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Feb. 24, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
10:31
The Escapist Goes Pro-#GamerGate
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This is Greg Tito.
Greg Tito was the Escapist editor-in-chief when the Zoe Post went up and what would become Gamergate exploded across the web.
From what I know of him, Greg doesn't seem like a bad fellow.
Five months ago now, the Escapist, under his leadership, updated their ethics policy in line with the demands of Gamergate.
Although he was a member of the secretive Game Jeno Pros list, He clearly understood the ethical necessity of the conversation that became Gamergate, and refused under heavy pressure from everyone's favourite mongoloid Ben Couchera of Polygon to shut down the thread discussing the issue and censor conversation about Gamergate on The Escapist.
So I've got to say I was actually personally relatively disappointed that Greg Tito was fired from The Escapist.
Although he was part of the Game Journal Pros list, which in and of itself is certainly an ethical grey area, Greg was one of the few on there that did the right thing.
Not only did he refuse to bow to Couchera's pressure to censor discussion of this, but he also made sure that the Escapist's ethics policy was updated very promptly into the Gamergate scandal.
In his explanation for leaving, he stresses that it's due to budget cuts at Defy Media, the parent company of The Escapist.
And I'm sure there is a degree of truth to this.
I mean, like he says, Gamefront and Game Trailers, a large number of colleagues have been let go.
And recently Joystick have closed down, Adblock, it really is taking a heavy toll on game sites.
But I've worked at enough companies where the bosses have fucked up to know that when people are being cut, the boss only gets cut if he's done something wrong.
Or at least what has been perceived to be wrong by his superiors.
I say this because The Escapist has a new editor-in-chief called John Vanderwaal, who I know practically nothing about.
And taking a look at his Twitter account, I have no idea what his political or ideological leanings are.
I just know that the guy seems to really like video games, which is exactly what I would want the editor of a video game magazine to be like.
Tito is now reviewing for Destructoid, and I wish him all the best.
I really have no animus against the man at all.
He is one of the few progressive journalists who actually did the right thing, and more of them could have learned from his example.
In fact, if they'd all simply done exactly what he did, Gamergate would have been over months ago.
Speaking of ideologies, interestingly, Critical Distance, a notoriously progressive critical platform, has been also discontinued from working with The Escapist last September.
In fact, their this weekend video game blogging feature has been discontinued.
So who funds Critical Distance?
Well, a few choice names jump out.
You've got Deirdre Squinky Kai, who is at the Playfulest Political Roundtable with members of Digra, and is also a member of Silverstring.
You have Zoya Street, another member of Silverstring Media.
And hell, you've just got the company itself backing it as well.
As well as the annoyingly progressive game development studio Vlambier headed by Rami Ismail.
And they hosted the Critical Proximity Games Critics Conference at which Alex Lifshitz decided to burn a copy of Grand Theft Auto and proclaim the game industry decadent and depraved.
In fact, The Escapist has quite radically reformed itself in the wake of Gamergate.
For example, Jim Sterling left in November of last year before Greg Tito left and there was no reason given for his departure.
And this doesn't seem to have been Greg Tito's choice.
He seems to be quite disappointed to be saying goodbye to Jim.
And as you may already be aware, Bob Chipman got absolutely shit canned by The Escapist too.
Bob claims that his firing has nothing to do with hashtags, consumer revolts, or any other such nonsense.
Not that he expects that this will keep the chattering class at bay in that regard, but facts are facts.
Except you don't provide us with any facts, Bob.
You just say that you've been fired.
You know what, maybe it wasn't due to any kind of hashtags or consumer revolts.
Maybe it's just that your employees saw you being a raging cocknuggot all over Twitter, Bob.
Going on about your progressive master race and critiquing your audience.
Or maybe it's just that you can't see how hilariously ironic you are, movie Bob.
But the thing is, this talk of being laid off due to financial concerns, it all seems a bit hollow, given the Escapists' recent new hires.
Here's one of my favourites.
Hi everyone, Liz here.
I am LizzieF620 on Twitter, where I'm a regular contributor to the Gamergate and Not Your Shield hashtags.
In a recent interview, Brianna Wu claimed that those who are female and minority posting under the Gamergate tag are Zach Peppet accounts.
Since Miss Wu is currently held in such high regard by the mainstream media, this must be true.
Because listen and believe.
So I wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to your faces, man-to-man, for betraying your trust.
I should have never pretended to be a woman.
That was wrong.
And I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.
Thank you.
The Escapist has gone and hired two openly pro-Gamergate people.
In fact, people who have made massive contributions to the hashtag.
The Escapist has hired two died-in-the-wall pro-Gamergate people.
I actually believe that Brandon Moss is actually a right-wing conservative as well.
Not that, in my opinion, that should be held against or in favour of anyone.
It's just an interesting thing to note how they seem to have slowed off a bunch of their most annoying progressive writers in exchange for people who might actually be able to come up with a bit of objective journalism.
They're also soliciting pitches from pro-Gamergator Oliver Campbell.
Oliver fucking Campbell is probably going to end up writing at The Escapist.
How amazing is that?
They've also hired the lovely Liana Kay, who at the beginning of Gamergate I did an interview with.
She was the only one from the other side to even come forth to talk to the Gamergate people.
And I think at this point she could be best described as Gamergate neutral since Gamergazi absolutely hates her.
I just want to put this into perspective from a political point of view.
This is Gamergate storming the fucking trenches.
The Escapist firing so many prominent progressive journalists and hiring so many vehemently pro-Gamergate ones is such a declaration that the anti-gamers will never ever forgive them for this.
Never.
They are probably persona non-grata as far as they are concerned.
This is a goddamn major victory for Gamergate.
This is colossal.
Even if they don't declare this outright, from a political point of view, there can be no other way of looking at this other than the Escapist is pro-Gamergate.
Which personally, I'm thrilled about because The Escapist was my favourite site.
I had to boycott The Escapist.
Now I can go back there and not feel guilty about it.
But maybe this really wasn't all that surprising from The Escapist.
I mean, after all, this is Yahtzee's opinion of social justice warriors.
That should be able to get you through the horde of Nazis, I'm gonna call them.
Well, you say that.
But I'm going to spray fire like an absolute tard, if I'm honest.
Isn't that an effective means of getting through these situations, though?
Yeah, I said, Todd, what are you gonna do about it?
Nothing.
You gonna cry?
You gonna cry, baby?
Cry like a tard?
Sob your tard tears.
Yes.
People get up your ass for saying tard or wearing a shirt with nudie ladies on.
The best thing to do is to mock them.
Yeah.
Because if you apologise, they smell weakness.
It validates their stupid bullshit.
They will go for the kill if you apologise.
They'll say, no, you didn't apologise enough.
Apologize some more and then lick our fetid cunt.
Cry, cry for us.
At the same time, don't get mad at them.
Because that shows they've won and they can use that.
They go, look at this misogynist being so cruel and harsh.
Let them just ignore them.
They don't actually have any power.
They're just loud on the internet.
Exactly.
That's how you show them they have no power.
You mock them.
If social justice tries to get up your case, all you need to do is flick V signs and blow a raspberry.
I look forward to your tearful apology.
Just whatever they say, just go at length.
And keep doing it.
If they try to interrupt you, just go, whoa, whoa, wait a second, and then take a deep breath and start again.
Sorry, the feelings don't matter.
I love like over the weeks you've just been, I don't want to talk about that to social justice.
And then in the last two weeks, you're just like, you know what?
Fuck it.
Well, it's been pissing me off.
Hey, that's, you know, it's.
I agree with you.
And I also agree that it's best to just fucking ignore them.
The meaningless, meaningless people.
Well, quite.
I just want to advise, in the aftermath of Shirt Storm, as they called it, they made the guy cry.
And it's like, you know what?
Fuck you, social justice.
Fuck you for ruining the best day of that guy's life.
Well, what I love is ignoring the context of communications and deciding that your relative interpretation of something is the official interpretation, and then that's it.
And it's like, that shirt was given to him by...
It's not like he wore that all the time.
It's not like it was a pattern of behavior where he's like, yeah, women are objects.
That was a shirt given to him by his friend who made it for him and she does like tiki shirts.
Like they're just goofy, tasteless.
They're tiki.
It's just what it is.
And if you're ignorant of that, you're ignorant of important parts of the communication that that shirt is.
And then you tell these people that, and no, it doesn't matter because their relative interpretation is the only valid one.
Okay.
Screaming shit beasts.
You plugged in your waffle lion for a bit there, but it's okay.
What's this?
Like, your interpretation is the only thing.
You being offended does not trump my freedom to do what I choose.
And you've got no reason to be offended.
I mean, the law kind of gets in the way of the freedom to do what I choose.
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