Growing Gamergater numbers fuels basement real estate boom

Growing numbers of so-called gamergaters are driving a property gold-rush that has seen demand for basement apartments soaring.

According to Clive from The North Illinois Journal of Land and Property, underground one-room apartments that fulfil a dual function as communal laundry rooms, and have shared access to kitchen and bathroom facilities located elsewhere on the property, are now the hottest tickets in real estate.

It's a trend that has not gone unnoticed by boutique social justice realtors such as 'Progressive Shacks' in San Francisco. Manager, Susan Song said:

“For decades the basement-dwelling demographic has been almost exclusively morbidly-obese, neck-bearded, white, male virgins who hate women, despite often renting these rooms from their mothers. As demand for these properties outstrips available stock, increasing rents are driving out traditional tenants and forcing them to relocate to cheaper alternatives such as their brother Chad's old bedroom. Some have even been left with no option other than to move out altogether.

“In their place we are seeing seeing a flood of wealthy, socially progressive tenants, who are re-purposing these subterranean dwellings as salt-water lagoons where they can enjoy a lethargic, subaquatic lifestyle in a safe space, free from the predatory attentions of sea lions.”

The conquest of the patriarchal underlands has sparked victory celebrations among those who follow the tenets of social justice:

“By forcibly occupying spaces that were formerly inhabited by the CIS white male elite, and were previously no-go areas for women and minorities, we have enacted an unprecedented historic win over the patriarchy. At long last we have what they had,” said Volunteer Social Justice Warden and part-time Website Synergy Consultant, Darcy O' Keady.

Pausing to unfold a creaking Z-bed and draw a flimsy improvised curtain along a length of washing line, screening off the staircase and a washer/drier from the sleeping area, O'Keady continued:

“Yet our victory is also a bitter defeat, for in conquering the traditional homelands of the CIS white male cultural overlords, the triumphant minorities have been forced underground, driven out of sight from society while our oppressors occupy our former above-ground homes and enjoy perks such as guaranteed privacy, natural light and great views over the bay area.

“Meanwhile we find ourselves paying way over the odds for accommodation that is gloomy and substandard. This is surely a reflection of the unconscious social bias against minorities that I heard so much about at college.”

Many in the property business have advised caution among would-be landlords, describing the current demand for basement dwellings as a short-lived fad. One such sceptic is Real Estate Trends Analyst, Martha Brayley:

“We would expect demand for these properties to peak sooner rather than later. In the long-term rents are likely to fall back to what they were prior to the property boom. Once their Patreon funds dry up the blue-haired trolls who currently occupy these 'artisan cellars' are likely to find themselves back in their natural habitat, sleeping under bridges.”

*  *  *

Latest Social Justice revolution actually just a slight turn to the right

It was supposed bring about lasting to social change, but, according to recently released figures the latest social justice revolution managed only a 60 degrees turn to the right, leaving its organisers with a peripheral view of what is going on.

One of the revolutionary leaders who asked to be identified as Batman said:

“Obviously we were hoping for a paradigm shift of 180 degrees resulting in a complete cultural about-face and a comprehensive overhaul of societal norms. We did not account for the actions of our oppressors pushing our revolution counter-clockwise and stalling our momentum.”

Professor Clarence Potts of Turnidge College, Cambridge, observed:

“These social justice tail-chasers are on a downward spiral and seem to spend all their time going round and round in increasingly tighter and more vicious circles. Given their experience in this area its amazes me that they were unable to bring about a revolution. Maybe they just got giddy.”

(SATIRE) Agents of social justice to be embedded in all video games

Trigger Warning: The following work of satire contains dangerously high levels of the chemical element AS and, as such, may poison the future of video gaming.

~

Virtual ambassadors who will aggressively promote the abrasive tenets of authoritarian political correctness, and offer advice on how to profit from victimhood, are set to become standard characters in all video games.

What have, until this point, been disturbing rumours, circulated among a vociferous gaggle of self-important hipsters and overly-entitled, blue-haired indie games developers with hair-trigger tempers, gained an awful credence when Under Andrew's Mattress Games revealed that the coin-operated activist, Anita Sarkeesian, had been added as a playable character in their latest title - Citadel Downgrade.

Jason 'the Marx' Marks from Under Andrew's Mattress Games told MODE 5:

“I have been a fan of Anita's work ever since I hooked up with Deborah from the Shielded Internet Campaign and had to re-adjust my previously long-held beliefs for the sake of my sex life. Feminist Frequency's Tropes vs Feminism videos have become a crystal ball in which we can foresee the joyless finger-wagging future of our society: A culture where every thought, word and deed is excessively scrutinised and evaluated for any signs of offence, and where our basic freedoms have been worn away by the insidious coercive creep of indoctrination and self-censorship. Still at least I'm finally getting laid.”

Pausing to offer his palm for a high five which, in the interests of ethical journalism, our reporter did not accept, 'The Marx' continued:

“In the past even AAA Games developers like Ubisoft have publicly struggled with the challenge of creating playable female characters. When considering including a female character in Citadel Downgrade we, as an under-resourced indie developer, were cautious about setting our sights too high. We felt that Anita's minimal range of facial expressions and limited wardrobe choices made her an achievable goal.

“The greatest challenge we faced was capturing the movement of someone who, in her public life, is essentially a static prop who is moved from camera to camera and, like Kermit the Frog, may or may not have functioning legs. We got around this problem by adding Josh McIntosh as a character. In the game Josh crouches down behind Anita, effectively using her as a human shield, while he operates her like a steam-punk automaton using a pair of levers protruding from her back.”

Colin MacKenzie – a former flatmate of MODE 5, who despite any discernible qualifications or specialist knowledge, has successfully passed himself off as some kind of fucking gaming expert in a variety of clueless TV reports - said:

“It has become a common theme in games that are set in dystopian societies for the hero to find themselves in conflict with a superficially benign, but ultimately oppressive, system of government. By including Sarkeesian as a character, Under Andrew's Mattress Games have cleverly subverted this trope, allowing gamers the opportunity to play as the autocrat. The Anita Sarkeesian-themed downloadable content in Citadel Downgrade is likely to provide fans of the title with many additional hours of utterly miserable gameplay and open up new frontiers in tedium and frustration.”

MODE 5 handed their beta copy of Citadel Downgrade to the noted YouTube game blogger Nic Hooper, whose heavy breathing, trailing sentences and long pauses have been likened by critics, in the comments section of his videos, to the sound of somebody indecisively masturbating.

Nic sent us a tedious, 14 hour video review, excerpts from which we have published below: Take it away Nic! 

~ 

“So I'm, uh, playing Citadel Downgrade... again... and uh... as you can probably see, uh, from the plaid shirt on my character, I've, uh, unlocked uh... Anita Sarkeesian....

“Uh... as you can see Anita is controlled by some kind of... homunculus, which I think is supposed to be Josh McIntosh. He's constantly muttering under his breath and he seems kind of pissed at everything. He cowers behind Anita and moves her around, I guess, using a pair of levers... so it's almost like she's some kind of puppet.”

(6 hours 36 minutes into the Hooper-stream)

“So anyway... uh... As you can see there's a guy standing facing a computer terminal, so I guess that he's some kind of software engineer. And I want to tell him that, uh... as a white male, it's not appropriate behaviour for him to be dominating the technology... so, uh, okay, I'm just going to wake Josh up... and what, uh, I'm going to do is to walk Anita over to software guy and I'm, uh, just going to walk into him.

“Okay... I got his attention and, uh... You can see that he's shouting and, uh, waving his arms about. And, uh, Anita... Rather than attack him directly what she, uh, does is she turns her back on him and refuses to engage with his opinions... or even acknowledge his existence. And, uh... you can see, uh... every time this guy tries to speak to Anita her score keeps going up... Okay, you can see now he's given up and gone back to the, uh, terminal... And now his back is turned Anita is saying something to him... and so now he's pissed again.

“So, uh... anyway Anita does have a kind of attack by proxy. If you look... if I just scroll up... uh... you can see all these guys in white suits of armour pouring in from the sides of the screen... and you can, uh, see that they're shielding Anita from this guy, so his words are bouncing off their shields... which is, uh, kind of cool, I guess.

“And then down here there are these blue haired creatures that I guess are trolls of some sort... and they have a sonic attack... like, uh, a shriek, and, uh, as you can see they're using this screeching attack to drive the software technician guy away from the computer terminal... And I think I'm, uh, just going to turn the sound down for a moment... And, uh, as you can see one of the trolls has planted a flag... so that area is now like a safe space.”

(9 hours and 14 minutes into the Hooper-stream)

“Another... uh... I suppose another, uh … I guess you could call it a thing – another thing is when I want Anita to perform a task she's, uh... she's kind of picky about what she will or won't do. Like here, uh... I need her to go through this, uh... I guess this is what some people who live in California might call a door. It's kind of essential that she visits this area because you can't finish the game if you don't go there and compete the, uh, quests.

“Okay, so now Anita is telling me that going through the door will be problematic for her. So, uh, now I'm kind of stuck. I don't know, uh, whether there's some kind of, uh, inventory item that I need to, uh, get first or some task that I need to complete... But, for the, uh, moment I'm stuck in this room... I can't progress any further in the game.”

(11 hours and 46 minute into the Hooper-stream)

“There's another – I guessing, uh, that it might be a bug but then again it might not be a bug. Like okay, uh, so earlier, about three hours ago, I asked the Anita Sarkeesian character to perform a task for me... Uh, as you can see if I just... the task bar stopped fairly early on... like, first off, I thought the game had crashed but it hadn't.

“Anyway, uh, about a few, uh, minutes ago some new dialogue from Anita flashed up on the screen... So she's, uh, she's telling me that she's not going to complete the task I set her... She's, uh, going to begin working on a completely different task but she is going to need some more money upfront... And all the money I spent on the previous task is gone... And, uh, I'm kind of pissed about that because I paid her quite a lot and I did a lot of grinding to raise those game bucks.

“There's one last thing, uh, I think that it might be another bug or some kind of malware. Ever since I installed the update MODE 5 gave me on my PC, I've been getting these unblockable pop-up ads offering to analyse my handwriting... so you know guys... Uh...”

~

MODE 5 has learned that Sarkeesian's infiltration of the gaming world is unlikely to be her last, with rumours abound that she will provide the voice of a social justice obsessed, forerunner monitor in the next Halo game. According to early reports, the NPC will be impervious to all weaponry, will mark out safe spaces where enemies cannot be harmed, and will impose a progressive stack on the Master Chief, forcing him to fire upon his assailants in ascending order of privilege.

Colin MacKenzie, who apparently makes over 50 grand a year as a 'Gaming expert', despite being locked in a decade-long obsessive-compulsive cycle that sees him endlessly re-playing Hitman: Contracts, told MODE 5:

“You could compare Anita Sarkeesian's impact on the world of gaming as being a bit like Alice going down the rabbit hole and entering Wonderland. You have, superimposed upon this realm of fantasy, imagination and adventure, this very totalitarian character who tells everyone she meets to clean up their act. So now the Cheshire Cat in no longer allowed to grin in case he offends anyone and the Mad Hatter is on a 12-step program. What we are witnessing is the boot-print of a singular authoritarian vision stamped across the collective imagination and freedom of expression of thousands of gamers.”