site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Sitting here today, I couldn't tell you what it was about if you put a gun to my head, beyond the fact that some people who played video games made misogynistic comments or something.

Oh, oh, let me try. I don't know how you can't know after reading the CW threads.

My understanding is "gaming journalists" had corrupt, incestuous relationships with industry developers. Which makes sense, because gaming journalism is a fake sect of journalism and always has been. Both journalists and the industry developers went pretty hard in the Social Justice paint. Gamers got mad about the ethics and the foreign culture imposed on them. Then, during the uproar some mad people said means things to Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn who are either indie* developers or gaming journalists. Both names I impressively muscled from memory, though their profession I did not.

Once people said mean things to the individuals, then that's the only story anyone in the industry, in gaming journalism, or in mainstream journalism talked about. This side stepped any other concerns which only made people more angry. Now painted as villains, this justified categorical bans and censorship of identified GamerGaters on [platform]. The basic dynamics of -ism'ing your way out of criticism was then put on loop for the following 8+ years. It spread to other media, such as movies, TV, and literature. I understand why people consider it important for that reason.

"Anita Sarkeesian" was another big character, but I was only reminded of her after writing via Wikipedia. I also remember a funny fact that moot, previous owner of 4chan, was dating, or was friends with one of these three. My city paper has 7 hits for " GamerGate" from 2015-2016.