According to a recent article from Brianna Wu on Bustle, promoted by the Hillary for America PAC, #GamerGate is an off-shoot of the Alt-Right. What is the Alt-Right? Some sort of Hitler-Satan political hellspawn that is worse than any terrorist organization out there and just short of a collective hive-mind that represents the Anti-Christ. That’s according to the media.

Readers informed me about the Hillary for America tweet, which manages to prop up Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton and demonize #GamerGate while promoting Brianna Wu, all within the confines of 140 characters.

Brianna Wu, a game developer who was targeted during Gamergate, writes why Hillary taking on the alt-right matters. https://t.co/L5UhzeQyfG — Hillary for America (@HFA) September 4, 2016

According to the Bustle article, Wu writes…

“For the public, the most recognizable shock troops of the Alt-Right has come in the form of Gamergate, the hate group still targeting women that advocate for inclusion in the tech industry.”

Wu goes on to claim that outlets have stood in opposition to #GamerGate and that the “ethics in journalism” tag has always been a cover for white men to harass women out of the gaming industry…

“Hundreds of press outlets throughout the world investigated Gamergate, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post, as well as Bustle — and found little merit to their claims to be about “ethics in game journalism.””

DeepFreeze.it has a list of ethical violations from games journalists, from recounting Nathan Grayson’s lack of disclosure regarding paying Zoe Quinn $800 — money that some on KIA speculated was used to abort her ex-boyfriend’s baby based on the Crash Override Network chat log leaks — to PC Gamer’s Tyler Wilde sleeping with a Ubisoft communications officer while promoting the games from her company… without disclosure.

Both of the above cases involved sex for positive coverage; this is mostly because games journalists oftentimes are seen as individuals who lack the social skills and wherewithal to separate business from personal relations. Many of these journalists also seem to potentially exhibit the socially awkward symptoms of one ASD disorder or the next, falling victim to the biological allure of whatever attention they can garner from a female, even if it means partaking in unethical behavior.

Other cases involved people like Kris Ligman promoting products he’s had financial attachments to, to Polygon’s Brian Crecente and Kotaku’s Patricia Hernandez providing positive coverage to friends or organizational affiliates without disclosure.

There are almost countless other cases of corruption, many of which are – once again – covered over on DeepFreeze.it. So it’s false to claim that #GamerGate has no meritorious arguments centered around the media’s ethical violations.

Even still, Wu’s claim about #GamerGate being the Alt-Right Godzilla of politics has been mirrored – as mentioned in the Bustle article – by many other outlets, fawning over the claims made by Hillary Clinton in a recent speech where she denounced the growing threat of the Alt-Right.

Benjamain Wallace-Wells from the New Yorker along with NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin (amongst many others) have been clamoring to call #GamerGate an Alt-Right movement. Sarlin sums up the sentiments from most mainstream media with the simple blurb…

“[Milo] Yiannopoulos is highly associated with “Gamergate” a related movement to the “alt-right” that consists of mostly young male video game fans who warn that so-called “social justice warriors” are conspiring to produce games more targeted to female and minority customers.”

So according to Wu, the mainstream media, and a Hillary Clinton PAC, #GamerGate is an Alt-Right movement: It’s about racism, sexism, transphobia, deregulation, trolling, misogyny, white supremacy, Antisemitism, minority oppression, gender oppression, xenophobia and trolling.

Yet… just earlier this year – before Bernie Sanders’ Presidential bid was subverted by the Democratic National Committee, as reported by the New York Times – #GamerGate was apparently a Socialist movement attached to Bernie Sanders. In fact, some outlets referred to #GamerGate as being associated with a group known as “Bernie Bros”.

Buzzfeed’s Evan McMorris-Santoro lumped the Bernie Bros in with #GamerGate, with a post from January 29th, 2016 that reads…

“Women who support Clinton — or work for her and support her — have consistently cited a barrage of sexist attacks across social media. In the manner of GamerGate trolls or men’s rights activists, according to women who have dealt with them, Bernie Bros swarm, pummeling their chosen target with tweets. It’s become a trope among women who work in politics or cover it.”

Slate’s Amanda Hess wrote a piece in February of 2016, earlier this year, comparing the tension between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton with #GamerGate, dropping in the hashtag in an article about those infamous Bernie Bros…

“Is the Democratic Party’s primary flame war the Internet’s fault? It’s at least a little bit the Internet’s fault. The online battle between Bernie Bros and Hillary bots has been compared to #GamerGate by that movement’s critics, sympathizers, and fence-sitters.”

Vox had a series of explanations centered around exploring the mindset of these Bernie Bros. Apparently women didn’t and couldn’t support Bernie Sanders (and by proxy to #GamerGate, they apparently can’t support Donald Trump either). Nevertheless, Dara Lind’s article from February 5th, 2016 states…

“It’s important to understand this clearly: “Derailing” refers to avoiding responsibility for hurting someone else, by trying to change the subject or claiming that the “real” problem is something else. It is itself one of the obstructionist behaviors associated with the “Bernie Bro” stereotype. (This, too, became a flashpoint during the Gamergate controversy, that the “real” issue was ethics in gaming journalism and not the coordinated harassment of individuals.)”

BleedingCool interviewed Marvel writer Ruth Fletcher, who also reiterated the media’s narrative that #GamerGate was associated with the Bernie Bros, telling the outlet in a June 7th, 2016 piece…

“And no, calling out Bernie Bros, who have used derogatory language, name-calling and threats online, much in the same way the perpetrators of #gamergate did, is not divisive. They are divisive.”

Birth.Movies.Death’s editor-in-chief Devin Faraci, famous for saying that #GamerGate was worse than ISIS, also tweeted out that the Bernie Bros and #GamerGate had some kind of connection.

The Bernie Bros operate just like gamergate – they swarm you to deny they are harassers. Like setting a fire to deny you’re an arsonist. — devin faraci (@devincf) January 30, 2016

So #GamerGate were all Bernie Sanders supporters up until the Democratic National Commitee sabotaged his Democratic nomination and now they are all Donald Trump extremists who are on the Alt-Right? Is that right?

According to Ethan Chiel from Fusion, he at least acknowledges that not all things the media labels as “evil” in this current year is birthed from #GamerGate but instead claims that the Alt-Right movement has been around since the 1990s, writing…

“The essay, which takes its name from “The Californian Ideology,” a 1995 critique of the 90s Silicon Valley culture, starts off with a fine but pretty skippable exegesis of various theories of fascism from the 20th century before diving into a cogent analysis of the rise of the alt-right online. While others have mistakenly cited the movement’s birthplace as the Gamergate movement, this essay traces it back to privatization-friendly changes in hacker communities in the 70s and 80s, as well as cultural influences of the 90s and 2000s, such as the Matrix, with its message that one needs to take a red pill to see the world as it really is.”

So then #GamerGate is a continuation of the Alt-Right from the 1990s? So then where does the Bernie Bros connection come from?

According to Quartz the Bernie Bros were a sexist group of white males who rose to prominence to suppress Hillary Clinton and other politically driven females on the side of Liberal Democrats…

“Bernie Bros was once a playful nickname for a certain white, male, and self-serious segment of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s base. Now it’s become the tag for the multivalent harassment mobs who crop up on social media to hurl reams of uncomfortably gendered, personal hatred at his Democratic primary rival Hillary Clinton and anyone who supports her—or fails to sufficiently support Sanders. (Full disclosure: the Bros have not been kind to me.)”

So basically, these Bernie Bros and the Alt-Right groups are both a collective of racist, sexist white males who cling to whoever they can to harass women? Is that right?

Trying to understand the logic of how Bernie Bros, Donald Trump, the Alt-Right and #GamerGate are connected will require more strings than an orchestra violin section and more red pens than a Paper Mate shipment of back-to-school supplies.

Nevertheless, according to Brianna Wu #GamerGate and the Alt-Right will persist as a movement beyond the 2016 elections, writing in the Bustle article…

“Undoubtedly, the Alt-Right will continue to be a force in American politics well beyond the 2016 election. For some, it’s evidence of the fragmentation of the Republican party — the slow divorce of their corporate wing and their social conservatism wing. “

Except… Wu also believed that many of Bernie Sanders’ supporters were also associated with #GamerGate, as highlighted on a thread on Kotaku In Action, pointing to Tweets Wu made back on February 22nd, 2016…

@bsgbryan Spend some time on KiA. A lot of Gamergate supports Bernie. That’s a fact. — Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) February 22, 2016

Well now… someone seems confused.

For reference, journalist Brad Glasgow did his own independent survey and discovered majority of the people using the GamerGate hashtag lean left and are Libertarians, with a piece on All Think titled “No, Gamergate is Not Right Wing.” The gist of the survey can be summed up with this snippet from Glasgow’s extensive research…

“There are right wingers within Gamergate. There are alt-righters within Gamergate. They’re just not the majority.”