Gamergate, SJWs, and QAnon: Context for the Digital Perspectives Directing Political Discourse

Abstract

I describe the websites 4chan.org and Tumblr.com and their subsequent actions in the effort to embody an Internet dynamic that has influenced much of Internet discourses. Events like Gamergate and the Great Meme War were incredibly influential to these digital communities, and these events were stones that spurred some into embodied political action. Similar to how fandom academics justify their object of study by explaining that streets have burned because sports teams have lost, thus that affective attachment is one worth analyzing, I analyze these online communities because people on 4chan were not sincere anti-Semites in 2011; it was a repeated exposure and alignment with controversial arguments to dissuade those unfamiliar to 4chan's inflammatory sensibility that led 4chan users into an ideological Slip-n-Slide towards violent extremism.