First, thanks to the OP for the summary. I really hope Steelseries isnt behind this.
Second - for everyone saying JUST MUTE JUST MUTE. While I agree that will put an immediate end to the problem is that a real solution? For me no, because why cant someone enjoy a game with interaction and chatting as teammates without fear of being bullied?
Of course these 2. Wonder were waypoint is.
Of course these 2. Wonder were waypoint is.
Of course these 2. Wonder were waypoint is.
I'm really interested in how Kotaku and Polygon will spin the narrative on this dumpster fire. ZombiUnicorn and her motley crew have already started evoking the usual 'alt-right misogynistic neckbeard basement troll attack' defense. They'll keep spinning the narrative so hard, it will create a rift in the space-time continuum where we'll be sucked into a parallel universe where 'evul misogynistic g4m0rs' will discover her since deletedsuicide girlsplayboy pictures. She'll use that as an attempt to vindicate herself by claiming that she got doxxed by hateful trolls who "stole" these pictures in order to damage her stellar reputation.
She'll keep herself putting into the center of attention through incendiary remarks to the point, where she'll be invited to the U.N. in order to propose the creation of a military-grade taskforce of online-hunters. The resulting U.N. report will be horribly written and terribly sourced, linking to documents on a private harddrive. She'll keep repeating how much harassment she receives and how she has to literally fear for her life while she'll keep poking the hornets nest because, apart from her shitty gaming related projects, it's the only thing she'll ever be known for.
The press will lap her story up like candy because it's good drama and provides outrage clicks. They will prop her up as another feminist messiah, to the point where she'll write a book on how the internet almost killed her. Of course the book will sell poorly, but will nevertheless receive a Hugo nomination.
In that alternate universe, it will create an every growing rift in the gaming community for years to come. Every ounce of criticism will be quickly dismissed as 'misogynist hatespeech' and gamers will be painted as to be in support of bullying. The resulting disconnect between the press and the gaming community will be so severe, it will be claimed to impact the U.S. presidential elections... oh wait!
1 Where do you see this in this thread? Alt right really?Wow it's amazing to see how this site has slummed into allowing dog whistle alt right language, with openly hostile anti feminist and misogynistic posts.
Good fucking job gaf
I can't believe these people don't have the same belief and opinions as me so I am offended by it so I will just call them misogynist despite strong evidence suggesting that one of the people involved is a bully herself and the information they are providing is false and inaccurate
Edit: redacted because responding to a banned person is pointless
Anyway, the Bully Hunters website seems to have gone down. It lasted a whole two days.
As for SteelSeries, it seems ZombiUnicorn "has receipts" that they had a larger hand in this than their statement implies. Seems like this shitshow is far from over.
Yeah, I always hate that stupid justification that used to be used all the time.The first response from Steelseries was an "at least it created a conversion" type. But good on them to at least create a clearer second statement about dropping support.
That's actually a good point too. We should really empower women to be confident and to stand up for themselves against cyber bullies. The idea of hiring a person to do that for you is very counterintuitive to dealing with bullies.If I'd be a woman, I'd be embarassed for my own gender. Real women don't need cyber bully hunters, they can stand up for their own and if you do not feel like agueing with somebody on the internet, there's alwyas a mute button.
This whole thing looks more like a platform for attention whores and for hardware manufacturers selling "anti-bully" headsets to edgelords.
This hurts women and gamers alike. Glad this whole thing imploded quickly.
“Speaking personally, although the hateful comments aren’t easy to look at, I still firmly believe it’s important for me and like-minded individuals to speak up on behalf of victims and share our truth no matter what the trolls may say.”
ZombiUnicorn, who emphasized that while she’s only consulting on the Bully Hunters project and is not heading it up, believes the Bully Hunters organization has heard the criticism and is open to change. “They are gonna be working on changing stuff and coming up with more ideas,” she said over the phone, also claiming that Bully Hunters began as a campaign to raise awareness around online harassment, with the hunt element only being added a few months ago as a stunt to kick off the larger campaign. “I am still working with Bully Hunters to come up with more solutions and other ways of taking all the feedback.”
She added, however, that from her perspective, the campaign has already kind of succeeded in that it got a lot of people talking about harassment, even if a lot of that talk was directed at the campaign itself. “If it’s gonna help a few more people understand that this is not OK—all these people are speaking up saying that we shouldn’t do the Bully Hunters thing because that might harass the bully—then it did its job,” she said. “It’s bringing more attention to the fact that harassing isn’t OK. You can debate the merits of the execution, but I’m always gonna remain supportive of the overall goal.”
“Love it or hate it, it did its job. It’s brought a lot of attention to this. It’s opened up the discussion to more people. Yeah, it’s brought a lot of trolls, but it’s opened the discussion.”
The more that comes out about Bully Hunters, the less anyone seems to want to be attached to the project at all — financially or otherwise.
Although most of the companies involved, including SteelSeries, have fled Bully Hunters, and the situation raised plenty of eyebrows, Casanova stands by the organization. She believes the campaign proves more than ever that there’s a problem with harassment in the industry that she wants to keep fighting against.
“We obviously need it,” Casanova said. “Look at the fact that so many people are pretending like they’re tearing apart Bully Hunters because of the bad execution, and in the process are harassing me and multiple other people so badly. Go through my timeline. Look at all the rape threats; the ‘whore’; the ‘cunt’; the ‘stupid idiot, you’re a slut, you’re an idiot, you’re not even a real gamer.’ That’s real harassment.”
Did they ask her about her own usage of the term “f_gg_t” online? I’d check myself but I never give them clicks. I’m gonna guess no.So the Kotaku and Polygon articles have dropped and it goes as well as predicted.
Kotaku
Polygon
Standard go to defense of "doesn't matter, started conversation" and "criticism is harassment". Oh they certainly started a conversation, unfortunately it's a conversation about anything but harassment. In fact, this whole stunt only poisoned the well for other discussions about real issues related to bullying. Well done.
I'll never understand how they can peddle their bullsh*t online and then react so surprised when the people they are sh*tting on bite back. Did they really expect that demonizing a whole demographic would pass without a hitch? Never mind the fact that females are equally as engaged in online bullying as males are. But no, gotta make it another needlessly divisive issue instead of talking about the problem itself.
It's history repeating itself. Never change Polytaku, you predictable fools, never change!
Assholes/jerks/pricks exist in all aspects of life. To think video games can be this sterilized Utopia where everyone is nice to one another all the time is a pipe dream. Ignoring, muting, and possibly reporting is the best course of action.First, thanks to the OP for the summary. I really hope Steelseries isnt behind this.
Second - for everyone saying JUST MUTE JUST MUTE. While I agree that will put an immediate end to the problem is that a real solution? For me no, because why cant someone enjoy a game with interaction and chatting as teammates without fear of being bullied?
So both of them pulled the, "It doesn't matter if our side does something wrong as long as it starts a conversation" routine? How shocking.So the Kotaku and Polygon articles have dropped and it goes as well as predicted.