I hope you’re sitting down, because this news could rock you to your very core: a new study shows that people who identify as “gamers” are more likely to act in racist and sexist ways.
Category: #gamergate
By David Futrelle
On February 10, Twitter was filled with gloating tweets from assorted amateur and professional far-right culture warriors, all happily celebrating the poor showing of the film Birds of Prey, which they had collectively decided was a terrible insult to comic book fans and men in general because Harley Quinn’s outfit in the film wasn’t as sexy as theoretically possible. This is the state of the culture war now.
Share this:
By David Futrelle
Men’s Rights Redditors are getting their boxer briefs in a twist over news that Wikipedia is now including the Men’s Rights subreddit on their list of “controversial Reddit communities” alongside such names as r/TheRedPill and the toxic pro-Trump subreddit The_Donald.
Share this:
By David Futrelle
I have to give the inhabitants of the “Gender Critical” subreddit credit for one thing: they are endlessly creative in coming up with new ways to be assholes.
Share this:
By David Futrelle
Last week, game designer and Gamergate nemesis Zoe Quinn publicly accused indie game developer Alec Holowka of being abusive during, and vindictive after, a brief relationship the two had some years ago. Several others stepped forward with similar accusations.
Now the story has gotten sadder and uglier: Holowka has reportedly died by suicide. And those we might call the Eternal Gamergaters have taken to the internet en masse to accuse Quinn (and in a few cases, Holowka’s own sister) of causing his death.
Share this:
UPDATE: Alec Holowka’s sister reports that he has died, apparently of suicide.
By David Futrelle
#MeToo hit the gaming industry hard this week, with an ever-growing number of women and non-binary people coming forward to accuse men in the industry — including some big names — of rape and harassment and other forms of abuse.
Share this:
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.
Share this:
So I’m going to appear on the Australian radio show Stop Everything on ABC RN tonight from 8-9 PM Eastern, talking about Gamergate and its legacy. (For those actually living down under, that converts to 10-11 AM Friday morning, Eastern Australian time.) The segment on Gamergate will take up roughly half of the hour-long show, but I’m not sure when in the hour that will be.
You can find the show here; it will be rerun several times and also put up as a podcast.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
Share this:
The New York Times has a fascinating collection of articles today on the fifth anniversary of the start of GamerGate, and how that media ethics crusade mob harassment campaign put in place a sort of template for the culture wars of the past several years, “jump[ing] out of the obscure fever swamps of the internet and into mainstream consciousness.”
Share this:
By David Futrelle
If you ever wonder why online gaming culture is such a complete shitshow, it’s not because it’s dominated by angry teenagers who think it’s fun to call other players “f*ggots” and possibly even send SWAT teams to their houses. These people could easily be banned, No, the real problem is that so many adult gamers either don’t give a shit about the rampant harassment or think it’s actually pretty cool.
