Bronze-level articleGamergate

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It's actually about ethics in video game journalism, you fucking slut!
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A few weeks ago our message board and general inbox were bombarded with demands we address something called the "GamerGate Scandal", posts written with the urgency and rage one would associate with, say, discovering that Chipotle burritos are made entirely from the meat of human babies. It's apparently a big deal in some circles, so we followed the links and read the piles of data presented, and had to stop and take a deep breath just to grasp it all. "Gentlemen," we said amid the stunned silence, "do you realize that if what they're saying is true, then this is still the most pointless fucking bullshit anyone has ever forced us to read?"
Cracked.com, [1]

Gamergate is a misogynistic and reactionary backlash in the video game community against feminism and other liberal ideologies. The controversy erupted in August 2014 when game developer Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend alleged that she had cheated on him with multiple partners. This spurred a torrent of harassment and threats that spread to target Quinn's colleagues, supporters, and anyone else who held similar opinions, such as media critic Anita Sarkeesian and game developers like Phil Fish and Brianna Wu. The name "Gamergate", coined by conservative actor Adam Baldwin, originally referred to the trumped up "scandal" surrounding Quinn, but the people shouting about it would take the name for themselves.

Gamergate's supporters, known as "Gamergaters" ("Gators" to their critics), claim they are a grassroots consumer movement advocating "ethics in video game journalism", freedom of speech, and game developers' freedom of expression. They contend that Quinn traded sex for positive game reviews (no such review exists). They also believe feminists want to censor video games, citing Sarkeesian as an example—demonstrating that if they have watched any of her videos, they ignored them in favor of the versions inside their own heads. It is also a backlash against the maturation of video games into a form of art worthy of academic study and subjective criticism, rather than software to be consumed without thought and judged solely on objective technical merits.

Despite the fact that none of Gamergate's claims hold up under scrutiny, early on they were able to put a positive spin on their intentions by running an astroturfing campaign that recruited useful idiots into a token subgroup to counter claims of exclusivity. Gamergate was also courted by opportunistic right-wingers, MRAs, neo-Nazis, and others who sought to exploit it. Once moderate voices started to flee the toxicity, leaving only those who believe in the "social justice warrior" bogeymen of the Internet, hangers-on were able to use Gamergate as their personal revenge army.

Contents

Brief summary

Here is the briefest possible summary that provides all you will ever need to know about the whole thing.

  • Video game designer breaks up with her boyfriend
  • Same (now ex-) boyfriend posts angry rant about her online
  • Internet hate machine finds rant
  • Every bigot in the world gets involved only because every other bigot is already involved
  • Ensuing miasma of vitriol and straw fuels a largely one-sided flame war that burns with the rage of a thousand suns

But iffe knowledge further ye crave, abandone all hope and take despair to thy heart, for...

Background

Despite a growing number of female gamers (various studies have shown that in recent years women outnumber men as consumers),[2] video games are predominately marketed to "masculine" tastes. Recent years have seen a move away from the status quo, especially within the independent sector and alternative games journalism; including games marketed for women, games with more inclusive or feminist messages, and feminist criticism of the implicit and explicit sexism in gaming culture.

These shifts have been met with vocal and obnoxious resistance from certain segments of the gaming community. This was most apparent in May 2012 when Anita Sarkeesian launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games web series to analyze the portrayal of women in video games. Her "crime" of criticizing video games led to a hostile backlash, which the mainstream media covered, leading to an outpouring of support for her project.[3][4]

Another example was the cyberstalking of Dina Abou Karam, which started in December 2013 after she was hired onto the team of the crowd-funded video game Mighty No. 9.[wp] In her introduction to the game's Kickstarter backers, she included a piece of fan art she made which depicted the game's male protagonist as a woman. This led to attacks from those who believed she was going to inject a feminist message into the game, despite the fact that as community manager she had no say in the game's development.[5]

Zoe Quinn

In February 2013, Zoe Quinn independently released her video game Depression Quest, an interactive fiction[wp] game that portrays living with clinical depression. It received praise for its message, but was trashed by self-styled "hardcore" gamers claiming its simple design and "lack of gameplay" meant it was "not a real game" and that it was "social justice warrior" (SJW) propaganda. After she submitted the game to Steam Greenlight[wp], she was doxxed.[6] Threats included messages saying she should kill herself or that the sender would rape her.[7][8] Depression Quest was officially released on Steam in August 2014.

Eron Gjoni and "The Zoe Post"

On August 15, 2014, Quinn's ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni posted a rant about his breakup with her titled "Cringe Worthy Breakup Stories" to several message boards. He alleged that she had cheated on him with multiple partners.[9] After he was banned from these websites and the posts deleted, he made a blog to host the accusations and called it "The Zoe Post".[10] He would later admit that he had crafted the post to make it appeal to an audience of trolls who would delight in attacking Quinn, namely Reddit and 4chan users.[11] He would deny that was his intention,[12] but an early draft suggested otherwise.[11]

Among the slut-shaming musings of "The Zoe Post", one that attracted attention and amusement was the following:

Five guys. Man. she cheated on me with five guys? Five guys. And now I can’t stop mentally referring to her as Burgers and Fries.[10]

This reference to the fast-food restaurant Five Guys Burgers and Fries[wp] gave the hate campaign its first name: #BurgersAndFries.

Gjoni stated that he posted the screed to "warn" potential future partners about Quinn's alleged behavior,[10] a shaming tactic common in the manosphere. He wrote, "I believe that to stay quiet about someone who will hurt others is to be complicit in perpetuating the harm they will cause".[13] He also tried to distance himself from the harassment of Quinn his post inspired, but chat logs and other sources confirm he was promoting the harassment.[11]

"The Quinnspiracy"

Many of the readers of "The Zoe Post" focused on the mention of Nathan Grayson, a writer for the video game news site Kotaku, as one of Quinn's partners. This led them to conclude that Quinn had slept with Grayson to get positive reviews for Depression Quest and boost her career.[14] Some proponents of this sex-for-reviews scandal, which became known as "The Quinnspiracy," argued that it represented an example of an alleged "lack of integrity" in video game journalism.[14]

Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo refuted the claim: Grayson had only written one article about Quinn, and that was prior to the start of their relationship.[15] In fact, Kotaku hosts nothing even resembling a review of Depression Quest. The mob responded by bringing up a piece Grayson wrote months earlier at Rock, Paper, Shotgun which listed Depression Quest amongst 50 other games approved through Steam Greenlight[16] as further proof of collusion. The article, however, was merely a list, not a review.[17] Gjoni also edited his blog to clarify that, "if there was any conflict of interest between Zoe and Nathan regarding coverage of Depression Quest prior to April, I have no evidence to imply that it was sexual in nature".[10]

Gamergate becomes a thing

Harassment and doxxing

"The Zoe Post" inspired a fresh wave of harassment against Quinn, that led to her email, Tumblr, Twitter, Skype, and Dropbox accounts being compromised; Gjoni was instrumental in distributing her login information. Several of her friends' accounts were hacked as well. Nude photographs acquired in the hack were distributed online and to her family and employers.[6] Fellow game developer Phil Fish[wp] stood up for Quinn and had his personal and professional data hacked, prompting him to leave the game industry and sell off his assets.[18][19] The anonymous mob denied responsibility, claiming that Quinn and Fish were running a false flag operation, an accusation based solely in the mob's belief that Quinn's current boyfriend Alex Lifschitz was secretly Fish.[20] The harassment intensified to include death threats, forcing Quinn and Lifschitz to move out of their apartment out of fear.[21] One of Quinn's close friends wrote that other women in the gaming industry feared being targeted next, and some opted to leave gaming, destroying projects they had been working on or going into hiding.[22]

Pushers of "The Quinnspiracy" drew attention to a feud several months earlier between Quinn and a group known as The Fine Young Capitalists (TFYC) who had run a "women in game design" competition. She accused them of exploiting inexperienced game designers by asking them to work for free, and critiqued their policy on transgender contestants. The debate brought enough traffic to TFYC's website that it crashed, leading Quinn to be accused of coordinating a denial-of-service attack[wp] against TFYC.[23] A member of TFYC later accused Quinn of having, "started a fucking Twitter storm, crashed our website, got my personal information doxxed, [and] got us banned from Twitter."[24]

Meanwhile, Sarkeesian released a new video in her Tropes vs. Women in Video Game series and immediately received "some very scary threats" against herself and her family, leading her to leave her home temporarily.[25]

Operation Chemo and Vivian James

Supporting real women in video games, apparently...

4chan users championed Gamergate, notably members of the video game board, /v/; and the "politically incorrect" board, /pol/; the latter is a haven for neo-Nazis, neoreactionaries, and red pillers. On August 21, a poster on /pol/ suggested that they should donate to TFYC to spite Quinn and invert 4chan stereotypes by superficially supporting a "SJW" cause.[26] [24] [24] Another anonymous poster replied with "4chan attacks the cancer and simultaneously sponsors the chemo", using the common chanspeak metaphor of "cancer" as anything they perceive as a threat to 4chan culture. "Operation Chemo" soon spread to /v/ and other boards and quickly raised over $5,000 in donations to TFYC.[24]

The outpouring of support for TFYC fulfilled one of their fundraising goals, and they allowed the 4chan mob to design a character that would appear in their game. One poster suggested that this character should be "just an average female gamer" to challenge expectations that 4chan would produce something vulgar or misogynistic. The result was Vivian James, a young woman with the 4chan clover logo on her headband, whose name sounds like "vidya games" (/v/ slang for video games).[24] Vivian, who quickly became a mascot for Gamergate, just wants to game and doesn't want to think about social issues.[26][27] As the major donor to TFYC's project, 4chan was also permitted to choose the charity which would receive the proceeds of the finished game. Out of the charities nominated (including the JIDF and various men's rights causes), the winner was the Colon Cancer Alliance, continuing the meme of "chemo for butthurt".[28]

Immediately after creating an imaginary teenage girl to show how they aren't misogynistic, 4chan users started making porn of the character. Some of these pictures were included in the files submitted to TFYC.[24] As if to further underscore the stupidity of their movement, Gamergaters seem to think Vivian is an example of a "real woman" that supports their cause,[29] while others use Vivian as a friend argument.[30]

Vivian James' green and purple color scheme is likely a reference to an old 4chan meme known as "Piccolo Dick", a.k.a. "Daily Dose": an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z[wp] raping Vegeta, which evolved into posting images with green and purple when the original image was banned.[31][28][32] Gamergaters regularly deny the connection,[31] and TFYC did not consider the link a problem, citing the fact that they had already been sent Vivian James porn and, "there have been multiple pornographic images created [of Vivian James], many of which are more offensive than the three-year-old meme you referenced".[33]

Journalists and pundits weigh in

As the harassment of Quinn and Sarkeesian began to generate media attention, commentators at gaming and pop culture news sites explored the nasty streak in gamer culture exposed by these activities. Several observers suggested that, with video games becoming mainstream, the conventional notion of an exclusively male "gamer" demographic was obsolete.[34][35][36][37] Gators cried foul, referring to these articles as the "Gamers Are Dead" posts. They accused media outlets of perpetuating harmful stereotypes of gamers as misogynistic white males (despite the articles claiming the opposite), and, drawing on the fact that several similarly-themed articles came out within a relatively short period of time, of "collusion" and "corruption".

Vlogger John "TotalBiscuit" Bain[wp] attacked the critiques, maintaining that they were othering gamers and fostering division instead of dialogue.[38] His extensive online following (he had some 250,000 Twitter followers) made him an early figurehead of the movement, though he wavers between officially supporting it and professing a "neutral" take.

Naming

Actually, it's about ethics in reproducing without royal assent.

The burgeoning hate mob at this point was still nameless, either using the hashtags #BurgersAndFries or #TheQuinnspiracy to coordinate harassment of Quinn on Twitter and other social media. On August 27 conservative actor Adam Baldwin tweeted several videos about the "Quinnspiracy" with the hashtag "#Gamergate"[39] and a name stuck.

Coincidentally, a "gamergate"[wp] is a reproductively viable female worker ant.

Gamergate escalates

If a picture says it, it must be true

To deflect criticism that Gamergate was entirely focused on Quinn and Sarkeesian, Gamergaters began to refer to them as "Literally Who" (as in "I literally have no idea who that is"), often shortened to "LW", to imply, paradoxically, that Gamergaters don't know or care who these women are, even as they obsess over them.[40] As Gamergate progressed, more and more women became "Literally Who" dehumanizing them and facilitating their harassment.[41]

Critics of Gamergate have coined their own terms describing its tactics. "Sealioning" (a term derived from the webcomic Wondermark in which a sea lion intrudes on an unsuspecting couple's conversation[42]) describes how Gamergaters insert themselves into conversations about Gamergate, with zero provocation (and often without ever using the #Gamergate hashtag) to just ask questions.[43]

Revelation as coordinated hate campaign

In September, game designer and journalist Jenn Frank wrote an article for The Guardian about the treatment of women in gaming.[44] She was promptly accused of a "conflict of interest" because she had contributed to Quinn's Patreon account. Frank had disclosed this in her original draft, but The Guardian did not think it worth mentioning. It was reinstated, but the damage was done, and Frank left gaming, joined by game designer Mattie Brice. Gamergaters celebrated, with one writing, "SJWs [are] dropping like flies before the might of #GamerGate," and another that, "The dominos are falling. We're winning. It's brilliant."[45]

Tweets bearing the hashtag #NotYourShield began trending in Gamergate circles. These tweets were ostensibly from people from outside the straight white male gamer demographic, and appeared to contradict gaming press criticism of Gamergate as a reactionary hate movement.[46][47] On September 6, however, Quinn released archived 4chan posts and IRC chatlogs which exposed Gamergate as a coordinated attack upon herself, Sarkeesian, and others viewed as "social justice warriors". This material also exposed #NotYourShield as a cynical astroturfing campaign[48] involving Gamergaters creating sockpuppet Twitter accounts, fabricating user profiles and stealing profile photos for use as avatars.[49] Members of the chatroom dumped the entire week of chat logs, but it still proved Quinn's point: Gamergate was made to attack her and anyone that got in their way, and they had manufactured #NotYourShield themselves to deflect blame.[50][51]

4chan shows Gamergate the door

On September 18, 4chan's owner Christopher "moot" Poole announced a ban on Gamergate threads for violation of the site's "no personal information/raids/call to invasion" rule.[52] Gators claimed this was an infringement of free speech[43] and accused Poole of having fallen to SJW wiles, mistakenly believing him to be dating former Gawker employee Mallory Blair. [53] Poole left 4chan in January 2015,[54] having found himself no longer able to handle the stress and damage control concerning events like Gamergate.[55]

Many of the "disenfranchised" posters moved to 8chan, a similarly-styled forum that promised less restrictive rules. There, Gators created a board called "/gg/".[56][57] Due to inevitable infighting and drama on a board of anonymous assholes, /gg/ gave way to "/gamergate/", which was then abandoned in favor of "/gamergatehq/". Another board called "/baphomet/" was established around the same time, exclusively for reviving 4chan-style raiding and doxxing. While Gators deny any relationship between Gamergate and "baph", harassment of Gamergate targets is often organized there.[58][59][60]

Right-wing opportunists pile on

Let none call them Nazis. A combination of a famous Nazi propaganda cartoon and a famous neo-Nazi propaganda cartoon. (And Sarkeesian isn't even Jewish.)

Several conservative and libertarian commentators support Gamergate. Christina Hoff Sommers of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute dismissed the existence of sexism in video games and gaming culture.[61] Cathy Young of the libertarian magazine Reason backed Gamergate, arguing that "the feminism GamerGate rebels against is not simply about equality or diversity," but "authoritarian, far-left brand of gender politics."[62]

Gamergate also attracted the support of reactionary Theodore Beale (Vox Day).[63] Beale has blogged:

At this point, #GamerGate is about more than games now. It is a Schwerpunkt in the ongoing cultural war for the West. And the gamers of #GamerGate are the only defenders of freedom and Western civilization who are counterattacking and causing enemy casualties. That is why it is more than important, it is vital to see non-gamers joining the cause rather than sneering from the sidelines.
—Vox Day, [64]

Other bloggers soon piled on:

  • Men's rights activist Roosh V launched a gaming website called Reaxxion which mostly hosts Gamergate propaganda; the site was once duped into publishing a submission that was a doctored old John Birch Society screed where "Gamergate" and "SJW" replaced every mention of "John Birch Society" and "communist".[65]
  • Davis Aurini revealed he was planning a documentary with Jordan Owen to "critique" Sarkeesian.[66] They requested $15,000 per month to fund the project (possibly to fund Aurini's skull collection).[67] His biggest achievement so far has been to promote a hoax that Sarkeesian was lying about contacting police about the threats she received[68] because the San Francisco Police Department representative he spoke to wasn't aware that SFPD had handed her case over to the FBI.[69]
  • Thunderf00t also joined in, mostly to capitalize on his existing hatred of Sarkeesian.[70]
  • Anti-feminist writers Janet "JudgyBitch" Bloomfield of A Voice for Men[71][72] and Karen "GirlWritesWhat" Straughan[73][74] also threw their support behind Gamergate.

The website Techraptor ran several articles supporting Gamergate, boosting their traffic. Quinn pointed out that Techraptor's ethics policy shows they crowdsource ideas from Reddit's Gamergate supporter board /r/KotakuInAction, leaving in multiple errors that are rarely if ever corrected, and makes no mention of objectivity, which is one of Gamergate's talking points. She wrote, "[their articles are] written with such an extreme slant [that] the italics have leaned so far they have fallen over and become underscores."[75]

Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos,[wp] an openly gay (which Gamergate thinks makes him immune to criticism a la #NotYourShield[76]) contributor to Breitbart London, became an early Gamergate hero when he published "Feminist Bullies Tearing the Video Game Industry Apart".[77] Many were quick to call him out on his sudden 180 on gaming by bringing up several pieces he had written that were critical towards the gamer demographic he was now courting.[78][79][80] A 2013 post on his failed start-up The Kernel bemoaned the level of "sex, drugs and violence" in video games.[81] A day before "The Zoe Post" was published, he argued that video games were to blame for Elliot Rodger's genocidal fantasies.[82] And mere days before his "Feminist Bullies" piece, he tweeted, "If you're a grown man with hands clamped to an Xbox controller instead of a pair of tits you need a good slap".[83] Although he would later proclaim that he was an avid gamer, it was clear to outsiders that this new interest was a thinly veiled attempt at gaining conservative political allies, as well as Gamergate's inability to discern between bias in their favor and neutral journalism.[78][79]

Much of this criticism was in response to Yiannopoulos's leaking of a gaming writers' mailing list called "GameJournoPros", including unredacted emails where people discussed Quinn's harassment, only reinforcing Gamergate's conspiracy theory that there was collusion amongst gaming journalists.[84] Of note were emails discussing a potential letter of solidarity for her that was shot down and an argument between Ben Kuchera of Polygon and The Escapist's editor-in-chief Greg Tito over a refusal to shut down a forum thread at The Escapist where harassment towards Quinn was being organized.[85][86][87] As a result of the leak, the list was shut down.

Gamergate vs. advertisments

Gamergate went after gaming websites that did not support it (especially the ones that published the "Gamers Are Dead" pieces), creating a blacklist and trying to undermine their advertising revenue. This was initially attempted using archive.today, a web service that saves pages without their ads; /r/KotakuInAction mods demand that all links to the blacklisted websites be archive.today links, and a browser extension was developed to automatically redirect through the service. Vice was first to recognize this when they found most of their non-gaming articles were being routed through the service.[88]

When this proved ineffective, Gamergate began contacting advertisers directly in what they called "Operation Disrespectful Nod", itself an attack on Quinn as it mocks someone who had sent her words of support. They gained some traction when Intel responded and pulled ads from the developer-oriented website Gamasutra where Leigh Alexander had written one of the articles that critiqued Gamergate.[89][90] Intel was criticized for its decision, and they released an apology, but did not reinstate advertising on the website[91] until a month later.

Gamergate again attempted to remove ad revenue after Gawker contributor Sam Biddle posted a series of Tweets that concluded with a poor taste joke: "[Gamergate] reaffirm[s] what we've known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission."[92] This spawned "Operation Baby Seal" (no one is sure why this name was chosen[93]), directly pressuring companies that advertised on Gawker Media on the basis that Biddle was promoting bullying. Mercedes-Benz USA was the first company to respond, pulling ads from across Gawker while they "assessed" the "situation"; ads were reinstated a few days later.[94] Adobe also responded to a Gator's request that they pull ads from Gawker as the website "endorses bullying and hate speech". A representative responded by first clarifying that Adobe was not presently advertising on the website, but that they had requested the company's logo be removed;[Note 1] they also declared that "[our company] stands against bullying."[95][96] Adobe was called out for responding to Gamergate as they did,[97].[98] leading to the company publically denouncing Gamergate and its actions.[99] Word processor software developer Literature & Latte[100] and high-end vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson[101] were also contacted, leading to advertisements being pulled, but quickly reinstated.

The Escapist goes full on Gamergate

The Escapist was one of the few mainstream gaming sites that supported Gamergate, giving their forums over to Gamergate discussion (and harassment of targets) and hosting interviews with and essays by game developers who shared their thoughts on Gamergate. The first batch was titled "Female Game Developers Share Their Views on #GamerGate"; all of the women remained anonymous.[102] A subsequent article titled "What Game Developers Think of #GamerGate" featured male voices, some of whom went on the record.[103] Many would point out the disparity with the women's interviews labeled "female" and the men's interviews lacking any such descriptor, leading The Escapist to retroactively add "male" to the title of the second set.[103][104]

Two of the participants in the group were active harassers in Gamergate. Slade "RogueStar" Villena was revealed to be a member of the #BurgersAndFries chatroom where he expressed a desire to falsely report Sarkeesian for tax fraud and said of Quinn, "NONE of this would have happened if [she] kept her vagina shut".[104] Also interviewed was James "Grimachu" Desborough, a tabletop game designer with extreme MRA leanings who has made games about rape and mocking "SJWs";[105] his most recent venture was a Gamergate-themed game that was pulled from online sale for its insensitivity.[106][107]

Alexander "Archon" Macris, who works for The Escapist's owners Defy Media, conducted the interviews at the behest of a forum request, and went over the head of the website's editorial staff to publish them and then enforce a corporate ban on discussing Gamergate in any future articles.[108] Macris also failed to disclose a conflict of interest, as he had financially supported Desborough's planned Gorean roleplaying book.[109]

The following year, after several popular personalities left The Escapist and Defy Media went through some budgetary layoffs,[110] Macris announced new staff for The Escapist that were either dyed-in-the-wool or fairweather Gamergaters: Brandon Morse, @Lizzyf620,[111] and Liana Kerzner, as well as an attempt to reach out to Oliver Campbell. Damion Schubert, one of the few developers Macris interviewed who was critical of Gamergate, wrote about these changes of staff, wondering if pandering to Gamergate and right-wingers would do them any good, financially.[112] Later, a former Gamergate supporter released chat logs of a discussion she had with Macris where he revealed his intent to use his position to push his political views with regards to Gamergate at The Escapist and other Defy Media websites.[113]

The campaign of harassment expands

Quinn was doxed again on 8chan on September 26. Would-be harassers discovered the post on October 14, and made plans to stalk Quinn at her home.[114] The post was removed by 8chan moderators only after Lifschitz called the site out on it. Prior to this, 8chan hadn't touched the post, as it isn't against the site's rules to dox people.[115], Twitter (This tweet incorrectly attributes the post pictured to 8chan; it is in fact from 4chan)</ref>

Brianna Wu singled out

On October 9, indie game dev Brianna Wu, head of the studio Giant Spacekat (GSX), tweeted several memes that had been sent to her by a fan in which her criticisms of Gamergate were superimposed over an image of an angry child. Gamergaters doxxed her and tweeted sexualized violent threats. She contacted the police and fled her home.[116] Gators "justified" their hate by saying Wu was mocking autism, as they found a photograph of the child used in the meme on an autism activism website; in reality, it's just a generic stock photo.[117]

This led to her stalking by Gamergate figureheads "PressFart2Continue" (so named because he previously stalked a vlogger whose channel was called Press Heart to Continue[118]) and Ethan "TheRalphRetort" Ralph who used his website to host content Fart produced that was banned elsewhere for doxxing Wu[119] as well as dox on everyone in Wu's immediate family.[120] These stalkers allege that Wu has lied about her experiences (an accusation similar to those leveled at Sarkeesian), and had never left her home as she maintained. Their proof? The blurry outline of a chair she was sitting in and some blurry chair rails in the background of her Skype sessions from a hotel room compared to her home office in interviews, saved as "Wu never left.jpg" at the Gamergate Wiki.[121]

Gators also claim that Wu is transgender, as if that were relevant. Wu addressed the accusations on Reddit, saying that whatever she said would only perpetuate transphobia, and she preferred to keep silent on the question out of respect for transgender people she knew.[122] Two weeks later, Milo Yiannopoulos compiled all of Gamergate's "evidence" in a massive hit piece that also claimed that Gamergate isn't transphobic for creating this conspiracy theory.[Note 2]

A round of "healthy debate"

Gamergate likes to push a balance fallacy by implying that there is an opposite and equivalent "anti-Gamergate" that opposes them, using nutpicking to prove themselves right. In reality, there's simply a mob that calls itself "Gamergate" and the people they've targetted, particularly Zoe Quinn, as well as the people who out of compassion came to support the targets. Early on, Gamergate was able to trick enough "neutral" people into believing that a debate even exists, giving the hate mob more airtime and power to continue their true goals. As Quinn herself put it, "Someone punching you in the face isn't a dialog, and it's not something you should be called upon to prove yourself undeserving of....I appreciate the noble intention of attempting to build a bridge, but maybe consider why some of us have been forced to live behind a moat."[123]

In September, former The Young Turks member David Pakman interviewed some Gamergate figureheads on his show, after interviewing Wu about her experiences. He spoke with Milo Yiannopoulos, "Pro-#Gamergate advocate" Jenni Bharaj, John "TotalBiscuit" Bain, 8chan's administrator Fredrick "Hotwheels" Brennan,[Note 3] Liana Kerzner[wp] (whose relationship with Gamergate is complicated), a representative of The Fine Young Capitalists (read: Matthew Rappard), adult film actress Mercedes Carrera (more on her later), Christina Hoff Sommers, and Theodore Beale as Vox Day. The only other Gamergate critic (and target) he interviewed was Arthur Chu[wp] of Jeopardy! fame who criticized Pakman for crowdsourcing #GamerGate for questions for himself and Wu and for the way he tried to contact Quinn to get her on the show.[Note 4]

On October 14, The Huffington Post's HuffPost Live hosted a panel discussion on Gamergate, featuring Wu, Forbes contributor Erik Kain, and Fredrick Brennan. During the interview, Brennan refuted the charge that his website was providing a platform for harassment, stating that it is, "well within the confines of the law," and, "we have no data retention requirement under the law, therefore we don't retain any data."[56] He issued a Parthian shot to Wu in the final seconds of the discussion: "Believe it or not, Brianna, 8chan is not all about you."[56] Quinn was also invited to join the discussion, but backed out after she had found out that she was not agreeing to an interview but a debate. She called out HuffPo for forcing the balance fallacy that she should be talking to people who have aided and abetted with her harassers, as HuffPo was not forward with who would be representing the "other side". However, the answer would come directly to her, with Brennan gleefully tweeting he was going to be on and taunting her in the process.[124]

Sarkeesian in Utah

Sarkeesian was scheduled to speak at Utah State University on October 15. The day before her talk, university staff received an anonymous e-mail threat that warned that "a Montreal Massacre style attack [would] be carried out" unless the event was cancelled.[125] The author of the threat claimed that "feminists have ruined my life and I will have my revenge" and that this would be "the deadliest school shooting in American history." The university refused to check for concealed firearms under Utah state law. Even an attorney interviewed by a local Fox News affiliate said that the school could have said "no guns today".[126] Sarkeesian decided to cancel the talk.[127]

Gators took the cancellation as a victory, calling Sarkeesian a coward for backing out. Gators denied the threats came from someone in Gamergate (despite the threat's obvious reference to Gamergate)[128]

Months later, USU would prevent guns from being allowed on campus during a visit by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.[129] USU claimed that the change of heart was due to Justice Sotomayor's protection under federal law. Sarkeesian, in contrast, was a merely an "average person".[130]

First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers

On October 19, Mike Cernovich, a California-based First Amendment lawyer, posted a portion of the restraining order filed against Gjoni by Quinn.[131][132] Cernovich, acting as an informal legal counsel to Gjoni, obtained the document abusing his privileges as an attorney.[131][132] He asserted that the one-year restriction against publicly discussing Quinn's personal life or "encouraging 'hate mobs'" which the restraining order imposes on Gjoni violated his right to free speech.[131][132] On October 23, he revealed that he had hired a private investigator to stalk Quinn.[133] In addition to being a lawyer, Cernovich sells fitness supplements, and promotes both bodybuilding and men's rights issues via his blogs.[131][134]

Cernovich oozes MRA ideals. He actively promotes Roosh V's websites,[132] and has a curious obsession with semen, tweeting that "Semen is a man's life force" and "Once they've bad [sic] my 'super serum', they don't want anything else. Girls become addicted to cum."[135] He also claimed that straight men can't get HIV and argued that condoms weren't necessary as he never got an STD while going bareback. When people questioned Cernovich's ideas about sexual health, Gamergate attacked them.[136]

Felicia Day and a doxxing speed world record

Actress and geek culture icon Felicia Day weighed in on Gamergate in a long post on her blog on October 22, explaining that she opposed the movement but was afraid to speak out because she could be doxed and harassed.[137] Within an hour, someone posted her address in the comments section.[138] Quinn, who was still homeless at this point due to the Gamergate mob,[139] begged people to stop: "When the fuck is it going to be enough? When the fuck will this end?"[140]

Gamergate reaches the attention of the general public

Gamergate's ThreatDown. Bears and robots need not apply.
And let us acknowledge for a moment the awful irony that, after decades of defending video games from accusations that they inspire school shootings, we now have a threatened school shooting explicitly inspired by games culture.
—Eurogamer, [141]

On October 15, in the wake of the threats made against Sarkeesian's engagement at Utah State, the hashtag "#StopGamerGate2014" was created and it soon became a trending topic worldwide.[89][142][143]

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), an American trade group representing all major game companies and best known for hosting the annual E3 trade fair, released a statement on October 16, declaring, "There is no place in the video game community—or our society—for personal attacks and threats."[144]

The New York Times ran a front-page article on October 16 headlined "Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats," followed by an op-ed from Sarkeesian.[89][145][146] On October 25, Newsweek revealed that Gamergaters had directed substantially more tweets at feminist critics than they had at game journalists.[147]

On October 24, Gamergate attempted to regain favor with the media and the public by holding an 8chan /gg/ meetup in a strip club and inviting New York magazine along to document it, figuring this would reassure people of their good attitude toward women.[148]

The final nail in the coffin was hammered in on October 29, when Sarkeesian had a 10-minute segment on The Colbert Report talking about Gamergate and the surrounding issues, which concluded with Sarkeesian declaring Colbert a feminist.[149] Gamergaters were not pleased.[150][151][152]

Gamergate's invasion of Wikipedia

Gamergate did its best to get a positive spin on Wikipedia, attempting to skew relevant articles in their favor. They were opposed for breaking several guidelines and policies, and appealed to Jimmy Wales, who challenged them to make their own version of the Wikipedia article on a Gamergate "sanctioned" Wikia, and he would then judge if it met Wikipedia's standards.[153][Note 5] A page on the Gamergate Wikia housed blackmail of Gamergate's Wikipedia editor targets, which resulted in the page's deletion. While all work at Wikia moved to a privately-owned Wiki, Gamergate began a new email campaign against Wales, claiming they would no longer donate to the WMF. Wales response revealed that he didn't believe them.[154][155][156] Gamergate also got involved a dispute over the Wikipedia article on "Cultural Marxism", a common term amongst the neo-reactionaries and MRAs who had pervaded Gamergate, leading Wales to overturn a community decision based on these complaints levied. Gamergaters have also mused forking Wikipedia for their own purposes as it doesn't meet their biased view of the world.

Through sheer persistence, Gamergate got part of its way on Wikipedia after a third appeal to the Arbitration Committee, whose early draft of the final decisions came down heavily on the established editors who had been under attack by Gamergate; the decision was condemned by the media.[157][158][159] These editors' crimes, in ArbCom's eyes, boiled down to violations of the civility policy in the face of Gamergate harassment and "recidivism", leading to three out of five being topic-banned and one being banned entirely.[160] However, this led to more eyes put on the page by the community at large and some meagre protections being put in place against further abuse of the system.

Attempts to counter Gamergate harassment on Twitter

"Check the #Gamergate tag there's no harassment there."

In response to increasing complaints of harassment, Twitter teamed up with the feminist group Women, Action, and the Media (WAM!) in early November to try out a tool for speedily reporting online abuse.[161] Despite criticism from Gamergaters, the tool went through its full trial period,[162] and the data collected by WAM! will be analysed in order to improve the Twitter service.[163] In December, Twitter announced they had updated the reporting tool. In the video to explain the feature, they included an alligator.[164] The allusion was not lost on observers.[165] However, many reported that the updated tool, or at least the review team, was not effective.[166] In late February 2015, Twitter announced they would begin requesting phone numbers of serial abusers when they request to have their account restored in order to better track and prevent abuse.[167] In April, Twitter executives explicitly condemned Gamergate's use of their platform to engage in harassment and hate speech.[168]

In November, game engineer Randi Harper developed the "Good Game Auto Blocker" tool after her blog post about the harassment she suffered from working in tech went viral, leading to a a storm of abusive tweets from Gators. A bot-account she runs cross-checks if Twitter users follow at least two Gamergate "ringleaders" (such as Yiannopoulos and Cernovich) and then blocks them; people can then subscribe to this block list through a third party tool and automatically block all accounts on the list, which gets updated in real time. After the International Game Developers Association suggested use of the tool to its constituents, it was found that the tool had resulted in some collateral damage; the official Twitter account for Kentucky Fried Chicken[wp] was on the list, but so was the account of Roberto Rosario, chairman of IGDA's Puerto Rico branch. Harper, who has said the tool is more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel, was not worried personally as she would rather block thousands of people than deal with several hundred harassers. There is an appeals system in which a team investigates the blocked user's account to see if there was a false positive;[169][170][171] in Rosario's case, he was a strong supporter of Gamergate and followed practically every figurehead on the tool's sourcelist (which had to be renamed from "blacklist" due to incessant whining from Gamergate[172]). He appealed to Gamergate when he found he was on the list.[173] The IGDA's Puerto Rico chapter was shut down sometime later; Rosario blamed feminism. Other game devs found that they were also on the auto blocker's block list for similar reasons, and all went crawling to /r/KotakuInAction to decry being "blacklisted" by "the SJWs".

Gamergate attempts to "weaponize" porn

Gamergate gained the support of pornographic actress Mercedes Carrera, who offered to do live streamed shows for them so long as the proceeds went to a charitable cause. Their first act was to try to get AbleGamers, a charity that works to make video games accessible to differently-abled gamers, on their side, but they neglected to mention Carrera's association with Gamergate in their proposal. AbleGamers backed out when they found threads on /r/KotakuInAction of Gamergate congratulating themselves on having "just weaponized porn" against the "SJWs", which inevitably led to their website being taken down in a DDoS attack.[174][175][176] Carrera instead partnered with TFYC to form "The Porn Charity".[177][178][179] Carrera wasn't done with spinning the adult film and sex worker communities in Gamergate's favor just yet. In February 2015, she announced thzt proceeds from her live shows would go towards a fund for an adult film actress who had been raped during a home invasion. Carrera took the opportunity to attack Sarkeesian and Wu, claiming they were profiting off of their harassment as they had only received threats and were not physically assaulted, and accusing them of being SWERFs.[Note 6] Many called out Carrera for the exploitation of the crime; Arthur Chu wrote "...the video being shared...is shit, the use of this situation as a tool to attack other women is shit, & GG is shit".[180]

On December 15, a self-published author known only as "Valeria O." released an explicit short story through Amazon Kindle titled Roughed Up By #GamerGape in which a "controversial game designer" named Zada Quinby is gang-raped by "five upset players" bent on "teach[ing] her a lesson." The story was on sale for a few days until after a reporter at Raw Story contacted Amazon.com for details.[181][182][183] Later, the author somehow made their way to /r/KotakuInAction and claimed zero involvement with Gamergate.[184]

Intel joins forces with Anita Sarkeesian

Gamergate tried to silence Anita Sarkeesian. Instead they prompted a major corporation to support her cause.

On January 6, 2015, Intel announced at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show that they were budgeting $300 million to counter the lack of gender and racial diversity within their company and the tech/gaming industries as a whole.[185] Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency was included in the keynote, and will help shape Intel's diversity program along with groups such as IGDA, Rainbow PUSH, and the National Center for Women in Technology.[186] Wired UK noted that Sarkeesian's involvement with the new initiative is "the clearest indicator that Gamergate has prompted the push for greater diversity."[187]

Gamergaters responded by attempting to hijack the #CES2015 hashtag.[188] They branded Sarkeesian and her producer/co-writer Jonathan McIntosh anti-Semites after digging up a three-year-old tweet by McIntosh criticizing the Israeli government for its construction of the West Bank wall.[189] This is ironic, given that they have spent months denigrating Sarkeesian as "The Jew" or "Jewkeesian" despite her lack of Jewish heritage (her parents are Iran-born ethnic Armenians who emigrated to Canada), going so far as to depict her in the style of a neo-Nazi propaganda caricature by A. Wyatt Mann (the general anti-semitic caricature had long been a meme on 4chan's /pol/ as "Le Happy Merchant") and referring to any money she obtained (or rather money in general) as "shekels".[190] McIntosh recently revealed he had been subtly trolling Gamergate through his Twitter feed by constantly posting opinions identical to those of Noam Chomsky to show that they are a bunch of right-wing reactionaries[191] and also intentionally posting provocative Tweets whenever he had discovered that trouble was brewing.[192]

They also began circulating an insensitive statement Sarkeesian allegedly made about feminism in Japan,[Note 7] tastefully accompanied by photo of a mushroom cloud.[193] However, the alleged quote was sourced from a single blog entry which no one has been able to corroborate, and the original author had since become a Gamergate supporter.[194][195] There were rumblings that she may have indeed made the statement, but had later retracted her condemnation as she later felt it was inappropriate.

After the conference, Genna Bain, TotalBiscuit's wife and general manager of his brand, announced she was selling off her personal stocks in Intel due to the "lack of diversity" in her stock portfolio.[196] When this sour-grapes display was met with criticism, her husband came to her defense (it's not whiteknighting when the damsel in distress is your ideological ally), accusing critics of "trying to infantalise [his] wife over her financial decision today" and being "wonderfully sexist."[197]

The SJW Illuminati rises

On January 11, Quinn wrote about her experiences at Gators' hands, addressing the problems with dealing with law enforcement and the legal system in the Internet age, and her advocacy concerning the /baphomet/ board. She also wrote about the actions of Mike Cernovich, including his use of a private investigator to stalk her and the acquisition of the court proceedings in her case to get a protective order against Gjoni. She revealed that Gjoni had been physically and emotionally abusive towards her.[198]

A week later, she announced with Lifschitz that they had formed a support group called the Crash Override Network. They have been working together to prevent and mitigate the damage caused by the doxxing attacks perpetrated by Gamergate based on their own experience, providing emotional support, as well as practical information on online security, PR, and legal protection. Within minutes of opening the Twitter account, it was bombarded by Gators demanding "proof" that they had helped anyone, decrying the project as a scam even though they do not plan on taking money from anyone, or claiming that it is a false flag operation.[199][200][201][202] Gators from 8chan tried to disrupt the project.[203]

Quinn and Lifschitz also revealed their support of goats.[204][205][206]

At the 2015 Game Developers Conference, Quinn announced Crash Override Network had partnered with Randi Harper's non-profit organization the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, which works to prevent harassment.[207][208][209] Brianna Wu also got the support of her congressional representative, Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), who began discussions about prosecuting people who issue online threats.[210] Rep. Clark held a congressional briefing about online abuse where Quinn addressed members of Congress.[211]

Further media "triumph"

Industry analyst Joost van Dreunen said that Gamergate was one of the many disruptive changes[wp] in gaming for 2015 that would lead the video game industry to take women more seriously and increase the visibility of women in the industry in leadership roles;[212] just what Gamergate wanted. Gamergate was also the focus of a segment on ABC's Nightline on January 14, and anchor Juju Chang interviewed both Sarkeesian and Wu with regards to the harassment they have suffered.[213][214]

On February 11, in an instance of art imitating life, an episode of the NBC crime drama Law & Order: SVU[wp] titled "Intimidation Game" told the story of a female game developer being harassed online. Many saw the parallels during previews,[215] but were ultimately unhappy with what they perceived was the message given with the episode's ending. Gamergate thought they had achieved a victory, but quickly changed their tune after watching the episode. This was obvious when disgraced game developer Mark Kern[wp] joined Gamergate's fray, arguing that the video game media was to blame for having given gamers such a bad name, particularly concerning the contents of the Law & Order episode.[216] Many were quick to call out the hypocrisy of Kern's petition,[217][218][219][220] bringing to light how Gamergate at this point had devolved into anyone's grinding stone.[221]

Substantive efforts against journalistic corruption

If you get punched in the face every time the doorbell rings, and in the evening someone knocks on your door to explain it's not really about the punching, you're going to have a hard time believing them.
—Ben Kuchera, Polygon, [222]

While Gamergaters claim they are fighting for "ethics in video game journalism", they have dedicated very little effort to investigating, exposing, and condemning actual instances of journalistic corruption.[223][224]

The targets of Gamergate, on the other hand, frequently address ethics in the gaming press. Kotaku, for instance, was the first to report on accusations that GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann (who currently just wants everybody to stop being so hateful[225]) had been fired for panning a game in 2007,[226] and was the only source to follow up on the story, confirming it five years later.[227] More recently, both Gamasutra and Rock Paper Shotgun have written stories about pay-for-play deals by YouTubers.[228] Kotaku was also the outlet that broke the hacking of EA's Firemonkeys' studio that was covered up by EA for a year.[229]

The Escapist and Kotaku were quick to denounce the stringent rules and screening Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment[wp] required of those receiving copies of the game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor[wp] for YouTube, apparently brought to their attention by TotalBiscuit himself.[230][231] Gamergaters like to claim the Shadow of Mordor event for themselves due to TotalBiscuit's involvement, only after they were called out by Zaid Jilani at Salon and Erik Kain at Forbes for their silence; Jilani attributed this to the lack of a woman involved in the controversy.[80][232]

It has also been pointed out that if a close relationship between game journalists and developers is imagined to be "corrupt", the examination of sex and gender issues in the games, and cultural critique in general, is the sort of thing an independent and journalistic game publication would undertake. It isn't like the developers themselves are pushing these issues. It's hypocritical to demand higher standards of video game journalists while bemoaning articles on social issues in the industry.[233]

Finally, through their tactics of pressuring sponsors such as Intel to remove advertising from websites that publish articles or reviews they do not agree with, Gamergate actively magnifies one of the most serious issues of journalistic ethics in gaming: the lack of an editorial "separation of Church and State," and the resulting undue influence of advertisers on the editorial content of the gaming press. The Daily Mirror released an analysis of the boycotting attempts by Gamergate, showing that they had barely any impact on big websites but a significant impact on smaller ones.[234]

Gamergate has done exactly what they have set out to be against. They claimed to fight unethical journalism with the help of an unethical journalist. They denounced what they perceived to be a blacklist while curating lists of websites and people they were boycotting. They persistently deny their obsession with Quinn and Sarkeesian while attacking them every chance they get. And they proclaim games are inclusive while supporting elements of the industry and community that actively exclude women.[235]

Gamergate's inevitable decline

A meme deployed during Gamergate's attempted Tumblr invasion. What's wrong with people who dye their hair purple...oh.

Gamergate's crowning glory was to publicize its most hated enemy and her ideas and make the word "Gamergate" synonymous with misogynists, harassers, and trolls. Anyone with a good-faith interest in gaming journalism stopped supporting Gamergate, leaving only the reactionaries as the core of the movement.

In the end, the gaming industry sees Gamergate as a punchline, particularly its treatment by major game developers at the 2015 Game Developers Choice Awards. When Tim Schafer made a joke at their expense, utilizing a literal sockpuppet on stage, Gamergate made one last stand to accuse him of racism and sexism, but their cries fell on deaf ears.[236][237]

The only people left in Gamergate are the worst of the worst, made evident when A Voice for Men writers tried to champion their ideals by disrupting a comic book convention and had to lie to get in.[238]

See also

Icon fun.svg For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Real Gamers.

Notes

  1. An Adobe logo was featured on a portion of Gawker's website that listed companies that had been advertising partners in the past.
  2. We won't link to pages that allegedly out people - even if they are totally wrong, even if the information is all over the Internet. Google it yourself.
  3. Fredrick Brennan's use of a wheelchair is used to deflect criticism a la #NotYourShield.
  4. David Pakman used "dot replies" to contact Quinn over Twitter. This method, which involves adding a period before the at-sign, makes the tweet visible to all of the sender's followers. Standard replying on Twitter is only visible to people who follow both the sender and receiver.
  5. GamerGate.Wikia.com was created by "Snowfox413" on September 1, 2014. Previously, Snowfox413 was a contributor to the Prison Planet Intelligence Agency Wiki (ppia.wikia.com), based on Alex Jones' Prison Planet.
  6. Anita Sarkeesian is accused of being a SWERF because she had used the term "prostituted women" in one of her Tropes vs. Women videos. Sex worker rights activists see the word "prostitute" as denying sex workers' agency, and it is used by feminists who are exclusionary towards sex workers.
  7. "The US bombed them back to traditional values – feminism does not exist in Japan. While I don’t like judging an entire culture… that does not excuse them"

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  92. Sam Biddle, "Ultimately #GamerGate is reaffirming what we’ve known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission", Twitter
  93. /r/KotakuInAction, "What's the namesake of Operation Baby Seal?", Reddit
  94. Caitlin Dewey, "Inside Gamergate’s (successful) attack on the media", The Washington Post
  95. Rob Beschizza, "Adobe walks into Gamergate, staggers around confusedly", BoingBoing
  96. Eric Johnson, "Adobe Distances Itself From Gawker After Writer’s Gamergate Tweet", Re/code
  97. Adi Robertson, "Adobe's symbolic pro-Gamergate gesture frustrates victims", The Verge
  98. Susana Polo, "Adobe, Mercedes-Benz are Latest to Pull Ads at the Behest of GamerGate", The Mary Sue
  99. Adobe, "When Anti-Bullying Efforts Backfire", Adobe.com
  100. Keith Blount, "Unexpectedly Catching Up with the GamerGate Controversy", LiteratureAndLatte.com
  101. Ian Douglas, "Dyson rejects Gamergate, returns advertising to Gawker", The Telegraph
  102. Anonymous Female Game Developers, "Female Game Developers Share Their Views on #GamerGate", The Escapist
  103. 103.0 103.1 "What Male Game Developers Think of #GamerGate", The Escapist
  104. 104.0 104.1 Alex Lifschitz, "Game Devs on Gamergate", Storify.com
  105. Ettin, "The Deal With Desborough", Ettin!
  106. Andrew Girdwood, "Desborough’s #GamerGate card game banned by DriveThruRPG and SJ Games", Geek Native
  107. "Tabletop Gaming News - Gamergate card game pulled from DriveThruRPG", The Cult Den
  108. Ian Danskin, "Why The Escapist Won’t Talk About GamerGate", Innuendo Studios
  109. "The Escapist’s Alexander Marcis has been crowdfunding #GamerGater James Desborough while giving him preferential press coverage", Cathode Debris
  110. "Layoffs Hit Defy Media's The Escapist, GameTrailers, And GameFront", Game Politics
  111. /r/GamerGhazi, "Escapist goes full Goobergater: loses Jimquisition, sacks MovieBob, hires Gamergaters.", Reddit
  112. Damion Schubert, "What’s Going On With the Escapist?", Zen of Design
  113. Amber Coal, "I have been predicting a culture war... and I have dozens of sites that reach 50m people.", Storify.com
  114. Zoe Quinn, "#StopGamerGate2014 SO THEY STOP DOING THIS SHIT before one of us gets fucking *killed*", Twitter
  115. @feedsforchris, "@TheQuinnspiracy @alexlifschitz Look at how 8chan's mods responded to the leak of your personal info. Disgusting.", Twitter
  116. David Futrelle, "Yet another woman in gaming has been driven from her home by death threats", We Hunted the Mammoth
  117. "Angry Boy In Red Tee Holding His Head Shouting Angrily Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Pic 4412922.", 123rf
  118. Brook Leigh Lawson, "A Letter To PressFart", Twitlonger
  119. Sarah Nyberg, "sorry, #gamergate and @theralphretort, changing the URL won't stop this. just reported it again.", Twitter
  120. Sarah Nyberg, "so ralph doxxed bri's entire fucking family. and #gamergate still won't condemn him.", Twitter
  121. "File:Wu never left.jpg"
  122. Brianna Wu, "Brianna Wu: Why I don't respond when Gamergate accuses me of being transgender.", GamerGhazi, Reddit
  123. Zoe Quinn, "An Open Letter To People Calling For “Neutrality”", Quinnspiracy Blog
  124. David J. Cobb, "Huffington Post, Zoe Quinn, and the golden mean fallacy", Storify.com
  125. Cimaron Neugebauer, "Terror threat against feminist Anita Sarkeesian at USU", Standard-Examiner
  126. Caroline Connolly, "Feminist gamer won’t speak at Utah schools until guns prohibited", Fox 13, Salt Lake City
  127. Erin Alberty, "Feminist cancels talk at USU after guns allowed despite shooting threat", The Salt Lake Tribune
  128. Billy D, "#GamerGate: Journalist Allegedly Outed As Twitter Harasser Sending Death Threats", OneAngryGamer.net
  129. Annie Knox, "Campus gun laws are not carved in stone", The Salt Lake Tribune
  130. Tim Slover, "Firearms, Weapons Banned From Sotomayor Speech at U of U", KUER 90.1, NPR Utah
  131. 131.0 131.1 131.2 131.3 Margaret Pless, "Mike Cernovich; #GamerGate Lawyer! (Content Warning: Migraine-Inducingly Terrible)", idledillettante
  132. 132.0 132.1 132.2 132.3 Liz Pullen, "Mike Cernovich: Based Lawyer of Gamergate", Medium.com
  133. Mike Cernovich, "@MSamenfink Yeah it's pricey. But I'm fired up about Zoe's conduct. So I'll be getting my private investigator on the matter.", Twitter (archived)
  134. Rebecca Vipond Brink, "#GamerGate Has Finally Made My Head Explode", The Frisky
  135. SJW Illuminati, "Juicebro is fucking nuts", Storify.com
  136. Laura Shortridge, "GamerGate is super ethical", Storify.com
  137. Felicia Day, "Crossing the Street", FeliciaDay.com
  138. Alex Hern, "Felicia Day's public details put online after she described Gamergate fears", The Guardian
  139. Zoe Quinn, "Private investigator on the matter." Caps incoming later but Jesus Christ who hires a PI to stalk a homeless woman", Twitter
  140. Zoe Quinn, "When the fuck is it going to be enough? When the fuck will this end?", Twitter
  141. Oli Welsh, "We cannot let this become gaming culture", Eurogamer.
  142. Lindsey Weedston, "12 Hashtags That Changed the World in 2014", Yes! Magazine
  143. Michelle Jaworski, "#StopGamerGate2014 trends worldwide as GamerGate hits breaking point, The Daily Dot
  144. Hayley Tsukayama, "The game industry’s top trade group just spoke out against Gamergate", The Washington Post
  145. "Great job proving "gamers" are innocent.", Imgur
  146. Anita Sarkeesian, "It’s Game Over for ‘Gamers’", The New York Times
  147. Taylor Wofford, "Is GamerGate About Media Ethics or Harassing Women? Harassment, the Data Shows" Newsweek
  148. Adrian Chen, "Gamergate Supporters Partied at a Strip Club This Weekend", New York
  149. Rich McCormick, "Stephen Colbert takes on Gamergate with Anita Sarkeesian", The Verge
  150. Alex Abad-Santos, "#GamerGate loves Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert does not love them back.", Vox
  151. David Futrelle, "The Top 22 Most Ridiculous Things Said by 8channers About Anita Sarkeesian’s Appearance on the Colbert Report", We Hunted The Mammoth
  152. PZ Myers, "Schadenfreude so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw", Pharyngula
  153. Scott Kaufman, "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales challenges #GamerGate to write neutral entry", Raw Story
  154. Dan Van Winkle, "Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Isn’t Taking Any of Gamergate’s Threats, Tells Them Off Spectacularly", The Mary Sue
  155. Mayer Nissim, "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales replies to #GamerGate criticism", Digital Spy
  156. Doug Sibor, "Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Doesn’t Want Money From “Vicious A**holes” Behind #GamerGate", Complex
  157. Mark Bernstein, "Infamous"
  158. Alex Hern, "Wikipedia bans five editors from gender-related articles", The Guardian
  159. Lauren C. Williams, "Wikipedia Wants To Ban Feminists From Editing GamerGate Articles", ThinkProgress
  160. Caitlin Dewey, "Gamergate, Wikipedia and the limits of ‘human knowledge’", The Washington Post
  161. Robinson Meyer, The Good (and the Bad) of Twitter's New Bid to Stop Harassment, The Atlantic
  162. WAM Twitter Harassment Reporting Tool
  163. Brian Fitzgerald, "New Online Tool Lets Twitter Users Report Harassment", The Wall Street Journal
  164. Twitter Support, "Starting today we're rolling out an improved way to flag abusive Tweets. See how it works.", Twitter
  165. Randi Harper, "Twitter implied that harassment comes from gamergate. Oh, Lordy.", Twitter
  166. Lindy West, "Twitter doesn't think these rape and death threats are harassment", The Daily Dot
  167. Jon Russell, "Twitter Will Crack Down On Serial Trolls By Tracking Their Phone Number", TechCrunch
  168. Vijaya Gadde, "Twitter executive: Here’s how we’re trying to stop abuse while preserving free speech", The Washington Post
  169. Taylor Wofford, "One Woman’s New Tool to Stop Gamergate Harassment on Twitter", Newsweek
  170. Randi Harper, "Good Game Auto Blocker", randi.io
  171. "ggautoblocker", Github.com
  172. Randi Harper, "Renaming blacklist.txt to sourcelist.txt", Github
  173. "Internet culture puts trolling on a pedestal", MetaFilter
  174. Emily Gera, "AbleGamers' weird weekend of porn stars, charity and a worries over a DDoS attack (correction)", Polygon
  175. Jonathan Holmes, "AbleGamers backs out of charity event after reading it will 'weaponize porn'", Destructoid
  176. "AbleGamers' Weird Weekend of Porn, Charity, DDoS Attacks, and GamerGate", GamePolitics.com
  177. "Yes, we are becoming a charity now", The Fine Young Capitalists
  178. Cindi Spiegler, "Mercedes Carrera Invites Fans To Help Her Raise Money For Charity", The Real Porn Wiki Leaks
  179. James Fudge, "The Porn Charity Hosting First Event to Fund Merit -Based STEM Scholarship", GamePolitics.com
  180. EJ Dickson, "Why Gamergaters are rallying behind the victim of a brutal rape", The Daily Dot
  181. Scott Kaufman, "Amazon publishes thinly veiled rape fantasy of #GamerGate target Zoe Quinn", Raw Story
  182. David Futrelle, "A new low: One of Zoe Quinn’s harassers was selling rape fanfic about her on Amazon", We Hunted the Mammoth
  183. Anna Merlan, "Someone Wrote 'Erotica' About a Video Game Designer Getting Gang-Raped", Jezebel
  184. /r/GamerGhazi, "The author of the Zoe Quinn rapefic is doing an AMA on KiA. The title claims he wrote the piece, but doesn't know about GG at all. What?", Reddit
  185. Nick Wingfield, "Intel Budgets $300 Million for Diversity", The New York Times
  186. "Intel CEO Outlines Future of Computing", Intel.com
  187. Mat Kamen, "Intel announces fund for greater tech diversity", Wired UK
  188. /r/KotakuInAction, "CALL TO ACTION: TWITTER #CES2015 HIJACKING", Reddit
  189. Sarah Nyberg, "#gamergate's latest strategy? use jewish people as a shield to stop criticism of israel, apparently", Twitter
  190. David Futrelle, "Why are #GamerGaters so quick to excuse an anti-Semitic caricature of Anita Sarkeesian that’s literally derived from Nazi propaganda?", We Hunted the Mammoth
  191. Jonathan McIntosh, "I've been testing GamerGate's claim to be "left" by posting opinions nearly identical to Noam Chomsky. Result: Extreme reactionary outrage.", Twitter
  192. Jonathan McIntosh, "A few months ago I started posting deliberately provocative tweets whenever I’d see the angry gamer mob launch a harassment raid on someone.", Twitter
  193. /r/KotakuInAction, "Racism: brought to you by Intel", Reddit
  194. "ZeGerman1942", "Gamecraft: Gender Equality in the Games Industry", NotPlayed.com
  195. "I’m sure the “cultural appropriation” SJW brigade will get right on her for this", "The source of the above quote - and in fact the only source Google is throwing at me, based on a search for “The US bombed them back to traditional values” or “feminism does not exist in Japan” - is this article on notplayed.com which is all about games reviews (with the caveat that all the reviews are deliberately based not on playing the game, but by press and marketing material)....Considering that the only source of this alleged comment comes from someone whom we have documented to possibly have some kind of an agenda against Anita Sarkeesian, not any other third party at the conference or any other writeup that may have mentioned Anita’s remarks about Japan or feminism over there, I would advise extreme caution against believing anything they have to say, especially given recent patterns of fakery.", Not Your Ex/Rotic
  196. Genna Bain, "I am a woman in gaming and today I am selling my shares in @intel. I'm afraid there just wasn't enough "diversity" in my stock portfolio.", Twitter
  197. John Bain, "Watching a few idiots trying to infantalise my wife over her financial decision today. How wonderfully sexist these people are.", Twitter
  198. Zoe Quinn, "August Never Ends", Dispatches From The Quinnspiracy
  199. Andrew Todd, "The Social Justice Illuminati Is Real, And It’s An Anti-Hate Task Force", Badass Digest
  200. Chris Tognotti, "Zoe Quinn Launches "Crash Override Network," A Support Group For Targets Of Online Hate Mobs", Bustle
  201. Alanna Bennett, "Zoë Quinn Has Launched A Network to Help Fight GamerGate Harassment & Other Online Abuse", The Mary Sue
  202. T.C. Sottek, "Crash Override wants to help survivors of Gamergate and other online abuse", The Verge
  203. @adulus, "Gamergate reacts to a support group for harassment victims", Storify.com
  204. Zoe Quinn, "@twoscooters @alexlifschitz POST THE GOAT PHOTO", Twitter
  205. Elizabeth Sampat, "@TheQuinnspiracy @alexlifschitz your wish is my command", Twitter
  206. Alex Lifschitz, "@twoscooters @TheQuinnspiracy i am the master of the dramatic closeup", Twitter
  207. Dean Takahashi, "Zoe Quinn and other female game developers speak out against harassment", Venture Beat
  208. Matt Weinberger, "A woman who was threatened with death (and worse) for a year explains how to protect against online harrassment", Business Insider
  209. Sarah E. Needleman, "Game Developer: The Gaming Industry Is Not Doing Enough to Combat Misogyny", The Wall Street Journal
  210. Meagan McGinnes, "Rep. Katherine Clark Calls For Prosecution of Online Threats Against Women", Boston.com
  211. Brian Crecente, "Depression Quest creator speaks at congressional briefing on cyberstalking", Polygon
  212. Oscar Raymundo, "6 Reasons the Video-Game Industry Will Be Disrupted in 2015", Inc.
  213. Juju Chang, "What It Feels Like to Be a Gamergate Target", Nightline
  214. Juju Chang, "When Jumping into Gamergate Turns into Fearing For Your Life", Nightline
  215. Michael McWhertor, "Get a sneak preview of Law & Order SVU's GamerGate episode", Polygon
  216. Mark Kern, "Lead the way in healing the rift in video games.", Change.org
  217. Patrick Garratt, "Developers shooting the messenger: stop blaming the press for sexist extremism in games", VG247
  218. Damion Schubert, "On L&O:SVU and Mark Kern’s Petition Thingy", Zen of Design
  219. Damion Schubert, "Mark Kern Doubles Down on Being Wrong", Zen of Design
  220. Scott Jennings, "I Demand You Listen To Me", Broken Toys
  221. Jay Allen, "#gamergate Axe Grinding Service", Storify
  222. Ben Kuchera, "The year of GamerGate: The worst of gaming culture gets a movement", Polygon.
  223. Google Plus post by David Hill
  224. Plaguearist, So. What’s GamerGate achieved so far?", Medium.com
  225. Jeff Gerstmann, "Letter From the Editor 10/17/2014", Giant Bomb
  226. Michael McWhertor, "Gamespot Editor Fired Over Kane & Lynch Review?", Kotaku Australia
  227. Luke Plunkett, "Yes, a Games Writer was Fired Over Review Scores", Kotaku
  228. Alec Meer, "A Storm In YouTuber Heaven", Rock, Paper, Shotgun
  229. Mike Serrels, "EA's Studio Firemonkeys Hacked Last Year, Didn't Immediately Inform Users", Kotaku
  230. Jim Sterling, "Shadiness of Mordor," Jimquisition
  231. Nathan Grayson, "The Messy Story Behind YouTubers Taking Money For Game Coverage", Kotaku
  232. Erik Kain, "'Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor' Paid Branding Deals Should Have #GamerGate Up In Arms", Forbes Contributor Blog
  233. L. Rhodes, "To fair-minded proponents of #GamerGate," Medium.com
  234. Martin Belam, "Revealed: The winners and losers in #GamerGate's war on web sites", Mirror
  235. Katherine Cross, "‘We Will Force Gaming to Be Free’: On GamerGate & the Licence to Inflict Suffering", First Person Scholar
  236. Andrew Todd, "#GamerGate Is Now Literally An Industry Joke", Badass Digest
  237. Victoria McNally, "Here’s The Joke Tim Schafer Made That Has Gamergate Freaking Out", The Mary Sue
  238. Jill Pantozzi, "[UPDATED] Members of Gamergate Planned to “Infiltrate” Calgary Expo to Actively Disrupt Panels, Calgary Expo Has Evicted Them", The Mary Sue
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