What a GamerGate supporter thinks GamerGate is.

[kane_magus]

Here (in a comment on one of grrm's posts that mentions GamerGate) is what one apparent GamerGate supporter thinks GamerGate is.

In case it gets deleted, I will copy/paste the comment here:

Gamergate
George, I think you've let the SJW media color your impressions of Gamergate. Gamergate has nothing to do with threats or hatespeech. Gamergate is a consumer revolt concerned with opposing corruption in gaming journalism, defending game developers from SJW censors like Sarkeesian, and combating attempts to malign the Gamer identity and force Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism on gamers. Remember when SJWs tried to censor Game of Thrones over the 'rape' scene last season? That's exactly what's going on with games. They're trying to destroy creative freedom and fundamentally change video games to suit their far-left agenda.

Wow... just... ....just wow. If they actually, honestly believe that... wow. GamerGate "has nothing to do with threats or hatespeech"? Really? Wow. Oh wait, I forgot, all that shit is really just a "false flag" campaign trying to make GamerGate look bad. *eye roll*

No, I don't think Mr. Martin was at all incorrect in his impressions of what GamerGate actually is like. Either the above person is being disingenuous, or they are one of the naive fools who I feel got duped into following what I feel was an already sunken ship from the get go. Other people in the comments under there who are also trying to defend GamerGate are comparing the condemnation of Sad Puppies to the (supposedly unwarranted, according to them) condemnation of GamerGate. I call bullshit on the whole thing. I think both groups (assuming they aren't actually one and the same, or at least so close that the distinctions matter little) are full of shit, any way you look at it.

Also, anyone and everyone who uses the term "SJW" in an attempt to be taken seriously immediately and automatically loses whatever argument they were trying to make, as far as I am concerned.

Comments

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

Grrm's response to the comment was this "All that may be true... yet it is also true that some GamerGaters are sending death threats and rape threats to women gamers and feminists. That is what I was addressing. Frankly, no amount of "corruption in gaming journalism" justifies a single rape threat."

And this is how I kind of agree with both sides. I'm sure GamersGate does in fact have as it's goals, the kinds of things the commenter says. But it's definitely true that there are people that are making these threats that aren't forgiveable, and it taints and obscures the entire purpose GamersGate is suppose to be about (According to it's own followers.) In the end the group itself no longer functions towards the original stated purpose and will NEVER function that way again even if magically cleared up all it's issues and were able to stop every random tom dick and harry from declaring they're a part of the group as they go about doing things they shouldn't.

... So anyway, what exactly IS gamersgate anyway. Is it just a freelance group of random people where the members fluctuate (like Anonymous for instance) ... or an actual entity online? (Doing a google some of the top hits end up being for a digital distribution site (like steam/gog) called GamersGate, and a sweden based game store franchise... ^^

I've always assumed they're like the latest Anons, which always end up having trouble like this.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

It's "GamerGate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy)," not "GamersGate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GamersGate)." No "s" in it. When I search for "GamersGate," the first thing I get is the game store (http://www.gamersgate.com/) as well. ^^;

As for GamerGate, as far as I've been able to tell, the whole thing started as a bunch of bullshit on 4chan, as such bullshit is wont to do, apparently because they were all super buttwroth about the whole Zoe Quinn/Eron Gjoni/Nathan Grayson/whoever else "conspiracy (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/quinnspiracy)"[1] for whatever reasons (most likely reason being that it's 4chan and they're really into that sort of Internet "sleuthing" bullshit). Then the so-called "movement" got called "#GamerGate" by Adam Baldwin on Twitter, which is where the name came from. And then it got picked up by Brietbart and other right-wing blowhards (of which Adam Baldwin apparently is one as well) as the Next Big Issue™, who twisted it around into actually being some supposedly "real" thing about journalistic ethics and not the 4chan bullshit it started as. And then it got reported on seriously by actual legit news sources as "legitimate" news, because they just didn't know any better. And then finally the whole thing got blown hugely out of proportion as a ton of other potentially well-meaning people bought into the lie that "actually, it's about ethics in video game journalism" and started to jump on the bandwagon. Those same people now get seriously buttangry because they're getting tarred with the same feathers as the douchebags who do the doxxing and the rape/death threats and other such asinine horseshit. But then, of course, because the whole thing got its start on 4chan, the doxxing and rape/death threats and whatnot have been part and parcel all along.

So, yeah, it's all a big Anonymous-like, amorphous group of random people that seemingly anyone and everyone can claim membership in and then do a bunch of stupid bullshit in its name like doxxing and rape threats. And then those otherwise poor, well-meaning fools who also claim membership, but don't like or agree with what the asshats are doing, are just shit out of luck and, thus, colossal idiots in my eyes for continuing to claim membership in such a toxic thing, because at this point GamerGate is never not going to be a toxic thing, whether the otherwise well-meaning people like it or not. In fact, even though I think that most of the asshats in GamerGate are just that, typical 4chan asshats, I also freely allow that there may indeed actually be some small amount of truth to the claim that there might be some other asshats engaging in "false flag" bullshit, i.e. intentionally trying to make GamerGate look bad. In the end, though, I don't think it really matters because I believe the genuine asshats in GamerGate greatly outnumber any "false flaggers" that may or may not exist enough that they wouldn't really make much of an impact either way even if they did exist.

That's my take on it, anyway, based on what I've been able to gather. I'm sure any GamerGate supporters out there who may stumble across this would be glad to tell you I'm full of shit, though.

[1] - Which I posted about (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/717704.html), once, myself, and then lost all interest in it, mainly because the whole "had sex with in exchange for good reviews" part was apparently made-up bullshit. That is, from what I can gather, Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson did have a relationship at one point, but he never reviewed her games at all, either positively or negatively, or so RPS/Kotaku claimed. But then, GamerGate itself later became a Thing™ and my morbid interest was rekindled (though I still don't give much of a shit about the "Quinnspiracy" thing itself). Since then, several other prominent female figures in the game industry came under fire from GamerGate for various reasons, including Anita Sarkeesian (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/735633.html), who 4chan and the like have hated for years, even before the whole GamerGate thing.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

So essentially, GamerGate IS Anonymous for all intents and purposes. Looking at it that way, everything makes total sense.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yeah, as anyone could claim to be "members" of either and it would be just as accurate, regardless of whether or not other "members" like them or want them to be part of it.

For what it's worth, GamerGate has an "official" website (http://gamergate.me/) (if you're interested in sipping a bit of the kool-aid to peruse it), but then Anonymous has had "official" sites over the years as well, such as AnonOps (https://anonops.com/) or WhyWeProtest (https://whyweprotest.net/) or AnonNews (https://web.archive.org/web/20140520032928/http://www.anonnews.org/) (now defunct, thus the Wayback link).

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I notice that 4chan itself is on gamergate.me's Boycott List (http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php/Boycott_List), but that's because moot got sick of all the GamerGate bullshit clogging 4chan and started deleting everything. He eventually left 4chan altogether (http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/14/8214713/gamergate-scandal-convinced-4chan-founder-moot-to-leave-the-site) because of both GamerGate and the celebrity photo hack thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_photo_hack) which also originated on 4chan. Most of the 4chan asshats who started GamerGate had already migrated to 8chan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan) by then anyway, though.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Just to be clear, mind you, I've long had my own problems with video game journalism (http://kane-magus.livejournal.com/tag/video%20game%20journalism) outside of GamerGate, as I know you have as well. Those problems will, however, remain just that: outside of GamerGate. I don't want to be associated with GamerGate at all, except as one of its detractors. While I may also somewhat agree with a few of the things that they ostensibly claim (on the surface) to be their goals, the core is far too rotten for my tastes.