Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Another Bomb Threat Disrupts Another GamerGate Event

   As Cathy Young notes, when a mass shooting threat caused the cancellation of a talk by Anita Sarkeesian, the NYT deemed it front page news..."...and insinuated, with no evidence, that the threat came from someone 'allied' with the GamerGate movement." The two Gamergate events disrupted by bomb threats within a year? Not so much...
   In general, I've refuse to insert such qualifiers/assurances because I think it's absurd that liberals have to ante-up before they can say anything that might get them excommunicated...but: yes, of course I realize that online harassment is a problem, in particular for women. It's nutty that anyone would deny that--and nutty that anyone would be thought to deny it because they argue that the charges against GamerGate are largely trumped-up.  I don't actually follow the GamerGate stuff that closely, but by chance early on I happened to stumble on links to the posts by Zoe Quinn's former boyfriend about her infidelity and mistreatment of him. Now...if even half of what he wrote is true, Quinn is an asshole of cosmic proportions--a liar and a cheater who spouts SJW cant about consent and justice, but who in actual fact treats people like shit. But Quinn's execrable mistreatment of her boyfriend carried no weight with the SJW (now anti-GG) crowd... Instead, her boyfriend's agonized public comments on 4han were deemed "slut shaming." Granted, some people did apparently sieze on the she's-a-slut angle...but that was in no way the point of her bf's posts. She wasn't being "shamed," and the message wasn't that she was a "slut." At least not by her bf, and not by the majority of people commenting on his posts--the majority that I saw, anyway. She's a terrible person who cheated on and emotionally abused her former bf...and his posts were an outpouring of clear and undeniable emotional pain. But these folks have an array of little defense/anti-defense mechanisms that mean that they never have to admit error...though if those with whom they disagree attempt to defend themselves, it shows an even more profound level of guilt...
   Compare, for example, the treatment of ZQ's bf to the treatment of the author of this piece. Quinn's bf posted an expression of his sadness to an obscure forum. "Anonymous" actually published an essay (to "Thought"Catalog, admittedly...hardly The Atlantic...) with the actual intent of spilling the beans on the guy in question. Of course the guy's an asshole, as many were quick to point out. But Quinn is apparently even worse. At least they're in the same general category. I don't recall a massive backlash against Anonymous's slut-shaming of her hero/paramour...
   Young claims that the coverage of GamerGate may have been the most profoundly one-sided journalism that she's seen in her entire career. I don't have a lot to compare it to, but there's no doubt that it's been terrible.

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