It was the summer of August 2014. I still remember watching videos of Five Guys and the delicious burgers they would cook up. The sizzle on the grill got my taste buds anticipating an experience I had to get out of my house to relish. Unfortunately that would have been a preferable alternative to what happened at the time.
For those who are completely clueless on GamerGate, here's a very quick explanation:
Now back to me. Still a college student taking a course in game design at the time, I did not have any interest in politics, literature or whatever that I deemed was "boring," and boy, was real life boring. Most of my time was made up of trying to escape the real world. Never had a good experience with it. Just how things were for me. I'm telling you about a guy who had pretty bad social skills, had interests that wasn't interesting to those around and was very slow at reading the air. That guy was me and for the longest time that was how I rolled. So naturally, being neglected by my peers and unable to make many connections (only had 2 or 3 real friends until I reached my teenage years when I started getting a little better and got into social circles) I was drawn to video games. It caught my attention hard due to the interactivity that video games were able to offer. I made the calls. I was a part of the adventure. And most certainly, I was the hero. The hero who saved the day after countless "Game Overs" and retries, I was able to complete everything because I refused to give up. The goal was in my reach, just had to do better the next time. Opposite of how I did at school. I was very, very mediocre at that.
Over time I managed to get better with being around people but I never hid my power level which made certain subjects, such as selected video games, anime or the Friendship is Magic stuff that was real big at the time, be used as easy ammunition whenever I had to be shot down. Now that didn't feel good at all. I felt like either there was something screwed with me for taking an interest in stuff like that or something screwed with everyone else for not being okay with it. Believe me there's some real messed up stuff people are into and I don't believe I was into any of those, so naturally I believed the latter. It was here I thought that things were going to be different once I got into college and learned about video game designing. Be able to meet like-minded people, bond over all the geeky things we grew up on, collaborate and create something special. How naive I was.
Now then, we fast forward to graduating high school! Entering the world of college and adulthood! Got accepted into a college in the city. The first impressions were great. We all got along, everything seemed promising. Classes were bullshit at times though but aside from that I truly believed there was something special about everybody here. But at some point things started feeling off. The very first point was no doubt the shirt controversy when the Rosetta scientist, Matt Taylor's name was running about not because of the success of landing a spacecraft onto a comet, which is damn incredible, but because of his shirt that had suggestive ladies on it. There wasn't a big talk or even any talk among the students on the entire situation but there was 1 or 2 of my classmates who, when it was brought up, said he shouldn't have worn that shirt and how little they cared about the actual landing. Wasn't impressive in their world. The shirt wasn't even bad. Suggestive? Yes. Explicit? No. Here's a quote from Confucius: "When a wise man points at the moon, the imbecile examines the finger." It didn't deserve such a controversy but boy, that was only a lick.
August 2014. As a 4chan regular I stumbled upon the Zoe Quinn Scandal back when the incident was referred to as "Five Guys Burgers and Fries". I never experienced having my attention caught up in any scandal, let alone one that involved the industry I was going to school for so this really piqued my interest and curiosity. It wasn't the most important thing that impacted my life or shook the foundations of life. It was more of a neat topic to discuss for a day or two but that was it. Well, that didn't happen. On the 28th we witnessed the tsunami of "Gamers are Dead" articles which turned out to be (as suspected) one big coordinated work that was given birth from the scandal. An attack on the consumers over misogyny. It was clear this was to paint Miss Quinn as a victim and everybody who didn't see her that way as a villain. I wasn't upset to see the video game media not only cover up the scandal and shift the blame to their audience, oh no. I was pissed to see this take place. Why? Because I was a part of the audience. I wanted to contribute to the industry and be able to wow my audience who would be considered gamers. I believe it was around here when the "GamerGate" name was created.
It had to get worse. Learning about The Fine Young Capitalists and how little coverage they received from the video game media due to their drama with Quinn, yet their entire project was to promote women in video game development, the thing that the video game industry is still under fire for, made little sense to me. And I wanted some sense. And I made an attempt. I wanted to discuss the incident. And I did...sort of.
Ha ha! The response was either complete ignorance on the subject or hostility. Yes, future game designers are siding with Quinn and the video game media. Now if that's all they follow (like who the hell goes on Internet forums and imageboards?) then that would've been fine. We can sit down and discuss and debate on the issue and perhaps learn from each other and be able to grow, become a part of a brighter future for the video game industry, to mature and not make the same mistake from happening. Better yet not let ourselves make such a mistake. Nope. They didn't even want to talk, period. They didn't even want to look at what happened. They took their word over the situation and were content with it. There was nothing more that had to be said. Ethics in journalism, The Zoe Post, The Fine Young Capitalists, the Gamers are Dead articles. As if any of those were a topic of interest. People who actually talked about it were more interested in gender politics and such other points which I don't even consider to be main points surrounding the issue and, if anything, I believe it to be a strawman.
Ah, politics. Something I never got myself interested in and heavily discouraged to be engaged in. But that was great. Learning about, but not limited to: gender politics, the social justice craze, the support for socialism and the disdain over capitalism, the attack on freedom of speech (despite art being able to flourish because of it), political correctness and a few, few more. Quite the hard pill to swallow. To think the world was being engulfed in this new culture of destruction and decay disguised as sunshine and rainbows. A nice road map towards totalitarianism and the abandonment of individuality (unless you're anything but heterosexual). But I managed and I got GamerGate to thank for it. Now I am convinced we in the West are living in a soft dystopia (that is something for another day). Is what I believe extreme? I don't think so but damn, I'll keep it until either I change my mind or I am not allowed to keep it (I am implying that its a thoughtcrime). Guess that's the meaning behind "Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
So thank you GamerGate. It was because of you I read 1984, gained an interest in literature (Animal Farm was also great and Yukio Mishima is not to be missed), raised my eyebrows many times listening to SJWs, witnessed Antifa and without a doubt a whole lot more (probably for another day). I did continue through college and graduated (despite my bleaker outlook). I still want to make video games (despite what had happened) and I hope I will get a few projects under my list of accomplishments (I am making an RPG Maker VX Ace game as of this writing), but I'm not really itching to get involved in the industry and perhaps it's for the best if I'm expecting the West to crumble down.
***
If you're interested in GamerGate and its history I recommend this almost 2 hour video:
No comments:
Post a Comment