Big question: Why have alienated young men, especially in America, found their home in the populist political right? Part of the answer is that the populist right takes video games seriously.
Mind the gap: Games have typically been treated as a bit of a joke by wider society. Long-held stereotypes about games being worthless, provoking violence or turning players into addicts has created a gap between the experience of the millions who play games and the perception of the medium in wider society.
The art of persuasion: For most of us who love games, our way of dealing with this problem has been to try to change minds. We’ve talked about games as an economic powerhouse. We’ve argued that games have cultural power. And we’ve sought to support research that’s provided a level-headed perspective on whether games make people aggressive (they don’t) or if they negatively affect mental health (again, a pretty firm nope).
Tunnelling down: But others reacted differently. A small number of ‘always online’ ‘transgressive’ young men, especially in America, have seen the rejection of games in liberal democratic culture as part of a wider betrayal of their personal and political identity.
Worrying development: And according to James Ball, Political Editor at The New European and author of The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World, those disaffected people have successfully been courted by the populist right and authoritarian governments - fuelling their causes with activism and energy that is helping dismantle the liberal order.
The fucking what? I’m sorry but in my experience playing video games since literally before I could read (Pokemon Yellow was a real struggle for me) the only people who have discouraged my passion for it are the conservative fucking boomers, and absolutely no one else.
The older I get the more gaming has become a legitimate hobby, accepted by more and more people. Older generations have accepted it as a much slower pace, but it’s still happening. The victimhood that these incels perceive is entirely self-imposed.
Yup. The author is juuuuust missed in identifying the issue. The alt-right doesn’t take gaming, or gamers, seriously. But they do see angry young men as recruitment targets, and understand that a lot of gamers are much, much bigger losers than most of us imagine, and that they have a lot of pent up anger at not being taken seriously.
The basement dwelling CHUDs don’t realize that Bannon’s brigade is laughing at them whenever they’re not in the room. They’re just that desperate for any kind of attention and validation, even if it’s painfully disingenuous.
Big difference between Neo-Cons and the alt-right, though.