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Jan. 24, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
16:40
Sociopathy vs #GamerGate
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So the Ralph Retort found the funniest editorial about Gamergate I've ever read.
It comes from a website called The Intelligencer.
Gamergate and Toxic Masculinity.
Why video games face impending disaster?
Presumably there is some kind of masculine asteroid on its way to hit gaming.
And only this author has the moxie to warn everyone about the impending catastrophe.
So the author of this piece is a one Carter Glace and proceeds with the usual formality of saying oh I've loved video games ever since I was a child, just like the rest of us.
They go on to say before anything I was a gamer.
Of any artistic form gaming is the one that excites me the most, the one that presents the most unique opportunities for creative expression.
And that is exactly why all of this hurts.
Why Gamergate a six month barrage of hatred, bile and terror that has descended on an industry that once seemed so bright and hopeful burns in my brain.
Holy shit.
This is the sort of rhetoric that the Georgians used when writing to the Pope to let them know that the 100,000 man crusading army had been wiped out by the fucking Mongols.
And the thing is, they don't even understand the imagery.
Having Vivian James under the heel of Gamergate.
Just fucking idiots.
I mean, just idiots.
They unironically say, for the uninformed, Gamergate began in August as a self-proclaimed crusade against corruption and video games journalism.
Apparently rallying behind Erin Joni, who posted a deranged manifesto of sorts, accusing his ex Zoe Quinn of cheating on him to get better reviews for her game Depression Quest.
Well, to be fair, that wasn't as uninformed as it could have been.
I mean, no one's rallying behind Eren, because he's just trying to show that Zoe Quinn did indeed do these things.
But it wasn't any kind of manifesto.
There was nothing that was trying to be achieved.
He just wanted people to know that this had happened.
But then the author just goes completely full Macintosh and says, but in reality, it is a campaign of terrorism.
What?
It's apparently not the grassroots movement the supporters claim it is, but rather a calculated, long in the works effort to erase unwanted diversity in the medium.
How is that even connected?
Who's calculating it?
Who has been planning this long game to force diversity out of the medium if such a thing were even possible?
Well the author has no idea.
While the leaders of the movement haven't been pinpointed, we know that they and their swarm of followers convene on websites 4chan and 8chan and the movement has picked up support from right-wing celebrities and personalities with a wide range of notoriety.
What the fuck are you talking about?
The leaders of the movement haven't been pinpointed and is some calculated attempt to remove diversity from gaming.
This is some insanely paranoid, conspiratorial shit we're dealing with.
Is this some kind of anti-progressive right-wing Illuminati we're talking about?
I mean, I'm all for tinfoil hats, but this is some crazy shit.
The leaders of the movement haven't been pinpointed.
We can't figure out who they are, but it's definitely not a grassroots movement.
Efforts include death threats, posting detractors' bank account and address information, doxing, threatening school shootings, spamming people with child pornography, and harassing transgender people into suicidal thought.
Holy shit, prove it!
Just prove any of this!
Fucking hell.
All the while, the anonymous Gamergate leaders calculate every move, helping Joni write his letter, figuring out ways to defend themselves from critics, and excommunicating members who take offense to the group's rampant racism and sexism.
We can take from this that nobody is actually a part of Gamergate anymore, because I've never met anyone in Gamergate who supports any of these things.
So I don't know who they're talking about.
I think they think that Gamergate is the third-party trolls who have been harassing both sides.
But the thing is, they then go on to say their stated goals tend to be vague at best, calling for ethics in journalism and objective criticism.
Honestly, I'm wondering if it's going to dawn on the author if they know that they're not talking about the same people.
But they then start complaining that, in other words, no artistic discussion.
Honestly, this is just so hilarious.
Listen, idiot, you can have all the artistic discussion you want, but when you are advising me on how to spend my money on video games, I do not want you pimping your friend's work.
It's my money.
Your friends might produce shit.
I want to know objectively, or as objectively as possible, how good the game is.
And the thing is, this person must be stuck in the 90s or something.
Modern gaming specializes in one type of protagonist.
Men.
The white, grizzled, infallible, stoic, single-minded badasses.
You know, like the main protagonist of Tomb Raider.
The problem that has permeated the media for years, painting the white male as the perfect hero, but it is an issue that is slowly being corrected.
Is the white male the perfect hero in, say, Candy Crush?
Is the white male the perfect hero in Command and Conquer?
Is the white male the perfect hero in Portal?
Because seriously, you're talking out of your fucking ass!
Many cry foul at the politically correct mindset of adding diversity to properties and changing the race and gender of characters.
But it is a necessary step towards fixing a dangerous cultural and psychological issue.
Listen, you fucking retard.
The only dangerous cultural and psychological issues around here are coming from you.
Because you are mad.
You actually think that fucking with properties, existing properties, is a not offensive to minorities and women who you're trying to get this to effect.
I mean, I would be so pissed off if there weren't very many men in, say, daytime television programmes.
So they were going to change a famous female lead to a man in an attempt to appeal to me or appease me in some way.
I mean, I would want you to write new characters.
Is that really so hard to do?
Anything else is insanely patronising.
Obviously, the author is anti-capitalist, and they complain that publishers have chosen to cover their ears on social issues and Gamergate, because for them, catering to the 20-something white males has proven financially spectacular.
Well, why wouldn't they then?
If women aren't buying Gears of War or Call of Duty or whatever, why wouldn't they cater to the people who are?
But more fatally, they have allowed this state to become the definition of gamer.
The jingoistic, macho-aggressive modern war games that have become the face of gaming in the modern era.
Listen, dipshit.
You don't know what you're talking about.
I don't play these jingoistic, macho-aggressive modern war games, and I'm a gamer.
A gamer is simply someone whose hobby is primarily gaming.
They then go on to say, I'll always defend violence in video games, but I won't defend causal racism.
I'm pretty sure they mean casual racism.
Xenophobia and sexism.
But for gators, this has become their identity.
Again, who are you talking about?
I've never met a gamer who supports Gamergate, who is a racist, a xenophobe or a sexist.
Anyway, anyone who has the audacity to suggest that gaming can be diverse is threatening gamers as a whole.
You have a very strange definition of gamers, but as you haven't understood anything about Gamergate thus far, and you clearly don't understand anything about gaming at all, I'm not really surprised.
They say that gators claim that they are true gamers, and that their enemies seek to destroy gaming culture.
I've never heard that claim made.
It's just that the opponents of Gamergate claim that they are not gamers, and that gamers are, quote-unquote, over.
So what do you want us to do?
Your side aren't the gamers, you idiots.
But neither of those things exist.
They are labels, social constructs created by corporations to sell them things.
No, they're not, you moron.
Gamer is just a label that people adopt when they say, to show other gamers.
Look, gaming is my primary hobby.
I am well versed in this hobby and I am immersed in the culture.
I can talk to you about this sort of thing, without you having to explain the beginning and basics of it.
This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
They are labels, social constructs created by corporations to sell them things.
As if people are so dumb.
I can only assume the person writing this is so dumb that they believe it.
And for some reason they must think, oh my god, I've got the drop on these corporations.
I know what they're up to.
Listen, dipshit.
Everyone knows that corporations are trying to sell you things.
Everyone knows this.
If you've just figured it out, well done.
And this is apparently where this gaming problem meets society's problem.
Gamer as we know it goes hand in hand with what a man is.
Oh how awful.
For decades it doesn't.
What are you talking about?
But even if it did, so what?
For decades we have established emotionally void.
Jesus.
Stoic, aggressive, patriarchal men.
A stoic person isn't exactly aggressive, are they?
They are standing there showing no emotion.
To be aggressive, that is an emotion, isn't it?
I mean, you have to kind of...
I'm trying to picture how you could be stoically aggressive.
But patriarchal men is what's correct.
And this same vision of being a hero exists for gamers.
Sometimes it does.
Doesn't when you're talking about, for example, Lara Croft, but, you know, don't let that get in the way of your bullshit.
But now society is finally growing up.
Not gaming is growing up.
Society is growing up.
Society is growing up.
The idea of English-speaking society is probably about, well, I mean, the modern English-speaking society is probably about 300 years old.
So, I mean, I'm so glad after 300 years, society is finally growing up and realizing these labels have no place in the modern world.
Are they?
What are you talking about?
But it's sincerely trying to correct its errors.
After years and years of making gamers and men feel special, important and unique, these gamers see efforts to change that culture as a threat to their identity and claiming they're the victims.
Fuck gamers and fuck men.
I can't say this with a straight face.
In reality, the masculinity we have established has become toxic, volatile and dangerous.
Don't believe me, let me ask you, have you noticed how many recent mass shootings have been carried out by white adult males?
Holy shit.
this author is insane.
I, and that is just the most foul attempt at reasoning.
Not only is it a post hoc ergo prop to hoc fallacy, but it is also fucking despicable.
Would you say this about black people?
Would you say this about women?
Would you say this about any race or demographic ever?
No.
But for some reason, for some reason, progressives have it in their head that it's okay to say this about white men.
What the fuck?
We have created a monster.
An entire generation of jaded youth has found that society is leaving them behind, that the roles they were promised are no longer guaranteed, that their traits are no longer needed or desired.
Well, fuck.
If you're ever going to talk to me about empathy social justice warriors, I'm going to direct you to this article.
This is the most monstrous thing I have ever read.
I think this author would probably march people into death camps, because in their mind, it's justified.
This is just awful.
I mean, what do they think should happen to white men?
Maybe they should just be rounded up and shot.
But the author isn't done being a complete fucking sociopath.
They have been told that the artificial status quo created by society was correct and must be preserved.
What?
They have been convinced beyond reason that the loss of their unearned natural privileges is oppression.
What fucking privileges do gamers have, you psycho!
Are you even listening to what you're saying?
But the worst part of this is, and now they are lashing out gators through the anonymity of the internet and others, through unspeakable violence in places like Aurora, Sandy Hook and Santa Barbara.
This author is directly saying that people supporting Gamergate in a desire to have ethical journalism to be consumer focused committed mass murder in Aurora, Sandy Hook and Santa Barbara.
Events that took place long before Gamergate occurred and have nothing to do with Gamergate.
This is sick, really, really sick.
And whoever wrote it is a disgusting human being.
And I swear I feel like I'm looking into the mind of a madman.
We cannot have equal wages, unbiased policing, as if you guys want anything that's unbiased.
Marriage equality are an end to the epidemic of trans suicides as long as the poisonous forces of the past are able to remain afloat and assert their vision of a society they control.
What the fuck does that have to do with Gamergate?
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