Gaming Democracy
How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right
How play and gaming culture have mainstreamed far right ideology through social media platforms.
From #Gamergate to the ongoing Big Lie, the far right has gone mainstream. In Gaming Democracy, Adrienne Massanari tracks the flames of toxicity found in the far right and “alt-right” movements as they increasingly take up oxygen in American and global society. In this pathbreaking contribution to the fields of internet studies, game studies, and gender studies, Massanari argues that Silicon Valley’s emphasis on meritocracy and free speech absolutism has driven this rightward slide. These ideologies have been coded into social media spaces that implicitly silence marginalized communities and subject them to rampant abuse by groups that have learned to “game” the ecology of platforms, algorithms, and…