Christina Hoff Sommers now has her own video essay on gaming, asking "Are Video Games Sexist?" You'll never guess what her answer is.
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#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
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Neoriceisgood
Member
I read through that entire thing just now, but the only reference I could find to the term "SJW" was a blog called "The SJW" that is praising #gamergate.
Am I missing something?
... Let me guess without looking? "Not sexist enough!" ? Or maybe "sexist ... against MEN!" ?
Hamburgler
Banned
It appears that all GamerGate discussion on /v/ is being deleted and banned
Did the good guys win?
Did the good guys win?
Yeah. I know the feeling.
She's answering an irrelevant question. Nobody claims that video games as a monolithic entity are sexist. The only person she's arguing with is herself because she's the only one asking that question.
And that's just the title, the video gets worse from there.
But you don't call yourself The Factual Feminist unless you're 100% right
InsaneZero
Member
Can't tell if this is sarcasm since everybody knows that moderator action amounts to very little on 4chan.
Will Shetterly (That blog's owner) is his own special brand of stupid. He practically invented the asinine opposition to perceived 'SJWs' long before gamergate even existed. I think he might have actually gotten stupider in the years since I last saw his name.
It's probably just a mod trolling people because he knows it will generate a shitstorm.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Okay I was gonna say, if he's the person who invented the term I'd strongly disagree with the idea that it started out useful ... his blog is a festering pile of crap.
Tracing the origin of the term is difficult. As mentioned, I first saw it crop up in anon fandom communities some time after Racefail happened. I recall it bubbling over some time in 2012 when this happened.
Riposte
Member
What constitutes "saying something"? Games of all budgets take part in the same medium and the audience is interpreting those signals with their brains just the same. The verbs don't change here. Perhaps you mean "say something I care about"?
Classic straw man nonsense from her. Given she's built her career by doing that it's hardly a surprise.
it's almost like she had never even thought about video games before until she saw them as a tool to get publicity and win over some people who will adore her as long she says things they agree with.
You ain't wrong.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I mean that video games with high budgets are going to get anything controversial beaten out of them over development because they can't take the risk. If you want to pretend that it's simply me whining that AAA games aren't speaking to me but are no different from indie games in anything besides budget, then that's fine, and to be fair, it totally supports your point that people can look at something and someone can take away a totally crazy interpretation from it.
One example I can think of is, about two to three years ago, I was called in to do an in-person survey about a new game in an established series. It was about the French Revolution, was aiming to be a co-op game, and, most importantly, starred a female character. I don't remember what I said about it, but I recall being for all the changes. Now, you can argue that they didn't feel it fit the lore to have a female character and changed it or for any other artistic reason, but it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to not immediately deduce they wanted the game to be more marketable. Either way, we got Arno, and there's no one on the internet saying "I can't identify with a female character" like they do a lot of other times.
I think a game that didn't cost $30 million to make wouldn't have to make that decision and would just do whatever they want.
Exactly. A AAA game is a lot like a large budget movie, and artistic decisions regarding its development will be made by a committee. That is why Disney doesn't allow god and religion to become a big part of any children's movies they make.
Hence why the "SJWs are trying to censor the developers' artistic vision" arguments are so incredibly misguided
Neoriceisgood
Member
Man I dug around a bit to see if I could find more of a context where this originated, I feel like I wish I hadn't.
tonysidaway
Member
Well obviously misogyny isn't being (yet) beaten out of AAA games, as we've seen from recent episodes of Anita Sarkeesian's videos (which may contain errors but are otherwise quite persuasive in this issue).
I'm beginning to recognise this kind of thinking about political matters (just to be clear: not yours, Alberto, but the process you describe). In the US, for instance, activists point to ways that commercial institutions such as clothing suppliers, stores, restaurants and whatnot could be more inclusive. Often they're very successful and you'll get restaurants changing their recruitment, employee benefits policies and so on to remove instances of racism, heterosexism, etc. Then the right (in the US it's conservatives and their allies) complain that the employer is becoming "political" by taking a side. As if basic human rights were a purely political matter.
Thus they try to avoid a very important policy discussion they think they will lose.
In AAA gaming certain ugly traits have become frozen, but of course if public perceptions change in the outside world the developers will respond once they become aware of the problem (as it appears to me is increasingly the case with Sarkeesian's analysis). There is a reactionary component in fandom, though, and that's how they react to change. I think we can disregard them for the most part, except when they come together as they have in the harassment of Anita Sarkeesian and later in Gamergate. Then we fight back. Then we win.
I may fairly be accused of a rather whiggish (radical) view of the political process here. Victory is not inevitable. But I think it's pretty obvious by now that gaming has changed and will change, because we have. Gaming will change and what is now AAA will change or diminish in significance to the point of irrelevance.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Trying to find out the origin of "sjw" as a term is probably the least productive google goose hunt I've ever put myself through.
All I've learned is that "SJW" are as bad as stormfront & that stormfront agrees. (aside from the part where they're bad*.)
All I've learned is that "SJW" are as bad as stormfront & that stormfront agrees. (aside from the part where they're bad*.)
MHWilliams
Member
Not even going to justify that with a click.
Now its two very ignorant clearly biased people that think they know all about corruption, waiting on the take of long time Pulitzer winner Adam Baldwin, journalist that was never accused of trying to steal cash Milo Yanuwhatever, hell, even Ja Rule is gonna give his take.
Riposte
Member
What you are saying here, how expensive games avoid unmarketable material in other to secure returns, is different from the idea of taking "saying something" into a realm that excludes the grand majority of messages (i.e., including and elevating only those that are politically interesting to you). In the new Assassin's Creed everything seen and done will provide messages (or more accurately: lead to the creation of messages) for the human mind to interpret (some of these interpretations without a doubt will even attribute some form of political meaning), only the message "the character I'm controlling is female" isn't likely to be one of them. It is very easy to interpret things "being said" by (or, again, more accurately: "being heard" from) the so-called "AAA" games, as the whole point of those trope videos is based on this idea - so is the fundamental fact we comprehend feedback to our interactivity.
What does this mean explicitly? As in, what exactly is now no longer present after you are done with the beating?
LiegeWaffle
Member
The origin probably does not even matter that much here. After someone used it, some reasonable people picked it up to denote the uglier side of feminism. And as it often happens, it was as well picked up by people who want to claim that the "ugly side of feminism" is much larger and powerful and damaging than it is in reality in order to justify their misogyny, so now nobody understanding the context surrounding that word would use it. I don't care that much about it, though; misappropriation of term "SJW" is one of the least significant issues I have with GamerGate.
Neoriceisgood
Member
If it actually originated during that whole racefail livejournal situation as an earlier poster indicated that'd actually be super interesting.
If it originated there it implies it might've been an in-group name given by SJ advocates/feminists against more extreme subsets of their movement, but if it started with someone like that Will Shetterly dude ... current use of the term isn't that far off. (Dude seems to have a general hatred for SJ in general, as far as I can tell he's currently trying to prove Anita faked her police report or something.)
I was mostly curious just in the history itself, I'm not trying to validate a point by digging it up btw. I'm just shocked how hard it is to find the actual origin.
Quote
Member
Zoe wrote an article for Cracked, I thought it was pretty great. - 5 Things I Learned as the Internet's Most Hated Person
I found and watched This Is Phil Fish due to Notch's leaving Mojang letter. It should be required viewing.
EDIT: Found that is a thread devoted to it.
I found and watched This Is Phil Fish due to Notch's leaving Mojang letter. It should be required viewing.
EDIT: Found that is a thread devoted to it.
FunkyMunkey
Banned
Came here to post this. Great video.
tonysidaway
Member
I'm not the one doing the beating, but I accept Alberto's thesis that AAA producers will tend to err on the side of marketability. I hoped to make it clear that I think this regressive force is, paradoxically, driving unpopular sexist tropes out of games. In this kind of situation a reactionary movement tends to show up. Hence Gamergate.
MHWilliams
Member
And here's an article covering the same topic in a constructive, useful way from a developer's perspective.
Quote
Member
I like the part where she accuses Anita and Zoe of cherry picking, but then only shows one threatening tweet they received. Actually most of it was all cherry picking.
The whole thing felt like I was watching a Fox News feature really.
partyphone
Banned
Do you mean great as in hilariously horrible? Sommers is a dishonest crank. But MRAs love her because she's a women who hates feminism.
But she calls herself a feminist! How can I be misogynistic for agreeing with her?
WAR recon zero
Banned
86 pages and i don't understand wtf is gamergate. How does it relate to journalism vs an ex bf vs Quinn vs nude pics
What a clusterfuck SOMEONE EXPLAIN ME
What a clusterfuck SOMEONE EXPLAIN ME
Nepotism...They thought Zoe was sleeping her way into the industry. Turns out that was a stretch so now people are vaguely trying to fight for "ethics."
neurosisxeno
Member
Yup. I've been following it for 2 weeks and every day when I check I increasingly wonder why this topic is a thing.
- Female game dev releases game about depression, people argue it's "not a game" and shouldn't have gotten on Steam.
- Oh man, she must be sleeping with guys in exchange for getting on Steam and getting positive reviews. Her ex-boyfriend told me. At length.
- Wait, except nobody she supposedly slept with reviewed her game.
- Wait why are we discussing her personal life.
- Whatever, let's make death threats against her, harass her family, call up old bosses, just do everything we can to ruin her life. Leak all her personal information. Maybe beat her up at PAX, give her a permanent injury? But nothing that would cause brain damage, because then she wouldn't know why we crippled her.
- God, now she can't stop talking about it, I guess in the end she wanted this all to happen to her. She better kill herself. That's really the only way to end this well. And then, everyone's happy, right?
- But let's not lose sight of the original issue: she slept with people who didn't review her game, but worked in the journalism industry, and this is evidence that journalism is corrupt, so let's harass her more. Not the journalists. That wouldn't make sense. Let's focus on the, you know, corrupting force of women.
- Oh man Zoe and Anita are trying to take our games away, I think. Leigh Alexander, too! That makes sense, right? Because they said something bad about a game I like? I don't know, I didn't actually read the article. But I read a tweet that made them sound like honestly terrible people. I mean, I don't want to invoke Godwin's law, but if there was ever a time for it...
- Zoe? Who's Zoe? No, this is a serious discussion about game journalism. Why are we talking about Zoe?
- No, no, you don't understand. Everyone's on my side. I even created a made-up girl that agrees with me. Ignore the fact that her shirt is a rape joke. That's just a funny inside joke. You wouldn't get it.
- #aristocrats
Dudes that are hurting feel that one the last places where they have a strong sense of self is being taken from them, perceive that this very small contingent of writers and devs advocating from bigger representation of minorities and exploration of non-traditional themes has a highly influential force that is changing the industry into something foreign and feel treated as second class citizens, despite the great majority of the industry awkwardly remaining the same. A bunch of non-industry people that also belong to majorities thinking that minorities secretively rule the world have joined their ranks to complete the echo chamber and most likely sell their products while they are at it. Oh, and they like to pretend that its about ethics in the same way the GOP pretends voting suppression is to protect against identity theft and not something else.
Riposte
Member
David Jaffe's video on GamerGate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDrTBItEO14
Internet Aristocrat posted the highest rated comment. (Jaffe replies and such.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDrTBItEO14
Internet Aristocrat posted the highest rated comment. (Jaffe replies and such.)
WAR recon zero
Banned
Thanks guys
I'm not sure I want to read the comments...
LiegeWaffle
Member
I am almost convinced that #gamergate at this moment does not actually have any well-defined goal and just exists for the sake of existing (as in, people do not want it to die, so they try to keep it alive artificially).
What can they achieve at this point? They have very few ways in which they can actually affect the media outlets they are attacking. If we talk about actual issue of journalist ethics, all of them either made statements on ethics policy or had it for a long time. If we talk about what some people in #gamergate really want, that is, for them to stop talking about issues of gender and race and other things like that, I do not think that there is anything that they can actually achieve without entering entirely new level of madness (like trying to harass all relevant columnists on the same level they harassed Anita and Zoe), and even then the chances are slim.
They also can do very little about attacking feminists, since I am pretty sure they have already used up all their ammo of usual attacks on the usual targets; they might expand their hate list or achieve new level of shit activism, but I hope that will not happen and I do not believe it actually will since hopefully there's only so much energy a group of people can commit to hating others without cooling down for some time.
As for convincing people that gamers are not what columnists linked in the OP claim they are, I think all people who cared already made up their mind on their matter, so that cause is pretty much lost.
I just looked through some gamergate-related articles and realized that this has been going on for about a month, and hashtag itself is at least two week old. What are those people are actually still talking about on that stream? I thought almost every new piece of information which could surface during two last weeks would have already surfaced. Could anyone point me to a histogram of tag's popularity or some other Twitter analytics tools so we can see at which phase it is?
What can they achieve at this point? They have very few ways in which they can actually affect the media outlets they are attacking. If we talk about actual issue of journalist ethics, all of them either made statements on ethics policy or had it for a long time. If we talk about what some people in #gamergate really want, that is, for them to stop talking about issues of gender and race and other things like that, I do not think that there is anything that they can actually achieve without entering entirely new level of madness (like trying to harass all relevant columnists on the same level they harassed Anita and Zoe), and even then the chances are slim.
They also can do very little about attacking feminists, since I am pretty sure they have already used up all their ammo of usual attacks on the usual targets; they might expand their hate list or achieve new level of shit activism, but I hope that will not happen and I do not believe it actually will since hopefully there's only so much energy a group of people can commit to hating others without cooling down for some time.
As for convincing people that gamers are not what columnists linked in the OP claim they are, I think all people who cared already made up their mind on their matter, so that cause is pretty much lost.
I just looked through some gamergate-related articles and realized that this has been going on for about a month, and hashtag itself is at least two week old. What are those people are actually still talking about on that stream? I thought almost every new piece of information which could surface during two last weeks would have already surfaced. Could anyone point me to a histogram of tag's popularity or some other Twitter analytics tools so we can see at which phase it is?
QuickSilverD
Member
actually the comments there are fairly clean and decent, I wonder if they are being moderated?
DICKS AHOY
Banned
... Youtube has moderators?
QuickSilverD
Member
can't Youtubers not block or delete comments on their videos?
ALMOST? it never did, come on
the guys on idle thumbs put it perfectly
the other day someone tweeted at tim schafer something along the lines of "hey tim why dont you get off twitter and finish that game everyone gave you money for #gamergate"
gamergate has no meaning. its literally just used anytime someone is mad about something
it's basically the same thing as "thanks, obama"
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