Anika Begay
Ten years ago, a wave of gamers attacked developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media critic Anita Sarkeesian. The three were part of a growing chorus of people calling for more inclusive culture in video games. The attackers doxxed and harassed their victims, doing everything they could to stifle women’s efforts. The incident, which became known as Gamergate, highlighted the toxicity women faced in gaming spaces and beyond.
Eventually, harassment disappeared from the news, but its remnants were never entirely eliminated from the Internet and public life.
Gamergate expressed a particular kind of offended masculinity, a rage at the loss of power to be the target audience. Since 2014, it has shaped everything from the men’s rights movement to the current iteration of the GOP, delineating what it means to be a man in certain corners of the internet.
In many ways, says Adrienne Massanari, an associate professor in the communications department at American University, Gamergate heralded a broader right-wing backlash against real changes taking place in American society. Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon seized on this in 2015, harnessing the power of engaged online fandoms to support Trump’s campaign.
Within the community, Gamergate seemingly divided men into distinct camps. The men who stood up for Sarkeesian, for example, were dubbed “white knights” and simpletons. Meanwhile, the people who were harassers saw themselves as trying to protect the space from “outside” influences from “social justice warriors,” who threatened to take away the elements that they believed made games fun.
“Even though we know that a lot of people play, [the men involved in Gamergate] they saw themselves as the target demographic for gaming. When that started to change, the reaction was, of course, anger,” Massanari says. “Now that’s being reflected, refracted, and amplified by Trumpism and the kind of far-right Republicanism that’s reacting to demographic and social changes toward a more egalitarian society.”
This same kind of anger and resistance can now be seen in figures like JD Vance and Elon Musk, both of whom condemn “woke-ism” in politics and the culture at large. In interviews, Musk has said that he was motivated to buy X, formerly Twitter, to fight the “woke mind virus” that he says is destroying civilization. The Heritage Foundation’s policy roadmap, Project 2025, repeatedly mentions “woke” progressivism as a threat that must be eliminated, particularly by eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in government spaces.
This connection closes in on what has become “Gamergate 2.0,” a backlash against inclusion efforts where “DEI” is now a catchphrase. Ten years ago, gamers rebelled against critics like Sarkeesian for pointing out that many female characters in games were nothing more than tropes. In 2024, campaigns are against video game consulting firms like Sweet Baby for performing what some gamers feel is “forced diversification.” No matter what the rallying cry, the motive is the same: being angry that characters in video games no longer represent their interests.
While the politics of male resentment aren’t exactly new, says Patrick Rafail, a sociology professor at Tulane University, “its mainstream integration is.”
Although Gamergate has arrived From a relatively niche subculture, its elements can now be found in influencers like Andrew Tate who have popularized “these very simplistic, archetypal, stereotypical extremes” of masculinity, says Debbie Ging, professor of digital media and gender at Dublin City University. A new era of podcasting, coupled with a rise in short-form video platforms like TikTok, “which are very algorithmically driven,” have been key drivers of this form of rhetoric, Ging says.
