Not Quite GamerGate Redux

     It is a bemusing thing when R. Stacy McCain praises a feminist for a feminist political win.   Yet that is what happened over a story of video games, a TERF vs. transgender battle, and online doxxers.

     There are substantively disparate points that arise from this odd confluence, but first some confusion needs to be cleared up. Mr. McCain seems to conflate GamerGate with this incident of a transgender journalist from Vice who defended games that some found unsavory. This would be a cromulent comparison if this transgender journalist was compared with the GamerGate decrial of groups conspiring with (or against) game companies to stop “bad” things in games.

     However, the ethics in journalism, even if the the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, was not the bulk of what GamerGate was about at its root. The saga of Anita Sarkisian and others who pressured game companies to get rid of “problematic” content is a rather long one, but at its core the problem was with “problematic” content and games being “corrected” to reflect the values of the wokescolds.

     GamerGate, in part, was a response to the pressure on video game companies for “problematic” content and the attempt to reign in the “porn” of “sick incels”. Now people are seeing it happen again, and it is bemusing to see the appellation of “GamerGate” switched. Just because a transgender journalist from Vice is an easy target to rally against doesn’t make those who oppose him any less of a danger than they are.

     Radical feminists, no matter how much they hate transgender “women”, are still Leftwing feminists.   Similarly, KiwiFarms are similar to the wokescolds that were the target of GamerGate, and are online harassers and doxxers who just as unhinged as the wokescolds, transgender journalists, and TERFs. The disagreements aren’t over censorship but over what gets censored by whom—which invariably excludes you.

     As much as some games “might very well be criminal”, they aren’t criminal. And as much as they are “porn addition”, we should remember that “sick porn” was so broadly applied as to include any game with a cute female character by the censorious feminist Left and the rest of the wokescolds.   Aside from the conflation of sexy characters with some something more “hardcore” that weakens the argument against said “hardcore” games, such overreach is inevitable and such advocates will turn on you once that common enemy is gone; once that happens what grounds against them will you have other than your own personal opinion?

     Cheering on “de-banking” against “problematic” companies that sell “problematic” just normalized banks and payment processors being able to target you. It validated de-banking being used as a weapon of wokeness and the use of standards like ESG as measuring sticks used by the censorious few who put themselves into positions of power. Again, what is the argument when they turn against you, other than their opinion of what should or shouldn’t be censored or “de-banked” is different than yours? If you could then force them to obey your moral dictates, what’s to stop them or others from similarly imposing their on you?

     In this story, ironically enough, those “porn addled” gamers are the least worrysome part of this, especially when compared to online harassers, radical feminists, and transgender journalists. Unlike all those other groups, the people who make or play these games generally are happy to be left alone and leave others alone instead of pushing their positions on society writ large.