From Women Hate

To Gamergate

Do We Truly Strive for Progress?

In moments of deep personal crisis, we sometimes receive messages that shine with rare clarity and hope, piercing through the darkness.

For me, this happened when my sister sent me an inspirational quote back in 2017, as we often did, that resonated deeply with me as I struggled with severe mental health issues, new neurological conditions from brain damage, and suicidal ideation issues triggered by an emotionally draining, traumatic, and uncontrollable experience that many may recognize: “Gamergate.”

I've been a woman in gaming for over 30 years, starting as a little girl and hunting Bowser as Mario, to LAN parties with my brothers while killing demons and possessed humans on Phobos, to kicking ass in space as Fox McCloud, to saving princesses from baddies who didn’t know how to take “no” for an answer. The possessed online “trolls” I've been facing are no different: same mentality, same behaviors, same pleasure from the pain of others, and same destruction.

The “gamer” identity that is at the heart of Gamergate is one of which I've held longer than most of my “trolls” have even been alive.

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When Gamergate first started over a decade ago, most of us women in gaming who were paying attention watched a handful of women take on millions of similar villains in this new-age Satanic Panic, just as we did as kids. The ideologies of hate, justified by projections, transferences, and cherry-picked examples of ‘witches’ from our past, were passed down to possessed digital soldiers against women in gaming and tech.

Bombs might not have flown across our skies, but the hell those possessed demons caused in our minds and hearts continued for years.

Thanks to Zoë Quinn’s ultimate boss battle of false accusations and cherry-picked “evidence” from her abusive ex’s stochastic terrorism being thrust into the public eye in front of hundreds of millions as a form of sextortion allegedly by her ex, Eron Gjoni, I was able to prepare much better than I would have otherwise. However, I was not immune, and my Gamergate attacks followed shortly after hers in nearly an identical fashion—with ‘loverboy’ method grooming.

Everything I had worked for over many decades would be stolen from me and destroyed less than two years later by my ‘loverboy’ trafficker and exploiter, his “friends” in the same ‘network’, and his fellow moralless cultists. But, hey...“It's just a joke Bro,” right?

I lost my years-long good reputation within my old gaming community; I lost many friends and loved ones; I lost my multiple award-winning, acclaimed business and career; I lost my years-long good reputation within my career industry; I had to run from and sell my newly built dream home due to relentless cyberstalking and doxxing; I suffered losses nearing $1-million; and worst of all, I lost my sanity and nearly my life in the hell of it all.

Even worse was that it all—every damn destructive and dangerous rumor—relied on people truly believing edited and tightly-cropped “evidence” that was heavily misrepresented against all of us.

Alongside unfounded accusations and cherry-picked—some even completely fabricated—“evidence,” there was a painful twist in my case: this information was tied to my past as a victim of ‘loverboy’ grooming, trafficking, and sexual assaults that were allegedly recorded without my knowledge and consent and shared with others by someone I met through my love of gaming, spent thousands of hours talking to and bonding with, and believed loved me—a part of my life I had kept close to my heart because it was a unique pain I had no idea how to cope with at the time.

Just like Zoë Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and many other ‘casualties’ of Gamergate, I watched the world tell my story wrong, and worse—derive joy from the destruction.

This was a time when I nearly ended my life as a twisted path to tranquility because, as a woman on the autism spectrum with chronic depression, a severe dissociative disorder, and brain damage from extreme, long-term abuse, who turned to gaming as a little girl to cope with life, despite my heart of gold, many found ways to remind me of my brokenness I had no control over—the worst having been forced to endure horrific, violent, and long-term abuse at the hands of people with an identical mentality to the “trolls” who targeted me 20 years later.

The revelations were not just random attacks; they involved “friends” of those I believed I could trust from my social circles, gaming “family,” who got radicalized online by predatory NPCs within the Manosphere masking as wise ‘sages,’ teaching these mind and life-breaking methods as a way to spread their hatred for women across the globe.

Their twist on the truth was merely a distraction—an attempt to cover up their own criminal activities—as abusers often do.

While my journey through Gamergate left scars that may never fully heal, it also taught me the power of resilience and communal support (and joking about farts and booping wieneses to keep spirits high—thanks for that, Zoë). These experiences have driven me to transform my pain into a force for good—a mission that started in 2013, after the death of Amanda Todd, to ensure that fewer individuals have to face their struggles alone or succumb to the pressures of continual and inescapable digital warfare.

If we walk through the flames not just for ourselves but for others too, we begin to change the narrative. From there The Dark Sisterhood was born.

In the end, while we may not be able to end the culture war in gaming, we can certainly equip those affected with the tools and support they need to survive and thrive despite it. It’s about turning our own boss battles into a beacon of hope for others, showing that while the fight may continue, so too does our commitment to support and uplift one another—despite hate parades being thrown in our honour.

That’s a legacy worth building—a testament to our shared humanity and strength as gamers who have fought many boss battles before—this won’t be our last—but sometimes all you need is a Player 2 to help you tackle even the glitchiest of foes.

XOXO,

Diabolidoll

In Loving Memory of Amanda Todd

November 27, 1996 – October 10, 2012