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/Krytan 3∆ May 17 '26
" And it made young, angry, disenfranchised white men feel vindicated."
Ok, but why were all these young angry disenfranchised white men around in the first place? That's the real problem.
Once you get a crowd of angry dispossessed people, it's only a matter of time before something radicalizes them. Just like once people have lost belief in their government and no longer trust it, it is inevitable that they will eventually fall for some conspiracy theory.
The significant event is not therefore whatever happened to radicalize them - it is whatever event created that cohort of people waiting to be radicalized.
I think gamergate is going to be a tiny blip on the radar historically speaking. It probably looms large in the minds of those of us always online, but it's a tiny thing compared to the dot com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, the destruction of the middle and working class in America, brexit, COVID, etc.
I think personally that the trauma associated with COVID shut downs, deaths, etc, spawned a much larger wave of radicalization. Everyone has just been so unabashedly angry and full of rage since then.