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Ah, sweet schadenfreude! The gamebros at 4chan have been insisting publicly that the whole #GamerGate campaign — you know, the vicious attacks on game developer Zoe Quinn and other women in gaming — has been a spontaneous grassroots uprising against corruption in the world of game journalism, not a targeted campaign by misogynistic 4channers and their allies to ruin the lives of Quinn and everyone even vaguely connected with or even just aligned with her.
Well, it’s just become a lot harder to make that argument with a straight face. Last night, Quinn announced that she’s been lurking in the IRC where 4chaners have been diligently and often quite deviously planning this “spontaneous” uprising. And she’s started posting screenshots that seem to offer pretty incontrovertible evidence of just how duplicitously 4channers planned every element of #GamerGate.
You can find Quinn’s tweets of these screenshots laid out neatly on this Storify page; it’s essential reading for anyone who’s been following all this.
But I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite bits.
Here, 4channers talk about trying to hack her email:
definitely no raids ever happen because of 4chan and I definitely hacked myself mmhmmm pic.twitter.com/3309AiQk3u
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 6, 2014
Here they spout bizarre conspiracy theory — while conspiring to hack another website.
this has pure insanity AND some illegal shit in it pic.twitter.com/rRo5KVFBhZ
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 6, 2014
In this screenshot — you can find the whole thing here — 4channers talk candidly about how they hope to ruin her career:
More of the same:
because this is about integrity. not revenge. not harassment. not hurting people. pic.twitter.com/rSSm4ZJG4T
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 6, 2014
Here some 4channers talk about #NotYourShield, a supposedly spontaneous bit of hashtag activism in which people of color — and white dudes pretending to be people of color — attack “social justice warriors” for supposedly using them as “shields” for their attack on gaming. Notice the dudes at the end talking about showing up on Twitter “as a Latino” and “in blackface” to support the campaign.
Given how damning a lot of these screenshots are, it’s hardly surprising that they freaked out when Quinn started posting her screenshots:
https://twitter.com/MsMinotaur/status/508177920687210496
Too late, dudes. Too late.
Social Justice Infrared Troubleshooter for me. I have the uniform and everything.
Oh, and WONDERFUL cartoon, vaiyt!
It’s hilarious how serious they take themselves. When they discover her in their treehouse they’re all like “omg Genghis motherfucking Khan is in our camp!”
“She’s here.”
Man, what an excellent tagline for a movie featuring a female hero.
Oh please, Zoe, go the whole nine yards with this. Please. Those hateful, self-important assholes, pretending they’re on a mission from god. Are they scared? Good. They formed a hate mob against a talented game developer with the puritanical excuse that her personal sex life offended them. They don’t know what “journalistic integrity” means. They just want to burn a witch who reminded them that the gaming world just doesn’t belong to sexually frustrated losers who are easily offended by anyone who thinks games don’t always have to be about who you fuck, eat or kill. They like to think of themselves as modern cave men, but they’re really insecure little boys who never learned that girls actually don’t have cooties.
vaiyt, gorgeous cartoon!
I fancy being a Social Justice Ninja.
I am a Social Justice Rogue, that totally works…Dang, I miss playing my AD&D rogue, she was a prostitute, thief, and general load of fun trouble. 😀
I want to be a Social Justice Valkyrie!
I really am more of a social justice minstrel.
If you write that book, or make that movie, I will read/watch the fuck out of it!
Also, not a gamer, so maybe I’m a Social Justice Pop-o-Matic?
This is my kind of ninja, social justice or otherwise.
http://fennychandra.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/ninja-cat1.jpg
I’m more of a Social Justice Paladin. Fear the white knight!
Samantha,
Your horse venture sounds exceedingly awesome, and I just had the most depressing aha moment while reading it: this is exactly why I have never done anything like that on my own. Not because I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, nor am I ill equipped to, nor less determined, but because I’m not welcome to exist alone on my terms as a woman and that reality keeps me tethered. So fucking sad. But you are awesome for doing that in your own!
Though in truth, this is more the sort of social justice ninja I’d be:
http://www.loldig.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ninjacat.jpg
I’m a social justice Bene Gesserit.
…That’s a sad thought.
I would evaluate creepy guys as one of the risks involved too, were I to do something similar…but TBH, I LOVE indoor plumbing. It’s awesome.
Oops.
I know exactly how you feel.
When I was a junior in college, a friend who was a senior was telling me about his plans to go teach English in Thailand and travel all over the place. I told him I was jealous, and he said I should just go and do it, too. He honestly didn’t understand how different our experiences might be (and at the time, I didn’t really have the language to express it).
They think that the full log dumps are going to exonerate them. They’re stupid. Willfully stupid. This makes them look horrifyingly bad.
To who? Even if Quinn produces logs, and IP addresses, and photographs with dates and times on the back blown up to 4 inches, what the hell is it going to matter? There’s no authority controlling this, no-one in authority will pay any attention, the griefers will keep on griefing. She can win all the moral victory she wants – but that and $2.50 will only buy her a cup of coffee.
Yeah, when I actually pause and think about the ways I constrain my life to avoid risk, I get very sad and frustrated.
I sold my car on Kajiji this summer, and was complaining to my roomie about how exhausting the process was, and he was like, what? It took 3 days!
But he’s enormous and intimidating, and doesn’t have to think about things like making sure you’re meeting prospective buyers in public, well-lit places that are not where you live or work. And then doing it again. And then doing it again. I seriously doubt I will ever sell anything online again.
So yeah. I’m (probably naturally) a homebody and introvert, and I love to putz around and cook, and read, and avoid human contact. But every once in a while, it occurs to me that life could be a lot different, and a lot more fun, if I wasn’t ruled by fear.
I don’t understand… did these people think no one ever reads publicly accessible message boards with references to Zoe Quinn?
And how is her ex going to survive this for his career? Or his dating life. We can be cynical, and say, “just fine”, but his name is extremely googleable and he sent internet hordes after an ex-girlfriend. He seems to think he can just walk away from this. How? (Eron Gjoni, for the record. I find it disheartening how many articles don’t mention his name, just hers. Which means she gets stuck with the dreck, as planned.)
Can I be a social justice Eldritch Horror?
Kittehserf: if I can join your clan, I’d be happy to be known as Michy (after Michonne) The Social Justice Ninja. I think I can manage this as I love Samurai swords, have dark skin and frequently wear all Black.
I am a Social Justice Bard,
My lute I play so well!
I smite the trolls so very hard
That they fall straight to hell!
Words can’t express how happy this makes me. Go, Zoe!
Douchebros, your asses are showing. In case there’s still somebody out there thinking asshole gamers who target female game developers, critics and journalists aren’t motivated by systematic, organized misogyny, now’s the time to reexamine that naive belief.
@samantha:
No, but I wanted to be the social justice rang…
Fine, fiiiiine, I’ll be the social justice cleric. But don’t get too close to trolls, guys. I’m still too low level to cast Remove Disgusting Smell of Sock.