“Remember 2014?” Someone will someday say. “Remember when Jayne from Firefly teamed up with some anons, a couple of YouTubers and the odd opportunistic blogger to disrupt any form of reasonable discussion about the games industry for the better part of a year?”

That it has taken a North Korean cyberterrorist attack on a Seth Rogen comedy for Gamergate to become the second weirdest insertion of American celebrity into public affairs in 2014 is a testament to what a weird year it has been. Weird, unsettling, and depressing.

If you’re reading this and you identify with Gamergate then, well, hi. I hope you keep reading, because you’re the person I most want to talk to about all of this. I hope that none of the ire I might direct at the movement applies to you personally—that you haven't harassed anybody, and that you've not condoned harassment save by your association with that hashtag. I imagine that you have concerns and questions about your hobby, and about the institutions that cover your hobby, and a bunch of other doubts tied up in political and social issues that can feel intimidating, even oppressive, when you’re first introduced to them.

I’m a straight white guy and I play a lot of videogames, so I get that. I'd prefer not to get it, actually: I wish the kickback against feminist criticism of games came from a point of view that was totally alien to me. I wish I didn’t resonate, even slightly, with the silly romantic ideal of the young man’s crusade. I'd like to put everybody who has sent death threats to women in one box and put myself in another, totally unrelated box, and look at everybody in my box and know that I’m in the right box for righteous people. But I can’t. Because I really like Les Miserables and have coveted the role of the guy on the barricade with the big red flag. Because I cared about Firefly. Because I’m a straight white guy that plays a lot of videogames, and as such the experience and prejudices and privileges that come with that identity are going to be part of my life whether I like it or not.

It’s likely that I have more in common with you, the Gamergater, than I do with the people whose work Gamergate was created to oppose. That’s worth exploring. What is it about my experience that meant I wasn’t offended by the notion that the word ‘gamer’ was depreciating in value? What is it about my experience that means I respond well to the presence of politics in games, where you respond negatively? What is it about my experience, in short, that means I respond well to change? There is, I think, a valuable discussion to have that is grounded in the way we are similar—in how we have arrived at different perspectives via the same road. You’re reading PC Gamer. I grew up reading PC Gamer. That is not a broad Venn diagram; it doesn’t provide a lot of room for conflict, or at least it shouldn't.

Yet you, the Gamergater, and me, the journalist, can’t have that conversation anymore. We’re on two sides of a 'war' invented by people whose understanding of historical narrative comes from videogames, movies and anime. A conflict that impacts real lives, and real livelihoods, with frequency and severity far outweighing the scant justification offered in Wikis that have more in common with Wookieepedia than Wikipedia. Because I believe that Anita Sarkeesian has challenging but necessary things to say about the industry, we can’t talk. Because I believe it is important to defend the rights of the victim before the aggressor, we can’t talk. Because I believe that the biggest problem in games journalism at the moment is a lack of diversity—PC Gamer included—we can’t talk. I’m an SJW, you’re a ‘Gater, let’s have a big pointless fight.

It is traditional, at this point, to attempt to validate these labels with rickety conspiracy theories and rhetorical posturing. There is no need. I don't agree with some of the things you believe. It's no more complicated than that. The moment somebody attempts to build a convoluted factional conflict on top of that basic difference of mind, they are putting distance between you and the things you care about. Grand causes are attractive but in this context all they amount to is a feeling, a force that drives you further and further away from whatever kernel of personal truth brought you into this thing in the first place. And I want to believe that truth exists. It is impossible to have an argument in good faith when you deny the other person the right to the feeling that spurs their participation. That is what 'SJW' does. That is what 'Gamergater' does.

We need new labels. If you’re the type to hound others until they’re unable to participate in online discussions, you’re not a 'Gamergater'—you’re a shitheel. If your targets are exclusively women in the industry, you're a sexist shitheel. If you’re the type to threaten violence, hack someone's email, or post their personal information—you’re a criminal shitheel. Those pro-GG shockjock bloggers, who until a month before Gamergate were writing off people who play games as fat, lazy, pointless and isolated? Manipulative shitheels. Those amateur documentarians, winning over teenagers by dressing like playboy hypnotists? Tragic shitheels. None of these people should represent you or the cause of better games journalism. And yet, through the Gamergate label, they have come to do so. At this point you can no more detach 'Gamergate' from these associations than you can save yourself from an oncoming truck by repeatedly and loudly declaring it to be a pillow.

Let’s take the whole thing apart and start over. If you have questions about games journalism’s relationship with the industry, e-mail me. If you have questions about feminism or its role in game criticism, I’ll point you towards the resources that have helped me. Ditch the shitheels, the harassers, the unaccountable anons and anybody who thinks they can impress you by owning a hat and a plastic skull. Ditch Gamergate, in short, and let’s talk about videogames.