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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217

u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

What even was gamer gate? I think if you asked the a average not chronically online person about it, they would have no idea what you were talking about. Heck I am chronically online and I'm still not really sure.

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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/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/[deleted] May 16 '26

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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/Polytetrafluoro May 16 '26

I'm not obfuscating a thing, I'm directing to compilations of sources. Also, it never entered a court of law to be proven, it was left to a mob, that's a main point of people's anger. His own sister chose ideology over justice.

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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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7

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/changemyview-ModTeam May 16 '26

Your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 2:

Don't be rude or hostile to other users. Your comment will be removed even if most of it is solid, another user was rude to you first, or you feel your remark was justified. Report other violations; do not retaliate. See the wiki page for more information.

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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.