The problem will begin with any type of dissection regarding any of the memes or events mentioned and referenced. The meme is about what happened with ‘daily dose’- mainly about being a ‘trigger’ for the horrific events of ruined childhood characters.
For example: The origin of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s ‘Watch out, we have a bad ass over here’ is a clip from him reacting to the intelligence of Newton. If an article came out tomorrow stating ‘DeGrasse meme actually about Newton mathematical prowess at young age’ you would look at with raised eyebrow… as I am with this article.
Yeah, but what other hashtags has this happened to? Did a bunch of neo-nazi’s start making death threats against anyone who complained about the #YOLO tag? Did terrorists organize to make rape threats against people who posted negative things about #TwitterIPO?
Suppose the former did happen and neo-nazi’s were making attacks based on the use of the #YOLO hashtag, do you think there would be a large group of people who were adamant about continuing to use the hashtag - even as it became associated in popular culture with racism? If there were such people, would we be wringing our hands about how we had no reason to think they were racist?
I’ll admit, the worldview I’m espousing definitely opens the door for a targeted campaign by a group to ruin a hashtag by making threats under its banner. Somehow that doesn’t keep me up at night.
It doesn’t say ‘actually about’ it says it contains a reference to. If an article tomorrow say, “DeGrasse meme implicitly referencing Newton” then I would just nod in agreement. Yes it is.
It’s easy. The majority of the narrative and conversation does not involve the people hurling attacks and threats… it’s just as childish and prone to ad hominem ‘gotcha’ phrases that both GG and anti-GG proponents have succumbed to now. In fact, I would go as far as to say the anti-GG crowd are more inclined to harass than the latter… as of recent.
The focus and intrigue from the reporting perspective is more appealing and easy to contextualize. The actual number of harassment is sporadic and low, and also no threat to Wu, Sarkeesian and the like have actually used the hashtag- or proven to be part of the movement… although the implied association is not entirely dishonest.
For serious? @MBD has done an excellent job reviewing the things gamergate actually concerns itself with, for instance here and here. It is basically entirely about the women who have been harassed and threatened, famously started with an attack on one of them, and every success it has claimed has been in silencing or denying advertizing to them or its critics.
So sorry, yet another account that only joined just in time to defend gamergate and will never be seen again, but the idea that it has any separate existence from that seems to be unjustified fiction.
Oh my! There are numerous examples! It even has its own name: hashtag hijacking… they usually involve some massive cooperation trying to force a trend (like McDonald’s #McDstories) but for closer similes, there is anything by Ann Coulter, #nypd, #prevention, #obamacare etc.
Also, there is no referencing or implication of Tyson’s meme other than the ‘oh snap’ hand gesture! Please explain
No need to play hypotheticals with this one. Consider the swastika symbol, which was an auspicious one in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism for centuries before the Nazis picked it. Yet other than a few crazies like the Theosophical Society and Raelians, nobody in the western world insists on continuing to use it and acting like it’s a completely innocent symbol. If someone puts 卐 in his Twitter profile, I’m not going to assume it’s because he’s a deeply religious Raelian.
And of course, claiming innocent use of #GamerGate is even less plausible than claiming innocent use of the swastika, because GamerGate started out associated with abuse.
Yeah, hashtags get hijacked all the time. McDstories is a great example. So tell me, is McDonalds still promoting that hashtag? Is in on their website or their tweets? No, because it was hijacked.
Ignoring the fact that gamergate began as an exercise in misogyny and so there was nothing to hijack, and accepting the narrative that it was hijacked, it’s been hijacked. Get out! Why aren’t people getting out?
Um, let’s see, every time I see it I’ll think about Newton now. So, yes, that’s a reference. And if it was consistently used by hotdog vendors to the point that everyone talked about it as that “Tyson Hotdog thing” then it would be a reference to hotdogs, even if I continued to use it another way. References!
You don’t understand censorship. I’ve censored comments as a board moderator. I’ve censored images. I’ve censored videos. I’ve censored, for what I hope were good reasons.
Censorship is not the complex beast you think it to be. Censorship is simply the suppression of expression. Yes. Removing Piccolo-dick is censorship. Removing spam is censorship. Burning the books of an author you disagree with and locking them in a gulag is also censorship. The existence of censorship is not something any sane individual should be concerned about. Rather it is the unique qualities of specific acts that we should be concerned about.
Much of the upset driving Gamergate, from what I’ve seen around the net, had to do with 4chan banning discussion of the subject matter–and banning honest discussion of a subject is far more offensive to a free and open internet than any ten offensive images you could come up with. It is this censorship which the green and purple color scheme is probably aimed at.
Presuming that the original poster is correct, and that the colors are an intentional reference to Piccolodick, then their use isn’t really that offensive. Rather than being a riotous celebration of glorious cartoon homosexual interspecies romance, the use of purple and green would be the artistic equivalent of flipping the bird to 4chan as if to say “Hey, fuck you…with spacedicks!”
Is there actually an anti-GamerGate crowd/group? All I’ve seen is a bunch on non-affiliated individuals who were against a certain type of GG behavior and harassment that is prevalent enough to not be a fringe anomaly of the group. These same non-affiliated people are against those actions no matter who commits them regardless of “sides”. Granted this is just the perspective of one outsider, but that is how things appear to be to me as an outsider.
No one I’ve heard is FOR corruption in game journalism, or against what GG claims to be for…at least I haven’t seen that argument made anywhere. GGs “cause” seems to be completely unopposed. No one I’ve heard is for attacking GG’ers or for committing the same heinous actions of harassment against them in retaliation, although i don’t doubt that this has happened.
The thing people are against are the things that anyone, even someone who associates GG, should be vocally opposed to, but that just hasn’t been happening, instead all i see is numerous justifications based on the negative actions of the other side, redirected arguments, claims of invalidation of perspective, etc. Those sorts of arguments/actions are essentially supporting the negative actions of GG’ers since they are deflecting the criticism of some pretty heinous behavior, instead of rooting out and holding accountable those group members engaged in such heinous behavior, which is what any legitimate group would try and do.
Like I said, this is the perspective of a complete outsider, but that is my 2 cents. cheers.
The green and purple color scheme which represents the anal rape gif,
The anal rape gif, about which people who were guests on someone elses website acted like resentful little entitled jerks.
There are several definitions of censorship, sure, I agree with you there, but freedom of the press is born from the ownership of the press, not from whining untill someone greases your squeak.
The manners required to have a seat at the table are not oppressive, and it seems a lot of folks on one side of the discussion lack them.
This pointless fight over definitions has gotten to the point where people are pretending to be stupid so they can further enjoy a pointless fight over definitions.
Any more off-topic sophistry about censorship will be, haha, “censored”
But apparently protesting the censorship of graphic sexual content posted randomly on a website that doesn’t feel like allowing that is something that we should admire the protest of?
4chan banned gamergate because there were too many raid calls coming from gamergate threads. They were told to stop and they didn’t. At some point it was just too much. They were banned from 4chan because of the tendency of people in those threads to disrupt other people’s conversations intentionally with off-topic conversations. Maybe if they were banned from another site you could speculate the ban was motivated by their choice of topic, but on 4chan? Come on. When I saw that they had been banned I was flabbergasted. There is much worse crap on 4chan than some gamergate discussions. It wasn’t until I understood the specific rules that were broken that it made any sense. When people say “gamergate was too toxic for 4chan” that’s just not true at all, they just broke the rules too many times. Anyone protesting that “censorship” (you can call it that or not, it really doesn’t matter) is being petulant rather than admirable.
I think we may need to agree to disagree about what gamergate is about. I think the beginning was on Aug 28th, when published articles calling for an end to the “gamer” cultural identity, including The Financial Post, Ars Technica, The Daily Beast, The Stranger, Beta Beat, Gamasutra, Polygon, Kotaku, etc. the subsequent signed open letter to the gaming community from the collective was the final seed sewn…
Also, most hijackings are not abandoned, they can be ‘brought back on track’ as with #prevention, #obamacare, #cairo, etc. or take a life of their own like #nypd… I don’t think one anecdote negates an example.
Also, most people don’t associate Tyson’s meme with Newton… sorry. Besides, there are numerous other examples of which the reaction or the fallout of an event becomes the meme, not the event itself.
I like this question. I really believe that there is a competitive personality type which aggregates perceptions of opposition and resistance into a theorized organized opposition to an individuals goals. Making up a bogeyman to struggle against, to triumph over, even if it’s all in their own head.
It would be a form of extreme self-centeredness, to believe the universe gives a crap about your ideals more than your actions, yeah?
