Actually, I haven't seen screencaps of the Cracked chat, wasn't it dumped on pastebin as raw text?
No. It was originally posted on /v/ before it made the rounds. And while I can't confirm its authenticity, I do believe it was posted by the mod of /d/ and that what he said about m00t cleaning house and turning 4chan into an echo chamber is true. That's why it's a part of a preponderance of evidence.
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What I can't understand is anyone buying that fake as shit chat log, specifically, because it's just silly as hell. Try saying it out loud: Cracked tried to blackmail 4chan by threatening to hire feminist hackers to bring down the site and writing articles to expose it as bad, because no one knows it's bad. 4chan had a stellar reputation across the globe until a dick joke site wrote an article about it and moot completely lost his shit. Please say that out loud, or have one of those text to voice programs read it.
To tell you the truth Mxy, with Cracked being a magnet for all the narcissistic hipster retards that are housed within it, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that they actually believed that would work. I hold them in the same esteem that I do MSNBC or CNN, both of which thought they could destroy the NRA on the mere premise that the organization promotes selling firearms even though they've been openly doing that for decades.
Like ED said, the veracity of the Cracked claim could be reasoned either way. In which case, what bugs me about the whole 'intuitively fake' kneejerk is that it suggests a version or permutation of the chat that isn't obviously fake--the concept of which leaves you to prove, abstractly, the intuitive legitimacy of the theoretical chat that you would find more convincing.
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You said no one would be stupid enough to say the chat is fake: I clearly said "it's fake", and as a bonus provided quotes of Gamergate supporters and other 4chan-related types saying it's fake. I'm not proving the chat wrong as part of a culture war, I'm proving your specific post wrong because it's funny. Pretty simple. Don't try to read other arguments into that.
I didn't say anyone was stupid to claim the chat was fake. I was pointing out that they (and you) were making a rush to judgement. I paralleled its relevance with all of the incriminating GG convos captured on imgur or archive.today and pointed out that while the captured BBS/Twitter/Reddit chats could be just as subject to editing as the skype chat, it's far less likely (to the extent that it would be stupid to claim they were edited). One source of anecdote is more verifiable than the other, but because both still occupy the same contextual realm of evidential ambiguity, it would be more prudent not to discount either.
Do I think Cracked would have any socially effectual influence over 4chan? No. Do I think the ilk at Cracked has an ideological oar to stick into the discussion through their articles as well as the level of self-absorption required to believe said articles would change anything (especially if they're in tandem with Gawker, Polygon, Kotaku, etc.)? Yes (case in point: Cracked hosting Zoe Quinn's "5 Things I learned as the Most Hated Person on the Internet" screed). What's more, do I believe that m00t is so embedded in the SJW sub-culture that he'd feel intimidated by its vastly-networked community of blackballing thugs (to say nothing of his girlfriend)? Yes.
I'm still trying to figure out how Mr. Flynt managed to leapfrog Zoe Quinn in notoriety on this issue. But I suppose it had more to do with CNN than with Flynty himself.
I just want to point out that you're at such a high level of GamerGaterism that you believe conspiracies even most GamerGaters (the truthers of electronic amusements) find silly. That's impressive and I salute you.
Also:
Originally Posted By: Pariah
no one's been stupid enough to make the claim that it's fake (yet).
Originally Posted By: Pariah
I didn't say anyone was stupid to claim the chat was fake.
The DIGRARPA SJWs have gotten to rob and he's editing your old posts to make you look foolish. RUN! BEFORE THEY GET YOU!
I didn't say anyone was stupid to claim the chat was fake. I was pointing out that they (and you) were making a rush to judgement. I paralleled its relevance with all of the incriminating GG convos captured on imgur or archive.today and pointed out that while the captured BBS/Twitter/Reddit chats could be just as subject to editing as the skype chat, it's far less likely (to the extent that it would be stupid to claim they were edited). One source of anecdote is more verifiable than the other, but because both still occupy the same contextual realm of evidential ambiguity, it would be more prudent not to discount either.
Read back and you will see that I specifically mentioned Imgur, and not the chatlog.
I think your miscalculation here came from trying to use ED and faceless screen names to somehow give Cracked the benefit of the doubt. You probably should have just stuck with "you can't prove that chatlog's real!"
Straight up now, tell me Mxy, do you personally believe that there was no collaborative effort to socially engineer gaming demographics using multiple news outlets to broadcast the same fucking message? Frankly, I'm more interested in knowing your position on that than I am with launching an inquisition on Cracked, which is already known to be simpatico with the Sarkeesian ilk anyway.
Straight up now, tell me Mxy, do you personally believe that there was no collaborative effort to socially engineer gaming demographics using multiple news outlets to broadcast the same fucking message? Frankly, I'm more interested in knowing your position on that than I am with launching an inquisition on Cracked, which is already known to be simpatico with the Sarkeesian ilk anyway.
No, I don't think there's an organized effort, I think there's lazy "journalism" and there's reading too much into it. At Cracked we do a series about bullshit stories that go viral (most of which could have been debunked by 2 minutes on Google) and I've edited some of those articles. Before working on that, I never realized how much Gawker and sites like that copy from each other; a site will grab a story from Reddit or whatever, another will slightly reword it, another will reword that one, and so on. By the end of the week you'll have 10 sites doing the same story, none of which went through the trouble of double-checking the sources. And that's how you end up seeing your aunt sharing a fake article about bigfoot on Facebook.
The same thing happens with opinion pieces. One site writes about an issue and another "reports" it by pasting some quotes and adding five paragraphs of "on the one hand..." and rhetorical questions (1000-word articles pay more than 500-word articles). It's barely journalism. That's very clearly what happened with the "gamers are dead" articles I've seen cited as the entire impetus for Gamergate, despite the fact that they came out after the movement started. Again, if people wanna start an anti-"SJW" movement I think that's perfectly fine, but just fucking say "we don't like the influence of progressives in our culture" or whatever. Don't try to make a conspiracy out of it. That's a fantastic way to ensure only nutjobs take the movement seriously. Especially when you're planning sockpuppet campaigns in public chatrooms and silly shit like that.
As for the nerd sites mailing list, I hope I'm not fueling more conspiracies by revealing there's a private Facebook group for dick joke site writers, too. We talk about how to file our taxes, laugh at idiots attacking Cracked, etc. It's mainly for Cracked writers but lots of them write for other sites too so, you know, collusion!
As for the nerd sites mailing list, I hope I'm not fueling more conspiracies by revealing there's a private Facebook group for dick joke site writers, too. We talk about how to file our taxes, laugh at idiots attacking Cracked, etc. It's mainly for Cracked writers but lots of them write for other sites too so, you know, collusion!
I love how Heather Kelley markets her intentions as benevolent by first identifying the potentially dangerous and nefarious implications of gaming affecting the larger sociocultural habits of the people before saying that they need to get to it first....you know, to make sure no one else abuses it.
Of course, only the messages that meet their approval will be allowed to make it into the larger gaming community. Since, you know, they know what's best and most socially enlightened.
No, I don't think there's an organized effort, I think there's lazy "journalism" and there's reading too much into it. At Cracked we do a series about bullshit stories that go viral (most of which could have been debunked by 2 minutes on Google) and I've edited some of those articles. Before working on that, I never realized how much Gawker and sites like that copy from each other; a site will grab a story from Reddit or whatever, another will slightly reword it, another will reword that one, and so on. By the end of the week you'll have 10 sites doing the same story, none of which went through the trouble of double-checking the sources. And that's how you end up seeing your aunt sharing a fake article about bigfoot on Facebook.
The same thing happens with opinion pieces. One site writes about an issue and another "reports" it by pasting some quotes and adding five paragraphs of "on the one hand..." and rhetorical questions (1000-word articles pay more than 500-word articles). It's barely journalism. That's very clearly what happened with the "gamers are dead" articles I've seen cited as the entire impetus for Gamergate, despite the fact that they came out after the movement started. Again, if people wanna start an anti-"SJW" movement I think that's perfectly fine, but just fucking say "we don't like the influence of progressives in our culture" or whatever. Don't try to make a conspiracy out of it. That's a fantastic way to ensure only nutjobs take the movement seriously. Especially when you're planning sockpuppet campaigns in public chatrooms and silly shit like that.
Nine articles surface on the same day (with two or three more in the days following Aug 28) after the outrage over the Quinnspiracy, and that's just lazy journalism?
If what you're talking about was a developing trend over a period of weeks or months, you'd have a point. But a fraternity of like-minded hipsters posting the same fucking headline on the same fucking day is hardly "lazy". It's a coordinated attack.
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As for the nerd sites mailing list, I hope I'm not fueling more conspiracies by revealing there's a private Facebook group for dick joke site writers, too. We talk about how to file our taxes, laugh at idiots attacking Cracked, etc. It's mainly for Cracked writers but lots of them write for other sites too so, you know, collusion!
That's nice. Do you guys talk to the authors, actors, directors, publishers, etc. associated with the media content of which you guys write columns about? 'Cuz, you know, the people in the Pro mailing list did. Why on earth should developers be on a professional mailing list with this journalist community when the job of the latter is to critique the produce and the business practices of the former?
Or, perhaps, maybe you guys talk amongst yourselves about other peers that have made your shit list and decide as a group whether or not you should blackball them the same way the journo community did to Allistair Pinsoff.
Nine articles surface on the same day (with two or three more in the days following Aug 28) after the outrage over the Quinnspiracy, and that's just lazy journalism?
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. How many dumb thinkpieces about Baltimore are there on Gawker, Slate and sites like that right now? Saying pretty much the same thing? These sites love outrage, and the proto-Gamergaters at 4chan gave them exactly that when they started going after Quinn, trying to drive her to suicide and generally being awful about the whole thing. They wanted a scandal and they got one, just not about what they thought.
And if you actually look at those articles, there was actually one at Ars Technica, I think one other that referred to it but added substantial stuff, and the rest were just quoting and aping the first two, like these people do with everything.
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That's nice. Do you guys talk to the authors, actors, directors, publishers, etc. associated with the media content of which you guys write columns about? 'Cuz, you know, the people in the Pro mailing list did. Why on earth should developers be on a professional mailing list with this journalist community when the job of the latter is to critique the produce and the business practices of the former?
It would be very different if you were talking about real journalists and big companies with actual clout, but you're talking about bloggers who write pretentious toy reviews and indie developers who make their own games. They both come out of gaming fandom, so I'm not surprised that they're friends and shoot the shit. The equivalent in Cracked's case would not be Joss Whedon or Spielberg, but a guy who wrote a Harry Potter fan theory or a My Little Pony erotic novella. In that case, yeah, we do talk to those guys, because many of our writers are also write for TV Tropes, fan wikis and stuff like that.
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Or, perhaps, maybe you guys talk amongst yourselves about other peers that have made your shit list and decide as a group whether or not you should blackball them the same way the journo community did to Allistair Pinsoff.
If writers plagiarize, if sites don't pay, if someone acts like a total butt, yeah, we warn each other about those people. Believe it or not it happens in every part of entertainment.
