The DeanBeat: Like it or hate it, #GamerGate isn't losing steam

You may be sick of it, but #GamerGate is gathering momentum as a topic of conversation on social media. It’s been brewing since August, and I weighed in on it a couple of weeks ago. Depending on who you ask, it’s either about death and rape threats made against female critics of the male-dominated game industry, or a grassroots movement to address bad ethics in game journalism. Much of the argument is about the attempts by either side to hijack the conversation in a particular direction. As we’ll see in a bit, big data analysis of social media can tell us a lot about what this is really all about.

One thing that’s clear is the growing notoriety of #GamerGate, a hashtag on Twitter that actor Adam Baldwin (best known for the sci-fi TV series Firefly) created in reaction to a controversy that started as a spat between lovers. Appinions, a media analysis firm, created a custom report for GamesBeat on the social media and all media around #GamerGate. As you can see from the chart, #GamerGate had a steady buzz, and then it had a burst of interest at the beginning of October. (You can match the chart against this timeline).