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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.
At this point it’s become something of an amusing time waste of mine to head to any of the gaming websites I frequent and watch gamebros perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain why Quinn is taking the comments from the chatlogs out of context and leaping to conclusions. Seriously try the Excapist or Kotaku and just glance at the comment sections in any story relating to Quinn or these logs, it’s it’s like the worst Olympic gymnastic event ever.
@pendraegon: I bet all the discussions were satire.
Clarification, I was too quick to hit submit: I bet the gamebros say that all the discussions in the chats were satire.
Also, the Bard’s pet dragon would have thee know that thou art crunchy and would taste good with Suicide Sauce.
‘Satire’ and ‘just a joke, you know’. ‘A harmless jest’ that was aimed at someone losing her job and being ostracized by the industry.
I wonder if the real problem lies not in the couple of kiddos pretending to be activist/hackers, but in many so called gamer bloggers being mute about it. Of about 15 sites I read from time to time, none responded nor commented.
Social Justice Mascot? Social Justice Scavenger? Social Justice Super High School Level Magic Knight (I work in a High School now, that counts)? I can’t decide!
Anarchonist, great tale! I love it.
Also love “grassholes”. Something tells me that a most amusing round of Whack-a-Mole is about to get played…
I have seen that one thrown about quite a bit, it’s almost as popular “those weren’t real 4channers” and “Quinn is just faking all of them to get attention.” Because as we all know 4chan posters have never engaged in any sort of legally or ethically questionable behavior and condemn all forms of harassment.
But most especially the “harassment” where someone reveals what petty, destructive children they are.
The trolls descend! To me, my social justice raiding party! Give them piss and fire! Since I can no longer be a SJ berserker, I shall have to be a nonmusical SJ bard, telling stories and shouting shit to make people feel better!
THERE WILL BE CYBORG ANIMALS!
Interesting that a bunch of new people all dropped by at once to express their skepticism about these screenshots.
You people really must be desperate if you’re resorting to Godwinning.
When men do it, it’s OK. That’s just called networking.
But the gamebros like Assassins Creed (I’m assuming) so it’s OK. Only the developers of girly and/or gay names have to make it with no help from friendly journalists and critics.
Well, we are all David’s sockpuppets so this makes complete sense too.
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.
She’s a game designer. She slept with someone in the… game industry. This is obviously some dastardly scheme rather than being, you know, the social pool she hung around in.
OMG! My wife is a librarian too! Clearly I’m a huge slut who only married her to get ahead in my career, despite us working for two different organisations!
Should I get a tramp stamp?
Gee, rhetoric technique making a parallel between Zoe Quinn and Hitler. Very sneaky, dude, I never noticed that. That or you’re just so incompetent at English rhetoric techniques that you honestly didn’t notice, in which case you just get to be obtuse, rather than malevolent. Which shall it be?
Does the fact that I’m Scottish mean that I have to be a Social Justice Druid? Because I feel like running into the fray with a big sword is more my style.
Not yet, anyway.
I wonder if they know Gjoni is now claiming to be pro-“SJW”, or whether they’re going to write that off as some kind of self preservation thing he was forced into by the dastardly feminists.
http://www.vice.com/read/this-guys-embarrassing-relationship-drama-is-killing-the-gamer-identity-828
Also, what edition are we using for SJW character classes?
I remember reading somewhere that the bagpipes were considered a weapon of war. How about a blue-painted, naked, bagpipe warrior of social justice?
If they’re not, they should be! I mean, sonic cannons are a weapon, right?
I still want a sword, though. I even know how to use it!
Hey, in World War Z, they used bagpipes to drive zombies off of cliffs! The bagpipes are awesome!
Hey, LBT, how are you doing today? I went to bed early last night cause super tired, was worrying about you.
This is the problem with the term “SJW”. To people actually involved with SoJust stuff, it refers to the people are ostensibly on our side but who are more interested in appearing to care than actually doing anything, or who use SoJust as an excuse to bully and harass people. To outsiders, anyone who talks about this stuff is an SJW and the extremists and bullies will be held up as proof that the entire notion of social justice is flawed. So while I can agree that SJWs (in the insider sense) are a problem, I also know that when some “dark enlightenment” asshat uses the term, he doesn’t just mean the people I think are a problem, he also means me and all of you and anyone who’s ever said “that’s kinda sexist/racist/etc”.
tl;dr you’re correct that the term is used the way you describe, but that’s not how its being used by the 4Channers, and I don’t think “but some people actually are doing SoJust wrong!” is relevant to this particular clusterfuck.
RE: cassandrakitty
I am doing better, thanks! Sorry to have made you worry. A good night’s sleep and I am feeling miles better, especially now that I’ve made some progress. I left more details on the personal thread, but long story short: I was on the roller coaster then, I will be on the roller coaster again pretty soon, but right now, I am getting a brief break and am deeply relieved.
Also I need to give hubby all the cuddles and adoration in the world because I don’t think he slept all night and I think he’s more freaked than I am.
Kittehs, Clerics in D&D are actually pretty badass.
CC,
Ah, so the fact that /b/t*rds are actively hijacking said tag is irrelevant because a Real Live Minority started it (assuming, of course, that said person is not just another /b/t*rd). Also, fun fact: being a Real Live Minority doesn’t mean you’re not wrong.
K, but that’s still not what gamergate is actually about.
@Blahlistic, that link was very informative *nods*
TebTeb,
Yeah, that’s the problem with this whole mess *eyeroll*
@ LBT
Hey, I’m just glad you’re OK. Don’t feel that you have to update me/us if you’re not up to it, just know that we worry about you when you’re not around!
This whole process sounds like it’s been/will continue to be awful, but hopefully at least knowing what’s been buried will be a good thing in the long run?
RE: cassandrakitty
Yeah. This is a good thing, and I’m really grateful to all the Mammoths who talked to me even when I was crazy and typing like I was drunk. Just having other people carry on normal conversations helps a lot, since my normal response is to hide in a cubbyhole and not talk to anyone until I am sure I can act like a human, and interacting helps my brain put itself back together faster. I can handle just about any sort of horrorshow as long as I’m getting somewhere with it. The progress is key for me; waiting is what really gets me climbing walls.
So yeah, as horrible as last night was, I still consider it a VAST improvement over the interminable waiting, even if it looked and felt a lot worse on its face.
Misha, I also really love Card Captor Sakura! Kero-chan is cute and sassy!