[Discussion] I'm probably an "SJW", and I'm interested in having a discussion just for the sake of better understanding Gamergate.

While I applaud you for your upfrontness, I think you're asking the wrong questions about Gamergate. This sub has been burned in the past with people from "the other side" asking questions, which is why so many people are treating this like a trap. You may mean well but it will take a lot of trust to win us over.

To understand about Gamergate, to have to understand why it happened. In general, it was about improper ethos about a video games journalist and one of his constant subjects who he was also in a relationship with. She was also in a relationship with her boyfriend who wrote a piece online about what, in his opinion, happened. People here do not care about the private life of the woman (only when she uses GG as a pity excuse/leverage in life). Here's what we cared about:

Disclosure about a journalist and a subject he covered a few times.

We know that journalists can influence thought by their exposure and reach. This is true for all walks of life and for all political spectrums. By covering someone frequently because they were involved romantically/friendly is wrong. I thought that almost every other gaming publication would hop on this and poke fun at Kotaku for their mishandling of this situation especially when Editor came out and said the author did nothing wrong. All anyone was looking for was a "Sorry this won't happen again and he's suspended for a little bit;" I doubt anyone wanted him fired. The old cliche meme was true: it really was about ethics in game journalism. Kotaku doubled down. Most video game sites doubled down.

A series of articles across various gaming websites describing "gamers are dead" came out on literally the same day, if not within hours of each other. They said that anyone who was passionate about video games was immature, and a sad sad person. These gamers were described mostly as lonely males who lacked social skills and lived in their parents basement.

People were shocked these journalists, whose target audience were these gamers they decried as dead, decided to go with this tactic. This wasn't the first time (see the Mass Effect 3 ending calling gamers entitled), but it was the loudest brush back anyone had seen. These journalists also fought against people like Jack Thompson who wanted to ban violent video games in the early 2000s. Now they were on his side. The journalists were so proud of themselves that they had defeated these losers and could shape the conversation.

If you wanted to talk about Gamergate, you were banned from sites. Reddit deleted threads talking about Gamergate. If you somehow thought that the game journalists were in the wrong you were called a Gamergator and sexist and racist. You wanted women out of this hobby which you praised above all else; video games were a "boys only club". I believe that this came out because the write ups were about a woman game designer so everyone who was "on the wrong side of history" hated women.

A few weeks later it came out that these journalists had a secret list to contact each other. No big deal right? Well, it leaked that these editors and the higher ups on this website had joined together to write those series of articles (which made sense due to their timing), especially since they felt bad about the woman in the center of this (They were taking about sending her a cookie basket but instead wrote the articles instead as not to appear biased). After weeks of being told that Gamergate was being paranoid, they found a conspiracy.

Gamergate went digging. We found articles of other non-disclosures about friends, roommates and lovers being written about. Affiliate links back to Amazon that weren't being disclosed (something that was illegal especially when the website is making money off of them). Anytime the games journalists felt like they were attacked or exposed, they called us names, said we didn't matter, and tried to smear us and get us fired from our places of employment. We found their hypocrisy, their inflated egos, and pompous attitude as their hubris. Who was the outside world was going to believe: (self proclaimed) Journalists or a bunch of women hating sexist men boys on the internet?

All of this grew into discovering the game journalists wanted to turn the community and the hobby into what they desired. Violent or "problematic" video games no more. More representing for all even if it didn't make sense; it should just be that way. Gamergate is for representation in gaming as long as it is not forced or shamed. All of these tactics that we have seen "SJWs" use were in full effect here. Overtime, Gamergate has started to fight against SJWs as well as ethics in media.

The million dollar question I'm sure you're asking is, "Why should we care about video games journalism? It's nothing in the grand scheme of things." The answer is, "Why didn't they care?" All of this would have been over if there was an apology then they could've continued their plan without much resistance. We've seen the same forced ideology shift in comics, metal music and board gaming which all have been traditionally "white male geek" cultures.

This whole situation has "woke" (to culturally appropriate an AAV term) people to the twisting of the truth that journalists and other news/information keepers can create. There was the Correct The Record group in the Politics subreddit this past election for example. If something didn't fit the author's belief, it was distorted until it did.

It's important now because we're seeing the same thing with our current administration. This is closely mirroring what we went through but on a larger and more important scale. This time, the other side has journalists that can write up pieces instead of being silenced and dismissed.

To sum it up: We were lied to by the media that we thought we could trust. We wanted answers when we questioned authority and we were called sexist, racist, losers, censored and tried to be forcibly kicked out of our hobby. All of this happened on social media which made it even worse. To put it awkwardly: video gaming was trying to be gentrified by self righteous self appointed people that wanted to change everything. They were the same type of people: pompous "SJWs" who think they can control other's morals, language, actions and thoughts through shaming, name calling, threatening, and silencing.

There's a bunch of information I left out of here (#NotYourShield, "Bring Back Bullying", Feminist Frequency). There are bad apples on both sides no question. It is not wise to condemn the group because of a few.

/r/KotakuInAction Thread