Gamergate: Still a distraction

Note: I may get flack for this post over my prioritization of the captain role over the infant comforter role in the scenario I present. Anyone so concerned, I'm all about having infant comforting games as part of the medium, but I'm trying to make an appeal here to the common hero in all people who have enjoyed video games historically, whatever their side in this mess, and I think most of us want to captain this ship on some level.

This is a somewhat longer version of this Tweet (and the tweets that followed and preceded it):

Gamer gate is truly a distraction. It's the crying infant in a boat that's headed for a waterfall.

— Moses Wolfenstein (@mosesoperandi) November 6, 2014

Waterfall was not the right word. "Gamergate is a crying infant on a boat in a tempest." is probably more like what I was going for, but honestly, words can't do it justice. It's just so visual...

In light of last night's electoral results, I'm having a hard time taking Gamergate seriously.

Incidentally, I feel like now is actually an opportune time to question this whole "gate" thing. Did something happen at the Gamergate Hotel & Luxury Inn? Is that where the SJWs colluded with the games journalists? You can't just append gate on to things and have it mean something! It's sloppy writing, not unlike the super villain and raid leader rhetoric that seems to characterize so many popular #gamergate related chans.

Seriously. Gamergate was the best you could come up with? As a gamer, I look for creativity in my branding. You have to be prepared for the utmost scrutiny when you create a brand. Isn't that the whole fucking point? In theory? This is a consumer movement? L2MARKET

Anyway, all of that aside, Gamergate is a giant fucking distraction. It also happens to be a gift to digital culture researchers, but hey, everything has a silver lining.

Back to the point:

We are in this boat. That's the  grand metaphor, and in this metaphor the boat is in fact caught in the storm of the century. Winds are buffeting it from all sides. Crew are being swept overboard at an alarming rate. Passengers are dying as sea water swamps portions of the vessel. And all this time, there is a baby crying. There are lots of babies crying actually, but this one is particularly loud. You have to understand. In this moment, the people who need to be steering the ship can't take the time to help with the crying baby. It's just not an option.

Here's the thing. People are going to have differing opinions on this topic, but we're almost all gamers.

There are very few fake gamers "in Gamergate"*, and as far as I can tell none of them are folks who are against Gamergate.

So seriously, we're all gamers here, and that means we all want to be the hero.

It's a simple fact.

If we're the hero, that probably means we're supposed to be steering the boat. We have to trust that there's an NPC there to take care of that screaming baby, because if we don't do something about the boat, there won't be a baby, screaming or otherwise.

Seriously.

Think about it.

We are fucking up right now.

We're all here on Twitter with this screaming baby, and the fucking boat is headed straight into a giant fucking wave of global environmental, economic, social, and political crisis (not necessarily in that order).

Under these circumstance, life as we know it is actually threatened at a fundamental level.

And here's the thing.

We all know it.

We've collectively read enough science fiction, played enough post-apocalyptic games, read enough comic books, and otherwise extended our imaginations enough to recognize it if we actually look at the data.

Seriously. What percentage of people involved in some way with the Gamergate phenomenon deny the existence of global climate change? I guarantee you it's lower than the average. I know, that's not saying much, but still...

On the scale of global politics and environmental futures, our position is dire.

That's the scale of danger we're dealing with right now when it comes to the future of people on this planet, and on that scale, Gamergate is a huge distraction for a lot of otherwise intelligent individuals (on all sides of the issue), who should really be spending their time steering the fucking ship.

Seriously people!

The best you can do is spend all of this time arguing on the internet? <--Says the guy writing an argumentative post on his blog.

We have serious problems in front of us.

More of us (on both sides of the core issues of Gamergate...which are not trivial) probably agree on some of the bigger issues that are currently very significant threats in light of yesterday's electoral results.

The electoral process in America is fundamentally compromised.

The huge amounts of money flowing into electoral politics, and effectively legislation, are having profoundly damaging and in some cases irremediable effects on fundamental elements of human rights.

Personally, I think we need a viable third party candidate for 2016, but that's beside the point.

There are critical differences among people who play video games. But at the end of the day we all play video games. I think that regardless of our backgrounds and current affiliations, a lot of us as gamers might actually agree on some of the bigger issues we're dealing with right now.

I guess I'm just trying to say that on the level of global politics, gamers should really be pulling together right now rather than trying to tear themselves apart. It's really sad to see a lot of people who enjoy playing video games attacking each other like this, and for some dumb reason, I still have this hope that in spite of this nonsense video games have actually taught all of us something good, and that if we can just come together around that goodness, maybe we can make changes that matter.

I'm probably wrong about that part, but at the very least, can't we stop wasting energy that we desperately need for more important conflicts.

Seriously.

Think in terms of strategy gaming here.

You are expending your resources inefficiently on Gamergate.

All of us are.

We can do better than this.

We have to do better than this.

*This is short hand. What I mean is all activity around Gamergate as a phenomenon including pro, anti, and non-binary rhetoric.