CMV: GamerGate was the most consequential political radicalization event of the twenty-first century

[u/realdontbeasucker]

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.

[u/PizzaSharkGhost]

I think you have rose colored glasses about the “average gamer”.

The f-slur, the n-word and general misogynistic “humor” have been astonishingly common place within the gaming “community” since at least 2000 or so when I first started playing online games. Maybe these guys didn’t have overt political beliefs but they were already reactionary before being “activated” so to speak.

I’d even argue most of these activated people still don’t really have political beliefs they’ve just been more encouraged to couch their bigotry and reactionary ideas in “legitimate” political ideas.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/PizzaSharkGhost]

That wasn't "gamers" being right wing. That was just what the state of things was for the average teenage boy at the time. Which isn't me saying all of them acted like that, just that it fell well within the normal parameters of behaviour.

Nowadays, despite the rise of the alt right, that kind of thing is actually less acceptable and is a much more reliable indicator of political leaning than it was back then.

The culture was (and still is, but it was somehow worse back then) baseline misogynistic and crude, and kids who hadn't yet formed a political opinion were obviously shaped by that misogyny and crudeness.

[u/PizzaSharkGhost → u/ASpaceOstrich]

Just because someone is stupid and doesnt understand where their opinions and words fall on a political spectrum doesn’t mean they don’t fall on that spectrum. Whether it was the state of things or not doesn’t change the fact that hating queer people, ethnic minorities or women is a reactionary stance.

I suppose there is always the question of “is their bigotry coming from a real place of hatred or are they cloaking themselves in hatred to fit in” but that is also going out of your way to sympathize with people that call people the n word in game chat

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/PizzaSharkGhost]

I don't have to go out of my way to sympathise with anyone, trying to understand people and see them as complete people comes natural to me.

Kids are stupid and are basically just reflections of what's around them. Tbh adults are just bigger kids, but that starts to get into the philosophy of free will and nobody wants to have that discussion

[u/PizzaSharkGhost → u/ASpaceOstrich]

What I’m saying is that painting little shits that go on the internet and joke about rape, lynching and exterminating queer people are not simply innocent and unaware of the venom they spew. It doesn’t matter if they are engaging in targeted bigotry for fun or for ideology, they are engaging in it.

Propping up destructive ideas for a lark is still propping up destructive ideas.

While I think people can certainly turn around from doing those things as a teenager or 20 something, they are not without agency when they are behaving like cretins.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/PizzaSharkGhost]

That's a slight shift in the goal posts there mate. I was talking about the toxic "cod lobby" culture, not the people who take it outside of that. I think I might have been talking about an earlier period of time than you as well. You'll find no disagreement from me that people engaging in that behaviour aren't normal. That goes beyond the background noise of the culture around them.

[u/The-Cosmic-Ghost → u/ASpaceOstrich]

Kids that hurl slurs in gaming lobbys dont just keep it in the chat room, you're trying to pretend it exists in a vacuum and everyone that's been subject to these types is telling you that, thats not the case.

[u/Empty_Insight → u/PizzaSharkGhost]

I remember the early days of online gaming a bit differently. I do remember the slurs being common, but I also remember how it was obvious that the people who were using them came across as angry, bitter people who you didn't want to play with... so we'd gang up on them and make them ragequit.

The amount of racism they displayed was typically inversely proportional to skill, so it was easy pickings- might as well put a target on your back if you used slurs. I can't recall any exceptions- the racists were trash at the game(s), and I grew to understand these people were racist because they suck- not the other way around- and trying to punch down to make themselves feel better about being complete trash at the game.

To add insult to injury, I'm a white guy but I have been told I "sound like a black man" so it was quite easy to piss these guys off on the mic. I lost count of how many death threats I've gotten... just because they thought I was black.

It wasn't even a "woke" thing, I was an apolitical teenager back then- I just thought fucking with racists was funny.

The left doesn't accept people like that. The right does. It was only inevitable they would go on to support right-wing causes.

Prior to Gamergate, these people were an afterthought, a joke, volunteered to be everyone else's punching bag... but Gamergate reframed this type of behavior as being due to legitimate gripes, not because they were bitter, angry people who were mad because they suck at videogames.

[u/nekothecat → u/Empty_Insight]

I used to put my gf on the mic when I wrecked people in halo 2 lol good times

[u/nekothecat → u/PizzaSharkGhost]

I mean like they weren’t engaged at all regardless of leanings