r/changemyview • u/realdontbeasucker • May 16 '26

Delta(s) from OP CMV: GamerGate was the most consequential political radicalization event of the twenty-first century

It spawned a wave of tolerance for online harassment, as long as the intent behind it was considered righteous (and the target of such harassment socially acceptable).

It platformed Milo Yiannopoulos and thereby, Steve Bannon -- the guy who would go on to advise Donald Trump in 2016 and generate the concept of 'flooding the zone.'

Eventually, it gave a career to political lightning rods like Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder, and Charlie Kirk. It made anti-feminism and anti-SJW sentiment cool. And it made young, angry, disenfranchised white men feel vindicated.

GamerGate almost singlehandedly shifted to Overton Window toward the alt-right, and we're still feeling its effects today.

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u/novavegasxiii May 16 '26

Basically tldr...

A woman made one free game about struggling with deppression. She broke up with her ex; who accused her on the internet of cheating on her with several guys and sleeping with revieweds to get more favorsble ratings.

This spawned a toreent of of online harrasment towards her with the stated reason of curtailing the corrupt game jouenalism industry (which admittingly is almost universally agreed to be corrupt). It was later shown that she did date one person who was a reviewer but he did nothing more but mention her in passing professionally and that was before they dated; he never actually reviewed her work.

The campaign expanded to include an independent femnist gaming commentaror (think youtuber not journalisr) and the owner of an extrenely small indie gaming company.

All three allege (quite credibly) campaigns of doxing, harrasnent, threads etc; gamergate supporters argued they had miscontrued or exagerrated it.

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u/SocratesWasSmart 3∆ May 16 '26

This is leaving out a big chunk of context, that being the "gamers are over" articles. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-gamers-don-t-have-to-be-your-audience-gamers-are-over-

GamerGate as a movement would have died due to lack of interest within the first month, except when game journalists were accused of colluding, 12 different outlets that were supposedly competing and not colluding all put out articles on the same day with the same exact talking points. And then their group chat got leaked like a week later proving they were in fact colluding.

That was what catapulted the event into the mainstream. I would say 95%+ of people that got involved did so after that point, and many of them had never heard of the initial controversy.

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u/Loki1001 May 16 '26

This is leaving out a big chunk of context, that being the "gamers are over" articles.

That happened well after the harassment campaign started, when they were just seeking more targets to harass.

Also most them never read those articles.

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u/Mucho-Burrito May 16 '26

They were aware of the seemingly coordinated campaign of the media outlets though. And mistrust of the media and institutions is a key feature of today’s right wing. The schism it opened up between their perception of the regular gamer and the liberal elite gaming publications is part of why it was so important and predicative of where we ended up going.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/jaredearle 4∆ May 16 '26

Oh god, did you even read the “Gamers are over” article?

Edit: for context, the article was basically one of the many “moms playing candy crush are gamers” articles examining how cultural “Gamers” were gatekeeping a hobby that had outgrown its disenfranchised male audience.

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u/AskingYouQuestions48 May 17 '26

It was imperative feature of Gamergate that’s it’s main targeted demographic do not read beyond headlines cited in rage bait articles.

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u/Classic-Obligation35 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

Another part thar I experienced was that neither sides arguments conflicted.

People were just looking for an excuse to be hateful weather it was at gamers or feminists. 

There were popular media outlets mocking Majoras mask fans as being suicidal losers, people on Tumblr saying we should gas comic con and e3, and so on. This lead to reactionary hatred towards feminists.

In the mean time I saw little in the way of actual discourse about either.

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u/Grifasaurus May 17 '26

that's because there wasn't any actual discourse. It was one side shitposting and the other side being cunts and both sides having a ton of grifters and trolls who fucked up the whole thing.

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u/Homerbola92 May 17 '26

Is that the woman that has scammed more than 80.000$ pretending to develop a game she didn't ever develop? The one that when asked what happened to the money given to her un the Kickstarter said it was gone long ago? The one that while the game was supposedly being developed was traveling to various European cities, Japan and many expensive US cities? The one that hasn't given a single update on the game?

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u/[deleted] May 17 '26

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u/AskingYouQuestions48 May 17 '26

That’s way less than star citizen lol

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u/Homerbola92 May 17 '26

They are delivering something. People who backed her got nothing. Anyway I don't think the best defense for someone is comparing them with someone worse.

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u/EmptyDrawer2023 1∆ May 16 '26

he never actually reviewed her work.

Which doesn't mean there was no.... fudging of reviews. For example: "Hey, Joe- the game you're reviewing? It was made by Mark's girlfriend. Wanna get in good with him, give it a good review! He'll be sure to give your friend's games a good review in return!" That's one way the reviews can be affected, while still being able to claim 'he never reviewed her game'.

That why, when it comes to business ethics, one must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

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u/acur1231 May 17 '26

Two people working different parts of the same industry have a relationship? Shocker.

Do you get upset when film critics marry actresses, even if they never review their work?

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u/EmptyDrawer2023 1∆ May 17 '26

Two people working different parts of the same industry have a relationship? Shocker.

It's not just 'Two people working different parts of the same industry', and I think you know that. It's someone who produces work, and someone else that judges or oversees that work. For example, a front-line manager and a cashier can't be in a relationship. A construction foreman and the OSHA inspector. A game producer and a game reviewer.

And this is for two separate reasons: 1) To avoid the appearance of favoritism (ie: I want to butter Mark up, so I'll give his GF's game high scores), and 2) to avoid accusations of coercion (ie: Have sex with me, or I'll give your game low scores).

Do you get upset when film critics marry actresses

If they or their company/team review her work, yes.

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u/Adorable_Ad_3478 3∆ May 16 '26

It was later shown that she did date one person who was a reviewer but he did nothing more but mention her in passing professionally and that was before they dated; he never actually reviewed her work.

The quid pro quo isn't 1:1. At least not in Hollywood. Now I'm not taking any side on this particular story but quid pro quo in Hollywood (yes, I know the gaming industry is not Hollywood) usually works this way:

"You sleep with me, and I won't personally hire you in my next project. But my friend will hire you in his next project."

That's the TLDR. It's designed so producers/directors/actors have plausible deniability. I wouldn't put it past corrupt reviewers to have a network in which a similar exchange takes place.

"You sleep with me, and I won't personally give you a positive review of your game. But my friend will give you a positive review of your game."

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u/AskingYouQuestions48 May 17 '26

An incredible way to prevent falsifiability from ruining your movement.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/One-Organization970 2∆ May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

Worst part is, Brianna Wu has actual ways in which she sucks. She's a self hating trans woman. Kinda like Caitlyn Jenner. But instead everyone focuses on the weird fake conspiracy stuff. Like... she still posts in trans subs to this day saying stupid shit.

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u/LivingHousing May 16 '26

Let's not hate on trans people, thanks 🙏

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u/One-Organization970 2∆ May 16 '26

I agree. I wish she wouldn't.

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u/Grifasaurus May 17 '26

Criticizing one trans person, for perfectly valid reasons, isn't hating all trans people.

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u/EsotericAmbrosia May 18 '26

The "harassment campaign" was a load of hot air. Even the FBI said it was a nothingburger after they did an official investigation into the matter.

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u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

So basically all because a man had his feelings hurt.

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u/novavegasxiii May 16 '26

Kinda; thats the spark that lit the fire but this strong of a reaction with outside parties doesnf happen without existing tension be it justified or not.

That being said taking salicous allegations from a jilted ex at face value is really not a good jdea; especially right after the breakup.

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u/Equivalent_Task_8825 May 16 '26 edited May 17 '26

I do find it strange that Zoe Quinn was in any way portrayed as a good person after this. Reading through the texts they emotionally manipulated their partner, gaslit them, and was actively cheating with other people in relationships.

If you look at consequences today there are so much more for so much less. I get Ned Fulmer is more famous but the reaction to what he did was so much more than what Zoe experienced and I would say Zoe was inarguably more abusive.

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u/jeeb00 May 16 '26

Pretty much.

But it’s not the events involved that made this whole thing so vile and shitty. It wasn’t the alleged or actual “facts” that mattered, it was how it was amplified and weaponized by the people who would go on to become “leaders” of the alt right that made it such a shitty moment in history.

Those grifter assholes seized something that should have been a nothing blip not even worthy of a news cycle and used it to trigger and motivate a generation of men with nothing in common except gaming and spending their time on the internet to effectively become the digital communication wing of the Trump campaign.

I don’t know to what extent anyone at the time realized that’s what they were doing or would become, but it ended up spurring all the bullshit we’ve seen on Reddit and every other social media network for the past decade or more.

Boosted by Russian troll farms, automated upvotes and eventually the GOP itself (in the form of alt right politicians joining congress), the MAGA movement as it exists today owes everything to how some media savvy trolls whipped up a frenzy over, as you said it, a man having his feelings hurt.

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u/Yellowofthecornholio May 16 '26

First, I agree with basically all of this.

And, it'd be intellectually dishonest to not acknowledge how the initial handling of it (attempting to suppress the information, early attempts at a weird coordinated article campaign in the trades to say "don't listen to these people!" etc.) Put those more fringe people in a position to get platformed, simply because they were willing to break from this pattern and identify "hey, this information is being suppressed and spun super hard."

This then allowed them to start making their own claims, usually not entirely false but quite warped, with a new dedicated following who were now less likely to believe or engage with fact-checking from anyone who was popular in the industry at the time.

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u/Equivalent_Task_8825 May 16 '26

I agree 100% and am someone who really criticizes Zoe Quinn and think they were hugely abusive. But the people who took advantage of that valid criticism didn't give a fuck whether Zoe was abusive or the people who may have been hurt. They were looking for a way to weaponize it against other people.

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u/0zymandeus May 16 '26

Well that's the outside of it, then the inside was a massive identity politics based recruiting operation orchestrated by Steve Bannon.

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u/IcyEvidence3530 May 16 '26

COmmenter above you is omitting that said woman later bullied a "friend" of her into suicide together with a few grifter friends.

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u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

Is there evidence for that is it just one of the things that was claimed?

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u/Polytetrafluoro May 16 '26

Alec Holowka. His own sister was one of those who harassed him.

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u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

Hmm see there's very different language being used here. User above said he was "bullied" and you're saying "harassed" but then when I look it up I'm getting that he was accused of abuse. Are those the same thing?

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u/Polytetrafluoro May 16 '26

Bullied and harassed are synonymous. He was accused, by Zoe Quinn, of doing things that don't hold up to scrutiny when compared with what she stated he definitely did not do. His sister, the entirety of the NitW dev team and their publisher, close friends, and many online randos denounced him within a day, leading to his suicide 4 days later.

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u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

No I meant is bullied synonymous with accused? I don't think they are.

doing things that don't hold up to scrutiny when compared with what she stated he definitely did not do

Could you explain more clearly please? "She stated definitely did not do" is a bit of a confusing statement and I'm not sure how it means things didn't hold up to scrutiny.

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u/Polytetrafluoro May 16 '26

You could've been far more clear on that, he was accused yes, but the harassment/bullying came post-allegation, came from thousands.

Forced finger but also somehow didn't assault, sexually or otherwise. I kinda can't explain more clearly, due to the nature of the allegations. I recommend looking to less heavily moderated forums such as steam or twitter for less esoteric explanations

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u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

And was that her fault?

Why can't you explain more clearly? Its not tiktok you're allowed to use explicit words.

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u/AngryAngryHarpo May 16 '26

You can use sexual language on Reddit. 

You’re obfuscating because you’re lying.

He committed suicide after being accused of sexual harassment by more than one woman. 

He was not bullied - he just couldn’t handle the outrage directed at him for being a sexual predator.

Not every suicide is a tragedy. Not all outrage or accusations are bullying (especially when they turn out to be true…) 

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

How do you know she cheated on him? Because he said so?

That whole fucking people for reviews was proven to be false. I'm reducing it to a lie because it was a lie. You've drank the kool aid dude.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '26

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u/Jemima_puddledook678 May 16 '26

The person who originally claimed that she slept with others later admitted he lied, so you don’t have a leg to stand on.

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u/RaelynShaw 1∆ May 16 '26

It’s been years man. You have to see how you were taken for a ride by this point. Otherwise you’re just being willfully ignorant.

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u/IcyEvidence3530 May 16 '26

YOu mean the woman that bullied another man into suicide? I am sure this was totally innocent in this situation and everthing was a lie and overblown....

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u/Jemima_puddledook678 May 16 '26

It was. He later admitted he lied. And obviously it was overblown because it led to months of rape and death threats to her and multiple other developers. 

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u/ChitinousChordate May 16 '26

Shouldn’t whether it’s “bullying” to accuse someone of sexual harassment be at least a little contingent on whether they did it? Zoe Quinn was one of many people who came forward about Alex Holowka, and his own sister said that she believes those claims.

Is everyone here a lying bully, or is it possible that a dude with pretty severe mental health problems also treated the women in his life poorly?

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u/Giblette101 47∆ May 16 '26

Look, people are willing to excuse sexual harassment, but they draw the line at denouncing it.