It was only a matter of time before the SJW hive turned its full venom against the lovable upstarts of #ComicsGate. Richard Meyer, Ethan Van Sciver, and the movement’s other independent comic book creators have dared to point out that the emperor has no clothes. Adding insult to injury, they’ve made over $1.5 million in the process.
The SJWs who’ve converged legacy comics stake their identities on controlling the industry. They can’t abide dissent, and being made to confront their waning influence is giving them fits. That’s how you get paranoid hit pieces like this. The Left’s shock troops are convinced they’re fighting a holy crusade against pure evil where there are no means that aren’t justified by the ends. The enemy–us–deserves no mercy, so all bets are off and no holds are barred. SJWs have no compunctions against using slander and outright lies.
This attitude is immediately familiar to veterans of the previous anti-SJW revolts. We saw Law & Order smearing GamerGaters as criminals and Wired dismissing Sad Puppies as a bunch of angry white men. SJWs have one playbook, and anyone who’s been paying attention should have it memorized by now.
That’s why it’s been frustrating to see #ComicsGate repeating all the same mistakes that #GamerGate and Sad Puppies made. Intelligence is learning from your own errors. Wisdom is learning from the errors of others. The thought leaders of #ComicsGate are smart enough to make a killing in the cutthroat publishing world. If their handling of SJWs is any indication, they’re one prime requisite ability score short of a cleric.
Consider this video EVS produced in response to comics SJWs running the angry straight white male script.
Crowdsourcing a highlight reel of minorities who support your movement is undeniably cute, and it gives Conservatives the warm fuzzies. It also allows for some audience participation, which I’m a fan of. On the other hand, pseudo-dialectical appeals like this are utterly useless at achieving their primary purpose. No SJW is going to watch this video and come away saying, “I was wrong about the other side being a bunch of crackers with fragile egos. Looks like I’ve got some major soul-searching to do.”
Case in point:
Again, GG vets will recognize this gambit as a replay of #NotYourShield. It didn’t work then. It won’t work now.
Well-meaning Conservatives fail to understand the implications of the Left’s outcome-based view of equality. If you start from the premise that differing outcomes between various demographics can only be a result of white racism, when fifty years of government policies and billions of dollars fail to erase those differences, the only explanation is that whites are inherently, incurably racist.
SJWs embrace that conclusion as an article of faith. If you’re white, you simply cannot convince someone on the Left that you’re not racist. Nor will any amount of evidence prove to a Leftist that nonwhites are capable of racism. Such concepts are as ontologically impossible to an SJW as polytheism is to a Christian.
Not only is trying to prove to an SJW that you’re not racist a waste of time, it a priori concedes the Left’s outcome-based view of equality. Instead, it should be reinforced that SJWs have no moral authority whatsoever.
OG GamerGater @TheQuQu sums it up well:
Don’t accept the enemy’s frame. Don’t try to make them like you. Do focus on achieving concrete victories.
Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Word to the wise.
Indie Comics Battle Plan:
1.) Make great comics that readers want to buy.
2.) Mock SJW detractors and offer the bitter useless ones several rhetorical curb stomps over your coffee breaks.
3.) Get back to work.
4.) Keep the SJWs out of your business at all costs.
5.) Profit!*
*No need for Underpants Gnomes after all!
Man of the atom,
I'm stumped at how to execute point 2? How do you own them and mock them relentlessly?
I read Ethan's tweets regularly and my only criticism is that he underestimates the chemically pure hatred. Nevertheless the Rodriguez event I think has become a turning point for him.
xavier
Xavier –
Point 2 is just a work break if you are on Twitter or Failbook.
If you have detractors, ignore or brush them off at your leisure.
If they out as SJWs, shame and mock them mercilessly, and laugh heartily at their misery, but only for the 10 minute break to sip that delicious coffee that fuels your Muse.
Jimmy's Seafood vs PETA is a great template for SJW beatdowns!
Calling them stupid, fat, and ugly no-talent hacks is as good an insult as any. And it's true!
Plan approved.
And the best rhetoric is based in truth.
Hi all,
Thanks. So telling them that their tattoos and ugly hair colour is a real turn off. Or remind the that sending photos of their body parts makes them abnormal.
Got it. Thanks.
xavier
Xavier,
If you discover via their social media that they're single, you can also add "you're single for a reason".
"That tattoo really distracts from your stretch marks."
That sort of thing.
Go to Twitter. Follow Frame Game Radio.
Go to YouTube. Subscribe to Frame Game Radio.
You want to listen/watch his videos on the Diversity Industry. You want to read/listen to his High Sparrow Strategy Tweets/recaps. You want to listen to why he coined "HeartRight" and does "LoveStreams".
He gets it. He's trying to reach those of us that can do Dialetic that the Frame Game is Rhetoric In Practice.
And the Frame Game is FUNDAMENTAL to Narrative Warfare, which is what SJWs pursue with the relentlessness of a zombie horde.
I cannot recommend Frame Game Radio's stuff highly enough.
He gets it.
Agreed.
I already follow him on Twitter. I'll have to check out his videos. Thanks!
Bradford,
Thanks. I'll look up the twitter feed.
xavier
In the end all "Not your shield" accomplished was getting some nice people doxed, and encouraging infighting. Oliver Campbell (yes I know he was not the originator of NYS, I'm referring to the video he compiled,) was absolutely convinced videos like that one would create cognitive dissonance, and we all know in hindsight that SJWs aren't capable of cognitive dissonance. Or cognitive anything really. (And given Oliver just tells people to 'fuck off' these days, I think he learned that lesson too.
It's painful to watch CG walk into the same traps GG did, all while GG people warn them. Cirsova tried his best to warn people that CG must be treated as a controversy, not a community, and in the end they got herded up and started calling themselves a community. They already have e-celeb bickering.
I wish all these crowd funded comics luck, but it's only a matter of time before they are hit with their own BASEDGAMER, and someone takes the money and runs.
Slowly, but surely all the same containment tricks are being used on them, with the ultimate goals being to trap this now self identified community in it's own little bubble, and then throw enough blood in the water to get them to eat themselves alive. Maybe this is in early enough stages they can avoid that trap.
'Failing' is making the discussion about "you" instead of the controversy of "SJW Slime in Mainstream Comics".
ComicsGate should always avoid making the discussion about themselves — that's more a pride thing. That is Step 1. Make great comics and show how you are succeeding where the Big 2 and Dwarfish 3 are failing miserably.
Focus on your stuff and making it great. Mock or ignore the detractors. Never attempt to convert the SJW — rhetorically curb stomp it and move forward.
>'Failing' is making the discussion about "you" instead of the controversy of "SJW Slime in Mainstream Comics".
Yep. Don't play their game. Ever. It's rigged.
The impression one gets from CG is that they were among the normies who either ignored GamerGate or avoided it as uncouth. Their initial nescience is understandable, but I'm not seeing much willingness to learn from folks who've been around the block before.
Besides Ethan's recommendation of SJWAL, CG's strategizing on how to deal with SJWs includes a lot of "We need to be the bigger people," "We've got to hold the moral high ground," and "We can't sink to their level," platitudes. It's an inherently reactive posture that implicitly cedes ground to the enemy.
It also smacks of normies in shock over being called x-ists for the first time flailing to reassure each other they aren't actually x-ist. You hear it in CG's discussions about how they're on the right side of history.
As I've said before, assuming your side is wholly deserving of victory is a mistake. Lots of CG's most prominent personalities have been in comics for years. What did all those closet Conservatives do while SJWs were converging their industry? Kudos to them for finally fighting back, but it wouldn't be necessary if the SJWs hadn't beaten them before.
Here's the takeaway: There is no deserving. There is only victory or defeat, and the winners get to write their own hagiographies.
It's already started fracturing with what Capn Cummings did. It's water under the bridge, but he privated his videos and vanished. Meanwhile, EVS's channel grows and grows.
Once a scammer pops up and EVS falls for it, there will be jealous individuals to jump down his throat for it and fracture the whole thing.
But at this point ComicsGate is basically over. The industry has already proven itself to be a rotting corpse with no chance of revival for the exact reasons shown over and over again.
All that's left is to build alternatives.
I knew the death rattle of dc was happening when they brought Marvel SJW Bendis,Deconnick,G.Wilson and Quinn over to write. Plus it looks like Didio wants to re-instate the hated New 52 crap with this "new" crisis event with the mental hospital motif. I wonder if even Judge Dredd will be able to stay safe. Apparently more SJW fun might be hitting Conan soon because one of their SW comic writers is heading that in 2019. At this point, just like trade pub, trad published comics are going the way of the dodo bird. Maybe we can pick up the ashes of former franchises after it all settles.
Fiannawolf
I'm still going to support dan abnett but mainly thru his 40k line and Dredd stuff. If the trad companies feel they can live without my money, then so be it. Ill give it to uninfected sources and indies. Just like what I've been doing with books.
"At this point, just like trade pub, trad published comics are going the way of the dodo bird. Maybe we can pick up the ashes of former franchises after it all settles."
Let those characters die and be laid to rest. Marvel and DC have made them into shambling, zombified husks, as the SJWs have donned them as skin suits.
These heroes and villains should be put away, allowing us to honor them for the times that they *were* heroes and villains. Let new ones arise in their place.
And the hardest part is fully letting go. *sigh* At least Ill still have my version of superman in past books and other dvds. The one that loved truth, justice, and the american way. Plus I just recently got all 4 Lois and Clark dvd sets. So I can re-watch my favorite supes. C. Reeve does have a spot because of 1/2.
Zack already came to this conclusion. He's done with the industry and pretending there's any way to save it. This video is basically his final word on the matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxVcIbG0-xA
Glad he's come to the healthy conclusion they're manipulatin' SOBs.
Dave Gibbons weighs in as dues-paying member of "The Freak Squad"? On the side of Sink-KLOWN-itch?
Ok.
That's the final nail in that "Watchmen" coffin as far as I'm concerned. Burn it all.
Thanks for the update, JD!
Any time they waste fighting these low iq morons would be better spent on putting out product. If someone is so convinced you're racist and nothing will change their mind, why waste the energy?
+9000
180!
Disagree with OP. Granted if someone's just trying to slander you, for whatever reason, there's no point talking them out of it – trying to stop malice with reason is a fool's errand.
But for EVS to show that his detractors are simply making things up so they can shriek at him has value. Normies, neutrals, and fence-sitters may notice the arguments flying around that aren't actually true. Conservatives and moderates who want to find common ground and just get along with everyone may start to think "what peaceful coexistence is possible with people who think they have a right to lie about you all the time?" Not everyone is a hardened dissident-righter who'll just shrug and say, "SJWs, lying again. What did you expect?"
I don't know enough about GG to comment, but re: Sad Puppies, the fact that one of the main puppy-kicking narratives was a total lie ("Larry Correia is trying to keep women and minorities out of sci-fi!") did help move people from neutral to puppy-sympathisers, and from the Sad to Rabid camps. (In my case this accelerated a drift away from big-publisher sci-fi towards reading indie.)
Trying to stop malice with reason is indeed a fool's errand. So is appealing to moderates, who for all their principled posing observably try to curry favor with the winning team.
The point of the post isn't that ComicsGaters shouldn't defend themselves from libel and tortious interference. Read the linked post, and you'll find I wholeheartedly support Richard Meyer's use of lawfare against Mark Waid.
My point, and QuQu's, is not to waste time and energy answering SJWs' bogus accusations on their terms. Like Man of the Atom said, turn out a good comic, answer SJW's with mockery, and keep them out of your organization. There's no need to court moderates. The SJWs have made it clear they will allow no one to ride the fence. They will eventually join either CG or the SJWs. Consistently scoring big victories ensures they'll side with CG. Those who join the SJWs would've been liabilities anyway.
Moderates never change anything, they just ride along with the strongest man on the block.
It’s your radicals that make a difference. You only 7-10% to trigger a revolution. Why waste time trying to court those who not only want to sit on the fence but who want to cram said fence up to their eyeballs?
If they value civility more than truth then they aren't much in the way of allies.
An excellent summation.
End result of Sad Puppies: an established approved reading list + blaming the white guy for failure.
End result of Rabid Puppies: the establishment burned down their own award.
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
No problem.
As a former sad's partisan I have to agree. The folks we are dealing with are not acting in good faith. They will try to destroy anyone who threatens the narrative with any weapon available. Letting them burn down their own village while creating art people actually want to buy sounds like the way to go. As they say, living well is the best revenge.
It really is.
And now Vox Day enters and tries/tried to trademark Comicsgate. That's gonna open more pickles. So many pickles. Still looking at some reaction vids to it all.
Still looking at the back and forth on twitter and in other places. Did CG end up pulling a Rabid vs Sads faction divergence? Feels like the title of your entry is quite apt.
Everybody who was involved in #GamerGate and Sad Puppies saw this coming a mile off.
Speaking of which…
JD Cowan, you're wanted on the white courtesy phone. JD Cowan to the white courtesy phone, please.
Because you totally called it.