What Is The 'DEIWatchdog' Website And Why Is It Down? The Viral 'Anti-DEI' Video Game Review Site Explained
Gamers who are sick of being bombarded by supposed "wokeness" in their video games were recently graced with a new website to help them find the right games to play, but in just a few days of launching, it's been taken offline.
The website is called DEI Watchdog and it aims to call out examples of video games that some argue follow DEI practices to help gamers avoid getting triggered when they see something offensive, like, say, a woman protagonist or an underrepresented community in a game.
So what happened to the website and why did it get shut down so early into its beta release? Here's what you need to know about DEIWatchdog and why it's sparking memes and controversy online.
What Is DEIWatchdog?
DEIWatchdog is a video game review site similar to Steam's Woke Content Detector group. Essentially, the website hosts reviews of video games based on how "woke" or "based" they are — at according to some. The site seems to run on user reviews, meaning anyone can let their opinions be heard.
The site has been in the works since December 2024, and on January 1st, 2025, an open beta version of the site was launched.
Purportedly, site visitors were allowed to go on, submit games and then submit reviews for those games without the need for an account. This allegedly ended up being one of the things that caused the site to go down after its brief period online.
Why Is DEIWatchdog Down?
A few days after it was launched, DEI Watchdog went viral on X / Twitter, but not exactly in the way its creator might have wanted. Namely, X user @airbagged made a post sharing a screenshot of the site's reviews and writing, "THEY MADE A DEI VIDEO GAME REVIEW WEBSITE […] this is gonna provide endless laughs."
The post gained thousands of likes and reposts and likely helped drive traffic to the site. Users quickly learned that they could review games without accounts, leading to a lot of troll reviews.
Many also simply visited the site to find out whether their favorite games were perceived as "woke" or not, what the reasons for this were, and then to make fun of that reasoning online.
The traffic ended up being too much for the site to handle. The creator eventually got it back up, but that revival was short-lived.
Now, accessing the site results in a site maintenance message, suggesting the creator is working hard to get it back up. Unfortunately, for now, gamers are just gonna have to play their games and hope they don't encounter any scary examples of "wokeness."
For the full history of DEI Watchdog, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.
