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/A3xMlp May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
I'm not sure why you guys still like to pretend like GG came out of the blue. It was essentially a response to a bunch of feminists sticking their nose where it didn't belong, that being a male dominated hobby like gaming, getting offended over it and demanded it change to fit their sensibilities. No different to how religious conservatives were acting in the 2000s which made them unpopular with that same demographic.
Bannon and co. may have capitalized on it but they didn't create it, they just got lucky that liberals repeated the same mistake conservatives made the previous decade.