The Verge builds a crappy PC, uses blow back to attack PCMR
If you’re into PC gaming, you’ve probably seen the infamous video by now. Garbage tier website The Verge attempted, key word being “attempted”, to show you how to build your own custom $2,000 gaming PC.
The end result was sloppy mess even by beginners’ standards. The power supply was installed backwards, blocking its cooling intake. There were no fans installed on the radiators. The AIO pump was only fastened to the motherboard with three screws. Though perhaps the funniest part was the CPU installation, which one Redditor described as “thermal paste bukkake”. I’ve seen computers Linus dropped end in better shape.
The PC building community was, of course, highly critical of the video for its display of improper techniques that could damage your hardware. Here’s the problem though. The person who created the video, Stefan Etienne, is an African-American gentleman. Which of course means people criticizing his sloppy work are, indeed, racists.
Posting on Twitter, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel said that they were pulling the video due to “factual errors”, but went on to chide PC gamers for supposedly racist attacks against Etienne.
After scrolling through several Reddit threads on the video, and comments on YouTube, I haven’t been able to find any racist comments. That’s not to say there weren’t any, but The Verge is making it out to appear that there’s some sort of organized campaign against its writer. If he has proof of that, I’d certainly like to see it, and I will retract my statements if so. It also completely ignores people who were trying to offer the guy honest advice.
Unfortunately, this is the typical modus operendi of these tabloid trash sites. The new clickbait for a politically polarized world. They infiltrate a popular hobby, stir up a hornet’s nest, then use the blow back to label its fans as all sorts of nasty, and imaginary, -ists and -isms.
It’s about as dishonest as journalism gets. However, it gets them plenty of clicks from people who choose to believe there are racists hidden under every rock. If you read the comments on Nilay Patel’s Twitter post, you’ll find it’s quite effective propaganda.
We’ve known for a long time that the media has a particularly large hard-on against gaming, going back as far as the Clinton administration. More recently we’ve seen similar attacks on #GamerGate and the Battlefield V controversy. Different issues but similar MOs. It’s all about creating a moral panic, because fear sells.
I do find it hilarious that they’d attack PCMR for anti-black racism, when one of the community’s patron saints is Terry Crews. Who is indeed black the last time I checked, and an all around awesome guy. Though I guess the kind of people who work at the Verge were too busy trying to grab his junk to notice.
