GamerGate? Da fuq is a GamerGate?

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by Toast

I don't think there's a need to be so pedantic about it. Maybe avoid equating people who disagree with you with people who are actively harassing others would be a nice start. Just saying.



I haven't argued the validity of any group. I've pointed out trends that I've been seeing. I've offered the perspective of a person who doesn't follow twitter hashtags. And even if you're not directing this part of your post towards me, I think my overall point still stands.

No one who is posting in this thread deserves to be lumped together with people who are sending rape and death threats. Because I think it is highly unlikely that anyone here is actually sending rape and death threats. Astonishing, I know. But this goes beyond this thread, as I've mentioned. This same conversation has been going on for a month on dozens of forums and they all end up pretty much the same. Someone says essentially what you've said, and it starts a whole new shitstorm because you've put a nice little label on people who disagree with you which gives you all the license you need to dumb everything down to binary choices and anyone who isn't as fervently on the side you've decided is the right one can get stuffed.


I'd be cool with that. But no one is having that discussion because we can't stop attacking each other and we can't stop bringing up the harassment of women in the games industry as if it's new and relevant each time it's posted. I'm not saying it should be ignored, far from it, but there's no need to grind the discussion to a halt every five posts.

-edit-



Thank you.

There is a LOT to unpack here, but the most important thing is you're interpreting my post in the exact opposite way it was intended.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Marc v4.0

I would advise no one to go to that website at all, it's a haven for consumers of illegal sexual activities, and likely to get you placed on an FBI watchlist.

Was unaware the FBI decided to start caring about channers, but I put it in a swap tag to limit accidental/unknowing clicking.

[Ryong]

In addition to the previously linked site, there's this which has been a lot less terrible.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Ryong

In addition to the previously linked site, there's this which has been a lot less terrible.

Clicked around there, couldn't find many threads where a very good chunk of the people talking weren't talking about 'corruption' but were talking about 'fighting SJWs' and fighting 'conspiracies' created to make gaming/development more inclusive to women/minorities.

I found one thread where they linked to a reddit about the stuff GG isn't bothering to fight with nothing but 'lookit these self righteous assholes' with no countering that they aren't actually doing anything about it.

I saw a stickied thread about combating DiGRA, not because of 'corruption', as a normal person would consider it (paid for articles, paid for review scores, etc.) but rather because it's, apparently, connected to an attempt to 'dismantle hegemonic masculinity'. Which, literally just means, make things more comfortable for people that aren't straight white men.

I saw people saying that they were part of the movement because they believe using the words 'patriarchal' and 'privilege' in conversation about social justice is an attempt to brain wash the masses.

I mean, I don't really have a side, I'm just speaking as someone who has been sitting on various websites seeing all this stuff go down--but the threads there don't really do much to prove anything you're saying, other than that GG is trying to move away from active harassment.

Which is good.

But, I mean, given this I'm not sure how you think this supports the case that GG doesn't carry a bunch of issues implicit with it that makes remarks about the misogyny/general awfulness inherent in its roots spreading to the branches basically true?

[Ryong]

Nah it's just it's where I found some good articles and videos, like the one from techcrunch that I linked earlier and that factual feminist video that was linked here earlier too.

[Kim]

Wait without skimming through the thread looking for what you're referencing is the "factual feminist" video CH Sommers cuz that lady is a straight up MRA and I'm not even exaggerating. She makes a career out of attacking feminism and feminists for "oppressing men" essentially and the people in charge of actual MRA website A Voice For Men love her.

[Ryong]

I'm talking about this one.

Originally Posted by Doc ock rokc

Here is a good video I think covers misogynistic GG argument rather well from a perspective you would probobly agree with

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Kim

Wait without skimming through the thread looking for what you're referencing is the "factual feminist" video CH Sommers

It is.

cuz that lady is a straight up MRA and I'm not even exaggerating. She makes a career out of attacking feminism and feminists for "oppressing men" essentially and the people in charge of actual MRA website A Voice For Men love her.

Though I dont think this is a good argument against her. Bad people liking something doesn't necessarily make it bad. Particularly when some of the people you're countering would reasons to 'so what if she is MRA?' As they agree with some MRA points.

That said, however, I find her video laughable. She cherry picks just worse than Anita, and is equally shallow in her discourse.

However, she additionally, completely ignores the effects of media on culture (and vice versa), pretending that internalization of ideas doesn't happen. Her argument that games aren't overwhelmingly misogynistic is simply 'of course constantly showing women as nothing more than objects will never affect how people perceive them in anyway.' Much like constantly showing Black and Latino people as violent criminals in media doesn't cause a number of people to be automatically afraid of anyone not white. Or how constantly showing Asian people as knowing kung fu and being smart hasn't created that stereotype, or constantly showing Jews as greedy hasn't kept alive the idea of Jewish greed for centuries because they used to be the only culture okay with banking.

Oh wait. Actually, all of those things have happened. So maybe constant barrages of stereotyping do have an effect. Maybe that's why MRA exists in its current form, more worried about stopping feminism than helping men. Or maybe that's why there's a lot of articles and papers by people smarter than me explaining how many men become frustrated with women for not providing sex after society has bombarded is with the idea that they should if we perform a service, or why the 'nice guy, phenomena happens.

No, says Sommers, in exactly these words, "maybe (eye roll) because they're male." The classic boys will be boys.

And excuse me for getting uncomfortably heated there, but whenever someone excuses supporting ridiculous sexist caricatures of women or poor behavior by implying that I, as a man, am simply incapable of not being a gross asshole for the five minutes to admit things are slanted it pisses me off far more than any attempts to have female heros in games or to make games I find boring. Far far more.

And the point that millennial men are less likely to me sexist doesn't let games off the hook. Correlation is not causation and a philosophy professor should know that. Millennial men are also growing up inundated with the gay rights battle, with more voting women than ever before, with a minority President, with the idea of a female President being completely believable, where TV, movies, and even video games are becoming more inclusive every year etc. etc.

But of course all of this positive media toward equality isn't part of the reason things are getting better and there's no reason to try to further it more, because the media we consume has 0 effect on us.

Calming down again here, I guess my point is that she's not got any good points, ignores logic, admits, herself, that her research was reading some articles and talking to gamers for a couple weeks, as opposed to spending a few weeks playing controversial games herself.

Edit: Also I apologize for any weird words or typos I missed. I typed this on my phone, so you know, swipe isn't perfect and neither is auto-correct.

[Kim]

I wasn't so much bringing that up to discredit GamerGate as much as I was bringing it up cuz I fucking hate that people uncritically refer to her as a feminist. Cuz if you actually look at her ideology she isn't.

And yeah that video is garbage. She doesn't even address the title of her video. It's just named such to get hits. Very clickbaity. "Are video games sexist?" and then she spends the whole video basically arguing that it's okay for video games to be sexist. I fuckin' hate that lady.

EDIT: Like, if I was gonna use Sommers to discredit GG I'd bring up that the official GG ops pages list her alongside Nero and Adam Baldwin as good allies to get in touch with when you start a new account to flood Twitter.

[pochercoaster]

And excuse me for getting uncomfortably heated there, but whenever someone excuses supporting ridiculous sexist caricatures of women or poor behavior by implying that I, as a man, am simply incapable of not being a gross asshole for the five minutes to admit things are slanted it pisses me off far more than any attempts to have female heros in games or to make games I find boring. Far far more.

This sort of OT and I've been meaning to make a thread about it forever but I recently read an AMAZING book called Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference that is specifically about how incredibly vulnerable our brains are to socialization and how pretty much every single study ever about how men are inherently better/worse at X and women are inherently better/worse at Y is a huge, steaming pile of poorly researched and biased bullshit. Everything from the premises researchers start with to their study methods to their sample sizes to simple greed/money incentives to our incredible lack of knowledge about how the brain works to the dire ramifications of disseminating gender myths is covered. And despite all that, it is a very level headed, in depth, and extremely engaging read and I highly recommend you or anyone else interested in this topic read it. Please please PLEASE read it you'd enjoy it.

ALSO SNAKE YOU SHOULD READ THIS ^^^

Like I'll buy you motherfuckers this book to read because I am that crazy about it IDC. Like not at this moment cause I'm poor but maybe in a couple months because fuck you i'm a proselytizer now.