Feminism has been historically an extremely important social movement that has achieved a great deal of social progress in terms of equality and justice. Of course every social movement has its fringe radicals, but those usually get largely ignored.
The internet era, however, gives these fringe sub-movements a loudspeaker to spread their messages, which in some cases may cause what would have been a forgotten ideology to become almost mainstream. A form of feminism I'll call "new feminism" (for the lack of a better term) is a modern variant of feminism that basically borders on conspiracy theories, seeing "sexism" and "patriarchy" everywhere, and making mountains out of molehills, treating minor issues as if they were great injustices that will destroy our society as we know it. (I suppose that since feminism has in large part achieved its goals, ie. equalizing the law to be gender-neutral, the modern feminist is left little of actual importance to complain and feel outraged about.)
The bad thing about new feminism is that it's both toxic and extremely virulent. It poisons the rational mind, and makes otherwise intelligent and rational people behave in all kinds of irrational and nonsensical (and often even surprisingly aggressive) ways. I could write numerous examples of this exact phenomenon that I have personal experience about. However, at this juncture I'll like to comment on what new feminism has done to gaming journalism.
You see, new feminism has succeeded in turning a significant portion of the gaming press against its own target demographic, and sometimes even against its own sponsors and investors.
This is not very smart. When you turn against your own readers, and even your own sponsors, and start insulting them, belittling them and writing derogatory articles full of hatred and vitriol against them, you are digging your own grave, financially speaking.
When there's a controversy going on that easily gets heated and causes people to verbally attack other people, the smart thing to do is to simply stay out of it completely, regardless of what your personal stance on the subject might be. Just let the fanatics fight it out among themselves, and let the controversy die out eventually. As a smart journalist or publication you will have everything to gain by staying out of it, and basically nothing to lose.
However, new feminism poisons the rational mind. It makes people into justice warriors, fighting for a "good cause". Which has caused game journalists to write extremely insulting articles against their own readers, ie. gamers. They are biting the hand that feeds them. And then they act all butthurt when their readers fight back and won't stand for the insults. As a result of this butthurt, they respond by insulting their readers even more. This is completely stupid.
Big sponsors like Intel and IBM, who have sponsored many of these gaming publications, have retracted their sponsorship from many of these gaming journals, seeing that they don't want to get involved in the vitriol. This is the smart thing to do, and a big kudos to them! This is exactly what you need to do in such cases.
So how has the gaming press responded to this? For example the Gawker blog responded to Intel stopping their sponsorship by... you guessed it, writing a vitriolic attack against Intel, insulting them and calling them names.
This is beyond stupid. It's outright suicidal (in financial terms).
But this is exactly what new feminism does. It poisons the rational mind. It makes people turn against their own followers and their own sponsors, just to make themselves feel morally superior, to be moral justice warriors. It makes rational people stupid.
(This is not to say that all gaming press has been such indoctrinated by feminism. For example gameinformer doesn't have any problem in writing articles critical of the new feminism that's trying to take over the gaming industry. For examples this is an exceptionally well-written criticism and analysis of Anita Sarkeesian. This is an article that criticizes Intel and their $300 million initiative to support diversity in the tech industry, with some questionable partnerships.)
The internet era, however, gives these fringe sub-movements a loudspeaker to spread their messages, which in some cases may cause what would have been a forgotten ideology to become almost mainstream. A form of feminism I'll call "new feminism" (for the lack of a better term) is a modern variant of feminism that basically borders on conspiracy theories, seeing "sexism" and "patriarchy" everywhere, and making mountains out of molehills, treating minor issues as if they were great injustices that will destroy our society as we know it. (I suppose that since feminism has in large part achieved its goals, ie. equalizing the law to be gender-neutral, the modern feminist is left little of actual importance to complain and feel outraged about.)
The bad thing about new feminism is that it's both toxic and extremely virulent. It poisons the rational mind, and makes otherwise intelligent and rational people behave in all kinds of irrational and nonsensical (and often even surprisingly aggressive) ways. I could write numerous examples of this exact phenomenon that I have personal experience about. However, at this juncture I'll like to comment on what new feminism has done to gaming journalism.
You see, new feminism has succeeded in turning a significant portion of the gaming press against its own target demographic, and sometimes even against its own sponsors and investors.
This is not very smart. When you turn against your own readers, and even your own sponsors, and start insulting them, belittling them and writing derogatory articles full of hatred and vitriol against them, you are digging your own grave, financially speaking.
When there's a controversy going on that easily gets heated and causes people to verbally attack other people, the smart thing to do is to simply stay out of it completely, regardless of what your personal stance on the subject might be. Just let the fanatics fight it out among themselves, and let the controversy die out eventually. As a smart journalist or publication you will have everything to gain by staying out of it, and basically nothing to lose.
However, new feminism poisons the rational mind. It makes people into justice warriors, fighting for a "good cause". Which has caused game journalists to write extremely insulting articles against their own readers, ie. gamers. They are biting the hand that feeds them. And then they act all butthurt when their readers fight back and won't stand for the insults. As a result of this butthurt, they respond by insulting their readers even more. This is completely stupid.
Big sponsors like Intel and IBM, who have sponsored many of these gaming publications, have retracted their sponsorship from many of these gaming journals, seeing that they don't want to get involved in the vitriol. This is the smart thing to do, and a big kudos to them! This is exactly what you need to do in such cases.
So how has the gaming press responded to this? For example the Gawker blog responded to Intel stopping their sponsorship by... you guessed it, writing a vitriolic attack against Intel, insulting them and calling them names.
This is beyond stupid. It's outright suicidal (in financial terms).
But this is exactly what new feminism does. It poisons the rational mind. It makes people turn against their own followers and their own sponsors, just to make themselves feel morally superior, to be moral justice warriors. It makes rational people stupid.
(This is not to say that all gaming press has been such indoctrinated by feminism. For example gameinformer doesn't have any problem in writing articles critical of the new feminism that's trying to take over the gaming industry. For examples this is an exceptionally well-written criticism and analysis of Anita Sarkeesian. This is an article that criticizes Intel and their $300 million initiative to support diversity in the tech industry, with some questionable partnerships.)
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