Mainstream media may be painting a very biased view on #GamerGate and the people involved in it, but gamers from all over the world have come together in a mixing pot of inclusion, acceptance and a fight against the corruption currently plaguing games media. They did so with a video called “We Are Gamers”.
Throughout this whole fiasco there have been countless non-white males and females supporting the #GamerGate movement to help increase transparency and aim to elevate the ethics put into play by video game journalists.
However, anyone who usually reads major news sites on Gnews will see nothing but articles stating that #GamerGate was created to harass and abuse women. Unfortunately none of the major sites have been willing to report the facts or stick to the truth.
Some sites have been misreporting that #GamerGate was started by 4chan as a way to harass women. The reality is that the hashtag #GamerGate was coined by actor Adam Baldwin on August 27th, as evidenced on Topsy, after watching the Internet Aristocrat videos. His original tweet is embedded below.
It's amazing how the larger media outlets are trying to spin the narrative and change history. Interestingly enough, the Escapist Magazine's co-founder, Alexander Macris, personally asked the members of 4chan what the goal was of #GamerGate and had writer Greg Tito print an interview on The Escapist. Here's what was said about #GamerGate by a member of 4chan...
“[...]the purpose of #gamergate is to rally for transparency in gaming journalism and the media in general, and also to put an end to the blatant corruption in the gaming industry and gaming journalism.“the thing that most people seem to forget is that video games are games. they [sic] exist for one sole reason, entertainment. as [sic] soon as people start to stray away from that concept, it start [sic] to become detrimental to the medium. Shoehorning politics into something that is meant as entertainment is entirely unnecessary and moreover destruction [sic] to video games as a whole. it [sic] quickly becomes about politics and ONLY politics, and the main purpose, entertainment, begins to fade out and become irrelevant.”
Additionally, it's being misreported that #NotYourShield – a hashtag that's being used alongside #GamerGate – was created by 4chan to “weaponize minorities”. The hashtag – as noted by the one young fellow who started it in the video up above – was used to help give women, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Indians, Arabs, bi-sexuals, transgender, gay, lesbian and every other non-white male a voice. Gamers simply want to be heard.
It is very sad to see how media has run rampant with demonizing the gaming community in this way. Smaller sites like GamesNosh, GamerHeadlines, Techraptor and Niche Gamer (to name a few) have been striving to provide accurate and factual coverage of everything that has transpired over the past couple of weeks.
It is also refreshing to see that so many gamers have stepped forward to participate in the video above from the Shield Project, as well as see so many gamers step out from behind anonymity to show that the #GamerGate movement is truly inspired by just about any and every kind of individual out there who is looking to end the corruption in games journalism, and help grow the inclusion and diversity of game culture.
To further drive home the point, the collage below was put together from Twitter users and 4chan.
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