I mean I know what is generally meant when the term gatekeeping is used but it seems like those that throw the term around consider something as simple as asking what comics they like to be gatekeeping. Is it as simple as that?
I remember when they announced the writers for the Star Wars High Republic series and besides the fact their twitter posts were full of "white man bad" nonsense she mentioned how empowering it was to see a female Jedi on screen. Of course she got mad when people pointed out there were female jedi in the prequels. Her defenders were calling everyone gatekeepers.
Also, there was the lady who is producing the new She-Hulk movie. She got mad because someone asked her if she is familiar with the character because the guy was concerned since so many of her tweets were about how evil white male nerds are and how horrible western canon is. She mentioned something about gatekeeping but I would think it is entirely reasonable to expect someone who is given a comic book related project to know the source material. I am currently on season 2 of Babylon 5 but if they ever did a reboot or sequel and asked me to write for it, you can believe I'll spend at least two months cramming on all the B5 lore I can find.
Sorry for the long post, but I would like your input. It seems to me that those that throw around the term "gatekeeper" are people who are mad because someone may have asked them something pertaining to the hobby.
But what do I know. Entering a hobby/fandom and then complaining about how it doesn't cater to you and insulting people makes perfect sense I guess.
I've recently started following the professional Trackmania scene. The game itself is one of those "simple but not easy" games like I grew up with but with better graphics, and the community is pure meritocratic "get gud" like old school gaming communities were. A welcome oasis for someone who last regularly gamed in the PS2 era.
If you start playing and proclaim that the game needs to be changed because the tracks are too hard or the game is too fast, they'll tell you to fuck right off because it being hard is the point. But if a pro who's spent thousands of hours perfecting the game says "I can see why you penalize hitting a wall to discourage players from deliberately hitting it to slow down entering a corner, but doing this has a lot of negative side effects in other aspects of the game" then they're listened to because they've put their time in.
There's a very basic notion in a lot of modern right-wing circles of "skin in the game", where people who have paid their dues and only people who have paid their dues are allowed an opinion. It used to be popular in a lot of nerd circles too back in the day: gaming obviously but also programming and IT. Also true in the trades: I like to weld but no welder should take anything I say about welding seriously because I don't do it often enough to have opinions worth listening to.
Something as simple as getting a sound card or video card that didn't come with your computer when you bought it to work used to be a rite of passage. I remember tweaking a driver .ini file to force it to work with my graphics card because somehow I figured out it would work even if it wasn't officially supported. Those days are over but it'd probably be beneficial if they weren't.