honestly anytime i see a queer leftist video game liker type person even just a few years younger than me react with confusion (or hostility) over the scrutiny people show towards "consumer advocacy" type gaming discourse, not understanding why people would worry about that shit turning reactionary fast, it's just like. oh. you must have a very different memory of 2014 than i do, huh
- she/her
- ponett.dog/
30, bi. trans indie dev, furry artist, writer, etc.
creator of Super Lesbian Animal RPG
https://slarpg.com
runs Thanks Ken Penders on Tumblr https://thankskenpenders.tumblr.com/
twitter
twitter.com/ponettplustumblr
ponett.tumblr.com/Ponett Gazette (new blog!)
ponett.dog/blog/patreon
www.patreon.com/ponettitch.io
ponett.itch.io/furaffinity
www.furaffinity.net/user/ponett/ko-fi
ko-fi.com/ponettbluesky
bsky.app/profile/ponett.dogYou must log in to comment.
in reply to @ponett's post:
sure is a hell of a thing isn't it
like yeah I'd love for games to be higher quality
maybe not like this
in my experience, it definitely does take longer for people to internalize all the labor and economic angles of leftist politics than the social aspects of today's leftism. it seems only natural for people who probably first were attracted to the modern movements because they didn't immediately invalidate their lived experience as a person— not necessarily as a worker. and in this particular discourse (for the time being, fingers crossed), things like gender and identity are more divorced from the core of the instigating event. edit: i don't know this for certain, i refuse to go on twitter anymore
We are rapidly approaching the point where it will shift to "oh, you weren't born yet" and I am not ready to tell the tale
i'm willing to bet at least some of those "leftists" were enthusiastic participants in gammergorp and are keen for that sense of unity and righteousness again
welll depending on how many years younger they are they might not have been online during the giant gamers harrasing people time or atleast on social media
we learned about it after the fact and had a little bit of ahhh fuck, but we were still an egg and also had get to really get leftist at that point.
But also we've seen how gamers are and well it would not surprise us if something of that scale was attempted again
Yeah. I lost friends to that shit. Had to talk some loved ones down from the edge too. A wretched time, and one that nobody ever really recovered from.
The idea that any kind of "game devs (monolithic entity) are lazy/don't want to be held to Standards" is anything but a call to mob harassment is so foreign to me it either feels disingenuous or dangerously naive.
Really, anything that conflates all 1-5 indie game teams with billion dollar companies, and individual programmers/artists in those companies with decision-making executives, feels like an intentional deception to me.
It's depressing to think about but I'm pretty sure gamergate contributed to me not figuring out I'm trans until much later by making being a Queer Woman Online a terrifying proposition. I literally calmed myself down from panic attacks by reminding myself that as a nobody straight boy I was an Unlikely Target (and then felt guilty and awful about using that to calm down)
strongly adopting "consumer" as a personal and political identity is incredibly suspect
It's inherently reactionary. I get people with undeveloped politics not understanding why but anyone pushing it is, yeah, incredibly suspect at best.
even setting aside the practice of history and context, I feel like people should work harder to cultivate their resistance to the sort of ingratiating bullshit that goes 'hey there good consumer, these people are your enemies now, give em hell sport :)'
I'm oversimplifying but like, it sure is frustrating to see the easy self-centered answers get picked every damn time that's an option!!! one must embrace the idea that there is a world of humans outside of ourselves that isn't wholly devoted to lending all our piddling entertainment decisions a flattering background!!!
oh god that was nearly ten years ago now, jfc the scars in my psyche have Not faded
If our country cared about education at all, Gamergate would be a highlight of how our current political and social landscape came to be.
Pinned Tags