Back in 2014, a scandal called “GamerGate” rocked the gaming world. I wrote three pieces about it, one of them even suggesting gamers might be able to change the world… At the time, this thought was based on nothing more than WikiLeaks’ urging of gamers to look outside their hobby and at the bigger picture in the world. Little did I expect it to actually become reality, but here we are – it did, at least to some extent. President Trump achieved a sensational victory when all the odds were stacked heavily against him. And a lot of the same people who were involved in GamerGate, while a small portion of his voter base, were a considerable part of the driving force that made the miracle happen.
#GAMERGATE
#GamerGate began in the summer of 2014 when gamers discovered that a Kotaku writer had given privileged coverage to an indie developer he’d had sexual relations with. Understandably, gamers were pissed about this and started tweeting. The media responded with coordinated articles on numerous game sites attacking and insulting gamers, which added several tons of fuel to the fire. Gamers began discussing boycotts of Kotaku and the entire Gawker media which it was a part of, and sending e-mails to Gawker advertisers, convincing them to drop their support. And thus, the consumer revolt was underway.
Obviously, it wasn’t this one particular occasion of corruption that caused the whole storm… It was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. Gamers had known game journalists to write unethically and accept bribes from developers for many years. But this was the perfect time and place for something bigger to begin, for all the pent-up outrage with journalists that were supposed to be on their side, but instead turned on them at the drop of the hat, to burst forth. Major investigation began on the chan image boards and Reddit, with hundreds of people searching and uncovering corruption among game journalists. Soon, it became clear that the coordinated anti-gamer attacks were not a coincidence – game journalists had secret mailing lists where they would collude about the kind of agenda to push on their sites… These revelations only made GamerGate grow, reaching tens of thousands of supporters very fast.
And then, bigger players in society began noticing. Among them, WikiLeaks, the fearless team of journalists who chose to work for the good of the people of the world – in stark contrast to 99% of journalists who would rather play whatever tune their masters ordered, forgetting the entire point of journalism. WikiLeaks tweeted that gamers should go outside the realm of gaming and look at mainstream journalism, and the establishment as a whole. Plenty of GamerGate investigators had already started making the connections, and this only urged them to work harder.
The so-called “SJWs” that appeared as the main GamerGate enemy in this cyber war hadn’t just popped up out of nowhere. These people had been carefully, thoroughly targeted and indoctrinated by people with more power than them, often teachers and university professors. Those educators had themselves, when not outright malicious, become targets of this same indoctrination whose final goals were – and gamers quickly figured this out – censorship and the destruction of liberty. The force engaging GamerGate on the cyber battlefield of Twitter was mostly composed of “useful idiots,” people deceived into believing they were on the “right side,” supposedly protecting “women and minorities” (that GamerGate never actually attacked), while they were in fact working against their own society’s most fundamental freedoms.
Investigative work continued, and the link to mainstream media became all the more obvious when several of these outlets aired programs slandering GamerGate and gamers as a whole. In the meantime, links between main anti-GamerGate figures and Common Core, the Bill Gates-sponsored “educational reform” were found. Things were evidently going as high up as the government… Many concluded SJWs were nothing but the vanguard paving the way for a dystopian future, a 1984 and Brave New World mix the people in power wanted for our children. The true enemy was nothing less than globalism itself – and globalism seemed all but inevitable back in 2014. While many gave up before such an obstacle, other gamers realised that in order to be able to enjoy their video games in peace again, they just might have to actually change the world…
TRUMP EMERGES
It’s no surprise that the people who want to make gaming great again threw their support behind the man who promised he would make America great again. When Trump joined the Republican primary race in June 2015 and began making his epic speeches soon after, most GamerGate people didn’t hesitate to throw their support behind him. Of course, with GamerGate being home to many liberals, a great part of them chose to back Bernie Sanders, instead. But the majority was definitely behind Trump. Support for candidates like Clinton or Jeb Bush within the movement was virtually zero. This Trump/Sanders split showed that people of GamerGate knew that the establishment had to be brought to an end – not only for the sake of gaming, but also for the sake of the US and the world. They, before most others in society, had seen the dangers that globalism posed to freedom, and rallied behind the two candidates that opposed globalism.
Their own GamerGate struggle achieved some major victories, but was also failing to make the huge impact on gaming’s future it was hoping for. As GamerGate was getting slower, these people focused on the bigger goals that Trump and Sanders had opened up before them. President of the US, while not almighty, was a powerful position, and the right man could achieve a lot and undo many of the ills in society caused by the powers that be. Obama had appeared to be that man 8 years ago, but reality proved otherwise. A change was necessary. As the primary race rolled on, it became more and more obvious that Sanders would not be allowed to win the Democratic party’s nomination. Later on, WikiLeaks revealed that the party had rigged its elections against him and in favour of the establishment candidate… This didn’t really surprise anybody in the GamerGate ranks. The establishment would fight tooth and nail to keep its power.
TRUTH – THE SWORD THAT CUTS THROUGH ALL LIES
Thus, only Trump remained… Unlike Sanders, he kept racking up primary wins and it became more and more obvious that he would be the Republican nominee. Everything the media was throwing at him seemed to be running off like water off a raincoat. And the main reason for that was the same as the one that brought success to GamerGate – the truth is the sword that cuts through all lies. By always telling the truth, Trump was gaining more and more supporters every day. It didn’t matter that he didn’t act like a politician – if anything, it was helping. He was insulted and villified 24/7, and yet he kept winning – psychologically, this was bound to bring lots of GamerGate supporters to his side, as their situation in the early days was exactly the same. Trump’s fundamental message was that people of his country should be able to choose their own destiny, and GamerGate fought for the same right for gamers. The Republican party’s establishment eventually had to capitulate and admit their defeat. Trump became their nominee.
Another major value GamerGate and Trump shared was the strong, unwavering anti-political correctness stance. Trump would often say things that made certain people feel “offended,” but that didn’t matter to him – he stayed true to his vision and wouldn’t backtrack even one step. GamerGate had found out what dangers political correctness posed to free speech and liberty. They knew political correctness, while well-intentioned on the surface, eventually led to nothing but auto-censorship – the worst form of censorship where the individual’s very mind is eventually bent to the will of those imposing the censorship. Thus, it was natural to support the one man who would not let political correctness drag him back.
And so, it was anti-establishment Trump vs. the very establishment candidate, Clinton… It came to no surprise to most, much fewer people who followed GamerGate, that many of Trump’s party’s well-known figures stood against him. The Republican/Democratic political split was, in reality, nothing but charade for the masses, the most powerful individuals in the two parties being in bed with each other behind the scenes. Almost everyone in the Democratic party was a globalist, except a handful like Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. The vast majority of the Republican party were globalists, too – failed presidential candidate John McCain being a textbook example. Most of the Republican establishment figures who did so supported Trump only because they didn’t want to make the party look too bad, and in hopes that should the unthinkable happen and he came to power, they’d get a nice position in return…
VICTORY
And boy, did the unthinkable happen! Many of the corrupt media had foolishly believed that Trump was the easiest possible hurdle before their beloved Clinton, and had thus held back a bit with their attacks on him during the primaries. But when it was Trump vs. Clinton, the media went all out with their insults, attacks on character, and other fabrications. They tried their hardest to make Trump look like a reincarnated Hitler, painting pictures of nuclear doom if he should come to power, all the while convincing everybody that his chances to actually win were minimal. Even Hollywood celebrities threw their respectability in the gutter, getting so deeply involved in politics for the first time in history. However, these attacks continued to run off like water off a raincoat, and Trump continued gaining speed. The media doubled down, only to eventually face the shocking truth on November 9th…
In the midst of all this, GamerGate and other like-minded individuals on social media, on the chans and on Reddit, were working quietly in the background. Even people who weren’t so well-read in matters like geopolitics instinctively grasped that this election was unlike any other. Something truly important was at stake, a non-establishment candidate was truly challenging the status quo and a victory could truly change everything. 2016 was the year in which everything changed. Armed with the mighty sword that is the truth and using their beloved memes to present the information in an appealing way, Trump’s supporters spread it everywhere on the internet – the one area in the world where the establishment did not, and could not possibly have control. Trump’s victory was won on the cyber battlefields of social media – and he himself led the charge by posting frequently on Twitter. It is no surprise that he fondly refers to his teammates on that ground as “his internet people”…
On November 9th, news of Trump’s victory shocked the whole world – the media had had everybody convinced of the him losing with the evidently fake poll numbers they had presented… His victory alone was already a crushing defeat for the establishment in the face of their media. Mainstream media was dying, social, peer-to-peer media was the future. Truth had triumphed over lies, the will for a change had defeated the seemingly invincible powers of the status quo. The average American was tired of living a miserable life in the country that was supposedly the best in the world, while the politicians and their absurdly rich puppet-masters only grew richer. Trump was the average American’s message. Far more important than Trump becoming president was the fact that the average American had awakened from his slumber and seen who his true enemies were. Not the innocent Middle Eastern countries his military kept bombing, but the very people getting ever richer thanks to these endless wars.
THE FUTURE REMAINS UNCERTAIN
Trump’s victory alone doesn’t guarantee anything. His actions in the first weeks of his presidency show that he intends to stay true to his campaign promises, but a war against the “deep state” is already ongoing, as intelligence agencies spying on his team and then leaking information to the media led to the resignation of one of his trusted advisors, Mike Flynn. Should Trump lose this war, nothing in the US government or foreign policy will change. Globalism will be back on track, and it won’t be for another 4 years at least that people will get another chance to change their destiny democratically.
But one thing that cannot be undone no matter what happens – people’s awakening. While US is in the vanguard as far as the Western world goes (though still behind pioneers like Hungary), support for globalism is dropping worldwide, at staggering levels. Anti-establishment media outlets are getting record viewer numbers, even the ones who try to sell you viagra on the side. After decades of media brainwashing, many people have finally opened their eyes to the truth – not only in the US, but also in Europe. European Union bureaucrats many have taken a firm stance against Trump, erasing all doubt that they were globalist pawns, but the EU is far too weak in every aspect, and even more so after Brexit, to resist the wind of change if Trump manages to win the internal US struggle. Like Americans, Europeans have taken a strong stance against every global trade deal and obviously prefer their own nations’ sovereignty over an outside power telling them how to live their lives.
GamerGate may have been just a small regiment in Trump’s army, but their role was important. Their efforts will of course get no recognition, and the only people to link GamerGate and Trump now are the very SJWs GamerGate fought back then, and mostly because it’s a convenient bogeyman. But gamers were not in this for glory…
Gamers are normally a rebellious group. Yet, here we saw them take a stand for truth, justice, belief in something larger than yourself, and living as righteously as possible. Surely, they’d realised that society had turned so bad, being righteous was the only way left to rebel… And they managed to spread their message so successfully that their man got into the White House.
It’s quite unreal to be saying this with any degree of seriousness, but… The world owes thanks to gamers.