GamerGate was a short-lived movement in the mid-2010s that claimed to focus on gaming journalism integrity, but it was often conflated with a concurrent harassment campaign, the Quinnspiracy, that it never got rid of. In reality, the movement did very little and vanished after a year.

During the 2000s, there were legitimate concerns about gaming journalism¹⁾ that we ironically accept now,²⁾ but most people weren't really tuned in to hear about the industry's then-ongoing layoffs or its struggles to compete with the rise of Twitch streaming and YouTube videos.³⁾⁴⁾ Honestly, it was a miracle that 4chan users even bothered to routinely criticize Anita Sarkeesian for 'cherry-picking' before all this happens.⁵⁾⁶⁾

Then on December 6, 2013, video game developer Zoë Quinn submitted Depression Quest to Steam Greenlight,⁷⁾ which gained attention on Wizardchan's depression-focused “Virgin9000” (/v9k/) board,⁸⁾ but Quinn reacts poorly⁹⁾¹⁰⁾ and claims to have been 'doxed',¹¹⁾¹²⁾ confusing everyone¹³⁾¹⁴⁾ until it was clear that this was a 'trump card'^15)16)17) to get it approved by January 8, 2014.^18)19)20)

“No objectives, no goals, no demands, no philosophies, no lists. No narrative changing. No leaders.”
– Anonymous²¹⁾

Following Quinn's fight with TFYC,²²⁾ the text-based game was brought to Steam on August 11, 2014,²³⁾ then came Eron Gjoni's scandalous post on Zoë Quinn's sex life²⁴⁾ which got him banned from Penny Arcade²⁵⁾ and Something Awful.²⁶⁾²⁷⁾ The news reached YouTube, it gets DMCA'd,²⁸⁾²⁹⁾ then 4chan and Reddit initiated the 'Quinnspiracy' by crowdfunding TYFC,³⁰⁾ which led to Vivian James and Gilda Mars.³¹⁾

On August 27, 2014, two videos from “Internet Aristocrat” (later “Mister Metokur”)³²⁾³³⁾ caught the attention of actor Adam Baldwin, who coined the 'GamerGate' name³⁴⁾ that stuck since it 'legitimized' them, but then “gamers are dead” caught on.^{35)36)37)38)39)40)41)42)43)} In turn, the '#NotYourShield' hashtag was also coined to disprove the angry white male stereotype, highlighting the minorities.⁴⁴⁾

For a brief moment, the movement did achieve their stated goal with mass mailing campaigns, aiming to hurt the industry's revenue, given the number of 'conflict of interest' articles silently published,^{45)46)47)48)49)} but constant smears against the movement led to suppression from 4chan and Reddit.⁵⁰⁾ By September 16, 2014, 4chan manager “RapeApe” was getting fed up,⁵¹⁾ but users caught on and set up an 8chan refuge.⁵²⁾

“gamergate has overstayed its welcome. it is starting to cause a massive burden for moderation due to hundreds of people mass reporting things they want deleted, despite no rules being broken.”
– RapeApe⁵³⁾

When 4chan formally banned GamerGate on September 18, 2014,⁵⁴⁾ 8chan had welcomed them⁵⁵⁾ and they moved from /burgers/ to /gg/. During this, Breitbart News came out with a 'GameJournoPros' mailing list conspiracy,⁵⁶⁾⁵⁷⁾ which is where people start talking about Milo Yiannopoulos and Steve Bannon's roles as key opportunists for the alt-right and later conservative victories.⁵⁸⁾⁵⁹⁾

However, the movement struggled outside of 4chan as /gg/ went up for adoption⁶⁰⁾⁶¹⁾ and forced a migration over to /gamergate/,⁶²⁾ the “8chan.co” domain gets suspended,⁶³⁾⁶⁴⁾ then /gamergate/ gets raided, and the following /gamergatehq/–/ggrevolt/ split killed the momentum. Eventually, the remnants eventually moved into a general thread on 8chan's /v/, a community that has since migrated to 8chan.moe in 2020.

The main legacy of GamerGate is that it marked a new 'culture war' in the United States, showing us that right-wingers could adapt.^65)66)67) However, a downside is that 'GamerGate' became a lazy reference point, which meant that churnalists would later tie it to Pizzagate,⁶⁸⁾ QAnon,⁶⁹⁾⁷⁰⁾ January 6th,⁷¹⁾ Depp v. Heard,⁷²⁾ incels,⁷³⁾ Sweet Baby Inc.,⁷⁴⁾⁷⁵⁾ etc.

At the end of the day, the term 'GamerGate' has mostly become an empty buzzword to scold 'conservatism', which only fuels political polarization, post-truth politics, etc. As for the gaming journalism industry, people sorta ignored how they utilized ragebait in an attempt to save a dying medium, but it took journalists being bad at video games and sports journalism following a similar path to make it more obvious.

• The term 'GamerGate' is, unfortunately, another lazily-named '-gate' scandal.
  • In turn, the detractors coined 'GamerGhazi', referencing the 2012 Benghazi attack conspiracies, but the '-ghazi' suffix never had staying power, so /r/GamerGhazi sticks out as a relic.
  • The name Benghazi literally means 'Son of Ghazi', and the term Ghazi normally refers to a Muslim warrior, so continuing under that name is bound to confuse people.
• Something Awful had a GamerGate thread,⁷⁶⁾ but it was quickly merged into the 'hellthread' of subjects that the staff disliked,⁷⁷⁾ later became the main subject, then it split back off⁷⁸⁾ or something.⁷⁹⁾
• Brianna Wu is an odd footnote, pretending to be a GamerGate 'victim',^80)81)82) then coming out as this rabid Zionist⁸³⁾⁸⁴⁾ against trans women in sports.⁸⁵⁾ Many Bluesky accounts block her.⁸⁶⁾
• On October 21, 2014, Dan Olson covered GamerGate and claimed that supporters had a vague 'Literally Who' number system (LW#) to downplay major detractors.⁸⁷⁾ This was indeed 'true' for a while, but stopped being the case since nothing was really stopping them from saying their names.
  • People have claimed that it allegedly stems from C.W. Chandler,⁸⁸⁾ but 'CWC' is a self-nickname, comes from 'CWCville', and has been in use since the Something Awful threads.⁸⁹⁾
• A noteworthy indicator of the generational split is the “Alex Wuori” troll name. Some supporters actually knew,⁹⁰⁾⁹¹⁾ but those who didn't unironically thought Wuori now posts about GamerGate.

• QAnon