Comprehensively addressing the stupid, intellectually dishonest critique of Anita Sarkeesian

It’s pretty good and on point, and thoroughly debunks Thunderf00t’s argument. “But you were too busy accusing Anita of misrepresenting the game, to notice that, in fact, you were misrepresenting the game.” He goes on to show more footage from YouTube playthroughs of Hitman series games, which unmistakably illustrate Sarkeesian’s points.

EDIT: Later on, the video shows a clip of Thunderf00t ranting on why Sarkeesian has no right to feel threatened. The man is disgusting.

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Hmmm… Well, the critique of Anita Sarkeesian is indeed dishon-, err I believe disengenuous is the word we’re looking for. Disingenuousness seems to be at the heart of all political “debate”, as far as I can tell. You take a strong point, that can’t really be refuted, then connect it to the point you are actually trying to make, thus creating the illusion that the point you are trying to make can’t be refuted. Then your opponent takes a strong point, which may only be tangetially related to the original strong point, if at all, and uses that to conclude that the point you are trying to make is wrong.

Anita Sarkeesian certainly got my attention, I haven’t played any of these games in question, and I had no idea that there was so much violence against women being graphically depicted in today’s games. I found some of the footage shocking. Strong point. She lost me with her conclusions though. Being undeniably correct about some things doesn’t mean all your thoughts are correct.

I wouldn’t really need to express my opinion about this at all(and honestly, I guess I don’t really need to, because who cares what some ape thinks) but unfortunately, only the asses making videos and death threats are presented as dissenting opinions.

While I would describe myself as sympathetic to just about all the causes that would be described as “left” politically, but I am completely fed up with the tactics and rhetoric surrounding these ideas.

disingenuous: Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

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I have wondered about this as well–that you see the worst kind of misogyny in video/computer games, but the gamer demgraphic is often stereotyped as socially awkward with little chance to date the women that appear in these games. I wonder if this hatred towards women–this indulgence in the violent abuse of women is not in small part based on resentment and kind of a immature, childish anger directed at these “hot women” that in real life will not give the majority of these male gamers the time of day (kind of takes you back to Shermer High School in “The Breakfast Club”).

I just don’t see this level of violent misogyny/degradation of women in the subculture of sports and other predominantly male subcultures outside the “geeky” ones (rape when it occurs is still considered wrong)–there, men may be as sexist, but with real relationships with women men tend to recognize that their wives and girlfriends are human beings.

Off topic: If you ever run a master class on how to have spirited debate on touchy subjects without hulking out, I’ll be the first to sign up.

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It turns out that #GamerGate was being coordinated by a group on 4chan. Zoe Quinn was lurking on their IRC channels and logged their planning; she’s just been posting it on Twitter.

Here it is on Storify.

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also http://www.examiner.com/article/gamergate-revealed-as-misogynist-and-racist-movement-from-4chan

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When I and others tweeted about this, the remaining GamerGate hashtag enthusiasts–their numbers depleted by the well-documented revelation of 4chan users’ manipulative involvement

Numbers depleted? What are you talking about?

http://topsy.com/analytics?q1=%23gamergate&via=Topsy

It seems to still be going strong.

Don’t let that fool you. Sock puppet accounts and burner accounts now dominate the effort, often tweeting identical or similar things. Before Zoe Quinn released the IRC transcripts and other data, I would get myself (and see in response to other people’s tweets) a large array from several to dozens of clearly unique individuals who had more than a handful of followers and accounts that weren’t just created. Afterwards, it has almost entirely switched to semi-automated responses or attack strategies.

The ferocity is down, too. Maybe people are talking about it with each other, but the attack profile has changed significantly and noticeably.

Moved to the existing GamerGate topic from here: The Lottery at XOXO 2014

Glenn can likely answer that, and I haven’t been following it closely. That said, near the outset, GamerGate was a big-tent thing whose participants saw it as a culmination of longstanding ire at enthusiast-press sleazery such as junkets and advertiser influence. When the “4chan” stuff was exposed, though, it made it look like the whole thing had been promoted to cover (and justify) attacks upon feminists in gaming, and to scapegoat them for the soft-corruption allegedly widespread in the biz. So while I don’t doubt that the volume of hashtag use has remained high, it became less a nascent scandal and more a partisan rallying cry among people who are comfortable with that association.

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Considering Twitter is one of the only places that hasn’t been mass-deleting comments and threads about gamergate, is it any wonder that there would be a lot of newly-created twitter accounts? People are angry. They’re especially angry that the issue keeps getting described as being about sexism when they’re talking about corruption in games journalism.

The first tweet with the hashtag #gamergate was posted by Adam Baldwin on August 27. What seems to have really blown it up though are the number of articles declaring gamers to be dead as an identity on August 28. Who thought that was a good idea?

I think what’s changed in recent days is a reporter (ok, he works for Breitbart, but he’s British and gay so he’s not a Tea Partier or anything) had a bunch of emails from a private Google Group leaked to him. The group is called GameJournoPros and it’s supposed to be “a semi-private way to connect and talk” according to its founder Kyle Orland of Ars Technica. Here’s the first Breitbart article covering it (warning autoplay video):

Here’s Kyle Orland’s apology post (reading between the lines I’m getting the impression someone higher up at Ars Technica was really not happy about that mailing list):

Here’s another Breitbart article talking about who’s on the mailing list (with more autoplay video):

I don’t think it was really. I think people had at least a general idea that advertisers and publishers influence gaming press in an unhealthy way. That’s been going on since gaming press was a thing. There’s a difference though between a big publisher throwing some money at Gamespot for favourable reviews and the sites playing favourites with indie projects.

I won’t even pretend to understand 4chan users, but a group of them raised a bunch of money for that Fine Young Capitalists Indiegogo campaign. That group seems to be pretty clearly feminists. Some 4chan users might be doing it for the lulz, but I think it’s more about being ignored.

If you want to talk about attacks, the guy who wrote those Breitbart articles got a bunch of toilet paper delivered to his house last week (3-ply with aloe, I guess for soothing butthurt). Then on Saturday he got this in the mail:

This is the softest sell at a steaming pile of bullshit that I’ve seen so far. I don’t know whether to congratulate you or waste my time explaining how you’re using derailing tactics.

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You brought up the topic. I’ve just been paying attention to what complaints people have had in regards to gamergate. Ignoring those complaints and dismissing the story as just something from 4chan is why it’s still being talked about so much.

Naw, you just brought up a bunch of ridiculous and discussed it in a tone that offers the patina of reason, where none exists. This is the same nonsense being peddled elsewhere with less sophistication; it doesn’t make it any more accurate.

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I do believe that there are people who are honestly concerned with corruption in games journalism, but it’s pretty hard to taken them seriously when the single event they chose as their catalyst and rallying point had sweet fuck-all to do with corruption and everything to do with a thin excuse for misogyny and slut-shaming.

Corruption in the gaming press is very real and has been for ages, but nobody seemed to think that any of the actual, in-your-face corruption was worth starting a movement over. Remember when Eidos got Jeff Gerstmann fired from Gamespot for giving Kane & Lynch a bad review? Remember how people grumped about it in comment threads for two weeks and then completely forgot about it?

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There is certainly a difference between those two things. It’s weird to even talk about the idea of “playing favourites” in reviews since reviewers are there to tell us which things are their favourites. If a reviewer likes different things than you, then it’s probably best not to take that reviewer’s word on what’s good, but I don’t see how that’s even related to taking money from big publishers to write nice reviews for them.

I’m not sure what you are trying to express here.

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That Breitbart article claiming that the existence of an email list for game journalists is evidence of a conspiracy, is ridiculous on its face. But on looking into it a bit more, what really jumps out at me is Ben Kuchera’s involvement. Ben Kuchera, when working at Ars Technica, wrote some very good articles documenting corrupt practices in game journalism. And this was real corruption: big game publishers sending gifts to game reviewers, hosting lavish parties to announce new games, and exacting retribution on the careers of gaming journalists who gave their games negative reviews. Also, Ben Kuchera left Ars Technica shortly after he published a review of Duke Nukem Forever, in which he described its extensive, brutal misogyny, and its complete lack of any real creativity or other virtue. There was an enormous flamewar in the Ars Technica forum thread for that article, with a lot of the all-too-familiar condemnations of any hint of social consciousness in a game review.

It’s clear that what Breitbart really finds scandalous is that there are gaming journalists with progressive ideals, and who will critique games and the gaming industry from that perspective – and, horror of horrors, they talk to each other. That’s not corrupt, it’s not unethical, it’s not a conspiracy, and it’s not even mildly surprising.

At worst, by Orland’s account, he suggested to the list that game journalists counter sexism by highlighting a game Zoe Quinn had produced – a suggestion he later concluded was inappropriate, and withdrew. He had no power over the other subscribers on that list. That’s no conspiracy, and it’s not comparable to the group of 4chan users planning a campaign of lies.

EDIT: Oops. I hadn’t decided how to finish the sentence at the end of the first paragraph, and I’d left it incomplete.

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The breitbart stuff is interesting in that it is quite honest about it being all about attacking feminists. It made gamergate more political and marginal (and easier for most folks to ignore), but also much more intense for those who went in the deep end.

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