English subtitles for clip: File:Zoe Quinn, Crash Override - XOXO Festival (2015).webm

1
00:00:05,160 --> 00:00:13,230
>> Huge, round of applause, please, for Zoe
Quinn.

2
00:00:13,230 --> 00:00:21,300
[Applause and cheers]
>> That's a lot to follow.

3
00:00:21,300 --> 00:00:23,320
[laughs] Hi!

4
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:25,400
So I'm taking kind of a big risk here.

5
00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:29,050
I heard that XOXO is a good place to give
something pretty personal.

6
00:00:29,050 --> 00:00:35,059
So I’m going to drop the ways I've been
talking harassment pretty much constantly—it’s

7
00:00:35,059 --> 00:00:38,770
been like, I'm going to give you a lot of
data, because at my heart I'm an engineer,

8
00:00:38,770 --> 00:00:41,300
that’s how I think.

9
00:00:41,300 --> 00:00:44,450
So I'm going to get a little bit personal
and a little bit vulnerable with you guys

10
00:00:44,450 --> 00:00:45,450
and I hope that’s okay.

11
00:00:45,450 --> 00:00:46,620
I’m going to talk about some dark stuff.

12
00:00:46,620 --> 00:00:50,240
If you don’t want to deal with that, by
all means, I won’t be offended.

13
00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:51,879
I can’t see anything anyway.

14
00:00:51,879 --> 00:00:54,430
[laughs] If you leave, I won't even know.

15
00:00:54,430 --> 00:00:57,829
So bear with me, the takeaway should be hopeful.

16
00:00:57,829 --> 00:01:02,030
If you live or work online, this is very much
about the internet and the future of the internet

17
00:01:02,030 --> 00:01:07,200
and where it's going so hopefully I'm not
just talking about myself at you a lot.

18
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,470
So yeah, that's me.

19
00:01:10,470 --> 00:01:14,830
As Andy said, I am Zoe Quinn, an independent
game developer, artist, and most recently

20
00:01:14,830 --> 00:01:17,250
cofounder of Crash Override Network.

21
00:01:17,250 --> 00:01:21,520
We are, as far as I know, the only organization
that works directly with people who are dealing

22
00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:27,510
with online abuse and harassment to sort of
unfuck their situation, help them talk to

23
00:01:27,510 --> 00:01:32,240
people, and ideally advocate so that there's
less of people like me in the future.

24
00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:37,700
Unfortunately, you’re probably less familiar
with that and more familiar with what happened

25
00:01:37,700 --> 00:01:42,560
to lead me to cofound Crash Override.

26
00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:46,240
This is mostly from August of this year.

27
00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:47,729
This is not all of it, just some of it.

28
00:01:47,729 --> 00:01:50,250
So yeah, again bad things, don't worry about
it too much.

29
00:01:50,250 --> 00:01:51,950
This is just the stuff I can show you too.

30
00:01:51,950 --> 00:01:56,250
I can't show you all of the things because
I don't think that's legal.

31
00:01:56,250 --> 00:02:01,729
In August 2014, my vengeful ex-boyfriend harnessed
the ugly sexist background radiation of the

32
00:02:01,729 --> 00:02:06,310
web, united them under a single banner against
me in particular, and made me patient zero

33
00:02:06,310 --> 00:02:09,410
of what would later be called Gamergate.

34
00:02:09,410 --> 00:02:10,860
What followed was devastating.

35
00:02:10,860 --> 00:02:16,040
Every account that I ever had, even ones I
hadn't accessed in years was inundated with

36
00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:21,141
hatred, and then they were hacked, sometimes
to gain more information to throw at me, sometimes

37
00:02:21,141 --> 00:02:25,750
to find the home addresses of myself and my
family members and people that maybe were

38
00:02:25,750 --> 00:02:30,380
nice to me once and threatened them to murder
them with police through this fun thing called

39
00:02:30,380 --> 00:02:32,230
swatting.

40
00:02:32,230 --> 00:02:35,330
Sometimes it was to send this poor women named
Zoe Quinn in Massachusetts that just has the

41
00:02:35,330 --> 00:02:38,250
same name as me a bunch of pizzas.

42
00:02:38,250 --> 00:02:39,720
If you’re watching this, I’m really sorry!

43
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,170
I don’t know how to get in touch with you!

44
00:02:43,170 --> 00:02:47,380
Right wing conspiracy sites and pundits started
publishing long thinkpieces on my supposed

45
00:02:47,380 --> 00:02:52,910
sex life and how I was controlling the indie
games sphere with a menacing network of kissing

46
00:02:52,910 --> 00:02:57,060
conspirators, drafting me into a culture war
that had been raging long before I'd ever

47
00:02:57,060 --> 00:02:59,000
became a game developer.

48
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:00,790
Even celebrities got in on it.

49
00:03:00,790 --> 00:03:05,240
The crappiest Baldwin and basically the human
personification of a racist e-mail forward

50
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:09,840
from your uncle that you never wanted gave
it a name.

51
00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:15,940
And it became this huge viral thing so heinous
and so obvious that I was treated to watching

52
00:03:15,940 --> 00:03:20,350
a simulacrum of me and people I love mushed
together into a single woman get gang raped

53
00:03:20,350 --> 00:03:24,730
by people saying the same things that people
had said to me, on primetime television on

54
00:03:24,730 --> 00:03:26,910
an episode of SVU.

55
00:03:26,910 --> 00:03:30,800
This sort of thing has become the background
radiation of my life.

56
00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:35,460
Threats of death, graphic details of plans
of raping me, really weird things about me

57
00:03:35,460 --> 00:03:45,690
possibly being Jewish and hiding out in Europe
on RICO charges?

58
00:03:45,690 --> 00:03:49,790
So you'll notice again that this is almost
entirely from August of this year.

59
00:03:49,790 --> 00:03:51,260
None of this has abated.

60
00:03:51,260 --> 00:03:55,900
Once things get big and hot enough with all
of the people that Gamergate has spread to,

61
00:03:55,900 --> 00:03:59,709
because I am one of the more visible ones,
but I am by far not the worst.

62
00:03:59,709 --> 00:04:02,980
It's not just feminists, it’s people of
color, anybody progressive, their friends

63
00:04:02,980 --> 00:04:04,500
and familiar.

64
00:04:04,500 --> 00:04:10,300
One of them got picked up on terrorism charges
earlier today.

65
00:04:10,300 --> 00:04:15,250
Not against me or any of us.

66
00:04:15,250 --> 00:04:20,739
This stuff tends to spread, so they made a
bomb threat now they're going to jail.

67
00:04:20,739 --> 00:04:22,850
But that's a year later, right?

68
00:04:22,850 --> 00:04:26,090
And this might lead you to the obvious question,
which is really the thing that I want to talk

69
00:04:26,090 --> 00:04:31,270
about now that you're sort of briefed and
this is like the TL of the D-est R that I

70
00:04:31,270 --> 00:04:33,720
could possibly do to this situation.

71
00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:38,970
So it might lead you to the obvious question
and that's the part want to talk about today.

72
00:04:38,970 --> 00:04:40,760
[Laughter]

73
00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:44,380
I actually have a good idea of why.

74
00:04:44,380 --> 00:04:46,660
Not just from being targeted.

75
00:04:46,660 --> 00:04:49,790
Not just the year of Gamergate, but even before
that.

76
00:04:49,790 --> 00:04:54,040
Not because I've dealt with hundreds of cases
of other people's harassment.

77
00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:56,890
Again, I'm a game developer, I'm a systems-based
thinker.

78
00:04:56,890 --> 00:05:01,680
I see the lines where people keep having the
same things happen over and over.

79
00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:06,770
But from kind of a weird source that you might
not expect.

80
00:05:06,770 --> 00:05:08,240
This is me.

81
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:11,150
This is teen me.

82
00:05:11,150 --> 00:05:12,820
You may have known someone like me in high
school.

83
00:05:12,820 --> 00:05:18,390
I was the funny-looking one who wore a trenchcoat
and played hacky sack outside of the cafeteria

84
00:05:18,390 --> 00:05:20,360
with the other greasy kids.

85
00:05:20,360 --> 00:05:24,330
I was the girl a cool kid had to ask on a
date once because he lost a bet.

86
00:05:24,330 --> 00:05:28,510
I was nerdy and awkward and I didn't know
how to talk to people except online.

87
00:05:28,510 --> 00:05:32,530
The internet was my world and it’s the place
where I say I'm from and it's always been

88
00:05:32,530 --> 00:05:33,530
true.

89
00:05:33,530 --> 00:05:37,030
It was the only place I had any kind of friends
or any control over my life.

90
00:05:37,030 --> 00:05:39,650
No one knew I looked funny, nobody knew I
was poor.

91
00:05:39,650 --> 00:05:45,250
I was just able to play the game and talk
shit with the best of them, and you know,

92
00:05:45,250 --> 00:05:48,530
earn that sort of social status in these weird
kind of nerd circles that I ran in.

93
00:05:48,530 --> 00:05:51,020
It was the only place I ever felt like I fit
in.

94
00:05:51,020 --> 00:05:55,100
I never sent threats or anything like that,
but I did think it was funny when I'd hear

95
00:05:55,100 --> 00:05:58,690
someone freaking out about one because it's
just the internet, who cares?

96
00:05:58,690 --> 00:06:03,449
And a lot of those people are women, but I
was in such a hurry to tell everybody in high

97
00:06:03,449 --> 00:06:06,500
school that I wasn't like other girls.

98
00:06:06,500 --> 00:06:10,810
I was a cool girl!

99
00:06:10,810 --> 00:06:14,120
What that means is I essentially bought into
the carefully packaged concept of what I thought

100
00:06:14,120 --> 00:06:16,560
being a woman meant.

101
00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:17,970
Being flighty, frivolous, over-emotional,
and anti-intellectual.

102
00:06:17,970 --> 00:06:22,590
I demonized all things girly to my friends
in the chatrooms where I got most of my socialization

103
00:06:22,590 --> 00:06:25,900
in, partially because that behavior was rewarded
and reinforced by my nerdy compatriots who

104
00:06:25,900 --> 00:06:28,570
agreed I was totally not like those “other”
girls.

105
00:06:28,570 --> 00:06:33,450
I used the phrase “attention whore” the
way telegrams say “stop” and took pride

106
00:06:33,450 --> 00:06:38,500
in my ability to take the mocking disrespectful
“tits or GTFO” of my male friends and

107
00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:40,449
turn it back around them.

108
00:06:40,449 --> 00:06:44,120
Usually using awful homophobic slurs, because
I was dealing with the fact that I was queer,

109
00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:47,830
couldn't tell anybody and didn’t understand
that about myself.

110
00:06:47,830 --> 00:06:50,830
But I would just hit back harder, because
I wasn’t like those other girls.

111
00:06:50,830 --> 00:06:54,229
I was a cool girl and cool girls don't show
weakness.

112
00:06:54,229 --> 00:06:55,490
Weakness is for other girls.

113
00:06:55,490 --> 00:06:58,750
And if I just told myself that enough, I was
hoping it’d be true someday.

114
00:06:58,750 --> 00:07:02,050
I’m pretty sure there's a word for that.

115
00:07:02,050 --> 00:07:03,740
[Laughter]

116
00:07:03,740 --> 00:07:08,530
Anyway, the reason I'm telling you this is
that because if Gamergate happened several

117
00:07:08,530 --> 00:07:11,820
years ago and to somebody else, I would have
been on that side.

118
00:07:11,820 --> 00:07:14,910
I wouldn’t have been the ones making the
threats, engaging in weird culture wars, or

119
00:07:14,910 --> 00:07:19,479
making weird MS Paint conspiracy threads about
who made out with who once.

120
00:07:19,479 --> 00:07:24,030
But I fully believe that most online mobs
are made up of enough useful jerks like I

121
00:07:24,030 --> 00:07:28,430
was that hear their internet buddies saying
someone sucks and fully believe them and join

122
00:07:28,430 --> 00:07:29,430
in on it.

123
00:07:29,430 --> 00:07:33,160
I was the same sort of person you see make
up the bulk of online hate mobs and these

124
00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,400
dogpiles, and there’s some important things
to know from that perspective.

125
00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:39,940
Because how often we talk about these issues,
it doesn't really get into the structure of

126
00:07:39,940 --> 00:07:43,410
online harassment or the systems of how it
perpetuates.

127
00:07:43,410 --> 00:07:47,040
And again, game designer, systems, patterns,
kind of my home turf.

128
00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:50,830
I might be one of the people who best understands
and can shed some light on the useful idiots

129
00:07:50,830 --> 00:07:53,110
of Gamergate and all the other hate mobs.

130
00:07:53,110 --> 00:07:57,270
Or, at least can tell you some things you
might not have heard before, and you know,

131
00:07:57,270 --> 00:07:59,930
GI Joe, knowing is half the battle.

132
00:07:59,930 --> 00:08:03,009
From there, maybe we can gain some understanding
of why this happens and more importantly how

133
00:08:03,009 --> 00:08:04,620
to reduce the harm it causes.

134
00:08:04,620 --> 00:08:06,610
Can we stop using the word trolling?

135
00:08:06,610 --> 00:08:10,830
I will say this on every stage you give me
until we stop doing it.

136
00:08:10,830 --> 00:08:12,699
Trolling is what I did back in the day.

137
00:08:12,699 --> 00:08:17,030
It's the stuff that if you pulled on your
friends you would still be friends with them.

138
00:08:17,030 --> 00:08:22,060
It's not essentially terrorizing people and
I guess now, as of today, I can say literally

139
00:08:22,060 --> 00:08:25,230
terrorizing people.

140
00:08:25,230 --> 00:08:29,160
Beyond that, can we stop referring to a problem
we have to fight to get recognized and take

141
00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:32,209
seriously by the name of a fictional mythological
creature?

142
00:08:32,209 --> 00:08:34,690
Like, how backwards is that?

143
00:08:34,690 --> 00:08:39,740
Modern trolling sounds the same as the shit
people who follow through on it actually mean.

144
00:08:39,740 --> 00:08:44,499
So when targets have to deal with that, you
sort of play this game of Schrodinger's murderer

145
00:08:44,499 --> 00:08:46,629
every time you get one of those threats.

146
00:08:46,629 --> 00:08:53,129
Are we playing with an edgy teen Hot Topic
lord, or it Dylann Roof?

147
00:08:53,129 --> 00:08:55,680
Because they post in the same places.

148
00:08:55,680 --> 00:08:59,290
Another thing is, and this is the thing that
I think a lot of people don't understand,

149
00:08:59,290 --> 00:09:03,410
is that most people participating in online
harassment think they're the good guys.

150
00:09:03,410 --> 00:09:06,759
Don't get me wrong, you do get the chaotic
neutrals.

151
00:09:06,759 --> 00:09:10,470
But most people participating in Gamergate
or other mob abuse think they're totally doing

152
00:09:10,470 --> 00:09:14,500
the right thing, like some kind of crappy
internet Batman.

153
00:09:14,500 --> 00:09:18,670
One rather telling way to highlight this,
in particular, is how often when I meet someone

154
00:09:18,670 --> 00:09:22,800
who’s been targeted in a similar manner
as I have, hey, do they have a weird conspiracy

155
00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:25,259
theory about you secretly being rich?

156
00:09:25,259 --> 00:09:28,809
Every freaking time the answer is yes.

157
00:09:28,809 --> 00:09:32,139
This little mental trick of assuming—because
you can always find someone with the same

158
00:09:32,139 --> 00:09:34,869
last name that traces back to whoever.

159
00:09:34,869 --> 00:09:40,279
It happened with Justine Sacco, it happened
with every Gamergate target pretty much.

160
00:09:40,279 --> 00:09:45,540
It’s this thought that if what they're going
after is so powerful and so corrupt, they

161
00:09:45,540 --> 00:09:46,550
still get to be the underdog.

162
00:09:46,550 --> 00:09:47,959
They still get to be the good guys.

163
00:09:47,959 --> 00:09:53,910
I mean, look at what happened when Ashley
Madison just got hacked.

164
00:09:53,910 --> 00:09:57,059
If you're unfamiliar with Ashley Madison,
it’s a site for having extramarital affairs

165
00:09:57,059 --> 00:09:59,510
which turned out to be mostly robots.

166
00:09:59,510 --> 00:10:06,720
[laughter] However, the same people that were
standing up and fighting for me saw that and

167
00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:09,119
were like, oh, good, this is justice.

168
00:10:09,119 --> 00:10:13,470
Never mind the fact that a few days later
at least two suicides had been linked to that

169
00:10:13,470 --> 00:10:19,750
data leak and that hacking and that doxing,
just two days later, people were dying.

170
00:10:19,750 --> 00:10:22,980
There's a lot of things to be found in a mob,
but justice is not one of them.

171
00:10:22,980 --> 00:10:26,899
The reality of it is there's no such thing
as good guys and bad guys.

172
00:10:26,899 --> 00:10:28,379
There's just people.

173
00:10:28,379 --> 00:10:30,959
Sometimes we do good stuff, sometimes we do
bad stuff.

174
00:10:30,959 --> 00:10:34,170
We don't get let off the hook if we think
we’re going after a good target by doing

175
00:10:34,170 --> 00:10:35,170
the same sort of thing.

176
00:10:35,170 --> 00:10:36,170
[Applause]
Thank you.

177
00:10:36,170 --> 00:10:46,779
I mean, when I was still kind of an internet
ass when I was a teenager, every single time

178
00:10:46,779 --> 00:10:50,059
I thought I was in the right, they deserved
it because they had more than me, or they

179
00:10:50,059 --> 00:10:55,110
deserved it because they were doing something
that I wished I could, or in the particular

180
00:10:55,110 --> 00:10:59,389
case of women, they lived up to a feminine
ideal I never thought I could because I was

181
00:10:59,389 --> 00:11:07,129
fat and sad and poor and I had like crappy
'90s jeans hand-me-down 20 times and I could

182
00:11:07,129 --> 00:11:12,389
never be that, so of course that resentment,
that sadness just got to me, so it was like,

183
00:11:12,389 --> 00:11:15,910
oh, wow, they're powerful, they have what
I want, it's fine to go after them.

184
00:11:15,910 --> 00:11:19,480
This feeling of self-righteousness becomes
even more true and pervasive when you're surrounded

185
00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:22,639
by people who are telling you you're in the
right.

186
00:11:22,639 --> 00:11:27,730
Which means that inverting this can also become
one of our best tools for shutting it down.

187
00:11:27,730 --> 00:11:32,470
This was underscored by the responses to the
questions I asked about 300+ people the first

188
00:11:32,470 --> 00:11:38,350
time I got targeted, years before Gamergate,
I talked to about 300 former trolls.

189
00:11:38,350 --> 00:11:39,670
“Trolls.”

190
00:11:39,670 --> 00:11:41,429
You know, what made you stop?

191
00:11:41,429 --> 00:11:42,689
What made you grow out of it?

192
00:11:42,689 --> 00:11:46,489
And almost every single time, more often than
not, they expressed that someone they were

193
00:11:46,489 --> 00:11:52,709
close to, respected, or looked up to, said
that wasn't cool, that the social network

194
00:11:52,709 --> 00:11:56,620
supporting this kind of feeding frenzy was
no longer reinforced.

195
00:11:56,620 --> 00:11:57,920
That's one thing that changed for me, too.

196
00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:02,029
As I drifted away from the circle of people
who shit on people for kicks and started taking

197
00:12:02,029 --> 00:12:07,459
care of myself and got help for my depression
that I needed, I started making friends that

198
00:12:07,459 --> 00:12:11,999
were different, and they would be like hey,
what the hell are you doing, kid?

199
00:12:11,999 --> 00:12:15,910
That sense of shame disrupted this mechanism
of a bad habit that had built up in myself

200
00:12:15,910 --> 00:12:19,059
and for me to go oh, hey, what am I doing?

201
00:12:19,059 --> 00:12:22,629
Futhermore, for myself and a lot of other
reformed internet jerks that I’ve spoken

202
00:12:22,629 --> 00:12:26,920
with, another thing that got a lot of people
to wake up and back off of this harassing

203
00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:31,259
behavior was that same tiny humanizing of
their targets.

204
00:12:31,259 --> 00:12:35,009
It stopped being this theory of a person.

205
00:12:35,009 --> 00:12:38,220
And this was really exemplified when after
I got doxed and people started calling my

206
00:12:38,220 --> 00:12:41,040
phone en masse, I answered all the time.

207
00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:42,189
And they’d be like “is this Zoe Quinn?”

208
00:12:42,189 --> 00:12:44,860
And I'd be like, do you not know who you called?

209
00:12:44,860 --> 00:12:50,200
And they'd be like, “do you know your number
is all over the internet?”

210
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:54,709
And I'd be like yeah, I'm aware.

211
00:12:54,709 --> 00:12:56,319
And they’re like, “oh.”

212
00:12:56,319 --> 00:13:01,959
I had this conversation at least ten times
with randos and they'd be like, “I'm sorry.”

213
00:13:01,959 --> 00:13:08,110
[Laughter]

214
00:13:08,110 --> 00:13:12,989
Anybody who didn't double down on the garbage
immediately apologized because it didn't go

215
00:13:12,989 --> 00:13:14,050
the way that they thought it would.

216
00:13:14,050 --> 00:13:15,329
I suddenly had a voice.

217
00:13:15,329 --> 00:13:19,929
I wasn't just words on a screen and when you're
in this sort of place, when I was in this

218
00:13:19,929 --> 00:13:23,489
sort of place, it was like a game, you know?

219
00:13:23,489 --> 00:13:26,819
And that's the thing, it's not really about
the target.

220
00:13:26,819 --> 00:13:28,329
It's a basic empathy failure.

221
00:13:28,329 --> 00:13:33,299
Drawing on the dehumanization, they’re just
symbols to people attacking them.

222
00:13:33,299 --> 00:13:36,970
They’re weird goals, like a performative
thing, like a game to see who can do the best

223
00:13:36,970 --> 00:13:37,970
burns.

224
00:13:37,970 --> 00:13:41,259
This is how things often quickly escalate,
too.

225
00:13:41,259 --> 00:13:44,129
And for me it was partially about belonging
to something somewhere.

226
00:13:44,129 --> 00:13:47,819
I was part of the chanology things back in
the day, where everybody wore the dumb V for

227
00:13:47,819 --> 00:13:51,249
Vendetta mask and was like “Scientology
is bad!”

228
00:13:51,249 --> 00:13:56,799
And while I started because I did think everything
I was reading was messed up, I stayed because

229
00:13:56,799 --> 00:14:02,049
I made friends and I wasn't alone and there's
that weird sense of bonding and I'm not proud

230
00:14:02,049 --> 00:14:03,049
to admit it.

231
00:14:03,049 --> 00:14:07,410
Sure enough, they turned on me as soon as
they found out I was a girl but can't say

232
00:14:07,410 --> 00:14:10,050
I didn't deserve that.

233
00:14:10,050 --> 00:14:14,100
These people also tend to make artifacts and
in-jokes the same way any kind of community

234
00:14:14,100 --> 00:14:15,100
would.

235
00:14:15,100 --> 00:14:16,100
YouTube is especially bad for this.

236
00:14:16,100 --> 00:14:20,439
I think any time I do anything related to
a video—I’m sure in this video, if you

237
00:14:20,439 --> 00:14:28,489
look over viewer at home, you'll probably
be see like 20 links, “SHE’S EVIL!

238
00:14:28,489 --> 00:14:31,689
BOOBS!” on the side.

239
00:14:31,689 --> 00:14:34,100
[laughter] I’m paraphrasing.

240
00:14:34,100 --> 00:14:35,670
[laughter] But that's the thing.

241
00:14:35,670 --> 00:14:39,059
They create these things, and they pass it
around and what I've been referring to as

242
00:14:39,059 --> 00:14:42,639
the treehouse, like they found nudie mags
in the woods.

243
00:14:42,639 --> 00:14:43,639
Because at it’s a community.

244
00:14:43,639 --> 00:14:48,209
At its core, these harassment mobs are a community
and sometimes, when it's not about the target,

245
00:14:48,209 --> 00:14:50,269
it's about lashing out at a concept.

246
00:14:50,269 --> 00:14:54,189
Like I said, I shit on so many women when
I was younger that represented the ideals

247
00:14:54,189 --> 00:14:55,899
I was never able to meet.

248
00:14:55,899 --> 00:14:59,739
It had nothing to do with them and everything
to do with the fact that I was an insecure

249
00:14:59,739 --> 00:15:00,739
teenager.

250
00:15:00,739 --> 00:15:02,179
Which kind of brings me back to another point.

251
00:15:02,179 --> 00:15:04,920
It’s not anonymity that is the enemy.

252
00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:07,160
[applause] And I see so many people say this.

253
00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:13,000
But one of the reasons I was able to deal
with being a queer teenager is that I could

254
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:17,739
go online while living in a scary rural town
where they did not like gay people and talk

255
00:15:17,739 --> 00:15:20,759
about my feelings with other people who shared
that.

256
00:15:20,759 --> 00:15:25,089
I don’t know if you remember, I hope you
remember, there was a teenager named Leelah

257
00:15:25,089 --> 00:15:28,259
Alcorn who killed herself.

258
00:15:28,259 --> 00:15:30,420
Her suicide note was out there and it was
heartbreaking.

259
00:15:30,420 --> 00:15:34,910
But there was one line in there, one silver
lining that so many people missed, and that's

260
00:15:34,910 --> 00:15:38,199
because of her online community, because she
was able to go there and talk about things,

261
00:15:38,199 --> 00:15:40,859
it kept her alive longer than she would have
otherwise.

262
00:15:40,859 --> 00:15:45,050
And that was very much the case as a depressed
queer kid with no one to talk to, and I could

263
00:15:45,050 --> 00:15:46,199
not have done that under my name.

264
00:15:46,199 --> 00:15:47,889
I was terrified.

265
00:15:47,889 --> 00:15:49,899
People ask me, why do you leave anonymous
messages on?

266
00:15:49,899 --> 00:15:51,559
Why don't you just turn it off?

267
00:15:51,559 --> 00:15:54,670
It's like, I made Depression Quest.

268
00:15:54,670 --> 00:15:58,930
Did you know—and we confirmed this in our
research—more people would rather tell their

269
00:15:58,930 --> 00:16:02,879
employer that they have committed a misdemeanor
and served jail time than that they had ever

270
00:16:02,879 --> 00:16:05,119
received any kind of psychiatric care.

271
00:16:05,119 --> 00:16:07,779
The stigma against living with mental illness
is that bad.

272
00:16:07,779 --> 00:16:11,600
I keep my anonymous asks on because a lot
of them that I get are people needing to talk

273
00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:15,920
about something so stigmatized, but talking
about it will keep you alive.

274
00:16:15,920 --> 00:16:18,609
It’s not anonymity that's the problem.

275
00:16:18,609 --> 00:16:20,239
Anonymity is so key.

276
00:16:20,239 --> 00:16:26,619
Beyond that, if you just ignore all those
edge cases, my worst and most egregious harassers

277
00:16:26,619 --> 00:16:30,089
use their legal names and make a living off
of this.

278
00:16:30,089 --> 00:16:34,880
They have Patreons, they get paid for YouTube
clicks, there’s a number of people, you

279
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:39,739
can probably think of at least one of them—I
won’t go into it because this video will

280
00:16:39,739 --> 00:16:44,600
be posted online—that have made bank off
of the backs of harassing people like me.

281
00:16:44,600 --> 00:16:49,629
And they use their names, they build their
brand so anonymity is not the issue.

282
00:16:49,629 --> 00:16:52,850
Anonymity is sometimes the only thing keeping
people safe.

283
00:16:52,850 --> 00:16:57,970
Another thing is, with all of this, you can
always assume that there's going to be the

284
00:16:57,970 --> 00:17:04,612
sad kids, there's going to be the me's of
the world and you can focus more on the people

285
00:17:04,612 --> 00:17:09,660
making a profit off of this, but at the end
of the day, are you going to get mad at the

286
00:17:09,660 --> 00:17:13,440
toddler who crashed your car or the adult
who gave them the keys?

287
00:17:13,440 --> 00:17:16,920
We need tech platforms to step up here.

288
00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:21,380
Because beyond that, we're still looking backwards
saying it’s free speech, court cases that

289
00:17:21,380 --> 00:17:23,600
will take 20 years to make.

290
00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:27,300
We make tech, dammit, we can iterate fast,
we should be looking forward, not looking

291
00:17:27,300 --> 00:17:30,210
behind.

292
00:17:30,210 --> 00:17:31,210
Really need that to step up.

293
00:17:31,210 --> 00:17:35,620
There’s always going to be sad people like
me as long as there's teenagers who have shitty

294
00:17:35,620 --> 00:17:37,630
feelings, or older people who have shitty
feelings.

295
00:17:37,630 --> 00:17:40,450
Shitty feelings are like a universal constant.

296
00:17:40,450 --> 00:17:43,370
We don't have to let mobs form on our platforms.

297
00:17:43,370 --> 00:17:49,870
And we don’t need to let their figureheads
point the useful idiots like me where to go.

298
00:17:49,870 --> 00:17:53,990
[cheers and applause]

299
00:17:53,990 --> 00:17:56,500
I've said a lot of incriminating things up
here today.

300
00:17:56,500 --> 00:18:02,030
I mean, you have a picture of me in a fedora
now.

301
00:18:02,030 --> 00:18:03,180
M’lady!

302
00:18:03,180 --> 00:18:08,410
I’m doing this partially because I want
to ask something of all of you.

303
00:18:08,410 --> 00:18:13,530
The biggest thing, in all of this, is that
doing better starts at home.

304
00:18:13,530 --> 00:18:18,030
I'm hoping by admitting to my own previous
shittiness and I'm sure periodic shittiness

305
00:18:18,030 --> 00:18:19,950
as life goes on because I'm a human.

306
00:18:19,950 --> 00:18:22,900
Or cyborg, close enough.

307
00:18:22,900 --> 00:18:25,610
We can start a conversation within ourselves.

308
00:18:25,610 --> 00:18:29,740
Even now it's so easy to want to send something
snarky or shitty when somebody actually does

309
00:18:29,740 --> 00:18:30,930
fuck up.

310
00:18:30,930 --> 00:18:33,230
But things escalate so quickly.

311
00:18:33,230 --> 00:18:38,120
If you can stop yourself from your hot take
and consider if you're criticizing someone's

312
00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:41,410
actions or if you’re shitting on them as
a person.

313
00:18:41,410 --> 00:18:45,000
Consider if you're performatively bandwagoning
on some issue of the day, and if your hot

314
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:48,351
takes are something you’re doing to high
five your buddies on in the same way that

315
00:18:48,351 --> 00:18:50,510
the 4channers do in their clubhouse with me.

316
00:18:50,510 --> 00:18:55,790
Or if you're actually calling attention to
and criticizing a specific pattern of behavior.

317
00:18:55,790 --> 00:18:58,990
If it's something bigger than you scoring
points.

318
00:18:58,990 --> 00:19:00,940
Part of being in a mob is that scoring points.

319
00:19:00,940 --> 00:19:05,680
Are you actually expressing yourself or are
you just playing the game?

320
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:11,030
No single snowflake feels responsible for
the avalanche that rains down on somebody.

321
00:19:11,030 --> 00:19:16,190
And it's hard sometimes, like especially if
you have any kind of platform or any kind

322
00:19:16,190 --> 00:19:20,150
of voice, even just doing things that you
should be allowed to do, you know, you do

323
00:19:20,150 --> 00:19:25,890
the thing and you find out later a lot of
people who are watching you jumped on it.

324
00:19:25,890 --> 00:19:28,250
We have to do better, first and foremost.

325
00:19:28,250 --> 00:19:30,680
Don't be a snowflake in someone else's avalanche.

326
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:36,750
Because what looks to you like this might
look to someone else like this.

327
00:19:36,750 --> 00:19:39,050
Try to be kinder.

328
00:19:39,050 --> 00:19:42,650
Thank you.

329
00:19:42,650 --> 00:19:49,900
[Applause and cheers]
>>> Zoe Quinn!

330
00:19:49,900 --> 00:19:56,570
Thank you so much.