I've long maintained that the rise of the alt-right, and ultimately the rise of Donald Trump, were birthed by the misogynistic Gamergate tantrum. Put succinctly, Gamergate was a backlash against female videogame designers and critics under the ludicrous guise of a call for 'ethics in gaming journalism'. It metastasized into a broader misogynist backlash, with added racism of course, against any female participation in 'nerd culture'.
The latest QAnon Anonymous Podcast has a great rundown of the 'chan' culture that led to the birth of the online right. Beginning in Japan with the post-recession nihilism of youth-in-Asia, this farrago of shitposting, 'ironic' bigotry, and one-upsmanship in being outrageous, this culture infected the US in a big way with the creation of 4chan by American teenager Christopher Poole. When 4chan banned Gamergate related content, many of its more extreme users migrated to 8chan, created by American teenager Fredrick Brennan, who became disgusted by his own creation after it became a venue for mass shooters to post their manifestos. He features prominently in this podcast. Also featured in the podcast is Dale Beran, author of It Came from Something Awful, which also chronicles this phenomenon.
It's a good listen, a relatively short explainer about the online radicalization that led to the election of America's first shitposter president, built in the misogynistic, cartoonish image of the internet message boards themselves.
Ah, you forgot Milo. Pretty much the first shitlord to rise to prominence(?). I have to agree with Gamergate as the fluorescence of this culture into the GOP, but it was really just defining an attitude that had been present sine the Gingrich era. It permitted cruder concepts, imagery, and language, but the soil was ripe for that crop in the GOP.
ReplyDeleteThank You.
ReplyDeleteI have been stating for a while this is when the "social media" companies decided the profit from the extra traffic justified becoming a venue for hate, bigotry, misigny and nihilistic death fantasies.
Oh That and the ammosexuals (nra0 mesaage boards.