So, a left wing forum was talking about gamer gate and it...wasn't pretty. You'd think it was a situation in which the left was categorically right and gamers were just evil and misogynist and harassing people and stuff. one poster linked the wikipedia page and it had the same general tone, just framed it as an alt right harassment campaign with no real nuance at all. And...given this is a topic of interest again, with the sweetbaby inc stuff, I felt like I should give a more nuanced position on the matter.
My position at the time
When gamergate happened, I took a position of neutrality. I just saw it as this huge internet war between two annoying terminally online factions who cared way too much about this issue both ways.
The impression I got was it started over Zoe Quinn and that depression quest game. Apparently, it turned out that she was sleeping with a reviewer for reviews (apparently), and people in the gaming community questioned this as a problem with ethics in gaming journalism. I'm not denying that it got nasty. The internet can be nasty, and I have no doubt some people went way too far into harassing Quinn herself, the media outlets, etc. I mean, yeah, that probably happened, and I wanna make it clear, that behavior, regardless of how you feel about the issue, is not okay. But I do want to point out that there were some legitimate concerns there.
I also got the impression that SJWs got dragged into this, defending Quinn and castigating the entire outrage against her as mere misogyny and slut shaming, and to be fair, there's some fair points there too. I don't think that people should be attacked for daring sleep with other people, I'm socially progressive myself, I'm not a prude on sex, blah blah blah. But...there are arguably some valid points on the matter in relation to how this relates to ethics in gaming journalism.
Either way, the whole thing exploded into a massive culture war that I saw fit to just steer clear of. SJWs basically decried the gaming community as misogynistic, and admittedly, there were issues there, both with attitudes within the gaming community and the aforementioned harassment behavior (which was, again, not okay). But let's face it, SJWs have a habit of ruining everything, and they basically used the opportunity to harass gamers themselves (although this side of the story seems to be not told) and to push their cultural narratives.
And to me, the whole thing one a major crapfest of cringe. I took no sides, I stayed out of it. I thought there were a million issues more important than this. For the record, I was basically developing my own ideas on UBI and other progressive safety nets at the time. I had no time to deal with such inconsequential trash. And quite frankly, I didn't really like either side. It was like Israel-Palestine today. Everyone had strong views and were absolutely deranged on the topic, and it was like "okay, why do people care so much?" Yeah.
The cultural impacts of the issue long term
I didn't realize it at the time, but gamer gate and the surrounding culture war didn't die. In some ways, this was basically the beginning of "the shift" in the culture wars. ya know, the one away from secularism vs christianity being the defining characteristic between left and right to it being social justice warriors vs the alt right. And as we saw, the exact same battlelines reformed between the democrats with Hillary Clinton and the republicans with Donald Trump. And as much as I would've liked to stay out of it, the SJWs had a habit of sticking their nose in where they didn't belong and picked fights with people, making enemies in the process. Like me. A so called "Bernie bro" and white male progressive who they had absolute disdain for, because I felt that universal healthcare and economic progressivism was more important than their BS.
And as we know, that basically led to the shifts we've seen in the past decade where now SJWs vs the alt right is THE defining feature of the culture war, and if anything, I'm still in the middle and hate both sides. However, I will say, given my attachment to the left otherwise, I've developed a lot of hatred and disdain for SJWs over time, as they just completely and utterly alienated me over the years.
Which brings us to now:
How do I view this issue now?
If anything, these days, I feel more sympathy for gamers. The fact is, the SJWs pushing their nose into everything and having to push their little agendas into our fandoms has rubbed me the wrong way, and has made me more anti them by default. I retain my progressive views otherwise, but my progressive views are also aging poorly as far as the left goes.
The fact is, it's not the 2000s any more. And...in some ways, I miss the 2000s culturally. I feel like things were a lot better back then on a purely cultural level. I admit it was a crapshow in politics in general. I mean, you had 9/11, which broke our sense of innocence, and the wars in iraq and afghanistan, and how we had to just blindly back the GOP or be deemed terrorist sympathizers, and then you had the religious right, which I was admittedly a part of at the time, and you had the great recession at the end of the decade. But in terms of INTERNET culture, and GAMER culture, yeah, 2000s was peak.
And...I myself, don't like how SJWs have forced their way into everything to push their little agendas on us gamers. They have a habit of doing that. As I keep saying, they're like religious zealots who are as forcefully evangelical about their beliefs as any culture warrior christian, and BECAUSE of me growing out of that 2000s evangelical christian phase I was in, and becoming a more chill socially progressive libertarian secular humanist, I really don't like this shift in the left.
I keep saying it, but I'll say it again. Becoming more conservative as you get older isn't so much about becoming more conservative yourself. It has more to do with the cultural standards changing and people who are older just remembering and being more fond of the "good old days". And for me, those "good old days" are the 90s and 2000s. For me, cultural peaked around 2012, around the time I became an atheist, and before all this crap started with the modern culture war. I DESPISE the modern culture war. I literally view the 2000s as a simpler time where things were just better. Again, framing this specifically from an internet standpoint. Even I knew that nationally the culture of the 2000s was a dumpster fire. But as far as gaming went, that was peak. 2005-2013, that Xbox 360/Playstation 3/Wii generation was the best generation of games, and things have declined since. It isn't just SJWs, we've discussed other reasons on there, particularly those associated with "peak gaming", but again, we're kinda talking culturally here too. The culture of the 2000s and early 2010s was the best of internet culture. Since 2016 or so, everything has been crap. And yes, SJWs are half the problem. The other half are the alt right being far more regressive and wanting to go back to an era that makes the 2000s look crazy progressive is the other, but yeah that's why i take the position of cultural centrism. Because the right is insane, the left is insane, and I just wanna practice my form of libertarian progressivism in peace.
The culture of the 2000s online was awesome. You had a lot more free speech, things were a lot less moderated. Games were better. The stories were mostly better (although new games can be decent too at times, i recently finished cyberpunk 2077, that was pretty good), it just felt...better.
And for me, to some extent, it's the modernism of the time. It's a lot like going back to 1960s sci fi and how back then it was all like flying cars and no one working and space travel, and now it's all omg the environment is imploding and blah blah blah. Like, it used to be optimistic, and now it's all doomer.
Same thing here. I mean, I remember growing up with stuff like Quake, and Doom, and Halo, and Resident Evil, and it had the more modernist vibes I was more comfortable with. Now everything has to be about like, intersectionality, and identity politics, and blah blah blah, and while again, it's not a HUGE HUGE deal for me, I do notice it, it does get a bit of that kind of "ugh this crap again" groan out of me, and while I do move on and mostly still enjoy new games, yeah, I do notice the zeitgeist of the times being different. And I don't actually like it either. Like if I had to choose between the 2000s vibe and the 2020s, I'd go 2000s any day. Now everything has to be social commentary and it is kind if annoying to me. And I say this as someone who is, myself, political. And if you dare question the narrative at all, the social justice left DOES castigate you. I HAVE gotten temp banned from subreddits and forums before just for LIGHTLY QUESTIONING this stuff, only for moderators to act like the most self righteous authoritarians abusing power when you call them out on this crap. And I HATE it. Things didn't used to be that way 10-20 years ago, and I miss it. You don't really realize it until it's gone, but it IS gone, and I can't help but feel like part of my soul died in the process. I have noticed this as I get older. As I always say, it's like that quote from the Simpsons that abe simpson said once: "I was with it once, then they changed what it was, it will happen to you." It has happened to me, and I just can't help but feel like maybe the gamers in gamergate had a point.
Again, not supporting ANY of the actual bad behavior people engaged in. But on the pure morals and ethics, yeah. Maybe the gamers were right. Maybe the SJWs are overreaching. Maybe they shouldn't be injecting their morals into my fandoms and ruining them. They have a habit of doing that. They have a habit of trying to force people to adopt their morals and norms, and quite frankly, I think that people need to take a firmer stance on these guys and tell them no. That doesn't mean embracing the alt right by the way. Those guys are their own animal and just as toxic. And I want to say right now that I don't, never have, and never will endorse their brand of BS either. Because they're literally just as bad if not worse. I just think SJWs should mind their own business and not force their way into our fandoms and change and subvert art to push their own agendas. That's all.
Anyway, I just wanted to give my thoughts on this, as it's been in discussion again. And because the wikipedia article came off as so one sided it came off as revisionist history, I wanted to give my take on it. Both sides were wrong. It was a crapshow at the time. But in retrospect, I think the gamers had a point, and while I cant agree with the harassment campaigns some of them did, I do think that opposing social justice politics in gaming and nerd culture in general was, and is, the right thing in principle at least. Because 10 years out, the effects of social justice politics have been made apparent in gaming culture and culture at large, and I kinda miss the old culture myself. I see these guys as unwelcome invaders taking over the medium and telling us what is and isn't acceptable, and quite frankly, they can screw off. And I do see where gamers are coming from on the sweetbaby inc stuff to some extent. Just wanted to make my position, and my evolution on my position, clear.
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