SJWs don’t have to be your enemy. SJWs are over.

(See what I did there?)

It has been duly noted that the whole of GamerGate tends to have a problem with the aptly titled “social justice warriors”, purportedly “left wing” idealogues who spend their days trying to ensure that nothing is ever offensive to anyone, except people they don’t like. Some have claimed this is because SJWs are the source of all the ethical issues GamerGate fights against. The theory is if we beat SJWs, we fix the problem.

And the response by many others seems to be: What?

And I have to agree with that response. What a ridiculous notion that this issue of ethics is, at its root, just SJWs running amok. People are really dedicated to this idea, and for a while it baffled me, because I honestly could not wrap my head around how anyone could think SJWs are the root, or the thing we need to be fighting to fix anything. SJWs aren’t the root. They aren’t even the stem. Realistically, they’re not even part of the tree itself. They’re the weeds surrounding the tree, that GamerGate desperately tries to pick out one by one, but they always come back, because the issue is the tree itself.

So let’s debunk this. The idea that SJWs are the root comes from the tendency in recent years of gaming journals, and in fact, journalists in general, using SJW talking points and letting those paint their reporting. This, to some, is proof SJWs have taken over. But have you ever met these SJWs? Do you honestly think they’re smart enough to take over something like these? They’re incessant bullies who latch onto any fad where they think people will listen. In this case, it was gaming. But when I say “latch on” I mean harp about it until someone, anyone, gives you attention. Journalists did this, why? Because they’re SJWs? As if. Journalists jumped on board because they saw easy controversy to milk. Journalists have always loved controversy and SJWs are essentially an entire demographic who live in constant controversy. Why wouldn’t journalists take advantage of that? It’s easy money.

Because here’s the thing: SJWs are EASY. They’re easy to debate. They’re easy to pander too. GamerGate targets SJWs for the same reason journalists cater to them. Their ideology is so simplistic that it becomes insultingly easy to debunk them and to mimic them. SJWs didn’t take over journalism. In a way, journalism took over SJWs. Took their ideology and started using it for their own purposes, but SJWs, because they only give a shit about being seen and getting attention, haven’t even noticed that they’re being ployed.

The issue with this approach is that even if we beat the SJWs, will that fix it? No. Don’t be stupid. That’s like saying crime goes away just because laws exist that punish crime. Sure, it might balance things out, but people are still going to do it, find loopholes to get away with it, you name it. And because few journalists are ACTUALLY SJWs, but rather latch onto the ideology and faithfully adhere to it only because it garners a lot of attention to their work, it means that even completely erradicating SJW ideology wouldn’t fix the ethics problem.

It just means they would move on to the next thing.

“So we’ll switch then!” Two problems with that. One, there is no reason we can’t nip the problem right now and be done with it. Two, no you won’t. When journalists inevitably move on from SJWs to something else they can use to justify their behavior, GamerGate will declare themselves winners and cease to exist or care. That is the danger to this thinking that SJWs are the cause here. It means we could end before we’ve actually fixed anything.

Not convinced? Look at the history of journalism. Throughout all time. Unethical behavior has always existed, and there has always been a justification used, often a group or ideology that somehow makes it okay or at the very least, distracts the public from seeing the issue. Brian Williams lied for years, we found out, and likely got away with it by marketing to a ideology which wanted his experiences to be truth. Every major group has had to face significant backlash by the media, who uses the publics fear of an unknown group trying to enact a change as an easy way to slur them and get views. If these unethical behaviors have existed long before SJWs, and exist outside the scope of SJWs, and most of the unethical practices in gaming journalism specifically have nothing to do with SJW ideology, then how on earth could SJWs possibly be the cause?

Look at DeepFreeze.it. The things it documents are only rarely actually related to SJW ideology. Most are related more to the clique-ish behavior between indie developers and journalists, relationships which transcend that ideology. This is the other danger of seeing it from a “It’s the SJWs” stand point: you miss, a lot. It means in digging we’re more likely to be looking specifically at SJW things, but we’re going to miss anything that isn’t linked to SJWs because we become dedicated to this idea that only SJWs are unethical. Then everything else must be fine right?

Don’t limit yourselves. This isn’t saying SJWs have no play in this, because obviously they do. But they’re not the root. They’re the excuse. Look at how suddenly so many players on their side are leaving the “social justice” camp, but not changing their ways. They aren’t suddenly coming around to ethics, they aren’t suddenly understanding GamerGate. They’re just abandoning SJWs, because it’s become clear to them SJWs are not a faithful brand, and the people are beginning to lose interest in the topic. They will move on to something else. Maybe it’ll be mildly SJW related, but it won’t be centered around SJW ideology like it is now. And this is coming fast.

Why are we making them the target? Because, again, it’s easy. Insanely easy. Not to mention entertaining. Isn’t it a lot more fun to fight an enemy that doesn’t appear to have their brain connected to their fingers as they type the most insane drivel you’ve ever heard? Of course that would be a nice target, but if that were the actual target, GamerGate would be able to fix it all easily. Notice the big figures and how they latch onto big names — but when they do, they don’t use SJW terminology. Real SJWs always use their terminology, that is all they have. But the minute a big figure who seems to have jumped into the fray suddenly gets a connection with a big name source, their language becomes more nuanced. In such a way that SJWs think they’re talking to them, but the language they use has real world applications, so they’re also convincing regular people who don’t know any better. Tell the entire world “GamerGate is harassers”. The SJWs understand harassment to be “anything that is critical of me”. But the regular world is going to assume it means actual harassment. And the writers, the journalists who are in it for themselves, and no one else, not even SJWs, will gladly let people interpret it however they want.

The root cause here is greed. Not left or right wing thinking. Not SJWs. In the end not even necessarily cliques because you see how easily those can fall apart if someone steps even slightly out of line. It is greed. It is a desire to gain power, money, and fame without the slightest care of how it effects others, the industry, or even the people they claim to support. SJWs will abandon journalists out of boredom and misguided self righteousness. Journalists will abandon SJWs simply because they’re not longer useful. They go with SJWs because, again, easy. Writing for gamers is harder because gamers want deeper work, things that are thought provoking and interesting and original and researched. SJWs just want their ego stroked, so write a thousand “What if [BLANK] was a woman!” and you’ll be making easy money.

The solution here is to nip the greed. We do that partially by boycotting, which ironically just sends the worst examples farther into the abyss, where they start to completely forget they’re a gaming site to begin with and write only about topics which appease SJWs, who slowly become their only audience. But it needs to delve farther than that. The only way you beat greed is to get rid of the greedy. Greedy people hate limitations.

Which is why you extend beyond just anti-collusion codes in journals. Every code of ethics should exist in the codes of all journalism sites, including gaming journalism. And GamerGate should be digging at every site, and every ideology, not just those we already know to have serious issues. And we should stop treating it like a Scarlet Letter, and instead treat it as a constructive criticism (I’d say antis should do this too, but I get the impression they don’t listen to me…). And more than anything we CAN’T let this be about SJWs. They’re small fish. Easy targets. The distraction. You know how the government, in the face of serious disasters, will so often displace blame and focus on mildly relevant but far more sensationalist nonsense like simplistic racial issues? We need to talk about poverty and education and the class gap? Let’s make this about race…suddenly you aren’t looking at the government anymore, but instead at each other.

Journalists are doing the same thing. Pinning gamers against SJWs and sitting back and watching their pockets inflate from the controversy that continues to boil from it.

You know what would really piss them off? If gamers didn’t care about SJWs. If gamers only bothered to point out the worst SJW issues, the ones actually having immediate effects, instead of harping on every single action they take. First off, you’ll drive SJWs away. If GamerGate as a whole throws their hands up and says “Bored of this!” SJWs will jump ship since their egos can no longer be fed by it. And then, journalists will have a brief moment of weakness, where they have no smokescreen. No distraction. Nothing to justify their shitty behavior.

And at that point, GamerGate can win. Treat the SJWs like you treat the trolls — they don’t deserve anything better than that.