Brianna Wu Blog Post About Gamergate
Female Game Developer Refuses to Stay Silent After Countless Death Threats
Source: Twitter user Spacekatgal
Brianna Wu is, sadly, used to getting rape and death threats because she is a female game developer who speaks up about women's rights in the field. But this past weekend, she received new threats that are extremely frightening and extremely real. A man wearing a skull mask posted a YouTube video about his plans to murder her and even drove to her house to "deliver justice" but crashed on the way there.
Like other prominent female gamers, she's speaking out with an essay on Bustle titled, "I'm Brianna Wu, and I'm Risking My Life Standing Up to Gamergate."
She writes, "I develop video games for your phone. I lead one of the largest professional game-development teams of women in the field. Sometimes I speak out on women in tech issues. I'm doing everything I can to save my life except be silent."
The rest of the piece is incredibly powerful. You should read every sentence, including her answers to the question, "What can be done?" But perhaps the saddest part is how the disgusting Gamergate saga makes her, and other female gamers, want to stay out of the line of work.
"The reality is, this circus has sucked every bit of joy from a career I once felt destined for," she writes. "There's not a single day I don't ask myself why I'm here, and why I keep doing this."
And this tweet she sent a few days ago is chilling.
If I die from one of the 45 death threats I've gotten, don't let it be in vain. Hold these institutions accountable. Wake them up.
— Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) February 10, 2015
How nauseating, how maddening. But also, how incredibly brave of her.
