Why #GamerGate Needs To Stay Away From The AirPlay “Debate” AirPlay is a complete waste of time

I was scrolling through the GamerGate hashtag last week when I noticed this thing called AirPlay popping up along with it. Upon further review, it looked like some sort of debate, and GamerGate stalwart Oliver Campbell appeared repeatedly. Thinking this a tad bit fishy, I dig a little further on this Airplay and it’s “debate.”

It looks like Reaxxion’s own Lysander Nonnesuch wrote an article on the AirPlay debate when it was announced back in May. He, like Mr. Campbell, seems to believe that this is GamerGate’s chance to finally be heard.

I believe that GamerGate and it’s supporters need to stay away from this AirPlay debate. It’s unneeded, unnecessary, and frankly much too late for any sort of “debate” to occur.

Looking over the AirPlay website leads me to believe this is a farcical endeavor on its face, and a lose/lose proposition for GamerGate. The movement has already won.

For all their talk of “winning” the battle against GamerGate, SJWs haven’t really shown what that win state actually looks like. Because if this is victory, I’d certainly like to know why GamerGate is still around.

The games industry status quo has yet to change, so what are the SJWs crowing about? GameGate has gotten nearly everything they’ve asked for: disclosure of conflicts of interest, implementation of ethics policies, and several no good nogoodniks have either left the industry or are so far out of the sphere of influence as to be literal nonentities. On top of their usual cries of “We raised $170,000 for various charities!” So much for that whole hate group thing.

Is the SJW win state this years supposed “Year of the Woman” at E3? Whereupon closer inspection there were less women protagonists than the games announced last year. You know, that year that was so problematic and awful for women?

I reject the AirPlay “debate” mostly out of hand, because what is the debate going to be about exactly? Not one of the people that are representing the “anti-GamerGate” side have ever out-and-out defended the games press.

There’s always that perpetual caveat, “Well, the gaming press does have its problems, but harassment is bad…” and off we go!

If the SJW’s have won anything, it is that they beat GamerGate to the punch by getting their narrative to the mainstream first. Which is a little unfair as they were already mostly attached to the defacto “press,” and with the corporate media being as lazy as it is, of course it would go ahead and believe anything the games press was propelling as “the real story.”

I bounce back and forth because GamerGate is bigger than any “debate” could possibly handle. On top of this, there is still nothing to debate. GamerGate has always been about ethics in games journalism. Anti-GamerGate has always been about pillorying gamers and propelling a SJW-laden “they harass women for speaking” narrative. That’s not two sides of a debate in any reality.

And still no one is defending the games press at all.

At Least They Set A Schedule… A True Sign Of Legitimacy

The stench of something rotten doesn’t really set in until you visit the “schedule” portion of the AirPlay website. Under some ridiculous guise that this is “for serious journalists breaking down this whole ‘GamerGate Thing’” is a schedule of events.

10-10:50 am — What the hell is GamerGate and why should I give a damn?

Then what will they do with the rest of the 49 minutes? When this debate takes place it will be close to a year since GamerGate started, and AirPlay is going to set out to figure out what it finally is? Are people going to take turns holding a speaking stick and relating just what GamerGate means? It’s absurd!

I thought journalists by their very nature were curious creatures… what gives?

11-noon — Let’s get ethical: real-world examples of gaming journalism

Again, why is this an hour? Who is defining what “gaming journalism” is? Because to most of us, “gaming journalism” apparently can be done by shaved apes with the amount of “journalism” anything gaming-related gets up to. Does tabloid news count as journalism? I guess figuring out if Sandra Bullock’s farts are spicy whispers or beefy gales is investigative journalism in nature.

LUNCH — wouldn’t it be cool if mortal enemies mutually masticated?

This is where my bullshit sense really starts tingling. This underlying idea that somehow placing faces and names with both sides of GamerGate is going to solve something. More sinister, the notion that if GamerGate actually had to face their pink/blue haired foes, that things wouldn’t be so heated.

Let’s face it: no one that needs to be at this AirPlay debate is going to be there. In a recent update, master of ceremonies himself Michael Koretzky wrote:

Many GamerGaters have told me they don’t want Arthur Chu, Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, or Brianna Wu at AirPlay—which means there’s common ground among these sworn enemies. Because apparently, they don’t want to attend AirPlay, either.

Well, that’s apt, because those people can’t debate GamerGate. They can certainly speak to what they think about GamerGate as a movement, but on the topic of “ethics in games journalism,” they cannot in any capacity—let alone even try—to debate. Check out Chu and Wu’s appearances on the David Pakman Show. The sheer buffoonery on display in their respective interviews is ludicrous. Those two crumpled over mild, standard, run-of-the-mill pushback. Of course they’re not going to show up to AirPlay, they’d look extra foolish.

Quinn and Sarkeesian fall in the same category as well. In any interview they’ve deigned to give it’s been about “online harassment” to them, and what it’s done to them singularly (…oh yeah… and other women too!). Nowhere is there ever a discussion on ethics in games journalism. So they too can get the hell on for this “debate.”

1-3 pm — This isn’t a game: Face to face on GamerGate

I suppose this is the main event? Again, the subtext seems to lean on this notion that GamerGate, now face to face with “real” members of anti-GamerGate, will learn the true price of their hatred of women and repent?

It speaks to AirPlay’s apparent clusterfuck nature that few things seem to be nailed down. The after-lunch discussion and the main event have yet to name moderators, and the list for both sides of the “debate” aren’t fully named either. Mr. Koretzky states that this is to protect the special snowflakes participants from harassment. I wonder if it’s more because no one is interested in this bullshit farce called a “debate?”

If, as Mr. Koretzky states, this “debate” is for GamerGate to finally have their day, then GamerGate should pass… hard. This consumer-driven movement has already done a great many things without the aid of farcical “debates” or help from the mainstream. The time for even-handed debate has long been over.

Read More: Society For Professional Journalism To Assess #GamerGate