Mark Hill, #Gamergate, and Punching Down

I’m going to add to the crapheap by wading into the #gamergate controversy. I’m mostly going to focus on a particular article at Cracked* by one Mark Hill, because I think it brings up a lot of the hypocrisies of the issue.

First thing, ‘Quinngate’? I don’t know what Mark Hill is smoking, but he’s the first one I’ve read who’s even used the term Quinngate; everybody has been using gamergate. He then uses this nearly non-existent term throughout the article, each time referencing how icky the term is. He is obviously purposely using this rarely-used term to smear gamers.

Now, his first point: “#4. We’re Incapable of Mature Conversations About Gender”.

He cherry-picks some immature comments, because of course in the millions of words spilled on this he’s going to find a few jerks.

Of course, he ignores that these discussions always start with his side, with the SJW’s lobbing accusations misogyny and racism at those basement-dwelling virgins (remember, Zoe Quinn controversy started when she started attacking Wizardchan). Why do the SJW’s expect a ‘mature’ conversation when every time the ‘conversation’ starts with ‘you are all a bunch of misogynist, racist, homophobes’? (who are virgins with small dicks). But, of course, he doesn’t point out the immaturity of the SJW’s, punching down is too much fun.

His second point: “#3. Male Gamers Think They Know What the Real Problem Is”.

Here he, of course, argues that white male gamers never have any problems and their opinions don’t matter.

The problem is that guys who have never faced discrimination because of their hobby or profession really do believe that this obscure ethical non-breach is the bigger issue.

I don’t know where Mark grew up as a gamer, but it must have been a nice place. So, how about I try to teach some empathy for all the SJW’s?

Many a young nerd (those evil, evil gamers) spent (spend) most of their lives bullied and socially rejected, partially because of their hobbies. They turn to places where they can escape: gaming, science fiction, comics, etc. Of course, these hobbies were ‘nerdy’ so they were only bullied and rejected more.

Now, when these hobbies are finally gaining some small social cachet, a whole new breed of bullies, your Sarkeesians, your Quinns, etc. are entering these nerds formerly safe spaces and are bullying them again. They barge in unwanted and start hurling insults and accusations. They use their much greater social power to demand the hobbies change and for those old icky nerds to be ostracized from their own hobbies.

Then somehow these social justice bullies are surprised that the nerds don’t take too kindly to this bullying. Somehow the bullied are the bullies for fighting back?

A minority of loud, male, and probably young gamers want to dictate what the rest of the gaming community talks about, because in their minds they know what’s important and best for everyone.

That’s because this is our community, our hobby, it always has been. Males make up 80% of the core gaming community with an average age in the mid-20s. Women are a small minority trying to break into our hobby and, in the case of SJW’s, destroy it. The ‘rest of the gaming community’ is a small minority out to silence the majority and force their minority viewpoints on the rest of us who only want to enjoy gaming.

So they recognize that gamers have a problem with gender — they just can’t understand how they’re contributing to it or why anyone wants to talk about it instead of their problems.

I’d turn this around on Mark: why doesn’t he, and all the other SJW’s, realize that the majority doesn’t want to talk about their problems and just want to have some fun gaming. Why does the minority get to dominate the conversation with their moral crusades? Why aren’t the majority allowed to talk about the things that effect the majority without a bunch of whiners whining?

Luckily, there’s this thing called “empathy” that can overcome that.

Funny Mark talks of empathy while supporting the people who attack depressed, near-suicidal, male virgins and take joy in destroying careers and bullying others. How about it Mark, where’s the Empathy from the SJW’s? From you for that matter?

Point 3: “#2. Gamers Don’t Really Care About the Industry (Until Women Are Involved)”

Here Mark is both lying and mistaking cause and effect. (I’ll note I don’t pay attention to the gaming press and haven’t since my PC Gamer subscription ran out a decade ago). He’s lying in that corruption in gaming journalism has been a long standing topic, not just something that appeared because of Zoe Quinn. This article from 2013 points out that these kind of scandals have been going on since 2007 (at least).

It’s not outrage over the gaming scandal that’s unique here, what’s unique is the press’ reaction. We’ll ignore the press cover-up for now, and instead focus on how the press only takes these scandals seriously when “harassment” occurs.

It’s not that gamers only complain when it’s women, it’s that the press only cares to listen when they can use accusations of corruption to start beating the accusers with accusations of misogyny.

Also, I’d like to turn this around on Mark. How come harassment only matters when it happens to women? I remember Matt Forney and the RoK gang undergoing all kinds of harassment: death threats, doxxing, castration threats, etc., and absolutely nobody outside the manosphere even noticed or cared. Yet every time someone makes a single negative comment on a woman in a forum somewhere, it becomes a major issue.

Or a bunch of sexually frustrated…

Here we see the hypocrisy of Mark and leftists in general. He spends his whole piece prattling about empathy and maturity. then he starts insulting his opponents for being sexually frustrated. Perhaps Mark could show some of his much-vaunted empathy and maturity?

Point 4: “#1. We Will Never Learn From Past Mistakes”

It’s not a fringe issue, though, at least according to this study that claims 63 percent of female gamers have been sexually harassed at some point.

Threats, etc. are a fringe issue. Those people making death threats and the like are a tiny minority.

Everybody gets ‘harassed’ online, that’s how online gaming goes. I usually only play single-player games, but for a while I was playing Starcraft online. I was regularly ‘harassed’ with a variety of epithets. If Mark was more of a man, he’d realize it’s because that’s how men act. Men are a competitive lot, when engaging in competition we trash-talk. If women want to join our spaces and play men’s games with men, they should grow thicker skins and take trash-talk for what it is. They should stop being thin-skinned whiners and start trash-talking back.

For ideological purposes though, Mark and his SJW ilk love to lump trash-talk, rational criticism, and death threats all under the label of ‘harassment’, so they can better smear critics and further their ideological agenda.

Remember the old saws, don’t play the game if you can’t take the pain and stay out of the kitchen if you can’t take the heat.

****

What Mark Hill and the other SJW’s miss in their victimization narrative is that they are the bullies, they are the harassers. Gamers and other assorted nerds escaped the trauma of public schooling, bullying, and social ostracism by retreating to nerdy hobbies and now just want to be left alone to enjoy their hobbies in peace.

But instead of leaving them in peace, the SJW’s are invading their hobbies and attacking them. It the SJW’s who have invaded gaming, not gamers who have invaded SJW space.

They should also realize it’s not the gamers who are punching down, it’s the SJW’s. The SJW’s have most of the gaming press writing insulting articles about ‘gamers’, they have Reddit and gaming sites banning #gamergaters posts and comments, and they even have the mainstream press jumping on gamers. Meanwhile, the #gamergate have no platform beyond their personal blogs and the occasional forum and are threatened with firings and never being able to work in gaming again if they dare express their opinions. Even Cracked itself has written two anti-gamer pieces on #gamersate and not a single piece from the other side (not to mention all the SJW in games stuff they’ve written previously).

The SJW’s should realize they are the ones with the power who are punching down. They’re the ones doing the harassing. They are the bullies.

The gamers are a mostly powerless group using what little they have to keep their hobby safe for them.

So, Mark and other SJW’s, please have some basic empathy for the nerds. Leave them in peace, stop punching down, and let them enjoy their hobbies without constant harassment.

****

Here’s my final point, gamers do not have a ‘woman problem’, women, or rather a particular type of woman, are the problem. We do not need women in gaming. If they want to game, fine.  My sisters regularly gamed with me (and on their own), and they still do, that’s great. Having women game is fine, what’s not fine is (a particular type of) women trying to change (ie. destroy) the hobby for their own ideological ends.

While we can take or leave women in gaming, we do not want SJW’s in gaming. I’ve been board-gaming (and winning at Monopoly) since I was 3 and video-gaming since I was 5, and we do not need lying Janey-come-latelies and fake geek girls intruding into our hobbies and whining about how Mario games are sexist. We do not need them whining about sexism because one game featured killing hookers, when almost every game features the mass-slaughter of men. We do not need them whining about racism when one game has people shooting Africans, when every second game is about shooting Germans.

This is our hobby and the SJW’s should leave well-enough alone. We want to game to have fun, to enjoy ourselves. We neither need nor want their idiotic moral crusades.

If women/SJW’s want to make their own SJW games, fine they can enjoy their Depression Quests, but they need to stay out of our games. Why do the SJW’s refuse to live and let live?

****

* If you want to know why I focus disproportionately on Cracked on this blog, it’s because it used to be my favourite site. I’ve been reading it daily since 2007, the majority of my adult life. I hate that its been declining over the last couple of years with increasingly mediocre columnists and humourless SJW nonsense, almost to the point where I’ve considered removing it from regular reading. I want it to go back to the good ol’ days of hilarious no-holds barred humour.

21 comments

  1. I’ve been paying some attention to Gamersgate because while I’d never consider myself a gamer, I’ve been friends with gamers and gamer-types since about 2nd grade. Not one has ever taken issue with the fact I’m female. Some have snubbed me a tiny bit because I’m not a gamer, but never, ever because of my gender. The secret to making them like you is not demanding special treatment and showing a respect for/interest in their hobby. It’s not difficult.

    I sincerely hope they win this fight, I’d hate to see them marginalized further.

  2. ”If women/SJW’s want to make their own SJW games, fine they can enjoy their Depression Quests, but they need to stay out of our games. Why do the SJW’s refuse to live and let live?”

    Its the desire to dominate the thoughts of men with their ideology and hence to make them behave the way they want them to behave.

  3. “If women want to join our spaces and play men’s games with men, they should grow thicker skins and take trash-talk for what it is. They should stop being thin-skinned whiners and start trash-talking back.”

    It’s my understanding that men in Sweden (generally) treat women as they do men (which is to say, with little concern for femininity or feminine sensibilities).

  4. There’s really only one solution to this outrage: that is for male gamers to cancel their subscriptions enmasse for all the offending publications. I don’t know if they will do that. For all I know they haven’t lost any readership at all. Anyone have the lowdown on that?

  5. @AJ There’s not a single article that even looks interesting in the ‘now’ column of Cracked.

    I’m surprised they haven’t cleansed the Cracked archives and taken the ‘Raising your mentally retarded child’ down. I bet they eventually will. Airbrushing history is usually on their list.

  6. I’ve deleted my book mark to Cracked. I am sick of cultural Marxism and SJW’s. I hope others follow suit.

  7. I too used to love Cracked. Not a day wouldn’t go by that I wouldn’t devour every last line of every new article. These days… occasionally, a neat little piece written in cooperation with someone with first-hand experience on some matter crops up, but those are few and far between. Too few and far between to bother, in fact.

    Loved this article. Will surely share.

  8. I play video games, though I don’t consider myself a “gamer.” It’s a diversion for me when I just want to have some fun and escape into my reactionary historical strategy games instead of deal with the real news, which is all too annoying. One game I play is EU4 (started back in EU3), which spans 1444-1821. Of course, you have to have the liberals who go onto Paradox Forums and accuse the game developers of supporting genocide and the evils of colonialism and imperialism. And don’t forget slavery! Because, you know, everyone wants to play a strategy game where the goal is to never, ever expand and conquer the heathen. It’s like, why can’t I just play my game where I preserve my Anglican Absolute Monarchy until Kingdom Come without having some liberal accuse me of supporting mass murder and, of course, “intolerance!!!”? I mean, aren’t we already sufficiently distracted from the real world by the game to not be a threat?

  9. Any of you folks seen the film “Revenge of the Nerds”?

    If you haven’t then you should.

    Made back in the mid 80’s, it was probably the very last time that unquestionably leftist film makers (the jocks were compared to Klansmen in one scene) could be found openly endorsing male voyeurism (the nerds installed hidden TV cameras in the hot chick’s sorority) and what would most certainly be considered a form of sexual assault nowadays (one of the films protagonists (PRO-tagonists!) tricks the head cheerleader into fucking him by disguising himself as the football captain).

    Get the idea?

    A film that not even a rightist would DREAM to make in this day and age.

    My point here is to show that there can be no doubt that, far from ostracizing them, once upon a time leftists cared very much about socially awkward men and boys (to the point even of reckoning that they were entitled to THAT kind of fun).

    So what do you think happened?

    Some clues may lie in the films ending.

    I don’t want to spoil it for some of you but let’s just say that the ending IMHO (unwittingly) foreshadowed changes in our culture.

    Changes that might help explain why black HOOLIGANS are the left’s martyrs nowadays while straight white computer nerds are, evidently, the left’s new pariahs.

  10. “There’s really only one solution to this outrage: that is for male gamers to cancel their subscriptions enmasse for all the offending publications. I don’t know if they will do that. For all I know they haven’t lost any readership at all.”
    —————————
    Fortunately it might not matter.

    The left’s own willful ignorance of innate sex differences could be their downfall.

    For this reason no amount of reading their PC drivel is going to make men and boys dislike 1st person shooters, blood and gore, scantily clad females, etc.

    And since it’s the men and boys that buy the stuff the industry will just have to find a way to sneak all that stuff past the PC crowd.

    It’s been done it in the past. No reason it shouldn’t continue.

    Tombraider is just one of myriad examples of scantily clad hetero male eye candy snuck past the thought police by selling her as ’empowered’ with guns and stuff. HA HA HA HA HA!

    And if in the future the feminists put pressure to try and make said eye candy’s thighs fatter or breasts smaller then a ‘cheat code’ created by some ‘rouge programmer’ will simply be snuck in the back door to allow players to ‘thin her down’ or ‘fill her out’ similar to the ‘blood enabled’ mode on the version of the first “Mortal Kombat” made for the Sega Genesis (yes, I’m probably showing my age here).

    You get the picture.

  11. Important to note here is that this isn’t actually GamersGate. That site is clean. Here’s the truth, as shown in this screenshot: https://storify.com/EffNOVideoGames/stopgamergate-it-has-always-been-a-spin If you look carefully, you will see this is about #GamerGate2014, and the change of one little letter “s” can make a . Journalists on Twitter made the mistake of misspelling it and thinking it’s about the game site, when this isn’t true at all. Please get your facts straight people.

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