"Breaking down" a New York Mag article about Twitter Users Avatars, and it brings up... GamerGate

[WelshDdraig]

If posted in wrong section, mods, can you please move it. I just thought this could be news because of GamerGate and Twitter

 

Let me just start this off saying I'm screwed. Look at my avatar and you will see the group I'm talking about.

Also, if you don't like anime, that's cool. But the stupidity in this person and their conclusions, I wanted to voice my opinions.

 

Original Article:

http://nymag.com/following/2015/11/dreaded-anime-avatar-explained.html

 

 

My Full Breakdown of article: Caution, its fairly long)

Just as an FYI: The journalist in question is Max Read who was part of the Gawker controversy

So, a journalist for New York Magazine wrote an article on Nov 5th correlating on who to ignore and block on Twitter.

That's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinions.

 

They talk about if a person has an "Egg" avatar to ignore or block them.

If it’s the default white egg, ignore, or block.

Hold on, what if they just joined twitter and are still yet to find an avatar they like?

The idea, I think, is that someone with an egg avatar is either too stupid to figure out how to change it, in which case block, or so new to Twitter that he or she is unfamiliar with the customs or niceties of interactions, in which case block.

Oh, glad you covered that one. Does having an avatar really matter? No, it's just an image, be all and end all.

 

But then the journalist does something really stupid, and attacks the Anime crowd... Yeh, this not going to be pretty.

Using an tweet from a person that was posted right in the middle of GamerGate, 

They are saying that 73% of people with an anime avatar are likely to be sexist...

 

The journalist then goes on to state that anime avatars

don’t show actual identifiable human faces, anime avatars carry a strong whiff of “anonymous troll.”

What if people don't want their faces shown. It's not against the law to hide your face on a website. I personally didn't like my face on the internet originally, but I take selfies and such now so, I mainly use my avatar just because I can. Doesn't mean I troll anyone, and it sure as hell doesn't link me to GamerGate... Also, I don't take part in "Internet Politics", real life, yes, internet, no s**ts given.

 

What particularly interests me about the anime avatar is that it was initially (as I first encountered it, at any rate) a metonym for a weird-internet-politics group about as distant from Gamergate as you can find

 

This part takes the cake for me with how ignorant the writer is being.

Third-worldist-feminist-communist-anime-avatar Twitter! What a world! What a time to be alive!

 

Of course anime avatars are now more strongly identified with Gamergate and its various surrounding reactionary communities, a group no less weird (by the standards of mainstream meatspace American politics), but much larger and, frankly, scarier.

 

And the bases for the entire article linking Anime avatars to GamerGate...

The association between anime avatars and Gamergate is helped in part because Gamergate’s logo-slash-mascot is a green-and-purple cartoon woman named Vivian James who tends to be drawn in an anime style. Yes: a fictional cartoon woman is the symbol of a movement accused of unrealistic views of women

*Clap, Clap, Clap*

Just because the logo was drawn in the form of anime/manga, you instantly link all people with anime avatars to GamerGate? 

Stop the world, I want off.

 

But why anime avatars? What do Gamergaters have in common with Twitter Stalinists? As noted above, in some ways anime avatars are the equivalent of a fedora or a leather duster or transition lenses, a quick public signal of someone’s (proud) nerdom. If egg avatars are signs of Twitter, and likely internet, novices, anime avatars would seem to be the opposite: the signs of people who have spent, or are spending, too much time online.

Now we are all "Twitter Stalinists" who spend too much time on the internet.

I'm sorry I like anime, I'm sorry that I have to be at a computer all day because of my college course, I'm sorry that I have made really good friends with people over the internet and its the only way I can communicate with them. /s

 

This kind of too-much-time-online nerdiness seems to be correlated in turn — and I’m just speculating here; I have no data — with an outgrowth of new, weird, fascinating kinds of outside-the-mainstream or extreme politics, like effusive 21st-century Titoism. Or like Gamergate.

1: I have not heard about the internet politics of "Titoism" 

and 2:

I’m just speculating here; I have no data 

If you have no data, you have no right to talk about it. At least have solid facts before jumping to conclusions...

 

Final quote, trust me.

So for practical purposes, if you are besieged by trolls and are also okay with blocking people who might be extremely intelligent and engaging and also fervent otaku, all you need to know is that the “anime avatar” is a mostly though not entirely reliable indicator of trolldom, and block anyone you see with one. But I would suggest you not. Blocking egg avatars makes sense to me: They generally represent a type and a politics you are familiar with. They’re essentially talk-radio listeners and racist uncles, only online. There are no familiar IRL equivalents to anime avatars. Yet.

So let me get this straight, IF anime represents a type of politics and your NOT familiar with it, block them?

That is just straight up ignorance. If you are not familiar with something and it affects you, do some research to learn about it.

Also, "There are no familiar IRL equivalents to Anime Avatars", I don't know, how about people who like anime? Having an anime avatar does not symbolise anything.

 

TL;DR?

A New York Magazine journalist talks smack about people on Twitter with Anime avatars, links them to GamerGate and frequently insults them. So I "break down" his argument with my own thoughts.

 

Most of my thoughts are in the "break down" above, but long story short. My opinion is that this journalist needs to stop, before this article angers even more people (There's already quite a discussion in the actual articles comments section). One thing you don't want to do is anger a group of fans on social media. 

 

Your thoughts, leave them down below, and please keep them civil. I don't want an anime flame war, I want opinions on how the journalist handled this and his article in general.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Alexp10v2

[Prysin]

some people, should have their posts/reports/articles reviewed by a third party before they are allowed to post it.

[Lazmarr]

some people, should have their posts/reports/articles reviewed by a third party before they are allowed to post it.

Oh yes please! All journals and articles should be required to be peer-reviewed just like scientific journals.

[Jerakl]

Oh yes please! All journals and articles should be required to be peer-reviewed just like scientific journals.

 

Or we could just have ethics in journalism...

That would help a lot. 

Although this would be good too.

[Zah]

Wrong section, yes.  This has nothing to do with technology.

 

Also quality investigating by this magazine.  Clearly we should ban all car avatars on Twitter,

[Shakaza]

Yes, let's all judge others by outward appearances only, and never give them a chance! We all know we are superior to those with dog, anime, and car avatars because they happen to like those things! It makes logical sense to discriminate against them for only that fact. /s

 

Seriously, what the heck is this?! I thought we were moving towards a society in which we don't judge others based on superficialities such as skin color, or in this case, choice of profile picture and instead judge based on their interactions with others and deeper intricacies of their personalities. Where do these people get off trying to adopt these archaic ideas? It makes me sick.

 

And don't even think of associating this with GamerGate, you stupid journalist. A person's choice of avatar has no affiliation whatsoever with that movement, and thinking otherwise is just more mindless discrimination. I am so tired of hearing about it, and it you were just using it as a buzzword from what I could tell.

[Trik'Stari]

TL;DR

 

Politics online in 2015:

"Are you biased? Are you willing to take money for coming up with bullshit? A "news site" will hire you".

[Centurius]

Your first mistake was reading nymag.

[WelshDdraig]

Your first mistake was reading nymag.

I didn't until I wrote this topic. A friend of mine posted about it to Twitter ironically. 

[ICantThinkOfAnyGoodName]

Well, I still have the egg avatar because I rarely write something on Twitter myself and only use it to see what the people I'm following are tweeting. But if I occasionally reply to one of them they should clearly block me because I'm obviously new to Twitter and "unfamiliar with the customs and niceties of interactions".

[TheProfosist]

I will defend Inori with a

Stongly worded debate until we can settle on something agreeable.

[Shakaza]

I will defend Inori with a

Stongly worded debate until we can settle on something agreeable.

That's the thing; we shouldn't have to defend this. It is not their place to decide which avatars are acceptable as long as that by themselves they do no harm. Judging a person's personality or attitude towards a group from just an image is stupid, and reminds me of discrimination toward African Americans that the US struggled with so much in the 20th century. You have every right to keep the avatar you already have, and if others dispute that, I will not hesitate to defend you as well. We have to stop these archaic ideologies from surfacing again; the world has had enough of it already.

[The Benjamins]

I see Windows 8 tan I click like.

 

What is this article about?

[Suika]

One thing you don't want to do is anger a group of fans on social media.

Actually, you do.

Jimmy Kimmel, OK comedian, nothing special. His views have been declining, so what does he do? He attacks the gaming community, the community comes to defend themselves, and his views get a huge jump.

If you want to fight this garbage, don't give them views, that'll starve them.

[XTankSlayerX]

My reaction

​

 

 

What does that make me? I live on Anime, for Anime, By Anime... I Sort of draw it as well and my logo which means a lot to me was anime inspired.

The spawn of satan? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't mean to brag, but I don't get upset easily; I'd say I'm a fairly nice person

I haven't met any Otakus IRL, but so far.. They're some of the nicest people I've met...

OH well, Just another idiot with unfortunate to a large portal for his voice to be heard.

[LAwLz]

Serves those anime-avatar scumbags right. They are all just a bunch of losers anyway.

(swap out the word "anime" for "black person" and the article suddenly becomes far more entertaining. Really shows what kind of mentality people like that author has)

[TheProfosist]

I see Windows 8 tan I click like.

What is this article about?

Same reason I hopped in I saw the thumbnail in tapatalk.

[spartaman64]

avatar is a car 100%? wtf so everyone who likes cars are sexist?

[Mooshi]

MODERN BLOGGING JOURNALISM

[Misanthrope]

"Progressive" Journalists, feminists, Social Justice Warriors (And alarmingly often the 3 are one and the same person): Just desperate fucking human leeches living off their useless profession which in all 3 cases, can be summarized as "Professional Victim" they know their illogical extremist ideologies have pushed their agendas far beyond what most people can and will consider reasonable so we'll see last ditch efforts to influence public opinion back into their grace.

 

The funny part is, this will only accelerate their demise.

[Misanthrope]

Serves those anime-avatar scumbags right. They are all just a bunch of losers anyway.

(swap out the word "anime" for "black person" and the article suddenly becomes far more entertaining. Really shows what kind of mentality people like that author has)

 

I must say that by virtue of being a Swede, you gave us plenty of warning that this nonsense was coming. So I guess you better watch out about being raped by an immigrant, cause it will be your own fault!