gurrenbuster:
bogleech:
(warning: FUCKING HORRIBLE)
It has almost been a full year now of this shit poisoning the internet and beyond, so for those who have never seen all this (and there’s so much more), especially @gurrenbuster , here are some screenshots of the original 4chan conversation where the entire Zoe Quinn attack campaign was born.
It began when her ex boyfriend posted a dramatized story of her cheating on him. 4channers were delighted to hear this narrative about a “feminist SJW” involved with some names in video gaming, and they proceeded to discuss every possible route they could imagine to ruin her life, testing every angle until they found the one that would rally the most people - the “journalistic integrity” angle, which they based on nothing other than the simple fact that this woman had sex with someone who reviews video games, though nobody she had sex with ever wrote “favorable reviews” of her work at all, not that this would hurt anyone, since her game was free.
These posters are outright saying “okay everybody, we are going to distort and manipulate any hook we can to trick as many people as possible into hating this woman.”
The last screenshot is from an enormous series of IRC logs over the course of the same period, where the gamergate movement was truly concocted but not yet named. You can still read the entire log here.
Among the “highlights” are their bizarre belief that feminists generally consider cheating to be a form of rape, and that they can use that to paint her as a rapist “by her own definitions,” literally plotting to concoct a false rape accusation against her. If you want, just use the “find” function and search the log for the word “rape” to see more of this plotting. Also just try searching “Zoe,” “nudes,” “suicide,” “bitch,” “whore,“ “feminist,” “sjw” and more; you’ll get to watch Gamergate born piece by piece from one elaborate character assassination scam rooted entirely in a rabid, fanatical hatred of feminism and a whole lot of bitterness over their own sex lives.
Below the cut are some more choice excerpts.
Keep reading
This proves there was an attack campaign orchestrated against Quinn… by 4chan, aka the most vile site on the internet. In case you weren’t aware, GamerGate and 4chan are not the same thing. That’s really all that needs to be said at all. You picked up a genuine harassment campaign against Quinn by 4chan, and are passing the blame to GamerGate. Then again, “blame GG for everything bad on the internet” has been a trend lately. You and that Twitter you linked are doing a swell job of explaining how a completely anonymous board links to literally anyone non-anonymously supporting the movement currently with that “they didnt have a name yet” line.
This is where Gamergate came from. This was the first shit that went down. This is where Gamergate got its entire story that Quinn was involved in a “breach of ethics” and that they needed to “revolt” over it. What you’re calling the “most vile site on the internet” decided one day to see if it could start a viral campaign to dupe gamers into wrecking some woman and turning it into a massive thing, and that is Gamergate, that’s it. Anyone still calling themselves a gamergater is another sucker for a 4chan trick.
Nobody “supporting the movement currently” has moved on from that stage. They try harder to look good with cheap PR campaigns - like starting charity drives, for instance, something literally anyone can do with or without any money of their own - but at the end of the day their only goal is to silence anyone they denote an “sjw,” which can be anybody whose politics are left of theirs.
Even if Quinn really did some of the dishonest shit people allegedly dug up later, that can’t retroactively justify any of their actions. The fact remains that people began ganging up on Quinn when they had nothing at all to go by except the dramatic claims of an ex boyfriend and alleged private chat logs that shouldn’t have been their business. That’s literally the same behavior they claim to hate “SJW’s” for, but on an even grander scale.
The fact remains that even if all their delusions were a reality, it still wouldn’t matter. The things Gamergate accuses Zoe or Sarkeesian or Wu or any of their other targets of doing are never even things that would actually harm anyone’s video gaming experience. They keep dragging “feminists” through the mud for expressing opinions that could never actually make any game less good or make gaming harder to enjoy no matter how they were implemented.
And I know you don’t intend to be a malicious person, and I know you think you’re on the right side of something noble and innocent, and it’s not that you’re a fool or anything. ANYONE could be suckered in by the kind of tactics these guys pull. They are thousands and thousands strong, all working together to make it look like they’ve got a positive goal and that anyone who criticizes them is the devil incarnate. They have the resources, the experience, and the motivation to weave a pretty impressive scam and there’s no shame in being confused by them.
I “get” it. I remember being a child. I remember when games and movies and cartoons seemed like the biggest deal in the world, and when I thought people who criticized them for inappropriate content were just being mean, anti-fun prudes who wanted to take them all away.
Hell, that HAS been true in the past. The comics code, for instance, and Moms Against Dungeons and Dragons.
But that was right-wing, regressive, xenophobic, Christian Nuclear Family backlash. It’s a different world now. The “social justice” critics are by and large gamers and geeks themselves, and if you bother listening to them instead of their reactionary detractors, they are not at any point proposing that games be “censored” or forcibly changed to be more “PC.” They’re just calling for better creative effort and fairness, in very doable, unobtrusive ways.