/gamergatehq/ -The #GamerGate Beginner's Guide and FAQ Thread

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File: ad3fd49f020e6b3⋯.png (132.91 KB,550x533,550:533,Viv beginner's guide.png)

The #GamerGate Beginner's Guide and FAQ Thread Acid Man ## Board Owner 01/15/18 (Mon) 04:58:39 c4cfbe No.331515

What are #GamerGate and #NotYourShield?

#GamerGate is a hashtag and quasi-"movement" of gamers around the world that began in August of 2014. #NotYourShield is a sister hashtag, created to lend a greater voice to female and minority gamers who supported #GamerGate and who were dismissed and ignored by the games media.

The #GamerGate Twitter hashtag was originally coined by actor Adam Baldwin in response to the mass censorship of gaming sites occurring around the so-called "Burgers and Fries" scandal. This scandal concerned the public discovery that a little known indie game developer named Chelsea Van Valkenburg (nomme de plume Zoe Quinn) had cheated on her boyfriend with a journalist from the gaming site Kotaku and four other people in the games media industry. Gamers around the 'net took an immediate interest in the scandal, because Kotaku had already attracted some attention for giving Quinn's game, Depression Quest, unusually positive coverage. Suspicion of industry relationships and quid-pro-quo favors among the videogames industry and press had been going on for years, and it seemed that a smoking gun had finally been found.

To the shock of the gaming communities however, a wave of censorship descended across the topic like an iron curtain. Every prominent games forum on the 'net banned discussion of the scandal, and just one single thread on Reddit saw over forty thousand comments deleted. Even 4chan, the once legendary site where you could discuss almost anything, banned people from discussing the issue. The games media declared that there was no scandal, and "nothing to see here." When this was challenged, the response came in the form of a nonsensical accusation that gamers interested in the topic were misogynists, and only interested because the subject of scrutiny was a woman's relationship. The public's concern about improprieties in the games media industry were not just dismissed - they were utterly silenced. In response, gamers created their own communities on Reddit and 8chan with a special emphasis on free speech and activism.

The censorship campaign sparked even further public backlash, and the situation grew more heated until August 27th and 28th of 2014, when thirteen major games media sites released a series of articles now known colloquially the "Gamers Are Dead" articles. Beginning with author Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra, these articles all shared identical messaging and tone, and united to form a simple, political, and utterly untrue statement: "Gamers, as a demographic and hobby, are all sexist, misogynist, racist, horrible people and the games industry should discount them as an audience."

The gamer community immediately recognized this as a deflection tactic. For so many competing publications to attack gamers with such a unified voice almost simultaneously, there had to exist exactly the sort of back-door collusion within the industry that gamers had long suspected. Indeed, months later a man named William Usher, owner of the gaming site One Angry Gamer, would work with Breitbart reporter Milo Yiannoupolis to expose the existence of the "GameJournoPros" mailing list to the world. Patterned off of "Journo-List" of mainstream media fame, this was a secret mailing list where major names in the games media colluded to craft narratives, blacklist industry people, support their industry friends, and decide what stories needed to be spread or buried at their whim.

The united backlash by the global gamer community against this dishonest media campaign became the event known to the world as #GamerGate.

____________________________

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Lich Lord of GamerGate 01/15/18 (Mon) 05:44:24 c4cfbe No.331519

File: c552cb987ff7deb⋯.png (271.4 KB,600x588,50:49,Wikipedia citogenesis.png)

Part 2: The Smear Campaign

In the wake of the events described above, the Internet's gamer community came together in relentless criticism of the games media. 8chan and Reddit's /KotakuinAction/ sub had become the default "hub" sites for #GamerGate discussion, and thousands of voices demanded answers to several key questions. How common were events like "Burgers and Fries" where industry people have sexual relationships with journalists? Why didn't the games media maintain an ethical level of professional distance between themselves as competitors, and the subjects in the game industry they covered? Why were so many mainstream gaming forums and sites so eager to censor the topic, when such censorship had never happened before? And who were the army of self-proclaimed "Social Justice Warriors" who suddenly came to the defense of the games media online and why were they fighting us?

Matching this crescendo of questions and criticism were the games media's denouncements of the gamer demographic and gaming culture as a whole. Feature article after feature article kept pouring out for months, each adding more hysterical condemnations of gamers as a group and more deflections of ethical issues in the games media. Personalities who had been totally uninvolved in the scandal like Anita Sarkeesian stepped into the limelight to denounce #GamerGate and claim, incredulously, that they had been "victims" of our ire before the hashtag had even been created.

Wikipedia became a battleground, as warring factions fought for control of the #GamerGate wiki article. #GamerGate wanted the article to cover the problems we had found in the games media, the dishonest way the media had colluded and lied about us, and the actions we were taking to solve the problem. The opposing side, including some highly privileged Wikipedia editors who in some cases had personal ties to Zoe Quinn and other relevant industry personalities, wanted the article to reflect only what the "reliable sources" in the games media were falsely reporting: That #GamerGate was a "hate mob filled with violent misogynists attacking women in the games industry." After many bans and arbitrations, and even the personal involvement of the owner of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, the faction opposing #GamerGate won out. Since that time our wiki article has become an exercise in hysterical propaganda, and has been used to poison the well against us all around the world.

Not to be outdone, #GamerGate helped establish the website Deepfreeze.it, which is a searchable index of games media personalities, journalists, and outlets. It catalogs their unethical actions, issues, and conflicts of interest for the world to see, backed up with unimpeachable archives and honest, forthright proof.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Lich Lord of GamerGate 01/15/18 (Mon) 06:18:17 c4cfbe No.331521

File: 53c1ec3da73985d⋯.png (249.1 KB,640x400,8:5,Viv proto 5 18.png)

Part 3: The War Rages On (And How You Can Help)

Since its inception, people have joined #GamerGate for many reasons. Some want to see the gaming industry exempted from the modern culture of "politicize everything" and have it remain, as it has been for decades, a space where people from all walks of life can relax and have fun. Others care about gaming due to its effects on the larger media world, and oppose the shared political bias that #GamerGate uncovered in the mainstream games media. Still more simply want the games media, and all media, to behave in an ethical way and not attack their audience to cover up their own conflicts of interest. And more yet are angry at the behavior of the games media, especially about the way they have lied about gamers and slandered our culture like high school bullies. For all of these people and many more, #GamerGate became a way to fight back.

#GamerGate exists today because people like you help us:

1: Spread The Word

Talk about gaming and gamer culture in your spaces, and defend it against the smears and lies. Gamers are not "sexist" or "racist" and no amount of normal chat-lobby trash talk has ever made them so. A smear unchallenged will eventually be accepted as truth, and the cycle has to be broken. When you see and hear these accusations, demand proof. Never just listen and believe, and encourage others not to either.

2: Be An Informed Consumer

Learn about the games media and why they are so reviled today. Know that every click you give to a link from a site like Kotaku or Polygon puts money into their pocket and rewards them for their horrible behavior. Use an archiving site like http://archive.is to show their content to others without giving them revenue, and become acquainted with the names and social media accounts of the personalities of these sites who write their articles. Learn the real personalities behind big names like Bob Chipman, Ben Kuchera, Tim Schafer, and Leigh Alexander. You may not like what you see.

3: Join The Discussion

This board and r/KotakuinAction on Reddit are the main #GamerGate hubs. If you want to get involved, visit these sites more often and get acclimated to their free-speech culture. If you have a question or an idea that you would like addressed, speak up! You have #GamerGate friends in places that you never dreamed of. Get active on Twitter and Gab and check out the #GamerGate and #OPSkyNet hashtags to connect with more #GamerGate people individually.

4: Fight The Battles

#GamerGate makes it our calling to boycott corrupt gaming sites and the advertisers who do business with them. This is called Operation Disrespectful Nod and is the most powerful of our many tools. When a gaming site puts out an article attacking gamers, or lying about us and our culture, we email the companies that advertise on that site and voice our displeasure. When those advertisers choose to stop advertising on that gaming site, the site loses money. Archiving their popular articles and sharing them widely also reduces the number of clicks their site gets, which costs them further revenue. In the end, each site will have to choose to either apologize and start behaving ethically, or go out of business. This is the core goal of the #GamerGate consumer revolt.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Lich Lord of GamerGate 01/15/18 (Mon) 07:02:44 c4cfbe No.331523

File: bae888c68235906⋯.png (358.19 KB,612x792,17:22,Viv proto 1.png)

Frequently Asked Questions

>Who is the girl with the red hair and green and purple hoodie?

That's Vivian James, #GG's beloved mascot. She was given to us by a feminist game developer project. We raised over $70,000 dollars to help women make videogames, because the games media refused to promote their project out of friendship with their competitors. As a reward, they let us create a character for their game, and so Viv was born.

>What are "SJWs" and why do you guys hate them?

SJW stands for "Social Justice Warrior." We first met these people a month after #GamerGate started, when the media was slandering us up, down, and sideways. They're the sort of folks who want to gripe about politics at Christmas dinner with the family, and seem to absolutely hate fun and free speech in all their forms. We hate them because they hated us first, and because they came riding to the defense of the games media in droves when we just wanted them to be ethical. Since then many of them have cozied up to the games media itself, even as far as taking over translation studios for Japanese games. If you meet someone with blue hair who calls themselves a feminist and really hates gamers, you've probably met an SJW. They're obnoxious, suck the fun out of the gaming community, and rarely even play games themselves leading many people to want them gone.

>Did you guys really elect Trump and spawn the alt-Right?

You heard that from the media, didn't you? I'm pretty sure they would blame us for Lucifer's fall from Heaven if they thought anyone would believe them. The answer is no, probably not. Although you will find quite a few #GG supporters who support Trump specifically because he calls out the media when they lie.

>I heard bad things about 8chan or this board, like child porn being posted or rampant censorship. Is it true?

No. While spammers will occasionally post illegal porn (as they do in any place with image posting, even Twitter) 8chan has never tolerated it. Content illegal under US law is strictly forbidden, and promptly removed. In the past, this board was involved in a conflict with a small subgroup of the #GG community who went to lengths to give us a bad rap in any place that would listen to them. You're invited to stick around a bit and judge for yourself if you like it here.

>Why is #GG still going / what have you guys accomplished?

We're still going because some of the worst players in the games media (and MSM today) are still there, slandering gamers and nerds from on top of their soapboxes. While we have accomplished many things, like forcing sites to adopt ethics policies, helping destroy Gawker Media (owners of Kotaku) and getting some of the meanest journalists removed from their positions, there is still much more work to be done. SJWs, who were once just a nuisance to small online communities, have developed a presence in areas like the mainstream media, comic book industry, and science fiction writing and are censoring vast tracts of entertainment. Until gamers and nerds around the world can enjoy their entertainment in peace, without slander, judgment, or stifling of their speech #GamerGate will be needed.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Post last edited at 01/15/18 (Mon) 07:50:30