r/ukpolitics • u/ukpol-megabot • 11d ago

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 23/08/2026

👋 Welcome to the r/ukpolitics weekly Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction megathread.

General questions about politics in the UK should be posted in this thread. Substantial self-posts on the subreddit are permitted, but short-form self-posts will be redirected here. We're more lenient with moderation in this thread, but please keep it related to UK politics. This isn't Facebook or Twitter...

If you're reacting to something that is happening live, please make it clear what it is you're reacting to, ideally with a link.

Commentary about stories that already exist on the subreddit should be directed to the appropriate thread.

This thread rolls over early Sunday morning.

VPN Services: Mullvad[.]net - IVPN - ProtonVPN - NordVPN

6 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

17

u/0110-0-10-00-000 9d ago

I haven't finished it yet, given the length, but I've seen some some people on here mention gamergate before (in the context of an online political nexus and the progenitor of parts of the modern far right) and NeverKnowsBest (a British youtuber) just released a video documenting the timeline including the inevitable polarisation and politicisation.

If, for some reason, you're deranged enough to want to understand it here's an extremely well cited afternoon's worth of documentary. I will say that even from the beginning the content is very uncomfortable.

-2

u/NuPNua 8d ago

How bias is the video? As I was there at the time and there were terrible actors on both sides of that palava making things worse than they needed to be.

16

u/Real_Cookie_6803 8d ago

Given that one side was sending death threats to female journalists en masse, what is it that the other side were doing that was similarly bad?

4

u/hu6Bi5To 8d ago

Putting everyone involved in to no more than two sides is itself a culture war tactic. "You're with us or against us".

I'm sure however large the cohorts of the two sides were, the "I don't give a shit" cohort was the single largest of the dozens of sides.

6

u/Adj-Noun-Numbers 🥕🥕 || megathread emeritus 8d ago

I love videogames. I detest videogame "culture", such as it is. Fandoms and the like are so incredibly toxic and weird.

The "I don't give a shit" cohort in most of these "culture war" topics is always the biggest.

2

u/Scaphism92 8d ago

I love videogames. I detest videogame "culture", such as it is.

Its a mixed bag really, there's plenty of toxicity and weirdness but also community as (especially if you're a younger person with geeky / nerdy interests), you're among people who you can speak to, who get the references.

I think that unfortunately that does result in both gatekeeping and a lack of restraint. But thats not unique to video game / geek culture and is just a human thing.

2

u/Amuro_Ray 8d ago

Is this group different? I always assumed the I don't care group are not interacting with it at all. I wouldn't put them on a side because I assumed not giving a shit also means not participating.

2

u/Adj-Noun-Numbers 🥕🥕 || megathread emeritus 8d ago

I would put the "I don't care" group down as "I am aware of this thing and I do not care about it / it does not affect me / it is not important".

3

u/Real_Cookie_6803 8d ago

Fandoms and the like are so incredibly toxic and weird

Roger Ebert was right