I’ve not bothered with Andrew Sullivan for a long time. His schtick — the reasonable man, “of no clique or party”– just doesn’t work for me. I’ve seen too much of his thumb on the scale in his sweet reason, for one thing, and for another, the real value he had as an aggregator of random interesting stuff around the internet has been outpaced by smarter, more focused and much more disciplined thinkers I follow with much more pleasure.
So it’s been months at least since I’ve wandered over to the Dish, until today, when I recklessly followed a link in a tweet that suggested that Sully had found — well, an interesting line to take on #GamerGate.
Nah, I thought. If nothing else, Sullivan’s solipsism would weigh in, and recall in the stigmatization and real violence wrought against gay men who dared be present in a homophobic majority culture some kinship with the women under attack by the stalwart defenders of purity in gaming.
But, of course, I forgot that there is ample reason we list Dr. Sullivan among the blogs we monitor (not much) and mock as needed.
That would be because if there’s one thing we can rely on, it is that while Sully will always succumb to the urge to reduce any moral circumstance to a “good for Sullivan” — or not — calculus, his contrarian urge and his greater love for cleverness than rigor would lead him astray.
And so it has.
The TL:DR version of Sullivan’s attempt to balance the rights and wrongs of GamerGate is that having weighed the evidence, Sully concludes that though it’s a bad thing to threaten women who speak out about gaming culture with violence, both sides do it, and the GamerGate folks have suffered longer. Really. I’m not making that up. Here’s his conclusion:
Look: whatever case the gamergate peeps have, they have botched it with their tactics. Those tactics have been repellent in every sense of the word. But bullying has occurred on both sides, and only one side was bullied before.
So it’s just “tactics” that are at fault. Those pesky choices of action.
The suggestion that anonymous harassment on the ‘net combined with plausible threats of physical harm is somehow dangerous and (literally) reactionary becomes, to Sullivan:
…pure vitriol, resting on an unspoken, hard left view of culture that is more disturbing because it presents itself as snark and analysis, rather than tired, easy agit-prop.
So much assumption not in evidence there, of course. (“Tired, easy agit-prop!” It’s what’s for dinner!)
But worse — much worse — is Sullivan’s pure, unadulterated inability to take seriously the real danger and constant pressure experienced by women in any form of public life. Who is the victim here? Sullivan leaps right to it. The “tone” of the condemnation f harassment and threats
smacked of bullying and dismissal. When you’re telling people they don’t even deserve to be in a debate, and associate them with segregationists and every other entity good liberals have been taught to despise, “dismissive” is the least of it.
Uhhhh — so it’s only that obviously ridiculous person, a “good liberal” who would find despicable either segregationists or anonymous claquesters harassing women on the internet, trying to damage their making a living, hoping to evoke suicides and all the rest.
Good to know.
Ultimately, it’s all about Sullivan, and his own sense of self, historically and now. In GamerGaters he sees his sembables, his frères:
Yes, I wouldn’t trade our freedom for the closeted, marginalized past; at the same time, it’s impossible not to feel some regret at the close-knit, marginalized, very distinctive solidarity gays have lost as a group, and some affection for a world, built defiantly to defend itself against outsiders, that is dissipating before our eyes and on our apps.
…many gamers were the bullied in high school; this was their safe space; it was a place they could call home. They now feel it slipping away, and it has unhinged some and disconcerted many, as a lot of mainstream culture has heaped scorn and ridicule on them at the same time. And I’m sorry, but I feel some sympathy here.
The reason I gave up on Sullivan — the one all the other irritations finally boiled down to — is found here. If he feels something strongly enough he stops thinking. He just grinds to a halt. I don’t really know what to say beyond that, except to note that I’ve yet to hear of the denizens of any leather bar trying to drive straight men to suicide for the vicious act of appropriation of wearing chaps. The nerve!
Enough. Sully isn’t worth the electrons. And it’s an ill-wind and all that. I’m well reminded that my missing The Dish adds up to missing nothing.
Image: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Children’s Games, 1560
Uncle Cosmo
Sully needs a (better) hearing aid–what he calls “tired, easy agit-prop” was actually “mired sleazy eejit-poop”, & he’s the one excreting it.
the Conster
Yup – read the same thing and thought the same thing. His sympathy for them is not about what gays have suffered, it’s about hating women too. He’s always been a woman hater, he just wouldn’t ever cop to it. End of story, and the end of reading Sully.
BruinKid
So… there’s yet another school shooting, this time near Seattle.
JGabriel
Tom Levenson @ Top:
Some names and links, please?
Steve from Antioch
I went and read the whole Sullivan post. It’s kind of funny that Sullivan starts of by talking about how he isn’t going to wade into the whole “Gamergate” mess and this post starts off by talking about how it’s really not a good idea to spend too much time on Sullivan.
Why don’t the both of you just STFU about it instead of feeling obligated to make a pissy post about a subject you either don’t know much about (Sullivan) or find distasteful (You.)
AMinNC
Because gamers have been picked on, bullied, and oppressed for faaaaaar longer than women have been. Alrighty then. Good to know.
scav
?
Wimminz waz invented after ‘puter games??? How’d I miss that, and what were so many playing IRL with before?! This put so utterly a different spin on “traditional” marriage. whewww
Steve from Antioch
@BruinKid:
Don’t worry there will be several top posts shortly explaining why this proves that every position previously stated regarding the need for “gun control” was prescient and how anyone who disagrees has a teensy-tiny weenus.
It’s been almost three hours, surprised there isn’t one up yet.
Gex
Sully strikes me as the kind of guy who may be gay more because of his latent misogyny than he is for any particular affinity for men.
Mike in NC
Tom, now you’ve put an image of Sullivan wearing leather chaps in my head. Fortunately we’re only 15 minutes from Happy Hour, so I can try to wash it away.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gex: That is a very interesting take.
Amir Khalid
The thing with Andrew Sullivan is one, he’s been educated far beyond his intelligence, and two, his biases have outsmarted him.
Okay, that’s two things: he’s been educated far beyond his intelligence, two, his biases have outsmarted him, and he’s driven more by emotion than by thought.
Okay, that’s three things …
sparrow
@Steve from Antioch: Dead kids just gives you a stiffy, doesn’t it you ammosexual loser.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: Yeah, well, you’ve put that image in everyone’s head and some of us aren’t in EDT. You bastard.
Steve from Antioch
@sparrow:
Oh look, it’s trying to insult me.
Scott S.
But bullying has occurred on both sides, and only one side was bullied before.
Yes, Simple Sully, women have never been bullied before. This is a historically bizarre event, and it will never happen again. Throughout history, women have been the ones beating up men, stalking them in bars, dosing them with drugs, catcalling them from construction sites. Damn those dastardly not-mans and their unconquerable historically accurate bullying!
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms – Oh damn!
Felonius Monk
Not reading Sully is like not stepping in a cow pie as one dances across the Field of Life.
skerry
@Steve from Antioch: 5 teenagers shot by another teenager, a freshman, leaving 2 dead kids and this is your reaction? Fuck you.
sparrow
@Steve from Antioch: Psychopaths can’t be insulted. They haven’t invented a surgery for putting a human soul back in people like you. Sorry!
Steve from Antioch
@skerry:
Patience my sweet. Soon there will be a top-post and you will be able to add your indignant juice to the stew of self-righteousness being brewed up. Patience …
Turgidson
Sullivan finds a way to twist himself into a rhetorical pretzel in service of sympathizing with and defending white male privilege? Unpossible!
Turgidson
@Felonius Monk:
Excellent.
JGabriel
Andrew Sullivan (via Tom Levenson @ Top:)
Seriously? The guy who defended The Bell Curve and published parts of it in The New Republic is accusing others of vitriol and agit-prop?
I can’t decide whether that’s another ironic example of self-obliviousness, or or just someone speaking on a subject in which he has expertise.
el_gallo
Why did anyone continue to read Sullivan after he accused over half the country of being Islamist fifth columnists? The man is a classic fascist: toadying up to bullies and always punching down.
brantl
@Steve from Antioch: Blow yourself. Sullivan pontificates at random, with the base argument being, “I identify with them, so they must be right.”, which is the dumbest sophistry I have heard, EVAH.
Steve from Antioch
@brantl:
As compared, I suppose, your uber-refined line of argumentation which begins “Blow yourself.”
But, setting aside your little insults, how do you explain Sullivan’s view state the other day, that he believed that the Idaho wedding chapel should be permitted to refuse to marry gays?
He is clearly in favor of gay marriage so if his feels dictate his reasoning, what is happening here?
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: Don’t forget the whole Fifth Columnists thing.
scav
Somebody’s wonely and wants widdle cud-dle.
JGabriel
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep, that too.
Tenar Darell
I always wonder if Sullivan has any female friends or even interns to run these kinds of it’s past…sigh. Even if he did, he’d post it anyway; he’s a free speech warrior don’t you know, only speaking truth to the political correctness brigades.
Violet
As usual it’s all about Andrew Sullivan. If it’s an issue that resonates with him, he’s all up in it and finds a lot of justifications for why his view is the correct view. If it’s not about him–and especially if it’s something to do with women–he’s bored, dismissive, contemptuous, disinterested, patronizing, or in some other way indicates he’s above it, those people are stupid, their arguments aren’t valid, they just don’t understand.
But when it affects him–marijuana, gay rights, the horror of living in New York City–my goodness the posts are endless and the emotion is ramped up to eleven.
Which reminds me, what color is Andrew Sullivan’s blog these days?
SpotWeld
History check on this:
“…many gamers were the bullied in high school; this was their safe space; it was a place they could call home. ”
Okay. The current generation of people are those who grew up under the Nintendo boom. The period when video gaming came in with a huge marketing sweep. Nintendo Power Magazine, Nintendo Breakfast Cereal, saturday moring cartoons… and that’s just one brand.
Consol gaming swept in and make being a gamer popular. The newer generations of PC games carried it along.
So then we get to the newer groups of gamers. People who are derided not because they game, but because the play the wrong sort of game. Warcraft nerds, Madden-football geeks, DDR nuts. Etc etc etc.
All of it has been born of marketing; bascially a company coming out and saying “show your peers you’re better by pointing out how much they need to buy our product”.
And now we have groups of people who were pretty much ignored by these past 3 decades of media and they are being told by thier supposed peers “you are supposed to buy the product to be better, like we did… but you can’t because you don’t match the ad copy.. so.. go away”
M31
I’ve never read anything by Sullivan, and every once in a while I’m almost tempted to (like a friend saying something like ‘well, he’s conservative but not a crazy idiot’) but then a timely post like this reminds me renew my complete indifference.
SpotWeld
One last thing:
“When you’re telling people they don’t even deserve to be in a debate…”
Well yeah, the concept of debate is civil discourse. When one group “[has] been repellent in every sense of the word” then they fail to been the low barrier-to-entry of being civil.
geg6
Fucker is against affirmative consent policies on college campuses too. Because somehow, somewhere some white frat boy might be “falsely” accused or have his intentions “misunderstood” by one of those icky, dirty, slutty women. He’s George Will, but out of the closet and without the bad toupee.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet:
It seems bluish on white.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gex:
Within the social class to which Sully aspires, there’s always been a streak of gay male misogyny that was focused on maintaining the aristocratic status quo. Having sex with men when it was illegal was just more proof that you were above the law and rules were for lesser people.
Keith G
@Gex: Disagree with his politics and/or his writing style as you wish. I am wondering if it is unnecessary and not productive to wonder about why he identifies as being gay. All that matters is that he does, and that needs to be taken at face value. To do otherwise to to head down a bad path that many of us have fought long and hard to be barricaded and abandoned.
Ruckus
@Gex:
Had the same thought.
But then I said, Self, you are either gay or straight, but then the word bisexual popped into my head and so we’re off to the races.
MattF
@Gex: I agree with you about Sullivan’s misogyny. It’s pretty ugly. An odd thing about his site is its occasional foray into “Penthouse Letters” flavored porn. I think the two are related, but I haven’t quite figured it out.
Trollhattan
@Amir Khalid: “Among Sully’s chief weapons, are….”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve from Antioch:
Poor Steve, still puzzled about why people think that murder is a bad thing.
Frankensteinbeck
@SpotWeld:
When one side is deliberately using the debate as a smokescreen so that they can continue a campaign of terrorism, that side does not deserve to be in the debate. They have abused the privilege.
Redshift
@SpotWeld:
I was going to pick up on this as well, because it comes up a lot in discussions of this or similar stories. There’s often a suggestion that there should be some sympathy for the assholes because they were pasty-faced bully victims at a younger age. I call bullshit. This is an ancient stereotype that may well still be true for table gamers and cosplayers, but video games have been mainstream popular entertainment since well before these dickweeds were in high school. I’d bet good money that the subset of gamers who pull this crap were the bullies, not the bullied.
Turgidson
Does Sully’s post, or do any of the others on this topic, also include the cherished Sullivan tradition of defining “conservative” as whatever Sullivan needs it to be, today, to allow him to claim his own opinion on the topic of the day as being “conservative”?
kc
I can’t believe the amount of mental energy being expended on this horseshit.
raven
Just to keep you up-to-date while you talk about this asshole:
Gex
@Keith G: duly noted. Now for me, I don’t think there is any judgment to be made about WHY someone is gay because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it and if it were chosen by flip of a coin, that would be good enough reason to be gay without society’s opprobrium. But if you must take offense as to me wondering if his homosexuality might have developed in part by his rather consistent inability to identify with women as human beings and the rather obvious ways he is squicked out by women in general, go right ahead. I said that merely to underscore how thoroughly and consistently he demonstrates his discomfort and distaste of women and women’s issues. So strong are his feelings in that area that I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a factor in his orientation. And I feel I can say that without setting back the gay movement or denigrating gays in any way.
SpotWeld
@Redshift: When you get down to it, its just a rehash of the “fake geek girl” arguments.
Ruckus
@Keith G:
And as with every group there is no monolithic definition, not all gay men give anywhere near the same vibe as Sully. He has a history and that history may not tell the person fully but it at least gives clues. I don’t get the feeling that Sully has any women friends, at least not any that have read his blog for any length of time.
Trollhattan
@raven: The first shooting was less than a mile from my wife’s office. She had to call me to find out why she was seeing a sea of cop cars.
Gex
The problem is that the guys he’s defending as having been bullied were bullied as a result of our culture’s cult of masculinity. They were bullied by the jocks and studs basically for not being manly enough. So is it any surprise to see those guys turn around and bully people who definitely are not as manly as them?
Leave it to Sullivan to both defend and denounce macho bullying at the same time.
raven
@Trollhattan: Dang, is it a Seattle burb?
Keith G
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Oh sweet Jesus!
Ruckus
@Gex:
Exactly.
Steve from Antioch
@Keith G:
You see, several people hereabout know that anybody who disagrees with them isn’t really a human being.
Anoniminous
@Keith G:
Sexual orientation is beside the point. Some people are prejudiced towards the Not-Us. “Not-Us” can be defined by gender, sexual orientation, physical characteristics, political ideology … anything and everything that can be used as criteria. Some gay men dislike/hate/are-prejudiced-towards women, not because they are gay but because they are people.
raven
@Steve from Antioch: Go fuck yourself you asshole.
Baud
@Steve from Antioch:
Most of the people here prefer non-humans to humans, so your criticism really doesn’t work.
Gex
@Steve from Antioch: Jesus Christ, nothing I said came remotely close to saying that Sullivan is not even a human being. If you are going to put words in someone’s mouth, I recommend you at least attempt to claim that they said something that can somehow be read into the actual comments that the person makes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Hey, I think most of us voted for Obama over Romney.
skerry
@raven: Careful, I told him to fuck off and he called me “my sweet”. I think he likes people to talk dirty to him.
Trollhattan
@raven:
Yes, north of Seattle.
Rob
I am a regular reader (skimmer) of and subscriber to Sullivan’s blog, mostly for the roundup of news and viewpoints. I certainly don’t agree with (or even read) all of his opinions, but I have found value in his aggregation. However his take on Gamergate has upset me enough that I may not renew my subscription when it runs out.
Rob
Adding to Raven’s post at #48, the Sacramento Bee is saying that 3 deputies and a motorist were shot in Sacramento (Sacramento County) and Auburn (Placer County).
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article3348287.html
Keith G
@Gex: No offense taken – maybe a bit of frustration. It’s an old trope. Certainly your personal path has encountered tropes and pop psychologies that just became so trite and so tiring to deal with.
I will leave Sully’s psychoanalysis to his shrink and his partner. He is becoming less and less relevant. About the only time I think about Sullivan these days is when someone here brings him up – thanks, Tom
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Keith G: You’re complaining about people seeing gay men as individuals instead of assuming then to be an amorphous mass of identical motivations?
The first gay man – for many years the only gay man – I knew had the same misogynistic squick. For a very long time, I thought that squick was a part of being gay.
Trollhattan
@Rob:
It’s evidently an ongoing story. Just saw this.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
True. I should have said biological non-humans.
Trollhattan
@Gex:
We may have discovered why one of the state’s biggest windfarms is right across the river from Antioch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I thought that was what you meant, but I just wanted to clear up the ambiguity.
KBS
I’ve been reading his stuff for decades, because he’s the only conservative I can stand at all. I even subscribe to his website because I like to pay the people who want to be paid for their writing, and all his staff get health insurance. His misogyny has always been horribly obvious and hard for me to take, but this may be the last straw that finally gets me to quit reading. Sigh.
Redshift
@SpotWeld: Both of them have always struck me as entirely bizarre. When I was a young SF geek/gamer, we desperately wished we knew how to get more women/girls involved. The idea that anyone would try to keep them out just makes my head spin. That’s another reason why I’m pretty confident that applying the geeky/awkward/bullied stereotype to the perpetrators of both of these bits of idiocy is misguided at best. It seems much more likely that (if we’re putting things strictly in terms of John Hughes stereotypes) they’re the “jock” type who want to have their group of “bros” where they can casually toss around misogynistic slurs, and when that runs smack into in interconnected world where they can’t count on that (on the Internet or at conventions) they feel entitled demand that the rest of the world conform to it.
beth
I just caught the end of a press conference about the hatchet attacker in NYC. They are now calling it a definite terrorist attack based on, I guess, the guy’s social media accounts. They say he had no physical contact with an Islamic group but he self-radicalized. I’m just not sure if I’m ready to call that terrorism or mental illness.
bluefoot
@SpotWeld: I had to laugh when I read that bit of Sully’s. I was playing tabletop games way back when, and then *programmed* my first video game in 1982. And I’m female. And (ahem) melanin-enhanced. So wtf Sully, gaming sure as fuck wasn’t a safe space for me back then – not from non-geeks, not from the other people gaming, not from anybody. Does that mean I get to have a pass on abusing and threatening *everybody*?
elftx
Tom you were too kind to Sullivan. I suggest you ask Chris Kluwe for his opinion of the article.
Also too have read on the twitter machine I think some HS in NE is letting seniors pose w/a gun for pix. How sweet esp after today’s shooting.
Howard Beale IV
@Rob: I would imagine that many folks dropped Kluwe’s rant on GamerGate into his in-tray, and there is no way that Sully could find any holes to try to take it down-or he probably realizes that if he even attempted to take it down he’d be hung out to dry by Kluwe himself.
Redshift
@Trollhattan: LOL.
Anyone know — new troll, or just new nym? (Or old troll who I haven’t crossed paths with recently enough to remember.)
Certainly not up to our expected troll quality. “I’m going to complain about people writing the sorts of things they write here and tell them to shut up, without even bothering to mention any substantive objection to any of them.” Pretty weak sauce.
Trollhattan
@beth:
By that criterion I’m “self-radicalized.” You should see me attack a good IPA.
Keith G
A very short while ago, Kevin Drum announced on his blog that he is a cancer patient (multiple myeloma). The diagnosis was made a couple of days ago.
I am quite taken aback. I’ve been reading Kevin for 12 years now and he was the one that turned me onto Balloon Juice.
srv
The Castro is now represented by a supervisor who is all pro business, pro landlord and for criminalizing homelessness.
Teh Gays have turned into The Man. Welcome to your throne in the establishment, Sully.
Arclite
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Well, guns don’t kill people. PEOPLE kill people. Doncha know.
Citizen Alan
Why the hell would anyone expect the Upper class British Twit of the Year to have a sensible view on Gamergate. Literally the first thing I think of about Sully is his raging misogyny. I wouldn’t expect him to give two shits about the prospect of women getting chased out of their homes by rape threats.
Trollhattan
@Keith G:
Thanks for posting this. JC has already front-paged it. Have read Mr. Drum since his CalPundit days.
Steve from Antioch
@srv:
But Wiener want’s to tax coca-cola, so he’s on God’s side.
heh.
Arclite
@Ruckus:
He does seem to have a lot of female readers though.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Been around for a while. Does drive by trolling for a bit then slinks off. Maybe to shed skin or something. I’ve had him pied for a while.
Keith G
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Nope. You are reading me incorrectly.
Ruckus
@Arclite:
Readers are different than friends of course. But I stopped reading him some yrs ago, he is just insufferable. Posts crap, gets crap back all around the internet, adjusts position so slightly that it’s hard to tell, gets more crap, makes an ever so slight adjustment, everyone else moves on. Rinse repeat, rinse repeat, rinse repeat…… At some point I realized that he is just an asshole with the very smallest bit of self reflection possible. Not worth my time. And my time isn’t worth spit.
Trollhattan
The Sac County Sherrif has died of his wounds. He was 47 and leaves behind a wife and two daughters.
Steve from Antioch
@Gex:
Sorry for the ambiguity, I wasn’t referring specifically to you.
Other poster hereabouts have told me to “go die in a fire” or “swallow a barrel”, called me a psychopath, etc.
Rex Everything
Sully:
Poor white straight male identity, without a place in the world(!).
Keith G
@Redshift: That’s a very interesting take.
I do wonder what the quantitative data is on these guys. I just can’t see the population being that large of a number and as odious as they are I am wondering if it’s the nature of our media to make a relatively small group of people seem more important than they really are.
Gamergate is one of the buzziest topics of the moment. But, how many more moments will it be around?
srv
Leadership. Enhanced Measures.
The John Cole’s of the Left could almost have a beer with these guys.
SpotWeld
@Redshift: If I had to guess it’s something like this. If you allow the “other” into your social space as a peer, you have also admit they can be a “better” geek than you. A lot of these safe spaces were also created as a “a place where I can be the best at something I like”. If you ojectify the “other” then they are a puppet though which you can make a strawman you can defeat. Within the space you can still be the lowest of that particular ranking, but you’re in the club.. and as along as you do the job of maintaining the barriers of the club you’re still better than the other.
I think that “barrier against the other” is close knit community that Sullivan spreaks of.
The false barrier for gamers has been stated to be “you have to be an enthusiastic gamer”… but now, when the real barrier is shown to be “you have to agree to ensure the core group is maintained as dominant” you hear people complaining how “fake gamers” are ruining things.
Rob
@Trollhattan — thanks for that latest update.
@Howard Beale IV — I’d actually like to see that!
currants
…and I suppose that did not surprise you, right? Or why, exactly? Because I quit reading him when he WOULD NOT get off the pro-life soapbox. And that, connected with his religiosity (and often those two WERE connected), plus–and maybe mostly this–his faux ‘let’s hear the stories’ made me actively avoid him. He’s a mouthpiece and he does REAL damage to people who have to make choices HE WILL NEVER. And he does not give a damn.
Emma
@Gex: Ditto. The only woman he was ever approved of was Margaret Thatcher. Enough said.
Howard Beale IV
@Rob: I just tweaked him on that-we’ll see if he bites. If there’s anything that gets his dander up it’s anything that smells of a hard-left turn-and Kluwe’s rant just may do it.
Morzer
Sullivan is a relentlessly self-pitying little shit-crow who is the Brooksian hero of his own fantasies.
SRW1
Did I see that right, Sully is missing the good old repressive days when gay men behaved more brotherly while dwelling in the closet?
Yes, that he ain’t concerned about the sisters in the gay community is my conjecture. Cause they’re icky with their vag ina thing, aren’t they?
Redshift
@Steve from Antioch: Ah, so when you said “anybody who disagrees with them” you actually meant “me.”
But “several people hereabout know that anybody who disagrees with them isn’t really a human being” sure sounds more impressive than “I showed up and started insulting everyone in sight and people responded by saying mean things to me.” Carry on with your butthurt.
A Humble Lurker
@Steve from Antioch:
You say that like it’s not true.
Frankensteinbeck
@SpotWeld: and @Redshift:
This has all seemed really weird to me, too. I have the background that supposedly motivates these guys, and at the very worst I expected more female presence to be embraced with glee, just obnoxious neurotic glee. Having read a lot of the recorded chat logs of the harassers, the consistent thread in their insults seems to be that women exist only for sex and prefer to have sex with people the haters disapprove of – often ‘white knights’, which in their lexicon means ‘men who treat women as human beings.’ That is apparently a bad thing to do and only encourages women to refuse sex to their betters. A lot of these people use MRA language about alphas and betas, which means their social view is that men are defined by how much sex they get and women are an enemy fighting against them which must be conquered.
EDIT – Come to think of it, that would explain why the specific targets of their fury are mostly women creating or advocating for more realistic and deep female characters in games. Men with this disturbing view of women are going to be infuriated by having women presented as human beings being constantly pushed in front of their faces. Still doesn’t explain how they got so messed up.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
A blog without comments is not a blog its narcissism.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
Noting further for the record that the whole alpha/beta thing is also wrong, deriving as it does from a theory about how wolf-packs run themselves*, which has now been rejected as clearly mistaken by the scientist who came up with it.
*And not, therefore, an obviously transferrable model to human society in any case. Sorry, Mowgli!
Steve from Antioch
@Redshift:
So was insulting everyone in sight, eh?
Your statement doesn’t comport with reality.
OmerosPeanut
@Redshift: If we’re feeling generous we can mourn the effects bullying (may have) had on them, but we don’t have to check common sense with it. The bullying certain types of male gaming nerds may receive in modern culture is nothing compared to what female gaming nerds go through.
Turgidson
@Rex Everything:
Sully: “There’s an atmosphere in which it has somehow become problematic to have a classic white, straight male identity, and a lot that goes with it.”
Good fucking grief. I am a white straight male and I need to find a place to turn in my library card. Would it be possible for that quote to be any more dense and whiny? All that’s changed in the very recent past is that people feel more comfortable pointing out how fucking good we straight white males have it.
And sure, sometimes those doing thing pointing out are, oh the horror, impolite. That’s really what it comes down to with Sullivan. Pretty much any atrocity is A-OK as long as the perpetrator is polite about it. But raising your voice or being uncivil in pointing out that those polite white guys over there are being oppressive to perpetrate their privileged status? Well, that’s just the worst! And the attempt by Sully and so many others to impose that standard is just one more way white male privilege is sustained.
Such whiners, we white guys are. Such fucking whiners.
Steve from Antioch
@OmerosPeanut: Is that what this whole Gamergate thing is about: Who gets to be the conductor on the self-pity train?
I’ve read two different articles that purport to explain what it’s all about (one of them doesn’t count since it was on the Gawker) but I still don’t get what’s the what.
Morzer
@Steve from Antioch:
I think it’s more about who has the right to speak out or appear as part of any public debate online. The Gamergaters want desperately to restrict that right to self-pitying white boys, while reserving the right to abuse, harass, threaten and generally rape, plunder and pillage any woman who has ideas “above her station”. There may be a few deluded souls in there who genuinely think this is about free speech/justice/corruption in the game review media, but it’s perfectly clear where the majority of them are coming from.
Basically, it’s a primal scream of: “Girls have cooties and they can’t play in our treehouse!”
OmerosPeanut
@Steve from Antioch: It’s an utter mess at this point because GamerGate has reinvented itself multiple times in order to (pretend to) shed its excesses at each stage. And yet its core can’t help itself and pulls more unambiguously misogynistic stunts which leads to yet another rebranding…
Short version: When it started it was called the Quinnspiracy, because an ex of Zoe Quinn accused her of sleeping with games journalists for favorable coverage of her game Depression Quest. Except no such reviews were ever written. Not too long after that lie was debunked, Adam Baldwin (“Jayne” from Firefly, now a raving Teehard) coined the term GamerGate and started the rebranding of what had been harassment of Zoe Quinn, pure and simple. Supposedly, GamerGate would now be about the corrupt state of gaming journalism as if this were a new development or even a bad thing.
But there are no leaders to this movement, and so each person claiming to be a member has their own take on what it’s really about at this point. Toss in the pity party you mentioned and hate for “Social Justice Warriors” (SJW), and you pretty much have the current state of things.
Steve from Antioch
@Morzer:
Thank you for that – that was sort of the impression I got from what I could piece together. Frankly it is sort of like reading about the shias and the sunnis – I get that there is a lot of animosity but I just look at it and think, should you all really be on the same side? I know civil wars are the bloodiest and all of that.
Steve from Antioch
Don’t take this the wrong way, but that is the kind of sentence you just have to hold up and turn around and let the light reflect through it. Who is Zoe Quinn? There are such things as “games journalists”? There’s a game called “Depression Quest”?
My mind reels.
I do appreciate the explanations, folks, but I ain’t ever going to get this. I hope it just passes by before one is expected to have an opinion about it at family gatherings …
Morzer
@Steve from Antioch:
It isn’t really a civil war though. It’s more like self-appointed guardians stalking and attacking anyone whose face doesn’t fit with their vision of what a nice neighborhood looks like. Basically, the Gamergaters are a mob of George Zimmermans in cyberspace. This all began when some sad bastard was dumped by his girlfriend and tried to take revenge by accusing her of being a whore who got her software good reviews by sleeping with a tech journalist. The only “principle” at stake is the idea that hos don’t dump bros.
dance around in your bones
You know (well, probably you don’t) that I am not a gamer. I did play something about flying jets under bridges and over buildings on my friend’s – I can’t even remember what it was called, but an early version of the XBox or whatever.
I DO, however, have personal experience with a guy stalking my daughter online – she started ‘chatting’ with him out of boredom, and he quickly became obsessed with her. He started calling the house and leaving disturbing messages about how “You made me fall in love with you and now I HAVE to see you and it’s all your fault” – which, BTW, her husband heard and totally freaked out about.
It’s a good thing that #1 – the guy was ten years younger than her and #2 he lived on the opposite coast.
This is one of the reasons I don’t do social media. Too many nut jobs out there (present company excluded, of course :)
I like to talk to YOU people (((smile)))
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
All of us?
If so that would make you a saint.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
Some of us represent that remark deeply!
OmerosPeanut
@Steve from Antioch: That’s the effect I was hoping for from someone who is coming from way outside this brouhaha. GamerGate is completely absurd on so many levels that if it wasn’t also ruining people’s lives (see: Quinn, Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian) it would be comical.
dance around in your bones
@Ruckus:
Yep! Pretty much. Those I don’t enjoy I just scroll on by.
Now my pie filter…..it is filled with long gone and forgotten trolls who I suspect were often just the same person under another name.
I used to think it would be interesting if we all copy/pasted our pie filter list…..but probably not :)
@Morzer: See? Funny, smart, witty – that’s why I love the Juicers.
chopper
Right, women in tech are totally new to this whole ‘being treated like shit’ thing.
Morzer
@chopper:
“bullying has occurred on both sides”
I’d be interested to see just what this means in terms of old-fashioned facts and actions, because from what I’ve seen of Gamergate, Sullivan’s rhetoric is writing checks* that his evidence can’t pay. I’ve believed for a while that the “both sides do it” argument is the mark of the classic “white moderate” of whom MLK spoke so pointedly, and Sullivan strengthens that view every time he posts at length.
*Younger readers may not know what a check is. Think of it as a promise to pay the amount specified on a piece of paper to the bearer of said piece of paper. Of course, some people, very wicked people, made false promises deliberately. See: check fraud, kiting checks etc etc.
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Don’t think I’ve seen you around for a while, how you been?
Morzer
@Ruckus:
I am pretty good. Moved to Korea a couple of months back, so have been sorting out the new Chateau Morzer, getting used to a pretty extreme time difference (getting up at 2 am to watch the NFL is… memorable), learning Korean and working on a couple of fairly demanding personal projects. I have concluded that Koreans are the world’s most enthusiastic people and their apparent love affair with megaphones is regrettable.
Lovely autumn colors here and I get to go hiking in the mountains any day I feel like it.
I see that Martha Coakley is screwing up another state-wide race, which is depressing because unsurprising.
What’s new with you?
cokane
@OmerosPeanut: this actually isnt where gamergate started just fyi, it started from an article written in some journalism thingy, pc gamer maybe, titled something to the effect of “gamers are dead to me” basically saying that pc gamer didn’t care what the hardcore gamer based community thought. this provoked a reaction by some video game consumers. then when the zoe quinn thing broke, a bunch of those consumers seized on that story, eager to find an example of corruption between journalism and the industry. the whole thing has taken on a life of its own among warriors and non-activists on social media, to the point that the term is meaningless.
Jebediah, RBG
@Turgidson:
And those of us who can’t handle hearing that, well, the problem isn’t with the people doing the pointing out.
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Pretty much SOS. Same old shit.
Now I remember you talking about moving to the other side of the world, glad to hear you aren’t ready to pull off your own arms and beat yourself senseless with them. Still considering moving to Costa Rica or Panama. Easier to live on SS when I quit working in 2-3 yrs. Have a pretty good friend in Panama who likes it grand, may have to go down there and see if he has slipped his cookies or if it’s all he makes it out to be.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
Well, there are some adjustments for sure. Food prices are generally higher here (broccoli being roughly a dollar for a smallish head is perhaps the most shocking). OTOH, there is no NRA, no constant yowling about ISIS killing us all in our beds, no school shootings….. I saw a horrifying statistic about how many school shootings there have been recently:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Weekend_10_24_14
I honestly don’t get how any society can allow a minority of deranged terrorists like the NRA to hold it to ransom like this, especially when they shoot the hostages anyway.
EthylEster
@Turgidson wrote:
A perfect description of Sully.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@OmerosPeanut: Yeah, I’ve noticed that the people who express sympathy for the “poor bullied gamers” of BitterExboyfriendGate never seem concerned about the bullied gamer Zoe Quinn, who was driven from her home by harassment and threats. Or the bullied gamer Anita Sarkeesian, who had some loser create a “game” that portrayed beating her up. Or bullied gamer Brianna Wu…you know, I think I’m starting to see a pattern here.
JR in WV
Some of us may resemble that remark !
Ruckus
@Morzer:
I’m a reasonably smart fella and I can’t understand how so many people are so bat shit crazy about guns. I’ve been paid(military) to carry a loaded one in public and was told that if someone tried to breach the ship I had permission to just shoot them. That was far more time with a gun than I ever needed. My feeling is that so many people feel so powerless(and scared!) that they want anything that they think will even that out. That along with the group hysteria of that fear and powerlessness that our wonderful media keeps on flaming has gotten us to, if not that perfect storm, at least a pretty good approximation of it. Can it get worse? Of course it can, at the very least, my life wouldn’t be complete with out that as a topping to the shit sundae that my life seems to be trying to be. And no, being in a huge group of people with the same life is not satisfying at all.
Eolirin
@cokane: You’re referring to this article
That was the first of the wave of articles about this topic. It came *after* the harassment of Quinn and Sarkeesian, and was a direct response to it. The GG hashtag may not have started till after that, but it was a continuation of the attacks on those women, and the Quinn thing happened before any of the articles appeared.
Hunter
Once upon a time, The Daily Dish was one of the blogs I read — well, daily. And I started to wonder why he was so influential — he’s terminally shallow, facile rather than deep, and pretty much a waste of time.
I finally got fed up when he once again tried to defend the genetic theory of black inferiority — while claiming not to be defending it.
And, to add insult to injury, he’s boring.
OmerosPeanut
@cokane: Err, no, no it did not. I started with the so-called “Quinnspiracy.” The article(s) you mention came much later on. The term “GamerGate” was coined much later, but the people heavily involved in it are the same ones who were pushing the “Quinnspiracy” line. They changed names when Adam Baldwin provided a convenient new term and their claims about Quinn were thoroughly debunked.
C
@cokane:
This is false. The “gamers are dead” articles were responses to a hate mob harassing Zoe Quinn. None of those articles attacked people who play games. Every one of those articles were written by gamers. They criticized a small subset of assholes.
When that hatemob was roundly and justly criticized by games journalists, they then decided the real problem was the journalists who call them out for harassing women in games with rape and death threats. From that, #GamerGate was born, ostensibly about ethics in journalism. The main ethical issue being that journalists should shut up and let them the gaters harass women who said and made things they didn’t like.
Barry
In terms of feeling and no longer thinking, it’s not just that, but that his feelings are frankly evil. He sees a loathsome group doing loathsome things for loathsome reasons (about which they lie), who are being criticize for their evils and lies, and his feelings are in sympathy with evil.
‘his contrarian urge and his greater love for cleverness than rigor would lead him astray.’
With one exception, torture, his ‘contrarianism’ is the same as 99% of ‘contrarianism’, toadying to power.
wetcasements
Stating the obvious: Sullivan is a dull person’s idea of who an interesting writer is.