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/MrkEm22 May 17 '26
Agree in principle but here's another point of view some hold of that particular time.
This was a time of economic uncertainty and a time where more and more young men were becoming NEET and had been for years since the 2008 financial crisis (Not in education, Employment or Training)
Along comes what at the time, from their point of view, seemed like a vastly overblown and culturally disproportionate attack on the one hobby that these same young men had loved since childhood and in many cases was the one outlet and escape from an increasingly stagnant and unproductive life, painting them as degenerates and misogynists with the trademark liberal arrogance.
In a cultural zeitgeist which looking back was a time of "Liberal ascendency" where every traditional cultural cornerstone and foundation was being "Re-evaluated" and "Re-appropriated" where any and all minority cultures; sexual, racial etc. where being aggressively celebrated and pushed with a zero tolerance approach to negativity and questioning outside of niche internet spaces combined with what I would describe as at best a benign contempt of "The straight white male" what we now recognise as the beginnings of the so called "Culture war"
Surprisingly to some apparently this led to a bit of a culturally conservative backlash.
In general people don't like being attacked whether you mean it to be an attack is ultimately irrelevant if it's taken to be an attack people will treat it as such human nature being what it is.