My Thoughts On GamerGate, Christina Moff Sommers & Anita Sarkeesian

I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to put a trigger warning here because this post deals with the infamous Anita Sarkeesian, and I am going to be defending her work on several points. So if you’re offended by what I have to say about the Tropes vs Women videos I suggest you get out of here now. 

With that aside lets get down to business.

I’ve been reading up a lot on the GamerGate scandal which is crawling across the internet. As a person with many feminist opinions on the world and popular culture, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing how many threats are sent to women online just because they spoke their minds on things. 

And furthermore, I am a gamer.  I love PC games in particular and have played hundreds of games in the 24 years I’ve been on this planet.

I also hang out with many video game fans, with whom I do not share the same opinions, but are always up for a debate. And yesterday, one of my friends liked this video posted by conservative feminist (two words I don’t think belong in the same sentence) Christina Hoff Sommers.  I gave the video a watch and came away liking several points raised, but have to say I disagree with Sommers’s attack on Sarkeesian and her ilk. 

Here’s the video:

Now what’s wrong with that argument?

1.      ‘Cherry picking’ in other words, they are finding the flaws and pointing out what is wrong with the games. No games are perfect, but these critics are doing what most journalists would do when they review pieces of art. People criticise sexist, racist, homophobic connotations in film, TV and Books every day – the same way as the critics here are talking about the games. And that doesn’t automatically mean the game falls into those categories, it’s always open to commentary.

2.      By passing them all off as ‘hipsters with culture degrees’ really says a lot about you ‘Sommers’. If you’re just going by someone’s appearance then that really shows how deep and researched your findings are. Plus, are you damning cultural studies? Are you saying social sciences like African American Studies or Native American Studies are irrelevant or narrow? Also, not everyone here has a ‘cultures degree’, all you have to do is go to Sarkeesian’s website and see she has a masters degree in Social and Political Thought. (I’ll jump in here as well and mention that I have a degree in political sciences which majored in Gender Studies and Political theory in my final year – and I listen to tons of Heavy Metal and Independent Rock music and have a beard – does that make me a hipster when I criticise you Sommers?)

3.      ‘They all want the male gamer DEAD!?’ Wow Christine. Words do almost fail me here. Let me just compare the criticisms of gaming tropes to the ongoing threats of rape, murder and torture; which even led to someone creating a game where you could beat Sarkeesian up. Nowhere in any of the videos and blog posts do Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn wish death upon anyone. And let me remind you Sommers, that feminism is about gender equality – how do you gain that when you wish hate and death against a particular part of the gender spectrum? Plus, the video does not even mention, that 41% of the US gaming community alone is now female. You’re pretty much saying, ‘gaming belongs to men, it always has and it always should’. Yet you say it’s becoming more inclusive. The latter point of your contradiction there pretty much gives all the more reason to bring feminism to the gaming world. And as you say, the idea of a gamer being a teenage boy in his basement is gone, therefore people of all walks of life now take part in gaming and everything that comes with it. An ideology that brings equal recognition and respect for all now seems all the more relevant – which is what these critics are trying to bring to us. But frankly Sommers, you are a conservative masquerading as a feminist who is populating the political myth that all feminism is anti-men. I would have thought someone of your calibre would know of the many feminist schools of thought and how they differ on topics, the same way as other ideologies, ie: Anarchism, Socialism, Conservatism, Liberalism, etc.

4.      And finally, yes there have been many well planned and thought provoking criticisms of Sarkeesian et al. but dismissing the jaw dropping number of rape threats, which recently reached a level where Sarkeesian was forced out of her home, as natural behaviour; I cannot fathom how you can call yourself a ‘philosopher’. What you’re saying there can easily amount to ‘victim blaming’ and you are enforcing a bigoted and infantile image of the gaming community which does not fit everyone who has picked up a controller in their life. Hell, even the friend who liked this video is no troll – I even recall him telling me how playing Call of Duty online was such a bad experience because of the number of trolls who only use the game as a forum for exchanging insults. What these gender critics are offering are not demonising diatribes against the games covered in their videos/posts etc. but they represent  a school of thought which should be employed to discuss video gaming. As you said Sommers, video games are now a part of society and should be treated as equally as film, TV and literature. I bet you in the fairly near future, you will have video game narratives analysed from as many schools of thought you find in an English Literature degree course.

5.      And finally, yes Sommers I do agree with you that games do not make people more misogynistic, homophobic or racist. I’ve been defending video games for the best part of my life and the videos and posts covered here will not stop me from gaming. But I think it is unfair to say that gender critics of gaming are expressing the same opinions as your conservative parental advisory comrades have done in the past. What is being covered in the videos are tropes of popular culture. Clichés which make stories boring. Have you even noted that the majority of the games covered by Sarkeesian follow a linear narrative akin to a film, TV show, etc. Video gaming is best summed up as ‘interactive storytelling’, though not all kinds of games are being covered in these videos. I can safely say, that in a lot of games you can pick how the narrative pans out, but because of the logistics of a game, your pathways are limited. This might be why a lot of the games I play fall into the RTS genre, because you can tell as many stories as you like using as much of your imagination because you aren’t always faced with an immediate cast of characters – characters who populate said tropes. Storytelling being bad is what I think the feminist frequency series is talking about more than anything.

 Is there any middle-ground in this GamerGate malarkey?

 While I do like the debate and concern raised by Sarkeesian, I don’t see her as the face of 21^stcentury feminism, nor of feminism on the internet.

I’ve been tracking down as many feminist criticisms of her work and I think the best place to go for this is The Learned Fangirl. It’s a pop culture and video games blog run by Kristin Bezio, a feminist video gamer and academic, who by a long shot offers the best criticisms of the Tropes vs. Women videos. If you want to go somewhere that discusses all this without being trolled by MRAs then try The Learned Fangirl.

One thing I really hate about Sarkeesian’s videos is their tendency to act like a ‘laundry list’ that can sometimes become monotonous in saying ‘this game is bad, this character is awful, etc.’, and I do doubt a lot of the sources used in researching the videos. 

  

How bad is GamerGate proving for Video Game journalism?

What worries me the most about these ‘gamers’ attacking video game critics, is that it will turn away young and enthusiastic people from entering the world of video game journalism – especially young women. 

From my experiences on YouTube, it now appears that the favoured medium of reviewing a game is a Let’s Play video. This is good and I see it as another step on the road to interaction between media and fans which could create a people’s run community that recommends new material. But, if you’re constantly under attack from infantile anti-equality slacktivists who don’t like change, then I’m very angry if this creates a feeling of dread in young online journalists who feel anxious to publish their opinions on a game.

And how do we know such feelings will cross over from the video game world into other worlds of online journalism, like music. As a music journalist, I’ll be very very pissed off if what I’ve just suggested comes into the world of Metal or Punk or any kind of music for that matter.

GamerGate is reinforcing an idea that gamers are whiny little snot-noses with nothing better to do than be as obnoxious as possible. And I will add that I sometimes get that impression from a few of Sarkeesian’s videos. But GamerGate is, above all, the prime example of why we need gender equality on the internet and in the gaming world. And Sommers, a self proclaimed ‘philosopher’ just had to step in the bullshit and feed the trolls with the impression that they are smart.

So why do I watch Sarkeesian’s videos?

Above all other things, I watch the Feminist Frequency videos because they are tackling clichés which amount to bad storytelling. 

I view myself as a learned man and would like to be seen as a representative of his age. And that age is one where tropes such as the Damsel in Distress, The Manic Dream Pixie Girl, The Straw Feminist, Women in Refrigerators and GratuitousViolence and Sex masquerading as satire; are not commonplace.

I feel Sarkeesian is that critic we needed to spark the debate on the portrayal of women in popular culture. And whether or not you agree with her, she has got us all talking about video games in a way that not all of us did before the videos were made.

And I’ll leave it here saying: if you disagree with her on every level, that’s fine. Please make your argument known and use as much information you can to back it up. But resorting to threats of violence, rape, torture, bombing or plain rudeness is completely and utterly bogus. I don’t want the gaming world seen as evil and childish and I bet you don’t either. That is why online harassment is not OK in the slightest and it will never have my support.

 

Punk Problems

Greetings. I know it's been a long whilse since my last post but my studying has taken over most of my time to rant about the world and the idiocies of people accepted as everyday life. But for the moment I am back in the green and unpleasant land that is home and here is the latest from within.

I recently got into an argument with a friend about the attitude carried by Punk Rock music. It came after another friend posted a picture on facebook depciting a severely disfigured war veteran and his new bride. This friend showed his apatheticness towards the welfare this picture was depicting, stated the world and its problems can fuck off and "i'm off to listen to some punk music."

First of all, that statement is both null and void due to how many areas of music and their topics fall under the concept of "Punk." If Punk is nothing more than all out nihilism and simply yelling "fuck everything" over a power chord then you've got the dismal racket that is the Sex Pistols et al. First wave Punk was not overtly political until The Clash released their first single "White Riot" concerning police brutality and racial stereotyping on the streets of London. Then came the secondary waves of Punk music with American bands such as the Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion and the father figures of Hardcore, Black Flag.

What makes the point made by my friend null and void is that he obviously doesn't pay attention to the topics covered by Punk music, or his taste in Punk is not as wide and diverse as his love for Thrash Metal. (Note: thrash metal was influenced heavily by punk music-particularly the hardcore punk of america and the street punk of the UK.) Which does sadden me a great deal as music is meant to inform as well as entertain.

The point of this posting is to remind people of the numerous kinds of music that fall under punk music and what topics they concern-not all punk is about studs, spikes and sniffing glue. One excellent example of overtly political punk music and the concern for the suffering of society is the band Conflict. And here is their concern for those affected by war and militarism with: "The Serenade is Dead" a classic Anarcho Punk track.

As well as those promoting Anarchism, there is Crust Punk, a music genre which fuses early extreme metal with the loud, snotty growls of Hardcore/Street Punk:

Thrashcore: an early form of thrash metal music which is characterised for its minature songs with early blast beat drumming and metallic power chords-very popular amongst skateboarders before skating became a mainstream pasttime:

D-Beat, very simple stripped down three chord blasts with minimal vocals and a very basic but frightening drum technique which got its name from the band Discharge, who took a great deal of influence from Motorhead:

And finally: Street Punk, punk music concerning the working classes of society and the everyday suffering they have such as living on the dole, drinking, drugs, poverty, degredation, prostitution, homelessness and other social problems.

Why It Sucks: Globalization.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin.
 
I've just finished answering several study questions for my Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice module and the contents of the article I studied has rekindled the anti-neoliberal/anti-gloablisation fire in the depths of my heart. Since I realised how society in this country and others in Europe are being roped into American style profiteering I've argued against the enslavement that is Economic Globalisation.

Firstly, before you shout out about how I am using a globalised medium to rant at you all about big business and the rise in national populism - a few definitions. I am all for "Information Globalisation" which entails the use of unregulated information sharing such as the internet. I have proposed in the past that the internet could replace governments and maintain some form of peace as it is the ideal representation of our rights to free speech and to our freedoms of information access and self expression. What I don't do is "Economic Globalisation." You can probably guess what that entails. A Starbucks on every corner, a McDonalds at every service station around the globe and the whole freaking world babbling American style english. A world devoid of individualism. A world of mass confomity. A world where its leaders aim is to turn it into one endless shopping mall with unlimited retail outlets and ongoing manic investments from coast to coast.

I am no nationalist, though I am a historian, and through studying history I am aware of the characteristics of numerous communities and regional values. These, such as the Pagan festivals of Eastern Europe and the miniscule languages of regions such as Breton and Catalonia - are the most vulnerable. So many innocent people around the globe - particularly Europe, feel ashamed in the decline of their native tongues due to how heavily English has been imposed upon them by the prducts they have to buy or the technology they must now conform to.

Having to keep with the trends and be accepted into social circles by the clothes you wear, the car you drive or the way you speak is even part of globalisation. Festivities such as Christmas have even been hijacked by the companies to seek profit and promote religious obediance - packaged as a free gift - in a lifestyle which only few percentages of our planet's population can support. These are the reasons why I don't own a car, an IPod nor buy clothes from designers or high street brands because I do not wish to sacrifice my individuality and just see myself as another cog in the wheel.

Even education suffers from globalisation's venemous influence over our communities. Exam questions tend to be tailored to a medium which the average joe can get right just so they can do all the paperwork for the owners in exchange for a meagre bonus on the payroll each year. As profit is all that the owners seek in this globalised world, they'll soon be coming for your pensions and bonuses as well as your social security money. The unbelievable acts of leaders such as Thatcher and Reagan are to blame for the decline of the Welfare State and the fear of nationalised industries such as the NHS. Private Schools are now being tailoered to produce the social elite who handle the money and keep the plebs down via influence over the police forces so they can protect their investments and savings.

Though the worst thing about globalisation is this. As the Multinational Corporations now have the power to close the workplaces in certain nations and them move them to the developed world or the third world, a division of labour is created which must emigrate beyond their home borders to seek a living. It is because of this that immigration has increased to the Western Superpowers and to Europe and Asia for the last 50 years. Because of how some communities see this as a threat to their values and ways of life you see the increase in far right organisations who wish to restrict immigration and create xenophobia. It's no surprise to me if most leaders tend to encourage xenophobia to decrese the overpopulation of nation states such as the immigration policies of most US states.

I know that I am a product of the immigration system and will not stand to see a world where nationalism prevails and hatred arises. Xenophobia is not the alternative to globalisation - globalisation has encouraged such attitudes. In a world where conformity is rife for a human to feel safe, I certainly don't feel that my civil liberties are being preserved or defended by those whose duties it is to look after. Nowadays all anyone wants is to be the owner's bitch just so they can get a pay rise and strive to achieve the non existant honour that is the American Dream.