I don't consider myself a GamerGater, but I don't think they are the monsters that game journalists and other opinion-makers want us make-believe. It largely serves as the go to boogeyman for all the general failures of mainstream gaming journalism. In physics, every reaction has an opposite and equal reaction. GG was a reaction to the radical politicization of the gaming community that was driven by fanatical ideologues and puritans striving on division and outrage. Instead of engaging with the criticism in a constructive manner, the media outlets decided to sidestep the issue by simply declaring all gamers misogynists, hastily burying it all and banning all discussion. But the discussion did not go away, essentially creating a very polarized 'us vs. them' situation that only made it much worse.
1. Politics, politicization and propaganda
As
Benjamin Constant once said, part of the individual needs to be independent from politics and collective power, "
our freedom must consist of peaceful enjoyment and private independence". Many people consider gaming a hobby, a form of entertainment they enjoy in their private life, nothing more and nothing less. While it is fine to discuss political aspects of certain games and gaming culture, it is only understandable that people react strongly against any kind of politicization of their hobby as a whole.
There is a certain subset of games journalists and opinion-makers who demand that certain games must not only adhere to their political views, but also actively convey them (i.e. propaganda). When political views are creeping that deeply into something you enjoy privately as entertainment, people react. Politics is a highly divisive matter, and most hobbyists don't want that kind of rupture in their community. They want their common interest to be the one thing that unites them instead of riling everybody up against each other. Gaming as an interest is something that gives most gamers a sense of belonging, an interest they can share with other fellow gamers, no matter who they are. That's why they don't want their games to dictate their political beliefs and vice versa.
Coming from an outside perspective, the
us vs. them mentality that's being cultivated in the gaming community is blatantly ridiculous. It's gotten to the point where if you don't agree with certain talking points, you are immediately labeled as 'far-right' or accused of being an 'SJW'. That's the american two-party system seeping into an overly politicized gaming community, leaving no wiggle room for the moderate people in between.
2. Gamers, sexism and social authoritarianism
GG is not 'alt-right', it happened as a push-back against leftist authoritarianism. In fact, many GamerGaters
consider themselves liberal. Remember what happened, when Jack Thompson tried to infer that video games make people violent? Thompson is to the authoritarian right, what Anita and her politically charged ilk is to the authoritarian left. Co-opting a form of entertainment in order to spread the radical feminist message that "all games are sexist", inferring that games make you a misogynist. Suddenly she is revered by the gaming press like the second coming of Jesus and those critical of her were quickly labeled 'misogynistic basement-dwelling neck-beards', aka. gamers. Soon after, a flurry of '
gamers are dead' articles were published, mostly by journalists sharing the same political circles as Anita.
The problem was not that some people dared discuss the representation of women in video games. As with violence in video games, that's a good discussion to have. The problem was that her criticism was defective by nature and designed in such a way as to rile people up in order to gain notoriety. Much like Thompson, who worked his way backwards in order to prove that games cause violence, Anita critiqued games under the pre-established assumption that "
everything is sexist". While Thompson was ridiculed, Anita was lauded simply because she had good ties to certain game journalists who swallowed her bait, hook, line and sinker. Valid criticism was quickly brushed aside as evidence that the gaming community was sexist, never-mind the fact that her point of view was quite radical and prone to hasty generalizations.
The problem was that her criticism was not constructive, but destructive. Unfortunately it was that kind of criticism that drove a wedge into the gaming community, bringing her fame and financial success. Her criticism was not designed to make the gaming community a more inclusive place, but to cultivate a fanatic fellowship willing to join her crusade for '
the grater good' by throwing money at her. Fast forward a couple of years later, and most people have grown sick and tired of her babbling and seen through her shtick. But the damage was done. Other people are trying to copy her methods or seek out other hobbies ripe for the taking.
3. GamerGate and the 'alt-right'
I'm a leftist, I value progressive and liberal ideals, but I've long stopped counting the times I've been called an
'alt-right Nazi bigot' every time I participated in a discussion like this. For those of you painting GamerGate with the same broad brush, have you considered how many people your narrow-mindedness has falsely attributed to the right? It's almost as if you need an enemy to defend your cause.
Let me tell you that I don't particularly like some of the more prominent GamerGate talking-heads, but those were the only ones willing to listen. What were people supposed to do, after being banned and ostracized by the political puritans and all the gaming journalists who simply refused to listen? I don't deny the sad fact, that some of them fell into the hands of the 'alt-right', but many of them still resisted the call of the pied piper, despite your contempt. Because gamers know better than to simply give up their values for somebody trying to capitalize on the current situation.
Years later, I see once striving multi-pluralistic gaming communities that were co-opted by these radical, political ideologues in nothing but shambles. It didn't take GAF very long to collapse under its own ideological weight and the sad state of affairs of the authoritarian left communities (like ResetERA and GamerGhazi) is proof in the pudding that any kind of political puritanism is far from the ideological utopia that people were hoping for.
I don't consider myself a GamerGater, but if I perceive someone being treated unfairly, I defend them, not matter if I agree or disagree with their opinions. The cause doesn't justify the means and I vehemently reject the assertion that "
there are no bad tactics, only bad targets".
4. Harassment, victimization and criticism
Let me preface the following by stating the obvious, I do not condone harassment just like the vast majority of gamers and other people out there. The internet is a mind-boggingly vast place and the single user but a tiny speck in this immense network of interconnected people. Now imagine you're at the center of a vast internet controversy involving thousands upon thousands of people. Now if only 1% of all the people involved would be stupid dimwits, you would still receive hundreds of harassing messages. From your point of view it would seems as if the whole world would have turned against you. Now imagine that you would not only count violent messages as harassment, but also
any kind of criticism and ridicule.
I don't deny that Anita and Co. received hateful messages, but to induce that all GamerGaters are violent misogynists is just plain wrong. Especially considering that the FBI
closed its investigation into GamerGate stating that "no additional subjects or actionable leads were developed as the result of the investigation." The conclusion of the FBI report was evidently unsatisfactory to the political ideologues capitalizing on their victim status. While I do not wish to belittle any form of harassment, it is equally true that victimization not only garners sympathy, but indirectly validates your narrative by making an appeal to emotion. As a victim, you don't need to engage with valid criticism, which is a classical logical fallacy that most would describe nowadays as "facts over feelings". We are talking about a person who demands a
20.000$ speaking fee and started out as a
frikkin' telemarketer for a guy touting the slogan "
purpose... passion... profits".
5. Journalism, gamers and death
When you are young, it must be pretty cool to become a gaming journalist, essentially making a living out of your passion. But as you grow older, you seek meaning and slowly come to the realization that you spent 20 years writing about what is essentially a form of entertainment. When gaming becomes a burden you turn to a good cause, trying to make the world a better place, trying to educate other people. I don't think that game journalists are bad people, they've grown old and tired and fell for some kind of political snake-oil that gave their work purpose. Doesn't help that the written word is falling out of fashion, while a crop of fresh new reviewers are showing up on youtube.
Maybe it's just me, but over the course of the years, I've witnessed the writing of many game journalists become sour and bitter. The same people who used to hold up their gaming community and defended gamers, openly hate their customers nowadays. While I pity them, I must hold them responsible for the growing divide and mutual hostilities in the gaming community. They could have easily avoided GamerGate by simply listening to the pluralistic voices in their community, but no. By elevating themselves to arbiters of morality, they declared one part of the gaming community as good, while ostracizing the other part. I think many of them realize by now how much damage they have done to the community as a whole, but it's too late now, the only way forward is to stick your head into the sand and to double down.
I would have stood with you, I would have defended a worthwhile cause, but then you decided to paint my community with a broad brush, accusing me of all the evils under the sun, calling me a socially challenged basement dwelling neck-beard and worst of all,
pronouncing me dead! Listen up you fools, my gamer friends and me are productive members of society, most of us have become caring parents, we have our heads on straight, we strive to be tolerant to people from
all walks of life and
everybody is welcomed to share our passion of gaming. We don't need some washed up gaming journalist to tell us the obvious, that discrimination/sexism/racism/harassment is bad. We don't need you to tell us what to think, who to vote for, what to like and how to behave. The gaming community is one of the most tolerant, liberal and accepting hobbyist community I've ever encountered and you do not get to drag us through the mud. Did you honestly expect the gaming community to bow down and take it to the chin after accusing and judging us all guilty?
6. "We don't want to take your games away"
There is a fine line between constructive criticism, fear-mongering and censorship. By now it should be evidently clear, that all those power-tripping political keyboard-warriors weaponize public pressure in order to make every developer bow to their narrow worldview. This has nothing to do with constructive criticism, but a culture war about the hegemony of your mind. Witcher 3, Yooka-Laylee, A Hat in Time, Kingdom Come, Subnautica... how many more incidents sparked by tribalism and public outrage do you need in order to recognize the authoritarian nature of their so-called 'criticism'?
They may use
'positive words' but their methods and goals are not much different from the religious, puritanical, conservative authoritarian right. Some of you are too young, but I still remember the times when AD&D was considered satanical and when
Frank Zappa was accused of perverting the youth. Man, I love Zappa's music and it saddens me greatly that in our current climate, provoking content like that would be impossible without some crazy community or media outlet creating another shitstorm for clicks and notoriety.
7. Women, minorities and gaming
The moral crusaders of today tout themselves to represent all women and minorities, when in fact they are in no such position of authority at all. Those who disagree are simply ignored, like all those
women speaking out in favor of Nolan Bushnell. Daniel Vavra, is a white supremacist, despite having
suffered Nazi and communist occupation. All white people are privileged, all men are sexist, all minorities are oppressed, cultural appropriation is wrong... One of my gripes with all that nonsense is the purely americocentric view on the world. It's almost as if the American media discovered the existence of women and minorities in the last decade or so and most ideological activists are more preoccupied with recruiting these social groups for their own political reasons.
Has any of these moral crusaders ever taken the time to ask these people if they want to be politicized to such a degree? They gay people in my gaming community certainly do not wish to be reduced to their sexual orientation as their one single defining trait. The women in my community do not want to be reduced to their womanhood and the ethical minorities certainly do not wish to be reduced to the color of their skin. They want to be treated like everybody else, nothing more and nothing less. In the same vein, ComicGate is not about the rejection of diversity, it's about how women and minorities are reduced to a single trait in order to convey a political message.
The politicization of entertainment has gone too far. It's gotten to a point where a movie/game/book is automatically lauded for merely portraying a black/female/gay/whatever protagonist, and if you dare not like it, you're called a bigot. I grew up reading Hannah Arendt, watching Ripley shred aliens and listening to Tracy Chapman. If I end up not liking something, it's because I think it's shit, not because it features the flavor of the month minority.
8. Final words
The infamous words of Sam Biddle still ring in my ears "
nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission". As a somewhat nerdish gamer I'm used to being socially stigmatized, but let me remind you that women and minorities were always part of the community. Heck, back in the days, before gaming became mainstream, we would have been ecstatic if even more women were willing to share our passion. Back then, nobody gave a shit about your sexual orientation, the color of your skin or your gender, the only thing that mattered was your interest in the hobby.
Gaming allowed me to forge bonds with people from all walks of life and from all the different corners of the world. I love appropriating other cultures, engaging with their traditions, cooking exotic meals, listening to their music, sharing their views on the world, discussing their moral values. It made my own life richer and allowed me to take different perspectives on the world. Maybe, just maybe, it would be high time to celebrate that aspect of gaming and leave the moral crusaders trying to drive a wedge through the gaming community out in the dust, moping in their own little dark corner.
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