IN ANY CONVERSATION YOU ARE ALSO DEALING WITH AN EMOTIONAL TRUTH

October 30, 2014 9:36 AM

Film Crit Hulk is back with a long essay about more-than-gamergate. Building off his previous ethical criticism (especially his multipart James Bond series) Film Crit Hulk gives us his opinions on "THE VOID OF THIS PARTICULAR HOUR".

Touching on such issues as:

Emotional truths in internet conversation

Cult-like behavior in arguments and identity politics

Fellow-travelers

Social despair

Film Crit Hulk sends love to the universe

Does the traditional narrative arc of modern media make it harder for real people to change?

"Arc of the Audience, Arc of Ourselves"

Does cinematic catharsis offer us emotion at the expense of morality?

Film Crit Hulk's worst job ever

And of course, Film Crit Hulk's Message to the Young People.

With discussion of True Detective, The Sopranos, and Happy Go Lucky among others.

posted by Hypatia (77 comments total)

...How do you send a standing ovation over TCP/IP?

I read straight through this in my lunch hour and I can't even begin to organize everything I thought about it. I'll have to revisit it later.
posted by seyirci at 9:50 AM on October 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

Dehulkifier enables lowercase letters.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:04 AM on October 30, 2014 [24 favorites]

There's a lot of really good, thoughtful stuff there.

Thanks for posting it, Hypatia.
posted by merelyglib at 10:05 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm on a bit of a FilmCritHulk binge at the moment, and it really strikes me how his compassion and empathy shines through in every essay, and not only for the wronged. If anyone is capable of changing and teaching, it is Hulk.

Via the this article, I went on to read his other essay on rape culture, which I could not put down once I started. I honestly think it's a life-changing essay (I know it is for me); it is a condensed treatise on misogyny and inequality that has helped me refine my disparate thoughts on the subject into a cohesive and grim understanding of the subject.
posted by kyp at 10:05 AM on October 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

This is so good. Thank you for posting it here.
posted by davidjmcgee at 10:11 AM on October 30, 2014

This whole article, to me, was another prime example of why I love Film Crit Hulk's writing. There's an empathy and humanism in his essays that reminds me of a lot of David Foster Wallace's output, not necessarily because of its style but rather how it affects me.

I'm glad "the big guy" isn't quitting.
posted by bigendian at 10:12 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

AND HULK'S PRETTY SURE THAT MANY OF THEM DON'T EVEN REALIZE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY'RE TAKING PART OF.

I think he gives the kids too much credit. At some point you just have to call a spade a spade.
posted by Leon at 10:28 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

[Dehulkified] What has essentially happened is that we have taken a cult behavioral approach to discussion and philosophy - normally a really difficult thing to instill into people and requires isolation, direct programming and full-on cultural separation - and turned it into something that has been casually learned on the internet's proverbial streets through the organic process of being a part of video game's most toxic subculture.

This is one of the scariest things I have ever seen.

Yeah. I don't really have anything to add to that, but I think it's really scary, too.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:37 AM on October 30, 2014 [13 favorites]

WE ARE SO DAMN BAD AT SEEING OURSELVES AS PART OF A LARGER TREND / SYSTEM. WE ARE SO BAD AT SEEING WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY ADVOCATING ON THE WHOLE.

This is the most cohesive statement describing the difficulties and failures of complex systems I have ever seen. I have been looking for words exactly like these for a while now. I'm not surprised at all that I found them from Film Crit Hulk.
posted by ndfine at 10:40 AM on October 30, 2014 [19 favorites]

I get that the HULK writing style has been rather integral to the author's body of work up until this point, but I can't help but think that presenting it without the all caps / pronoun stuff would get this important message out to more people. Dehulkification helps, but not everyone's going to bother, and many those who don't bother are simply going to be turned off of the style.

It's a cute schtick, and perhaps that schtick helps it reach more eyeballs than it otherwise would, but given how good the author clearly is at communicating complex, emotional topics, I feel like it'd be a net win to drop the HULKness and just write this as a straight essay without the gimmickry.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:48 AM on October 30, 2014 [8 favorites]

Yeah. I don't really have anything to add to that, but I think it's really scary, too.

That's only true if you think they're good actors. If you think they're bad actors, they're just mundane assholes clothing themselves in righteous language.
posted by Leon at 10:52 AM on October 30, 2014

I <3 HULK! He's probably my favorite writer on film (or perhaps on anything) on the web.
posted by brundlefly at 11:00 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I said this elsewhere online today: fewer things as grindingly predictable and dull than the inevitable patronising complaints about the capitalisation whenever this hulk writes something.

Gripe over, this essay just gets better as it goes and I'm so excited to follow this writer as they go from strength to strength.
posted by ominous_paws at 11:06 AM on October 30, 2014 [10 favorites]

Haha yeah no doubt ominous_paws, it's like "if only this was different, then it could reach people not intelligent enough to handle it. Not myself, of course, I'm fine with it, but I worry about the others!"
posted by wyndham at 11:09 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

patronis patronising complaints about the capitalisation

I have no idea what that means, but I bailed on this earlier this week because I couldn't make it through all the caps. I appreciate the link, above, to the DeHulkifier so I can read the damn thing.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:11 AM on October 30, 2014 [10 favorites]

I don't see it as patronizing to care about the style getting in the way of the message, and am not in any way putting myself above anyone else who might read it in terms of intellect or sophistication. I even acknowledged that the style is a hook that has undoubtedly contributed to the author's success, but I guess unless I believe that there's no way an intelligent person could be turned off by an all caps essay before they have a chance to realize how good it is, I must be totally missing the point.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:12 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, more that this person is such an exceptional writer, and - especially given the things he writes about - has absolutely got reasons for using the style that he does, and *every* time his work is up for discussion there's someone blandly complaining about it.

Anyway it's more the aggregate than the particular that grinds my gears; nobody here is a terrible person or anything.

(patronis patronising means my autocorrect has been giving me shit all day and probably I shouldn't post from mobile)
posted by ominous_paws at 11:18 AM on October 30, 2014

For me it just seems weird that that can be some people's main takeaway from the whole piece. There's nothing about the message, but instead the most important part of it to comment on IS the style, in a weird attempt at an altruistic, just-trying-to-help attitude, about what, in that person's eyes is a problem. A focus on the wrong, rather than celebrating/talking about that right.

That all being said, I'm guilty of the same thing here and in my above comment! So to offset this, I will say that if anyone is reading the comments before deciding to dive in to the whole thing, as it is quite long, I highly highly recommend it. It is wonderful and loaded with excellent stuff, as the topic list above show. It really made me feel rather hopeful.
posted by wyndham at 11:22 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

I like to think of the Hulk persona as a rhetorical disarming tactic. Nothing can seem too threatening or pretentious, coming from somebody pretending from the Hulk.

And then he gets ya, with his top-tier writing.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:26 AM on October 30, 2014 [18 favorites]

wyndham: For me it just seems weird that that can be some people's main takeaway from the whole piece.

Mistaking what someone's first comment is for their main takeaway is your error, not anyone else's. I read the entire piece and loved it, but didn't feel another "yes, it's awesome" comment would add much to the conversation, so I talked about the one thing I hadn't considered before when reading other Film Crit Hulk pieces. If this is something that's been talked to death elsewhere then I'm sorry I missed that, and will back away from this derail to let folks talk about the many more important aspects of the post.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:28 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

Cool, sorry about that. I guess I was coming at it from a similar place as ominous_paws above, which in their words, "[a]nyway it's more the aggregate than the particular that grinds my gears," so I do apologise for bringing my preconceptions here rather than starting fresh! My bad!
posted by wyndham at 11:34 AM on October 30, 2014

@tonycspsu and @Sticherbeast, in case you haven't seen it, Hulk explains the utility of the "gimmick" in this interview. He admits that the Hulk persona softens his critique and helps with inter-personal communication.

I tried out DeHulkifier for a bit, but then I found that I was indeed skimming at times (I read fast) and decided to switch back, so maybe I "get it" now.

And it's a joy to see him engage his critics; the level of vitriol seems dampened, maybe in part due to his affectation. There is no way you can be angry at the Hulk (because he will crush you in a loving bear hug).
posted by kyp at 11:34 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Just to chip in again and emphasise that even if you're sick of gamergate articles this is about much more than that and well worth a read.
posted by ominous_paws at 11:37 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

I always loved Hulk's review of Girls and particularly for how it calls out the misogynistic bullshit behind the hate for Lena Dunham, spewed all over the Internet and, occasionally, here. Whether I agree with his reviews or not, he feels deeply about his subject, which comes through clearly in spite of the all-caps affectation.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:37 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am still not totally convinced that #gamergate is not some sort of social experiment in marketing, given the rhetoric employed, the way the participants are trained to respond with mindless but superficially positive slogans, and the ridiculous origins of the movement. Actually calling it a movement is incorrect, since they don't actually seem to want to move anything, merely "call attention to" people they don't like.

We'll never know, but I wonder how big the core of #gamergate (those keeping it going) really is - a few dozen at most is my guess. Do people with the wherewithal to organize #gamergate have the lack of self-awareness to believe what they are saying? Probably not, but plenty of useful idiots (mostly very young as far as I can tell) are jumping on the bandwagon.

Mr. Hulk is right, the last few months have been distressing and I hope when the dust settles something good comes out of it.
posted by AndrewStephens at 11:41 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Okay, so ... glad I read. I'll admit to wandering into a couple of threads at /r/KotakuInAction in the past week or so, and the absolute cult thinking he describes here--not just blind faith, but responding to virtually any stimulus as with-us-or-against-us--is on the one hand amusing (see /r/BestOfOutrageCulture) and on the other hand really scary.

I'm not so optimistic about the void, though. I've never been able to be. Never thought I'd endeavor to be more like Hulk, but ...
posted by uncleozzy at 11:47 AM on October 30, 2014

ACTUALLY IT'S ABOUT ETHICS IN SMASHING.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:01 PM on October 30, 2014 [25 favorites]

I think folks like the writer taking a more compassionate, reaching-out stance to gamergaters is probably necessary (in that you might snatch a few back from the void), but this is not a task for which I am equipped, personally. But older-brother types who can be patient with young dudes who got in with a bad crowd and maybe show them a different way to be, ok. I can applaud that, so long as it doesn't enable more abuse.

But I don't want to talk to any of those boys until they've learned to be human.

Also, I suspect that more than a few are not boys, but grown-ass men, and I have no idea what you do with those except keep resisting them and being clear that they are outside the pale of acceptable behavior.
posted by emjaybee at 12:05 PM on October 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

Anita Sarkeesian on Colbert
posted by boo_radley at 12:26 PM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

I am spreading this article and the Dehulkifier (if necessary) far and wide. This is by far one of the best articles I have ever read. So many things covered and said so well. In essence, I agree and it is amazing.
posted by lizarrd at 12:39 PM on October 30, 2014

As someone who has been staring directly into the void, who strapped on the suit and went a-wading Down There to see if there was anything of substance, I needed this.

I needed to hear that even though everything seems aggressively and endlessly shitty and horrible and no amount of rational deconstruction and explanation will ever satiate the howling mob, lift your head, most people really are good, there is kindness in this world, and this too shall pass.


I did not need to read the comments though. Never get out of the boat.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:41 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Andrew, I've also wondered if GamerGate is a social experiment. The manipulation abilities of its leaders are well beyond what you'd expect from an architect, a failed lawyer, a failed programmer, and a mediocre news person.


But then I tell myself that's crazy talk... But doubts linger.
posted by Yowser at 12:55 PM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I am still not totally convinced that #gamergate is not some sort of social experiment

Andrew, I've also wondered if GamerGate is a social experiment.

Sustained campaigns of virulent, arbitrary, disturbingly sexualized harassment against private citizens have a poor record of making it past IRBs
posted by clockzero at 1:00 PM on October 30, 2014 [6 favorites]

That last part about the arc of the audience... I feel like he's definitely on to something that would have brought things full circle if elaborated. It's difficult to put into words, but there's something about the way films and video games ask(?) the audience to immerse itself in a different world of someone else's design. Some degree of the humanism Hulk talks about is likely related to how a person immerses themselves into that world, and what kind of lessons or experiences (personal or cultural) they take away. That the arc of the audience always exists; as the Sopranos example shows, sometimes it's easier to see or more clearly portrayed, but you also have to be looking for it as an audience member or gamer. And so many times people only see what they want to see, or even what they're trained to see. (This is true in the direct experience of women in video games, but also abstracted out to the level of ndfine's comment.)

We need as many people as possible to be brave enough to stare into the void so we can more effectively (collectively) assess what it truly is and how to deal with it. And if I'm going to Hulk Out a bit here, I would say this is our most fundamental job as human beings. Knowing thy enemy in the sense that The Void is the enemy of Humanity.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 1:01 PM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

There's a bit most of the way through, under point #5, that I found incredibly sad:

HULK IMAGINES THAT SOME OF YOU WOULD CLASSIFY THAT "BURN THE WORLD" MANTRA AS HULK JUST EXPRESSING SOME SORT OF SELFISH BEMOANING, BUT HULK ASSURES YOU IT CAN BE A VALID FEELING BASED ON THE OBVIOUS TANGIBLE HORRORS THAT EXIST IN THE WORLD. PERHAPS THE PROBLEM IS THAT MOST PEOPLE SPEND THEIR LIVES AVOIDING THIS HORROR. RUNNING AWAY. FINDING SOLACE. AND YES, WE ALL FACE HORRIBLE TIMES IN LIFE, WHETHER IT IS DISEASE, HARDSHIP, LOVED ONES DYING OR EVEN OUR OWN TRAUMA, BUT EVERY ONCE AND A WHILE YOU GET GLIMPSES INTO THE LESS-SEEN OF THE TRULY HORRIBLE THINGS IN THE WORLD, THE KINDS OF VOID-STARING HORRIBLES OF COMPLETE INHUMANITY ON DISPLAY. AND SOME PEOPLE -SOLDIERS, SOCIAL WORKERS, MEDICS, EMERGENCY DOCTORS - HAVE TO DO IT A LOT MORE THAN OTHERS. THEY HAVE REAL MOMENTS OF DARKNESS TO DEAL WITH EVERY DAMN DAY. AND YEAH, HULK'S HAD SOME OF THESE MOMENTS TOO. AND IF HULK HAS TO BE HONEST ABOUT THE LOW POINT, THE ENTIRE NADIR OF THIS WHOLE SHEBANG THAT HULK CALLS A LIFE, IT WAS WHEN HULK WAS DOING PARAMEDIC TRAINING. NOW, WHEN YOU ARE IN A CITY, YOU COME TO REALIZE THAT MOST OF THE NIGHTS AS A PARAMEDIC INVOLVE PICKING UP DEAD HOMELESS PEOPLE, WHICH IS ITS OWN MONOTONOUS HORROR. MOSTLY BECAUSE YOU SUDDENLY REALIZE HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN JUST BE... FORGOTTEN. BUT THEN THERE'S ALL THE VIOLENT NIGHTS AND GUNSHOTS AND THE HORROR OF REALIZING SOMETIMES PARAMEDICS ARE THE FIRST RESPONDERS TO VIOLENT SITUATIONS BEFORE THE POLICE GET THERE. AND YOU THINK THAT'S THE WORST OF IT... BUT THEN THERE'S THE NIGHT YOU GET A CALL FOR PICKING UP A BODY AND YOU DON'T REALIZE YOU'RE WALKING IN TO PICK UP A DEAD BABY IN A BATHTUB WITH ITS SKULL-CRUSHED... AND THERE IT IS... THAT'S A THING YOU SEE... AND IT NEVER GOES AWAY. IT'S JUST ALWAYS... THERE.
posted by JHarris at 1:13 PM on October 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

The all-caps gets in the way of my reading Hulk all that often, but when I do it's always rewarding. He writes with what feels like total commitment to me. His reference to a tough episode of The Sopranos was especially poignant.

... and, above my comment, I see there is a solution to my all-caps problem.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 1:16 PM on October 30, 2014

I am still not totally convinced that #gamergate is not some sort of social experiment
More likely a Marketing Experiment. The timing of the "Hatred" game seems slightly more than coincidental. And Rockstar is about to put out versions of GTA V for the newer platforms... a year-old game needs some fresh buzz and a #gator buying another copy just to make a point IS still a sale.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:18 PM on October 30, 2014

More likely a Marketing Experiment. The timing of the "Hatred" game seems slightly more than coincidental. And Rockstar is about to put out versions of GTA V for the newer platforms... a year-old game needs some fresh buzz and a #gator buying another copy just to make a point IS still a sale.

I have a hard time believing that any AAA gaming company would want to touch this with a ten foot pole, it's too toxic to associate with, and people would eventually find out.
posted by JauntyFedora at 2:05 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Leon: "AND HULK'S PRETTY SURE THAT MANY OF THEM DON'T EVEN REALIZE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THEY'RE TAKING PART OF.

I think he gives the kids too much credit. At some point you just have to call a spade a spade."

My nephew posted some bullshit from TotalBiscuit about it, and hasn't said much since, but I sincerely hope he's realized the error of his ways. But honestly - he IS a good kid, and I do feel he's been duped. I've been posting lots of Gamergate stuff on FB - I haven't talked to him in a while, so I'm not sure if anything has gotten through, but yes - there are some kids who fall for it....
posted by symbioid at 2:15 PM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

I did not need to read the comments though. Never get out of the boat.

I'm not sure if you're referring to Badass Digest, but I'll just say that the commenting community there is really great. It's been heartening and hilarious to see them skewering the trolls as they show up for each of Faraci's #GG posts (and there are actually quite a few). BAD is actually the only place other than MeFi where I comment with any regularity.
posted by brundlefly at 2:15 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh, I meant to say. HULK's book on screenwriting is a really nice read, and the ebook comes with a traditionally capitalized version as well.
posted by brundlefly at 2:16 PM on October 30, 2014

JauntyFedora: "I have a hard time believing that any AAA gaming company would want to touch this with a ten foot pole, it's too toxic to associate with, and people would eventually find out."

wait - it all makes sense. why are they attacking indies and not AAA game companies who engage in way more "corrupt" games (shwag) than indies ever do. IT CLEARLY IS ROCK STAR! WE HAVE UNMASKED THE TRUE PERPETRATORS!

(also - JauntyFedora - eponysterical)
posted by symbioid at 2:17 PM on October 30, 2014

I really really loved this essay. I did have to dehulkify it to read it because I find my eyes glaze over after about the third paragraph of caps, but he's a very thoughtful, humanist, and compassionate writer who deserves to be widely heard.

I do think he gives the pro-GG side a little too much credit in terms of not realizing what they're contributing to, but I also think that's okay. Because for every entitled and angry asshole that does not deserve that benefit of the doubt, there are probably half a dozen relatively neutral bystanders who will see the essay and realize that they do need to re-examine their part in the bigger picture.
posted by Phire at 2:17 PM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

When I suggested #gamergate was an experiment, I didn't mean run by a marketing department or university. As far as I know, #gamergate as it is now got underway on the 4chan forums, a hive of scum and villainy known for trolling other subcultures for kicks and semi-tounge-in-cheek crusades/running jokes. I suspect some people there decided to try meta-trolling less sophisticated 4chan members with a nonsensical cause and the whole thing spread like wildfire, for the reasons Hulk indicates and because there are plenty of unsophisticated dupes who want to be part of a group floating around.

The real-life intimidation is incidental to these people, they are sitting in some dorm room laughing at both sides and the chaos they have stirred up.
posted by AndrewStephens at 2:46 PM on October 30, 2014

The ever-eloquent Arthur Chu on #GamerGate: How Gamergate gave the geek community a bad name

also btw!
-Looking Past Despair
-The Psychology Of Heroes
-Introducing The Reality Novel
-Coming Around To Kierkegaard
-Reading Camus In The Age Of Ebola
-Nobel? No Thanks

and perhaps more esoterically :P
-Five case studies in politicization
-everything personal can't be political
-On Prices, Narratives, and Market Efficiency
-meritocracy is an ideology of individualism hiding a practice of coalition [1,2,3]
-"Storytelling" is the theory equivalent of exploratory research. It's really just hypothesis generation.
posted by kliuless at 2:56 PM on October 30, 2014 [8 favorites]

Here's the reception of this article on one of reddit's pro-GG subreddits: link.

Unsurprisingly disappointing.
posted by flippant at 3:00 PM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

a hive of scum and villainy known for trolling other subcultures for kicks and semi-tounge-in-cheek crusades/running jokes

At one time yes. Thing is, a bunch of rather non-ironic people with sexist and racist attitudes starting coming to /pol/ and /b/. While I wouldn't say they were invaded by Stormfront or anything (that's Reddit), I'd put my money on reactionary far right undercurrents that any quest for the lulz.
posted by zabuni at 3:20 PM on October 30, 2014

Yeah, /pol/ really is as ridiculous as it seems. Their positions are not ironic.

Each 4chan board has its own personality. And, uh, some personalities are better than others.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:37 PM on October 30, 2014

oneswellfoop: "Rockstar is about to put out versions of GTA V for the newer platforms... a year-old game needs some fresh buzz and a #gator buying another copy just to make a point IS still a sale."

I'm not sure if you're doing the crazypants conspiracy theory thing in order to make fun of the crazypants gater conspirators, but if not, and you're being sincere...Take a deep breath and think if Rockstar has done anything in the past that comes close to "creating a movement which involves frequent doxxing and death threats in order to boost sales".
posted by Bugbread at 3:37 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

...think if Rockstar has done anything in the past that comes close to "creating a movement which involves frequent doxxing and death threats in order to boost sales".

As a non-fan of Rockstar, I don't think they're capable of being creative enough to do so, no, but we have yet to see how well they can use the #GG movement to their advantage. But then, I still suspect anti-gamer lawyer Jack Thompson may have been under-the-table paid PR agent for them, just for the creative incompetence in his lawsuits against them.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:17 PM on October 30, 2014

>"EVERY TIME YOU GO BEHIND THE CLAIM YOU HIT ANOTHER LIE, ANOTHER THING SOMEONE WILL SAY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND."

The dogwhistles underlying Gamergate go really, really deep. It is like dogwhistle-ception. I suspect that a lot of the dogwhistles were established under the auspices of the Men's Rights movement and its demon cousins PUA and redpill. The flashpoint was Eron Gjoni's break-up rant. Normal people look at something like that, shake their head, and understand it as the emotional backlash of a man spurned.

But, if you're enculturated in redpill, then Gjoni was a victim of
"female mindrape." If you're enculturated in redpill, Gjoni is your Mike Brown. His situation was a platonic stand-in for the (imagined) institutionalized corruption of a cheating, hypergamous womankind that is incapable of loyalty and exploits "betas for bucks" and rewards "alphas with fucks." MRA/redpill set up this scaffolding and Gjoni's rant is a paper thin veneer over it. Where we view "nothing to see here, move along," they view a huge structural conspiracy that is an allegory for their own difficulty in forming relationships with women.

>"NORMALLY A REALLY DIFFICULT THING TO INSTILL INTO PEOPLE AND REQUIRES ISOLATION, DIRECT PROGRAMMING AND FULL-ON CULTURAL SEPARATION

Combine the self-segregating, long tail effect of the Internet with our new "Bowling Alone," culture, and the cult prognosis starts to make sense. I think that this actually gets us to our core question, but it's one that the men and boys of Gamergate wouldn't publicly self-identify out of ego protection: Why are so many men falling through the old social safety nets of family, community and friendship?

On the other hand, the involvement of the Brietbart camp and the proximity to a major election is very worthy of note. I've seen this connection made in the wild by Gamergaters themselves basically saying, "when the Republicans retake Congress, that will show the SJWs who's boss." One way or another, that statement is objectively true.
posted by Skwirl at 5:29 PM on October 30, 2014 [21 favorites]

This was great, and the contrast between it and canon Hulks makes it better, IMO.
posted by NoraReed at 6:01 PM on October 30, 2014

I think he gives the kids too much credit.

I do too. Not because he is approaching the gamergate movement with empathy, and assuming good faith. I think that is a good practice, even when the gamergaters' action reveal them to be hateful misogynists. But he does assert that 'KIND AND THOUGHTFUL YOUNG SOULS GET CAUGHT UP IN BELIEVING THE LIE'.

I can see that objectively not-monstrous people may have become part of gamergate because they bought the lies. Some gamergaters may be 'kind souls' who are just gullible or, if active participants in the hatefulness and harassment, are simply masters of cognitive dissonance.

But thoughtful? No. It seems to me that thoughtlessness and lack of critical think skills are a prerequisite for being involved in the gamergater movement.

But it is an excellent, nuanced essay.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:36 PM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

There's something innate, maybe subconscious, and maybe even innocuous that's driving them to see the gamergate argument as a valid take on what is happening here. Maybe it's not about gender issues at all. Maybe it's just that they love games and have seen them be feared for years and they just see this as a new form of fear. Or perhaps it's even as simple as the false belief that all discussions *have* to have inherent subjectivity to them, despite the fact that there are some obvious one-sided truths in this world too.

I'm not all the way through, but i think he's missing an important point here.

There's something really aluring and sexy about knowing, and seeing some truth that most people don't. To being in on some secret. This also exists for "fighting for a good cause", but combining it with the sekrit thing is a potent ass weapon.

He, like many other writers, seems to sort of skate past that when they're writing about why they think a bunch of young guys got wrapped up in this.

Just the "fighting for a good cause" part was enough to turn some "radical" kids i knew in high school in blowhard douchebags. They really were fighting for a good cause, but they were completely all encompassingly wrapped up in fighting the good fight for LGBT equality in uganda or whatever the current thing was they were fixated on.

I think that the "secret corruption most people don't see" james bond-ish action movie angle of it all was enough to lower the bar for that part a LOT, combined with the keyboard warrior nature of the whole thing.

There's, in my opinion, definitely some other layers of psychological manipulation and indoctrination going on here that he doesn't even get in to.

I still find it really, really pretty much impossibly hard to drum up any sympathy for the foot soldier participants in this who are just "young and misguided and don't get it".
posted by emptythought at 7:47 PM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

These new scribes are good writers, but I can't help but think that they are obscuring their work by pressing reeds into wet clay like this. They would be so much better served using papyrus or chiselling sandstone.
posted by clvrmnky at 8:32 PM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

I keep thinking about these people who see to genuinely believe that GG is a worthy cause. I've had a conversation with a few of them and they do seem to hold that opinion.

Which. Hmm... A detour...

I have been gaming for basically my whole life. My parents had one of those pong rip offs you hook up to the TV, with an actual light gun which didn't work very well so you had to hold it so it was essentially next to the screen. I remember excitedly playing Gorillas and Snake on my Dad's work computer. At some point they got me an Atari ST, then a mega drive. I played my first games of civillization and Doom on my uncle's computer. Myself and a friend then spent a long time at a local college (where his mum worked) playing Civ on the computers there.

I had a tantrum at an embarrasingly advanced age when we were staying with some of my parent's friends and I didn't want to leave because I hadn't completed a pretty terrible adventure game I was playing.

When I was in secondary school myself and friends spent a good amount of our time using the multitap with the playstation, then the playstation2 (and the multitap was not backwards compatible, which was straight up bullshit) When I went to university and our rooms in first year had no internet we bought a modem together so we could LAN. Since we've all moved away we stay in touch via skype and playing games together online.

These days I have a wife and a son, and I grab the time I can to play when I can. I am looking forward to introducing my son to games when he gets older, I think its something we can share and enjoy together.

I am a gamer, as much as that word can mean anything. I read Leigh Alexander's article and knew it wasn't talking about me, even if I essentially fit the white male dorky profile she mentioned.

But... part of me wonders. When I was 15/16 I remember thinking that feminists had taken things too far, primarily because I didn't really know what feminism really was. And I wonder, if this had happened back then, if I'd have been on the wrong side of the argument, read only articles which confirmed my prejudices, ignored all the unpleasent stuff. Maybe I'd be one of the idiots on twitter saying it was all about ethics.

Which is why I appreciate the Hulk's article. Its really hard, and frustrating, to engage with these people who are misguided, and probably quite young, and its depressing and worrying. I do think that some of the language used when describing gamergate in general has been really unhelpful. I do wonder if part of this is due to the fact that conversation is mostly happening on twitter, and twitter is just an abysmal platform on which to have a conversation. It's a great platform for shouting at each other, and propogating information (both real and false), but for actually engaging with people? It just doesn't work. I'm not sure if that's due to the 140 character limit, or in fact that every conversation becomes incredibly public. Its quite hard for two people to have a conversation when every 5 seconds someone else butts in with something completely unhelpful.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:48 AM on October 31, 2014 [8 favorites]

By the way, if you haven't seen Happy Go Lucky you should give it a try. One of those movies that takes a while to sink into your subconscious, but once it does it'll become a touchstone.
posted by harriet vane at 2:52 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was crying on the train as I was reading this article. There's so much passion, and so much yearning for people to be able to come together.
posted by Eyeveex at 6:31 AM on October 31, 2014 [3 favorites]

Brianna Wu prepares a legal defense fund for GG targets
posted by boo_radley at 8:39 AM on October 31, 2014

I don't believe Hulk's premise that there are all of these decent mistaken people supporting GamerGate. I think it's sorta like Confederacy apologists. Their arguments only begin to make sense if you implicitly accept that the lives and suffering of millions of black people mean nothing and can and should be ignored while we talk about all the "honor" involved in maintaining it. GamerGate apologists' arguments only begin to make sense if you accept that videogames and the videogame industry should continue to center men and make them normative and unapologetically objectify women, and the pain and suffering of half of humanity being marginalized is beneath notice, and the much more direct pain and suffering of the women under attack is, at worst, regrettable but acceptable collateral damage.

That's not the honest mistake of a decent person. Hulk may want to do outreach, but Zed just wanna SMASH.

[No, I'm not likening gamergate to slavery either in nature or in scale. I'm drawing an analogy between the nature of the logic used to defend the one to the nature of the logic used to defend the other.]
posted by Zed at 10:08 AM on October 31, 2014 [4 favorites]

GamerGate apologists' arguments only begin to make sense if you accept that videogames and the videogame industry should continue to center men and make them normative and unapologetically objectify women, and the pain and suffering of half of humanity being marginalized is beneath notice, and the much more direct pain and suffering of the women under attack is, at worst, regrettable but acceptable collateral damage.

Well, firstly, GamerGate apologists are not apologizing. They honestly believe that they're doing right and that the people who are harassing women directly are going too far and have gotten a little misguided, but do not represent the true roots of the movement. Consider, for example, anti-capitalist protests where some of the people get wrapped up into vandalism and looting because they mistakenly believe it to be effective protest. This doesn't mean that people aren't there for the right reasons and don't have a good ideology, it just means that there are factions that are idiots.

Secondly, you're imputing a lot more awareness to people than they actually have. These people do not believe in misogyny--not really. The idea of "rape culture" is laughable to them not because they're monsters, but because they're men and women who can't see any other way for their (gamer) culture or the larger (Western) culture to be and thus can't see anything wrong with it. There's also the fact that gaming has traditionally been a marginalized hobby where the practitioners have been bullied, so any criticism is a reason to close ranks and fight back.

It's a really complex issue, and declaring that anyone who supports GamerGate is terrible is not tenable, just like declaring all Libertarian or Republican supporters to be monsters is not particularly useful.
posted by TypographicalError at 10:25 AM on October 31, 2014

you're imputing a lot more awareness to people than they actually have.

No, I'm saying their lack of awareness is, itself, indecent (for the adults who have done the most to promulgate GamerGate -- lack of awareness in literal children isn't the same issue.)

It's a really complex issue, and declaring that anyone who supports GamerGate is terrible is not tenable,

... and insisting on this provides aid and comfort to the truly monstrous participants by legitimizing the frame they're trying to sell.

Anyone who supports GamerGate is terrible. I'm sanguine with that declaration, however untenable you may find it.
posted by Zed at 10:41 AM on October 31, 2014

... and insisting on this provides aid and comfort to the truly monstrous participants by legitimizing the frame they're trying to sell.

Yes, I'm just waiting for 4chan to show up here and laud me as a hero for comparing them to black-bloc assholes. Having empathy for misguided, wrong people isn't the same thing as supporting what they support.
posted by TypographicalError at 12:05 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think it's a little weird to plead for empathy for the 'misguided, wrong people' who are either driving women out of their homes due to violent explicit threats or who are continuing to associate themselves with a movement best known for driving women out of their homes due to violent explicit threats.
posted by winna at 12:22 PM on October 31, 2014 [3 favorites]

Well, firstly, GamerGate apologists are not apologizing

Nitpick: that's not what apologist means.
posted by Leon at 12:29 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Existential Crisis of Public Life Online
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:21 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

Good lord don't read the comments in the article the man of twists and turns linked. It's a heaving mass of sea lions.
posted by winna at 1:55 PM on October 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

LOL. From the first comment (when sorting by oldest): "Once again we see a unethical journalists start with a big fat LIE!"

So, to be perfectly clear: "I don't like this article. Therefore it is unethical."

That's the mindset.
posted by brundlefly at 2:07 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

From the Existential Crisis link:

"Is living such a public life worth the trouble?"

I'm not sure. Having a public artistic career and getting paid well and meeting cool people is pretty much the golden ticket out of your shitty day job. But...then there's THIS. Guaranteed to happen. Especially since...uh, see below.

"Is such a life worth being constantly exposed to vitriol and rage and threats from strangers—especially when the patterns of that abuse seem so random?"

The abuse isn't random. It's AT WOMEN. Any woman that has ever been heard of. But especially if anything she says has anything remotely to do with men.

Is the kind of work that would be required to sustain a “good” public, online social network possible?

I don't know, but I doubt it. Especially if you're the wrong gender.

"Is asking people to perform that moderating work something we even want to do?"

I don't know, but that kind of work is going to be boiling down to trying to stop a landslide of diarrhea with nothing but your bare hands.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:23 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

@Zed:
I think we have to keep in mind that by its nature (games), the movement appeals to a lot of younger people and children who haven't developed the maturity to critically consider their premise, have been brainwashed by the cultthink, and are blindly lashing out. Hulk's capacity for compassion and teaching for them is one that I am wholly behind.

Arthur Chu's article that was linked earlier also takes the similar stance of empathizing with experiences that lead to the mindset that some of these people have.

Of course, there is a sizable number (the majority perhaps) that are trolls and are gleefully jumping on the bandwagon to promote their stupid, disgusting rhetoric. They are the ones that make my blood boil.
posted by kyp at 3:06 PM on October 31, 2014 [3 favorites]

Daily Kos has a gamergate recruitment video.
posted by Corinth at 4:07 PM on October 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

Rated M for misogynist!
posted by winna at 4:13 PM on October 31, 2014

Arthur Chu's article that was linked earlier also takes the similar stance of empathizing with experiences that lead to the mindset that some of these people have.

I'm very impressed by the Chu piece (I already liked Chu's stuff, but this promotes him to my make a point to not miss an essay by him status.)

What Chu is saying is that he understands how an embittered geek-boy could end up so broken and full of hate for gamergate to start to make sense. I've been there. I understand it, too (though videogames were never my thing -- my refuge was comics and science fiction and fantasy books.)

But Chu cuts them no slack about how wrong they are. It's a pretty different take from Film Critic Hulk talking about all these "good young souls."

All this said, it's probably a good thing that someone with more patience than I have is attempting outreach. It may actually reach some edge cases. (But I make no apologies for my stance.)
posted by Zed at 12:00 PM on November 1, 2014 [5 favorites]

Yep, Chu's piece is excellent. The whole thing is spot on and, though an aside, I also really liked his juxtaposition of Day's humor with that of laughing-at rather than laughing-with humor like The Big Bang Theory.
posted by Justinian at 7:58 AM on November 2, 2014 [3 favorites]

If you're new to #GamerGate, here's a quick refresher
posted by homunculus at 12:20 PM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was good, but if you're new to #GamerGate, then what you should do is shut your ears, run away, and keep your faith in humanity intact.
posted by JHarris at 4:05 PM on November 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Batgirl, a Parable for Online Culture
posted by homunculus at 4:32 PM on November 14, 2014