More and more video game influencers are becoming fascists. This shift ought to come as a surprise, and yet it has now become commonplace. Worse still, are there not already, in some of their gaming practices, the early signs of a toxic authoritarianism that is gradually spilling over into the real world?
Sardoche is a French streamer who made a name for himself in League of Legends thanks to his self-destructive tendencies and his fiery temperament. From 2014 onwards, his skills as a player enabled him to join prestigious teams, bringing him visibility and, very quickly, fame. For years, he was one of the most-followed influencers on Twitch, peaking at nearly 150,000 concurrent viewers.
Asmongold is an American streamer who first made a name for himself on YouTube back in 2009. At the time, he was regularly posting World of Warcraft videos. He also began streaming on Twitch in 2014, and went on to enjoy huge success. Today, 3.4 million viewers follow his lengthy discussions on everything to do with video games, and his videos have now racked up several billion views.
Sardoche and Asmongold both share the distinction of having been exceptional players. Sardoche’s virtuoso displays in League of Legends are simply mesmerising. His style of play is imbued with a distinctive character, creating unique in-game situations. He showcases a dazzling array of technical skill, provoking precarious balancing acts and seemingly hopeless confrontations that he ultimately turns to his advantage through a brilliant variation, a clever manoeuvre or a masterful change of pace. Like any virtuoso, his aim is not so much to produce satisfactory results, but rather to skirt the precipice, to reveal the tension between the extreme technicality of his moves and the rupture that shatters them at the first tiny mistake. We can thus witness his quest for the perfect move, the play, that will enable him to stand his ground and triumph, alone against all.
As for Asmongold, he is no slouch either. He has time and again been among the first players to defeat the toughest enemies in *World of Warcraft*. With his encyclopaedic knowledge, his mastery of the game is truly mesmerising. He can recognise at a glance the origin of an obscure piece of equipment, or the hidden corners of a vast world spanning several decades. Willing to spend every waking hour acquiring trinkets of all kinds, some more rare than others, he embodies the history of a game whose historical context is its primary mechanic. Above all, Asmongold has gathered around him the greatest asset within the social spaces that are MMORPGs: a community.
Another common thread links our two scoundrels: fascism.
Asmongold has been found guilty of domestic and psychological abuse, harassment, stalking and sexual assault. He constantly threatens those he considers enemies, launching waves of harassment with the help of his community. A transphobe, he labels transgender people as mentally ill and insists on denying them proper healthcare. He has acknowledged the genocide of the Palestinians, but only to rejoice in the eradication of an ‘inferior culture’ and an ‘abject people’. Close to pro-Trump political figures, he echoes the anti-woke conspiracy theories of the MAGA movement and unconditionally supports the political militia ICE and the deportation of so-called immigrant populations.
Sardoche has consistently made openly sexist remarks throughout his career as a streamer. He uses language that is derogatory towards women, and sometimes refers to them as “prey”. Fully aware of her age, Sardoche had sexual relations with a 16-year-old girl. He has supported Zemmour, expressing enthusiasm for his candidacy and commenting on his debates live on Twitch. He, too, supports Trump’s political militia and is now commenting increasingly on political current affairs. He finds campaigns in support of Palestine unbearable. He recently explained in an interview with *Valeurs Actuelles* – a dismal far-right rag – that he would like to become more actively involved in politics and stand as a candidate in elections.
The parallels are striking, given how much these two figures resemble one another. All the more so as they are both epiphenomena of a dynamic that is currently shaping the Western political landscape: techno-fascist nerds want to rule the world, and, wallowing in their bloody wake, gamers serve as their lackeys to help them do so. Sardoche and Asmongold are not the only ones to have moved from one social sphere to another, from video games to fascism. It is high time we took this phenomenon seriously, and understood why legions of gamers take pleasure in harassing others, campaigning and embracing fascist ideologies, whilst their opinion leaders hurtle down a slope that seems tailor-made for them : stiff, hideous and stupid.
Do video games make people violent stupid fascist ?
In fact, both Sardoche and Asmongold played a political role long before they decided to embrace the political nature of their discourse. I repeat this time and again in articles, books, lectures, conferences and videos: video games are not isolated from the wider social world. Their rules and norms are constantly debated by diverse and often conflicting communities. In-game, the two streamers spend their time constantly issuing commands. Through their discourse, they construct value systems that extend far beyond the strictly recreational framework. In doing so, they promote technical skill, emotional and time investment, and dedication to the game and to performance within it.
On the face of it, such concerns may appear to be specific to a distinct social sphere. Video game streamers, as opinion leaders and influencers, do indeed have their own distinctive characteristics, values and activities. For example, these social spaces are characterised by the glorification of a miserable ethos and a deplorable lifestyle. There are countless examples amongst streamers – and, by extension, gamers: they flaunt a lifestyle so specific to their situation and activity that it is celebrated within gaming communities. Many of these millionaires, for instance, use a minimalist living space as the backdrop for their streams – one devoid of any frivolity or, quite simply, unsanitary. Asmongold, despite being the owner of two thriving, multimillion-dollar companies, readily shows his ‘bedroom’ just as it is: piled high with rubbish of all kinds, filled with the stench of decomposing rat carcasses, filthy and devoid of any frills. Another World of Warcraft streamer, a multiple American champion and likely a millionaire, gives a tour of his “home”: apart from a PC, a bed and a fridge, the living space is completely empty, as white as the EELV activists. Such tours are not insignificant; they contextualise the influencers’ narratives and maintain a continuous link between them and their communities. Despite their millions (which, in fact, set them apart from the rest of their audience), they make a point of retaining aspects of a lifestyle that is specific to this social sphere.
As well as the way they present their domestic space, there are, of course, also ethical values that are specific to these ‘ayatollahs of gaming’. The same streamer who showed his empty house went on to explain his inability to speak to anyone of the female gender. The very possibility of encountering a woman immediately prompts him to joke about the violence he would inflict on her, as a reflex, as a result of the practices ingrained by his gaming habits. Nerdish, geeky masculinity is expressed here through self-exclusion from a world that is acknowledged, yet embraced, as violent, competitive and ruthless. Streamers find themselves both on the fringes of society and at the pinnacle of their own social sphere: troglodyte predators, yet fearful ‘men of success’.
It is always in the name of a certain authenticity that these dominant fringe figures put on a show, even to the point of showcasing their own miseries. Sardoche has been bearing the brunt of this for a long time. Having become a meme at his own expense, it is less his playful performances than his propensity to express his rage that has truly made him famous. It’s a safe bet that it was one of his outbursts of anger that first brought him to your attention, rather than his achievements or his sharp wit. He has been banned from Twitch and League of Legends on multiple occasions, following insults and harassment directed at players or other streamers. Yet such behaviour is by no means reprehensible within the emerging social sphere that embraces these outbursts. On the contrary, it is valued, highlighting the streamer’s personal investment and commitment, and even their authenticity. In the world of multiplayer games, the moral failing is a lack of gaming skill, not toxicity. Yet this reversal of values is by no means natural; it must have been brought about gradually through the actions of players and their spokespeople.
There are, therefore, many provisions specific to gamers, values that are unique to them, and innovative ways of conveying these. But none of these values is truly isolated from the rest of the world. Whenever they speak out to dictate to their audience the ‘correct’ ways to play, they become part of political and social dynamics that far exceed their own scope. As staunch defenders of aggressive, masculine individualism, they reject any form of cooperation or collaboration. Even their quest for authenticity conceals conservative and reactionary moral codes, which become politicised through the denial of any social or collective element. The glorification of time-consuming activities and dedication to gaming itself masks a process of excluding other players, and above all female players, who already bear the social burden of devoting themselves to tasks of care, attention and domestic duties. It is worth noting how these influencer-gamers, despite being incapable of combing their hair or showing the slightest trace of self-presentation, nevertheless manage to show touching care in the choices of their desk set-ups, in the aestheticisation of their characters or their virtual homes. Male virtual care becomes the counterpart to female domestic care, which has now turned into a ruthless competition. Asmongold is thus well known for organising styling and virtual beauty contests, in which he is the sole judge – testosterone-fuelled yet concerned with appearances in game.
If we take the time to analyse the flow of content relating to video games seriously, we will see that it consists mainly of structuring imperatives that shape the social and cultural space of gamers. Guides show players how to play well; reviews judge games as good or bad; ‘let’s play’ videos demonstrate what to do and often double as guides and reviews, as do live streams, and so on. Games, in turn, adapt and incorporate into their mechanics and requirements the participation of a community that is less collaborative than it is prescriptive. Thus, in principle, asynchronous collaboration within the Dark Souls series seems to enrich these desolate worlds with welcome presences. But in practice, what we mainly encounter in-game are dubious jokes, directives and advice. Everywhere – from online interactions with other players to Steam pages, specialist websites and the physical game covers – insurmountable norms are being established for anyone wishing to play. It all seems so natural that we forget none of this behaviour was necessary; that appreciative discourse could have been based on sensory experience; that our gameplay could have unfolded quite differently. The only inevitable feature of the gaming landscape—shaped by the countless discussions and stances taken by its players—is its fractured topology, its conflictual nature.
Let’s get back to our two techno-stupid ‘ludo-fascists’. Was there something about the years they spent gaming that predestined them to become fascists? Clearly so. Video games have become a prime arena for alt-right socialising across the globe. Asmongold and Sardoche are, to be honest, nothing new. At best, they have simply slid down a slippery slope that has led them to their current authoritarianism.
Video games have been an outlet for masculinity since their very inception. The marginality of the nerd has, from the outset, been a privileged marginality of affluent white men, capable of paying university fees and achieving exemplary academic results. The birth of Silicon Valley coincided with the eugenics of its elites, whose science-fiction dreams were nothing more than a means of extending the reach of imperialism. This ‘geek’ marginality is therefore merely a way of rendering invisible and excluding concrete forms of marginalisation—social, racial, gender-based, and so on. The early days of video games in American universities were far from socially neutral: people played war games with the impression that they were training for an inevitable Cold War.
The industrial development of gaming has done nothing to change any of this. Among the earliest arcade machines, *Gotcha* features a male character chasing a female character who is fleeing from him. The entire visual style suggests a sexual context and glamorises aggression. Games were, therefore, created by men, for men. Sexualised women and glorified toxic masculinities, alongside competitive and individualistic social contexts, have gradually shaped decisive behavioural patterns.
In 2014, all the power built up over years of playful socialisation erupted in an event that is still far too often downplayed: GamerGate. Hordes of gamers put into practice what they had learnt in-game, and banded together in a loose-knit movement to harass women. These women were developers, critics and journalists – in other words, they were producing narratives that clashed with other narratives: those of the gamers and their opinion leaders. The scale of this online harassment is difficult to grasp. Within two weeks, two million posts on Twitter carried the hashtag #GamerGate. The women affected have had to move house several times, leave the industry, lose their jobs, and cancel any public appearances for fear of bomb threats or calls for their murder or rape. Their families have been threatened. Even today, many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and are living with the consequences of this mass harassment.
This widespread witch-hunt shifted the players’ confrontational behaviour – which was already evident within their social circles, in their games, on forums, on YouTube and on Twitch – into the much broader political arena. Their abuses went completely unpunished and, so to speak, gave rise to the American alt-right, which drew heavily on the ranks of the Gamergate agitators.
A typical career path: Milo Yiannopoulos first came to prominence during Gamergate before being recruited by Steve Bannon, Trump’s presidential adviser and Bardella’s communications adviser, then he supported Kanye West in his presidential campaign, which was heavily influenced by Hitler – of whom they are both great admirers – and ended his career (at least let’s hope so) by defending Trump following the revelations about the Epstein case, encouraging sexual relations between adults and minors as young as 13, which he described as “positive experiences”. This case, far from being an isolated one amongst these predatory figures – as we have seen – is just one of the many political trajectories of this horde that has discovered a power it scarcely suspected it possessed: that of terrorising the world.
Steve Bannon, guru of the global alt-right, mentor to Bardella and Zemmour, and adviser to Trump, had been involved in video games as early as 2005, notably *World of Warcraft*, with the explicit and avowed aim of recruiting “an army of white men”. He made $60 million in barely a year through companies offering in-game services and exploiting Asian workers, and took care to reinvest part of his fortune to exert reactionary and fascist influence amongst gamers. His influence extended into the film industry and various media outlets. Implicated in the Epstein cases, it is known that he was in regular contact with representatives of Putin. It was Trump who recently released him, despite a sentence he had received for his involvement in the attack on the Capitol.
During Gamergate, gamers devised new ways of engaging in politics by detterritorialising their methods of conflict. What are these methods? Violence without ethical limits, directed at some of the most vulnerable targets, quickly concealed by ethical considerations, with ambiguous slogans, taken up by voices that exploit irony to fragment and decentralise the movement so that it can constantly readjust and defuse any form of substantive criticism. It was also during this period that the gaming community established its own media infrastructure and economic outlets. Numerous fundraising campaigns were launched to finance influencers, politicians and game developers, enabling them to continue fuelling hatred and harassment. At the same time, the harassers targeted their opponents’ sponsors in order to cut off their income as much as possible.
Throughout the Gamergate controversy, the silence of the video game industry was deafening. For fear of alienating an audience they had themselves radicalised, the major studios never spoke out against the communities of harassers, even though these groups were sometimes organising themselves within their very own games.
This is what Sardoche and Asmongold have inherited. Not so much consciously, but through extreme conformity to the specific social norms of a social sphere that has become hegemonic. They are the heirs to jeuxvideo.com and 4chan – pathetic yet triumphant men who are, at last, dominant. They, too, from their very first steps, knew how to hide behind ethical considerations. Gamergate pretended to fight corruption within the video game industry, misleading and abusive advertising, corporatism and the developers’ insular clique. All these were legitimate and unifying causes, exploited to abuse women and wage their cultural war (which has now become entirely concrete and tangible).
Similarly, Sardoche and Asmongold have constantly set themselves admirable goals. Making game systems fairer, by ensuring that individual talent and time invested are rewarded; protecting children by banning in-game references (successfully for several years in *World of Warcraft*!) to any sexual orientation or gender identity (other than those deemed ‘normal’ or ‘natural’); educating other players or streamers by imposing certain ways of playing on them and harassing them if they do not adopt them, and so on. Asmongold has thus taken a stand to regulate loot boxes, staging an interview with the pro-Trump Senator Ted Cruz – a close ally of Steve Bannon – who was at the time campaigning for a ban on abortion, for the death penalty and its systematic use, a leading advocate of Trump’s wall on the Mexican border, and an activist for children’s right to own and carry weapons, including at school. Thus, the initial pretext—legitimate for a large proportion of players—serves above all to conceal the extreme violence that serves their desires for domination.
Sardoche and Asmongold are fighting ‘wokism’ to preserve the gaming world, just as others are trying to preserve the white race. The presumed purity creates the object and its essence through the struggle meant to preserve it. People readily kill for the purity of a concept.
Here on X, an example of the constant shifts operated by the racist gaming sphere: Sardoche moves from the game to reality, and from reality back to the game. He takes out his frustrations on an ‘otherness’ that has been portrayed as incompatible savagery, whilst presenting himself as a vigilante in the service of women. This façade never contradicts his racist fantasies, much like Israeli homonationalism. Ethics are nebulous, formless, lacking any underlying logic and with no argumentative framework to support them. The verbiage becomes a vile mishmash, whose sole purpose is to fuel the civilisational fantasies that give a reason for existence to the idiots rendered nihilistic by League of Legends.
Another of their strategies is to reduce the political arena to an ultra-rational, pseudo-scientific discipline, which grants them the right to claim superiority and competence. Their relative excellence at video games allows them to enjoy an aura of competence which they extend even to the most absurd fields. Their penchant for rationality borders on the ridiculous when they proclaim themselves experts in politics with no expertise other than that acquired through *League of Legends* and *World of Warcraft*. Sardoche, in particular, fancies himself a great thinker, debating scepticism, politics and the occult, never failing to expose to the world his performative incompetence – which is effective precisely because it is so stupid – in front of his audience.
If Sardoche and Asmongold can exist – and even thrive – it is because, in one way or another, Gamergate has never really ended. Alongside them, countless influencers capitalise on others’ hatred, ruin lives and sow violence, in order to conform to the rules dictated by an autonomous social and cultural sphere – rules valued by their audience and by themselves – in such a way that no escape, nor any questioning of these norms, is possible. If Sardoche were suddenly to try to become a decent human being, he would lose his community and the reference points that valued his intellectual and fascist-leaning mediocrity. Whenever we seek to understand the radicalisation of gaming communities, we must remember that we are no longer dealing with individual behaviours, but with the pathological dynamics of a group numbed by the distorted image it has of itself and the world around it. Driven by capitalist logic, serving up greedy cowardice and vindictive authoritarianism, such trajectories are now commonplace.
Ironically, the logic at work in these new political vocations is the very same that confines these ‘techno-fascists’ to a certain level of mediocrity in gaming. Sardoche is certainly a player of extraordinary individual talent, a true keyboard virtuoso, but he is quite incapable of acquiring the social skills required to perform well as part of a team. For the very same reasons that lead him to view politics as an individual, objective and exclusively rational discipline, he is simply incapable of adapting to his teammates’ movements on the League of Legends map, of taking a back seat to their performances, or of simply trusting them. He is also incapable of reading a book, attending a meeting, or being anything other than a spouter of opinions tailored for and by his audience. Asmongold and Sardoche have displayed such antisocial behaviour in cooperative games that they have both driven their teams to fall out, eventually leading to their dissolution. The best players aren’t the loudest, because the loudest aren’t very good players. Asmongold is now guildless, forced to ask skilled players to help him tackle the high-level content in World of Warcraft. As for Sardoche, having invested tens of thousands of hours in League of Legends, he is now quite incapable of reaching the game’s highest levels and is stuck at a rank simply mediocre.
Their value systems bear no resemblance to sporting ethics, and if they do not serve the purpose of performance, it is clear that their purpose is anything but recreational.
So what can we do? I don’t think it’s my place to issue orders. I don’t want to end up playing the same role as those dismal influencers who arrogate to themselves the power of performative speech. My advice will be limited to this: if you want to take political action, pick up some leaflets, go to party meetings, join a trade union, and organise solidarity around you. In short, contribute to collective efforts, and step back from your individual positions. We think poorly when we’re alone. At best, we can become technically better within worlds pre-programmed by armies of developers catering to our perfectionist tendencies.
If you want to take political action, do not engage in debate with the Sardoche of the internet. For them, the culture of performative debate is a form of self-expression, a way of cultivating one’s image in line with an audience. What for us are matters of life and death become, in the desolate realm of their isolated minds, mere philosophical conundrums, new ways of performing, or a means of possessing knowledge rejected by others. So, at best, we can surround them with our combative co-existence, and exist far from their sick minds.
I remain convinced that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to repoliticise the social spaces we occupy, and that this politicisation may be one of the solutions.
And amongst the things that gamers still have left to politicise, we would do well to consider games themselves.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a brilliant game. Like Sardoche and Asmongold, Clair Obscur displays great virtuosity. It is a magnificent piece of music, a narrative epic that pulls out all the stops to reach a memorable conclusion, a sublime world steeped in horrors and beauties that tower above us, a complex and fast-paced RPG whose mechanics are incredibly satisfying.
Like Sardoche and Asmongold, Clair Obscur helps to set standards for gaming. It conveys representations, narratives and values – representations, narratives and values that do not contradict those of Sardoche and Asmongold. Both have praised the game to the skies.
They could have simply shared their experience, recommended the game, and explained how it resonated with them. But that is not quite how these two evangelists approach their appreciation of games. From the outset, their experience is prescriptive and demands agreement and objectivity. It is important to understand that this reflex to proclaim a game ‘Game of the Year’ with every new release is, above all, an attempt to standardise gaming experiences and productions. From the outset, their concerns are not of a playful or aesthetic nature, but purely normative: one MUST like this game, with no other consideration than its objective characteristics.
It is hardly surprising, then, that what they present as a matter of taste is immediately framed in terms of political claims.
Que ce soit pour nier tout défaut scénaristique ou ancrage néocolonial, ou que ce soit pour trouver au jeu une place franco-française entre le pinard et le saucisson, les deux streamers ne manquent pas de ne pas parler du jeu.
Pour ainsi dire, ils ne parlent jamais de jeux qu’au travers de leurs obsessions civilisationnelles ou compétitives. Leurs déclarations normatives sont omniprésentes dans toutes leurs prises de parole et donnent moins à voir l’expérience esthétique d’un joueur au contact d’une œuvre qu’un discours structurant à destination de son public.
Today, these pathetic idiots have become political influencers simply by shifting the venue for their rhetoric. All they had to do was to ‘deterritorialise’ their oppressive directives and practices, applying the same methods to the real world as they do within video games. Now, virtually all of their online presence is fascist in nature and amounts to nothing more than faithfully regurgitating Trump and Musk’s fake news like good lackeys. Their Twitter accounts resemble the racist pamphlets of the late 19th century and serve to convince us once and for all that these fools never actually talk about video games.
They do not think; they offer no reflection on games other than as a means of asserting their right to be fascist, racist and toxic.
So let’s not be like them, and let’s take games seriously. Let’s play, analyse, reflect and engage with the political dimensions. That is exactly what Ache did on Clair Obscur, in this incredible video. Fascist discourse always demands the absence of discourse; it seeks to eliminate context and elevates its subject to an abstract idea divorced from any reflection. I discussed this here in my latest article on paraludology. Conversely, every time we explore the materiality of the dream, we can deepen our understanding of games and the world. To love games is to accept that they are shaped and reshaped by successive interpretations that give them meaning, unsuspected depths or a role in our lives. For decades, the far right, masculinism and racism have shaped gamers’ common sense, establishing social and gaming norms amongst us, and clouding our senses and our tastes. From now on, any discourse that seeks to address video games must become politicised and challenge this common sense; otherwise, it is nothing more than a delusional tautology, a mirror held up by a handful of billionaires, incapable of bringing the games they attempt to describe any closer to their own reflection.
I’ve got nothing against Clair Obscur; on the contrary, I think that exploring its themes, references and subconscious elements is the best way to appreciate it. And if you’re not prepared to embark on this journey, then is it really the game you enjoy, or simply the comfort of conventional wisdom? For my part, I can see that this game conveys a certain image of France by glorifying the very same Parisian bourgeoisie who lived off their rents thanks to the despicable exploitation of our great-great-grandparents, whether they were French or not. That genocide is treated with a distinctly colonial flippancy; that women are portrayed as being at the player’s service; that the exoticisation of territories and indigenous peoples is a legacy of French Orientalism. I don’t feel the need to ignore whole sections of the game in order to enjoy it.
Let’s play differently, play other games, within other communities, with other goals. That’s what we’re trying to do here, on Point’n Think and elsewhere, in supportive guilds, queer teams and alternative Discord servers. There is everything to deconstruct in order to build our resilience against hegemonic gaming norms, to prevent others from sliding down this slope that leads to miserable lives steeped in hatred, and to imagine other ways of being. To devote our lives to something other than domination.
Jüles Delétoile