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'Gamergate' drags on, but trolls will not succeed

 
Brianna Wu ID’d this person as making death threats earlier this month.
Brianna Wu ID’d this person as making death threats earlier this month.
Published Feb. 26, 2015

There's a moment, I think, in every devoted parent's life when they look at their child and think that anything is possible. This child, they think, can be anything or do anything she wants, and it's my job to help her get there.

Often there are several moments like that, as the child develops a personality, skills, and interests of her own. It's a glorious feeling and I highly recommend it to those who haven't experienced it.

I thought about those moments a couple of weeks ago when reading Brianna Wu's column on Bustle about Gamergate. Yeah, that's still a thing, sorry to say.

Much like anything else on the Internet, what could have been a legitimate discussion on ethics in gaming journalism devolved into an ugly morass built upon death threats, doxxing and misogyny. Wu, a mobile game app developer, has been a target of the Gamergate controversy, along with original targets, developer Zoe Quinn and feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian.

Wu wrote about how she still is taunted by her harassers, threatened with rape or worse (often in graphic detail) and just recently filed a restraining order. She said she had received 44 death threats in the last five months. She also just pulled out of the PAX East developers conference in Boston out of fear. All for being a woman and a gamer.

I can't pretend to truly understand what Gamergate is really about, much as I can't lay claim to understanding the goals of religious extremists or why people say racist things. What I do know is that this issue has fallen out of favor in the mainstream media, so much so that Wu's column on Bustle was somewhat of a surprise — which was kind of her whole point. Wow, this is still going on?

Yes, it is.

It's absurd to think all gamers feel the way the Gamergate trolls do, of course: That women are unduly favored by many, and don't belong in the video game industry. Or even if they do, they certainly don't deserve a voice equal to gaming's core community, which must be angry young men, to hear them tell it. Women should not be executives. They should not be developers. They should not even be game characters.

It's frightening to think that my daughter is going to grow up in a world like this, where people can reach you in myriad ways online and make you feel unsafe, just because they can. I grew up before the Internet, so I can barely imagine the challenges. Face-to-face bullying was bad enough.

But Wu offers a glimmer of hope, because keeping the subject alive is how things can change.

Despite canceling an October 2014 speaking appearance at Utah State University after receiving more death threats, Sarkeesian has picked up where her blog Feminist Frequency left off, still speaking out about sexism wherever she can be heard.

In January, Quinn cofounded a network called Crash Override to help victims of online harassment.

And Wu still creates games for Giant Spacekat, hosts a podcast and is busy working on a narrative-driven title called Revolution 60 for iPad. She copes. And she speaks out.

So the dream, it's still alive.

— Joshua Gillin writes about video games for tbt*. Challenge his opinions at jgillin@tampabay.com.