The memes above? A fan of indie game developer Brianna Wu made them, using the text from some of Wu’s acerbic tweets about #GamerGaters. Wu thought the memes were funny, and posted them to Twitter.
This was just sent to me, a new meme called Oppressed Gamergater. Love it. http://t.co/Sp9sQPgLxQ pic.twitter.com/6UEWRgPGcn
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
Haha. This Oppressed Gamergater thing is so full of win. I'll RT the best ones. http://t.co/Sp9sQPgLxQ pic.twitter.com/4DQtwfpGN5
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
It turns out that #GamerGaters don’t really have much of a sense of humor about themselves.
Over on 8chan, the regulars decided to take over the meme.
A fan made a meme of 6 of my Tweets. #Gamergate spent day filling it with 36 pages of garbage http://t.co/tjzQxePXH0 pic.twitter.com/aailgFlNM9
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
It got nastier — TRIGGER WARNING for what follows for explicit, violent threats.
#Gamergate is zerging a meme an Isometric fan made of my Tweets. It's up to 45 pages of attacks like this one. pic.twitter.com/fYhHr5QeZm
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
And nastier still.
8chan/#gamergate generated 60 pages of this today attacking me. I'm going on a Twitter break till I feel more safe. pic.twitter.com/A0GYsdJ3KA
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 10, 2014
Oh, but #GamerGate isn’t about misogyny. …
Then, believe it or not, it got worse:
8chan/#gamergate just doxxed me, posting all kinds of personal information about me.
Guys, THIS is the war on industry women. Wake up.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
And then it escalated to death threats:
And, here's the part of the night where I call the police. pic.twitter.com/uMByxBEtYz
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
The police just came by. Husband and I are going somewhere safe.
Remember, #gamergate isn't about attacking women. pic.twitter.com/ZU6oEVxMGL
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
All this because she made a few fucking jokes on Twitter. About #GamerGaters. While being a woman.
Oh, but #GamerGate is about ethics.
But guess what, assholes:
Announcement: I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE. I am going to keep making games. And I will keep speaking up for women in gamedev.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
To the women out there scared to make games because they see this happening, I swear – WE WILL CHANGE THIS CULTURE FOR YOU.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
Author (And outspoken feminist) John Scalzi posted on this as well, and linked to your bingo card. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/10/11/my-thoughts-this-morning-on-gamergate/
I really wish the GamerGate twits would vanish completely. Everytime we speak up, shit like this happens. I hope she and her family stay safe. This is some seriously terrifying shit.
And just yesterday there were articles in the UK papers telling women that the solution to internet harassment was to grow a thicker skin.
Jesus fucking christ. That’s some disturbing shit right there. Here’s hoping Brianna stays safe.
I want to find all their mothers and tell them what they’ve been doing with their online time.
Yeah, this is about ethics in gaming journalism. For fuck’s sake.
@bodycrimes so basically the old ‘just ignore them’ shite. Or more accurately the ‘if you don’t like the heat, stay out of the kitchen’ shite. I am so sick of this reaction, as if the internet in general, or gaming, or wherever, is a place that is just default hostile to women and that’s totes okay, just the way it is, suck it up if you wanna play there. Boys will be boys. What’s next: ‘he just pulls your hair/doxxes you/sends you rape threats because he likes you’?
@helkell or their wives, or their daughters, or their sisters, nieces…
Not just their mothers, I wish there was a way that the shit these dudebros say and do could be revealed to EVERYONE they know. Imagine if these pieces of human waste had to explain their words and actions to their families, teachers, friends, girlfriends… “ya I told a women to go die and helped other guys threaten her and posted her address online all because women playing video games makes me mad”. I really hate these dudes. They go on and on about “women and consequences” while posting anonymously on the Internet. Way to go cowards.
Don’t worry guys, this is only a few bad apples… And by that i mean the whole goddamn barrel
Jiggawutt, its an entire fucking orchard of apples carefully bred to be shitstains.
Indeed. Skin that is literally bulletproof, like Superman! I bet Superman would not be afraid of someone coming to his house with a ka-bar.
This kind of stuff makes me so frustrated with outlets that insist on trying to give voice to the GamerGaters’ grievances — all in the name of “fairness”, of course. I hate that they are rewarding the temper tantrum at all, but I especially hate that they are rewarding criminal behavior like this.
GamerGaters are entitled to not like the changes they see in the industry. They are entitled to be misogynistic twerps who are scared of girls getting cooties all over their super manly hardcore games. They are entitled to object to whatever aspects of gaming, game development, and game journalism they don’t like, even if their opinions are straight out of the most backwards corner of the Middle Ages. They are entitled to protest, to write blogs, to write petitions. Whatever.
They do NOT have any right whatsoever to threaten, doxx, harass, or otherwise harm people they don’t like.
I wish to anything that mainstream outlets would categorically refuse to give them an audience unless and until they stop attacking women. Whatever “good points” they have are not worth terrorizing people over.
John Scalzi retweeted this earlier; I wish there were a thousand more articles like it. http://www.sibylmoon.com/time-to-leave-gamergate/
It never was about ethics in games journalism or the industry. It was just another justification for lashing out at women rather than deal with whatever issues are affecting them psychologically.
(waits for someone to bleat that that poor oppressed “death to” dude shouldn’t be silenced, because what if it was one of ours?, yadda yadda…)
Reblogged this on J. B. Garner – Musings of a Starving Author and commented:
Long-time readers of this blog probably have a sense of my moral beliefs by now. I usually try to minimize my political thoughts and focus on writing, but things like this force reactions.
I whole-heartedly support all the women who have to fight against this kind of sexist assault every day.
Hellkell,
I have that some impulse, but the cynic in me thinks that these guys are like this partly because their parents think their precious boy can do no wrong and validate every behavior, no matter how bad.
I’m babysitting my friend’s 15 month old son right now and I cringe to think he’s shortly going to be told by the world that he should treat others as subhuman because he is a white male. Luckily his parents are good people and will teach him better. But the rest of the world is a lot to overcome.
Brianna is my best friend’s most recent boss. This shit is creeping steadily, slowly closer, and every single time I wonder how long before they come for me. And inevitably call it a ‘false flag’.
*sigh*
I made this little app where candy compliments you, in case it’ll make anyone feel better. http://inurashii.xyz/AffirmApp/
Wow.
Funny thing about the use of the term “bad apples” to deflect criticism of GG; the original proverb was “One bad apple spoils the barrel”, which pretty much describes the GG movement to a T.
http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/
Was most likely one of your own who sent the threats. SJW’s love making false hate crimes
http://tinypic.com/?t=postupload
I’ve been having some amazingly surreal “discussions” with gamergaters about all this on Twitter.
inurashii, that app is pretty adorable, and good brain bleach!
I’ve got another gamergate related post coming up in a few minutes. Zoe Quinn went on a twitter rampage yesterday and really tore into the GG bullshit; I’ve collected a bunch of it into a post.
inurashii that app needs a content warning for adorableness and awesome. I love it!
Not sure what that one troll was going for with the Phil Fish reference (Suck my dick/choke on it), but it adds another layer of tacky/ironic/strange. Firstly because Phil himself was allegedly driven out of the industry by online abuse (still got my fingers crossed it wasn’t for good), and then also because he’s been openly denouncing GamerGate misogyny. Plus “Suck my dick. Choke on it.” represented Phil’s efforts to fight back with confidence – if not with much tact or nuance – against his detractors, who included both regular old critics and straight-up harassers. It’s not exactly a rallying cry for justice, but any GamerGater trying to reappropriate it has doubly proved they’re not really interested in anything but douchebaggery.
https://twitter.com/reptile09/status/520959562531487744
Brought to you by the people who created #notyourshield, everyone.
Does anyone know a home remedy for getting irony out of your pores?
David: I love the guy responding to your farewell by claiming that you are being used by Anita Sarkeesian as “a means to an end”. The irony, it is too much.