Media Outlets Report That Trump Shooter Posted About Assassination Attempt On 'Gaming Site' Known As 'Steam,' Which Probably Isn't True

Move over "Hacker known as 4chan," there's a new bewilderingly out-of-touch description of a common internet forum in town.

Yesterday, reports circulated that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter at Donald Trump's rally last Saturday, had posted a "final message" on a message board he frequented, a place described by some media outlets as a breeding ground for political dissent and dangerous rhetoric.

The name of this vile place? Steam.

According to initial reports, Crooks had posted to Steam, "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds," a supposedly grim warning for what he'd attempt. However, after a few hours of that story circulating, CNN reported that the account that made that comment was faked to appear to look like Crooks, and Crooks himself made no such remark.

In those intervening hours, however, Fox News whipped up an article attempting to tie Valve's gaming platform and marketplace Steam to Cooks' motive for the attack. They came up with an indie game on Steam called Mr. President!, a game in which the player plays as a bodyguard jumping in front of bullets aimed at a legally distinct parody of Donald Trump named "Ronald Rump."

Fox News admits that there is no evidence Crooks has ever played Mr. President! However, that didn't stop the outlet from spending much of its article basically explaining everything about the $10 comedy game in great detail for multiple paragraphs.

It seemed obvious to readers that Fox was trying to pigeonhole Crooks into a "lone gunman" archetype who was radicalized by dark corners of the internet.

The issue with their attempt is that Steam is incredibly popular and features over 100,000 games, making it bizarre that Fox would cherry-pick one game that they themselves admit Crooks never played to write an entire article about.

Other games Crooks may or may not have played on the vile "Steam" platform include Doki Doki Literature Club, Untitled Goose Game and Vampire Therapist.