Mr. Rowan Kaiser,
Editor of WIC.net, author of Possibility Space,
Semi-retired video game and AV club freelancer.
Quote:
"TotalBiscuit is not a popular, adorably controversial figure in gaming.
He is a serial hara**er, who made GG mainstream.
No game company, no PR people, nobody should talk to, or about him other than on those terms.
When I was at Paradox Con this year, his name was said as someone who can sell games with mentions.
I instantly felt worse about being there.
And you know, I recognize that if your job requires selling games, maybe he can be useful,
But I don't ever want to hear about him as normal.
He was among the first mainstream people to share the 'Five Guys' video,
Turning GG from a localized campaign, into a movement."
OK, I think I've had just about enough of this.
I've been dealing with this, for about a year.
Now, if you want to talk about serial hara**ment, you can talk about the sort of thing that I received,
When I had the audacity to do the thing that a charity streamer was requesting.
Share their charity stream, make people available.
They requested specifically retweets.
And I happened to see it through a mutual acquaintance of mine, and I retweeted it.
And instantly this person threw a wobbly.
Claimed that I was aiming to destroy the stream.
And over the course of a couple of hours, while I was at the chemotherapy center by the way,
Being poisoned, in order to keep me alive.
I had over three hundred people, send me tweets.
Many of which, requested that I'd die.
Many of which, hoped that the cancer would get me quicker.
That's what hara**ment feels like, by the way.
If you wish to know what hara**ment really feels like,
Put yourself, in a chair, in a clinic.
With an IV pump plugged into the flesh just above your shoulder,
Where they've implanted an artificial port, a port a cath.
Do that, be hopped up on all manner of horrible medication that has life-changing side-effects.
And read that stuff coming your way, after you did what you thought was a good deed.
Read that stuff coming from people that claim to be all about "social justice".
That claim to be all about equality, and the elevation of humankind.
Read that, from people who claim to have moral character.
And then of course, for the next year, read day after day, after day, after day.
How you are a terrible sub-human piece of trash.
Read that, every day, from god-knows how many people.
Have your life threatened, repeatedly.
Have your wife's life threatened.
Have your child's life threatened.
Do that.
Then come back to me, and say with a straight face, that I am a serial hara**er.
(Sighing)
This is the straw that breaks the camel's back, honestly, it really is.
Like, I've dealt with this for over a year.
I'm in therapy for this stuff, like,
It's that bad.
And then you have someone like you,
Come out and dare to spread lies.
For instance: "He was among the first mainstream people to share the 'Five Guys' video".
I never linked that video.
I don't believe I ever even mentioned that video.
I certainly never used the term: "Five Guys".
Hell I've only ever used the GamerGate tag twice and it was never to communicate with anybody.
It was in context.
You know, I remember when that video first went out.
I remember when the first thing came out about that.
You know what I did?
I tweeted out this fairly lengthy thing, that told everyone:
"Look, this is ridiculous, you've gotta calm down."
I didn't focus on Zoe Quinn, I have no interest in Zoe Quinn,
Zoe Quinn is an indie dev.
She hasn't made anything, super important.
She hasn't made anything that's, you know, broken records or anything.
She's not one of the majors, is what I'm saying.
She's not the developer of Braid or anything along those lines.
The only time I'd ever heard of her previous,
Was her involvement in a game jam that went famously wrong with Polaris,
Which is a network that I'm part of.
And I read all these accusations, and I put out, a statement.
And my statement was very balanced.
My statement called for calm.
My statement was as neutral as it possibly could be.
And you know what happened? After that?
I had people telling me to k** myself from saying that.
Calling me a misogynist, calling me a bigot.
After I'd barely mentioned this woman's name.
I wanted to talk about journalistic ethics,
Because I've been so interested in that, for a very long time when it comes to gaming.
I mean, the games industry has an ethics problem.
It's had an ethics problem for a very, very, long time.
That's what I wanted to talk about.
That's all I've ever wanted to talk about.
I'm not interested in SJW, whatever that means,
I stopped using that term a long time ago.
I'm not interested in anything like that.
My only interest in people like Anita Sarkeesian,
Is when she mouths off about the games industry in an ignorant fashion.
And I find it rather disconcerting,
I find it disheartening to see, people listening to that sort of stuff.
I find it annoying to see, the idea of violence in video games dragged right back up into focus.
When we've been dealing with this since Jack Thompson,
We've been dealing with this since before him, with the media.
Now I grew up in that, I grew up in the nineties, when this stuff was going down.
When people were claiming that Doom was responsible for the Columbine ma**acre.
Now this is the kind of stuff I'm dealing with.
Now these people have gone out of their way to horribly misrepresent me.
I've been called transphobic.
And on what grounds?
I made a joke about toast-kin,
And someone misinterpreted it and said that I was transphobic.
I, what? Are you kidding me?
We're talking about people on Tumblr that pretend to be dragons.
We're not talking about transgender people.
But of course, the a**umption was made.
And that's the label that stuck.
Because if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth.
Especially when it's more convenient to use to dehumanize your opponent.
We had, people that claimed I was s**ist.
Since when?
And what's the justification for that?
Because I disagree with a women on some things?
I disagree with plenty of men as well, what's your point?
Gender doesn't come into it, it never has!
But, people want to make everything political for whatever reason.
And the last few days has been ridiculous.
I mean, people are claiming that I'm leading around some sort of hara**ment group.
Because I wanted to make Steam just a little bit better for consumers that--
It's ridiculous.
Do you know what it's like, to have everything you do, scrutinized?
Do you know what it's like, to have thousands of people just waiting,
For any little opening, just any kind of opportunity they've got to stick one in,
To get their pound of flesh.
Do you know what that's like?
You don't know what that's like.
You have no idea.
Women are not the only people hara**ed online, no,
Anyone with any modicum of fame is hara**ed online.
Consistently.
Unendingly.
Twenty four seven.
It never stops.
And of course, your job's online, you can't disconnect from it.
I'm sitting here right now and I just want to vomit, you know?
I really do.
Reading things like this.
Reading attacks on my character consistently, from people who should know better.
People that actually have influence,
People that work for websites,
People that are reporters.
"TotalBiscuit is not popular."
(Laughing)
Really? I have two-million followers on YouTube,
And that doesn't make me at least a little bit popular?
My name was mentioned as someone that could sell games,
And you "instantly felt worse about being there"?
Are you out of your mind? Like, are you crazy?
Do you need the address of my therapist? Because I can give him to you!
I'm sorry but, nobody feels this way.
That is insane.
You've never met me, you have no idea who I am.
I mean, you've spread lies!
Who told you that I was one of "the first mainstream people to share the 'Five Guys' video".
Because I never did that.
That is a thing that never happened.
Good luck finding evidence of that.
You really think I'd spread a video like that around?
With so many unsubstantiated rumors about somebody?
That's insane.
No what we did, is we sat down with Steven to tell him,
And we had an honest debate about ethics.
And we consistently pushed this idea that,
Being an extremist and attacking people is the wrong thing to do.
The hara**ment should be forced out,
And that focusing on the kind of people that would do this sort of thing,
Means that you will never have a constructive discussion about anything.
Let me put it this way.
GameGate right now in its current state, is:
Two completely sides,
On two completely different fields,
Playing two completely different games,
And then somehow claiming them against each other.
It's nonsense, it's one narrative versus another,
And they both have plenty of faults.
Let me put it that way.
And that's not a "the truth is somewhere in the middle".
That's a, "there are extremists everywhere",
That want to hijack things, for their own personal agenda.
I have no idea who you are, Rowan Kaiser.
I don't have a clue.
But ultimately, I get slandered online every day.
I get character a**a**inations sent my way every day.
I have had people go through my history and try to list off,
Ten years of supposed "sins and crimes".
That really constitute nothing but a couple of tweets.
Now they want to destroy my life, people want me out of this industry.
They want to destroy my career,
They want to break down everything that I've spent the last six years building.
They want to do that.
That's what hara**ment is.
And people like Sarkeesian?
They absolutely, receive hara**ment.
No doubt about that, I've never denied that.
Are you kidding me?
Do you want us to compare the number of d**h threats we get?
I'd imagine they'd be pretty similar.
But people like you, that spread these lies.
People like you, that claim that others are sub-human, that are somehow beneath you?
People like you that engage in public shaming.
You are the hara**er.
Maybe you'll gain a semblance of self-awareness.
Maybe you'll actually understand that.
Maybe you'll understand the kind of effect that you have.
Do you think you're crusading for justice? Really?
Do you think that GOG would work with someone they haven't fully vetted?
I talk to them on a daily basis, they know everything about me!
They know what I do.
You think they can be pressured?
I don't know what you think.
Whatever ridiculous narrative you've been fed.
You really need to do some research.
When you engage in character a**a**ination,
That has no basis in fact,
You are a hara**er.
It's really that simple.
So, thanks for the additional d**h threats,
Thanks for all the crap that I now have in my inbox as always,
Whenever somebody when any sort of following tweets out this kind of stuff.
Take a good long look at yourself.
And think about the people that you're affecting.