Welcome back, my friends, to the harassment that never ends.
It’s not news that GamerGate is fading – the media hubbub has died down, and the last I checked the volume of Tweets to the #GamerGate hashtag has dropped to only about a fifth of what it was in its glory days.
But it’s too soon to say it’s over. Because while the number of Gaters has shrunk, the harassment of GamerGate’s targets goes on, and on, and on. Indeed, for the three “Literally Whos” who’ve been the central targets of #GamerGate harassment little has changed. The death threats, the rape threats, the insults, the harassing Tweets and comments and emails and phone calls all continue.
And then the Gaters accuse the “Literally Whos” of faking their harassment in a bid for sympathy and cash.
Let’s look at each in turn:
1) Anita Sarkeesian
Sarkeesian, the cultural critic whose harassment started years ago when she first announced her plans to make a video series on sexism in video games, recently posted a week’s worth of harassing and threatening Tweets directed at her; there were more than a hundred of them, including numerous death and rape threats, suggestions that she kill herself in the most painful way possible, and assorted other abusive comments bristling with hatred and misogynsitic slurs.
2) Zoe Quinn
As Sarkeesian sorts through her Twitter notifications, game developer Zoe Quinn tries to figure out how to continue her life and her career in the face of unrelenting and irrational hostility and harassment. In an eloquent meditation on the subject on her blog, she writes
I’ve been trying to take a day to just be a regular person, recenter myself, and have the energy to get back to work with the same enthusiasm I tend to have, but every attempt gets cut short by some fresh, new, horrible news about someone trying to get into my accounts, a new asinine conspiracy theory being used as an excuse to dox people I went to high school with, friends freaking out because anonymous message board people are talking about how to mail them bombs, or just another death threat. At least the death threats have become somewhat routine.
Stalked by a restless mob of haters, she’s constantly under the microscope, her every utterance picked at by her critics looking for anything they can use as fodder for their increasingly baroque and fanciful conspiracy theories; as she puts it, she’s faces, every day, “a mob of Nerd McCarthyists nipping at your heels and spinning up TMZ-style blog posts every time you fart.”
Indeed, Quinn recently found herself accused of terrorism for making a joke on Twitter suggesting she planned on “burning hollywood to the ground” if an upcoming episode of Law & Order SVU loosely based on GamerGate ends up having a victim-blaming plot twist.
Do these people honestly believe that Quinn is really planning on burning anything to the ground? I don’t know, and I don’t think it even matters to them; it’s just another “crime” to add to Quinn’s GamerGate rap sheet.
I can only assume that GamerGate will go after the imaginary Hollywood director “Alan Smithee” next; after all, he’s credited with directing the 1998 film Burn Hollywood Burn. Come to think of it, Public Enemy had a song with that name as well.
3) Brianna Wu
Meanwhile, game developer Brianna Wu is facing an even creepier threat: a disturbed and delusional “GamerGate vigilante” who bombarded Wu with a succession of threats that alarmed her enough to contact the police – then, en route to her house, he flipped the Prius he’d stolen from his mom on an icy highway. And yes, this really happened; he posted a video of himself having a screeching meltdown on the side of the road next to a wrecked Prius balanced on its side. (I’m avoiding his name because I honestly don’t want to give him any more publicity.)
He claims that he meant Wu no harm, and merely wanted to challenge her to a “street race” to which she never agreed – apparently thinking that if he scared her enough to flee her home on her motorcycle this would count as a race.
But he also apparently sent a friend to try to “disable her comms” (communications) – the friend evidently never arrived – and tried to convince an online acquaintance with a gun to accompany him for this “op.” Thankfully, the acquaintance refused, and posted what he said was their chat to a message board devoted to trolling. An excerpt:
[2:52:07 PM] [name redacted]: SHE IS WORKING WIth the National Social Justice Party to stop gamers!!!!
[2:52:35 PM] [name redacted]: I SENT ELI UP TO DISABLE HER COMMS WE DONT HAVE MUCH TIME BEFORE SHE ASKS FOR REINFORCEMENTS THOUGH AND I NEED YOU FOR BACK UP!!
[2:52:52 PM] FlyAwayNow – Matthew.N: What? You want me to bring my rifle or what?
[2:53:05 PM] [name redacted]: YEA JUST LIKE IN PAYDAY 2 DUDE ITLL BE SICK
[2:53:36 PM] [name redacted]: IN CASE SHE SHOOTS AT MY CAR I CANT GET BULLET HOLES IN MY MOMS CAR SHE ILL KILL ME ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I STOLE IT
[2:54:10 PM] [name redacted]: WERE GONNA STREET RACE HER SHE WONT BE ABLE TO DRIVE IN THE STORM SO WE WILL BE ABLE TO WIN EASY AND TAKE YOUR RIFLE IN CASE SHE SHOOTS US TOO
[2:54:32 PM] FlyAwayNow – Matthew.N: You’re not laying a hand on my gun.
[2:54:42 PM] [name redacted]: ILL DRIVE YOU SHOOT
And now he seems to have convinced himself that Wu somehow sabotaged his car in an attempt to “assassinate” him. From his video:
I honestly don’t quite know what to make of the threatener or the threats. His behavior is so strange and erratic and almost literally unbelievable that it would be easy to dismiss him as a troll.
But then there is that wrecked Prius. And several years worth of videos on Youtube that suggest either that he’s sincere — or that’s he’s the most dedicated troll since Andy Kaufman’s fake comedian alter ego Tony Clifton, who somehow managed to survive Kaufman’s death.
Is GamerGate responsible for his actions? On the pro-GamerGate subreddit Kotaku In Action, the regulars largely dismissed the threatener as a troll; one accused Wu of being “a disgusting human” for publicizing the threat and being “so quick to paint him a Gamergate supporter.” Never mind that in the video the threatener repeatedly describes himself a “#GamerGate vigilante,” and that he would not have chosen her as a target had she not already been subject to months of vilification from GamerGate.
GamerGate, which is quick enough to take credit for charity work done in its name, shies away from taking responsibility for any of the terrible shit anyone does in its name. And in recent months many of the remaining Gaters seem to have stopped even pretending to care about the victims of GamerGate harassment. Indeed, @_icze4r, the former head of GamerGate’s much-vaunted, now-abandoned “Harassment Patrol” was one of those who egged the threatener on with a jokey supportive Tweet.
It’s a dangerous game they’re playing. As Wu notes
Someone is going to die from your recklessness if you don't look in the mirror and understand the consequences of your choices.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) February 1, 2015
What any of this has to do with “ethics in video games journalism” I couldn’t tell you.
@dudeinthewoods:
“Claims” is exactly the problem. He’s not what he claims to be.
“If you can fight the war, you can take care of the people who were hurt in it.”
Quoted for fucking truth. And you’re right, it is mostly/fully a funding problem, I apologize to all the overworked and underpaid VA staff who do care but can only do so much with too little. (I’d say fully, but I was a psych major, and going into social work is kinda of viewed as what people do if they can’t do “better”, which is bull, but a lack of social workers can’t help matters any)
I’m working on a new and radically revised comments policy — I’ll post a draft of it for discussion before putting t up. It will definitely contain stuff about language like “crazy.”
And Skirki is right, this guy is not actually a veteran.
Oh, also the reason he was fixated on Wu, I believe, is that some of the assholes who endlessly troll and harass him online convinced him that Wu shut down a live stream he was doing by reporting that he was doing drugs on it (apparently he was smoking pot). Obviously it wasn’t her but one of the trolls posing as her; she didn’t even know who he was at the time.
I may be wrong, he may have already been fixated on her already, but I imagine that was also because of the dudes trolling him.
If true, that could explain a great deal. For people with paranoid tendencies (especially schizophrenics), pot is one of the worst things you could self-medicate with, because it tends to amplify paranoia and precipitate schizophrenic symptoms in those who already have a genetic tendency toward the illness. When I first tried it (I ate pot brownies and washed ’em down with wine), I got a massive attack of the heebie-jeebies, complete with darting eyes and hyperventilation. And I’m not normally paranoid, nor have I been diagnosed with schizophrenia, so that was quite an eye-opener. I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who has that condition.
‘Course, this guy could also be an entirely neurotypical pothead who uses way too much, and who plays too many games, is chock-full of hatreds, has constructed an elaborate fantasy world to conform to his paranoia, and has gotten in way over his head here.
The fact that the trolls are egging him on and using him as a source of lulz is disgusting on a whole ‘nother level; there’s just no excuse for that. This guy obviously takes his shit seriously, and he seems determined to do real-world damage. I fear he will succeed only too well, eventually…unless the cops finally pull their heads out of their asses and DO SOMETHING.
Boy, isn’t it weird how – despite all the evidence of harassment from GamerGaters – the “other side” (whoever that is) just also happen to be “just as bad”!
I mean, I never see any evidence to back up these counter-claims and it’s almost entirely anecdotal in nature (not one of them ever links the source of such). Even when they do have “evidence”, it’s usually a singular Tumblr page and not an on-going compilation of threats delivered by way of Twitter.
You know, even though there’s something clearly wrong with this guy, and even though he’s got a history of being goaded and baited by trolls, I bet there are Gomblrgokers who are passing off his belief/claim that Brianna invited him to race her as 100% fact.
All of his behaviors are fully in line with paranoid schizophrenia. This man is needs help. Not mockery, hatred, or trolling.
But what the hell do I know. Maybe he is just a super-troll who is trolling the trolls.
Hey David–
I see KiA found my article from the Daily Kos on this incident, and called me a “disgusting human” as well. Not totally sure why there’s a *new* thread where they archive.today’ed the thing, because I did direct link it to KiA after I posted. I suppose it’s because direct linking to my work would be too respectful, and they want to plagarize it, not give the sites hosting it traffic. The insults are always the same, too; when KiA doesn’t confuse me with Zoe Quinn.
Since I wrote that diary (I filed it soon after Wu posted the video on Saturday) I’ve found some additional information, and probably need to make one correction.
GG Radio Hosts Ralph Retort and King of Pol were talking to this guy on Twitter the day before the car accident, and they also had him on for an interview after the fact.
I think what Liz said is definitely the case – they’re manipulating this fellow, pandering to his delusions to use him as a weapon. Ralph even suggested that Wu had “put sugar in the gas tank” of the Prius on the air while the driver discussed how Wu could have posted a sniper to take him out on the highway. GG figureheads are manipulating this guy into doing the stuff that they wouldn’t dare attempt for themselves, knowing he’s crazy enough to maybe do it.
What I disagree with is Liz’s, and the wiki trolls’s assumption that this guy isn’t *really* dangerous just because he didn’t go to Wu’s house with explicitly murderous intent. The wrecked Prius is a case in point; even if he didn’t mean to hurt anybody, he still flipped a car. I still think it’s amazing that nobody was seriously injured – not the even the driver.
The correction I’ll probably need to make is that this guy didn’t have guns *in the car* while he was driving to Wu’s house. But the proof that he tried to obtain a weapon before going there is pretty telling to me. That was something Wu said on Twitter and I was willing to take it on faith, assuming she had access to additional info that she had forwarded to police.
However, in his later King of Pol/ Ralph Retort interview the driver made it clear that he’s forbidden from owning a gun in MA because of his mental health issues. The guns which he repeatedly poses with on his website and Youtube are Airsoft replicas; which, if you take the orange caps off, look pretty darn realistic. I don’t blame Wu or myself for thinking they were real.
Still, I’ll need to update my headline “Armed Gamergate-r Crashes Mother’s Prius en route to Brianna Wu’s house” and then write another diary.
The hardest part about this is the well-meaning but skeptical male commenters on the Daily Kos, accusing me of making all this up or that I’m getting carried away when I call this domestic terrorism. They accuse my sources (the LWs, mostly) of being liars or that I’m writing “breathless” or “alarmist” articles overstating what’s happened. And I just want to shake them and say “I’ve been documenting this for months, and you have the nerve to tell me it’s all in my head? OK read this, and this, and this, and also this too! Do you *still* think I’m trolling the Kos?”
Airsoft guns aren’t meant to be lethal, but they can still do damage (especially to the eyes). The fact that even enthusiasts are advised to do nothing with one unless they’re in protective gear is telling, I think. Parents of kids who play with them are constantly being advised of the safety risks. Compressed air can still shoot a projectile (be it a paintball or BB pellet) with enough force to hurt someone badly, even cause them to lose an eye. A threatening guy wielding a realistic-looking Airsoft replica gun may seem like a joke, but if he’s determined to get to the home of someone he’s “targeted”, it’s no joke at all. He is genuinely belligerent, and he is still quite capable of doing real harm.
As the former spouse of a schizophrenic person, I have no words to adequately describe the evilness of someone who would use a vulnerable person like that as a cat’s paw.
Hi! First time commenter; if David approves me I’ll introduce myself further… I’m a long time lurker and lover of this blog and most of the commenters!
I and my partner co-owned a small site called Spicie. We had it up for about a year. It was a women’s issues site, and the reason we shut it down was because the number of death threats became alarming and I started having to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to keep spam off my own company’s business page because I was just dumb and naive enough to use my real name (I know. I SMH at myself, too).
I started to get worried when people began with the threats [explicit example redacted -emilygoddess]. So I chickened out, my partner got even worse threats and she followed suit, and the site closed for good. I feel bad even feeling like that was so terrible when I see what women like Sarkeesian live with – but it’s really still the same thing albeit on a smaller scale.
But there’s seemingly NO RECOURSE. The thing with this guy who wiped out his stolen car THEN chose to video himself having a meltdown THEN decided to accuse Wu of sabotaging his mom’s car – I mean, how, HOW do we not have ANY protection, or any real consequences to people who do this kind of shit?
That’s my huge issue, that we apparently live in a country where a kid can pretend to “vanish” someone with the “One Ring” and get expelled from school for a “terrorist threat”, but a guy tries to get his hands on a gun to take to a woman’s house and declares he is actually DOING it and that is just – to put not to fine a point on it – “boys being boys”?
🙁 This is just one of many reasons I am expatriating to Uruguay this fall. I’m just SO DONE with this crap… not that there is NO misogyny in Uruguay, but there’s a helluva lot less than there is here. Plus excellent healthcare and college access…. 🙂
Airsoft rifle story time! When my brother got his first, he got it all set up and then shot himself in the foot with it (yes, literally), and screamed. Our father proceeded to insult his masculinity and demand my bro shoot him with it. When he screamed and collapsed to the floor, because an airsoft pellet to the gut at ten feet is actually quite painful, we were laughing too hard to insult him.
My mother’s reaction to all this? “And I wasn’t home to see it!”
Moral? If you ask my brother, getting shot with one of those hurts more thank getting hit with a ricochet chunk of metal (that one I’ve done, it hurts less than you’d think)
I don’t think this person is actually a vet. There are a number of wikis and blogs that have been devoted to mocking this person and detailing his exploits and they all debunk his claim of military service. He always wanted to be a marine and played military based video games. When he was sent away to some type of Christian based camp to help with his problem he explained his absence from the internet by saying he had joined the military and been injured. This story has continued since then.
As to the joint enterprise issue, in the US it is not used often. The cased used as an example of it in my torts class involved a radio station that had a contest offering free tickets to a popular teenage band (I want to say it was New Kids on the Block but I’m not sure) for the first person that found the radio station van driving around town. There were a few accidents from teenagers driving recklessly trying to find the van. Because of the age of the average listener and the fact that the prize was geared towards young people, and because there was an incentive to break driving laws to get there first, the radio station was found to be liable for the accidents. But if the case involved tickets to a Barry Manilow concert under the same circumstances there probably wouldn’t be liability because drivers are expected to be following the law. A lot of US law is based on the standard of a reasonable person, and so when you are dealing with an unreasonable person it gets tricky. In general telling someone that a public figure is responsible for a problem in their life wouldn’t lead to that person trying to kill them. But if they know that they are dealing with an unreasonable person they might be held to a higher standard (like the radio station when it is dealing with teenagers).
@DDD
In England it’s accepted that a conspiracy can be made “with a nod and a wink” and you don’t have to know your fellow conspirators. There just has to be an ‘agreement’. Under JE that doesn’t necessarily even mean any planning; it could be spontaneous.
The GG antics are a sort of “Who will rid me of this turbulant priest?” thing.
Sort of chain of:
“X is evil and deserves something horrible”
“Shame if anything happened to her (snigger)”
“I’d like to kill her”
“Oh whatever you do don’t go round to her house at XXX when she’s alone on Thursday night (The back door is just on a latch) and do her any harm. No matter how much she deserves it and how justified you’d be.”
“Gosh, who’d have thought that would happen?”
Under English law you just need foresight that someone *might* commit an act (it’s that low hurdle that’s controversial) and some level of assistance *or encouragement*. That element can be as low level as just tagging along with them.
So I think the GG lot would easily pass the hurdle for criminal liability here if someone did commit a violent act, and probably fall foul of our various laws against incitement in any event
@DDD
In England it’s accepted that a conspiracy can be made “with a nod and a wink” and you don’t have to know your fellow conspirators. There just has to be an ‘agreement’. Under JE that doesn’t necessarily even mean any planning; it could be spontaneous.
The GG antics are a sort of “Who will rid me of this turbulant priest?” thing.
A chain of:
“X is evil and deserves something horrible”
“Shame if anything happened to her (suppressed laugh)”
“I’d like to kill her”
“Oh whatever you do don’t go round to her house at XXX when she’s alone on Thursday night (The back door is just on a latch) and do her any harm. No matter how much she deserves it and how justified you’d be.”
“Gosh, who’d have thought that would happen?”
Under English law you just need foresight that someone *might* commit an act (it’s that low hurdle that’s controversial) and some level of assistance *or encouragement*. That element can be as low level as just tagging along with them.
So I think the GG lot would easily pass the hurdle for criminal liability here if someone did commit a violent act, and probably fall foul of our various laws against incitement in any event
Welcome, Saide G.! I edited your comment a bit to remove the violent imagery. I hope that’s OK – I wanted to get you approved to post ASAP.
There’s no rule against violent imagery per se, but that example was especially disturbing. (I’m so sorry anyone ever said that to you!) I hope it doesn’t put you off continuing to contribute here!
Hi new person! Have you received scented candles and a hard chair yet? Clicky the welcom package in the sidebar if not! I think it even has matching bath towels!
Less silly — godDAMN am I sorry that you got threats graphic enough that emilygoddess scrubbed them! I’d like a word with these boys’ parents, cuz I can tell you what we’d get if we tried that shit, and soap tastes disgusting. (I really am turning into a proper adult aren’t I?)
Alan — yeah but this side of the pond we really hate bringing that sort of thing to court, even if the laws are there, cases are rarely prosecuted.
Other moral of story: Toxic masculinity + guns of any type = nogoodverybad, mmmmmmkay?
(Okay, I admit it…I LOL’d.)
Also, waving hi to DDD and Sadie G. Uruguay sounds mighty nice to me. A pity Pepe Mujica’s term runs out in March.
I win the street race. Therefore, feminism is over!
…yeah I don’t get it either.
@ Argneti
“yeah but this side of the pond we really hate bringing that sort of thing to court, even if the laws are there, cases are rarely prosecuted.”
Do you have the concept of a private prosecution over there? Over here anyone can bring a criminal case. It doesn’t even have to be the victim so long as there’a a public interest element to it.
I could quite understand if the women involved in this matter didn’t want to draw any more flak from the perpetrators (and please understand I’m not in anyway suggesting any element of ‘bringing this on themselves’; this is solely the responsibility of the attackers) but is there a mechanism for someone to make the evildoers answer for their actions?
I’ll be honest with you, I’m not even sure if I count as a pro-feminist (I support everything feminism stands for but don’t do anything to actually help I’ve realised) and as I initially found out about the Gamergate types I thought they were just a bit of a joke, but I’ve never seen such venom and pure hatred before (and I work in a field that’s not exactly sweetness and light).
I have a level of detachment to violence that you might find astounding (goes with the job) but this whole thing just triggers something in me. I’ve always had a bit of an old fashioned “men should protect women” mentality (sorry, 40+ years in the patriarchy) but this is just something else. It’s like watching a fox hunt or something, but with women.
Gosh, sorry for the disjointed ramblings, but my blood boils .when I think of this. I just cant believe something like this can be allowed to happen in a supposedly civilised society.
These people are going to kill someone soon. Can’t the authorities see that!
I don’t think we do actually. My law experience is helping a law school friend study and working in a civil law firm, so I’m not nearly as well versed in this as you are, but afaik you need either a complainant (how the fuck do you spell that?) or a police witness. Though solid evidence is enough for things like murder, obviously, so maybe it’s not police witness but police willing to file charges?
But if you’re thinking that any of these women’s friends, partners, parents, etc could press charges against the women’s will, the answer is probably no, they can’t (well, unless they’re legal guardians, but these are adults so that’s moot). Closest you could get, I think, would be other residents of their domiciles filing with themselves as the complaining party, terrified by threats which could effect them or stuff like that (f’ex, a husband worried about these asses burning down their shared house)
And I get what you mean about drawing flak from the asses, our system sucks, and these guys are violent assholes, no way would they not prove my statement there correct. Up to them if they want to press charges, but I wouldn’t blame them for not wanting to deal with the backlash.
Now, this guy did wreck his car, on a public road, so if the cops want to screw him, they can probably find a way. Civilly speaking anyone harmed by his idiocy can sue, but proving emotional distress is fucking hard so it’d have to be people who hit his wrecked car, shit like that. And, of course, he stole the car, so if his mother is sick of his shit, she has grounds to press charges.
Saide G: How awful. I admit I’m sometimes afraid to have any online presence at all, knowing how easy these guys are to set off and how impossible it is to shut them down.
It’s really frustrating that GamerGate is blowing over without any meaningful change.