Viral

Meme Watch: GamerGate Gets Lampooned With ‘Actually It’s About Ethics In Gaming Journalism’

We’ve already tried to explain GamerGate on multiple occasions, but you know what was missing from all of these summaries? Silly jokes and memes. Because damn it, games should be fun. And talking about games should be fun. And articles about games should be fun.

But you see the same dismissive attitude inevitably derail the comments section of every decidedly un-fun news story about a woman — because it’s almost invariably a woman — being threatened after criticizing games or GamerGate in some way:

  • “Actually, it’s about ethics in gaming journalism.”
  • “Regular GamerGaters would never have posted Felicia Day’s home address online.”
  • “Whoever called in that school shooting threat or drove that woman out of her home probably don’t count themselves as part of the movement anyway.”
  • “The violent ones are a tiny minority. The real GamerGate is about ethics in gaming journalism.”
  • “I am commenting on an article about the harassment of an actual human being to say the harassment doesn’t really matter because #NotAllMen. This is an acceptable way to react to human suffering.”

Of course, if you don’t like any of this, let us know so we can correct it immediately. Oh God, please don’t hurt us.

For as much of a bummer GamerGate is, something good has come from it: memes. Most of them are collected at Actually Ethics, where famous moments of pop culture are repurposed as that commenter in every article about something terrible happening supposedly in the name of ethics in gaming journalism. We’ve collected our favorite memes so far, with help from Actually Ethics, Boing Boing, Buzzfeed, and The Mary Sue.

https://twitter.com/c_heller/status/525800826737283072

https://twitter.com/SmarmyJerkface/status/525656431685427200

https://twitter.com/alexlifschitz/status/525624233519742976

https://twitter.com/SaucercrabZero/status/525799675694448640

https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/525312798654758912

https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/525359013706625025

https://twitter.com/TheBlackLight77/status/525690951420100608