I saw one of Anita Sarkeesian's videos in my recommended and I said "fuck it" and gave it a good faith watch. I may not agree with, or understand every single point, but I remember that she got DEMONIZED for making this. I was told that she hated men, that she wanted all these sexist roles inverted to be in women's favor, and that she was some authoritarian fun police (ironically said by the ringleaders of the satanic panic).

She said some things, and people thought some of what she said was wrong. Even I did. For example, she mentioned Betty from Rugrats as an example of a "straw feminist", but she was portrayed in a sympathetic light and was not meant to imply "feminism bad". Yes, she's androgynous and she's a lesbian, but she's handled pretty well as a character. I'd hardly consider Tracer a straw feminist (I would at least assume she considers herself one since she found Mondatta "an inspiration growing up).

I know that this was just ONE video, but from the information I have, it seems like this whole thing was blown WAY out of proportion. So what gives? Why Anita in particular? Also, how did this whole gamergate thing grow into being rightoid woodstock?

  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There were some legitimate grievances with gaming journalism, that then got turned into a personal drama affair, that turned into a general misintrophic hatred of any critiques of gaming culture and gamers (specifically women and minor feminist critique). It was actually incredible watching the SA and channer right wingers turn the narrative over the course of a week and the journos eat it up because it drove content algos.

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The concept of GG was created entirely in response to a female indie dev who’s game (an artsy walking simulator) was reviewed positively by a journalist who had previously slept with her.

        It wasn't even a walking simulator in the vein of Gone Home or Dear Esther but a browser-based game about depression

        :frothingfash: NOT A REAL GAME

        The ground zero for GG was her jilted ex going to 4chan to spew bile. Not sure, but she may have somehow angered the basement dweller collective beforehand which made them extra receptive and jumping at the bit to spread the controversy

        • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
          ·
          3 years ago

          it was a free browser game about depression! she didn't even make any money off of it! these fucking consoomers were witnessing an industry continually sliding from crass commercialism into unfiltered garbage but since they couldn't bear to attack the shitty corporate publishers who were doing the profiteering and dictated most of the content of the gaming press, they decided that The Cabal was actually indie devs working day jobs to make weird artsy shit for no money.

        • Shitbird [any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          The ground zero for GG was her jilted ex going to 4chan to spew bile.

          fuk tht gui hop he nevr gt laid agin

      • NomadicWarMachine [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        was reviewed positively by a journalist who had previously slept with her.

        Two notes, he never reviewed it, he put it on a list of 50 indie games he liked, and according to the account of her ex she didn’t sleep with him till after this.

      • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The thing is, that journalist didn't even review her game. It just showed up in a list of browser based indie games on the same website that the journalist in question had published some reviews.

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Probably true. I just remember having talked about gaming journalism issues (not in an 'ethics in gaming journalism sense' just as in an general consumer industry journalism sense, with games being like an in that people would understand) with people online before anything was called 'GamerGate' and then some seperate personal drama thing involving the dev, journo and I think the dev's ex that I didn't hear about until a couple days later.

        (Edit: This was when I was younger and more lib so I thought you could organize around some level of consumer culture. Ah youthful idiocy.)

        (2nd Edit: I'm trying to remember the specific things but the big thing was ratings inflation, where more and more games were getting perfect scores even if they were coming out unfinished (little did we know that they would look practically polished compared to most modern games))

        From my perspective it was a small discussion among some online leftists trying to talk to people about issues of industrial capital blowing up into some sort of internet phenomena because of weird Internet drama that was immediately exploited by the right because of the sexual politics.

      • CyberSyndicalist [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        The legitimate grievances existed before hand but were understood by most in the same way the average person has unfocused grievances with "the elite". GG was able to channel those vague sentiments that were rooted in legitimate problems (basically the myriad of ways capitalism intercepts with gaming) into the contrived reactionary grievances.

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        this. any grievances with "ethics in videogame journalism" or indie game development where added later. i spent way too much time on 4chan in the late 00s / early 10s and the culture that later led to gamergate was already fully developed back then, it already was exactly the same chud shit that's still around today.

        these people do not care about legitimate reasons to get worked up about anything. all they care about is their seething, uncontrollable hatred of anything that's not a white cishet reactionary man. they'll latch onto any opportunity to act upon that hatred and all rationalizations for this are applied after their outburst of rage as needed.