Let's talk about this whole debacle. This comment will be a lengthy ramble, likely visceral and probably, unforunately, upsetting. Read this with the knowledge that anyone with a similar history of abuse that I've had will likely remember how they felt in that moment vividly. Frankly, a flashback triggered by a seemingly innocuous post is the whole reason behind this account's creation.
Harassment is a very real issue. There is plenty of it not just online, but in face to face encounters, written word, videos, etc. Asking "why people are offensive online" is a loaded version of the simple question "why are people offensive at all". That, in turn is just the age old question of "whence comes evil?" It is persistant throughout absolutely everything which is done. Can harassment be stopped? No. Pretty simple honestly - it works, so people will do it. Yes, it's ethically wrong, yes it's terrible - but it still works. If someone stops doing something due to harassment, the harasser has won. We all know of instances where this has happened, for good and bad.
So, where has the harassment been in this gamergate movement? Well, it's certainly fair to say that a lot was initially levelled at Zoey Quinn and anyone who defended her - people just LOVE to be outraged and take it out on others, and this was no exception. Is it fair to say there's been some back? Absolutely. Is it fair to say that the harassment to Zoey shouldn't have happened at all? Absolutely. But let's just look at what's been said to the other side of the fence, because one side has been extremely well documented.
At the time of writing, supporters of so called gamergate have been called children, virgins, losers, assholes, compared to terrorist groups, misogynists, and in the case of a particularly foolish Gearbox employee, been accused of distributing child pornography. Whilst there's certainly people using this gamergate tag who are doing wrong, the amount of harassment back has also been staggering. This is what motivated the creation of this account, and why you'll probably not see anything written by me after it with such a serious tone.
WARNING: the things I'm going to describe are horrific and likely to upset anyone who's been the victim of sexual abuse. Sorry. I truly am.
Before we delve much further, I'll tell you about my position in all of this. I want people to understand the sort of people who have stood behind, and continue to stand behind, the notion that the press should be entirely financially seperate from the media they are covering. No undisclosed funding either to or from people involved in game creation, no undisclosed relationships, etc - the fact that this has to even be said when it's a basic assumption in the majority of journalism is, frankly, already an issue. Because we are people, and we all have stories.
My introduction to gaming was watching as my mother beat Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2. I can't remember much of it in honesty, but I remember seeing my mother happy at just losing herself in a game, pouring hours into something. My first experience of playing a video game was running through sonic 2 as tails while one of my sisters (the youngest of two) played andd beat the game as Sonic. I can remember being bitterly disappointed that I couldn't play past Metropolis Zone, but had fun watching her continue regardless. Just after this, we got our Windows 95. I can remember failing miserably at Commander Keen, and how awesome the idea that a square pushed into a port contained a massive game. I never actually got very far of course, but I was hooked.
Later on after joining school, there was a very kind girl who, having seen me be pushed to the ground for holding one of my best friend's hands on the playground and called a lesbian (by someone who was 4, even though I'm male) invited me back to her house. There, we played Sonic Spinball, Earthworm Jim and some other stuff. We became very good friends and that was my only contact with anyone else who I knew played video games. It stayed like that for a while, until I ran into another guy who actually played games - my first such encounter. Even by the time I was 7, I still knew far more girls who played games than boys. In fact, it's fair to say most of my upbringing around games was from women helping me find my feet playing them.
But this is where the story stops being happy. I'm sorry if the following paragraph seems incredibly formal, but I hope everyone reading understands that it helps me keep emotional distance and it's very challenging to write about. When I was 15, a girl at my friend's 16th party spiked my drinks with alcohol. I remember knowing that it was much stronger than what I'd asked for but at the same time, I'd never really drank any sizable amount of alcohol - the most I'd ever had was a glass of wine at christmas. Sometime between 3 and 4 hours in, I was in no fit shape to do much of anything. I could barely walk, barely see straight and was generally extremely drunk. What I do remember is that at some point after that, this girl took me away from the crowd, into a back room and put her hand down my trousers. I remember saying that I didn't want it, that I didn't like anything that was happening and that I just wanted to go and sit down, but nothing stopped her. I remember her pushing me to the floor and unzipping my jeans, lying on top of me, putting a condom on me while I wasn't even up. I... well, I guess the only thing I can really say after that is that it turns out that genital stimulation happens regardless of you saying to stop repeatedly, and that the reason I lost my virginity at 15 is not due to my own desire. Sorry that's so awkwardly worded, it's just... well, I hope you understand that this is still hard to write. Did I report it to the police? Of course not - I felt like, if I'd really not wanted it, I wouldn't have gotten erect, right? So it must have been my fault. 7 years of therapy later, a 5 year relationship ruined because I've tried to commit suicide three times and a heavy medication of anti-depressants later, I still get niggling doubts about it - it's very hard to not think it's your fault when you read almost daily that men simply can't be raped because erections imply consent. It doesn't end there - a few days later, that girl's boyfriend had heard that I "made advances on her" at the party, so he pushed me into a barbed wire fence and started hitting me whilst calling me "a pussy" and saying I "didn't deserve [the girl] anyway". Did I tell anyone? No, I told my parents that I'd fallen against the fence because I got dizzy on the wway home, and because she only kicked me in the chest, I had no bruises not hidden under clothes. Again, I didn't get anyone involved - I still thought it was my fault.
What I did do is reach out to feminism online. The people I talked to were very kind, and it felt like they really empathised with me. I felt like I belonged somewhere, and quickly tried to understand them as they had me. But, then, I was used not as a person but as a tool. I was no longer someone who was doing what they could to help others, but instead a flag of a ship held up to say "look at what we're doing". I was disgusted and outraged, because the people I'd grown to trust told me to vilify others and say things like "teach men to stop raping" - but my attacker wasn;t a man. I felt used, so stopped visiting those sites.
Then I found the MRA movement. Again, I felt welcomed and they understood that I felt scorned from the feminist side due to being politicised when all I needed was help and affection. I was shown support groups, help sites and given skype addresses to message if I felt suicidal again. But, as with everything which has seemed good in my life, they also treated me as a weapon - suddenly I was showing up the "feminists" who'd clearly rejected me because I was male. Again, that's not what had happened and again, I was upset to be a ball in some sick game of harassing other people. I disassociate myself from both groups now, because apparently neither can stop using people who're hurting as their shield and sword against ideological opponents.
Eventually, I just kept doing what I am now - losing myself in games as I did when I was 3. It's escapism at its best, but it's also just fun. I love seeing what I can do in modern games, it never ceases to amaze me. It's the furthest away from those experiences I've gotten. It's not my only hobby by any means, but it's my old faithful one which I rely on heavily.
Now imagine that you're me. Imagine that you are, daily, seeing articles from the press saying that you're a misogynist. Imagine that you're told that you're inherently sexualising women, and pushing them out of games. Imagine reading one day that it's wrong to demonise women for their sex lives, then the next be called a virgin, neckbeard, fedora wearing loser for the heineous crime of saying you;re a "gamer". Just think of what I see when I read all of these pieces about what apparently people are saying and doing in the name of a movement I'm a part of.
So you take the high road. You know, because of your abuse and just generally because you try to be kind, that you're not going to convince anyone by being cruel. You post why you want gaming journalism to be fair. You say that yes, of course people in the industry can make friendships, but they should be mentioned when articles are written by those journalists. You say that there needs to be accountability in the media because allegations of fraud are floating around. At the same time, you actively seek people being offensive to opposition and tell them to cut it out. You note as a matter of pride that you've barely had to do so, and actually the harassment seems to have become almost non-existant.
And then you're told to apologise for the harassers.
You're told you aren't doing enough.
You're told that, until all harassment is gone from your side, your message won't even be considered.
So you double down. You dedicate literally hours trying to find all these people tweeting harassment. You spend ages scrolling through forums and message boards trying to see this apparent plague of misogynists. But you can't - they're barely there, a pinch of salt in a thousand litres of water. Even so, you continue to call them out while also trying to make the people opposing you understand your issue.
And they ignore you, and they harass you, and they continue to tell you to stop the harassment from your side.
In the past fortnight, I've been told:
-I hate women
-I want to drive out women from gaming
-I want to enable harassers to drive out women
-I support the side of abusers
-I'm worse than the ISIS
-I'm sexist
-I'm racist
-I'm lying about my rape
-That my rape is insignificant because there's more male-on-female rape
-I'm part of "rape culture"
-I couldn't have even been raped, because I'm too physically strong now
-If I was attacked, it's something I did to deserve it
-I am enabling child pornography
-I am homophobic despite being bi
-I'm a "lying piece of shit man baby"
-I'm "a fucking slut shaming asshole"
-I'm "a literal turd"
What have I said to deserve this? I was called racist for saying we shouldn't be prejudiced against people based on their skin colour. I was called a misogynist for saying I call myself a gamer. I was called misogynistic for saying I supported my sister coming out as gay, because it must have been very hard to do so. What am I meant to do any more? Why do I need to keep saying sorry to these bigots? I know I am not any of the things I've been called. Where's my apology? Why do I even persist against such hatred? I've done absolutely nothing to these people, and I am demeaned regardless. I'm not the one monetising harassment of women. I'm not the one blaming others for vile acts like tweeting child porn. I'm not the one who refuses to disclose the absolute BASICS required in any other journalism. I'm not the one who wrote news reports on how some website with a suicide hotline in the header was apparently attacking a female game dev without even having any evidence. I'm not trying to pretend a website like 4chan with several hundred thousand users is somehow engaged in some elaborate plot run by 10 people in a public IRC, nor am I pretending that 4chan is some exclusive group instead of a board which literally anyone can post on anonymously in seconds. I'm certainly not trying to shut down anything other than corruption. And yet, I'm either a worthless, pathetic excuse for a human one day, or a kind soul being manipulated by people I don't know, have never met and don't care about who're subjecting me to their whims.
It's all crap. I refuse to apologise any more, because I've had 100 times the vitriol thrown at me personally than I've even SEEN levelled at the people I'm against. I am a human, with a basic goal and I'm sick of being used. I will no more say sorry for these, frankly, bullies in the media trying to cover each other's asses when they can't even treat me with basic respect. I am disgusted that I should even have to any more when no such apology has been raised from the people stood against. I refuse to yield until the people who're saying these vile things are fired, or otherwise forced to accept that they're in the wrong here. I am not making money from this, I am not going to allow one of my limited outlets of depression be taken over by a nepotistic media and I absolutely will not stand for having to cope with flashbacks of abuse every day whilst some fool says I should apologise more. If I behaved like these journalists in my own job, I'd have been out the door in an hour. The harassment must end - from both sides, yes - but I need it to stop from the people against me, because I cannot deal with these suicidal thoughts again. I cannot cope with reading these people seriously defame me for what is little more than an escapist hobby. I cannot deal with being "called out" for things I've not even done. This farce must end, and there must be a serious address to the issue raised without slinging mud.
And I expect that I'll be able to sleep well with the knowledge that I might not be insulted by the people representing me in the media when hell freezes over. I don't even know what I've got any more, nor what's left to say. I am a man who likes games. That's all I want to be. Please just give me that, without calling me some slur or hating me for one day.
