| binary solo said: I must say though, that in the original Quinn thread on this site I talked about the broader issue of corruption in gaming media and that there was a helluva lot of false moral outrage going on against Zoe Quinn because she had been accused of using her female assets to corrupt rather than more traditonal pecuniary, or at least gender neutral, methods. And what reaction did I get? "What corruption, there's no systematic corruption here, it's just a slut bitch spreading her legs for favours" or words to that effect. Gamergate would not have been predictably confused and messy and ugly if it hadn't coalesced around false accusations and the resulting cruel and misogynistic attacks. |
Referring to this? I wouldn't really interpret it that way. Though everyone seems to be missing the mark because the anti-Quinn brigade insisted that they had a smoking gun that she had traded sex for favors when they had no such thing. Like you, I think this is more about the media being too chummy with its subjects and where networking ends and nepotism begins. I also think this is a bit like when the sexual misadventures of some preacher hit the news. If Zoe Quinn's public face is that of a woman who is all about raising awareness of mental illness while she's manipulating her mentally distressed boyfriend into thinking he's just being paranoid when she is actually fucking around behind his back, then that's shades of Jim Bakker and Ted Haggard.
I agree that there are misogynistic aspects to the way the story has been treated and to Gamergate generally, but once a story becomes about sex people will always focus on that to the exclusion of everything else. Just like how the Clinton impeachment was over whether he lied under oath, but because it was about sex to this day some people will tell you he was impeached for getting a blowjob.
And as for Gamergate, well, there's always the difficulty of separating any movement from its less desirable elements. For example, the pro-Palestinian movement is fairly rife with genuine anti-semites and, sure, would do well to root them out, but that's more easily said than done and if all they ever did is police themselves they will never be able to do anything else. Meanwhile, your opponents would of course always prefer that you spend all your time and energy denouncing your own side, and will always use any misconduct to tar your whole movement as invalid. So Gamergate can spend the time and effort to reorganize under a new banner, but the same bad elements will just keep attaching themselves to it. If they are to continue with their agenda, whatever the hell that is, all they can do is make some cursory, weak tea condemnation of harassment whenever it's brought up and go right back on the attack. The problem for them is that they're up against most of the media, and the media can (and has) construe their entire movement to be about harassment and misogyny, thereby deflecting any legitimate criticisms.
