>>35398000I'm 35 and have been here since around 2005. I think your summary is mostly correct. The big changes happened in three different stages.
First /b/ with the whole anti-Scientology thing back in 2008. People actually got involved and thought they were making a difference, whereas before they were content with just taking potshots from the sidelines.
GamerGate in 2010 was mostly relegated to /v/, but again polarized the landscape into "you're either with us or against us".
Then in 2016 we have the Trump election where /pol/ thinks they've somehow memed their way into the presidency. Lots of tourists come in and start tribalfagging.
To me it's not left vs. right necessarily. Tribalism is just more common these days. (Same is true for outside of 4chan, the internet in general.)
Finally, I think we unironically have many more mentally ill people browsing these days. Sure, there were always weirdos, but now we have people with literal schizophrenia mingling and hyping each other up in dedicated on-going general threads. These little communities rapidly become echo chambers and spiral out of control. Early 4chan has more emphasis on browsing in a more open fashion. (I mean people deride this exact thing as being a "catalognigger" here on /vt/. Goes to show how much has changed.)
