Videogames and the gaming industry in the 21st-century generate more employment and revenue than either the professional music industry or the Hollywood film industry, making videogames both highly lucrative and extremely influential on a cultural level. When we consider the significance of cultural artifacts-like videogames, or television, films, or books-on the development of cultural mores and our understanding of society, leadership, and followership, it is therefore important that we consider the influence of an industry as large and widespread as the games industry. In this article, I examine the particular influence of an online movement known as "GamerGate," how it connects to the history and origins of the internet and videogames, how it connects to the subsequent rise of the alt-right, and what we can learn about the altright as a small but significant portion of contemporary Western culture-including what we need to do to dismantle it.

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Shakespearean charisma, with its medieval roots in both religion and politics, served as a precursor to Max Weber's later understanding of the term. The on-stage portrayal of charismatic kingship in the twilight of the Tudor dynasty was not coincidental; facing the imminent death of a queen, the English nation was concerned about the future of the monarchy. Through the depiction of the production and deterioration of royal charisma, Shakespeare presents the anxiety of a population aware of the latent dangers of charismatic authority; while Elizabeth managed to perpetuate an unprecedented degree of long-term charismatic rule, there could be no certainty that her successor would be similarly capable. Shakespeare's second tetralogy-known as the Henriad-examines this royal charisma as it appears both under crisis and in the process of what Weber would later characterize as routinization. While Henry IV (Bolingbroke) originally makes use of charisma to ensure his succession to Richard II's throne, he loses his charismatic authority in the process. Henry V, by contrast, makes use of deliberate crisis-his claim to the French crown-in order to restore royal charisma. Henry V's success, however, cannot last, and his son's reign is a disastrous reminder that charisma is, as Weber will later argue, inherently unstable.

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This chapter explores how through both narrative and gameplay mechanics, BioWare’s 2011 digital role-playing game Dragon Age II seeks to help players redefine their understanding of ethics in terms of human emotion and interaction. These interaction-based ethics are the product of our desire to situate ourselves within a social community rather than on an abstract continuum of universal “right” and “wrong.” The ambiguity contained within the friendship-rivalry system factionalizes Hawke and his/her companions, forcing the player, as the group’s leader, to ally with one of the two sides in the game’s overarching conflict. This coercive mechanic produces awareness in the player of the way in which interpersonal relationships form our responses in ethical situations, and causes the player to question whether their decisions are the product of “pure” ethics, or the consequence of deliberate or unconscious submission to the ethical mores of others.