Why are Gamers Called Reactionaries? (A thread)

If you look at mainstream Twitter discourse, you'd think gamers are Ben Shapiro-watching racist misogynists who love dunking on libs for no reason other than they're libs

That stereotype is broadly untrue, but it had a precedent

Most gamers go to their hobby due to social alienation - nerds shoved into lockers, a.k.a. high school movie cliches. They enjoy playing them and have formed communities with other people so shared their hobby

Pre-'culture war', this was the status quo

Now, in August 2014, something happened

Unethical game journo practices (which is vindicated by folks like Jim Sterling today) came out and some gamers fought back against it

It involved a lot of people and kick-started their careers; Milo was one of them

GamerGate being a far-right movement is, indeed, a myth (most were left-leaning at the time)

But Bannon saw potential, a new captive audience and had Milo cover it in Breitbart

All the while, Milo memed Feminism is Cancer and other reactionary ideas into a lot of their minds

A lot of folks bought it because they're not completely wrong

They got annoyed by wokescold behavior (and downright outraged with what they did to Zammi070, cancelling her before the term was mainstream)

By how unethical their opponents were

Another point

Robert Conquest's 1st Law of Politics: Everyone is conservative about what they know best

Gamers/nerds call for gatekeeping their hobbies because they fear mainstream influence seeping in and diluting what they used to enjoy

All of these were Bannon and Milo's weapons in dealing a bloody nose against the left

His tactics gave birth to the anti-SJW community (Shoe, CRG, Blaire White, Sargon, other skeptics, etc.)

Them attacking wokescolds made a lot of people shift center/right-ward

Milo jumped from GamerGate to the Trump campaign, going around campus and making leftists look bad

This also spurred Brexit, right-wing populists being elected across the globe

This was the Internet shifting to the right

This was why TheQuartering, Geeks + Gamers, and other anti-SJW channels get 100k+ views

This was why Brie Larson/any left-leaning response to skeptics/Trump keep getting ratio'd

This was why YouTube comments are... YouTube comments

The left is only recovering because of BreadTube (Vaush, Destiny, Xanderhal) pulling many out of the pipeline and the rise in left-populism

But to the left, Milo and the gamers may as well be one and the same - the people who broke their nose back then

When they dunk on gamers, they see Milo and Bannon and Sargon's faces in them

They remember Trigglypuff and Big Red and the girl who yelled at Trump's inauguration (which righties still use to this day even though they're dead memes)

Which is why they defend TLOU2 or others

TL;DR: GamerGate was hijacked by Bannon, bringing apart the rise of the right throughout the world and the Internet

The left dunking on gamers feels like payback for that defeat

My next thread will be how left can heal the culture war and push people out of the pipeline