"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Vainamoinen]

Hey, maybe they start killing each other at this airplay thing.

[Mangela Lansbury]

Is GamerGate trying to take credit for the Gawker relaunch yet?

[Vainamoinen]

No, they have a meaningless ethics policy reformation fetish.

[Vainamoinen]

Too great not to share. This movement is so dead I don't even.

 

https://hailtothegynocracy.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/the-sarkeesian-effect-starring-lorem-ipsum-bombs-at-gamergate-in-atlanta/

[Tanukitsune]

Maybe the reason nobody went to see it because trolls are anonymous? 

 

Either way, I'm pretty sure GG will be alive as long as women get harassed for speaking about problematic things in gamer culture, or even just because they're gamers and MRA don't want women in their hobbies. 

[Vainamoinen]

Oh, the harrassment is alive and well. That's the problem. The harrassment will go on unchecked, it's just that no one will call it gamergate any more.

[Fingus]

Random stranger calls Brianna Wu on her private number. Gets upset and "triggered" when she hangs up on him, and records a rambling incoherent voicemail.

It's a doozy.

[Markson]

https://twitter.com/randfish/status/628091367768457216

 

This is a guy who is big in the search engine optimization field. Does a lot of experiments with how Google and social media work. Thought this was an interesting one - I guess he quietly added "feminist" to his twitter bio to see what would happen and...surprise! Nothing good

[Mangela Lansbury]

The gator rhetoric is ridiculous when it's written, but the meme filled mockery is even more ridiculous/funny/sad/exasperating when it's spoken.

[BusbyBerkeley]

Random stranger calls Brianna Wu on her private number. 

 

I can't imagine that dude's mindset at all. "I'll own this stranger from the internet. I'm going to call them and leave a voicemail full of memes. This is what sane, well-adjusted people do, I am certain! hehe, yeah."

 

Also fuck 4chan and garbage internet holes for coopting feminist language and turning it into fucking memes. Like, they are trying to poison the well so that people can't even talk about these things, and it's working. "Problematic," for example as near as I can tell was used generally to call people out without saying directly "hey that's kind of sexist/racist" because people go on full defense when those words come out, and now if you write "problematic" anywhere in a comment on a general audience site people aren't sure if you're joking or not. The internet is garbage.

[Vainamoinen]

From the urban dictionary:

 

Mansplaining

 

Originally, this term was used to describe boorish men who felt the need to "correct" what a woman said, even on topics that the man didn't know anything about.

However, the term quickly degenerated into a get-out-of-jail-free card used by angry women when a man dares to point out even the most blatant error.

 

Old: That Bob is trying to tell Jill how to raise a horse? She's raised championship thoroughbreds for decades and he's never even ridden a horse. What a stupid mansplainer!

New: OF COURSE HAMSTERS KNOW HOW TO SPEAK IN RUSSIAN! STOP MANSPLAINING!

 

...see what happened there?

 

It's quite obvious that all the shorthand terminology developed to not start a discussion about the issues at version 0.0 every single fucking time is hijacked. Yes of course that's working, phenomenally well.

 

And exactly that is the cowardly weaponry of gamergate supporters.

 

Disrupt, ridicule, memeify. Sure to make any discussion insensible.

 

Only yesterday, a gater threw Pokemon memes at me... I guess it's a form of gamer argument.

[Problem Machine]

I mean as much as that is an absurd example, I think that's also an actual problem sometimes. Sometimes the language of social justice can be used as a bludgeon to shut down discourse rather than a shorthand to advance it, and that sucks.

[Smart Jason]

The one issue of Diversity that “Progressives” fear to mention

 

1. There IS and will always be some small amount of bigotry in the world. As long as people will be people, some men will not like women. some women will not like men, some white people will not like black people, some black people won’t like white people, and so it goes.

 

2. Whilst it does exist, most people are not bigots. The effects that race, gender, and so forth have on privilege is minimal.

 

3. Class is the big one. Class will give you far more potential for opportunity.

 

4. Someone in the top 1% of society will have far more privilege than those underneath them.

 

5. There is virtual no difference in privilege a gay or straight person in the top 1%

 

6. There is virtually no difference in privilege between a black or white person in the top 1%

 

7. There is virtually no difference in privilege between a man or a woman in the top 1%

 

8. Because a person in that 1% is a male or is white or is straight or whatever, it does not mean that their privilege is shared by all those people sharing their classification.

 

[Problem Machine]

... why are we linking to these things again?

[Vainamoinen]

... why are we linking to these things again?

 

Because that's an all new article on a gamergate website.

 

Of course, Totalbiscuit has authored the ridiculous original version of that pamphlet last year, and as we all know, he's not really gamergate. So interesting where his brainfarts eventually turn up, and at what time.

 

And of course, just like the original, the article is an imbecilic treatment of political issues while gamergate is about diversity problems in game narrative and ludology... and the traitorous behaviour of formerly mere game fanzines, I hear.

 

 

 

I mean as much as that is an absurd example, I think that's also an actual problem sometimes. Sometimes the language of social justice can be used as a bludgeon to shut down discourse rather than a shorthand to advance it, and that sucks.

 

It can be used as a bludgeon, it can be used to call out and slap labels on individual, private persons to organize hate against them. Aaaaaand that has got to stop, naturally.

[Deadpan]

There's some merit to the notion that class privilege can (at least) alleviate some of the discrimination people might face over other things (it's been noted on Twitter recently that rich trans folk get hashtags when they come out and poor trans folk get hashtags when they die), although obviously it's ridiculous to conclude that these things therefore don't exist, especially considering people's economic situation is directly affected by these other kinds of discrimination through hiring biases, pay gaps etc. etc. The idea that because the 1% have it almost equally good, the remaining 99% logically also have it equally bad across all genders, races etc. is almost charmingly marxist in its appeal to unity, but about as outdated as holding out hope for a global proletariat uprising.

 

Actually, keeping around a few people to point to as "one of the good/successful ones" is used as a tactic to enforce, not challenge or discredit cultural hegemony, because it keeps alive the lie of meritocracy and allows people to claim that obviously you can "make it" regardless of who you are (meaning people should blame themselves and not structural disadvantages for not making it), even though often one of the prerequisites for "making it" is stepping on other marginalized folks heads and internalizing and reciting a lot of garbage about them. Kind of how like Jenn Frank observed in hindsight that it's relatively easy to be "one of the boys" as a woman, so long as you're willing to talk shit about all other women (or how GG is happy to accept folk of all identities, so long as they agree that it's secondary to being a gamer and never talk about anything that's specific to their lived experience).

 

I think this is that typical brocialist garbage where they tell folk to shut up about identity politics and focus on class struggle while completely neglecting how the former informs the latter. Like when Jonas Kyratzes tells Anna Anthropy to stop talking about trans issues because look at how fucked up the situation in Greece is! Except the stuff that he points to once again disproportionately affects trans women, sex workers etc. etc.

[Vasari]

I think the entire premise is flawed because I've never seen "progressives" ignore class disparity. Most of the political discussion right now in the US and UK is focused on how economic status is a huge factor in inequality. Isn't that what intersectionality is all about?

 

 

2. Whilst it does exist, most people are not bigots. The effects that race, gender, and so forth have on privilege is minimal.

 

And this line is just straight fucking wrong.

[feelthedarkness]

I also think that speaks to a limited experience, because there are ample cases of well off POC having trouble. The first thing I thought of was the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor outside his own home. 

[Vainamoinen]

Race and to some extent gender systemically determine education/class. And poof goes the argument. Yes, I know, I know, the Pakistani in Totalbiscuit's neighbourhood were all filthy rich people, sure, all right.

 

I don't give a single wank about the "perfect equality" of the 1%. So racists and misogynists respect money? Biiiig surprise.

[Naldean]

Even controlling for family income doesn't fully account for economic status between different groups. From what I've read, an average US middle-class black family lives in a neighborhood that is poorer than a poor white family. Opportunity isn't just about your family, it's also about your community.

 

I don't actually believe the claims that there's no impact on race, gender, or sexual orientation among the 1%, but even if that were true it's irrelevant.

[Bjorn]

 

 

Source

 

 

 

The study divides the top 1 percent of earners into two parts: the top 0.1 percent (meaning that 99.9 percent of earners are lower) and the second 0.9 percent. From 1981 to 1985, women averaged about 2 percent of the top 0.1 percent; now, they’re about 11 percent. Among the second 0.9 percent of earners, women have gone from 3 percent in the early 1980s to 17 percent now. Gender representation is still wildly skewed — but less so.

 

Source

 

Of course there's no connection between race, gender and class....nope. 

[Gormongous]

I think the entire premise is flawed because I've never seen "progressives" ignore class disparity. Most of the political discussion right now in the US and UK is focused on how economic status is a huge factor in inequality. Isn't that what intersectionality is all about?

 

I have yet to see a pro-#GamerGate commentator actually understand what "intersectionality" means. Even the ones that are willing to listen to responses and give follow-up questions are still always like, "Yeah, so you say you can care about multiple things, but which one do you care the most about?" It's like the imageboard cultural tendency of "best vs. worst" has left them unable to engage with anything that doesn't cop to whataboutism.

[Vainamoinen]

1percent-byrace1.png

 

Exactly.

[Deadpan]

Also let's just take a second to appreciate the fucking gall of a movement that specifically and routinely targets people for using Patreon, one of the few ways marginalized folk can make some money in an industry not interested in supporting them, now going "What about class issues, guys?"

[Problem Machine]

No don't you get it they're all rich already they're just using Patreon to fleece suckers by sharing free art and insights that are unique to their position in life.