Feminism Thread

[Ksandra]

I find the very need to even compare GG with feminism suspect. We've been told time and time again GG has to do with ethics in video game journalism but then the feminism comparisons and arguments keep cropping up. Are GG advocates really sure GG has nothing to do with anti-feminism?

I am taking about recognizing the faults between both movements to get some feminists some understanding why so many people don't associate with feminism. I am not a "gg advocate" I don't associate with either movement, and I think both have to deal with trying to fight for a clearer image.

[Priran]

Gamergate is characterized by the entire history of the people who operate under its banner. Given that such people have carried water for InfoWars, returnofkings, Milo Yiannopoulus, Adam Baldwin, thunderf00t, Internet Aristocrat, etc. then yes, it's safe to say its very existence has set down roots in toxic waters.

Feminism enjoys some privilege via seniority here, being a much older and diverse movement that encompasses so much more than the bitter campaign shrouding GG, and it's much easier to find progress and constructive thought as fruits of the social advocacy part and the academic debates that have emerged from it. If someone has doxxed someone in the name of feminism then that's shitty and I condemn the doxxing, but not feminism.

I explained this in a much longer post earlier. Squealing 'both sides both sides' over and over isn't an argument and falls short of the requirements to overturn what I've said about GG.

My argument isn't "both sides both sides", it's that anti-GG people getting doxxed/harassed doesn't make GG a doxxing/harassment movement any more than GG people getting doxxed/harassed makes feminism a doxxing/harassment movement.

And don't lecture about what isn't an argument when you're bringing this weak "an idea is bad because the most famous people who hold that idea did things I disliked in the past!" shit. If you went to the /gg/ board right now, you know what you'd see? Arguments about how to engage with people on twitter, what sponsors to email, links to articles, liveblogs of GamerGate interviews in media, screenshots of support, and gamergate art. You know what you don't see? Organization or endorsement of harassment.

Gamergate is, by any interpretation based in fact, an organization of people pissed at gaming journalists for being terrible at their job. You're so far up your own ass with this biased opinion that it's about "bitterness" and "muh right-wing loonies" that you blamed GG for a threat against a woman who's been receiving threats for years and which specifically mentioned its inspiration as something that happened 25 years ago.

[Correction]

If you stripped away all the vile personalities, direct threats, conspiracy theories and outright misogyny from gamergate you'd be left with a slogan that is basically 'I don't want socially conscious writing to appear on gaming sites.'

Okay? I'm supposed to get behind that why? People who get to write about video games for a living are uniformly terrible, yes, but why should I follow GG down their brand of advocacy when plenty of figures up and down the spectrum of video game writing have been covering it for decades now? I mean, why carry that baggage?

[Priran]

I find the very need to even compare GG with feminism suspect. We've been told time and time again GG has to do with ethics in video game journalism but then the feminism comparisons and arguments keep cropping up. Are GG advocates really sure GG has nothing to do with anti-feminism?

GG doesn't oppose feminism per se, but feminism supports agenda-driven games journalism. If you want to tl;dr skip to 4:30 and listen for about a minute.

If you stripped away all the vile personalities, direct threats, conspiracy theories and outright misogyny from gamergate you'd be left with a slogan that is basically 'I don't want socially conscious writing to appear on gaming sites.'

Okay? I'm supposed to get behind that why? People who get to write about video games for a living are uniformly terrible, yes, but why should I follow GG down their brand of advocacy when plenty of figures up and down the spectrum of video game writing have been covering it for decades now? I mean, why carry that baggage?

Because games are going to shit because they're not fulfilling their role as consumer advocates. It's not "socially conscious writing", it's saying bad games are good because they align with your politics or pay you off and vice versa, and never telling the reader.

[Correction]

There are lots of consumer advocates active in gaming press today, reading and listening to them while ignoring the automated PR regurgitation sites has been a perfectly valid choice since oldmanmurray. But if I listened to GG I'd probably be shutting off a lot of valuable and insightful coverage for really flimsy reasons, that's how deep my suspicion of their motives goes.

[Priran]

There are lots of consumer advocates active in gaming press today, reading and listening to them while ignoring the automated PR regurgitation sites has been a perfectly valid choice since oldmanmurray. But if I listened to GG I'd probably be shutting off a lot of valuable and insightful coverage for really flimsy reasons, that's how deep my suspicion of their motives goes.

Yeah, like TotalBiscuit, who can't get advance copies of a game because there's no shortage of people who are willing to promise their review will be positive as a condition for receiving it early. It's a prisoner's dilemma rigged against honesty and the whole thing needs reform. And since Polygon, Kotaku, and the like are refusing reform they belong in the trash.

And ignoring PR regurgitation sites stopped being an option when some idiots decided that they were going to aggregate scores. Gamespot has been a fucking joke for years and it's assigned the second-highest weight on Metacritic.

[Correction]

What does reform mean to you though? What does it mean to put Polygon and Kotaku 'in the trash?' I still like the things Jason Schreier and Stephen Totilo cover and have not found a fundamental breach of ethics in their columns for a very long time. Recently Totilo pledged to give more extended coverage of games well past their hype windows, which is actually pretty exciting and worth looking forward to, not something I feel I should scoff at and say 'bah they had their chance Imma go read nichegamer!'

Polygon is more interesting. As recently as this spring they championed some goddamn exceptional long-form journalism (no seriously, Russ Pitts is amazing) and then I guess the audience yawned at it so now Russ Pitts doesn't work there anymore and Polygon decided to move away from long form weekly features. They tried and nobody cared and now all we have left is Gies and Kuchera to sneer at their audience. Good job demanding better when you had the chance, I guess.

[NynJa]

have not found a fundamental breach of ethics in their columns for a very long time.

"hey give us a couple advance copies to play and we will give you a good review"...perfectly ethical.

[RKenshin]

You don't, you can't. You chip away at it one sub-community at a time. It's not unlike quarantine, you follow successful, smaller models of stamping out useless/poisonous behavior and hope it spreads.

Sounds a little too much like wishful thinking at this point, unfortunately.

As much as I agree and wish it would stop, I have a hard time believing it ever will... and if anything will just keep getting worse.

[Priran]

What does reform mean to you though?

Going back to metacritic being a joke, did you know that for TV and movies the threshold for a green colored score is 60 or above, whereas for games it's 75 or above?

Reform to me means not having the industry so dominated by payola and bribes that it's codified by an aggregator.

[BaneTheBrawler]

games journalism died a long time ago.

[Andalusian girls]

not sure it ever lived

[Correction]

not sure it ever lived

It's enthralled to the shackles of 'access,' and the few who operate outside a cozy relationship with publishers find themselves struggling financially very quickly. The audience so far has not cared enough to really prop up independent games journalism that isn't a side feature in an already established non-gaming focused publication. So people do it for free if at all. It's out there, though.

[BaneTheBrawler]

not sure it ever lived

nintendo power was pretty good, i'm told

[quannum]

polygon's been a joke since the simcity online score had multiple changes, starting from 9.5

[Kuya]

Anita just hit the local news here.

[Ksandra]

Anita just hit the local news here.

really, the biggest tragedy of those whole gamer's gate shit is the fact it gave this woman so much money.

[Kuya]

It's pretty clear that this GG movement doesn't know how to control itself.

[Koul]

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/hig...3444bac600037b

but GG is all stupid bigoted cis white males. amirite.

[archibaldcrane]

What exactly is the "gate" part of gamergate? What makes this a scandal or a conspiracy?