Like a moment that seemed insignificant and unimportant at the time, but looking back was in fact a pivotal moment in pushing you towards radicalization.
For me probably being introduced to Guitar Hero at my friend's house in like summer 2007. At the time it was just another day, but looking back I ended up falling in love with those games, I ended up being introduced to The Ramones and even more importantly the Dead Kennedys through them, which caused me to get into punk music and resulted in me adopting very critical attitudes towards larger American society, attitudes which later grew into anarchism and then Marxism
Being really shouted at for being a sneering imperialist one time and a rabid homophobe another time. That and learning details about the colonial wars the u.s marines waged in the Phillipines.
That shifted me on a slow course correction towards being a marxist-leninist.
Ok, being real? Out of all the people on this forum, I would NEVER expect you to have had those views in the past. God damn, theory is powerful
You are a product of your material environment. By which me and @SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net both share similar life experiences of having a reactionary jackass of a dad. Like imagine having one of those radio shock jock asshats like Limbaugh, Levine, or Savage, as your dad and simply imagine wanting to make your dad proud. Like I was reactionary enough that if gamergate existed when I was a kid, I'm fairly confident I would've simply been refined by the pipeline into a self-hating asian ultranat fash that vicariously overemphasizes my white side while hating every moment of my existence.
Now I shouldn't bear any credit to the ethnic background of my friend who was the final nail in the coffin of my reactionary past as they're a self-hating Russian and a liberal, but you could say that the soviet legacy that helped make them who they are - via their parents - helped make me who I am.
dude i grew up with gamergate and i have no idea how i never got sucked into it. most of my friends were though