The memes above? A fan of indie game developer Brianna Wu made them, using the text from some of Wu’s acerbic tweets about #GamerGaters. Wu thought the memes were funny, and posted them to Twitter.
This was just sent to me, a new meme called Oppressed Gamergater. Love it. http://t.co/Sp9sQPgLxQ pic.twitter.com/6UEWRgPGcn
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
Haha. This Oppressed Gamergater thing is so full of win. I'll RT the best ones. http://t.co/Sp9sQPgLxQ pic.twitter.com/4DQtwfpGN5
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
It turns out that #GamerGaters don’t really have much of a sense of humor about themselves.
Over on 8chan, the regulars decided to take over the meme.
A fan made a meme of 6 of my Tweets. #Gamergate spent day filling it with 36 pages of garbage http://t.co/tjzQxePXH0 pic.twitter.com/aailgFlNM9
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
It got nastier — TRIGGER WARNING for what follows for explicit, violent threats.
#Gamergate is zerging a meme an Isometric fan made of my Tweets. It's up to 45 pages of attacks like this one. pic.twitter.com/fYhHr5QeZm
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 9, 2014
And nastier still.
8chan/#gamergate generated 60 pages of this today attacking me. I'm going on a Twitter break till I feel more safe. pic.twitter.com/A0GYsdJ3KA
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 10, 2014
Oh, but #GamerGate isn’t about misogyny. …
Then, believe it or not, it got worse:
8chan/#gamergate just doxxed me, posting all kinds of personal information about me.
Guys, THIS is the war on industry women. Wake up.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
And then it escalated to death threats:
And, here's the part of the night where I call the police. pic.twitter.com/uMByxBEtYz
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
The police just came by. Husband and I are going somewhere safe.
Remember, #gamergate isn't about attacking women. pic.twitter.com/ZU6oEVxMGL
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
All this because she made a few fucking jokes on Twitter. About #GamerGaters. While being a woman.
Oh, but #GamerGate is about ethics.
But guess what, assholes:
Announcement: I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE. I am going to keep making games. And I will keep speaking up for women in gamedev.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014
To the women out there scared to make games because they see this happening, I swear – WE WILL CHANGE THIS CULTURE FOR YOU.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) October 11, 2014