What’s good Gusbusters, waz hanninin’?

So there’s this thing going on called #Gamergate. It’s been going on for like sooooooooooo long, it’s all over my Twitter, and I’ve tried to just ignore it, but I, as a feminist, can’t keep quiet about it any longer. First of all let me get I like one thing really clear—I know NOTHING about video games. I played Nintendo Mario once when I was little, I’ve watched my cousin Brody play Call for Duty, and I play a mean game of Candy Crush on my iPhone, but that’s about it.

For the 23 years that I’ve been alive, my opinion on gamers has been similar to my opinion on wood lice—they’re kinda icky and disgusting, but if you don’t go near them, they don’t bother you that much. Games have always been, like, a thing I haven’t wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole. Throughout school, the people who were into Nintendos and Game Boys and that stuff were always, like the ickiest, smelliest, and the nerdiest people imaginable. They were the kind of people who wore socks and sandals, nerdy glasses, and always had their top button buttoned. They were the forever-aloners, the virgins, the ass-burger people.

For those who know me, you know that I’ve always been far away on a social level from these kinds of people. I’ve always been the popular girl, the prom queen, the cheerleader type, and all these humpbacked imps with their eyes glued to screens showing monsters, elves, and dragons have been nothing but weird, inconvenient beings hobbling around in my periphery.

I just hoped they, the “gamers,” would disappear forever once I finished high school, but it turns out they have followed me into the real world and they’ve managed to create their own little lives, full of video games and awkwardness but also (surprisingly) full of sex and scandal.

Therefore, I feel a little strange writing about them, let alone dabbling in their private little Pokémon rows. But hey, no need to see me as some kind of a hero for lowering myself to the level of talking about gamers; it’s what top journalists like myself do. We’re not afraid to get our hands dirty—and one thing’s for certain, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel one of my sisters had been greatly violated.

Apparently #GamerGate is all about the brave, fierce Zoe Quinn, a female game developer who made a great, ground-breaking game called Depression Quest. This game changed the gaming industry forever with its avant-garde graphics, its cutting-edge narrative, and its innovative gameplay. The game enraptured millions of right-thinking people, all of whom hailed a new era of the video-gaming industry wherein a new type of game developer—a more tolerant, soft, and estrogenic one—would take the helm. It seemed to us—and by “us” I mean the people who fight for equality, balanced representation, and social justice—that Zoe’s game was the harbinger of a new era, devoid of the old and mossy white hegemonic males that have hijacked the gaming industry from strong women for far too long.

Not surprisingly, the people who call themselves “gamers,” the people I avoided like the plague in middle school and who seemed to have stayed about there mentally, were outraged and jealous that a game developer who doesn’t fit their straitjacket mold of white, heterosexual atheism, managed to make such an industry-changing game. The gamer community got scared—scared that its oppressive, narrow-minded view of what a game developer should be like was in jeopardy, that diversity would come of this innovation, and that Zoe would herald a big transformation of their beloved, restrictive community.

Forced into a corner by diversity, love, and equality, the pimply gamers, their stomachs gurgling with energy drink and their sweatpants sprayed with poop particles, felt their identity was threatened and started making up pathetic stories and fabulations in some absurd attempt to sling mud at Zoe and keep the ways of their little cult unchallenged.

They started saying that just because Zoe was apparently having sex with some dude who writes about video games, and just because he wrote about Depression Quest specifically, there was some foul play and collusion going on. They basically started saying that it was unethical for the guy to like, write about that game while humping and pumping its creator, cuz that could like color his perception of the game. Yeah totally, cuz it’s because of that article that the game got so big—it has nothing to do with the game being. A. Fucking. Game. Changer. Literally.

So what if some journalist was ice-fishing in Zoe’s ice hole and wrote about her wonderful, inspiring game at the same time? Would you protest in a similar way if it emerged that the guy who made Zelda Ocarina of the Times had been sleeping with some gaming journalist back in the 80’s when it came out? NO, you wouldn’t, but just because Zoe is a woman , her game, which is btw, much better than Ocarina of the Times, wouldn’t have made it big without “unethical” coverage? Puh-lease, it’s not like a majestic game like that can go undiscovered. It was bound to get as big as it is regardless of her lover writing about it or not.

And yeah, what if that journalist helped market the game? Women developers are marginalized and held down by big fat white man-baby “gamers” all the time; they deserve a little extra publicity cuz of all the sheer hardship they go through at the Doritos-smeared hands of gamers. I think meddling in Zoe’s personal life is just a way for gamers to try to police women’s sexuality and express their misogynist values.

Yeah, just because you’re all virgins who look like plucked chickens stuffed with soggy Cap’n Crunch and cottage cheese you just wanna project your own yucky sexual fantasies on poor Zoe and try to restrict her from being a liberated, sexual young woman!

You would probably say that I’m unethical too, cuz I usually offer anal to employers if they agree to hire me. Would you call that unethical, too? Huh? HUH? You probably would, you sexist scumbags!!! STOP TRYING TO CONTROL WOMEN’S BODIES! The patriarchy is doing enough to hold beautiful, smart women like Zoe back in their everyday life and now you’re trying to limit women’s influence in the gaming sphere, too. Shame on you! Shame. Shame shame shame! (On you.)

All you gamers, or man-children as you’re better known, you need to start seeing Depression Quest and Zoe Quinn for the paradigm-shifting phenomena they are. Anyone who doesn’t think her game is among the best ever made is a raging misogynist who can’t handle the fact that women can make pretty darn divine games. Depression Quest should get a 10 on ING, and if it doesn’t, Zoe should sue them for sexism.

You’re like Nazis who can’t handle that they lost a little video game called World War II. You’re jealous and bitter that someone who doesn’t share your pasty hue, your neckbeard, and your rape-apologist views managed to make a. Great. Fucking. Game. You’re literally worse than the Nazis right now, gamers; you all owe Zoe Quinn an apology and you should all buy her game to support her.

Oh, and concerning Anita Sharkeeshian, the brave social-justice activist who is known for her hard-hitting, deep, and nuanced YouTube documentary Tropes vs. Women, has been receiving death threats for calling out the gamer community. WTF guys? You’re really shitty people; why is it so hard for you to accept that gaming culture is over as you know it? Just accept that a new, tolerant epoch has begun!

Personally I haven’t been spared from the sexist, misogynist gamer squad’s fury when I made a comment on a YouTube vid concerning #GamerGate, supporting Zoe, and a user named MundaneMatt attacked me, calling me a “stupid cow.” I’ve reported this to the FBI ofc.

I support you Zoe—you did nothing wrong and your game is beyond great; I can’t get enough of it!

Discuss this with me under the hashtag #AnneGusGate, cuz I want a gate, too!!