Late yesterday evening, around 300 ordinary GamerGate supporters and major figures alike, including Christina Hoff Sommers and Milo Yiannopolous, attended a meet & greet at a small bar in Washington D.C. Heralded as the first real-life Gamergate meetup, the good cheer and joviality lasted well into the small hours of the morning, and the opinions of all attending were that an air of comradery and sanity evinced the true spirit of all GamerGate. #GGinDC was a trending topic as far away as the UK, and many were thrilled to meet the big names of the movement.
Of course, this mood did not extend throughout Twitter, where notorious opponents of the movement such as Arthur Chu expressed disdain that a group of friendly people who just happened to hold contrary political views to their own might be permitted to meet together in peace.
Earlier in the night, unnamed callers phoned the bar to warn the owners that a “hate movement” was meeting there, or to inform them that the bar was helping “perpetuate harassment.” Never mind that unsolicited calls to a business owner might be considered harassment. These gadflies were rightfully dismissed by the unimpressed proprietors of the establishment, who were of course able to see the perfectly normal, cordial meeting right in front of them. However, this was not to be the end of the mischief that anti-GG ideologues were set to wreak that night.
The first whiffs of chicanery formulated, of course, on Twitter. Chu himself left this tidbit of foreshadowing on his page early in the evening:
Another miscreant later followed suit with this doubtlessly hollow threat:
Run of the mill Internet bullshit, which no one would’ve paid any mind to at all, had things stayed there. Of course, it didn’t.
An unidentified caller soon phoned in a bomb threat to the D.C. area police, and they responded to the scene of the meetup to evacuate the venue around 12:15 am. Someone online reported this as a “fire alarm,” which was later found to be a cover story from the owners of the bar, to prevent a panic. The officers briefly inspected the area, assessed the situation, and declared the zone perfectly safe, after which the ‘Gaters were permitted to reenter the bar and carry on.
The whole fiasco lasted about fifteen minutes, and primarily served to confuse the bartenders as to why someone would want to disrupt such a happy gathering. A few rounds of shots later, on the house out of sympathy, the meeting came to a close in the early hours of the morning.
Overall, the meeting was a rousing success. The party continued until past midnight, when the trouble occurred, and then became a metaphor for the whole of GamerGate itself: innocent people having fun until they get disrupted by hypocritical, holier-than-thou outsiders who are doing the same things they pretend to condemn.
Had nothing happened, it would have been merely a fun time for a few pleasant people, but somebody had to go and turn the whole thing into a perfect rallying point for all of GG, as well as an object lesson to all outsiders as to who the real villains are in this scenario. Is it the insular, fun-loving gathering of friends, or the embittered malcontents who have no rightful complaints?
Since this bomb threat occurred in Washington, D.C. of all places, it is now a federal matter. It is my sincerest wish that the FBI perform their due diligence and investigate the many online leads regarding who might have committed the act of pseudo-terrorism in our nation;s capital. Doubtlessly, FOIA requests will be waiting, to see just what they uncover about the nature of this crime. Let’s wait and see just how this story is received by the mainstream media, and whether they frame it as yet more of their disingenuous narrative or simply pretend it never happened, since Social Justice types would neeever do something like this.
Read More: Arthur Chu And Friends Try To Stop #GamerGate Meetup By Harassing Venue
