So this is not going to be a post about Anita Sarkeesian’s appearance on The Colbert Report last night, although I will say that it was not one of the best interviews I’ve seen. I think Colbert had a hard time trying to make sure that he wasn’t “attacking” her (since that’s his persona), given what she’s been through and the kind of message that would send, and balancing his perodic style. It’s hard to quip about horrible harassment and sexism when your subject is both nervous and not trying to be funny (I’m not saying she should have been funny, just that she wasn’t and that made the interview a little more awkward than some).
This is a post on Chris Plante’s piece from The Verge stating that GamerGate is dead. While his opening premise – “As an activist movement with the ability to inspire positive change, Gamergate is dead” – is not wrong, it is a tiny bit misleading, since I’m not convinced that GamerGate ever had the capacity to “inspire positive change,” given where it began. That’s not to say that the now-infamous byline of “ethics in games journalism” doesn’t need some “positive change,” just that I’m skeptical that GamerGate was ever really about that (also, that the kind of change that would benefit games journalism is what they were talking about in the first place).
His point that “GamerGate died ironically from what it most wanted: mainstream exposure,” is also accurate (and ties in to a post I made the other day), insofar as it suggests that GamerGate is not benefiting from mainstream news coverage or the list of celebrities who have now spoken up against it or in favor of feminism (now including Stephen Colbert). And Plante’s quip that “When a fictional ideal of repressive rhetoric thinks your movement is too much, then it’s time to reconsider,” is amusing – although I would suggest that Colbert’s “response” was more in line with his actual politics than his persona’s.
The problem, as I see it, is that Plante’s piece is more hopeful than it is reflective of what’s going to happen within the GamerGate movement. As of this morning, for example, OperationDiggingDiGRA (more on that here) was still examining the work of games academics for signs of feminist conspiracies. GamerGate isn’t about journalism ethics, and that is a conversation that Plante rightfully suggests can take place elsewhere and in a healthier way.
GamerGate is about couching privilege as a “right” and defending that privilege as though it were the most basic tenet of human dignity. And it just isn’t. It’s about mostly straight white men desperately attempting to cling to the (oppressive) power they possess in a “culture” (is gaming really a “culture”? But that’s another post for another day) that they feel has always belonged to them. It’s about the deliberate exclusion of diverse voices in a medium that is rapidly expanding and already includes those voices – which is where the whole backlash came from to begin with. GamerGate, specifically, is about a retrogressive desire to maintain a fictional status quo that never really existed as compensation for perceived loss.
And I’m just not seeing that as “dead.” Women have been able to vote in this country since 1919, and we still don’t make the same amount as equally-qualified men. Jim Crow laws were abolished in 1964, and racism against African Americans continues to be pervasive and institutionalized. GamerGate isn’t on the same scale as these, certainly (although it is the product of a similar social problem), but it isn’t going to just go away in three months.
I hope Plante is right, and this is the beginning of the end for GamerGate. I’m just not going to hold my breath… or my tongue.
I have to say that I personally feel that gaming absolutely is a culture… it’s also a culture that’s more deep and diverse than many understand. There are different types of gamers, the hardcore competitive type, the casual, but just look at huge events each year like Blizzcon that bring so many thousands of people with like-minded interests together.