That’s not how I interpret gamergate. Actually I view gamergate as the staging post for MAGA and Trump getting elected.

It was a great trial run for flooding the zone with lies and outrage to defeat progressives. It worked then and continues to work.

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glaslong 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is documented even. Steve Bannon is directly quoted talking about leveraging gamergate as a new way to flood the zone, and as a conversion pipeline for young men to the alt right and maga politics.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/23/us/gamergate-harassment-reddi...

	▲	someonebaggy an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Wasn't there also some connection between Gamergate and Jeffrey Epstein I remember reading about?

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t-3 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think you're both right. It was around that time that internet and real-life culture started fusing together increasingly. Internet became more political, including in the tactics used, real life became /b/, even the president is an internet troll. When everyone is on the internet, all of a sudden our socioeconomic and political differences are magnified and the narcissists and sadists have a never ending feeding-trough.

	▲	chasd00 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah i feel like that was one of the first times regular people out in the real world really tangled with hardcore internet trolls. I think it was a shock to both to have their territories invaded by the other.

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dmonitor 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, whatever pretenses gamergate started with, they got brushed aside pretty quickly in favor of right wing outrage politics. The beginning issue (games journalism being a big club of hollywood wanabes supported by corporate bootlicking) was quickly turned into an angry mob of misogyny and anti-intellectualism.

Around 2015-16 the same stategy was deployed to mainstream politics, which is when I feel internet culture truly died for good. Social media went from a pastime to an engine that fueled real world events.