I thought I would recapitulate some of my notes on gatekeeping, and why it exists.
Gatekeeping involves the unintentional breach of implied or otherwise unstated/unwritten social rules or etiquette. There are few measures that can be taken ; even lurking is not always good enough, as the rules can be subtle or capriciously enforced. The only sign is shunning or feedback, which is swift and negative, and also unhelpful as it provides no information as to which rule(s) were broken.
That is the thing about gatekeeping : there is no constructive feedback. The only thing that can be inferred is that something you did was wrong or bad. A wire was tripped the existence of which is only realized after the fact. It’s like, “Not only are you wrong and bad, but it’s beneath us to explain why. Go away.”
Gatekeeping is related to ‘cringe’. Cringe by definition is bad, but not all badness is cringe, which is a worse level of badness, as it represents miscommunication or otherwise a mismatch by the sender and the recipient/audience, accidentally revealing negative information of the recipient that leaves lasting or irreparable reputational damage or represents an irreconcilable difference of values.
For example, someone who posts an argument for eating animal products on a vegan forum would be bad, but it’s not cringe, as the poster is under no illusion of being well-intentioned. The poster’s motive is to offend, which he succeeds. ‘Cringe’ is more subtle and represents a miscommunication or mismatch of values, not necessarily malice. An example could be someone on the hypothetical vegan forum who unwittingly shares a recipe with gelatin, which unbeknownst to him is made from collagen taken from animal body parts.
To tie these, gatekeeping functions as the informal sanction applied to those deemed cringe. ‘Being cringe’ and the practice of gatekeeping both hinge on the violation of tacit social norms. This invites cries of censorship. Although gatekeeping is a form of censorship, not all censorship is gatekeeping. Censorship is more after the fact, whereas gatekeeping is preemptive.
A literal example of gatekeeping is a doorman at a trendy night club, who has an opaque or vague set of criteria of who gets in, in order to cultivate a certain ambiance. People who are deemed uncool or give off bad vibes are turned away, but it’s never specified what those criteria are. A bouncer who removes a disruptive patron is more akin to censorship, by responding to conduct already deemed unacceptable, whereas gatekeeping corresponds to preemptively blocking someone at the door.
A second example, drawn from online communities, is MathOverflow, which functions as a research and advanced-level counterpart to Math StackExchange, the latter being oriented toward beginner and undergraduate mathematics. On MathOverflow, questions judged to be “not research level” or otherwise unsuitable are frequently downvoted or removed; however, the criteria for this judgment–and the precise boundary between “research-level” and “beginner” content–are often unclear.
In practice, many MathOverflow questions do not involve solving concrete mathematical problems or are relatively elementary, while numerous Math StackExchange questions are highly non-trivial and extend well beyond typical undergraduate coursework. This ambiguity in MathOverflow’s standards may operate as a form of gatekeeping, filtering out work deemed “untrendy” or “uninteresting” according to implicit and largely unstated norms.
I recall this happening to myself. Initially, in 2021-2023, I found that my questions on MathOverflow did well, meaning that users found them interesting and were inclined to answer. By 2025 I noticed the opposite: my questions were getting downvoted. This was despite knowing more math. Something had changed. I posit a three stage evolution of a community: Initially, a community is welcoming of many viewpoints and users. At some point, due to being too lenient, the signal to noise falls below some threshold, which irritates ‘veteran’ members. This leads to gatekeeping to boost quality, quietly driving away novices or anyone who doesn’t have the patience to learn the inside baseball.
Gatekeeping exists because if the norms were explicated, entryists would modify their behavior accordingly to assimilate and subvert the whole system. So there needs to be sufficient randomness baked into the system to prevent social engineering. Those ‘in the know’ will detect the subtle mannerisms of entryists and block them accordingly. Vagueness also prevents so-called ‘rules lawyering‘ by bad faith actors.
Accusations of gatekeeping will never be directed against the other team or side, so you will never see liberals accusing conservatives of gatekeeping, or vice-versa, as the boundaries are well defined by ideology. Instead, this dynamic is called censorship or intolerance; e.g. labels such as “the intolerant left” or accusations of social media platforms censoring or de-platforming conservatives.
Ben Shapiro has been accused of gatekeeping by others on the Right, although I don’t think he counts as a gatekeeper. He’s transparent about his pro-Israel views; it’s his entire brand, so there is no ambiguity to where he stands. And there are many alternatives to his show. The ‘politics podcast market’ is big enough to accommodate many niches or players, and his approval is unnecessary for having a successful conservative podcast. By comparison, MathOverflow and Math StackExchange function as an effective duopoly on ‘online math discussion’.