Strafe and Blitz, Do Not Linger – The G4 Rant
“Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.”
“But I don’t think of you.” – The Fountainhead
Yes, when I looked at my social media feeds this morning, I too saw Machine Gun Kelly giving a sermon about sexism in gaming without the slightest hint of irony on the channel that used to regularly air something called International Sexy Ladies. I also saw meth lab Miley Cyrus shrieking that Olivia Munn and Morgan Webb were not hired to appeal to the male gaze on the channel that used to use Olivia Munn and Morgan Webb to appeal to the male gaze every chance they got. I saw the two soy-suffused land whales and the dour, dejected middle aged man clap along and hoot like trained seals as their gender and the hobby that they claim to love was attacked. Look, no one can be surprised that the G4 relaunch would go down like this in the current cultural climate. I was not a regular viewer of the channel during its original run, and I generally tended to avoid X-Play like the plague, but it wasn’t difficult to get a read on Adam Sessler’s politics. If you ever had any doubt, it should have been completely removed when he was firmly on team Sarkeesian during the internet dustup that the Skeptic™ community would stoke into the whirlwind of performative victimhood that was GamerGate. There really was only one way this was going to go.
I see the usual suspects pumping out YouTube videos and articles ridiculing dime store Ruby Rose and her stale 2014 talking points, and that’s fine. I see them mocking Sessler and the soy-based land whales, and that too is fine. They definitely deserve it. However, it is important to not dwell on these people too much. When gamers mocked Anita Sarkeesian, she deserved it. When the Skeptic™ community turned Sarkeesian into cannon fodder for the better part of almost two years before they were torn apart by the U.S. elections, said Skeptics™ – some of whom were as much gamers as Sarkeesian herself was – made her claims of harassment look legitimate and effectively turned her into a victim in the eyes of the mainstream. Ridicule and mockery are sometimes warranted, it is true. The other side uses ridicule quite effectively, so seeking to weaponize it against them is a legitimate tactic. However, it is imperative that you must know when to say enough is enough and move on to mocking the next culture vulture. Constant and sustained attention is what they seek. They want your validation. Deny it to them.