Culture and narrative, not the political, those are the topics.

This whole issue with the SJW essentially stems from a country that knows no actual political "left" in the rest of the world's sense, a country that has to deliberate for fifty years and counting whether they will even introduce the paid maternity leave duration of Iran. Stuffing an issue as huge as diversity into the confines of that bizarrely narrow political "spectrum" just serves to dumb down the conversation about it and make voters hail or damn every infinitesimally small step taken in either direction.

I will not take that perspective, I will not look through that distorting mirror, no thank you.

I have a personal, subjective quarter century experience of video games and video game culture. That's a valid, on topic perspective on the matters at hand.

I have the academic knowledge to judge video game narratives and the history of diversity in narrative starting with literature. That's a valid, on topic perspective on the matters at hand.

I have an inch of professional insight to judge video game journalism and their supposed transgressions. That's a valid, on topic perspective on the matters at hand.

What does the political perspective give me? A shit in the hollow hand.

I see political forces trying to put their opinions in gamergate, naturally ("factual feminist" etc.), but only as an opportunist current more at its fringes. These opinions are of course picked up enthusiastically by gamergate when they seem to support gamergate stances. Same old story, the culture doesn't need the political, but politicians try to instrumentalize voters' opinions about the culture in development.

I personally see no large scale conspiracy at work here, on either side. I do believe in the decentralized nature of the gamergate movement especially.

I will have to remind you though that the hashtag 'gamergate' is self chosen, opposed to the 'SJW', which was created as a derogatory expression and, as I won't tire to stress, is used by fuckwits exclusively to denote a supposed actual cultural development. Gamergate ideologues hardly ever argue against 'gamergate' as the name for the movement though – and we may even agree that this should change. The fact of the matter is, gamergate is the hashtag first used by Adam Baldwin in the context of a pure and untainted slutshaming tweet. The movement – which I consider to have started three or even more years ago – has continued under that exact name for almost eight months now. That is... not_good, to put it mildly.

Rebranding is more than overdue. And if, in the process, the revolution could eat some of its children – or better yet, changelings that crept in their beds, starting with Davis Aurini – that would actually strengthen the movement and give it sharper contours.

What has Aurini to do with Gamergate? He is doing a movie about Sarkeesian together with Jordan Owen. And Saarkesian has nothing to do with GG, she wrote that on her own twitter flag to get more attention and jump on the alleged GG harassment money train. Aurini may have commented about Gamergate, but apart from that I see no connection.

You guys really place anybody on the opposing bench you want and then say, there is a Gamergater.

Besides some strange connections to "voters" (Is it about political parties now?) I aggree, that hashtags and group terms like sjw and gamergater do more harm than good in the long run, no matter who created it for whom.
If you give names to movements, a two dimensional war is very likely, I actually never understood why #gamergate was ever seen as a "movement", because the first time I read this word, I thought it's rather an allusion to "watergate" and therefore about a scandal and not about a group or are there actually "watergaters"?

I'm pretty sure, that in the opinion of most citizens, I'm some (long haired) social justice hippie / Gutmensch / whatever but although the term has a negative connotation (see also "Mein Kampf") I wouldn't see this as an insult.
But the term "Social Justice Warrior" is relating to a radical stance and need for war which is quite fitting for the hateful mindset of the people that are usually meant. It's not about the peaceful solving of problems for people that have a warrior attitude.

If this thread is any indication of gamergate topics, it's 90% the SJW this, the SJW that in the clear context of video games. Aurini's "movie" has the video game context in the title and the SJW this, the SJW that in the totality of its description.

That's all established fact. Asking what Aurini has to do with gamergate makes no sense. At the time, everything, unfortunately.

I'm not the conflator here. That guy is.

If you want him out, don't tell me. Tell him.

You wouldn't be alone, I promise. I'll back you up at that. Like, really, kickass backup. Honestly. We'll get that sorted out and the issues properly lined out together. You manage to kick "the SJW" conflation out of gamergate rhetorics, you'll get all the thumbs up from me you would ever need.


Yet whom are you applying that "radical stance" to? To video game journalists who dare to critique video game stories? And where's the hate displayed? In feminist art critique that isn't doing anything different compared to the 5,000+ pages of feminist literature criticism I've read in university? That's "SJW"? That's "hateful'? That's "influential"? Sorry man.

The primary targets here seem to make it to Social Justice Bard at best, as do I.

Hell yeah! Social Justice Bards.
.. at least they're not Monks.

ugh… facts… those things are the worst! :)

Not my term. It's Jim Sterling's. ;)

Oh Reginald!
I disagree?

SJW gets thrown about more liberally than Georgia republicans throw about socialist or communist.

Oh, but you hope so! Seriously, the last thing you would actually WANT is that your uninformed FUD concerning children of trans men would be considered (a) "remotely legitimate" and (b) the topic of gamergate discussion.

Au contraire, I am intensely apolitical. I will probably not even vote in the next election, because I simply don't see myself reflected in any of the five pieces of shit we can vote for. So, nope. Nope, nope, nope. Whatever 'indoctrinates' me, it isn't tied to any kind of political direction, decidedly neither in the country I live in nor in the country the political spectrum of which gets, for some absurd reason, to define the 'sides' in the gamergate controversy.

And what am I but a poor video game player that struts and frets her hour in a clearly hostile forum thread, long since heard no more? Yes, the Bard. I take the Bard. Es... Jay... Bee.

2013 you had to choose between 38 partys,
2014 there were 25 options, you really think next time it will be 5?
I don't know in which part of Germany you live, but I'm sure there were more than 5 and will be in the future...
Non-voters are the worst kind of pseudo-social justice activists and the nonsensical reasoning is always the same and only a sign for intense laziness.

Seeing oneself as standing for social justice and not voting, lol.
Did you ever even read half of the programs from any election?
Even with filtering out the wacky neo-nazis and the ones that have proven corruption there is always a lot left and of course everybody can found his own party or even be elected without one.
I didn't expect even you to be so low.
Funny that those are so often the ones name calling, lying and spreading hatred all over the place.

i've heard people say

"if you don't vote or vote blank (in case voting is mandatory) you are in no position to complain about your nations politics, as you did nothing when you had the chance to have an influence. In a way, it even indicates you agree with whoever won"

can't exactly disagree

I aggree.

Actually I've known several leftie hate mongers seeing themselves as activists who have proven to be in-activists in the end. ;)
I've spent way too much time in such circles, the worst ones are the decadent social study hipsters who get their studies financed by the honest working people and still have the nerve to look down upon everyone and think they are contributing something of worth to society.
Greetings from the working class.

Aurini:
I won't argue that Aurini sides with GG (probably uses it to get more resonance, as you implied, for his own goals), but he does not consider himself a part of GG as far as I know.

Why does it seem to be about SJWs?
The reason it is seems to be about SJWs this or that is because of the backlash GG/Gamers got.

GG pointed out, that "gaming journalism" has changed from game reviews, developer, development studio, game convention articles and so on to articles which seem to have a more political, ethical viewpoint - talking more about a game in relation to ethical/political values than the game itself. Several ties/relationships/friendships/bribes between journalists and their subjects they report upon had been revealed. Collusion, political agendas, journalists meeting together behind curtains to talk which games to mention, which games to destroy which games to not talk about at all, which direction to take, which topics to write about.

The backlash was to call "Gamers" dead, to call them a bunch misogynistic, racist, white, cisgender, transphobic, rightwing bigots who lash out against disabled people and as we all know 10 media outlets published such an article at the same time. Basically elevating GG's criticism directed to a circle of journalists, websites, media outlets to a gamer invented hate campaign against "minorities" in the gaming industry and gaming journalism.

Sure in my opinion and as you stated yourself harassment is in no way an option to express discontent with the views of a person and yes, many people have harassed some individuals online. Although I am still on the fence if I would call name calling, threats on an online medium like Twitter harassment. On the other hand those individuals did sent out some provoking tweets and in my opinion knew exactly what would come of that. I mean if you call gender specific millions of people misogynistic, racist bigots....nevertheless it still has not been proven that any of that did came from GG.

And all this was the moment the 3rd wave feminists, political activists jumped on the train catching the raised flag of the journalists, coming to the rescue.

Social Justice:
In my opinion social justice itself is not a bad word or derogatory, it is not connected to a political view, it just describes something. Even Mandela and Gandhi were fighting for social justice

social justice
noun
the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society

social justice
Line breaks: so¦cial jus|tice
Definition of social justice in English:
noun
[mass noun]
Justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society: individuality gives way to the struggle for social justice

The term social justice warrior emerged when those that jumped the train made - with a straight face -claims which missed the goalpost of reality so much that it was just hilarious. Which on the other hand is no help for people which actually try to point out existing abuses/grievances/shortcomings.

PS Oh damn, I just realized I know what 1st wave, 2nd wave feminism was about and the time they emerged....well, somthing has to come from watching those vids, reading artciles.

Irrelevant, unfortunately. GG figureheads very seldom consider themselves a part of GG, they consider themselves 'neutral'. Take a look at e.g. the list of "doxxed gaters" as compiled by gamergate supporters. Almost every name on there that evokes a picture of a person in my mind doesn't consider him- or herself part of the movement. But it still seems very, very clear to supporters where these people stand. Gjoni? Baldwin? Sommers? Yiannopoulos? Not gaters, right until they're doxxed.

http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/original/90/908941/2784502-10616019_294491837424534_1351281559890374242_n.png

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Gaming journalists and feminist critics are the corruption in the industry because "SJW".

We've been there, it's a shit argument. And to the point, it's Aurini's argument.

Gamergate has exhibited a pitiful knowledge of gaming journalism as it has developed, and an embarrassing stance on how an art critique actually has to look like. They expect their journalists to be industry insiders without industry ties, and are stupid enough to paint ties among vg journalists as collusion. Calling out for credible and versatile characters? Corruption, corruption everywhere. As if 'corruption' came from a friendly beer with an indie game dev who codes himself instead of completely legal review exclusivity contracts handed over by the PR people of AAA developers.

Gamergate is a movement opposed to video game journalism, criticism and academic evaluation of the medium. And that's all of it, seriously. These journalist guys and gals have only just started to grow up from blatantly advertising video games 24/7 in the 80s and 90s to actually doing their job once in a while. Gamergate is the sledgehammer that doesn't let video game journalism grow up. It must not be allowed that a game review constitute art critique. Obviously, games are not art. Objective reviews are not only possible, no, they are the only valid thing.

When I grew up and I didn't like a game magazine, I didn't buy it. Today, idiots drunk with power are only satisfied when they've put people out of a job. And boy, do they celebrate when a site goes down for whatever reason [link to gloating reaxxion article not provided].

The headless hunt for the SJW doesn't stop at journalists and game critics, of course. Gotta keep the eyes on other targets as well. And who would disagree that there ARE other targets, namely game developers? Can't allow THEM SJW to make the games they themselves would like to make, can we?

Here's the vivid picture Aurini paints of the SJW game developer, one of a bona fide Untermensch: (This is the patreon description Aurini had up until several weeks ago. This is the stuff that brought him supporters. I will quote this until the sun goes down on Earth for the last time.)

Conspiracy theorist bullshit without a single idea how journalism even works. Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about, at all. You're making up the agenda, the curtains (curtains? what curtains?! Do you mean: "they don't send their emails to everyone"?) and most of all the destructive intent. Video game journalists destroying video games? Ever heard about the hand that feeds and what not to do with it? This is all wildest conjecture based on nothing, nothing at all. And it all only makes the slightest bit of sense if you attribute at the very least fourty times the power to dirt poor game journalists than they actually have.

I hear this crap again and again, and it makes less sense each time.

And it never will. After all, if a convicted suspect is proven to associate with gamergate, he/she hasn't really been representative of gamergate all along.