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There is a Clear Line From Gamergate to the Election of Donald Trump

There is also a clear line from Martin Luther King Jr to the Election of Donald Trump.
There is also a clear line from Martin Luther to the Election of Donald Trump.

They are called timelines, and aren't incredibly useful except for establishing before and after.
 

stuminus3

Member
This guy doesn't seem to think so.

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Gamergate is mostly made up of gullible idiots, not the alt-right.
 

MogCakes

Member
GamerGate was part of an underlying sentiment that led to the alt-right, yes. They have likely always voted for as disruptive a candidate as possible, or not at all - until Trump appeared.
 

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
There is also a clear line from the release of Jazz Jackrabbit on GBA to the election of Donald Trump.

1. Jaleco releases "Jazz Jackrabbit" on GBA
2. A War Against "Political Correctness" or (PC Culture) Begins
3. Online Publication Breitbart.com and Gamergate Figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos Give
Birth to the Alt-Right Movement
4. Donald Trump Spends Much of Campaign Critiquing Political Correctness
5. The Alt-Right Chooses Donald Trump as their Champion in the Fight Against PC Culture
6. Donald Trump Chooses Breitbart Chairman Steve Bannon as Campaign CEO
7. Donald Trump is Elected President of the United States of America
8. Steve Bannon is Appointed Chief Strategist and Senior Counsoler to the President of the United States of America
9. The Alt-Right Celebrates their Victory
To be fair, that game was terrible, so I can understand blaming it for the problems in the world. If only JJ3 had been released instead, maybe all of this could have been avoided...
 
Gamergate wasn't the start of anything.

I've had to deal with racist dicks since I started online gaming. I can't even say its gotten worse it's been a shitfest this whole time I guess they just made a name to call themselves

Yes, but they were never this organised before. The hate was always there but it was from isolated sources, mostly children or people who knew they were trolling and expected a negative response. Now, these people are feeling justified in their hate and others are feeling emboldened to agree with it while anyone who stands against hate towards another is labelled and ridiculed. I think there's been a definite shift in the last year or two and it appears to spreading among western, white youth.
 

mjp2417

Banned
Clinton won among young voters. Despite what your Gamergate narrative tells you, young men still vote liberal

If they aren't white. Trump won the 18-29 white vote 48%-43%. I haven't been able to track down the precise gender split, but given the gender splits in voting across every other age group, one would expect that Trump won the young white male vote pretty overwhelmingly.
 

LordKano

Member
If they aren't white. Trump won the 18-29 white vote 48%-43%. I haven't been able to track down the precise gender split, but given the gender splits in voting across every other age group, one would expect that Trump won the young white male vote pretty overwhelmingly.

Why would you exclude non-white people from the voters, AFAIK they're still young.

Unless I'm the only one to not be aware of some giant conspiracy.
 
Yes. But it quickly activated a ton of people who had zero previous interest in politics or culture wars. And it codified the tools of the alt-right, from language, to brigading, to harassment techniques, which within months spread to every single other medium from books to television, and around a year in became the most visible form of online right-wing discourse.

I don't buy it when people say GG was some isolated gaming-only thing. You're being disingenuous, or you never really followed what was happening. Three years ago, communication online looked entirely different pre-GG compared to how it does now.

Before GG, this entire style existed in the limp-dicked corners of the MRA/MGTOW/Red Pill world, completely powerless to affect the discourse. After GG, and all the mainstream coverage it got, everything changed. These people are now the loudest voice in America. GG gave them the template to achieve that.



The Tea Party was firmly engaged in dogwhistle politics. They attracted racists looking for a home, but not really much beyond the usual Southern Strategy pandering the mainstream GOP engages in.

They were also far more interested in actual policy. Unrealistic, idiotic policies, but policies nonetheless. Above all, their goal was to dismantle as much of the federal government as possible, and cut as many taxes as possible including things like the tariffs Trump supporters are so interested in.

There's overlap, sure, but I don't really think the two movements are outgrowths of the same thing. Few Republicans wanted Trump out of the picture during the primaries like Tea Partiers did. They're all about ideological purity.

This is a fantastic post that is going to be ignored by 99% of the replies to this thread. I have nothing further to add to it, other than to say "read this"
 

imBask

Banned
To be fair, that game was terrible, so I can understand blaming it for the problems in the world. If only JJ3 had been released instead, maybe all of this could have been avoided...

whenever I hear Jazz Jackrabbit's music I kinda tell myself I wanna vote for Trump, i'm not saying it's a conspiracy but you might be onto something
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
SMH at all the hand-waving here. It might not be the root cause, but it's undoubtedly a contributor. Gaming culture absolutely needs to take every opportunity to lean in hard against GG's rhetoric in the wake of their adherents feeling validated with the election, not downplay them.
 

Servbot24

Banned
I honestly think there's some legitimacy to the idea that people chose a presidential candidate based on the fact they felt annoyed about not being able to tell racist/sexist jokes.
 

LordKano

Member
SMH at all the hand-waving here. It might not be the root cause, but it's undoubtedly a contributor. Gaming culture absolutely needs to lean in and take every step to rally against GG's rhetoric in the wake of their brand of ideology being validated with the election, not downplay it.

Nobody in the industry cares about what these dumb nerds think or says. Really. They aren't a contributor in anything except in making the gaming community looks even stupider.
 

mjp2417

Banned
Why would you exclude non-white people from the voters, AFAIK they're still young.

Unless I'm the only one to not be aware of some giant conspiracy.

I think you might be misinterpreting. My point was that being young isn't actually a reliable predictor for voting preference unless you account for race as well.
 

Torokil

Member
1. Happy Days set in the 1950s
2. Scott Baio was on that show
3. Trump promised to "Make America Great Again" - Possible dogwhistle for make america the 1950s again
4. Scott Baio endorsed Tr*mp at the RNC

Conclusion: The Fonz is responsible for Donald Trump election
 

Raven117

Member
Yeah...ummm... I don't think so.

Is Gamergate a symptom of predominantly white men feeling beat up by P.C. Culture? Probably.
 
If they aren't white. Trump won the 18-29 white vote 48%-43%. I haven't been able to track down the precise gender split, but given the gender splits in voting across every other age group, one would expect that Trump won the young white male vote pretty overwhelmingly.

Not that overwhelmingly. The gap for the young white vote is much more narrow than the gap for whites in general at 58%-37%. Gamergate is a very minor movement of loud people that changed nothing.
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
As far as I can tell most of the resentment in Gamergate was a product of a culture war ithat went unrecognized by both sides until it became more clear after campus protests etc in the last years. Most game journalists and many game developers are left progressives living in cities like New York and San Fransisco so a lot of the axe grinding about ethics and the witch hunting was really a pretext to rail against left progressives who do have a kind of monoculture, probably for similar reasons that university faculty have been tilting further left in the last 20 years. if you go look at what they are posting and discussing it's the same thing left liberals (classical liberals), libertarians, and conservatives are railing against in campus politics. The main difference being it's a younger demographic so they are a lot less civil or capable of reasoning
 

komplanen

Member
I bet OP's kids are named after video games too :-3

I doubt there's any other connection besides alt-right attitudes on GG and Trump sides.
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
Nobody in the industry cares about what these dumb nerds think or says. Really. They aren't a contributor in anything except in making the gaming community looks even stupider.
People said the same thing about Trump supporters early on, yet here we are.

The fact that major publishers skirt around taking any concrete stands or statements against GG should tell you something. If GG's presence was so negligible, they'd have no problem disassociating and condemning their behavior.
 
It was just a byproduct of the movement. The vile people had were being tolerated since other people felt the same despicable way.
 

Iscariot

Member
this is what it seems to be about to me too. if you are white and blue collar and struggling or just young and white and insecure, maybe you always felt: "at least i'm white", as if that was some advantage. but giving everyone equal rights which obama worked hard for, made these types angry because they lost their advantage. i don't believe that a white confident attractive successful man is insecure or angry about women / blacks / lgbt etc. having equal rights

That's some of it. But probably a rather large portion of them just don't care in a motivated way. The struggle so to speak doesn't intersect with their lives in a very tangible way. Scarcity, difference, and distance can dissuade strong empathy responses. As an example, I don't think when someone goes in and buys a pair of 50 dollar shoes at Walmart that they're thinking to themselves "Fuck those kids in Malaysia" despite the terrible work conditions.
 

Riposte

Member
I think what you really mean to say is we should have called the election for Trump the moment the new Ghostb*sters flopped.


I don't suppose we can blame Gamergate on the Dems losing in everything but the presidency in the last six years too? Surely it's all related in way that isn't obvious.
 
I think what you really mean to say is we should have called the election for Trump the moment the new Ghostbusters flopped.


I don't suppose we can blame Gamergate on the Dems losing in everything but the presidency in the last six years too? Surely it's all related in way that isn't obvious.

I personally blame CURRENT_YEAR()
 

LordKano

Member
People said the same thing about Trump supporters early on, yet here we are.

The fact that major publishers skirt around taking any concrete stands or statements against GG should tell you something. If GG's presence was so negligible, they'd have no problem disassociating and condemning their behavior.

I don't get you. Since they're negligible they should take actions and say something about them ? Doesn't the logic should say the opposite ?

Nobody cares about them -> Nobody has anything to say about them bc who the fuck cares if thirty guys don't like that a game has censored one pantie shot in its localization, or some stuff like that.
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
I'm still not entirely sure what Gamergate is supposed to be. I thought it was misogynists flipping out over Anita Sarkeesian having opinions about videogames that they didn't like but I feel like it's probably bigger than that.
 
Yes. But it quickly activated a ton of people who had zero previous interest in politics or culture wars. And it codified the tools of the alt-right, from language, to brigading, to harassment techniques, which within months spread to every single other medium from books to television, and around a year in became the most visible form of online right-wing discourse.

I don't buy it when people say GG was some isolated gaming-only thing. You're being disingenuous, or you never really followed what was happening. Three years ago, communication online looked entirely different pre-GG compared to how it does now.

Before GG, this entire style existed in the limp-dicked corners of the MRA/MGTOW/Red Pill world, completely powerless to affect the discourse. After GG, and all the mainstream coverage it got, everything changed. These people are now the loudest voice in America. GG gave them the template to achieve that.



The Tea Party was firmly engaged in dogwhistle politics. They attracted racists looking for a home, but not really much beyond the usual Southern Strategy pandering the mainstream GOP engages in.

They were also far more interested in actual policy. Unrealistic, idiotic policies, but policies nonetheless. Above all, their goal was to dismantle as much of the federal government as possible, and cut as many taxes as possible including things like the tariffs Trump supporters are so interested in.

There's overlap, sure, but I don't really think the two movements are outgrowths of the same thing. Few Republicans wanted Trump out of the picture during the primaries like Tea Partiers did. They're all about ideological purity.

Good post
 

takriel

Member
I'm still not entirely sure what Gamergate is supposed to be. I thought it was misogynists flipping out over Anita Sarkeesian having opinions about videogames that they didn't like but I feel like it's probably bigger than that.
it's a platform for misogynists, so you're right there
 
I'm still not entirely sure what Gamergate is supposed to be. I thought it was misogynists flipping out over Anita Sarkeesian having opinions about videogames that they didn't like but I feel like it's probably bigger than that.

It started as one thing and ended up synonymous with the alt right. I don't think it's anything now that can't be described as an alt-right perspective on the gaming industry, media and community.
 
I think what you really mean to say is we should have called the election for Trump the moment the new Ghostb*sters flopped.


I don't suppose we can blame Gamergate on the Dems losing in everything but the presidency in the last six years too? Surely it's all related in way that isn't obvious.

so basically along the lines of "if you didnt watch the new ghostbusters you MIGHT be a trump supporter"?
 
Some of those supposed "Clear Line" steps are a bit of a stretch. Gamergate is just a portion of an underlying problem that is happening in today's society.
 

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
I don't get you. Since they're negligible they should take actions and say something about them ? Doesn't the logic should say the opposite ?

Nobody cares about them -> Nobody has anything to say about them bc who the fuck cares if thirty guys don't like that a game has censored one pantie shot in its localization, or some stuff like that.
Ounce of prevention's worth a pound of cure. Why let this stuff fester and grow if you can snuff it out before it has a foothold?

If there's little projected risk of fallout for condemning hateful acts and rhetoric, it should be matter of course to condemn it when it pops up. That publishers shy away for fear of driving away customers says pretty clearly that they estimate there's a not-inconsequential number of GG sympathizers among their customer base.
 

ultrazilla

Gold Member
I'll pm a mod about this thread as well.

Look, I've purposely been avoiding the off topic forum because I'm tired of all the politics/arguments, whatever.

Please, leave the freaking politics out of the gaming forum here. There's another forum this can be discussed in.
 
This is an amazing conspiracy theory. As one says, with great accusations requires great evidence. I see no evidence.
 
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Shai-Tan

Banned
I know I am going to probably get a lot of hate for this. I am a libertarian, and while I voted for Hillary Clinton, and tend to support Democrats moreso than Republicans. I am somewhat optimistic that *some* good will probably come out of a Trump administration.

To be clear, I do not support the harassment of anyone. That being said, I believe that Sarkeesian's actions have had a clear and dangerous chilling effect on the constitutional right to freedom of speech. As I have said before in response to defenders of censorship in games: If you do not like the content in a game. Don't buy it. Speak with your wallet, and allow others to do the same. Money should ultimately determine what content is in videogames.

Why? It's just criticism. Other people are free to disagree and say why they think otherwise (I have in the past to the extent that I disagree with some of the narrative from cultural studies that she presupposes). According to your logic what you're saying has a chilling effect on speech.
 
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