https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign)

Gamergate or GamerGate (GG)[1] was a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign motivated by a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture.[2][3][4] It was conducted using the hashtag "#Gamergate" primarily in 2014 and 2015.[1][5][6][7] Gamergate targeted women in the video game industry, most notably feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and video game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu.[8][9][10][11][12]

Gamergate began with an August 2014 blog entry called "The Zoe Post" by Quinn's ex-boyfriend, which falsely insinuated that Quinn had received a favorable review because of Quinn's sexual relationship with a games journalist.[13] The blog post was spread to 4chan, where many users had previously disparaged Quinn's work. This led to a campaign of harassment against Quinn, coordinated through anonymous message boards such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit.[14][15] The harassment campaign expanded to target Sarkeesian, Wu, and others who defended Quinn, and included doxing, rape threats, and death threats.[16][17][18]

Gamergate proponents ("Gamergaters") claimed to be promoting ethics in video game journalism and protecting the "gamer" identity in opposition to "political correctness"[19][20][21][22] and the perceived influence of feminism and so-called social justice warriors on video game culture.[3][23] Proponents alleged there was a conspiracy between journalists and video game developers to focus on progressive social issues such as gender equality and sexism.[24][25][26] Such claims have been widely dismissed as trivial, baseless, or unrelated to actual issues of ethics in gaming and journalism.[27][28][29] Several commentators in the mass media dismissed the ethics complaints as a deliberate cover for the ongoing harassment of Quinn and other women.[30][31] Gamergaters frequently denied any such harassment took place, falsely claiming it to be manufactured by the victims.[32][33]

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Game developer Zoë Quinn was the initial target of the harassment campaign.

The controversies and events that would come to be known as Gamergate began in August 2014 as a personal attack on Quinn, incited by a blog post by Quinn's former boyfriend, Eron Gjoni.[55][46][49] Called "The Zoe Post",[b] it was a lengthy, detailed account of their relationship and breakup[57] that included copies of personal chat logs, emails, and text messages.[50] The blog falsely implied that Quinn received a favorable review of Depression Quest in exchange for a sexual relationship with Nathan Grayson, a reporter for the gaming websites Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun.[13][58] Gjoni later said that he had "no evidence" of a sexual conflict of interest on Quinn's part.[59][c] Grayson never actually reviewed any of Quinn's games, and his only Kotaku article mentioning them was published before their relationship began.[59][60][61] Nonetheless, as reported by The Daily Dot, gamers online used Gjoni's blog to accuse Quinn, without evidence, of trading sex for professional advancement.[62][17] A link to the blog was posted to 4chan, where many users had previously been highly critical of Depression Quest, which led to renewed attacks on Quinn.[63]

After Gjoni's blog post, Quinn and their family were subjected to a virulent and often misogynistic harassment campaign.[18][64][32] Online attackers of Quinn at first used the label "Quinnspiracy",[60][65][66] later adopting the hashtag "#Gamergate" after it was coined by the actor Adam Baldwin on August 27, 2014,[d][52] whose nearly 190,000 Twitter followers helped the spread of the hashtag.[70] Right-wing journalist Milo Yiannopoulos popularized the hashtag on Breitbart News, becoming one of the most prominent voices of Gamergate and the antifeminist movement more broadly.[52] Harassment of Gamergate targets was coordinated via Internet Relay Chat (IRC), spreading rapidly over imageboards and forums like 4chan and Reddit.[71][32][72][73]

Less than four months after Gamergate began, Quinn's record of threats they had received had grown 1,000-fold….One anonymous 4chan user threatened to give them "a crippling injury that's never going to fully heal"…Quinn wrote that "the Internet spent the last month spreading my personal information around, sending me threats, hacking anyone suspected of being friends with me, calling my dad and telling him I'm a whore, sending nude photos of me to colleagues, and basically giving me the 'burn the witch' treatment".[77][60]

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good times…