About

"Actually it's about ethics in gaming journalism" is a phrase often photoshoped onto screenshots taken from horror movies or video-games as a humorous response to the Gamergate movement, mocking the over-use of the phrase by supporters of the movement. Proponents of the movement frequently used the phrase in related discussion.

Origin

The earliest example of the phrase being paired with a still from a horror movie comes from a tweet sent out on October 15th, 2014, by Twitter user Alejandrobot^[1], who captioned a still of the horror film It. Within two weeks the tweet received over 3,000 favorites and over 2,000 retweets.

Spread

On October 24th, 2014, the single topic Tumblr blogs itsaboutethicsingamesjournalism^[2] and actuallyethics^[4] launched. The same day the meme was covered by BoingBoing,^[3] followed by Buzzfeed^[7] the next day. Also on October 24th, The Washington Post^[9] interviewed Gamergate supporters who claim Gamergate is about journalism ethics. The meme has also spread on Twitter through the hashtag #germergoat.^[9] The hashtag was introduced by Twitter user zpxlng^[5] on October 24th, through a tweet that received more than 700 times retweets in less than 24 hours.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References