The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Congratulations, ‘Dishonest Fascists’ — #GamerGate Destroys Max Read

Posted on | July 21, 2015 | 78 Comments

“Never underestimate your enemy,” is a maxim of military strategy. Before you decide to go to war on the Internet, first consider the fate of Max Read, who was riding high as editor of Gawker until he decided that insulting #GamerGate was a smart move. He chose poorly.

Custer at Little Bighorn, the French at Dien Bien Phu — military history offers many parallels to Max Read’s fateful miscalculation, but perhaps the best would be Gen. John Sedgwick. On May 9, 1864, Sedgwick was directing the placement of Union artillery near Spotsylvania, Virginia. Annoyed that his men were ducking to avoid fire from Confederate sharpshooters a thousand yards away, he said: “Why are you dodging like this? They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” A moment later, Sedgwick was killed by a bullet from one of the Confederates whose marksmanship he had disparaged. Hubris, meet nemesis.

The resignation Monday of Max Read as editor-in-chief of Gawker, along with his executive editor Tommy Craggs, will not likely be interpreted by major media as a vindication of #GamerGate, because most of the media share the same shallow prejudice that led Read to declare his disdain for #GamerGate as “a small, contemptible crusade . . . of dedicated anti-feminist internet trolls.” Well, he who laughs last, et cetera:

Tommy Craggs, the executive editor of Gawker Media, and Max Read, the editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, are resigning from the company. In letters sent today, Craggs and Read informed staff members that the managing partnership’s vote to remove a controversial post about the CFO of Condé Nast — a unprecedented act endorsed by zero editorial employees — represented an indefensible breach of the notoriously strong firewall between Gawker’s business interests and the independence of its editorial staff. Under those conditions, Craggs and Read wrote, they could not possibly guarantee Gawker’s editorial integrity.

So, in departing from the Web site he helped destroy — because Gawker’s foolish war against #GamerGate has cost them more than a million dollars in ad revenue — Max Read inflicts still more damage, by declaring that there is no longer any “editorial integrity” at Gawker. Because “editorial integrity,” apparently, means smearing private citizens at the behest of extortionists. Or, to quote the Headline of the Year:

Gawker Staff Smears Feces On Itself, Boards a
Schoolbus Loaded With Gasoline and Napalm, Then
Intentionally Drives That Schoolbus Into a Cargo Train
Transporting Toxic Waste and Retarded Clowns

The weird thing about this is that Max Read and other Gawker staffers seem to have no clue what led to their fateful error:

What Craggs and Read fail to accept is that this is not an editorial board with a scoop of monumental importance who are being shut down by some squeamish money managers because the story rubs certain powerful interests the wrong way.  They are defending a gutter trash post that would never have been written, much less put up, if the site had any integrity of any kind, editorial or otherwise, and if they actually did care about the writing staff and their fellow editors as they claim, they wouldn’t want to put the future of the entire company at risk by leaving it up there to be Exhibit B in Hogan’s lawsuit.

Yes, Gawker is being sued by pro wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and if they had a lick of sense (which they obviously don’t) they would not have published a shabby story that made them look recklessly irresponsible.

“Exhibit B,” indeed.

“This most recent scandal . . . is not an anomaly. It’s exactly what you get when you mix bad leadership, bad incentives, and selfish, self-loathing people. . . .
“It is essentially a twelve-year spree of destruction, pain and waste. . . .
“No wonder Gawker crosses the line. They have no idea where it is.”
— Ryan Holiday, New York Observer

It is not as if Gawker publisher Nick Denton had no prior notice that Max Read is a hubristic fool. Consider how Read reacted when they lost a major advertiser in October 2014:

On October 1, the computing giant Intel pulled its ads from Gamasutra, a trade website for game developers, over an essay called “‘Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over” by a journalist named Leigh Alexander. . . .
Intel surrendered to the worst kind of dishonesty, and we allowed it to do so without ever calling it out. So let’s say it now: Intel is run by craven idiots. It employs pusillanimous morons. It lacks integrity. It folded to misogynists and bigots who objected to a woman who had done nothing more than write a piece claiming a place in the world of video games. And even when confronted with its own thoughtlessness and irresponsibility, it could not properly right its wrongs.

Really, Max? Did you not stop to think of the psychological projection involved in accusing Intel of “thoughtlessness and irresponsibility”?

It was you, Max, who supported Sam Biddle when he celebrated the “bullying” of gamers and declared “nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission.” Yeah, Max, I’m sure you and your buddies at Gawker laughed it up at that little joke, while you were congratulating yourselves on your “editorial integrity.” And as for those “misogynists and bigots” you contemptuously dismissed?

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

You see how #GamerGate became nemesis for Gawker. This was assymetrical warfare. Whereas liberals are used to attacking people whose instinct is to flinch and apologize when accused of ThoughtCrime — sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. — gamers are like Homey D. Clown: Homey don’t play that, see? They take pride in their disdain for political correctness because, in the world where they work and play, nobody gives a damn about anything but the fun of winning:

In its arrogance, the media thinks its usual tactics of smear and shame will work on gamers as it has on so many other people, but gamers are a completely different breed. They’re technologically adept, incredibly persistent, and professionally trained trash talkers. They have little to lose and consider this a fight for their home.
In a battle of insults and patience, gamers will win every time.

When a friend, Beth Haper, first alerted me to the cultural significance of #GamerGate, I was skeptical. Really? A bunch of gamers were going to expose the bias and corruption of the media? This seemed improbable, but the fact that #GamerGate was arrayed against feminists drew my interest because, of course, I was working on a book (Sex Trouble, $11.69 in paperback, $1.99 on Kindle) about radical feminism’s War on Human Nature. Let us stipulate that #GamerGate is not “political” in the usual Left/Right Democrat/Republican way that Americans typically think about politics. Nevertheless, as fate would have it, the exposure of the Zoe Quinn/Nathan Grayson connection made gamers aware how unscrupulous women could exploit feminist politics and how unprincipled journalists were willing to assist this tawdry little racket. (See “The #GamerGate vs. Gawker War.”)

In war, your allies are whoever is fighting your enemies, and the motives of your allies matter far less than their skill in battle. Say what you will about #GamerGate, they are skilled and determined fighters.

Operation Disrespectful Nod is making believers of anyone who ever made the mistake of underestimating them. Just ask Max Read.

General Sedgwick could not be reached for comment.





 

Category: Media Bias

Comments

78 Responses to “Congratulations, ‘Dishonest Fascists’ — #GamerGate Destroys Max Read”

  1. Andrew_M_Swallow
    July 21st, 2015 @ 2:46 pm

    It is not that #GamerGate went against feminists but feminists went against gamers and game developers. They are choosing to continue this fight. Their big mistake was attacking a foe who is impervious to their strongest weapon, seduction, #WeAreNotYourBoyfriend

  2. Finrod Felagund
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:05 pm

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  3. Quartermaster
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:09 pm

    Max Read is just one more contemptible leftist who should be immured for life in some pest hole to save the rest of the world from his contemptible presence.

  4. Adjoran
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:35 pm

    IIRC, it all started when a “feminist” game designer was outed for trading sexual favors for hyped reviews on “game journalism” sites. She reacted to the exposure of her whorish behavior, naturally, by accusing her accusers of misogyny. Sound familiar?

    The SJWs flowed into the controversy like locusts, but the gamers – who really only cared about the games and getting honest reviews on them – refused to lie down and surrender like college boys. They fought and, from everything I can see, won on all fronts.

  5. robertstacymccain
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:41 pm

    Are you familiar with economics? Because what feminists are doing is a variation on rent-seeking: Using political influence to artificially create a demand for their services. If a woman has got a degree in communications with a minor in gender studies, there is not really any market demand for her particular skills (i.e., denouncing everything as misogyny and male supremacy) and so she needs a hustle — some way to create a demand for her services. Well, attack a major industry for misogyny and male supremacy, and then get them to hire you as a consultant to deal with the problem that you have identified. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton learned to shake down major corporations this way by accusing them of racism, and we see how Anita Sarkeesian and others are doing a variation of the same hustle.

  6. BlackBetty1970
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:44 pm

    It wasn’t actually “reviews”. It was favorable coverage, which is a distinction without a difference considering her “game” sucks balls. The rest you have correct.

  7. BlackBetty1970
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:48 pm

    There are two problems with this hustle. 1) It’s a pyramid scheme. And 2) with these crazy radical feminists, it’s a lot like The Highlander: There can only be one.

  8. Instapundit » Blog Archive » #GAMERGATE GETS THE LAST LAUGH AT GAWKER: “In war, your allies are whoever is fighting your enemie…
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:50 pm

    […] #GAMERGATE GETS THE LAST LAUGH AT GAWKER: “In war, your allies are whoever is fighting your enemies, and the motives of your allies matter far less than their skill in battle. Say what you will about #GamerGate, they are skilled and determined fighters,” Stacy McCain writes: […]

  9. robertstacymccain
    July 21st, 2015 @ 3:59 pm

    “… a ‘feminist’ game designer was outed for trading sexual favors for hyped reviews on ‘game journalism’ sites.”

    You describe the Zoe Quinn/Nathan Grayson situation that I mention (and link) in the post.

    Let’s be clear: There is no proof of a quid pro quo — finding conclusive proof in such situations is almost always a snipe hunt — but there is clear evidence that Grayson provided fawning coverage of Quinn’s work and failed to disclose the nature of their relationship until Quinn’s (arguably obsessive) ex-boyfriend exposed it.

    Because Grayson was employed by a Gawker site, this problem — the “ethics in journalism” aspect of #GamerGate — was quite specifically a Gawker problem. Therefore, for Gawker to be slamming #GamerGate in the manner that Max Read did is disingenuous at best, and corrupt at worst.

    This, in turn, brought up the related issues of (a) feminist criticism of the male-dominated video-game industry and (b) media’s general favoritism toward feminist claims. In this, as in so many other things, media has its “thumb on the scales” of public perception, acting as signal-boosters for feminist claims and serving as a Palace Guard that protects feminism from critical scrutiny. At a time when male college students are being stripped of their due-process rights because of a phony “rape epidemic” ginned up by feminists — and with Hillary Clinton seeking to leverage her feminist bona fides in the crucial 2016 campaign — what #GamerGate has exposed is highly relevant to everyone, including those of us who haven’t played videogames since we were dropping quarters into a Pac-Man machine at a campus pub in 1982.

  10. Phil_McG
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:06 pm

    Basically, yes.

    It had been simmering for a while before that though…

    The games press used to be made up of people who play and love games. Fanboys, if you like. They were mostly very young, nerdy men with the sort of irreverent humour that young nerdy men tend to have.

    Back in the 90’s, games journos weren’t interested in critiquing games for ‘misogyny’ or ‘diversity’. They were too busy having a blast playing Doom, or Duke Nukem 3D, or cracking jokes about seeing Chun Li’s pixellated panties when she does a spinning attack.

    And all was right in the world of games.

    But things started to change in the noughties. Gradually, rainbow-haired she-twinks and doughy pyjama-boy cucks started worming their way into the gaming press. I’m not sure why – maybe it was due to the mass expansion of higher education in the 90’s, and some of these otherwise unemployable English or Journalism majors started taking jobs at gaming publications.

    Strange themes started to appear in the games media. “Why aren’t enough girls playing games?” “Why are most game heroes white men?” “Where’s the diversity?”

    You know, the usual bullshit SJW question-begging.

    People who actually like games as games mainly just ignored it. So the SJW’s became emboldened. Before very long, they were shamelessly using their perches in the press as soapboxes from which to denounce their ideological enemies. Increasingly, the games press was dismissive or outright antagonistic towards their own readers.

    Like any business that treats its customers with disdain, it was bound to end in tears… for the business.

    So when Zoe Quinn’s unpleasant antics became public knowledge, and the gaming press acted in concert to censor and attack their readers for discussing it, it was like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. After years of rising tensions, it was on.

  11. robertstacymccain
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:07 pm

    “… considering her ‘game’ sucks balls.”

    As does she, of course, which is the only reason anyone ever heard of her.

  12. Matt_SE
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:24 pm

    I’m not sure I’ve yet risen to the level of “dishonest fascist,” but one can hope for the future.

  13. NeoTechni
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:29 pm

    “As does she, of course, which is the only reason anyone ever heard of her.”

    I expected that line due to rule of funny, but coming from a mod makes it even funnier

  14. hurin
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:30 pm

    If it had just been that, people would have quickly lost interest. But as 4chan started digging, they discovered how she had falsely accused Wizardchan of harassing her, and was trying to sabotage The Fine Young Capitalists game jam, while she was taking donations for her own competing game jam that went into her private bank account.

    YouTuber Mundane Matt made a video about it that she took down using a DMCA, this in return made TotalBiscuit criticize her because he really hates those sort of shenanigans. That cause a huge discussion on Reddit that got censored, and that is when things really started going to hell.

  15. Rob Crawford
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:31 pm

    I think the biggest military blunder was the Greek who decided to make his stand against a Roman army at Thermopylae — when Romans had been using the accounts of the Spartans’ stand there, and the path leading around it, as part of their education for centuries.

  16. BlackBetty1970
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:36 pm

    All of this is true.

    Or maybe this was all “harassment”, seeing as you can no longer expose the corrupt conduct of women. Maybe I should go on a raging psychopathic bender. And if anyone attempts to call me out on it, I’ll just label them a “misogynist” or “terrorist” or “rape apologist” or some other term of endearment. And then I’ll go to congress and sob like a prom queen in a tacky dress and bad shoes.

    Or maybe I’ll just save my dignity and invest in self-responsibility and integrity.

  17. HughdePayens
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:47 pm

    heh….Used to work in the gaming industry and yup going up against them was pretty fucking stupid. Flamewars are part and parcel of the fun…

  18. HughdePayens
    July 21st, 2015 @ 4:50 pm

    We used to fucking have awesome flamewars about whether 3dfx or Nvidia was a better video card to play Falcon 4. Months long usenet wars about whether a missile modeled in XX flight sim was correct or not…some pajama boy wandering in on that shit would be smashed just to watch him bleed.

  19. Matt_SE
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:08 pm

    Didn’t 4chan get fragged soon after that? Some phony pretext was found involving an alleged suicide from bullying, and the SJWs got the suits to betray them?
    I’m sketchy on the details.

  20. Wombat_socho
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:13 pm

    The phalanx sucked against the legion anyway, as the Swiss would later discover when attempting to crush Spanish tercios with their pikes.

  21. Wombat_socho
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:15 pm

    I know I posted this in the previous #GamerGate thread, but it fits even better here.

  22. Wombat_socho
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:17 pm

    Not much fun being a mod (or the boss of this here site) if you can’t point and laugh at people who deserve it.

  23. Wombat_socho
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:18 pm

    I think I’m in love.

  24. BlackBetty1970
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:33 pm

    I missed you too Wombat!

  25. PapayaSF
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:38 pm

    I seem to recall that part of the “Gamers are dead” brouhaha was due to fact that the idea suddenly appeared in multiple pieces across multiple publications, as if there had been secret “Journolist”-style coordination behind the scenes.

  26. Phil_McG
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:38 pm

    Moot was already in with the SJW crowd, including an ill-fated romantic entanglement with some girl from Gawker.

    4chan never made any serious money despite its popularity – brand names don’t want to be associated with a website infamous for porn, race trolling, and related shenanigans.

    So Moot tried raising money to create a website called canv.as – sort of a boring, advertiser-friendly version of 4chan.

    It failed.

    Moot went to work for one of his investors – Lerner Ventures. Kenneth Lerer, Moot’s boss, is a gun-grabbing, Obama-fellating leftist and co-founder of HuffPo.

    All the mods at 4chan who were in it for the lulz were purged and replaced with SJW progbots, which is why 4chan is now about as relevant as MySpace, and the cool kids are at 8chan instead.

  27. klgmac
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:48 pm

    Hey Max. I have two words for you.

  28. Jake_Was_Here
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:54 pm

    Yes. Something like fifteen different websites over about 36 hours, all publishing essentially the same thing. And it turns out some of the writers in question DID belong to a sort of JournoList for gaming writers — Breitbart was one of the first websites to expose them.

    What we’re looking at here can’t really be classified as a conspiracy — it’s too loose-knit and too stupid for that. This is a bunch of San-Fran-style hipster leftists who have spent the last ten years building their own version of the good-old-boys network: everybody knows everybody else, everybody’s willing to pitch in help for someone who needs it, everybody’s in ideological agreement about everything.

  29. The original Mr. X
    July 21st, 2015 @ 5:57 pm

    Taking a stand at Thermopylae was fine. Failing to cover the exact same side-pass the Persians had used, when the story of the Three Hundred was known to everyone, not so much.

  30. PapayaSF
    July 21st, 2015 @ 6:04 pm

    Yes, “conspiracy” is too strong a word, but I’m sure we agree that coordination/groupthink of that sort should raise eyebrows, regardless of the subject. Certainly if such coordination had been done for the benefit of a conservative or libertarian point of view, the left would be howling from the rooftops about it.

  31. S H
    July 21st, 2015 @ 6:09 pm

    “They take pride in their disdain for political correctness because, in the world where they work and play, nobody gives a damn about anything but the fun of winning”

    Well; that and we are already outsiders who don’t win popularity contests. So; social pressure just doesn’t work the same… if anything it just causes more pushback.

  32. somercet
    July 21st, 2015 @ 6:21 pm

    Stacy, isn’t this really just confirmation that you *can’t* out the relative of a prominent Democrat?

  33. Mr Ree
    July 21st, 2015 @ 6:31 pm

    Well, this is satisfying.

  34. Benschachar
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:03 pm

    Hey, wombat, you still frequent the RHJunior forums?
    Am I thinking of someone else?

  35. Terenc Blakely
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:03 pm

    Pikes were by far the best infantry weapon back then…. if the terrain was nice and flat. Any rough terrain would disrupt the pike formation allowing enemy infantry to get past the wall of pike heads and then it was all over.

    The key was to deploy your pikes in suitable terrain and let other, more fluid, infantry cover rough terrain. Or be really, really fussy where you had your battles and that was rarely possible.

  36. Matt_SE
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:08 pm

    I hear 8chan is twice as good.

  37. 20thCenturyVole
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:16 pm

    I still haven’t heard the lamentations of their women.

  38. ? Cyborgwolf ?
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:18 pm

    Also, advertisers are dropping like flies.

  39. RS
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:23 pm

    This may seem only marginally on-topic, but bear with me. The whole #Gamergate business became inevitable the moment the SWJs infiltrated the gaming press. Suddenly, the core purpose of the writing ceased to be about games as games, but became about games as . . . social politics. We are seeing the same thing at places like ESPN where those of us who are interested in sports have to deal with increasing numbers of stories telling us how “important” some social topic is which bears only marginal relevance to who’s going to win the SEC East. (Mizzou, BTW)

    It is what I call “content envy.” Neither video games nor baseball nor any of a host of other topics which interest people are going to cure cancer or bring about world peace. The people who write about them know that and further know that no one is going to confuse them with Mike Royko or Hunter Thompson. And so, in order to bolster their own self-esteem, they try to turn their journalistic beat into something important. Thus, we have articles about too many boobs in video games.

    The same thing happened in college English departments 30 years ago, when all the composition teachers decided to start incorporating “victim narratives” into their courses. They rationalize it by saying they’re bringing “truth” to the masses, but in reality, they’re just trying to make themselves and their beat more important than they really are.

  40. Andrew_M_Swallow
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:26 pm

    Rent seeking by feminists applies to hardware manufactures like Intel and the game developers. Their reputation is damaged in the eyes of the government, employees, investors and customers. The customers are game players, that is hobbyists, and have show that they are not worried what anyone calls them.

    Investors will follow the news for a few months but if the feminists are disgraced IMHO will follow profits.

    Anita Sarkeesian’s obvious jealously of anything in a skirt and the suspicion that Intel can only meet her diversity target by firing 1/3 of its white male staff will make her very unpopular with employees. Leigh Alexander’s poor marketing advice to Tale of Tales about the game Sunset (the company went bankrupt) will make her unpopular with the employees of other games developers.

    That leaves the government. I suspect that companies will have to make large contributions to Republican candidates to get the Social Justice Warriors (SJW) kicked out. There may be a few Democrats who do not like communists.

  41. Finrod Felagund
    July 21st, 2015 @ 7:38 pm

    Speaking of Pac-Man, I met the man who played the world’s first perfect game of Pac-Man, Billy Mitchell, last month.

  42. Southern Air Pirate
    July 21st, 2015 @ 8:08 pm

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0722-bustillos-gawker-gossip-good-20150721-story.html

    The LAT in their own short bus style doubles down on this stupid by hosting an op-ed by someone who used to be a gawker writer and editor. Of which the LAT in their own helmeted window licking style doesn’t mention.

    Gawker and most of its other sites remind me of the clique like girls that used to follow the popular girls in Middle School and high school. You know the ones that were like the hunchback Igor in the Gothic horror films to the monsters. The ones that were going out to find all the parts for the monsters. Those cliquish girls would go out and find the gossip for the popular girls to talk about, or make it up for the popular girls to use. All in the hope to become popular themselves, only to find out years later they were the BUFF’s for the popular girls.

  43. mole
    July 21st, 2015 @ 8:40 pm

    Whats happened is Gawker misjudged where on the “victim totem pole” Mr Weiner was.

    They attacked a gay man, most likely with a (D) next to his politics.

    In victim poker a gay man is obviously ranked higher than gawker.
    Now if hed been a gay man with a (R) next to his political affiliation, they would have been fine.

  44. Art Deco
    July 21st, 2015 @ 8:59 pm

    Mr. Weiner was brought down by his own Twitter account (and what we know of him suggests he’s an old lecher, not a homosexual).

    There isn’t much indication this fellow Geithner is homosexual at all – just the contentions of a grifter who trades in conspirazoid nonsense, delivered through the conduit of a thoroughly unscrupulous gossip outlet.

  45. Joe Guelph
    July 21st, 2015 @ 9:07 pm

    Have you seen the documentary KING OF KONG? Mitchell is portrayed quite prominently in it, along with the inimitable Roy “Mr. Awesome” Shildt, whose egomaniacal, blustering buffoonery makes even *pro-wrestlers* seem like shrinking violets in comparison.

  46. Wombat_socho
    July 21st, 2015 @ 10:36 pm

    I think you’re thinking of someone else.

  47. Ajt
    July 21st, 2015 @ 11:46 pm

    An absolutely great article. Thank you!

    You misunderstand one point about gamers. Their dismissal of all the loaded words that the liberal press threw at them. It’s not “Homey Don’t Play That”. It’s after literally three generations of being subjected to every possible perjorative claim, from both left and right, over and over in a non stop cacophony for 30+ years that the words become meaningless to gamers. Sexist. Racist. Misongynist. Nerd. Dork. Neckbeards. Basement dweller. Etc etc. it goes on and on. But gamers reached the point where the words have no power. They were just that, words. They flow around you like farts on a summer breeze. The words can do the gamers no harm. At least no further harm beyond what 30+ years of them has done. But the gamers are not young kids anymore. There are three full generations of lifelong gamers running about now. The words no longer have power, but money does. The gamers know who the Alpha Consumers are. The most desirable and profitable marketing demographic is in a word… Them. They are the spigot from whence the money flows. This is a very big lever once they realized it was theirs to use. And so Gamers flexed their muscles, focused their razor keen attention and set out to change things.

    Kotaku has been a particularly offensive thorn in the political rights side for a dozen years now. The Right has tried everything to discredit, dismiss or in other ways undermine them for the entirety of that time. Never any success. If anything they just made Kotaku worse and stronger. Today Kotaku is burning. Ethical change has been forced on them. They are starring complete collapse in the face while their editorial and business staff devour each other. The Gamers brought them to this in under a year.

    Never bet against the real nerds!

  48. John Cobalt
    July 22nd, 2015 @ 12:19 am

    That describes the historic aspect in the most excellent way. I commend you for that. The only thing I would add would be the obvious increase on these issues in the games press in the last few years(maybe better part of a decade).

  49. Zakn
    July 22nd, 2015 @ 1:05 am

    Get Rekt Nerds. GG No Re

  50. Frank McConnell
    July 22nd, 2015 @ 1:16 am

    And tha’s really it, isn’t it? When the same people that have been attacking us since high school attack us again, it really isn’t that traumatic anymore.