sampling all the artisan coffee I could get my throat around
This was an odd post. It’s a completely valid point about the continued deluge of feces centered around gamergate, but the entire anecdote turns the female gamer/male gamer divide into something at the level of race relations where she actively skirts around them on the other side of the street because of a fear of a new and dangerous stereotype. It’s just a really extreme reaction to anonymous online rantings and a 24/7 news cycle revving up both sides.
Is actively avoiding people in real life any sort of valid response? I understand disconnecting from twitter because of this and being sad/cynical/etc about it, but to avoid contact with people you would have previously because of vague stereotyping is a bad road.
To be fair, the thundering herd had to have failed to read the article, comprehend the article, or if they did either or both of those, failed to withstand the bullying & peerage within their own ranks & as a result made tremendous asses of themselves.
Right on - there is a difference between dealing with a problem that won’t go away if you avoid it - and avoiding people/situations that you know will cause a problem. Avoiding the first is failing to deal with life, avoiding the second is called being intelligent, or as Carlos Castaneda might say… being a warrior.
I think that was kind of her point. The whole piece had a theme of apology, for stepping away, and for choosing her personal safety over stepping into the fray. Though she doesn’t owe anybody anything, especially risking her personal safety she certainly expressed this. The fact that stepping away felt like the right thing to do for a time, though, just reinforces how difficult and dangerous the decision to “step in” has become. Taking your chances with strangers, in this new[ly uncovered to be], explosive and toxic environment, I think she can hardly be blamed for taking a few more precautions. Once bitten, twice shy…
Tumblr has a really weird and terrible comment system. You can enable comments to be made through the dashboard, and they will show up as an option for people who have been following you for a month or so. Or, you can add Disqus to your actual blog and people can comment there, but they have to be on your actual page and not on the dashboard.
Most Tumblr users probably only use the dashboard comments. Ms Day does not have those enabled as far as I know.
I’m still trying to figure out why if #gamergate is really trying to be a real thing about ethics and integrity in gaming, haven’t the ‘real’ gamers set up a website (even on tumblr or something free), post their manifesto-type-thing, even go so far as to specifically distance themselves from the ‘crazy minority’?
I suppose this is a question for most movements, but why is it that the evils - the media, the journalists - are always a monolithic ‘one’ and someone’s random article/post represents the evil whole, but when it comes to their own movement it’s not fair that we lump them all together with ‘those’ people.
Lastly, I’m going to show my age, but I’m just having a laugh trying to picture the supposed ‘real’ gamer movement having any kind of discussion on ethics using twitter’s 140 character limit.
If you had read the “Gamers are dead” article you would’ve realized that what it was about was that gamers are no longer the stereotypical white cis-male neckbeard living in his parents basement. That what it’s referring to is that gaming is now “mainstream” and is comprised of, well everyone. Men, women, POC, etc. That’s what it was referring to, it wasn’t an “attack” on gaming just on the stereotype.
It feels like you’ve missed the point of her post entirely. “Anonymous online rantings” is very much playing down the level of threats and abuse that have been aimed at some of gamergate’s targets, and it is perfectly understandable that somebody who has already had strangers show up at her house (even without being doxxed by gamergate douchebags) would be genuinely upset by all of this.
Not to speak for @funkdaddy, but I believe that was the point being made. Especially since he was pointing out the same thing to @thadboyd upthread a yonder.
Some gamers are sexist assholes. They banded together with some Anons and some right-wing fundie D-listers to run women critical of them out of their homes, and to bilk a few big tech advertisers (Intel, Adobe) into imagining they were legit for a minute by tossing around journalistic ethics and (now) bullying.
I’m still scratching my head about how playing videogames is some kind of “Identity”. Sure, they’re fun to play and to talk about, but does that somehow put me into an elite class of individuals with some kind of code of honour now?
They sound an awful lot like the tea party: over-entitled self important twits who think their ignorance is every bit as valid as your (or Sarkeesian’s) knowledge. No doubt there are dudes in the ‘movement’ who still are convinced that this is some kind of fairness issue that has nothing to do with getting laid. From outside the bubble, it’s hard to see that anything is really there.
