My Thoughts on #GamerGate Over the Last Few Days

A few nights ago I was reading a very interesting Twitlonger written by @silverwolfcc (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sdjrse) and I got about a third through it when I had something of an epiphany.  I had kind of an uncharacteristic moment of emotional pride in the gamer demographic that I’d never had before, over the sheer depth and breadth of the #GamerGate constituency.

It’s hard for me to describe without giving a lot of background, so if you’re in a rush suffice it to say that I’ve always hated the term “gamer” until then, but I’ve never been so proud to share a hobby with you amazing dudes and dudettes as I have been the last few days following GamerGate on Twitter.

I’ve always fancied myself an “old guard” nerd.  I’ve written before how the idea of “nerddom” being an expanding culture is anathema because it is, at its core, a holy haven of escapism.  That is to say, there could be said to be two factions: “orthodox nerds” who gravitated to traditionally nerdy subjects and media because that was the only way we could really understand the world around us; the people who were ostracized and marginalized, who argue about plot minutiae in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation because it’s legitimately important to us that that world be as tangible as possible.

In the past I refused to identify as a “gamer” because I thought the term ought to be reserved for the nerd orthodoxy in gaming, so I sort of viewed the label as derisively misappropriated.  But more on that later.

Then there’s the “pop nerds”; the ones who I would say are in it because it’s cool or trendy.  If I was writing about this in more detail I’d have a lot more disparaging things to say about this latter camp, but this post is about how I arrived at my olive branch so I’ll drop a relevant block quote here instead:

“The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: ‘Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Tolerance Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?’

“Bodhidharma answers: ‘None at all’.

“The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why not.

“Bodhidharma asks: ‘Well, what do you think of gay people?’

“The Emperor answers: ‘What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!’

“And Bodhidharma answers: ‘Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!’”

--http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
--http://poetrychina.net/Story_of_Zen/zenstory3a.htm

I’ve always been quietly of the opinion that the media favored by the nerd orthodoxy should remain in their control as a sort of petulant impractical exclusivity—or at the very least they ought to be what drives those media with the latter camp being subject only to the tastes of the former (I will comment that, as of writing this, it’s an old opinion and strikes me now as admittedly un-capitalist).  In practice I have never actually lived this philosophy as a real orthodoxy, partly because it’s impractical (pop nerds are absolutely ubiquitous) but mostly because I generally prefer that people like me and demanding people GTFO because they’re not enough of a “true nerd” is a straight shortcut to the opposite.  While I don’t fancy them on a conceptual level, I’ve never bothered to discriminate between people I meet in games that might fall into the latter camp, I might only pass benign silent judgment.  After all, a quiet accusation that an individual is “not a true nerd” is really nothing more than an appeasement of one’s own ego anyways.

But here’s where I’m going with this: my idea of the “nerd orthodoxy” excluded women as a rule.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love women (married to one) and I love female nerds (married to one) and I’ve played with many many many women in games over the years.  When I say “excluded women as a rule” it goes unsaid that I believe there are plenty of exceptions to that rule.

Here’s what I mean.  My wife is rather introverted (she’s warm and personable and not antisocial but she prefers small company if any) and to her life is perfect with a bowl full of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and a browser overflowing with tabs to FanFiction.net on her laptop.  To me, even before I met her, that’s what the quintessential female nerd looks like.  There’s millions of women out there like this, and I knew that well before GamerGate.

But there’s still more women and girls (and men etc.) who don’t really meet that description who nonetheless enjoy video games, so while I would get along with most people who play games just fine I maintained a sort of smug detachment from many of them.  I really think GamerGate has dispelled a lot of that.

I followed GamerGate from the start as an ancillary supporter.  I’ve virtually never in my life used gaming media for anything, so it’s not really all that important to me (granted my father is a journalist and I value truth, so in that respect I’m very much on board with a movement that seeks enhanced journalistic ethics).  My stake in the race was very much as an antifeminist and inasmuch as the anti-movement has damaged 4chan; while I’m concerned about SJW shit creeping into games I’m not very convinced that there won’t always be games for the core demographics.  I started using Twitter somewhat regularly to follow GamerGate once it moved there very early on.  It wasn’t until the last several days that I used it actively, and I only really started doing so out of boredom (my gaming desktop is borked so I don’t have a lot of gaming options at the moment).  But what I found in doing so was remarkable.

People of all flavors were out in support of #GamerGate against SJW encroachment in droves.  Without #notyourshield I don’t think it would be quite the same.  The racial makeup of GamerGate supporters is no surprise to me; I’ve been to Evo and am well aware that anyone who says gaming is a white hobby is fucking delusional.  What caught me off guard the most is the women, just the sheer unending volume of them.  Most of us know they exist for the most part, and most of us understand that gaming is a hobby heavily inhabited by men and that, while this is true, it’s hardly an exclusive hobby, but I had previously had no real appreciation for the sheer actual number of women who have the same passion for games and don’t want to see them ground into the dirt by the ideologically narrowminded.

Somewhere while reading @silverwolfcc’s Twitlonger it hit me.  GamerGate feels very much like a sort of orthodox nerd’s crusade against invaders, but it’s really not just the orthodox nerds in this battle.  There’s common ground with those who don’t fit my arbitrary labels too; there’s bigger fish to fry.  Using “gamer” as a common identity strikes me as a poetic way to come together.

And it’s more beyond that.  Before I’d listened to the conversation between @Sargon_of_Akkad and @TYFCapitalists on YouTube (A Conversation with The Fine Young Capitalists) I was very universally antifeminist.  I really had not been open to the idea that there were rationalist feminists (muh 1^st/2^nd wave was never really enough to convince me; there were suffragette terrorists back then too) until I heard @TYFCapitalists describe their experiences, methods, and the issues they were working on.  I’m much more convinced now that the insanity that marks 3^rd wave feminism is really a result of its Marxist underpinnings.

Here’s the difference between us and the SJWs: they see a society forever in its infancy and they see themselves as its all-knowing parents with all the petulant authoritarianism that only an insecure parent can muster—an I-know-what’s-best, don’t-question-me attitude.  They think gamers as a culture are children because they’re still stuck in that mindset that we’re either children playing with toys or reclusive nerds perpetually in middle school.  They don’t understand that we’re truly a culture of adults, and adults don’t need to be—and don’t like to be—talked down to.  They don’t understand that adults can disagree on deep, fundamental issues and still get along and have fun together at the end of the day.  They think we’re children who need to be protected from people with “bad opinions”; they don’t understand that even if someone is a legit sexist/racist/whatever, if that person is still a good person otherwise—a good player—we can find some common ground.  We can understand that those transgressions are character flaws that can be subverted and overcome—a rational racist can be taught why an irrational disdain for people of a given race is not useful.  We’re wise enough to give pause to the sort of truly childish thoughts that would cause someone to condemn someone else wholesale only for having a “bad” opinion.  The same sort of zeal that drives SJWs to condemn everyone who doesn’t agree with them is the same irrationality that allows someone to be racist irrationally for no real reason to the extent that they cannot be convinced out of their petty biases.

And that’s why we’re always going to win over cultural Marxism.  The situation is really quite the opposite of how it appears, for it is really them who are the angsty teenagers who break down the instant the world doesn’t conform to their expectations.  They’re up against adults, who enjoy challenging themselves, who are able to build meaningful communities and relationships, who are able to put aside small differences and get work done, who like to win but aren’t afraid to lose.  That’s how I define “gamer”.  Gamers are far from dead.