Baby steps but not exactly the reason why Gamergate was right. Then again, everyone has their own reasons why they realize journos are full of shit when it affects their particular slice of the world.

GG wasn't even first, it just ticked enough boxes that it ended up being far, far more lasting and widespread than previous times: The main point being the online nature of it all.

Everyone involved was mostly online, this meant a potential global scale and communications network to both compared and spread similar information previously unheard of. There could be no local coverups because anything that happened could be posted about and within minutes reposted countless times around the entire planet.

Even with popular social media platforms attempting to shutdown any and all discourse about The Zoe Post, GG, and related matters they were still spoken about and continue to be spoken about.

Sure you will have people with stories from before this, and after, telling their personal tales of how they came to learn just how cancerous the MSM is, but until 2014 it rarely got the same amount of engagement from those with some interest in the topic, in part because it related to one of the biggest entertainment mediums there is and through sheer numbers and accessibility via the web it spread like widefire, moreso when all the attacks and clampdowns on things followed.