Dan Vasc Started Gamergate 2.0

Satire

If you listen to games journalists, their favorite boogeyman, Gamergate, has been resurrected thanks to the attention Sweet Baby Inc. has garnered over its woke gaming content. Curators were started, videos and articles were made, and The Daily Wire even took notice, with every screeching internet harpy from Kotaku to Timbuktu labeling the new fracas “Gamergate 2.0.” But where did it begin? Who is the head of the snake? Who started Gamergate 2.0?

No, wait; it wasn’t him this time. (Sorry, Norm.) It was Dan Vasc, massively talented musician and free-wheeling man about town.

You see, this started well before Sweet Baby Inc. was the talk of the town square, with a video from Az on his YouTube channel HeelvsBabyface. The topic was Starfield, the sci-fi action RPG from Bethesda. When designing your character, Starfield prompts you to choose not just your character’s sex but their pronouns. This elicited an infamous rant from Az that forced brave warriors like The Act Man to take up arms – or, at least, the keys that can be used to spell “arms” – to wage war on Az, dispelling the ridiculous notion that he was angry because video games were ruining the immersion into their fantasy worlds by injecting modern-day sociopolitical ideas like the selection of one’s pronouns from an ever-widening cornucopia of options. (Unfortunately, Starfield only lets you choose between he/him, she/her, and they/them; do better, Bethesda.) A rampaging gorilla that required firearm-induced sedation, Az was a danger to himself and others thanks to his easily avoidable demonstration of displeasure, and he spent months having the elite of the gaming world try to stop his rampage with “man-baby” labels that, unfortunately, failed to stick. (Though the “gorilla” thing did, just not how they’d hoped.)

Gorilla-shaped man on the verge of crying because Starfield lets you pick pronouns at the start of the game and then it's never brought up again.

Somebody please shoot this guy with a bear tranquilizer, he's going to attack someone https://t.co/FRMJKkhPWS

— The Act Man (@TheActMan_YT) September 3, 2023

But it was Sweet Baby Inc.’s rise to prominence that allowed Az to tag in an army of reinforcements, like a nice guy who made a Steam curator listing which games the company consulted on or… people joining said curator. March has essentially been The Last Days of Pompeii, a metaphor only bigots think is hyperbolic, and as far as the world knows, it all stemmed from Az’s outrage.

But did it?

Of course not. See, Az’s rant would have gone unnoticed had it not been for this:

Which led to this:

Western Gayming Industry, with the mighty @heelvsbabyface.#Starfield pic.twitter.com/J6yHjE0gfp

— Dan Vasc (@danvasc2) September 3, 2023

Dan Vasc knew what was coming. Dan Vasc wanted the war. Dan Vasc sowed the seeds that grew into Gamergate 2.0, and now, we’re all reaping the poisoned fruits. And, if you’ll notice, Dan Vasc’s name is never mentioned in connection with the apocalypse he triggered. Much like the moon landing hoax and the puff of smoke coming from Elvis’ gun on the grassy knoll, these events were orchestrated by a sinister mastermind hiding in the shadows, making various internet figures dance to his tune like the upper-middle-aged women in his private messages. And like Ernst Stavro Blofeld with hair – so much hair – Dan Vasc is watching the world burn in the fire he started, cackling as Gamergate 2.0 sweeps the globe, raining down even more death and destruction than its predecessor.

Some brave souls dare to speak out:

He popped off “gamergate 2.0”

— Eric July (@EricDJuly) March 14, 2024

They won’t last long, unless you think this is the first time anyone’s connected Dan Vasc to untold evil. Have you seen what happened to Buzzfeed’s staff? Do you really think they’re just a bunch of talentless, pandering hacks who were culled by their employers to save what few cents were left in the till? Or did they disappear because they were about to publish something along the lines of “Top 10 Ways Dan Vasc is Planning Gamergate 2.0, and Also Why Pretzels are Racist”? Sure, you can keep your head in the sand and tell yourself Kotaku and its fellow crusading journalists only talked about Gamergate 2.0 for clicks, shares, and something to blame Sweet Baby Inc.’s misfortunes on.

Dan Vasc will thank you.