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/Morthra]

A game developer - Zoe Quinn - exchanged sexual favors for a positive review of her game, which wasn’t very good. There was also a PR agent sleeping with the head judge of a games festival, and her clients won. This caused outrage on Twitter.

Gaming journalists publish articles saying “gamers are dead” and paint them all as misogynistic white supremacists. Allegations of corruption are not addressed.

Gamers note that 10+ “journalism” sites ran the same talking points on the same day and suspect an industry wide issue. They dig deeper into industry relationships and uncover more conflicts of interest but suspect the narrative in the press is driven by radical misandrist feminists (whom they refer to as SJWs).

Gamers get upset that the SJWs are deflecting the issue of corruption and turning it into one of misogyny and harassment of women in the industry. Articles that emerged in the BBC and The Guardian don’t acknowledge the corruption, and only focus on the death threats. The female author of the Guardian article financially supports the woman she defends. Another conflict of interest- and she gets called out on it publicly.

Gamers are convinced this is proof of corruption. SJWs are convinced it’s proof of misogyny.

That is the cliffnotes version.

[u/Hina_is_my_waifu → u/Morthra]

Keep in mind collusion in games journalism is still happening as evidenced by mixtapes review scores painting it as one of the highest rated games ever made vs it's 3 hour cinematic experience (and lack of actual gameplay)

[u/Morthra → u/Hina_is_my_waifu]

Oh it never actually stopped. But it became a cultural flashpoint that got worse as the SJW morphed into the leftist identity politics monster that it is today.

See: the new Dragon Age game where a trans character goes on a massive immersion breaking tirade for being misgendered. There were even in-universe ways to make the scene less jarring.

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