When I woke up very early this morning, I was surprised with a link to an article, followed by the words "Have fun" from my husband. What I read in that link was a shocking diatribe against people with whom the author, one Geordie Tait, has a serious disagreement in personal beliefs. I'll make no secret of it, the author dislikes people who are currently in support of GamerGate and want gaming journalism to be more ethical. That in itself isn't the issue at hand here, everyone has the right to agree or disagree with whatever they wish, so long as they don't actively attempt to silence the other side.
The issue I have here is that this writer actively wishes for people to be gassed to death or thrown into volcanoes. Many of these people, I'm guessing, have read his articles in the past, perhaps even enjoyed them, and he's wishing some of the most horrible ends to their existence possible upon them.
I've made no secret from the date of starting this blog that I am in support of GamerGate. And I personally find the things that this writer has said to be reprehensible, but not because he disagrees with my position. It is because I personally find the idea of wishing death upon large masses of people to be abhorrent.
A writer's lifeblood is their interactions with people of all stripes. Disagreeing with someone on any issue, whether political, social, personal, religious, or otherwise, is the very best foundation for good writing. The more points of view that a writer can be exposed to, the more accurately they can represent real people in their writing, no matter if they write fiction or non-fiction.
Do I like everyone I've met in my lifetime? Absolutely not. However, my interactions with people I don't even like help me write more convincing short stories, as I find the best revenge to be in turning those people into my villains or minor antagonists. Do I wish death upon them? Never! I want there to be more people in the world who disagree with me, because they give me so much more material for my writing then those who agree with me. People who agree with me are fun to spend extended time with, but they don't give me much creative inspiration because I already know what they are going to say, think, or do in any given situation.
There is one thing that I can say I agree with Mr. Tait on. The direct quote from the second of his postings (which I will link below) is as follows: "We have to stop f****** talking about irrelevant s*** and DO SOMETHING". Now he ends it with "to help these women", but it is the first part of the statement that I want to address. Spending endless hours online, writing short story length treatises on Facebook is not doing something. Even my sitting here writing this blog isn't truly doing something.
My husband decided to do something. He began a Steam group called Gamers Enabled. Their goal is to help disabled gamers find games that they can play and also to help game developers consider small, simple mechanics that can be added to their games to make them more inclusive towards people with disabilities. Even I've done something in a small way towards helping this group by writing out their goals and ethics policies at his request. While writers are in an odd category of people who work while sitting down, I believe there's more that I can do too. So, in that spirit, I'm getting off the Internet today, and gonna go help the husband test some games for accessibility.
Long Live the Free Internet
Links: *WARNING* The language in the first to is quite shocking, due to the violence that it promotes and the ignorance of prior events in history that Mr. Tait compares the current situation to.
http://archive.today/W2kyB
https://archive.today/Ucwch#selection-959.1-959.71
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gamersenabled#
