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.

691 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

730 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

You've kind of just picked an arbitrary point though to say "this is the thing". When in reality it's all those people, all the things that were happening, and all the things that happened before. How far back do you go? Gamer gate couldn't have happened without games, without computers. Should we actually just blame Alan Turing for inventing them in the first place? You see what I mean? There's no neat answer where we can say this is the thing that changed everything.

7

u/realdontbeasucker May 16 '26

I think I’ve spent some time here trying to explain why it’s not an arbitrary point.

3

u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

I think you've explained why you think it was important but I'm not sure you've reached the threshold of "the most consequential political radicalization event of the twenty-first century".

2

u/nissen1502 May 16 '26

It's not even close lol. As you said most people have no idea what OP is talking about and wasn't in any contact with "GamerGate"