Pages

Jump to bottom

36 comments

1 electrotek  Feb 21, 2015 4:18:36pm

And somehow, you will never see such esteemed feminists like Pamela Geller come to her defence, any wonder why?

2 Dark_Falcon  Feb 21, 2015 6:17:57pm

And here we come to the sad truth: Terrorism can work. Yes, I went there, for this sort of intimidation campaign can be called little else. And given time such campaigns wear their victims down, in large part because the target has no way to hit back. Each individual attack could be laughed off, but when massed together they are incredibly frightening and they force the target to adopt a defensive mentality and lifestyle that leaves her isolated to a great degree.

Like a official marked for death by Al Qaeda, the target of one of these hate mobs cannot go out and have a normal night on the town, for she never knows when one of the men passing by might turn out to be the one throws something nasty at her, tries to haul her into a closet or alley, or who goes full terrorist and draws a gun. The target is thus forced to give up most social activity and remain confined to planned actions while only interacting with trusted people. There are some people who can handle that kind of life for a long time, and those are the ones who fight the hardest, but most people can’t. Eventually their need for normality overwhelms their desire to improve things and they either submit to the terrorists’ demands or they run away.

This sort of anti-women net campaign must be fought as with a COIN* strategy: Finding ways to ID any major figures in the campaign and working to neutralize them, coupled with arrest and punishment of lower level perpetrators in order to convince the those inclined to the cause that it isn’t worth fighting for. If this last sounds like a reverse of the insurgent/terrorist tactic I outlined above, that’s because it is just that. To defeat a terrorist group, its organization and morale must be disrupted. Defending its targets is important, but battles are not won on defense; The fight must be taken to the enemy or the fight will be lost.

*: COIN = COunter-INsurgency

3 HappyWarrior  Feb 21, 2015 8:05:53pm

Sucks to see a bunch of bullying assholes win.

4 KiTA  Feb 22, 2015 12:24:04am

I suppose this is when I, as a proud liberal feminist and supporter of Gamergate, try in vain to point out that Gamergate has nothing to do with sexism in the games industry nor has anything to do with supposed rape threats, leading to a whole mess of downvotes and me generally feeling like mud for daring to disagree with the party line…

…Hell, the last time I tried to have a dissenting opinion about Gamergate here I was called “less than a shitstain” by people I respected…

But instead, I think I’ll just shake my head and laugh. I guess being a professional victim really does pay more than being a professional journalist.

5 Roger S  Feb 22, 2015 1:46:41am

re: #4 KiTA

Can you clarify what you mean or post links on how Gamergate is not about what I read it was about? I’ll try to find out through Google for now. Thanks.

6 KiTA  Feb 22, 2015 2:59:37am

re: #5 Roger S

Can you clarify what you mean or post links on how Gamergate is not about what I read it was about? I’ll try to find out through Google for now. Thanks.

Your best bet to get started would be right over here:
wiki.gamergate.me

But here’s the problem.

Gamergate itself is about ethics in journalism. Video game journalism has been bad for a very, very long time — not just pay for play, but nepotism, blacklisting, you name it. Everyone has suspected this for a very very long time. Last August a particularly bad gaming website, Kotaku, decided to let one of it’s writers, Nathan Greyson, do a PR Blitz about his girlfriend’s projects. (It’s important to note that they made no disclosure about Mr. Greyson’s personal relationship with the subject of his writing, this would become a distressingly common problem going forward.)

When his girlfriend’s ex boyfriend came forward with evidence of this and other ethical and behavior problems, instead of doing the ethical thing and asking him to step down or even having a mea culpa moment for the conflict of interest and lack of transparency, they circled the wagons. About 15-20 websites all posted the same basic article in the same week, claiming that “Gamers are Dead.” Then it was discovered that those websites were all part of a mailing list that was intentionally fixing review scores, violating NDAs, and blacklisting stories, games, and developers.

That sparked Gamergate, a consumer revolt against all this.

The problem is that Nathan Greyson’s girlfriend at the time was Zoe Quinn, a professional victim and faux “Third Wave” feminist. She’s a real piece of work — she’s been caught blackmailing people, SWATting people, sabotaging feminist organizations, et cetera. She’s not a real feminist (in that she intentionally doxed and sabotaged several feminist groups and set up a fake feminist group in order to steal donations from them) but she does have quite the following on Twitter. So when she started intentionally raising a ruckus on Twitter about all this, the echo chamber exploded and a bunch of single issue wonk faux feminists (The “Social Justice Warriors”) came out of the woodwork trying to make it about a nonexistent problem with sexism in the gaming industry.

The gaming journalists, who were being caught red handed with all kinds of ethics violations thanks to that mailing list being discovered, decided to push a narrative to cover their own arses.

That’s why when people talk about Gamergate you see two entirely different realities — its a form of politics. This article by a political historian explains it far better than I can:
techcrunch.com

There’s the actual GamerGaters, who are consumers who are royally pissed off about ethics violations in the gaming media, and there are the other side (“Anti-GG” or GamerGhazi) who see GamerGate as a bunch of entitled straight white men who are just so pissed off that women are invading their hobby.

Both sides have trolls, and there’s a few third party groups of trolls (The GNAA / SomethingAwful / Baphomet) intentionally riling up both sides. Both sides have had and done bad things, but you won’t hear about harassment of Pro-GamerGaters out there — it doesn’t fit the narrative. For example, a free speech lawyer in California had Zoe Quinn and her friend attempt to SWAT him; a gay journalist in London who was sympathetic to GamerGate had a syringe and a dead animal sent to his house. Recently some nutjob threatened to release poison gas at PAX, this is a few weeks after one of these nutjobs “accidentally” set off a canister of mace in a college’s ventilation system when she discovered there were gamers meeting in the cafeteria.

In short, it’s a pretty stupid situation that will eventually die down when these really crappy gaming news sites like Kotaku and Polygon eventually run out of inertia and die. Until then, I get to enjoy being called everything but a human because I like to play Minecraft and Monster Hunter after work. Joy.

7 Jayleia  Feb 22, 2015 5:47:41am

re: #6 KiTA

Gamergate itself is about ethics in journalism. Video game journalism has been bad for a very, very long time — not just pay for play, but nepotism, blacklisting, you name it. Everyone has suspected this for a very very long time. Last August a particularly bad gaming website, Kotaku, decided to let one of it’s writers, Nathan Greyson, do a PR Blitz about his girlfriend’s projects. (It’s important to note that they made no disclosure about Mr. Greyson’s personal relationship with the subject of his writing, this would become a distressingly common problem going forward.)

PR Blitz is NOT what I’d call that. Yes, he didn’t mention his relationship, because he didn’t have one with her yet. And really, when will Gamergaters threaten TotalBiscuit with rape and murder for plugging Shadow of Mordor under contract? Oh…he’s a gater, so its OK for him.

When his girlfriend’s ex boyfriend came forward with evidence of this and other ethical and behavior problems, instead of doing the ethical thing and asking him to step down or even having a mea culpa moment for the conflict of interest and lack of transparency, they circled the wagons. About 15-20 websites all posted the same basic article in the same week, claiming that “Gamers are Dead.” Then it was discovered that those websites were all part of a mailing list that was intentionally fixing review scores, violating NDAs, and blacklisting stories, games, and developers.

Ah, yes, the infamous “Gamers are Dead” articles…posted on large commercial websites devoted to…informing gamers about games and gaming.

And yes, Gamers are Dead…at least the image of gamers as losers living in their retired parent’s basement because they can’t handle living in civilized society. Of course, some Gamergaters brought that image screaming back…good job Gamergate. Also, game press is a kind of tightly knit thing, when one posts a thing that gets attention, everyone else talks about it.

So when she started intentionally raising a ruckus on Twitter about all this, the echo chamber exploded and a bunch of single issue wonk faux feminists (The “Social Justice Warriors”) came out of the woodwork trying to make it about a nonexistent problem with sexism in the gaming industry.

As it happens, I happen to know a few of those so-called “single-issue faux feminists”…no, you’re entirely wrong about everything from “the echo chamber exploded” onward. I’ve been there for some of that, I’ve seen moderators in some of the bigger gamergate forums tell people that are trying to PREVENT doxxing, they get banhammered. And lets not even go into Gamergate’s choices of who needs an education in ethics…or how they should be educated.

As I know about the later events, that makes me question your account of the earlier events.

The gaming journalists, who were being caught red handed with all kinds of ethics violations thanks to that mailing list being discovered, decided to push a narrative to cover their own arses.

That’s why when people talk about Gamergate you see two entirely different realities — its a form of politics. This article by a political historian explains it far better than I can:

Yes, there are two different realities. Again, TotalBiscuit took a contract to promote Shadows of Mordor, without disclosing it, and he fulfilled his contract. Nathan Grayson asked his FUTURE GF about a different game, and mentioned that she had made a game, so that way people would know that the person he was talking to wasn’t a janitor.

One of those is the worst thing ever to Gamergate, the other is…not even mentioned by them.

There’s the actual GamerGaters, who are consumers who are royally pissed off about ethics violations in the gaming media, and there are the other side (“Anti-GG” or GamerGhazi) who see GamerGate as a bunch of entitled straight white men who are just so pissed off that women are invading their hobby.

I would be a gamergater if I had seen them attempt to do anything to do with ethics in gaming media…except as an accidental result of trying to attack SJWs. Which…I’ve never seen a good definition for “SJW”, except for “disagrees with Gamergate”.

8 Dark_Falcon  Feb 22, 2015 6:45:59am

re: #6 KiTA

1. Gamergate in some ways started out being about journalistic ethics, but it rapidly mutated into an excuse for misogynists to attack women online. And that’s what it is now, and it can’t become something good again.

2. You claim “Both sides have had and done bad things, but you won’t hear about harassment of Pro-GamerGaters out there — it doesn’t fit the narrative.” While I am sympathetic to claims that some things having not been reported for having not fit The Narrative, you would need to show evidence that those things did in fact happen. Especially about Zoe Quinn trying to have someone SWATted. Please present some evidence if you wish your claims to be taken seriously.

9 Eigth Immortal  Feb 22, 2015 9:40:03am

re: #4 KiTA

Bullshit. You can say that all you want, but the rest of us ran out of patience a long time ago. I don’t follow games journalism, so I don’t know if they have an ethics problem. Maybe they really do. If they do, then fight that good fight. But stop pretending that GamerGate is fighting it with you. They aren’t. If they really care, they don’t care enough to figure out how to do it properly. The gomergoaters have month after month proven that they are threatening women because the kids don’t want to share. The instigator has been exposed as manipulating the whole thing for petty personal revenge.

10 Eigth Immortal  Feb 22, 2015 9:48:25am

I would be a gamergater if I had seen them attempt to do anything to do with ethics in gaming media…except as an accidental result of trying to attack SJWs. Which…I’ve never seen a good definition for “SJW”, except for “disagrees with Gamergate”.

Last Fall Cracked pointed how off it was that a group that supposedly stood for ethics thought it social justice warrior is an insult.

How strange it is to see one of the magazines I read at summer camp for lewd humor turn into this.

11 JamesWI  Feb 22, 2015 11:55:33am

re: #6 KiTA

A “PR blitz” for her game….. also known as a one-sentence blurb mentioning her game in one article.

Man, he went all out on that PR blitz!!!!

If it was actually “about ethics in video game journalism,” Gamergate would have always been focused on the relationship between the major studios/developers and the big gaming sites.

Instead, it focused on…. “Those slutty slutty sluts” who worked on indie games that almost no one had even heard of before you idiots started attacking them.

12 KiTA  Feb 22, 2015 12:01:00pm

re: #7 Jayleia

PR Blitz is NOT what I’d call that. Yes, he didn’t mention his relationship, because he didn’t have one with her yet. And really, when will Gamergaters threaten TotalBiscuit with rape and murder for plugging Shadow of Mordor under contract? Oh…he’s a gater, so its OK for him.

Bullshit. He was in a romantic relationship with her before the game jam articles he wrote about her, and in a friendship with her before that. None of it was disclosed. This is well documented and not up for debate — Nathan Greyson violated journalistic ethics when he covered his friend and later girlfriend’s projects without disclosure. And he’s not the only one - there are journalists plugging their roommate’s projects, journalists donating to indy developer’s patreons without disclosure, what have you.

If it would get you fired from Fox News of all places, it has no place in any news company.

As for TB, it’s not open because he’s supposedly a member of GamerGate - he’s not - It’s because he actually practices ethical journalism and discloses ties openly, to the point that some publishers have asked him to stop doing so. And the “plugging Mordor under contact?” Yeah, that’s actually a lie — he refused to take part of that and broke the story about the scandal.

Oh, and the rape and murder thing is bullshit, there has never been an organized effort to threaten anyone with rape and murder by GamerGate. Ever. In fact, we’ve hunted down monsters like the guy who was harassing the Feminist Frequency lady.

Ah, yes, the infamous “Gamers are Dead” articles…posted on large commercial websites devoted to…informing gamers about games and gaming.

Yes, because when you’re running a website, it makes a lot of sense to posts long screeds about how your target audience is dead? And then they wonder why the advertisement money is drying up…

And yes, Gamers are Dead…at least the image of gamers as losers living in their retired parent’s basement because they can’t handle living in civilized society. Of course, some Gamergaters brought that image screaming back…good job Gamergate. Also, game press is a kind of tightly knit thing, when one posts a thing that gets attention, everyone else talks about it.

No, that’s actually another strawman attack. The real reason it was posted all over those websites is that the editors and journalists of those websites were members of a Google Plus mailing list called gamejournopros which was caught specifically talking about refusing to talk about this scandal THEN making up a gameplan to try to distract everyone from it.

As it happens, I happen to know a few of those so-called “single-issue faux feminists”…no, you’re entirely wrong about everything from “the echo chamber exploded” onward.

No, I’m not. I watched it happen. The demagogues like Sarkeesian or Wu swooped in, made up threats about themselves, riled up their twitter followers, then passed out the collection plate (Patreon link).

It was actually quite a beautiful con job.

I’ve been there for some of that, I’ve seen moderators in some of the bigger gamergate forums tell people that are trying to PREVENT doxxing, they get banhammered.

Ok, calling bullshit on that one — which forum?

Yes, there are two different realities. Again, TotalBiscuit took a contract to promote Shadows of Mordor, without disclosing it, and he fulfilled his contract. Nathan Grayson asked his FUTURE GF about a different game, and mentioned that she had made a game, so that way people would know that the person he was talking to wasn’t a janitor.

Future Girlfriend… Current Friend… and then Current Girlfriend because these articles didn’t all occur at a single point in time. Unless you want to believe that he met her and started a romantic relationship with her in the span of a day, which wouldn’t even make sense since both of them were talking about it on Twitter for months.

As for TotalBiscuit, the only reason we know ANTYHING about the Mordor scandal is because TotalBiscuit was the one that broke that story:
gamesreviews.com

Oh, and he wasn’t a part of it, either — that’s a lie being used to slander him since he got on the SJW’s hit list a few weeks back when he got into it with that nutjob, Wu.

One of those is the worst thing ever to Gamergate, the other is…not even mentioned by them.

The other thing isn’t mentioned because it didn’t happen. Fancy that.

I would be a gamergater if I had seen them attempt to do anything to do with ethics in gaming media…except as an accidental result of trying to attack SJWs. Which…I’ve never seen a good definition for “SJW”, except for “disagrees with Gamergate”.

If you don’t think GamerGate has done anything about ethics in gaming media, then I’m starting to think this is a lost cause.

There’s a good list here:
wiki.gamergate.me

Just as an off the cuff example, the FTC recently completely redid their disclosure rules for affiliate links directly because of GamerGate. We also were instrumental in getting Kotaku et all to apologies to the CEO of Stardock for a slanderous article claiming he was a sexual predator.

There’s been a half dozen gaming journalism websites finally post ethical guidelins and started enforcing them — and a few of them cleaned house as a result of it. All as a result of us. Go team GG! :)

As for SJW: A Single Issue Faux Feminist Wonk. Or, if you’d like, a “Feminist Tea Partier.” They’re insane, and if you’re interested in a good laugh, come take a look at some screenshots of the madness over here:
reddit.com

13 KiTA  Feb 22, 2015 12:13:19pm

re: #8 Dark_Falcon

2. You claim “Both sides have had and done bad things, but you won’t hear about harassment of Pro-GamerGaters out there — it doesn’t fit the narrative.” While I am sympathetic to claims that some things having not been reported for having not fit The Narrative, you would need to show evidence that those things did in fact happen. Especially about Zoe Quinn trying to have someone SWATted. Please present some evidence if you wish your claims to be taken seriously.

From the victim’s mouth:
crimeandfederalism.com
crimeandfederalism.com

14 KingKenrod  Feb 22, 2015 12:21:48pm

re: #13 KiTA

From the victim’s mouth:
crimeandfederalism.com
crimeandfederalism.com

Mike Cernovich reads like Chuck Johnson. I find his assessment of the evidence hysterical. Can’t you cite any credible reporting on this?

15 EiMitch  Feb 22, 2015 12:32:00pm

Gamergate again? Really? … Ugh, that does it! I’ve avoided this topic for so long, waiting for this dead horse to be buried and left in peace. But I can’t hold it in anymore.

To start, here is an impartial, NSFW review of the #GG controversy. I don’t agree with everything AngryJoe says, but damn close. Edit: jump to 31:45 for the GG topic. Not that the rest of it isn’t worth watching. It certainly is. Oh, and did I mention its NSFW? Because it is.

Here is my recap of that video. On one hand:

- Not everyone who self-identifies as GG is a trolling a-hole. Decent people joined that “movement” too. Beats me as to why, but they have.

- There is no way to control who uses a hashtag on Twitter. There is no recruitment process, no screening of any kind. Anyone can put a # on their tweet. And Twitter can’t deal with trolls worth a damn. Therefore…

- There are always subversive a-holes ready to use any “cause” as an excuse to troll. Those who trolled in the name of GG have likely trolled before, and will most likely troll again in the name of a different “cause.” Hell, they probably have already. Destroying GG won’t do anything to stop it.

But on the other hand:

- GGers are either in denial of their hashtag’s unsavory origins, or they just don’t care. Or…

- GGers are delusional enough to think they can save it from it’s irrevocably poisoned image.

- How pretentious are they to insist that only GG stands for ethics in gaming journalism?

But enough about the link above. Here are my own thoughts:

GGers and anti-GGers seem to have a missed what IMO should’ve been the #1 lesson from this whole head-on semi-truck collision. They’ve worked themselves up on their own biases, SWJs and sexism respectively, that they’ve either paid the briefest of lip-service to, or outright ignored, the elephant in the room: Trolls. Ruin. Everything. To elaborate:

- GGers were so hung-up about SJWs and feminists “derailing the movement” they forgot that all of their opponents ammo came from the enemy within, trolls. And…

- Anti-GGers jumped to the conclusion that GG was the source of the problem and decided to troll right back at them. As stated above, its naive and futile at best, or counterproductive at worst.

If you tune-out the trolling and other internet drama and focus on what “good” GGers are trying to say about gaming journalism, it’s a joke. They’re basically claiming that gaming review sites are being paid-off (which GGers don’t really seem care about, and I’ll get back to that) and that they’re pushing some kind of SJW agenda. Um, sure. The only “real” proof of the big bad SJW conspiracy they have is that notorious “Gamers are Dead” article. That’s it. Everything else is either:

- Confirmation bias. “Why do all these game reviewers seem to like the same games and hate on the same games?” Do a Google search some time, and look beyond the first page results. Or its because…

- Like movie critics, game critics don’t have the general public’s same freedom of choice. They have to review some things they’d rather not. Critics get exposed to the same tropes and formulas, over & over. Even if they liked said tropes and formulas at first, they get sick of them before they know it. They beg for diversity, not because they care about social justice, but because they’ve gone stir crazy.

There will always some disagreement or other form of disconnect between consumers and critics. Its the nature of the beast. No conspiracy is needed to explain it. Accept it and get over it, GGers.

Lest we forget, why is it that major game publishers, the so-called triple-A, keep flooding the market with games that star white dues, and the majority of those games get positive reviews? Where is the social justice agenda there, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

And as for the notion of reviewers getting paid off, how many people complained about Shadow of Mordor’s review copy policy with the GG hashtag? How many GGers complained about Mountain Dew being the Budweiser of video games? Nope, there is no SJW/feminist angle to base complaints on, so screw that. The supposed SJW agenda was the real focus. And alot of that has been centered on indie games and their devs, not “mainstream” games. This makes GGers conspiracy theories more preposterous.

Any and all actual conspiracies in this industry happen behind the closed doors of corporate boardrooms amongst people in suits whose names your most likely don’t know. And it’s a safe bet that they laugh at the notion or feminism or social justice meaning a damn thing to them. Its all about milking as much money as possible out of us.

To sum up GG: it was born from BS internet drama. Trolls jumped on it like white on rice because any excuse to harass people gives a troll’s miserable existence some purpose. It escalated into a full-blown internet vigilante war. (and shame on Anti-GGers for that escalation. Trolling doesn’t solve trolling) Many good people have been terrified to the point of walking away from their chosen profession. Invaluable voices and POVs have been lost, both in feminism and games journalism.

And the “non-harassing” GGers are too self-centered to give a crap about any of that. They pay what feels like mandatory lip-service to how nobody should be harassed, before they resume whining at great length about how their conspiracy theories got derailed by SJWs. Boo-frigging-hoo. If it weren’t for the trolls, #Gamergate would’ve been remembered as a joke instead. Nobody was going to listen to GGers either way. So…

And like I said, trolls are the real enemy. Social media companies, law enforcement, and lawmakers all need to get serious about dealing with trolls. Otherwise, this will happen again. And don’t be surprised if its mostly the same trolls under a new banner.

16 CuriousLurker  Feb 22, 2015 2:25:44pm

re: #4 KiTA

I’m not following GG, but have a down-ding for your self-righteous whining.

17 Varek Raith  Feb 22, 2015 3:08:06pm

FFS.

18 klys (maker of Silmarils)  Feb 22, 2015 4:31:04pm

There is nothing that makes me feel worse than listening to someone pretend there is no harassment at all and all women who speak out about it are lying, grifters, etc.

And that’s really the last bit I will say on this topic, because to say more is to open myself up to harassment by people who claim they don’t harass anyone.

19 gwangung  Feb 22, 2015 5:19:22pm

re: #12 KiTA

Bullshit. He was in a romantic relationship with her before the game jam articles he wrote about her, and in a friendship with her before that. None of it was disclosed. This is well documented and not up for debate — Nathan Greyson violated journalistic ethics when he covered his friend and later girlfriend’s projects without disclosure. And he’s not the only one - there are journalists plugging their roommate’s projects, journalists donating to indy developer’s patreons without disclosure, what have you.

If it would get you fired from Fox News of all places, it has no place in any news company.

As for TB, it’s not open because he’s supposedly a member of GamerGate - he’s not - It’s because he actually practices ethical journalism and discloses ties openly, to the point that some publishers have asked him to stop doing so. And the “plugging Mordor under contact?” Yeah, that’s actually a lie — he refused to take part of that and broke the story about the scandal.

Oh, and the rape and murder thing is bullshit, there has never been an organized effort to threaten anyone with rape and murder by GamerGate. Ever. In fact, we’ve hunted down monsters like the guy who was harassing the Feminist Frequency lady.

Yes, because when you’re running a website, it makes a lot of sense to posts long screeds about how your target audience is dead? And then they wonder why the advertisement money is drying up…

No, that’s actually another strawman attack. The real reason it was posted all over those websites is that the editors and journalists of those websites were members of a Google Plus mailing list called gamejournopros which was caught specifically talking about refusing to talk about this scandal THEN making up a gameplan to try to distract everyone from it.

No, I’m not. I watched it happen. The demagogues like Sarkeesian or Wu swooped in, made up threats about themselves, riled up their twitter followers, then passed out the collection plate (Patreon link).

It was actually quite a beautiful con job.

Ok, calling bullshit on that one — which forum?

Future Girlfriend… Current Friend… and then Current Girlfriend because these articles didn’t all occur at a single point in time. Unless you want to believe that he met her and started a romantic relationship with her in the span of a day, which wouldn’t even make sense since both of them were talking about it on Twitter for months.

As for TotalBiscuit, the only reason we know ANTYHING about the Mordor scandal is because TotalBiscuit was the one that broke that story:
gamesreviews.com

Oh, and he wasn’t a part of it, either — that’s a lie being used to slander him since he got on the SJW’s hit list a few weeks back when he got into it with that nutjob, Wu.

The other thing isn’t mentioned because it didn’t happen. Fancy that.

If you don’t think GamerGate has done anything about ethics in gaming media, then I’m starting to think this is a lost cause.

There’s a good list here:
wiki.gamergate.me

Just as an off the cuff example, the FTC recently completely redid their disclosure rules for affiliate links directly because of GamerGate. We also were instrumental in getting Kotaku et all to apologies to the CEO of Stardock for a slanderous article claiming he was a sexual predator.

There’s been a half dozen gaming journalism websites finally post ethical guidelins and started enforcing them — and a few of them cleaned house as a result of it. All as a result of us. Go team GG! :)

As for SJW: A Single Issue Faux Feminist Wonk. Or, if you’d like, a “Feminist Tea Partier.” They’re insane, and if you’re interested in a good laugh, come take a look at some screenshots of the madness over here:
reddit.com

Sorry, but you don’t have a clue about journalistic ethics OR, apparently, Gamergate.

I can point out several things wrong you get about journalism and ethics. Why should I listen to you about the events here?

20 gwangung  Feb 22, 2015 5:24:19pm

Also…

latimes.com

Any connection between this and GamerGate is purely structural.

21 The_Mess  Feb 22, 2015 5:43:48pm

/delurks

And here’s a very comprehensive over view on the gamergate douchebags:
rationalwiki.org

Which beautifully cluebat’s KiTA’s claims about it being about “ethics in journalism”.

/relurks

22 KiTA  Feb 23, 2015 1:23:37am

re: #18 klys (maker of Silmarils)

There is nothing that makes me feel worse than listening to someone pretend there is no harassment at all and all women who speak out about it are lying, grifters, etc..

I’m sorry, I must have misspoken somehow but I don’t see it — can you please point to where I said there is no harassment at all?

Both sides have clearly been harassed. It’s an anonymous social media system and I’m sure all of us know that trolling comes with the territory. That doesn’t mean that GamerGate did the harassing, nor does it mean that SJWs did the harassing. Nor does it mean that GamerGate is a “hate group” or that SJWs are a group of racist, misandric attention seekers.

Nor did I say that all women who speak out about harassment are lying grifters — clearly this is not true and I’m saddened that you thought I would suggest that.

What I have said, and will continue to say, that three SPECIFIC women involved in this — Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn, and Anita Sarkeesian — are lying grifters. Of this, there is no doubt.

23 scottslemmons  Feb 23, 2015 6:40:58am

GamerGators hate women. That’s the only way they make sense. Everything they’ve done is entirely senseless if you take the “ethics in journalism” stuff seriously — but makes perfect, mad sense if you realize that their only motive is cartoonish and vile hatred of half the population of the Earth.

I’m sorry you feel unhappy with your life, KiTA, but hating women won’t make you happier. Find another way to deal with the world.

24 klys (maker of Silmarils)  Feb 23, 2015 10:37:48am

re: #22 KiTA

re: #18 klys (maker of Silmarils)

And that’s really the last bit I will say on this topic, because to say more is to open myself up to harassment by people who claim they don’t harass anyone.

25 KiTA  Feb 23, 2015 12:00:35pm

re: #23 scottslemmons

GamerGators hate women. That’s the only way they make sense. Everything they’ve done is entirely senseless if you take the “ethics in journalism” stuff seriously — but makes perfect, mad sense if you realize that their only motive is cartoonish and vile hatred of half the population of the Earth.

I’m sorry you feel unhappy with your life, KiTA, but hating women won’t make you happier. Find another way to deal with the world.

Very epic strawmanning there. Not only do you arbitrarily define a consumer movement to somehow be an anti-woman movement, you then immediately use this made up fake version of GamerGate that exists only in your head to slander me without any form of evidence. Bravo!

Well sorry bud, but it’s not true. And I reject your attempt to just arbitrarily define me as some form of misogynist. I’d ask again — please give me some examples of what I’ve said in this thread that apparently makes me a woman hater?

But this whole thread went about where I expected it to, as evidenced by well, stuff like the above, and the mass inappropriate downvoting. Not that I’m taking real umbrage since I’m fully aware of the false narrative.

I feel going forward will be less than productive. I’ll leave you all with these two videos by award winning feminist scholar and democrat, Doctor Christina Hoff Summers:

Good day everyone, and be blessed.

26 [deleted]  Feb 23, 2015 1:13:05pm
27 [deleted]  Feb 23, 2015 1:39:16pm
28 [deleted]  Feb 23, 2015 1:56:01pm
29 Charles Johnson  Feb 23, 2015 3:10:54pm

Deleted those comments by request.

30 The Ghost of Tonalite Gneiss  Feb 23, 2015 4:00:24pm

I requested my posts be removed because I hit “Post It” instead of “Preview” on the first post, then fumbled further trying to go back and in-line links and edit.

31 EPR-radar  Feb 23, 2015 5:16:17pm

re: #25 KiTA

Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (i.e., wingnut central).

So fluffing up the appeal to authority by referring to Doctor CH Sommers as a ‘feminist scholar and democrat’ is thoroughly deceptive.

32 The_Mess  Feb 23, 2015 6:08:40pm

By the Elder things…

KiTA claims to be “liberal” and a “feminist” and yet cites Sommers of all people. On top of linking to “Tumbler in Action” subreddit, which like “Kotaku in Action” is primarily about trolling.

You’d think KiTA would at least try for a more cohesive cover, but nope.

btw:

What I have said, and will continue to say, that three SPECIFIC women involved in this — Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn, and Anita Sarkeesian — are lying grifters. Of this, there is no doubt.

In the immortal words of those who have seen great stupid before me - lolwut?

If that were the case, why the hell is it so easy to find multiple examples of harassment coming from twitter accounts pre-dating tropes vs etc? Oh right, they so totes planned all this ages ago according to those totes backed up charts /rolleyes

There’s also the fact the FBI are now involved, which is usually a good indicator something rather real is going on. But hey, why pay attention to the harassment, rape and murder threats against multiple women, when you can argue it’s about “ethics” instead?

33 Dark_Falcon  Feb 23, 2015 6:14:57pm

re: #13 KiTA

From the victim’s mouth:
crimeandfederalism.com
crimeandfederalism.com

I read the pieces you linked to and it is my determination that the contention that Zoe Quinn tried to have Mike Cernovich SWATted to be risible. She made a comment about doxxing and SWATting being “a package deal”, but neither piece offers any evidence that Ms. Quinn at any time attempted to falsely claim Mr, Cernovich was engaging in the sort of unlawful conduct that would trigger a police raid. At most, you could saying she incorrectly claimed civil harassment (and I personally don’t believe the claim was false), but that falls a long way sort of SWATting.

34 Dark_Falcon  Feb 23, 2015 6:23:37pm

re: #25 KiTA

Sommers doesn’t address Quinn’s having been harassed online nor does she provide any evidence that Quinn did anything wrong. I actually hold her in good regard, but her work on Gamergate is irrelevant to the topic of this Page.

Your attempt at diversion earns you a downding from me. Either provide evidence that Khal Wimpo’s argument in posting this Page is wrong or shut up.

35 The Ghost of Tonalite Gneiss  Feb 23, 2015 8:51:39pm

CDC study on sexual violence in the U.S. overstates the problem

And the video

and counterpoint:

The assertions in this tweet — that Rolling Stone “invented” its recent story on an alleged gang rape and that this supposed invention single-handedly discredits broader “rape culture” arguments — struck me as even more ridiculous than I’d remembered Sommers being back in the day, so I fired off a quick tweet expressing my surprise.

Too quick, as it turned out, because when I went back to Sommers’ timeline, I saw that it was stuffed with even weirder stuff, much of it in Sommers’ own words. Mildly embarrassed by my ignorance of her current mindset, I deleted the tweet, but as I did so I noticed that several people had already responded to it, so I figured I should explain:

Deleted my CH Sommers tweet. I hadn’t realized quite how deep down the rape denialist well she’d fallen. — Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) December 6, 2014

This second tweet wasn’t directed to her, as you can see — I didn’t include her screen name in it, didn’t @ her on it. It was a heads-up to my own Twitter folks about why the previous tweet had disappeared. But she found it anyway, and RTed it, along with a followup declaring that “Much of the data on sexual violence is flawed. Victims need good research & smart policies—not hype.”

Sommers only has about 32,000 followers, but those two tweets unleashed a flood of responses — all, sadly, while I was on my way to my kid’s birthday party. A few of the tweets were over-the-top repulsive. Most, though, just took issue — often abusively — with my charge that Sommers is a “rape denialist.” It’s those that I wished I’d had time and space to reply to as they came in, and those that I’d like to respond to today. Because I do consider Sommers a rape denialist, and I think it’s important to say exactly what I mean.

So. Why do I say it, and what do I mean?

I mean this: Christina Hoff Sommers, in her many recent public statements about rape and sexual assault in America, understates the prevalence of rape in this country in ways that are unsupported by the evidence. She analogizes America’s rape crisis to entirely invented “crises” of the past while wildly overstating the evidence for the existence of an epidemic of false rape claims. To read her writing, watch her videos, and follow her on Twitter is to be given a wholly unrealistic impression of the scale and seriousness of rape in America. And that’s the case — and this is crucial — even if you agree with her contention that rape reporting data is seriously flawed.

Let me say that again, because this was a core claim that her supporters made on Saturday afternoon: I am not calling Christina Hoff Sommers a rape denialist because we rely on different statistical estimates of the prevalence of rape. I am calling her a rape denialist because the way she deploys even her own preferred statistics is fundamentally bogus.

Enough introduction. Let’s get down to cases.

On Saturday Sommers tweeted me a link to a video in which she critiqued a 2011 CDC study that concluded that about 1.3 million women were raped in 2010, saying that “the agency’s figures are wildly at odds with the official crime statistics, the Justice Department’s annual crime survey.” She’s referring to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which, she says, “reports that there were about 188,000 rapes and sexual assaults in 2010.”

What’s behind this discrepancy, to Sommers’ mind? Beyond unspecific methodological concerns, Sommers offers a number of concrete criticisms of the study’s questioning and statistical analysis.

None of these criticisms hold up.

To begin with, Sommers claims that “no-one interviewed” by the CDC “was asked if they had been raped or sexually assaulted,” but this claim is ridiculously misleading. The study’s core rape estimate was generated by respondents’ answers when asked whether anyone had “used physical force or threats of physical harm to make you have” anal, oral, or vaginal sex — a clear, straightforward, unambiguous description of rape. Some 620,000 of the women that the CDC reported as having been raped in the previous year — almost exactly half of the total — were the result of affirmative answers to that question.

And what about the rest? They answered in the affirmative to questions about either attempted rape or rape facilitated by drugs or alcohol. There too, Sommers dramatically misstates the statistical evidence.

As an example, Sommers makes the following claim: “Sixty-one point five percent of the women the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced what the CDC called ‘alcohol and drug facilitated penetration.’” Here she leaves the clear impression that more than three-fifths of the incidents of rape reported fell into this category, but that’s not the case. Although 61% of the women the CDC says were raped did report alcohol and drug facilitated penetration, 49% reported forced penetration, and another 41% reported attempted forced penetration. Many, in other words, reported multiple types of assault, and alcohol and drug facilitated penetration accounts for 41%, not 61%, of the reports.

But that statistical sleight-of-hand is only a small part of Sommers’ misrepresentation in this area. She suggests that the CDC counts consensual “sex while inebriated” as rape — indefensible, if true — but she does so by selectively and tendentiously quoting from the questionnaire. In fact, that section of the questionnaire — read to all respondents, but never mentioned by Sommers — states specifically that the questions within it concern sexual contact that “happens when a person is unable to consent to it or stop it from happening because they were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out from alcohol, drugs, or medications.”

Sommers knows this, but she deliberately excludes it from her writing and speaking on the topic in order to facilitate her misrepresentation of the CDC report.

Want more? Here’s more. Sommers claims that the NCVS found that there were “about 188,000 rapes and sexual assaults in 2010.” But the CDC figure of 1.3 million, as we have seen, includes both completed and attempted rape, which Sommers’ 188,000 does not. Adding together the NCVS stats for completed and attempted rape, to make it an apples-to-apples comparison with the CDC, gives us a total of a quarter million victims.

So yes, the CDC found more sexual assaults than the NCVS, and yes, they found it by asking broader questions. (The NCVS asks about “rape, attempted rape, or other type of sexual attack.”) But the gap is far smaller than she claims, the CDC’s questions are far more robust than she claims, and the one category of sexual assault that she singles out for mockery is both more reasonable and a smaller portion of the whole than she would have us believe.

And it keeps going and going. Hoff Summers job is to belittle others feminists:

the wage gap—incorrect!

STEM gender gap is perfectly natural! Some people just need to accept not everyone is good at everything!

It’s all couched in the condescending division of “real feminists” from “bad feminists”—the latter of whom are emotional, angry at men, shrill, and bitter. So it’s a feminism that imports sexist tropes to critique feminism. It’s actually a brilliant bit of social aggression: you’re a strong, free woman who agrees with Dr Hoff Summer, not a full-time-victim like those other feminists. The bad “gender feminists” have lots of money and influential friends and therefore are manipulating feminism and government…because that’s not a fucking conspiracy theory…and really just want preferential treatment. And what constitutes preferential treatment? It’s an open variable!

And her “war on boys” meme is just as essentializing of men: all boys are rowdy, so they can’t be expected to behave. All boys are aggressive, so bullying is normal. Boys are suffering…this must be because of The Wrong Kind of Feminist! …it must be because all boys have an inherent masculine character that needs to be nurtured the Right Way.

Indeed, it’s a running theme of her work than anything suggesting girls or women are struggling is wrong or biased—AAUW classrooms studies, CDC work on sexual assault—but men are really getting the shaft because of nasty women. That’s her solution, in search of a problem.

And all of it is being funded by the AEI, who’s the clearing house for fake academic work to validate wingnut positions: global warming, tobacco health issues, on and on ad eternum. They still give Charles Murray money.

Notably absent in Hoff Summers’ flacking career is an interest in video games…until it became an issue about women feeling included. And what’s her argument?

The same thing, again. Hysterical bad feminists, poor boys being put upon.

It’s almost as if it isn’t about ethics in gaming journalism.

36 The Ghost of Tonalite Gneiss  Feb 23, 2015 10:21:22pm

Am I too old for video games? (September 17th, 2013)

And that’s my other question: why are these video games so saturated with sex, drugs and violence? Yes, I know TV and the movies have been going that way for ages, but video games are on another level entirely. I confess I’ve never spent much time in front of the computer screen zapping aliens, but the games I did briefly poke my nose into as a kid - Doom, Hexen and Wolfenstein 3D - were already way out there, which is why so many parents banned them once they actually realised how bloody they were.

and

I understand why young people might get the odd thrill from beating up a bad guy, or catching a glimpse of a nipple or two. But there’s something a bit tragic, isn’t there, about men in their thirties hunched over a controller whacking a helmeted extraterrestrial? I’m in my late twenties, and even I find it sad. And yet there are so many of them - enough to support a multi-billion dollar video games industry. That’s an awful lot of unemployed saddos living in their parents’ basements.

Is it that these games provide a bit of macho reinforcement to the terminally beta? It is hard to escape that conclusion. Might I suggest that if you want to feel like more of a man, you should head down to the gym or the football pitch. buff up and then bang a few birds “IRL”?

…but, wait, there’s more!

But he reformed! Right? Right? Ethics in gaming is serial important! This is about ethics, not feminism!

No wait, it’s about how ethics means feminists can’t say anything!

Feminist Bullies Tearing the Video Game Industry Apart

The journalists who cover games and gamers are subject to similar peculiarities and challenges, which perhaps explains widespread frustration from players that every blog out there seems more concerned with policing misogyny and “transphobia” than reviewing the latest game releases. As a result, gaming sites and their readers have drifted apart in recent years. Journalists have sided with activists to pen soporific op-eds about the need for “equality” in video games, while the people who actually play games just want to know if the latest instalment is good value for money.

But if we look the rest of his work, it shows he cares about gaming, right?

No, wait, he’s a Breitbart London columnist. He writes stuff like:

The UN’s Risible #HeForShe Campaign: Pointless Self-Flagellation for Sex-Starved Beta Males

Women don’t go into maths, engineering and tech jobs as often because they simply don’t want to, because they have different priorities and because, yes, men are better at some of the cognitive functions that engineering degrees and careers demand. And that’s fine! This is why shrill women in tech movements aren’t getting traction with ordinary women and young girls: they just don’t ring true, or reflect the experiences or aspirations of most women.

From a purely capitalist point of view, as a business owner, you should of course employ as many women as will work for you. They are, in the words of Australian multimillionaire entrepreneur Evan Thornley, like men, but cheaper. They’re cheaper because they don’t want to work the same hours (men work longer and harder in every industry, bar teaching and some creative jobs), take way more leave (not just maternity; they simply care more about holidays and family time), have different priorities and so on.

So it’s not just shrill people criticizing games, it’s just biotruth that chicks are different. Deal with it.

Oh. I guess I’m “white knighting”…another one of those lovely handy dismissals. There must be *some* woman I’m trying to impress by not uncritically accepting these brilliant truths nuggets, right?

It’s all so bonkers, isn’t it, this “white knight” phenomenon. Men who feel as though they need to come to the rescue of women by insulting and badgering other men for the crime of having a sex drive. Men who agree with absurd statements such as, “unwanted attention is sexual harassment.” Are we going to start locking up every man who ever gets turned down in a bar or nightclub? I’d be on my third consecutive life sentence by now…

I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that these hen-pecked half-wits are unlucky in love. Because it can’t possibly be, can it, that men who call themselves “feminists” (the thought of it!) are really just currying favour with an opposite sex that has rejected them. It works both ways, of course. I mean: when was the last time you saw a really hot radical feminist? But no, I should change the subject, before I get into too much trouble.

Herp derp beta male.

Where is there anything other culture war where Liberals Are Always Wrong? It’s just a dude that spends a bunch of time on boilerplate Breitbart stuff.


This page has been archived.
Comments are closed.

Jump to top

Create a PageThis is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go.
Or... you can just click this button to open the Pages posting window right away.
Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
LGF User's Guide RSS Feeds

Help support Little Green Footballs!

Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled.

Donate with
PayPal
Cash.app
Recent PagesClick to refresh
Texas County at Center of Border Fight Is Overwhelmed by Migrant Deaths EAGLE PASS, Tex. - The undertaker lighted a cigarette and held it between his latex-gloved fingers as he stood over the bloated body bag lying in the bed of his battered pickup truck. The woman had been fished out ...
Cheechako
2 weeks ago
Views: 331 • Comments: 0 • Rating: 1