A light overview:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gamergate-revealed-as-misogynist-and-racist-movement-from-4chan
the level of harassment that some folks have received is quite, well, nasty to the point of illegal.
I had great fun upsetting the internets the other day when I pointed out how unpleasant most gamers are. “Most” as in “most of the ones that contact us in some way”. The harassment various people received is most certainly criminal in many nations. I decided the best way to deal with both bunchs of people involved was to completely ignore all of them and just get on with making games.
Worst thing that ever happened to the internet was allowing any old git to speak his mind on it. Including this post.
Cas 
But there are also some people also take a civilized route: http://www.patreon.com/thesarkeesianeffect
Cas: But this is about about more aggressive tactics. Bombarding women’s email and social media accounts with more than just offensive language, but stalking/rape/death threats…reports of posting children porn images, attempting to hack e-mail and bank accounts. And anyone that speaks out against it might become a target as well. At least one male developer is throwing in the towel:
I don’t have any opinion about either Phil Fish, Anita Sarkeesian et al. But they don’t deserve to be attacked like this.
Oh, absolutely. I’ve been peripherally involved in it trying to stay out of it. It’s mostly “kids” (which is the generic term I used to describe anyone younger than me) on both sides.
Really there should be some actual criminal investigations.
Cas
I personally feel the issue is deeper than just “gaming” or the internet, but more about social tropes on how to deal with dissenting opinions.
The internet, and the relative “youth” of “gamers” (both as individuals and as a social group) exacerbates these attitudes, but loudly badmouthing others to the point of issuing threats and heinous remarks can be found in pretty much any environment.
Just look at the crap that goes on with political pundits on the U.S.A. (Yes, I’ve been watching a lot of Colbert recently).
I guess gaming culture is being used as a shield in this instance, as an excuse to get all worked up, so those offended can claim that someone is attacking “their values”…
When the only thing going on, and the thing people can’t accept, is that other people are in disagreement, and voice their opinions.
I think this is the first time I’ve spoken my mind about this issue. :clue: Possibly because, regardless of how it might seem to those “in the fray”, the rest of the world doesn’t give a crap about the whole “gamergate” thing, which makes it even sadder that so many are throwing so much hate around.
If it were just kids (or kid-like-adults) it would be one thing. But it’s not. The more striking bits of this chain of events was hatred coming from industry insiders. And sure it’s not limited to games. What’s kinda weird is that women in all kinds of professions that require higher education to enter face this kind of thing from equal well educated males. But of course it isn’t just women either.
I dont really see that Roquen. In my experience in most first world countries, women in STEM career are actually sought after and not cast out.
Also your Phil Fish example shows how it can be just the same with men.
Sarkeesian is not hated because she is female, She is hated because she is an extremist on the internet producing content and shouting loud about this topic.
If she was male, it would be just the same. As apparent by Phil Fish: If you talk shit publicly, people will call you out.
If you express strong (political) opinions, loudly on the internet; even worse.
If someone produces a lot of like right winged content, maybe well produced, articulate, gets a lot of attention, but still radical and extremist, that person would get death threats as well.
Reason is people can not believe, let alone accept that someone so hateful is getting all this attention and might poison some uneducated ignorants. And this manipulation makes them angry.
Other people don’t care because you can’t change anything anyway or simple because it’s all just bickering anyway, pointless internet rambling on top of that.
And some people simply disagree but defend freedom of speech and therefore stay more or less neutral, that would be totalbiscuit for example.
WARNING: Purposefully provocative and devil’s advocate mode.
Yeah but I didn’t say that did I? We can ignore most of non “first world” countries since on average livestock has more rights than women.
Studies show that women are stronger in math & hard science then men at the pre-university level. Genetic? Probably not…it’s more likely that girls are pushed to study more in early years then boys. Coupled with the fact that girls tend to mature faster. University admission of women into these fields is drastically lower then men. I went to a math/science only university (the 80s) and it was approximately 4:1 ratio. Again cultural and I’d guess that current numbers are going to be similar. You add into the mix that a fair number of marriages result from couples that meet at university or at work and on average it’ll be the male that will take the lead role on job placement and the women will have to take what she can find, regardless of whom is the stronger candidate. Not saying that’s a bad call…it’s on average the winning choice. So women in math/science should be thrilled because they’re not generally and effectively black-listed? Or because the wage and promotion gaps is less than other fields? Women aren’t bombarded with various forms of sexual harassment, including the often overlooked passive kind of “puppy jumping and peeing on them”? I think very few men understand how hellish the puppies must be.
Yeah I said the real problem isn’t women, they’re just a single case.
I don’t watch videos so I wouldn’t know.
I’m of the humble opinion that “even worse” isn’t a valid form of discourse.
Same reasoning as before…not valid form of discourse.
Because we’re humans. We hate by nature.
- Jev
I avoided the Sarkeesian videos when they first came out based on comments like this one.
When I finally watched them a couple of weeks ago I was quite surprised. The videos are smart, funny, nicely made, well argued, and (most shockingly of all) they don’t actually say anything controversial.
Yuppers. They are bog standard literary criticism applied to games. About as controversial as breathing.
The reaction to them was childish, stupid, boorish, ill-educated and entirely predictable. The problem is that literary criticism is usually consumed by academics who are interested in discussing themes in art. In this case, a bunch of people who are too stupid to understand it watched the series (or more likely got a half-baked opinion second hand from someone else who actually watched one) and figured that their sandpit was being pissed in by a big nasty bully. Which is… indescribably wrong and muddle-headed.
As for Cas: man I loved your tirade. Reading it, I was getting pissed off part way through, but I got your point in the end and it certainly did make for a perception shift as your point about the worth of individual customers sank in.
You were way more provocative than Sarkeesian so I hope you’ve not had your family threatened, bomb threats et al?
Few humans have internalized values that would prevent them from acting in a nasty way to others if there were no consequences attached.
Most humans need some form of social or legal control to function decently towards other. In any situation where social control breaks down (e.g. war, anarchy, the anonymous interwebs) large groups of humans turn into violent mindless beasts. See any war situation in the past centuries and any situation in which one human gets too much power over other humans (e.g. child abuse, sects, police brutality).
The positive side in all this is that somehow we as a species manage to put systems into place (democracy, justice, …) that helps control human behaviour and make us generally act nice to each other.
[quote=“kaffiene,post:12,topic:50861”]
Agreed, it’s a pleasure to read Cas’s writings!
I got various threats of violence and wishes of death in several unpleasant ways but nothing I’m frightened of. Apart from having a thick skin… I’m apparently quite scary in real life compared to the average keyboard warrior Being a 6ft 14 stone hairy arsed biker with broken front teeth helps.
It’s a bit of a shame so many people utterly misunderstood the post but it was what I expected. I notice how the followup post which explains it all got zero attention, confirming my suspicions about the way the internet works.
Cas
There have been some people that have overreacted a bit. But to be honest, mentioning academics discussions and the sarkeesian videos in one sentence is a bit of a joke to me. While the topic surely would be interesting, those videos are innaccurate and very narrow sighted. Anita manages to show up the things she deems wrong but basically leaves out things that don’t fit into her world view.
Seriously, have you watched some of the videos? In hitman, the goal is to murder innocent sexualized women, drag them around and put them in a box. The dragging mechanics have been implemented solely to satisfy mans need to overpower women.
But what would you expect. She has probably not played one of the games she analyzed. She reminds me very strongly of one of my old teachers. She was absolutely no fan of gaming and we had to read and analyze many articles why games are bad. In some of the articles was stated that the goal of counter strike is to kill innocent people, you get extra scores when destroying the baby stroller (wtf,i don’t even know how they couls get that idea).
But this is mainly my problem with anita. People start referencing those videos and some people take everything sh says for granted. I am happy when people speak out about this. Many see their culture threatened by someone who wants to impose her own morals on a scene, she isn’t even part of nor is willing to understand.
To me she is a joke, a liar, a button pusher, and probably even a fraud who prometes her agenda in a very immoral fashion and I believe that she even provokes those reactions, because there are enough gullible people who fall for the trap and give her huge support, just because she has been bullied. Worked very good for her kickstarter…
Just my 2 cents…
That’s the understatement of the year.
That’s what I think about a significant portion of the planet’s population…so what?
I wouldn’t know about Sarkeesian myself having not really got the time or inclination to watch her videos but if her general sentiment is that women’s portrayal in video games is shit then I agree, and I support feminism with absolute conviction*. I also have a general distaste for the huge increase in graphic violence in video games though, and that’s never a popular view, but I can put that unpopular view right there alongside by utter contempt for the availability of firearms to the public in certain countries.
Cas
- This is because I actually know what feminism is, unlike it would seem, most of the internet. Of all** sexes
** Seems in the last 20 years there has been an unexpected explosion in the number of sexes we have to accommodate.
It’s not really games. It’s all popular media. News has become entertainment and entertainment has been (on average) moving toward the lowest-common-denominator. Chicken-and-egg problem of perceptions about what sells and market creation by default if you follow me. Numbers are like 1 in 10 are gay. The vast majority of gays ya don’t know unless they they clue you in. The vast majority of gays in media are the flaming extravagant kind. The vast majority of murders are by people known to the victim…not the impression you get from the news, because most murders are boring. I know very few excellent programmers or scientist that fit the projected mold, etc. etc.
That said, it’s probably blown right out of proportion. Of all the games released last year, you could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many depict women poorly… or even at all. A pretty large majority of games don’t even feature people. It’s easy to take potshots at titles that are hugely marketed in the limelight that fit a particular mould.
Cas