“MEN, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

I’m not a games industry professional. I’m not a journalist. I have my hands full with unrelated creative projects and in my precious moments of leisure time, I have Nuclear Throne to beat. Realistically, I have no time for this. ‘This’ being a social media smog monster going by the name of ’#gamergate, which, like the antagonist of Godzilla versus Hedorah, is a rancorous, shape-shifting cloud composed of every kind of pollutant dumped into the ocean of the internet, driven by a malevolent sentience.

Okay, enough metaphor, Jon. What is #gamergate, literally and specifically? It’s a Twitter hashtag. What else? What else indeed. While various patterns of behaviour coalesce around the hashtag, #gamergate’s protean nature resists attempts toward summary and narrative. It readjusts and reinvents itself in response to attempts to disarm and disperse its noxiousness, subsuming disaffected voices in an act of continual regeneration, cycling through targets, pretexts, manifestoes and moralisms. Say that it began as a harassment campaign targeting a female indie developer, as reported by credible news sites, and you are subjected to contradictory objections - “No, #gamergate began after that, as a reaction to biased reporting” and “No, #gamergate has been building up for years"  - as proponents jostle for the story that paints them in the best possible light:

It’s barely a movement and it’s more than a controversy or consumer pressure group; it’s a creature. And the only way to understand a creature like this is to look at the kind of material that circulates within it.

Taking it as read that much of that has descended, at this point, into post-hoc justification and mantra-like repetition, to begin with, here are some of the comments posted on early articles covering #gamergate:

The developer Zoe Quinn is repeatedly brought up, with references to her promiscuity:

Here’s a particularly unpleasant lie that is aggressively perpetuated. It deviates even from the gossip on which it is based in order to exaggerate its claims:

Ignorance, in its various forms, is also plentiful. Here’s the reaction to finding out professional games journalists use a private mailing list to discuss the handling of potential stories with each other:

(At this point, #gamergate became extremely excited that it had found proof of 'collusion’ among the journalists it had targeted).

A favourite running theme is the rejection of any discussion of sexism in games:

Here’s a widely distributed boycott list, targeting social progressives for 'ruining our hobby’, promising to 'hit them where it hurts most’. A similar list was made targeting developers.

It’s worth noting that both hit lists were drawn up well before material was uncovered to implicate any of the above journalists in the wrongdoing they have subsequently been accused of. At this point, the #gamergate argument was simply that 'SJWs’ (social justice warriors) are unwelcome.

But beneath protestations that #gamergate is about 'journalistic ethics’, the attacks on feminists continue. Here’s Twitter over the past week:

Sometimes a more extreme political subtext creeps into the open, unguarded. This Twitter user later confirmed to me that he believes 'the gay agenda’ is part of 'cultural Marxism’ too.

#gamergate discussion for a long time revolved around high-pitched hostility toward prominent feminist game critic Anita Sarkeesian.

Like Zoe Quinn, Sarkeesian has received death threats, but the tactics employed to make her disappear are wide-ranging. Here’s one of many, many attempts to discredit her:

(The 'gamers are dead’ message refers to a series of articles in the games press exploring the death of the traditional 'gamer’ identity as the gaming audience diversifies and sexism becomes less acceptable. These articles have been seized on as a pretext for targeting some of the journalists in the above hit list).

One man, Ben Spurr, created a game in which the player is invited to bruise and bloody Sarkeesian. Without a trace of self-awareness, a tweet pinned to the top of his Twitter page reads "The biggest mistake with declaring war on gamers is that they’ve been training their entire lives to combat evil. #gamergate.”

Here’s Davis Aurini, who is crowdfunding for a film that will 'investigate’ Sarkeesian.

This is a quote from the video this still is taken from:

“And then we have the women themselves. Women, in our culture, have become the most decadent sluts since the fall of Rome … we have the most fat, disgusting women that have ever existed in history and who still think they’re hot stuff … Women have become like dogs that were never trained.”

He appears to have no serious interest in gaming, but he has been a fixture of #gamergate since close to its inception.

Then we have Christina Hoff Summers, who has made a profession of apologising to men for feminism. Her books include The War Against Boys and Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. She has capitalised on #gamergate by releasing a video positing the question 'Are games sexist?’ In it, she berates 'the video game gender police’, her accusation being: “They want the male video game culture to die.” She appears to have no serious interest in gaming but she has been embraced by #gamergate, who have even given her an affectionate nickname, 'Based Mom’.

Another youtube personality, Thunderf00t, is the author of the video 'Why feminism poisons EVERYTHING’. His popular diatribes against Sarkeesian are one of his sources of income. As well as providing ad revenue, they direct viewers to a donations page. He accused Sarkeesian of personally engineering the suspension of his Twitter account, and made two more (again, profitable) videos articulating his outrage. He has no evidence to back up his claim. He appears to have no serious interest in gaming but his views have been embraced by #gamergate.

There are numerous other youtube video essayists engaged in the project of continually re-invigorating and re-arming the mob, hyperlink-shuttling their enraged audience from one inflammatory call-to-arms to the next.

Here is Milo Yiannopolous, a right wing journalist and probably #gamergate’s most popular and visible supporter:

Before #gamergate, his views on gaming were this: “Personally, I don’t understand grown men wasting their lives playing computer games. It seems a bit sad to me. I mean, we’ve all been sucked in to a few rounds of Candy Crush, but if you want to shoot a gun, why not go to a rifle range?”

Here’s another right wing journalist, James Delingpole, creepily courting #gamergate:

These agitators seem to recognise what #gamergate supporters repeatedly deny: that the driving force behind #gamergate is a reactionary conservatism that seeks to shut down and shut out socially progressive voices in gaming. Of course, in the manner of reactionary conservatism the world over, it seeks to frame this as a rebellion against a censorious 'political correctness’ imposed by shadowy cabals and corrupt networks of power. If you search the #gamergate hashtag, this is the narrative you’ll find being pushed most concertedly. That and 'journalistic ethics’, which has become all but the slogan of #gamergate.

However, this shift in emphasis is the result of realising that the anti-feminist angle isn’t very popular. Here are some excavated 4chan chat logs, courtesy of David Futrelle at We Hunt The Mammoth:

Aug 21 17.23.31 <sarahv> The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point …
Aug 21 17.23.38 <rd0951> ./v should be focused on the implications of gaming journalism …
Aug 21 17.23.47 Because SJWs will cherry-pick the /b/ shit posting and say “See? It’s sexist MRAs!”

Aug 24 15.16.10 <PaperDinosaur> Also Zoe is no longer the target to be focused on
Aug 24 15.16.13 <Josh_> ^^
Aug 24 15.16.14 <sarahv> ^^^^^
Aug 24 15.16.18 It’s about the 5guys
Aug 24 15.16.21 <sarahv> It always has been
Aug 24 15.16.28 <Josh_> It’s more about the journos
Aug 24 15.16.33 <PaperDinosaur> She’s done, we’ve wrecked her in a professional manner. …
Aug 24 15.16.42 <sarahv> Unfortunately most of the people involved in this seem to be interested in destroying Zoe
Aug 24 15.16.46 stop digging up shit on zoe’s past
Aug 24 15.16.47 <PaperDinosaur> Now we have to wreck her shield, the people who tried to defend her

Aug 25 07.18.18 <Logan> Any chance we can get Zoe to commit suicide?
Aug 25 07.18.29 if we can get more daming evidence
Aug 25 07.18.29 I think the [doxxing info removed by DF] is a good shot.
Aug 25 07.18.33 <temet> like her fucking a train of lack dudes …
Aug 25 07.18.39 <PaperDinosaur> fuck off Logan
Aug 25 07.18.39 <temet> black
Aug 25 07.18.51 <Logan> Nah 21st century doing a train is so 90s. …
Aug 25 07.18.59 <PaperDinosaur> If she commits suicide we lose everything …
Aug 25 07.20.34 <PaperDinosaur> If you can’t see how driving Zoe to suicide would fuck this entire thing up then you’re a fucking idiot
Aug 25 07.20.41 Imagine the kotaku article …
Aug 25 07.20.48 <temet> PaperDinosaur is right
Aug 25 07.20.51 <temet> not the right PR play

Meanwhile, #gamergate’s witch-finder generals are out in force, furtively trawling through websites and documents to prove a malignancy, talking of 'exposing’ - an exposure which they hope will act as intently as the flames that lick the stake. Yet another youtube video essayist, Sargon of Akkad, has set out to prove that feminists have taken over DiGRA, a non-profit academic thinktank with a focus on games. He began his investigation, of course, forearmed with the conclusion.

Other #gamergate protagonists coach each other in avoiding debate, a response to efforts by journalists to talk to them:

'Do not engage order’ is also stamped in bold and red across screenshots of people’s Twitter profiles and disseminated.

They also constantly remind each other of the need to be polite, having learned now that overt aggression is 'not the right PR play’. The order of the day is instead character assassination and pretext-hunting. Thus, an Asian journalist is pilloried for racist comments he made as a teenager which he has repeatedly, sincerely and profusely apologised for:

And even though the mantra of 'journalistic ethics’ is now being employed like a foghorn, it can’t quite drown out the underlying consumer revenge fantasy that has taken hold:

(Note, however, that gamers are not even the intended audience for one of the sites whose advertisers have been targeted. #gamergate is going after journalists its proponents have never even read).

So why even engage with such collective madness? Especially when the arguments made are ranging, fluctuating and hugely reliant on mischaracterisation of others’ opinions and arguments. Think endless variations on Sommers’ “They want the male video game culture to die” - a straw man shooting gallery. Now add in every conceivable objection, however wildly irrational, to several years’ worth of journalistic content, because all of it is dredged up to support a claim of endemic corruption. Individual missteps and past controversies are linked to a general demand that games journalism be liberated from a socially progressive 'agenda’, as if everything problematic about a constantly evolving industry were being orchestrated from behind the scenes.

It’s admitted that in amongst the wide array of trumped-up charges a plethora of genuine issues have been touched on. So a small number of journalists and developers suggested these be discussed under a different Twitter hashtag, to divorce it from the anti-feminist rhetoric. Did this fly with #gamergate? Of course not - because it would have involved abandoning a juggernaut with vicious momentum and having an open, honest conversation with the 'opposition’.

Again: why engage? Firstly, there are those who can’t exit the battle, who find themselves set upon repeatedly as part of a deliberate and concerted effort to wear them down, force them to abandon their careers, their passions. Unsurprisingly, and despite the composition of the hit lists, the most consistently targeted and spat-upon individuals are nearly all women. At the very least, I think it’s worth drawing attention to this.

I also want to resist #gamergate’s arrogant attempts to position itself as representative of ordinary consumers who play games - as representative of me. I would like people outside of gaming culture to know that this ugliness is the spittle and spite and self-immolation of a cornered minority, joined by the callous excitement of others who are seduced by the music of revolt and aren’t particularly scrupulous when it comes to picking a side, while others still hitch their own misgivings, prejudices and grudges to an irresistible bandwagon.

Then there’s the third thing: the grim fascination with how language is weaponised and used to obstruct, rather than facilitate, understanding, how every tool that has been effective in making social media a progressive force is repurposed as a method of obfuscation and provocation. It’s like watching intelligent animals work out how to maim each other with writing implements, and it gives a disturbingly sharp insight into the limitations of reason when dealing with a collective mania.

There’s no creativity to #gamergate’s methods. It copy and pastes what has been seen to work elsewhere, whether for good or evil. Boycott campaigns, infographics, memes, petitions, sockpuppet accounts, hacking, doxxing, vlogging, dogpiling. On the level of daily interactions, every word or phrase that ever had a modicum of power is employed as bludgeoning instrument. The authors of the aforementioned diatribes drench themselves in the language of scrupulous philosophical investigation as if that in itself imbues them with moral authority, while displaying nothing close to real consistency, rigour or intellectual honesty. To anyone other than those predisposed to ardently agree, these essays and videos are appallingly unpersuasive - but then, they aren’t intended to persuade. The effort is one of blunt force - to wield any tool available in order to club the enemy, and in particular to stoke the confidence and fury of the mob so that it attacks with greater ferocity. The death threats Sarkeesian receives reflect the agenda of hate preachers who simultaneously wish to position themselves as several steps removed from the worst excesses.

Sarkeesian turned off the comments under her own video series - something which is alluded to repeatedly with fierce disapproval. Why such ire? Not because this constitutes censorship (nothing #gamergate dubs censorship is really censorship) but because it robbed them of one of the forums in which they could freely wield their cudgels - by endlessly and irresponsibly repeating unfounded accusations against her.

Once a new word or phrase enters the collective vocabulary and is recognised as having some potency, it is chanted, chorused, abused and misused. “Shill, shill, shill,” parroted the #gamergate collegiate, once they had got hold of a word that they understood could be used to undermine the intentions of apparently independent commentators. “Fallacy!” they cry, as if revealing the identity of a murderer, whenever an unflattering comparison is made. They understand the general moral pallor of any particular word all right - 'diversity’, 'objectivity’ and 'integrity’ are good, 'hate’, 'bias’ and 'agenda’ bad - but then go about using them with reckless inconsistency. Their enemies are 'colluding’ but they themselves are merely 'like-minded’. Feminists are 'ideologues’ and 'extremists’ but the neoliberal utopia they espouse - naked of cultural criticism, ruled by consumer frenzy and corporate wile - is somehow apolitical and ideology-free. A mixed race female journalist is repeatedly described as 'racist’ and 'sexist’ on the thinnest of premises, but the term 'misogynist’ is objectionable:

And of course, the word 'ethics’ - repeated at every available opportunity, cherished for its aura of respectability.

Meaning is abandoned; only import matters.

This applies too to the metaphors #gamergate drapes itself in, right down to the absurd, hyperbolic soubriquet itself. I refer back to the tweet pinned to the top of the Twitter account of the man who made a game simulating the physical battery of Sarkeesian. It bears repeating: “The biggest mistake with declaring war on gamers is that they’ve been training their entire lives to combat evil.” Metaphor allows #gamergate to target and hurt individuals under the guise of fighting 'evil’.

It’s indicative of the level of commitment to a warped vision of the world that is uncompromising and - temporarily, at least - unswayable. There is no authority, moral or otherwise, so high that its opposition to #gamergate is perceived as a genuine indictment or reason for a sanity check. Games journalists, mainstream journalists, academics, Wikipedia editors - even the founder of Wikipedia - all become enemy collaborators when they refrain from endorsing the #gamergate narrative:

So too the owner of 4chan, one of the very online communities where the movement was incubated, as soon as he decided #gamergate had had its day and forbade further discussion.

What it speaks to is a failure of reason to penetrate through means of language alone. The language of reason is instead perceived solely as an aggressive force, and crudely wielded as such. The moral highground is a territory cynically - not sincerely - sought. How does #gamergate deal with the negative perception caused by the death threats against Sarkeesian and harassment of female journalists and developers? By conjuring up similar tales of victimisation perpetrated by its enemies. How does #gamergate react when a piece of cultural criticism is genuinely searing? By complaining that the critic is guilt-tripping (and thus attacking) their audience. #gamergate thinks critics should be using their powers of persuasive rhetoric not to call games culture to account, but to battle outsiders:

So what is #gamergate? #gamergate is a mob with torches aloft, hunting for any combustible dwelling and calling it a monster’s lair. #gamergate is a rage train, and everyone with an axe to grind wants a ride. Its fuel is a sour mash of entitlement, insecurity, arrogance and alienation. #gamergate is a vindication quest for political intolerance. #gamergate is revenge for every imagined slight. #gamergate is Viz’s Meddlesome Ratbag:

#gamergate is a madness that dreams it’s a revolution.

Further reading:

Here is a concise list of genuine ethical concerns surrounding gaming and the coverage of gaming by Leigh Alexander.

Here is the developer Damon Schubert, trying to engage with #gamergate supporters.