Gamergate’s Aggrieved Men Still Haunt the Internet

Ten years ago, a flood of gamers attacked developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media professional Anita Sarkeesian. The 3 were portion of a increasing chorus of radical calling for a much inclusive civilization wrong video games. The attackers doxxed and harassed their targets, doing each they could to stifle the women’s efforts. The incident, which became known arsenic Gamergate, illuminated the toxicity women faced successful gaming spaces and beyond.

Eventually, the harassment faded from the news, but its residue was ne'er afloat removed from the net and nationalist life.

Gamergate articulated a peculiar benignant of aggrieved masculinity, an choler astatine losing the powerfulness of being the people audience. Since 2014, it has shaped everything from the men's rights question to the existent iteration of the GOP, outlining what it means to beryllium a antheral successful definite corners of the internet.

In galore ways, says Adrienne Massanari, an subordinate prof astatine American University’s schoolhouse of communications, Gamergate presaged a broader absorption connected the close toward existent changes happening successful American society. Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon latched onto this successful 2015, harnessing the powerfulness of committed online fandoms to bolster Trump’s campaign.

Within the community, Gamergate seemingly bifurcated men into chiseled camps. Men who came to Sarkeesian’s defense, for example, were dubbed “white knights” and simps. Meanwhile, the radical doing the harassing saw themselves arsenic trying to support the abstraction from the “outside” influences of “social justness warriors,” who threatened to instrumentality distant the elements that—they felt—made games fun.

“Even though we cognize that a clump of radical play games, [the men progressive successful Gamergate] saw themselves arsenic being the people demographic for games. When that started to shift, the absorption was, of course, anger,” says Massanari. “Now that’s reflected, refracted, and amplified by Trumpism and that benignant of far-right strain of Republicanism reacting to demographic and societal shifts toward a much egalitarian society.”

This aforesaid benignant of choler and absorption tin beryllium seen present successful figures similar J.D. Vance and Elon Musk, who some decry “woke-ism” successful authorities and civilization broadly. In interviews, Musk has said that helium was motivated to purchase X, formerly Twitter, to fight the “woke caput virus” that helium says is destroying civilization. The Heritage Foundation’s governmental roadworthy representation Project 2025 repeatedly mentions “woke” progressivism arsenic a menace that indispensable beryllium eliminated, peculiarly by doing distant with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives successful authorities spaces.

This transportation comes afloat ellipse successful what’s go “Gamergate 2.0,” a backlash to inclusion efforts wherever “DEI” is present a catchphrase. Ten years ago, gamers pushed backmost against critics similar Sarkeesian for pointing retired that galore pistillate characters successful games were nothing much than tropes. In 2024, the campaigns are against video crippled consulting companies specified arsenic Sweet Baby for performing what immoderate gamers judge is “forced diversification.” No substance the rallying cry, the crushed is the same: Being upset that the characters successful video games nary longer correspond your interests.

While the authorities of masculine grievance aren’t precisely new, says Patrick Rafail, prof of sociology astatine Tulane University, “the mainstreaming of it is.”

Although Gamergate came retired of a comparatively niche subculture, its elements tin present beryllium recovered successful influencers similar Andrew Tate who person popularized “these precise simplistic, archetypal, stereotypical extremes” of masculinity, says Debbie Ging, prof of integer media and sex astatine Dublin City University. A caller epoch of podcasting, coupled with a emergence successful short-form video platforms similar TikTok, “which are heavy algorithm-driven,” person been important drivers of this signifier of rhetoric, Ging says.