Sunday, October 26, 2014

Gamergate in two words: Everybody sucks.

Should I support the obviously morally bankrupt game journalism, or the side whose only tangible achievement was ruining the lives of people within the industry? How about neither? This all makes me want to find a new hobby. Being associated with all this by proxy just because I want to sit down and play a game is a really sickening feeling.

I'm really sick of hearing about it, too, but let's face it: it's not stopping any time soon, and neither are its consequences. Especially since mainstream media with no ties to specialized gaming journalism has started openly depicting the gaming community as sexist as a result. Just because a few ill-intentioned people got their way in the name of a movement that's doing a disastrous job of policing itself.

19 comments:

  1. I agree GamerGate people care probably way too much about that stuff for their own good, but don't forget that the media is going out of their way to make them look bad by focusing on the trolls's actions who don't really belong in the movement.
    You know, just like when a certain "Printemps Érable" happened. I do not necessarily agree with what they're fighting for and all, but I find it outrageous how people belonging to a movement are generalized entirely by the actions of the same few idiots every f*cking time.
    Corrupting the idiotic masses's mind isn't a fair tactic. I am so sick of this stupid retarded world. Makes me want to puke.

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    1. Oh crap, I exploded before reading the last sentence. Dammit. Sorry. The rage is still directed at the media though. Just erase the "don't forget that" of my comment.

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    2. While I agree with what you're saying, the fact remains that those trolls are still the only ones who actually accomplished anything. Hence my stance of "everybody sucks". Journalists? Morally bankrupt and spewing propaganda. The trolls? Don't need to elaborate. The movement itself? Not doing nearly enough to dissociate itself from them.

      Heck, I've seen some people outright say "they harassed men too, not just women, so it's okay". Well, maybe not that last part, but given the context it was strongly implied. This means that for some of these people, harassing a man isn't the same as harassing a woman, and harassing people is excusable when it's for a higher motive.

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    3. You're right. Nothing good will come out of this. But still, I'm so disgusted with the media. I'm sick of it because it seems like gaming is relegated to the same level of importance than other stuff when this happened.
      Students fighting for their beliefs, no matter how spoiled those ideals were, being treated the same way as gamers who aren't even sure of what they are fighting for ? Where are our freaking priorities ?
      Will they put a law banning the use of video games online networks next to follow suit ?

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    4. Apparently the UK are about to seriously crack down on online trolling (sic) and harassment with the possibility of two years of jail time. Whether it's actually related to/caused by Gamergate, I have no idea.

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    5. To be fair, if it's only for serious harassment like death threats or stalking IRL information, I can get behind that. I just hope it won't be a law that is way too easy to abuse or go around completely. Like you know... being sent to jail just because you wanted to start a conversation on IRL information, but the other person instead of just stating their non-consent just directly call the cops.

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  2. Neverminding the MSM's accounts on this whole thing because let's face it when was the last time anyone walked away better informed when they cover shit, my biggest peeve with this "movement" is that whenever reasonable women semi-sympathetic to the group members say "hey this whole attacking women thing is making me uncomfortable and is kinda making everyone look sexist", they attack her and pretty much make the other side's point loud and clear with no effort on their behalf. And it's only women really they attack; men who call them out seem pretty immune overall, further proving the point. Also, to say it's just trolls is really minimizing the fact that, in the real world, those "trolls" really are sociopaths and stupid & dangerous people DO exist, and the harassment has gone beyond simple doxxing and "death threats" but people actually physically contacted their victims. All for what? Because someone said something they disagreed with about FUCKING VIDEO GAMES!? It's sick enough when people do this over politics but at least that kinda means something; here.....I refuse to tell anyone I play games or am a "gamer" just to avoid any stigma (I play some as a pastime but not enough to call it a hobby or even something I want to bring attention to...)

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  3. While GamerGate is certainly interesting, I certainly can't seem to care about the whole of it,and i've had some people why I dont care and it's that I don't like the drama crap withing gaming, not during the 7th gen console wars, not during anything, that's my take anyways.

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  4. Well, I've learnt about it after weeks of avoiding the controversy. I really wish I hadn't.

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  5. The worst thing is, when it started out, I was behind the whole "expose the frauds" thing, because the event that set it off had a clear "villain," the journalism side. The shit that went down in that first week was unacceptable (don't know how much you know about the early stuff back in late August) and everyone was glad to hear that gamers were standing up for themselves. Now, as you'd expect with anything else like this, things have gotten out of control and there's nobody to root for except the people who haven't gotten involved. The fact that people are handling this shit with death threats and actual attacks is stupid. Doxxing is one of the main things that made Gamergate people begin their cause and guess what they did? They resorted to that. Talk about hypocrisy. It's sad, because had this been handled in the right way and HADN'T gone after anyone and everyone who labeled themselves as a feminist, something could have been accomplished, But nope, fuck progress.

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    1. You know, I STILL haven't seen any evidence to link GG to those threats, and I don't really accept "Well they probably did it!". Thinking like not only lets the perpetrators get away with it, it informs them that they can keep doing it because they know it'll be blamed on someone else.

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  6. I'm just sick of hearing about it. Leave it to gamers to treat everything like a passing fad EXCEPT the most annoying and destructive 'movement' in our history. I was having fun now that society was finally accepting gamers, but we've proven time and time again that we just don't want to be inclusive.

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  7. Not hard to be a sexist nowadays. Believe me, from feminists I heard sooooo much bullshit throughout my entire life that there's no way I'll ever take them serious again. However attacks them if they're related to GG or not, it's their own damn fault. I can handle a lot but this amount of stupidity just crushes my brain. Especially because here in Germany actually WORDS that were completely normal for several hundred years are forbidden because they have a male gender (as in French we have a maskulin and feminin gender). Yes, those people feel offended ans discriminated by a f*ing NOUN MAKER! Also on of our five parliament parties has voted on that genders are only a social invention (because, just f*ck biology) and now walk around and want to forbid words like "father" and "mother" since they apparently offend homosexuals and transsexuals. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I don't endorse those attacks by anyway, but considering the sure stupidity of those people it's just to cheap to blame it in GG, because anyone with two brain cells could have lost their head when arguing with them.

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    1. Funny thing is... Our college's journal addressed all of those things about the French (Quebec) language. Talking about it like it's a huge issue and all. So this is all slowly starting for us as well.

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    2. Remember when we had a female premier and no one could agree on whether the function needed to be referred to with the female gender or not? I mean, virtually every other job exists in both genders, why the hell not premier?

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    3. Wouldn't it be easy to just form a feminine noun for it? In German we can put an "in" on every job name and make it to a female word. So by Angela Merkel as she is referred to us as our Bundeskanzlerin. In French it should work with an a or? Premier ministra or something.

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    4. French puts an E most of the time. So "première ministre" instead of "premier ministre".

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  8. I know this is ironic to post on a gaming blog, but the idea of a gaming community is a bit silly to me. Sure, I'll occasionally talk about games on the internet, but I don't need a whole branch of journalism on it. If you ask me, everyone involved needs to shut up and just play the fucking games. Who cares about this stuff? Gamers have a bad rep, but I play games and my rep is fine. Too bad for journalists and people more concerned with dumb shit that than they are with actually playing the games they fight about.

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