Not sure if anyone else has been following this, but there has been a recent trend in social media that is absolutely appalling called #GamerGate. I’ve been trying to figure out what its all about, and this video has been the first to give me a clear idea of what the trend really is. #GamerGate ambiguously touches on so many topics that it is hard to define a central focus for the movement. Part of it deals with the ethics of video game journalism, part of it deals with representation of women characters in video games, and part of it deals with the harassment of women gamers in the online community.
Recently Anita Sarkeesian, an active voice in the gamergate movement, was brought onto the Colbert Report to talk about some of the issues brought up by the #gamergate trend. Sarkeesian has been victim to an onslaught of online harassment, including most notably the threat of a shooting at Utah State University if she was allowed to speak, because of her stance on feminism in the gaming community. In her segment with Colbert, they discuss various examples of the how video game community can no longer be viewed as a “little boys club” and of how women are “challenging the status quo of gaming as a male dominated space.”
During the interview Colbert makes a great comparison between the ethics of gaming journalism and Hollywood journalism. His comparison insinuated the lack of ethics in Hollywood journalism and raised the question of whether or not gaming journalism should be held to the same standard. Sarkeesian responded to Colbert’s comparison by explaining that in journalism ethics are not necessarily the issue, the issue is that men are explicitly going after women in hostile and aggressive ways for nothing other their involvement in the video game industry as a profession or as a hobby.
The interview concludes with Colbert asking Sarkeesian a question that has come up in class on several occasions:
Colbert: “As a man, am I allowed to be a feminist?”
Sarkeesian: “Do you believe that women should have equal rights to men, and that we should fight for those rights?”
Colbert: “Sure, sure.”
Sarkeesian: “Great. Then you’re a feminist.”
Felicia Day, an actress known for her roles in various TV shows (“Supernatural” and “Eureka”), her web series “The Guild,” and her starring role in the popular “Dr. Horrible Singalong Blog,” also wrote a response to the #gamergate trend on her blog. Her post was extremely enlightening to the effects #gamergate has on her daily life, and thus on women in a more general context: http://feliciaday.com/blog/crossing-the-street/