Yeah, the bad news. Here I'm going to be putting Gamergate and some of its bullshit in context, and shedding some more light on who--
and what--is behind Gamergate, and some major fears about what gotterdammerung may yet result from this.
To start off, you may have heard of
Vivian James, the fictional young woman who has become the Gamergate mascot. Or perhaps you haven't. Either way, David Futrelle provides a little more context on her and how Gamergate uses her, including the rape joke meme built into the colour scheme of her hoodie (it's complicated, and needless to say, trigger warning), should you choose to follow his links to the details. Just wanted to put that out there for no particular reason. I don't even know why.
Now. I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir when I say that the fundamental downside of Gamergate exposing the reality of modern misogyny even to the mainstream is obviously that the reason the mainstream can see it is because extreme misogyny really does exist and it's being vocal and going on the offensive. But the rabbit hole goes deeper. Way deeper.
Have any of you heard of Operation Lollipop? You probably haven't. How about #EndFathersDay, the so-called "feminist" campaign to end Father's Day? It was a false flag campaign, undertaken by misogynists using sockpuppet accounts to pose as feminists with the goal of making feminism look bad, which has been tied to Operation Lollipop. I suggest you read both of
these articles, and
bear in mind that Operation Lollipop is from the same community that later hatched the conspiracy against Zoe Quinn that went on to become Gamergate. Gamergate's antifeminist agenda precedes it; Gamergate is merely its latest incarnation.
And already their work continues. Notice the instructions to (mis)use language used by feminists and other advocates of social justice in order to attack feminism and make the bizarre claim that a game having a female protagonist constitutes male rape of women's bodies. (Because Gamergate is about ethics in journalism and objectivity and
honesty, don'tcha know.)
You should also see
this. It's a list of tweets by one
a_man_in_black (I like the work he's doing and wanted to make sure people saw it, OK?) arguing that Gamergate isn't a misogynistic movement
unto itself so much as the latest outburst of a misogynistic movement that's been going for years. Like I say, Gamergate's antifeminist, misogynistic agenda precedes it.
Here, he also argues that Gamergate "moderates" are a myth on the grounds that all Gamergaters benefit from the harassment committed by more aggressive Gamergaters. (Also, contains sadness about Gamergate driving a teenage girl who was passionate about gaming offline.
)
TRIGGER WARNING JESUS CHRIST TRIGGER WARNING I DON'T EVEN HAVE TRIGGERS AND THIS FREAKED ME THE FUCK OUT! Now that I've shown you 4chan's involvement and just what kind of people festered there, I want you to see
some other important communities behind Gamergate, including 8chan, which was created in response to 4chan banning Gamergate.
TRIGGER WARNING!
I'd also like for you to have just a little look at who Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend who made the Zoe Post that begat the conspiracy against her, is.
His name is Eron Gjoni, and this is him in a bite-sized nutshell.
I want you to know
what kinds of people are connected to the Reddit board KotakuInAction, which is supposedly the "respectable" wing of Gamergate (spoiler: it's not).
TRIGGER WARNING! I want you know what the
moderators of KotakuInAction--which, again, is supposed to be the "respectable," "moderate," "anti-harassment" wing of Gamergate--get up to outside of KIA.
FNVG provides info here, including a link to an article on the subject and listing even more offenders than are listed in that article, including the note that KotakuInAction shared a moderator with a board called
Philosophy of Rape. Which, unlike many of the other boards,
makes no pretense of being about "fantasy," as the creator flat-out claims that he is as serious as a heart attack. If you have a strong stomach,
WHTM goes into greater detail on one of the boards, "Break Feminazis," here.
TRIGGER WARNING!
I want you to know
what kind of people "lead" Gamergate, insofar as it has leaders--it claims to be leaderless, and yet many of these people are, in fact, major figures in the movement. Don't worry too much about the article being written by one "Poopsock Holmes"; "poopsocking" is just a joke about spending too much time playing video games (i.e., that someone is not even getting up to poop).
Here, have
some more sadness about what Gamergate's prominent figures really think about women.
And
some more sadness about what GGers think about "SJWs" and gender. Way to deride exactly the people this world needs. (Note: Gamergatetxt isn't the original poster of that awful comment; rather, Gamergatetxt is a feed that archives the worst statements made by Gamergate.)
You wanna know who else is jumping on the GG bandwagon besides MRAs, rape apologists, open racists, anti-Semites, and yada yada? Stormfront. I am fucking serious. Fucking
Stormfront. Literal neo-Nazis. (Granted those are open racists and anti-Semites, but this is kicking it up to a new level when you get open and proud neo-Nazis involved.) Gamergaters still aren't asking themselves why the
literal worst people in the world today think the GG banner represents their interests while virtually everyone who is not a complete piece of shit stands against it. Additionally, you may notice two terms commonly thrown around in GG's rhetoric, particularly when they're not running PR: "SJW" ("Social Justice Warrior," which now pretty much refers to anyone who opens their mouth in opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc., despite some GGers making bizarre claims like "SJWs are known TERFs") and "cultural Marxism" (Marx's theories of class applied to race, gender, and sexuality).
Both of these terms originated in neo-Nazi circles. "SJW" escaped from neo-Nazi circles quite a while ago, granted, but "cultural Marxism" is much newer to me, and leads me to suspect that Gamergate is even more strongly influenced by neo-Nazi thought than many of its members are willing to admit.
So yeah. This is all leading into one big clusterfuck at the centre: Gamergate isn't "just" inextricably linked to the harassment of women. It is also inextricably linked to an active agenda of misogyny and a desire to keep women disempowered in our culture that extends far beyond one harassment campaign--and also to the even more extreme
neoreactionary movement. (If you wish to know more about the mouth-breathing degenerates behind the NRx movement, please read RationalWiki's article; it's depressing and I don't want to talk about it myself.) I fear that, with a lot of Gamergaters feeling like the world is against them--and
the prominence of manosphere misogynists and neoreactionaries in GG--this is prime time for these foul movements to scoop up angry young men. This is a
perfect recruiting campaign for the Men's Privilege Movement, for redpills, for neo-Nazis, for PUAs and other rape advocates, for
neoreactionaries. Even if Gamergate has largely alienated most and awoken many to the need for feminism and social justice in general, it's still
very convenient for the literal worst people in the world to bring more people into their particular folds. Ayn Rand's philosophy of pure greed was supposedly (I'm only 28, so my knowledge is limited) just a fringe thing for anti-hippies in college fifty years ago, and yet now that philosophy is actively corroding civilisation as we know it. I worry that in fifty years the NRx--something so heinous and blatantly evil that Ayn Rand actually manages to look almost tame in comparison--could pick up that kind of steam.
I'm upset. I'm angry and I'm scared and kind of want one of those strawberry daiquiris my grandmother picked up for me the other day even though I don't generally like to drink.
...But, before I go, I'm going to end on a tangent. Some Polish developer named Destructive Studios released a trailer a few weeks ago for a game they're developing called
Hatred. (
FNVG article here;
critical Polygon article which includes the trailer--trigger warning, natch--here) It's a murder simulator in which a white male protagonist who hates the world goes out and hunts innocent people to kill, with a special focus on things like the victims pleading for their lives before you murder them in extremely graphic ways. The cherry on top is that someone actually looked into the political connections and affiliations of some of the developers and oh look they're neo-Nazis! And do you want to know what these neo-Nazis had to say about the game and why they were making it? They were making it because they wanted a counterpoint to today's "political correctness," and to make a game that was "honest" and not "political." We have officially reached such a fucking political nadir that there are people who can claim with a straight face that a neo-Nazi genocide simulator is the definition of "apolitical." But why do I bring it up? There's no direct link to Gamergate. It's just, this, right here, despite any actual connections, it just smacks of everything Gamergate is about. Teenage white male rage and entitlement. The idea that said teenage white male rage and entitlement is "apolitical" (see also: Gamergate's demand for an "apolitical" gaming press) and that anything else is a "political agenda." Hatred of everything from "political correctness" all the way on down to "basic human decency." And, y'know, actual neo-Nazis. That the trailer was released in the middle of the Gamergate shitstorm was just icing on the sadness cake.
I will say, I might be a hypocrite. I look at Hatred as a perfect example of what's wrong with gamer culture at the moment and something that should probably be kept out of respectable stores (not simply because of the violence, but because of the extremist political connections and implied agenda of the devs), but you know what? If someone were making a murder simulator about a
woman venting her rage and hatred upon society in a horrific burst of ultra-violence, I would be all I'M THROWING MONEY AT THE SCREEN BUT NOTHING IS HAPPENING
right now. But, of course,
that would be "political." Also probably "misandry," somehow.
fuck it I need a drink