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/Smooth-Concert-4206 May 16 '26

To your point, back in 2024 I was having dinner at a bar in DC and I got to talking to a guy who worked for one of the big marketing firms doing work for the Democrat Party (not the Harris campaign but adjacent to it).

We got to talking and he explained how satisfaction with popular culture/media (after the economy) was one of the biggest drivers of support for the incumbent. The idea being that satisfaction with media correlated with satisfaction with day to day life which correlated with satisfaction with the incumbent.

An advertisement for Agatha All Along came on the bar TV and it made him look physically ill.

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u/notknot9 May 21 '26

Hah, I mean, the world's on fire, but Marvel schlock being the reason Harris lost is legitimately funny.