Well, after reading the link Kinsei linked about a critique on TB's YouTube comment from 2014, as well as reading the source to what A.By posted with TB's YouTube comments from 2016, watching a bunch of junk and info about GamerGate that I've previously avoided whenever it's mentioned because I knew it'd be a huge can of worms I'd sift through whenever I decided to actually learn about it, there's a lot to unpack. I think I have a big headache wrapping my mind around it all.
TB was definitely in the wrong for being a pro-GamerGater. However, I don't think he was a true-blood GamerGater, just another person conned by the "ethics in games journalism" rhetoric that they used. An Angry Jack, easily and extremely influenced by the GamerGate movement:
I firmly believe that's the case because TB was always pro-ethics in journalism long before GamerGate, since 2011 when he started to gain popularity. As an influential figure in gaming, he had to personally deal with game journalism issues like being given gifts from developers, companies not giving out review copies, or other exploitative and anti-consumer practices by companies. His whole stance on GamerGate is that it was an actual movement to endorse ethics in game journalism. He felt the death threats that were sent by GamerGaters were extreme, but he was receiving those same death threats and a great deal of harassment by Anti-GGers, so to him they were all crazy people resorting to tribalism who shouldn't be taken seriously. To him, the fact these people were being given more attention than games journalism ethics was so backwards as someone who truly believed in GamerGate's "message" on ethics in games journalism.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to defend his actions. I'm just trying to understand the situation myself after his death. I look at all the vitriol that GamerGate represented, the stuff TB himself stated, and I'm trying to make sense on why TB seems respected by his close peers in spite of that all. Like, why would Laura, a trans woman, and Sky Williams, a black gay man, hold a pro-GG member in high regard? Why did he never publicly apologize for supporting GG? It's because he legitimately never associated GG with a hate movement. Laura cites this SoundCloud as the thing she will most remember him by, his soundcloud defending her.
https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/we-need-to-have-words
Obviously, the damage he caused by association is great. It's not an overstatement to say he was one of, if not the largest contributing factor to why GamerGate succeeded so well in what it wanted to accomplish. Maybe I'm just constantly making up excuses, I've been up for about 7 hours more than I ought to just trying to wrap my head about this whole incident. I don't know, when I look into both sides of the story, I see a man who was conned so badly by the GamerGate movement that he never realized the true motives behind it. He legitimately believed, even on his deathbed, in the fake rhetoric GG-ers used to defend themselves with. The fact that he was also personally being harassed by anti-GG folk may have helped to fuel his irrational look at what GamerGate was. But that's just as someone who had no real exposure to GamerGate until now, so I have no real idea at the end of the day. I need shuteye, so I'll sleep on it.