It was a captivating piece. The lady can write. I bet the memoirs are a rollicking ride too. I certainly see the tragic heroine in her piece as being a forlorn Marianne type of heroine, cut from the Jane Austen novels (of course a Marianne that is a ex-sex worker and wears more metal than Master Chief). As for “Creep Throat”, he is naturally the worst of men. He is a Mr Wickham type character.
She has a moving writing style and her emphasis on her litany of woes and the framing of said woes is perfectly measured to tug on the heartstrings.
The irony is that her story telling would do Mr Wickham proud in both its delivery and believably.
This is Zoe Quinn.
We are no stranger to her. But this virtuous victim is hard to reconcile against the Jane Austen type tragic heroine she writes about. That is because they do not, under closer inspection marry up to be the same person.
It is a great line of false misrepresentations, spin and propaganda that is design to sell a point of view to those well disposed to her.
Poking easy holes in her tumblr post is easy enough. It will not matter to those that are inclined to believe her. To them I am inhuman and a shitlord and such.
But why NOT call bullshit when you see it? Why not challenge it?
SO THE REST OF THIS IS ME DOING JUST THAT. CHALLENGING AND SPEAKING TO ZOE AS AN OPEN LETTER.
“if I’m going to write about denied humanity it needs to be like this”
Cool, Zoe. You are going to write about how you and all your Progressive friends and media contacts were able to talk crap about Eron whilst he was unable to respond and defend himself. Right? Great, let’s see what you say there.
“If I’m gonna get hurt for an update in my court case”
No idea what you mean by hurt. If you mean being absolutely caned by the judge for wasting resources and making a wrongful charge (as well as embarrassing the original judge who gave you the dodgy gag order) then all up for that hurt. I hope you ARE punished.
“told me that I’d conducted myself with grace through this whole nightmare”
Doubt it. If she did, it was likely to shut you up get you off the phone. I’d have love to have been a fly on the wall of her office to hear what she said immediately following hanging up on you, Zoe. I am betting it was not stifling tears back and saying solemnly “Poor girl”.
“seeing his name makes a knot of anxiety rise in my throat”
I actually do not find this hard to disbelieve. He was not a good victim was he? He was supposed to be unable to defend himself against you nor maintain his composure. Now he is going after your credibility and stands as a roadblock of potential libel against memoirs and movie deals. He does not choose to back off when you hit him with what amounted to no less than a strategic lawsuit against him in SLAPP style. But he did not crawl away and lick his wounds and cower from you. He came back at you just as hard. Now you play the damsel. I BET you are anxious in your inability to control him. Good!
“I’m sure he’ll launch another salvo of flat out lies and spun truths to make it seem like the last year and a half was a byproduct of me “asking for it”, that the courts saw through it, while making him seem like a downtrodden hero of free speech.”
Oh you kidder! Projection is thy name. Firstly, both you and we know that he would have got NOWHERE victim blaming and I would LOVE you to show evidence that this was his legal platform. No? Did not think so.
Next let’s look at exactly WHO is spinning lies and spun truths? You say him. I see him knocking down each of your legal defences. He can’t do this IF he is spinning illegal bullshit to the court and ESPECIALLY not against your 4 Wilmer Hale lawyers.
“One of the biggest myths that needs to die is that your first response to being abused should be to go to the police and seek justice”
Zoe, is THIS your Crash Override advice? Is this what you tell victims. If you are fearing for your life or have been genuinely abused then going to police is bad advice? Its retarded, Zoe. It shows your inability to be able to do what you are being paid $40,000/year for. You are not qualified or experienced in dealing with victims.
“it started a hate movement that’s swept up my industry and hurt dozens of bystanders, and got international media attention.”
Except it didn’t. I joined the Gamergate tag in October 2014. I was about a month short of starting at its birth with Adam Baldwin’s tweet. You started a “hate movement”? No let’s be honest. Given EVERY possible chance to debate our grievances and our issues your “side” seeks to censor us? How come you will NOT allow us to self-identify? But more tellingly if you talk of a hate mob, who are you ACTUALLY talking about? You CAN’T be talking about #Gamergate at the same time as you are talking about the people that were party to your gossip about your love life. Gamergate did not exist back then. It is dishonest to say it did. The IRC chat of Burgers and fries was a completely different platform. It was at a different time. The numbers of people interacting with you on IRC compared to the number of people using the Gamergate hashtag are completely different. The focus is different. Burger and Fries is concentrated on salacious gossip and Gamergate is not.
You may well have got harassment and death threats. Who by? Your Helldump buddies? People you pissed off whilst you were trolling with them? What about people you pissed off in the modelling/sex work industry (and we know you did piss off people)? What about the depressed people you attacked and harassed in Wizardchan, or people sympathetic to them? What about The Fine Young Capitalists or people sympathetic to them? What about run of the mill third party trolls looking for a stir up? No? No idea….just blame Eron and Gamergate for “reasons”? Go fuck yourself, Zoe. Enough of “Hate Movements”. Make a case. We see accusations and no substance.
“The mob would respond by going after me, my family, and anyone else they decided was involved”
“The mobs”. WHAT MOBS? No seriously, you relate this to Eron and to Gamergate. Where is the connection? Where is the association? Where are we collectively conspiring to go after you? I know for certainly you use the blockbot and that blocks approximately 10,000 of us. Moreover this CANNOT be the sum of the people that were on Burger and Fries chat. You are simply dishonest if you say so.
So IF we can agree to this. We see that there are people that may well be going after your family or yourself that are not “Gamergate” or “Creep Throat” YET that is who you blame. Why are you a liar?
“conspiracy charts would “prove” I am secretly rich”
No, we know that you bought tickets for months long trip to Europe, you have $40,000/year in Patreon, speaking engagements, Have been dating a son of a multi-millionaire AND have had 4 Wilmer Hale Lawyers employed at fantastic rates (up to $750/hour each). You are NOT scrapping by. Stop being disingenuous.
“I even vacated the order myself once he appealed, hoping to make it end. I gave him the legal relief that he’d asked for”
He asked for that? Arrogance! He did not ask for that. He was unfairly (and he believes unconstitutionally) gagged by you. He wanted that “legal relief”? NO! He wanted not to have had a year of being maligned without being able to defend himself. He wanted to have not endured that. You were happy when he actually pressed you to be “gracious” enough to withdraw it? (And lets be real, we know you tried to back the gag order in another state and lost that….right? Get real and honest here!) So no, he was not after you to simply withdraw it, but as he and Eugene Volokh believed that it was unconstitutional, he wanted to make sure it was never going to be used against another guy.
“trying to escape her abuser”
So YOU say. Why should I believe you?
“It wasn’t about him fighting a powerful evil woman, or gaining his oh-so-crucial right to sic a mob on me, it’s always been about punishing me.”
Oh I think you are a sociopath or possibly you have Narcissistic personality disorder. He did not “sic a mob after you”. Did YOU “punish him”? No right to defend himself, spinning your side of the story unchallenged to every Progressive outlet that would listen to you for one year? That is not “punishing him”? What about you? What did he do to you APART from defend himself from you? Nothing.
“chumming the waters about the oral arguments they’re hearing on a nonexistent order next month.”
You mean being completely transparent to the people that were kind enough to pay to allow him to contest your ridiculous gag order. (Out of interest how are YOU affording four Wilmer Hale Lawyers . Do YOU have some rich benefactor? That would be kind of hypocritical of you wouldn’t it?) Why would you call THIS “chumming the water”? That sounds suspiciously like YOU are telling “flat out lies and spun truths”. Why would you be THAT hypocritical?
“And they’ve done nothing to protect me”
Protect you from what? But more importantly from who? IF you are getting harassment, it is not seeming to be from Eron NOR from Gamergate. Therefore no action against Eron is likely to do anything. You cannot be this stupid to conflate both. So why ARE you conflating one with the other. It is transparently dishonest.
““if eron goes to jail, I will hunt zoe quinn down and rape her””
And….you went after THAT person for writing that, right? Great idea. Oh, no, you went after Eron for it.
“sick crusade my ex started against me”
As we see, this “sick campaign” is really some people do not like you and you have no idea who they are and blame and try to punish him and Gamergate collectively. That is stupid, dishonest and pretty weak.
“Why, then, would I ever want to sign up for more years of my life spent flying back to Boston, a place where it’s not safe for me to be, to continue another chapter in this nightmare? Why would I want to keep digging at a giant scar?”
Oh clearly you don’t BECAUSE Eron has been exposing the weakness in the charges you put to him. Yes you give OTHER reasons and they are dishonest.
“how domestic violence manifests online”
What? I mean….what?? Online violence? Online Domestic violence? Excuse me but this is complete bullshit. Not only do I not see how it would get through your blockbot BUT if it does, delete, block, mute, report, log off or watch cat videos on Youtube. Don’t try relating domestic violence or violence with online interactions. You do a disservice to men and women who have been physically abused domestically or not domestically. On the internet? Pathetic.
“Steph Guthrie and her co-defendant lost their case“
So they fucking should have. They were MORE abusive than him and he went three years without being able to work. Why? Because they did not like him being critical of their tweets. It was even more retarded than your circus.
“Going to court is like rolling the dice”
Four very high priced lawyers from Wilmer Hale? Roll of the dice. Liar.
“When you seek charges, you’re on trial as much as the other person, if not more. The “asking for it” defense is alive and well even in 2016, and you have to be a “good victim” in order to give your case the best shot it has”
Bullshit. When you make serious charges against someone there is a presumption of innocence. They don’t say “Oh you have a charge. Great let’s just ratify that for you.” That would be fucking stupid wouldn’t it Zoe? So drop this unfair dealing court and “good victim” bullshit.
“The courts do not favor a lot of women simply for being who they are – women of color, trans women, sex workers, I could go on”
Favour? Why the Hell would they “favour” anyone? What a stupid bloody thing to say. Everyone is equal under the law regardless of their race, gender or sexual preference but you want favouritism? Ideologically driven unreality.
“The defense, so far, had hung a hat on trying to prove I deserved all of this.”
Straight out lie. This would NOT fly in a court of law. Why ARE you lying….again.
“open about my depression”
Gee, I wonder if you gave any thought to those poor people suffering from Depression? When you are hurting others with Depression it seems okay
In fact you seem to have fun doing exactly the kind of harassment and abuse you project on others, huh?
“history in sex work”
I am really pleased you bought this up but not for reason you may guess. As a sex worker you will need to be able to play a part. Whether we are talking a roleplaying part (naughty nurse, cheerleader, stripper, etc) or whether we are talking putting on a fake persona to their personality or even simply pretending to be enjoying themselves more enthusiastically than they feel . The underlying aspect is they are putting on a performance piece and giving the client what they need.
Because I see lie after lie and misrepresentation after misrepresentation. I think that is PRECISELY what you are doing here. You are allowing yourself to be “pimped” by Progressives and you are playing your part and getting fat Patreon coin for it.
“I don’t know what would have happened if I had kept my mouth shut when I was targeted two years ago”
I have I pretty good idea. What WOULD have likely happened is that the relatively few people Burger and Fries would have soon dropped the gossip about you. You would have been perhaps a little embarrassed and your credibility might have taken a little knock. YOUR victims such as Wizardchan and The Fine Young Capaitalists may have had a sense of karmic comeuppance. New drama would have come out and you would have been forced to make your own way in the Indie Game Development world as a person with one game (I will do you the courtesy of calling your Vine storybook a game) under their belt and a little bit of notoriety.
What would NOT have happened is you would not be going to the United Nations, nor Google, Nor Twitter to censor people disagreeing and criticising your lies and bad behaviours and you would not have been given a platform. You would not be getting a memoir written nor movie rights and would not be getting $40 000/year and tens of thousands of followers.
If I could get that in return for some trolls saying bad things about me, sign me up
“The spin is even more successful in these cases, because of how disconnected judges, lawyers, police, and juries often are from the internet. One told me to simply give up my career and stop going offline if I didn’t like the abuse. He barely bothered to look at my huge stack of evidence before declaring he had no idea what the internet was about and didn’t want to know.”
Sounds tragic EXCEPT that YOU did not have to go a year without being able to tell your side of things and to defend yourself BECAUSE the system worked in your favour and NOW is being questioned whether the system in fact actually overstepped its capacity for YOU.
I mean this is not even spin or different point of perspective. Its just outright lying by you.
“the man who did this to you?”
Damn him to Hell for standing up for himself, huh? Did what more than that. He is not a leader or a spokesman for anyone but himself regardless of who may or might sympathise with him (In exactly the same way that YOU do not “represent” anyone or anything).
“What good does any of this do for anyone? It’s been almost two years now, and I desperately want to move on with my life. Even if I did win, I doubt locking Creep Throat away would do anything. Even putting aside my huge misgivings with the US prison system, he’s not going to change. The people who support him would see him as a martyr”
Not suggesting of course he ACTUALLY DID anything that is jailable, right? Why on Earth would they “lock him up”? Why is he able to get Eugene Volokh paying interest to this and how was he able to have the OTHER gag order thrown out that you filed in another state and why would they allow him to contest the vacated order?
Locking him up? WHAT? Why are you being dishonest.
I REALLY believe you DO want to “move on with your life”. If I have big coin from memoir and movie rights and $40 000/year and was famous the last thing I would want is an embarrassing court case proving I had misused the court, being pursued by an ex-boyfriend I cheated on and applied an unconstitutional gag order on, to try to stop him countering my lies.
“I’m tired. I have been trying to pick up the pieces of my life for almost two years at this point”
Is this a joke? “Pieces of my life?” I can’t even….
“I have less energy to do casework at Crash, less energy to meet with tech partners to tell them how to do better and the ways they’re fucking up, less energy to make my goofy video games about feelings and farts”
Sure , Anita. Isn’t this HER line? I cannot do the busy schedule of a couple of hours of videos per 6 months or so because I am Depressed. Now I will have to “slow that busy schedule”, so keep giving me victimbux and expect I will do less work than what a little I did before.
$40 000/year and WHAT exactly do you DO? I know that you want to do less but what DO you do and what do you imagine that is worth?
Personally the idea to get $40 000/year without having to commit anything and with a ready excuse of I have little energy to do more than I feel motivated to do, sounds really sweet.
Reminds me somewhat of this:
“it’s not time yet. I’m not the right person to win this fight or set this precedent.”
Depends entirely on what fight and what precedent. You correlated trolls that are not Gamergate and are not Eron with a fight against both NOT against those particular trolls. So what fight are you likely to win and how?
In a analogous example, If you were getting bullied at work by people in one department and then decided to start bullying people in another department, then do not be surprised when you are not winning the “fight” when it goes to Human Resources. Zoe, you are being both disingenuous and retarded.
Set what precedent? You bought charges against Eron. He defended himself very well and now you had one charge fail, vacated another and HE is still pursuing it and your last one you tried on, has been withdrawn by you very shortly after you made it. What on Earth are you talking precedents for. Its fucking stupid.
“I’m less useful to the world”
Without any qualification and without any context I can only agree with this statement.
“That’s even assuming the process doesn’t kill me – I’m still someone who was already living with depression, that now has complex PTSD on top of it.”
Bullshit! Complex PTSD. This is a slight to people that have gone through ACTUAL physical trauma. You had some very bad things said to you online, and have complex PTSD? You did not get everything you own way and that gave you PTSD and Depression.
What a load of crap.
“I’m scared of posting this, but I’m tired of hiding and keeping my head down and plodding along. I know it’ll kick some shit up, everything does, but I also know he’s going to try to twist this stuff like he always has. I’m tired of letting him control me. I’m tired of being afraid of being honest. I’m tired of watching people hand out “just go to the police they’ll protect you” while I silently scream and bite my tongue, because I know the advice-giver is giving horrible, ignorant advice. It’s so much more complicated than that, and if someone decides to go to the cops about their abuser they should be doing it with a more informed and prepared plan than I ever did. They shouldn’t have to have their lives hijacked for years to find out that that’s what they were even risking in the first place. I wish I had those two years back. The least I can do to make that right is to be honest and open with the world while trying to reduce the cost of maneuvering through these systems. The least I can do is try to succeed at getting my life back where the courts have utterly failed.”
Where was all this concern for the victims of internet bullies when you were harassing shit out of Wizardchan and TYFYC or even Georgina Young
IF you are being harassed then how fucking dare you erase YOUR part in participation of the same kind of shit. You are no savoir nor no victim.
“Hopefully the next girl won’t have years stolen from her in the first place.”
Hold up. Life stolen? What….? How is your life stolen? Speaking engagements, $40000/year stipend, Memoir and Movie coming out, European Vacations, some of the biggest companies in the world clamouring to hear what you have to say.
If THAT is a life stolen. Sign me up.
gamergating 