Dear Readers;

As some of you might know I am a reader of the internet feminism journalist David Futrelle. who hosts (in the words of El Pais), ” an incisive and delirious page against misogyny.” So when he announced a new set of MRA bingo cards specifically engineered for #gamergate, I was very amused. The word list even has a few of my own entries on it, since Futrelle solicited contributions for the word list in an open discussion thread. I want to get that out of the way in case it makes me seem biased, although I only recognize about 7 or 8 of the 108 terms as similar to the ones I submitted. So if that gives me a bias, fine with me. TBH, being called a “biased SJW” or “stupid feminist” on twitter makes me think of this: (watch from 1:10 to 2:11.)

So why not fight mockery with mockery? I present the rules of #gamergate bingo on twitter!

1. Register a twitter account (if you don’t have one already) and customize to your liking. (Safety advisory: You may want a separate/ “alter ego” account for bingo.) 

2. Announce you are playing #gamergatebingo via a tweet at any point after registration.

3. Get the bingo cards. you can choose to mark up to five cards per round. Once the round starts, don’t choose yourself new cards. You will win faster with the ones you have, trust me.

4.  search the hashtag #gamergate and check out the tweets. Re-tweet (or RT  for short) the ones which match points on your bingo card. you can also search related hashtags and user accounts where the Animu Avatar Brigade (credit Mike Pearl for the phrase) is known to congregate. #notyourshield is also a valid search term.

5. Rules for playing #gamergate bingo with user accounts: If you see a promising constestant victim read more of their tweets, and RT the ones which match points on your card. Don’t forget to mark the card while you do this!

Don’t tweet the individual users you’re doing playing #gamer gate bingo right away. Accounts like @_watsu have thousands of followers, so if you tweet him many of his like-minded followers will tweet you back. Be prepared for an onslaught of hostile notifications from strangers, and strangers @replying to other strangers hoping they’ll troll you too. This is a good thing because it means more bingo points, but don’t hesitate to block anyone wasting your time. (It may earn even earn you a point depending on how the other people tweeting you react!)

6. If anyone @replies you (and many may) you can RT what they tell you if it matches a point on your bingo card.

7. Handle names and user bios are fair game, but @reply the person who earned you the point with the one they got. (e.g. “Why is your handle “gamer_bitches_bitch”? That marks the “Bitch” square.”)

8. If things start getting personal with the #gamergaters, tweet back about bingo. RT the worst insults you get.

9. Once you finish a bingo card, take a picture or screencap and tweet it to your twitter page, @replying the user whose Tweet clinched the game for you. Repeat until you’re bored, decide to block people for being terrible; or your twitter account crashes from insufficient connection speed. To load the onslaught of angry nerdbro tweets spamming your account at that very moment. (This happened during playtesting.)

CREDITS:

Thanks to @blownthefuckin (an identified Eron Gjoni fan) for entreating with me this morning for a “discussion” because I seemed “really cool.”

When I told @blownthefuckin “Sure let’s chat” this triggered three of his followers, and three of their followers, and then six more of their followers to @reply me hydra-like. The resultant throng of folks on twitter were very keen for me to “admit” certain things, like SJWs have harrassed #gamergaters, or that #gamergate wasn’t about harassment (anymore). It was a reasonably larger audience than I was used to, and some of them were outright hostile.

Of course, that isn’t exactly sevenupman’s fault; as he was quick to note that it “sounded like a deflection :/” when I told him this happened and he “didn’t call anyone and cannot be held physically responsible for what others do.” Curiously, he was at the same time soft-selling the idea that #gamergate harasses people at all despite the current windfall of notifications I was getting from strangers at that very moment.

But it did meet my “she complains about harassment, let’s harass her” square. So in addition to helping me come up with the rules, I guess I should also credit him as a play tester.