What the movement’s past can teach us about where it’s heading, and how its legacy can become but a distant memory.
We’re almost seven years through since Gamergate was sprung into being, and it’s safe to say the media hasn’t fully learned its lessons yet. A movement that catalyzed the gaming community’s most misogynistic tendencies became a thread of critique later extended to the broader cultural landscape, one whose partisans deem to be deliberately hamstrung by political correctness — it is of intuition to deem the current state of political discourse but a natural progression from Gamergate’s foundational rhetoric, but arriving at such a conclusion always has become a convenience far-too-many are willing to take.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, darker skin complexion doesn’t always mean bluer politics.
It wasn’t long ago that liberals made the case for identity politics as a reliable thrust for the pursuit of progressive politics, wielding its primary weapon the power of negative polarization as the spectre of a browning America looms large on a nation consumed by white resentment — exit polls of the last presidential elections aren’t definitive metrics by any means, but what they are showing is rather illustrative of the opposite. …
When conservative politics meet trans identity, strange things happen.
Generating controversy is a playbook some have perfected to keep their audiences engaged in an era where distractions are plentiful, and few have quite mastered it as Blaire White. For the bulk of her YouTube career, Blaire was essentially a pawn for the conservative movement that they can play to undermine trans people’s claim to their rights — their attempts have known mild success, but it wasn’t without its pains.
The genius of Blaire’s process is how she launders vile transphobic rhetoric through what might seem like completely-innocuous political punditry. Almost every video there is a new character for the…
A prime example on the pitfalls of prestige and clout in the media.
There are few stories that quite capture the immense privilege some command in the media as Andy Mills’ unceremonious resignation from the New York Times. It’s illustrative of how the most powerful currency in media isn’t journalistic rigor or even an aspiration to change the world for the better, but rather a primal reliance on much clout amassed to silence critique, or worse yet get away with abuse.
Having cut his teeth at the New York radio scene for years before becoming a producer for the NYT in 2016, Mills’ defining moment was the production of the podcast Caliphate for…
A conflict most-fitting of the internet age.
If the 2008 financial crisis hadn’t already exposed Wall Street for the crooks that they are, a collective of retail traders on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit did so even more flagrantly this last Wednesday. It started out as a meme to momentarily prevent the GameStop stock from being shorted, but it culminated into an ideologically-diverse quasi-proletarian all-out assault on the ivory tower of greed and fraud that is Wall Street, with moderate success.
For the purposes of this analysis, knowing the particular details with which the assault on hedge funds looking to short GameStop stock (which author of the Markets Weekly…
When showered with praise for too long, one can become oblivious to their own faults.
There was a time when Glenn Greenwald’s name would command respect, but it seems as though those days are but a distant memory. Once renowned for bringing Edward Snowden’s intelligence disclosures to light, Greenwald’s current feats hold little of their erstwhile splendor — the coveted journalist is often sighted on social media picking fights with media figures over the pettiest of concerns, bolstered by an army of yesmen ready to overlook his every misstep. …
It is society’s duty to provide for them, as it should to all of its citizens.
To be a sex worker, especially in America, is to sustain constant animosity from every corner of society while inhabiting its margins. The discourse surrounding sex work is supercharged with emotion — it makes sense since it fulfills such a primal need for human beings — but seemingly out of disinterest or lack of trying, passionate posturing always triumphed over tact and measuredness. …
Its warts have only been laid bearer in recent years, with the need for urgent remedies ever-pressing.
As a cabal of Trump loyalists stormed the DC Capitol on Wednesday, it was becoming clear that the current state of things is all but untenable. Neoliberalism promised a world where conflict ceases as liberal democracy fueled by the engine of capitalism would take hold, but it has only taken a mere few decades from the time that thesis was upheld to finally witness its abject failure.
To say that the last decade in neoliberal politics has been unsuccessful would be selling it short — regimes across the global northwest assumed the struggle was done once the Cold War was…
Being a catholic socialist in an industry full of irreligious liberals makes for foes aplenty.
It isn’t a secret that media — especially its mainstream installment — is an institution that resists change, and when confronting a flavor of it so rare, its instinct is to often retaliate. …
Putting people’s welfare before the pursuit of profit.
On the heels of a devastating pandemic to small businesses and entire sectors of the global economy, Big Tech stands taller and stronger than ever before. It’s moments of crisis that usually test an industry’s mettle, and to say that tech companies have emerged triumphant would be an understatement — with everyone cooped up at home, legacy service industries suffered a major blow as their plea for survival was answered by tech companies, putting them at the mercy of their every nefarious profit-maximizing procedure. …
