Reloading: Obligatory GamersGate Response

An obligatory post about the nightmare of the internet that has been "gamersgate". 

I’ve been desperately trying to avoid this topic for a good long while because I was hoping that, with time, the entirety of GamersGate would just be irrelevant. I was hoping by the end of the year the internet’s incredibly short attention span would have moved back to hating on EA or maybe poking the Phil Fish bear again But I saw something that showed me such a scenario was unlikely to happen. So here’s my stupid attempt to trying to bring it to an end, but I know it won’t. Why? Because the gamersgate people are short-sighted, narrow-minded idiots who apparently can’t be bothered with actual human logic, and instead take the most irrational and stupid actions against things that truly don’t deserve them… long introductions aside, let’s get started.

While the term “gamersgate” is relatively new, it’s honestly been around for a while, or at least the people behind it with this anti-feminist mentality. How long? I can’t say, but they didn’t become obnoxiously vocal until a feminist media critic named Anita Sarkeesian started a kickstarter which would be the funding towards video-game based videos. Though, when I say “media critic” I suppose that isn’t entirely accurate. Critics get paid by an outlet to tell you if you should purchase a product or not. And that’s not her goal. Hers is more of an educational approach that simply points out obvious tropes in games without offering suggestions or delving all that deep into the problems beyond surface level examination.

As you can guess, I’m not a fan of Sarkeesian. I find the type of content she aims to do has been done but better, punchier, and does more with much less. But I don’t hate her or want to silence her like the gamersgate people. For, indeed, if they can have the opinion that games are perfect and don’t need to change (which they’re wrong) then she can indeed have an opposing opinion, even if the presentation is lackluster on average. But the hate train for her has been astonishingly ridiculous. For those who don’t know the full story, here it is.

At the beginning of the kickstarter, Anita was basically a nobody (like most people on youtube who have videos). You only really get big by doing something controversial or if your video featured insanely cute things like cats, babies, or pandas (and as far as I can tell, she never really had that). The kickstarter for Tropes of Women in Games started and that got attention from the pre-gamersgate people. They didn’t like it. They were worried their games would be taken away or changed because someone who wasn’t an authority on games had an opinion. So they lashed out, but it was worse that you’d initially expect. Death threats, insults about her religion or sex, or outright rape threats were suddenly flooding her inbox and raining upon her non-stop. She had to disable comments on videos and stop conversation between her and legitimate debaters because of the harassment she was receiving.

Because someone wanted to express opinions on the internet about videogames.

As a result of the hate-train, her story got attention of various media outlets online. Mostly just game-enthusiast sites like Escapist, Destructoid, Polygon, Kotaku, etc. This attention, in turn, funded the kickstarter WELL beyond its needed goals, likely because the story of all the harassment she was receiving was well beyond what she deserved. It created sympathy for her. As such the people who would eventually grow into “gamersgate” failed. They lost their fight to silence someone. But worse, they are the ones responsible for her getting a larger audience and a bigger platform to talk from. They made her BIGGER than she or ANYONE else could have expected. And yet they still continue to fight on in gamersgate despite this… and it only gets worse.

A year passes and she finally starts releasing videos. Like I said, they’re competent, but bland and don’t do much delving into material or exploration beyond simply pointing out the meme and saying its bad. Good points are sometimes had, but the quality of said videos aren’t important. What is important is the hate never stopped. During this time these same gamersgate people would go on to harass various game critics, game devs, and games journalist to a point where some of these people have left the industry because either they’re just tired of dealing with it or because the threats got legitimate. But what good has ever come of excluding people and chasing people away? Did segregation make America better when we had colored bathrooms, schools, and seats on the bus? NO! No it didn’t. And that same kind of attitude towards women or minorities in games won’t make gaming better either.

A few months ago, Sarkeesian was receiving more threats again, as per usual at this point. But with personal information about her location, her family, and other loved ones. She had to contact police and leave her home. I repeat, she had to leave the presumed safety of her home because people on the internet were mad she had a differing opinion on video games. I just want everyone to read that again and just think of the pure lunacy of the situation. Because, no matter who you are, unless you’re an evil Hitler-like figure, you should be able to feel safe in the comfort of your own home, regardless of profession or people disagreeing with you.

But then, recently, Sarkeesian decided to do a public speaking event at a university. But this was canceled due to a school-shooting threat complete with explosives and anti-feminist propaganda. And, because of the rules of the city/state, the police were not allowed to interfere or search students at the event for firearms. The event, obviously, was canceled because not only was her life in danger, but the lives of various students and faculty who had no stake in this personal war against Anita Sarkeesian. But here’s the silliest thing about this recent event. Again, it was another attempt to silence Anita and the feminists but it backfired horribly. Post-threat and cancelation, Anita has been given spots on NATIONAL TELEVISION where she explains (briefly) what’s happened and why she thinks it’s happening to people ALL AROUND THE NATION. And, newsflash, this is news about the gaming community that is now reaching audiences it never had before, the non-gamers.

To me, while gamersgate will continue to stupidly exist and fight a losing fight, fact is, they’ve lost and in more ways than one. Because of their actions, they’ve turned Anita Sarkeesian from an internet nobody now into a Nationally-wide known feminist who is under attack on a regular basis. Because of their actions, she has more sympathy and support than she EVER could have anticipated when this shitstorm first started. And because of all of these attacks, gamer’s as a whole, look like monsters all over again. Yes, the people attacking Anita are a minority (a small, but vocal minority) but the media outside of gaming press doesn’t know that. Non-gamers don’t know that. As far as they’re concerned at this point, gamers are attacking Anita, feminism, criticism, and being outright hostile towards anyone who isn’t a “gamer”.

Gamersgate lost because it doesn’t stand for gaming and it never has. It stands for hate and fear and this juvenile mindset that we can’t let girls into the club. That we can’t let older people into the club. Guys, wake up. It’s 2014 and such concepts have been outdated for years and will soon be some of the most obsolete thinking. Gamersgate, to me, feels like it’s hurting the gaming community more than anything else. It’s dividing the people on an issue that shouldn’t be an issue. More diversity in our game characters and asking for more than just flat boring characters or plots isn’t something we should avoid, but striving for. This doesn’t mean we can’t have our greyish-brown and bland spunk-gargle-wee-wee games, but not everyone wants that and the people of gamersgate are fighting the wrong people for the wrong reasons and, honestly, in the wrong way.

I’m going to stop here because this will segway into my next big discussion which will be the next “Reloading” post to come up in regards to how the mediums of film, TV, and games have been changing and will possible be something different within the next two to three years. But that’s for next time. For now, let me just end with this:

People of gamersgate, I’m not a Sarkeesian supporter. I’m not one of your hated Social-Justice-Warriors. I’m just a guy who likes to play games. But I don’t want to play some white-grizzled-haired-military-bro every time, rarely do I ever. I play as women, kids, hedgehogs, golems, Hispanics, Bruce Wayne, robots, foxes, zombies, and whatever the fuck Kirby is. I want games to be more than just the same thing every time because that’s hard-earned money I’m spending for hours of entertainment, so it might as well be something worth that money to me. And I want gaming to be something everyone can enjoy. Not just because I believe in equality, but because I want to be able to share a hobby I love an enjoy with future significant others, future kids, family, and new friends who may not be into gaming. But if the culture is gross and hostile like you want it, then I won’t do it and then I have to sit alone while I play my games and I don’t want that either. If you love something, if you really love gaming like you claim to, then you should be the ones asking for it to change and grow the most. You should be asking more of it and not just wallowing in the crap of yester-year.

Unless of course you are, secretly, Sarkeesian supporters who are making yourselves into this monstrous villain in order to push her agenda forward… But that means I have to give you guys some credibility for having thought of genius plan such as that. And I really don’t think that’s the case because, again, you’ve so far shown nothing but short-sightedness, narrow-mindedness, and show complete disregard for the very thing you claim your fighting to protect (games). That’s all for me this week… good day.