Only months after surviving #CancelColbert, Stephen Colbert on Wednesday investigated another scandal rocking the Internet: the phenomenon known as #Gamergate.
The host of “The Colbert Report” cut to the heart of the flame war between progressive and female critics of the video game industry and the male “gamers” who are responding with threats of violence.
“Gamergate involves some male gamers harrassing women who are speaking out about the portrayal of women in video games,” Colbert said, “presumably after the initial shock that women were speaking to them at all.”
The host then ran through media reports of rape and death threats male gamers have sent to women speaking out, including the case of Brianna Wu, a game developer who fled her home after receiving public threats.
Colbert proceeded to mock claims from male gamers that they are the true victims who are bullied for adhering to the “traditional gamer lifestyle.”
“Yes, there is a traditional gamer lifestyle: God ordained that it is one man, one joystick,” Colbert said.
“Read your Bible, folks,” he added. “It’s right there in Sega Genesis.”
Watch the clip below, courtesy of Comedy Central:
Okay, now I get it. You never saw this sort of thing in flight simulators or Hotel Dusk.
But death threats? VIABLE death threats? From guys living in their mom’s basement? But I guess after Aurora and Santa Barbara, there’s no such thing as being too careful–for others’ sake, if not your own. God bless the Second Amendment.
Is there any proof death threats are coming from Gamergate people? That seems more like the work of someone like the GNAA as opposed to a general nerd collective.