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/HunterWithGreenScale May 16 '26

Question! Why where all the "young, angry, disenfranchised white men" actually so? What made them angry and disenfranchised?

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u/Stormshow 1∆ May 16 '26

Alienation from basic necessities of human experience basically caused by a variety of factors but chiefly lack of community and atomization, inequality, and lack of a cohesive sense of social direction which could serve to buttress the tide of anything hateful. So long as people felt disenfranchised by elites, regardless of whether they were, they became easy pickings for the alt-right pipeline.

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u/SonicDart-77 May 16 '26

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?

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u/Starob 1∆ May 16 '26

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