Wikipedia, citing Jeffrey Klaehn, describes a culture of fear as the following:
“Culture of fear (or climate of fear) is a term used by some scholars, writers, journalists and politicians who believe that some in society incite fear in the general public to achieve political goals.”
Recently, I’ve seen this term thrown around as a criticism of gaming, #GamerGate, and the discussion around gaming journalism, often claiming that #GamerGate has created a culture of fear within the gaming community, but that is simply not true. In order to create a “Culture of Fear” someone must be capable of inciting fear in the first place. In order to create a culture, one must have an audience that hears, and trusts, one’s words.
So let’s take a look at a few examples of what has been written about gaming and #GamerGate lately:
In an article titled, “GamerGate is loud, dangerous and a last grasp at cultural dominance by angry white men” Jessica Valenti of the Guardian proceeds to make claims that #GamerGate “ is just the last, desperate gasp of misogynists facing an unwelcoming future. But this particular bitter end, while long overdue, is loud, angry and extremely dangerous.” The article touches on the unfortunate and despicable threats made against Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian, references past, unrelated occurrences of rape, mass murder, killing sprees, and harassment, and argues that “Angry men are plainly telling us to expect [the next act of violence.]”
I will mention that Valenti fails to provide any proof that #GamerGate is made up of angry, white men at all. She also fails to provide evidence that the threats made against Sarkeesian and Wu — however horrible — were propagated by users of the #GamerGate tag, or were upheld by the general populace of #GamerGate tag users. The links to misogyny or sexism she is able to provide is to the tweets of one Mike Chernovich, a user who began using the #GamerGate tag recently because of Sam Biddle of Gawker’s “bring back bullying” tweets. Mike Chernovich is by no means a “leader” of #GamerGate, de facto or otherwise. More on this subject later.
Valenti juxtaposes a discussion about #GamerGate with a discussion of terrible atrocities, the only connection presented being supposed “angry white men.”
Onto another example:
“Does Someone Have to Actually Die Before GamerGate Calms Down?” by Mike Diver at Vice.
As if the title wasn’t enough, the photo leading the article is of a monstrous, ugly creature sitting at a computer, typing horrifying messages like, “No stupid cunt I have your mum in my bed,” while terrified and sad people look on outside the windows of the creature’s room. There are bones scattered on the floor. The article focuses heavily on the harassment experienced by Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, and contains paragraphs like this one:
“One of the Escapist’s male interviewees was Slade Villena, a.k.a. Twitter user RogueStar. His contributions were removed from the post after, wrote site editor-in-chief Greg Tito, “[we] received evidence that he has harassed some contributors to The Escapist.” Naturally, Villena has since published his own account of what may or may not have gone on, but again: not great, guys.”
Mr. Diver fails to comment on Mr. Villena’s response and whether or not the accusations made against him were fair or grounded in fact. He does however, comment on many events that occurred long before #GamerGate was even a concept, attempting to tie them to #GamerGate via juxtaposition. Mr. Diver provides no examples of #GamerGate tag users harassing Sarkeesian or Wu, though he does link to an article from We Hunted the Mammoth that discusses some nasty comments about Zoe made in the Burgersandfries Public IRC. Once again, not #GamerGate.
He also has this to say:
“Does somebody have to die before everyone stops being imbeciles and begins to consider: Hang on, are games not suppose to be fun, and even more so when shared with others? Isn’t there space for games for every person under the same sun to coexist? We don’t all have to play the same way.”
Perhaps someone should direct Mr. Diver to #Notyourshield , where he will learn about the remarkable diversity within #GamerGate.
Thankfully, Mr. Diver ends his article like this: “I don’t have the answer to the question of how we prevent bias in the media […]” before saying “So how about we all calm the fuck down before someone really gets hurt?”
Perhaps we can prevent bias in the media by not having pictures of monsters at the top of a page discussing an incredibly complex issue, and by shedding light on other things going on within the #GamerGate issue besides two occurrences of harassment.
One final example before I finish this:
“The Gaming Industry Could Stop GamerGate — But It Won’t” by Eric Johnson of Recode.net
The article begins with a cartoony image of people holding torches and pitchforks screaming angrily at the camera and proceeds to report on Anita Sarkeesian’s harassment. The only link between #GamerGate and harassment that Eric Johnson provides is a link to a tweet from Sarkeesian herself claiming she received one threat that mentioned #GamerGate. The context of this mention of #GamerGate is not provided, nor is any information on whether authorities have managed to find out who did it, why they did it, and what sort of affiliation they might have with the hashtag #GamerGate.
Johnson later talks about #StopGamerGate2014 , a tag that has spawned its own harassers:
and
He fails to mention the negatives effects that #stopgamergate2014 has had.
The harassment that has occurred is undoubtedly horrible, worthy of denouncement, investigation, and prosecution. I have never, and will never, excuse such behavior. No matter what your opinion on the issues are.
However, harassment has also been attributed incorrectly, and has been the primary focus of many media articles concerning #GamerGate. These articles have reach. These articles affect opinion. The authors have disregarded innocence until proven of guilt, and focused on harassment only. These articles, and the authors responsible for them, are the ones creating a “Climate of Fear.”
It should be known that users of the #GamerGate tag have experienced doxxing and harassment to no end. This has been documented here:
http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/
Almost no one has discussed it. I will be doing further discussion on #GamerGate users being harassed soon, but for now, I would like to focus on the many things in #GamerGate that has nothing to do with harassment.
- Led by Users @GamingandPandas and @TotalBiscuit , hundreds of individual #GamerGate tag users raised money for the following charities (all donators and amounts are contained within):
- Revelation of the GameJournoPros secret mailing list was done by Brietbart writer Milo Yiannopoulis, who is pro-#GamerGate
- One Angry Gamer, with help from further GameJournoPros email leaks, exposed shady behavior at Destructoid
- #GamerGate tag supporter @Totalbiscuit broke the story on Shadow of Mordor paid review content.
- Gaming site Kotaku.com changed its policy on Patreon support following criticism
- Gaming site the Escapist revised its ethics policy following criticism
- #GamerGate supporters from Reddit and 4chan brought tens of thousands of dollars to Women in Gaming Industry Initiative (link below provides great info on this from the group)
Thank you for reading. Much more to come.
