The full powerful set of tweets by @oliverbcampbell

**Here is collected a powerful set of tweets by @oliverbcampbell , these are some of the most articulate and impacting words i have ever seen written about gaming.**



First, let me tell you about who I AM. That way you know who you're fighting against. The story of my life begins as being the bastard son of an Army Engineer who didn't meet his father until he was 21 years old. I was born with Graves' Disease, an autoimmune disorder which effects my thyroid. It made me a very small kid. The runt of the litter. All of my youth was spent fighting against those who would try to pick on me, disarm me, take away my agency, my life, and my will. When I was 8 years old, bad circumstances led to myself, mother, and brother living in a women's shelter. I was homeless.



At 9 years old, my mother had a stroke that was so tremendous, it still affects her to this day. I was the one who had to care for her. I lived across the street from my elementary school; she would call the school and I would have to leave in middle of tests to go help her. My mother lost most of her education from her stroke. I had to teach her how to read and write again. At 9 years old. I was the one who had to go to all of my mother's doctor's appointments with her, and physical therapy. I WAS her home physical therapist. Doctors had to explain to me, the 9 year old what they were doing to her, and I had to explain it back to her in a way she could understand. THAT is why I am an orator. THAT is the reason that I can speak to the hearts and minds of people; because i had to learn how to for Mom. I had to do these things. They were NECESSARY for my survival. I HAD to grow up before I was supposed to. THAT is why I sound old.I kept going to school, and kept studying. I still had to be a kid, even though I had to tackle grown, adult problems.



Games are what kept me grounded, kept me there. Gaming was something that was there during ALL of that. I had no father, no older male role model to look up and aspire to. I was on my own.



When I was in high school, I started reaching for something greater, something more. I needed to feel the worth of my own life. I had to take care of my mom, work a part-time job (at an Irish Restaurant, which is why I know how to cook), and did JROTC. Even still doing that, I accomplished great things. I was the most decorated cadet of my freshman year. I did things that no one else thought was possible, because I wanted to get those things done. I fought a LOT of bullies in my time, because I was still small. I was 5'2" 100lbs at my heaviest at 17 years old. I won a lot of those fights, and lost some as well. But I made sure people knew that I WASN'T THAT MOTHERFUCKER TO TRY. Once was enough.



Leaving high school, I'd go on to receive a post-nominal with the International Foundation for Protection Officers (CPO) in trade school. During that same year, I would have the Thyroid Storm that I described before. Thyroid Storms have a 50-90% mortality rate. I remember that week very clearly as I lay there in the hospital. The Phantom Menace had come out, and I didn't sleep at all. I had to go and have radioactive iodine treatment to treat that thyroid condition, to repress it.I shot up 6 inches in 2 months, and put on a sudden 45lbs. Ask me what it's like to grow that much that suddenly and I'll tell you it sucks.



A few years later, I was engaged to a girl whom I thought I would spend my life with, and I couldn't have been more wrong. A pregnancy happened, which we were excited about. Until it became an ectopic pregnancy. In this case, it would have been fatal to her. Let me tell you right now, you DON'T KNOW what that is like for a man. And people never ask. It's one of the worst things that could happen.It is a situation that is 100% out of your control and you have no ability to alter the outcome.I mourned for a long, LONG time. She couldn't stand the sight of me anymore after that, because it was a painful reminder.



A few years later after that is when I would meet my wife as she is known today. We were a young couple, full of bright eyes. We didn't have much, but we had us, and that really WAS, and IS enough. We struggled all the time, barely enough to eat, juggling bills and school, and I had to pawn my games more than once. But all these things were okay, because we were together. A struggle, yes, but one worth doing.



I'd have started clawing my way up from the bottom into game journalism, because games were always the thing that was there for me. So I worked, and I toiled. I stayed up way too many late nights, learning what I needed to know, and doing what I needed to do. During all of this, is when I learned what my best friend was doing to his wife physically, emotionally, and mentally. I put a stop to it. Ending my friend's abuse of his wife is WHY I AM IN PAIN. It is the reason I have chronic pelvic pain syndrome. I paid for it.



Within a year of that happening, my thyroid would stop functioning, and I would have the cancer scare in my maxillary sinus. I had to have my head on my shoulders for ALL of these things, because you don't know if you're going to have to tell your wife goodbye. Even with all that going on, i was not ready to be done with my life. Rabbit in the Road, and The Twisted World was written DURING this. Somehow I came through all of that. A little worse for wear, but here I AM. I was very very weak, and I was starting to lose strength.



I put my broken, painful ass on that bicycle, and I started riding. I MADE myself get strong. When I wanted to quit, was when I went HARDER. Fast forward a year later, and here we are. My entire existence has been a circle of suffering, fighting for my life, and defending and protecting others. When I WANTED to be weak and falter is when I have had to be the strongest, because no one else knew how to handle what I did naturally. I AM forged in hell. Somehow, I'm still here, still alive, and still in one functional piece.



Then I saw THIS THING happening. I saw the thing that Protected me, helped me grow & make it through the world to become a man, be attacked.



I'm sitting here watching the thing that helped me still feel like a normal kid when I was homeless, be dragged through the mud.

I'm sitting here watching the thing that gave me escape to sill be a normal kind when I had to be an adult for my mom's sake, be attacked.

I'm sitting here watching the thing that helped me get over and mourn failing to become a father be attacked.

I'm sitting here watching the thing that brought my wife and I together, lest we would have NEVER met, be attacked

I'm sitting here watching the thing that I decided to commit a life to, and to be a part of its history, be attacked.

I'm sitting here watching the thing that got em through that medical nightmare and gauntlet, be attacked.



Now you know who you're fighting. Beating the odds is what i do. Standing up to bullies is what i do. Speaking up is what i do. You people have taken a thing that has brought joy and salvation in equal measure to millions of people the world over & tarnished it. You think they're "just games." No, they're NOT just games. They are the dreams and imaginations of people made whole, realized. There are people whom I will never meet that touched my soul and kept it from dark places, because of what they created. Gaming is to MANY of us, what books are to the chronically ill child in the hospital. A place where things are okay, and are RIGHT.



I saw what was happening right here in this industry, TO this industry, and I decided to stand up and make myself be counted:

I won't sit here and watch you tell these people they are less than human when they've done NOTHING to warrant such slander.

I won't sit here and watch you tell these people that create games that they're destroying lives and culture, when it's the EXACT opposite.



Over the past 6 months of this, all I have seen is nothing but contradiction and hypocrisy at every single turn from you people:

You claim to speak on behalf of minorities, but ONLY the ones that agree with you.

You claim to speak on behalf of women, but ONLY the ones that agree with you.

You claim to want it to be a better industry, but ONLY for the developers that agree with you..



You haven't created your so-called 'safe space" for those people. You've done the EXACT OPPOSITE.

You have fostered a culture of fear, anxiety, and hatred within this industry with your scare rhetoric and falsehood.

You have forced minorities to have to give up their anonymity on the internet, just to be believed that they're minorities.

You have froced women to have to give up their anonymity on the internet, just to be believed that they're women.

You have created a situation where multiple developers have had to speak through voicemasking due to FEAR of you people.



This is NOT justice! This is NOT freedom! this is a twisted and corrupted puppet show of such ideas. You've taken this lovely place, this industry that was full of dreams, and ambitions, and imaginations and turned it into a dark place. Video games have good, and they have bad. They reflect their creators in that they are flawed, but full of potential for great things. You've stolen away people's rights to IMAGINE, taken away their right to the truth, no matter how ugly, and traded it for false security.I have seen you "social justice" types threaten gamers with violence, threaten their lives, condone bullying and silence dissent. YOU are the abuser. All these people wanted was to not be treated like shit. Treated like people.To be heard, and have a right to imagine. All they have asked for is to not be lied to. They wanted the truth, even the ugly parts. And you treat that like it's a joke. I see this thing happening, and I see that I'm rather used to fighting the good fight, and I'm used to bullies like you. I'm not going to let you do this to these people, and I'm NOT going to let you do this to this industry.If I have to tear down your disgusting, vapid, and poisonous ideology brick by brick by myself, so be it. I'm just one person, and I can only do so much. I might fail. But no one will say that I didn't stand up when it was time to do so.



I'll stand up where others were are afraid to speak because I'm not built that way, to cower in fear. You DON'T get to take away these people's lives, their experiences, their meaning, and their joy. If there's only one motherfucker left at the end of the day, it'll be me. I'm a tough nut to crack, world hasn't killed me yet. Good luck.



So long as I am a gamer and there are gamers, and if they've committed no true harm, I will defend them. Because I, no WE, are united. We are united in a passion for the dreams that we have all shared and experienced together, the Great Imaginations. I'll tell you this; It's time for some of you people to move the fuck along, because clearly you don't want to be here. You are providing no benefit to gaming; you bring nothing but pain and torment in your wake for everyone that crosses your path. Sorry, but I'm not sorry. I'm not going to let that happen. You're just going to have to deal with me.



HARDEN THE FUCK UP. Life is HARD. You don't know just how much you can actually endure. Ask me how I know. You've made your narrative, now LIE in it, both figuratively and literally. Because you're doing a DAMN good job of lying already.I told you months back that the longer this goes on, the more of your skeletons come creeping out of closets. HAVE YOU GOTTEN IT YET?! I'm just a regular guy. A guy with a broken body, and probably too verbose a vocabulary. But I give it gladly back to those I care about. Right now, there's a lo of goddamn hurt people out there, and i see who is hurting them without justification. If you think trampling over these people is the path to glory and righteousness, you are sadly mistaken.



I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're a man, woman, trans, black, white, purple, green, whatever. If you game, we're together. Now, if you'll excuse me. I'm in horrible pain because it's going to snow tomorrow. I need to rest... for a while.



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