Here're the takeaways from the latest "Keinen Pixel den Faschisten" ("No Pixels For Fascists") interview with cultural scientist Christian Huberts:

• "Git gud" is a worrisome tool of marginalization used to justify violence.

• Steam is a recruitment platform for roaming online bands of right-wing extremists.

• Prolonged exposure to Nazi imagery and propaganda, regardless of your innate ideological and political alignments, will cause you to absorb it via osmosis, internalize it, normalize it, and turn you into a goosestepper.

• "Hitler did nothing wrong!" is a Totally Serious Statement™ when made online.

• "Breitbart" and "The Daily Stormer" teamed up to support GamerGate.

• All gaming communities on the entire Internet should be subject to forced anti-right wing moderation and subservient to German law.

• Meritocracies are fascistic.

Be warned that this is a long, insane read and has quite a few translator's notes in order to call attention to specific nuances in the intereviewee's statements. And here we go, people...

BY TEAM - JUNE 26, 2020 - BLOG/INTERVIEW

Radicalization on Gaming Platforms: The Alt-Right Pipeline on Steam and Co.

Christian Huberts, born in 1982, studied "Cultural Science and Aesthetic Practice" at the University of Hildesheim and has been successfully working as a cultural and media science publicist based in Berlin since 2009. His content focus is digital game culture in all its facets. He regularly appears as an expert on digital games at cultural events as well as on radio and television. He is currently teaching the history and theory of games at the University of Applied Sciences Europe in Berlin. Most recently, as an associate producer, he supported the Berlin studio waza! Games with the development of the political educational app Konterbunt. He works as a project manager for "Pitch Jam: Memory Culture with Games" for the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur (Digital Games Culture Foundation).

(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE #1: While "Cultural Science and Aesthetic Practice" is the standard translation for "Kulturwissenschaften und ästhetische Praxis" and "Praxis" the one for "practice" or "experience", a GamerGate supporter and online friend of mine, Propyne, has correctly pointed out that the term has potential Marxist associations in German because, within certain contexts, "Praxis" is a philosophical term to mean "action oriented towards changing society".

"Konterbunt" - or, more accurately said, "KonterBUNT. Einschreiten für Demokratie." ("KonterBUNT. Step In For Democracy") is a portmanteau/pun comprising the words "Konter" ("counter(attack)") and "kunterbunt" ("multicolored" or "motley"). Since it's both a proper name as well as an untranslatable, I've left the original German title here. Unsurprisingly, it's had a rather tepid reception, with ratings of 3 of 5 stars and 2 out of 5 stars on the Google and Apple app stores, respectively.)

You're a cultural scientist and do research on digital games. What does it mean to focus on games with a cultural science perspective?

Cultural science encompasses many different approaches to cultural artefacts and practices - literary science or anthropological, for example - so it can't be broken down into a single perspective. In general, it's always about the question of how societies are reflected in the objects (e.g. games) that they produce and the ritualized actions that they carry out. With regard to computer games, for example, this can mean asking what they have to tell us about our culture.

I'm currently worried about the strong performance focus of many games, which goes far beyond shared enjoyment and the overcoming of self-imposed obstacles. Whether or not we're prepared to invest a lot of time and work in a game often determines if we can even participate in it, are included in or excluded from communities, or perhaps even attacked. What culture produces such objects?

In terms of cultural history, one can clearly observe that the beginnings of the medium lay in the gimmickry of scientists and information scientists on measuring and calculating instruments. Games then had their cultural breakthrough during the neoliberal reforms of many countries. From the point of view of cultural scientists, it's no wonder that countercultures such as casual games or ambience action games have an image problem.

In your article "Mein Dampf" you talk about right-wing extremist groups on Steam - what did you find there?

In 2018, when I wrote the article for the WASD Bookazine, thousands of accounts, user contents and groups with National Socialist identifiers and personalities - some of them prohibited in Germany - and right-wing extremist codes as well as statements that are discriminatory and incite hatred could be found on Steam without any problems or much effort. Much of it gives the impression of being mere provocation for individual profiling, but between the obvious - and mostly also bad - satire, there were very clear right-wing extremist remarks and content to be found. Users who swear the Hitler Oath, call for the defense of the "white race", deny the Holocaust, or send invites to the Discord server of the since discontinued right-wing troll group "Reconquista Germanica". Much of it can still be found today. However, although Steam is now cracking down harder on it, the platform has made it more difficult, particularly for outsiders, to accurately assess the extent of the brutalization. Of course, this changes nothing when it come to the distribution of problematic content among users.

(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE #2: The term "volksverhetzend" is a extremely broad term that can mean anything from "seditious" to "demogogic" to "race baiting" to "incitement/instigation of the masses/people" while "Aussage" is more straightforward and means "statement", "message", "assertion", etc. In the end, I decided to translate "volksverhetzenden Aussagen" as "statements that incite hatred" in keeping with the official English translation of "Volksverhetzung" ("Incitement of the People"/"Incitement of the Masses"), the section of the German Criminal Code covering this topic (specifically Section 1, Paragraph 130).

Propyne from "Translator's Note #1" offers the following alternative translation for the opening sentence of this paragraph:

"In 2018, as I was writing for the WASD-Bookazine, it was easy and effortless to find thousands of accounts, groups and pieces of user-generated content on Steam which displayed national socialist markings and personalities - some of which illegal in Germany -, right-wing extremist codes, as well as discriminatory and inciting messages."

Also, behold the only SJW pun that's ever made me laugh. Christian Huberts' article "Mein Dampf: Die rechtsextreme Parallelwelt auf der Games-Plattform Steam" ("Mein Dampf: The Right-Wing Extremist Parallel World on the Gaming Platform Steam") is a play on the name of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" ("My Battle"/"My Fight"/"My Struggle"), with "Dampf" being the German word for "steam".)

Are these isolated cases or is it a systematic problem?

As paradoxical as it may sound - both. These are individual cases insofar as there are no real organized structures targeted at controlling behavior here. However, there's definitely a systematic problem behind the many individual cases. Right-wing groupings like the American so-called "alt-right" have long since adapted their strategies to the new conditions of the Internet. Instead of making things impossible for themselves by drawing analogies in the public perception with bald heads and combat boots, they're now trying to hijack culture - especially pop culture - in order to spread their ideology in that way. And their methods of choice in doing so are self-minimization and satire. If one looks at Steam with this knowledge, a rather successful propaganda campaign behind the many provocative individual cases comes into view. And most users are probably not even aware of it. For them, fascism is ironic posturing. But, if repeated often enough, the ideology works its way into peoples' heads anyway and makes antifascists look like killjoys.

(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE #3: The term that's been rendered as "self-minimization" here was originally "Selbstverharmlosung", which, literally translated, means something along the lines of "the act of making oneself seem harmless". This is an incredibly loaded political term that's exclusively used as an insult by left-wing media outlets and critics when referring to the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, or "Alternative for Germany" in English), Germany's right-wing party. The implication is, of course, that the AfD is pulling a Keyser Söze on the German populace by going out of their way to downplay themselves and appear innocuous in order to mask their true political intentions and ideological dangerousness.)

(CONTINUED BELOW)

There's a significant temporal inconsistency when it comes to the widespread claim made by mainstream media outlets that GamerGate was responsible for sending death and rape threats to her that escaped (and, in some cases, continues to escape) the notice of supporters and critics alike for years. What follows is a brief timeline of events (the exact time zone's unknown, but the Twitter timestamps have been confirmed to be consistent with one another) based on surviving online records:

1. At 10:38 P.M. on August 26, 2014, Anita Sarkeesian tweets that "some very scary threats have just been made against [her] and [her] family".

• Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504503232672960512

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20140904025927/http://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504503232672960512

• Archive.today: http://archive.vn/KszKR

2. The next day, at 12:52 P.M. on August 27, 2014, she posts a screenshot of the threats she received: a series of what is widely believed to be ten tweets sent within a timespan of three minutes from the infamous "Kevin Dobson" (@kdobbsz) Twitter account. The account is quickly suspended and no archives are known to exist.

• Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504718160902492160

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20140827214127/http://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504718160902492160

• Archive.today: http://archive.vn/XUjcf

3. Less than an hour after the aforementioned tweet, a member of 4chan's /pol/ board starts a thread about the incident with a screenshot of it in the opening post. Within the next thirteen minutes, a responder using PeopleBrowser manages to recover the complete, uncensored series of tweets made from the "Kevin Dobson" Twitter account, revealing two important pieces of information that remain relatively unknown to this day: first, that there were actually thirteen tweets and not just ten, with three additional ones having been sent after the screenshot was taken; and second, they provide an approximate time for the incident, stating that "[the tweets] were posted 18 hours ago" but that she "only posted this screenshot to [the Feminist Frequency] Twitter [account] an hour or so ago". This means that the death and rape threats were originally sent around 17 hours before Sarkeesian's most recent tweet about them, which would be roughly 8:00 P.M. on August 26, 2014.

4. Adam Baldwin "coins" the #GamerGate hashtag in a (now deleted) tweet that was made at 6:22 PM on August 27, 2014, nearly 22 hours after the threats were sent.

• Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/504801169638567936

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20140903012212/http://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/504801169638567936

• Archive.today: http://archive.vn/OyJrl

Considering that GamerGate proper did not begin until the release of the "Gamers Are Dead" articles on August 28, 2014, we're left with a final discrepancy of at least 28 hours, which makes the original claim that GamerGate was somehow responsible chronologically impossible. The absolute most that someone could contend is that a Quinnspiracy participant sent the threats and later joined GamerGate, but there's absolutely no evidence to support or refute this since "Kevin Dobson" remains unidentified to this day.

The short version of today's example of progressives eating their own:

• The creators of the godawful "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" reboot decide to turn Bow from a redheaded white guy into a black guy.
• The crew holds a livestream panel on Twitch earlier today.
• They refer to an inside joke among themselves where Bow's brothers all have names that rhyme with his.
• One of the brothers is named "Sow" and looks like a stereotypical farmhand, down to the straw hat and wheat stem he's chewing on.
• SJWs assume that Sow is a caricature of a black slave because of his clothing and occupation and accuse the cartoon's creators of racism.
• Hilarity ensues on Twitter.

And all this could've been avoided if they hadn't forced diversity into their show by racebending Bow. :)

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Seems like things were a bit worse than I originally thought. According to Clownfish TV, Stevenson also made an (off-color) remark about Sow "working the fields" and the story's been picked up by "Newsweek" and other outlets. Leaving my original description of events intact in the interest of journalistic transparency and just making this addendum.

I'm not sure how to describe this strange interview other than to say that the anti-gamer German SJW collective known as "Keinen Pixel den Faschisten" ("No Pixels For Fascists") recently interviewed a cultural scientist and European ethnologist, Dr. Marketa Spiritova, who essentially reinforces the idea that everything is political to these people by explaining how, in her world view, pop culture can be used to push unhealthy brands of nationalism, racism, and other forms of bigotry.

BY TEAM - JUNE 10, 2020 - BLOG/INTERVIEW

Nationalism as a Pop Culture Phenomenon

Marketa Spiritova (PD Dr.) is a cultural scientist and European ethnologist. Her research emphases include memory culture, nationalism, oral history, popular (youth) culture, and the regions of Eastern Europe. We interviewed her about the dangers of nationalism and her work at the pop culture research conference Pop the Nation!

You research nationalism in pop culture. Can you briefly explain to us what that means?

It's about popular culture offerings such as music, comics, video games, or graffiti that contain nationalistic statements, that is to say statements that superelevate one's own nation and ascribe negative characteristics to other nations. This often happens only implicitly by basing the national self-image on very tightly controlled affiliations: as a general rule, being descended from a homogeneous "people" which define themselves through a religion, a (white) skin color, a supposed ancestral territory and a "culture" (however one defines that).

Why did you start applying your ethnological research to pop culture media?

European ethnology is an empirical cultural science that has always focused on everyday life and thus on popular cultures, on youth cultures, on the mass media. On the other hand, European ethnology is inspired by British cultural studies, which define the area of the popular as political, that is to say: pop(ular) culture products are also areas in which battles for sovereignty of interpretation and power are fought. The notion that supposedly banal everyday life and everything that goes with it is a thoroughly political place, a place where power relations and power struggles can be identified, is one that I find very exciting and worth exploring. supposedly banal everyday life and everything that goes with it is a thoroughly political place, a place where power relations and power struggles can be identified

Do you have a "favorite" topic within the pop culture offerings you mention? A specific medium or product that particularly fascinates you with regards to your research?

On the one hand music products, that is to say lyrics, videos, performances. Here, I find the situation particularly exciting in Eastern Europe - and also worrisome, unfortunately, because nationalisms have a much greater presence in the mainstream there than in Germany, for example. On the other hand - and I find this almost even more exciting - I look at the reception of the musical offerings on social media, where music is talked about, discussed, argued about. Because the recipients ascribe meanings to pop cultural offerings, often completely independently of what the authors meant.

Do you perceive a trend towards nationalism in popular media in Germany? If yes: Do certain media stand out in particular?

Yes. We had this trend in the noughties. One might think of "We Are Who We Are" by Paul van Dyk and Peter Heppner. There're currently a great number of examples in music, Xavier Naidoo, Andreas Gabalier, Kollegah...

What can recipients pay attention to in order to recognize and reflect on nationalistic tendencies in media?

Often it begins with a supposedly unimportant "but one can say that", "that's freedom of art", "that's patriotic, not nationalistic". Recognizing nationalisms right away isn't always easy because, at first, they're only expressed in insinuations and ambiguities that leave a lot of room for interpretation. The recourse to historical myths should make one sit up and take notice, e.g. those who constituted the nations in themselves in the 19th century, Germanic myths, or stories about the German rubble women. Furthermore, the superelevation of one's own nation through national symbolism, a supposed "game" with National Socialist history, and the aesthetics or the use of populist metaphors such as "The boat is full".

(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Maybe I'm looking way too much into this, but Marketa Spiritova's use of the unconventional turn of phrase "those who constituted the nations in themselves in the 19th century" ("jene, die im 19. Jahrhundert die Nationen konstituierten") is more than a little conspicuous because I've only found two particular individuals in history who've used (anything close to) that particular combination of words:

"Indem das Proletariat zunächst sich die politische Herrschaft erobern, sich zur nationalen Klasse erheben, sich selbst als Nation konstituieren muß, ist es selbst noch national, wenn auch keineswegs im Sinne der Bourgeoisie."

"Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word."

As if you haven't guessed by now, the aforementioned individuals are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in "The Communist Manifesto", which makes me kind of suspicious about where exactly Spiritova's politics lie.)

But it's mostly so-called "small words", as they were dubbed by the social anthropologist Michael Billig, that refer to nationalisms: whenever there's talk of "us", "our country", or a "we", one should take a close look and ask oneself who's actually meant by this "we". Then you discover that white, heteronormative, ethnically homogeneous homeworlds are being conjured up, historical facts twisted, and antisemitic, racist and sexist stereotypes served.

You co-organized the Pop the Nation! conference. Would you like to conclude with a brief introduction to it, perhaps recommend a particularly impressive lecture to listen to or book to read?

The conference dealt with the nation as a resource and argument in popular cultures from a European-ethnological perspective. Using music scenes, fashion labels, computer games, comics, memes and films, it revealed where and how national images of the self and of others are negotiated in pop culture, how nationalisms and racisms are produced there. And pop culture products especially do this very successfully, because they command high emotional qualities on the basis of their sensual-physical perceptibility, commercial conditionality, and often spectacular visuality. Here, I can recommend the works of Agnieszka Balcerzak and Jos Stübners on Poland's right-wing pop culture or Jelena Jazo's book on the fascist aesthetic in youth culture in Germany.

Original Article: http://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/06/10/interview-marketa-spiritova/

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200819020129/https://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/06/10/interview-marketa-spiritova/

Archive.today: http://archive.vn/90yEm

In my previous thread on this matter, I explained how a Slashdot editor was trying to link Rudy Ferretti - an established weirdo from the retrogaming community who recently murdered his ex-girlfriend before committing suicide - to our little movement about ethics in video game journalism by describing him as a "'GamerGate' proponent". This allegation is a very generous interpretation of a claim made by Kotaku contributor (and established member of the anti-GamerGate brigade) Cecilia D'Anastasio in a recent "Wired" article of hers (boldfaced emphasis mine):

The rise of the GamerGate campaign in 2014 gave Ferretti new fodder to fuel his idea that women—specifically "radical feminists," as he wrote in multiple blog posts and said in YouTube videos—were out to destroy the purity of the arcade gaming scene. Around that time, he referred to several women as "feminazis," and, in one post, explained that GamerGate existed for people like Catherine DeSpira.

• "Retro Gaming's Misogyny Is Brought to Light After a Violent Tragedy" by Cecilia D'Anastasio (August 19, 2020)

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

While I was unable to track down Ferretti's blog due to a complete lack of leads, GamerGate supporter Lyde15 had more luck in that department and linked me to his Blogspot profile:

• Rudy "retrojustice" Feretti's Blogspot Profile: http://draft.blogger.com/profile/11974878644360761775

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824203619/https://draft.blogger.com/profile/11974878644360761775

• Archive.today: http://archive.is/RTTy2

After skimming through just a few of his posts, I came to the conclusion that Ferretti was indeed a complete and utter fruitcake who oscillated between bragging about his retrogaming skills and incoherently rambling and ranting about his enemies. How off his rocker was he, exactly? Well, instead of having one single blog with dozens of entries like a normal person, he had 97(!) separate blogs with between 0 to 6 entries each.

At this point, I decided to go for broke and spent a good chunk of this afternoon going through all 97 blogs and more than 100 hundred posts to see if I could find the smoking gun that D'Anastasio mentioned. What I found was:

• three(!) blog posts mentioning GamerGate

• which were copypastes of each other

• that were made between March 30 and March 31, 2016 (18 months after the movement started)

• where GamerGate was incorrectly spelled as two words ("gamer gate")

• Blog Post #1: http://catdespirablackmale.blogspot.com/ (March 31, 2016)

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824204914/http://catdespirablackmale.blogspot.com/

• Archive.today: http://archive.is/iGBjC

• Blog Post #2: http://catdesperiadoxx.blogspot.com/ (March 30, 2016)

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824205545/http://catdesperiadoxx.blogspot.com/

• Archive.today: http://archive.is/slv07

• Blog Post #3: http://catdesprialegal.blogspot.com/ (March 30, 2016)

• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200824225049/http://catdesprialegal.blogspot.com/

• Archive.today: http://archive.vn/ud8cY

But that's not the real kicker here. Oh, no. Because, if you actually look at those blog posts, Ferretti not only doesn't claim that he was inspired by GamerGate or praise it, but he actually uses it to insult his female victim, Cat DeSpira, by accusing her of only mentioning the movement in order to boost her own profile. Ouch.

[Catherine DeSpira] claims to hate doxx and harassment and gamer gate yet posts about it because it is popular, might as well join it or has even though she lies and says she hates them due to woman harassment shows her hypocrisy to doxx a woman by ILLEGALLY contacting her job to get her fired and advertise it on her page after...

Is D'Anastasio lying? I have no idea. Given her history with GamerGate and SJW status, I'd say yes. However, all I can say with absolutely certainty right now is that I can't find any blog post made by him whose wording or content comes close to matching her statement. Maybe he has other blogs out there that I don't know about, maybe he said it on Facebook, I don't know. What I can tell you is that all this hasn't stopped other aGGros like Nick Farrell of "Fudzilla" from making the outlandish claim that Rudy Ferretti was "a key GamerGate advocate" and trying to further solidify the links by completely making stuff up.

• "Key Gamergate advocate kills ex-girlfriend" by Nick Farrell (August 24, 2020)

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

Earlier today, Slashdot posted a tweet promoting an article entitled "'GamerGate' Proponent Kills Ex-Girlfriend, Commits Suicide" which attempted to establish a link between the movement and Rudy Ferretti, a notorious figure in the retrogaming community known for his gaming skills, mentally unstable behavior, harassment of multiple individuals, and now a murder-suicide involving his ex-girlfriend.

• Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/slashdot/status/1297543207232794624

• Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200823190956/https://twitter.com/slashdot/status/1297543207232794624

• Archive.today: http://archive.vn/5u8nM

I don't know about anyone else here, but before today, I'd never even heard of this guy in the last six years until his named popped up this morning. So what's going on here? Well, what follows is the truth, near as I can figure.

If you google "Rudy Ferretti" and "GamerGate" and eliminate results that don't include both search terms together, you get a grand total of 46 results. Of those results, 37 of them (80%) refer to the current murder-suicide he was involved in. Similar results are observed if you search for "Rudy J. Ferretti" and "GamerGate". Unless he had some nickname or pseudonym that he was more popularly known by, I'm unable to find any connection between him and GamerGate...with one single exception, which I'll be getting to next.

• Google search results for "Rudy Ferretti" and "GamerGate"

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

If you eliminate all results from before August 19, 2020 - the day that articles covering the murder-suicide first appeared - you get exactly one result: a blog post from November 30, 2016, more than two years after GamerGate started.

• Google search results for "Rudy J. Ferretti" and "GamerGate" before August 18, 2020

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

The aforementioned article, "Radical Felines: When Harassment Becomes a Game" by Cat DeSpira, one of the targets of Ferretti's harassment from the retrogaming community, mentions GamerGate three times (boldface emphases mine):

Unbeknownst to me at the time, an underground sociopolitical movement against feminists in tech and gaming was underway across America, led by an illusive bunch of internet chan-trolls so far removed from the classic scene that it's a wonder the bigotry of this movement even surfaced in the classic arcade scene in the first place. The movement later came to be known as Gamergate in 2014 and it made national and world headlines, spawned TV episodes and ruined lives. Ferretti and Datagod drew excessive inspiration from it and branded me a "radical feminist" just so I'd fit the mold although I'd never written a feminist-related article in my entire life. joelwestgamer backed up Datagod like the buddy he was, lending a important sense of credibility to what would have appeared to most as a just another unimportant drama if he hadn't.

[...]

2014 is the year I'll always remember as the year I lost my identity; a year of unending harassment, defamation, social media raids, online attacks and project sabotage by Ferretti and his mob of Gamergate-copycats, many who had previously been my friends.

[...]

Having known other women who've been harassed online, and especially ones who endured the Gamergate siege of late 2014, I knew that sympathy for the victim runs thin eventually; that after a period of time your supporters -even your tried and true friends- lose faith in you and grow frustrated by constantly seeing and hearing you being defamed.

In other words, there is no link. DeSpira makes nebulous claims of Ferretti and his associates "(drawing) excessive inspiration from GamerGate" and being part of a "mob of Gamergate-copycats" while parroting the gaming press and mainstream media's false narrative and offering absolutely zero evidence of any connection between him and movement other than a single screenshot of his YouTube Channel homepage showing that GamerGate numbered among his interests.

• "Radical Felines: When Harassment Becomes a Game" by Cat DeSpira (November 30, 2016)

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

So where exactly is this "Rudy Ferretti was part of GamerGate"/"Rudy Ferretti was a GamerGate proponent" narrative coming from? Well, one look at the original Slashdot article and two very familiar names pop up.

• "'GamerGate' Proponent Kills Ex-Girlfriend, Commits Suicide" by EditorDavid (August 23, 2020)

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

The first is established aGGro Cecilia D'Anastasio, who wrote an article for "Wired" about the incident August 19, 2020. But even she doesn't link him directly to GamerGate, saying only that the movement "gave [him] new fodder to fuel his idea that women [...] were out to destroy the purity of the arcade gaming scene" while (unintentionally) reinforcing the idea that any connection he may have had was based on his warped and deluded understanding of it (which itself was based on the false mainstream media narrative).

The rise of the GamerGate campaign in 2014 gave Ferretti new fodder to fuel his idea that women—specifically "radical feminists," as he wrote in multiple blog posts and said in YouTube videos—were out to destroy the purity of the arcade gaming scene. Around that time, he referred to several women as "feminazis," and, in one post, explained that GamerGate existed for people like Catherine DeSpira.

• "Retro Gaming's Misogyny Is Brought to Light After a Violent Tragedy" by Cecilia D'Anastasio (August 19, 2020)

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

The other is notorious anti-GamerGate proponent David Futrelle of "We Hunted The Mammoth", who, oddly enough, doesn't even mention GamerGate at all in his writeup of the murder-suicide and largely regurgitates D'Anastasio article.

• "A retro gaming champion harassed women for years. Then he killed his ex-girlfriend" by David Futrelle (August 21, 2020)

• Wayback Machine

• Archive.today

So, in a nutshell, Slashdot contributor EditorDavid essentially made up the connection between Rudy Ferretti and GamerGate based on little to no evidence.

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

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20200818055309/https://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

Today's odious offering from the "Keinen Pixel den Faschisten" ("No Pixels For Fascists") blog seems to largely be a German translation of Keza MacDonald's 2018 article "The video games industry isn’t yet ready for its #MeToo moment" that making the following direct or implied claims:

• that GamerGate was a harassment campaign targeting women (no surprise there)
• that the video game enthusiast press largely ignored GamerGate for as long as possible or fond some pretense to avoid discussion of it
• that the accusations of improper conduct levied against Alex Holowka and Nolan Bushnell had merit to them

That last one really makes my blood boil. Here, read this mess for yourselves:

BY TEAM - AUGUST 4, 2020 BLOG/RECOMMENDED READING

Abuse in the Gaming Industry: More Than a "MeToo Moment"

In the last few weeks, a jolt has once again gone through the gaming industry. On social media, particularly on Twitter, reports from developers surfaced, especially from women and non-binary people, reporting on encroaching behavior and abuse in the industry. The accusations ranged from unprofessional behavior such as unwanted compliments or flirting to sexual violence.

From the discussion that spun out of this, it was Ubisoft in particular that emerged at the center of it, where, apparently, perpetrators were protected for years and decades. But to reduce the current wave of accusations to one studio or individual developers is not enough. Because none of this is new.

The current cases of disclosures took place less than a full year after the last ones. Back then, it was names like Alexis Kennedy, Jeremy Soule, or Alec Holowka that were mentioned particularly often. This time, it is names like Chris Avellone, Maxime Béland, or Ashraf Ismail. Basically, the names are interchangeable, because there is a system behind them.

The Result of a Long Tradition

Calling the current wave of accusations the "MeToo Moment" of the industry is wrong. Within the span of a year, the long awaited MeToo Moment was proclaimed multiple times in this manner, individual persons were publicly accused multiple times and, in some cases, also dismissed. But if the system behind it remains the same, then something cannot be right with this proclamation of a healing MeToo Moment. MeToo is not a snapshot of a moment in time. A moment passes, but MeToo, on the contrary, does not. MeToo, as has been shown time and time again, is a whole movement that goes far beyond the headline-grabbing tweets of 2017. The gaming industry, on the other hand, has a very obvious and, above all, structural problem with abuse. There is a system to the individual cases here.

Already in January 2018, a few months after the hashtag for the MeToo movement exploded, journalist Keza MacDonald wrote a detailed commentary about why the MeToo movement seemed to almost be rolling past the games industry at that point. She wrote: "It is not, funnily enough, because there is no workplace harassment in the video games industry. It's because women don't want to publicly relive painful things that have happened to them."

Even then, the criticism of sexist working environments in the games industry was nothing new. Quite the opposite: Attempts and activist efforts to point out systemic problems have been around for a long time. They are even older than the GamerGate campaign, which, since 2014, has often been seen as a decisive moment of escalation in the discussion about sexism, harassment, and sexual violence in the gaming industry and its communities. "Women in the games industry have been talking about sexist working culture for a very long time," explains Keza MacDonald in her 2018 article. "The #1reasonwhy movement back in 2012 is one of many, many examples of moments where women from all over the games industry have shared their experiences of discrimination, and their reasons for persisting nonetheless. Though it is encouraging that people are finally starting to listen, it is more than a little galling that they are only doing so now." For example, she continues to accuse the public of not paying enough attention to women and marginalized individuals during Gamergate in 2014. Instead, a "dispiriting proportion" of the press back then decided to either ignore the matter for as long as possible or tried to use excuses to withdraw from the affair. "Is it any wonder that women do not trust reporters with their stories now? Why does it feel like the games industry is only interested in what women have to say when it's about their trauma?"

In addition, the encroaching behavior patterns and tolerance of them have also had a direct influence on the composition of the industry. Like other technically-oriented professions, game development is also still male dominated. Not simply because women would not be interested in it, but because, in many cases, the industry cannot manage to retain them.

While the working conditions for developers are often not particularly good, for women, structural sexism and encroachment are added to it. Until such time as some of them finally simply leave the industry.

Even if the current talk about cases of abuse lies with Ubisoft in particular, it has long been clear that the problems behind it are structural. Sexism is deeply rooted in the industry. That was just as true in the 70s as it is today: The gaming industry cannot fix its abuse problem one person at a time.

Mentioned Articles, etc.

Megan Farokhmanesh: "Ubisoft's toxic culture problems allegedly span more than a decade of abuse", https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/21/21332534/ubisoft-serge-hascoet-harassment-sexism-racism-metoo

Megan Farokhmanesh: "Gaming can't fix its abuse problem one person at a time", https://www.theverge.com/21307560/gaming-abuse-harassment-systemic-ubisoft-chris-avellone

Keza MacDonald: "The video games industry isn’t yet ready for its #MeToo moment", https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/24/video-games-industry-metoo

Daniel Ziegener: "Gaming Industry Seeks Developers (m/f/d)", https://www.golem.de/news/jobs-spielebranche-sucht-entwickler-m-w-d-1912–144709.html

Dennis Kogel: "Female Video Game Developers Fight Back Against Sexism", https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/metoo-in-der-gamingbranche-spieleentwicklerinnen-wehren.1264.de.html?dram:article_id=480809

Cecilia D'Anastasio: "Sex, Pong, And Pioneers: What Atari Was Really Like, According To Women Who Were There", https://kotaku.com/sex-pong-and-pioneers-what-atari-was-really-like-ac-1822930057

Cecilia D'Anastasio: "Inside The Culture Of Sexism At Riot Games", https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483/amp

Original Article: http://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/08/04/missbrauch-in-der-gaming-branche-mehr-als-ein-metoo-moment/

Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200811063247/http://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/08/04/missbrauch-in-der-gaming-branche-mehr-als-ein-metoo-moment/

Archive.today: http://archive.is/LE75N

This weekend, I "attended" Otakuthon 2020, an anime convention in Montreal, Quebec in Canada which, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was held in virtual form this year. The events consisted of a mixture of live and prerecorded material, with one of the most insightful ones being the "CyberConnect 2 Game Industry Panel: Truth Behind Japanese Games" seminar, where Hiroshi Matsuyama, the CEO of Japanese development studio CyberConnect2 and a 20 year veteran of the industry who's been creating video games since the days of the PS1, gave an excellent overview of exactly how the anime, manga, and gaming businesses work in Japan.

Since it was unclear at the time whether or not the full video of the panel wuld be released to the general public, I spent my time screencapping the entire seminar for posterity and originally posted it as part of an extremely long thread on Twitter yesterday over the course of several hours. Now, I've decided to post the information here for Redditors to enjoy. :)

VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY (JAPAN)

• In Japan, the number of new video game titles released per year has dropped from its peak of 983 in 2007 to 411 in 2019. This is due to a combination of the expansion of the mobile market and the shrinking of the console market.
• Many Japanese have turned towards mobile gaming because many of them having less time to devote to more time-consuming console games.
• Hardcore gamers in Japan purchase an average of 8.8 new video games per year while casual gamers buy less than half that amount (3.6 new video games).
• "Pokémon Sword and Shield" sold a staggering 3 million physical copies in Japan last year. "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" placed second at 1.09 million, a figure which is made all the more impressive considering when you consider that the game was actually released the year before (December 2018).
• 9 of the 10 top-selling video games in Japan in 2019 were Nintendo Switch games. I'm guessing that makes a lot of Nintendo's investors happy. :)
• There is a tremendous numerical disparity in the Top 50 best-selling video games in Japan. While the 1st place game sold 3 million copies, the 10th place game sold less than one sixth of that (500000 copies), and the 50th place one only 86000.
• A rule of thumb is that you have to sell more than 100000 copies of a video game in Japan to be in the black. Anything lower than that and you're probably in the red.
• An even more sobering statistic is that only 20% of video games manage to do the above and 80% of them actually end up losing money. :(
• What sells well internationally doesn't necessary sell well in Japan and tastes differ greatly. The "NBA 2K" series doesn't sell much over there, for example.
• Given that you only have a 20% chance of turning a profit, Matsuyama-san stresses the importance of doing your best to create the next mega-hit and knowing what makes your audience/customers happy. As a reult of this, Japanese investors tend to not like people who're oblivious to current trends and don't have their fingers on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist.
• The first step to making a good video game is to do your research, which means spending a lot of time watching anime, reading manga, playing video games, and experiencing new things. Turns out veteran creators are also nerds, geeks, and otaku. Shocking, I know. ;)
• The Japanese video game market was valued at $15.5 billion U.S. in 2018, with about 75% of that going to PC and mobile online gaming and $400 million U.S. to console software and hardware.
• Even though the Japanese video game market doubled in size between 2009 and 2018, the PC and mobile segment increased in size by a factor of 6 during those 9 years while the console segment actually shrank by about a third.
• Of the 110 million PS4s sold worldwide, only 8.3 million of those were in Japan.
• CyberConnect2 managed to sell around 6 million copies of "Naruto Ultmate Ninja Storm 4" worldwide over four and a half years, though only 150000 of those sales were in Japan, so the foreign market can most definitely influence profits in Japan.

ANIME INDUSTRY

• During any given week, there're about 100 different anime series airing, of which around 45 are cour-length and the other 55 are continuing, with a cour being "a three-month unit of television broadcasting, corresponding to one of the four seasons".
• Matsuyama-san humorously pointed out that, for anyone wondering why children are up watching anime between 11:00 P.M. and 3:00 A.M. at night, that's because Japan actually makes shows for a wide variety of ages, so adults are watching those shows.;)
• To crunch the numbers from earlier, if about 45 new anime series are released per cour and there are 4 cours per year, that works out to roughly 200 new anime series being released every year.
• Now for a pretty harsh dose of reality: The chances of you making a successful anime are actually halved compared to video games. For the between 1 and 4 breakout hits of the season (10%), you have 40 shows (90%!) that're in the red and losing money. :O
• So, with these dismal figures, how the heck do Japanese animation studios manage to stay afloat? One word: merchandising. The sales from all those figures, posters, and other knickknacks apparently add up quickly and help you push you back into the black.

MANGA INDUSTRY

• While it seems pretty obvious, Matsuyama-san points out that, as opposed to video game developers who're paid regular wages by their employers, mangaka are freelancers/self-employed and don't earn a cent unless their works are published in a magazine.
• When it comes to how much mangaka actually earn, the average manuscript fees/royalties received amount to around $9.27 US to $27.81 US per page on the low end, with higher end publishers paying between $46.35 US and $92.70 US per page.
• Even if you're a machine who churns out 19 pages a week at maximum pay and earn around $1700 US, you don't make a comfortable living from it because a large chunk of that cash goes to paying for your assistants and studio.
• It's not just the mangaka who're hard up. Manga magazine publishers are also in the red because they don't have advertising revenue as a crutch since their publications have relatively few ads as opposed to beauty/fashion magazines (which have a ton).
• So how does anyone make money in the manga industry? The answer: tankoubon (collected volumes of published stories, the Japanese equivalent of graphic novels). Their sales are the metric by which a particular series is judged and it is those numbers that determine whether or not a given series lives or dies. If the compilations don't sell enough, publishers end up pulling the plug on the whole thing.
• About 1000 unique tankoubon are published a month, very few of which make it all the way to to Western shores.

Remember back in April when the German branch of EA openly endorsed the efforts of German SJWs and a far left think tank partially funded by the German government and headed by a former Stasi informant to inflict cancel culture on the gaming community and all other online communities? Well, it's still going on and I'll be translating a second wave of articles from the "No Pixels For Fascists" SJW hivemind, starting with one about review bombing. The observant should note the projection and complete lack of awareness in the last paragraph.

BY TEAM - JUNE 3, 2020 - BLOG/RECOMMENDED READING

What Is Review Bombing?

In this post we present three sources from our network that shed light on the tactics of review bombing.

"DOOM Eternal" review statistics after review bombing. Source: Eurogamer.

When groups get together online with the express goal of damaging specific movies or video games and their developers with the help of a mass number of bad reviews, this is called review bombing. The groups organize themselves in forums and through services like Discord and discuss their next goals and their attacks there. However, as a general rule, the reason for these actions is not attributable to understandable circumstances, such as video games becoming unplayable due to crashes or invasive copy protection (even if this definitely also occurs, as in the "DOOM Eternal" event) since the negative reviews there would be more individual in nature and not require any arrangements to be made. Most often in review bombing, a small group of persons who want to maintain the status quo declares themselves the "voice of the people", purportedly in the name of democracy. This happens particularly often in order to devalue game makers with an alleged leftist political agenda.

The criticism that such review bombings contain rarely has to do with the game itself, but instead regularly refers to accusations of so-called "political correctness", a catchphrase of the political right under which any depictions of social conditions fall that deviate from the desired, very conservative image of the group. Often, the desire for historical correctness is expressed, but, in the process, it quickly becomes apparent that this argument is particularly supported by misogynistic and racist ideologies. Other historical "incorrectnesses" are not only unimportant to review bombers, but they outright reject a scientific view of history, as can be seen with not only the described example of "Total War: Rome II" but also with "Battlefield V". History is not a static value, but a continuous process of refinement. Of course, one's own feeling of authenticity when it comes to a depiction is also strongly influenced by consumed media, and, once internalized, it becomes difficult to change one's own understanding of history - but it is exactly that capacity which would be vital in extricating oneself from a view of the past that has now become obsolete.

Needless to say, it would be within everyone's discretion to simply not buy a game that they do not like, which some people also certainly do. However, this is not enough for review bombers because they want to suppress any depiction that deviates from their opinion. They want to do the greatest possible damage to the developers with their mass number of bad reviews; there is no interest in a clarifying discourse. In her article "It's Not About Facts: Why You Cannot and Should Not Enlighten Reactionary Nerds", Aurelia Brandenburg explains how best to deal with such hateful comments disguised as criticism.

Mentioned Articles

Brandenburg, Aurelia. "It's Not About Facts: Why You Cannot and Should Not Enlighten Reactionary Nerds". 2018. Geekgefluester.de. (https://geekgefluester.de/es-geht-nicht-um-fakten-warum-man-reaktionaere-nerds-nicht-aufklaeren-kann-und-soll-rome-2-review-bombing)

Hennig, Björn. "Right Wing Agendas Under the Cloak of Historical Correctness". 2018. videospielhistoriker.wordpress.net. https://videospielhistoriker.wordpress.com/2018/09/27/rechte-agenda-unter-dem-mantel-historischer-korrektheit-mein-beitrag-zur-debatte-um-weibliche-generaele-in-total-war-rome-ii/

Wagner, Pascal. "Games at the Polls". 2020. Languageatplay.de. (https://languageatplay.de/2020/01/27/spiele-an-der-wahlurne-demokratie-in-videospielen-und-der-industrie/

• Original Article: http://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/06/03/review-bombing/
• Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20200813054337/https://keinenpixeldenfaschisten.de/2020/06/03/review-bombing/
• Archive.today: http://archive.is/nLVoG

I realize that it's been a while since I've made any official announcements, updates, or proposals concerning GamerGate-related stuff, so I intend to rectify that as of right now. :)

Operation Canadian BaCon II Non-Update

Thanks to the combined effors of the mods of KotakuInAction and KotakuInAction2, various GamerGate supporters, and u/AcidOverlord helping to rally the remnants of 8chan, several interventions (complaints) were filed with the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, part of the Canadian government) concerning the biased coverage of GamerGate by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's national broadcaster). I'm not sure how many people ended up participating since I devoted most of my time and energy to finishing my own submission - which I ended up having to take a day or two off from work to complete and ended up clocking in at over 100 pages(!) - but the 8chan contingent managed to get at least 40 to 50 people to participate and I know that some longtime GamerGaters like u/Calbeck also tossed their hat into the ring.

All I can report at the moment is that my intervention was successfully submitted and accepted. It's currently available on the CRTC's website and can be freely accessed by anyone who knows where to look for it. (I must admit that I find the fact that the leaked Crash Override Network chat logs are publicly available on a Canadian government website to be very amusing.) In addition, I volunteered to not only speak before the commission evaluating the CBC's behavior if asked, but also to potentially participate in a citizen's committee that would provide recommendations to the Canadian government on how to combat fake news and misinformation/disinformation campaigns in the digital age and following the rise of social media. Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the timetable for all of the aforementioned events has been completely disrupted and I've yet to receive any information or updates about rescheduling. The moment I hear anything, I'll be sure to let the GamerGate community know.

However, while we wait for news, I have two proposals for two (extremely loose) OPs to keep us busy in the interim, neither one of which should be disruptive enough to run afoul of Reddit's rules concerning brigading:

Operation Amaterasu

During its early days, #GamerGate had several Japanese-speaking supporters, including Poo Okakura (a.k.a. Roninworks) (who remains active to this day), u/RyanOfTheStars, and, of course, good old Mombot. Unfortunately, due to his work-related schedule, RyanOfTheStars is only able to participate if and when time allows it, and, as everyone here already knows, Mombot retired after being banned from Twitter due to the combined efforts of Renfamous, Sony, and Rage Against The Machine nearly a year ago. And this is a less-than-ideal situation considering that recent shenanigans (including Sony's ever-increasing censorship of the sexual content in Japanese PlayStation 4 video games, Funimation's questionable anime script rewrites, SJWs having openly expressed their intention to censor "problematic" material coming out of Japan directly at its source, and the recent banning of certain manga and light novels from Amazon) have made it more important than ever for us to establish contacts with Japanese otaku so they can fight back against this incursion on their home turf, especially since SJWs will definitely take advantage of Japan's "honor culture" to extract apologies from creators, then turn around and use this as an excuse to make more demands of them in the future (with the incident involving Swery seemingly being the "trial run" for such tactics).

And that's where Operation Amaterasu comes in.

As an unintentional (but welcome) side effect of using machine translation programs to communicate with some Japanese Twitter users concerning SJWs back in March and April (and befriending several of them in the process), an alternative news/information distribution has started to emerge (similar to what happened with GamerGate back in the day) over the past few months where we've discussed events, both past and present, involving attempts to censor and inject political correctness into anime, manga, and Japanese video games. Awareness of Funimation's antics, Anita Sarkeesian, GamerGate and even concepts like Sargon's Law are slowly stating to seep into Japanese social media thanks to the combined efforts of these individuals, among others:

• Kotsuyose
• Rayforce (whose translations have been quoted in some Hero Hei and Clownfish TV videos)
• Seriema (who frequently writes articles on the Japanese user-generated content site Togetter and has likewise been referenced by YouTubers)
• Kotonoha
• Romly
• Kai's Otaku Culture Lab

Though none of us are big names on social media, we've nevertheless managed to attract the attention of an emerging otaku collective - the All Japan Otaku Federation Founding Movement Committee - as well as a member of AFEE, an organization dedicated to standing up for freedom of expression in Japanese entertainment media. Right now, we're working together with ComicsGate supporter Nerd Wonder to create a small comic to raise public awareness. I know that many people here hate social media (especially Twitter) like the plague, but Japanese Twitter has been extremely welcoming and chill, so we're hoping you might consider joining us there to network with Japanese otaku, share stories, and pass on knowledge we gained the hard way during GamerGate to prepare them for what's ahead. Anyone who wishes to help us teach them of our strange ways is welcome to participate and we hope to see you there. :)

On an amusing side note, the Japanese are coming up with their own (disparaging) names for SJWs (though "SJW" appears to be gaining traction as well). The most popular one seems to be Porikore (ポリコレ), an abbreviated version of "poritikaru korekutonesu" (ポリティカル・コレクトネス, i.e. political correctness), though some have even taken to referring them as the Porikore Yakuza (ポリコレヤクザ) (The Political Correctness Yakuza). Also, radical Twitter feminists are enough of a pain in the ass in the Land of the Rising Sun that they've earned a nickname of their own: Twifemi or Tsuifemi (ツイフェミ), which is short for "Tsuittaa Feminisuto" ("Twitter Feminist").

Operation Short March

This is something that may be of interest to the (would-be) video game developers and creative types in both our ranks as well as in anti-SJW communities. Yes, its name is an intentional reference to the phrase "the long march through the institutions" and the idea behind this OP is to take the strategy that's been used by communists and SJWs to infiltrate academia, (online) communities, and businesses and turn it against them, in this case by starting our own counterinvasion of the gaming industry, with an upcoming event serving as a possible starting point.

MIGS (Montreal International Game Summit) is a large annual conference of video game professionals that started in 2004 and was combined with MEGA (Montreal Expo Gaming Arcade) two years ago to create a large public gathering where members of the gaming community and gaming industry could meet up and interact with one another. Usually, there're some pretty big names in attendance. Last year, for example, I briefly met and exchanged business cards with "Okami" background designer and "Bayonetta" concept artist Ikumi Nakamura (though I admittedly also came within spitting distance of Leigh Alexander).

This time around, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they're holding a virtual version of the event in two parts, the first of which the one being held from September 25-26, 2020 should be particularly noteworthy for everyone here:

In September, a platform for exchange for recruitment (junior, intermediate/senior and international) as well as a showcase for academic training will be in the spotlight.

In other words, this might be a good opportunity to network and/or form business contacts with video game industry professionals to get your foot in the door and get a career started. On the downside, they're charging a "virtual admission fee" and haven't provided details on how exactly this is supposed to work yet. On the upside, there's currently a Super Early Bird Special going on until August 1, 2020 where you pay $16 CAN (around $12.00 US) for general admission to both this event as well as a more business-oriented one in November, so it's not going to break the bank. More information (such as it is) can be found here:

http://megamigs.com/en/about/#sectionAbout

http://megamigs.com/en/tickets/