What is gamergate?

[Proteus4]

i don't game. Is that how you say it? But I follow some people on Twitter that do. What's going on in the world. It seems some men want to rape women that play games or create them. Or kill their children or something.

But recently there were #notallgamers tags, and now #gamergate. What are they? I tried to research it but I'm old and the Internet is clearly starting to leave me behind.

Dave

[CrazyFoxMachine]

This may help

[Jon]

In a nutshell, there was a woman who makes games who upset her boyfriend, who also makes games. He then posted details of their relationship, and all her wrong-doings (by his criteria, of course). Then the internet got involved, particularly that part of it that plays games or, more particularly, that vocal part comprised of thuggish sub-humans that plays games.

[Grugz]

i don't game. Is that how you say it? But I follow some people on Twitter that do. What's going on in the world. It seems some men want to rape women that play games or create them. Or kill their children or something.

But recently there were #notallgamers tags, and now #gamergate. What are they? I tried to research it but I'm old and the Internet is clearly starting to leave me behind.

Dave

I'm a gamer, no urges to kill, or rape thanks.

[JamesC]

I'd never heard of this but after reading about it I'm thoroughly depressed.

[Jon]

It's not a high point for humanity in general.

[Steve Green]

I've been reading bits of it and it is depressing as hell.

[Richmond Clements]

And still it continues.
http://www.chud.com/156124/mcp-developer-brianna-wu-forced-to-leave-house-due-to-death-threats/

[IndigoPrime]

Misogyny and sexism wrapped in a veneer of fighting for journalistic ethics, where 'ethics' in fact means 'try to kill any site whose opinions we disagree with, while also ignoring most of the content of articles on said sites anyway'. The Intel thing was especially scary, with that company pulling advertising from Gamasutra, in response to these idiots. Fortunately, advertisers on other sites have just done nothing, after the PR shitstorm Intel found itself in.

And, yeah, Wu is pretty outspoken and has been playing with the whole GG thing, so I'm not surprised she's now a major target. The people making such vile threats at the very least need a knock on the door from the local cops; really, though, this is fine/jail territory.

[J.Smith]

In a nutshell, there was a woman who makes games who upset her boyfriend, who also makes games. He then posted details of their relationship, and all her wrong-doings (by his criteria, of course). Then the internet got involved, particularly that part of it that plays games or, more particularly, that vocal part comprised of thuggish sub-humans that plays games.

This is true, but the other thing is that she apparently slept with a few journalists, and so many other people involved in this mess would have you believe that they're deeply concerned about journalistic integrity. A lot seem to be specifically up in arms about ethics of games journalism, and others still those journalists who write with an "agenda". The latter-most is my personal favourite. Someone writes an article about a game, daring to bring politics into it to emphasise or raise an issue, and these dipshits suddenly want complete objectivity because they don't agree. Gets me every time.

It's a shame that there are probably those people, somewhere in all this mess, who have genuine concerns or worries, but then again, I wonder why they insist on associating themselves with the hateful fucks who continue to make disgusting headlines. It's all well and good to say that, "Oh, but anyone can use this hashtag!", but considering the image now associated with it, I'd think that it's surely much better to start anew. It's not as if all the loud mouths are going to follow after all.

[GordonR]

This is true, but the other thing is that she apparently slept with a few journalists

I'm quoting this shocker back to you, in the hope you'll see what you just did.  And why that opening remark invalidates everything you say afterwards, and puts you closer to the rape 'em/kill 'em/shame 'em side of the gamergate hate mob. 

Which I'm sure isn't your intention.

[TordelBack]

This is true, but the other thing is that she apparently slept with a few journalists

I'm quoting this shocker back to you, in the hope you'll see what you just did.  And why that opening remark invalidates everything you say afterwards, and puts you closer to the rape 'em/kill 'em/shame 'em side of the gamergate hate mob. 

Which I'm sure isn't your intention.

S'right, I'm afraid.  Especially that last bit.  We've really got to catch ourselves on as a society: most of us are well-meaning, yet inadvertently we perpetuate the worst mindsets.

[J.Smith]

This is true, but the other thing is that she apparently slept with a few journalists

I'm quoting this shocker back to you, in the hope you'll see what you just did.  And why that opening remark invalidates everything you say afterwards, and puts you closer to the rape 'em/kill 'em/shame 'em side of the gamergate hate mob. 

Which I'm sure isn't your intention.

Hm, I presume you mean the tone of that sentence is in line with saying, in a gossipy way, "Oh, but I heard she slept with journalists! Scandalous!", and makes me sound somewhat on their side with that specific matter. No, not the way I intended it to sound of course, particularly since I could hardly bear to read up on the abuse directed at Zoey Quinn in the first place to know if this is as even remotely true as I make it sound. My mistake. One of those instances where you clearly have good intentions but accidentally shoot yourself in the foot. It'd help if these forums had an edit button of some sort, but at least someone pointed it out.

[IndigoPrime]

We've really got to catch ourselves on as a society: most of us are well-meaning, yet inadvertently we perpetuate the worst mindsets.

The imbalance is insane. Just in gaming alone, look at Anita Sarkeesian. GG morons contest she's 'cherry picking' scenes from games, in order to brand the industry sexist, by, er, 'cherry picking' scenes from her videos, which are in fact examining broad tropes and encouraging the industry to do better. Most of her stuff isn't even about shutting down a certain kind of approach to gaming, but just making games more diverse. Leigh Alexander's Gamasutra piece said much the same, and got slammed by GG and led to Intel pulling its ads.

The whole thing's profoundly depressing, and it's hardly surprising we're now seeing women quitting industries and social networks. Hell, when I tweet about equality, the pinkification of toys, gender issues and gaming, I get shit from people despite having little notoriety. I can't imagine what it's like for someone like Wu or Sarkeesian, seeing reply feeds full of venom, and having people making actual threats rather than just flinging the odd pathetic insult.

We all need to do better, and call out the people (almost all men) being arseholes.

[Richmond Clements]

Hell, when I tweet about equality, the pinkification of toys, gender issues and gaming, I get shit from people despite having little notoriety.

Yup, I've had people, some of them memebers of this forum, attack me on FB for daring to suggest that certain comic images may be objectifying women and are sexist. Sad little men.