Cathy Young Was There When a GamerGate Meetup Received a Bomb Threat
Ever since its birth eight months ago, GamerGate, the online gamers' movement that calls itself a revolt against corrupt journalism and oppressive political correctness, has been assailed as a misogynist mob out to terrorize female videogame developers and feminist critics—a narrative picked up by most of the mainstream media and even dramatized on Law & Order: SVU. The "Gaters," meanwhile, have always claimed that they were being unfairly painted as harassers when they themselves were frequent targets of harassment and threats in the culture war over gaming. And now, writes Cathy Young, GamerGate's first American meetup in Washington, DC this past weekend has ended in a bomb scare—after an attempt to bully the venue into canceling the event.