I talked about Gamergate a bit in the last Personal Time video I did. Someone made a comment and I responded, but it’s a very long essay so I’m reposting said comment here as well:

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People have been crabbing about the issues related to Gamergate for a long time, and part of it is that there’s a lot of obvious disconnect between the mainstream media and gaming enthusiasts, even as more and more people are becoming familiar with video games. Some of that disconnect exists between game journalists and gaming enthusiasts too, though, which is strange and why I compare this whole thing to having a bass fishing magazine write articles about “toxic masculinity”, as if bass fishermen would want to hear someone’s opinions about the morality of their hobby. Why would gamers want to read articles about how video games are morally wrong?

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Stranger still, you find that some games are actually tackling social issues, so there should be more shades of gray here. I mentioned once before that Fallout: New Vegas has a fair amount of social commentary, some of it having to do with gender or even the sex industry. However, when a figure like Anita Sarkeesian reviews these games, she glosses over that content and complains about the “toxic masculinity” of some completely random aspect of the game. She looks for some scene where a woman is in scanty clothes and just declares the whole game sexist, even though the game actually uses that stuff as elements to discuss the issues in the first place. To many gamers, Sarkeesian appears to be unaware of what she’s reviewing in the best case, and in the worst case she’s intentionally misleading her audience.

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By the law of averages, Gamergate doesn’t have bad people on either side. Those against Gamergate are in circles that report that Gamergate is composed of Nazis or something, and that all Gamergate supporters care about are harassing and attacking people who they’re politically against. And were that true, fair enough, because you can’t allow it to stand if an angry mob is to tear people apart. Yet the trouble is that people against Gamergate formed their own angry mobs and tore people apart. All the while, those strongly opposed to the movement accused every positive aspect of Gamergate of being a lie.

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Meanwhile, within Gamergate, it became assumed that anyone who was against them was a player similar to Anita Sarkeesian - someone either oblivious or willfully dishonest, most likely leaning towards the latter. Unfortunately, this doesn’t fit the bill for everyone against Gamergate because plenty of people against Gamergate couldn’t care less about gaming or journalism and are fundamentally speaking up against letting mob rule tear people apart. Ironically, Gamergate supporters have also been speaking out against mob attacks on people.

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So at the end of the day, EnderPryde really does hit the nail on the head when he talks about how the two sides aren’t really united in any way shape or form. Contrary to insistence, Feminism DOESN’T have a single definition. To some radicals it does mean the destruction of all men, but others think of Feminism as synonymous with egalitarianism. For some, Feminism broadens to include issues of race too, or even issues of healthcare coverage or things you wouldn’t think of as “Feminist”. Eventually, “Feminism” just means, “supporting things I like” and if you don’t like french toast you’re a misogynist because, goddammit, I like french toast and how dare you impugn upon my personal preferences!

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At this point it actually becomes impossible to talk about “Feminism” because the word has ceased to have any real meaning. If you say, “I’m tired of these Feminists,” you might specifically be referring to two or three people you know personally who think that Feminism means enjoying the right breakfast food, but to thousands of other people it sounds like you’re standing against fair wages, against healthcare, against other races, against dogs in silly hats - individual perceptions vary, and here comes a thousand angry e-mails.

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But then Gamergate is the same way. Suppose you are one of the people who joins Gamergate because you’re tired of Feminism. Well, what ARE you against? Moral policing? Female characters in games? Maybe you’re worried that they’ll start doing exploitation genres of video games to get good press coverage - but… if you’re worried about that, isn’t that Feminism? If women are going to be in games, you want them to be serious and treated like real characters, not just hackney additions to get Anita Sarkeesian to praise the thing. To a lot of people that’s Feminism, isn’t it? And even this conundrum aside, Gamergate still means different things to people who don’t want to talk about gender politics.

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So what do the two sides stand for? Gamergate is for ethics and for fair debate, and they’re worried that their demographic is being marginalized and condescended to. They worry their hobby is going to be pressured by this condescension. And to be fair, when the press pumps out ten articles about how “Gamers are dead” because of gaming’s “toxic culture”, it’s pretty clear that there’s a lot of condescension going on.

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But what do the feminists stand for? They’re for ethics and fair debate, and they worry their demographic is being marginalized and condescended to. They worry that their hobbies are going to be pressured by this condescension. And to be fair, people in minority groups can have it pretty rough depending on the demographics relative to them. My fiance Kenza has told me stories about how a few of the other kids used to throw rocks at her because she was a Muslim, and though the majority of people wouldn’t do something like that, it still sticks with her. She worries for her little sister and the rest of her family. Imagine having been in that situation and seeing this Zoe Quinn girl getting harassed - the thought doesn’t occur, “what did Zoe do?”

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So what does Gamergate even mean to the people involved with it? Depends on who you ask. There are some real assholes out there, and some are trying to motivate people to fight for causes that nobody should have any real stake in if they knew what they were getting behind. Even worse, if people from either side could reach across the aisle and respect each other as humans, you might find plenty of similar ideals and goals between them.

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As for me? I do blame those elements of the press who intentionally widened these divisions and stoked this as a conflict of wrong and right. That’s not everyone in the press, of course, because there were plenty of articles taking a much more analytical approach to this thing. There were also a few non-journal names who were chasing fame before dropping off the face of the earth. Regardless, there are definitely some people who were ideological and they didn’t care about reality or how this thing might negatively impact the entire industry. You could blame the masses, but the masses are the masses, and as I watched it develop early on, it could have easily blown over had nobody attempted to rally a base.

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Look back at the madness of all this and you see Gamergate supporting and even funding a variety of causes that people would think of as “Feminist”. Those people were disparaged as charlatans. So all gaming websites may take a hit to ad profits because they’re noted as being more controversial and ideological, which is bad for the whole industry. That’s not good for gamers. A lot of women not currently in the hobby are probably now fearful to enter the hobby, thinking they aren’t welcome, because the press has been incessantly describing a few assholes as though they were representative of the entire hobby. That’s not good for getting more women into gaming. It’s been a deconstructive couple of months.

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I guess the bottom line is, if your intentions are positive, you should try to keep your message equally positive, lest everything wind up negative. Yes, we fear loss and that fear spreads easily, but fear isn’t really constructive.

