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.
So she’s an unapologetic accomplice and facilitator of one of the nastiest hate mobs of the internet, that put women in actual danger, and her reaction is to talk about herself? That’s some self-centered asshole.
You could have listed those reasons and supported them with something other than the claim that you just “know” she was abusing him. She threatened self harm? OK. I’ll take your word for that. Does everyone thinking of harming themselves an abuser when they tell people what they are thinking of doing? How much context do you have exactly and why didn’t you share it? It would have been reasonable considering all of the blatant lies being spread about Quinn.
Have you seen what this guy is capable of? She gaslit him? Have you seen him justify himself in the case of GG? I have. Maybe she, I don’t know, really was genuinely considering self harm and maybe the guy who thinks his revenge is justified was behaving in this same manner in their relationship and it was causing her emotional distress? Why do you suppose that his actions in GG are not consistent with his actions prior to it?
What makes you flip the narrative in a way that allows you to see her as an abuser, but not the man who started the campaign against her?
Do people actually fall for his claim that he’s protecting women in gaming from Quinn?
Really?
Also, “saga”?
Fuuuuuuuck off.
I too have not read Eron’s blog. I have seen it, but went no further than the top. I left a comment along the lines of ‘do not wash your dirty linen in public’. I am perfectly able to believe that ZQ abused him, and I can understand wanting revenge, as someone abused me to the point of suicidal depression many years ago.
BUT… even if he had no concept of how far this would go, he obviously DID know that it would result in ZQ getting harassment, and clearly he is familiar with the internet, so he knows HOW MANY disturbed and potentially dangerous people there are available to keyboard warrior about ethics in games journalism.
Now this thing won’t die… it is a Hydra. There are so many things he could do to end this – taking the blog down, asking this ‘friend’ not to make such a post would be a start, but what he never admits is that this is exactly what he wants.
Hipster bitchery. “I hated Quinn before it was cool!” What a bunch of arrogant posturing.
Eron Gjoni has the right to feel however he wants. Nobody is disputing or begrudging him that. But he does NOT have the right to violate Zoe’s privacy in any way, and he does NOT have the right to repeatedly and continually violate the restraining order she took out on him.
Just, you know, FYI.
I’m not part of the gaming community, but I didn’t think they intended for this to turn into an angry mob or death threats. Although perhaps that’s my own naivete/bias/lack of familiarity with that community showing: I know people who have blogged about/warned others off emotionally, physically, and/or sexually abusive exes or dates (and I followed the incredibly disturbing Tao Lin saga), never with the intent of forming an angry mob, but rather with the intent of saying: This person may seem charming, but do not date them or they might hurt you the way they hurt me. If *that* was his intent, then I think it’s still inappropriate, but I understand. However, if he knew what this would turn into, then yeah, you’re right, that’s awful.
Surreal is the word I’ve been looking for.
I switch from distress at the situation the affected women (and their partners/families) are in, to annoyance, irritation, frustration and outright disgust at the actions of the mindless mobs attacking them.
I’ve deliberately avoided reading the stuff that I think shouldn’t be public in the first place and I’m glad (for want of a better word) that David runs this blog and not me and he gets to do this on our behalf.
But just giving a moment’s reflection on the position that everyone is in, the whole thing seems so peculiar, as well as petty and nasty. The only appropriate word is surreal.
Two words: Stockholm Syndrome.
Did you read the piece that this post is based on?
Yeah, look at those honorable intentions. Look at that concern.
elliandac:
“I’m not part of the gaming community, but I didn’t think they intended for this to turn into an angry mob or death threats.”
2 things:
1. 4chan is not synonomous with “the gaming community; which is at least 50% women and is largely annoyed with this entire drama.
2. 4chan did indeed intend, from the very beginning, for this to be a cesspool of death threats, rape threats, and misinformation. Their chat logs proving it have now been made public. This is not the first time they have attacked feminist women and it won’t be the last. This is just the time they have gotten the most attention for it.
@Kevin K:
“So…let me get this straight. A woman who was messing with Quinn’s then-boyfriend with enough amorous attention to make Quinn uncomfortable sees Eron through his breakup with her, and then becomes his bulldog?
That makes her totally and completely believable, right?
But it’s all about ethics in gamer journalism.”
Yep…that was my reading. Boyfriend Stealer Helps Launch GamerGate; Shows That Evil Ex-Girlfriend What-For
Women like her are an embarassment.
Um, I said that the things she said in the original chat logs made me uncomfortable, because they sounded like what abusers I’ve known in the past have said to their victims (and I’ve always been told that if you try to get space from someone and they threaten to harm themselves if you leave, that is emotional abuse). I haven’t seen his later defenses, you could well be right. As I said above, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT INTENT THE ORIGINAL POST STARTED WITH. In the circles I’m familiar with, warning/posting/whatevering about an abusive ex is done, not to get revenge, but to tell people “It might be a bad idea to date/befriend this person.” If the original intent WAS revenge, then yeah, that’s monstrous. I just thought that it might have been an attempt to warn a community about an emotional abuser, in which case it was a hideous miscalculation, but I could see the intent.
Again, I am not in the gaming community, I am not on reddit, I am generally not a part of “internet culture”, and I only heard about this story through WHTM and facebook. Maybe it IS obvious in those circles that violence is the follow-up for something like this. Is it?
I think I may be missing something here judging by how people have responded to my comment, but did this guy actually do anything beyond posting thezoepost? Because that’s all I heard he did. And while publishing chat logs with someone is not a cool thing to do, I can’t see why it’s getting so much attention other than it was the spark that set everything on fire..
4channers have, for years, been harassing feminist bloggers and sending them threats, doxxing them, frightening them into taking down their blogs by threatening their children, etc. Until now, literally no one cared. Some people said we deserved it, actually.
They got used to having no resistance from the rest of society for their sociopathy and have expanded their tactics. Too far, perhaps. Apparently, they can’t handle the attention.
elliandac:
Wait a second. Back up. You’re “not part of the gaming community”, you have a history of being emotionally abused, you became aware of this enough through some means to read the zoepost and chatlogs but not much of anything else, and you sympathize with Gjoni because he was emotionally abused by Quinn but don’t sympathize with Quinn at all because reasons?
That seriously doesn’t track at all.
Did that include the WHTM posts in which David went through the #burgersandfries chatlog and pointed out where Eron provided her would-be harassers with personal information and egged them on in their harassment?
Do you also realize that people in this very thread have already pointed out the fact that Eron actively encouraged the harassers? So why are you still trying to relate this to situations you thought it might be like even after being presented evidence to the contrary?
@ellaindc
Well, I’ve called out an abusive ex in the past, and I can tell you that my intentions were motivated more by a want to get some sort of revenge on my abuser than warn the public that I was upset with for ignoring my situation. But that’s just me. I’m definitely not going to sit here and pretend that I was in any kind of strong emotional state during that debacle, and I’m certainly not going to pretend that my actions were noble or about anything other than limiting the damage I was already feeling, or bleeding off some of the anxiety and poisonous feelings. I wasn’t warning anyone. I wasn’t being noble. I was blowing off steam about a serial abuser.
This vocal, sexist portion of the gaming community has attacked Quinn before for the audacity of making a game about depression. One misogynist bemoaned, “girls like that don’t understand what depression is. They don’t get rejected.”
I understand how Gjoni may have felt betrayed and hurt by Quinn cheating on him. I understand sitting around in someone else’s apartment and having them commiserate with Gjoni. I even understand the toxic feelings he thought he needed to get out.
What I don’t understand is how anyone could look back at the death threats and harassment that their words kicked off and then try to defend them.
“did this guy actually do anything beyond posting thezoepost?”
Other than providing her personal info to a bunch of 4channers on an IRC chat so they would know her home address/contact info to stalk her? And then continue to goad those freaks on throughout the whole thing, on a chat board he thought would be private?
@ellaindc
I don’t really see how you can read the #burgersandfries chat log and maintain this delusion that EG is just a hurt and suffering abuse victim whose innocent, well-meaning warning about an abuser spiraled out of his control.
I’m telling you that ZQ could have been emotionally abusive, and EG could have been hurt and suffering, but his reaction was hateful, vengeful, and wildly out of proportion. It wasn’t merely “inappropriate.” Even giving him every benefit of the doubt does not exonerate him, or make his behavior in any way excusable. 4chan didn’t just “find” his post, he brought it to their attention purposefully because he wanted to employ Anonymous as his personal army. And, despite how often Anonymous claims to be “not your personal army” they certainly came to EG’s call and did everything EG wanted them to do.
Also: I’d like you to consider that maybe EG is not a reliable narrator on ZQ’s “crimes.”
>https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/11/05/actually-its-about-zoe-quinn-the-midwife-of-gamergate-has-no-regrets/comment-page-1/#comment-633202
Caroline, you have terrible reading comprehension. Mallorie Nasrah wasn’t accusing Quinn of murder, and neither was EG. Nasrah was relaying her experience with someone who was shown to be a habitual liar; EG was using that story to attempt to show that Quinn has little credibility on a personal level.
Wait, WHAT?
Ok, I did not know that. I heard all of this through fb– a fb friend of mine who’s very interested in gaming posted thezoepost and I read it, because I had heard that this was something a lot of feminist women were talking about, and as a feminist woman I wanted to check it out. I didn’t get that involved–as I said, not my community. I glanced at a few WHTM posts, but that was it.
I seem to have grossly misunderstood something–I though 4chan found the post, and then ran with it, not that it was delivered to them. And WHAT THE FUCK I HAD NO IDEA HE GAVE THEM HER INFO? I figured they just hacked her or something. Ok, yeah, he is the villain here. Never mind, carry on.
Also, the chat logs I was referring to were the fb messages, etc. in thezoepost. I didn’t go through all of #burgersandfries.
Not to mention that Eron appealed to these same creeps for money so that he could fight the restraining order Quinn filed against him. He’s raised around $3500 at last check to fund his legal drama.
To say Eron “only” wrote the Zoe Post (which he tailored for his audience and targeted release to 4chan and SA) is dumbfuckery if I’m being kind; duplictious if I’m being honest.
P.S. well ellaindc; at least your mind can be changed. That’s a good thing