These words are supposedly synonymous and representative of a certain type of political identity, one where people are concerned about social inequality and aim at correcting it.

It involves many activists, coming from and focusing on diverse societal issues, being racial, gender-driven or against normativity and what is called the “status-quo”. Feminism (the modern version aka third wave) is strongly represented, as well as the LGBTQ community and vocal diversity advocates.

I discussed many of these themes in the past, and never hid my deep sympathy for the underlying causes defended by these groups. After all, I was always politically driven towards the left (aka “french socialism”), although getting more center-left as I grew older (either from loosing the “passion” or getting wiser…). As a physician, I can't understand non-universal healthcare (I can understand it economically, but not philosophically) and always refused to work in an environment where it isn't in place, even if it would mean major personal gain.

I despise racism, sexism as per standard definitions, and understand well the concept of privilege and limits of meritocracy. I wrote in the past about my annoyance with “edginess” and trolling and the equivalency of “shitposting” with free-speech.

“I must be a Social Justice Warrior then. I am clearly a liberal.”

These are honest questions I asked myself early on when confronted with the online controversy named GamerGate.

One part of GamerGate was clearly about gaming journalism, one part was more political, and quite complex in that regards. I will not discuss this again. I will focus on some “targets” and later very vocal “opponents” of GamerGate.

Many (if not all) people significantly fighting GamerGate were identified as or sympathetic to the Social Justice Warriors. Initially, I thought that it was quite logical, as a major flaw of GamerGate was to constantly mix opinions it didn’t like with wrong-doing, and most of these opinions were related to “progressive” ideas. Many developers and journalists were trying to change the discourse around gaming from a male dominated medium to a more diversity friendly medium. Although many obviously ignored the great history of gaming and its natural diversity, while focusing on a very recent definition of the field (it seems that it started with Call of Duty for strange reasons…) I found that they had to be lauded for their objective, at least the one they claim they had. After all, I did find way more excitement in smaller indie games than in large western productions in recent years, and the prospect of seeing more games exploring difficult, unusual or emotional themes with original interactions was definitely something I would support (I say “more” here, because such games have existed since gaming has).

However, I was quickly surprised by the challenges in approaching and having an honest interaction with these people. Where people within GamerGate were open to constructive criticism, people actively opposing it were quite agressive at the simple suggestion that the story required a careful analysis of the dynamics at play. In my case, this culminated when I “interacted” with a well known online activist, who presented herself as expert in online harassment. I wasn’t greeted with a discussion or rebuttal as I expected but with a flow of abuse from her fans.

This made me rethink a lot about these people, I thought of them as “bullies with a good cause”. But I was still convinced that they cared about Social Justice. I was wrong.