Discussion: Report: Gamergate Cost Gawker 'Seven Figures'

TPM Article Topics
1

Discussion for article #231063

2

Someone under-estimated the activist, financial, and organizational power of a whole bunch of angry young male gamers.

The same demographic happens to make up a large part of Anonymous as well.

4 Likes
3

Should we be expecting several Gawker/Gamergate follow-stories or can you just let us know if there’s anything moving on the Harvard Business Professor who wants treble damages for paying $4 more than he thinks he should have for Chinese food.

4 Likes
4

Now you know why the MSM caters to the Teatrolls and busies itself with forcing every single narrative into the false equivalence box.

3 Likes
5

Jesus, I am unhip. I didn’t even know there was such thing as gaming journalism.

6 Likes
6

The gamergate thing didn’t “morph into” anything.
The entire thing STARTED as a misogynist rant - a jealous guy falsely accused a woman developer of sleeping with a man for a review of her game (said review doesnt even exist), and a horde of MRAs and anti-feminists jumped on the opportunity to slut-shame that woman.
Then they invented the rationale later.
These are the same exact people who had been attacking Anita Sarkeesian all along, and harassing other women.

14 Likes
7

Don’t feel too bad.
Most gaming write-ups are transparently equivalent-- to the NRA shilling for gun manufacturers.
There’s some value in descriptive reviews and walkthroughs-- while the rest is mostly cheerleading.

jw1

8

Eh, everyone involved here seems to be an asshole.

The #GamerGate people are assholes for their misogyny and bullying and Biddle is an asshole for lumping all Nerds in with them and his endorsement of bullying.

6 Likes
9

I think this is why the terrorists hate us.

1 Like
10

It was too funny arguing with Gamergate dudes, since they would absolutely denounce and insult you for suggesting it was about girl gamers at all, and swore up and down it was about corruption in game journalism. And yet…everything they wrote about was how “third-wave feminists” were ruining games AND ruining Gamergate by saying it had anything to do with girl gamers. Over and over and over and over, they’d say this and despite repeated requests on the subject, they never really would explain how it involved corruption, besides the one female programmer who supposedly slept her way into good reviews for her games. To them, they first had to beat down anyone who annoyingly thought it involved girls and only after that could they focus on the epic corruption they insist is their only focus.

And if you dared suggest that they were in any way not the heros of this story, they’d call for an instant boycott of whatever you were. I saw this when the head of Blizzard made a nothing statement saying people shouldn’t treat girl gamers badly online, and these guys freaked and swore they’d never buy another game from Blizzard again. But they insisted it wasn’t because his statement was pro-girl, but for linking Gamergate to girls at all.

But that’s how the whole issue is. They protest so heavily because they took the wrong position and have to fight violently with anyone who isn’t fully on their side because that’s all they’ve got. But all that really happened was that the Internet continues to connect more and more people together, so these jerks who have been living in the shadows amongst themselves are finally interacting with the rest of us and discovering that all their coolguy talk is offensive and wrong. But instead of dealing with it like grownups, they wage an epic battle against anyone who dares challenge them. And well, that’s not entirely surprising coming from gamers.

4 Likes
11

Hmmm, even though I’ve heard the term “gamergate” before, and I knew about a related culture that was horribly misogynist, I still don’t know exactly what “gamergate” was or is after reading this post. I know it’s a bit “traditional media” to include background info for people not up to speed on the topic, but a succinct summary of the story would have been nice.

1 Like
12

I predict that within 10-15 years the majority of male gamers will have become staunch Republicans in the Limbaugh/Paul mold—selfish Glibertians with a thick layer of overt misogyny coupled with endless attempts at bullying and chest-beating from behind the safety of a keyboard.

1 Like
13

“But instead of dealing with it like grownups, they wage an epic battle against anyone who dares challenge them. And well, that’s not entirely surprising coming from gamers.”

LOL. Exactly…that is the basis of 99% of all games out there isn’t it?

14

It got so bad a mild mannered popular (with the gaming crowd) sci fi actress said she didn’t want to even comment about Gamergate because it was too contentious so she’d stay out of it. She was promptly doxxed and quit twitter, because it was all about ethics in journalism…

4 Likes
15

Not to mention “amount of free time”. =P

1 Like
16

Biddle asked how much the company was spending on its content management system Kinja, and Denton replied that it was about five times as much as his tweets had cost the company, leading to laughter from the audience.

So doing something which causes the company to lose $700+K in revenue can be laughed off?

Must be nice.

17

I was really shocked at that. I always considered Day to be the Nerd Princess.

1 Like
18

To any outsider looking in, the whole #gamergate controversy is about a bunch of basement dwelling outcasts with sunlight allergies taking out their repressed anger and resentment against any woman who happens to play video games (or just happens to be a woman) and doesn’t think that these morlocks should be worshiped. It looks like men who never got through puberty quite right.

1 Like
20

Let’s see… $1 000 000 (minimum for seven figures) / 140 characters. That comes to $7142,86 (Roughly) per character.
I guess it’s incumbent upon the new generation of morons heading “social media” corporations to find new ways to squander all the money they make, while insulting as many regular folks as is humanly possible.
The bright side is that this makes one more rich boob down, another 30 million or so to go.
What a shame abject stupidity can’t be allowed to work faster to cull the herd.
Yes Virginia, rich corporate boobs can be stupid, too.
It’s just so satisfying to see some of them pay for it, once in a while.

1 Like
21

We have a problem now with liars on the left who smear anyone who doesn’t play their phony social justice games as hating women in 21st century America, at a time when gender relations have never been more egalitarian. These same people actually think being ‘egalitarian’ is unacceptable and insufficiently feminists and thus misogyny. GamerGate has nothing to do with hating women but that won’t stop these phonies from trying to use these accusations to silence their critics. The supposed victims are privileged white attempting to claim the mantle of oppression as a means of demanding moral authority over all within the society including other women and minorities.

Their goal isn’t equality but promoting themselves and gaining power over others. We see them hate mongering through other corrupt elements in the progressive press who have come to assume social justice is about using the power of the press to mercilessly bully anyone who disagrees with them. That’s where Sam Biddle’s comments come from. White men have no problem getting in on the game by claiming to be defenders of these women.

You don’t see these people focused on the poor. They don’t see the poor nor do they care about them. They are too busy defending their own privilege which they protect by coopting social justice intended to help the disadvantaged not protect bullies in the press who have no respect for the public they serve.

#GameGate has a sister hashtag #NotYourShield full of women and minorities tired of this corrupt social justice dominating the progressive media landscape. The women in the movement will not be used as a shield for the press claiming their reason for hating on gamers is to make them feel more welcome in gaming. The creator of #NotYourShield is a black man who was fired by anti-gamergate harassers repeatedly contacting his employer. This is oppression not social justice. This is the press acting like tyrants at the top of some social hierarchy not guardians of inclusion and diversity. The hate needs to stop. The bullying needs to stop.

1 Like