Stephanie Zvan is one of the hosts for the Minnesota Atheists' radio show and podcast, Atheists Talk. She serves on the board of Secular Woman. She speaks on science and skepticism in a number of venues, including science fiction and fantasy conventions.
Stephanie has been called a science blogger and a sex blogger, but if it means she has to choose just one thing to be or blog about, she's decided she's never going to grow up. In addition to science and sex and the science of sex, you'll find quite a bit of politics here, some economics, a regular short fiction feature, and the occasional bit of concentrated weird.
Oh, and arguments. She sometimes indulges in those as well. But I'm sure everything will be just fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
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13 thoughts on “The Day #Gamergate "Stole" a Hashtag from a Bot”
There are tweets that mention Atheism+ included in the Storify. If you’re really in need of news about Matt, you can follow him on Twitter. Or I guess I could indulge your pointless digression and note that I had a good talk with him in the pool at Skepticon a couple of weeks ago.
@ QT… what was the Atheism+ fiasco? I don’t post on the forums anymore, though not for any reasons having to do with the people on those forums, whom I think are largely awesome people (including the mods), but I think Atheism+ is a good thing. I still support it.
On the topic of #GamersPlus… I just tweeted out how it was a bot, and the general reaction I’m getting is “we don’t really care. We’re just having fun.” In fact, one person didn’t realize GamerGhazi was a bot, and when I said it was, their response was basically “that actually doesn’t surprise me”.
Which… all right. Fine. Go have fun.
I just think it’s funny the amount of people who actually thought it was a thing. Like… what? Come on.
Seriously.
Just… no.
I am enjoying this, however.
And the YouTube videos! Oh man! I’m having fun, too… with a healthy dose of schadenfreude…
Gamers plus missed a great opportunity to retweet (or recreate the since deleted tweet for Sommers) quoting as Based Mom saying if you grappling onot a controller instead of toys you are a loser and not a man (paraphrased)
That would have been funny. And WTF. Paul Leobe? Seriously down the rabbit hole. Nice to know.
Winding up the stupid MRA trolls is just too easy. Kinda fun to watch, though, except for the icky parts. The gamer gate types and MRAs, right-wing trolls, etc. seem to think that just generating noise is an accomplishment. Yeah, you can flood a hashtag or blog comments or whatever, but it doesn’t really mean anything (and there seem to be increasingly effective ways to counteract flooding). It’s like they’re an army of virus-infected zombie computers, trying to ddos reality. Well, you can be a pain in the ass, at least in the short term, but you can’t really ddos reality. A flood of brainless posts does not make your cause meaningful or your goals coherent. Women, feminists, and other rights activists will not be silenced over the long term. Indeed, the increasingly frantic attempts to silence women activists only seems to draw media attention to what they have to say. It’s like they haven’t heard of the Streisand effect.
I… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more epic troll in my life. Dozens of people not only bought into the bait, they quickly filled in the gaps and spun an elaborate conspiracy theory around the tag. This will echo within GamerGate for weeks, and everyone else will enjoy a good laugh over it.
Sometimes, the strongest opponents of a hate group are the hate group itself.
I remember seeing the “GamersPlus” thing on Tumblr when it first appeared. Was surprised at the time it didn’t take off as they are usually immensely gullible when it comes to anything A+ related … I guess it was just biding its time 🙂
This makes me wonder if maybe the entire GG movement might be entirely comprised of poorly made Twitterbots barking nonsense in an echo chamber of irrelevant hashtags. It’s like a ultra-distopian fusion of the most depressing elements of Gibson and Vonnegut.
sez raging bee@11:
“The Day #Gamergate “Stole” a Hashtag from a Bot
That sounds like something I’d read about in a surrealist comic book.”
Hmmm… I’d say it’s more like Dr. Seuss?
Happy, happy #GamerGate?
Happy’s what they’re not!
‘Til the day when #GamerGate
Stole a hashtag from a bot.
O, the happy #GamerGaters
Tweeting tweety glee
Happy that they are not haters
Hating male humanity! etc etc etc
Well trolled, that bot.
No mention of the complete fiasco that was Atheism+ or Matt Dillahunty’s fall from grace?
There are tweets that mention Atheism+ included in the Storify. If you’re really in need of news about Matt, you can follow him on Twitter. Or I guess I could indulge your pointless digression and note that I had a good talk with him in the pool at Skepticon a couple of weeks ago.
@ QT… what was the Atheism+ fiasco? I don’t post on the forums anymore, though not for any reasons having to do with the people on those forums, whom I think are largely awesome people (including the mods), but I think Atheism+ is a good thing. I still support it.
On the topic of #GamersPlus… I just tweeted out how it was a bot, and the general reaction I’m getting is “we don’t really care. We’re just having fun.” In fact, one person didn’t realize GamerGhazi was a bot, and when I said it was, their response was basically “that actually doesn’t surprise me”.
Which… all right. Fine. Go have fun.
I just think it’s funny the amount of people who actually thought it was a thing. Like… what? Come on.
Seriously.
Just… no.
I am enjoying this, however.
And the YouTube videos! Oh man! I’m having fun, too… with a healthy dose of schadenfreude…
Gamers plus missed a great opportunity to retweet (or recreate the since deleted tweet for Sommers) quoting as Based Mom saying if you grappling onot a controller instead of toys you are a loser and not a man (paraphrased)
That would have been funny. And WTF. Paul Leobe? Seriously down the rabbit hole. Nice to know.
Winding up the stupid MRA trolls is just too easy. Kinda fun to watch, though, except for the icky parts. The gamer gate types and MRAs, right-wing trolls, etc. seem to think that just generating noise is an accomplishment. Yeah, you can flood a hashtag or blog comments or whatever, but it doesn’t really mean anything (and there seem to be increasingly effective ways to counteract flooding). It’s like they’re an army of virus-infected zombie computers, trying to ddos reality. Well, you can be a pain in the ass, at least in the short term, but you can’t really ddos reality. A flood of brainless posts does not make your cause meaningful or your goals coherent. Women, feminists, and other rights activists will not be silenced over the long term. Indeed, the increasingly frantic attempts to silence women activists only seems to draw media attention to what they have to say. It’s like they haven’t heard of the Streisand effect.
I… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more epic troll in my life. Dozens of people not only bought into the bait, they quickly filled in the gaps and spun an elaborate conspiracy theory around the tag. This will echo within GamerGate for weeks, and everyone else will enjoy a good laugh over it.
Sometimes, the strongest opponents of a hate group are the hate group itself.
They’re still using the tag as though there are anti-GG people on it, of course.
I remember seeing the “GamersPlus” thing on Tumblr when it first appeared. Was surprised at the time it didn’t take off as they are usually immensely gullible when it comes to anything A+ related … I guess it was just biding its time 🙂
This makes me wonder if maybe the entire GG movement might be entirely comprised of poorly made Twitterbots barking nonsense in an echo chamber of irrelevant hashtags. It’s like a ultra-distopian fusion of the most depressing elements of Gibson and Vonnegut.
The Day #Gamergate “Stole” a Hashtag from a Bot
That sounds like something I’d read about in a surrealist comic book.
Their trite responses legitimize the existence of Gamers+. If it actually existed.
sez raging bee@11:
“The Day #Gamergate “Stole” a Hashtag from a Bot
That sounds like something I’d read about in a surrealist comic book.”
Hmmm… I’d say it’s more like Dr. Seuss?
Happy, happy #GamerGate?
Happy’s what they’re not!
‘Til the day when #GamerGate
Stole a hashtag from a bot.
O, the happy #GamerGaters
Tweeting tweety glee
Happy that they are not haters
Hating male humanity!
etc etc etc