There’s plenty of history and detailed records of what GamerGate is out in the websphere for those who are unaware of what’s gone on. If you’re interested – and it comes with a warning that the whole episode displays such a huge lack of humanity that you’ll want to hide in a cave for a decade – go and look it up.
My point of view: those who rally behind the #GamerGate banner are a bunch of self entitled pricks who fail to recognise that any media can cater for a wide range of ethical and moral viewpoints without anyone having to feel excluded. The issue right now is that, broadly, gaming only really caters for one particular branch of society (two if we lump “families” into one homogeneous group) while actively excluding and refusing to address the issues resulting in the exclusion of multiple other group – notably women. This extends right through to the development of said games, with it being a woefully unbalanced industry, and those peripheral industries such as journalism that are linked to it.
Let’s be clear: the threatening of, harassment of and victimisation of any other human being, whether in person or via online channels, is entirely unacceptable to any right minded society.
Against that backdrop, then, something else has happened. It’s become less desirable to identify oneself as a gamer in case of (or unless actively seeking) association with this movement. That it’s surely a vocal and demented minority against a backdrop of hundreds of millions of gamers doesn’t limit their impact – social media has long advocated volume over rational thought, after all.
At least one person on Twitter responded to my claims that this is a golden age of gaming by saying they feel unable to talk about videogames because “gaming” (as a label) has become toxic. Against my push to just tune out the racket, to not give it oxygen, they asked if it’s right to do that – to ignore the debate, to not push back against something that seems reprehensible.
To the first point, it’s fairly easy to point to any other lump of sub-culture and find an undesirable element within it – that element existing should not, and does not typically, define the mass. It sours it, but it does not detract wholesale from it. If we become silent about that which we love, then the hate flows unabated. By celebrating gaming, advocating equality and highlighting those games that meet our ideals (as well as accepting that, occasionally, we just like to stab things without such considerations coming into play), we can affect change within the industry. There are so many examples of this having happened already, it’s impossible not to believe it. Progress is possible. To stay silent is to enable the toxicity to spread.
To the second point – is it right to do that, celebrate the good stuff, without addressing that which we disagree with? Yes. Absolutely. If we all ostracised, ignored and isolated inwardly focused individuals that are full of hate, they’d just sit in a corner quietly jibber-jabbering until they died. I do this without fail in real life – the only racists I know, after actively culling people from my social circle, are my parents. They also happen to be the only ones I can’t cull. If anyone on my social media feeds demonstrates the same feelings of bigotry, I stop following them.
Sure, they can curate other like minded individuals and all shout amongst themselves like some kind of demented and deluded KKK Online Support Group, but they’re shouting into a void. By pushing other views to other people, and challenging those who are merely wobbling rather than utterly insane, I do what good things I can.
This applies to misogyny as well. Having grown up in a reasonably violent home (not every night, but often enough for it to be a worry when my Dad had a drink at the weekend), I’m quite happy to challenge those views that would see women maligned and oppressed too. I do this at work, with friends, family and (where I think effort is well spent) online.
But you see, it takes such emotional energy and investment that it’s impossible to do this constantly and without a break – so celebrating those things we love and taking the time to remember why we’re doing what we’re doing is critical. Hatred and vitriol is easy, so easy, to run with. Calm, thoughtful debate is much harder. Guess which side is driven by which thing?
So, yes, I subscribe to tuning out the negative, muting the haters and focusing what efforts I can on the things I believe I can change. There would be no point going back in time and trying to convince the heads of Nazi Germany that the Jews were actually, you know, alright. Those people were insane and could not be reasoned with. Instead, I’d go back in time with some photos, sit on Roosevelt’s desk and then Churchill’s, and I’d say “Hey, guys, look. This is what happens if you don’t change your stance, if you don’t make a stand and you don’t push back”.
I guess, in the instance of GamerGate, those guys are the insane and videogame journalism and the dveelopment industry is Roosevelt and Churchill. GamerGate will eventually collapse under its own insanity – probably with a hand from the FBI, the way they’re going – and the industry will do some naval gazing and change its ways. Its done it before. What we can do is give them a direction by celebrating what’s good, telling them where they’re getting it right and constructively criticising where needed.
After all, someone just shouting random crap incessantly eventually becomes background noise, while the rational stands out.
