#gamergate: the nexus of self-obsessed sociopaths


manlyessence

What awful people. Boston Magazine has a run-down of their obsession with Zoe Quinn, and it’s sick and disturbing. This Eron Gjoni guy who started it all just keeps talking, and making himself look worse and worse with every word, and he won’t shut up. That’s the thing that disturbs me about these people: they aren’t smart enough to realize when their own words are more devastating to their reputation than anything anyone else can say. Or perhaps they’re so vain or so lacking in empathy that they can’t imagine anyone not siding with their perspective.

And there’s yet another example of their habit of unlimbering Schwerer Gustav and aiming it at their own foot.

Here’s a post in which a gamergater is trying to track down the names and details of Quinn’s aunts, grandmother, and other relatives. They’re crowing because Quinn’s grandmother died recently, and her obituary gave them data. They’re annoyed because some family members don’t use the conventional patrilineal practice of always adopting the man’s name — I’m sure they did it just to piss off some self-important punk.

gamergategen

I mean, seriously, this is what it comes down to? Tracking down some distant relative and targeting them for harassment, or linking them to some bizarre conspiracy theory about Common Core, all because Eron Fucking Gjoni is an entitled jerk?

Comments

  1. says

    …they aren’t smart enough to realize when their own words are more devastating to their reputation than anything anyone else can say. Or perhaps they’re so vain or so lacking in empathy that they can’t imagine anyone not siding with their perspective.

    Or perhaps they’re following the first rule for all hucksters and false prophets: no matter what happens, KEEP TALKING and NEVER let anyone else get a word in edgewise.

  2. comfychair says

    They think they’re still inside the game! Otherwise, who the hell has time to do shit like that?

  3. Jackie the social justice WIZZARD!!! says

    Scum. Those people are scum.
    This is terrorism.

  4. Daniel Martin says

    Wait, what? How has their obsession with someone’s sex life (I think) and video games latched onto Common Core conspiracy mongering?

    I thought it was all about something in video games, or in video games journalism.

  5. zenlike says

    Just observe the GG asshole (Tom @aWinrarIsMe) who replied to Sarah Nyberg tweet: throwing out vague accusations about lies etc without being able to actually point out the leis.

    GG’s really are intellectual lightweights, barely able to fool themselves about their cause.

    Such sad, sad, losers.

  6. kdemello1980 says

    I really hate the way that “gate” is used for every quote unquote scandal, regardless of merit. Watergate was a real scandal. If anything, “-ghazi” is the appropriate suffix for when the controversial issue is a paranoid delusion.

    That aside, I call them Boko Haram of the Suburbs.

  7. ariamezzo says

    I’ve known people like this. I was part of a close-knit internet community for over 10 years and people came and went. I met so many different people and the experience was certainly interesting and pivotal to my life. However, there was a group within this community that was just like this. They don’t care about Zoe Quinn, or her family, They don’t care if she did anything or not. They just love to harass and abuse people and they get off on seeing how far they can take it, how far they can push people before they break. And when/if they do break, they fucking love it because that’s the game they were playing for their own amusement. They say edgy, gross, perverted, and mortifying things for the sake of it just to see who’ll react so they can play off of them.

    GamerGate essentially recruited the sociopaths who have nothing better to do than abuse others and laugh for the sake of it. They’re the types of people that there’s no talking to or reasoning with, because they know they’re being unreasonable; they just don’t care.

  8. zenlike says

    Daniel Martin

    Wait, what? How has their obsession with someone’s sex life (I think) and video games latched onto Common Core conspiracy mongering?
    I thought it was all about something in video games, or in video games journalism.

    GG, the MRA crowd, general conservative aholes, at this point a distinction without difference. Large overlap between the groups, and when there is no overlap, they find common cause in their adherance to the status quo and hatred for everything that is left/liberal/pro-equality/etc. So yeah not really surprised that GGers jump on the conservative anti-CC bandwagon.

  9. ck, the Irate Lump says

    Raging Bee wrote:

    Or perhaps they’re following the first rule for all hucksters and false prophets: no matter what happens, KEEP TALKING and NEVER let anyone else get a word in edgewise.

    They’re also following the second rule: If someone gets a word in edgewise and manages to criticise you, claim you’re being persecuted by them (FREEZE PEACH!!!!!!!!!!).

  10. themadtapper says

    So right-wing fear of Common Core is popular among GGers? Color me unsurprised. I’d laugh at the lunacy of it if it weren’t a deadly serious matter for people like Quinn who are targeted by these clowns.

  11. Jackie the social justice WIZZARD!!! says

    comfychair,
    Stalkers and abusers find time.

    When I hear about the work people like that put into tormenting others I can’t imagine doing it. Not only because it’s evil, but because I can’t imagine being that dedicated to terrorizing someone. I have shit I want to do. Other things bring me far more joy than I can imagine making other people miserable would. There are new episodes of Daredevil to watch. I can’t even be bothered to be that evil.

    The thrill they get is reward enough. It sustains them. It gets them off. Possibly, it’s the strongest reward they get out of life. They really, really like being abusive to women. They LOVE having a pack of other misogynists to torment her with. Cowards like a crowd to get lost in.

    How do you find the time to terrorize a woman in the hopes of getting her to kill herself? You have to make it a priority. You have to put it first. It has to be the most important thing you can imagine doing with your time.

    That is who GamerGoobers are.

  12. Donnie says

    Reading the article, nice to know where Gjoni’s friend, Benjamin Hitov, stands: right behind Gjoni. A paraphrase, “it was a good thing for Gjoni. he is coding, and is actually with more women. he has a girlfriend now.” Nice, ruin someone else’s life to make your’s better.

    Also from the article, Gjoni supposedly has a Zoe post II that has even more details and personal information that is set to auto-publish if it is not disabled 24-hours after a court appearance. He really does not get it. What will happen when / if he breaks up with his current girlfriend?

  13. brett says

    What will happen when / if he breaks up with his current girlfriend?

    The guy has blatantly violated his restraining order multiple times and organized harassment campaigns against his ex. He’s going to just keep on going (including targeting a new girlfriend if she breaks up with him) until he gets some blow-back – or better yet, goes to jail for aggravated stalking.

  14. doubtthat says

    Man, has anyone else read Gjoni’s “response” to the Boston Magazine article (not linking, you should be able to find it)?

    It’s amazing. All he wants to do is ruminate on whether or not it was true that Quinn cheated on him. His explanation of how and why he was wronged by that piece is that he demanded the writer bring a laptop to their first meeting, then he logged into his facebook account on the writer’s computer, demanding that he scour through the various posts to prove it was all true.

    Just…amazing. I mean, what if it was true? That he was cheated on by a woman suffering from depression during a five month relationship? How in living hell does that explain any of his subsequent behavior?

    He is so obsessed that he is incapable of understanding that no sane person gives a rat’s ass about the details. None of it justifies the harassment.

    And the end of the Boston Mag piece, where Gjoni says he just wants to get on with life – rather than be burdened with the onerous responsibility of shitting out another smear piece on Quinn – is just…there are not sufficient words to articulate the rage induced…

  15. daved says

    What will happen when / if he breaks up with his current girlfriend?

    Probably nothing — Realdolls are not considered persons under the law and have no standing to sue.

  16. neverjaunty says

    Is the current girlfriend the one who bragged about being the ‘midwife of GamerGate’?

    and what ariamezzo said. These people don’t truly care about Gjoni or Quinn. They’re vicious sociopaths looking for an excuse to unload; that’s why Gjoni targeted his manifesto to them.

  17. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    This Gjoni bloke seems the fucking epitomy of creepy obsession and self-entitlement.

  18. Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened says

    @ ariamezzo #7

    They don’t care about Zoe Quinn, or her family, They don’t care if she did anything or not. They just love to harass and abuse people and they get off on seeing how far they can take it, how far they can push people before they break. And when/if they do break, they fucking love it because that’s the game they were playing for their own amusement. They say edgy, gross, perverted, and mortifying things for the sake of it just to see who’ll react so they can play off of them.

    Yep. All the bullshit about ethics in journalism and women ruining games is just post-hoc justification. They like to harass people, particularly women. They’re arseholes, nothing more.

  19. Donnie says

    Yep. All the bullshit about ethics in journalism and women ruining games is just post-hoc justification. They like to harass people, particularly women. They’re arseholes, nothing more.

    And way annoynomity (I prefer this spelling anonymity) is so precious and sacrosanct to them. The biggest offense that one can commit is to tie someone’s non-de-harassment to their real life identify. Because….freeze speech to harass thee but not call me out in real life…Oh, and that ethics in journalism thing….

  20. laurentweppe says

    Yep. All the bullshit about ethics in journalism and women ruining games is just post-hoc justification.

    I’m not entirely sure: I think the gaters are genuinely distraught at the thought that games designated specifically to pander to their power-fantasy-cravings may lose their quasi monopole of coverage by the gaming press. After all, what can be more nightmarish to a bunch of self-centered, entitled sociopathic assholes that the prospect of losing their position at their own little pocket universe’s center of gravity.

  21. UnknownEric the Apostate says

    I really hate the way that “gate” is used for every quote unquote scandal, regardless of merit.

    I often wish CREEP had broken into a different, less conveniently named DC area hotel.

  22. Mobius says

    Oh. My bad. PZ already linked to that article. LOL.

    (What I get for posting before reading…just skimming.)

  23. says

    They’re everywhere, too.
    I play games, they show up in my youtube video comments and I have to delete them (rarely, fortunately).
    They showed up in comments in a political podcast I listen to, in an episode about Baltimore and Freddy Gray…
    It has turned into a phrase they spout that they heard from their friends like “umadbro?” and “get rekt!”
    Now there’s “Sarkeesian” and “Feminazi” as an insult – (yes, to them feminazi is a NEW toy someone just invented).

    They don’t even have a clue what started it all, if you actually engage with them. It’s like how they hate a game developer because of something a friend of a friend said about some game someone hated once…. they now say “Sarkeesian!” because some other gamers were saying it somewhere about something.

    I’ve seen them literally use the phrase “it’s about ethics in gaming journalism.” In one case, some started saying that, seriously, because they saw one of us “SJWers” say it sarcastically, and they picked up on it, and they began saying it.

    When questioned “what do you mean by that?” they can’t come up with anything.

    It’s really odd.

  24. says

    Jafafa: that’s just more indication that they’re just plain immature, and literally still act and think like kids in middle-school. And the gaming “culture” environment has become a place where the immaturity is routinely fed and rewarded, so people who stay in that place have no incentive to grow up, and plenty of forces to retard and stop all forms of personal growth. And since it’s an online environment, the normal processes of moving, changing jobs, going to college, etc. no longer serve to break up the networks these people form, which only ensures that those networks will continue to reinforce and feed the infantilism.

    I had a network of friends who acted like this, back in middle-school. But since it was a meatspace network, not a cyberspace network, the whole thing broke up when we went on to high school; so we were both encouraged and forced to change our attitudes and our behavior, and if any of us refused to change, he would simply have been left behind, and the rest of us would have just shook our heads and wrote him off as a sad loser.

  25. says

    I was amused to see that PZ’s habitual tweeting of a link to his blogposts immediately attracted a little swarm of #Gamergaters in the case of this one, seeing how it’s titled… and most of the gaters were already blocked on my account, and equally speedily blocked by PZ. Win!

  26. sigurd jorsalfar says

    Now, now. This is only about ethics in obituary journalism.

  27. tbtabby says

    I suspect one reason the Gamergaters are so obsessed is because they believe they’re staging a noble fight for freedom against an oppressor. In their minds, Anita Sarkeesian and those who support her are just like Jack Thompson and Joe Lieberman, hell-bent on banning their favorite video games because of the misconception that violent video games make kids more violent. That’s not true, of course, but you’ll never convince them of that. The worst villains always envision themselves as heroes fighting for a truly righteous cause, so they think any action taken to further that cause, however immoral, is justified. And they can’t possibly question their beliefs or consider that they might be going too far, because that would be letting the side down, or even treasonous. The irony is that because they’re thinking like this, Gamergate really HAS become a struggle of good vs. evil like they wanted. They’re just wrong about which side they’re on.

  28. footface says

    They also imagine their vicious harassment is justified because someone they don’t know was (supposedly) cheated on by his girlfriend. I don’t understand the first thing about this.

  29. speed0spank says

    Jack Thompson came around to GG and they embraced him, called him Based Jack. They will still liken feminists to him, though….no hint of irony.

  30. chrislawson says

    I often wish CREEP had broken into a different, less conveniently named DC area hotel.

    Gamerhilton.

  31. vaiyt says

    And way annoynomity (I prefer this spelling anonymity) is so precious and sacrosanct to them.

    Not really. The chan crowd has this air of enforced anonymity, but plenty of assholes have been doing shit with their real names attached, chief among them Eron Gjoni himself end Fredrick Brennan aka Hotwheels, the 8chan host.

    Furthermore, as much as channers are about being a faceless collective, they’re perfectly fine with people showing individuality as long as it conforms to the mob’s self-image. Be an individual as a male, young, cis, able-bodied, American or Caucasian person and you’re still invisible. Try giving away you’re anything else and you’re fair game as far as bullshit thrown your way goes. It’s the same rule they try to enforce in video games, per Vivian James: just play your games and shut up (letting us assume you’re a white man).

  32. Muz says

    What is the thing with Vivian James anyway? I’ve heard all about the background to the colour scheme and that sort of thing. I just don’t understand why she Is at all.
    A video back when it all started essentially laid it out as proof they weren’t sexist, if I understand it right.

    Yup “We’re not sexist. See? We drew a picture.”
    That can’t really be it though, can it? That’s madness. It’s like encountering some stone age tribe and their animist beliefs. They have proven their character by carving a totem and so the hunt will be good and righteous, or something.

  33. says

    They’re just plain evil.
    I mean even if Zoe Quinn had fucked 500 journalists in exchange for good reviews (not that she did), how would that justify harassing her family?

    Muz
    Vivian James is the personification of a rape joke. Now, apparently according to GG, if you use a long term shortcut for “hey, rape is funny” (the colour code), draw a female character and use that shortcut, it shows that women are on your side and approve of it.

    +++
    What I cannot understand is the people who, according to Gjoni, read the post and thought it a good idea to publish it. If his family and friends have a shred of decency in themselves, why didn’T they tell him that his obsession was unhealthy and that putting all that information about her to known hate platforms was unethical?
    BTW, Quinn’s new boyfriend lost his job in France over this. So the brave MRAs are totally happy also to ruin men’S lives and also think that destroying somebody’s livelyhood was ok

  34. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Muz

    What is the thing with Vivian James anyway? I’ve heard all about the background to the colour scheme and that sort of thing. I just don’t understand why she Is at all.
    A video back when it all started essentially laid it out as proof they weren’t sexist, if I understand it right.
    Yup “We’re not sexist. See? We drew a picture.”
    That can’t really be it though, can it? That’s madness. It’s like encountering some stone age tribe and their animist beliefs. They have proven their character by carving a totem and so the hunt will be good and righteous, or something.

    Well it is that but it isn’t just that. 4chan raised money for The Fine Young Capitalist (self-idendifited radical feminists) because they and Zoe Quinn had a dispute, see. So they help feminists help other women gamers, did charity work and got a mascot in TFYC’s game, Vivian James. She was planned as an average women to “troll” people instead of making it a standard “bimbo” type and put in a rape joke, because that’s how they roll.

    Therefore, it’s all a-okay. Zoey is the bad guy and people attacking TFYC are anti-feminists and 4chan is just so nice and helpful. They aren’t really sexist, they love women!

    It was totally planned PR (you can read it in the screen shots if you dare) and an attack on feminist at the same time.

    And of course, the first thing 4chan did with their “daughter” was make Vivian James porn and send it to TFYC.

  35. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    I mean even if X had <done something reprehensible> (not that they did), how would that justify harassing their family?

    Simplistic style of punishing the offender, by punishing people they care about. You know, _real_ torture, to get someone to talk, is to apply pain to someone they care about. Exploit the victims empathy to get what you want from them, or punish them for the wrong you think they did to you.

  36. Gregory Greenwood says

    Seeing stuff like this, it is hard to believe that anyone still swallows the ‘ethics in gaming journalism’ line the gamergaters keep pushing – they are a loosely organised misogynistic hate group, who regularly employ tactics of harrassment and stalking. It is as simple as that.

    In a more functional society, they would be experiencing the full force of the law for their actions. Sadly, we don’t live in that society.

    ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

    tbtabby @ 29;

    The worst villains always envision themselves as heroes fighting for a truly righteous cause, so they think any action taken to further that cause, however immoral, is justified. And they can’t possibly question their beliefs or consider that they might be going too far, because that would be letting the side down, or even treasonous. The irony is that because they’re thinking like this, Gamergate really HAS become a struggle of good vs. evil like they wanted. They’re just wrong about which side they’re on.

    It is time for that link again, isn’t it?

    I don’t think the GGers would understand it though.

  37. ck, the Irate Lump says

    I’m can’t disagree with what Giliell and JAL has said about Vivian James, but there’s also a bit of #notyourshield in her design, too. They’re basically asking, “How can I be sexist, when our mascot is a woman?” Of course, like astroturf genesis of #notyourshield, it actually is using someone as a shield.

  38. ck, the Irate Lump says

    “I’m can’t disagree”? I gotta proofread better, and I probably should’ve stated that stronger. Giliell and JAL’s analysis is absolutely true.

  39. Muz says

    Oh, I get it. Thanks JAL. I forgot it was in the midst of that fiasco (or that branch of the fiasco).
    It makes slightly more sense at least. “Were not sexist. See? We drew a picture – for a game jam for women” resembles something like logic a little more. A little.

  40. Matthew Trevor says

    Equally disgusting is Mike Cernovich’s (their “based lawyer”) article this week claiming that Zoe Quinn lied about him “to Congress” (I think she spoke to some Congressional staff as part of a discussion on online harrassment). While he has repeatedly crowed about hiring private investigators to stalk Quinn and her boyfriend, even going so far as to show letters & invoices from the PIs, he apparently isn’t happy with her using this to show what a piece of scum he is. Not only did he abuse Google News to bump his hit-piece up to front page result on searches for “Zoe Quinn” for a few days, even more disgustingly he tries to take for himself all of the pain inflicted on the targets of GG, like claiming he was afraid of being SWATted. He has publicly mocked some of the targets who were actually SWATted, and has repeatedly stated that those afraid for their life should shut up and only talk to the police, but apparently that only applies to the people he’s helping to silence.

    Whenever we discuss GG on various forums, it inevitably draws assholes who have no desire to address the topic at hand – like how Gjoni’s own words reveal his actions for exactly what they are – but instead chant the mantra: “I love games. Zoe Quinn is bad for games. Do you think people should be able to sleep with others for personal gain?” (or even worse, “YOU JUST DON’T KNOW THE FACTS”). Which, by now, is functionally identical to them sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting “LALALALALALALALA”.

  41. Dark Jaguar says

    This harassment is just nuts. That person in the image above seems to never have thought through exactly WHY they are doing what they are doing. They’re part of a movement, and the movement justifies any harm that comes someone’s way. I have one rule. If I find myself involved with a group that says it’s time to hurt someone, I leave. No matter how solid their logic is, no matter how justified it comes across, no matter how much they argue “but this GREATER harm is being done by “them”, you should be focusing on that, not nitpicking how we get this done” (or other such “Dear Muslima” style arguments), when they say “our mission is now to hurt someone”, I go. I won’t be a part of such a movement. I think if everyone had such a rule, situations like this one wouldn’t happen. They’re too caught up in their cause that they don’t see the harm they are doing (or at least, don’t see how it outweighs “the cause”). It’s all sickening, but a good reminder for us to stay vigilant.