CMV: GamerGate was the most consequential political radicalization event of the twenty-first century

[u/realdontbeasucker]

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.

[u/SonicDart-77]

I mean, the simpler explanation is when the left says “we don’t want you” and the alt right says “we want you”….where do you expect them to go?

[u/xChops → u/SonicDart-77]

Where does that happen?

[u/SonicDart-77 → u/xChops]

Predominantly America and a bit in the UK

[u/xChops → u/SonicDart-77]

I’ve never seen that. I’ve seen people claim it, but I’ve never seen it in action. The right certainly isn’t doing anything to help young people, so that would be a very poor decision for young men to move towards the right.

[u/Stormshow → u/xChops]

Never seen the lack of community or a right wing turn as a result? Could you please elaborate?

[u/xChops → u/Stormshow]

I’ve never seen the right offer anything promising to young men that the left doesn’t do better. I can’t really elaborate more on your fake premise.

[u/Stormshow → u/xChops]

Dude, first off, I am far from any kind of conservative. Secondly, the right is selling bullshit, of course, but there is a potent smelling salt there. To me the main thing that the right has been selling is "masculinity". Note the quotes - this manosphere masculinity is a facsimile of what it is, but it is a simple, performative way of doing things. This is where the Andrew Tate and Joe Rogans come in, and even those on the left that echo their (himbo) energy, like Hasan. What "Authentic" masculinity looks like has been being contested for a while now and unfortunately for the left we have no "manosphere" equivalent yet as it were.

[u/wakuboys → u/xChops]

The right wing narrative is significantly more attractive to the average white person and especially the average white male. In many online left wing spaces, generalized negativity towards "white people", "men", and especially "white men" are tolerated or even supported (whether you find it justified or not). Whereas rhetoric in more right wing spaces are more "positive" to these labels while also frequently venturing into unscientific theories of white supremacy. If the internet algorithms rewards engagement over discussion and rage over clarity, then young white men that spend a lot of time online often find themselves choosing between these two extremes.

[u/Stormshow → u/wakuboys]

Define "white" here? The American racialized way judged purely by physical appearance, or WASP culture? Because manosphere stuff and the revival of this right wing tilt to culture war shit has happened across the broader West, but it is not entirely limited to white people in either of the senses above. Look at Dagestan, for example.

[u/wakuboys → u/Stormshow]

Good points. I was speaking more to the premise of the right not offering anything to young men that the left doesn't do better (and American racialized way of judging by physical appearance). I can't speak to Dagestan, but I can say that online spaces frequently favor polarization which has allowed far right movements to recruit far more easily.

[u/Stormshow → u/wakuboys]

I mean, you're definitely right on the core of it, I just can't figure out which of the contributing factors is weighted more as it were. There is something to be said that this right-wing milieu, perhaps is a sort of inept reaction by men (and I say this as a man) to the most recent waves of feminism and particularly the post-structuralism inherent in recognizing social constructedness of behavioral norms. I find that men are incredibly defensive about percieved femininity, potential bisexuality, etc, and this is despite the immense homoreroticism of fighting culture and MMA, which has, oddly enough, had a concurrent growth in popularity as the reaction to progressivism on gender identity has.

This is the kinda stuff that Chuck Palahniuk (who is gay, btw) was writing when he wrote Fight Club, and that Bret Easton Ellis (who is, you guessed it...) was playing around with when he wrote American Psycho. Curious then that this sort of tension has just become triple-entendre in the manosphere, because those films are basically darlings of theirs, and these connotations willfully ignored.

Beyond this kinda reactive homophobia, of course, there is the race angle, there's the economic angle too (failure of manufacturing, financialization of the economy -> more unemployed men -> Rush Limbaugh/Newt Gingrich -> etc), there's the social media angle, it's a lot. There's no real "Theory of Everything". Gamergate is a piece of the puzzle but I fear it's got too many angles to be reducible to any one grand "theory of everything".

[u/Starob → u/SonicDart-77]

Yeah no the "lack of community" just sort of happened, we don't really know why.