Destructoid owner Yanier Gonzalez heralded consumer revolt movement GamerGate as “positive” in a newly surfaced interview from July.
“I think overall… GamerGate is positive. It challenges websites like [Destructoid] and many others to be more transparent with the readers. That’s really the core of it,” said Gonzalez in the interview with GamerTag Radio.
GamerGate hashtag has been used by various types of people to promote their own interests, which has kind of muddled the message, so GamerGate means a lot of things to a lot of different people.
[…] It reminds me of when I first started, and I had this innate distress of the magazines where I was I’m like ‘you guys are selling the cover stories’ (which still happens) ‘you guys are not being transparent about the sponsored content you’re plugging on YouTube’ (Pewdiepie) and that stuff needs to be disclosed.
Gonzalez’s comments may come as a shock to many people, considering Destructoid’s predominantly anti-GamerGate narrative since the consumer revolt started in 2014, and the news outlet has also been home to prominent anti-GamerGate and Social Justice figures as Jim Sterling, Anthony Burch, and Laura Kate Dale in the past.
The Destructoid owner also criticized the movement, however, describing some aspects of GamerGate as “scary” and “ugly.”
“There’s also the unfortunate side where it’s kind of like a witch hunt… where it’s like gaming industry and other people who are friends of other people in the gaming industry and it’s like illegal to network, which is kind of scary. Like… how are we supposed to learn and network?” said Gonzalez.
I think a lot of journalists did a step back on social media, because we don’t really want our lives and our families being put under a microscope. So that’s the ugly side of GamerGate… especially women in the gaming side were hit the hardest, and that’s really sad.
It’s a passionate audience. Gamers can be the best people in the world, but if they think you’re trying to pull something on them they’re the worst.
Gonzalez has previously engaged in Twitter spats with Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos, where he called Milo an “emo” and a “hack” and used the opportunity to attack GamerGate.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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