Uploaded November 2015 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
My in-game name is SteelShrike, for those of you who play Warframe.
I do not expect this video to be taken well by people who are heavily invested in one side or the other of this conflict.
Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" I would expand that to include things like self-esteem and general enjoyment. Since talking about GamerGate has become a paycheck or two (or more) for some people, it becomes unthinkingly natural for them to find things to say about it, and make connections that aren't necessarily there.
As far as trolls, well, in any fight, there are those in the sidelines egging them on, who have been handed (by all participants) a description of exactly what they're outraged about the most, which they use as a playbook to get attention and reactions.
The conflict over Gamergate is (like all things ending in -gate) a stupid distortion of real problems into a spectacle that continues only because it rewards so many people for being outrageously awful to each other, and to draw baseless conclusions implicating the other in all sorts of plots and schemes.
We will all be better off when it's over, and this is the only video I will make on the subject (unless the comments give me fodder for a reply that isn't as toxic as the conflict itself). I hope it's the last time I talk about it, too. I'd turn off the comments, but I am morbidly curious as to what the reactions will be. The fact that an offensive/blatantly untrue/baselessly accusing comment may or may be deleted because reasons. If your comment indicates you only listened to the first few minutes on the topic, I also might delete it, again, because reasons.
Then again, I may get lucky and this video might be ignored by everyone involved. :D
Yes, my nose is stuffed up. ;P
My in-game name is SteelShrike, for those of you who play Warframe.
I do not expect this video to be taken well by people who are heavily invested in one side or the other of this conflict.
Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" I would expand that to include things like self-esteem and general enjoyment. Since talking about GamerGate has become a paycheck or two (or more) for some people, it becomes unthinkingly natural for them to find things to say about it, and make connections that aren't necessarily there.
As far as trolls, well, in any fight, there are those in the sidelines egging them on, who have been handed (by all participants) a description of exactly what they're outraged about the most, which they use as a playbook to get attention and reactions.
The conflict over Gamergate is (like all things ending in -gate) a stupid distortion of real problems into a spectacle that continues only because it rewards so many people for being outrageously awful to each other, and to draw baseless conclusions implicating the other in all sorts of plots and schemes.
We will all be better off when it's over, and this is the only video I will make on the subject (unless the comments give me fodder for a reply that isn't as toxic as the conflict itself). I hope it's the last time I talk about it, too. I'd turn off the comments, but I am morbidly curious as to what the reactions will be. The fact that an offensive/blatantly untrue/baselessly accusing comment may or may be deleted because reasons. If your comment indicates you only listened to the first few minutes on the topic, I also might delete it, again, because reasons.
Then again, I may get lucky and this video might be ignored by everyone involved. :D
Yes, my nose is stuffed up. ;P
