Of all the strands of geek culture, gamers have always seemed to be the group most likely to explode in anger at challenges to their subculture. Like all geek culture, that culture is little more than the consumption of media as a means of identity formation.

Gaming media, of course, can be particularly noxious, flirting with overt misogyny and largely created by a corporate culture resistant to any change that could jeopardize profit.

The gamer kettle has finally boiled over. Over the past two weeks, the immediacy and tangibility of the danger of geek culture’s toxic identity politics have crossed from potential to real, with threats of violence toward women and elaborate conspiracy theories being concocted to explain the small shifts toward inclusiveness in the gamer clubhouse.