As he's the king of the rightbloggers, it may be instructive to excerpt a number of Instapundit Gelnn Reynolds' posts from today:
7:00 AM: TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Lehigh Acres woman arrested for sex with 15-year-old...
7:48 AM: THAT’S DEEPLY DISAPPOINTING: Cathy Young: The Federalist Society Caves to “Rape Culture” Orthodoxy...
10:38 AM: AS THEY SHOULD. THE NEW POLICY IS A POISON PILL FOR HIGHER EDUCATION. Harvard Profs Hate New Campus Sex Laws...
12:27 PM: LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Welcome to Oculus XXX: In-Your-Face 3D is the Future of Porn...
12:42 PM: TINA BROWN: Women Feel “Unsafe” With Obama...
1:00 PM: THIS IS UNSURPRISING: Women Prefer Male Bosses Even More Than Men Do...
2:44 PM: TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE! (CONT’D): Woman claims she was sexually assaulted, admits it didn’t happen...
6:39 PM: FORBES: #GamerGate Is Not A Hate Group, It’s A Consumer Movement. Related: #GamerGate Makes the Left Uncomfortable Because Gamer Gaters Have Adopted the Left’s Tactics...
9:38 PM: JUSTINE TUNNEY: “The 900 pound elephant in the gamer/sexism debate, is they’re really just attacking autistic people for clumsy social propriety"...You may perceive a pattern. The Perfesser has never been a fan of women's lib, but in the past has been content to occasionally float fanciful cointelpro, like his wingnut versions of Cosmo, and to dream of robowhores. What else could he do? Electorally, he was outnumbered. But this election season, with the Democrats' war-on-women strategy growing long in the tooth, the Perfesser seems to see an opening, and to believe that the Angry Nerds of G-gate will bring some fresh energy to the Lost Cause, if they can be spurred to action by tales of virago manrape, lesbo-liberal anti-fuck squads, and such like. Either that, or he figures the midterms are a cinch for the Republicans, and hopes he can convince them afterwards that he delivered an important constituency, one that should be rewarded with an Anti-Witchcraft Amendment or something like that.
9:47 PM: SHOCKER: Vegetarians Have Much Lower Sperm Counts...
The rest of his posts are mostly about Ebola, which just makes it perfect.
UPDATE. The night of the following day: "21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Why I Visit Prostitutes," "SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE CAREFUL ABOUT BODILY FLUIDS, I GUESS: Monica Lewinsky: I was 'patient zero' in Internet bullying," etc.
If your feeling depressed about those #GamerGate sad sacks, this should help cheer you up a bit (thanks Barry Freed from LGM!) http://waxy.org/2014/10/gamergate_schadenfreude/
ReplyDeleteThe reason people like Reynolds can't grasp the idea of consent is that they so rarely encounter it.
ReplyDeleteHere's how I imagine Instavomit's column from a hundred years ago - or from twenty years from now, if the apes succeeding in overthrowing humans like in the movies:
ReplyDelete7:00 AM: TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Lehigh Acres woman arrested for seducing respected married man and pillar of the community...
7:48 AM: THAT’S DEEPLY DISAPPOINTING: Cathy Young: The Federalist Society Caves to “Women's Suffrage” Orthodoxy...
10:38 AM: AS THEY SHOULD. THE NEW POLICY IS A POISON PILL FOR HIGHER EDUCATION. Harvard Profs Hate New Female Student Acceptance Policies
12:42 PM: TINA BROWN: Women Feel “Unsafe” With [insert generic Democratic president here]
1:00 PM: THIS IS UNSURPRISING: Women Prefer Male Bosses Even More Than Men Do...[cause this one is timeless]
2:44 PM: TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE! (CONT’D): Woman claims she was sexually assaulted, admits it didn’t happen after pressure by mayor, threats, year spent in jail...
6:39 PM: FORBES: National Socialism Is Not A Hate Group, It’s A Patriot Movement. Related: National Socialism Makes the Left Uncomfortable Because National Socialists Have Adopted the Left’s Tactics...
9:38 PM: JUSTINE TUNNEY: “The 900 pound elephant in the Nazi/black debate, is they’re really just attacking the superior race for having pride in their superior genetics"...
9:47 PM: SHOCKER: Anti-War Protestors Have Much Lower Sperm Counts...
"... an anecdote does not equal actual data ..."
ReplyDeleteRoy has rounded up a whole lotta anecdotes from a single day of Instapundit, tho. Couldn't they add up to somethin'?
Let's take a look at the full quote from that link:
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of engaging in some questionable psychoanalysis, allow me to suggest that one of the reasons the left is so disturbed by the rise of #GamerGate is that this is the first time in many years that these self-proclaimed Social Justice Warriors have met any sort of organized pushback. And they find it doubly infuriating to see the tools they have used so successfully—the Twitter mob, the email campaign, the claims of grievance—turned against them. This is why you see Whedon et al resorting to dull ad hominem. “#GamerGate is a hate group” is an easy slogan, one that can be used to intimidate media outlets trying to give the story fair coverage. Time will tell if the tactic works.
Okay, a few things:
1.) I always thought the meaning of "self-proclaimed" was pretty clear, but apparently I'm wrong. That number was dreamed up by the MRA crowd.
2.) I'm not sure how death threats can be considered "pushback" to someone making YouTube videos you don't like. I suppose we're all supposed to pretend we don't know what these idiots do.
3.) The substance of this comment is basically thus: The GG misogynists use Twitter...and liberals use Twitter...ergo, applying Jonah's razor, liberals are the real women haters.
or from twenty years from now, if the apes succeeding in overthrowing humans like in the moviesAt the moment, that's starting to look like the most attractive option for twenty years hence.
ReplyDeleteDoes this remind anyone of the time Karl Rove described the country as a nation of small entrepreneurs on the strength of the number of people desperately selling their own stuff on ebay? You can smell the flop sweat through the computer.
ReplyDeleteHere it is:
Rove thinks that more voters now are being influenced by technology and religion. “There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture,” he said. “One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how many people’s principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand.” He went on, “So the power of the computer has made it possible for people to gain greater control over their lives. It’s given people a greater chance to run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur. As a result, it has made us more market-oriented, and that equals making you more center-right in your politics.” As for spirituality, Rove said, “As baby boomers age and as they’re succeeded by the post-baby-boom generation, within both of those generations there’s something going on spiritually—people saying it’s not all about materialism, it’s not all about the pursuit of material things. If you look at the traditional mainstream denominations, they’re flat, but what’s growing inside those denominations, and what’s growing outside those denominations, is churches that are filling this spiritual need, that are replacing sterility with something vibrant, something that speaks to the heart of the individual, that gives a sense of purpose.” Rove believes what he has always believed: that the Christian right and, to a lesser extent, tax- and regulation-averse businessmen will continue to assure Republican victories.
Could somebody explain the basics of "Gamergate" to someone who's their grandpa's age?
ReplyDeleteShort version: A bunch of idiots decided that the video game trade press has been compromised and become untrustworthy because one woman who did a fundraiser was Twitter buddies with some of the writers and another woman slept with some guy who never actually reviewed any of her projects. Not, mind you, because the industry that press is meant to cover has been pouring millions of dollars into influencing that press, to the point that they're now basically bribing reviewers. That's insignificant.
ReplyDeleteWow. If only such scrutiny was applied to the Washington press corps.
ReplyDeleteglenn reynolds commenting on gamergate is the intellectual equivalent of whippets.
ReplyDeleteit is literally the dumbest thing to ever happen.
ReplyDeleteWow. A ticker-tape machine of puerile resentments, running 17 hours a day.
ReplyDeleteAnd the shelf life on that gets shorter all the time.
ReplyDeleteI considered the usual "Christ, what an asshole," but I think "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Moses and Abraham, what a sick fuck" is much more appropriate.
ReplyDeleteIt kicked off when the neckbeard that Zoe Quinn, an indie game developer, had been dating decided to publish a manifesto of sorts accusing her of emotional abuse and of sleeping with at least five guys in the gaming press in exchange for good reviews of her game. Mind you, none of these five guys -- and I'm not in teh business of speculating on whether she slept with any of them because a) it's not my business; b) who the fuck cares, honestly -- actually reviewed her game. This didn't matter to the other neckbeards who have been trying to get women out of gaming so they can have their own special club. So they started going after Quinn. They doxxed her, they doxxed her family and friends, they sent death threats, they made it impossible for her to return home.
ReplyDeleteAnita Sarkeesian, feminist social critic who often criticizes the way that women are portrayed in games and the failure of game developers to recognize that women and minorities make up a huge proportion of gamers: also threatened, driven from her home, and recently had to cancel a scheduled appearance at Utah State University after a threat to shoot her and feminists on campus/in attendance, Marc Lepine-style (who was specifically referenced). She didn't cancel because of the threat, she canceled because the campus police said they couldn't prevent people with concealed-carry permits from bringing guns into the venue.
Brianna Wu: made some memes gently mocking the Gamer Gaters. They responded by doxxing her, sending her death threats to her house and over social media. She and her husband have had to flee their home.
Some good information here: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/16/the-top-four-mens-rightsiest-things-said-about-the-recent-threats-against-anita-sarkeesian/#more-13814
And here: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/18/storify-time-gamergate-rs-with-ugly-histories-of-harassment-and-more-amazing-stuff-from-the-tweeter/
And here: https://storify.com/jaysmooth/debate-with-gamergate
So we're trying to make serious political hay out of GamerGate? Really? Well, pthththth. Well, if this is the route we're taking, I have a few points I'd like to make. They don't involve politics or gender or anything like that, but they're relevant (if arguably subjective) and I don't know that they've been made anywhere yet. This is where you're supposed to lay down your gamer bona fides, but I'm not in the mood. If anyone really cares, I'll run it down at another time.
ReplyDelete1.) Discussion of the sexual exploitation of female characters in video games is not new. It goes back at least fifteen years, it's just that back then it was in a completely different context. At the time, the concern was maturity, and how the video game industry treated its consumers as though they were stunted juvenile manchildren, so the sexytime complaints were filed alongside the various "gamer fuel" and "gamer chow" products (the latter of which resembled hamster pellets) and the hyper-macho posturing in basically every ad of the period.
The clincher was a game called DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball, which had the most amazing ad campaign you'd ever seen. It was nothing but pre-rendered bikini girls, and the message was basically "Here's some jiggly tits, virgins. Lock your mother's basement door and go to town." There was a bit of a negative reaction to this, one which the developers clearly did not anticipate. It wasn't universal, but it was pretty damn widespread.
2.) Everyone involved in this shitfest - from MRAs to the fucking AEI - are framing this as some sort of dispute between filthy industry-ruining casual gamers (and their feminist allies on their lavender death thrones) and Real, True Hardcore Gamers. They have symbolized this with which are, apparently, the only video games in existence today: Candy Crush and Call of Duty: Whatever The Last One Was Subtitled. But the other day, something occurred to me - I've heard this before, and it was way different last time.
You see, while Realistic War Shooters have been around since the dawn of the FPS in the early-mid 90's, they didn't get popular until a few years ago. Once that started to happen, there was a grand mal freakout from within the Real, True Hardcore community over the invasion of their hobby by "jocks." That's the actual term they used, by the way, even the ones in their twenties and thirties. These jocks and frat boys and muscleheads were going to ruin our hobby, just like they ruined our lives They were going to make stupid games to appeal to stupid people - all expensive graphics and BANG BANG shooty guns, and no story or creativity. It was going to be the end of video games.
And that was as far as it went. There were no harassment campaigns, and after a few years no one cared. Yeah, there are still plenty of people who shake their heads when Call of Duty: Whatever The New One Is Subtitled comes out, but that's it. It never went past that, in my opinion because the He-Man Women Hater's Club Online wasn't egging them on. But my point is not to expose inconsistency. You see, those people pissing and moaning were part of different cliques which favored different types of games. There's a fair bit of diversity here, with each group having a different definition of what "hardcore" even means. It's not like it's a hive-mind, with one monolithic body standing firm against the SJWs.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to return to my game (and in most cases, that would be a joke, but here it's not - I really have had a game on pause for the last thirty minutes while I wrote this).
Also: the Gamergaters are claiming that they really care about journalistic ethics in the gamer press. Even though that's transparently bullshit.
ReplyDeleteDeath threats vs. Brianna Wu: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/11/yet-another-woman-in-gaming-has-been-driven-from-her-home-by-death-threats/
The threat of "another Montreal massacre" against Sarkeesian: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/14/anita-sarkeesian-cancels-talk-at-utah-state-after-receiving-threat-of-another-montreal-massacre/
Some of the shit Zoe Quinn has been putting up with for months: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/11/in-a-series-of-brilliant-furious-tweets-zoe-quinn-tears-apart-the-myth-that-gamergate-has-moved-beyond-harassment-of-women/#more-13714
Oh, and Neckbeard? He's not sorry at all: http://gawker.com/the-angry-ex-who-ignited-gamergate-has-no-regrets-1647186033
lesbo-liberal anti-fuck squads
ReplyDeleteBetter known as women with taste and self-esteem.
And by whippets, you mean the dogs!
ReplyDeleteThe "gaming press" was always composed of house organs, from day one.
ReplyDeletepeople saying it’s not all about materialism, it’s not all about the
ReplyDeletepursuit of material things. If you look at the traditional mainstream
denominations, they’re flat, but what’s growing inside those
denominations, and what’s growing outside those denominations, is
churches that are filling this spiritual need, that are replacing
sterility with something vibrant, something that speaks to the heart of
the individual, that gives a sense of purpose
In other words, hyper-materialistic megachurches pushing the "prosperity gospel".
Wanna know what story the Ol' Professor didn't bother to comment on? Michael Dunn's conviction and sentencing, that's what.
ReplyDeleteAnd two more:
ReplyDeleteDeadspin's excellent piece on how Gamergate is the new culture war: http://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844/+laceydonohue
Gawker: The D-List Conservatives who've turned Gamergate into their Loser Army: http://gawker.com/the-d-list-right-wingers-whove-turned-gamergate-into-th-1648410811
Gamer Gaters Have Adopted the Left’s Tactics.I'm not seeing a lot of 'tactics' in play.
ReplyDeleteUpvoted for "Jonah's razor", which is underutilized, both literally and figuratively.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Oculus XXX: In-Your-Face 3D is the Future of Porn...
ReplyDeleteGiven the Perfesser's proclivities, would that be the Bitcoin shot?
Kudos to you for getting out of the boat, which I didn't have the guts to do. I do wonder what "fair coverage" of threats to mutilate, rape and kill someone means in the Perf's world.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Cathy Young is supporting them now.
ReplyDeleteAll we need is Camille Paglia, and we'll have a pseudo-feminist wingnut hat trick.
...wow. I didn't know 4chan had kicked them out. How must it feel to be a social outcast on a site that allows literally everything except for stuff that would get it shut down by the FBI?
ReplyDeleteJust for the record, I don't believe there has been any proof that Quinn even exchanged sex for good reviews, which was the original accusation, and the cause that the dead-enders are still clinging to, that it's about exposing corruption between game developers and reviewers. That corruption does exist, but in this situation, it never actually happened. The internet has been getting its knickers in a twist for a month for something that is seemingly a complete falsehood.
ReplyDeleteAlso, from a political perspective, Reynolds' attempt to ride this to real-world political victories is as ridiculous as it is contemptible, because these guys are a movement the way that 9/11 truthers or objectivists are a movement: a small group of loudmouths who are good at self-promotion and shit-stirring but in most cases can't even motivate each other to get off the couch and go do actual political work.
ReplyDelete#GamerGate Makes the Left Uncomfortable Because Gamer Gaters Have Adopted the Left’s Tactics
ReplyDeleteLook, Glenn, claiming that you ("you" meaning some combination of white, Christian, male, and straight) are the real persecuted minority has been the GOP's bread and butter for 50 years now. It doesn't surprise or shock anyone, if it's making people angry it's just because they're so tired of it by now.
Also, the Left generally doesn't threaten to rape, murder, and destroy its opponents the way Gamergate is doing. Yes, because you're Glenn Reynolds, and one half-remembered anecdote can refute any amount of data, I'm sure you can find someone threatening to rape Sarah Palin or whatever. What makes us different is that we don't rally around that person's cause, hold them up as an example of righteousness, etc.
What leapt out at me was the idea that people fighting for social justice have never seen organized pushback. So, things like riot police, water cannons, mass arrests, pre-emptive arrests, professional blacklisting, police riots, lynching, etc etc don't count. Seems to me the whole history of the 20th century is that of organized pushback against social justice.
ReplyDeleteI welcome our new simian overlords.
ReplyDeleteTake this with the grain of salt that comes with me being an outside observer, but the RTHC types are a rather neurotic bunch under the best of circumstances. Listening to them talk about the state of gaming, you'd think it's nothing but an unending stream of broken promises, cynical cash-ins, Orwellian technology, and persecution by society at large. At the moment, I can't think of another group that's so consistently negative about a hobby they theoretically like, especially in the face of such evidence to the contrary (more people are playing games than ever, the biggest game of the year grosses as much or more than the biggest movie, etc.)
ReplyDeleteReynolds and the rest are just latching on to the latest concern-troll topic of the day, but I think this stuff caught on with that crowd because they found a way to channel that paranoia and rage against an easy and already-hated target; feminists. That complex isn't going away after this dies down. My own opinion is that it's their inferiority complex about games not being taken seriously as art, but it's their own behavior that plays a large role in people not taking it seriously. And it seems to be peculiar to certain groups of gamers: I can't recall such a long, sustained harassment campaign coming from sci-fi literature fans or movie lovers. I don't know if it's psychology or demographics or what, and I could be wrong, but that's how it feels.
No shit. I remember picking up some big fat video game magazine off a newsstand, oh, about 20 years ago and thinking it was nothing more than a god damned catalog. Not a negative review to be found anywhere in its 200+ plus pages, 190 of which were ads.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of engaging in some questionable psychoanalysis
ReplyDeleteAh ha ha, like that's ever stopped you before, Reynolds. It sure didn't this time. "At the risk of being completely wrong, I'm gonna plow forward anyway."
Shouldn't Mrs Old Perfessor be weighing in on the Women stinking up the place?
ReplyDeleteMebbe she's still mulling over the robot sexytime.
I followed a link and ended looking at the twitter feed of someone called Gamer Kiwi (no relation) who was breathlessly telling the world that "the leftists don't know how to handle us, we are using their own tactics on them" Ole Perfessor has a fanboy.
Virago Manrape: one of Shakespeare's lesser-known characters
ReplyDeleteAnd, leave it to a conservative like Reynolds to gloat about vegetarians' low sperm counts. I imagine assorted putzes and nebbishes smugly eating burgers, thinking about their macho balls. Reynolds knows his audience -- one's lifestyle choices are always about them, somehow.
As to smug ball-contemplating burger eaters, I've pointed out on prior occasions that there's a non-trivial number of people who don't realize Ron Swanson is make-believe.
ReplyDeleteThere is real conflicts of- interest and corruption in the gaming journalist world. It is put there by giant gaming companies schmoozing the shit out of games journalists, giving them free trips, freebies, face-time with the devs - you name it they get it.
ReplyDeleteThis causes not one ripple of consternation in Gamergate world. What exists in Gamergate world is foaming outrage about the made-up story that one female dev had sex with a gaming journalist who favourably reviewed her game. That the game was not reviewed does not faze them in the slightest. That the accusations of cheating were planted by a complete douchebag of an ex-boyfriend who successfully got tens of thousands of 4 channers and redditors to brutally harrass his ex did not raise a single sliver of doubt in their o-so-cynical and jaded minds.
The whole Gamergate is the violent flounderings of a anti-women sub-culture that has just discovered that when the gaming industry said that they really loved them and respected them as people, that they only meant until they could make more money elsewhere.
that are replacing
ReplyDeletesterility with something vibrant,
Selfishness, greed, spite, hypocrisy disdain for the poor? Lucifer continues to work in mysterious ways, his miracles to perform.
(That's cause sexbots come with AutoConsent already installed.)
ReplyDeleteHouse organs? I see what you did there.
ReplyDeleteWhere's my sobbing emoticon when I need it? Is nothing sacred? I remember when winning the Dumbest Thing Award meant something to people. Now they are just giving them to any old incoherent, raging, mob of misanthropes and misogynists who are willing to issue death and rape threats to complete strangers.
ReplyDeleteOh, its moved on from the original accusation. First it was that she slept with other guys (Five!) then it was that one of them was a reviewer who gave her a good review, when that one proved to be untenable they have moved on to the accusation that two of the guys she slept with "actually wrote her game for her" so since they are simultaneously arguing that the game wasn't very good I guess they must have spite written it for her by having sex with her, and then repaying her by writing a bad game. Or something. I believe there have even been accusations that she killed someone (I had sex with a man in reno, just to watch him die).
ReplyDeleteThese are all such great comments I couldn't figure out where to put this. But I want to thank D.Johnson fo such an interesting, uh...ethnohistory? of this subculture and Spaghetti Lee and others for their comments. On the subject of the permeability of the community of real true gamers I'd like to think more about the ways in which post 9/11 violence in video games (games that are strictly about shooting people) have become valorized as a way of preparing to fight the enemy, the number of times they have been used (or were said to have been used) in preparing young men for killing sprees but also for preparing them for warfare. I'm not arguing that they are used for such things but that the crossover between the ur nerd and the jock happened there with self proclaimed gamers/nerds in the end both happy and sad to have at least one aspect of their games publicly acclaimed and even reported on the nightly news. I remember when the MSM finally woke up to what a huge financial thing gaming had become and began showing pictures of people lining up to buy call of duty or whatever. There's a poignant pain, I think, for people who think of something as belonging to them in seeing it appropriated and widened in its appeal.
ReplyDeleteAlinsky, Alinsky, Alinsky! He would have been totally down with the doxxing and the death and rape threats. Everyone knows that.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Pope Zebbidie here. There may or may not be such a creature as a "social justice warrior"--I've never met one but then I don't get out much. But no one is forcing any touchy, sad, lonely, white male gamer to watch or listen to Anita Sarkeesian's videos. The fact that she put up a kickstarter is not some kind of real world provocation or attack on people anymore than Michael Moore's various funding schemes for his projects were. The death and rape threats, coming at the same time as the torrent of nude pictures of celebreties, coming at the same time as various criminal cases of harrassment and pornification of women online (the upskirt photos creeps, the redittors who exchange revenge porn) and the linkage of all this behavior to the idea of the white male nerd as hacker extrodinaire (Anonymous, Wikileaks) who bestrides the internet like a collossus makes women online feel...vulnerable. They are vulnerable. The same guys, clustering in the same groups (atheists, skeptics, mras, slymepitters, redditors in the revenge porn/upskirt reddits) are simply waiting and ready to go to swarm and harrass individual women. Read Kathy Sierra's piece on what drove her from the internet entirely? It included sexualized, pornographic attacks on her children. Women have been receiving this kind of attack as women for a long time--long before gamer gate or as some are now calling it "gamerghazi."
ReplyDeleteSure, underneath every mass movement, every mob, lie individuals who may or may not be cognizant of the movement of the mob, who got into it for their own reasons and are dragged along with it because of its force in a diretion they don't necessarily want to go. But for christ's sake at a certain point every individual mob member is offered a choice as to whether, at the end of the parade, he wants to join in with actually savaging and killing another person at the direction of the mob.
I know, right? Its amazing that Reynolds, the least well read man on the planet, is apparently familiar with Ayurvedic theories of heat, food, and sperm. Not surprising that he valorizes the meat eating, warrior, Kshatriyas over the Brahmins (typical vegetarian coastal elites).
ReplyDeleteWait, isn't she "Literally Who 1" by now, because they're so over Quinn, whom they didn't care about in the first place anyway, so there? Therefore, your litany of accusations is invalid. INVALID! [Catches breath, retucks shirt]
ReplyDelete"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Moses and Abraham, Buddha and Charlie Parker ..."Your theological ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a hat.
ReplyDeleteNow, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to return to my gameThat better not be an advance copy of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which you scored through your sleazy contacts in the corrupt gaming world. 'Cause if it is ... can I come over?
ReplyDeleteNow THAT'S a cutting remark!
ReplyDeleteThe problem I've seen with that conclusion is that in general, the sort of wounded egos that lurk around niche fandoms like gaming are so easily bruised and opposed to self-examination, even the mildest engagement from someone who even hints that the status quo isn't great for everybody will send them sobbing into the arms of reactionaries.
ReplyDelete"Oh that I could apply an infinity of updings"
ReplyDeleteh/t Hamlet
No?
Which is a bit surprising since, to many of his readers, it's a gross miscarriage of justice.
ReplyDeleteHuh. Many of the coastal elite Brahmins I'm familiar with are perfectly willing to eat meat. Though they are all in Boston.
ReplyDeleteI imagine assorted putzes and nebbishes smugly eating burgers, thinking about their macho balls.Psst, guys! The word is nacho.
ReplyDeleteYes--they are so indifferent to her and those other bitches that they speak about her in code in order to express their disdain while they simultaneously plan their revenge on her.
ReplyDeleteHang on, does all this wingnut sharting over "Social Justice Warriors" mean they've moved on yet again from appropriating Martin Luther King, Jr.? Because he features pretty prominently in the cover illustration of my Social Justice Warrior Player's Guide.
ReplyDeleteReading "the ebay economy" my mind flashed to a 60ish woman I know who goes to yard sales to buy shit she upsells on ebay, because she has to supplement her Social Security income after having her pension gutted by her former employer's bankruptcy.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, M. Krebs. I deliberately decided NOT to follow it, but it's kinda weird not knowing what everyone's talking about.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter how big your number starts out. When you multiply it by zero*, the result is also zero**.
ReplyDelete*Reynolds' amount of self-awareness & grasp of history.
**Zero information.
It's about exposing corruption between game developers and reviewers.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, what a cause! What a noble cause. Why, if we allowed that kind of thing to stand, the same corruption might happen in the music, fashion, movie and publishing industry, and then where would we be?
Seriously, though, what is it about gaming that makes them take it to such toxic levels as threatening people's lives and their families' lives?
One priceless nugget from the gawker site:
ReplyDeleteGjoni—who said he recently left his job due to the increasing time demands of "internet warfare"—
Fuck, man. Get a life.
You've got the new edition?
ReplyDeleteIs there an article in there by Saul Alinsky?
The fact that Reynolds has the time to post all this stuff online just demonstrates what I figured out in law school: law professors are just lazy lawyers who lucked out into cushy gigs that require them to do almost nothing. I once even pointed this out to Reynolds and, lo and behold, the usually ever-reliable Mr. Snarky Pants had nothing to say. God, how I hate attorneys.
ReplyDelete#GamerGate Is Not A Hate Group, It’s A Consumer Movement.
ReplyDeletesuuuuuure it is.
And I love the assertion just underneath that GG is just one big sperger moment. "Wahhh! The mean wimmen's mean to us 'cause we're different!"
You'd hope so, but:
ReplyDeleteSnotcho?
ReplyDeleteThe "ebay economy" was/is this, along with any number of people who have been forced to sell their possessions piece by heart-breaking piece in futile attempts to make ends meet.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me at the time was the patent obliviousness of Rove (and Cheney). If we all turned into a nation of people selling crap to each other on ebay, our "economy" would come down to tens of millions of people living under bridges and searching out free power and wifi.
You see it in SF fandom as well.
ReplyDeleteJust when you think that Ol' Heh-Indeedy can't get any skeevier, he elevates his game.
ReplyDeleteYOOOOOOOUUUUUU!!!
ReplyDeleteThey have symbolized this with which are, apparently, the only video games in existence today: Candy Crush and Call of Duty:
ReplyDeleteOdd they never seem to mention Minecraft.
I see lots of SJWs from the gamer world who protest against the evil of GamerGate. They're on the same bus as the "average NRA member who doesn't support the NRA's radical views." That bus is always on the way to the big national protest, but pulls into a Waffle House somewhere in Missouri and never quite gets to the protest.
ReplyDeleteO'Nann Winquedinque says it is.
ReplyDeletePaul Campos over at Lawyers, Guns & Money has done a series of posts on the law school scam (that is, the expansion of number of law schools and the number of students in existing ones and the subsequent flooding of the legal job market with recent graduates with crushing amounts of debt and no real job prospects), and although he primarily points his finger at their being a cash cow for their parent institutions (or, in the case of for-profit schools, for their investors), they obviously also create faculty positions for a few lucky lawyers. Campos has also posted about how admissions are starting to collapse, with subsequent cutbacks in faculty; unfortunately, Reynolds is probably unlikely to lose his position, as he apparently has tenure and the University of Tennessee is unlikely to shutter its law school. (See also: Althouse, A., UW-Madison.)
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to do a thing on the connection between "internet warfare" and the obsession over Call Of Duty-like games that seem to have spurred this. 'Cause it sounds like there's some crossover there.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to hazard a guess that Reynolds would refuse to recognize "Kshatriya" as a real word.
ReplyDeleteJonah's going to be SO disappointed he's out of the running.
ReplyDeleteI had sex with a man in reno, just to watch him die.
ReplyDeleteYes, but it was the little death.
"Vote? We're busy here! Now, if you'll pardon me, I need to get back to Tweeting my rage."
ReplyDeletepeople who have been forced to sell their possessions piece by heart-breaking piece in futile attempts to make ends meet.
ReplyDelete*raises hand*
Have I mentioned how much I hate the GOP?
But they've never had neckbeards tweet them death threats before! THIS IS A PARADIGM CHANGE
ReplyDeleteBoss: "Gjoni, I notice that you haven't done anything productive here for the last three months."
ReplyDeleteGjoni: "But, boss! This is war! On the internet!"
Boss [speaking into intercom]: "Ms. Brinson, please send security in to escort Mr. Gjoni from the building."
YOU.
ReplyDeleteKind of like the dung beetle with the biggest ball of shit.
ReplyDeleteToo extreme for 4chan.
ReplyDeleteNow THAT'S gotta hurt.
It's the best tool to use when you need to separate the derp from the...from....hang on a second: it's all derp.
ReplyDeleteThe Father Flanagans of reviewers: There are no bad games, me boy, only bad gamers.
ReplyDelete"Fuckin' moon-speak. How could you pronounce that?"
ReplyDeleteMa'am, it's derpiphants all the way down.
ReplyDeleteHopefully his Anti-Witchcraft Amendment doesn't include witch doctors, else how are we going to treat all those blahs who have ebola?
ReplyDeleteThat "they’re really just attacking autistic people for clumsy social propriety" is pretty gross, isn't it? I mean, I've been acquainted with a few people on the spectrum, and NOT ONE of them thought death or rape threats were OK.
ReplyDeleteIs it any different from Sports? I just read a very moving article by a black male journalist calling out other people in his social circle for not being supportive of Janay Rice and the women of the NFL who are coming forward and discussing the everyday acceptance of domestic violence in their lives. The point he made was that men he knew were so devoted to football that they saw any criticism of it as criticism of them; that they saw any criticism of it as an attempt to end it entirely so a theft from them of a thing/place of deep meaning. He didn't say that this was because of racism, as one of these gamer gate/mra dudes might say it was because of misandry or anti nerd bullying, but I think that was implicit. He was arguing that for whatever reason certain activities get valorized and we clutch them to us and anythign that seems to undercut them, or even make fun of their importance, undercuts someone's very identity and self. So naturally the response is going to be to lash out at the "attackers." And the response is going to seem disproportionate--will be disproportionate--to the actual threat. After all if we look at the football thing there are hundreds of potential replacements for every guy who might go to jail for beating up his wife/girflriend. Enforcing domestic violence laws against violaters won't end football anymore than enforcing such laws against car executives would destroy the car industry.
ReplyDeleteWhat fucks.
ReplyDeleteThe anime chick icon just cements it. Dollars to donuts he's got a posable anime babe statue on top of his monitor.
I get that you're trying to add a bit of nuance to the discussion, and as someone who's gotten into Tumblr quite a bit over the last year (mostly to discuss and enjoy my various fandoms, in particular the number of comics artists who post great stuff there), there certainly are people who fit the SJW stereotype; it's a riff on the old holier-than-thou trope. And I'm sure that there are a bunch of people who fit the category that you describe in your first paragraph. Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade both described himself as such and was described by others as such.
ReplyDeleteBut that was only after some years of the whole "dickwolves thing, plus some other incidents (such as Krahulik making some antitrans tweets, either not knowing or not caring that one of his own employees was trans), to the point that the Penny Arcade/PAX brand was being damaged; game developers were talking about boycotting PAX, which is by far the largest and most successful string of gamer conventions. I doubt that Krahulik would have come to the same revelation if people had simply gone "Oh, you!" and left him alone. Potential allies aren't going to be recruited from a position of comfort.
Also, having looked into that #NotYourShield thing, it seems obvious that they're acting as a shield for the gamergaters; it's about as absurd a defense as wingnuts insisting that they're not racist because Michelle Malkin.
that are replacing
ReplyDeletesterility with something vibrant
It's like they held a funhouse mirror up to T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."
Dollars to donut holes that he's got an anime pillow. (Warning: doing a GIS on "anime pillow" takes you straight into NSFWland. When I first read about these, several years ago, the skeeviness was only implicit; now they're not even pretending.)
ReplyDeleteOh, well, if you can't trust a self-help expert, whom can you trust?
ReplyDeleteDO NOT Google that.
ReplyDeleteGoddamnit don't you cut me out I've practically already got my character created.
ReplyDeleteNo, but he's been retconned as the undying master of the largest Assassins' Guild.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think more about the ways in which post 9/11 violence in video games (games that are strictly about shooting people) have become valorized as a way of preparing to fight the enemy
ReplyDeleteYou could start with America's Army, and IIRC there's a bit early in the book Generation Kill that points out that that generation grew up with shooter games.
When you multiply it by zero*, the result is also zero**.I checked and rechecked all the decent Christian numerals, and I find no sign of this "zero." Either you just made it up, or it's one of those lies invented by heathens.
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
The US Public Madrasa System of Twenty Years Hence
Recall that Mrs OP wrote an entire book using anecdotes as research, so it's not as if he's unfamiliar with the process.
ReplyDeleteSelf-help IYKWIMAITYD.
ReplyDeleteour "economy" would come down to tens of millions of people living under bridges and searching out free power and wifi."And ... ?"
ReplyDelete--Rove and Cheney
SJW = Moe from "Dykes To Watch Out For".
ReplyDeleteNapalm, remember?
ReplyDeleteWhen I started reading that post, my heart lept into my throat when they mentioned Trudy "Oglaf" Cooper as a possible GG supporter. O happy day!.
ReplyDeleteHe can waste the taxpayers money posting derp on the internet all day because socialism!!
ReplyDeleteYes, and Alison Bechdel has always been open as to how Mo is essentially a self-critique of her own tendencies in that regard.
ReplyDelete*facepalm* Don't remind me.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite creepy-ass misogynist Ye Olde Perfesser moment- and there are legions to choose from- was when the Instaputz blog (R.I.P.) was able to shame him* into stopping taking creeper pics of random women around Knoxville. Oh, but he was just trying out his new camera, you see.
ReplyDelete* Either that or the UT-Cracker Barrel Skool of Law finally got him to knock it off.
Reynolds' looks have always given off a stalker vibe. His words don't do him any favors either.
You can't fool me. Those derpiphants are standing on the back of a giant derple.
ReplyDelete(Parenthetically, "Derpesh" unfortunately sounds entirely plausible as a Hindu/Buddhist deity.)
Being a law perfesser, InstaNitwit can surely come up with a credible legal argument that it's A-OKAY to take pictures of women in public places.
ReplyDeleteCreating a legal defense for the mirrors on his shoes might be a whole other thing, though.
Derpesh - Hindu god of stupidity, shallowness and conservativism.
ReplyDeleteDoes he fill the role that Coyote typically fills in many Native American belief systems?
ReplyDeleteBeat to this comment by that much!
ReplyDeleteI see you've encountered some...devout attempts to square seventeenth-century mathematics with the Holy Writ of God. (If the OT says pi=3, and your ruler says it's 3.14something, which one is wrong? Also, imaginary numbers: are they the result of man's hubris, an attempt to challenge the mind of the Creator himself, and thus reflections of Original Sin, or are they simply demonic lies from the pit of Hell? Tune in tomorrow when we burn some heretics from the Rutgers faculty!)
ReplyDeleteI edit doctoral dissertations from folks in psychology and the social sciences. I've had many dissertations cross my desk with a whole lot less "data" than what Roy has rounded up for this single post. (Most recent example: Interviewed 6 people regarding their perceptions on homosexuality, and was able to spin that into "meaningful" statistics.)
ReplyDeleteThat's Tunney's usual hobby horse -- that the neurotypicals are so jealous of autistic techies and STEM majors like her that they refuse to let them have the things they deserve, like live-in servants and President Sergey Brin.
ReplyDeleteNewsletter? You should hear the original vinyl.
ReplyDeleteI have Asperger tendencies myself. I do not make death/rape threats.
ReplyDeleteThat's bullshit.
If the OT says pi=3, and your ruler says it's 3.14something, which one is wrong?
ReplyDeleteAs any good Republican will tell you, we must teach the controversy and let the students make their own decisions.
Although, personally, I'm waiting for the first Christian engineering school to open. "I designed your new trusswork. It's going to be 26 cubits long, and should support as much as 50 talents."
They don't do a newsletter--they go door-to-door. Unfortunately, most such missionaries end up sitting in the car with the stereo cranked and never get to doing the recruiting.
ReplyDeleteOur fundamental delusion today is not to believe in what is only a fiction, to take fictions too seriously. It's, on the contrary, not to take fictions seriously enough. You think it's just a game? It's reality. It's more real than it appears to you. For example, people who play video games, they adopt a screen persona of a sadist, rapist, whatever. The idea is, in reality I'm a weak person, so in order to supplement my real life weakness, I adopt the false image of a strong, sexually promiscuous person, and so on and so on. So this would be the naïve reading... But what if we read it in the opposite way? That this strong, brutal rapist, whatever, identity is my true self. In the sense that this is the psychic truth of myself and that in real life, because of social constraints and so on, I'm not able to enact it. So that, precisely because I think it's only a game, it's only a persona, a self-image I adopt in virtual space, I can be there much more truthful. I can enact there an identity which is much closer to my true self.
ReplyDelete--slavoj zizek, pervert's guide to cinema
There were channers who, when they were tossed off 4chan, said that it was the inevitable outcome of moot "going soft" when he implemented the FBI thing.
ReplyDeleteThe civil rights movement wasn't a social justice movement, it was a conservative movement. A proto-Tea Party, if you will. MLK was wearing a tri-corner hat in his heart.
ReplyDelete(I don't even have to look to know that someone- think a Star Parker or a Tom Sowell- has made this argument.)
Figures. Beyond that, opinions vary as to the source of Swanson's appeal. Some think it's Nick Offerman's skills and charisma. Others think it's Swanson's ideology, which lends a whiff of Nick Gillespie's badassery to Offerman.
ReplyDeletethe role that Coyote typically fills
ReplyDeleteGetting his dick caught in things?
Some broads had opinions and had to be thoroughly punished.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, friend. Suey Park is a honkin' bozo, but her existence doesn't make me want to side with people who use rape threats as a debate tactic.
ReplyDeleteI like it when brony conservatives (yes, this is a thing that exists) freak out about how Obama isn't patriotic enough, but their own doodle of them holding a child's horse toy and an American flag is the highest example of the art. These people make me side with the jocks who stuff them into lockers, they really do.
ReplyDeleteGanesha's other brother (the one that doesn't even get mentioned at funerals): the Creator of Obstacles.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, I can understand why these guys are upset with the industry. People who've been playing video games for years and years are basically early adopters, and what sucks about being an early adopter is that the things you like most are always the first ones to change or disappear. For someone who got excited about gaming after Myst and Riven, or who started on those old-school wargames with two-inch thick manuals, it's not hard to see why the rise of the Bang-Bang Shooty-Shooty would be disappointing.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't think this disappointment is what's going on here. I think people are using video games as sort of a line of last defense for the old geek stereotypes (they can't use comics anymore, they already surrendered those to Hollywood). A lot of geek culture was and still is based on rejection - the people in these fandoms feel as though they're outcasts, whether or not that's true. And as with many outsider subcultures, they come to believe that their outsider status makes them special - gives them special insights, even gives them moral superiority. These guys don't want girls or jocks or middle-aged people or anyone outside of the stereotype to be part of that club because it dilutes that specialness.
It's just my opinion - I certainly can't prove it - but it absolutely explains every outrage of the last decade.
When the gamergaters figure out that the righties are using them, will they react with the same scorn they apply to "fake geek girls"?
ReplyDeleteWhat you've missed is that "Social Justice Warrior" (note the caps) is a specific term that MRAs cooked up post-Sarkeesian. It more or less refers to women who have campaigns to ruin things men like just because men like them. And it know it sounds like I'm being facetious, but I'm really not - poke around a bit, you'll see it attached to women who are trying to "destroy" sports or comic books or fraternities or action movies or whatever else.
ReplyDeleteWell, come on, she's obviously extremely non-PC, likes cocks at least in abstract, and makes jokes. Since that's the complete opposite of a lefty feminist scold, she must be on their side. Right? Right?
ReplyDelete[Sound of crickets noisily getting it on]
"It's going to be 26 cubits long, and should support as much as 50 talents.""Praise the Lord! Given our skillsets, that weight limit will never be reached."
ReplyDeleteSome over-enthusiastic gentlemen decided to respond to criticism of sexism in video games with the restrained response of saying they were going to rape the critics to death and write obscenities in their blood.
ReplyDeleteAnd, by the way, women keep rejecting them for some unknown reason, probably lesbianism.
I thought Obstacles was Heracles's other brother.
ReplyDelete(If the OT says pi=3, and your ruler says it's 3.14something, which one is wrong?The obviously irrational one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, imaginary numbers: are they the result of man's hubris, an attempt to challenge the mind of the Creator himself, and thus reflections of Original Sin, or are they simply demonic lies from the pit of Hell?Ooh, ooh, i know this one. The "intellectuals" claim it's complex, but that doesn't phase me. It's as plane as day!
brony conservatives (yes, this is a thing that exists)
ReplyDeleteOh fuck me Agnes.
The mind croggles, as Harlan Ellison once said.
Sadly, No.
ReplyDeleteI go to resale shops frequently and they are an economy unto themselves. I used to see mostly very poor people and a few lower middle class people like me but lately I'm seeing college students, non-Hispanic families and a few upsellers and Oprah-watchers.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's a fad or a necessity.
Not only do I think she's wrong about threats, I also think she's wrong about typical elephant weights, which I guess just goes to show how willing I am to hold her people down. At least until I'm distracted by thoughts of tiny elephants because SQUEE.
ReplyDeleteNecessity.
ReplyDelete... I'm still waiting for the "unfortunate" part.
ReplyDeleteBUG PORN
ReplyDeleteHere's an even more straightforward explanation: When you see the term "Social Justice Warrior," just substitute in "Politically Correct Police," with all the assumptions and connotations of that term.
ReplyDeleteThere is enough used clothing out there to cover the planet. I see office workers buy high quality clothing and shoes for their jobs. College students buy clothes, shoes, work uniforms and costumes. Tiny Hispanic women buy pots and pans. Mothers buy toys for their large families. Everyone buys beds, tvs and bookshelves. Older men buy pants and books. Older women buy clothing, china and crystal.
ReplyDeleteBut what if the "true self" is itself a fiction, an idealization, and brings us back to enactment-of-a-fantasy. The "true self" is what the shlub focuses on precisely because he (yes, he) can't, or refuses to, acknowledge that he's "a weak person."
ReplyDeleteIs it too simplistic to say that Gamergate consists of sexually insecure males lashing out at the one thing they're most afraid of, i.e., assertive women? And all the rest is bullshit pseudo-sociological excuse-making?
i think so. and only because it seems so violently stupid. i mean. to the point that it's opaque. it's free floating and rootless. so i think there's more "at risk" for these dweebs than just womanhood in the 21st century--surely that's a component of it, but it has to be a mix of atavisms, if i can coin a phrase.
ReplyDeleteIsn't Reynols childless? Not that there's anything wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteMaybe his swimmer are actually paddlers, or sink-to-the-bottomers.
More like the role the Coyote plays in Roadrunner cartoons.
ReplyDeleteThere are people in various geek and outcast subcultures who do have a right to be at least somewhat pissed off (though not at the targets that the gamergate drips are choosing, obviously). I vividly recall facing physical violence from jocks for listening to punk rock in 1980, only to run into those same jocks at shows in 1985. I recall taking no small amount of shit for being a comics fan from people who today hoard mint-condition 1990s soak-the-collectors specials in acid-free plastic bags.
ReplyDeleteIt often isn't so much that membership in outsider subcultures gives one moral superiority, it's that people who were actively abusive of members of those outsider cultures want their previous history ignored so that they can waltz in and clain their own membership.
That's one of the things that irks me about the whole Adam Baldwin bit. Hey, gamerd00dz: does Adam Baldwin strike you as a guy that was remotely supportive of you when you were being fucked over in the halls of your junior high school? Does he look like a non-fake geek--or any kind of geek at all? It's pretty clear that the mysogyny and rampant kiss-up-kick-down aspect of the gamergate types doesn't have much to do with celebration of their own outsider status--more like attempting to rise to kool kidz status.
His swimmers are saving themselves for the right circuit.
ReplyDeleteFuck 'em.
ReplyDeleteI don't care what a special snowflake you are - it doesn't excuse misogyny of the level they trade in.
Chris Kluwe (my man-crush) weighs in today:
ReplyDeletehttps://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll put them on my ...sigh...every growing list.
ReplyDeleteNo, too much work involved in being Coyote or Loki.
ReplyDeleteOr: Bitchez be crazy. That works too.
ReplyDeleteStanding athwart history, waving 32 arms, yelling 'STOP!'
ReplyDeleteStill, he's been memorialized for all eternity in the terms "Jonanism" and "Jonah's Razor" upthread. That's something to put on his tombstone.
ReplyDeleteHe can take his Internet Warrior Cosplay Stuff with him.
ReplyDeleteAmerica's Army was predated by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Doom
ReplyDeletein 1996. One of the authors of that Doom mod later became a public anti-video game violence crusader, and pointed specifically at that game as evidence that first person shooters were simply murder simulators.
Its amazing to watch the tears flow over at 8chan over the women in these guys lives (or who they imagine are in their lives) pointing out that this hostility and the rape and death threats and all are kind of unpleasant. They keep posting things like "how dumb do you bitches have to be to imagine that just because we are threatening to doxx, stalk, rape, torture and kill three or four women we talk about incessantly that this applies to you? Who's the sexist now, hunh? hunh? "
ReplyDeleteI was going with "his swimmers went galt in the hopes of finding themselves with better parents in a different life." Its a kind of combination of Ayn Rand and Samsara.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it Matzoh?
ReplyDeleteI would so read the shit out of that.
ReplyDeleteJust another chapter in the right's long poo-streaked book of "Why we are victums, and yet Masters of the Universe'
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought "Crogglement" was a word Lois McMaster Bujold had thought up. Learn something new every day.
ReplyDeleteI knew socialism was evil--I just didn't know how evil.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help myself...
ReplyDelete8(
And that's why women wear those pantsuits.
ReplyDeleteA 'consumer movement' that seems intent on making sure that 50% of the population never associates with you or your product ever again. And conservatives are the ones who are smart about business, uh huh, sure.
ReplyDeleteGamergate is the special shitstorm that happens when a world class asshole finds the thread that unites MRAs and the resentment filled entitled jerks of the gaming world. It's a self sustaining tornado of shit, and it is a great embarrassment to gamers (and people who play games but don't define themselves by it.)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has the makings of a song lyric.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit I'm in love. Not only is he freaking adorable but he can really write.
ReplyDeleteThese paint-huffing shitgoblins think they’re “gamers,” and it pisses me the fuck off.
Sigh. [Begins writing Mrs. Aimai Kluwe, Mrs. Aimai Kluwe, Mrs. Aimai Kluwe all over highschool notebook cover.]
Alinsky, Alinsky they've all got in in for me... No wait...
ReplyDeleteYes, recited by that woman songwriter whose name I'm blanking out "I was looking in the mirror..."
ReplyDeleteThere is plenty enough used clothing
out there to clothe the planet
I see office workers
buying...badumbadumbadump bad ump.
I gotta say, I don't think this is the right tack to take. I don't believe there is any evidence that people who play violent video games are more likely to commit violence in the real world, and that these arguments are basically what Frederic Wertham and Tipper Gore used against comic books and music respectively, and are going to look similarly ridiculous in retrospect.
ReplyDeleteI understand why it feels like such an obvious connection and an obvious cause and effect, and if that's not something you're into, there's a million reasons why it looks distasteful and disgusting, but I really don't think there's anything there. Plenty of people play games like that without turning into assholes.
you're missing the point--it's not that it turns them into assholes, it's that the assholes are already assholes--the virtual spaces are where truth occurs.
ReplyDelete(as a friend pointed out to me this morning, the gamergate faction is a tiny one, albeit one that's vocal and understands social media, and how to make elaborate death/rape threats).
muddling the "purity" of this virtual space--with "corruption," or the intrusion of women and progressive politics--ends up as a sanction on a gamergater's ability to act out his truths; hence, all the sound and fury.
You can never unsee the horror.
ReplyDeleteI'm not into guys, but "paint-huffing shitgoblins" is a slice of fried gold.
ReplyDeleteBlimey, that's some article!
ReplyDeleteAlso: "slopebrowed weaseldicks".
ReplyDelete"...and I say to myself,
ReplyDeleteWhat a fucked-up world..."
I'm thinking that Reynolds, in his usual shallow way, posted that blip without reading the actual article it linked to. The article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/mens-health/11172519/Vegetarians-have-much-lower-sperm-counts.
ReplyDeletemade it clear that the main cause of lower sperm counts and motility was pesticide contamination.
This. The "ethics in game journalism" is such an obvious last ditch effort to justify their misogyny that it really shouldn't even be mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading about Marine Doom in the Navy Times when I was in the Navy. A fascinating story.
ReplyDeleteIFIRC, it started when some techie enlisted men got busted for hosting LAN parties on government computers, playing Doom in the office after hours. Some ingenious officers got them off the hook by successfully arguing that the game, played in groups, was useful for combat training. Putting their money where their mouths were, so to speak, the Marines then developed a version of the game for that specific purpose, organizing players into 4-person fire teams, using standard-issue weapons. Playing Marine Doom was to become part of shipboard routine for Marines at sea who spend all that down time doing pushups, cleaning weapons, and polishing their boots.
They even designed the maps as duplicates of US Embassies, so the Marines playing it would be memorizing the layouts of the buildings they'd be expected to defend. (Of course, not long after that the responsibility for US Embassy security was taken from the Marines for the first time in history and got farmed out to private security contractors. Because even though the Marines did the job well nobody was getting rich from it.)
When you see the term "Social Justice Warrior," just substitute in "Politically Correct Police,"
ReplyDeleteOr, alternatively and spookily, skeleton.
(The Metafilter thread from which I learned of the above also brought us #NotYourSkeleton, I Thought We Were Skeletons sounds like a Decemberists album, and a reference to Searle's Chinese Room. Metafilter is just so ... not Reddit.)
To be fair, Adam Baldwin DID save nerd Chris Makepeace's ass in My Bodyguard, though he did that for money...hey, waaaaait a minute!
ReplyDeleteHe'll bodyguard you in a fair fight, or if he think the guy's gonna start a fair fight, or if the guy bothers him, or if there's a woman, or if he's getting paid.
ReplyDelete