I‘m on a brief blog hiatus, but I wanted to direct your attention to idledillettante’s definitive account of how Eron Gjoni, Zoe Quinn’s vengeful ex-boyfriend, not only launched what became #GamerGate but has shaped and directed it both in public and behind the scenes. And it’s all carefully documented with screenshots of Gjoni’s own words online — on 4chan, on Reddit, on Twitter, and on his own blog, often in direct violation of the restraining order that’s supposed to prohibit him talking about Quinn online.
Here’s idledilletante’s summary of the whole sordid story:
1. Eron knowingly promoted his tell-all blog post about Quinn on 4chan, knowing it was likely to cause harassment.
2. Rather than try to quell the harassment (As he might have you believe), Gjoni actually basked in the attention, to try and stir up even more agita against his ex.
3. Once confronted with his actions, Eron tried to distance himself from #gamergate, and move his involvement of Quinn behind the scenes. Unfortunately we have evidence of this string-pulling.
4. Eron’s fight against his restraining order is merely a continuation of the harassment he was already engaging in. If he wins his legal battle he’s likely to post even more private info about Quinn as a reward for his backers.
5. Gjoni has essentially ruined his good name in pursuit of this revenge quest. He knows this, and it makes him bitter that his plans to sideline Quinn in her own industry have backfired so spectacularly.
6. Gjoni sexually harasses women critical of him; especially when caught in a lie or backed into a corner logically. I find this a telling clue about his real attitude about women, although Gjoni claims to be a feminist.
But I suggest you read the whole thing; the details are creepy and revealing indeed.
M, I read 10knives’ comment to mean “we” as a society – were you reading it/disagreeing with it that way, or something else? I’m a bit puzzled too.
I guess it is a question of “What “we”, white man.”
People assume wide spectrum where they may only be a narrow group they are a member of.
I’m still trying to figure out how it works, that process whereby people can’t handle any criticism of a game they like. It happens sometimes with music or movie reviews too, especially music, where fans get pissy and write “Angry of Milton Keynes vehemently disagrees with your assessment of this new album, which is actually better than the Beatles, I’ll have you know” letters, but I’ve never seen an overreaction on the gamergate scale. The only time I’ve seen anything even vaguely similar is from teenage fans of boy bands, who do the “this isn’t for you so you shouldn’t write about it” thing too*, but they don’t send death threats or try to destroy media outlets for the crime of disagreeing with them, which is probably part lack of male socialization and part not being immersed in the chan culture. It seems like the emotional impulse is similar though, which would make sense if we didn’t know for a fact that not all gamergaters are kids.
*For some inexplicable reason the Guardian decided to publish an article about One Direction, and the comments were about the mix of baffled regulars and fans angry that their genius wasn’t being properly recognized that you’d expect
Oh, I thought 10Knives meant “We” as in this blog, given their second paragraph. Nevermind then, sorry. ^^;; Coffee required.
Hmmm, can see what you mean – bad syntax on that first post, should’ve been clearer.
I still aren’t sure if the consensus of this blog’s commenters is that compassion and open-mindedness is especially common amongst most human beings – from my point of view, commenters here say no, it ain’t.
Having to be prompted at some point in one’s life to think about those who are less privileged is hardly the same as:
Are you seriously arguing, to me, that I am not stating my values honestly?
One Hugo Swizzlestick does not equate to every male feminist being a big ol’ faker and I’m not sure why anyone who isn’t trying on purpose to be divisive would suggest that.
“Are you seriously arguing, to me, that I am not stating my values honestly?”
No. I was bringing up the idea that most majority people don’t care about the oppressed.
@ kittehserf – That’s why I called it an easy fix. Change it to: “Note to all *women-loving* dudes” – fixed, done, sentiment agreed.
Why? The context made it perfectly clear. If a man’s not interested in women, he’s not going to be the one throwing a hissy fit about rejection.
If the cause of contention is that Ian’s comment was heterocentric, well, yeah, because it was about straight men doing shitty things to women. Everyone else’s comments have been heterocentric too, because the subject of the conversation is a straight guy who’s trying to sic the internet on his ex, so I’m not sure why Ian’s in particular got called out.
Also, I’m not straight either, so here’s one vote for “no can we please not annotate every comment about het dating with a reminder that people who aren’t straight exist too, because it’s redundant and not every conversation is about us” from the non-hetero camp. Others may of course disagree.
I’m confused about the context too. I mean, this is about a het man stalking a woman (I actually can’t remember if she is het/bi/queer). Addressing a comment to all het men in association with this subject kinda works.
Though I do think that this advice really applies to absolutely everyone, regardless of sex, gender or orientation, so I see expanding the application as a completely good thing. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the original, given the context.
It’s like a Not All Men Are Het comment – well duh, we know that and it wasn’t about gay or bi men. The whole fucking GG shit came from misogyny, so I’m really, really side-eyeing any attempt to divert the subject from male abuse of women to talking about gay men or anything else. Hello, this conversation has women in the centre of it, and it’s on a misogyny-mocking blog, yet somehow we have to take time out to soothe the feelings of some other men?
Fuck that.
Yes, in the context of agreeing with:
There’s a big difference between “most majority people don’t care about the oppressed” and “nobody has progressive values.” Most “majority” people are actually not a numerical majority at all, and “nobody has progressive values” would include you telling me that I am a lying liar, because I am somebody and I say that I have progressive values.
This is the thicket you get into when you start talking in absolutes, so maybe try not to do that when you don’t have personal knowledge of the universe of possibilities.
TL;DR version: Zoe’s boyfriend might as well have been lying about absolutely everything. A pack of devils are more trustworthy than he is.
Where are people who think this from? All over Amerikkka it is barely safe to openly hold progressive values. (The people who hate you are pro-gun and think violence is a great way to punish people who are un-American) It makes you an outcast, not a “real American”, the enemy of freedom and a pinko commie bastard. It makes it impossible to hold office and can cost you a job. I had to quit a job once because the women I worked with found out that I went to a Pride Picnic and they kept talking about me and mine (especially my gay relative who has killed himself) going to hell until I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew people who never attended a Pride event because they fear being shot and they should be afraid. It could happen. I have worked with people (different job) who said they would like to shoot homosexuals. People are still disowned for being in biracial relationships or for being LGBTQ. People here think that ablism is OK and depression is caused by personal weakness. Undocumented immigrant workers are hired to work the tobacco, but they are demonized by the same people who hire them for low wages. There is no social capital to be gained by disagreeing with the status quo. None. Bigotry is the norm in the US, not the exception.
I live in an area where having fairly progressive values is the norm, but even here, drive for a couple of hours in any direction other than directly out into the Pacific and you’ll find yourself in the kind of environment Lea is talking about pretty soon. Mr C and I once thought some dudes in lumberjack shirts were about to beat him up for walking into a bar holding my hand, and that particular town is only a 2 hour drive from San Francisco.
@ cassandra – The vast majority of the time I don’t bother with *unnecessarily* heterocentric comments (obviously, given the nature of this site, there will be a great deal of reasonable heterocentrism here); this one just set me off, and it was a very close call. “Note to dudes” without the *all* wouldn’t have bothered me; “if you’re interested in a woman and she doesn’t” instead of, “if a woman you’re interested in doesn’t” wouldn’t have bothered me. As written, the comment seemed to be going *out of the way* to imply that all men are interested in women beyond just being a remark in a thread about women-pursuing men. Others have reasonably disagreed. Part (most?) of why I said something this time was that this was an easy fix of the sort that carries over.
In retrospect, “improvement” seems better than “fix”; the implication would have been more accurate.
Thank you for your reasonable tone. I see kittehserf’s points, accept that I was inappropriate here, and shall make a sincere effort not to repeat the offence.
Progressive is the norm in my city too, but you only have to drive about fifteen minutes to get into the congressional district that elected Michelle Bachman. Maybe conservatives living in progressive areas feel pressure to conform but you really have to have your head up your ass to think this is the case in the entire country. Maybe this fuckhead spends so much time trolling lefty websites and getting his ass handed to him that he forgets anything else exists.
I don’t think people presume that voicing progressive values will make you everyone’s best friend, but just that talking about how progressive you are is a way that people try to seem hip, educated, or noble. And therefore, you can just assume that anyone who makes a big deal of it is just trying to pass themselves off that way. It obviously doesn’t make much sense (though it’s consistent with their larger narrative of conservatives being reasonable and a bigger group, but liberals being well-connected and youthful), but it’s thrown around all the time.
@ DJG
I’m pretty sure the going out of his way to be exclusionary thing is something you’re projecting rather than something that actually happened, tbh.
@ted the fed
Except that hipsters are a tiny minority of, at least, American culture. And they catch a lot of shit because people (IMHO correctly) recognize that hipsterism is a way to brag about how fake you can be.
I’m not denying that it happens, but “it happens” is a far, far, far cry from “every single so-called progressive is lying bar none.”
Yeah, there is a big contradiction in assuming that the larger, majority group is conservative and yet liberalism somehow is the philosophy that exerts inescapable peer pressure.
That doesn’t make it true, and my issue is with 10knives (and whoever else) claiming that it’s actually totes true. Not with people acknowledging that some fools spread this story and discussing that, but with the assertion that the story reflects reality.
I really do think Eron is really terrible now since I learned the stuff I did not know of the whole zoe quinn story from what idle recently wrote. Is what he did enough to charge him or will he have to continue to fight a very long court battle with Zoe which is most likely not favorable for him and will probably hurt him or not help him much in the end.
FTFY
Oops, thought there was a “not” in there. Sorry. /embarrassed
Actually there is something weird in that comment.
What’s with the big concern about what is favorable to EG and what is likely to help EG in the end?