Blockhouse posted:

Something I think is interesting is comparing Comicsgate and Gamergate to the attempts in the last year or so to get a Tabletopgate going.

Tabletop gaming absolutely has a problem with lovely nerds, serial harassers, and bigots but any attempt to try and get an organized movement going like CG and GG has been immediately stamped out by people in the TRPG online community. The audience is theoretically there and god knows there's been issues lately (the new White Wolf being ran by a fascist, the large portion of WH40k fandom unironically into the Imperium's ideology, sexual harassment at Pathfinder Society events), but the community as a whole wasn't having it. Hell the last attempt to make a D&DGate hashtag was immediately hijacked by people talking about their favorite gates from fantasy artwork.

And I feel like a lot of that has to do with the general reaction to Gamergate and Comicsgate which was "ignore them and they'll go away". They didn't. It just emboldened them to be louder and worse and websites started reporting them like they're a valid movement - see Bleeding Cool's incredibly soft-handed approach to EVS about a year before everything blew up - and not people to be told to immediately shut the gently caress up.

Basically I think it's up to people in nerd communities to clean their own house, and comics were pretty loving bad about it. Now we've got this. And this isn't forever. The energy will always taper off or go to other places (just hopefully not "ruining the rest of the world" like GG did) but it should make people be more vigilant from now on.