When people think of “gamers,” I want them to think of Child’s Play, and athletes who play competitive League of Legends, and all the normalization we’ve accomplished over the years. I want them to think of feminism, and games as an art form — something more than mass entertainment. I want them to think of all the amazing things that video games have done, and can do, because that means we get to keep playing more games. But as long as you hemorrhoidal gunt stains continue this asininity, they won’t, and it makes me want to pick you all up collectively and shake you until your rectum leaks out what little brains you possess because YOU’RE SO FUCKING DUMB.

We are winning the culture war. There are multiple TV shows about nerds as role models. For fuck’s sake, in House of Cards, Kevin Spacey plays a goddamn U.S. Representative who relaxes by playing first-person shooters! The only danger to the things “gamers” enjoy doing (i.e. playing new games), is the threat YOU YOURSELF have created, because for some reason you think sharing your toys with others is going to make the world explode.

You, #Gamergaters, with your bilious Internet rage, you think you’re speaking for some core demographic, some historic legacy, but you’re not. You’re speaking for a lie trapped inside your mind; a lie that one somehow has to be “hardcore” in order to appreciate games; a lie formed by social ineptitude and too much time spent picturing yourself as the only creature that matters in the universe. A lie about male power and privilege, and how dare those women try to ruin your fun? (No matter whose expense you’re having it at). The lie you tell yourselves is one completely incapable of recognizing just how far society has come — that equality is important, and that the tech industry has been misogynistic for a very long time, and that we need to change that, and we’re in the process of doing so, despite the mouthvomits you like to pretend are logical trains of thought.

All the real gamers? They’re the developers now, the reviewers, the writers and the players who remember a time when you couldn’t download a virtual copy of your game, but instead had to go to a Toys“R”Us and hope they had it in stock. The real gamers, both men and women, look at your frantic rantings about “ethics in videogame journalism,” and they shake their heads sadly, wondering how you could get sucked in by some script-kiddie /b/tards and conspiracy-nut celebrities gleefully using you as a smokescreen for misogynistic hate. They look at the rich diversity of games that exist now, and they are THRILLED, because no one ever thought we’d get this far, and real gamers like PLAYING GAMES.

I know game developers, personally. I know game reviewers, personally. You know what else I know? That both developers and reviewers know each other quite well, because this industry used to be very small. One where you had to be a gamer to want to make a game, or to write reviews, because the money certainly wasn’t NFL money. It absolutely wasn’t the billion-dollar industry it is now, with games pulling in just as much as blockbuster movies. It was a group of people, doing what they loved, making games, and playing games, and a lot of them are still there, and they’re friends!

Does this mean occasionally there will be a review you don’t agree with somewhere? You better believe it. First off, a review, BY DEFINITION, is subjective. It’s one person’s take on a moment in time from their own perspective. If you don’t like it, look at some other reviews. There’s plenty out there! Second, when you spend a lot of time with other people, you tend to become friends, which means you help each other out. Like donating to a friend’s Kickstarter or Patreon campaign because you like what they do and want to see them do more of it. This isn’t some ethics-blighting stain on the video game industry. This is basic human nature, but apparently you pestilent little toads can’t imagine the concept of friendship. Perhaps you should go watch some Care Bears?

This fallacy that you hide behind — the idea of wanting to make video game journalism some pristine bastion of unbreakable ethics, where no one ever gives a game a 5 instead of a 4 because they’ve known the developer for over two decades and one of their kids is the other’s goddaughter? Yeah. Good luck. Might as well develop cold fusion while you’re at it. You don’t even see the complete idiocy of this idea because you’re too busy wargleblargling your face into your keyboard.

(Oh, and feel free to direct some of that naivete at the actual media, whose job is to cover things that actually matter. Every game reviewer I know is actually highly concerned with the ethics of their situation, because they’ve gone to school for it. They know that acting unethically is a very quick way to drive away consumers.)

(AP)

You know what else acting unethically does (like, say, for example, supporting misogynistic mouthbreathers who get off on making rape threats against women as part of your “movement”)? It drives away supporters. It makes them question your basic humanity and intelligence.

In fact, #Gamergaters, if your concern really was ethics, the very first thing you would be saying about this whole mess is, “Holy shit, get these fucking misogynistic creeps away from us. Let’s find a different hashtag to assemble under RIGHT FUCKING NOW.” You’d be doing everything in your power to make sure the legitimate cause you’re concerned about wasn’t hijacked or used as a shield by those with no other agenda than to make women and minorities afraid, simply because they can. You wouldn’t defend the oppression of someone simply based on their gender (because let’s be real honest here, I haven’t seen a single #Gamergater go after Activision, or Ubisoft, or Rockstar), and you definitely wouldn’t concoct ever-more wild conspiracy theories to support your increasingly flawed view of reality.

(My personal favorite is that a combination of a secret cabal of power-mad journalists are working with the world-threatening feminist agenda in order to remove the purity of video games, because Obama and Jews. That’s a good look, people. Very convincing. I’m surprised you couldn’t work chemtrails in there somehow.)

Unfortunately, all you #Gamergaters keep defending this puerile filth, and so the only conclusion to draw is the logical one: That you support those misogynistic cretins in all their mouthbreathing glory. That you support the harassment of women in the video game industry (and in general). That you support the idiotic stereotype of the “gamer” as a basement-dwelling sweatbeast that so many people have worked so hard to try and get rid of.

And you know what? That pisses me the fuck off. I’ve spent too long as a gamer, seen too much progress made, to let you tarnish that name.

I hope you all, every #Gamergater, picks up a debilitating case of genital warts.

The rest of you — find a different hashtag.

Sincerely,

Chris Kluwe

Eight-year NFL player

26-year Gamer

Note: Several of you pointed out a glaring factual inconsistency in my piece. The original text said Kevin Spacey was a U.S. Senator, rather than a Representative, in the TV show House of Cards. Many apologies.