The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!
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.
Phoenician…Hopefully the FBI. She’s publicly posting the stuff now, but she’s been lurking for 2 weeks and collecting evidence primarily so that she can file criminal charges against the people harassing her.
Internet’s considered Federal jurisdiction.
Aww, poor guy…
I suspect Eron Gjoni’s going to find it VERY hard to find work after behaving like the kind of guy who murders his girlfriends when they try to leave him.
That’s not cynicism on my part, darlin’.
That’s me noting that this dumbcluck’s chickens WILL come home to roost.
In fact, he may be involved in actual hacking and/or attack organizing, so he may do time over this, as well.
To spell it out succinctly, you do not get to publicly punish your exes when a relationship ends. Even if your ex was crappy to you.
A lot of us have at least one ex who broke our heart BRUTALLY.
I sure do.
We do not get to terrorize our exes. We have to suck it up and move on.
Eron gets to suffer the consequences of his utter failure to act like the grown man he is. It’s gonna suck. He earned it.
Dibs on Social Justice Druid! My favorite class and also kindasorta my religion (it;s complicated).
I call Social Justice Druid!
DAMMIT, emilygoddess! 😛
Maybe I could take a prestige class and be a Social Justice Loremaster. I always thought the illustration in the 3.5 DM’s Guide was totally adorbs.
Welp apparently I’m also a ninja. Fortunately, there’s no rules against having multiples of the same class in one party (although druids are notoriously solitary).
@blahlistic From your keyboard to karma’s ears…
emilygoddess,
You must be a Social Justice Druid/Ninja! Odd multiclass combination, but whatever works!
At the very least, Eron Gjoni stands to be charged with libel. If he’s found to be egging the trolls on in any way, criminal incitement could be added to the list.
Yup, dude’s not lookin’ at all good in real-world terms.
This is so beautiful. I actually chortled. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good chortle.
And I want to be a Social Justice Alchemist. I can make trolls gnash their chompers, and also I will have gold. Win-win.
What I vaguely remember reading is that he was not only found to be coaching the 4-channers, he’d hacked into some email accounts…
BUT I CAN’T FIND A SOURCE! Grr…
…So take that as totally nonconfirmed and possibly imaginary on my part.
Something told me this wasn’t just trolls having fun…..and now it looks like our suspicions have been confirmed; it really was worse.
@wordsp1nner: I’ve been a social justice guy myself for quite a while…..(long before I even heard of this site, in fact. Though I’m no longer the radical I used to be, TBH.). I dunno, maybe I’d be a social justice rogue?
I’m not quite sure what is more pathetic, that these guys think there is some kind of cyber-war between feminists and MRA/Ms or that these guys are ‘try-hard’ geeks. What kind of warped fantasy world do these cretins live in?
@blahlistic
Wait – so she cheated on a guy, who – based on his behavior – DESERVED to be cuckolded, and she slept with someone who gave her no quid pro quo.
CLEARLY, that’s the problem! She didn’t get the quid pro quo! GamerGate Revealed! The gaming industry journalists aren’t doing their “due diligence.”
@wordspinner
Truly. Besides, the warriors have cabals, don’t you know. I’ve always wanted a cabal, but I never could find one. Not even on amazon.com.
@the cartoon:
It’s not mine! I can’t draw nearly that well.
http://cuteosphere.tumblr.com/
For anyone who doesn’t know that tumblr, please do take a look!
PS: I like the Dragonblooded because, well, I love dragons, and because it’s a hated PC so I get to piss off the DnD nerds too.
@Vaiyt – I’m Social Justice Wild Mage!
I love the chance of dropping a cow from the sky or turning my enemy into a squirrel. Of course, sometimes, I turn MYSELF into a squirrel, but I have found that to be merely a temporary inconvenience.
@Unimaginative – OW! I hurt myself laughing at the SJPop-o-matic!
@Bina – Do not mess with the Social Justice Bard, for your name it is silly and can be made to scan to “Greensleeves.”
@Leisha Young
Forgotten Realms? Faerun?
Social justice scout here. Just can’t beat the bonus to speed. Also fond of being a social justice non-casting ranger.
vaiyt- that comic is so cute and SO FUNNY. Damn. I wanna be a…..Social Justice Shaman.
@Michelle…
That was totally my guilty pleasure fantasy world in high school. Some of them are still good books. Some of them are full of argh facepalming.
STOP BRINGING DEAD CHARACTERS BACK TO LIFE! THEY’RE DEAD! LET THEM REST IN PEACE!
BLARGH!!!!
That said, can I pretty please be a social justice dwarf bard? There aren’t enough dwarf bards. I’ll settle for dwarf minstrel.
OK. I’m lazy. I’m nominating for Social Justice Strategist.
You may ask what my strategy is. It’s simple.
Do nothing and let these clowns shoot themselves in their own feet.
… although, come to think of it, you could be right. It seems they think women are totally evil enough that if we ever made a matriarchal society, we’d totally run it the super evil, chaotic, we’ll flay you for any sort of random whim way.
Although, I kind of thought that loving spiders was a prerequisite of being drow, so maybe not?