Radicalization and Gaming: The New Culture Wars

[@pushinguproses]

This was really engrossing AND slightly depressing, but depressing in a constructive way that will hopefully get people thinking. I learned a few new things myself from this video. Well done.

[@DarthReggie]

Why does this amazing channel only have 10k? And this video only has 6.3k views?

[@DeLightToDeLirium]

@@DarthReggie This is quality stuff, give it time.

[@CocoHutzpah]

In a war without end, your best soldiers are the ones who don't know they are fighting for you.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

That /r/Games segment one was... weird. I agree the comments there can be very negative or critical, and there can huge influx of outrage posts during the time of controversy (although not is bad as some other places), but things like Talos Principle VR and Minecraft one were informational about the current state of both of the games on their platform.

[@_robo]

Gamers love to be outraged, and they constantly telegraph how outraged they are. Do you think reviewbombing is bad?

[@JohnSmith-ox3gy]

@@_robo I'd consider myself a gamer and I have yet to write a single review on those sites. Let's do some math. Let's take Fallout 76 as an example. It sold 1.4 million copies in the first year and now has 6500 votes by users on Metacritic thus far. Let us assume very generously that every comment is a review bomb, the bombing lasted only the first year, only people who bought the game game voted and that every bomber did leave just one review. 6500/1400000 = 0.00464285714 That comes to around 0.46% My conclusion: So one of the biggest disapointments in gaming had under a half procent of the players leave a terrible bomb review. The size of these incidents are magnified by the games journalists and random content creation personalities because it what creates views and the more you inflate the event the more views you get. In essence clickbait and hyperbole, not gamers being inherently angry.

[@Pepocho]

Two years later and unfortunately, the radicalization is still strong. Good analysis, congrats!

[@jdprettynails]

This is a subject that has affected me on a deeply personal level these past 8 years. I've watched so many videos regarding the rise of Gamergate but never from this perspective before. It's a shame it's only taken me till now to find your channel.

[@jarrellfamily1422]

This is still going on half a decade later

[@WaterCursor51]

The anger about absolutely anything in games has gotten so stupid & overwhelming it's ridiculous. People love going into spaces online now even from decades ago just to bring the mood down, just to make anything they can look worse & it's absolutely pathetic. I just don't understand how we're here today where dedicating lifetime to spite feels "cool" or worthwhile to anybody.

[@christopherhorton4634]

Oh, and this is pre-Cyberpunk, and looonnngg before The Last Of Us 2.

[@SanguineThor]

When you're chillin in a cafe in Japan but you put lean in your coffee

[@JohnSmith-ox3gy]

Ah, yes. Reddit. The nexus of calm and rational discourse.

[@VCV95]

I guess it is sometimes better than Twitter, 4chan, or tumbler? Not that that is impressive or a high bar. Just a statement of things I have seen, lol.

[@thatotherguy8138]

The funniest part of this entire video is the lack of understanding of what went into causing GamerGate in the first place. It wasn't created by Breitbart. It wasn't created to be a "conservative astroturf campaign". It wasn't created by Bannon or Milo. It was partially co-opted by Breitbart and other online Culture Warriors, but it was primarily Gamers vs Games Journalists. I don't know when that started, but I first noticed it in 2012 after the Mass Effect 3 controversy and the "Entitled Gamers". That was the first time I saw Games Journalists - not Mainstream/Corporate/Legacy/Etc. Journalists, like CNN or Fox or NBC - attacking Gamers. Up to that point I had only seen Games Journalists be defenders of Gamers and Gaming. In the ME3 controversy, a sizeable chunk of the Games Media attacked Gamers. Then the implication that Gaming became negative around GamerGate? No. To call that "wrong" is to insult the word "wrong". *Gaming has always been Negative. ALWAYS.* The creator might not be old enough to remember the Nintendo vs Sega "wars" in the 80's, or the Console vs Arcade "wars", or the Playstation vs Everything, and the X-Box vs Playstation, and the long-running "PC Master Race vs Console Peasants" (which was going on long before Yahtzee gave it an easily recognizable structure), but Gaming has ALWAYS been negative. It has always been based at least as much around our differences as our commonalities. It wasn't just that you were a fan of Nintendo - you had to hate Sega if you wanted full acceptance. It wasn't that you were a PC Gamer - you had to loathe the "casuals" who played on X-Box. Etc. And - importantly - it has always been under attack by outside groups. The Religious Right from the 80's up to the 2000's, along with moderate Liberals like Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore, have attacked Gaming and Gamers as being things like "Murder Simulators" and causing violence like the Columbine massacre, which has caused Gamers to be extremely reactionary when it comes to criticism. It has pretty much turned us into the metaphorical hedgehog, looking for companionship but our spikes hurt people who get too close. If you want to get close to a Gamer, you're going to have to put up with some shit because that's how we've learned to weed "dangerous" people out. (ie: people who would come in and try to "convert" us away from Gaming; something I actually experienced at an arcade one day when a nice Christian woman was giving a bunch of us kids quarters while talking to us about Jesus and the wonders of the Church...) Since 2012 at the very least, those "outside groups" included our own Journalists. So when a situation came up where those Journalists could be attacked - the Zoe Quinn situation - some Gamers took the opportunity to take shots at them. The fact that it came in through the story of a non-traditional domestic abuse story (ie: the man being abused and cheated on by the woman) attracted the Culture-Warrior subset of Gaming (which has always been there - Gaming has been on the forefront of the Culture War for 40 years, normally fighting against Conservative attacks), and that gave the Gaming Media two prongs to counter-attack. And since the Gaming Media (and through them, the M/L/C/Etc. media) gets to set the narrative, that's where the GamerGate narrative lie was set. GamerGate petered out in 2015, but the Media kept on trying to revive it - and still are, as evidenced by this video in 2018, 3 years after most GamerGate supporters moved on to other things. It's the Boogyman that they just can't let go of. This video is stupid. Not unexpected, but stupid. A video like this will be made in 2019, then dozens in 2020 (to take advantage of the Presidential Election, dontcha know) and probably for years to come after that. "10 years after GamerGate" in 2024. "Where were you in August 2014? A Decade-long introspection on the Right's infiltration of Gaming and Gaming Culture!". "GamerGate turns 18! Who will it vote for?" in 2032. Etc. It will be just as wrong then as it is now, except most of us who were there from the beginning will have moved on to other things and this will become the History that gets remembered. The lies. Gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, doesn't it? But on the bright side, we're looking at how "History" is written in real-time. So it has that going for it.

[@ZombieRommel]

Underrated comment. You did a good job diving into the history of video games as a sub culture and pointing out how it has always been steeped in conflict. Gaming has been maligned for most of its existence. Back in the 80's and early 90's, you were seen as a nerd / loser for playing games, before gaming hit the mainstream in the mid 2000's and grew into a gargantuan multi-billion dollar business. So as a gamer, you faced social ostracization from most of society. And then you were constantly attacked by moral do-gooders waging their personal crusades against what they perceived as the new evil. Idiots like Joe Lieberman calling games "murder simulators". Mortal Kombat and Night Trap getting mainstream media hit pieces produced against them. Over time, the games industry matured and developed the ESRB to quiet these sorts of complaints. "The games are too violent!" "Then don't buy them for your kid, the game is rated MA-17." This mostly worked, along with repeated studies showing no causal link between video games and violence. These sorts of complaints quieted down and were dismissed more easily. Then along comes Anita Sarkeesian and her ilk, and they DON'T CARE that the games industry has a ratings board. You have an army of dolts who do NOT understand anything about video games or the sub-culture trying to infiltrate it in a very bullheaded way and change it to fit THEIR arbitrary moral and political whims. AND THEN instead of defending gamers, the games journalists defended the infiltrators, the new wave of moralistic do-gooders who want to influence something they do not understand. The feminists attempting to infiltrate and change the games industry are no different than the right wing religious nuts who were trying to infiltrate and change it in the 90's - they are just a new flavor. When gamers retaliated, they did so with a tinge of betrayal in their collective voices. Back in the 90's, gamers and games journalists stood strong together against the moral crusders and we all prevailed and kept our hobby free of artistic censorship. Fast forward to the 2010's and weak-minded, brainwashed journalists sided with the new wave of feminist moralizers, leaving actual gamers, the very audience that supported them through thick and thin in an era of newly-rising independent media, out in the cold. This video COMPLETELY missed the point and it is apparent its creator gobbled up every last bit of feminist propaganda spewed forth by people like Sarkeesian who DO NOT PLAY, LIKE, OR UNDERSTAND VIDEO GAMES. As you put it, gamers as a cultural force have become reactionary, perhaps to a fault, but not without reason. Our hobby has been maligned, made fun of, and misunderstood for decades, and we have encountered people who don't like or understand the medium popping in and trying to coerce developers into their moralistic bidding. Gamers are / were sick of it, and the evident abandonment of their voice, the gaming journalists, drove the conflict to a head.

[@wedchidnaok1150]

I've lived through many of the gaming rivalries you speak of. Neither child-me nor any locals, however, were in touch with the kind of wanna-be-aggressive historical united-statesian propaganda I've come to know by KZbin. Sight-seeing as bizarreness might be fun, but reading on the environment looping around it sure puts it into perspective.

[@ingusmant]

Is funny how GG found server dumps showing the outright level of collusion in the gaming press the iga and other industry groups and yet people like the author here still deny this is even a factor.

[@chocoviria4909]

dude are you really comparing 'my sega is way better than your shitty nintendo!' to 'fucking sjws are ruining my games, let's share some alt-right propaganda' ? lmao

[@astillia6073]

@@chocoviria4909 strawman, when console gaming was for children fighting over consoles was an ingrained aspect of that culture. See Nintendo shitcube for a more old example of console warring autism.

[@russellwilliams9437]

now im an older gamer in my late 30s and i see why people are getting pissed off ! its simple. other want to take what we like and turn it in to something we dont. instead of making a new product and putting it out there and show a new vision thay want to change what we have and enjoy in to there version. remember when marge Simpson gets itchy and scratchy band !. for most gamer its pretty much like that !

[@LightiningHobo]

If games as a consumer products does not foster community, we need the antithesis of that. No one owns soccer. We need a videogame like that. Open source, community owned, community developed and distributed. We also need an e-sport like that. The NFL does not own football. But Activision-Blizzard owns Overwatch, the Overwatch league and the Overwatch teams (in a way). The wealth from overwatch league comes from owning the game and the league. They charged team owners $30 million for the rights to estabilish a franchise. Think what gamers could do for a game with that amount of money.

[@uncannyvalley2350]

Like star citizen

[@dragan4324]

This could have been done a bit better. It isn't rocket science: take a bunch of kids who see themselves as losers. One group tells them that they're oppressive sexists and racists (regardless of whether they are), the other tells them that they're brave and oppressed (regardless of whether they are). What do you think wins out?

[@thatotherguy8138]

You're forgetting that the people that are telling Gamers that they are "oppressive sexists and racists" are the people who had spent 30 years *protecting Gamers* (ie: Games Journalists) from outsiders who were calling them amoral violent sociopaths in training and the like.

[@ingusmant]

@@thatotherguy8138 protecting? They were shilling shitty games, it was their job

[@thatotherguy8138]

@ingusmant @tanel_k For a good 30 years (from the early 80's to the early 2010's, at least), the "journalists" in the Games Media understood that to shill those shitty games, they needed to have an Audience who could purchase them. So when people like Jack Thompson, Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore (as well as the American Family Association and other Conservative Christian organizations) came out and tried to ban video games in the mid-90's to mid 2000's, it was the Games Journalists who stood up and said "Video games did NOT cause the Columbine Massacre!" and "Gamers are good people." Then after 2012, those same outlets started to attack Gamers. I noticed it around the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy. It picked up steam around the Tropes vs Woman garbage. (The show wasn't worth the time to watch it, let alone the time to criticize it or tweet idiotic shit at her.) Both of those I consider to be direct precursors to GG. And at that time, the Right Wing was still attacking Gamers (and most of the time still are). It wasn't until AFTER GG started and Culture Warrior morons like "Internet Aristocrat" jumped in that GG caught the attention of Breitbart - specifically of Milo, and very few outside of him in Breitbart. (There were a few guest contributors to Breitbart around that time talking about GG, but I don't think many of them are still around.) And once Milo and Internet Aristocrat (and a few other of the twats who tried to hijack GG but don't deserve to be mentioned by name) realized that a majority of Gamers didn't care to get into the anti-feminism/anti-liberalism/anti-Left war that Milo and IA were jonesing for, IA and Milo gave up supporting GG and went their own ways with the (small) number of new supporters from the Gamers. (IA even discarded the entire IA persona and created a whole new one. My guess was to keep people like me from commenting on his videos going "So how did your plan to turn Gamers into an angry online Anti-Feminist Mob work out for you?" until he banned me from his KZbin channel.) And as far as I know, neither of them were able to transform any of that attempt to rally the Gamers to the side of Conservatives with any actual success, financial, political or otherwise. (And to pre-empt the "TRUMP!" argument that is probably going to be made, there aren't enough "Gamers" in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin for Gamers to have swung those states towards Trump without engaging in some massive mental gymnastics, like claiming "Voter Apathy" or voting 3rd party are the same as "Supporting Trump".) All this video (and most other "GG was a Right Wing Movement!" articles and videos) does is allow the creator to create a convenient narrative for himself that keeps him from needing to look inward to see where part of the problem lies. He's a huge part of the problem, and will continue to be a huge part of the problem until he (and the others who do this) drops the ideology and looks at the situation with clear eyes. No one comes out of GG in a positive light - no one.

[@neveroddoreven6597]

Practically all of you guys missed the point, and have probably never been called stuff like that or “attacked.” The media in general has a gross misunderstanding of gaming culture, and game journalists are called that specifically because a bunch of them understand that culture, and don’t demonize it. Most normal game journalists only ever call people stuff like that when they deserve it, like when people are sent death or rape threats, which-surprise!-happens way more often than most people care to think about. You’re probably pretty young and naive, so I’ll say this: NOT EVERYBODY IS OUT TO GET YOU! NOT THAT MANY PEOPLE EVEN KNOW YOU EXIST!

[@doyleharken3477]

antifa wins out

[@HalloWitch93]

I was sadly sucked into that political world years ago, back in my early 20's when I didn't know any better. Thankfully though I escaped in my late 20's and am so much happier, more empathetic, and significantly more open-minded toward other people than I ever had been before. I even found that I myself am unhappy conforming to the gender norms that I'm expected to uphold, something I'd never have learned about myself if I stayed in that toxic as shit community. Fuck the Anti-SJW pipeline. I don't ever wanna be that person again and it's my hope that more people will see this garbage for what it truly is. Spectacular job on this essay!

[@chilbiyito]

Something similar happened to f1nn5ter lol

[@purplesamurai5205]

Better an anti SJW than an SJW. There's no pipeline, you're responsible for your own actions regardless of however much you try and dissociate.

[@Birds_In_Crime]

​@@purplesamurai5205it's never a pipeline, it's a slide that you willingly go down

[@WorthlessWinner]

5:30 are you suggesting Pewdiepie is like ISIS? You do realize he's being ironic in that clip, right? R...right?

[@DemonEyesKyo]

You really make great videos and breakdowns of how entertainment and politics intersect.

[@kainedamo]

Innuendo Studios bullied a woman youtuber when she ended up on the wrong side of him, a woman who in my opinion is one of the most pleasant and kind individuals online. InnuendoStudios is not a good source when it comes to defining misogyny. Media manipulates emotions and tries to make us angry, just like when game journos went after gamers on a day in August 2014, and August 2014 didn't end. Game journos invented a moral panic because it was easier than just admitting their own flaws and vowing to do better by their audience. Media has demonized gamers, over and over, for decades. It's all a dumb moral panic with no substance. GamerGate is the most genuine grassroots consumer movement I've ever seen. Almost the entire media was aligned against GG.

[@LORDOFDRAGONS555]

Who was this person he bullied?

[@kainedamo]

www.reddit.com/comments/3w5yrv

[@kainedamo]

Also, check this out. innuendostudios.com/2012/07/22/an-apology/ And this. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/polyamory-jealousy_n_2272175.html

[@kainedamo]

My original comment on part 1 of his series. I'm angry because we're facing the modern day equivalent of 'Dungeons and Dragons will lead your kids to satanism'; we're facing a moral panic from authoritarians that are telling us which ideas are too dangerous, and I'm angry because this position has not been treated with the high degree of skepticism it deserves from the media and from academia. There are shortcomings in academia (coming from a person with 2 degrees), which we'll get to. For now, I want to show some simple statements that show the team at FemFreq to have authoritarian mindsets similar to people that said comic books were corrupting the youth, for example. "Given the reality of that larger cultural context, its dangerously irresponsible to be creating games in which players are encouraged and even required to commit violence against women in order to save them." - Anita Sarkeesian The Tropes series. "When you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time" - Anita Sarkeesian. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3mnk41ona2nosk "This shit is sick. There is something deeply deeply seriously wrong with anyone cheering for this #Doom4 trailer" - Jonathan McIntosh @radicalbytes It's really troubling (and depressing) that the #BE3 audience is enthusiastically cheering for bodies being ripped apart" - Anita Sarkeesian @femfreq thegg.net/general-news/jonathan-mcintosh-and-anita-sarkeesian-criticize-doom-for-being-too-violent/ So they're telling artists, developers, consumers, which ideas are too dangerous to create and to consume. They think sexism and racism are everywhere. They're making moral judgments and character assessments based on people enjoying the 'wrong' media. And what they are saying about this media is not demonstrative. In fact there is much evidence that contradicts her, like this longitudinal study that finds no link between games and sexism: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25844719 Jonathan McIntosh, who's earned the nickname #FullMcIntosh for his absurd statements, once said "The core value of patriarchal masculinity is control. It’s not a coincidence that control is central to many video game mechanics & stories." This seems to me like he's just using interchangeable buzzwords rather than making a coherent argument. What does he even mean? In order to understand better, I had an exchange with academic Katherine Cross, who supports FemFreq. Asked her some questions on twitter back in September. Note: cutting/pasting bits of the conversation from twitter together to make more sense. "Control" meaning the PC can always force desirable outcomes rather than advancing amid undesirable ones. i.e. the PC is not always in complete control of events in the game and must sometimes live w/undesirable outcomes." Katherine Cross @Quinnae_Moon "These terms can be applied verrrrry generally. IE, basically any competitive video game. Weak as evidence of patriarchy. Seems to me its about preference. These word definitions are putting arbitrary labels on what kind of game is patriarchal." KaineDamo @kainedamo "It's more that the lack of that kind of control is such a cardinal offence to some gamers, ergo the question is "why? " Note that I'm talking not just about existence of playstyle but the meaning ascribed to it by players. That's not trivial. Katherine Cross @Quinnae_Moon "Plenty of good games fit both molds of what you're talking about. Live w/undesirable outcomes, Telltale's Walking Dead." KaineDamo @kainedamo It's just word soup on top of word soup. Granted that twitter is limited; I still think the extended back and forth convo I had with her shows its not clear on just what was meant. These terms are SO broad. It's as though 'control' is interchangeable for other words not implicitly present in the conversation; masculinity, patriarchy = control. Whereas from where I'm sitting, its really simple, video games are the one medium that gives the audience a controller for interacting with the medium - it is only natural that game mechanics and narratives would come to give players control. And in regards to games like Witcher 3; multiple paths and consequences for quests, Telltale's Walking Dead, there are plenty of games with undesirable outcomes. There's also a high degree of subjectivity that I'd say seems based on preference (and mistaking preference for some deeper meaning) to the arguments made by this group. When their arguments are frequently word soup, its hard to know what they WANT. It's hard to know what's good enough. And seemingly very little IS good enough. The complaints get absurd; check @femfreq's comments on Fallout Shelter being 'super troubling' and 'dehumanizing'. Every complaint is put in this over-blown framework of 'this game is bad for society'. That's the framework of everything they've put out. I'm angry that it is... how many years?! And we still can't address Anita's arguments. Public figures with contentious views are going to receive hate mail. Richard Dawkins gets it, Jack Thompson got it, Joss Whedon certainly got it and from feminists no less. Here is a fact: No one has been arrested for harassing Anita Sarkeesian. Here is another fact: There is absolutely nothing anyone can do to prevent people from making accounts on twitter and youtube and making mean comments. Nothing. It's completely out of our control. That doesn't mean to say serious threats shouldn't be investigated - of course they should. But it seems ridiculous that for all this time the debate has looked like this: "Anita's arguments are bad." "She's a victim tho." It's as though presenting Anita's victimhood IS the argument; that's what it comes across as at this point. Harassment aimed at Anita IS the evidence. But that's not how it works. They made a game of Jack Thompson getting violently destroyed too. It didn't make Thompson right.

[@thomasjardine2108]

"Confirmed LARPer" 😂😂😂

[@jgunner280]

I know this is an old video, and others have pointed it out in their own way, but this is a fascinating look that is both informal and completely misguided and confused at once. You best said it with your contradiction in the end. Which one is it? Is Bannon and friends the evil genius that created a beast with some evil conspiratory right wing gamergate, or is he an opportunist that came along at the right time to exploit a piece of something? I'll tell you, since you lost track of the plot somewhere: he was just at the right place, at the right time, with a limited goal that worked in its own limitations. Gamergate started before him, and before brietbart got a hold of it. It was a messy combination of journalistic incompetence, mixed with an intrusion of their politics, and a backlash against that which united together with a few people that were already invested into fighting the modern culture war. It was already the media beforehand that fostered a right-wing attack just as well as Bannon himself could, by lashing out against identity politics, and trying to make gaming about race and sexuality far more than gaming itself ever made itself about. Naturally, because it is a culture war that infected it, politics of both sides circled around, and yes the right wing did have its influence when the time was right. But no Pewdiepie isn't some special radicalizing force by using ironic nazi imagery, and you've far lost touch when you can only sum up the efforts of the backlash as a Bannon lead force of right wing radicalization and conspiracy. Its further strange on how you isolate and tie this in with gamer outrage, and anger among the media, when it exists everywhere. Bomb calls to football stadiums over broadcasting mistakes back decades ago? How about how quick and fast this exact culture war struggle went to comics and film, or how even before, complete outrage surfaced over early casting decisions in Batman films? This anger and nerd outrage always existed, because passion runs close with fury, and people will go crazy even over something that is supposed to be funded and fueled by creativity and entertainment. Its just the internet has done what it always does, makes the world seem smaller, and all those loud thoughts at the edge of our brains can be poured out into something far bigger... and yes, profited on. You had a lot of good work put behind the video, and I learned some things myself, but there was still some disconnect and isolation in the way you've arrived to your conclusions. Its fascinating how Bannon & pals really did try to manipulate a portion of Gamergate, and in such detail. I already know of the effects of gamergate and right wing, but know some of these details was interesting. Still, I knew enough beforehand to know this wasn't some isolated factor that created and made gamergate what it is. That's just flat out false, it wasn't even a significant part. Citing a political cartoon to say otherwise, was exactly that, just showing a political cartoon from a guy that obviously makes political cartoons. Of course he's going to bat home for Brietbart and pose Milo as some savior, that's what political cartoonists do to figures they vouch for in the moment.

[@sircastic959]

Thank you for sparing me the time. Have a like. I could not have explained it better.

[@loreaver3882]

Yeah idk why he showed Pewdiepie as an example of radicalization

[@Grandmastergav86]

@@loreaver3882 because "hate speech" 😂

[@lexort4204]

@@loreaver3882 Here you go bud, better late then never. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pp_Qg4yIh6mVq9k

[@whatevers31]

this should be the pinned comment

[@WorthlessWinner]

Just because leeches like Milo latched onto Gamergate, doesn't mean they created it. It was a grassroots movement that some people tried (and largely failed) to commandeer.

[@Inhuman0]

It's quite ironic that the biggest drama queens tend to be on the right end side of the political spectrum. You know, the same who constantly claim the anyone else but them is easily triggered.

[@astillia6073]

Examples of ones who aren't power brokers, trolls or shills please? You made a strawman, but I feel you have some names to back you up.

[@TheSebagrande]

@@astillia6073 in think he means in historic way the right always was triggered easy (he has point if base of thing like censorship of music in America on 85 or anime and videos games in 2000s ) I think SJW are like a combination of hippies and old religious lady and the anti SJW are Mr burns disguise of Jimbo

[@purplesamurai5205]

I can almost smell the salt. Your very comment proves you wrong.

[@WorthlessWinner]

9:45 what do you mean, it took a hard right turn? Breitbart was *always* far to the right. Just like game reviews have always been far to the 'angry' side. The clip at the beginning suggesting game reviews have only recently became angry smells of ignorance, they've been that way since before the internet was a thing, before people got any money from youtube videos, etc.

[@idsbraam]

As somebody who had a large stack of magazines of game reviews, you are wrong, they were not angry at all. I recall reading a very positive review of wizardry 7, which made me go 'what? they were that positive about his' when I finally played the game.

[@purplesamurai5205]

You're clearly young. Just 15 years ago people weren't mad.

[@EveryTimeV2]

Fear of inadequacy in gamers probably explains why they got mad at gamergate. For the ones that didn't just fall for a lie.

[@kap1618]

What lie? All I remember were people complaining about supposed corruption in gaming journalism.

[@ReverberatingTenor]

Problem was happening on both sides, extremes trying to move those willing to have civil discourse on the matter in one box or the other. We've really done nothing since then but polarize people even more, creating inflammatory caricatures that simply add more fuel to this easily exploitable market of ideals. Its now a commodity to wear on you're sleeves and justify dehumanizing various groups of people based off simple associations.

[@raphaelmarquez9650]

One of my friends thought of a conspiracy theory on gamergate recently on how it was all planned by journalists. Imagine my shock that he could be right after watching this video, which I'll be sharing to him now.

[@arikaaa69]

How did it go?

[@Isaac-ju8lx]

I think he might be talking about that one series of 4chan posts. Rabbit hole goes deep.

[@raphaelmarquez9650]

@@arikaaa69 Well he still thinks Gamergate was all a ruse by the journalists, and possibly the ones the video covered.

[@luciobertramo783]

I don't want to be angry anymore i want to be happy

[@DjDolHaus86]

Don't get angry, you're easy to manipulate when you're angry.

[@TheSebagrande]

True that the first that populism government always do

[@peterreyes9919]

What I like about the Innuendo Studios vid on the subject of Gamergate (Why Are You So Angry?) is that he actually sites sources to support his analysis of the subject. I've yet to see a pro-GG vid that isn't just anecdotal or a compilation of other people saying the same stuff over and over again.

[@927789]

I feel like this video does not really get gaming culture. Like most of the reviewers you show in this video have been on the site for years before Gamer Gate started and were well known personalities. Angry internet critic is now new, in fact for a good while being a positive reviewer was considered ground breaking. Also Angry Joe and Jim Sterling are your examples of outrage culture? Fair but they have both disparaged Gamer Gate in the past and this really a problem limited to gaming. If you go to any subculture like movies you might find very similar things going on. I feel like you give Banon and Milo too much power because well could gaming as a sub culture really change things. Not everyone plays the sames games, and angry gaming channels have been around a long time.

[@blackmage2116]

Dominoblue22 gaming had a strong outrage culture before gamergate. But that outrage was in a sort of Pandora's box that really opened in gamergate and it affected the politics of many engaged in gamergate. What grew was an anti leftist culture.

[@blackmage2116]

Plus in gaming culture, compared to other cultures of media content, uniquely has a much stronger outrage culture. Look at competitive gaming, it's an environment that easily stirs more outrage than being part of metal culture

[@927789]

To say that gaming culture itself has become anti leftist I think is also wrong itself. Like yeah there are sects that hate left politics but guess what it's not only in gaming culture. Outrage culture does not come from gamers, because guess what it was boiling out in other sects of the culture. News always has been about selling Outrage culture. Besides that I don't think it unfair to call some of the complaints they make not important because there are shitty business practices.

[@blackmage2116]

Dominoblue22 dude my point is outrage culture is uniquely strong in gaming culture. It's an environment ripe of consumerism and competitiveness (where outrage is at it's worst). Also I didn't say gaming culture is anti leftist. It's moreso that anti leftism became more intense since gg. It grew from gamer gate.

[@927789]

....have you ever been to a sporting event?

[@fraktaalimuoto]

I discovered your channel just recently. Great stuff!

[@GodlessXVIII]

"Consumer-focused writing" then shows the Rock Paper Shotgun frontpage. Zing ! PS : I like the Adam Curtis approach of tracing the intellectual history of right-wing shifts in Western political cultures.

[@ingusmant]

Ironic, some of the biggest sellouts in media

[@itsgeegra]

@@ingusmant Adam Curtis ?

[@waltertheartist2746]

Thank you! The abstract expressionist movement was also a manipulation of the larger culture in the capitalist campaign against the USSR and the third world.

[@astillia6073]

Holodomor

[@waltertheartist2746]

@@astillia6073 come again?

[@Tacom4ster]

I miss Jack Thompson, a simple clear cut villain all gamers can unite and fight, but maybe that's fascist thinking rather fine enemies than finding solutions.

[@xenosuki]

3:33 just checked out that entire thread. Didn't see one person outraged about killing nazis. Lot of pwople were hyped to kill the nazis in the game. Why do you need to lie? I almost subscribed.

[@franciscor390]

That's the problem many consciously lie for their agenda to hold up, now i hope this incredibly talented man begin to move away from politics, i would have supported him on Patreon generously if he only stayed away from these divisive and cancerous partisan issues but simply cannot. I have lost too many friends to modern outrage culture (meaning i am not extreme enough for them) so i will stand firm. Politics is the reverse of passion it is the death of the human souls.

[@purplesamurai5205]

@@franciscor390This is how you be a centrist. Not like the fakers in these comments.

[@XRXaholic]

I think the issue isn't the anger itself (it's proper to be angry at corporate shenanigans like EA destroying studios and that MTs are basically gambling), its the replacement of any kind of real analysis with anger (because outrage, as you've pointed out, sells). One of the best examples I can find are all the outraged takes about articles exploring the idea that cuphead might have racist overtones (due to the classically racial-laden art style) or articles exploring the question of disability and optional easy modes. In most cases, the outrage was over the perceived content ("Game journalist who can't even beat cuphead calls cuphead racist!"), and not any of the actual issues raised. Despite the "gaming community" touting "feelz over realz", they're often the most likely to fall prey to the "feelz" created by amped-up, shallow outrage.

[@sircastic959]

I got right up to "racist overtones" Thank you for saving me the time. "Exploring the Idea." Military grade euphemisms.

[@PressA2Die]

To be fair, optional easy modes can be utterly awful most of the time.

[@ingusmant]

Show me one scene from cuphead that had racist animation

[@A.B.-ub9un]

@@ingusmant It's less to do with "Cuphead is racist", it's moreso that their depiction of King Dice who is coded as a black man both in-game and in the show, was based off of old racist stereotypes of old cartoons which depict black people as gamblers and would get distracted over a pair of dice.

[@purplesamurai5205]

Nice generalizing, hypocrite.

[@seaneyshell8711]

glad to see someone actually citing in their videos. even if i disagree with the main thesis. keep up the good work!

[@opaljk4835]

What do you disagree with? There’s nothing here that isn’t true

[@Fergit_]

>Tries to get an accurate representation of anything >Goes to reddit

[@Lksupasteien]

cringe caravan

[@MovieMowDown]

I went on the thread recently and there isn't any rage titles anymore. I think this guy might have cherry picked a moment in time.

[@EveryTimeV2]

Wikipedia at least cites sources. More than most people who try to dismiss anything it says with literally no thought.

[@ChavsberryGaming]

Seems a tiny little bit biased towards one side.

[@MichaelSaba]

Seemingly hellbent on proving my point, an army of angry gamers has arrived to shit up the comments. 👇~HERE THERE BE DRAGONS~👇

[@chrisiousity]

Kicked dogs howl. I oughtta know. Good video, though!

[@an2qzavok]

Woof!

[@JHFreedman]

I like your work, but you have to admit that this video was one of your worst. Here's a conclusion using this logic: ~the KKK is pushing anti-immigration ideology in mainstream politics to recruit. Therefore, everyone against immigration within mainstream politics is part of the KKK. Also, I didn't find any dragons in the comments. Did the abuse get deleted or did it never exist?

[@rehpotsirc]

LoL did someone shows this to Razorfist? lololol

[@miketo201]

this video was great and a perfect encapsulation of what happened

[@tsartomato]

how do you do fellow kids

[@an2qzavok]

You have your chain of casuality backwards, breitbart wasn't inventing the narrative, it just wrote about whatever gamergate was talking about at the time.

[@olivercuenca4109]

failing@commenting It still spun the narrative heavily as it always does, often to the point of outright lying. Breitbart is one of those things that could never have happened anywhere but a country with extremely lax laws on press standards like the USA. And it’s not even a matter of press freedom either. Loads of country have extremely good freedom in the media, but they still manage to have laws against libel and outright lies being published as fact. In fact, a good start would be to make it so that each printing of a lie is a separate case of libel like they do in the UK. Half the problem with the USA is that if someone reads a lie, there is absolutely no incentive to check its truthfulness before you print it somewhere else and perpetuate it.

[@uncannyvalley2350]

In a nutshell, gamers for all their self aggrandizement, dont actually fact check

[@sampedro9316]

You haven't even began to see our monster power

[@hank1938]

This was a nice counterpoint to what's out there. I don't agree with "all entertainment is inherently political" (see the roaring success of cat meme videos for justification), but your conclusion that it can and does become politicised is right.

[@DouglasQuaid999]

You don't think Teletubbies is political? Plebian!

[@KikiDiki]

Despite the subject matter, this video made me happy. I'm used to people being very far left or very far right when they talk about gamergate, and lots of the time are very insulting.

[@TheSebagrande]

True ,one thing if you a opinion with left or right agenda all have one and is good to listen diferet that yours ,depends of subjects but man I hate when someone say "I no want get political in my entertainment" but love Superman,south park,Rambo iii,deux ex,Gundam, bioshock, Disney or western movies

[@yeetleslaw8529]

I'm totally pounding off in comments.

[@maxschreck4095]

Wow, that was really informative. Makes me wonder if Tolkien wasn´t right and we should all live happily in the country, free from this "progress" thing.

[@linuxblacksarena]

I like how this guy only mentions Bannon's radicalization without touching up on Tumblr and Sarkeesian's own radicalization. Sure, buddy, sure.

[@Luchingador]

i mean i guess they are pretty blindsided towards their views, but there are a lot more maga edgelords now that screaming feminist...

[@alicelopez130]

N's Creations and Gunpla Review who’s being radicalized by sarkeesian? Are radical feminists in the White House, or have a single seat in the house? Or are they CEOs? Get to the next level and learn about context or you’ll fall for anything. Always look at who has the power. Unfortunately it’s not radical feminists, I wish...

[@CreamyAvocado-jq8he]

@@alicelopez130 Finland's ruling party is filled with feminists. Jacinda Ardern is a feminist and New Zealand's prime minister. There are lots of female CEOs like Rita Ambani, Lisa Su, Lynsi Snyder, etc.

[@Quiestre]

NAILS!

[@Akard517hell]

OMG that opening song is amazing its song like NAILS and I've been eager to find songs like theirs since I discovered them (one a side note, I've just binged watched few of your video, this comment is a kind of log. and I just wanna say thank you so far) edit: OMG IT WAS NAILS (in exodus)

[@Mandrak0s]

So your interpretation of an "overwhelmingly negative tone" is 9 out of 25 threads on reddit? Considering that the game industry has been crashing for a while, and that all news tends to be either positive or negative with no in-between (especially in entertainment media), that's an INCREDIBLY shallow interpretation of events (not to mention that your own video can easily be considered as negative with all the ways you characterize people that YOU clearly don't like. Why is it okay for you to do it, but not others?).

[@dadgbe4834]

why is it that you guys always focus on one tiny detail and use a criticism of that detail out of context to dismiss everything someone says?

[@francescobirsaalessandri3992]

Who is he characterizing? He just described facts as they happened.

[@ulture]

you're trying to argue that gamers don't have a negative tone and your second sentence makes the claim that the industry is crashing. Can't make this shit up

[@ingusmant]

Well a lot of AAA studios are going under and shutting down servers which basically makes their games unplayable. Most of the media corruption and fixed contests remain, but for how long?

[@astillia6073]

@@ulture so fucking stupid. Literally cannot say anything negative or its "an inherent part of the culture" Get fucked. If you seriously think the gaming industry hasn't become more amd more anticonsumer in the past ten years yoy are blind, deaf and stupid.

[@etamr60]

Even though I agree with most of the video (which is very good!), I think you tend to mix up means and ends. Being outraged doesn't lead to you being an obnoxious bigoted gamer. It has been used to promote rightful causes, such as Occupy, the "Arab spring", Iceland's protests... It's too simple to dismiss a powerful tool because it's been used by disgusting people.

[@etamr60]

(regarding games, of course anger and consumer review can't be the only discourse, but how can (video) essays exist in the reddit-twitter space? They are too long)

[@CaptainBagman]

The Arab Spring was an astroturf run by Islamic extremists.

[@samanderson806]

Wow, someone's a vegan.

[@fvtown]

Great research and video editorial. And glad to see so many others appreciate your viewpoint.

[@chilbiyito]

I don't know i think everyone is being played here be it by one side or the other

[@harunDMC]

Ragnar with the cameo

[@RagnarRoxShow]

I truly nailed Steve Bannon! ... wait that came out wrong

[@rodneyabrett]

We didn't START the culture war. It's important to understand who shot first. You're completely ignoring what the catalyst was to the reactionary response from gamergaters. It wasn't simply rage for the sake of raging because "rage sells". Most gamers that lean center-right wing on the political spectrum honestly do not have a problem with even the most "radicalized" of left-wing views regarding cultural norms. It's when some people in the games journalism space started to get aggressive towards those that disagreed with them that you got your "reactionary" response, and yes, and angry response. This was from gamers that simply wanted to be left alone about playing what they wanted to play. They didn't want to come along with you on your progressive journey to make the gaming world closer to what you wanted, but were not given an option to opt out of it. Join us or be relentlessly ridiculed and shamed for not. Even the term "radicalized" you are using here is so subjective. Does radicalization in the gamer space only have a right wing bent to it? I don't think so. I would believe in the sincerity of those on the left willing to engage in civil discourse if they lived by their own standards when attempting to have a fair discussion with their political "enemy". Unfortunately, this usually isn't the case. You reveal your blatant partisan bias when you sum up the entire right-wing argument as "raging against anti-racists and intellectuals". Are you serious? Do you not think that the right-wing of the political spectrum has a single worthy intellectual that is respectable, yet you disagree with? Is Shelby Steele a racist? Larry Elder? I'll be the first to admit that both Breitbart media and Milo completely exploited the gamergate movement for financial gain, but I gotta say the conservative/libertarian gamer commentators out there on KZbin give you guys way more respect that you give them. #NotMyShield

[@iateyoface9d7]

Outrage is saying the ballgame needs to be stopped (cancel culture, harassment campaigns, BIG BRAIN (TM) critiques of "TOXIC GAMER (TM) CULTURE") Passion is saying it needs to be better and why it's bad at the moment (Questionable dev decisions, anti-consumer practices, "griping" and "ranting" about the state of an art form that's become an oversaturated cesspool of an industry).

[@vagabond8385]

I really love your work in general but this a very biased and opinionated video. Also taking a video of PewDiePie where he's mocking the media for spreading the lie that he was a Nazi is very strange and off putting? I don't get what you got so political and one sided but it's definitely affecting the quality of your content.

[@fvtown]

Nah I loved this. Good on him to articulate an opinion in a factual and comedic way. People complaining about sjws are just as bad as cancel culture itself.

[@runeblade6596]

As soon as I saw the Pewdiepie clip I wanted to click off so bad, like imagine actually using an intentional mockery as an example of radicalization, but I figured I should at least hear him out for the rest of the video because maybe a differing perspective would be interesting, and I gotta say I certainly feel like clicking off would've been the best decision in hindsight lmao.

[@Whoo711]

We live in the actual timeline where there's a fairly-well-known blog/"gaming news site" that actually, unironically refers to itself as "One Angry Gamer."

[@mBUSHattack]

Fucking squeeling at the killer mike track. I need a link to the persona 5 rap one so bad.

[@aaroncls727]

ah man, you went on that tangent fast and furious

[@johnj2716]

Persona 5 is the best videogame ever made

[@Scriven42]

Chrono Trigger Forever.

[@Soundole]

A fascinating thesis, well researched and well presented. Awesome video mate!

[@vagabond8385]

Nah

[@lordofchaosinc.261]

Make no mistake I sometimes enjoy KZbinrs ripping faulty games to shreads (intelligently) but there's so much outrage mongering in modern media it's ridiculous. Well it's their business model. Scandals, cllickbait, then display ads. They pretend they are different sides or some such thing but they're all playing hand in hand honestly. Whether outside the populace starts civil war they don't give a damn frankly.

[@squwooshk]

I've noticed a slight push back in gaming with a lot more leftist, at least from my perspective as a Socialist and gamer.

[@vitradesk]

pounding off in the comments here for ya

[@JHFreedman]

Made a comment on this vid a while back. Oh God. I'm so sorry. Fuck. I genuinely feel stupid for contributing to the fascist zeitgeist so late after GG died.

[@brianj4201]

What I tend to dislike is that gamers will say that video games don’t promote violence or make already violent individuals even more violent. I think as a medium we should be able to tackle these uncomfortable questions, and come to some conclusions rather than just say it isn’t so.

[@brianj4201]

I dunno what happened to my comment, but yes: Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is worse than anyone can imagine. And it’s never covered properly unlike your standard *insert brown skinned terrorist here* so the Al Qassam thing falls on deaf ears with me.

[@brianj4201]

There are so many more problems out there. The Buddhists of Myanmar’s treatment of their neighboring Muslim population, Assad’s treatment of the Sunni Muslim population in Syria, and India’s treatment of the Kashmiri Muslims. It’s all fucked up, and the idea that any problem in the USA is worse than what’s going on in the rest of the world is laughable.

[@manakakisaragi9121]

It is pretty surprising how while your work on NieR and Metal Gear is so complex (I think that you video essay on NieR: Automata might be the best video essay on a video game on all of KZbin), including insightful perspectives that show a deep understanding of the games, their creators and their wider impact in the industry, this take on the video games front of the culture wars is as simplistic and paper thin as a BuzzFeed article on the matter. In your video about the Metal Gear franchise, you point out the interesting elements of MGS2's criticism of the manipulation of public opinion through simplified processed narratives and I think that maybe you should revisit this subject applying those critical eyes to the entire picture. The manipulation of narratives doesn't only come from alt-right types, I would say that this video shows the "other side" is pretty effective on that front as well. You depict a very complex situation with a wide variety of different perspectives as a two sided thing, with a cartoon as one of those sides. Usually it takes radicalization on more than one camp to have a war...

[@user-rw1zo4cv4p]

did you even watch past two minutes in this video and how he highlighted the manipulation of public opinion regardless of specific media source political standing, or are you just mad that the video decided to focus on the very real rise of fascism thanks to the manipulation and power of figures like Steve Bannon?

[@techniqueswithtodd]

Just saw that you worked at CNN in Atlanta. Very small world indeed!! I was down the way at the Turner Campus. Love your vids.

[@RegenerationOfficial]

social mercenaries

[@KokoRicky]

Interesting dislike to like ratio. Can these folks actually argue against this video, or are they just bitter about being called out? Great stuff. Subbing.

[@ShawnF0912]

True that a lot of gaming reddit is negative, but its all reactions to somebody else's actions. Getting screwed over by triple A publisher, or getting thrown under the bus by the gaming media. Plus pewdiepie was not a radcalizing element. That's taken out of context

[@osakanone]

520 nazos are pissed you saw through them

[@cayvzcult]

Lol your parody of Razorfist. His channel kicks ass.. I dig your stuff too.

[@fluffy6923]

I spent a good amount of time on gamergate subedits. And I can say for sure, that fore the most part it is an very inclusive community, with good sense of humor, that cares about freedom of speech and journalistic ethics. Also there were polls on gamer gate subedits and results showed that most people in gamergate are on the left or close to the center. GameGate naturally doesn't like far left, because far left is very authoritarian and generally doesn't like freedom of speech and expression. Same goes for free market. Unfortunately so many people on a left hold those autorotation believes, that people who are genuinely hold liberal values, now have to call themselves classic liberals, because people who call themselves liberals nowadays are often against freedom of speech and expression, and free market. I previously used term "far left", but those believes became so prominent, that it often feels, that majority of people on the left hold those values. For all my life republicans were the bad guys, but it feels that everything moved to the left and when that move happened, majority of people on left became radicals that don't hold liberal views, while right became closer to the center. If you look at people who attack freedom of speech and free market, nowadays, it's usually the left, while people on the right are usually defending those values. So it isn't surprising that Trump won, while being not a great candidate at all. It's just a reaction to what is currently happening on the left. I would argue that it is left that is engaging in radicalization of gaming, mostly using written media to do it. Nowadays most gaming websites seem to be run by left political activists, which often results in gaming related anticlastic that serve as propaganda. And even when it's not, you can clearly see that objectivity wasn't a goal for a lot of those articles and reviews. See coverage of Kingdom Come from Eurogamer, Waypoint, Kotaku as the latest example. I don't like conflict. But at the moment I believe that very harmful ideology is successfully taking over western world, so I'm glad that there's at least some resistance to it, and that resistance also serves as proof that some amount people who hold genuinely liberal views are still there.

[@Wigggy]

I think you need to watch this video again because it's almost perfectly describing you.

[@Korgull6669]

Fluffy The left has never been for free markets, they've never been liberals lol. Leftists are socialists. Liberals are capitalists. Leftists stand for the elevation of the working class to the dominant class of society, for the purpose of dismantling the class hierarchy and creating a freer and better society with the working people's needs in mind, rather than the wallets of the powerful. Liberals, on the other hand, stand for the dominance of the capitalist class over the working masses and the people. They are on the side of tyrants, the powerful, and the wealthy. The "white moderate" that MLK believed were a greater obstacle to freedom than even the KKK, those are what we would consider typical liberals. They ain't the good guys in the story of life, my dude. And if you seriously believe the left has any major influence in western society, you're way too far right to be considered a trustworthy source. The world is still very dominated by western capitalists and other enemies of the working class.

[@MayorOfEarth79]

So did you notice how all those Gamergate figureheads like Milo and Cernovich and the various Anita Sarkessian critics turned into massive Trump fanboys or bigtime haters of Democratic politics? Did that set off any alarm bells?

[@theblur4828]

This is communism. It fails. Every. Single. Time.

[@theblur4828]

Well, there was a bit of outrage at the double standard of calling an abuse victim a "jilted boyfriend" when she was the one doing the abuse and the entire San Francisco gaming media was covering up for her. It's all in the screenshots in the Zoe Post. Read it.

[@gaminggamer2455]

mainstream gaming press

[@cwb9318]

The goofing on Rageaholic was my favorite part His gimmick is tiresome, i'm sorry but it's so boring ok we get it, you're mad ok dude lol

[@forresthunter1483]

Great video, but waaaay top broad when it comes to politics and gamers. Not everyone who supported GamerGate were spurred on by right wing propaganda. I'm very liberal and supported the ideas behind GamerGate. I didnt support the disgusting harassment that permeated both sides of the debate, however. I imagine the same was true of many people who supported it. You didnt see too many liberals supporting it because the media they consumed was pushing a narrative separate to the issue at hand. What I'm saying is that both sides are guilty of utilizing anger and outrage to mobilize mobs. This isn't inherently right-wing.

[@franciscor390]

That's the main issue, they cannot see that it's them who unknowingly become radicalized, I've always disliked partisan politics because it is inherently a dishonest hussle where you actively pervert or remove congruence from your opponents message and then pass that twisted information to your own group, you have to do this otherwise you would not be able to separate the groups people, this way you create your soldiers, you turn children against their parents and send them to the gulag, it's a very totalitarian way of controlling people. And it's here where i check out if you cannot see arguments from all sides and simply boil down their opinions as evil needing to either have them fired from their job (and now their children go hungry) or worse be rightfully "destroyed" then ding ding ding you have become radicalized. And lost part of your soul.

[@PresidentScrooge]

Or maybe the issue lies with an increasingly aggressive political pressure from both sides? People play games and use other forms of entertainment as a means to do something else outside of the burdens of reality. Sure, that doesn't absolve difficult story-telling (the success of the Witcher series is a good example), but it remains FICTIONAL. Instead - and I really don't care what political side does it, even if you are displaying it only being the right-wing while the left is just as guilty - politics are being shoved down peoples throat. Within their hobbies. And unlike other realms of hobbies, gamers didn't have none of it. Just like they fought back against the right-wing accusations of Jack Thompson it happened against the left-wing accusations prior and during Gamergate. Did Bannon use that movement for his own gains? Of course. That's how people get into power. By knowing how to use the drive of others to their own advantage. Doesn't mean this wouldn't have happened without. He gave it a platform and steered the angry mob to an extent - within the realm of what the mob wanted. He was at the right point at the right time to benefit from and use an increasing dissatisfaction of the status quo within the gaming industry, but also within the broader picture of society, culture and the nation itself. But to downplay those real issues that are being tackled and that there are different valid points of views due to its origin is simply ignorant and intellectually dishonest. But most importantly it is incredibly arrogant in the way you talk down about the people having very different views from you in a way that negates any sense of dialogue as it displays your (political) view as the only valid one. Especially when you imply the people having that kind of view being a bunch of controlled fools. That's not how you get people to listen to, but to get them become more antagonistic towards you. And rightfully so.

[@redrenegade7724]

18:08 sums it up perfectly.

[@jonnyvelocity]

You forgot to say "God f**king speed."

[@gregs356]

Rageaholic ?! Lmao

[@SinclairLocke]

this is a weird conspiracy theory

[@ViviVoid]

Welp, here I go pounding off in the comments again!

[@yunglynda1326]

Loved this!

[@ingusmant]

What GG did was show a lot of oblivious gamers how corrupt mass media is, and how even fellow liberals would throw them under the bus rather than help clear things out. Pretty much everyone directly involved in the scandal that led to GG was a piece of shit: you had scammers, grifters, unironic racists, people who fixed contests so only their friends won, bloggers who charged devs to praise their games (and trash them if they not). You really have to be living under a hole to not get why this pissed a lot of people off. It was similar to what happened later with bernie sanders and the dnc, they even used the same vilification strategies like the "berniebros" crap. The radicalization came much later, it was more a consequence of the entire gaming community getting shat on by pretty much every news outlet either because the corruption it exposed was bad for their business or simply because they didn't want to backtrack on their previous shitty reporting. There was a poll in GG and the vast majority were liberals, but needless to say a lot of people simply stopped being in the left anymore, not because they automatically became right wing (fox news was anti GG too) but they simply stopped supporting liberals.

[@JessicaRainey970]

Its fascinating to look at this debacle from the perspective of a 'cinephile', because I'm struck by both obvious parallels between gaming and movie communities - see any recent backlash between 'fans' and critics and cinephiles, the former tending to have a liberal-right lean, the latter leaning liberal-left - and the vast differences - gaming, for example, does not have a century plus of thoughtful criticism and theorizing behind it, so there's a whole lot more diversity of thought there. Gaming culture is largely caught between a young (practically prenatal) sociopolitic focused group of theorists and critics (most left leaning commentators), casuals (the majority), and an aggressive wave of anti-thought elements (GamerGate), with none of these primary groups delivering any serious thought to the form of gaming - for that you must look into small pockets of gaming culture. Meanwhile, the entire development of the cinema owes a great debt to such criticisms of form (see the influential Soviet films of the 20s, and the French New Wave of the second half of last century), and formal criticism itself dates way back as well, and is the foundation of a lot of film education - the socially oriented criticisms of film really date back to the likes of Laura Mulvey, and films themselves have pretty much always had strong social criticism in them. I get the impression that gaming intellectual culture is skipping a few steps, and the lack of classic games with strong, direct social commentary or criticism in them, renders the whole thing somewhat redundant, compared to the cinema, with its Birth of a Nation and In the Heat of the Night and Jeanne Dielman and such completely justifying the notion of sociopolitical readings of film.

[@MomtgomeryAle]

This was absolutely fantastical Can’t wait to see more New subscriber

[@ferklk]

You touchy the gamey, you got stung

[@ferklk]

Also if gamers decided to go the way they did it's the fault of everyone the left pushed us right into the arms of the right

[@markusmindestlohn2657]

"People told me I am a rapist, so I became a rapist." That's what you sound like, ferklk.

[@ferklk]

Nick i agree completely if anything I'm more centered in my beliefs, but just like you said the left became so radical and started bashing everything that wasn't in their way, in the end gamers were bound to escape from that bullshit

[@Nidael009]

ferklk Remember folks , whenever someone says they are in the center , they usually mean they are right wing conservatives.

[@eljamaicano1]

Daniel thank you for proving your irrationality, i just needed some clear proof

[@titotitoburg6298]

This is a really slanted take you got here, perhaps try and see things from an unbiased perspective.

[@DanielBMS]

Really wish you didn't plug 'Why Are You So Angry?' by Innuendo Studios as a credible summary. That video series was heavily debunked by many different KZbinrs as well as my personal observations that I made when I watched it. I wish because this is a really insightful video after all. Very correct how you call out who the conservatives are who work in the background.

[@InTheMindOfDavid]

It sucks that you yourself are a gaming and somehow (as least in this video) don’t understand what the issue actually is and don’t see a problem with what’s happening in gaming, it’s wider implications toward the First Amendment(in the U.S.) and Free Speech and Expression. Game Developers are a chastised for being sexist if they don’t have a strong female character in a World War 2 game. Or call them racist for not having black NPCs in a game that takes place in Bohemia during the 1300s, completely disregarding historical context, all to appease these banshees that won’t even buy the game anyway because they don’t play video games. This is a clear case of “Normies” coming into a community they aren’t apart of or care about, and tell that community that they must deconstruct and reform the community to reflect an imagine that does not accurately represent the community. And Woe be to those that resist or speak out about how ridiculous this all is. They become ostracized and shunned by the games media who is helping push this bullshit along by attacking, misrepresenting, ignoring, and demeaning their own audiences and viewers. The Gamers has a whole community haven’t done anything wrong. We just want to play our fucking video games, and experience stories that they developers intended that doesn’t have some bullshit shoehorned into it.

[@TheBoagboy]

On another note thank goodness your using a new raid boss as your footage for WoW hate it when people use the old shit, is a completely different game and shouldn’t be treated like it is.

[@morgengabe1]

As much as I'd hate to slurp up the Kool aid on this one I think that it was pretty pointless for people to take games and franchises that weren't marketed to them as opportunities to get on their soap boxes (so bannonists aren't the only Bellends at play here). Instead of trying to make one game that speaks to every concern that any individual might have, make varieties of games that cover the bases. This line of thought probably makes me a cuck and a fascist, depending on who you ask, but it bothers me that at least a lot of the people who say things like "gaming is pointless" and "games are sexist" aren't people who've made games or played many games that they like.

[@ingusmant]

They simply got into gaming in a pathetic attempt to stay relevant, and most game journos aren't gamers but total hacks who couldn't make it anywhere else and are stuck writing clickbait while selling reviews on the side

[@femorllarina9395]

What's the name of the metal intro song?

[@FredericoTarasuk]

What a work! Marvelous! Please keep it rockin!

[@lukastakatani]

Where is the conclusiooooon???

[@balduran7841]

A war without end has no conclusion.