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#GamerGate: Real life is not a video game

The so-called culture wars began in the US in 1990, when left/right fissures that first appeared during the 1960s grew even wider, and opponents clashed passionately over hot-button issues like feminism, abortion, gay rights and pornography.

Thanks to their near monopoly on media and education -- and their strategy of fighting using vocal, unified "group identity" battalions armed with the cudgel of "political correctness" -- progressives tended to win these battles, imposing their views and vocabulary on the rest of society.

For the less informed among us, our first visceral experience with this long march of leftist cultural authoritarianism began with the assault on video games -- depicted by many gamers as the last bastion of freedom -- by gender feminists, social justice warriors, and the other shock troops of identity politics.

This supposed "battle of the century" has been taken up by the supporters of GamerGate, who don’t "fight on the beaches" and "in the streets," but on internet forums and Twitter. GamerGate started as a movement concerned with ethics in game journalism, before culminating more generally in a debate over video game censorship in the name of "political correctness."

For those for whom GamerGate has been their first exposure to censorship, Annabel Patterson's 1984 book Censorship and Interpretation helpfully provides one historical example of censorship after another. She hopes an examination of these examples "might fit into a much larger investigation, not only of censorship throughout Europe in the early modern period, but also of the cultural impact of censorship since then, in Eastern Europe, for example, or Latin America."

Look, I’ll save you the history lesson and fast forward to the Misty Poets of the 20th Century whose censure culminated in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Looking to more recent events, there’s the censorship of cartoonists from depicting the Prophet Muhammad, or the lack of liberal concern for the proposed censorship of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

In short, cultural authoritarianism and the various issues involving censorship have been around for centuries. This is nothing new, and gamers certainly aren’t either novel or even particularly noble warriors of freedom, especially when they fail to defend "freedom" in other areas of society.

For example, true freedom fighters would defend feminist Anita Sarkeesian’s right to criticise video games within democratic discourse, not attack her ad hominem. To add to the galling hypocrisy, supporters of GamerGate often evoke Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, "First they came..." They seem oblivious to the fact that comparing a controversy about video game content with Nazi Gleichschaltung is beyond ignorant, certainly melodramatic, and possibly stupid.

In touting the world historical importance of their anti-censorship battle, gamers point to their own sheer numbers. In a column for Forbes, John Zogby cited an analytics poll that showed "the great significance that video games play in the lives of young people." This is an attitude echoed by Nick Shore in an article published in the Harvard Business Review, called "Millennials Are Playing With You." (The term, Millennial, being used as a categorical term for those roughly between the ages of eighteen to thirty-four.) In that piece, Shore cites a 2011 study where half of Millennials said, “People my age see real life as a video game.”

Looking at these statistics, I wouldn’t be wrong in assuming the majority of video gamers are Millennials, which isn’t surprising given their position as "the largest population demographic in the U.S." Additionally, Verizon’s 2014 report on Millennials & Entertainment shows, "More than half of Millennials are either regular or avid gamers, compared to less than a third of non-Millennials."

Millennials are often accused of having a deep disconnection with history, literature, and essentially anything that doesn’t reflect a 21st century cultural trend. And when it comes to the Millennial supporters of GamerGate, I can see why.

Arguably, Millennials are a generation informed by "The Harlem Shake," "Gangnam Style" and the narcissism of reality television. In these circumstances, I often recall the vignette of an English professor tasked with the job of teaching Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In that classroom, the ninth graders were less terrified of his imagined dystopia, and more impressed with the idea of eugenics, and the ease of education via hypnopaedic processes.

Sometimes, I feel like video gamers have taken this Millennial attitude to the other end of the spectrum in the form of GamerGate, myopically seeing themselves as the only hope for humanity. These supporters really do perceive “real life as a video game,” complete with an imagined evil that needs to be overcome -- in their case, this evil manifesting currently as the "Feminazi."

Of course, supporters of GamerGate continuously comparing gender feminism to the people who built Auschwitz doesn’t help dilute this image. In fact, I’d always assumed that particular comparison was a staple of nonsensical, leftist thinking – perhaps I was wrong.

http://www.therebel.media/_gamergate_real_life_is_not_a_video_game/
* Many Embedded Links *

Gamergate (and its aftermath) has brought a lot of people over to the right.

I see their comments on breitbart and on technology articles discussing their experience.

3rd wave feminists have achieved an incredible level of social power, while also becoming a bit insane - so its impossible to have a rational discussion with many of today's young feminists. (I say this as someone who *strongly* agrees with "feminism" as defined by webster's dictionary).

Many people, especially many gamers, have watched this unfold and they found that the ONLY journalists who treated the topic reasonably were conservative journalists. Leftists journalists were fully immersed in groupthink.

Inevitably, large numbers of young intelligent ex-liberals came to understand how leftist groupthink operates, and how harmful it is; and they became more sympathetic to conservative viewpoints, conservative journalists, websites, etc.

3rd wave feminists have achieved an incredible level of social power, while also becoming a bit insane - so its impossible to have a rational discussion with many of today's young feminists.


It is insanity. It is embarrassing.
Personally, I think it is a disgrace,
(& offensive) to all the previous generations & it actually defeats the purpose with extremism.

After Gamergate, female video game developers on the rise
By: NATALIE POMPILIO (AP)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Students from an all-female arts college in Philadelphia attended a conference for video game developers last year and, without even trying, they stood out.

"We were basically the only girls in the room," recalled Lindsey O'Brien, 21, a rising senior at Philadelphia's Moore College of Art & Design.

The male-dominated video game industry is changing as more women develop games, play games and take jobs reviewing games. While the ongoing cyber harassment of female gamers known as "Gamergate" indicates a reluctance by some to accept the growing number of women in the industry, mainstream institutions are welcoming all to the console.

Moore's animation and gaming arts program will see its first class of game developers graduate next year. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology created its Game Lab in 2012. New York University's Tisch School began offering a video game design degree last year.

"There's going to be a huge boom of women entering the industry in the next 10 years," said Stephen Wood, Moore's gaming arts professor, who took over the fledging program when he joined the faculty in 2014. "In the '80s and '90s, video games were seen as things boys do. But in the '90s and early 2000s, girls said, 'We're going to play, too.' Now those girls are going to college and studying video games. We're helping close that gender gap and being part of the solution."

According to a 2015 survey by the International Game Developers Association, the number of female video game developers has doubled in the past seven years, from 11 percent in 2009 to about 21 percent now. About 79 percent of the survey's 2,000 respondents agreed diversity in the industry is "very" or "somewhat" important.

"Much dialogue has occurred in the past couple of years around the topic, (with) a strong majority recognizing that greater diversity on development teams . creates a stronger foundation for the team to create games that may maximize their global appeal," said Kate Edwards, executive director of the association.

Since joining Moore, Wood has seen the gaming arts program grow from eight students to about 40. He acknowledges he had some bias against female game creators until he saw his students' work.

"They create these awesome games that are no different than what you'd see in the industry today," he said. "It's a misperception that girls are making games with rainbows and unicorns. They're really not. I don't play a new game and say, 'Oh, this was designed by a woman, this was designed by a guy.'"

O'Brien learned the ins and outs of gaming from her mother, who could tear up the Atari. O'Brien started out on Sega Genesis and PlayStation systems, bonding with her older brother as they played games like "Mortal Kombat."

"I have tons of female friends who like shooter games, like 'Call of Duty,'" she said. "A lot of people who aren't part of the community are shocked when they hear that."

"Gamergate" began in 2013 when anonymous online commenters claimed a female video game developer was getting an unjust amount of attention for a new product. She was the victim of cyber harassment that then spread to other women in the industry, including Edwards, the executive director of the Game Developers Association.

Edwards said the incidents have raised important industry issues. Intel, for example, pledged $300 million in 2015 to fund a three-year effort to increase the number of under-represented groups — including women, Hispanics and African-Americans — by 14 percent.

Wood said he talks to his students about the potential for abuse. The good thing, he said, is Moore students have a tight bond and can stand together against such threats. O'Brien, too, said she expects some negative responses, but she's ready for them.

"There are some people who say girls don't know about games, that girls can't make games," O'Brien said. "I think if somebody has the skills to do the job, they should do the job."

http://bigstory.ap.org/6bea092df41e40e9af5cf7519a292428&utm_source=android_app&utm_medium=add_to_adblock_browser&utm_campaign=share/

Ugh... There is a big difference between feminism & extreme feminism. * No impending rant.. Hhhaa. Extreme is extreme *

Real simple.. If someone can do a job, they can do a job. If they can't, they can't.
However; I see a marketing issue here. Because, women will design differently than men.
* Unless you pay them not too...hhhaa*
And I don't mean, women would design less violent. But.. Less sexual and less demeaning for other women. IMO.
But. ..Demographics.. Who is the consumer? Men.


* Dramatic Music *