Not sure if this is the right place, but since this is the gaming tab, I say why not?
Back then, GamerGate was the start of something fresh, something edgy, something that was actually rebellious against both the bourgeois moralisms stifling the internet and the feminist hegemony that no western male could escape from. It was an escape valve, in other words.
But of course, I was wrong as GamerGate later on mestatized into being another wing of the current right-wing hegemonic ChudIntern. Indeed, GamerGate was merely an exercise in online reactionary activism, but we should actually try to analyse it as opposed to dismissing it as chuds being chuds.
It’s won’t give you the kind of analysis that has probably been done to death here, such as the alienation of young men, the rise of white upper-class female idpol and the HR-style managerial culture that preceded online censorship and SJWs’ political correctness, journos forming email groups as part of a coordinated attack on the median gamer, the MSM’s double standards towards female-exclusive spaces vs treating male-only spaces (such as gaming) pathologically, etc…
This is a good summary of the event from a gamergater’s POV:
https://wolfsheadonline.com/how-wikipedia-and-molly-white-rewrote-the-history-of-gamergate/Instead, I’ll say this: The rise of the gooner chuds that you see today is a product of GamerGate, itself being downstream from the left’s rejection of sex-positivity and and pathologisation of any form of assertive male heterosexuality to heed the demands of the feminist bourgeoise that held a stranglehold on the left.
Obviously the online right isn’t really sex-positive as much as being pro-sexual hierarchy and has been the case within the western right since the days of the Nazis and even before then (e.g., Annunzio’s enterprise in Fiume). It’s just that their vision of sexuality makes enough space for male heterosexuality to attract young men (the most revolutionary demographic) into their fold. The left’s response? It’s either dumb Puritanism as shown by puriteens who think Euphoria (that show starring Sydney Sweeney) is rape culture, or bastardised “trad Marxism” about banning porn and prosties cuz muh exploitation even tho Chinese games nowadays are heavily gooned out + the Soviet bloc was lax on non-commercial erotica (hence why post-collapse Eastern Europe became a thriving heaven for porn). The modern left thought that selling out on the 1970s sex positivity to appease radfems was worth it despite handing the right a victory. I mean, remember that time Reddit’s r/socialism mods went apeshit over catgirl anime edits even tho it was done a female leftist member and it was just SFW anime girls but with cat ears edited on them? Yh, that’s the level of discourse you’re dealing with when it comes to sex-negative leftists.
Of course, there’s the issue of ageism, and ohh boy is that big. There’s this attitude among both the centre and the left where young men are often infantilised as being lost sheeple or stigmatised over their age in ways that would be alienating if done to other demographics, so the end result is young men flocking to the right precisely because they don’t think they will have any stakes in the left. Seniors are supposed to help youths who are proven to be determined to fight for the revolution, not throw’ em away for violating some HR-mandated code. It’s one thing to maintain decorum in conversations and being opposed to extremism, but you won’t get far if you try to overpolice on every little convo your members have.
What’s the takeaway from me then? The left rejecting sex-positivity and embracing ageism were its two biggest mistakes that cost them an entire generation.
P.S.: It’s one thing to oppose sexual hierarchies that devalue humans, it’s another to devalue the body and the Eros in and of themselves. The left shouldn’t necessarily embrace prostitution, but it also shouldn’t embrace sex-negativity either. I would personally suggest reviving the free sex movement because, if sex does become widely available under a secular sex positive society, then obviously prostitutes and porn studios and pimps would be out of business. That’s why Marx often noted how traditionalist marital moralism coexisted with prostitution, with or without its prohibition. But I’m open for other suggestions.
Again, can’t say if it’s said already or not, but I do think those points need to be hammered home as it seems that the left prior to the Gaza genocide was struggling to remain relevant, especially as Big tech right figures like Musk and Thiel were pumping a shit ton of dollars to aid the remnants of the alt-right to carve their mockingbird network out of it; their work has paid off in the form of the current unholy MAGA and alt-right and neocon nexus that I’d like to call “white neoconservatism with Enoch Powell characteristics”, with Australia’s and Canada’s brightest minds Drew Pavlou and Captive_Dreamer starting out differently only to end up being rabid racist neocons.
So yh: Sex-negativity and Ageism are bad things, folks.