Gamergate is an unfortunate distraction

I'm going to keep this relatively short.

Gamergate is an unfortunate distraction in the face of the real and enduring social, political, and cultural issues that we face. In part I'm talking about the ongoing civil rights crisis we have in America, currently represented by events in Ferguson: the killing of Mike Brown, and the likely non-indictment of Darren Wilson. More than that though, we have an election here in America tomorrow. It's not next month, or next week...it's tomorrow. Have you read up on the candidates and ballot measures that will be on your ballot tomorrow? Have you taken any kind of political action recently in relation to the plethora of issues Gamergate invokes* that are actually just the shadows of a much bigger culture war.

If you've been following Gamergate, my bet is that at the very least your activity on those issues and around this election has been diminished. I know mine has. Personally, in a regular election season, I would have done at least some minimal research a couple of weeks ago. Instead, I'm going to be scrambling later tonight to find out just what the heck is up with that ballot measure I'll be voting on tomorrow, and who the lesser candidates on my ballot are and what they represent.

I haven't had the mental bandwidth for it until now because my Twitter feed and feed reader have been so full to overflowing with Gamergate content that it's actually been difficult to remember that there are real political issues to attend to. Gamergate is full of drama and events that feel impactful, but in the bigger picture, I don't really think they are. I believe that for the vast majority of people, getting caught up in the discourse surrounding Gamergate is actually something that requires a position of significant privilege. I believe that no matter what side of Gamergate you're on, taking the time to read and spill vitriolic words does nothing to help us move forward on resolving the very real conflicts in our society that it is just one instance of. I also believe that if the GOP political machine wanted to, it couldn't fabricate a better distraction for young tech oriented folks than Gamergate. I'm not a consiparacy theorist, so I don't believe they did, but I'm willing to bet they couldn't have done this well if they tried.

At the end of the day, I believe that if we want the issues Gamergate ignites to receive the attention they deserve, we need to stop putting our time and energy into Gamergate. We especially need to stop reading and expressing hateful and toxic sentiments (even, and maybe especially ironically), because it just drags us down and draws our attention away from the real issues at hand. So by all means, #StopGamergate2014, but first stop to think about what it's going to take to stop the bigger cultural forces that are driving it.

I know this blog post isn't going to change anything, but I had to write it. The only other thing I have left to say is please, do your research tonight and vote tomorrow.

*Just to be clear, I'm not talking about ethics in games journalism. I'm talking about the actual issues of abuse, gender politics, and data privacy (just to name the most salient ones) that have spilled out over the last months.