Inside Gamergate

by James Desborough

  There has been resistance in comics, amongst TV fans, on campuses and even in academia itself [205]. Much of it seems to be informed by, or at least fellow travellers with, veterans of Gamergate or whose profiles were raised by it. The risk is, of course, that the backlash will end up as severe as what it's reacting to, but for the time-being at least, now, there is a debate.

  Internet Censorship

  Internet censorship has gained enormous traction in recent years and not just in repressive regimes like China. Germany has successfully applied pressure over 'hate speech' to Facebook, and other Internet choke points and the UK has an unholy alliance of radical feminism and traditional conservatism, working hard to put the pornography genie back in its bottle. Gamergate – or rather Gamergate's enemies – have only made this problem worse.

  The promulgation of the harassment narrative, even reaching as high as the United Nations, has tried to turn trolling and Internet harassment into a major issue, and a women's issue. This despite the fact that the majority of victims of online abuse are men. As a result, we have seen the repeated intrusion of legal sanction into the online space and repeated calls for an end to online anonymity. There has been little discussion over the benefits that this brings many groups of people and what stands to be lost.

  The harassment narrative makes a good excuse for unnecessary control and regulation of the Internet, just as the abusive use of victims of human trafficking has made a good excuse for the censorship of adult material. Whenever laws are brought in on these things, or even corporate 'firewalls' there is an inevitable overreach. Back in 2013 the conversation was all about child abuse and extremism, but the extent of the blocking caught up all manner of material in its 'opt out' claws, including such strange topics as 'esoteric material.'

  While many of those acting to control the Internet are up-front and genuine about their reasons, albeit misguided and foolish, many of the allies they have garnered have ulterior motives. Even worse, many of the people up in arms about women being 'abused' online (typically newspaper columnists and politicians being disagreed with) were once staunch advocates against Internet censorship. It seems that having a m'lady' to hat-tip too makes a fundamental difference to people's supposed principles – and that too is dangerous. It can hardly be called equal, or even feminist, to shield women from criticism and dissent for expressing unpopular points of view. Equality needn't be pretty.

  The Great Meme War

  The Great Meme War[202] is typically used to describe the online battles over Britain's membership of the European Union and the US presidential election that resulted in Donald Trump. More accurately, in my opinion at least, it describes the online aspect of the ongoing culture war that is raging across First World, Western nations. The US presidential election is merely the end-cap on a particular battle in that war.

  Gamergate made enormously effective use of memes, humour, shitposting, tag-flooding, trolling and other online behaviours during its conflict. This enabled it to 'own' social media and comment sections throughout its conflict. Gamergate's enemies might control the history and the 'high ground' of the media, but in spite of that Gamergate's persistence, numbers and mockery stood them in good stead. These factors let them win the war itself and dominate the online space.

  Some of this appears to have bled into the presidential race and the Brexit vote. It's important to note, however, that much like 4Chans /pol/ board, a lot of the activity in support of both President Trump and Brexit was ironic. Much of it also wasn't necessarily in actual support of either Trump or Brexit, but rather against Clinton, against the status quo, against Europe and entirely for the sake of upsetting and 'triggering' people. Trump got people wound up, Brexit got people wound up, and being wound up makes people prime targets for trolling.

  The genuine right wing and the Alt-Right had, however, learned lessons from their parasitism of Gamergate and the growing concern about 'safe spaces', extreme 'left' college activism and censorship. They learned to use memes, they learned to use the online space (which had been out of the grasp of conservatism since its inception) and – perhaps most importantly – they learned to be funny. The right wing has, traditionally, never been funny, since Alternative Comedy became a thing in the 80s. This – historically – been one of the right's great weaknesses. This change in the status quo was even admitted, by one activist, in front of the 'He Will Not Divide Us' camera[203].

  The left (and the 'left') has become increasingly humourless, po-faced, strident and pompous, rendering it vulnerable to satire and mockery – however much they claim that this is 'punching down' to the oppressed. Not to mention that many of its positions are absurd, and hence humorous, on their face. Take the assertion that 'black people can't be racist', for example. A claim entirely contingent on a redefinition of the meaning of 'racism' to a narrow, particular, pseudo-academic interpretation of the term.

  Driven by sincerity or not, the unstoppable mockery of Clinton and the forces of the Regressive Left have contributed to political upsets. This has been aided and abetted by the total cluelessness of the targets of that mockery when it comes to Internet culture. Clinton and the Southern Poverty Law Centre trying to claim Pepe as a hate symbol was, ironically, symbolic of just how out of touch that side of the political spectrum has been. It only increased the sheer volume and extremity of Pepes.

  Thus far this effect has been limited to English speaking countries and hasn't managed to gain traction in, for example, the French elections (Macron won, despite 'Meme Warrior' support for Le Pen). The situations are different, and the excesses of the Regressive Left aren't necessarily as egregious outside of the 'Anglosphere'. The Meme War continues, but with conservatives seeing themselves as being in positions of power again and beginning to overstep their bounds, threaten expression, threaten the Internet and get 'triggered', the shoe may be creeping back to the other foot.

  It's starting to feel like 'degenerate' is the new 'problematic'.

  A Shift to the 'Not Left.'

  It's important to emphasise, important enough to repeat that the legacy of Gamergate and similar resistance to Social Justice Warriors is not a shift to the right. It is a counter to the excesses of those who call themselves 'left' (and who, in my not so humble opinion, aren't really on the left). It's not so much that the opposition is right wing, rather that they are 'not left', or at least not the 'left' that is causing problems.

  While there are conservatives involved, and they have reaped some of the rewards of this resistance, it's worth remembering that the majority of Gamergate was libertarian-left. It included people from across the political spectrum and from all manner of minorities. A rejection of the extreme 'left', as embodied in Antifa, student activists and protesters, is not necessarily a dismissal of the left as a whole. Indeed the majority of the liberals and leftists within Gamergate often cite those very left-liberal principles as their reasons for rejecting Social Justice Warrior beliefs and bigotry.

  Speaking for myself, that is entirely why I reject it. As a person on the far left, of near-anarchistic beliefs, I reject Social Justice Warriors because of their Identity Politics. I believe equality, egalitarianism, comes from treating people the same way – universally. It doesn't come, it cannot come, from embracing prejudice and an endless array of cases of special pleading. It's equality of opportunity, not outcome.

  I find their authoritarianism troubling and their attempt to set themselves up as moral guardians repulsive and a mirror image of the evangelical right in the 1980s. I find their collusion with attempts to stop and silence art, music, games, comics and the Internet to be nothing short of betrayal and hypocritical. Groups and social causes that benefited so much from assertions of the right to free expression now seem content to pull the ladder up behind them.

  I hate how their rabid extremism has helped to de-legitimise the genuine ideas of the left, dragging them down with them. How their lunacy has empowered the right and alienated much of the centre – as well as more genui
ne and consistent left-liberal people in society. I hate how they don't seem to learn from their mistakes or care.

  I hate how they are increasingly rejecting science, becoming their versions of climate deniers and creationists as they reject biology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, even physics and mathematics in favour of an entirely 'constructivist' and postmodern view of the world.

  It used to be able to be said, with a straight face, that reality had a left wing bias. I hate them for taking that away.

  I'm still left-wing; they're not.

  New Vs Old Media

  The shift from legacy media to new media has been going on for a while, but Gamergate seems to have accelerated the process. The total failure of the legacy media to report accurately on Gamergate made a huge number of Generation X and Generation Y people – who had otherwise been somewhat disengaged from political and social issues – aware that something was wrong.

  The Emperor had been naked for some time, but now it was a lot more obvious than it had been.

  This isn't to say, necessarily, that the new media is necessarily any better. While new sites and outlets have sprung up, they're often no better than the legacy media outlets that they seek to replace. Infowars, for example, is terrible. It's, at best entertainment, rather than news. Even when its associated reporters and figureheads – such as Paul Joseph Watson – make a good (occasional) point, it is usually encased in hyperbole, paranoia and nonsense.

  The crisis of trust, the exposure of a lack of professionalism and effort, the failure of the old media to present 'The News' rather than 'A News' has been massively deleterious to democracy. Without trusted figures in news media, the 4th Estate fails in its duty to hold power accountable. In taking one side, it alienates the opposite side. In such a circumstance truth is hard to determine and ideologues and shysters can operate with relative impunity.

  The response of the legacy media to this crisis of conscience and confidence appears to have been to attack new media, rather than to clean up its act. With regard to Gamergate, the biased coverage has repeatedly been challenged in the UK, US, Canada and Australia only to be met with stonewalling by public broadcasters. Private broadcasters have met it with blank indifference or explicitly compromised ethics; “It makes a better story.” With regard to the broader crisis of confidence, they have repeatedly attacked new outlets, seem bemused by social media, have closed comment sections and have striven to undermine Youtube as a viable outlet for alternative news and current affairs coverage.

  Everyone's a Nazi, apparently.

  The route back is for the mainstream media to get its act together and start acting with professionalism and integrity again. Sadly, this seems massively unlikely (in part because it's simply not profitable). That leaves new media to gain these values and – outside of a few isolated examples[207] – this too seems unlikely. New media is just as fragile to financial and private censorship as the mainstream media is, and often lacks the resources to support a truly professional level of polish and standards.

  This is why we're in a 'post-truth' era[208].

  An Uncertain Future

  The culture of games and the culture at large both seem to be very uncertain at the moment. Gamers – and others – have shown that they're willing to fight. They've shown that being tight with their communities can reap financial and social rewards, but at a cost to reputation in the more mainstream point of view. Politics is out of touch and listening to that point of view, and larger corporations - without the flexibility and personality of smaller businesses - seem less able to weather the PR storm and act for the best – rather than reflexively.

  Polarisation exists at every level of our societies, this is more visible at the political level where anything left of Hitler or right of Stalin is still considered to be as bad as Hitler or Stalin from either side. We have so-called liberals out on the streets beating people half to death, pepper-spraying women, shutting down speeches and shooting at politicians. Meanwhile, so-called conservatives taking liberal positions on free expression, only to use that freedom to spread hate and division of their own.

  It's an insane time, and there's not any way to navigate it without setting one side, the other, or both against you. Old school liberals and leftists are being decried as fascists, old school conservatives are being told they're 'cucked', compromised, traitors to conservative values.

  Any art you make, whether it's a game, a book, a comic, a film – anything – is going to be judged not on its artistic merit, but on its adherence to political orthodoxy. It will be judged on whether anything, anywhere, at any point in it violates one interpretation or another of that ideology.

  Either extreme only values free expression so far as it serves them. The 'left' only values free expression so far as it allows them to promulgate their ideas without opposition. Anyone who disagrees must be deplatformed, shut down, shut up, censored, banned from social media and excoriated in The Guardian. The 'right' only values free expression to the point it lets them spread their point of view. They've been the biggest supporters of it only because – socially – they've not been in the ascendant the last decade or so. Now that they have a taste of power again they too want to censor 'degeneracy' and even shut down plays or satire that lampoon their sacred cows.

  Meanwhile, there's a swathe of people in the middle who want everyone to be free to make their arguments with each other, to make the art they want to and to let the cream rise to the top. Whether you're saying 'problematic', 'degenerate' or 'think of the children', it's all just a limp excuse to exert control. With opportunistic politicians using these battles to justify control, spying and censorship, it's unclear whether culture will emerge from the other side unscathed or not.

  And yet the people who just want people to be free to create and debate, are the bad guys?

  Give me a break.

  Last Minute, Last Night

  As I was writing this book, Gamergate flared into life again. At E3 in 2017, a presentation was made of a game called 'The Last Night'. This is a dystopian cyberpunk game that combines stylised pixel graphics with beautifully rendered backgrounds. It grabbed a lot of people's attention, as did its creator, Tim Soret.

  As the game was originally conceived, it seems to be a dystopian examination of extreme progressivism, taking it to a dark and authoritarian extreme in the same way other dystopian fiction has considered other ideologies taken to extremes. This would probably be enough to get Soret and his studio into trouble, because you're simply not allowed to do that anymore, but he had also done 'worse'.

  Back in 2014, Soret had tweeted the Gamergate hashtag a couple of times, making completely reasonable and uncontroversial statements:

  “The Gamergate people are for journalistic integrity, honest debate, transparency, inclusiveness, egalitarianism.”

  “I don't agree. I'm against feminism because it's getting more & more skewed. I am for egalitarianism. I don't care boy, girl, alien.”

  “People who blame art & entertainment for society's ills are always on the wrong side of history.”

  And so on. Agree or not, there's nothing terrible in these sorts of statements, nor in examining how the excesses of even 'good' ideology can lead to bad outcomes. This is part of the point of art, after all, especially speculative fiction and games.

  The combination of criticism of progressivism and having supported Gamergate in the past was, however, enough to get our old friend Zoe Quinn to shriek onto the Internet. She was 'buttmad', as they say on the Internet, about how a Gamergate supporter was having their game presented and was up on stage. This had nothing whatever to do with her book's pre-orders being terrible and needing attention, of course.

  This cause was taken up by the usual suspects and Soret was then subjected to a barrage of hate, abuse, blacklisting, justification for blacklisting and so forth all over the Internet and the usual sites. Despite getting a great deal of support from Gamergate the companies he and the game were associated with po
sted embarrassing climb-downs[209]. This was probably the worst thing he, or they, could have done since nothing would placate the Social Justice Mob and grovelling only pissed off the people willing to fight for Soret's right to free expression. Many believe they should have done a 'Protein World' instead and told the 'critics' where to go[210].

  The combination of censorship, Zoe Quinn sticking her oar in and the flurry of judgemental articles in gaming's 'yellow press' brought the hibernating corpse of Gamergate back to life, causing the hashtag to trend again. The Last Night controversy was then immediately followed by two rapid-fire anti-Gamergate articles in CNET, one lionising Brianna Wu and the other blaming Gamergate for Trump.

  To many people, it felt like 2014 all over again, but it looks like things are slowly calming back down. This should last until September when Quinn's book 'How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate' is due to be published. Doubtless to another flurry of masturbatory articles and misrepresentations of what Gamergate was, and is.

  The irony in this latest flaring up is that it rather confirms Soret's premise. That societal control will come through social media and private enterprise rather than 'Big Brother' and that the excesses of 'progressivism' can be as dystopian as any corporatocracy. After all, it is those forces of 'progressivism' that are blacklisting those with opposing points of view, like Soret, and using private companies and social media pressure to enforce their will.