Why I am neutral instead of pro or anti GamerGate

Most of my grievances with the movement is pragmatic in nature, and something I see that has been an ongoing problem with the movement. To understand the first issue I have, you'll have to go back in time and take a look at the history of the medium and how they are seen by the mainstream media. It wasn't pretty. Video games, namely violent video games like Postal, Grand Theft Auto, etc have been trotted out as an example of how video games are "sociopathy/murder simulators" that only appeal to the most disturbed among the youth. This fueled a state of media moral panic not unlike when the films and comics medium were nascent. This eventually lead to Jack Thompson's rise and fall as a lawyer, and for a while, gave him the position to get video games banned or censored, for real. In this era, gamers were faced with the very real possibility of the death of video games as they knew it, and as an artistic medium. The tools they had to use and the operations that were involved had to be very extreme and impacting, because it was more important to send the message out that violent video games do not cause violence in gamers than it is to worry about the possible long term ramifications of their operations and the collateral damage to the culture and the games industry their operations may have inflicted. In other words, it was an all-out cultural war, it was ugly, and I am glad that the medium had won its right to exist alongside movies and comic books.

Fast-forward to today, we are seeing, what was first seen as, a small-scale scandal being blown open that concerns video games journalism, and the ethics surrounding it. You know the story. My view of it is that it is not a scandal that threatens the medium itself. As far as how much it puts video games as a medium at risk, this is limited to media charlatans and the indie game developers who feed into it to unfairly get favourable coverage. So, I don't think that the same extreme tactics used to fight off a valid threat to the medium is appropriate in this. At least not without thinking about the long-term industry and cultural ramifications of their actions if successful. I don't know what the best courses of action would be for this kind of smaller-scale scandal, but I do know that GamerGate will leave its mark on the industry, and not all of it may necessarily be good. Should the letters to advertizers stop? Certainly and absolutely not! However, this is something that I think merits ongoing discussion.

The second issue for me is GamerGate supporters' tendency to elect a certain figures within the movement who have accomplished a lot towards exposing the charlatans. This is a problem because it is a departure from the principle of GamerGate's movement being leaderless, and opens it up to possible iconoclastic tendencies. These iconoclastic tendencies come in the form of its members making apologies for certain objectionable ideologies and behaviours of said figurehead, or replying to any criticism of the figurehead's stance on certain issues or actions, pointedly to say that said figurehead does not speak for the group or that they do not necessarily agree. In reality, Gamergate supporters shouldn't have to feel that they have to defend the movement or their position against this kind of criticism, simply because criticism of said figurehead is NOT criticism of the movement. If there is any valid ties connecting what is criticized about the figurehead to the movement, it would be about GamerGate's tendency towards iconoclasm, and jumping in defense of said figurehead/movement.

Why is this important to mention? Well, it's because it's a massive time sink, and it wastes energy and space that could have gone towards discussing more important issues. It would be more productive to just acknowledge that certain supporters may have certain ideologies or have done certain things that you don't agree with or offends you. So far, I have seen so very little of this. Personally speaking, I don't think it would hurt the movement to admit that some of their own have problematic tendencies. This kind of candid honesty can, in fact, do a lot more for the movement than trying to explain away or defend the actions of the few that have acted out as not representative of the movement.

Finally, there is the issue of dogpiling. Which is what happens when someone says something that gets the attention of everyone using the GamerGate hashtag. The result is usually that they receive a flood of replies, some supportive, some respectfully disagreeing, and a noteable portion replying with rude messages. However, if said user is not already used to dealing with a lot of replies, they are going to feel attacked by it, regardless of whether the message is positive, neutral or negative. Anyone with less spoons than I are likely going to be scared off by it, and will come off with a more negative opinion towards GamerGate than they already have. I mean, I already am feeling noteably more stressed from how active my notifications are in the past few days, even though they are supportive messages from Gamergate supporters.

I don't think that GamerGate is at fault here, it is more a consequence of the medium of Twitter and how it works when you interact with a hashtag that is trending with an immense staying power. However, some consideration should be given to the person being replied to, and some reservation be exercised if a lot of people had already responded to their message. The last thing GamerGate needs is to drive away potential allies, and it would be foolish not to try to gain allies, especially when there is an opportunity to gain an ally out of a popular media personality.

So there you have it, a brief on why am neutral on supporting GamerGate instead of throwing my lot in. Do I wish for GamerGate's success? Yes, as long as it keeps on target with keeping media charlatans accountable. Would I be personally invested in fighting GamerGate's battles? No, as it is going to cloud my judgement and perspective towards Gamergate and its opponents, and I do think that GamerGate needs and benefits from having neutrals criticizing the movement, provided that it is done in good faith.