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.
@cerberustheasexual: Yeah, he is massively better. Still not perfect, but he knows that and is actively working at becoming better, and actually listens to feedback and criticism and will admit he is wrong if he is. I actually really like him nowadays.
@cerberustheasexual
Jim Sterling has a really sordid history, but a few years ago, he actually listened to the nagging voice in his head that he might not be perfect and, thus, actively makes actual attempts at personal growth over the past few years. He now talks quite a bit about equal representation and frequently condemns assholes. He is the success story of a heel realizing the error of his ways that is depressingly rare. (Ironically, this coincided with him playing up a cartoonish cult leader villain caricature as his alter ego.) Here’s an old interview where he talks about his personal growth.
Anyway, I’m not sure what else to say but that yeah, the current mainstream situation is fucked. I don’t have much hope of it improving because video games have the same problem as Hollywood: too expensive, with too many self-centered white heterosexual cisgender men doing mental gymnastics to justify their narrow views of their audience and what it wants. On the plus side, independent video games are able to compete on levels that independent movies never could, so we’ll always have that.
LOL!
Its not even /currently/ free.
It will ALWAYS be free, she wanted a pay what you want thing on the Steam release but unfortunately the Steam system doesn’t work that way and she decided that having the donations as “Dlc” would look weird.
I think a lot of the strident reactionary-ness to any criticism of games or the gaming industry is at least partly a reflection of demographics. I’m old enough to remember being a teenager when games were seriously looked down on as “kid’s entertainment” and gamers were regarded as childish dweebs who couldn’t make real friends. Even though gaming is now multi-million dollar business, with everyone who has a smartphone gaming to some degree, e-sports competitions being televised and game-to-movie adaptations becoming more mainstream, some guys can’t get out of their habitual defensive crouch (some LARPers and people who watch pro-wrestling also exhibit this reflexive counterattack tendency). They feel compelled to “defend” the entire hobby against any and all enemies. What they fail to grasp is that many of the critiques these days are constructive and coming from people who are already in the clubhouse.
As far as the panic about anything different or original in gaming, I don’t get it. Then again I find cover-based regenerating-shields first-person shooters boring, so that pretty much eliminates more than half the best-seller titles. I loved Gone Home. I was bored stupid by Darksiders 1 + 2. I enjoyed the Mass Effect franchise immensely and thought Bioshock Infinite was the weakest game in the series. Clearly I am not the one being marketed to with endless Call Of Duty and Halo iterations.
Friday Jones: Each of these positions make as much sense and as little sense as the other
Yes, but one involves a slut, whereas the other just involves, you know, normal men being normal men.
In other words, a karma system. There are many reasons these are a bad idea, which is why we’ve always made sure that WHTM sites don’t have them.
…You’re advocating a system that allows the majority to punish and silence the minority on the basis that you’re pretty sure the majority are going to be cool?
It’s true that it’s difficult to make a system that doesn’t allow the majority to walk all over the minority, but the least you can do is not create a system that incentivizes them for doing so.
@Alex M
I don’t know if you’re going to see this and this is literally the first time I’m ever commenting on here, but I absolutely one hundred percent agree with your assessment of the Escapist. The forums on there have become an absolute cesspit, with so many people lashing out at SJW straw-men like you say. Or having a complete blank spot for anyone who’s blatantly trolling under an SJW guise on Tumblr or anything like that.
Part of the problem was that there was a vocal feminist presence on there, quite a while ago, but they pretty much all left long ago which just leaves assholes who think the entire website is against them when they’re really sitting in an echo chamber. Why did most of the feminist-leaning forum users leave? Well, because the Forum Rules for the Escapist basically come down to “Don’t rock the boat.” You can get away with incredibly rude and passive aggressive behaviour, but the moment you actually use a real insult rather than just heavily implying it you will get pounced on by the moderators. There’s at least one guy who’s been on there forever who holds incredibly homophobic views, but because he’s so verbose about it it fits the ‘tone’ they want and he can get away with it. Currently their Zoe Quinn thread has gotten to over 2000 posts incredibly quickly, and I don’t dare look inside because I’m trying to completely block it out now.
And yeah, Yahtzee is getting worse and worse. Highlights of his Youtube series inculde him saying that the minimum legal age for sex should be flexible based on physical development, and claiming that rape that uses intoxication/coercion are just included to “pad the rape statistics.”
I’m not a gamer, but I’ve seen the abuse women who participate in gaming face and I wanted to chime in to say that her response was eloquent and accurate. Zoe- you’re successful, smart, well-spoken and interesting. I’m so sorry this is happening to you.
God, I’m only getting a minor amount of the splash damage after being retweeted by Sarkeesian and already it’s doing my head in. Once again I am mortified at how much harder it is for women to be prominent on the internet than men, and how many men either don’t understand/believe it or don’t think that it’s a problem.
…You’re advocating a system that allows the majority to punish and silence the minority on the basis that you’re pretty sure the majority are going to be cool?
As an explicit rejoinder to the idea that any minority has any right to dictate the terms of discourse to the majority, sure.
The only two alternatives I can see are no system, and one in which a minority dictate community terms. What are you suggesting?
It’s true that it’s difficult to make a system that doesn’t allow the majority to walk all over the minority, but the least you can do is not create a system that incentivizes them for doing so.
Actually, what I’m suggesting DEincentivizes using the block – that’s why I suggested your voice goes down the more you use it. I’d term it more “kudos” than “karma”.
Consider the following elaboration based on a little thought:
i, Every hour you’re active on a gaming site without blocking anyone, you get a small but steady increment of “kudos”. Only you get to see your kudos.
ii, You can choose to “block” one person, and maintain this indefinitely (but note, only one person at a time). If you “block” them, your kudos is added to their “asshole” score, and it is removed when you cease to block them. You don’t accumulate kudos while blocking someone.
iii, If a person’s “asshole” score passes one threshold, they are publicly warned “Don’t be an asshole”. If they pass another threshold, they are publicly booted and banned until their score drops. You don’t see who “blocks” you, but warnings, bootings and bans are public.
iv, (and this is the kicker that addresses your issue) If you’re part of a group that boots someone, you then suffer a loss to your “kudos” of half or a set amount, whichever is higher. If you’re negative, you have no further vote until you work your way up again. This can be debited when you lift the block.
So consider the features in light of your objections
– the system reflects actual time spent in the community
– the ones who try to use the system the most have the least impact.
– the quiet ones who don’t use the system gradually build up the most influence BUT also have the greatest disincentive to use it.
– if you’re an asshole, you’ll get warned without any person becoming a retaliatory target. If you continue, you get booted. And if you’re really obnoxious, people will keep you banned – at a cost of not building back their own kudos and not being otherwise able to use their vote.
– People have an incentive to remove a block after someone is warned, but before they’re banned.
That’s pretty easy to circumvent, PiaToR – if I were 4chan I’d send in a handful of guys black ninja style (one by one) ’til the community members use up their Ban Mojo, then flood the place.
If they also had a “sleeper agent” or three in the community, that person could start raising some hell blocking/banning others.
Also the “every hour you’re active” thing would hurt people who post infrequently but are still stalwarts of the community.
I can definitely see it working in some contexts. The problem is that any system requires a decent community in the first place – and if you have a decent community, the system is not really necessary. Until it is, at which point you (arguably) no longer have a decent community.
It’s totally unworkable to expect someone to use up a finite resource of theirs just to get rid of a single troll. If we’re concerned about the majority-asshole scenario, reasonable people won’t have the points to police their community.
Remember when the controversy was about Paul Elam pocketing tens of thousands in donations, instead of consenting industry colleagues having sex with each other? How do people get caught up in the stupidest things and manage to ignore blatant criminality?
Why the ever-flying fuck were they doxxing her friends and relatives? That makes me so unspeakably angry. They doxxed her trans friends? Because obviously the responsible thing to do to a person who is likely plagued by body image issues and the depression that is co-morbid with it is to harass them for being PROXIMAL TO A PERSON YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH BECAUSE THEY HAD THE AUDACITY TO MAKE A GAME ABOUT A MENTAL ILLNESS THAT THEY’RE PROBABLY SUFFERING FROM I LITERALLY CAN’T EVEN
Transitioning is already a lot of pressure. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have rabid… fuck, I don’t even have adequately insulting words to describe people who think this is justified. They need to be beat in the head with a baseball bat, because they are clearly so far removed from human empathy that there is no recourse.
Consider me fucking triggered. FUCK. I need to smash something really badly.
(Not that the harassment is any easier for the rest of her relatives/friends, it’s still fucking despicable, deplorable, and fucking moronic. But Quinn’s the type of person I’d be friends with, and I’m barely keeping together through my transition as it is. To imagine have this heaped on as well… Jesus Fucking Christ. I’m barely above water as it is. I can’t.)
How does Elam get away with living off donations?
I mean, if he’s not a tax-exempt charity it’s legal. You’d just think the MRM’s coughing up the cash would want to know what their money’s buying besides online vitriol, which mostly can be gotten for free or pretty cheap.
If someone actually wants to pay me to write rabid frothing screeds, so long as I intellectually and morally agree with the screed being writ? I’ll be right over there.
I won’t be holding my breath though.
Hang in there coffee. Things will get easier.
* insert general encouragement for slogging through nasty shit here*
Needless to say I found this lovely video where a lovely YouTuber EXPOSES THE FEMINIST CONSPIRACY. They’re out to make money and ruin his hobby! It’s really no different than anything else other than the excruciating length of the rant, but that is a regular for such people. *sighs*
[video deleted by df -- I don't want this shit on here, even if you didn't mean any harm by posting it; I don't want to give the allegations more publicity --DF]
The gamer assholes also doubled down in Encyclopedia Dramatica.
Hugs and kitties Coffee if you want them.
This has ;nothing to do with gaming, but I just watched the movie Backyard – about the missing and murdered women in Juarez, Mexico. Must confess I shed tears, and I don’t think I will sleep well tonight. Just horrendous. It is comforting to be able to come here.
That’s pretty easy to circumvent, PiaToR – if I were 4chan I’d send in a handful of guys black ninja style (one by one) ’til the community members use up their Ban Mojo, then flood the place.
If they also had a “sleeper agent” or three in the community, that person could start raising some hell blocking/banning others.
Possible, but by definition, the only way that would work is if the 4chan sleepers put in the time and effort needed to build up kudos in the community. You might tweak the system to not cost anything to ban people who’d only been there for a short time.
It’s totally unworkable to expect someone to use up a finite resource of theirs just to get rid of a single troll.
Why? Why should exercising the ability to boot someone from a gaming community (and my experience here is with MUDs, so excuse my ignorance of MMOs) come without cost?
And it’s one troll at a time per customer. How many trolls are there on WHTM compared to the number of regulars?
Consider the alternative to requiring common users using a finite resource to exercise a ban – some super user has to have the ability to ban at will without accountability. A gatekeeper, or a managed community. It’s one model, but it’s not something organic to the community’s standards.
If we’re concerned about the majority-asshole scenario, reasonable people won’t have the points to police their community.
Again, if there’s a majority asshole scenario, nothing will work and, I would submit it, nor should it. What you are suggesting is that a minority of self-defined “reasonable people” should have the ability to dictate discourse for the majority – and if you don’t see the problem with that, you need to think harder.
Internet hugs for coffee. Here. Have a gingery kitty!
@redpoppy and @pallygirl
I used to raid. In I started a raiding guild with some friends because I didn’t believe I’d be able to join any other guild, raid seriously and not have to deal with arseholes. It just seemed that hardcore raiding and being a horrible douchecanoe were intrinsically linked.
At first our guild was great. We screened people carefully, people would listen to me and not use sexist/rascist/homophobic language, and I met some awesome people who were both good players and good people. We made good progress too, keeping up with the top guilds and, briefly, I was the most geared warrior on the server.
But slowly the priorities changed, arseholes were tolerated if they were good enough players, the ‘jokes’ got worse, and I was ignored and ridiculed for being “too PC”. Eventually I had to leave my own guild. Now I just level, make gold and do achievments/old content with my bf. That’s why I have a 90 of every class and a lot of gold.
My point being – I would love love love to be in a raiding guild with people who understand social justice and just do it right without having to be policed and nagged constantly. People who would be just as OK with gkicking an arsehole as we are with banning trolls here, not caring if they had high DPS.
@redpoppy
Do you mind me asking what server you’re on? My mains are on Jubei’Thos (oceanic server), though I am happy to roll a new toon anywhere. Would you, or anyone else, be interested in forming a new Mammoth inspired guild?
@Kim- That’s….an AWESOME idea. I’m not really in any raiding guild but my husband is. While they are generally nice people, they are not SJ minded. My husband is though. Perhaps we can discuss the possibilities. Warning: I’m a bit of altoholic. Lol. But the main server I’m usually on is Arathor.