Renegade Cut makes a video on Gamergate (and Ready Player One) - General

It also completely leaves out the fact that there are women that go to these events and do the exact same thing.

You see as negative as I am about GG x amount of years in the future after being a proper ardent supporter: I still see this marginalised gamer vs established bad person divide as having some validity. The truth was that while tons of people were out there like "yeah, it's shit that people are paying for reviews and coverage" there was definitely an element of massive platforms wholesale rejecting the humanity of the people criticising them. Anita Sarkesian went on the Colbert Show and it's obvious how this power and reach skewed the ideologies involved. It also plays into the whole "alienation" and "failson" ideas, it turns out that a bunch of relatively well off people who society says should be getting along just fine but feel dejected by society and capitalism are really easy targets for the alt-right. So as such GG became this training ground for the alt-right to learn their tactics and grow their platforms, which in turn led to... well, a lot of things that are thankfully slowly dying out now.

It essentially reads exactly like a 80's conservative hit-piece against nerds.

There's not enough mentions of satanism tbh

Wasn't there a leaked Skype group conversation where a bunch of gamejournalists discussed framing pro-GG figures as women hating Nazis or something? And it mostly slipped under the radar? Was it real?

There was GameJournoPros and the CON log leaks. Yes it was all real, and conveniently ignored.

I guess the important thing to let you know about my views is that I'm very anti-consumerism and view the mass-commodification of culture as a disease upon free thought, so from I've observed I wholly agree with these people that video games (and 'nerd culture' products as a whole) have become an intensely, intensely consumerist industry. There's a difference between being passionate about something and being a blind and willing consumer, it's like the difference between being a film afficionado and a Trekkie or a Star Wars obsessive who lives for the merchandise. And as the video that this thread's about says, there's a lot of ugly baggage that comes with that. So upon seeing the facts of gamer culture's demographics and ideologies, my anti-consumerism supercedes my allegiance to my Gamer identity and I'm able to look at it all less personally. I think I still understand how you feel though, you feel like you've been unjustly charicatured with all the worst stereotypes about Gamers, and that does feel painful, and I'm not gonna say game journos aren't often slimey and unproffessional, it's just, I dunno, why should you or I or anyone seek validation in an identity that's ultimately been defined by a bunch of soulless companies that mainly target a single demographic?

Games and gaming predate civilization, they just had different forms. This entire post reeks of edgelord.

1) you slammed Helix for being a "false feminist" because you thought the article was about feminism in some way shape or form. You are now backpedaling and examining it as "Anti consumerist". 2) Her take is anti-consumerism for her target. It however, is not a piece about how consumerism is whole sale bad. Just that consumerism failing to conform to her moral standards is bad. 3) Much of the focus of the article is on stereotypical gamers and her disdain for them based on a whole host of assumed qualities that personally, I don't see in the "gamers" I know. 4) What identity in todays world isn't based on this? To some how defend the attack on gaming culture, but fail to recognize that all aspects of western culture fall into this same paradigm of "Consumerism". Gamers enjoy a product, movie fans enjoy a product, book readers enjoy a product. Make up geeks enjoy a product, audiophiles enjoy a product. Very few identities don't have at least a few consumerist crutches in that sense. Frankly, I don't think you apply this mindset broadly enough for you to just accept it here. The article is bad. it's someone who's paid to write for the games industry as a market reviewer and informant for lack of a better word, slamming the audience as undeserving of her because she's above said consumerism. But she isn't because she, like you, will use other products and other elements of niche culture to form "Unique" identities.

Of course defining yourself by what you buy isn't healthy. But that doesn't mean that everyone who buys merch is some brain dead pigeon. I buy nendoroids because they look cute and I like looking at cute things. I go to anime related events because I sincerely like anime, and am interested in events related to it. As an SJW libcuck, the part that still really bothers me about a lot of that rhetoric is that it's less a criticism of consumerism or brand loyalty, and more a criticism of awkward people. It's less "here's how companies take advantage of you by reinforcing behaviors that get you to buy stuff" and more "y'know tbh I'm really sick of all these gross weirdos". Awkward people aren't monsters. They have a right to exist in public and have fun and do stuff, even if you don't like how they dress or how they act. Part of the reason they so often magnetize onto niche brand identities is specifically because they're rejected from other spaces, and by speaking about them the way that article did, it only reinforces what you're saying it was meant to criticize. There's a difference between "gamer" as a self identified label and "gamer" as a description applied to other people. I totally agree with you, defining yourself as a "gamer" in the "I'm better than the casuals who don't buy the latest map packs and wear the nicest gunnars" sense isn't really healthy. But being a gamer in the "is awkward, buys merchandise, and goes to events for things they like" sense is totally fine. Because that isn't an identity. That's just you doing what you like, and being who you are. There's nothing shameful or wrong about that.

rise up

This is the person that suggested all brown people be deported because their horrible music, got thrown out of a restaurant for hitting on her waitress in full of the public and celebrated two people dying and another person getting cancer. You're an abject moron. FTR Alexander isn't feminist either, but I guess thanks for dragging on a conversation that you actually again had no actual intent in participating in... again.

Literally no one but sperglords do that though. People who generally identify themselves as gamers do so by the mainstream definition: "I play games and like to participate in the surrounding subculture." but GamesJournosPros tried to redefine even that!

Let's just back up for a second. The evil masterminds and conspirators behind the anti-gamergate movement are a bunch of journalists writing for gaming websites and a few prominent commentators of the video game industry? It doesn't matter what good intentions the Gamergate side had, the discussion got highjacked and the sensible thing to do was just to drop it. Changing targets to individuals just gave ammunition to the notion that it was a harrassment campaign.

We aren't surprised. This isn't at all what we were discussing at all. And you're not looking at it "less personally" you're ignoring reality wholesale and this post makes it clear why; You're so far up your own ass even the meds have stopped working for you.

You and zukriuchen having overriding guilt about being master class donknozzles in the past and projecting it onto everything and anything you can knight about in the present isn't useful, constructive, or healthy, and why other people need to fix themselves when you haven't fixed you is directly to the point to the matter; suggesting people change or suggesting people examine their lives is a far and wider river away from telling and demanding of and from people how they need to think or act, particularly if you don't share any of their values or beliefs to begin with, so you don't have the faintest idea whether your shit is superior to theirs. Secondly, you have yet to provide proof of all this anti-gg generosity and openenss making electronic storytelling so much more awesome today than it was previously. Fact is, over the last five years companies have been far more brazen in their anticonsumerist and predatory activities with pretty much almost unilateral support of the storytelling media behind them or directly beside them. No one needs to share your worldviews anyway, they don't live your life, and they don't co-exist inside your head.

I mean, factually a lot of people do exactly that. Entire companies are built on that kind of self identification. Just because you think they're "sperglords" doesn't mean they don't exist.

But the response was the absolutely worse thing to do the exacerbate the problem. Whenever more famous individuals critiqued the Gamergate movement, their would be a follow up that targetted the individual with the inevitable threats that came with that. It was a powerplay because it was obvious. "Why is anyone arguing for ethics in games journalism when there's this harrassment problem that's more important?" There was zero way that the Gamergate fiasco could go back to being about ethics in journalism. The battle was over. The only thing left to do was surrender gracefully or throw yourself off a cliff.

Eh that's all fair I guess, I think the nascent SJW in me has run out of steam to argue about it at this point. I just feel a lot of remorse for what I was complicit in, that's all, and I think there's much larger things at play than just the dispute between gamers, non-gamers, GGers, consumers, journalists but to be honest it's still a lot to unpack even years later, I guess I'm not the best at unpacking it. I really didn't want to attack any of you guys but fuck it I evidently did plenty of that, I admit the false feminism accusations were pretty baseless and speculative and came more from a point of self-righteousness than anything. I'd like to just agree to disagree with yous guys on this one, I still believe in the main sentiment of that article and others like it but clearly I can't express that without my foot in my mouth. I think I'm just gonna stop engaging in any thread that has to do with GG or SJWs around here because I always come off like a holier-than-thou ass, for some reason I get really fucking preachy in these threadsi.

Just gotta take a breath and realize that feeling bad for being complicit with the shittier parts doesn't mean you have to try to full-on switch over or something. We all agree that there are some really dark and shitty parts to GG (on both sides), but generalizing never does anything but cause heated arguments with no real end.

The internet has created an environment where nobody knows who anybody else is anymore. Everyone is just a member of an anonymous blob. So people latch onto noticeable traits to categorize other people. "Oh, they said 'problematic', they're probably an SJW" or "Oh, they have an anime avatar, they're probably some alt right weirdo" The result of that is, if you exhibit one of those traits that people have identified as signifying you as a member of a specific group, then you get treated as if you are a member of that group. I think that problem was at the heart of gamergate. People responded to people who spoke like Leigh Alexander as if they were Leigh Alexander. People responded to people who spoke like KingofPol or Milo Yiannapolous as if they were KingofPol or Milo Yiannapolous. In that way, what defined both groups wasn't self identification, but rather how other people perceived you. And from both perspectives, the other group was defined by its worst elements. GG was defined by Milo and InternetAristocrat. Anti-GG was defined by Ian Miles Cheong and Randi Harper. The truth is, the internet is full of disgusting asshole people doing disgusting asshole things. It's full of people who'll fuck you over for no reason whatsoever. And because of that, everyone is defensive as fuck. And since no one really has any idea who anyone else is, they lash out at other people for practically no reason when they feel threatened. Which only reinforces that defensive mentality.

ultimately if you personally did not doxx, attack or harm any one then you don’t need to feel remorse. most of what needs to Ben unpacked needs to be unpacked because many narratives have completely stripped any nuance or context from it as a topic

This uhhh. Might shock you. But that's the point. RationalWiki was initially a reaction to Conservapedia because Conservapedia is fuckin insanity. But over time it's just become a collection of mixed bag articles written from a left leaning standpoint.

Encyclopaedias shouldn't have a political standpoint though - they're supposed to be as objective as humanly possible.

Really well said mate, anonymity creates a massive issue when engaging in large-scale arguments like this, and I think if nothing else GamerGate is a strong case study on this. I think when there is a vacuum of identity or credibility, people will choose the next best thing to fill the void when judging anonymous people, and in the case of GamerGate, no matter where you stood you were always going to be subject to the sensationalized label, team or internet celebrity that you most resembled.

As there's literally a -pedia for everything at this point it's not really a surprise there's a few joke ones out there. RationalWiki was started fairly jokingly to explicitly refute Conservapedia article falsehoods, whilst also taking the piss out of conservatives. But suffered quite a bit of scope creep and now just takes the piss out of conservatives, pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-sciences. The article quality never really was there in the first place as there wasn't really much need for decent quality articles. It's impossible to avoid politicising everything, that's the nature of politics. Every opinion, every historical viewpoint, has the potential to be political. -pedias that manage to stay fairly objective like Wikipedia mostly do so due to there being some balance in political viewpoints. RW, Conservapedia, etc. will never see that for obvious reasons.

I know but I still helped boost the signal, I still shared Zoe Quinn nudes and I generated a lot of memes to keep the insanity going, because at the end of the day I wanted to stoke the shit-flames of the shitstorm, honestly I don't think I'm alone in saying I wanted another Tortanic-scale internet disaster. There's nothing I can do about that now though so all I'm trying to do is reflect on it.

I didn't realise that it started as a joke, but it really doesn't seem to be satire anymore, or at least not when I've read it. Uncyclopedia and Encyclopedia Dramatica are extremely funny sometimes, but I wouldn't say RationalWiki elicits that response from me. I understand that everything can be politicised, but I just think it should be the aim of writers to be as objective as they are able. It's impossible to be 100% objective, but some people come close enough.

I became pro-gamergate after reviewers tricked me into playing Gone Home. Never going to get that hour back from my life.

No offence here. But that puts you squarely in what was back then, the troll squad that hijacked the movement. You came in late, you saw a mess and you further worsened it with no regard as to what was really going on. Then you felt bad, bought the narrative because their narrative actually fit with your behavior and still not having looked up on any nuances or just why the majority of gaming subculture were against these Journalists, you wrote us all off based on your own actions. Honestly, i can't really fault you for reacting like that in hindsight. I get it. But i also feel like we've all spent enough time trying to show you that there was more to it than blatant, un-trained Misogyny. We've gone through this whole unwrapping of the (at the very least) two different conflicts, of which the sexism one was purely fabricated by the journos to cast gamers as conservative nutjobs... only for said nutjobs and other assorted trolls to hijack it all. If i'm understanding right, this is where you "joined" and found a mess. So i don't blame you for HAVING been wrong. But i am astounded you insist on being wrong in a different way now. All of your participation in this has been absolutist and hinged on writing off a huge group of people as bad or evil wholesale. Maybe try a more nuanced aproage. Nuance is the first hinting fumes that you're getting close to reality and truth and the smell is more obvious and more easily traceable than a gas-leak.