Was Old Man Murray a precursor to Gamergate?

[traveler]

Posting this per purpleblastoise's request from this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1345095&page=2

John Adkins has put up an article on Mic questioning the legacy of Old Man Murray, a site that- to the best of both his and my knowledge- is as universally beloved as anything in gaming culture can be.

Article here: https://mic.com/articles/180888/eri...te-harassment-abuse-gaming-culture#.SXHzIJoNy

Old Man Murray popularized the anything-goes nihilism of internet culture, as several in the Rock, Paper, Shotgun piece attest. Search the site's archives, which are still live, and you'll find a sea of ”ironic" Nazi humor (”this way to the gas chamber, retardeds!"), porn, wild-eyed anarchism, disability jokes (like creating a flashing webpage for ”the little epileptic Japanese boy or girl inside us all"), racial slurs ”I'm Chet and this is my partner and 4-life nigga erik") and cracks about child abuse. None of this even scratches the surface. Look for yourself, if you're curious.

I never read the site as a kid as it was before my time on the web but I did enjoy the OMM duo's writing once they came to work at Valve, most notably on Portal 2, so seeing some of the excerpts Adkins has pulled has me fairly shocked given the positive reputation of both its writers and the site. While to be completely fair, some of these quips (such as the example posted immediately below) were incited by others, this is still beyond the pale no matter the provocation in my eyes:

Weeks and weeks ago — just after the first photos of me hit the internet thanks to famous state and federal job retraining candidate Paul Steed — a concerned female reader wrote in and declared, 'I thought you'd be better looking.' Of course, my sympathies go out to her, her family, the men who pay her for sex and her smelly dried-up fucking abortion vent.

While I'm sure there's great material to be found amidst all of this on the site, do those of you who remember it fondly recall this sort of material? Could you actually see its tone and irreverence giving way to something like Gamergate years down the line?

Edit: Additional context- twitter discussion from author on early '00 gaming culture: https://twitter.com/NowIsNotGood/status/875078809124573186

Edit2: For a positive look at OMM's legacy to get an even sense of things, here's a list of influencers they influenced and their thoughts on them

Pretty much, the author has a clear ulterior motive and has looked at anything (and there's a huge amount of stuff to look for) to find some quotes that might fit his agenda.

OP should link the RPS article re OMM as it shows many haven't even heard about them:

The Remarkable Notability Of Old Man Murray

 

[hotcyder]

I probably hopped too late into the boom of indie game blogs that kind of rolled out from Old Man Murray - but it's hard to believe that it's as influential as it is, especially today, considering how awful some of their writing is.

I mean I'd like to think they've made amends afterwards - even with all the weirdly shitty sexist fat humour crap in Portal 2.

The fact that one of the McElroys thinks its the greatest website he knows, despite them being pretty progressive, says a lot.

Shame this shitty edgelord stuff just got worse as time went on.

 

[purpleblastoise]

Never heard of OMM before reading the article, but these two guys sound disgusting. No different than any gamergater troll today. I guess all of that was okay at the time since it was considered 'subversive'.

 

[Larsen B]

I've read a couple of Time To Crate reviews on OMM and feel I've probably said, somewhere, what a great website it was. Influential.

I wouldn't be surprised if this assumed importance is also a large part of why it's talked about so well.

I also said some stupid, edgy stuff around that time that I would be horrified at now. None of this excuses what was said.

To answer the question of the article: "probably not", because in recollections, I rarely see OMM being regarded as a no-holds-barred, caustic website. It's worth is mainly talked up about skewering genre norms or poking fun.

However to see that actually it contained a lot of horrific stuff is quite eye-opening. It's disappointing that Erik or Chet refuse to actually address it properly and distance themselves form it by saying it's a product of its time.

 

[tuxfool]

I probably hopped too late into the boom of indie game blogs that kind of rolled out from Old Man Murray - but it's hard to believe that it's as influential as it is, especially today, considering how awful some of their writing is.

I mean I'd like to think they've made amends afterwards - even with all the weirdly shitty sexist fat humour crap in Portal 2.

The fact that one of the McElroys thinks its the greatest website he knows, despite them being pretty progressive, says a lot.

Shame this shitty edgelord stuff just got worse as time went on.

Yeah, the article overstates the link. There is nearly 20 years of separation between the two events. Moreover the worst parts of gamergate aren't even the attitudes, it is how the attitudes have led people to start harassing others online. One also has to understand that any contemporary of that site will be a lot older today so attitudes change.

 

[traveler]

I've read a couple of Time To Crate reviews on OMM and feel I've probably said, somewhere, what a great website it was. Influential.

I wouldn't be surprised if this assumed importance is also a large part of why it's talked about so well.

I also said some stupid, edgy stuff around that time that I would be horrified at now. None of this excuses what was said.

To answer the question of the article: "probably not", because in recollections, I rarely see OMM being regarded as a no-holds-barred, caustic website. It's worth is mainly talked up about skewering genre norms or poking fun.

However to see that actually it contained a lot of horrific stuff is quite eye-opening. It's disappointing that Erik or Chet refuse to actually address it properly and distance themselves form it by saying it's a product of its time.

That seems like a fair point. Having never read it myself, this is definitely not the sort of thing that sprung to mind when I saw it mentioned.

That said, the author is arguing a more subtle infiltration of the culture's tone and attitude- not so much that the voices of Gamergate were deliberately following its influence.

 

[Altazor]

it reminds me more of 4chan's style than GG proper. You could say they're one and the same, though, but I think GG includes a bit more than "just" edgelord crap.

 

[Pepboy]

Feel like its more of a precursor to youtube. People competing for attention by being extreme, which might be extremely offensive at times.

Gamergate, or whatever we want to call it, seems more like a reaction explicitly directed at feminism.

As a result, both say offensive things toward women but I think OMM sounds closer to South Park around the same time. A product of the culture, not the one creating it. But I only rarely have heard of the site, so my knowledge of it is limited.

 

[jph139]

I think, at one point, the ironic "shock humor" of the internet - the racism and sexism and absurd hatefulness - was co-opted by actual racists and sexists and hateful people. Which, I suppose, is an object lesson in how doing that sort of thing perpetuates the behavior, even if you yourself aren't a "bad person."

In our defense, I feel like we didn't know that at the time?

 

[Riposte]

For context, should probably include the very long twitter rant from the writer that likely served as the basis for this article:

https://twitter.com/NowIsNotGood/status/875078809124573186

Casuals (people who liked Doom, Quake, and GTA) ruined the hyper-intelligent, egalitarian paradise that was the videogame industry of the 80s.

 

[traveler]

For context, should probably include the very long twitter rant from the writer that likely served as the basis for this article:

https://twitter.com/NowIsNotGood/status/875078809124573186

Casuals (people who liked Doom, Quake, and GTA) ruined the hyper-intelligent, egalitarian paradise that was the videogame industry of the 80s.

Thanks. I added it.

 

[Pepboy]

I think, at one point, the ironic "shock humor" of the internet - the racism and sexism and absurd hatefulness - was co-opted by actual racists and sexists and hateful people. Which, I suppose, is an object lesson in how doing that sort of thing perpetuates the behavior, even if you yourself aren't a "bad person."

In our defense, I feel like we didn't know that at the time?

Yes this was my take more or less.

 

[@MUWANdo]

OMM was a prominent part of the turn-of-the-millennium zeitgeist but I definitely wouldn't single it out as the progenitor of the bullshit people are dealing with today.

I also think (with absolutely no research to back this up) that people fondly remember OMM for things like "start-to-crate" and literally don't remember most anything else about it, at least not in great detail, either because they outgrew it and didn't care to look back or because it's simply fuckin' old.

(I also suspect a lot of people namedrop or parrot positive appraisals of OMM without ever actually reading it, which is another problem entirely.)

I'm not defending any of the excerpts highlighted in that article and I'm glad this article is forcing people to reexamine OMM in a more mature light but I tend to think their tone wasn't informative so much as reflective of every dumbass edgelord nerd site on the internet at that time, and I don't think the tone on display is something they invented nor popularized.

 

[Glen Tennis]

There's a small difference between trolls and comedians/comedic writers which is that the latter are generally funny.

 

[MC Safety]

Old Man Murray was Chet and Erik, both of whom ended up at Valve.

They were funny and smart, and not at all bound by the conventions of polite speech.

I do not believe Old Man Murray was a precursor to Gamergate. Murray offered pointed commentary and humor, and I have no idea what Gamergate is.

 

[Glowsquid]

For context, should probably include the very long twitter rant from the writer that likely served as the basis for this article:

https://twitter.com/NowIsNotGood/status/875078809124573186

Casuals (people who liked Doom, Quake, and GTA) ruined the hyper-intelligent, egalitarian paradise that was the videogame industry of the 80s.

Usenet snobbery repackaged for a woke new generation.

 

[Circle Jerk]

This is such a weird nonsensical stretch that OMM was somehow a precursor to GG. It also says something that the people in this thread most angry/ offended are also admitting this is the first time they've heard of them, or never read the site.

 

[Aeana]

It had plenty of bright spots, but even back then I found the Roberta Williams stuff pretty uncomfortable.

 

[Bizazedo]

I think, at one point, the ironic "shock humor" of the internet - the racism and sexism and absurd hatefulness - was co-opted by actual racists and sexists and hateful people. Which, I suppose, is an object lesson in how doing that sort of thing perpetuates the behavior, even if you yourself aren't a "bad person."

In our defense, I feel like we didn't know that at the time?

Mostly, but I wouldn't say co-opted. That's a bit too complicated. Some people like crude humor, but aren't hateful....that and saying co-opted makes it sound like actual racists and hateful people aren't already like that.

 

[Fury451]

Their more "edgy" humor....to say it hasn't aged well and is not appealing now is an understatement- but it's also indicative of the time because they were hardly unique in presenting things that way, just unique in the games criticism community. As to whether that contributed to GG? Probably not. It's not like Old Man Murray invented fan culture being mean sarcastic assholes.

This is a complicated topic to break down and blame on one website, the whole thing kind of seems off base to be honest. I'm not a fan of the site myself, I think it's a "you had to be there" thing and while I would fall under the age group that would've grown up with it, I didn't really hear of it till quite a while afterwards.

If they were playing a character so to speak (which is what I always assumed) when they wrote, and people took that as how they really should be talking to people, you can't blame that on the writer. You can't control who consumes and takes your material seriously.

The point could be made that certain trends and sites help shift the narrative, but even then I would say that it's disconnected from being a direct precursor to what people deal with now; particularly because I didn't read the section in the article about Roberta Williams and think that he actually meant he wanted to murder her, unlike today were people threaten death in a serious context

 

[Altazor]

There's a small difference between trolls and comedians/comedic writers which is that the latter are generally funny.

edgelord trolls think they're hilarious, too.

Murray offered pointed commentary and humor, and I have no idea what Gamergate is.

Do you really not know or are you just being facetious? 'cause if you don't know: GG is basically a bunch of misogynist harassers who decided to start ruining women's lives (those in the tech and gaming business) in the name of "ethics in journalism". They pretty much use that "shock humor" thing without the humor - just insults and hate.

 

[Cymbal Head]

Nowadays OMM is remembered for a couple of influential ideas, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone praise the site's entire oeuvre as being worthy of remembrance.

I also don't think it's a progenitor of GG more than any other similar outlet of the time. Newgrounds, Seanbaby, PWOT, Something Awful, etc. all had transgressive overtones at times.

The problem is the slow shift from employing that kind of material in an ironic or knowing way to sincerely embracing the ideas it espouses. (Within one part of the audience, of course, not the creators themselves.)

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

I think, at one point, the ironic "shock humor" of the internet - the racism and sexism and absurd hatefulness - was co-opted by actual racists and sexists and hateful people. Which, I suppose, is an object lesson in how doing that sort of thing perpetuates the behavior, even if you yourself aren't a "bad person."

Well put. It's worth acknowledging the difference between people who genuinely espouse these kinds of attitudes unironically vs. people who stray into them in pursuit of black humor or absurdity-- while ALSO acknowledging that both can be equally hurtful and harmful.

 

[angelic]

That's what art and comedy do, as mediums, they push the boundaries and cross lines.

 

[Clear]

Am I the only one who remembers the whole "wild west" period of the internet? When all kinds of heinously offensive stuff was commonplace and truthfully seemed as common to me as cat pictures?

Not that stuff isn't still out there, but in the days before the net became as commercialized as it is today, extremity was pretty close to being "mainstream".

Internet culture was very different back in the late 90's,

 

[jstripes]

Old Man Murrary, like Jeff K, was considered satire at the time.

Of course, like with the Angry Video Game Nerd, a younger generation was unable to see the satire, and instead took at as a how-to guide.

 

[Mzo]

That's just how the internet was then. We'd show each other how jaded and immune we were to horrible pictures, video, and language. It's really swung back hard the other way now.

Am I the only one who remembers the whole "wild west" period of the internet? When all kinds of heinously offensive stuff was commonplace and truthfully seemed as common to me as cat pictures?

Not that stuff isn't still out there, but in the days before the net became as commercialized as it is today, extremity was pretty close to being "mainstream".

Internet culture was very different back in the late 90's,

Exactly.

 

[Glass Shark]

I’ve always heard people in the old guard of the games press talk highly of OMM, but never read it myself. So it was just edgy Maddox-type bullshit the whole time? That Wolpaw quote in the OP is pretty disgusting.

 

[angelic]

That's just how the internet was then. We'd show each other how jaded and immune we were to horrible pictures, video, and language. It's really swung back hard the other way now.

There's definitely a middle ground to be found, between the old days of everything goes, and the current "I am offended by everything and anything".

 

[Timedog]

Edgelording on the internet was inevitable. On the internet dorks have power and agency that they don't have in real life.

 

[swarley64]

This was before personality-based game journalism was a thing. We didn't have YouTube personalities, Giant Bomb, Kinda Funny, etc... this was one of the very, very few game websites that wasn't a dry and business-like review factory so we took what we could get.

Also, I was a dumb kid and as others have said this was the Wild West period of the internet where shit like this seemed kind of normal.

 

[Fhtagn]

"edgy" humor in general was the precursor to Gamergate, in that at some point we all figured out that some of the people using edgy humor actually meant what they were saying...

...and then the people who meant it echo-chambered themselves into being pretty much a cult ready to attack anyone they were given a pretext to harass.

 

[MC Safety]

Do you really not know or are you just being facetious? 'cause if you don't know: GG is basically a bunch of misogynist harassers who decided to start ruining women's lives (those in the tech and gaming business) in the name of "ethics in journalism". They pretty much use that "shock humor" thing without the humor - just insults and hate.

That seems pretty nebulous.

Honestly, I'm disinterested in people being jerks to one another, especially when it's applied to a hobby that should be inclusive. To that end, I haven't followed gamergate and couldn't cite you its tenets or even discuss whether it's an organized movement or something people shout at others when they disagree with their opinions.

I've read Old Man Murray and found the site to be insightful and humorous.

 

[jstripes]

There's definitely a middle ground to be found, between the old days of everything goes, and the current "I am offended by everything and anything".

Both have existed on the net since the beginning. I remember being kicked from IRC channels for saying "wtf?" because it was "swearing".

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Am I the only one who remembers the whole "wild west" period of the internet? When all kinds of heinously offensive stuff was commonplace and truthfully seemed as common to me as cat pictures?

Not that stuff isn't still out there, but in the days before the net became as commercialized as it is today, extremity was pretty close to being "mainstream".

Yeah, those were the days. Could have lived with less overall toxicity I guess but it seemed to be much more in good humor than it is now. These days there are too many battle lines and too many egos and reputations at stake for anyone to have any fun, it's just constant us vs. them mudslinging and it gets old. All the people who were genuinely funny or insightful in their edginess either left or have had their voices drowned out by the more typical angry internet trolls that are some tiresome to interact with.

 

[Slayven]

Never heard of it, but from the examples posted they sound like pieces of shit.

 

[Circle Jerk]

I’ve always heard people in the old guard of the games press talk highly of OMM, but never read it myself. So it was just edgy Maddox-type bullshit the whole time? That Wolpaw quote in the OP is pretty disgusting.

No, the quotes in the OP are very specifically picked to show off the absolute worst of the site. Not defending that part, but this article started with a conclusion (OMM helped create GG) and went backwards from there to find support for that.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

I don't get the thesis here. Did edgy humor lead to gamer gate, and OMM was the only place that did edgy humor on the Internet in the past?

I've read 911 conspiracies that make better connections.

 

[angelic]

Both have existed on the net since the beginning. I remember being kicked from IRC channels for saying "wtf?" because it was "swearing".

true, but there's a definite offended culture out there like never before. Like when someone recently tweeted the Constitution and caused mass offence on twitter.

http://www.newsweek.com/anti-trump-...eading-declaration-independence-tweets-631942

 

[Riposte]

Usenet snobbery repackaged for a woke new generation.

I do get a sense of "Revenge of the (REAL) Nerds" from this. OMM was very much about about eviscerating the pseudo-intellectual elitism the writer represents and did so in the now highly "problematic" tone of the vulgar 90s (The Jerky Boys and Howard Stern created gamergater). For example:

As far as I can tell, the Gamecenter "death of adventure" timeline goes something like this:

1. The action-packed Myst introduces casual gamers to the pleasures of Tomb Raider.

2. Genius adventure gamers come to the painful realization that the same equipment they use to explore the complex fantasy world of Leisure Suit Larry can also be utilized by stupid people to run Quake. Thanks to their television-atrophied attention spans, these casual gamers are mentally incapable of spending six hours trying to randomly guess at the absurd dream logic Roberta Williams has applied to the problem of getting the dungeon key out of the bluebird's nest.

3. Horrified by the knowledge that somewhere someone is playing a game that is not an adventure, genius adventure gamers abandon the hobby in droves and resort to their backup source of entertainment: various combinations of Babylon 5 novels and masturbating.

This is more or less one big "fuck you" to the author, written 17 years ago. OMM's comments on Roberta Williams is steeped with misogynistic (and generally harsh) language, but it also represents a cultural divide illustrated above. Williams was more or less saying "my games do bad because gamers are stupid now" and Murray goes on a big ol' rant about how pompous she is and so on, in fairly gendered language at times.

So what separates this from pulling up Eddie Murphy's Delirious and looking at it decades after the fact is the hard-to-believe narrative that your ideological rival totally ended up inventing evilness on the internet. Much like those dumb games you didn't like totally ruined the industry. It's somewhere between resentment and rose-colored glasses. Which means you end up with funny statements like "Casuals ruined videogames" where "casuals" means people who say "Casuals ruined videogames".

 

[Nicky Ali]

This just strikes me as shitty, try-hard "edgy" humour. You'd see this kind of humour going on even on sites like Newgrounds.

 

[Marcel]

The overwritten shock humor of the late 90s going into the mid-2000s being connected to Gamergate is quite the stretch. Humor in general is not some 1 to 1 straight line to connects from one dot to another. In general GAF is bad at judging things like humor if that closed thread about The Onion was any indication. Many of the joyless people here should just not bother.

 

[Parsnip]

That's a bit of a leap to be honest.

I mean sure it wasn't all comedy gold and certainly had some nasty stuff there as well (especially when looking back at it now, 20(?) years later), but I feel like their positive impact on the medium itself is earned.
It seems like a lame excuse, but times truly were different then.

 

[angelic]

This just strikes me as shitty, try-hard "edgy" humour. You'd see this kind of humour going on even on sites like Newgrounds.

You have to take account of the times though, which is almost impossible to do fairly. Like Elvis Presley shaking his hips in the 50s was considered the most outrageously offensive thing ever, when it was a real catalyst for change that now looks utterly tame.

 

[Glowsquid]

Much like those dumb games you didn't like totally ruined the industry. It's somewhere between resentment and rose-colored glasses. Which means you end up with funny statements like "Casuals ruined videogames" where "casuals" means people who say "Casuals ruined videogames".

It's the same thing as MovieBob's whole thesis that "gaming was fun and wholesome until subhuman dudebros and their indoctrinating first-person shooters killed the Real Games", only with more dubious claims of authoritativeness ("I'm something of a gaming history buff said the expert) and genuinely intriguing anecdote about the history of 80's PC gaming mixed with bizarre and easily-debunked bits of historical revionism ("The original GTA was largely ignored and despised". Lol, what?)

 

[Glen Tennis]

edgelord trolls think they're hilarious, too.

Yeah that's a problem. I guess when you can't really bomb on the internet like a stand-up comedian can bomb on stage you never feel any shame about your atrocious jokes and never learn any lessons.

 

[Slayven]

You have to take account of the times though, which is almost impossible to do fairly. Like Elvis Presley shaking his hips in the 50s was considered the most outrageously offensive thing ever, when it was a real catalyst for change that now looks utterly tame.

Lord help us if "LOL Rememebr when jews died horribly?" jokes are put on a pedestal

 

[tuxfool]

("The original GTA was largely ignored and despised". Lol, what?)

Haha.

So much for video game historian...

 

[angelic]

Yeah that's a problem. I guess when you can't really bomb on the internet like a stand-up comedian can bomb on stage you never feel any shame about your atrocious jokes and never learn any lessons.

well you can lose your youtube channel subs, or get banned from forums and so on.

Lord help us if "LOL Rememebr when jews died horribly?" jokes are put on a pedestal

I dont think anyone is suggesting that. Free speech is important, as well as the consequences of it. People will always say unpleasant things, you can't sweep it under the carpet.

 

[Marcel]

It's the same thing as MovieBob's whole thesis that "gaming was fun and wholesome until subhuman dudebros and their indoctrinating first-person shooters killed the Real Games", only with more dubious claims of authoritativeness ("I'm something of a gaming history buff said the expert) and genuinely intriguing anecdote about the history of 80's PC gaming mixed with bizarre and easily-debunked bits of historical revionism ("The original GTA was largely ignored and despised". Lol, what?)

Moviebob is such a laughable caricature of a "woke" white male ally that he doesn't even bear discussing. The guy is constantly putting on a show and misrepresenting history.