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.
Here’s an article by Amanda Marcotte:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/22/gaming-misogyny-gets-infinite-lives-zoe-quinn-virtual-rape-and-sexism.html
You realize that you answered your own question, right? The reason that this is mostly playing out as a discussion about sexism and internet harassment is because sexist trolls just want an excuse to attack women, and are currently doing so with Quinn. What you’re suggesting is that we should stop having that conversation to ponder whether or not the current target deserves it, when what most of the people arguing against the harassment she’s facing is that nobody deserves to have every angry misogynist on the internet attacking them just because they’re a woman, which is what’s happening with Quinn. If you think people are really attacking her because of the other stuff, well, you’re very naive.
“The thing is, abusive men often make false claims of abuse as a tactic to discredit and silence their victims.”
this is true, but also, as a significant amount of their relationship played out online, the guy posted a tremendous amount of chatlogs as evidence, and they’re pretty damning. it’s possible (maybe probable) that he’s told his story in a way that makes quinn appear in a worse light, but the fact that he has logs of much of their conversations goes a long way towards proving his case, as it were
“It’s not fair to expect feminists to suddenly give the benefit of doubt to a man that has set off a chain of internet harassment.”
it is fair: abuse is a serious issue, and victims of abuse, both male and female, have a hard enough time as it is speaking out about suffering abuse, and getting their stories of abuse taken seriously. i haven’t seen anything indicating that the guy deliberately set off any harassment: i haven’t seen any posts on 4chan or whatever that are definitely him, i haven’t seen him posting on forums telling people to go out and publish peoples’ personal info, i’ve just seen the wordpress site he set up that contains his story, at length, without any calls to attack anyone in it- notably, on the site, he only names the people his girlfriend cheated on him with that have clear ethical issues associated with her sleeping with them, and uses pseudonyms to refer to several other people
it’s entirely possible that he went out in places i haven’t seen to stir up anger and hatred, but: i haven’t seen any of it, and the site he set up is actually pretty restrained; if he did deliberately cause any of the flamewar stuff, then i’d be interested to see it, but still: that doesn’t mean his allegations are any less serious, or should be taken less seriously
“What you’re suggesting is that we should stop having that conversation to ponder whether or not the current target deserves it,”
no. no, no no. i unreservedly, unconditionally condemn any public or private harassment, abuse, invasion of privacy, hacking, anything aimed at quinn or her friends or anyone associated with any of this: it can’t help anything in any way.
what i think the problem is, is that the people who are anti-harassment and anti-hate and anti-sexist troll etc are too willing to buy into quinn’s version of the narrative: that it’s nobody’s business whether or not she’s abusive or whether she and other people engaged in breaches of journalistic and business ethics
even in this post- “You might ask: why is any of this any of our business? It’s fucking not.” this is totally specious: if someone has committed an act of abuse, physical or emotional, against a partner, or a child, or a parent, or an elder, or a student, or a patient, or anyone in a position where their trust can be abused, it’s wrong, and it’s a crime, and privacy becomes a secondary concern: you don’t get to claim it’s an irrelevant part of your private life if you steal or commit fraud or murder or rape or commit arson: the moment you hurt someone else, your right to privacy regarding the act of hurting them is abrogated: this is a fundamental aspect of the modern western justice system
“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.” this is specious too: by phrasing it as “trading sex for positive coverage” instead of “having an inappropriate relationship with a journalist”, it becomes a sensationalist claim that is easy to dismiss instead of a serious issue: grayson did in fact write about an event quinn was exhibiting at, and that he never disclosed his relationship with quinn is a breach of journalistic ethics, even if they didn’t specifically exchange sex for coverage
undoubtedly most of the hate she’s getting is from people who just want an excuse to attack a woman, and undoubtedly if quinn were a (straight) male she wouldn’t be vilified the way she is, and undoubtedly it is largely these trolls’ fault that the issue has been set up to be a black and white issue purely about sexism, but that doesn’t mean you should buy into that black and white image of the situation
so yes i think that any and all of this public harassment shitstorm should be condemned and fought and argued against, but you can do it without buying wholesale into a narrative that suits the purposes of a potential abuser and you can do it without promoting that narrative, or buying into the subtly skewed perspective it has on the situation
don’t let the trolls hijack the conversation, don’t let them into the conversation at all: they’re impotent angry assholes on the internet and they shouldn’t be allowed to distract a discussion of serious issues
tl;dr version: letting the deadly serious issue of abuse get glossed over because of some dumbass trolls is a bad idea and too many people seem willing to just totally ignore the abuse allegations because they’ve been picked up and flogged by assholes
Dude, stop. If this was just about bringing an abuser to justice he wouldn’t have listed people she’s cheated with, and you wouldn’t be bringing that up either. What that is is an attempt to sic the misogynist trolls on her.
If you want to have a conversation about whatever abuse may or may not have happened that’s fine, nobody is trying to shut that down, but you don’t get to derail a conversation about the way in which women are systematically harassed for being well-known on the internet to do it.
The trolls have already hijacked this conversation, it’s too late to shove that genie back in the bottle, and women are going to talk about what the trolls are doing because this is a thing that happens to women on the net all the damn time.
googoogjoob: This is reminding me way too much of all the people who whined that the press was portraying Michael Brown as an “angel”.
You know, as if that was more important than a police officer shooting an unarmed man for jaywalking multiple times.
The response is so completely inappropriate and disproportionate to the offence that it completely overwhelms any other issue. If people want to talk about psychological domestic abuse, stop the harassment first, then talk. Whining that it’s getting lost in the noise sounds identical to harassers justifying the harassment, because “she’s no angel”.
It’s not just “some dumbass trolls.” It’s a widespread problem that women on the Internet and geek communities face. That’s what this conversation is about. No one’s “buying wholesale into a narrative that suits the purposes of a potential abuser.” We’re condeming the misogynist harrassment of women. Full stop.
Why is that no-one can condemn the misogynist harassment of women on the Internet without someone popping up to say how she deserves it? (Hint: the answer is misogyny).
What’s stopping googoojoob from creating a post to talk specifically about the abuse allegations? Put it on your own blog, moderate heavily and ban/delete comments that you think are off topic, and there’s your conversation focused on what you want it to be focused on. That would be a lot more productive than what you’re doing now.
I love that Quinn is being accused of falsifying some of the harassment against her, but the ex’s blog is taken as gospel truth and couldn’t be fake. Whether or not it was real is beside the point. He had to have known that naming names would cause misogynist harassment to occur. Anyone who’s spent 5 minutes online knows that.
googoogjoob literally couldn’t be any more disingenuous. LITERALLY.
I don’t know if he’s honestly clueless or dishonestly manipulative, and I don’t care, because the result is the same either way, an attempt to prevent conversations about the way women are systematically harassed just for being visibly female on the internet.
This conversation is still going to happen, dude. If you want the other conversation to happen then go make it happen. That is a thing that you can do, if you want to.
To be honest, endless reams of ‘evidence’ posted online about someones ex isn’t something I’m interested in. Even if I knew the people involved I don’t think I’d be interested. It’s an odd thing to do.
Yeah, the “look, she cheated” parts make me strongly suspect that the ex’s motives were not actually to expose abuse at all, and I will not be reading that stuff. Nevertheless, if goo guy thinks those accusations are true and wants to start a conversation about them, he can, he just can’t shut down this conversation instead of doing that.
@googoogjoob, Just stop. We’ve made it abundantly clear that you’re trying to derail an imiportant discussion.
From what little I’ve skimmed about these “reams” and what people on the Twitters are saying about them, it sounds more like a messy breakup than any sort of actual abuse. Just because a woman doesn’t like you (MISANDRY!) doesn’t make it abuse, dudebros. 😛
Re: steam group
Ooooooo :D.
I have never played multiplayer before and it sounds fun … so, definitely interested.
Also, I will be moving in a months time and my Internet connection is likely to be patchy so don’t be surprised if I vanish for a bit.
Also this thing where both the ex and googoogjoob are trying to frame cheating as abuse? That’s how, as a culture, we get to some of the disgusting responses to the attack on Chrissy Mack. Framing things that way actively enables violence towards women.
googoogjoob42, I’m shutting this particular conversation down because in the context of the harassment going on it’s counterproductive, to say the least.
If you want to discuss abuse, well, I suggest going here and looking at some of these stories of abuse. Most are stories of abuse directed at women, but I’m sure if you look you’ll find some involving male victims as well.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=domestic+violence&oq=domestic+violence&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.5437.7826.0.8121.17.7.0.9.9.2.591.1827.2j2j1j5-2.7.0…0.0…1ac.1.i-Ovvybzais
The abuse going on in these stories include not only emotional abuse but violence up to and including murder.
The alleged abuse that Quinn is being attacked for consisted of (allegedly) 1) cheating on her boyfriend and 2) lying about it.
She is now being attacked and harassed and threatened by half the fucking internet. Not because any of these people give a shit about abuse but because she’s a woman involved in video games who’s given them an excuse to call her a slut and worse.
On the “sleeping with a reviewrer” shit, THE JOURNALIST DID NOT REVIEW HER GAME. Wow, she slept with someone who shared her interest in games. Alert the media!
Indepedent game makers are not prohibited from sleeping with writers who write about games. Guess what? Book reviewers are not probibited from sleeping with book authors either. It’s only an issue when someone writes a glowing review of something made by someone they’re involved with, without disclosing the relationship. Hell, book editors often assign book reviews to friends of the authors, who often simply note the friendship in an aside in the reviews.
The idea that of all of the cases of alleged abuse in the world we need to focus on this particular case, the case of a woman who’s already being harassed and abused because her alleged victim sicced the entire fucking internet on her is absurd.
You’ve never posted a single comment here before showing up to discuss this. You could have discussed abuse, including abuse of men, here at any time. So why now, why this case?
Sorry, this particular discussion is over.
(You may want to run that URL through a shortener, David, because it looks like WordPress ate it.)
RE: Kittehs
Left Woody’s latest fail in pending though. Precious.
SPORKLE SPORKLE SPORKLE! Keep on trucking, lil Woody!
RE: you are the walrus
i don’t buy that someone being an abusive partner is totally a personal issue that doesn’t deserve public airing
If this is true, how is this helping her victim? How is doxxing her family member helping her victim? I say this as a dude who was emotionally and sexually abused. I have spoken publically about my experiences too, though I haven’t doxxed the guy, because let’s face it, the Internet wouldn’t care. Because we’re both dudes.
Also, when I DID speak publically of my abuse, I somehow didn’t see the need to post reams and reams of chatlogs and such. All I did was post a couple letters, and that was with the intent of showing how rapists think and justify their own behavior, not validating my own history.
honestly i’m not sure what i would’ve done in his situation
I notice you’re not mentioning “report to the cops.” That’s what I did, and my rapist liked to hang out with middle and high schoolers, despite being in his early twenties. I could have doxxed him; back in the day, I had the information. But I doubted it would actually help anyone involved.
Yeah, doxxing people’s friends, that will teach them not to be abusive? I’m not following the logic here.
Hey, maybe you could write about Roberta Williams for Feminist Borg sometime, if you had free time.
RE: katz
Hmmm. Well, I am between writeathons, and have mostly just been twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my brain to barf up a memory that probably won’t be coming for another week or so.
Is it relevant to the current topic? (I’m so out of date.)
hai there. ai don’t know where mai comment went but ai just wanted to say thank you for writing this post…
Because MSM is just talking about it now?
http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/22/6057317/fez-developer-polytron-hacked-harassment
Is there a reason ai can’t post a comment even if it just a “nice post” kinda thing?
Scabz: New posters go to moderation by default, since this site gets a lot of trolls by its very nature. I can see your post now, so you should be OK.