Censorship? There is no censorship!

[Sander]

@No Man: Eh...I mean, game journalism pays horribly. Most people can't make a living off it unless they're freelancing everywhere. The people in game journalism are in there because they really like it, for the most part. I'd actually argue game journalism has gotten better in recent years with places like Kotaku and Polygon and RockPaperShotgun that are more willing to critique and analyze games, instead of just acting as PR for the gaming industry.

That's some truth, right there.
And the very few people among the ones who participate in this whole tweet and whatever war, who want to achieve change in something other than their own popularity will fail. After this whole thing dies down - and it will eventually - I'm betting my balls that I still won't be able to trust IGN and any other review site, nor will I see any games that have "diversity" (well, maybe a cruel, Bioware type mockery of it).

I think you'll see more and more diversity in video games as developers become more aware of these critiques and start to understand them more. We're already seeing that, actually -- not just in the indie scene, but there's a general willingness to listen and pay attention to critiques of diversity among a lot of game developers. That's not to say they all get it right, of course, but the first step is a willingness to improve. The best step would be to increase diversity among game developers themselves.

 

[Kilus]

Edit: The other side:

https://storify.com/Tolvo/how-totalbiscuit-tried-to-ruin-a-charity-stream

 

[cronicler]

Kilus; is this really... real?
I mean, did this really happen?
Uhh...
Eh...
I think I gave a bluescreen after just skimming through the link you posted and read the tweets...
And then went back and actually read the post. This person's "justifications"...


I mean you can't "privatize" your twitch chat and add that cash to charity while crafting a very very strict non-grata topic list and (channel mods) being extremely strict with banhammers...

 

[Kilus]

What a scumbag:

https://archive.today/l2aHJ

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Whiny bitches shall be subject to napalm fire.

 

[Hassknecht]

Time for some victim blaming, eh?
The dude should have said that "Please rt/signal boost and show up if you can" was not intended for unpersons.

 

[Sander]

Time for some victim blaming, eh?
The dude should have said that "Please rt/signal boost and show up if you can" was not intended for unpersons.

But their scared reaction once retweeted by one of the biggest names in GamerGate is pretty understandable, no? It's no secret that GamerGate features a lot of abusive people, and not wanting that in your small charity chat/stream with few moderators seems fairly sensible. It's not like they were being followed by a lot of people and would have expected a retweet from TotalBiscuit or someone like him.

And frankly, the subsequent abusive reactions detailed in that Storify pretty much justify that kind of reaction. TotalBiscuit threw a hissy fit and his followers piled on the guy en masse.

I mean you can't "privatize" your twitch chat and add that cash to charity while crafting a very very strict non-grata topic list and (channel mods) being extremely strict with banhammers.

If you run an event with only a few moderators present, you don't want that event to blow up on social media because you're not equipped to deal with the volume. That seems like a fairly normal thing to me?

 

[Hassknecht]

Sorry, but the guy's reaction was pretty unreasonable. If he didn't want such a big exposure he could have just send a private message to TB telling him "Hey, thanks for the exposure, but our stream is kinda small and we don't have man moderators and we're kinda scared that along with regular supportive people we might get some non-decent people we can't deal with. So could you maybe delete your tweet? It's a very nice gesture, but it's just too much for us".
TB might be a bit clueless sometimes, but he's not a bad person, and I'm very sure he would have been very forthcoming if asked at all.

 

[Sander]

Sure, the initial reaction was over the top. I've seen mentions in several places that the charity did ask TotalBiscuit nicely to remove the retweet, but I can't find any confirmation of that. I'm seeing a few tweets by him that he was out and didn't see it until later? Mostly this just looks like some random drama blown out of proportion on every side, exacerbated by genuine abuse aimed at both parties. Which...well, that sucks.

It's no coincidence that TotalBiscuit keeps finding himself in these kinds of situations, though. Because he's consistently fed GamerGate, and built up a core audience of GamerGate supporters -- which means he has the ability to set off a storm of harassment whenever he highlights something on Twitter. And instead of handling that responsibly and trying to show some moderation in what he highlights because of the audience he has, he keeps going of on rants that highlight targets for abuse. Which is not because he's trying to do that, it's just because he's completely clueless.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Honestly, I think TotalBiscuit is in these situations because he is the number 1 spokesperson for PC gaming for the English speaking community, as well in the beginning has been the center of third-party anti-corporate journalism on the internet before any of this happened, not the other way around.


Also, the people who go after him are the fanatical SJWs, not the moderate middle. So of course this is going to happen, and things like the above will only reinforce his position.






Here's another example of SJW's flailing around like toddlers looking for money and publicity.

 

[Crni Vuk]

of course sucking dick doesn't make you a faggot. Who would ever think that? It makes you a cock sucker for christs sake.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Shut up faggot.

 

[Sander]

Here's another example of SJW's flailing around like toddlers looking for money and publicity.

Yeah, I'm sure they get really really rich off this shit. Seriously?

What's with these idiotic "but they just want money" attacks? Is it that hard to believe that people genuinely hold these beliefs? You can't just go "I disagree with you", but it has to be "I disagree with you and also you don't even believe the shit you're saying."

Also, kindly watch your step with these insults. Yeah, you're all joking, whatever. This is not The Order.

Edited to add: Sargon of Akkad video is him attacking a bunch of straw men/not understanding arguments. As always.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

No joking allowed.


Got it.

 

[TheWesDude]

It's no coincidence that TotalBiscuit keeps finding himself in these kinds of situations, though. Because he's consistently fed GamerGate, and built up a core audience of GamerGate supporters -- which means he has the ability to set off a storm of harassment whenever he highlights something on Twitter. And instead of handling that responsibly and trying to show some moderation in what he highlights because of the audience he has, he keeps going of on rants that highlight targets for abuse. Which is not because he's trying to do that, it's just because he's completely clueless.

TB's stance on GG is the same one i have.

its not that we do not support the core values of GG which have always been simple and enshrined in the picture i linked in the other thread early on:

TBs stance is that this is not a new thing, he has always complained about the corruption and nepotism in gaming media.

so have i

so have all of us on this site and many others.


it reminds me of an interaction i had with someone recently. i was going to rite-aid because they made a mistake on one of my prescriptions. guy got out of one of those small smart cars as i was getting out of my full size sedan car. when we got near the door he said to me, why do you drive such a large car that cant get good gas mileage, dont you care about the environment? i replied back with, i drove cars that got better than 40 MPG for over 15 years, i got tired of waiting for you to join me, come talk to me when you can make the same claim.

the blatant corruption and nepotism is why i stopped paying attention to gaming media. the score-whoring. the sacrificing of actual gameplay in the name of more sales. the obvious bias.

and then you see absolutely stupid shit like that video of the Occulus team getting a pretty stupid question:


and their answer is great...

 

[Sander]

TB's stance is consistent support for GamerGate as a movement, and as a consequence of that he has built up a large audience of GamerGaters. That ain't rocket science.

and their answer is great...

When people ask you "what are you going to do about the gender gap" the answer that comes down to "nothing" is not "great" by any means.

 

[SnapSlav]

the blatant corruption and nepotism is why i stopped paying attention to gaming media. the score-whoring. the sacrificing of actual gameplay in the name of more sales. the obvious bias.

I dunno if you were aware of it at all, or if you even followed Jim Sterling, but if so, what did you think of his decision to leave The Escapist recently and start his own Patreon-funded site because he felt uncomfortable working in the shadow of the growing-increasingly-corrupted corporate mainstream gaming journalism model (to grossly paraphrase his reasons)? From a purely consumer-centric standpoint, I love his decision, cause he's centralizing all of his content to one place, and it can seem like he's generating far more content and entertainment (assuming he actually isn't) now than when he was tied to either Destructoid or The Escapist. But of course there are other standpoints to be held about the matter, besides consumerism. The ideological matter is much more complicated, much more privy to discussion, and far more relative to each person. So, I'm just curious.

When people ask you "what are you going to do about the gender gap" the answer that comes down to "nothing" is not "great" by any means.

And thus encapsulates the heart of all this bickering back-and-forth. The gap in ideological understanding. This is a good example of why politics even exists; not that it's a good reason, just that it is THE reason. Call it "lost in translation", but ultimately, the simple inability to understand someone else's perspective and why what they're doing is so believed by them to be such a good thing- indeed, to believe yourself that it's a BAD thing -is the core of this dilemma. Not gender gaps. Not harassment. Not racism. Not misogyny. The heart of the problem is this: one person believes something, and one other person can't understand it. Why one person advocates a movement that can go too far, and why another person advocates an approach they deem "more sensible" because it has fewer risks, but which the first party considers "doing nothing". The inescapable nature of this conflict was what made increasingly-pretentious series such as Naruto still hold an actual POINT when they began throwing around their heavy-handed "people can't understand one another" themes and messages, because it's all too true. If people can't be bothered to understand one another, of course this problem will simply continue to exist. And of course, it's simply inevitable.

And if the subject of this message doesn't understand the message, that's totally understandable. Again, it's inevitable.

 

[Kilus]

But their scared reaction once retweeted by one of the biggest names in GamerGate is pretty understandable, no?

No. I don't understand their reaction. I don't think it was a reasonable reaction.

If you run an event with only a few moderators present, you don't want that event to blow up on social media because you're not equipped to deal with the volume. That seems like a fairly normal thing to me?

If that is the case don't make public twitter posts that ask for re tweets.

Sure, the initial reaction was over the top. I've seen mentions in several places that the charity did ask TotalBiscuit nicely to remove the retweet, but I can't find any confirmation of that. I'm seeing a few tweets by him that he was out and didn't see it until later?

It wasn't over the top, it was hostile. And unreasonable. And you can't find any confirmation because it a flat out lie that people related to the stream started to say after getting heat from even Anti-GG. And yeah he was out getting chemotherapy during at least some of the events.

Here's another example of SJW's flailing around like toddlers looking for money and publicity.

Yeah, I'm sure they get really really rich off this shit. Seriously?

What's with these idiotic "but they just want money" attacks? Is it that hard to believe that people genuinely hold these beliefs? You can't just go "I disagree with you", but it has to be "I disagree with you and also you don't even believe the shit you're saying."

http://www.patreon.com/Zoe
http://www.patreon.com/user?u=439829
http://www.patreon.com/thesarkeesianeffect
http://www.patreon.com/thunderf00t

Gamergate brings in quite a bit of cash.

 

[Sander]

If that is the case don't make public twitter posts that ask for re tweets.

That's a little too simplistic, I think. He was probably expecting this to mostly be retweeted within the same circle within which stuff like this usually gets retweeted. Normally, requests like that don't blow up, and they certainly don't blow up among a group of people that is actively hostile toward you, which GamerGate certainly is. When that does happen, the first reaction is...fear? Consternation? I don't know, all of that seems pretty understandable to me. I mean, the guy's initial phrasing/reaction was probably over the top, but I can see why and I don't see why that's a big deal.

Also note that he never tweeted it at TotalBiscuit -- I don't know what communication there was between them, but it certainly didn't consist of him yelling at TotalBiscuit.

I can also understand TotalBiscuit's initial reaction, given that he had a lot of people harassing him over this stuff. That's pretty bad. Emotionally reacting to that is understandable. Unfortunately, TotalBiscuit overreacting has much more severe consequences than that other guy overreacting, and TotalBiscuit generally doesn't seem to be aware of that. To the point that he posted another Twitlonger rant today defending his audience -- even after having quite a long time to think this over, he still didn't get the point. Which goes back to what I've been saying: TotalBiscuit is clueless, and his cluelessness has some pretty destructive effects.

http://www.patreon.com/Zoe
http://www.patreon.com/user?u=439829
http://www.patreon.com/thesarkeesianeffect
http://www.patreon.com/thunderf00t

Gamergate brings in quite a bit of cash.

These are the absolute top of the range of people making money off of GamerGate (maybe excepting Milo) -- and it still isn't all that much. That's not even a middle-class income. Ranting on the internet about social justice really isn't a very good way to get rich, or publicity. "You're just doing this for money" is almost always a bunch of bullshit, for Zoe Quinn and Thunderf00t and Davis Aurini and Brianna Wu and almost everyone else. Mostly these are just people who just have strongly-held beliefs.

 

[PlanHex]

That's a nice, charitable reading of what TotalBiscuit could mean. However, it's also completely non-contextual.

He's saying these things in a space where harassment of women has consistently been denied and minimized, and he says it while knowing that it'll give further support to the minimization and denial of women's harassment. More than that, he says it as a comment on a video by Karen Straughan, also known as GirlWritesWhat, also known as the men's rights activist who thinks women have exploited men for the past two centuries, society is set up to make it easier for women, and someone who frequently denies and minimizes the existence of any problems women face. And that includes minimizing harassment faced by women, in the very video he's commenting on. That's what he's agreeing with when he says "I made this point myself."

There's more, though. There's no real indication that he really thinks women face harsher harassment online - every step of that paragraph tries to equate it with harassment of men, from pointing out that some men are raped, to noting that men receive targeted harassment, to noting that men receive just as much harassment. And to make matters worse, he foists off the harassment on a vague group of equal-opportunity harassers -- which, again, pretends that it's just a coincidence that women receive the harshest harassment.

So yes, I feel pretty justified in not taking the most charitable reading possible here.

If you look at the previous paragraph, he lists a series of complaints. All of those complaints have frequently been leveled at Anita Sarkeesian specifically, and not McIntosh. Moreover, the actual person who's been the target of most of the harassment has been...Anita Sarkeesian, and not McIntosh. Even if he were referring to McIntosh, though, it's not like he's been particularly antagonistic either. And even if he had been antagonistic...so? Why does TotalBiscuit feel the need to blame the victims for the actions of, in his words, assholes?

I'm gonna need to clarify something for you, since it looks like you forgot how to read:
He's criticizing the content of the femfreq channel in a comment on a video that criticizes the content of the femfreq channel. That was the thing that happened that you are supposedly super mad about.

Also, here are the credits from the video description of an episode of Tropes vs Women in Video Games:

Credits
Director: Anita Sarkeesian
Producer: Jonathan McIntosh
Writers: Anita Sarkeesian & Jonathan McIntosh

Holy shit, what is this!??!?!?! Let's completely ignore it and judge that criticizing the content of this series is personally hating and harassing Anita, while condoning harassment of women. That seems best.

Sarkeesian never said that about Hitman: Absolution specifically, only about games that use women as background decoration in general -- but that lie's been repeated so often that everyone believes it anyway. Even if she had said it about Hitman: Absolution specifically, the context was that games encourage people to try these things because they make it possible to do so. That's a specific form of encouragement and you can argue over whether that's fair or not, but it's certainly not lying, nor is it willfully misrepresenting.

Also he concluded his previous paragraph with "Justice achieved through lies is not justice", which suggests he's making a general comment about Sarkeesian and McIntosh lying, rather than just a specific one.

If one refuses the notion that any actions that are allowed is encouragement of doing these actions, then it is lying.
Like you said, that can be debated, but it seems pretty clear that he refuses this notion outright and doesn't consider that it might hold in this specific comment. How horrible of him! Let's dogpile on him and call him an asshole.

Because he still supports GamerGate. That's from eight days ago, after he said he didn't want to be a figurehead. As far as I know, he has not actually recanted his support at any point since then.

Oh, ok.
So now all you need to be an official gamergate supporter/member that's responsible for bad actions done in the name of the hashtag is to desire and support discussions about unethical practices by game journos.
So I guess we're both officially gamergaters too, as are pretty much everyone else! Yaaaaaay!

So, let's recap.

Yes, let's:
You cannot into reading and you're a giant hypocrite.

I don't get it. You're smarter than this. Was this a joke post? Am I being trolled right now?