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John Encaustum's avatar

This characterization of GamerGate has seemed like it takes an untenable tone to me since I first read the Max Read piece: "spurred by a set of intricate and boring and extremely unimportant accusations of 'bias in games journalism.'" It was spurred by colorful sex scandals! I like a lot of Max's writing (and I subscribe), but that doesn't land for me.

It might be a small thing, but I do think getting these details right matters a surprising amount in the medium term for deliberative democracy. Still, I'm sure this isn't the right place to hash out that issue in depth, so I'll put this down mainly as a marker for later follow-up.

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Shawn Ruby's avatar

I really don't think the gamergate point was accurate. It was a clash of burgeoning sjw stuff and burgeoning metamodern right stuff centered in video game culture. If they claim "Something Big Is About To Happen", then they'll have to call it a misstep by the burgeoning sjw culture because the gamer responses are definitionally reactive. The development of narratives to drive the point, whether they're factually on point or not, was already big in 4chan. To skip past all that to focus on the bias narratives happening seems to be completely missing the point a decade later.

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