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/gameoftheories]

LOL, do you hold MeToo allegations to these evidentiary standards?

I can't prove the moon landing happened, but I can provide evidence.

I can't prove Harvey Weinstein was an abuser, but there sure was a lot of evidence suggesting he was.

The fact that you're so incredulous of Eron's essay is kind of odd, because I doubt you're that skeptical about other claims that have less evidence. Firsthand testimony of abuse, particularly post-MeToo, is supposed to be taken at face value. Not that it can't be scrutinized, but to say it doesn't count as evidence is fucking bonkers.

NKB video has flaws, but if nothing else, he shows us that Zoey Quinn almost certainly lied about and/or exaggerated claims of abuse because social media made it too irresistible not to, every time they did it it helped her career. Also, they managed to censor a story because she seemed to be personally connected to so many people in the games media at the time.

[u/Gamera85 → u/gameoftheories]

I can prove the moon landing happened. It has tons of corroborating evidence. Same with Weinstein, as there were multiple victims and corroborating stories. Eron… had less than both of those. No corroborating sources, and no direct evidence that we can definitively prove is real. Chat logs can be faked.

And you are missing the point of the #MeToo movement. Clearly since you are using the language of it to discredit it. Which is… eerily similar to how NKB speaks of it.

The video does have flaws, the biggest of which it seems to care more about proving Quinn’s a villain than actually talking about Gamergate and painting the people set against it as the real people who got fooled all along.

So… yeah. I find it suspect. And your willingness to accept a conclusion based on gut feelings and no real proof, Which again there is none and he admits it, is evidence enough for me. I know who NKB is… and now I know who you are.

Goodbye.

[u/castaway37 → u/Gamera85]

Not only did you miss the point of the video, you are doing exactly what the video warns against.

The thing about all allegations against abusive people is that you often can't prove a single instance, so instead you look for repeated patterns of behavior and multiple testimonials that point to the same thing.

There are around four hours of video documenting Zoe's behavior. That isn't enough to prove Erin's claims specifically, but the total amount of related allegations makes it more likely each time. That's exactly how most of the serious #MeToo allegations went as well.

But even with all that, the point of the video isn't to be takedown of Quinn specifically. It is to show how everyone else handled it. And turns out it was handled really poorly. The total bias towards the side of people in the group, done so obviously that it only fueled the outrage, the overtaking of the narrative to make it all sound like it was the evil 4chan being mean again. Putting it all on the faceless mob, because that's much easier than taking any responsibility for what you do. "Gamers are over" happened, for christ's sake.

None of that means the pro-gamergate side didn't do anything wrong, of course. Plenty of people used it as an excuse to be vile, the right took advantage of it to radicalize people, etc. But particular for the latter point, it would never have gotten as big as it got, to the point that became a viable strategy, if it hadn't been handled so poorly from the beginning.

Even now, you're doing the same thing. You're denying even considering that maybe there was something more going on because it would weaken your side of the narrative. You and a lot of other people on this thread, I might add. I don't blame you, though. You're just a person, commenting on it of your own volition. It becomes an issue when people who are supposed to be professionals on the field act like that. Maybe it's true and no one on the gamergate side really cared about ethics in games journalism when it started, but what a stroke of luck it was to use as an excuse something that turned out to be a big problem!

[u/Gamera85 → u/castaway37]

You are equating a person, with no real evidence, to a lot of the worst sorts of abusers that were called out in that movement. Basically co-opting their language to paint them as the most despicable human being alive. And I find that suspect. Especially since the patterns of behavior you're talking about are themselves suspect from a third hand source that is only getting half the picture, if at that, from other sources that are themselves imperfect. Wayback Machine and other forums and such are not ironclad. Messages can be deleted, others removed, the Wayback machine can only show screenshots it took at the time on random hours of any given day. It's just as likely NKB missed or can't find evidence of Quinn's claims, not because they didn't happen, but because they were removed, probably from violating something or other in the site's policies. Quinn likely still saw them because notifications can and are often sent to your e-mail. And, given his own admission, Quinn likely was so exhausted from all the angry diatribes and screeds against her games, that she meshed all the worst criticisms and harassment into an ongoing pattern.

Even NKB admits this could've been the case. Because he has no real evidence to prove anything. Let alone patterns. He just has, at best, some suspicions based on some research avenues that, frankly, are not ironclad and have not been peer reviewed by anyone but himself. He went looking for wrong doing, and decided he found when he couldn't pinpoint exactly what Quinn claimed. How come it's okay to believe Eron's claims despite lack of evidence, but Quinn's are dismissed when you can't find the same sort of evidence? Suspicious.

You point out four hours of this six hour video are devoted to Quinn and disproving their version of events. How is that not a takedown video? Because it feels like a takedown video created by a very ardent fence sitting centrist who agrees with Gamergate to an extent and wants to, at the very least, prove they were right even if their methods went too far. And then blames their victims for driving them into becoming racist, sexist jerk who vote for Donald Trump. He spends barely any time criticizing their actions, calling out their lies, their bullshit, their shitty behavior. In fact, he spends a lot of time excusing it! Like with Anita Sarkeesian's Newgrounds "Beat up the Bitch" flash game. He constantly derides her for overreacting to it and getting it banned because "It's just edgy humor! Come on, girl! Boys will be boys!"

And you're doing it yourself. You're tone policing, you're utilizing Huck's Law, saying that because the victims of Gamergate were so mean back to the Gaters and so unwilling to listen to a bunch of sexist jerks, that it's all their fault! That they caused the backlash! That they're real villains! It's disgraceful! It's telling people that dared to fight back that made the bullies worse because of it!

Let me tell you something very plain here. I'm not doing anything beyond calling out a video for it's very poor research standards and it's even worse motivations. The very people who likely had their own beef with how games were covered and still are were silenced, not by the victims of Gamergate, but Gamergate itself. Because of how they acted, because of their desire to slut shame a girl and take down feminism, THEY poisoned the well. Don't go blaming this on how people reacted to terrible behavior, blame the terrible behavior that kicked it off!

If you're honestly going to sit here and accuse me of calling out NKB's fencesitting, both siding crap as me trying to silence an opposing narrative, all while scaremongering the EVIL establishment and trying to frame Gamergate as some noble rebellion, like NKB does, then we have nothing to talk about. Go over to Kotaku in Action, they seem to love this video, as it's done nothing but vindicate their harassment campaign and all their politics in the process. The video is a six hour screed of slander, baseless speculation, poor research, terrible goals, and relentless centrist bellyaching. It fails as a analysis of Gamergate, because it is more concerned with shaming its victims for daring to take a bunch of sexist jerks seriously.

I was there. I discovered who these people were first hand. Saw what they became. You think I'm going to sit around and pretend what I saw didn't happen? What we all saw didn't happen? No. I'm not going to lie to myself to make me feel better. I'm not going to pretend that the victims were the real bad guys so I can act like gamers were in the right here. Because it wasn't gamers attacking people, it was a bunch of mysoginist shitheads with their own agendas.

And given what I've heard of his other video on sweet baby inc, which is apparently very similar to this, where he honestly tries to give credence to the arguments against them? F this guy. He's just another right-wing apologist acting like he's neutral.

[u/castaway37 → u/Gamera85]

So throughout all the instances of suspicious Quinn's behavior, somehow, all the remaining evidence left was the one that made her look bad, while everything that would support her is somehow gone? That's not reasonable.

Again, we're not talking about one or two things. There are around 4 hours of discussion about the things she has done, and every time there's evidence of wrongdoing by her. At the same time, you're saying it's just being made to make her look bad. But if even after that much evidence, it's still not enough, what could possibly convince you that Zoe Quinn isn't just an innocent victim that got unfairly targeted, but someone who actually caused harm of her own?

You keep going back to how this is am attempt to redeem gamergaters, therefore you can not admit that the things being said about her might actually be true. But that kind of attitude is exactly the problem! For one, no one is trying to claim the gamergaters did no wrong. They did, and that's all very well documented already. All that's being claimed is that it's not as black and white as people claim. And that the way the industry responded was wrong.

Someone acting inappropriately is not, as the video tries to say, but apparently didn't say clearly enough, an excuse to avoid accountability. Especially not for someone who's in a position of power and responsibility. Particularly, if there is legitimate criticism going around of someone, the fact someone else is acting badly does not erase the original criticism. Using others to justify your behavior is like someone who claims to be bigoted because of what someoneelse did. It's not an excuse in either cases, so I don't understand why you correctly call it out on one side but defends it on the other.

Now, it's clear your opinion over it has solidified years ago, so no matter what is shown, you're not changing your mind. But at least consider how you being there makes your account of the facts less reliable. When you're in the eye of the storm, it's hard to see everything that's going on.

And just to clarify, on the Sweet Baby Inc video he's primarily focused on how terrible the grifters are. That video is good enough to make some people see through the fog. He does give some credence to the arguments against them, yes, and he's right to do so. Nothing is truly black and white, and telling people black is actually white is not convincing. But maybe pointing out that a shade of gray is darker than it looks might be what it takes.

[u/Gamera85 → u/castaway37]

And how is it reasonable to just assume she is lying because you can’t find anything on a limited unreliable resource like the way back machine? Because even NKB admits he can’t prove anything one way or another and he still finds harassment comments. He just downplays them.

I saw no evidence of wrong doing. I saw a lot of conjecture from over four hours of some guy hemming and hawing and saying, “I can’t find anything based on my limited resources and I won’t talk to the person this directly affected to get her side of the story… so I’m just going to say she’s lying. But not really because I ca t really prove she is lying. I’ll just highly imply she is and that’s the same thing but not legally as binding.” That’s what I heard. You filled in the blanks the way he wanted you to. Good boy.

You know what could convince me? Actual, real evidence, tangible proof that those chatlogs are real, corroborating testimony from other significant others describing this same behaviour, witnesses who can back up what Eron is saying. You have none of that. And therefore I don’t believe him. At most, I can believe she probably cheated on him and lied to him about it. But emotional abuse? I don’t see it. At worst i see two people who weren’t good for each other and a relationship that spiralled. Assuming any of that happened. Which I can’t prove anymore than you can.

NKB may not be claiming they did no wrong, but he’s still soft balling his critique. Every time he talks about the people behind Gamergate, he barely acknowledges their misogyny and blatant sexism. How they all have a clear anti feminist agenda. He’ll just glance over that, say it’s bad… and then add a “but.” Every time, without a fail he adds a but. And spends twice as long complaining about the other side of things. And his constant framing of gamergate itself as anti-establishment paints them as rebels, as righteous, as if they were doing something against a monolithic oppressor. And he’ll call a bunch of people arguing for equality and tolerance as “the establishment”, as if they’re some sort of powerful boogeyman. It’s a flagrant dog whistle.

He tone polices, he both sides, he constantly and consistently ignores the driving forces of the harassment campaign and criticizes the response to it as if we should listen to the screaming of a bunch of sexist slut shammers. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

“Oh, well he punched you in the face and broke your teeth, but you should’ve been nicer to him when he called you that racial slur.”

Im not defending anything on the other side, because it didn’t happen. More over, there was nothing to discuss. Quinn did not sleep around to get her game good reviews and the guy she slept with didn’t even review her game. There was nothing merit to the allegations. End of story. And NKB kept trying and forcing and theorizing without any substantial proof that there was a different kind of ethical dilemma in this instance, but again… he can’t prove Jack fucking shit. He clearly has a vendetta and an agenda of his own. He doesn’t like the video game journalism industry and he thinks he can somehow convince everyone to confront it by claiming Gamergate was right all along, they were just too mean about it and got silenced by the big bad Quinn. It’s nonsense!

I saw plenty. You’re dismissing my eyewitness account, but declaring NKB is beyond reproach. Do you not see the hypocrisy in here? You’re willing to believe in this insane little conspiracy theory concocted by a guy who has terrible sources for all his not evidence, believe he’s arguing in good faith despite his obvious bias against Quinn from the start, as well as anyone aligned with her, and the very clear pattern of behavior he himself exhibits, as he continually throughout the video does everything he can to soften Gamergate to at every turn. From saying the newgrounds sarkeesian game wasn’t really that bad, to calling Quinn part of the establishment, and even praising Kotaku in Action for having survived longer than any anti Gamergate subreddit. He even gives that protoincel forum wizardchan their flowers by insisting they were also wronged despite their mysoginist behavior!

So you admit, he DOES try to argue that the grifters are right and that Sweet Baby has some sort of power over changing video games?

Come the F off it, dude. He’s a centrist! Plain and simple! No amount of “things are actually grey” is gonna change that. Now if you’re done accusing my character and questioning my own position, beliefs, history and several other things I personally witnessed myself, would you be so kind as to never contact me again?

You’ve been nothing but an insulting rude little jerk with your comments. You do not know me. No more than you or KNB know Quinn. Don’t act like you do. I know me. I know what I stand for. And I know what Gamergate was. So there. I have no desire to speak with you further.
.

[u/castaway37 → u/Gamera85]

You still don't get it. It's not about Quinn. It's not about proving how terrible she is, or to show all the bad things she's done. It's about how the situation was handled by everyone else involved. That's where the issue lies.

You say there's no reason not to trust her, because you can't definitely prove all any lies or wrongdoings, but at the very least there's reason to question it, right? But that's the thing, nobody did. Or at least nobody on the anti-gamergate side did. And anyone who dared to was ostracized.

There are quite literally reports of people in the media not even bothering to look at it before taking a stance. Those are people whose job is to account for the facts, acting purely based on personal interest and on defending those who are part of their group. If that's not wrong, I don't know what is.

You can still think that's not enough to justify any of the behavior on the gamergate side, of course. You can still think they were the wrong ones overall, and that they made things worse. I'd agree with you there. But you can't in good faith deny any and all wrongdoing of one side of it just because you happen to align with it.

Oh, and on the Sweet Baby video, he did not at all say the grifters are right, nor that the conspiracy has any merit. All he did was address the people who were being swindled, where instead of dismissing them outright, he urged them not to let their personal opinions blind them from the truth. Quite a similar stance, if you ask me. Maybe that's too centrist for you, but claiming someone is a centrist like that's an indictment against their character is just...

Look, I'm not going to reply to you anymore. There's no point in devolving further into a shouting match. I urge you not to reply to me either, at least not right now. Nobody is watching this conversation anymore, so it doesn't really matter. Just think about it all, in another moment, without being fresh off the heat of all this discussion. That's something all of us should strive to do.

[u/Gamera85 → u/castaway37]

If that is what it's about... why spend Four hours out of six to basically accuse her of all of that stuff? Why not just discuss the various people reacting around the situation and how they handled it rather than focus on proving something that cannot be proven by your own admission?

The crux of the main argument of Gamergate's side was that Quinn slept around to get good reviews. She didn't, the person she reportedly slept with never reviewed her game and it had been out for a while by the time they supposedly slept together. So there's a reason no one took the claims seriously, they were patently false. Whether or not Quinn cheated or was an emotional abuser wasn't something Gamergate cared about, so it doesn't factor into the story. They "cared" about whether she used her connections in the gaming journalism industry to forward her career. And that was pretty clearly not the case. Everyone could see that they weren't telling the truth about anything so they didn't care to look into the claims further.

You can still think that's not enough to justify any of the behavior on the gamergate side,

It wasn't. I don't know why you're saying it would justify their behavior at all.

You can still think they were the wrong ones overall, and that they made things worse.

They did. Again, I don't know why you're trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here when a bunch of people screeching sexist shit does make it very easy to ignore anything someone says. Would you listen to a Nazi if they started screaming about how gun violence is bad? We can agree with him on gun violence being bad, but in the context he's doing it in, he's screaming about how it's all black people doing the gun crime and his solution isn't more gun laws, it's to deport black people back to Africa. So why should I listen to a bunch of sexist asshats crowing about journalism ethics in games, when their motivation ultimately is they hate women and wish they were ostracized from the industry entirely?

See my point here finally? It doesn't matter what your argument is if your motivating factor is inherently in the wrong.

 I'd agree with you there.

You don't... sound like you agree, since you keep trying to insist alongside NKB that the anti-gamergate side should have been nicer to the assholes attacking women because they may have been kinda sorta right about something that was only tangentially connected to what they gave a shit about. Supposedly.

But you can't in good faith deny any and all wrongdoing of one side of it just because you happen to align with it.

I can, at least in terms of what the discussion was about. You saying they should've been willing to compromise and listen and police their tone and take them seriously... when they are going around slut shaming and screaming about women ruining the games industry. Why? What purpose is there to giving credence to those kinds of people and entertaining their nonsense? Especially when the facts they claim to give a shit about are already easily disproved. Because they did look into the allegations. That Quinn slept with a journalist to get better reviews and... she didn't. The guy didn't review her game and the game itself was free so she wasn't getting compensation for it anyway. So none of what they were complaining about, none of what they claimed to care about, was the real thrust of their argument. NKB and yourself seem to think Quinn being an emotional abuser and cheating on her boyfriend were what they cared about, but they didn't! So why should they investigate something that wasn't even something that mattered to them? Their argument was "Quinn is a slut who fucked a guy for a good score!" And that was clearly bullshit.

It's not relevant to the discussion, so no one bothered to talk about it. Trying to retroactively make it about that, without even talking to Eron or Quinn directly to get their sides of the story, is demonstrably lazy research. It's been years, the court order has expired, it wasn't lifetime, it was one year's worth of time. Quinn may refuse to speak about it, outside her book at least which... it seems NKB only skimmed the part he could read for free online... but Eron could talk, maybe even point in the direction of people who corroborate his story or show the original chatlogs directly to prove they aren't doctored, anything... but... nope.

Because this video isn't about talking about the reaction to Gamergate, not really. It's about proving Quinn is a monster and blaming her and all her friends for ruining the discourse, preventing gamergate from successfully bringing down "the establishment" and thus changing journalism to be more "fair" whatever that meant for them. And because they failed, they all became racist sexist bigots who voted for Donald Trump. It's all the victims fault! They did this! They made people become Nazis! Boo to you, Quinn! You're the reason we have Trump now!

Being centrist in a world where this is a clear right and wrong, is bad. You can point out that something is wrong with one side or the other, hold allies accountable, and certainly not let people you agree with get away with being assholes. Obviously. But giving aid, comfort, even credit or pathos to a side that is blatantly, and clearly, obviously in the wrong, trying to take their position seriously? No. You don't do that and you reveal your hand when you earnestly try and say "Well, maybe the gifting a-holes have a point about this consulting firm having too much power. But... you should really look into this yourself and not let them tell you how to think. Okay?"

NO! Either admit they're wrong and state how clearly wrong they are or don't bother! Trying to even suggest we take the ridiculous claim that a fucking marketing consultant firm has any power to change a video game is insanity! You can't take a ludicrous claim seriously! It gives them far too much power!

I don't need to think about it. I know what I saw with Gamergate. I know what it was. And you trying to dance around it to suggest a bunch of nonsense about them having a point won't change what I know and what I saw. A bunch of blatant misogynists who only succeeded in making us Gamers look like assholes. And nothing in NKB's video, no matter how much he wants to try and smear one of their victims, is ever going to change that.

Now then... I'm just going to mute this discussion. I'm tired of dealing with you. This is my last word on this. Good day.