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Anita Sarkeesian’s assorted haters frequently demand “proof” that she’s really been harassed. Sarkeesian regularly provides proof, in sickening detail; her haters resolutely ignore the evidence.
In a blog post yesterday that everyone concerned about online harassment should read, Sarkeesian documented yet another example of what she’s had to endure ever since she started expressing her opinions about video games on YouTube, looking in detail at the wave of harassment and threats she received this past July after 4chan trolls and other haters spread around “screenshots” of phony Tweets deliberately designed to whip up hatred against her.
The phony Tweets — so obviously fake that one of them contained more characters than Twitter even allows — made it appear that Sarkeesian had responded to the death of Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata by declaring him a “male supremacist” and saying she was “glad he’s gone” from the game company.
Sarkeesian’s haters are hardly the only ones who’ve used fake Tweets and fake quotes in order to unleash hatred upon their enemies online. As I’ve documented here, A Voice for Men’s social media director “Janet Bloomfield” used fake quotes attributed to feminist writers Jessica Valenti in an attempt to smear her; on at least one occasion she’s posted fake Sarkeesian Tweets as well. (“Bloomfield” was banned from Twitter for this sort of targeted abuse; she’s now attempting to get around the ban by posting under her real name Andrea Hardie.)
In the case of the fake Iwata Tweets, Sarkeesian made clear that she hadn’t posted them — saying it was “disheartening” that people were using the “sad event” of Iwata’s death to whip up phony outrage against her.
But it didn’t matter. Because, as Sarkeesian points out, many of those attacking her knew all along that the Tweets were fake.
They just didn’t care, because their goal was simply to discredit me and to generate so much animosity against me that I would stop speaking critically about video games.
A Twitter user who tracks GamerGate found the origin of the attack on 4chan and shared proof that the harassers knew they were spreading misinformation. They were the ones doing exactly what many of the harassers they spurred on accused me of doing: callously using a man’s tragic death as an opportunity.
They seized it and turned it into a weapon to use against me.
Some harassers knew, others were tricked, but the end result was a cybermob of hate that lasted most of the week.
Sarkeesian ended her post with several dozen examples of the harassing and threatening Tweets that were sent to her that week. Here are a handful of the more striking ones.
I left out a number referring to Sarkeesian with the c-word because, as I write this, it’s 9 AM, and way too early for that sort of crap. Unfortunately, Sarkeesian has to face this kind of harassment every single day.
Yeah, it’s funny how ethics are always thrown in the garbage dump every single time these guys do something. Sigh.
It’s never ceased to amaze me that people who bang on endlessly about “ethics” don’t think that this should apply to themselves. If I saw a controversial comment along those lines, my reaction wouldn’t be “KILL THE AUTHOR!”, it would be “Did the author actually write this, since it seems wildly out of character?” And most of the time, my suspicions turn out to be correct.
It’s interesting (by which I mean horrific) that the gaters continued to share this stuff when it was not just factually, but also quite obviously, fake.
Since when did Twitter allow for more than 140 characters per tweet?
Either someone is claiming Sarkeesian had extra feminist-only character allowances, or they can’t count, or they actually don’t care whether something is true or not so long as it can be used to hurt.
I’m not going to speculate as to how those three approaches would be represented among those who shared this.
It’s pretty scary that someone would do this and that a whole lot of others would encourage it.
But faking things on the internet to score points or discredit opponents is not confined to the GamerGators (I think this is the spelling I’m going to go with).
Here for your delectation is an elected representative with a teeny majority… who seems determined to alienate her constituents.
The difference is she’s being called out over it, is widely derided and may be in trouble for wasting police time.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mp-defends-faking-death-threat-over-syria-air-strikes-vote-a6764766.html
Disgusting. I find whenever I ask people what Anita’s ever done or I defend her, it’s always met with, “you just defended Anita, you have nothing credible to say, argument over.”
I literally cannot find a single situation where Anita has said something bad or untrue, without it turning out to be a fake tweet. I can’t believe so many people fall for this shit and go out of their way to make someone else’s life so miserable. It’s just sickening how some people can be so full of hate and disregard for people they’ve never even met at all. All this because she points out that women really aren’t represented the way they should be.
The internet can be a cesspool.
It’s revolting, but ingenious how the right constantly drums up hatred to portray people with moderate left wing beliefs as radical extremists. It harms certain popular, temperate voices, obviously, but it also closes off the possibility of a more radical critique.
I’ve never read or heard anything remotely radical from Sarkeesian or Valenti, but GG have successfully solidified them as the cutting edge of feminist thought. Frankly, I usually find Valenti kind of uninteresting as a writer, and most of what Sarkeesian says has been explored with more depth and nuance in TV Tropes or in the writings of other feminists — although in framing a debate about video games in particular and in mainstreaming pop culture critique, she’s definitely been a huge positive force (sort of similar to the role Michael Moore played about class oppression, IMO.) But their opponents are so odious, that we’re all forced to unify behind them. It’s pretty similar to what happened with our “Kenyan socialist” president, who is actually a center-right authoritarian.
I read this on the FemFreq FB page last night, and I felt like it gave me a headache. Also, there were at least two chuckleheads who still spouted off the ‘Anita is a liar/Anita is a con artist/Hitman!!!11’ crap again.
On a side-tangent, Dr. Nerdlove posted up an article about Jessica Jones that referenced an article by Arthur Chu. It was posted to KiA, and in came the trolls. Blargh. http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2015/12/what-can-we-learn-from-jessica-jones/
Fooling gaters and anti-feminists is like shooting fish in a barrel. I genuinely don’t know how people that dumb can figure out how to access the internet in the first place.
All this reminds me very much of the type of high school bullying I’d be subject to. The chief bully would fabricate something about me, tell her minions, and the three of them would then try to tell everyone in the class and all my friends in order to smear me and incite others to harass me too. Fortunately I had enough cred with the other kids that they didn’t believe the bully, but since I had a weird complicated relationship with my friends where they were also friends with the bullies AND me and tended to swap between sides, sometimes I’d engage in exactly what Anita is doing with the same results. I’d deny the lie, with proof, but they’d always rebut it with…the lie. They just wanted to believe what they wanted to believe and that was it. The only difference is that they didn’t keep believing the lie for eighteen fucking months (what is wrong with you GG?!) and had dropped it by the next week, or the next day if I was lucky.
tl;dr: Gamergoobers are identical to the high school bullies they whine about when they talk about geek culture.
@Latte Cat:
Not sure this actually answers what you were talking about, but the harassment Ms. Sarkeesian has dealt with is interesting to observe. I find it interesting how little her trolls seem to understand the Streisand Effect…or how tenacious people can be. From the get-go, it has seemed like they have wanted to chase her off the internet, get her to stop her videos and go away (which would also fulfill the ‘Anita is a con artist! She took peoples’ money and ran!’ claim rather well, wouldn’t it?). But they failed, they made her more visible, and she has refused to go away despite whatever they’ve thrown at her. So that really sticks in their craw.
I also find it interesting how they try and make her validate them. When I read (mostly skim, because who wants to read bile?) tweets like the responding ones up there, I see sad little people who are trying to get validation for their bile. The fact that she only acknowledges them in an aggregate, she doesn’t show fear or any signs of backing down, and what she shows only paints them as bigger buffoons just angers them that much more. The problem is they don’t have any more evolved ways of trying to get attention besides throwing the equivalent of a tantrum. So they keep doing the same things they’ve always done, with the remote hope that one of those times they’ll get whatever validation they seek from her.
@magnesium
Gaters are stupid because they choose to be. Regular ignorance is corrected with information and facts, but willful ignorance can only be reinforced by a pattern of daring to be as dense as possible.
@Wetherby:
No act is too extreme in the defense of effics.
And I think it’s been conclusively proven many times now that they don’t actually give a shit about effics, it’s just a fig leaf for getting their hate on.
My “favorite” thing here is the extra fake tweet that I only saw in the selection of tweets at the end (including on this post)… the one that starts with “LOOOOOL” and ends with “FUCKWAD!” Seriously? I hope the person who “quoted” that fake tweet was the one who created it, because if ANYONE actually believed that one was real, I just… don’t know anymore.
One of the worst things, in my opinion, from her post on it, were the posts from 4chan of people saying stuff to the effect of “Well, this is what she’d say ANYWAY, so it’s not like we’re really doing anything wrong.”
Anyone who was actually fooled by these fake tweets has obviously never read or listened to anything Sarkeesian has actually said. Those fake tweets sound nothing whatsoever like her writing style.
So much of gamergate has never actually watched her videos. They just don’t like feminism and heard from other anti-feminists that she wants to censor video games. Every time I’ve ever asked a gater to back up the claim that she thinks games should be censored or thinks gamers are all terrible people with an actual quote, it’s crickets.
I legit read some schmuckburger, who noticed that some of the fake tweets had too many characters, get angry and say it was evidence of the matriarchy, and of how much society bends over backwards for feminists, because look! She got extra characters just for being a feminist!
I fucking kid you not. There’s a level of being so deep in a conspiracy theory that all evidence against it is just more evidence for it.
@sunnysombrera
Quoted for depressingly true statement on how bullies (and I’m guessing abusers) work.
I offer you all of the hugs if you’d like, as I’ve had to go through very much the same, and my reaction was very much the same as yours, flabbergasted to hear of the blatant lies people told about me.
I’ve noticed, after going through college at an engineering school, that various nerds (just like GGers) tend to believe that, because they themselves have had trouble socializing or because they themselves have been bullied, they can’t possibly be a bully. In their mind, they have been a victim of bullying, so they can’t possibly be one. Furthermore, as far as bullies go, the ones who have poor social skills and have been victims of bullying are often among the most vile. At least when the so-called ‘popular kids’ are bullying or ostracizing other, they have a certain level of tact. But take someone with a clusterfuck of insecurities over having been bullied in the past, poor social skills and anti-social behavior (i.e. All of 4chan) and an elitist belief that “Well I’ve been bullied so clearly I could never be one” and you’ve got a recipe for some of the most vicious and hurtful behavior.
I’ve seen this exact same pattern of thought among gamergaters. They actually see themselves as the victims. The harassment and bullying they partake in is, in their mind, ‘standing up to the bully’. It’s so gross and backwards.
@Cerulean (Miss A)
What in the world is their problem with Dr. Nerdlove? Like seriously, “Oh, we gotta stop this guy from running a blog that gives dating advice geared at nerdy guys, this is a serious break of video game journalism ethics”
I just can’t even fathom.
@Moocow:
From past articles, I do know that Dr. Nerdlove is anti-GG. Examples: http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/08/the-extinction-burst-of-gaming-culture/
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/10/when-we-talk-about-gamergate/
I also know with that Jessica Jones piece someone linked to it on the KiA subreddit. Likely due to the linking of Arthur Chu’s article, it just brought out the hateful hordes. Poor DNL, he had to play so much Whack-A-Troll on that article.
Gamergate dorks are straight-up emotional abusers. They fixate on some perceived slight (usually imaginary, or a gross exaggeration of the truth), get REALLY DISPROPORTIONATELY MAD AND VINDICTIVE ABOUT IT, then feign ignorance of their bad behavior and gaslight the shit out of/blame their victim.
Good on Sarkeesian and others for standing up to them.
Right?
I, for one, would probably have no idea who she is if not for GG’s harassment of her (*cue those who do somewhat understand the Streisand Effect leaping in to say that she’s making up most of the harassment against her for the sake of publicity*).
She’d be just another person doing just another media critique*, one with a pretty solid thesis but that does (in my opinion) get some things wrong.
There’d be discussion regarding her points.
There’d be supporting arguments and dissenting arguments.
There might even be somewhat bitter rivalries and factions – as is wont to happen in literally any academic (or academic-ish) field of criticism.
As much as GGs and their ilk like to caterwaul about their foes claiming “special snowflake status”, you’d think that they wouldn’t insist on treating gaming like a special little snowflake among media. Rather than treating it as unable to handle the harsh light of actual critical review and analysis, you’d think they’d (a) realize that this means that games and gaming are actually being taken seiously by the world at large and (b) muster the strength to produce non-invective-filled, non-personally-threatening rebuttals, especially given that they claim that truth and logic are on their side.
But instead we have this shit show.
@magnesium; chaltab:
When I’m at work, the thought sometimes comes up: my job involves being responsible for many people’s well-being, and doing any less of a good job for someone I don’t like is unthinkable. Could a Gater handle this? Can they handle responsabilities in general? How does one live like that, letting hate and “lulz” take precedence on common sense and decency? How do they even function???
Gamers, of all people, ought to understand this:
if you have to cheat to “win”, you’re no good.
FYI some of the screenshots of tweets were impossible to read
This just sort of blows me away. How do you even fight it? The truth means nothing to these people, and you can’t give them what they want. You can report the harassment, but some of those are actually relatively benign as far as harassment goes, so it probably won’t do anything. It’s just that when you’re getting thousands of comments like that it becomes overwhelming. It terrifies me that I can’t see an end to it. But then, I’ve been fighting the guy who doxxed me for more than a year now and it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to get better so many I’m just not in a position to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
@ Wetherby- One common trait I’ve noticed amongst these guys is an inability to distinguish between credible information and obvious satire or fakeouts, if not a conscious decision to do so.
Oh God, Google Deep Dream Donald Trump is in the sidebar, staring into my very soul with all of his unblinking eyes.
Being unable to understand what feminists’ (even individuals and not feminists in the aggregate) actual positions are is the most striking feature of anti-feminists. It’s not surprising that they’d fall for fake tweets that are 180º from the sorts of things someone would actually say.
Seriously, it’s fucking weird. There’s a two step process to arguing with someone:
1: Here’s what my opponent said.
2: Here’s why what they said was wrong.
I’ve never encountered an anti-feminist/MRA/GGer/TRP/whatever that could even get step 1 down, let alone step 2.