May 27, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
09:29
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| So very interesting things have been occurring recently. | |
| Ian Miles Chung has issued a full apology for his behaviour during Gamergate towards gamers. | |
| If you're not familiar, Ian Miles Chung is the editor-in-chief of GameRanks, a reasonably popular gaming website. | |
| And the other day he said unreservedly on Twitter that, I guess it goes without saying, but I'm sorry for joining in the chorus that dehumanized gamers and the hobby I love. | |
| We all deserve better. | |
| I think it's very big of Ian to admit when he was wrong. | |
| I've got no doubt that this was quite a difficult thing to do, because it's always difficult to admit when you've been in the wrong, especially when you've really committed to another side. | |
| But I'm sure that we're all aware of the habit of the social justice community to eat their own when they go against the narrative. | |
| I think it's important that we don't necessarily take this as Ian's endorsement of Gamergate. | |
| He, speaking to Oliver Campbell, says that he hasn't necessarily flipped ships, he's just tired of seeing everyone else dehumanize everyone else. | |
| I think this is a very reasonable, responsible and mature position to take. | |
| You don't necessarily have to endorse Gamergate to see that there has been a lot of hate flung at it and at gamers in general and it really does seem that Ian wants to make amends for his part in it. | |
| Ian actually seems to have realised how toxic social justice has become of late. | |
| And his Twitter feed genuinely reflects that. | |
| I notice a lot of people are cautious about accepting Ian's apology and I'd just like to say that I personally will be accepting his apology. | |
| I have got absolutely no problem with someone realizing the errors of their ways and trying to atone for them by apologizing. | |
| I think at worst if this is some sort of terrible social justice trick then the worst that happens to us is that we were tricked. | |
| That's it. | |
| The worst that happens to us is that we showed that we were more than happy to come to a concordance with the people against us and accept their apology when they offered it. | |
| And he has offered it in as humble a way as I can imagine. | |
| He hasn't been pretentious or preachy or anything like that from what I've seen. | |
| He seems to have been really level-headed about it, which I absolutely see no problem with. | |
| And again, if the worst is that this is all some sort of terrible trick and they're going to go, ha ha, we fooled you, then yes, you have fooled us. | |
| Or at least you fooled me. | |
| I was more than happy to accept an apology when offered. | |
| Ian wrote a blog post to explain exactly what his position was on this. | |
| It's reasonably lengthy, but I'm going to read it verbatim just so you can see exactly why I'm accepting this apology. | |
| It really is what I would expect to hear from someone who genuinely has changed their position. | |
| He doesn't leave himself any wiggle room to try and get out of this at a later date. | |
| He addresses the issues directly, head-on, and he just flatly apologises. | |
| He admits that he was in the wrong, and that's it. | |
| Reading all of this may disappoint you, or it may not, but it is what I believe. | |
| Some of my recent tweets about not dehumanising gamers got a lot of attention the past few days. | |
| I've been asked a lot of questions on where I stand on several important issues. | |
| I've decided to write this post to clarify where I stand now because I've spent the past couple of months thinking about my beliefs, where I stand and what gaming means to me. | |
| I've been playing a lot of The Witcher 3 recently, and in doing so, it's given me ample opportunity to reflect upon my thoughts and actions over the recent past. | |
| The Witcher 3 is in many ways represents what makes me a gamer. | |
| Expressing this through words and getting lost in digital worlds means everything to me. | |
| I lost sight of what I cared about most, writing about gaming experiences. | |
| I let myself get absorbed by Twitter drama and ideological warfare, forgetting about the games that inspired me. | |
| When I saw two reviews of The Witcher 3 that fixated on how it was misogynist and sexist, I started thinking more about representations in the media. | |
| I've always believed in critiquing media instead of condemning it. | |
| I believe it's possible to enjoy any media without demonizing those who do, or its creators. | |
| To go along that vein, I read reviews and op-eds condemning Life is Strange for being written by male writers. | |
| Life is Strange is a great, well-written game. | |
| I've said as much in my own review of the game's first episode. | |
| Among the condemnation I read of that game, it was that men are incapable of writing good female characters. | |
| In addition to Life is Strange, the recently released Mad Max Fury Road proves otherwise yet still received similar complaints. | |
| I just can't endorse these complaints. | |
| Imperator Furiosa may well go down in history as one of the best written female characters in the past 20 years, and she was written by a man, George Miller. | |
| Similar condemnation was levied upon Joss Whedon for his direction of The Avengers Age of Ultron, in the movie's depiction of Scarlet Johansson's character, Black Widow. | |
| Given the ferocity of the rage against Whedon, anyone unfamiliar with his work could easily be led to believe that Whedon was part of the problem rather than the solution. | |
| Surely, if you dislike how a character is written personally, finding qualms with her weaknesses and complexities as a character, it still doesn't justify saying she's worse than no effort being made to include women or portray them as complex individuals with agency. | |
| Over the past few years I got swept up in the social justice movement. | |
| I don't believe there's anything wrong with social justice as an idea, but as a movement it's a different story. | |
| Despite having ideals, it's easy to get lost in a mire of insults and dehumanizing attacks when engaged in a heated battle over social media. | |
| It's nice to feel that you're winning an argument by pounding the opposition into the dust, but in doing so we often dehumanise others, destroying any opportunity for discourse. | |
| This is my sin. | |
| I contributed to an atmosphere of intolerance and aggression. | |
| It may seem hypocritical for me to rail against outrage in recent tweets. | |
| I found a variety of issues to be outraged by, because it gave me a sense of purpose. | |
| I was crusading for a cause, fighting for a noble goal. | |
| Wherever I saw injustice and microaggressions, I pounced, even in situations where there was nothing to pounce upon. | |
| It was the principle of whatever issue I was opposing at the time that mattered. | |
| I'd led myself to believe. | |
| And yet, I find myself asking how these issues even matter when it's caused hurt to others. | |
| I am sorry if I ever hurt you. | |
| I believe some criticisms were credible. | |
| For example, when it comes to the pillars of eternity and the transgender joke that missed the mark, I think that was within reason to have the backer change it. | |
| It offended some people who deal with really horrible discrimination. | |
| They should have a way not to live in a world where their gaming experience reminds them of this. | |
| However, I cannot support shaming the backer who thought it was funny, nor Obsidian for leaving it in. | |
| Attacking individuals over petty disagreements is unacceptable. | |
| Tolerance is the cornerstone of public discourse. | |
| In this case, it got changed pretty quickly, and why did Obsidian have to be dragged through the mud even further? | |
| At the inception of Gamergate, regardless of the movement's origins, many gamers were painted with broad brushstrokes as obtuse shitslingers and wailing hyper-consumers, demonized for the crime of liking video games. | |
| I joined in the chorus of dehumanising voices, attacking my fellow gamers. | |
| I was completely intolerant. | |
| I was being an ass. | |
| I had lost my way. | |
| I had no right to dehumanise nor attack gamers as a whole. | |
| It's common for my personality to seek something to oppose, something to rally against, to be in opposition to. | |
| That's who I am, and it's not something that will likely ever change. | |
| However, I'm coming to terms with myself and recognizing this as a facet of my personality allows me to channel my drive into more constructive endeavours. | |
| Instead of attacking people and dehumanizing them in the process, I will strive to be more positive in my approach and engage with others on a human level, seeing them not as problems to be tackled, but people to work with. | |
| After all, we're all stuck here together on this planet, and no matter wishful thinking about going to Mars is ever going to change that. | |
| I think Ian is genuine in this apology. | |
| I think that he has written a piece there that hasn't given him any wriggle room. | |
| I don't necessarily agree with everything he said, but I don't think that he shouldn't be allowed to hold these opinions because he has said there nothing that's wrong, nothing that is categorically demonstrably false, he just holds slightly different opinions to me, and I have no problem with that. | |
| I think that if this was a member of Gamergate apologising to the social justice warriors, they would probably make that person crawl on their belly through the dirt to apologise, to lick Lei Alexander's boots and say, Yes, I was a wailing hyper consumer, I was an obtuse shitslinger, and I am so so sorry. | |
| Well, I don't think that we should do that. |
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