«Previous post | Next post»

Vox media has attempted to link Cecil the Lion’s death to Gamergate. The unfortunate truth about this situation is that they try to directly link the poor animal’s death to Internet harassment, and Gamergate. In his article, Max Fisher suggests that the “tactics” used to run Walter Palmer out of public and online society, are those employed by Gamergate. He went on to say that it’s “Mob Justice,” and that this behavior is becoming normalized—thanks to people who endorse the behaviors online and in public.

Walter Palmer (a dentist from Minnesota, US) a hunter friend, and “another” lion (not cecil) which Palmer killed back in 2008.

“In the mold of Gamergate, the campaign has targeted palmer in two ways: by going after his livelihood and by seeking to inflict psychological suffering in the form of harassment and threats. When Gawker Media ran articles that Gamergate disagreed with, for example, the group responded by going after Gawkers advertisers to scare them into pulling their ads.”

“The idea was to threaten Gawkers ability to pay its employees; and thus threaten the livelihoods of those employees. Gamergate also, famously, blanketed its targets, mostly women, with anonymous threats of violence.”

Now before we get into why this article was all fluff and air, let’s look at something obvious about why Brianna Wu shared this with her followers. It said Gamergate. This article in its entire existence has no ground to stand on. It’s simply a farce, drummed up by a washed up journalist who has no ground to stand on. For those unaware Polygon, which houses Ben Kuchera is a part of Vox media—which is in league with Gawker Media. Gawker Media is currently being sued by Hulk Hogan for slander at the moment.

To his credit, the body of the article minus the Gamergate parts does touch on some very important parts concerning Mob Justice. It’s quickly splintered when the reader discovers his true intent within the content. Honestly the entire article is clickbait, to the point we won’t even link it for that sake. When it comes down to the facts we can state the following:

Gamergate isn’t linked to violent behavior

True

The reason a lot of critics will say that Gamergate is linked with violent behavior is because of social media. The truth is, a lot of news runners including ABC, BBC, and even CNN Money don’t do their homework on the subject. They’ll glue and tape the facts they believe are news worthy, and present them as credible news to us: the audience.

If you look at how far the movement has come, you’ll see no one has killed, hurt, or maimed any of the “harassment targets.” The most we’ve seen become of said targets are candid photos that serve as proof that they’re not as afraid of society as they’ve led us to believe. Ralph of Theralphretort.com met Brianna Wu in real life, and she fearlessly faced him. Anita Sarkeesian has appeared at E3, and had her photo taken in Selfie form—with no repercussions.

Gamergate doesn’t hate women and isn’t a cult or “group”

True

Gamergate has never had a leader, or said that it hates women. In fact there are several women who stood up to the initial wave of feminist influence to encourage rebellion against Gamergate. There’s no such thing as games being a boys club either. Amy Henning, Cathy Preston, Rhianna Pratchett, Amy Robinson are just some of the names you’ll see among the most elite of female game developers. If you’re curious why they’re not prominent in mentions it’s because they’re actually creating masterpieces and staying away from social media. They aren’t indie one hit wonders, such as Brianna Wu or Zoe Quinn.

Pro-Gamergate articles promote misogyny

False

If you read a lot of anit-gamergate articles, you’ll come to realize that the word “Misogyny” is often linked with sympathizers of feminism. It’s completely true, because no one uses that word to describe discrimination. Ever. The only thing you can see in a gamergate article that’s positive, is the obvious signs that someone took the time to read the facts.

Most pieces written by independent bloggers and journalist are slammed by supporters of “women in tech,” because it’s making it harder for them to make profit on lies. This can be seen when Brianna Wu recently blamed Gamergate for not being able to find her birth parents, then deleted the tweets. Why did she do it? Because it wasn’t true. How can Gamergate stop someone from using FREE resources to find their family?

The gaming industry is changing very quickly for anti GG and pro GG as well. We can still see how far the goal of true equality in the industry is—it’s not far away. If we could combine our efforts we could realize the dream as our reality. After all segregation was broken when opposing sides realized that they shared more in common than first thought. If you’re still with us understand something about why this article provides narrative to believe in Gamergate even further. It’s evident that corrupt journalism is dying.

When someone has to create an article about a current event, and try to connect Gamergate to it as if it is a terrorist group, you know something is changing fast.

Give us your thoughts in the comments and share this post if you liked it!

***Disclaimer***
This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.

Kenay Peterson
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheDark_Mage