What it feels like to be a GG target

Last week's news, but I haven't seen it linked here, so I thought I'd share. Anita Sarkeesian was interviewed by ABC. Most people still equate the reards tweeting rape threats to the entirety of gamergate, as if it's an all male mysoginist neckbeard movement.

I won't get into the whole Feminist Frequency thing, because that, imo, is a separate topic. I have to say though that it's just frustrating that the morons who are fueling this bullshit bonfire tend to be the only element of the gaming community that wider public notices and people like Anita, who I'm pretty sure knows that GG started as a protest to the crap standars in gaming journalism, is just riding the wave with other SJWs.

 

1,040 thumbs up. 28,808 thumbs down...

 

Anita is a con artist. She's been riding rad fems for a while to get easy money and her name out into the media and it's worked out well for her. There's still debate about how much she says are actually her words and how much is Mcintosh, and as far as I can tell that man is insane.

Ya, ABC is taking a lot of flak for that one.

 

Doesn't hurt that they blatantly lied in the first 5 seconds of the video.

 

I won't even bother to watch that video, I can only imagine the vast amounts of misinformation they like pushing out to people in order to progress whatever their own agendas are now (probably monetary-based though), but so far I've heard far, far more of people who have been targets of harassment from the anti-GG side, rather than GG acting out united against a single person (Zoe Quinn bullshit was just a way for this to start rolling, the proverbial straw).

Calling their bosses, demanding they be fired, canceling their internet (seriously, how?), calling the firemen on them, calling the police and so forth is just a number of things I've learned of them doing so far. I don't have any links to provide for you at the moment, as my interest in this is a passive one, but when a friend pops online I may ask him to forward me a few so I can edit them in the post, since he's far more knowledgeable about the details of those events.

Here we go, three links so far, but I imagine there's more if you look for them:

Gamers Discussing #GamerGate Scandal Are Being Harassed; Where’s the Coverage?

Documented Harassment Women, Minorities Receive For Supporting #GamerGate

ANTI-Gamer Speaks! Revealed: the true source of online harassment (Warning: Strong Language!)

 

Please do, I'd like something for reference.

 

If you're going to be pro-GG, you had damn well better cop to the fact that this whole thing got kickstarted because one journalist decided to lie about how his ex-girlfriend used her vag to get good reviews for her video game.

You know, the kind of ethical thing that GG is supposedly up in arms about.

We can debate about what GG has become and what it's about until we're blue in the face, but its origins are pretty damn clear to anyone that bothers to look.

 

I think it was more the fact that she allegedly had relationships with multiple people in the industry that didn't disclose the fact or recused themselves when they wrote about her or her game. That being said, I believe that the real outrage emerged when many places banned discussion of any kind on the subject and the infamous "gamers are dead" articles were published. I'm not a particularly big fan of the movement myself but I think you're being unnecessarily simplistic and one-sided in your description of its origins.

 

What? The ex-boyfriend (Gjoni) who talked about it isn't a journalist. And Zoe did fuck around. Putting aside her serial infidelity, there is that pesky little thing that she fucked around with people who were responsible, in some way, on how her game would be reviewed and received. That's the thing here. Sure, she and the people she fucked can claim "Hey, there's nothing wrong with us sleeping with each other," but none of them ever disclosed the matter of how just how well they were acquainted with her beforehand.

 

Did he lie? If the falsehood was established (I only followed GG sparingly, so I don't know), then Zoe may have been painted in negative light undeservedly.

Either way, the question here is: does this undermine the broader issues, which are standards in gaming journalism, how much the personal influences the professional, should it be disclosed and if yes, what factors determine the necessity of disclosure. If Zoe was lied about, then I'm sorry for her, but it did start the entire conversation.

 

Doubtful, there's no way a libel suit like that wouldn't get coverage, especially with what it essentially kicked off.

 

Yeah, no.

The ex-boyfriend wasn't a journalist (or if he was, quite literally no one knew he was which would be quite a trick), nor did he claim that. His little rant was basically having a cry over her fucking around while they were dating; hence "Five Guys" as shorthand for the whole mess at first since the people mad at Quinn about her previous, uh, public notice ran with it.

There's a lot of bad that has come with GG and all the other heads of this Internet Hydra (not least of which being a big fucking ideological trench war) but don't even start this shit. Just because it'd be convenient that everyone you disagree with has no basis for their opinions ever doesn't make it so.

 

Yes, except no. Someone inferred that from the original post, IIRC, but I also believe it was disproven and later denounced by Gjoni (not-a-journalist, btw) as a typo/unclear language.

Perhaps, though this is stretching it, you're confusing it with the early access in exchange for good reviews (Shadow of Mordor in particular) thing that was relevant around that time as well.

That's part of the crux. When does the disclosure start? If I'm a games reviewer, should I disclose that I had dinner with developer X and Y at PAX Prime 2014 because we happened to frequent the same pizza joint at the same time? Or does the disclosure only start once it moves past the acquaintances stage? When you've sent someone a birthday card/congratulations? When you've got each other on a 1500+ friends Facebook? It's remarkably murky even now*.

The reason I say that is this: Kotaku alleged that the relationship between Grayson and Quinn was one of professional acquaintances at the one time Grayson wrote about her (late March 2014), Gjoni stated he has no evidence to believe Grayson and Quinn were involved sexually at that time, and at least one of the others was involved with her after he took to promoting DQ at Indiecade (as claimed in Gjoni's original post) - even if (as the GG wiki claims) they were friendly beforehand, that's still not 'fuck[ing] around with people who were responsible [for her game]' as you state.

Nailed it.

-edit-

*In before someone takes this way out of context: romantic and/or sexual relationships are way over the 'here starts disclosure' line, naturally.

 

That was when it gained a lot of steam outside of the grognards up in arms about Quinn, but the spark was Gjoni's article about Quinn. Without that, there wouldn't have been a GamerGate in the first place.

He wrote an expose. A poorly written, poorly researched, and schlocky as all hell expose, but an expose regardless. If the folks over at the National Enquirer can be considered journalists for what they do (which is basically the same), then so can Gjoni.

As far as I can tell, the only evidence is the Kotaku (I think it was Kotaku, could be wrong here) investigation that did prove that Quinn and one of their staff were sleeping together. After that staffer's review of her game came out. Other than that, there is literally zero credible evidence to support Gjoni's claims.

It also wouldn't matter. As I pointed out above, there are journalists who have families with the people they report on. What's one (or multiple) rolls in the hay compared to a family?

As far as I know there has been no credible evidence to support Gjoni's claims, minus the Kotaku investigation I already talked about.

And you're missing the point.

If you want to associate with GG, that's fine. But not admitting what and where the movement came out of is basically akin to sticking your head in the sand and denying that the climate is changing.

Just because the beginnings of GG suck doesn't make any potential arguments automatically invalid. Back up what you want to prove. Show some evidence, real evidence, and make logical arguments. I can't, and wont, ask for anything else.

Just don't expect me to not poke holes in your argument when I can.

 

You're acting like someone in this thread actually did that. Considering that it's titled Five Guys Shitstorm, not Gamergate, I think everyone is pretty fucking aware of how GG started.

TLDR: WTF, dude.

 

You sure about that?

 

Why are people here still bitching about Zoe? Didn't a mod warn not to do this? Zoe Quinn was the grenade that landed in a fuel depot. If the various game media sites hadn't got their panties in a twist over it and let it die down everything would still be going their way. Sadly they were too stupid to this, now everything's gone to shit for them and Zoe, Brianna, and Anita are laughing their way to the bank cause they probably make more money off their donations then everybody here but Perspicacity.

 

Gjoni's post, accusations towards Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson-->shitstorm about it is stirred up-->gaming journalism is brought into the whole affair-->GG comes out of that

Yeah, pretty sure.

Your original post about this says:

So, the issue of standards in gaming journalism. I used a broad statement, while you went into more detail. I was vague, but that doesn't mean I was wrong.

Unless I'm totally missing something.

/derail

 

Oh, Jesus, really?

You claim simultaneously that a blog post makes someone a ~journalist~ since you can't back off from your gotcha attempt, agree with the people you're arguing with yet still disagree (?), then ask for reasonable arguments. Without even realizing just how amusing the juxtaposition is.

Just... I'm sorry, there's not a nice way to say this: You're being a colossal fuckin' retard.

I grant you, somewhere along the lines of 98-99% of the people who yell and scream and throw tantrums about this whole thing on the webs are partisan-hack idiots, but that doesn't mean you should emulate them.

 

Seriously? This thread is still going?

Can't we just let this shit die already?