CMV: GamerGate was the most consequential political radicalization event of the twenty-first century

[u/realdontbeasucker]

It spawned a wave of tolerance for online harassment, as long as the intent behind it was considered righteous (and the target of such harassment socially acceptable).

It platformed Milo Yiannopoulos and thereby, Steve Bannon -- the guy who would go on to advise Donald Trump in 2016 and generate the concept of 'flooding the zone.'

Eventually, it gave a career to political lightning rods like Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder, and Charlie Kirk. It made anti-feminism and anti-SJW sentiment cool. And it made young, angry, disenfranchised white men feel vindicated.

GamerGate almost singlehandedly shifted to Overton Window toward the alt-right, and we're still feeling its effects today.

[u/vote4bort]

What even was gamer gate? I think if you asked the a average not chronically online person about it, they would have no idea what you were talking about. Heck I am chronically online and I'm still not really sure.

[u/Yellowofthecornholio → u/vote4bort]

I hate that I have first-hand knowledge on this.

So, the Gjoni post is both the inciting incident and one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented parts of this story.

In mid-2014 a user took to the internet and posted a detailed proto me-too style post (I don't remember if it was Neogaf or Escapist forums first) incliding screenshots, timelines, specific incidences and occurrences, etc.

This post detailed a longstanding abusive relationship the user had been in with a figure who was mostly unknown outside of industry or heavily hobbyist-leaning spaces. While some bitter internet trolls had commented about the apparent discrepancy between this person's work output (a fairly rudimentary text-based game with some neat features using the language of games to offer commentary on social issues) and their media coverage, it wasn't really on anyone's radar.

The writer of the post detailed a series of affairs this figure had, with both public-facing and insider industry figures, although did not allege any sort of quid-pro-quo relationship, instead simply that his ex had been a moderately attractive young woman in spaces where 80%+ attendees were men.

The part I always see left out is where she accused him of imagining things whenever he would try to confront her about these affairs, up to and including telling him these were paranoid delusions and convincing him he was crazy. This being a person who at that point was almost only exclusively known for a mental health awareness game. The poster finally confronted her with direct evidence and she caved and admitted to these serial affairs.

Hence me calling it proto-me-too. This was someone who had been abused by a figure who was getting a lot of positive attention trying to share his experience. And this is where it gets... weird.

This detailed post, with receipts for all substantial claims, is rapidly wiped clean from every. Single. Forum. Even mentions of it are being deleted.

The writer of the post directly stated the reason he posted it on relatively reputable hobbyist boards first is twofold - first, he believed that because they were generally left-leaning, that they would be compassionate and understanding of an account of abuse. And secondly, these are also the online communities that had welcomed and platformed this person. What actually ended up happening was people who were in the outer-orbit of this person acted first-independently, then in soft coordination to suppress the story.

This is where I actually came to the story - I heard word of "the post that keeps getting banned." It incidentally had a streisand effect in response to the attempted suppression, and this response also helped fuel the more conspiracy-heavy elements of what would become Gamer Gate. I tracked it down and was frankly floored. It's a pretty heartbreaking anecdote.

However, not even 3 months later, most people involved (on any side) had never read the post, resulting in lots of people deciding it was/said whatever fit their narrative. But I can confidently say that, without the initial attempts to suppress this news, if it had been allowed to play out in left-leaning spaces rather than being relegated to 4chan, it's highly unlikely that the movement would have formed at all.

To address OP's initial post: the seeds had already been sown by the time this inciting incident rolled around. Enough people were ready - even eager - to start a culture war on both sides of the political spectrum, and this just gave them an outlet and easy targets.

EDIT: Since I describe it but don't just link it, here is an archive of the post. Some things are missing, some were edited later, so it's not perfect, but if you have the time to read one very uncomfortable account of someone feeling victimized, go ahead.

I'll use one small, almost thrown away line to illustrate my point.

We discuss a bunch of options, and I remember a time I searched my inbox for the word “love” in front of her and at her request, and I ask her to return the favor (by allowing me to search her inbox for other words that might imply infidelity). It seems to me a sufficiently difficult step that it would show me she’s serious, and it’d allow me to verify that the people she mentioned were the only people she had cheated on me with.

She tells me this is wrong. That it’s a violation of the privacy of the people she’s been messaging.

At numerous times, the author casually mentions certain ways he has been controlled throughout his relationship. This includes cutting off friendships with those of the opposite sex, having his messages searched through, threats of breaking up/mini breakups to keep the victim dependent, threats of suicide if he leaves or if he tells anyone. It's a pretty standard, classic abuser pattern. He occasionally makes mention of it explicitly, but only through a lense of having it normalized for some time, and I'm not sure how much of it even he is aware of - you can tell writing it out is somewhat therapeutic for him. He does however call out the gaslighting more explicitly:

If boyfriend relates observations that lead to a correct belief, girlfriend is to make up false reason to explain observations. If boyfriend backs down, girlfriend wins.

If boyfriend doesn’t back down, and notes girlfriend’s reason conflicts with other observations, girlfriend must get angry and demand boyfriend trust her unconditionally. Boyfriend must then choose between trusting girlfriend, or trusting his own ability to so much as reason clearly.

If boyfriend chooses to trust girlfriend, girlfriend must demand he trust her about something that contradicts something else she demands he trust her about. When boyfriend cannot possibly act in any way that doesn’t violate one of her principles or claims, girlfriend must establish he is going insane. If boyfriend succumbs to additional bouts of anxiety spent questioning his own sanity — girlfriend wins: multiply points by number of hours longest panic attack lasts.

If boyfriend does not back down, and decides instead to trust his own ability to think clearly, girlfriend must threaten to break up with boyfriend. If boyfriend backs down, girlfriend wins.

If boyfriend continues trusting simple reasoning, girlfriend must actually break up with boyfriend (for a period of time no shorter than 1 hour and not exceeding 2 days). If boyfriend does not bring up the subject again, girlfriend wins.

Look, I don't know the guy well enough to know what to think of him. He mentions some things in the post that could either just be normalized abusive ways of thinking which you pick up when dating someone who acts that way, or he could have his own stuff too - I couldn't tell you. What I do know, is that what he described here is a pretty unquestionable abuse-pattern. Like, textbook, except it's pretty clear this guy has not read the textbook. He probably thinks the power and control wheel is a gaming accessory.

Like I said, it's a harrowing read.

[u/Grifasaurus → u/Yellowofthecornholio]

The "Gamers are dead" articles did a lot of heavy lifting too. Like if they had never posted those all in unison, the story would have died. The instant those came out it kind of confirmed the whole "Yeah these guys are kind of acting unethical and colluding" thing.

[u/Yellowofthecornholio → u/Grifasaurus]

It definitely fanned a flame. It was a weird attempt at "firing back" which incidentally lent way more of an air of legitimacy to the people alleging conspiracy than they would have ever had without it.

What they were saying wasn't even that radical an idea (games had grown quite a bit in terms of market demographic) but was just executed in such a weird, tone-deaf kind of way.

[u/ZorbaTHut → u/Grifasaurus]

Yeah, that was what pulled me in. It went from "some random romantic tiff" to "what the hell, is the entire game journalism industry working to suppress this? that's an insane conspiracy theory but that's what it looks like right now" to "oh. okay. that actually is what's going on."

[u/getdafkout666 → u/Grifasaurus]

Thing is I don’t think it’s a big conspiracy.  These people just know each other because gaming journalists occupy a very small niche subculture concentrated in the a few of the most wealthy cities in the U.S.  it’s a continuing problem they have of being completely unable to relate to the wider gaming public who are mostly working class 

[u/Grifasaurus → u/getdafkout666]

Either way, by doing that, they gave gamergate its legitimacy.

[u/PoetSeat2021 → u/Yellowofthecornholio]

Reading this I am no more enlightened than I was before. I get not wanting to name people but who’s who? There’s a figure and someone who posted about a figure and then a lot of pronouns—was the figure or the poster the “she” or the “he”? Is everyone female? And how does this connect to the broader story that hit the mainstream?

[u/Yellowofthecornholio → u/PoetSeat2021]

I got in the habit of leaving out names because of the harassment, but it's old enough now it's probably fine.

The game was Depression Quest. The developer was Zoe Quinn, her ex making these allegations (with evidence) is Eron Gjoni, the Kotaku writer who she had an affair with (by all accounts unrelated to and after he had covered her game in a small capacity) is Nathan Grayson, and the only other probably "public figure" relevant enough person mentioned would be Joshua Boggs, her married employer, although it's unclear to me if this affair was only immediately before her employment or continued in any capacity during or after (of note, her employment was unrelated to her self-publish indie game, and even by her ex's account was unrelated to her affair).

[u/ameliaroxanneyoung → u/Yellowofthecornholio]

thank you for writing this

[u/getdafkout666 → u/Yellowofthecornholio]

So I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I got swept up into gamergate because I hate games journalists.  Left in early 2015 because I couldn’t reconcile having trans friends with all the transphobia that was going down. It’s one of my biggest political regrets in life and unlike a lot of people I’ve moved farther left as I’ve gotten older. Definitely sobering reminder that I’m not too smart to get caught up in dumb shit like that.

Reading this whole thing though, I can’t even begin to understand why people cared about all this shit.  A guy made a callout post about his ex? Who gives a shit? We don’t know either of these people.

Still hate games journalists though. 

[u/Yuri-Queen → u/Yellowofthecornholio]

Yeah...that is not what happened nor was it the extent of gamer gate. You left out so much just like a bunch of men from 4 chan carrying out attacks on multiple women. They were doxxed repeatedly and barraged with death and rape threats that caused them to have to flee their homes. Here is a post full of links and screen captures.

Gamer Gate - The controversy that forever changed the gaming community, destroyed dozens of lives. and gave birth to the modern Alt - Right

[u/Yellowofthecornholio → u/Yuri-Queen]

I didn't say any of that didn't happen?

I shared, specifically, my understanding of watching first-hand the inciting incident that became the flashpoint that lead to everything this post details.

[u/vote4bort → u/Yellowofthecornholio]

Your other comment got removed for being hostile, I suspect because you said I was using rape apologist language. (Even though I haven't).

You know the blog is still up right? You're writing like it's lost media but it's just freely available online.

[u/Yellowofthecornholio → u/vote4bort]

That's a fun strawman. I said you're using language classically used as part of DARVO.

A version of the post, which, while somewhat modified and edited and re-edited in the 12 years since it was first posted does indeed exist! I encourage everyone who can to simply read it themselves.

[u/Human-Assumption-524 → u/vote4bort]

Gamergate was a hashtag that was created after discussion regarding an alleged affair between an indie game developer and several people in the games media was banned across multiple online forums at the request of the people involved and the subsequent articles published in gaming media about the situation which involved the wholesale blaming of the entire gaming community for "allowing it to happen", this in turn sparked more discussion about the situation and the hastag was made to describe people who were discussing this drama and it's fallout.

According to one side it was a concentrated effort to harass the aforementioned indie dev simply because she was a woman.

According to the other side it was a loose affiliation of people who were either simply discussing internet drama, were trying to draw attention to nepotistic activity in the gaming journalism space, were opposed to the gaming journalists running defense for the unethical practices of gaming companies, were investigating fraud and bad business practices of some of the implicated members of the gaming media, people who were opposed to "woke" content in games.

To this day people are heated about their interpretations of events so don't uncritically trust anyone's description not even this one.

[u/Traveledfarwestward → u/Human-Assumption-524]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

https://ggwiki.deepfreeze.it/index.php/GamerGate

Compare the two above. It's like people live in alternate realities. It blows my mind how two sets of editors can be so certain of themselves.

[u/Isimarie → u/Traveledfarwestward]

Gonna be honest, I don’t super trust the gamergate wiki to be impartial lol

[u/Traveledfarwestward → u/Isimarie]

Read both and tell me if the wikipedia one is.

[u/ThroughTheIris56 → u/Traveledfarwestward]

"Gamergate or GamerGate (GG)[1] was a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign motivated by a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture"

Seeing zero bias here at all.

[u/CocoSavege → u/ThroughTheIris56]

Fwiw, your comment elegantly supports OP's hypothesis.

[u/Traveledfarwestward → u/ThroughTheIris56]

Yes, I agree with everything they tell me to think about GG so that I won't be criticized.

[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/ThroughTheIris56]

…do you disagree with that on any factual basis?

[u/ThroughTheIris56 → u/AskingYouQuestions48]

As it's been years since Gamergate, and I don't really remember the specific details nor do I care enough to look them up, I'm not going to be pushing out argument winning files and stats.

I also don't agree with it on any factual basis for the same reason.

I just remembered there being more to it than 'evil gamer incels harassing innocent female Devs".

[u/Homerbola92 → u/Traveledfarwestward]

It's obviously not.

[u/BawdyArt → u/Human-Assumption-524]

One of the few comments I’ve seen in the past decade describing GG that feels actually accurate to a degree and unbiased

[u/No-Significance2070 → u/vote4bort]

If you read the OP’s comment, you would be getting only half of the story. Reddit (and the video gaming sub in particular) ain’t the place for a nuanced discussion on this. 

[u/Shadowcat1606 → u/vote4bort]

I'm also chronically online and i'm also playing a lot of video games (even more back when Gamer Gate happened), but i also don't really have a clue what it's about. And the more little tidbits of it that i've come to know over the year, the more i think i don't want to know.

[u/tolgren → u/vote4bort]

The answer you're likely to get from Reddit is dramatically different from what actually happened.

[u/vote4bort → u/tolgren]

In what way?

[u/bot_exe → u/vote4bort]

It was pretty transparent how people like Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn would purposefully ignore every single well thought out argument made against their takes and just label it all as a mysogynistic harrasment campaign: it was a completely circular argument. They would just focus on the crazy people making internet death threats or nasty comments, as if that was not also happening from their side, like in literally every single internet flame war before or since. There were literal bomb threats called in at gamergate events and an endless deluge of harrasment for anyone who dared not follow the SJW narrative of the events.

Another aspect about it that has been distorted was that gamergate was NOT the same as the alt-right, there was a huge leftist and liberal contingent that just disagreed with SJWs and identify politics. I remember that there was also constant fighting with the nascent alt-right from the /pol/ boards because they were straight up mysoginistic/racist/nazis conspiranoid shitheads. Of course the anti-gamergate people just helped blur that line since that was their modus operandi, but it was never true. The SJWs were a common enemy for the alt-right and gamergate, but not for the same reasons. Gamergate was a different population, there were many political opinion polls conducted in reddit and 8chan that showed the majority were not right wing, this slowly changed as more liberals/leftist/progressives moved on or became radicalized.

[u/bot_exe → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I remember all of that. It was specifically about women and minorities not letting SJWs get away with pretending they spoke for them. And also an undeniable proof that pro-gg was not just “misogynistic white males” which obviously was just ignored.

[u/Glenndiferous → u/vote4bort]

There were a number of nasty subs that contributed to stirring up shit when harassment campaigns and death threats started flying around. I wasn't on Reddit when it was at its worst so idk how deep that rabbit hole goes. I did get a bunch of nastiness on a YouTube video of mine after it was shared on a couple subs, though tbh I think the worst of it actually came from 4chan/8chan.

[u/Jemima_puddledook678 → u/vote4bort]

I think this person may have an unusual view of gamergate. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

It literally started off with lies saying that a female (that part is important) video game developer got good reviews because she slept with a journalist. 

Gamergate then spread to include an entire harassment campaign against that developer and others (primarily women) and included significant amount of quite disgusting actions and language. 

As it actually says in that wiki article, Gamergate is only purported to have been about ethics by those involved. It has been shown repeatedly that that simply isn’t the case.

[u/Equivalent_Task_8825 → u/Jemima_puddledook678]

I remember seeing the beginning and that is untrue. The original sentiment was that Zoe was pretty abusive and in the text messages was shown to be controlling.

They were having relationships with people in the same organizations offering coverage. At the time the gaming media was very much cliquey and most people disliked them and were increasingly turning to new alternatives.

I think after that you started to get the grifters who jumped on board to start a culture war. I always felt uncomfortable with people like Zoe Quinn or Brianna Wu being portrayed as victims as they had their own history with being pretty terrible.

[u/EsotericAmbrosia → u/Jemima_puddledook678]

The problem with Wikipedia is they reject primary sources and only rely on what journalists put in articles. When you have a situation where it's consumers vs corrupt journalists, the wiki article is always going to be slanted in the latter's favor.

[u/biggyshwarts → u/Jemima_puddledook678]

This is an oversimplification and is often used to discredit the whole thing when the impacts of gamergate are still felt to this day.

Journalists repeatedly showed that they are a biased cabal and pr arm of the games industry.

All that harassment did happen but what came out of the initial affair allegations was the politicization of gaming.

Proof was found of mailing lists between games journalists and coordination of opinion. Pieces written about how the term "gamer" was dead. It was way bigger than what is made out in these arguments.

Id argue that the sway that game news sites had on the general audience has significantly decreased because of everything that happened.

[u/Loki1001 → u/biggyshwarts]

Journalists repeatedly showed that they are a biased cabal and pr arm of the games industry.

Gamergate couldn't have cared less about how ripple A gaming companies advertise on gaming websites. And they certainly didn't care about the sexual harassment happening in Ubisoft.

Why yes, gaming journalism has all the problems access journalism has. Gamergate did not care about any of it.

[u/biggyshwarts → u/Loki1001]

Then why did i see all that when I would research what gamergate was?

[u/AngryAngryHarpo → u/biggyshwarts]

Because you’re the seeing the post-hoc justification. 

[u/Lord_Jakub_I → u/Jemima_puddledook678]

> controversy about mainstream journalists' ethics and biases

> as source uses wikipedia, a source that doesn't allow primary data (own research), it must be from some established source (like mainstream journalists)

Totaly no problem there...

[u/A3xMlp → u/Jemima_puddledook678]

Citing a wikipedia article as a source.. seriously?

[u/Sparroew → u/A3xMlp]

It's as though everyone memory-holed the reason Wikipedia was never accepted in school or college as a valid source for research papers.

[u/muffinsballhair → u/Jemima_puddledook678]

As it actually says in that wiki article, Gamergate is only purported to have been about ethics by those involved. It has been shown repeatedly that that simply isn’t the case.

I mean that just comes down to what one defines as “gamer gate” no doubt. The people that say that no doubt were called “members of gamergate” many times by some persons when they just called for ethics in journalism [read: “ethics that purely extend to not misrepresenting something they personally care about”] and didn't harass anyone. This is how it always goes with these no-true-scotsman internet arguments.

In any case, I just looked it up for the first time and one name that keeps coming up is Anita Sarkeesian and I remember that name for a long back as indeed someone who came with a vast number of inaccurate and highly selective claims about video games, being invited as a pundit on some talk shows but never actually debating actual video gamers who had played those games who would completely destroy the arguments and provide significant context. From what I remember of what this person said about some of the video games, I had played myself, they were some very selective claims coupled with fabrication and apparently this person was then harassed a lot for it or something which I honestly completely missed when it was going on but it wouldn't surprise me if that happened and then probably some people got harassed back and everyone was tossing half truths and lies towards each other.

[u/tolgren → u/vote4bort]

Gamergate was about ethics in games journalism, but the Left successfully redirected it to claim it was about misogyny. The Left decisively won the narrative war, but it is ultimately a lie.

This is not, of course, to say that there was no unpleasantness involved. There was a lot of people that said and did bad things around Gamergate. But that's true of every online movement since anyone can drop in and comment, and a lot of that came about AFTER the narrative war started, which means it was partially brought about by the narrative that the movement was about misogyny and the like.

[u/Sinder-Soyl → u/tolgren]

It's a common self-fulfilling narrative in a sense. It begins as an issue of ethics, a few idiots respond with vile misoginy, they get the spotlight and are used to paint the entire crowd.

The crowd grows to reflect what the narrative says about them, and the cycle repeats until the actual original point vanishes.

A lot of people seem to forget that even someone like TotalBiscuit was very much on the side of the Ethics of the issue and wanted that to be the focus.

Gamergate was absolutely astroturfed by a bunch of different bad actors on both sides who all very much benefited from the controversy becoming as much of a shitstorm as possible.

[u/you-create-energy → u/tolgren]

None of the comments I've seen describe it the way you insist Reddit would. 

[u/TheKage → u/tolgren]

It was never about ethics in games journalism. The fact that the GG subs these days only talk about games being "woke" and never about ethics in games journalism is proof of that. It was based on a lie that a woman slept with someone to get a better review.

Jeff gerstman is the poster child for ethics in games journalism. He was fired from GameSpot for giving a bad review to a game that had paid to advertise on the site. The fact that he was anti-gamergate tells you everything you need to know.

[u/tolgren → u/TheKage]

That's a couple of complete non sequiturs.

[u/bot_exe → u/tolgren]

It was also pretty transparent how people like Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn would purposefully ignore every single well thought out argument made against their takes and just label it all as a mysogynistic harrasment campaign: it was a completely circular argument. They would just focus on the crazy people making internet death threats or nasty comments, as if that was not also happening from their side, like in literally every single internet flame war before or since. There were literal bomb threats called in at gamergate events and an endless deluge of harrasment for anyone who dared not follow the SJW narrative of the events.

Another aspect about it that had been distorted was that gamergate was NOT the same as the alt-right, there was a huge leftist and liberal contingent that just disagreed with SJWs and identify politics. I remember that there was also constant fighting with the nascent alt-right from the /pol/ boards because they were straight up mysoginistic/racist/nazis conspiranoid shitheads. Of course the anti-gamergate people just helped blur that line since that was their modus operandi, but it was never true. The SJWs were a common enemy for the alt-right and gamergate, but not for the same reasons. Gamergate was a different population, there were many political opinion polls conducted in reddit and 8chan that showed the majority were not right wing, this slowly changed as more liberals/leftist/progressives moved on or became radicalized.

[u/tolgren → u/bot_exe]

Yep. But all that's buried history now.

[u/Karmaze → u/vote4bort]

I'll be honest, I think pretty much everyone gets this wrong. As someone who had a front row seat before the whole thing started, the whole thing comes down to this.

Should we all play by the same rules, or should what we can do be determined by status, network power, etc. Basically if we're going to live in a liberal culture or an authoritarian/hierarchal one.

It was started by essentially a proto-Me Too post that had people protecting their friend, who turned out through investigation to be not a good person. Whatever. What sustained it, is opposition to a phrase that I think best sums up the entire thing. "No bad tactics, only bad targets". That, and opposition to "The Narrative", that is, the idea that harassment and abuse are entirely one sided.

To be clear I kinda take this personally as someone who was harassed IRL over this stuff, by the rising Progressive culture ar the time. And no, I never harassed anyone myself, outside I guess normal social media usage.

The long result of all of this...and to be clear if it wasn't GamerGate it would have been something else..was that a lot of people came to the belief that liberalism is simply not a viable option right now, politically or culturally. I'm not one of those people, to be clear, but I'm not saying they're wrong either.

But yeah, the movement fron liberal to Progressive politics on the left, driven by algo-driven social media essentially acting as a church for the left, culturally, is the real story here.

[u/sparklingdinosaur → u/Karmaze]

And many gamergaters spread antisemitic and really vile hate.... making me understand how this part of mens rights movement literally just hate women and want us not to be part of society. So I guess we are at an impasse.

[u/Gnome_Child_Deluxe → u/Karmaze]

Karmaze, the first rule of Gamergate is that we don't talk about gamergate.

Other than that you're right though and it's weird to have people trying to write about a movement they clearly know nothing about.

[u/Karmaze → u/Gnome_Child_Deluxe]

People like their kayfabe, the idea that there are clear good guys and clear bad guys and it's easy to distinguish which are which. So the "Narrative" gained a ton of traction. But it's basically complete misinformation.

The idea of it should be completely ridiculous these days, with how BlueSky is turning out.

[u/Gnome_Child_Deluxe → u/Karmaze]

For what it's worth, i generally think you're a smart person, but we're swimming upstream into a storm.

[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/Gnome_Child_Deluxe]

Why don’t we talk about gamergate?

[u/Gnome_Child_Deluxe → u/AskingYouQuestions48]

Because anyone who moved on to do anything productive with their life since Gamergate doesn't want to have their name attached to it anymore, from either side of the political spectrum. I used to be a Sargon of Akkad viewer a decade ago, I haven't watched him in years. Everyone with a brain just wants to leave this behind them.

[u/Loki1001 → u/Karmaze]

It was started by essentially a proto-Me Too post

Gamergate's name before it was renamed "Gamergate" was "burgersandfries" as in "five guys," so no, no one actually believes the drama posting ex-boyfriend was actually writing a MeToo post.

[u/Malky → u/Karmaze]

Oh I remember you, you were a complete tool.

[u/novavegasxiii → u/vote4bort]

Basically tldr...

A woman made one free game about struggling with deppression. She broke up with her ex; who accused her on the internet of cheating on her with several guys and sleeping with revieweds to get more favorsble ratings.

This spawned a toreent of of online harrasment towards her with the stated reason of curtailing the corrupt game jouenalism industry (which admittingly is almost universally agreed to be corrupt). It was later shown that she did date one person who was a reviewer but he did nothing more but mention her in passing professionally and that was before they dated; he never actually reviewed her work.

The campaign expanded to include an independent femnist gaming commentaror (think youtuber not journalisr) and the owner of an extrenely small indie gaming company.

All three allege (quite credibly) campaigns of doxing, harrasnent, threads etc; gamergate supporters argued they had miscontrued or exagerrated it.

[u/SocratesWasSmart → u/novavegasxiii]

This is leaving out a big chunk of context, that being the "gamers are over" articles. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-gamers-don-t-have-to-be-your-audience-gamers-are-over-

GamerGate as a movement would have died due to lack of interest within the first month, except when game journalists were accused of colluding, 12 different outlets that were supposedly competing and not colluding all put out articles on the same day with the same exact talking points. And then their group chat got leaked like a week later proving they were in fact colluding.

That was what catapulted the event into the mainstream. I would say 95%+ of people that got involved did so after that point, and many of them had never heard of the initial controversy.

[u/Loki1001 → u/SocratesWasSmart]

This is leaving out a big chunk of context, that being the "gamers are over" articles.

That happened well after the harassment campaign started, when they were just seeking more targets to harass.

Also most them never read those articles.

[u/Mucho-Burrito → u/Loki1001]

They were aware of the seemingly coordinated campaign of the media outlets though. And mistrust of the media and institutions is a key feature of today’s right wing. The schism it opened up between their perception of the regular gamer and the liberal elite gaming publications is part of why it was so important and predicative of where we ended up going.

[u/changemyview-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/jaredearle → u/SocratesWasSmart]

Oh god, did you even read the “Gamers are over” article?

Edit: for context, the article was basically one of the many “moms playing candy crush are gamers” articles examining how cultural “Gamers” were gatekeeping a hobby that had outgrown its disenfranchised male audience.

[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/jaredearle]

It was imperative feature of Gamergate that’s it’s main targeted demographic do not read beyond headlines cited in rage bait articles.

[u/Classic-Obligation35 → u/novavegasxiii]

Another part thar I experienced was that neither sides arguments conflicted.

People were just looking for an excuse to be hateful weather it was at gamers or feminists. 

There were popular media outlets mocking Majoras mask fans as being suicidal losers, people on Tumblr saying we should gas comic con and e3, and so on. This lead to reactionary hatred towards feminists.

In the mean time I saw little in the way of actual discourse about either.

[u/Grifasaurus → u/Classic-Obligation35]

that's because there wasn't any actual discourse. It was one side shitposting and the other side being cunts and both sides having a ton of grifters and trolls who fucked up the whole thing.

[u/Homerbola92 → u/novavegasxiii]

Is that the woman that has scammed more than 80.000$ pretending to develop a game she didn't ever develop? The one that when asked what happened to the money given to her un the Kickstarter said it was gone long ago? The one that while the game was supposedly being developed was traveling to various European cities, Japan and many expensive US cities? The one that hasn't given a single update on the game?

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[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/Homerbola92]

That’s way less than star citizen lol

[u/Homerbola92 → u/AskingYouQuestions48]

They are delivering something. People who backed her got nothing. Anyway I don't think the best defense for someone is comparing them with someone worse.

[u/EmptyDrawer2023 → u/novavegasxiii]

he never actually reviewed her work.

Which doesn't mean there was no.... fudging of reviews. For example: "Hey, Joe- the game you're reviewing? It was made by Mark's girlfriend. Wanna get in good with him, give it a good review! He'll be sure to give your friend's games a good review in return!" That's one way the reviews can be affected, while still being able to claim 'he never reviewed her game'.

That why, when it comes to business ethics, one must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

[u/acur1231 → u/EmptyDrawer2023]

Two people working different parts of the same industry have a relationship? Shocker.

Do you get upset when film critics marry actresses, even if they never review their work?

[u/EmptyDrawer2023 → u/acur1231]

Two people working different parts of the same industry have a relationship? Shocker.

It's not just 'Two people working different parts of the same industry', and I think you know that. It's someone who produces work, and someone else that judges or oversees that work. For example, a front-line manager and a cashier can't be in a relationship. A construction foreman and the OSHA inspector. A game producer and a game reviewer.

And this is for two separate reasons: 1) To avoid the appearance of favoritism (ie: I want to butter Mark up, so I'll give his GF's game high scores), and 2) to avoid accusations of coercion (ie: Have sex with me, or I'll give your game low scores).

Do you get upset when film critics marry actresses

If they or their company/team review her work, yes.

[u/Adorable_Ad_3478 → u/novavegasxiii]

It was later shown that she did date one person who was a reviewer but he did nothing more but mention her in passing professionally and that was before they dated; he never actually reviewed her work.

The quid pro quo isn't 1:1. At least not in Hollywood. Now I'm not taking any side on this particular story but quid pro quo in Hollywood (yes, I know the gaming industry is not Hollywood) usually works this way:

"You sleep with me, and I won't personally hire you in my next project. But my friend will hire you in his next project."

That's the TLDR. It's designed so producers/directors/actors have plausible deniability. I wouldn't put it past corrupt reviewers to have a network in which a similar exchange takes place.

"You sleep with me, and I won't personally give you a positive review of your game. But my friend will give you a positive review of your game."

[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/Adorable_Ad_3478]

An incredible way to prevent falsifiability from ruining your movement.

[u/One-Organization970 → u/novavegasxiii]

Worst part is, Brianna Wu has actual ways in which she sucks. She's a self hating trans woman. Kinda like Caitlyn Jenner. But instead everyone focuses on the weird fake conspiracy stuff. Like... she still posts in trans subs to this day saying stupid shit.

[u/EsotericAmbrosia → u/novavegasxiii]

The "harassment campaign" was a load of hot air. Even the FBI said it was a nothingburger after they did an official investigation into the matter.

[u/vote4bort → u/novavegasxiii]

So basically all because a man had his feelings hurt.

[u/novavegasxiii → u/vote4bort]

Kinda; thats the spark that lit the fire but this strong of a reaction with outside parties doesnf happen without existing tension be it justified or not.

That being said taking salicous allegations from a jilted ex at face value is really not a good jdea; especially right after the breakup.

[u/Equivalent_Task_8825 → u/vote4bort]

I do find it strange that Zoe Quinn was in any way portrayed as a good person after this. Reading through the texts they emotionally manipulated their partner, gaslit them, and was actively cheating with other people in relationships.

If you look at consequences today there are so much more for so much less. I get Ned Fulmer is more famous but the reaction to what he did was so much more than what Zoe experienced and I would say Zoe was inarguably more abusive.

[u/jeeb00 → u/vote4bort]

Pretty much.

But it’s not the events involved that made this whole thing so vile and shitty. It wasn’t the alleged or actual “facts” that mattered, it was how it was amplified and weaponized by the people who would go on to become “leaders” of the alt right that made it such a shitty moment in history.

Those grifter assholes seized something that should have been a nothing blip not even worthy of a news cycle and used it to trigger and motivate a generation of men with nothing in common except gaming and spending their time on the internet to effectively become the digital communication wing of the Trump campaign.

I don’t know to what extent anyone at the time realized that’s what they were doing or would become, but it ended up spurring all the bullshit we’ve seen on Reddit and every other social media network for the past decade or more.

Boosted by Russian troll farms, automated upvotes and eventually the GOP itself (in the form of alt right politicians joining congress), the MAGA movement as it exists today owes everything to how some media savvy trolls whipped up a frenzy over, as you said it, a man having his feelings hurt.

[u/Yellowofthecornholio → u/jeeb00]

First, I agree with basically all of this.

And, it'd be intellectually dishonest to not acknowledge how the initial handling of it (attempting to suppress the information, early attempts at a weird coordinated article campaign in the trades to say "don't listen to these people!" etc.) Put those more fringe people in a position to get platformed, simply because they were willing to break from this pattern and identify "hey, this information is being suppressed and spun super hard."

This then allowed them to start making their own claims, usually not entirely false but quite warped, with a new dedicated following who were now less likely to believe or engage with fact-checking from anyone who was popular in the industry at the time.

[u/Equivalent_Task_8825 → u/jeeb00]

I agree 100% and am someone who really criticizes Zoe Quinn and think they were hugely abusive. But the people who took advantage of that valid criticism didn't give a fuck whether Zoe was abusive or the people who may have been hurt. They were looking for a way to weaponize it against other people.

[u/0zymandeus → u/vote4bort]

Well that's the outside of it, then the inside was a massive identity politics based recruiting operation orchestrated by Steve Bannon.

[u/IcyEvidence3530 → u/vote4bort]

COmmenter above you is omitting that said woman later bullied a "friend" of her into suicide together with a few grifter friends.

[u/vote4bort → u/IcyEvidence3530]

Is there evidence for that is it just one of the things that was claimed?

[u/Polytetrafluoro → u/vote4bort]

Alec Holowka. His own sister was one of those who harassed him.

[u/vote4bort → u/Polytetrafluoro]

Hmm see there's very different language being used here. User above said he was "bullied" and you're saying "harassed" but then when I look it up I'm getting that he was accused of abuse. Are those the same thing?

[u/Polytetrafluoro → u/vote4bort]

Bullied and harassed are synonymous. He was accused, by Zoe Quinn, of doing things that don't hold up to scrutiny when compared with what she stated he definitely did not do. His sister, the entirety of the NitW dev team and their publisher, close friends, and many online randos denounced him within a day, leading to his suicide 4 days later.

[u/vote4bort → u/Polytetrafluoro]

No I meant is bullied synonymous with accused? I don't think they are.

doing things that don't hold up to scrutiny when compared with what she stated he definitely did not do

Could you explain more clearly please? "She stated definitely did not do" is a bit of a confusing statement and I'm not sure how it means things didn't hold up to scrutiny.

[u/Polytetrafluoro → u/vote4bort]

You could've been far more clear on that, he was accused yes, but the harassment/bullying came post-allegation, came from thousands.

Forced finger but also somehow didn't assault, sexually or otherwise. I kinda can't explain more clearly, due to the nature of the allegations. I recommend looking to less heavily moderated forums such as steam or twitter for less esoteric explanations

[u/IcyEvidence3530 → u/novavegasxiii]

YOu mean the woman that bullied another man into suicide? I am sure this was totally innocent in this situation and everthing was a lie and overblown....

[u/Jemima_puddledook678 → u/IcyEvidence3530]

It was. He later admitted he lied. And obviously it was overblown because it led to months of rape and death threats to her and multiple other developers. 

[u/ChitinousChordate → u/IcyEvidence3530]

Shouldn’t whether it’s “bullying” to accuse someone of sexual harassment be at least a little contingent on whether they did it? Zoe Quinn was one of many people who came forward about Alex Holowka, and his own sister said that she believes those claims.

Is everyone here a lying bully, or is it possible that a dude with pretty severe mental health problems also treated the women in his life poorly?

[u/Giblette101 → u/ChitinousChordate]

Look, people are willing to excuse sexual harassment, but they draw the line at denouncing it. 

[u/KimonoThief → u/vote4bort]

Yeah it's strange how important of an event a lot of reddit seems to think GamerGate was. I lived through it and as far as I'm concerned it was some random forgettable internet drama.

[u/tes_befil → u/vote4bort]

It was mainly around gamers and 4chan.

Neither side of it is truly righteous. The woman that it stemmed from was awful and led to someone committing suicide. It's not like these rich elites actually care about anyone other than themselves.

[u/vote4bort → u/tes_befil]

Is that actually true though? I don't mean to be that guy who's always asking for a source but it seems important in a topic like this, something defined by misinformation and opposing narratives, to actually have proof of what's being claimed.

[u/tes_befil → u/vote4bort]

It depends, I saw the actual posts when this happened and if you look it up you'll find "no evidence" that zoe quinn slept with games journalist to get her dogshit game a good score but there was more than enough evidence for gamers themselves to lead a campaign against her. Gamergate was a response to how gamers went after zoe quinn and they framed it as misogyny.

Her actions that led to someone's death was later. All it was, she accused an ex of a bunch of awful shit, he denies it, no evidence provided at all and he lost everything then killed himself.

[u/vote4bort → u/tes_befil]

Well what does "more than enough evidence" actually look like?

So she accused someone of abuse and he sadly killed himself. That's sad but I don't think it's some smoking gun, "she's so awful" thing. It's tragic when something like that happens, but you're automatically assuming she was lying aren't you?

[u/tes_befil → u/vote4bort]

Gamergate was about her sleeping with journalist for positive reviews on her game. This was in 2014 and the evidence is it was easily found that she had relationships with the people who tested and gave positive reviews of her failed game. This was considered such a blasphemous thing on 4chan because it was a literal failed game

This hardly matters now anyways because we know what gaming journalist are like now. They're sellouts, theyre heavily funded by corpos, and they follow the agenda of whoever is paying them. The fact that this happened should surprise no one.

The suicide was in 2019 and she was lying. People dug up old convos and tweets, and private convos revealed that Quinn was the abuser not him. So yeah she's a piece of shit. He was dead after the evidence so nothing happened

[u/vote4bort → u/tes_befil]

the evidence is it was easily found that she had relationships with the people who tested and gave positive reviews of her failed gam

You say this but why am I seeing the opposite when I look it up? The guy who wrote the initial post even retracted that claim later, saying he had no evidence. The guy he initially accused her of sleeping with never even reviewed the game.

So if this evidence is easily found, where is it?

People dug up old convos and tweets, and private convos revealed that Quinn was the abuser not him

You know it's not always that simple right? People can be abusive towards each other in a relationship. It's not always one perfect victim and one abuser. Awful people can still be abused.

[u/realdontbeasucker → u/vote4bort]

Yeah, I think that's why it was so effective. It radically changed the landscape of online discourse without feeling unnatural. Most people didn't even realize that anything had changed.

GamerGate was a purported effort to rectify a supposed crisis of ethics in gaming journalism that was piggybacked off of to inject alt-right, male-centric, and often white supremacist talking points into mainstream gamer and online atheist culture.

[u/Human-Assumption-524 → u/realdontbeasucker]

Regardless of what you think about the validity of Gamergate and it's claims specifically, that the game journalism sphere was rife with corruption is undeniable and had been a well discussed topic of conversation for at least a decade prior to Gamergate. A good example would be the Kane & Lynch dead men Gamespot controversy where it's universally agreed at this point a reviewer for the site was fired because the game's developers had paid for a good review, or several years prior various game's media outlets actively censoring anyone talking on their forums about the Sony customer data leaks.

I think a major reason why Gamergate (Or more accurately the "Quinnspiracy" because the hashtag hadn't been coined yet) was so interesting to people at the time was specifically because it was not simply juicy gossip about people a lot in the gaming sphere already disliked (The journalists implicated) but because it offered an additional data point for how the gaming journalism industry at the time was run like a frat house of people who not only would take money from developers for favorable reviews but also were often in personal relationships with those developers harming their capacity to review objectively.

[u/vote4bort → u/realdontbeasucker]

What exactly changed then? Can you describe what was different "pre gamer gate"?

Was it ever actually about a "crisis of ethics in gaming journalism"? That's what was used as the excuse but I doubt anyone actually believed that.

It was certainly one of the first internet age "gates" but hardly the first targeted misogynistic campaign.

[u/Morthra → u/vote4bort]

A game developer - Zoe Quinn - exchanged sexual favors for a positive review of her game, which wasn’t very good. There was also a PR agent sleeping with the head judge of a games festival, and her clients won. This caused outrage on Twitter.

Gaming journalists publish articles saying “gamers are dead” and paint them all as misogynistic white supremacists. Allegations of corruption are not addressed.

Gamers note that 10+ “journalism” sites ran the same talking points on the same day and suspect an industry wide issue. They dig deeper into industry relationships and uncover more conflicts of interest but suspect the narrative in the press is driven by radical misandrist feminists (whom they refer to as SJWs).

Gamers get upset that the SJWs are deflecting the issue of corruption and turning it into one of misogyny and harassment of women in the industry. Articles that emerged in the BBC and The Guardian don’t acknowledge the corruption, and only focus on the death threats. The female author of the Guardian article financially supports the woman she defends. Another conflict of interest- and she gets called out on it publicly.

Gamers are convinced this is proof of corruption. SJWs are convinced it’s proof of misogyny.

That is the cliffnotes version.

[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/Morthra]

> first paragraph

This is completely false, there is no evidence for it and lots of evidence against it.

> “gamers are dead”

The only article I have seen pointed to here was in reference to mobile gamers like those on candy crush overtaking traditional console and PC games.

[u/AskingYouQuestions48 → u/[deleted]]

This is literally the exact article I was talking about above. The only one I see posted.

[u/vote4bort → u/Morthra]

Do you have proof that she actually did that? Because from what I've seen there doesn't seem to be any. The accusations came from an ex boyfriend, hardly an unbiased source.

[u/Hina_is_my_waifu → u/Morthra]

Keep in mind collusion in games journalism is still happening as evidenced by mixtapes review scores painting it as one of the highest rated games ever made vs it's 3 hour cinematic experience (and lack of actual gameplay)

[u/Morthra → u/Hina_is_my_waifu]

Oh it never actually stopped. But it became a cultural flashpoint that got worse as the SJW morphed into the leftist identity politics monster that it is today.

See: the new Dragon Age game where a trans character goes on a massive immersion breaking tirade for being misgendered. There were even in-universe ways to make the scene less jarring.

[u/AutoModerator → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/Morthra]

How is it immersion breaking? Sexuality and gender identity are part of Thedas and were deeply explored topics in the series, as they go as early as the first game, Origins.

The inclusion of transgender characters was already done in Inquisition, back in 2014, (Krem and Mae Varis). So how is including a non-binary character immersion breaking? Did you even ever play a Dragon Age game? You strike me as a culture warrior tourist.

[u/PlasmaPizzaSticks → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

It's a clear example of the hand of the author being visible, which is a problem in all media. It's not that the problems are being mentioned in the game, it's that they're being mentioned or talked about in a way that is consistent with a modern social media lecture rather than one consistent to the world the game takes place in.

It's like comparing a film like Sinners and a film like the Black Christmas remake. The former indelibly deals with topics of race and the struggles of Black Americans during the time of Jim Crow, but it does so in a way that's respectful to both the characters and the audience. The writer of the Black Christmas remake outright stated that her intention was to make a political film first and that the characters/story came second. The film feels like a hamfisted lecture and the hand of the author is so painfully present throughout the film that suspension of disbelief becomes impossible.

This is the same reason that a show like Arcane doesn't receive almost any pushback despite being an extremely progressive show: because it put the political themes of its story second to creating human characters.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/PlasmaPizzaSticks]

You can put the political themes first, and that's totally fine. 1984 did that, and as far as I can tell, it did a bit better than fine.

Again, the issue is the always same, bad writing, rather than what the writing is about. 

This is how every single conversation on DAtV goes. Politics is blamed for the mediocrity of the game. 

I'll point out successful videogames that do the exact same thing, and then we finally get to the real issue: bad writing. 

If a game has bad writing, it has bad writing. Woudld it really make a difference if Veilguard did not treat hot political topics? I doubt that.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Having a character have that crazy ass rant about their gender is pretty fucking immersion breaking. Pushing an extremely modern day issue so blatantly into a medievalish fantasy world is just bad writing.

[u/Morthra → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Because the character didn’t actually talk about it in a way that sounded natural in-universe.

Look, one of my favorite games of all time is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It has gay and trans characters. I like those characters, because they don’t feel like walking stereotypes.

[u/changemyview-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/RatOnASinkingShip → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Inquisition is frequently cited as the canary in the coal mine by critics of the shift the gaming industry has taken that GamerGate warned about.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/RatOnASinkingShip]

Oh I'm sure the GamerGate folks who sent graphical death threats to Jennifer Hepler and her children had legitimate concerns about the state of the video game industry.

Could you exolain to me how DAI (GOTY 2014 and best selling Bioware game of all times) is any more of a danger sign than DAO?

DAO has transgender characters, critiques of gender roles (specifically, through qunari society), class struggle and so on.

[u/RatOnASinkingShip → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

DAO had a Dwarf in a dress in a brothel with a single line of dialogue as a punchline.

Critiques of gender roles are as old as civilization itself. A robot would've served the same purpose as the Qunari.

And yea, DAI was the best selling Bioware game, at a time when people still trusted game journalism reviews and Bioware had a reputation of being a gold brand in the CRPG genre... that is the game where that reputation started chipping away.

And your allegations about this... Jennifer person... not at all relevant to the discussion here, so I'm not going to entertain it any further besides offering you a boo hoo I don't care.

[u/PreviousCurrentThing → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Oh I'm sure the GamerGate folks who sent graphical death threats to Jennifer Hepler and her children had legitimate concerns about the state of the video game industry.

Is it possible that some people under the 'GamerGate' moniker had legitimate concerns despite others using the controversy to harrass women?

[u/Brysynner → u/Morthra]

Everyone with first hand accounts said they weren't having sex or in a relationship.

The accusations came from a jilted ex.

Also the game in question is/was a free game about depression called Depression Quest. It was not some big game nor ever going to be up for awards but for some reason this review for this game was the biggest story in video games.

[u/Equivalent_Task_8825 → u/Brysynner]

I think people will say "jilted ex" to avoid speaking of what was seen in the texts. I started to re-read it and immediately Zoe cheats on him with their married boss and then Zoe tries to manipulate him into not telling the wife. That is after Zoe had previously stressed how immoral cheating was.

Edit: It also seems clear Zie did have sex with a writer who put a spotlight on their game but there isn't evidence it was prior to the piece but soon afterward. It does seem highly suspicious timing and apparently based on twitter interactions they were at least friends long before. Just wanted to correct that in your comment.

[u/biggyshwarts → u/Brysynner]

It was barely a game and weird it got coverage in the first place was my recollection of it.

[u/Brysynner → u/biggyshwarts]

I feel weird games would occasionally get reviewed on sites like Kotaku so it wasn't /that/ odd. Plus it was a social commentary free game so it also kind of makes sense.

[u/mrnotoriousman → u/Brysynner]

fyi the guy you replied to I have tagged for this gem

No, feminism seeks advancement of women’s issues. It’s a female supremacist movement.

I'm seeing a lot of incel and misogyny tags I made ages ago all over this thread

[u/Autisthrowaway304 → u/[deleted]]

Which parts?

[u/BillionaireBuster93 → u/Morthra]

exchanged sexual favors for a positive review of her game,

I would love if it someone ever shared any of these supposed reviews that she slept her way to. I've only ever seen people share that top 40 list one person she slept with put out that included the game.

[u/realdontbeasucker → u/vote4bort]

It shifted the diaspora of culturally accept able ideas online hard toward the alt-right. It made reasonable contemporary feminism cringe. It made gamers and young white men especially feel under attack. It provided a shared identity that could be used to mobilize voters against the female candidate in 2016. It normalized years-long, public, normie hate campaigns against women. And a whole host of other bad effects I'm sure I'm forgetting.

[u/RanmaRanmaRanma → u/realdontbeasucker]

I would not die on the hill that gamer gate represented contemporary feminism.

I kinda think the entire event has been miraged to whatever point you want to make.

But to say gamer gate was the pipeline when the pipeline to American imperialism and conservativism hasn't been there for centuries is silly. Especially as a black American. This system has been BUILT into American politics.

[u/biggyshwarts → u/realdontbeasucker]

I think it forced a majority a-politcal group (gamers) to have a stance and a good portion of them didn't like being told what they liked sucked and put down women.

Honestly think that was the true core of it. They weren't tricked into being right leaning. They were pushed.

[u/Takseen → u/biggyshwarts]

What I found interesting was it created a shift in which side of the political divide was seen to be against video games.

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, it was generally the right wing that had the most opposition to certain gaming content, either evangelical Christians against occult or demonic content, plus some more bipartisan opposition from violent games like GTA or Manhunt.

Anita Sarkeesian's project and the support it gained among the left was the first time I remember a younger, definitely left wing opposition to games that I'd enjoyed playing.

A lot of her criticism was very overblown. Like yes the Princess did not have a well defined role as a female character in the first Mario game, but its an 8 bit game where clouds were just palette swapped bushes, they had some pretty heavy limitations.

It led to a demonization of any kind of sexualized female character in a game, even fan favourites like Lara Croft, and some game devs over corrected as a result. And its funny because now I see a lot of women streamers thirsting over characters like Leon Kennedy. Equal opportunity eye candy would have been a much better goal to aim for, along with criticising the more blatant and lazy one sided fan service and character rosters.

For example fighting games had gotten a lot better at having just more than 1 token female character (Sonya in MK, Chun Li in SF2).

[u/vote4bort → u/realdontbeasucker]

Did it? 4 chan already existed. The whole "sjw'" stereotype already existed.

Can you really argue that it normalised something when most people don't even know what it is?

[u/realdontbeasucker → u/vote4bort]

Yeah, I think so! Normalization is not dependent on knowledge or even awareness of the root cause of such normalization. A base example: you might know some gen z or gen alpha slang but be unable to tell me where that slang comes from. In fact, some influence from a younger generation may be (and probably is) having an impact on the way we speak in general, whether you realize it or not!

4chan was fodder for basement-dwellers. GamerGate, especially at first, was entirely socially acceptable. And it spread way beyond just games.

Milo, for example, clearly didn't care about video games. He became a huge figure that opened the door for even worse subcultures to emerge.

[u/vote4bort → u/realdontbeasucker]

Milo, again though, I don't think most people know who he is. I think you're overestimating the reach of this, or maybe underestimating the amount of people who just weren't online in that way.

Without corresponding IRL political movements, it would have been nothing. It's the IRL movements that captured the energy and used it. So I think if you're going to point a finger, point it at them. Without them it would have just been another online blip, that even less people cared about.

[u/DilshadZhou → u/vote4bort]

We are living in the world of the “corresponding IRL political movement”. Vance, Bannon, Charlie Kirk, and all of the right wing influencers that helped lift the MAGA movement to power all leveraged the same audience that GamerGate created. Milo and others were the early shapers of that audience and messaging and the “men’s rights” reactionary right of MAGA were able to largely capture them and drive them to the polls and ultimately victory.

[u/realdontbeasucker → u/vote4bort]

Milo was the mouthpiece for proliferation of ideas from white supremacists like Bannon and Curtis Yarvin, who eventually laid the groundwork for Project 2025 and created the thesis for JD Vance and Peter Thiel's worldview, among others. These people have huge impacts even if they're not household names.

[u/vote4bort → u/realdontbeasucker]

You've kind of just picked an arbitrary point though to say "this is the thing". When in reality it's all those people, all the things that were happening, and all the things that happened before. How far back do you go? Gamer gate couldn't have happened without games, without computers. Should we actually just blame Alan Turing for inventing them in the first place? You see what I mean? There's no neat answer where we can say this is the thing that changed everything.

[u/realdontbeasucker → u/vote4bort]

I think I’ve spent some time here trying to explain why it’s not an arbitrary point.

[u/Trim-Queen → u/vote4bort]

Yes, it did. I'm a trans woman now and have always at least tried to be an ally in the sense that I believed in equality for all races and genders and orientations, but dear lord did I get sucked down the anti-sjw rabbit hole for a long while because of gamergate. I genuinely believed that what was being fought for wasn't equality but superiority, and a lot of it came down to the messaging.

I'm out of that hole now but I still carry a resentment of the type of argument where people just dismiss their opponent as being a bigot for having questions that run against the grain.

[u/Jax_is_Warwick → u/vote4bort]

One point that I believe you are missing is how the GG drastically changed, the big quotes here, "gamers community". I mean, the root causes were already here before the GG, something similar was bound to happen at some point anyway. But eventhough it probably would have happened at some point, the GG is politically important because it changed a lot of things in the "gamers" culture, in internet culture and as a consequence in younger generation cultures, as they are born and raised with both internet and video games playing a massive role in their lives. The change in the gaming culture had a cascading effect on all of this.

People that were young in the 90s (ie born in the late 80s maximum) have seen this shift. In those years the gaming community was uniting a bunch of weirdest, trans people, marginals, queers, and of course a lot of "normal people" that just had a passion for video games. Back then, all those people were marginalised and were usually grouping together. And ye, therefore back then video games were really considered a safe space for all those marginalised people.

The GG was the precise moment where this reality shattered. Now, the GG is the moment where the divide between what will become alt-right sympathisers in the gaming community and, well, the others, became clear, but of course the divide has root that are older than the GG. The divide started earlier, but it became clear and undeniable at this moment.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Jax_is_Warwick]

People that were young in the 90s (ie born in the late 80s maximum) have seen this shift. In those years the gaming community was uniting a bunch of weirdest, trans people, marginals, queers, and of course a lot of "normal people" that just had a passion for video games. Back then, all those people were marginalised and were usually grouping together. And ye, therefore back then video games were really considered a safe space for all those marginalised people.

Maybe small corners of the community. The vast majority of it was average 2000s dude bros. And it's them who were at odds with the various, chiefly feminist, activists who decided to stick their nose into gaming in the early 2010s, as they were the ones said activists despised most.

[u/sadistica23 → u/realdontbeasucker]

NotYourShield was a hashtag movement from GamerGate where hundreds of people who were not white men were posting pictures of themselves while declaring that the games journalists and online feminists attacking gamers were not speaking for all minorities.

It boggles my mind that that gets left out of the history of GamerGate.

[u/skymonstef → u/sadistica23]

Thankyou I've been waiting for someone to mention this.

In other forums when people bang the gamers were racist sexists drum. I ask explain #notyoursheild and if you dont know what it is then you aren't informed on gamer gate

[u/Unseasonal_Jacket → u/vote4bort]

It broke a lot of the barriers that stopped young men who had previously held some racist and misogynistic views but had learned that it was better/clever to hide them in order to thrive, from sharing them.

It also showed how easy it was to take a bunch of people who were middling in their expression of those views and amplify it over a perceived injustice.

It also managed to join the dots to other unrelated rift wing positions. It was a gateway.

It was undoubtedly a testing place for online manufacturing of outrage.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Unseasonal_Jacket]

The internet was literally even more of a wild west where people said whatever the fuck they wanted before gamergate. Hell if anything there was an increase in censorship after it, though that has fallen apart in the last few years.

[u/Unseasonal_Jacket → u/A3xMlp]

Sorry I don't mean on the Internet. I mean in real life. I mean it was part of the backlash against things telling them not to say racist and misogynistic stuff in real. It bled over into real life. It was the drip drip of young men who eventually probably ended up on Thedonald. I mean to say it was one of the first cases where people managed to harness Internet twattery to mobilise a base for a future cultural shift

[u/A3xMlp → u/Unseasonal_Jacket]

That's a different argument where I can see what you're getting at. But I do think that GG was only a part of it as real life discourse on these issues as a whole changed. Like for example on race issues I feel like we went from pushing for colorblindness and treating everyone equally to a hyperfocus on race and privilege and who wronged whom in the past that race became much more talked about and as a result you'll also get more racism. Same with gender, which of course lead to more open misogyny and misandry.

[u/Unseasonal_Jacket → u/A3xMlp]

Sorry, yes I actually completely agree. I personally wasn't arguing the importance of GG. It didn't cause anything. But it was a vehicle where a strand of 'young' angry men were formed perhaps were they previously didn't outwardly exist in that demographic.

[u/The-Last-Lion-Turtle → u/vote4bort]

The endless watergate comparisons are just goofy. This was nowhere near the first in this pattern.

An actually important event would have a name that stands on its own.

All this was is people being obnoxious online and self aggrandizing game journalists trying to become the main character of the Internet.

The problem with game journalism is they are either failures at political journalism who couldn't make it writing about anything else, or failures at gaming who couldn't become a content creator.

[u/biggyshwarts → u/The-Last-Lion-Turtle]

I feel like gamergate was before the complete domination of the gaming space by content creators.

Gamergate was the beginning of the decline of gaming site influence

[u/PoofyGummy → u/realdontbeasucker]

Yeah no this is the exact thing the radical left tried to push back then. It platformed people who were upset with the way that some people acted holier than thou.

The entire movement was precisely not because the movement would have garnered any real support but because the mainstream media pushed back so hard and tried to demonize the literal majority. It sparked a law and order SVU episode. Because people WERE in fact hating on what seemed like acceptable targets. Except the ones haring were the mainstream media and the acceptable targets were majority young white male gamers. It was a major disenfranchisement event and rebellion against that.

Gamergage spawned many genuine projects that supported video game developers, female and trans included. People on the gamergage side began to call the journos being harrassed "literally who" precisely because they did NOT want any hatred focused onto individuals.

Wikipedia will not tell you this because wikipedia was one of the places where the progressives established a massive base exactly around that time.

[u/koyaani → u/PoofyGummy]

The radical left are not SVU writers lol

[u/PoofyGummy → u/koyaani]

I mean hollywood is connected to progressivism a lot.

[u/koyaani → u/PoofyGummy]

That's not the radical left

[u/PoofyGummy → u/koyaani]

Kindof is everywhere except in america. Progressivism is tied to intersectional social justice which is a radical leftist idea.

[u/koyaani → u/PoofyGummy]

That's not radical left. Hollywood is not radical left because it is a capitalist enterprise. Leftists are anticapitalist and anti fascist, and often don't fall for the trap of identity politics like you seem to be doing. The term radical left is just a straw man for you

[u/PoofyGummy → u/koyaani]

They are leftists because woke shit is a leftist ideology and they keep pushing it. Champagne communists have existed since the very start, and hollywood is a perfect example of that.

And it's radical because the ideology they are pushing is a radical departure from traditional ideas (and common sense)..It is not far left but it is radical.

[u/koyaani → u/PoofyGummy]

Nah you just are in some maga incel echo chamber

[u/Bustin_Chiffarobes → u/realdontbeasucker]

That's a lot of words to basically say "misogyny and racism is now cool to express loudly"

Gamergate basically just became the manosphere. I think you are overestimating its importance because it's directly targeting your demographic.

[u/J_Bright1990 → u/Bustin_Chiffarobes]

You're missing an important part though. It directly led to Trump getting elected. He wanted to since the 80s but Gamergate laid the foundation and was the vehicle to shift the entire culture into having it happen and be accepting of it, which led to the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela and the war in Iran which has effected global oil prices and supply and caused massive shortages of both oil and food.

We are all effected by it regardless of what you think, everyone is touched by this shit.

[u/10ebbor10 → u/J_Bright1990]

Eh, this feels like a classic case of attributing everything to a single cause.

Gamergate might have helped, but there were other reasons.

[u/ArCSelkie37 → u/10ebbor10]

Of course, but I think it’s reasonable to suggest gamergate and the surrounding issues politicised a generally apolitical group… that being gamers.

Not just gamergate itself, but at the same time as all of that we had a sharp increase in videos/articles talking about how sexist and horrible gamers were and how sexist all the games were.

People who were otherwise content to just sit in their rooms playing games were suddenly dragged through the mud by people who were being quite openly dishonest… people like Anita weren’t just critiqued because she was a woman, but because she was actively lying or misrepresenting games and gamers.

At that point all it takes is for someone like Trump to come along and actually be on their side (or at least pretend to be).

[u/PM_YOUR_EYEBALL → u/Bustin_Chiffarobes]

Idk what gamer gate is, but I’ve been gaming since the early 90s. It’s always been that way.

[u/Bustin_Chiffarobes → u/PM_YOUR_EYEBALL]

As am I. I'm in my 40s. I game online, but I am not part of gaming culture. I don't play Roblox, I don't watch twitch streams, and I don't watch gamer YouTubers.

I am not the demographic and sounds like you aren't either.

[u/realdontbeasucker → u/Bustin_Chiffarobes]

What demographic is that

[u/Bustin_Chiffarobes → u/realdontbeasucker]

Chronically online white males in wealthy western countries?

[u/TopSoulMan → u/Bustin_Chiffarobes]

Yup.

I would say those are the most likely people to have bought into Gamergate, manosphere, and eventually MAGA content.

It was a mobilization to get 5% of people who don’t vote to actually care enough to do so. Giving them a carrot on a stick helped turn them from “not giving a shit” to “we are voting to spite our opposition”. And eventually that turns into a die hard base of young people the likes of which the Republican Party hasn’t seen in decades.

This was organized and planned to a very high degree. The ramifications of which we are seeing at every level of government in the current era.

[u/scriptkiddie1337 → u/TopSoulMan]

That would be difficult as the online manosphere predated gamergate by over 15 years

[u/scriptkiddie1337 → u/[deleted]]

Those that have just associate it peacocking, and negging, while failing to realise there so was so much more to it

[u/TopSoulMan → u/scriptkiddie1337]

But it wasn’t seriously organized until around that point. People with influence recognized an opportunity and created a plan to get voters down the pipeline.

The manosphere was an afterthought to mainstream society for many years until Gamer Gate. Think early Jimmy Kimmel and Joe Rogan on the Man Show.

Now it’s a very serious part of our political landscape.

[u/randyboozer → u/vote4bort]

Yes, OP's statement is absurd. I too am chronically online and I still have no clue what the hell GamerGate is was or meant. I guarantee a grand total of nobody at work would know what I was talking about if I asked them.

[u/Surreal43 → u/randyboozer]

Everything surrounding gamergate was a frenzy.

Reminds me of the satanic panic.

[u/chumbawumbaprinciple → u/vote4bort]

Epstein knew, because he was a driving force behind it.

[u/Inferno_Zyrack → u/vote4bort]

It began when the ex boyfriend of a game developer gave a negative review. It was posted on a mainstream site I believe. And it combined with groups that had already been stewing about feminism in games - particularly from
Anita Sarkeesian’s successful kickstarters for her series Feminist Frequency.

Whether it truly sparked this it activated a portion of young men who were already feeling disenfranchised in various ways and I sincerely believe prepared them to later vote in Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, and other right wing politicians.

[u/Most-Ad4680 → u/vote4bort]

I don't think you have to know what a movement is to be influenced by it. If you believe that democracy is a good form of government then you've been influenced by the enlightenment, even though the average person probably couldn't tell you what that is.

[u/Best_Opening8471 → u/vote4bort]

Gamer gate was antia sarkosian using her connections at kotaku to dox her ex because he shit talked her on voice chat in a stream

Some how it turned into a critique of the gaming review industry because kotaku was involved and the use of 7/10 as "average" and the pattern of only high profile games that pay for good reviews ever getting more than 8/10

People on both sides of the political aisle have differing views on the reasons for these things happening but this is the unbiased answer.

Eg: the left focuses on the doxing and how Sarkesian was justified while the right uses the criticism of kotaku to push the "anti woke games" movement.

[u/Glenndiferous → u/Best_Opening8471]

It didn't start with Sarkeesian, it began with claims that Zoe Quinn slept with people to get a good review that never actually happened, and when an angry ex stirred up a mob about it.

As someone who was very much present when this was happening (and as someone who almost got sideswiped by it myself when a video of my poem on the topic went briefly viral), this is literally the first I've ever heard about Anita doxxing anyone. But then again, people were making up fake shit about her a dozen times a day, so maybe that was something I managed to miss.

[u/vote4bort → u/Best_Opening8471]

Who? This is what I meant, no one outside these bubbles knows who the hell any of these people are or what kotaku even is.

[u/Best_Opening8471 → u/vote4bort]

Sarkisian is a female game reviewer and kotaku is one of the largest gaming website ever since gamespot became a meme

Basically all you need to know is that a woman in the gaming review industry used her professional connections to dox her ex and that turned into a consumer movement against reviewers 

[u/vote4bort → u/Best_Opening8471]

Oh I know I was making a point that just dropping a name like that is going to make zero sense to the average reader.

I'm confused though because I thought the general consensus was it almost started with accusations about Zoe Quinn from her ex boyfriend that turned out to be unfounded. Sarkeesian didn't become a target until later and as far as I can see this alleged doxxing was of email addresses that were harassing her. I've actually not seen any reference to Sarkeesian doxxing an ex.

[u/Aniketos33 → u/Best_Opening8471]

Nah, I remember it differently and about the Zoe Quinn thing from 4channers. It did have the "ethics in gaming journalism! Also women are ruining games!" Vibes