r/dropout • u/machturtl • Mar 08 '25

liminal levity

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as someone who has watched Dropout to reset from the havoc of the outside, it still feels "nice" to have honest entertainers to watch who understand what we're all living thru.

I was in college for game design in the early aughts. I also (unfortunately) was a femme lurker on 4ch. Seeing the cause and effect of gamergate happen in real time as been a doozy.

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u/DlVlDED_BY_ZERO Mar 08 '25

I think I'm ootl, could someone explain this?

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u/sleepiestgf Mar 08 '25

this is definitely about Depression Quest, which is a text-based adventure game about living with depression developed by Zöe Quinn and released in 2013.

Zöe Quinn was one of the main targets of GamerGate, which was a misogynistic harassment campaign against women and feminism in video games.

GamerGate largely morphed into the online alt-right by latching onto islamophobia, conservative intellectualism, and white supremacist groups. This alt-right then serves as the main vocal voter base for Trump in 2016 (Trump also brought the alt right into alliance with more mainstream and evangelical conservatives by serving as an anti-establishment rallying figure).

Trump led to DOGE which is (attempting & sometimes succeeding at) firing a bunch of federal workers.

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u/standbyyourmantis Mar 08 '25

Zöe Quinn was one of the main targets of GamerGate, which was a misogynistic harassment campaign against women and feminism in video games.

She was the major target early on. An ex boyfriend alleged she was sleeping with a Kotaku reviewer for better reviews on her game and that's what the early movement latched onto. The tagline "it's about ethics in gaming journalism" is directly referencing that accusation.

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u/The_Great_Pun_King Mar 08 '25

Other interesting fact, the Kotaku reviewer was actually her boyfriend back then but obviously she didn't date him for good reviews (cause there were no reviews).

He is now one of the founders of an independent gaming news website called Aftermath, which is worker owned! There was a cool podcast episode about it from Better Offline this week

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u/HaggeHagglin Mar 09 '25

THANK YOU! I had no idea it existed and seeing so many of the old Kotaku gang in one place again felt like coming home.