There is a culture war brewing on the internet. As usual, I suppose. But this one, known as #GamerGate, seems different. Several months in, it still has legs and appears to be growing every day. The controversy has survived a few months now, and is at last bleeding over into the mainstream media, with segments this week on MSNBC and CNN, and a feature in the NY Times. Perhaps it is surprising that the loudest cause of rancor on the internet in recent weeks comes out of the fairly niche field of video-game journalism?
Pinning down the term #GamerGate, and those who support the movement, is a tricky task. Kyle Wagner at Deadspin, in a great piece you should read, defines it thus:
By design, Gamergate is nearly impossible to define. It refers, variously, to a set of incomprehensible Benghazi-type conspiracy theories about game developers and journalists; to a fairly broad group of gamers concerned with corruption in gaming journalism; to a somewhat narrower group of gamers who believe women should be punished for having sex; and, finally, to a small group of gamers conducting organized campaigns of stalking and harassment against women.
The first two pieces of this definition are the public face of #GamerGate. The movement purports to be concerned with game development and journalism in an era of political correctness, and thus carries itself as concerned primarily with journalism.
It should be noted that there are problems with video-game criticism and journalism, as a profession. As I understand it, these issues are similar to those that exist in comic-book criticism, a field more akin to our work at The Stake. It could be said that gaming culture is just beginning a process that comic-books has been involved in for a few years now. Both are insular communities, dominated by fans. Negative criticism and new voices have a hard time breaking through the noise; when they do they are often received with skepticism about how that breakthrough was accomplished. Websites and their staffs have relationships with industry creators and both sides depend on those relationships being friendly; not having those relationships is often a barrier to entry. Harsh criticism of work is reacted to negatively: one may not like a game or comic, but that’s just an opinion; anything beyond this is often seen as an attack.
But these legitimate issues in video-game journalism are not what the latest culture war is flaring up over. #GamerGate, no matter what anyone might tell you, is not about the ethics of journalism. Nor is it about freedom, political or otherwise. It’s about insulating culture against outside influences; it’s about power and control, political correctness and paranoia over “radical feminists” invading, and “fixing”, gaming. Here is the quick and dirty on how #GamerGate assumes the mantle of journalistic ethics.
Last year, game developer Zoe Quinn created a text-based game called Depression Quest. In August, her ex-boyfriend, for whatever motive he might have had, wrote a series of long and detailed blog posts about their relationship, one of which said Quinn had slept with a journalist, Nathan Grayson from Kotaku, to get a favorable review of Depression Quest. That review doesn’t exist. Grayson did once mention Quinn in an article before they were together (allegedly), but in the timeline of #GamerGate that could not have been in exchange for sex. How the details of this relationship matter to anyone outside of those involved remains a mystery. A scorned ex-boyfriend’s public expression of anger is no way to build a case against unethical reporting. But either way, outrage and anger resulted, and Zoe Quinn (much more so than the Grayson) became the target of a major hate campaign. Actually, “major hate campaign” doesn’t even scratch the surface of how Quinn was treated.
Anita Sarkeesian. Image from Flickr user Susanne Nilsson
What happened to Zoe Quinn coincided with the release of the latest video in the online video game criticism series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, by Anita Sarkeesian. For years Sarkeesian has been the target of an online hate campaign of the worst kind, (see Sarkeesian address this here), with rape and death threats levied at her with such ferocity that her family has had to leave their home. Just this week, after an anonymous individual threatened to kill the attendees of a Sarkeesian speech at the Utah State University, she canceled because the state of Utah was not able to secure the event due to their open-carry firearm laws preventing searches at the door. The FBI is currently investigating these and other threats against Sarkeesian.
Proponents of #GamerGate will say these sexist, hate-filled campaigns, and the accompanying threats of rape and death, are unrelated to their cause. They will say these are ploys; fake threats created by radical feminists or liberal fascists, or the work of unrelated trolls, made to denigrate the real message of #GamerGate.
But make no mistake, this is #GamerGate. The entire foundation of the movement is built on the accusations of a spurned ex-boyfriend. On that mound of dirt, an existing mountain of sexism was able to find firm ground, and call itself #GamerGate.
The phrase #GamerGate is credited to the actor Adam Baldwin (of Firefly and Chuck), whose libertarian politics, disdain for “Social Justice Warriors”, opposition to same-sex marriage, and ridiculing of “radical feminism” has made him a popular figure among many who see political correctness and evil feminists lurking everywhere. If Baldwin didn’t create the term #GamerGate (that’s unclear), he certainly gave it the signal boost it needed to capture the attention of the internet. And in doing so, Baldwin has become the de facto figure-head of the #GamerGate movement; it’s possible that without Baldwin #GamerGate would have stayed a simmering boil about a game developer named Zoe Quinn that very few people had ever heard of. It might have remained an important but small news story on gaming sites and blogs, about the efforts to fight misogyny and create an open and diverse gaming culture.
But Baldwin’s celebrity combined with the anger of so many gamers has allowed #GamerGate to boil over. And that boil of outrage has spread widely. The phrase appears now in all corners of the internet. It started as a personal attack on Quinn, then joined with the already existing attacks on Sarkeeisan. Now, the harassment and threats are directed at women across gaming, tech and journalism.
I’m sure Baldwin opposes the terrible, sexist, violent behavior undertaken by supporters of #Gamergate, but he understands how to use twitter to promote all elements of the movement while keeping his hands clean. He uses the ubiquitous hasthag as he retweets a huge number of articles and blog posts to his near 200,000 followers, but remains in a position distanced from those “actually” participating in the reprehensible behavior those posts enable.
Remember, all of this is, according to supporters, unrelated to #GamerGate and its cause. The defense is remarkable in its logic. #GamerGate is simultaneously a shield defending individuals from the horrific behavior it enables and a weapon used to oppose women, LGBT individuals, or any new voices from taking hold in gaming or other “geek” culture arenas.
The creation of a cultural movement dedicated to ethical journalism, opposing political correctness, and avoiding lectures from lefties has resulted in game developers, academics, people whose crime is playing and having opinions about video games, literally fearing for their lives. There are real, living women who have become the target of every conceivable brand of abuse and harassment, supported by the hands-free signal boost, whether he intends it or not, of Jayne from Firefly.
#StopGamerGate.
