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You may have spotted a puzzling hashtag trending over the weekend - "Pizzagate".

No, it wasn't anything to do with Super Bowl parties, but instead a prank hashtag from the happy-go-lucky funsters* of #GamerGate

But what's the joke?

It's not entirely clear. It's got more layers of meta than I like toppings on my pizza.

GamerGaters are hailing their ability to get the term to trend as evidence that there are enough of them to get anything trending - and perhaps more importantly - to be able to swamp any anti-GamerGate hashtags.

Estimates of the number of GamerGaters vary from "8 guys in basements" to this optimistic fella claiming that "in reality #Gamergate is probably closer to 2,000,000 or more strong".

And they've been laughing hard at the prospect that some people have been taking the hashtag seriously.

Mind you, true to form, they've also been using it as an excuse to make up stuff about Anita Sarkeesian (@femfreq). Because, remember, as they keep telling you, it’s totally about ethics in gaming journalism, and not about repeatedly harassing women on the internet at all.

But...but...but surely Pizzagate already exists?

Readers in the UK are especially entitled to feel confused, because of course Pizzagate is actually a thing over here. In October 2004, Cesc Fabregas allegedly threw a slice of pizza at Sir Alex Ferguson after a particularly tempestuous match between Arsenal and Manchester United.

In his autobiography Ashley Cole said: "All eyes turned and all mouths gawped to see this pizza slip off that famous puce face and roll down his nice black suit."

Soup and sandwiches were also apparently thrown between the teams.

So we can confidently now expect there to be a Wikipedia edit war on the brilliant page "List of scandals with '-gate' suffix" in order to determine the one true Pizzagate to rule them all.

Pineapples

In the meantime, we'd like to clarify that it is wrong to put pineapple on pizza, and we literally do not care what side of GamerGate this puts us on.

poll loading Should you put pineapple on pizza? 0+ VOTES SO FAR No Nope Nooooooooooo F*** no

[*may not be happy-go-lucky funsters IRL]