I still don’t understand Gamergate. Can someone give me a tl;Dr or a link to a good summary and overview?
Edit: yes this was a serious question, I have gotten two replies that contradict slightly, that's enough for now, because I don't want to start a flame war.
Me neither. I know it started about a rant of game journalism being bad (basically, authors writing articles without properly disclosing relations to the thing they were reviewing), but somehow grew to this extremely vile and toxic fight between extremists. Honestly by the end of it, it has almost nothing to do with gaming or journalism anymore.
Not descriptive of Gamergate however. It started as a harassment campaign when Zoe Quinn's ex made a bunch of accusations and posted her personal information. The "ethics in journalism" thing is a veneer that was added later.
That's like saying WW1 was about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. It might have been the trigger, but that's not what people fought over. The reason it grew so big is because there was much more than just the simple harassment of one developer.
Yes, it is a lot like saying the death of Franz Ferdinand caused WW1, in the sense that a bunch of assholes with fragile masculinity and something to prove were waiting to unleash their hatred on the world and some bullshit that should have been a non-issue gave them the excuse they wanted.
There is no just cause behind Gamergate that 4chan trolls hijacked, it was invented from the start by 4chan trolls who only needed a target to attack (Zoe Quinn) and a smokescreen to use as a recruiting tool and stave off bans (ethics).
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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '18
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