My life in books

Celebrity is a strange thing. Most people whose fame goes far beyond any recognition they might reasonably have attained through their own work in their field, or their actions with their own circle, do so because the media picks them up, enhances who they are or what they do. Zoe Quinn became a celebrity because a bunch of overly privileged manboys decided that she had harshed their gaming mellow and threatened to kill her. Zoe Quinn became a celebrity because of the people who hate her, and remains one because of her response to that, and the people who came to admire her for it.

Crash Override: How Gamergate [Nearly] Destroyed My Life and How We Can Win the Fight against Online Hate is the story of how all that shit went down. It’s also the story of how Quinn survived and went on to found an organisation designed to help others facing the same shit that was thrown at her. And it’s the story of how much more has to change before any real dent can be made in the toxic sludgery that is the natural environment of the Internet abuser.

The first part of the book interweaves a linear account of the early days of the Gamergate assault on Quinn following he revenge post of an abusive ex-lover, with Quinn’s account if growing up poor, nerdy, and queer in a dysfunctional family in small town America. The later part of the book focuses on an exploration of the nature of online harassment, her anti-harassment activism and the tactics adopted by her organisation - also called Crash Override - on behalf of their clients, general advice on what to do if you are being harassed, or expect to be, and thoughts on what our social institutions - such as lawmakers, police, academic researchers, the media, and companies with internet presence - can do to ameliorate the problem.

Quinn earns significant points in my book for pointing out that as bad as the harassment has been for her, a white cis woman, it is worse for trans folk and people of colour, and worst of all for trans women of colour - as it is in life off the net as well. She makes clear the linkages between the reddit and 4chan gamergate abusers, highly sexist denizens of the MRA and ‘manoverse’ netspaces, and the alt-right/white supremacist/fascist community centred on breitbart and similar sites.

And by admitting her own involvement in internet abuse as an insecure teenager with unresolved frustrations, she underscores the point that internet harassment is bullying gone digital, it is a manifestation of something that has been part of human interaction for a very long time, and it will take a cultural seachange to prioritise empathy over dehumanisation.

“We need a culturewide solution because individual change is difficult when online abuse is frequently a group activity. It’s harder to hear the voices of the people you’ve hurt over the dozens of others cheering you on. These mobs spring up partly because a lot of people like teen me don’t have a community anywhere else. Participating in an abuse campaign is something to have in common, with a target to bond over and rally against. The mob is a place to belong and find acceptance; it just happens to be built on someone else’s suffering.”

A brave, painful and sometimes funny examination of the underside of Internet culture that will probably leave you wondering what would happen if the trollmobs came after you.