So how much do some angry gamebros hate Anita Sarkeesian? Enough to send me death threats … for writing about the death threats sent to Anita Sarkeesian.
Shortly after my post on the threats against Sarkeesian went up on Thursday, I got these messages sent to me as anonymous “asks” on Tumblr. These were all in succession, in this order; I’m pasting each one individually instead of the whole bunch at once so you can read them in the order in which I got them. [TRIGGER WARNING: Violent threats; I’m putting them past the jump.]
.
.
.
.
There is a certain irony in that last comment, whether or not it came from the guy (and I’m pretty damn sure it was a guy) who sent all the threats that immediately preceded it. It’s pretty clear to me that Sarkeesian has no need to fake anything; obviously her haters aren’t exactly shy about sending death threats to people they don’t like.
And if this is what my inbox looks like for merely writing about Sarkeesian, I can only imagine what her inbox looks like. I suspect she gets threats like these all the time; the reason she called the police about several of the threats she got this week is that the threateners posted her personal information as well.
In the interest of full disclosure: Here and here are screenshots of these messages as they appeared in my Tumblr inbox; I’ve blurred out the personal information of the people sending me cat pics.
Needless to say, I’ve turned off anonymous asks on my Tumblr blogs.
IB, feel free to take your crusade to define just what threats and what rapes are “real” elsewhere. Bye.
Fuck you very much, interwebs trolls, for defiling one of my favourite games by using it for your idiotic trolling.
There’s another TF2 quote I’d use towards them and this clusterfuck of abuse:
You’re like a car crash in slow motion. It’s like I’m watchin’ ya fly out a windshield.
And FTR this looks more like a troll than a legit threat, but THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT. Just as we couldn’t tell the difference between Elliott Rodger and the asshole misogynists who use the exact same rhetoric without killing people, the kind of ass that would say this shit in a mocking “See? He’s playing the victim and all I did was throw some game quotes at him!” kinda way looks pretty much the same as the kind of violent fuckwit who’d act out on those threats right up until the point that they get off the keyboard and do something.
In other words, it’s the “poison M&M analogy” all over again – sure, most of the trolls who post this shit may be harmless, but how willing should we be to take that chance when all it takes is one douche with a violent streak to prove you wrong?
Sigh… all this negativity surrounding the games industry is REALLY making me depressed. Would you guys like me to tell you about a game I’m playing that’s making me happy?
How about we have a thread for gaming recommendations? That way, we could get all the recommendations in one place instead of spread across what threads are active at the time?
Why don’t we just turn this into that thread for gaming recommendations? Or do you want a separate one, pallygirl?
Well, I didn’t read your comment very carefully, sorry.
Keep up the good fight David. I agree with Anita, we will Win.
Ohhhh, but censorship! Only a true fascist would make it harder for us to publicly threaten you without consequence! Coward!
I know this is off topic, but kitties are never really off-topic; My kitty (the one in my gravatar) has been acting weird the last week or so and is currently at the vet. She has a fever, but beyond that we don’t know what’s wrong. So if you guys could send some internet hugs it would be much appreciated. I’m really worried about her.
I can’t say I’m going to cry about IB22. In the main she is boring, and her entire paradigm seems to be the old-school, toxic conflict-minimalization: intent on hushing up victims of abuse, and not very worried about stopping the abuse.
@childrenofthebroccoli
Oh, wow, I’m sorry to hear that. 🙁 I hope she gets better!
All the love to you and your kitty COTB.
Sorry to see the death threats, David. I wish there were a kind of algorythmic switch that malignant posters could trip with their violent language, and poof, their faces/identities would be revealed. Aside from that fantasy, I noticed what I think you’ve written about before– that is that the death-dealer isn’t interested in your backdoor, whereas he would be when threatening a woman. Must be concerned about his reputation as a umm… Mensch.
@childrenofthebroccoli: all the internet hugs you could want. I almost mistyped that as jugs, but if you want jugs of hugs, or jugs of anything in combination with the hugs, just specify. 🙂
Hugs for kitty. Hope she gets back to her usual hijinks soon!
Hugs for David, for dealing with this.
Hugs, hugs for everyone!
(Except death threatens, IB, and Woody. No hugs for you.)
Hugs for you and sick kitty!
Hugs and best wishes for your kitty, CotB!
Hugs for David. I hope you and your kitties are safe!
@childrenofthebroccoli:
Hugs to you and your kitty friend. I hope your kitty friend gets better soon.
Sending kittie hugs. Am also looking into cold fusion as a way to send these asshats into their actual own world.
Thanks for the hugs everyone, they’re much appreciated. Penny’s in the back getting her blood drawn right now, but I’ll provide updates when I know more.
Hmm, video games. I just put in my pre-order for Pokemon Omega Ruby (finally getting our gen 3 remake!), and I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft lately. I’ve also been playing the Donkey Kong Country series on my Wii virtual console, and they hold up surprisingly well given how old they are. I love that they never went the Damsel in Distress route, even though the plot basically boils down to “bad guy stole something you care about, go get it back”; in the first game, it was Donkey’s banana stash, and in the second and third Donkey himself gets kidnapped and his friends (Dixie and Diddy in 2, Dixie and Kiddy in 3) have to go save him.
childrenofthebroccoli: all the hugs for you and your kitty.
David: Sorry about the threats, and thank you for banning that tedious, evil, and stupid Insatiybytes.
“Not so tough are ya? Are Ya?!” I know that death threats are no laughing matter, but I can’t help picturing this… guy(?) as Scrappy Doo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG8dgN6x2EA
Despite the abhorrence of those messages, I did still notice a distinct lack of rape threats. Must be nice to be immune from those.
childrenofthebroccoli, sorry your kitty’s not feeling well, hopefully the vets can figure out what’s going on!
Video games: I’ve been playing LA Noire. Frankly, though I really like the game’s version of 1940s LA, the crime-solving is sort of boring. I need to do a few more missions before I open up free roam. Maybe that’ll be more fun. I like just driving around in big open worlds, and am a little bored with GTA V, even though its open world is giant and amazing.
Goodbye, Inanity, I hope the door hit your ass on your way out. May a life full legos to step on be ahead of you!
childrenofthebroccoli, hugs to you and hugs to your kitty. Good vibes, too.