Author Archives: David Futrelle
Inside #GamerGate’s super seekrit plan to take over Tumblr with cute cat pics and Vivian James
Nov 8
Posted by David Futrelle
Actually, it’s about ethics in cynical Tumblr takeover plots
GamerGaters claim they’re on the side of truth and righteousness, but they sure do love monologuing like cartoon villains.
They claim to be shocked by alleged evidence of journalistic collusion, yet they happily plot strategies and “operations” together both in secret and in broad daylight. They claim to be about ethics, but regularly employ not-so-subtle subterfuge to try to disguise their carefully coordinated propaganda campaigns as spontaneous uprisings.
This week, GamerGaters on 8chan launched a new “operation” to win over the hearts and minds of the masses on Tumblr. And it’s as ethically bankrupt as anything they’ve ever done.
Operation Firefly, as it’s officially known, is an attempt to take the GamerGate “fight” to a “new frontier.” Tumblr. As the originator of the initiative explains it in a somewhat less-than-stirring manifesto:
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Posted in #gamergate, 8chan, men who should not ever be with imaginary women ever, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, transphobia
154 Comments
Tags: #gamergate, anti-feminism, antifeminism, cats, kittens, video games, vivian james
Can the Julien Blanc problem be solved with … more patriarchy? One misogynistic douchebag says yes.
Nov 7
Posted by David Futrelle
Patriarchy: Also good for protection against hell lizards.
One favorite tool in the misogynist’s toolkit is the old “if women want to be protected from violent men it proves they need patriarchy” argument. It’s a rather silly argument, but those making it tend to do so with enormous smugness, feeling that they’ve got the ultimate “gotcha” to use against feminists.
Cast in point: A post today on Roosh V’s reliably horrendous Return of Kings blog arguing that, as its title puts it, “#TakeDownJulienBlanc Shows Feminists Need The Patriarchy To Protect Them.” Never mind that the woman-led campaign against the abusive pickup artist seems to be doing pretty well already.
“Well feminists, I’ve been waiting for this a long time, and it’s finally come,” the ROK contributor who calls himself runsonmagic writes. “I’ve been waiting for the day you’d ask us to bring back patriarchy.”
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Posted in all about the menz, douchebaggery, harassment, irony alert, mansplaining, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, patriarchy, PUA, rape culture, rhymes with roosh, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment
93 Comments
Tags: #TakeDownJulienBlanc, creepy, harassment, julien blanc, misogyny, pick-up artists, pickup artists, PUA, rape culture, sexual harassment, twitter
Good news: Abusive “pickup artist” Julien Blanc kicked out of Australia
Nov 7
Posted by David Futrelle
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Julien
Writing about abhorrent misogyny pretty much every day of every week can get a tad depressing. So I’m glad to have some actual good news to report. Good news, at least, for non-misogynists.
The #TakeDownJulienBlanc campaign has taken off internationally, and the “pickup artist” who advocates choking women as a clever “opener” has been kicked out of Australia, his visa revoked.
In an op-ed in The Independent yesterday, self-described “Aggressive Chinese Girl” Jenn Li explained why she started the #TakeDownJulienBlanc campaign and what it has accomplished so far:
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Posted in Uncategorized
164 Comments
The Top Five Most Ridiculously Ironic #GamerGate Memes
Nov 6
Posted by David Futrelle
These memes ARE actually ironic.
GamerGate, so depressing and destructive and … inadvertently hilarious?
Like the MRAs I write about so often here, GamerGaters have a certain fondness for the propaganda of the meme, attempting to win hearts and minds with elaborate infographics, repurposed propaganda, and basically any sort of graphic they can pull together in a few minutes with Photoshop or MSPaint.
They are, unfortunately for them, terrible at it. It’s not just that the amateur graphic designers of GamerGate lack a basic understanding of good design. They are also so completely lacking in self-awareness that they are unable to see when their graphics completely undercut the messages they are intended to convey.
So today, let’s take a look at the The Top Five Most Ridiculously Ironic #Gamergate Memes that I’ve found posted recently on 8chan and Twitter.
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