More than 4 years after it started, I often hear people ask what #GamerGate is, and many around them won't know, either. I’ve been part of GamerGate since August 2014, so I can provide a summary of it. 1/
An anti-gamer bias was present in the media long before GamerGate, with Grand Theft Auto being blamed for mass shootings, and gamers being called "entitled" for disliking the poorly rebooted DmC. The strongest anti-gamer stance was taken by journalists at gaming publications 2/
like Kotaku, Polygon, Ars Technica, Gamasutra, among others. No one expected gaming outlets to bear so much hatred toward video game culture when Eron Gjoni's famous blog post went public. Eron described his struggle with his then girlfriend, Zoe Quinn, who had gaslighted him 3/
while cheating on him with five men. When the blog post went viral, Zoe Quinn had many friends in games journalism and website moderation. The games media and friends of Zoe Quinn worked to censor discussion of the blog post at every turn. To them, shaming and silencing Eron 4/
and any gamer who read his blog post was priority #1. The GameJourno Pros coordinated to write and publish the "Gamers are Dead" articles soon after, painting all gamers as misogynists. The existence of the GameJourno Pros email list was soon exposed, confirming suspicions 5/
that the timed release of their articles was no coincidence. Gamers who resisted the games media were referred to as GamerGate, as it was named by Adam Baldwin. #NotYourShield was later used by male and female GamerGate supporters of every race, age, and religion, to take back 6/
their voice from the games media. A video called “GamerGate in 60 seconds” retells these events quite well. Since 2014, several smaller events have happened regarding GamerGate, but the most people talk about it now, is how it “led to President Trump” which is only half true. 7/
Leftists often take the opportunity to attack GamerGate, scoring points with feminists and other leftists. The false narrative has persisted, that GamerGate was a hate campaign against women, by the spread of disinformation alone. To date, nothing has appeared in 4 years that 8/
corroborates the leftists’ story that GamerGate is a hate group, except for the fiction contained in their own tweets. Patently false statements, once circulated, are often deleted, leaving behind only lies connected by circular logic. Anti-GamerGate protects itself with this 9/
disinformation barrier, much like the last bastion of flat-earthers. Meanwhile, #GamerGate itself has proceeded with two main goals in mind: the pursuit of ethics in games journalism and the expulsion of politics that would rob gamers of their ability to enjoy video games. 10/
The GamerGate subreddit KotakuInAction is as popular as ever, having just reached 100k subscribers. The games journalist information hub Deepfreeze.it contains information on journalists, their outlets, and their connections, among other things. An FBI investigation 11/
found that GamerGate was not liable for any wrongdoing, effectively clearing them. FTC guidelines have been updated to include undisclosed affiliate links, at the request of GamerGate supporters. Between the anonymous message boards and pro-GamerGate websites and social media 12/
hubs, the answer to the question of “what is GamerGate” is clear. GamerGate has and always will be a pursuit of ethics in games journalism. Whether or not we ever get ethical games journalism is still anyone’s guess. 13/
TL;DR The games media attacks gamers, the gamers resist and are branded misogynists so leftists can attack them, too. #GamerGate pursues ethical games journalism, doesn’t find it. The narrative that GamerGate hates women is false, don’t listen to anyone who says that. 14/14
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