Congratulations, assholes! You did it! Your threats and harassment have driven game journalist/designer Jenn Frank and game designer/media critic Mattie Brice to leave the gaming world.
Frank, an award-winning writer and sometime game designer, came to the attention of the misogynist mob after writing a brief opinion piece for The Guardian decrying the widespread and vicious harassment of women in gaming. In addition to writing about the harassment she’s gotten — including someone trying to hack into her email account — she (as you might expect) also highlighted the misogynistic rage directed at feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and indie game designer Zoe Quinn.
The new rule seems to be that any woman who writes about online harassment will herself be harassed, and in this case it didn’t take long.
The gamebro army, completely ignorant about how journalism works, decided that she had a “conflict of interest” — because, and I’m totally serious here, she had previously exchanged some tweets with Quinn and donated some money to her on Patreon. One critic, who put together a much-passed-around graphic outlining the charges against her, angrily denounced Frank for “vigorously defending [Quinn] while pretending to be impartial.”
There are a couple of giant problems with these accusations. First off, Frank never pretended to be impartial. She was not reporting on anything for the Guardian. She was writing an OPINION PIECE about a topic that obviously affected her. Editors don’t assign OPINION PIECES to writers who are, or who pretend to be, impartial. They assign these pieces to people WITH OPINIONS. You’re not going to get much of an OPINION PIECE from someone with no opinions.
Second of all, according to Frank (and I believe her), she had asked The Guardian to attach a brief statement to the end of her piece noting her — admittedly tenuous — connections with Quinn and Sarkeesian. The Guardian editors chose not to run it because they thought these connections were too trivial to merit a mention. They forgot that she was a woman writing about gaming, and that misogynistic assholes will seize on anything, literally anything, as an excuse for harassment.
After she started getting harassed for her alleged “conflict of interest,” Frank wrote a blog post dealing with the issue clearly and straightforwardly, and convinced the Guardian editors to append a version of her original disclosure statement to the piece:
Update: Jenn Frank has purchased and is a supporter of Zoë Quinn’s work, although this is the first article she has written on the developer. Frank has also briefly met Anita Sarkeesian.
As absurd as it is for a woman writer to have to publicly confess that she “has also briefly met Anita Sarkeesian,” as if this is some sort of crime, Frank thus answered her critics directly. And that should have been it. But of course the harassment — sorry, the perfectly legitimate criticism — continued, and on Wednesday night Frank announced that she’d had enough:
https://twitter.com/jennatar/status/507338379474649088
https://twitter.com/jennatar/status/507411937383022592
The only “conflict of interest” here was the “conflict of interest” that Frank wrote about originally in her Guardian piece. After describing her horror on discovering that someone had been trying to hack her email, she wrote:
My unabashed love for video games, my colleagues and my work have a conflict of interest with my own terror.
And, at least for now, the terror has won.
Meanwhile, game designer and media critic Mattie Brice was also extracting herself from an industry and a culture that has been grinding her down. I’ll let her tweets tell the story. (See her timeline for more.)
real talk is that people like me have been getting harassed and disregarded for a long time and patience's gone for things not being better
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 3, 2014
it feels like everyone is taking their merry ol' time to wise up and take action in a way that actually helps. don't have time for that
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 3, 2014
i need to get better and since that healing isn't coming from the outside i have to get it from the inside. shouldn't be how it is
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 3, 2014
see ya video games pic.twitter.com/0nnU6oAl7N
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 4, 2014
Congrats to all the people excising themselves from something horrible and looking to take care of yourself
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 4, 2014
If industry cared you would be properly supported. It wasn't ready for or deserving of you. Go shine elsewhere
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 4, 2014
It'll be nice not aspiring to be a part of an industry that makes me cry and hurt so often
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 4, 2014
I'm glad you all love video games a lot, these guys are tough company.
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 4, 2014
i decided i'm not spending time and energy on things that don't reciprocate. the games industry never budged to make room for me
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 5, 2014
it asked for volunteer work, it asked me to take harassment, it asked me to live in poor conditions. i won't anymore
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 5, 2014
until you figure out how to change that this industry will be a revolving door where people don't even get into the building
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 5, 2014
i won't spend any energy making you feel like your consumer products are art and deserving of critical attention
— @mattiebrice.bsky.social (@thotxcouture) September 5, 2014
Elsewhere on Twitter, the bullies crowed over their victory:
https://twitter.com/AlrightAnon/status/507395891838590976
Another day, another couple of women ground down and spat out by the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine, Gaming Division.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the gamebros haven’t forgotten about Zoe Quinn either.
lemme just check my email and- oh. #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/YJ8cwzlM79
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 3, 2014
Here’s the screenshot; click for a larger and more readable version — if you’re not triggered by violent threats, that is.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Seriously, if you know, tell me, because I am fresh out of explanations for this level of blind hatred.
NOTE: This thread is a NO SHITHEAD thread. If you say anything that in any way even slightly excuses or justifies the harassment of these women, you can fuck right off to any of the eight zillion places on the internet where you can badmouth these women to your heart’s content. I and the other mods will be banning and deleting as necessary.
I read that comment to physically harm Zoe. Oh. MY. GOD.
We can’t shut them up everywhere – it’s like holding back the tide, responsible make gamers can’t shut off the vicious bastards’ twitter, email, reddit.
I do what I can. I speak out where I can, and I’m a moderator on a major publisher’s forums, where I don’t let any shit like that slide – and the publisher supports that position.
That’s voluntary stuff on my own time, BTW. I don’t work in the industry.
@cassandrakitty
As you said, you already know the answer. Women are not allowed to be active sexual beings, only passive objects for men to consume. So any woman who attempts to exert choice over her sexual activity is a slut and a terrible person and deserves to be punished. Any evidence of a woman choosing to have sex with anyone negates her opinions on anything.
This is their rationale for attacking the women whose pictures were stolen too. “You’ve been a passive sexual object publicly, how dare you try to be an active sexual being in private and limit our access to you! We have a right to you as a passive object! How dare you think you have the right to choose who you share your sexuality with!” Coupled with either “you are famous so you forfeited that right and we deserve to violate you sexually however we want” or “women like you would never choose me if you were allowed to exert choice so this is your punishment and you deserve it” or both.
I think I just made myself sick. Ugh.
I just made some tea if anyone wants any, it tends to help settle the stomach when you’re feeling nauseous.
Also I read “thonk” and thought of the noise my Mac makes when I move things to the Trash. Appropriate, I’d say.
::sips::
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. I’m actually hoping the same thing as Bina did up-thread; that this blows up in the dudebros’ faces and causes a Great Shooter Game Crash or something.
@fromafar2013 – I couldn’t find the kickstarted fundraising information. Do you have a link? If so, please post it. That Pumpkin game looks cute – like sims, sort of, but with interaction with other players, too. I think I would enjoy it very much.
I’m going through a depressive episode right now and reading about this was horrible enough, I just feel disappointed in humanity in general right now. I’m so sick of all these hypocrites and delusional shitheads who continually justify this shitty behavior and can’t admit their “support” is based on personal issues with women than any concern for “corruption.”
Anyway – I shared the post on my Facebook and said this about it:
I don’t of course have any stats about how many male gamers are aware of gamergate and the misogyny in the industry in general. I don’t think ignorance is an excuse though. I’m not much of a gamer and I knew about it. A lot of games have social aspects so anyone playing those games has to be aware of how commonplace misogynist and homophobic slurs are. I’m not saying men who stay silent are evil but they are complicit.
This isn’t some standard I only gamers to or anything. For example, as a white person I don’t allow myself to ignore racism. Anyone in a privileged group needs to be part of the solution or else they are part of the problem.
It’s just so simple. If these creeps are the extreme minority other gamers claim them to be, dealing with them should be easy. Every time they say (and I agree, for all their keyboard commanding they don’t seem to engage in a lot of physical violence) something oppressive, tell them to STFU or GTFO. If the majority of gamers are guys who care, this should be something they’ll gladly engage in. When they see disgusting behaviour, CALL IT OUT. Make the social consequences of the behaviour not worth continuing it and it will stop.
You have to care enough to raise your voice and say “That’s not cool. Cut the shit or fuck off.” Otherwise, no, you’re probably not as bad as them but you’re helping either.
I don’t have the will to Google #gamergate, I just don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, so can someone in the know explain what this has to do with gaming journalism? From what little I picked on it seems it’s about Quinn winning influence and good press by sleeping with industry people. (Writing that sentence made me feel genuinely bad.)
Considering how dependent the gaming press is on the major publishers, someone who actually cares about gaming journalism should be more worried about payola and the coverage of major games. As far as I can tell Quinn, plus a refusal to accept any criticism of ‘gamers” or games, is somehow the only thing being complained about.
The way these guys have been justifying their actions, with self-righteous, disingenuous bullshit is giving me a headache. I really can’t stomach reading much more about this particular hashtag “controversy”.
From what I can tell, there’s been resentment simmering over how most of the major gaming news sources have been in the pocket of the big companies. Then the Zoe Quinn thing broke, and once the initial slut-shaming got called out, outraged parties switched to the “it’s about journalistic integrity” tack. I think, being generous, that the current #gamergate stuff is about long-standing issues of journalistic integrity and not about Quinn, but… it still seems to have originated from the Quinn stuff, which IMO makes it feel like fruit of the poison tree.
Also, last Thursday/Friday a bunch of gaming news sites all posted articles about how “gamers” are dead, characterizing all gamers as insular sexist dudebros, which fanned the flames. It also led to #gamergate blaming Social Justice Warriors for… I’m not sure what. Covering up the real issue? Invading the gaming space for their own agenda without knowing or caring about women in gaming?
It is! Although I generally hear it as “schwonk”, myself.
And Cassandra, if you have any of that tea left, I could use some. The storm broke here, and I have a whanging headache.
*pops in for a minute*
The “thonk” comment was about whether cis people who call gender roles constructs are transphobic. As mind boggling as that is, can we refrain from mocking the typo as if it came from MRAs or gamerbros? Since it, well, didn’t.
But I have QI and a back-from-vacation R to return to. Also, vodka. The QI and vodka I’m up for sharing (and I have a proxy I can share the info for, for those of us stuck in countries the BBC hates)
@Marinerachel
If only it were that easy. These kind of people don’t have a fear of words or anything that’s not a physical attack.
These cretins really think that Zoe Quinn deserves serious physical punishment that leaves her permanently crippled because her ex claims that she cheated on him a bunch of times? These neanderthals are seriously suggesting that women should be physically punished for infidelity? Are we living in Old Testament times?
Also, I dare the gamerbros trumpeting the “victory” that they achieved when their harassment drove Frank and Brice out to cry about their free speech being violated. I triple-dog dare them. Seriously, how is it a violation of their free speech if someone (especially a female someone) disagrees politely with anything that they say or do but it’s not a violation of their free speech if they threaten someone (usually a female someone) with violent retaliation if that someone (usually a “she”) doesn’t stop expressing her opinions on public?
Is @AlrightAnon not a gamebro?
Sorry I’m honestly confused by the variety of human detritus whose existence this incident has alerted me to.
@ Nick…#notallhumans… 😉
Hope you crawl out of the bomb crater soon, mister…Do remember, the shit passes, you just have to keep going…
Leaving any suggestions about Happeh Pillz to your duly educated treatment providers…but I do note that part of surviving depression is just forcing myself to do what will make me feel better.
…At the County center where I go for my psych meds? Somebody wrote “Jesus can fix it.” inside the ladies’ room, in one of the stalls.
…Jesus didn’t work for me. Maybe I should have tried the Extended-release Jesus? Or maybe upped my Jesus dosage?
Jesus had no antidepressant effect for me.
If that graffiti’s still there when I go back in a month, I am crossing out “Jesus” and writing “Topiramate.”
@brooked
GamerGate is where 4chan and other assholes of the internet fuel some huge fucking WAAAGH! that is nominally about “journalistic ethics”, but is really about driving out all those icky women, LGBT, and the white cishet men that consider them to be human beings worthy of respect. They do this by threats, hacking, doxing, comment section brigading, and endless muddying of the waters with accusations of impropriety and other dishonest bullshit.
The 4chan portion has no central goal outside of making the world a worse place (which they happily admit), but the regular assholes that have been caught up in this seem to desire some barren wasteland of endless variations of the same six or so triple-A genres, where gruff white men slaughter ethnic minorities and women exist only to be kidnapped, raped, and murdered because that’s oh so fucking gritty and not at all tedious, unimaginative, and thoroughly unpleasant in all the worst ways. They want all reporting on it to be utterly lacking in any kind of social commentary at all, focusing only on which of these clones has the best graphics and the best fine-tuning of game mechanics.
Basically, they want games journalists (consistently only of white cishet men) to make press releases (of products starring only white cishet men from companies exclusively run by white cishet men) sound exciting.
I think these two articles sum up the movement perfectly:
Why We Didn’t Want to Talk About GamerGate
Video Games, Misogyny, and Terrorism: A Guide to Assholes
Last link got screwed up. Here it is.
OK, so the ones I receive aren’t about games, but as someone who gets press releases in her inbox every single day? It can’t be done, not unless you’re genuinely excited about the product being pushed, which you won’t be if it’s Exactly Like The Last First Person Shooter Part 73.
Obviously, men are just too emotional to handle playing video games and shouldn’t be allowed to.
jk.
Oh and a massive fuck you to the shithead who wants to assault Zoe Quinn and injure her knees. Both my knees are bad and have been since I was thirteen. It sucks. Anybody who thinks that permanently crippling someone is justifiable “punishment” for behaving in a way they don’t like, needs to be shunned by society as the irredeemable pieces of shit they are.
@Ken L.,
I actually think it is that easy, though. Right now the people doing the harassing and making the threats aren’t being called out by the wider community, only by some. If every person not harassing or making threats collectively called out anyone who did, every time it happened, I very much believe the creeps would slink away to some dark corner of the net. The internet does have anonymity, but it still has a sense of community. People, no matter how horrible they are, don’t like to be ostracized. These guys hate women and are willing to harass and threaten any woman who speaks up, or even just ’cause, but if all the men who aren’t creeps actually spoke up, the creeps would change their tune pretty friggin’ quick.
Am I in moderation? I made a comment but it isn’t showing up. Test?