#GamerGate and #NotYourShield - v- Social Justice Warriors

[mbpark]

Gaming has evolved from the days where UT would complain about IBM users with MWave sound cards/modems had lag when playing networked Quake due to the same DSP being used for the modem and sound card.

For some of the people out there who do not know who I am: I've been logging into incarnations of this board since 1992 and started doing so using a Commodore 64. I've been around .

There are several changes since the old days of gaming:

1. Gaming forums and 4Chan: The gaming forums have turned increasingly racist, homophobic, and misogynistic over the years. Every few years, starting with Something Awful, another site comes up that turns up the insults. 4Chan is the latest in a long line of sites.

2. Porn. It's available in much more mass quantities than the BBS days. This has desensitized many people to actual human contact.

3. Trolling. What was once a distraction is now something pursued by a small but very vocal minority of gamers, who congregate in places like 4Chan or 8Chan. They follow several "master" trolls, who orchestrate many of these attacks. The undisputed master is Weev, who orchestrated the attacks on Kathy Sierra several years ago. There are several "agent provocateurs" stirring up the more easily led of the gaming community in GamerGate via the abovementioned forums. These people create memes and control others for the lulz.

3a. Trolling attacks such as "swatting", which is where you send the SWAT team in on people you dislike using prank calls simulating a hostage situation, doxing (where you post personal information on others), hacking and defaming have become celebrated and normal.

4. The "lulz". People do the above for the lulz, which are laughs at the expense of someone else.

Gamergate is not about ethics at all. If it was, they'd go after the red herrings like Rob Enderle. It's about a group of angry young men who idolize people like Weev who are stirred up by agent provocateurs to attack that which is different, and who really hate women. Not that they need them with the forums, games, and extra stimulation.

There are people out there who love to manipulate others and try to manipulate society itself, like Weev. Many of the GG people baying like dogs on the message boards are just the foot soldiers for them. There is a greater war on women and opinions, and this is one front. This is about self-appointed "elites" trying to silence dissent, women, and anyone they do not like on "their" Internet.

Back to school work.