Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life

by Zoe Quinn

Grosser still, even if The Ex’s lies had been true, none of this was anyone’s business. No one should be subjected to a sexual purity test to justify their success.

The only way to retain any control was to not engage. I was not going to contribute to or encourage a public debate about my or anyone else’s sex life.

* It’s not irony or satire if it’s indistinguishable from the real thing. Shouting slurs at people isn’t somehow mitigated by whether you really, secretly mean it or not.

It seems like bad business to ignore the experiences of your users. You can easily draw the line at letting people use your service to actively terrorize others. You can suspend a user for sending racial slurs to minorities or posting stolen social security numbers and sleep well at night. If given a choice between keeping a user who goes out of their way to use your service to harm others or showing that you are unwilling to tolerate your platform being misused, it seems obvious which of those would make your product suck less.

Actual justice should be restorative, focusing on repairing the harm done by a crime. Restorative justice focuses on what the victims, community, and perpetrators need to be whole again, as opposed to our current approach, which focuses on punishing offenders and satisfying abstract legal principles. Increased support for restorative justice activists’ and community organizers’ involvement in the creation of policy and programs on how to handle online abuse would be groundbreaking.

Beyond that, there’s wisdom, strength, and resilience to be found in the stories of people impacted by hatred and living in spite of it that you won’t find spilling out of the mouth of disingenuous ratfuckers.

It’s not a sign of weakness to say, “You know what? Fuck this. Life is too short,” and bounce out of a bad situation, whether that means deleting your accounts or switching careers. Having serious periods of introspection and figuring out what you want, what it would take to get there, and whether it’s worth that is a key part of navigating any of life’s curveballs. If your answer is that you deserve better than what you’re getting and need to move on with your life, that’s not weakness or cowardice—it’s inner strength. It’s hardly an easy way out to leave everything behind and start over. Choosing to give up the things that are making you more miserable than happy and building new things in their place takes a lot of work, guts, and strength. It’s crucial not to add unfair guilt or shame for taking care of yourself to that long to-do list.

The truth is, I don’t feel like I’m strong for digging my heels in and not backing down. There are a lot of days when I feel like I’m still here out of utter stubbornness, or because I don’t know what else I would do now. The costs of my continued defiance have been extreme, though I don’t think I have it in me to back down—that likely wouldn’t be the case if I had a different personality or history. Point is—do what you need to do to live your life. Fuck anyone who tells you otherwise.

If you’re not a member of a given community but want to offer your support, instead of weighing in with your hot take, signal boost someone else’s firsthand perspective. A crucial tool of support that is woefully overlooked when it’s just so damned easy to throw out an opinion on anything is to learn when to sit down and let someone else speak. Try to be aware of how much space you’re occupying, and let people speak for themselves and the communities they’re a part of.

I figured that thinking I could decide what to do with my life was nothing short of hubris, remembering that old joke about god’s reaction to our making plans. Something something god’s an asshole, I think is how it goes.

In the face of abuse, fill in the gaps you can while we close the hole together. If all you can do is tell someone who is having a hard time that you’re thinking of them, it matters. If all you can do is listen and trust someone, it matters. If you’re a marginalized person, just getting through the next day and refusing to die matters.

I need to pass my torch before my fire goes out—the best way I’ve found was here, saying all the things I shouldn’t say, burning my bridges and trying to light as many other torches as possible with their flames. A wildfire is much harder to ignore than a few lights in the darkness, and sometimes you need to burn a bridge while you’re still standing on it so they know you mean business.

Yes, an adult man used “SJW,” shorthand for Social Justice Warrior, in an actual book title, which is shorthand for “I’m a frothing baby and hate people who don’t hate the same people I hate.”