“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?
I can't tell you Patient Zero, but I can tell you its COVID-equivalent "Hug A Chinese Person Day", when the problem existed, but suddenly went wild:
Big Bang Theory.
Worst thing to happen to nerds and introverts: It made them popular. Hired some male prostitutes, dressed them up in the skinsuit of geekdom. And it coincided with cellular phones becoming internet-accessible. A disease and a spread vector.
"Eternal September" has been happening for a long, long time, and that time varies depending on the medium, but September 2007 is a rough one indeed.
I actually like Big Bang theory at first and thought it was a good thing to bring nerdy stuff mainstream. Boy was I wrong. The worst thing to happen was people who liked the idea of comic books, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc but weren’t actually fans