Hi,
I can’t remember if I’ve spoken about #GamerGate or #SadPuppies
If you’ve happily avoided these two movements you’re lucky and feel free to click away if you don’t want to get very angry, sad, and lose a little hope in humanity.
GamerGate was/is a hate movement with a veneer of fighting for journalistic integrity. I’m sure there are some in the movement that generally believe they are fighting for better accountability between journalists and video gaming companies but most are threatening people, specifically women, with violence and doing other horrific things.
SadPuppies was a movement that believes the Hugo and SFWA have strayed too far away from its Hard Science roots. To them, this means there are too many non-science writers, woman, and minorities that are dominating the field. “Real Science Fiction” is written by old white men with science degrees, or at least that’s how they sound.
The two movements have the same base in fear of losing privilege and fear of outside influence. Science Fiction and Video Games, have been dominated by white men for a long time and slowly over the past couple of decades women and minorities have started to take a place in both industries.
I’m an outsider, or fringe element to both industries. I play games but I’m not active in any communities outside of TableTop games, and I write but I’m only mildly active in the Ottawa writing scene. This means that I only know what I’ve read or seen from the news and people affected.
As an outsider these movements scare me. Plain and simple the things that have been said and done to certain people is fundamentally wrong. Threats of murder, rape, etc are evil. There’s no room for jest here they’re evil. Calling the swat team on someone, or posting their personal information online without permission is even worse than the threats. These acts are wrong on every level.
It’s not just the overtly evil acts that scare me. It’s the cliques, in fighting, and excluding of people for no other reason than that they disagree with you. The inborn sexism, racism, homophobia, and hate makes two of my favorite pass times feel dirty.
I want to make a career out of writing and I’d love to write for TableTop or video games but these events have made me not want to get involved with them.
Think about that for a second… I’m a thirty year old, white, cis, middleclass, five foot eleven, two hundred and fifty pound, man and these movements have me terrified to get involved.
Take another moment to think how it must feel for everyone else.
We need to stop being afraid of diversity and start embracing it.
Live Long and Prosper
Éric
I heart you.
*blush* Thanks
Your feelings, my friend, are exactly why you *should* stay involved. We need to be voices of tolerance and moderation.
I totally get what you’re saying. I see these efforts to shut people out and it disgusts me. But I REFUSE to let jerks ruin my fun. I’ll be proud nerd and I’ll be a good model of what nerds should be.
As an aside, I think the origin of these “phobias,” this drive to exclude comes from a desire to be the “cool” kid. I think some people, who probably were beat up and mistreated growing up took the wrong lesson. They want to be the one to say “You’re not cool enough!”
It’s sad. You would think being the odd kid out would make them more inclusive, not less. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Thanks Jonas. I agree with your theory.
Left wing clique game the Hugo nominations are only from authors whose political views are deemed acceptable, i.e Correira is blacklisted because he owns a gun shop and is alleged to be a Republican.
Those authors object, and game the Hugo nominations to ensure a diverse range of authors.
Another clique of right wing authors also game the nominations to ensure the list of “politically acceptable” authors are chosen.
This, an ongoing battle in a much larger culture war attracts others engaged in similar fights.
Left wing side attract trolls who sends swatting, death threats and abuse to the right wing clique
The right wing side attracts trolls who do the same.
Personally, I’d like to see the books judged on their content, not on what the author has said on social media or who he votes for.
My race, political affiliation, gender and sexuality are irrelevant, and the fact you state yours shows you are just another one of the identity politics warriors engaged in this culture war, despite your protestations of ignorance and innocence.
Let me try and decipher what you’re saying.
First you’re saying that Hugo nominations are rejected from members that have different views that the committee? Like they’re completely ignored? If you’re right that is a terrible thing to happen and completely against the charter.
What you’re saying sounds like there are only two sides to GamerGate and PuppyGate and that’s wrong. It’s a very simplistic way of thinking of things. There aren’t two giant cabals or secret societies battling out over superiority.
This isn’t Godzilla vs Mothra, it isn’t us vs them. It’s not even Coke vs Pepsi. Are there differences in opinion yes but in both cases the only organized side is HATE! No matter how many times one person yells out, “They started it!” like an angry child, it doesn’t condone the behaviour.
Should a person’s sex, race, gender, political beliefs, or sexual orientation be taken into account when you choose a book? Yes I think they do. Context is amazingly important to understanding the content of the novel. You can’t read War and Peace without understanding the French Revolution or it won’t make sense. That being said you should still read them for the story first.
If that makes me a Social Justice Warrior, or an Identity Politics Warrior than fine.
When analyzing literature you take into account everything about the story and the author. If the awards ignore that then they’re only doing half their job.
You said you’d like to see the books judged on their content, that’s noble and extremely innocent. There are more eligible books released each year than there are attendees at WorldCon.
None of this changes that the bile, hate, and controversy being thrown around both the Hugos and GamerGate has lessened the reputation of both industries.
Not to mention that the left wing gaming the Hugos theory is absolutely demonstrably false. George R.R. Martin does a fantastic breakdown of that particular argument in his blog post. Here is the link:
http://grrm.livejournal.com/418285.html
and the response to Mr Martins comments.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/09/a-response-to-george-r-r-martin-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/
I disagree, vetting an author and mandating his politics and views as acceptable before picking up a book stinks of the Goskomizdat, or put another way, didn’t Hollywood try this in the fifties? Blacklisting left leaning film makers and actors? McCarthyism?
Thanks for letting me voice my opinion anyway! In the world of blockbots and safe spaces, debates around identity politics are few and far between.
I never said an author’s views etc should be cause to exclude them but they are important to understand them.
I agree they shouldn’t be blacklisted unless their content veers into hate.
Thank you for being reasonable and not just yelling insults. (That would have gotten you blocked.)
OK. I misread that.
The link i provided to Corrieras reply to Martin details his *allegations* of political bias in previous years.
I hope we are in agreement that the solution going forwards are an awards that can’t be gamed by anyone.
Unfortunately I don’t think that’s possible. Any fan/attendee award can be gamed and any committee award can be corrupted.
I don’t know how to prevent that but I hope it can be done