You already know who these commentators are, and you have seen their works everywhere. They thrive in the worlds of on-line journalism, blogging, news aggregators, click-bait journalism, and social media. Their ranks have swollen, and they have problematized everything under the sun. And without more worlds to conquer, they have set their eyes on entertainment and video games.

In this book, I outline the nature of a new class of so-called social commentators that has become widespread (and widely despised) during the last few years. Using their manufactured controversies concerning videos games and their violent, sexist, and racist “pernicious messages” as an example, I explain their antics as a performance for social visibility, prestige, and attention. This process, which first manifested in the domain of Criticism, has trickled down and stifled creativity and imagination, pathologized games, fun, and normalcy, and transformed “politics” and “cultural analysis” into a self-aggrandizing and endogamous game of one-upmanship.