Right-wing social media users have been targeting a consulting company called Sweet Baby that helps with plot development in video games, pushing misleading claims that the company is seeding principles of diversity and inclusion into the plots. Now 4chan users and creators on mainstream platforms, including YouTube and TikTok, have taken up the cause, with some even dubbing it “Gamergate 2.0.”
Gamergate began in 2014 when a hoard of internet trolls launched a harassment campaign against a female game developer, and it blossomed into a broader movement that targeted women and diversity in the video gaming industry. Several women received death and rape threats for years, and Gamergate continues to influence far-right internet culture and online extremists.
According to gaming outlet Kotaku, Sweet Baby is a consulting company that acts as a “Hollywood ‘script doctor’” and helps video game developers “ensure a game’s plot points make logical sense and are satisfying to players, and that characters speak and behave in consistent ways.”
Even though, as PC Gamer noted, “Sweet Baby has no actual say on what makes it into the final game,” a group called “Sweet Baby Inc detected” formed in late January on Steam, the world’s largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with the aim of identifying which games Sweet Baby had supposedly influenced. The group’s members reportedly believe that the company is “pushing a ‘woke’ agenda by working toward greater diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The Steam group’s popularity has grown to over 200,000 followers, and the attacks on the company have spread elsewhere online, reportedly leading to harassment against the company’s employees.
Users on the far-right message board site 4chan, which helped manufacture Gamergate a decade ago, have taken notice of these spiking online attacks of the company, comparing it to Gamergate.
According to internal Media Matters data, mentions of Sweet Baby on 4chan’s “politically incorrect” message board (commonly known as “/pol/”) have jumped since the beginning of March, with nearly 500 mentions since then. Multiple threads and posts on the platform have described the recent targeting of the company as “GamerGate2” or “Gamergate 2.0,” and have asked fellow users if they’re “ready for the Second Great War.”
