John is here during the year anniversy of the event in gaming known as GamerGate explaining what GamerGate is to him and why he pushes back.

There was one thing, ini­tial­ly, that drew me into GamerGate: the lie. The mad­den­ing sense of in­jus­tice that such a small group of jour­nal­ists could try and erase thou­sands of peo­ple out of cal­lous self-interest. That they could do so al­most ca­su­al­ly, com­plete with shit-eating grins and a hearty sense of self-righteousness. The feel­ing that a few “en­light­ened” peo­ple out­weighed the mass­es; that the truth would be lost in a tor­rent of slan­der that ex­po­nen­tial­ly in­creased as time went on. When you’ve be­come an evan­ge­list for the truth, it con­sumes you. This is what drew me into GamerGate. I think there are a lot of peo­ple that have the idea that those in GamerGate are con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists or ob­ses­sives; GamerGate is con­stant­ly shar­ing ideas and in­for­ma­tion in an at­tempt to break through the wall of mis­in­for­ma­tion that has been erect­ed around them. GamerGate is — at its heart — the sto­ry of a push-back against me­dia malfea­sance.

That’s why I find it so un­palat­able when some of the same peo­ple who wrote slan­der­ous pieces then dis­avow the truth. It makes my blood boil to watch a swindler con­fi­dent­ly as­sert that there is no such thing as ob­jec­tive truth. Like as­sert­ing it makes it so; as if it ab­solves them of their dis­hon­esty and the dam­age that comes with it. I be­lieve the truth has a pow­er, an ur­gency, that keeps peo­ple mov­ing and fu­els them. Those who be­lieve in its pow­er and feel it has been cov­ered up can’t help but keep go­ing un­til that truth sets peo­ple free.

Gaming is a small cor­ner of the world. I know this. We are not in­volved in some great con­flict of life and death. But it is our cor­ner and if we can’t look af­ter our own com­mu­ni­ties, what chance do big­ger com­mu­ni­ties have? Activism is some­thing that — when done right — scales in­cred­i­bly well. A gen­er­a­tion is be­ing built that will nev­er blind­ly trust the me­dia — or any­one for that mat­ter. Once you have been on the re­ceiv­ing end of the dis­tor­tion ma­chine, you can’t help but ques­tion all doc­trines that are sold as un­ques­tioned fact. If the me­dia will go to such lengths to cre­ate a whole moun­tain of pro­pa­gan­da to hide some­thing as triv­ial as a group of peo­ple try­ing to re­veal con­flicts of in­ter­est in Games Journalism, you be­gin to won­der what hap­pens when there are some real stakes on the ta­ble.

The mag­ni­tude of tak­ing on a false nar­ra­tive is frankly ter­ri­fy­ing; once peo­ple have come into con­tact with an opin­ion it clings to them like a par­a­site. People were al­most rav­en­ous to be­lieve the sto­ries about rov­ing gangs of misog­y­nist gamers and the hero­ic women bring­ing fe­male rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the games in­dus­try for the very first time.

We found out that the ground had been well pre­pared for these ideas; a steady diet of fear and shame had been fed to the read­er­ship of many of these out­lets. The jour­nal­ists stood like priests, ready to ab­solve you of your mod­ern sins if only they would cast out the neck­beard­ed dev­ils in their midst. If you don’t fit the mold of an op­pressed per­son then you can be­come an “ally” to Social Justice and work off your ge­net­ic sins in servi­tude of their great dog­ma.

Safe-space doc­trine, white priv­i­lege, in­ter­sec­tion­al­i­ty: these were ideas gamers were un­fa­mil­iar with, they were alien and mean­ing­less. The cul­ture war was thrust upon them, they did not seek it out. Those who say that GamerGate is pure­ly about be­ing “anti social-justice” have it back­wards. Gamers came to com­bat the lies be­ing spread about them and found an ide­ol­o­gy be­hind it — fu­el­ing and in­form­ing it. The two were in­ter­twined. This was mere­ly a mild skir­mish for Social Justice. And one they ex­pect­ed to win quick­ly and com­plete­ly by uni­lat­er­al­ly print­ing self-insert fan-fiction in which the glo­ri­ous jour­nal­ists hero­ical­ly slayed the sav­age gamer and ush­ered in a gold­en age of artis­tic ex­pres­sion. Their source for this was a Tumblr post and hand­ful of shaky aca­d­e­mics. All turned up to 11 and blast­ed out in con­cert.

I re­mem­ber the ques­tion of “Why are you so an­gry?” be­ing lev­eled at gamers on the in­ter­net. The an­swer is sim­ple; in­jus­tice makes those with a sense of jus­tice feel right­ly ag­griev­ed. The nat­ur­al re­ac­tion to a group of peo­ple at­tack­ing your rep­u­ta­tion over a sus­tained pe­ri­od of time is anger and pas­sion­ate refu­ta­tion. That’s the most in­sult­ing part of this whole af­fair to me; the fact that those who slan­dered gamers are in­dig­nant, ap­palled you don’t take this treat­ment ly­ing down. Being in a com­mu­ni­ty that is un­der siege by the me­dia is some­thing gamers are used to. It has been their nor­mal since the in­cep­tion of video games. Refuting these mis­guid­ed ideas has be­come the gamers quest, to in­still the virtue of in­ter­ac­tive worlds and free­dom of cre­ation found in video games.

The idea that games are some­how harm­ful has changed hands from left to right like a hot pota­to over the years but it is still has the same dis­cred­it­ed idea at its core. Despite moun­tains of ev­i­dence to con­trary, they as­sert that when games are con­sumed by their ap­pro­pri­ate au­di­ence they can cause an ad­verse ef­fect to the fiber of so­ci­ety. That games are a ma­li­cious and cor­ro­sive force that needs to be cur­tailed and cen­sored for the “greater good.”

Gamers be­came cal­loused through these ex­changes of self de­fense; they re­al­ized that no one was go­ing to give them the re­spect and un­der­stand­ing they feel they de­served. Not un­less they went out there and shook loose the mis­con­cep­tions built up over the years. To re­fute the nar­ra­tive in the strongest pos­si­ble terms and cite ev­i­dence while stand­ing our ground. This has also been the stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure GamerGate has adopt­ed, ex­cept this time we were fight­ing our own “en­thu­si­ast” press. In the past games have been ac­cused of be­ing de­mon­ic, ob­scene, ad­dic­tive, blas­phe­mous, caus­ing vi­o­lence, low­er­ing in­tel­li­gence, pro­duc­ing mur­der­ers, and now stand tri­al for caus­ing racism and sex­ism. This is just an­oth­er chap­ter of the same book, and I think this will be looked back on with the same de­gree of cringe and shame. The pro­po­nents of this world­view will look as car­toon­ish and out of touch as the rant­i­ng min­is­ters, dis­graced politi­cians, and rav­ing dis­barred lawyers of yes­ter­year. This is the moral pan­ic of the month that Social Justice drug out to a year.

I’m of­ten ac­cused of be­ing on the “wrong side of his­to­ry,” as if there is some pre-destined di­rec­tion the world must be mov­ing at all times. As if there is a set “right” side of any de­bate to be on be­fore the mer­it of the points will even been dis­cussed. What the jour­nal­ists and pun­dits ar­rayed against gamers sim­ply can’t un­der­stand is that our dif­fer­ences are what make us strong. Our dif­fer­ences make us di­verse, and learn­ing to live with those dif­fer­ences, and make peace with them, is what makes us adults.

You can’t have an hon­est ex­change of ideas if you think those who think dif­fer­ent­ly than you de­serve to be washed from the face of the earth. There will al­ways be an ebb and flow of ideas, a move be­tween right and left, in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive, the per­son­al and the pub­lic. History does not have a “side,” it ig­nores the fences put around it, mov­ing as it pleas­es. This is true for hu­man his­to­ry, not just the realm of video games.

There is a weari­ness de­vel­op­ing. Not a weari­ness of de­bate, but a weari­ness of wait­ing for an hon­est de­bate to fi­nal­ly start. People are ready to throw their arms up in the air and just give up on the im­por­tant con­ver­sa­tions that we need to be con­tin­u­al­ly hav­ing. There is a lot of noise but very lit­tle sig­nal — and even less be­ing processed. Moments of un­der­stand­ing and use­ful dis­course are the ex­cep­tion — not the rule. The lie takes on a life of its own, it be­comes self-perpetuating, and those who wrap their egos in it fierce­ly de­fend it. Shielding and prop­ping up this un­wieldy doc­trine be­comes an ends unto it­self, and so no real is­sues can be dis­cussed. Only re­crim­i­na­tions and finger-pointing about the lie it­self. It masks the hu­man­i­ty of ad­ver­saries, and makes the goal a com­mu­ni­ty built to “de­feat” those who in­dulge in wrong-think and dare to be their dif­fer­ent from them.

What GamerGate means to me is the same as what be­ing a gamer means to me: it means com­mu­ni­ty and a place to share ideas and dreams. It’s about over­com­ing in­sur­mount­able ob­sta­cles with the help of those around you. It’s about fos­ter­ing the cre­ation of dig­i­tal words and in­ge­nious me­chan­ics and be­ing able to read cov­er­age from your peers that guide you to the best play ex­pe­ri­ences and a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of the medi­um you love. So that’s why I push back, that’s why I’m still here one year on. That’s why I sup­port GamerGate. And I’m not dead, yet.