An emboldened fringe of right-wing “manosphere” influencers has seized on Donald Trump’s presidential win to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online.
The internet in general has a misogyny problem, and it’s not just right-wing spaces. Reddit is famous for being left-wing, but it’s hard to get to the second page of r/all without seeing a video where a man punches a woman. That shit is celebrated, and that content comes from multiple subs not known to be chud focused.
Back in 2015-16, I personally saw skeptic spaces on Youtube and Reddit abandon leftest values in favor of Gamergate-misogyny.
You can trace the “woke” criticism of online game discourse straight through to pioneering bigots like “littlefoot” and the “amazing” atheist in their crusade to save anime titties from Anita Sarkeesian.
And while the incel and ‘men’s lib’ movements are explicitly politically right, they do adopt the language and critical framework of academic feminism. They make some valid observations about men’s gender rolls in society, too bad the prescription is never to improve conditions for men, rather to walk back the advancements of women.
It’s like the fact that some prominent atheists were involved at the beginning of gamergate kind of got memory-holed in the upswing of right-wing Christian theocracy.
Personally it’s been wild to witness the atheist-to-Christian pipeline through gamergate and the “facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd.
What’s even wilder is that Sam Harris somehow ended up somewhat less shitty than he initially appeared, because I fully expected a hard-right turn from him at some point.
I listen to his podcast (free version that gets cut off at some point midway through discussion), and I’m way behind on episodes, but what role did he have in gamergate?
The internet in general has a misogyny problem, and it’s not just right-wing spaces. Reddit is famous for being left-wing, but it’s hard to get to the second page of r/all without seeing a video where a man punches a woman. That shit is celebrated, and that content comes from multiple subs not known to be chud focused.
Back in 2015-16, I personally saw skeptic spaces on Youtube and Reddit abandon leftest values in favor of Gamergate-misogyny. You can trace the “woke” criticism of online game discourse straight through to pioneering bigots like “littlefoot” and the “amazing” atheist in their crusade to save anime titties from Anita Sarkeesian.
And while the incel and ‘men’s lib’ movements are explicitly politically right, they do adopt the language and critical framework of academic feminism. They make some valid observations about men’s gender rolls in society, too bad the prescription is never to improve conditions for men, rather to walk back the advancements of women.
It’s like the fact that some prominent atheists were involved at the beginning of gamergate kind of got memory-holed in the upswing of right-wing Christian theocracy.
Personally it’s been wild to witness the atheist-to-Christian pipeline through gamergate and the “facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd.
What’s even wilder is that Sam Harris somehow ended up somewhat less shitty than he initially appeared, because I fully expected a hard-right turn from him at some point.
Sam Harris blamed trans people for Trump’s win so…
I listen to his podcast (free version that gets cut off at some point midway through discussion), and I’m way behind on episodes, but what role did he have in gamergate?
Skeptic spaces had already fractured. The same thing happened in gaming, though, which was a much larger community.