I don't think the full impact of GamerGate on our culture will ever be fully understood or recognized. It definitely had a snow ball effect, in no small part from the constant doubling down from the usual suspects.
I think a lot of people forget the surrounding context of events around GG including Null:
- Elliot Rodger's incel spree was just a few months ago in May 2014. Feminism and toxic-masculinity were big talking points. #NotAllMen and #YesAllWomen were big online for those who remember. IIRC, this triggered a slew of women to go out on social media and complain and share stories about male gaze, cat-calling, sexism etc. Some were valid, most weren't, but the theme was that victims got sympathy for being 'stunning and brave' telling their story however fake or real it may be. This is when the left found mainstream snowballing support in the 'we hate you simply because you are a man' message.
- In Ferguson, MO, Michael Brown, the 'gentle giant' was shot by Darren Wilson in August 2014. Bodycams were not used then. There were two concurrent stories running, one of the police account, and the other of the perpetrators story, "he dindu nuffin." Hands up don't shoot were supposedly his last words. Sharpton, Obama, and Jesse Jackson came down and were able to spin the tragedy into a racial issue trying to gin up the population to prime a verdict before an investigation was even completed. I can't recall if Eric Holder got involved or not but I recall a report on Ferguson police later from the DOJ.
- This was the second death of a black person where Obama rushed to judgement and interjected himself into a disaster instead of waiting for facts to be released in open court. The first being Trayvon in 2013. In my opinion, this is what broke the race-blind social contract and forced us down the long path DEI which would begin with Critical Race Theory as Obama & black leaders at the time wouldn't stop bringing up race and assumed all cops are going around shooting black men. The central theme here is that facts don’t matter; it’s all about how we feel and whether something fits our narrative, regardless of its truth. In other words, LIE.
All these retards had to do was to leave video games mostly alone, and let boys enjoy their hobby and escapism unperturbed. They would be too busy having fun to care about politics.
Along comes GG. My understanding is, Zoe Quinn was sleeping around with gaming journalists for awards for her shitty game. She got busted for it and then played being a massive victim to 1) defend herself & 2) to advance her career. 8chan got misrepresented as an evil bogey man.
I think Zoe just needed to defend her shitty game & reputation and just went with the easiest defense which was to cry misogyny instead of admitting she slept around for awards.
The same cannot be said for Anita Sarkeesian who I believe hates men and used this incident to further her career and press her agenda.
I don’t believe that any of the harassment claims of Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian were as extreme as they allege. I believe they exaggerated them & possibly fabricated some to increase perceived victimhood status in order to get a more sympathetic response from media outlets, politicians and the public.
Why do I believe this?
- The FBI never pressed charges against any of the perpetrators of harassment nor did it lead to anything substantial.
- The interview Sarkessian gave to The Verge in Sept 2014 where she said "One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences." To me this just says, believe what I say at face value, don't investigate it all, just trust me bro.
- Current event context. More " just trust me bro" stories came out and were found to be blatantly fabricated.
On November 19, 2014 the Rolling Stones published a fiction piece titled: A Rape on Campus. The article claimed that UVA student Jackie Coakley had been taken to a party hosted by UVA's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity by a fellow student and led to a bedroom to be gang raped by several fraternity members as part of a fraternity initiation ritual. This turned out to be pure fiction but it had real consequences: Jackie's account generated much media attention, and UVA President Teresa Sullivan suspended all fraternities. After other journalists investigated the article's claims and found significant discrepancies, Rolling Stone issued multiple apologies for the story. It has since been reported that Jackie may have invented portions of the story in an unsuccessful attempt to win the affections of a fellow student in whom she had a romantic interest.
The lazy journoscum bitch that wrote the piece, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, said that the fraternity's websites was too old to navigate. She never made any other attempts to track down any of the men accused in the story to get their side. As a result of her lies, Rolling Stones had to pay out millions in defamation lawsuits & retract the story.
Columbia: Emma Sulkowicz's Mattress Rape Preformance Art:
"In April 2013, Emma Sulkowicz, an American fourth-year visual arts major at Columbia University in New York City, filed a complaint with Columbia University requesting expulsion of fellow fourth-year student and German national, Paul Nungesser, alleging he had raped Sulkowicz in her dorm room on August 27, 2012. Nungesser was found not responsible by a university inquiry.
In May 2014, Sulkowicz filed a report against Nungesser with the New York Police Department (NYPD), who did not pursue charges. The district attorney's office interviewed both students, but did not pursue charges, citing lack of reasonable suspicion."
Nothing came of this besides lawsuits suing Columbia but many on the left and some in the media pressed her story as gospel even though NYPD and Columbia never took any action. I believe here is where you see the gaslighting of America; don't believe your eyes, 'lived experiences' is all that matters. Clownworld.
The outcome of GamerGate was it never stopped the "SJWs" and grifters who lie to advance themselves, causing others to do it even more, got mainstream support for 'woke' or SJW ideas and it attracted more politically aligned people into an industry that previously had few resulting in an expansion of the culture war like never before.
GamerGate was when I started noticing the politicization of everything. Everything would just get more fucked from that point onward.