By David Futrelle
Last week, game designer and Gamergate nemesis Zoe Quinn publicly accused indie game developer Alec Holowka of being abusive during, and vindictive after, a brief relationship the two had some years ago. Several others stepped forward with similar accusations.
Now the story has gotten sadder and uglier: Holowka has reportedly died by suicide. And those we might call the Eternal Gamergaters have taken to the internet en masse to accuse Quinn (and in a few cases, Holowka’s own sister) of causing his death.
On Saturday, Holowka’s sister Eileen posted a note to Twitter announcing the shocking and unexpected death of her brother. Her statement was in many ways a remarkable one. While describing Alex as “my brother and best friend” and declaring that “deep down he was a person who wanted only to offer people care and kindness,” she also acknowledged frankly that he had led a troubled life and that she would “not pretend that he was not also responsible for causing harm,” a statement that seems to offer a corroboration of sorts for the accusations against him.
Anticipating the inevitable scapegoating of Quinn, Eileen went on to say that her brother had told her he “wished the best for Zoë and everyone else, so don’t use our grief as an excuse to harass people.”
“Nah we harassing her,” replied one Twitterer.
And indeed, few if any of Quinn’s enemies heeded Eileen’s advice. Almost immediately, social media sites were echoing with angry denunciations of the alleged “murderer” of Alec Holowka.
On Twitter, they were blunt and nasty with their allegations, trying to get hashtags like #ZoeQuinnBodycount and #ZoeQuinnIsAMurderer trending. Many took their hate directly to Quinn, who quickly deserted Twitter entirely. A sampling:
Others directed their anger at Eileen Holowka … for acknowledging the harm her brother had done to others and asking his fans not to harass Quinn. (Eileen has since locked her Twitter account.)
And of course some Eternal Gamergate grifters — and Gamergate-friendly journalists — jumped into the fray.
Note: I have obscured the picture that accompanied the Heavy article because it was a picture of the wrong guy. I should also note that, contrary to Ethan Ralph’s claim, Quinn did not accuse Holowka of rape.
There were a few on the other side of the political divide who said they were glad the alleged abuser was dead, but honestly I found more people complaining about the alleged vast numbers of those “celebrating” his death than I found, after much looking, actually celebrating his death.
While Quinn and to a lesser degree Eileen Holowka are, at least in the minds of the Eternal Gamergaters, the villains of this piece, I should note again that there were several other accusers. Not only that, but Alec Holowka’s former partners in the making of the celebrated game Night in the Woods also came out to say that they found the accusations believable. In a note to backers, Infinite Fall’s Scott Benson wrote that
enough of the allegations are extremely plausible and just about all of it we’ve corroborated with other sources. …
When people who have years-long real life experience with the guy, people who knew him in different situations, locations, ages, and contexts, all say the same thing, you can assume there’s more to this than you’d know from outside the situation, taking it in 280 characters at a time.
Suicide never has a single cause. It’s certainly plausible that the allegations from Quinn — and the allegations from others that folllowed or that Holowka suspected would be coming shortly — may have triggered his actions, but they didn’t cause them. We don’t know why he did what he did. We only know when he did it.
Suicide is a rash and almost always an impulsive act it is, as many have observed, a permanent “solution” to a temporary problem. If you ever find yourself contemplating suicide, please — please! — reach out for help. Call or text a hotline, contact a friend (offline or on), talk to a therapist. There are people out there who care and want to help.
I urge anyone who has been through a period of crisis themselves to post comments below listing some of the resources (online or off) that you have found most helpful.
I also urge everyone to think twice about any angry comments they might want to post, whether that anger is aimed at Quinn or either Alec or Eileen Holowka. I will be quick to delete any comments that go over the line. (And if you see some comment from someone else that goes over the line, please contact me.)
If genders were reversed they would be singing a different time. It’s very terrible what they are going through. Hugs for them. Is there a gofundme or anything we can do for them?
It also kind of shows their inability to understand criticism, in that they attacked Alec’s sister for daring to say that, sad as she was about her brother’s death, he was a troubled person and the accusations sounded like the sort of things he might do. They don’t get the idea that you can love someone or something and yet still be critical at the same time. So if you criticize a video game or gamers, you must HATE them and want them DESTROYED. And if you say that as much as you love your brother he probably did what he was accused of that’s a terrible betrayal you have to be harassed for.
Mels, I understood Ucalegont to be responding to David’s request for advice to anyone who may be contemplating suicide, not saying that this particular abuser should have a chance to explain himself. Although, if he did, apparently, he’s ALREADY said not to pile onto Zoe, and he’d probably defend his sister, as well. So, there’s that.
What stopped me from doing it was the thought that my little, beloved nephew might think I didn’t love him enough to stay with him. Turns out, I did.
Things are way better now.
@Frippertronics
The fuck is your problem with people who collect stamps, play video games (decadently??), or use Twitter to communicate??
Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit. People are allowed to have hobbies. People are allowed to use social media. Don’t conflate these evil, mean-spirited, absolute turnips with people who enjoy things you seem to find unappealing.
@Kupo
Agreed! Nothing wrong with playing video games or collecting stamps. A few of us here are gamers our selves Frippertronics so don’t go lumping us in with the gators.
Regarding the whole notion of hobbies and/or communicating through the internet:
People are different. We exist in a society that has many means of communication, which does not render some means more invalid than others. Also society is not split in between “winners” and “losers”, if anything, it is that very social construct that set up the stage for the aggrieved entitlement many people on the Right feel:
The notion that not being able to keep with the unreasonable expectations set upon us, as individuals, by society delegitimizes our very existence.
Sorry but life doesn’t work that way. There’s nothing shameful about having hobbies, or wanting to stay home. Plenty of these bullies might hide behind a screen, whilst they blast their hate through an anonymous account, but that should not equate social anxiety or passive lifestyles with bigotry.
Plenty of fucking bigots exercise regularly and have a social life. Just like plenty of people fighting these bigots overcome their own anxieties and preferences, to step out and step up to these bigots.
Hi all,
Long time on and off again lurker, first time commenter.
This is a horrible situation all around, and I hope Zoë and Eileen are safe and well looked after.
On a linguistic note – David, would it be possible to use ‘died by suicide’, rather than ‘committed’? It’s less stigmatising and is encouraged by charities such as the Samaritans:
Thank you!
@Phaos
That’s what jumped out for me as well. They are outraged that her “loyalty” to her brother is in any way tempered by rational thought or trying to look at the broader picture. I think that is very revealing. It’s the same dangerous unquestioning loyalty you find in “my country, right or wrong”. Everything is us vs them, ingroup vs outgroup – and group loyalty is more important than any moral or ethical concern.
It’s not a million miles away from the mentality that leads to “honour” murders.
@Frippertronics
That was just uncalled for. To attack all gamers is to damage your own cause. When you declare that gamers (or stamp collectors, or any other hobbyists) are all losers, you reinforce the idea of gamers as oppressed underclass, and that idea feeds GamerGate. It also alienates allies in the gaming community, who otherwise would join forces with you.
@Phaos, unit_000
The mindset of being unable to criticize things you like is also the mindset that started this whole thing in the first place. The whole point of Feminist Frequency was to critique popular culture, including things Anita and co liked. She still sells merch that says “Be critical of the media you love.” If GamerGaters were able to criticize things they liked, or at least accept others doing that, GamerGate wouldn’t have happened.
“Alec Holowka’s former partners in the making of the celebrated game Night in the Woods also came out to say that they found the accusations believable.”
I hope Alec Holowka’s former partners don’t turn into targets. You’ll notice that the one thing Gaters und ihre Brüder never say in the the context of incidents like this one is: “You’re wrong; a terrible injustice has been done; because every last word that’s been said about Alec is false, and we can prove it.”
@unit_000:
And, as numerous people have pointed out, Trump is exactly in that mold as well. Loyalty to him is the primary criteria he judges people by; usefulness to him the secondary. Actual competence isn’t even on the radar. How many of the people has he put in positions of power that were the greatest people in the world, until they said a word against him (easy enough to do when he changes what he said on a whim) and then they became horrible people?
Loyalty above competence isn’t just an accommodation with reactionaries; it’s an essential criterion. Competent people could pose a threat. It’s why the Nazi regime was incompetent as much by design as accident. Hitler deliberately made his subordinates’ jobs impossible to avoid a power base forming that could challenge him.
@Alan Robertshaw
Indeed, at least to a degree. Even in the cases where their was persons, individuals, or sections of the Nazi party that were competent were often hamstrung and their ability to do anything competently at best was in arbitrarily limited half-measures or outright hamstrung and undermined, like in the case of the treatment of Erwin Rommel and how he was deliberately and arbitrarily hamstrung from performing effective stratagem and tactics.
Literally the only thing that was, sadly, even remotely competent and run like clockwork for the Nazi party in WW2 was the fact they were able to effectively juggle the schedules of the trains used to transport Jews, Romani, Slavs, and all the other victims of the holocaust to the forced work concentration camps and the death camps with industrialized efficacy… and that’s only because the oppressive and inhuman enslavement to outright genocide of all these and other victims of the holocaust were the desired, vaunted and worked to vision and end goal of the Nazi’s.
In everything else though, they claim to be visionaries of a Riech that would last a thousand years but can’t even look 5 minutes ahead to keep a society, economy or nation effectively and efficiently running with any measure of stability. Because Nazi ideology doesn’t seek equilibrium as an ideology; it increases the base of those oppressed, narrows the centers of power, casts out allies, makes enemies and generally seeks unfettered persecution of others and conquest for arbitrary, nonsense notions, ideals and alleged morals.
Needless to say: such a hierarchy and ideology is not a recipe for success…
@Empress Penguin
Welcome to the commentariat! I see why that language is stigmatizing, and I will make sure not to use it again. Thank you for informing me.
@TacticalProgressive
Feels familiar, seeing how the Republican Party has been moving under Trump. My hope is that the alt-right collapses within the next few years due to its own incompetence, but I fear that this may happen too late.
@Frippertronics: I collect stamps AND I’m a gamer, but I’m certainly no gater. Just because people have hobbies you’re not interested in it doesn’t mean they’re bad.
Lol. Not All Stamp Collectors. JFC ?
Copulate? I have a feeling that Frippertronic is a gotcha troll trying to trick us into saying that we hate games and gamers.
On topic, this is a horrible situation, particularly for Zoë and Holowka’s family. GGers are abusers, plain and simple. They are using this man’s death as a bludgeon against the people already most affected by it. This is beyond disgusting behavior.
I don’t really have anything else to say, this is so disturbing.
@Yutolia
Watch out for stampgate! After the angry men of the internet get tired of this thing, they’ll find stamps with women on them and launch an entryist campaign into stamps.
@WWTH
It isn’t working out very well for him, then. Clearly he misunderstood the number of people here who are gamers.
The elevation of loyalty above other values is something of a tell for the authoritarian personality, I think. I suspect it’s because the authoritarian’s beliefs tend to be poorly integrated (an example of which from fascism is that the enemy is seen as simultaneously weak and a serious threat). If your political position is built less on a set of consistent ethical principles, and more on a motley collection of emotionally resonant soundbites you’ve picked up from various authority figures, disloyalty from a member of your group can pose a serious threat. They may express doubts in your platform, and expose how shoddily it is built. Disagreement within the group can bring the whole thing crashing down.
@Naglfar: Sadly, I can see stampgate happening easily. People have already been complaining about the fact that they might have to use a stamp with a person of color or a woman on it.
It always amazes me that these people still think no women like video games. I don’t know why it amazes me because it shouldn’t but it does. I mean, how far does your head have to be buried in the sand to not have noticed this?
@Yutolia:
They might even need to lick the stamp! Cooties!
Ah, but the games women like are not real games, you know?
I’m not sure about stamp collecting. I heard ‘philately will get you nowhere’.
(I’ll get my coat)
I wouldn’t care at all about this if I hated games and gamers. Instead I’ve spent the weekend fighting off tears as I read one horrible comment after another aimed at my favorite gamers and game makers so I can report and block.
@Yutolia
I think they know that women like video games. The issue is that they don’t want women to like games, so they try to force them out through intimidation campaigns.
@kupo
Remember to take time to care for yourself in your quest.
Nobody should ever go through this but fortunately for Quinn, they literally wrote the book on this type of harassment and have battened down the hatches.