7 Ways the GamerGate Debate Has Made the World Worse
I'm a huge supporter of the #gamergate movement, because I'm sick to death of the "-gate" suffix, and after something this stupid no one will ever use it again. Journalists could be reporting on a hinged wrought-iron frame scandalously barring the way to a secret government interplanetary portal and they'll still refuse to use the term.
"The president approached the swingy bit of fence today ..."
David
and Mark
tackled some of the stupider parts of the scandal, Sargent
explained how anger can cause them, and Zoe Quinn
explained what it's like to be the eye of such a colossal shitstorm that you can see toilet tidal waves in every direction. Now I'm going to poke the most ridiculous lumps of psychic sewage those waves threw up.
TERMINOLOGY: I'll be using the term "gater," not "gamer," because these assholes claiming to represent gamers is like a cannibal claiming to represent eaters. They're the only ones who think you have to tear into other people to do it properly, instead of it being something pretty much everybody does now without it defining our lives.
"YOU ARE NOT REPORTING BOTH SIDES, OR PROPERLY BASTED!"
#7. The Whole Thing Is an Ex-Boyfriend's Revenge
#Gamergate started when an ex-boyfriend of a video game developer went on forums to talk crap about her to strangers. And instead of responding, "Wow, now we know why she broke up with you; you're shittier than a belly-flopping sewer worker," some Internet-users said, "You need some assholes to attack a woman? You've come to the right place!"
"THIS SHOUTING IS ALL I DO HERE!"
Most commenters left the ex-boyfriend anonymous while focusing on developer Zoe Quinn. Some reviewed her award-winning free game,
Depression Quest, and said that it didn't count because it was a visual novel (a sentiment that is just going to surprise the hell out of Japan). I'd like to provide balance by reviewing the ex's blog post. Which involved even more words and electronic drama. My review reads: "Eron Gjoni is a piece of shit." When a guy's breakup story starts: "Act 0: Whereof One Cannot Speak, One Must Be Silent," and then absolutely doesn't do that for
over 8,000 more words, it's not an "allegation," it's an epic saga screamed into the outside of a locked door at kneeling height.
It's something Morgan Freeman would read in a disappointed voice while his hothead partner paces the filthy room. You could only get more psychotically detailed overreaction if you voided the warranty on your Terminator's target-recognition circuits. Gjoni posted this novella on multiple forums, and they wisely deleted it, so he set up a new website specifically and only to host his hatred. Because that's totally the act of a sane non-dickhead. No, I won't link that asshole.
Staring at this for half an hour will have the same effect.
It was the jerkiest move short of masturbating into Caribbean spiced sauce. Normally that would be it: one man wailing to an audience of dating scambots, and they'd be his perfect partners because they also enjoy long, public posts about desperately pictured sexual improprieties. But he was writing about a female video game developer. The result was and still is a terrifying outpouring of hate toward Quinn, with effects up to and including
driving her from her own home, and that is
exactly
what Gjoni wanted. He knew that as a female video game developer she was already a target. In several parts of his sobbing saga he mentions how much shit he knew this posting would cause.
In
interviews
it's clear he still wants people to believe he's Mr. Lawful Neutral, and that his target-designating blog starts with an edit stating that he totally-honestly-for-real doesn't mean for this to happen. (It takes up 0.3 percent of the rant, which is still up after causing all this to happen.) He justifies the post with: "It is here to warn you that she is indeed capable of the things she claims she would never do." He wants to warn people, and he got his ex hounded from her home by rape threats? Fine, here's a warning: NO ONE IN THE WORLD SHOULD DATE ERON GJONI. ERON GJONI GOT HIS EX HOUNDED FROM HER HOME BY RAPE THREATS.
#6. There's #Gamergate Porn
Rule 34 states that's there's a porn version of everything, apparently including manufactured movements. Which would be so much less awful if that was referring to android coprophilia. At least that would count as recycling. Some gaters created a fake woman to agree with them, and the only thing that makes it a more perfect representation of gater culture is that there was almost immediately porn.
"Vivian James" is the mascot of their movement, and she's an anime girl because of course she is. I'm only sorry that the National Institute of Standards and Technology wasn't around to use their atomic clock to time how long it took for her to appear naked, and then stuffed with and possessing every genital configuration ever imagined.
Sure, I could publish a pixelated version of a teenage redhead cartoon character with a giant penis ejaculating all over herself,
but in a more important way, no I couldn't.
Another comic complains that anyone who attacks Quinn is accused of misogyny, while
simultaneously
being a comic in which a cartoon Quinn has sex with five game sites. Someone was able to draw that without seeing any contradiction. They didn't even change pens or draw the two parts on different pages so they wouldn't explode and cancel out the universe when they touched.
No way in hell I'm giving such bullshit space in my column. Have some wallabies.
We live in a world where people have porn of the personification of their complaints about their favorite luxuries, and they
still
say modern technology isn't focused enough on their needs. Caligula would say that is too indulgent. And the computers could be explained to him by trained and willing monkeys without so many awful misconceptions.
#5. The Lawyers Against Gaming Corruption
A gater-founded
Indiegogo campaign
for "Lawyers Against Gaming Corruption" was canceled due to accusations of corruption. That's not so much a stopped clock being right as the Clock King falling into the gears of his time bomb after being punched by Batman. The gater asked for $35,000 to hire a lawyer to prosecute unfair relationships in the industry, and apparently didn't think it worth mentioning that the lawyer was his wife. There are minelayers setting their own stage for Hamlet who aren't such perfectly petarded examples of failure.
Polonius enter stage left, exeunt stage ceiling.
It was canceled almost immediately but still hasn't returned the money. I can't say it was a failure from start to finish because their actions were so much louder it deafened everyone. The campaign has raised almost $1,500, and Indiegogo is apparently refusing to cancel it partway, which would mean they get to keep 9 percent of the total when it fails. Leaving the founder to personally repay that out of his own pocket if he wants to avoid being accused of corruption. Two wrongs can't make a right, but they can be hilarious.
#4. Zombie Social Media
Mentioning #gamergate online is like scrawling a giant dick over the Bat-Signal before lighting it: you've summoned a whole horde of crazies, and the only result will be pain. One mention on Twitter and you're mobbed by a horde of accounts, all with incredibly strong opinions and many entirely coincidentally created in the last month. There haven't been so many freshly hatched eggs trying to drown out all human communication since
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
"I DON'T AGREE WITH THE HARASSMENT, BUT WHEN THEY'RE NOT CHANTING 'WHORE' THEY RAISE SOME FAIR POINTS!"
