Ten years ago, a group of gamers attacked developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu, and media critic Anita Sarkeesian. The trio were part of a growing movement calling for a more inclusive culture within video games. The attackers doxxed their targets, harassed them, and did everything they could to silence the women’s efforts. The incident, which became known as GamerGate, highlighted the toxicity women face both in and outside of the gaming industry.
Eventually, the harassment faded from the news, but its traces never completely disappeared from the internet or public life.
Gamergate expressed a particular kind of disaffected masculinity: anger at the loss of power as its target audience. Since 2014, the incident has influenced everything from the men’s rights movement to the current shape of the Republican Party and defined what it means to be a man in certain corners of the internet.
Adrienne Massanari, an associate professor of communication at American University, said Gamergate was in many ways a harbinger of a broader right-wing reaction to real changes happening in American society. Steve Bannon, an adviser to former President Donald Trump, jumped on the bandwagon in 2015, using the power of his rabid online fans to boost Trump’s election campaign.
Within the community, GamerGate seemed to polarize men into clear camps: Men who defended Sarkeesian were called “white knights” and simps, for example, while harassers portrayed themselves as trying to protect the community from the “outside” influences of “social justice warriors” who were threatening to take away the elements that they felt made gaming fun.
“There are a lot of people who play games, but the men involved in Gamergate saw themselves as the target audience for games, and when that started to change, there was an understandable outrage,” Massanari said. “Now it’s reflected, refracted and amplified in Trumpism and a far-right Republicanism that’s responding to demographic and social changes towards a more egalitarian society.”
The same anger and resistance can now be found in figures like J.D. Vance and Elon Musk, who both denounce “wokeism” in politics and culture at large. In an interview, Musk said his motivation for acquiring X (formerly Twitter) was to fight the “woke mentality virus” that he claims is destroying civilization. In the Heritage Foundation’s political roadmap, Project 2025, “woke” progressivism is repeatedly mentioned as a threat that must be eliminated, particularly by dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in government agencies.
This connection came full circle with “Gamergate 2.0,” a backlash against inclusion efforts that has now made “DEI” a catchphrase. A decade ago, gamers pushed back against critics like Sarkeesian, who pointed out that many of the female characters in games were merely clichés. In 2024, campaigns are taking on video game consulting firms like Sweet Baby for what some gamers consider “forced diversity.” Whatever the slogan, the reason is the same: They’re angry that video game characters no longer represent their interests.
The political exploitation of masculine grievances is not exactly new, but “the mainstreaming of it is new,” said Patrick Rafeil, a sociology professor at Tulane University.
GamerGate is Debbie Ging, professor of digital media and gender at Dublin City University, said elements of this masculinity, which emerged from a relatively niche subculture, can also be found in influencers like Andrew Tate, who promote “a very simplistic, typical, stereotypical version of extreme masculinity.” The new age of podcasts, combined with the rise of “algorithm-driven” short-form video platforms like TikTok, are major drivers of this form of rhetoric, Ging said.
