100

This entry marks the 100^th post on the MODE 5 blog, which was established in October 2014 to lampoon the grasping and duplicitous social justice movement, who had fixed their sights on the videogaming community probably imagining that it would be an easy target.

The title of the blog dates back to my first computer - a BBC model B micro which came with a whopping 32k of memory. Programming on the BBC was carried out in a series of different modes. MODE 5 produced large blocky pixels and became an expression used by me and my brothers to explain away moments of idiocy, e.g. "I must have been in MODE 5 when I pipetted ice cold water onto that hot light bulb." 

This blog is now closed and there will be no further entries.

I will continue to support GamerGate and its expanded mandate to promote ethical behaviour, not only in the gaming press, but across all media platforms, and in the videogaming industry. However, I have other writing commitments that must take precedence. Also, it has become clear that the likes of Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, Randi Harper, etc, do not need any assistance in making themselves look ridiculous. When Jonathan McIntosh is comfortable sermonising on the similarities between Pokemon Go and dog fighting, you have to accept that your targets have moved themselves beyond the reach of satire. With that in mind, MODE 5 has probably run its course.

At some point I will begin adding a notes to the beginning of each post that explains what was going on at the time and what exactly I was attempting to make fun of. 

I would like to thank anybody who visited this blog and took the time to read it.

If you would like to know more about GamerGate you would do well to visit the DeepFreeze website. This provides a very user-friendly breakdown of the events of the past couple of years and has links to archived sources, including a lot of material that has been deleted from the internet by individuals attempting to cover their tracks.

~ backwards7

(Satire) The casebook of Jonathan McIntosh: Hard-boiled Cultural Detective

This episode: The Gay Greek!

There are a million stories in the naked city. During peak tourist season that number might run as high as 1.5 million. I don't know the exact figure. Go look it up on Wikipedia.

New York in July: The ying and the yang of it, distilled to the hot-pink neon sign of a feminist bookshop reflecting in a cooling puddle of soy latte outside an artisan bakery. I watched from the second floor window as the wheel of a passing unicycle ploughed through the centre of the mirror image, scattering the dancing light to the edges like a shoal of gaily-coloured transexual fish evading the predatory lunge of a Great White cis-gendered shark.

Everything to the north of here was a safe space. Rows of apartment buildings dating back to the Taft presidency, fashioned from play-doh by the beaten-down male allies of a lesbian queefing circle. A fainting couch on every corner. An Olympic-size ball pit where they staged the water events in the 2012 oppression games. The bulls patrolled the area with boxes of kittens and puppies. Some mugg catcalls you in the street - well here's a baby cat for the boo boos on your feels.

Downtown, the ugly face of misogyny pressed itself obscenely against the soiled windows of the soul, like a man projecting his inadequacies onto a display of Barbie Dolls in a toy shop. I've seen things here that would make you turn around on the spot and drag your wheeled suitcase across country, back to your wholefood collective in San Francisco: Men sitting on public transport with their knees three inches apart. Boy scouts as young as eight, holding doors open for women old enough to be their mothers. Hell, some of those clucks might have even been their mothers.

I turned my face away from the Venetian blinds. The dame lounging on the opposite side of the dimly-lit office was wearing the shadows like a tarpaulin draped over a 1970s Volvo. She had a figure like a squat tumbler of water. In the battle of wills between my male gaze and her gams it wasn't clear which one would quit first.

“Mr McIntosh, did you ever lose something?”

“Sure toots, I've lost plenty.”

“For instance...”

“My former partner keeps my nads in a jar.”

She raised one painted-on eyebrow in an affected display of surprise. A real Mona Lisa this one.

“And where does he keep the jar?”

“He was a she, and that ain't a thing for a lady to be asking.”

“Oh, I'm no lady. You'll realise that when you get to know me a little better... A lot better if you play your cards right.”

“I never was very good at poker.”

“And what is your game Mr McIntosh?”

Again with the raised eyebrow.

“I've always enjoyed netball.”

“You're a smart-mouthed little egg, ain't ya.”

“You don't know the half of it doll-face.”

Lost for words, she flung a photograph onto the desk. A good looking blonde. Dark glasses. Hawaiian shirt open at the neck.

“My husband, Milo Yiannopoulos. I need you to find him.”

Sure, I knew Milo. Everybody did. The Greek gadfly. Owned a chain of Halal kebab restaurants back in blighty. A preening jasper in public but I'd seen the marriage certificates to Lena Dunham and Jessica Valenti. He played up the gay angle for the press, but behind closed doors Milo was straighter than the creases in Bill Clinton's pyjama bottoms on his wedding night.

“When did he last make contact?”

“He posted a selfie on Twitter half an hour ago. Then nothing. It's completely out of character... And there's another thing.”

She pulled something hairy from her handbag and tossed it in my direction. I had drawn my revolver and put three slugs into it before it landed on top of the photograph.

“It's' his toupee. He left it behind... I'm worried that it might be Tay Tay – I hear that she collects men.”

I returned my gun to its shoulder holster. Standing by the window I prised apart two of the slats in the blind. On the street corner below, a man was spending the extra 23 cents he had made as a result of the gender pay gap on a cronut and a flavoured coffee with whipped cream on top. My father drank cappuccino's with unicorns drawn in the foam his entire life. Thank god that he didn't live to see this.

“I'll take the case,” I said. “One hundred a day plus expenses. Five days in advance.”

I counted out five hundred dollars in notes and handed it to her.

“I'll be touch miss...”

“It's Harper. Randi Harper.”

After she was gone I sat for a while in the darkness watching the ice slowly dissolve in my beaker of apple juice. There were a million stories in the naked city and practically all of them were sexist. Now that I had agreed to take the case there were a million and one.

From across the street the cries of a white, cis-gendered male baby, who had failed to check his privilege, drowned out the voices of the oppressed. 

(Satire) Studio execs fear that the makers of Star Trek Beyond are not doing enough to insult their potential audience

Fears that the makers of Star Trek Beyond are not doing enough to alienate the film's potential audience have spilled out of the boardroom, and onto the internet, like the ugly bar-room brawl scene that opens Tron 3: The Sisterhood of the Travelling Virtual Pants.

Sony studio head-nodder, and Ghostbusters 2016 executive producer, Chad Anderton Jr, said: “I have yet to see anything in the Star Trek Beyond marketing that is deliberately insulting to fans, or to people who might be curious about the movie. Admittedly the trailers weren't particularly great, almost as if they didn't include the main plot points and the best parts of the film. Clearly that's a mistake rather than anything malicious. Other than the release of the theme song by Rihanna, the thrust of the promotional campaign seems to have been: 'You might enjoy this film if you like Star Trek or science fiction.' What the fuck are these people playing at?

“As anyone who had a crush on somebody at school knows, the best way to get them to go out with you is to punch them hard in the shoulder. In terms of the marketing for Ghostbusters, we felt that the best way to build hype for the movie was for its stars to appear on TV chat shows openly ridiculing the critics of the film's trailers as 45 year old, unemployed losers, who live in their parent's basements and have never known the touch of woman.

“Nerds form a big part of the audience that the Ghostbusters reboot is aimed at and our market research shows that this demographic responds best to bullying and humiliation."

A leaked email from Sony has revealed that the company is also exploring legal options that might compel individuals who have expressed a reluctance to see Ghostbusters, to attend a cinema screening under the threat of a lawsuit. The email reads:

“In order to more fully evaluate our position if members of the public decline to engage with “Ghostbusters”, to panic-buy action figures, or to purchase an extra large tub of slime green popcorn, it has been requested that we identify “aggressive” litigation counsel with whom we can consult to evaluate our alternatives and strategize.”

45 year old shut in Michael J Evans said:

“Nothing makes me want to see a film more than when its wealthy and successful cast publicly shame and ridicule the direction that my life has taken, while demanding that I spend the little money that I have on the humiliation of watching their shameless studio cash as an act of redemption for being such a sad loser. I guess that its time to venture upstairs. I hope there is a good exchange rate on Good Boy Points against the dollar.”

Evans added

“Maybe the film will be okay. I mean, judging by the trailers, the plot of the original 84 movie is mostly still there. Plus if you squint really hard, Melissa McCarthy kind of looks like Harold Ramis.”