On Outrage-Fatigue and The "High Road"

It's hilarious to hear some of the architects behind the "Boycott Zak And Pundit" thing, that sent hundreds of mass (you could say spam) emails each to Wizards to create the impression of some mass protest in order to try to get them to publicly shun us, now complaining about how 'unpleasant' and outrageous it is that people are talking about engaging in email campaigns against them.

Kind of like how you have people who were very happy to spend hours looking through my blog entries from TEN YEARS AGO to try to find stuff to (mis)quote against me, or approving and sharing the same, now complaining how "unfair" it is that Zak is using a conversation from 2.5 years ago as proof of Tracy Hurley's bad behaviour.

Hypocritical fucking liars are funny.

Meanwhile, we have some no doubt well-intentioned but naive people poo-pooing my recent efforts to fight back against the Outrage Brigade's lies, claiming that it's unseemly to "stoop to their level", and that what we regular gamers should do instead is "just not engage". Because after all, just because they're being bad it doesn't mean we can't take "the high road".

First of all: it's probably easier for you to talk about 'the high road' when its not YOUR name they're trying to associate with transphobia, homophobia, racism, and other things you utterly abhor all over the internet.   How about we wait until they make up some story about your having kicked a puppy to death or something, have it posted over and over again all over the social media you use, where your friends, gamer buddies, family, etc. can read it, and then see just how interested you are in the motherfucking 'high road'?

Second: The Swine LOVE it when the other side "takes the high road". They DEPEND on it.
They depend on the other side being far too well-behaved and well-mannered to effectively stand up to them and all their dirty-fighting tactics.
They depend on the other side saying "well, I'm not going to report you to the forum mods because I don't tattle", while they get everyone on your side banned by a flood of frivolous mod-reports and manipulation of forum rules to their own benefit.
They depend on the other side saying "well, I'm not going to hurl insults at these people or engage with them" while they take over the whole focus of the discussion.
They depend on the other side saying "I don't like the insulting jargon they use so I won't make any of my own as that would be the same bad behaviour as them" while they end up taking control of language as a way to artificially control the entire conversation.
They depend on you saying "I won't write to Wizards of the Coast to support their choice of consultants" while they write hundreds of emails each in order to create the impression of a flood of outrage.
They depend totally on your side saying "I won't stoop to say mean things or attack them because I'm above it all", while they stab you in the back and kick you when you're on the ground and destroy lives in order to meet their goal of petty power-grabbing at all costs.






So you know what? FUCK the 'high road'.

 I could be twice as shitty as I am now and still be ten times more honorable than they are:
-I don't just Make Shit Up, I tell the truth about them. And not horrific fucking lies, which is what they rely on.
-I don't send death threats.
-I don't attack or harass my opponent's seriously ill girlfriend while she's in the hospital. 
-I don't pretend I want to debate and then run away and make up lies and use cheap smear-tactics to make my opponent look bad.
-I don't ever deny any of what I actually truly did.
-I don't censor my opponent's voice.
-I don't go back and try to delete evidence of things that I wrote.
-I don't try to put pressure on people's private lives; I don't contact real-world employers or friends; I don't use people's 'real names' if they are known to be private about them.
(another little Hypocrisy Point: All the Outrage Brigade expressing how horrible and harassing it is that Zak uses SA/rpgnet-troll Ettin's 'real name', while they gleefully post and +1 articles and entries that use my civilian name ALL THE FUCKING TIME)

But within those rules of honor, I will be quite happy to use any rhetorical tactic they use against us. I will be as aggressive in my defense of the RPG Hobby as they are in their brutal assault on it.

And if they depend on our larger numbers being silent while their smaller numbers hyper-inflate their apparent significance by aggressive and repeated lobbying, then we absolutely NEED to be doing emailing campaigns.


This brings us to another point: more than a few people have commented on how "tired" they feel, even how "worn out" they are by the 'bullshit drama' about the D&D Consultants.  Some have said this to me, as if it's in my power to stop it.

Gee, I'm sorry you feel vaguely tired about an entire group of people's ongoing and concerted effort to publicly LIE about me and FALSELY paint me as a homophobe, racist and sexist to try to make sure I NEVER WORK AGAIN in the RPG field.

I'm sorry it's inconveniencing you so much.


But you know what? You're talking to the wrong person just now. I'm not the one who can end this.
No, not the Outrage Brigade either; I mean obviously they COULD end it, just by NOT LYING ANYMORE, but they've made it pretty obvious they're not going to do that.

No. The person who can end this is YOU.


If you're tired of the attacks and counter-measures, or if you don't want the Tracy Hurleys of the world getting to be the only ones who decide what D&D should look like, then you NEED to go and make clear where you stand on this. You need to tell the Outrage Brigade to fuck off. Very publicly, and very loudly, until it becomes blatantly obvious that they do not speak for the hobby.

And you need to make sure Mike Mearls hears about this. Because part of the problem here is that the Outrage Brigade are very, very good at making their numbers seem artificially inflated and bombarding people with emails and expressions of their fake-outrage. The other side is usually not so good, because the other side are (with the exception of a couple of us loudmouths), just regular gamers who think that these guys are crazy but can't imagine they'd actually need to go and tell the suits at WoTC as much.

But you do need to.  If you want to stop them in their tracks, or if you're really tired of the 'drama' of a group of people using lies to try to destroy the lives and livelihood of a pair of Old-School Gamers because they disagree with what they say about RPGs; if you understand that these have been lies (and there's been tons of evidence to that effect), then the best thing you can do is to write to Wizards of the Coast: write to mike.mearls@wizards.com and make sure he knows what you think (as a D&D gamer and past, present or potential future customer) of the hatchet job being done against Zak and I by these people, and that you support us and Wizards, and think Wizards needs to keep on supporting us, too.

RPGPundit

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