"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Cyborg771]

It's gotten so much media saturation at this point I'm expecting one of my parents to ask me what this "Gamergate" thing is about.

[juv3nal]

http://thats-beautiful-dude.tumblr.com/post/101278984301

[Bjorn]

I'll watch the whole episode tomorrow during my lunch hour, but apparently it includes a bit where Anita can't name 3 misogynistic games (clearly intentionally joking), but ggers are losing their shit on twitter taking it seriously. 

[Problem Machine]

http://www.themarysue.com/watch-anita-sarkeesian-colbert-segment/

[Gormongous]

In the comment thread to an article about Sarkeesian's appearance, someone was talking about how #GamerGate spreading misinformation in response to it fits their longtime pattern of "winning skirmishes at the cost of the war." It seemed very apt to me.

 

It's gotten so much media saturation at this point I'm expecting one of my parents to ask me what this "Gamergate" thing is about.

 

My mother's already asked me, in the tired way she asks me about pop culture phenomena in which she knows I'm already eye-deep. I didn't get thirty seconds into my explanation before she cut me off by saying, "Oh, it's just a bunch of people angry that they can't own a hobby, so they're trying to scare everyone else away. Okay." I wanted to say more, but maybe that's a correct enough understanding for a fifty-something woman whose favorite pastime is doing community trash pickup in public parks.

 

Also, speaking of mothers, does it bother anyone else that Christina Sommers is referred to as "Based Mom" or just "Mom" by a substantial percentage of #GamerGate? Maybe I'm going too far down the rabbit hole, but it seems like #GamerGate is giving one of their most legitimate advocates (although that's a sliding scale, for sure) the only title of authority that a female can hold.

[Flynn]

Older article, still feels very relevant:

 

The most common framing of this situation among what you might call the 'anti-feminist' camp is that of patriotic Gamers rallying together to defend their beloved pastime from a bunch of women (and brainwashed men) who want to lay down rules about what you can and cannot put in a game. I've already written about what a fundamental misunderstanding that is, and I'm not going to repeat myself here. But aside from how baseless it is, it also reveals a very profound misunderstanding of who they are dealing with. I've been playing games ever since I was a child. I'm a very vocal supporter of games. I've spent years of my life studying them and building a career out of making games and contributing to games culture. I am clearly a 'gamer' by any reasonable definition, and yet I am frequently portrayed as being on the side that wants to destroy gaming. Things like this are why I find it difficult to take these accusations seriously.

 

And of course, the same can be said of pretty much everyone being accused of trying to destroy games. A vocal minority of gamers seem to take it upon themselves to draw lines and exclude journalists, critics, game developers - people with a demonstrable history of love for video games, who (in most cases) have been contributing constructively towards games for most of their lives - from their own narrow definition of 'gamer', purely because they have incomprehensible opinions about how gaming relates to wider culture. When someone like Tim Schafer is getting "suicide suggestions" from people who claim to LOVE GAMES, then there's some incredible mental gymnastics going on.

 

http://midnightresistance.co.uk/articles/plight-grown-ass-gamer

[Gormongous]

Also, not to double-post, but browsing Christine Love's twitter, I came across this screencap of an 8chan post attacking DiGRA with a list of putative demands. Quite frankly, I love stuff like this. It shows a fundamental (almost tragicomic) misunderstanding of how academic research is conducted, what that research produces, and how professional associations figure into both.

 

I don't mean to be uncharitable, but it is nothing short of perfect that this poster conceives of DiGRA as a SEELE-like shadow organization commissioning research into certain areas but not others in the furtherance of a supreme agenda. Whatever. People who come into academia study what they want to study. Sometimes there's some influence by their advisor, but it always pertains to what that advisor thinks is viable to publish. If there's a preponderance of progressive and feminist thought in academic research on games, it's because it's the kind of thought that's in existence and in demand among other scholars. There's no place at all for DiGRA to exert its influence, let alone set the criteria for what research is done and what is done with it, because every professional association I've ever known operates as a mostly passive forum for scholars to exchange old ideas in the hopes of sparking new ones. It can't encourage or discourage anything, because it doesn't exist outside the actions of its members. Even the executive board, as grand as it sounds, is just a bunch of busywork given to senior scholars as recognition for their achievements or to junior scholars as a way for them to make new contacts in the field. Basically, this dude needs to watch less TV, because none of his demands are even sensical to the academy I know and love (against all odds and sense).

 

Above all, if these assholes don't like how research into games is being conducted and disseminated, maybe some of them should stop fellatiating the STEM disciplines and spend a few years picking turnips in the humanities. It would quickly disabuse them of any conspiracy among critics and theorists beyond building a CV and getting regular meals.

[thefncrow]

I'll watch the whole episode tomorrow during my lunch hour, but apparently it includes a bit where Anita can't name 3 misogynistic games (clearly intentionally joking), but ggers are losing their shit on twitter taking it seriously.

Colbert asks her to name 3 games, and she stumbles a little, but answers saying "It's about the conditions seen on the whole, not about calling out any one game like GTA." Because she answers it by talking about how she's not trying to single out any specific games, that's being taken as "she didn't because she couldn't".

[Cyborg771]

I love how the guy in Gormongous' screencap asks for "one equalist for every feminist". Just goes to show, again, a fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism is.

[Lu]

http://www.themarysue.com/watch-anita-sarkeesian-colbert-segment/

 

 That was great!

[BigJKO]

"Oh, it's just a bunch of people angry that they can't own a hobby, so they're trying to scare everyone else away. Okay."

 

Perfect summary.

 

Your mom rocks.

 

...based mom!

[Gormongous]

I love how the guy in Gormongous' screencap asks for "one equalist for every feminist". Just goes to show, again, a fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism is.

 

It's posts like that one making me wonder whether it's inevitable for segments of #GamerGate to radicalize. If someone sent the AHA, the MAA, or the SSCLE, the three professional associations of which I'm a part, a similar list of demands, it might be brought up at the next meeting, which only happens once a year at most anyway, but it would almost certainly be ignored in its entirety, because most of its content is erroneous, some of it is contradictory, and none of it is achievable, especially not if these associations actually adhere to their own bylaws. In particular, the idea that candidates for the executive board should or even could be selected on the basis of ideological sympathies, rather than professional achievement or seniority, is as insane as it is impossible. It would require a degree of scrutiny of which no one in the association is capable, let alone qualified. Also, academic freedom, eh?

 

It all puts me in mind of bank robbers who take hostages, demand a billion dollars and amnesty, then look for sympathy from the public when the police refuse to "negotiate" those terms with them. I don't think it's intentional here, but the effect of laying out such flagrantly uninformed and unrealistic demands is mostly the same.

...based mom!

 

Baaarf. Thanks, though. I'm sure she'd appreciate the props, even though it's more that she really just doesn't have patience for the justification of unkindness in any form.

[Merus]

I'm really worried about the potential for radicalisation. The manosphere and white supremacists have already turned up, looking to convince vulnerable nerds that their fears and concerns are valid and caused by Others. I don't want this to die down on its own, because that means a good portion of them have been successfully recruited, and then convinced to work towards other, more dangerous goals.

[Cyborg771]

I liked the Colbert segment, and I understand that there's limited time to talk, but I was a little uncomfortable with her saying it's ALL about harassing women. Of course I'm aware that that's how it started and that's the bulk of the effect it's had so far, but there are clearly a large number of people who seem to believe the ethics tagline. They're wrong of course. The conspiracy webs and misunderstanding of basic journalistic practice are laughable on a good day, but they do exist. I'm even starting to think the abusive trolls are losing interest, at least as far as I can see. Don't get me wrong, I think the harassment is worth taking up the bulk of any segment on the subject, but if we're going to mock them we should at least mock what they're trying to present as their platform.

[Ben X]

Colbert asks her to name 3 games, and she stumbles a little, but answers saying "It's about the conditions seen on the whole, not about calling out any one game like GTA." Because she answers it by talking about how she's not trying to single out any specific games, that's being taken as "she didn't because she couldn't".

 

I wouldn't say she stumbled at all, tbh. She laughs while answering at one point, presumably in reaction to Colbert's persona.

 

Colbert (adopting a misogynist jerk persona): Would you call them 'male fantasy objectification of women games'?

 

Sarkeesian: Some of them, that would be an accurate title, yeah.

 

C: Some of them? Give me some names.

 

S: So, in the work that I do, I look at hundreds of examples of video games and-

 

C (interrupting pushily): Can you think of three? Can you think of three?

 

S: I can but I think it's a bigger issue to talk about the industry as a whole and how it perpetuates these ideas of sexism and misogyny, as opposed to just Grand Theft Auto for example.

 

Cyborg, I know what you mean, but this was a 3 minute interview, most of which was taken up with Colbert's schtick. Sarkeesian was in a reactive role, she didn't really have a chance to give a detailed or nuanced response. I think what she said was preferable in this interview to trying to explain the gradual changes and vague nature of the movement, making her stance seem confused or exaggerated...

[Merus]

I think it's worth keeping it in context: this is Colbert, appearing on the show is always a tacit endorsement, and the guest's job is to usually allow Colbert to make their point for them by making the opposing views look stupid and ill-informed. You can see how Colbert works by looking at how quickly he transitions from talking about how he enjoys women with very large breasts and very skimpy armour, to that being okay because they are damsels in distress.

 

The Colbert Nation is usually sharp enough to understand what's going on, and that this is someone Colbert has declared is worth listening to.

[Cyborg771]

I agree and stated as much in my opening line.

I guess I'm just thinking along the same lines as Singlespace a little. At least in public a semi-understanding hand to the deluded-but-not-evil folks MIGHT be able to get some attention. Not gonna tear Anita down for her perspective though. She's the actual target of the abuse and I wouldn't expect her to have any sympathy for those that unwittingly support it, and the time didn't really permit for a nuanced discussion.

In other news, I actually decided to go back and read Nathan Grayson's Game_Jam article, just so I have data to back me up. He mentions Zoe 6 times. Once in a list of participants, once in a breakdown of the teams, once at the beginning of the section on her dispute with JonTron, and three times in quotes from the original Jared Rosen article. There are two mentions of Depression Quest, both in the phrase "Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn" in the first two mentions of her name. For comparison there are 5 mentions of Jon who also shared the spotlight in one section, four mentions of Robin Arnott, and 5 mentions of Matti Leshem. Somebody on reddit said "It was the Game Jam piece that presents the real ethical conflict. He plugged her 'Rebel Jam' thing in a pretty serious way." and yet there are 0 mentions of Rebel Jam. Just thought I'd provide the data in case anybody else needs it.

Edit: Sorry, 7 mentions, missed one by her last name. She also has the closing quote talking about how she thinks it SHOULD have been done. A pretty fitting cap for the article though.

[Ben X]

I agree and stated as much in my opening line.

 

Yeah, I was going to acknowledge that but this thread is so fast-moving I was rushing to get my point down! Perhaps Anita has written/spoken elsewhere specifically about these 'well-meaning/ignorant' aspects of goobergoob...

 

Merus - absolutely. I hope I made it clear in my post that Colbert didn't mean the things he was saying. It's all very obvious, even for someone like myself who doesn't watch Colbert; it takes a lot of effort to be so obtuse as to not understand what's going on in that interview!

[Synnah]

I wouldn't say she stumbled at all, tbh. She laughs while answering at one point, presumably in reaction to Colbert's persona.

 

Yeah, the whole point of that question is that it's rhetorical, and he's playing a caricatured devil's advocate. He doesn't actually expect her to name three games, and she understands that, so she doesn't. That people in GamerGate don't understand this, and are using it as proof that she doesn't know anything about games is wholly unsurprising, as we've seen many times before that reading comprehension is a bit of a sticking point for them.

 

 

In other news, I actually decided to go back and read Nathan Grayson's Game_Jam article, just so I have data to back me up. He mentions Zoe 6 times. Once in a list of participants, once in a breakdown of the teams, once at the beginning of the section on her dispute with JonTron, and three times in quotes from the original Jared Rosen article. There are two mentions of Depression Quest, both in the phrase "Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn" in the first two mentions of her name. For comparison there are 5 mentions of Jon who also shared the spotlight in one section, four mentions of Robin Arnott, and 5 mentions of Matti Leshem. Somebody on reddit said "It was the Game Jam piece that presents the real ethical conflict. He plugged her 'Rebel Jam' thing in a pretty serious way." and yet there are 0 mentions of Rebel Jam. Just thought I'd provide the data in case anybody else needs it.

Edit: Sorry, 7 mentions, missed one by her last name. She also has the closing quote talking about how she thinks it SHOULD have been done. A pretty fitting cap for the article though.

 

I read that article back when it happened, and it's a really fascinating piece! I recommend reading it just because. But yeah, there's definitely no favouritism of Zoe in it; in terms of covering the sexism angle I'm pretty sure he mentions Adriel Wallick just as much.

[Ben X]

McDonalds comes out as anti-internet-hate. I'm going to take this to mean Ronald is anti-gg.

[Ben X]

Yeah, the whole point of that question is that it's rhetorical, and he's playing a caricatured devil's advocate. He doesn't actually expect her to name three games, and she understands that, so she doesn't.

 

I'm going to be massively pedantic (whilst agreeing with you) and point out that it wasn't even that question that she laughed while answering, it was the previous one, "give me some names". Just for the sake of accuracy!

[Griddlelol]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29821050

 

Apparently this is mainstream news now.

[Synnah]

I'm going to be massively pedantic (whilst agreeing with you) and point out that it wasn't even that question that she laughed while answering, it was the previous one, "give me some names". Just for the sake of accuracy!

 

Yeah, my bad! I should have specifically quoted thefncrow's post about the 'name three games' question in particular.

[JonCole]

 

I lol'd.

[Merus]

All those gaming journalists killed by gamers

 

I am having difficulty interpreting that in a way other than the man being unhinged