we see of the actual harrassment she faced? The GamerGaters have their version of events, which frankly doesn't make sense unless one considers "some wimminz are just crazy and need to back out of our club house" a compelling argument. It strikes me that we view Karen Traviss in much the same way.

I personally think she should have held off on the Mando worship, but otherwise I can't say she's written nearly as crappy stuff as Paul Davids and Hollace Davids, or Kevin J. Anderson, or the guys that wrote Jedi Trial. Which of those received threats? None of them.

Those writers didn't flame their critics, nor did they demand to have them banned from fan sites.

You'd note that it's not merely advice, but "condescending "helpful advice"".

Read this thread and see if it's familiar

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=128198

It even has a gendered insult, as well as assumptions that she doesn't really understand what she's doing.

If you're trying to make a case that Karen Traviss was being mocked because of her plumbing, then you couldn't have picked a worse thread or a worse site. Paraphrasing Tywin Lannister's words to his daughter Cersei: "I don't hold you in disregard because you're a woman, it's because you're not anywhere near as smart as you think you are".

And "gendered insult"? Is that the new gorgon's head meant to turn all criticism to stone? Most languages have "gendered" pronouns, names and yes, insults. For example, the terms prick, douchebag, dickhead and asshole are almost always reserved for males. Not that it matters, since pearl clutching over harsh language does not an argument make. In other words, just because Wayne Poe called Traviss a "cunt" in one of his videos doesn't mean criticism of her is sexist against women.

Considering the culture of this board, do you think those same posters would have hesitated to say (in an alternate universe) that Kevin Traviss was a limp-dicked blithering idiot with a Mandalorian fetish who had no idea what he was doing?

Yes. Because we've had tons of crappy SW and Trek authors, but the only ones consistently meriting words on their sexual prowess/preferences/identity have been women. I'm not saying this is intentional, I'm saying we're part of a culture in which that dichotomy exists; we simply treat men and women differently -- and, frequently, women harsher.

How many times did Kevin Anderson, Steve Perry, R.A. Salvatore, Ann Crispin, Alan Dean Foster or Timothy Zahn go out of their way to attack fans as Taliban and Nazis and talk about strangling them? Dean Wormer has the answer:



This bit on concern-trolling about SDN's culture is shit for the birds.

[Vympel]

I'll first say my sentiments about gamergate are in this direction:

The hostility toward "social justice warriors" is also understandable. Quite frankly, when someone comes out of the woodwork to claim Jar Jar Binks is a slur against gay black men, or that Game of Thrones promotes "rape culture"; or they complain because comics, movies and video games aimed at adolescent boys are well, aimed at adolescent boys (guns, tits, explosions -big ones!), I want to buy a lifetime membership in the NRA. Sometimes "The Guys" just want to hang out, like their dads and uncles did with their buddies. They don't want female influence in their stag parties, let alone feminist influence. They want to drink beer, tell dirty jokes, talk about pussy, smoke cigars and bust one another's balls. Women can be an impediment to that.

The reason people use "social justice warrior" as a slur is because its not meant to describe someone who's merely interested in social justice. As a slur, it describes high-handed, puritanical professional scolds who are determined to rant and rave about every little thing in popular culture as "problematic" and "pernicious" and who seek to impose their personal moral standards on essentially harmless activities. Anyway.

(Though I don't know if you mean to imply that Game of Thrones is a "guy's" thing because I don't agree on that point, but pretty much.)

But this idea being peddled by Arthur Chu that Karen Traviss' bilge was pilloried because she was a woman, and not because she wrote complete shit? Its pretty much Exhibit A in being careful about not taking people at their word when they say that they don't have a problem with someone because she's a woman or because he/she is a feminist, but because they're actually full of shit, irrespective of their gender.

In 'social justice' circles, its very easy to be painted as a misgoynist shitlord if you have a problem with someone and they happen to be a woman. You think the average layperson gives a fuck about the particulars of Karen Traviss' fan hate? Of course not. They'll believe the narrative they're told, which is "lol people hated Karen Traviss' awful writing because she was a woman".

That article by Arthur Chu reminds me of some of the humorous trolling I used to do over at AICN under the name of Pud!, where everything was a racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semitic plot. Only I was doing it for a cheap laugh. Arthur Chu takes his hysterical bullshit seriously!

Let's have a look at some of the Cleveland Steamers Arthur Chu wants to drop on the readers' chests:

1) The notion that the anti-disco backlash was some kind of musical Krystalnacht by arena rock brownshirts out to oppress minorities makes Glenn Beck sound like Neil deGrasse Tyson. Was there some of that kind of knuckledragger mentality afoot? Yes, but racist, homophobic knuckledraggers could be found dancing under strobe lights just as easily as they could be found in the local arena listening to hard rock or metal. As an aside, it takes a blithering fucktard like Arthur Chu to try to paint disco performers as being on the cutting edge of "empowerment" for black women. Apparently this marvel of intellect never heard of Aretha Franklin or Dionne Warwick.

If that wasn't nutty enough, Chu must have been twirling ball bearings and muttering about missing strawberries when he went on this paranoid detour:

"Is it a coincidence that Disco Demolition Night happened almost exactly 10 years after the Stonewall Riots, nine years after the first issue of Ms. Magazine, six years after the election of the first black mayor of Los Angeles, three years after Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month?"

And only three years after the Bicentennial! And two years after Star Wars came out and six years after O.J. Simpson broke the single season rushing record and... and...
OH NOES!

As someone who was around back then and remembers the era fairly well, I can attest that the backlash against disco was nothing more than what inevitably happens when a fad has outlived its usefulness, yet is still being foisted on the public. Break dancing went through the same thing a few years later. For heaven's sake there was a major cultural backlash against the Western. If The Macarena had lasted longer it would have provoked a backlash, too.

He really is trying to give paranoid, incoherent conspiracy theorists a bad name. In other words, Arthur Chu is Suey Park, only with bigger tits.

2) Chu is clutching at straws to smear Zak S and The RPG Pundit, so he links to the semi-literate ravings of a dummy who has his panties in a twist because his two enemies were asked to be consultants on the new D&D. Fail, as the kids like to say.

3) Karen Traviss: Like Bloody Mary, if you say her name three times in a darkened room...

Arthur Chu's version of The Travissty bears little resemblance to what actually went on back when Traviss was shoveling more shit all over the Star Wars franchise than the retards who brought us the Holiday Special. When some of the poor hapless fools (including SDN members) pointed out just how ridiculous her idea of a galaxy being subjugated by only three million clones truly was, she likened her critics to terrorists, the Taliban and Nazis. She also fantasized about strangling Master of Ossus, Wayne Poe, Darth Wong and others with their own entrails. Oh, and she demanded the TheForce.net ban posters who criticized her writing or argued with her online. To their shame, TFN obliged (point of personal privilege here: I was banned from TFN for pointing out that George Lucas -you know, the person who created Star Wars in the first place- faced far more and far nastier attacks on TFN and other sites, yet those attackers are almost never banned).

After Traviss likened the 99% of Star Wars fans (or even just casual moviegoers who watched the movies and at least kinda paid attention) who think the Jedi Knights were the good guys in the stories to Nazis, she had clearly worn out her welcome among a large number of fans. She then rage-quit when the producers and writers for The Clone Wars chose not use any of her Wankd'a'lore'an nonsense and deliberately airbrushed her blemishes to the franchise out.

But her critics were a bunch of hoodlum blackshirts with bottles of castor oil at the ready.

How much did we see of the actual harrassment she faced? The GamerGaters have their version of events, which frankly doesn't make sense unless one considers "some wimminz are just crazy and need to back out of our club house" a compelling argument. It strikes me that we view Karen Traviss in much the same way.

I personally think she should have held off on the Mando worship, but otherwise I can't say she's written nearly as crappy stuff as Paul Davids and Hollace Davids, or Kevin J. Anderson, or the guys that wrote Jedi Trial. Which of those received threats? None of them.

Those writers didn't flame their critics, nor did they demand to have them banned from fan sites.

You'd note that it's not merely advice, but "condescending "helpful advice"".

Read this thread and see if it's familiar

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=128198

It even has a gendered insult, as well as assumptions that she doesn't really understand what she's doing.

If you're trying to make a case that Karen Traviss was being mocked because of her plumbing, then you couldn't have picked a worse thread or a worse site. Paraphrasing Tywin Lannister's words to his daughter Cersei: "I don't hold you in disregard because you're a woman, it's because you're not anywhere near as smart as you think you are".

And "gendered insult"? Is that the new gorgon's head meant to turn all criticism to stone? Most languages have "gendered" pronouns, names and yes, insults. For example, the terms prick, douchebag, dickhead and asshole are almost always reserved for males. Not that it matters, since pearl clutching over harsh language does not an argument make. In other words, just because Wayne Poe called Traviss a "cunt" in one of his videos doesn't mean criticism of her is sexist against women.

Considering the culture of this board, do you think those same posters would have hesitated to say (in an alternate universe) that Kevin Traviss was a limp-dicked blithering idiot with a Mandalorian fetish who had no idea what he was doing?

Yes. Because we've had tons of crappy SW and Trek authors, but the only ones consistently meriting words on their sexual prowess/preferences/identity have been women. I'm not saying this is intentional, I'm saying we're part of a culture in which that dichotomy exists; we simply treat men and women differently -- and, frequently, women harsher.

How many times did Kevin Anderson, Steve Perry, R.A. Salvatore, Ann Crispin, Alan Dean Foster or Timothy Zahn go out of their way to attack fans as Taliban and Nazis and talk about strangling them? Dean Wormer has the answer:

This bit on concern-trolling about SDN's culture is shit for the birds.

I wish I had a like button on SDN, because that was fucking beautiful

[Ziggy Stardust]

I don't entirely see the point of the comparison with Karen Traviss with respect to GamerGate. So far as I can tell, nobody is saying that you aren't allowed to criticize a woman or else you are sexist. Regardless of the motivations for attacking Traviss, ultimately everything involved with her was a specific response to her work.

GamerGate was a completely different scenario, because it didn't have anything to do with criticizing the women involved (Sarkeesian, et al) for their work or what they did. It was essentially just attacking their credibility and personality (calling them "sluts", etc.) while pretending that the real reason for their anger was nebulous concern for journalistic ethics (a concern that has been readily refuted multiple times in this thread).

It's a categorically different situation than anything involving Traviss. It's like comparing Rush Limbaugh saying something racist about Idris Elba with Leonard Maltin saying the movie "Pacific Rim" sucked balls. It doesn't make any sense to compare the two, because they are completely different scenarios.

[Elfdart]

I don't entirely see the point of the comparison with Karen Traviss with respect to GamerGate. So far as I can tell, nobody is saying that you aren't allowed to criticize a woman or else you are sexist. Regardless of the motivations for attacking Traviss, ultimately everything involved with her was a specific response to her work.

GamerGate was a completely different scenario, because it didn't have anything to do with criticizing the women involved (Sarkeesian, et al) for their work or what they did. It was essentially just attacking their credibility and personality (calling them "sluts", etc.) while pretending that the real reason for their anger was nebulous concern for journalistic ethics (a concern that has been readily refuted multiple times in this thread).

That's not entirely true. Phil "Thunderf00t" Mason was banned from Twitter for posting links to his videos that ridiculed Sarkeesian's "scholarly" works and the total absence of evidence or logic behind any of them. I've watched Mason's videos and while he sometimes says some pretty idiotic stuff, there's nothing in those videos that constitutes "abuse" or "harassment". David Pakman's personal handle as well as the Twitter handle for his show were also flagged for supporting harassment. Which is funny since Pakman isn't even a supporter of #GamerGate, let alone the #Gaters who stalk and hassle women. Why? Well apparently some of the more authoritarian anti-Gaters (including Arthur Chu) have adopted the mentality of George W. Bush:

"You're either with us or with the enemy."

Pakman invited guests on from all sides to discuss the matter, which was too much for Chu, who got his hackles up when Pakman did his job as an interviewer and asked his guests questions:

[Vympel]

I don't entirely see the point of the comparison with Karen Traviss with respect to GamerGate. So far as I can tell, nobody is saying that you aren't allowed to criticize a woman or else you are sexist. Regardless of the motivations for attacking Traviss, ultimately everything involved with her was a specific response to her work.

GamerGate was a completely different scenario, because it didn't have anything to do with criticizing the women involved (Sarkeesian, et al) for their work or what they did. It was essentially just attacking their credibility and personality (calling them "sluts", etc.) while pretending that the real reason for their anger was nebulous concern for journalistic ethics (a concern that has been readily refuted multiple times in this thread).

It's a categorically different situation than anything involving Traviss. It's like comparing Rush Limbaugh saying something racist about Idris Elba with Leonard Maltin saying the movie "Pacific Rim" sucked balls. It doesn't make any sense to compare the two, because they are completely different scenarios.

That depends on how you even define "gamergate" in the first place - to me its pretty clearly not about journalistic ethics and more about a full blown culture war. Anita Sarkeesian, in the context of gamergate, isn't criticized for being a 'slut' (there are no such allegations against her) - she's criticized because those attacking her don't like some/all of her arguments. All the slut-based attacks were / are directed at Zoe Quinn. This is what happens when you have something with its genesis on twitter - its basically a poorly organised mob with many different goals and emphases.

[sarevok2]

This whole SJW mess shows, to me, that extreme left wing is just as bad as extreme right wing.

[Dominus Atheos]

What "whole SJW mess"?

[bilateralrope]

Polygon just put up an opinion piece titled The year of GamerGate: The worst of gaming culture gets a movement

I suggest clicking through to the piece as it does link to sources for many of its claims.

Opinion by Ben Kuchera on Dec 30, 2014 at 2:00p

2014 was the year I had to reach out to local law enforcement to explain that a group had threatened to "SWAT" me, an act that consists of sending a false report to the police in the hopes that a SWAT team is sent to a specific address. This led to a conversation with my children about what to do if the police stormed in due to such an attack.

It's been a stressful year.

GamerGate began as an attempt to shame and harass a female developer, and has since spread to include many other targets, including this outlet. The guise is always "ethics," but the weapons are always terror. Addresses are posted online, anonymous threats are made, and lately members of the group have been shown up at people's workplaces.

The threat is clear: We can get to you. We can hurt you. We don't stop. The educational video series Folding Ideas created perhaps the best "explainer" about what GamerGate is and how it operates.



This wave of harassment led to actress Felicia Day writing a heartbreaking story about being scared of people who identify of gamers for the first time in her life. The result was her personal information posted in the comment section of the story. The message was, once again, clear: You have reason to be afraid. We know where you live.

The movement had a few limited successes in having advertisers pull support from outlets they didn't like, but companies quickly learned how bad it looks when you appear to support a group of misogynist bullies.

GamerGate's lasting legacy will likely be the fact they've made harassment of women in the video game industry impossible to ignore. There may have been threats of school shootings if cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian were to speak, but the actions of groups like GamerGate pushed the issue into the mainstream. It became talked about enough that Sarkeesian appeared on the Colbert report.

The women GamerGate targeted have spent the year speaking to the press about the reality of harassment in gaming, and companies are listening: Patreon has adjusted its guidelines and Twitter is working with a women's advocacy group to look at the abuse the takes place on its service. The International Game Developers Association is working with the FBI to help deal with the rise of online harassment.

The individuals in the industry GamerGate had hoped to silence were in fact given an enormous soap box on which to talk about their experiences, although that platform came with a personal and professional cost that is far too high.

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales has become an outspoken critic of the GamerGate movement after members of the group complained that, without any respected sources willing to say GamerGate is anything other than a hate group, they couldn't get their Wikipedia page updated to be more "fair." Wales had little patience for the tactics GamerGate used to fight back.


GamerGate's latest attempt to raise money for charity turned into another debacle that somehow included porn, threats and attacks on the charity itself. Influential gaming forum NeoGAF named GamerGate its "fail of the year."

Every so often someone tries to convince me that GamerGate really is about ethics, and why don't I just talk to them? The movement's problem is hard to solve: They have no leaders and no actual goals, and the industry and press' primary means of interaction with the group is the daily threats and harassment that must be cleared out of email inboxes and Twitter feeds.

If you get punched in the face every time the doorbell rings, and in the evening someone knocks on your door to explain it's not really about the punching, you're going to have a hard time believing them.

The latest issue that GamerGate has taken up is, incredibly, barely-legal child pornography. Members of the group have recently written rape fantasies about one of its targets and briefly sold them on Amazon. The response to these situations is always the same: The group isn't responsible for what some of its members do.

As the year draws to a close it's very likely you're unaware that GamerGate is still active unless they target you, or you follow members on Twitter. It's become a completely insular network of paranoid, reactionary gamers who just want things to go back to the way things were, before they had to exist in a world where women played games and outlets wrote about more than just "fun factor."

By embracing the absolute worst of gaming culture and online trolling they've become radioactive, and any real message is lost in the noise of harassment and attacks. But maybe that's the point, and it really is just about hurting people and scaring them into silence.

2015, if nothing else, will likely be loud. GamerGate is just going to have to learn to deal with it, as social networks and law enforcement learn how to deal with them.

The two bits I've bolded are new to me. But they are sadly unsurprising.

[TheFeniX]

As the year draws to a close it's very likely you're unaware that GamerGate is still active unless they target you, or you follow members on Twitter. It's become a completely insular network of paranoid, reactionary gamers who just want things to go back to the way things were, before they had to exist in a world where women played games and outlets wrote about more than just "fun factor."

The article hits some good points, but this part of the closing makes me wonder if it was written circa-2000. "Go back to when women didn't game?" I'm sorry, did The Sims never get released? Am I in a bizarro world where the MUD/MMORPG was never invented? No, something else got the trolls riled up as you have to go way back or focus on genres that don't really exist anymore to find the real "boysclub" of gaming the article is talking about.

Or, We could talk about the current "Hardcore" gaming demographic where women are underrepresented in both players and game characters. Tacticool shooters like CoD. The issue is: if that's the problem, why are we focusing on this "neckbeard" demographics that no. one. panders. to. because said neckbeards would already either not play your game because they hate everything or would just pirate it because fuck you?

I can buy that those cretins were the match the started the fire, but there's a lot of fuel out there. Which makes a lot of sense because billion(s) dollar a year industries attract all kinds. I mean, TV's been around for 100 years and we solved all the bullshit sexism on that front, right? RIGHT?

And I don't see how expecting a game reviewer to focus on more than "Fun Factor" is a bad thing. Fun is pretty god damn subjective and I expect entertainment to be entertaining, even it it's not funny like with a Drama. The point of a trusted reviewer is to explain why it's fun.

[bilateralrope]

As the year draws to a close it's very likely you're unaware that GamerGate is still active unless they target you, or you follow members on Twitter. It's become a completely insular network of paranoid, reactionary gamers who just want things to go back to the way things were, before they had to exist in a world where women played games and outlets wrote about more than just "fun factor."

The article hits some good points, but this part of the closing makes me wonder if it was written circa-2000. "Go back to when women didn't game?" I'm sorry, did The Sims never get released? Am I in a bizarro world where the MUD/MMORPG was never invented? No, something else got the trolls riled up as you have to go way back or focus on genres that don't really exist anymore to find the real "boysclub" of gaming the article is talking about.

I'm sure I could find racists who want to turn back civil rights progress a much greater number of years. So it shouldn't be surprising if the misogynists in GamerGate want to go back that far. If they even realise how far back they want to turn things.

Or, We could talk about the current "Hardcore" gaming demographic where women are underrepresented in both players and game characters. Tacticool shooters like CoD. The issue is: if that's the problem, why are we focusing on this "neckbeard" demographics that no. one. panders. to. because said neckbeards would already either not play your game because they hate everything or would just pirate it because fuck you?

Because the GamerGate neckbeards are making a lot of threats. Like how they got a talk by Anita Sarkeesian canceled by threatening a mass shooting. They were loud enough to be newsworthy.

Now they are being brought up at the end of the year because they were a significant event this year even though they aren't newsworthy any more.

And I don't see how expecting a game reviewer to focus on more than "Fun Factor" is a bad thing. Fun is pretty god damn subjective and I expect entertainment to be entertaining, even it it's not funny like with a Drama. The point of a trusted reviewer is to explain why it's fun.

I mostly agree. The point of a reviewer is to let you know if a game is worth your time and money. Which means explaining why it's engaging enough to justify its price.

I say engaging, not fun, because while fun games have their place, expecting all games to be fun seems limiting. Games don't need to be fun to be good. For example I've seen a lot of people praising This War of Mine for how it makes them feel terrible.

[Vendetta]

The article hits some good points, but this part of the closing makes me wonder if it was written circa-2000. "Go back to when women didn't game?" I'm sorry, did The Sims never get released? Am I in a bizarro world where the MUD/MMORPG was never invented? No, something else got the trolls riled up as you have to go way back or focus on genres that don't really exist anymore to find the real "boysclub" of gaming the article is talking about.

It's probably because "back to when women didn't publicly express critical opinions about videogames" is a bit of a mouthful and doesn't scan as well. Women have consistently been playing games, but now they're looking at the output of the genres they traditionally aren't thought of as playing and explaining why that might be. And that's super threatening to fatnerds so they have to fight back.

Or, We could talk about the current "Hardcore" gaming demographic where women are underrepresented in both players and game characters. Tacticool shooters like CoD. The issue is: if that's the problem, why are we focusing on this "neckbeard" demographics that no. one. panders. to. because said neckbeards would already either not play your game because they hate everything or would just pirate it because fuck you?

It's not just the shootmans genre where women are underrepresented though, just about every "AAA" videogame ever in every genre ever has basically the same guy in. You know the one, 30ish white male with brown hair and a bit of stubble, almost always boring as fuck as an actual character, and probably voiced by Nolan North. (and this is more of a recent thing, because before videogames could accurately render a 30ish white male with brown hair and a bit of stubble there were much more varied protagonists based on what could be distinctively rendered in the hardware limitations of the age.)

It's a symptom of the risk averseness of the triple-A industry of course, but the cultural assumption that 30ish white male with brown hair and a bit of stubble is the "least risky" and most relatable protagonist is, of course, sexist in itself.

[TheFeniX]

I'm sure I could find racists who want to turn back civil rights progress a much greater number of years. So it shouldn't be surprising if the misogynists in GamerGate want to go back that far. If they even realise how far back they want to turn things.

Just because Gamergaters can't do their research doesn't mean "journalists" (I use the term loosely WRT gaming journalism) shouldn't.

Because the GamerGate neckbeards are making a lot of threats. Like how they got a talk by Anita Sarkeesian canceled by threatening a mass shooting. They were loud enough to be newsworthy.

I'm not debating that. I'm just getting weirded out that people have latched onto the idea that not only is this showing how bad the average gamer is, but also that the average gamer happens to be the same much smaller group of people who've been playing for decades and somehow multiplied by 100. Which is it? Is the market so bad because of the old-hat hate everything guys who haven't been taken seriously for 10 years, or is it that the average person now playing video games is a different demographic?

It's probably because "back to when women didn't publicly express critical opinions about videogames" is a bit of a mouthful and doesn't scan as well. Women have consistently been playing games, but now they're looking at the output of the genres they traditionally aren't thought of as playing and explaining why that might be. And that's super threatening to fatnerds so they have to fight back.

The primary push-back in the mid-90s centered around "ultra-violent" video games like Mortal Kombat and GTA (the former of which lead to the creation of the ESRB) was a decidedly female (read: Mothers) reaction to the medium. Were there death threats made against these women? I'd say definitely, but we didn't have an established Internet, their realm was in other news sources, nor was their really a 24-hour news cycle back then (once again: Internet). And video games weren't worth 100 billion dollars so news stations couldn't get that much mileage out of it.

Either way, Fatnerds lost out to Dudebros long before people started pointing out the obvious sexism problems in video games. Honestly, no one in the industry cares what they think unless they are making death threats or yelling slurs at women. It is the only reason they are relevant.

It's not just the shootmans genre where women are underrepresented though, just about every "AAA" videogame ever in every genre ever has basically the same guy in. You know the one, 30ish white male with brown hair and a bit of stubble, almost always boring as fuck as an actual character, and probably voiced by Nolan North. (and this is more of a recent thing, because before videogames could accurately render a 30ish white male with brown hair and a bit of stubble there were much more varied protagonists based on what could be distinctively rendered in the hardware limitations of the age.)

Yea, and that shit sells so well Ubisoft can release 22 AssCreed games in 8 years and make millions. My jab at CoD was pretty shitty either way since even back in CoD: MW there was only like one All-American white-dude and he gets nuked. They found a formula that works and they are going to print money off it until the well dries up.

It's a symptom of the risk averseness of the triple-A industry of course, but the cultural assumption that 30ish white male with brown hair and a bit of stubble is the "least risky" and most relatable protagonist is, of course, sexist in itself.

Then why are movie theaters showing almost nothing but "another white male lead, but maybe Will Smith because white people don't find him offensive?" Because that shit sells: there's the answer to all the bullshit. If it wasn't so fucking profitable to play the same tired shit over and over and over again: they wouldn't do it. Gaming is nothing special on this front, it just finally got to a point where there was enough money involved to make it just like every other entertainment medium.