By David Futrelle
I recently appeared on the Australian radio show Stop Everything to talk about the poisonous legacy of Gamergate. (You can listen to the archived episode here.) So I thought I would expand a little on some of the notes I made for myself before doing the show, and get into a little more detail on some issues I wasn’t able to talk about during the show itself.
It’s been five years since the supposed movement for “ethics in gaming journalism” began in the form of a harassment campaign against game developer Zoe Quinn. The movement, such as it was, faded out some time ago. But its unfortunate legacies live on.
So how did Gamergate poison online discourse? Let me count (some of) the ways.
One: It turned political and cultural warfare into a game.
You may remember the infamous — and much mocked — copypasta that made its way around the internet in the days of Gamergate.
They targeted gamers.
Gamers.
We’re a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. …
These people … think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We’ve been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. …
Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature … this is just another boss fight.
Like most people who read this overblown rant at the time– and this is a drastically shortened version — I laughed. But it turns out that people who treat cultural warfare as a game to grind away at turn out to be remarkably … persistent adversaries. Something to (sadly) keep in mind the next time you’re swarmed by sockpuppets on Twitter.
Two: Gamergate weaponized lying and bad-faith arguments, helping prepare the way for our current, and seemingly endless, “post-truth information warfare,” to borrow a phrase from New Yotk Times writer Charlie Warzel.
As Warzel points out in his recent overview of Gamergate and its legacy, the movement began with a lie — with easily disproven allegations that Zoe Quinn slept with a journalist to get a good review for one of her games. (The guy in question never reviewed her game.) And it thrived by portraying itself, dishonestly, as some sort of campaign for “ethics in gaming journalism,” when in fact it was little more than a harassment campaign writ large, an online lynch mob with memes.
Three: it helped to further blur the line between politics and harassment.
While Gamergate, in theory, was a crusade to improve game journalism ethics and, more broadly, to rid the game world of the allegedly sinister influence of so-called Social Justice Warriors, in practice it was a harassment campaign aimed mostly at a small number of women who had offended self-described Gamers in various ways.
Obviously, Gamergate didn’t invent the online pileon, or smear campaigns in general, but it did make these strategies central to a certain kind of reactionary cultural politics. It’s a small step from attacking Zoe Quinn for her alleged Crimes Against Gaming to attacking Brie Larson for her cultural crime of portraying a comic book superhero while female.
And you can see the legacies of Gamergate clearly in the online, er, actvism of reactionary disinformation warriors like Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec who have launched sometimes remarkably successful smear campaigns against political foes ranging from Hillary Clinton to John Podesta. It’s hard to imagine Pizzagate and QAnon taking off as they have without Gamergate.
Four: It weaponized white male nostalgia for a past that never was.
Gamergaters regularly hearkened back to what they saw as a lost utopia – the days when gaming was allegedly a “safe space” for (mostly white) male geeks ostracized by the larger society. Never mind that girls and women (and people of color) have always been a large part of the gaming world. Never mind that putting playable female characters in some video games is hardly a threat to any male gamer (and one of the most pathetic things for grown men to become exercised over).
Five: It created a new and potentially lucrative career path for right-wing ideologues and grifters.
Who could have predicted that a weird, fringe movement as Gamergate could make so many media careers? Well, Milo Yiannopoulos, for one, and a whole host of rising YouTube stars like Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin. These new “harassment influencers” — to borrow the language of Syracuse researcher Whitney Phillips — lived lavishly on the Gamergate dole, and helped to inspire a new generation of right-wing grifters. Gamergate also helped to revitalize the flagging career of old-school ideological hacks like think-tanker Christina Hoff Sommers, who reinvented herself as the not-quite-hip-but-trying “Based Mom.”
Six: It opened the door for fascism.
In 1995, writer Umberto Eco sketched out what he saw as the essential characteristics of “Eternal Fascism.” Gamergate ticked off almost every box on Eco’s 14-point list. It was at the very least a fascist movement in embryo.
Like the original fascists, Gamergaters were driven by personal and social frustrations. They were obsessed with what Eco called “the cult of tradition” (in this case, white male nostalgia); with the “fear of difference” (in this case especially the feat of the female other); “with “the rejection of modernism (or in this case postmodernism); with the notion of “life as permanent warfare” (“they targeted gamers”).
Gamergaters worshiped “action for action’s sake.” They were forever in motion, constantly on the lookout for things to be ostentatiously offended by. They were obsessed with conspiracies, and in retrospect it seems all too obvious that they were primed to go from imagining games journalist plots to embracing outright antisemitism and the mythical notion of a Jewish scheme to lead the west into “degeneracy” through so-called “Cultural Marxism.”
I could keep going, but you get the point: Gamergate was, in its very essence, a deeply fascistic movement. It helped to bring about the revival of fascism in American and world politics today, and gave the new fascists many helpful techniques to use in promoting their brand of hate.
Gamergate takes Karl Marx’s famous pronouncement on history repeating itself and turns it on its head: It began as a farce, at least for those who were not its direct victims — but its legacy has been one of outright tragedy.
NOTE: I did a somewhat more extensive catalog of the ways Donald Trump matches up with Eco’s 14 points here. It’s a little outdated in terms of examples (I wrote it just after the 2016 election) but its general points still stand.
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@weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee I didn’t admit to being radicalized though lol, at least not by the right. Liberals going as far left as they did turned a lot of moderates and liberals against y’all.
If you wanna bring up Trump, right now he isn’t that much different than other presidents. He’s only enforcing the immigration law that Obama refused to enforce, so I think your use of “Nazi” there is a bit exaggerated. Nazis actually killed people in gas chambers, so.
Also, Trump hasn’t really had a negative impact on gay rights. He tried to ban trans people from the military, and I guess I agree with him seeing as I’m a Nazi (even though I don’t necessarily agree with him as I think for myself).
Again, I’ve got this foaming at the mouth thing happening with y’all, being accused of being a Nazi etc even though I’ve done nothing in my life to try to suppress any minorities life lol. Hell, my boss is a black woman. Jesus I must really hate that right?
@Jim
He is separating children from their parents and holding them in concentration camps. I’m not so sure it’s an exaggeration.
He’s currently trying to argue that gay people are not protected from job discrimination by the Civil Rights Act. That’ll have a negative impact if it gets through.
So you’ve just admitted you’re a transphobe.
Well, seeing as you supported GamerGate, which was an attempt to suppress women and minorities in gaming, that statement isn’t really true.
@ Jim
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/video-game-revenue-tops-43-billion-in-2018-an-18-jump-from-2017/
@Jim
Oh, isn’t that useful? “Would probably complain”. Jimmy, I’ve been complaining about the models in League of Legends forever. No change. A lot of backlash from people who care more about the tits than about art.
There is no such thing as “self-censorship”. What you mean it “editing”. It’s what every decent artist does. Some even pay to get an editor. And you know what? They probably got rid of blatant homophobia, because it attracts neo-nazis and other scum. So, you can blame those. I mean, did you see how they latched onto the Doom 2 Trailer for having TWO jokes on the expense of perceived political correctness?
Jimmy, I’ve been gaming since I was 5. I played Tetris on the Gameboy till my eyes bleed. I have more hours on Warframe than anyone should ever have. And I possess disposable income. I am the prime demographic. And I am a feminist.
So, yes, yes, I am the target audience. 😀
What you have an issue with, isn’t feminists. You have an issue with companies trying to scrape up every singe bit of money on the table. You are angry that niche stuff gets neglected (like my beloved RTS… *sniff*) and that everything is turned to a grey slush paste that marketers think appeals to everyone.
That is what we call “capitalism”.
That’s what happens when you let the market decide: You get McDonald’s.
@Naglfar I was being sarcastic about trans people in the military, genius.
Didn’t Obama start the kids in cages thing? I honestly want to know what liberals propose we do? Are you suggesting we just let all these people into the country?
@TheKND Most gamers don’t want censorship. Most games never had homophobia in them in the first place, so I don’t know what you’re getting at there. I’m gay myself and I’m not offended by the stuff you’re telling me to be offended by lol. It must suck to be you pearl clutching all the time and trying to speak for actual gay people. If I was offended by anything I wouldn’t let it affect my life like it seems to affect SJWs.
@Jim
You say so many ridiculous things it’s hard to tell what you do and don’t legitimately believe. Thanks for clarifying.
I don’t speak for all liberals, but I personally would propose we stop separating families, and provide asylum lawyers.
Again, my entire 5th and 6th grade classes played Nintendo in the early 90’s. Those that didn’t have an NES or Gameboy played at their friend’s houses. There was even a Nintendo cereal in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REpiQnnp6p8
I’m so sorry to tell you. You are not cool, special, hardcore, or even particularly nerdy because you like something that’s been popular for the last 30+ years. It’s pretty pathetic that you joined a hate movement because it hurt your feelings to learn that you don’t own gaming and never did.
If you’re radicalized in opposition to the left, you’re a Nazi.
The gas chambers were the end point, not the start. Maybe you should spend less time whining about Anita Sarkeesian having opinions about games and more time learning history.
If you are telling the truth about being gay (and GGers are infamous for socking as women, POC and LGBTQ people so I’m not taking you at your word here) it’s honestly weird that you’re okay with your civil rights being taken away to own the libs.
And yes, Trump administration is arguing to the SCOTUS that civil rights don’t apply to LGBTQ (not just the T, but LGBQ). The news just broke this week. And he keeps appointing virulently anti-gay judges to the federal courts, not just SCOTUS. You’re really fucking stupid if you don’t think that reacting to “SJWs” criticizing by embracing facism is going to end poorly. Fascism does not tolerate people who aren’t straight.
@jim
You are one sad little wanking troll. I mean damn, do something else with your time if you don’t like what’s being written. Go read something else. This isn’t that hard
And now we’re up to seven (edit: eleven!) responses in less than twenty-four hours. But you don’t care.
@Hippodameia Oh I think I have refuted plenty.
Ot
I decided on my wedding dress. Going for the Victorian look over the Greek goddess look. Stuff is going pretty well and we’re planning out music and such things right now.
Yes. There is no reason people have to be caged indefinitely while they wait for an asylum hearing. White immigrants have always come here in large numbers without being caged. They just came here when they felt like it. Why is it different now? Couldn’t be because “these people” don’t have white skin, could it?
@Nagflar That seems fair. I think a lot of the kids showing up at the border are unaccompanied, and I’m not trolling by saying that. I think we should have a strict but fair immigration system. Currently, we don’t really have any real immigration system. I’m not against immigrants coming here btw, but think we need an actual system.
@weirwoodtreehugger No I’m not a Nazi, I’m not OK with my rights being taken away. I don’t think the world is in a place where gay rights will be taken away, at least not under Trump. You’re telling me that me having an opinion invalidates me, how is that not offensive?
White immigrants don’t come here when they feel like it though lol. You need a degree and a specialized skill to come to America.
Jim, stop whining to us about your hurt feelings.
@Jim
We have a system that doesn’t work. Wonder who did that. Was it the radical libs? I don’t think so.
Then you clearly haven’t been paying attention to the shift to the far right that is going on worldwide and having very negative effects on LGBTQIPAN+ folks. Or the fact that Trump is openly anti gay, as is Mike Pence and many senate Republicans.
Funny how Jim has gone from “how dare you accuse Gamergate of being racist and misogynist!” to defending Trump’s racism. It wasn’t too hard to get him to admit that he is a racist, was it? GGers never are able to keep the mask from slipping.
@WWTH
@Jim
Because this isn’t a game. Your oppinion is not if blue or red looks nice or if you want pineapple or broccoli on your pizza.
Supporting Gamergate caused measurable, physical and mental harm to human beings.
Supporting Trump is causing measurable physical and mental harm to children at the border, is killing thousands through the loss of health care and causes even more deaths through wars and economic conflict.
Supporting conservatives will cause climate change to worsen, workers to lose their rights and jobs and might poison your water, if they keep hollowing out the EPA.
Right now, you haven’t felt the impact on your rights as a gay person? Well, Mike Pence is working hard to change that.
Your “opinion” has consequences and we judge you for those consequences. Welcome to reality. I know, the whole “on the computer” part makes it seem distant, but I repeat: This is not a game.
@Naglfar Trump isn’t really openly anti gay though. If he was I wouldn’t support it anyway.
Both parties have contributed to the immigration system we have now because keeping these people undocumented provides cheap labour. Both parties have extreme capitalists in them. I support capitalism but I don’t support the greed, and I’m under no illusion that it’s both parties doing it.
@ Jim
Oooh, Jim thinks there’s no middle ground between Trump’s policies and the completely open borders that RWers think the left is demanding! *starts new bingo card*
Let’s start with increasing funding and other support to the immigration courts so that people who want to come into this country can have their cases reviewed with a greater degree of care, as opposed to a few minutes before an overworked judge. Let’s also start by ending the policy of family separation, because seeking asylum is not a crime, and presenting at a legal point of entry should not give the United States the excuse to take children away from their parents.
While we’re at it, how about we go after the companies that exploit the labor of undocumented people? Like Koch Foods, to pick a recent example. Hiring undocumented workers is against the law as well, but ICE preferred to arrest the workers and not the bosses.
@Victorious Parasol: Seems fair enough to me.
@TheKND: Supporting either party contributes to these things. Even Alexandria Cortez is a capitalist at heart, no matter what she tells you otherwise.
@Jim
Read this, then see what you think.
That’s like saying you support Nazism but not racism. Greed is a key part of capitalism, just as racism is a key part of Nazism.
I don’t quite know what you mean by the last part, but I will say it is the Republican Party that reduces taxes on corporations and the wealthy so the rich can get richer and the poor can get poorer. It is the Republican Party that chips away at safety regulations so hat people can die and the environment can be destroyed for greed.
@Nagflar I’ve had this discussion about socialism with people before. European countries have socialism but still have capitalism at the top, with the middle class paying the majority of the taxes. A bigger safety net is created but the middle class all become poorer. So, new wave Democrats may end up fixing some things in America, but they’ll create other problems.
Capitalism isn’t evil in of itself. I don’t know why you’re comparing it to Nazism, but whatever. The issue is greed within capitalism, but even those people that are telling you they have your best interests at heart really don’t, and that includes people like Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Anyway, I don’t know how much further this conversation will go on. As things have continued I actually mean no harm and am trying to have good intentions in my replies, so.
@Jim
https://inkbunny.net/j/365190-Lapsa-lgbtq-civil-rights
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about about, asshat.
By supporting the orange turd, you support no only your rights being taken away, but also those of others like you.
Fuck you.
Yeah, now. Because thanks to racism, laws restricting immigration were put in place. My ancestors (and chances are yours as well) didn’t do a thing to earn a place here, they just came. It wasn’t until Chinese people started immigrating here in large numbers that Americans felt the need to start restricting immigration.
I’d say you need to stop obsessing about gaming and learn some history, but you don’t even know that much about gaming and its place in our culture, so I guess you don’t really know much about anything.
No, there are still a few gay Republicans left. I don’t get it, but it’s a thing. What I’m telling you is that GGers are untrustworthy, as this very blog exposed your lot exchanging tips on how to sock puppet as a woman, POC or LGBTQ person (or some combination of the three) in an attempt to make #notyourshield seem legitimate and in order to try and claim GG couldn’t possible be a hate movement. Once someone defends GG, I don’t trust anything they say about themselves. At least not when they’re posting anonymously.