I’m surprised a lot of people don’t really connect gamergate to current fandom neuroticism. I was too young to really understand the discussion when it was happening but even now I feel like I see the aftermath happening everywhere. The influx of reactionary online “leftists” who work backwards to justify participating in an inherently misogynistic and generally bigoted moral crusade that predates their involvement on the internet, which was actually pioneered by similarly reactionary right wingers. Like, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that primarily female and/or queer creators are placed under an exclusive form of scrutiny that cis, white male creators rarely, if ever, experience, despite often being worse as per their standards. At risk of making my argument invalid I won’t give examples, but I’m sure a lot of people affiliated with indie spaces can picture exactly what I mean.
If I had to attempt to articulate what I’ve seen – female creator who falls short of an assumed progressive standard that she, by now, should’ve understood and acquiesced to will face 10x more hate than a male creator, whom they’ve already assumed the worst of, who will instead be praised for acting above the bare minimum. It’s a “progressive” Othering of women (often by women) which only serves to preserve the decades long ritualistic internet practice of harassing a woman off the internet, and (often) even outside the internet, for her perceived “harm” or “destruction”. While gamergaters pledged to preserve the sanctity of gaming from the calamitous claws of… women!, leftists (in my experience) have been grappling with a vaguer goal that has yet to produce non-cannibalistic, tangible results. So here’s my theory! We’ve become faulty where, rather than simply accepting women, like men, are capable of and sometimes susceptible to flawed, malicious, and bigoted beliefs and behaviors, women are also positioned relative to men’s inadequacies, which are just human inadequacies of course, and thus her righteous crucifixion is predicated on the belief that despite her ability to be wrong, she is supposed to be better than men (she’s supposed to be aware of her disposition, marginalization, ergo, politically aware), so her failure to do so has constituted an unforgivable harm. It all becomes justifiable when you believe she’s choosing to be bad despite her capacity to be better, as opposed to men who are simply doing the best they could with their inherently faulty nature. This woke essentialism manifests into leftists picking up the pieces right wing gamergate pioneers left behind, but it’s different now because uhhhhhhhhhh I’m just holding them accountable.
Obviously, like everybody, women can be held accountable (which is another iffy concept but that’s another discussion). When it comes to feminism, like many progressive issues, you’ll inevitably have to address the other half of the population. But when it’s almost exclusively women being subjected to years long hate campaigns it becomes harder to see it more as accountability/natural consequences and less as misogyny masquerading as feminism. I use women as an example, this can extend to any marginalized person, but for me it’s easiest to see it with women since the misogyny feels so incredibly blatant to me. Many supposed feminists whose entire life work could be summarized to online arguments almost exclusively with women over (supposedly) pertinent feminist topics. It’s like some people dedicated their life to a functionally defeatist form of activism going after people who are just not woke enough, yet never extending their ire towards folks who don’t have a woke bone in their body (& who often work in our government), it’s ridiculous lol.
