If you were unfortunate enough to be here for my previous entry in this series about review bombing, then you may remember one of the sourced articles having the irresistably awful title "It Is Not About Facts: Why You Cannot and Should Not Enlighten Reactionary Nerds", which was written by Aurelia Brandenburg, a co-founder of the EA-endorsed "No Pixels For Fascists" collective and whom I once described as "having immortalized her neuroses as masturbatory prose".
Well, good(?) news people: I'm here today to present you with that very article, which is practically dripping with the same egotistical, self-righteous outrage as her other thinkpieces.
It Is Not About Facts: Why You Cannot and Should Not Enlighten Reactionary Nerds
October 7, 2018 by Aurelia Brandenburg
When reactionary nerds yell loudly, then it does not take long before a great many others counter this shouting with facts. That is well-intentioned, but remains counterproductive.
"Total War: Rome 2 recently fell victim to review bombing on Steam, i.e. over a short period of time, trolls targeted them with the submission of many negative reviews, in this case because an alleged political component did not please a certain group of players. A short while before, a screenshot surfaced in which one faction exhibited an especially large number of female generals. The outcry in the Steam forum was great and the accusation was that, following the new update, the game had now acquired a left-wing ideological charge. As already seen during the fight over "Battlefield V" a few months earlier or any other accusation of this kind against any pop cultural work of the last few years - whether game, film, or series - the accusation was, of course, revealed to be baseless yelling within a very short amount of time. And, just like every time, it was already too late by then, because, on the one hand, the discussion was already there - even if it only amounted to a tired headshake - and, on the other hand, the point where well-intentioned counterarguments came up had already been reached. The ancient world was actually demonstrably filled with remarkable women, the probability of a scenario like the one on the screenshot was low, and the reaction was exaggerated anyway.
Any argument against a sexist, racist, or in any other way misanthropic outcry of this kind - as well-intentioned as it might be - has a crucial problem: The person who is advocating for it is proceeding under the assumption that this is about the facts. But since when have sexist trolls ever been about facts?
I have already written something similar about "Battlefield V" with regards to the aspect of historical authenticity, but I will write it again in the most general sense: review bombers and other reactionary nerds are not interested in how realistic a game is. They are not interested in whether Rey in "The Last Jedi" is really a Mary Sue. They are not interested in how many rights women had throughout history and where they had them. Or where the weaknesses of an attempt at world building lie, one that is perhaps a little more inclusive for once. These reactionary nerds long to return to a fantasy in which women, people of color, and other marginalized persons were seemingly still a peripheral phenomenon in their favorite stories and media. These reactionary nerds are not interested in how many women might have been able to become generals in the ancient world, but instead want these women to disappear, either into a very narrow space defined by them or completely.
Because of course I could, at any time, explain that women's lives in the Middle Ages, in light of prominent female characters in fantasy and medieval history, were much more complex than these reactionary nerds claim over and over again. Of course I could, at any time, name a whole series of examples of women between the 11th and 16th centuries whose verifiably provable existences I only stumbled upon by chance during my own research in my own very special and additionally small field of expertise. (Someone with significantly more experience could probably increase the number of these examples tenfold.) Of course, I could, at any time, explain that the fanzine scene for "Star Trek" was already provably - and based on the list of female authors of these fanzines, for example - filled to the brim with women in the 60s and 70s and that women did not just mysteriously begin to become interested in speculative fiction in the last ten years. Of course I could explain why Afrofuturism like "Black Panther" not only has the right to exist, but can also be important and interesting. And, additionally, that it is not really new, but has only just started finding its way into the Western European and American mainstream. Of course I could, at any time, reinforce all of this with facts, prove all of this with ease; however, in doing so, I would simply be granting a space for discussion to people who are not interested in dialogue but simply want me to disappear. And this only because I am a woman and expressing a feminist position.
A compromise through dialogue with these people simply always results in marginalized people taking damage - and, with that, a compromise is impossible. Instead, you are just granting the right-wing framing and gatekeeping of these people a seemingly legitimate space that it has not earned. (When it comes to this right-wing framing in a pop culture context, this article here is also highly recommended.) The moment that such reactionary nerds quite obviously get angry about the mere existence of a marginalized person in "their" games and basically demand the disappearance of that person, no dialogue with them is possible and none should be held either. Whoever still absolutely wants to shed light on the backgrounds of this in order to quite clearly expose this hatred for what it is should also put it in that context and make it clear that the corresponding enlightenment is not directed at the source of the yelling, but at exposing its source as a misanthropic mob rather that a group of rightly "concerned" players. But even that is a fine line because, in a case of review bombing such as with "Total War: Rome 2" or a forum that is practically in flames, no enlightenment should even be needed anymore after the past few years, especially since the assumption alone that too high of a female quota in the game is a "mistake" already has a fundamental sexist component.
Outcries like the one surrounding "Rome 2", in which the reviews are just bristling with right-wing fighting words and ideas such as "SJW", "inappropriate political correctness", or a seemingly conspiracy-like "feminist agenda", are quite obviously misogynistic. So obviously misogynistic that even the developers, who have an economic interest in not scaring away potential buyers, could only helplessly close threads and release a statement that reads like a single headshake. No matter how you look at it: This is about sexism. No more and no less.
In the end, we are once again not holding a discussion about facts, research, or probabilities, but instead about the fact that, time and again, a very loud group of players would rather that marginalized people be pushed to the sidelines or made to disappear. And that is not a discussion that any one of us should really be having, and, consequently, the content of the strawman arguments mentioned in it should also not be treated as justified and thereby legitimized. Where no dialogue is possible, there remains only solidarity with either the aforementioned reactionary nerds or with the persons that these nerds basically wish would disappear. And with that, there is really only one thing left to do if you really want to show solidarity with the latter: show these reactionary nerds the door and do not grant them a space that they have not earned and would only misuse.
Because women in general will not disappear from these media and scenes anyway. (Just like many other groups who have been and will become targets again and again stand little chance of disappering.) We have always been there and always will be. It is only a question of if and how hate groups will be allowed to try to seemingly relegate us to our place on the sidelines once more and turn even a presence such as that into a fight.
Original Article: http://geekgefluester.de/es-geht-nicht-um-fakten-warum-man-reaktionaere-nerds-nicht-aufklaeren-kann-und-soll-rome-2-review-bombing
Archive.today: http://archive.vn/UWj9z
To the original author: I do not think the word "reactionary" means what you think it means.