Henroid

Milo is a classy guy, mocking the women who have been getting death threats. https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512955703565496320

#notyourshield,theirshield

I'm glad the skip list thing came up here already (I saw Mints' tweets about it, thus reminding me). I had something to say about it as I listened to the episode. Skip lists are a thing? I mean, I immediately understand how and why they exist. I've just never thought to look up such things before. I've never gotten that intricate before either. Like when I tell people to watch this show or that, I often say what point is best to start if you want to see the show from when it found its more "permanent" identity. But I've never gone through episodes individually among the good batch to say "skip this, watch that." The behavior fascinates me. Edit - Just for insurance this is not passing judgment or anything.

This post makes it sound like Nick is the Proto Man of Idle Thumbs.

New screenshot.

Last night, nobody I knew that was still awake had seen the trailer yet (let alone knew it was up) so I had to look it up on my own. I was worried I found some sort of fake video because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. But sure enough I got confirmation before going to bed. Final Fantasy 15 is about bros riding around Jurassic Park beating up the dinosaurs for fun.

What is game?

I don't wanna link to his article but Milo's teased big explosion today is something about a secret mailing list for jounalists. It sounds like the sorta thing I'd read on the cover of a magazine also showing a picture of Batboy.

Milo had more to say on that by the way: https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512320750184054784 https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512320896963710976 https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512323457359818754

So uh, if anyone followed GG you probably saw a Breitbart writer named Milo (Nero) backs them and has done "investigations" for them (which oddly center on "Did Anita Sarkeesian really call the cops?" and oh yes she did). So uh. I couldn't help but notice the guy has some... thoughts... about transgenderism. I'm linking to his tweets, of which the 1st and 3rd have links to a blog and article he's written respectively, but for those I'm going to have to lay out a big, fat TRIGGER WARNING because wtf in the case of the latter. https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512262429531967488 https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512262787222228992 https://twitter.com/Nero/status/512263014037598208

I had no idea she was involved in politics in this manner, but again, my observation that right-wing politics in America is picking up on this is bad news. It's bad because in late November when GG gets dropped by all these people who were 'supporting' them (fishing for voters) there's going to be this weird, final cry.

Can you get a source on this by the way?

Oh okay, you guys have the Sommers thing going here. I'm currently talking to a friend about it (he agrees with her) and it's upsetting to me.

It felt like a "hey, there's more important shit going on" statement. I saw lots of GGers taking it as absolute support though because "Censorship!" Except instead of censorship it's people not wanting to waste time talking about it.

I'm trying a new angle of argument when engaging GamerGate supporters: Suggesting if they've considered they're out of touch with people-in-general. The point being that society at large is getting more aware of issues that, say, women face. And because of that, it will spill into all media, games included. Which is true by the way - that's very much what's happening, but it's in no way negative. Social issues / awareness is always a good thing. My success rate so far is two out of three; one person blew by it with their paranoid preachings, but the other two immediately backed down. One noted he still didn't agree, but his aggression immediately halted. Again it's not meant to be condescending or mean-spirited, but I do want to try and get people to open up to other lines of thinking about this issue. I hope this worked in those two instances.

Notch's thoughs here: http://notch.net/2014/09/im-leaving-mojang/

Cracked decided to share their piece on GamerGate. Guess what the GG reaction is? (HINT DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS) http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/a-90-second-guide-to-determine-if-your-internet-cause-bs/

Well it goes to show that a lot of the problem is that the GamerGate people are allowing themselves to fall into the trap of, "If it doesn't agree with me, it's not a good argument." As I wrote before, it is SO HARD to get them to so much as ease off the intensity of a statement they make. Hell even I rescinded a comment I made when it was pointed out to be wrong in some way, and also gave kudos points to a good point. I thought those good faith gestures would have them come around to hear me out some, but instead it was paranoid jargon from the church of video games. Edit - I should note, I recently saw a tweet from a GamerGater that declared (some wording is off), "If you aren't with us 100%, you're against us, gtfo."

It's also the line that gets pulled out to change the subject when you stomp all over the arguments one presents.

The other shoe has dropped. https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/511308849135882240 Adam Baldwin linking to an article titled, "GamerGate And Why It Matters To Conservatives." I'd been saying for a while now these people were gonna get picked up (and discarded shortly after) by politicians, and here it is. It's election season afterall.

My head is going to effing spin if this is real.

Can Desert Golfing be combined with the Desert Bus for Hope?

I managed to have a discussion with some GamerGate folks over Twitter, rather than the usual me being snarky and then a bunch of people getting all mad. I was trying to talk to them about how clinging to a group identity may not be worthwhile; that individualism is better. It removes any ability for hijacking. The problem with "gamer" is that it's open. It's not an organization like the NRA where you have a member list and everyone is accountable for their actions and can be kicked out officially. Anyone can lay claim to "gamer," and thus their actions represent it. On top of that, they were heavily focused on Leigh Alexander this morning, and I tried to present to them an alternate means of her " 'Gamers' is dead" piece - that people are tired of constantly having to babysit the label for the bad eggs that intentionally or not drag it down. It's like enough is enough, tired of doing this, we should all just be people that like playing games rather than being this ideology. Or whatever it is. Ultimately I didn't convince any of the people I was talking to, but my long diatribes are out there and I asked them to maybe capture the whole discussion in an image, rather than stick with "gotcha!" captures that tend to circulate easier. If there's a conversation to be had, I tried to at least spark it (against my better judgment). I should note that journalism ethics wasn't the topic at all. But y'know, we talked about one of the things that springboarded this whole mess anyway.

I had a friend back in highschool whose father would respond to people's announcement of going to the bathroom with, "You don't take it there, you leave it."

Meanwhile they continue to declare success.