At the 2021 San Sebastian Film Festival, Johnny Depp was on an uncertain footing with the public following a failed attempt in the U.K. to sue a publication for calling him a “wifebeater.” Seeking solidarity, he warns the gathered press that, “[Cancel culture is] so far out of hand now that I can promise you that no one is safe.” Depp asserts that the real threat to public safety is not a culture of misogyny or abuse, but one of calling out such abuses. Following his invitation to fear cancellation and to follow his subsequent public relations campaign, social media users overwhelmingly empathize with Depp, reinvigorating debates about the ostensible overreaches of cancel culture.[1]

The 2010s Gamergate and today’s cancel culture controversies are linked etymologically through the activist practice of calling out.[2] However, while Gamergaters organized a misogynistic campaign to call out and doxx feminist gamers, the misogynistic campaign against cancel culture seeks to silence those who call out and report abusers. Taken together, these campaigns each illustrate how dominant power scripts embrace or discard discursive tools only insofar as they serve a greater effort to render social justice efforts as a threat to public health.

Consider how each controversy began. In 2014, video game developer Zoë Quinn’s ex-boyfriend posts a roughly 10,000-word manifesto on a well-known call-out site about her alleged infidelity.[3] From there, the manifesto circulates on 4chan, Reddit, and Youtube, where gamers unite around an agenda to prevent activist gamers such as Zoë Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian from advocating for gender inclusivity in the gaming world. Later, cancel culture as a term and controversy crystalizes in response to the cultural and political disruption of the #MeToo movement of 2017.[4] As powerful public figures such as Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., and Bill Cosby face social and legal repercussions for abusing women, anti-cancel-culture agents employ tactics of shaming, harassing, and stalking that resonate with Gamergate's tactics against so-called social justice warriors. And, as with Gamergate, massive online communities portray dominant class members as the real victims of a conspiratorial liberal agenda. Ultimately, a study of Gamergate and cancel culture reveals the flexibility and resilience of antifeminist efforts in online controversy.

Works Cited

D. Clark, Meredith. “DRAG THEM: A Brief Etymology of so-Called ‘Cancel Culture.’” Communication and the Public, vol. 5, no. 3–4, Sept. 2020, pp. 88–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047320961562.

Illing, Sean. “The Woman at the Center of #Gamergate Gives Zero Fucks about Her Haters.” Vox, 19 Sept. 2017, https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/19/16301682/gamergate-alt-right-zoe-q....

Mendes, Kaitlynn, et al. “#MeToo and the Promise and Pitfalls of Challenging Rape Culture through Digital Feminist Activism.” European Journal of Women’s Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, May 2018, pp. 236–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318.

Tsioulcas, Anastasia, and Ayesha Rascoe. “On Social Media, Johnny Depp Is Winning Public Sympathy over Amber Heard.” NPR, 23 May 2022. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2022/05/23/1100685712/on-social-media-johnny-depp-is....