Gaming

128 Responses

1. I’m sad you guys covered GamerGate in the way that you did. There are shitty people on both sides, TheZoePost was indeed the jumping off point for GamerGate but once all the other information surfaced it was no longer about Quinn, we’re talking like a few days from when the ZoePost when live. And yes, It is about ethics. Getting your main information from the sites involved doesn’t count as research on the topic when they have an interest in painting the other side as vile monsters by cherry picking the worst comments and presenting it like there is no rational exchange from the other side going on (Kotaku Polygon Gamasutra and many others.)

   The harassment Quinn got would be the same a person of any gender would have gotten. It’s the Internet, everyone gets shit. For every nasty thing said there’s been well reasoned, calm debate. Also please checkout #NotYourShield which spawned directly from #GamerGate. Oh and 4chan made an IndieGoGo Zoe Quinn threatend to get blacklisted successful, “The Fine Young Capitalist” a campaign to help woman break into the video game industry.

   anti-GG people have said just as many terrible things and have gotten MORE people doxxed than GG.

   1. While there may be shitty people on both sides, the two sides are not at all equal.

      The entire causative event for #GamerGate is false and toxic. Anyone still attempting to push gaming journalistic ethics using it is either stunningly ignorant of this, or doesn’t care, and if that’s true then they’re part of the problem.

      The claim that Quinn would have got the same harassment is outrageous. The actual *GUY* involved in this hasn’t received anything like this, and he’s the one who is supposed to have broken some kind of journalistic code.

      Except he didn’t. Zoe Quinn’s story has *zero* to do with “journalistic ethics” and it is the *formative* event for that hashtag. It is *poison*.

      You want to talk about journalistic ethics in games journalism? Go make a hashtag that isn’t dripping with misogyny. Either you care about that, or you don’t. If you don’t care, you’re still a bad guy in this whole thing.

      Also, go check out the chat logs I’ve linked, and read more about how the people attacking Zoe Quinn (who, I’ll re-state, has *zero* to do with any “journalistic ethics” claims) are pumping out propaganda to keep the “Journalistic ethics” side of this going.

      You’re sad we covered it this way? We presented the *facts*.

      I’m sad you don’t seem to care what they are.

      1. I haven’t followed gamergate, and I honestly really don’t care enough about the integrity of gaming journalism to even take the time to form an opinion, but the claim that people have zero evidence for journalist corruption when pressed for it is just plain wrong.

         The Evidence and History of #GamerGate: http://youtu.be/IEMdf8D0lfw

         Maybe you disagree with all of it, maybe you think it’s made up completely, but there are TONS of other, far more serious complaints than the original issue with Zoe. As for that original issue, yeah misogyny sucks and the Internet is rife with it. Given that what spawned from some nasty intentions seems to have gone in the opposite direction though, I see no reason why the hastag should be tarred and feathered forcing the many more numerous people who’ve used it for good to essentially start over. The good stuf done under the label seems to now far outweigh the original sins done under it.

         1. You haven’t followed GamerGate and you don’t really care, but you’re here to post a video entitled “The Evidence and History of #GamerGate”?

            And refute “the claim that people have zero evidence for journalist corruption”? That claim that nobody made?

            You guys keep on arguing shit nobody else is arguing and ignore the fact that women are being given rape and death threats because they’re vocal women in gaming.

            Anyone who cares more about video games getting unbiased reviews than women being driven from their homes and being unable to speak in public for fear of their lives can fuck off.

            1. In the episode you said that there was nothing to the claims of gamergate beside the issue with Zoe and Kotaku which was a non-issue. That’s all I’m responding to. I don’t care about gamergate but it bugs me when people I like make bad or incomplete arguments (to be clear, I’ll defend a youg earther from bad arguments if I hear em. It’s just a compulsion with me) . I didn’t ignore the rape threats, in fact I said the Internet is rife with them; the point being that sadly almost anything involving women on the internet seems to involve rape and death threats. It is decidedly NOT a non-issue, but I feel that those issuing such threats are such a diffuse and un reasonable bunch that they basically cannot be tied down to any one group and trying to specifically make them stop is hopeless. They pop up everywhere, are anonymous when they do it, and are the type of people who make such comments in lieu of actually being sane. Maybe you have luck against a few individuals, but for some stupid reason there are hundreds more doing the same thing.

               The reason I watched the video was because of your episode and since I’d heard some things that seemed to contradict what you were saying on the show (that gamergate is NOT at all about journalistic ethics) and I wanted a bite-sized summary of the whole thing again.

               As for caring more about unbiased reviews, the whole reason I led with “I don’t care about gamergate” was to make sure you knew I wasn’t here as someone who cared about unbiased reviews in gaming. My observations, like it or not, are indeed as someone who actually does care more that blatant misogony somehow is thriving on the Internet than whether the people reviewing my games are honest. Based on just the small video I shared though, it seems that as far as gamergate goes, the active misogony part seems to have been grossly overshadowed the part where gamergate has been used to combat active misogony what with #notmyshield and so on.

2. Glad we can have discourse here in the comments, then. Thanks for that.

3. Don’t get me wrong, I think #gamergate is stupid and filled with misogyny, but the whole ” Treat people with respect you dumb, immature, pieces of sh*t” type of message I though was hilariously hypocritical.

   1. Yeah, I hate calling people dumb, immature, pieces of shit.

      They should stop being dumb, immature, pieces of shit so I can stop doing that.

      1. hey, nobodies perfect.

         1. Also Hanlon’s Razor. It helps with stuff like this.

4. Okay Joe, I can see you aren’t willing to budge. Thanks for the show and the reply. Have a good one.

5. I disagree about gamergate.

   A lot of gamers feel stereotyped by the media, the way that they were after Columbine, so be careful with any over-generalizations. Quinn received death threats from gamers, but that doesn’t mean that gamers generally support that.

   Also, attacking women on the internet has been around for a while. It is a serious problem, but I’ve been hearing about it in the skeptics community, and on 4chan and reddit in general. Misconstruing the problem won’t help fix it.

   In your reporting you said that the Quinn/reporter corruption has been debunked, and so gamergate is about nothing other than misogyny, but I disagree. There are controversies over corruption in general, Quinn’s relationship with the Fine Young Capitalists, and the media attacking gamers. I only have an opinion about the latter: the media like to paint gamers as immoral, and gamers often react emotionally to that.

   I don’t know if you know TotalBiscuit, but he is awesome and he supports gamergate: https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/519177354753880065

   Also, there is evidence that a lot of reporters are pushing a narrative about gamergate: http://theralphretort.com/internal-email-shows-guardian-mind-made-gamergate/

   Anyways, I don’t care about respecting gamers, but please be careful when making over-generalizations. You might hurt this guy’s feelings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=1FnrHhUJMxc

   It’s okay to get angry about women being threatened on the internet.

   1. It doesn’t matter if “gamers don’t generally support [death threats]”. Nobody is saying they do. #GamerGate was created to slut-shame and harass a woman in gaming, never stopped being about that, but has broadened out to attack other women in gaming like Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu. We recorded this episode just before the actual death threats came out. Even then it was obvious what a clusterfuck of hate #GamerGate was.

      And continues to be.

      It started as hate.

      It never stopped being about hate.

      Its hate grew.

      That you can point to people who want to use #GamerGate to do actually noble and just things means *nothing*. The tag has been corrupted from its very inception. If you have an actual, non-hateful point to make you hare hurting your own cause sticking to the #GamerGate hashtag.

      The media isn’t attacking gamers. It’s attacking misogynist gamers. They are judging them on their actions. That’s not you? Neat. You should probably stop wearing their identifying tags then.

      If you’re not a hater, you didn’t make #GamerGate.

      If you’re not a hater, you cannot claim #GamerGate because they never lost it.

      If you are a hater, fuck off.

      Of course the Guardian had its mind made up on #GamerGate. It’s obvious to nearly everyone who comes at it with an open mind and all the information. The “Do not respond!” is because those behind #GamerGate do exactly what you do and try to spin it into something not hateful, I believe in many times it’s so they can get their hate pushed through. Someone who had been paying attention noticed the #GamerGate propaganda machine, and didn’t want a less-informed writer doing something stupid like Intel did. I applaud the warning, and it may have saved them from an apologetic “Wow, we got fooled by #GamerGate” post later on.

      If your self-identity is so entwined in the GamerGate movement despite knowing it was forged in hate and never stopped being about that, I urge you to step away.

      It’s ok to step away from a fucking hashtag because women are being threatened on the Internet.

      1. Also, wait, you’re not even pointing to anyone using #GamerGate to be noble about journalistic ethics. You’re actually providing apologetics to the attacks on Quinn. What. The. Fuck.

         1. You guys have actually gone up in my estimation based on this. Thank you.

      2. Joe, you are fantastic. That is all.

6. interestingly, the SS Blood Group tattoos are what allowed Joseph Mengele to escape after WWII. He didn’t have one, and so was released by the allies.

7. Been wishing for a D&D caustic podcast for a couple of years (yep that’s me every time you ask for topic suggestions on FB). Best episode for a while, totally loving the more abstract episodes guys.

   Keep it caustic and keep it real and If i’m ever in Canada the beers are on me, and FYI black-pudding is amazing!

8. “The media isn’t attacking gamers. It’s attacking misogynist gamers. They are judging them on their actions. That’s not you? Neat. You should probably stop wearing their identifying tags then.”

   Little point of contention here, Joe… sure, they might be attacking misogynist gamers and I’ll give them props to that. But it would be -really- great if they didn’t do it by lumping -all- other gamers with that crowd. Because that’s part of the uproar: there is scarcely any distinction between “those douchebags threatening people over the internet” and “gamers in general” in those articles, blog posts and news clippings.

   There have been masses of articles decrying “gamers” and talking about “gamer culture is dead” as if gamers were all insecure mouthbreathers who never even saw a pair of breasts in real life ever since they stopped being breast-fed. That is the stuff that really annoys me personally: having a large and vibrant culture being shotgunned with slander because of a minority of assholes.

   I’d really love to get out of this mess without having to give up on “gamer”, because it’s a simple easy word to tell people what you like to do: playing videogames. All this stupidity is making it look like -all- people who play videogames are bigoted idiots. At least the Atheism+ folks had the decency of coming up with a new label for their movement.

   As a little side note, I would love to live long enough to see a world in which you can criticize a woman for her actions without being called a misogynistic bigot. There is an enormous gulf between not liking a single woman and hating or being hostile women in general (the definition of misogyny). It’s like claiming that anyone who criticizes Bill O’Reily’s or Keith Olbermann’s political views only does so because they’re a misandrist. As opposed to, y’know, disliking their political views or their actions.

   For example, Anita Sarkeesian had good points, but she presented them in a horrible, horrible way. But pointing out real factual errors and misrepresentation in her videos (the easiest example being the infamous Hitman clip) only gets you labeled as a bigot and ignored. Zoé Quinn’s Depression Quest was (for all its awareness value) barely more than a point-and-click adventure game without puzzles, and what she did to the Fine Young Capitalist’s (a feminist group!) crowdfunding was also really shitty, but commenting on either issue also gets you slandered and shut out.

   Looks like both sides in this goddamn fiasco are only shouting at each other, shooting over each others’ heads without a care in the world while rational gamers and rational feminists alike end up getting showered in shrapnel. That’s no way to have a reasonable conversation.

   1. Prove it. Show me the articles claiming “gamers” and using a broad brush. I call that a straw-man, and not at all what is going on in the major publications.

      I’ve seen the “Gamer culture is dead” posts. Did you not understand them? Did you not try? Or did you get so offended by the title that you refused to go on and closed your mind?

      Here’s one of the articles, and it goes out of its way to point out “notallgamers”, the opposite of your claimed injustices.

      Dan Golding’s post says

      Due to fundamental shifts in the videogame audience, and a move towards progressive attitudes within more traditional areas of videogame culture, the gamer identity has been broken. It has nowhere to call home, and so it reaches out inarticulately at invented problems, such as bias and corruption, which are partly just ways of expressing confusion as to why things the traditional gamer does not understand are successful (that such confusion results in abject heartlessness is an indictment on the character of the male-focussed gamer culture to begin with).

      This is an insightful and fair look at what’s going on, and nowhere does he claim it’s all gamers.

      It’s a straw-man. It’s a flailing defense for a losing position in an argument, as is your claim that people are being called misogynistic bigots for disagreeing with women. That’s not happening here.

      Women are receiving terrorist death threats and being driven from their own homes in fear and you’re crying about your identity as a gamer. WAAAAAAH. Grow up.

      People did not get labelled a bigot for pointing out the Hitman clip. They got labelled bigots for their hateful attacks on her. Are you living in an alternate Universe?

      Get down off your cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and fucking get over it.

      1. Calm down, dude. I don’t care for either side of this argument. There is no cross, there’s no bridge needed. Both sides have flung enough shit at one another that they lost and shred of integrity they had in my book.

         I was indeed called a bigot for pointing out the Hitman clip and how the game -discourages- you from doing all the things Anita Sarkeesian was talking about in her voiceover. I was dismissed as a “woman-hating mouthbreather” when I said Zoé Quinn’s Depression Quest was a badly-designed game (as I said, there’s very little “game” in that game). If you don’t believe that happened, well… nothing I can do here because moderation has deleted those Reddit threads. I also got shouted at by #GamerGate people for asking people to stop with the personal attacks. The plural of anecdote is not data, but experiences like that have shown me that BOTH sides of the argument are full of unreasonable people.

         Fuckwads threatening ANYONE (women or man alike) on the internet -need- to be arrested, trialed and made to pay for their stupidity to the full extent of the law. Be those the idiots who threatened Anita Sarkeesian, or the idiots who threatened John Bain (aka TotalBiscuit), or ANYONE. Hell, someone threatening to bomb the Westboro Baptist Church should get caught and prosecuted.

         (Incidentally, the recommended way to react to a death threat over the internet is to contact the authorities and avoid disclosing the case as much as possible, so the police can investigate.)

         But just because someone got threatened over their opinion doesn’t mean they’re right. It means whoever is threatening them is wrong, but it does not mean whoever is being threatened is suddenly in the clear. You can still debate their positions and their actions, which is what I wanted to do here.

         I got called a misogynist and a bigot and all sorts of stupid things for not toeing either party line. What I am in fact is a 20-something dude with a very smart and very independent gamer girlfriend he loves more than anything in the world (getting married as soon as we both sort our finances out), and who would absolutely be delighted to see more women in the games industry and more strong non-eyecandy female protagonists in games and popular culture in general. Hell, my favorite TV series is still to this day Avatar: The Legend of Korra (finally, female characters that are both tough and believable!). I have no horse in this race, because I don’t think either side is right. There is a better way to go about our business than slinging mud, comparing the other side to fucking ISIS, or telling people to grow up.

         I’ve learned far too late that #GamerGate is like Global Thermonuclear War. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play, because there are far more productive ways to enact change than arguing with people who will never have their minds changed. Everyone is preaching to the converted.

         Still, thanks for taking the time to reply. It wasn’t the conversation I wanted it to be, but at least it was a conversation. It’s still FAR more than I managed to extract from most other people, on either side.

         Also (and this might be a bit of a mood whiplash), the bit about FATAL on the podcast? Spot on. I could not get past page 15 of that deeply, deeply wrong book.

         1. I get your argument but saying you are against misogyny because you like Legend of Korra is less credible than saying you’re not racist because you have a black friend.

            1. Really? Less credible? I’d expect it to be just about AS credible. 😛

               Anyway, this is the Internet. I can’t really prove I’m not a misogynistic bastard, so my actions and my tastes are the only things that can speak for me. I like strong, flawed* female protagonists in my media, and that’s the fact. I’ve also never catcalled, and I was usually mistaken for gay in the places I’ve worked because I didn’t do the usual “turn your head to watch the hot chick walking by” thing all my other male colleagues do. And yes, I want more women in the games industry. If they want to be there and if their skills are up to the task, of course. I’ve met some really good female programmers and 3D artists out there, so I know that second bit should be there.

               All in all, I think I’m a pretty decent dude. Which is why I keep getting annoyed when I get painted with the whole “misogyny” brush, because it’s a very serious accusation to be tossing around at people you don’t even know.

               * For the record, I like them “flawed” because that’s how I like all my protagonists, not specifically because they’re women. Flawed protagonists are usually more interesting than “hanger” protagonists that are so good that the fun comes from the surrounding characters instead.

               (I really should have dropped out of this when I said I would. But this subject is like a train wreck: you know it’s going to be horrible but you can’t help but watch anyway.)

         2. The problem with “there has been shit flung on both sides” is that it’s in no way proportionate. No, not every person siding against GamerGate is a model of perfection, but that’s missing the point: one side of the argument is using hacking, death/rape threats, and other pretty vile tactics as the centerpiece of its action and the other isn’t. You’ve got some celebrities (and other folks) calling the GamerGaters douchebags, but when they are _making detailed personal threats_ against the targets, I don’t think that is unwarranted.

            It’s a false equivalence to call the two sides of GamerGate the same, or to say that they are using the same tactics. The fact that two different sides exist does not make the middle ground between them the reasoned and rational point of compromise, most especially in case like this.

      2. “Women are receiving terrorist death threats and being driven from their own homes in fear and you’re crying about your identity as a gamer. WAAAAAAH. Grow up.”

         Can’t someone care about both or does every argument on the Internet need to be couched in what is more important that the argument you’re making?

         You seem to think that “#gamergate” can only be one thing. Seems like it can and is many things depending on who you ask.

         1. But his very point is that GamerGate, from its very beginning, has had a specific mission to discredit and harass women, no matter the method or reason. If you want to talk about your identity as a gamer, or journalistic ethics, or any of a number of other relevant topics? That’s great, and those are also things that can matter. But doing it under the auspices of GamerGate is, at best, associating yourself with some really bad stuff. It’s like starting off your race relations talk by identifying yourself as a member of the KKK- it can’t possibly help your cause any because you’re associating yourself with a group of folks who have no interest in rational discourse.

   2. Joe this is my first time writing in to to you and I’m sorry to say its to disagree with you. I feel that your caught too much in your diatribe on gamergate. Your writing and dropping of GIFs reflect that your are defending but not reading. I seen a lot of your quote mining but I don’t think you’ve read or watched the opposing opinions. Your statements you use and then comment on are not reflective of the people they were mined from and are incomplete. It got me curious when you said the people whom are vocal in opposition to feminism are hiding behind their alter egos. Thats not true and you know that and as you said it just a google away. I didn’t even have to google one of them Thunderf00t who is a biochemist named Phil Mason and you said makes simple arguments which are easily refuted. I know that your are just upset but there is very good points being made here about feminists seeing misogyny everywhere. Not every reporter is ethical in their writings, some women use sex as tools, some games are sexist and some are not. Sorry but Black and white are out it the new lack of color grey or gray depending on you viewpoint. Sorry Joe but I think you have to straddle the fence lightly on this one. Sorry about sloppy writing I’m tired.

      1. Your writing and dropping of GIFs reflect that your are defending but not reading.

         It’s opposite day again for #GamerGate defenders! My deconstruction and mockery of GamerGate “points”, providing references to back myself up (where they just state they “have points”, is “defending but not reading”.

         Whereas this comment…

         Your statements you use and then comment on are not reflective of the people they were mined from and are incomplete.

         Prove it. Show me a quote-mining.

         It got me curious when you said the people whom are vocal in opposition to feminism are hiding behind their alter egos. Thats not true and you know that and as you said it just a google away.

         “You’re easily proved wrong. I won’t do it though.” is a familiar GamerGate mantra. I (once again) state this is because they can’t do it. They just want to provide enough of a defense that they convince themselves they’re not wrong.

         Can you stop doing that publicly? It’s sad that you’re self-delusional, but this constant stream of meaningless words from #GamerGate defenders is really getting tiresome.

         I didn’t even have to google one of them Thunderf00t who is a biochemist named Phil Mason and you said makes simple arguments which are easily refuted.

         He is. I linked to the refutation. Did you bother reading it, or did you just decide that “a biochemist named Phil Mason” can’t be wrong about anything, ever?

         I know that your are just upset but there is very good points being made here about feminists seeing misogyny everywhere.

         And that’s it, you’re banned. “there is very good points” without any links. I said before I’d ban GamerGaters for that, and here you are, more than a week later doing it.

         There are not very good points. I’ve challenged #GamerGate defenders to actually provide them. All they can do is what you did — claim that they exist.

         Bored now.

         Not every reporter is ethical in their writings, some women use sex as tools, some games are sexist and some are not.

         And here we have it. Nestled in between your “points” (irrelevant that these things exist — you have to prove that they’re what we’re talking about) is a dig on women using sex as a tool.

         Totally about ethics in game journalism, guys.

         Sorry but Black and white are out it the new lack of color grey or gray depending on you viewpoint.

         And if you actually listened to my show, you’d know I’m all about the grey.

         GamerGate defenders can’t even prove there’s grey. They can just say it exists.

         Sorry Joe but I think you have to straddle the fence lightly on this one.

         Oh, is that the thing stuck up your ass making it difficult to think?

         I’ll pass.

9. I was disappointed that nobody came up with Peeping Tom Bombadil.

   1. SAME. I was just waiting. Waiting.

      (also nice take on the big G)

   2. I was just re-listening to this episode and came on here to see if anyone had brought up Peeping Tom Bombadil. Big ups, TwoD.

10. I just wanted to thank you guys for how you treated the gamergate issue. When I saw the title of the episode I had a brief feeling of dread until I listened. Sometimes it can be difficult to be a woman who has an interest in video games/science/traditionally “male” areas of interest when so many in those communities are actively trying to alienate women (and then wondering why many women can’t or don’t want to participate. Truly baffling.)

11. I wanted Joe to read this article about GamerGate http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/10/21/Incredibly-GamerGate-is-winning-but-you-won-t-read-that-anywhere-in-the-terrified-liberal-media I hope that he’s open minded enough to rethink his “Facts” Because the gaming press have tried their hardest at slandering anyone who doesn’t stick to their group think.

    1. ‘Liberal media’ ‘groupthink thanks for hanging a big sign saying ‘ignore me’

       1. That’s a shame you can’t get past that and actually read the substance of the article.

          1. Hahahahaaaa.

             “How do I know? Because I’ve spent the last fortnight quietly soliciting the opinions not only of senior executives at AAA video game publishers, but also at some of the companies linked to GamerGate’s boycotts and activism, such as Intel, Mercedes and BMW.”

             Yeah, he got to them first, gave them a skewed version of what was going on, and they said “Well of course we don’t support bullying. If they’re doing that, we’re going to pull our advertising!”

             Holy shit, the propaganda going on here is astounding.

             It’s also not an argument “I talked to some people. Trust me. I totes did.”

             #GamerGate was founded on a lie used to harass women. This is an undeniable fact. Zoe Quinn has zero to do with journalistic ethics.

             #GamerGate continues to harass women. The evidence is all over Twitter.

             Defending #GamerGate defends the harassers of women, no matter how honorable your intentions are.

             If you care about actually getting results, you’ll rebrand and denounce the hate.

             But you won’t. Because that’s what you’re actually about, isn’t it? You know the dance. You know how to be polite and “be sad” that people “won’t budge”. You’ve got all the right words, don’t you?

             You’re just missing the truth.

             #GamerGate was founded on a lie in order to harass women.

             #GamerGate continues to be used to harass women.

             That after knowing this you won’t move on from GamerGate leads me to imagine the reason is that you at the very least don’t care that women are being harassed. Or that you care about accurate video game reviews more, I suppose.

             If either of those is true, you’re not a very good person.

             I suppose that’s one of those nasty personal attacks you keep complaining about? There’s a great defense for those specific attacks though: Be a better person.

12. The fact is when you support misogyny and align your self with hateful bigots people tend to lump you in with them

    1. Except we don’t. We supported a Woman only game jam type thing that everyone on the other “side” was blacklisting. All I’m saying here is that the information being given out by Kotoku or any other Gawker site aren’t to be trusted because it’s their ass on the line and they of course are going to vilify the outspoken against them. Everyone seems to be against black and white casting of social problems. Yet all anti-gg people want to do is paint us as woman HATING bigots. It’s simply unfair and untrue. If you hold such a strong opinion about GG then I’d hope you would get your information from more than one side of the argument.

       1. It doesn’t matter that you supported an all-woman gamejam. That doesn’t undo the toxic nature of GamerGate. The hate is still everywhere attached to the “movement”.

          Its roots are poisoned. It started as a non-issue smokescreen for hate against women. Trying to turn that smokescreen into something legitimate is only making the smokescreen more effective. Your attempts at legitimizing GamerGate are giving voice and protection to hate, whether you mean to or not.

          And that’s why we’re vocal about this bullshit. Step away from the hashtag. If you’re not a hater, it’s not yours and never was.

          And all you have to do to prove that you’re not just covering up for anti-woman, anti-feminist hate is to move away from this toxic name.

          I cannot fathom why anyone would stick with it this long. You’re defending terrible people by standing next to them and claiming to be not-terrible.

          So show that you’re an adult who recognizes the right real-world play to make and move on.

          1. Keep in mind that both sides have plenty of hate going on.

             http://i.imgur.com/BDtuod8.png

             1. The difference is individual people on one side are stooping to that level the entirety of your side is FOUNDED on that level

             2. I’m sorry, “my” side? Read above, I’m not on anyone’s side.

                I’m criticizing both sides on this stupid, childish flame war. Both sides think they’re the knights of justice fighting against a rogue’s gallery of supervillains, when in fact BOTH sides are harboring idiotic, hypocritical, corrupt hatemongers without a shred of common sense or critical thinking. People who latch on to a leader’s words like it’s the gospel passed down from the heavens and attack anyone who thinks otherwise. Be those words spoken by Anita Sarkeesian and Zoé Quinn, or Christina Sommers and Phil “Thunderf00t” Mason.

                Defend your point of view as much as you’d like, regardless what what it is, but don’t try to whitewash the people you’re standing besides. Both sides threatened death and released personal information of people on the “other” side.

                As far as I’m concerned, you’re all wrong. And on that note, I should probably stop wasting my time commenting here. The nuance of there being more than two sides to any given issue is lost on this debate.

             3. I defend my point of view by pointing out things that happened, things that people are doing. Evidence.

                You play little “sides” games. You backpedal. You wave your hands and call it a stupid childish flame war.

                Women are being threatened with death and rape for the “crime” of being outspoken women in gaming.

                And you don’t care, and play social-media damage control on my site.

                You really should probably stop posting here, because all you’re doing is giving me an opportunity to show how morally bankrupt #GamerGate is.

             4. Your evidence of “plenty of hate” is two people referring to a threat and not the threat itself? I wonder why that is…

                Probably because it wasn’t a threat, or even a doxx. Or much of anything, and the target himself brushed it off.

                Don’t worry, I found it for you. Not that you didn’t know about this, you deceptive #GamerGate damage control troll, you.

                http://i.imgur.com/X27qy9q.jpg

                The line “I guess someone needs to make you fear for your safety then” is an attempt at empathy, not a threat. He’s trying to reach that idiot child so he can see how terrible the death threats GamerGate is throwing around are.

                You knew this was weak, so instead of posting this honestly, you play the propaganda game and put up something you can spin. You call this stupid interaction “doxxing” and “threatening with death” when #GamerGate target Brianna Wu gets shit like THIS:

                

                You, and #GamerGate, are pathetic.

13. On a lighter note, at least in Caustic Soda terms, here’s a fresh one for the Follow Ups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGI639X2yVU

    It’s not just players who take games far too seriously. Game developers also go overboard sometimes. 😛

    (Seriously, you can’t kill Gaben. He’s got a force shield entirely made out of money, and it receives an upgrade whenever Steam does a Summer/Winter Sale!)

14. Just my two cents here. I enjoyed most of the episode and clearly most if not all the material was close to your hearts and it’s great to hear that passion coming out. What I found a bit hard to access was a lot of the material on GamerGate, which is clearly very important to you. I was only vaguely aware of the whole affair and you started off well by giving a good rundown of the timeline of events, but it fairly quickly devolved into Kevin asking “Why can’t people be sensible?!” and asking questions, and Joe having to say “I’ll get to that in a minute”. I think the full timeline could have been presented a little more clearly before the (very strong) opinions started to flow. I certainly know a great deal more now, so thanks for that.

    Although I haven’t quite finished the podcast (8 mins to go), I’m getting the impression that you might not have covered a favourite pop-culture game reference of mine: Cripple Mr Onion, from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, where I seem to recall it’s always referred to by Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, but never actually fully explained, which allows for fun little references. And then there’s the Troll vs Dwarf game that is so core to the 34th novel in the series too: Thud. Anyway, here’s a little more info and apologies if you did, in fact, mention them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_of_the_Discworld

    1. Yeah I have to agree I found that episode a little emotionally charged when we hit the gamergate section and could not really relate as I knew little to nothing about the ugly matter at hand and unlike most of the podcasts I am a little reluctant to investigate this topic further without dawning my asbestos underwear.

       Also have to agree with Derek that Thud is a fairly awesome game.

       As for the rest though I was deeply amused by B.A.D.D.
       I kind of wish that this kind of hysteria had been in effect where I lived so that my childhood preocupation with pen and paper roleplaying games could have afforded me an air of Fear and Dread Awe.

       Instead in my home town I bought my white wolf games from a hobby shop where the kindly old lady owner kept the vampire the marcarade books next to the knitting supplies and the local gaming club was held in the church hall on sunday afternoons and the church going grannys would leave us cakes and remind us to tidy up afterwards.

       Frankly when thats your starting point it doesn’t matter if you all show up in flowing red robes and spend the first half hour praising the great beast and deconsecrating your surroundings with the blood of the innocent you Evil cred is already out the window.

       Personally I was waiting for a Jumanji reference : )
       The semi character building board game that teaches children valuable life lessons about standing up to their domaneering fathers by trapping them in a nightmarish jungle hell for a few decades.

15. Joe, it’s ironic that you are using stereotypes to diminish people you claim are using stereotypes to diminish others. Don’t you think? You spew hate and bigotry to cast down those you claim are spewing hate and bigotry.

    1. This post is so divorced from reality I’m not even sure where to start.

       I didn’t claim anyone was using stereotypes to dimish others. When I didn’t do that, I also didn’t use stereotypes to diminish others.

       Yes, I spew hate on those I claim are spewing hate and bigotry. And then I back up my claims of their hate and bigotry with facts.

       I’ve never seen someone step up to the bat in an online debate and whiff so damned hard before.

       1. Joe, largely, you are uninformed about this topic. If you were informed about this topic, you would realize that there’s an entire different side to it. Are you so incapable of conceiving that sometimes, someone might have an opinion different than yours? And that sometimes, those opinions might not be based on hate? But, just for fun, here’s a challenge. Show me anywhere on the Internet where this someone defining themselves as a GamerGater, is spewing misogyny. Show me the death threats (because of GamerGate). I’ll save you the time – you can’t. Because they don’t exist. Except in the minds of the people claiming to have received them.

16. The biggest issue with GamerGate is that you can’t disagree with Anita Sarkeesian’s narrative about rampant sexist themes in video games, without the Social Justice Warriors declaring that you are a misogynist. Look at the bile and hate that you spew, just because people don’t have the same opinion as you. This is the kind of thing I have to face every day, simply because I say, “no, I don’t share your opinion.”

17. I don’t agree with death threats or blatant trolling, but I do believe that everyone is eligible for criticism. Your problem is that for whatever fucktarded reason, you choose not to separate the trolls from the legitimate criticism.

    1. Whee, a Gish Gallop! Nice try, but terrible. Debating isn’t just about saying things to back yourself up as though they’re true and hope people believe you.

       I’m well-informed on what’s going on with #GamerGate. I’ve done my research. We recorded this episode about a month ago, before the really horrible stuff showed up, and what we covered has not changed. I’ve been paying attention to both sides since this started.

       #GamerGate was created because of Zoe Quinn’s relationship with a gaming journalist.

       There was no gaming journalism corruption there. The only article he wrote mentioning her was months before their alleged relationship, wasn’t a game review, and was an article about the GameJam reality show. You can read it here and try to find something legitimately corrupt in there. Then you’ll have to prove she can time-travel to cause it.

       Your incredible straw-man about “legitimate criticism” shows everyone just how little you’re paying attention. Nobody here is saying “don’t criticize Anita Sarkeesian”. Over and over again we highlight the *hate* coming out of this.

       You want to criticize Tropes vs. Women? Go ahead. Do it. Show us how she’s wrong. Make your own YouTube video showing how wrong she is.

       Oh, some of you are trying. And the results are hilarious.

       LEGITIMATE CRITICISM! LEGITIMATE CRITICISM! LEGITIMATE CRITICISM! LEGITIMATE CRITICISM! LEGITIMATE CRITICISM!

       “Hey, your people are making rape and terrorist-level death threats to these people you claim to want to legitimately criticise.”

       WHY CAN’T WE SAY LEGITIMATE CRITICISM?

       Bullshit defense.

       Bullshit posts.

       Bullshit brain in that head of yours.

       Get off my site, troll.

       1. Plenty of people have been criticising Tropes vs. Women, like Thunderf00t, the Gaming Goose and others. They have actual logical arguments, data and statistics. But hey, you won’t hear about that on Feministing, or from Mr. Manboobz.

          You say:
          “Women are being threatened with death and rape for the “crime” of being outspoken women in gaming.”

          No. You are constantly lumping both these threats and ANY discussion, criticism and disagreement together, as if they were made by the same people. No.
          You think GG is being orchestrated by a group of bearded misogynist somewhere in the depths of IRC. That sounds like a stupid conspiracy theory, but hey. Believe what you will. That article you linked on Facebook, which you probably liked so much? It pretty much says that women and other minorities speaking out in favour of GamerGate are idiots, or trolls. Brainwashed and incapable of their own thought and action, puppets of some unknown villains. Or they’re ALL horrible people who somehow hate their own gender and are willing to murder anyone who disagrees with them. Wow, that sounds super progressive and inclooosive to me.

          Do you know why people criticise Zoe Quinn?
          Have you actually read the logs her ex published? She’s a shitty abusive person. A liar, cheater and a manipulator. Nobody gives two fucks about how many guys she slept with.
          What do we care about? The hypocrisy. Someone so outspoken in the indie social justice scene, someone who claims that ANY cheating is the equivalent of rape? (which is what Quinn thinks)
          Someone who made a game about the hardships of depression and then happily abused a forum full of depressed people?!

          Quinn is not criticised for being a woman and for “speaking out”. She’s criticised, because she’s a liar and hypocrite, only out there doing this shit to make money as a “victim”. (I’m sure you’ve donated to her Patreon)

          Do you know why people criticise Anita Sarkeesian?
          Because she too is in it to make money, exploiting good people who genuinely care about social issues. She stole game footage, she stole artwork (from a female artist no less, oh the irony). She continues to stir up shit to get attention and sympathy. Notice how her talks are all about her? Not games, not anything concrete, just her and what a big victim she is.
          She keeps saying she just wants to open a discussion about sexism in games. Funny, discussing with comments disabled is kind of impossible. And when someone does what you suggest (make videos on Youtube or write a blog) ? Silence. No response, no rebuttal, no acknowledgement. Why would that be?
          RPGnet, for example, recently set up a policy about GamerGate and Sarkeesian’s work. Oh, you’re absolutely allowed to talk about sexism in games and Tropes vs. Women. You just have to agree with what the moderators think. Anything else gets you banned.
          This is what “a discussion” apparently looks like, according to Sarkeesian. An echo chamber.

          I could go on with Leigh “Drunken Racist” Alexander and others.
          (btw, Brianna Wu, whom you mentioned in another comment wasn’t doxxed or threatened by GG. This is a fact. None of the tweets mention GG – in fact a GamerGater girl got the EXACT same stuff in an email, likely from the same troll. And there’s an archive of the thread where someone posted Wu’s info – EVERYONE immediately reported it and the thread was closed. The death threats to Sarkeesian? They’ve been tracked to a, hilariously, gaming journalist in Brazil, who probably trolled just to stir up shit.)

          GamerGate criticises plenty of men too. It’s almost funny how you’re stuck in the “omg woman being criticised?! It must be because she’s a woman!” mentality.

          I’ve been gaming with women and playing games made by women for years. There are women in gaming who actually do and make things and it only follows that we should support them. Sarkeesian and Quinn just happen to be shitty people making absurd claims, who deserve to be criticised. Not harassed, no, criticised and argued with.

          1. For those unaware of what a “Gish Gallop” is:

             The Gish Gallop is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of small arguments that their opponent cannot possibly answer or address each one in real time. More often than not, these myriad arguments are full of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments — the only condition is that there be many of them, not that they be particularly compelling on their own. They may be escape hatches or “gotcha” arguments that are specifically designed to be brief, but take a long time to unravel.

             This is often used by Creationists in their shitty arguments, but #GamerGate loves them too.

             Sorry folks, that means this is going to be a long one.

             

             I’ll try to keep this more fun to read for anyone tired of this bullshit already.

             

             Plenty of people have been criticising Tropes vs. Women, like Thunderf00t, the Gaming Goose and others.

             GamerGaters keep saying things like “there are legitimate criticisms” yet they’re never able to actually voice them.

             

             Why don’t you link to Thunderf00t’s “criticism”?

             Because it’s idiotic and easily refuted, just like most of Thunderf00t-in-mouth’s anti-feminist rantings. That’s the premiere level of Sarkeesian critique? And you didn’t even have the courage to link to it yourself.

             Or use your real name, either.  If you actually think you’re in the right, you should have no fear of standing behind your words.

             Deep down I think you know you’re losing this, that you look bad. That’s why you hide, like roaches when the lights come on. “Oh shit, this opinion is going to make me look like an asshole! Better start posting anonymously!”

             Here’s the RationalWiki article on Thunderf00t, for anyone not familiar with this clown and his inability to be rational about women’s issues.

             They have actual logical arguments, data and statistics. But hey, you won’t hear about that on Feministing, or from Mr. Manboobz.

             Or you, apparently. I propose this is because you don’t actually have logical arguments, data and statistics to show me. Instead you just want to assure me it exists.

             

             If you did have these things you’d present them instead of crying that people aren’t listening to the things you’re not saying.

             GamerGater: THERE ARE REAL ARGUMENTS!
             Us: Present them.
             GamerGater: THERE ARE LEGITIMATE CRITICISMS! WHY CAN’T WE SHARE THEM?
             Us: …

             Make a web site. Post your criticisms. Share it to the world. Watch us laugh at how bad you are at this.  Then we’ll watch you go back to shouting angrily on other peoples’ posts because the content of your message is shit.

             No. You are constantly lumping both these threats and ANY discussion, criticism and disagreement together, as if they were made by the same people. No.

             No. I’m saying these people exist, they were the formative reason for #GamerGate, they never left #GamerGate. Anyone jumping on to a hate group like this and trying to reform it from the hate that started it is akin to trying to reform the KKK while crosses are still being burned on peoples’ lawns.

             Those people are lumping themselves in with hate. They either agree with the hate, or care more about “journalistic ethics”, of which there is zero being discussed under GamerGate except by those throwing up a smokescreen for misogynistic hate.

             Not that you’re actually arguing the hate doesn’t exist. Your argument seem to be that it’s justified. In this post I’m literally arguing with one of the people polluting #GamerGate for those who think it’s about something legitimate besides hating women in gaming.

             

             You think GG is being orchestrated by a group of bearded misogynist somewhere in the depths of IRC.

             I know it. We have chatlogs. In it, they (#GamerGate organizers) gleefully wondered if they could drive Quinn to suicide.

             And you’re defending them. And hiding their actions behind claims they don’t exist. Propaganda and lies to hide hateful attacks that hope to drive someone to suicide.

             Totally not a hate movement. Totally about LEGITIMATE CRITICISMS, rite guys!?!?!?

             

             That sounds like a stupid conspiracy theory, but hey. Believe what you will.

             You were right up until you said “theory”. It’s a shockingly stupid conspiracy, I agree. Your comment here is evidence of that.

             I proportion my beliefs to the evidence. The evidence shows there was an IRC channel orchestrating the hateful attacks on Zoe Quinn. In it they expressed hope they could drive her to suicide. #GamerGate is all over it.

             It’s not a “conspiracy theory”, it’s an actual conspiracy, and like actual conspiracies it’s easily exposed. That’s why people who argue over conspiracy theories without evidence are wrong — when there’s an actual conspiracy, shining light on it easily reveals it.

             The more you shine the light on it the more obvious it becomes.

             And the more the roaches scuttle for safety.

             That article you linked on Facebook, which you probably liked so much?

             Can you be any more obtuse? I have no idea what you’re talking about, because like all #GamerGate apologists, you refuse to back up your claims with anything but angry shouting on the Internet.

             It pretty much says that women and other minorities speaking out in favour of GamerGate are idiots, or trolls. Brainwashed and incapable of their own thought and action, puppets of some unknown villains. Or they’re ALL horrible people who somehow hate their own gender and are willing to murder anyone who disagrees with them. Wow, that sounds super progressive and inclooosive to me.

             Well since you can’t tell me which of the many #GamerGate articles it is that shows what loathsome little trolls its members are, I’m going to have to take your word for it.
             Oh no, an article claims you’re brainwashed. I guess there aren’t any death or rape threats or foolish people doing self-destructive things. Wow, what an “argument”.

             

             Wait, are you talking about the Clickhole satire piece that brilliantly points out that even GamerGate’s non-hate-against-women side is nothing but threats to cause fear to get what they want?

             You probably didn’t get that’s what it was saying. It’s cleverly written. GamerGaters seem to have a problem with understanding stuff like this.

             Know what we call that? Using fear to silence people? Terrorism.

             Congrats, you’re terrorists, GamerGate. That’s what the Clickhole article is about. Brilliantly.

             Do you know why people criticise Zoe Quinn?

             Mostly because they’re angry misogynists who love latching on to an easy female target, especially if their fellow misogynist jackals have already started. That’s what every reasonable person understands when they actually hear the so-called “legitimate criticism” of Zoe Quinn and compare what there is of it to the response it’s received.

             Have you actually read the logs her ex published? She’s a shitty abusive person. A liar, cheater and a manipulator. Nobody gives two fucks about how many guys she slept with.

             Golly, I’d sure better listen to the guy who posted an angry breakup screed on a bunch of blogs. That is absolutely a valid basis for the formation of a movement to better the world…

             

             Your defense of #GamerGate attacking women is “This one deserves it”? How exactly are you proving me wrong here? #GamerGate is about hate, and you’re not defending that position, you’re just explaining why you hate, you sad, pathetic little troll.

             Even if these unsubstantiated claims are true, don’t you think there are men out there that are worse than Quinn? Men with actual power? Nope, of course not. Men with power deserve it, right? Better go get that young independent game developer who may have done some shitty stuff in their personal life! That’ll teach this corrupt world to mind its manners!

             Unfocused idiot rage got a name this year: GamerGate.

             Zoe Quinn may have fucked up in her personal life, but she didn’t create a terrorist movement like GamerGate. If I’m picking sides based on your ad-hominems, I know which one I’m on.

             That’s right, even if I believe you that Zoe Quinn is a bad person (for the record, I don’t — there’s been no evidence but hearsay from an angry ex, and some bitter 4channers), #GamerGate has shown itself to be orders of magnitude worse.

             What do we care about? The hypocrisy. Someone so outspoken in the indie social justice scene, someone who claims that ANY cheating is the equivalent of rape? (which is what Quinn thinks)

             Who said that she said that? Oh right, her bitter ex-boyfriend in an angry breakup rant. Totally worth making a movement over. You’re a fool for believing him at his word, and even worse for making this anything but something personal between a few people.

             Are you going to create a worldwide database of unfaithful ex lovers? Nope, just going to make a big hate movement about this one and then branch out to more and more women in the same field, because ethics or something…

             Here’s the thing about ad-hominems like this: They can be totally true, and my point can be too. #GamerGate is a hate movement, trying to hide as social justice.

             Yet all #GamerGate ever wants to do is sling mud online, never back up their points, or even admit their movement is infested with hate.

             Well, except you, who seems to think “hate” is “criticism” both so that you can spout your hate and call it criticism, and so that when hate is called out you can claim we’re censoring criticism.

             

             Someone who made a game about the hardships of depression and then happily abused a forum full of depressed people?!

             Never ever provide links to back up your claims. That way nobody can show what a piece of shit your argument is. My guess is it was a forum full of people hurling abuse at her and when she defended herself they claimed they were depressed. Typical 4chan (now 8chan since even 4chan has banned GamerGate haters) move to use these claims to defend themselves once they’re called on their shit. You love to co-opt progressive terms, don’t you?

             Or hey, maybe they were depressed, but were shitty to Quinn and she responded in kind? So at worst, some depressed people attacked a depressed person and they attacked back…

             Totally a legitimate movement about good and noble things, guys. The proper response is to hurl insults and threats across the Internet.

             But since this is a Gish Gallop and you don’t provide references so your claims can be criticized, I’ll just have to laugh at you.

             You’d think you GamerGate defenders could write down a “Here’s what we’re angry about” that doesn’t make the rest of the world laugh.

             Pssst… the reason you haven’t is because what you’re angry about is — at best — laughable.

             

             Quinn is not criticised for being a woman and for “speaking out”.

             Except that men who speak out don’t get anywhere near the hate and threats that she does.

             Or women who speak out on Twitter do.

             Or women who speak out on web posts.

             You’ve made Felicia Day afraid of her fellow gamers, you horrible troglodytes, and the instant she posted about that, she was doxxed.

             The only way you don’t see this hate is you’re either purposefully ignoring it, or you’re totally fine with it. Either way, you’re a bad person.

             She’s criticised, because she’s a liar and hypocrite, only out there doing this shit to make money as a “victim”. (I’m sure you’ve donated to her Patreon)

             Again, more reasons why… you should be allowed to attack a woman. Except you haven’t shown any lies, and you haven’t proved someone is only doing something to make money. You can make money and be correct, you know. Is #GamerGate about nothing but ad-hominems? (Yes.)

             I guess “journalistic ethics” is completely out the door as a cover story then? Finally realized you can’t actually get that dog to hunt?

             What will #GamerGate be about next month? This month you guys really tried the “everyone is mean to us for EXPRESSING OUR OPINIONS”. You should stop having hateful shitty opinions, I guess. Or deal with the response you get for them, you know, if you want to be an adult about it all.

             

             Do you know why people criticise Anita Sarkeesian?

             I haven’t seen much, despite the claims “legitimate criticism” exists. The criticism I hear is nothing but hate, or Thunderf00t’s hate-caused nonsense. I suspect most of them have some personal issues they should deal with before stepping out into the world to try to make it a better place.

             Because she too is in it to make money,

             OH NO NOT MONEY.

             That is the worst point you’ve made so far. People can make money and be correct, just like you can post this awful shit for free and be totally, totally wrong.

             exploiting good people who genuinely care about social issues.

             When you decide this from the start it’s really easy to discredit everything she says, isn’t it? Or, just maybe… she’s making money while exposing unfair depictions of women in games.

             You know, one or the other. If you think her being correct is not the more charitable, the onus is on you to prove your hypothesis. Except you haven’t, because she’s not. Most of what “Tropes vs. Women” shows is simply stuff in-the-game.

             I guess everyone should watch Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games series and decide for themselves, right? Cool, let’s all do that to see just how terrible the refutations of her points are.

             She stole game footage,

             Oh no, not this in the era of remix culture. In her documentary about video games she showed clips from video games? ROUND UP THE POSSE! TIME TO FORM A SOCIAL MOVEMENT!

             Also, she could have done this and been totally right in her points. Ad-hominems are fallacies for a reason, you know.

             Oh wait, you don’t. You’re a GamerGater. Ad-hominems is all you ever present.

             she stole artwork (from a female artist no less, oh the irony).

             I found the link for that, because with your fingers curled up in rage you were apparently unable to Google it and provide a source for your arguments.

             From Copyright.com
             Fair use is primarily intended to allow the use of copyright-protected works for commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education.

             Now, fair use is complicated. It’s possible it doesn’t mean much in this instance, and that Sarkeesian was in the wrong to use it.

             But maybe not. If she’s in the wrong, this is the one legitimate criticism of Sarkeesian.  When grabbing images for her documentary about the way women are being unfairly represented in video games, she took one she thought was from a game she was discussing (and therefore definitely fair use) and didn’t check to see if it was a fan-art  (looks like a trace to me) recreation first.

             And again: She could have stolen it and cackled with glee at the same time and still been right about how video games present women. Do you not see how pathetic this “point” is in “refuting” Sarkeesian? It has nothing to do with what she says. That this is the place you want to debate shows how weak your position is, and how you have nothing but personal attacks to show for it.

             

             She continues to stir up shit to get attention and sympathy. Notice how her talks are all about her? Not games, not anything concrete, just her and what a big victim she is.

             Because people are sending her death threats. They’re kind of more immediately more important than tropes in video games.

             They also prove her point that women are treated differently. She gets rage and hate and threats and personal attacks. Men just get idiots arguing and calling them names. So far, anyway. I’m fairly sure the unhinged element of #GamerGate will expand out in the name of “equality”…

             She keeps saying she just wants to open a discussion about sexism in games.

             Yes, and you haters keep changing the subject by forcing her to have to deal with rape and death threats. It’s really annoying.

             Some of us would love to discuss how women are being presented in video games. Some of us did, until GamerGate came along with its unfocused rage to shit up the online world.

             Here are some puppies to calm you down.

             

             Funny, discussing with comments disabled is kind of impossible.

             

             Total bullshit. Comments disabled means you can’t discuss it there, right on the video. Nobody is forced to host your hate. Hrm… I wonder why those comments got disabled. Oh look: HATE.

             You have the whole Internet to present your arguments. You’ve had your whole Gish-Gallop post here (probably thinking I wouldn’t do exactly this and show how little you actually have but hate) and still you’ve got ZERO CRITICISM OF WHAT SARKEESIAN PRESENTS IN HER VIDEOS.

             And when someone does what you suggest (make videos on Youtube or write a blog) ? Silence. No response, no rebuttal, no acknowledgement. Why would that be?

             Because your arguments are terrible. Because you can’t even get viral traction on your “points” anywhere but inside your own little hateful circle, duh.

             Also, because you never link to this so-called legitimate criticism yourself when trying to argue this online. Of course it’s because all your arguments are terrible and full of the hate you try to deny, so that’s probably for the best for you.

             Not for us though. We have to put up with this idiotic childish rants. “There are good points!” is NOT HOW YOU DEBATE.
             

             Present your points, or shut the fuck up.

             The third option of ranting incoherently is not welcome here.

             RPGnet, for example, recently set up a policy about GamerGate and Sarkeesian’s work. Oh, you’re absolutely allowed to talk about sexism in games and Tropes vs. Women. You just have to agree with what the moderators think. Anything else gets you banned.

             Again, obtuse reference to back up your own point with no link so I can debunk it. Typical #GamerGate propaganda.

             This is all I can find. The user had been warned several times, and is obviously clueless at the offense. Kinda like you.

             But what some online forum does with #GamerGate discussions has nothing to do with Sarkeesian. Why would you even bring it up? “Oh yeah? Well THIS ONE FORUM BANNED PEOPLE!”

             Have you got anything worthwhile to add?

             This is what “a discussion” apparently looks like, according to Sarkeesian. An echo chamber.

             Irony, thy name is #GamerGate.

             

             I could go on with Leigh “Drunken Racist” Alexander and others.

             I’m sure you could find all sorts of ad-hominem attacks while avoiding the actual issues being discussed. You GamerGaters are great at that.

             Because on the issues, you lose. All you have left to wield is hate, though you try to wrap it up in something else.

             

             (btw, Brianna Wu, whom you mentioned in another comment wasn’t doxxed or threatened by GG. This is a fact.

             Because the guy didn’t include the #gamergate hashtag when replying to her #GamerGate post?

             Yuh huh. Total fact. Nothing to do with GamerGate. Totally random that she was targeted, right?

             

             None of the tweets mention GG – in fact a GamerGater girl got the EXACT same stuff in an email, likely from the same troll. And there’s an archive of the thread where someone posted Wu’s info – EVERYONE immediately reported it and the thread was closed. The death threats to Sarkeesian? They’ve been tracked to a, hilariously, gaming journalist in Brazil, who probably trolled just to stir up shit.)

             The Brazilian gaming journalist who doesn’t write English very well, and certainly nothing like what that threat entailed? You guys failed worse than finding the Boston Marathon bomber, and again: You have no proof. You just say things and hope people buy them.

             Or you hear them from people who just say it.

             

             Here’s the tweet that claims to have tracked him down. Again, I have to provide this because you won’t. I again state that you won’t because if you did anyone following it would see how weak it is. You don’t back up your points because of intellectual cowardice.

             Put your cards on the table, or fold and walk away. Actually, you specifically can just walk away.

             He found someone who also hates Anita Sarkeesian, so that’s the same guy.

             Brilliant detective work there, Batman. We’ll round him up on this evidence and put him away.

             Never mind that English isn’t his first language and the death threat that stopped Sarkeesian from speaking was fairly obviously written by a native English speaker as well as being steeped in MRA culture catchphrases.

             

             GamerGate criticises plenty of men too.

             Yeah, it’s totally criticism we’re talking about here. Nice try. This is about the hate and death threats and personal attacks. Oh gee, not many men are getting those, are they?

             No, instead they mostly get threatened with boycotts.

             The difference between what men and women are receiving in this is exactly the point. Men you try to engage with. Women you call names and threaten.

             Oh, you don’t personally? Neat. People in your movement do, for your purposes, for your same hateful reasons.

             And I’m sure there’ll be GamerGate trolls who think the response to “men aren’t getting the same abuse as women” will be to up the attacks on men, as though that makes it ok. I’ve seen how their twisted logic works before. They play the propaganda game. They dodge and weave. They never present their arguments in a calm, rational manner.

             Instead they shout and posture on blogs and other sites, either linking the mindless hate-filled screeds or nothing at all.

             Neither approach is doing any of you any good. Because you’re in the wrong here.

             

             It’s almost funny how you’re stuck in the “omg woman being criticised?! It must be because she’s a woman!” mentality.

             Yeah, it’s like I think that women being driven from their homes in fear of their lives and being unable to speak because someone has threatened a Lepine-level massacre if she does is kind of important.

             You keep turning this into being about “criticism”, yet have none, and I’ve not once complained that people are criticizing Sarkeesian. This isn’t the argument we’re having, but you’ve tried to lead it over here because complaining about simple criticism is indeed foolish.

             No articles are being written complaining about the “criticism” Sarkeesian is getting. This is a non-issue. Except to GamerGaters, because defending “criticism” makes it so they can continue their attacks on Sarkeesian in the name of it.

             Haters, masking their hate as “criticism”.

             Except you don’t have any actual criticism. You’ve opened no dialogues. GamerGate has adopted the aggressive attacking stance from the very beginning.

             And then they cry when we fight back.

             

             I’ve been gaming with women and playing games made by women for years. There are women in gaming who actually do and make things and it only follows that we should support them. Sarkeesian and Quinn just happen to be shitty people making absurd claims, who deserve to be criticised. Not harassed, no, criticised and argued with.

             And not one “absurd claim” that you end your post with was described in your post.
             Not one. This is your concluding paragraph, and it’s pointless.

             You’re haters. You try to cover up your hate (possibly even to yourselves — the human mind is fucking weird) and make excuses, but when you strip away the rhetoric and the obfuscated claims, that’s all that’s left.

             Hate.

             Oh, and maybe one understandable screwup with an image that might still qualify as “fair use”.

             Pathetic.

             Fulgham, out.
             

             1. Bless you, sir.

             2. I was going to reply in the spirit of your post, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to add pictures in comments.

                If that didn’t work:

             3. I have to admit I didn’t read all these words, but the animated gifs are great. Keep up the good fight.

18. I love you guys! Thank you for talking about Gamergate in a sane, rational way. There is simply too much drama surrounding it, and the trolls do need to grow up. There’s no excuse for it, even from 14 year olds. We have to stop accepting cyberbullying.

19. Love this episode guys. And I am very appreciative of your handling of GG–keep up the good fight.

20. The next time any #GamerGate defender uses the words “legitimate criticism” without those words being linked to ACTUAL LEGITIMATE CRITICISM that has been censored or harmed because it was called misogynist, I think I’ll just ban them from commenting.

    No idiot Twitter exchanges, please. If you want to legitimately criticise, post an article somewhere.

    You have free speech. Some of you think that means speech free from judgement by others.

    You’re bad people. You show it when you communicate. We call you on it.

    Wah.

    You’re still free to talk. Suck up the consequences of being the person you are. It’s just more words.

    Not, you know, terrorist-level death threats to silence a public speaker you don’t like, or threats of rape. Just “Hey, you’re hateful”. Because, you know, you’re hateful.

21. Joe, guys: thank you. When I read the episode title I really hoped you tackled the gamergate issue, and you not only did your research, you had the courage to call it out for the misogynistic bullcrap it is. Prouder than ever to be a listener.

22. Joe and Caustic Soda folks:
    Thank you. Thank you so much for calling out Gamergate for what it is; the misogynistic hazing of women game developers. I’m a longtime listener of the podcast.

    I’m also a hobbyist female game designer/developer, and for reasons quite obvious to this comment thread, I’m not interested in posting my real name here. I already deal with rape threats on the Internet, I don’t need more of them.

    To those of you who are saying there are “two sides” of this argument, I have a story for you. When I was a teenager, I had a friend who was emotionally abusive to me. Every time I’d mention that I’d like to talk with other friends, he would become paranoid and tell me that I should never talk with them. He hated my partner, and hated anyone who wasn’t otherwise “approved” by him.

    When I asked him to treat my partner as a human, he hurled curses at me until I stopped asking. When I told him that I could no longer be friends with him, he left me threatening voicemails telling me that one day I would “come crawling back to him.”

    Several months later, I got a phone call from him pleading with me to hear his side of the story. He was just angry, he said. If I would only listen to his side of the story, he could explain.

    So I listened. What followed was a stream of the same old curses, the same threats, and the exact same things I heard on my voicemail. I hung up. We’ve never talked again.

    What you are saying with your “there are two sides of the story” argument is that you wish to continue to keep open the channel of abuse that is targeting female game developers. You wish to continue to enable abusers to abuse. That is what I hear when I see the word “two sides of the story.”

    I can argue that my friend emotionally abused me because he was most likely emotionally abused himself, but that does NOT mean that I should continue to submit myself to his abuse.

    Thank you Caustic Soda. You guys all rock. I’m prouder than ever to be a listener of your show.

23. A summary of the comments so far:

    Quest Log
    =========================
    You have encountered a TROLL. Entering combat.

    TROLL attacks the STRAW MAN for 10 points of damage. JOE is unamused.

    JOE casts DISPEL BULLSHIT [Level 5].

    TROLL is defeated.

    ——————————————–

    ADORING FANS: “OMG Joe, you’re so amazing!”

    JOE: [in the voice of bender the robot] “Shut up baby, I know it”

24. Thank you, Joe. Just.. thank you. The whole #GG thing makes me physically ill, and I’ve never felt more pride that I listen to such a forward-thinking podcast hosted by upstanding gents.

    You might like this, from a like-minded blogger: http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2014/10/19/entitlement-culture-war/

    1. Yes, the blogs where thoughts are anything BUT free. Definitely a great place to learn shit. Oh and Atheism+ is a great success, haven’t you heard?

25. Joe, go fuck yourself. You’re an idiot. What about Zoe Quinn destroying GameJam? Do you even know about that, you self-righteous pissant? Or what about Gawker or Kotaku or other gaming blog sites, writing scathing articles attacking and belittling gamers? Or do you just choose to ignore that, because it doesnt’ fit your narrative? GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELF, you social justice fucktard.

    1. Congratulations Holtzmann your no longer the worst person in this comment thread.

    2. Oh no, a contestant in a shitty, manipulative “reality show” about video games called it out on being shitty and manipulative.

       BETTER FORM AN UNENDING TIRADE OF HATE!

       Of course I know about it, I mention the GameJam article all the time because it’s the only one that Kotaku writer wrote about her.

       I’ve linked it several times.

       I mentioned it in the podcast.

       Anyone who wants to can read it.

       Here’s a more in-depth article. Know what killed GameJam? Misogyny, you hateful MRA troll you.

       And, you’re banned. Not just for your personal insults (that’d be enough, this is my site, you play by my rules), but also for the complete worthlessness of your posts.

26. But, let’s look at what is really happening. A question that you cannot answer, among all the other questions that you avoid. Why are the gaming journalism websites that are writing scathing articles bashing gamers, losing advertisers left and right? Are they just wrong, as well?

    1. Put up or shut up.

    2. Your argument that you’re right is that I cannot answer “Why are gaming journalism websites … losing advertisers?”

       You haven’t asked that question, which is why I “cannot answer”. You really are terrible at this whole “debate” thing. You show up making zero points, everything you say is completely refuted and then you dig up a non-sequitur question THAT WAS NEVER ASKED and claim I can’t answer it.

       Are you just a randomly programmed hatebot? Are your posts just pre-selected from a bunch of bullshit some asshole has programmed to troll websites critical of #GamerGate?

       If so, they should reprogram you to make more sense.

       Why are the gaming journalism websites that are writing scathing articles bashing gamers, losing advertisers left and right?

       Because a lot of gamers, like you, are angry, irrational crybabies.

       Hey look, I answered the question I cannot answer.

       You’re terrible at this. Just like the rest of #GamerGate. Hater.

27. ‘I don’t agree with death threats or blatant trolling’
    odd, because at this point, you definitely seem to be doing the latter at this point. I mean, you can’t seriously expect anyone to care about your questions when you sandwich them with such unpleasantness. especially the repeated use of ‘fucktard.’
    that’s my legitimate criticism.

    1. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they are trolling.

       Calling out people for poor (or illegal) behavior may not be polite, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Maybe “fucktard” is not really a terribly PC insult and you can take issue with that- fine, fair enough. But if you’re stepping in to defend people who are using sockpuppets, doxxing, death/rape threats, etc, to prove their “point,” it’s very hard to hold the high moral ground.

28. Joe, you rock.

29. weird how gamergaters are furiously screeching as loud as they can about the importance of objective criticism but then go fucking bananas whenever the objective criticism they receive isnt exactly what they want to hear
    anticipating the responses to this post being hand-wringing crying about how any and all criticism of gamergate is part of the liberal media clamoring to take away their xboxes or whatever while conveniently ignoring that any positive views of gamergate are magically always Right and Just.
    ya’ll just wanna yell at minorities tbh

    1. “ya’ll just wanna yell at minorities tbh”

       = what Joe and other anti-GGers have been doing. But, hey, don’t let that stop you from assuming and generalizing!

       1. Oh for a world where angry bitter bigots are a minority.

       2. do you have any idea what a minority is in the real world or did you just unironically postulate being a gamer is a “minority” in the exact same way that being a woman is. please let me know how hard i should laugh at you. thanks

          1. No no he’s actually right about that a gamer is a minority in the exact same way a woman is. In that it shouldn’t be.

30. Joe, I disagree with you, I think you’re wrong. But that happens. You’re a cool dude and I still love the podcast. Keep it up, guys!

31. Hey, thanks for covering gamer gate in the way that you did. I’m a woman and it’s really really nice to hear men speaking out against sexism and harassment. Of course it’s not about journalism: I have proof of that every time I speak on a gaming server and get a bunch of dudes being creepy at me.

32. Just wanted to leave a comment here to thank Joe for being an awesome person. As a lifelong gamer this entire situation has been nauseating and I’m pleasantly surprised to hear Caustic Soda take on this “issue” with such clarity and rationality.

    Also, I find it incredibly amusing that throughout Caustic Soda’s entire history covering terrible stories this is somehow the one that generates the most amount of outrage.

33. Great show guys. I’m not a gamer, never heard of gamergate before listening to this podcast. Wow. What a bunch of psychopathic assholes. Imagine disagreeing with someone over an “ethics” issue, and then threatening to rape them and then choke them with their boyfriend’s dick. Clearly not about journalistic ethics – call me stupid, but isn’t raping and murdering kind of unethical (said with extreme sarcasm)?

    I rarely read comments on websites, because they are so full of the nonsensical rantings of people who are not only misogynist, but racist, paranoid, anti-immigrant, etc. I can’t be bothered with those dimwits. I applaud Joe for putting up so much effort to deal with the trolls and dimwits that have posted here. I’m really glad that you are exposing these psychopaths for who they are. I seem to recall you calling out some other troll in a past episode.

    Anyway, my post will probably go unnoticed with all this shit storm flying around. I was just going to make a comment about gaming pop-culture stuff I liked. Felicity Day’s webseries definitely deserves a mention. It was really well done and hilarious. I also thought her music videos were a lot of fun. Could have used her “Do you want to date my Avatar” song for this episode. I thought that the Legend of Neil, by Sandeep Parikh, was really fun too.

34. Joe, you are my hero. Thank you for dealing with gamergate exactly how it deserves.

35. I’ve noticed Joe is so wracked with white male guilt I’m not surprised he’s on the SJW side.

    The reason creating another hashtag/group that isn’t “toxic” or have poisonous roots, is that the anti-GG side would just use the same genetic fallacy as they do now.

    “Oh, gamergaters donate to charities, condemn harrasment and support women? Irrelevant, since the whole ordeal was started by the misdeeds of a woman”.

    “Oh, that’s just the same misogynistic haters from GamerGate with a different name! TOXIC POISON PROBLEMATIC!”.

    1. Once again with the ad-hominems from the pathetic GamerGate defenders. I could be wracked with white male guilt and be totally right about this you thick-headed dolt.

       Also, zero explanations of their actual legitimate points, and a crybaby persecution complex of “If we left the abusers behind you’d hate us anyway.”

       GamerGate: Still zero point but hate.

       Also, SJW is the worst insult ever. Social justice? Yeah, I care about enough to fight for it. I’m more of a Social Justice Rogue though.

       I tweeted about SJW weeks ago: If you use Social Justice Warrior as an insult, you’re just admitting *you’re the bad guy*.

       Next maybe you could shake your fist at me and call me a “do-gooder”.

       1. I’m pissed because even in the new edition Social Just Mages and Social Justice Druids are still blatantly more powerful than the non-spellcasting social justice classes. I really wish they would have adjusted the balance better.

       2. I’m very much enjoying your responses in this thread, Joe. This:
          “If you use Social Justice Warrior as an insult, you’re just admitting *you’re the bad guy*.”
          reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEle_DLDg9Y
          Thought you might like it.

36. I am a big fan of the show. My friends and I all listen every week, however I was very disappointed in this episode. I am not a gamer and neither are my friends who listen. With this in mind we don’t know what d and d is and you never bothered to explain it in any detail while the enire episode pretty much hinged on that. i don’t have an opinion on the actual gamer gate issue, only that it was pretty boring listening joe bitch about, and it didn’t deserve ten minutes of the show. I’ve never commented before and like I said I am a fan. I really enjoy your episodes on evil duos and dames.
    -Mike

37. Long time listener of the Podcast.

    Just want to say you really did cover the #gamergate issue well. And Joe’s responses in this thread have been great.

    I totally agree with you Joe that what we are seeing from these guys is a Gish Gallop argument technique. It is the same as arguing with Creationists, Climate Change deniers, Ebola panic merchants etc. Which is why #gamergate seems to be attracting the support of the crazy US right wing media, someone above even linked to an article on breitbart.com to support the #gamergate argument , seriously your counter arguments come from crazy wingnut breitbart .. *sigh*

    Also I commend you Joe for having the strength and energy to even bother with these trolls. Because that is the constant struggle for all of us who employ critical thinking. Sometimes when Creationists, Climate Change deniers, Ebola panic merchants and Gamergater’s write or speak their Gish Gallop we just can’t be bothered to respond. We can so easily see that it is all bullshit and not worth our time. But by ignoring it we allow it to spread and take hold amongst people with weak reasoning skills and then the fight gets bigger and worse.

    1. Thank you for how you guys covered Gamergate. Especially you Joe, for these amazing posts. I had to quit my job working as a character designer for a video game company because the casual sexism in the business was triggering PTSD episodes (from prior sexual abuse… incidents). Between working in that environment and all the horrific #gamergate terroristic threats, I feel like I will have to give up something I love (video games) in order to preserve my physical and emotional health. (Notice the anonymity just to be safe).

       Joe, your posts remind me that not only are not all men potential threats, but that some are even our allies in fights like this. Words cannot express how important and valued your responses are. It’s getting increasingly depressing on this side of the fence – with the gaming companies not only not condemning the terroristic threats, but quietly condoning the gamergate/sexist mentalities within the companies.

       Thank you.

       1. Argh, third time trying to leave this comment, hopefully third time’s the charm!

          E, I really hope you don’t give up on video games. I’d hate to see a few vocal shitstains force you to stop doing something you genuinely love. I’m so sorry about the shit that’s happened to you. I’ve also had some bad sexual shit happen to me, and I understand, reading the threats has been incredibly triggering. Being a lady on some of the suckier parts of the internet can be triggering.

          I hate thinking that there are people out there who resent me because of my gender. I’m a cool person, and I think most people who’ve met me like me. I’m sure I’d like you if we met each other, and since you seem artistic (character design, awesome!) and like gaming, you seem like you’re a cool person, too. So fuck those sad little haters, and, if you can, keep calm and game on.

          There’s tons of other women, like me, who play video games, and we’re not going anywhere. I hope you see this, and that it helps even a little bit. Solidarity, my gaming sister 🙂

38. Wow. GamerGate commentary drew in some crazy shit. Joe, you dirty Do-Gooder!

    I watched Mazes and Monsters a couple years ago. Protip: don’t.

39. Also, Toren was *this* close to a Cosby voice as he was describing the guy who died gaming at an internet café.

40. Interesting point of trivia that _isn’t_ about #GG in any way:

    The Book of Erotic Fantasy, aside from being one of the most embarassing D&D supplements to ever see print, actually existed well before the Open Gaming License was even a thing. Back in the hoary days of the internet, when files were still being shared via FTPs and BBSes, the Book of Erotic Fantasy had gained life as a fan-created supplement in .txt format that was circulated surrepticiously through a number of circles. The “original” version was slightly (but only slightly) more blatant about being fairly pathetic titillation for nerdy teenagers; however, much of the content of the document was recycled into the print version when that finally came about, albeit with changes to make it slightly more acceptable as a nominally-useable supplement. I am not proud to say that once upon a time I had a copy on my great big stack o’ floppy diskettes, though it’s since been lost.

    Also, if you’re looking at the most-Satanic RPGs I’m rather surprised none of you brought up the game Kill Puppies for Satan. The game is pretty much exactly what it says on the label- you kill dogs to gain the Dark One’s favor. It’s a crappy little throwaway joke game, but surprisingly fun when actually played as intended (i.e. as a joke.)

    1. I took a look at the pdf link they put up, and while TBEF is perhaps the supplement no one needed, it’s actually an interesting read. I appreciate the level of detail and inclusionary text. It’s silly, obviously, but there’s more useful crunchy flavor in it than Dudes of Legend.

       http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Dudes_of_Legend:_How_to_Be_Fucking_Awesome

       A cute read (and clearly an April Fool’s joke), but bare bones as an actual supplement.

41. Joe…you are my hero. Two weeks ago I was left in tears by a guy yelling at me about all this MRA/GamerGate bullshit. I am so glad that there are people like you in the world. Seeing you keep fighting brings me all the warm feels. Also, just in case people don’t think that the whole GamerGate thing is a problem, I am going to the Critical Hit show on Thursday, but after listening to this show I found myself checking twitter and the Critical Hit’s web cite to make sure no one had threatened to cause trouble at the show. I had a moment of wondering if I would be safe at one of my favorite nerd events! That’s so not right!

42. 1. The people who are making the threats are not gamers, just trolls.

    2. Why would anyone defend a hashtag?
    a. It is just a pound symbol.
    b. It may be in the public eye, but you can’t build a house on a bad foundation. If you want to dig into journalistic ethics or female representation in games find another way.

    3. If you take issue with the Anita Sarkeesian videos, which I also do, getting angry is not going to make her change her views, nor will her views change gaming. I get it we identify ourselves by what we do, and when those ideals are challenged, misrepresented, or attacked we immediately get defensive, but step back, calm down, and note the flaws. Just keep telling the game industry what you want by what you buy, it is a capitol driven industry.

    My biggest complaint about about those videos is not that she feels that the gaming industry has been biased against women. I completely agree. Women are often under and misrepresented in the medium. I take issue with her applying her views onto things that I don’t see as being anti women and easily dismissing things that would go against her message. With a narrow view you could say anything is true about the industry, like its pro nazi… or zombie… or nazi zombie. In short, I think there are plenty of problems to point out, you don’t need to make them up.

    Everything has been said and chances are someone has said it better so I would like to provide a link to a response video to the first damsels in distress video by female gamer; KiteTails. She has a very well thought out arguments and can better point out the problems with the first Damsels in Distress. Thanks for the podcast guys I listen all the time.

43. There’s a great summary of Gamergate on Slate’s doubleX podcast:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/doublex_gabfest/2014/10/gamergate_kelli_stapleton_witches_double_x_gabfest_discusses.html

44. Well, I only just go around to this episode today, and I see lots of… productive conversation has already been had, but I’ll make my shot at it anyway ‘cuz why not.

    So… seems to me, the panel’s entire outrage is based on the premise that “#GamerGate was created to slut-shame and harass a woman in gaming” (I wonder what https://twitter.com/JakALope044 has to say about that!), and that it “never stopped being about that, [and] has broadened out to attack other women in gaming like Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu.” This then condemning the entire hashtag and those who support it for all of remaining history. I guess.

    Anyway, there are several things here that need to be true for that to, well, be true.
    First, #GamerGate must’ve been created to slut-shame Zoe Quinn.
    Second, it must be responsible for the harassment of Anita Sarkeesian.
    Third, it must be responsible for the harassment of Brianna Wu.

    To respond to the first one, I will reference this blog post, which details the facts of what happened:
    https://medium.com/@cainejw/a-narrative-of-gamergate-and-examination-of-claims-of-collusion-with-4chan-5cf6c1a52a60

    So from the start, we can see that it wasn’t about Zoe quinn. People were upset about the event itself, and everybody involved, including ZQ, grayson, her boyfriend, and even each other for caring/not caring, and of course for caring/not caring about caring/not caring, etc. But I guess *this* initial reaction doesn’t count as “the beginning of #gamergate”, because that would make you wrong.

    Let’s go one step further; MundaneMatt’s video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5CXOafuTXM). He does his usual talking about random midly interesting gossip-thing he does in nearly all his videos. The thing was interesting especially because of the involvement of Nathan Grayson, and the *perception* that she slept with him for positive coverage. So here it’s not about ZQ either, or about the sex, but about the indie gaming scene, Nathan Grayson, gaming journalism at large, and how conspicuous it is that no gaming journalists were touching the story.

    For context, these are the same gaming journalists who are happy to drag people like Brad Wardell and Max Tempkin’s private lives through the gutter, based on unsubstantiated allegations, without a second thought, so it is *very* conspicuous that they *didn’t* immediately jump on this drama as well. Which is part of why this was interesting to so many people.

    Then Quinn DMCA’d his video because of a still of her game he had used as the background, taken from the game’s steam page. This type of abuse of the DMCA feature is a problem that has bothered a lot of youtubers, and so in response John Bain, aka. TotalBiscuit, wrote a twitlonger (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1) where he says that, regarding the “zoe quinn scandal”, “it’s difficult to tell what is true and what is not” and adds that “frankly I don’t fucking care”, then goes on to complain about how easily abusable the DMCA system is and how big a problem he thinks that is for the youtube community, and how nepotism in the gaming journalism scene is becoming a massive problem. Again, not actually about ZQ.

    Then InternetAristocrat did his video on the drama (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51PfwI3M&list=UUWB0dvorHvkQlgfGGJR2yxQ), attracted to it as he was by the salaciousness of the drama and his own strong interest in debunking ‘SJW’-stuff. He titles it “Quinnspiracy Theory” because it’s her twitter handle and the name was too good to pass up considering the content. There he talks at length about several topics too numberous to mention here.

    Suffice to say, it’s not about ZQ as a private person, but about how the system surrounding her operates and how perverse he perceives it to be. It levies some harsh criticism at ZQ (in the senes that the facts it states are harshly critical of her, even if he gets a couple of details wrong; specifically the names of the 5 people he lists and the exact date when ZQ and Grayson started their now-confirmed sexual relationship), but the point of the video is not to complain about her; it’s to complain about games journalists and the gaming media at large.

    Now, I want to make a quick point. Go to the InternetAristocrat video. Look at the video’s ratings. As I write this, it has 979876 views; almost a million. Almost a million people watched this video. Almost 40000 of those up/downvoted it, and of those more than 95% approved of the video. ~1 million views, ~95% approval rate.

    Do you guys really, honestly, genuinely believe that almost a million people (including people like this: http://theflounce.com/harassment-abuse-apologism-sanitizing-abuse-social-justice-spheres/) watched this video and overwhelmingly decided that, hey, not only is this video is all about *harassing women in gaming*, but we also completely approve of that message? Really? That doesn’t sound CRAZY to you? That sounds more reasonable than the possibility that he’s right? This is more reasonable than that the games media is corrupt (just like we plainly see all other media to be; confirmed to have happened following the reveal of the gamejournopros mailing list)? THIS is more plausible than that this *one person* is just an abuser? Come on, guys. Have more faith in humanity than that.

    Anyway.

    Finally, we get to the IRC chatlogs. This is where I’m personally ignorant. I wasn’t in the chat, and the hundreds of pages there are just too much for me to read through right now (and honestly, I’m not interested enough to do *that*), and some of what they say honestly does sound kind of creepy… but creeping on a public figure doing something you don’t like isn’t misogyny, and I don’t need to read through hundreds of pages to know that the snippets ZQ privded cherry-picked quotes out-of-context. E.g. they made one guy talking to himself look like everybody agreed with him by removing that from the context (keep in mind, this was a public chatroom anybody could enter), or they made one guy saying that *they shouldn’t focus on ZQ* sound like they were actually plotting to bring her down subversively… because 4chan is all about subtlety…

    I mean, you really think that 4chan has the power to compell Adam Baldwin to do anything, the way ZQ’s reference (to a *joke* about *alec* baldwin) suggests? Come on. What sounds more plausible. She’s lying, or Adam Baldwin is being controlled by 4chan? I mean, don’t you think it’s weird? One moment 4chan are these amazing geniuses of manipulation, who trick people into supporting them at every turn, and then the next moment they’re these total morons who plot this amazing trickery in a public IRC chat? Does that really make sense to you?

    And what about her claims about #notyourshield (who were apparently also spawned by these manipulative geniuses)? Do you really think that 4chan has the power to influence so many people? To get them to dedicate themselves to openly providing a cover for the harassment of women? Including huge amounts of out-spoken women (who often had to prove that they in fact were women and not white male sockpuppets)? You think it’s more plausible that they’re all idiots too stupid to think for themselves, too ignorant of the situation that they’re personally involved in to understand what people are saying to them? I reference the reception to InternetAristocrat’s video again. Have some faith in humanity, guys, come on. Don’t give in to the misanthropy. People are not as shitty as you seem to think that they are.

    As an aside, never in my life have I seen such large-scale racism and misogyny as what I saw in response to the #notyourshield hashtag. Not, mind you, from #gamergate, or 4chan, or from hatechan or whaterever, but from the people allegedly standing for “social justice”. Calling them “house niggers” and accusing them of suffering from “internalized misogyny”; countless accusations that they can’t really be women (leading many to respond that “for the first time in their lives” they had to actually prove their gender to someone on the internet), and – ironically – dismissing their opinions *because of their gender*. Oh you’re a woman and you disagree with us; you’re too stupid to think for yourself; your opinion doesn’t matter. I have *NEVER* seen *ANYBODY* do this unironically before *in my entire life*, but pro-“social justice” people keep falling over themselves to attack the women and other minorities who use the #notyourshield hashtag this way. You really think this is the only way these people’s racism displays itself? You think they’ve been repressing it for years, and now it just exploded? You don’t think that – just maybe – huge amounts of these “social justice warriors” are incredibly racist people who have been harassing and abusing people for years and getting away with it because they claim to represent the voice of the very minorities that they deride?

    You know what, screw the leading questions. I’m going to say it outright. This is why the #notyourshield hashtag exists. Not because all the people involved are these pathetically mentally weak idiots, but because these people – the ones who oppose #gamergate – they’re racists, they’re sexists, and they’re even misgoynists, and they’ve been going around acting that way for YEARS, and they’ve been getting away with it, because people are too afraid to call them on it, because if you call one of them on any of the bullshit that they do they just scream misogyny at you and you get fucked (look at e.g. Brad Wardell and what he went through as a result purely of *false* allegations: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/458579/The_long_lasting_effects_of_dishonest_reporting). It’s social suicide to disagree with them. This is why so many people are coming out using the #notyourshield hashtag. Not because they’re being mind controlled by 4chan, or manipulated into doing it by people who are apparently so open about their absurd hypothetical pro-harassment stance that everybody sees it plain as day (at least if you listen to the people accused of the corruption, or the gaming media, or the mainstream media that uses said corrupt people/organizations as their sources), but because they’ve faced constant harassment and marginalization from this group of people for a long time now. And they’re just fed up with it.

    …

    Wow, I guess I forgot about the whole point of my argument, huh? What was it again? Disproving that it’s about harassing these three women? Geeze, how do you even prove a negative? Do I think NOBODY was EVER in it just to piss on these women? No. Did they ever represent anything close to even a significant *minority*? No. It was never about “harassing women”. Adam Baldwin didn’t come out and coin the term to harass women. #notyourshield didn’t spring up in defence of the harassment of women. They didn’t. Nobody has ever harassed any of these women *under the banner of #gamergate*, at least not without massive condemnation. Sure, there have been weird people harassing under the #gamergate hashtag, like that crazy brazilian journalist who seemed to really hate Sarkeesian… but #gamergate (specifically, the harassment patrol) punishes them when they do.

    They even tracked down said crazy brazilian (https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2ksmw3/gamergate_members_track_major_anita_threatener/cloaty7), but because Sarkeesian herself won’t report him to the FBI (and even block those who tweet her asking about it), the FBI can’t get brazilian authorities to do anything about him. So what can #GG do? When the people getting harassed won’t do anything to stop the harassment themselves, and in fact do nothing but constantly encourage it by making non-stop antagonizing claims and remarks?

    To be very clear: There was *zero* evidence that the shooting threat against Anita had anything to do with #GG. Yet she’s happy to claim that it did. Zero evidence the threats against Wu had anything to do with #GG, yet you can’t even have a conversation with her without her claiming that it was definitely connected. And will any of them do anything about the threats to get them to stop? No… and why don’t they? Hm? Maybe it has something to do with all this free media exposure they’re getting because of it? Maybe Anita getting invited to the colbert report has something to do with it? Maybe the donations they all keep asking for have something to do with it? Maybe the fact that ZQ’s patreon has almost quadrupled in size to a ridiculous $3,700/month – just for existing – has something to do with it?

    …meh.

    Just, okay, just… man, this post has gotten way too long… just ask yourselves: What sounds more plausible?

    That hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of women, all got together and decided that they really wanted to harass women? That women and minorities are too stupid to think for themselves, that they – well educated, intelligent western women – can’t realize what the hashtag is about, even as they stand in the middle of all the people supporting it? That 4chan is both powerful and brilliant enough to machinate this entire harassment campaign *and* dumb enough to leave such obvious incriminating evidence out in public in the process? That the movement keeps going *months* after it started despite openly being about harassing women? That all these advertisers, who have pulled from the sites that are under attack, buckled under pressure from people who represent the harassment of women? That women like Christina Hoff Sommers, philosophy professor of ethics and outspoken feminist for decades, has teamed up with a movement dedicated to the harassment of women?

    Ooooor… that 3 people are lying to you for their own benefit, colluding with a corrupt media which helps them in a desperate effort to distract from their own corruption?

    Which is more plausible? Hundreds of thousands of people unite under the common banner of harassment of women, or hundreds of thousands of people unite under the banner of anger and frustration with a corrupt, abusive media that has pushed them too far?

    I mean, you’re really going with the former? You have that little faith in *people*?

    Y’know, really… I’m so sick of all the misanthropy. Why is it that being a misanthrope, and being a nihilist, is so hip and cool these days? Why is self-loathing ‘in’? Why do people embrace hating themselves and everybody around them? What happened to fucking optimism, man? To loving your fellow man? This is so fucking weird. I consider myself a cynical asshole – I’m usually the joykill in the room – and I’m the one sitting here defending the spirit of humanity, something that I disturbingly find myself doing a lot lately.

    It’s like the world is up-side down.

    Well, whatever I guess. It’s just video games, after all, right? History will show who was right and who was wrong in the end. My advice? Place your money on #gamergate. There are murmurings of mainstream media outlets finally contacting people who are pro-gamergate for a change, so that they’ll finally be able to articulate their *actual* position, not this flawed strawman that people have constructed of it. People like caustic soda, sadly.

    But that’s fine. Everybody gets sucked up in things. Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe we’re all being mind controlled by 4chan after all? Sure would come as a surprise to me, though no less for you guys that you were wrong I suppose.

    I guess I’ll finish by saying that I love the podcast, and keep up the otherwise good work. Sorry about the rant. Not sure if I should even post it… I mean, nobody’s going to change their minds anyway, eh? It’s all set in stone. And it’s so rambling, borderline incoherent, I doubt it’d work even if people were open to changing their minds… eh, whatever. It’s worth a shot.

    C’ya.

45. I came to this thread to say that I appreciated your discussion of gamergate, but felt that “grow the fuck up” was maybe not a strong enough response to doxxing and death threats… But after reading through about half the comments here and then giving up in exhaustion, all I can say is, Joe you’re a hero for even engaging with some of these fools. And in general, thank you to Caustic Soda for being a force for good.

46. Thank you for explaining gamergate!

47. Oh my god I love you guys so much!! Thank you for this wonderful episode!

    Also Joe, you f**king rock! Your energy is admirable.

48. Might be relevant to your interests – BoingBoing did a writeup about the DnD Steam Tunnel incident: http://boingboing.net/2014/11/11/the-truth-about-the-dungeon-ma.html

49. I like this podcast because it treats serious issues with humor and irreverence. This episode did not.

    Joe, you clearly have strong opinions on GG. After reading the comments in this thread, it seems to me that your mind is made up. You are not impartial and you aren’t giving both sides of the issue. It’s not interesting to listen to.

    Also, I am saddened to read some of your replies here. I see people raising legitimate points and trying to express their views. I see your responses, and they are aggressive and condescending. You don’t have to hate on someone just because you disagree with them.

    There may be a lot of people congratulating you for standing up for their side, but you have also alienated people on the other. I don’t have a side, but I want you know that I didn’t like what I heard or read today.

    1. You should also notice which other points of view haven’t gotten any support from the trio, and then think again about supporting, even indirectly, attacking one side is supporting the other especially in this case, the side you are. The difference is a matter of scale not vileness

    2. “Joe, you clearly have strong opinions” is not an argument. Little the GamerGate defenders have posted has been. The closest to one is the mountainous meandering bullshit I’ve yet to respond to (see the already-posted: Order of magnitude more work to disprove bullshit than to create it).

       That’s it though. That’s the limit of the point the time-wasters can make here.

       I’m “not impartial”? Saying that as a criticism presupposes both sides in this are equal. They are not. What little #GamerGate has to do with “ethics in gaming journalism” is merely a smokescreen for the now-uncovered misogyny in gaming culture.

       We described the formative event in #GamerGate history. Except by crazed conspiracy denialists the facts that we covered are not in question at all. Neither is the behavior of #GamerGate as a whole since.

       We call horrible things horrible all the time on this show.

       #GamerGate, and the behavior of its creators, and ongoing defenders is horrible.

       I’ve alienated people who are defending horrible behavior? Good.

       Want a “still horrible” followup? GamerGate’s “we’re not misogynist” spokeswoman (imaginary) Vivian James’ color scheme is a rape joke.

       Anyone defending #GamerGate have anything but telling me how bad they feel about how we called bullshit what it is? Anyone have any points to actually defend #GamerGate? Anyone have proof that the rape and death threats aren’t real?

       Or do you think they’re real, but that video games getting slightly-more-honest scores from reviewers is more important than how we treat women who dare to play and/or work on those games?

       #GamerGate is hateful horseshit. If you don’t think so. prove it by giving us a well-written Wiki entry about it here.

       Explain there how wrong we are.

       BTW, your post smacks of “there are legitimate points” without actually explaining what they are. I’ve already warned #GamerGate defenders posting here will get banned for that. Please take feeble attempts to explain GamerGate to that Wikia article so the whole world can be enlightened by how not-misogynist-and-totally-ethical you all are.

50. Joe, I’m not trying to argue anything. I’m just giving my opinion. legitimate criticism.

    1. Which part of your comment was “legitimate criticism”, exactly? When you said people have “legitimate points”, which ones were those, exactly?

       Did you not notice me asking for someone to spell out just what GamerGate is about if not about hate, and to back up that claim with evidence?

       Have you not noticed that nobody has?

       There’s no middle ground in GamerGate, because there’s no actual good side to balance out the hate, except in the fantasies of its defenders.

       If I’m wrong, prove it or stop crying that I’m calling hate for what it is.

51. I just wrote “legitimate criticism” because I felt like you were threatening me with a ban. I want you to do it. I think you have a poor attitude and I don’t want to support caustic soda anymore.

    The legitimate points I mentioned were written by Eternally Learning. I think that even though GamerGate started from a bad place, some people have used it for good. It’s not fair to only focus on the misogyny and ignore the issues of journalistic integrity.

    1. GamerGate started from a bad place.

       GamerGate never stopped being bad.

       GamerGate continues to be bad.

       Show me the good GamerGate has done. Supported The Fine Young Capitalists? They did that as damage control, and because it let them fight against Quinn.

       Create Vivian James as a female gamer mascot?

       Her color scheme is an in-joke about rape.

       “Ethics in game journalism”?

       LOL.

       GamerGate has done nothing to help the issues of journalistic integrity. If anything it has harmed it.

       Zoe Quinn and Kotaku aren’t non-issues, they’re the formative event for GamerGate. They’re what started the whole thing, and they’re the initial claimed “journalistic ethics” claim.

       Which has been completely debunked.

       GamerGate started to harass a woman.

       It tried to do that by claiming “ethics in game journalism”. Those claims were debunked.

       GamerGate continued to harass that woman, and branched out to harass more women.

       They continued to claim they were about ethics in game journalism, though their followup to claiming this wasn’t to point out problems these in game journalism but to continue to make death and rape threats to women.

       Anyone have anything to disprove this point? Anyone? The evidence is all over the Internet.

       GamerGate is nothing but toxic bullshit set up to fool people who love games into creating a smokescreen to harass women.

       And you’ve been fooled by it.

52. I just caught up on your episodes, and had been saving up the gaming one as a nugget since I usually enjoy listening to you… funnily enough, while I game.

    Your segment about GamerGate was a big dissapointment. I’m not trying to attack your point of view, but your attitude towards the people of GamerGate.

    You call for discussion and dialogue like adult people, yet you and your guest buddy one-sided slam the people of GamerGate without even a hint of discussion inbetween you.

    You’ve discussed baby rape and wanted to understand the motives of the rapists at least out of a morbid facination, yet even evaluating the points “officially” presented by GamerGate are lies with less worth than a baby rape.

    By “official”, I mean the arguments broadly presented by the majority of GamerGate and not the odd false flag, anonynmous twitter messages that the GamerGate Harrasment Patrol do their best to report ASAP.

    The interesting thing is that I’ve been a neutral participant in this for months and agree that there are elements within GamerGate that is horrible, but in the same way that fanatic religious are a popular face for a larger group of believer who only share their seed of beliefs.

    Your GamerGate segment was tabloid level.

    While I’ll continue listening to your podcast, I will from now on evaluate for myself what you say and no more “listen and believe” when you guys talk about “facts”.

    1. “False flag” accusation spotted!

       Zero attempt to refut the factual explanation of the GamerGate formative event, no refutation of the terrible behavior of GamerGaters since that event, no proof that there has been any good behavior from GamerGaters that can possibly overcome the horrible, evil shit that’s been done by them.

       Just you being disappointed.

       “Tabloid level”.

       We looked at the facts.

       When the facts disappoint you, that’s not my problem.

       I’ve challenged GamerGaters to give us some facts that prove our judgement wrong. All they’ve been able to do with that challenge is prove us right. You’ve got nothing.

       Go fill out that Proposed Wiki Article for GamerGate and prove me wrong. Or realize that your disappointment is with finding out you chose the wrong side to base a bit of your identity on.

53. Hey Joe. I’m surprised my comment was let through, but I guess that’s the result of us being on different sides of a rediculous argument. I’m assuming, and I assume you’re assuming.

    I will try to respond to your comment since it seems you’ve been responding to MY comment.

    -““False flag” accusation spotted!”

    I’m not sure if you’re responding to me or someone else. If it’s me, please clarify. I’d hate to be the person behind a false flag.

    -“Zero attempt to refut the factual explanation of the GamerGate formative event”

    Again, please excuse me if I don’t understand. I’m neither a native speaker nor an ESL. Do I understand you to “There is no explanation on how GamerGate was formed”? There is, and in my experience it doesn’t include Quinn.

    -“no refutation of the terrible behavior of GamerGaters since that event”

    I, as a passive part of the pro-gamer community can say that I (and in my experience, everybody else in this consumer revolt) have never accepted any kind of harassment of any kind.

    I actively oppose any type of harassment based on sex, religion, colour, heritage or any of the countless other things I cannot even imagine. I believe a person should be judged on their achievements and accomplishments. People should be judged on what they do, not who they are.

    -“no proof that there has been any good behavior from GamerGaters that can possibly overcome the horrible, evil shit that’s been done by them.”

    If you assume that every bad action done in the name of “GamerGate”, I see how it’s hard to see. I could present that several “GG” people have been forced out of their homes as well. Have you read about how Total Bisquit recieved death-threats while he was in chemo? Did you read about how Milo got sent – first a toilet roll, then a syringe filled with mystery liquid, then an actual dead animal? Not even mentioning death threats. Or how Boogie’s wife was sent death threats? There are no winners in this negative situation.

    I put that down to unrelated trolls that just want to keep the dispute going. But we could have a decent dispute on wether the anti-GG people sent it or not.

    If I disregard the actions done by individuals done in the name of “GamerGate”, I’l end up with a pretty reasonable group of people in my own oppinion. In the same way I assume that if I disregard the people advocating “I bathe in male tears” (http://imgur.com/lZCULgF), I’ll end up with a lot of people whom I agree with.

    Let me clarify the “neutral” point. I’m what evidently ammounts to an “equality feminist”. I think it’s good that women get general conscription to participate in our national duty (Norway). In the same way I think it’s good that men participate in raising their children due to the parental equality act. Or even for equality, disregard the law. Women should have the same opportunities and disadvantages as men. If a woman is physically stronger than a male contender for that firemans position, of course she should get it. If a woman have sex with a man she should experience the same type of cheering that a man get. I have no problem with accepting over 50% female leaders as long as they’re better suited than their male counterparts.

    I think your statements are wrong and ill-informed, but I’m not going to call you names or use my megaphone to tell everybody else how wrong they are for disagreeing with you.

    If I had a megaphone I’d avocate people to check it out for them selves it the narrative seems one-sided.

    -““Tabloid level”. We looked at the facts.”

    Yes, one side of it. Are you saying there is only one side to this? Again I have to disgree.

    -“When the facts disappoint you, that’s not my problem.”

    Aye, absolutely not. But since you’re broadcasting world wide, I’d say it’s reasonable to expect different opinions to be voiced. I’m one of them, and since I’m a fan I’m sorry that this is our first interaction.

    -“Go fill out that Proposed Wiki Article for GamerGate”

    I’m not sure which one you’re talking about. Do you mean the main “GamerGate” article on Wiki where Jimmy Wales came in personally to ask Ruy to step down because he was biased? I’m not sure how much good I can do there.

    -“Or realize that your disappointment is with finding out you chose the wrong side to base a bit of your identity on.”

    Perhaps. I belive one thing, you believe another thing. The difference between me and you I feel is that I don’t have to resort to words like “Evil”, “Horrible” and “shit”. But perhaps I should take a tip from “your” side and follow the example of Geordie Tait and condemn you all to the holocaust, because Hitler was wrong but he is right? (http://archive.today/W2kyB#selection-1173.188-1173.195)

    Nah, I’m not picking sides. On the one hand I see and agree that there is a disproportionate ammount of masculinity that doesn’t represent the average gamer or their target experience. On the other hand I think it’s wrong to (and here comes the bitching about the journalistic ethics, hang on…) form a secret group to control the gaming media and proposing to collude to block a journalist from ever reviewing again because they’re not bowing to the will of the secret group.

    Both are in my opinion equally factual after reviewing what I consider evidence. I’ll be eagerly awaiting your reply. Again, thanks for letting my voice through in what I imagine must be a barrage of misogyny and hate comments.

    1. Huh, semantics looks better from afar. I see that I’ve mixed the Norwegian and English language in my post. Sorry about that. Just imagine I’m a foreigner who has troubles explaining myself in your language. 😛

    2. I’m not sure if you’re responding to me or someone else.

       Here’s exactly what you said (emphasis mine): “I mean the arguments broadly presented by the majority of GamerGate and not the odd false flag, anonynmous twitter messages that the GamerGate Harrasment Patrol do their best to report ASAP.”

       You’re ignoring the evidence that proves me right by deciding that anything that doesn’t conform to your current opinion of GamerGate is a “false flag”. This is what conspiracy theorists do to hold on to their ridiculous theories and maintain their current beliefs without having to analyze them.

       It’s a form of No True Scotsman. You’re basically saying that #GamerGate is good because anyone who acts poorly under the name of #GamerGate isn’t really a GamerGater. Seriously, go watch that video. Then recognize that in order for these to be “False Flags” there has to be a huge, ridiculous conspiracy set up to… to protect video game reviews? To protect Anita Sarkeesian from “legitimate criticism”? To… attack gamers? Except most gamers think #GamerGate is a pile of shit too.

       Once you look at this rationally and ignoring the fallacies, you have to start accepting the evidence, which is that GamerGate started to harass Zoe Quinn and then branched out to harass other women.

       Do I understand you to “There is no explanation on how GamerGate was formed”? There is, and in my experience it doesn’t include Quinn.

       This is completely false. Absolutely, 100% untrue, and despite my constant attempts for a GamerGate defender to back up these kinds of bullshit claims, nobody has.

       The #GamerGate hashtag was created by Adam Baldwin when he linked to two articles critical of Zoe Quinn.

       Here’s the tweet:

       https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/504801169638567936

       That’s the tweet that created the #GamerGate hashtag and it links to a “5 Guys” video. “5 Guys” is a joke about how many men Zoe Quinn was supposed to have slept with.

       #GamerGate’s formative event. Preserved for all to see. Here, let me make it an image for you so you don’t even have to click it.

       

       So with this evidence clearly showing how wrong you are you’re all going to stop making this claim now, right? You and all other GamerGaters? You’re going to admit from this point forward that “Yes, GamerGate’s first appearance was during an attempt to harass Zoe Quinn and falsely claim she was unethically getting good reviews for her game”, right?

       No, of course you won’t. You’ll just keep showing up here telling me how “sad” you are that I researched the facts about #GamerGate and came to a conclusion that’s different from yours.

       It started as a lie (no reviews by her claimed lover appeared — all articles he wrote are still online, none are at all questionable by any rational human) and abuse.

       Kept being about it. We’ve got the chatlogs from GamerGaters hoping they can drive Zoe Quinn to suicide. I’ve linked to them several times.

       I’m getting tired of this. No GamerGate defender has given me anything representing a good defense. The best you can do is show me that people have honestly been fooled by #GamerGate, and then reminded me how strongly people will fight against the evidence in front of their eyes to maintain a treasured position.

       If you’re not anti-woman and you’re against harassment and you want to spend your time “fixing gaming journalism” instead of “working towards equality and safety for women” then that’s your choice. It’s a fucking weird one, and I say that as someone who loves games. Don’t like gaming journalism? Do what I did and stop paying attention to it. Don’t pre-order. Make your own review site, for fuck’s sake.

       But whatever you choose to do, get away from the #GamerGate hashtag. This redditor did and he explains why quite eloquently.

       1. “You’re ignoring the evidence that proves me right by deciding that anything that doesn’t conform to your current opinion of GamerGate is a “false flag”.

          What evidence? I come from a community that’s 20.000+ strong (reddit.com/r/kotakuinaction), and any evidence of misogyny or any other “lesser” hates are rooted out – I personally loathe it and report any oddball hate post.. The pro’s

          got an active patrol out to report any harassment on twitter through the GG harassment patrol.

          I’m all against hate and harassment. Do you have any suggestions on what more “we” can do other than organize a “internet citizen patrol” to scrutinize every message tagged with #gamergate? I’m all for it. I HATE racism since I’m

          Norwegian indigenous (Samii) and experience severe acts of direct racism every week including physical attacks, and would love to bring it over to my every day real life. Please. I’m at the point where I’d rather be gay to escape the

          percecution.

          If I could have a personal anti-harassment unit to help me, you don’t know how much good for my “people” they could do. Every anti-samii twitter message was shot down by reason… Here is a clip of a Samii girl who people tried to

          IGNITE due to her being a Samii. http://www.dagbladet.no/2012/10/08/nyheter/innenriks/krim/patenning/23779592/.

          Imagine if… Now I don’t get harassed to that point because I practice the national Samii right of carrying a knife at all times and I show it. But I’d be much happier without my faux tradition that isn’t relevant.

          “You’re ignoring the evidence that proves me right by deciding that anything that doesn’t conform to your current opinion of GamerGate is a “false flag”. This is what conspiracy theorists do to hold on to their ridiculous theories and

          maintain their current beliefs without having to analyze them.”

          I do regard all hate-statements that is condemmed by GamerGate in general as non-GamerGate.

          WHO is GamerGate? That one single statement or the 20.000 big community over at reddit.com/r/gamergate?

          “You’re basically saying that #GamerGate is good because anyone who acts poorly under the name of #GamerGate isn’t really a GamerGater. Seriously, go watch that video.”

          #GamerGate has directly contributed with over 16.000 US dollars to the Pacer center (https://www.crowdrise.com/gamergatestompsoutbullying/fundraiser/loping)

          One tweet or massive donations against bullying. You have to decide who you listen to.

          This will be it for me. Thanks for the discussion, Joe. Will be listening, but in another filer. 😀

          1. The one tweet that named GamerGate. The one tweet that proves you wrong. You don’t get to come back from me destroying your claim that #GamerGate didn’t start about Zoe Quinn by trying to list how many good people follow #GamerGate. Accept my evidence. Admit #GamerGate started about harassing Zoe Quinn.

             The movement you’re defending was named in that tweet. Here it is again. Here’s the first-ever #GamerGate tweet:

             

             Those tweeted links go to proven bullshit videos attacking Zoe Quinn. The very first words in the first video are “SEX FOR FAVORS” which is proven nonsense.

             GamerGate’s birth-cry was misogyny and lies. From there it tried to wrap itself in a cloak of “ethics”. Along the way it fooled Actual Good People like yourself.

             You’re from /r/KotakuInAction? Neat. Here’s /r/GamerGhazi who love to both make fun of #GamerGate and point out the rampant hypocrisy of its loudest voices. Enjoy.

             1. I agree that there was a slutshaming post that originated the dual movements, both from the media and the consumers.. It is called “Quinnspiracy” according to your link.

                I dont think it’s related to GamerGate and I’m focusing on the secret cabal of insiders determing what to publish and what not to publish. This is factually proven and I will provide links instead of touting “facts http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/ The links YOU provide leads to a youtube channel I neither subscribe to nor support. What you want to put into GamerGate is up to you.

                I think the “slutshaming” posts are despicable and wholly unrelated to GamerGate. Please leave Zoe Quinn alone and stop bringing focus back to her! She have expressed that she want nothing to do with this and people like you keep bringing her up.

                Leave Zoe alone!

                “Here’s /r/GamerGhazi”

                That’s cool, that’s the subreddit that one of the infamous wiki editors went to get money for his patreon. Jimmy Wales personally stepped in to stop him from posting biased “info” on Wikipedia.

                http://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2mj5ds/im_ryulong/cm5cetw

                Such hate and misogyny from Jimbo.

                Also a few things to note about reddit.com/r/gamerghazi

                They are 1/10th the size of /r/kotakuinaction.

                They have had members banned because they brigaded to downvote specific opintions contrary to reddit rules and common decency.

                Here’s a copy-pasta from the /r/gamerghazi sidebar, the place where people randomly gather to mock GamerGate:

                “We reject the label “Anti-GG,” as we are not a movement in the same sense GG is. We are simply Gamergate’s critics along”

                3.5k people just randomly happening to get together. It’s hipocracy even in their own description…

                “THE ONE TWEET”

                Maybe you contribute one tweet to represent at least 20.000 (counting memebers of the subreddits). I know that it doesn’t represent me so you’re already directly and subcjectively to me, objectively to you: Wrong.

                “GamerGate’s birth-cry was misogyny and lies.”

                Yes. It sprung up in the wake of the blog post that the ex posted. I’m not the one to determine if it was lies, I have an opinion that her admitance to being unfaithful while in a relationship negates the misogyny.

                I still think it was wrong of him to publicly display their sex-life and it was completely out of line.

                “Enjoy.”

                I’ve been to /r/gamerghazi quite often to try to understand the other side’s point of view. It’s kind of a circle jerk in there, try reddit.com/r/againstgamergate instead, they have a very lively discussion with arguments from both sides and they don’t ban opposition on sight. I participate there in the same way as in the comments here; without censorship. I thank you for that and invite you to /r/againstgamergate.

                /r/gamerghazi have even invented a name for unwelcomed opinions, it’s called “JAQing off.” Doesn’t that leave a double plus bad taste in your mouth?

             2. I dont think it’s related to GamerGate

                It’s the tweet that named the movement. It came before all of you who claim to be the good guys, and falsely claimed to be about journalistic ethics, but was in fact a lie created to harass Zoe Quinn.

                To say it has nothing to do with GamerGate is ridiculous. You’re effectively saying there’s absolutely no way you’re willing to change your mind on this. You’ve already proudly declared that you ignore anyone doing anything bad in the name of GamerGate isn’t really GamerGate, now you see the tweet that named the movement you’re defending, admit it’s full of shit, and somehow think it has nothing to do with your movement.

                You’re like a conspiracy theorist, completely unable to see just how counter to reality your beliefs are.

                I’m quite aware of JAQing off. Are you at all familiar with Google? You can use it when you’re confused about things.

54. I guess with those arguments I’m pretty Pro. Took me to type out to figure out.

55. Edit to my previous post, reddic.com/r/gamerghazi is only 1/3rd the size of /r/kotakuinaction, not 1/10tj. sorry about that.

56. What I really wanted to post here is a reference to a card game called Cards Against Humanity, which is a rather caustically funny card game where you have to combine pairs of cards, each with phrases on them, to make the funniest sentence. I think it’s available under a CC licence, so you can download and print the cards yourself for free or pay for a nice printed set: http://cardsagainsthumanity.com/

    1. We’re big fans of Cards Against Humanity here at Caustic Soda.

       My friend Daniel Chai puts on a show called Improv Against Humanity in Vancouver that uses the game (played by audience members at the side of the stage) to set up the (horrible) scenes.

       1. Sounds cool, I’ll try to look it up if I’m in Vancouver. Apologies for the late response – I’ve unsubbed from updates to this particular post.

          I do have another Gaming ref though: The Women of Downton Abbey playing Cards Against Humanity http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/storystream/stuff-we-found-ladies-downton-abbey-played-cards-against-humanity-and-couldnt-stop

          Thought your peeps might find it amusing. 🙂

57. Found this and thought it relevant to your interests.

    How real men play Jenga: http://m.imgur.com/3NA9V7H

58. Followup: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32996009

    Nothing says dedication like a giant scar…Go play outside!