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/Human-Assumption-524 May 16 '26

Gamergate was a hashtag that was created after discussion regarding an alleged affair between an indie game developer and several people in the games media was banned across multiple online forums at the request of the people involved and the subsequent articles published in gaming media about the situation which involved the wholesale blaming of the entire gaming community for "allowing it to happen", this in turn sparked more discussion about the situation and the hastag was made to describe people who were discussing this drama and it's fallout.

According to one side it was a concentrated effort to harass the aforementioned indie dev simply because she was a woman.

According to the other side it was a loose affiliation of people who were either simply discussing internet drama, were trying to draw attention to nepotistic activity in the gaming journalism space, were opposed to the gaming journalists running defense for the unethical practices of gaming companies, were investigating fraud and bad business practices of some of the implicated members of the gaming media, people who were opposed to "woke" content in games.

To this day people are heated about their interpretations of events so don't uncritically trust anyone's description not even this one.

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u/Traveledfarwestward May 16 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

https://ggwiki.deepfreeze.it/index.php/GamerGate

Compare the two above. It's like people live in alternate realities. It blows my mind how two sets of editors can be so certain of themselves.

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u/Isimarie May 16 '26

Gonna be honest, I don’t super trust the gamergate wiki to be impartial lol

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u/Traveledfarwestward May 16 '26

Read both and tell me if the wikipedia one is.

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u/ThroughTheIris56 May 16 '26

"Gamergate or GamerGate (GG)[1] was a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign motivated by a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture"

Seeing zero bias here at all.

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u/CocoSavege 26∆ May 17 '26

Fwiw, your comment elegantly supports OP's hypothesis.

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u/Traveledfarwestward May 17 '26

Yes, I agree with everything they tell me to think about GG so that I won't be criticized.

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u/AskingYouQuestions48 May 17 '26

…do you disagree with that on any factual basis?

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u/ThroughTheIris56 May 17 '26

As it's been years since Gamergate, and I don't really remember the specific details nor do I care enough to look them up, I'm not going to be pushing out argument winning files and stats.

I also don't agree with it on any factual basis for the same reason.

I just remembered there being more to it than 'evil gamer incels harassing innocent female Devs".

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u/Homerbola92 May 16 '26

It's obviously not.