#GamerGate & Why I can't be involved in the movement anymore

Greetings friends,

So over the past few weeks I've been pretty involved in the goings on of the gaming and journalism movement GamerGate.

I was there when the first hashtag tweet was sent. I commented on the truth as I saw it behind Quinn's manipulation of people and wether or not we should separate her personality from the product she produces. I blogged about the sweeping statements being made about men, gamers, GamerGate and how it was no different to discrimination.

Throughout all of this I have tried to do my part in a meaningful way to keep he movement going but in a positive direction that results in furthering equality.

On Friday however something happened that made this involvement impossible:


Here is an extract from a 'short story' provided by Milo; a vocal news journalist who is a self confessed GamerGate Sympathiser.

Now from what I saw Milo was ripping into someone called Ian:


I don't know who Ian is, and I don't care who he is, but what I saw was one person with an audience writing a 15 tweet long story about Ian and how he is a neo-nazi who masturbates over copies of Iron Sky.

The thing is, this reminded me a lot of 'poking fun at the fat kid' or 'mocking he nerd' that many of us experienced in school at the hands of the 'in-crowd' or 'jocks'.

So I called Milo on this; in a polite and respectful way, and was replied with the following:



Notice the retweets and favourites; almost all of these by different people, so that's ~26 people who either favourited or retweeted this.

I've looked into these people and like Milo almost all have been posting in support of GamerGate.

And this was where my faith faltered.

It was only a matter of weeks before that I along with the rest of GamerGate were screaming at Polygon for advocating bullying and how it was never acceptable behaviour, but here we have a vocal sympathiser for GamerGate and a tonne of other people (this screenshot does not capture the literal hundreds of posts that the 15 tweet story received in support) not only bullying someone, but saying that "you can't bully a neo-Nazi enough".

Now don't get me wrong, I hate what is being done to gaming, and I strongly dislike many of the people who are attacking us and calling us misogynists; but I hate hypocrites more.

I still want to see Kotaku and Polygon replaced with a staff of responsible and culpable people, I still want Quinn and Wu to stop trying to grab the spotlight whenever they can and I certainly want Sarkeesian to stop lying and stretching the truth to make money, but I refuse to stand shoulder to shoulder with people who regardless of motivation, criticise someone for being a bully one week, and then advocate bullying the next.

I'll keep up the good fight; I'll report and blog when I see injustice and BS, but I will not do it under the banner of #GamerGate.

And if anyone's looking for someone to blame, it's these ass-hole hypocrites right here.

You know what the most ironic part of it is? Throughout that whole night the only people I managed to engage in a non-hate filled discussion with? Two Anti-GGers. What does that say?

Until next time, stay safe and be excellent to each other!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley