Canary in the coal mine: GamerGate's 10th anniversary (04-23-2024--Hour3)

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[00:00:28] Alright so the canary in the coal mine by the way you know where they're saying comes from I guess

[00:00:33] I should say this for people who may not know what the phrase means canary in the coal mine

[00:00:40] I believe this is true but this is where the saying comes from is that they would take canaries

[00:00:45] in cages down into the coal mine shafts and they would work down there because their teensy

[00:00:50] weenie little lungs were very susceptible right to the poisons and such that might be in the

[00:00:58] in the mines and so if the canary died then you knew you had to get out so it was sort of an

[00:01:04] early warning system I know we killed a bunch of birds I mean I didn't kill any of the birds but

[00:01:09] they killed a bunch of birds in order to save their own human lives but that's where the

[00:01:14] saying comes from right it's an early detection system it's sort of the first warning

[00:01:17] so the canary in the coal mine for what we are seeing now whether it is the Black Lives Matter

[00:01:22] protest whether it was the uh whether it's now the the pro-hamas stuff because that's now

[00:01:29] what it has morphed into is it's it's explicitly pro-hamas they are chanting in support of

[00:01:35] Hamas explicitly um there were other examples but 10 years ago coming up on 10 years the

[00:01:45] 10-year anniversary of Gamergate maybe you're familiar with Evergreen State College the protests

[00:01:52] there that was 2017 they arose by uh teaching students to be activists for intersectionality

[00:02:00] under the umbrella of social justice it's an ideology obsessed with identity and demanding

[00:02:07] equity in all areas on the basis of immutable characteristics or innate traits like your race

[00:02:18] Damian Carlisle is a filmmaker and a gamer from Northern Ireland and he wrote a piece

[00:02:24] four years ago about Gamergate and he says that these innate traits either make a whole identity

[00:02:33] group marginalized or privileged according to the ideology right oppressor or oppressed

[00:02:38] again this is four years ago he's spelling this out your immutable characteristics a thing that you

[00:02:45] cannot change that then puts you into a category and then that category either derives benefit

[00:02:52] right or is guilty based on that immutable characteristic which then of course creates

[00:02:57] I call it the oppression Olympics right it then uh incentivizes people to go find a reason to

[00:03:04] believe themselves to be marginalized right the scholarship underlying this ideology stands on

[00:03:12] very very shaky ground and more and more people have become aware of its regressive and illiberal

[00:03:18] mindset he says I'd like to position the eruption at Evergreen State College as a canary in the

[00:03:26] woke coal mine a warning about what could happen to any institution that takes on this ideology to

[00:03:32] a significant enough degree but there were others there were other canaries for example one of the

[00:03:39] earliest occupy wall street I was in 2011 right the intersectional progressive stack

[00:03:51] is what it was called progressive stack this was introduced as a means to prioritize speakers

[00:03:58] based on innate traits and if you don't remember this or you weren't paying attention in the time

[00:04:05] occupy wall street they did you know their people's assembly they called it which was like

[00:04:10] they're like fake legislative body and they would stand around and debate and discuss things

[00:04:16] but they didn't have amplified sound and so they would do this thing called

[00:04:21] the the mic check right the the people's mic and so you would stand up and you would say mic check

[00:04:29] and then everybody would reply my check and they would mimic you and so then you would

[00:04:35] say things and then they would repeat them and so the the crowd's voice would amplify what

[00:04:41] you said so you end up speaking in these sentence fragments which is super annoying to listen to

[00:04:46] by the way but you got depending on where you ranked on the oppression scale you got to speak

[00:04:56] first or if you're a white dude your last like this is where people first started seeing this

[00:05:03] kind of approach and the goal of occupy wall street was to tackle financial corruption

[00:05:09] and wealth inequality it quickly became fragmented by ever more divisive subsets of identity politics

[00:05:16] though because there's always a reason to splinter off from whatever group you are in and I joked at

[00:05:22] the time in 2011 I said at some point they are going to realize they're gonna come to this

[00:05:26] conclusion that the smallest minority is the individual right at some point they're

[00:05:30] gonna figure this out that the individual you are a minority of one they never did get there

[00:05:37] they never did get there they collapsed first it fell apart and did not achieve

[00:05:44] very much except frustrating those who believed in it that's about it okay the same year so this is

[00:05:49] 2011 elevator gate I'm not going to go into all of the details about this but there was this

[00:05:57] was in the new atheism movement and it's not very well known but the new atheism movement

[00:06:03] um had a critical social justice takeover which eventually led to its collapse

[00:06:10] and it started with a woman named Rebecca Watson who was the founder of Skepchik like get it

[00:06:18] skeptic but she's a chick so Skepchik all right uh skepticism from a woman's perspective

[00:06:25] and she was in a hotel in Dublin Ireland there was some conference or event

[00:06:32] it's four o'clock in the morning she's in the elevator and a guy gets on and asks her this is

[00:06:37] something after a party at some atheist conference or something and asks her do you want to go get

[00:06:42] some coffee she then posts a video blog about this says that this is not okay for a guy to

[00:06:50] ask her right social justice warrior type stuff right not okay for this guy using his privilege

[00:06:57] in an elevator I'm unsafe trigger warning like all of that stuff okay that then precipitated

[00:07:04] the collapse of new atheism 2011 2014 social justice church of woke ism comes for the gamers

[00:07:15] and they said screw you gamer gate is what it was called it took place in the world of video gaming

[00:07:27] and it arose through gaming journalism there was such a thing there were a whole bunch of

[00:07:33] publications out there although one of them is they went woke and went bankrupt um as well as

[00:07:39] gaming academia there are people who study this this industry and I get it for the older crowd

[00:07:44] or people who don't follow video games you probably think oh this is like such a laugh this is a niche

[00:07:50] whatever 2.5 billion players around the world and the industry is somewhere in the neighborhood of

[00:07:59] about a 260 billion dollar industry the release of the most popular titles one that comes out

[00:08:06] every year is called a duty and that thing eclipses every single movie every one of them

[00:08:15] it is a massive industry

[00:08:19] and when the feminists and the the wokeists and the lgbtists and all these people came and they

[00:08:26] were like you there's too many white males oppressing everybody in the gaming industry and they

[00:08:32] started writing articles about certain games and where's all the diversity and all this

[00:08:38] stuff and the gamers are just like well we just like a good story we just want a good game

[00:08:43] you made a game about like fourth century china i'm not expecting like any white people to be in

[00:08:49] that game just like when you make a game about you know germany in the 600s not expecting

[00:08:58] there to be a lot of lgbt trans black people in in that time period in germany you know

[00:09:06] it's not gonna happen but you got to make it happen because if you don't they're going to

[00:09:11] write a whole bunch of bad articles about you right and they're going to damage your company's

[00:09:15] reputation they're gonna they're gonna mess with your your game launch and the gamers fought back

[00:09:21] all right back to this piece by the way you can read this entire um write up and it is it'll

[00:09:27] take you like an hour it's a very i'm not going to read the whole thing obviously because it's a

[00:09:31] very lengthy piece but it is by damien carlyle it's called gamer gate how gamers were the first

[00:09:36] to stand up against grievance social justice it's from 2020 september of 2020 gamer gate can be best

[00:09:44] understood to have been a massive consumer based revolt a rebellion which transcended borders

[00:09:52] nationalities political affiliation and identity gamer gators as they were referred to

[00:09:58] rebelled against the faux authority of a corrupt journalist class and the biased scholarship that

[00:10:07] they leaned on this coming out of academia right critical social justice theories and all of that

[00:10:13] stuff they rebelled against a clique of abusive and connected individuals that tried to cloak their

[00:10:19] misdeeds and unethical behavior in the language of intersectional social justice and in reply

[00:10:26] gamer gate supporter stood up for the spirit of individualism egalitarianism and free expression

[00:10:32] which defines the gaming community in the broader political mood in which it resides

[00:10:38] gamer gate supporters made successful use of social media via youtube reddit twitter and yes

[00:10:46] the chan boards four chan right oh yeah they were all over that which is why by the way they

[00:10:54] were attacked and accused of you know being trumpers and stuff even though a lot of them were liberals

[00:11:01] but they used these outlets to counter a moral panic narrative set against the gaming community

[00:11:09] and they did achieve some victories like changes in ethics policies at some of the gaming journalism

[00:11:17] sites and inside some of the uh the game publishing companies but supporters a lot of them paid the

[00:11:27] price in becoming media boogeymen and scapegoats quote this is from jessica valenti she still

[00:11:37] is a journalist and i forget where she writes now but she was awful during this period she said gamer

[00:11:45] gate is loud dangerous and a last grasp at cultural dominance by angry white men that's what she described

[00:11:55] all of these these gamers as the split uh this split outcome is typical of woke hostility in an

[00:12:02] organization institution or affinity group an affinity group is like uh like your knitting club

[00:12:09] or something right you have an affinity for a particular thing and so people gather to do that

[00:12:13] thing together right it's the reason that like the new atheism movement did not survive the

[00:12:19] attempted coup right there is no guarantee of success right columbia university is now fighting

[00:12:25] this thing by the way right when dealing with a slash and burn ideology like critical social

[00:12:30] justice it seems all victories on either side of the resulting culture skirmish are peric right

[00:12:38] yesterday first hour united methodist church same thing all of these fights they all share

[00:12:50] this same dna moral compass has uh tweeted me p we may be on the start of gamer gate two

[00:12:58] you've probably already looked into sweet baby ink it is a consulting company that inserts dei into

[00:13:05] gaming they had their hands all over spider-man two uh side quest where you help somebody graffiti

[00:13:12] a building right so i'm not aware of that particular example i did have a piece here

[00:13:18] where sweet baby incorporated their contributions are felt in uh let's see here yeah get this

[00:13:25] two two two two two they're based out of montreal god of war ragnarok was one of the games they did

[00:13:31] 2022 and uh it follows the greek god kratos kratos as he navigates the world of norse mythology

[00:13:40] and among the characters is a norse goddess named angrobota angrobot angrobota who the game

[00:13:48] depicts is black the classic norse feature right and for video gamers immersion realism

[00:13:58] immersion into a game whether it's a sci-fi world or fantasy world or whatever like if you're going

[00:14:03] to do something that is based in you know real history then they want that to be immersive they

[00:14:09] want it to be real and remember the gaming industry is worth 180 billion dollars annually

[00:14:15] which is like five times the size of film and music they're like 30 billion dollar industries

[00:14:25] yeah gaming is five times the size of them sweet baby inks contribution this national post by the

[00:14:31] way uh sweet baby inks contributions can also be felt in assassins creed valhalla alan wake two

[00:14:38] as well as a number of titles in the superhero genre like suicide squad killed the justice league

[00:14:43] marvel spider-man two and gothom knights in the upcoming marvels wolverine uh this was by the

[00:14:49] way from uh march 21st um community frustration has followed there are now communities that have

[00:14:57] been set up called sweet baby ink detective things like here's one um the story includes a

[00:15:04] non-binary scientist and the game world has an entire street in minhatten that is not just

[00:15:09] home to a rainbow pride flag but also the transgender flag the bisexual flag the gay

[00:15:16] flag an ace the pan lesbian flags as well right so like it's just constant barrage of this stuff

[00:15:27] it started with gamer gate coming up on 10 years ago it started actually with concerns

[00:15:35] over corruption in the gaming journalism industry i'm not going to get into all the

[00:15:39] sorted details but there was some developer chick or something and she was apparently having an

[00:15:44] affair with one of the journalists who was writing all of these positive stories about the work

[00:15:48] that she was doing um journalists would get fired if they wrote negative reviews of games

[00:15:58] um they would get demonetized so there were charges of cronyism actor adam baldwin coined the term

[00:16:06] gamer gate august 27th 2014 in a tweet talking about some of these scandals the next day

[00:16:14] 10 different articles got released on different publications all with the same negative narrative

[00:16:21] about gamers that narrative has been dubbed quote gamers are dead and it's been used to make

[00:16:27] social justice related claims about gamers and the broader gaming community that are maliciously

[00:16:32] untrue compounding the issue a lot of the writers and editors who took part in the gamers are dead

[00:16:39] narrative against skeptical gamers were also found to be members tell me if this sounds familiar

[00:16:46] they were members of a private mailing group known as game journal pros sound familiar remember

[00:16:55] journal list remember that the journal list where all of these washington and uh new york

[00:17:04] journalists and i guess out in los angeles right all of the elites they were all on one

[00:17:08] email distribution list and they would they would talk to each other about basically shaping

[00:17:13] narratives and crafting narratives that they would then report on and they would browbeat

[00:17:18] colleagues that wanted to you know raise a question about something or did a story on

[00:17:22] something that was verboten this gatekeeping network was seen by a lot of the gamer gait supporters

[00:17:30] as confirmation that the same people engaged in journalistic malpractice and nepotism were also

[00:17:38] manufacturing an illegitimate moral panic around gamers and it quickly became apparent to a

[00:17:45] lot of the gamer gait supporters that the same framing around identity politics in gaming

[00:17:51] journalism like the scary white men who don't want diversity that was a growing problem across the media

[00:17:58] at a wider level a dynamic that we now see as routine effective and consequential right

[00:18:06] this little corner of the media world this little corner of our culture the gaming industry

[00:18:13] not so little but this corner of it like people talk about oh disney went woke and like all of

[00:18:17] the movies and stuff that's a 30 billion dollar a year industry video games are 180 billion

[00:18:25] and this stuff started happening 10 years ago and gamers were like whoa whoa whoa no no no

[00:18:32] don't accuse me of these uh these terrible things um just because i want an immersive

[00:18:39] experience or because i'm questioning whether or not the way you did this game

[00:18:45] is true to history is true to history and our and our understanding of uh like who these people were

[00:18:51] and whatever like you're doing a world war two game right and if you're populating the nazis

[00:18:57] well you'd probably just leave those all as white males right but if you're populating like one of

[00:19:02] the oh alright how about the the russians the soviet or the russian the soviet union at

[00:19:06] the time right they were on our side at the time right so if you're doing up your your npc

[00:19:11] whoa that's another one npc i was talking with a friend the other day and uh if you don't know what

[00:19:17] npc means if you see it on social media and you see the little gray god little gray head guy the gray

[00:19:23] face guy right it's like a cartoon drawing and they'll show him as getting angry at things

[00:19:29] and that's an npc and that's a non-player character that's what that stands for npc

[00:19:35] is a non-player character that's a computer character right so if you and me are playing

[00:19:39] a game together and we're running down some you know dungeon hallway and we encounter a computer

[00:19:45] character npc non-player character right he's going to behave in some way that he's programmed to behave

[00:19:54] and usually in the gaming world and this goes back from the very beginning

[00:19:58] you could find ways to cheat by learning what the npcs do if they always take a step to

[00:20:04] their left before they draw their sword right then you can dodge them you you learn them enough

[00:20:09] because they always do their program to do the same thing over and over and over again

[00:20:14] that's why when you see in political debates that little gray guy or you hear somebody or see somebody

[00:20:19] refer to an adversary as an npc what they're telling you is that that person doesn't have

[00:20:26] any other program running in their brain they're a simulation it's just they're just saying

[00:20:32] the same thing over and over and over and over again that's an npc that also came out of the gaming

[00:20:39] industry hey guys the average gamer is my age now just a heads up okay if you're listening to this

[00:20:47] podcast you are obviously paying attention to the world around us you also have really great

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[00:21:36] will you be ready when the lights go out this is from new discourses dot com damien carlyle

[00:21:42] writing four years ago about gamer gait which happened we're coming up on the 10 year anniversary

[00:21:47] of gamer gait and if you don't know what that is that's what this is about is to

[00:21:53] to tell you like this fight's been going on for now a decade starting as social justice warrior and

[00:21:59] longer than that but this is like the modern incarnation and it it first made its way through

[00:22:08] was it new atheism movement right evergreen state college but the video game industry as well

[00:22:15] the activists who are attempting to take over gaming with their social justice ideology relied

[00:22:20] on manufacturing offensive controversies quote unquote and then they would complain about those

[00:22:25] controversies and leverage them against game companies and other gamers sound familiar

[00:22:33] there was an example here they treated a developer a game developer with suspicion

[00:22:38] and moral accusations that were completely invented from a controversy quote unquote

[00:22:45] a fake controversy around a video game called kingdom come deliverance the game is set in 15th

[00:22:51] century bohemia it has uh faced an almost endless litany of scolds prior to and after its release

[00:23:00] because of its racial homogeneity in other words they all look alike because the people

[00:23:09] that populated this area of bohemia 15th century now germany and check republic 600 years ago right

[00:23:16] they were like you need to have more people of color and disabled people and queer people

[00:23:22] what

[00:23:25] realism accurate or not is to be secondary to ideology right that's the effort that's

[00:23:33] the lesson here which is what propaganda it's indoctrination right this also happened to

[00:23:40] game developers for assassins creed far cry stanley parable wild star god of war hotline

[00:23:47] miami bio shocked avinity original sin and witcher gamer gate supporters like james desbaro

[00:23:57] is the author of inside gamer gate described the problem with this totalitarian idea a lot

[00:24:02] ideology pervading gamer journalism they called everything and everybody sexist and racist

[00:24:09] and misogynistic and bigoted and all these other damaging buzzwords and this was 10 years ago

[00:24:13] and that stuff that would destroy you nowadays it's kind of like these words have lost a lot

[00:24:19] of their power but back then was weird too because you're in the industry this is like

[00:24:25] masochism this is self-destruction and yes yes it is right again sound familiar gamer gate supporters

[00:24:35] in a lot of respects won that battle however from what we saw then we can learn a lot for now

[00:24:47] he says we are all gamer gate now in some sense and those of us who want to restore

[00:24:51] liberal principles not illiberal ones not progressive ones but liberal ones can learn a

[00:24:56] lot from what gamer gate did wrong and what it did right the most important thing it did well was to

[00:25:01] create an effective information sharing network made up of people with attitudes towards quote

[00:25:06] archive everything screenshot it the people we were up against were not ethical actors and it

[00:25:13] was never beyond them to slander and to misrepresent the facts and then bury the evidence

[00:25:19] later archiving is essential also act on ethical issues right you're able to change policies of

[00:25:29] outlets like gamer gate did and get the attention of the f t c society professional journalist as

[00:25:35] well as advertisers because they were able to point to clear ethical breaches of conduct

[00:25:40] right if you have the moral high ground what mostly you do realize it sees it it's hard

[00:25:47] for the activist to make you lose your footing stand firmly on it and stick with your liberal

[00:25:52] principles treat media with skepticism and finally be brave if you're afraid to make your voice

[00:26:00] heard you probably need to make your voice heard emotion it's an incredibly blunt emotional weapon

[00:26:09] that the woke left uses in labeling other sexist or racist and if people don't conform to their

[00:26:14] demands but you have to be brave walk towards the fight because sooner or later it's going to come for

[00:26:21] you as it's come for all of us all right that'll do it for this episode thank you so much for listening

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