"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Irishjohn]

Oh yeah, I had no doubts about its origin stemming off from harassment against Zoe Quinn, but for about a month, whenever I saw a hashtag user, I gave the said individual benefit of the doubt that they actually just didn't know that and bought the 'ethics' part instead of being one of the founding harassers.

 

It wasn't a benefit of the doubt about legitimacy of the hashtag, but about whether the individual using it was making an honest mistake (and those who did seem to drop it once they talked more about it).

 

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.

[itsamoose]

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.

I think that if there were anyone in Gjnoi's life who was willing to question his motives he would be much better off. He is enjoying a temporary victory at the moment, and isn't dealing with his feelings of betrayal so much as delaying confrontation with them. I think the existence of gamergate is all the proof he needs that he did the right thing. At some point in the future he is going to have a negative experience and the whole house of cards he has been building around himself will come crashing down. I suspect it will be at that point he will publish the second half of his ramblings in the hope of again convincing himself of the righteousness of his actions. He acts like someone who doesn't believe he did the right thing, but is allowing himself to be convinced of that because having to recognize he did wrong would be too much.

One of my friends was in a similar situation a while back (essentially a bad breakup) and was considering writing letters about it to anyone and everyone who could bring his ex harm. It took some doing, but I ultimately convinced him what he was thinking about was not righteous but vindictive and petty. He made a lot of the same "she's forcing me to do this" type arguments Eron is currently, and similar to Erin after getting another girlfriend he was fine. I don't know him, but I get the sense that Eron is at the least introverted and unwilling to expose any kind of weakness to anyone.

[Gormongous]

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.

 

Wow, I could have written that post, except that I only have three years of teaching experience as a TA, with my first year as an independent instructor coming up now. I know exactly what you mean and I see Gjoni's rage and self-righteousness in miniature all the time among my students. Both genders get upset about grades all the time, but it's almost always young men, who've always thought of themselves as A+ students naturally, that fly off the handle with exaggerated accusations and elaborate revenge schemes when they get their first C for ignoring my instructions and turning in a book summary rather than a book review. A lot of the time, there is literally no way to get them to understand that they did something wrong and that they're the ones who need to change. They literally don't have the framework to evaluate their own thoughts and actions as anything but entirely justified, just because they had them. I really don't know what there is to be done about it.

 

And yeah, I think there's also a recognition among these defenders of Gjoni, whether conscious or unconscious, that they've been awful to women in many of the same ways that Gjoni is, and that they're guilty of being vindictive and abusive assholes if he is. I hate to say it, but like you, I've treated girlfriends poorly and then not been able to let go when things rightfully ended with them. It took a lot of growing and some admissions of weakness to get beyond that, and I was lucky to have friends who told me how it was and didn't just blindly support me when I was doing wrong to myself and to others. For a lot of the people in #GamerGate, either isolated by themselves or surrounded by like-minded angry young men, they may never get that opportunity to grow, and that's a bit sad and scary, so long as I don't focus on the world of harm that they're doing to good people.

[Irishjohn]

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!

 

 

It took a lot of growing and some admissions of weakness to get beyond that, and I was lucky to have friends who told me how it was and didn't just blindly support me when I was doing wrong to myself and to others. For a lot of the people in #GamerGate, either isolated by themselves or surrounded by like-minded angry young men, they may never get that opportunity to grow, and that's a bit sad and scary, so long as I don't focus on the world of harm that they're doing to good people.

 

And I could have written this! I feel exactly the same way. 

[Gormongous]

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!

 

I honestly feel that it's the same impulse as the bad-faith cries for ethics in games journalism. They've been around a system their entire lives and think that they have an understanding of how it works, which is in a way that always benefits and pleases them, so when it does something that they don't expect or like, it's the fault of the system and not them, therefore the system should apologize and/or change and/or be destroyed. Maybe that's a stretch, I don't know.

[Problem Machine]

So you're saying GG are all that kid who plays a game and when they die they say "omg this game is so cheap!"

[itsamoose]

That actually seems like a fair assessment. If you spend a lot of time with something naturally you tend to see yourself as a master of it. Then one day something new comes along and not only are you not an expert, but no one cares what you have to say about it. It's basically the gamer version of arguing about who can bench press more.

Oddly, gamer culture of late has basically absorbed all the worst elements of jock/bro/frat culture. I bet the guy in the gym who lambastes me every time I go for not lifting enough weight would get along quite well the with gamergate crowd.

[Vainamoinen]

Gamergate isn't necessarily about the failure to understand the progress of an art form. The situation we had only two decades ago and somehow seems to reemerge today – i.e. lots and lots of indie developers, three people in a garage – seems particularly scary to gamergate culture (see youtube comments on

for ample further reference). As such, it isn't really a conservative movement. It is not just scared by the structures of tomorrow, it is scared by the structures of yesterday as well.

 

The way out is, of course, to totally romanticize the past. A past in which only Electronic Arts ever existed and video game journalists never, ever had a friendly beer over an interview with a game dev/coder, anywhere in the world.

[feelthedarkness]

This is come up on the podcast a bunch, the idea that games/media can effect you and your outlook. If you went through your formative years in the last 15/20 years games shifted to that "YOU'RE AWESOME!" mode for clearing obstacles designed specifically to be cleared. It's really weird when you think about it, very little in games are designed to actually stop a player absolutely.

 

Then you get these indie games that tell you things aren't so great. I don't think people are reacting that directly, or that clearly, but I think there is a subconscious effect that feeds into the notion of "what real games are."

[Tanukitsune]

I'm surprised nobody is talking about the recent GG bomb threat.... This time someone threatened a GG gathering with a bomb.

 

Frankly, just looking at the user name of the threat, it's likely to be some channer or random troll, and the whole thing is... weird? OK, I get them having a screenshot since it's likely the troll account was deleted if not banned, but the article can't help to say that a simple email to the venue saying they shouldn't allow a hate group to use their venue was "close" to the threat... 

 

Also, how strange is that the police took seriously a simple tweet? Haven't they ignored most of the harassment and threats received by Anita, Zoe and the rest?

 

Am I wrong to be... suspicious? Something does seem off here. Why is something like a bomb threat only source a screencap of a tweet and some photos?

[Irishjohn]

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.

[Deadpan]

The less talked about side effect of GG being this impossible to pin down thing is that by extension, any concept of opposing the group becomes just as nebulous. The common assertion is that anything bad that happens to GG is the action of anti-GG, even though it's been revealed many times now that the group itself houses and is regularly used by people who clearly don't have any interest at all in its supposed goals and just want to hurt others. But the idea that the people who have been manipulating them from the start may benefit from keeping their army of vindicative pissbabies riled up doesn't cross their mind, and if you bring it up then obviously that's just because you're covering your ass.

 

The idea of there being clear cut sides is disastrous to any attempt at conversation.

[Vainamoinen]

Well, it DID occur in DC, which could explain the interest of the police. Which is great, you know – the police actually responding to threats made online! So much more than Quinn or Sarkeesian could ever hope for.

 

It's pretty irrelevant where that tweet came from (as much as gaters hope their asses off, it probably wasn't Arthur Chu). We're in a time and age where chan-style activism and outpouring of hate can come from just about any 'side' (see Joss Whedon's goodbye from twitter over AoU controversies). The important thing is to condemn what has happened here. Bomb threats are the instrument of terrorists, plain and simple.

 

If people would like to meet up with Milo "Obama probably loves these riots" Yiannopoulos and Christina Hoff "they don't teach you to interpret study results in philosophy" Sommers, why shouldn't they? In peace and all. Go forth and meet your heroes, unharrassed by anyone.

 

It really, really is just video games.

[Ben X]

(see Joss Whedon's goodbye from twitter over AoU controversies)

 

Don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I hadn't heard about this and the first search result I got for it suggests that his reasons for leaving were unclear.

[Bjorn]

That's my impression as well.  Everyone is assuming/claiming its because of AoU, but it's not like this is Whedon's first brush with Internet shitstorms, it seems likely that at most it's a straw+camel's back situation than because anything is particularly special or worse about the AoU reaction. 

[Gaizokubanou]

Don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I hadn't heard about this and the first search result I got for it suggests that his reasons for leaving were unclear.

 

Not the best collection but this is something

 

https://storify.com/Astojap/wehdon-twitter-hate

 

Now I get that some of this is probably typical traffic for someone of Whedon's fame... but I hope that the sheer volume isn't.

 

That's my impression as well.  Everyone is assuming/claiming its because of AoU, but it's not like this is Whedon's first brush with Internet shitstorms, it seems likely that at most it's a straw+camel's back situation than because anything is particularly special or worse about the AoU reaction. 

 

Right, nothing is particularly crazy about AoU (well, compared to any other internet shitstorm), and that's part of the point, that assholes will use even legitimate cause (movie used bad tropes, etc.) to do nothing but cause shitstorm.

[Irishjohn]

If people would like to meet up with Milo "Obama probably loves these riots" Yiannopoulos and Christina Hoff "they don't teach you to interpret study results in philosophy" Sommers, why shouldn't they? In peace and all. Go forth and meet your heroes, unharrassed by anyone.

 

It really, really is just video games.

 

Hear, hear.

[Apple Cider]

What's being shored up here is this narrative that it's all "internet feminists" fault, despite most of the shitflinging coming from a mixture of fanpeople, trolls specifically designed to harass as well as a mixture of women telling Joss that he was being sexist. So, I am not sure how this is all fucking feminists. 

[JonCole]

A ton of the accounts shitting on Joss were just people with Avengers avatars and generic sounding usernames, I'm sure they were all "fans of MCU"/"feminists" "with legitimate concerns".

[Gaizokubanou]

What's being shored up here is this narrative that it's all "internet feminists" fault, despite most of the shitflinging coming from a mixture of fanpeople, trolls specifically designed to harass as well as a mixture of women telling Joss that he was being sexist. So, I am not sure how this is all fucking feminists. 

 

I hope my post didn't come across as "look at these internet feminists trolling" because that was not what I intended to convey at all.  If it did, then my apologies for not articulating myself better.

 

I wanted to just show that assholes and trolls will claim any idea to harass others with, to build on Vainamoinen's idea that even assholes can become target of worse assholes under whatever 'reason' or 'side' the worse assholes can cook up with for the convenience.

[itsamoose]

I wanted to just show that assholes and trolls will claim any idea to harass others with, to build on Vainamoinen's idea that even assholes can become target of worse assholes under whatever 'reason' or 'side' the worse assholes can cook up with for the convenience.

Most internet argumentation is basically just mad libs at this point. Honestly I don't think people value understanding so much as the appearance of it. Anyone with a dissenting opinion can claim to be an expert while being pretty sure no one is going to call them on their bullshit.

[Irishjohn]

Most internet argumentation is basically just mad libs at this point. Honestly I don't think people value understanding so much as the appearance of it. Anyone with a dissenting opinion can claim to be an expert while being pretty sure no one is going to call them on their bullshit.

 

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.

[Merus]

I don't buy that "feminists" had much to do with this wave of abuse (I know The Mary Sue was a little upset at Whedon recently, but the proof is in the pudding). However, if Katherine Cross can be believed, there was a surprising amount of justification of the abuse coming from that direction. Certainly there seemed to be some feminists delighted that Whedon, who was fairly progressive in his youth but not these days (a fate we shall all share), seemed to have been finally punished. Apparently there have also been arguments that harassment of privileged targets isn't a big deal because they're essentially getting a taste of their own medicine. Randi Harper was getting accused of conflating aggressive people with people participating in call-out culture by someone who certainly appears to have an interest in social justice.

 

I imagine these justifications were offered before it became clear exactly what directions this abuse was coming from.

[Apple Cider]

This is all anecdotal but there's actually very few people I know in any circles, feminist, social justice or otherwise who actually cheer on harassment of ANYONE, versus talking about how contextually, people care about Joss far more than people with no resources and use Twitter as a means to socialize and survive off their work. Jaden Smith also got hassled off Twitter recently as well and no one is talking about it because, well, you know why. 

 

Are there absolutely callous-as-fuck people in social justice circles? Absolutely! People are jerks EVERYWHERE though and for some reason, I saw a lot of people saying that there was this widespread "not a big deal" feelings happening that everyone had to sit up and take time out of their day to refute because no, totally, it absolutely was happening a lot. I don't agree with Katherine 100% on this one, honestly. There's always this division when something happens that shakes up someone who is a favorite of more liberal ends of the feminist/sj spectrum, it suddenly becomes that there were too many "extremists"/toxic feminists gunning for someone's head, when the truth of the matter is that abusive people pop up in every community. 

 

I don't like that Joss was hassled. I don't like it when anyone is hassled. But Joss really was not long for Twitter as it was, and a lot of what I saw was actually just angry criticism, versus organized hate campaigns versus people who merely exist or have an opinion. It's just frustrating because Joss is absolutely believed from the get-go, no matter what, but a lot of other people have to fight consistently to be believed by what is seriously harmful and oftentimes escalating harassment against them.

[natellite]

Well and it's ridiculous, too, that the hypocrisy of this feigned outrage isn't even apparently part of the conversation. The people decrying SJWs harassing Joss off twitter are the same people who haven't just been willfully ignoring the harassment of people like Zoe and Anita and so on, they've been perpetrating it. But a day, maybe two days of vocal criticism, not about Joss Whedon's worth as a person but about a product that he conceived, commodified, and sold? Well, that's a bridge too far.

 

Really, my only question is why people seem to be collectively buying it. The other side is way better at this kind of thing than we are - it's true in politics and it's true here, too. Maybe most folks are prepared to assume the worst just on principle.