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Actually, it's about Zoe Quinn. The midwife of #GamerGate has no regrets.

ZoeQuinnPS

Do you remember when #GamerGate was young? You know, back before #NotYourShield and Vivian James and bizarrely complicated conspiracy theories involving Gawker, Weird Twitter and some sort of international Jewish conspiracy?

Remember when #GamerGate was still called #BurgersAndFries, and the angry gamebro army was focused on the real enemy of all that is good and true – a young game designer by the name of Zoe Quinn?

If you’ve been feeling nostalgic for those good old days, you’re in luck. A sprawling blog post by a female friend of Quinn’s obsessive, accusatory ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni takes us back to the dog days of August when his even more sprawling thezoepost was unleashed upon the world.

Rachel M, who describes herself as an “engineer, designer, accidental writer,” recalls the months she spent with Gjoni as he began to process his breakup with Quinn and marshal his arguments against her. She was there when he posted thezoepost, making her a sort of midwife of what became #GamerGate.

It’s no secret whose side of this controversy she’s on. Her depictions of Gjoni are written with affection and indulgence; her portrayal of Quinn is brutal and a step or two beyond unfair. When Rachel M pretends for a moment that she’s not “someone with an ax to grind against Zoe,” that’s because her little hatchet is already buried in Quinn’s back.

If there is a point to GamerGate Launched in My Apartment, and, Internet, I’m Sorry (Not that sorry) beyond making Gjoni look angelic and Quinn look like a demon, I’m not sure what it is.

After presenting us with a series of uninteresting and unnecessary details of her own life, Rachel M repeats a number of largely discredited myths about Quinn and even seems to have made up a new myth of her own, accusing Quinn of “telling Eron she believed I was lying about my PTSD” in an online chat.

Never mind that the chat log itself, which Gjoni pasted into his zoepost, and which Rachel M also pasted into an earlier post of her own, suggests that Quinn was dubious not about Rachel M’s medical diagnoses but about Rachel’s intentions towards her then-boyfriend.

As I searched through the screenshots on Eron’s site to see if Rachel M’s recollections of this exchange matched the evidence, I was struck again by the utter surreality of #BurgersAndFries and its successor #GamerGate.

Because, the thing is, I don’t want to be reading these chat logs. I shouldn’t be reading these chat logs. These are private moments between two people at a vulnerable moment in both of their lives. They shouldn’t have been posted on the internet in an act of petty revenge against an ex-girlfriend. They shouldnt’ be on the internet at all.

The fact that the details of Zoe Quinn and Eron Gjoni’s sex lives and their messy breakup are so central to the conflicts now roiling the video game world that I have to turn to these screenshots to fact check this post is weird and wrong and rather depressing. Zoe Quinn isn’t the president, caught pantsless in flagrante delicto with a Haliburton lobbyist. She’s a video game developer, and the details of her sexual history are none of our fucking  business.

None of this matters much to Rachel M, who seems to have become trapped in Gjoni’s reality distortion field, borrowing some of his narcissism for herself. She describes Gjoni’s decision to “go public” with the ugly details of his breakup with Quinn and her various alleged infidelities and lies:

Eron talked about going public. He talked about panic, about awareness, about making sure that people knew what they were getting into, about taking a hit – there’d be a hit, for speaking publicly against a woman in any field, but especially against a woman with Zoe’s position and friends in progressive indie gaming – for the good of all, eventually.

This is so perverse and backwards and wrong it’s hard not to wonder if Gj himself wrote it.

He talked about evaluating the risk to his current job, his future jobs, his family, himself. You know, whether he’d get stalked or murdered for this. He talked about the danger to Zoe, about how he could minimize personal harm toward her, whether he could effectively defray harassment towards her.

Well, he did a bangup job of that, huh?

He settled on a few plans toward that end, and decided the risk to himself was worth it. Even the total loss cases for him still meant greater than zero public knowledge about Zoe’s manipulative behavior, her role as an abuser, and the number of lies she’d told. Anything was better than the way it was now.

Really? Because for a lot of people, not just Quinn, things have gotten a lot worse since Gjoni launched his attack against his ex.

Rachel M is actually quite aware of this; indeed, she notes explicitly that the movement that was born out of Gjoni’s long post has directed much of its fury towards women.

Zoe received floods of hate and threats within hours of the post going live. Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist media critic, was forced to cancel a speech at USU after receiving death threats referencing the École Polytechnique Massacre … Brianna Wu, Liana K, and anyone who identifies as a feminist within gaming — they’ve been getting smeared.

Women in games, creators and critics alike, are working through a tide of hate that’s reached the front page of the New York Times. Each new story makes me a little sicker.

Yet somehow she’s still “not that sorry” she helped Gjoni to launch the movement that caused all this. She thinks it’s all somehow … good for women. Because people now know what she thinks is the truth about Zoe Quinn. She ends her post with these bizarre assertions:

I want more women in tech and media, at all levels—in development, in journalism, in the games and books and comics themselves.

I want those women to be as safe, respected, creative, and supported as any man, and I do not want them unprepared in an industry with Zoe Quinn.

And this, I guess, is how someone who helped Gjoni to usher in a hateful, spiteful, reactionary “movement” that has left numerous women fearing for their lives convinces herself that she’s on the side of the angels after all.

EDIT: I corrected Rachel M’s name. No idea why my brain turned her name into Sarah.

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grumpyoldnurse
10 years ago

I <3 Adam Savage.

Skye
Skye
10 years ago

Yay, Adam Savage. Also, a commenter linked to this blog post from Cracked’s Luke McKinney: http://lukemckinney.net/2014/09/22/how-social-justice-warriors-will-ruin-gaming/

Bogdan Cvetkovic
10 years ago

@tinyorc
I had similar feelings also at the beginning of all this GamerGate bullshit. I believed that Eron was abused while Zoe was guilty of wrongdoings. But I still found his reaction in very poor judgment and to be suspect. If you post all the zoepost stuff on the Internet, or worse bring it up at 4chan, and not realize how awful the consequenses would be, you are either very naive or dishonest. (Not literally you, “you” is Eron.)

But as time goes by evidence points more and more to Zoe’s favor and less and less to Eron’s. As stated by other posters, Eron has no remorse over the shitstorm he created. He’s perfectly fine with having many other women who have nothing to do with Zoe at all be attacked and humiliated. (Even having only Zoe get attacked and humiliated is terrible enough.) So far, Eron has made no attempt to pardon his name or mitigate the damage the GamerGaters caused.

Zaki
Zaki
10 years ago

Just just out of curiosity, what is the current narrative about Zoe in the GG “movement”? Was It just an error? She is a professional victim? She deserved this?

mildlymagnificent
10 years ago

So far, Eron has made no attempt to pardon his name or mitigate the damage the GamerGaters caused.

Being as I am a nasty, suspicious, blaming feminist, I’m strongly inclined to suspect that the post by a-person-who-is-not-Eron is yet another device to skirt around the black-letter, precise, exact, technical terms of a restraining order.

It’s entirely possible that this is an unprompted expression of loving support and encouragement from the new woman in his life, but it doesn’t look like it to me. If she was really supporting and encouraging him, she’d get him to a relationship or personal therapist to soothe his fevered thinking. She wouldn’t be wallowing in this emotional cesspit with him if she genuinely cared for his well-being.

But I’ll happily concede I was wrong if it turns out that I was.

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

I cannot stress enough that the sooner a victim of abuse starts focusing on their own well-being rather than the well-being of their ex, the better off they will be. If your focus is on causing your abusive ex pain, you’ll just keep engaging with them over and over again, and it will make finding a stable place to take care of yourself in very, very difficult.

If EG is actually a victim of abuse, I cannot say.

That Zoe Quinn has been the target of sustained harassment and a victim of abuse I *can* say.

And I can also say that her decision to get a restraining order rather than engage with the wellspring of that harassment, i.e. the ex, is way, way healthier, for her, for Eron, for everyone who finds themselves in that situation.

You have the right to speak out. You even have the right to seek to socially avenge yourself on the person of your choice. It just won’t make you feel very good.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

You even have the right to seek to socially avenge yourself on the person of your choice.

Care to elaborate?

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

If someone is, say, physically abusive but maintains a good front, you have the right to bring charges against that person and speak about the abuse to anyone you damn well please to talk to about it. If you are a part of the same social circle as a person who has been emotionally abusive, physically abusive, or whatever else to you, you have no obligation to keep their secrets from mutual friends. If you are contract workers in the same field, i.e. both actors in the same city (hey relevant to me) you have the right to tell people who cast you or hire you to work on their production in any way that you are not comfortable working with your abuser and would prefer they not be cast/hired/reached out to for the production.

(Then I go on a long, personal story that has no place here that I redacted because whoa, Kiva. Projecting your personal feelings much?)

I think I used a poor word choice there, or at least should have put it in quotation marks, because I was accused of, once again, seeking vengeance. And honestly I can’t deny that my feelings in that moment were ones where I was seeking vengeance. The only thing I did in that period of time that was of benefit only to me was move without leaving a forwarding address. It would be some time before I would feel pushed to get a restraining order due to stalking.

My point is that if Eron wanted to make it known that he felt he was abused, fine. It’s not a good choice, in my opinion, for getting healthier, but fine. I object to the directing of mobs and the continued engagement after the restraining order and all the other awful, awful things. You have the right to call someone out as an abuser if they abused you. And I can’t honestly say that she didn’t, so fine, he gets to do that. But all the shit that came with it, the gleeful involvement in her harassment, it just leaves a rotten taste in my mouth.

Of course, I think we agree on this. Like I said, I’m probably just touchy about it because I have a personal history with it.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

I think the key thing here is that someone who just needs to vent, or who wants to warn people in their social/professional network about a potentially dangerous person, will tell their friends, or people who work in their field. Not 4chan.

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

I should also mention that in the middle of this abusive relationship, one of his exes who he had abused reached out to me. She didn’t do it because she cared about me, she did it because she hated him. But as someone who was also a victim of his, it helped me a lot to have her support as I slowly broke away. We would secretly message each other, delete the messages, or text and then I would delete my phone history.

This is another reason why I have an immediate feeling of, “people should be able to talk about the pain past partners have caused them.” I see how it becomes problematic, however, when you have someone who has been previously targeted for harassment. Even if Zoe Quinn was abusive, I can’t say that I don’t look at Gjoni’s (am I spelling that right? Don’t care.) involvement and think he didn’t WANT this result. But I’ve got no evidence of that.

It’s just something I feel uncomfortable condemning because of my own past experience. No judgment to the rest of you. That’s just what I wanted to add to the conversation, and I’m glad, once again, that I’m in a place where I don’t immediately get shouted down. I appreciate that.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

I mean really, it’s 4chan. You know, the place where a serial killer once posted tips about where he’d buried the bodies and most users thought this was super cool and awesome rather than horrifying? I do know a few former users who had a “look at your life, look at your choices” moment after that and bailed, but there are a lot more who didn’t. This is not a place where you go looking for emotional support and help with personal problems.

thebewilderness
10 years ago

4chan has been harassing doxxing and hacking feminists for ten years.

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

Whoa, not disagreeing with you there. I stopped going to 4chan back before it was cool. Hang on, I need my lensless glasses on if I’m going to type things like that.

I’m just saying I don’t have hard evidence he brought it to their attention. It seems likely he did, but I don’t have the evidence. And I don’t want to say I know what his motives were, or are, only that in my situation, I saw motives that were like what I said.

And the only thing I am saying is that the only hard evidence we have is that he directed mobs at his ex and was so heinous he ended up with a restraining order. (Actually not as easy to get as people think. Them clerks and cops are both mean in my experience.) So, once again, even if Zoe was abusive, his response to it is:

A. Bad for him.
B. Bad, period.
C. …no.

I don’t have the feeling that he’s a good person- though I recognize I could be wrong on that. Maybe he’s just a dumb person who was hurt and is now in a lot of pain. Once again, no evidence to that, and I’m not really buying it.

All I can say is that what he’s done has ended in a lot of pain, and a lot of lawbreaking, so really, even if he felt he was justified, the ends don’t justify the means.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

Yes, you do have the evidence, and if you’ve forgotten it the burgerandfries chatlog is posted right on this blog.

thebewilderness
10 years ago

Ninjas!

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

Er, please don’t make me read a thousand pages of chatlog if I’m wrong and just link me, and please don’t get antagonistic for no reason because, whoa, this is what I hated about dealing with pro-GGer’s in forum threads at the Escapist. I have the evidence that he engaged in shitty behavior after the fact. The only thing I don’t have hard evidence on is that he brought it to 4chan’s attention in the first place. It seems just as likely to me that they would hop on the chance to bash Zoe Quinn, having done it in the past.

I don’t like Eron Gjoni’s actions. I’m just saying that I can almost sympathize with just putting out a blog post. If somebody shows me that he’s the one who intentionally brought the blog post to 4chan’s attention, I’m right there and whoops, my bad.

And even if he didn’t, I’d repeat, that doesn’t excuse the aftermath, or his continued involvement, or any of THIS, the content of the original post.

thebewilderness
10 years ago

The evidence is there in the chat log. There is a blog entry about it on this blog. You can see it if you want to. Or you can choose to speculate instead.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

I’m pretty sure nobody here volunteered to do your homework for you.

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

That’s really disappointing. I guess I meant it when I said it’s hard to be a gamer and a feminist. Back to your regularly scheduled programming, folks.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

Since at least 2:19am by the time stamp on the comments here, this thread has had nothing to do with being a gamer or a feminist. Oh wait, the thread has been about the boundaries of acceptable behaviour since the OP.

Misha
10 years ago

Late to the party and just catching up with the comments. Sorry all if this is covering old ground, but:

You’ve allowed yourself to see the evidence that EG and the Channers/GGers are bad people. You haven’t allowed yourself to see the evidence that ZQ is also a very bad person too. It’s easy to doubt evidence when you refuse to look at it.

If you did you would see that, in her treatment of EG, she hits MANY of the points on the “Emotional Abuse”, “Isolation”, and “Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming” sections of the Power and Control Wheel (http://www.ncdsv.org/images/powercontrolwheelnoshading.pdf).

Erm, ok libarbarian. The Duluth Power and Control Wheel is a learning tool at best, which usually forms part of your standard introduction to understanding domestic violence and abuse. It is not any kind of sophisticated assessment tool by a long chalk. To be able to assess the directionality of emotional abuse in any given intimate relationship you need slightly more than a graph and a checklist. You need to actually have, you know, met both individuals, and have the skills and understanding to be able to apply situational context to each stated instance. Domestic abuse cases can be so complicated and the directionality of abuse so hard to assess that even IDVAs and victim support services have been found to be mistakenly providing victim support to the perpetrator and not the ‘actuall’ victim, often for a long period of time. The idea that you can effectively assess ZQ and EG’s situation from behind your computer screen with a graph is laughable.

@Kiva,

David summarises the burgerandfries chatlog here. Might help:

https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/#more-13184

Kiva
Kiva
10 years ago

Thanks, @Misha. All I was really looking for. Though right now I will probably try to get a pigeon to date me and then read the article tomorrow after work. I appreciate the link in the right direction, though, as I read through several old posts on Gamergate and hadn’t found this one yet. Thank you for the information and the civility.

Kootiepatra
10 years ago

@Kiva – Of course victims have a right to process their pain. But that processing can only happen in personal circles — friends, family, counselors. Warning people in mutual social/work circles about the abuser can be a good thing — but that is limited to family, friends, coworkers, and employers — people who are directly connected with the abuser and who are at risk of either being abused or of being used to provide cover for the abuse. And while it’s ill advised, of course people have the right to rant on their personal blog about how they’ve been done wrong.

Gjoni didn’t do that, though. He went out to public forums and spread the word about it. (There are articles on this very website summing up how that happened, so yes, please do look them up if you are sincerely interested.) He wanted anyone and everyone to know exactly what he thought of his ex, and broadcast it far and wide. He was not warning personal friends and direct coworkers/collaborators — and really, the internet at large is at precisely zero risk of being taken advantage of by Zoe Quinn. People who download her game, and even those who pay for it, have zero impact on whether she ever abuses a romantic partner. Depression Quest is not any more or less realistic or helpful depending on if the creator is a creep or an angel.

Gjoni was not just processing. He was not just warning vulnerable people away from her. He was on a broad-scale character assassination campaign, which is utterly inappropriate. He wasn’t out to protect anyone, but to ruin Quinn’s reputation and career.

To use my own story again: If someone said to me, “Hey, I’m moving to [city]; didn’t you used to live there? Can you put me in touch with some friends?” I would be perfectly within my right to go, “Sure, but while I’m at it, try to steer clear of [abusive person]. I had this experience with them–it’s a pattern with them, and they will probably try to do it to you as well.”

I do not, however, have the right to go spray paint “ABUSER” all over said person’s house, or disseminate their personal information to the local gangs with a “Definitely DON’T set their lawn on fire, *wink*”, or try to get them fired from their job if their job gives them no immediate opportunities to abuse anyone. “Well, I just wanted the world to know that they aren’t a good person” does not excuse that kind of behavior.

Newt
Newt
10 years ago

To be fair, that’s also how you quote on reddit,

…and in older media from the plain text days, like mailing lists and newsgroups. It indicates that the poster hasn’t bothered to learn this blog’s conventions, but there are a wide range of places they could have picked up the one they’re using.