Law and Order: SVU‘s GamerGate Episode: I Don’t Know Whether to Laugh or Cry

Firstly, to head off the most obvious rebuttal: the episode is clearly only going to focus on the potentially criminal aspects of the GamerGate issue, because Ubisoft sending crappy embargoed product to reviewers is not going to fall under the Special Victims Unit category. So let’s not hear that argument again.

That said, when did Ice-T become the patron saint of explaining video game terminology to people? And couldn’t they be more creative than naming the offending website “Redchan”? And what sexual assault victim is going to describe her attackers with the phrase “They leveled up”? Also, while I don’t for a moment dismiss people’s fear for their safety in real life, the terrorist gamer group depicted here seems way more organized and motivated than any asshole Internet commenters I’ve ever heard of. The showrunners should stick to stuff that isn’t totally foreign to them – like, have an episode about an accused rapist named Phil Blozby. The movie Smiley was more accurate about 4chan, and it had a magic serial killer.

I’m SOOO glad America has now had such terms as FPS and RPG explained by Law and Order. And that Ice-T is the one guy who can tell the difference between games and reality – he really is an O.G. Behold, if you wish, a 9-minute montage of the best-worst parts of the episode.

h/t SlyDante777