[AtomicClucker]

http://archive.is/mYNOD

Take it away Salon.

Is that toxic masculinity on the horizon? Take it away The Atlantic...

http://archive.is/ERJSy

To sum up my point with these 'clickbait' articles is that the trend 'journalistically' is to start blaming, assigning other things, than simply say '****, we should mourn."

http://archive.is/QCZvb

What's that Digital Trends? Normalizing violence, oh my?!

The clickbait media is something that never realizes that people need a period of grief and rationalization, and the knee jerk reaction is to blame the usual suspects - but to be more specific - 'Clickbait' sites like the Verge and Daily Beast for example, specifically tip-toe around the fact about saying 'violence bad!" and try to push somehow self-censoring or blame the 'culture of violent video games.'

We shouldn't hesitate to call out absurdity like this - and frankly, if Gawker is a sign to anything, bad behavior on the media should be called out. Specifically, the President of E3 labelled the entire event as a tragedy, and had to emphasize that the link to violence was all but null. But it won't stop people from trying to fish for 'alternatives.'

In fact, E3 did make amends and talked a bit about the shooting - the industry did frankly respond.

But rather than deal with actual longitudinal studies, expect Regressive Pundits to engage in the "potential harm' of normalizing violence, displays of violence and usual gag of ****. It's similar to the tactic they used to whip up a frenzy about Sexism - and that's a genuine moral panic that has caused harm, branching from 'sexist' depictions to any manner of material Regressive pundits love to jump on from skin color, positioning, and well, minor things that really don't need to nitpicked, just recently Bandai Namco made it clear it would not release Summer Lesson over it the ruckus: http://archive.is/WDHXx

Hell, we've even reached the point ads are being taken down in the London Tube for being 'body-shaming,' if that wasn't a moment to scratch your head and go, really kids?

[Nemesis6]

And in spite of the above, people on the left keep pretending that the "regressive left" is an alt-right meme and/or just plain doesn't exist. Now that they're seeing their politics poisoned by these vile cretins, they are powerless to stop it because they've bought into the fear of being smeared with the same labels that the above outlets smear gamers (and now gaming in general) with.

[The E]

"regressive left" is an alt-right meme though, despite it also being real (unlike its predecessor, "cultural marxism").

[AtomicClucker]

"regressive left" is an alt-right meme though, despite it also being real (unlike its predecessor, "cultural marxism").

Alt-Right? More like Centrists from liberal and conservatives circles.

A meme it ain't/

Regressive was being tossed around well by liberal and conservative circles in 2014 and 2015. Many liberal pundits I listened to commented on the regressive policies that came to define it - and the name stuck as both liberals and conservatives could agree the extreme left was anything but progressive.

[The E]

Alt-Right? More like Centrists from liberal and conservatives circles.

A meme it ain't/

Have you been on the internet recently, because it sure is. Hell, the first time I heard the phrase was when some of the usual alt-right idiots started to use it whenever someone liberal dared to speak out against them.

Regressive was being tossed around well by liberal and conservative circles in 2014 and 2015. Many liberal pundits I listened to commented on the regressive policies that came to define it - and the name stuck as both liberals and conservatives could agree the extreme left was anything but progressive.

It's older than that, actually. Was first coined in 2012 with regards to the left's tendencies to excuse muslim fundamentalism over constructive criticism of the same; Funnily enough, the people who were seen as defining it's "legitimate" uses were holding some pretty regressive views themselves (Ayaan Hirsi Ali's call to close all mosques, for example).

The thing is, just like "SJW", the term has lost its meaning. It's now yet another sledgehammer to silence people with, and as such, no longer actually useful as a tool of criticism. Here, look at this. That's an overview of the #regressiveleft hashtag on Twitter. Take a look through it, and see how many instances of legitimate uses of the term (which, I will remind you, is about people compromising parts of the progressive vision because they conflict with other parts of it) you can find.
Then count how many instances of pathetic internet rage in the form of "Look, <person|website> said something stupid! The Left is ruined/destroying itself/a cancer" or similar messages you can find. Or, for an easier method, how often alt-right luminaries such as Sargon of Akkad or Milo Yiannopoulos are mentioned.

[AtomicClucker]

Sargon is a left-leaning liberal, though he's more Liberterian by 'Murican standards, now Milo? He's definitely a conservative. Sure he swings gay, but he's a conservative none-the-less.

Because by your standard of 'alt-right' old school liberals are now suddenly conservatives - and that would technically include very liberal minded people like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins. Last time I checked they were leftists and very critical opponents of Islam and certainly don't count as "alt-right' all the sudden.

Because one thing is apparent is liberalism is fragmented, and more crazy elements hit critical mass in 2014. And while I'll concede your right on the origins of 'regressive' being way older than my claims, there's certainly nothing progressive about this new crop of extreme leftists who seek to segregate people based on color, demand double standards, and safe spaces all the while claiming to 'represent' victims. Hell, the key difference between a progressive and regressive is victimhood - and that has more to do with the wonderful world of Andrea Dworkins than it does with actual progressivism.

[The E]

Sargon is a left-leaning liberal, though he's more Liberterian by 'Murican standards, now Milo? He's definitely a conservative. Sure he swings gay, but he's a conservative none-the-less.

Yeah, no, everything I've seen from Sargon paints him as someone who is very much a "regressive leftist", if he is indeed on the left (again, original definition: Someone who is willing to adopt non-progressive ideas in support of progressive goals).
And fact of the matter is that most of his fan community are indeed alt-right morons.

Because by your standard of 'alt-right' old school liberals are now suddenly conservatives - and that would technically include very liberal minded people like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins. Last time I checked they were leftists and very critical opponents of Islam and certainly don't count as "alt-right' all the sudden.

And dawkins also has some very strange non-progressive views that put him firmly in the "regressive left" camp in my book.

Because one thing is apparent is liberalism is fragmented, and more crazy elements hit critical mass in 2014. And while I'll concede your right on the origins of 'regressive' being way older than my claims, there's certainly nothing progressive about this new crop of extreme leftists who seek to segregate people based on color, demand double standards, and safe spaces all the while claiming to 'represent' victims. Hell, the key difference between a progressive and regressive is victimhood - and that has more to do with the wonderful world of Andrea Dworkins than it does with actual progressivism.

And the question I continually ask myself is how much of this perceived shift is actually real, and how much of it only exists because of the dysfunctional way in which the Internet shapes our opinions.
Like, the whole beginning of this thread is an example of that. For you or Luis, modern games media is something irreparably damaged by toxic influences from people claiming to be progressive. For me, as someone who is only interested in this whole culture war spectacle because it occasionally produces hilariousness when people like Dawkins, Sargon or Milo overreact to something they saw on Twitter, and who is thus not really interested in delving into all the various dramas that happened in the atheist or social justice or alt-right communities, modern games media is doing mostly fine.

[Phantom Hoover]

Then count how many instances of pathetic internet rage in the form of "Look, <person|website> said something stupid! The Left is ruined/destroying itself/a cancer" or similar messages you can find. Or, for an easier method, how often alt-right luminaries such as Sargon of Akkad or Milo Yiannopoulos are mentioned.

I don't really care if alt-right idiots are twisting valid criticisms of the mainstream left for their own crazy agendas; those criticisms are still valid and I am sick of seeing them being cheaply marginalised.

[The E]

I don't really care if alt-right idiots are twisting valid criticisms of the mainstream left for their own crazy agendas; those criticisms are still valid and I am sick of seeing them being cheaply marginalised.

True, this is something I am arguably guilty of here.

[AtomicClucker]

Well, I'm not a Sargon fan, but many of his criticisms are spot on with the self-serving loathing the regressives have flooded into the mainstream.

But my primary criticism with your arguments is your subjectively labeling them as "alt-right" when quite well they've established themselves in their own words as "liberal" or conservative.

Milo is easy to identify - he hates liberals, shotguns feminism, and rolls over them with a fabulous steamroller causing prissy kids to **** themselves on college campuses. Sargon has repeatedly established his viewpoints in more classical liberalism, and if that doesn't have "LIBERAL BASTARD" written into it, then nothing does.

[NGTM-1R]

Milo is easy to identify - he hates liberals, shotguns feminism, and rolls over them with a fabulous steamroller causing prissy kids to **** themselves on college campuses.

So he's alt-right? These are all classic indicators that someone has passed beyond traditional conservatism based in respect for existing precedent and approaching the new with healthy skepticism.

Open hostility towards progressive ideas is not a value Edmund Burke particularly endorsed. He was for the American Revolution, after all.

[Grizzly]

I geuss this is in part due to me only sampling a select few sources of games journalism, them being Rock Paper Shotgun and Cool Ghosts. And both of them follow a doctrine known as New Games Journalism, and I have been a fan of that doctrine ever since I read this.
If you're short on time I defintely recommend you read the latter link as opposed to the former.

On the whole, however, I don't really see anything noteworthy with the articles that Cluckler archived above (why do they have to be archives? They're very recent articles), as they and some of the other articles about E3's celebration of violence aren't really anything different from the If only you could talk to the monsters which was a thing way back in 1994. When I see others posting in this thread with a certain level of... vitriol I get the sense that they feel that these articles betray games somehow - which to me requires to see 'games culture' as a thing that is a lot more fragile then it actually is seeing as games journalists have written stuff like this for the past 22 years.

[The E]

On the whole, however, I don't really see anything noteworthy with the articles that Cluckler archived above (why do they have to be archives? They're very recent articles), as they and some of the other articles about E3's celebration of violence aren't really anything different from the If only you could talk to the monsters which was a thing way back in 1994. When I see others posting in this thread with a certain level of... vitriol I get the sense that they feel that these articles betray games somehow - which to me requires to see 'games culture' as a thing that is a lot more fragile then it actually is seeing as games journalists have written stuff like this for the past 22 years.

The whole archiving thing is just a passive-aggressive thing to make sure that the evil bad sites do not see ad revenue or google relevance score from getting linked (Also a way to preserve articles in their original, most offensive forms before the evil bad wrong authors post any updates or corrections that might make the original outrage look stupid).

[Luis Dias]

And dawkins also has some very strange non-progressive views that put him firmly in the "regressive left" camp in my book.

Such as?

So he's alt-right?

Yes.

The whole archiving thing is just a passive-aggressive thing to make sure that the evil bad sites do not see ad revenue or google relevance score from getting linked (Also a way to preserve articles in their original, most offensive forms before the evil bad wrong authors post any updates or corrections that might make the original outrage look stupid).

Both reasons you point out are actually good reasons and not stupid ones. If you believe certain articles are being written for outrage clickbait, then being outraged by it and linking to it will be self-defeating. At least with a link to its archive will not reinforce that kind of incentive. Also, it's good to link to something that is synchronous with what you are saying and not something that isn't there anymore, leaving the reader confused. Especially since not everyone will be generous enough to inform you of the edited changes.

[Grizzly]

Also, it's good to link to something that is synchronous with what you are saying and not something that isn't there anymore, leaving the reader confused. Especially since not everyone will be generous enough to inform you of the edited changes.

The problem is that by doing thus you are being extremely ungenerous by not informing me of any edited changes. For all we know the offending bits may have been amended with important information that further clarifies any statement made or an article may have changed a bit according to feedback. This gets especially problematic when people keep passing around an archive or copy or whatnot of something that may have since been clarified as being inaccurate.

As usual, I see a lot of references to 'clickbait', and allow me to quote RPS here (okay, you don't have to allow me 'cuz I am going to do it whether you want it or not!), but they had an article up when this fad first started:

But you ARE operating a business which relies on internet traffic. You must be posting clickbait, because that’s just how it works.

This seems like a misunderstanding, or perhaps a miscommunication. We’ve seen articles (not of this site) along the lines of “ten hottest girls in games” called clickbait, and we’ve seen serious discussions of sexism being called clickbait. There’s a contradiction there that seems to reveal a deeper confusion.

One theory behind “clickbait” goes: a site writes an article purely to cynically generate hype, being deliberately controversial or contentious such that it will infuriate people into clicking, and thus boost their hits and income. But there are some flaws with this logic.

First of all, no one has ever described an article they agreed with as “clickbait”. It’s a pejorative term used to dismiss something people are against having been written. We’ve never been accused of “clickbait” for posting news about GTA or Minecraft, for instance, which is far more likely to bait us clicks than an exploration of misogyny in 1980s arcade machines. The term is instead used to undermine an argument someone doesn’t want to see being made.

Secondly, most high revenue advertising on most gaming sites simply doesn’t work in a way that would make sense of the argument. It’s priced in advance, based on fixed fees for the site, which in turn are priced based on the overall popularity of a website. If one article has a huge spike in readers, it doesn’t earn the site any more money. For it to make a difference, a site needs to have a consistent rise in reader numbers over a long time. i.e. A site would need to “clickbait” all the time for this to be effective. And that’s where you get your Buzzfeeds and the like. RPS might post a couple of times a month on controversial issues. It doesn’t add up.

Thirdly, even if the first two points weren’t true, and they are, the idea of writing a gaming site is to get people to read it. We’re not a public service broadcaster, duty-bound by the Queen to provide “objective” gaming news to the masses. We’re a business, and our business is eyes on pages. We, at RPS, are *terrible* at this, because we dedicate a vast proportion of our site to providing detailed coverage of niche indie games that will only be of interest to at most a few thousand people. RPS is a colossally stupid failure at clickbait, sacrificing such lucrative “You Won’t Believe What Call Of Duty Did To This Child’s Face!” headlines for “Here Is A Game About A Happy Lion, Gosh It’s Obscure”. To accuse us of a systematic cynical click harvesting because we very, very occasionally write from our hearts about a subject that matters to us a great deal is plainly wrong. It is, as we said, instead an effort to undermine an argument the accuser wishes could be silenced.

[Luis Dias]

Boy am I being "ungenerous". Nevermind that "edited changes" are mostly seen only by one or two percent of actual readers of the article who have since moved on to the next IT'S SEXIST! outrage article charge du jour, I don't even regard being "ungenerous" as a crime or an offense. As far as I am concerned, people who think shirts are literally two times more important than comet landing probes should be treated as ungenerously as possible.

Regarding clickbait, please, don't tell me that journos wouldn't agree with the charges leveled at themselves. Please, oh no, what a surprise. Oh my god, I'm amazed. (BTW, that shirt article? It got shared 150 thousand times on facebook. That's not ****ing clickbait? What's ****ing clickbait then?)

[The E]

Both reasons you point out are actually good reasons and not stupid ones. If you believe certain articles are being written for outrage clickbait, then being outraged by it and linking to it will be self-defeating.

It doesn't seem to be working as intended though. The evil sites most commonly being given the archive treatment are still showing constant or increasing traffic.

At least with a link to its archive will not reinforce that kind of incentive. Also, it's good to link to something that is synchronous with what you are saying and not something that isn't there anymore, leaving the reader confused. Especially since not everyone will be generous enough to inform you of the edited changes.

True, but at the same time, the people using archived links will never actually see any corrections or updates anyway because they're (presumably) not checking the original source. All they see is the static, unchanging archive. This, IMHO, fundamentally undermines any discussion about journalistic integrity, because the only things that will make it out of the archive bubble are instances where the people doing the archiving feel vindicated by a later update in some way. Everything else gets lost, and that's just no way to have a healthy debate on these topics.

(BTW, that shirt article? It got shared 150 thousand times on facebook. That's not ****ing clickbait? What's ****ing clickbait then?)

That's the question, isn't it. Is posting something controversial clickbait? Is posting something mainstream clickbait? Is appealing to the lowest common denominator clickbait? If something gets popular, was it clickbait?

What exactly does the term mean to you?

[Grizzly]

Is Justin Bieber clickbait?

... Or is clickbait just the new 'too mainstream' but for angry people? And what have... why are we talking about shirts now?

[Luis Dias]

Both reasons you point out are actually good reasons and not stupid ones. If you believe certain articles are being written for outrage clickbait, then being outraged by it and linking to it will be self-defeating.

It doesn't seem to be working as intended though. The evil sites most commonly being given the archive treatment are still showing constant or increasing traffic.

It works personally. As in, if you're going to do a temper tantrum over a clickbaity article, at *least* you're not contributing to the whole phenomena. 99% of other people just don't care and go on on being baited.

True, but at the same time, the people using archived links will never actually see any corrections or updates anyway because they're (presumably) not checking the original source. All they see is the static, unchanging archive. This, IMHO, fundamentally undermines any discussion about journalistic integrity, because the only things that will make it out of the archive bubble are instances where the people doing the archiving feel vindicated by a later update in some way. Everything else gets lost, and that's just no way to have a healthy debate on these topics.

You're implying that internet discussions are super "healthy". They are not. They are messy. Journos *should* be aware of this and be professional themselves. All I see here in your commentary is a shift of the burden of actual ethical and professional behavior from the journos towards the readers. And that's silly. I have no deontological code of conduct for being a reader and reacting to an article I didn't like. My own codes of conduct apply to my own job, to my own profession. I try to be as professional and responsive, careful and double-checking to my own clients and tasks, not to a random article I've just read in a moment of rest.

That's the question, isn't it. Is posting something controversial clickbait? Is posting something mainstream clickbait? Is appealing to the lowest common denominator clickbait? If something gets popular, was it clickbait?

What exactly does the term mean to you?

I'm not going to start a semantic argument. The word is sufficiently well understood for you to start this kind of handwaving "qui est veritas anyway" thing to me.

Is Justin Bieber clickbait?

Yes. But that's the easy forgettable, somewhat harmless clickbait. The worse clickbait is the righteous, activisty, polarizing, blame shaming guilt tripping tribal enraging clickbait. It's dividing the world. For no other reason than clicks. I mean, the writers might think they are doing the right thing but editors know better. I do remember a famous screenshot of the Gawker working office (where Kotaku writers also worked) in which the biggest thing in the center of the room was a giant monitor screen. In it, a list of the ten most clicked articles of the day. Congrats to the top article!

"What's clickbait, amirite? ahahah"

**** that **** handwaving attitude.

... Or is clickbait just the new 'too mainstream' but for angry people? And what have... why are we talking about shirts now?

There's nothing mainstream about guilt tripping gamers for the Orlando shooting. Or guilt tripping incredible scientists for the shirts they are wearing. That is just incredible misreading on your part. It's exactly the other way around: the "geeks" have won the culture, but now apparently, the "hipsters" took over. And they are demanding everyone get on board with their morality. OR ELSE.

And the worst part is, their morality SUCKS BALLS.

[Luis Dias]

I'm still waiting to know where is Dawkins a "Regressive".