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You'll never guess what misogynistic gamebros did to these two women in gaming! (HINT: Drove them out.)

Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.
Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

Congratulations, assholes! You did it! Your threats and harassment have driven game journalist/designer Jenn Frank and game designer/media critic Mattie Brice to leave the gaming world.

Frank, an award-winning writer and sometime game designer, came to the attention of the misogynist mob after writing a brief opinion piece for The Guardian decrying the widespread and vicious harassment of women in gaming. In addition to writing about the harassment she’s gotten — including someone trying to hack into her email account — she (as you might expect) also highlighted the misogynistic rage directed at feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and indie game designer Zoe Quinn.

The new rule seems to be that any woman who writes about online harassment will herself be harassed, and in this case it didn’t take long.

The gamebro army, completely ignorant about how journalism works, decided that she had a “conflict of interest” — because, and I’m totally serious here, she had previously exchanged some tweets with Quinn and donated some money to her on Patreon. One critic, who put together a much-passed-around graphic outlining the charges against her, angrily denounced Frank for “vigorously defending [Quinn] while pretending to be impartial.”

There are a couple of giant problems with these accusations. First off, Frank never pretended to be impartial. She was not reporting on anything for the Guardian. She was writing an OPINION PIECE about a topic that obviously affected her. Editors don’t assign OPINION PIECES to writers who are, or who pretend to be, impartial. They assign these pieces to people WITH OPINIONS. You’re not going to get much of an OPINION PIECE from someone with no opinions.

Second of all, according to Frank (and I believe her), she had asked The Guardian to attach a brief statement to the end of her piece noting her — admittedly tenuous — connections with Quinn and Sarkeesian. The Guardian editors chose not to run it because they thought these connections were too trivial to merit a mention. They forgot that she was a woman writing about gaming, and that misogynistic assholes will seize on anything, literally anything, as an excuse for harassment.

After she started getting harassed for her alleged “conflict of interest,” Frank wrote a blog post dealing with the issue  clearly and straightforwardly, and convinced the Guardian editors to append a version of her original disclosure statement to the piece:

Update: Jenn Frank has purchased and is a supporter of Zoë Quinn’s work, although this is the first article she has written on the developer. Frank has also briefly met Anita Sarkeesian.

As absurd as it is for a woman writer to have to publicly confess that she “has also briefly met Anita Sarkeesian,” as if this is some sort of crime, Frank thus answered her critics directly. And that should have been it. But of course the harassment — sorry, the perfectly legitimate criticism — continued, and on Wednesday night Frank announced that she’d had enough:

https://twitter.com/jennatar/status/507338379474649088

https://twitter.com/jennatar/status/507411937383022592

The only “conflict of interest” here was the “conflict of interest” that Frank wrote about originally in her Guardian piece. After describing her horror on discovering that someone had been trying to hack her email, she wrote:

My unabashed love for video games, my colleagues and my work have a conflict of interest with my own terror.

And, at least for now, the terror has won.

Meanwhile, game designer and media critic Mattie Brice was also extracting herself from an industry and a culture that has been grinding her down. I’ll let her tweets tell the story. (See her timeline for more.)

Elsewhere on Twitter, the bullies crowed over their victory:

https://twitter.com/AlrightAnon/status/507395891838590976

Another day, another couple of women ground down and spat out by the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine, Gaming Division.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the gamebros haven’t forgotten about Zoe Quinn either.

Here’s the screenshot; click for a larger and more readable version — if you’re not triggered by violent threats, that is.

BwmSdi4CMAAnYju.png large

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Seriously, if you know, tell me, because I am fresh out of explanations for this level of blind hatred.

NOTE: This thread is a NO SHITHEAD thread. If you say anything that in any way even slightly excuses or justifies the harassment of these women, you can fuck right off to any of the eight zillion places on the internet where you can badmouth these women to your heart’s content. I and the other mods will be banning and deleting as necessary.

 

 

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Misha
Misha
10 years ago

… is chiastolite a bot?

David Futrelle
Author
David Futrelle
10 years ago

I’m going to say yes?

Sometimes I let spam through when it’s especially charming, and the sudden changes in subject matter in that comment won me over.

David Futrelle
Author
David Futrelle
10 years ago

Also, pitchguest *is* banned. If I let his comments through by accident, sorry.

kittehserf - MOD
kittehserf - MOD
10 years ago

No, that was my mistake, David: I didn’t recognise the name. Sorry!

Misha
Misha
10 years ago

I like chiastolite-bot :), makes more sense than any of the trolls so far. Welcome chiastolite!

Headless Unicorn Guy
Headless Unicorn Guy
10 years ago

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

They’re sociopaths with an emotional age that should put them in poopy diapers?
And they’re having a screaming tantrum because someone said “No, you can’t”?
Seriously, if you know, tell me, because I am fresh out of explanations for this level of blind hatred.
The only dynamic I can think of is these guys got burned BAD by someone female in their past (real or imagined) and are taking it out against ANYTHING female. “WIMMEN! WE HATES IT! WE HATES IT FOREVER! (gollum! gollum!)”

Ryan Sample
Ryan Sample
9 years ago

This is the kind of stupidity I would expect from neo-Nazis, not gamers.
I’ll just say it outright; Gaming is dead.

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