"Why are you so angry?" Anita Sarkeesian, Gamergate, Sad Puppies, and online harassment

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Congratulations on helping create a gamergate sympathizer

 

THE CIRCLE IS COMPLETE!! WE HAVE INADVERTENTLY CREATED THAT WHICH WE HATE THE MOST!!! ALL OF OUR EFFORTS HAVE BEEN IN VAIN!! 

 

C+ troll. 

[Kalbear]

Congratulations on helping create a gamergate sympathizer

Sure thing. Congrats on sympathizing with people that hate women and attack women regularly. 

[KiDisaster]

One more Angry Jack on the shit-heap I suppose. 

[Inigima]

Congratulations on helping create a gamergate sympathizer

Please complete the following questionnaire.

1. I am [ for / against ] issuing graphic rape and death threats to women, including taking photographs of their houses and showing up there unannounced and uninvited even though I don't know them. (circle one)

[eyenon15]

Please complete the following questionnaire.

1. I am [ for / against ] issuing graphic rape and death threats to women, including taking photographs of their houses and showing up there unannounced and uninvited even though I don't know them. (circle one)

Huh???
Earlier it was merely thinking that Anita's videos are shitty that makes you sound like "that kind of person" (gamergate)

I never signed up for any death threat stuff.

[Lyanna Stark]

 

I'd like eyenon to discuss why he's spent so much time defending himself against GG accusations no one has made, when he could instead have devoted himself to fighting child abuse. He's no hero.

 

Or he could be fighting racism. On his blog, like R Scott Bakker.

 

GOD DAMMIT I CALLED IT. CHECK THE FUCKING TIME STAMP. 

 

:lol:

 

 

Huh???
Earlier it was merely thinking that Anita's videos are shitty that makes you sound like "that kind of person" (gamergate)

I never signed up for any death threat stuff.

 

 

 

That is what the Gamer-gaters are about though. OK-ing threatening, abuse and harassment of women, for them being women and "annoying" to these people.

 

Plus you still haven't explained what you find shitty with the videos. The fact that it points out sexism and sexist tropes in video games? What exactly do you mind with that? Is it wrong to point out sexism? Is this one of those "but the women in Saudi-arabia have it worse so STFU" sort of thing?

[Inigima]

Huh???
Earlier it was merely thinking that Anita's videos are shitty that makes you sound like "that kind of person" (gamergate)

I never signed up for any death threat stuff.

The people you are aligning yourself with by declaring yourself a "Gamergate sympathizer" did. That is literally what Gamergate is about. None of the pretend issues they use as a fig leaf are real. The entire "movement" is based on a proclaimed unethical action by a non-journalist that never actually happened.

But I imagine Nestor is right, and you know that already and are just trying to waste everyone's time.

[eyenon15]

 
 
 
 
 
That is what the Gamer-gaters are about though. OK-ing threatening, abuse and harassment of women, for them being women and "annoying" to these people.

Sorry, how does thinking Anita's videos are shit equate me to harrassment???

You are saying that Gamergaters are about harassment yet it was said that me thinking Anita's videos are terrible makes me sound like one.

So having a negative opinion about something makes you sound like a person that condones harassment???


Whether or not there really is a tendency to label one who thinks Anita's videos are horrible as a mysogynist or not i think that it's perfectly fine for me to state that it doesn't mean you are.

[TerraPrime]

Your game is entertaining only in your own mind, eyenon15. 

[eyenon15]

Whatever, if you think I'm playing a game then it really is wasting time.

I was specifically asked about my views so I don't know how I'm being simultaneously accused of masterminding a game yet also too stupid to post coherent thoughts.

But whatever I'm done.

[Shryke]

GOD DAMMIT I CALLED IT. CHECK THE FUCKING TIME STAMP. 

 

I want to drive to your house to high-five you now.

[BloodRider]

Ah so the jokes and attempts to connect me with Gamergate are just an attempt to invalidate whatever I say.

As in GamerGate = death threats
Therefore having a similar argument to a gamergater = death threat misogynist

And then WE TOOK YOUR WALKMAN!

[Red Tiger]

opponents of social justice warriors should get their own corresponding name, such as:
 

Social Injustice Warriors sounds like you fight social injustice.

[Howdyphillip]

Here is a simple question Eyenon. Do you believe that there is sexism represented in video games?

 

See, to me, that answer is an obvious yes. We live in a society that has ingrained sexism. Sarkeesian never stated that people were "evil" for creating, or playing games. All her video series does is point out that yes indeed there are misogynistic tendencies in the medium. What exactly about that makes them "shit videos"? 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Seriously. Not to end the thread or anything, but this is a good troll, poorly executed. 

 

The strategy is simple - find a controversial topic that you want to get everyone riled up about. In this case, it's Gamergate and everyone was already riled up before eyenon got here, which is the perfect environment in which to run the troll.

 

The goal is to find some way to get to a substantive defense of Gamergate by validating them through the rehabilitation of one of their positions.  You can't do it directly, so you have to find the most plausible substantive criticism that you can attribute to Gamergate and strip away everything else that Gamergate has become associated with. 

 

Eyenon picked "Anita's videos are shit." The trick is to put up a substantive defense of that position while simultaneously rejecting any association with GamerGate and attempting to play the victim any time anyone associates your position with GamerGate.

 

What's supposed to happen is that you put up a credible defense of your position, pointing out legitimate flaws in Sarkeesian's analysis and ultimately get people to admit that there's room to criticize her videos. Once you have an admission that legitimate criticisms can be leveled against the work, you "discover" that this is really what GamerGate has been saying the entire time. 

 

Then your argument is as follows:

 

There are legitimate criticisms of Sarkeesian's work --> GamerGate criticizes Sarkeesian's work --> GamerGate is just expressing legitimate criticisms of Sarkeesian's work = there's really nothing wrong with GamerGate, and they have been unfairly villified this entire time. 

 

And then everyone is supposed to lose their mind, having been tricked into validating something they hate.

 

You can see some of the elements of the troll easily.

 

For example, here's eyenon transparently attempting to interpret my own comments as an agreement with his position:

 

I said: 

 

 
No offense, but this kind of stuff is sex/gender studies 101. Google "toxic masculinity." Gloria Steinem wrote "Women's Liberation Aims to Free Men Too" 45 years ago. The idea that "sexism hurts men, too!" is, at this point, a trivial observation that nonetheless still had to be pointed by feminists before it could be reappropriated by bigots who still somehow manage to despise feminism. 
 
Sarkeesian never argued that tropes don't exist for male characters. She never argued that the only tropes worth noting are those that are harmful are those that apply to female characters. But that's not, right now, the aspect of video games that she's looking at, and it seems like you have a true failure to grasp her project (such that it is - I have my own issues with it, although I do think it's valuable) on its own terms, and not the terms you'd like to project upon it. That's not Sarkeesian's failings. Those are your failings. 

 

eyenon responded: 

 

Ah so, you are agreeing with me that sexism against women in video games isn't the worst problem they have, it's just the one thing that Anita focuses on.
We will see how this holds up, I don't think her videos are portrayed or taken that way but sure you can make that claim. I don't buy it. 

 

 

Of course, that's a pretty radical departure from what I actually said. But the goal is to get us to some kind of an agreement that legitimizes criticism of Sarkeesian. Once we can agree on the existence of valid criticisms, all that's left is to abuse synecdoche and conflate a possible legitimate criticism of Sarkeesian with GamerGate itself. 

 

As I pointed out before, you can see eyenon make the argument, in pretty much this exact form, right here: 

 

Well gamergate isn't really bad then if all it takes to sound like "that kind of person" is to rightfully think those videos are shit.

 

 

 

Of course, once the game was exposed, eyenon couldn't help but throw in the "heads I win, tails you lose" argument.

 

 

Congratulations on helping create a gamergate sympathizer 

 

 

This is trolling 101. You spend eight pages arguing with someone and then try to get them to believe that not only have they failed to convince you that you're wrong, but in fact all of their efforts have actually convinced you that the opposite of their position, which you supposedly did not already hold, is correct. You've therefore created that which you hate. Cue the futility of life (and/or arguing on the internet).

 

It's an oldie but a goodie. But in order to do it right, you have to be a little less transparent about it.

 

At this point, I honestly can't imagine why anyone would try to engage eyenon further. He's obviously not arguing in good faith, to the extent that he's even arguing at all. And before you let him rope you back into an argument with the protestation that he's not trolling, keep in mind that the alternative - that he HONESTLY comes by conduct that is, objectively viewed, indistinguishable from a real troll - is even worse, because it means he is actually and honestly mentally incapable of being reasoned with. And why would you argue with that? 

[Xray the Enforcer]

And with that, I think this thread is done. 

 

Props to Nestor for a bracing denouement. 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

<drops mic>