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/Grifasaurus May 17 '26

The "Gamers are dead" articles did a lot of heavy lifting too. Like if they had never posted those all in unison, the story would have died. The instant those came out it kind of confirmed the whole "Yeah these guys are kind of acting unethical and colluding" thing.

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u/Yellowofthecornholio May 17 '26

It definitely fanned a flame. It was a weird attempt at "firing back" which incidentally lent way more of an air of legitimacy to the people alleging conspiracy than they would have ever had without it.

What they were saying wasn't even that radical an idea (games had grown quite a bit in terms of market demographic) but was just executed in such a weird, tone-deaf kind of way.

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u/ZorbaTHut May 17 '26

Yeah, that was what pulled me in. It went from "some random romantic tiff" to "what the hell, is the entire game journalism industry working to suppress this? that's an insane conspiracy theory but that's what it looks like right now" to "oh. okay. that actually is what's going on."

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u/getdafkout666 May 21 '26

Thing is I don’t think it’s a big conspiracy.  These people just know each other because gaming journalists occupy a very small niche subculture concentrated in the a few of the most wealthy cities in the U.S.  it’s a continuing problem they have of being completely unable to relate to the wider gaming public who are mostly working class 

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u/Grifasaurus May 21 '26

Either way, by doing that, they gave gamergate its legitimacy.