Too Wrong For 4Chan

It was September 3rd, back when I was far from the first person to write about the whole-cloth nonsense that was GamerGate.

In the time since then nothing has improved. As anybody who spends time online can tell you, it’s only gotten far far worse. Games journalist Jenn Frank was harassed out of her profession. GamerGate became so unsightly that the goons at 4chan who started this whole debacle (well, with creep in chief Adam Baldwin’s help) were actually kicked off 4chan.

That’s right, #GamerGate’s horde has proven too controversial for 4chan. Too controversial for the domain that co-produced The Fappening. So, they flocked to the website 8chan, a deeper ring of the dark internet hell.

Where they have spent their time organizing attacks on media critic Anita Sarkeesian and video game developer/podcaster Brianna Wu. Unfortunately for GamerGate, Sarkeesian and Wu are taking a stand, and unwilling to back down.

A Rewind for Context

I’ve been told to be more open minded in the past, to give #GamerGate a fair chance. So, I’ll take a brief moment to explain what’s pushed me away from that direction. To try and explain the roots of #GamerGate, an intentionally byzantine maze of conspiracy theories, there’s a suggestion it’s all about the “Integrity in Video Games Journalism.” The kindest reading one can have of their side brands them as the video game world’s Tea Party.

It’s possible that some of the people who used that hashtag were arguing for a stronger code of ethics in games journalism. Issues with the ethics of video game journalism world are nothing new, though. From the time I was a kid, I would always hear complaints about this world. This time, a pyre was being built around a theory that indie game developer Zoe Quinn traded sexual favors for 5 star reviews.

One problem, though, those reviews? The reviews her ex, the man who fired the first shot in GamerGate, Eron Gjoni, claimed Zoe earned by cheating on him? Those reviews do not exist. They are a fabrication of the minds of crazy people, like Gjoni, who has said he would do it all again if given the chance. Because this campaign is truly just all about his need to control, defame, and slut-shame his ex.

There are a bunch of male video game who look at the indie game world with disgust. They see real video games as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, anything that breaks from that as being fluff, and the degradation of their culture. To them, the under-selling critical darling Gone Home, where you explore an eerily empty house, and unpack personal baggage is a travesty equivalent to a lump of coal. This is why we have the term “Casual gamers” to mock those who play Angry Birds. This group of people afraid of losing something that isn’t theirs to own.

Sure, the angry young man may have formerly been the dominant game buyer, but that statistic has changed. Critic Leigh Alexander got mountains of harrassment for merely explaining that truth in her piece for Gamasutra, “’Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over.” Pieces like that pushed the GamerGate world to threaten Intel out of advertising on Gamasutra.

The crime that has been committed isn’t one of journalistic malfeasance, it’s one of critical thinking. Sarkeesian is found guilty of analyzing games on a level that makes GamerGate uncomfortable.

Those are the origins of GamerGate that give me no reason to try and argue with each and every person on twitter who claims this isn’t about misogyny.

Then The Threats Got Worse

As GamerGate continued, their horde sent Anita Sarkeesian rape threats and weaponized pornography (these were slides from Sarkeesian’s recent XOXO fest talk).

This past weekend, Sarkeesian had to cancel an upcoming Utah State University, thanks to one of the most heinous threats yet. Someone claiming to be a USU student, promised “the deadliest school shooting in American history.” A threat made because “Feminists have ruined my life and I will have my revenge, for my sake and the sake of all the others they’ve wronged.” They did not identify as a part of GamerGate, but the timing cannot be ignored.

Considering the horrible school shootings this country has seen in only the past 5 years, this was what woke the mainstream media up. Even the New York Times, put the story below the fold of its front page. Unfortunately, they identified #GamerGate as “a term adopted by those who see ethical problems among game journalists and political correctness in their coverage.”

Which is sort of the truth. In the same way that Birthers are a group who see ethical problems among political journalists and factual analysis in their coverage.

That same weekend, independent game developer Brianna Wu — whose Giant Spacekat studio has recently released Revolution 60 on iOS — was forced to flee her home after being doxxed.

If you didn’t know, and nobody really did before this year, being doxxed is having your private information, such as home address, telephone, or let’s say your personal documents, published and distributed online without your consent. It’s done as an act of terror, to scare people into silence or compliance.

Brianna Wu was doxxed because she is both an outspoken feminist critical of this entire farce, and because shared a meme poking fun at the crybaby hypocrisy of GamerGate. What GamerGate probably didn’t expect, though, was that Brianna Wu didn’t go quietly into the night.

Even though her home address was published on twitter, by someone threatening her with murder and rape, she still attended the Comic Con panel where she was booked to appear.

From MSNBC to Huffington Post, instead of being bullied, she’s become louder than before. As she opens her XOJane post:

“They threatened the wrong woman this time. I am the Godzilla of bitches. I have a backbone of pure adamantium, and I’m sick of seeing them abuse my friends.”

There was a GamerGate Voxplainer weeks ago that was 3800 words long. This is international news, with the BBC picking it up. Even sites that are mostly sports-based, Deadspin and Grantland are writing about the threats put on the lives of critics. Both raise the biggest question of all with their coverage.

How Do We Get Out of These Woods?

#StopGamerGate2014 trended across twitter this week, and it annoyed the hell out of the GamerGate community. The goal of spreading the truth and background of the situation, in theory, may convince some accidentally standing alongside Baldwin, Gjoni, and the rest of the GamerGate movement to drop this as a cause.

Some believe it’s a new normal. That this is just the latest sector of the culture wars, and it will be fought in the ugliest ways possible.

I believe Twitter needs to be doing more to stop this, as harassment on that service is one of the main ways that GamerGate acts to ruin lives. Of the major writers involved with this Twitter has not given the Verified-stamp mark to Sarkeesian, Wu, or Alexander. Without such proof, impostor accounts continue to be set up to ruin the state of discourse.

They also need to do more to police their own networks, and participate in the reporting of death threats with law enforcement. When an impostor Brianna Wu twitter account followed my twitter account today, I was unable to report it, because I’m not her.

Twitter is new to policing itself, and only recently started the practice because how Zelda Williams was treated after her father’s death. What’s happening every day to Sarkeesian, Wu, and anybody, especially if they’re a woman, who stands up against GamerGate, is many levels darker and creepier. Even if they’re not A-list celebrities or relatives thereof, Twitter should support their users as if they were.