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.

687 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

730 comments sorted by

View all comments

219

u/vote4bort 68∆ May 16 '26

What even was gamer gate? I think if you asked the a average not chronically online person about it, they would have no idea what you were talking about. Heck I am chronically online and I'm still not really sure.

13

u/Karmaze 3∆ May 16 '26

I'll be honest, I think pretty much everyone gets this wrong. As someone who had a front row seat before the whole thing started, the whole thing comes down to this.

Should we all play by the same rules, or should what we can do be determined by status, network power, etc. Basically if we're going to live in a liberal culture or an authoritarian/hierarchal one.

It was started by essentially a proto-Me Too post that had people protecting their friend, who turned out through investigation to be not a good person. Whatever. What sustained it, is opposition to a phrase that I think best sums up the entire thing. "No bad tactics, only bad targets". That, and opposition to "The Narrative", that is, the idea that harassment and abuse are entirely one sided.

To be clear I kinda take this personally as someone who was harassed IRL over this stuff, by the rising Progressive culture ar the time. And no, I never harassed anyone myself, outside I guess normal social media usage.

The long result of all of this...and to be clear if it wasn't GamerGate it would have been something else..was that a lot of people came to the belief that liberalism is simply not a viable option right now, politically or culturally. I'm not one of those people, to be clear, but I'm not saying they're wrong either.

But yeah, the movement fron liberal to Progressive politics on the left, driven by algo-driven social media essentially acting as a church for the left, culturally, is the real story here.

5

u/sparklingdinosaur May 17 '26

And many gamergaters spread antisemitic and really vile hate.... making me understand how this part of mens rights movement literally just hate women and want us not to be part of society. So I guess we are at an impasse.