Monday, October 20, 2014

Can @caitlindewey not see the problem here? More #GamerGate stuff

I was away over the weekend visiting family and didn't really expect to be revisiting #GamerGate after my last post on the subject, then I come home and start going thru my RSS feeds and find this article by Caitlin Dewey (@caitlindewey) bemoaning the efforts of #GamerGate participants to get companies to withdraw advertising from companies whose editorial viewpoint they disagree with.

Aside from the fact that I dislike the entire, "We are your betters, how dare you question us tone of the article?" there is also a huge cognitive disconnect in Ms. Dewey's writing.

Early on in the article Dewey explains one of the driving forces behind #GamerGate:

In early October, Intel hastily withdrew advertising from Gamasutra, a news site for game developers, as a result of the letter-writing campaign. (The piece over which the site lost funding was an essay critiquing video game culture and attacks on women in the industry; many readers — including, apparently, Intel — read it as a “sneering, vicious denunciation of an entire group of people.”)

A couple paragraphs later she writes:

 Topping their most-wanted list, at present, is Gawker Media’s Biddle, who tweeted a string of jokes about Gamergate on Thursday. In context, at least, the jokes were an obvious — if tongue-in-cheek — commentary on the movement’s well-documented, often hateful, idiocy. Critics construed them as an endorsement for bullying. (Biddle later apologized for the tweets.) (emphasis added)

I don't know, does she really not see how #GamerGate participants might feel like they aren't getting a fair shake in either the gaming press or the mainstream media?  Or does she just not care? And those tongue in cheek tweets:


So yeah, they are presented in a joking manner, but keep in mind that these tweets are from the editor of a group of sites that has come out as ferociously anti-gamer and anti-#GamerGate so maybe people thought there was a little truth to them.

I would suggest that if similar tweets had come from a pro-#GamerGate site regarding females or minorities, or even if I tweeted something similar regarding Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian (and I am on regard as saying that I don't particularly support #GamerGate and definately condemn any harassment that these women (or others such as Brianna Wu) are being subjected to) that they would be taken much more seriously by Ms. Dewey.

What I find especially questionable is that after printing this Dewey has the gall to suggest that those trying to organize a boycott of anti-gamer / anti-#gamergate sites are somehow in the wrong for attempting to express their opinions.  Two questions:

1.  Did she feel the same way when left wing groups were trying to destroy Fox News?  I'm just guessing but I would bet no.  Ms. Dewey strike me as the type who was out rallying against "Faux News" every chance she got.

2.  What other option do you have when you disagree with a media outlets editorial viewpoint?  How should people express their opinion regarding such matters?


No comments: