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A couple of days ago, embattled indie game designer Zoe Quinn embarrassed some of her biggest critics by posting screenshots she’d collected from a 4channer IRC channel, showing an assortment of hateful and duplicitous #GamerGaters literally conspiring to wreck her reputation and create the illusion of a vast grassroots uprising against alleged corruption in the gaming business.
Her critics, put on the defensive, tried their best to dismiss her screenshots as “cherry picked,” and a few even accused her of writing the very messages she screenshotted and posted. Oh, there might be a few bad apples in the bunch, some were willing to concede, but they were in the minority.
And then they pulled out what they thought was their trump card: the full chat log from the IRC channel #burgersandfries from when the Zoe Quinn “scandal” first erupted in mid-August up until September 6th. All anyone had to do, they suggested, was to read the log, and they would soon see that Quinn was presenting a distorted picture based on out-of-context, “cherry-picked” quotes.
Of course, reading this particular log is a bit easier said than done: it’s 3756 pages, in 10-point type, of chaotic overlapping IRC conversations.
This is a classic case of what’s come to be known as “doc dumping,” which Wikipedia helpfully defines as
the act of responding to an adversary’s request for information by presenting the adversary with a large quantity of data that is transferred in a manner that indicates unfriendliness, hostility, or a legal conflict between the transmitter and the receiver of the information. The shipment of dumped documents is unsorted, or contains a large quantity of information that is extraneous to the issue under inquiry … .
It’s clear that those posting links to the log are hoping that their opponents will take one look at this enormous, messy document and simply give up.
What they didn’t count on was anyone calling their bluff – and actually taking the time to read it. Because if they actually knew what this document contained, and thought anyone would actually read the thing, they would have kept the links to themselves.
Even a quick skim through the document demonstrates that Quinn’s screenshots are hardly cherry-picked; you can flip to literally any page in this long, long document and find evidence of egregious misogyny and outright malice. Look a little deeper and you can find discussions of doxxing and spamming and all sorts of other dirty tricks.
But I’ve given the document a lot more than a quick skim. So far I’ve spent probably ten hours going through it, collecting evidence of all the things that the defenders of 4chan insist isn’t there. Even after ten hours, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface, but I would like to present you with some of my results so far.
Today, let’s look at some of what the 4chan chatters had to say about Zoe Quinn herself.
On Twitter, the standard line of the #GamerGate partisans is that what they’re doing isn’t abut Quinn herself; its a protest against corruption and nepotism in the video game world. They also insist that they’re not motivated by misogyny, and that they are more concerned about the alleged ethical lapses of game journalists than they are with just who Zoe Quinn allegedly slept with.
When it comes to the 4channers in #burgersandfries, these claims are complete and utter bullshit. The name “Zoe” appears 4778 times in the document, more than once per page; by contrast, “Nathan” – the first name of the allegedly corrupt game journalist she allegedly slept with – appears only 108 times. The words “ethics” and “ethical” appear, collectively, only 146 times.
Zoe’s name is in the official thread topic; chatters include it in their jokey nicknames. She’s the topic everyone always comes back to. She’s the reason everyone is there.
I decided to examine each occurrence of the name “Zoe” in order to see just what 4channers thought of her. After about 6 hours on this particular quest, I’ve only made it through roughly one-third of the mentions. But the results are not pretty.
The 4channers express their hatred and disgust towards her; they express their glee at the thought of ruining her career; they fantasize about her being raped and killed. They wonder if all the harassment will drive her to suicide, and only the thought of 4chan getting bad publicity convinces some of them that this isn’t something they should hope for.
They gleefully distribute nude pictures of her, posting links to online archives of them and emailing them directly both to Quinn’s supporters.
They dig up all sorts of information about her and her family and do their best to track down anyone and everyone with even the most tenuous links to her. One industrious researcher even manages to find a picture of Quinn at age 13; while acknowledging that it had no relevance whatsoever to issues of gaming ethics, she posts a link to it anyway.
And then there is the ongoing discussion of her vagina, described variously as “wide,” large enough to “fit 12 dicks at once, and “a festering cheese-filled vagina” that leaves “a trail of cunt slime” wherever she goes. Several 4channers speculate about its smell.
It’s not clear how exactly the size or shape or smell of Quinn’s vagina relates to the high-minded issues of gaming ethics that the #GamerGaters are said to be concerned with. But in the IRC log no one ever seems to call out any of those talking about Quinn in the crudest sexual terms.
Lets’ go to the logs directly. Everything that follows is cut and pasted directly from the full log, available here.
That said, IRC discussions can be chaotic and confusing, generally with more than one conversation going on at once, so in some cases, I have removed extraneous comments in order to make what is being said clearer. I’ve indicated all cuts with ellipses, and if you want to see what I’ve removed it should be trivial for you to locate the quotes in the full log by doing a search for an appropriate phrase or the relevant time and date stamp.
TRIGGER WARNING for discussion of rape, suicide and murder.
The log starts early on in the Zoe Quinn “scandal,” and numerous people in the chat talk about distributing her nude pictures to as many people as possible:
Aug 18 17.37.57 <SweetJBro> lol I’m tweeting Zoe’s nudes to some of her defenders.
A few days later, several other chatters talk about harassing Quinn by sending her own nude pictures to her:
Aug 21 23.20.35 there should be a massive campaign to tweet zoe her own nudes …
Aug 21 23.21.01 <Silver|2> They’ve been tweeted at her a lot
Here’s a chatter making clear that he’s mainly interested in seeing Quinn suffer:
Aug 18 20.10.06 i couldnt care less about vidya, i just want to see zoe receive her comeuppance
Here are some speculating about her state of mind:
Aug 19 01.34.01 if you were zoe right now what would you do
Aug 19 01.34.07 <FIVE-GUYS> get mugged
Aug 19 01.36.41 in all seriousness, i dont know
Aug 19 01.37.03 <FIVE-GUYS> ive never been in a situation like this
Aug 19 01.37.15 i’d probably kill myself tbh
Here are some others talking about the possibility of Quinn committing suicide, a possibility one chatter greets with a smiley:
Aug 19 02.28.30 okay, is zoe actually depressed?
Aug 19 02.28.35 i bet she is now
Aug 19 02.28.37 <mugg> diagnosed etc?
Aug 19 02.28.39 kek …
Aug 19 02.29.22 <Opus> I think she tried killing herself before
Aug 19 02.29.28 <kailasha> she should try that again :^)
“Kek,” by the way, is a nerdy version of “lol.”
Here one chatter suggests that focusing only on Quinn is a bad idea – because it will make 4channers look bad:
Aug 21 17.23.31 <sarahv> The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point …
Aug 21 17.23.38 <rd0951> ./v should be focused on the implications of gaming journalism …
Aug 21 17.23.47 Because SJWs will cherry-pick the /b/ shit posting and say “See? It’s sexist MRAs!”
A few days later, this (relative) voice of moderation gleefully jokes about Quinn being choked to death during sex:
Aug 22 02.02.46 <CutestGAmerGorl> Okay guys, how much does Zoe like being choked
Aug 22 02.02.49 <CutestGAmerGorl> during sex? …
Aug 22 02.02.58 <sarahv> clearly not enough
Here one chatter openly fantasizes about driving Quinn to “an hero” — that is, kill — herself:
Aug 21 17.48.06 I’m debating whether or not we should just attack zoe …
Aug 21 17.48.29 <Opfag> push her… push her further….. further, until eventually she an heroes …
Aug 21 17.48.51 <OtherGentleman> … What makes you think she has the balls to kill herself?
Aug 21 17.48.57 I kind of want to just make her life irrepairably horrible …
Aug 21 17.49.16 <NASA_Agent> but what if she suicides …
Aug 21 17.49.24 <Opfag> Good.
Aug 21 17.49.29 Then we get to troll #Rememberzoe
One chatter warns that this strategy might … make 4chan look a tad misogynistic:
Aug 21 17.49.45 The more you try to attack her directly, the more she gets to play the victim card and make a bunch of friends who will support her because, since she has a vagina, any attack is misgony
Meanwhile, one of the other chatters suggests a rather creative division of labor amongst partisans of different 4chan message boards:
Aug 21 17.49.48 <rd0951> ./v should be in charge of the gaming journalism aspect of it. /pol should be in charge of the feminism aspect, and /b should be in charge of harassing her into killing herself
In the following excerpt, the IRC channel moderator asks one chatter why he is so obsessed with elaborate fantasies of Quinn dying in particularly gruesome ways:
Aug 21 18.26.37 <Cyberserker> You need a reason …
Aug 21 18.28.14 <Opfag> Well I don’t have a legitimate reason.
Aug 21 18.28.21 <Cyberserker> Nothing?
Aug 21 18.28.21 <Opfag> I just want to see her die horribly.
Aug 21 18.28.29 <Cyberserker> I’m talking about [your particular fantasies]
Aug 21 18.28.33 <Opfag> Oh.
Aug 21 18.28.39 <totality> sometimes you just want someone to get hurt
Aug 21 18.28.43 <Opfag> That, I have no idea
Aug 21 18.28.48 <totality> nothing wrong with that
Aug 21 18.28.51 all I know is I want zoe to die like that
While some fantasize about Quinn dying, others fill the chat with crude and often bizarre sexual remarks. All of the following comments came from a mere seven minutes in the chatroom:
Aug 22 02.21.54 i want to smell zoe quinn’s armpits …
Aug 22 02.25.42 you all would fuck the zoeholes
Aug 22 02.25.46 <JTG> given a chance too
Aug 22 02.25.47 <The_Remover> I am extremely aroused right now …Aug 22 02.26.47 someone seduce zoe quinn
Aug 22 02.26.53 <vanu> follow the shekels
Aug 22 02.26.56 <The_Remover> I volunteer to take one for the team
Aug 22 02.26.57 <vanu> to her vagina …Aug 22 02.28.51 meditate to nude pictures of zoe
Aug 22 02.28.53 <The_Remover> she gonna get raped
Of course, the 4channers are quick to profess disgust at the assorted nude pictures of Quinn they’re happily passing around to one another and the internet at large:
Aug 22 04.50.24 by the by, trigger warning on that mediafire archive. don’t download if you don’t want to see zoe naked …
Aug 22 21.17.13 <JCTheDenthog> Zoe’s mouth must be the strongest vacuum in nature to compensate for her face, body, and everything
Another suggests that his 4chan brethren download Quinn’s nudes if not for their own sexual gratification than for possible further blackmail later:
Aug 22 04.53.14 Eugh, why would you want to have her on your HDD? …
Aug 22 04.53.45 <The_Remover> because, a couple of months from now, when all this shit has died down, a raid may just be in order …
Aug 22 04.54.10 and i bet her dad doesn’t know she did porn …
Several days into the scandal, one chatter laments that there’s not much dirt left to dig on Quinn:
Aug 22 23.00.55 <Drinky_Kraw> I don’t think there’s anything left to harass Zoe over anyway. …
Aug 22 23.01.00 <Drinky_Kraw> The laundry is pretty much all aired
By the 23rd, some bored chatters compare notes on what they see as the relative sexual pros and cons of Quinn and game critic Anita Sarkeesian:
Aug 23 05.40.20 <Josh_> Zoe has a gross robotic hand, blue hair, and tats 4 days
Aug 23 05.40.29 <Josh_> if I was forced to put my dick in one of them
Aug 23 05.40.29 <Josh_> Anita
Aug 23 05.40.39 <GribFabdabgib> If I had to put my dick in them, yeah Anita
Aug 23 05.40.43 Anita is a skinny bitch whos all bones
Aug 23 05.40.48 <DarkHiero> True …Aug 23 05.41.07 <DarkHiero> But at least it looks like she tries to take care of herself. …
Aug 23 05.41.15 <Headsmash_> From just looks alone, Id rather do Zoe than Anita. Fat bitches usually give better head anyway.
Aug 23 05.41.21 <DarkHiero> If I’m putting my dick in crazy, that matters.
Aug 23 05.42.00 <DTrig> Yeah but odds are good you get the clap/crabs from Zoe
Aug 23 05.42.14 <Headsmash_> Same could be said for Anita based on what we know
Aug 23 05.42.17 <Headsmash_> lol
Aug 23 05.42.32 * DarkHiero shrugs
Aug 23 05.42.34 Anita looks like she douches though
Aug 23 05.42.36 <DTrig> ANd cleans up
Aug 23 05.42.39 Zoe…. eh
And then it’s back to another discussion of suicide:
Aug 23 19.38.17 <Headsmash_> So does anyone think Zoe’s gonna off herself and become a catalyst for misogyny and hatred of women in video games and video game culture? …
Aug 23 19.38.47 if zoe offed herself she probably wouldn’t be anything but an ED article ..
Aug 23 19.38.55 <Araf> Headsmash_: She won’t, she has a too big ego …
Aug 23 19.39.13 <Headsmash_> I’m not too sure about that. I think she could.
Aug 23 19.39.16 <Araf> She would off herself if everyone ignored her and abandoned her, which is not the case. …
Aug 23 19.39.25 <Headsmash_> Depends on how much she gets stuck in the victimization complex. …
Aug 23 19.39.28 Really the 5guys scandal is the most famous Zoe has been …
Aug 23 19.39.43 <rd0952> yeah but she’s also been harassed night and day for a week
Other chatters indulge in sadistic fantasies:
Aug 24 12.24.22 who really wants to meet zoe quinn and be kind and comfort her in this time of crisis
Aug 24 12.24.43 <Cyberserker> Not if you comfort her with a knife-hug
Aug 24 12.24.45 <Cameralady> and slowly, through friendship and blossoming relationship, get her to repair her shitty ways and come clean and become a good person …Aug 24 12.24.52 <Cameralady> and then
Aug 24 12.24.56 <Cameralady> once she’s reformed
Aug 24 12.24.58 <Cyberserker> knife-hug?
Aug 24 12.25.07 dump her in the most brutal, heartwrenching way possible
One chatter wants his fellow 4channers to declare victory and move on:
Aug 24 15.16.10 <PaperDinosaur> Also Zoe is no longer the target to be focused on
Aug 24 15.16.13 <Josh_> ^^
Aug 24 15.16.14 <sarahv> ^^^^^
Aug 24 15.16.18 It’s about the 5guys
Aug 24 15.16.21 <sarahv> It always has been
Aug 24 15.16.28 <Josh_> It’s more about the journos
Aug 24 15.16.33 <PaperDinosaur> She’s done, we’ve wrecked her in a professional manner. …
Aug 24 15.16.42 <sarahv> Unfortunately most of the people involved in this seem to be interested in destroying Zoe
Aug 24 15.16.46 stop digging up shit on zoe’s past
Aug 24 15.16.47 <PaperDinosaur> Now we have to wreck her shield, the people who tried to defend her
Soon afterwards the same guy who suggested that they move on from Quinn is back making jokes about her killing herself:
Aug 24 16.33.54 <PaperDinosaur> Guys, lets me fair to Zoe here
Aug 24 16.34.02 If every time I did something people sent me nues of her
Aug 24 16.34.07 <PaperDinosaur> I’d fucking kill myself
That same evening, Quinn’s ex-boyfriend – the fellow who started the whole thing going with a long series of blog entries documenting Quinn’s alleged infidelities – shows up on the channel to ask questions from the assembled mob.
Here is one of the questions he chose to answer:
Aug 25 00.02.21 <Cyberserker> Last question is from several people actually. I wanted to save it until the end due to how popular it was.
Aug 25 00.02.22 <Cyberserker> “Would you say Zoe was a “big girl” for you?” …Aug 25 00.03.04 <Eron_G> she is heavier than people I usually date. …
Aug 25 00.03.12 <Cyberserker> Fair enough …
Aug 25 00.03.14 <ebola-chan> Did she not fly so good?
And a few that he didn’t:
Aug 25 00.04.13 What does her pusy smell like must answer …
Aug 25 00.07.11 Eron, when you went down on her, did you taste the other guys semen? If so, what did it taste like? …
Aug 25 00.10.40 Eron I don’t think you want your headphones back, it’s most likely splattered in Nathan’s semen and Robin’s Menstrual fluids. …
Aug 25 00.16.52 eron are you going to take up sucking dick now that you’ve been cucked by the 2/10 ugly jew
Later that morning the chatters are back to sharing their creepy and violent sexual fantasies:
Aug 25 00.19.28 <EronLovesZoe> I feel like I would probably fuck Zoe. But not out of a loving sense of sexual attraction. More of that “hate fuck” sense where you just want to assert your dominance as a male on her, a primal savagery. Then I’d probably have to sterilize myself to prevent the genome from spreading.
Aug 25 00.19.59 I’d slap a saddle on zoe and ride her throught the midwest
Aug 25 00.20.02 I wouldn’t even get that far EronLovesZoe, I’d just start raging and headbutting her and gnawing on her cheek …Aug 25 00.20.10 that seabiscuit looking ass bith
And talking again about the pros and cons of trying to get Quinn to kill herself:
Aug 25 07.18.18 <Logan> Any chance we can get Zoe to commit suicide?
Aug 25 07.18.29 if we can get more daming evidence
Aug 25 07.18.29 I think the [doxxing info removed by DF] is a good shot.
Aug 25 07.18.33 <temet> like her fucking a train of lack dudes …
Aug 25 07.18.39 <PaperDinosaur> fuck off Logan
Aug 25 07.18.39 <temet> black
Aug 25 07.18.51 <Logan> Nah 21st century doing a train is so 90s. …
Aug 25 07.18.59 <PaperDinosaur> If she commits suicide we lose everything …
Aug 25 07.20.34 <PaperDinosaur> If you can’t see how driving Zoe to suicide would fuck this entire thing up then you’re a fucking idiot
Aug 25 07.20.41 Imagine the kotaku article …
Aug 25 07.20.48 <temet> PaperDinosaur is right
Aug 25 07.20.51 <temet> not the right PR play
Not. The. Right. PR. Play.
And on that note I am going to end this installment.
This is only a small fraction of the terrible stuff said about Quinn, in the small portion of the log I have managed to read through so far.
I may return with more installments. Honestly, I’m not sure how much more I can stomach.
But I will certainly write more about the 4channers’ discussions about doxxing and hacking Quinn and others; again, I have looked only at a portion of the logs so far, but there is already a great deal there.
EDIT: Just realized that WordPress ate a bunch of the names of the posters in the quotes here. (WordPress likes to eat angle brackets.) I’ll manually add the names back in when I get the chance.
Please provide examples of feminists that are fighting for superiority. Accepted: political parties, activist groups, prominent academics, journalists or activists. Not accepted: random anonymous comments.
There are a number of French and French-speaking regulars here, and no one denies their opinions. Calm down.
Facepalm. I hate to tell you this, but persuasion is basically the entire basis of all debate ever. Logic and reason are tools of debate, so are emotional appeal and charisma – not that it’s really relevant, because so far the #GamerGate side of things don’t really have much of any of those things.
No, that’s not what she did. Lord above, why is it so difficult for you people to understand this?
Nobody is characterizing each individual gamer as a misogynist asshole. People are pointing out that there is a lot of entrenched misogyny in the gaming community as a whole. We see this because some of loudest members of this community this that death threats and sexual harassment are an acceptable way to respond to a woman with an unpopular opinion. I guarantee you they don’t do that to their bosses or their colleagues or their families when they have a disagreement. They do it online as part of the gaming community, because the community often tolerates and often encourages this kind of behaviour.
You want some logic? Here, have some logic:
If people who claim to be on your side are hurling sexual abuse around in a very public forum, they are undermining you, your community and your point. If you want the rest of the world to take you seriously, the solution is not come to random blogs and whine about objectivity and “both sides”. The solution is to kick these assholes out of your community so that you can engage the other side like adults. The solution is to change the culture from within. You’re upset about being misrepresented, then get rid of the people who feel are misrepresenting you… that’s not feminists, by the way, that’s the 4channers and trolls who it’s totally cool to have a discussion about Zoe’s genitalia while they’re supposed to be fighting journalistic integrity.
For example, this blog is a feminist space. Rape threats, death threats, racism, ableism, gendered slurs, etc… none of these things are tolerated here, no matter who they are directed towards. If someone makes a mistake, they will be politely but firmly asked to stop. If they double-down and refuse to apologize, they will be banned. Enforcing rules within a community isn’t difficult. Once the rules become norm, they become part of the culture and don’t need to be enforced anymore. That’s why it’s really difficult to find examples of malicious bigotry and violent rhetoric in feminist spaces – because the culture of these spaces overwhelmingly does not tolerate it.
So….I spoke to Gjoni on his blog, trying to find out what his actual goal was, as I pointed out he was pretty much committing relationship and employment suicide by doing this, specifically pointing out a search for Quinn’s name turns up on google with stories about the harrassment and coordinated abuse, her previous work, and a wikipedia page, and a google search for his name turns up his blog, and talks about how he was involved in the abuse.
Apparently lot’s of women still date him so he doesn’t have to worry about relationships (This, what, two months after the whole gamergate thing exploded?), and he doesn’t need to worry about work, because he’s going to start his own startu p business. Which, apparently, will definitely succeed without any outside investment, and will cause no harm for his long term job prospects at all.
How can someone in their 20’s be so naive?
I am a gamer.
You don’t speak for me.
Neither does 4chan.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
“Lisa”, if you want to be treated as your opinion has any merit, maybe the first step for you should be to not try to pass of as somebody else. People can pick up on that incredibly easy and is probably one of the most dishonest things you can do in a debate. It also shows how resentful you are of not being catered to (for once). Be aware that your opinion is not always wanted or even productive to the conversation (that’s what people will ever give you shit for being a white boi).
And stop kidding yourself. If y’all want good gaming press, why did it have to come because of Zoe Quinn? Why do you people focus on one woman who did nothing except release a FREE game and that was smeared by her abusive ex-boyfriend? Why didn’t you people in your “Kotaku fucking sucks” whinefests ever do something about them?
But, but, tinyorc, that’s hard! A better use of a troll’s limited time is to go to feminist blogs and tell everyone that they just don’t understand, they’re looking at things the wrong way, that their bigoted views make them blind to The Truth, and that if feminists really want equality they need to prove it by publicly celebrating the noble souls who *really* represent Gamergate and shutting up about all these petty little lady problems.
That this is also a lazy way to try to get someone else to do your PR and to downplay the assholes without actually denouncing them is merely coincidental…
I really hate this fucking mentality of “you can’t say something mean about all gamers/bronies/nerds, thats generalizing and you are lumping the good ones with the bad ones!”. The people who say this are never the good ones though they think that by donating a dollar to a charity suddenly they are fucking saviors of mankind, they will never actually do anything that goes beyond a one time commitment (unless it involves smearing a woman of course).
@Flying mouse, isn’t it amazing how similar are these groups of children to MRA? Always expecting women to fix their shit for them and then getting pissed when they don’t? But god forbid a woman wants part in their little group, its no girls allowed!
You can make generalizations about women being terrible, though, that’s fine.
Oh GOD these trolls are tedious. I can’t even engage, I’m going to look at Bootsey.
Praise her.
There’s “it’s not really misogyny,” and “you’re missing the point.” I also like this assertion that 4chan didn’t want to attack ZQ ANYMORE. It’s an admission that they did want to attack her. It’s funny how these little truths come out.
That’s “ZQ wants publicity.”
I don’t really believe that you’re a “girl.” Also: “ZQ deserved it?”
This is a new one! I should add that to the Bingo board! “ZQ is ruining it for all women!” As others have mentioned, that’s another little truth, an admission that misogyny is a problem: if one woman can ruin it for all women, then women are not being treated like people, but like interchangeable parts of an amorphous mass.
“Feminism.” BINGO!
I see “Lisa” came back, and after blacking out my Bingo card the first time, completely failed to address any of the criticism made against that first post.
@katz
We do now.
I actually know a woman who works in the gaming industry. She works for Blizzard in America, and absolutely loves it there. Her husband started work in a different department there a few months after she did, and he seems happy as well. SO..I guess that is the good news. The people who code WoW don’t seem to be woman-haters. Now if only they could get that attitude out into the /players/…..
I did not take the time to check all the responses, but there’s several things I can say right now.
Some of the comments are simply trying to discredit me without actually responding to the main point I tried to express (i.e: “you’re boring” or people wrongfully calling me a troll), so I’ll just ignore these.
About what I said about my nationality, I did not write it so you could see any implications behind it, it was just to prevent people from doing it. (people get ignored because they’re white males, so why wouldn’t they be ignored because they’re not english?)
And yes, it is indeed ‘misogyne’ in french, but I’ve rarely seen it written, most of the time people use ‘macho’. So yes, I swapped an ‘i’ and a ‘y’, sorry. (and I’m glad you think I’m not actually french, that means I’m not so bad at speaking english after all)
I find it funny to see how most of the answers are just trying to disprove some uninteresting points when the most important thing I’m trying to say is that there are indeed misogynists in the “gamers” group but a lot of people from this group just wants good gaming journalism. How can you tell if everyone’s the same or not? Because you’ve only seen examples of bad people from this group?
A last note for the one who said persuading was the essence of debates (I haven’t read through your whole message yet but I guessed you wouldn’t assume the opposite afterwards in the same post): before facepalming, check the exact definition of persuading and convincing.
You’ll see that there’s no need for persuasion in a debate as long as you’re just using a logic reasonment to convince the other party. (Both sides use logic to make a constructive opinion until they both agree on the same thing, that’s how you resolve a conflict. Badmouthing each other won’t get you anywhere.)
Unless you don’t want to make the most logic opinion, that is. But I don’t think this is really constructive.
But before reading through all of your comments, I’d like you to certify that you won’t discredit me on anything else than my opinion anymore. If so, I’ll gladly read what you have to say and eventually change my opinion. (I don’t want to waste time)
TL;DR
My main point is that some gamers don’t want to harass ZQ, and some also just dislike her regardless of her sexual life/gender. (Because they think sleeping with someone to get benefits is not fair)
While some others indeed dislike the character because of her sexual life or even gender.
I don’t think it’s nice to blame everyone for the actions of some people.
I don’t like the fact that you’re using this whole group as scapegoats just so you can have your daily dose of offenseness.
If you don’t want to debate with me, just tell me so I don’t waste my time.
I will read through the responses I got above and try to see why you’re so angry against a whole community instead of a group of bad people from this community.
I did not make any generalization about women being terrible.
No shit. But here’s a hint: if you’re going to type stuff after a tl;dr, you’re supposed to make it SHORT.
Why don’t you do that? And maybe the fact that nobody is angry against “a whole community” will sink into your thick skull.
People say you’re boring because you are. You don’t address what people actually say, but what the strawmen you’ve invented in your head have said. It’s dead boring to read a huge block of strawman arguments, and that will never change.
http://idledillettante.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/eron-gjoni-hateful-internet-ex-defends-his-recent-actions-on-4chan/
I had a conversation recently with Eron Gjoni on Twitter. This morning he linked me to a blog post defending his actions… both writing the initial screed that got Zoe Quinn harassed in the first place and defending his participation in #gamergate and the IRC channel #burgersandfries.
Although he didn’t answer my question directly, I didn’t think he was sorry for any of it. So I wrote up this little thing about him, just in case these women who date him bother to Google his name before doing so.
One of the points that’s been made repeatedly and continues to be ignored by the apologists is that this didn’t actually happen.
Insofar as you come to a feminist blog, admit that you refuse to engage or even read other people’s comments but then expect others to take the time to read and respond to your long, boring and heavily prejudiced and refuted-a-million-times manifestos, you are a troll, by definition.
In particular, “The main point you tried to express” was nicely refuted by tinyorc (and others), something you would have noticed weren’t you only interested in trolling.
In short, fuck off you trolling piece of shit, with your willful misrepresentation and offensive manifestos. Still I’m happy that you and your ilk were exposed as the harassing bigots you are (you and the other trolls, not regular people who play games of course 🙂 ).
@idledillettant,
Just going through the blog post Eron Gjoni linked you to….
Fancies himself somewhat, doesn’t he?
Policy of Madness
“People say you’re boring because you are. You don’t address what people actually say, but what the strawmen you’ve invented in your head have said. It’s dead boring to read a huge block of strawman arguments, and that will never change.”
If you don’t want to read it then just don’t answer.
My post above was to clarify things a bit (i.e. explaining my intentions) because I think I didn’t express myself well enough.
I just did not want the comments saying I’m a troll duplicate themselves while I was reading the ones who bothered reading through my “huge block of strawman arguments” so I could answer them. Sorry if it took a little while: I’m trying my best to express myself clearly in a way that hopefully nobody will take as an offense against their community or theirselves.
I don’t think I’m wrong if I say that some people on these comments and this article generalizes a bit about gamers, and I’m not okay with that.
I’m not misrepresenting your argument.
So now, I’ve read through the posts and made answers to them. (Sorry I’m not sure how to quote on this blog so I just placed the name of the commenter and put their messages between quotation marks)
tinyorc
“Please provide examples of feminists that are fighting for superiority. Accepted: political parties, activist groups, prominent academics, journalists or activists. Not accepted: random anonymous comments.”
I don’t know if tumblr blogs are considered anonymous, but a lot of feminist tumblr bloggers whine a lot about how they are oppressed and just blame the male gender instead of the oppressors. The male gender would be the oppressor if every single man on this planet were misogynists.
“Nobody is characterizing each individual gamer as a misogynist asshole. People are pointing out that there is a lot of entrenched misogyny in the gaming community as a whole.”
I can understand this. So please don’t include gamers as part of the assholes community, but include assholes as part of the gamers community.
(I’m not specifically talking to you but to every person that says “gamers are horrible”. I’m not saying “feminists are horrible” eventhough some of them actually are. Having a righteous opinion doesn’t make one righteous.)
“We see this because some of loudest members of this community this that death threats and sexual harassment are an acceptable way to respond to a woman with an unpopular opinion.”
Loudest doesn’t mean a majority, it’s just that they get more intention. Which, while being the correct behavior to criticize, lowers the whole community’s image.
This article is blaming 4chan as a whole. Now, I’m not saying that misogynists are almost inexistant on 4chan, but there are also a lot of people who just have a goal and sincerely don’t want to attack Zoey Quinn personally.
“they are undermining you, your community and your point.”
They’re only undermining my community, but the one undermining me and my point by using them as an example is you.
“The solution is to kick these assholes out of your community so that you can engage the other side like adults.”
How the heck do you kick someone that claims to be on your community even when you say you don’t like what he’s doing ? (And I’m also not a moderator on 4chan, I can’t do that.)
I’m upset about being misrepresented because I’m trying to be loud and show we’re not all misogynists, but people keep shutting me down because I’m on the same group as their, and there’s nothing I can do about the fact that they also are on the group.
“That’s not feminists, by the way, that’s the 4channers and trolls who it’s totally cool to have a discussion about Zoe’s genitalia while they’re supposed to be fighting journalistic integrity.”
I never said 4channers were feminists. But not being a feminist doesn’t mean you don’t give a shit about women’s rights. Males are sometimes excluded from the feminism community because there also are troublemaker feminists who hates men and not inequality, just as there are some troublemakers in our community who are misogynists.
Now, am I being an evil misogynist 4channer or am I just here to debate calmly about what I’m not satisfied of?
“That’s why it’s really difficult to find examples of malicious bigotry and violent rhetoric in feminist spaces – because the culture of these spaces overwhelmingly does not tolerate it.”
But someone told me I couldn’t debate because I’m a white male.
And if you’ve ever been to 4chan/v/’s thread, you could see that there are so many people on the “gamergate thread” that mods don’t even bother watching. (5 posts per seconds)
I’m complaining here because I can’t just kick everyone that displeases me out of the community, and so you can see that it’s not just made of assholes.
JM
“So….I spoke to Gjoni on his blog, trying to find out what his actual goal was, as I pointed out he was pretty much committing relationship and employment suicide by doing this, specifically pointing out a search for Quinn’s name turns up on google with stories about the harrassment and coordinated abuse, her previous work, and a wikipedia page, and a google search for his name turns up his blog, and talks about how he was involved in the abuse.”
This could make sense, do you have any proofs though ? (I’m not doubting the fact that what you said is true but it would be really bad to assume this as true while it’s not the case at all).
But even if it’s true that doesn’t change the fact that I dislike most gaming journalism websites.
vaiyt
“I am a gamer.
You don’t speak for me.
Neither does 4chan.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”
I thought it was quite obvious that I was using “gamers” (with quotations mark) to refer about people who dislike gaming journalism and not video game players who don’t actually give a shit.
I’m sorry if you felt involved in my sentence.
jojo
““Lisa”, if you want to be treated as your opinion has any merit, maybe the first step for you should be to not try to pass of as somebody else.”
I used this name so I couldn’t use my supreme male privileges. (Unless you mean men have supernatural powers that grants them privileges even with a female alias on internet without telling anyone that they are men, but I doubt that any power of the sort could be acquired through any mere mortal.)
jojo
“And stop kidding yourself. If y’all want good gaming press, why did it have to come because of Zoe Quinn? Why do you people focus on one woman who did nothing except release a FREE game and that was smeared by her abusive ex-boyfriend? Why didn’t you people in your “Kotaku fucking sucks” whinefests ever do something about them?”
I was not part of the whining about kotaku but I don’t think the fact of insulting a gamer as a whole is kind.
There’s always been corruption in gaming journalism (it was mostly companies buying good reviews) but this triggered a series of event and now everyone gets the opportunity to complain about the issues of journalism.
Of course, Zoey Quinn is part of one of these corruptions (And attacked a feminist indie game project without thinking twice about it, then denies it. There are proofs.)
Flying mouse
“But, but, tinyorc, that’s hard! A better use of a troll’s limited time is to go to feminist blogs and tell everyone that they just don’t understand, they’re looking at things the wrong way, that their bigoted views make them blind to The Truth, and that if feminists really want equality they need to prove it by publicly celebrating the noble souls who *really* represent Gamergate and shutting up about all these petty little lady problems.”
I don’t like it when someone use irony, it just widers the gap between the people being made fun of and the people using irony. Please speak objectively and directly to me if you see any issue.
Try to kick out selectively anonymous from an imageboard or an irc without being a mod. (it’s hard even if you’re a mod)
jojo
“@Flying mouse, isn’t it amazing how similar are these groups of children to MRA? Always expecting women to fix their shit for them and then getting pissed when they don’t? But god forbid a woman wants part in their little group, its no girls allowed!”
I don’t see any request towards women particularily.
But girls are allowed, what the heck are you saying?
jojo
“I really hate this fucking mentality of “you can’t say something mean about all gamers/bronies/nerds, thats generalizing and you are lumping the good ones with the bad ones!”. The people who say this are never the good ones though they think that by donating a dollar to a charity suddenly they are fucking saviors of mankind, they will never actually do anything that goes beyond a one time commitment (unless it involves smearing a woman of course).”
Yet you have no way to prove I’m not one of “the good ones”
I’ve not done a lot of things until now, so I don’t think it is possible to say I’ve done bad things, I’m just debating.
He’s actually quite attractive to look at. Until he says or types something anyhow.
“Insofar as you come to a feminist blog, admit that you refuse to engage or even read other people’s comments but then expect others to take the time to read and respond to your long, boring and heavily prejudiced and refuted-a-million-times manifestos, you are a troll, by definition.”
I just took time to answer, sorry.
“In short, fuck off you trolling piece of shit, with your willful misrepresentation and offensive manifestos. Still I’m happy that you and your ilk were exposed as the harassing bigots you are (you and the other trolls, not regular people who play games of course 🙂 ).”
So you are really assuming that every people that are from gamersgate are trolls or misogynists?
And let you troll unchallenged? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To just say anything you want and have nobody say anything in return?
No.
You’re expressing yourself clearly. The reason people aren’t agreeing with you is not that nobody understands you. It’s because the positions that you are clearly expressing are shit. They are strawmen. I fucking challenge you to go through the comments here and find one of the regulars saying, “All gamers are misogynist.” I fucking challenge you to find any statement like that made in a post on this blog. Anything you say in refutation of this statement is refuting a strawman and is a shit argument. Nobody is required to engage you when you are arguing against the strawmen you’ve erected.
I fucking challenge you to find any regular saying, “It’s fine that ZQ slept with a journalist to get good publicity.” Anything you say in refutation of this is a strawman, shit argument, because nobody’s said it.
You’re making yourself clear. Your positions are stupid, stupid strawmen and it’s arrogant to assume that people are going to engage with that and not just dismiss it as boring and dumb.
Stop conflating gamers in general with people who support the gamergate thing. Nobody here is doing that, lots of regulars here are gamers. If your contention is that somebody here has said that all gamers are misogynists, please back that up by quoting the person who did it.
As to your point that some of the people just want good journalism, why has the focus been on Zoe Quinn? She’s not a journalist. If your problem is with journalists, focus on them. If you care about integrity, have some fucking integrity and don’t associate yourself with misogynists. Start a different, better movement and stay on the topic of journalism.
Disliking someone doesn’t make gendered harassment and threats OK. Throwing your lot in with someone who does harassment and threats makes you an accomplice. You don’t have to like or approve of someone to not tolerate harassment and violence. The second you defended people these accomplices you lost your credibility.
And you’re making excuses for these people. That makes you one of the bad guys.
The only one who did that was “Amy” the troll who claimed Zoe Quinn ruined things for all women ever.
Citation needed.
@Policy of Madness
http://www.reactiongifs.us/slow-clap-citizen-kane/