- They sent me a series of threats that was so serious
that law enforcement got involved.
And I actually fled my home for several days.
This is costing people's lives.
- The topic of discussion today is Gamergate.
- Gamergate. - Gamergate.
- Gamergate.
- Gamergate was the harbinger of
kinda culture wars we're seeing every single day.
- [Reporter] Between sci-fi blockbusters
and billion dollar video games,
nerd culture has exploded out of the basement.
And thanks to social media,
the barriers between culture and fandom have shattered.
This can lead to a deeper connection
with the content we consume,
but it comes with a cost.
As the internet brought diverse new fans
to the boys club of nerdom,
a reactionary movement arose to keep women
and marginalized people away from their fan communities.
This online culture war has caught real people
in the crossfire.
What is fueling this massage monistic nerd rage?
Why are they targeting marginalized creators
with organized harassment campaigns?
And what kind of damage have they done?
(funky music)
Gamergate is just one symptom of a larger trend
that's tearing online communities apart.
And to understand Gamergate,
you need to understand how fan culture turned toxic.
- Fandom, like any group setting with a bunch of people,
is going to have a dark side.
It's human nature to sort of gang up on people
and attack them.
- [Reporter] Thanks to the internet
and the breakout success of Marvel Cinematic Universe,
the overwhelmingly male world of nerd culture
suddenly belonged to everyone.
Most fans embraced the new wave of women, queer,
and otherwise marginalized members in their communities,
but a vocal minority chose
to gatekeep their geekery instead.
It goes without saying
that women are integral to science fiction
since the day 20 year old Mary Shelley
invented the genre with "Frankenstein."
But 200 years later, thousands of angry fans
have suddenly decided that they didn't belong,
not even the biggest franchise of them all, "Star Wars."
The backlash began in 1999 with the release of
"Episode I - The Phantom Menace."
Fans wasted no time mocking their targets,
particularly Ahmed Best,
the Black actor who portrayed Jar Jar Binks.
The actor endured decades of derision from fans
during the early days of the internet.
The attacks on Ahmed were so severe
that it nearly drove him to take his own life.
- I was really just crumbling inside.
- There's a sense of ownership
by a very small group of people
where they were the star of the show
back in 1977, when "Star Wars" first came out.
You see both the minimization
of the importance of that story for other people,
and you also see like this endless harassing
of the people that are telling that story.
- [Reporter] No lessons were learned
by the time of the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy in 2015
when the first trailers revealed
that the main characters would be Rey,
a capable young woman, and Finn a Black ex-Stormtrooper.
Most fans were excited about the potential
brought by a cast of new faces,
but a vocal contingent went on the attack immediately,
decrying the forced diversity of the new trilogy.
- Almost 40 years, we've taken one kind of person
and made them the center of the world
and catered to their every single whim,
and not really represented other people.
So as we're having, you know,
societal change where we're showing other kinds of people
as the heroes, there are a lot of people
that generally, they feel like
something has been stolen from them.
- [Reporter] They directed their anger at Kelly Marie Tran,
the first woman of color
to hold a major onscreen role in the "Star Wars" franchise.
- A lot of fans who kind of had racist
and sexist inclinations
were able to band together
and drive her off social media platforms.
- I haven't got time, sorry guys.
- [Reporter] From "Ghost Busters'" Leslie Jones,
to "Captain Marvel's" Brie Larson,
fans are using social media to attack the actors
who dared to be women in beloved sci-fi franchises,
using tactics they learned
from the most devastating online hate campaign in history,
Gamergate.
- It's been a big year for Esports.
- 60% of teenagers play video games.
They're playing on average three and a half hours per day.
- Esports is real,
it's a billion dollar industry.
200 million people are watching
other people play video games.
- [Reporter] Video games are big business.
And just like with comics and sci-fi,
it's not just for guys anymore.
- They're damsels in distress.
I'm saving the princess.
Am I supposed to let the princess die?
Is that what you want?
That's kinda harsh.
That's kinda hostile.
- Well, maybe the princess shouldn't be a damsel
and she can save herself.
- If you look at the original Nintendo Entertainment System,
there are a shockingly few number of games
where you can even play as a woman.
- Mario!
Ah! Help!
- [Brianna] We kinda have this stereotype
about games being for teenage boys.
(game beeping)
And it's just not true today.
- [Reporter] Women make up 46% of people
who play video games,
and within the male-dominated industry,
women and LGBTQ+ developers
are fighting to make the industry more inclusive.
Tensions in the gaming community boiled
until they exploded in August of 2014.
- What happened during Gamergate
is you saw a lot of factions
of different types of game consumers
ban together sometimes in really toxic and abusive ways
against people that were perceived
as destroying the gaming culture.
Because of that, you had a lot of people
who staunchly believed in the Gamergate movement,
as it was called, coming together to harass and attack.
- So from the beginning, Gamergate supporters have claimed
that this is about journalistic ethics
and about supposed corruption in the gaming industry,
but it has originated as, and it's continued to be
about a sort of undermining women in the gaming industry.
- [Reporter] This was the spark
that ignited a coordinated movement
to attack marginalized developers,
activists, and journalists in the gaming industry,
under the dubious guise of ethics in games journalism.
Gamergate organized on the same underground message boards
that would later lead to the QAnon cult.
They sent their fans to attack developers
like Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, and others like them.
- And I realized that the game industry press
wasn't going to cover what was happening to women.
So when the New York Times
and the Boston Globe asked what was happening,
I spoke out and I told them the truth.
And as a result of this,
I had an unbelievable level of harassment sent my way.
Just the most horrible, damaging, direct death threats
you can imagine with my name, my address, everything.
It traumatized me so badly.
I can quote it to this day.
"Guess what bitch, I know where you and Frank live."
They listed my address.
"If you have any children, we're gonna murder them too."
There's some people that think
these are just words on the internet.
It's not, it has real consequences to real people.
- [Reporter] Careers were shattered and lives were ruined,
but the impact online was even larger.
And it was only a matter of time
before it spread beyond pop culture.
- In the early stages, there was a lot of weight given
to both sides of the issue.
This idea that the gaming community was changing,
and a traditional gamer was disappearing,
which made a lot of people who considered themselves
traditional gamers really angry.
What we can kind of learn from the harassment
that they endured is that we have to be careful
about which people that we empower
in sort of this both sides debate.
- [Reporter] How can fans discuss the movies they like
and the games they play
without being harassed or threatened?
How can we make it safe to be online?
- We need people from technology, you know,
pushing privacy policy, pushing cybersecurity,
all those things to keep people safe
- [Reporter] Fighting online harassment
begins with better oversight of online communities.
Abuse against women is rampant on social media,
especially women of color.
But moderators cost money and platforms are only so willing
to police themselves.
There's not much the government can do to help either,
thanks to the First Amendment speech protections.
Congress can't stop harassment where it starts,
but they can address when bullying turns into threats.
Proposed bills like
the Prioritizing Online Threat Enforcement Act
have been unable to gain traction.
And given the age of your average legislator,
it's not surprising that they have little experience
with the devastation of online harassment.
- You don't want restrict anybody's freedoms,
and you don't want to over-moderate spaces
to the point where you are repressing free thought
and free expression.
But there is a clear and present danger
that has been shown time and time again
in extremism online.
- [Reporter] In 2016 and 2020, Briana Wu ran for Congress,
and she'll keep running until things finally change.
- The reason I decided to run for Congress
is that I wanted to throw my voice into the mix.
I wanted to do what I could to try to make a difference.
This is not the first time,
you know, mankind has struggled with a new technology
and fitting into a policy that works for society.
It's time to think about this for the internet.
You know, we can make this better.
- [Reporter] Movies and games have a meaningful impact
on our lives.
We form entire communities online
just to share our experiences and excitement.
But in the algorithmic echo chambers of today's internet,
all it takes to turn fandom into a frenzy
is a little bad influence.
(foreboding music)