Unbeknownst to those of us who keep their heads inside games and not on internet sites looking for the latest scandal, there’s a new craze sweeping the internet and its called GamerGate. As most casually understand it, GamerGate is attempt to stimulate grass roots activity and protests of the gaming industry most unsavory things. Here’s the thing though, The Verge’s T.C. Sottek is arguing that the situation isn’t as simple as people are making it out to be and that we should all stop supporting the cause.
In Stop Supporting GamerGate Sottek makes a pretty simple argument: there’s some funning business going on.
“In short, Gamergate is a boggling witch hunt that continues to raise more questions than it answers because it didn’t have any useful questions to ask in the first place. Even Gamergate’s founding claim, that games journalism is corrupt, isopportunistic horseshit from misogynists who decided to shame a woman for allegedly sleeping around because they didn’t like her video game and wanted to punish her for it. Slut-shaming, gaslighting, dismissal, fallacious logic, intimidation: these are all part of the Gamergate militant’s toolkit.”
The subject matter alone is worth a read, and that Sottek manages to make an impassioned plea for sanity while asking for the same social justice that GamerGate purports to seek out is simply impressive. Regardless of where you fall on the issue, Stop Supporting Gamergate is the most well-written, well-reasoned collection of words about GamerGate we’ve seen yet.