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Game developer Zoe Quinn is the latest target of the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine

zoequin
Zoe Quinn

Sometimes it seems like the internet, or at least huge portions of it, is essentially a giant harassment machine, directed primarily at women.

This week, the target of the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine is game developer Zoe Quinn. Quinn, best known as the creator of the text-based Depression Quest, faced down two previous waves of harassment from gamer dudes who were angry about her game, for some gamer-dude reasons I can’t claim to understand, and who grew even angrier after Quinn spoke publicly about being harassed.

Her harassers claimed that she was lying about being harassed previously, and apparently figured there was no better way to prove that she hadn’t been harassed in the first place than by harassing her about her claims of harassment. I’m sorry if that’s confusing, but the “logic” of internet assholes tends to be a bit circular.

The latest wave of harassment is on a whole new level of viciousness. Because this time her haters have what they see as proof that she is indeed the evil [insert favorite anti-woman slur] that they’ve always claimed her to be. Their alleged smoking gun consists of a series of excruciatingly detailed blog posts by a vengeful ex-boyfriend describing how she allegedly cheated on him and lied about it; at roughly 10,000 words in all, not counting all the screenshots of online conversations presented as proof of his claims, his story is nearly the length of a novella.

You might ask: why is any of this any of our business? It’s fucking not. Some have tried to claim this is about “ethics,” accusing Quinn of trading sexual favors for a positive game review. But the journalist she allegedly slept with never actually wrote a review of her game.

Of course this has nothing to do with any real ethical concerns on the part of her attackers. As Quinn has pointed out herself, the people who are gleefully sharing her personal information, posting nude pictures of her, sending her threats, and otherwise trying to destroy her life don’t have any fucking ethics.

No, this is just another excuse to go after an outspoken woman on the internet, and a chance for misogynistic gamer dudes to score a symbolic victory against any and all women who are trying to enter what these guys want to see as a clubhouse where girls aren’t allowed. Anita Sarkeesian has been dealing with the same sort of shit ever since she first set out to examine sexism in the gaming world.

I honestly don’t have the psychic energy to collect together examples of the horrible shit people are saying about her; just type her name into Google along with your favorite anti-woman slur and you’ll have more proof than you need. Or go to Reddit and make your way to any of the numerous subreddits devoted to gaming and/or misogyny, where many people will be thrilled to tell you all about how “the video game industry is being fucked over because of these women.” (Actual quote.)

Quinn has said all I think she needs to say about this in an eloquent blog post of her own. Here’s a portion of it:

I am not going to link to, or address anything having to do with the validity of the specific claims made by an angry ex-boyfriend with an axe to grind and a desire to use 4chan as his own personal army. This is not a “she-said” to his “he-said”. The idea that I am required to debunk a manifesto of my sexual past written by an openly malicious ex-boyfriend in order to continue participating in this industry is horrifying, and I won’t do it. It’s a personal matter that never should have been made public, and I don’t want to delve into personal shit, mine or anyone else’s, while saying that people’s love and sex lives are no one’s business. I’m not going to talk about it. I will never talk about it. It is not your goddamned business.

What I *am* going to say is that the proliferation of nude pictures of me, death threats, vandalization, doxxing of my trans friends for having the audacity to converse with me publicly, harassment of friends and family and my friends’ family in addition to TOTALLY UNRELATED PEOPLE, sending my home address around, rape threats, memes about me being a whore, pressures to kill myself, slurs of every variety, fucking debates over what my genitals smell like, vultures trying to make money off of youtube videos about it, all of these things are inexcusable and will continue to happen to women until this culture changes. I’m certainly not the first. I wish I could be the last.

Because I’ve had a small degree of success in a specific subculture, every aspect of my life is suddenly a matter of public concern. Suddenly it’s acceptable to share pictures of my breasts on social media to threaten and punish me. Suddenly I don’t have any right to privacy or basic dignity. Suddenly I don’t get to live out normal parts of life, like going through a bad and ugly breakup in private. I have forfeited this by being a blip in a small community, while those who delight in assailing me hide behind their keyboards and a culture that permits it, beyond reproach.

My life and my body are not public property. No one’s life and body are public property.

Sexuality is one of the most personal, hurtful, and easy things to demonize a woman over, and also has nothing to do with my games. Yet large swaths of the gaming community are either unable or unwilling to separate the two. I’m convinced that my ex chose 4chan as the staging ground for his campaign of harassment and character assassination because he knew this; he knew that someone claiming to be “from the Internet” has shown up at my house once already, and he is counting on the most reviled hubs of our community to live up to their sordid reputations. This is another example of gendered violence, whereby my personal life becomes a means to punish my professional credentials and to try to shame me into giving up my work. I’m still committed to doing my small part to create a world where no woman is at risk of experiencing this.

I don’t have anything to add.

This is a NO TROLLS, NO MRAS thread. Anyone posting any doxxing shit in the comments below, or adding to the harassment against her in any way, will be banned.

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Pocket Nerd
10 years ago
Reply to  Mia Jessica

Thus Spake ZaraMia Jessica:

Much like a couple of other posters, I too would be very interested in a Mammotheer WoW guild, or a gaming group in general actually. I’ve been reading the blog and lurking here for a while now and most of you seem pretty neat.

For anybody who missed it… 🙂

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/WHTM

Solomon Alupon
Solomon Alupon
10 years ago

Link.

lot of horrible shit going on in this particular comment thread, would be nice to have more people there to drown out the manosphere bullshit.

Solomon Alupon
Solomon Alupon
10 years ago

Herp, I thought that would link to the comment, not embed video. Anyone know how to fix that?

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

@Solomon: YouTube comments don’t work that way, they’re a cesspit. Don’t read them.

cassandrakitty
cassandrakitty
10 years ago

Yeah, that’s kind of like suggesting that someone attempt to hold back the tide with a pair of boxing gloves and a chirpy attitude.

Solomon Alupon
Solomon Alupon
10 years ago

yeah, I quickly came to that impression and left it. I still think it’s worth it to leave the ocassional dissenting opinion, in the hopes that people won’t think that /everyone/ is that way.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

I report them for harassment/hate speech/bullying/whatever relevant category they fit into.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

Oh, and then I block their G+ account so I never have to see another word from them.

You are compulsive liars.
You are compulsive liars.
10 years ago

What’s this? Yet another smear piece.

“Sometimes it seems like the internet, or at least huge portions of it, is essentially a giant harassment machine, directed primarily at women.”

That’s because sites like this aggressively pursue that narrative.
Even a proven terrible person doing terrible things can only be a victim, if they happen to be female. No crime or misdeed is great enough to warrant calling out a female on bad behavior.
How utterly misogynistic of me to even suggest that females are even capable of hurting others! Perish the thought!

“If misogynist, homophobic, racist, and transphobic language goes unpunished, it doesn’t take long before it’s seen as normative and acceptable.”

You mean like how misandry is completely accepable and always encouraged?
A guy getting harassed doesn’t warrant a reaction because nobody cares about guys.
They just gotta suck it up and “be a man”.

But if a guy does anything that happens to be newsworthy, well screw his private life – let’s all stick it to him so hard that his career and life are destroyed!
He deserves it! Cuz he’s a man!

Remember the kid that drowned because men were too afraid to help her for fear of being lynched as a pedophile? Or the fathers and grandfathers who were arrested for being seen with their kids or grandkids?

Welcome to the West, AKA Male-Persecution-Lands.
Being born male in the West automatically makes you a convicted serial sex criminal.
Congratulations!

marinerachel
marinerachel
10 years ago

It’s amazing how these bros’ complaints are completely disjointed from anything anyone actually thinks or says..

Unimaginative
Unimaginative
10 years ago

Even a proven terrible person doing terrible things can only be a victim, if they happen to be female. No crime or misdeed is great enough to warrant calling out a female on bad behavior.
How utterly misogynistic of me to even suggest that females are even capable of hurting others! Perish the thought!

What does this have to do with the harassment directed at Quinn? Or is this just a non-sequitor launch into your pet rant?

You mean like how misandry is completely accepable and always encouraged?
A guy getting harassed doesn’t warrant a reaction because nobody cares about guys.
They just gotta suck it up and “be a man”.

Yeah, no. That’s actually patriarchy-enforced gender roles that feminism is fighting against.

Remember the kid that drowned because men were too afraid to help her for fear of being lynched as a pedophile? Or the fathers and grandfathers who were arrested for being seen with their kids or grandkids?

Nope, don’t remember that. Do you have a citation?

Being born male in the West automatically makes you a convicted serial sex criminal.

No, it really doesn’t. Words mean things. Like, “convicted” means you been charged, tried, found guilty. There’s a whole, fairly time-consuming and expensive process involved.

vaiyt
10 years ago

Even a proven terrible person doing terrible things can only be a victim, if they happen to be female.

Terrible things, like having sex with someone.

katz
10 years ago

What’s this? Yet another smear piece.

“Sometimes it seems like the internet, or at least huge portions of it, is essentially a giant harassment machine, directed primarily at women.”

That’s because sites like this aggressively pursue that narrative.

WOW IT MUST BE TERRIBLE HAVING PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET AGGRESSIVELY SPREADING LIES ABOUT YOU

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

Pedophiles aren’t literal lynched in “west AKA male persecution lands.” If you were using the word in a figurative way as I suspect you were, fuck you. Appropriating the one of the worst manifestations of racism the US has ever seen to complain about having to treat women in the gaming industry as humans makes you pretty much the worst.

Anarchonist
Anarchonist
10 years ago

I thought about replying to You are compulsive liars., but then I noticed that they refer to women as “females” and to men as “guys”, and immediately lost all interest.

PocketNerd
PocketNerd
10 years ago
Reply to  Anarchonist

Thus Spake ZaraAnarchonist:

I thought about replying to You are compulsive liars., but then I noticed that they refer to women as “females” and to men as “guys”, and immediately lost all interest.

Snrk. MRAs kinda remind me of Ferengi when they use the “Ffeeemale”.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Wow. “You are compulsive liars” post reads like someone took all the MRA talking points, put them in a blender and poured the resulting concoction out over this thread.

maistrechat
10 years ago
Reply to  sparky

@PocketNerd

I’ve mentioned this on another thread, but there’s a browser plugin on Zoe Quinn’s website that automatically adds Ferengi heads around the word “females”. It makes reading screeds like that way more entertaining.

Link here:
http://www.beesgo.biz/chrome.html

There’s also a plugin that changes the word “gamers” to “you little shits”

Ironyca
10 years ago

Reblogged this on Ironyca Stood in the Fire.

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