[The E]

Sorry to say this, Vega, but @Spacekatgal links to Brianna Wu's twitter account. That isn't an alt account someone created, but an actual thing.

[Luis Dias]

There have been lots of really well made twitter fakes recently, and I think Vega may well be on to something here. I also retweeted something that a Salon reporter said about Sam Harris that was blatantly anti-semitic. It was the blatantness of it that made me go waittaminutehere, and indeed it was a fake twitter handle and also a very good one. I instantly deleted it and urged @Gurdur to do the same when he screenshotted a lot of these same tweets.

I will be more careful in the future, yes.

[The E]

Now, there is an issue where Brianna Wu's twitter account apparently got taken over for the time period in which the now-deleted tweet fell. So it could very well be trolling.

[Mr. Vega]

Sorry to say this, Vega, but @Spacekatgal links to Brianna Wu's twitter account. That isn't an alt account someone created, but an actual thing.

That is her name, and it's always displayed with an uppercase s when she posts. That shot would contain be the only time I've ever seen it with the s lowercase. Add that to the fact that that l could have likely been replaced with uppercase I and I'll bet my life that account is a fake. She may have also been hacked, but this is a straight up framejob.

I informed the original poster and he now claims the post was fabricated "to incite gg and anti-gg against each other." I'm sure he's telling the truth.

[Luis Dias]

Isn't the "original poster" a woman? And where did you get this confession? Links?

[Mr. Vega]

Isn't the "original poster" a woman? And where did you get this confession? Links?

The guy you retweeted, not the creator.

[Grizzly]

Because why not escalate the war? I mean, if it provides clickbait

Just FYI: advertisers don't advertise *per click*. They advertise on a monthly average of your users. This is for two reasons: It prevents them from overspending due to temporary things, and most people who visit a website for one article don't tend to look at the advertisements all that much (they do need to sink in, after all). The only thing "Clickbait" does is put load on one's server infrastructure for no gains (unless there is retention, but "baited" people don't retain)

[Mr. Vega]

And this mudslinging isn't being done on 4chan or 8chan

Did you really just say that? Did you miss all the 8chan posts calling for Quinn's suicide, or the constant doxxing of her there, or even the post claiming that "Ghandhi became a martyr, but Malcolm X didn't, and we need to take her out before it would make her a martyr"? There was even a thread there about planning to camp out ON HER FRONT LAWN. The volume of it is incredible. Maybe some critics just aren't fans of this? Even Rob Florence has condemned gg in far harsher language than Alexander ever used. That doesn't make you pause?

No, what you're doing is tripping into a fallacy where journalists who have to append their name to what they say can be condemned, but whatever horrible things get said with or without gg tags get to hide behind the veil of anonymity. Whatever a GGer says, the movement doesn't have to own it, but the media is held collectively responsible for every word because they can't hide behind that veil. To pretend you don't have to deal with this fact is garunteed to produce an absurd conclusion.

[The E]

Sorry to say this, Vega, but @Spacekatgal links to Brianna Wu's twitter account. That isn't an alt account someone created, but an actual thing.

That is her name, and it's always displayed with an uppercase s when she posts. That shot would contain be the only time I've ever seen it with the s lowercase. Add that to the fact that that l could have likely been replaced with uppercase I and I'll bet my life that account is a fake. She may have also been hacked, but this is a straight up framejob.

I informed the original poster and he now claims the post was fabricated "to incite gg and anti-gg against each other." I'm sure he's telling the truth.

Huh. You're actually right. My apologies for being gullible.

[Luis Dias]

I'm really skeptical to that whole paragraph there Joshua. You make it sound as if "clickbait" is some sort of conspiracy theory that some nutcase just made up. It isn't. The whole internet is filled with it. Now, you can make the case that most of these news sites operate in that alternative fashion, and that's a better state of affairs no doubt about that, but what are really the algorithms in place here? I'd say that if the algorithm in place is a crude "average" of monthly users, then clickbait still stands supreme as a good technique.

But whatever, that is still a minor point. We are still facing a crisis here. Journalists are getting shredded by the economics of their industry which is the perfect ground for nasty incentives to come into play, be them clickbait or other unethical practices.

And this mudslinging isn't being done on 4chan or 8chan

Did you really just say that? Did you miss all the 8chan posts calling for Quinn's suicide, or the constant doxxing of her there, or even the post claiming that "Ghandhi became a martyr, but Malcolm X didn't, and we need to take her out before it would make her a martyr"? There was even a thread there about planning to camp out ON HER FRONT LAWN. The volume of it is incredible. Maybe some critics just aren't fans of this? Even Rob Florence has condemned gg in far harsher language than Alexander ever used. That doesn't make you pause?

I'm really sorry if you were unable to read what I said. What I said was that the mudslinging I was speaking of was not the work of sites like 4chan or 8chan, but were actually the product of professional journalists. I did not mention the other gruesome work being done by 4chan et al because... that's what happens in 4chan et al day in day out. There's one reason why I don't even visit those sites, they are a window to the most profound nightmares of our id and I want none of it.

No, what you're doing is tripping into a fallacy where journalists who have to append their name to what they say can be condemned, but whatever horrible things get said with or without gg tags get to hide behind the veil of anonymity. Whatever a GGer says, the movement doesn't have to own it, but the media is held collectively responsible for every word because they can't hide behind that veil. To pretend you don't have to deal with this fact is garunteed to produce an absurd conclusion.

I don't ascribe to an anonymous poster at a site like 4chan the same kind of standard that I do apply to an article piece at the Verge, for reasons that should be so gargantually obvious that it shouldn't be needed for anyone to refer to. Perhaps someone is really pissed off and just wants to vent, unaware of the nasty effects of such practices, perhaps someone needs an anger management, perhaps someone is indeed a real psycho and wants these people murdered. These people exist, whether anyone likes it or not. To refer to the nasty of the nasty and claim that all sensible people are condoning these people because they share the same hashtag is adding several logical fallacies on top of each other, quite frankly. And a disgusting typical political practice of silencing manipulation.

Do you support gamergate? Why are you such a mysoginist piece of crap? It's all I've been reading you say, and I think it's a real dumb perspective. Harrassers are not gamergaters, they are harrassers and should be called on it. Doxxers or abusers are doxxers or abusers and should be called on it. Practice this compartimentalization on your confrontations and you'll be in a much better position. You'll even have gamergaters actually paying attention to what you might say!

[Grizzly]

Listening or reading the very media that is under fire and criticism from gamergate is not necessarily the best way to get accurate unbiased information. That's part of the problem, actually. If all the media had been fair in its representation from the get go, this would have been defused right at the start of it. Instead, they thought they could get away with using their megaphones to insult and defame a big chunk of their own audience.

Wait sorry.
Where does, say, Rock Paper Shotgun, insult their audience?

All we hear is how Anita or Wu are being harrassed and not one single digital pixel about how ggs are being harrassed. All we hear is how gamergaters are bad. The narrative must hold: Gamergate are the Orcs from Mordor that must be crushed by the shining knights of humanity. The big paradox here is that by being so selective in their sources and stories they tell, the media is further establishing their own corruption in the minds of gamergaters. They have lost objectivity and fairness. It's a battle between news organizations and the very audience, who are in their own way trying to get alternative sources of information.

Hey, I get slack from GGers as well, as it happens. They talk about "How Zoe Quinn used her connections to publicize her game and shut down 2 game jams!" and how Anita Sarkeesian lied and is not a gamer and how Brianna Wu calls people ****ing aspie's. You know - All of it bull****. Like it or not, this is how gamergate represents itself.

You can moan and whine about how the mainstream media is misrepresenting gamergate. They're not. Gamergate is misrepresenting itself. And untill the reasonable gamergaters can find a solution on this problem, if they indeed actually exist (and aren't here because of some ex boyfriends revenge campaign and all that shizzle), this will continue.

[Mr. Vega]

There seems to be an attempt in some quarters to make the word 'Gamer' have a negative, derogatory meaning of 'being homophobic, misogynistic and violent'

Sigh. It all comes back to Alexander's article doesn't it? Notice in the title of her article, the word 'gamers' are in quotation marks. There is a reason for this. 'Gamers' in that article, which you will see if you read it all the way through, refers specifically to a generation of males who grew up considering gaming their personal domain in an era of virtually zero diversity completely dominated by AAA. The specific group of males that now feel threatened by the intrusion of indie games they don't understand, writers and fans who call out sexism everywhere in the industry. Going foreward being a gamer won't refer to an isolated obsession with games alone, any more than people obsess over their identity of being movie lovers. Gaming is leaving its ghetto, and they cannot handle this. Why did Alexander call these people 'gamers'? BECAUSE GG IS DECLARED TO BE A GAMER MOVEMENT. She took the specific meaning of the word 'gamer' as used by them (whether they admit it or not), and declared it dead. So no, I don't think she was smearing gamers, by which I mean all of us who have displayed great interest in games and have since childhood. She would be smearing herself if that was the case.

I would much rather discuss her article with you Flipside, than talk about the horrible stuff gg is doing.

[Grizzly]

Mr Vega is correct. The article talks at length about
1) The gamer stereotype
2) How this stereotype does not apply to gamers anymore
3) How the people to who this stereotype actually DOES apply to are now... proving the stereotype and how silly it is.

edit: stuff like this also doesn't help GG just FYI

[Flipside]

If 'Alexanders Article' is the 'Gamers are Dead' one, then, no I wasn't referring specifically to that one, I'm talking about a pervading attitude not a single article, I don't care about the contents of just one article, that doesn't define a trend, however, the manner that a LOT of the press are reporting this is being based on the idea that the problem is people defined as 'Gamers', when they should be defined as 'Assholes', it's the Asshole-ness that makes them behave as they do, not the Gamer-ness.

As I said before, it's like those who define Feminist women as 'Man-haters', whilst it's true that there are feminists out there who also hate men, that is not a defining characteristic of a Feminist, people just try to make it so.

[Luis Dias]

If you can't see the smearing of an entire demographic and culture within that article, then I'm afraid we are talking past each other here. Here's her final words:

“Gamer” isn’t just a dated demographic label that most people increasingly prefer not to use. Gamers are over. That’s why they’re so mad.

These obtuse ****slingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers -- they are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours. There is no ‘side’ to be on, there is no ‘debate’ to be had.

Because why not insult your audience like this? What can go wrong with these words? The whole tone is amazing. And no, this has been shown not to have been as a reaction to gamergate, that was just the contingency related to the timing of the article. The agenda behind this idea that the "gamer" notion should be defeated has been part of the feminist agenda for quite some time, going back at least 3 years, and it was even written on academic papers on the subject.

It also makes no sense. Why kill a culture? Why even pretend it is a "dead" culture, when it's obviously at its peak, when modding and discussing and so on were never so easy and so widely done? Why bring about ideas of how stuff like 2048 or Candy Crush is going to smother all the "gamer" culture because oh so many more people play these smaller games? It's ridiculous. The worst that can happen to this culture is that it becomes a less "consumery stuff" and more like a "consume and create" culture as time goes on.

No. The idea was to frame her opposition like the neck bearded cis male mysoginists that they are, and if they self-identify as gamers, so be it, let's drown that word alongside with them. This is a massive cultural attack. Let's destroy and defame an entire identity because it does not conform with our best wishes. Of course there's a backlash against this. Do you think everyone would just go "ah yeah ok if they tell me I'm a mysoginist if I don't conform with their new semantics and such, then yeah I guess I should follow their lead, I mean yeah"? Are you mad? Of course people don't like to be talked down to in this tone of voice.

No, the irony is that there have never been so many gamers in the world, and given the crisis I also talked about, it's the journalists who are dying. They are dead. They are collapsing. Escaping very slowly into irrelevance. The whole rant was projection of the highest order.

[Mr. Vega]

If 'Alexanders Article' is the 'Gamers are Dead' one, then, no I wasn't referring specifically to that one, I'm talking about a pervading attitude not a single article, I don't care about the contents of just one article, that doesn't define a trend, however, the manner that a LOT of the press are reporting this is being based on the idea that the problem is people defined as 'Gamers', when they should be defined as 'Assholes', it's the Asshole-ness that makes them behave as they do, not the Gamer-ness.

As I said before, it's like those who define Feminist women as 'Man-haters', whilst it's true that there are feminists out there who also hate men, that is not a defining characteristic of a Feminist, people just try to make it so.

And many anti-GG people are lamenting this effect of GG. A few have become so bitter with what's happened they're ok with the language. I can't blame them even if I disagree.

[Mr. Vega]

If you can't see the smearing of an entire demographic and culture within that article, then I'm afraid we are talking past each other here. Here's her final words:

“Gamer” isn’t just a dated demographic label that most people increasingly prefer not to use. Gamers are over. That’s why they’re so mad.

These obtuse ****slingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers -- they are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours. There is no ‘side’ to be on, there is no ‘debate’ to be had.

Because why not insult your audience like this? What can go wrong with these words? The whole tone is amazing. And no, this has been shown not to have been as a reaction to gamergate, that was just the contingency related to the timing of the article. The agenda behind this idea that the "gamer" notion should be defeated has been part of the feminist agenda for quite some time, going back at least 3 years, and it was even written on academic papers on the subject.

It also makes no sense. Why kill a culture? Why even pretend it is a "dead" culture, when it's obviously at its peak, when modding and discussing and so on were never so easy and so widely done? Why bring about ideas of how stuff like 2048 or Candy Crush is going to smother all the "gamer" culture because oh so many more people play these smaller games? It's ridiculous. The worst that can happen to this culture is that it becomes a less "consumery stuff" and more like a "consume and create" culture as time goes on.

No. The idea was to frame her opposition like the neck bearded cis male mysoginists that they are, and if they self-identify as gamers, so be it, let's drown that word alongside with them. This is a massive cultural attack. Let's destroy and defame an entire identity because it does not conform with our best wishes. Of course there's a backlash against this. Do you think everyone would just go "ah yeah ok if they tell me I'm a mysoginist if I don't conform with their new semantics and such, then yeah I guess I should follow their lead, I mean yeah"? Are you mad? Of course people don't like to be talked down to in this tone of voice.

No, the irony is that there have never been so many gamers in the world, and given the crisis I also talked about, it's the journalists who are dying. They are dead. They are collapsing. Escaping very slowly into irrelevance. The whole rant was projection of the highest order.

Feminist agenda. So she's part of a conspiracy?

Let's avoid the use of the word 'agenda' if you want to be taken seriously.

[Luis Dias]

Feminist agenda. So she's part of a conspiracy?

Let's avoid the use of the word 'agenda' if you want to be taken seriously.

The gamers are dead idea came from a tumblr post from Dan Golding, who in turn links to an Adrienne Shaw's article from 2011. Every article then linked to this post, either directly or indirectly.

The agenda was academically defined and adopted by the media. We know there was a talking group between journalists, and these articles came in the same day as some kind of blitzkrieg. I don't care how you name it in a "politically correct manner", I'm not even being judgemental when I say the word "agenda". Agendas can be just fine. I have agendas, you have agendas, groups of people have their own agenda. This is not "conspiracy theory" ground, so concern trolling over it is uncalled for.

It was on this day and the days that followed that gamergate exploded. So yes, gamergate is in effect a reaction to the media. Failure to understand this basic point will result in the failure to understand the phenomenon, and failure to tame it, contain it, defuse it. Deny reality at the cost of your agendas.

[Mr. Vega]

Feminist agenda. So she's part of a conspiracy?

Let's avoid the use of the word 'agenda' if you want to be taken seriously.

The gamers are dead idea came from a tumblr post from Dan Golding, who in turn links to an Adrienne Shaw's article from 2011. Every article then linked to this post, either directly or indirectly.

The agenda was academically defined and adopted by the media. We know there was a talking group between journalists, and these articles came in the same day as some kind of blitzkrieg. I don't care how you name it in a "politically correct manner", I'm not even being judgemental when I say the word "agenda". Agendas can be just fine. I have agendas, you have agendas, groups of people have their own agenda. This is not "conspiracy theory" ground, so concern trolling over it is uncalled for.

It was on this day and the days that followed that gamergate exploded. So yes, gamergate is in effect a reaction to the media. Failure to understand this basic point will result in the failure to understand the phenomenon, and failure to tame it, contain it, defuse it. Deny reality at the cost of your agendas.

I'm going to have to meet with my feminist co-conspirators about sapping and impurifying your precious bodily fluids before you become a threat to us.

[Luis Dias]

You have no idea of what I just talked about up there, do you? Your wording also makes it clear you do not master the english language very well. You have a particular idea of what one means with an "agenda" that is quite different than the one I'm using here.

If you are a feminist, then you have an agenda. This is not rocket science. Keep up.