Jump to content
JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

Recommended Posts

It's a bit of a tricky one. Basically there are a bunch of people who are primarily known for butting heads with GG on Twitter: Whenever someone points out that this might not actually be a helpful thing to do, since prolonging this conflict just legitimizes it and gives GG more attention, they tend to get RT'd and swarmed by that person's followers. I don't follow a lot of the specifics, but it's definitely an indication of the phenomena that make GG a problem being way more widespread than many of us would like to think. I'm not sure what I could link to though, since I get a lot of this information from inference and from asides on the twitters.

"Anti-GG" doesn't technically exist but it's a bit of a synecdoche to describe a group of people on Twitter who are a grab-bag of people who aggressively got involved in documenting and responding to GG stuff - some of them outright victims (like SRHButts, etc) doing it for their own archives, plus a HUGE throng of supporters and allies and whatnot. The problem is a lot of these people are generally not the "big names" of opposing GG and got involved because they were fans of people like Brianna Wu or Anita and this was their first big rodeo in terms of online activism. There's also a lot of people who have been involved in the games scene for a while and have a few axes to grind, particularly against Soha for one reason or another. It's not organized in the slightest, it's just a bunch of people who are friends because they all dislike GG for one reason or another but they are known now for talking about GG all day, regardless of how useful that is or not.

 

Myself and my friends pointed out in APRIL that male allies spending all day RTing screencaps of GG people being bigots or otherwise publicly fighting with them on Twitter vs. doing things like signal boosting victims or other people's work/positive efforts is just reproducing hypermasculine concepts of "allyship." This was a general statement but a lot of guys in that group took that VERY seriously and to heart, and got very mad. Since then we've been sniped at by these people, including the people who HAVE been victimized by GG because they think we want them to stop talking about GG at all, ever. It's basically a giant cold war on twitter that's mostly subtweets and actual antagonistic lying from some quarters, to the point of spreading lies like saying we're enforcing a "whisper campaign" because all four of us (and our friends) blocked these people for generally being horrible to us? 

 

So yeah. That's the long and short of it. Imagine a huge group of people you've never formally interacted with talking about you online on a regular basis except in very apocryphal, vicious terms but vague enough that a lot of people don't realize it's you and you can get a gist of what we've been dealing with for months.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

e9798b48a8a7e139960e50f87ceefe4a_everyon
(Taken from "why are you so angry", and it is as correct today as yesterday)

"Anti-gamergate" is a gamergate constructed identity like "Social Justice Warrior" and indeed means 'everyone who disagrees with our movement'. It's another derogatory grouping term. It explicitly doesn't denote extreme forms of twitter activism.

 

People like Sarah Nyberg argue against gamergate not because they're part of any 'anti-gamergate' group. Sarah argues for rather elemental social issues which surprisingly seem to bear conflict potential for the "not at all about that" gamergate movement. A heap of things here could be discussed without the gamergate mob, many of which don't have a thing to do with games even. But, hellooooo, here's gamergate shoving their dick into the discussion and calling people 'anti gamergate' for speaking on the hardly even games related topic.

 

"Anti-gamergate" is just another desperate attempt at finding and defining new enemy figures for idiots to chew on, and it gets old and boring.

 

 

(I of course see how some people spend vast amounts of time on twitter exposing gamergate bigotry, yes of course. But 'agg' doesn't denote that and wasn't created by these people)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Except at this point there are people whose entire online presence is more or less dedicated to being opposed to GG. The term finds new life as it fits the phenomenon of a specific countermovement which also has a number of similar facets to gamergate in terms of tactics (ie sealioning). The above post gives the impression of not having read the past few posts in the thread to understand the context in which this term is now being used.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I tend to think of them as Gamerghazi, and they're not that different because they largely come from the same place: here are these immutable principles, everyone we talk to agrees with these, they're what make us good, and everyone who does not share them is monstrous. I beat this drum a lot, I know, but it's because I think it's an important point: you can be a nutjob about anything, and it's easier than ever.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Without making any judgment on Sarah (my feelings on her are complicated and I can't do them justice... suffice it to say I respect her and I hope things get better for her but I can't have that kind of thing in my life, so I stopped following her on Twitter not long ago):

 

People like Sarah Nyberg argue against gamergate not because they're part of any 'anti-gamergate' group. Sarah argues for rather elemental social issues which surprisingly seem to bear conflict potential for the "not at all about that" gamergate movement. A heap of things here could be discussed without the gamergate mob, many of which don't have a thing to do with games even. But, hellooooo, here's gamergate shoving their dick into the discussion and calling people 'anti gamergate' for speaking on the hardly even games related topic.

 

No, you're wrong. She frequently isolates and screencaps various conversations, on Twitter or whatever, among prominent figures who identify as GG members. She's not just talking about social issues and then being attacked because of that (though of course that does happen, too). She actively seeks this stuff out and call it out. She does this to let people know that it's still happening. Whether or not you find that valuable or harmful is up to whoever you are, but it's undeniable that her actions fall pretty handily under the umbrella of "anti-GG" as defined by "people who devote a significant amount of time to calling out GG's bullshit". Unless she's changed since I stopped following her a few months ago?

 

She is, however, one of those people who does this precisely because they're attacked. She's a real victim, unlike those fair-weather Twitter activists that Apple Cider was alluding to, which I think are a real problem.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There's absolutely a reason I used scarequotes and the term synecdoche and I really hope that the context I was using it in underscores what I was attempting to do. It's a group of people, loosely defined by their relationship with eachother, who do similar things. Within that, it's a list of people who have specifically been mad at myself and my friends for months and attempting to vent this by making shit up and subtweeting us and I didn't exactly want to create a giant hitlist of these people either, especially since their names are not crucial to what I'm expressing. 

 

I really don't want my post to get derailed because I didn't use the proper terminology, like I don't know where the terminology comes from. But if I have to change it, I will. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

She is, however, one of those people who does this precisely because they're attacked. She's a real victim, unlike those fair-weather Twitter activists that Apple Cider was alluding to, which I think are a real problem.

 

I feel similarly, like it always seemed to be a coping thing for her mainly, and while maybe that's not very productive on the whole I wouldn't want to deny her that outlet either. But then there are others, whose main motivation seems to be to hold on to the internet fame they got for disagreeing with a cartoon villain.

 

For some of that folk you can literally see them turning into the thing they claim to be fighting step by step. Just a couple of days ago, one of them got retweeted into my timeline saying something to the extent of "Where's the proof that we are being mean to other progressives?" (and a side of "How dare you be critical of us, we're doing this for you") and it's just getting so fucking close to the way GG and other shitheels angrily demand proof for how and in what ways their behavior is harmful, because woe is them if they should end up contemplating their actions for no reason. In some ways that indignation of self-styled progressive personalities is even more annoying because they wrap their garbage up in social justice language.

 

Like, sometimes there are legit reasons not to name names when you talk about stuff, because often specific people aren't even that relevant to a point you want to make about larger, systemic issues and then maybe you don't want to get dragged into a conversation with somebody defending themselves. But knowing that script for vague callouts and knowing how social justice Twitter tends to respond to these, unhelpfully, by piling on, has given some antiGG personalities a way to send people after their critics without actually making any concrete accusations, or even while making a performance of how concerned and socially conscious they are.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In some ways that indignation of self-styled progressive personalities is even more annoying because they wrap their garbage up in social justice language.

It's probably worth noting that GG does this too. Their rhetoric around objectification of women in video games is shifting towards "why are you, the critic, objectifyng this woman and being so sex negative."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is true, but in usual GG fashion they tend to do botch it up so hard it doesn't usually take much to see through their attempts. These people are much more familiar with the arguments and methods, and can use them to do crappy things without really getting in trouble.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think a lot of it is incredibly sympathetic - I think a lot of people who are incredibly victimized by GG's antics are being flogged a bit by the same male allies who took our general advice about stepping back from dunking on nerds as a personal attack and have been consistently agitating this. It was A Man In Black who even authoritatively said that we were mounting a whisper campaign, I shit you not, that's a quote.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

"whisper campaign"

 

I have literally never seen this phrase used except by people who feel wronged by something intangible and want to invent a reason to attack the people whom they want to attack. It was all over the Puppies' invective during the 2015 Hugos, and I'm entirely unsurprised to see it being used here to damn people for not appreciating the power of good intentions.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's specifically a term from the political sector, as I found out by doing a twitter search of the term. And much like many other incredibly precise and very emotionally dense phrases, it gets used for everything now because it sounds incredibly scary. The irony of the fact that it's being applied to a group of women is not lost on me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hope it isn't necessary to say explicitly that it wasn't my intent to attack anyone here. And it's especially not necessary for anyone to change her posts. :)

 

I've come across the term 'agg' for at least eight months now, and this definition here was just new to me, while I've seen bona fide gamergate supporters use it in exactly the way described earlier – essentially, for the people who dare to speak to the many gamergate topics while disagreeing with gamergate ideologues most if not all of the time.

 

Sarah Nyberg is in the trenches here. The attacks she has endured are incredibly shocking, and if anyone of you has ever been to that ralphretard website: It's practically dedicated to slinging the vilest possible crap in her direction. If 'gamers' as a group have been 'insulted', then Sarah as a single person has been insulted a billion fold. I still have trouble finding much clear cut gamergate idiocy exposure memes on her twitter these last weeks. Of course, undoubtedly, she does this! Undoubtedly I do as well. And while I think it's necessary, I don't think it's the end of all means, and I don't think it's the end of all means for Sarah as well.

 

Updated with today's article on, well, Sarah's life this last year:

https://medium.com/@srhbutts/i-m-sarah-nyberg-and-i-was-a-teenage-edgelord-b8a460b27e10

 

Gamergate sets up dogmatic argumentative structures in which utter falsifications of the ideological enemy's position survive years and can then

. Pointing at these elementary problems will only get you so far, and I'm certain Sarah is aware of that as well. The topic has to be discussed in a broader context, ideally without dragging the gamergate 'position' into a conversation among grown-ups.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Considering how oblivious and up their own ass most of GG is it's hard to tell parody apart from sincerity. This is so outrageous though I'm certain it's satirical. But only like 80% sure.

I found it being tweeted and laughed at in AnnieKNK's mentions. One of them said apparently Vox Day originally tweeted it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Considering how oblivious and up their own ass most of GG is it's hard to tell parody apart from sincerity. This is so outrageous though I'm certain it's satirical. But only like 80% sure.

I found it being tweeted and laughed at in AnnieKNK's mentions. One of them said apparently Vox Day originally tweeted it.

 

I honestly bet that it wouldn't matter to them. The core that remains is so entrenched in its echo chamber and so stuffed full of "crossroads of history" rhetoric that it probably is only capable of processing the attention that satire implies towards them as flattery.

 

Still, jeez... Yeah, every asshole's dream, that they'll get a fucking monument for harassing people internet behind a semi-anonymous alias...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Saving Western civilisation entirely through arguing about video games

 

because if it was important they wouldn't get a fucking look-in

 

What irritates me the most about the culture wars is that it's just the most stupid shit, except that somehow it gets weaponised and actual human beings suffer and die from this dumb shit

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I dunno about you guys, but I personally can't stop giggling at the idea of Mt Rushmore with a giant fucking skull wearing a dumb crown.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I started ranting about how the poem should have gone, and in looking up the correct sequence of groups rounded up, the Wikipedia page basically says the poem is supposed to be read more or less how I wanted to rewrite it - 'I was not a Socialist' isn't a statement of an inability to empathise, but a statement of satisfaction that your ideological opponents got what was coming to them.

 

It's on my mind because of the ridiculous story about David Cameron fucking a pig, which is clearly a dude with an axe to grind but it's something that people so badly want to be true. People share it because it's tantalising, and, well, what if it is true? What if Obama is a socialist Muslim terrorist? What if that bitch that put her dumb Twine game on Steam slept with five guys for positive coverage? What if it's true? If your ideological opponents were that clearly depraved, that clearly immoral? How wonderful would it be to live in a world where such awful things were normal and accepted and only we were brave enough to see the truth (and not do much other than be awful on the Internet). How satisfying that someone would round them up and deal with them.

 

Okay I've convinced myself now, it's bullshit that people keep misinterpreting that poem.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.

×