Hey y'all. Bryce/ThaManimal/Greatwhiteterr from Digital Ground Game here.
Since I last wrote for the Pragmatic Papers, a lot has happened. The larger we grow, the more my voice shrinks, and the more questions I get. The shrinking of my voice is intentional — I oversee a lot of people at this point and the things I say and do affect others in ways that I understand and ways I don't. Oftentimes, the best course of action is for me to stay quiet. It's why someone else has run the Twitter, partially why I gave up the Pragmatic Papers, and why I don't go on stream as often as I should. The less I say, the less my words get used against me.
At least, that's what I thought.
We've grown to the point where it doesn't matter. Regardless of what I have or haven't said, Kiwi Farms will make up some narratives and dox my volunteers, weirdos like Jstlk or Ogreboy will repeat those lies on Twitter, and then Hasan will amplify all of it. Given that the outcome is the same no matter what, I may as well set the record straight and give some insight.
We'll start with Libcon. Simply put, it was a massive success. Leading up to the event, there were some definite nerves from the organizers, Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA), about how things would go. Sponsors had received emails spreading the expected Destiny narratives — the usual pairing, where he's an irrelevant pedophile sex pest with dark agents in every corner of the internet. How could you sponsor this, blah blah blah. To a lesser extent, Understandable as one of the larger groups that attended this event was the press. A decent chunk of my job is soothing concerns about the various controversies that pop up, and this was no exception. Luckily, the people over at ISMA are no strangers to internet bullshit and they decided to press on. By every measure the event worked, and they're glad they pressed on.
Going into the event I was nervous. The worry one always has when gathering a bunch of DGGers in a single space is obviously the social aspect of things. DGG has a certain culture, and while I enjoy indulging in that culture quite a bit, it just takes one person asking Ezra Klein about dogwarts to set us back quite a bit. Luckily, y'all pulled through. Roughly 50 members of our community were in attendance and everyone acted like model students. They asked good questions after panels, talked to people in the halls with genuine interest, and were nothing but polite and respectful at the various social activities during and after the event. Most importantly, it seems like everyone had a great time. Our people got to have long, unhurried conversations with Francis Fukuyama, Ezra Klein, Sarah Longwell, and more. I got to meet a lot of you who I've had countless conversations with online, and it was a delight. I have my doubts about this work sometimes, but actually interacting with you all reminds me of why I do these things. Thank you for showing up.
Alright, let's go to the College Democrats of America incident and the fallout thereafter. First off, yeah, Digital Ground Game had nothing to do with that. We had a couple of people who attended the conference of their own volition, but that doesn't constitute Digital Ground Game being there in an official capacity. The same way Darius being on our server and streaming doesn't mean it's an "official Digital Ground Game stream". If his adjacency to our activities constitutes him being an official representative of our organization, then people like Hasan Piker or Graham Platner constitute official representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America. There may have been some confusion on whether or not Darius was a volunteer based on the tweets we sent out, and that's my bad. From an organizational perspective, unless someone is actually suspected of wrongdoing, we just shouldn't comment on their volunteer status. I don't want to build an organization that'll throw people who are associated with us under the bus in order to avoid idiots on Twitter, and I'll stand on that position all day long.
To speak on Destiny getting kicked out: on top of being incredibly stupid, it's pure cowardice to not allow Destiny to attend that public event. People point to Darius getting booted from Libcon as some sort of gotcha, but Darius messed up his registration. Had he done things properly, he would've been allowed in. If Hasan had gone through proper channels, we would've allowed him in as well. When snarkers sign up for events (this has happened multiple times already) we allow them in. We pay for security, we run checks, if someone wants to be a jackass at an event then they have the opportunity to do so. It's a free country, baby, might as well use it.
After the event, Soypill reached out to our Twitter and asked to take down a tweet in order to distance himself from Destiny. To be clear, this is fine. He's a controversial dude and people are gonna want some distance from time to time. As an organization, we shouldn't be leaking stuff like that. The person who did it meant to keep things from escalating into further beef, but that clearly wasn't the outcome. That person is no longer running our Twitter account. It doesn't reflect well on us and although I've apologized privately, I would like to apologize to Soypill publicly. It's just not how we should operate.
The above things have resulted in a fair amount of questions, both on Twitter and in my DMs. "Is this a Destiny organization? Do we care about reaching other content creators? Are we capping our potential growth by sticking with Destiny?" I'm going to attempt to be super clear about these answers.
1. Is this a Destiny org?
No, Destiny doesn't have a hand in our operations, he doesn't have a position on the board, and we'll never just do his bidding without reason. That being said, we are built out of his community. His audience makes up most of our volunteer base, we've obviously fundraised from the community, and his support has been second to none, publicly and privately. Outside of my personal affection towards DGG, it would be incredibly stupid for us NOT to be shaped by the community that has given us the most. I didn't name the organization Digital Ground Game because Destiny is actually running the org from the shadows, I named it Digital Ground Game because I wanted to pay tribute to the people who have stood by us the most. The fickleness of politics irks me to my core, and I wanted to make sure that Destiny and DGG received proper recognition for the work they've done.
If people from another creator's community want to shape how we operate or our culture, come do it. I don't say no to help. There's no reason someone from Hutch's community or IRI's can't run our Twitter or help out with canvassing outside of the fact that well, they don't do it right now. Organizations are always shaped by their most dedicated volunteers, and we're no exception. Currently our most dedicated volunteers are from Destiny's audience, so until that changes there's only so much I can do. It's not an instant process — change takes time and the people who lead our org have all given theirs in spades. But if you do want those changes to happen, the only way to make them happen is to get in there and start. This is true of any organization, not just Digital Ground Game.
2. Do we care about reaching other content creators?
Duh, our goal is and always has been to reach other audiences and teach them what we know. Nothing about a little turbulence changes that. That being said, I'm not particularly interested in kissing the ass of anybody with a following. If you talk at length about how the Trump admin is an existential threat to democracy but never do anything about it out of fear of backlash, then you're not serious and part of the problem. If liberalism is to survive, it needs people willing to defend it from attacks on both flanks. I'm not sure what about the history of politics gave people the idea that it was possible to make change without any sort of conflict, but I'll be the bearer of bad news; there's conflict. You can either shy away from it and let the opposition win, or stand on your positions and fight like your life depends on it. I started this org because I wanted to fight Trump any way I could, and I'll be damned if our pursuit of expansion gets in the way of that. Either get on board or get out of the way.
Our volunteers have been doxed, threatened, berated, defamed, and more. All because they watch a certain streamer. Yet they continue to show up and put in work for little to no thanks. We're not perfect by any stretch and we don't claim to be. We're going to mess up in a variety of ways, whether that be defending Destiny from an official account or by saying the wrong thing to a reporter. Regardless, we're going to continue to organize, build connections, and affect electoral outcomes. Anything else is a distraction, and my volunteers deserve my full attention. Thank y'all for everything, and I'll talk again soon.
Comments
Loading comments…