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.
Wow. The behaviour on the part of her ex-boyfriend is classical stalking and emotional abuse. I hope he gets help, but at least now every woman will know what a dangerous, vindictive, monstrous piece of shit he is and will know to steer clear.
As someone who worked in the game industry for seven years, I feel I can say confidently, that if anyone is “fucking up” the game industry, it is these types of “gamers”. They are the worst thing to happen to this industry. These are the same people that harass developers every time they don’t get what they want in a video game. These are the people who get mad that they have to pay money for the $100million-to-produce games they think they deserve for free. They are the reason developers are moving to free-to-play app markets. So congrats on being pieces of shit, “gamers”.
BreakfastMan-
Yeah, it’s not just conspiracy level bullshit, but dumb conspiracy level bullshit. Like, even on the sci-fi analogue world where the sky is green and this shit made fucking sense, it still wouldn’t fucking make any sense. Like Anita Sarkeesian making money by crying victim to harassment, therefore let’s harass or Quinn somehow hurting all of gaming more than the proliferation of terrible clone games and cookie-cutter AAA titles or all of the game developers who’ve turned out to be racist, sexist, wife-beaters, convicted felons, etc… or all of the game companies being found out literally using their financial muscle to skew game review scores in their favor and mislead the public on their games because she supposedly once slept with a guy who didn’t even do her any favors.
I mean on this upside down pineapple cake of a world where that somehow makes sense, why the fuck would anyone give a fuck. Bizarro Quinn didn’t get shit for her evil girl cooties plot to weaponize her sexuality into a good review generating machine and didn’t even get additional publicity compared to what she’s gotten from other reviewers this half-machine, half-lazerfish hybrid didn’t sleep with or what she got from being harassed by reprobates and vile sexists or what she’s getting now from the same douchebags. So why should we somehow be horrified by the Robot Death Squid that is apparently NegaQuinn for her supposed “crimes” instead of going “oi, drama”?
Also, in this mystical and not at all fucked up land where any of this makes sense, why the hell would you want to bother with the harassment campaign? I mean, the last time there was a harassment campaign, it just massively promoted the work of the person being harassed and generated sympathy for them. And if NotQuinn is a Cylon agent trying to destroy all of gaming with her android naughty bits if she is at all “let into the community” and not destroyed, then, great job making her an even more powerful fixture than she would have been otherwise if this fictional strawwoman had just been left to her previous evil plan of supposedly cheating on an abusive boyfriend with a journalist who didn’t even promote her work.
But hey, given that it’s really about communicating to women everywhere that their “sexual mistakes” can be weaponized against them and any abusive ex can destroy them at any point in their life simply by exploiting societal fears of women’s sexuality rather than proving jack all, I suppose their real terroristic point is well and truly communicated… on top of the bit where it’s communicated that even supporting a chosen target is enough to get you destroyed and the extra layer of fuckedupedness in outing and doxxing trans* friends of hers given the level of violence and discrimination that trans* people face.
Ugh, there’s no part of this that doesn’t end with me desperately wanting to punch these fuckers in the nose.
The thing I find weird is all the male gamers I know are good people. Of course, that’s mainly tabletop rp, and i avoid all online gamer interaction like the plague and…ok, not as weird as I thought.
Even if she did sleep with dude for a review, how is this level of abuse justified? And if it’s not sexism (glares at Branden) then why isn’t journalist dude being harassed and doxxed and death threatened? Oh, right because she’s uppity and left an abusive relationship. That makes her guilty! Burn the witch!
I love how whenever a post like this goes up, a bunch of frothing little pains-in-the-ass descend to say that of course they’re not CONDONING such harassment (except when they are) it’s just that this woman is so freakin’ awful that you know, maybe we’re being a bit hard on the harassers.
Gag. And yeah, because the gaming world is just so goddamn wholesome and pure, this one woman can single-handedly ruin its reputation. Uh huh.
Hell hath no fury like a sexually frustrated misogynist.
Sleeping one’s way to the top is still considered a thing??
Sorry, I meant to put that as “sleeping one’s way to the top” in quotation marks. Note to self: no wine at lunch if you’re going to comment on blogs.
Honestly, given its current reputation, “developer sleeps with journalist to get better review” would actually be a step up for the gaming industry. Seriously, guys, are you not aware that most people outside your subculture think of you? It’s not good.
Yeah, LBT, and it’s all about the “allegations” and “I’m not 100% sure” (big of you!). Jeez. Does it really happen in the modern world that sex is used as a bribe? I thought all these guys got teh sex whenever they wanted, so how could it be a bribe?
Lea-
Yeah, I know a huge number of people who are hesitant to play games and even more hesitant to call themselves gamers even when they are attending gaming conferences because of the shitstorm of abusive vile misogynists who have claimed sole ownership over the label.
And I know even more who’ve drifted away from the medium, because they got tired with putting up with constant abuse online or having their favorite genres shat upon because “only girls play them” and just generally having to fight to enjoy what is in essence, a silly hobby.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a single person whose left gaming or been hesitant to call themselves a gamer because one indie developer slept with someone in the industry… fuck, I can’t even think of someone who left gaming because one developer or game designer actually did something illegal and morally objectionable like have child porn on his computer.
If anything is “destroying gaming” it’s definitely these asshole men who seem to have gotten it in their head that they own all of gaming and any game that has a non-white protagonist, or a girl in a prominent part in the narrative, or is made by someone who isn’t a white male, or tries to say something or isn’t a carbon-copy clone of the latest Call of Duty needs to be destroyed and dismissed by teh hardcore.
Also, I love how hard these morons are trying to paint this as some sort of “corruption” in the immaculate meritocracy that is the games industry. Ha!
I guarantee you, 90% of the men who currently work in the industry got there because they knew and/or were related to someone else who was already there. Nepotism is the name of the game in most industries, but when you have entire companies started by guys who want to have fun-work with their bro’s, nobody is getting hired purely on merit.
It’s funny how nepotism for men is the only good nepotism.
The rampant stupidity here is giving me a headache. These abusive assholes are trying soooo hard to rationalize their purely emotional, irrational reactions to a lady they don’t like.
I saw Emily’s comment and I am seriously having trouble seeing how Quinn has benefited from making this game at all. I’ve read the game’s website and tried the free version of the game. it seems to be purely about raising awareness about depression. Right now it’s free-to-play on steam and I cannot find find any pricing history on it. Has she actually made money on the game? Because searching google I can’t find any information on that either. Am I missing something that someone could send me a link to? I am utterly baffled by these accusations because as it stands right now, her sleeping with a game reviewer to promote a game that seems to be free for financial benefit absolutely makes no fucking sense. There is banner on her website that that says you can donate but the proceeds go to a charity listed on the Depression Quest website. The assumptions and reaction of the gaming community as it relates to Quinn may be one of the stupidest and most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. Again, if there are genuine issues of some kind of malfeasance (such as her not actually giving the money to the charity she was supposed to), someone please send me a link on it. I can’t wrap my head around what’s going on here.
And even if there is some validity to the accusations, nothing justifies distributing naked pictures of someone online, releasing personal information, death threats, rape threats, harassment of family and friends, and whatever terrible shit is going on. MRM constantly moan about men being vilified as dangerous..You know what? Bullshit like this is partly responsible. Bullshit like this does nothing to help their cause. This is the garbage that gives men a bad name. This is the kind of crap that, even though I absolutely love video games (even though I just replay older games from the nintendo, sega, and PS1 era that gets remade and Indie titles that aren’t rank with violence), stops me from identifying as a gamer.
I don’t see how people can stand up and proudly call themselves gamers in this day and age. To me, it’s synonymous with racism, mysogyny, homophobia, and violence. Even if “:all gamers aren’t like that” there’s complacency because people just except it, it’s no big deal, that’s just the culture.
Well, the culture’s toxic. Fuck people who try to justify gamer culture and specifically those who say Quinn had coming.
Seriously. Fuck you because you’re a terrible person.
estraven-
It totally happens all the time. I mean, I walk around giving various sex tokens out in order to get goods and/or services…
But then, that’s because I got sucked into a television screen and am now trapped in a terrifying alternative dimension based on porn narratives…
Maybe the problem is that these sexist fucks get all of their information about the world from mainstream pornography.
BreakfastMan-
Of course, my bad. Evil girl parts means she is Doubleplus Hitler Ungood. How could I have forgotten? Must have been my tiny lady brain.
Quinn’s response to this whole despicable clusterfuck of harassment is perfect in every way. She refuses to play their game. The issue isn’t whether or not she slept with the “reviewer” (who didn’t review her game); the issue is that nobody, male or female, should ever have to put their sex-life up for display.
The only thing I don’t like about her statement was the fact that she had to make it in the first place
Save The Queen-
It would be completely baffling why this particular developer and game were chosen if we were to believe their crap about it being about money or ethics, but it makes perfect sense once we realize that it’s about taking down a woman and believing that because she admitted to depression and suicidal ideation that she will be an “easy target” to bully and silence and drive back into suicidal ideation or action.
Because killing women with deniability is the only way they can feel powerful enough in their sad meaningless lives on this wet blue rock to make it through their days without having an existential crisis over how worthless and unwanted they truly are because of their hangups and actions.
And it’s no secret that admitting to any form of mental illness or struggle with depression on the internet when you are a woman is reacted to like one just put on a dripping hunk of meat at a starving dog conference. Because punching down on the weak is the favorite activity of the bully.
Yes. It’s still a thing. Anytime something good happens to a dancer or waitress that others don’t think she “deserves,” the common refrain is that she slept with management. A dancer I know well was invited to participate in the yearly calendar and… that was the buzz in the locker room.
The reason she was actually included was the fact that she’s incredibly beautiful, she’s drug and drama free, shows up for extra shifts or stays late when management asks her to, is almost universally popular with customers and makes great money for the club.
It’s just easier to try to drag her down, than to put in the same kind of hard work and dedication that she has. It’s far easier to just assume that everyone else is also skirting the hard work amd using sexual currency to get what they want. It gives a reason to complain, while reinforcing the notion that actual hard work is pointless anyway.
One thing to note about all this, is that most, if not all, gaming websites are not covering this, or at least are not interested in the cheating accusation as they quite rightly see this as ‘TMZ tabloid journalism’ that shouldn’t be of interest to their audience… to which the harassers are acting like there’s a big feminist conspiracy to silence or censor this story. The Escapist is allowing one discussion thread on it, and has been barraged with new joiners seemingly soley out to vilify Quinn, and attempts to keep the discussion civil has been eyed as ‘proof’ the Escapist is out to censor ‘the truth’ and harrass the ‘true victims’ (the instigators of the first harassment of Zoe when she attempted to get Depression Quest greenlit)
I’ve been doing tabletop RPGs for a long time, and at one point it was a terribly sexist environment (I’m thinking the 1980s) where women were thought to “ruin” the environment. But today I think it is a much more welcoming place than the video game world, and I’ve never felt the urge to wander over to the “gamer” culture. I’m very happy with good old polyhedral dice.
I admit to my lack of knowledge on this. It just seems so anachronistic to me with, on the one hand, the conservative types going on and on about everyone having sex all the time, and on the other, the PUAs going on and on about getting sex by manipulating women into it. It would seem that if there is all this guilt-free “hooking up” going on, one wouldn’t need to offer sex as a bribe, since sex would be plentiful. But I stand corrected and apologize.
@cassandrakitty
you hit the nail on the head. That not good perception of gamers (deserved or not) is part of why the reaction to Zoe and woman like her is so extreme. Understand that none of what I am about to say excuses or makes what was done to Zoe Quinn less then disgusting, wrong and shameful on the harassers parts, I simply want to point out why their reaction is so much more magnified to feminism then in the main stream world and to help better understand the mind set of gamers for the non-gamer from my view point. Most gamers are not what you would call good a people skills,So they sure as hell can’t handle anger in appropriate ways to start, but add to that the constant attack by the media that their hobby is the real reason for school shooting, massacres, etc and that most gamers a nerds or geeks to begin with. You have a very reactionary group that see itself as victims to start plus the influx of the dude bros in recent years.You have the perfect shit stew for these hateful acts, and of course with the rest of society there the under lying misogyny that is present. That is why this has gone so far, I just hope Zoe Quinn keeps making games and does not give up what she loves.
Just to be 100% clear, there is nothing connecting the ex personally to Quinn’s harassment. He denies being involved, and is apparently not the source of the pictures.He also claims he went to 4chan around the time this was breaking specifically to ask them not to do any doxxing or harassment.
I still think he’s an asshat, because doxxing and harassment were the completely, 100% predictable outcomes of exposing this information publicly.
From the Depression Quest site:
Anyone who tries to raise awareness of depression is a hero in my book. (I suffer from chronic depression.) Good for you, Zoe Quinn.
I’d be a lot more sympathetic to the argument that the reason gamers do stuff like this is because the media depicts them as misogynistic manchildren with the social skills of rabid badgers if they weren’t in fact acting like misogynistic manchildren with the social skills of rabid badgers right at this moment.
@cassandrakitty
not asking you or anyone to sympathize with them. Just pointing out how they think. Understanding does not equal sympathy in my book at least.