SFP

Snorkels

Good con community.

JohnTomato

Then what is it about?

I enjoy a good weekend cliff hanger.

Rascal_Face

Seeing that woman from earlier laughing in panel 4 just hit me in the feels.

Manuel Simone

Hmm, first I’m curious who said the last words in the last panel (maybe is Max who’s trying to apologize to Allison for his behavior) but I wonder why some of dynamorphs loos like animals, its like when the storm happened, their DNA got mixed with their pets/ other animals around. Weird, indeed.

Debbie Jackson

My prediction: the heckler that interrupted Alison’s speech on day one.

Kerlyssa

the dog guy tho. wow. <3

bta

Can Allison’s life goes on for one day without DRAMA and HEATED POLITICAL ARGUMENTS? Find out next page!

Johan

What, are you crazy? Of course it can’t!!
Kidding I would love to read that 🙂
Tylikcat

At any convention, much less the ADA convention?
Stephanie Gertsch

It would be very funny if she saw people arguing and just noped out because she really can’t deal with another drawn out discussion. Sneaking away with the look on her face like you would have after you’ve nearly tipped over a valuable vase and it’s fine but you really hope nobody saw.
Balthazar

“ITS ABOUT THE LITTLE SPRINKLES IN THE DRINK AND THE CARAMEL ON TOP THAT MAKES IT GOOD!”

^The speaker just happens to have a loud voice when explaining issues he’s passionate about.
The Articulator

I hope it’s not considered a spoiler to laugh uncontrollably on the floor until it turns into crying.

Josh Jasper

Who’s yelling? Max? Verbally abusive dynamorph guy in page 59? Someone we’d never expect?

Francisco

My first thought was Brad.
deebles

Someone who’s been off panel for this page. Maybe one of the other characters from the earlier session that Alison sat in on. Possibly Sonar might be involved too, but more likely as someone being shouted at than doing the shouting.
Lizzy

Watch it be Blue Girl Moderator…

agurk

I love the feline dynamorph? I love what this community seems to be and i wish there where something like it where I live irl for irl minorities…

Takashoru

I really appreciate the existence of panel four in the middle of what is otherwise a very serious and sombre chapter.

Markus

Labradude seems like a blast at parties.

phantomreader42

I’m thinking gay self-deprecating dog dude could have a future in stand-up comedy.
Also, is the feline in panel three reading that from a personal list, or adding to a general one?

DerAmi

Filling in that sign behind him with what seems correct to me gives “Seven Things You Love About Your Dynamorphic Body.” So that would be his own list.

Some guy

Mega Girl, more like Mega Dork!

∫Clémens×ds

Well isn’t that the coolest place on Earth why did it take five issues to get to this place also can we stay? Can Alison just not barge in another argument she has no stake or part in and go back to the Dance Party?

If the marvel that is artistic pole dance is any indication, I’m sure the dance moves available to a flyer are just beyond this world.

Tylikcat

I think Alison is the one remaining at the dance party.

Let’s see what happens. I think there might be an argument for intervening minimally to prevent actual bodily harm. It’s good staging that the dynamorphic people she knows there (other than Brad) who are most likely to effectively intervene are somewhere else.
- Graeme Sutton
  
  I’m going to predict that either Allison intervenes violently and the community turns against her or she hesitates and/or refuses to do so resulting in loss of life and the community turns against her.

Stephanie Gertsch

Everything about Amanda’s body language and expressions is so dainty and feminine. Even the spots on her cheek kind of look like a blush. It’s like her poses were taken from Shoujo Manga and transferred onto Amanda’s body type. I would say this makes her more awesome, but then I remember how she feels about her body and that she hasn’t always been a dynamorph. 🙁

Dean

It almost looks like Amanda has been drawn too small- when she and Alison were talking earlier, Alison’s head only came up to Amanda’s chin. Are they standing on different levels?

Insanenoodlyguy

YES IT IS UNKNOWN VOICE! YES IT IS ABOUT THAT! Just in case I can say I called it later.

Virgil Clemens

IT’S NOT ABOUT THAT! IT’S ABOUT ETHICS IN GAMING JOURNALISM!

bta

Imagine how horrible Gamergate would be in a world where people like Furnace exist.
Arkone Axon

Actually, having spent the last year talking to a Gamergate guy…

…It kinda is about ethics in gaming journalism. That’s literally what it was all about – people wanting honest answers regarding the quality of a product costing as much as $60 (before adding in the extras). There’s always idiots on the fringe of any movement (look at Moonshadow as opposed to Alison, in terms of their efforts to defend abused women), but for most of them, it was just a case of “can we please get honest facts about a product before we drop our hard earned money on it?”
- bta
  
  See that page here: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-4/page-49-2/ ? The first two panels?
  
  You’re being Jen in that case. Don’t be Jen. Do not blindly put your trust in what a member of a controversial group has to say about it.
  
  Who doesn’t dislike the poor quality of games journalism? Generic positive words are useful for any militant group, that’s why they all use them. So according to that logic, anti-abortion protesters are just “pro-life”, white supremacist groups are just there for white people to feel “pride” in themselves, Pick-Up Artists are simply about self-improvement, and so on…
  
  This is how these groups get to you – they imply that anyone who would disagree with them is in favor of torturing puppies or whatever will get you to feel the anger that they can channel, or simply the confusion and indulgence to let them continue.
  - Olivier Faure
    
    I don’t think this an healthy predisposition to have. The way I understand it, what you’re saying is “These people will use good-sounding arguments to attract you to their bad causes. It’s very devious if you don’t expect it, so be prepared to hear good-sounding arguments and ignore them.”
    
    The problem I have with this kind of reasoning is that it doesn’t make you stick to your good positions, it makes you stick to your positions, period. And since people tend to be wrong sometimes [citation needed], automatically distrusting arguments for opinions you disagree with because “this guy is deluded” or “they don’t really care about X, actually they care about Y” means you cut yourself off from ever learning the potential errors of your ways and getting a more accurate view of any given situation.
    
    Which is nicely symmetrical, by the way. This is advice I’d give to pro-life people or pro-choice people, to Democrats, to Republicans, to Trump supporters, to Trump haters, to global warming denialists, etc.
  - Tuckerr99
    
    It’s interesting that one of the points you made was about how “these groups get to you by villainizing the people you disagree with,” as that is nearly every single comment here. I didn’t pay attention to Gamergate whatsoever during its peak. It’s not that I didn’t have the time or the energy–I simply did not care in the slightest. But a year later I went back and took a look through the wreckage.
    
    I could tell you truthfully that I think Zoe Quinn is an awful person, but that doesn’t justify any harassment. I could point out that if Anita Sarkeesian is not actively goading people into harassing her then she is just the most unfortunate victim of harassment in the world, but again, that doesn’t justify anything. And I could bring up Brianna Wu, but honestly if you believed a word she said after she was caught harassing herself to look like a victim of this, then you’re going to assume that because I’m a white man, everything I say is invalid based on a bunch of assumptions that get made about me in every such discussion.
    
    The vast majority of Gamergaters did not harass anyone. They made a serious and heartfelt effort to break away from the topics of any specific women, and women in gaming altogether. They pointed out more loudly than anyone that it was likely 3rd party trolls doing the doxxing just in general, and many of them expressed disgust at any continuing harassment.
    
    Gamergate REALLY tried to focus on the issues of importance. Like the journalism Skype group that had reporters from nearly every single gaming news site talking about what stories they should all be running and how best to use a perception of victimhood to manipulate people.
    
    Was there vitriol coming from boys who were frustrated with women? Absolutely. But then a movement started within Gamergate to prove conclusively that there were plenty of non-young, non-white, non-male, non-hateful people were taking part. And yet #notyourshield is NEVER brought up in these discussions.
    
    If a movement truly cannot change from what it’s perceived as being, then I’m sorry to say that the pot cannot keep calling the kettle black, and anyone who believes that feminism is about more than misandry (even if that’s 99% of feminists, as I believe it to be) needs to find a different banner to match under. Yours got dirty and is no longer suitable.
    - Debbie Jackson
      
      I don’t want to address the entirety of this as I’ve already said more than enough, but I have to say one thing. Pointing out loudly that the doxxing going on was not their fault and was probably not even coming from GG members does not a solution to the doxxing make. GamerGate needed to be *sympathetic and protective* towards the victims of this harassment and protect them *first* before defending the potentially guilty. They needed to take responsibility for what had arisen, declaim it, and work to weed it out. Instead they deflected criticism, claimed innocence, and therefore left the (generally female) gamers and journalists being doxxed with zero support whatsoever. The difference between early GG and current feminism is that the majority of feminists will *instantly call out* instances of legitimate misogyny, declaim it, and speak out against other feminists who are spoiling the whole in such a way, even if it happens to be a man who first raises awareness.
- Charles
  
  Well, of course a Gamergate guy is going to claim that. It’s a lie though. Gamergate started when a jilted ex-boyfriend tried to get revenge on his ex-girlfriend. It was a misogynistic witch hunt from the very beginning; the claims about “ethics in gaming journalism” were never more than a BS excuse.
- Dogwood
  
  Just going to cite a quote from this very comic: “Not everyone who wears these attacks superheroes, okay? That’s like… a handful of people!”
- funnyasinhaha
  
  Well it started when a guy posted that his ex-girlfriend was sleeping with a dude which then influenced her writing (supposedly), and he was furious about it. so from the very beginning it was tied in sexism and outrage about this “bitch” ruining games. And it spiralled out to target many women in the industry. It was a gendered thing from the start.
  
  The anger was overblown and dangerous because she was a woman. Im sure a lot of people thought they weren’t being influenced by sexism and thought they were mainly concerned with justice, but the major undercurrent was hatred toward women in games. a lot of subconscious bias being enraged to a frothy pitch and then people not being able to see their own sexism for what it is.
  
  I have a friend who insists that Anita Sarkeesian is lying about her abuse and they have records to prove and they are really concerned that she is misrepresenting games. So people ARE concerned for games journalism, but it’s deeply sexist at its core, with a worldview where women lie about abuse and are sluts and deserve to be shut down and shut up. And then will dox and threaten rape and murder to do so.
  
  And mainly, what’s sexist is their belief that the sanctity of your videogame hobby is more important than the health and safety of the women who are “ruining” it.
  
  It’s not sexist in the way that people who are afraid of immigration aren’t being racist. Immigration in itself isn’t a racial thing, right? Well, in practice, it’s totally totally racist. Much like gamergate & sexism. They can say they have these non-gendered concerns, but in practice it is hugely and dangerously sexist and has hurt a lot of lives.
- Ran
  
  I think Gamergate was about ethics in gaming journalism in the same way that World War I was about the safety of Austrian archdukes.
  
  (I mean, I’m sure that some a desire for honest reviews of games played some part in Gamergate, but firstly, that doesn’t explain why (almost?) all the anger and harassment were directed at the *non*-journalist (rather than at the reviewer who allegedly wrote the dishonest review), and secondly, that doesn’t explain why the anger and harassment persisted for months after it was realized that the initial accusation was actually a lie and that there’d been no ethical breach to begin with.)
- Graeme Sutton
  
  What? You knowingly associated with the designated out-group?
  BURN THE WITCH!
  - bta
    
    Yeah, yeah, these irrational liberals and their smug intolerance, am I right?
    
    Reading Scott Alexander doesn’t give you any insight into political science, contrary to what his fans want to believe.
  - Olivier Faure
    
    This post is my island of ingroup in an ocean of (my) outgroup <3
  - Beroli
    
    Correct. “My opinion is unpopular” does prove its truth and trump all the facts people have been mentioning.
- Debbie Jackson
  
  While this is the case for many Gamergate supporters, there are still severe issues with the defense of a movement that happens to be shielding and protecting those doing severe harm to groups of lower innate privilege from its conception, whether it is doing so deliberately or whether such individuals were abusing their fellow members’ trust. Gamergate needed to counter this problem by speaking out en-masse against the actions of their ‘idiot fringe’. Rather than forming up together against such external criticism, members should have ensured their movement’s validity by making it clear such extremism wasn’t welcome. However the vast majority of responses from members I’ve seen, including personal friends and contacts, were defensive and dismissive instead. Stating repeatedly that something “is bound to happen as with any other movement and doesn’t reflect on the rest of us” is a passively permissive denial of responsibility which serves to protect the more harmful element via downplaying them and refusing to call them out internally.
  
  This is also a completely inappropriate response to offer when faced with real, specific situations of assault and harassment. The personal safety of vulnerable individuals should have taken priority over ideology and calls to accountability.
  
  In the same way there was a general refusal to accept and explore the possibility of systemic bias regarding which demographics of game reporters were more heavily and frequently targeted. Again, something very common with many movements, even those based around social equality, but also something that should be addressed and improved upon when raised rather than shouted down.
  
  Some of this may be improving within the movement as time passes – I haven’t had much chance to open dialogue with GG members on the matter for a year or so now – but it was desperately needed and notable for its absence at the beginning which led to the severe polarisation, frustration and backlash at the time.
  - Arkone Axon
    
    I’m going to only reply to this one, and to Oakreef, because everyone else simply resorted to breaking out the pitchforks and torches at hearing an unpopular opinion (except for Graeme Sutton, who laughingly pointed out what everyone else is doing).
    
    I actually told my friend exactly what you’re saying – last year, when it first started. That it was critically important to stand together and reject the hateful comments from the fringe. I WILL note that this sort of thing happens in every ideological group (there are a number of celebrated feminists who have never been called to task by their peers for saying very hateful and confrontational things, like Andrea Dworkin’s “all penetrative sex is rape” or or Valerie Solanas’ infamous “Scum Manifesto”), but… as you said, that is simply repeating “this is bound to happen as with any other movement,” and in the case of GG it was critically important to engage in damage control – they were already facing an uphill battle regarding public opinion, and they left themselves vulnerable. Simply put, they allowed the idiots to speak without sufficiently censuring them, and then the media (always eager to generate controversy) focused on the idiots.
    
    And… I have indeed been carrying on an open dialogue with GG members (as I said, this is a friend of mine. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I do listen to his opinion even if I argue with him on it), and ever since the furor over Sarkeesian and Quinn has died down, it turns out… GG was right about a great deal. Look at “No Man’s Sky,” just recently released. This is a product selling for $60. Not calling it a game; call it a product, because this would apply to any other product. Wouldn’t you be justifiably annoyed if a company did their best to hide how crappy their product was until you’d paid $60 of your hard earned money for it, and then called you “spoiled and entitled” for wanting your money’s worth?
    - Alan Jenkins
      
      You refer to a “the fringe” or “the idiots”. It’s suggesting the people who founded the movement, named it, worked on popularizing it, were acting from these alleged good intentions. But you must know that’s not true. We have the chat logs, etc.
      
      We even know they shaped their public message to favour this impression. “A ton of people are picking up the self-chastising when people start getting insulting. It took a few days of 4-5 of us doing it but it’s taking off.”
      
      [Eg. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/new-chat-logs-show-how-4chan-users-pushed-gamergate-into-the-national-spotlight/
      
      If you have friends who (still?) believe it’s about ethics in games journalism and didn’t somehow contribute to the problem, they weren’t “members”. They _were_ the edge of the movement. The fringe. The [useful] idiots.
    - Debbie Jackson
      
      We’re pretty much on the same side here. I do consider the ethical issues that GamerGate tried to champion of fairly major importance within the world of video gaming, and it’s a great shame that so many of those issues were quashed due to the more harmful harassment and ensuing outcry on both sides that was going on.
      
      I simply don’t consider it reasonable to effectively blame the outcry rather than address the root of the issues which gave rise to it being necessary, as many others have done on this thread, which in turn led me to comment to begin with. Additionally, and admittedly this is somewhat subjective, while GG had plenty of decent points to raise about the gaming industry, those points were dwarfed in scope by the far wider ramifications of direct harassment, threats of death and rape, and the posting of defamatory private material. These might have been committed by relatively few members of the movement but their effects went way beyond the gaming industry; the rest of the issues were dwarfed in comparison and quite rightly so.
      
      I also don’t believe or agree that it was just the idiotic fringe causing most of the problems. Members with power and influence incited others to harassment and violence, which is one reason they had such a major effect on the overall movement. A few idiots would normally have been quickly naysaid – given that more people were shouting down detractors of illegal behaviour than were actually gainsaying it for quite a while, this points to a bigger issue involving key members of the movement which should have been rapidly addressed by those who didn’t want that reputation. As you say, it was critically important that those hateful and poisonous aspects were publically rejected as early as possible – better yet, weeded out and removed from the movement – but yet somehow the number of Gaters trying to improve all of this was still dwarfed by those who stood by due to their own personal uninvolvement or even argued back against those calling for said behaviours to be shut down, defensively refusing to condemn those who had been doxxing and harassing to those they considered innately hostile (accurate or no) and even in some cases defending those people directly by reframing the victims of harassment as having brought it upon themselves. The difference between GG and other movements that I personally perceived was the length of time for which the majority of the movement were acting defensively in unison against external criticism, with only a few members actively fighting to bring the rest of GG around and examine these internal issues.
- Oakreef
  
  ok so why do they hate anita sarkeesian and zoe quinn so much?
  - Arkone Axon
    
    I’m going to reply to… this one. And Debbie Jackson’s reply. The only two replies that actually involved a question instead of immediately jumping to profanity, casual dismissal, or (in Graeme Sutton’s case) an amusing and perceptive note of how quickly the unpopular opinion gets trounced upon.
    
    Anita Sarkeesian is despised because she makes a point of looking for sexism even where it doesn’t exist, for engaging in sexist thinking (casually filing entire groups under a single blanket label of “misogynistic male,” dismissing the very idea of female gamers – as if they weren’t about half of the gaming population, just as with the general population), and for pointing at Japanese made games and claiming they’re evidence of American sexism (note: the only Super Mario Brothers game to have Princess Peach as a playable character is the U.S. only version – and she was kind of a badass there, with her awesome ability to fly for limited distances). Also, going to the United Nations to talk about internet sexism during the same time that women are being forced into “marriages” to the murderers of their families or simply thrust into sex trafficking came across as almost sociopathically self centered and oblivious. I’m not a fan of Bayonetta (though that has more to do with the fact that I’m not interested in those sorts of games; I’m not a fan of God of War either), but I don’t think anyone can reasonably argue that a game where a psuedo-dominatrix witch clad in a fetishistic outfit made of her own hair (or however that works, I don’t know) kicks people with high heeled revolver shoes is as important as India and Pakistan’s rape culture, or the… well, I’d be writing for paragraphs if I tried to list it all.
    
    Zoe Quinn is despised because she has claimed victimhood instead of letting the one game she produced stand on its own merits. That game, “Depression Quest,” is a poorly made text based “choose your own adventure” affair, and while “professional” reviews of the game tend to be glowing, reviews by actual players have panned it for the writing, the grammatical and formatting errors, and even the most generous of them have summed it up as “great idea, horribly executed.”
    
    There’s also a third one the GG crowd are rather touchy and ornery about. Briana Wu. She’s the one my friend has mentioned for, among other things, making a game titled “Revolution 60” which not only relies on oversexualized female characters, but also is… a crappy game. Endless waves of generic characters and a host of the justly maligned quicktime events.
- Markus
  
  The best way I ever heard GamerGate and the reaction to it described is this:
  
  You’re hiking through the woods one day and you see two people in a shouting match standing next to a pile of crap. One of them insists it’s deer turds, and the other is adamant it’s dog turds.
  
  You can either stomp around and yell at them about what animal you think crapped on the trail, or you can walk away and not get shit on your shoes.
  
  Having any strong opinion on GamerGate is the first option.
- weedgoku
  
  At the heart of the issue it was and when the story first came out I agreed that yes, they should have admitted their connection to the game developer, hell I’d like to know if any reviewers I read are even just best friends with a game developer they’re reviewing because that could definitely put a slant on their review. But anything that actually mattered in the discussion got lost in the shit-flinging from both sides and it got beyond acceptable disgustingly fast with how many people were doxxing one another and going as far as to target family members and people not the least bit involved with harassment. I really wish I could say it was only one specific side of the argument that did the worst of it too, but it wasn’t. Everyone who got involved with it just gleefully started rolling in the shit, then cried when they realized they were covered in shit and tried to blame other people for it.
  - Olivier Faure
    
    How dare you imply that [MY INGROUP] had as much responsibility in the shit-throwing and harassment as [MY OUTGROUP] did!
    
    It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that [MY OUTGROUP] are the ones who kept talking shit, flooding people with threats and doxxing and harassing [MY INGROUP].
    
    Anyone who implies otherwise is obviously too stupid to be anything but one of them, that is, a piece of shit.
- Abel Undercity
  
  Gamergate sprung from the lies of an abusive ex-boyfriend of an indie developer. The thrust of its activities were harassment by any means possible and doxxing. They reveled in getting people fired for offenses ranging from slight to imaginary. Many of their targets had nothing at all to do with the games industry.
  
  Hell, they even harassed Felicia Day just for saying she was concerned about Gamergate’s activities.
  
  These guys were not “the fringe.” There was no moderate mainstream in Gamergate to keep the crazies in check. They simply slipped into denial mode whenever called out, and then continued as usual, growing more vicious and toxic as time went on.
  - Random832
    
    (wow, never expected a discussion of this to ever get past the moderation here of all places) He accused her of things that are, if true, definitely emotional abuse. Regardless of anything else that followed, I am deeply uncomfortable with the fact that we are expected to accept allegations of abuse at face value from some people but consider them “lies” from others.
    
    Ultimately, hardly any of even his supporters recognized it anyway. It’s a symptom of the fact that in our society few people recognize emotional and mental abuse as real. Gaslighting is more often used as a punchline rather than treated seriously by anyone regardless of their politics.
- Tdoodle
  
  I don’t think “idiots” is strong enough to describe Eron Gjioni and Adam Baldwin championing the wave of abuse that since 2014 has caused multiple people in the game industry (mostly women) to have to leave their homes because they were getting threatening phone calls and swatted by the police. Baldwin came up with “Gamergate.” For those who truly believe in ethics in game journalism, they’re going to have to start a new movement. GG will always be associated with abuse.
- Etveck
  
  There was shady shit happening all over the place, like ads for games showing up on the same page it is being reviewed on, journalists being required to score games at a certain levels at least. There are people who were part of Gamergate that cared about these things and never harassed people (unless notifying advertisers of how horrible Gawker is as harassment)
  
  And after complaining about these things most media sites banding together and proclaiming that Gamers were dead was a clear sign of that sort of thing
  
  But people don’t seem to want to admit that it was a problem and that these people existed.
  These are the people that have said “I care about this” and were told in response “No you don’t you just hate women”
  I’m glad to see that you aren’t so closed minded that you can accept those things. The internet needs more people like you.
- LordofBlackulas
  
  Perhaps, PERHAPS, that’s what it was for that individual you where talking to, but that’s not what it was for most other people. Those for & against the “Gamergate community”. The supposed fringe group used campaigns of illegal & immoral behavior to harass people (primarily women). Those tactics soured the whole enterprise to such an extent that the few people actually talking about journalistic ethics had to actively distance themselves from that community.
  
  Also, if it really was about “Ethics in Games Journalism” then why was it fueled by an event that had nothing to do with that?
  - Olivier Faure
    
    As I understand it, the Event was that one reporter (whose gender I shall not mention) had sex with a developer (whose gender I shall not mention either). Which is always touchy because you can’t have the reviewers getting personally close to the reviewed without some bias creeping in (… this horrible pun was not intended).
    
    You can argue that GG supporters do not care about bias and simply wanted an excuse to hate women or whatever, but the Event still had *something* to do with journalism ethics.
    
    Also, to be honest, I don’t like “you don’t care about X, you care about Y” accusations, because you can prove anything with them. See this for more details: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/30/fetal-attraction-abortion-and-the-principle-of-charity/
- Alan Jenkins
  
  No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy
  
  It was literally founded as a vengeful harassment campaign.
  
  Ethics in journalism was added later, on grounds which were false. The name came even later, yes. Coined by a man who describes it in terms of a political movement, against political correctness. One way to describe it, certainly.
  
  That’s fact, on public record. You can verify it yourself, if that sounds fun.[1] Or, have a look at the sort of secondary sources Wikipedia cites. I honestly think you’ll struggle to find any mainstream media taking GamerGate’s side.[2]
  
  Part two to follow.
  
  [1] W.r.t the christening tweets specifically, I believe they’re now deleted. That’s what people have screenshots for, they’re not hard to find. I’ve not heard any particular controversy (manufactured or otherwise) about what the content of those tweets was. I’m guess he’d have some explanation for the deletion, and why they’re not shown in the article he wrote to celebrate the term’s first anniversary.
  
  [2] I think Fox News maybe ran with it a little while… honestly let me
  know if that coverage is what you find, I’d be interested, though I
  might not be able to view official video (yarr).
- Insanenoodlyguy
  
  The thing was, in this case the people who actually wanted to talk about ethics in gaming journalism (and that is a discussion that could have been worth having) WERE the fringe.
- Lostman
  
  Axon bud, why did you defend GamerGate here. Most everyone who reads this comic hate’s the group with a passion.
ApostateltsopA

Ack,
That can’t be the first thing I see in the comments, I almost split a rib.

AustinC123

So many dynamorphs are ‘humanoid but a lot of one particular animal in there too.’ What are the odds?
seriously what are the odds we have no idea how this works

Skylar Green

If you go back far enough on the evolutionary table, there are most likely genetic antecedents to anything. Maybe… dynamorphic attunement to a particular species’ DNA matrix,

So of course I say that like it could mean anything.

Lysiuj

“It’s not about that! This party isn’t about any complex and troubling issues, it’s about everyone having a good time and being happy and it’s going to last for ever!”

a person

I want to see more of the guy in panel four.

Francisco

I’m curious about something. The speaker uses the term “GP”. Whilst that term is used here, in the UK, and in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the Americans and Canadians I know online are often confused by that term. Furthermore, I get the impression that the term “family doctor” is used in the Americas (from NPR, CBC and personal contacts). Is the term used over there?

Huttj509

I’m in the US, and I grew up in the US these last 30 years.

I know “GP” as General Practitioner, as opposed to a medical specialist.
Skylar Green

I’m guessing “family doctor” gives the impression of some sort of long-term, personal connection with a particular doctor or doctor’s office. Whereas “general practitioner” by itself just refers to the kind of “Let’s have a look at you” sort of doctor because you don’t go to the emergency room, or because you need a referral to a specialist.

You can be a family doctor without being a general practitioner, you can be a general practitioner without being anyone’s family doctor, but overlap is possible.
Tylikcat

They all get used. GP (and PCP) might get used in insurance and clinical contexts more often – it’s hard for me to say, I hang out with too many clinicians. And there are probably regional differences. I’ve probably been using GP most, recently, though I’m a terrible test case.

Dogwood

Catguy is a Legend of Zelda fan, apparently.

bryan rasmussen

Max is back (off-panel, ready to reveal his superpower!)

Pythia

Please be Patrick please be Patrick please be Patrick…

Lostman

So this has been really becoming a long day/night for Alison,

Eternal

A dog-guy talking about being a son of a bitch… I almost missed the joke 🙂

Lostman

Yes, and let’s not forget the crazy woman running around slashing people throats. GG in this world would be a small war.

Olivier Faure

I feel like the (overlapping) r/rational and slatestarcodex communities are a great safe place to go if what you need is calm debate among sane people who internalize “people who disagree with me are still people” and “sometimes I’m wrong, so maybe I shouldn’t insult everyone with a different opinion”.

Many slatestarcodex articles helped me notice and formulate things that frustrated me in how other people debate (how I used to debate too). “In favor of niceness, community and civilization” being my favorite.

Olivier Faure

Are you implying that logic alone should not be the basis of argument everywhere? Because it kind of should.

I agree that when people tell you they feel hurt or oppressed, you should listen to them. I wouldn’t limit this to “women, black people or disabled people”, because you should listen to hurt/oppressed white upper class people too, but whatever.

On the other hand, I think this only applies to a personal kind of listening. When someone tells you, in private or publicly on the internet, that they have been oppressed, you shut up and listen. Even if you don’t believe them, you still listen and assume they’re telling the truth, because people who feel hurt need help and insulting oppressed people is horrible and this is not a gamble you want to make. This doesn’t mean you should believe them, especially if believing them has political consequences.

It’s like rape accusations. If someone comes to you and tells you they have been raped, you never, never call them a liar, because doing so is incredibly hurtful if you’re wrong. That does not mean we should assume all rape accusations are true, whether in a tribunal or when listening to internet politics. Because if you do make this assumptions, then rape accusations become a weapon for the popular against the unpopular. They can get rid of someone they don’t like by saying “He/She raped me”.

I think these “But he’s only saying that because he’s sexist/racist/privileged” weapons are dangerous because if you make them, they *will* be used by popular people to mark someone as part of the outgroup, and no-one wants to defend the outgroup and be associated with them in the process. This is the mechanism of oppression.

Lostman

How old is your brother?

Tylikcat

Thirty-four. And the the balance has shifted that much more towards “Oh, well, sometimes you just have to let go,” even since I wrote the above.

Lostman

Ok, That brings up more questions… like what the heck is your job? but putting that aside, you do realize one of the things of being rational is that you do have to realize other people don’t care for reason. Mostly any reason you put forth: no matter if it’s true or not.

Random832

It’s even more complicated here by the fact that it’s impossible to find unbiased information even about what A and B have done after the breakup. And “get other people to stalk and harass B” sounds to my ear like it relies more on people’s interpretation of what A should have or even could have done to stop third parties from acting rather than any actual evidence that they instigated anything.

(Though, the idea that someone who started as a real victim of abuse can’t turn awful especially if their only supporters are toxic, or an abuser can’t keep it together and look good for an audience, seems like a bit of a just-world fallacy. If it were true abusers would be a lot easier to spot.)

I was genuinely surprised, for example, at the revelation that Gjoni’s original post didn’t actually accuse her of the “sex for good reviews” thing that somehow got attached to the story early on. Very few people on _either_ side seem aware of that at all (and of course, it completely wrecks the “ethics in gaming journalism” angle.). I don’t know if it came from him or someone else, but it wasn’t in the post that started the whole thing.

Random832

This is the problem with bias in different accounts of events. I have heard (from pro-GG people) that he *did* provide evidence, that there are facebook screenshots and chat logs of e.g. her emotionally blackmailing him about spending time with a female friend, and I have not seen evidence that he was directly involved in encouraging anyone to any death threats or doxxing. Maybe the former is lies – I will concede I haven’t seen any of it myself. Maybe the latter is out there and I just haven’t seen it (I also hadn’t seen it *claimed* until you said it just now). It’s much harder than you’re making it sound to sort things out, especially years down the line.

And the only difference between truth and slander is the facts, so calling anything either of them claimed about the other slander is a circular argument. And the argument that “even if it is true it’s nobody’s business” that I’ve also seen falls down if any of the behavior being discussed is abusive.

Akiva

Gjioni gave a very damning interview last spring with Boston Magazine in which he gleefully confesses that he constructed and deployed the post with the intent of getting other people to attack his ex. When it didn’t gain traction in the community he initially posted it in, he reposted it where he knew 4chan would pick it up.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/04/28/gamergate/
”
By August 16, Gjoni had assembled his semantic pipe bomb. He first planted it on two video-game sites, Penny Arcade and SomethingAwful, and it quickly found its way to a third, 4chan, whose online communities had a history of harassing women gamers. But moderators at the first two sites deleted it almost immediately. Gjoni had anticipated that might happen, so he moved to Plan B: He posted it himself, on a WordPress blog. Gjoni visited his friend Rachel Martin, a freelance designer, and sat at the edge of her bed as she proofread it one last time to make sure that “The Zoe Post”—which was packed with Quinn’s personal information—didn’t violate the website’s terms of service. At 12:42 a.m., on August 16, Gjoni clicked “publish.”

For the next several hours, he sat enrapt by the glowing screen before him, watching the bedlam he’d created explode and explode and explode.
”

It also goes into the multiple restraining orders against him, and the multiple restraining order violations that ensued. That would be very atypical for a victim of abuse, but it’s extremely typical of abusers.

None of this is proof, but it’s certainly a lot of evidence against him.
- Random832
  
  It’s seriously unclear to me how much of that article is based on stuff he actually said and how much is other people’s interpretations of his actions. It seems very light on actual quotes from him, and mixes it with information that it says is based on Quinn’s affidavit and editorializing from unclear sources.
  
  As for the restraining order, AIUI the restraining order was of a form that had previously been found unconstitutional in other cases, and it was withdrawn in order to prevent it from being challenged in court. I suppose what you’re saying is that if an abuser manages to get a restraining order it’s typical for a victim to simply meekly go along with it rather than challenging it in any way?

Olivier Faure

I’m aware if didn’t happen, and I feel that it didn’t matter in the context of the post I was answering to.

I don’t especially support Gamergate, and I really don’t want to get caught in a “you’re either with us or against us” dynamic. My point was, LordofBlackulas argued that GG was sparked by an event which obviously had nothing to do with journalistic ethics. Which I disagree with. It was related to journalistic ethics, since there was a significant number of people who believed that an ethical breach had occurred. Because these people turned out to be wrong doesn’t mean they were all evil / seeking to oppress women (though you could argue that they would have reacted differently if the same accusation had been levied against a man in the same context).

Again, I’m not saying anything about the moral character of Gamergate, I’m pointing out that many people argue very poorly against it. You can write a paper against creationism, if your paper is filled with insults and has little proof in it, it’s still unscientific and you should be criticized for writing it.

The Articulator

I wholeheartedly agree, but only on the condition that there is an imperative in there to actually do the critical viewing or taking of other arguments.

The Articulator

You do realize that the question that provoked Arkone’s response was directly asking about why people disliked them, and didn’t actually ask for anything about games journalism, right?

Yes, GG was about ethics in Gaming Journalism. Honestly, yes, people hated those three long before GG, and not only for GJ-ethics-related reasons. However, here are some such reasons.

Anita Sarkeesian – acted as a gaming journalist while grossly misrepresenting games and overall metrics.

Zoe Quinn – gained positive critical reviews on a popularly panned game, complained and cried foul about it. Note that gaming journalism, in this case, is mostly game reviews, so this is pretty topical.

Brianna Wu – Faked harassment to (further) discredit GG. Kind of meta, here, but I think it’s still a reasonable connection to the movement.

Disclaimer – I personally have strong dislike for Anita for a large variety of reasons, including all of the above, plus her disastrous kickstarter forays, but care little for the other two. I am summarizing, but am doing so in good faith. If you have strong evidence against anything I have said, I would welcome it. This post does not constitute approval or condonement of GG-harassment of the individuals discussed.

Debbie Jackson

Not really my point.

I saw plenty of people speak out, a few to begin with and more and more over time as the movement continued and members refused to be the shield for the misogynists and harassers who had used it in such a fashion. When the ball really got rolling, as with your example, there were some amazing remunerations and donations as a result. I don’t dispute the fact that *some* Gamergate members worked very hard to disassociate their movement from the poisonous aspects within it and to weed them out where possible.

But I also saw – and personally know – plenty of Gamergate members who refused to speak out against the poison in their own midst, despite being asked to by close friends, despite being adamant that they wanted no part of that sort of behaviour and defending the movement to the hilt in every other situation. Gaters who refused to condemn those members who *had* been doxxing and harassing, even when these activities came to direct light, because they took the very insinuation that these things were going on as subversive and instead started to question the motives of those people who were trying to get them on-side to reject the hateful comments from the fringe and make the movement what it deserved to be. Because to them the growth and momentum of Gamergate were more important than cutting out the withered parts so that it grew correctly. They placed a higher value on the movement’s weight than on its validity, and shut down the voices calling for change.

Personally I think this was entirely the wrong choice. Even aside from the lives harmed in the process.. when you’re trying to call out bad ethics you have got to be solid about your own ethical foundations.

Olivier Faure

I’m not sure what are the exact events you mention, and I guess you probably witnessed different events in different contexts which may be very far from my expectations, so I apologize in advance for any wrong assumption I’m going to make.

With that in mind, I think you’re being subtly unfair here. I think the point you made was “These people associate with bad guys: misogynists and harassers. Maybe they think they have good intentions, but the fact that they associate with bad guys mean they’re part of something corrupt. The clear solution here, is for the good people to distance themselves from the bad guys, and publicly denounce their harassment and misogyny as unacceptable. I haven’t seen that happen. And even when I have seen people of that group condemn the bad guys among them, it was always in passing or in very moderate terms, instead of the uncompromising rejection of their harmful behaviour it ought to be.”

I think that kind of reasoning makes sense, but has two flaws. First off, if you hear news about a movement through the lens of group that is opposed to that movement, you’re not likely to hear about the positive things about that movement, and that includes public declarations about Misoginy and Harassment Being Bad and how the movement Only Supports Ethical Things. If you hear about them, it will probably be through headlines like “Evil misogynist group finally admits that it’s full of harassers!”, not “It turns out they don’t condone harassment after all! Maybe we should go easier on them?”.

Which is part of the second, bigger problem. Apologizing for actions of a group’s members has political costs. If you keep saying that yes, there are bad guys in your group and no, you don’t condone their actions and they’re not representative of the group’s view, and repeat that as loud as you can whenever someone asks you “But don’t you realize there are bad guys in your group?”, the only thing previously-neutral people will remember about you is that you’re the guys who keep apologizing for harassers and misogynists in your group (which is more or less what happened here).

It’s a political problem, but it doesn’t even needs malicious people to happen. If you have a lot of people who heard about a group through harassment, they’re going to expect the group to address the harassment problem, and become suspicious if the group answers “Look, we already talked about it, stop bringing it up”. Symmetrically, if the group keeps getting accused of harassment and because of that newcomers are systematically biased against the group, they’re going to want to avoid the subject and talk about their more positive aspects.

I’m not sure any of what I said made sense to you. I hope you understand I’m trying to describe a pattern that does exist, not argue for or against GG as a movement. I personally think that GG wouldn’t be as unpopular if people were better at thinking through political issues, but I don’t really care about GG as a group. I’m mostly disturbed by people not being good at thinking through political issues. Please let me know if what I said made sense.

Akiva

http://img.pandawhale.com/post-38538-Friday-Ice-Cube-damn-gif-wtf-f-rjyQ.gif

You can’t tone police a slur….

“You’re too angry and emotional” is tone policing. “I understand that you’re angry, but it’s still unacceptable to call someone a b**ch and a wh**e” is definitely not tone policing.

For that matter, if someone has to get a restraining order against you, that isn’t tone policing either.

The Articulator

I think that we disagree on what constitutes journalism, and I don’t expect to be able to convince you. Unless you’d strongly like to continue this with the intent to change my mind, we probably won’t make any headway from here.

Random832

You’re backpedaling. You said that he didn’t provide evidence, now you’re saying that the evidence somehow not good enough because it came from him (he’s certainly not a “non GG source”)? What evidence *am* I supposed to believe? Especially since anyone who repeats any claims that Quinn did anything bad is *by definition* a “GG source”.

And he did not *first* post it on 4chan, they picked it up after he had posted it on, IIRC it was a wordpress blog?

Random832

Yes but “there’s no evidence that can’t be tracked back to him” is *categorically* not the same thing as “he didn’t provide evidence”.

Random832

(can’t edit my previous post because I didn’t reply on the discussion page and you can’t edit from the alerts window)

Do you really want to make the argument that abusers should get away with everything as long as they take the minimal amount of care not to get any of their abuse notarized?

“And you know what, that doesn’t even matter. Because even if his
claims were completely true it still wouldn’t justify what GG did.”
*nothing* would justify what the more extreme elements of GG did. Are you then saying that *nothing* matters?

Mechwarrior

Okay, tired of your disingenuous defense of an abuser now.

MarvalAlice

I find it interesting that you didn’t give an example in which both parties are abusive. I only bring it up because this is more common then one would think.

Olivier Faure

Yeah, but strictly applying that principle means distrusting every single argument you ever hear. In practice, when people think “I should be more wary of good-sounding arguments for bad causes” what they end up doing is stick to their biases and assume that people who disagree with them are liars (see also: this entire thread).

My personal bias would be something like “Be wary of people who accuse their opponents of being liars, except maybe they do so in a really dispassionate and non-aggressive way.”