A troll waits impatiently below his bridge for someone to dare to walk above him. The toll to be paid is sameness; agree or get the **** out of my territory. But that’s okay, because he identifies as a progressive troll. He believes n equality, or something, as long as that equality isn’t for women. They’re prone to making wild, uncorroborated accusations and dismantling a man’s career over a glance at her rack that took a little too long.
This kind of viewpoint is prevalent in most facets of modern society — people disbelieving victims of assault. There is an argument to be made that yes, there are times when people lie for one reason or another, but to punish, ignore, or further harass a survivor of sexual predation is, on the whole, evil. Gamergate and other events in the industry have made it apparent that not even creations meant for joy are untouched by the nature of attack, degradation, and denial of survivors.
An example of this is NeoGAF’s CEO Malka, who has been recently accused of assault. His opinions on the #MeToo campaign haven’t gone unnoticed; he actively attack and bans those who try to show support or argue that women and other survivors should be believed. A bright point in this story is that he’s received massive pushback and seen many of his frequent website traffic, moderators, and other important human assets pull away in light of his behavior (Rosenberg 2017).
Though the long-standing epidemic of hate, insensitivity, and frankly blatant misuse of white-male privilege might be something people are becoming desensitized to, gamers might be heartened to know that the community is continuing to fight back with it’s traffic and buying power. In another recent story, gamer PewDiePie dropped a racial slur on a live stream, then quickly tried to defend himself. He’s lost funding, sponsers, and fans in light of this, but his powerhouse of YouTube and streams hasn’t been hurt all that much (Hernandez 2017). This isn’t the first time he’s been accused of such things, either. It’s becoming a pattern — viewers need to ask themselves if he says this sort of thing on a stream, how could he not use it elsewhere?
The real eye-opener for many was the actual events of GamerGate on just how toxic the gaming community can really be. Women designers and players were targeted, threatened, and harassed to get them to step out of the male-centric genre of entertainment (Dewey 2014). The attacks included mobs, doxing, and assaults (2014).
The question people might ask about all of these really intense, disturbing acts might be: why? Richard Colby and Rebekah Shultz Colby, authors in Play/Write discuss the nature of the Troll in “Who’s That Walking on My Bridge? Transmedia Shifts and Trolling in Game Forums.” The severity of a troll depends on the situation; typically they are individuals or groups of individuals trying to exacerbate a situation or make something a bigger deal than it is to get a rise out of people (2016). Essentially they are often grown adults who crave attention the pleasure(?) of ticking people off. In the article, Colby and Colby Shultz determine that trolling has and is a topic that needs more study, though they find that not all situations attract trolls in the same ways. The examples of GamerGate and NeoGAF have trolls sprinkled in along with actual hateful individuals (who are sometimes also trolls, just to a more extreme that irritating attention-seekers).
Well, what now? The explosion of the internet has left forums and pretty much everything personal out in the open for trolls to attack, steal, and dox. Some might want to pull away from the industry because of the hatred that festers there in the colloquial Cheeto-encrusted basement… but the best course of action is to fight it. Don’t patron bigots, sexists, racists. Use your wallet to say your opinion. Don’t feed into trolling, help protect those being attacked. Fight.
References
Colby, Richard & R. Shultz Colby. (2016). “Who’s That Walking on My Bridge? Transmedia Shifts and Trolling in Game Forums.” Printed in Play/Write.
Dewey, C. (2014, October 14). The only guide to Gamergate you will ever need to read. Retrieved November 29, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- intersect/wp/2014/10/14/the-only-guide-to-gamergate-you-will-ever-need-to- read/?utm_term=.e2c1c0ca0e58
Hernandez, P. (2017, September 10). “Indie Dev Calls For Copyright Strikes Against Pewdiepie After He Says N-Word On Stream”. Retrieved November 29, 2017, from https://kotaku.com/indie-dev-calls-for-copyright-strikes-against-pewdiepie-1803099736
Rosenberg, A. (2017, October 23). “One of the internet’s oldest gaming forums is imploding over sexual harassment charges”. Retrieved November 29, 2017, from http://mashable.com/2017/10/23/neogaf-sexual-harassment-controversy-tyler- malka/#nZ3d8MbBZiq3
