1) @mombot @stillgray @GamingAndPandas @LunarArchivist @kukuruyo @Grummz @guscraw I have this pet theory that Zoe Quinn is ultimately responsible for Trump winning the presidency. Not singlehandedly, but she was the lynchpin. And this may also have led to Brexit as well.
2) So let's start with the basics. Zoe makes a twine thingy, 'Depression Quest'. Not much of a game, but it isn't absolute garbage either - just a forgettable VN. She releases it, and predictably, nothing happens. Until suddenly, it receives rave reviews.
3) Gamers are intrigued. The indie scene was really coming into its own around this time period, so they assumed this was another gem by a creative developer. And thus, sales of the game got boosted, by people wanting to see what all the fuss was about.
4) And to their great surprise...... it wasn't.... anything. At this point, gamers still trusted games media, see. So they left their reviews stating that the game had been overhyped, and that the reviewers shouldn't have fussed it up like that.
5) The reaction by game journos, however, took the gaming community by surprise. Instead of just stating that ostensibly, they'd been bedazzled by nothing, they attacked gamers, accusing them of sexism, Nazism, and a variety of other isms.
6) Then Eron Gronji, Zoe's ex, puts out a statement, with reasonable proof, that he had been abused by her, and that she had slept with the reviewers in order to get good ratings for her games. Predictably, this massive ethical violation caused an uproar.
7) However, instead of apologizing for what was thought to be a few corrupt reviewers, gaming journos and review sites near unanimously attacked gamers, slandering Eron and others. And with the infamous "Gamers are Dead" article, #GamerGate was born.
8) Now this thread isn't about Gamergate - I just needed context for the next part. The main takeaway a lot of people had from the whole affair was this : Gaming media was no longer about objectively reviewing games, it was about pushing an agenda. Ethics and facts be damned.
9) And gamers, and people who heard about Gamergate, extrapolated that question to regular news media. Were they lying, too? Did they, too, push an agenda as opposed to facts? And so they observed news media with increased scrutiny.
10) The first test was Brexit. And for the first time, people saw how the agenda was pushed. The almost-frantic pleas for Bremain. The not-so-subtle namecalling of people who dared to even ask whether Brexit had any pros.
11) People's faith in the media got severely shaken. No one likes realizing they were probably lied to for years. And people loathe being insulted even more, especially when it was for thoughtcrime.
12) The Trump candidacy was an even bigger blow. People, already suspicious, were even more careful in analyzing what the news said about Trump. There was no longer instant belief. And then along came Hilary with the 'basket of deplorables' statement, and the trust was gone.
13) Of course, I admit that it was far more complex than this. But this is the backbone- the skeleton of the whole affair.
14) The reason that the media seem to keep losing ground, why they've dropped all pretense of ethics and have clickbait headlines and heavily edited videos is because they're no longer influential. And they refuse to see how they can get that influence back.
15) People are not stupid. Sure, there are individuals, and there's no one who hasn't had a brain fart, but at the core of it, we're smart. The media fail to understand this. They keep trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people who are now aware of what they're doing.
16) Policing online forums is all they have left. So they get louder and more draconian the more time passes. Soon, they'll lose control of even that.
17) And the best part is that they did it to themselves. They grew too cocky, and they paid the price.
Let's just hope the new, currently rising media doesn't repeat the old media's mistakes.
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Let's just hope the new, currently rising media doesn't repeat the old media's mistakes.
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