Let me take you through my thoughts on this:
First off, I want to say I support this petition and I have signed it prior to making this video. I also urge you to check it out, and also sign it if you agree with Mark Kern as I do.
Secondly, there was an article on VG247 written by Patrick Garratt in response to this petition. I urge you NOT to waste you time reading this as I have. The reason being this article is the precise yellow, sensationalist, journalism Mark talks about in his open letter. This article’s only purpose is to fan the flames even more and keep us too busy fighting each other to even care about a solution, let alone look for one. It’s the same SJW rhetoric we’ve come to expect from old gaming media. He puts Anita Sarkeesian front and center and places all spot light on her, ignoring all valid criticism and erroneously linking hateful tweets to GamerGate regardless of the fact that no such tweet has ever included the GamerGate hashtag.
OK, now that is out of the way, let me take you through some of my own personal thoughts on the matter of GamerGate as it stands today. It’s been roughly 6 months since Adam Baldwin first introduced us to the hashtag and, in complete defiance to twitter tradition, it did not die out in the average 2 week time span. In fact, it seems to be just as strong today as it was in August of last year. That alone should be enough to tell you there is something to it. Usually, when activist hashtags crop up, they last their usual 2-2.5 weeks and then begin to quickly see a drop in usage.
GamerGate did not.
Why did it not? Because Gamers are used to being bullied. I’m 29, I was born in 1986 and in 1989, when I was 3, I got my first experience playing a video game. For the record, it was Super Mario Bros on NES. I’m old enough to remember when gamer was considered by most people to be a pejorative term. If you were a gamer during most of the 90s you were an outcast, a loser, undeserving of being included in anything but the unpopular nerd table in the school cafeteria. And believe me I’ve had many lunches taken from me sitting at that table by bullies. I’m no stranger to bullying and I can bet an overwhelming majority of you watching this aren’t either. We’re so used to being bullied, and shamed that we don’t care anymore. We still love video games and the SJW’s view of us won’t change that. It didn’t make us stop loving video games during those important development years when fitting in seemed so god damned important, so why the hell would it change our feelings of video games now that we no longer give two shits about fitting in? Scratch that, why would we care now that we have our OWN community that we fit in with? And we are a community. One of gamers, sharing our love for the game with one another.
We didn’t fit in with existing cliques so we created our own. I want you to remember that point because it is important. We created OUR OWN community for US and we did one thing the rest of the world didn’t do. We made that community open and accepting to anyone who loves video games like we do. That’s it. That’s the one and ONLY condition. If you love video games you are a gamer and can count yourself among us. Black, White, Brown, Man, Woman, Trans, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is the shared experience of the game and how we each make the experience better for ourselves and others. While others enrich our own experiences we in kind enrich theirs. This is the power of gaming and this is why we fight to preserve it.
This is why GamerGate has not died yet, and why I say it will never die. GamerGate isn’t just a hash tag created a few months ago. This has been decades in the making. GamerGate was there when Jack Thompson tried to convince The US Surpreme Court that violent video games cause real world violence. GamerGate was there when Atari was over-saturating the market with half baked arcade ports, unnecessary hardware accessories and rushed games based on movie licenses. The difference between then and now is that back then the gaming media had our side, the gamer’s side. They acted as a shield to protect us from bad purchases. Now they sensationalize every written word to entice advertisers to buy ad space. They are no longer concerned with informing us about the Pros and the Cons of upcoming hardware and software products. They are only concerned with ad revenue and profits. The whole system has become corrupt from the bottom up, and the top down.
This is the heart of GamerGate. You can either play with us or leave us the fuck alone.
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Mark Kern’s Olive Branch
Let me take you through my thoughts on this:
First off, I want to say I support this petition and I have signed it prior to making this video. I also urge you to check it out, and also sign it if you agree with Mark Kern as I do.
Secondly, there was an article on VG247 written by Patrick Garratt in response to this petition. I urge you NOT to waste you time reading this as I have. The reason being this article is the precise yellow, sensationalist, journalism Mark talks about in his open letter. This article’s only purpose is to fan the flames even more and keep us too busy fighting each other to even care about a solution, let alone look for one. It’s the same SJW rhetoric we’ve come to expect from old gaming media. He puts Anita Sarkeesian front and center and places all spot light on her, ignoring all valid criticism and erroneously linking hateful tweets to GamerGate regardless of the fact that no such tweet has ever included the GamerGate hashtag.
OK, now that is out of the way, let me take you through some of my own personal thoughts on the matter of GamerGate as it stands today. It’s been roughly 6 months since Adam Baldwin first introduced us to the hashtag and, in complete defiance to twitter tradition, it did not die out in the average 2 week time span. In fact, it seems to be just as strong today as it was in August of last year. That alone should be enough to tell you there is something to it. Usually, when activist hashtags crop up, they last their usual 2-2.5 weeks and then begin to quickly see a drop in usage.
GamerGate did not.
Why did it not? Because Gamers are used to being bullied. I’m 29, I was born in 1986 and in 1989, when I was 3, I got my first experience playing a video game. For the record, it was Super Mario Bros on NES. I’m old enough to remember when gamer was considered by most people to be a pejorative term. If you were a gamer during most of the 90s you were an outcast, a loser, undeserving of being included in anything but the unpopular nerd table in the school cafeteria. And believe me I’ve had many lunches taken from me sitting at that table by bullies. I’m no stranger to bullying and I can bet an overwhelming majority of you watching this aren’t either. We’re so used to being bullied, and shamed that we don’t care anymore. We still love video games and the SJW’s view of us won’t change that. It didn’t make us stop loving video games during those important development years when fitting in seemed so god damned important, so why the hell would it change our feelings of video games now that we no longer give two shits about fitting in? Scratch that, why would we care now that we have our OWN community that we fit in with? And we are a community. One of gamers, sharing our love for the game with one another.
We didn’t fit in with existing cliques so we created our own. I want you to remember that point because it is important. We created OUR OWN community for US and we did one thing the rest of the world didn’t do. We made that community open and accepting to anyone who loves video games like we do. That’s it. That’s the one and ONLY condition. If you love video games you are a gamer and can count yourself among us. Black, White, Brown, Man, Woman, Trans, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is the shared experience of the game and how we each make the experience better for ourselves and others. While others enrich our own experiences we in kind enrich theirs. This is the power of gaming and this is why we fight to preserve it.
This is why GamerGate has not died yet, and why I say it will never die. GamerGate isn’t just a hash tag created a few months ago. This has been decades in the making. GamerGate was there when Jack Thompson tried to convince The US Surpreme Court that violent video games cause real world violence. GamerGate was there when Atari was over-saturating the market with half baked arcade ports, unnecessary hardware accessories and rushed games based on movie licenses. The difference between then and now is that back then the gaming media had our side, the gamer’s side. They acted as a shield to protect us from bad purchases. Now they sensationalize every written word to entice advertisers to buy ad space. They are no longer concerned with informing us about the Pros and the Cons of upcoming hardware and software products. They are only concerned with ad revenue and profits. The whole system has become corrupt from the bottom up, and the top down.
This is the heart of GamerGate. You can either play with us or leave us the fuck alone.
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