User:FuzzyCatPotato/GG
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“”A few weeks ago our message board and general inbox were bombarded with demands we address something called the "GamerGate Scandal", posts written with the urgency and rage one would associate with, say, discovering that Chipotle burritos are made entirely from the meat of human babies. It's apparently a big deal in some circles, so we followed the links and read the piles of data presented, and had to stop and take a deep breath just to grasp it all. "Gentlemen," we said amid the stunned silence, "do you realize that if what they're saying is true, then this is still the most pointless fucking bullshit anyone has ever forced us to read?"
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| —Cracked.com[1] |
Gamergate (often #Gamergate and occasionally the Gamergate controversy) is a movement within the Internet video game community to oust feminism and other liberal ideologies, under the guise of a consumer revolt against unethical game journalism.
Gamergate was begun by a rant by Erin Gjoni against his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn, an indie game developer, which fueled accusations that Quinn had traded sex for good reviews of her game; said reviews never existed. Despite this, Quinn was doxxed and her address publicized; soon, she received death and rape threats and was forced to leave her home. These tactics would be used against other women who play, develop, or write critically about video games and those who supported them, ultimately expanding to a harassment campaign against anyone critical of Gamergate. In addition, Gamergate has tried to silence anyone they do not agree with, which effectively means anyone who challenges the straight-white-male-oriented status quo in video games.
Gamergate's supporters, variably referred to as "Gamergaters" or "Gators", claim they are a grassroots consumer movement standing for "ethics in video game journalism" (which they believe to be a hotbed of collusion and payoffs) and game developers' freedom of expression. However, instead of attacking corporate use of game journalism as little more than an advertising sphere or opposing actual collusion, Gamergaters have doxxed and otherwise attacked independent journalists critical of the gaming and game journalism status quo (who you'd think they would see as allies) and rallied behind numerous unethical journalists.
Gamergate has deployed multiple attempts to spread disinformation about themselves and promote a positive image as an inclusive movement with legitimate concerns about corrupt journalists. This led to an outpouring of support from useful idiots as well as from opportunistic right-wingers, misogynists, reactionaries, MRAs, neo-Nazis, and other conservatives who saw Gamergate as what it really was. Others have simply used Gamergate as their personal army to punish those they held grudges against.
Literally none of Gamergate's claims hold up under scrutiny, even those that may initially seem plausible. Attempts at debunking these claims are met with moving the goalpost and the threat of being targeted.
Contents
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[edit] Rebuttals
Gamergate lives in an alternate universe with an alternate history, in which Gamergate has doxxed nobody, has significantly increased ethics in game journalism, is supported by a broad coalition of diverse people, and is generally pretty great. Surprisingly, they're incorrect. For rebuttals of said worldview, please see User:FuzzyCatPotato/Rebuttals of Gamergate.
[edit] History
[edit] Background
The video gaming culture and industry are male-dominated; despite large numbers of female gamers, games are primarily marketed to males. Recent years have seen some moves away from the status quo, especially within the independent sector and alternative games journalism, including games marketed for women, games with more inclusive or feminist messages, and feminist criticism of the implicit and explicit sexism in gaming culture. These shifts have been met with vocal resistance from certain quarters of the gaming community. A few examples make this clear:
- May 2012: Feminist cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her Tropes vs Women in Video Games web series to analyze the portrayal of women in video games. Her attempt led to extreme harassment, which the mainstream media covered; this ultimately led to a massive amount of support for her project.[2][3]
- February 2013: Zoe Quinn independently released Depression Quest, an interactive fiction[wp] video game about living with depression. It received praise for its message, but was trashed self-styled gamers claiming that it was "SJW" propaganda. After she submitted the game to the Steam Greenlight independent game distribution platorm, she was doxxed.[4] Threats included messages saying she should kill herself or that the sender would rape her.[5][6] Depression Quest was eventually approved for release in August 2014, and Quinn had to deal with releasing it shortly after Robin Williams' suicide made international news; she ultimately decided to release the game for free for these reasons, only including an optional donation-based payment system that would send proceeds to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.[7]
- December 2013: Dina Abou Karam was hired by the company creating the crowd-funded game Mighty No. 9.[wp] Karam included a piece of her fan art which depicted the game's male protagonist as female on the game's Kickstarter page. This led to attacks from those who believed she was going to inject feminist messages into the game, despite the fact she was only hired as a community manager with no say in the game's development. Due to her "crimes" against gamerkind, Karam was subsequently harassed and cyberstalked.[8]
[edit] Origins
[edit] "The Zoe Post"
On 15 August 2014, Eron Gjoni, Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend, posted "Cringe Worthy Breakup Stories" to several gaming-related message boards. It was a 9,000-word tirade that alleged that Quinn was abusive and that she had cheated on Gjoni.[9][10] After the sites banned Gjoni and deleted his posts, he made a blog called "The Zoe Post" specifically to host the post.[11]
Gjoni stated that he made the post appealing for Reddit and 4chan users, who would delight in attacking Quinn,[12] although he later denied this.[13]
One of the many slut-shaming musings in "The Zoe Post" that attracted greater attention from readers was:
“”Five guys. Man. she cheated on me with five guys? Five guys. And now I can’t stop mentally referring to her as Burgers and Fries.[11]
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Gjoni is referencing the American fast food restaurant Five Guys Burgers and Fries[wp], which gave the hate campaign its first name: #BurgersAndFries.
Gjoni stated that he posted the screed to "warn" future partners about Quinn,[11] a shaming tactic common in the manosphere,[Note 1] writing, "I believe that to stay quiet about someone who will hurt others is to be complicit in perpetuating the harm they will cause".[14]
Gjoni tried to distance himself from the harassment of Quinn his post inspired, but chat logs and other sources confirm he was active its promotion.[12]
[edit] "The Quinnspiracy"
Many readers of "The Zoe Post" focused on the mention of Nathan Grayson, a writer for video game news site Kotaku, as one of Quinn's sexual partners. Said readers concluded that Quinn had slept with Grayson to get positive reviews for Depression Quest.[15] Some proponents of this "sex-for-reviews" "scandal" (called "The Quinnspiracy") argued that it was an example of the corruption of video game journalism.[15]
Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo, among others, debunked these claims.
While it lasted, the "Quinnspiracy" provided a center for the growing Gamergate storm, giving something to fixate on and organize around.
[edit] Harassment and doxxing
The "Quinnspiracy" movement grew and initiated a fresh wave of harassment.
In late August, Zoe Quinn's email, Tumblr, Twitter, Skype, and Dropbox accounts were all hacked. Nude photographs acquired in the hack were distributed online and sent to her family and employers.[4] Many of Quinn's friends were similarly hacked.
Included in the hack was controversial indie game developer Phil Fish[wp], who had stood up for Quinn. The hack of his personal and professional data, including his social security number and banking records, caused him to drop out of the game industry and sell everything he had worked for.[16][17]
At the time, the mostly-anonymous mob denied responsibility, claiming that Quinn and Fish had faked the hacks in a "false flag" operation. They didn't.
The harassment intensified to include death threats, forcing Quinn and her boyfriend Lifschitz to leave their apartment.[7]
One of Quinn's close friends wrote that other women in the gaming industry feared being targeted next, and some opted to leave gaming, destroying projects they had been working on or just going into hiding.[18]
[edit] Quinn doxxed someone!!1!
As Quinn was being harassed, those perpetuating "the Quinnspiracy" eagerly tried to find dirt on her, and claimed she had DDoS'd[wp] and doxxed The Fine Young Capitalists, a video game design group. She didn't.
[edit] Sarkeesian harassed again
As Quinn was being harassed, Sarkeesian released a new video in her Tropes vs Women in Video Game series[19] and immediately recieved "some very scary threats" against herself and her family, leading her to leave her home temporarily.[20]
[edit] Journalists and pundits weigh in
As the harrassment began to generate media attention, commentators explored the better-exposed nasty streak within gamer culture.
[edit] "Gamers are dead"
Several of these commentators suggested that, because video games have become mainstream, the conventional exclusively male (white, straight, nerdy, etc.) gamer demographic was "dead", a thing of the past. These are collectively known as the "gamers are dead" articles.[21][22][23][24]
The emerging Gamergate movement cried foul. Gamergators accused the media of perpetuating harmful stereotypes of gamers and, because these similarly-themed articles came out in a relatively short period of time, of "collusion" and "corruption."
[edit] TotalBiscuit
Vlogger John "TotalBiscuit" Bain[wp] attacked the critiques, maintaining that they were othering gamers and fostering division instead of dialogue.[25] His extensive online following (he had some 250,000 Twitter followers) made him an early figurehead of the movement.[note 1]
[edit] A hashtag is born
At this point, the "scandal" surrounding Quinn was usually referred to as "#BurgersAndFries" and "#TheQuinnspiracy". On August 27, 2014, Adam Baldwin, actor and sometime blogger for the conservative website Breitbart, tweeted a link to YouTube videos about the "Quinnspiracy" with the hashtag "#GamerGate",[26] giving the controversy a name that stuck.
Baldwin was unaware that "gamergate"[wp] is an entomological term for a reproductively viable female ant in queenless colonies.
[edit] The Guardian wades in
In September, game designer and journalist Jenn Frank wrote an article for The Guardian regarding the treatment of Quinn, Sarkeesian, and other women in gaming.[27]
Gamergaters soon accused Frank of a "conflict of interest" because they had found she had contributed to Quinn's Patreon account; Frank had actually included this meager disclosure in her original draft, but The Guardian did not find it worthy of mention. It was only added after the fact, but the damage had already been done and she decided she was leaving gaming entirely. She was joined by game designer Mattie Brice who wrote that the experiences she and others have had due to harassment have long been disregarded and she had given up waiting for things to change for the better.
This was met with celebration in Gamergate, with one person writing, "SJWs [are] dropping like flies before the might of #GamerGate," and another that, "The dominos are falling. We're winning. It's brilliant."[28]
[edit] #NotYourShield
Gamergate realized that their public image was of misogynist, white, racist, male gamers. Since ethics is all about PR, they decided to fix that.
[edit] Diverse support
- NotYourShield began to trend in Gamergate circles. These tweets, appearing to be from females, non-white people, and other underrepresented groups in gaming culture, supposedly showed that Gamergate had broad support from outside the white male gamer demographic. Said tweeters did not want their gender, ethnicity, or other factors to be used by the gaming press as a shield from criticism over coverage of Quinn and Sarkeesian and questions of "ethics in video game journalism".[29][30]
[edit] Orchestration
On September 6, Quinn destroyed the "diverse support" notion. Quinn provided a series of 4chan posts and IRC chat logs that foremost proved Gamergate was not a grassroots movement about ethics but a coordinated attack against herself, Sarkeesian, and others viewed as "social justice warriors". Quinn also included proof that #NotYourShield was an astroturfing campaign to shield Gamergate from criticism.[31] The chatlogs showed that Gamergaters created sockpuppets, fabricated user details, and swiped profile photos from the internet for use as avatars to push #NotYourShield, which had been an orchestrated maneuver from the beginning.[32] The members of the chatroom attempted to defend themselves by dumping the entire week of chat logs, in an almost Gish-Galloping maneuver. Instead, when sorted through, they only reinforced Quinn's points.[33][34]
The players in Gamergate, partcularly those from 4chan's "/pol/ - Politically Incorrect" (read: neo-Nazis and misogynists) board, had spent much of the year making up fake hashtags to try to discredit feminism.[35][36] With #NotYourShield, they actually managed to recruit useful idiots to turn #NotYourShield into a friend argument and culture jamming[wp] campaign.[37]
[edit] 4chan shows Gamergate the door
4chan's owner Christopher "moot" Poole announced on September 18 that 4chan would ban any Gamergate threads as violations of its "no personal information/raids/call to invasion" rule[38] Gators cried foul, demanding their right to free speech[39] and accusing moot of having fallen to SJW wiles, as they believed he was dating former Gawker employee Mallory Blair.[40]
Many of the "disenfranchised" posters moved to 8chan, a similarly-styled forum founded a year earlier that promised less-restrictive rules. There, Gators created a board called called "/gg/".[41][42] After some time there was dissention over how it was run, which led to the creation of a splinter board called "/gamergate/". Another board at 8chan called "/baphomet/" was set up during Gamergate, reviving the old-school nature of raiding and doxxing boards; while Gators deny any relationship between Gamergate and "/baph/", harassment of Gamergate victims is organized there.[43][44]
[edit] Gamergate defends 8chan's tolerance of child porn
As 8chan became a focal point for Gamergate, many outsiders saw that the website had several established boards for the discussion of pedophilia and posting photographs that straddles the legal borders of what constitutes child pornography.[note 2]
When asked in a Daily Dot interview about these boards, 8chan's owner Fredrick Brennan said that, while he personally finds such content detestable, he argues that it is protected free speech and won't impose rules on his website stricter than U.S. federal laws.[45]
[edit] Patreon
8chan was using crowdfunding website Patreon[wp] to ask its users to pay its server costs. Many, especially those subject to Gamergate's harassment, began to send complaints to Patreon about allowing 8chan to cause harassment and host child pornography. In response, Patreon changed its rules to ban use of their website to promote child sex abuse, self-harm, or harassment, which included 8chan.
In response, Brennan "changed" his account to instead fund videos of his cat Hachi (Japanese for eight) and claimed that the cat is a service animal. Patreon wasn't fooled.[46][47]
On December 22, Brennan announced that he had hired laywer Mike Cernovich[note 3] and intended to file a disability discrimination lawsuit against Patreon.[48][49]
To get revenge, Gators also tried to report some of their targets' Patreon pages for "violations" of the new rules.
[edit] Dan Olson
On December 22, Dan Olson (a.k.a. "Foldable Human" of Channel Awesome) published an exposé on 8chan's pedophilia problem, blowing a hole in Brennan's and 8chan users' claims that the moderation team takes down explicit child porn and leaving things that aren't "illegal". He instead found that there was plenty of utterly indefensible child porn to be found, in threads weeks or months old on boards publicly listed on 8chan's front page.[50] The only reason U.S. federal prosecutors don't respond is because they focus on producers rather than distributors.
Despite saying nothing about them in his article, Olson was attacked by Gamergate. He was doxxed and reported for violating Canadian child porn laws, arguing the heavily blurred photos he included in his article meant he was distributing child porn; people who shared the link on Twitter were also subject to these accusations.[51][52]\
On December 23, Brennan deleted one of the pedophilia-related boards, claiming that the earlier story from The Daily Dot "advertised" 8chan to "actual pedophiles", causing them to suddenly flock to the board and flood it with explicit photos.[53] However, Olson's report showed threads on the board older than The Daily Dot article, showing that 8chan had had a longstanding problem.
[edit] Right-wing opportunists jump on
Several conservative and libertarian commentators supported Gamergate. Christina Hoff Sommers of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute released a YouTube video that dismissed the existence of sexism in video games and gaming culture, taking a potshot at Sarkeesian along the way.[54] Cathy Young of the libertarian magazine Reason wrote a piece backing Gamergate, arguing that "the feminism GamerGate rebels against is not simply about equality or diversity," but "authoritarian, far-left brand of gender politics."[55]
Gamergate also attracted the support of reactionary Theodore Beale (Vox Day).[56] Beale has blogged:
“”At this point, #GamerGate is about more than games now. It is a Schwerpunkt in the ongoing cultural war for the West. And the gamers of #GamerGate are the only defenders of freedom and Western civilization who are counterattacking and causing enemy casualties. That is why it is more than important, it is vital to see non-gamers joining the cause rather than sneering from the sidelines.
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| —Vox Day, [57] |
A number of bloggers piled on:
- Influential MRA Roosh V, despite having no interest in gaming whatsoever, launched a gaming website called Reaxxion which mostly hosts Gamergate propaganda; the site was once duped into publishing a submission that was a doctored old John Birch Society screed where "Gamergate" and "SJW" replaced every mention of "John Birch Society" and "communist".[58]
- Davis Aurini revealed to Gamergate he was planning a documentary with Jordan Owen to "critique" Anita Sarkeesian.[59] In addition to asking for $15 thousand a month (to arguably fund his skull collection),[60] his crowing achievement was to distribute a hoax that Sarkeesian was lying about contacting police about the threats she received[61] because the San Francisco Police Department representative he spoke to wasn't aware that SFPD had handed her case over to the FBI.[62]
- Thunderf00t also joined in, mostly to capitalize on his existing hatred of Sarkeesian.[63]
- Anti-feminist writers Janet "JudgyBitch" Bloomfield of A Voice for Men[64][65] and Karen "GirlWritesWhat" Straughan[66][67] also threw their support behind Gamergate.
The new website Techraptor ran several articles supporting Gamergate, boosting their traffic. Quinn called the website out for capitalizing on her abuse while discrediting herself and others along the way. She pointed out that Techraptor's ethics policy shows they crowdsource ideas from Reddit's Gamergate board /r/KotakuInAction, leaving in multiple errors that are rarely if ever corrected, and makes no mention of objectivity, which is one of Gamergate's talking points. She wrote, "[their articles are] written with such an extreme slant [that] the italics have leaned so far they have fallen over and become underscores."[68]
[edit] Remove revenue
Gamergate wanted its viewpoint to become the viewpoint in gaming journalism. Since they couldn't convince journalists, they decided to try to prevent journalists that opposed their view from getting income -- for ethics!
[edit] Blacklists and archive.me
One of Gamergate's primary efforts to deal with "corruption" was to set up a massive blacklist of websites that weren't obviously biased in their favor.
This is followed by actively trying to remove advertising revenue from websites. Gamergate often uses archive.today, a web archival service that saves pages on demand and strips out advertisments. Moderators at /r/KotakuInAction actively enforce that all links to the blacklisted websites be archive.today links, and browser extensions have been developed to do it automatically.
Vice's Motherboard imprint was first to notice the plot when they realized that most of their traffic was being routed through archive.today, and that articles entirely unrelated to gaming were being saved, bringing into question whether or not Gamergate's actions could be considered copyright infringement.[69]
[edit] Intel folds, for a time
With this not providing enough damage to these websites, Gamergate decided to contact the advertisers directly and try to persuade them to remove ads from Gamergate's target websites.
The first effort was to attack websites that had published the "gamers are dead" articles in what was called "Operation Disrespectful Nod"; the name is intended to mock a tweet sent to Quinn by Marc Threadingham and Gamergate turned him into a meme.[70]
They gained some traction when Intel responded and pulled ads from developer-oriented website Gamasutra where Leigh Alexander had written one of the articles that called out Gamergate for what it was.[71][72] Intel was widely panned for its decision, and they released an apology, but did not reinstate advertising on on Gamasutra until a month later.[73] Intel later sided with Anita Sarkeesian, to the tune of $300 million.
[edit] Gawker
Gamergate would again focus its efforts into removing a website's revenue after Sam Biddle, a Gawker contributor, posted a series of Tweets that concluded with a poor taste joke: "[Gamergate] reaffirm[s] what we've known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission."[74] This spawned "Operation Baby Seal" (no one is sure why this name was chosen[75]), directly pressuring companies that advertised on Gawker Media on the basis that Biddle was promoting bullying. Mercedes-Benz USA was the first company to respond, pulling ads from across Gawker while they "assessed" the "situation"; ads were reinstated a few days later.[76] Adobe also responded to a Gator's request that they pull ads from Gawker as the website "endorses bullying and hate speech". A representative responded by first clarifying that Adobe was not presently advertising on the website, but that they had requested the company's logo be removed;[Note 2] they also declared that "[our company] stands against bullying."[77][78] Adobe was called out for responding to Gamergate as they did,[79].[80] leading to the company publically denouncing Gamergate and its actions.[81] Word processor software developer Literature & Latte[82] and high-end vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson[83] were also contacted, leading to advertisments being pulled and then quickly reinstated after they realized they had played into Gamergate's hands.
[edit] Brianna Wu singled out
On October 9, indie game dev Brianna Wu who leads the studio Giant Spacekat (GSX) tweeted several memes that had been sent to her by a fan in which her criticisms of Gamergate were superimposed over an image of an angry child. Gamergaters's reaction was predictable: Wu was doxxed and received charming tweets like, "I've got a K-Bar and I'm coming to your house so I can shove it up your ugly feminist cunt," and, "If you have any kids, they're going to die too. I don't give a fuck. They'll grow up to be feminists anyway." She contacted the police and fled her home.[84] Gators "justified" their hate by saying Wu was mocking autism, as they found a photograph of the child used in the meme on an autism activism website; in reality, it's just a stock photo with no specific ties to autism.[85]
This led to her stalking by Gamergate figureheads "PressFart2Continue" (so named because he previously stalked a YouTube vlogger whose channel was called Press Heart to Continue[86]) and "TheRalphRetort" who used his website to host content Fart produced that was banned elsewhere for doxxing Wu[87] as well as dox on everyone in Wu's immediate family.[88] These stalkers allege that Wu has lied about her experiences (an accusation similar to those levelled at Sarkeesian), and had never left her home as she maintained. Their proof? The blurry outline of a chair she was sitting in and some blurry chair rails in the background of her Skype sessions from a hotel room compared to her home office in interviews, saved as "Wu never left.jpg" at the Gamergate Wiki.[89]
Gators also baselessly allege that Wu is transgender, as if that were relevant. Wu addressed the accusations on Reddit, saying she had concluded that whatever she said would only perpetuate transphobia; she preferred to keep silent on the question out of respect for transgender people she knew.[90] Two weeks later, Milo Yiannopoulos compiled all of Gamergate's "evidence" in a massive hit piece that simultaneously claimed that Gamergate isn't transphobic for having created this conspiracy theory in the first place.[Note 3]
[edit] Gamergate reaches the attention of the general public
“”And let us acknowledge for a moment the awful irony that, after decades of defending video games from accusations that they inspire school shootings, we now have a threatened school shooting explicitly inspired by games culture.
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| —Eurogamer, [91] |
[edit] #StopGamerGate
On October 15, in the wake of the terrorist threats made against Sarkeesian's speaking engagement at Utah State University, the hashtag "#StopGamerGate2014" was created and it soon became a trending topic worldwide.[71][92][93]
[edit] ESA weighs in
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), an American trade group representing all major game companies and best known for hosting the annual E3 trade fair, released a statement on October 16, declaring, "There is no place in the video game community—or our society—for personal attacks and threats."[94]
[edit] Mainstream media
The New York Times ran a front-page article on October 16, with the headline "Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats".[71][95] On October 28, it also ran an op-ed from Sarkeesian on the matter.[96] On October 25, Newsweek ran an analysis of Gamergate tweets showing that Gamergaters have directed substantially more tweets at feminist critics than they have at game journalists.[97]
[edit] Strip club meetup
Meanwhile, on October 24, Gamergate attempted to regain favor with the real media and the general public by holding an 8chan /gg/ meetup in a strip club and inviting New York magazine along to document it, figuring this would reassure normal people of their good attitude toward women.[98]
[edit] Colbert Report
But the final nail in the coffin was hammered in on October 29, when Sarkeesian had a 10-minute segment on The Colbert Report talking about Gamergate and the surrounding issues, which concluded with Sarkeesian declaring Colbert a feminist.[99] Needless to say, Gamergaters were not pleased.[100][101][102]
[edit] Intel joins forces with Anita Sarkeesian
On January 6, 2015, Intel announced at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show that they were budgeting $300 million to counter the lack of gender and racial diversity within their company and the tech/gaming industries as a whole.[103] Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency was included in the keynote, and will help shape Intel's diversity program along with groups such as IGDA, Rainbow PUSH, and the National Center for Women in Technology.[104] Wired UK noted that Sarkeesian's involvement with the new initiative is "the clearest indicator that Gamergate has prompted the push for greater diversity."[105]
Gamergaters responded by attempting to hijack the #CES2015 hashtag.[106] They branded Sarkeesian and her producer/co-writer Jonathan McIntosh anti-Semites after digging up a three-year-old tweet by McIntosh criticizing the Israeli government for its construction of the West Bank wall.[107] This is ironic, given that they have spent months denigrating Sarkeesian as "The Jew" or "Jewkeesian" despite her lack of Jewish heritage (her parents are Iranian-Armenians), going so far as to depict her in the style of a neo-Nazi propaganda caricature by A. Wyatt Mann (which, unsurprisingly, became a meme on 4chan's /pol/ as "Le Happy Merchant") and referring to any money she obtained (or rather money in general) as "shekels".[108] McIntosh recently revealed he had been subtly trolling Gamergate through his Twitter feed by constantly posting opinions identical to those of Noam Chomsky to show that they are a bunch of right-wing reactionaries[109] and also intentionally posting provocative Tweets whenever he had discovered that trouble was brewing.[110]
They also began disseminating an insensitive statement Sarkeesian has allegedly made in regards to feminism in Japan[Note 4] tastefully juxtaposed with a photo of a mushroom cloud.[111] However, the alleged quote was sourced from a single blog entry which no one has been able to corroborate, and was posted by someone who later became a Gamergate supporter.[112][113] There were rumblings that she may have indeed said the statement, but had later retracted her condemnation as she later felt it was inappropriate.
After the conference, Genna Bain, TotalBiscuit's wife and general manager of his brand, announced she was selling off her personal stocks in Intel due to the "lack of diversity" in her stock portfolio.[114] When this sour-grapey display was met with criticism, her husband came to her defense (it's not whiteknighting when the damsel in distress is your ideological ally), accusing critics of "trying to infantalise my wife over her financial decision today" and being "wonderfully sexist."[115]
[edit] Gamergate becomes a punchline
At the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA, essentially the Academy Awards for the game industry), Gamergate and Gaters were turned into humor and jokes by the likes of Ashly Burch of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? and Double Fine's Tim Schafer. Ashly produced a sketch comedy piece about the concept of a social justice warrior[116] to a rousing ovation by game developers for the Independent Game Developers' segment.[117] Later, the presenter of the IGA segment went on a rant at the end about how Gaters act and used it as a call to not ignore this treatment (to a long standing ovation).[118] Tim Schafer took the stage for presenting the second half (the GDCA, as opposed to the IGA) and immediately went off on Gamergate. "...I won't be making any jokes about Gamergate. All of tonight's Gamergate jokes will be made by this sock puppet. (Audience Laugh Break) Now I cannot be held responsible for anything this sock puppet says, it's not associated with me at all."[119] Later, the puppet joked, "How many Gamergaters does it take to make a single piece of armor? Fifty! One to do the modeling, one to do the materials and forty [sic] to tweet that it's not your shield!"[120] Gaters, who have spent 7 months telling women facing rape threats to grow a thicker skin, went up in arms, claiming Schafer was making a racist and sexist joke at their expense. Their reaction however is the biggest joke of all.[121][122]
[edit] See also
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For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Real Gamers. |
[edit] Notes
- ↑ See, for example, Register-Her.com.
- ↑ An Adobe logo was featured on a portion of Gawker's website that listed companies that had been advertising partners in the past.
- ↑ We won't link to pages that allegedly out people - even if they are totally wrong, even if the information is all over the Internet. Google it yourself.
- ↑ "The US bombed them back to traditional values – feminism does not exist in Japan. While I don’t like judging an entire culture… that does not excuse them"
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ 5 Things I Learned as the Internet's Most Hated Person, Cracked.com, September 16, 2014.
- ↑ Oliver Moore, "Woman's call to end video game misogyny sparks vicious online attacks", The Globe and Mail, July 11, 2012.
- ↑ Katherine Fernandez-Blance, "Gamer campaign against Anita Sarkeesian catches Toronto feminist in crossfire", Toronto Star, July 10, 2012.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Fruzsina Eördögh, "Gamergate and the new horde of digital saboteurs", The Christian Science Monitor, November 25, 2014.
- ↑ Why the co-creator of Depression Quest is fighting back against Internet trolls", Edge, January 23, 2014.
- ↑ Ben Kuchera, Developer "Zoe Quinn offers real-world advice, support for dealing with online harassment", Polygon, March, 19, 2014
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Simon Parkin, "Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest", The New Yorker
- ↑ Fernando Alfonso III, "Gamers are outraged that this massive Kickstarter-backed game hired a woman", The Daily Dot, December 13, 2013.
- ↑ Male Gamer Eron Gjoni Is a Patriarchal Asshole", Mancheeze, August 28, 2014, updated August 31.
- ↑ Adam Thomas, "In the war over Zoe Quinn, there are no winners", Ogeeku, August 31, 2014.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Eron Gjoni, "The Zoe Post", August 16, 2014.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Margaret Pless, "Eron Gjoni, Hateful Boyfriend", idledilettant, December 6, 2014
- ↑ Eron Gjoni, "CMV: Reddit's handling of the Zoe Quinn 'conspiracy' has been an appalling display of misogyny", r/changemyview, Reddit, 23 August 2014.
- ↑ Screenshot from Reddit, August 19, 2014, reposted by Gjoni in "The Zoe Post" blog.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Emma M. Woolley, "Don't believe the 'conspiracy,' gaming has bigger problems than 'corruption'", The Globe and Mail, August 27, 2014.
- ↑ Aja Romano, "4chan hacks and doxes Zoe Quinn's biggest supporter", The Daily Dot
- ↑ Brian Albert, "Fez Creator Sells Company After Hackers Expose His Personal Info", IGN
- ↑ Elizabeth Sampat, "The Truth About Zoe Quinn"
- ↑ Anita Sarkeesian, ""Women as Background Decoration: Part 2 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games", Feminist Frequency, YouTube, August 25, 2014.
- ↑ Colin Campbell, "Sarkeesian driven out of home by online abuse and death threats", Polygon, August 27, 2014.
- ↑ Joseph Bernstein, "Gaming Is Leaving 'Gamers' Behind", Buzzfeed, August 27, 2014.
- ↑ Luke Plunkett, "We Might Be Witnessing The 'Death of An Identity'", Kotaku, August 27, 2014
- ↑ Leigh Alexander, "'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over.", Gamasutra, August 27, 2014.
- ↑ Casey Johnson, "The death of the 'gamers' and the women who 'killed' them", Ars Technica, August 29, 2014.
- ↑ John Bain, "This game supports more than two players", [Blog Plz!], August 29, 2014.
- ↑ Adam Baldwin, "#GamerGate:...", Twitter, August 27, 2014.
- ↑ Jenn Frank, "How to attack a woman who works in video gaming", The Guardian
- ↑ David Futrelle, "You’ll never guess what misogynistic gamebros did to these two women in gaming! (HINT: Drove them out.)", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ William Usher, "#NotYourShield Hashtag Shows Multi-Cultural Support For GamerGate", Cinemablend
- ↑ Sarah Kaplan, "With #GamerGate, the video-game industry’s growing pains go viral", The Washington Post
- ↑ "#GameOverGate: Zoe Quinn blows #GamerGate wide open", Storify.com
- ↑ Casey Johnston, "Chat logs show how 4chan users created #GamerGate controversy", Ars Technica
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Zoe Quinn’s screenshots of 4chan’s dirty tricks were just the appetizer. Here’s the first course of the dinner, directly from the IRC log", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Spamming, Doxxing and Sockpuppeting: 4Channers’ dirty tricks, straight from their IRC log", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ Robyn Pennacchia, "No, feminists are not trying to #EndFathersDay — it’s a 4chan hoax", Death and Taxes
- ↑ Fernando Alfonso III, "No, feminists aren't trying to #EndFathersDay—it's a hoax", The Daily Dot
- ↑ Ashley Lynch, "A Final Word on #notyourshield", Medium.com
- ↑ moot, "Regarding recent events" 4chan
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedchan_culture - ↑ "So yeah. Mallory Blair takes pictures and hangs out with Moot....", The Spideygirl Blog (archived)
- ↑ "Sexism And Misogyny In Video Game Culture", Huffpost Live (video)
- ↑ "Q&A with Fredrick Brennan of 8chan", Know Your Meme
- ↑ Jay Allen, "/baphomet/, 8chan's Black Board", Storify.com
- ↑ Kim Crawley, "Child Porn, SSNs, and Gamergate: The Vile Tale of 8chan", InfoSec Institute (archived)
- ↑ Patrick Howell O'Neill, "8chan, the central hive of Gamergate, is also an active pedophile network", The Daily Dot
- ↑ Laura Dale, "8chan removed from Patreon... Becomes cat sanctuary", Destructoid
- ↑ Matt Purslow, "Patreon community guideline changes outlaws harassment, 8chan now raising money for cats to comply with new rules", PC Games N
- ↑ /r/GamerGhazi, "A massive fail in the making - Hotwheels hires Mike C for disability discrimination case against Patreon", Reddit
- ↑ @ManfredVonKarma, "Mike Cernovich: Based Lawyer of Gamergate", Medium.com
- ↑ Dan Olson, "The Mods are Always Asleep", Medium.com
- ↑ Laura Shortridge, "GamerGate's evolution from defending the child porn on 8chan to claiming SJWs are spreading child porn", Storify.com
- ↑ /r/KotakuInAction, ""Please help report @srhbutts and @FoldableHuman to the FBI for distributing, downloading and publishing child pornography.", Reddit
- ↑ "Lurking on 8chan, thought I'd share this comment.", Imgur
- ↑ American Enterprise Institute, "Are video games sexist?", YouTube
- ↑ Cathy Young, "GamerGate: Part I: Sex, Lies, and Gender Games", Reason
- ↑ Vox Day, "As the game media grows, the probability of it being co-opted by women who want to make it all about their vaginas approaches 1. #GamerGate", Twitter
- ↑ Vox Day, "Brad Wardell sets the record straight", Vox Popoli, October 30, 2014)
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Roosh V’s game site Reaxxion tricked into publishing an old John Birch Society pamphlet as a #GamerGate manifesto", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ David Futrelle, "A proposed new anti-Anita Sarkeesian “documentary” promises to give voice to the loudest “silent majority” the world has ever known", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ David Futrelle, "#GamerGate question of the day: Does Davis Aurini own multiple skulls, or is he moving one skull from room to room?", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Did Professional Sarkeesian-hater Davis Aurini Commit Felony Wire Fraud? Hell if I know, but he’s definitely an unethical dick.", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ Brian Cercente, "FBI investigating death threats against Feminist Frequency creator Sarkeesian", Polygon
- ↑ Jay Allen, "How crowdfunding helps haters profit from harassment", Boing Boing
- ↑ @srhbutts, "theralphretort, janet bloomfield caught blatantly lying redhanded. #gamergate ethics!"
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Antifeminist instigator and serial liar Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield attacks Jessica Valenti for having the abortion that may have saved her life", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Men’s Rights White Knights rush in to protect Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan from MRA criticism", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ @srhbutts, "#gamergate's new favorite person: batshit MRA anti-feminist karen straughan. people surprised: 0.", Twitter
- ↑ Zoe Quinn, "Let’s Talk About Ethics In Games Journalism!", Medium.com
- ↑ Jason Koebler, "Dear GamerGate: Please Stop Stealing Our Shit", Motherboard
- ↑ "Nods Respectfully Towards You", Know Your Meme
- ↑ 71.0 71.1 71.2 Nick Wingfield, "Intel Pulls Ads From Site After ‘Gamergate’ Boycott", The New York Times
- ↑ Heather Kelly, "Intel pulls ads over sexism in video game drama", CNN
- ↑ Kwame Opam, "Intel issues apology after backlash from #GamerGate opponents", The Verge
- ↑ Sam Biddle, "Ultimately #GamerGate is reaffirming what we’ve known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission", Twitter
- ↑ /r/KotakuInAction, "What's the namesake of Operation Baby Seal?", Reddit
- ↑ Caitlin Dewey, "Inside Gamergate’s (successful) attack on the media", The Washington Post
- ↑ Rob Beschizza, "Adobe walks into Gamergate, staggers around confusedly", BoingBoing
- ↑ Eric Johnson, "Adobe Distances Itself From Gawker After Writer’s Gamergate Tweet", Re/code
- ↑ Adi Robertson, "Adobe's symbolic pro-Gamergate gesture frustrates victims", The Verge
- ↑ Susana Polo, "Adobe, Mercedes-Benz are Latest to Pull Ads at the Behest of GamerGate", The Mary Sue
- ↑ Adobe, "When Anti-Bullying Efforts Backfire", Adobe.com
- ↑ Keith Blount, "Unexpectedly Catching Up with the GamerGate Controversy", LiteratureAndLatte.com
- ↑ Ian Douglas, "Dyson rejects Gamergate, returns advertising to Gawker", The Telegraph
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Yet another woman in gaming has been driven from her home by death threats", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ "Angry Boy In Red Tee Holding His Head Shouting Angrily Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Pic 4412922.", 123rf
- ↑ Brook Leigh Lawson, "A Letter To PressFart", Twitlonger
- ↑ @srhbutts, "sorry, #gamergate and @theralphretort, changing the URL won't stop this. just reported it again.", Twitter
- ↑ @srhbutts, "so ralph doxxed bri's entire fucking family. and #gamergate still won't condemn him.", Twitter
- ↑ "File:Wu never left.jpg"
- ↑ Brianna Wu, "Brianna Wu: Why I don't respond when Gamergate accuses me of being transgender.", GamerGhazi, Reddit
- ↑ Oli Welsh, "We cannot let this become gaming culture", Eurogamer.
- ↑ Lindsey Weedston, "12 Hashtags That Changed the World in 2014", Yes! Magazine
- ↑ Michelle Jaworski, "#StopGamerGate2014 trends worldwide as GamerGate hits breaking point, The Daily Dot
- ↑ Hayley Tsukayama, "The game industry’s top trade group just spoke out against Gamergate", The Washington Post
- ↑ "Great job proving "gamers" are innocent.", Imgur
- ↑ Anita Sarkeesian, "It’s Game Over for ‘Gamers’", The New York Times
- ↑ Taylor Wofford, "Is GamerGate About Media Ethics or Harassing Women? Harassment, the Data Shows" Newsweek
- ↑ Adrian Chen, "Gamergate Supporters Partied at a Strip Club This Weekend", New York
- ↑ Rich McCormick, "Stephen Colbert takes on Gamergate with Anita Sarkeesian", The Verge
- ↑ Alex Abad-Santos, "#GamerGate loves Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert does not love them back.", Vox
- ↑ David Futrelle, "The Top 22 Most Ridiculous Things Said by 8channers About Anita Sarkeesian’s Appearance on the Colbert Report", We Hunted The Mammoth
- ↑ PZ Myers, "Schadenfreude so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw", Pharyngula
- ↑ Nick Wingfield, "Intel Budgets $300 Million for Diversity", The New York Times
- ↑ "Intel CEO Outlines Future of Computing", Intel.com
- ↑ Mat Kamen, "Intel announces fund for greater tech diversity", Wired UK
- ↑ /r/KotakuInAction, "CALL TO ACTION: TWITTER #CES2015 HIJACKING", Reddit
- ↑ @srhbutts, "#gamergate's latest strategy? use jewish people as a shield to stop criticism of israel, apparently", Twitter
- ↑ David Futrelle, "Why are #GamerGaters so quick to excuse an anti-Semitic caricature of Anita Sarkeesian that’s literally derived from Nazi propaganda?", We Hunted the Mammoth
- ↑ Jonathan McIntosh, "I've been testing GamerGate's claim to be "left" by posting opinions nearly identical to Noam Chomsky. Result: Extreme reactionary outrage.", Twitter
- ↑ Jonathan McIntosh, "A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mob launch a harassment raid on someone.", Twitter
- ↑ /r/KotakuInAction, "Racism: brought to you by Intel", Reddit
- ↑ "ZeGerman1942", "Gamecraft: Gender Equality in the Games Industry", NotPlayed.com
- ↑ "I’m sure the “cultural appropriation” SJW brigade will get right on her for this", "The source of the above quote - and in fact the only source Google is throwing at me, based on a search for “The US bombed them back to traditional values” or “feminism does not exist in Japan” - is this article on notplayed.com which is all about games reviews (with the caveat that all the reviews are deliberately based not on playing the game, but by press and marketing material)....Considering that the only source of this alleged comment comes from someone whom we have documented to possibly have some kind of an agenda against Anita Sarkeesian, not any other third party at the conference or any other writeup that may have mentioned Anita’s remarks about Japan or feminism over there, I would advise extreme caution against believing anything they have to say, especially given recent patterns of fakery.", Not Your Ex/Rotic
- ↑ Genna Bain, "I am a woman in gaming and today I am selling my shares in @intel. I'm afraid there just wasn't enough "diversity" in my stock portfolio.", Twitter
- ↑ John Bain, "Watching a few idiots trying to infantalise my wife over her financial decision today. How wonderfully sexist these people are.", Twitter
- ↑ "SJW - Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'? (IGF)"
- ↑ 2015 "Game Developer's Choice Awards", (38:20)
- ↑ 2015 Game Developer's Choice Awards, (Around 54:50)
- ↑ 2015 Game Developer's Choice Awards, (Around 1:01:45)
- ↑ 2015 Game Developer's Choice Awards, (Around 1:29:20)
- ↑ Andrew Todd, "#GamerGate Is Now Literally An Industry Joke", Badass Digest
- ↑ Victoria McNally, "Here’s The Joke Tim Schafer Made That Has Gamergate Freaking Out", The Mary Sue
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