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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.
I don’t have one that I could place between quotation marks but I didn’t have to go far to find one who thought that gamers who wants a good gaming journalism are troll and harassing bigots.
“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 🙂 ).”
Implies the ones who are not peacefully playing but are revolted are harassing bigots/trolls.
(I think that person tried to say I was harassing you)
If I’m expressing myself clearly, then why are you arguments not in relation with the one I had in mind when I wrote my messages?
I obviously had to make precisions in order to reduce the confusion.
“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.”
Well I don’t think it’s fine and I don’t think people should defend her on that. Maybe you’re not saying that indeed but I just put that out of the way so people wouldn’t call me misogynist just because I don’t like corruption. It was only prevention. (not saying that’s what you’re saying though)
I’m sorry if you’re not taking the time to read my messages while I take the time to read yours.
“And let you troll unchallenged?”
For the last time I’m not a freaking troll, I’m exposing my problem which is the problem of generalization.
And no it’s not arrogant to pretend that people will engage a conversation with me on this subject.
If you don’t want to go through my big posts that’s fine but don’t call me a troll if you haven’t seen the actual post.
“Throwing your lot in with someone who does harassment and threats makes you an accomplice.”
I’m sorry but I joined the gamergate for its purpose and not its members.
If I made my own movement with the same purpose, it will be obsolete and assholes will join it too because it will be associated with gamergate.
Stop seeing me as a defender of misogynists, I hate misogyny but there’s nothing I can do about gamersgate’s misoginy.
And I already said it but I’m not using the term “gamers” to include every person that plays video game. Eventhough I know the word itself refers to any person who plays video games, but it’s been used so much for the purpose of people from gamersgate that I ended up using it even here, because I thought you would understand it as I wanted to express.
Then you don’t have one. What you have is your wrong interpretation of a statement that doesn’t say what you are claiming it says.
No, it’s saying, in words, that you’re a troll and that the people you’re defending are terrible people. There is not “implying” in that. Those are words, that say a thing, bluntly.
LOL no. I think you need practice in reading words and understanding what they mean, and not writing your own preconceptions into them.
NOBODY FUCKING IS. Because THAT ISN’T WHAT HAPPENED. Nobody has said this and getting on your high horse about how that is bad is still banging a strawman.
You need to figure out what a strawman is. Go away and don’t come back until you can give me a decent definition, in your own words, not something copypasted from Google. You are the worst kind of troll: you don’t even seem to know that you’re a troll.
So, just to be sure:
-Are you against journalism corruption, do you not mind or are you for journalism corruption?
-Are you against every person in gamergate or from 4chan?
If you’re not against every person from gamergate or 4chan, and you’re not for/don’t care about journalism corruption, then the issue is solved.
Lisa, I can’t even with your post.
For a start, can it with the false equivalency bullshit. Just stop. The IRC chatlogs alone cite hundreds and hundreds of examples of outright and overtly offensive misogyny from huge numbers of individuals supposedly involved in gamergate. I am more than happy to bet a significant amount of anything that the ‘feminists have been really bad too’ angle you keep on gunning for is one that exists solely in your head – provide evidence of these ‘troublemaker’ feminists or ship out. Everybody here has heard all this before. To date nobody touting the “feminists want supremacy, not equality” claim has been able to evidence it. Nobody,
Your constant downplaying of the sheer amount, frequency and severity of misogynistic attitudes in the gamergate community is also getting old. It is an issue. It is a huge issue. Stop brushing it aside with “…but” statements and “we’re not all misogynists” arguments which serve only to derail the discussion. WE KNOW. This community is concerned with those WHO ARE. Why aren’t you?
The entitlement here is amazing. If you scroll up to the top of this blog post you will find that it clearly states this is a blog for MOCKERY. To MOCK. It is the point of the community you are posting in.
FFS.
Sorry*, someone had to do it.
*totally not sorry
@kirbywarp: How many of us were quietly waiting for that?.
@gelar
I know I was.
What we’re against, here, is harassment in general; sexualized, gendered harassment in particular; rape threats; death threats; running women out of an industry for no reason except that they are women, and then crowing about it; the organization of a group of people to accomplish the above in a coordinated fashion; and misogyny as a principle.
I want you to find someone saying, “I hate all gamers!” or “I am totally cool with corruption!” You may find people talking trash about 4chan in general, because 4chan as a culture is the sewer of the internet, and people who don’t want to play in sewage should probably think about steering clear of it.
What you’re doing is changing the fucking subject. The subject is the harassment campaign, the ORGANIZED harassment campaign, waged against Zoe Quinn, and collaterally against others as well. There is documentation, documentation, that core #GGers gave not even the first shit about corruption and cared only about talking about their gross and violent sexual fantasies that stared Zoe Quinn.
Anyone who genuinely cares about corruption needs to jettison those people, who have rotten and maggot-ridden souls, and create a movement that doesn’t involve them. As long as you are clinging to a movement that was organized and perpetrated by folks who like to spend their time speculating about the way a woman’s vagina smells, and you align yourself with those people and defend them and make excuses for them and apologize for them, you are just as bad.
“The entitlement here is amazing. If you scroll up to the top of this blog post you will find that it clearly states this is a blog for MOCKERY. To MOCK. It is the point of the community you are posting in.”
This website says it’s mocking misoginy.
Not people who don’t like to be mistaken for misoginists.
The thing I said about feminism wanting superiority was not supposed to qualify you as that kind of feminist, but the fact is that they exist.
Now, the intolerance may be unbalanced (meaning that the irc indeed had tons of insults), but both of us aren’t from the intolerent side of our community (you’re not being supremacist, I’m not being misogynist), so don’t mistake me for a misogynist.
I’m not defending the harassment campain.
4chan has some sewer-boards (the one I can’t talk about because of the first two rules of the internet, /pol/, and a lot more), but some are not sewer-boards. That’s why I’m defending people from 4chan who aren’t planning an harassment campain and are not misogynists.
We’re generalizing people who participated in gamergate. Not gamers. Now that it’s been proven that the whole thing started as a harassment campaign meant to destroy Zoe Quinn there’s no excuse to keep defending it. Even if you didn’t harass anyone, you’re defending those who did. That’s wrong.
Tumblr, which is known to be populated by a lot of obnoxious and ill informed teenagers is the best you can do? So what you’re saying is that no prominent feminists are fighting for female supremacy. Agreed!
Who are you quoting? Who here said “gamers are horrible?” Point it out please.
If the misogynists are a minority, it should be no problem for the non-misogynists to start speaking out and shutting them down. But you aren’t. Instead you’re coming onto this niche feminist blog that doesn’t even focus exclusively or even mostly on gaming to derail from the point that harassment and misogyny are wrong with your tired #notallgamers #notall4chan bullshit.
You’re undermining yourself by defending them.
How about you and all these other non misogynists you claim are on the boards shout down the bigots. Complain to the mods in large numbers so that the mods take action. If the mods do not take proper action, leave the community and go somewhere that doesn’t tolerate bigotry and harassment. You aren’t helpless. Stop making excuses for your inaction. You must be the change you want to see.
Most feminists (such as myself) do welcome male allies. However, there is a long history of men coming into feminist spaces and trying to take over or even becoming downright abusive like Hugo Schwezer (sp?). For that reason some feminists are a little bit wary of men in feminist spaces and that’s OK. When members of the privileged group, in this case men, get defensive about members of the oppressed group trying to protect themselves, it’s an issue. Get over it.
White men can debate all they want but if they pretend they know better than women about misogyny or know better than POC about racism they’re in for a very justified mocking.
So, you can’t kick people out of 4chan, so instead of arguing against assholes there you’re whining at us? What’s the sense of that? It’s not our fault you’re participating in a community that doesn’t self police unacceptable behavior.
Weren’t you just complaining about us generalizing about gamers? Now you’re doing it and it’s OK? Huh.
Have you failed to notice that this blog is owned and written by a white man? We have lots of regulars who are white men. We don’t bully someone or discount their opinions because of their demographics. You had a shitty opinion and were obviously being dishonest and you got called out for it.
1. Zoe Quinn isn’t a journalist so why did this “movement” focus on her? This has never been explained and this is the number one reason you lack credibility.
2. You’re still defending a movement that was created to harass and ruin one woman who isn’t even a journalist.
This is a mockery blog dumbass. If you say stupid things here, you’ll be mocked. You don’t get to barge in here and tone police regulars. Especially since you’ve stated several times that you can’t be bothered to even attempt to police your own community.
You’re defending the bad ones. That makes you one of them.
“Anyone who genuinely cares about corruption needs to jettison those people, who have rotten and maggot-ridden souls, and create a movement that doesn’t involve them. As long as you are clinging to a movement that was organized and perpetrated by folks who like to spend their time speculating about the way a woman’s vagina smells, and you align yourself with those people and defend them and make excuses for them and apologize for them, you are just as bad.”
It was not supposed to be the main focus of 4chan/v/’s gamersgate. I’m not excusing the dumb people quoted on this article but I’m defending the ones who are not planning harassment and misogyny.
I have no power over the whole movement and I can’t make my own either, so I’m doing what I can.
I find it hard to find the will to respond to a post who insults me, but yeah.
I’m not defending the trash but what’s covered in trash.
ZQ’s affairs were not proven right nor were proven wrong.
The movement’s focus shouldn’t be ZQ now, it should be gaming journalism in general that has been corrupted for years now.
I’m not responsible for every turn the movement makes, yet I’m not following them on their bad decisions (I didn’t follow the ones who wanted to harass her, and I was lurking on /v/’s thread at the time, some of them were pretty upset about the fact that some people stupidly harassed her.)
It’s purpose as revealed in the IRC logs was to harass and ruin Zoe Quinn. It’s purpose wasn’t about corruption in journalism. Stop pretending that it was. The harassers aren’t bad apples. They were the ones who started the whole thing. Stop making excuses. If you really cared about integrity you would behave with integrity yourself.
This is an even better version of “you’re tearing me apart Lisa.” Enjoy.
Where? WHERE?? Where do they exist? Please for the love of Bootsy just cite something to back up the existence of the ‘bad’ feminists you keep on referring to.
What intolerant side of MY community? I have not stated at any point what MY community is. Do you mean this one? Which members of this community are the ‘supremacist’ side?
Arglebarglebargle!
And yet it was! Why do you continue to defend it? Why don’t you go start your own hashtag, one that is free from the misogyny, and repudiate the misogynists?
Incidentally, I don’t believe this is true, at all, and the evidence is in my favor, but I’ll assume that you are not being disingenuous and you believe it. If you believe this, then you need to acknowledge that it went off the rails, and then take some kind of action, such as distancing yourself from the harassers instead of defending them.
Those people need to defend themselves. If “the community” is actually fine and healthy, then why is “the community” not shouting down the misogynists? Why does “the community” tolerate this shit? The standard you walk by is the standard you accept.
That’s complete bullshit. Anyone can start a movement, and succeed. It’s hard work; what you’re saying here is that you don’t give enough of a shit to put the work in to start your own movement. Fine. We don’t all care enough about every issue to want to put in that work, and there’s nothing wrong with that innately, but there’s something super-wrong with you simultaneously expecting other people to buy that this is a really, really important topic for you, when it clearly isn’t.
Lemme try to find some sort of common ground here, because eh.
Lisa, I’ve only been lightly keyed into the gaming community, but I’ve still seen the outrage towards journalistic corruption. I’ve seen people pointing out how big AAA games get hype and advertising, turn out shit, and still get good reviews. I’ve seen people pointing out all the money that gets thrown around, and how big developers seem to no longer care about game quality anymore as long as they can turn a big enough profit.
I’ve seen the discontent even without really being part of the community. I’ve even seen people embracing Indie developers for being outside the system, but wary that perhaps those developers could go down the same tracks as the AAA industry, and seeing stories of big indie names doing pretty corrupt things.
Sound reasonable? If so, let me key you in on women in gaming.
It is not debatable that gamers (#yesallgamers) have a huge problem with misogyny. Let me repeat: it is not debatable. Online communities are routinely found to be gamerbro cesspits of racism and sexism, and blog after tumblr after blog have been dedicated to how toxic the community is for non-white-males (several are on the sidebar of this blog). Pick a subarea — cons, online shooters, LoL and other similar games — and I could easily find you huge discussions on how unwelcome non-white-males get to feel in those areas.
Not that things aren’t getting better, though it feels like the gaming community is being dragged kicking and screaming. Anita Sarkesian is a prime example of someone exemplifying both a change in the gaming culture and how much of a problem harassment is. She wanted to make video game critiques. She was harassed for even daring to. In response to the harassment, she ended up receiving shit-tons more money than she asked for. And now she’s making her videos, and people still say she somehow conned people. All for wanting to bring feminist-style critiques to the games industry.
This is all background.
Now we have #gamergate, a movement supposedly against corruption in gamer journalism. A movement tapping into that rage against the AAA industry and fears for an industry collapse. I’m sure many, many people who take on the #gamergate name think that is what the movement is about. However, from the IRC logs we now know it all started as a targeted campaign to take down Zoe Quinn under the guise of “journalistic integrity.” That’s why they had to make it seem like ZQ got a game review, or something.
Your movement, lisa, is one that furthers harassment of women while pretending to represent the legitimate fears and worries of gamers. It’s insidious, and treating it as the hill you’re willing to die on is the one thing poisoning the image of gamers in society. While you see people finally doing “something” about a long-held fear, outsiders only see the results: more of the same harassment against women for being women.
If you actually care about gaming journalism, there are better ways (like, oh, say, going after the actual journalists). If you aren’t an asshole, you need to realize what the movement you think you admire idealistically is actually doing, and stop supporting it.
Otherwise, you need to fuckoff.
TL:DR; #gamergate uses a legitimate long-standing gripe about the industry as an excuse to continue harassment and sexism that has been a long-standing problem. Deal with it.
And now the little truth comes out. You know, perfectly well, that it was about ZQ in the beginning, and you’ve just admitted it. The pretense comes off: you know, and knew all along, that ZQ was the intended target, and this “but corruption!” thing was a latecomer and not the original intention.
Nice work. The original goal, to harass ZQ, succeeded and now you’re whining because the original goal has been uncovered and the PR face-saving “goal” has been revealed for the front that it is.
I’m sill laughing so hard at that failed teal deer.
“What intolerant side of MY community? I have not stated at any point what MY community is. Do you mean this one? Which members of this community are the ‘supremacist’ side?”
Some feminists thinks men are their ennemies, they don’t think sex inequality is their ennemy.
I’m not saying any of the commenters here is one of these feminists.
“It’s purpose as revealed in the IRC logs was to harass and ruin Zoe Quinn. It’s purpose wasn’t about corruption in journalism. Stop pretending that it was. The harassers aren’t bad apples. They were the ones who started the whole thing. Stop making excuses. If you really cared about integrity you would behave with integrity yourself.”
The IRC came after the gamersgate threads. The people from the IRC are not the people who started the whole thing.
Heck, even if they were, the gaming journalism was corrupted from the beginning anyway. (as I’ve said before, there’s been a lot of transactions towards journalists just so they could make good reviews of some editor’s games)
And gamersgate, when not focused at ZQ, is a good opportunity to denounce these corruptions.
I want to mention here that if I had jumped on the #GamerGate bandwagon innocently and in good faith, because I thought honestly in my heart that it was about corruption in game journalism, and that was a serious issue about which I felt strongly …
… right now I would be SO ANGRY. I would feel betrayed! I would feel used, and deceived! I would not be defending these assholes, I would be slamming them harder than anyone else, for having harnessed my legit outrage for nefarious ends.
I would sure as hell not be defending them, or #GamerGate. I would be running away from #GG as fast as I could and finding a new identity for myself. I think any rational, non-misogynist person would have a similar reaction.
Why don’t you, Lisa?
“But here’s a hint: if you’re going to type stuff after a tl;dr, you’re supposed to make it SHORT. ”
I thought it was short at the time. Sorry if this is a subjective matter and I don’t have the same notion of short as yours.
The IRC was released after the gamersgate threads. The logs go back to before the hashtag started.
“… right now I would be SO ANGRY. I would feel betrayed! I would feel used, and deceived! I would not be defending these assholes, I would be slamming them harder than anyone else, for having harnessed my legit outrage for nefarious ends.”
I have no proof of the fact they were the ones who started it.
But I’m still fighting for the gaming journalism purpose.
“I would sure as hell not be defending them, or #GamerGate. I would be running away from #GG as fast as I could and finding a new identity for myself. I think any rational, non-misogynist person would have a similar reaction.”
No, because a lot of people joined GG with the same goal as mine.
I do not define my identity with the asshole part of the group I’m defending.