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View Full Version : #MeToo Brings Down NeoGAF



IMPress Polly
10-28-2017, 09:29 AM
I'd start out with a description of how sexual objectification commonly exists in gaming spaces, but that just seems silly and pointless. When the prevailing gender relations in gaming spaces revolve around things like "waifu" wars on web forums and organized ritual beauty contests in online gaming communities and professional female video gamers are valued more for their outward appearance than for their gaming skill (https://www.polygon.com/2016/11/24/13742288/twitch-women-sexism), I should think it more than a little obvious that the sexual objectification of women's bodies is a defining element of the video gaming community writ large and understood that a culture of sexual harassment and even stalking results. Sexual harassment and stalking of women is so common in the gaming community that, particularly in the wake of the Gamergate movement emerging three years ago, many female players of online games either pretend to be male or decide not to play online at all in order to avoid it (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/oct/24/hey-dude-do-this-the-last-resort-for-female-gamers-escaping-online-abuse). (I myself fall into the latter category.)

In the original Metroid game, players were presented with a muscular, bounty-hunting protagonist named Samus Aran who wore a full-body armored suit throughout the adventure, to which end players were expected to, and did in fact, just assume that Samus was a man. After the final battle though, Samus removed the armored suit to reveal that you'd been playing as a woman the whole time. That was considered shocking back in 1987. I think that's a good metaphor for the experience of being a female gamer online today: You let everyone just assume that you are male until you have already proven your gaming credentials extensively, and even then have to be sexy for it to be accepted. Without too much arrogance or exaggeration, I think we could perhaps, in this sense, compare the nature of being a female video gamer today to that of being gay or lesbian or transgender in general in that a great many are closeted to one degree or another because our very existence is still considered somewhat freakish. Freakish enough for two brands of video game players to exist: gamers and "girl gamers". The former are male and are seen by both males and females in our society as skilled players. The latter are female and are seen by both males and females in our society as sex workers (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/03/women-make-living-gaming-twitch). The resultant stigma and treatment from both boys and girls, men and women, "closets" many female video game players to this or that degree. Significant numbers of the people you play games with online or see on gaming-themed message boards who's profiles say they are male are probably women in reality and there may eventually be a kind of mass "coming out" moment decades down the road wherein people will suddenly discover as much; that many of the people dominating the leaderboards are female.

So with that in mind, let's talk about recent developments around the heavily-populated video game message board NeoGAF. (The GAF, for those who don't know, is shorthand for Gaming Age Forums.)

For its 11 years of existence, NeoGAF has been considered a rare, relatively safe space for female video gamers, gamers of color, and other sections of the gaming population that haven't traditionally received as much of the industry's, or community's, attention or respect to congregate and talk about both video games and just life, alongside progressive-minded allies. With thousands of members, it's certainly the largest such space that exists online, and indeed one of the largest gaming message boards in general. (It may even be THE largest overall.) For that very reason, it has also attracted the attention of many video game developers both large and small who find themselves seeking out ways to diversify the representation and themes in their games in order to appeal to more video game players. Some recent major games like Overwatch and Watch_Dogs 2 contain many elements that were consequential of people at Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft respectively dialoguing with the "SJWs" that form the NeoGAF community. That is what it has been traditionally. The NeoGAF that has emerged over the last ten days though bears no resemblance to that tradition. There's a reason why.

On Wednesday, October 18th (i.e. ten days ago), as part of the ongoing #MeToo movement that has seen millions of women open up about our experiences being sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped on the (it very much appears correct) view that there is strength in numbers, film director Ima Leupp revealed that NeoGAF's owner, Tyler "Evilore" Malka, had sexually assaulted her in the shower two years ago. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first such allegation that has been leveled against Mr. Malka either. It was, however, the last straw for a community fed up with a certain contradiction in the owner's attitude toward women, which I think Kotaku's first article on the subject (https://kotaku.com/neogaf-goes-dark-after-sexual-misconduct-allegation-aga-1819755151) explained pretty well:


Leupp’s post added to growing dissent among the NeoGAF community about an apparent disconnect between Malka’s progressive internet presence and his statements and behavior around issues of sexual misconduct. The forum’s politics are colored by Malka’s support of progressive topics such as the Paris Agreement (https://twitter.com/NeoGAF/status/870506309052899330) and gay marriage (https://twitter.com/NeoGAF/status/614875032687226880). He has donated (https://tweetsave.com/neogaf) thousands to organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union. Malka is also vocally anti-GamerGate and has expressed support (https://twitter.com/NeoGAF/status/509172902189867008) for its female victims.

In contrast to those professed views, Kotaku has spoken with long-time members who say they were recently banned for making what they saw as progressive arguments. One said they were banned for arguing that now-deceased Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner is not a feminist icon, while another said they were moderated for supporting the #BelieveWomen movement, which promotes trusting women who say they have been harassed. The bans provoked dissent among the community about whether those seemingly unilateral decisions are warranted or okay.

In one thread, a NeoGAF poster uploaded screencaps of another woman’s #MeToo (http://assets.neogafllc.netdna-cdn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1443872) post, involving allegations about a film journalist. Malka asked, “No evidence at all? No corroborating testimony? No behavioral red flags?,” adding, “So far this is nothing like other recent industry scandals.” Later, after receiving pushback from posters who found his initial comment callous, Malka described posters’ immediate support of the #MeToo post as “witch hunts,” adding that it will take time for the allegations’ veracity to be proven. Several vocal (https://twitter.com/Inferno313/status/916385436431503360) critics (https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/77w9i0/neogaf_mod_accused_of_sexual_assault_four_mods/) of Malka’s approach say they were banned. One of Malka’s posts responding to a ban read, “Fuck off, dipshit. That enough toxic masculinity for you? I was moderating my platform, not going to bat for Dr. Neckbeard.”

That's stuff you wouldn't even necessarily get banned or moderated for here on PF! And these are the progressive gaming forums! Just to put matters in perspective. So anyway, that's the backdrop against which this recent charge by filmmaker Ima Leupp emerged. As soon as it became public knowledge on that NeoGAF community last Friday (October 20th) morning, forum users revolted. Suicide threads -- threads in which the user either requests to be banned or trolls the owner or moderators in such a blatant way that they can expect to be banned as a result -- flooded the place, popping up faster than moderators could delete them, in response to which most of the mod team quit between that morning and the following evening, at which point NeoGAF was taken offline. When it resurfaced two days later, the whole Off-Topic section had been removed and a formal statement by Malka had been issued indicating that while Off-Topic would eventually return, political topics would henceforth be forever off-limits in order that the "inevitable toxicity" of discussing politics might be conveniently avoided. :rollseyes: Yeah, limiting discussions strictly to video games was, contextually, an obvious attempt at avoiding an unwanted discussion about Mr. Malka's personal life and everyone saw right through it, to which end the previous revolt resumed immediately, but this time with users employed amusing allusions and references to typical video gamer (and occasionally other pop culture) dialogue to mock the owner's censorship (https://kotaku.com/neogaf-reopens-users-revolt-1819790736). Typical thread titles included:


"Best games to play while sexually assaulting a girl in the shower?"

"Bi characters in video games who were asking for it"

"What's ur favorite super marios? Also I'm bi"

"Hello GAF, looking for games where characters are sexually harassed"

"What is the worst objectification of women games have made ?"

"Which Pokemon do you guys think is the most sexually attractive?"

"What are your top 5 favorite Evilore moments?"

"Can we say plants from NeoGAF are dumb?"


You get the idea. It was loads of fun. :grin: Of course, after enough bans, the situation did get back under control in the course of this last week, but a significant majority of the female users and male feminist allies were gone by then and opportunists associated with Gamergate and the alt-right movement had seized upon the chaos to infiltrate and largely replace the board's previous membership. So what remains of NeoGAF is now basically a community of Nazis defending a man who stands accused of multiple counts of sexual assault's unsubtle censorship of dissenting, feminist voices. In other words, it is not a recognizable place anymore. Practically all of the former NeoGAF community relocated this week to a new board called ResetEra (https://kotaku.com/thousands-of-neogaf-users-flock-to-new-website-1819871316) in a move that probably wouldn't have been necessary had Malka simply been removed (http://mashable.com/2017/10/24/neogaf-tyler-malka-statement/#UOGx0KSwlgq7) like Harvey Weinstein was removed from his company after three rape allegations and dozens of sexual harassment claims against him surfaced, or like the countless other offending parties we've seen disclosed by #MeToo since the Weinstein revelations began who have been removed from their positions. It is remarkable to me that the video game community is the exception that lets such a motherfucker stay on board and at the helm. That in itself is symptomatic of the particularly deep-going level of cultural misogyny that exists around video games.

So that's my commentary on this development.

Brett Nortje
10-29-2017, 01:06 AM
I'd start out with a description of how sexual objectification commonly exists in gaming spaces, but that just seems silly and pointless. When the prevailing gender relations in gaming spaces revolve around things like "waifu" wars on web forums and organized ritual beauty contests in online gaming communities and professional female video gamers are valued more for their outward appearance than for their gaming skill (https://www.polygon.com/2016/11/24/13742288/twitch-women-sexism), I should think it more than a little obvious that the sexual objectification of women's bodies is a defining element of the video gaming community writ large and understood that a culture of sexual harassment and even stalking results. Sexual harassment and stalking of women is so common in the gaming community that, particularly in the wake of the Gamergate movement emerging three years ago, many female players of online games either pretend to be male or decide not to play online at all in order to avoid it (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/oct/24/hey-dude-do-this-the-last-resort-for-female-gamers-escaping-online-abuse). (I myself fall into the latter category.)

In the original Metroid game, players were presented with a muscular, bounty-hunting protagonist named Samus Aran who wore a full-body armored suit throughout the adventure, to which end players were expected to, and did in fact, just assume that Samus was a man. After the final battle though, Samus removed the armored suit to reveal that you'd been playing as a woman the whole time. That was considered shocking back in 1987. I think that's a good metaphor for the experience of being a female gamer online today: You let everyone just assume that you are male until you have already proven your gaming credentials extensively, and even then have to be sexy for it to be accepted. Without too much arrogance or exaggeration, I think we could perhaps, in this sense, compare the nature of being a female video gamer today to that of being gay or lesbian or transgender in general in that a great many are closeted to one degree or another because our very existence is still considered somewhat freakish. Freakish enough for two brands of video game players to exist: gamers and "girl gamers". The former are male and are seen by both males and females in our society as skilled players. The latter are female and are seen by both males and females in our society as sex workers (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/03/women-make-living-gaming-twitch). The resultant stigma and treatment from both boys and girls, men and women, "closets" many female video game players to this or that degree. Significant numbers of the people you play games with online or see on gaming-themed message boards who's profiles say they are male are probably women in reality and there may eventually be a kind of mass "coming out" moment decades down the road wherein people will suddenly discover as much; that many of the people dominating the leaderboards are female.

So with that in mind, let's talk about recent developments around the heavily-populated video game message board NeoGAF. (The GAF, for those who don't know, is shorthand for Gaming Age Forums.)

For its 11 years of existence, NeoGAF has been considered a rare, relatively safe space for female video gamers, gamers of color, and other sections of the gaming population that haven't traditionally received as much of the industry's, or community's, attention or respect to congregate and talk about both video games and just life, alongside progressive-minded allies. With thousands of members, it's certainly the largest such space that exists online, and indeed one of the largest gaming message boards in general. (It may even be THE largest overall.) For that very reason, it has also attracted the attention of many video game developers both large and small who find themselves seeking out ways to diversify the representation and themes in their games in order to appeal to more video game players. Some recent major games like Overwatch and Watch_Dogs 2 contain many elements that were consequential of people at Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft respectively dialoguing with the "SJWs" that form the NeoGAF community. That is what it has been traditionally. The NeoGAF that has emerged over the last ten days though bears no resemblance to that tradition. There's a reason why.

On Wednesday, October 18th (i.e. ten days ago), as part of the ongoing #MeToo movement that has seen millions of women open up about our experiences being sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped on the (it very much appears correct) view that there is strength in numbers, film director Ima Leupp revealed that NeoGAF's owner, Tyler "Evilore" Malka, had sexually assaulted her in the shower two years ago. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first such allegation that has been leveled against Mr. Malka either. It was, however, the last straw for a community fed up with a certain contradiction in the owner's attitude toward women, which I think Kotaku's first article on the subject (https://kotaku.com/neogaf-goes-dark-after-sexual-misconduct-allegation-aga-1819755151) explained pretty well:



That's stuff you wouldn't even necessarily get banned or moderated for here on PF! And these are the progressive gaming forums! Just to put matters in perspective. So anyway, that's the backdrop against which this recent charge by filmmaker Ima Leupp emerged. As soon as it became public knowledge on that NeoGAF community last Friday (October 20th) morning, forum users revolted. Suicide threads -- threads in which the user either requests to be banned or trolls the owner or moderators in such a blatant way that they can expect to be banned as a result -- flooded the place, popping up faster than moderators could delete them, in response to which most of the mod team quit between that morning and the following evening, at which point NeoGAF was taken offline. When it resurfaced two days later, the whole Off-Topic section had been removed and a formal statement by Malka had been issued indicating that while Off-Topic would eventually return, political topics would henceforth be forever off-limits in order that the "inevitable toxicity" of discussing politics might be conveniently avoided. :rollseyes: Yeah, limiting discussions strictly to video games was, contextually, an obvious attempt at avoiding an unwanted discussion about Mr. Malka's personal life and everyone saw right through it, to which end the previous revolt resumed immediately, but this time with users employed amusing allusions and references to typical video gamer (and occasionally other pop culture) dialogue to mock the owner's censorship (https://kotaku.com/neogaf-reopens-users-revolt-1819790736). Typical thread titles included:


"Best games to play while sexually assaulting a girl in the shower?"

"Bi characters in video games who were asking for it"

"What's ur favorite super marios? Also I'm bi"

"Hello GAF, looking for games where characters are sexually harassed"

"What is the worst objectification of women games have made ?"

"Which Pokemon do you guys think is the most sexually attractive?"

"What are your top 5 favorite Evilore moments?"

"Can we say plants from NeoGAF are dumb?"


You get the idea. It was loads of fun. :grin: Of course, after enough bans, the situation did get back under control in the course of this last week, but a significant majority of the female users and male feminist allies were gone by then and opportunists associated with Gamergate and the alt-right movement had seized upon the chaos to infiltrate and largely replace the board's previous membership. So what remains of NeoGAF is now basically a community of Nazis defending a man who stands accused of multiple counts of sexual assault's unsubtle censorship of dissenting, feminist voices. In other words, it is not a recognizable place anymore. Practically all of the former NeoGAF community relocated this week to a new board called ResetEra (https://kotaku.com/thousands-of-neogaf-users-flock-to-new-website-1819871316) in a move that probably wouldn't have been necessary had Malka simply been removed (http://mashable.com/2017/10/24/neogaf-tyler-malka-statement/#UOGx0KSwlgq7) like Harvey Weinstein was removed from his company after three rape allegations and dozens of sexual harassment claims against him surfaced, or like the countless other offending parties we've seen disclosed by #MeToo since the Weinstein revelations began who have been removed from their positions. It is remarkable to me that the video game community is the exception that lets such a $#@! stay on board and at the helm. That in itself is symptomatic of the particularly deep-going level of cultural misogyny that exists around video games.

So that's my commentary on this development.

I find all the women are beautiful and the men are grotesque monsters? :evil:

Devil'sAdvocate
10-29-2017, 05:55 AM
And nothing of value was lost

IMPress Polly
10-29-2017, 07:58 AM
Brett Nortje wrote:
I find all the women are beautiful and the men are grotesque monsters? :evil:

I find you are exaggerating what I actually said. Though it is true. :wink:

(Kidding, kidding! Don't lynch me.)


Devil's Advocate wrote:
And nothing of value was lost

For once I have to agree with you. I just find it remarkable that the whole community had to move instead of just the one offending individual.