Then consider these facts. Gamergate claims it’s focused on journalism. I just want to point out that, on twitter, journalism is receiving a lot less attention from gamergate than non-journalists are receiving. Searching on topsy, we can find the number of tweets that occurred over the last 7 days:
#gamergate brianna wu: 3645
#gamergate anita sarkeesian: 2589
#gamergate zoe quinn: 1238
Compare this to Grayson’s mentions:
#gamergate nathan grayson: 113
He gets an order of magnitude fewer mentions than the non-journalists.
How about the authors of those infamous “death of gamers” articles:
#gamergate leigh alexander: 691
#gamergate arthur chu: 97
#gamergate tauriq moosa: 1
#gamergate joseph bernstein: 0
#gamergate callie beusman: 0
#gamergate dan golding: 0
#gamergate casey johnston: 0
#gamergate victoria mcnally: 0
#gamergate anna minard: 0
#gamergate patrick o’rourke: 0
#gamergate chris plante: 0
#gamergate jack smith: 0
#gamergate devin wilson: 0
#gamergate luke plunkett: 0
A female writer (Alexander) tops this list, scoring seven times more mentions than her nearest competitor (Chu), but even she is far behind the non-journalists. One writer (Moosa) gets a single mention, while the remaining 11 writers get zero mentions.
Here are all of the journalists listed on this gamergate boycott list and their mentions:
#gamergate jim sterling: 294
#gamergate matt lees: 211
#gamergate ian cheong: 201
#gamergate ben kuchera: 208
#gamergate phil fish: 130
#gamergate bob chipman: 115
#gamergate john walker: 71
#gamergate stephen totilo: 62
#gamergate adam sessler: 55
#gamergate devin faraci: 48
#gamergate amanda marcotte: 35
#gamergate samantha allen: 32
#gamergate patricia hernandez: 26
#gamergate greg tito: 13
#gamergate jonathan holmes: 1
#gamergate rami ismail: 1
#gamergate simon parkin: 1
#gamergate david bell: 0
#gamergate colin campbell: 0
#gamergate tim colwill: 0
#gamergate mitch dyer: 0
#gamergate cara ellison: 0
#gamergate fruzsina eördögh: 0
#gamergate edwin evans-thirlwell: 0
#gamergate sarah gray: 0
#gamergate tom hatfield: 0
#gamergate britt hayes: 0
#gamergate jon hicks: 0
#gamergate mark hill: 0
#gamergate david hollingworth: 0
#gamergate tadhg kelly: 0
#gamergate jeff klima: 0
#gamergate ross lincoln: 0
#gamergate keza macdonald: 0
#gamergate garrett martin: 0
#gamergate luke mckinney: 0
#gamergate darren nakamura: 0
#gamergate dale north: 0
#gamergate christian nutt: 0
#gamergate mike pearl: 0
#gamergate aja romano: 0
#gamergate jim rossignol: 0
#gamergate samit sarkar: 0
#gamergate dennis scimeca: 0
#gamergate dan seitz: 0
#gamergate joe skrebels: 0
#gamergate zoya street: 0
#gamergate paul tassi: 0
#gamergate kevin vanord: 0
#gamergate aoife wilson: 0
#gamergate josh wirtanen: 0
Once again, the journalists are mentioned far less frequently than the non-journalists.
So how does a real instance of corruption fare:
#gamergate mordor: 164
#gamergate wb: 16
#gamergate warner: 13
Again an order of magnitude lower than the non-journalists.
How about some other cases of alleged journalistic corruption:
#gamergate bethesda: 5
#gamergate mcv: 5
#gamergate ausgamers: 0
#gamergate ea australia: 0
#gamergate game arena: 0
#gamergate gameplanet: 0
#gamergate joab gilroy: 0
They go almost completely unmentioned.
How about another case of alleged journalistic corruption:
#gamergate patricia hernandez: 26
#gamergate anna anthropy: 0
Barely a blip on gamergate’s radar.
Let’s examine whether gamergate is about abuse of the DMCA:
#gamergate dmca: 20
#gamergate takedown: 20
There’s little mention of it.
Let’s look at how insults fare:
#gamergate slut: 438
#gamergate bitch: 371
#gamergate faggot: 193
#gamergate cunt: 131
#gamergate whore: 77
#gamergate fag: 12
Insults easily beat all journalists other than Alexander and they also beat all of the above allegations of corruption.
Let’s test the theory that gamergate is about journalists being corrupted by personal relationships and money, that it’s not about women at all:
#gamergate sjw: 3744
SJW (social justice warrior) beats everything, including Brianna Wu, and I think this shows the overwhelming focus of gamergate is cultural not ethical.
For the sake of completeness I’ve also researched the number of tweets on everything else on that boycott list. I fully expect some gaters to compare the number of Gawker, Kotaku, Polygon, etc. mentions with mentions received by individuals. A couple of responses to that. Firstly, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison of single individuals to organizations composed of multiple individuals. Secondly, I used the individuals’ full names on those searches. Let’s take a look at what happens when I don’t:
#gamergate wu: 6886
#gamergate anita: 6346
#gamergate brianna: 5021
#gamergate sarkeesian: 3424
#gamergate zoe: 1958
#gamergate quinn: 1583
Now they’re beating entire organization composed of multiple people.
The miscellaneous stuff is below.
Game devs:
#gamergate robin arnott: 9
#gamergate joshua boggs: 0
#gamergate brandon mccartin: 0
#gamergate kyle pulver: 0
Publicist:
#gamergate maya kramer: 3
Cartoonist:
#gamergate tom preston: 27
Organizations, etc.:
#gamergate gawker: 6081
#gamergate kotaku: 3813
#gamergate polygon: 3528
#gamergate 4chan: 1286
#gamergate gamasutra: 762
#gamergate escapist: 742
#gamergate vice: 620
#gamergate igf: 486
#gamergate something awful: 439
#gamergate neogaf: 400
#gamergate pcgamer: 369
#gamergate deadspin: 364
#gamergate buzzfeed: 295
#gamergate ign: 276
#gamergate verge: 235
#gamergate indiecade: 221
#gamergate gamespot: 176
#gamergate digra: 97
#gamergate mic: 89
#gamergate rationalwiki: 86
#gamergate xoxo: 65
#gamergate cracked: 55
#gamergate pax: 44
#gamergate new yorker: 42
#gamergate silverstring media: 42
#gamergate destructoid: 37
#gamergate polytron: 26
#gamergate child’s play: 24
#gamergate ars technica: 22
#gamergate rock paper shotgun: 21
#gamergate wired: 20
#gamergate techcrunch: 21
#gamergate daily dot: 17
#gamergate mary sue: 14
#gamergate valleywag: 11
#gamergate badass digest: 10
#gamergate salon: 10
#gamergate gameranx: 6
#gamergate rebel jam: 3
#gamergate motherboard: 2
#gamergate tvtropes: 2
#gamergate daily beast: 1
#gamergate geek party: 1
#gamergate gizmodo: 1
#gamergate nerdlove: 1
#gamergate raw story: 1
#gamergate xbox 360: 1
#gamergate xojane: 1
#gamergate agency for games: 0
#gamergate border house: 0
#gamergate cink: 0
#gamergate comics alliance: 0
#gamergate concourse: 0
#gamergate critical proximity: 0
#gamergate defamer: 0
#gamergate fullbright: 0
#gamergate game gate news: 0
#gamergate game on net: 0
#gamergate idle thumbs: 0
#gamergate io9: 0
#gamergate jalopnik: 0
#gamergate lifehacker: 0
#gamergate loveshack: 0
#gamergate new media rockstars: 0
#gamergate paste magazine: 0
#gamergate pc authority: 0
#gamergate rllmukforum: 0
#gamergate screamer: 0
#gamergate sploid: 0
#gamergate total xbox: 0
#gamergate truck yeah: 0
#gamergate uproxx: 0
Hopefully people will find this data useful. If you want a more fact-based debate about gamergate, please spread this comment wherever you can. I hereby license this as CC0.
[God damn you, BoingBoing, for forcing me remove my links and thus many of my citations. I was going for intellectual rigor here in contrast to, you know, gamergate.]
