Today let’s look at /r/KotakuInAction, a subreddit with 62,705 subscribers. Please note that this is a two-part series (there’s so much garbage from KiA that it couldn’t fit in a single post). You can find that second part here.

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Background

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To understand what makes KotakuInAction (KiA) a hate sub at its very core, you have to observe its origins. KiA is a discussion sub for Gamergate (GG), a harassment campaign that was born out a 10,000-word blog post back in August 2014 by Eron Gjoni, ex of Zoe Quinn, an indie game developer [1], [2], [3], [4]. Gjoni was upset about the break-up and decided to get revenge upon Quinn and used the gaming community as the perfect platform. That requires us to go down a further level in this rabbit hole.

Before Gamergate, misogynists in the gaming community focused their efforts on Anita Sarkeesian. Sarkeesian started a Kickstarter in May 2012 where she hoped to observe misogyny in video game culture through her video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games on YouTube. What first started off as a small and unknown project soon ballooned into a widespread and talked-about issue as Sarkeesian immediately became the target of a harassment campaign [5], [6], [7]. Before the year was out, a game promoting physical violence against Sarkeesian was released [8].

With the background laid down, let’s observe how Reddit reacted to this series of events. For Sarkeesian, Reddit stayed mostly in /r/Gaming and /r/Games to complain about her [9]. /r/MensRights and /r/SRSsucks also complained about her as often as they could [10]. After her first video kicked off in March 2013, however, misogynists on Reddit became more and more upset. Suddenly anything that spoke positively of Sarkeesian was fair game, which is where /r/TumblrInAction features in this mess[11], [12], [13].

What was first touted to be about video games was thoroughly becoming part of the “gender wars” on Reddit, which reached an ugly chapter in 2012 when hate subs banded together to brigade and harass /r/ainbow users and mods (the harassment mostly focused on Jess_than_three). /r/SubredditDrama also featured as a battleground for that particular year on Reddit (as is usual for most meta subs). Long-time SRD user david-me (creator of KiA sub) was often at the center to either play devil’s advocate or to join in the dogpiling against /r/ainbow [14]. david-me often took to dropping transphobic slurs on SRD, which is what ultimately led to him being banned from the sub [15].

Ultimately, GG would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for misogynists on the Internet. The harassment campaign began on 4chan, which began to spread false rumors stating that Quinn had traded sexual favors with gaming journalists for favorable coverage of her game Depression Quest [16], [17], despite the rumor being patently false [18]. In a rare show of human decency, 4chan founder Christopher Poole (moot) decided to ban the coordinated efforts that were happening on 4chan to harass Quinn and anyone who defended her. In response, the misogynists behind the harassment campaign created 8chan. Around this time, KiA was born as a sub and the term “social justice warrior” was coined.

The movement was instantly labeled as a hate group [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25]. Supporters of the movement, like KiA, continued to insist that it is about “ethics in gaming journalism.” Try to remember this phrase, as it is used more often than anti-Semites who claim the Holocaust is a hoax in one breath and in the next breath they applaud the Holocaust. The movement has been playing this two-faced example from the start. It’s always been about slut-shaming.

This is why I keep saying GamerGate definitely has ties to feminism. Because it's just another ideology, trying to spread false messages. If this were a religion, we wouldn't have issues slamming it. But because modern feminists run under the generic umbrella of "feminism" (something that most people would say they support. You're not a woman-hating bigot, are you?), they go unchecked. They go mostly without criticism because anyone who criticizes them or points out their flaws is labeled a misogynist and silenced. [+53]

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Rhetoric

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I mentioned the two-faced nature of KiA. It’s important to touch on this as well, as KiA is notorious for their antics in which they try to draw attention away from the negative things GG has led to (like death threats, general threats of violence at conferences, bomb threats, and one particular unstable individual who was a leader in the GG movement who operated multiple alt identities in an effort to support the movement). Much like the neo Nazi website Stormfront, KiA has a particular set of “response/rebuttal” checklists that they go through in an attempt to “refute” the points people make against the movement. In no particular order, they are:

1. “It’s about ethics.” – The greatest lie ever told from GG & KiA. When it’s brought up that GG was started as a witch hunt by a scorned ex, they deflect. “Well, now it’s about video game journalism.” Except the sub’s front page is usually 9 for 10 talking about scary SJW media, neocon talking points, or other contrived political drivel that has nothing to do with video games. Which is usually when they move the goal posts again and say, “Well actually it’s now about ethics in general.” Which is hilarious, as this write up will prove that KiA is about anything but the fight for ethics (rather they are in the fight against ethical conduct). If GG was really about video games, then this movement would’ve started with Doritosgate or Gerstmann getting fired over the Kane & Lynch review.

2. “It wasn’t ‘us’ us.” – KiA often claims that when anything negative comes out of GG, they insist those people don’t represent the “real” movement. Another popular follow-up to this is for a KiAer to concede a little bit of ground by saying, “Okay yes, some of us are like that, but only very few and they are minority opinions that don’t have a lot of support.” [1], [2], [3], [4]

3. “I don’t think it was us, therefore it’s a false flag.” – Another common one, especially after Joshua Goldberg (except Goldberg created extremist anti-GG identities to help support his original GG rhetoric). KiA insists people who are against GG are the “real” extremists, therefore anything negative out of GG must be coming from the other side. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]

4. “Do you have proof?” – This is basically a KiA Pavlovian response [1]. Please note that KiAers aren’t actually asking for proof that GG is a hate movement—they’ve already convinced themselves it isn’t. What they are hoping for is that you take the bait and provide them with a source, which will allow them to begin engaging with you while they follow the basic argument steps that they learned from a crash course in Logic 101. The typical response after being given a source is: “That’s not proof, now let me list a 13-paragraph point-by-point rebuttal that proves me right.” (I don’t need an example for this one, KiA will do a fantastic job of presenting the perfect example when they dissect this write-up)

5. “Yeah? Well, you too!” – If the KiAer hasn’t out-right refused something that paints GG in a negative light, they will instead fall back on Soviet-era tactics of pointing the finger back at their accuser. It’s common deflect tactics with the aim of trying to change the subject. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]

6. “They’re the REAL enemy.” – One huge overarching theme found on KiA is that their behavior is justified because they are being “attacked,” that gaming culture is “at risk.” So instead they have taken to claiming that they are the ones who are truly oppressed, exhibiting zero self-awareness at all. [1], [2], [3]

Now that we’ve explored the background and rhetoric behind KiA, let’s delve right into it.

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It’s about ethics in hating women

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KiA started as a support group for a harassment campaign against a woman, which was born out of a semi-coherent hate campaign against another woman who had the audacity to criticize their toys. Any woman who has come forward to support Sarkeesian or Quinn has been met with the same hatred directed at the two. Brianna Wu, for instance, has become an often target for KiA. The sub even has terms for them to further denigrate them and make them appear as subhuman by referring to Wu as “Literally Who” or LW for short. They have even gone as far as saying that Sarkeesian, Quinn, Wu and others are making up the threats that have been leveled at them. [1]

In fact, KiA has evolved from merely talking about video games to targeting any woman or feminist that dares to speak up for anything in particular.

Despite claiming that they don’t condone the doxxing attempts on Felicia Day, it doesn’t stop them from basically saying it’s her fault because she’s not on their side. [1]

She got scared of gamers and crossed the street to avoid them. Then wrote a blog post about it. Everyone laughed at her, and then someone posted the address of her agent or something in the comments claiming it was hers. It wasn't but everyone thought it was and started blaming gamer gate because they were to most suitable boogie men. Cue esympathy and a short term boost to her popularity. etc etc

The truth is no one really care about it beyond her fans who loved her anyways. [+116]

“She got scared of gamers,” I think that’s what happens when you get rape and death threats for raising a voice against a misogynist movement. Although for a group that supposedly doesn’t care about her, they seem to have a hard time not talking about her every week.

They became rather upset when they found out /r/rape and /r/rapecounseling was autobanning KiAers. [1]

Though, /r/Rape and /r/RapeCounseling are genuinely worse than CoonTown. CoonTown was over the top fucked up, but at least it didn't pretend to be a venue of support for victims of hate crimes and then give them the finger. They do active harm to victims. [+217]

Ah yes, an actual safe space for sexual assault victims that actively keeps out the misogynist trash that wants to tell them it’s their fault for getting assaulted is on par with an actual hate sub that actively promoted violence against African Americans. This is your brain on Gamergate.

They targeted comedian Amy Schumer after she told a teen on Twitter to not say sexist things. [1]

(In an attempt at Amy Schumer-like comedy)

What's the difference between 2 dicks and a joke?

Amy can't take a joke. [+367]

“Har har, women exist only to please our penises, right guys? Also, we’re totally not a group of misogynists.”

They target random women and turn them into hate memes. [1]

It's also funny, because white women are infinitely more privileged that white men. [+158]

Wew lad, don't cut yourself there on all that history revisionism edge.

Isn't it funny how her behaviour, facial expressions and voice pitching is very much the same compared to Melissa Click?

With high probability they don't even know each other but they still behave very synchronised. Fascinating.

This ideology turns people into behavioral uniforms. [+838]

Basically dehumanizing the people they target so they become even more comfortable with their specific campaigns of harassment.

They support MRA writers. [1]

misogynist" is a hyperbole here . He is a pick-up artist. He, like many PUA, have extremely objectifying thoughts (no literally, the whole 9 yard "bang girls for points" mentality you see in those cheesy College frat boys movie) on women, but it is almost contradictory to say they "hate" women (I mean, they just want sex, not rape/murder/harm)

Keep in mind the claims against him are greatly exaggerated. His main book is labeled as a "rape manual" , for example (legally libel, most likely) . There was a successful petition to deny his entry into the UK (sorry, I'm confusing him for another pickup artist Julien Blanc being denied visa ) . AFAIK these were both organized by radfems.

Yes, the guy imo is a huge ass hole, but he isn't doing anything illegal. He finds methods that tend to attract women with a higher than usual success rate and writes/talks about them , and there are enough assholes to give him a business and notoriety . Half of women's magazines do the same thing with fashion and beauty tips that help "seduce men". Just because I don't like it, doesn't mean there aren't people that do. [+13]

Just so we’re all clear—Rooshv gives rape tips for MRAs. That’s who they like to rub elbows with because those are the only sort of people who have nice things to say about GG.

Speaking of MRAs, they regularly enjoy MRA comics as well. [1]

They got upset when John Oliver didn’t end up on their side when he ran a segment on online harassment and talked about Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu. [1]

Couldn't get through the video. The instant he brought up white male privilege I was like "fuck it, I'm done, this is just as ignorant as his "gender wage gap" video" and turned it off. [+102]

Oh no, one of the gods of Reddit’s pantheon has challenged them to come to face-to-face with sexism! Time to run away and pretend it doesn’t exist! Oh wait, they’re already on KiA, so they’re doing that already.

They defended Trump supporters that groped a 19-year-old girl and then pepper spray her in the face. [1]

It is always the 'he's touching me claim'. [+205]

STOP TOUCHING MAH BREASTS!!!!! NOW!!!! [+133]

Jesus, that's horrible. She literally slides into a tiny space between him and someone else in order to push her breasts into his chest so she can falsely accuse him of something as a pretext to attacking him.

The fact he then falls a decent distance and cracks his head open, and the crowd cheer wildly as she's arrested just sickens me further. The assault on an innocent man is one thing, the mob congratulating her on a piece of severe, unnprovoked, pre-meditated violence is another. [+165]

KiA perpetrating rape culture, who woulda thunk? They sure are awfully scared of a 19-year-old girl though (although that could sum up the movement in its entirety).

They got upset when a scientist got called out for wearing a shirt depicting women as sexual objects. [1]

What I found creepy was the SJWs I encountered who genuinely believed he had full on porn on his shirt instead of tasteful pinup art. Most of them have never properly seen it, they've only heard from other people, who probably saw an elbow and thought it was a vagina. [+214]

“Tasteful pinup art,” just lol. This is the shirt we are talking about here. It’s a bunch of scantily-clad women in suggestive poses. Nothing about that is tasteful.

Hair dye? Check. White and privileged? Check. Token black girl (look everyone, we're diverse!)? Check.

Ain't it funny that someone who inadvertently helped lead a hate mob to bully a person to tears is now talking about "Fighting Online Abuse"? [+256]

Criticizing looks? Check. Racism? Check.

the blue haired beluga makes a rare appearance, what a sight to behold mateys [+29]

They almost forgot the body-shaming!

They are upset about the all-female cast choice for the new Ghostbusters movie. [1]

The flip side: if the movie flops and it's blamed on sexism, Hollywood producers will decide that movies starring women won't make money. This, too, will be blamed on The Patriarchy. [+721]

I feel the same way about this US election.

I can already hear it: "Remember last time we had a woman as a president? Yeah, let's not do that again". [+50]

Basically celebrating the hopes that the movie will flop and they won’t ever have to face the situation where instead of the market achieving 99% saturation of an all-male lead cast they might have to endure a movie that doesn’t set out to ask the opinion of a penis that has taught itself how to walk and talk.

"I don't like gender being used as a gimmick" perfectly describes my distaste for a lot of gender and lgbt pandering that goes on in tv shows. [+417]

The ever-famous, “I don’t like it because it’s a gimmick.” Amazing that they’ve never said this once about a romcom where all the actors are white. Ah, I forgot. When white people star in movies, it doesn’t challenge their fragility in dealing with something other than the daily program occurrence in Hetero White Man Scenario.

They immediately pounced on Victoria’s replacement because she stood up for herself as an African American woman. [1]

I think it's telling they had no way of knowing she was a woman, and yet she still took it as misogyny/mansplaining. Could it be possible men talk this way to other men? And your perceptions of men "talking down to you" are actually in your head, because you dislike being wrong/corrected, like ALL humans dislike it?

No, that can't be it...It can't be that they magically made up a term for something all humans, men and women experience, as a special defense from a bad feeling for making an error. Fuck me. Because that is what mansplaining is, it's essentially "we both know I'm wrong, this feeling sucks--so it's easier to say it is misogyny driving you to point out that I'm wrong, rather than, you know, me being wrong...." [+91]

KiA gets upset that new Reddit staff tells someone to stop mansplaining, so they then get together to mansplain what mansplaining means. Zero. Self. Awareness.

What is "mansplaining"? So many goddamn new terms every day I can't keep up.

Mansplaining used to be "man being condescending to a woman about X when it should be clear she knows X very well". Like, trying to explain to a female carpenter, step by step, how to replace a doorknob.

Now it's "easy catch-all for when I want to win an argument without actually having anything resembling a counterargument".

And given that condescending is a real word in the English language, mansplaning is also yet another attempt to gender a non-gendered problem. And so feminism further buries itself into the "sexist movement masquerading as an 'equality' movement" stereotype. [+251]

Some more mansplaining with a dash of, “men can do no wrong, it’s all a woman’s fault.”

a "professional" wouldn't use the term "mansplain" [+1506]

A Professional Victim would! [+2147]

More mansplaining, right down to explaining what a “professional” is, then firing off a sexist and racist joke. Par for the course.

This is the woman who replaced Victoria, Wynter Mitchell who by all signs seems to be a diversity hire. Let us count the ways:

She is so incompetent, a novelty account is formed to translate her answers

She posts in /r/blackladies (don't even get me started) that she was hired to "build relationships... with the social justice community

Uses sexist terminology like "mansplaining" [+727, gilded x1]

my essential feelings on the matter [+559, gilded 2x]

Straight-up racism. The guy claims she’s a diversity hire and then says her being incompetent is an example of that, implying that all African Americans are incompetent. He takes issue with her posting in /r/blackladies (one of the few subs that has fought against the rampant racism on Reddit). And the icing on the cake? Someone posting an ableist comic that gets gilded twice. They ultimately celebrate when she quits.

Hahahahahah nice try hiring people who don't deserve the position. Back to working off of resumes rather than race. [+26]

lol as if that idiot won't be replace by another idiot with the appropriately progressive skin colour, genitals, sexual orientation etc [+9]

"Black people don't deserve to get hired over white people, amirite?" Interesting that whenever the woman they start to hate is a POC, they eventually turn it into racism.

Probably the greatest example that we see KiA becoming just another arm of the greater multi-subreddit group of hate subs was with the banning of /r/fatpeoplehate (FPH). For a little background, FPH was a body-shaming sub that soon turned into a brigade sub after they brigaded /r/skincareaddiction and /r/makeupaddiction. The sub eventually crossed the line by doxxing two Grand Theft Auto 5 gamers who met in real life. The submission was using imgur as a hosting service, which removed the content. In response, FPH then doxed the imgur staff, which proved to be the final straw and had them slapped with a ban. [1]

What followed was the greatest temper tantrum the site had ever seen. People instantly were convinced that the reason why the sub was banned was because then interim CEO Ellen Pao was removing hate speech. This ballooned to such an effect that all hate subs jumped on the bandwagon and began to attack Pao on every aspect of her life, right down to creating propaganda images to demonize her and flooding the front page for days with racist epitaphs against her.

KiA was complicit in that hate campaign against Pao, going past hating her simply because she was a woman and piling on racism and homophobia as well. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]

Satirical cartoons have been a great way to put a point across for a very long time. Pictures of Mohammed, politicians taking back hand payments, Jews etc have all been things I've seen and thought they were accurate. [+46]

Political comics about Jews are "accurate"? That seems a bit casually antisemitic. [barely positive, sitting at controversial cross]

And political comics about Africa seem a bit racist. And political comics about men seem to be a bit misandrist. And political comics about women seem to be a bit misogynist. Because you're taking the shit out of someone/thing/group. Which means, usually, using a stereotype of that group to prove a point. If I'm drawing a oh-so-liberal cartoon about the police militarization, I'll either go for the military extreme reminiscent of KGB or SS, or I'll go the opposite extreme, the lazy pig cop, I won't be drawing them just as, kinda normal people just doing their jobs. [+52]

Oh, just some casual bigotry being upvoted on KiA, then one of them says, “Whoah, Jews? Did we take it too far?” and the response is, “Nah.”

Yes, Chairman Pao, we know everything you want to keep concealed.

And we will not forget.

And no, it has nothing to do with the fact you're a woman; we'll make sure your fraudster husband can't escape the past as well.

This is the kind of shit you and your SJW brethren/sistren have been doing to those against your belief system. Now, you're getting a taste of your own medicine.

As Randi Harper put it, you made your bed, now lie down and get fucked in it. [+1315]

Her husband is black though, so now you're actually sexist and racist

So he's a niggerfaggot? [+64]

I look forward to hearing what KiA has to say about this one. Probably the usual, “Oh, that doesn’t represent us. It doesn’t represent us! This doesn’t represent us!!!”

Only officially sanctioned reddit gifts made by Chinese slave labour can now be traded via /r/secretsanta [+61]

Pao has kids? [+22]

“Guys we’re totally not racist!” Uh huh.

Doesn't it just seem odd that Reddit would bring someone on to serve as its CEO that had no previous relation with the site, no relationship with the community, and all of a sudden implements these changes to site polity after having the media basically sugarcoat the fact that she lost a discrimination lawsuit?

Not really, I heard it explained that Reddit is trying to prepare itself for sale/IPO and this is exactly what would be needed to sanitize the image for investors and the general public. I've seen it likened to 4chan and the tactics of the turncoat moot. It's not surprising in the sense that it's a business and they brought in an outsider to make broad changes, that happens from time to time. [+48]

There’s that famous “we are totally part of this 4chan movement” identity I was talking about that they claim they’re not a part of. This one claims moot was a “turncoat” for not wanting to run a child porn and hate site any longer.

She's doing wonders for women in tech, kinda like Anita. [+85]

By which I assume you mean absolutely fucking nothing, and potentially making it worse. [+67]

Yep. No one is going to believe that a female is competent and got her position through merit after these bitches are done. [+31]

But remember—this has nothing to do with her being a woman!

The temper tantrum did not cease here—like a lot of other hate subs, Redditors started to make a concentrated effort to get people to switch to Voat, a Reddit variant where “anything goes” (and I do mean anything, including inciting violence and posting child pornography). They’re also big on paranoia.

But the admins told us that SRS and ghazi don't brigade....

you think the admins would do that? just, go onto reddit and tell lies? [+387]

It's actually /r/subredditdrama doing the brigading right now. Can't let reddit have competition, that could interrupt their bubble! [+276]

isn't SRD just another arm of SRS, though? [+208]

Pretty much, yeah. [+151]

“Guys, it’s these tiny subs that are brigading this thread!” “No it can’t be, those subs are too small! It must be another sub that highlights our sexist tendencies!” “It must be! And we can tell there’s brigading going on because we’re all in negatives here—oh wait a minute…” Make up your mind, KiA.

The paranoia reached such massive levels that there were widespread calls on KiA to join Voat instead. [1] Then it hit critical mass when Voat’s servers were shut down.

It really hurts to say this, almost kills me actually. But /pol/ was right again... [+2736]

Oh wow, it must’ve really hurt to have KiA agree with you that the most racist board on 4chan is making sense to you. There’s just one problem: Voat wasn’t shut down because it was “too right-wing.” It was shut down because they were hosting child pornography and inciting racial violence.

Of course, after the temper tantrum was over and Pao stepped down, it was revealed that the decision to ban FPH and other hate subs was actually current Reddit CEO Steve Huffman’s idea all along [1], [2] (and Alex Ohanian was responsible for getting rid of Victoria Taylor [3], [4]).

Ultimately, it seems Huffman and Ohanian used Pao as a scapegoat to enact unpopular changes and knew that the Reddit community would eat it up because Pao was a woman and a POC (two things the Reddit community hates). To this day, the Reddit community continues to pretend Pao was responsible for everything so that they can continuously justify their sexist and racist witch hunt (which KiA was supporting every step of the way). And what was KiA’s self-reflection in this matter? They whimpered at the prospect that they might be next on the chopping block.

They've gaslit us every step of the way. The whole time telling us we were paranoid when we claimed we were being censored off gaming subreddits, then the modleaks happen and we're proven right. They were censoring us off of gaming subreddits. Incidentally they were censoring words like "ethics" and "corruption". Nothing pertaining to the hatred or harassment of women. [+136]

Except all the times where you harassed women and hated them on the single principle of being a woman. But hey, KiA is still up almost two years later. Maybe the sky will fall one day. Until then, I guess you’ll just have to deal with some mods on this site not wanting to play host to your bigotry (“MUH CENSORSHIP!”).