July 5, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
20:53
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| When Bob Chipman decides to tweet out a pre-packaged waking up from Gamergates narrative, I have to wonder just who the fuck does he think he's fooling? | |
| This comes in the form of an email from someone called Kendra McHale to pro Gamergate website Black Trident who have reposted it verbatim with her permission. | |
| So who is Kendra McHale you might ask? | |
| Well your guess is as good as mine. | |
| I have no idea. | |
| The only Twitter account I could find associated with that name was Gamergate in BC and has been deleted, so I have no idea. | |
| But I'm completely sure that this is this young lady's only Twitter presence. | |
| Young people don't really use the Twitter and find themselves needing to sign up new accounts specifically for the causes that they're supporting because they've just simply got no need of their own personal Twitter accounts. | |
| Anyway, Kendra is apparently a former organiser of Gig and Vic and the former co-organiser of GGNBC, which I'm sure is completely true. | |
| I've got no particular reason to doubt that. | |
| In order to organise this, she was part of a Skype group with, interestingly, Alison Tyman, who was one of the ladies who was censored by the Calgary Expo, where she was supporting Gamergates by protesting censorship. | |
| Just a note, protesting censorship is just typical for Gamergate. | |
| They think that censorship is a bad thing, that you shouldn't be able to tell other people what they can and can't say, and that geek culture is actually alright on its own and should be left to do its thing. | |
| I know, they're monsters, and I really wish that some brave, brave feminist would stand up and use their rights to free speech to speak out against the honey badgers' right to free speech. | |
| So Kendra apparently decided not to attend because she asked Alison if she could get a guarantee that she would not be recorded or have her picture taken at the event. | |
| Because people who support Gamergate are often lacking the courage of their convictions. | |
| They're terrified to have their pictures taken at this event and events like this with such controversial figures as Karen Strawn and Alison. | |
| Because like I said, they're just afraid to stand up for what they believe in. | |
| I mean, it's not like that if you Google Gamergate Meetup, you get pictures of people at Gamergate Meetups smiling and having a good time in front of the cameras. | |
| They're all really camera-shine, they're all really ashamed to be associated with each other and the movement. | |
| So Kendra says that she joined Gamergate in October, and at this time she followed 2,000 people, and it stayed that way until around January when she deleted her Twitter when she only followed five people. | |
| This was because she saw Gamergate change in a way she didn't like. | |
| So she says that the change starts around Christmas. | |
| But before Christmas, it was about ethics and about changing games journalism. | |
| The goal might have been idiotic, but I liked the movement at the time. | |
| Well, what exactly is idiotic about demanding standards of games journalists? | |
| I mean, if you didn't think that that could happen, why would you join the movement? | |
| If I wouldn't personally join a movement whose goals I thought were idiotic. | |
| But the thing is, if the people supporting Gamergate are no longer concerned about ethics and video game journalism, then why do video game sites keep updating their ethics policies in line with Gamergate's demand? | |
| Seriously though, why would Destructoid, GameRanks, Eurogamer and IGN all update their code of ethics? | |
| And these were all from this year after Kendra claims to have left the movement because it no longer cares about ethics. | |
| Why would Gamergate go to the Society of Professional Journalists and quote hijack their ethics week hashtag? | |
| I suppose it must be something to do with being April 2015 like it abandoned ethics around January and then decided it was all about ethics again come April. | |
| It's just convenient. | |
| And if it wasn't about ethics, why would the Society of Professional Journalists agree to host a discussion or a debate called AirPlay about Gamergate's concerns? | |
| Why would they be the ones doing it? | |
| So anyway, getting back to this, Kendra says, what changed is that the movement was taken over by the anti-SJW ideology, and everyone forgot why they're in Gamergate. | |
| Well, okay, that's a good point. | |
| Or at least it would be, if you could tell me the name of the anti-SJW ideology. | |
| Because what this is saying, if you can't, is that everyone else, regardless of what their actual political beliefs are, are the anti-SJW ideology. | |
| By virtue of not being the SJW ideology you are insinuating exists by the mere mention of there being an anti-version of it that is defined exclusively by being the anti-version of this ideology. | |
| But what's really bizarre is that she then goes on to claim that social justice is not an ideology. | |
| In her words, an imaginary ideology. | |
| And then brilliantly goes on to say that the so-called social justice warriors are anyone who advocates for social justice. | |
| That is the ideology, Kendra. | |
| I don't know how else to point this out to you, but that is the ideology you're talking about. | |
| And the anti-SJW ideology actually isn't an ideology. | |
| It's just anyone who disagrees with the methods of social justice. | |
| Interestingly, this gives us a good look into the mind of the person who wrote this. | |
| They have an ideology. | |
| They can't really think outside of the boundaries of a fixed ideology. | |
| And so they assume that the people opposing them must be a single, unified, cohesive ideology. | |
| She then says that nobody actually identifies one, which again, it's just not true. | |
| Not only do they advocate for social justice, they do so by using cutesy names like social justice paladin. | |
| Or how about everyone's favourite racist calling himself a social justice healer? | |
| And don't forget the cross-class social justice bard druid. | |
| Note the gender pronouns at the end of these biographies. | |
| You know, it's almost like they're part of a group or something. | |
| Oh, look at the little edgelord here. | |
| Social justice shadow priest. | |
| That's fucking edgy. | |
| And they're too edgy to even put their personal pronouns at the end. | |
| So how am I going to know how to address them? | |
| I guess they'll just have to blog about it on their Tumblr. | |
| Hell, even Bob Chipman has dressed up as a social justice wizard before. | |
| I mean, just look at our social justice wizard. | |
| Planning what spells Zia needs to learn on the morrow in order to smash the patriarchy once and for all. | |
| But apparently, you see, this is all part of my strange fear of social justice, feminism, and multiculturalism. | |
| I can't imagine why I'd be afraid of turning into a social justice wizard. | |
| But it's similar, if not identical, to the ideology that fueled the polytechnic shooting and the Oslo bombing. | |
| What ideology? | |
| What is it? | |
| Name it! | |
| What is the name of this ideology? | |
| But this ideology stems from the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory. | |
| No, the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory concerns social justice. | |
| You are saying that a conspiracy theory is now an ideology. | |
| Either you don't know what a conspiracy theory is or you don't know what an ideology is. | |
| But the theory is essentially blaming political correctness for all society's problems. | |
| Well, I wouldn't say all of them, but for some kids in Rotherham, there are definitely some questions regarding political correctness, aren't there? | |
| So you've now claimed that the people in Gamergate, all of the people in Gamergate, hold some unnamed ideology that's very similar to the unnamed ideology of Anders Breivik, a terrorist who committed a massacre on Utoya. | |
| Now, where have I heard this accusation before? | |
| Because this isn't new. | |
| Oh yeah, that's right. | |
| I know where I've heard this from before. | |
| The very much pro-social justice press were busy slandering gamers as terrorists while Gamergate were doing everything they could possible to prevent people on Twitter trolling people using a hashtag. | |
| Because these things are totally comparable and it's not a massive insult to anyone from Norway. | |
| Unless of course you read the comments on this article where people from Norway who support Gamergate are frankly outraged that you would dare compare them to a mass murdering terrorist. | |
| But for some inexplicable reason, she says, initially, this didn't deter me. | |
| Holy shit, it would deter me. | |
| If I thought that there was a movement that was populated almost exclusively by terrorists or using an ideology that was specifically designed to breed terrorists, the last thing I would do is join it. | |
| It would definitely be a deterrent. | |
| It's one of the many reasons I don't join ISIS. | |
| But you know what? | |
| That's not our Kendra. | |
| She was completely fine with mass murdering terrorism. | |
| What she wasn't fine with was harassment on Twitter. | |
| Because this is what really changed her mind. | |
| Were the tactics used by Gamergate to, quote, justify harassment. | |
| So let's see her examples. | |
| One, Gamergate is not an organization. | |
| It doesn't have one belief, but it's a combination of many people's opinions and anyone can speak. | |
| How is that a justification of harassment? | |
| All that is, is saying that people in Gamergate cannot prevent other people from using Twitter. | |
| That's all they're saying. | |
| They can't stop someone from tweeting. | |
| And the second one is, people who endorse or commit harassment are not part of Gamergate or real gamergasers. | |
| Well, I'm not surprised that they'd say that. | |
| Given that they don't want to be associated with harassment, and they literally have no control over the people who use a hashtag, of course they have to denounce people on Twitter who harass. | |
| I mean, personally, I didn't know that justifying something was actually the same as denouncing it, but then I'm not one of those sort of social justice dictionary rewriters. | |
| She goes on to say that you can see the problem here, and this is what I was told every time I spoke out against harassment and bigotry within the movement. | |
| You haven't proven any harassment or bigotry within the movement. | |
| All you've proven is that people have no control over who uses Twitter. | |
| Apparently, it's either free speech, and I'm oppressing them, or they don't represent the movement. | |
| But that's not what you've said. | |
| Harassment isn't free speech, and I've never heard anyone make the argument that it is. | |
| The issue is that we can't control how other people use Twitter. | |
| And to say that they don't represent the movement, well, why would trolls on Twitter represent any movement? | |
| But the thing is, that's not really her problem with this. | |
| She says, neither answer solves the issue of harassment. | |
| Well, if that's the case, no one can have a movement that uses Twitter, because Twitter themselves can't solve the issue of harassment on Twitter. | |
| And it's not like they're not trying. | |
| They are working as hard as they can to prevent people from sending nasty words to each other on Twitter. | |
| But there's only so much you can do on a public social network. | |
| So it becomes all the more baffling when Kendra says, this begs the question, why is Gamergate so complacent when it comes to harassment? | |
| Well, as we've already seen, they actually do actively police harassment that's being done using the GameGate hashtag. | |
| But in addition, Twitter itself can't solve the Twitter harassment problem. | |
| So why would you think Gamergate could do it? | |
| What do you think can be done to stop people from signing up for an egg account and then sending a nasty tweet to someone they don't like? | |
| What can we do? | |
| I tell you, I think that Gamergates and Twitter themselves are all ears, if you have an idea. | |
| But for me, this is really the part that shows that Kendra was never really someone who actually supported Gamergate. | |
| She didn't really seem to get Gamergate in any way, shape, or form. | |
| Because Kendra actually says that collecting proof is ridiculous. | |
| She says, before I answer this question, her question about what does Gamergate do about harassment and why is it okay with it? | |
| I need to make a preface because I know people will be saying, do you have any evidence of harassment? | |
| Because evidence is for terrorists. | |
| My answer to that is, why would I archive people insulting me? | |
| And the answer to that, Kendra, is, so you can prove people have been insulting you. | |
| Because otherwise, we have to take your word for it. | |
| When someone harasses me, I unfollow and mute them. | |
| I have no interest in collecting an album of all the horrible things said to me and others. | |
| So no, I don't have proof. | |
| The idea of collecting that kind of proof is ridiculous. | |
| No, Kendra. | |
| The idea of asking people to listen and believe and then still claim that you support Gamergate is ridiculous. | |
| There's a trend amongst people in Gamergates that goes along with the catchphrase, trust but verify, and that trend is to archive everything, to prove that what you are saying is true. | |
| Because if you can't prove that what you're saying is true, then frankly, there's no reason to think that it is. | |
| I mean, honestly, do you think we were born yesterday? | |
| Kendra continues by saying, so why is Gamergate complacent with harassment? | |
| Well, citation needed. | |
| Early on, because they didn't want to exclude anyone from the movement because it was so small. | |
| That's nonsense. | |
| It was fucking massive. | |
| Now it's because the movement has been taken over by conspiracy theorists, except you are the one positing the conspiracies. | |
| so i left gamergates because i was being harassed for being trans and i was insulted for speaking out against bigotry except you didn't decide to save any of this proof to prove that this is what actually happened what i found funny was whenever i said that gamergates hated trans people right okay There are other trans people in Gamergate that I'm aware of, unlike you, Kendra, who don't appear to think that Gamergate hates trans people. | |
| But they'd use Not Your Shield as a way to avoid criticism. | |
| That's an interesting statement because it kind of makes it sound like you don't understand what Not Your Shield is about. | |
| Not Your Shield is a hashtag to prevent corrupt journalists from hiding behind their status as women or minorities or other people's status as women or minorities instead of addressing the issue at hand because the criticism was coming from women and minorities. | |
| That's what Not Your Shield was for is to show that a sizable chunk of Gamergates is not the evil cisgendered straight white male. | |
| But what finally made her sever any contact, yeah, after all the Twitter harassment, after it being a terrorist breeding ground, she's finally decided, you know what, maybe I should go to the other side. | |
| I mean, they can't be possibly any worse. | |
| She realised that the so-called SJWs were actually much more accepting than Gamergates, and they were willing to speak out against bigotry. | |
| So they are a group then, is what you're saying. | |
| But not only that, there is another reason, but you know, before we have a look at this other reason, shall we just check to see if they are actually more accepting? | |
| These are some tweets that were sent to Joss Whedon, vaunted feminist and social justice activist. | |
| Let's have a read some. | |
| Oink, oink, you misogynist pig. | |
| Oh, that's accepting. | |
| What's it like being a crusty dickhole with no talent whatsoever, asking for a friend? | |
| I bet you like Homestuck, you fucking garbage asshole. | |
| You give me hope because if someone as trash as you could get hired in the film business, then so can I. Thanks. | |
| Eat my ass, you bitch-ass punk. | |
| You're so ugly. | |
| Your directing's ugly. | |
| Your story's ugly. | |
| Fights me, you fucking murderer. | |
| Wow. | |
| Why do you hate women? | |
| Is so threatened by women he had Natasha call herself a monster for being sterilized. | |
| We all know who the real monster is. | |
| Actually, what were you thinking, you piece of garbage? | |
| Laugh my ass off. | |
| I'm so fucking overjoyed that you didn't get to lay your filthy fucking hands on my children again. | |
| Jesus Christ. | |
| That is a model of acceptance. | |
| So she says, I mentioned for Nick Reading and Alison Tyman, something that Alison said made me concerned about Gamergate. | |
| She said that Gamergate was accomplishing what she'd been trying to do for 16 years. | |
| What what? | |
| Breed Norwegian terrorists? | |
| Or what do you think that she's been trying to do for 16 years? | |
| Trying to maybe get some ethical standards in the gaming industry or the at least sort of nerd culture at large? | |
| I mean, I don't know what it is that she's been trying to do, and you don't tell us either. | |
| But that instantly told you that Gamergate was heading in the wrong direction. | |
| If Gamergate's goals match up with an MRA's goals, then we have definitely gotten off track. | |
| Well, maybe, but you already told us that you weren't bothered when it sounded like it was a terrorist training camp. | |
| You've already told us that you weren't really that bothered about it being nothing but a misogynist Twitter hate movement. | |
| But now that it, well, why would you? | |
| You're a feminist. | |
| Why would you be bothered by any of these things? | |
| But now that it sounds like it's something that MRAs can agree with, as a feminist, you're like, whoa, whoa, I can't be dealing with these, you know, MRAs are my mortal enemy because I'm a feminist. | |
| And the thing is, I know that you're a radical third-wave feminist because the only people who even know who MRAs are are radical third-wave feminists when they're blaming all of the world's evils on MRAs. | |
| But this gets even weirder. | |
| After a while, I realized that Gamergate had been molded by the men's rights movement and adopted their ideology. | |
| What is the name of their ideology? | |
| What is it? | |
| Just what is it? | |
| Empiricism? | |
| I mean, I don't know what it's called, but it's probably better than whatever your ideology is. | |
| Initially, I had no issue with the MRAs. | |
| I'm not sure if I believe that. | |
| But the more I talked to Nick and Alison, the more I realised I wanted nothing to do with them. | |
| Nick told me he'd never done any activism for men's rights, and the idea didn't appeal to him. | |
| How do you know he's a men's rights activist then? | |
| I mean, if he doesn't do any activism for men's rights and the idea doesn't appeal to him and he says he's not a men's rights activist but he's just against feminism, what makes you think he's an MRA? | |
| But Alison didn't go that far. | |
| She did reveal that she hadn't done any activism for men either, and the only example she could give of the MRM doing activism was a different group and there were no articles about it. | |
| Well, are they supposed to force the press to write the articles? | |
| I mean, if the press doesn't want to cover it, they won't. | |
| But even then, okay, so the worst thing you have on these people is they're not actually the horrible MRAs that you claim that they were. | |
| I mean, I don't know how true this is. | |
| I just take it at face value. | |
| I don't know. | |
| But from what you've said, Kendra, it doesn't sound like they're awful people. | |
| I mean, they don't sound like the next Anders Breivik. | |
| She then says, I really didn't want to associate with an anti-feminist group, especially not ones as notorious as the Badgers. | |
| Well, what have they done? | |
| You haven't told us why they're notorious. | |
| You're just telling us that they are notorious. | |
| The only thing I'm really aware of the Badgers doing is standing up against censorship. | |
| But apparently she realised that the anti-SJW movement, again, lumping everyone who opposes social justice into one singular movement, makes everyone on earth against the movement if they're not part of it. | |
| had made me a much more hateful person so i had to leave for my sake and the sake of my offline relationships i mentioned to one member of the skype group that my relationship with my sister had deteriorated since i joined gamergate We're on good terms now. | |
| I now joke about being a former conspiracy theorist. | |
| Well, that's nice, but I personally wouldn't be able to leave skepticism and rationalism just because my sister was a social justice warrior and she didn't like that I was being skeptical and rational. | |
| The Badgers like to call joining the MRM swallowing the red pill. | |
| Following that idea, I'd like to coin a new phrase, vomiting up the red pill. | |
| Holy shit, okay, well, if we're going to go for Matrix analogies, you've just decided that you guys are cypher. | |
| You know, that really selfish person who killed other people just so he could be re-plugged into the matrix and pretend reality wasn't really as it was. | |
| In fact, this is a perfect metaphor. | |
| And so she ends with, in summary, you're all crazy conspiracy theorists, and I'm a radical feminist who hates men and wants to turn you all gay. | |
| Do you see why I don't really think that this email was written by someone who genuinely ever supported Gamergate? | |
| This person all the way through sounds like a social justice warrior who is parroting the standard narrative against Gamergate in an attempt to somehow make that the truth. | |
| Except that not only did they get the sequence of events wrong, but none of the facts mesh with what they're saying. | |
| In fact, as Bob says, it's a pretty spot-on waking up narrative. | |
| It's a fucking story. |
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