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Comment by georgemcbay | Hacker News Reader

Same issue as #GamerGate in that game "journalism" really is completely broken but now you can't talk about that without being lumped in with a bunch of vocal minority crazed misogynists.

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It's very easy to talk about game "journalism" without being lumped into the "vocal minority". Just talk about game "journalism" without sticking up for the hopeless "GamerGate" brand, and be careful not to bring up game "journalism" in discussions about gender parity.

I get your point, yet I also see why that would be impossible from the GamerGate point of view considering how the media for the most part covered GamerGate in a biased one-sided way.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support GamerGate (or the other side) at all. Yet, all gamers aren't women-hating misogynists, despite the reporting.

See, you stuck up for "GamerGate", and now I think you're one of those people who believe that Zoe Quinn's private life is everyone's business because "ethics in journalism".

And is that my fault or is it the fault of the coverage of GamerGate?

Please note that I don't side with either of the sides, both sides are acting stupidly and I would rather spend time browsing TMZ than to engage in the stupid flamewar.

See, you paint people with a broad brush, and now I think you're one of those people who don't bother thinking before they post in a mean way because "fuck you got mine" and "karma to burn".

It was you who just dragged her name back into this, not him.

The problem is that GamerGate was created as part of a harassment campaign, explicitly billed as a propaganda tool, and never had a coherent message or structure, neither of which is necessary for a PR operation.

This meant that while the media coverage was generally accurate there are GamerGate supporters who aren't aware of the true origins and now incorrect feel that they were misrepresented — precisely the kind of distraction the original 4chan / burgersandfries cadre were hoping for.

Or #shirtgate when idiot "journalist" (The Atlantic's Rose Eveleth) went ballistic over Philae ESA Project Scientist Matt Taylor's shirt.

Matt had a shirt on with women similar to WWII bomber girls, fully clothed in 1940s/1950s style corsets or as Rose Eveleth and her foaming at the mouth outraged Twitter followers say they are naked women.

Some people get outraged at nothing these days.

I notice that you didn't even mention the many men who also complained about that shirt, to say nothing about attacking their professional competency.

Perhaps you should ask yourself why that is?

A lot of people conveniently ignore that the shirt was actually made by a female friend of his named Elly Prizeman. The situation all of a sudden becomes completely different when you factor in that fact.

Of course, it's easier to just heap in outrage.

I was aware of that but didn't mention it because it's not relevant to the question of whether that was a good wardrobe choice when representing you and your colleagues’ professional work for international media coverage.

Careful, you'll prove his point.

Most of the online criticism came her tweet about it going viral, or is that too simple of an explanation? You're right though, Chris Plante should share a bunch of that shame for his hyperbolic article, which also got shared everywhere and set the tone for discussion.

Sure you can: just talk about journalism without mentioning GamerGate. That label was created to co-opt an existing issue as cover for attacks on specific women – the only reason to mention it would be if you wanted muddy the waters instead.

Same people even. If you read the comment history of some systemd haters on reddit you'll more than once find that they are also engaged in #gamergate

I don't think you're a misogynist based on this comment. I just think the minority is bigger than you might imagine.

Data doesn't back up what you think. Have you looked at the data or are you going based on hearsay?

I didn't mean to downplay the impact when I used the word minority, there certainly are a lot of people on that loony bandwagon, but relative to the total community of gamers (not just the subset of those whose public internet identities on YouTube or whatever self-identify as "gamer") I would have to assume they are a very, very small minority since a lot of people are gamers, and most people (while sexist to varying degrees, as are we all) aren't abusive women-haters, in my experience.

Also, it looks like you might be getting downvotes (due to the coloring of your comment when I viewed it anyway). Wasn't me, I upvoted you fwiw.

Oh ffs don't bring that up here of all places.

You're just going to end up (as tptacek has already done) with people talking past each other about different definitions of what GG is, what it isn't, what gaming is, what gaming isn't, whether or not rape and death threats are inherently sexist or threatening, and so on and so forth.

Nice derail.

Game journalism is traditionally very weak, with journalists routinely feeling beholden to game manufacturers who use both positive reinforcement (expanded access to demos, invitations to special events, access to interview subjects, exclusive prerelease info) and negative reinforcement (especially the withdrawal of previously described perks) to coerce games journalists into providing very favorable reviews.

Only a very small minority of games journalists are truly unbiased, as the vast majority depend on access granted voluntarily by publishers to get the info that drives the traffic they need to make a living. They're often little more than an extension of game publishers PR departments.

Unfortunately it's very hard to solve this problem, as there's no way to force a publisher to share helpful access to critical reviewers.

Also, one time a game publisher had sex with people in the game industry which proves that all women are whores.

Oh man, I was so close.

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