Gamergate is winning, and here is why
I write this post to say that for everyone in #Gamergate, congrats, you're on the winning team.
A year ago, things looked bleak. A year ago, social justice warriors held most of the media by the balls, trying to sell them on the idea that all gamers were evil, sexist assholes who hate women and don't want them in the industry.
To be honest, we only wanted one woman (Zoe Quinn) not exactly out, but taken to task for her collusion with game reviewers in exchange for positive coverage without disclosing the COI, and it prompted a backlash.
Why? BECAUSE GAMERS STRUCK A NERVE.
The nerve we struck was one where the gaming press had become an arrogant body unto themselves that didn't believe their mandate was simply to report on gaming culture. Instead, they felt they could abuse their power to shape gaming culture and this arrogance had corrupted them into doing corrupt things, and all those who kicked off Gamergate caught them with their pants down.
Their counterattack was simply taking a preexisting social justice issue, marrying it to the core issue of Gamergate (corruption and favoritism in the gaming press), and the result was charlatans like Anita Sarkeesian and their associated ilk coming out of the woodwork to accuse all their opponents of hating women, when the truth is more simple: all of them were, to some greater or lesser degree, either complicit with the corrupt assholes Gamergate was calling out, or were simply using the conflict for personal gain in related areas (such as Randi Harper trying to disrupt the FreeBSD community and pervert it into a platform for her gender politics).
For the first couple of months, Gamergaters had it rough, cause, like it or not, most of the antis were rich, smooth talking bastards with the right connections who were quite good at circling the wagons, and had most of the media snookered into buying the bullshit story gamers are evil misogynist bastards.
However, the bullshit story they were selling started breaking up almost immediately because they had very little evidence to prove it or were using clearly faked incidents and selling them as legitimate (Brianna Wu, no offense, Jace Conners was a troll at your expense, not a serious threat to your life, please stop selling a story even r/GamerGhazi wouldn't buy as legitimate). Further, the opposition underestimated the power of the internet to record their lies, hypocrisy, and bullshit, and even after they tried burning evidence, they learned much too late most of the gamers they were shitting on were very tech savvy and saved copies of everything.
Recently, Gamergate has been scoring bloody blows against the liars and con artists of the anti-GG side, thanks to reporting by Breitbart (an unlikely ally I admit, but I'm not complaining) ripping the veil off many of their senior leaders, the decimation of Gawker, parent company of corrupt gaming shill rag Kotaku, and the fact now people in high places have seen both Gamergaters and their foes for what they really are, and have decided to side with the gamers, as they realized something that's been true of gamers all along:
We don't give a crap what your politics are, we welcome everyone who likes games to pick up a controller and have some fun. Further, gamers, not social justice warriors, are the people who buy, play, and enjoy games.
So Gamergaters, rejoice, we're on the downslope now, just remember to never stop exposing the liars on the other side and showing the world the real monster, if there is one, is not those of us who claim the title gamer.
And for our opposition, I have only this to say:
If you ever decide to abandon your hatreds and realize we gamers are not the enemy, we will happily declare peace with you, but the choice to do so is yours, as we've been defending ourselves since this whole mess began, we just hope you are honorable enough to cease fighting a war we want to end, preferably on terms where everyone can get along and have fun.
Update; An apparent MRA posted a comment in response to this post (now deleted), and I have one message for all of them: You are not welcome in Gamergate. You are leeches hijacking Gamergate for your own ends, and I denounce everything you stand for, as I do not hate women, I merely oppose liars and believers in BS.
That includes every single one of you.
A year ago, things looked bleak. A year ago, social justice warriors held most of the media by the balls, trying to sell them on the idea that all gamers were evil, sexist assholes who hate women and don't want them in the industry.
To be honest, we only wanted one woman (Zoe Quinn) not exactly out, but taken to task for her collusion with game reviewers in exchange for positive coverage without disclosing the COI, and it prompted a backlash.
Why? BECAUSE GAMERS STRUCK A NERVE.
The nerve we struck was one where the gaming press had become an arrogant body unto themselves that didn't believe their mandate was simply to report on gaming culture. Instead, they felt they could abuse their power to shape gaming culture and this arrogance had corrupted them into doing corrupt things, and all those who kicked off Gamergate caught them with their pants down.
Their counterattack was simply taking a preexisting social justice issue, marrying it to the core issue of Gamergate (corruption and favoritism in the gaming press), and the result was charlatans like Anita Sarkeesian and their associated ilk coming out of the woodwork to accuse all their opponents of hating women, when the truth is more simple: all of them were, to some greater or lesser degree, either complicit with the corrupt assholes Gamergate was calling out, or were simply using the conflict for personal gain in related areas (such as Randi Harper trying to disrupt the FreeBSD community and pervert it into a platform for her gender politics).
For the first couple of months, Gamergaters had it rough, cause, like it or not, most of the antis were rich, smooth talking bastards with the right connections who were quite good at circling the wagons, and had most of the media snookered into buying the bullshit story gamers are evil misogynist bastards.
However, the bullshit story they were selling started breaking up almost immediately because they had very little evidence to prove it or were using clearly faked incidents and selling them as legitimate (Brianna Wu, no offense, Jace Conners was a troll at your expense, not a serious threat to your life, please stop selling a story even r/GamerGhazi wouldn't buy as legitimate). Further, the opposition underestimated the power of the internet to record their lies, hypocrisy, and bullshit, and even after they tried burning evidence, they learned much too late most of the gamers they were shitting on were very tech savvy and saved copies of everything.
Recently, Gamergate has been scoring bloody blows against the liars and con artists of the anti-GG side, thanks to reporting by Breitbart (an unlikely ally I admit, but I'm not complaining) ripping the veil off many of their senior leaders, the decimation of Gawker, parent company of corrupt gaming shill rag Kotaku, and the fact now people in high places have seen both Gamergaters and their foes for what they really are, and have decided to side with the gamers, as they realized something that's been true of gamers all along:
We don't give a crap what your politics are, we welcome everyone who likes games to pick up a controller and have some fun. Further, gamers, not social justice warriors, are the people who buy, play, and enjoy games.
So Gamergaters, rejoice, we're on the downslope now, just remember to never stop exposing the liars on the other side and showing the world the real monster, if there is one, is not those of us who claim the title gamer.
And for our opposition, I have only this to say:
If you ever decide to abandon your hatreds and realize we gamers are not the enemy, we will happily declare peace with you, but the choice to do so is yours, as we've been defending ourselves since this whole mess began, we just hope you are honorable enough to cease fighting a war we want to end, preferably on terms where everyone can get along and have fun.
Update; An apparent MRA posted a comment in response to this post (now deleted), and I have one message for all of them: You are not welcome in Gamergate. You are leeches hijacking Gamergate for your own ends, and I denounce everything you stand for, as I do not hate women, I merely oppose liars and believers in BS.
That includes every single one of you.
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