My Fellow Gamers;

Here we are, nearly two months after #GamerGate first began. As unsavory little bits of information slowly start to drip in from both sides of the conflict conflagrating the debate even more. On one end, you’ve got gamers asking for competent, more transparent and unbiased journalists reporting on, debating on, and passing judgement on video games. And on the other end, you’ve got journalists decrying the very gamer they once wrote for. They’ve labeled the dissenters as misogynistic, knuckle-dragging Cro-Mags who think that video games are made by and for white males. That GamerGate supporters do not welcome change or people of color.

It’s strange then, when you look up the #GamerGate thread and see the exact opposite happening between gamers from all walks of life. Most of whom use the secondary #NotYourShield tag to show the fallacy of the whole non-inclusive rant going on. I’ve watched this exchange going on for weeks now, and I’m amazed at how this whole cultural paradigm shift came around. Mainly because, for years, the very people who once served the public’s best interests (or, at the very least, attempted to do as best as humanly possible considering how corrupt the public considers game journalism right now), are now raging against the machine they once served.

It really shouldn’t come as any surprise to these same journalists. For years their social narrative seeded, cultivated and pruned the gaming culture we see today. It gave rise to it. And now that these very gamers are rallying against them when they suddenly, rather than organically, shift the narrative completely around until the very word “gamer” is now considered something shameful and we should all feel bad about being called or even taking pride in being one. Yet I’ve never really heard anything in the way of an alternative from these very people. If I’m no longer to consider myself a gamer, then what should I call myself? An “Interactive Art Connoisseur?” Maybe even “Human Gaming Software Component?” It’s laughable, I know, but until something worthwhile or even decent comes forth from the anti-gamer groupthink, I’ll just keep calling myself a gamer for now, thanks.

And let’s not kid ourselves here. There was, and evidence proved that there was, a Gaming Journalist groupthink. Now, in and of itself, is the group list unethical? No. There’s nothing preventing rival journalists from being friends, or even bouncing ideas off of one another. The problem is, is that when more and more voices are added and they begin to shuffle a hierarchy of who to listen to (or else), and how to start cultivating drastic changes in the social narrative in gaming, then it becomes a problem. Because then certain ethics begin to dissipate, or are tossed out entirely. One of which is the avoidance of forcing advocacy. A good journalist knows that the truth, however problematic for one side or the other, is unbiased. And despite their personal interests in certain subject matters, every journalist must seek the truth from as unbiased a viewpoint as they can muster.

What’s interesting about the list is that it’s been tried before. Not on the gaming front, but from bigger, more mainstream journalists. In February 2007, journalist Ezra Klein for the Washington Post (amongst others) created what is now known as the “JournoList”, a private Google Groups forum where an alleged 400-plus membership of supposed “left-leaning” journalists met to discuss matters outside of “conservative” influence; in essence, creating a collective groupthink opposed to the dissenting viewpoints of peoples who may or may not have even agreed to their idealisms. After public exposure in 2010, and after some rather disparaging e-mail correspondences basically showed proof of a collective collusion, one journalist resigned from his position at the Washington Post and the list was eventually shut down.

Why then, would gaming journalists essentially do the same thing? Because they didn’t think they’d be caught? Trust me, with all the doxxing, hacking, and exposure of information on the internet, nothing is considered private for long. Gaming Journalism has always had a less-than-truthful reputation with the public, and the fact that this didn’t help with that reputation has put many of these same journalists on the defensive. And put many gamers on the warpath.

But there’s something inherently beautiful about it all. Something karmatic and ironic about all of this GamerGate debating. Because instead of killing or even quelling the gamer rebels, it’s united them. And many rebellions are the cornerstone to something even more cathartic. Something better than the status quo of a selective control group in the gaming journalism field. It leads to a democracy of peoples. In fact, the uprising against the British hundreds of years ago is proof that rebellion against a corrupt leadership leads to better things. America would not exist as it is today if it had simply been complacent with the unfair taxation and despotic rule of their British overlords at the time. The American Revolution started as a rebellion. And built an empire of freedoms. Freedoms these very journalists utilize to this very day. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Expression and, most importantly, Freedom of Press.

It’s just a shame they’ve decided to utilize these tools and instruments of knowledge into weapons of ignorance and hate. Rather than sue for peace, to ask for calm, all they scream for is death (literally) ten times over. Are we gamers any more right than they are? No. I’ll be the first to admit that hate has taken its toll on people who may or may not be personally responsible for the current cultural stigmata that is the gaming community. But the more hate, rather than truth, that I see stirring in the bellows of gaming journalism, the more I see that being a gamer isn’t quite as evil as they paint it out to be. I suddenly start to see that being a Gamer is a positive rebellion against the very people who seeded, cultivated and catered to the people whom they now hate the most.

And that, right there, is something I cannot fathom. Gaming writers who hate their own audience. Gaming Journalists who hate the GAMER. The very people who they once served for years. The very people who they once wrote to, positively, a mere three months ago. So the question to all these “professional” journalists out there is….. If you don’t want to write for us anymore, then why the hell are you still writing?

Everything comes full circle guys and gals, and I hate to borrow a quote from better people than I but…..

You reap what you sow.