Anita Sarkeesian - My reply to Earnest Pettie's critique of my Gamergate history lyrics

Hi Earnest, thank you for taking the time to formulate a lengthy response. I appreciate your willingness to come to the table, even if I disagree with your views. I am also sorry to see that your response was treated poorly in the subreddit by some people. After 3 months of constant defamation by the media on all fronts, you're dealing with people who are tired and in many cases bitter. I'm sure you would feel the same given the circumstances. I will now exercise my right of reply to your critique and go point by point in the format that you have used. "Right off the bat, TotalBiscuit shows that his knowledge of the very beginning of this movement is flawed. It is my belief that a large portion of GamerGaters don't actually know the history behind the movement, which allows them to behave as if Zoe Quinn is unimportant to GamerGate, negligible, almost wholly irrelevant. " This is a curious opening statement because it contradicts your entire hara**ment narrative. You believe that a large portion of GamerGaters dont know the history behind the movement which allows them to ignore Zoe Quinn. But didn't you make the argument that this movement is about hara**ment? How can that be the case if a large portion of the movement is ignoring Zoe Quinn entirely? Did you really just admit that a large portion of Gamergate has no interest in hara**ing Zoe Quinn? Don't get me wrong, I agree with you 100% it's just a really curious opening statement because it torpedoes most of your argument. "In fact, the movement begins with the spread of lies about the nature of Quinn's relationship with Kotaku writer Nathan Grayson. I give TotalBiscuit credit for the courage of his convictions, though, and the strength of character required to admit an error." There's a piece of history that I left out which explains this very well. The beginning of this whole saga was mired in confusion and misinformation caused by ma** censorship. On Day 1 when I made my first comment, it was in response to reading research and watching a couple of videos, all of which had a variance in what they said. Instead of being able to discuss and investigate the issues on forums like Reddit, the response was ma** censorship. On Reddit, my Day 1 response hit the frontpage of /r/all, but every comment, all 35,000 of them were deleted. Many other forums censored all discussion of it and we later found evidence of collusion to do so in the GameJournoPros leaks, as several members of it criticized Greg Tito for NOT shutting down discussion. The result of censorship, is of course the Streisand effect, which often leads to misinformation. However I absolutely take issue that there was a "spread of lies". There was confusion, but not lies. Thezoepost did not accuse Grayson of writing a favourable review while in a romantic relationship. Neither did Mundane Matt or Internet Aristocrat's videos, although I will attest that Internet Aristocrat implied it with an irresponsible and tabloid-esque intro. The idea that he covered her game while in a romantic relationship appears demonstratably false however the lack of disclosure of a friendly relationship is not. One other thing you missed out which caused A LOT of ire is the claim of DMCA abuse. This has never been confirmed or denied by Ms Quinn, but Reddit in particular is very sensitive to the DMCA being used as a tool for censorship, as am I since I've had it almost destroy my career on two occa**ions. This has been swept under the rug, yet on Day 1 it was a large focus of many people, myself included, indeed it is the only thing I criticized Ms Quinn for on Day 1. Let's presume for a second however that the "movement" is founded on lies, which I don't believe is true. Confusion, sure. Outright lies? No. Grayson still did not disclose a friendly relationship and more to the point this was a catalyst for digging up many more instances of alleged impropriety within the industry that were definitely not lies, such as Patricia Hernandez giving positive coverage to her housemates and close friends. At that point, I a**ert that the origins of the movement are irrelevant. As you mentioned earlier, a "large" number of people do not know of the early history of the movement and as a direct result, are focused on what it is now, a discussion of ethics. I would even a**ert that it began that way, but with far less focus. I believe it is a fallacy to judge the movement as it stands now based on how it started, especially since in that time it has moved hashtags and has a much clearer focus. Now you go on to say, regarding Grayson and Quinns relationship: "There is no real basis for this conjecture, just that TotalBiscuit and others believe that it takes a while for a relationship to develop. Sometimes it takes a while for relationships to develop, and sometimes a near-instant attraction develops between two lucky people. I don't know which it was, and, honestly, neither does TotalBiscuit." Actually there is a solid basis for it as well as circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction. A twitter timeline proves that there was a trip to Vegas planned with Zoe, Grayson and a couple of others. Quinn first announced the trip on March 23rd, a week before the GAME_JAM article and confirmed Graysons attendance on March 30th, a day before. This to me is fairly solid proof that there was a friendly relationship prior to this. I have expressly and repeatedly stated my belief that such relationships need to be disclosed in writing. Furthermore, in journalism a large concern is to avoid the appearance of impropriety. The timeline on the article, then the subsequent relationship, plus the planning of the Vegas trip is simply too close for comfort. It is an appearance of impropriety. Kotaku has yet to admit this, editor in chief Stephen Totilo does not believe anything untoward went on. I disagree with him. "Baldwin's #gamergate Tweet about a series of “Quinnspiracy” videos happened on August 27th, and the hashtag immediately caught fire spawning thousands of tweets and retweets. That is the moment that the Quinnspiracy hashtag died. It was a pa**ing of the baton. The referenced articles rolled out August 28th, and they certainly poured fuel on the fire, but GamerGate was already a thing before the articles, and it actually exploded on August 30th. GamerGate the hashtag yielded GamerGate the movement." My timeline is actually fine. As you can see I never claimed that #gamergate was coined after the release of the Gamers are Dead articles, only that it exploded after the articles were released. These Twitter statistics indicate that this is true. #Gamergate exploded over the course of a few days and built to fever pitch. Your statement that the hashtag "immediately caught fire" is demonstrateably false as you can see. It took several days to get rolling, well after the "Gamers are Dead" articles came out and poured a lot of fuel on it. I'm glad that you agree with me on that point and I would a**ert that had those articles not been written this would already be over. "It is unforgivable to me that TotalBiscuit time and time again misrepresents the actual history of this movement, and those misrepresented facts, as we have seen, get repeated by people who don't know any better." As I have just discussed, I did not misrepresent the facts, you merely misinterpreted them. What I find frustrating is your laser focus on the "start" of the movement when what is relevant is the movement as it stands now 3 months on. There is nothing more frustrating than being beaten round the head with "IF THIS IS ABOUT ETHICS WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ZOE QUINN?" when the only people talking about Zoe Quinn are, well people like yourself. You already admitted that a large portion of the movement doesn't know or care about her, so I have to ask, do you think perhaps that large portion might be a majority? "The mental gymnastics here are unbelievable. In one thought, TotalBiscuit suggests d**h threats are common and then goes on to doubt the identity of the senders only to follow that up with “We simply don't know.” If you don't know, TotalBiscuit, why not give Sarkeesian the benefit of the doubt? After all, simply not knowing and with threats being common, you have no real reason to doubt anything about the threats." I already did give her the benefit of the doubt. I already stated I have no doubt they exist. What I'm not going to do is attribute them to a group without proof. I'm also not going to claim they were credible because well, Anita is still breathing. This is a silly accusation. I've never at any point expressed the opinion that she did not receive threats. I firmly believe that she did. What I do not buy is that it was part of an orchestrated hara**ment campaign by #Gamergate which is exactly what the mainstream media narrative has pushed. You go on to say that you don't believe you ever suggested that this was an organized effort to drive women out of the industry. I'm not sure I agree with that. Burch stated there are two groups in Gamergate, those doing the hara**ing and those who are mislead. I can't see how that could be interpreted any other way. It should be noted that the media narrative has been saying that this is a movement designed to hara** women out of the industry for a long time and my response is directly to that. "It's good of TotalBiscuit to reject hara**ment in all its forms. He's a real mensch, and he's right. People should treat people like people. He's wrong, though, to suggest that we are painting everyone in GamerGate in the same light. We simply don't do that in the video. In fact, Ashly suggests that many in the movement are misled, and I would submit TotalBiscuit's post as Exhibit A. Not only is the post factually flawed, but it has already been posted to Reddit where it has been generally cheered." Burch has made her opinion quite clear on the matter. She has labeled all of Gamergate as "bad". We're either malicious or ignorant. Yeah I don't buy that for a second. I strongly question the validity of judging a movement based on its shaky and confused origins. There are clear issues of journalistic ethics and integrity being discussed. Journalists are refusing to engage with them and hiding behind the "this movement is all about hara**ment so we wont talk to you" shield. They are refusing discourse, all the while they are under scrutiny for alleged misconduct and the media is helping them along by giving the spotlight to a minority of trolls engaging in hara**ment. This is completely counterproductive. Your entire point here seems to rest on a minor misinterpretation of one fact 3 months ago. I would suggest that this is a distraction. You have already admitted that to a large portion of Gamergate, Zoe Quinn is irrelevant. Great, on that we agree. But are people being mislead? By who exactly? There are no leaders, there is no organized cabal leading the lamb astray. There is a clear timeline of journalistic impropriety that goes WAY further back than any of this, back to magazines such as Amiga Power. A systemic set of problems that need resolving and a belief by gamers that they deserve better media that will be honest with them and won't throw them under the bus and attack their identity. "I could go on, but the real reason I took the time out to do this was to illustrate that even TotalBiscuit, the most total of all biscuits, is misinformed about GamerGate. There's a LOT to GamerGate, and a some of it is bad. Some of it is good. Those somes and up to the sum of GamerGate, which is not entirely without fault. If you're going to support Gamergate, please just have a full awareness of the entirety of what it is because then I can take you seriously as someone who accepts its unfortunate past and can make amends for that on your way toward the better future you imagine." Well if your intent was to demonstrate that I was misinformed then that didn't go too well. I agree with the rest of your last paragraph though. Thing is, people have already tried to "atone". They moved away from Quinnspiracy, they supported a huge crowdfunding effort to help women make games with the Fine Young Capitalists, an organization that was ignored by the mainstream media and slandered and hara**ed by Zoe Quinn and her followers (this is another piece of early history you left out by the way, though it isnt particularly relevant now), they donated to anti-bullying charities, they set up a hara**ment patrol to ma** report twitter trolls. The large majority that you pointed out in your first paragraph, have nothing to atone for, but they are clearly acting in good faith to try and improve their image because they are sick and tired of being labeled misogynist cis-white male scum by people with more followers than braincells. I don't blame them. After the hara**ment I received for merely making a neutral statement on the subject and calling for calm, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. A final word. I'll do some disclosure on your behalf. In your video you relied on guest Ashley Burch for much of the opinion on Gamergate. It should be noted that Ms Burch is a friend of Zoe Quinn and will play a role in an FMV game she is developing called "Camps not Dead". Source for this can be found here. I would suggest as a result that Ms Burch has an inherent bias when it comes to defending a friend and person she now works for. This should be disclosed and her opinions on the subject taken with that context in mind. Thanks for your time.