"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Irishjohn]

This whole thing is hysterical. I wasn't familiar with these idiots at all until today. A quick look at their Patreon page and just.... wow.

 

Their complete lack of self-awareness is bewildering. They hold up Anita Sarkeesian as this fraud for asking for a one-time payment of $6k and getting much more, then establish incredibly unrealistic "stretch" targets for donations per month. That's per month, ongoing. Bewildering. Absolutely bewildering.

 

I also quite like their pretensions to intellectual superiority while repeatedly displaying a shallowness of critical thinking ability bordering on illiterate, let alone juvenile (see also: Total Biscuit). John Rawls invented social justice. He INVENTED it.

[Twig]

Baldie's website is overflowing with literally racist rants as he smokes a cigar and drinks scotch.

 

Also every shot has a human skull in it.

[dibs]

Here you go IrishJohn.

 

[Irishjohn]

Here you go IrishJohn.

 

 

Fantastic stuff. Casino barbie doll ken. He ran with it.

[feelthedarkness]

I'm going to bet on the evil magician to triumph. 

 

Also, from a pure, regressive, schadenfreude standpoint, having their backers get ripped off is a bit delicious. I know it's petty.

[Blambo]

I just realized how weird his body language is when he talks to actual people. Keeping your hand on your coffee looks super tense.

[Irishjohn]

I just realized how weird his body language is when he talks to actual people. Keeping your hand on your coffee looks super tense.

 

I don't know, assuming for a moment I'm willing to accept your supposition that women are in fact people, the man's life could be at risk. She could be on the verge of physically attacking him and using his body for her needs.

 

I wish this was just me being ridiculous, but I am now watching videos mocking this guy when I should be working and it is terrifying. I'm basically paraphrasing him.

[Twig]

I just realized how weird his body language is when he talks to actual people. Keeping your hand on your coffee looks super tense.

It's a subtle indication that he's used to casually gripping something of that girth.

[Markson]

The particular flavor of schadenfreude I'm enjoying is that over on GrableGorp hub KiA, it apparently takes 3+ threads on the front page for them to convince each other to stop harassing the GDC hastag, but there's not a single mention of the Sarkeesian Effect kerfuffle.

 

Which is weird, because they care more about ethics than they do harassment, right? ...Right?!

 

I know it's unhealthy, but I can't help but follow that sub just to get angry. I keep hoping it'll all die down, but I've been hoping that since late last October. Ever get a toothache and forget what it was like to live life without a toothache?

 

Edit: Comparing GrimbleGrump to a toothache is unfair because real pain and suffering beyond my privileged annoyance and disgust has been inflicted on people, so I'm immediately sorry for that choice of words. It was the quickest way to summarize that "this will never end, things are bad and I wish they would go away" feeling that I found off the top of my head.

[Nachimir]

My visits to KiA are a lot less frequent, because fuck them and probably a lot of the harassment will move on from it. GG are effectively spotters for a smaller group of vicious, dangerous bastards at this point, who only operate partially under the GG label if at all. If anything GG forums like KiA might be useful as early(ish) warnings of who or what will be targeted next.

 

I enjoyed listening to that Sarkeesian effect guy explain that the truly moral thing for him to do was fire the other one and keep all of the money. Super ethics there.

[Christopher]

I enjoyed listening to that Sarkeesian effect guy explain that the truly moral thing for him to do was fire the other one and keep all of the money. Super ethics there.

 

Amusingly, the other Sarkeesian Effect guy is saying pretty much the equal but opposite thing: He fired me and kept all the money, so you should stop donating to him and give me all the money instead.

[Mawd]

It's a subtle indication that he's used to casually gripping something of that girth.

r00d

[Henroid]

As I said in the past, when you let hateful, spiteful assholes play with just each other (after removing them from your communities) you'll eventually see them turn on each other.

[Vainamoinen]

As the Sarkeesian Effect Patreon income approaches feministfrequency's total 2014 expenditures, Owen and Aurini are breaking up instead of releasing their dumb fuck of a documentary. That made my day, wonderful.

 

Of course, the truly moral thing for Owen to do wouldn't have been to just fire Aurini. The moral thing might have been to set him on fire instead.

 

 

/edit: oooohhhhh I am so looking forward to the reaxxion article. I think they're strongly leaning towards Aurini, so I'll assume they'll crucify Owen tomorrow.

 

/edit 2: Oh yes, that is so going to happen. Aurini essentially says that Owen split the project because he's jealous of Roosh V.(reaxxion site owner)'s ability to get women to sleep with him. Grade A shit flinging here, folks. It's a gamergate Ouroboros.

 

/edit 3: Damn, conscience kicking in. Now I am actually somewhat sad that the smaller of the two assholes will be pummeled. *sigh*.

[Blambo]

It's a subtle indication that he's used to casually gripping something of that girth.

 

I really like how this looks like a compliment at first.

[James]

What's with this Owen/Not Aurini/the one with hair/whoever guy? Does he spend his entire life nursing a migraine? It seems like every video I see of him is 50% him sighing, pausing exhaustedly mid-sentence, rubbing his face, pinching the bridge of his nose, lying on his sofa or sitting in a bath.* Is it part of his dumb YouTube affectation? On YouTube you've got to have a dumb affectation. Like copious jump cuts or shrieking at every bloody thing.

I'm a YouTube expert.**

* I actually only saw a screenshot of that last one.

** This is untrue.

[Reyturner]

his whole life is basically one of those BuzzFeed Can't Even joke lists. 

[Deadpan]

Speaking of silly people failing to deliver on silly promises, it's now officially been three months since the editor-in-goof of GG site goofgamers dismissed my attempt to fix some of the countless typos and grammatical errors in their attempt of an ethics statement on the grounds of "you sound mean" and "you're getting yourself worked up over what is clearly just an early draft (even though we've not marked it as such in any way)." I've been glancing at the site on occasion, and despite finding the time to add several more porn game reviews to their erratic collection, they have yet to deliver a "final" draft of their weaksauce ethics policy, which I guess means that the site is still officially an ethical no man's land six months into its tortured existence. So, keep that in mind the next time you see some goof championing that complete load of crap.

 

The other big news being that Brianna Wu announced on Twitter that she met Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock and major GG douchelord discussed a few pages back) for coffee, and between this and her ableist discussion of GG at this point being reduced to only a bunch of psychopaths, it's probably time to recognize that her politics aren't all that great and just because GG hates her, we don't necessarily have to lionize her. Lana Polansky, of course, said great things about this on Twitter, primarily in this here tweet which sums up my feelings pretty well (You should all follow her because she's great).

[BusbyBerkeley]

I don't think its beneficial to decide that someone is bad because they talked to someone else and also used a word that could be seen as offensive. I don't care for Wu really, but people can be nuanced. It's not always "us v them."

[Irishjohn]

It's also the GGers that are focused on the binary opposition dynamic to the point where they go on about "anti-GG" constantly as if it were a thing.

I don't know much about Wu, but I agree that it's not productive to hold up certain figures as being key in some kind of clash, if only because it would legitimize a key GG point. As far as I can tell they round on people, those people respond and this is taken as a clear "anti" narrative.

[Problem Machine]

I don't think its beneficial to decide that someone is bad because they talked to someone else and also used a word that could be seen as offensive. I don't care for Wu really, but people can be nuanced. It's not always "us v them."

Well but I think that's exactly what it is, recognizing that Wu isn't 'us' just another person who we will sometimes agree and/or disagree with, and who absolutely doesn't deserve any of the shit flung her way. The thing is, it has to be taken one step further, and we have to recognize that's true of all players in this debacle. As often and as strongly as I agree with Zoe Quinn, she too is just a person, and elevating her to some symbolic side of a war between heaven and hell is both rhetorically lazy and demeaning to her as a human being.

[Ninety-Three]

The other big news being that Brianna Wu announced on Twitter that she met Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock and major GG douchelord discussed a few pages back) for coffee, and between this and her ableist discussion of GG at this point being reduced to only a bunch of psychopaths

 

I haven't been following this closely, what ableist discussion are you referring to here?

[clyde]

I'd have coffee with Wardell if he was paying, but I don't know what the point of announcing a truce would be. As far as citing business reasons, I eat meals with racists on Christmas so I can identify. I'm not saying that Wardell is racist by the way, I'm saying that racism is endemic in my family and that I struggle being near them, but still end up doing it for whatever reasons. Twitter politics are weird and honestly it's none of my business. The whole thing is weird. Poor everybody.

[tberton]

Yeah, the phrasing of "truce" was weird and I don't know a lot of Brianna's past politics, but it's kind of weird to condemn somebody for having coffee with a person.

[Gormongous]

Yeah, the phrasing of "truce" was weird and I don't know a lot of Brianna's past politics, but it's kind of weird to condemn somebody for having coffee with a person.

 

Well, she also implies that Wardell is now an "ally" of hers, even if they disagree over certain issues. That's worrisome, because Wardell certainly isn't sympathetic to a large majority of what Wu professes to stand for. It's one thing to sit down to dinner with your racist uncle, it's another to call him your friend.

 

I'm not exactly surprised, though. Wu has repeated over the past couple months that #GamerGate is over and the only thing sustaining it is continued coverage on Twitter and Tumblr. She definitely wants the gaming community to move on, whether or not people are really done with this, so it makes a peculiar kind of sense that she'd make nice with one of the bigger dirtbags in the industry to jump-start that movement. As I said in the Other Podcasts thread, I've been drifting from Wu for a while, so it feels consistent for me to criticize her decision. She has a tendency not to see an issue from all sides and a tendency to push things through with force of personality, and I see both on display here, so it's probably a bad decision, but her bad decision to make.