The Gamer to Alt-Right Pipeline
Online platforms have seen a rise in dangerous far-right movements that have impacted offline politics and society as well. These groups have pushed the Overton Window on many public policy positions to the right, as well as radicalized members into violent acts with a spike in far-right extremism in recent years. These groups have been popular with many traditional conservative bases, as well as being particularly popular with young white men. Young white men are also a demographic who consume a high amount of video game themed streaming content.
While consuming this content, these youth are far from passive observers and consumers. Rather, this content and the creators who produce it act as a social group and community of individuals with a similar interest, and as such, that group has a high amount of influence on the views of individual members. Gamer subgroups offer community and a sense of belonging.
With other online groups, content creators use keywords and their role as trusted influencers to groom viewers, exposing them to keywords, familiarizing them with far-right talking points, and making fringe views seem less fringe. Those talking points seem less extreme coming from a trusted voice, and moderate views start to seem extreme instead.
Social Media algorithms then suggest more and more extremist content in order to keep the user engaged and on the platform to generate more advertising dollars. Radicalizing content is efficient at generating advertising revenue, as users will need to consume more and more content to keep up with their new social group.
History of Gamers as a Subculture
Gamer culture has always existed on a fringe, originally due to its use of cutting edge technology and reliance on those familiar with that technology, then due to association with outcast or deviant users shying away from traditional social norms in favour of niche interests.
When terms like “nerd” and geek” were first applied to gamers, they were meant as derogatory terms. These terms differentiated gamers from other traditionally popular subgroups, and worked to exile them into their own group. After years of these terms being derogatory, gamers eventually grew to reclaim “nerd” and “geek,” and these terms became part of their identity. “Gamer” became a group just like any other, defined by certain interests, and by extension, certain views about the world and society.
As these groups were publicly identifiable as unpopular young white males opposite popular traditional hegemonic youth values, they began to develop an identity placing themselves in opposition to many of the values not associated with their in-group, values like cultural diversity and feminism. Gamers had grown accustomed to the social groups they belonged to and the content they consumed looking and acting like them, and not catering to women or other cultural groups.
As University of Illinois researcher Dr. Lori Kendall argues, the image of nerds, geeks and gamer culture obviously prioritizes computers, technology and awareness of niche cultural information, but is also intrinsically tied to a specific idea of “gender and racial formation.” Users interacting in spaces heavily used by gamers and geek/nerd culture tend to be racialized and gendered and often presume a white male centrality. Similarly, Concordia University professor and Canada Research Chair In Game Studies & Design, Communication Studies Dr. Mia Consalvo found that when game developers wished to broaden their audience to include diverse identities, “traditional (white heteronormative male) console players saw the move as one actively excluding them, and reacted quite negatively to that perceived slight.” However, as mentioned earlier, straight white young men were not the sole users of video games, and eventually other identities became more public about their interest in games.
While there are still some remnants of that association, the term “gamer” now covers a wide variety of individuals and groups, transcending the original definition. “Gamers” include people who have downloaded mobile games on smartphones, or have enjoyed a wide variety of console or computer properties. While mid 2010 Gamergate backlash (discussed in detail later on) showed how popular video games were with diverse identities, women in particular have been active gamers for many years prior. Today, women make up half of all gamers but many still carry an underlying assumption that “gamers” describe the traditional white, heteronormative male “geek” figure.
The Alt Right Pipeline
Finally, the “Alt-Right Pipeline” is a term used to describe the gradual transition from moderate to extremist views. As media studies scholar Luke Munn says in Alt-right pipeline: Individual journeys to extremism online, “a fully functioning media system <makes> it easy for audience members to be incrementally exposed to, and come to trust, ever more extremist political positions… <Trusted users> hosting a guest not only provides them with a platform for their ideas, but transfers to them a degree of trust.” Munn examines video testimonials from individuals who were gradually converted to the Alt-Right, and details examples of individuals who began by watching videos on mundane or moderate subjects. For example, one user began by watching self help videos, a common start point for the Alt-Right pipeline. Eventually, the YouTube content suggestion algorithm proposed a self help style video from an Alt-Right commentator, though the video wasn’t explicitly focused on Alt-Right content. After consuming one video, the user was drawn to further videos by the same creator, which included more and more Alt-Right content. The viewer grew to trust the content creator, who in turn introduced the viewer to more Alt-Right figures.
The first steps along the “Alt-Right Pipeline” are often small changes to traditionally moderate content, or subtle questions to convince viewers to change the way they think about certain issues. For example, in It’s okay to be White: laundering White supremacy through a colorblind victimized White race-consciousness raising campaign, University of Cincinnati researcher Marcus A. Brooks details a white supremacism campaign on social media to introduce mainstream audiences to white nationalism (white supremacism being closely linked to the Alt-Right). The campaign had a simple start, to spread a message that it is “okay to be white.” On the surface, this message is harmless, as it does not imply that it’s not okay to be any other race, or that white is intrinsically better than any other race. However, users who engaged with this topic were encouraged to ask follow up questions, such as if diversity and inclusion were actually covert ways of progressives forcing white people to feel bad about their identity. The users have taken their first step along the “Alt-Right pipeline,” as they are now primed to consume further content, and their social media profiles have been flagged by content suggestion algorithms to receive more and more extreme content.
Gamergate and the Treatment of Marginalized Identities
In 2014, toxic gamer culture erupted into mainstream conversation through what has since been called “Gamergate.” Gamergate was the long standing anti-progressive and anti-feminist movement within gamer culture growing and focusing their anger on a handful of women gaming developers and commentators.
Gamers argued that the inclusion of women and non-traditional “gamer” identities in games or as target publics in which gaming companies would want to market represented an erosion of the rich culture of gaming, replacing longstanding narratives and franchises with “forced diversity” at the expense of quality. Gamergate also included discussions on labour movements for developers, ethics in gaming journalism, and though these issues are important and should be discussed, the overwhelming narrative focus of Gamergate was anti-feminist and anti-progressive values. While gaming communities have always had a portion of the group identity dedicated to the aversion to feminist and cultural diversity, Gamergate helped push these views into the mainstream, and helped lay the foundation for the gamer-to-Alt-Right pipeline.
In #Gamergate and The Fappening, University of Illinois Department of Communication Associate Professor Adrienne Massanari argues that Gamergate helped build the gamer-to-Alt-Right pipeline after mainstream platforms took steps to ban discussions of Gamergate to reduce the likelihood of targeted harassment. The gamer community viewed this moderation as “the ultimate betrayal and proof that so-called “social justice warriors” were infiltrating even their most sacred of spaces.” Following this moderation, gamers transitioned to platforms with a greater allowance for toxicity and extremism.
Massanari also examines the influence of toxic technocultures and anti-feminism. Particularly, the governance and content algorithm policies that exist on Reddit (and that are similar to the policies on YouTube, Twitch and other video content platforms) “provides fertile ground for these kinds of toxic spaces to emerge… Reddit implicitly reifies the desires of certain groups (often young, white, cis-gendered, heterosexual males) while ignoring and marginalizing others”. Toxic subcultures have the potential to develop on any platform, but mainstream platforms like Reddit and YouTube are specifically designing community governance and moderation policies, as well as content algorithms to encourage toxic technocultures. This content, though toxic, is highly engaging and likely to convince the user to stay on the platform longer, and by extension, consume more paid advertising. This focus on platform algorithms pushing extremist content at the expense of less popular and less toxic content is often called “Economics of Popularity.”
Social Media Algorithms and the Economics of Popularity
Social media platforms are businesses that exist in a capitalist landscape, and as such, have a mandate both to make money to support operational costs and make money to generate wealth for shareholders.
There are several potential opportunities for social media platforms to make money through different business models, such as a subscription model, though the most popular model is through advertising and sponsored content. In order to make money through advertising and sponsored content, social media platforms are encouraged to ensure users stay on the platform for as long as possible, so that they continue to consume sponsored content, and the platform continues to get paid by advertisers. If financial obligations are the primary (or even near-exclusive) motivators for platforms as organizations, then the methods these platforms use to convince users to spend more time on their platforms are always justified.
In his book Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media Tarleton Gillespie explains how platforms meet their financial obligations through the “economics of popularity.” In this model, platforms develop algorithms to push suggested content to users to keep them on the platform longer, but the nature of that content is inconsequential. Whatever content engages that user, whether it is funny cat videos or extremists content, is beneficial to the platform. “Angry” content is particularly effective at engaging users and encouraging them to consume further content, and Alt-Right content is particularly angry, encouraging users to build hostile views towards feminism, progressivism, and marginalized people.
Gillespie argues that if platforms continue to prioritize the economics of popularity over encouraging healthy, untoxic and deradicalizing content, then they will continue to develop algorithms and policies that will foster continued Alt-Right and extremist content.
Conclusion
Social media platforms have built systems and policies that support content that radicalizes moderate users into members of the Alt-Right. Gamers are particularly vulnerable to this radicalization, as anti-feminist and anti-progressive messaging is popular within gamer communities. If we can better understand how users are joining the Alt-Right and other extremist groups, then we will have more insight into how to reduce opportunities for further radicalization, as well as ways to deradicalize existing members of the Alt-Right. This deradicalization is crucial for the safety and fairness of marginalized people who are explicitly targeted by the Alt-Right ideology, as well as society and public policy in general.
Justin Draper is a Canadian fiction and non-fiction writer who focuses on themes of politics and culture. He is currently completing his Masters degree in Communication and Technology at the University of Alberta.
Follow Justin on Twitter at @JustinDraperYEG
