MT @idontlikemunday people who insist #GamerGate is about journalistic integrity are lot like people who say Civil War about states' rights
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) October 15, 2014
Wasn’t sure if this would be sufficiently interesting to the readership, but people (thank you, VFX Lurker) have asked, so… Intro, from the Guardian:
The feminist pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian has been forced to cancel a talk at Utah State University, after a threat of a “Montreal Massacre-style attack”.
Sarkeesian, who is best known for her YouTube series “Tropes v Women in Video Games”, assessing various anti-feminist trends in gaming, was scheduled to talk at the university on Wednesday, when the unsigned email was sent…
“I have at my disposal a semi-automatic rifle, multiple pistols, and a collection of pipe bombs,” the letter said. “This will be the deadliest school shooting in American history and I’m giving you a chance to stop it.”
“You have 24 hours to cancel Sarkeesian’s talk … Anita Sarkeesian is everything wrong with the feminist woman, and she is going to die screaming like the craven little whore that she is if you let her come to USU. I will write my manifesto in her spilled blood, and you will all bear witness to what feminist lies and poison have done to the men of America.”
Initially, Sarkeesian stated her intention to hold the talk despite the threat, but was forced to back down after discovering that it was impossible to prevent guns being taken to the event.
“Forced to cancel my talk at USU after receiving death threats because police wouldn’t take steps to prevent concealed firearms at the event,” she tweeted. “Requested pat downs or metal detectors after mass shooting threat but because of Utah’s open carry laws police wouldn’t do firearm searches.”…
Did I get this straight: black guy w/ toy gun in Wal-Mart = shot on sight. White guys w/ guns at threatened feminist's talk = no prob?
— Evan Munday (@idontlikemunday) October 15, 2014
And the title article, by Kyle Wagner, at Deadspin:
Over the weekend, a game developer in Boston named Brianna Wu fled her home after an online stalker vowed to rape and kill her. She isn’t the first woman who’s been forced into hiding by aggrieved video game fans associated with Gamergate, the self-styled reform movement that’s become difficult to ignore over the past several months as its beliefs have ramified out from the fever swamps of the internet into the real world. She probably won’t be the last.
By design, Gamergate is nearly impossible to define. It refers, variously, to a set of incomprehensible Benghazi-type conspiracy theories about game developers and journalists; to a fairly broad group of gamers concerned with corruption in gaming journalism; to a somewhat narrower group of gamers who believe women should be punished for having sex; and, finally, to a small group of gamers conducting organized campaigns of stalking and harassment against women.
This ambiguity is useful, because it turns any discussion of this subject into a debate over semantics. Really, though, Gamergate is exactly what it appears to be: a relatively small and very loud group of video game enthusiasts who claim that their goal is to audit ethics in the gaming-industrial complex and who are instead defined by the campaigns of criminal harassment that some of them have carried out against several women. (Whether the broader Gamergate movement is a willing or inadvertent semi-respectable front here is an interesting but ultimately irrelevant question.) None of this has stopped it from gaining traction: Earlier this month, Gamergaters compelled Intel to pull advertising from a gaming site critical of the movement, and there’s no reason to think it will stop there…
What’s made it effective, though, is that it’s exploited the same basic loophole in the system that generations of social reactionaries have: the press’s genuine and deep-seated belief that you gotta hear both sides. Even when not presupposing that all truth lies at a fixed point exactly equidistant between two competing positions, the American press works under the assumption that anyone more respectable than, say, an avowed neo-Nazi is operating in something like good faith. And this is why a loosely organized, lightly noticed collection of gamers, operating from a playbook that was showing its age during Ronald Reagan’s rise to power, have been able to set the terms of debate in a $100 billion industry, even as they send women like Brianna Wu into hiding and show every sign that they intend to keep doing so until all their demands are met.
The simplest version of the story goes something like this: In August, the ex-boyfriend of an obscure game developer writes a long, extensively documented, literally self-dramatizing, and profoundly deranged blog post about the dissolution of their relationship. Among his many accusations, he claims she slept with a gaming journalist in return for favorable coverage. This clearly isn’t true, but a group of gamers becomes convinced there is a conspiracy to not cover this story. The developer’s personal information is distributed widely across the internet, and she and a feminist gaming activist receive graphic, detailed threats, forcing the activist to contact the police and flee her home. In response, several sites publish think pieces about the death of the gamer identity. These pieces are, in essence, celebrations of the success of gaming, arguing that it is now enjoyed by so many people of such diverse backgrounds and with such varied interests that the idea of the gamer—a person whose identity is formed around a universally enjoyed leisure activity—now seems as quaint as the idea of the moviegoer. Somehow, this is read to mean that these sites now think gamers are bad. The grievances intensify, and the discussions of them on Twitter are increasingly unified under the hashtag #gamergate.
The longer, more detailed version of the story is considerably more interesting…
A more important resemblance to the Tea Party, though, is in the way in which it’s focused the anger of people who realize the world is changing, and not necessarily to their benefit.
The default assumption of the gaming industry has always been that its customer is a young, straight, middle-class white man, and so games have always tended to cater to the perceived interests of this narrow demographic. Gamergate is right about this much: When developers make games targeting or even acknowledging other sorts of people, and when video game fans say they want more such games, this actually does represent an assault on the prerogatives of the young, middle-class white men who mean something very specific when they call themselves gamers. Gamergate offers a way for this group, accustomed to thinking of themselves as the fixed point around which the gaming-industrial complex revolves, to stage a sweeping counteroffensive in defense of their control over the medium. The particulars may be different, and the stakes may be infinitely lower, but the dynamic is an old one, the same one that gave rise to the Know Nothing Party and the anti-busing movement and the Moral Majority. And this is the key to understanding Gamergate: There actually is a real conflict here, something like the one perceived by the Tea Partier waving her placard about the socialist Muslim Kenyan usurper in the White House…
What we have in Gamergate is a glimpse of how these skirmishes will unfold in the future—all the rhetorical weaponry and siegecraft of an internet comment section brought to bear on our culture, not just at the fringes but at the center. What we’re seeing now is a rehearsal, where the mechanisms of a toxic and inhumane politics are being tested and improved. Tomorrow’s Lee Atwater will work through sock puppets on IRC. Tomorrow’s Sister Souljah will get shouted down with rape threats. Tomorrow’s Tipper Gore will make an inexplicably popular YouTube video. Tomorrow’s Willie Horton ad will be an image macro, tomorrow’s Borking a doxing, tomorrow’s Moral Majority a loose coalition of DoSers and robo-petitioners and scat-GIF trolls—all of them working feverishly in service of the old idea that nothing should ever really change.
JPL
OT.. Although your post is important, I must ask where is John Cole. link
I’m really concerned
kc
Those tweet by Mr. Munday is pretty dumb. Saying stupid stuff like that . . . doesn’t help. In my opinion.
Another Holocene Human
Gamergate is the culture war now, privilege’s last stand. Even if they lose this battle they might win the war. Vote.
Oh, and Freddie deBoer weighed in on the California affirmative consent for colleges law, and told us all about himself again. Not linking, but it’s FP on LGM.
Boners.
kc
@JPL:
Ha! Never fear, he’s on Twitter, vigorously saying things he’ll probably regret later.
kc
@kc:
In fairness, maybe Mr. Munday has a series of tweets that, in context, make the quoted one look less dumb.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: Munday’s tweet is a little ambiguous. I read it as highlighting white privilege. IOW what has been said here and on other liberal outlets over and over again between Trayvon Martin’s slaying and the Cliven Bundy “uprising”, that white men have the privilege to make terroristic threats and nobody, down to law enforcement, does a damn thing about it, but John Crawford just had to have black skin and suddenly it was an “active shooter situation” and he can be extra-judicially executed.
What’s not in the tweet–when did Crawford call in bomb threats to anybody? When did he tweet rape and death threats?
Crawford–executed w/out trial.
Gamergaters – still free, still trolling
The Invisible Empire rides again.
kc
Um, what?
Another Holocene Human
Munday’s tweet is not well phrased because if you’re reading too quickly you might assume he is trying to equate the suffering of young black men at the hands of law enforcement with the suffering of white feminists pushing back against toxic gamer culture. But if you think about it a moment it can only be a comparison of the way white supremacy responds to the “threat” of a young black man freely roaming around (killed on sight) versus real criminal threats made by young white males (blown off, not prosecuted).
White supremacy: Know Your Place.
kindness
Well #Gamergate is different from the Tea Party in that if any of those old geezers threatened someone with rape, I think most people would dare Grandpa to get it up & prove it. But this isn’t funny at all. Really this is why annonomous can be so dangerous on the internet.
Karma will get them but not quick enough for my tastes.
Hal
Feminism is destructive and hurtful. Now to prove this I will massacre dozens of people who came to hear someone whose opinion I disagree.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So they can’t be bothered to look for fat, pale, white kid carrying around guns he clearly doesn’t know how to use?
Major Major Major Major
I feel so sorry for women in tech. So many of the guys are just awful and get so threatened by the idea of a smart nerdy woman. Tech is so freaking weird and it’s mired in a culture so used to losing fights and now that tech is ascendant a lot of the young men in the industry are a little like a mule with a spinning wheel.
And that’s just the people who MAKE the stuff, consumers are so much worse.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
Probably so, but so poorly done, in my opinion. Just conflating two sensational but wholly unrelated and dissimilar incidents for retweets.
It just seems like such a stretch to draw a parallel between what happened to John Crawford and the situation in Utah.
I mean, the latter involves an anonymous email threat. My understanding is that law enforcement has been notified. I hope they’re trying to track down the emailer and that they find him and prosecute him. Who is saying “No prob?” (Besides maybe some sociopathic gamers)
Another Holocene Human
@kc: The only “um” is that this is not the future. This is today, right now.
See: Breitbart, Jim Hoft, Chuck Johnson, Pam Gellar, #Gamergate.
Gamergate was brilliant because MRA’s (PUAs, MGTOWs) have been trying to pull such tactics for years but never had the numbers. But this Eron Gjoni guy has learned how to summon a flying monkey army from 4chan. Previously 4chan has been famous for lots of CP and creepshots (funneled through Reddit) but also some ambiguous actions like threatening to hack bad people (two wrongs make a … meh, scriptkiddies said waht).
The sheer NUMBERS of abusive tweets, calls, the doxxing, the comment crapfloods, I mean it’s the same old MRM strategy but with numbers they could only dream of it and it’s intimidating, it’s working.
And it’s working exactly where it shouldn’t work, I mean they are NOT the majority of gamers, their claims are bullshit and fake, their chatlogs have been made public where they plan astroturf campaigns online (imagine if the GOP did their planning on public IRC channels … well, there is Facebook for dumb local GOP groups), the big players have repudiated them, the MSM thinks they’re a fart in church … but it keeps working.
Patrick
I am hoping the proper authorities are trying to find this lunatic. I would assume it shouldn’t be too difficult since he sent the threat via email. And let’s hear it for Utah’s open carry laws, which would have allowed even this potential mass murderer to get in to the event even with his weapon. Goodness!
chanster
@Another Holocene Human:
I think Munday is referencing an actual incident where the University of Utah said they could not ensure Anita Sarkeesian’s safety because concealed carry is allowed on campus.
So I don’t think Munday’s tweet is stupid or overblown in the least – he is merely stating the truth.
kc
@kc:
Here we go, this confirms that law enforcement including the FBI is investigating. Hope they catch the sonofabitch.
I thought the news here was that Sarkeesian, who’s gotten threats before and not cancelled appearances, cancelled this one because university officials told her that under Utah law, they couldn’t prevent people from bringing guns to her speech.
Patrick
@chanster:
Just an FYI – It’s Utah State University, not University of Utah. Regardless, the idiotic open carry laws applies to the entire state.
kc
@chanster:
That’s me who thinks that, not AHH. I think the comparison to what happened to Crawford (shot by cops) is just way the hell off base.
Major Major Major Major
Ugh and don’t even get me started about the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the MRA alphabet soup “movement”.
Another Holocene Human
Does nobody notice how power stays power, in that for several years now feminists online in atheism, journalism, culture criticism, and gaming have been subjected to crapfloods of vile threats, including illegal actions like inciting others to violence, terroristic threats, bomb threats, stalking, etc, yet I can’t think of A SINGLE FUCKING PROSECUTION.
But the kids who outed the Steubenville rapists on Facebook? PROSECUTED.
That kid who guessed Sarah Palin’s gmail password and leaked the contents? PROSECUTED.
Not to mention the kid who stole files off an academic network, prosecuted until he committed suicide and the young soldier who found bad stuff on a DoD network and was dumb enough to leak it to preening narcissist Julian Assange, sent to forever_jail.
If you fight the power, the power will win. Every time.
If you are the power’s useful idiot, their little terroristic bully?
Only case I can think of recently is O’Keefe and he seems to go where’er he pleases despite being on probation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I obviously stay in the nicer neighborhoods of the internet because I only come across MRA types when they get referenced on blogs like this.
JPL
@kc: After his earlier post, I wonder what he’ll say when he finds out the nurse who flew called the CDC before hand.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: My point is that I don’t read the tweet that way. I agree that if somebody tried to make that comparison they would be wrong. I think he was saying something else in that tweet.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@kc:I think it means the main streaming of intertubes trolling
I would be careful of saying this assholary is simply the result of white privilege – from what I’ve seen of these people in on-line gaming they are mainly insane. Guys spending hours waiting at some hub in a game for some random player to happen by just to harass them, stuff like that. That isn’t just some random moment of whiteboy’s rage at his ideas of the social order being upset, that’s someone with a pathological need to hurt other people – and white and male is as good enough for them as brown and female. The real annoying this is the good old boy network is protecting these crazys because the good old boy network is dumb enough to think they are fellow travelers.
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
It sounds horrific. These people are just utter sociopaths.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I used to do web dev for one of the more popular characters. Hey, grad students gotta eat. I eventually had to resign due to shame. Not even on my resume, but some of my best work.
Botsplainer
Gamergate is what happens when boys aren’t told to get their fat asses outside to exercise at least 5 times a day between the ages of 8 and 15. Also, it is what happens when the dorkier souls among us fail to receive the routine mild correction of social misfittery by our peers in school, extracurricular activities and street settings…
Cue the howls of outrage in 5…4…3…2…1…
Howard Beale IV
@chanster: The thing is Utah State could have found another venue that could have been secured-the fact that they didn’t makes them nothing more than pond scum. And as to the nanocephalic slackjawed imbecelic momma’s boy who hates feminists-obviously, he suffers from SPS (Small P e n i s Syndrome)
kc
@JPL:
Oh, shit, I hadn’t even read that yet. What did the CDC tell her?
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
I gotcha. Thanks.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: I stand corrected, that’s a relief. Too much of this crap gets ignored.
I’ve read horror stories by private citizens who couldn’t even get the police to file a fucking report even though they knew who was cyberstalking them and making threats.
KG
ok, i’m guessing the “unsigned email” was one created on gmail or yahoo or some such site. and they probably gave bullshit info for the name as the sign up. but couldn’t it be traced to the computer it was sent from? is there any sort of investigation happening on this? because, holy fucking shit…
JPL
@kc: CBS news said that it was so low, that it didn’t trigger the 100 degree mark. I have tried to google and haven’t heard it any place else.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I’ve only touched on 4chan a couple of times while doing some research for a paper on anonymity and activism.
Howard Beale IV
@Patrick: I hope they do find that twat-if he was stupid enough not to use an anonymizing service, he deserves to get what’s coming.
kc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yeah, but: “Tomorrow’s Tipper Gore will make an inexplicably popular YouTube video. Tomorrow’s Willie Horton ad will be an image macro, tomorrow’s Borking a doxing” – whaa? What is Tipper Gore doing in there? Is she a troll? I thought “Borking” was what wingnuts called Bork’s confirmation hearings . . . is he comparing the senators to trolls who dox people?
Makes no sense to me. Not that it matters.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
It’s the misogyny and gun fetishism tag team.
The worst part about all this bullshit is that if someone actually does get killed, it might only embolden the GamerGate assholes the same way it only emboldened the NRA, and we saw where that shit went.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: It’s always cute when someone is knowingly being an asshole and tries to preemptively defend against being called out for it by saying things like “Cue the howls of outrage in 5…4…3…2…1… . “
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Between the gun-huggers at Kroger and the ones infesting Chipotle, how do you narrow that down?
jl
@chanster: I agree. The point was obvious, and seems like the legal situation in Utah does make it seem like it is no problem.
Only ambiguous thing about the tweet in my mind is, who was Munday addressing? If law enforcement is looking for the person, and can charge him, then law enforcement is not a good target audience for the tweet. Maybe Munday is addressing the legions of cowards and fools who will make excuses for the author of the threat, and the fact that Sarkisian could not be adequately protected due to laws of Utah.
Patrick
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Or how about the Bundy’s in Nevada; they just had to show their weapons and they apparently have gotten away with it. Not even their assets have been frozen.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer:
Honestly, yes, quite a few of these guys are middle class to rich kids shielded by their parents from any disappointment or setback. If they were in the street playing with other kids they’d learn that not everybody likes them, that there are some kinds of interaction that are unacceptable, but that they can find ways to get along with others and be accepted by them and that they can find their own friends and have a place.
Instead they find their “place” on IRC channels and the seedier parts of XBox Live united by misanthropy with other haterz and trolls. They’re fucking shit at social interaction especially with a fe-male because all they’re thinking about is scoring, which they’re obsessed with in a febrile, almost pre-adolescent way. (Didja do it? Didja?)
I’m not advocating bullying, far from it, but I am advocating letting kids get out there play with their peers, try stuff and gosh darn it fail at a young age, learn resilience before all of your life mistakes have $$$$ attached.
kc
@Patrick:
Unbelievable, isn’t it? Someone issues a threat to commit a mass shooting, the state’s response? “Nope, sorry, we can’t have metal detectors. Can’t stop people from toting their guns in here.”
Baud
She should have told the cops that the guy threatened to shoot a fetus.
Another Holocene Human
@Another Holocene Human: Also, let’s be honest, certain online and tabletop and card games reward having a lot of money to spend on game upgrades.
So these douchebags have learned that they can win but only if they have access to the parental bank account.
It’s an absolutely toxic mindset to have to go into adult life with, but does explain the popularity of libertarian thought among this group.
Also being able to do shit to others without consequences to themselves is something they’re big on. Parents who are powerful and threaten the school every time little Jyrymi gets in trouble for harmless hijinks like hitting other kids, cursing out teacher, or vandalizing school property.
JPL
@kc: I’m trying to find a video because maybe I misheard. TV is a background noise for me.
kc
@JPL:
If that is true, I hope it gets widely disseminated. Probably be too late for that poor woman, though; she is getting trashed all over the Internet.
I think Cole’s going to think better of that post.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
That was my impression, too. Apparently the 2nd Amendment now nullifies all other amendments, including the one directly preceding it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Back in my day, the game was over when someone yelled “OllieOllieInComeFree”.
Kids these days.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: I want to know if that “no metal detectors” rule applies to Utah state capitol buildings–?
Another Holocene Human
Or courthouses. She should give her speech inside the biggest regional courthouse she can find.
Another Holocene Human
@Just Some Fuckhead: Blasphemer, the correct version is of course “ollie ollie oxen free”!
///
Patrick
@kc:
I remember (I think we all do) when any type of threat by Al Queda would mean the media would go crazy etc etc. Why is it that threats by locals here in the US is treated the opposite way? Hell, Utah’s response was to even refuse metal detectors because apparently the 2nd amendment was too important.
What if this woman had gone ahead with her speech, and this lunatic had brought in his weapon and used it for a mass-killing at this speech? It seems like the police/university officials could have cared less. Am I seriously missing something from this story?
JPL
@kc: They know she flew before the other nurse got ebola so she was probably not warned.
jl
@JPL:
” I must ask where is John Cole. ”
The aggressive mopper in the article was not naked and did not threaten himself with the mop or fall down and hurt himself.
How could any sane person have thought it could possibly be Cole?
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA don’t be silly.
Lee
I’m 49 and I’ve been playing computer games since I was in 8th grade (on my Dad’s old Hp 50).
There is certainly a problem. But you also have a non zero number that are trolls. Trolls hate everyone.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: You make a good point. Tipper Gore is infamous among gamers because of her role in a censorship push (over music, but they’re connected) going back to the 90s which a lot of todays #gamergater flying monkeys don’t even remember or weren’t alive for.
The 90s censorship wasn’t just a bunch of stickers and new ratings for movies … it including successful Religious Right boycott campaigns to remove porn from public places, litigation over “too violent” video games, and persistent threats of government or government-sponsored censorship. Thankfully this movement ran out of steam by the end of GWB’s first term.
The point is that what Anita Sarkeesian is doing has fuckall to do with Tipper Gore and her moral outrage (over a Prince CD) campaign, but the fact that gamers are making that connection just speaks to the degree of hysteria, overreaction, threatened privilege, and lousy critical thinking skills within that world.
kc
@Patrick:
Reportedly, they’re investigating, but yeah. If the email had just invoked Allah the whole damn state would probably be on lockdown.
Major Major Major Major
@kc: just like how Thou Shalt Not Presume to Gaze Upon SCOTUS but you have the legal right to scream at women outside of planned parenthood.
Lee
@jl: John is +0 now.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Another Holocene Human:
I don’t think Sarkeesian is terribly good at critiquing games, mind, but it’s not like she’s even saying ‘we need to ban certain types of games for sexism’ or boycotts or whatever, like Tipper was doing. She’s just trying to shine a light on the fact that games, like so much other media, leans on sexist crutches regarding narrative and presentation. But apparently, all that is so sacred to gaming that it’s worth threatening murder over.
Christ all. These assholes make me ashamed to consider myself a gamer.
Another Holocene Human
@Patrick:
White privilege is the invisible backpack and you’re the real racist if you talk about it openly.
Patrick
@Another Holocene Human:
Not sure. But you are not allowed to bring fire arms to any church. This is interesting. About 60% of the people in Utah are Mormons. By default, they drive the politics in Utah. So, they are for open carry as long as it is not in the Mormon Churches. Heck, it is not even allowed at BYU campus, which is church owned.
It reeks of hypocrisy. If guns are so awesome and safe, why would they not allow it in their churches and at BYU?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Another Holocene Human: I will find you and fucking kill you.
skerry
This is the email I got when I wrote to Harris-Teeter (a Kroger subsidiary) to tell them I disapproved of their open carry policy in their stores and would not shop there until the policy is changed.
I am no longer their customer! #gunsense
kc
@Another Holocene Human:
Well, I’ll be damned. You CAN tote your weapon into the Utah State Capitol.
Patrick
@kc:
Yes, they are investigating. But they are also at the same time refusing to have metal detectors at her speech. If it had been Al Queda we would have to take our shoes off and what have you. I don’t get why one is treated differently. I just don’t. Threats are threats.
Another Holocene Human
@KG: depends how much effort went into it, a lot of times these guys don’t cover their tracks as well as they think they do but … a lot of time law enforcement can’t be arsed even when the victim has a pretty damn good idea who’s sending the threats
JPL
@kc: I found a clip online and all it said was she was not notified to fly.
I do know that tomorrow all of the folks in the emergency room with duncan are cleared including the nurse and doctor who sent him home.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: Wow.
Just … wow.
Well, one up for consistency. Methinks that wouldn’t last long if a lot of armed not so white and squeaky clean Mormon people started packing the galleries during session, however. But still. That’s astounding.
Honestly, I really wish they didn’t run us through security before going into state buildings. It’s bullshit. But it’s double plus bullshit when they say nobody else can ban guns but if you want to see the Lege you’re going through security.
FlipYrWhig
I play fantasy baseball, have for years, and I’ve never considered that to be such an important part of My Identity that I would be this mother-fucking weird about life just because someone was critiquing my hobby. What the hell is the matter with people? FYW +3
Omnes Omnibus
@Patrick: Per kc’s link, it is the FBI that is investigating. I don’t think the FBI has the power to require metal detectors at a USU speech.
Just Some Fuckhead
@skerry: I only ever went to Harris Teeter for the antipasto/olive bar and these guys have the most amazing one I’ve ever seen. It’s like 100 feet long with 80 different types of olives and peppers and other marinated goodies.
Goblue72
@Botsplainer: so some of these nerds really are the socially dysfunctional misanthropes they were accused of being all along?
Color me not surprised.
JPL
@JPL: haha.. She did monitor her temp and was allowed to board .. http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2014/10/15/ebola-patient-traveled-day-before-diagnosis/
Cole needs to apologize.. imo
Patrick
@Omnes Omnibus:
I understand that. My point was simply that as a society whether it is the feds or state, there is a difference in how foreign vs domestic threats are treated. What just happened in Utah is a perfect example of that. Is there any doubt if Al-Queda had given the threat that school officials would have had metal detectors irregardless of state law?
kc
OT: Story about a university president who took a $90K pay cut so low-paid staff could get raises.
Pogonip
@jl: “The Aggressive Moppers” would be a good name for a band.
What are the demographics of “gamers”? Somehow I can’t imagine a lot of women playing shoot-em-up by the hour.
The Raven on the Hill
Anti-feminist terrorism. The violence begins with anti-feminist terrorism?
Just Some Fuckhead
@kc: If you work in education and can afford a $90,000 pay cut, you are part of the problem.
Major Major Major Major
@Pogonip: I believe they’re close to gender parity actually these days.
kc
@JPL:
Man, if that’s true, the Director of the CDC owes her an apology too. And then he needs to resign.
kc
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Way to harsh my mellow.
Omnes Omnibus
@Patrick:
Of course not.
Just Some Fuckhead
@kc: A whole lot of college students will be paying student loans off for their entire lives to ensure this university president gets to be in the 1% club.
JPL
@kc: I just hope she is okay and her fiance is okay because he is definitely at risk. She is owed a lot of gratitude for her work and a lot of apologies for the crap that went on today including from me.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human:
A thousand times this.
I call it “The Jeremy Syndrome”, where sensitive little Jeremy must be coddled and treated as a special flower, even when he’s 12.
SiubhanDuinne
@kc:
It’s a great story and I’m glad it’s getting some additional attention. But why is NBC only now getting around to covering this story? I first read about this back in early August.
SiubhanDuinne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Jesus Christ, Fuckie! The guy is trying to do something decent. Do you not even get that?
scav
Just because it’s information, or at least the start to it. I don’t get the impression the CDC can order a hospital around — deficient in jack boots, even when covered in that blue cloth. Have I misunderstood? It does seem to have more muscle for isolation and quarantine though. But, only International and Interstate, between state, travel, the commerce clause was mentioned so at least a vaguely consonant neuron went off in my neural muddle. Smaller scale than that seems to be state and tribal law.
Just Some Fuckhead
@SiubhanDuinne: Tell that to all the kids who will be paying college debt their entire lives.
Pogonip
@Major Major Major Major: Well, I’ll be darned. Who’d have thought? Not me. Although to me a [video] game is Duck Hunt, Pong, or Tetris. But I was vaguely aware that many if not most of the games the young whippersnappers play these days involve killing everything on the screen.
skerry
@kc: Meanwhile, Purdue trustees just voted to give Mitch Daniels a $58,000 performance bonus for 6 months in office even though no performance goals have been set. His base salary is $420,000.
Also, he appointed all the trustees during his term as governor. No correlation, I’m sure.
ETA: Tweety just called for Koop to come back as Surgeon General and take control of the ebola crisis. Koop died in 2013.
SiubhanDuinne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And that is solely and entirely on the shoulders of this one guy?
Mnemosyne
@scav:
Someone in the thread below linked to this BBC story that includes this graf:
Not sure if this was a legal ability they had to force it on the hospital, or if the CDC pointed out that the hospital would be up shit creek PR-wise if they turned the CDC’s manager away.
JPL
@skerry: but he didn’t die of ebola did he?
SiubhanDuinne
@skerry:
Did someone call Tweety on that? He makes a lot of those kinds of obvious errors, doesn’t he?
Hal
@kc:
Why would he need to resign? Did she speak to him directly and he gave the ok? I don’t care if “someone” at the CDC said it was ok. She’s a healthcare professional and should have had enough brains not to get on a plane and go back to the ER, especially given what was going on with her colleague. Plausible deniability is out the window in this case.
Belafon
I’m kind of at the point with reactionaries that I thought this statement: “If you don’t like the change that is occurring, take a bullet. We’ll manage without you.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@SiubhanDuinne: I specifically said he is part of the problem. He and many others in college administration are stealing from the kids they are charged with educating.
jl
@SiubhanDuinne: To be fair, Dr. Koop’s mind and Tweety’s inhabit the same realm now. At least since the late Dr. Koop’s death.
scav
@Mnemosyne: Saw that, and had a similar wonder about who initiated the cooperation. I’m of course interested by the geographic details, so getting at least a basic understanding of where and what scales the CDC bailiwick (does the word remit apply here more exactly?) kicks in would be useful. The history of Quarantines and Lazarettos is interesting (so long as you have that kind of mind).
Botsplainer
@Hal:
I’m gathering that the vague “somebody” she talked to didn’t tell her to NOT go on a plane. I query what she actually said.
Applejinx
Kris Straub wins absolutely everything with his ‘Chainsawsuit’ comic on the topic.
Regarding some of the basic Gamergate stuff (this was on my mind today as I stacked a cord of firewood before it rained)
The thing about Zoe Quinn (who kinda started all this) is that some gamers absolutely cannot handle the idea that she pwned her way to the top, yet it’s pretty obvious. I elucidate:
She’s a gamer with no special connections, and she’s female, and she’s trying to put out a game with zero commercial potential about making people understand what it’s like to be depressed. There is NO chance for her to succeed with any two of those things and if you take all three of them, forget it. What she has to do, to win, is to get the game traction in a completely entrenched, male-glutted industry where booth babes more or less set the tone for female involvement.
But there is one hack, one exploit: the same males prepared to totally ignore her game work, proudly do all their thinking with their dicks—and they are monolithic, just like our MSM and so many other things these days they are a corrupt self-perpetuating circlejerk perpetually hungry for more indulgences.
Enter Zoe, prepared to exploit.
I believe she took advantage of these guys. Why not? I’m sure it was a cozy little quid pro quo right up to the point where the gamer audience got butthurt that Zoe was getting good press. It’s correct that her concept had no chance of mainstream appeal, but what makes it worse than say Daikatana? Furthermore, if she wants to be a free agent why not? It’s not like this boyfriend owned her as a slave or something. She did try once to get her game on Steam. The second time, it worked. Apparently the boyfriend wasn’t too happy about many things she did between those times?
I have had much less rewarding experiences from ‘OKCupid’ than him. He’s a wanker, in my opinion, and far too entitled. But back to Zoe.
Zoe Quinn out-gamered the gamers. She was faced with an insurmountable boss, found an exploit, minmaxed her situation and freaking pwned the scenario… until misogynistic gamers heard from her cuckolded boyfriend (who apparently expected June Cleaver, except with punk hair and piercings?) and flipped out because ‘boyfriend property’ doesn’t get to do that.
Jesus, no wonder OKCupid women are so paranoid. Apparently things going well means the guy owns your vagina. Inconvenient! No wonder it’s a shitshow.
Zoe Quinn defeated an OP boss though she had totally inadequate kit, by finding the exploit and going for it, and the exploit was the sexism of these game industry guys AND the close-knit incestuous community where the game journalism industry is apparently pretty much just one organization… which has now closed ranks in defense of Zoe.
And well they should, because her approach was truly a gamer approach dedicated to winning at all costs. Not even for a stupid reason: she wanted her depression game to be experienced so more of the world would get her take on what that was like. It could have worked. It’s not a bad thing to want.
And it’s not Zoe Quinn’s fault that the game journalism industry is totally corrupt. WE at Balloon Juice know… that so is the regular journalism industry. One person can’t change these things, they’re the ‘game mechanics’ that people like Zoe Quinn struggle uselessly against. They are the cheaty game designer screwing with you and placing an impossible challenge or invisible wall in your path because it intends for you to go only a certain way.
Zoe found the exploit, and it could have worked, could have made an ‘education game’ about depression some sort of hit in spite of everything. I totally can’t fault her: when all you have is an exploit, you basically choose between either ‘abandon game, fail’ and ‘use the exploit’. I don’t believe she had any chance of getting that message out by any other path.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Just Some Fuckhead is merely living up to his nym.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: He gotta be him.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re right. I shouldn’t have taken the bait.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fuck all of you pretend liberals oozing over a university president that makes half a million dollars a year largely on the backs of the least of these. You disgust me.
Amir Khalid
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You’re saying that if Mr Burse can afford to give up over a quarter of his salary, he must be overpaid. A salary of US$350,000 for that job doesn’t strike me as excessive for someone of his qualifications and experience, which includes having held the job before — if anything, it seems somewhat below the going rate.
Amir Khalid
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Half a million? That’s not the amount reported in the story.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: He’s converting to Canadian dollars.
Jamey
@Patrick: Yeah, but thanks to concealed-carry and open-carry laws, we’re assured at least parity in the good-guy-with-gun to bad-guy-with-gun-ratio. Progress!
kc
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Oh, blow me. So he’s overpaid. At least he’s voluntarily giving up a chunk of pay. He’s not the problem, the whole system is.
Omnes Omnibus
@kc:
“I don’t know why a player wanna hate T
I didn’t choose the game, the game chose me”
Jamey
@kc:
The President of Kentucky State U gets $350k? I can think of two things wrong with that:
1) Kentucky is a commonwealth, not a state
2) THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR?! At Kentucky State?!?
Frankensteinbeck
@Botsplainer:
I developed at the perfect time to watch both sides of the ‘cloistered inside with internet friends’ process in action, before it could happen and after it became common. Without internet, these unpopular young men don’t make friends because they have no choice. They suffer so much physical and emotional abuse that they either become sadists themselves, or commit suicide. The internet released a flood of good people from the persecution of bullies, abusive parents, and intolerantly conformist (often Christianist) communities, showing them that they were not freaks responsible for their own abuse. A lot of those people are women, now looking around in this very situation and saying ‘Wait, I don’t have to take this?’ Your lawn, sir, shall continue to be sat on.
Amir Khalid
@Jamey:
Well, now it’s just TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY FUCKING THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR. Almost certainly a pittance compared to what he was making in the business sector after his first hitch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jamey: While it may be a Commonwealth, it has state parks, a state fair, and Kentucky State University.
Jebediah, RBG
@Another Holocene Human:
What is MGTOW?
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
What’s the difference between a commonwealth and a state? And, for that matter, a republic like Texas?
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Branding!
Belafon
@kc: JSF’s so righteous he doesn’t take a salary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: What he said.
VFX Lurker
@Anne Laurie – thank you for posting this. Much appreciated. :-)
kdaug
Please, no more on this here. Up to my elbows elsewhere (I’m a skeleton(SWJ)). Let this be my sanctuary.
Pharniel
@Jebediah, RBG: ‘Men going their own way’ literally just that – they are going to all build a Man’s Man Galt’s Gulch (no homo)
Nutella
The real reason the gaters are up in arms? They saw this recent study that says 48% of gamers are women and were so horrified that they have been driving women out however they can.
People who are losing a privilege, even a ridiculously trivial privilege like belonging to the majority demographic of video game customers, can get very, very nasty.
Jebediah, RBG
@Pharniel:
Thanks- and sheesh, there are some weird folks out there!
brashieel
@Applejinx:
Just to be clear here before I get unnecessarily mad… what exactly are you saying Zoe Quinn did in this scenario? What did she supposed hack or exploit?
Adam Lang
@Just Some Fuckhead: That’s just bullshit. People in education are horribly underpaid. Fuck, primary and secondary teachers should be making 80k to 150k a year. Professors, probably marginally more. I don’t mind if some administration makes even more than that. We should treat education as if it were actually important, not decide that everyone in it should be drastically underpaid compared to their equivalents in business.
Adam Lang
@Applejinx: “blah blah slept her way to the top blah blah blah I am a sexist asshole who is backhandedly pretending to support Zoe while insulting her left and right and I haven’t even looked at her game blah blah blah”.
Damn, it’s really amateur hour for the trolls around here today.
Eolirin
@Applejinx: Except for the part where Zoe Quinn did nothing of the sort.
The reviewer that she allegedly slept with to get a positive review of her game? He never even reviewed her game. There’s zero evidence that any impropriety happened at all. The only thing she’s guilty of is making an “art game” that appealed to the kind of reviewers that like art games, while being a woman. Both of these are grave sins to a certain segment of the gaming sub culture.
Her success, to the extent that it exists, has nothing to do with her exploiting sexuality, and the suggestion that it does is frankly demeaning, if not outright offensive. Wtf man.
jon
The Rude Pundit has a good piece on the open-carry bullshit.
jon
@Eolirin: Agreed. And with Adam Lang, too.
What Applejinx came across saying is that Quinn only broke through and became famous because she was a woman, ignoring the possibility that she could actually deserve any success from any activity not related to schmoozing and sex. As backhanded a compliment as can be. There’s some admiration of sorts, but there’s a shitload of Taking Gamergaters’ Word for It going on there.
The Gamergate version is that she slept her way to fame and fortune. (No, she’s pretty much neither one outside the bubble of Gamergate.)
The Applejinx version is that she slept her way to fame and fortune, and that’s awesome and ironic!
The non-sexist version is that she worked hard to write something and wanted it out there and met a lot of people at conventions and meetings and got it published, but also dated some people along the way because she’s a normal human being. Also, it’s not a shock that she dated within her peer group, because she spent a lot of time with them. Additional also, who the fuck cares? If it’s a big crisis in journalism, shouldn’t you bother with the actual journalists? Naah, not masturbatory enough for a movement to sustain its rage and boners.
Joey Giraud
It seems to me that the core reason women are portrayed as sex objects in video games is the same as the reason that McDonalds food is so damn salty.
Maximum profits means pushing our primitive buttons.
Commerce eventually corrupts everything that matters.
JGabriel
The Guardian via Anne Laurie @ Top:
For all the talk about opposing terrorism, we certainly seem pretty willing – as a society – to let the terrorists win when they’re right-wing assholes threatening women.
...now I try to be amused
@Pharniel:
Once upon a time they were called the HMWHC (He-Man Woman Haters Club).
Machine
And here’s more on GamerGate:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate
John N
Oh, I thought this was about Gay Mers, you know, gay mermaids.
RIP Oderus