[worry]

The guys behind The Sarkeesian Effect are splitting up because one of them made a video bashing PUA/professional rape apologist/GG-friendly review site founder Roosh while the other considers him an ally to their cause. So the latter one posted a bunch of their chats/dirty laundry. Skimming them reveals the usual vile viewpoints, Ayn Rand references, etc. along with some very surreal stuff like believing in mental "hijacking"/mind control for example.
http://www.staresatt...ect-skype-logs/

[Morgoth]

If Gamergate is a necessary counterweight to shady journalism, surely Apt should be able to point to an instance of shady journalism discovered or highlighted by Gamergate?

At any rate, I find it quite revealing that those who feel such a connection to gamergate also use SJW as a slur and refer to MRA as a positive force.

[Aptorian]

The problem with that request is that GamerGate are not the ones that should be doing the investigation. The actual journalists should be doing the digging because, well, that's what they are good at. GamerGate are the people standing on the outside, looking in, and smelling something fishy.

The obvious rebutal here is that it is because of the journalists alleged relationships with the industry, that they can do the job they do. However that doesn't mean there shouldn't be clarity and better guidelines.

The first example of misconduct that came to mind is this reddit post, made by a former Australian video game journalist:

http://www.reddit.co...games_industry/

There's nothing out right illegal or corrupt in what he relays, it just all looks super shady.

[Morgoth]

So, the answer is that Gamergate has not in fact revealed anything of note? Other than a relentless campaign of harassment against people like Sarkeesian, Quin and Wu, what have they actually accomplished? In what way have they offered anything positive to the world of games?

[Aptorian]

This to me is like arguing that Occupy Wallstreet was bad because the government/business world didn't listen to it and did everything it could to hamper it.

The point of GamerGate is not to win some war, it is simply to be heard by the industry that ignores them. I would call the GamerGate people a bunch of nutjobs, if it wasn't for the fact that the press so adamantly ignores the matter. Making me think there obviously must be something there.

Which, let's face it, is the basis of all conspiracy theories.

This post has been edited by Apt: 06 March 2015 - 02:42 PM

[amphibian]

Ayn Rand is unusual in that while I believe women in all professions have been marginalized and should be supported (and do so regularly with my wallet), I profoundly wish Rand hadn't written her books and become the batshit crazy and near-fetishized guru of adolescent white males that she was in life and is after her death.

I experienced not an iota of surprise that GamerGate cretins are quoting her regularly. A notable feature of her work is the lack of empathy for others and they too seem to all hold that to varying degrees.

[D'iversify]

Oh Goat, can't the Alien Overlords just get off their supernumerary hinies and sort out the Human Problem once and for all (don;t think they need to go full extermo-mode, just exile to the space gulags and strenuous re-education/evolutionary uplift should do).

[Tsundoku]

D, on 06 March 2015 - 07:48 PM, said:

Oh Goat, can't the Alien Overlords just get off their supernumerary hinies and sort out the Human Problem once and for all (don;t think they need to go full extermo-mode, just exile to the space gulags and strenuous re-education/evolutionary uplift should do).

But don't you see ... they already are. You made the basic anthrocentric mistake of thinking our good traits were universal. Surely you don't think that religion, reality TV and the Republican Party came about by chance do you?

[D'iversify]

Sombra, on 06 March 2015 - 08:18 PM, said:

D, on 06 March 2015 - 07:48 PM, said:

Oh Goat, can't the Alien Overlords just get off their supernumerary hinies and sort out the Human Problem once and for all (don;t think they need to go full extermo-mode, just exile to the space gulags and strenuous re-education/evolutionary uplift should do).

But don't you see ... they already are. You made the basic anthrocentric mistake of thinking our good traits were universal. Surely you don't think that religion, reality TV and the Republican Party came about by chance do you?

And you make the mistake of confusing the Reptilain Masters for the true and benevolent Alien Overlords who will one day free us from their taloned grip. OR HAVE THEY GOT TO YOU TOO?!

PS: It was the Reverse Vampires all along.

[D'rek]

Drifting away from the reptilian overlord talk and back towards, you know... the topic... here's an article that I thought was a pretty interesting read:

http://www.cracked.c...tion-seriously/

I know, I know, it's from Cracked, which isn't exactly a valid news source in any way, but then again neither are any of the bajillion blogs purporting to be news organizations either, these days. Take it with a huge grain of salt, to be sure, but since it's apparently written in conjunction with a UK psychotherapist specializing in gaming addiction it's worth giving a read to.

In particular, the combination of points #1 and #2 (yes, it's a numbered list article, I know, I know, I'm so sorry...) - the idea that people who are at least partially addicted to video games using them to escape negative influences from elsewhere in their life, plus mockery and derision reinforcing that negative self-imaging and causing them to lash out - I think it's a pretty powerful explanation that definitely seems a lot more plausible than "they're just all bitter Ayn Rand-infused patriarchy-loving misogynists".


Are video games addictive? I would say yes. Most people won't have trouble managing it, just like most people who drink won't develop alcoholism, but there's plenty of public cases of gaming addicts in need of help (or who died) that I think we can agree it is an addictive past-time.

So you've got someone who isn't having a happy life at the moment, possibly has undiagnosed depression, that sort of thing... obviously an immersive, fantasy-fulfillment experience like video gaming is going to be extremely appealing. And when they're addicted, when they're using it to shut away the negative influences, and every depiction of their hobby is just reinforcing those negative influences...

...well that's when the alcoholic sinks even further into the bottle, right? And what happens when you try to take the bottle away? They lash out, angrily, right?


Now, I'm sure this scenario doesn't apply to *every* bad nut in the gaming community. Some people are just jerks. But the notion of reclused addicts does fit a lot of the behaviour. AFAIK, though, there's not really any sort of established 'AA' equivalent for addicted gamers, nor is the culture at large aware of it in the same way. If your friend/spouse/whatever is addicted to video games, you just make them stop, right? Movies/TV/etc tell you that person is just a loser, not to try and get them into counseling. Maybe that is a change in cultural perspective that would help with reducing the number of violently vitriolic gaming enthusiasts.

[worry]

We all have to adapt to the listicle or be left behind! And one can do a lot worse than Cracked. There's a lot of good in this.

That said,

D, on 06 March 2015 - 10:05 PM, said:

I think it's a pretty powerful explanation that definitely seems a lot more plausible than "they're just all bitter Ayn Rand-infused patriarchy-loving misogynists".

I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Of course, like all systemic ills, one need not love it or even side with it to enact it. The trend with GG in particular though has generally been mass exodus of reasonable people whose initial curiosity/concern turned to horror, so it's really only the nasty core left.

I wonder how much of the vileness in gaming in particular can be attributed to addiction. Other areas of "geek" culture have their cesspools of course, but there's at least been some headway in sf/fantasy, comics (http://philsandifer....-khouri-hes-the this is a pretty nice recent blip), conventions, etc. that haven't resulted in like a small army of Vox Days swarming people and ruining lives (as far as I know). There's plenty of people on "the wrong side of history" as they say, but the conversations are at least happening, whereas the norm in gaming has been sustained violent tantrums.

[Studlock]

I have a hard time believing the vast majority of those involved with Gamergate, such as Apt who seems most interested on the side of journal ethics (in which I honestly think is a vast minority of individuals), or people who simply want to dissuade a 'SJW agenda' from being 'pushed' upon there traditionally reactionary hobby, are addicts. I've lived with addicts all my life. They don't care if their drinking beer or wine as along as they're getting theirs they were happy. Sure when you took away what they were addicted to they'd get violent, childish, and mean. But they also had a much complicated relationship with their vice than is seen by the vitriol shown by the majority of Gamergater's activity.

This behaviour is much more indicative of a political or moral stance than one of suffering from addiction. There is far to many similar tactics and language shared among these neoreactionaries of the internet to say honestly that even many of them have addiction to videogames. So unless people are also addicted to reddit, fantasy and sci-fi books, comic books, 4-chan, and so on I doubt it's addiction. This language ('SJW' using feminism in a negative light, dismissal of any 'progressive' themes in anything they enjoy...etc) is used in all those instances. I think it's very dangerous to start thinking about political or moral judgement of people you don't like as addiction (because if so I'm an addict). We aren't taking their toys away, we are talking about opening them up to a wider audience and this enrages them. The addicts of the world don't care about the other addicts as long as they got their fix (as you mention actual video game addicts literally play till they die not rant about SJW and feminazis on the internet).

[D'rek]

@Studlock - I think the "digital patrol route" (I do like that term, thanks psychotherapist guy who made it up!) changes that aspect of it compared to more traditionally common/talked about addictions, though. Alcohol addiction was not a great comparison, now I've thought of a better one - gambling addiction. Both video games and gambling can give you that sense of self-empowerment and are behavioural addictions rather than chemical. But while someone who has a gambling addiction might be at the casino/back-alley-poker-game five times a week, the rest of the day they have some distance from it (even if they might be thinking about it a lot). There's not much of a culture of personalities/celebrities/companies to be discussing amongst gambling enthusiasts. But video gamers have those tons of websites where they can read and discuss the tons of video games news, people, companies, etc. And when someone who is addictively self-medicating their depression with video games, or some kind of situation like that, their digital patrol route gives them more constant news updates and connection other like-minded people that they can continuously discuss with. They might never switch it off. And then they get into arguments about it, get mocked, get angry, and wind up hanging out online with some idiot who thinks they should all start sending death threats to the person who is 'threatening' their precious games. What do you know, sending out death threats and seeing the reaction in the those same news sites in their digital patrol route makes them feel pretty self-empowered for a bit, too.

Definitely I don't think the addiction is the one and only factor in play here. There's certainly a lot of influences and even if addiction is the main one, it doesn't give them any sort of excuse or moral justification. But I do think it is an interesting and important consideration when trying to understand/analyze/discuss their behaviour. Furthermore, I think it's an especially important consideration if we're trying to think up any sort of ways of trying to eliminate that element from the video game culture... because obviously just mocking those people is not going to get rid of them. Maybe some sort of video game addiction awareness spreading would actually help in reducing the prominence of misogynistic death threats within the culture.

[amphibian]

I don't think gambling addictions are an apt comparison to this phenomenon.

The gambling addict is more similar to an alcoholic than to one of the nasty individuals you speak of. There are actually long term chemical changes in the brains of addicts and gamblers show a lust for the probability risks far in excess of normal people (which is why they so often wreck their lives and those of their families).

Studlock is right in that this hypothetical GamerGate super-cretin is more similar to the nastier people involved with political groups or social/medical issues like abortion.

There is the same refusal to listen, the attitudes of "this is where we hold the line", the frequent crossing of stated and unstated borders and the fixation upon factoids that are more like mantras than actual facts.

The mocking is actually the right tactic to take - when it can be safely done and without going into bullying. Shame is a greater motivation for positive behavior change and there are studies being done that bear this out.

On the other hand, the exact mechanism for shaming cannot be "cheeto encrusted mama's basement dweller". It has to be related to the ludicrous position that person is taking in the discussion.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 09 March 2015 - 04:39 AM

[Studlock]

@D'rek

I'd be right there with you if I thought addiction played a large part in actually discussion happening. I just don't, mostly because this kind of behaviour isn't limited to video games but all hobbies that, before the internet, were seen as ' white men' hobbies, but now since the internet individuals who aren't 'white men' are now more openly voicing their wants within that hobby community.

We've seen this with fantasy and science fiction itself, and we see it quiet regularly in fact. Same with comic books. Reddit is currently in the (hilarious) throws of ousting 'SJW mods' which they call a cancer. I'm not saying all people who follow Gamergate are painfully obvious neoreactionarian ideologues but I think the must of them are (sorry Apt, Gamergate, for whatever pretense that had about being about gaming journalist ethics, is not about gaming journalist ethics. Not because they were ineffective, but because everyone they attacked, or questioned were probably the least important people to question or attack when it comes to ethical journalism within video games lest we forget that this whole thing started by slut shaming a indie developer and THEN questioning if she 'slept around' for review scores), and if some of them are lashing out because they are addicted (which I will point out that people get addicted to very specific games, usually ones that social and online, games that aren't usually attacked--again there itch is fine it's the larger community that is being changed) they aren't a big enough force in which video game addiction awareness would change the discourse (but I'm not against video game addiction awareness, there should definitely be like a theme week ever year for that).

At the end of the day I don't know we if can get rid of the death threats, or doxxing, or the misogynistic tendencies of Gamergate or the community at large. One because this anti-intellectualism and fierce protection of their own moral and political mores is a reflection of the a wider cultural phenomenon (we're seeing this in American and Canadian politics at least) and two because I don't know if shaming, or even attempting civil oil branches would change this behaviour. For me this isn't really an issue of peoples personal relationship to video games but rather an identity issue. If we take a cultural studies approach to this issue, and the most bare bones cultural studies approach states that industries that produce cultural artifacts will produce works of art that appeal to problems and reproduce mores of those people who can buy the most of that product, we can see this as a identity issue. The Gamergates are no long seeing their mores, or their problems, being across-the-board reproduced. Now gamings becoming more diverse because it has more groups to sell to. This is seen as an attack on Gamergaters identity. So I'm not sure this problem will go away unless this 'games are for boys and should not be open to critical analysis' idea goes away.

[Gorefest]

It's not gaming addiction, IMHO. I know a fair few of those and they couldn't care one bit about the ethics or moral issues surroundign the games they play, they just want to immerse themselves into a fantasy world. The vitriolic elements in this whole GG debate seem to be predominantly bloggers and game critics, not the player community at large. If they'd be true addicts, they wouldn't take the time out to start contributing actively to the discussion through forum discussions and vlogs, they'd be too preoccupied with racking up gaming hours.

[worry]

Yah, I think I tend to agree with Studlock on this issue. Addiction obviously exists, and there's intersection of issues probably, but largely that's more of a subset of a subset. There's also a subculture-insularity effect going on that may have an exacerbated affect on people who are more typically "lonely". Besides MRA/PUA types, there's another weird subset of people who've had some overlap with GG, and that's the "involuntary celibate" groups. I don't paint everyone or even a substantial percentage of GGers in this light (think Elliott Rodgers) for obvious reasons -- GG is made up mostly of nerdy "rationalists"/"egalitarianists" of the most haughty self-deluded kind, and the teenagers who are easily drawn into that way of thinking -- but some of the scarier fringes have found common cause. What they all have in common, I suppose, is denial of real world complexity in favor of self-serving idealist mythologies (not unlike American conservatives who lionize the 1950s or Reagan).

Anyway, sub-sub-sub-groups aside, here's a pretty sterling breakdown of the social science of media consumption, as a counter to GG black-and-whiteism:
https://storify.com/...sexism-interact

[Grief]

Really not a fan of the cracked article. I get why people make sure to emphasize that their criticisms are "criticisms from within", but in this case it doesn't seem like he's doing it to show much of any relevance. "I'm going to perpetuate a bunch of gamer stereotypes...but hey, here's my gamer-cred!". So, point by point.

#5: If gaming is an addiction to feeling powerful, why are many addictive games those in which you really aren't a lot of the time -- such as MMO's and competitive online games generally. Competitive games don't provide "crack like doses" of feeling powerful, because it takes longer than usual to get close to that level. I think people get different things from gaming, and while it might be true in some cases, I think suggesting all gaming addicts are addicted to some sense of power is a simplistic analysis. I'm also sure that, as he makes a point of noting, the relative obscurity of Spec Ops: The Line is a result of the fact that "in 2012, all the videogame community wanted to do was throw a temper tantrum" about Tropes vs. Women. Also sadly condemned to obscurity were Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Mass Effect 3, Sleeping Dogs, Diablo III, Borderlands 2, Counterstrike: Global Offensive, Assassin's Creed III, Dishonored, Guild Wars 2, Far Cry 3, The Walking Dead, Hitman: Absolution, and Halo 4 amongst others.

#4: For all he defends the cultural value of games, I feel like he sort of misses the point of doing so. If games are important in the artistic or cultural sense, then why are the things within them meaningless? It's hard to find analogous situations in other art forms. If someone sinks 50 hours into obtaining a rare virtual object, that in some cases has real monetary value, is that somehow different from someone sinking 50 hours into a real object, that in some cases has real monetary value? Here I've used money and time, I'm not going to particularly defend them as bestowing meaning, but it seems to me that there's an implicit assumption in this part which, like the rest of the article, parrots typical views about games generally, and I'm not sure I agree with it. Obviously, some virtual objects mean enough to enough people that they can be worth quite a considerable amount of money (hats in TF2 for example) -- it might be easy just to say anyone that involved to that extent is an addict, but that just seems like circular reasoning.

He highlights the fact that his article is very heavy on stereotypes, but again, I'm not sure how much it matters that he acknowledges it...Maybe if he's so aware of it, he could've written a less crappy article? Or at least justified the sterotyping beyond the extent he did, which leads to...

#3 is basically just taking a stereotype at face value. This advert shows a gaming stereotype...but the gaming stereotype advert wouldn't have been made about a different genre, hence it must be meaningful. Right. Half-Life 3 never being released is a running joke in the gaming community, while GRRM has publicly spoken about feeling pressured by fans about his writing speed (and I'm sure we've all seen some of the horrible comments directed at him, by people who will read his books no less... maybe they're addicts). So book fans must be really awful right? Though according to the article, they never throw tantrums.

#2 and #1 seem to insist upon numerous tropes such as horrible people being "fundamentally, scared and lonely", arguing in the vein that bullies are bullies because actually they've got it even worse than the person being bullied...sometimes true and sometimes not, however nice it might be to believe. Honestly, this just seems like a hugely shallow analysis to me.

As well as which, I think it simply misses a lot of the vitriol in the gaming community, only seeing one area of discrimination (where "it's always a woman") and then extrapolating its claims from there, when homophobia for example is an immediately apparent issue to anyone who's played more than 10 minutes in just about any online game. Possibly it's because, as well as being sexually frustrated, gaming addicts are all uncertain or insecure about their sexuality. Or possibly not. I'm pretty sure being a jerk isn't limited to the lonely, or so easily delineated.

More specifically regards to Gamergate, I feel like the article is unhelpful clickbait. He says that he wants people to move away from mockery, but this mostly seems like an attempt to justifying his crappy article. I'm sure calling a wide group of people scared, lonely, sex-starved losers -- who need pity and are only angry because they feel like failures -- and then insisting that mockery isn't the way forward is going to help. Not only that, but it seems to be gunning for all the wrong people. He's essentially connecting the gaming-addicts with the abusive elements of the community. I agree with Studlock that I don't think this is especially the case, but the article seems like a dandy way to get people's backs up (including regular gamers, since his attacks on the hobby are pretty broad, including using the universal "we" when talking about harassment). It attempts to delegitimize awful parts of the gaming community based upon hyperbolic speculation about the sort of people the harassers are, instead of focussing on the problems with the things they're actually saying. In doing so, it also seems to me that it legitimizes the harassment and shuts down attempts to fix it in some ways. After all, if this behaviour is a result of a genuine addiction -- rather than say, a symptom of a wider problem, though personally I'm pretty sure sexism isn't limited to online gaming -- then can we blame the addicts? And what is the solution? Well, what we need is to solve the issue of addiction. No problem then...

The sort of approach the article takes is only going to fuel the argument, especially since one of Gamergate's refrains seems to be complaining about being misrepresented by the media. Indeed, it seems obvious that such a negative depiction of the people involved isn't going to help resolve anything -- and I honestly don't think that the article is intended to do so, or to present any particularly useful insight. It's hugely stereotypical, in exactly the manner that annoyed people about the Law and Order episode he mentioned, while being really condescending to boot, and I think it's probably intended to be inflammatory to garner attention and nothing else.

[Grief]

worry, on 11 March 2015 - 12:05 AM, said:

Anyway, sub-sub-sub-groups aside, here's a pretty sterling breakdown of the social science of media consumption, as a counter to GG black-and-whiteism:
https://storify.com/...sexism-interact

This does a good job with outlining the gist of arguments about cultural discourse (hardly an easy thing to do). I think it misses one part of the cycle, which is that people are vulnerable to confirmation bias, and once a "mental pattern" is established, people are more likely to seek out, consume, and place greater weight upon media that reinforces that pattern.

I also think that phrasing it mostly in terms of pattern reinforcement isn't quite ideal for discussing the legitimization of sexism, because it leaves open the argument "I'm not sexist, so there's no pattern to reinforce, and if media doesn't create these biases, then these videogames aren't problematic for me, right?". The piece talks about individual bias reinforcement via the media legitimizing sexism, but doesn't really touch upon the individual legitimizing those media representations as acceptable, which I think is also an important point here.

[dietl]

This is a (long) five-part series of articles that criticizes feminist frequency and its tactics. I don't really know enough about the issue to comment either way, but it might interest some of you.

http://metaleater.co...eo-games-part-1