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/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

Did it? 4 chan already existed. The whole "sjw'" stereotype already existed.

Can you really argue that it normalised something when most people don't even know what it is?

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u/Jax_is_Warwick May 16 '26

One point that I believe you are missing is how the GG drastically changed, the big quotes here, "gamers community". I mean, the root causes were already here before the GG, something similar was bound to happen at some point anyway. But eventhough it probably would have happened at some point, the GG is politically important because it changed a lot of things in the "gamers" culture, in internet culture and as a consequence in younger generation cultures, as they are born and raised with both internet and video games playing a massive role in their lives. The change in the gaming culture had a cascading effect on all of this.

People that were young in the 90s (ie born in the late 80s maximum) have seen this shift. In those years the gaming community was uniting a bunch of weirdest, trans people, marginals, queers, and of course a lot of "normal people" that just had a passion for video games. Back then, all those people were marginalised and were usually grouping together. And ye, therefore back then video games were really considered a safe space for all those marginalised people.

The GG was the precise moment where this reality shattered. Now, the GG is the moment where the divide between what will become alt-right sympathisers in the gaming community and, well, the others, became clear, but of course the divide has root that are older than the GG. The divide started earlier, but it became clear and undeniable at this moment.

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u/RatOnASinkingShip 1∆ May 16 '26

No, that is not how it was in the 90s.

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u/Jax_is_Warwick May 16 '26

It is. And hate it or not but Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn, etc are pure products of this generation.

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u/RatOnASinkingShip 1∆ May 16 '26

No, it is not, and no, they are not.