GamerGate: Rated I for Immature

I don't want to talk about this. I fucking don't. I want to spend my time dissecting the Avengers 2 trailer, or talking about how mistaken I was about Gotham, or pondering over the DC/Marvel movie announcements, but I can't do any of that. (I mean I can, but the truth is there is a shitty elephant in the room that can't be ignored.) So I won't talk about any of the fun stuff, the stuff most of us really just want to obsess over. Instead, because there are a few dickheads out there, we have to talk about GamerGate. I was hoping this would go away, like that sharp pain I have in the back of my mouth. I was hoping if I ignored it long enough it would pass and we could all go on with our lives, but also like that sharp pain in the back of my mouth it seems as if the whole thing has become worse. Now we all have a compacted molar that requires some kind of drastic and terrible surgery.

I would ask if the douche-bags out there harassing women on video games realize that it is almost 2015 and not 1015, but that would be a stupid question, because gaming back in the 11th century required a greased pig and someone stupid enough to try and wrestle it. As opposed to nowadays when it seems that all is required is a gaming device and someone stupid enough to think that harassing women should be acceptable in any goddamn situation. I have talked before about the harassment women have faced in the nerd community, but that was a well-reasoned and sensible argument. My mistake was thinking that a level-headed plea for congeniality would ever reach the kind of bastards that perpetrate this pigheaded crap, especially in the gaming communities.

So sit back and open wide jerk-off's because I am going to frag your ass then teabag your open gullets till you learn to shut your fucking mouths.

For the record, I know its not all gamers. In fact, I believe the vast majority of gamers are good and decent people who want to do the right thing, but the culture of gaming is being driven by outdated assumptions and a few assholes who have a very special place in hell reserved for them, the level reserved for serial murders and people who chew with their mouths open. It's these jerk-offs who are driving this shitstorm of embarrassment and harassment.

For anyone who is still not sure what GamerGate is, it all started during the summer when a female game designer, (whose name I will not say, because the poor woman has taken enough crap and I don't want to add to it,) was publicly accused by an ex-boyfriend of having a romantic relationship with a journalist from the gaming/nerdy review site, Kotatku. This led to a campaign of moronic fuckheads bombarding her with so many disrespectful comments and threats that she had to flee her home. Supporters of GamerGate will tell you that the controversy is about journalistic integrity in video games, but that's utter bullshit.

Then again maybe gamer journalism may
also be part of a larger problem...

If there is corruption in video game journalism, it's not because of some Indie game designer and her woman parts. If this was really about integrity you would be directing your hateful comments at the large magazines and video game companies. Do you know how much it makes to produce a Grand Theft Auto, a Destiny, or an Assassin's Creed? Millions and millions of dollars. It is a larger time and income investment than creating a movie. So studios, of course, want to make sure they make their money back. That means they need to create hype, which means sending advanced (read: free) copies of their games and equipment to reviewers and magazines (I would assume along with a generous gift basket.) If I'm a reviewer and I am getting free games from Sony or EA, maybe I might start considering that if I keep slamming their products I may one day stop getting free brand-new games, which the rest of us have to shell out sixty or seventy bucks for. So maybe I would start easing off on the criticism, giving an extra star here and there, and basically ensure that my free video game train keeps pulling into my goddamn motherfucking station.

So maybe all you assholes out there should start threatening the lives the people over at Gamer Magazine or Nintendo. Maybe you should start hacking them and releasing their personal information onto the web. Oh, wait... You won't, because you're cowards, and because this has never really been about journalistic integrity. It's because there is a small group of cheeseheads (Fuck you, I'm not really good at cursing,) in our gaming culture that thinks its alright to harass women even though 48% of gamers are women. That means 48% of people out there are too afraid to talk in voice chat or reveal in anyway they are women. God forbid you let the other people on Call of Duty know you're of the opposite gender, because prepare to spend the rest of the match hearing nothing but catcalls, sexual remarks, sexual threats, and probably a few instances of the words "whore," "slut," "bitch," or maybe even a colorful remix of all three put together (like a kaleidoscope of hatred.) Who the hell would want to deal with that?

Even worse, the culture of gaming says this is okay. Video games themselves portray women as objects to be rescued or eye-candy to be ogled. Maybe that's why when women try to speak out about their delegated roles in both videos games and in the gaming culture they find themselves immediately shamed and threatened in the worst possible way for doing so. Recently, Felicia Day, spoke out about GamerGate, and within an hour (60 fucking minutes) hackers released her home address. Video game critic, Anita Sarkeesian, had an entire college campus threatened with a school shooting if they allowed her to speak. Even Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, had a bunch of fucking asshats send her graphic Photoshopped pictures of her father's dead body (May he rest in peace) right after his death. She had to shut down her twitter account because of the harassment.

When women speak up for themselves an element of gamers start to feel threatened, yet when male gamers speak out against GamerGate like Dan Golding or BuzzFeeds' Joe Bernstein they receive almost no blow-back, and certainly not on a level with the kind of death threats and hacking scandals that get targeted at women. It's because the shitbag cowards out there that perpetrate this crap don't care so much about defending their point as shaming women. I am not going to go into the more complex psychological underpinnings of that kind of attitude, whether it stems from early social awkwardness, early damage caused by an overbearing female figure, or just having too small of a dick, I can't say. I'm not a psychiatrist.

Life can be dark and unfair, to balance that: here is a
picture of a puppy and kitten napping together.

Regardless, if there is one thing I can't stand it is people that get their perverse kicks from making others feel worse about themselves. So I'm done being rational. The fuckholes out there who do this to women are the worst kind of people. They are driven by their own fears and insecurities, and they spit hatred for the same reason that when you were in kindergarten you pulled that girl's hair, because you were too socially undeveloped and awkward to fully articulate or realize your own short-comings. In a six-year old it's cute. In an online gamer its sad and dangerous. In fact it is that unawareness and those fears that drive these morons to do everything they do. It's easy to make threats and be a douche-bag when you're sitting safely behind the anonymity of an unoriginal reddit handle. It's easy to catcall and slut-shame when you are nothing but a digital voice standing behind a pixelated gun-barrel. It's easy to be afraid when you realize that a culture and something you have built your identity on is not really what you thought it was. (You may not be well liked by women, you may have a small dick, but at least you can win at Halo... oh wait a woman beat you... Your world must be crashing down around you)... too fucking bad. 

Do you realize that with 48% of gamers being women, if all women stopped gaming that very expensive gaming industry, which I was talking about earlier, would completely collapse. Maybe it is easy to forget that the people on the other end of the Internet are actual human beings with hopes and fears and loves and dreams. Maybe that is the dangerous by-product of an industry and a culture that for so long has seen women as nothing more than a pair of boobs in an impractical suit of armor, or a blog of pink pixels which you need to rescue by defeating a lizard monster. Then again, maybe some people are just assholes for no other reason than that they are. For whatever reason I am sick to fucking death of this kind of vitriol and sadistic treatment of women. 

So suck it up, accept it, because eventually every kindergartener need to grow up and learn to play in the sandbox nicely with the girls. (I promise they won't give you fucking cooties.) Just because you play games set in the dark ages doesn't mean it's okay to act like it.

I would say being a woman gamer is a lot like this...
but really it just seems that being a woman in general is "a lot like this.".