Gaming Culture’s Love Affair with Sexual Harassment
It is at first difficult to consolidate the issues of #GamerGate with issues of sexism, racism, and all matters of bigotry beyond the realm of gaming culture. Because gaming culture is so precise in how exactly it is contained, to use the issues associated with the culture in reference to larger things that haunt all facets of society appears counterintuitive. However, with the recent influx of sexual harassment allegations attributed to powerful men, particularly in Hollywood, to be able to observe this same type of conflict coming from separate spaces is a unique gift that permits understanding of what drives things like sexism and sexual harassment, which are very much intertwined. Adam Rosenberg in his article “One of the internet’s oldest gaming forums is imploding over sexual harassment charges” chronicles one forum’s history of sexual violence within the community, particularly in reference to NeoGAF’s owner, Tyler Malka. In this article, Rosenberg invokes the name of Harvey Weinstein: “Such revelations have surfaced before, but in this post-Weinstein period when names are being named, the new information has triggered a mass exodus among the site’s users and staff” (Rosenberg p.2). This reminds us that these sorts of attitudes do not happen in isolation, and I hope to suggest why the gaming community is particularly vulnerable to the worldviews that drive these sorts of behaviors and attitudes towards harassment on a verbal and physical level.
For a long time, but still long after allegations of infidelity against the developer Zoe Quinn that started the entire #GamerGate history of harassing women and silencing social minorities, the Youtuber Pewdiepie (Felix Kjellberg) has been a driving force of controversy in the fight against “political correctness” that many gamers have taken up arms for. Though there has been no shortage of developers and even sponsors cutting ties with Felix upon his unapologetic attitude towards racial slurs and anti-Semitic jokes, a recent issue has been with the game studio Campo Santo. In the article “Indie Dev Calls For Copyright Strikes Against Pewdiepie After He Says N-Word On Stream,” Patricia Hernandez informs us that Campo Santo has been trying to file for copyright infringement, as gameplay of their game “Firewatch” has been featured on Felix’s channel, a “Lets-Player” they would like to cut all ties with. Perhaps more striking than the sponsor reaction to his behavior is the legions of self-identified gamer fans and other Youtubers who have stood in defense of Felix, accusing the various media outlets who report on him of being untrustworthy and deliberately trying to tarnish his reputation. This strikes me as hypocritical; a man has the majority of a community at his beck and call, prepared to defend to the death allegations of dangerous sentiment, but social justice sentiments, particularly from figures like Anita Sarkeesian, are reacted to with scorn, threats, and violence. Feminism, to many people in gaming culture, is the world’s greatest evil, and it shows in how self-proclaimed feminists are thrown to the dogs while incendiary figures such as Felix are hailed as guardians of gaming.
Upon watching one of Anita Sarkeesian’s videos, one might be surprised by how innocuous the whole thing is: it’s something you’d hear from a well-spoken friend who recently got into pop feminism and is using that lens to evaluate the games she plays and enjoys. As far as feminism goes, it’s fairly inoffensive, and certainly not as inflammatory or provocative as some types of feminism can be, particularly when politics play a larger part in the discourse. So what happened? Why does she receive death and rape threats so serious as to get the police involved? Why are some men on Youtube able to build their literal entire careers around ranting and raving about the latest Feminist Frequency? Like Zoe Quinn, it seems it had nothing to do at all with what they actually said or did. It didn’t need to be Quinn that jumpstarted it; the tensions had been festering for a long time. It was Quinn and Sarkeesian, with their innocuous games and videos, who found themselves on the frontlines. The reason, I think, is simple: they were women and they were there. A voice was too much to ask for in a space where many members make clear that the community is exclusive, and they are not welcome. I prefer to think of the type of rampant sexism and violence seen during the GamerGate controversy as a dormant beast, and Quinn and Sarkeesian were unfortunate enough to be there when it awoke, though it has always been there.
So we find ourselves here, lost and confused and angry. Where are we supposed to go from here if we don’t know what exactly happened? It’s important not to view gaming culture, in this instance, as an isolated monolith. Though sometimes socially isolated people have historically found themselves in these spaces, the culture that arose is not exempt from the same attitude we see instilled in groups from “redpill” to “incel” to “white nationalist” to any other term for the overlapping realms of nostalgic right-wing sentiment. Caitlin Dewey from the Washington Post says “At its heart, remember, the so-called ‘movement,’ was always about how we define our shared cultural spaces, how we delineate identity, who is and is not allowed to have a voice in mainstream culture. It’s about that tension between tradition and inclusion — and in that regard, Gamergate may be the perfect representation of our times” (Dewey p. 24). What I find to be of particular importance here is the notion of identity, and I would go further to surmise that some straight white men, finding themselves increasingly the target of institutional criticism that is taken personally to mean them as an individual, invest their identities in gaming culture. That is to say, their sense of identity must be contingent on being that of a gamer. Anger is bound to arise, then, when people of divergent identity become vocal in a space that the “original” inhabitants had considered to be the last beacon of white male culture. This is not to excuse the actions of these individuals, as they are but symptoms of a larger issue, but when theorizing is what we are left with, the idea of identity being contingent on particular forms of culture deserves a close analysis.
