patrickklepek

Not entirely related, but you mentioned awhile ago about doing a piece on "swatting," if I remember correctly. Is that something you're still going to do?

No one should have to deal with death threats/having their personal information posted online, but having armed police swarm your home seems way more dangerous/scary, IMO. The Internet is an awful shitty place for guys too.

(not trying to downplay what people have had to deal with, but I still think it's an issue that needs to be discussed more)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this Patrick.

I just wanted to say hi to all the Giant Bomb staff, and it would make my week if you acknowledged my existence.

I think Boogie298's recent video nails it because I largely fall in line with what he says. I don't label myself as a "feminist" simply because yes while women are often attacked more often and with greater fervor this is a HUMAN thing. I'm a humanist. I feel like regardless of gender,sexual orientation, race ect if you're human then you deserve to be treated with the same amount of respect as the next person. Online harassment against people in general just needs to stop. And it goes beyond Gamer Gate and the video game world its a human condition.

Real talk; if you think Leigh Alexander's "Gamers are dead" piece was meant to say literally that all gamers are bad people, or that all white male gamers are bad people, or that games focused on that slice of the market shouldn't exist anymore, you're either misreading the article (in good faith), or purposely misreading the article to drum up more hate.

Alexander's piece was about the widened scope of contemporary gamer culture. "Gamers are dead" is not meant to say that the people who've helped gestate this medium have no place in its future, it's saying that we, as a community of people who love games, have finally helped to usher this hobby truly into the mainstream. "Gamer" as a designation at this point is almost meaningless because from a certain age downward almost everyone knows something about games, and has played and enjoyed them. If you truly read that article with an open mind and read it as "hostile" to its audience, I would suggest that you shouldn't take internet thinkpieces about video games so seriously.

I also think it's really interesting that this piece has become a GamerGate canard, because it has literally nothing to do with ethics, at all. Even if the article was openly hostile and couldn't be read in any other way, how does that present an ethical quandary that GG feels needs addressing? Being mean to someone in an editorial isn't an ethical issue. The reality is that the "Gamers are dead" article is a loose, poorly considered pretense to harass another female voice in the industry.

You and Jeff can't be that naive in order to realize that speaking out does actually help and that for the most part that a lot of these people only get away with their shitty behavior is because they actually think that the majority of people won't speak out.

Many thanks to all the staff (especially doing moderation work) and specifically Jeff for writing down his thoughts and desires for the GB community and gaming.

So, I am one of those who "joined" Gamergate because I think some of the practices going on in video game journalism is wrong. Not going to go into what, because it is minor things that I don't feel that strongly about, but I felt the "movement" might actually change some of it. But I admit, I it heated when the "Gamers are dead" happened, when everything was censored and hushed down. I had a small discussion on Twitter about Patreon with Alex and Patrick, made some posts on this lovely forum. None of it really seems important at all after seeing how all of this has gone down.

With that said, I want to personally say sorry I'm sorry. The way this has gone is deplorable and fucking disgusting. To the staff, mods and members of Giant Bomb, I am sorry.

I hope things will go back to just having fun with dumb video games again.

Extra shout out to Rorie and the mod-team. You guys are heroes. And to Alex and Patrick. You guys rock.

So the big question kinda is: How will this end? Or rather: How can this end?

As far as I'm aware there are no "GamerGate demands", so it's not like they can be like "Yeah, we achieved it! Good job everybody!". Claiming you want "more ethics" is kinda meaningless if you don't specify a bit. Should GiantBomb just post a "Hey, we don't get money for reviews and Patrick doesn't write about feminism cause somebody forces him to" blog and then everybody is happy?

When Wu says she "calls on" you guys to make a statement, do you find that it comes off as more of a plea, or a demand? I don't really know how to read it, and I'd be interested to see how you guys interpret it, being the ones "called" into action.