acvalens

Ana Valens · @acvalens

6th Sep 2014 from TwitLonger

On Sexual Harassment, Gaming Journalism, & Good Faith Discussions


(Note: YouTube version should be available at this URL. Might be inaccessible first few minutes due to processing, but should be available before 2AM EST 9/6: http://youtu.be/0c5QAAZNDZU )

Nearly a month ago, the online gaming community was swept up by the Quinnspiracy issue. Since then, gamers have been struggling with #GamerGate, a spiritual successor born from the community response to Quinnspiracy. GamerGate, in theory, draws on overarching concerns with corruption, nepotism, and general dirty pool within the independent gaming and freelance writing video game industries.

Previously, I voiced my concern with abuse and harassment from certain social justice advocates within GamerGate and Quinnspiracy discussions. I published a twitlong about my beliefs during a transitional period in the internet drama, in which Adam Baldwin had recently coined “#GamerGate,” and the tag’s proponents were gradually shifting focus towards the industry as a whole. I still stand behind what I posted, and feel that there are serious issues with abuse, harassment, and “punching down” coming from many of my fellow leftists.

However, my first twitlong is not complete without discussing several overarching problems with the way GamerGate is being handled. At its core, GamerGate is supposed to be a good faith discussion and call out about several widespread issues with unprofessionalism, nepotism, and gatekeeping within the independent gaming industry. These problems are all very serious forms of manipulation within capitalist industries, and, indeed, even mere allegations of dirty pool should be taken seriously. However, at the current time, the sheer prominence of sexual harassment in video gaming runs the risk of ruining any good faith discussions about the gaming industry’s ethical standards.

Sexual harassment has remained a recurrent issue throughout both #GamerGate and the original “Quinnspiracy” drama. However, this isn’t a coincidence. Gender-based harassment has remained a hallmark in gaming for years. Discrimination against women and transgender identities has remained a major problem in video gaming over the past several decades, to the point of cumbersome toxicity towards representation in video gaming. In today’s hostile gaming climate, virtually any serious Internet event that involves a marginalized gender will quickly lead to some sort of misogynistic, transphobic, and/or transmisogynistic commentary from bigots.

Most gamers are aware of this issue, and have been actively working to call out this abuse. Developers, journalists, writers, gamers, and artists across sides have explicitly told sexual harassers to end their misogynistic behavior. Even in GamerGate discussions on Facepunch, reddit, and 4chan’s/v/, users constantly call out and shut down any encouragement for sexual harassment against industry workers.

However, despite some of these active initiatives towards halting sexual harassment, misogyny still remains an enormous issue for women gamers. Dozens of developers and journalists speaking out about #GamerGate have experienced constant harassment for voicing their good faith views. The misogynistic response against these workers has been repulsive beyond belief. Explicit phrases and slurs are severely common in replies. Jokes about quid pro quo are constantly slung at women, reinforcing the role that objectification and the male gaze plays in the gaming industry. Even reposts of explicit photos, comics, and photoshop edits remain common throughout discussions on GamerGate and - by extension – Quinnspiracy.

An overwhelming majority of GamerGate supporters do not support sexual harassment. In fact, the overwhelming majority of GamerGate advocates feel strongly about ending sexual harassment when it appears within discussions. However, despite the good intentions of many of these supporters, sexual harassment towards marginalized gamers, devs, and journalists remains.

Indeed, sexual harassment is and must remain a fundamental concern within the gaming community. We cannot create a safe gaming space if sexual harassment is permitted. Sexual harassment inherently exists to perpetuate systematic violence, because misogynistic, transphobic, and transmisogynistic harassment is created and utilized in order to pressure marginalized genders into leaving the gaming community. And it is used very specifically, against certain individuals that the harasser does not like.

This is a problem the gaming community has had for years. It is not going to go away any time soon. There is no excuse for this vile, disgusting, misogynistic behavior. We must call this out, expose it, and shame anyone who encourages this form of oppression. We must make active initiatives to end sexual harassment; regardless of “sides” in this issue, regardless of whether a marginalized gender is “pro-feminist” or “pro-egalitarian,” we must raise our voices and call out how it is wrong to sexually harass people you do not like. There is no middle ground in this situation; there never could be. If you sexually harass, you are in the wrong.

So yes, when you commit sexual harassment, you are personally responsible for the overarching sociocultural problems with misogyny, transphobia, and transmisogyny in video gaming. When a woman is doxxed for sharing her view on the industry, you are to blame. When a transgender woman is kicked out of the industry because of constant sexual harassment, you are to blame. When death threats are sent to a popular feminist YouTuber, you have helped contribute to the culture of sexual harassment that has led to her abuse. You are part of the problem, and the blood is on your hands. If it wasn’t for your behavior, we would be having a much healthier discussion right now.

When we fail to take sexual harassment seriously, we fail to make room for women and marginalized genders to enter gaming with the safety they need to play, write, and develop with us. In other words, Maya Felix Kramer was wrong. It’s not cuties killing video games – it’s sexual harassment. And, in particular, it is sexual harassers who use certain legitimate concerns – such as nepotism in gaming – as a smoke screen in order to commit sexual harassment.

This bridges us to our next topic. Sexual harassment is an overarching problem in any discussion or situation in which a marginalized identity is involved: this should be a given, due to the prevailing presence of bigots looking for an excuse to commit sexual harassment. Therefore, how do we develop a good faith discussion about nepotism within gaming? Isn’t nepotism in video gaming a serious concern?

Yes, it is. The corruption allegations floating around – many of which later confirmed through policy changes and editorial write-ups at Kotaku and other sites – are an enormous issue for gaming journalists. Doubly so when responses to these allegations have surmounted to articles and tweets stating that “gamers are dead” and “gamers are trash” – two ridiculously hyperbolic statements, which remain both factually untrue, and fail to maturely and professionally acknowledge the serious concerns brought forward by these publications’ readers (and, by extension, their advertisers).

The current behavior from these journalists seems to suggest that gaming journalism is in a state of severe decay. The past few weeks have demonstrated that gaming journalists are, in many cases, largely unable to professionally engage with serious criticisms about their behavior and practices. The sheer lack of professionalism from dozens of gaming journalists has been scathing, and harassment has been particularly common from their supporters. This has been further compounded by the fact that many gaming journalists use twitter impulsively: posting angry, volatile, and disrespectful tweets directed at others within the issue. Nor does it help that many of these journalists demonstrate a sheer inability to voice their complaints in an intersectional frame: see, Leigh Alexander’s hurtful joke about drug abuse, and Devin Faraci’s “belief” that gamers are worse than ISIS. In fact, these troublesome responses often hurt others by “punching down:” pushing moderates towards the pro-GamerGate camp in the process.

This is an enormous problem found throughout the independent gaming journalism community. As a whole, these freelance journalists are unable to properly respond to the public in a professional manner, and fail to take corruption allegations seriously. However, Kotaku is not an outlier in the industry. From Game Informer to Eurogamer, gaming journalism as a whole is infested with serious issues regarding nepotism, buddy-buddy PR connections, low quality content, and, ultimately, gaming journalist publications that read more like PR campaigns than objective overviews of gaming content. How can we, in good faith, read an “unbiased” review on GameSpot about “The Sims 4,” when enormous advertisements from EA flank the review?

How the mighty have fallen. Yet GameSpot is not alone in this regard.

This is not a recent issue either. Gaming journalism has been decaying for years, and the advent of clickbait journalism in gaming has only served as a catalyst for this decay. Long before GamerGate, gamers have been rolling their eyes at gaming journalism’s missteps. Today’s gamers can eagerly recall when GameStop first embraced Game Informer, and turned the magazine into – essentially – a PR campaign for the sales giant. Ultimately, GamerGate is the culmination of a very slow, gradual anger at the current state of gaming journalism. It’s an anger that has been rising for a very long time, and it’s not about to go away.

GamerGate is not an outlier, but a culmination of unified voices against serious issues found in gaming journalism. It is the end result of years of festering anger and disappointment at the gaming journalism community. If one GamerGate campaign fails, another will appear. And another. And yet another, until the gamer public is finally satisfied with the end product.
Gaming journalism should, at its core, be objective. True, objective does not mean “fully free from bias.” Even the most objective news articles hold some form of bias – if not personal, than certainly social and cultural.

Indeed, some form of bias is inevitable in journalism. But it is not an excuse. It should not be cultivated nor fostered. And it is not a trait that should be celebrated, defended, and encouraged. Every journalist proper has a responsibility, as a published writer, to work towards conscientiously and thoroughly minimizing bias in their work.

Gaming journalists need to listen to their audience, and put the concerns of their audience first before all else. Their audience should come first over PR connections. This should not be a lot to ask. This is called transparency and honesty in journalistic standards.

Honesty should be a fundamental standard for any proper video gaming journalist. If your friend’s game sucks, tell us. If you think they can do better, say it loud and proud. Don’t write articles that advertise for your friends; write articles that give your friend and their audience solid, objective feedback.

Be respectful, but also be transparent. Write articles that treat your friends like colleagues: people who can make mistakes, who must be held accountable for their shortcomings, yet show potential in their growth and progress. Not just is this objective, but it is positive. It is high quality writing, and it encourages high standards within the field.

Clickbait articles have no substance to give to gamers. They will live and die by their sheer popularity. But objective, factual work that demonstrates the shortcomings and strengths of a given work of art can give so, so much to the gaming industry. In other words, we must encourage gaming journalists to become gaming critics. They must learn how to give objective critique. Gaming journalism must end, and give birth to gaming criticism.

Therefore, our next biggest concern must be bridging the gap between journalistic call outs, and ending sexual harassment. How do we build a good faith discussion on gaming journalism, then, while keeping out the oppressive toxicity?

We must deprogram our internalized misogyny, transphobia, and transmisogyny. We must hold ourselves morally responsible for our actions. We must out harassers – left or right, feminist or otherwise – when we see them. We must set an example for others by encouraging respectful behavior, criticism, and discourse with clear personal boundaries about what is – and isn’t – okay to discuss. We must set a precedent for healthy discussions, and we must ask both sides to honor them. Gamers – on all sides – must actively end harassment, by telling harassers that they are unwelcome in this community. And that they are unwelcome in this conversation.

However, we also need to take good faith concerns seriously. We cannot erase them just because an industry worker tells us to do so. We must actively engage with others in ways that encourage respectful and thoughtful discussions, and we should take their concerns seriously if they are willing to be respectful and thoughtful towards ourselves.

Gaming is not simply a form of entertainment. It is a form of art, and it is a growing industry. However, gaming will stagnate if we refuse to further raise basic standards within our community. We must stop sexual harassment when we see it happening among our own. We must create an environment where good faith concerns are taken seriously, without bullying, harassment, and witch-hunts. We need to create a gaming community that openly acknowledges issues with corruption and shockingly low journalistic standards, while also identifying that misogyny, transphobia, and transmisogyny are not welcome to the table during that conversation.

Right now, we are failing. As a community, we are sick. We are unable to end sexual harassment, because many refuse to acknowledge their own personal role in its culmination. Yet we are also unable to have good faith discussions on industry standards, because many journalists, developers, and gamers are quick to shut down any uncomfortable concerns.

We are not in a good position. We have been struck with a cold, and it’s becoming worse. Our HP is low, and we’re out of PP. We need to find a cure. And the first step towards that is setting an example others can follow: being vocal, respectful, and kicking out harassers from our community. Otherwise, there is no way that gaming can improve from here.

Reply · Report Post