Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life

by Zoe Quinn

Are we criticizing poor behavior and larger issues, or are we personally attacking a stranger? Are you bringing attention to and analyzing a specific problem, or are you chiming in on the issue of the day for high fives and likes? Are you calling for accountability and reform, or are you just trying to punish someone—and do you have any right to punish anyone in the first place? Does the retribution you’re calling for actually make sense? If you have a large platform, are you using your voice to call down a mob on someone you don’t like? Are you expressing yourself, or are you just playing the game?

Mistakes, once owned, apologized for, and buried, need to be an accepted part of life. Instead of treating old and atoned-for mistakes as forever damning, we should look at past versions of people like rings in a tree. It can’t be about “being good”; it has to be about doing better. It can’t be about “deserving and undeserving” targets; we have to draw lines between acceptable and abusive behavior.