I haven't seen this topic described on these forums, and since it's had a lot of political under- and overtones, I figured that the Politics subsection would be the best place to put it. I also wanted to get it off my chest to an extent. Anyway:
The #GamerGate saga is a rather messy affair. Know Your Meme has more details, and there's still more elsewhere (for example, "A People's History of GamerGate" and this timeline).
The following links are required viewing (and I can't stress this enough):
Here is a series of editorials published on TechRaptor.Net that explains what the controversy is about and why it's so important:
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #1"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #2"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #3"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #4"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #5"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #6: Reflections"
As well, please look through the images in the following collection:
http://knowyourmeme.com/search?context= ... we+fight")
But if you still need a TL;DR rundown, then here it is:
Basically, a few months ago an ex-husband of a game developer named Zoe Quinn wrote up a bunch of posts claiming that quinn had been sleeping with several people, including at least one game journalist. Said journalist was one of those who later gave the developer's game a high ranking. The claims smacked of corruption in game journalism.
Now, "games journalism" and "corruption" had pretty much gone hand in hand, and previous incidents saw some outcry but not much in the way of lasting effects. The "Quinnspiracy," as this latest incident came to be called, could've gone the same way had certain people in certain positions not done certain things that in fact ended up happening.
The trouble started in mid to late August when certain large forums (either related or unrelated to gaming) started banning "Quinnspiracy" discussions; for quite a few people this understandably smacked of censorship and possibly even outright coverup. Word began to spread regarding this behavior, the hashtag "#GamerGate" was born, an obvious allusion to the infamous coverup that led to the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.
Then, on August 28, a series of articles appeared on a number of games journalism sites, all of them claiming that "gamers" were pretty much every negative nerd stereotype that you could think of, and that that "demographic" was being "killed" by increasing diversity among people who play games. This riled up a LOT of gamers, many of whom are indeed diverse, as they were pretty much being slimed unfairly by the media. This led to the hashtag "#NotYourShield" in an effort to prove that the media was actually attacking a stereotype that had long been incorrect.
The timing of the articles (which appeared within several hours or so of each other) also felt strange. Digging uncovered a "journalist list" where discussions between games journalists took place, and among their messages was quite a lot of evidence of collusion in regards to the "gamers are dead" stories.
Meanwhile (and this is where the political angle starts rear its ugly head), the saga began to evolve into yet another battle in the culture wars, with large numbers of claims by the anti-GG side that the pro-GG side was still mainly filled with white male bigots (as for the evidence to the contrary offered by NYS, they were dismissed as merely images, with those who posted them being told that they were really white male bigots. See a problem here yet?).
Then you start to add in the rape and death threats that have been thrown out by lunatics on both sides. Interestingly, many on the pro-GG side have actually been policing this kind of stuff more effectively than those on the anti-GG side.
In the meantime, despite all the stuff tossed at GG, it's made some strides. They managed to convince a number of companies to pull their advertisements from Gawker Media, which owns the publications that ran the original batch of "gamers are dead" articles. And yet, the fight doesn't seem to be over, not by a long shot.
On the pro-GG side, you have a very diverse people (of all races, sexes, creeds, political/religious beliefs, etc.), most all of whom are simply wanting some accountability and ethics to be returned to games journalism, unfortunately mixed in with certain elements who really are bigoted people in some ways (although the former group has been putting in laudable efforts to keep the latter group in check for the most part).
On the anti-GG side, you have those who are genuinely concerned about diversity in the games industry, unfortunately lumped in with people who are determined to cram their own political beliefs down people's throats at all costs.
In between, you have those who just want to stay neutral, and try to get both sides to have some kind of civilized dialogue between them. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff has been preventing such dialogue from taking place (typically the levels of vitriol that stuff like Twitter unintentionally support due to their very nature).
So, what are your thoughts on all this?
The #GamerGate saga is a rather messy affair. Know Your Meme has more details, and there's still more elsewhere (for example, "A People's History of GamerGate" and this timeline).
The following links are required viewing (and I can't stress this enough):
Here is a series of editorials published on TechRaptor.Net that explains what the controversy is about and why it's so important:
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #1"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #2"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #3"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #4"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #5"
"Good Morning, Orthodoxy! #6: Reflections"
As well, please look through the images in the following collection:
http://knowyourmeme.com/search?context= ... we+fight")
But if you still need a TL;DR rundown, then here it is:
Basically, a few months ago an ex-husband of a game developer named Zoe Quinn wrote up a bunch of posts claiming that quinn had been sleeping with several people, including at least one game journalist. Said journalist was one of those who later gave the developer's game a high ranking. The claims smacked of corruption in game journalism.
Now, "games journalism" and "corruption" had pretty much gone hand in hand, and previous incidents saw some outcry but not much in the way of lasting effects. The "Quinnspiracy," as this latest incident came to be called, could've gone the same way had certain people in certain positions not done certain things that in fact ended up happening.
The trouble started in mid to late August when certain large forums (either related or unrelated to gaming) started banning "Quinnspiracy" discussions; for quite a few people this understandably smacked of censorship and possibly even outright coverup. Word began to spread regarding this behavior, the hashtag "#GamerGate" was born, an obvious allusion to the infamous coverup that led to the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.
Then, on August 28, a series of articles appeared on a number of games journalism sites, all of them claiming that "gamers" were pretty much every negative nerd stereotype that you could think of, and that that "demographic" was being "killed" by increasing diversity among people who play games. This riled up a LOT of gamers, many of whom are indeed diverse, as they were pretty much being slimed unfairly by the media. This led to the hashtag "#NotYourShield" in an effort to prove that the media was actually attacking a stereotype that had long been incorrect.
The timing of the articles (which appeared within several hours or so of each other) also felt strange. Digging uncovered a "journalist list" where discussions between games journalists took place, and among their messages was quite a lot of evidence of collusion in regards to the "gamers are dead" stories.
Meanwhile (and this is where the political angle starts rear its ugly head), the saga began to evolve into yet another battle in the culture wars, with large numbers of claims by the anti-GG side that the pro-GG side was still mainly filled with white male bigots (as for the evidence to the contrary offered by NYS, they were dismissed as merely images, with those who posted them being told that they were really white male bigots. See a problem here yet?).
Then you start to add in the rape and death threats that have been thrown out by lunatics on both sides. Interestingly, many on the pro-GG side have actually been policing this kind of stuff more effectively than those on the anti-GG side.
In the meantime, despite all the stuff tossed at GG, it's made some strides. They managed to convince a number of companies to pull their advertisements from Gawker Media, which owns the publications that ran the original batch of "gamers are dead" articles. And yet, the fight doesn't seem to be over, not by a long shot.
On the pro-GG side, you have a very diverse people (of all races, sexes, creeds, political/religious beliefs, etc.), most all of whom are simply wanting some accountability and ethics to be returned to games journalism, unfortunately mixed in with certain elements who really are bigoted people in some ways (although the former group has been putting in laudable efforts to keep the latter group in check for the most part).
On the anti-GG side, you have those who are genuinely concerned about diversity in the games industry, unfortunately lumped in with people who are determined to cram their own political beliefs down people's throats at all costs.
In between, you have those who just want to stay neutral, and try to get both sides to have some kind of civilized dialogue between them. Unfortunately, a lot of stuff has been preventing such dialogue from taking place (typically the levels of vitriol that stuff like Twitter unintentionally support due to their very nature).
So, what are your thoughts on all this?