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.
LBT!
Hope the brain is starting to be kinder to the lot of you. I know it was probably trying to protect you and all that jazz, but it hasn’t sounded fun.
Still really happy to see you!
(fair warning, I might post excited comments for the next little bit, every time I see you all. I like knowing people I like are alive and capable of slamming fingers across a keyboard)
@Merus: That last link. Wow.
Nice going, 4chan. Great job. I’m shocked by your stealth and will refer you to the nearest organization of super spies. They need people with your gift for stealth, planning, and cunning.
By the way, Merus, did you ever get a welcome package? Or are you a long time commenter that I’ve just never met?
If no to both, here’s a Welcome Package! 🙂
RE: contrapangloss
Aw, thank you! I admit, I probably will still be sporadic, because my brain is still a pretty sick brain and there’s only so much horrible I can handle at a go, but I wanted to drop in so folks would know that I was not dead. I’ve been writing stories! Hurray, stories!
Seriously, I’ve been arting like crazy to try and keep my head clear. Upping my meds got me a couple day’s reprieve, but it’s still creeping up. Fleh. However, I’m still holding pretty steady, just not being as social.
Saying “of all races” acknowledges the historical reality that the KKK *also* targeted people who fought for the civil rights of the KKK’s primary targets.
What’s with the uncharitable reading?
LBT!!! Hi! Happy writing and any hugs you want! 😀
@LBT, Hi! Will check out the writeathon. Hoping sick brain gets better soon!
I love that a troll pops in to poop that comment in the very thread that exposes that ZQ is not a fraud, but was the target of an organized smear campaign after her ex sicced 4chan on her.
Daw! The little troll is trying so hard! Look at the smiley at the end! Look at the adorable “ignore my source’s hypocrisy and look at the ‘hypocrisy hippo’ over there”ness of it! Look at the ever classic “you must care about getting laid as much as I do” vibe!
Adorable.
@TheCatFromOuterSpace:
Re: The toxic ragewank involved in video game culture: I think one of Sarkeesian’s videos touched on this issue. Video games are fairly unique compared to, say cinema and literature in that it allows the player to become part of the experience; Basically, a sexist video game makes the player take part in perpetuating harmful stereotypes about women’s agency in a way that few other forms of media can do.
The gist of it is that the terrible tendency of video game developers to include violence against women as a device to make their video game “grittier” may give players a chance to a) engage in “benevolent sexism” by saving a damsel in distress, b) watch as the woman becomes a victim whose role is purely to raise the emotional stakes involved (see also women in refrigerators), and/or c) engage in violence against women themselves, again victimizing the woman, but this time at the hands of a real, active agent who has internalized misogynistic messages and is playing them out in-game. In fact, certain games even award trophies for abusing the female NPCs. Let me restate that: Some games reward the player for playing an abusive, misogynistic monster. Games in themselves may not make you violent, but they may certainly desensitize you to gendered violence.
Possible options that rarely play out are d) the female NPC saves herself without the help of the playable male character and e) the main character is a woman rescuing a helpless male NPC. Since women apparently can’t save men because wounded masculine ego and evopsych babble.
Sarkeesian said it way better. Anyway, did you get your welcome package yet?
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
… ooooh, and the gem of the piece?
He even pulls a “No true feminist!”
Isn’t it adorable how trolls think they’re better at spotting and mansplaining about who’s just ‘pretending’ to be a feminist than a blog with… you know… lots of feminists who hang around?
RE: Trollpants McGee
hopefully your quest to get laid by pretending to be a feminist doesn’t continue humiliating you
Ha, joke’s on you, asshole! I’m a gay man! Ain’t NO feminist woman going to be laying me! I’m a feminist for totally nonsexual reasons!
RE: Michael McG
What’s with the uncharitable reading?
I’m in a testy mood, and also come from the South, where I’ve heard plenty of people trying to claim the KKK weren’t racist because they attacked other people. Basically, focusing on their white victims to erase the black ones. So I found the “of all races” superfluous, except as a means to minimize the racist violence.
Lol. David is being humiliated because some random feminist is having sex with other men but not with him? @sdfdsfdsfsd, the fact that you think that David would care about that reveals far more about you than it does about him.
Also, in all seriousness, I don’t think that forwarding the unsolicited dick pics to some guy’s mom is the right thing to do. He certainly deserves some kind of comeuppance for sexually harassing you, but that comeuppance shouldn’t involve continuing the sexual harassment by sending his unsolicited dick pic to another woman, especially if that other woman is his mom. Really, it’s punishing his mom far more than it’s punishing him.
My opinion of her ex went from “slightly gross” when i first learned of this shit to “really gross” when I saw how much he wrote to “FUCK YOU GO TO JAIL” when it turned out he was actively supporting the harassment campaigns.
I now have serious doubts about how true that enormous screed he wrote is
Can I have the link to whatever MRA Lame Insult Generator you got this from?
RE: Alais
Enh. I think the woman had to think on her feet and come up with a response that would get the dude to stop. Telling him his behavior was inappropriate didn’t work; blocking him would’ve just meant he’d go to harass someone else. All things considered, I’m not sure what would’ve been a better response that’d have the same effect in the same amount of time.
Also, sorry for the raging. I got some lunch in me to chill the fuck out but am still in a weird adrenaline frenzy, so trying to rein it in. (At least it beats the pseudo-depression I’ve been having the past two weeks.)
I hear where you’re coming from, but I think Michael was specifically referring to the “eating their own” part of that, not trying to talk about the KKK as a whole.
But why else would a man be nice to women?
Well, you could send the rest of the conversation, and replace the actual image with “and here was a picture of his dick”.
More coverage as the lies behind #gamergate unravel:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gamergate-revealed-as-misogynist-and-racist-movement-from-4chan
LBT:
I see your point, and upon reviewing the conversation, I realized that she most likely censored the pic as she did for the tumblr screen cap before sending it to his mom and might’ve actually just axed the pic all together and just sent the screen caps of the rest of the conversation, which were more than incriminating enough.
RE: emilygoddess
Okay. My apologies for jumping to bite, ikanreed. I overreacted.
RE: Alais
Ha! I actually like that idea, that she censored the dick pic BEFORE sending it to his mom. Because how would dude ever know? Try and imagine THAT conversation.
(I am secretly twelve.)
Lol. I can imagine that conversation. He’d probably be confused that his mom had absolutely nothing to say about his allegedly enormous cock.
Also, random, possibly TMI segue…the two guys whom I’ve known who are actually really well-endowed (which I know from up-close experience) didn’t brag about how big they were. Hell, they even seemed a little embarrassed by it at first and actually took more time with foreplay because they wanted to make sure that they weren’t hurting me so sex with them was (or is, in one case) way more comfortable and enjoyable than it was with less well-endowed guys who just went for it. So, what I’m wondering is, are the guys crowing about their cocks actually as big as they think that they are?
Also, LBT, glad to see that you’re back and feeling better!
LBTTTTTTT! Are you feeling better? Is your writeathon going well?
I did really well in Pitch Wars; I got picked as an alternate.
RE: Alais
Enh, “better.” I don’t know WHAT my brain is doing that’s so important, but I sure hope it’s worth it.
And regarding dick… ALL these guys act like their junk is the fucking bee’s knees. Like I couldn’t see a hojillion cockasaurus rexes just by turning on the porn. They seriously have no idea how completely ordinary their genitals are. If I wanted to bang an enormous dick, I’d just get a fucking dildo. They come WAY bigger than these doofuses, and stay hard the whole time!
That said, hubby is a really big guy, but has average endowment. He’s been teased about it before, but oh god I was so relieved when I found out. If his dick had been as huge as the rest of him, I don’t know what I would’ve done, but it probably would’ve hurt! I’m just not that flexible. (And I really wish dudes, trans and cis, would stop treating their dicks like the center of the universe. They’re just fucking genitals, dudes. CHILL.)
RE: katz
Oh, congrats on Pitch Wars! I’m feeling… enh? *waggles hand* I’m functioning a bit better, because I upped my meds, but I’m still in and out of pseudo-depression and apparently today I have a hair-trigger temper. My writeathon is going pretty well so far, though, and the art is helping keep my brain in better condition.
I think my brain is trying to hold off on whatever new horrorshow it’s bound to show me until the writeathon is over? Maybe? *spreads hands*
The purpose of the dick pics is boundary testing dominance displays. Similar to street harassment and rape jokes and workplace harassment.