Yes, they are. And some of the active ranters are treating the publicizing of death threats to be a triumph. See, gang, the media are taking us seriously, they crow.
So take a look at how Business Insider sees the story.
The GamerGate movement has resulted in widespread outrage — at least on Twitter — among game fans.
And now some women who have criticized video games, or those who play them, are being subjected to death threats by men who play those games.
Yes, it’s bizarre. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Hot tip: when the media says that you’re “bizarre” and “make no sense whatsoever”, that isn’t good press.
Business Insider isn’t done with you.
But look at the priorities here. On the one hand, a handful of women have said, "Some of these games are frankly not great, guys!" and been threatened with death for having that opinion. And on the other hand, a huge chunk of the gaming community is now fiercely arguing that the death threats aren’t important. Rather, the technicalities of video game reviewing are the priority.
It’s completely insane. It’s insane that you even have to say out loud that sending death threats to people who disagree with your opinion of video games is wrong.
Another hot tip: “Insane” isn’t a mainstream media buzzword for “really cool awesome shit”. They’re looking at you all goggle-eyed and mystified and wondering what the heck is wrong with you. As am I.
Because threatening to rape or murder or rape and murder someone is a completely logical and reasonable response to an opinion offered as critique. On Bizzarro-World. I didn’t much like Ben Affleck’s last movie, but no group of Ben Affleck fans threatened to murder me in reply. “woman criticizes video games, gets death threats in reply” sounds like a headline of The Onion.
But this whole ordeal is clearly not about misogyny. It’s bringing integrity to gaming journalism, with death threats!
/Sarcasm
As any gamer can tell you, DLC can be hit or miss.
In this case, DLC @1, a miss.
It only sounds like an Onion headline if you’re not a woman gamer. If you’re a woman gamer, it sounds like Tuesday. That is to say, it only sounds bizarre if you’re fortunate enough not to experience it all the frakking time. :/
Urrgh, the comments.
Yeah, suuure, their home addresses were given out to the internet which contains both harmless arseholes, and non-harmless arseholes who enjoy fantasising about harming women in various ways – and other people, including arseholes and non-arseholes who don’t fantasising about harming women – but, yeah, absolutely, this is just a martyr complex – they’re not in real danger!
FFS. Is that an honestly ignorant comment, or is it someone trying to downplay that whole “they gave out people’s home addresses to the entire internet” thing?
@CaitieCat, 3
I don’t know what you mean, my rocket propelled parachute is awesome!
And then they go and claim those media sources are being biased and just don’t understand what #gamergate is all about.
Unfortunately, they really do understand what it’s about. It doesn’t help when the only “evidence” given by the ‘gaters are why people like Zoe Quinn are awful human beings.
They really don’t get it, do they?
You mean human suffering actually gets a higher emotional priority than the minutiae of gaming journalism in the population at large?
It’s like evolution had an effect on us or something. Something that determines how important some things are relative to others. But emotions are all illogical right?
/sarcasm
CaitieCat, getaway driver @3 :
I should have said “it should be a headline from The Onion” instead of it sounds like. In other words, the phrase should be a sarcastic witticism instead of a real-life statement of fact.
The voice of privilege. “Well, -I- have the luxury to ignore random people threatening me with death because honestly it sounds like such a farfetched possibility. I don’t know why you other people who get killed all the time for standing in the way of a white man’s rage are raising a fuss about”
The irony is, had that really been the case, the CEO of Pepsi would have gotten the “We know where you live, we know where your children go to school, we’re going to rape them to death and send the videos to porn sites” treatment during the doritosgate, which seems to mean that the self-righteous assholes who favor these underhanded methods either do not give a shit about actual collusion between the gaming press and the industry, are too cowardly to pick a fight with people rich and connected enough to lawyer up and drag them out of their virtual comfort zone, or both.
<JeffGoldblum>Ah, now eventually you do plan to have ethics on your, on your ethics movement, right? Hello?</JeffGoldblum>
It may have been mentioned a million times before, but right now you can vote for Anita Sarkeesian as Gaming Personality of the Year in the Golden Joysticks 2014 Awards.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/joystick/
right now you can vote for Anita Sarkeesian as Gaming Personality of the Year in the Golden Joysticks 2014 Awards.
That ought to be pharyngulated.
Voted.
My favourite bit of media coverage over #gamergate was the Daily Mail. See the ‘sidebar’ down the bottom where the gaming editor explains it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2789937/female-game-developer-forced-flee-home-twitter-user-publishes-address-threatens-rape-kill-criticised-video-game-group.html
Guys, when even the Daily Mail can work out you’re full of it, you’ve lost.
I think one of the big issues here is that these people have no familiarity with cultural criticism, or sociological studies of things like gender and race.
So when someone says something like… “Much like what we see to varying degrees in all forms of media, video games contain elements of sexism, racism, and other issues. It’s not that the developers are necessarily hateful, horrible people but there are tropes in the stories, and stereotypes that define the common depictions of various groups that people tend to rely on when creating media, whether it be a book, a tv show, or a video game.”, what they hear is “Video games, and the people who make and play them are sexist and racist. You know, those things that the KKK and Nazis are.”
I think that they need to understand that when someone points out that you’re saying or doing something sexist or racist, they’re generally saying something roughly on the level of “hey, that’s kinda rude”. Not “you are literally Hitler”.
For some reason, if you were to suggest that despite the fact we have a right to be impolite, we’re not required to exercise that right, and for good reason. However, since there’s the right to free speech, we desperately need to continue asserting it by making sexist or racist jokes, presented as some kind of ironic pantomime of “real” sexism or racism (which is obviously *completely* different from the joke stuff).
I think a lot of the GamerGate guys really think that their rape and death threats are “obvious” jokes, and sure, plenty of them are, but they don’t see the harm that can actually be caused. When you’ve got an unknown number of anonymous online jerks who think it’s funny to harass and threaten you, the idea that they probably won’t act on those threats isn’t exactly a comfort. There’s always the potential for someone in that crowd to take it too seriously. I get the feeling that psychologically, they’re basically like teenagers egging a house, and not thinking at all about the consequences. Now with the internet they have this group of vocal assholes who are grabbing up this childish destructiveness and attaching it to stuff like MRA ideology. They’re harnessing that feeling of indignation that people get when it’s pointed out that their joke was a bit insensitive, telling them that it’s in fact righteous indignation, and that they’ve got a movement they can join, complete with leaders, enemies, and dogma.
Now a large chunk of the mainstream online video game world is dominated by people convinced that people like Anita Sarkeesian are out to swindle them all, and destroy the gaming world, when all she’s done is make a few videos criticizing the sexism in games, with money given to her by willing donors. There are tons of overblown conspiracy theories surrounding this as well. It amazes me to see people who consider themselves skeptics, people who roll their eyes at accusations from, say, anti-vaxxers that skeptics are all paid shills, making the claim that all discussion about sexism is part of some sort of money making conspiracy. That references to “sexism” in articles are “click bait”.
I’ve been up all night studying, so I think I’m kind of rambling, but my basic point is that these people don’t even get why they’re being criticized in the first place. When they talk about social issues, they sound like creationists talking about evolution. They seem to believe that since something like sexism or racism is difficult to be clearly defined, understood, and laid out in a scientific manner, that it’s all just a matter of opinion, all efforts at researching it are simply bullshit, and their opinion is just as informed as anyone else’s.
I was reading Cracked.com and ran across this:
Right, bullies are defending themselves, not being offensive and threatening to others. *snicker*
Except they are saying half of the humans are inferior to them. Bullies defending their “territory” by being offensive should be dealt with for what it is: threats and extortion without a trace of humor present. If they don’t want to be called out, quit behaving in a manner that will get them called out.
They get absolutely no sympathy or consideration from me. Either they show they can behave in a civilized society, or they should crawl back into their “territory” and quit bothering and attempting to intimidate other people with their paranoia.
@ Jafafa Hots:
Voted. Particularly enjoyed Sarkeesian’s description:
#GamerGate and related dudebros continue their great PR campaign.
Well, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Right?
Right?
I mean… right?
And the whole ‘it’s just a joke’ group of dudebros insist that there is no such thing as rape culture. Because if there were, it totally wouldn’t be funny to make rapey jokes, right?
Clueless doesn’t begin to describe that type of ‘thinking’.
Comedy rule of thumb, dudebros: if you have to say “It’s just a joke,” the joke wasn’t funny.
Please tell me all of this frothing and raging from the misogynists is an extinction burst. Oh gods please.
@Nerd of Redhead
I’m not sure if this is actually what you thought I was implying, because I don’t think that the text you’re quoting conveys that message. I don’t think the idea that these people think of what they’re doing as “just joking around” is exactly controversial, and pointing that out is a hell of a lot different from saying “hey, don’t be so hard on them, they’re just kids having fun”.
There’s a reason I put the word “obvious” in quotation marks. The tone of a threat is very difficult to really read accurately, and the fact that it’s being sent at all gives the impression it comes from an unstable and unpredictable person. I also followed that statement up with a line making it clear that even the threats that are more clearly tasteless and stupid attempts at humor are harmful.
Bullies have always thought that their threatening, abusive, or even violent behavior is just some joke that their victims should know how to laugh off.
I think it’s important to try and understand the thinking behind this kind of bullying behavior. In all forms of abuse, everything from school yard taunting to war crimes, the perpetrators have couched it in justifications, and their own flawed perception of what they’re doing.
Yes, it’s true that it’s a serious issue, and the perpetrators shouldn’t be brushed off as harmless kids. I never said anything otherwise. I was talkinga bout how they see themselves. A big part of the issue is trying to prevent the kids who are on the internet today from being brainwashed into their brand of misogyny, and understanding where this attitude comes from is important. While the worst perpetrators are doing things that are (or should be) criminal, and should be dealt with accordingly, you can’t prosecute someone for subscribing to the “ironic bigotry” brand of humor that you see throughout youth culture, and all over the internet (though if there’s any one place that’s associated with it, it’s 4chan).
As a 32 year old who had internet access since he was 12, I grew up online, surrounded by what was to become the modern version of that sense of humor, and the reality of it is that it’s a lot more complicated than simple veiled bigotry. There are a lot of kids today who don’t understand that, say, Chappelle’s Show isn’t just laughing at how silly and offensive the n-word is. Kids today were raised in a culture where there is genuine smart satire that mocks and depicts bigotry, clumsy, misguided attempts at satire, straight up offensive attempts at humor, ironic depictions of bigotry where the target is definately the bigots, somewhat less ironic depictions of bigotry, presenting itself as genuinely ironic, and on and on. There are a lot of confusing messages about what is offensive, and why, and those messages get further confused by groups like the MRA crowd, who co-opt the language of the socially progressive.
If we really want to be able to get the message to kids growing up in this, we’ve got to understand it, and waving it all off as some nebulous evil that shouldn’t be explored or understood isn’t really helping anything. Trying to understand it is not the same as tacit approval. It is a wrong, messed up worldview, that is dominated by hatred and general disrespect for others… but it’s coming from humans, and perpetuated by the same human emotions and silliness that has existed forever. The people who are behind these attitudes aren’t just some group of evil “others”. They’re people all around us. The way to prevent this is to understand it, and educate against it. Of course, the people making threats, or worse, need to be dealt with using the law… but those people wouldn’t be uttering threats if they hadn’t already been indoctrinated with that brand of misogyny. We’re not going to deal with the problem just by going after the worst of the worst, we need to raise people to understand why that kind of behavior is so wrong.
I forgot to reply to this part:
I’m not sure why you’re saying “Except…”, as though I was pointing out what a great and respectable way of thinking this is. The point I was making is how stupid that kind of thinking is. Sociologists, historians, psychologists, and the plenty of others who have explored the history of, the current impact of, or the personal impact of sexism, racism, and various other forms of bigotry are most certainly more qualified than these jerks.
The idea that it’s all a matter of opinion is complete nonsense. That’s why I preceeded that line with: “When they talk about social issues, they sound like creationists talking about evolution.” I thought that would make it pretty clear that I was being critical of their idea that their opinions had any validity.
I’ve stopped reading the comments on GamerGate articles (because it reached the point where it was very easy to predict what they were going to say and I don’t like vomiting up my lunch) but I did scroll down to these.
It’s great to see the simultaneous “nobody who is actually part of gamer gate is defending death threats” mixed in with the comments defending death threats all in once place. You’d think it would make some of these idiots wake up and realize that they’re on the wrong side, but apparently many of them can’t even read because they claim not to see the comments defending death threats interspersed among the other comments!
Amazing. I have long known that cognitive dissonance was a thing but selective blindness is something that I always kind of thought was a joke to mock hypocrites, not something that might actually be real.
iankoro:
Where is the fun in that, for the bully? Bullies get their entertainment from making their victims miserable. If their target laughs it off, that just tells the bully that they need to escalate.
#14 iankoro : “I think that they need to understand that when someone points out that you’re saying or doing something sexist or racist, they’re generally saying something roughly on the level of “hey, that’s kinda rude”. Not “you are literally Hitler”.”
I disagree completely. They’re mad because they’re being told that being racist and sexist is bad. They don’t want to be told that they have to accept women and minorities into their club as equals.
#22: “Bullies have always thought that their threatening, abusive, or even violent behavior is just some joke that their victims should know how to laugh off.”
Wrong. They know it hurts the victims, and that’s what they find funny. They’re narcissistic bastards who think they’re entitled to hurt others.
The gaters have come up with a brilliant new plan: Operation Krampus. Boycott! Tell game companies that you won’t buy their product this forthcoming holiday season if they send review copies to sites and publications which are insufficiently hateful in gaters’ eyes. That’ll teach those SJWs!
That’s great, gaters! Boycotts are one of the few ways consumers can exert power over vendors, and it’s absolutely right that you should use this power against companies which do things of which you disapprove. I think there are just a couple of tiny possible problems with the idea:
Firstly, do you have the numbers? It doesn’t take many rabid howler monkeys to hound a woman out of her home, but do you have enough to make a significant dent in the annual consumer frenzy? Seriously, angry dudes, will enough of you be able to resist the lure of Call of Duty: Advanced Shooting Stuff to make Activision care?
Secondly, this was all supposed to be about corruption in gaming journalism, remember? Encouraging game publishers to tell game publications what they’re allowed to write: isn’t that a pretty solid example of corruption in gaming journalism?
So, go ahead. Demonstrate to the world, even more clearly than you already have, that you’re a bunch of dishonest losers.
From what I see from your position, you think they can be educated/talked out of it. I don’t think they arrived at their bullying and misogyny by reason, so this quote from Jonathon Swift applies:
I don’t think they are listening, nor will they.
Moggie @27, I think the ‘success’ of getting one nervous Nellie (or possibly, fellow traveller) at Intel to pull their ads from Gamasutra has gone to their heads.
@Nerd of Redhead
I kind of get the impression that you’re just reading a few lines of what I write, and glossing over the point.
Obviously you can’t expect to reason with the worst of these people, but the origins of the problem are not the worst of the bullies. The problem is something that is a deep part of our culture. I made it fairly clear that I am talking about getting a message through to a generation.
The people making mean spirited jokes are not som exceptionally heartless minority. We’re talking about virtually every single teenager or young adult. There is an endemic belief that it’s okay to make any kind of joke you want, because they “don’t really mean it”, and that the real jerks are the people who get offended and ruin everyone’s fun.
@weathermax #26:
Bullies have always claimed that their threatening, abusive, or even violent behavior were just harmless jests. In truth, it’s a test: if their victim play along, they interpret it as an act of submission and start behaving toward her like the arrogant lordlings, if the victim fights back they gang up and try to break her, and if the victim fights back and proves strong enough to give them a bloody nose, they start looking for a feebler victim while simmering in their resentment and hoping that one day the stronger one will weaken enough to be targeted for retaliation.
***
That’s why people are right to compare gaters to far-right resentment politics activists: like hardcore teabaggers, they whine a lot about corruption, but in truth, they Want corruption to prevail, it just has to be the kind of corruption which benefit Them.
And as one indicator of the attention, the vitriol is hitting Google News. There’s a story tonight that someone has threatened Utah State University with “the deadliest school shooting in American history” if they let Anita Sarkeesian speak as planned. Someone needs to get in touch with reality…we’re talking about video games.
#31 iankoro : “I don’t doubt you could say that for the worst of them, but that represents a minority of the actual problem. For the vast majority of gamergate jerks, and general dudebros, if you asked them, they would tell you that they totally agree that racism and sexism are bad things… they just don’t think those issues have anything to do with them.”
The general dudebros and jerks aren’t the ones sending terrorist threats, the problem people are.
There are two new articles about GamerGate that are worth reading, especially since they also touch on the Deep Rifts in organized atheism and organized skepticism (At least, I think they do.)
“The Future Of The Culture Wars Is Here, And It’s Gamergate”, by Kyle Wagner
http://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844
“#Gamergate Trolls Aren’t Ethics Crusaders; They’re a Hate Group”, by Jennifer Allaway
http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010
From Wagner’s piece:
. . .
. . .
And from Allaway’s piece:
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
I think we should all bear in mind that last point.
Then you don’t have a solution, just a hope for a solution, that you drivel on about. I read your drivel. Ever hear of executive summary? It helps with long winded folks to keep them down to a reasonable sized post.
Jafafa Hots @ 11
Thanks for that link, I for one hadn’t seen it before. While I went there to vote for Sarkeezian, I ended up picking Rami Ismail instead. He’s been incredibly vocal in his support for Sarkeezian, Quinn et al; he’s always willing to give advice – on code, business, everything – to new developers; he’s amazingly polite and laid back, even with assholes attacking him over being Muslim (which he’s very open about). And he writes fun action games.
If anyone is interested in the gaming industry or development, he’s well worth following.
I just had some dude tell me that Sam Harris’ “Dear Muslima” moment wasn’t as bad as something some Reichwinger would pull and that really crystallized this whole thing for me. Gamers and “Some of my best friends are” “allies” KNOW that women get shit on, but that means good times for them. The standards are ridiculously low. These guys expect to be judged by an incredibly low standard….and various women aren’t abiding by that. We want nothing less than human rights, but…..that isn’t a low bar. Of course, women are subjected to incredibly cruel standards that would break any of these arrogant ignorant douchebags.
Today, my token facebook MRA is giggling about “the SJW who was dumb enough to email fake threats” and how this is the beginning of the end for Sarkeesian…
I’m wondering whether to just be done with him now so I don’t have to see the rest of his slide into irrational nonsense, or wait until the source of those threats is investigated and prosecuted (assuming it ever happens, and assuming that his paranoid conspiracy theories are as baseless as reality would suggest) and see if he manages to learn something from that. I have my doubts