sign in sign up
<<
Home , All or Nothing (Glee), Anita Sarkeesian, Ars Technica, Arthur Chu, Brianna Wu, Buzzfeed

DICTATING THE TERMS: GAMERGATE, , AND (IN)EQUALITY ON

Shane Snyder

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF

August 2019

Committee:

Radhika Gajjala, Committee Chair

Laura Landry-Meyer Graduate Faculty Representative

Sandra Faulkner

Timothy Messer-Kruse © 2019

Shane Snyder

All Reserved iii ABSTRACT

Radhika Gajjala, Committee Chair

In late 2014 the mainstream press reported about a far-right movement that sought to

discredit feminist, anti-racist, and trans-inclusive interventions in the video games industry, its

products, and its consumer . Called GamerGate by its devotees, the movement began

when American game designer Zoë Quinn weathered public after her ex-boyfriend

published a five-part falsely alleging she had with a game journalist to collect a

positive review for her game Quest. GamerGate activists launched a

against Quinn but attempted to absolve themselves of harassment by rebranding the movement as a game consumer revolt against unethical journalists and leftist academics. Almost five years

later, GamerGate continues to grow in membership on its official subreddit, /r/KotakuInAction,

which is a self-governed hosted on the popular discussion forum-based

platform Reddit. Shortly after /r/KotakuInAction materialized, a conscientious objector created the pro-feminist /r/GamerGhazi to resist GamerGate.

Despite Reddit’s massive user base, its 1.2 million subreddits, and its ubiquity in

American culture, it remains an underexplored space in the academic literature. Academics have

neither adequately addressed Reddit’s role in promoting far-right communities like

/r/KotakuInAction, nor the efficacy of using Reddit as a space for staging feminist resistance to such communities. Drawing from , , and masculinity studies, this dissertation investigates /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi’s use of the Reddit

interface—most particularly its upvoting and downvoting mechanic—to shape debates around

and critical race issues in American culture. iv The research is based on data collected over the course of six months from discussion

threads on each subreddit, subreddit wiki documents, and the Kingdom Come:

Deliverance. Using a mixed methods approach defined by textual analysis of site commentary and wiki documents, visual analysis of each subreddit’s aesthetic and a video game text, and an analysis of Reddit’s user interface and algorithm, this dissertation addresses the political tensions and contradictions within and between /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi. This project concludes that Reddit’s design and algorithm make it unlikely for intersectional feminist communities to thrive on the platform. v

For my dad, mom, wife Erin, and cat Frankie

Without whose unconditional love and support this project never would have been vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a debt of gratitude to my brilliant, insightful, and attentive dissertation committee.

The many hours my dissertation chair, Dr. Radhika Gajjala, devoted to directing my focus,

calming my nerves, poring over the finer details of my argument, and assuring me of this

project’s importance and originality empowered me with the to temporarily set aside

my unearned feelings of academic fraudulence. I am also profoundly grateful for the

indispensable insights of my committee members. Dr. Sandra Faulkner taught me the importance

of remaining flexible, creative, and empathetic in my research methods. Dr. Timothy Messer-

Kruse reminded me that a research project of this scope is merely iterative, never finished, and

that new questions are always hiding in plain sight. I am also eternally grateful to my graduate

representative, Dr. Laura Landry-Meyer, who took on this project at short notice and gave it

careful attention.

Special thanks also go to Dr. Jolie Sheffer, who over the last four years not only helped

me improve the clarity, concision, and depth of my writing, but profoundly shaped my

professional . Her detailed and insightful advice greatly added to my understanding of the

theoretical concepts that structure this dissertation. As my former supervisor at the Institute for

the Study of Culture and (ICS), she taught me that professionalism engenders confidence.

I will forever value my two years working as her Graduate Research Assistant at the ICS.

I could not have advanced through this incredible, life-changing program were it not for the support of my cohort and the American Culture Studies program. To Aju and Tessa especially, wherever you go, you are my lifelong friends. I will miss visiting your office any day of the week to vent about the job market, our dissertations, and the many obstacles that await us.

I am also deeply indebted to the American Culture Studies graduate secretary, Beka Patterson, without whose support and availability I would frequently have been lost. vii I owe a special thanks to Flatlands Coffee and its talented baristas for providing a welcoming venue to draft most of this dissertation. Flatlands is a shining gem in Bowling

Green’s downtown region. May it flourish for many years to come.

I would also like to thank my friends and family back in Sacramento, .

For the last six years I have been swamped with graduate work and all the stresses that come along with it, but I could always rely on you to be there when I needed you most.

Last but certainly not least, Dr. Garrett Gilmer guided me through this difficult process.

For his two years of service to me, I am forever in his debt. viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter Breakdowns ...... 3

CHAPTER ONE. A MOVEMENT BEGINS: GAMERGATE, SOCIAL , AND THE

REDDIT PLATFORM ...... 7

GamerGate’s Beginnings ...... 7

Reddit and Its Subreddits ...... 18

Reddit the Platform...... 18

/r/KotakuInAction ...... 21

/r/GamerGhazi ...... 26

Toward a Definition of Social Justice ...... 28

Academic Social Justice ...... 28

Social Justice in /r/KotakuInAction ...... 32

Social Justice in /r/GamerGhazi ...... 37

A Note on My Use of the Term “Activist” ...... 39

The Game Consumer Identity...... 40

CHAPTER TWO. APPRECIATING RESEARCHER BIAS: METHODOLOGY, METHOD,

AND THE FEMINIST QUESTION ...... 45

Feminist Methodology ...... 47

What is a Feminist Methodology?...... 47

Feminist Standpoint and the Problem of Essentialism ...... 51

Intersectionality ...... 58 ix

Masculinity ...... 61

Combining Intersectionality and Masculinity ...... 65

How I Adopt a Feminist Methodology ...... 67

Methods ...... 70

Challenges with Data Collection on Reddit ...... 70

A Note About Online Versus Offline Data and Research ..... 73

Data Collection Methods ...... 77

Multiple Methods and Primary Sources ...... 79

CHAPTER THREE. (RE)WRITING HISTORY: GOVERNANCE, , AND

DIVISION ON REDDIT ...... 84

(Re)Constructing History on /r/KotakuInAction ...... 85

(Re)Defining the Terms ...... 86

Don’t Call It a Movement ...... 97

Violent Video Games, Politicians, and the Game Consumer Identity ...... 103

Care, , and White Trans Resources on /r/GamerGhazi...... 107

Transgender Care Resources and Masculine Discomfort ...... 107

Dismantling Mythologies, Confronting Toxic Masculinity ..... 110

What About Race? ...... 113

The Subreddits, At a Glance ...... 115

Game Bosses and Geek Masculinity on /r/KotakuInAction ...... 115

/r/GamerGhazi, White Fragility, and Discourses of Race and ...... 125

CHAPTER FOUR. DISTORTING HISTORY: SOCIAL , KINGDOM COME:

DELIVERANCE, AND REDDIT’S USER INTERFACE ...... 133 x

Social Media Algorithms...... 136

Three Social Media Scandals ...... 136

Discourses of Individuality and on Social Media ...... 140

Masculinity and Reddit’s Algorithm and Interface ...... 142

Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Medievalism, and the Politics of Gender and Race .. 149

Historical Authenticity as a Political Refuge ...... 149

White Supremacy and the Medieval Past ...... 157

Historical Accuracy and GamerGate ...... 163

Historical Accuracy and White Masculinity on /r/KotakuInAction ...... 166

The Consumer Identity and Whiteness ...... 166

Social Justice and Concealed Desires ...... 170

Downvoting Dissent, Reasserting Control...... 173

The Death of the Author is the Death of Authority ...... 176

Feminism, White Fragility, and the Politics of Disagreement on /r/GamerGhazi..... 182

Uncovering Whiteness, Troubling Historical Accuracy ...... 182

Redirecting Sympathies, Imagining Historical Whiteness ...... 185

Consumer Identities and the West ...... 188

Western Imperialism and Intersectionality ...... 190

CHAPTER FIVE. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ...... 194

REFERENCES ...... 203 xi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1 /r/KotakuInAction front page on the old Reddit interface ...... 22

2 /r/GamerGhazi front page on the old Reddit interface ...... 27

3 A list of /r/KotakuInAction wiki page resources ...... 87

4 /r/GamerGhazi wiki page with links to trans care resources ...... 108

5 Reddit’s /r/Popular front page ...... 144 1

INTRODUCTION

On February 24, 2016 a post on AdviceAnimals, a meme subreddit (or community) on the social media platform Reddit, drew my attention. It was the college liberal meme accompanied by a hyperlink headline that read “Met this winner on a Tinder date.” Meant as an apparent tongue-in-cheek jab at the perceived hypocrisy or wrongheadedness of leftists and self- described liberals who telegraph their views on identity, representation, and oppression, the college liberal meme is an image of a white woman wearing glasses and a knitted cap under which dreadlocks frame her alert but pensive face. When it first appeared on the image site Photobucket in 2005 with the caption “‘I’m against of any type’ / listens to rap music with lyrics about abusing women,” it held all the token hallmarks of meme culture: a replicable folkloric joke text characterized by a sentence or statement on the top and bottom of an image that conveys a template message about which everybody in the agrees.12 Looking at the meme, one could not help but capture the dense symbolic — the quintessential second-wave hippie feminist with a penchant for smugly dispensing her unsolicited opinions about social justice to anyone in her radius.

In that sense, the original poster utilized the image macro appropriately. According to the caption fringing the image, the original poster had apparently gone on a date with a woman who made the claim that cannot be racist. Seeing this as an opportunity to use my background to clarify that this person’s date may have meant to invoke the somewhat outdated and less nuanced sociological definition of than is in vogue today, I made the

1 “College Liberal,” Know Your Meme, last modified December 24, 2011, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/college-liberal.

2 Alice Marwick, “Memes,” Contexts 12, no. 4 (2013), 13. 2 decision to promote myself from passive to active participant and commented that the original poster’s date might have meant to argue that “victims of racism constitute the subjugated group, so people of color (including those deemed ethnically nonwhite) are not so much racist as they are prejudiced.”3 My comment, which I had interpreted as an act of empathy for a position people had been dismissing as mere stupidity, immediately received a backlash from the community in the form of downvotes. My comment had been pushed to the very bottom of the thread, while those who allied with the original poster were rewarded with upvotes and granted visibility.

Only one user had given me the chance to explain myself and expressed curiosity for my position. We entered a back-and-forth that lasted for a few days, during which I implored the community (as though this person were its representative) not to dismiss the woman, but to consider the utility of invoking a definition of racism that combines prejudice and power as an act of political resistance. We did not agree in the end, but to this day I appreciate that user for the patient way they handled my frustration and at the fact that the community had dismissed what I saw as innocuous dissent. Maybe that user understood because they had been through this process, too, and knew that it was already too late—the community had used

Reddit’s interface to punish me for my failure to fall in line. My post was invisible to almost every subsequent visitor.

After my ephemeral string of comments had been archived to oblivion, remembered only by my almost inactive profile’s comment history, I learned the valuable ethnographic lesson to temper my pedantry with a kind of stoic understanding. There was no scenario where I could

3 For a more detailed sociological definition of racism and structural racial inequality, Matthew Clair and Jeffrey S. Denis, “Sociology of Racism,” The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences 2, no. 19 (2015), 857-863. 3

have made my objections intelligible to the AdviceAnimals community, but the incident had left

me wondering what acceptable dissent relating to issues of race and gender would look like on

Reddit, especially in communities directly concerned with social justice activism.

This dissertation is not concerned with the AdviceAnimals community. I merely offer this anecdote to illustrate why, in the pages that follow, I focus on Reddit, the communities within it, and the ideas it supports or silences. With this dissertation I puzzle over how one far-

right, anti-feminist community that bases itself around a nearly five-year-old harassment

scandal named GamerGate uses the democratic Reddit interface to form its own activist online bubble. Conversely, I look at how a feminist, anti-racist community responds to GamerGate’s regressive worldview. I give Reddit’s interface, especially the upvoting and downvoting mechanic I alluded to above, close attention in order to show how the platform’s very design

makes it difficult for feminist communities to flourish.

Chapter Breakdowns

Chapter One begins the dissertation with a brief outline of the ’s

roots in 2014. Beginning as a harassment campaign and transforming over the years into a full-

fledged movement, GamerGate has attracted a substantial portion of the anti-feminist American

public that shares anxieties about more equal representation in video games. Over the years

GamerGate’s adherents repeatedly rejected media portrayals of GamerGate as a political

movement and attempted to rebrand it as a consumer revolt against unwanted incursions of feminism and critical race issues in video games. GamerGate activists retreated to the social

media platform, Reddit, to form their own community, called KotakuInAction and coordinate

campaigns to strip funding from news outlets that do not support their message. I also discuss the feminist Reddit community, GamerGhazi, that formed in resistance to GamerGate, 4 and describe how they sell themselves to the wider public. I subsequently outline the following three distinct ways of defining social justice: academics’ definition, KotakuInAction’s definition, and GamerGhazi’s definition. Finally, I discuss the formation of the problematic game consumer identity, which is a chosen identity largely claimed by white men and boys who gain legitimacy through their esoteric knowledge of video games and .

In Chapter Two I outline my feminist methodology, which entails a brief literature review of feminist epistemology, intersectionality, and masculinity studies. These three bodies of literature act as my justification for researching my sites. Rather than focus on my history with video games and my personal investment in , this chapter is also where I consider my relationship to the data as a researcher, as opposed to my relationship to video games as a cultural participant. While the two are not necessarily separate—for example if a researcher opts to do participant observation and ethnography—in this case my and emotional investment in the evidence is influenced profoundly by my academic bias. While I agree with that true objectivity is a fantasy, I also contend that disclaiming bias does not absolve the researcher of explicit partiality.

I also discuss my multiple-methods approach, which is broken into visual, textual, and user-interface analysis. I describe the process for each part in relationship to the subreddits and one game text, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, I analyze. I describe my coding criteria, as well as the logic for my selection process. A project of this size and scope necessarily implies self- imposed limitations, so this is the chapter that outlines that intellectual process. Meticulous and careful methods make the between evidence-based inference and wishful thinking.

Chapter Three is where I outline Reddit’s governance structure and algorithm in relationship to the politics of both subreddits—KotakuInAction and GamerGhazi. I discuss the 5

internal politics of each subreddit according to their proprietary wiki documents approved and compiled by community members and moderators. Through a deep analysis of what I call the canonical texts of governance for each community, I locate what are most and least valued, keeping my focus on intersectional masculinity as revealed in each community’s

relationship to race and gender. Finally, I look at posts moderators pinned to the front pages of

each subreddit for months in order to understand how each community sees themselves in

relationship to American cultural systems outside of Reddit. I find that both communities have a

fraught relationship with race, and especially with the intersections of race and gender. This is

the space where I determine the kinds of comments that get buried, as well as which ones make it

to the top of each thread and generate the most commentary (i.e. which comments have the most

and least favorability). In order to study the most and least valued ideologies of each community

and, more importantly, the in-group disagreements that create the most illuminating tensions, I

also investigate how each subreddit responds to its counterpart. In looking at these tensions, I

answer the question of whether Reddit is a useful site whose ostensibly democratic interface

resists dominant male discourses, or if it merely uses the idea of democracy to reproduce

systemic inequalities.

Chapter Four, which is the final chapter before the conclusion, will deal with each subreddit’s responses to the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. After discussing three

2018 scandals that embroiled , , and , I further detail Reddit’s user interface, including the upvoting and downvoting mechanism, karma points, and comment

gilding. I then discuss Kingdom Come: Deliverance, a historical fiction based in medieval

Bohemia that generated a wave of controversy in the gaming press for excluding people of color

and well-rounded female characters from its historical setting. I show how the decision to 6 exclude people of color and dignified women from the game fits into a global white nationalist project to reclaim medieval European history as a space of white heritage. Responses to the game on both subreddits represent what I believe is an illustrative spectrum of discomfort around intersectionality, the consumer identity, and abroad. 7

CHAPTER ONE. A MOVEMENT BEGINS: GAMERGATE, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND THE

REDDIT PLATFORM

On the evidence of the last few weeks, what we are seeing is the end of , and the

viciousness that accompanies the death of an identity. Due to fundamental shifts in the

video game audience, and a move towards progressive attitudes within more traditional

areas of video game culture, the gamer identity has been broken. It has nowhere to call

home, so it reaches out inarticulately at invented problems . . . which are partly just ways

of expressing confusion as to why things the traditional gamer does not understand are

successful.

– Dan Golding, “The End of Gamers”

Gamergate's Beginnings

In June of 2012 reports about an online backlash against feminist game critic Anita

Sarkeesian appeared in the press after she mounted a campaign to request funds for a

series of high-production YouTube videos criticizing demeaning representations of women in video games. Called “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games,” the series is geared toward an

audience unlikely to have a robust background in feminism or cultural , so each episode

rarely focuses on the deeper political economy or structural flaws of the gaming industry at large.

Instead, Sarkeesian criticizes tropes that have long been a problem in film and television, like a lack of body diversity, damsels in distress, women as rewards for male heroism, and the exoticism of race and ethnicity. The negative online response her hypothetical series escalated

and became part of an unfortunate pattern. Strangers posted sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic

comments to Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter and YouTube pages, prompting publications like the

Huffington Post and to defend Sarkeesian, report the fallout, and encourage donors to contribute to the project. The negative press led a crowd of conscientious objectors with 8 expendable income to the Kickstarter.12 The extra support generated ten times the funding goal, leading Sarkeesian to hire a team of producers and content-creators, increase production values, and more than double the planned episode count.

Only a few days before the Kickstarter closed on June 15, 2012 to an impressive wave of support, Sarkeesian’s harassers had already intensified their attacks. A user on newgrounds.com uploaded a crude flash game called “Beat Up ,” which features an image of a smiling Sarkeesian and a cropped fist cursor that the player uses to punch different areas of

Sarkeesian’s face. Each click of the mouse leaves Sarkeesian’s face bloodier and bruised. While the game has been deleted by newgrounds.com in response to public , the creator’s description and justification for the game remains on the now-defunct game page. It is worth quoting at length. It reads:

Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but

also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well

pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or

labeled to be sexist against her. She claims to want in video games, but in

reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money

and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.3

The author does not make clear what kinds of constructive criticism Sarkeesian received, let

1 “Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games’ Tackles Sexism and Misogyny in Gaming,” Huffington Post, June 14, 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tropes-vs-women-in- video_n_1597214.

2 Luke Plunkett, “Awful Things Happen When You Try to Make a Video About Video Game Stereotypes,” Kotaku, June 12, 2012, https://kotaku.com/awful-things-happen-when-you- try-to-make-a-video-about-453100881.

3 “Eulogy for ‘Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian,’” Newgrounds, last modified July 6, 2012, https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/598591. 9

alone how their comment and the flash game constituted a forms of it. The game had struck a

nerve with Sarkeesian. On June 7, 2012 she responded to the flash game and the charges

made against her, writing, “what’s most ironic about the harassment is that it’s in reaction to a

project I haven’t even created yet. I haven’t had the chance to articulate any of my arguments

about video game characters yet. It’s very telling that there is this much backlash against the

mere idea of this series being made.”4

The harassment worsened over the next three years as Sarkeesian received public

recognition for her work. During the Game Developer’s Choice Awards in March 2014 an

emailer threatened to detonate a bomb unless the event’s organizers rescinded an

Ambassador Award recognizing Sarkeesian’s work.5 Later that same year, ahead of Sarkeesian’s

scheduled talk at State University, university officials received an anonymous email

threatening a mass shooting upon the auditorium unless they canceled the event. In the email, the

would-be shooter compared the impending tragedy to Marc Lépine’s 1989 mass-murder of fourteen women in , Quebec. The officers on duty explained to Sarkeesian that under

Utah state law, they could not screen people for weapons as they entered the auditorium.6

Fearing for her and others’ safety, Sarkeesian canceled her talk.

The threats and harassment Sarkeesian faced merely previewed what was to come. In late

4 Anita Sarkeesian, “OMG! 1000 backers! (and about that harassment stuff),” Kickstarter, June 7, 2012, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video- games/posts/242547.

5 Stephen Totilo, “Bomb Threat Targeted Anita Sarkeesian, Gaming Awards Last March,” Kotaku, September 17, 2014, https://kotaku.com/bomb-threat-targeted-anita-sarkeesian- gaming-awards-la-1636032301.

6 Nick Wingfield, “Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign,” Times, October 15, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/technology/gamergate-women-video-game-threats-anita- sarkeesian.html. 10

2014 a more coordinated harassment campaign emerged after independent game designer Zoë

Quinn’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, wrote and published a ten-thousand-word, five-part essay

(formally called “The Zoe Post”) falsely alleging Quinn had sex with a video game journalist

from Kotaku to collect a positive review for her self-designed, free flash game .

Depression Quest is a game in which players are tasked with battling depression and anxiety via

a series of multiple-choice scenarios. The catch—the logical decisions a mentally healthy person

would make are grayed out, and the player watches, helpless and frustrated, as the character of

the story falls victim to his or her delusions of self-loathing while a melancholy piano

loop, at first pleasant but increasingly annoying, drones soporifically on.

Gjoni’s lengthy post, combined with Quinn’s status as an up-and-coming artist in a field

and consumer culture that have historically valued only the voices of cisgendered white men,

inspired people to steal Quinn’s private information, including her home address and other

personal information, and publish it on the internet. This act of stealing private information and

making it public is known as , short for dropping documents, and is a form of

that can and has destroyed people’s lives.7 Using the information gathered from her hacked

private accounts, people nailed death and rape threats to Quinn’s home address and other times

sent cum-stained pictures of her to her friends and family.8 This prompted Quinn to flee

across the country with her boyfriend, seek asylum on friends’ and relatives’ couches, and apply

for protection from the . It did not matter at all that the accusations

Gjoni made in the post were untrue, because this was an efficient way for her bullies to

discredit her and her .

7 David M. Douglas, “Doxing: A Conceptual Analysis,” Ethics of Information 18, no. 3 (2016), 200.

8 Zoe Quinn, : How GamerGate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2017), 3. 11

Quinn’s assailants were determined to reshape their harassment of female and transgender game developers into a virtuous fight for integrity in gaming and a consumer revolt against an increasingly inclusive industry. Adopting GamerGate as their new movement’s moniker, Quinn’s harassers retreated to their preferred corners of the internet and continued their assaults against the incursion of feminism, diversity, and social justice in video games. In September of 2014, after the courts and US government failed to adequately protect her, Quinn infiltrated an (IRC) where her harassers congregated and captured screenshots evidencing a collective effort to harm her while distracting the public from charges of harassment.9 It worked for a while.

Once the mainstream press ceased reporting about the harassment, sometime in early

2015 many GamerGate activists settled on their preferred hideaway—the social media platform

Reddit. Reddit is where GamerGate activists created a small community, a subreddit, named

/r/KotakuInAction, where they continue criticizing Quinn, Sarkeesian, and other women and transgender people in the games industry and press for their cultural influences on the art form.10

Many of the activists’ discussions on this community have to do with conflicts of interest with female and trans game designers, alleged journalistic dishonesty, concerns about free speech, the question of what constitutes harassment, the question of what constitutes a gamer, and the invasion of feminism into their beloved art form. Importantly, /r/KotakuInAction is an online space where GamerGate activists created a living, constantly evolving text that continues to illustrate ongoing discomfort about progressive changes in American culture.

But the swift and energetic response to GamerGate’s attitudes suggests these ongoing

9 “#GameOverGate,” Storify, Accessed January 26, 2018.

10 From here, I refer to all subreddits with an /r/ in front of them. So it will be expressed as /r/KotakuInAction, after the web address identifier. 12 problems are about bigger picture changes to American culture at large. Around the same that /r/KotakuInAction materialized, a person who objected to GamerGate created

/r/GamerGhazi, a subreddit whose name references the 2012 attacks by Islamic militants in

Benghazi, Libya that claimed the lives of four Americans and embroiled then-Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton in scandal. The government metaphor was an apt retort to GamerGate’s cheeky metonymy for the 1972 Watergate scandal, when President Richard Nixon directed five men to break into the Democratic National Convention offices and plant wiretaps. Whereas the former recalls a powerful woman unfairly maligned by rightist American politicians during lengthy

Congressional hearings, the latter references a scandal that sparked a constitutional crisis and undid an American presidency. But the latter name is also more ambiguous. Either GamerGate’s adherents embrace the scandal in question, or the reference to Watergate is a sneering rejection of the public’s brazen adoption of the suffix.

Given the community name’s symbolic affinity for Clinton, it is unsurprising that

/r/GamerGhazi promotes inclusivity in the games industry. The member community of

/r/GamerGhazi favors social justice work that aims to include rather than exclude those who have been pushed to the margins. The creator of /r/GamerGhazi makes it clear on the community’s wiki page that unlike /r/KotakuInAction, this new subreddit would be devoted to trans- inclusivity, civility, and providing self-care resources for people harmed by the harassment of the

GamerGate movement. This is apparent in the content, site aesthetic, and user base of the subreddit.

These two subreddits are the special focus of this dissertation. I these opposing worldviews side by side partly in order to understand why these campaigns of harassment continually materialize in gaming and American culture. I also consider how academics may better intervene on communities like /r/KotakuInAction, whose resistance to feminism and 13 critical race issues is only one part of a larger effort to discredit inclusion efforts. I locate where the subreddits converge and diverge, most particularly how each community responds to cultural, social, and political developments in America. I then connect those responses to a controversy surrounding Kingdom Come: Deliverance (KC: D), an all-white video game based in medieval

Bohemia that sparked debates in both /r/GamerGhazi and /r/KotakuInAction around race, gender, whiteness, game consumption, and cultural heritage. Through each community’s response to that video game I try to make sense of an especially disturbing outcome of

GamerGate—the movement’s calculated shift from a focus on political or social identities to a color- and gender-blind consumer identity that formed over decades of the industry video games primarily to men and boys. The readable consumer identity demands a heightened knowledge of popular culture—in this case video games—and is characterized by the masculinizing neoliberal ethos of , self-reliance, and “objectivity” against the considerations of institutional injustice and subjective experience.11 Most importantly, I argue

Reddit’s interface and algorithm—including its upvoting and downvoting mechanism—promotes such far-right attitudes because it favors the consumer identity over social identities. Like other social media platforms, it buries, or conceals, controversial ideas and discourages an appreciation for the complexities of subjectivity and bias.

This dissertation is an American culture studies project that takes the side of social justice, but also understands that promoting the wellbeing of those who continue to be placed on the margins of society entails understanding how those margins materialize in the first place.

Who delimits the margins, and through what means? What is at stake in forging these political alliances? What makes Reddit the ideal platform to foster such alliances? GamerGate is not only

11 I place “objectivity” in scare quotes to emphasize its convenient usage in /r/KotakuInAction to discredit the relevance of subjective experience. 14 about video games. The movement is reflective of contemporary discomfort with the influence of feminism, critical race studies, and academic social justice on popular culture, the internet, and

American culture at large. It is a far-right conservative American export—transnational and global in scope, but distinctly (North) American in its intersectional politics—that is organized around a shared philosophy that marginalized people’s stories about their social experiences are overblown at best and at worst. The natural byproduct of this philosophy—which I articulate more fully in Chapters Three and Four—is that GamerGate activists see those claims as hostile to white men and, by extension, whiteness.

The anti-social justice attitudes and history of harassment from GamerGate activists on

Reddit countenances an alarming pattern of toxic masculine behavior that serves the purpose of holding video games in a nostalgic past where marketing targets only white men and boys. These attitudes merely use video games as a pretext to articulate a color- and gender-blind . Control over the and definitions of concepts like harassment, free speech, consumption, politics, race, racism, and gender means control over the social hierarchies that reproduce these very attitudes about social justice in academia and American culture. Under this outmoded model, people of color, white women, women of color, international women, gender non-conforming, and trans people would receive little to no representation or consideration in the games industry and American culture, despite ever-growing demands for their recognition.

Reddit is a perfect site through which to investigate this resistance to diversity in the video games industry precisely because it is a platform with 330 million unique users, most of them from America. Additionally, the platform hosts over 1.2 million small, cloistered, sustainable communities with their own internal politics.12 Rigid politics and rules for each

12 “Reddit by the Numbers,” Reddit, last modified November 12, 2017, https://www.redditinc.com/press 15

community, together with the feeling of empowerment afforded by the of the internet,

means users are likely to fall in line if the exclusive community nourishes them socially and

ideologically. It helps that Reddit the platform takes a laissez-faire approach to policing its

subreddits. Its governance structure, unique site design, and democratic upvoting and

downvoting interface all combine to allow members of each community to interact with each

other with minimal interference.

Scholars have studied Reddit’s algorithm, its capacity for fostering positive community

dialogue, and its ability to be used as a source of research data. Some studies illustrate how

particular subreddits act as effective therapeutic social support networks for people who need them.13 Matthew R. Jamnik and David J. Lane demonstrate that Reddit provides cheap, high

quality data comparable to that obtained from undergraduate research participants during

ethnographic studies.14 Adrienne Massanari has done useful work on the connections between

Reddit’s democratic governance, algorithm, and user interface and the regressive politics of

certain Reddit communities.15 There has also been some work published about the GamerGate

controversy in particular, including a sociological study which argues that understanding

members of /r/KotakuInAction is important, no matter the potential ideological disconnect

13 Munmun de Choudhury and De Sushovan, “Mental Health Discourse on Reddit: Self- Disclosure, Social Support, and Anonymity,” Proceedings of the Eight International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media; Giselle Pappa, et al., “Factors Associated With Weight Change in Online Weight Management Communities: A Case Study in the LoseIt Reddit Community,” Journal of Medicine Research 19, no. 1 (2017); and Sowles, et al.

14 Matthew R. Jamnik and David J. Lane, “The Use of Reddit as an Inexpensive Source for High-Quality Data,” Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation 22, no. 5 (2017): 1-10.

15 Adrienne Massanari, “GamerGate and The Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures,” New Media and Society 19, no. 3 (2017). 16

between researcher and data.16 Finally, Kishonna Gray, Bertan Buyukozturk, and Zachary G.

Hill analyze the symbolic violence against women perpetuated by GamerGate in general.17

Unfortunately, despite these studies and Reddit’s ascendance since its beginnings in 2005 as a cultural gathering spot for millions of users, it remains an underexplored space in the academic literature. One missing piece among the above studies is an engagement with the strategies of and contradictions within anti-social justice communities like /r/KotakuInAction.

There have also been no efforts to assess the efficacy of using Reddit to resist the racist and sexist ideologies those communities foster. I address this oversight by framing /r/GamerGhazi as a discursive counterbalance to GamerGate that has its own contradictions related to discussions of race—especially the intersections between race and gender. With this dissertation, I make the case that these two small communities show how American cultural anxieties about social justice form and maintain themselves over widely-used, everyday social media platforms like Reddit.

My hope is that scholars and web designers can better envision interfaces that promote productive dialogue even on an internet that often encourages anonymous violence and bullying.

Reddit is an evolving text that reflects the sociohistorical context that produces it. The exclusive subreddit communities, the platform’s site design, and Reddit’s upvoting and downvoting mechanisms all support a series of self-contained —or digital — that promote desirable ideas and silence subversive others. What an ideal democracy looks like relates closely to the mission of each subreddit. For example, I find that whereas

16 Shagun Jhaver, Larry Chan, and Amy Bruckman, “ from the Other Side: The Border Between Controversial Speech and Harassment on Kotaku in Action,” First Monday 23, no. 2 (2018).; Shira Chess and Adrienne Shaw, “A Conspiracy of Fishes, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying About #GamerGate and Embrace ,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 59, no. 1 (2015).

17 Kishonna Gray, Bertan Buyukozturk, and Zachary G. Hill, “Blurring the Boundaries: Using GamerGate to Examine ‘Real’ and Symbolic Violence Against Women in Contemporary Gaming Culture,” Sociology Compass 11, no. 3 (2017): 1-8. 17

/r/KotakuInAction participants are likely to frame social justice as anti-democratic through their

commenting and voting practices, /r/GamerGhazi members are likely to do the opposite by

asserting through their commenting and voting practices that fair and equal representation of

those who have been pushed to the margins would be more democratically productive. The

failure to communicate is also complicated by each community having different definitions for social justice, harassment, and gamer identity. Effective communication requires that each echo

chamber confronts the other with empathy and attentiveness. This rarely takes place between

/r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi precisely because their worldviews are so diametrically

opposed.

Investigating both subreddits simultaneously raises important questions whose answers

constitute this dissertation. They are:

• How do feminist academics, /r/KotakuinAction, and /r/GamerGhazi define social

justice? What is each Reddit community’s relationship to social justice?

• How does each community articulate its political identity?

• How do GamerGate activists view their movement—or consumer revolt—and

themselves within it?

• Conversely, how do /r/GamerGhazi members view their community and themselves

within it?

• What purpose do video games serve for both communities?

• How does each community use Reddit’s interface to shape community discourse?

• What are the intersections of penalty, privilege, power, and dominance in both Reddit

communities, especially having to do with issues of race, class, gender, and nation? 18

Reddit and Its Subreddits

Reddit the Platform

To answer these questions, we first need to understand Reddit and its communities.

Reddit is an open-source, forum-based social media site consisting of over 1.2 million self- contained communities of interest. While other social media sites like Facebook allow the user to create a personalized community of friends and acquaintances, Reddit is a platform made up of smaller communities of mostly strangers, called subreddits. Every subreddit on Reddit revolves around a single topic (like /r/worldnews or /r/politics) that valued community members voluntarily moderate (i.e. they are unpaid) based on exclusive rules established for that community. What this means is that a subreddit can be either heavily moderated or moderated loosely depending on both the robustness of the rules governing what is acceptable or unacceptable in the community and the attentions and labor of the unpaid moderators.

Moderators can choose to ban users for breaking community rules found on the right sidebar of each subreddit, or they can choose to ignore the rules on a case-by-case basis.

Administrators, by contrast, are paid employees of Reddit who have additional powers to enforce site-wide rules and ban users from participating on the platform. Administrators have had to use these powers especially recently. While each subreddit is governed by its specific rules and community standards, the larger platform of Reddit prohibits specific forms of self- promotion and disrupting other subreddits.18 In extreme cases, Administrators have to purge entire subreddits. While Reddit has historically taken a laissez-faire approach to content sharing, in October of 2017 it changed its site rules regarding violent content. Until Reddit made these changes, the site rules allowed venomous hate groups and bestiality subreddits to flourish on the

18 “How Reddit Works,” Reddit, last modified July 30, 2014, https://redditblog.com/2014/07/30/how-reddit-works-2/. 19

platform out of fear that the would face public ire for suppressing free speech.19 Only minutes after the new rules took effect, administrators purged subreddits that incited or glorified violent content. Members of subreddits like /r/Nazi, /r/DylanRoofInnocent (named after the white supremacist and terrorist who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South

Carolina), /r/picsofdeadkids, and /r/killthejews were dispersed suddenly, the communities now deemed unacceptable on the platform. That Reddit treads lightly when drafting new rules that could undermine certain forms of free speech illustrates how important Reddit is as a cultural product.

Users also play a critical interactive role in determinations made by administrators and corporate officials. These interactive roles entail doing far more than writing a post or creating a thread. Reddit also hosts a upvoting and downvoting mechanism that distinguishes it from other social media sites. Once somebody posts a thread, users vote on that thread to determine whether it is interesting enough to make it to the front page. The front page used to consist of content from some of the most popular subreddits on the site. Users could choose to customize their own front pages once they became members, but they had to first manually unsubscribe from these popular subreddits if they did not want the content to show up on their front page. On

February 15, 2017 Reddit changed this front page interface to /r/popular, a subreddit consisting of an assortment of the most popular content on all of Reddit. If a thread on a user’s front page is deemed uninteresting, users can downvote it by clicking on a downward-pointing arrow next to the thread title. If users find the thread interesting, however, they can do the opposite by clicking on the upward-pointing arrow. This process can be repeated for each comment posted in response to a thread. Each vote determines how many points a thread or comment receives. If the

19 Mike Isaac, “Reddit Sets New Content Policy, Banning Some Racist Communities,” New York Times. August 5, 2015, https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/reddit-sets-new- content-policy-banning-some-racist-communities/. 20

thread or comment receives an overabundance of downvotes, users will be less likely to see it.

By contrast, if a lot of users deem a thread or comment interesting enough and upvote it, users will be more likely to see it. When users receive upvotes or downvotes for their comments, the cumulative score reflected on their user profile is called their karma score. Karma scores have no

effect on a user’s participation unless the point score strays into extreme negative territory, in

which case the user’s participation in the subreddit will be restricted.2021

Upvoting and downvoting serves other functions than merely determining that something

is interesting or uninteresting. Voting also reveals the emotional states of a Reddit community

surrounding controversial issues, much like when citizens reject or endorse political candidates

by casting votes. A concrete example of this happened in early March of 2018, when Reddit

CEO offered in a post on /r/announcements to field questions from Reddit users after the press revealed Reddit had been infiltrated by fake Russian accounts set up to sway the

2016 United States presidential election in ’s favor. When users accepted

Huffman’s offer and asked questions or requested that his company confront Russian meddling in US elections, Huffman either deflected or remained vague, leading droves of Reddit users to downvote most of his comments. Except for two of his comments, which received moderately positive vote scores, as of this writing most of Huffman’s responses show thousands of downvotes reflected in negative scores. Meanwhile, users who confronted Huffman outright about his deflections and vagueness received overwhelmingly positive vote scores.22 This case

20 “Voting,” Reddit, last modified May 22, 2015, https://www.reddit.com/wiki/voting.

21 I discuss voting and karma scores in more detail in Chapter Four.

22 Steve Huffman, “In response to recent reports about the integrity of Reddit, I’d like to share our thinking,” Reddit, Accessed March 15, 2018, www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/827zqc/in_response_to_recent_reports_about_the_ integrity/ 21

illustrates how voting scores reveal emotions of anger, frustration, and helplessness, while also

showing emotional support for commenters who dissent from unpopular ideas.

/r/KotakuInAction

Each subreddit also has its own aesthetic, community rules, and culture. A browser casually visiting /r/KoakuInAction would immediately encounter of the community’s worldview, though at first, they may not know how to interpret those signs. Every visual element

on /r/KotakuInAction’s front page is tailor-made for the community’s exclusive consumption,

and a sign to unsympathetic outsiders and momentary that this community of almost

110,000 members may not be for them if they are on the side of social justice.23 As soon as the

front page of the subreddit loads the user’s eye may be drawn to a surreal logo of a scantily-clad

cartoon woman with a sock puppet over her left hand and riding a blue sea lion that is wearing a

collar and shooting light out of its eyes (Figure 1). This is not neutral absurdist imagery, but a

confluence of symbols that collectively signify how GamerGate activists see themselves in relationship to the cultural trends they oppose. The sock puppet over the woman’s left hand is a

tongue-in-cheek reference to anti-KotakuInAction ideologues claiming GamerGate members

engage in the practice of sock-puppeting, which is when a user creates fake accounts to support

arguments made by their main account.24 The woman wearing the sock puppet is Vivian James,

23 These descriptions of /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi are based on the old Reddit interface that users can and often do still access. The old interface gives much more aesthetic detail to especially decorated and customized subreddits like /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi. The old interface also gives quick access to each subreddit’s specialized wiki containing a timeline of events and relevant resources for community members, while the new interface excises that information altogether. Consequently, old Reddit offers far more insight into what both subreddits believe than the updated interface Reddit launched in early Summer 2018. When Reddit made the controversial decision to update its user interface, many users balked at the ’s decision to strip aesthetic features to make room for a streamlined menu displaying each user’s subreddit subscriptions on a left sidebar.

24 Jhaver, Chan, and Bruckmann, “The View from the Other Side.” 22

GamerGate’s fictional mascot created in collaboration with ’s video game message board and The Fine Young Capitalists, a self-described second-wave feminist group dedicated to raising funds for charity by selling games developed by five young women. GamerGate activists created the avatar in response to claims made by a Reddit user that Quinn had attempted to a charity event set up by the Fine Young Capitalists by doxing the head of the organization.25 Vivian James remains /r/KotakuInAction’s mascot despite the fact that Quinn had been absolved of doxing elsewhere in a publically released email exchange between her and the head of the organization.26

Figure 1. /r/KotakuInAction front page on the old Reddit interface.

Hover the cursor over the logo and a caption reads “this is what Kotaku’s logo actually

used to look like.” The message is a jab at Kotaku online magazine, though for casual observers

the reasons for it may be unclear. Does the community disapprove of Kotaku’s decision to adopt

a logo that does not depict a woman in a sexually suggestive pose? Or is the caption meant to

25 “Vivian James,” Know Your Meme, last modified July 6, 2018, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/vivian-james

26 “TFYC Negotiations.” , last modified October 14, 2014. https://imgur.com/gallery/KEtcp 23

admonish Kotaku for ever using the logo in the first place? If the latter, why put it here? Some

research reveals that Kotaku only ever used a design similar to this on a shirt the site sold eight

years ago, except the design, which was created by video game artist Jason Chan, featured an oversized fish rather than a sea lion, and the woman riding the fish holds a cake instead of a sock puppet.27 This cartoon is, therefore, a political maneuver against what /r/KotakuInAction

perceives as unacceptable hypocrisy on the part of Kotaku. The idea is that if Kotaku is so

willing to sexually objectify women on one of their products, then they should not act as moral

authorities on women’s representation in video games. Under this logic, /r/KotakuInAction

views Kotaku’s hypocrisy as offering them permission to practice what the online magazine

explicitly preaches against.

On the other side of the banner an anime-style drawing of Vivian James with red-hair and

a horizontal-striped hoodie winks at the spectator, her right arm extended into the negative space

of the gray triangle-patterned banner as if she is perpetually presenting the search bar above her

head. In-between, in purple and green-colored font, “KotakuInAction” sits alongside a generic

controller graphic consisting of the same colors. The subreddit’s below the title reads

“Gaming-Ethics-Journalism-,” each word evidently denoting the community’s central concerns.

The graphic design has an accordingly amateurish, adolescent quality to it. As of early

2018, somewhat clumsily positioned on the right sidebar underneath the banner a rectangular

cartoon depicts a blimp on fire and plummeting to the earth, smoke billowing behind. On top of

the blimp is a crudely-drawn caricature of professional wrestler Hogan, né Terry Bollea,

riding it to its doom while it hemorrhages paper currency. The letters “” are stamped

27 Michael McWhertor, “Kotaku-Tan, the Shirt for the Kotaku Fan,” Kotaku. February 22, 2010, https://kotaku.com/kotaku-tan-the-t-shirt-for-the-kotaku-fan-5477407 24

in colorful typeface across the blimp. At the bottom left of the cartoon two teenage girls modeled

after Vivian James wear horizontal-striped shirts and hold Gameboy Advances as they stare

stoically at the unfolding events (Figure 1).

The cartoon, which recalls the Hindenburg disaster, is an elaborate metaphor for

censorship. Only two years earlier , an online company and blog network, leaked

a sex tape featuring Bollea and Heather Clem, the wife of prominent talk radio DJ Todd Allen

Clem. Citing their first amendment rights, Gawker Media refused injunctions to take down the

tape. In response, Bollea dragged Gawker Media through a prolonged court battle. The total cost

of legal proceedings, together with monetary punishments incurred for their political missteps,

forced the company to declare bankruptcy and eventually shutter its offices.28 The satirical

Gawker cartoon may be an ironic conceit given /r/KotakuInAction’s apparent distaste for

censorship and those who would threaten to undermine Americans’ first amendment rights. This

comic had been plastered to /r/KotakuInAction’s front page for months in celebration of the

anniversary of Gawker’s demise. Now, months later, if site lurkers do a simple page refresh the old Reddit interface cycles through countless GamerGate-friendly comics, all featuring different

iterations of Vivian James juxtaposed with elaborate metaphors for or humorous takes on the

movement’s major themes of journalistic accountability, free speech, harassment, and anti-

feminism.

KotakuInAction’s self-described devotion to first amendment protections is especially

apparent in the mission statement. At first glance, the mission statement on the right sidebar

below the surreal cartoons is clear enough. In its second of three short paragraphs, the mission

statement advertises /r/KotakuInAction as a community “that condemns willful censorship,

28 Derek Thompson, “The Most Expensive Comment in Internet History,” , February 23, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker- trial/554132/. 25 exclusion, harassment, and ” and “organizes to hold the media accountable to the concept of artistic by standing up for the artist, the developer, the writer, the filmmaker, and all who enjoy the freedom to create, explore, and expand.” The sentiment has an almost professional ring to it, betrayed only by the liberal double-usage of “freedom”—though perhaps the repetition is intentional—a vague political buzz term synonymous with self-reliance, free-market , and individualism. The logical byproduct of such “freedom,” here figured as an artistic pursuit unshackled from the demands of social justice activists who labor to shoehorn their into art, is its linkage to an individualist but color- and gender-blind consumer identity. The consumer, invested with ultimate neoliberal freedom, abdicates their moral responsibility for others and favors the self above all else.29

Consider this individualist credo, this freedom, in relationship to other aspects of the mission statement. Curious onlookers might view the mission statement as an olive branch, friendly in its inviting hospitality, inclusive to any participant so long as they stay respectful. But its lofty proclamations raise important questions. What does this community mean by

“censorship, exclusion, harassment, and abuse” considering the site’s satirical cartoons? Who is being censored unfairly if Gawker’s demise is something to celebrate? Who is being excluded, harassed, and abused? How does the community define these terms? Why does the media need to be held accountable? And what kinds of media, by the way? The mission statement remains contentedly silent on these questions, opting instead to allow the loaded terms to somehow, impossibly, speak for themselves.

29 Yoshihisha Kashima, “Neoliberalism and its Discontents: Commentary on Social of Neoliberalism,” Journal of Social Issues 75, no. 1 (2019). 26

/r/GamerGhazi

GamerGhazi’s front page is quieter and more modest than /r/KotakuInAction’s, yet

despite its barren minimalism the subreddit offers enough information about its 21,000 members

for casual lurkers. The banner is a still from what looks like a video game. To the far right a

warrior dressed in a long and furry coat walks through snowy tundra with a sword resting on

their shoulder. Faint impressions behind the warrior indicate footsteps, while the rippled snow in

front portends a long journey ahead. Save for a severe white-font “GamerGhazi” centered on the

banner, on the far left of the banner a cartoon skeleton with piercing red eyes grins benignly at

the spectator (Figure 2). The skeleton is a character named Papyrus from , a video

game about nonviolence and inclusiveness that rewards the player handsomely for reaching the

end of the game without having killed or harmed a single enemy and punishes them severely for

killing enemies along the way. Hover the cursor over Papyrus’s face and a pop-up caption reads

“Gamers are over.” The caption no doubt refers to a collection of articles published on August

28, 2014 at the apex of the GamerGate controversy. The many articles argued the same thing:

gamer as a coherent identity was dead, and the industry was going to leave behind the white men

who held it close to them and used it as an instrument of exclusion. The articles led GamerGate

activists to accuse journalists of plotting against them by denying them an identity they still

wished to claim.30

30 Leigh Alexander, “‘Gamers’ Don’t Have to Be Your Audience. ‘Gamers’ Are Over,” Gamasutra, August 28, 2014; Chris Plante, “An Awful Week to Care About Video Games,” , August 28, 2014; Casey Johnston, “The Death of the ‘Gamers’ and the Women who ‘Killed’ Them,” , August 24, 2014; Devin Wilson, “A Guide to Ending ‘Gamers,’” Gamasutra, August 28, 2014; Luke Plunkett, “We Might Be Witnessing the ‘Death of an Identity,’” Kotaku, August 28, 2014; Joseph Bernstein, “Gaming is Leaving ‘Gamers’ Behind,” News, August 28, 2014; Patrick O’Rourke, “Sexism, Misogyny, and Online Attacks: It’s a Horrible Time to Consider Yourself a ‘Gamer,’” Financial Post, August 28, 2014; and , “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone: Why Are Gamers So Angry?” Daily Beast, August 28, 2014 27

Figure 2. /r/GamerGhazi front page on the old Reddit interface.

Little else on the front page remains to describe. No cartoon below the banner celebrates the demise of an opponent media company. The conspicuously-centered subreddit title does not have a catchy slogan underneath telegraphing the community’s central themes. There is no mission statement to speak of, save for a short blurb on a dropdown menu for the subreddit’s general rules that reads “Ghazi aims to hold itself to the highest standards of trans-inclusion,” below which are detailed bannable offenses that range from mere to purposefully misgendering people. The light blue layout is both comforting and confrontational, confident and serious. Where /r/KotakuInAction wears its satirical outrage on its sleeve, /r/GamerGhazi refuses

to mince words or conceal its views under layers of metaphor.

Like /r/KotakuInAction, /r/GamerGhazi understands its exclusive audience. But unlike

/r/KotakuInAction, which takes a comic approach to its defense of free speech rights and its

derisive jabs at social justice activism, /r/GamerGhazi quietly couches its themes in its layout.

Their mascot is not a woman baring her midriff to satisfy the male gaze, but a video game

character that stands for , friendship, and inclusiveness. The pop-up caption over the

mascot is not a reference to a questionable marketing ploy from a hostile online magazine’s past, 28 but a hostile message to the GamerGate movement itself. There is no adolescent Vivian James presenting the search bar, but a warrior treading through inhospitable snowy tundra. Both images—Papyrus and the warrior—no doubt mean to make the case that social justice is an arduous but worthy journey. But it becomes clear with a cursory inspection of the layout that

/r/GamerGhazi wants to distance itself as much as possible from /r/KotakuInAction. One gets the impression that it is unlikely for the two communities to overlap.

Toward a Definition of Social Justice

Academic Social Justice

But what is the social justice activism at the center of both communities, and how did it evolve into its current form? Simply put, social justice work exists to raise consciousness about and fight against inequalities relating to race, class, gender, ability/disability, nation, age, and a range of other intersecting identities. As a result, it is not surprising that much of the social justice work that GamerGate activists often decry comes out of feminism and critical race theory.

Given what I have described thus far about GamerGate, it is also not surprising that members of

/r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi have complicated relationships with social justice activism. Whereas the former gleefully indulges what feminists heavily criticize, the latter attempts with varying degrees of success to satisfy the insights of the discipline. How does each community define social justice? If each community defines social justice differently, then what are the qualities of those differences? An efficient way to find a coherent definition for social justice is first to define it academically in terms of the interaction between feminism and critical race theory during the second half of the twentieth century, then to understand how each of these online gaming communities deal with the concept.

Contemporary academic feminism has its roots in the twentieth century feminist thought of French feminist Simone de Beauvoir, whose foundational text historicizes 29 women’s struggle for personhood and legitimacy in a world ruled by white men. De Beauvoir asserts in the first few pages of The Second Sex that women are defined in relationship to men, not the other way around, an observation that has remained relevant since the book’s publication in 1949. Throughout the book, de Beauvoir dismantles the historical and contemporary myths of womanhood created within patriarchal and provides a basic vocabulary for reading gender as unstable and fluid.

In America, feminists of the 1960s expanded de Beauvoir’s insights by applying them to the domestic and occupational lives of women. In 1963 , a journalist, academic, and feminist founder of the National Organization for Women (or NOW) wrote and published

The Feminine Mystique, a significant contribution to the imperfectly-named second-wave of feminism, which was to become an influential movement that advocated for the equal rights of women and emphasized their unique lived experiences in American culture. There were problematic limitations to Friedan’s book. gave voice only to a specific subpopulation of white women—suburban domestic housewives. These women were confined to the home to tend to the kids, prepare meals for their husbands, and quietly set aside any career aspirations for their domestic duties. Terming this “the problem that has no name,” Friedan recruits a wealth of dispiriting statistics to support her argument that women either set aside college, dropped out of college, or ignored their physical and mental health to meet the arbitrary standards of and tend to their families’ needs.31 Friedan’s book and her subsequent work with NOW was part of a larger that had resurrected issues ranging from and pay equity, to pop cultural gender representation, to violence against

31 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1997), 5. 30 women.32

Friedan’s work did not go unchallenged for long. After the gains of the Civil Rights

Movement of the 1950s and 1960s illustrated the importance of showing how inequality results from an array of interlocking oppressions, women of color and LGBTQ+ feminists became some of the harshest critics of white radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. Poet, essayist, and academic

Audre criticizes Friedan’s of white feminism that excludes the voices of black women, queer women, and those who she calls “Third World women.”33 In her essay “The

Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” Lorde laments the lack of nuanced academic discussion concerning the role that race, class, sexuality, age, and nation play in the construction of social identities. Rather than erasing the differences inscribed on bodies and opting for a color-blind approach, Lorde foregrounds them from her standpoint as a black queer feminist, arguing that these oppressions are connected and should be “seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our can spark like a .” Such creativity takes the form of what Lorde calls the “interdependency of different strengths,” which allows women “to seek new ways of being in the world.”34 These new ways of being should not entail reaching “across the gap of male ignorance” in order to educate them about the existence of these multiple identities, since it would commit one of white academic feminism’s major infractions— reinforcing the worst features of the racist white by erasing differences between and among people.

32 Myra Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancey Martin, “Doing the Work of the Movement: Feminist Organizations,” in Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women’s Movement, ed. Ronnie J. Steinberg (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 3-26.

33 Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Sister Outsider, (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007).

34 Lorde, “The Master’s Tools,” 450. 31

In the decades following Lorde’s scholarship other important works questioned the

social hierarchy that places white men at the top and women of color, trans people, and

transnational women at the bottom. Black feminist ’ public scholarship criticized

writers like Friedan for using college-educated white women as the yardstick to measure the

impact of sexism on women in America. She argues that in suppressing discussions of race and

class Friedan and the preponderance of white feminists of the 60s and 70s unwittingly reinforced

American white supremacist institutions. They ignored how class structure in America “has been

shaped by the racial politic of .”35 Using the courts as her reference point,

lawyer and scholar Kimberle Crenshaw formally coined intersectionality as an activist tool to fill

this gap. Crenshaw makes the case that only by considering the interlocking oppressions of race,

class, and gender can we make sense of the unequal treatment of poor black women.36 Feminist

scholars , Ange-Marie Hancock, and others would spend the next three

decades expanding upon intersectionality to hone it as a tool for social justice activism.37

Early second-wave feminists also glossed over the struggles of LGBTQ+ people, which

in the 1970s during the gay liberation resulted in their exclusion from feminist organizations and

academic conferences. Queer (as well as the emergence of organizations like the

Lesbian Liberation Movement) both drew attention to LGBTQ+ exclusion from feminist and

35 bell hooks, “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,” in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, (: South End Press, 1984), 3-4.

36 Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” University of Legal Forum 8, no. 1 (1989): 139-167.

37 i.e. Ange-Marie Hancock, Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, (New York: , 2016); Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge, Intersectionality, (Malden: Polity Press, 2016). 32 critical race activism and deconstructed heterosexuality and gender.38 Scholarship in this subfield includes the work of queer feminists like , Jack Halberstam, and Eve Kosofsky

Sedgwick. Each of these authors since the 1980s questioned the coherence of gender categories and illustrated how queer identities not only get pushed to the margins, but are routinely disavowed and made unintelligible or unreadable in a society that privileges white, heterosexual, cisgendered men above all others.39

Social Justice in /r/KotakuInAction

Well into the twenty-first century, social justice activism has continued in this vein, only to be complicated by the rise of the internet, the varying degrees of anonymity it affords its users, and the influence of feminist and critical race theory on popular culture. Once academics started applying seventy years of feminist thought about social justice to games, gaming, and the internet, they almost immediately met with resistance from far-right communities. Adrienne

Shaw and Shira Chess, two casualties of this phenomenon, illustrate the tense moment when masculine gaming culture first came into direct contact with academic feminism. Their article “A

Conspiracy of Fishes, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying About #GamerGate and Embrace

Hegemonic Masculinity” tells the story of their failed attempt to start an ongoing dialogue over a

Google Document following a game developers’ conference. In a rare show of direct resistance to academic feminism, online gamers responded by vandalizing the document and replacing phrases like “identity and diversity in game culture” with “penis.” Others wrote comments like “I

38 Julie Podmore and Manon Tremblay, “, Second-Wave Feminism, and Gay Liberation,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to and Gay Activism, eds. David Paternotte and Manon Tremblay (New York: Routledge, 2015): 121-134.

39 I have in mind Butler’s essay “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” Halberstam’s work on female masculinity and trans identity, and Sedgwick’s foundational text Epistemology of the Closet. 33 fuck kids.”40 Gamers subsequently accused Chess and Shaw of hatching a communist academic plot to destroy gamers. Such a show of explicit resistance is telling for two reasons: it shows how distrustful GamerGate activists are to critics of their cause, but it also suggests academic social justice may not make sense to those outside of it.

Searching for Shaw and Chess’s names on /r/KotakuInAction yields some unfortunate results that seem to corroborate these observations. On August 30, 2016 Chess published a short, three-paragraph reflection on #NotYourShield, a Twitter hash tag campaign started by

GamerGate that features pictures of typically nonwhite, non-cis-, transgender people, and non- binary women holding up signs admonishing academics and the culture of the games industry for allegedly using Social Justice Warriors’ (or the pejorative shorthand SJW) bodies as an excuse to

“attack the patriarchal structure of the games industry.”41 Chess resists a deep analysis of

#NotYourShield and confesses she “is generally at a loss” to understand it. Instead, she briefly illuminates the irony in tokenizing people from marginalized groups—i.e. what about nonwhite, non-cis-, transgender people, and non-binary social justice activists who would never side with

GamerGate?—and giving them the agency to expose themselves through authentic imagery—i.e. they not only Tweet their displeasure with academics, but literally place their bodies on display to do so. She ultimately cedes the work to other academics, who she argues should “understand the implications of people working against their own interests.”42

40 Shira Chess and Adrienne Shaw, “A Conspiracy of Fishes, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying About #GamerGate and Embrace Hegemonic Masculinity,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 59, no. 1 (2015), 212.

41The SJW is a pejorative abbreviation frequently utilized in /r/KotakuInAction and by GamerGate activists to diminish the work of feminists and those critical of the patriarchal status quo in the games industry and American culture at large.

42 Shira Chess, “Whose Shield is it Anyway? Some Thoughts on GamerGate and NotYourShield,” last modified August 30, 2016, 34

It mattered little that Chess stopped short of an article-length takedown of

#NotYourShield, because the merest suggestion that it demands an analysis by other scholars sparked acrimony among GamerGate activists. The top-voted comment in a thread about the blog begins with the following disturbing against Chess: “so a neurotic, paranoid and/or lying fat woman with unnatural hair colour is yet again trying to tell me and people like or unlike me how we are actually just stupid kids who need to be guided by The Cult of The Holy

Vagina to make the RIGHT [sic] life choices.” Note that Chess never elaborates on her thoughts about #NotYourShield except to point out the irony in tokenizing marginalized people for a cause that relies on cherry-picked “authenticity,” yet the comment is rotten with knee-jerk misogynistic stereotypes. The commenter claims social justice academics like Chess are “lying,”

“paranoid,” over-emotional authoritarians bent on telling gamers what to do. But in that same sentence the commenter projects their own paranoia onto Chess, asserting with conspiratorial gestures that she is part of a “cult” that has control over gamers’ life choices. Supported by petty and betrayed by the writer’s insecurity about their community’s access to agency and intellectual influence, this comment—and there are many others like it—illustrates GamerGate activists’ hostility toward social justice while ironically creating a compelling case for its need.

Public figures sympathetic to GamerGate also use their image to reinforce these hierarchies while making their distaste for social justice clear. Online pro-GamerGate activist and social media blogger Sargon of Akkad frequently posts videos and that are little more than misogynistic and racist rants. At one point he advertised his pro-rape stance during a debate,

http://mediacommons.org/imr/2016/08/30/whose-shield-it-anyway-some-thoughts-gamergate- and-notyourshield. 35 supported by a cheering crowd, he subsequently posted to his YouTube channel.43 Sargon of

Akkad stokes GamerGate stereotypes about over-emotional, agenda-setting SJWs and corrupt journalists in one of his blogs, writing “the video game press has become infested with SJWs on an ideological crusade to manipulate the to suit their agenda . . . and like all propagandists, they .”44 Here again, abounds in shortcut stereotypes. The gaming press is “infested” with feminists or social justice warriors who evidently have the power to undermine game consumers themselves via their malicious leftist agendas. The press is here figured as the enemy of the gamer. As should be clear by this point, conspiracy theories, which is a subject of Chapter Three, are frequent staples of the GamerGate movement.

The key takeaway from Sargon of Akkad’s charge and others similar to it is not so much the choice words against social justice as it is the implied assumption that there is a single agenda to social justice work that itself is not amenable to criticism. As noted above, the intersecting histories of feminism and critical race theory show exactly how self-criticism has been integral to both disciplines. An ironic consequence of ignoring the tensions within social justice activism is that GamerGate sympathizers suppress the very forms of constructive criticism they criticize social justice activists for suppressing. For example, there are many instances of academics and social justice activists criticizing Sarkeesian for her series’ limitations. On the blog “Irresistible Evolution,” for example, academic Natassja B.

Gunasena argues Sarkeesian’s series overlooks racial representation, writing “you cannot,

CANNOT [sic], talk about damsels in distress without talking about these women who were de-

43 Sargon of Akkad, “Thomas Smith vs. Sargon of Akkad Debate #Mythcon,” YouTube video, 1:21:24, October 9, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTFL0wKmsC0&t=424s.

44 Gabriela T. Richard, “Intersecting Vulnerabilities in Game Culture: The Effects of Inequities and Stereotype Threat on Player Confidence, Identification and Persistence Across Gender and Race,” Proceedings of DiGRA (2015): 1-4. 36

feminized: Black and brown and native women.”4546 Academics like Nate Carpenter of Michigan

Technological University take a different approach, arguing that Sarkeesian frequently

undermines her critical impact by reminding her viewers that developers could easily change

these representations to make heroes out of female characters in future games. The problem with

this, Carpenter asserts, is that “the economics and demographics of console gaming” either

preclude or, at best, complicate such a cultural shift. This fact necessitates a far more in-depth

dissection and critique of the political economy of the games industry.47

What this reveals is that the content, membership, and thought patterns of

/r/KotakuInAction and those sympathetic to GamerGate’s brand of activism tend to reinforce the

unequal patriarchal structures feminists have fought long and hard to change. Above are only a

few of many examples of GamerGate activists laboring to maintain power once they perceive

threats to it. This process repeats even in cases where those who identify with the movement do

not perceive themselves as participating in harassment or demeaning behavior. Continuing one’s

membership in /r/KotakuInAction relies heavily on aligning with these anti-social justice

ideologies even amid constant challenges to their foundations. Because of this impenetrability,

members tend to cast aside valuable insights that they view as opposition to their cause.

Moderators of /r/KotakuInAction have even created a wiki—a subject of Chapter

45 Natassja B. Gunasena, “And WOC are Invisible Again: Anita Sarkeesian,” Irresistible (blog), March 11, 2013, http://www.irresistible- revolution.com/post/45143183984/and-woc-are-invisible-yet-again-anita-sarkeesian.

46 It is worth noting two issues here: Gunasena responds only to the first entry in the Tropes Vs. Women series, but the latest entry in the series, titled “Not Your Exotic Fantasy,” acknowledges this very problem. While the latest entry in the series does not necessarily address the oversight in previous installations, it supports the notion that social justice practitioners are often self-critical.

47 Carpenter, Nate, “Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games [Online Video Series]. Part 1: ,” Women and Language 36, no. 1. (2013): 97-99. 37

Three—that outlines the history of the movement, challenges to it, the arguments the community

uses to reinforce its preferred narrative, a long list of hundreds of sites that both oppose and

endorse GamerGate, and GamerGate’s activist agenda to convince advertisers strip funding from

“corrupt publications.” Sites that oppose GamerGate activists’ preferred narrative are blacklisted,

while those that at least moderately endorse it are likelier to be acceptable for posting to the

subreddit. Quinn herself argues that these social and ideological barriers have made GamerGate

communities like /r/KotakuInAction effective at discouraging young women (especially women

of color and trans people) from becoming game designers or critics out of fear for their own

safety.48

Social Justice in /r/GamerGhazi

By contrast, /r/GamerGhazi endorses academic social justice, yet labors to conceal itself

from public view by remaining out of the press. Like /r/KotakuInAction, however,

/r/GamerGhazi’s own wiki page—also a subject of Chapter Three—outlines the history of the

GamerGate controversy from its perspective. Some notable additions to the /r/GamerGhazi wiki

include a timeline of events occurring since Sarkeesian’s public persona and Quinn’s body became sites of struggle, a glossary of terms related to online bullying and harassment, a page telling the story of GamerGate activists vandalizing the page about the controversy, mental health resources for those who have become victims of online bullying and harassment, and a “Trans 101” page with links to resources that educate about transgender rights. Whereas scholars occasionally discuss /r/KotakuInAction in the academic literature, /r/GamerGhazi has been given no attention at all, despite its explicit resistance to the GamerGate movement.

Their views about social justice are perhaps best illustrated in their general rules section.

Underneath the rule “Civility is Required,” /r/GamerGhazi warns that “Making

48 Quinn, Crash Override, 73. 38

racist/sexist/phobic comments is not . Leave ‘gamer’ stereotypes out of your comment (e.g.

sexless, neck bearded, teenaged, basement-dwelling, etc). Don't compare people to animals, or otherwise deny their humanity. Don't be a jerk. There is a real human being on the other side of your screen.” As opposed to /r/KotakuInAction, which does not mention issues of race, gender, ableism, and trans-inclusion, /r/GamerGhazi makes their pro-social justice point of view explicit.

The community attempts to remain consistent with its inclusive philosophy by prohibiting the use of reductive gamer stereotypes such as the basement-dweller or neck beard. Both stereotypes refer to men in various states of arrested development. They live well into their adulthoods off their parents’ hospitality in a guest room or basement. They are unclean, ignore personal hygiene, misogynistic, unattractive, overweight, and throughout the day are glued to their computers, where they spend their disposable hours harassing anonymous people on the internet.

As a result of their hermit lifestyles they fail to develop social skills with women—the major implication being that they are too repulsive to have sex with or date.49

By outlawing these harmful stereotypes, GamerGhazi appears, at least on the surface, to

rally around a performative kind of -headedness in stark contrast to /r/KotakuInAction’s

brand of explicit activism against authoritarian SJWs. Additionally, the community

acknowledges the importance of gamer identity—linked in parentheses to its associated

stereotypes—despite the ongoing cultural battle over its efficacy. Note also the seeming

contradiction between the GamerGhazi banner’s cheeky reference to the spate of “gamers are dead” articles that appeared in GamerGate’s wake, and the prohibition /r/GamerGhazi places on

the stereotypes that demean people who claim such identities. On one hand the gamer is a

marketing problem that has not been solved—stereotypically a white man associated with the

49 Lauren Rosewarne. “The Worse You Look the Smarter They Think You Are: The Neckbeard,” in Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators: Film, TV, and Internet Stereotypes, (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2016), 45. 39 familiar imagery of the neckbeard or basement-dweller. On the other hand, this acknowledgement of the so-called “gamer” is a response to the accusation that feminists and those against GamerGate intend to destroy the gamer identity altogether. By placing the “gamer” identity at the forefront as opposed to submerging it, /r/GamerGhazi validates some of

GamerGate’s grievances by hinting at an affiliation for the game consumer.

A Note on My Use of the Term “Activist”

A key difference between /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi, apart from their antithetical ideologies, is each community’s distinct relationship to activism. The

/r/KotakuInAction wiki explicates the community’s “current plan of action” to strip funding from publications that do not side with GamerGate, or what activists within the community call

“corrupt publications.” Because /r/KotakuInAction defines itself through the lens of activism, I follow the community’s self-definition and call members within it “activists.” As I show in

Chapter Three, activist campaigns started by /r/KotakuInAction are highly organized, even when ineffective at achieving the desired results.

By contrast, the /r/GamerGhazi community prohibits calls to action, noting in its general rules section that “GamerGhazi is not an advocacy group. No planning operations or similar.” I view such a clear distinction between the two communities as particularly telling. Here,

/r/GamerGhazi states its intentions to act as a discursive counterbalance to /r/KotakuInAction in almost all respects, including the community’s relationship to activism. It is such explicit contradictions—activism versus the refusal to be an activist—that show how each community views itself in relationship to its ideological underpinnings. In this case, /r/GamerGhazi merely wishes to remain a cloistered community for those looking to voice their concerns about institutional inequalities. They do not want to become public. Because of /r/GamerGhazi’s self- definition, throughout this dissertation I refer to people who post on /r/GamerGhazi as 40

“members” rather than activists.

The Game Consumer Identity

A key leitmotif among GamerGate activists and /r/GamerGhazi members is the changing

status of the gamer in popular culture. As I discuss in Chapters Three and Four, GamerGate

activists and, in some cases, /r/GamerGhazi members uncomfortable with demands for inclusivity in the video games industry coordinate subtle efforts to erase the marginalized gamer

subject from consideration. One way they do this is by deferring to their consumer identities.

This entails claiming that race and gender are irrelevant to what consumers of video games really want. By the logic of this model, consumers are part of a monolithic group. Even in the case of

#NotYourShield, nonwhite, gender non-conforming, queer, and transgender people are merely

used as pawns to confirm GamerGate activists’ already-held biases. Consistent with this subtle choice of terminology is the shared assertion among /r/KotakuInAction activists that GamerGate

is not a movement, but a consumer revolt against journalists and SJW video game

designers who only care to force their unsolicited ideology into the products gamers otherwise

love to play. A consumer is a raceless and genderless and therefore color- and gender-blind

subject produced through capitalism.

One need only read the book or watch the film based on Ernest Cline’s

to see how the game consumer identity has been constructed through a distinctly white male

marketing canon. Cline’s novel is a story based in a future dystopian America about a young boy

named Wade who spends most of his time jacked into a virtual reality interface called the

OASIS, which is what the internet evolved into. The virtual reality interface, or internet-sized game, was created by deceased mega-rich billionaire James Halliday, who stipulated in his will

that whomever could solve an elaborate mystery he devised would gain his fortune, together with

complete control of the OASIS. The characters of the novel look fondly from their near-future 41 vantage upon 1980s nostalgia, and so the novel essentially overloads the reader with a collection of pop cultural references to 1980s music, film, and most conspicuously video games. As Megan

Amber Condis observes, the novel, which recently regained popular attention through director

Steven Spielberg’s filmed adaptation, privileges a narrow set of canonical texts that cater to a largely white, male, cisgendered, masculine base of consumers. It is what she calls a “ludic” novel—named for ludology, or the study of (game) play—because the mystery at the center of the novel is something only a knowledgeable, diligent, astute, and therefore worthy gamer would be likely to solve.50

The resurgence of such nostalgia is no coincidence. Gamers of the 1980s, what Shaw terms the marketed-to audience, came of age only within the last few years. Much of the backlash against social justice in gaming cultures is connected to the kinds of games these self- described game consumers either canonize or reject. For /r/KotakuInAction and, to a lesser extent, /r/GamerGhazi, the emergent consumer identity is integral to determining what kinds of games make it into the canon. Often, the tenor of these online backlashes comes in the form of rejecting certain games on the basis that they do not qualify as actual games. In her ethnographic research about the arbitrary distinction between hardcore and casual games—the former describing games with complex mechanics usually sold to the cisgendered, white, male demographic and the latter sold over platforms like and require cursory attention—

Adrienne Shaw interviews several people who do not identify as gamers and argues that the distinction between gamers and non-gamers is too reductive to capture the nuances of the market. Whereas the designation “gamer” denotes subcultural capital associated with consumption of a product or products that would induct one into a club of other ostensibly male

50 Condis, Megan Amber, “Playing the Game of Literature: Ready Player One, The Ludic Novel, and the Geeky ‘Canon,’” Journal of Modern Literature 39, no. 2 (2016), 3. 42

gamers, a non-gamer (or casual gamer) is the feminized other of the gaming population and is

therefore the less privileged variety. Shaw recommends ultimately that focusing on gamers

denotes a privileged position that reinforces the dominant marketing logic that constructed the

gaming audience of white, cisgendered men in the first place. Unsettling the construction of the

gamer invites focus on identities that might fall outside the purview of the term.51

The outcome of the constructed audience of gamers Shaw describes is that those who do

not identify as gamers (but often still play games) may choose not to because of personal beliefs

about their level of involvement in games and gaming cultures, the additional social labels

associated with claiming the gamer identity, and the gaming market as an institution. Recent

research into gamer communities supports the notion that most of the contemporary consumer

population of people who explicitly identify as gamers are white men. Most illuminating of all is

that counting those who identify as gamers captures only a fraction of the actual number of

people who frequently play games, suggesting that women, gender non-conforming, and

nonwhite people are playing games, but choose not to identify as gamers out of fear that they do

not measure up to the term’s arbitrary standards.52

In recent years, Shaw and Chess have criticized both gamer culture and game scholars for failing to adopt an intersectional approach to game studies. In her book Gaming at the Edge,

Shaw analyzes representation and marginalized audiences in gaming through an audience reception standpoint. Adopting an ethnographic methodology and proceeding from the premise that scholarship on game studies has oversimplified analyses of identity, Shaw explores topics

51 Adrienne Shaw, “On Not Becoming Gamers: Moving Beyond the Constructed Audience,” Ada Journal of New Media 6, no. 2 (2013).

52 William T. Howe, Dalaki Jym Livingston, and Sun Kyong Lee, “Concerning Gamer Identity: An Examination of Individual Factors Associated With Accepting the Label of Gamer,” First Monday 24, no. 3 (2019). 43

ranging from player identification with video game characters to how representation affects

audience reception. Ultimately concluding that games can represent “more diverse versions of

the world,” Shaw creates a case for how video games are capable of reconfiguring identities of

game characters and the audiences that consume those games.53 Over the decades, as the industry

started to reshape itself to consider and represent diverse identities, the marketed-to audience

also diversified, thereby de-centering the default, white male consumer and leading to a profound

sense of discomfort among those who felt they had been left behind by the industry they knew

and loved.

Like Shaw, Chess calls explicitly for devoted intersectional analyses of games, gaming

communities, and virtual communities in general (such as those that emerge on the internet) in

order to reckon with the marketed-to audience. More interested in game design that has specific

audiences in mind as opposed to the audiences and cultures that consume games, Chess

considers in her book Ready Player Two what she calls “player two,” a hypothetical female

player whose identity is designed as a “necessarily white, middle class, and heterosexual”

woman confined to the domestic sphere.54 Chess discusses games like Kim Kardashian:

Hollywood, which is traditionally considered casual fare for a specific audience of young

women. The implication of Chess’s argument is that the transformation of the video games

industry extends beyond greater variety of identity representation in gaming

scene—i.e. the area of the gaming market in which lower-budget products tend to be made by

smaller groups of developers. Instead, games constitute several products designed with specific

audiences in mind and shape identity through those products. However, those feminized,

53 Adrienne Shaw, Gaming at the Edge, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 214.

54 Shira Chess, Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017), 28. 44

purportedly “casual” games are rarely given the same distinction as high-budget blockbusters

that attract seasoned professionals—ostensibly the true gamers who have both the taste and skill

to fit in.

This idea of the constructed game consumer informs this entire project, as claiming to be

a gamer enables GamerGate activists to both ignore the privileges afforded by whiteness and

maleness and gives them permission to fulfill their color- and gender-blind mission statement.

This is because the “gamer,” or “consumer” is a monolithic figure strategically stripped of race, gender, and class, and therefore defaults to a white male. As we will see in Chapters Three and

Four, in order to erase these intersecting identities, GamerGate activists rewrite history, often through the lens of conspiracy theory, to suit their preferred narrative. In the case of

/r/GamerGhazi, race is a continually fraught issue. While for /r/GamerGhazi the consumer identity is not always used in the service of denying intersecting identities and the ways institutions use those identities to distribute power unequally, in Chapter Four I show how it emerges often to justify individuals’ choice to consume a game noted for its regressive racial politics.

In Chapter Two I discuss my feminist methodology and method for approaching my

GamerGate sites. I first define what I believe a feminist methodology is and discuss how I investigate my sites through a feminist lens. I subsequently discuss how my analysis in Chapters

Three and Four are informed by the scholarship on intersectionality and masculinity studies, both of which emerged out of and after the insights of the standpoint epistemologists of the 1970s and

1980s. Finally, I cover my multiple-methods approach to analyzing and understanding site content, proprietary wiki documents, and the game text that are the subjects of the final two chapters. 45

CHAPTER TWO. APPRECIATING RESEARCHER BIAS: METHODOLOGY, METHOD,

AND THE FEMINIST QUESTION

It’s so easy to dehumanize other people online. They can seem like little more than words

on a screen, an abstract idea of a person instead of a living, breathing human who cries

and laughs and has flaws like everyone else. You only see the tip of the iceberg when it

comes to the consequences of your actions, especially when the person you’ve hurt is

trying to deny you the satisfaction of a reaction.

– Zoe Quinn, Crash Override

When I first encountered /r/KotakuInAction shortly after its founding in 2014 I was

puzzled. Why, I thought, do these people care that video games are diversifying their audiences?

Why does it matter that some games tell stories for people who never see themselves represented? Why does the fact that women and trans people are speaking out about inequities in the industry and its products upset self-described gamers? Almost every comment thread on the front page was riddled with frustrations about correctives to the industry I viewed as promising—headlines decrying this or that social justice consciousness raising effort, user commentary that conveniently ignored its own racist or misogynistic underpinnings, and site rules that passionately disavowed GamerGate’s role in harassing female and trans game designers. Everything in /r/KotakuInAction suggested the community subscribed to a unique definition of harassment that ran counter to the mainstream and academia. They really believed they were benevolent and social justice activists were plotting against them. And while I understood, even sympathized with, some of these GamerGate activists’ feelings—after all,

American culture always derided gamers as childish and irresponsible basement-dwellers living off of their parents’ disposable income—I almost always disagreed with their combative 46

methods. When I first came across /r/KotakuInAction in the midst of the GamerGate

controversy, I thought it ironic that their aggression should elicit an angry emotional response

from me.

Then I came across the epigraph of this chapter from Quinn’s Crash Override. Quinn

argues in the final chapters of her book that academics and journalists should treat GamerGate activists as human beings whose feelings matter, even if regressive ideologies that reinforce the boundaries delimiting who gets included and excluded create those feelings. Surely the rhetoric and worldview of those with such political ideologies should be taken seriously, especially in an environment where those ideologies have political and social influence. After all, attentiveness and deep criticism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, disagreement is to be expected from academics who, like me, wince at /r/KotakuInAction members’ misunderstanding (or worse, deliberate misrepresentation) of social justice work.1 Inspired by Quinn’s surprising restraint in

the face of the trauma she experienced, I chose to keep an eye on my biases from the outset and

use the dissertation as an opportunity to make sense of a cultural process taking shape in these

politically opposed online spaces. So I remained an outsider, a non-participant, so I could see

each community for what they were and how they saw themselves, not what I believed them to

be.

This chapter outlines how I navigated these uncharted waters and dealt with value systems that clashed with my own. It describes how I devised a way to make sense of

/r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi’s ideological foundations and how each community goes about renovating those foundations. In what follows I outline my feminist methodology, discuss what informs my decision to adopt one, and justify my multiple methods approach to data

1 Most particularly indicated by the #NotYourShield trend, which I discussed briefly in Chapter One. 47

collection and interpretation. I first discuss my methodology in detail, including my theoretical

groundwork of intersectional masculinity that arose out of the imperfect but influential and

important work of standpoint epistemologists. From there, I discuss the challenges of conducting

qualitative internet research on Reddit—particularly having to do with these male-dominated

spaces—and discuss my particular standpoint as ewell as the thics of collecting and publishing

public online data. After covering ethics, I discuss my multiple methods approach in detail, which includes textual analysis of site data, visual analysis of Reddit’s aesthetic and a game text

to which /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi , and an analysis of Reddit’s user interface.

Feminist Methodology

What is a Feminist Methodology?

As distinct from my method, which is how I went about collecting, coding, and making

sense of my data, my methodology ties directly into my theoretical framework and is how I

believe my research should be conducted and why. As I chose the sites for this project, I had

reservations about emphasizing a male-dominated space, since doing so could risk submerging

the voices of white women, women of color, and trans people. My choice of focus could easily

put the project in a precarious position given feminist researchers tend to argue that good

feminist work ought to place women at the forefront of any project.2 But that is precisely what I believe I have done, with one addendum—at its core, this project places women of color at the

forefront. By understanding a group, /r/KotakuInAction, that is hostile to feminist and anti-racist

interventions in gamer culture as well as its antithesis, /r/GamerGhazi, this project confronts the coordinated efforts to erase women of color from video games. The point of this project is to

2 Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter, “Introduction: When Intersect Epistemology,” in Feminist Epistemology (New York: Routledge, 1993), 1-14; Lorraine Code, “Taking Subjectivity Into Account,” in Feminist Epistemology (New York: Routledge, 1993), 15-48. 48

challenge some of the claims of both communities via a focused analysis of their peculiar

contradictions and critical social discomforts relating to questions of racial and gender

inequality, especially the intersections between both.

Effective feminist research is also against the bad habits of essentialism, even when

dealing with cultures and groups that attempt to reinforce patriarchal structures of dominance.

After all, feminist research is not clearly demarcated or standardized, except in the abstract sense

of interrupting systems of power and dominance. I conceive of feminist research in the same

sense as Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter; namely, that it entails a “commitment to the struggles

of women to have their understandings of the world legitimated.”3 I interpret this to mean that

legitimating those experiences can take many forms. At the same time, feminist researchers do

not always agree on how to go about challenging male claims to knowledge and power, or how

to make meaningful differences to women’s lives.4 Part of this has to do with the fact that

“women” are not members of a monolithic group, but themselves exist in bodies and social

contexts that complicate their lived experiences. As Morwenna Griffiths pointed out more than

two decades ago, the specter of racism, classism, sexism, and nationality have made feminist

research increasingly difficult to carry out, yet it is precisely that difficulty and complexity that

makes it not only rewarding, but necessary to do that research. Furthermore, she argues,

becoming aware of how the oppressions of race, class, and gender intersect invites us to question

how we do feminist research.5

3 Alcoff and Potter, Feminist Epistemology, 2.

4 Gayle Letherby, Feminist Research in Theory and Practice, (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2003), 4.

5 Morwena Griffiths, Feminisms and the Self: The Web of Identity, (New York: Routledge, 1995), 177. 49

The /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi subreddits reflect a continuing battle over

claims to knowledge and power. Each community emerged in an environment where academic

feminists increasingly looked to the internet and popular culture to account for the unequal

treatment of people based on their race, gender, class, and nation. But these new feminist

interventions in online communities created as many wounds as they healed. The differences between these groups reflects a polarized American culture that continually fails to confront the ways in which oppressive systems use identity to distribute power unequally. It is therefore unsurprising that neither community engages in productive dialogue with one another.

Before moving forward with a description of my data collection methods, it is important first to describe what a feminist methodology is, why it guides this project, and the body of theory I draw on for my analysis. Immediately I faced a methodological problem when deciding how to read /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi. The problem had less to do with how to go about collecting data from both subreddits and more to do with why investigating a male- dominated online community and its opposite constituted feminist research. According to Sandra

Harding in her book Feminism and Method, a feminist research project is characterized fundamentally by an effort to unsettle androcentric claims to knowledge (i.e. men’s experiences only).6 She argues in her 1987 essay “The Method Question” that feminist work should additionally cover “critical studies of masculinity and men (in the military, the economy, the family, etc.).”7 I contend that intervening on a space that privileges male perspectives in order to complicate its claims to knowledge and power follows the practice of feminist research.

Additionally, some areas of masculine behavior where women and other marginalized groups are

6 , Feminism and Method, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 11.

7 Sandra Harding, “The Method Question,” 2, no. 3 (1987), 21 50 excluded by design, “such as board rooms, military settings, or locker rooms,” should be subjected to intense feminist scrutiny.8 I conceive of /r/KotakuInAction as a kind of digital locker room, where a preponderance of men huddle together to discredit feminist claims to knowledge about the world through a cultural battle over games, gaming, the intertexts to which games refer, and cultural and political systems outside of games. A feminist research project would take these areas of masculine behavior seriously by appreciating the disagreements and contradictions among the group, including but not limited to their grievances and frustrations.

While it is true that women also participate in /r/KotakuInAction, I have observed that their identity tends only to come to the surface when it is used to reinforce patriarchal power structures (e.g. when a female member of /r/KotakuInAction expresses her indignation at the accusation that GamerGate harasses women on the basis that she herself has not experienced harassment).

The GamerGhazi subreddit counters /r/KotakuInAction in both form and content. It is an anti-racist, pro-feminist digital safe space that fosters trans-inclusion and forbids intentionally mis-gendering someone or asking for details about their transition surgery. At the outset, a feminist researcher might reasonably interpret this subreddit as a vitriolic response to

GamerGate’s transphobic past and present. In fact, one of /r/GamerGhazi’s most provocative site rules forbids pro-GamerGate content and demands that users refrain from “intentionally asking leading questions while pretending to be a neutral party, or downplaying the actions of GG [sic], the alt-right or other fascist groups.” Notably, they link GamerGate to and the alt-right, both terms lately connected with neo-conservative publications like Breitbart and the proliferation of hate groups over white supremacist sites like and anonymous digital

8 Harding, Feminism and Method, 12. 51 gathering spots like 4Chan.9 By forbidding pro-GamerGate content /r/GamerGhazi directs their ire at GamerGate and /r/KotakuInAction for pouring salt on the wounds of racism, misogyny, and in games and gaming. While the membership numbers of /r/GamerGhazi are less than /r/KotakuInAction, this fact may ironically be attributable to its less exclusive community ideals (i.e. ideals that are more mainstream) and the fact that GamerGate has gotten a great deal of press through the very publications that opposed it (such as Kotaku, Polygon, and The New

York Times). By contrast /r/KotakuInAction to some degree opposes feminist and anti-racist social justice in games and gaming precisely because they produce discomfort when they bleed into popular culture and challenge authority in the mainstream. Recent political shifts in gaming, politics, and popular art have led to this exclusive, angry backlash, the defining features of which

I cover in Chapter Three.

Feminist Standpoint and the Problem of Essentialism

The standpoints of the gamer, the consumer, the GamerGate activist, and the social justice academic clash and create tensions between /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi.

Questions arise such as who should be included or excluded, who should or should not make games, who should or should not have political power, and who is or is not legitimate. In their insatiable hunger for legitimacy and authority, GamerGate activists unify behind their seemingly common in the emotionally distant researcher—for them, the antithesis of a feminist

SJW—who produces knowledge devoid of ideology or subjectivity. As I make apparent in

Chapters Three and Four, GamerGate activists on /r/KotakuInAction substitute historical accuracy and the consumer identity for so-called “objective truth” to render the race and gender of the ideal consumer of video games irrelevant. In order to understand these identity erasures, I

9 Angela Nagle, , (Washington: Books, 2017), 12. 52 consult the work of standpoint epistemologists who draw on Marxist theories of class struggle and social division to unsettle androcentric claims to scientific and historical knowledge and authority.

A prime goal of feminist research over the last four decades has been to challenge the cultural of women’s claims to knowledge and authority. The question of how feminist researchers should go about making these challenges was confronted in the 1980s by scholars like Nancy Hartsock, who articulates an early version of feminist standpoint epistemology in her book Money, Sex, and Power. At its core standpoint epistemology is a critique of scientific positivism, a masculinist theory of power which holds that knowledge comes from nature or has a natural explanation divorced from one’s unique perspective. For positivists, the good scientist is an objective observer whose emotions and ideals do not get in the way of the data. A good scientist is a detached observer who is unfettered by the drawbacks of human culture or bias.10

Standpoint epistemology by contrast attempts to elucidate how knowledge can be both situated— or perspectival—and true.11 In other words, standpoint epistemologists argue that there are multiple perspectives from which truth claims about the world are produced. Under this model a person’s race, class, gender, sexual identity, or any other specific subject position is seen as likely to impact empirical data.

To reach this conclusion that one’s subject position is an essential component of knowledge production, Hartsock borrows from ’s insights about the class struggle of the against the and Georg Hegel’s master-slave dialectic. Hegel’s

10 , Feminist Politics and Human Nature (: The Harvester Press, 1983), 356.

11 Susan Hekman, “Truth and Method: Feminist Revisited,” Signs 22, no. 2 (1997), 341 53

conceptualization of the master-slave dialectic is best expressed in his nineteenth century book

The Phenomenology of Spirit, in which he contends that a lord—or master—depends upon the

servant—or slave—for their self-consciousness. The lord does not have “an independent

consciousness, but a dependent one”—that of the slave, whose own consciousness is independent

as an essential reality of the lord’s. In other words, the lord relies on a dependent consciousness

to realize their own and to use that relationship to exert their control, while the slave has an

“independent consciousness that is for itself,” and who “lives a life seized with dread; for it has experienced the fear of death, the absolute Lord.”1213

The connections between Marx and Hegel become clear once we begin looking at the

desire of the master and slave. Whereas the slave resists desire and becomes conscious of itself

through work, the master indulges desire as a matter of course through objectifying the worker.14

From here, desire, work, and the relationship between an object—the master—and subject—the slave—connects with Marxist class struggle in that the proletariat may be figured as the slave and the bourgeoisie the master. Hartsock argues, like Hegel might, that the working class proletariat understands reality far differently than the bourgeoisie.15 For Hartsock, the proletariat

“is the first class in to possess the potentiality for creating a

because it is the first class in history whose interests do not depend on the oppression of other

12 Emphasis in original.

13 Georg Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 117

14 Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, 118.

15 Nancy Hartsock, Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist (New York: Longman, 1983), 133. 54

classes.”16 One central problem is that Marx never had gender (or, for that matter, race) in mind when he wrote his most influential work. But given that the feminism of the 1970s and 1980s became increasingly attentive to voices that had long been ignored—like those of women of color and LGBTQ+ people—the leap from Hegelian master-slave dialectic and the Marxist class struggle of the proletariat against the oppressive bourgeoisie to women fighting against the patriarchy seemed natural and intuitive.

While standpoint epistemologists critique positivist claims to knowledge, they still view science as an essential tool to effect meaningful social and cultural change. In fact, the aim of standpoint epistemology is partly to transform the way that science has always been done by showing how bias emerges necessarily from the scientist who produces knowledge from a particular body at a particular place and time. As Alison Jaggar argues in her book Feminist

Politics and Human Nature, in order for feminists to develop workable strategies of resistance to normative arguments about what makes a society good or equal, “they must draw on scientific knowledge to give substance to their ideals [and] to discover the causes of women’s past and present oppression.”17 Jaggar repudiates the fiercely individualistic ethos of , which holds that knowledge “has no necessary social preconditions” and so resembles token positivism in its core assertion that rational detachment trumps culture and identity.18 Under this

model of liberal feminism, the individual is responsible for producing knowledge as opposed to

the social matrix within which that individual exists, and legislative change is the way toward

greater equality. Such a model privileges the very systems of oppression that played a part in

16 Hartsock, Money, Sex, and Power, 135.

17 Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature, 354.

18 Jaggar, 355. 55

silencing women in the first place, since it ignores the standpoint of the oppressed who may not

be able to claim individuality and thereby promotes a reality partial to the masters that rule it.

Like her contemporary Hartsock, Jaggar looks to for a contrary view

of human nature where science is socially constructed and categories of knowledge are

themselves human inventions. Capitalism is the lens through which to view this dynamic because

it is predicated on the myth that society naturally thrives off of competition between its citizens,

and that those who compete hardest and work hardest are the most deserving of access to

education, money, and other resources that promote personal wellbeing. These myths resemble

the kind of strong-arming masculinity one would expect in a patriarchal society that historically

promoted positivist ideology in order to place marginalized bodies on the lowest rungs of the

social hierarchy where white men sit at the top, ignore the grievances of the marginalized, and

thereby subject them to constant pain and anguish. These myths are perpetuated by the bourgeoisie and hold that those who work hardest become the successful capitalists, while the lazy ones who serve the capitalist class are relegated to the laboring working class. Those within the working class consequently become alienated from the products and services they produce— i.e. they do not profit from the fruits of their labor—while funneling profits to the capitalist class.

Ironically, those placed in the subordinate classes are in fact the backbreaking laborers exploited by the capitalist upper-crust, yet they are stereotyped as lazy and therefore deserving of their misfortune.19 Jaggar suggests as an alternative to the liberal feminism that

reinforces these systems of oppression. Socialist feminism, which is compatible with the insights

of Marx but builds upon them, conceives of women as a subordinate class that adopts the

enlightened, more comprehensive proletariat standpoint. Jaggar calls such a standpoint

19 Jaggar, 359-360. 56

“epistemologically advantageous” since it “provides the basis for a view of reality that is more

impartial than that of the ruling class,” which fails to represent the comprehensive interests of

society.20

Despite its apparent promise as a liberating rethinking of science and culture, critics of

the standpoint epistemology espoused by scholars like Hartsock, Jaggar, and Harding have justly

accused its adherents of essentialism. As Gayle Letherby has observed, major premises of

standpoint epistemology are self-defeating. By promoting the idea that one group’s perspective is

better or more accurate than another, standpoint epistemologists make essentializing claims

about those groups. They claim that women as a group are one way and men as a group are

another way, thereby ignoring the important differences within groups. What about men of

color? Women of color? People who identify as LGBTQ+? Women who do not identify as

feminists? And what happens when people within marginalized groups feel they do not share

others’ oppression, yet simultaneously act as spokespeople for their groups? A logical outcome

of such essentialism is that it reinforces the very binary conditions that established the oppressive

power structures that necessitated the insights of feminism in the first place.21 An unfortunate byproduct of this essentialism, which mirrors the kind of essentialism reproduced in the systems of domination standpoint epistemologists aim to overthrow, is that a feminist standpoint can be used by dominant classes to reinforce these systems of oppression.

An essentializing example discussed briefly in Chapter One is #NotYourShield, which promotes the idea that individuals within a marginalized group are spokespeople for that group except, of course, when those individuals counter the preferred or dominant white male narrative.

20 Jaggar, 370-371.

21 Letherby, Feminist Research in Theory and Practice, 46. 57

Through #NotYourShield pro-GamerGate nonwhite, non-cis-, transgender people, and non- binary women claim to represent their respective groups—i.e. they tokenize and expose themselves as authentic visual evidence of a feminist conspiracy against GamerGate—thereby ironically spreading a color- and gender-blind narrative that feminists are irrational hysterics.

The #NotYourShield campaign shows not only that there are differences within groups but illustrates why understanding those group differences is important.

Catherine M. O’Leary shares this position that knowledge cannot emerge out of a single shared standpoint among a larger group of people. Drawing on the work of intersectional feminists bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins and transnational feminist scholar Chandra Talpade

Mohanty, she argues instead that feminists ought to recognize the power relationships among and between women by taking such issues as race, class, gender, and nation into consideration and forging a new kind of coalitional politics.22 Save for its recognition that women’s experiences and knowledge claims matter, in its first iteration standpoint epistemology left Marx’s monolithic classes in-tact and largely unchanged. This presented a major practical problem for standpoint epistemology—if we suppose that women (or any group, for that matter) tap into a wellspring of truer knowledge from their underprivileged position that others from privileged classes cannot access, we run the risk of romanticizing women as transcendent beings whose claims to knowledge are essentially true no matter what.

Donna Haraway is perhaps the most famous critic of this notion. Haraway rejects the illusory ideal of scientific objectivity, where the sententious researcher claims to produce real or true knowledge from a godlike vantage. She proposes instead what she calls feminist objectivity, which “is about limited location and situated knowledge, not about transcendence and splitting of

22 Catherine O’Leary, “Counteridentification or Counterhegemony? Transforming Feminist Standpoint Theory,” Women and Politics 18, no. 3 (1998), 49. 58 subject and object. It allows us to become answerable for what we learn how to see.”23 Situated knowledge is invariably about how communities construct . It is about partial perspective, not relativism or totality, and it rests on the foundation that the researcher is responsible for seeking out others’ points of view and making sense of them. Once those points of view come into focus—and more concretely in terms of this dissertation once they materialize in the discursive realm of the internet—dominant attitudes float to the surface and can be challenged or intervened upon.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality expands on the insights of standpoint epistemology by taking account of the overlapping—as opposed to additive, or discrete—oppressions of race, class, gender, and nation. It is a term Kimberle Crenshaw first coined in a 1989 article to describe the American legal system’s dismissal of black female plaintiffs’ concerns during court cases. Crenshaw observes that black women do not occupy a protected class of citizens because policy discourse sees their experiences as the sum total of racism and sexism, as opposed to forming out of the complicated interactions between them.24 The term references critical insights about the intersecting—as opposed to unitary or mutually exclusive—oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and ability. Emerging largely out of critiques that black feminist thought had heretofore failed to bridge the gap between advances in critical race and feminist theory, intersectionality became codified into the women of color feminist lexicon as both a theoretical and activist tool to resist normative, single-axis analyses of oppression.

23 Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988), 583.

24 Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” Legal Forum 8 no. 1 (1989), 139. 59

Ten years after Crenshaw invented the term, Patricia Hill Collins again brought it into focus to trouble its deceptive simplicity. Citing Angela Y. Davis’s Women, Race, and Class and

Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider as introductions to intersectional scholarship prior to Crenshaw’s formal codification, Collins builds upon and clarifies intersectionality with what she terms of domination. While the former refers to forms of intersecting oppressions that operate simultaneously and “remind us that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type,” the matrix of domination locates the institutional and organizational patterns for those oppressions.25

In other words, matrix of domination refers to the “overall social organization within which intersecting oppressions originate, develop, and are contained” and covers institutional necessities such as schools, housing, employment, healthcare, and the government, all of which regulate and contain the social, economic, and cultural mobility of black women and women of color.26 Combined with the concept of intersectionality, then, adding matrices of domination as a methodological tool enables scholars not only to uncover how intersections of oppression are reproduced and maintained, but provides a roadmap for how to resist those forms of oppression.

In the case of /r/KotakuInAction and its associated politics, the internet is the vehicle through which to exert control over terms such as racism, sexism, harassment, and free speech.

Unfortunately, intersectionality has been widely misunderstood in the years that followed its invention. In her critical text on this subject, Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, Ange-

Marie Hancock elucidates the strengths of intersectionality as well as its practitioners’ misguided tendency to see race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and ability as discrete entities.

Terming this tendency the additive approach to intersectional analyses, Hancock argues that

25 Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, (New York: Routledge, 2009), 18.

26 Collins, Black Feminist Thought, 227-228. 60

scholars mistakenly frame identities as disaggregated entities as opposed to mutually

constitutive. Seeing identities as separate pieces of an individual carries the consequence of

misidentifying institutional and social contexts for oppression through social and cultural

fragmentation.27 Leslie McCall likewise contends that intersectional feminist scholars ought to

recognize the complex ways identities are mutually constituted, or what she terms

“intracategorical complexity,” which holds that “no single dimension of overall inequality can

adequately describe the full structure of multiple, intersecting, and conflicting dimensions of

inequality.”28 In other words, while scholars must invariably begin with checking off all the

appropriate boxes describing a subject’s identity—a necessary strategic move that must act as the

first step when studying forms of oppression—the process of unveiling the complex social

realities that enfold that subject is far more complicated.

Other intersectional scholars have taken this critique further. Calling on intersectional

feminists to address these concerns more explicitly in their research, Anna Carastathis excoriates

scholars who have generally glossed over the interlocking nature of identity and urges them to

utilize the full range of intersectionality’s activist potential. In an attempt to bridge the divide

between transnational and indigenous feminism and intersectional feminism, which she sees as

arbitrarily reinforcing the very colonial systems of oppression feminism purportedly aims to

resist, Carastathis argues that intersectionality has the potential as a decolonial project to address

not only the conversations surrounding what identities count as worthy of inclusion (a term that

itself feeds the very dominant discourses intersectionality calls into question), but the very terms

27 Ange-Marie Hancock, Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 82.

28 Leslie McCall, “The Complexity of Intersectionality,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30, no. 3 (2005), 1791. 61

of the conversation itself.29 In other words, better intersectional work ideally rejects the language

of inclusion and instead foregrounds insurrectionary activism.

Masculinity

Scholarship on masculinity and masculine performance has also gained widespread

attention in the last few decades. Published in 1993, Raewyn Connell’s Masculinities is a

seminal text that first elucidated the concept of hegemonic masculinity, which is an ideal form of

masculinity that certain citizens consent to perform. Hegemonic masculinity is different from so-

called “traditional masculinity,” which is an oft-used term Brittany Everitt-Penhale and Kopano

Ratele argue frequently undermines and contradicts scholarship on masculinities that takes an

explicitly social constructivist perspective.30 In fact, Connell intends to upend social

constructivist thinking about the notion of traditional masculinity. Responding to masculinity’s

definitional constraints, Connell argues that adding the term hegemonic enables us to “recognize the relations between the different kinds of masculinity: relations of reliance, dominance and subordination. These relationships are constructed through practices that exclude and include, that intimidate, exploit, and so on. There is a gender politics within masculinity.”31 In other

words, masculinity is not a singular identity, but is multiple and performed differently in

different contexts. Furthermore, it invites a particular focus on how maleness and masculinity are

linked, policed, and contested.

Hegemonic Masculinity is also representational, discursive, and bodily. The experience

29 Anna Carastathis, Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons (Lincoln: University of Press, 2016), 210.

30 Brittany Everitt-Pehnale and Kopano Ratele, “Rethinking ‘Traditional Masculinity’ as Constructed, Multiple, and Not Equal to Hegemonic Masculinity,” South African Review of Sociology 46, no. 2 (2015), 6.

31 R.W. Connell, Masculinities, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 37. 62

of one’s body, for Connell, is central to understanding the experience of masculinity in

relationship to femininity. For Connell, “masculine gender is (among other things) a certain feel

to the skin, certain muscular shapes and tensions, certain postures and ways of moving, certain

possibilities in sex.”32 Sports is an illustrative case study. Athletes become exemplars of

masculine superiority and their bodies embed particular social relations such as dominance over

and exclusion of women.33 Bodies are inescapable vessels that are necessary for the construction

of masculinies, but masculinity is not itself fixed; it changes according to social relations and

history. In order to understand this idea that hegemonic masculinity is not fixed, it is necessary to

the term “hegemony” back to its origins and draw upon ’s initial

formulation of it as elaborated in his writings.

In Gramsci’s own words, entails “political leadership” and “consent in the life and activities of the state and civil society.”34 Gramsci’s concept of hegemony most often

attends discussions about the ideological state apparatus. Nestled alongside thinkers like Louis

Althusser—whose philosophy that the ideologically interpellated subject’s only agency is in

knowing they are interpellated is, by contrast, decidedly more fatalistic—Gramsci argues that the

ideologies of political leadership “are mere illusions, a to which they are subject,” and

they “are anything but arbitrary; they are real historical facts which must be combatted and their

nature as instruments of domination revealed, not for reasons of etc., but for reasons of

political struggle.”35 In other words, hegemony is embedded in a particular time and place—in a

32 Connell, Masculinities, 52.

33 Connell, 54.

34 Antonio Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935, (New York: New Press, 2000), 194. 35 Gramsci, The Gramsci Reader, 196. 63

sociohistorical context—and the agents caught within its grasp consent to be governed by it.

Only by withholding that consent can “instruments of domination” be revealed. Gramsci’s

philosophy is therefore liberating insofar as it “does not mean total control. It is not automatic,

and may be disrupted—or even disrupt itself.”36 Hence, the allure of hegemonic masculinity is in

its propensity for change and in the possibility for counter-hegemonic discourses that attempt to dismantle it and, eventually, replace it with a new hegemony.

Other scholars have expanded upon the concept of hegemonic masculinity to illustrate relationships between different performances of masculinity. Like Connell, Mike Donaldson

argues that hegemonic masculinity is defined primarily by the continued and conscious strategies

of male dominance over women. The institution of hegemonic masculinity “is both a personal

and a collective project” that “is exclusive, anxiety-provoking, internally and hierarchically

differentiated, brutal, and violent. It is pseudo-natural, tough, contradictory, crisis-prone, rich,

and socially sustained.”37 Donaldson exemplifies as hegemonic masculinity’s

central counter-hegemony because hegemonic masculinity relies on its hostilities to homosexuality in order to maintain itself. Importantly, identities that fall outside the purview of that which is mandated as the most ideal performance of masculinity in American culture are

pushed to the margins. This of course has the effect of delineating the margin itself, thereby re-

centering hegemonic masculinity as the most desirable form of masculinity. Drawing such

boundaries defines the terms of hegemonic masculinity and withstands any invasion of

femininity in an attempt to recast women and gay men as outside of the bounds of representation

36 Connell, Masculinities, 37.

37 Mike Donaldson, “What is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society 22, no. 5 (1993), 645. 64

within these communities.

In the last decade, hegemonic masculinity has become the subject of critiques that aim to

refashion the concept for contemporary realities. Responding to Connell’s terminology, Patricia

Yancey Martin problematizes hegemonic masculinity as a confusing, slippery term that indicates

“whatever type is dominant at a given time.”38 There are clear issues with this. While hegemony describes a constantly shifting set of dominance strategies, its addition to masculinity studies still brings about its own constraints and confusions. Martin notes that scholars often misconstrue hegemonic masculinity as inherently negative, which has the unintended effect of ascribing masculinity to men and femininity to women. It is possible, however, that hegemonic masculinity can be liberating for both women and men. By actively performing masculinity or femininity, both women and men reflect Connell’s assertion that they are “‘bearers’ of masculinity.”39

Expanding on Martin, Michael Moller argues that the concept of hegemonic masculinity

is merely a product of its time that fixates too heavily on power and not at all on the effacement

or disavowal of that power within particular communities. While hegemonic masculinity is

meant as a globally applicable liberating concept that presupposes agents who practice particular

dominant forms of masculinity do so in order to fit into or change the conditions of an orderly

identity figuration that is considered most culturally desirable at any given point in time, it does

not make room for an analysis of a desire for a masculine order.40 In other words, masculinity

38 Patricia Yancey Martin, “Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? Reflections on Connell’s Masculinities,” Gender and Society 12, no. 4 (1998), 473.

39 Martin, “Why can’t a Man?” 473. 40 Michael Moller, “Exploiting Patterns: A Critique of Hegemonic Masculinity,” Journal of 16, no. 3 (2007), 267. 65 need not be seen as merely dominant or inferior, but as multiple, complicated, unstable, and subject to its own contradictions. Moller argues that since Connell’s Masculinities has been inducted into accepted academic practice within gender, sexuality, and critical race studies, scholars have utilized hegemonic masculinity as a means of distancing themselves from the term, in the process disavowing their own power and privilege as scholars.41

Combining Intersectionality and Masculinity

Intersectionality and masculinity are inherently connected concepts. Criticizing hegemonic masculinity for its overall lack of conceptual clarity and scholars’ tendency to assume that it necessarily entails men’s dominance over women, Ann-Dorte Christensen and Sune

Qvotrup Jensen distinguish between external and internal hegemony, both of which exist within separate analytical categories. The former describes a valued and ideal form of masculinity as applied to general patriarchal power relations, while the latter describes relationships between other masculinities.42 Christensen and Jensen treat internal and external hegemonic masculinity as two separate dimensions that may or may not interact. Attempting to grant better conceptual clarity to hegemonic masculinity, they suggest that scholars combine hegemonic masculinity with intersectionality in order to consider the importance of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in the construction of masculinities.43 As an example, it is entirely possible that class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality can combine to weaken men’s legitimacy so that they are unable to gain additional cultural currency within the patriarchal order (or what Christensen and Jensen term a “patriarchal dividend”). This means that some men can only claim a symbolic, as opposed

41Moller, “A Critique of Hegemonic Masculinity,” 266.

42 Ann-Dorte Christensen and Sune Qvotrup Jensen, “Combining Masculinity and Intersectionality,” International Journal for Masculinity Studies 9, no. 1 (2014), 64.

43 Christensen and Jensen, “Masculinity and Intersectionality,” 69. 66 to absolute, form of masculinity. Likewise, activists on /r/KotakuInAction can feel they have been disempowered while also attempting to symbolically wrest power from those they deem inferior to them.44 In this particular online community where a version of white supremacist masculinity is performed, maintained, and mandated as a condition of inclusion, an intersectional approach that foregrounds activism and resistance is necessary to challenge and unsettle that community’s claims.

Jeff Hearn expands upon this idea and distinguishes between different types of masculinities in terms of a series of potential neglected intersections they bring about, such as age and ageing, virtuality or virtual men, and transnationality or transnational men. In his discussion of virtuality and virtual space, which most concerns this dissertation project, Hearn argues that while information and communication (or ICTs) offer democratic openness to those who suffer the effects of damage from surviving the violence of dominant sexualities (i.e. that of men), they also promote oppression of minoritized or marginalized people who seemingly benefit from them. Offering the burgeoning sex trade as an example, Hearn shows that the internet has, in recent decades, provided platforms for unfiltered distribution of pornographic content featuring women who have been sex trafficked.45 This reflects that men are the primary producers and consumers of sexualities and sexual violence in virtual space, meaning that virtual space needs to be considered as an intersection in itself in order to contest the hegemony of white men.46 Thinking of virtuality as an intersection in itself allows us to

44 Christensen and Jensen, 70.

45 Jeff Hearn, “Neglected in Studying Men: Age/ing, Virtuality, Transnationality,” in Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, eds. Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar, and Linda Supik (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), 97. 46 Hearn, “Neglected Intersectionalities,” 98. 67 contend with the interfaces and technologies that encourage specific forms of oppression to develop and then circulate.

Despite standpoint theory’s gaps, then, it encouraged feminists to reevaluate the knowledge claims of those within marginalized groups. While intersectionality expands on the work of standpoint epistemologists by taking into account the overlapping oppressions of race, gender, sexuality, and class, sudies of masculinity largely consider the array of performances— or behaviors and traits—that it is usually acceptable and expected for men to perform at a given time and place. While the subject focus between these areas of study are in many ways distinct, I argue that work on both intersectionality and masculinity give possible explanations for the contradictions I encountered on /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi.

In Chapters Three and Four, I look at the content, site design, and governance structures of both subreddits through the lens of intersectional masculinity, which seeks to understand systems of domination through the interaction between masculine power and marginalized groups. As will become clear, /r/KotakuInAction not only privileges a white, toxic masculine, male standpoint through its own brand of activism, but uses the Reddit platform’s upvoting and downvoting mechanism to submerge any challenges to that standpoint and erase the claims of marginalized groups. Strategizing on /r/KotakuInAction also often means twisting logic to suit a white supremacist agenda and skirt real concerns about racism and misogyny in American culture. One the other hand, while in principle /r/GamerGhazi is pro-intersectionality, in practice the community is uneasy about race and, by extension, the intersections of race and gender.

How I Adopt a Feminist Methodology

I grew up a straight, white, middle-class, male gamer taking refuge from the scorching

Sacramento, California summer heat in the cool embrace of my father’s living room. I spent my 68

teenage years indulging an insatiable hunger for escape from what I considered a depressing

school life, so it does not surprise me in retrospect that I uncritically consumed games about war,

invasion, and destruction that the industry sold only to boys like me. The gaming industry I knew

and loved through the things I played had commodified my and others’ masculinity through

television, magazines, and later the internet. In my adulthood, I grew suspicious that such advertising captured people like me who spent their time waiting for the next few hours they would spend in front of their televisions.

My upbringing, subject position, and role as a social justice advocate and researcher unavoidably clash with some of the ideas I write about in this project. However, becoming aware of my researcher standpoint is not enough. If this is to be an insightful discussion of

GamerGate’s anti-feminist politics, I also have to acknowledge my personal biases. I disagree both intellectually and emotionally with almost everything /r/KotakuInAction members believe about the world and side sometimes (certainly not always) with /r/GamerGhazi. On occasion I would read a misogynistic, racist, or xenophobic screed, coupled with the inevitable disavowal of that screed’s hateful implications, and retreat angrily from the computer for days or weeks. But the lessons that anger taught me motivated this project. Anger alarmed me to my lack of understanding. It told me when I took on too much data. It directed me to narrow my focus.

Frustration is not something to quell or denounce. It is a wellspring from which to draw important revelations about the data. As I investigated counter-hegemonic communities like

/r/GamerGhazi, I was also frustrated with its two major drawbacks—it fails to meaningfully critique the intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender; and it fails to spark change or discussion outside of people who are already in /r/GamerGhazi.

While I understand the dangers of discussing these topics even in digital spaces, I also 69

benefit from a degree of mobility that others may not. For example, my position as a white heterosexual man grants me more mobility on these sites than a white woman or a woman of

color or a transgender person. In other words, my discursive self is, in Haraway’s terms, a

situated self with situated knowledges, which are “about communities, not about isolated

individuals.”47 I exist within a body whose intersections of privilege afford me the likely luxury

of not being bullied or threatened in the same way as those who were caught in GamerGate’s

crosshairs. While few, if any, from /r/KotakuInAction or /r/GamerGhazi are likely to encounter

this dissertation, the permission I have to write about this topic with a certain degree of comfort

and confidence is intimately linked to my point of entry into each subreddit. In other words, I

exist within a body that is likelier to be accepted into certain communities, provided that I tread

lightly and perform my masculinity readably. This is not an ideal outcome. This is an unfortunate

consequence of what Jesse Daniels calls a contradictory pairing of “globalization—a process—

and the Internet—a network of communication technologies.” While the internet has certainly

connected people and fostered economic growth through globalization, it has also led to a

resurgence of chauvinism, racism, and far-right movements around the world.48 Now members

from all over the globe can enter these digital spaces and recirculate the ideologies of their

respective affiliation groups. I, the researcher, can enter these spaces and, with self-aggrandizing

authority, frame the narratives therein through my academic projects. I can even do great damage

to some, depending upon how I frame others’ experiences.

My intersecting identities and relative privilege additionally determines how I go about

studying and framing my sites. I am likelier to understand, for example, what it means to have

47 Haraway, “Situated Knowledges,” 590.

48 Jessie Daniels, Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights, (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 12. 70

masculinity (whatever the performance) ascribed to my gender and femininity (whatever the

configuration a performance of femininity takes) stigmatized or prohibited. This means that I

have to be careful about how I go about producing knowledge, since my choices could easily

transgress depending on the community under analysis. As Lorraine Code has argued regarding feminist epistemological work, Western preoccupations with scientific objectivity or

positivism—which as I discuss above is a classical patriarchal construct—has evacuated

subjective experience from knowledge production, despite the fact that hidden subjectivities are

always already at play in any effort to understand. As a result, the most valued academic

tends to be that which produces so-called “objective” knowledge, while “knowing

other people” tends to come last.49 This project aims to produce knowledge that values the

multiplicity of subjective experience through an intersectional approach to masculinity studies, a

relatively young area of inquiry. Understanding how strategies of white male dominance have

been designed into popular social media platforms like Reddit enables us to forge new coalitions

and unsettle unequal power structures in American culture.

Methods

Challenges with Data Collection on Reddit

Reddit is an amorphous, unwieldy platform that hosts over 1.2 million subreddits, each

with unique governance structures and cultures.50 Strangers to the platform may be intimidated,

as I still am, at the unavoidable, immediate observation that subreddits on the visitor’s default

front page can and often do yield hundreds to thousands of posts per day, with the number of

comments sometimes reaching into five-digit territory. When I wasted my first disposable hours

49 Lorraine Code, “Taking Subjectivity Into Account,” in Feminist Epistemologies, eds. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 19.

50 Reddit Metrics, redditmetrics.com/history. 71

on the platform years ago, I wondered how a user on a bustling thread could have their one brief

comment among thousands of others voted to the most visible top, their surprising insight or

throwaway joke deemed the worthiest of attention. To this day I spend my final minutes before

bed glued to the five-inch screen of my , losing sleep to flick through ephemeral

content I played a small part in tailoring to my unique user experience. If I come across a post

the night before that I want to show a friend or loved one the next day, those few hours

intervening between sleep and sunlight are often enough to bury the jewel under a thick loam,

even if I revisit the specific place where I unearthed it.

I offer my first observations about Reddit to illustrate how ineffably large and active the

platform can be, and as a consequence how difficult it can be to study and understand. When I

began conceiving this project, I considered how I might go about reasonably limiting my focus

on /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi while also remaining fair about the cultural messages

each community transmitted to the public. These subreddits both contain four years of user- generated content and hundreds of thousands of comments collectively. So much data meant that

I would need to come up with a systematic method for locating a continuous thread or theme—a controversy or problem—then to determine which commentary I should notice and ignore while being aware of the limitations this selectivity imposed.

Confronting my intellectual and emotional conflicts with some of the ideologies I encountered on /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi entailed looking at each subreddit during four, one-week sessions each spaced two months apart to gauge attitudinal changes over time, collecting data into Excel spreadsheets designated for each subreddit, and coding that data in separate spreadsheets based on patterns I observed (more on these aspects individually later). I

decided not directly to participate so I could allow each community to shape the discussion about 72

gaming and American culture on their own terms. At the same time, I recognize that the internet

affords members of each community a degree of intellectual and emotional distance from the

people they confront in the digital space. Research on the phenomenon of trolling, especially in

anti-feminist spaces, has shown that users on the internet are empowered to act in ways they otherwise would not during face-to-face interactions. As the internet matured in the first decade

of the twenty-first century and social media platforms drew larger numbers of women and

minoritized people to online life, misogynistic and racist trolling became increasingly

commonplace.51 That online openness inspires good data because it permits members of these

communities explain how they think and feel. What users report online and the nuanced

discussions that emerge out of those reports also provide insight into the kinds of mindsets and

political affiliations each community attracts.

To collect and analyze Reddit data, I deployed a multiple qualitative methods approach

that includes textual analysis of site commentary and a video game, visual cultural analysis of a

selected game text and subreddit design, and an analysis of Reddit’s user interface and algorithm.

Any investigation of something as complex as Reddit is bound to be incomplete and therefore

subject to expansion or revision. Hence, a project of this scope is necessarily limited and should

be built upon by other scholars. Christine Hine argues that researching internet technologies

necessarily implies “accepting that there are many versions of what a given technology is and

how it is bounded.”52 She further notes that research projects are not predetermined, but

emergent. Like Reddit the platform, subreddits evolve over time—they are living texts whose

51 F. Vera-Gray, “‘Talk About a Cunt With Too Much Idle Time’: Trolling Feminist Research,” Feminist Review 115, no. 1 (2017), 65.

52 Christine Hine, “How Can Qualitative Internet Researchers Define the Boundaries of Their Projects?” in Internet Inquiry, ed. Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009), 5. 73

politics and attitudes change alongside cultural attitudes and developments. Much of what I

expected to conclude before the data collection and research process began changed as I lurked

on each subreddit and acted as witness to events as they unfolded. These constant changes imply

that my and others’ understandings are necessarily limited by the range of time the data

collection covers. Moreover, Reddit the platform is not a fixed technology, but one that

occasionally and carefully changes its governance model and policies alongside bigger picture

cultural shifts (for example, when external factors such as growing violence or

subreddits that border on posting child encourage Reddit executives to place

provisional limits on free speech). However, much of the material from the subreddits I analyzed

remained static throughout the data collection phase. This is because Reddit is not especially

amendable to change on most aspects of the platform, but frequently generates controversy for

its seeming friendliness to hate speech and refusal to regulate the content of subreddits that

spread or sow social . Reddit CEO Steve Huffman defended his

platform’s relaxed attitude to hate speech by claiming it is too difficult to train an algorithm to

recognize it.53

A Note About Online Versus Offline Data and Internet Research Ethics

A common notion in media scholarship is that there is an absolute distinction—albeit one that is increasingly deconstructed—between online and offline life, and that both do not overlap in meaningful ways. Shani Orgad illustrates this perception in the following set of questions she

53 Shoshana Wodinsky, “Reddit CEO Says It’s ‘Impossible’ to Consistently Enforce Hate Speech Rules,” , July 9, 2018. Accessed 3 Jan 2019. 74

poses: “are offline and online data comparable? Can they be integrated, and if so, how?”54 She argues that the choice to use either online or offline data has profound implications for an analysis, the implication being that both are entirely separate. Orgad’s core questions and assertions presuppose that online and offline life are so separate that even integrating them would be a task in itself.

While I agree that any study of media that excludes one or the other of these sources of data risks missing out on key information, not share the view that online and offline life are absolutely distinct. It is true that online life is different from offline life insofar as geographic boundaries, bodily communication, and physical proximity become largely irrelevant in digital space. In her response to Orgad, Maria Bakardjieva contends that online and offline life are intertwined, and that “to study it would mean to hold both sides in view at the same time, especially because every so often the internet is only a bridge between one offline and another.”55 This clean distinction between online and offline especially does not hold up to

scrutiny once we begin looking at fan communities or highly ideological digital gathering spots,

as the content posted in those spaces become extensions of real people’s worldviews. Marika

Luders adds to this that online life is not separate from physical life, but an extension of it. 56

Additionally, Radhika Gajjala asserts that practices online are informed by material, everyday

54 Shani Orgad, “How Can Qualitative Internet Researchers Make Sense of the Issues Involved in Collecting and Interpreting Online and Offline Data?” in Internet Inquiry, eds. Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009), 37.

55 Maria Bakardjieva, “A Response to Shani Orgad,” in Internet Inquiry, eds. Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009), 54.

56 Marika Luders, “A Response to Shani Orgad,” in Internet Inquiry, eds. Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009), 81 75

relations of race, gender, class, and nation.57 I agree. This entire project is premised on the

assumption that the content I selected from /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi indicates

worldviews that real people emotionally and physically (via typing) labored to transcribe online.

As T.L. Taylor incisively observes in her study of online gamer cultures, “how people

make sense of and experience who they are online is not inherently separate from who they are

and what they do offline . . . That people can slip into and out of complex social networks that

cross not only online and offline space, but genres within the online world is a fact often under-

acknowledged.” What happens online has implications for what happens offline. As a

consequence, while there are differences between online and offline, the intersections, or

overlaps, between the two are where we can “reground in the offline” and recognize that “what

happens in virtual worlds often is just as real, just as meaningful, to participants.”58 While the

virtual worlds in question for Taylor are communities that form within video game spaces—such as the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Everquest—I conceive of

Reddit as a platform that provides virtual communities of interest for groups of mostly strangers.

The ideologies people post online to Reddit are extensions of themselves, as those posts entail emotional labor, intellectual labor, and time investment to share with their communities.

As a consequence, it is my responsibility to consider the privacy of those being studied.

Studying virtual communities is complicated by design, since online communities never remain static, online cultures are unpredictable, and the researcher is always in danger of exploiting research subjects through the act of publishing publicly accessible academic information.

57 Radhika Gajjala, “A Response to Shani Orgad,” “A Response to Shani Orgad,” in Internet Inquiry, eds. Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009), 61-67.

58 T.L. Taylor, Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 19. 76

Because online and offline life are not entirely separate entities, but interrelated aspects of a

person’s lived experience, the same holds true of the intertwined nature of the public and the

private. What this means is that even if somebody posts content in a public forum, that person’s

privacy ought to be respected precisely because their ideas and online persona are extensions of

their physical, offline selves. In their 2012 update to a 2002 report about internet research ethics

for the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), social scientists Annette Markham and

Elizabeth Buchanan caution that researchers should heed the sometimes ambiguous distinction

between public and private life. Even if a user comments on a public forum thread, that user may

perceive their community as private and exclusive. Or alternatively, they could acknowledge the

public nature of the content but still trust that researchers or visitors are scrupulous enough to

interpret the data as restricted or not for public use.59 I interpret both /r/KotakuInAction and

/r/GamerGhazi to be relatively cloistered internet communities, since the content of each caters

to a specific and rigid ideological base. I have observed in general that both communities’ users share expectations that threads and thread commentary conform to prescribed community values, many of which are unspoken or not included explicitly in the rules on the sidebar of the main

page.

I have devised some simple rules to account for potential ethical conflicts. This project

includes no interviews, so at the outset the danger of identifying and publicizing the sensitive

information of named individuals is mitigated by my decision to collect only public online data.

Despite the lack of interview data where subjects may name themselves and compromise another

dimension of their privacy, the writing and research ground rules I imposed are aimed at

59 Annette Markham and Elizabeth Buchanan. “Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0),” Association of Internet Researchers, 6. 77 protecting the online identities of the Reddit users I cite. While every Reddit user’s offline identity is concealed by an online username, that username is still an extension of and therefore integral to that user’s offline life. Thus, in the chapters that follow I choose not to include those usernames except in private Excel spreadsheets for personal reference.

I made this decision for four reasons. The first is that while all data I use to create my case is public, none of the Reddit users whose content makes it into this dissertation intend for their online lives to be made public in an academic project like this. If I am not asking them for their consent, the least I can do is ensure their anonymity. The second reason is that, though not likely, Reddit users could come across this dissertation and object to having their usernames included. Once published, however, such a mistake cannot be undone. The third reason is that publishing some of this data could inspire motivated and tech-literate people to use the information to track certain users across the internet and harm their online lives. Since at its core this project denounces harassment and online bullying of any kind, it would be deeply hypocritical of me to risk subjecting online users to future abuse. Finally, visible usernames would enable motivated people with even minimal technological competence to search for those users on Reddit, look into their comment history, and assail (or troll) them in their native communities. I settled instead on the following compromise: where necessary I include direct quotes from both subreddits to maintain the integrity of the project, but cut usernames entirely.

Data Collection Methods

Since both communities contain four years of user-generated data and tens to hundreds of new threads with occasionally thousands of comments populate the front page every day, I could never hope to read every word or observe every disagreement or recurrent theme. Instead, I had to settle for what Richard Rogers calls “scooping,” a term out of journalism that refers to 78

capturing the story and publishing it before others do.60 By design, Reddit is ephemeral, so like individual threads most controversies vanish from view quickly. In order to account for this feature of Reddit I lived among each community as a silent observer but never participated in any conversations. I did this so the communities could speak on their own terms and tell me what mattered to them. In four separate sessions, each during a week and spread over the course of six

months, I collected data from three-to-five popular discussion threads that generated the most

user commentary. Any threads that generated below the threshold of twenty comments I ignored,

as fewer comments tended to yield no useful data. There are exceptions to this rule, however. In

cases where fewer than five threads in a day generated twenty or more comments—as sometimes

happened with /r/GamerGhazi—I settled for documenting only the threads during that day that

generated fruitful discussion, such as long-form posts that resemble essays-length papers.

I collected preliminary data from each subreddit into separate Excel

spreadsheets. Each spreadsheet of preliminary data contains ten columns, or categories, including

thread title, a description of what the thread is about, time and date of post, whether the thread

links to an external site, the top-voted comment user and text, any notable or illustrative

comments, the bottom-voted comment user and text, themes or tags, my general commentary,

and a link to the thread for easier access in the future. In separate spreadsheets I explained that

data with inspiration from Kathy Charmaz’s line-by-line method outlined in her book

Constructing Grounded Theory. Line-by-line qualitative codes are designed to “take segments of data apart, name them in concise terms, and propose an analytic handle to develop abstract ideas

60 Richard Rogers, Digital Methods, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013), 24. 79 for interpreting each segment of data.”61 Coding, or categorizing, entailed assigning shortened descriptions to commentary from each surveyed thread. This allowed me to take account of my radical subjectivity—i.e. understand what members of both communities really think and feel before conducting a deep analysis of their commentary. For example, in a thread in

/r/GamerGhazi linking to a story about the alt-right endorsing Kingdom Come: Deliverance, a top-voted commenter upbraids /r/KotakuInAction for claiming the game’s relative success as an overall win for their community. But a notable commenter adds nuance to the discussion by calling for an even-handed take on the game. Coding this notable comment entailed describing what the user is actually doing in response to their fellow /r/GamerGhazi—i.e. suggesting others in the thread are not giving the game a fair shake—and finding internal tensions through that exchange. Those internal tensions provide insight into how each community deals with ideas that do not confirm already held biases. Tensions contradictions. Juxtaposing data in this way allowed me to shape the frame within which I build my analysis of Kingdom Come:

Deliverance.62

Multiple Methods and Primary Sources

This project demanded a multiple methods approach to my online and offline sources informed by textual analysis, visual analysis, and an investigation of the user interface design of

Reddit. My primary online sources include community-approved wiki documents, posts from each subreddit and those posts’ associated commentary, Reddit’s user interface mechanisms in relationship to posted content (e.g. upvoting and downvoting), and Reddit’s visual aesthetic (i.e. how moderators design their subreddit’s layout). For example, in Chapter Three, I provide an

61 Kathy Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis, (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 1993), 44.

62 Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory, 44. 80

overview of each subreddit’s political identity as evidenced by their wiki pages and implied governance. These wiki pages provide pre-approved documents that delimit the ideological boundaries of each community. The official subreddit documents outline not only the social mission of each community, together with their respective histories, but act as constitutional mandates indicating how users are expected to behave.

To analyze my online data, I treated Reddit’s user interface and the commentary within

the selected threads as inextricable. The social media interface itself is a technology that, like a

video game with structural boundaries that dictate what a player both can and cannot do,

emphasizes, buries, or conceals content via its controlling mechanisms. What gets seen on Reddit

is determined by algorithms, the architecture of the interface, and the user-generated data that

feeds both. For example, my discussion of Kingdom Come: Deliverance in Chapter Four

investigates what comments get upvoted to the top, what comments get downvoted to the

bottom, and notable commentary in response to top-voted and bottom-voted comments (i.e. data-

rich conversations that reveal contradictions, uncertainties, and emotional conflicts within each

community). From these diverse sets of primary data emerged what I assert is an illustrative

snapshot of each community as well as discursive American culture systems outside of those

communities.

My primary offline data, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, is therefore an extension of the

online data, but it is worth noting why I chose this game in the first place. As the main subject of

Chapter Four, the game demonstrates the range of reactions to a single pop cultural text about

medieval history and its relationship to white supremacy. Having “lived,” or lurked, among both

communities at intervals for six months without participating in conversations, I still struggled to understand both communities’ politics and, in the case of /r/KotakuInAction, activism. From the 81

preliminary data collection emerged the following recurrent theme: of the more than fifty threads

I isolated and analyzed over the course of six months, five threads in /r/KotakuInAction and three threads in /r/GamerGhazi concerned Kingdom Come: Deliverance. No other topic over those months attracted such an active response from each community, suggesting the preponderance of threads related to this one game’s racial, gender, and social justice politics held potential linkages to each community’s structural politics.

The controversy surrounding the game’s racial and gender politics also predates the founding of /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi by a year, indicating that conversations in both communities around the time of the game’s 2018 release excavated and resurrected a four- year-long internet conflict. This one game, then, extends over both time and space. A transnational product exported to the rest of the world from the , it attracted a large American audience, but for various reasons.

Prior to its release the game’s Kickstarter funding proposal had already received negative press for its ahistorical treatment of medieval Europe and women’s rights. Critics were no kinder after the game’s release. With but a few downvoted exceptions /r/KotakuInAction members use broad gestures and calculated rhetoric to dismiss objections to the game’s all-white cast and sexually objectified female characters. GamerGate activists adulate the game for the independent studio (Warhorse Studios) that developed it, the creator behind the game, Daniel Vavra, and the game’s purported historical accuracy. GamerGate activists also tend to applaud the game’s forward-thinking approach to game design and storytelling. In all these discussions

/r/KotakuInAction activists sidestep race and gender to reassert their game consumer identities.

In effect, they reject representational, or social justice, approaches to criticism.

By contrast, /r/GamerGhazi criticizes both the game and the developer for their racial 82 myopia, apocryphal history, and problematic gender representation. In that sense the community foregrounds issues of race and gender. On the other hand, /r/GamerGhazi members unexpectedly illuminate through their commentary and voting practices a community uncomfortable with talking about race. These contradictions—the dueling narratives about “historical (in)accuracy,” race, gender, and nation—appear repeatedly in both communities. The different ways of seeing the game act as reminders of both communities’ antithetical ways of viewing reality—instead of bridging the gap, Kingdom Come: Deliverance widens the rift.

Writing about political ideology at a time when the United States is experiencing a resurgence of far-right extremism is challenging, frustrating, and ineffably complicated. This is especially relevant to consider when I, the researcher, sometimes, though do not always, align ideologically with one side (in this case /r/GamerGhazi) and reject most aspects of the other. As a result, my biases are bound to reveal themselves in the way I choose to present and juxtapose each subreddit’s content. I have attempted to correct for this discrepancy in my multiple data collection methods. As illustrated above by the insights of standpoint epistemology, true objectivity is unattainable, even undesirable. To gloss over my preconceptions would be an act of staggering hypocrisy—evidence that I, like the positivists before me, buy into the fantasy of the dispassionate researcher. There is no ultimate or unassailable truth to be gleaned from this project, only insights that I hope will help social justice activists and academics understand and confront the distorted power narratives favored by those who may not see how those narratives harm us all.

In Chapter Three I discuss the deeper politics of /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi.

Throughout the chapter, I locate disagreements between both subreddits as well as structural contradictions within them. I first analyze aspects of both communities’ intricate wiki pages, 83 both of which house public documents for lurkers curious to know why each community exists.

The wiki pages provide unique historical outlines of the GamerGate movement—or what

/r/KotakuInAction importantly reclaims as a “consumer revolt”—as well as resources for the curious and the already-initiated. The wiki pages, I argue, are essential to grasping each community’s personality and form of governance. I then apply my observations about the wiki pages to two threads that remained on (or were pinned to) each subreddit’s front pages for months. From those threads emerged key insights into topics like historical accuracy, journalistic integrity, free speech, the nature of social justice, race, and gender. 84

CHAPTER THREE. (RE)WRITING HISTORY: GOVERNANCE, ACTIVISM, AND

DIVISION ON REDDIT

As an identity defined by consumption, identifying as a gamer is more clearly a choice

than are identities more directly written on the body, defined by kinship structures,

and/or dictated by legislation. It is not, however, a consequence-free choice . . . Like

other forms of identity, being a gamer is defined in relation to dominant discourses about

who plays games, the deployment of subcultural capital, the context in which players find

themselves, and who are the subjects of game texts.

– Adrienne Shaw, “On Not Becoming Gamers”

As I covered in Chapter One, each self-contained Reddit community has exclusive rules and cultures unpaid volunteers within those communities moderate. Generally, the rules moderators have the authority to enforce are located on the right sidebar of each subreddit, and they are only as detailed or as vague as the community deems necessary. But rules are only part of what governs a subreddit. Both /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi also have wiki pages with links to resources that outlines the purpose and goals of each community. While rules may include explicit prohibitions on, for example, self-promotion, trolling, intentional disruptions, racism, and misogyny, wiki resources are windows into what each community about the world. Wiki pages provide canonical texts, which are community-approved texts that set the record straight. These canonical texts are governance documents that help each subreddit construct a safe space where people can gather to discuss issues freely within the bounds of community acceptability.

Rather than focus on the moments when moderators intervene on /r/KotakuInAction and

/r/GamerGhazi users, for this chapter I look at what site governance structures tell us about how 85

each community positions itself ideologically through language and the interface that harbors it.

Additionally, I investigate two threads that have been pinned to the front pages of each subreddit for over two months, as well as the comments within those threads.1 The purpose of investigating these two pinned posts is to understand how each subreddit’s ideological

underpinnings as indicated in the canonical texts pre-approved by community moderators are

reflected in practice.

(Re)Constructing History on /r/KotakuInAction

Both /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi are deeply personal gathering spots where

users forge alliances through a shared list of approved canonical texts. These texts, or core readings, shape consensus among members and therefore play a significant role in community

governance. I use the term governance in the broadest sense to refer to assemblages of rules and

culturally accepted canonized texts that reflect, shape, and prohibit particular ideas or behaviors

within a community. Governance can extend well beyond a set of site-specific rules posted on

the sidebar that dictate good or bad posting behavior, or warn about the kinds of offenses that can

get a user banned. Rules can be and often are detailed, but their purpose is merely to establish a

sense of decorum, and it is up to moderators to make individual determinations based on those

rules. However, online communities as complex as /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi, both of which use their online environments to mobilize support for chosen causes, build their activist identities around cultural principles that require elaboration beyond site aesthetic or a culture of

commenting.

1 A pinned post is one that remains a permanent fixture on the front page of a subreddit, while regular posts move further down the list as time passes and users make newer posts. If a post is pinned to a subreddit’s front page, it generally means that that post has been deemed of high enough importance that everybody within that community should know about it. 86

Diligent users or moderators in each of these communities spent hours of their time and unpaid labor to build informative subreddit wiki pages that expand upon their respective mission statements, offer databases of resources for curious subreddit visitors or passionate community members, or outline plans of action to effect real change in the physical world. Wikis are technologies where users collaborate to write, modify, or delete content about topics of interest.

A community collectively agrees what should and should not be included in a list of wiki resources. The resources in these wikis are therefore integral to each subreddit’s governance and identity. They not only play a significant role in building an ideological base but reflect how

Reddit as a platform encourages cloistered communities to flourish in ideological vacuums, thereby limiting each community’s appreciation for both the specifics of their disagreements as well as any potential overlap.

(Re)Defining the Terms

The /r/KotakuInAction wiki is not a neutral collection of documents, but a heavily curated effort to manufacture consensus for a particular worldview. The wiki page is broken into five main sections with their own subsections. From top to bottom, the wiki covers the history of

GamerGate; its three pillars (what the community calls “The 3 C’s of #GamerGate”—

Corruption, Censorship, and Collusion); the #NotYourShield campaign that for years has illustrated the movement’s race and gender politics; the community’s current plan of action; and external links to timelines of events, blacklisted and whitelisted sites singled out for either supporting or opposing GamerGate, and additional reading about the movement (Figure 3).

Curious lurkers may be intimidated—as I was—by the numerous links under the headings, each leading to sites where one author or content creator after another supports the GamerGate movement. It is worth giving closer scrutiny to some of these links because they provide insight 87

into how the GamerGate movement uses sources pre-approved by community moderators to

shape a history and context of the movement that redefines controversial terms such as

censorship, consumption, corruption, and harassment. Controlling the definitions of these terms

functions to disavow or sidestep realistic discussions about race and gender, even where those

topics are relevant.

Figure 3. A list of /r/KotakuInAction wiki page resources.

I detailed GamerGate’s origins and evolution in Chapter One from my perspective and

research, but my memory of the controversy and the publicly available information that

corroborates my recollection is not well-accepted by GamerGate activists on /r/KotakuInAction.

The long list of sources on the subreddit wiki present an alternative worldview where sexism and racism cannot account for what transpired and continues to transpire with Quinn, Sarkeesian, and the video games industry at large. Instead, the authors or content creators of the alternative sources tell the history of the movement from a defensive posture to set the record straight—i.e. 88

project history through GamerGate’s lens. Some of the authors and content creators try to extend

an olive branch to GamerGate opponents by assuring them that what they term their emergent

“consumer revolt” is not about women and minorities and representation, but free speech and journalistic ethics. Others attack the opponents outright, accusing them of a smear campaign against unsuspecting gamers who just want to enjoy games. In the examples that I will provide below, however, a consistent thread throughout is that all of these people—authors, YouTube content creators, artists—sincerely believe GamerGate is a misunderstood and publicly smeared movement, even if the belief does not hold up to scrutiny.

GamerGate’s process of reframing the narrative—or revising history—entails conspiracy theorizing. In the case of /r/KotakuInAction, conspiracy theories serve to deny marginalized people’s claims about their experiences in the games industry and its associated consumer cultures. The term “conspiracy theory” tends to have a negative connotation in the popular press.

Part of this has to do with the idea, made popular by historian Richard Hofstadter in a 1964 piece he penned for Harper’s Magazine, that conspiracy theory relies on a paranoid style of thinking.

Drawing from numerous historical examples, Hofstadter shows how militant right wing activists repeatedly invoked conspiracy theories and paranoid language to shape or reshape the world in their image, operating on the belief that their country has been taken away from them and so they need to control the historical narrative before their country becomes irretrievable.2 Conspiracy theories originate in small populations of galvanized extremists and gradually diffuse into the public mainstream.

Mark Fenster rejects as reductive the notion that conspiracy theorists are merely paranoid

2 Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/. 89

or crazy. Rather, conspiracy theories exist in a liminal state where those who encounter them

desire to believe them and can often neither affirm nor deny their truth value. Such religious

devotion to the mere idea of a conspiracy helps purveyors of conspiracy theories draw support

from the fringes, shift political ideology in their favor, and malign opponents as bad actors who

promulgate the conspiracy. In other words, reactions to real conspiracies (i.e. those that are

verified) and the creation of conspiracy theories (i.e. those that are not verified) exist more or

less on the same plane. They share a similar purpose in that they both leverage political power to

effect real change.3 Likewise, /r/KotakuInAction is a space where GamerGate activists imagine

conspiracy theories to both articulate and disarticulate history and current events from a position

of perceived marginalization.4 GamerGate activists are ultimately guided by their desire to regain power, even if that is not a goal they make explicit, and conspiracy theories and the absolutist beliefs they engender serve that desire well.

I view /r/KotakuInAction and GamerGate as combining conspiracy theory and in order to reconstruct the narrative—i.e. revise history—that activists within the movement are actually the marginalized ones fighting a political battle against oppressive and overzealous

SJWs. Importantly, it is not a narrative revised, it seems, in bad faith—GamerGate activists labor

in earnest to be heard. This is most evident in the “Core Reading” subheading under the history

of GamerGate section of the wiki. The most conspicuous link leads the reader to an attractive

website created by GamerGate activists that outlines the history of the movement from

GamerGate’s perspective. Strategically referencing Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the

3 Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 11.

4 Chess and Shaw, “Conspiracy of Fishes,” 216. 90

United States, the website is titled A People’s History of GamerGate. The title intentionally

positions GamerGate as a grassroots movement, especially given Zinn’s subversive thesis is that

history books shore up class division and white supremacy by omitting the experiences of those

affected by America’s racist and classist laws and customs. While the site has not been updated since early November of 2014, the content on the front page is an illustrative snapshot of

GamerGate’s clever use of perspective, denialism, and self-position as a misunderstood group to

subtly discredit social justice activism.

The front-page essay is written by pseudonymous author Gurney Halleck, self-described

“Bad-Ass-In-Chief” of HistoryofGamerGate.com and “Social Justice Warrior Poet.” The

author’s is a reference to a fictional character in Frank Herbert’s series of

.5 Adopting a conciliatory tone throughout the front page essay uncharacteristic of the movement’s stereotypes, Halleck prefaces their telling of GamerGate’s side of the story with a quick note directed to the women who experienced harassment at the hands of upset gamers, writing, “I am sad this [harassment] happened to you. No one should have to go through that. The tweets, for instance, that received, were so horrid I have decided not to link them here.” This reaching out, sincere though it is, stages a swift disavowal of GamerGate’s involvement in said harassment, as Halleck follows these words with the disclaimer: “No one from GamerGate has claimed responsibility, the tweets themselves at no point mention GamerGate at all, and the ONLY [sic] person who has attributed them to

GamerGate is Wu herself.” They continue: “while I do resent feeling the need to even say that

5 For the sake of consistency and ease, I will be referencing the anonymous author by the last name of their pseudonym. However, because I feel it necessary not to define the gender of the author without knowing for certain how they identify themselves, I have opted for “they,” “them,” and “their” as substitutes. 91 threatening someone is bad, I wanted to take the chance to extend an olive branch.” After this,

Halleck provides a laundry list of anecdotes about games that generated what they believe is unfair “manufactured outrage” for content that either sexually objectified women, or placed women in positions that compromised their dignity. They claim these games—which include

Tomb Raider, Dragon’s Dogma, Divinity:Original Sin, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes,

Assassin’s Creed Unity, and 2—took a hit to their profits when feminists accused them of misogyny. Halleck importantly distinguishes this “manufactured outrage” from

“legitimate criticism,” which they argue does not “throw around terms like misogyny so freely it begins to lose all its meaning.” They attempt to make room for feminism by addressing readers who identify as feminists, writing “GamerGate is a large audience that is telling you they are willing to talk about a lot of the same issues you care about.” This concession leads Halleck to draw a comparison between GamerGate and the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements, arguing that they too had their own “extremist elements that attached themselves,” such as women who “decided to ‘burn bras’ and demand the patriarchy must be dismantled, that men be killed to do so.” Halleck instead proposes that GamerGate comprises “a lot of different people with different view points [sic]. The thing that binds us all together is that we all believe there should be professional distance and strive for objectivity in journalism.”6

Halleck’s statement is emotionally ambiguous. In just the first three paragraphs they express solidarity with a female game designer who was tortured by public harassment, defend

GamerGate from participation in that harassment, and finally express resentment at feeling obligated to address the harassment at all. The piece is at first inviting, friendly, and sincere.

6 Gurney Halleck, “Untimely Meditations on GamerGate,” A People’s History of GamerGate, http://www.historyofgamergate.com/. 92

Halleck directly addresses Wu, a video game designer who was forced to flee her home after

receiving rape and death threats in 2014 for posting a tweet that ridiculed GamerGate activists

for “fighting an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3

percent.”7 Reference to Wu’s experience with harassment, however, is a pretext to absolve

GamerGate activists of any wrongdoing while shifting the emotional abuse onto misunderstood

GamerGate activists themselves. Notably, Quinn and Sarkeesian are absent from this defense.

Halleck’s comparison between GamerGate and feminist movements of the twentieth

century that fought to procure legal rights and cultural respect for white women and women of

color is a rhetorical maneuver that allows GamerGate activists to leverage perceived “extremist

elements” in feminist and civil rights movements to argue most GamerGate activists are willing

to discuss race and gender. However, the important difference between civil rights movements and GamerGate is that while GamerGate activists claim their cultural battle is about video game nostalgia, the preservation of the game consumer identity, and the fight for journalistic integrity,

Civil Rights is more broadly about recognizing oppressed groups’ social experiences, developing cultural respect for those groups, and representing them equally under the law. In other words,

their struggles were and are about emphasizing how the very identity categories a “consumer

identity” would erase shaped their lived experiences. Additionally, these movements developed

methodically during centuries of oppression, so the radical fringes of those groups responded to

institutional and interpersonal violence on a massive scale. By stripping these movements of

historical context such comparisons erase even extremists’ motivations and overall social impact,

7 Beth Teitell and Callum Borchers, “GamerGate Anger at Women All Too Real for Gamemaker,” , October 30, 2014, https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2014/10/29/threatening-video-gaming-industry- movement-grows-arlington-game-developer-forced-flee-her- home/BRHwDSGjMsSnHquH9jYQIJ/story.html 93 thereby conflating the gamer identity with struggles against racism and sexism. In other words, such erasures constitute historical . They treat each social experience as individual, as the same as every other experience.

Consider also the contradiction between the claim that nobody affiliated with GamerGate participated in or accepted responsibility for harassing marginalized people within the games industry, and the implication that those who harassed these women are merely part of an extremist fringe of the movement itself. How can both be true at the same time? Is the suggestion that Wu accusing GamerGate members of sending her rape and death threats is an extremist feminist reaction? Though it is difficult to see how the myth of the bra burning feminist constitutes feminist extremism, by citing extremist examples from feminism and critical race issues Halleck familiarly maps what they and other GamerGate activists see as man-hating and anti-white black nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s onto a monolithic version of feminism and social justice. Since the perception is that these feminists who have not fallen in line with the accepted GamerGate narrative are merely part of that extremist fringe, their anger and alienation lose all meaning and context. The juxtapositions here are illustrative—

Wu’s anger and her assertion that GamerGate members sent her rape and death threats is framed here as an example of feminist extremism. Halleck’s argument is premised on the notion that not accepting responsibility for harassment is akin to that harassment never taking place. In other words, by drawing such a sweeping comparison between GamerGate and civil rights movements,

GamerGate activists can disavow the testimonies of those wounded by harassment—unlike

Zinn’s seminal text—while also seeming to express solidarity with them.

Importantly, even the most divisive feminist of the 1960s, such as Valerie

Solanas’s infamous Society for Cutting Up Men (or S.C.U.M.) and The Redstocking 94

Manifesto, either adopted an angry tone in response to patriarchal control (as in the former case),

or forcefully made the case that the patriarchy oppressed women and so demanded equal

representation at all levels of society (as in the latter case).8 Radical feminism was itself subject

to a continual revision or critique from within feminist circles, such as when LGBTQ+ feminists,

black and women of color feminists, and transnational feminists made cases that their

experiences were structured much differently than white women’s under American patriarchy.9

Both Civil and Women’s rights movements were designed to draw attention to the violence racist and sexist institutions committed against vulnerable bodies. One can imagine that in the eyes of visitors to the subreddit wiki who are not well-trained in the history of Civil and Women’s rights, such comparisons may seem attractive, even galvanizing.

Halleck’s comparisons to pivotal twentieth century movements also delimit the boundaries of objectivity and subjectivity. It is the absence of sources of information—i.e. the information and arguments GamerGate activists do not accept, such as those that use evidence to appeal to subjective experience—where the movement uses positivist appeals to “objectivity” to claim ownership of the narrative. By omitting historical context and, in the same brushstroke, claiming that it is radical feminists and racial agitators who have stripped GamerGate of its historical context, GamerGate activists can appeal to their ideal version of “objectivity” and then include only preferred facts to prop up that ideal.

For example, it is true that the games Halleck cites generated some opposition online, but

8 Valerie Solanas, Society for Cutting Up Men (S.C.U.M.) Manifesto; Redstockings, The Redstocking Manifesto, (1969).

9 Authors and works that fall within this bracket include transnational feminist scholar Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, Audre Lorde, and the Combahee River Collective statement. 95

the tenor of that opposition is perceptibly calm and collected. Some objected to for

developing its protagonist, , with an origin story that uses sexual assault as a narrative

device to explain her violent actions. Halleck links to an article from New Statesman America in

which author Laurie Penny asks, “why does Lara Croft, like so many female heroes, need to be

re-imagined an assault survivor in order to be a strong character?”10 Likewise, is a

fantasy hack-and-slash game that received criticism for depicting its eponymous female

protagonist in various states of undress while she fights angelic and demonic enemies. In their

review of the game that Halleck hyperlinks in the text, Polygon balks at the camera’s obsession

with “Bayonetta’s parts like they’re products being sold in a commercial.”11 In both of these

cases, the writers draw from a history of video games that place women under the male gaze and

disempower them while skirting criticism by presenting them as strong women.

These articles annoy Halleck because game developers often sacrifice their health and spend countless hours of time, labor, and money designing games they love, only to see an increasingly influential portion of the public reject them. They consequently object that charges of misogyny should not apply to the slightest evidence of women’s objectification in video games. However, such charges only become a problem when they collapse all instances of

misogyny into small moments that are stripped of their cultural or institutional context and

therefore trivialized. In the examples above, it is difficult to see such a problem, since the linked

reviews and think pieces engage intellectually with the bigger picture issues that enable

10 Laurie Penny, “Lara Croft and Rape Stories: Breaking Down the Bitch,” The New Statesman America, June 18, 2012, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/06/lara-croft- and-rape-stories-breaking-down-bitch.

11 Arthur Gies, “Bayonetta 2 Review: Heaven and Hell,” Polygon Magazine, October 13, 2014, https://www.polygon.com/2014/10/13/6957677/bayonetta-2-review--u. 96 misogynistic content to make its way into the games, regardless of the intentions of the artists behind the products themselves. Additionally, the economic impact and scope of these outcries are debatable. According to vgchartz.com each of the games cited as examples did not see a drop in . On the contrary, each of the games sold millions of copies and in three of the six cases led to multiple sequels over the intervening four years.

Ultimately, this historical revisionist appeal to objectivity, Civil Rights movements throughout history, and women’s rights movements betrays a desire for a white, male, masculine order, as it implicitly demands a world in which white men are the producers and controllers of knowledge. Under this model women’s experiences with harassment and misogyny in the industry and the cultures affiliated with it are regrettable but ultimately subservient to preferred issues such as journalistic integrity and gamers’ consumer identities. Through stories about journalistic dishonesty and perceived attacks on game consumers, GamerGate activists can lay claim to reason and dismiss white women and women of color’s grievances as merely subjective, emotional, or even hysterical. Furthermore, these deflections can render complicated questions about women’s experiences trivial. As Harding has argued, these attempts to maintain control over reason and objectivity through rigid dichotomies are about fulfilling the needs and desires of men to frame men’s experience as universal. As a consequence, women’s experiences of the world become subservient to men’s.12 In the end, Halleck’s piece expresses a desire for the patriarchal status quo, since the world they and the GamerGate community envision replaces these incendiary of misogyny with “legitimate criticisms” that do not challenge regressive institutions that enable misogyny and objectification to flourish. The piece, therefore,

12 Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism, 23. 97

is an appeal to objectivity that, unwittingly or not, silences those who witness, critique, and experience misogyny and racism in the products they love.

Don’t Call It a Movement

Halleck’s article is just one of many canonical GamerGate texts. Other sources on the

/r/KotakuInAction wiki page adopt similar political language and disavow GamerGate’s participation in campaigns of misogyny and racism. They do this in order to standardize (and

simplify) the GamerGate movement and develop workable strategies of resistance to social

justice. As their preferred strategy of resistance, GamerGate activists mount campaigns to strip

undesirable news outlets of advertising funding. Their activism is a strategic and distorted form

of , a term coined by sound collage artist Don Joyce in 1984 that refers to efforts

to undermine marketing campaigns of multinational through “media hoaxing,

corporate sabotage, ‘liberation,’ and trademark infringement.”13 The difference is that

GamerGate activists attempt to mobilize community membership toward stripping public media

outlets of advertising revenue and viewership. Concomitant with this agenda to transform

economic flows within the landscape, sources linked on the GamerGate wiki page

unanimously reject the movement label, opting instead for “consumer revolt” as GamerGate’s

public image.

As discussed briefly in Chapter One, such a strategic focus on the consumer is designed

to shift attention away from gendered and racial identities marked on the body to an identity

based on the desires and creative agency of a monolithic (i.e. ungendered and unraced) consumer

public. It is an astute political strategy that is bound up with GamerGate’s core concerns about

13 Christine Harold, “Pranking Rhetoric: ‘Culture Jamming’ as ,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21, no. 3 (2004), 190. 98 ethics violations in gaming journalism. Consider the following examples linked on the wiki: Erik

Kane of Forbes Magazine acknowledges that the extremist fringes Halleck references have in fact targeted women. He maintains, however, that GamerGate is not a campaign of hate, but a consumer revolt that materialized over years of “dissatisfaction and anger about the direction of the video game press.”14 In an article posted to a blog named Mindless Zombie Studios, author

Jamie Butterworth discredits charges of misogyny against Quinn altogether, writing that

GamerGate is a consumer revolt that initially only drew attention to the fact that one of the journalists Quinn had sex with did write about Depression Quest and so should be held accountable for ethical breaches.15 A three-part image macro takes the consumer revolt angle and contends that accusations of misogyny only materialized in the first place because “some of the people under scrutiny for ethics happened to be female [emphasis in original].”16 A

YouTube content creator who goes by the name of LeoPirate calls GamerGate “a consumer and a call for ethics reform in game industry media” before dismissing the movement’s sexism and racism on the basis that minorities (such as the content creator himself) and women support it through #NotYourShield.17

By deferring to their consumer identities and rejecting their status as an activist

14 Erik Kain, “#GamerGate is Not a Hate Group, It’s a Consumer Movement,” Forbes, October 9, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/09/gamergate-is-not-a-hate- group-its-a-consumer-movement/#67991a8a4cd5

15 Jamie Butterworth, “5 Indicators You’ve Been Misinformed About #GamerGate,” Mindless Zombie Studios Blog, September 30, 2014.

16 “#GamerGate Explained in Five Minutes or Your Money Back,” Imgur. Accessed December 2, 2018.

17 LeoPirate. “#GamerGate in 60 Seconds,” YouTube, October 5, 2014. 99

movement, game consumers within GamerGate can acceptably express a desire to reclaim their

place within the marketing logic of the industry of the past. They can then use that identity for

their activist ends of attempting to strip news publications and outlets of their advertising

revenue. That industry constructed—and continues to construct—a particular gamer audience of

white men and boys.18 While GamerGate activists often reference #NotYourShield (like in the

last example above) as a way of showing support for the inclusion of marginalized people within

the industry and its products, these appeals to support from marginalized individuals commit to

an ahistorical version of the gamer, where inclusion merely means increasing the number of

women or minorities in the industry. This idealized gamer is one who supports a rigid narrative

that the way games have always been made and marketed is, at its core, fair an equal. It is a color- and gender-blind approach to gaming cultures that enables its defenders to avoid structural inequalities in the industry and American culture.

However, one could argue alternatively that complaints from female game designers, as well as from women who play games, are rooted in an industry that has historically been shaped and is still shaped by a male consumer model. In her content analysis of Power magazines from 1994 to 1999, Amanda C. Cote found that despite an at the time growing enthusiasm around the girls’ gamers movement that led to an increase in female game developers, the industry continued only to market products to white men, who it viewed as a lower-risk audience.19 Well into the the industry paradigm became what Lars Konzack

18 Adrienne Shaw, “On Not Becoming Gamers,” Ada Journal of New Media 6, no. 2 (2013).

19 Amanda C. Cote, “Writing ‘Gamers’: The Gendered Construction of Gamer Identity in (1994-1999),” Games and Culture 13, no. 5 (2018), 483. 100

calls the “pink games approach to girl gaming,” which is a harmful gender-and-race-specific

marketing strategy that treats women as emotional and feminine, and men as restrained and

masculine.20

These earlier iterations of girl gamer movements presaged a widespread industry shift

toward a robust indie and mobile gaming market that has drawn in consumers from the fringes—

a group of those who may choose not to identify as gamers. In recent years the target consumer

of video games has begun to change from the white male demographic to include more white

women, LGBTQ+ people, and women of color. Part of this change has to do with the fact that

the internet’s transition to Web 2.0 architecture, defined in part by streamlined corporate

platforms and state-of-the-art technology, has meant that consumers have transformed into

prosumers who, through crowdfunding initiatives mounted on sites like Kickstarter, have

influence over the creative direction developers take with their games.21 A positive consequence of this cultural shift has been that modest, lower budget indie games that reflect changing social attitudes about race and gender outside of industry logic and developed by smaller teams have

started to get more public attention.

This has undoubtedly made the industry more complex and given consumers and

designers more power, but the transition has also led to a backlash from far-right communities like /r/KotakuInAction that interpret measures to improve inclusion and representation in video games as an insidious attempt by social justice activists to force ideology into the art form. While

20 Lars Konzack, “Rhetorics of Computer and Video Game Research,” The Players’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming, eds. J. Patrick Williams and Jonas Heide Smith, (Jefferson: McFarland & Company), 2007, 91-109.

21 Antonio Jose Planells, “Video Games and the Crowdfunding Ideology: From the Gamer-Buyer to the Prosumer-Investor,” Journal of Consumer Culture 17, no. 3 (2017), 625. 101

this is a misinterpretation, one real issue is that many of the initiatives to invite white women and

women of color into gaming and game development operate on the add-women-and-stir

approach to equality. This is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which is that

historically, white women and women of color have been variously invited into and evacuated

from the fields of computer science and technology. During World War II, for example, when

men shipped off to fight overseas, white women and women of color made up most of the

segregated programming and computer science labor force. Initially seen as low-skilled and

unseemly labor when women did the work, over the two decades following the war women were

removed from their positions, their contributions were largely erased from cultural memory, and

the computer sciences became a respected field of study.22 It was only after computer scientists

developed an appreciation for the mathematical elegance, creativity, and ingenuity of coders that the field gradually removed women and replaced them with men. Illustrated best by computer scientist John Backus, coding was reimagined in masculine terms as a mysterious “black art, a private arcane matter” whose problems required the objective brains of seasoned mathematicians and scientists to solve.23 These emergent discourses shaped the contemporary notion that white

men are really the producers and consumers in the fields of computer science and technology,

while white women and women of color do not belong.

Unfortunately, merely adding white women and women of color to gaming would not

alone solve these historical problems. An add-women-and-stir approach would tokenize

marginalized groups by presuming that their increased presence in the industry will necessarily

22 Cote, “Writing ‘Gamers,’” 481.

23 Nathan Ensmenger, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010), 40. 102

lead to more diversity in games themselves, yet history shows precisely the opposite has

occurred. Shaw notes three core problems with this logic: it presupposes there are not still

structural barriers that preclude diversity, white men are incapable of imagining games that are

not extensions of their own fantasies, and all women identify as feminists.24 In fact, these

simplified definitions of feminism and social justice are efficient at driving women away from

both despite their liberating possibilities. In a qualitative study on white women’s and women of

color’s contemporary beliefs about feminism, Jill M. Swirsky and D.J. Angelone found that most

of their female respondents viewed feminism as an outmoded field of study with negative

connotations. Only a small percentage of their respondents had no idea what feminism meant, let

alone the context for its continued existence. In addition, it was especially difficult for them to

draw a large number of women of color into the study. The researchers believe this is partly

because working class women of color do not believe feminism represents their cultural

concerns.25 In other words, devaluing feminist activism has had a profound effect on how

women themselves view feminist movements.

When GamerGate activists further devalue feminist work by identifying themselves through the consumer model, they are simultaneously distancing themselves from race and gender while really playing off a white male template that has been molded over the last few decades by an industry that viewed them as lucrative resources and formed them as gamer subjects through marketing. Furthermore, the belief that marginalized bodies supporting this

24 Adrienne Shaw, Gaming at the Edge, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 5.

25 Jill M. Swirsky and D.J. Angelone, “Femi-Nazis and Bra Burning Crazies: A Qualitative Evaluation of Contemporary Beliefs about Feminism,” Current Psychology no. 33 (2014), 242. 103

consumer revolt means the revolt itself does not participate in harassment or denialism of others’

experiences moves the goal posts, so to speak, in order to maintain the status quo ideal of the

white male gamer subject.

Violent Video Games, Politicians, and the Game Consumer Identity

I do not mean to suggest GamerGate activists are acting in bad faith or pushing people to

the margins because it is fun. On the contrary, all of these authors and content creators seem

sincere in their belief that they have been unfairly maligned by the gaming press. To some extent

this is true, at least historically. Throughout the 1990s and well into the 2000s the news media,

politicians, and the public promulgated a that stoked fears, based on no reliable

evidence, about violent video games corrupting the youth and turning them into violent, hair-

trigger psychopaths. These fears played a major role in shaping the stereotypical image of the

lazy basement-dwelling white male who subsists off his parents’ disposable income and who,

beset by his addictions, unattractiveness, and self-imposed isolation, explodes into a violent

frenzy and murders his peers.

Influential news reports of the 1990s pushed these harmful stereotypes with reckless

abandon. Both and The Times described male gamers as

though they were one step away from acting out the interactive lessons taught by violent video

games. The reflected in 1995 on the consequences of violent video games

“violating real-world taboos in the demi-world of electronic games” due to the player’s “ability to control the violence” on-screen.26 Meanwhile, in a 1993 story of The New

26 Amy Harmon, “Violence is Big Piece of the Interaction in Realistic, Ultra-Graphic Video Games,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1995, https://www.latimes.com/bs-xpm-1995-05- 30-1995150113-story.html. 104

York Times—later author of The Warmth of Other Suns—connects massacres all around the

United States with chilling tales of violent video games rewiring once-innocent boys’ brains.

Wilkerson even draws false equivalencies between the ratio of gun shops to gas stations and the then-recent spate of violent video games. Her article stokes fears about “a culture where ‘Mortal

Kombat’ is a children’s video game and some states seem to have more gun shops than gas stations” and “unstable people can easily be pushed over the edge.”27 Both articles frame violent video games through the lens of the imagined impressionable white men and boys who play them. Those white men and boys are not merely innocent consumers of art, but near “the edge” of violence. They are “able to control the violence” through video games in their yearning to violate “real-world taboos” that otherwise hold them back from committing the violence that is already within them.

Perhaps the most famous example of the short-fuse gamer stereotype were the political and public responses to the Columbine High School massacre. After Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold murdered twelve students and one teacher at the school following months of planning, politicians and the public used the terrorists to inculcate the image of the entitled and violent gamer. Senators and Joseph Lieberman used their public platforms to sponsor bills that would charge retailers with misdemeanors who sold mature-rated games to minors.

Clinton herself proclaimed that violent video games were leading youth “to kill officers, to attack women, and in some cases even to engage in cannibalism.” Politicians like Clinton and

Lieberman therefore dissociated Klebold and Harris’ small act of from relevant issues like the ease of gun purchasing, school safety, and cultural trauma. In the process, they

27 Isabel Wilkerson, “After 2 Weeks of Mayhem, The Nation is Asking Why,” The New York Times, December 14, 1993, https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/14/us/after-2-weeks-of- mayhem-the-nation-is-asking-why.html 105 associated the quintessential male gamer with the worst kinds of criminals—killers, attackers of women, and cannibals.28

Such political rhetoric resurrected public outcries against violent video games. In 2001,

Columbine victims’ families sought $5 billion in damages from twenty-five video game companies—among them big corporations like Atari, Sony America, , , and ID

Software.29 The text of the lawsuit claimed video games turn boys into “monster killers” and alleged that “absent the combination of extremely violent video games and these boys’ incredibly deep involvement, use of and addiction to these games and the boys’ basic personalities, these murders and this massacre would not have occurred.”30 Formerly viewed as children’s toys as opposed to expressive art, video games spent a decade achieving a kind of mythological status in the popular imaginary. No longer for families huddled around their living room televisions, video games were suddenly turning consumers—boys and men both—into monsters, and it was the game developers who were doing it.

Given this history of politicians, the news media, and the public at large sensationalizing the gamer identity to achieve their own ends, it is unsurprising that /r/KotakuInAction’s cynicism is one path online gamer cultures have taken. To a community like /r/KotakuInAction, social justice simply does not make sense outside the halls of academia. Not only do feminism and critical race studies seem to have no utility for these communities, but both disciplines resurrect

28 Patrick M. Markey and Christopher J. Ferguson, “Teaching Us to Fear: The Violent Video Game Panic and the Politics of Game Research,” American Journal of Play 10, no. 1 (2017), 101.

29 “Columbine Families Sue Computer Game Makers,” BBC News, May 1, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1295920.stm

30 Kent L. Norman, Cyberpsychology: An Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 433. 106

criticisms of video game content and the gamers who consume that content. Viewed through this

lens it makes sense that it is difficult for /r/KotakuInAction activists to understand why these

criticisms have materialized in the first place. How are feminist and anti-racist interventions into

video game cultures distinct from the political smears against gamers that emerged in the 1990s

and early 2000s? In order to resist these early fears about violent video games turning men and

boys into violent criminals, GamerGate activists defer to their consumer identities in order to

direct attention away from issues of race and gender. The gamer identity, once defined by political rhetoric and news media corporations scrambling to build a robust readership, transformed via the internet into a subversive identity to re-claim with a sense of pride. Since overreaching politicians and the press—both of which claim to act in the public’s best interests—

have historically blamed the marketed-to white male gamer demographic for aggression and

violence, social justice activism rooted in disciplines that comment on big picture institutional

violence is likely to seem unattractive, even hostile, to GamerGate activists. This history and the

contemporary realities it fashioned present the following challenge: how might academics best

communicate the aims of social justice outside of this tangled web of marketing logic?

Later in the chapter I apply these three recurrent themes—GamerGate’s historical revisionism, conspiracy theory that feminists are staging a liberal takeover of the games industry,

and the game consumer identity as a bulwark against such takeovers—to a pinned thread that

remained on /r/KotakuInAction’s front page for more than two months. As we will see, one

thread discussion demonstrates how academic social justice clashes with those who view their

identities through the lens of consumption.

107

Care, Politics, and White Trans Resources on /r/GamerGhazi

Transgender Care Resources and Masculine Discomfort

Opting to use their subreddit community as both a place for marginalized people to vent

and a database of resources for those who have felt oppressed by GamerGate activists, the nearly

20,000-member /r/GamerGhazi adopts its own stripped-down aesthetic and wiki layout to attract

sympathetic members. Unlike /r/KotakuInAction, which breaks its wiki into sections on a single

page, /r/GamerGhazi’s wiki is more detailed and broken into ten resource-heavy sections with

dedicated pages. Consistent with the subreddit’s rule that members not use the space for political

organizing, notably absent from the list of pages is a similar call to action integral to

/r/KotakuInAction’s mission to pull advertising revenue from undesirable news media outlets.

Instead, /r/GamerGhazi is less about activism and more about transformative justice for curious visitors who find themselves alienated by the GamerGate movement and its associated sympathizers, but have no place else to articulate their concerns. In an attempt to provide a home

for those angered by GamerGate’s deflections and disavowals, /r/GamerGhazi offers links to

mental health resources; a lengthy, day-by-day and month-by-month timeline of GamerGate-

related events replete with an impressively extensive list of hyperlinks to news reports; security tips to protect oneself from doxing, hacking, or SWATing attacks; a list of external links to

information about transgender and intersex issues and social experiences; a glossary of terms; and a compilation of GamerGate talking points that have been “refuted a thousand times.”31

31 SWATing is a vicious and dangerous form of internet trolling in which a someone calls 911 to get a SWAT team to show up at a stranger’s home. 108

Figure 4. /r/GamerGhazi wiki page with links to trans care resources.

Rather than focus on the ways in which /r/GamerGhazi articulates its side of the

GamerGate story, I focus here on the section of the wiki page that offers transgender care resources to the community (Figure 4). I chose the “Trans 101” section for the following two reasons: /r/GamerGhazi foregrounds trans identities in the rules section of their front page, suggesting such resources connect intimately with the community’s mission; and such resources emphasize subjective experience and therefore naturally denounce GamerGate’s individualist consumer identity. On its most basic level, the liminality of trans identities show that gender is a fluid cultural schema. By offering trans resources to their community, /r/GamerGhazi makes the case that such a spectrum translates to one’s social experience, which is generated through interactions between one’s environment, culture, and body. However, I observed none of these resources adequately attend to race, which is a consistent theme throughout my analysis of

/r/GamerGhazi content. For all intents and purposes, /r/GamerGhazi reveals itself as an explicitly white feminist space where members leave intersections of penalty and privilege under- examined. 109

For /r/GamerGhazi, care resources for vulnerable transgender people act themselves as

discursive counterbalances to /r/KotakuInAction’s more impulsive activist campaigns that hinge

upon reclaiming a version of masculinity that the community perceives has been taken from

them. Taking the care of others into consideration, by contrast, is akin to valuing the very

subjective experiences GamerGate activists tend to marginalize through a white, masculine, and

male appeal to “objectivity.” This is not to say that /r/GamerGhazi does not value evidence and

inquiry, but rather that subjective experience is itself a valuable font of knowledge, even (and

sometimes especially) for those who do not share particular social experiences. Any visitor to

/r/GamerGhazi would immediately see posted to the sidebar general rules of etiquette that, if breached, would result in a ban from the community. The community prohibits transphobia, speculating about another’s gender, and delegitimizing one’s gender identification.

Providing information about vulnerable transgender bodies is a form of transformative justice that, while passive in the sense that it is nested in a wiki, illustrates much about how

/r/GamerGhazi deliberately uses social justice to decenter masculine norms that

/r/KotakuInAction forcefully tries to keep under control. By providing a refuge (or a safe space) from the regressive politics in the world outside of /r/GamerGhazi, the community attempts, with varying degrees of success, to offer a measure of comfort for those who cannot find solidarity elsewhere.32 In fact, transgender people are perceived to pose a threat to traditional masculinity

and femininity for violating prescribed gender categories, which presents obstacles to fitting in

with the crowd. This often means transgender people struggle to survive in the world while

navigating their low self-esteem, depression, the desire to self-mutilate, and even suicidal

32 As will become clear in Chapter Four, Reddit’s very structure complicates this mission and in some cases precludes providing such a space. 110

thoughts.33

Dismantling Transgender Mythologies, Confronting Toxic Masculinity

Hence, merely by offering information and self-help resources to both transgender and non-transgender people alike, /r/GamerGhazi subverts /r/KotakuInAction’s masculinizing

“objectivity” and anti-feminist ideology. The section of the wiki that best exemplifies this effort is “Trans 101,” which comprises several links to articles and videos that educate outsiders about

transgender issues. I focus here on the top two links that lead, respectively, to an essay that

confronts misconceptions about trans people, and an article about etiquette to follow when

compelled to sate personal curiosities about a trans person’s identity. In the first link, author

Lucian Clark, who describes himself as “a cross-dressing, non-binary presenting trans male,”

confronts misconceptions about transgender issues ranging from identity and sexuality, to

surgery and transition, to binary gender categories.

I am interested in the third category because of its direct confrontation with the cultural

phenomena that both reinforce a gender binary and prohibit the outward expression of one’s

gender identity. Clark lists familiar refrains from transphobic people, such as that “trans people

uphold gender stereotypes,” that “trans people are always hyper-feminine or hyper-masculine”

caricatures, and that “trans people transition because they are self-hating/self-betraying their assigned-at-birth gender.” To the first charge Clark writes that transgender people are caught in a catch-22, where they are pressured to express strictly binary traits even where their identities preclude such expressions. Consequently, Clark argues, if a transgender person exhibits stereotypical traits associated with their gender assigned at birth, they are seen as consciously

33 Barb J. Burdge, “Bending Gender, Ending Gender: Theoretical Foundations for Social Work Practice with the Transgender Community,” Social Work 52, no. 3 (2007), 245. 111

performing a transgender identity. In other words, they are depicted as and believed to be frauds.

To the second script Clark writes that transgender people do not fall into the extremes of hyper-

masculine or hyper-feminine, but that this rhetoric has historically acted as a gatekeeping

mechanism to reassert control over gender hierarchies. To the third refrain Clark concedes that

some transgender people may be self-loathing for the same reason that cisgendered people are

misogynistic, or homophobic, or transphobic. So, while they may loathe that they have the parts

of themselves that do not fit with their gender identity, they are not, at their core, self-loathing.

Each of these scenarios has in common a strategic disavowal of gender expression that

redraws the boundaries around gender identity. This reactive of tradition is evident

in the tensions between /r/GamerGhazi and /r/KotakuInAction. In the latter case, none of the

authors or content creators explicitly mentions transgender identity, yet for decades studies have

reproduced the same result that gender expression is the most influential cognitive schema, most

particularly because of the impact its very existence has traditional gender hierarchies. In effect,

transgender people are perceived as one of the greatest threats to hegemonic masculinity.34 By challenging that schema through access to valuable resources for those who may not understand the experience of occupying a transgender body in America, /r/GamerGhazi cuts through social discomfort with transgender people and offers a way to reimagine gender in a way radically opposed to /r/KotakuInAction.

In the second essay the author, Sebastian, discusses the rules of etiquette for cisgendered friends of transgender people to follow when they feel compelled to ask their friend questions about their gender, writing “as much as you might want to know when [a transgender person]

34 Brian F. Harrison and Melissa R. Michelson, “Gender, Masculinity Threat, and Support for Transgender Rights: An Experimental Study,” Sex Roles (2018), 2. 112

started hormone replacement or how their parents are handling ‘it’ or what kind of surgery they

want to get, if the answer does not impact your relationship with them, don’t ask the question.”

Sebastian follows this assertion with a twelve-item list of rules, including the following: “phrase

your questions in a way that affirms a trans person’s gender,” “avoid comparisons to non-trans

people,” “be wary of your phrasing,” and “respect the person’s privacy.”

Each rule of etiquette suggests these seemingly friendly curiosities are more than merely anecdotal problems. One gets the impression that “questions” and “comparisons” and familiar

“phrasing” are such commonplace aggressions among friends that they bear special emphasis. In fact, transgender people constitute the most vulnerable population in America. Research on interpersonal interactions between transgender people and their cisgender friends has shown that transgender people report microaggressions falling within three recurrent and interrelated themes of authenticity, visibility, and negotiation of identity. Authenticity refers to a friend’s explicit perception of the incongruity between one’s outward expression of gender (i.e. what is readable) and their subjective gender experience (i.e. who they are). Visibility concerns microaggressions that demand a transgender person make themselves more outwardly seem transgender, which may have the consequence of subjecting them to further danger. Negotiation of identity refers to the sacrifices transgender people make to navigate their new social contexts—e.g. transgender men suddenly viewed as more masculine and therefore invested with additional privileges.35

Such aggressions are not merely restricted to friendships, however, but are also embedded in institutions. According to Kevin L. Nadal, et al. most transgender people experience some form

35 Lex Pulice-Farrow, Zakary A. Clements, and M. Paz Galupo, “Patterns of Transgender Microaggressions in Friendship: The Role of Gender Identity,” Psychology and Sexuality 8, no. 3 (2017). 113

of discrimination, including workplace discrimination, housing discrimination, public

discrimination, harassment by police, and physical and sexual assault.36

What About Race?

While these resources are undoubtedly useful for subreddit lurkers wishing to learn how to navigate complicated relationships with increasingly visible transgender people, they conspicuously ignore the intersections between gender and race. In none of the other resources is

“race” mentioned except in commentary underneath each post on the respective . This signifies a limited reckoning with the intersections between race and gender, in this case expressed through a monolithic transgender subject. By treating transgender people as members of a monolithic group, each resource assumes both a white subject and audience, thereby erasing the complex intersections of race and gender.

This is particularly problematic given the incongruous rates of violence transgender people of color experience relative to other marginalized populations. According to the Human

Rights Campaign’s (HRC) most recent data, in 2017 a record number of transgender people, most of them black and Latinx, were murdered because of hate. In the HRC’s words, “it is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, and that the intersections of racism, sexism, and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare, and other necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable.”37

The research on transgender violence supports the notion that the existence and increasing

36 Kevin L. Nadal, et al., “Emotional, Behavioral, and Cognitive Reactions to Microaggressions: Transgender Perspectives,” American Psychological Association 1, no. 1 (2018).

37 “Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2017,” Human Rights Watch, Accessed December 1, 2018. 114

visibility of transgender people has challenged traditional gender binaries and made white men

especially uncomfortable.38 In fact, of the 1,123 murders reported between 2008 and 2012, transgender murders, which are the highest in the United States relative to their population size,

are likely underreported “because of the fear of retaliation, stigma toward transgender people,

and police misconduct.”39

All other links on the page either defer to external communities, delve into the scientific evidence for the fluidity of biological sex, or ask users to suggest resources that may have been

overlooked. The community offers a link to the /r/AskTransgender subreddit, which is placed in

the center of the list “for questions not answered by the above sources.” Below the link to the

subreddit is a short list of “Further Reading,” which includes resources about the “commonality

of intersex,” “shared anatomy and fetal development,” and “gender politics and the construction

of sexuality.” The suggested additions link is at the top and bottom of the “Trans 101” page.

While these resources are undoubtedly valuable introductions to those who have both felt

or expressed aggressions towards trans people, and trans people who themselves experienced

such aggressions, they importantly overlook the racial dimension of transgender identity.

Deferring to other communities to fill in the blanks means the community never adequately

considered the intersections between gender and race in the first place. Notably, the “Trans 101”

page was updated as recently as one year ago, almost four years after the community

materialized. As we will see in the next section, these anxieties about confronting American

racial inequalities extend also to /r/GamerGhazi’s user commentary about “white fragility,” a

38 Harrison and Michelson, “Gender, Masculinity Threat, and Support for Transgender Rights: An Experimental Study,” 2.

39 Nadal, et al., “Microaggressions.” 115

concept coined by sociologist Robin DiAngelo to explain whites’ reflexive discomfort about

discussing race in a color-blind American society.

The Subreddits, At a Glance

Now t hat I have given an overview of /r/KotakuInAction’s and /r/GamerGhazi’s politics and conceptual, or ideological, gaps as evidenced in their respective wiki pages, it is worth

analyzing how each community put its ideas into practice through some of the site content. In

what follows, I look at posts that had been pinned to the front pages of each subreddit for months in order to understand the networks of ideas that circulate within each community. Before giving

Reddit’s user interface as it relates to /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi closer attention in

Chapter Four, below I delve into the comment threads of each of these pinned posts.

Game Bosses and Geek Masculinity on /r/KotakuInAction

Beginning August 11, 2018, a pinned post appeared for two months on

/r/KotakuInAction’s front page. Titled “[GOAL] Operation Canadian BaCon II: GamerGate Vs.

The CBC Battle (Coming Summer 2019),” the post details the author’s four year struggle to

hold the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) accountable for a segment they aired in

November 2014 that gave passing mention to GamerGate’s harassment of women in the video

games industry. The segment features a brief introduction in which the anchor tells of a female

game blogger receiving online threats just for commenting about misogyny in the games

industry. As clips of “Tropes Vs. Women” plays in the background, a woman’s voiceover links

GamerGate’s origins to the death and rape threats Sarkeesian began receiving in 2012. In this

brief thirty second introduction to a two-and-a-half minute segment, the CBC stages what author

of the post leads GamerGate activists on /r/KotakuInAction to interpret as a brazen act of

journalistic recklessness, where ideological media bias has silenced, even persecuted, 116

GamerGate activists. The rest of the story bolsters the central thesis that regressive gamer communities have been responsible for this harassment of female game designers and features university professors and women in the industry relating their personal struggles with receiving harassment for simple acts of solidarity like tweeting their support for Quinn in the midst of the controversy.

The report’s theme of sexism in the industry, together with the grandiose, if tongue-in- cheek, subcultural references to game conventions in the post’s title provide insight into how

GamerGate activists view themselves as consumers in relationship to the cultural systems they oppose. The term “operation” (in this case its apparent sequel) invokes the covert language of video game spy thriller series like Metal Gear Solid, Deus Ex, and Splinter , all of which star a heroic and overpowered white man sneaking precariously through environments populated with deadly hostile enemies. The heroes of these games embody the masculine ideal— aggressive, violent, vengeful, objective, intelligent, sexually desirable, and undeterred by the threat of danger. At pivotal points in each game the player confronts bosses, which are powerful enemies that require cunning, patience, and skill to beat. A boss battle in a video game is the final encounter with the ultimate hostile, the end-game conspirator. The boss is the monster or quick and powerful human to be toppled by the underdog protagonist who has leveled up and collected essential combat abilities along the way to aid in the fight.

This narrative in which the player embodies the virtuous (and virtual) protagonist, powers up, confronts increasingly difficult challenges, and finally beats back the powerful and seemingly insurmountable foe is a calculated consumer fantasy for a community like /r/KotakuInAction.

The confluence of video game tropes—a merging of computer science and artistic representations of ideal and desirable men in combat—and real-world political conflict recalls 117

mythologies about Silicon Valley nerds leveraging their whiteness and maleness to overcome

their aggressors, as seen in pop cultural escapism like the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds,

HBO’s ongoing show Silicon Valley, the still-popular CBS show Big Bang Theory, and its

associated spinoff Young Sheldon. In each of these fantasies, a male group of nerds becomes the

alternately frustrating, calculating, ruthless, clumsy, desirable, and lovable army that conquers

external threats to their masculinity through whatever means necessary.40 Co-opting these

mythologies, even if unwittingly, appears to serve an important function. These mythologies

allow /r/KotakuInAction (and by extension, GamerGate) members to claim a marginal position

from their perspective of an inferior, non-hegemonic form of geek masculinity while leveraging whiteness and maleness. By vanquishing the foe from this marginal position of the underdog protagonist, GamerGate activists can reclaim a brand of more desirable masculinity that has perceptibly been stolen from them. The contention in /r/KotakuInAction is that women are not as oppressed as they say they are, at least not by GamerGate activists, and that this CBC story is apocryphal for precisely this reason. Conversely, GamerGate members perceive themselves as victims of harassment via forms of malicious misrepresentation orchestrated by feminists and

academics, evidently in this case through CBC reporting.41 Already we receive clues as to why

this activist author and those who continue the bustling thread below the post have positioned

themselves as the “good guys” waging a virtuous battle against the destructive and evil “bad

guys” who need to be held accountable or destroyed for their actions.

40 Christopher T. Fan, “Not All Nerds,” The New Inquiry, November 6, 2014, https://thenewinquiry.com/not-all-nerds/

41 Adrienne Massanari, “#Gamergate and the Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures,” New Media and Society 19, no. 3 (2017), 332. 118

Given the community’s collective distaste for what the post alleges about the

government’s handling of the author’s grievance, it is easy to see how /r/KotakuInAction agrees

that the CBC resembles a boss battle. For one, the author of the post alleges journalistic malfeasance on the part of the CBC. The perceived lack of journalistic integrity is one of

/r/KotakuInAction’s chief concerns, an abstract cultural enemy that needs to be vanquished or held accountable for its many sins. While the author is vague about what, exactly, the CBC did wrong in its reporting embedded links in the post provide some helpful clues. One hyperlink leads to a post written in December 2014 by a blogger sympathetic to the author. The blogger argues that the CBC’s report fallaciously linked GamerGate to harassment instead of calling it

what it really is—an honest effort to advocate for better ethics in journalism.42 This sentiment—

that calling the movement out for harassment is little more than a leftist smear campaign—is one

of GamerGate’s favorite political refrains, and it is a clever one. By deflecting attention from

GamerGate’s participation in harassment campaigns, /r/KotakuInAction members can forcibly

absolve themselves of any wrongdoing, reassert their identities as race- and gender-blind

consumers, and advertise themselves as really the good guys. After all, few would endorse an

outright harassment campaign, and even fewer would disagree that journalists ought to be held

accountable for misreporting, or worse, failing to amend a story when new information becomes

available. To GamerGate activists on Reddit, this conflict with the CBC must look like a

smoking gun given how the original poster claims the corporation treated them.

In fact, this is not a post merely documenting one person’s struggle against a powerful

state institution, but a call to action from a community that would relish the prospect of engaging

42 Billy D, “CBC Exec Acknowledges #GamerGate Media Slant, States Ethics Are Important,” December 2014. 119

in this boss battle. After giving a rundown of the conflict with the CBC and all their frustrated

attempts at petitioning the Canadian Radio-Television Broadcasting Commission (CRTC) for

help, the author alerts /r/KotakuInAction that the CBC’s broadcast licensing is up for review and

renewal in the summer of 2019. The author hypothesizes that if Canadian /r/KotakuInAction

activists overload the CRTC with complaints about their mishandling of what in the summer of

2019 will be an almost five-year-old report, the CBC’s highly subjective reporting will “become

a very (sic) central part of next year’s broadcast licensing renewal” and the public broadcasting

corporation will have a “monkey wrench” thrown in its “operations.” Below this lofty mission statement, which again invokes the conspiratorial language of video game conflict, is a four- prong mobilization strategy. Preparation would entail recruiting sympathizers, gathering evidence against the CBC, creating a database of CBC misreporting about GamerGate activists

(including about Eron Gjoni, the man who sparked the controversy and subsequent movement with his lengthy anti-Quinn screed), and raising awareness against the CBC and its SJW employees.

The post seems to have worked. Users in the post’s thread overwhelmingly support the goals of the project, and the tenor of that support provides even further insight into what drives

GamerGate activists to think and feel the way they do. One commenter urges the original poster to disseminate the plan to /r/MensRights on the basis that “MRAs [Men’s Rights Activists] have a shitload of issues with the CBC as well for exactly the same reasons we do.” This proposed appeal to MRAs signals an important affiliation between the two communities, at least ideologically. MRAs tend to be against the feminist activism that comes out of academia and popular culture. The MRA philosophy emerged in the 1970s during the women’s liberation movement when a fissure developed between pro-feminist and anti-feminist men’s liberation 120 activists. The pro-feminist side of the men’s liberation movement held that while women suffer the most under patriarchy, men are also constrained by their unique set of socially acceptable behaviors, such as the pressure to perform specific versions of masculinity as exemplified over the fear of LGBTQ+ identities. 43

The anti-feminist side, by contrast, contended that feminism is anathema to a functioning or equitable society, and that men do not benefit from patriarchy at women’s expense. Evidence cited by the latter movement ranges from the fact that men are likelier than women to die in war, to the preponderance of court cases that unjustly rule in favor of unfit mothers (and against fathers) during proceedings, to men’s shorter life spans. This anti-feminist half of the movement does not see the central irony that it is patriarchy itself that creates expectations for men to perform (and therefore often die) in combat roles, or that women, and not men, should shoulder all the emotional and physical burdens of childcare. As a consequence, these grievances in fact reveal the underappreciated philosophical overlap between MRAs and feminism that ought to be rejected.44 Nevertheless, once MRAs transitioned to internet communities, especially through platforms like Reddit, anti-feminist ideology spread, fragmented over digital domains, and captured the attentions of angry men and boys who interpreted feminism as an assault on their value systems. Most importantly, however, feminism was seen as a threat because of its focus on women’s issues, which invariably took the focus off of the men in these geek communities who already perceived themselves as under assault by a media environment that had marginalized them.

43 Michael A. Messner, “The Limits of ‘The Male Sex Role’: An Analysis of the Men’s Liberation and Men’s Rights Movements’ Discourse,” Gender and Society 12, no. 3 (1998), 256.

44 Jacqueline Allain, “Finding Common Ground: A Feminist Response to Men’s Rights Activism,” On Our Terms 3, no. 1 (2015). 121

More evidence of /r/KotakuInAction’s affiliation with anti-feminism MRA philosophy

occurs further down the thread, where another user urges the community to look into Jordan

Peterson’s body of work for some intellectual ammunition. A once-obscure professor of

psychology at University in , Peterson recently gained fame among some sects of

men’s rights, far-right, and GamerGate activists and infamy among leftist academics for

opposing, among other things, a Canadian bill stipulating that gender expression be prohibited

grounds for discrimination. Peterson has become especially popular in communities like

/r/KotakuInAction for his subsequent public intellectual soothsaying and outspoken sympathy for

men and boys who he believes occupy a marginal social class. He has claimed in various

publications and interviews that the chaos of what he calls postmodern neo- and

(blanket terms favored by the far-right to discredit feminist insights) is

responsible for an unfair redistribution of power that will bring about the destruction of Western

civilization.45 Many of his proclamations about the scourge of in daily life amount to the reductive assertion that it, as a philosophy, is destructive because it denounces canonical ways of thinking altogether and privileges limitless interpretations that are all seen as equally valid.46 It is not entirely clear how Peterson sees this as leading to the demise of Western

civilization, but at the very least his core assertion that postmodernism (and by extension, post- ) and Marx’s writings have had a clear influence on contemporary feminist theories of identity is well-documented, and I briefly covered this in Chapter Two with my elaboration of standpoint epistemology, its connections to Marx and Hegel, and the subsequent development of

45 David Livingstone Smith and John Kaag, “Thus Spoke : A Wildly Popular Self-Help Program is Leading Young Men to ,” Foreign Policy, 53.

46 Jordan Peterson, “AMA,” Reddit. 122

intersectional identity theory that acted as a critique of standpoint epistemology’s essentializing

claims about gender. Given this complicated feminist intellectual history, it is frustrating to see

many embrace Peterson’s oversimplified and ahistorical version of feminism, especially as it is a

textbook case of an academic wading clumsily in another discipline’s well-charted waters.

Frustrating though it is, for Peterson and those who follow him, rejecting these postmodern invasions, such as feminism, into daily life is a vital step toward helping disaffected men to reclaim their masculinity and, Peterson writes, “toughen up.”47

In a profile of Peterson that appeared in , Dorian Lynskey writes that

Peterson condemns these postmodern neo-Marxists for their repeated attempts to infiltrate higher

education in order to “undermine western values with ‘vicious, untenable, and anti-human ideas’,

such as identity politics, that will pave the road to .”48 These harrowing warnings

about Western society gradually falling prey to an army of malicious social justice totalitarians

mirror /r/KotakuInAction’s fears about the SJW video game bosses that need to be defeated.

Peterson’s warnings fall in line with the post’s video game consumer metaphor of the ending

boss battle, or in this case what /r/KotakuInAction sees as a dictatorial broadcasting corporation

that restricts free speech, hides evidence, and thereby distorts the truth. By this logic, the CBC

becomes a malicious actor precisely because, to many /r/KotakuInAction members, its

sympathies lie in the wrong place. Its very existence compromises the stability of taken-for-

47 Kelefa Sanneh, “Jordan Peterson’s Gospel of Masculinity,” . March 5, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/jordan-petersons-gospel-of- masculinity.

48 Dorian Lynskey, “How Dangerous is Jordan B Peterson, the Rightwing Professor Who ‘Hit a Hornets’ Nest,’” The Guardian, February 7, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the- rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest. 123

granted Western values. By extension, it threatens the very consumer identities, defined through

products that cater to the marketed-to white male audience, /r/KotakuInAction activists hold near

and dear.

This post and thread exemplify how through one small conflict with the CBC, MRA

philosophy, and sympathetic rightist academics like Peterson, members of /r/KotakuInAction can

forcefully lay claim to a Western ideal of hegemonic masculinity—which they reassert through a

consistent deferral to their consumer identities—that they believe feminism, academia, and the

corrupt news media have stolen from them. Activists on /r/KotakuInAction evidently share the

feeling that men and boys have been unjustly smeared and emasculated by SJWs intent on

imposing their worldview on an unwilling public.

The lengths to which /r/KotakuInAction activists go to raise awareness about this

philosophy are impressive. In the middle of the thread, for instance, the original poster provides a

hefty list of the CBC’s apparent infractions against GamerGate dating back to 2014. One can

only imagine the amount of time and effort that must have gone into making this list. It is a

veritable treasure trove of perceived hit pieces against GamerGate and its associated

sympathizers. The list seemingly favors the original poster’s assertion that the GamerGate movement is being maliciously targeted. Most of the stories are about topics ranging from feminism and inclusivity, to a viral anti-diversity memo James Damore sacrificed his privacy and employment at Google to share with the rest of his office, to 4Chan’s likely influence over the

2016 election of Donald Trump to the US presidency. Below the extensive list of CBC stories are two edits that alert the community of additions. The first promises an update to the list as the

CBC reshuffles their media archives and breaks the current links. The second edit reassures the community that the original poster has kept the promise—the links have been updated. 124

Each of these discussions in one thread at first may seem disconnected, like puzzle pieces

forced together from different jigsaws. But they are all intimately connected and provide insight

into how /r/KotakuInAction sees itself in relationship to issues such as feminism, the consumer

identity, free speech, and activism. For instance, what becomes immediately apparent from this

thread is the community’s sense of solidarity and common goals. The community is defined by

its desire to preserve a masculine order with reference to gamers’ consumer identities. The

community will reclaim their turf by vanquishing an overpowered foe (a boss fight), getting

heard in spite of GamerGate’s negative portrayals in popular culture (the CBC as that enemy

boss and GamerGate as the virtuous protagonist), organizing resistance to achieve certain ends (a

four-pronged strategy to mount an organized attack), collectively expressing a genuine belief that

white men are not the recipients of unearned privilege (the proposed appeal to MRA subreddits

and Peterson as ammunition in the fight), and valuing a preponderance of “objective” evidence

to confirm already-held biases (the well-researched and lengthy list of CBC hit pieces that

reaffirm the community’s core values). All these features countenance a worldview that resists

what GamerGate activists perceive as invasive social justice ideology.

The level of activist involvement here is also impressive. As Anastasia Salter and Bridget

Blodgett have observed, such activist resistance from what they call the “ world” of gamer

communities is to be expected as gamer culture diversifies and the boundaries between the

gaming public and marginalized communities blur. That blurring of boundaries takes the shape

of pushing feminist and anti-racist voices to the fringes of gamer identity or keeping them, at best, at arm’s length in order to inch closer to realizing an ideal of consumer individualism through white masculinity that gamer culture has always privileged from its own technically 125 marginal position.49 This one pinned post, in other words, is not a neutral or unremarkable artifact, but shows the community’s devotion to silencing feminist voices by reasserting a white male consumer identity.

/r/GamerGhazi, White Fragility, and Discourses of Race and Gender

By contrast, /r/GamerGhazi’s pinned post and the discussion thread below it describes a community uneasy about confronting American racism. This uneasiness explains why intersectional identities are largely absent from /r/GamerGhazi discussions. Throughout the thread the community settles for debating as opposed to mobilizing activists toward effecting social change. Titled “Concerning White Fragility,” the post begins with the claim that

“all white people are racist and, far from absolving them, this places an urgent burden on each and all. Anyone who thinks this statement is wrong, or that it needs further qualification that could weaken our understanding of it, or that it makes ‘racism’ a powerless word: find some place [sic] else to debate it.” To bolster their case the author references Kenneth and Mamie

Clark’s historic doll tests, which provide evidence that implicit bias against people of color begins during one’s formative years. These tests were instrumental in the landmark Brown v.

Board of Education Supreme Court decision that struck down the racist separate-but-equal school admissions doctrine on the basis that mandating blacks and whites could not attend the same schools violated the equal protection clause of the constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.

The doll tests stage the author’s case that “all people are biased,” which is “true in the same way that ‘all people are dying’ would be a true reply to an LGBT activist in the 80s who dared to say

‘HIV/AIDS patients are dying.’”

49 Anastasia Salter and Bridget Blodgett, “Hypermasculinity and Dickwolves: The Contentious Role of Women in the New Gaming Public,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 56, no. 3 (2012), 413. 126

On these historical premises, the author draws a distinction between contemporary polar opposite categories of racist white people—“decent” white people who consistently confront their own racism, versus those who support Donald Trump “or other Nazis.” Importantly, the author argues, occupying either category nets the subject the “racist” label, the major difference between both being that the “decent” racists “never wanted to benefit from their privilege,” while white supremacist versions are people like “[Joe Arpaio,] the US sheriff running self-described concentration camps and the US president” who pardoned him. Evidently the goal of the post is to illustrate how a system built off racism through such tragic historical injustices as Jim Crow segregation serves whites primarily, and that only some of those whites are conceptually aware of the ways in which they benefit from that system. With this historical context in mind elucidating America’s racist past and present, the author concludes the post with a two-item list of /r/GamerGhazi’s golden rules, which read: “1.) Do not debate or undermine the existence or urgency of white racism. 2.) Debate as appropriate what solutions should look like. But no self- pity about how white racism is a challenge for otherwise decent white folk.” The author here describes racism as an unduly stigmatized word applied now only to those, such as neo-Nazis, who proudly announce their racism. Taking its place is white fragility, which accounts for others’ failure to confront racist institutions that enable, or even encourage, white supremacist hate groups to flourish.

White fragility here deliberately subverts the MRA narrative that white men are really a marginalized class in America, and the author is loath to coddle that mindset in their own community. White fragility is a loaded term that requires some elaboration, since it connects notions of positivism, objectivity, and individuality with institutional racial inequality. A term coined by DiAngelo, white fragility refers to whites’ reflexive discomfort about discussions of 127

American racism. It is characterized by whites’ various ways of denying how they benefit from a

racist society. It is the process whereby white people react either with resistance or outright fury

to perceived assaults on their claims to individuality or objectivity. The ideology of objectivity is

related to positivism and holds that the scientific researcher is irrelevant to the study the scientist

produces. This ideology claims one’s subjective experience of reality is subservient—or

altogether anathema—to objective reality. Individuality assumes each person is unique and

therefore logically unmarked by race and gender. In line with positivism and liberal feminism,

both of which I covered more thoroughly in Chapter Two, individualism maintains people’s

experiences are not in part shaped by social institutions; rather, people make of their own lives what they will. It is a self-reliance philosophy that presumes individuals are responsible for themselves, meaning their social identities simply cannot account for the struggles they face.50

Those prone to expressing white fragility tend to react with anger to any perceived challenge to their individuality because it compromises their position on the American racial hierarchy. In a depressingly common reversal of misfortune, some white people even position themselves as the ones being treated unfairly. Importantly, those who expose themselves as fragile often do not know they are doing so; their obvious anger and discomfort is, instead, a reflex of the very privilege they tend to claim does not exist.51

I have experienced this phenomenon myself in the classroom when discussing race with a group of reluctant white students. Usually these students’ white fragility comes out in writing assignments when they outright reject racism and assure me that they would never perpetuate it

50 Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018), 9.

51 Barbara Applebaum, “Comforting Discomfort as Complicity: White Fragility and the Pursuit of Invulnerability,” Hypatia 32, no. 4 (2017), 864. 128 knowingly. Importantly, these written assurances invariably betray their implicit claim to individuality, as they display a lack of understanding of how their whiteness (and often maleness) permits them to move freely and affords them certain coveted privileges. Every so often a lone student will speak out against perceived slights to their whiteness by advertising how anti-racist they are to the entire class, thereby ironically reinforcing their claim to individuality while failing to see how people of color cannot claim that same individuality because they are stereotyped as part of a group. White fragility is a powerful force for preserving white supremacy through an un-self-aware participation in racist systems. That participation tends to come in the form of colorblindness and inaction.

White fragility is integral to understanding both the dichotomy the author draws between the helpful racist and the quintessential Donald Trump-supporting neo-Nazi, and the responses to the post itself. The ideally self-aware racist is the white member of the /r/GamerGhazi community, one who admits their privilege is not only unearned, but unjust and monstrous. On the other end of that spectrum is the imagined monster itself, who both avoids communicating through their discomfort and reacts violently at the suggestion that they should. This dichotomy also illustrates the clear political divide between /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi. Whereas

/r/KotakuInAction mounts coordinated resistance campaigns against what they view as an unwelcome incursion of social justice into a daily life, /r/GamerGhazi settles for merely debating everyday racist systems. As I will argue, the commentary under this post constitutes the very forms of white fragility the post aims to disavow, as it re-centers white emotions by claiming

“white fragility” is too confrontational to apply meaningfully outside of exclusive safe spaces like /r/GamerGhazi.

The commentary below the post reveals a community that splits hairs about anti-racist 129

terminology and in some cases slyly avoids discussing race. For example, /r/GamerGhazi

members engage in a complicated philosophical back-and-forth in which many top- or highly- voted commenters reject the term “white fragility,” which keeps the community from confronting the phenomenon and the racism it countenances. Instead, they opt to shift the discussion toward better communication strategies that would not put white people on the defensive. The top-voted commenter suggests that writing “‘all white people are racist’ provokes defensiveness and ‘fragility’ it [sic] shuts down discussion with people not using the academic definition vs the dictionary definition.” The commenter proposes that the author instead use the clumsier and wordier academic definition in lieu of the confrontational shorthand, which may be expressed instead as “all white people benefit from a level of institutional racism.” One highly- voted commenter dismisses—emphatically and with capital letters—the term on the basis that

“trying to convince everyday white people that they are racists WILL NEVER WORK. The word has too much power.” The commenter suggests the following alternative: “So instead maybe just say ‘fight racism!’ instead of ‘you’re racist and there is nothing you can do about it because of your skin color . . . but somehow you need to fight racism.’ If you go the second route, you’re just wasting your time.” Another highly-voted commenter argues that acknowledging one’s own racism “seems more self-congratulatory than anything,” then flips the script to apply such assertions to people of color, writing “How can you say that nobody should express debate or disagreement with this statement here and say that it’s white people’s job to

‘listen and learn’ from people of color? Doesn’t this assume that all non-white people couldn’t possibly have a criticism of what you’ve written here?”

While it is fair to trouble the notion that objections to the main post would only harm anti-racist efforts, it bears emphasis that the author of the post likely intends to address an 130 audience of community members that they reasonably assume are open to confronting the privileges their whiteness affords them. On the other hand, that post anticipates the above objections. The very assertion that people within the community should neither debate the impact and ubiquity of white racism nor ask for qualification is an admission that both debate and qualification are likely to result. In that sense, these comments, which were given community approval through upvotes, prove the very argument they seek to undermine—namely, that debate and qualification are byproducts of white fragility. As DiAngelo observes from years of leading anti-racism workshops, white people never have to be socialized to see themselves in racial terms. Because of never needing to worry that their race will be held against them, white people can navigate the world relatively unfettered by their skin color—i.e. they can ignore their own whiteness because it does not constrain their upward social mobility. Later in the book she reflects on her own whiteness, speculating that “George Zimmerman would not have stopped me as I walked through a gated suburban neighborhood.”52

Additionally, each of these top-voted comments re-centers white emotions with predictable refrains. The use of “white fragility” will “provoke defensiveness” and shut down discussion. It will make it hard to “convince everyday white people” because the word racism

“has too much power.” And anyway, confronting one’s own whiteness is “self-congratulatory” and ignores that “people of color” are also sometimes racist. Barbara Applebaum describes such refrains as forms of “racial violence and an active performance of invulnerability” because they comfort white people and give them permission to ignore the institutional contexts that fashion

American racial inequalities.53

52 DiAngelo, White Fragility, 53.

53 Applebaum, “Comforting Discomfort,” 3. 131

The post makes clear that /r/GamerGhazi has a difficult time delimiting the boundaries of its racial politics. KotakuInAction refashions GamerGate’s history to make the movement seem benign. Community activists maneuver to their consumer identities in order to sidestep race and gender. By contrast, /r/GamerGhazi cannot decide how to confront race or the intersections between race and gender. For /r/GamerGhazi, not only do transgender people constitute a monolithic category of presumed whiteness but race itself cannot be discussed with reference to whiteness—most particularly white fragility. Unfortunately, the post on /r/GamerGhazi drew the

ire of its own community, which overwhelmingly objected to the concept of “white fragility” on

the basis that it may provoke white discomfort. Consequently, /r/GamerGhazi re-centers white

emotions and ignores the grievances of those who have been pushed to the margins by a society

that privileges whiteness above all else.

In the Chapter Four I apply some of they key terms from this chapter—historical

revisionism, the consumer identity, positivism or the impossible ideal of objectivity, and

whiteness—to a deeper investigation of Reddit’s user interface in relationship to a controversy

surrounding the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Developed by independent newcomer

Warhorse Studios, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an all-white historical fantasy based in medieval Bohemia that generated a small wave of negative press for erasing black people from its historical setting and reducing its female characters to sexual objects. First, I discuss the public perception of social media bias in relationship to three 2018 scandals that embroiled

Twitter, Facebook, and Google. I then apply my insights about these scandals to the Reddit interface. I describe Reddit in detail with respect to its unique voting algorithm, reward system, and user interface. After covering bias in relationship to each of these social media platforms, I show how both /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi use the Reddit interface to telegraph their 132 relative, if perhaps unwitting, investments in white supremacist narratives that white men created the so-called modern world. 133

CHAPTER FOUR. DISTORTING HISTORY: SOCIAL MEDIA BIAS, KINGDOM COME:

DELIVERANCE, AND REDDIT’S USER INTERFACE

The basic code at the of the new Internet is pretty simple. The new generation of

Internet filters looks at the things you seem to like—the actual things you’ve done, or the

things people like you like—and tries to extrapolate. They are prediction engines,

constantly creating and refining a theory of who you are and what you’ll do and want

next. Together, these engines create a unique universe of information for each of us . . .

which fundamentally alters the way we encounter ideas and information.

– Eli Parsier, The

Having backgrounded the GamerGate controversy, detailed the creation of

/r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi in the controversy’s initial wake, mapped the methodological framework I deployed while gathering and interpreting the data I collected, and covered each subreddit’s governance, I will now apply these questions and concerns to the distinct political strategies favored by both /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi as evidenced by both communities’ use of Reddit’s user interface in relationship to a controversy surrounding the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

In this chapter I argue that by giving serious consideration to the political strategies and ideological contours of each of these communities as they evolve (or do not evolve) around a single issue over the course of one year, we can begin to understand better the ways in which social media in general and Reddit in particular are not neutral platforms, but instead construct silos where productive communication is precluded by the drawbacks of democracy. Reddit mirrors American democratic institutions that factionalize in order to oppress and marginalize underrepresented groups. I therefore argue that Reddit is regressive precisely because its user 134

interface defined by its democratic upvoting and downvoting mechanism foregrounds preferred

narratives and buries, conceals, or deems irrelevant most dissenting ideas or ideologies that do

not fit the mold of these self-contained communities. I further argue that this burying is a form of

hegemonic masculinity built directly into Reddit’s user interface in order to relegate what is

considered subjective or emotionally unreasonable to the very bottom of a thread and catapult

those viewpoints deemed most objective and true by a community to the very top, regardless of

the viewpoints’ actual truth value. Because of this structure, Reddit is hospitable to

/r/KotakuInAction, which uses its membership to achieve anti-feminist goals, and inhospitable to

/r/GamerGhazi, whose members are at odds about feminism and critical race issues.

I begin this chapter with a discussion of social media algorithms, which are frequently treated in the news media and by corporate executives as neutral forces for good. However, I argue, invisible algorithms and the user interfaces on which users encounter those algorithms invariably shape public opinion, yet the public too often mistakenly demands that social media be neutral. Public responses to the 2018 Twitter, Facebook, and Google scandals concerning user privacy and social media bias illustrate rampant misguided thinking that social media should aspire to absolute neutrality, despite all three corporations adopting user data mining and manipulation as core principles of their business models. After covering the public discourses surrounding these three major social media corporations, I describe Reddit’s algorithm and user interface architecture in terms of the platform’s specifically gendered and racist design. Reddit is rarely, if ever, covered in the popular press despite similar breaches of privacy, of public trust, and the proliferation of abusive trolling across the platform. What makes Reddit unique and popular is its purportedly democratic user interface, equalizing algorithm, and original content from all over the internet. On the contrary, I argue, Reddit’s very structure 135

makes genuine social transformation difficult precisely because it inculcates a version of

democracy that silences and excludes the most underprivileged .

Finally, I apply these insights about Reddit’s algorithm and user interface to this

chapter’s case study—the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Advertised as a historically accurate game based in medieval Bohemia, in 2014 the game and its creator, Warhorse Studios,

became the subject of controversy for deliberately erasing the contributions of women and the

whole existence of people of color in its historical setting. Far-right Reddit community and

/r/KotakuInAction predecessor /r/TumblrInAction started a short-lived harassment campaign against game journalists and an online amateur historian for rebuking Warhorse Studios for their historical erasures. I show how the subreddit’s response resembles a phenomenon begun in the nineteenth century where far-right groups revise medieval history to suit a white supremacist agenda.

Despite the controversy long since fading from public acknowledgement five years ago,

as of this writing and over a year after the game’s release, /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi

continue to use Reddit’s interface and algorithm to take opposing sides on this issue, suggesting

that the game and the discourses surrounding it touch on both communities’ core values. In fact,

the game sparked illuminating discussions about the political utility of historical accuracy, the

role of women in games, the role of people of color in games, good versus bad faith journalism,

and—perhaps most centrally of all—the reassertion of white supremacy through outdated stories about medieval chivalry and romance. 136

Social Media Algorithms

Three Social Media Scandals

When the internet reached prominence in the 1990s academic scholars treated it as a

raceless, genderless, classless, open, and anti-colonial space where democratic participation

would be the rule rather than the exception.1 In the idyllic construction of what was then

popularly termed the equalizing “information superhighway,” scholars and entrepreneurs

believed the internet was divorced from the logic of corporate capitalism because it was not

centrally and operated by a single nation or corporation.2 It was, consequently, widely

viewed as a space where a new market rich with opportunities for healthy competition from

individuals and individual business owners would emerge in the wake of its brick-and-mortar alternatives.3 The new internet of the late nineties was believed to be a space that produced what

Nan Lin once called “a revolutionary rise of social capital [emphasis in original]” that would

“supercede personal capital in significance and effect.”4 In all of these utopic visions the

imagined future of the internet reflected modern liberalist projects of a color- and gender-blind

society, where faceless users would have no visual racial or gendered referent.

Three recent scandals reveal how these fantasies have remained a staple of American

culture well into the twenty-first century. At different times in 2018 the CEOs of Twitter,

Facebook, and Google were asked to testify in front of the United States Congress to defend

1 Nan Lin, “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital,” Connections 22, no. 1 (1999), 45. 2 Patrick Henry Bass, “Riding the Information Superhighway,” Black Enterprise 26, no. 8 (1996).

3 Lucas D. Introna and Helen Nissenbaum, “The Politics of Search Engines,” The Information Society 16, no. 3 (2000), 179.

4 Lin, “Building a Network Theory,” 45. 137 themselves against accusations that they had breached the public trust by abusing users’ data. On

September 5, 2018 Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified to allay fears that Twitter played a role in swaying the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor. In his prepared testimony,

Dorsey remains steadfast in his reassurance that Twitter is unbiased and neutral. One passage is worth quoting at length. It reads:

Let me be clear about one important and foundational fact: Twitter does not use political

ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how

we enforce our rules. We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our

rules impartially. We do not shadowban anyone based on political ideology. In fact, from

a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized

to keep all voices on the platform.5

One cannot help but be swept up by Dorsey’s rhetorical maneuvers—his double-reference to impartiality in a single sentence, his summary rejection of political ideology as a prime motivator for administrative choices, and his deference to sound business decisions over political proselytizing (as any effective CEO of a major corporation would be). In each of these cases,

Dorsey wants his listeners to believe reason, objectivity, and a culture of product testing shaped

Twitter’s every business decision, thereby dissociating those decisions from their consequences and implicitly placing the on Twitter users themselves.

On the other hand, Dorsey’s assurances that Twitter is an unbiased, neutral force for good appear to conflict with claims he makes later in his statement that Twitter employs technologies that are “aggressive in detecting and minimizing certain types of abusive and manipulative behaviors on our platform.” These technologies are “algorithms . . . tuned to prevent the

5 Jack Dorsey, “Social Media and Content Monitoring,” Testimony Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, September 5, 2018. 138

circulation of Tweets that violate our Terms of Service, including the malicious behavior we saw

in the 2016 election, whether by nation states [sic] seeking to manipulate the election or by other groups who seek to artificially amplify their Tweets.” In addition, Dorsey reveals Twitter’s

machine learning systems “predict which Tweets are the most relevant for people on our

platform.” He does not specify what he means by “other groups” or “relevant” Tweets, nor how

Twitter executives determine what count as “abusive” behaviors and violations of terms of

service. Dorsey’s statement suggests the humans behind the platform are absorbed by the

corporate entity, by the platform itself—they do not exist.

The Twitter algorithm Dorsey is likely referencing structures each user’s timeline on the

Twitter homepage. Twitter’s mostly public content volume, the brevity of tweets (doubled in size

in 2018 from 140 to 280 characters), and its streamlined interface where users shape their feeds

by following topics or people of interest all make it difficult to organize or research Twitter

content unless the user knows where specifically to look. This would seem to suggest one shapes

one’s own Twitter experience based on who one chooses to follow. But in 2016 Twitter rolled

out a complex algorithm—gradually on random users, whose behavior the company

subsequently monitored in order to ensure the new feature would pass by unnoticed—that

changed the default timeline from chronological to curated based on each user’s catalogued

tastes and participation patterns. Such a change ensured users would consume whatever

information the Twitter interface told them was relevant to them specifically. Unsurprisingly, the

curated timeline garnered some negative press. Journalists like Wired’s Emily Dreyfuss and

Slate’s Will Oremus objected to the change. However, the former applauded Twitter’s decision 139

to at least nest an option in the settings to revert back to a chronological timeline.6 Unfortunately, that the option was available at all generated , while the fact that it was hidden from view curiously yielded no suspicion.

Facebook and Google did not fare much better in the popular press. In April of 2018

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his platform’s privacy policy in front of Congress and the American public after it came to light that an application developer sold millions of users’ private data to firm Cambridge Analytica, partly in order to sway the

2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor.7 Likewise, in early December of 2018 Google CEO

Sundar Pichai defended his company against charges that it acquiesced to ’s request to

filter subversive results for Chinese citizens, all in the name of generating additional revenue

from overseas. As for Google’s role in the United States, Pichai withstood accusations from

Republican Congressional lawmakers that his company gives preferential treatment to news

outlets with what they called a liberal bias.8 Importantly, in both of these cases the simplistic

analyses of privacy policies and search result algorithms sidestep the potential racial and

gendered implications of corporate entities exerting totalitarian control over information sharing,

both within and outside the United States. Each corporation designs their platforms’ interfaces to

collect and misuse people’s data or filter subversive results that would effectively challenge

unequal institutions.

6 Will Oremus, “Twitter’s New Order,” Slate, March 5, 2017; Emily Dreyfuss, “Twitter’s Chronological Timeline Will Save Us from Ourselves,” Wired, September 18, 2018.

7 “Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate Hearing,” Washington Post, April 10, 2018.

8 CNET, “Watch Google CEO Sundar Pichai Testify Before Congress,” YouTube video, 3:29:22, December 11, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qS7eyUo_uk. 140

These three corporations—Twitter, Facebook, and Google—handle a massive amount of

internet traffic, so it comes as no surprise that their corporate executives would deny each

platform’s role in shaping public opinion and compromising users’ privacy, especially if failing

to do so would lose them market share and alienate investors (to say nothing of the users

themselves). But the very social expectation that each CEO do damage control and deny their

role in shaping public opinion illustrates how deeply the public and lawmakers maintain the

misguided belief that these platforms can and should aspire to eliminate bias. Such expectations

unfortunately keep the public from confronting the complexity of bias and demanding more of

the platforms it relies on for information sharing and consumption. While I share the view that

Google, Facebook, and Twitter abused users’ data and should be held accountable, it is important

to realize that communication platforms are not neutral, and neither are the algorithms that power

them. Algorithms and interfaces are, by design, ideological, especially under the logic of

capitalism, which demands that corporations design efficient interfaces that maintain customer loyalties, at whatever cost. Appreciating this fact would make it easier to hold corporations and government bodies accountable when they misuse that data. Additionally, appreciating the complexity of bias in social media platforms, especially regarding race, gender, and accessibility, makes it imperative to consider the very design decisions that include and exclude.

Discourses of Individuality and Liberty on Social Media

With the user’s input guiding them, algorithms shape what a user does and does not see, generally with that user’s permission. One identified by Facebook’s system as a conservative white male republican may be unlikely to come across news from publications identified by the system as feminist, anti-racist, and left-leaning. Conversely, one who the system identifies as a feminist, anti-racist leftist may rarely encounter news stories or editorials from publications the 141

system identifies as conservative rightist. This is because what a user ultimately sees is designed

by automatic processes built into these platforms’ very architecture in order to predefine the user

and then keep them interested, a phenomenon CEO Eli Parsier has termed “the filter

bubble.”9 On Facebook, for example, users produce data about themselves based off of their

likes or reactions, their shares, their search histories, and their past online behavior. Facebook

saves that data and then shapes users’ feeds based off of that information. The illusion of

linearity on a user’s timeline—top to bottom though it seems—is out of phase, with more

controversial status updates, news stories, and even friends concealed by invisible processes, all

in the name of maintaining market share and producing more hungry consumers of information

and goods. Thus, users’ online experiences are shaped by automatic processes that are largely

hidden from them, but that also make those experiences consistent.10

In other words, the anger surrounding these scandals contends with each corporation’s

already biased algorithm. Such anger therefore implies an impossible-to-realize public desire for totally neutral social media interfaces that privilege agency over predetermination, and the individual over the system within which that individual exists. In other words, social media presents the illusion of equalizing, color- and gender-blind democracy where individual liberty trumps all other concerns. The discourses of individualism surrounding these social media platforms purposefully belie marginalized groups’ experiences that are shaped by systemic or institutional injustices. This fantasy persists even while the social media interfaces bury options for more control.

9 Eli Parsier, The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web is Changing What We Read and How We Think, (New York: Penguin, 2011). 10 Philip Seargeant and Caroline Tagg, The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 9. 142

In his important book Racism Without Racists, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls this resort to

“choice” and “individualism” an abstract form of liberal colorblindness, where people invoke

both to ignore institutional, state-sponsored, and corporate inequalities.11 Through their structural

individualist , contemporary social media platforms lock users in a fantasy post-

race, post-gender world where people are responsible for shaping their own lived experiences.

Each user becomes constructed in the popular imagination as an island, their unique user

experience tailored for personal consumption, their agency ironically curtailed in the process.

The “social” of social media, it appears, is on these three platforms compromised by the

platforms’ illusion of linearity and their false individuality. Information is not just given to users;

quite the contrary, users are offered as information.

Masculinity and Reddit’s Algorithm and Interface

Reddit shares some similarities with these platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter’s

threaded reply formats, and Google’s restrictive search algorithm that gives preferential

treatment to particular sources over others. On the surface, Reddit appears to subvert these

platforms’ structural philosophies because it boasts a more open user experience through its

small group memberships in self-selected subreddits with their own rules and communal

interactions with strangers. However, while the biggest difference between Reddit and the other

three platforms is its openness to democracy, voting, and small community involvement in subreddits that resemble exclusive forums of the early internet, it is also this very style of openness that buries dissent and then depicts threaded replies to posted original content as linear,

11 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (Fourth Edition), (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014), 76. 143

ordered, and unbiased.12 Whatever makes it to the top and is given visibility is what the system

calculates the community has deemed relevant through a high ratio of upvotes to downvotes, meaning that content is what individuals within a community will be likelier to see first. By contrast, if the system calculates too many downvotes relative to upvotes for content, that content will fall to the bottom of a thread and people will be unlikely to see it unless they actively seek out controversial links.

In addition to the wikis I discussed in Chapter Three, through voting subreddits on Reddit shape their own exclusive debates, where what falls outside of standard community opinion is likelier than something that falls within it to be ignored, rejected, or altogether ridiculed. These limitations and drawbacks to Reddit’s interface and algorithm are also precisely what make the platform a rich and underappreciated source of American cultural information. Coupled with an algorithm and interface that ostensibly realize democratic ideals—i.e. collectives of voters

convey what the community thinks and desires—Reddit reflects contemporary struggles over

getting heard among a crowd of much louder and angrier ideologues.

Consider Reddit’s site design in relationship to this upvoting and downvoting system.

When a new user creates an account, their initial front page contains content from the most

popular subreddits (via /r/Popular), which is meant to represent the range of communities on the

platform (Figure 5). Some of the most popular content skews toward geek (i.e. pop cultural or

science-based) sensibilities and originates in subreddits like /r/Science, /r/Gaming,

/r/Technology, /r/Comics, and /r/Sports, among others. At first, users confront what may feel like

an unwieldy interface. They are greeted by a feed of links to all the content being posted in the

12 Adrienne Massanari, “#GamerGate and the Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures,” New Media and Society 19, no. 3 (2015), 331. 144

most popular subreddits. By default, that feed is organized, from top to bottom, by “Hot” or

“Best” content, which is whatever content has recently generated a wave of upvotes. However, if

users decide, they can reorganize the content by “Top” content that has the most upvotes

regardless of downvotes, “New” or recently posted content, or “Controversial” content that likely received the highest downvote to upvote ratio. The new and controversial categories are positioned at the rightmost end of that list, and users must actively experiment with the interface and manually click the new or controversial filters if they want to see content that is unlikely to make it to the front page. That these are default conditions of the interface alone make it less likely for people to encounter subversive ideas.

Figure 5. Reddit’s /r/Popular front page.

Users can also choose to influence what content makes it to the front page by casting a

positive value upvote or a negative value downvote, a practice with which Reddit has a

complicated relationship. According to Reddit’s own frequently asked questions wiki, “users like

you provide all of the content and decide, through voting, what’s good and what’s junk.”13 On

13 “Reddit FAQ,” Reddit, last modified January 18, 2018. 145 the other hand, Reddit’s “reddiquette” page takes a firmer stance against impulsive downvoting, asking users to “think before you downvote and take a moment to ensure you’re downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion. If you simply take a moment to stop, think, and examine your reasons for downvoting, rather than doing so out of an emotional reaction, you will ensure your downvotes are given for good reasons.”14 Whereas the former leaves little room for interpretation by drawing a clear distinction between “good” and “junk” content, there is and tension in the latter that suggests

Reddit users should value content that disagrees with their worldview, but only if objectivity or

“good reasons,” as opposed to emotions (implicitly “bad reasons”), guides their choices. Bias and emotion are here framed as incompatible with Reddit’s structural ethos.

Voting itself works according to a simple equation of number of upvotes, or relevant content, minus the number of downvotes, or irrelevant content. The leftover positive value is the score, called karma, added to the user’s profile. Additionally, the most unique feature of Reddit is that each link to posted content is actually a discussion thread of its own, with the most popular content often receiving thousands of comments from users all over the world. Like on the front page, each comment in response to a piece of content can receive upvotes and downvotes. If a comment receives a preponderance of upvotes, it is likelier to reach the top of a thread. If a comment receives enough downvotes, however, it can get relegated to the bottom of a thread. A comment will be hidden if it receives too many downvotes and falls below a community’s vote score threshold. If a user wants to read a hidden comment, they must manually reveal it. Additionally, the vote number is the objective score positioned next to a person’s

14 “Reddiquette,” Reddit, last modified January 18, 2018. 146

username. To vote somebody to the top—or even toward the top—of a thread indicates not only

democratic approval of an idea, but mathematically measures that comment’s worth.

Reddit breaks each of these voting practices into individualized, gamified point systems.

If a user receives a positive value for a post of theirs that makes it to the front page, that value adds onto their “link karma” score. If, however, a user receives a positive value for a comment of theirs in a discussion thread, that value increases their “comment karma” score. Reddit states on its reddiquette page that karma “has little to no use at all.”15 But evidence suggests Reddit’s evaluation of its own karma system is inaccurate. People have been known to sell old accounts with high karma scores to advertisers, scammers, or social influencers because higher point values enable users to post unimpeded in subreddits that require posters to have a lowest threshold karma score before they can participate.16 In other words, karma is not just a number.

It is a virtual reputation metric. It grants Reddit users’ online personas cultural and social capital

as well as legitimacy. This is because the karma score is public, meaning users can check others’

profiles to determine if they are legitimate enough to give any attention. A low overall karma

score, for example, could be interpreted as belonging to a troll who merely wants to stir up

trouble.

The fact that Reddit “fuzzes” votes further illustrates how useful it is to accrue karma.

Vote fuzzing is when the system adds an upvote for every downvote illegitimately given to

content by malicious bots, or programs designed using Reddit’s open-source Application

Program Interface (API) that mimic human behavior to post or influence content and gain quick

karma. Bots range from helpful and fun—e.g. reversing video gifs or posting summaries of

15 “Reddiquette.”

16 Rob, “What I Learned Selling My Reddit Accounts,” Medium, April 7, 2016. 147

lengthy articles—to divisive and dangerous—e.g. designing misinformation or harassment

campaigns. Through Reddit votes malicious bots influence public opinion by popularizing or

burying particular ideas, disrupting free expression, and posting to rend social

divisions or incite violence. These well-documented problems have led to human rights concerns

all over the world.17 Since Reddit’s foundational democratic philosophy entails leaving communities to their own devices, Reddit administrators only intervene when a bot account acting in bad faith has been definitively discovered through its rapid content creation or voting practices. When Reddit identifies one of these offending bots, that bot gets shadow banned by

the system, which is when a user or bot can see their own posts and votes, but other users cannot.

Vote fuzzing ensures the bot never realizes it has been shadow banned. If a bot catches on that

the system has concealed their votes, that bot can create another account and again stoke

discord.18

In addition to comment and link karma, users can choose to pay for a membership and

receive virtual Reddit coins that they can spend to gild comments they find particularly

informative, interesting, or clever. In 2018 Reddit overhauled its gilding system to represent

three (as opposed to just one) different currencies. One can gild another user’s comment with

silver, gold, or platinum, with silver being the least valuable and platinum being the most

valuable virtual currency. Reddit accounts that have been heavily gilded are particularly valuable

since they signify an especially high reputation that mere upvotes do not reflect.

17 Natalie Marechal, “When Bots Tweet: Toward a Normative Framework for Bots on Social Networking Sites,” International Journal for Communication 10 (2016), 5027.

18 “An Unofficial Guide on How to Avoid Getting Shadow Banned,” Reddit, May 11, 2017, https://www.reddit.com/r/ShadowBan/comments/6an2bv/an_unofficial_guide_on_how_to_avoid _being/ 148

However, Reddit’s voting system is only open and democratic on the surface. In fact,

Reddit is hospitable to some communities and hostile to others. Drawing on her results from a three-year ethnographic study of Reddit, Massanari has argued that Reddit’s platform design and voting algorithm promote an exclusionary masculine, while male, cis-gendered, and heterosexual worldview. This is because when users are bombarded with so much content and so many unique users at once they inevitably confront barriers to participation. Users wishing to participate may be deterred from posting because of Reddit’s restrictive site design and algorithm that hide alternative perspectives. For example, in April 2014 Reddit sought to vary its default front page by adding to the list the largest women-focused subreddit, /r/TwoXChromosomes. For one month the exclusive subreddit of just over 180,000 members had gotten flooded with millions of unique users, many of them trolls who wanted to start trouble. Some of these new users wondered why /r/MensRights did not receive the same frontpage distinction.19 Suddenly the

subreddit was overwhelmed with posts about menstruation and women’s bathroom habits. Over

the course of a weekend, women on the subreddit watched as their digital refuge fell victim to

fragile masculinity and misogyny. One /r/TwoXChromosomes member mourned the destruction

of their community, writing “there were a few trolls and ignorant people on here before but most

people on here were serious subscribers and there were enough of us to counteract them with

downvotes and report. Not anymore. We can all say to a safe place on reddit for

women. I know I won’t feel comfortable here anymore.”20 Not only had visibility constituted a

for these women, but Reddit’s own democratic features put in place to admonish bad

faith users did nothing to stop the abuse. In fact, those very features are what granted hateful

19 Massanari, “GamerGate and the Fappening,” 338. 20 Alex Hern, “Reddit Women Protest at New Front-Page Position,” Guardian, May 13, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/reddit-women-protest-front-page- subforum-subreddit-position 149

content visibility. A loud group of upset trolls had successfully broken through and silenced any

challenges to Reddit’s white male order. Most importantly, Reddit exposed itself as a curse

rather than a blessing to women looking for virtual communities of their own. As we will see

with the controversy surrounding Kingdom Come: Deliverance in the sections that follow, the

Reddit interface and algorithm are not only hospitable to historically contingent forms of white

supremacy, they make those forms of white supremacy seem benign.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Medievalism, and The Politics of Gender and Race

Historical Authenticity as a Political Refuge

Kingdom Come: Deliverance began in 2014 as a modest Kickstarter-funded project with an unusual vision. The creators at Czech newcomer Warhorse Studios wanted its historical passion project about medieval Bohemia to ditch clichés of medieval-inspired fantasy role-

playing games where players build powerful avatars that use magic to fight dragons or demons

in favor of “a strong story rooted in the height of the Middle Ages, brought to life in all its glory.” The lengthy proposal for the game promised its backers an “authentic” experience with

“majestic, armored knights, large, open field battles, and political intrigue set in a vast, emergent

world.” Aimed at an audience of gamers who tire of big-budget blockbusters that make, at best, surface appeals to realism, Kingdom Come would have “real castles that don’t look like

something from Disneyland, period-accurate armors and costumes . . . skillful swordsmen . . . and a story based on actual, historic events.”21 Intrigued by the promise of a nostalgic tale of

chivalry that privileges realism and historical accuracy above the overdone hero’s journey model

21 Warhorse Studios, “Kingdom Come: Deliverance,” Kickstarter, January 22, 2014, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294225970/kingdom-come-deliverance. 150

that dominated comparable big-budget titles, almost forty-thousand backers pledged in excess of

$1.5 million during its one-month funding window, revealing just how influential a substantial

group of the prosumer gaming public can be when given a financial stake in a project of this

scope.

It would take more than two years after the projected finish date of 2015 for the game to

hit store shelves. The resulting game, released in early 2018, is a first-person open-world role-

playing adventure based in war-torn 15th century Bohemia, a region now known as the Czech

Republic. After the death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, his son, Wenceslaus IV,

occupied the throne in lieu of his half-brother, Sigismund, and performed his job so poorly that it

created political rifts among Bohemia’s nobility and some of its citizens. In an effort to usurp the

throne and take control of Bohemia, Sigismund enlists the aid of rebellious Bohemian nobility

and deploys his army of Turkish Cuman soldiers to wage brutal attacks on small villages,

massacre the populations, and claim the land.

Despite the purported authenticity of the game’s historical setting, the central character

and story are, to some degree, fictional. The player controls Henry, a poor blacksmith’s son with

apparent aspirations to become a master swordsman.22 The player’s goal is to build him from

unskilled laborer to heroic fighter. In that sense the game is not much different from the very

fantasies it stands in contrast to, where the player begins at a low level and trains their avatar to

become more powerful and overcome their foes. The difference is that Henry is no hero, a fact the game initially uses to make him relatable. He is an ordinary rebellious young man who plays

pranks on locals with his friends, trains in secret with a master swordsman against his parents’ wishes, drinks at the local tavern as an excuse to see his love interest, and performs odd jobs for

22 One is also unlikely to encounter the name Henry in medieval Bohemia. 151 a little spending money. His life seems almost idyllic, if still challenging by the nutritional and economic limitations of medieval Bohemia. But tragedy strikes one day after Henry finishes running errands for his father. A band of Cuman mercenaries attacks Henry’s small village and slaughters most of the population, including his mother and father. After Henry escapes the town as one of the few remaining survivors, the rest of the story follows him as he builds his strength from unskilled blacksmith’s son to fierce fighter in a quest for revenge.

It is worth pausing to unpack the oddly specific depiction of parricide in the story’s introductory massacre. Henry’s father temporarily has power over his attackers and he wields his sword like a trained professional. The camera follows the blacksmith’s every heroic, acrobatic, impressive, desperate slash leading up to his sudden death. Meanwhile, his mother, meek and powerless, is brutalized horrifically by the savage invading army consisting of the only discernible people of color—Turks—in the game. After Henry’s father dies the Cuman soldiers leave his motionless corpse to the elements. The scene then cuts to a low-angle shot of soldiers ominously surrounding Henry’s mother while she tries in vain to escape certain death. Suddenly, they stab her, over and over and gleefully, while she begs for her life. Players, like Henry, stare helplessly at the horrific scene before them, and they are meant to feel Henry’s anger at the invading other. Yet the game seems blissfully unaware of the political implications of a group of angry, wordless savages stabbing a helpless woman with metal phalluses while players wince in horror at the scene before them. Henry’s mother is little more than a prop for our sympathies, a casualty of the white male need to protect women from the violence enacted by a foreign other

(i.e. person of color). Artistic decisions like these are politically meaningful precisely because the creators can hide behind historical authenticity should any objections arise—women, after all, were treated differently back then, in a barbaric past where death, war, and valor dominated, 152

the insinuation being that today no such barbarity exists. After the violent scene, players are meant to believe that they will one day fashion a master swordsman out of Henry akin to his now-deceased father, moving the lineage of male power forward. And as history would apparently also have it, the player later discovers this can only happen for Henry because he is really the bastard son of a noble father.

The story, setting, and scenes like the one described above provide clues as to why some game journalists shared my apprehensions, though most elided specifics and settled for general criticisms. While many critics praised Kingdom Come: Deliverance, its most controversial detractors criticized it for its erasure of women and people of color from its historical setting. In his review of the game, Rick Lane of The Guardian Kingdom Come’s attention to detail and its experimental stark realism but takes issue with the fact that “it doesn’t have much to say about the history it draws from.” Additionally, “contentious issues such as the role of women and the medieval attitude toward race are conveniently sidelined, while the church’s of witches and heretics is presented as little more than set dressing.”23 Robert Purchese of

Eurogamer likewise praises the game for its pastoral beauty and realistic combat that uses

innovative game mechanics to sell the ugliness of war, but admonishes the development studio’s

co-founder and game’s director and writer, Daniel Vavra, for using his Twitter account as a

platform to support GamerGate and spread racist far-right propaganda. Citing the absence of

people of color from Kingdom Come’s historical setting and the game’s disempowered female

characters as evidence that Vavra’s social media persona is authentic, Purchese consults a

regional historian, Sean Miller, who disputes Vavra’s claim that the studio’s years of research

23 Rick Lane, “Kingdom Come: Deliverance Review—Impressively Detailed Medieval Life Sim,” The Guardian, February 15, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/feb/15/kingdom-come-deliverance-review-medieval- rpg 153

turned up no evidence that people of color lived in the region at the time. Miller writes that “we

know of African kings in Constantinople on pilgrimage to Spain; we know of black Moors in

Spain; we know of the extensive travel of Jews from the courts of Cordoba and Damascus . . .

What if a group of black Africans came through and stayed at an inn and someone got pregnant?

Even one night is enough for a pregnancy.”24

While readers and /r/KotakuInAction members were quick and fair to rebuke

Purchese for failing to list Miller’s history credentials (notably, my own research has turned up

nothing on Mr. Miller), neither he nor Lane were the first to object to the lack of people of color

in the game.25 Within the game’s month-long Kickstarter funding window in 2014—four years

before both reviews were published—a curious gamer asked Warhorse Studios (and by

extension, Vavra himself) if they planned to add people of color to Kingdom Come, to which the

studio replied that there “were, unfortunately, almost none” in medieval Bohemia. It was a

blanket erasure of ethnic variability meant to preserve the game’s historical authenticity.

Unsatisfied and suspicious, the gamer sought a more comprehensive answer from Tumblr blog

MedievalPOC, whose stated mission “is to address common misconceptions that People of Color

did not exist in Europe before the Enlightenment, and to emphasize the cognitive dissonance in

the way this is reflected in media produced today.” The resulting answer to the gamer is a list of

contemporaneous Bohemian paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and suggested readings

providing evidence that men and women of color who were not invading Cuman soldiers not

24 Robert Purchese, “Kingdom Come: Deliverance Review: History is a Double-Edged Sword,” Eurogamer, February 20, 2018, https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-02-20- kingdom-come-deliverance-review

25 “Eurogamer blasts Kingdom Come: Deliverance for a lack of representation when its own staff, by an editor’s admission, isn’t diverse enough,” Reddit, March 23, 2018, https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/86mqnv/eurogamer_blasts_kingdom_come _deliverance_for_a/ 154

only existed at the time, but even occupied high-ranking political positions. MedievalPOC notes correctly at the end of the blog post that race based on skin color is an Enlightenment concept, and it would be more accurate to say that the equivalent of what we now consider racial

distinctions were in medieval Europe based on nationality or “religious and/or ethnic

affiliations.” Given the historical evidence, MedievalPOC suggests Warhorse Studio’s creative decision to erase people of color from medieval Bohemia are historically inaccurate at best and disingenuous at worst. But it is important here to note that MedievalPOC neither suggests nor,

for that matter, demands that Warhorse Studios alter their game.26

The gamer’s academic question seemed innocent enough, but when far-right

/r/KotakuInAction primogenitor /r/TumblrInAction became aware of MedievalPOC’s blog post

disputing Warhorse Studio’s claims, some of the subreddit’s members became positively

apoplectic.27 One particularly acrimonious thread titled “Idiot SJW bothers RPG company

because their game set in Medieval Central Europe doesn’t have any POC” contains the

following highly-voted post: “it’s like the whiny cunts that bitch that LOTR [Lord of the Rings] was all white or that Frozen was all white. And since when was including this , along with proper amounts of female characters an actual concern for videogames? This sort of shit has only popped up recently in the past decade and it pisses me the fuck off to no end.” Another user wondered, in absolutist, all-or-nothing terms, “so wait because the wealthy nobility and trades classes were aware of black people existing, the area must be filled to the brim with them?

26 MedievalPOC (blog), 2014, http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/75252294049/hi-ive- been-looking-at-a-kickstarter-for-a

27 /r/KotakuInAction derives its name from /r/TumblrInAction. The latter has likewise been implicated in harassment campaigns, and to this day its members express anger about feminism and critical race studies. According to /r/TumblrInAction’s mission statement, they oppose social justice activists on the basis that they pursue “anything that allows them to frame white men as the ultimate evil, because that gives them a group to despise.” 155

Fucking idiots.” Citing no evidence to the contrary, the top-voted commenter sarcastically dismisses MedievalPOC’s central thesis, writing “yes, clearly there were large amounts of

Mongol settlers integrated into the populace of central Bohemia centuries after the last Mongol incursion. What? That’s completely ridiculous?” Other posters in the thread deny the subjects of the paintings and illuminated manuscripts were actual black people who existed, suggesting they are, instead, either figments of medieval artists’ imaginations, image-scanned and then doctored so the subjects look black, or the result of color degradation over time. There were, importantly, no bottom-voted comments in the thread presenting an alternative viewpoint—only evidence of ubiquitous agreement.28 All of the above commenters evidently align with Warhorse Studios’

decision, and some even use conspiracy theory to literally erase visible color variability from the

paintings offered as evidence. These /r/TumblrInAction members were willing to bend logic to

their will in order to keep a medieval game white.

The collective anger also touched MedievalPOC directly when their inbox filled with

disturbing messages, one of which reads “you are full of bullshit as well as your article… you’re

just trying to publicly damage the reputation of this project. You should go kill yourself, idiot!”

Others are more innocuous but no less perplexing. One user demands that MedievalPOC

apologize to Warhorse Studios for damaging their reputation by spreading misinformation about

an ethnically diverse medieval Bohemia. Another writes, “I don’t know where all that unfound

28 “Idiot SJW Bothers RPG Company Because their Game Set in Medieval Bohemia Doesn’t Have Any PoC,” Reddit, February 3, 2014, https://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/1ww07f/idiot_sjw_bothers_rpg_company_ because_their_game/ 156

(sic) hate comes from but I hope you’ll learn to be a little less hypocritical and hateful in your

life.”29 At least the latter responses were politer.

One year later the controversy became a matter of historical record among

/r/KotakuInAction when the /r/TumblrInAction thread about MedievalPOC gained the attentions of the mainstream press. Kotaku and Daily Dot published, respectively, a scathing and a

sympathetic article about the incident. In his short article for Kotaku, titled “Idiots Fight to Keep

a Medieval Game White,” Luke Plunkett observes accurately that Warhorse Studios was never

asked to change the game. He argues instead that the question MedievalPOC answered was mere

academic curiosity, and that “idiot” gamers’ “hair-trigger hostility” toward MedievalPOC signals

bigger-picture issues with white male entitlement.30 Gavia Baker-Whitelaw of ,

meanwhile, takes a softer stance than Plunkett, contending that “‘historical accuracy’ can be used to support both sides of the argument,” since Kingdom Come: Deliverance only happens on nine square kilometers of land and so it would be plausible not to see any people of color in such a small tract of medieval Bohemia.31 In my view Baker-Whitelaw’s “both sides” concession goes

too easy on a community that did nothing to defend MedievalPOC against harassment. In fact, as

I show in the next section, such historical erasures are more political than Baker-Whitelaw

appears to appreciate.

29 MedievalPOC (blog), http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/75585232511/hi-your-blog- was-featured-on--tumblr-in

30 Luke Plunkett, “Idiots Fight to Keep a Medieval Game White,” Kotaku, February 5, 2014, https://kotaku.com/idiots-fight-to-keep-a-medieval-game-white-1516970808

31 Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, “Is a Medieval Game Historically Accurate Without People of Color?” The Daily Dot, February 5, 2014, https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/gaming/reddit- tumblr-medieval-video-game-poc/ 157

White Supremacy and the Medieval Past

This tangled controversy over one pop cultural text is not merely about historical

authenticity or realism. Nor is it simply, as Plunkett suspects, about one instance of white male

entitlement. In fact, historical evidence suggests the motivation for such anger is to preserve

white male supremacy in order to claim an ahistorical fantasy of a medieval past where white

men literally created the so-called Western world. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s reiteration

of that fantasy, it is not so much the choice to exclude women and people of color from its historical setting that makes it racist and sexist, since merely representing both in a work of art does not itself constitute a blanket repudiation of white supremacy. But what is racist and sexist

is the reactive fury over the mere prospect of adding women and people of color to a work of art.

As I collected data about this controversy, I therefore could not shake the suspicion that the

refrain of “historical authenticity” is merely a convenient, purportedly fact-based (but spurious),

self-described “objective” cover for the very white supremacist “hair-trigger hostility” Plunkett

calls stupid in his short editorial. The issue also draws unavoidable parallels to GamerGate,

Quinn, and Sarkeesian when at least one of the public responses to MedievalPOC’s innocent

attempt to engage an academic question entailed asking the author(s) of the blog to kill

themselves. In fact, like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, it turns out the bigger-picture problem is a

matter of cultural history.

As a pop cultural product that deliberately cuts ethnic variability from its historical

setting, Kingdom Come: Deliverance glosses over the pleas of historians who have witnessed a

disturbing whitewashing trend in medievalism. Having encountered a pre-release iteration of the

game at a medievalist scholar conference, historian Sierra Lomuto observed that the

spokesperson for the studio who presented the game was 158

entirely comfortable designing the game with zero racial diversity, despite its genre of

fantasy and the very real presence of people of color in the Middle Ages. Clearly they

didn’t envision an audience of non-white gamers during their design meetings; perhaps

they weren’t interested in one. Whatever their motivations, they imagined the Middle

Ages—as does much of our popular culture—as a space of whiteness.

Most tellingly, Lomuto made her observation amid a crowd of other medievalists who pushed back against the game designer for its apocryphal history. They wondered why the game lacked diversity despite historical evidence pointing to a people with a variety of skin tones existing in

medieval Bohemia.32

This is not an isolated incident, however. Excluding people of color and women from

medieval or old European history traces its American roots back to the late eighteenth century

when white men labored to create and then dominate the discipline. Early research on Anglo-

Saxon (or old English) was directed primarily by upper- and middle-class white men—most famously , who is credited with creating the American version of the discipline.33 These white men claimed that the study of the language could be scientifically,

objectively known, thereby packaging the Anglo-Saxon tongue and its associated mythologies as

a white male discipline. While women were confined to the rare teaching role or university professorship—usually at women’s colleges—and beholden to curricula that demanded such scientific rigor, these female professors rarely ever taught young white men about the discipline.

32 Sierra Lomuto, “ and the Ethics of Medieval Studies,” In the Medieval Middle, December 5, 2016, http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2016/12/white- nationalism-and-ethics-of.html

33 Maria Jose Mora and Maria Jose Gomez-Calderon, “The Study of Old English in America (1776-1850): National Uses of the Saxon Past,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 97, no. 3 (1998), 322-336. 159

Additionally, they were never given the dignified title of “professor,” but called “miss” in its stead to remind them of where they stood on the social hierarchy.34 From the discipline’s , then, white men dominated by design and thereby directed and defined the new discipline as a scientific, objective study of western civilization. The beneficiaries of this history were, of course, the white men themselves.

Contemporary medievalists have recently criticized this fallacious construction of an all- white past. Even the term “Middle Ages” is a problematic construction of the white, male,

Western world. In a recently-published article for the American Historical Society, historian

Carol Symes writes that medieval Europe is partly a byproduct of white male supremacy trenched in nineteenth century racial science and the American and European institutions of slavery. In fact, she writes, “previous generations of medievalists, often working in the service of these modern projects, have not only shaped the terms of our engagement with historical sources, their work has shaped the sources we have [emphasis in original].”35 Likewise, in her book

Periodization and Sovereignty Kathleen Davis notes that the very idea of a secular, modern world in contrast to a religious, feudal past frames the latter as caught in a savage temporal moment after which the former freed itself in a triumphalist fashion. The subsequent European project entailed shifting the world order such that the Orientalist, non-European other of a

34 Mary Dockray-Miller, “Old English Has a Serious Image Problem,” JSTOR Daily, May 3, 2017.

35 Carol Symes, “Medievalism, White Supremacy, and the Historian’s Craft,” American Historical Association Perspectives on History, November 2, 2017. 160

perceptively religious, pre-modern past could be constructed in contrast to the civilizing, white

male secular mission of the modern present.36

The relationships between white supremacy and medieval history are also well-

documented in American pop culture. Smithsonian Institute historian Paul B. Sturtevant finds

ubiquitous evidence of this phenomenon. He calls of an ethnically diverse past a “self-

styled ‘alt-right’” fantasy of the Middle Ages that stretches back at least two centuries and has its

roots in the insignia and historical revisionism of groups like the (KKK).37 One

need only watch D.W. Griffith’s infamous early twentieth century film Birth of a Nation to

witness the confluence of medievalism and racism etched into its every frame—white knights of

the KKK on horses chivalrously saving imperiled white women from the clutches of scheming

black male rapists played by white men smeared chin-to-forehead with black cork. Meanwhile, the only black actors in the film are either background extras or have overrun the U.S. Congress while munching on fried chicken legs.38 The film’s lionization of the KKK, which met resistance

from groups like the NAACP upon its release, was credited with resurrecting the then-defunct hate group. It was even screened at the for President Woodrow Wilson, who praised the film as “writing history with lightning.”39 Contemporary film, television, literature,

and video games have over the impending century improved on these medievalist depictions, yet

36 Kathleen Davis, Periodization and Sovereignty, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 11.

37 Paul B. Sturtevant, “Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages: Tearing Down the ‘Whites Only’ Medieval World,” The Public Medievalist, February 7, 2017.

38 D.W. Griffith and Thomas Dixon, 1915, Birth of a Nation, (Los Angeles, CA), Triangle Film Corp.

39 Melvyn Stokes, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 34. 161

they still rarely, if ever, show people of color—especially women of color—in dignified roles. In

fact, the only roles reserved for people of color tend to be the result of color- and gender-blind

casting (i.e. race and gender are often linked with lower class status but are never referenced in

relationship to the political context of the time), or intentionally comedic.40

More recently, hate groups and white supremacists within the American neo-Nazi movement have used the internet to resurrect and disseminate these myths that white men created

Western culture in order to realize their vision of an all-white ethno-state. These groups have

consequently sought to distribute the philosophy that the civilizing modernist project has placed

undue emphasis on democracy and racial and gender equality against the grain of natural

Aristotelian hierarchies. In their efforts to resist these incursions on white supremacy, readers

and writers of the neo-Nazi website Stormfront infuse their white ethno-state propaganda with a

modicum of real science and philosophy—enough, at any rate, to make such propaganda alluring

to impressionable readers—in order to spread what they call the “.”

Characterized primarily by the belief that there are real scientific justifications for dividing

people based on their race—in their terms “racial realism”—the Dark Enlightenment promotes

the idea that “biology and genetics endow us with different behavioral traits, and therefore we

should all play different roles in the world.” Under this philosophy the Middle Ages provide apt

cultural symbols for what white supremacists see as an idyllic pre-Modern society that reveled in

the subjugation of women and people of color.41

40 Paul B. Sturtevant, Based on a True History?: The Impact of Popular ‘Medieval Film’ on the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages (Dissertation), (University of Leeds, 2010), 35.

41 Amy S. Kaufman, “A brief History of a Terrible Idea: The ‘Dark Enlightenment,’” The Public Medievalist, February 9, 2017. 162

Unsurprisingly, proponents of this philosophy rally behind the popular internet metaphor

of swallowing the red pill to escape from a constrictive, false construction of that

treats women and people of color as equal to white men.42 White supremacists share this

metaphor with Men’s Rights activists—a significant overlap—as shorthand for their overtly anti-

intersectional, profoundly racist and misogynistic worldview. Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer editor

Andrew Anglin is a particularly violent exponent of this philosophy. His own words explicate

the position many GamerGate activists on Reddit seem to share (given the commentary) but do

not often say openly. He writes that his “position on women, very explicitly, is that they should in the modern world remain in the exact same role they were in during the medieval period and I am unwilling to dance around or negotiate on that issue. Women should be honored, cherished and cared for, but they should not possess ‘rights.’”43 Unwilling to budge, Anglin and the white

male ideologues he represents would ostensibly be the ones who honor, cherish, and care for

women while also rallying to deprive them of the very rights they fought for centuries to earn.

Anglin utilizes the internet in especially disturbing ways to violently mobilize his racist

and misogynistic followers. Just as /r/TumblrInAction members encouraged or reveled in the

harassment of MedievalPOC, Anglin has been known to publicize his views on race and gender

through coordinated harassment campaigns. His targets tend to be women and people of color

who he perceives as threats to his movement to reclaim American culture from the clutches of

progressive modernity. Most notably, in December of 2016 he and a host of Daily Stormer

readers, called his “Stormer Troll Army,” started a months-long harassment campaign in

42 The “red pill” metaphor refers to a scene in the 1999 film The Matrix, in which Morpheus offers Neo a choice between swallowing a red or a blue pill. If Neo chooses the blue pill he remains in a simulated reality. But if he swallows the red pill he is ejected from the simulation and sees reality for what it is.

43 Kaufman, “A Brief History.” 163

Whitefish, Montana against Jewish real estate agent Tanya Gersh. Anglin fabricated a story that

she allegedly extorted a property sale from Sherry Spencer, white nationalist and self-described

racist “intellectual” Richard Spencer’s mother. After Gersh received threatening anti-Semitic

phone calls, three of which included audible gunshots and a man yelling “this is Trump country,”

she began to take precautions to save herself from violence. She locked her doors, called in the

authorities, and hid from public view. The rest is a harrowingly racist iteration of Quinn,

Sarkeesian, and Wu’s stories. Anglin doxed Gersh and published her personal information on his

website. By Anglin’s command, Stormers posted a picture of Gersh’s twelve-year-old son

superimposed on the gates of Auschwitz. Strangers left voicemails on Gersh and her husband’s

phones hurling racist epithets and threatening to put bullets through their skulls.44

Historical Accuracy and GamerGate

The parallels between Anglin’s harassment of a real estate agent and GamerGate are, unfortunately, inescapable. But I caution us not to conflate Anglin’s anti-Semitic violence with

that of all GamerGate activists, especially since my data collection did not reveal that any explicitly identify as neo-Nazis or white supremacists who adulate the Holocaust. In fact,

GamerGate activists often go out of their way to distance themselves from hate groups of any kind, even as they direct their anger at opponents who one /r/KotakuInAction user has called

“far-left scum.” Anglin and his followers’ violence are clearly exceptional. However, in my view GamerGate activists do not have to threaten people to shore up white supremacy or the patriarchy. As the ongoing controversy around Kingdom Come: Deliverance will illustrate in the next sections, Reddit’s very design can easily make misogynistic, white supremacist views like

Anglin’s more palatable and therefore easier to spread.

44 Luke O’Brien, “The Making of an American Nazi,” The Atlantic, December 2017. 164

The important point to glean from historical denials of ethnic variability in medieval

Europe is that history has long been a tool to prop up white supremacy. Such histories suggest

GamerGate was never only about video games. Instead, the so-called “consumer revolt” is

inescapably informed by histories of inequality—in education, pop culture, and information—

that long predated the art form. In GamerGate’s particular case, the histories described above that

inform the movement help to explain why considering the racial or gendered implications of a

creative decision is interpreted by GamerGate supporters as unfairly maligning white men yet

excluding people of color is strangely not viewed in the same light. Furthermore, the tone of the

responses in /r/TumblrInAction and /r/KotakuInAction suggest members merely projected their

own historically constituted white supremacist anger onto MedievalPOC and, subsequently,

game journalists who criticized Kingdom Come: Deliverance for its selective historical erasures.

The ongoing incident and the history that informs it illuminate how far-right gamer communities

on Reddit rally their members’ consumer identities behind their chosen products and game

designers in order to collectively reject academic discussions about race and gender out of the

belief that both are not only irrelevant and irrational but threatening to a stable white male

identity. Invocations of historical accuracy in defense of Kingdom Come: Deliverance therefore

countenance a white male supremacist agenda through an age-old tale of whitewashed chivalry,

where strong white men die valorously in battle while white women are little more than

environmental decorations, emotional support characters, or victims of unceremonious violence

(like Henry’s mother). Meanwhile, people of color literally do not exist in this purportedly pre-

racial world, leaving all the establishment of the so-called West up to white men.

Additionally, such anger illustrates how far distrust of the news media has spread throughout American culture (partly inspired by incidents like the Facebook, Twitter, and 165

Google scandals), with game journalism in this case perceived to be a victim, like traditional

news outlets beforehand, of an information landscape beset by bias and ideological agenda-

setting. For example, consider the comments—from both /r/TumblrInAction and MedievalPOC’s

inbox—that go beyond historical accuracy to express anger about changes to the games industry

“in the past decade,” threats to independent Warhorse Studio’s reputation, and dishonesty on the

part of those claiming to fill in the historical blanks—a goal ironically sought by the studio itself.

These grievances about journalistic ethics, which altogether denounce social justice

interventions, connect consumption practices-as-identity, perceived challenges to white male supremacy in gaming and American culture-at-large (i.e. “idiot SJWs” are at fault for forcing race and gender into the all-white narrative, as they are always perceived to, and so this is a clear assault on what gamers in their group really want), storytelling-as-political in itself, and of course fair versus unfair representations of race and gender (evidently the core points of contention). In that sense, these online gamer communities are windows into a version of white supremacy made palatable for a larger fraction of the American public. In fact, the answer to whether Kingdom Come: Deliverance is or is not historically accurate about race and gender had already been attempted by at least two interested amateur historians, yet these earnest engagements with Warhorse Studio’s claims did nothing to spark a meaningful debate in the communities that had already decided who deserved defending.

In what follows I am not interested in directly assessing whether Kingdom Come:

Deliverance is historically accurate—I will leave that to the medievalists. Instead, I will consider the content of the responses to this controversy surrounding whitewashed medievalism. What purpose do these struggles over one game reveal about far-right ideologies in the twenty-first century, and why are bloggers’ and journalists’ attempts to answer relevant academic questions 166

about gender and race in medieval Bohemia received with such rancor? What is at stake in

historical accuracy for gamers on /r/KotakuInAction? Why do these particular gamers believe

adding people of color and influential women to a game for contemporary audiences would

compromise its historical or narrative integrity? Finally, how does /r/GamerGhazi respond to all of this? Is there any ideological overlap between the two communities? What tensions and contradictions emerge from the data? What does each community’s intervention reveal about

Reddit’s interface?

Now t hat I have traced the Kingdom Come: Deliverance controversy from its origins on

the MedievalPOC blog and discussed the historical context in which such a controversy would

occur, in what follows I analyze debates about the game in both /r/KotakuInAction and

/r/GamerGhazi that date back to si tr elease in early 2018. Kingdom Come: Deliverance shows

how one game text shores up white supremacist ideology, even on a platform that advertises itself as an equalizing, open democracy where all viewpoints receive a fair shake. However,

Reddit is no such equalizing force for good. As we will see, /r/KotakuInAction and

/r/GamerGhazi use the Reddit interface in telling ways to shape and reshape debates around race

and gender.

Historical Accuracy and White Masculinity on /r/KotakuInAction

The Consumer Identity and Whiteness

For /r/KotakuInAction members Kingdom Come: Deliverance touches on many of the

community’s central concerns—journalistic ethics, censorship and free speech, social justice

(including race and gender), and nostalgia (both historical and in the games industry). Of the

eight active threads I documented dating back to Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s release in

February of 2018, these themes emerged often in coded language referencing historical accuracy, 167

politics, corruption, and the consumer identity. Each code conceals deeper ideologies about race

and gender, betrayed often by tones of outrage and indignation. From that outrage emerged

contradictions, implied disagreements, and frequently absolutist claims about the world.

In various threads GamerGate supporters relate the game’s historical accuracy to their

consumer identities, which I argued in Chapter Three is a method of identity erasure. In such

cases highly- or top-voted commenters claim the game’s historical authenticity explains its

glowing sales figures, which GamerGate supporters invariably interpret as validation of the game

despite its detractors. A top-voted commenter argues the game’s high sales figures proves “that

journalists calling something offensive just makes more people want it.” In that same thread

another user criticizes Kotaku for giving the game negative press and asks how it could have been so successful if “it’s racist because there aren’t any black people in medieval Bohemia.” A highly-voted comment in a different thread contends that the game succeeded because of its

“actual history aka ‘historical accuracy,’ and ‘not giving up and making shit up’ aka ‘pretty much how everybody else does the medieval period.’” One commenter views prominent God of

War game designer Cory Barlog’s endorsement of Kingdom Come: Deliverance as proof that the journalists who refused to cover the game because of its fraught relationship with race and gender are out of touch with what gamers really want. The commenter argues that despite controversies around the game, its high sales figures prove that the perceived resistance to it constituted “the worst boycott ever.” Another commenter in the same thread asserts such an endorsement is incompatible with the anti- logic of game journalism, and shows that

Vavra is a game designer who refuses to “[cave] in to the SJW’s [sic]” and “doesn’t care about the political BS and truly wants to make and enjoy video games.” 168

Through its focus on consumer choice GamerGate can claim it is an apolitical revolt while safely discrediting structural inequalities related to race and gender. If consumer identity and choice are primary, after all, GamerGate members can ignore the political motivations behind cutting people of color from Kingdom Come: Deliverance, despite public challenges to the developers’ oversight. In that refusal to confront potential racial and gender inequities,

GamerGate activists labor to reconstitute the default consumer as a white male subject through both color- and gender-blindness. GamerGate activists discuss both race and gender only to discredit charges that they were ever relevant in the first place. As evidence of their irrelevance,

GamerGate deflects with the game’s glowing profit margin. The argument goes that if the public consumes, in large numbers, a game that drew so much scrutiny for its insensitivity it constitutes

proof that American social inequalities relating to both race and gender are made up, or at any

rate that video games are not the place to deal with them.

These hasty generalizations about sales figures and the authentic gamer are also bound up

with notions of truth, honor, and chivalry—themes themselves of medieval romance. In this case,

GamerGate activists claim they are indifferent to politics, which they dissociate from their

chivalrous fight against corrupt and dishonest journalists. According to the examples above, for

GamerGate historical accuracy is about “not giving up and not making shit up” like designers of

less historically accurate medieval-themed games, rejecting “political BS,” and defying bad faith

journalists and SJWs in order to preserve a semblance of control over the art form. Note the

coded language coupled with expletives—“shit” and “BS” (or bullshit)—that signify anger (a

common staple of Reddit). Since GamerGate activists respectively define “political BS” and “not

making shit up” (i.e. historical accuracy) as the perceived demand for and subsequent denial of

dignified female characters and the inclusion of people of color in one whites-only game, 169 historical accuracy and “political BS” are quite literally code phrases for white maleness. To give in to the public pressure is seen as a weakness or masculine failing (i.e. caving “to the SJWs”) that limits free speech (i.e. it allows journalists and game designers to inject their unwanted social justice politics into gaming) and keeps people from playing what GamerGate defines as fun (i.e. a developer who just “wants to make and enjoy video games”).

Gamers on /r/KotakuInAction also rearticulate their identities through the logic of consumerism in order erase visible markers on their own bodies and, in so doing, uphold traditionally white supremacist power structures. There are some notable contradictions and tensions in GamerGate activists’ self-construction as apolitical consumers that point to this phenomenon. Consider again the claim that Warhorse Studios does not pander to “political BS,” the implication that fun and social justice contradict one another, and the various assertions that historical accuracy is incompatible with intersectional identities. In their explicit refusals to address structural inequalities, GamerGate activists reflect whiteness through a distorted looking- glass, where the individuality whiteness affords is really under siege. Historical accuracy serves this narrative well. It permits GamerGate activists to frame the issue in genderless and raceless terms, thereby presupposing a white consumer of video games. If problematic and vague historical scholarship—filtered second-hand through Warhorse Studios itself—illustrates a purportedly verifiable all-white, male-dominated past, then those who center intersectional politics are merely engaging in histrionics. By recruiting historical accuracy GamerGate activists reassert their individuality as apolitical consumers and commit to a politics of white male consumerism. After all, hailing oneself as an apolitical consumer over that which the body makes publicly visible (e.g. color or gender) entails ironically and inescapably positioning oneself as a 170

white, male political subject. One takes a political stand in that very refusal to consider structural inequalities related to race and gender.

Thus, GamerGate activists labor to redefine politics itself via the game consumer identity.

In their blanket repudiation of politics GamerGate activists design their own politics of

consumption. Through this lens the meaning of politics for GamerGate changes according to

who designs a political case. The belief goes that journalists indoctrinated by cultural shifts

toward social justice are forcing their politics down others’ throats. In other words, they are

corrupted by ideology in ways GamerGate activists perceive themselves not to be. By contrast,

being apolitical requires deferring to one’s status as a consumer who labors to maintain a color-

and gender-blind video games industry. This political position is a paradox. It is a political

position characterized by a desire to lack a political position.

Social Justice and Concealed Desires

GamerGate’s political reticence emerges repeatedly in the eight threads I surveyed. One

March 2017 discussion thread on /r/KotakuInAction best illustrates how GamerGate supporters use coded language to both discuss social justice and denigrate it. Titled “SJWs vs Kingdom

Come Deliverance,” the thread author’s short two-paragraph statement gives the game a positive review and expresses confusion about Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s reception in some of the less sympathetic gaming magazines, writing “I can’t help but notice that anytime I look up something about the game I run into a polygon or kotaku [sic] article trying to attack it.”

Initially, the author strikes a conciliatory tone and rejects “any politics surrounding the game.”

But the post quickly turns political when the user feels moved to defend the game as “wonderful on two levels; giving me the fantasy game of my childhood when I was obsessed with medieval times, and proving that the far left cult is floundering trying to strike at anything that goes against 171 their bullying as they die out.” These two paragraphs tell a story of struggle and contradiction— the perception that duplicitous gaming journalists have a vendetta (an attack strategy) against this one game and the people who want to satiate their desire for geeky nostalgia, the adulation of this one game’s purportedly apolitical flirtation with a nostalgic medieval past, the invocation of

“far left cult” to illustrate the insidious groupthink of political opponents, and the denouncement of that far left cult for its “bullying.” The poster simultaneously elides a confrontation with the game’s race and gender representation while implicitly alluding to both via the left’s political agenda. In claiming not to want to discuss these issues, the user ends up discussing them anyway.

Over fifty comments attend the post, and all either agree with the original poster, or add their own analysis to the controversy. For example, the thread’s top-voted comment proposes that “gaming journalism and the critic industry in general is completely corrupt” and argues the influx of popular representationally inclusive films and video games have only received positive reviews because critics want to accrue “ideological cred” with social justice activists. The films include “ the Last Jedi . . . 3. Black Panther. . Countless other games and movies.” Without exception, responses underneath agree with the top-voted comment. While neither the top-voted comment nor the comments underneath it detail what makes these films and video games ideological, the fact that they variously confront issues of race, gender, sexuality (i.e. LGBTQ+), Pan-African nationalism, and racial trauma indicate the community believes these selections share some reprehensible commonalities. The first two gained critical and popular recognition for including sexually fluid relationships, interracial affection, and women in commanding roles. The latter two are particularly unflinching treatises on the historical and contemporary traumas of racial violence and . By that 172 logic, accruing “ideological cred” requires endorsing the kinds of films and video games that challenge the white, male, heteronormative status quo. By contrast, Kingdom Come:

Deliverance, which the press received more critically, supports such a worldview, precluding any reading of the game as ideological or political. Observe also that nobody defines “politics” and “ideology,” yet nest hints of shared political ideology in these very selections seen as evidence of social justice corruption in Hollywood and the video games industry—ostensibly machinations of the so-called “far left cult.” Such reticence implicitly assigns white, male ownership to neutral, apolitical standpoints, while their political antitheses—films and games that expose institutional inequalities—constitute anything that GamerGate activists perceive to threaten the white male identity.

A highly-voted commenter in the thread countenances these views, writing that since

Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s “announcement the number of internet armchair historians has skyrocketed.” They claim social justice activists and game journalists “screwam [sic] about diversity but they wont [sic] say a thing about games in Asian countries featuring only Asians . .

. Every argument against KCD can be used against them too. But they wont [sic] say a peep.”

Most illuminating is the final line. It reads, “it is only bad when arbitrarily defined ‘whites’ do it.” Grouping and defining white people elicits discomfort—they are an “arbitrary” construction, presumably of the left—which the community’s deference to identity-as-consumption explains.

Indeed, whiteness is a categorical enigma, neither well-defined nor particularly definable, yet American history shows the quality’s very arbitrariness is what inspired the terrifying campaigns of violence and ethnic cleansing that characterize so much of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. But instructive juxtapositions suggest the commenter never intended such a loaded ascription. As written, the comment claims that to be a readable 173 consumer of video games is to be white without ever needing to draw attention to that whiteness—hence the “arbitrariness” of “whites” inscribed by the pushback Kingdom Come:

Deliverance received. To draw any attention to whiteness is to attack white people, again from a systemic injustice to an individual one. It is a self-distancing away from abstract whiteness and toward denialism of the kind of social mobility white people benefit from because of their arbitrary whiteness. The political shift in terminology renders white supremacy palatable through its erasure of ethnic or gender variability. In their cheeky simulation of white color-consciousness, the commenter endorses color-blindness as the model.

Thus, the white individual is reconstituted via tokenizing, or de-individualizing, a monolithic population of color—Asians, apparently from any Asian country. Especially troubling is that while it may be true games based in Asian countries can also feature white characters, to claim whites’ exclusion from those games is the same is to ahistorically position white people in the so-called “West” as hypothetical victims of anti-white racism. Notably, the controversy was never about mere representation of people of color, but the anger that attended the suggestion such representation should ever occur in the first place. In conflating both forms of representation, therefore, color itself can be reinscribed on othered bodies (Asians and people of color) while whiteness gets framed as the marginalized other.

Downvoting Dissent, Reasserting Control

All of the comments above currently show positive value votes, and the threads underneath each comment without exception agree with the dominant narrative in

/r/KotakuInAction that Kingdom Come: Deliverance acts as proof of game journalists’ and

SJWs’ corruption. Each of these comments is a version of the argument that Warhorse Studios was merely smeared by journalists and social justice activists who want to hurt gamers by 174

shoehorning race and gender into their most beloved products. By hailing themselves as

consumers and erasing their visible identities on Reddit (i.e. having their part of the dominant

narrative receive a preponderance of upvotes), GamerGate activists can discuss race and gender

in coded language while still keeping both at arm’s length. The tension here is in GamerGate

activists’ mission to reframe themselves as apolitical consumer subjects through Reddit’s

democratic interface. Focusing the content that interface’s algorithm reflects as the most popular

in this given community is, by its very nature, political.

The same is true when the community overwhelms an undesirable comment with

downvotes. Commentary on /r/KotakuInAction that does complicate the narrative without

exception reflects negative value vote scores. As of this writing, four of the eight threads I

surveyed contain comments with negative score values, and only one of those comments sparked

a debate. Negative value comments downplay the controversy, negatively evaluate the game, add critical nuance to the controversy, or to some degree re-center politics. In two bottom-voted comments that received no replies in active threads, users discredit the controversy narrative.

One user writes “I remember when the game came out and I don’t remember the ‘controversy’ being as extreme as everyone involved is making it out to be.” Citing the game’s high sales numbers as evidence that a conflict never really took place, the user recalls “the ‘controversy’ if you call it that, was just a couple Twitter posts and maybe a few Kotaku articles about there not being enough black people.” Similarly, in a different thread a user gives the game a negative review, writing “the game itself is fine, but let’s not pretend it was anything more than a buggy 7 just because we want to champion the director [Vavra] for political reasons.”

The low vote scores are significant for three reasons: these comments minimize the emotional labor the community continues to invest into this controversy, they reemphasize 175

politics, and the community has hidden them with downvotes. If “everybody is making it out” to

be a controversy, the user implicitly assigns blame to GamerGate for mounting a controversy the

consumer revolt accuses SJWs for promulgating in the first place. In other words, by placing the

blame on the community for politicizing the issue the commenter reflects GamerGate’s politics

back at itself, thereby devaluing the emotional and intellectual labor required to frame

GamerGate as a raceless and genderless consumer revolt instead of a political movement.

The second commenter is similarly dismissive but more explicit about their objections.

Not only does the commenter’s negative review stand in opposition to the community’s effusive praise, it asserts the only reason for liking something so mediocre (a “buggy 7”) is to express political solidarity with the lead designer who the press criticized for his affiliation with

GamerGate. Notably, the commenter does not themselves deny politically championing Vavra.

Instead, they settle for a vague and terse disavowal of the emotional labor required to conceal

political motivations underneath a neutral consumer identity. In that sense the commenter’s

confrontational acknowledgement of GamerGate’s politics do not adhere to any standards of

decorum, opting instead for vagueness where some more specifics would no doubt be welcome.

On the other hand, some highly-voted posters review the game similarly, supporting my

assertion that it is through naming the “political reasons” explicitly that the downvoted comment

was hidden. For example, commentary with acceptable scores that generated discussion include a

user wondering “why people shill [the game] so hard. Its (sic) full of bugs and script fuckups,”

while numerous others express trepidation about a game that received so much criticism for its

technological malfunctions. In these other cases, even when users express incredulity at the

game’s success, the content of the negative reviews still permit community members to reassert

their apolitical consumer identities. Unlike the downvoted comments, none of these comments 176

ascribe political motivations to the community’s adoration of the game. A negative review is

only acceptable when limited to evaluating technical drawbacks or relative levels of fun—

measurable through consensus, if to some degree arbitrary, in the latter category. Any reference

to GamerGate’s political motivations, either explicit or implicit, is unacceptable because it places

whiteness under the microscope.

The Death of the Author is the Death of Authority

Shortly after Kingdom Come’s release a thread appeared on /r/KotakuInAction discussing

an interview with Vavra that was published in independent online gaming magazine

gameindustry.biz. During the interview Vavra defends himself against the accusation that

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a vehicle for his far-right political views. Finding refuge in friendly coworkers who do not share his ideology, Vavra labors to absolve himself of political

bias by claiming “six other people wrote [the game] with me. There’s an anarchist sitting with me in the office, there are liberal guys sitting with me in the office. So it has no propaganda because there are more people with the opposite political views to what I have in the same office.” He expresses frustration with the gaming press, which he believes should have consulted him before panning his studio’s historical fiction.45

The thread reveals overwhelming support for Vavra’s rash tokenization of his design

team—as if the mere presence of ideological variability precludes a dominant voice in the office.

Yet that same appreciation for difference Vavra depicts in his defense is not reflected in the most

acridly downvoted comment I discovered during my data collection. Currently sitting at a -98

score, the hidden commenter invokes ’ 1967 conceptualization of the death of the

author to add uncertainty to the community’s uncritical support for Vavra’s explanation. The

45 James Batchelor, “Vavra: ‘There is No Political Propaganda in Kingdom Come: Deliverance,’” GamesIndustry.Biz, April 19, 2018. 177 commenter initially defines and attempts to legitimize Barthes’ idea, writing “what the author says something means and what the work actually conveys are two different stories. If we didn't apply the principle of the Author is Dead, for example, every holocaust denier out there would have you believe their work was done without any ulterior motives and is just honest good research. And we'd just have to take them at their word.” Applying this logic to Vavra’s frustration at the gaming press, the commenter argues that “Vavra getting upset that people started to criticise his work without asking him what he thinks it meant is pointless fluff. Vavra has a right to counter the criticisms with his own, but that doesn't make the criticisms invalid for not asking his opinion.”

The comment sparked an acrimonious exchange. A highly-upvoted response opportunely disparages the academic tradition Barthes drew from to conceptualize his idea that authorial intention and textual outcome are not synonymous. The commenter argues Death of the Author

“is a favorite excuse of the retarded pseudo-intellectual ‘cultural critics’ so they can pretend they possess some deep understanding of art without having to know shit.” Without explaining what constitutes a “deep understanding of art,” like the original poster the author attempts to apply death of the author to the holocaust with the following literal interpretation: “the Nazis murdered a bunch of authors, you defend death of the author, clearly you’re saying that Hitler did nothing wrong.” After the original poster scolds the commenter for their “bad faith reading” and receives downvotes for their efforts, the commenter sarcastically doubles down and argues, “you didn’t say that slavery was bad therefore you support the KKK!!!”

To be sure, death of the author is a valuable moment in cultural criticism. At a time when the elite, white, male literary canon dominated academic thought and authorship was especially central to maintaining social hierarchies, Barthes rejected scholars’ myopic fixations on “the 178

author, his person, his history, his passions, his tastes,” and liberated the work from its original

creator. Note that Barthes, like his contemporaries, assumed a male-only author in his effort to

liberate the text. Now disentangled from the struggling artist at the , Barthes describes

the extant text as a “space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds

of writing.” Authorial death is, for Barthes, a revolutionary refiguring of the author/text

relationship, “for to refuse to arrest meaning is finally to refuse God and his hypostases, reason,

science, the law.”46 This criticism logically de-centered the white male power structures that shored up the authoritarian writer of the text, since without an author, readers themselves map meaning onto a text, regardless of subject position. As a consequence, the new model of reading the text empowered readers themselves instead of the author and the authoritarian systems of which they are a part, thereby complicating traditional white male power structures that manufactured the canon in the first place.

Feminist scholars have a complicated relationship with Barthes’ text. Catherine Belsey argues authorial death subverts the authority—and authorship—implied by canonization, which opens the text to interpretation, to , “to release the possible positions of its intelligibility, including those which reveal the partiality . . . of the ideology inscribed in the text.” Partiality is antithetical to the masculinizing mission of positivism, which romanticizes—

and in the process ideologically positions—impartiality and objective distance and disparages

standpoint. In that sense authorial death contradicts the purported ideal of the unbiased scientist

46 Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” 5. 179

and reveals positivism “as fiction.” For Belsey, positivism pushes anything to the margins that it

does not understand, in the process reasserting authority where it illegitimately its claim.47

However, as with standpoint epistemologists who weathered criticism for centering

women as part of a monolithic group, feminists have also pinpointed issues with death of the author. Mary Eagleton observes that since Barthes’ mission is to disentangle the author and the text, the identity of the writer becomes irrelevant. This means it is inconsequential if a white woman, a woman of color, or a white man authors a work.48 The logical outcome is that

“woman” gets subsumed within the deconstructed male author, and her standpoint has no bearing

on the work. authorial control, anybody occupying any subject position can narrate social

experience, which can reinforce the very structures of power that death of the author seeks to

subvert.

By extension, while death of the author and the anonymity it affords undoubtedly

challenges traditional patriarchal authority, it still privileges a white standpoint in its totalizing

authorial erasures. Situated authorship gets subsumed within discourses of complete textual

openness. By dispensing altogether with authorial control, the anonymity that necessarily follows

submerges minoritized voices. In other words, by dismantling the social and political power implied by authorial control, those who never had historical control in the first place—those deprived of the respect of a standpoint, such as women of color, transgender women and men of color, and LGBTQ+ people—have their authorship stripped from them. Marginalized authors

47 Catherine Belsey, “Constructing the Subject, Deconstructing the Text,” in Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory, ed. Diane Price Herndl, (Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 1985), 668.

48 Mary Eagleton, Figuring the Woman Author in Contemporary Fiction, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 17. 180

thus have their identities and voices they use fiction to foreground erased. Their lack of

authorship strips them of any power to assert their needs or desires.

Through this lens, both /r/KotakuInAction commenters are to some degree justified in

their defense or repudiation of authorial death, yet importantly neither commenter articulates

their tensions in such feminist terms. The original poster’s claim that Vavra’s intentions are

subservient to the artistic outcome implicitly absolves Vavra of any wrongdoing, while stripping

him of the individuality and self-reliance GamerGate values. It is that critique of individuality

that may explain why the community downvoted the comment so enthusiastically. On the other

hand, the tongue-in-cheek, dismissive response that the community equally enthusiastically

upvoted extends the reach of death of the author to absurd extremes, deploying the all-or-nothing

language characteristic of GamerGate to reject the concept outright. The response

holds that if we dispense with authorial or artistic intent, the press logically has free rein to

privilege its own bad faith interpretations of a given text, then manipulatively diffuse that

interpretation among the public.

There is some unspoken and underappreciated overlap—some potential for nuanced

discussion—in the exchange that the back-and-forth hostility precludes. Surely people

sometimes have to be held accountable for socially harmful actions regardless of their stated

good intentions. The narrative is not usually under one’s control. Yet the logical byproduct of

this is that holding one accountable for an action centers a bad actor—an author—in the midst of a conflict. In effect, the press that GamerGate distrusts should not be held accountable for their criticisms, which disempowers GamerGate activists. It is also problematic to fuse the author and the work definitively, since that ironically strips control from the reader or, in this case, consumer. Consequently, to privilege the latter also disempowers GamerGate activists. 181

GamerGate activists are presented with an ultimatum—choose between individuality, or authority. In either case, consumers’ individuality dissolves into an authoritarian system. They

are, for all intents and purposes, trapped, so the only option is to submerge dissent with

downvotes, thereby denying the complexity of the implied debate. The only way to assert control

is to assert the illusion of control.

Additionally, questioning authorial intent will likely be received as an attack on Vavra in particular and whiteness and individuality in general. For GamerGate, not only is Vavra the one in control, he is synecdoche for apolitical historical accuracy, of the all-white medieval past he and his team rendered for consumers. This is despite the logical tension in his complaint that journalists never consulted him to discover the ideological makeup of his development team. The complaint reflects the same ultimatum. Vavra is undoubtedly correct that video game development requires the time, labor, and artistic input of many people, but he both empowers the design team by centering their authorship, then disempowers that team by tokenizing people within it and then acting as their project’s prime defender and explicator. In making himself public, he highlights his influential role in the game’s development cycle. He both exculpates himself from authorship and reasserts his authority over the text. Acting as a politically rightist white man who both undermines and asserts his power, Vavra, like the GamerGate revolt that reciprocally supports him, positions himself as a liminal figure who cannot completely dispense with individuality and the authority it entails. To do so would be to acknowledge the arbitrariness of whiteness. 182

Feminism, White Fragility, and the Politics of Disagreement on /r/GamerGhazi

As with /r/KotakuInAction, in threads about Kingdom Come: Deliverance on

/r/GamerGhazi historical accuracy is by far the most frequently discussed topic. The most

notable differences, however, are that /r/GamerGhazi members’ perspectives on historical

accuracy are atomized, discursive, nuanced, and occasionally essay-length. Furthermore, none of

the commentary on /r/GamerGhazi has been hidden with downvotes.49 This difference is most

evident in the fact that some commentary /r/GamerGhazi members upvote is similar to

commentary that would circulate freely on /r/KotakuInAction, while other upvoted commentary

on /r/GamerGhazi would be downvoted and hidden on /r/KotakuInAction. As we will see below,

some /r/GamerGhazi users frame historical accuracy as a far-right white nationalist, white

supremacist, or neo-Nazi talking point. However, I was especially surprised to find that most believe, for a variety of reasons, it is misguided to fault the developers for excluding people of

color from Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s historical setting. In what follows I discuss these

distinct ways members on /r/GamerGhazi articulate their pro-social justice identities through this one game. The surprising contradictions that emerge reveal a community more comfortable

confronting gender than race, and especially uneasy about the intersections between race and

gender.

Uncovering Whiteness, Troubling Historical Accuracy

Of the five threads I observed on /r/GamerGhazi related to Kingdom Come: Deliverance,

some top- or highly-voted commenters reject GamerGate’s core excuse that historical accuracy

justifies the game’s lack of people of color or dignified female characters. In their multiple-

49 This may be a function of the smaller and less-active user base. 183

paragraph comment to a thread discussion about the game’s apocryphal history, one top-voted

commenter notes that Warhorse Studios’ interpretation of medieval Bohemia is “not inherently

any less valid than any other,” but argues the most dangerous consequence of GamerGate

activists’ efforts to use historical accuracy as a “get-out-of-jail-free card” is “the idea that

‘historical accuracy’ is somehow either an excuse for the developers' political biases, or an

argument against the idea that they have a political bias to begin with.” After centering politics

and bias, the user makes their case that “KC:D isn't a neutral historical report (assuming

something like that can even exist, mind you). Like countless other cultural works, it has social

and political values baked right into it, and, like all of those other works, there's nothing beyond

the pale in criticizing it on the basis of those values.”

Some of the highly- or top-voted commentary finds Warhorse Studios culpable for

Kingdom Come’s problematic gender representations. Taking claims of historical accuracy

seriously, one user accuses the development team of disempowering women despite historical

evidence pointing to women’s roles as powerful figures, writing “I'd like everyone to remember

that the very fencing manual (Talhoffers Fechtbuch) that the devs claim to be using, goes as far

as having illustrations of female fighters, since history is biased and corrupted by the evil sjw

causes and all that.” Another commenter builds upon this assertion, noting that “it's kind of fun, I

think. But clunky, and buggy, and poorly written. It’s painfully obvious that not only were no

women involved in writing the game, but no writer for the game has any real concept of a

woman who isn’t a sex object or their mom.”

Others address racial issues or intersectional identities more directly. One user claims

“historical accuracy” has a hidden meaning divorced from notions of realism or authenticity.

Instead, it is “an alt-right meaning no people of colour and women knowing their 184

place. It’s all a dumb fantasy they’ve built for themselves and crap like this game is perpetuating

it.” A cautious observer shares the view that Warhorse Studios’ ethnic erasures were politically

motivated, but wonders “even if [Vavra] did recognize they existed at the time . . . was it ever

considered how they would be portrayed?” Another somewhat buried commenter writes that

“much of the selective ‘historical accuracy’ seems to help espouse white nationalist sympathies.”

Such white nationalism is characterized by “open misogyny (especially treating women like a sex game a la Witcher 1), the malicious homophobia (the two gay male characters in the game are--of course--villains who do awful things and are also denigrated for their sexuality on top of it), and everyone who is not a straight, white male Bohemian (Czech) is apparently just portrayed as an awful person.”

Each of these commenters read Kingdom Come: Deliverance as a historical fiction beset by the developer’s political biases. With but one exception where a commenter calls the game

“fun,” the users above largely contend that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is not merely a game,

but a text to be read outside of vague objective measurements, like level of personal enjoyment,

sales figures, or one’s nostalgic investment in the historical setting. Indeed, in a significant

portion of these comments notions of fun, consumption, the developers’ passions, and nostalgia

do not appear in relationship to historical accuracy. In their place are either abstract

intersectional identities (race, gender, and sexuality), or references to politics, both of which

undermine the individuality or objectivity of the consumer. By mapping political biases onto the

game’s representation of race, gender, and sexuality some /r/GamerGhazi members therefore attempt to decenter the default white male consumer identity and refocus the visible markers on othered bodies. 185

However, taken together, the comments also reveal an atomized, discursive community

that rallies around an array of political issues, but does not unify like /r/KotakuInAction around

specific ideologies. One commenter focuses their short essay on the developers’ collective politics, while somewhat absolving them of their mistakes for taking with the historical setting. The other users alternate between admonishing the game for its reductive gender representations, framing the developers’ deference for historical accuracy as a white nationalist

“dog whistle,” and unpacking the game’s racial politics. Users here articulate a diversity of concerns that /r/KotakuInAction would almost certainly downvote. But those concerns are neither unanimous nor simplistic. While this atomization does not necessarily suggest disagreement among /r/GamerGhazi community members, Reddit’s interface presents those ideas in a linear, top-to-bottom fashion, separating one from the other and displaying them as separate ideas. Additionally, some debate gets submerged necessarily underneath top-voted commentary, giving the impression that each issue is singular (e.g. race, then gender instead of the intersection where a unique identity exists), as opposed to appreciably interlocking. As a result, even in the face of conciliatory debate in the threaded replies, fresh ideas receive little attention. There is always still one above all others that makes it to the very top of a thread.

Redirecting Sympathies, Imagining Historical Whiteness

Most surprising on /r/GamerGhazi is top- or highly-voted commentary that sides with

GamerGate activists and Warhorse Studios. Though not quite as frequent as commentary that stands firmly in opposition to GamerGate, without exception the community expresses democratic support for alternative viewpoints in upvotes and visibility. Two highly-voted comments that forgive the game for the lack of people of color illustrate this phenomenon.

Absolving the game based on Vavra’s clumsy public persona, one commenter suggests he 186

“shouldn’t be doing PR as he’s horrible at it. He was asked about [including PoC in the game], gave a perfectly valid and accurate reason and was called a racist. Instead of just ignoring it he tried to ‘fight back’ and made things worse.” In defense of the game’s racial politics the user argues medieval Bohemia’s cultural specificity and its historical accuracy should move us to express “sympathy for [Vavra] as all he wanted to do was make a passion project about his culture and history and then got attacked by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.”

Fearing that they will “get shit on for it in this sub,” another highly-voted commenter shares these sentiments, conceding that they “sorta understand not including black characters in this game specifically” because environmental realism and historical accuracy dictate that “the chance of meeting a black person in medieval Bohemia outside of major cities would be really low. Shit, I'd be surprised if I randomly met one in the countryside even today.” The commenter’s conciliatory tone was rewarded with a considered response that promises there is

“no need to refute anything,” but holds that when one deliberately excludes particular skin colors from their work of art, “that is a political decision.” The original commenter replies that, to them, the bigger issue is “ignoring ethnic diversity (Germans, Hungarians, Italians, the Romani…) which was verifiably there, rather than racial diversity.”

Observe that the second commenter received upvotes and a careful response despite initially fearing rejection, while the other received upvotes for sending Vavra, a self-described far-right conservative, their sympathies. These upvotes signify support for commentary that appears to complicate the narrative, while still upholding a monolithic, presumably male “black person” who would hypothetically populate the game world. These posts, in other words, reveal that /r/GamerGhazi is internally discursive and attempts not to rally around single-issue politics, 187 but also points to clear discomfort with racial issues, especially when combined with gender. For example, recall the pinned post in Chapter Three that denounces those beset by white fragility, together with the complicated interplay of disagreement and agreement in the commentary that attends the post. Users in that thread reject the very term “white fragility,” disagree about how to confront racism, and fail to consider the intersections of gender and race, thereby centering white male emotions and disavowing the concerns of those who claim intersectional identities. A similar phenomenon is here apparent, whereby users implicitly chide others’ knee-jerk rejections of Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Vavra himself by re-centering white male emotions and rendering “black people” a singular figure. Most importantly, the notion that the tangled logic of

“historical authenticity” justifies erasing blackness and gender from the game suggests that both are central to reading the text—i.e. they are not irrelevant merely because it may be unlikely to encounter a black person in a nine square kilometer tract of medieval Bohemia.

Additionally, such pushback from community members betrays a kind of respectability politics by implicitly arguing some /r/GamerGhazi members use the wrong strategies of resistance to perceived racism in video games, and so they should calm their emotions. Consider the notion that Vavra is the one who “got attacked” for just making a “passion project,” which notably glosses over threats to MedievalPOC and the anger directed at journalists who defended them. Vavra deserves our sympathies because other historians “have no idea what they’re talking about.” And besides, the “chance of meeting a black person” would be unlikely in not only medieval Bohemia, but “even today.” Instead, /r/GamerGhazi should care more about populations that were “verifiably there,” as opposed to shoehorning western conceptualizations of “racial diversity” into the game. These arguments persist despite the fact that the game caters, via these limited representations, to a specific audience of white men in the contemporary 188

moment. By hiding behind historical accuracy to create an all-white, male-dominated fantasy of a past where chivalry sates contemporary yearnings for medieval nostalgia, Kingdom Come:

Deliverance’s developers can reasonably divide even purportedly left-leaning communities like

/r/GamerGhazi, which attempts in good faith to expand its reach to a global, anti-imperial

context.

Consumer Identities and the West

In fact, some commenters elucidate their anti-imperial worldview to oppose the notion

that Kingdom Come: Deliverance should include people of color. To make this case, some

/r/GamerGhazi members take refuge in their consumer identities to defend the game’s racially

and ethnically homogenous medieval Bohemia on the basis that American contemporary racial

politics cannot and should not apply to the distant past. However, to preempt pushback these

/r/GamerGhazi members offset their defense of the game with acrid opposition to Vavra himself.

In a thread that predated the game’s release, one user observes that “the game itself looks

interesting” before denouncing Vavra as “a fucking douchebag” who “sided with gamergate in

the past.” The user’s criticism of Vavra permits them to argue “not having black characters in a

supposedly accurate medieval Bohemia” is understandable. A top-voted user similarly excoriates

Vavra after announcing they “will probably end up buying the game as it’s something I’ve been

looking forward to for a while now and it’s literally my childhood obsession come to life—in

many ways, it’s a game I’ve waited years for.” The user inserts the following justification for their consumption choices:

I will say, however that as much as Vavra is an ill-informed dumbass, that I can't agree

with the criticism that the game does not feature minorities- it shows how the critics are

using an American-centric definition of minorities and not concerned with the time 189

period and how contextually, these people were not all a homogeneous group of white

people. One of the devs mentioned Jews, Germans' Hungarians etc. which would be

considered minorities in that time period. I can sympathize with that notion as I myself

am Pakistani, and even then there are many ethnicities in the Indian subcontinent like

Punjabi, Gujrati etc.

Both comments center the consumer identity and the author behind the game in order to stage the

argument that racial and ethnic variability in medieval Bohemia is not only unrealistic, but a

form of western presumptuousness. The implication in both cases is that to dismiss the game for its ethnic erasures is to impose a Euro-, Western, or American-centric racial ideology onto the contemporary Czech Republic.

However, this argument unwittingly reinforces spurious notions about a whites-only consumer base. Recall that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a global export, GamerGate

materialized in the United States, and Vavra himself is a public GamerGate supporter. As I make

clear in the previous section, vocal GamerGate activists who hide behind historical accuracy and

adulate the game for these very ethnic erasures also cite the game’s high sales figures as proof

that social justice activists, especially those concerned with race and gender, represent a dying

movement. Furthermore, that the second user leverages their Pakistani identity enables them to

take refuge in a specific national, geopolitical context, which on the surface appears to add

complexity to the debate and gives them permission to purchase a game that has generated so

much negative press for these erasures. On the contrary, such a position frames the debate as

overblown, while also managing to ignore the regressive, uniquely American reactions to the

mere suggestion that Warhorse Studios made a mistake by erasing black people or other people

of color from the game. Consequently, the commentary thus far shows that /r/GamerGhazi does 190

not rally around single-issue debates but signifies that there is an underappreciated overlap

between this community and /r/KotakuInAction—that of the common affiliation for the

consumer identity.

Western Imperialism and Intersectionality

These sentiments are by no means isolated. Other commenters assert more explicitly and

problematically that to include people of color in Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a form of

Western imperialism. One user writes that “having an Eastern European sounding accent [is] enough to get the shit kicked out of you in many parts of the UK or deported from the US in a hurry. We shouldn't be looking at Eastern European or Russian culture as being one and the same as western culture and held to the same expectations.” They additionally argue that including people of color would be “a low key form of imperialism really. The desire by Americans to lump all white people into white American or Western culture. Reaching out across the world to claim every white person and every white person's cultural output as part of this glorious monochrome canon.” One user disagrees, writing that the author’s assertions seem “like an attempt to dismiss the critique without even understanding it.” In response, a user defends the poster by arguing the game’s critics are not themselves imperialist, but rather “the baggage

[history of racism] that American culture brings is being attached to a work from an entirely different group.”

Both comments that assert it would be western imperialism to demand people of color be added to the game, together with the preponderance of upvotes that attended them, are evidence of a community that has difficulty grappling with the nuances of American racial politics, especially concerning the intersections between race and gender. While it is true that each so- called Western nation’s contemporary racial and gender politics are informed by those countries’ 191 unique histories and consequently cannot be retrospectively applied to medieval Bohemia—or, for that matter, the current-day Czech Republic—both commenters gloss over the and complexities of the controversy. To claim it constitutes Western “imperialism” to express one’s suspicions about ethnic exclusions from a medieval, all-white fantasy, then to stoke an ongoing debate based on those exclusions, supposes that Western imperialism is not itself built from the very internal inequalities that the so-called West uses to support its international reach.

While it is fair to assert that the Czech Republic experienced its own forms of colonialism that do not resemble American forms, in the present whiteness and maleness are internationally exported categories of power. As Melissa Steyn and Daniel Conway write, both categories interact with globalization. They travel and translate “through people, products and discourses.”50 A product’s forms of representation can be problematic even if it originates overseas. The intersections of whiteness and maleness are neither confined to American politics, nor the Western European tradition of “white heritage” narratives from which Warhorse Studios draws to reconstruct its version of medieval Bohemia. By erasing contemporary ethnic variability from what Lomuto calls an apocryphal fantasy of the middle ages, Warhorse Studios feeds into age-old transnational narratives that white men occupy a superior subject position.

It merits special emphasis that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an inherently transnational product. The geographic distribution of those who backed the project and consume it is just as important as the game’s problematic gender and racial politics. The game is not just a Czech creation but exists within a global matrix of capital exchange. It generated funds through an

American corporation—Kickstarter—with the help of almost 36,000 financial backers, and the largest share of those backers—almost 9,000—come from the United States. In comparison, only

50 Melissa Steyn and Daniel Conway, “Introduction: Intersecting Whiteness, Interdisciplinary Debates,” Ethnicities, 10, no. 3 (2010), 285. 192

3,665 backers originated from the Czech Republic, while the vast majority of backers live in

Western European nations like Austria, Sweden, , Norway, Denmark, and the United

Kingdom.51 This suggests the controversy surrounding one passion project about an all-white medieval Bohemia is not simply a case of Americans exporting their brand of imperialism to the

Czech Republic. The available evidence does not substantiate such an assertion. It is, rather, a problem identified by American and European consumers who reflexively question the implications of a game, consumed in large part by American and Western European audiences, that glosses over the historical evidence of an ethnically diverse (by skin color) medieval

Bohemia. It is a case of consumers themselves—ironically the purported allies of

/r/KotakuInAction—inquiring about a company’s important representational oversights for audiences that live in territories where “white heritage” narratives materialized in the first place.

It was not only shipped overseas or distributed over digital space to attract a global consumer base, it also generated the ire of GamerGate itself, an American consumer revolt connected to racism and misogyny that Vavra, a Czech citizen, himself endorses.

That community members used the Reddit interface to adulate these commenters signals a disconnect between /r/GamerGhazi’s philosophical anti-racism and its practical application of that philosophy. There is, after all, a very real threat of continued erasure, both representationally and through law and government, of intersectional identities. That so many among

/r/GamerGhazi ignore this vital fact is especially troubling, since doing so reinforces that games are only for white male consumers. These defenses of Vavra and Warhorse Studios signal an unsettling discomfort among /r/GamerGhazi members—who are part of a self-described pro- social justice community—with confronting intersectional inequalities.

51 “Community,” Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Kickstarter. 193

In the conclusion, I discuss the overall implications for this project, the issues I did not cover, and the potential for future research on GamerGate. As I hope to have made clear,

GamerGate controversies on Reddit extend far beyond concerns about a single game that existed even before the consumer revolt materialized in the popular press. It is a movement that also influences the game industry at large. It touches the people who work within it and the diverse consumers who wish to see themselves represented in the products that come out of it.

GamerGate is not simply a movement of white men fighting against social justice. It is an offshoot of the very white supremacist discourses that have long haunted American culture. 194

CHAPTER FIVE. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Three years ago, when I chose to write a dissertation about Reddit GamerGate

communities, my ambitions were impossibly large. The Third Chapter progressed from the

nugget of an idea to fully-formed final product relatively unscathed. But large portions of

Chapters Four and what would have been Five exist only in a Microsoft Word document titled

“Temporary Erasures.” A chaotic mess of loose thoughts and stray paragraphs comprise fourteen

pages—ideas salvageable only for a future paper or chapter that may never arrive—of what is

now collectively an unrealized fantasy. I sometimes revisit obscure ideas and try to remember

the thought process that led me to write them.

The Chapters Four and Five that would have been included a prolonged discussion about each community’s reactions to three games—a queer interactive narrative called , a

role-playing game about nonviolence and inclusion titled Undertale, and an at the time tacked-on

Kingdom Come: Deliverance—and my attempt to reckon with #NotYourShield. Chapter Four is long enough on its own. It is sixty-one pages about the video game that initially seemed unremarkable to me and the technological interface that structures discussions around that video game. Covering three games in one chapter would have been impossible. Reflecting on my ambitions and knowing now what I did not then about the complexity of Reddit, its interface, and its algorithm, I could imagine those other games filling an entire book of material.

As for #NotYourShield, I regret that the three stream-of-consciousness paragraphs I frantically wrote in anticipation of a chapter about marginalized bodies conspiring against themselves marinates now in a lonely document nested in a folder within a folder on my hard drive. Writing briefly about it in Chapters One and Two hardly scratched the research itch. What got me obsessed in the first place was the confluence of image and text, hands folded around 195

cheap poster board, eyes staring resolutely—even smugly—into the low-quality camera lens,

geolocation unknown (which gave them an air of spontaneity), all to share frustrations about

those who were never their enemies. Most astonishingly, these people—these gender non-

conforming, nonwhite, non-cis, and transgender people—used their bodies as agents of a white

male discourse. They peddled a message that served the dominant group that claimed to fight in

their best interests yet used their bodies as human shields for a regressive cause, then gaslit by projecting its motives onto social justice activists. Such abusive tokenization is a depressingly familiar feature of an American society ever-failing to confront its racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic past and present. There was too much to unpack after the project had already breached the hundred-page mark following completion of Chapter Three. So, I pruned this project. Pruned it necessarily.

I write now about what I felt obligated to cut because, truthfully, I still want to write about Gone Home, Undertale, and especially #NotYourShield, and this bare-bones conclusion is the most apt place for my catharsis. Had I the time and resources to expand where I always wanted, I would retreat tomorrow to a coffee shop and start somewhere. If I never get the chance to do what I originally intended, I hope this project inspires a curious scholar to make sense of

#NotYourShield. It is a hash tag campaign that shrank from public view years ago, but it, like everything on Reddit, is archived somewhere, to be unearthed by digital researchers and archaeologists intent on understanding how this transnational phenomenon could touch (and harm) so many. And what one finds could, and maybe should, fill a book, or at least a chapter.

What did make it into the dissertation, however, has wider implications for the American public. While /r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi are just two Reddit communities of over 1.2 million in total, each community’s calculated public image, coupled with the ways in which they 196

do or do not confront institutional inequalities, illuminates drawbacks to the very corporate

communication technologies we rely on every day to disseminate our small, ephemeral

messages. As I have shown, the Reddit platform is not neutral, but inculcates and reflects a democratic vision in which those who speak out of line do not get heard, even if what they say adds nuance to an inherently complicated debate. To speak out of line often means to resist the very inequalities reflected in what people use the interface to emphasize with votes. Even in communities like /r/GamerGhazi where comments are rarely hidden with downvotes, what makes it to the top of a thread, organized always from top-to-bottom in linear fashion, means

everything else has been buried, despite the debate having multiple underappreciated

dimensions.

I should note, too, that this dissertation was never about assigning blame to one

community, /r/KotakuInAction, for its exclusionary ideology and activism. This project is more broadly about explicating the ways in which popular social media platforms like Reddit have a fraught relationship with race—especially the intersections between race, gender, and class—as

revealed in two antithetical communities’ limited discussions about American social justice. In fact, the evidence I collected suggests that while /r/GamerGhazi promotes its less popular pro-

feminist brand as gender-fluid and egalitarian, members’ uneasiness with race permeates the

virtual atmosphere, which precludes any provocative discussion about how racism fundamentally shapes American culture. Consequently, /r/GamerGhazi is a white feminist community many of whose members reject anything that threatens . Without honestly confronting race in America, how is such a self-described feminist space ever to account for intersectional issues?

How is the community to appreciate the social experiences of trans women and men of color 197

when its “Trans 101” resources all imagine a monolithic white trans person? How is the

community to confront American “white fragility” if it too is beset by its own white fragility?

The bigger picture issue is that these attitudes on /r/GamerGhazi, disseminated

throughout its private Reddit community, reflect a problematic and popular kind of white

feminism redolent of a time before Lorde, hooks, Crenshaw, and Collins entered the scene and

announced glaring oversights in the field. That model of thinking—what scholars fallaciously

term the second-wave, as if to denote a time long since ebbed away in preparation for the next

critical onslaught—is still with us today, stronger than ever, and embedded in the very social media technologies we call our digital homes. As /r/GamerGhazi’s uneasy relationship with race shows, even apparently pro-social justice communities on Reddit can fall victim to the drawbacks of these social media technologies. This is because Reddit’s democratic—purportedly inclusive—ethos is exclusionary and regressive at its core, since it merely reflects what ideas are popular or unpopular at any given time, in any given community. Unfortunately, reflected in a high vote count says nothing about the relative validity of a claim, just as

unpopularity reflected in a preponderance of downvotes says nothing about a comment’s

indefensibleness. The commentary that makes it to the top of a thread is not a comprehensive

take on a given topic, yet a high karma score can trick us into believing it is, thereby threatening

to push underrepresented voices to the margins (or in this case, to the bottom of a thread).

Communities like /r/GamerGhazi simply cannot utilize the Reddit interface to promote an

inclusive message if the interface is designed to exclude.

We should therefore not just accept that corporations build neutral, unproblematic platforms that operate in the public’s best interests. Social media corporations have a vested interest in keeping their user-bases intact, but also problematically have access to more data than 198

any scholar can access—as evidenced by the 2018 scandals, described in Chapter Four,

involving Twitter, Facebook, and Google. An intuitive, open structure like Reddit’s may seem antithetical to the filtering algorithms of Twitter, Facebook, and Google, all of which invisibly confiscate agency from the user in myriad subtle ways. But really, the unique features of Reddit are not merely negligible, but potentially more influential or dangerous when we look to the very architecture of the platform itself. Reddit, after all, is not just upvoted and downvoted content, but also its heavily-moderated communities of interest, aesthetic layouts that can be modified to suit ideological agendas, exclusive wiki pages with proprietary governance documents, top-to-

bottom threads and meta-threads, and of course the users themselves. This very structure

privileges segmentation and division, where subversive or provocative ideas learn to retreat to

their sympathetic hideaways, never to diffuse where those ideas may be most instructive.

My findings also point to a significant disconnect between academic social justice and

the public. A common refrain among /r/KotakuInAction activists is that academic social justice

is elitist and condescending. Sometimes agitators like Sargon of Akkad—who I discussed briefly

in Chapter One—will deliberately expand on this evaluation and claim social justice elites are

communist conspirators intent on invading the video game press and industry at large. While I

am at a loss for how to confront influential internet personalities like Sargon of Akkad, who

seems more intent on sowing discord than engaging with feminist ideas in good faith, I suspect

not everybody in communities like /r/KotakuInAction are quite so extreme. Perhaps these softer

accusations of elitism really signal personal insecurities with feminist revelations. Perhaps these

seemingly regressive ideologues are really concealing their desire to reckon with their core

beliefs about racial and gender hierarchies. Perhaps, amid all their knee-jerk dismissals, they are

really asking questions about why we do what we do, only they retreat to an online community 199

where it feels safer to vent their grievances. Maybe our writing really is more interested in

attracting other people like ourselves than those who misunderstand our work. Is there a nugget

of truth to the charge that academics can be elitist obscurantists, cloistered safely within the walls of academia? Is there any truth to the idea that in our struggle to have our voices heard, we have nevertheless failed to communicate about the histories that have produced the far-right resurgence reflected in /r/KotakuInAction?

When I began this project three years ago /r/KotakuInAction boasted less than seventy-

thousand members. It had gradually increased as time passed, but after Trump’s ascent to the

presidency the community tacked on another forty-thousand, seemingly within months, though

perhaps this is an instance of correlation versus causation. The membership number counted in

Chapter One continued to rise, frustratingly and rapidly, beyond the population of a sizable city,

leading me to wonder how I could possibly make sense of a text so ever-evolving and ineffably

complicated. I thought it odd that, by contrast, the /r/GamerGhazi number changed hardly

enough to merit any revisions. They increased from a measly sixteen thousand to just over

twenty-two thousand in the same time frame. Why did a community so hostile to social justice

not only live, but thrive in its rancorous ? Why did a white feminist community

promoting love and care for some of the most vulnerable among us hardly make a peep? I

suggest the answers to these questions lie not only in the Reddit interface itself, which promotes

polarization and discourages a plurality of standpoints, but also in the contemporary American

feminist struggles Reddit’s interface is designed to undermine.

This dissertation asks more questions than it answers. If two niche digital retreats like

/r/KotakuInAction and /r/GamerGhazi could generate so much data so quickly, we culture

studies scholars have our work cut out for us. Consider again my method for culling data. It 200

entailed “hanging out” in each community during four weeks over the course of several months, watching as members shaped discussions around changes in popular culture. Occasionally during

data collection, I wondered if my process of selection were not deeply beset by Reddit’s

insufficient search engine and my limited human senses. Having settled on a recurrent

controversy surrounding one video game that extended back four years, my task ahead was to

stare blankly at commentary that would be upvoted one day and downvoted the next. Those posts

are now archived, inactive, and finally static, but as I watched the conversations unfold in real

time over the course of several days the text continued to change, continued to become cleaner

reflections of what the communities really thought and felt. The following became obvious to me

midway through the writing process: because Reddit is a multi-layered structure in which threads

subject to the voting algorithm often comprise other discussion threads that themselves are

subject to the voting algorithm, texts can change drastically over time. This meant I could not

map ideological or attitudinal changes over time just by looking at a few threads one time. I had to revisit those threads after collecting the data to see if the texts had taken on new configurations. In some cases, they did, and I adjusted my findings accordingly.

These structural nuances present quandaries for researchers who wish to add to the literature about Reddit. Thankfully, digital humanities methods provide some possible solutions to these limitations, and perhaps expose others. Practitioners of , or opinion

mining, can scrape large clusters of data from social media platforms using their open-source

application program interfaces (API) and assign emotional labels to written content. These

emotional labels come from sentiment lexicons, or dictionaries, that pair dictionary terms to

emotional signifiers. When political scientists and culture studies scholars apply sentiment

analysis to tweets and Facebook status updates about current events, for instance, they can 201

ascribe positive, neutral, or negative values to microblogs (or tweets) and map emotional

changes over time and space in the collective public.1 Scholars tend to focus their efforts on

Twitter due to the open, public nature of the platform, its rapid content generation, and the fact

that celebrities and politicians utilize Twitter for self-promotion.2

However, sentiment analysts have given very little attention to Reddit, even though its

API is open-source and accessible to the general public. Most of the studies resemble some

aspects of this dissertation and investigate isolated content from specific communities of

interest.3 One drawback to such data is that, despite its capacity for deep critical engagement with ideas on display, merely analyzing isolated short-form texts only tells part of the story.

Guided by computational methods, future research questions might include the following: How have these communities built around specific interests changed over time? What do these communities think and feel at any given time? Do those feelings change, or remain the same? If we quantify and then qualitatively analyze feelings, we may make discoveries that surprise us.

Computational methods like sentiment analysis can aggregate emotional material for more comprehensive qualitative analyses. Sentiment analysis could reveal some overlap between social justice activists and those who claim to be against social justice.

1 Robert A. Stine, “Sentiment Analysis,” Annual Review of Statistics and its Application 6 (2019), 287-308.

2 Examples include Sarah Rosenthal, Noura Farra, and Preslav Nakav, “SemEval-2017 Task 4: Sentiment Analysis in Twitter,” Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Semantic Evaluations (2017), 502-518; and Duyu Tang, et al., “Building Large-Scale Twitter- Specific Sentiment Lexicon: A Representation Learning Approach,” Proceedings of COLING 2014 (2014), 172-182.

3 E.g. Massanari, “GamerGate and the Fappening”; Jhaver, Chan, and Bruckmann, “The View from the Other Side.” 202

Only four years ago I never would have considered looking to Reddit for answers, not

because the platform is too unwieldy for one person to study—though its complexity did make

me wince—but because it seemed to me initially like a trivial time sink. Content rarely followed a set path, though it did present the illusion of linearity, and it all resembled disorganized chaos.

It was the kind of place one would go to write a throwaway comment or joke, watch as that comment or joke either received useless upvotes and karma or useless downvotes and

invisibility, and then move along to something else. But how elitist of me to gloss over the more

complicated reality. These Reddit users were all strangers, safe in their exclusive bubbles away

from the physical kinship groups that may not give them permission to voice their concerns

openly. Reddit was as much a place for people to vent their anger as it was to express group

solidarity. It acted as a virtual home for millions who could not find one elsewhere. But Reddit

was also a cultural text created, curated, and read by imperfect humans. For all its quotidian

levity, it countenanced the very systems of oppression it reflected in its interface and design. It

instructed that if we are to understand how our country and the world deals with injustice and

inequality, we must increasingly look to social media platforms like it for possible explanations. 203

REFERENCES

Alcoff, Linda and Elizabeth Potter. “Introduction: When Feminisms Intersect Epistemology.” In

Feminist Epistemology. (New York: Routledge, 1993). 1-14.

Alexander, Leigh. “‘Gamers’ Don’t Have to Be Your Audience. ‘Gamers’ Are Over.”

Gamasutra. August 28, 2014

Allain, Jacqueline. “Finding Common Ground: A Feminist Response to Men’s Rights Activism.”

On Our Terms 3, no. 1 (2015).

“An Unofficial Guide on How to Avoid Getting Shadow Banned.” Reddit. May 11, 2017.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShadowBan/comments/6an2bv/an_unofficial_guide_on_how_t

o_avoid_being/.

Applebaum, Barbara. “Comforting Discomfort as Complicity: White Fragility and the Pursuit of

Invulnerability.” Hypatia 32, no. 4 (2017): 864.

Bakardjieva, Maria. “A Response to Shani Orgad.” In Internet Inquiry. Eds. Annette N.

Markham and Nancy K. Baym (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009).

Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia. “Is a Medieval Game Historically Accurate Without People of Color?”

The Daily Dot. February 5, 2014. https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/gaming/reddit-

tumblr-medieval-video-game-poc/.

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” (1967).

Bass, Patrick Henry. “Riding the Information Superhighway.” Black Enterprise 26, no. 8 (1996).

Batchelor, James. “Vavra: ‘There is No Political Propaganda in Kingdom Come: Deliverance.’”

GamesIndustry.Biz. April 19, 2018.

Belsey, Catherine. “Constructing the Subject, Deconstructing the Text.” In Feminisms Redux: An 204

Anthology of Literary Theory. Ed. Diane Price Herndl. (Piscataway: Rutgers University

Press, 1985).

Bernstein, Joseph. “Gaming is Leaving ‘Gamers’ Behind.” Buzzfeed News. August 28, 2014.

Billy D. “CBC Exec Acknowledges #GamerGate Media Slant, States Ethics Are Important.”

December 2014.

Burdge, Barb J. “Bending Gender, Ending Gender: Theoretical Foundations for Social Work

Practice with the Transgender Community.” Social Work 52, no. 3 (2007).

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of

Racial Inequality in America (Fourth Edition). (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).

Butterworth, Jamie. “5 Indicators You’ve Been Misinformed About #GamerGate.” Mindless

Zombie Studios Blog. September 30, 2014.

Carastathis, Anna. Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. Lincoln: University of

Nebraska Press, 2016.

Carpenter, Nate, “Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games [Online Video Series]. Part 1: Damsel In

Distress.” Women and Language 36, no. 1. (2013).

Charmaz, Kathy. Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative

Analysis. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 1993.

Chess, Shira. “Whose Shield is it Anyway? Some Thoughts on GamerGate and NotYourShield.”

last modified August 30, 2016, http://mediacommons.org/imr/2016/08/30/whose-shield-

it-anyway-some-thoughts-gamergate-and-notyourshield.

Chess, Shira. Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 2017. 205

Chess, Shira and Adrienne Shaw, “A Conspiracy of Fishes, or, How We Learned to Stop

Worrying About #GamerGate and Embrace Hegemonic Masculinity.” Journal of

Broadcasting and Electronic Media 59, no. 1 (2015).

Choudhury, Munmun de and Sushovan De. “Mental Health Discourse on Reddit: Self-

Disclosure, Social Support, and Anonymity.” Proceedings of the Eight International

AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.

Christensen, Ann-Dorte, and Sune Qvotrup Jensen, “Combining Masculinity and

Intersectionality.” International Journal for Masculinity Studies 9, no. 1 (2014).

Chu, Arthur. “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone: Why Are Gamers So Angry?” Daily Beast. August

28, 2014.

Code, Lorraine. “Taking Subjectivity Into Account,” in Feminist Epistemology. New York:

Routledge, 1993. 15-48.

CNET. “Watch Google CEO Sundar Pichai Testify Before Congress.” YouTube video. 3:29:22.

December 11, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qS7eyUo_uk.

Code, Lorraine. “Taking Subjectivity Into Account.” In Feminist Epistemologies. Eds. Linda

Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of

Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Collins, Patricia Hill and Sirma Bilge. Intersectionality. Malden: Polity Press, 2016.

“Columbine Families Sue Computer Game Makers.” BBC News. May 1, 2001.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1295920.stm

Condis, Megan Amber. “Playing the Game of Literature: Ready Player One, The Ludic Novel,

and the Geeky ‘Canon.’” Journal of Modern Literature 39, no. 2 (2016). 206

Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

Cote, Amanda C. “Writing ‘Gamers’: The Gendered Construction of Gamer Identity in Nintendo

Power (1994-1999).” Games and Culture 13, no. 5 (2018).

Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.” University of Chicago

Legal Forum 8, no. 1 (1989).

Daniels, Jesse. Cyber Racism: White Supremacy Online and the New Attack on Civil Rights.

Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2009.

Davis, Kathleen. Periodization and Sovereignty. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

2017.

DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

Boston: Beacon Press, 2018.

Dockray-Miller, Mary. “Old English Has a Serious Image Problem.” JSTOR Daily. May 3,

2017.

Donaldson, Mike. “What is Hegemonic Masculinity?” Theory and Society 22, no. 5 (1993).

Dorsey, Jack. “Social Media and Content Monitoring,” Testimony Before the House Energy and

Commerce Committee. September 5, 2018.

Douglas, David M. “Doxing: A Conceptual Analysis.” Ethics of Information Technology 18, no.

3 (2016).

Dreyfuss, Emily. “Twitter’s Chronological Timeline Will Save Us from Ourselves.” Wired.

September 18, 2018.

Eagleton, Mary. Figuring the Woman Author in Contemporary Fiction. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2005. 207

Ensmenger, Nathan. The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics

of Technical Expertise. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010).

“Eulogy for ‘Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian.’” Newgrounds. Last modified July 6, 2012.

https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/598591.

“Eurogamer blasts Kingdom Come: Deliverance for a lack of representation when its own staff,

by an editor’s admission, isn’t diverse enough.” Reddit. March 23, 2018.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/86mqnv/eurogamer_blasts_kingdo

m_come_deliverance_for_a/

Everitt-Pehnale, Brittany and Kopano Ratele. “Rethinking ‘Traditional Masculinity’ as

Constructed, Multiple, and Not Equal to Hegemonic Masculinity.” South African Review

of Sociology 46, no. 2 (2015).

Fan, Christopher T. “Not All Nerds.” The New Inquiry. November 6, 2014.

https://thenewinquiry.com/not-all-nerds/

Fenster, Mark. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Ferree, Myra Marx and Patricia Yancey Martin. “Doing the Work of the Movement: Feminist

Organizations.” In Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women’s Movement. Ed.

Ronnie J. Steinberg. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. 3-26.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton, 1997. 5.

Gajjala, Radhika. “A Response to Shani Orgad,” In Internet Inquiry. eds. Annette N. Markham

and Nancy K. Baym. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009. 61-67.

“#GameOverGate.” Storify. Accessed January 26, 2018.

“#GamerGate Explained in Five Minutes or Your Money Back.” Imgur. Accessed December 2, 208

2018.

Gies, Arthur. “Bayonetta 2 Review: Heaven and Hell.” Polygon Magazine. October 13, 2014.

https://www.polygon.com/2014/10/13/6957677/bayonetta-2-review-wii-u.

Golding, Dan. “The End of Gamers.” Tumblr (blog). August 28, 2014.

https://dangolding.tumblr.com/post/95985875943/the-end-of-gamers

Gramsci, Antonio. The Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935. New York: New York

University Press, 2000.

Gray, Kishonna, Bertan Buyukozturk, and Zachary G. Hill. “Blurring the Boundaries: Using

GamerGate to Examine ‘Real’ and Symbolic Violence Against Women in Contemporary

Gaming Culture.” Sociology Compass 11, no. 3 (2017). 1-8.

Griffith, D.W. and Thomas Dixon. 1915. Birth of a Nation. Los Angeles, CA. Triangle Film

Corp.

Griffiths, Morwena. Feminisms and the Self: The Web of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Gunasena, Natassja B. “And WOC are Invisible Again: Anita Sarkeesian.” Irresistible

Revolution (blog). March 11, 2013. http://www.irresistible-

revolution.com/post/45143183984/and-woc-are-invisible-yet-again-anita-sarkeesian

Halleck, Gurney. “Untimely Meditations on GamerGate.” A People’s History of GamerGate.

http://www.historyofgamergate.com/

Hancock, Ange-Marie. Intersectionality: An Intellectual History. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2016.

Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of

Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988).

Harding, Sandra. Feminism and Method. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. 209

Harding, Sandra.“The Method Question.” Hypatia 2, no. 3 (1987).

Harmon, Amy. “Violence is Big Piece of the Interaction in Realistic, Ultra-Graphic Video

Games.” Los Angeles Times. May 29, 1995. https://www.latimes.com/bs-xpm-1995-05-

30-1995150113-story.html.

Harold, Christine. “Pranking Rhetoric: ‘Culture Jamming’ as Media Activism.” Critical Studies

in Media Communication 21, no. 3 (2004).

Harrison, Brian F., and Melissa R. Michelson. “Gender, Masculinity Threat, and Support for

Transgender Rights: An Experimental Study.” Sex Roles (2018).

Hartsock, Nancy. Money, Sex, and Power: Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism. New

York: Longman, 1983.

Hearn, Jeff. “Neglected Intersectionalities in Studying Men: Age/ing, Virtuality,

Transnationality.” In Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in

Gender Studies. Eds. Helma Lutz, Maria Teresa Herrera Vivar, and Linda Supik.

Burlington: Ashgate, 2011.

Hegel, Georg. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A.V. Miller. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1977.

Hekman, Susan. “Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited.” Signs 22, no. 2

(1997).

Hern, Alex. “Reddit Women Protest at New Front-Page Position.” Guardian. May 13, 2014.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/reddit-women-protest-front-page-

subforum-subreddit-position

Hine, Christine. “How Can Qualitative Internet Researchers Define the Boundaries of Their 210

Projects?” In Internet Inquiry. Eds. Annette N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym. Thousand

Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009.

Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Magazine. November

1964. https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/.

hooks, bell. “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory.” In Feminist Theory: From Margin to

Center. Boston: South End Press, 1984.

“How Reddit Works.” Reddit. Last modified July 30, 2014.

https://redditblog.com/2014/07/30/how-reddit-works-2/.

Howe, William T., Dalaki Jym Livingston, and Sun Kyong Lee. “Concerning Gamer Identity:

An Examination of Individual Factors Associated With Accepting the Label of Gamer.”

First Monday 24, no. 3 (2019).

Huffman, Steve. “In response to recent reports about the integrity of Reddit, I’d like to share our

thinking.” Reddit. Accessed March 15, 2018.

“Idiot SJW Bothers RPG Company Because their Game Set in Medieval Bohemia Doesn’t Have

Any PoC.” Reddit. February 3, 2014.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/1ww07f/idiot_sjw_bothers_rpg_co

mpany_because_their_game/

Introna, Lucas D., and Helen Nissenbaum. “The Politics of Search Engines.” The Information

Society 16, no. 3 (2000).

Isaac, Mike. “Reddit Sets New Content Policy, Banning Some Racist Communities.” New York

Times. August 5, 2015. https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/reddit-sets-new-

content-policy-banning-some-racist-communities/.

Jaggar, Alison. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. New Jersey: The Harvester Press, 1983. 211

Jamnik, Matthew R., and David J. Lane. “The Use of Reddit as an Inexpensive Source for High-

Quality Data.” Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation. 22, no. 5 (2017). 1-10.

Jhaver, Shagun, Larry Chan, and Amy Bruckman. “The View from the Other Side: The Border

Between Controversial Speech and Harassment on Kotaku in Action.” First Monday 23,

no. 2 (2018).

Kain, Erik. “#GamerGate is Not a Hate Group, It’s a Consumer Movement.” Forbes. October 9,

2014. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/09/gamergate-is-not-a-hate-group-

its-a-consumer-movement/#67991a8a4cd5

Kaufman, Amy S. “A brief History of a Terrible Idea: The ‘Dark Enlightenment.’” The Public

Medievalist. February 9, 2017.

Konzack, Lars. “Rhetorics of Computer and Video Game Research.” In The Players’ Realm:

Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming. Eds. J. Patrick Williams and Jonas

Heide Smith. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007. 91-109.

Johnston, Casey. “The Death of the ‘Gamers’ and the Women who ‘Killed’ Them.” Ars

Technica. August 24, 2014.

Lane, Rick. “Kingdom Come: Deliverance Review—Impressively Detailed Medieval Life Sim.”

The Guardian. February 15, 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/feb/15/kingdom-come-deliverance-review-

medieval-rpg

LeoPirate. “#GamerGate in 60 Seconds.” YouTube video. October 5, 2014.

Letherby, Gayle. Feminist Research in Theory and Practice. Philadelphia: Open University

Press, 2003.

Lin, Nan. “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital.” Connections 22, no. 1 (1999). 212

Lomuto, Sierra. “White Nationalism and the Ethics of Medieval Studies.” In the Medieval

Middle. December 5, 2016. http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2016/12/white-

nationalism-and-ethics-of.html

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” in Sister

Outsider. Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007.

Luders, Marika. “A Response to Shani Orgad.” In Internet Inquiry. Eds. Annette N. Markham

and Nancy K. Baym. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009.

Lynskey, Dorian. “How Dangerous is Jordan B Peterson, the Rightwing Professor Who ‘Hit a

Hornets’ Nest.’” The Guardian. February 7, 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-

the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest.

Marechal, Natalie. “When Bots Tweet: Toward a Normative Framework for Bots on Social

Networking Sites.” International Journal for Communication 10 (2016).

Markey, Patrick M., and Christopher J. Ferguson. “Teaching Us to Fear: The Violent Video

Game Panic and the Politics of Game Research.” American Journal of Play 10, no. 1

(2017).

Markham, Annette, and Elizabeth Buchanan. “Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research:

Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0).”

Association of Internet Researchers.

Martin, Patricia Yancey. “Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? Reflections on Connell’s

Masculinities.” Gender and Society 12, no. 4 (1998).

Massanari, Adrienne. “GamerGate and The Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance,

and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures.” New Media and Society 19, no. 3 (2017). 213

McCall, Leslie. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and

Society 30, no. 3 (2005).

McWhertor, Michael. “Kotaku-Tan, the Shirt for the Kotaku Fan.” Kotaku. February 22, 2010.

https://kotaku.com/kotaku-tan-the-t-shirt-for-the-kotaku-fan-5477407

MedievalPOC (blog). 2014.

http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/75252294049/hi-ive-been-looking-at-a-kickstarter-

for-a

Messner, Michael A. “The Limits of ‘The Male Sex Role’: An Analysis of the Men’s Liberation

and Men’s Rights Movements’ Discourse.” Gender and Society 12, no. 3 (1998).

Moller, Michael. “Exploiting Patterns: A Critique of Hegemonic Masculinity.” Journal of

Gender Studies 16, no. 3 (2007).

Mora, Maria Jose, and Maria Jose Gomez-Calderon. “The Study of Old English in America

(1776-1850): National Uses of the Saxon Past.” The Journal of English and Germanic

Philology 97, no. 3 (1998). 322-336.

Nadal, Kevin L., et al. “Emotional, Behavioral, and Cognitive Reactions to Microaggressions:

Transgender Perspectives.” American Psychological Association 1, no. 1 (2018).

Nagle, Angela. Kill All Normies. Washington: Zero Books, 2017.

“New Subreddits By Date.” Reddit Metrics. redditmetrics.com/history.

O’Brien, Luke. “The Making of an American Nazi.” The Atlantic. December 2017.

O’Leary, Catherine. “Counteridentification or Counterhegemony? Transforming Feminist

Standpoint Theory.” Women and Politics 18, no. 3 (1998).

Oremus, Will. “Twitter’s New Order.” Slate. March 5, 2017.

Orgad, Shani. “How Can Qualitative Internet Researchers Make Sense of the Issues Involved in 214

Collecting and Interpreting Online and Offline Data?” In Internet Inquiry. Eds. Annette

N. Markham and Nancy K. Baym. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2009.

O’Rourke, Patrick. “Sexism, Misogyny, and Online Attacks: It’s a Horrible Time to Consider

Yourself a ‘Gamer.’” Financial Post. August 28, 2014

Pappa, Giselle, et al. “Factors Associated With Weight Change in Online Weight Management

Communities: A Case Study in the LoseIt Reddit Community.” Journal of Medicine

Research 19, no. 1 (2017).

Parsier, Eli. The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web is Changing What We Read and

How We Think. New York: Penguin, 2011.

Penny, Laurie. “Lara Croft and Rape Stories: Breaking Down the Bitch.” The New Statesman

America. June 18, 2012. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/06/lara-croft-and-

rape-stories-breaking-down-bitch.

Planells, Antonio Jose. “Video Games and the Crowdfunding Ideology: From the Gamer-Buyer

to the Prosumer-Investor.” Journal of Consumer Culture 17, no. 3 (2017).

Plante, Chris. “An Awful Week to Care About Video Games.” Polygon. August 28, 2014.

Plunkett, Luke. “Idiots Fight to Keep a Medieval Game White.” Kotaku. February 5, 2014.

https://kotaku.com/idiots-fight-to-keep-a-medieval-game-white-1516970808

Plunkett, Luke. “We Might Be Witnessing the ‘Death of an Identity.’” Kotaku. August 28, 2014.

Plunkett, Luke. “Awful Things Happen When You Try to Make a Video About Video Game

Stereotypes.” Kotaku. June 12, 2012. https://kotaku.com/awful-things-happen-when-you-

try-to-make-a-video-about-453100881.

Podmore, Julie, and Manon Tremblay. “Lesbians, Second-Wave Feminism, and Gay Liberation.”

In The Ashgate Research Companion to Lesbian and Gay Activism. Eds. David Paternotte 215

and Manon Tremblay. New York: Routledge, 2015. 121-134.

Pulice-Farrow, Lex, Zakary A. Clements, and M. Paz Galupo. “Patterns of Transgender

Microaggressions in Friendship: The Role of Gender Identity.” Psychology and Sexuality

8, no. 3 (2017).

Purchese, Robert. “Kingdom Come: Deliverance Review: History is a Double-Edged Sword.”

Eurogamer. February 20, 2018. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-02-20-

kingdom-come-deliverance-review.

Quinn, Zoe. Crash Override: How GamerGate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life. New York: Hachette

Book Group, 2017.

“Reddiquette.” Reddit. Last modified January 18, 2018.

“Reddit by the Numbers.” Reddit. Last modified November 12, 2017.

https://www.redditinc.com/press

“Reddit FAQ.” Reddit. Last modified January 18, 2018.

Redstockings, The Redstocking Manifesto. (1969).

Richard, Gabriela T. “Intersecting Vulnerabilities in Game Culture: The Effects of

Inequities and Stereotype Threat on Player Confidence, Identification and Persistence

Across Gender and Race.” Proceedings of DiGRA (2015). 1-4.

Rob. “What I Learned Selling My Reddit Accounts.” Medium. April 7, 2016.

Rogers, Richard. Digital Methods. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013.

Rosenthal, Sarah, Noura Farra, and Preslav Nakav. “SemEval-2017 Task 4: Sentiment Analysis

in Twitter.” Proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Semantic Evaluations

(2017), 502-518.

Rosewarne, Lauren. “The Worse You Look the Smarter They Think You Are: The Neckbeard.” 216

In Cyberbullies, Cyberactivists, Cyberpredators: Film, TV, and Internet Stereotypes.

Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2016.

Salter, Anastasia, and Bridget Blodgett. “Hypermasculinity and Dickwolves: The Contentious

Role of Women in the New Gaming Public.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic

Media 56, no. 3 (2012).

Sanneh, Kelefa. “Jordan Peterson’s Gospel of Masculinity.” The New Yorker. March 5, 2018.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/jordan-petersons-gospel-of-

masculinity.

Sargon of Akkad. “Thomas Smith vs. Sargon of Akkad Debate #Mythcon.” YouTube video.

1:21:24. October 9, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTFL0wKmsC0&t=424s.

Sarkeesian, Anita. “OMG! 1000 backers! (and about that harassment stuff).” Kickstarter, June 7,

2012. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-

games/posts/242547.

Seargeant, Philip, and Caroline Tagg. The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community

on the Internet. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Shaw, Adrienne. “On Not Becoming Gamers: Moving Beyond the Constructed Audience.” Ada

Journal of New Media 6, no. 2 (2013).

Shaw, Adrienne. Gaming at the Edge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).

Smith, David Livingstone, and John Kaag. “Thus Spoke Jordan Peterson: A Wildly Popular Self-

Help Program is Leading Young Men to Authoritarianism.” Foreign Policy. April 4,

2018.

Solanas, Valerie. Society for Cutting Up Men (S.C.U.M.) Manifesto.

Steyn, Melissa, and Daniel Conway. “Introduction: Intersecting Whiteness, Interdisciplinary 217

Debates.” Ethnicities. 10, no. 3 (2010), 283-291.

Stokes, Melvyn. D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation: A History of the Most Controversial Motion

Picture of All Time. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Sturtevant, Paul B. Based on a True History?: The Impact of Popular ‘Medieval Film’ on the

Public Understanding of the Middle Ages (Dissertation). University of Leeds, 2010).

Sturtevant, Paul B. “Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages: Tearing Down the ‘Whites Only’

Medieval World.” The Public Medievalist. February 7, 2017.

Swirsky, Jill M. and D.J. Angelone, “Femi-Nazis and Bra Burning Crazies: A Qualitative

Evaluation of Contemporary Beliefs about Feminism.” Current Psychology no. 33

(2014).

Symes, Carol. “Medievalism, White Supremacy, and the Historian’s Craft.” American Historical

Association Perspectives on History. November 2, 2017.

Tang, Duyu, et al. “Building Large-Scale Twitter-Specific Sentiment Lexicon: A

Representation Learning Approach.” Proceedings of COLING 2014 (2014), 172-182.

Taylor, T.L. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press,

2006.

Teitell, Beth, and Callum Borchers. “GamerGate Anger at Women All Too Real for

Gamemaker.” The Boston Globe. October 30, 2014.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2014/10/29/threatening-video-gaming-

industry-movement-grows-arlington-game-developer-forced-flee-her-

home/BRHwDSGjMsSnHquH9jYQIJ/story.html

“TFYC Negotiations.” Imgur. Last modified October 14, 2014. https://imgur.com/gallery/KEtcp

“Thomas Smith vs. Sargon of Akkad Debate #Mythcon.” YouTube video. 1:21:24. October 9, 218

2017.

Thompson, Derek. “The Most Expensive Comment in Internet History.” The Atlantic. February

23, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-

trial/554132/.

Totilo, Stephen. “Bomb Threat Targeted Anita Sarkeesian, Gaming Awards Last March.”

Kotaku. September 17, 2014. https://kotaku.com/bomb-threat-targeted-anita-sarkeesian-

gaming-awards-la-1636032301.

“Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate Hearing.” Washington Post. April 10, 2018.

“Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games’ Tackles Sexism and Misogyny in Gaming.” Huffington

Post, June 14, 2012. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tropes-vs-women-in-

video_n_1597214.

Vera-Gray, F. “‘Talk About a Cunt With Too Much Idle Time’: Trolling Feminist Research.”

Feminist Review 115, no. 1 (2017).

“Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2017.” Human Rights Watch. Accessed

December 1, 2018.

“Vivian James.” Know Your Meme. Last modified July 6, 2018.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/vivian-james

“Voting.” Reddit. Last modified May 22, 2015. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/voting.

Warhorse Studios. “Kingdom Come: Deliverance.” Kickstarter. January 22, 2014.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294225970/kingdom-come-deliverance.

Wilkerson, Isabel. “After 2 Weeks of Mayhem, The Nation is Asking Why.” The New York

Times. December 14, 1993. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/14/us/after-2-weeks-of-

mayhem-the-nation-is-asking-why.html 219

Wilson, Devin. “A Guide to Ending ‘Gamers.’” Gamasutra. August 28, 2014.

Wingfield, Nick. “Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign.”

New York Times. October 15, 2014.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/technology/gamergate-women-video-game-threats-

anita-sarkeesian.html.

Wodinsky, Shoshana. “Reddit CEO Says It’s ‘Impossible’ to Consistently Enforce Hate Speech

Rules.” The Verge. July 9, 2018. Accessed 3 Jan 2019.