4chan Thinks We Are Scientologists, YouTube Thinks We Are Creationists, and Twitter Thinks We Are Marxists: GamerGate, Anti-Intellectualism, and Antifeminism

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Paper Session: Feminist Scholarship Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

There is a tendency in popular and academic discussions of this GamerGate to treat it as something that is unique to games. By focusing on just the academic conspiracy theories of GamerGaters we are able to see how this movement embodies trends that are of particular concern to all scholars. Many of the GamerGate critiques of academia tap into broader anti-intellectual trends in U.S. culture. We also show that GamerGate discourse draws on a long history of connecting feminism to communism in the United States (Storrs, 2007). As feminist scholarship practice increasingly attempts to make academic work more widely accessible, it allows feminist work to be available for critique and harassment in a way other scholarship rarely is. At the same time, this also means that feminist scholarship is uniquely positioned to speak for itself when it is mischaracterized and to change minds even as it is attacked.

Authors

• Adrienne Shaw, Temple U

• Shira Chess, U of Georgia