Why Jenn Frank Compares GamerGate to a Massive ARG

On Slate, game journalist Jenn Frank (who'll soon be contributing to New World Notes) just wrote a perceptive analysis of Gamergate, the misogynist movement which temporarily drove her out of her vocation last year. Rather than being bitter about that experience, she takes a philosophical stance, arguing that "Gamergate is the most expansive real-world alternate reality game in video game history." Sample:

The authors of Gamergate’s oral history are a decentralized collective, a conglomerate of modern-day bards with no single leader, who use real-world details from the lives of real-world people to give the mythos texture, verisimilitude and, probably most important, real-world stakes. This is literally what we mean by “gamification”! (It’s also worth noting that Gamergate, alas, cannot be paused.)

Alas indeed. Anyway, Jenn let me share her thoughts for taking this approach on Slate:

"I would warn that the piece is measured. Not "moderate," not even "careful," but it does take the tack that Gamergate IS culturally significant -- just maybe not in the ways we think. I tried to be very Slate. (The original draft is double the length, a longer build to more troubling conclusions. Maybe I'll slap the omissions online sometime. Meanwhile, I do recommend all the hyperlinks I furiously added to the Slate piece, which I hope go far in explaining Gamergate on an academic level. Unfortunately, I am no academic; maybe they will help someone writing on this subject in the future instead.) "It's impossible to discuss Gamergate without arousing ire or controversy, and I suppose many colleagues may well feel I've handled the piece with kid gloves -- a real concern I had as I scrupulously policed my own outrage or sense of loss. On the flipside, of course, one -gater has already lamented that "a subtle hit-piece is still a hit piece," so there you are. It's always a lose-lose to discuss Gamergate, and that is by design."

There we are indeed. I'm looking forward to her writing about Second Life here, and hope you are too.

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Comments

[Cube Republic]

Ah the heady world of video game politics! Seems to be the modern thing to do, get caught up in trivia and ignore real issues in the world. If you unsubscribe does it mean it's still happening?

[Shockwave Yareach]

Me, I do not care if the persons with me in a game or VR are male, female, or other. If you act decent I shall treat you decently. Likewise if you act like a crumb, I'll treat you like a crumb. No special treatment for anyone regardless of what bits they have in RL.