Or, How to Radicalize a Normie: The Gamer Route

It feels like history is repeating itself because nobody bothers learning from it, least of all self-proclaimed "gamers"*.

The responses surrounding both Gamergate and Hogwarts Legacy are very disproportionate to the actual matter at hand. What was originally issue "A" is slowly being morphed into issue "Z" through a series of small steps designed to attack people's insecurities, and hoo boy are self-proclaimed gamers a bunch of insecure people.

The messaging around GG was originally "women are infiltrating game journalism". Over time (by which I mean less than a fucking year) it morphed into "feminism is destroying games" into straight up "muh females are destroying games", mask off. Nobody seemed to know what the actual issue was at hand, and whenever you tried to ask about, different people gave different answers. All the level-headed responses were ignored, or hidden in favour of more provocative disinformation.

Likewise, it feels like the messaging around HL is falling into a similar trajectory, but instead of women, it's trans people this time around who are simultaneously the victim and the "oppressors". Messaging around it is similarly muddled or actively corrupted, and people choose to assign politics based on the impressions people give off. By that, I mean someone who defends HL is perceived to be "against the left" even if they're the reincarnation of Karl fucking Marx.

What do both have in common? They both make a mountain out of a molehill, both have similarly artificially boosted discourse around them, both involve a topic that is known to a wide audience who can be easily exploited due to their simultaneous ignorance on the matter, and both present the topic owing to "failings of the left", and both operate on fear.

Someone who doesn't know much about game journalism is likely to take "facts" about Gamergate at face value, and is extremely easy to lure to the right due to the much more prominent and provocative "us vs them" narrative. Someone who watched the Harry Potter movies as a kid, maybe played a couple of games but didn't get too deeply into the fandom might not be aware of JK Rowling, and so may take any narrative they're presented with at face value.

No points for guessing that it's the right wing that ultimately benefits as a result; they prey upon people's ignorance and willingness to trust others to poison the well of discourse. And there's no shortage of people who are willing to spread such messages - looking at "influencers" like JP, BS, PU, etc. - to their captive audience, like the Pied Piper into the lake. Outrage sells, and the right wing has plenty in supply.

It's already well known now that Steve Bannon is aware of the usefulness of such tactics with respect to Gamergate. I will absolutely not be surprised if what was a minor controversy at the beginning was hijacked to magnify it for the same purpose, and ten years from now we'll be seeing a further backslide by self-proclaimed gamers into more "conservative" schools of thought, because they were led to believe a fucking AAA game is somehow the end of the world because of "Alphabet Gang", or whatever the fuck term knuckle draggers use these days.

And lest you instinctively think I'm against HL, I'm not. I've made my opinion clear on the matter in another thread.

Yes, it is possible to separate the art from the artist.

No, buying a game is not suddenly making you a transphobe.

No, trans people are not coming for your game.

This leap in logic seems almost like a caricature of what someone thinks trans rights is, which is why I make the assertion that it sounds artificial---it seems designed to push all the right buttons in the wrong way. Plenty of people say Twitter is fucking insane, but for some reason people cannot compartmentalize this as more of the same thing; it almost seems too perfect.

Just. Like. Gamergate.

It's unfortunate the video in the OP is age restricted, but it literally lays out the handbook that Gamergate used, even if it doesn't acknowledge it by name. You don't even need to watch the entire thing - you might see the striking parallels within the first 15 minutes alone.

This is getting me ticked off. Here's some eyebleach.

Honestly, I have not heard about any of this until some posters brought it up in the other topic. Looking further into I think it's getting a bit more push-back than when the Dragon Age series, or Fallout, allowed your character to have gay sex - Or Ghoul sex (Fallout 4). Don't remember hearing much, if any, flack over those games for doing that. But, suddenly, some people are now upset that a game publisher included a trans NPC Character in the latest Harry Potter game, knowing the author's views over them? I think it's pretty silly.

I don't see this getting anywhere near the whole silliness of Gamergate, though the same bad faith actors will try to milk, and fuck it, as as much, and as hard, as they can, to generate some nebulous amount of male insecurity over one NPC that most people probably won't realize is trans when they are playing the game.

Here's to hoping that you're right. I think that the mass appeal of Harry Potter and the fact that it's trans women in particular that make me think otherwise. Because if Gamergate worked so well to radicalize some people, then this is pretty much the same thing:

• Victimization of an underrepresented group (trans people)? Check
• Use of misogyny to further a political narrative (trans women, TERF wars)? Check
• Mass appeal (Harry Potter, "video games"/"gamers")? Check

This plus the fact that currently we're in the midst of an economic downturn with recent disasters (like Norfolk Southern) fresh in the mind of people, makes it easier to use the same fearmongering tactics of the right to blame individual hardships on "the alphabet gang", "the woke mafia" or whatever denigratory term helps divide people so as to make it easier to court the right wing.

You'll know shit has really hit the fan if those "sjw gets owned" videos start making a comeback again. I'm wise to those tactics so my feed has been clean of it but someone who starts watching those is on a dark path whether they know it or not, and how likely that is to happen is basically down to social media algorithms now.

And it doesn't look good, because Harry Potter anything would gain a lot of engagement due to the aforementioned reasons. But most people aren't going to watch a half hour long lengthy breakdown of why it's a nothingburger; no they're going to watch the meme compilations of twitter threads and think that represents the entire left (tm), which they don't agree with, so obviously they must be right wing and those damned SJWs are ruining the world, and this time they've got the Trans People (tm) to help them.

Given that the target audience is not you or me but 1) people who don't bother critically examining the evidence, 2) impressionable teens who may or may not have been aware of Gamergate when they were younger, but feel a strong attachment to video games nonetheless and 3) people who don't see what the hubbub is over a video game and won't understand until someone else explains it to them (which they readily accept)....that's quite a lot more people, and even if 99% of them see through it plain as day, that 1% is still very sizable.

Let's see how this plays out I suppose. It feels like well over a week since I first heard about this controversy and if it's still continuing now, then it must have stung some people a helluva lot because it seems like anything else would just die down after 3 days or so.

What’s the short version

Hogwarts Legacy is selling like hot cakes, people that don't like JK Rowling are annoyed.

As far as Gamergate shit, the sex toy reviewer on Wired rated it 1/10. Other places rate it like 7-9. Kotaku didn't get a review copy. There was a short lived site to find anyone that streamed it on Twitch that morons used to annoy people playing it. Hasan didn't touch it because he knows his audience. Trolls made a girl cry. Internet bullshit as usual. If this is Gamergate 2.0, it's pretty damn mid. Where's the sexual favors accusation? Where's developers calling gamers rapists for criticizing a woman?

Disclaimer: I don't give a shit about Harry Potter. As for this, this reply is how much I care. (read: not much)

With Gamergate, it was accusations of infidelity and having an aired out breakup that spread like wildfire with threats and general misinformation. HL on the other hand is only controversial because they used the license of a transphobic author, but had no say in the game story or development, so it's much ado about nothing.

While there will be some bad actors who do what they do, HL will not reach the same level of GG controversy, partly because the hucksters will generally be ignored this time, and the average person is generally burnt out on SJW/politics/GG discussion in video games. At some point, people on both sides of the debate need to realize that this isn't the hill that is worth dying on, and punishing gamers for wanting to play games and not get involved in video game politics never ends well for everyone.

What's hilarious about it is that the devs declared right when they first announced the game that J.K Rowling was not involved in HL's existence at any point. That was a selling point! So this isn't even a justified outcry; it's the people who failed to do the research shouting down the people who did.

I think we can all agree that if you spend $60 before tax on a game you don’t really enjoy just to bug strangers, you’re foolish.

Buy a gift for a family member with that money instead

If your motive for spending money is to "Own the <$GROUP>" then yeah, you're a bit of a plonker, as well as probably so deep in some conspiracy rabbit hole, it's a weird thing to do.

I can't think of something I don't want people buying, maybe, idk, there's one rap song I really can't stand, so maybe that. But it's like, if you came up to me and told me you bought 5 singles of it to own me, why would I care? You wasted your money just to try and upset someone.

There are better ways to upset people if that's your goal, it's proper weird.

Matt and Shelby are two of the most progressive streamers I'm aware of, and they promised donations to the Trevor Project, and that still wasn't enough for people. This goes for any topic: no matter what compromise you try to make, or olive branch you try to extend, it will never be enough.

The behavior of the folks all up in arms about this game is doing way more to harm the trans movement than anything any supposed TERF or bigot could come up with.

I’m at a point where I don’t give a shit.

You’re damned if you buy the game and damned if you don’t. Obviously the Trans community has understandably strong feelings on JK Rowlings shit views and don’t feel that she should be supported through the Harry Potter franchise, let alone the whole commotion with the goblins being anti-semetic (which personally, I think thats bullshit because in context with the last book they’re willing to fuck over voldemort with Potter and friends, the former being more of a racist than the other wizards if I remember correctly, but thats another story)

On the other hand, Harry Potter as a franchise is too big to fail. Stopping a few people from buying it won’t stop the majority of people who buy it because most people don’t give a shit about the politics involved. Either way, the companies get money.

Life is too short to over-politicize it. I haven't bought anything Harry Potter in a long time and I think JK’s views are a crock of shit but its not like people aren’t going to separate the person from the artist/writer over this one.

I don't think so. Gamergate was one perfect big manufactured event. Meanwhile, for this, I think we're just seeing a very popular franchise that still greatly benefits a now very publicly bigoted individual.

It was kind of inevitable there would be some kind of big mess about it all, what with the culture war being as it is. Especially when you involve franchises the size of Harry Potter.

I just gave this thread a deeper read and honestly I didn’t even know Sirona was a thing.

Either that can be seen as a slap to JK’s face or a performative thing to reduce controversy. Either way I’m sticking to my stance on the game as a whole

Saw it best described as:

Hogwarts Legacy is the new #BoycottFathersDay

I don't give two craps about hogwarts legacy at all. Period

Not because of any political stance, I never found harry potter interesting in the first place and I don't like licensed games much at all (Unless its from shows I really like south park), The fact theres a whole situation for it. And people only liking the game because of rowling's views and because its harry potter seem to be pretty dumb honestly. They don't seem to enjoy the game for what it is. Even the IGN review for it just criticizes everything about the game but gives it 9.1 anyways because its harry potter

I and do I have a hot take with me. I don't like open world, Lore heavy games like elden ring (And I feel like the game's community has a massive bloated ego anyways) Still, The only time I liked a game like that was with BOTW and thats because it has some fun mechanics like climbing, And actually being able to do whatever you want. Which justified it for me. And I can't wait to play TOTK since its going to introduce building into the scenario.

But personally Id rather play games like hi-fi rush and pizza tower. Games that feel like more of video games, Than cinematic. Basically I don't like the attention hogwarts legacy is getting but Its unsurprising.

The key thing for me about HL is that whatever stance you have on trans people, the HP franchise as a whole or JKR as a person, this one specific truth cannot be denied:

HL financially supports anti-trans policies and any action anyone purchasing or promoting the game is a participant in supporting those policies.

JKR is the owner of the HP IP, she does receive residuals from the sales derived from her IP and she's made multiple public statements explicitly stating she directly financially supports anti-trans groups and policies. The pipeline between this game and transphobia is a direct and public one. Make excuses and deflections as much as you'd like. This. remains. fact.

Right now, there's a resurgence in open transphobia being justified as a result of multiple vtubers/streamers being harrassed when streaming the game, a situation that recently resulted in an extremely popular one 'graduating' (read: retiring) presumably for the same reason (though it turns out that might not actually be the case). And here's what I'll say on this issue:

Any one who streamed that game was promoting it, which means they had direct involvement in its financial success which means they were directly involved in the financial support of anti-trans policies. This is a true statement regardless of their intent or knowledge. It's simply what they were doing.

Now the assumption of that statement implies that the bullying was justified, but the thing is any action taken that promotes this game...is promoting the game and in doing so, is supporting anti trans policies. Consider that in order to harass these streamers, these bullies would have to be viewing the stream, which meant they were contributing to the view count of that stream. This makes them direct contributors to the very thing they were using to justify the harassment! And again, it doesn't matter what their intent or knowledge was, nor how 'small' their one view 'counted'. It was a contribution, it was support.

This is important, because the foundation of the transphobic backlash happening right now is dependent on participants of the harassment being trans supporters, but the fact is they can't be. Their selfish actions directly linked them to the support of anti-trans policies same as the streamers they were harassing. They as individuals have to decide whether they take responsibility for that same as everyone else who supports this game or that franchise, but more importantly, it means people who use their actions to justify transphobia are not only, y'know...transphobic, but also bad faith liars.

Just posting this:

https://twitter.com/DelusionPosting/status/1631693523362918401?cxt=HHwWgsDRpamn-KQtAAAA

The TL;DR is basically a Vtuber (No, not Pikamee) played Hogwarts Legacy to spite twitterinos and now everyone's mad at her and claiming she's committed transphobia and antisemitism.

Truly Gamergate 2.0 is happening right now. /s

I’m always okay with boycotts. If you don’t like something, don’t support it. That’s just basic capitalism.

However, I don’t like that streamers are getting harassed. I feel like people nowadays are too quick to attack people who disagree with them or don’t directly support their causes. The streamers don’t deserve it, and it’s hardly even beneficial to the cause.

Its baseless broad strokes judgement like this that does more damage to the cause of trans rights than any bigoted politician or mouthpiece, because you are going after something that millions of people enjoy and didn't want to hear from a vocal minority of bots who have a hissy fit over a game that they weren't going to bother with anyway.

This is the kind of nonsense that makes me want to be a hardline Republican, because if these so-called SJWs (or whatever we're calling them now) is going to threaten people for playing/streaming the game, let alone other things in pop culture that don't fit into their vapid worldview, then maybe they should be the ones who should be squelched for their gaslighting and fearmongering.

Homogenizing, if not out and out bastardization of big name IPs having to kowtow to supposed left-leaning cultural hucksters and bad faith actors is one of biggest reasons why people like Trump and DeSantis are so popular among the anti-SJWs crowds, and it becomes another cycle of the cultural war pissing contest, because a vocal minority couldn't let people enjoy things without being by judgement dopes on the Internet because one person said something bad.

If you want to criticize J.K. Rowling's views on transphobia, then that is perfectly acceptable, and hell, even if you choose to boycott the game PERSONALLY whatever reason, then I'm not going to stop anyone. But don't get on SM and attack fans of Harry Potter, people who stream HL for other people to enjoy, because that only makes you worse than who you claim to hate. If you want to actually want to support the cause of social justice, learn to pick your battles that is worth fighting for and do it the right way, or don't do it and leave it to others who will.

I'm still just yawing over this. The boycott failed miserably, which showed just how small it was to begin with. The reaction to it was overwhelmingly greater, like a reverse Goliath winning over David, with some articles gloating about how it's a monumental win against woke cancel culture. It's all so silly.

I'm having a great time playing hogwarts legacy supposedly we're getting multi-player and DLC, only downside about the game it triggers the shit out of my OCD with how JKR has the Hog valley set up in the Scottish Highlands and how the map is south north and how some of the places are labeled with cardinal directions.

Also Hogsmeade has like ZERO fucking city planning with how that village is set up.

Like this shit is way different than I envisioned it from the books but the books didn't go that deep into world building like other High Fantasy series like ASOIAF, but apparently it's all canon with how hogwarts is set up.

Otherwise DARK WIZARDING THIS SHIT UP! Also talk to Sebastian Shaw and his story line ro learn the Unforgivable Curses and don't sell him out at the end!

Yes my whole post was me bitching about world building and Wizarding architecture and infrastructure because im a huge fucking nerd deal with it.

I probably should say that a part of that point (namely the hardline Republican bit) is an exaggeration on my part, but it does not change my point. HL is not a metaphorical hill that is worth dying on for the cause of social justice. Rowling only got a sizable lump sum due to licensing rights, and is getting no royalties thereafter, so getting butthurt over money is idiotic.

As for the comic, not only is it completely silly, it doesn't even address the point. It ties to my point that SJWs getting hot and bothered over a piece of pop culture that doesn't affect them only keeps recircling the culture war cycle over and over again, and in turn only serves to taint the cause. When is enough enough? Possibly when these cultural hucksters stop poisoning mediums and IPs that makes them something that they're not, just to cater to a niche that wouldn't care otherwise.

In other words, they're chasing ghosts, and the fan base loses.

Right now, I'm watching as Republicans across the country try to pass laws to cancel out groups that they don't like, while hate crimes rise against these groups due to this silly sentiment that seems to boil down to them being to noisy, culturally disgusting, who hurt certain people's feelings, on social media... What do you think is worse?

My post simply acknowledged that there's is a direct line between supporting this game and JKR's transphobia, which is true. It's true even if you try to reframe it as a threat or an attack (it's neither). It'd be true even if your "lump sum" bullshit wasn't bullshit. It'd be true even if it was just "SJW's getting hot and bothered over a piece of pop culture that doesn't affect them" instead of real trans people legitimately fighting for their right to exist against people like JKR, whose massive platform and influence is a direct result of her IP's financial success (it fucking affects them). Money is money and she's getting it because of this game, ergo supporting it supports her.

Yeah, you don't like being told that you Just Wanting To Game For God's Sake can have real consequences for real people. That much is obvious, but son, that's not my fucking problem. As I said in my first post, it's on you to decide to take responsibility for your choices, same as everyone else and no amount of 'whatev' emojis getting stuck to my posts are going to change that.

It doesn’t.

Leave people alone if they want to play video games.

At 3/4/23 09:53 PM, Narratorway wrote:

Saved you the wall of text.

LMFAO Kotaku didn’t get a review copy.

that’s hilarious.

As someone that hasn't spent 60 bucks on a Wizard game, nice strawman.

You're going to avoid Warner Brothers movies, right? You're going to proudly tell everyone going to Universal Studio parks going there supports a rich TERF, right?