0:00

This is somebody who has been making videos about

0:02

me for months. You know, the next thing I

0:04

knew someone was posting pictures at the inside of

0:06

my apartment. Remember

0:10

Gamergate? Women speaking out online

0:12

have also been met with attacks

0:14

via social media using the hashtag

0:16

Gamergate. What started as an online

0:19

spat about the ethics of gaming

0:21

journalism quickly escalated into a full-blown

0:23

culture war. It helped catalyze the

0:25

alt-right movement, which secured power and

0:27

prominence during the 2016 election cycle.

0:29

Well, it's happening again. Back in

0:32

March, journalists Elissa Morcante wrote a

0:34

story about how Sweet Baby Inc.

0:36

A video game consultancy had been

0:38

helped. gaming companies attract more diverse

0:40

audiences. Alyssa's story was deeply reported

0:42

and factually accurate, but the reaction

0:44

to it quickly took on a

0:47

life of its own. Within days, Mercante

0:49

had been threatened, doxed, and was the

0:51

target of a vicious hate and harassment

0:53

campaign that's become known as Gamergate 2.0.

0:55

Today I'm talking to Alyssa about what

0:57

it's like to be at the center

0:59

of an organized smear campaign, how she's

1:01

fighting back, and why the mainstream media

1:04

continues to be complicit in these attacks.

1:06

Hi Elissa, welcome to Power User. Hi,

1:08

thanks for having me. All right, so

1:10

for people who don't know who you

1:12

are, you're a pretty well-known online culture

1:14

video game journalist. How did you get

1:16

started in this space? I've been writing

1:18

about video games for my whole life,

1:20

but in terms of it being my

1:22

career, it's been the last five or

1:24

six years I was at games radar,

1:27

and then I went to Kataku, which

1:29

is owned by geo media, and my

1:31

reporting has always been on video games

1:33

and the culture surrounding. of everyone's conversation.

1:35

So you wrote this article about a

1:37

company called Sweet Baby that really blew

1:39

up and proved to be very divisive

1:41

on the internet. It also seems to

1:43

have sparked this months long harassment and

1:45

abuse campaign. Tell me about the article

1:47

and kind of what you hope to achieve

1:49

by writing it. What was the crux of

1:51

that story? Sure. So in the darker corners

1:53

of the internet and message boards that probably

1:55

the average internet user would never come across,

1:57

I noticed a conspiracy theory was kind of

1:59

making... the rounds about this particular consulting

2:01

group and what they do in the

2:04

video game industry. Consulting groups in the

2:06

video game industry are a lot like

2:08

how they are. In the movie industry

2:10

they'll get called in by studios making

2:12

games and do a pass on the

2:15

script or they'll offer insights into a

2:17

character. Sometimes they do sensitivity reads. It's

2:19

kind of like they wear many hats

2:21

and they do very very different things.

2:24

This one consultancy group Sweet Baby Inc

2:26

was being accused of forcibly and just

2:28

woke ideologies and characters into contemporary big

2:30

budget video games. And it was being.

2:33

used as sort of a cudgel as

2:35

to why there was a black lead

2:37

character in, you know, an award-winning game

2:39

from that year. And I started looking

2:42

into the people who had created this

2:44

group ostensibly monitoring any game that this

2:46

consultancy firm Sweet Baby had been involved

2:48

in and found that they had their

2:50

own discord, which is like an instant

2:53

messaging service commonly used in the games

2:55

industry, used people who are looking for

2:57

people to play other games with, and

2:59

that discord was full of racist, vitriual,

3:02

home. mopobicslers, misogony, all the kinds of

3:04

stuff that I hadn't really seen at

3:06

that level online in a while. So

3:08

you notice that Sweet Baby, which is

3:11

this consulting firm, had been increasingly involved

3:13

in all of these video games that

3:15

were being, it seems like the target

3:17

of backlash, like you mentioned. So you

3:20

kind of dug into what was fomenting

3:22

that backlash and found this group of

3:24

people that were really dedicated to tracking

3:26

this consultancy firm, Sweet Baby, and it

3:29

seems like producing coordinated harassment campaigns against

3:31

any game. that I guess deigned to

3:33

partner with this consulting firm. Yeah, and

3:35

honestly, once the piece that I published

3:37

went live, and that piece also included

3:40

interviews with the people who work for

3:42

Sweet Baby, Inc., because the goal of

3:44

the piece was to sort of tell

3:46

you exactly what a consultancy firm does

3:49

and what it doesn't do, and try

3:51

and debunk this theory in the clearest

3:53

terms possible. Unfortunately, the moment that piece

3:55

went live, the new... theory cropped up,

3:58

which was that games journalists were running

4:00

defense for this company and then it

4:02

just kind of the attacks spun off

4:04

of that and just started getting worse

4:07

and worse. So any game that was

4:09

even remotely connected to Sweet Baby Inc,

4:11

anybody who worked at Sweet Baby Inc,

4:13

a lot of people who were just

4:16

women or people of color or queer

4:18

folks who were writing about this or

4:20

talking about this online, they were just

4:22

the target of this harassment campaign and

4:24

it has not stopped. It's been non-stop

4:27

since March actually. As you mentioned, there

4:29

are so many of these consultancy groups

4:31

that go around and consult on

4:33

things like diversity and also just helping

4:36

these game companies, like you mentioned, appeal

4:38

to different audiences, right? You don't want

4:40

to just appeal to one demographic

4:42

when you're making video games. Why do

4:45

you think Sweet Baby specifically has become

4:47

such target? I think it's a perfect

4:49

storm of stuff. I think it doesn't

4:52

help that Sweet Baby is run by

4:54

a black woman named Kim Belier. I

4:56

don't think it helps that... the video

4:59

game industry which grew exponentially during the

5:01

height of the pandemic where more and more

5:03

people were buying game consoles and playing games

5:05

that had never been involved in this industry

5:08

before and all of the video game studios

5:10

started hiring more people looking to make more

5:12

money which resulted in mass layoffs the last

5:15

two years. I think people have also noticed

5:17

that there is a perceived decrease in quality

5:19

of some types of games, you know, games

5:21

that are made with microtransactions so that you'll

5:24

buy the game but then you'll keep buying

5:26

stuff. in that game because you want to

5:28

wear a cool outfit or you want to

5:31

have a cool weapon. And those games are

5:33

launching and then failing, kind of miserably. And

5:35

Sweet Baby Inc. was involved in one or

5:37

two games that did not do very well.

5:40

But unfortunately what happened with Sweet Baby is

5:42

it just became this kind of catch-all term

5:44

for anything that they deemed to have any

5:47

sort of... DEI in it, diversity, equity, and

5:49

inclusion. So if there was something that had

5:51

a black character or a female lead, it

5:53

was sweet baby treatment. Sweet baby must have

5:56

touched it. So now it's kind of spun

5:58

out into a lure that. In many

6:00

cases, it's completely untrue that this development

6:02

company hasn't even worked on most of

6:04

these games. About a decade ago, there

6:06

was this movement online called the Game

6:08

or Gate, which obviously you and I

6:11

are very familiar with. It was this

6:13

really coordinated harassment campaign against a bunch

6:15

of women in video games journalism, bad

6:17

faith attacks, and smears. And it was

6:19

really this ultimately served as a sort

6:21

of blueprint for how the far right

6:23

would come to weaponize the internet. That

6:25

received quite a bit of attention after

6:28

the fact. There was a bunch of

6:30

think pieces pieces about it. in 2017,

6:32

2018, 2019, like wow, wasn't that bad,

6:34

right? Good thing that was over. It

6:36

does seem like, though, things kind of

6:38

went underground or at least weren't so

6:40

bad for a while. In the past

6:43

year, really, with this new sort of

6:45

campaign against Sweet Baby and some of

6:47

the journalists involved like you, it seems

6:49

like this. we're experiencing almost a gamer

6:51

gate 2.0. What do you think has

6:53

led to this resurgence? There's so many

6:55

things and I keep saying perfect storm

6:57

and it feels like a cliche that

7:00

I've repeated so many times when talking

7:02

about this, but it is sort of

7:04

that as being an election year and

7:06

all of the kind of political disagreements

7:08

and conversations that happen around an election

7:10

year certainly make the internet an interesting

7:12

place. I mean we know that the

7:14

far right and the people who helped

7:17

prompt up Donald Trump's first run for

7:19

president were directly pulling from the playbook

7:21

of And I don't think it's a

7:23

coincidence that we started seeing it kick

7:25

up again during an election year. And

7:27

you can see that there are people

7:29

who are in the now President of

7:31

the election saying very similar things to

7:34

what Game or Gate 2.0 or the

7:36

people who are inciting this harassment campaign

7:38

say in terms of, you know, this

7:40

company's infested with DEI or we need

7:42

to end wokeness. And the issues that

7:44

the gamers have with video games and

7:46

the diversity of the industry. can easily

7:48

be applied to larger political issues that

7:51

they may have. And this sort of

7:53

belief that there's this massive, you know,

7:55

countrywide conspiracy to elect people or put

7:57

people into jobs who don't deserve it

7:59

because they're a minority or to cancel

8:01

people because they don't think that that's

8:03

fair. I think that combined with the

8:05

way the game regate just kind of

8:08

eventually disappeared also meant that a lot

8:10

of the major players in the video

8:12

game industry didn't really have to acknowledge

8:14

it. You didn't have to have Microsoft

8:16

say, this is screwed up and you

8:18

shouldn't do this, and you shouldn't have

8:20

to have Microsoft say, this is screwed

8:23

up and you shouldn't do this. Or

8:25

Sony say, we stand with the people

8:27

who you are accusing of not being

8:29

ethical in terms in terms of. and

8:31

praying that they wouldn't get the eye

8:33

of Sauron on them, that they wouldn't

8:35

start to get these people looking at

8:37

them and attacking them. And unfortunately, that

8:40

ends up being a sort of tacit

8:42

approval of the way that these people

8:44

are behaving, or at least giving them

8:46

the space to feel like, well, they

8:48

can continue to get away with this.

8:50

It seems like this campaign has obviously

8:52

spanned the internet. It's all over YouTube,

8:54

Twitch. every social platform, but so much

8:57

of this coordinated harassment and attack stuff

8:59

seems to be happening on Twitter, or

9:01

X rather now, especially under Elon. What

9:03

role do you think has Elon's X

9:05

and its sort of toxic algorithm played

9:07

in boosting this Gamergate? 2.0. There's a

9:09

couple of things. First of all, the

9:11

terms of service that X slash Twitter

9:14

has in place are clearly not being

9:16

policed or monitored as well as they

9:18

should be or as well as they

9:20

were before Elon Musk took over. There

9:22

are clear caught violations of terms of

9:24

service. I mean, people with slurs in

9:26

their names. But it's not just the

9:28

terms of service, right? Like I guess

9:31

what role do you think the actual

9:33

algorithm plays and the fact that you

9:35

have these right winged. and harassment. I

9:37

mean, you can buy a blue check

9:39

now and you can farm engagement off

9:41

of that by, you can buy to

9:43

have your account have a blue check

9:45

next to it and earn money off

9:48

of all of the engagement on your

9:50

tweets. And so if you tweet something

9:52

incredibly controversial or something that's going to

9:54

get a lot of interactions, you're going

9:56

to get more money. And those things

9:58

are also boosted through the algorithm to

10:00

people's home pages. I mean, I obviously

10:03

have. another Twitter account that I used

10:05

to monitor things, and that account is

10:07

the entire home page is just filled

10:09

with absolute horrible, racist, homophobic, transphobic, harassment,

10:11

abuse, all of these things, and it's

10:13

just not stopping, it's not being taken

10:15

down, and it's being pushed to the

10:17

top of the page and pushed into

10:20

people's eyes, and they're rewarding that by

10:22

giving people monetary payouts for when they're.

10:24

tweets hit big. Talk to me about

10:26

the structure of these harassment campaigns because I

10:28

feel like there's a few big people at

10:30

the top that are these mainstream content creators

10:32

that are sort of instigators, but they love

10:35

to wipe their hands of these things and

10:37

say, well, I didn't do anything. I

10:39

didn't personally call for X, Y, Z.

10:42

Can you sort of walk me through

10:44

the hierarchy of how these different sort

10:46

of harassers operate and where they land?

10:48

There's usually always in this instance of

10:51

harassment campaigns a few leaders who are

10:53

most of the time very careful

10:55

with what they say and what

10:57

they share. You're rare that you're

10:59

going to see someone who has

11:01

150,000 Twitter X followers outright in

11:03

sight violence or threaten someone or

11:05

anything like that. But what they

11:07

will do is they will point

11:09

ceaseless harassment at or they will

11:11

point endless fingers towards specific people

11:13

in a way that they think

11:15

is coy by saying oh Well,

11:17

I know this person and here's

11:20

a picture of clearly a person

11:22

of color is involved in this

11:24

game that didn't do well and they

11:26

probably don't like you the gamer and

11:28

they rile up a base of smaller

11:30

content creators who tend to be a

11:32

little bit more loose with the stuff

11:34

that they say a little bit less

11:36

careful with what they're inciting, a little

11:39

bit more harassy with their videos and

11:41

their comments, and then below that you

11:43

get sort of like anonymous foot soldiers

11:45

that are just in droves. And those

11:47

are the people who often or not

11:49

are the ones in my inbox or

11:51

in other people's inbox with outright threats

11:54

or in my emails, in my

11:56

Instagram, finding my family's information, those

11:58

anonymous people who are watching all

12:00

of this content, taking in all of

12:02

this content, and being pointed towards people

12:05

that they should be angry towards, for

12:07

some reason. They're not sure why. And

12:09

that's when you end up getting this

12:11

sort of wave and crest of harassment,

12:13

because the leaders are just innocently pointing

12:15

out people, but the undertones are very

12:17

clear what they want to happen there,

12:19

and it's the foot soldiers that will

12:22

always carry that out. So you wrote

12:24

this story on Kataku, and it kind

12:26

of blows up. It becomes this viral

12:28

piece of journalism that of awful people

12:30

hate, hey, tell me what happened next

12:32

to you. Part of the reason why

12:34

it got so bad for me in

12:37

terms of harassment was because I refused

12:39

to back down and I refused to

12:41

apologize for nothing that I had done

12:43

wrong, but just for being who I

12:45

was. And in the immediate aftermath, there

12:47

was a lot of finger pointing that

12:49

this piece was untrue or purposefully leaving

12:52

things out or none of this is

12:54

correct. And when I was pushing back

12:56

at that, that started kind of the

12:58

waterfall of harassment. So I started becoming

13:00

this kind of stand-in for everything that

13:02

was wrong with games journalism. My faces

13:04

plastered over hundreds of YouTube videos, watching

13:07

my every move. I was getting threats

13:09

in my work email and my personal

13:11

email. I had to warn my parents

13:13

to be careful because their address was

13:15

circulating the internet. And it was just

13:17

kind of your bog standard harassment campaign.

13:19

They go after every piece of social

13:22

media you have. They try and find

13:24

every bit of personal information they can.

13:26

kind of obsessing over everything you do.

13:28

I was joking that they like probably

13:30

had my menstrual cycle charted, but it

13:32

really feels like that at a certain

13:34

point. Like it is nonstop and it's

13:37

every breath you take. Somebody is archiving

13:39

it and putting it in these darker

13:41

corners of the web, which eventually bleeds

13:43

into the more typical places that people

13:45

would go like Twitter and YouTube. And

13:47

how has that affected your ability to

13:49

do journalism and to further cover these

13:52

issues? I mean it does feel in

13:54

some ways like your... a pariah, like

13:56

there's a lot of people in the

13:58

industry who have been in credit. supportive

14:00

to me in private but not as

14:02

supportive as I'd like them to be

14:04

in public and you know my company

14:07

when I was at geomedia was very

14:09

clearly unhappy with what was going on

14:11

and very clearly unhappy with the way

14:13

I'm happy with the way I'm happy

14:15

with the way that I was reacting

14:17

to it and it ended up reaching

14:19

ahead where I can no longer work

14:22

there it wasn't working for anybody and

14:24

now I'm in this sort of in-between

14:26

where I really want to keep reporting

14:28

on this stuff. It's why when people

14:30

have been making videos about me, they've

14:32

said, well, why didn't you just go

14:34

the way of Zoe Quinn and Anita

14:36

Sarkizian, who were two women that were

14:39

kind of focal points of the first

14:41

game regate, who drastically decreased their internet

14:43

presence over the last decade, who drastically

14:45

decreased their internet presence over the last

14:47

decade. They want you to go away

14:49

and they want to scare you off

14:51

the internet. And I just kind of

14:54

am refusing to get her... And I've

14:56

seen it in a small scale with

14:58

my recent violence at Rolling Stone. They're

15:00

just, anytime they see my name anywhere,

15:02

they're jumping on it, like dogs with

15:04

a bone. And it really is upsetting

15:06

because at the end of the day,

15:09

you know, I was doing my job

15:11

and I was doing my job and

15:13

I was doing my job and I

15:15

was doing it well and I was

15:17

doing it well and I think being

15:19

put in a position where you feel

15:21

like you might not be able to

15:24

do it anymore is a complete bummer

15:26

culture as you mentioned. and video games

15:28

because I think these are very hyper

15:30

online engaged radicalized communities. Why do you

15:32

think media organizations are so scared? Like

15:34

why do you think they have learned

15:36

nothing from Game or Game Game 1.0?

15:39

Like was there any improvement here? Because

15:41

it seemed like there was this whole

15:43

reckoning around it. But it seemed like

15:45

there was this whole reckoning around it,

15:47

but now we have it happening again

15:49

and those same media companies that were

15:51

publishing what's going to affect your bottom

15:54

line. And that's also why I... I

15:56

think the video game industry leaders and

15:58

these companies. publishers stay quiet as well

16:00

because I think they worry that the

16:02

moment that you take a stance against

16:04

something like this you alienate a part

16:06

of your audience and in a media

16:09

landscape where websites are shuddering left and

16:11

right and shutting down or selling or

16:13

people are getting laid off I think

16:15

there's a fear that you would alienate

16:17

people by loudly standing behind your employees

16:19

who are getting harassed. In some cases

16:21

I also think there are some people

16:24

who are at the tops of these

16:26

businesses that aren't necessarily all that worried

16:28

about the way. that these people behave

16:30

and maybe they don't necessarily disagree with

16:32

some of the things these people say.

16:35

The people who are in positions of

16:37

power at these places are there for

16:39

a reason and I don't think they

16:41

want anything that could upset that power

16:44

balance. And I think seeing that somebody

16:46

is getting sort of endless power balance

16:48

and I think seeing that somebody is

16:51

getting sort of endless abuse for something

16:53

that is a fairly left leaning but

16:55

innocent stance on something scares people who

16:57

are just worried about... their KPI's room.

17:00

They're really just worried about their page

17:02

views. They're worried about how much money

17:04

they can make for the site. And

17:06

they think if we make a statement

17:08

saying, stop harassing someone, that section of

17:10

the internet will no longer entertain us

17:12

and no longer read us. And I

17:15

think it really just is, it's cowardice,

17:17

pure and simple. In some cases, I

17:19

think people are, like I said earlier,

17:21

afraid of that I turning towards them

17:23

and attacking them. But that's why I've

17:25

called for video game industry leaders and

17:27

companies to issue a. with these bad

17:30

actors online. It could just be something as

17:32

simple as, the video game industry is diverse,

17:34

the people writing about it are diverse. There's

17:36

no conspiracy theory here. Please stop harassing people.

17:38

We don't stand with it. Sign every big

17:40

leader in the industry, but that's not happening.

17:42

I feel like there's also, you know, what

17:44

these people fundamentally prey on is also the

17:46

public's lack of media literacy. These independent content

17:49

creators are able to kind of go out,

17:51

they're able to weaponize the traditional media, because

17:53

they know the traditional media is certainly not

17:55

going to cover these campaigns. The traditional media

17:57

doesn't really cover harassment campaigns against marginalized people

17:59

generally. So they're able to kind of push

18:01

these narratives unchecked. There's also this idea from

18:03

a lot of the same people in positions

18:05

of power of don't feed the trolls, right?

18:07

That you loved to hear that saying all

18:09

the time, they say, don't feed the trolls.

18:11

And it seems like that kind of ignores

18:14

the. way the internet is currently set up,

18:16

right, where there are these people that have

18:18

these powerful megaphones that can push these really

18:20

dangerous and defamatory narratives about someone. And if

18:22

you don't respond, I feel like you just

18:24

create this vacuum for these narratives to thrive.

18:26

So I guess how do you feel about

18:28

that don't feed the troll's advice and how

18:30

have you sought to fight this misinformation and

18:32

smear campaign against yourself? It's so funny that

18:34

you say that because that was actually something

18:36

that was said to me multiple times by

18:38

some... people who I will not name when

18:40

I was still working at Kataku and it

18:42

frustrated me twofold one exactly what you're saying

18:44

the conversation of well this is defamation against

18:46

me it's also insinuating or saying outright that

18:48

my my journalistic practice is unethical or that

18:51

I'm lying throughout a published piece and not

18:53

saying anything about that kind of stuff does

18:55

again is a little bit of a tacit

18:57

approval. It's a little bit of an oof,

18:59

oof, ooh, I don't want to say anything

19:01

because I don't want them to pick that

19:03

up and run with it, but when you

19:05

don't say anything, they're running with it anyway.

19:07

And I've learned that even when I don't

19:09

say something that could piss them off, they

19:11

will find something to get this outrage machine.

19:13

So I believe you have to be smart

19:15

with what you're pushing back on. And in

19:17

some cases at first, I kind of felt

19:19

like I was Captain America in that one

19:21

scene, whatever movie it is, where he fights

19:23

like eight guys in an elevator. I kind

19:25

of felt like I had to just go

19:28

at everybody who was saying everything ridiculous about

19:30

me because the ridiculous level got to something

19:32

that was, I mean, it was comical at

19:34

a certain point if it wasn't tied to

19:36

such scary violent threats, but it got exhausting.

19:38

things that are just

19:40

really easily disproven. Things

19:42

that these big leaders

19:44

are saying about how

19:46

Call of Duty added

19:48

bullets that had the

19:50

trans flag on them

19:52

so you can kill

19:54

people as a trans

19:56

person. And I had

19:58

to debunk that because

20:00

I was like that's

20:02

an easy thing to

20:04

knock down and say

20:07

this is completely untrue.

20:09

But what's frustrating is

20:11

the outraged people, the

20:13

people who are consistently

20:15

feeding this outrage machine,

20:17

you can prove that

20:19

something's untrue unequivocally and

20:21

they'll just move on

20:23

to the next thing.

20:25

And so I don't

20:27

really know what else

20:29

can be done aside from kind of

20:31

constantly going up that's wrong. That's wrong

20:33

because without these people being deplatformed from

20:35

places like Twitter or YouTube for spreading

20:38

disinformation or other things that obviously get

20:40

into illegal territory, they're just gonna keep

20:42

doing this because they're still getting the

20:44

views and they're still getting the likes.

20:46

But the other thing that I thought

20:48

about don't feed the trolls is how

20:50

inherently violent it feels to tell a

20:52

woman being incessantly harassed online that their

20:54

behavior has something to do with why

20:56

that's happening. It really feels like when

20:58

someone says that they were sexually assaulted

21:00

and somebody asked them well what were

21:03

you wearing or you shouldn't have had

21:05

so much to drink. It just feels

21:07

like your mere existence and the fact

21:09

that you don't want to lay down

21:11

and take it is why it's happening

21:13

to you. And it's so upsetting and

21:15

frustrating. And also if you do lay

21:17

down and take it, it's worse right?

21:19

Like I think that's what especially these

21:21

sort of people in positions of power

21:23

that make that comment. They think that

21:25

if you don't respond it goes away.

21:28

That's not true. They just don't have

21:30

to see your response to it, right?

21:32

It's out there. It's manipulating people's perceptions

21:34

of you. I also think it's a

21:36

huge problem. I mean you mentioned that

21:38

you had to leave your job and

21:40

stuff that people that run these media

21:42

companies and are in positions of power,

21:45

they will throw any woman right under

21:47

the bus if there's any hint of

21:49

controversy whether it's deserved or not. And

21:51

I think that that is really scary

21:53

because we see men court controversy all

21:55

the time. We see straight men able

21:57

to ride these cycles out and they're

21:59

like well you know he's he's really bombastic

22:02

and he's a fighter or he's you

22:04

know they're never framed as like controversial

22:06

men can use controversy and it is

22:08

seen as like them standing up for

22:11

themselves or them taking control of the

22:13

narrative or you know fighting back bravely

22:15

against you know these bad actors when

22:17

women try to do anything like that

22:20

they're chastised and like you said these

22:22

media companies will run scared they will

22:24

throw you under the bust so fast

22:26

because they believe falsely that throwing you

22:29

under the bus will quell the controversy.

22:31

In fact, it's like giving, it's like

22:33

throwing, you know, red meat to the

22:35

sharks, right? Absolutely. I mean, I've said

22:38

this before, like, cancel culture does exist,

22:40

just not in the way that the

22:42

right wing people would have you think

22:44

it exists, because you can see someone

22:47

like Johnny Depp and that entire case

22:49

against Amber heard, oh no, it's gonna

22:51

ruin his career, oh, she's trying to

22:53

cancel him. Well, quiet life in another

22:56

country with their kid. And I think,

22:58

you know, I saw that firsthand. I

23:00

saw how quickly this bombardment of people

23:02

sending emails to my job and sending

23:05

emails to places that I'm freelancing at,

23:07

this clear attempt to deplatform me, which

23:09

is so ironic considering how often the

23:11

right wing screams about cancel culture and

23:13

how it's ruining everything. But the only

23:16

time I've ever seen someone actually suffer

23:18

from cancel culture or have any sort

23:20

of ramifications for anything, has been a

23:22

woman. or a person of color or

23:25

a queer person because they dared to

23:27

push back against the ruling elite and

23:29

the other people around them. And I

23:31

just think it's ironic that we're sitting

23:34

here worrying and bleeding about that when

23:36

the only people who have suffered from

23:38

it are the ones who are already

23:40

in a bad enough position. It's incredibly

23:43

frustrating. Yeah, well I think one way

23:45

at least I found to kind of

23:47

help mitigate these harassment campaigns is to

23:49

cover them and to educate people about

23:52

them so that when they see a

23:54

campaign like this, they say, oh, that's

23:56

what this is. Oh, this is coordinated

23:58

networked harassment. recognize it for what it

24:01

is instead of just saying why is

24:03

Elissa so controversial or whatever. But I've

24:05

noticed that the mainstream media, traditional media

24:07

generally, doesn't... cover these things. Like, you

24:10

know, for someone like you, right? Like,

24:12

where do you even go to get

24:14

your story out? It's not like there

24:16

are journalists in these traditional outlets that

24:19

even talk about these massive campaigns that

24:21

are happening online. Generally, the traditional media

24:23

tends to ignore the internet, I think,

24:25

unless they're writing about how, like, among

24:27

us, you know, is a problem. That's

24:30

the extent of the games journalism. How

24:32

do you educate people about these campaigns?

24:34

How can we educate the public on

24:37

how to recognize? coordinated, you know, smear

24:39

campaigns. You're absolutely right. I spoke to

24:41

the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, like

24:43

immediately after my piece went live in

24:46

the harassment started in March. It was

24:48

an incredible interview. I was really proud

24:50

of it. We talked about the harassment

24:52

campaign and then it was very clear

24:55

that some people did not want me

24:57

to continue to talk about this anymore.

24:59

So I kind of went quiet in

25:01

terms of going and looking for places

25:03

to have this conversation, but I kept

25:06

having it on Tik-talk or an my

25:08

Instagram stories, just showing people, just kind

25:10

of the massive amounts of harassment and

25:12

abuse that I would get on the

25:14

daily. I mean, today, somebody sent me

25:16

a picture of their penis in an

25:18

Instagram message saying, you know, since you're

25:20

such a whore, you're gonna have this

25:22

in your mouth soon. And I think

25:24

people really don't realize that when it

25:27

happens like this and when it happens

25:29

to you, it is kind of a nonstop

25:31

barrage that any time you pick up your

25:33

phone. It's a very likely chance that you

25:35

have something in one of your inboxes that

25:37

would make my grandmother faint at the dinner

25:39

table. I would love for traditional media to

25:41

cover this more. I've seen actually a bunch

25:44

of the content that you've posted. I think

25:46

you posted a great tick-talk recently sort of

25:48

documenting your emotions and going through this over

25:50

the past few months, and I feel like

25:52

you've done a lot to raise awareness about

25:54

this on your own channels. You're also pursuing

25:56

legal action, which I think is something that

25:58

most people don't do. about your lawsuit

26:01

and how, you know, your decision

26:03

to pursue justice through that system.

26:05

Yeah, I mean, the first time

26:07

Gamergate happened in 2014, the internet

26:09

was such a foreign concept to

26:11

most lawmakers, judges, attorneys, that most

26:13

of the women who kind of

26:15

raise these issues even with their

26:17

police departments when they would call

26:19

and say, hey, somebody's threatening to

26:22

come to my house. The overall

26:24

response would just be kind of

26:26

one of confusion. What do you

26:28

mean there's someone online is threatening

26:30

you? They're not there in person,

26:32

right? So you're fine, right? It's

26:34

not an issue, right? On a

26:36

legal end, it was very difficult

26:38

to kind of nail down exactly

26:40

what these people were doing that

26:43

was illegal because there just weren't

26:45

very many instances of lawsuits happening

26:47

or proceedings going through that made

26:49

it very clear that this kind

26:51

of behavior was unacceptable. That has

26:53

changed somewhat in the last 10

26:55

years. It's gotten a little bit

26:57

easier to pinpoint illegality on the

26:59

internet in the obvious ways of

27:01

death threats and things like that.

27:04

I kind of agree with you

27:06

in some of these points, just

27:08

dealing with my own harassment, like,

27:10

sure, police understand the concept of

27:12

the internet a little bit better.

27:14

You might get a judge that

27:16

understands how Twitter works, but I

27:18

don't think there's any sort of

27:20

real comprehensive legal precedent for holding

27:22

these types of campaigns accountable. So

27:25

how are you approaching it with

27:27

this suit? So I'm suing one

27:29

of the people who have been

27:31

making content about me since March.

27:33

His name is Jeff Tarzia. He's

27:35

a content creator who primarily makes

27:37

videos on YouTube. I'm suing him

27:39

for defamation. Jocastic terrorism, organized harassment,

27:41

a couple of things that we

27:43

kind of went through at length,

27:46

you know, the benefits to any

27:48

of these points. Alyssa Mercante has

27:50

filed a lawsuit with me. It's

27:52

a very frivolous 54 -page attempt at

27:54

doxing me and attacking me and

27:56

silencing me that isn't gonna work

27:58

and it never does. This is

28:00

somebody who has been making videos

28:02

about me for months, many of

28:04

which include thumbnails of me and

28:07

interesting photos taken from, I don't

28:09

know where he found them online

28:11

and a lot of them contain

28:13

pointed language. that is technically legal, but some of them

28:15

contain outright defamation and obviously he is one of those below the

28:17

big big guys in terms of the organizers of this harassment campaign,

28:19

but he is someone that has quite a large following. And a

28:21

lot of the people who have seen the videos he's made about

28:23

me have echoed the things that he said about me in my

28:25

dams and elsewhere. And it's just been very clear that there has

28:28

been a lot of slandering of my name and my character and

28:30

my ability as a journalist. And so for

28:32

me and my legal team, it was the

28:34

best case scenario of who we should try

28:36

to have some modicum of a consequence for.

28:38

There is clear-cut examples of what we

28:40

believe for defamation, and there is a

28:43

laundry list of content that this person

28:45

has been making about me for months

28:47

and making money off for months. So

28:49

I'm hoping, I'm hoping, I don't know

28:51

how confident I feel because the legal

28:53

system I still feel is very far

28:55

behind, but I'm hoping that this could

28:57

be something that people could look towards

29:00

as a rare example of somebody latching

29:02

on to the back of a harassment

29:04

campaign and benefiting financially off. of it

29:06

while you know seriously affecting the life

29:08

of one person in their sights you

29:10

know I think my life has changed dramatically

29:13

because of all of this and i

29:15

don't think that's fair so we'll see

29:17

yeah i think the profit is such

29:19

a key part of it in the

29:21

meantime i guess what can people do

29:23

to support those who are targets of

29:25

this type of stuff i mean to

29:27

support your work and stuff now that

29:29

you are independent like how i don't

29:31

know if you can pay your legal

29:33

fees like how it's going how can

29:35

people get involved who want to put

29:37

a stop to these types of cycles

29:39

there's a couple of things obviously i

29:41

I started a Patreon and I regularly

29:43

stream on Twitch now. It's twitch.TV slash listener.

29:45

I'm trying to do kind of a hybrid

29:48

gaming and covering like tech and video game

29:50

news. Just kind of testing it out to

29:52

see if that medium is a good place

29:54

to have these kinds of conversations. And I

29:57

have my Patreon, which I'm doing some original

29:59

writing on. Some behind a paywall, some

30:01

not. I'm applying for jobs, you know,

30:03

obviously trying, but in terms of support,

30:05

I mean, just getting the word out

30:07

there. And also, honestly, it seems so

30:09

silly, but reaching out to me and

30:11

just like giving me a virtual pat

30:13

on the back or an I've got

30:15

your back is huge. And also for

30:17

the larger people, the people who are

30:19

not, you know, just us lowly journalists

30:22

that are, you know, struggling to make

30:24

rent in New York City or elsewhere,

30:26

but the people who are leaders at

30:28

these companies. vocal support for not just

30:30

me but the other people who are

30:32

facing harassment I think would be huge

30:34

again that vacuum of not saying anything

30:36

leaves a lot of space for people

30:38

to continue to pile on and also

30:40

I would say if you come across

30:42

something that is so blatantly violating terms

30:44

of service at least give it a

30:46

report sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't

30:48

but it's better than just me feeling

30:50

like I'm constantly monitoring my own harassment

30:52

which gets exhausting well it's traumatizing right

30:55

I mean you're forced to because and

30:57

I hate this idea as well where

30:59

it's like well just don't read it

31:01

or whatever for your own safety you

31:03

do need to read what people are

31:05

saying again to report threats to escalate

31:07

things like and there is no service

31:09

that can just go in and I've

31:11

always wanted something like this just like

31:13

monitor all of your mentions right like

31:15

celebrities have I guess and like deal

31:17

with things and escalate things so you

31:19

manually have to read the most vicious

31:21

stuff about you I mean I think

31:23

it would lead any normal person to

31:25

have severe PTSD and trauma. that you're

31:27

okay and then you just kind of

31:30

have like a moment where either you're

31:32

just so tired that you break down

31:34

or for me I would just read

31:36

these things all day and almost like

31:38

a car crash obsession at a certain

31:40

point where I was like, wow, this

31:42

can't get any worse, right? And then

31:44

it would get worse and worse and

31:46

I think I started noticing that like

31:48

even the most innocuous comment after me

31:50

reading something terrible all day would be

31:52

the thing that broke me and I

31:54

think it was just the volume after

31:56

a while. And the fact that it

31:58

doesn't stop is pretty wild. I mean,

32:00

you know, my old company did offer,

32:03

um, delete me, which is a service

32:05

that's supposed to keep all of your

32:07

personal information offline. But these people who

32:09

are the worst actors in this space,

32:11

and I mean, these are the ones

32:13

who are gathering in these really strange

32:15

dark corners of the internet. These people,

32:17

this is their entire life, finding information

32:19

about people. And so having that service

32:21

only kept them away from finding my

32:23

information out for a little bit and

32:25

then they found it anyway. They found

32:27

it through some sort of loophole or

32:29

some mistake that somebody had made and

32:31

you know the next thing I knew

32:33

someone was posting pictures at the inside

32:35

of my apartment. And so it is

32:38

scary. It is overwhelming. And it's also

32:40

very difficult to explain it to someone

32:42

who's not always online because there is

32:44

that kind of of we'll just turn

32:46

off the computer. It's not that simple.

32:48

There's also the idea of where there's

32:50

smoke there's fire and I think we

32:52

see this especially when we look at

32:54

women and marginalized people. It's this idea

32:56

of I like Elissa and her reporting

32:58

seems good but she's so controversial. They

33:00

just say this about everyone obviously

33:02

I get it too like we

33:05

all see this happen and it's

33:07

It's how they drive people, marginalized

33:09

people, women, like out of the

33:11

industry by stigmatizing them. And if

33:13

you respond, you're asking for it.

33:15

And if you don't respond, you're

33:17

just going to be steamrolled and

33:19

absolutely have put up no fight

33:21

while your entire career is destroyed.

33:23

And the narrative about all of

33:25

this hard work that you've done

33:28

for years is twisted. And you

33:30

just become sort of known for your

33:32

controversy, which is what they want. want

33:34

you to be known for your journalism.

33:36

They want you to be known as

33:38

controversial because it makes it easier for

33:40

you to be dismissed. Absolutely. And it

33:42

has been incredibly difficult, especially since we

33:44

filed the lawsuit. Last week we just

33:46

filed it, it was in the works

33:49

forever, it's been incredibly difficult for me

33:51

to sort of measure to take measured

33:53

approaches to this kind of stuff because

33:55

it is very frustrating to see, especially

33:57

within the last two days since the

33:59

filing, even more... defamation lies and slander

34:01

spread that I just kind of have

34:03

to sit on and that is something

34:05

that I understand it and I know

34:07

that it's short-term pain for potentially long-term

34:09

gain or at least some type of

34:11

consequence for somebody who has been doing

34:13

this but I think I prepared myself

34:16

for it but I don't think I

34:18

prepared myself enough because now it's it's

34:20

gotten to another level that I'm like

34:22

can this go any higher like what

34:24

what the limit does not exist like

34:26

why is this happening? I completely empathize.

34:28

Yeah, I'm sure you do. I'm so

34:30

sorry, you know, for what you've gone

34:32

through, but your work is amazing. I

34:34

hope people follow you, watch your streams

34:37

on Twitter, support your patron, and I

34:39

hope that more online culture, you know,

34:41

writers, pay attention to this, and I

34:43

hope that these mainstream media companies that

34:46

continue to throw journalists under the bus,

34:48

pay attention to what they're doing, because

34:50

I think it's, you know, it's been

34:52

very concerning the past couple years, watching

34:55

these media. at people of color, anybody

34:57

deemed controversial because they think that that

34:59

will sort of distance themselves from controversy.

35:01

In fact, what they have shown is

35:03

that they are willing to bend the

35:06

knee to these really nefarious people online.

35:08

And once those people recognize that these

35:10

media companies will cave to that sort

35:12

of external pressure, it gets even worse,

35:15

right? They get even more power. They

35:17

don't stop at one journalist or one

35:19

woman. No, unfortunately, as much as you

35:21

and I try, we can't fight

35:23

every fight and make these massive,

35:26

massive strides without support of larger

35:28

media organizations or even louder voices

35:30

in the industry, because yeah, it's

35:32

very easy to push one of

35:34

us, to push one of us,

35:36

to push one of us off

35:38

to the side, because yeah, it's

35:40

very easy to push one of

35:42

us or both of us off

35:44

to the side and write us

35:46

off as controversial figures, for it

35:48

and yeah I think the more that

35:50

that happens the more that this will continue. Well Alissa

35:53

thank you so much for sharing your story and chatting

35:55

with me today. Thank you for having me it was

35:57

a great time. That's all for the show you can

35:59

watch Watch full episodes on my YouTube channel

36:02

at Taylor Lorenz. Power User is produced

36:04

by Travis Larchak and Jalani Carter. Our

36:06

executive producer is Zach Mac. If you

36:08

like the show, give us a rating

36:10

and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or

36:12

wherever you listen. In the meantime, subscribe

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36:16

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week.