Endnote 5: A Case Study in Digital Radicalism (UC Merced Talk)

I accepted UC Merced's offer to talk about GG in part because I felt there really wasn't a good timeline of the movement on YouTube that isn't made by a GGer. My own videos on the subject from back when it was still very much A Thing That Was Happening assumed a lot of familiarity from the audience. And the sources that actually laid out a timeline tended to be so comprehensive I couldn't imagine someone new to the subject wading through it all. So, if someone ever asks you "what the hell was GamerGate?" you can tell them to watch the first 20 minutes of this video, and stick around for the rest if they feel like it.

The bit explaining meme culture about 30 minutes in is extremely good and something I'll probably show my parents at some point lol

The thing that sucks about this stuff is that Quinn is STILL dealing with the fallout around this. People have refused to hire them because of Gamer Gate. It's fucked up.

Hilarious to think that alt right tried to bag furries, as if furries have no idea what getting harassed and made fun of for no reason is like

This video is so infuriating, but also so necessary because as an outsider I’ve tried for years to find out what Gamergate actually WAS, but all I ever found were videos made while it was happening which refused to go into any details about it, they just assumed everyone already knew. This is necessary for historical and archival purposes so, so much.

I remember hating Anita Sarkeesian, but I have no idea why. It's not that I can't remember why, it's that I never knew why.

"they are weaponising good faith against us" That phrase needs to be remembered

I remember, during my own alt-lite redemption arc (surprisingly common occurence apparently) going from "these guys are probably right but i don't really care" to "these guys are tragic failures whining uselessly about things they made up", but never realising the sheer scale and danger of it.

I was 16 when Gamergate started. It was around the time smartphones became fully saturated and everyone had one. I remember all of my friends and I sitting around the cafeteria table showing memes to each other and having a good time. For the first year or two it was all pretty innocent but once Gamergate began many of my friends began a slow turn into some very disturbing stuff. Suddenly a few of the memes were about why women are irrational and oppressive and how LGBT rights were going too far. It's not at all a coincidence that the friends who jumped on the gamergate bandwagon are the same ones who became obsessed with telling me election and vaccine conspiracies. It was very hard to watch that happen to them and to the country as a whole. It's insane to me how gamer gate still flies under the radar as a huge point of radicalization for the internet. When I look around at the fascist shit going on, it's no mystery to me where it started, especially for people my age. I saw it happen right in front of me at my cafeteria table.

Amazing how 2014 never ended

Fun fact: Press Fart to Continue was a play on the YouTube channel Press Heart to Continue, which was run by a delightful woman, who he was obsessed with and digitally stalked.

I'm so proud of the furry community for being way too gay to let the Alt Right people infiltrate us

It’s insane seeing people TO THIS DAY, 7 YEARS LATER being like “actually they deserved all the harassment because [extremely inconsequential thing]”. It’s aaaaalways the same things too like they’ve just been going on auto pilot for close to a decade.

Regarding the 'card says moops' thing, here's a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre that is exceedingly relevant if you replace all references to anti-Semites with 'gamergater' or 'alt-right member' (and besides plenty of them are anti-semites, too.) “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

Hearing the phrase, “ethics in games journalism,” literally gave me whiplash.

"It's just the internet, bro! If you hate it here, leave!" Seeing your I Hate Mondays explanation just gave me flashbacks. I absolutely DESPISED this take, and anything like it. Glad to see it's mostly died away, being replaced with takes that make a little more sense. Like, "you are entitled to curate your internet experience to whatever you like."

"They tried to get in with the furry community, but failed spectacularly." I would like to hear more about this. The furry community had its share of reactionaries back at its inception, but there were just too many lgbt+ furries for an ideology of exclusivity to stick, I think.

It's actually so disgusting how many teenagers fell for this.

“Here’s a strongly held belief I’ve just decided I have.” It’s crazy to think how many thousands of online interactions I’ve had with disingenuous trolls without piecing together this simple, yet brilliant, deconstruction.

Being a female content creator during the time of gamergate was very difficult. Thank you for covering this.