Sarkeesian got the publicity and the hate because she was the first one to make gamers aware that what used to be their insular little boys club was now something enjoyed by many people, and that it would need to change to accommodate them accordingly. I think a lot of gamergate and the hate she got preceding gamergate, was false consciousness in which the gamer masses responded to things that were natural to be upset about (a cottage industry hobby being shredded apart, commodified, reduced into lowest common denominator bait products, and stripped of the things that used to bring them joy) by transference onto a much easier target for a group of atomized dipshits raised without any critique of capitalism: evil women complaining too much. There was a legitimate amount of hatred towards gaming journalism before gamergate because it was a joke industry that existed purely to do advertising for big gaming companies, but since these gamers were legitimately unable to critique the causes of that, they latched onto an invented effect.
One funny thing about Sarkeesian that I like for the same reason I love Armond White, is that she's not particularly insightful and often misses the point of the object of her critique, which is hilarious because it absolutely infuriates the gamer horde. You can see this happening now with her Letterboxd account, which is legitimately fucking hilarious. There's this banger for example. Her review of Elf is just "I’d never seen this movie. My reaction to it is likely what you would expect." Her discussion of Robocop as being copraganda is also an all timer lmao (although props to her because if I recall correctly, she pushes back when one of the libs in the discussion complains that the film is "redirecting" critiques of the police onto "corporations" hahaha)
Sarkeesian got the publicity and the hate because she was the first one to make gamers aware that what used to be their insular little boys club was now something enjoyed by many people, and that it would need to change to accommodate them accordingly. I think a lot of gamergate and the hate she got preceding gamergate, was false consciousness in which the gamer masses responded to things that were natural to be upset about (a cottage industry hobby being shredded apart, commodified, reduced into lowest common denominator bait products, and stripped of the things that used to bring them joy) by transference onto a much easier target for a group of atomized dipshits raised without any critique of capitalism: evil women complaining too much. There was a legitimate amount of hatred towards gaming journalism before gamergate because it was a joke industry that existed purely to do advertising for big gaming companies, but since these gamers were legitimately unable to critique the causes of that, they latched onto an invented effect.
One funny thing about Sarkeesian that I like for the same reason I love Armond White, is that she's not particularly insightful and often misses the point of the object of her critique, which is hilarious because it absolutely infuriates the gamer horde. You can see this happening now with her Letterboxd account, which is legitimately fucking hilarious. There's this banger for example. Her review of Elf is just "I’d never seen this movie. My reaction to it is likely what you would expect." Her discussion of Robocop as being copraganda is also an all timer lmao (although props to her because if I recall correctly, she pushes back when one of the libs in the discussion complains that the film is "redirecting" critiques of the police onto "corporations" hahaha)