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hogposting wrote

"Gamer culture" took a major turn when peer-to-peer communication became common. It produced an environment where calling people horrible, bigoted insults with no real pushback was normalized. And there's an old, well-worn path from that to "ironic" bigoted memes, to "I'm just asking questions" bigotry apologia, and eventually to open bigotry.

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idunnowhoiambuthey wrote

I agree. I also think that the way video games have been marketed as a product for the guys plays a role too.

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celebratedrecluse wrote

i think you are right, this created the social conditions for gamergate because there was no countervailing influence to push many people towards more interesting trajectories

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hogposting wrote

The medium of communication is a factor, too. If interactions are adversarial, relatively short, and dominated by bigoted insults, it's pretty difficult to communicate an effective counterargument. And even if you can communicate that counterargument, it takes a decent amount of knowledge to come up with it in the first place.

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