It's seriously ironic that the behavior that NeoGAF fostered for years is what ended up splitting up the forum. It's really bizarre. Up until now I did not know so many people hated NeoGAF. I knew there were haters, but I just chalked that up to people upset at their banning or people who were never verified. It wasn't until yesterday that I truly evaluated what NeoGAF was like.
There are a lot of volatile discussions that appear in Off-Topic, like sexual harassment harassment or police brutality. There was a hivemind that seemed to always condemn the alleged perpetrator, and I truly and honestly participated in the hivemind, albeit in my head. "There's no way he would have died if he were white." "That guy who assaulted her is scum." Those are just some examples of ideas that came to my head when I read the many, many news articles. And in those threads, it seemed like most people agreed. If you questioned anything you'd be hounded until you left the thread. At that time even I thought, "Come on, don't be obtuse" more than once. I guess I was just a part of GAF's hivemind. Sometimes those people who questioned would be banned, further validating my thoughts.
But now, the owner of the site was accused of sexual harassment. And I'm shocked at how differently his story is turning out. You have half of the forum condemning him like they would any other man who did what he was accused of doing. And you have the other half brushing off the concerns of the former half. And its the former half getting banned. A complete reversal of what I had been conditioned to believe on NeoGAF.
NeoGAF influenced me in the many years I have been here. Especially during election time, I was influenced to see things in black and white. If you supported Trump, you supported racism, bigotry, sexism, and all those other things. You couldn't be a decent person and support Trump. There were some things I would bend on yet would be too afraid to voice my opinion, like the whole Link being a girl thing mentioned above. I guess this taught me that every situation is different and we must be prepared to take a nuanced approach to it as well as be a little more receptive to different opinions.
It kinda sucks that what made me realize that is something that exposes the ultimate hypocrisy of NeoGAF. Sorry if I came off as rambling. So many thoughts are in my head right now that it's a little difficult to piece them together in a coherent post. Just wanted to air out my thoughts.