kind of dumb to imply that there was no one who thought they were actually pursuing causes related to ethics in the gaming industry
I've seen the videos exploring the incestuous nature of gaming awards shows, people on the committees deciding these things being closely personally associated with those receiving the awards and recognition etc., no call to action to harass these people just pointing it all out for those interested to see the evidence for themselves
you can say "well if no harassment was involved then it wasn't gamergate" but discussion of these things was still buried under the guise of calling it that, because the parties involved obviously would've wanted the stories discredited and ignored
I didn't see any of this at the time because I didn't look into it closely and mostly bought into the broad narrative, then I stumbled across some 8 year-old-videos and watched them and thought "what the fuck THIS is the horrible boogeyman??"
they are boring, embarrassing, and overinvested in the details, but
still up on
youtube because there's absolutely nothing in them that is nasty or abusive or breaks any rules
of course none of the articles talking about what gamergate was about ever link stuff like this, because they're not interested in being fair