What set off gamergate that people seem to miss is the obvious special treatment Quinn and Sarkeesian got.
Look at the tragetory of Feminist Frequency. The KS got tons of boost to... make videos critical of videogames? Why? It's not like making youtube videos is something that requires a lot of money, people do it for free all the time, and there is no reason why Sarkeesian specifically was more deserving of this boost than any other critic. Feminism in pop culture was on the rise and she got stupid levels of special treatment.
Couple that with the fact Sarkeesian was above criticism herself, everything she said was objective right and if you disagreed you were a sexist baby, and people don't like to be treated that way. And again, why did she get this sort of special treatment? I remember Eurogamer made a list of the most influential people in game and they put her above John Carmack, the man who revolutionized 3D gaming. This woman was dowright worshiped by games media because... she made youtube videos.
Zoe Quinn is a similar case. Between the blogpost and the gamers are dead articles journalists were completely silent, nobody even talked about it, these people who thrive on rushing to be the first to write about something held themselves off to coordinate. Why? Who is this woman, what has she done? Fucking nothing, the first time she went mainstream was an article about how she was "harassed by wizardchan", which is just pathetic.
That's what got to people back then, even if they themselves don't fully realize it, and the follow up to the Zoepost was the straw that broke that camel's back, not the ridiculous "anti-gamer" articles themselves but the idea that some people, for no real reason, deserve special treatment.