The Drink Tank Takes on GamerGate

Chris Garcia and James Bacon devote the latest issue of Drink Tank to a discussion of GamerGate. 

James says, “It is not good, and we shall not pretend it is not happening or ignore it, for it is already attacking things and people that matter.”

What was ostensibly an alleged scandal about integrity in journalism, turned out to be a lie, and evolved into a machine of hatred and abuse of women.

Chris Garcia and myself realised that this was rampaging amongst people we knew, cared for and who would not ever be expected to tolerate the things that have been said.

Can you imagine a Worldcon Area Head be told to: ”Go commit suicide’ or ‘Can’t you take a joke you stupid whore?’ – of course not, because there is a code of conduct, and people seem to be able to behave in public, yet with the anonymity of the internet, hatred, abuse, and threats have flourished.

To get the issue click here [PDF file].

3 thoughts on “The Drink Tank Takes on GamerGate

  1. Some years back… err… decades?…but hey, it’s been less than a century (I think), Gamers were reluctantly given a part in Science-Fiction Fandom Conventions because — even though they seemingly never bathed, and generally smelled bad, they tended to disappear into whatever obscure function rooms they were assigned, & remain there for the entire con, needing only an occasional re-supply of their drinking-water. They didn’t get in people’s way, or make trouble, and were distinctly a financial plus for the conrunners.

    The current generation of Gamers, however, appears to include a dismayingly large number of… well… assholes. (Actually, I’m not sure that’s limited to “Gamers” — I’m a bit out-of-touch, but it seems to me that general fandom nowadays has a larger proportion of obnoxious & toxic members than it used to. In fact, I’ve bought a cane just to have something to wave at them. But hey, the whole world has gone alltohell, and you really don’t want to get me started ranting about Politics, right?) I suppose currently-active Fans will manage to handle the situation reasonably well, with no more angst & agony than would reasonably be expected. Maybe considerably less, because today’s Movers & Shakers of Fandom tend to be twenty to forty years older than that Class was back in The Good Old Days.

  2. Don: I tend to agree with you. But I’ve met both fans and pros in the SF wotld who ate too much, drank too much and smoked to damn much and smelled bad. And there have been pros with bad intentions and worse thinking. And smart ass fans who think they can one up a pro by asking stupid questions, or bringing up past failures. I often found mysekf annoyed by specialized fandoms , when the fans wondered why, andf got angry when there was no Star Trek programing at an ordeinary science fiction con.

    Anyway, I often think that people often take the worst apects of fans they have no use for and enlarge the problem in their minds. I did that for years whenever I dealt with fans in costume who would wear the same outfit for three four five days and never change.

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