Sometimes it seems like the internet, or at least huge portions of it, is essentially a giant harassment machine, directed primarily at women.
This week, the target of the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine is game developer Zoe Quinn. Quinn, best known as the creator of the text-based Depression Quest, faced down two previous waves of harassment from gamer dudes who were angry about her game, for some gamer-dude reasons I can’t claim to understand, and who grew even angrier after Quinn spoke publicly about being harassed.
Her harassers claimed that she was lying about being harassed previously, and apparently figured there was no better way to prove that she hadn’t been harassed in the first place than by harassing her about her claims of harassment. I’m sorry if that’s confusing, but the “logic” of internet assholes tends to be a bit circular.
The latest wave of harassment is on a whole new level of viciousness. Because this time her haters have what they see as proof that she is indeed the evil [insert favorite anti-woman slur] that they’ve always claimed her to be. Their alleged smoking gun consists of a series of excruciatingly detailed blog posts by a vengeful ex-boyfriend describing how she allegedly cheated on him and lied about it; at roughly 10,000 words in all, not counting all the screenshots of online conversations presented as proof of his claims, his story is nearly the length of a novella.
You might ask: why is any of this any of our business? It’s fucking not. Some have tried to claim this is about “ethics,” accusing Quinn of trading sexual favors for a positive game review. But the journalist she allegedly slept with never actually wrote a review of her game.
Of course this has nothing to do with any real ethical concerns on the part of her attackers. As Quinn has pointed out herself, the people who are gleefully sharing her personal information, posting nude pictures of her, sending her threats, and otherwise trying to destroy her life don’t have any fucking ethics.
No, this is just another excuse to go after an outspoken woman on the internet, and a chance for misogynistic gamer dudes to score a symbolic victory against any and all women who are trying to enter what these guys want to see as a clubhouse where girls aren’t allowed. Anita Sarkeesian has been dealing with the same sort of shit ever since she first set out to examine sexism in the gaming world.
I honestly don’t have the psychic energy to collect together examples of the horrible shit people are saying about her; just type her name into Google along with your favorite anti-woman slur and you’ll have more proof than you need. Or go to Reddit and make your way to any of the numerous subreddits devoted to gaming and/or misogyny, where many people will be thrilled to tell you all about how “the video game industry is being fucked over because of these women.” (Actual quote.)
Quinn has said all I think she needs to say about this in an eloquent blog post of her own. Here’s a portion of it:
I am not going to link to, or address anything having to do with the validity of the specific claims made by an angry ex-boyfriend with an axe to grind and a desire to use 4chan as his own personal army. This is not a “she-said” to his “he-said”. The idea that I am required to debunk a manifesto of my sexual past written by an openly malicious ex-boyfriend in order to continue participating in this industry is horrifying, and I won’t do it. It’s a personal matter that never should have been made public, and I don’t want to delve into personal shit, mine or anyone else’s, while saying that people’s love and sex lives are no one’s business. I’m not going to talk about it. I will never talk about it. It is not your goddamned business.
What I *am* going to say is that the proliferation of nude pictures of me, death threats, vandalization, doxxing of my trans friends for having the audacity to converse with me publicly, harassment of friends and family and my friends’ family in addition to TOTALLY UNRELATED PEOPLE, sending my home address around, rape threats, memes about me being a whore, pressures to kill myself, slurs of every variety, fucking debates over what my genitals smell like, vultures trying to make money off of youtube videos about it, all of these things are inexcusable and will continue to happen to women until this culture changes. I’m certainly not the first. I wish I could be the last.
Because I’ve had a small degree of success in a specific subculture, every aspect of my life is suddenly a matter of public concern. Suddenly it’s acceptable to share pictures of my breasts on social media to threaten and punish me. Suddenly I don’t have any right to privacy or basic dignity. Suddenly I don’t get to live out normal parts of life, like going through a bad and ugly breakup in private. I have forfeited this by being a blip in a small community, while those who delight in assailing me hide behind their keyboards and a culture that permits it, beyond reproach.
My life and my body are not public property. No one’s life and body are public property.
Sexuality is one of the most personal, hurtful, and easy things to demonize a woman over, and also has nothing to do with my games. Yet large swaths of the gaming community are either unable or unwilling to separate the two. I’m convinced that my ex chose 4chan as the staging ground for his campaign of harassment and character assassination because he knew this; he knew that someone claiming to be “from the Internet” has shown up at my house once already, and he is counting on the most reviled hubs of our community to live up to their sordid reputations. This is another example of gendered violence, whereby my personal life becomes a means to punish my professional credentials and to try to shame me into giving up my work. I’m still committed to doing my small part to create a world where no woman is at risk of experiencing this.
I don’t have anything to add.
This is a NO TROLLS, NO MRAS thread. Anyone posting any doxxing shit in the comments below, or adding to the harassment against her in any way, will be banned.
@BigMomma *laughs* Sounds like you were on a more Modern Languages course than me.
I was Latin A, Classical Greek B, Ancient History first year, Latin, Ancient History, Medieval History 2nd year, then Honours Ancient History (repeating my final year). I lived in Chattan for the most part, loved that Hall.
We must have crossed paths…I was in Russell for my first year, then Chattan when I came back from France for my last two years. This is freaky. So I was in Chattan from Oct 91 onwards.
I did a joint honours in English and French, with moral phil and Arabic culture as the extras.
*waves at everyone else* sorry for turning thread into a graduate reunion!
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2e5xbb/the_safe_spaces_of_nerdy_men_feminist_migration/
Apparently, it’s the women’s fault for invading formerly male spaces. Thus those poor men are losing patience with those evil feminist wimmins.
I knew someone who did Arabic double Honours, Niall Christie. Seems to be a respectable academic now. He also wrote an Ars Magica Arabic edition where I got listed as a play-tester 🙂
My roommate from first year did English to honours ..Pamela ….damn forgotten her surname, she married someone in Holland after working for a while in the St A’s administration.
*Also sorry for digression*
I would remember the name of her husband but…we stopped being friends when we were sharing a flat just prior to her moving to Holland, when she split from her then fiancee. Always difficult sharing a flat with a couple who split, especially when you were friends with both. I ultimately chose the guy to retain friendship with cos well…she accused me of doing so already, he pled with me to be nice to her.
Ugh this just makes me sad. I’ve been a gamer of one sort or another my entire life and I just can’t bloody deal with this sort of bullshit, hate spewing nonsense again. The saddest part to me is that Quinn’s work is really good. Depression Quest was a huge difficult game for me to play but absolutely beautiful and her talent and dedication to games is being completely obscured because of these misogynist sacks of crap. Sometimes I’m deeply ashamed of my people.
That’s really sad… I remember checking the forums when I arrived at WHTM, and I wondered why it didn’t keep going. I guess it’s because the comments section is so effective?
I like forums, I would totally participate if it was active… especially since my usual BDSM forum was recently filled with fake-feminist assholes and transmisogyny 🙁
Hmmm, I didn’t attend the Arabic culture class much sadly. And I ended up immersing myself more in the French degree as I really struggled with the English department and had a fair few clashes with my tutors. I bet I would know Pamela though – in that way that everyone knows everyone at St. As. Did you know that St Andrew’s has (or used to have) the highest rate of people who were partners at uni who then go on to get married? I suspect the lack of contact with the outside world engender a greater degree of…dependence? Reliance? I met my husband in my JH year so go figure.
I’m not a gamer and don’t follow that community online, but the righteous beauty of Quinn’s self-defense post has given me someone new to read and follow. So, thanks for that David.
The forums were active when I first started hanging around here, then there was a major fall out between the then regulars that I missed because baby. I don’t think the forums ever recovered from the arguments, many regulars left the site completely. It feels a bit like a no-go haunted zone in the forums.
Seems to me that the accusations laid down by Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend include that of domestic abuse. And not even something minor. Supposedly she gaslighted him to the extent that he suffered panic attacks. Ignoring the cheating (which is immoral but not as abusive), that’s quite an evil thing to do to someone, to mess with their mind so much that you convince them they’re going crazy. There’s plenty of easily googleable resources on what a particularly insidious trick that is to pull on someone.
Why on earth would that be a private matter which he should be ashamed for speaking out on? If, of course, the accusations are true, I don’t think that’s any more private than when a man habitually lamps his wife. We’re, potentially, talking about a victim coming forward after being suppressed by an abusive partner.
And that’s before you get into the journalistic issues in gaming at large. Most of the scandal is because a lot of people have been growing uneasy at the way it operates and this is some of the first tangible evidence of it. The way sites and individuals closed ranks on this (including parent companies shutting down a gaming blog, false copyright claims against videos (fair usage allows a single screencap) and a large amount of censorship in websites where such things would normally get their air time (reddit is claimed to have deleted 11,000 posts on the matter (auto-delete))) suggests that there is something more to this than what your post is claiming. And it strikes me that you’ve taken an assumptive approach to reading the situation, as appears to be your want, and simply applied a template to it.
Screaming misogyny is too easy in this case. I’m sure you can find misogynists who have jumped on it, as they are likely to do, but there are a lot more things going on to pay attention to. There’s fairly legitimate claims that she has falsified attacks on her in the past (it would be impossible to have multiple people logged into her tumblr account at once, which the posts made it appear to be) for example. I know you’ve dismissed that on the basis of, well, you wanted to but a more careful examination of what’s going on may be in order.
It’s not often you find the communities in 4chan, reddit AND tumblr (especially the feminists and SJWs, who are slightly divided on the issue) in agreement on something.
So what we have is:
1- A question of domestic abuse that should be taken seriously. I’d certainly rather be physically attacked than gas lighted.
2- A question of journalistic integrity in an industry that has become extraordinarily cliquey. Particularly for indie games, good press (which was given, despite no review being printed) can make a game. This is a real, and large, industry. Even if it is only video games, the money is very real.
3- A question of whether or not the online abuse is even real. A lot of it undeniably is, but the actual hacking is suspect. It doesn’t follow the usual patterns of behaviour such as publishing passwords.
I don’t think your dismissal of it as being an issue does any justice and there’s plenty of legitimate concerns to be had here.
I see you have quite the potent moderation policy. Perhaps I should therefore state that I am not an MRA. I’m a dictionary definition feminist in that I agree that some equality can be achieved through advocating women. All of it certainly can’t, such as the UK’s (where I’m from) Sexual Offences Act 2003’s defining rape in such a way as to exclude the kind a woman would do unto a man. I know people of your political leanings tend to have a dim view of those who identify as egalitarian but, generally speaking, it is the only word for someone who believes in a complex gender structure that unequally benefits one gender, but does not do so totally. So in that regard, I hope you do not delete this post.
Dumb question: Where exactly did the ex make his post?
Vox Day unsurprisingly thinks that there should be no consequences for online harassment of women, even when it drives them to attempted suicide:
http://www.donotlink.com/b8tj
The harassers outed and purged from 4chan and other places have found a sympathetic audience in him.
Well, forums do have a tendency to escalate and drama and more escalate and conspiracy and drama and…
I just find it sad that this one didn’t work.
So what we have is:
Ok, sure. But that’s ZERO excuse for harassment by the rest of the internet. Guy deserves sympathy for being abused, and criticism for bad judgement in his choice of venue for dumping. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.
When accusations of abuse are made, the right course of action is helping the victim get the support they need, whether it is legal, emotional or medical. Educating others of the dangers of and warning signs of abuse. Ensuring potential future victims of that abuse are made aware of the possibility, and have support to leave the relationship when it happens. NOT harassment.
a) She’s not the journalist, so why are _her_ motives under question, and not the journalist’s?
b) Given that the game isn’t a commercial venture, it’s a remarkably petty complaint.
c) There is no evidence of a quid pro quo, making the entire point moot except for poisoning the well (i.e. the implication that the only reason her game is so well known is because she slept with all the reviewers)
And now you can fuck right off.
Time to tempt the Blockquote Mammoth in another disjointed rant! Fight the Mammoths That Be! Granted, I’m using the Firefox toolbar now, so I might have an unfair advantage.
redpoppy:
Let’s indeed. I can’t really say I see where such a person is coming from. How does a change from “feminazis stole my ice cream” to “hey, feminism is really awesome and important” happen? Even back when I wasn’t familiar with feminism, I still saw feminists as good people fighting for important causes that I just didn’t (yet) really understand.
Then again, I’m a hopeless idealist. I honestly want to believe it’s possible even for angry, bigoted, knee-jerker sort of people to find the courage to examine themselves critically, have a true change of heart and make a complete turn. I have a problem with often giving people way too much benefit of the doubt, though, so I wouldn’t know.
Aunt Edna:
Figures. Vox Day and his ilk are the rancid diarrhea clogging the single stall in the public restroom of society.
Then again, I bet the widdle misogynist haz a sad that nobody liked his shitty little novel.
Allow me to express my most sincere sympathies:
@blahlistic:
It’s so predictable, the mind of an abuser. No matter the context, no matter the situation, you can spot an abusive person by hearing them utter some variation of the phrase “You made me do it!” Yeah, they couldn’t help themselves. Sure, women wouldn’t be abused if they just didn’t say certain things, do certain things, exist in a certain way…
I’m so baffled by the “safe male space” argument. There have always been female gamers. Always. And even if there hadn’t been, what kind of an ego does it take to proclaim that an entire entertainment medium should be reserved for your chosen group? How do you fit through the door carrying such an enormous lump of entitlement? Especially since the assholes are just as likely to react with hatred to anyone who isn’t cis, straight, white and… *sigh* yes, neurotypical.
Fucking Telltale Games. I used to love their Walking Dead series. It had one of the most diverse casts I’ve ever seen in video games. And then, this happened.
[TW: Ableism]
http://lillycaul.tumblr.com/post/94359921967/on-telltale-games-ableist-treatment-of-sarah
Why are everyone terrible?
Fuck of Jake. This is a no troll thread.
Where did this dude buy his dictionary, from his local Self-Serving Assholes Are Us?
Yeah, I’m sure the people posting the nude pictures of her, calling her a c*nt and a whore, making fake “Zoe Quinn Dating Simulator” videos, making “burgers and fries” jokes, etc etc all have very serious concerns about very serious issues.
Whatever hurt she allegedly inflicted upon her ex, the solution is not to sic a virtual army of the internet’s most foul misogynistic assholes on her. That’s fucking abusive, and if you can’t see that you really don’t deserve to call yourself an egalitarian of any kind.
Jake, I’m putting you on moderation; I’m considering deleting your comment.
Anachronist:
Ugh, that’s awful. There was an Extra Credits episode about Walking Dead, and how the game reinforced the idea that everyone is important, and that every death diminishes us. Which makes it all the worse when they kill off someone, and everyone cheers.
The extra credits episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emeCepFW9v0
Yeah, that’s true. 🙁
@Kim – emailed!
@redpoppy – Yeah, I make it a point to report the foul language that really bugs me when I’m online. I generally don’t care about the mundane profanity like “fuck” unless the person is also being an asshole in other ways. But most of my friends on WoW have the public channels turned off entirely, or ignore it because “that’s how WoW chat is”.