1. Social Media Freaks Author: Dustin Kidd Chapter 5: GamerGate
Gender Perspectives on Social Media
Instructors: be sure to use this notes section throughout to see my ideas on how to use these slides. You can also add in your own additional notes to use in class. If you print them to have in front of you during class, be sure to select “Layout: Notes” rather than slides, handouts, or outline.
Feel free to send your ideas and feedback to me!
-Dustin
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

2. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Overview
In this lesson, we will…
Examine the phenomenon of GamerGate and the way it played out in social media,
Utilize feminist theory to understand the role that gender played in GamerGate,
Review the ways that scholars are studying gender in and with social media, and
Review the role of social media tools in collecting and sharing data from a virtual ethnography.
But first, an invitation…
This is broad overview of the slides that follow. Before proceeding, tell your students how they should consume the lecture/discussion. Talk about taking notes and what they should take notes about. Definitions are available in the glossary but it may be worth encouraging them to write them down as a learning tool.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

3. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Invitation
Click on the image to visit a Pinterest board the examines GamerGate, with several example posts from the controversy, as well as news coverage of it. Use the board to selectively review the story as it is discussed in the book. For a video primer on GamerGate, use this video from YouTube Nation: The video is three minutes and 58 seconds long (3:58).
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

4. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Invitation
This is the opening two paragraphs of the original “TL;DR” (Too Long: Didn’t Read) from the Zoepost, the blog that effectively launched GamerGate. Clicking the image links to the full post. Read and discuss the post. What would it be like to have the most private parts of your relationship, including its end, reveled on social media.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

5. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Theory
Feminist Frequency
Feminist media project run by Anita Sarkeesian, launched in 2009
Earliest videos reviewed Dollhouse, Veronica Mars, and True Blood
Well known for posts about the Bechdel Test gendered toys
Launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 to raise $6,000 for the series “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” that actually raised $150,000
This slide introduces students to Anita Sarkeesian, an important public intellectual who shares feminist media analysis to a broad audience through her project Feminist Frequency.
The site is available online at
Tumblr:
Instagram:
YouTube:
Facebook:
These links create an opportunity to discuss how different social media platforms can reach different audiences in varying ways.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

6. Theory Feminist Frequency Addresses Video Games
The image above links to the Feminist Frequency video Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games. Be sure to turn on closed captons. The video is twenty-three minutes and 34 seconds long (23:34).
Although it is not discussed in the book, this video provides a chance to add the trope of the damsel in distress to the vocabulary for the course. Additional terms include subject (protagonist) object, damsel’ed and the helpful damsel.
Discuss the ramifications of this trope and its ubiquity in video games. How is the trope “toxic, patronizing, and paternalistic”?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

7. Theory Feminist Frequency Addresses GamerGate
Although she never uses the term GamerGate, this is Anita Sarkeesian’s response to years of harassment, sexism, and misogyny online. Play it with the closed captions turned on. The video is four minutes and 38 seconds (4:38). After watching the video, discuss the issue of silence and the things we “couldn’t say.” What happens when we become silent in the face of oppression? How is that silence created by the experience of oppression and by oppressors?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

8. GamerGate Moments
Screencaps and Social Media Archives in Virtual Ethnography
Although there are multiple ways to archive a webpage, there is the risk that the archive will be taken down or have limited functionality
Screen captures are a nice way to grab an image of a site or a platform at specific moment in time
Screencaps can be saved to image archives on Flickr or Google Photos and shared publicly
Disparate videos on YouTube can be collected and shared as a playlist
Pinterest allows these archives of images AND videos to be collected, curated, and shared
Prezi is an additional helpful resource for collecting, curating, and sharing, and allows the researcher to add a narrative.
The methodology described here is used in the following slides to present the story of GamerGate.
For examples, see…
My GamerGate playlist on YouTube:
My GamerGate Pinterest board:
My GamerGate presentation on Prezi:
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

9. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
GamerGate Moments
Created by Zoe Quinn
Released in 2013
“[S]uddenly I started getting stuff sent to my . “Oh I saw your game on Greenlight and I hope you kill yourself.”
An attack on DQ was organized on Wizardchan, a site for male virgins over 30 who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET).
Clicking on the link will take you to the game’s online home.
A logical question is: “What do you mean by attack?” The participants in Wizardchan arranged to all log on to the game at the same time with the goal of causing the server to crash.
Depression Quest is the game that garnered what Gamergaters deemed to be undeserved media recognition. They accused Zoe Quinn of sleeping with Nathan Grayson, a games journalist, for that coverage. As described in the book, the coverage is little more than an acknowledgement that the game had been released.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

10. GamerGate Moments Game_Jam and The Fine Young Capitalists
In late March 2014, Quinn was invited to participate in the taping of a reality show “Game_Jam”
The show fell apart when the host kept making sexist remarks
Quinn was accused of undermining the show deliberately
Also in 2014, Quinn critiqued a group known as the Fine Young Capitalists, who were sponsoring a contest for women game developers:
Quinn accused them of using women for free research and development
She also raised concerns about their transgender policy
Nathan Grayson’s coverage of Game_Jam in Kotaku can be found at
The promo video for contest sponsored by The Fine Young Capitalists can be found at
The Fine Young Capitalists transgender policy is at
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GamerGate Moments
TL;DR
Eron Gjoni began writing his blog, The Zoe Post, about his relationship with Quinn, in August of 2014
The TL;DR post claimed that she’d had a sexual relationship with Nathan Grayson, and with other folks in gaming and games journalism
This unleashed a social media storm directed at Quinn, organized on 4chan, perhaps by Gjoni himself
Quinn had to go into hiding and has taken Gjoni to court repeatedly for violating a restraining order
This article in Boston Magazine gives compelling evidence that Gjoni is an active leader of GamerGate: .
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

12. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
GamerGate Moments
Mundane Matt and The Internet Aristocrat 2 vlogs that took the lead on GamerGate
The images link to the videos themselves. These videos might be worth watching in class, or assigning students to watch themselves, to understand this particular online culture.
Mundane Matt’s video, called “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Lover’s Scorn,” is available with closed captions (lots of wrong captions though), and is fifteen minutes and 42 seconds long (15:42).
The Internet Aristocrat’s video, called “Quinnspiracy Theory: The Five Guys Saga,” is available with closed captions, and is twenty-four minutes and 12 seconds long (24:12).
There is an additional Internet Aristocrat video discussed in the book called “Quinnspiracy Theory: The In-N-Out Burger Edition” (24:44):
I also discuss Sargon of Akkad’s video “Lies, Damned Lies and the Video Game Press” (10:56):
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

13. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
GamerGate Moments
Me Jayne
Actor Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb on Firefly) dubbed the controversy GamerGate with this tweet on August 27, 2014
Baldwin has also written several pieces for Breitbart, where his fellow author Milo Yiannopolis has led the defense of GamerGate
The same day, Anita Sarkeesian received rape and death threats on Twitter and had to flee her home
One of several of Yiannopolis’s essays on GamerGate at Breitbart:
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

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GamerGate Moments
8chan and Open Carry
When 4chan banned GamerGate discussions, it moved to 8chan
When game developer Brianna Wu tweeted about GG, the Twitter account pictured here began sending her disturbing and threatening tweets
Wu went into hiding
Soon after, Anita Sarkeesian, was scheduled to speak at Utah State University but canceled because the school refused to screen visitors for weapons due to Utah’s ‘open carry’ gun law, despite anonymous threats of violence
In moving from 4chan to 8chan, GamerGate moved into the wild west. 4chan publishes a list of 17 rules that users must follow, and reserves the right to remove any content: 8chan simply states that “In the interest of free speech, only content that directly violates the DMCA or other US laws is deleted” (
You may want to remove the image of the tweets. Gauge your students in advance. It’s important to directly confront the reality that this kind of material exists in social media, but your students may not be ready to see it.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

15. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
GamerGate Moments
The End of Gaming?
No arrests have been made from any of the harassment cases, despite an FBI investigation
Multiple commentators have questioned whether GG would be the end of gaming or the end of the gamer identity
Gaming persists, as does GG
Researcher Jennifer Allaway, whose survey on GG was flooded with responses like “suck my dick” and “kill yourself,” argues that GG should be seen as a hate group.
Multiple commentators have drawn parallels between GG and the election of Donald Trump, including GGers.
Doxxing of major figures, especially women
Creation on message boards of conspiracy theories
Coordination with Breitbart and other alt-right media outlets
For an example of GG taking credit for Trump’s election, see this opinion piece at The Gaming Ground:
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

16. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Discussion
How should sociologists make sense of GamerGate?
Is it really about ethics in games journalism?
Is it possible or reasonable to approach GamerGaters with a spirit of empathy?
Where would this approach lead us?
Why gaming?
What is it about gaming culture that allowed this controversy to unfold here rather than in other spaces that have been critiqued by feminist perspectives?
Since there were so many videos in this lesson, I suggest closing the discussion with an open forum discussion with the questions on this slide and the next.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

17. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Discussion
What issues does GamerGate raise about social media?
Doxxing
Harassment
Anonymity
Free Speech
What can we do to make social media safer?
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

18. Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Wrap-Up
Key terms, concepts, and names from this unit:
GamerGate
Eron Gjoni
Depression Quest
Zoe Quinn
Wizardchan
2chan
4chan
8chan
NEET
Hikikomiri
Game jam
Vlogger
Reddit
Doxxing
TL;DR
SJW
Feminist Frequency
Anita Sarkeesian
Brianna Wu
Adam Baldwin
Vivian James
Autobotika
Use this slide to review the concepts and quiz students on what they learned and what they recall.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

19. Resources To explore these topics further:
Some Twitter users have made tools to protect themselves from GamerGate. You can block GamerGaters from harassing you by visiting this site and clicking “Block All and Subscribe”: (or search on Google for “Block Together.”
Read the essays in: The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture.
Follow Women in Gaming International on Twitter and get to know there work to promote gender equality in gaming:
This slide can be removed if you actually plan to incorporate some or all of these into the syllabus.
Westview Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.