Whether to Christianity, a political “ism”, some weird cult or regrettably even veganism, there is nothing more likely to infuriate those around you than the sudden zealous condemnation of behaviour you used to engage in or at least not disapprove of. This is always a danger for the convert because they are understandably enthusiastic about what they’ve converted to and so they’ll really want people to know it. While I could care less about most of the examples above, I think this is particularly important for newly converted Christians. One reason for this is that the majority of converts (certainly including me), were not living a righteous life prior, still have to struggle to do so after and probably left a trail of emotional, social or worse damage before they finally saw the Light.
The recent online drama involving Melonie Mac can be considered a timely reminder if nothing else.
Melonie Mac fairly recently came out against perverted content found in many video games in this video which I have posted below.
I didn’t watch the video but you can get the gist from the thumbnail. This is also known as “GoonerGate” which references “GamerGate” as well as a word used to describe someone who unashamedly engages in an almost ritualistic type of self-abuse. Without addressing anything Melonie Mac says in the above video, I would say that in general: I agree with her. It would be better if much of the sexual (as well as violent and vulgar) content was less prevalent in video games. It would be even better if it were toned down significantly across all media. And even then, when such things are included, it should be for a good reason and without any unnecessary gratuity.
One problem with this position is that very few people (especially within her audience), share it. Most gamers aren’t really Christian or conservative and generally see nothing wrong with even explicit sexual content. In general, they are characteristically anti-censorship and so are unlikely to be receptive to attempts from any moral, religious or political position to see this content censored. That the main source of this censorship is striking from the left is the main reason their focus is in that particular direction in recent times.
I have long been meaning to write a dedicated post to #GamerGate and it would have been ideal to do this around the time it turned ten last year. I still have a draft post with many notes in it. One of these notes points out that most participants in #GamerGate were not conservatives or right-wing as portrayed in the media. There were some notable exceptions such as Vox Day, Roosh V and to a much lesser extent: me. But most were libertine leftists, centrists if not apathetic. What prompted this odd group to band together was a more ruthless and authoritarian strain of political leftism that had been creeping into prominence elsewhere before turning its evil eye on hobbies enjoyed mostly by men. The last straw so to speak, was their very unwelcome and ongoing infiltration into gaming. This was not (as always portrayed), a desire for “marginalised” groups to have more “representation” in gaming and was always destructive at its core. Even as I write there are continued revelations that this was funded by a number of organisations and even unknowingly by US taxpayers. #GamerGate was the first time this sort of cultural warfare had received significant opposition at a genuinely grassroots level.
Another problem with her position is related to Melonie Mac herself. I don’t know how old she is but until very recently, she would have been on the other side of #GamerGate and against the gamers that make up most of her potential audience. There is video of her presenting during the 2017 E3 with the gaming anti-Pope himself, Geoff Keighley and tweets of her from less than five years ago saying things quite in opposition to her current stated position on sexual morality. Her personal appearance is also something of a contradiction. She is covered in tattoos, tends to shows a lot of skin and one merely has to enter her name into an image search engine to come up with even more immodest imagery. Less damning but no less relevant is her enthusiasm for the video game heroine Lara Croft who was from inception designed to appeal to what our enemies describe as the “male gaze”. Lastly, something which is not her fault but still unhelpful is her rather shrill voice.
I do not want to question the sincerity of Miss Mac’s convictions but I would say that her stridency on this issue should be coupled with some self-examination especially regarding her recent past. To briefly dwell on myself as an example, I began the process of my own conversion barely a decade ago and still feel it necessary to remind my readers that I remain a mountain of failure though I have changed many of my ways for the better. Had she contextualised her position similarly, I am quite sure the negative response would have been at least somewhat muted. I hate the word hypocrisy as it is one most are guilty of in one way or another but it has to be admitted that it is hard to fault one who has used it to describe Melonie Mac.
Raz0rfist, who I have been following since early on in his YouTube career has come out in defence of Mac. He too is a fairly recent convert and also one with a sinful history that is easily exposed with a little time on the Internet. This is evident simply by looking at many of his early videos on YouTube. I quite like Raz0rfist (and have two of his books on my shelf), but he would have been better to have adopted an uncharacteristically humble approach in this defence.
One might be tempted to bring up the logical fallacy known as “poisoning the well” but this is not a debating club. This is the Internet, sir. And it does not forget nor does it play by rules found in formal logic. When you make yourself a public figure on the Internet, you must be even more careful than a celebrity or a politician. Everything you do, everything you’ve done and anything you might do will likely be discovered at some point. The only way to disarm these inevitable attacks is by being upfront about them. Obstinacy is merely a delaying tactic.
So to end where I began, a convert’s main avenue for converting others is with humility. Acknowledge what you’ve done and where you’ve been wrong and move from there. Beginning a sentence simply with something like, “I’ve learned from my mistakes that…” is much harder attack than vociferously attacking something that one can easily establish you were previously quite okay with.
So while I don’t essentially disagree with Melonie Mac, it is hard to defend the way she went about it.