#notyourshield

What exactly is “harassment” anyway? 

Like, when I wrote that stuff yesterday, I was thinking of it as any kind of statements really intended to cause someone harm. The way Seebs was talking, though, it sounded like she was exclusively referring to aggression that is illegal. And then you have stuff like Anita Sarkeesian’s compilation of all the harassment she received in a single week, which includes every instance of “fuck you” and even a person saying “you’re not being harassed, people are disagreeing with you” - which is verifiably false, but only harassment insofar as it denies harassment is occurring. 

There are definitely multiple definitions at play here, both when people describe their own experiences and interpret the experiences of others. Qualitative descriptions are one thing, but since the trend seems to be dealing with these things quantitatively, some kind of operational definition is necessary, and I’m actually pretty curious what you guys think.

Whatis harassment? What “tiers” of it exist? And, of course, where is the cutoff point between it and criticism (which can, in the right context, cause someone harm)?

It’s been a while since I wrote about GamerGate. Every once in a while someone will still email me about it, sometimes in response to my plea for both “sides” to defend themselves, though I admit a certain disappointment in many of the replies. It’s not that they are poorly written, but as a general trend they have shifted toward a new claim, “GamerGate is damaging the gaming industry”, which never comes with as much defense as I would like. 

As forewarning, this post isn’t particularly thought-out or well-structured; it’s just me sharing some general thoughts.

I guess I should explain where I’m coming from here. Back when I was a teenager, I used to be one of those internet art critic people. Like, you know the type: assholes who went out of their way to provide honest (if often overly harsh) criticism of every art piece someone had the gall to request feedback on. We rebelled against this thing we called, at the time, the “DeviantArt mentality”, where artists would exclusively get their feedback from a small group of friends who would positively regard their work no matter what. Most of us on the more critical side of things knew, from personal experience, that this behavior hindered artistic development and sort of took it upon ourselves to stamp it out.

As I got older, of course, I grew out of it. I realized, as I think most people eventually do, that it’s perfectly okay for someone to do something in a way they personally enjoy. The realissue with what we called the “DeviantArt mentality” was that it was not economically viable. A person who has their work coddled and never learns to appeal to a diverse and discerning crowd will not be able to compete adequately in a professional setting, their audience limited to that small group of friends (who are often artists in the exact same situation). As a result, you have a professional art community of people who expect and value candid and varied feedback, and a “hobbyist” community of people who are primarily interested in working for themselves or a small group of friends. This, I feel, is a working model. 

If you read through my stuff, it’s pretty clear that I am very audience-focused. I talk about audience statistics a lot, as well as directly interact with fans at every possible opportunity. I don’t spend a lot of time around other artists, even going so far as to avoid seriously participating in any “artist circles”, since I’ve learned many audience members hate the schism this drives between creators and their fans. My policy regarding these things is a simple one: I work for the chaotic and diverse mass of fans that consume my material, and generally stand against anything that discourages them from sharing their thoughts or feelings (since, you know, that’s what my model pivots on catering to).

I never really joined GamerGate, which is why it’s sort of weird when people lump me in with them. What I did was pretty much the same thing I always do: value audience members the same as content creators. When a whole bunch of people are upset about something and a creator says “nah, it’s fine”, my first instinct is to hear both sides out, because as far as I’m concerned neither one has more credibility. As I’ve stressed before, the people who attack me for my thoughts on GamerGate never actually address anything I say as being misinformation, they just attack me for “listening to 4chan/8chan/gamers/whatever”, which is incredibly unsettling because it conveys this idea that I should value certain people higher than others - not because they support their ideas better, but because they are inherently better. 

Which I guess takes me back to this idea I mentioned at the beginning: GamerGate damaging the gaming industry. When people are defending this assertion, they point to the “angry mobs” with no coherent demands, the general level of vitriol flung at creators, and the privacy-crippling digging they do into their targets, etc. All through this, though, I’m just left thinking “Holy shit. This is my jam!”. This thing they’re complaining about is the exact environment I’m used to navigating - in fact, as far as I know, it’s the exact environment the gaming industry always had. When people point to all the horrible harassment developers “received from GamerGate”, it’s tamer than what I’ve gotten just by virtue of being a relatively popular creator. As someone who’s in this industry, the notion that GamerGate is ruining it makes no sense to me since nothing actually changed. 

What seems more likely, to me, is that people stumbled outside their Artist Circles and hit a wild audience for the first time. They didn’t know how to handle a critical and diverse audience, they turned it antagonistic, and they don’t know how to deal with it. It would explain a lot of the behavior you see: demands to see some kind of GamerGate leader they can blame/complain to, assertions that abuse is okay when it’s against the “right” people, lamenting their own harassment when it’s pretty much the bog-standard someone gets from working with a mass audience, etc. From my perspective, it feels like these are fish-out-of-water, dealing directly with my industry for the first time.

I admit when I first started writing this, I considered whether I should be showing these people more sympathy. They are probably scared, I realized: flung headlong into a scary environment their more tightly-knit artist circle did not prepare them for. But, then I thought back to when I was a young artist, and the first time I encountered a harsh critic: I wasn’t a dick to him, I didn’t tell him his opinion was stupid, and I adapted to a critical environment pretty quickly. A lot of these people vehemently decrying GamerGate, however, are kind of accusatory dicks to these groups of individuals they label as “angry mobs”. I started to consider a different theory:

What if this is about privilege? 

What if this is some group of well-connected, well-to-do people who are stepping into a hostile and critical environment for the first time and are completely ass-blasted that they are not inherently valued above others? What if these people are realizing, with horror, that this is an industry where their word is just as valuable as that of some random non-creator on an internet forum, and they’re trying to “fix” it by reinstating a hierarchy with them on top? 

I mean, just speaking personally, there are a lot of things I like about GamerGate and its affect on the industry. I like that when a creator is accused of something, GG digs into it and tries to gather evidence. I like that they’re critical of reporting and have made their presence known as a massive, vaguely-united mob that will lash out and potentially gain dangerous credibility if faced with things that are verifiably false. They’ve been bringing a lot of ideologically diverse people together in an environment where they can typically discuss things without attempting to harm one another. They’ve been speaking out against the tendency to “speak for” minorities. Best of all, it makes it harder to prevail above your competitors with nothing but money and connections. These are all changes I wanted to see in the gaming industry. But, frankly, I can understand why a privileged dickwad would oppose every one of them.

This is just a theory, of course. I mean, all I know is that from my perspective, a bunch of kind of rude and dismissive people are coming in and attacking the group I consider to be my audience as being horrible monsters who don’t appreciate True Art or whatever. I’m not particularly worried, because as I’ve stated before this only facilitates the development of a niche, but I’m still kind of offended when people say GamerGate is damaging the industry ordriving away minority developers. Like… I’m here; you can talk to me. I approve of the changes, and I just explained why. I know that some people will be driven away, but a lot of them are kind of assholes to their audience and I parse the hostility toward them the same way I’d parse a rude waiter getting fired by his boss. 

I don’t know. Like I said, I’m an audience person; my primary concern is with the tastes and desires of the people who play my games. I wish people who talk about GamerGate damaging the industry would talk about how it damages it for people like me, because it feels like the focus is purely on making the industry comfortable for the exact type of people I oppose. 

I’ve been too busy to post much lately, but someone named Silicon Fades (e: [email protected], added at their request) sent me an email which brought up some interesting ideas. I’m reposting it with permission. Whether or not you agree with it, I think it’s worth a read.

Hi, you probably don’t remember but I sent you an email a while back about some gamergate stuff. I’ve read pretty much all of your blog and agree with a lot of what you write about manipulation on the internet. I was reading this (http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/jon-ronson-interviews-adam-curtis-393) today and the book about public shaming made me think about your writing so I thought I’d shoot you this email and make you aware about it in case you weren’t already.

Adam Curtis, the guy being interviewed has a few really interesting documentaries that touch on social control that you might be interested in as well, I think most of them are on youtube. A lot of his work centres on fear and how the concept of an “other” is used by politicians to create narratives that engender policy change. I don’t agree with everything he says but it’s interesting stuff nevertheless.

I see a lot of this in “SJW” culture, and other internet sub cultures in general. I think that the majority of activity that comes under the “Social Justice” banner in fact has little to do with actual activism and is really to do with facilitating and protecting a type of tribal identity. Once you’re “in the gang” the primary objective is protection of those who are also in the gang. In this case however, before one can even get to attacking the others who aren’t in the gang, one has to expound a huge amount of energy existentially justifying the gang in the first place. The necessity of the Crips to it’s members is self-evident, it’s an entity based on practical security and financial gain. The existence of the Social Justice Gang is markedly less evident, especially to it’s members, and so a large part of the workings of the gang are creating, exploiting and uncovering events and people that can be pointed to as reasons for the existence of the gang. At it’s most fundamental, the gang really exists to help facilitate an easy to understand identity for the people in it.

This ties in a lot to some stuff written by Alvin Toffler who you’ve probably already heard of. I’ve only read Future Shock by him but it’s fascinating stuff. He misses the mark at a few points but overall it’s a remarkably prescient look at contemporary society written in the late sixties. One bit that really stuck out to me was how he basically manages to predict the existence of “Anonymous” as a culture:

“Leisure-time pursuits will become an increasingly important basis for differences between people, as the society itself shifts from a work orientation toward greater involvement in leisure. In the United States, since the turn of the century alone, the society’s measurable commitment to work has plummeted by nearly a third. This is a massive redeployment of the society’s time and energy. As this commitment declines further, we shall advance into an era of breathtaking fun specialism – much of it based on sophisticated technology.

We can anticipate the formation of subcults built around space activity, holography, mind-control, deep-sea diving, submarining, computer gaming and the like. We can even see on the horizon the creation of certain anti-social leisure cults – tightly organized groups of people who will disrupt the workings of society not for material gain, but for the sheer sport of "beating the system” – a development foreshadowed in such films as Duffy and The Thomas Crown Affair. Such groups may attempt to tamper with governmental or corporate computer programs, re-route mail, intercept and alter radio and television broadcasts, perform elaborately theatrical hoaxes, tinker with the stock market, corrupt the random samples upon which political or other polls are based, and even, perhaps, commit complexly plotted robberies and assassinations. Novelist Thomas Pynchon in The Crying of Lot 49 describes a fictional underground group who have organized their own private postal system and maintained it for generations. Science fiction writer Robert Sheckley has gone so far as to propose, in a terrifying short story called The Seventh Victim, the possibility that society might legalize murder among certain specified “players” who hunt one another and are, in turn, hunted. This ultimate game would permit those who are dangerously violent to work off their aggressions within a managed framework.

Bizarre as some of this may sound, it would be well not to rule out the seemingly improbable, for the realm of leisure, unlike that of work, is little constrained by practical considerations. Here imagination has free play, and the mind of man can conjure up incredible varieties of “fun.” Given enough time, money and, for some of these, technical skill, the men of tomorrow will be capable of playing in ways never dreamed of before. They will play strange sexual games. They will play games with the mind. They will play games with society And in so doing, by choosing among the unimaginably broad options, they will form subcults and further set themselves off from one another.“

Anyway he postulates that a large reason for the existence of subcultures is that it provides a ready made template for a person to use as an example of how they want to live their life, and helps reduce the number of decisions they have to make in a world that’s saturated with decisions. Over abundance of choice is one of the core tenets of future shock. This is useful in understanding some of the actions we see in something like gamergate. If one thinks of oneself as an affiliate of the social justice gang, then when confronted with any actions or ideas that can be seen as signifiers of the enemy gang (fat neckbearded fedoras) then the reaction that you have to be seen to be having is already decided. You don’t have to waste any of your precious thinking time with analysing a new situation, because the gang and your premade identity have already figured out how you’re supposed to react. Hence the large numbers of people deriding the gamergate movement without any attempt being made to inquire what was really happening. “I’m a social justice advocate (however casually), this movement has been defined to be counter to ours, therefore it can safely be ridiculed.”

Notice also how many of the rhetorical devices used by both sides of the gamergate divide are essentially the same. Take something like this page (http://ggobservations.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-five-people-you-will-meet-in.html) linked on the siderbar of /r/gamerghazi. It seems sensible enough at first, but with a quick find and replace you can make it sound horrible. Replace “Gamergate” with “A Liberal University”, “The Common Troll” with “Cultural Marxists” and “Conservative Bloggers” with “The Jews” and you get some pretty typical Stormfront esque propaganda. Interestingly enough, the way that page treats minorities as agency-less hordes to be utilised by Machiavellian masters means that you can just leave that section as it is. The oft-seen argument that “Gamergate has some good ideas but the name has become tainted, the people who want real good change to happen should move on and leave that name behind” sounds an awful lot like “I’m not a feminist, I’m an egalitarian. Feminisim as a label is associated with crazy feminnazis.”.

In the end it all comes back to identity. It’s comforting to know that you’re the group that’s “in the right”, and it’s useful to paint your enemy is both a caricature to be ridiculed and a genuine threat to the safety of those you share your identity.

Obviously this is just my way of looking at things. I think it’s useful but I’d be wary of applying it in too many places. I think that’s one of the pitfalls of sociology in general that lead to internet social justice being what it is today. Someone comes along with a perfectly good metaphorical device (in this case the concept of “privilege”) that describes a particular situation, interaction or system in a way that makes that sense and illustrates the situation. For example - “I have privilege that you do not have and thus my view of this matter is different than yours, and I should try and understand it from your un-privilged point of view in an effort to reach a more just situation” is a perfectly reasonable and useful way of thinking about things that happen in society. The problem arises when, after this tool is applied in a few different scenarios and it is shown it work, people latch on to it and think of it as some kind of grand unified theory of sociology through which all of human interaction can be predicted and we end up with where we are right now.

In this case I think the best way to move forward for everyone is to consider anybody who you interact with online as a real human, and not as a representative of any movement or generalised identity. It’s only if we take individuals on their own terms and try and do something about their concerns in a compassionate way that we can move beyond looking at each other as two-dimensional boogeymen.

It should be pretty apparent by this point in the rambling that I’ve got absolutely zero formal sociolgical education, but it makes sense to me.

Anyway I thought you might like the book.

Peace

After I asked permission to repost his message, they sent me an addendum. I’m assuming the reposting permission applies to it as well:

One other small point. I think a lot of the frustration that people like you and I (apologies if none of this jives with you, but it seems to be in line with your observations and analysis) have with regards to "anti gamergate” and established Internet social justice cliques is a result of the dissonance between their stated goals and their unconscious goals. What we see as tactically unsound and exasperating only looks that way to us because we’re considering those actions in the context of of the surface objective, eg “stop gamergate” . In reality, the actions might be perfectly serviceable at achieving other aims that are beneficial to the clique, eg protect and define our identity, or the personal advancement of individuals through accumulation of social and economic capital.

Social identities are probably memetic in nature and as such operate on a survival of the fittest basis. The meme of the social justice warrior identity (as you’ve stated before, not necessarily someone who advocates social justice, but someone who takes it to unnecessary and detrimental extremes) has survived through a relative amount of turmoil in its life. The fact that it’s survived thus far is an indication that it’s fit for some purpose, whatever that purpose may be.  Though it might seem to us to be inefficient in achieving what we see to be its goals, that’s a failing of understanding on our part. Essentially, the fact that the identity prevails is an indication of its usefulness to the people who choose to adopt it, and the onus is on us to determine what needs it fulfils for those people, and how to manipulate it to achieve our goals. 

Actually, I’ve been think about a counter point to that last email that ties into some of what Toffler posits in future shock. 

Everything I just said relies on the capabilites of memetic selection. However, if memes are anything like their genetic counterparts, then it could be said that there’s a natural (one must avoid automatically assuming that natural = perfect but I think it holds true here) ratio of mutations per generation that allows natural selection to filter out the beneficial traits from the detriment ones. Too many (and too drastic) mutations per generation and the chances are the species suffers. On the other hand, too few mutations and the species stagnates, unable to cope with its changing environment. We can imagine a similar scenario with the development of ideas, and a large part of what Toffler says in the book hinges on the fact that we’re developing and sharing new ideas at an ever accelerating rate. If we don’t have sufficient time to test these ideas, then it might be that what at first seems beneficial comes to be disastrous at worst, or a waste of time at best. 

Just as many believe (erroneously, in my opinion) that natural selection in humans has stagnated due to modern medicine and needs eugenics to prune our gene pool, one can easily imagine a corresponding inverse, where, faced with the ever accelerating onslaught of information technology, an elite few need to be responsible for a sort of eugenics of ideas (eumemics?) to keep our collective consciousness fit. This terrifying and fascinating concept is basically the plot of metal fear solid 2 (it really is about ethics in video-game plot contrivances). Toffler proposes the much less fascist idea of separate communities designed to accelerate at different rates, with people who struggle to cope with the transient nature of modern life living in much more traditional lifestyles (which also serve as handy living museums), those who are able to cope with a rapid rate of development living in ways that push technological and social boundaries, and with most of the population living somewhere in the middle, with the developments from the accelerated communities gradually filtering through once they have been shown to be sound. Free movement from one group to the other is encouraged as each individuals capacity for transience can vary throughout ones life. 

That diverted pretty weirdly, but the takeaway of all this is that some of the things I said in my last email are reliant on the stress-tolerances of memetic evolution as a self-regulating mechanism. Personally, I think that although there’s a possibility that things like social justice cliques could simply be a manifestation of social development moving too fast, I’m still liable to believe that they do serve a valid purpose for the people who engage in them, even if I can’t figure it out yet. 

lapisamethyst:

Mild Frustration

kazerad:

…

The article you’re referring to with “Useful Idiots” is this Slate one right? http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/10/how_to_end_gamergate_a_divide_and_conquer_plan.html

I remember reading it and making a comment on it that “Calling people Useful Idiots isn’t going to win anyone over…And yet based on the latter half of this article I’d actually consider it in support of Gamergate.” Because after the Useful Idiots insult, it basically advocates to make an honest effort to communicate with moderates, clean up the obvious corruption that does exist in the industry, and stop with the Boogeyman level insults.

D= You’re not the first person to assume I was talking about that article. Which is weird to me since that article only says “useful idiots” in quotes, says who it’s quoting, and even links to the article of the person who actually made the accusation.

Aurbach’s article says a lot of the same things I say, though he’s a bit more biting about it. Like, he actually asserts that Gawker is so toxic and associated with harassment that any journalists who want to be taken seriously should dissociate from the company and renounce it. 

I have gotten some decent responses since I put out that request, though as I go deeper into the whole thing it only gets more baffling from a meta perspective. I didn’t mean this to be an opinion survey, but after almost everyone messaged me with “I support GamerGate, buuuut…” it kind of turned into that.

Like, let’s take a step back and look at this. I don’t think anyone who associates with GamerGate unconditionally likes GamerGate. They’re an inefficient maelstrom operating under the tumultuous and self-critical ideals of Anon Culture, only retaining support by the fact that they are 1.) actually doing things, and 2.) sometimes they are good things. Most people who identify as a part of it are there for reasons that seem more archetypal of Tumblr’s Social Justice community, taking a stand against behavior they perceive as majority-favoring or unethical even if doing so gets them labeled as a disorganized mob of whiny children. As is typical of these groups, bigotry in their opposition only strengthens their resolve - see Lewis’ Law. 

On the other side of this, you have a group that purports to not be a side at all, but unrelated individuals who share a critical opinion of GamerGate. Which isn’t a bad thing, but strictly speaking it also mirrors the feelings held by most of the people who actually associate with GamerGate. It creates a weird situation where everyone more or less wants the same thing, descended into two rough factions where one sloppily fights for a good cause and the other believes the sloppiness causes more harm than good.

But… it keeps coming back to this idea that if anyone actually wanted to get rid of GamerGate, all they would really have to do is outperform it. If the people who oppose it with hacking, bigotry and slander put that effort into negating the concerns that lock a lot of moderates into GamerGate, it would take the wind out of its sails and probably taper it off. Yet even to professional writers who speak out against GamerGate, it feels like this idea is completely foreign to them. I still remember the guy who described the majority of moderates who identify as a part of GamerGate as “useful idiots” tricked into supporting a bad cause. Like, oh my fucking god, you don’t get the moderates on your side by calling them idiots for disagreeing with you, you listen to their concerns! It should not be this complicated.

At this point, I feel convinced that there is no “anti-GamerGate”. There is a bunch of utterly incompetent and violent people who disapprove of GamerGate but have absolutely no idea how to make it go away. I could organize a better anti-GamerGate than these people. And fuck it, maybe I should.

agoutirex:

kazerad:

[snip]

This sounds like an attention-getting ploy to trick people into going through your Tumblr to read all your wordy piffle. I am truly shocked and surprised.

However, having done that now, I realize that the game really is rigged a lot more than I thought.  It’s kind of disingenuous to claim to be a neutral party when you’re already pro-gamergate to begin with, but I’m guessing this whole game was really just an attention grab with the whole LOOK AT ME, I’M A GAME DESIGNER AND I WENT TO SMARTY PANTS SCHOOL LOOK AT THESE BIG ACADEMIC WORDS I USE COME, PLEBIANS, DANCE FOR YOUR KING because you’ve got that overly formal writing style favored by self-important Internet people who’re used to receiving slavish praise.You can write another essay in response, but, if not, I’m sure one of your lickspittles will be more than happy to do it for you.

No, it’s… it’s actually a pretty honest request. And I’m not sure Bachelor of the Arts degrees or my vocabulary are really things worth bragging about, anyway.

Like I said, my concern is purely that there is one side of this that is trying to defend themselves as being in the moral right, whereas the people who oppose them aren’t really making an effort to win over the middle. I think concerns about speech disincentives and minority erasure are warranted given events that have transpired, and it would be really easy for people opposing GamerGate to draw attention to constructs that would prevent these problems from exacerbating in GG’s absence. They could really easily invalidate all the arguments in GamerGate’s favor and leave it perceived as nothing but an inferior or more dangerous alternative.

The way I see it, there are people who really do want GamerGate to go away, and the fact that none of them are utilizing this extremely simple tactic can really only parse as two things: endorsement of problematic behavior, or outright incompetence. Like, maybe they want to maintain status quo when it comes to things like discrimination, and that is why nobody is really stepping up to win over those who only support GamerGate for that reason. Or, maybe these people just honestly don’t know how to quell an audience like this. I don’t know. My hope is that neither of these things are true, though at this point I think the hope has mostly evaporated.

If there is a better tactic by which to quell my concerns with GG’s opposition, then please explain it. Like, asking the people you’re actually implicating in wrongdoing to defend themselves seems like it’s about the most fair way to go about it. If there is a better way to get this information, I promise you I am willing to listen.

By Okakura Fuken, Translation by Dahanshark

Part-1[http://goo.gl/7Hwxa4]

I leave gg, but do not abandon the global purpose to defending gaming and otaku culture!!
I still love gg. I am still a friend of good people in gg and will sometimes going to share an action with you. I’m especially grateful to persons who support us or discuss with liberty and openness. You are the hope and good examples for honest people. However, I only will say “馬鹿[BAKA]” to gg when there is 馬鹿[BAKA] who has some discriminatory attitude in gg. I will criticize GG only in that kind of cases.

Gamergate has the purpose that save to the gaming culture. However, GG also has the pre-requisite that each person can join GG following each reason and motive. For me, I joined GG with a certain qualification. That was setting the condition that any western gamers did not remove any Asian gamers in GG at least. If there is the risk of being discrimination against Asian, I will leave the Western problem.

You may say that this is only one accidental case. and you also may say that most of GG are decent people. I agree the fact most of GG are decent. They’ve support us and listened at our appeal when my friend Dahan Shark was insulted. And your attitudes also gave burning enthusiasm to Dahan in his heart. I much appreciate that.

However, I’ve needed to have a duty if I join GG. It is doing investigation whether there is fair space where ESL people can act with liberty in order to prevent my friend Japanese gamers from being hurt. I believe we definitely need opinions of gamers who don’t live in English‐speaking world in order to break SJW’s logic.

So, I’d like to invite the gamers to joining GG. However, I never want to see the scene the gamers living in Esw get hurt due to accepting my inviting. Through this instance happening to us, I have to judge I can’t prevent the foreign gamers from being hurt in GG. At that moment, my duty of investigation was over. So, our decision leaving GG is not a sudden impulse but a conclusion.

GG has many fair people joining with liberty, however, there is partiality in a part of GG, certainly. The partiality harms any social solidarity like GG. Eventually, that is in front of all of us in GG, and their fangs thrust at us Japanese gamers this time. And then, we can watch the partiality is still working now. I’d like you to be aware of that we foreign gamers observe your attitude at the same time when we send this kind of the messages. This is the charity experimentation using ourselves roninworks in order to contribute to GG. Can we do fair discussions with liberty in GG ? Can GG stay faithfulness to ideal and logic when GG gets been criticized ? Are there some preferential treatments caused by popularity persons being and their henchmen like e-celeb ?

I ask people in GG for careful watching the each attitude of persons who talk to us roninworks in this time. Of course, there are many persons who kindly support us, however, at the same time, other many persons who has different attitudes still are in GG. They are lying, or attacking us based on wrong information to defend the e-celebs.

No one can deny the fact of GG that they also are your good GG guy’s fellow members under the flag of GG. The fact means that there are the many people who intend to make partiality caused from ones in the real world.Importing that kind of partialities is against the GG’s basic ideal. And, the partiality in GG makes some people not be able to say their opinion freely. We should not ignore this fact.

The liberty with permission to some factionalism - Does GG aim for that kind of “liberty” ? There has already been something funny like that “liberty” even in Japan, or even in any animal society. That kind of “liberty” can allow to compromise between GG and SJW or Viralmedia easily? And then, under the permission to partiality like factionalism, the people represented by me can’t join the united front as GG? I’m afraid but I have to conclude that.

There is no sexist or racist in GG. However, There is just Linguistic discrimination in whole the West. And, the fact is against not only the GG’s basic ideal but also the common sense of gaming. Gaming culture never do Linguistic discrimination. If gaming culture has done that, both I and you have never become gamers. Anyone can get the great experiences just when the person holds a control device. The common sense is the virtue in gaming culture, and that is the moral law(“the justice”) we can have in this culture war and we intend to defend.

As a 2channeler, I’ve participated in many otaku culture movements on the internet in Japan [Otaku war Japan-2channel and GamerGate http://goo.gl/zgdBp2]. So, I know many examples that the false leaders like e-celeb always appear when any movement has became popular even in Japan. I know their character very well. They always do playing house to make others be  shrunk back, and then, hijack the movements due to blocking fair discussions. 

I can hardly read English tweet at all, however, I unmask hijackers and tell their true character keeping my eyes closed.

They apparently seems one of your good friends for you. They look sociable and have many friends. Also they are troublemaker or tricker and make blistering remarks to make people laugh sometimes. So, you tend to forgive their inequity regarding it as a little act carelessness. And then, you underestimate these problems saying like this. "Well, that’s the usual. We don’t have to mind that.“ At the moment, a hierarchy appears in the civil activity.

I’d like to ask you all why you join GG although you may get in danger of losing your public credibility? Why do you forgive the hijackers in GG while you never forgive Anita Sharkeesian and SJW and Kotaku? It is unfair.
Both behaviors are the same thing which insults guiltless people. For trial, join in the laughter at the Sockpuppet with glee. I believe you can’t do that. Please remember Tim Schafer henchmen’s attitude saying like this. "Well, that’s the usual. We don’t have to mind that." Please never forget the true essence of your enemies.

Sadly, it always begins with people pampering those bunch of SJW and hijackers in GG. They taking advantage of people’s kindness or forgiveness to underestimate. They never regard you as a friend at all. They love themselves and praises for themselves much more than you. And, they aim a new adequate victim, and attack the person in order to rise in popularity. You are the next.

They always lie or take shelter in evasions when they are exposed to objections against themselves. For example, in our incident, they may try to do that saying something "language barrier” or"cultural difference"else.

Does the liberty you aim mean making a stamping ground for the facetious liars,instead of censorship? If it is so, this culture war around gaming only has the true character as just playing at a tug of war between trolls and SJW.

We should remember why Anonymous movement succeeded.
Anonymous are called “Nanashi” in Japan. Nanashi is a legion which do not have each individual face of the persons joining. Nanashi praise the hacker who is faithful to an ideal. On the other hand, they scrap e-celeb communities making an e-celeb be alone and unaided. Any selfish play against ideals is not accepted there. Anonymous is a system not to let false leaders like e-celeb stay in power.

Of course, I don’t completely agree to the Anonymous system. However, it is necessary also for all us to have the nobility in order to achieve a purpose.
This kind of collusions [by fake friendship] makes a movement turn into a corruption, and forces us to be a pet of somebody. They are called “niwaka-otakus” and “anime-icons” and “kyoro-jyu, キョロ充 = kyoro boys”  in Japan. “キョロ kyoro” is onomatopoeia in manga when a man are moving eyes quickly. So, キョロ充 expresses the manner that he always asks around for what people feel. They long for and want violence power of nanashi, and then, they enter a movement to get the power. And they attack innocent persons for satisfying their greed to pretend to be tough else.

It doesn’t mean not only that. The fake friendship like e-celeb will make dangerous flaws on GG. For example, when SJW provoke one of the e-celeb’s communities, SJW can easily draw an evidence of threat and a discrimination remark from them. In addition, the fake friendship lets precious cooperators leave. For example, roninworks were the only certain Japanese team in GG and also messengers to get other Japanese gamers  joined GG. However, GG lost the possibility.

If there is not any loss like that, it will be harm in letting the fake friendship ride.
They will be going to snatch and monopolize the achievement of good gamers in GG. It will produce new another kotaku after GG. The e-celeb will take their seats in the new kotaku as popular figures.

Up to this day, this kind of problem has not caused something big conspicuous trouble, because the GG movement was filled  with fresh energy and the enemy are being stupid at present. Until now, the enemy has tried to let GG go past by underestimating GG. However, when they get acknowledged it is impossible to do that, they will change their tactics into aggressive one with feasible assaults.
For example, they may threaten or practice extortion for a part of GG members, or send many spies to sabotage GG. Even now, they can send a lot of spies and provocateurs to 4chan in order to addict all new chan culture entrants to Kotaku.

The manners and customs in chan culture, which allow of provoking each other as if it was a the culture’s own characteristic, will relate to the spying. It presents chances of the spying that being acts of disturbing fair discussions when we confront a culture crisis. To tell the truth, 2channeler, who start the manners of provoking each other as their own character, had thought their own manners over and regretted, and succeeded in overcoming it. However, the provoking manners has already spread over ordinary people. So, it was too late.

And then, we overcoming 2channeler have made sure of being sabotage with spying and action of provocateurs. They lead to plot to make people provoke each other on the internet in Japan.

This can present new important common knowledge to GG. For me, yellow journalism in the western Viralmedia or SJW look somethings copying you.
They are mirror images of you. At least, Japanese Viralmedia started their action at copying 2channeler’s parlance. If GG leaves this problem as it is and gets into being the place where unfairness is rampant, GG breaks up and ruins itself when the enemy uses a divide and rule strategy.

I’d like to say to the people in GG. We must raise metabolic rate of a movement to a high level for keeping the movement staying clean. That forms a cycle like one water has. Water can change into rivers and sea and clouds and a rain.

If GG changes the form into another figure which has another name, GG’s essence is still in the other figure as long as GG keeps itself as a stream. And the cycling must be quick to clean a movement. Overcoming 2channeler call the quick cycling as “精神の加速(Acceleration of spirit)" The imitations like e-celeb never can keep up with Acceleration of spirit.

The hijackers’ violence to me is not a special case. Their violence and corruption would have already attacked you until now. And it will attack a new gamergaters. It always faces the people who are in a weak or vulnerable position.

I love the people who have faithful friendship and keep their pride. I came here to defeat the enemy who insult such the people. I came here to encourage hurt persons. I do not want to play house with evil hijackers. I came here to defend the Western gamers, gaming and whole the Videogame culture.

I’m passing through GG. It is the next step. And I will start a new project that is more hard-core, and more freely.

roninworks appreciate many nice people in GamerGate!!

ByDhanshark[twitter] in Roninworks  

Please let me explain this case to all you kind person who try to care us and do good things for gaming culture. I state our roninworks opinion as a representative of the fringe persons around GamerGate. We are gamers and creators in Japan. This must be the last time I use #GamerGate tag. This is not result of a point less drama on the internet.

In this case we leave GG, it did not caused by we roninworks regard all GG people as terrible persons. We’ve seen some tweets roninworks should avoid rash judgment. They tell that most of GG are decent people. We roninworks agree that is fact. However, we need to conclude that we leave here as we take the point of view of an organization theory.

Of couse, GG is only tag, not any organization. But the joining people are regarded as the one groupe because of being the name of “GamerGate”.And then, there is those terrible persons under the same name.

Very the persons abuse the thing regarding as if there were the one groupe. If we do something to help gaming culture, they also use the outcome while they keep insulting us. There is possibility of their abusings the outcome, too. The _icze4r’s insulting is only a part of reason for our leaving.RSG_VILLENA’s behaviour means more important problem. (I guess RSG_VILLENA is the Roguestar. However, I still don’t have perfect self-confidence about that.)

I had respected him. He had said “raisit!” against SJW’s unfair treating for us non- native speakers. But, in this time, he ignored the _icze4r’s insulting in front of him. Nor was that all, he appealed to his hangers‐on by retweet _icze4r’s insulting. 

I explained with detail after preparering in the next day because I was worried about there could be something misunderstanding. I told him I had wanted to explain the attitude causing self‐imposed control relating censorship. The attitude has caused many invisible censorship in Japan. It had seemed for me he would have obeyed the dangerous attitude while he lives in the West. 

However, He said me “I’m not in Japan.” I can understand that means “non of your business” in that context, at least. “His” GamerGate doesn’t need Japanese. 

RSG_VILLENA also retweeted _icze4r’s insulting. _icze4r had said next phrase.“this person does not know english and they insisit on talking to me”“so it’s like being fed a visual novel” RSG_VILLENA had retweeted that.

I’ve never done any actions as fun or joke, in play or in fun, at GamerGate. So, that retweet appeal was very the action insulting me. I argued that with explanation. RSG_VILLENA only answered next phrase. “you should stop treating words on the internet this seriously”“Its just twitter, nothing personal”

I was insulted again. He never intend to treat me honestly. What is different from action which the developer has done with a Sock puppet ignoring gamers serious claiming? They are birds of a feather.

Originally, the GamerGate’s virtue was that all people who love gaming culture could do everything for it in cooperation with each other. So, there shouldn’t be any sense of exclusive privilege. However, there are e-celeb communities in GamerGate. They ignore fringe persons. They are just like “miniature KOTAKUs”.

Okakura pointed out their temperament as “They carry a class society in”.
This pointing out is based on Haniya Yutaka’s one in order to point out problem in a quondam Japanese social movement. The way or sence to discriminate, as GG or not GG, e-celeb or not e-celeb, else. This is against the GamerGate’s virtue.

However, Actually GG leave them loose. This fact proves we have not achieved success of the GamerGate’s virtue even in GamerGate. I already can’t go along with GG which includes the persons who don’t have the GamerGate’s virtue.

When I do something to help GG, they also can behave with discrimination using my outcome under the name of GG. My outcome may be abused to attack for persons who are innocent. Not only for me, every you good persons’ outcome can be abused under the name of GamerGate. As a result, that will harm the all liberalistic.

Then, I have to make a confession. To tell the truth, when I had belonged to some comunity around a culture, I had tolerated being persons who have sence of discrimination. As the result, I had taken part in harming the good culture. The culture got ruined and never recovered forever. I’m not a good man you expect at all. I helped the usurpers.

Okakura pointed out it and got me be aware of my guilt. So, actually, I’m not angry at _icze4r’s insulting, of couse I didn’t feel good. I don’t have qualification for getting angry for the insult.

I’m certainly “a bloody caveman”. However, I have reason for my action also in order to make compensation for my guilt. So, I’ll never repeat making mistake about that again. Therefore, I don’t forgive the terrible persons.

Precisely, there will happen actions of vandalism for gaming culture under the name of GamerGate. So, we roninworks have concluded that supporting GameGate doesn’t always mean helping gaming culture after this. Additionally, we have to say GG has the task preventing vandalism under the name of GG.

However, we roninworks is only a small grope made of the fringe persons and we can’t use English well and not a famous developer. We don’t have any power to correct the course of GG. So, we judge we should act for gaming culture by our independent way, from out of GamerGate. This conclusion dosn’t mean that we leave action for helping gaming culture. Roninworks still stay here. And we will be still gamers and creators in Japan. Actually, Okakura has already prepared for writing on the future problems around gaming culture and GG, and then, what we should do for the problems.

P.S
P.S. I’ve seen the terrible persons pretend that this problem was a only minor trouble caused by language barrier. This using a mean trick is the representation of problems in GameGate. Please think about the issue of all you in GamerGate.

Part-2http://goo.gl/j011a4