Posted October 28, 2014
Piranjade: It's so rotten now that as much as people try no good will come while using that label. I do believe that there are many, many people among the GGs that just want to improve things, be it gaming journalism, be it gaming culture, be it the view on gamers, be it whatever. But they won't accomplish anything if they still cling to their GG label. And that's sad in more than one way.
The negative connotation is one that was manufactured by the gaming news sites from the very beginning, though, and moving away from the hashtag means surrendering the meaning to those people so that they can paint any further attempt to criticize their actions as "remnants of that Gamergate hate group." After two months of near-constant insults and lies on their part, even giving them that opportunity isn't something a lot of people are going to be comfortable with. You seem like a reasonable person, so I'll float a question: if Gamergate being unable to police its worst members 100% means that the term is unusable, doesn't that mean that gaming journalists who have argued against the movement and refused to cover the doxxing/harassment against Gamergate supporters are equally culpable? Do we not have the right by that logic to demand that they stop using terms like "gaming journalist," "gaming blogger," or "cultural critic" because they haven't spoken out against the harassment coming from their side (and vague declarations that "harassment is bad" don't count), sullying the term in the process? That's not even mentioning some of them financially supporting devs, failing to disclose obvious conflicts of interest, and harassing people on Twitter.
I just don't understand how we can police our side to the best of our abilities and still be the ones in the wrong when they won't even bother trying to police theirs.