I won an early Kotaku photoshop contest. (Imagine what the 3DS will look like. Mine said: “Acheivement unlocked: Splitting Headache.” and used graphics from the Virtual Boy). I gained a star. This was – in those days – a system of vague moderation. Someone with a star could post and be seen without another commenter approving the comment.
Kotaku got hacked. I couldn’t change my password in time due to system overload, and lost my star. I’ll take some of the punishment for this, but it wouldn’t be a problem if the entire Gawker conglomerate had not been hacked.
Over time, the system at Kotaku changed. It became much easier to see starred, approved, and unapproved messages together. In my experience, a person had to choose between only the most popular conversation or an ugly view of all conversations. Wading through the unmoderated trash was the only way to see the moderated posts. Those were not always the nicest reads, either.
The stories also wandered further away from the core topic of video games. Pictures of cosplayers were a favorite target, but a lot of guilt-based articles were also appearing. Gender issues began bubbling up very frequently.
My breaking point was when a guest blogger, Dr. Nerdlove, was upset. He took his girlfriend to a comic store, where ONE of the locals gawked at her and made her uncomfortable. His conclusion, and the thesis of his story, was that men are too privileged.
His proof was the actions of the one man who made Nerdlove’s girlfriend feel uncomfortable. His proof ignored the others in the store who he admitted told the hapless local not to treat women like that. He followed this proof up with male privilege by explaining that a character in Arkham Asylum wears a skimpy outfit.
A video game character was wearing a skimpy outfit. That was proof that half of the human population is over-privileged and should loathe themselves.
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