Cathy Young: "Ich war während der Bombendrohungen auf dem GamerGate-Treffen"

Die liberale Feministin Cathy Young berichtet über ihre Erfahrung mit dem aktuellen Terror gegen die Gamer:

Ever since its birth eight months ago, GamerGate, the online gamers' movement that calls itself a revolt against corrupt journalism and oppressive political correctness, has been assailed as a misogynist mob out to terrorize female videogame developers and feminist critics — a narrative picked up by most of the mainstream media and even dramatized on Law & Order: SVU. The "Gaters," meanwhile, have always claimed that they were being unfairly painted as harassers when they themselves were frequent targets of harassment and threats in the culture war over gaming. And now, GamerGate's first American meetup in Washington, DC this past weekend has ended in a bomb scare — after an attempt to bully the venue into canceling the event.

In ihrem Artikel verwendet Young die aktuellen Drohungen sinnvollerweise nur als Aufhänger dafür zu zeigen, wie irrwitzig die Debatte über GamerGate inzwischen geworden ist:

Sorting out the rights and wrongs of Internet wars is a thankless task; particularly with a leaderless, unstructured hashtag group such as GamerGate, it is near-impossible to determine for sure whether a particular instance of harassment is connected to the movement or is the work of outside trolls. Are there actual GamerGate supporters who have engaged in abusive behavior online? Very likely so. But there are many documented instances of anti-GamerGaters using startlingly violent language and making presumably non-literal threats toward "Gaters"; some of them have been compiled by British left-libertarian journalist Alum Bokhari, also a guest at the DC meetup. Ironically, as Bokhari demonstrates, last February GamerGate archfoe developer Brianna Wu expressed alarm over tweets jocularly threatening a sarin gas attack at the Penny Arcade Expo under the mistaken impression that it was a threat from GamerGate; after realizing that was a threat against pro-GamerGate "idiots," Wu deleted her post.

In another instance of unintended irony, GamerGate opponents have urged the Steam Community entertainment platform not to fund a project by pro-GamerGate female game developer Jennifer Dawe.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media have continued to recycle the "misogynist hate mob" narrative of GamerGate—most recently, with a long article by Zachary Jason in Boston Magazine melodramatically titled "Game of Fear." Jason focuses mainly on the story of game developer Zoe Quinn and her ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni, whose long blogpost about Quinn's liaisons with people in the gaming industry and the gaming media was the spark that eventually ignited GamerGate. It's an incredibly convoluted saga in which the charges and countercharges would short-circuit the brain of Sherlock Holmes. (Gjoni offers his rebuttal to Jason's reporting on his blog.) But in at least one instance, Jason cites an example of alleged GamerGate harassment that has already been disproved: a YouTube video in which a hammer-wielding man in a skull mask calls for "the death of Brianna Wu." More than two months ago, BuzzFeed, no friend to GamerGate, revealed that this video was the work of a "trolling sketch comedian," Jan Rankowski, whose intent was to satirize GamerGate.

(...) Will the #GGinDC meetup affect the mainstream narrative? Perhaps; the gaming site Polygon, which generally embraces a "social justice" agenda in culture and entertainment and has been virulently negative toward GamerGate, ran a surprisingly unbiased account of the event. Bomb threats and harassment aside, it was difficult not to be impressed with the genuine diversity of the GamerGate crowd at the meetup. And yes, there were quite a few women in attendance—including at least one lesbian couple—who were definitely not animatronic sockpuppets. Some of these women may identify as "anti-feminist"; but clearly, what they oppose is the illiberal feminism of people like Sarkeesian who sneer at "hyper individualism," dismiss personal choice, and treat Western women as helpless puppets of patriarchy.

(...) If I had any doubts about defending GamerGate from its detractors, #GGinDC put them to rest. The men I saw were not creeps, and the women I saw were definitely not doormats. And while the bomb threat was fake, the meetup was a blast.

Skeptischer bewertet das männerpolitische Blog Toy Soldiers die Einseitigkeit der Medien und ihre Willfährigkeit gegenüber feministischen Unterstellungen:

To my knowledge, no other gaming sites have commented on this. Likewise, there has been little media coverage of this. The event took place at a bar in Washington DC. One would expect some coverage given that it was a bomb threat in the capital, yet there was little coverage.

That is rather biased. While people may not agree with the Gamergate position (largely because feminists successfully demonized the group in the media), it makes no sense not to cover this threat bomb when numerous media outlets covered Anita Sarkeesian’s bomb threat.

On a tangential note, I give the Gamergate group credit for their reaction. Nothing better demonstrates their intentions than their reaction to this sort of treatment. They went back into the bar once the police gave them permission and finished their meet-up. They then took to the internet to report what happened. They did not complain or ask for money from supporters. They only told people what occurred. Nothing more, nothing less. One would expect a much harsher response if Gamergate supporters were the violent misogynists feminists made them out to be. However, they appear rather reasonable.

Perhaps that is why the progressive media has no interest in covering the bomb threat against them. Not only would it garner sympathy for Gamergate supporters, but it would also show they are not the monsters they were made out to be.