GamerGate, the push for ethics in videogame journalism from 2014,
is being directly blamed by Vox and others for the unrest at the
Capitol last week.
Writing for Vox, Aja Romano described GamerGate as one of the
“root causes and contributing factors” that led to civil unrest
at Capitol Hill in Washington DC last week. Instead of putting the
blame on the Mike Pence for failing to wield his constitutional
power to unilaterally reject Electoral College voters from states
with serious electoral integrity issues.
The almost 5,000 word article said that GamerGate was a
“watershed moment and learning experience for many future Trump
supporters,” and that “as a movement, it showed the trend
towards systematized online harassment and increased ideological
polarization that emerged in the latter half of the 2010s.”
The article, which had been repurposed and republished from
being a general article by Vox about GamerGate to include context
from the Capitol Hill protests, included some viral threads from
liberals and leftists on the subject.
How a failure to learn from
the lessons of Gamergate’s hate campaign contributed to the out of
control violence at the US Capitol yesterday: https://t.co/xExXiM1CgA— Vox (@voxdotcom)
January 7, 2021
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“Seeing some people say this in private to protect themselves
so I’ll say it out loud: there is a direct line from the game
industry and media’s failure in addressing gamergate to the right
wing terrorism we’re seeing today,†wrote Shayna Moon, a Senior
Tech Project Manager at Unity. Others said that GamerGate was the
“canary in the coal mine†for today, with yet more claiming
GamerGate was a white supremacist movement.
Gamergate, MRAs, r/Trump,
Proud Boys, etc. were all canaries in the coal mine and y’all
didn’t pay attention or told us we were exaggerating.— Leona Thotsky
(@LeonaThotsky)
January 6, 2021
It’s goddamn depressing how
clear a line you can draw from GamerGate to this shit.— Cassie LaBelle (@CassieCeleste)
January 6, 2021
Fuck facism, fuck Gamergate,
and fuck Trump. American friends, I am sorry.— Jen Simpkins (@itsJenSim)
January 6, 2021
failure to address gamergate
is just another point of this country’s reinforcement and
encouragement of white supremacist movements that were already
on-going, GG came out of existing fringe movements online https://t.co/OMUntRn37X— the traveler’s blair waldorf (@appleciderwitch)
January 6, 2021
Lol the crazy moron deleted
this pic.twitter.com/5retznaCKw— Venom Rach (@SocialNomadRach)
January 7, 2021
As soon as the Vox article gained any traction, it was widely
and immediately mocked by many from all across the political
spectrum. One Twitter user described GamerGate as being equivalent
to “libtard 9/11,†and another said that this framing of
GamerGate “is indicative of the inability among many liberals and
leftists to avoid seeing themselves as the most important people in
the world.â€
Future history books will
blame WWI on Gamergate https://t.co/nG5ZetCIpE— Scott Greer 6’2†IQ 187 Whitepilled (@ScottMGreer)
January 7, 2021
100% of the takes about this
being gamergate come from people whose star waned when everyone
stopped giving a shit about gamergate. https://t.co/kEa4MeSOFi— Noam Blum (@neontaster)
January 7, 2021
These wet socks really think
all of this is related to gamergatehttps://t.co/5XYdvsduNb
— Nicoco
(@PetiteNicoco)
January 7, 2021
every problem started with
gamergate. I wasnt paying attention to the problems before but once
it was about gaming I leanred about the problems.— Patrick: Year Of The Rascal (@lunch_enjoyer)
January 7, 2021
Nominating “Still Talking
About Gamergate” for the Trainwreck Awards every year until it
stops which will be never— Gus | ᶜʸᵇᵉʳᵖᵘâ¿áµ ²â°â·â· (@guscraw)
January 7, 2021
The absurd attempt to frame
Gamergate as the cause for all of the modern far-right is
indicative of an inability among many liberals and leftists to
avoid seeing themselves as the most important people in the world.
Utter egotism devoid of any useful politics.— Zeria (@_Zeria_)
January 7, 2021
2/ and history. The rise of
Tea Party conservatism is 10000000000x more important than
GamerGate for explaining Trump. Every arguably relevant element of
GG is applicable to many other swaths of the internet, anyway.— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal)
January 7, 2021
gamergate took my wife and
kids— John Halo (@JohnHaloCE)
January 7, 2021
gamergate truly is libtard
9/11 https://t.co/NrNVmbE99s— KFrank (@kylefrankthejew)
January 7, 2021
Online libs in 2070 explaining
how our nuclear annihilation was directly the result of GamerGate.
pic.twitter.com/G1be0zHpWw— Pasta man (@Altsurrealist)
December 31, 2020
2021 and Gamergate is being
resurrected by grifters and genuinely evil people as a bogeyman to
blame all bad things on.I want to go back to 2020 please. Please. I’m begging you. Turn
back the clock.— Christina New Year (@ChristinaTasty)
January 6, 2021
If I keep seeing “this
originated in gamergate” / “game industry coulda stopped this”
takes im gonna drown on my overflowing acid reflux— jessica harvey (@oysterFAKE)
January 6, 2021
