#GamerGate

[psiotechniqa]

Fucking magical that people still buy the SJW version of events ten years after - but hey, that's what it says on wikipedia, so it has to be true, right?

what a perfect example of ideological capture and danger of partisan/biased news reporting

Over a decade later, the whole impetus behind Gamergate was insane. These people saw video games start to be treated as an art form, hated it, and blamed women.

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

This is truly stiff competition for the worst case of willful false equivalence we've ever seen.

So, for those not aware: Ongoing embarrassment to gamers and the gaming industry, Mark Kern (former lead on FireFall), has been desperately trying to get Gamergate 2 going on X/Twitter... well after others have given up. If you need to get caught up on Mark, I recommend this video by documentary maker and experienced game developer, Dead Domain:

One of the latest fiascos in this mix has been the comparison of responses to character designs from Hades 2 (Aphrodite, left) and Stellar Blade (protagonist Eve, right). The post isn't by Mark, but is part of the general harassment campaign he's trying to lead.

If you're somehow not familiar with Aphrodite, she's the Ancient Greek goddess of love, lust and hot girl shit. It is absolutely perfect characterization for her to show up to a battle (or anything else) nude but for her hair teasingly covering the intimate parts of her body. But the buried lede here is, you don't fight her in Hades and nothing about Hades 2 indicates she'll fight there either, she just likes the aesthetic and has no reason not to indulge.

Stellar Blade will release on 26 April 2024, so we can't really give an informed discussion of her character. But what we do know is the studio head is the illustrator from Blade & Soul, Eve is described as being a member of "the 7th Airborne Squad" engaged in an "operation to reclaim the planet from the Naytiba", and the promotion material promises "an enthralling narrative filled with mature themes, mystery and revelation. Embrace the relentless pace, with no time to pause between moments where critical, story-changing decisions are made."

It's to be compared to games like Nier: Automata, Devil May Cry 5, Jedi: Fallen Order and Sekiro. And the screenshots look like this:

And yeah, unlike Bayonetta she's not supposed to be an unstoppable force of nature (and fashion) who is immune to self-doubt, she's supposed to be the scrappy underdog last survivor of her team.

Weird they gave her a costume that conveys... the opposite of literally everything they're supposed to be trying to tell you about her.

-wincenworks

[madame-helen]

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Ironic that quantum-dragon is supposedly against "unreasonable" bigotry, but apparently a) blocked everyone who replied, and b) pre-blocked me.

Doesn't seem very reasonable.

The supportive notes are still there, of course.

[gamer2002]

Mark Waid has repeatedly abused his position within the industry to hurt businesses of indie comics authors he didn't agree with. Examples are Alison Tieman and Richard Meyer.

He can kindly leave.

[gamergate-news]

[futurebird]

What is a gamergate?

Friendly reminder about the word #gamergate

A "gamergate" (pronounced like "gamete") is a mated worker ant with the potential to become a queen of the colony. This is believed to be how early ant colonies worked before the physical differences between queens and workers became more pronounced in the majority of ant species. Diacamma, Harpegnathos and Ophthalmopone genus ants still have this ability.

This is the *only* significant meaning the word "gamergate" has had and will ever have.

I'm sorry... but look at her. She's like a cartoon character. "harpos" are very popular among antkeepers and their ability to choose new queens makes for interesting colony dynamic. They duel each other with their long mandibles to decide who will be queen.

And they can jump!

[correctopinionhaver]

[ultramaga]

[handkinkbis]

Far right millionaires can pay to make posts trend. It's called social engineering.

What you see on your youtube or other social media front page isn't always organically there. Rich content creators can pay for more visibility. They can buy views. Google is complicit with this tactic, as is facebook, instagram and every other greedy social media platform.

Comments and takes that become 'popular' (have top upvotes or reinforcing comments) are not always organic either, but they're designed to socially engineer public opinion with their seeming popularity. That's what PR companies and government astroturfers do.

[philbatrax]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kylie Cheung at Jezebel:

The day after Election Day, calls to the Trevor Project’s crisis services hotline for LGBTQ youth surged by 200%; online searches for abortion pills and emergency contraception skyrocketed, too. Queer youth, women, and girls were clearly concerned about what a second Trump presidency meant for their safety and their futures. But the country has been largely apathetic to their fears. Instead, we’re being called to consider young men’s suffering—real and imagined—and the insidious forces that seemed to shift this demographic to the right. A sampling of post-election headlines includes, “We Asked Young Men Why They Voted for Donald Trump—Here’s What They Said,” “The ‘Lost Boys’ of Gen Z: how Trump won the hearts of alienated young men,” “What’s the Matter with Young Male Voters?” and “Trump Offered Men Something That Democrats Never Could.” Of course, Jezebel is now adding to that list, but what’s missing from some of these stories is the manosphere as an increasingly powerful political arm.

Exit polls show Trump received a larger proportion of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump by 11 points among men under 30. Last week, Trump beat Kamala Harris by two points. (Among young white men without college degrees, he beat Harris 56% to 40%.) Some of this should be taken with a grain of salt: Youth turnout dropped sharply from 2020, so these stats offer an incomplete snapshot of an entire generation’s views. But, as journalists, organizers, and the Democratic Party scramble for answers, one concern that’s come to the forefront is the manosphere—a fast-growing, unrepentantly hateful community of men’s lifestyle influencers, podcasters, and media personalities who glorify and preach misogyny to a new generation of young men. Think: serially accused rapist and human trafficker Andrew Tate, hate speech-platforming Twitch streamer Adin Ross, or misogynist streamer Sneako, who once slapped a woman on camera as a “prank.” There’s also TikTok star Bryce Hall, who joined Trump on the campaign trail about a year after collaborating with proud neo-Nazis, including Sneako. One video from December 2023 shows Sneako laughing as he’s approached by young fans who yell, “Fuck the women” and “All gays can die.” He half-jokingly asks the camera, “What have I done?”

On Election Night, Trump handed the mic to UFC President Dana White (who, like Sneako, also slapped a woman on camera) at his victory party, and White directly thanked Ross, as well as the Nelk Boys and Theo Von, more popular manosphere influencers and podcasters who also supported Trump’s campaign. Over the last several months, Trump made numerous appearances on their shows and streams and hosted them at his rallies. And, because this seems to have worked, those who didn’t see Trump’s victory coming are now trying to understand this chilling sphere of influence that’s seemingly been radicalizing young men right under our noses.

It may be annoying, even disturbing to have to take this increasingly mainstream underworld seriously, but Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America (MMFA), tells Jezebel that understanding the manosphere is important to understand “what future generations are going to look like.” Carusone says MMFA researchers tracked at least 20 times that Trump appeared on manosphere podcasts—including those of Von, Hall, the Nelk Boys, and Jake Paul—since May. In 2023, Ross and other popular manosphere creators including JiDion, Steve Deleonardis, Jorge Masvidal, and alleged rapist DJ Akademiks, appeared with Trump at a UFC event. The meet-and-greet was set up by right-wing video platform, Rumble.

MMFA has been closely following manosphere stars for years now, watching them and the social platforms that host them profit off of mocking rape survivors and trans people, or joking about and openly celebrating violence against women to their impressionable, mostly teen and tween boy audiences. Young people who might turn to them for apolitical interests—weightlifting, video games, MMA fighting, dating advice—are increasingly inundated with out-of-context stats and arguments about how much easier it is for women to get jobs, or minorities to get into college, or trans people to succeed at sports. These audiences are radicalized to believe a liberal, feminist world order is crushing them. Now, thanks to social media algorithms, content about weightlifting, video games, MMA fighting, and dating has become a pipeline to the right.

[...] Nicole Regalado, vice president of campaigns at Ultraviolet, told Jezebel her organization has been tracking online misogyny campaigns since Gamergate in 2014, which saw an outbreak of rabid sexism, racism, and queerphobia against perceived feminist progress in the video game industry. But she’s been alarmed by sharp rises in online harassment against women in recent years. It doesn’t help, Regalado said, that at a time when the manosphere is surging, with the help of anti-MeToo backlash and a golden age of media illiteracy, “social media platforms are gutting moderation, trust, and safety teams,” while “platforming and profiting off hate.” A lot of this came to a head with the outcome of the 2024 election, Regalado said, which “followed months of disinformation and racism-misogyny about Kamala Harris” from popular right-wing, manosphere-type influencers. Trump’s victory has only emboldened this toxic stew of misogyny, culminating in the viral “your body, my choice” slogan.

I understand the importance of Democrats and progressives figuring out how to “reach” young men—the electoral stakes are high, especially for the most marginalized among us. But in the last week, I’ve often found myself frustrated, even disgusted by the idea that young men are uniquely suffering because they’re young men, that they deserve outsized sympathy and attention at a time when women and other marginalized communities are on the brink of perhaps one of the severest rollbacks of our rights in modern times. Teen girls and young women suffer from endemic sexual violence and misogyny, and many still find it in their hearts to not elect a fascist. 

Carusone says he’s struggled with this, too. But he’s made sense of it by understanding the manosphere and its toxic, mass appeal as a youth issue. “The 30-year-old men who are upset, the Tucker Carlsons of the world, they need to get over it. They’re not who I’m talking about,” he said. But manosphere content is poisoning the minds of children, shaping them to become violent toward other children, to grow up and inflict violence on marginalized people. “We have to think about this as it relates to kids. If we don’t do something about this now, we’re messing up kids,” Carusone explained. “As these boys and young men grow, they’re going to build and organize political power, and even worse, as they move into maturity, they’re going to be more violent and abusive than previous generations.”

Jezebel does an excellent report on how the cadre of manosphere influencers such as the Nelk Boys, Sneako, and Adin Ross-- who helped push young men to the right and push Donald Trump over the finish line and how they’ll shape politics.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

I’ve also seen loads of people complain that political writing in modern media is a lot more hamfisted and “preachy”. Often within the same franchise that used to be better.

So they are explicitly complaining about bad political writing.

For some reason, smugsters like TOL up there seldom address those people. Even when they responded to TOL’s post, TOL and their fanclub just doubled down on the smug mockery and strawmanning.

Heck, you can find one of them smugging on Taf’s post;

Also, it’s kind of hilarious that TOL used Bioshock, when a bunch of leftists assumed Infinite would be about aiding the glorious proletariat revolution. Presumably because they were unfamiliar with the series.

Or they were ignoring contrary facts, as leftists often do.

Or the people these days who think the first game is about “capitalism bad!” when Ryan is a tyrannical head of state who restricts private trade and free speech because they don’t fit his beliefs.

[gamergate-news]

[gamer2002]

>spend years accusing GamerGate for crimes

>get arrested