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The Gamergate-Like Veneer of Anti-BreadTube Backlash
Methods once hogged by the far-right have now become common in reactionary leftist circles.
If it appeared on the surface that this recent round of backlash against BreadTube is about the actions of one single creator, it has now culminated into what could only be adequately described as a harassment campaign masquerading as legitimate criticism. This in all ways but figurative emulates a similar pattern of behavior by Gamergate, wherein the furor of a disillusioned loud minority is carried out in intermittent doses at first, to now becoming an entire movement of its own with stated goals and objectives it won’t back down from pursuing until they are fulfilled.
Much like Gamergate, the error would be to assume a group whose main mechanism of conviction is to harass a select few individuals into submission, is indulging in the discussion in good faith at all. As it stands today, Lindsay Ellis, Oliver ‘Philosophy Tube’ Thorn and Harry ‘Hbomberguy’ Brewis have made the shortlist of BreadTube creators who have had to stem the tide of relentless and unending criticism of their affiliation with Natalie ‘ContraPoints’ Wynn, merely on the ground of having featured a controversial figure in her latest video. Now that the fruits of BreadTube are perceived as rotten, its critics see the taking of any measures to grind BreadTube’s cultural impact to a halt as vital to their message. Unfortunately many — including me — have been swept under this current of toxicity, and it’s worth establishing a few ground rules about how discourse functions online and apply the lessons of Gamergate to hopefully instruct a more positive change.
The mistake that BreadTube critics make in trying to distance themselves from Gamergate, is they assume the function of its harassment emanates from an inherent sense of toxicity within the community that most predominantly occupies it–in this case, it’s thought that being a white supremacist and a misogynist are the essential, and sometimes only components you would need to qualify as a Gamergate member. That couldn’t be further from the truth–Gamergate’s strength as a movement is that it wields group identity tension between itself and its targets as a valid pretext for why it is its divine right to harass…
