So... that whole GamersGate thing

[Zodberg]

this thread brings out the luckett in me

What is Luckett's opinion about Gamergate, I would love to know.

[yaj]

this thread got pretty ridiculous. anyway, Fad articulated what i couldn't find the words for. it's important to look past all the name calling and bickering to actually understand both sides of the argument. so i'm trying to figure that out still, but won't say anything about it. because somebody else will rightly point out that i got it wrong.

anyway, even though i said some stuff about GTA, i didn't mean to imply the series should be censored in any way. those games just never appealed to me, since there didn't seem to be much of a point. but yeah, while the content is objectionable, that doesn't mean that it should be restricted in any way. the same can be said for any other video game.

[Luckett]

this thread brings out the luckett in me

What is Luckett's opinion about Gamergate, I would love to know.

Where else could that snippet have been from. I knew. Of course I knew. My precious babies.

Gamergate was doomed from the start, like any fucking "conversation" on twitter. Lets unite under a banner where any anonymous nutbag or group thereof can drag any well intentioned initial debate kicking and screaming into inevitable internet shitageddon.

Thats also the problem with any other banner mind. The feminist side also has its own share of the bad eggs, and so it all turns into what a war would look like if two toilets filled with turds from opposite dimensions began to phase-space into each other, one swirling one way, the other counter to it. A never ending cyclone of butt-spawn, smashing up against its equal and opposing force. Stare into it for too long yourself, and your face will be covered in the fallout. A shitspray of multidimensional origin, Ray.

I do feel bad for some of the Gamergaters though. Its like this was the first big-time they understood that an industry or social group of individuals inevitably falls into clique-dom. This was the first crystal clear moment where the horrible truth of human tribalism came into focus, and it was... about precious videogames. Now they had to start piecing everything else together, why they werent offered that promotion, why they were always picked last in sports, and so on. Then cometh the rage. Where will it all go? What channel of expression will they be able to funnel their emotions through and return to stability?

Not ONE but TWO RELEASES OF SMASH BROTHERS!

I think pretty much all games jurnalism is terrible because of the cliquey nature of it and people that don't actually know jackshit about videogames/too lazy to google, but going to war on Twitter to "fix it" is the naive expectations of the slacktivism generation. Add a generous helping of trolls that have been waiting for such an all-star event to unclog their anuses all over and its a real internet tour de force. That people are still talking about it is a bit weird and pathetic, but then one side keeps whacking the others hornets nest/base camp flag, and more reverberations of the butt in 140 characters or less follows forth.

Addendum: wasn't James always terrible though?

[Keith Stack]

GamerGate has really given us devoted misogynists a bad rap. Those guys keep threatening women with murder and rape, and that's not cool at all.

Look, let's face facts. We all want to slowly breed women out of existence and live in a homosexual utopia. It's practically common sense at this point. But raping and murdering women isn't going to help at all. We need women on our side, because nobody hates women as much as other women!

Think about it, how come all them gay dudes is so happy all the time, but lesbians are always so grumpy lookin? This ain't the gosh dingley Da-vinchee Code here fellas!

[yaj]

Yeah, right o- what the what?!?

[Sofox]

I was going to reply to Keith's post by how a lot of pro-GG females have been harassed by anti-GGers, but as I kept reading... I just gave up.

[Mirai]

Keith's quip could be twisted into the perfect basis for a Catherine parody.

Imagine a game where beautiful women in sexy sheep lingerie are forced to climb block towers in their nightmares.  If they survive, they earn the right to carry on living happily in a world being manipulated by vengeful gods--taking the form of misogynistic bulldyke lesbians--who use the nightmares to kill off beautiful women in a quest to turn men homosexual and exterminate the human race.

Then, imagine the fury of the self-righteously indignant crowd over the sexism, misogyny, Internet Hate Machine, and blah, blah, so on and so forth.

...until they find out that 50% of the game's net profits go to support girls' schools and organizations to help women in hardship.

[Zodberg]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/31/1361398/-YT-Armed-Gamergate-r-Crashes-Mother-s-Prius-en-route-to-Brianna-Wu-s-House

Of course, this is just a spin put fourth by the mainstream media against a subculture movement. In truth, it wasn't the idiot who crashed, but actually the car is at fault for taking him, and then not even completing the journey.

If this isn't sticking a fork in it, nothing ever will because we live in a universe without forks. But I believe in forks.

[SoNick]

The question is... do the forks believe in you?

[yaj]

Well..hate to bump this, but did anyone catch the latest Law and Order SVU episode? It kind of ripped the gamergate thing off.

[Sofox]

Yeah, let's do a recap since the last post.

There was a thing where GG folks brought attention to an interview that implied corruption on the indie scene. Kotaku made a news posts where it talked to the people involved and claimed there was no truth to the allegations. While it acted like this was GG making a baseless claim, it showed two things 1) GG had enough support to make a trending hashtag to draw attention to a issue and 2) a mainstream gaming website basically confirmed that GG were interested in pursuing anti-corruption issues.

Onto the Law and Order: I haven't seen it, I've seen clips, it just seems like the same sort of utterly uninformed views of gaming stuff with forced plotlines that we've had since the 90s (with exceptions like Parker Lewis Can't Lose and stuff). Reaction has been weird. Some pro-GG say the show is an unintentional parody of the "other sides" view on what is really going on. Some anti-GG have said that the episode, while obviously referencing various events, completely fails to address the serious issues instead opting for cartoonish villainy. One anti-GGer seem to say that the episode is pretty much what's happening anyway.

Yeah, I dunno, to be honest, one of the reasons I haven't been posting here is I realise that it's better to cut my GG exposure. I mean, I've learned most of what I needed to (crowd behaviour, how opposing sides often mirror other people's behaviour, formation of hiveminds and groupthink on the internet, lack of discourse and real interaction with opposing viewpoint on the internet, errors in current media, and so forth). It is kinda exciting at times, but regardless of which side, there are some horrible people in this debate, and other people become more horrible by trying to ensure these horrible people get what's coming to them. It can lower your regard for humanity and get you trapped in a world of only seeing internet opinion and endless streams of text mostly from people you never met yet or know anything about yet for some reason consider important. Point is, a break is always good. And interacting with people in real life is a healthy part of any balanced life.

[Matt_TY]

Too true, Sofox. I've seen I've seen the twitter feeds or people - normal, cool people, people I've known for years - turn from normality into something out of Lord of the Flies (KILL-THE-PIG! SMASH-HIM-IN!) and unfortunately the intentional misrepresenting of people and twisting of stories to fit a narrative is reaching near-Olympic levels. I feel like I've said some or all of this before but then every time I come back to look at this issue I feel like I've seen some or all of these things before. It appears SVU somehow managed to misrepresent everyone at once though which is interesting.

Wait. No it isn't really.

[Vexiss]

Well..hate to bump this, but did anyone catch the latest Law and Order SVU episode? It kind of ripped the gamergate thing off.

i really want to

[SoNick]

Man I could never get into Law & Order at all, SVU included.

[Southbird]

Man I could never get into Law & Order at all, SVU included.

I was into all of it for a while, but ... there's something about being constantly reminded about all the terrible things humanity is capable of, with L&O being based on actual news articles and such.

[yaj]

eh..it's not the same without stabler; you're not missing much.