Anita Sarkeesian Looks Back at GamerGate

I never paid much attention to this the first time around because it seemed that everyone involved seemed to be genuinely insane. I can’t imagine it being any more interesting now.

The amazing thing about Gamergate is that it ended being a massive waste of time for everyone involved and the actual arguments were practically over right at the beginning. Most of what anyone saw was the gossip generated by two bands of grifters and a cavalcade of wannabe e-celebs.

One of the beautifully symmetric things about the whole affair is that each side had someone who had ran a Kickstarter campaign and then failed to deliver. In fairness, I believe Carl of Swindon eventually tried to make the game (and then started giving refunds) and Anita did eventually deliver the videos (of course it's still a little suspect why she needed the money since she was already creating the type of content albeit more in relation to media generally).

Something interesting about Gamergate is that it shows you (or at least me) how both sides in a dispute may have an interest in distorting the truth in the same way. We can remember Gamergate has a historical battle between political conservatives and liberals because mythologising the events that way is convenient for both. We can forget that Anita, for example, was more socially conservative than many of her detractors. We can forget that her early criticism came from sex-positive feminists and sex workers. We can forget her disapproval of SlutWalk and we can forget her praise of the introduction of female-only passenger cars in Japan.

For something from the time (on Anita specifically) I'd suggest two video by "Intig8ive Journalism". These are 'Anita Sarkeesian Part 1 The College Graduate'[0] and 'Anita Sarkeesian Part 2 Burqa Beach Party'[1]. The original account is gone (how much else?) but the they've been re-uploaded.

I could go on but I don't think there's much point. I don't expect this comment to be particularly popular but I've think I've said things which need to be said.

  [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xbLSe4E3XA
  [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njRWV12LPwY