As the twenty-first century enters its third decade, we leave behind a landmark phase of the culture war that has raged hot and cold since before many of you reading this were born.
The recently concluded stage of the battle for Western civilization saw one side drop its mask and effectively admit they want to destroy Christendom. The other side also made a bold change of tactics by actually fighting back.
Perhaps the most significant dimension of the culture war’s 2010s escalation was that many of the battles were not fought for the future, but over the past.
The archetypal form of these engagements was #GamerGate, a consumer revolt staged by exasperated video game enthusiasts fed up at being lied to and lied about by the gaming press. Though GG ultimately failed to reform games journalism, it exposed the hysterical Cult that’s hijacked the entertainment biz as a vehicle for nihilistic anti-culture propaganda.
That the Gators and SJWs were fighting over video games is either taken for granted or glibly dismissed by most commentators. But both vantage points miss a key aspect of the conflict. On one side stood gamers who’d enjoyed their hobby since childhood and liked it the way it was. On the other massed invaders who demanded that gaming change to comport with their progressive creed. If you spent any time in the hashtag ca. 2014-2016, you couldn’t escape the refrain, “I just wanted to play vidya.” Gators, by and large, longed for a return to the status quo ante where they’d be left to indulge their favored pastime in peace.
In this light, #GamerGate can be seen as a conflict between those who love the past and those who are infatuated with a utopian future.
A recent article by author JD Cowan helped put these revelations in perspective.
The reason the nostalgia plague is around and reuses to die, the reason Hollywood can’t make anything new anymore, and the reason Gen Y needs to be reminded of their youth, is because they are empty inside and have nothing else to them aside from remembering when they were not as miserable. They don’t know anything else, because everything they were taught turned out to be wrong, and everything around now was made for those other than them–those that are now taking a sledgehammer to the foundations of what bore them to begin with. Gen Y are eternally green, unprepared for what lays before them. They have no safety net, no wider relationships, and have receded into a shell of recycled memories.
Ironically, it is their green that funds those who hate them. Boomers who forgot them overnight have handed over industries to their handpicked successors who detest everything Gen Y grew up on. It is why every reboot or relaunch of an old property deliberately subverts everything Gen Y loved about it to begin with. The above Ghostbusters reboot was exactly this. Thus even their shallow childhood is hollowed out just a bit more every time it is soiled. These others wish Gen Y would die so they could finally gut this old junk and make their own subversive slop meant for propaganda purposes instead. So what you have is a homeless wanderer generation pestered by those passing them on the shoulder of the road and spitting on them as they speed by.
Let’s take a look at some age demographics.
Carl Benjamin, AKA Sargon of Akkad:
b. 1979.
Jim, AKA Mister Metokur, AKA the Internet Aristocrat, AKA James Patrick O’Shaughnessy, AKA Jim81Jim:
b. 1981
Matt Jarbo, AKA Mundane Matt, AKA the Quarry King:
b.1982
An interesting pattern emerges. Three of the most influential figures in #GamerGate, including the guy who
broke the story that started the revolt and they guy featured in said video, are all Gen Y.
#GG’s pushback against SJWs bastardizing their hobby–and their failure to achieve their objectives–makes perfect sense when you factor in the Gators’ dominant generational cohort. One of Gen Y’s defining vices is retreating into a vanished past to stave off a bleak, inevitable future. As JD pointed out, the past is all they have. Th SJWs stepped on a land mine when they trespassed into the Gators’ man cave.
And because Gen Y’s other defining vice is naive incompetence, #GG finally fell apart while the GameJournoPros continue running the gaming press.
My one point of contention with JD’s otherwise sterling analysis is that he lays the blame for raping Gen Y’s past at the feet of Millennials. It’s a tempting conclusion, since his basic premises are sound. On the whole, Millennials do indeed lack nostalgia for the 80s and 90s, and they have been brainwashed by the Death Cult since childhood. They will certainly continue the project of hollowing out Gen Y nostalgia to make
skin suits for witches. But they didn’t start it.
Let’s look at some more age data.
Chelsea Van Valkenburg, AKA Zoë Quinn, AKA Literally Who:
b. 1987
Anita Sarkeesian, AKA Literally Who 2:
b. 1983
John Walker Flynt, AKA Brianna Wu, AKA Literally Wu:
b. 1977
Two Ys and one X. Our three SJWs’ generational breakdown–not, as less enlightened readers may assume, the third one’s chromosomal makeup–lets Millennials off the hook for #GamerGate, which in retrospect was largely a Gen Y civil war.
From a historical perspective, #GG as internecine Gen Y conflict makes perfect sense. Entertainment meant for the current youth is always made by prior generations. The Beatles were Silents, not Boomers. Similarly, Boomers like Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray made most of the product that fuels Gen Y nostalgia.
Besides, an old maxim holds that nobody gives you real power until you’re 40. Millennials haven’t been handed the reins–yet.
The real dynamic behind #GamerGate and similar anti-SJW reactions was Gen Y’s spiritual emptiness splitting two ways. Of the great mass that tried to fill the void with nostalgia, many swelled the ranks of gamers. The Pop Cult did its evil work on roughly 25% of Ys, whose desperate but misguided quest for meaning led them into the Death Cult’s belly.
Tragically, Gen Y witches may have the same motive as their peers caught in the nostalgia trap. The former try to recreate the joy and richness of their beloved childhood IPs, but their abandonment of the vestigial Christian worldview that made those properties work dooms them to forever produce hollow knockoffs tainted by Death Cult propaganda.
Again, it makes sense. Millennials wouldn’t try to
remake She-Ra or Thundercats. They have no attachment to either. Millennials, as the name implies, are consumed with chasing an illusory utopian future without history or memory.
There’s an important lesson in the Gen Y witches’ victory over their Pop Cultist siblings. A firm moral vision–even a warped one–trumps hazy nostalgia. The Outer Party can’t beat the Inner Party. You don’t show up to a holy war without a religion.
In the next round of culture wars, the Millennials, having finally come into their own, will rush to realize their utopian fantasies. They will face opposition from red-pilled Zoomers. Gen Y will have the chance to share their lessons from the school of hard knocks with Gen Z. By embracing their vocation as world-weary mentors, Ys may find a last chance for redemption.
Combines current events with brutal mech action!
