I've faced a lot of harassing DMs, text messages, & phone calls over the years. But out of all the beats I've covered as a marginalized journalist, the lion's share comes after I publish a piece about games. I can 100% count on facing harassment after a games story goes viral.

In retrospect, whenever I receive harassment, the story in question is either about a) geekdom, or b) games. Games in particular tends to lead to the most harassment between the two.

Which makes me wonder: like, jesus, why games in particular?

I've been trying to wrap my head around this as I continue to write in games because I'm starting to see harassment creep in from members within the industry, not just outside of it. Things like spreading rumors behind my back or telling half-truths to kick up harassment mobs

This causes a sort of gaslighting effect where it's hard to know who to talk to, pitch, or trust, which is a very isolating experience... I don't think people realize that if you see a marginalized games journalist face harassment, you should show them some support over DM

But all that said, why games?

For one, games has been a functionally conservative community for a number of years. This is partly due to structural misogyny embedded in tech that dates back to the DoD in computing, meritocracy myths, reactionary elements mobilized, (1)

(2) self-reinforcing misogynistic structures (men bonding by harassing women), and how there are so few opportunities to be a woman in the games community without facing intense misogyny (from sexual harassment to competition between other women due to scarcity politics)

Similar structural issues play out across identities. For queers, we face scrutiny from cishet white gamers for "not being normal," & that gets internalized by LGBT gamers who just want to "fit in" without facing harassment." Racism is so prevalent that numerous Twitch streamers

or YouTubers have, at one point or another, said a racial slur on a stream and still have successful careers. We even have a meme about it: "gamer words." Games like CS:GO are notorious for racist slurs being thrown around regularly in casual matches

Then there's toxicity among gamers themselves, something that even cishet white boys aren't spared from: intense meritocracy, gaslighting fellow players by blaming abuse on "poor performance," deprioritizing communication, enabling harassment and abuse among fellow players

Meanwhile the messages found in the games we play tend to reinforce a lot of these structures. For years, women were playable in multiplayer FPS games, until they were not, and they remained non-playable characters until somewhat recently. Even games that are hailed as (1)

(2) progressive or forward-thinking still engage in a ton of objectification. Overwatch is a great example. There's *some* diversity in bodies, but not a lot. And Blizzard turned a Black woman into an Overwatch 2 marketing hook, which, oof, is a lot

The rank systems in these games tend to value win/loss as a penultimate sign of success, which in theory encourages teamwork, but in reality suggests you're only as good as the sum of your parts -- so it's better to carry and yell at people who fuck you over than to play together

Then there's the way marketing teams for Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc play up games as something a gamer is entitled to and should look forward to. This does double-duty. It makes things like the Bethesda-Microsoft merger look *good* and it makes hype look like Xmas day

So you end up with this entire community that self-reinforces bigotry, believes abuse is justifiable if it's from "passion," largely relies on conservative cultural messaging in most of its games, and has a huge PR machine that insists gamers deserve to feel entitled to space

This... is a really bad collection of values. A lot of people who grew up in the gaming community -- yes, incl marginalized folks! -- have internalized this stuff. It then gets reinforced in the industry and leads to things like marginalized people bullying each other.

In games media, scarcity of opportunity mixed with internalized transmisogyny means a lot of trans women in games journalism end up competing with each other and taking pot shots at one another. Which I've been guilty of too, and it's not nice, and why do we do it to each other?

Never for a good reason, that's why.

People who have v. strong internalized bigotry like to watch for marginalized games ppl to make mistakes or clash w/ respectability politics and then go in for the jugular, doubly so if they're not cis, straight, and/or white games ppl.

A lot of this is encouraged by, and built off of, a community and industry that is functionally conservative -- so it behaves in conservative ways.

It's also why burn out is so high among marginalized games media people. I can't think of many trans women who remain games journos

This is also why harassment happens. Internalized bigotry + a cultural sense that DARVO is OK if the person you DARVO deserves it... leads to outspoken marginalized games journalists getting harassing DMs, phone calls, text messages, IM requests, you name it. So much of it bb!

I don't care if you think my Among Us or Fall Guys thing or whatever was bad if you tell me to kill myself. Which, by the way, yes: I've gotten a number of those messages over the *years*. Years!

At this point I don't think games can be fixed w/o radical change, and it's left me questioning why I remain in this beat when there are others -- sex, tech, politics, sex work, queer issues -- that are far more eagerly interested in what I have to say. And w far less harassment!

Meanwhile I know a number of marginalized people who see me as competition (competition for WHAT? we're on the same side!) will copy & paste the URL for this thread (or even worse, quote tweet it!) and add their sweet Hot Take about how I was, I don't know, Bad Anyway

and this is exactly why games will never be able to fix itself: it lacks the ability to look in the mirror and admit its problems are structural, its problems are a culmination of years and years of rot, that it's fundamentally broken and needs to get fixed. It's easier to cull

How many times have we had a "reckoning" in games now... and nothing changed? It's not a reckoning if the abuser gets to go from running GaymerX to an indie game everyone loves

Meanwhile marginalized people who point out these issues are constantly on thin ice, and so all it takes is one mistake for an actual reckoning that leads to them permanently at a loss in an industry that believes being cis, straight, white, and with a nice job is a sign of merit