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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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I kind of wish I'd been infiltrating KiA just so I could ask, all indignant, "What about gay porn? Where's the gay stream? Hey we're #notyourshield!"

 

From what I read, the pornstar seems to have her own reasons for doing it, and they mentioned not being able to explicitly name it as a stream for gamergate. Also, in a simultaneously horriffic and hilarious way, someone assumed it would involve a woman dressing up as their mascot. Comments spoilered because, the horror:

 

"Porn: VivianJames travels back in time to have sex with young sexy Gaben and Nintendo bosses, it is so gonna be epic."

 
"Not a fan. Mercedes is just in this for the money, and Vivian James was explicitly made to be non sexualized. I get that this is just Rule 34 at work, but I'm still opposed to it."
 

"Uh, no, a handful of anons were whining when Vivian James was made that she shouldn't be sexualized. This is not the same as "explicitly made to be non sexualized," especially as rule34 immediately followed."

 

"SHUT UP we can do whatever filthy things we like to the fake gamer girl we invented. Stop being so wank-uh, I mean sex-negative. I can't get it up for charity when you're limiting my freedom of speech like this!"

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Second thing: Thread about "gaming once being a utopia"

 

"I want to return to a time when anonymity in gaming and on the internet meant we could escape the prejudices of the real world and not be judged by our race or sex or class. […] Gaming has always been about escapism, an egalitarian utopia where your standing in the real world doesn't matter. I want to return to that."

 

Yeah gaming has always been a egalitarian utopia, unless the other gamers found out you were black or had a chuff. Now you can barely throw around casual rape jokes without someone oppressing you.

 

"This. This is all I want.

I want our Utopia back. And I'm not going to stop fighting until we get it."
 
I'm pretty sure you just have to fight your way around the next corner to get to utopia. Just burn down a few more people's lives and you'll definitely be really, really close.
 

"Other than slurs shouted by vocal minority of trolls in gaming chats here and there there wasn't any problem at all. We've learned a long time ago that we need to ignore the troll if we want to keep a free internet. The other option is 1984 internet, it would be clean but also fucked u. In fact I'd just have been arrested for saying the utopic 1984 internet is fucked up so you can probably see the problem."

 

I've heard the bandwidth on 1984 internet was really bad, and when a bunch of racial slurs came down the line it meant you could hardly ignore them at all. We have to just let harassment happen because otherwise really bad things would be happening to this guy in the dystopia he's imagining.

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Finally, a rationalisation for video game protagonists being white dudes:

 

"In short, it's usually a white male because nobody cares what such a character does, how he is portrayed or treated or what happens to that character. For the most part.

If it's no longer white or male, then it somehow gets treated as a representative of it's demographic which can lead to people looking for societal/cultural messages where there aren't any intended. Moral panic feces hitting the outrage fan increases several fold.
Did I get that right?"

 

So close to an epiphany!

 

I've heard representing minorites fairly is even harder than animating women. It's also totally fine to offend people as long as you didn't intend to, because intent is a special form of magic.

 

"[–]subtleshill

More importantly, why are evil villains always white males?"

 

Yeah. Why are they never robots, aliens, super-soldiers, genetic hybrids, ghosts, insects, cartoon animals, Russians or Muslims, eh? Don't sweat it though, I'm sure the writers didn't intend to offend you.

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I've heard representing minorites fairly is even harder than animating women. It's also totally fine to offend people as long as you didn't intend to, because intent is a special form of magic.

 

You're sassy today, Nachmir! Seriously, those links you've posted are both insane. There is literally no way that anyone could have been on the internet between 1999 and 2009 and missed the rampant boys' club of hate and porn that was the internet back then. It's gotten so much better now, in terms of being an inclusive space, that it's hard to remember a time when something like "Bow Nigger" represented not the most outre of multiplayer experiences but the basic cost of entry. I've mostly forgotten myself, but even so it was never a utopia, not even when I was much younger and dumber.

 

Also, that complaint about villains is beautiful. They don't notice when the protagonist is always a white male, but they sure notice it when the antagonist is, and listen to them howl when they do! Man, wouldn't it suck if it were like that all the time, guys?

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"In short, it's usually a white male because nobody cares what such a character does, how he is portrayed or treated or what happens to that character. For the most part.

If it's no longer white or male, then it somehow gets treated as a representative of it's demographic which can lead to people looking for societal/cultural messages where there aren't any intended. Moral panic feces hitting the outrage fan increases several fold.

Did I get that right?"

So close to an epiphany!
There's some truth to that, but yeah that's primarily a case of there not being enough representation generally so each portrayal bears an oversized burden of representation. A really good discussion on this in regard to Amos & Andy got linked from a recent cast's discussion page:http://www.avclub.com/article/iamos-n-andy-iwas-the-rare-representation-of-black-101275

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There's some truth to that, but yeah that's primarily a case of there not being enough representation generally so each portrayal bears an oversized burden of representation.

 

What gets to me is that they take that, run with it, and end up at "Yeah, so stop complaining everyone, white dudes are just the best option!", and then detour into "Actually I wish people would stop victimising us white guys". It fascinates me that that person quoted gets to the idea of anyone exhibiting a minority characteristic being unfairly called upon to represent "their people", then closes it by ascribing that as an act of his ideological enemies rather than a widespread circumstance of the societies we live in.

 

I'm finding it slightly fascinating to watch a divide with identity politics on both sides. Sure it's absolutely laughable to arrange such structures around an identity as constructed as "gamer" and that leads to all the ridiculousness I've quoted above, but the one hope it gives me is the prospect of anyone involved with identity politics examining their own beliefs more closely. As in, identity politics that are easy to pick apart might help to weed out and eliminate weak arguments and blind spots from other kinds.

 

Edit: Gulfs kind of appear and disappear in GG too. There's an absurd string of comments discussing Terry Pratchett and Margaret Thatcher here.

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Indeed. Well, some people hated her [Thatcher]. I think she was awesome. She would have been a 'gater. She was a strong anti-feminist scientist woman. And she would be out front with a ginourmous sword, fucking antis up

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The charity saw the KiA thread and just ditched them pretty hard. They're mad.

 

n9D0fl8.png

 

I enjoyed/was astounded by this comparison of a charity wanking festival to hypothetical Nazi's curing all ills:

 

'Sorry, there's no "gotcha" here.

"We were going to be linked to an evil organization that harrasses women online and is evil and mean to people on the internet."
This is the excuse they can use, and there's nothing we can do to stop them.'
 
'That's not a good excuse.
If the Nazis in South America, ISIS, and a resurrected Stalin came together and created a cure for all diseases, then offered it to people for free, no one would look at their Stage 4 Terminal cancer child, shrug, and say, "Fucking Nazis man" as the child died. They'd take the cure and probably think better of those groups for it.'

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I enjoyed/was astounded by this comparison of a charity wanking festival to hypothetical Nazi's curing all ills:

 

So intent is an acceptable excuse when you're harassing women online but when a charity organization declines your offer because of that same intent it suddenly isn't acceptable?  That's what those responses say to me.

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So a bunch of Nazis buying good pr with charity is what they compare themselves with. Is gg just trolling itself now or what?

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Gulfs kind of appear and disappear in GG too. There's an absurd string of comments discussing Terry Pratchett and Margaret Thatcher here.

 

Oh god it pains me so much that they're name-dropping one of my favorite authors (possibly my favorite!) to justify their bullshit. That philosophy from Night Watch runs completely counter to their own philosophy! Why are they doing this to me. ):

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Second thing: Thread about "gaming once being a utopia"

 

 

Yeah gaming has always been a egalitarian utopia, unless the other gamers found out you were black or had a chuff. Now you can barely throw around casual rape jokes without someone oppressing you.

 

 
I'm pretty sure you just have to fight your way around the next corner to get to utopia. Just burn down a few more people's lives and you'll definitely be really, really close.
 

 

I've heard the bandwidth on 1984 internet was really bad, and when a bunch of racial slurs came down the line it meant you could hardly ignore them at all. We have to just let harassment happen because otherwise really bad things would be happening to this guy in the dystopia he's imagining.

 

This MIGHT be the most infuriating part about those whole...debate is such a generous word...this whole THING (I mean besides the rampant threats and ludicrous levels of denial) the notion that internet and gaming culture USED to be more inclusive.

 

But it HAS to be framed this way, it's ALWAYS been framed this way. Nerds have always seen themselves as the place where the "outsider" can be welcomed, but that's a crock. Looking back on my high school years, at the time I felt like my friends and I were "the outsiders" but of COURSE we weren't! We had each other! We had a functional, fairly large friend group! The REAL outsiders were the kids you were legitimately afraid might bring a knife or a gun to school, the kids who were always ALONE. I'm not saying nerds never get picked on or ostracized, but the notion that they were "all-inclusive" has ALWAYS been a work of fiction. Like that friend who's constantly offering you a couch to crash on knowing full well you'll never take them up on it: it sounds good, it makes them seem like a good person, and it requires ZERO accountability.

 

"We're all inclusive but many of our most influential writers include flagrant racism and misogyny in their most famous works! You just have to read AROUND that stuff, I mean if it's easy for ME, a white heterosexual male, why can't EVERYone do it?? Why don't you want to be INCLUDED???"

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The charity saw the KiA thread and just ditched them pretty hard. They're mad.

 

OMG, early in that thread someone links to a AbledGamers Twitter discussion about jumping in CoD.  Some of the gamergaters thought that they were mad BECAUSE PEOPLE COULD JUMP.  And not because it was more difficulty to control and custom button mapping isn't supported. 

 

More disappointingly, there are several in the thread who think that AbleGamers should be punished for not saving the world with gamergate money.  Who knows what form that punishment might take.

 

post-33601-0-13163600-1417977300_thumb.jpg

 

ggers are replying that OBVIOUSLY it was a bunch of antis led by Randi Harper.  Da fuq?

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KotakuInAction is now throwing AbleGamers under the bus on a philosophical level, which is great, because it shows how paper-thin their belief in charity was in the first place. AbleGamers' website has also been DDOSed, although obviously there's no mention of that on KiA.

 

Did anyone happen to catch Grace Lynn and Mike Cernovich having a Twitter encounter last night? It began with mud-slinging, included Mike calling Grace a "lady" in quotation marks, then insisting he isn't transphobic and that it was merely a comment that she wasn't ladylike. Grace insulted Mike's masculinity and his appeal to the opposite sex a few times, and was finally answered by him dropping the mic by publicly posting a nude photo of his fiancée. This prompted his followers to respond with exuberant, orgasmic glee:

 

He pulled a woman 100x hotter than you #rekt

 

MIKE IS DOXXED....CURRENT LOCATION: HITTING THAT^

 

She looks a bit like Olivia Munn, doesn't she?

 

ONLY LADY I NEED RIGHT HERE.

 

 

Even failing that I know @TheMercedesXXX wants to suck the splooge off #GamerGate and she's pro

 

That last one is very special to me, because he truly believes that the cam model they got for their charity masturbation genuinely believes in GamerGate, to the point of fellating its adherents.

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OMG, early in that thread someone links to a AbledGamers Twitter discussion about jumping in CoD.  Some of the gamergaters thought that they were mad BECAUSE PEOPLE COULD JUMP.  And not because it was more difficulty to control and custom button mapping isn't supported.

 

I saw the jumping discussion and it was sort of fabulous. Especially the way that, once corrected, one of them settled on "Ok well it's not as bad as I thought but it's still totally ridiculous". Way to misunderstand the cause you were championing mere hours ago. The thread carried on to try and eviscerate them as "not a real charity", try to poke holes in everything they do, and slag off some of the things they do as being "Just for PR purposes". While whining about how "anti-GG" is the enemy of disabled people now.

 

This MIGHT be the most infuriating part about those whole...debate is such a generous word...this whole THING (I mean besides the rampant threats and ludicrous levels of denial) the notion that internet and gaming culture USED to be more inclusive.

 

But it HAS to be framed this way, it's ALWAYS been framed this way. Nerds have always seen themselves as the place where the "outsider" can be welcomed, but that's a crock.

 

Yeah, it's a current I've been aware of, and as a result I think one of the most productive long term interventions would be for games industry bodies to fund anti-bullying initiatives. A lot of gaters are beyond hope, but we could diminish any current of future supporters by offering good support to marginalised, bullied and desocialised people.

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Haha, holy shit, thanks for posting more of their crazy developments everyone. It really reads like these people are all just insanely delusional. What the fuck are they talking about in some of these cases? Margaret Thatcher would be into gamergate? WHAT THE FUCK. She wouldn't give half a shit. No one cares about your dumbass movement besides you, the people you're harassing and the people who think that you shouldn't harass people. These people clearly have no fucking perspective. 

 

I actually engaged with a gator in good faith on the AV Club comments last week, but he stopped responding after only a few replies. He claimed to be 21. Get active in something that matters you fucking idiots. Baaaaaaarf.

 

This concludes my "poke my head in the thread and rant for a bit" post. Expect to see me back in like a week or so!

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GamerGate is funny and shitty in that their statements are hysterical and they have no idea what words in the English language mean, but are shitty when they harass people and generally do shitty things and make the lives of others hard.

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GG is the Westboro Baptist Church of games.

 

I think I nailed it a while ago.

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That last one is very special to me, because he truly believes that the cam model they got for their charity masturbation genuinely believes in GamerGate, to the point of fellating its adherents.

 

Yeah, and I'm seeing tweets like that everywhere. "Mercedes Carrera supports #GamerGate because she is personally attracted to members of #GamerGate, or vice versa, and she will show her support with sexual favors." It's only when people rightfully call that out as horribly objectifying and misogynist that they start talking about how she's also an engineer (or a sex worker, a woman being either seems to impress them equally) and that makes everything okay.

 

Actually, looking at Carrera's twitter feed, she seems to have put herself in the unenviable position of trying to show support both for the charity she was going to benefit and the group of people that want to punish the charity for pulling out.

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Yeah, it's a current I've been aware of, and as a result I think one of the most productive long term interventions would be for games industry bodies to fund anti-bullying initiatives. A lot of gaters are beyond hope, but we could diminish any current of future supporters by offering good support to marginalised, bullied and desocialised people.

 

I understand the impulse, but anti-bullying may not be enough in this case as nerds, in their own mind AND in pop culture, CANNOT be framed as bullies. Look at this entire thing, you think these people sending pictures of mutilated animals, threatening violence, and trying to drive a specific set of people out of an industry as BULLIES? They're not BULLIES! They're FREEDOM FIGHTERS!

 

This is why things like representation and diversity are important and need to become the new "normal." It's a big tent, there's plenty of room, and when people are more well represented they aren't seen as "the other."

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I understand the impulse, but anti-bullying may not be enough in this case as nerds, in their own mind AND in pop culture, CANNOT be framed as bullies. Look at this entire thing, you think these people sending pictures of mutilated animals, threatening violence, and trying to drive a specific set of people out of an industry as BULLIES? They're not BULLIES! They're FREEDOM FIGHTERS!

 

This is why things like representation and diversity are important and need to become the new "normal." It's a big tent, there's plenty of room, and when people are more well represented they aren't seen as "the other."

 

Oh, sorry! I should have explained myself clearly: I didn't mean framing or highlighting GG as bullies, I meant targeting vulnerable gamers with support in completely separate contexts. Pretty much like I've seen with hackspaces, board gaming, and other quite nerdy hobbies I'm into, they attract a higher proportion of young men who've been bullied. The resulting vulnerability, loneliness, desocialisation and potential victim complexes make it easy for groups like GG to hoover them up and galvanise their negative emotions into support for a cause, while fulfilling their need for belonging. Getting to bullied kids first with pragmatic and compassionate support would go a long way to deny things like GG legs in future, before they can really build inertia. It'd only be long term if it produced results at all, but the socially challenged aspects of video game audiences have been a long time in the making too, and by peddling the fantasies it largely did from the mid 80's until very recently, I see the industry as partly responsible for those problems. Does that make sense?

 

(and, for clarity: we're in total agreement on the importance of representation and diversity).

 

GG is the Westboro Baptist Church of games.

 

I think I nailed it a while ago.

 

Yes, though the weirdest thing about digging around in GG stuff over the past week has been seeing gaters refer to various extremists, including the Westboro baptist church, by name and as their enemies (Perhaps one of the things they have in common is that they don't see themselves as extremists). When people say GG exhibits cult like behaviours, they're right, but as a movement it currently allows too much multiplicity of thought to really be or become one.

 

(Also a little weird: seeing some adopt 'gater with a ', especially following conversations I've had with people who chose to avoid the term for fear of alienating moderates).

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GG don't have that rigid standard of behaviour typical of cults, but what they do have is a holy/unholy split between approved and unapproved behaviour. Those standards are very loose - support GG unconditionally and you're holy, no matter how much of a dickbag you are, but have a separate identity and you are unholy and therefore an unperson - but they're rigidly held.

 

@a_man_in_black pointed out on Twitter that a lot of GG's behaviour makes more sense when you understand about chan culture, where people are expected to subsume their identities to the collective - but of course that makes it impossible for them to interact with professional adults.

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Yeah, one of the most insightful things I've seen in relation to them was someone likening their talking points to the function of scripture for true believers.

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