Irishjohn

I don't agree that academic interest is withdrawing, at all. It continues to grow and, if anything, Gamergate provides an amazing phenomenon worthy of study across fields.

Yup. I can see how Whedon could get exhausted. My wife scoffs at me because I'm continually saying I'll quit twitter, though the truth is I probably can't get by without David O'Doherty jokes. If I did quit though, or just took it off, announcing that would be hilariously arrogant of me. Whedon actually has to give some kind of acknowledgement to the world, I guess, as just suddenly not using twitter would become its own "thing" after a while.

Hear, hear.

I agree that it looks rather dodgy, but these things must be taken at face value. And, as usual, GGers take insensitive and thoughtless comments from people as evidence of an "anti-GG" movement, ignoring the fact is is they and not the rest of us that trade in the currency of accusations without evidence and hyperbolic vitriol in place of discussion.

I'm very grateful to be working at a liberal arts institution where the whole "I worked hard, you have given me the wrong grade/you have it in for me/I am not paying for a C" rubbish is barely present at all. I experienced plenty of it in previous jobs! And I could have written this! I feel exactly the same way.

Me too, and, honestly, I still do think a lot of Gaters are severely misled young men. I teach in an American university, and I have been teaching now for about five years (about a decade if you include TAships, though that's a very different thing from teaching your own class) and I've encountered my share of young men with extremely focused and utterly misguided world views. These are people who will sit in an office with a person who has spent their lives working towards an advanced degree and refuse to listen to their advice. This isn't even a "my professor is too liberal" thing, which I don't get a lot of; it's a case of refusing to accept that they've misinterpreted something or that they could look at it in a different way. Sometimes this is a little worrying in the classroom, but it's often benign (if incredibly frustrating). Relatively cheerful students trying to argue that using the word "Oriental" isn't actually problematic, for example. When it comes to GG, I see a lot of that. It doesn't make it okay, but it makes more angry at the Adam Baldwins and the Mark Kerns and John Bains of the world. They are regular Ted Cruz types, or perhaps even televangelist types, feeding on attention for potential "power" or, in Bains' case, financial gain. When it comes to this Goni thing... I feel like a lot of people have done things just after relationships ended that have deeply embarrassed them. I know I have acted in ways towards ex-girlfriends that made me ashamed. Made me ashamed however, because I acted in a way that wasn't right. I think some of these guys, partly driven by a lack of experience, look at Goni and see themselves. This overlooks the fact he wrote a bloody book chapter about the woman, actively tried to harm her and persists in refusing to acknowledge that he did something wrong.

This is so interesting. I was teaching a class on Thursday and, while his intentions were good unlike this group, he was doing a very similar thing. He wanted to "challenge" the discussion (that's good!) but his basic grasp of the facts and concepts were all over the place (not so good). It happens from time to time. This group reminds me of students (almost always male) that come in spoiling for a fight but didn't do any prep of any description. In my case, the class is called "Creating the Orient". Arguing that "not all white men look at Asian women that way" or whatever isn't really addressing any of the discussion points in play, and pointing this out just discombobulates the would-be interruptor. I must stress, I'm not equating these Honey Badger people that clearly acted in ill faith with students that dominate and undermine class discussions without realizing it. My student on Thursday was not trying to ruin anything. However the dynamics are interestingly similar.

Randi Harper and Boogie had a bit of an interaction on twitter where he was attempting to show support but she had to point out that his mentioning of her alone drives lots of terrible people to her feed. Not sure what that guy is up to; last time I checked he was one of those guys who genuinely completely misunderstood gamergate and was pushing the "we want better games journalism" angle. It was a bummer, but at least he's pointing out SWATting is terrible. Kind of a low bar, I guess... Although it's weird, his tweet against SWATting basically argued it's bad because it puts the cops in danger as well as the target. Then again, it's a little unfair to be nitpicking on individual tweets, especially when the intention seems to be good.

I haven't played in a couple of weeks, but I'm a big fan. I've previously played DOTA 2 and enjoyed it despite being thoroughly mediocre. HotS is great because the rounds are so short, frankly. Very dad-friendly!

I don't follow him anymore because he is bloody exhausting. I can't stand the threads of thirty tweets in a row. Just write a blog post and link to it, man. Storify is both useful in this regard but also infuriating, as it seems to empower people to have these massive twitter threads. There's a core of users that think this is great and transmedia in action, but it's a very, very poor way of communicating a point.

What upsets me about TB and a certain kind of "gamer" is that he makes that joke and he has followers lining up to kiss his arse, talking about wanting it on a shirt, etc. etc. It's the same kind of weird mentality that sees dudes on Giantbomb.com use Jeff Gerstmann's face (or whoever's) as an avatar, you even see a bit of it with Brianna Wu and others on the "anti-GG" (ugh) side (though to be fair, that is often in the form of support following harrassment, as opposed to implicit support of incitement to harrassment, which is what TB's fans are doing) and it just exhausts me. TB and his ilk mock the "SJWs" for being a hive mind manipulated by sinister figures..... Just, damn it. Blatant hypocrisy is an effective strategy, I'll say that much.

Yeah, I think the original example is dumb as well. Cheesy dumb, though, as opposed to Biscuit's "this is dumb because it is another example of the SJW conspiracy" rubbish. Also, we probably shouldn't go pulling on the awkward dialog/cultural reference in comics thread.

Yeah, he has his thoughts together alright, they're just juvenile in their sophistication. This is a man that has actually made the "if you think women are that fragile maybe YOU are the sexist" argument, which is about as clever as "I know you are but what am I." He's an idiot, basically. It doesn't mitigate the fact that he's awful; I think he genuinely believes he has every right to send his creepy twitter followers after people as part of personal arguments, it doesn't make it okay.

Jon, I think you mean a collaborative, democratized version of fascist refusal to read tweets from unpleasant people. It's really bad... it's bad enough to willfully ignore that you are followed by people that will bully others and do nothing to mitigate it, it's rather awful of TB and Kern and all these others to actively egg them on and pretend they're not. That's before we get into other, valid, reasons they're terrible. Anyway. He will insist he was "polite" after initiating this unrequested dialogue while making it clear the horrific abuse that will come at the exact same time has nothing to do with him.

So, I'm just going to leave this here because I think it speaks for itself. If someone could assemble a list of the @TheBlockBot's admins, pls do so we can contact them politely with questions. — Mark Kern (@Grummz) March 17, 2015

Agreed. Also, Nach, I would like to be clear that I certainly wasn't trying to pick on her either, nor would I want it to come across that way. Let's get back to shaking our heads at Total Biscuit being awful.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't think I'm "picking holes". It's important to be critical, and there's just not enough information being presented here. I felt this conversation had moved on to talking about GG, academia and public discussions of intellectual critiques of games. Sympathy for her position should not lead directly to complete acceptance of her version of events. Given my own experience in academia, it is fair to point out that her fury at not being funded, though understandable, is not necessarily justified. It is also fair to point out that there is a ton of context missing from her version of events. I don't think that noticing that and commenting on it puts me in the same camp as the people harassing her on twitter. I'm not saying that lack of context equals lack of truthfulness here. That's not at all what I'm saying. What I will say is that the presentation of her archival work being thwarted by academics and administrators that are dismissive of video games BECAUSE of GG strikes me as being simplistic. Keep in mind I'm not saying she's misshaping the truth. The missing context may be context she herself does not have, which as I know myself can be incredibly frustrating when your work and your career is so closely involved.

Well, I should be clear: my work focuses mostly on cultural identities in the interwar period in China and Taiwan. The study of video games is something I want to become more involved in, and mostly will be able to because I work at a Liberal Arts institution that doesn't demand I write a book on a more "acceptable" topic for tenure. We'll see how that plays out. There's also the wider issue here regarding how society views academia generally, which is an enormous part of the problem with GG. I'm convinced a lot of the GG supporters who have been through college, or are about to go through it, take the extremely harmful view that they only need to acquire skills and that classes with heavy writing components are a "waste of time." I currently teach at a college where such perspectives are rare but I've encountered it in previous jobs and have taught my fair share of computer science and business students that were outright hostile to the idea of thinking critically. It can be terrifying. (I should point out I have had wonderful, wonderful students that majored in these same areas; the typical "what's the point?" students tend to come from these majors though) So yes, that's an issue. However, when I look at those mentions I just see a lot of people talking about something about which they know next to nothing. That doesn't really help her having to deal with it (though whether or not she has to deal with it is an interesting question; one of my problems with twitter is that people feel they have to respond, I know I would feel that way) but it does mean that those criticisms need to be taken with a pinch of salt at least. Basically, an enlightened public discussion of games (see: Feminist Frequency) is not necessarily going to emerge at the same rate as academic discussions of games. Both discussions will cross over, interact and develop in their own ways. I think it's important, for the academic side at least, to understand where those distinctions lie. She's not making it clear to me that she does.

Let's make it happen. Send me a PM with your email. I'm also good friends with Bob Whitaker (@whitakeralmanac), who created and runs the series "History Respawned" on YouTube and just spoke at Pax East.

Yup, this. It's also worth noting that the academic study of video games, video games culture, history et al. is in nascent form. I, for example, have zero interest in how video games work as a tool for education or study. I am interested in games as primary sources and in particular in the emergence of the communities surrounding video games. I'm interested in writing an article about eSports for example that contextualizes the practice with reference to the emergence of professional sport in the nineteenth century. The fact is, the historiography is non-existent. There is a growing body of work on games in education and, in particular, narratology of games. Not so much in my field just yet. So, there is no accepted "field." Instead, games will feature in many different fields. Of course, if this is being limited to archiving or media studies, that's its own conversation. As for GG "destroying" interest in video games... that makes zero sense to me. Colleagues (across fields) that are dismissive of video games generally become incredibly interested in discussions on GG. I understand the concern, and it's important to highlight it, but without more context I'm not inclined to be overly worried. I'm not sure where the "heat" is, as her feed is full of her own tweets, taking a less than measured approach to the issue. I will say that I am regularly faced with people online that try to explain things to me based on a perusal of wikipedia, which is a little annoying after working towards a PhD. So, people doing that should stop being idiots. At the same time, she should ignore those comments and move on. [EDIT] "She should ignore those comments and move on" is not meant to diminish the fact that it SUCKS when people talk down to you. I mean that more in the sense that she should accept the fact these people know less than her and not waste her energy defending herself when her experience should do that for her.[EDIT] I will say this: the academic market at the moment is brutal. Brutal. I'm sorry she's so far into debt ($100k according to her feed) but the situation is what it is. I would love it if NYU or another research institution chose to put some financial weight behind academic study of video games, but it's not clear what her work is, whether she's the right person to do it, or how it factors into the array of choices available to NYU. The proliferation of adjuncts is a huge issue in academia right now. Her stories of missing meals and medical bills suck, but within the context of thousands of faculty across the country having exactly the same problems despite working in more widely accepted fields of study, they don't add much context.

Me too. It's not a question of believing her or not, either, there's just no context. As an historian with an interest in writing about video games, I understand and have experienced the skepticism she discusses. I'm lucky; I have a TT job at an institution where I'm not under huge pressure to get a book or two out in six years. I can therefore (and really need to) write about video games, and push to get work on games into peer-reviewed journals. She's in a more complicated position, but again: it's not clear to me what that position is.

This guy. Ugh. I remember when he first emerged as a Starcraft 2 guy, and became a big part of that scene. He basically has an accent and has parlayed that into a small career. Good for him. As someone whose accent has not hurt him working in the US, I can relate. However, all of this crap is either incredibly self-serving (see the way he treats people that criticize him) or just stupid beyond measure. I have read, in one of those bloody twitlongers, him claim that if you think women are "fragile" enough to be affected by a shirt with women on it (the fairly minor "incident" with the British scientist a few months ago) then maybe YOU'RE the sexist one. Which, you know, is juvenile at best. Last night he was whining that radicals were complaining International Women's Day is an hour shorter than other days, pointing out that the clocks hadn't changed outside the US and that it's not always the day the clocks change. He whiffed on the fact that people were sharing that as a joke. Sure, there might have been people complaining, but there's someone out there complaining about pretty much everything, you know? So, it's conceivable he's a complete dolt. I get most upset by his pretensions to intellectual superiority. The guy lacks even a rudimentary grasp of logic, unfortunately. Now, back to him being self-serving. "Movie" Bob Chipman called him out yesterday on Twitter, and really it was unpleasant and unnecessary, calling 90% of TB's fans dullards. ' class="bbc_url">@ ...because his fanbase is 90% dullards who don't WANT games to try to be anything more than distractions. So transparent. — Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) March 8, 2015 Honestly, it was kind of dumb, and exactly the kind of classic teenage finger pointing bullshit that there is already far too much of on the Internet. TB, for his part, pointed out that free speech does not exclude one from a response from the person being criticized (I agree) and then encouraged his followers to harass Chipman. You're all a bunch of fucking idiots, according to a pseudo-intellectual mildly popular movie reviewer. So that's you told. — TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/574704968113987585 ' class="bbc_url">@ You're all a bunch of fucking idiots, according to a pseudo-intellectual mildly popular movie reviewer. So that's you told. — TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/574704968113987585 He meanwhile estimates his audience to be two million people, which seems generous. Basically, he argues he is taking the moral high ground while siccing people on another person. He knows damn well there is a core within his audience that will go and give Chipman a hard time. Honestly, I'm fine with him not liking Chipman (as I said, Chipman himself wasn't being particularly polite) but take it up with Chipman yourself. It's just such a classic example of how this whole GG thing has been run from the start. [EDIT] Sorry that this is a bit of a mess. I'm not used to including tweets embedded in the post. I'd spend more time trying to fix it but I need to stop writing about an awful person and do some work. [/EDIT]

Also (sorry to triple post) how nuts is it that they've still found a way to channel their rage over a speech Tim Schafer gave into attacking a woman?

Tim Schafer has been got to, everyone! Anita Sarkeesian, who has a big nose and that's why we draw those cartoons, they have nothing to do with the centuries of anti-semitic lampooning they appear to reference, is bankrolling him! She has corrupted him with her Kickstarter money! Some people aren't well. I'm honestly not sure the person that drew that cartoon is a well person. The gamergate "movement" or whatever it's supposed to be enables people either being simply awful or (as we've seen now more than once) people that need help being egged on to do things that are not helpful for them or those around them. I do not understand how these people do not see this. I go along with earlier comments though that the main impetus has been lost (if there was truly any real momentum at any point). It's till extraordinarily worrying, and it makes me feel bad for Anita Sarkeesian and others that are targeted. Even if you become mostly blase about this abuse (which is itself depressing) it can't ever be completely easy to deal with. I know I wouldn't like cartoons mocking my looks and attacking my character like this.

Ho. ly. Shit.