Steeped in a Sea of Games
Member
Preface: With everything that's been going on over the last year and especially the last few weeks, I wonder if it's alright to have a central place to discuss and try to process how the alt-right and white supremacy in general has been trying (rather successfully it seems) to infiltrate all levels of gaming. I understand if the mods don't think it's appropriate to have this discussion in it's own thread though and I encourage them to shut it down if they feel so.
I've written a huge essay below that contains my thoughts on the matter, but feel free to skip it and throw in your thoughts if you want to.
EDIT: There's been a little confusion about my essay. I'm presenting the argument that there's been a very recent push by certain white supremacist groups to focus their attention on co-opting video gaming as a recruitment tool. Racism in gaming has existed for a long time (voice chat anything for instance), but in my essay I discuss how the existence of that sort of thing is part of what's left the door open to recent infiltration attempts. This is not about isolated incidents of racism, but an actual organized coup with a long-term goal for the people involved.
The problem gaming faces right now, as I see it, is that white supremacists, in their want to turn people to their side and thus grow their numbers, have always had the problem of where to find a receptive audience to keep their vision of hatred going. You can't just come out and say to someone's face "Hey, screw everyone of another race, white people should rule everyone. Hitler forever!" because it'll immediately turn off 99.9% of anyone who hears it. They have to act in a subversive manner and find an audience looking for direction. Also, the younger the person the better because A. Young people are more likely to change their behavior as their ideals and norms haven't been solidified yet, B. young people are usually more receptive to counter-culture ideas and movements, perfect for any group starting at the bottom, and C. get them young and they'll keep the torch going for decades. In my opinion, they found the perfect audience with gamers.
Mass market video games (mostly what we have called AAA games) have become ubiquitous with young people (mostly older teenagers and people in their early 20's, a large amount who are white). A number of these people have stalled out in life or are lost with little or no real ambition. Many of them are depressed about this state of existence and bitter towards the rest of the world because they can't seem to find a way to fit in with current society. Gaming offers to them an escape from what they see as a harsh unforgiving world, or if anything, a place where they can change who they are for a little while. These are perfect conditions for someone looking to influence someone in one way or another, good or bad. I'm not saying that all gamers are like this, or even most, but because games have become so popular, the wider the net that can be thrown, the more of the type mentioned above that can be found.
It's for this reason that white supremacists, in the last few years, co-opted more and more gaming terms, memes, and activities in an attempt to try and make gamers more receptive to their movement. The more gamers they get to their side, the more being a gamer becomes synonymous with being a white supremacist. It's especially good for them because games by themselves aren't bad. They're fun and often leads someone to want to connect with others about their positive experience with them. The alt-right and white supremacists want the first thing a person new to the social aspect of gaming to see when they look outward to expand their horizons to either a friend or online is to be something or someone friendly to their cause. To usher you in the door with a cookie (games are fun!) and then keep feeding you slightly more rotten food until you're eating almost literal shit and don't want to stop because you associate the shit with the positive thing that made you feel good back in the beginning.
Alt-right and white supremacists don't really care about gaming in the long run, to them it's just an exceptionally useful tool to indoctrinate people with. They've tried this with music and books in the past, and still do now, but gaming is perfect right now because of the fact that it's a fledgling industry just coming into it's own. It's cutting edge and 'hip', it's growing at a pace that ensures there's very little quality control happening, and it's finally just gotten big enough to swing into the mainstream allowing any messaging to spread a lot easier than when it was just a niche thing for nerdy kids back in the 80's and 90's. Gaming is also going hand-in-hand right now with laissez-faire venture capitalists and the hard-core libertarians of the tech industry who like to fight against any sort of regulation of thought, business, or content which is what has really allowed their ideas to flourish in the modern age.
White supremacists were able to start making their comeback by rallying distant splintered factions through the internet, especially through message boards such as Stormfront, etc.. As such, they've been able to learn to use the internet as a finely honed weapon of infiltration. 4chan was a perfect starting point due to the 'next-to-no moderation' policy that they employ. 4chan has a lot of the same type of disenfranchised people that are drawn to games, thus making it a very logical step to appeal to those people. They cultivated a receptive audience over a period of years, reeling in innocent bystanders who just wanted to see the 'terrible shit' people would post on 4chan as a form of 'harmless' entertainment, but catching the real attention of a few at a time. They had the perfect chance at jumping to the mainstream with gamergate, easily co-opting a section of gamers who showed resentment and frustration towards themselves that they tried to attribute to women and finding a sort-of legitimate stance of holding gaming journalists accountable to hide behind.
Lately, they've been able to find real allies in gaming youtube 'celebrities' who have looked to promote themselves through any means by providing an audience of people willing to lap up anything that conforms to their new world view. This has allowed them to quietly slip in people who actually hold hateful ideas and dress them up as just another friendly gaming youtube let's-player or commentator, thus reaching an even wider audience. Now that they have a younger audience who's been brainwashed to their ideas, some these people have started to grow up and gone out into the real world where they can start to slowly slip their ideas and symbols into other areas; in particular gamers who decide to make games themselves.
This is what I see as the next step for white supremacists and gaming. As I see it, if things continue this way, allowed by the people in charge who can actually say no to this kind of content or stand up for some sort of positive moral standing, we'll start to see more and more games that contain problematic content that at first seem innocuous, but grow more and more bold over time. More people of moral standing will be unwilling to identify as being a gamer or want to be involved with the gaming industry, thus hurting gaming in general, but as gaming is the perfect escape for the disenfranchised, we'll continue to see more and more people becoming indoctrinated towards hateful ideas. I'll admit, it's a little scary to me right now as I see very little push-back against this in the gaming industry.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the subject. Feel free to throw out whatever you want involving the topic.
EDIT 2: Here's some actual links to follow (props to the guys who posted this in the thread) if you want some concrete evidence of some of the organized push by white supremacists into the gaming sphere.
Steve Bannon's linking of gamers to Breitbart and then to the far right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej_5vyDkZgU&app=desktop
Coordinated attempts to use the internet and 'movements' such as gamergate to push youth towards the alt-right: https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment
I've written a huge essay below that contains my thoughts on the matter, but feel free to skip it and throw in your thoughts if you want to.
EDIT: There's been a little confusion about my essay. I'm presenting the argument that there's been a very recent push by certain white supremacist groups to focus their attention on co-opting video gaming as a recruitment tool. Racism in gaming has existed for a long time (voice chat anything for instance), but in my essay I discuss how the existence of that sort of thing is part of what's left the door open to recent infiltration attempts. This is not about isolated incidents of racism, but an actual organized coup with a long-term goal for the people involved.
The problem gaming faces right now, as I see it, is that white supremacists, in their want to turn people to their side and thus grow their numbers, have always had the problem of where to find a receptive audience to keep their vision of hatred going. You can't just come out and say to someone's face "Hey, screw everyone of another race, white people should rule everyone. Hitler forever!" because it'll immediately turn off 99.9% of anyone who hears it. They have to act in a subversive manner and find an audience looking for direction. Also, the younger the person the better because A. Young people are more likely to change their behavior as their ideals and norms haven't been solidified yet, B. young people are usually more receptive to counter-culture ideas and movements, perfect for any group starting at the bottom, and C. get them young and they'll keep the torch going for decades. In my opinion, they found the perfect audience with gamers.
Mass market video games (mostly what we have called AAA games) have become ubiquitous with young people (mostly older teenagers and people in their early 20's, a large amount who are white). A number of these people have stalled out in life or are lost with little or no real ambition. Many of them are depressed about this state of existence and bitter towards the rest of the world because they can't seem to find a way to fit in with current society. Gaming offers to them an escape from what they see as a harsh unforgiving world, or if anything, a place where they can change who they are for a little while. These are perfect conditions for someone looking to influence someone in one way or another, good or bad. I'm not saying that all gamers are like this, or even most, but because games have become so popular, the wider the net that can be thrown, the more of the type mentioned above that can be found.
It's for this reason that white supremacists, in the last few years, co-opted more and more gaming terms, memes, and activities in an attempt to try and make gamers more receptive to their movement. The more gamers they get to their side, the more being a gamer becomes synonymous with being a white supremacist. It's especially good for them because games by themselves aren't bad. They're fun and often leads someone to want to connect with others about their positive experience with them. The alt-right and white supremacists want the first thing a person new to the social aspect of gaming to see when they look outward to expand their horizons to either a friend or online is to be something or someone friendly to their cause. To usher you in the door with a cookie (games are fun!) and then keep feeding you slightly more rotten food until you're eating almost literal shit and don't want to stop because you associate the shit with the positive thing that made you feel good back in the beginning.
Alt-right and white supremacists don't really care about gaming in the long run, to them it's just an exceptionally useful tool to indoctrinate people with. They've tried this with music and books in the past, and still do now, but gaming is perfect right now because of the fact that it's a fledgling industry just coming into it's own. It's cutting edge and 'hip', it's growing at a pace that ensures there's very little quality control happening, and it's finally just gotten big enough to swing into the mainstream allowing any messaging to spread a lot easier than when it was just a niche thing for nerdy kids back in the 80's and 90's. Gaming is also going hand-in-hand right now with laissez-faire venture capitalists and the hard-core libertarians of the tech industry who like to fight against any sort of regulation of thought, business, or content which is what has really allowed their ideas to flourish in the modern age.
White supremacists were able to start making their comeback by rallying distant splintered factions through the internet, especially through message boards such as Stormfront, etc.. As such, they've been able to learn to use the internet as a finely honed weapon of infiltration. 4chan was a perfect starting point due to the 'next-to-no moderation' policy that they employ. 4chan has a lot of the same type of disenfranchised people that are drawn to games, thus making it a very logical step to appeal to those people. They cultivated a receptive audience over a period of years, reeling in innocent bystanders who just wanted to see the 'terrible shit' people would post on 4chan as a form of 'harmless' entertainment, but catching the real attention of a few at a time. They had the perfect chance at jumping to the mainstream with gamergate, easily co-opting a section of gamers who showed resentment and frustration towards themselves that they tried to attribute to women and finding a sort-of legitimate stance of holding gaming journalists accountable to hide behind.
Lately, they've been able to find real allies in gaming youtube 'celebrities' who have looked to promote themselves through any means by providing an audience of people willing to lap up anything that conforms to their new world view. This has allowed them to quietly slip in people who actually hold hateful ideas and dress them up as just another friendly gaming youtube let's-player or commentator, thus reaching an even wider audience. Now that they have a younger audience who's been brainwashed to their ideas, some these people have started to grow up and gone out into the real world where they can start to slowly slip their ideas and symbols into other areas; in particular gamers who decide to make games themselves.
This is what I see as the next step for white supremacists and gaming. As I see it, if things continue this way, allowed by the people in charge who can actually say no to this kind of content or stand up for some sort of positive moral standing, we'll start to see more and more games that contain problematic content that at first seem innocuous, but grow more and more bold over time. More people of moral standing will be unwilling to identify as being a gamer or want to be involved with the gaming industry, thus hurting gaming in general, but as gaming is the perfect escape for the disenfranchised, we'll continue to see more and more people becoming indoctrinated towards hateful ideas. I'll admit, it's a little scary to me right now as I see very little push-back against this in the gaming industry.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the subject. Feel free to throw out whatever you want involving the topic.
EDIT 2: Here's some actual links to follow (props to the guys who posted this in the thread) if you want some concrete evidence of some of the organized push by white supremacists into the gaming sphere.
Steve Bannon's linking of gamers to Breitbart and then to the far right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej_5vyDkZgU&app=desktop
Coordinated attempts to use the internet and 'movements' such as gamergate to push youth towards the alt-right: https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment
