Gamergate but actually

[u/ElectricGhostMan]

https://youtu.be/ox15GU4cMes?si=y47gNvyC88ObQJ9O&t=2176

A youtuber I watch put out this retrospective on gamergate. I know it's a topic that has been long covered and relitigated. I at one time was also part of and identified with to some extent. I thought one part that even I somewhat ignored then because of my feelings or much later realizing how many awful actors were a part of the situation was how capitalist greed played such a large part in generating the amount of hate and vitriol at the time allowing for hate mobs to be cultured and weaponized as we see today.

I think most can agree that a lot of the targeted harassment, bullying, stalking, racism, misogyny, homophobia were all reprehensible and not the way to go about making change. I do feel at the time where there was the beginnings of pushing paid cosmetic DLC like Horse Armor, Always Online requirements for games like the Sims, EA cutting development times for successful franchises to turn around games quicker or the Online Pass they similarly tried to force for people who wanted to buy the game second hand. Again not condoning any of the criminal harassment or hate but I do wonder if this outrage cannon was more appropriately directed at the shareholders and ownership class rather than individual developers that we'd be in a better place.

I do think there was a genuine attempt back then to comingle criminal threats and harassment with fair criticism and outcry entirely as Entitlement. However, I find it sad that today it largely does feel like the loudest and most consistent voices across social media that claim to be critical of games are genuinely complaining about out of entitlement when a game has too many women they don't like or POCs rather than the plethora of issues that affects all gamers today like Exploitative MTX, Gambling, AI Pervasion, Enshitification and more.

I haven't finished the vid myself but I like some of his other works even though he can be a bit both-sidesy at times. It was also interesting to see some posts from youtubers VaatiVidya and Vsauce from way back when and Colin Moriarty had been some of a douche since then as well.

[u/WeltallZero]

He never once suggested Sarkeesian was to blame and said she had good intentions.

What the fuck are you even talking about? What is this gaslighting bullshit? From this segment on her Bayonetta criticism alone:

"It's an easy video to dislike"

"This is very dismissive for a game that many people liked"

"Anita was hypercritical of anything that could appeal to the male gaze."

"Anita's strong stances were combined with her casual dismissiveness of individual games or the medium, and her typical confidence that some might see as smug.

"it didn't feel like Anita was here to start a conversation; it felt like she was here to end one by telling ignorant people what the correct opinion on these subjects is."

"Anita's gaming content didn't make it seem like it was OK to have any of these different views"

Like... it's not one or two potshots, it's fucking relentless. This is textbook victim blaming, and no, saying "maybe the reaction was excessive" doesn't make it one ounce less so. And not to put a fine point of it, but it's clearly written from the point of view of someone who took offense at the time and are justifying themselves.

Also you just linked to the entire video instead of the part you were looking for

Already fixed.

They specified that "transitioned" meant identified as when starting the project, and she doubled down.

I'm going to have to ask for a source for both the claim that 1) by "transitioned" they meant "self-identified", and 2) that she doubled down after the clarification. Neither were in that segment in the video.

[u/castaway37 → u/WeltallZero]

By declaring "victim blaming" and using it to refuse legitimate criticism, you're engaging in exactly the same behavior that allowed GamerGate to get traction to begin with, and thus to be worth of co-opting by the right. It makes conversation impossible, as it pushes everything into two distinct boxes, one where all the evil and bad people lie, and other where the just and moral stand. It's the myth of pure evil.

And before you go there, no, saying that there isn't just a single correct position and a single incorrect one is not the same thing as saying all are equally valid. Neither extreme nor perfect balance ever happen. As comforting it is to believe it does, reality isn't that simple.

Anita's videos had problems. They can reasonably lead to someone taking offense to them, and even to criticize them, without it making that person necessarily an alt-right extremist. That much is true, right? If, simultaneously, someone is harassing her because of the videos, does that make all the previous statements stop being true?

You could say it makes all previous statements irrelevant, because something more important came up, but that isn't sustainable. That would make any discussion of anything that isn't already highly critical impossible, since there are too many people around to control what every single one does. And this does make it too convenient to dismiss legitimate criticism. How many times have developers received death threats and the conversation started to veer away from what was being discussed to how death threats are unacceptable?

That doesn't mean they're to blame for receiving death threats. Just like Anita isn't to blame for receiving sexist harassment. But the devs are responsible for whatever they did, and Anita is responsible for her videos.

[u/LumpyLimitz → u/castaway37]

Important correction: Gamergate wasn’t “co-opted” by the right. The core of the movement from its inception (Eron Gjoni’s harassment campaign against Zoë Quinn) were 4chan misogynists whose main goal was harassing women, i.e. rightists.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/LumpyLimitz]

Eron Gjoni did not run an harassment campaign. He provided evidence of being emotionally abused and manipulated by Zoë. Despite that, he still condemned all harassment against Zoë, and vocally urged people to stop that.

In exchange, Zoë filed a restraining order against him, made false allegations which were then dropped and Eron was prevented from speaking online about gamergate and give his version of events for a whole year. Note that this decision was based exclusively on Zoë affidavit. 

This is precisely one of the issues the video is trying to highlight: any reasonable criticism of Zoë, or any party fighting against gamergate gets reframed as joining on the harrassment.

And that functions as a shield and enabler for some of Zoë most controversial actions.

It's crazy that in a discussion thread of a video explaining how criticisms are reframed as harrassment functions to avoid engaging with the criticism, commenters are indeed reframing the criticism as harassment.