“What would be considered”. Sorry
I help out with the youth group at church and one of the students is in the 10th grade and he is pretty retro (loves movies and tv shows from the 80s and 90s). He used to be a big Star Wars fan and lost interest due to "disney making it a princess product" as he puts it. He was asking me the other day how did all this happen or when did it start, and I couldn't pinpoint an exact person who started this but had some ideas.
What did start it all? I know Ghostbusters 2016 seems to be the first movie to actively be made to piss off fans (when the original director was trying to do Ghostbusters 3 and they screwed him over). With Star Wars, if they wanted to appeal to actual women who were fans they could've used Jaina Solo or Mara Jade.
Was it in gaming? I remember when gaming magazines seemed to have constant articles about women in gaming or about the "abuse" they received online as if they have never heard the language you hear where guys get together and hang out.
Comic books? I mean they literally made comics of women sitting around the table discussing feelings and as Eric July said "modern comics are made for 14 year old girls on tumblr who don't read comics"
So honestly who is patient zero or who is to blame?
That's a pretty tough one to be fair, the infiltration even though the foot soldiers are complete retards was well organised and simultaneous. I'm sure any one of fans could point to something happening in the industry. Hell I would go even earlier than GamerGate as you have old school MRAs who saw this shit happening to one degree or another.
Male only spaces in general have been under attack for decades. It's not just the hobbyist groups and entertainment industries that have been getting it. You simply weren't allowed anymore to create male only spaces period otherwise you were being exclusionary so think things like clubs or frat houses etc. at the most basic level. I think the infiltration of men's spaces and hobbies by women was so much more noticeable when it started hitting everything else because most of us were into that sort of thing rather than the other stuff.
Think even earlier perhaps, I could argue that feminist women especially successfully infiltrated the courts and really this is where it all started. No, fuck you men you're not allowed to have your rights, we're going to take half your shit through divorce and there's nothing you can do about it. Oh and by the way, due process is out the window thanks to the duluth model and we can accuse you of rape whenever we feel like it and it's going to be down to you to prove your innocence.
This is why I'm so bitchy about the whole trans thing even by this site's standards and women thinking they can expect me to defend them after they just stood back and let all this happen. Also as for the claims about abuse. It's been proven time and time again those surveys and research are completely full of shit and have been grossly exaggerated for the sake of rage and click-baiting. Most feminist ideology can be traced back to these kinds of bullshit studies and this is where their mantra of 'yes all men' comes from. It's also how the campus rape hysteria got started.